Love Is In The Air!

I have the most amazing, fantastic, perfect, super, thoughtful boyfriend ever!! He means the world to me. I am so happy right now, I'm literally grinning ear to ear as I write this.

I don't want to sound like this superficial chick who only cares about what her boyfriend gives her and not the boyfriend himself, because I'm not like that at all. However, David did give me this awesome present, and even though today's the actual day, we only saw each other this morning. We were going to go to this great cupcake place after school, but my mom said she couldn't take us, so this weekend we're going to do something else as a belated Valentine's day celebration. He says the thing he gave me today was just a small part of the main thing...if this one's so awesome I can only imagine what the other one's like! And it probably dwarfs the present I'm giving him.

My school is all abuzz with the romantic excitement. I guess that's typical of an all-girls academy!

Love from your faithful blogger and (David's girl)friend,
Meridith

Straight Hair and Valentine's (Singles Awareness) Day!

I'm not usually vain, but a lot of people have told me that my hair is my best physical feature. I, for one, really hate it; it's really thick and hard to manage, and usually I just pull it back into a ponytail. It only looks really good to me when it's been flat-ironed, even though it damages the ends to almost no repair. Even then, sometimes it gets really full and looks like I'm wearing a tumbleweed for a hat. Yesterday, though, I flat-ironed it and it looks pretty good, except it's raining today and now my hair is semi-curly again.

As most of you know, tomorrow is Valentine's Day, affectionately known by singles as Singles Awareness Day because it's the one day of the year that all who are single are constantly reminded of it all day. It should be a good Valentine's Day for me, though, because I have one amazing, fantastic, wonderful boyfriend to celebrate it with! 

It was supposed to snow today...technically it did, but not enough to cancel school which is what snow is supposed to do. So we just have fail-snow today. Gotta go, guys, class starts in 12 minutes! 

Love from your faithful blogger and (David's girl)friend,

Meridith 

P.S. Happy almost-Valentine's!

Destination Imagination Is Amazing!

Some of you may be wondering why it took me so long to post yesterday. Well, that's because yesterday was  HUGE day on my calendar; it was the Mid-Cities regional Destination Imagination (D.I.) tournament!

DI is, essentially, creative problem solving. It is so hard to explain to someone who's never heard of it! There are five different kinds of challenges: improvisational, theatrical, technical, structural, and hybrid. Teams, from kindergarten all the way to college and sometimes even after, are comprised of 7 or fewer members. The kindergarten to first grade teams are called Rising Stars and don't actually continue on to state, but are highly encouraged to perform anyway for the sake of forming team building skills. Also, high school seniors who have done DI previously can apply for quite a large scholarship! So, each team chooses one of the five challenges to solve. They then incorporate their solution into an 8-minute or shorter skit to present to the Appraisers, NOT judges (the j-word is profane in DI lingo but don't ask me why because I don't know), on the day of tournament. Some time before or after a team's presentation on tournament day, the team goes to an Instant Challenge. The Instant Challenge is previously chosen and supplied by the Appraisers, and is also one of the different categories of challenges, though usually not the same kind that the team is already doing for their main challenge. There are 3 divisions of the same challenge based on a team's level: Elementary Level, Middle Level, and Senior Level. After the regional tournament, the first (and sometimes second) place teams from each level and challenge go to state, and then the winners from state go to the global tournament. State is hosted in a different city each year - the first time I went to state, it was in Corpus Christi, and this year it's in Corpus again.  It's been in Lubbock, Dallas, Round Rock, pretty much everywhere. At state, the night before tournament is like a big mixer of all the regions, complete with pin trading, which sounds lame but it's actually really cool. I've won the Mid-Cities pin design competition from 6th grade to this year, so it's really fun to see thousands upon thousands of people walking around with my design on their shirts and pinned to their hats and whatnot. Speaking of hats, there's always a DIme store (nothing there actually costs a 10 cents, they just needed to use DI somehow in the name) that has SO many cool pieces of junk there. Yesterday, I saw a pizza hat, a flying pig hat, a jellyfish hat, and many, many more. Also they have noisemakers aplenty, for the awards ceremony the night of the tournament.

I did DI from second grade to eighth, and will probably do it again next year. The only reason why I didn't do it this year is because I wanted to get my feet under me and get situated with the new high school experience. The good news is, my friend Addie's team got first place yesterday in their challenge (they did structure), so they're going to state in April! Hopefully I get to go with them...I'm kind of going through DI withdrawal as of yet.

Love from your faithful blogger and (David's girl)friend,
Meridith

My Crazy, Beautiful Sisters

I biologically don't have any sisters; I'm the youngest child in my family and the only daughter. That's why I'm so fortunate to have my two best friends in the entire world, Hannah and Catherine (who I think I've previously mentioned). They, like me, are pretty crazy. We've been best friends since 4th grade - before that, I was just the overall likable girl, really shy and mellow. But after I met them and we became inseparable, a crazier, wilder side of me revealed itself. We went to school together from fourth to eighth grade, and now we're all at different high schools. That in itself is kind of hard, but we live relatively close to each other so we can get together at least once a month, which is nice. Anyway, they are hilarious girls, and I have no idea what I would be doing without them. We, like all best friends, have our ups and downs - Lord knows we've had our fair share of arguments. But, we always make up; like I said, they're my sisters. Anyone who's read The Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants can get a good mental picture of us, minus one girl.

It's currently 23:42 (11:42 PM), so I need to go to bed now. I have a busy day tomorrow!!

Love from your faithful blogger and (David's girl)friend,
Meridith

P.S. This is my 105th post! Awesome!

Music!

A lot of people think that they can only like a certain genre of music. I, for one, don't follow that belief. I really don't care what I listen to; rock, alternative, jazz, bluegrass, classical, country, Christian, pop, rap, even Asian music all sound good to me. I believe that jars, NOT people, should be labeled, and a lot of people are classified based on what genre of music they listen to. Plus, music is the universal language, so why only stick to one kind? So that's my story and I'm sticking to it.

Sorry if some of those previous sentences aren't making much sense. I seem to have forgotten my brain at home today...

I got 8 hours of sleep last night, the recommended amount of sleep teenagers should get. I've noticed recently, though, that if I do get the proper amount of sleep I'm less attentive the next day, but if I get around 6 or 5 I'm really awake.

Here's a joke to (maybe) make y'all laugh and lighten your mood if you're having a bad day:

What do you do with dead chemists?



Barium!
Oh, how I love bad jokes...


Love from your faithful blogger and (David's girl)friend,
Meridith

Why???

I just want to know something: why in the world do we have different race celebration months, but if someone proposes White History Month it's considered racist? How is THAT fair? I mean, I realize that we whites haven't always been the nicest when it comes to discrimination, but seriously. In school, even here at my own Alma Mater, racism is present: the Latinas Unidas club. And the teachers are, in honor of Black History Month, quoting famous black people.

I just don't get it. It doesn't seem right to me, and I'm not racist. At least, I hope not.

Love from your faithful blogger and (David's girl)friend,
Meridith

My Near-Death Experience

Monday was a semi-eventful day, mostly because I almost died. Thankfully (and obviously) I didn't, because I'm still posting....or maybe my ghost is posting for me??

Anyway, so on Monday my carpool had just dropped off everyone except for me at our carpool spot. I take piano lessons near their house, so they drove me to their home so my mom could pick me up and take me to piano. Just as we were pulling out of the parking lot to go to their house, this guy in front of us decides that he can't talk on the phone and drive at the same time, so we sat there for about a minute watching as he missed a bazillion chances to turn. Anyway, my carpool pulled aside from him, and just as we turned out this white car comes zooming towards us, and I swear the driver of that car sped up. If my carpool had been a second slower, we would have been T-boned and I would have gotten hit. Thankfully, I have a strong guardian angel. Nobody was hurt.

Love from your faithful and still alive blogger and (David's girl)friend,
Meridith