16 March 2012

i have the coolest mom ever...

Happy Birthday, Mom!

I'm really sorry I can't be here for it...but know I'll be thinking and praying for you today. You're the best mom ever. I, for one, will never forget you. ;)

It's been great these past 14 years. This is to thank you for them...


Lots of love,
~Vivi~

15 March 2012

...and off we go!

Gab and I are headed to South Carolina this afternoon for a team travel meet!

I'm swimming:

100 free
200 free
100 breaststroke
200 breaststroke
200 IM
400 IM
and 500 free

Please, please, PLEASE pray that it'll all go well!

Love you guys!


~Vivi~

P. S. I have a special post scheduled for tomorrow, while I'm gone, so watch for that. :D

12 March 2012

game on! :)

I don't really want to get into a political debate...

But I found this song the other day, and it was just too cute to not post. :D
We've had it in our heads for days. :)

11 March 2012

springing forward...and what i missed...

Of course, on Daylight Savings, you always wonder about those poor people who *forget* to spring forward/fall back...you think "wouldn't it be awful to realize that you're an hour off?".

And you'll be glad to hear that now I can confirm your theory. From experience. :D
Today, for the first time I can remember, we forgot to reset our clocks last night.
The main reason, probably, being that Mom's on a retreat and couldn't come in our rooms last night to say, "Set your clocks an hour forward!" (I will never undervalue it again).
But, thanks to the satellite clock in our car and a couple minutes of major freak-out, Gab, Dad, and I made it to church on time. Only because we were supposed to get there an hour early for choir practice (which we completely missed :P).

But...it's all good, right? :D No major damage done. Just a couple extra trips to church for the others that weren't so lucky.

But just FYI...

...forgetting about Daylight Savings is *not fun*. ;)


Love,
~Vivi~

09 March 2012

...and here comes march...

Where has 2012 gone so far? I feel like I was just in Atlanta visiting my cousins back in November. And now we're already 9 days into march, Lent is almost halfway done, and there are 2 Coulter birthdays coming up.

Wow.

And my schedule's completely packed.

Research papers,
HHS mandates,
Regional swim meets in SC,
UVA losing their basketball games,
Being anemic and vitamin D deficient,
Debating every couple weeks,
Having a surplus of Lit. reading,
Crazy family life...

*sigh*

So I'm just trying to survive right now...

I gotta...
...and...
:D

Love you guys!

Happy Friday!

(It's Friday, Friday, gotta get down on Friday...everybody's lookin' forward to the weekend, weekend. Friday, Friday gettin' down on Friday...everybody's lookin' forward to the weekend...Partyin', partyin'...YEAH! Partyin', partyin'...YEAH! Fun, fun, fun, fun lookin' forward to the weekend. :P)

~Vivi~

05 March 2012

i have this thing for girly papers...

Maybe it's just me. But this year in particular, I realized that most of my papers have all been incredibly...girly. :D For example...starting with my technical research paper...(about hair)...

Here's my intro:

---

What Rapunzel Didn’t Know

“‘Rapunzel, Rapunzel, let down your hair to me.’ Rapunzel had magnificent long hair, fine as spun gold, and when she heard the voice of the enchantress, she unfastened her braided tresses, wound them round one of the hooks of the window above, and then the hair fell twenty ells down, and the enchantress climbed up by it” (Brothers Grimm 2). I’m sure we’ve all wondered if it could be true; I know I have. Could Rapunzel really have grown hair that long? According to the dictionary, an ell is equal to 45 inches (“Ell” 1). So if Rapunzel had hair that was 20 ells long, that would make her hair 75 feet. And we wonder; is that technically possible? Then we realize that, though most of the world has hair, few people actually take the time to figure it out. Because though it is a very common practice to perm, straighten, color hair—or even watch it grow, the process and the results are much more complicated, yet so much more organized, than most people realize

...and later...(my conclusion)...

So could Rapunzel have grown a 75-foot mane? Is it humanly possible? Well, judging from the fact that hair grows an inch per year, and grows for maximum 6 years and a couple months before it falls out, it’s not looking too good for Rapunzel. It would be quite a miracle if she could achieve this. But miracles happen, so never say never. And if you got stuck in a very tall tower, and your last chance of escape was your hair, then you’d probably do the same thing. Because it never hurts to try. And who knows? You might end up with 75 feet of hair too.

So that was my *technical* research paper. Somehow I incorporated fairytales with...umm...technical stuff. :D Then here's my demon paper (like Screwtape Letters)...here's just a section...

---

...The unfortunate human species often takes one thing to be another. For example, they understand ‘good’ to mean prettiness, perfection, and an abundance of white. We all know that good, in fact, is not wholly any of these. Beauty is similar. It is a kind of goodness. True beauty (though the human race ignorantly misinterprets this) is not in the outside appearance. It is something that every human and every creation possesses, particularly women. And though humankind likes to think that beauty and attractiveness mean one and the same thing, we know for certain that they are, in fact, quite different. For, I will remind you, beauty is a type of goodness. Nothing that is truly beautiful is truly (what they might call) ‘evil’. But when humankind uses the word ‘attractive’, they mean outward appearance. And, though outward appearance and beauty are often confused, they can have different meanings. Something outwardly ‘attractive’ could very well be ugly inside. But something inwardly beautiful could also be attractive. Beauty is quite complicated. But it also very powerful, and that is why beauty is so problematic in female patients.

...

Your patient has one of the more serious versions of this problem, consequently making the whole situation simpler for us. Humans sometimes call it insecurity, and to them it may be. But we know better. In the past, the beauty of humankind was treasured. They knew and appreciated the true value of it. But these days rarely anyone, particularly females, will know the truth. They think of beauty as something to be attained—something they can become. And it is this that brings many to our side.

In case you didn't get that, it's about Beauty. I was using fancy English. It was awesome. :P But now for my historical research paper...about Bloody Mary...here's part of my conclusion...

---

...And here we are again at the inevitable question: Could Mary Tudor have been a real-life version of Snow White’s evil step-mom? Was she wicked, vindictive, and cruel? Did she poison apples to get rid of her competition, be it for beauty or the crown? Reality says no. It doesn’t quite seem likely that poison was a popular drink back them. And magic mirrors would be hard to come by. But if you want to look at life as a fairy tale, be my guest. Maybe you will realize that Queen Mary of England fits the role of a princess more than a witch. Snow White, Cinderella, or Sleeping Beauty—maybe not. But a princess all the same. After all, with life as a fairy tale, anything can happen. And there’s only one thing left to do—dream on.

I think I'm really stuck on the whole fairy tale thing. I guess I should just be glad that Mrs. G. is a girl. Otherwise I'd be in trouble. :P

Anyway. Don't know if you read all that. Just thought it was weird. Like me, of course. ;)

Happy Monday!

~Vivi~

P. S. We got like 6 inches of snow today. Made my morning interesting. Fascinating, actually. We got to walk partway home, because our car got stuck on a huge hill leading up to our neighborhood. And we got to wait for 45 minutes in 0-mile-per-hour traffic, when we were only a couple miles away from home. It was...as I said, interesting.

P. P. S. I finished my 2nd research paper today!!! I'm trying not to look to closely at it. I'm afraid that I'll find a mistake and need to reprint it. :D Anyway, that's why I posted the conclusion.

02 March 2012

what made my day today...

I'm so sick of my research paper. It's only been...umm...3 or 4 weeks, maybe? But I am so ready to be done.
So I got a friend to edit my rough draft for me. And one of the comments just totally made my day...

That's my paper...it's driving me nuts. And, in case you couldn't see that, it said (I probably had a brain lapse)...

And the response was...:P

Thank you for keeping me from taking school too seriously! :D


~Vivi~