Today in My Life…

God gave Paul many talents and opportunities, such as being able to speak many languages and growing up in a home where he can be educated, that helped him further God’s kingdom. Like Paul, God has also given me many different talents, gifts, and experiences that will shape me into the person that can help God the most.

For example, he has given me the talent of being good with special needs children. He can use this as a way to further his kingdom. Not exactly sure how he would use this, maybe help me teach them about God and what his love looks like, but I’m not sure.

An experience he has given me is having panic attacks. Now, these are not good things, but my mom had me go to a therapist to see what they actually are. Now, one way God can use this is now that I know how helpful therapists are, I want to maybe be one. This can further God’s kingdom in many ways.

We made a volcano that is supposed to look like Mauna Loa. I think we did a good job. Our group worked well together. Good job group! 

https://website.mysimpleshow.com/#/edit/JmGHWUpEuQ/publish

“Lola!”

“What Michael?”

“Are we meeting with the squad on Saturday?”

“Of course! Make sure you can get off work.”

“Already requested it off!”

“Wonderful! Oh, and guess who’s back in town?”

“Who Lola?”

“Scott!”

“No, really. Who?”

“Actually! Scott’s in town! Not lying!”

“Really? Oh boy! Do the rest of them know?”

“Just Mandy.”

“She always did have a crush on him. Of course she’d be the first to know.”

“She’s engaged Michael.”

“You know I’m kidding. Well, only partially. How do you even know?”

“Saw him. In a taxi.”

“Whose?”

“Jana Dean.”

“Cool babe. Ready for our date night?”

“Always.”

~~~~~

Lola and Michael had met in History 3 in junior year of high school. Michael didn’t understand the causes to the War of 1812. Lola had an old relative that was a general. So, she knew a lot. First study buddies… then the friend groups combine… all get crushes (only Michael and Lola lasted)… yada yada… boring backstory stuff. All you, dear reader, need to know is that there were 12 in the big group; Lola, Michael, Mandy, Jim, Court, Kim, Jill, Tom, Brittney, Joseph, Scott, and Nicole. Nicole died 3 weeks after graduation (car accident on the way to Florida), and Scott went across the country to go to college. The rest of them all stayed close to home.

So, the news that Scott was back in town was a surprise. Nicole had been his crush, and her death had shook him up more so than the others. He had vowed to not come back home unless it was for a family emergency. But that was many years ago, he was no longer an angry 18 year-old boy, he was a well adjusted man in 40s with a stable job (he was a surgeon). So he had figured that it was time to go back and see how all of his old friends were doing.

Lola had seen him when she was at the grocery store. Because the town was so small, everyone knew everyone and there was only 2 “taxis” in the entire town. And they were actually just people that took people around in their cars. Jana Dean, an old retired woman with 3 cats and all the time in the world. And Timmy Dean, the young grandson of Jana Dean that had just gotten his license.

Regardless, she had seen Jana Dean pull into the parking lot with a man in the backseat. By the time she had driven past Lola, who was pulling out of the parking lot, Lola realized that the man in the back had been Scott. She immediately called Mandy, the friend she was closest to, and told her.

That night, while she was getting ready for her weekly date night with her husband, she told him too. He and Scott had been the closest of any of the boys. Of course, Michael was ecstatic. His best friend that he hadn’t seen in over 20 years is back? Duh, who wouldn’t be excited? So, he immediately began making plans in his mind for them to hang out. Who wouldn’t want to?

~~~~~

After a week of chasing down Michael, the squad had set up a day to all hang out. And today was that day.

“Lola! Is dinner almost done? They’ll be here any minute!”

“Calm down Michael. It is almost done, but they wouldn’t care. Tonight is about Scott, not my mediocre cooking.”

“Says the chef who works at a 4-Star restaurant.”

“But this is home, not work. And besides, Scott never much liked my cooking.”

“But neither did I. Now look! I’m married to the best chef in town!”

“And I’m married to the top doc in the county.”

“You know that’s Court.”

“Hon, I meant you. You’re great dear. But that reminds me, no talking about work tonight. Tonight is about getting to know Scott again. He is a different person now than he was 20 years ago, alright?”

“I know. I’m just so excited!”

“You’re acting like a child Michael.”

“And you don’t care.”

“Michael…”

“What?”

“Mandy’s on her way!”

~~~~~

Many hours later, after a lot of good food cooked by Lola and lots of catching up with Scott, everyone had left except for Mandy, Scott, and of course Lola and Michael (because this was their house after all).

“It’s been amazing to catch up. Thank you so much for having me over! Getting back with the gang was great! I’ve been missing this. I didn’t know y’all were still hanging out!”

“Every Saturday boy! Oh no!”

“What wrong Mandy?”

“Mark got sick! I have no ride!”

“Oh, I can drop you off.”

“Are you sure?”

“Of course, Mandy. Don’t worry, I found my own car.”

“Thanks so much Scott. But you don’t need to do that. Plus, even though we used to be really close, we aren’t the same people we were.”

“How about I drop you both off?”

“Alright, thanks Michael.” With that, the three left the home of the Arnolds.

~~~~~

HAND WITH MISSING FINGER FOUND FOR THE FINAL PIECE OF THE DISTURBING DEATH OF AMANDA GREENE.

~~~~~

Lola cried the most. Well, second only to Mark. No one knew who could have had the heart to kill Mandy. She was the sweetest person, always doing charity.

Everyone blamed Scott. Even more so after her engagement ring was found in his car.

The body had been dismembered and buried. Each part with a matching part of a dead dog. And all scattered around town. Each piece was cut with surgical precision, even more evidence in favor of Scott being the murderer.

But he fled. Like, the entire country. And no one was in the mood to chase him. So, for the friends, it seemed justice would never be served.

Until that fateful night.

They had been watching a movie, a cheesy romance one. And all of a sudden, the look in his eyes changed. He started mumbling under his breath “she knows. She knows. She must die too.”

No one knows who shriek was heard; Lola’s or  Michael’s.

Solution: Michael has been suffering from psychological breaks. The shriek at the end is either Lola’s in the process of being murdered, or Michael’s when he discovers what he’s done.

We had to make a tower out of spaghetti and marshmallows. Our tower was one of the two that actually lasted through the entire test. The test was an earthquake simulation. Some things that went well were we worked very well together, we didn’t stress out when things went wrong, and we fixed our mistakes with no problem. One thing that didn’t go well were we (rather, I) had a couple of spasms that could have gone wrong.

Here are some pictures of our towers.

Process of Building (Hi Will and Caleb)

More Building Process

The Final Tower

Metaphor Writing

I am a flower field. Just like there are many parts to a flower field, there are many parts to me. One of the ways I am like a flower field is there are many different flowers in it. They are all different, even some that are the same kind. In the same way, there are many parts to me, and even if some look similar at first glance, they are different. There are good flowers, like daisies and sunflowers. These are the good experiences in my life. But then there are flowers like roses. They look nice, but they really aren’t. They can hurt, even if they don’t mean to. These kinds of experiences are the ones that made me learn something, but hurt me in the process.

Another part of me that connects to a flower field is a stream. Even if you don’t see it, you know it’s there, because without it, the flowers wouldn’t grow. For me, my “stream” is God. Even if I don’t feel his presence, I know he has to be there, because otherwise I couldn’t be who I am. His divine power has made directed my life so both good and bad experiences occur. In a flower field, the stream nourishes both the bad and good flowers, so they both are there.

I am also like a flower field because of the tall grass you see. It sometimes hides the prettiest flowers, but also the bad ones. This is like me because I have MANY secrets, and my “grass” is the ability to keep my mouth shut and my walls I’ve put up over the years. There are some parts of my life I don’t want people to know about. Just like you have to push through a lot of tall grass to get to the flowers, you have to be persistent and patient to get to know the real me. But, just like not all the flowers are covered, there are parts of my life that I let people know about right away, even if they aren’t the best.

Finally, I am like a flower field because of the hidden animals. These are like my personalities. There is the bunny, that hops quietly. This is my happy, quiet personality. But of course, there is the bunny that bother hopping quietly. This is my normal, loud and exuberant personality. Nearby, the silent snake slithered across the ground. But then there is the snake. This represents my quiet, but hard and tough personality. This is the one that can get MEAN! I personally don’t like it to come out, but sometimes it has to. Just like the snake has to come out to feed, I have to get mad once in awhile, because while I am a field, I am truly a human.

In church, we talked about the election in the morning, which was a very different sermon. We talked about how we need to respect authority, but if they tell us to do bad things we don’t need to listen. In the evening, we continued our series on spiritual warfare, talking about our enemy, and why knowing him and what he does is important.

Finding Audrey is about a girl named Audrey who gets depressed and ends up with anxiety due to an “incident” that we are never told exactly what happens in plain terms. It is heavily implied, however, that it was very severe cyberbullying. She reacts to this by shutting the world out, and doesn’t go outside for months afterwards, until she meets Linus. Linus is her brother’s ex-gaming buddy. The reason he is an ex because Audrey’s mom gets really against technology and gaming and ends up throwing his computer out of a second story window. Linus and her end up dating. The only time Audrey goes out before she meets him is when she goes to her therapy sessions with Dr. Sarah. She constantly wears dark glasses, even indoors, and likes the dark. She ends up trying to ween herself off of her meds without anyone knowing. However, this ends up poorly and she takes too many and runs off into the night. She eventually gets found, and goes to talk with Dr. Sarah about how all she wanted was a straight graph. Dr. Sarah helps Audrey, and me, realize none of us have a straight graph.

In this book, the main conflict is between Audrey and the world. She had a normal life, up until the “incident.” Her graph was going straight up. But then, because no one has a straight graph, her personal graph takes a nosedive. From there, her graph goes up for a while, then goes down again, then goes up, then goes down. She ends up getting frustrated, and tries to get her graph to go up and not down. But then Dr. Sarah helps her realize that even her parents’ personal graphs go up and down. That there is no such thing as a straight graph for anyone.

A side conflict in this book is between her brother Frank and her mom. Frank loves to game, and believes that he can be professional gamer, and make money off esports. Mom is very angry, as she does not see how this can be good long term. She also loves The Daily Mail and does whatever it says. Recently, they have been preaching “the dangers of video games and technology” and her mom believes it. At a certain point, she gets so fed up she throws Frank’s gaming computer out of the window as a last resort. Later on, Frank finds a passion in cooking of all things, and this is something Mom approves of. He ends up with a new computer for homework and watching videos on how to better cook. His graph was going up, then it went down when his mom threw the computer out. Her graph went down because he wasn’t listening. But when he started to cook, both of their graphs went up again.

Throughout this book, many situations have helped me realize nobody has a straight graph. I personally feel that this was a great book to read, and it was actually very insightful. I would definitely recommend this book to anyone who enjoys reading and isn’t afraid of heavy subject matter. It takes a lot to want to read something like this, and I am very glad I did. There were some parts I felt were rushed, but that’s the way it is sometimes. Out of 10, I think I would give this an 8.5 because there is no such thing as a 10 out of 10 book in my mind. There are some things that could be better about this book, but there is already so much that is good about this book. Overall, I would say the book is a really good read, and worth your time.

In science class, we had to make chains that can hold a total of 3000 grams, or about 6 pounds. Ours (the one that Evan, Jack, and I made) can do that. We get a lot of points for each thing we add on. We also get one point for each centimeter of length it is. We made ours out of some chenille sticks and some string. We added some straws for decoration. We added on some pipe cleaners that are only so we get more points in terms of length.

This has been an interesting summer for me. I went to the zoo with a baby I babysit. We saw eagles, and he had some coffee ice cream. Watching him eat the ice cream was a funny thing to watch. I also went on my Grandpa’s boat a lot. We went to the gravel pit on the Grand River and swam. On that same day, we went fishing, and I caught a catfish so big I snapped my brother’s favorite fishing pole in half. I still caught it thought. I went to Detroit with my Mom and brother in June. We stayed with my Mom’s cousin and her kids. Then me and my brother went to Detroit again at the beginning of August with our dad. We went to a Tigers game. Me, my mom, my grandpa, my cousins, my brother, and my aunt went to Chicago for a day and went to the Museum of Science and Industry. Then we went to a little Italian joint for dinner. Me, my mom, my brother, and my grandpa went to Shedd Aquarium for a day in late August. We ended up eating at the same Italian place again. That’s basically all the big things I did this summer.

While the World Watched is a powerful story of one African-American woman who grew up in Birmingham, Alabama, during the Civil Rights movement. Four of her friends were killed in the bombing of the Sixteenth Street Baptist Church on September 15, 1963. She also participated in the Children’s March in early May, though she did not end up arrested. The book also told the story of her as she became an adult, and her personal struggle with alcoholism and depression. It also told the story of other people in the Civil Rights movement, in the eyes of this woman, Carolyn Maull McKinstry.

Something that stood out to me was the community’s lack of acknowledgement to what happened and how it affected the young people connected to it. Like, when the bomb happened and killed four of Carolyn’s close friends. Nowadays, there would be counselors at every school, and there would be people to talk to. People would be willing to talk about it with the people affected by it. But back then, it wasn’t like that. In fact, the next day, one boy even told Carolyn “get over it. It’s not that big of a deal.” Um, sir, HER FOUR FRIENDS WERE JUST MURDERED!!!! IN A BATHROOM! WHILE THEY WERE DOING THEIR HAIR AND TRYING TO GET NICE FOR CHURCH! THEY WERE KILLED IN COLD-BLOOD! SO DON’T TELL ANYONE THAT THAT “IS NOT A BIG DEAL!” BECAUSE IT IS!

When people need to mourn THEY NEED TO MOURN! That means that NOBODY tells them that they need to “get over it.” Because that is outright RUDE and DISRESPECTFUL! Does no one in this city understand basic etiquette? Same thing with cancer. NO ONE would talk about it. This caused her issues later in life.

Issues such as depression and alcoholism. These are NOT jokes. They were caused by all of the issues around her In one decade, she had had 2 near death experiences due to bombs, lost 4 friends, lost a brother (didn’t die, just withdrew from life), and 3 important leader/role models (Mamma Leslie, JFK, and MLK Jr.). She was not yet 21 years old. And on, and on, and on. THESE ISSUES (depression and alcoholism) could have been avoided, had someone talked to her about it. It took the near death of her daughter to snap her back into reality.