!Hola!

It's been quite a while since my last update. I've been been torn into different pieces by clock hands lately.

Ok. Heregoes...

Taylor and Caroline! I know you two love Taylor Swift. I found this other great artist.

Lee Ann Womack. I LOVE her music. She kind of reminded me of Taylor. To be honest, like friends should, I say I like her music more than I do Taylor Swift's.

PLEASE download these songs:
1. I Hope You Dance (this one empowers me)
2. Something Worth Leaving Behind (this one makes me think)
3. Twenty Years and Two Husbands Ago (this one breaks my heart)

Ugh! Senior Year!

I hope you all have been swell!!!

I'll try to update ASAP. No promises though. :(

I Love You For Sentimental Reasons

I'm listening to some rad Nat King Cole songs right now.

I think the greatest thing I've learned this week is that the best way to get something done is to start not by saying what you're going to do, but rather, begin by taking the first step until sooner than you know, you completed that task and THEN you say what you DID. In short, don't say what you're GOING to do--do it, and say that you've DONE IT already. lol. Trust me! It works! Try it out!

I had an awesome weekend. I saw Miss Caroline at NFL. I had the most productive meeting I could have had with the JSA officers and so the future is lookin' bright. I got to see Sonia and heard that Bo was in Boston (which made me kind of sad because I was hoping on seeing Bo at NFL but makes me happy that she's doing something fun! lol). I hitched a ride home with Sonia and got to have a great talk with my best friend in the whole world; of whom I've missed dearly! (I ALWAYS see Bo, and hardly ever see Sonia! So it was surprising that this time the tables turned and I got to see Sonia instead of Anita..lol. I still miss Bo, though.:( )

I've been staying at my sister's house lately. I sleep at home sometimes though; like tonight. My parents are still in the Philippines and won't be back until Nov. 24 so the house is completely barren. Today I walked across the street to Joeten and bought some bananas, an energy drink, and a frozen microwavable burrito.

Daily life without my family is pretty easy, you know, when it comes to the technical stuff (waking up, getting ready for school/etc, eating meals, chores...) but it's difficult in the sense that I miss them. My dad's kidney operation seemed to have gone well. It's the post-op that's hard. The recovery period. That's why he and my mom are still in the Philippines, so that he could recover. I came home this week Wednesday because my medical quandary has already been settled and I needed to get back to school. I missed two weeks of school staying home because of my allergies and then a third week to be in the Philippines to get my own medical attention, besides helping my dad and mom through his op. I feel really blessed with the turnout.

My brother gets home from Basic Training at the end of this month! lol. I'm so happy. I'm so happy for him! I think that the guy has finally found his niche. My brother has always been my number one compadre, you know? We were the closest of buddies since childhood and that was mostly because of our small age difference (a year) and because we fought all the time. He gets back soon though, and we are ecstatic. He got majorly buffed out though! I'm going to try to get him to help me get back in shape. With my allergies diminishing, I'm now able to stay outdoors longer and sweat. (yay!) I miss sports. I miss being outside. I miss the beach. I miss running. Ugh, so much. So much to be thankful for, too!

Hey... Great timing! Thanksgiving is coming up! lol... coincidental?

Anyway, it's 11:51 (son las doce menos nueve) and I've got to get back to work.

I miss you guys! Take care!

-Rach

Pizza Discounts and Spatulas

October 22, 2007
2:32 PM
Food Court, Guam Airport
Snuggled in cushiony chair in front of Domino's and to the right of Big Nama
At a table far, far in the back away from the rucus and coagulation of people

I'll be in this joint for a near eight hours. It's cold and the atmosphere is foreign...literally foreign. I'm surrounded by Japanese tourists and can't make out a sharde of what they're saying--not that I'm trying to anyway. In front of me lies my copy of Steven Levitt's and Stephen Dubner's "FREAKONOMICS: A ROGUE ECONOMIST EXPLORES THE HIDDEN SIDE OF EVERYTHING". Upon arriving on this here slab of tropical earth deposits, I thought it best to equip myself with a sufficient supply of solid and liquid congestible material; so I snagged myself a medium-sized Extravaganza Pizza, a medium-sized Coke, and a large Cascade Berry Smoothie. It cost my currency container paper slit an approximate eighteen dollars and 0/0 cents. I didn't intend on getting the medium Coke, but the lady at the counter gave a shot-out to her half-flip homegurl and gave me a discount on the pizza and gave me a drink to go with it. I really didn't think it was all that necessary for her to do so. I admit that it gave me a sense of guilt. Should I have said no? Exactly. After a brief conversation with her in the midst of what was a tourist-barren Food Court, I think Humanity fell into pulling the heart strings of her emphatic cords and showed her that even in the latitudinal depths of the Pacific, you meet people who remind you of home. I told her that I was travelling alone. I am 17. I was meeting my parents in the Phillippines. I was on a 7-hour transit from Guam to the P.I. I got the pizza to save off buying food again later. And, I guess, that judging from the quality of my facade, I wasn't doing to great health-wise. She saved me eight bucks and the drink would have added another three, but I really think that she really didn't have to give me that discount though. But taking it made me feel as though kindness and compassion really did exist in strangers. After all, strangers are people--defensless creature-strangling sexual predators and open-armed open-hearted earthen angels alike. The guy at Burger King kept looking at me earlier. It was rather perturbing. But, somewhat romantic. What are they called in romance novels? If I were a romance novelist... "I sat at my table, with ebony doe eyes buried in the seams of my paperback. My left hand fumbling on to its pages; my right hand grasping on to the strong trunk of my yellow hilighter. He stood there at a distance. I could feel his pupils dilating as they pushed still air against my airport temperatured body. I quivered. My feet shuffled. I looked up, and yet he didn't look away. Down eyes! I looked up again, and yet he didn't look away! Oh, the hot meaty taste of forthright burning love! How I wished to delve into the foggy mists of the forbidden, cross the restricted areas of journeys, and jump that ceramic-plated counter into his throbbing burger-scented embrace! I natured my appetite for love that day...to a Burger King cashier. To feel the texture of his blue and white cotton/polyester uniform against my skin, and to feel his hands wrapped around mine as we toss patties with his strong metal spatula, melting in grease!...is the only thing that can salvage my crumpled paper bag heart now..." Man, I scare myself sometimes. Honestly, I exaggerated. I didn't swear my love to him. I just thought he was kind of cute. But you know what they say?! (Or at least, I say.) There are cute guys everywhere, but some are only nice to look at, some are only nice to talk to. I yearn for a fair mixture of both. The kind where looks and talkability submerge into a causal relationship where standards are inaplicable to love, and love just is. Do I make sense? Bah. Humbug. I've digressed. But! I've had fun while doing so! Anyway...

lol...
Over. And out.
End time: 3:20 PM

I don't practice Santeria, I don't got no crystal ball

It's a bittersweet symphony. That's life. Te vuelves aire. No change, I can change, I can change, I can change. But I'm a million different people from one day to the next, I can change..I can change my mood. I had a million dollars, but I spent it all.

This is the last birthday I'll spend on Saipan.

So much for turning 17...

____________________

"There's no better feeling than when I wake up to the morning sun, and watch the sunrise in your eyes." -Fiji

"Late at night I lie awake to watch her sleeping, she's lost in peaceful dreams so I turn down the lights and lay there in the dark, and the thought crosses my mind, if I don't awake in the morning, will she ever doubt the way I feel about her in my heart. If tomorrow never comes, will she know how much I loved her? So I try in every way to show her every day, that she's my only one. If my time on earth were through, and she got to face this world without me, the love I gave her in the past, will it be enough to last, if tomorrow never comes? Because I lost love once in my life, who never knew how much I loved her, now I'm face with my regret that my true feelings for them never were revealed. So I made a promise to myself to let them know how much they mean to me, and I'd live with the circumstance. There's no second chance to show them how I feel. If tomorrow never comes, will she know how much I loved her?" -Fiji

From Susan Safford's "Quaint Epitaphs"

"Quaint Epitaphs"
COLLECTED BY

Susan Darling Safford.

Copyright, 1895,

My wife lies here.
All my tears cannot bring her back;
Therefore, I weep.

Sacred to the memory of Violate, by purchase the Slave of Amos Fortune, by marriage his wife, by fidelity his companion and solace, and by his death his widow.

Behold! I come as a thief.

A rum cough carried him off.

Here lies the body of old Uncle David,
Who died in the hope of being sa-ved.
Where he's gone or how he fares,
Nobody knows and nobody cares.

I was somebody—who? is no business of yours.

Pious.

Open thine eyes Lord
I come! I come!

Here lies the body of Samuel Proctor
Who lived and died without a doctor.

When I am dead and in my grave
And all my bones are rotten,
If this you see, remember me,
Nor let me be forgotton.

Under these stones lies three children dear;
Two are burried at Taunton and I lie here.

One truth is certain when this life is o'er,
Man dies to live and lives to die no more.

Submit, submitted to her heavenly King
Being a flower of the etheral Spring—
Near three years old she died—In Heaven to wait
The year was sixteen hundred forty eight.

John and Lydia, that blooming pair,
A whale killed him and her body lies here.

A blacksmith's epitaph composed by himself.

My sledge and hammer lie reclined,
My bellows too have lost their wind,
My fire's extinct, my forge decayed,
And in the dust my vice is laid.
My iron spent, my coal is gone,
My nails are drove—my work is done.

Indulgent world I bid adieu.
Farewell, dear friends, farewell to you.
No more kindness can I show,
To any creature here below.
I am invited to my tomb,
To sleep awhile till Jesus come.


Here lies the body of Obadiah Wilkinson

And Ruth, his wife.

Their warfare is accomplished.

I go to meet my brother.

He got a fish bone in his throat
And then he sang an angel's note.

This corpse
is
Phebe Thorps.

To the memory of
Susan Mum.

Silence is wisdom.

Reader, go thou and do likewise.

Some have children others none,
Here lies the mother of twenty one.

He heard the angels calling him,
From the celestial shore.
He flopped his wings and away he flew
To make one angel more.

A zealous locksmith died of late,
And did not enter Heaven's gate.
But stood without and would not knock
Because he meant to pick the lock.



Here lies Jane Smith,
Wife of Thomas Smith, Marble Cutter.

This monument was erected by her husband as a tribute to her memory and a specimen of his work.

Monuments of this same style are two hundred and fifty dollars.



Our papa dear has gone to Heaven
To make arrangements for eleven.

Here lies Ann Mann.
She lived an old maid
But died an old Mann.

Beneath this monumental stone
Lies half a ton of flesh and bone.




Shakspeare.

Good friends for Jesus' sake forbear
To stir the dust enclosed here.
Blest be the man who spares these stones
And cursed be he who moves my bones.



She lived with her husband fifty years
And died in the confident hope of a better life.

Here lies the body of John Mound
Lost at sea and never found.