The African Children's Choir

Tonight, I had the pleasure and honor to see the African Children's Choir perform in Austin. I had heard of the group before because I knew they had appeared with Josh Groban on television, but amazingly despite their fame, the concert was free at a small Presbyterian church in town.

The singing and dancing these children do is absolutely amazing and touching. If you don't know the story behind the choir, it is comprised of some of the most needy children from Africa, often orphans, who perform around the world to raise money for their education and to serve as ambassadors for the masses of other destitute African children. They go on to secondary education, and beyond that, to receive degrees which they use to help their native continent move out of the cycle of poverty and violence.

The exuberance and joyful hope of these children is astounding and contagious. Despite all their hardships at such a young age, truly, these children know the meaning of Jesus' words when he said that one must be like a little child to enter the kingdom of heaven.

If you ever have the opportunity to see this wonderful group, do not miss it. You will be blessed and touched long afterward by these children.

Giving Blood: The First Time

Today, I gave blood for the first time. The only other time I have had my blood removed from my body in a medical context was last year when I had it tested for stuff I can't even remember; nothing serious.

Remembering that the syringe pulling my blood out felt a little fiery, and not exactly looking with fond memories on the needle used to do it, I was, shall we say, rather apprehensive about doing this. Actually, when the signup sheet for the blood drive was put up several days ago, I had practically resolved not to do it at all.

However, thanks to a lot of positive peer pressure from almost all of my classmates who donated blood throughout the day, I finally worked myself up during last period and stepped inside the blood bus.

After some initial questioning, I was ready to go, but mysteriously, the bardcode sticker for my vial of blood went missing. After about ten minutes of searching, the technicians found it stuck to one of their lab coats. Now, I have rather obvious veins, which both technician and I thought would be a boon, but unfortunately, immediately after sticking my left arm with the needle, she informed me that- unusually- my vein had shifted and I now had a bruise.

Having come this far, it would be futile to give up now, so I waited for another couple minutes with a cold cloth on my arm while they prepared another needle for my right arm. Fortunately, this one was successful, and it was a matter of about five to six minutes before they had collected a pint of blood from me. I was praying the whole time, which was reassuring, though it was certainly not the worst I've ever been through.

I took some Oreos, but I had to leave rather quickly as it was already 3:35 at this point and school was letting out. I'm still not gun-ho about all of this, but I am glad that I had the experience at least once in my life so far, and I suppose even though the first time had to be the most traumatic, it couldn't get much worse in the future.

One of the Busiest Weeks Ever

I meant to update this this weekend, but I didn't. Anyway, last week was one of the busiest weeks of the year so far, and while it was stressful at times, it was also one of the more enjoyable as well.

First of all, last Saturday, I spent the entire day- woke up at 5:45 to be picked up at 6:30 for a debate tournament that lasted from 9:00 AM to 10:00 PM- in Blanco with a couple of my friends. If they hadn't been there, I don't know what I would have done; the tournament was unusually slow, and it took nearly ten hours just to progress through four preliminary rounds. I ended up winning two out of my four debates, but every opponent I had was a good match for me, so it was a good experience.

This last week was homecoming week at our school. Since we don't have football, we celebrate it during basketball season. Each day, we can dress up according to the theme for that day, and this year's costumes ranged from board game pieces to video game characters to sports teams. The Fun and Games theme this year was a little bit tricky to pull off, but even though my planned Assassin's Creed costume didn't work out, I still had fun.

Besides this, I participated in the annual talent show on Thursday night not once, but twice. My first performance was a piano solo of John Schmidt's "North Pole Express," and my second round was a performance of "All I Ask of You" from the Phantom of the Opera with the talented Ms. Isabella Haws. Despite my nerves before going up on stage, both were good experiences in performing- my main goal in participating- and I did well in both of them. Unexpectedly, I ended up winning first place with Isabella, although after watching the video of our performance, I cringe at the sound of my own voice. I wish I could look at my own performances/writing without being so self-critical, but I'm a bit of a perfectionist.

On top of everything else, I, of course, had homework throughout the week and a Calculus "quiz" that I'm still waiting to see. Oh, yes, and I recorded four songs during my piano lesson on Tuesday.

On Saturday, I spent six hours with most of my class at what is called a "Super Senior" event, in which each member of the class is honored by a couple of friends and a parent. It was more emotional than we had expected, and although there was more laughter than tears, it was still a reflective experience.

After this, I went to see the movie "Marley and Me" with my mother and neighbor (I had read the book a while back, and we all love dogs). It's a real tear-jerker, but more than just the beautiful story of life with "the world's worst dog," the memoire of John Grogan's life coupled with my experiences earlier in the day made me reflect on where I might be in ten to thirty years. All in all, it was quite an emotional day.

Right now, after having worked on the piano accompaniments I'll play with the choir soloists during contest and after catching up on my 2YN assignments, I'm trying to make the most of a late start on this day off to finish a rough draft of my newspaper feature.

A New Start

So, I know it's a bit late, but Happy New Year. I haven't been terribly busy over this Christmas break (well, I suppose that means that I wasn't stressed out too much), although I was quite occupied with working at the library for two weeks.

Right now, I am writing this from my bedroom on the computer that is normally in the front living room of our house. It's up here right now because all of the furniture in that room has been moved out so that the next stage of our home renovation can commence, and the rest of the upstairs and living room are in a rather sorry state of disarray. I did clean my desk off though, which was in need of a major dusting.

Unfortunately, that is the only major accomplishment I've achieved this whole break, which leaves me feeling a little bit guilty for not having been more productive. I was surprisingly lax in keeping up with my usual pursuits. The other day, I listened to French radio for the first time in about half a month, and I realised just how much I missed hearing it. I have a piano lesson on Tuesday for which I have probably practiced three or four times, but it's not a big deal since I've only got about two songs on the list right now anyway.

On the writing front, I am trying to begin editing my manuscript for The Shards of the Storm, but I am still waiting on the printer to run out of ink so I can print it... I'm not happy because I'm already practically five days behind and I'm tired of waiting Mom to use up the ink. Anyway, I achieved my resolution last year of finishing the first draft by the end of the year, and this year, I plan on finishing revising the first draft at least one time through. I am a little bit afraid that the idea is losing it's shiny appeal, but I think that no matter what happens to this manuscript, it was my first real story that I have ever seen through to completion, so it will always hold a special place in my heart.

However, I need to begin working on fresh new things besides in the month of November, so I have joined the 2YN (Two Year Novel) course that Zette annually offers at FM. I tried doing it two years ago with an idea that I almost used for NaNo last year, but since I haven't done anything with it, I think I'm going to try to reuse it and develop it this time around. We'll see how it goes, but I'm going to stick it out as long as I can this time.

I hope you have a wonderful 2009 and that you reach all the goals you have set for yourself.