Angel Food Cake.

For as long as I can remember, my great grandmother has always baked angel food cakes for every birthday and every holiday for every person in my family. Whether you are turning five or 50, she will bake you a cake and even bring strawberries and cool whip to top it with. Not only does this never fail to overjoy the person receiving the cake, but I think my Grandma Evey takes joy in doing it and it blesses her to give. This is definitely a characteristic that has been passed down to me through generations. My family is is all about acts of service, or "doing". I love to give to people, and I give to love people. I am not a huge word of affection person, rather I am a person who loves others through her actions. I take joy in baking people desserts, cooking meals, cleaning homes, and buying others coffee. Sometimes I think it blesses me more than it blesses others. If it was financially possible, I would buy everyone's meals for them, just because. "Just because" is the key explanation to why acts of service people do what they do. No reasoning needed, beside "just because" and out of love. My angel food cake is something I look forward to every birthday and every holiday–because my grandmother does say much, so this means so much to me. When the day comes that Grandma Evey passes away, I will be not only deeply saddened by her passing, but I will also miss her cakes. Being a "do-er" has its downfalls. I have personally faced the obstacle of expressing my feelings through words, because actions come so much easier for me. This can lead to relationship problems and personal confusion. The key is to keep a healthy balance between your words and your actions. It has been a part of my family culture to constantly give to others and put yourself last, and I believe that that will continue on through many generations to come. This tradition significantly shapes my personal character, and I hope that it will rub off on other families, cultures, and my future kids. Did I mention that the cake is delicious??

Soccer Is A Community

Growing up, I have had a huge passion for soccer. For the past six years I have played select soccer year round. After spending time with my team at practices and games, the hours begin to add up. The team becomes my second family, and a community held together by heart.
In soccer, if your heart isn't in the game, you will lose-maybe not literally, but emotionally. Most coaches will tell you that if you have no desire to play, or the passion is not there, than you should just go home instead of draping that emotion over the rest of your teammates. A game is not defined by the ending score, but rather by the hard work that was put in to get there. Fans remember everything from the look of relief and excitement on star forward's face after he just scored the winning goal in the last two minutes, to the keeper's disappointment after losing the game for his team after two overtimes and a shootout. Whether you come out with a win or lose, the best feeling a team can have walking off that field is knowing that they gave it every everything they had. Winning is just a bonus. This feeling is what forms a community within soccer.
No one wants to lose. Everyone wants to win. As the world's interest in soccer grows, so does a team's want to win. The soccer community shares, needs, and values winning. This want is not only expressed by how a team performs on the field, but also off the field. "Practice how you play", my coach would tell our team as a motivator to work harder in practice. He taught us that you should put the same amount of focus, heart, and effort in practice as you did into the game. You can determine a team's want to win by their practices and warm-ups. If a team is not focused and messing around during their warm-ups, they obviously are not taking it seriously and don't want the game bad enough to win. If they have failed to prepare, they have also prepared to fail.
Commitment can and will mend or tear the community of soccer. If the team, as a whole, is committed and shows up to practice and games consistently and on time, then the team is off to a good start towards success. If players come and go as they please, and do not prioritize soccer, then the team will never grow and cohesion among the players with soon deteriorate. Commitment is not just shown through attendance, but also through performance. If a player is careless and continually let's the team down, then most likely that person is not committed. A committed player is one whom dives after every ball, and never stop. A committed player shows up when they're injured, they cheer their team on, and goes above and beyond the normal expectations. A team will rise against all other odds if they are a community first. Once each player is committed wholeheartedly, community will flourish without much effort.

What's In Your Wallet?

Inside my little brown satchel, I take out my wallet. My wallet was a gift from my sister, she got it in New York when she traveled their on a fashion internship last year. The wallet is about six inches by three inches, it is black with "C's" all over it, it is a knock off of a Coach wallet. It actually looks real, except for the broken button snap on the inside. Oh well, I don't mind very much what my wallet looks like. A wallet is a wallet, as long as it holds all of my things and isn't hideous, I like it.

The first thing that falls out of my wallet is a crumpled up piece of yellow paper. I opened it up to find that it was just another on of my "To-Do" lists; it consisted of some of my basic necessities I needed to purchase. This pretty much sums up how overly organized I can become. I never want to forget anything; so you can find "To-Do" lists or "To-Buy" lists on my mirror, white board, journal, phone, desk, sticky notes, computer, and even crumpled up pieces of paper. Making lists is very useful to me and helps achieve my need to be organized. Another item that shows the organizational side to my identity is my pile of receipts. I keep ALL of my receipts so I can keep track of how much money I spend, or if I need to make a return or exchange. I think everyone should keep their receipts, it is very helpful for budgeting your money. Speaking of money, I have a total of $18.56 in my wallet, and to my name. This goes to show the "broke" side to my identity. The lack of money is explained by how I am a sixteen year-old girl, a junior in high school, also doing running start, actively involved in church and sports, paying for gas, with no job. I'm a busy girl, but thankfully I have supporting parents who help me out by providing opportunities for me to earn some cash. This whole being a poor teenager thing, isn't working out for me too much. I'd like to spend money on more than just gas. This explains why I have a pile of job applications on my desk right now... The rest of my wallet is pretty basic and simple, like me. I have my driver's license, my ASB card for high school, my health insurance card, and a Starbucks gift card, nothing too special. To touch on the insurance card, this goes to show the part of my identity where I like to be prepared for any and all situations. One of my key's to life is: be ready for anything and everything. You can never be too prepared. In my (little) purse I have some allergy medicine, nail polish, a pen, another list, a digital camera, and Chapstick. The explanation of these items goes along the same line of always being prepared.

If someone were to construct my identity based on my wallet a purse, I think they’d mostly get the wrong idea. By looking through my purse and wallet, one might say that I am simple, boring, organized, prepared, a light packer, and someone with no life whatsoever. Although I believe I am simple, organized, and well-prepared, I also believe I am NOT boring, a light packer, and without a life. In fact, I have a very high spirited personality- I enjoy humor, fun activities, hanging out with friends, socializing, and I try to live life to the fullest. When it comes to packing a bag, I am definitely one of those people who over packs. My purse is a misrepresentation of this because I recently switched from a suitcase sized bag with everything on the Earth in it, to this tiny, over the shoulder, bag. I have a life; actually, I am a very busy person with very little extra time on my hands. I enjoy being busy, because I love to be involved and stay in touch with my friends and family. I hope the person would think that I have good fashion sense because this type of purse is very much in style nowadays, and I like it a lot and have received numerous compliments on it.
If people perceived my identity by just merely looking through my wallet and purse, they would miss out on a lot. They would miss out on my identity that shows a hardworking, systematic, cautious, sincere, and reserved person. The part of my identity that is formed by my busyness and list of commitments. I believe my identity has been formed by past experiences, memories, likes and dislikes, friends, family, hobbies, interests, education, and responsibilities. Ultimately, my identity is represented through everything, from my biggest mistakes to the people I hang out with, and everything in-between. How I perceive my own identity really comes down to who I think I am? This is a question I ask myself every day, and I tend to have more questions than answers as a result.

About Me:

I was born and still reside in a little farm town called Snohomish. I have lived and breathed the smell of cow manure, horse poop on the street, long and winding country roads, big green pastures, antique stores, slow and oversized tractors, and many other so-called trademarks of the historic town, and I am proud to say I have lived here my entire life, a total of sixteen years. Although I am not one bit of a country girl, in fact, I very much dislike country music, I love and appreciate this town and I feel very fortunate to live here.

I live at home with my mom and dad, while my older sister attends WSU and lives and Pullman, and my older brother is a musician and lives on his own also in Snohomish. I am very blessed to have two very special parents who not only love me but love each other so much. In our culture today, it is not often that you can find very many couples who have been married for twenty-five years. My parents have supported me and been by my side since day one, they encourage me, but also challenge me, and help me develop into a better person. They work very hard on preparing me for the future, and adulthood, by teaching my life-long lessons and good advice for managing difficult situations. 

If it weren't for my parents finding their faith at an early age and bringing me to church every Sunday as a kid, I wouldn't be the same person that I am today. Although I dreaded going to Sunday school most weeks as a kid, it payed off in the long run. I eventually turned from someone who was memorizing songs about some guy who died two-thousand years ago and watching veggie tales after school, into someone who lives to glorify God and is eager to get into the Word and serve others every day. Someone who now looks forward to going to church, youth group, bible studies, or whatever it may be. Not because doing all of those godly things makes me a better Christian, but because I love to do it, and I love learning about my King, a man who is worthy of our praise, worthy of us still talking about him two-thousand years later, a man who was crucified on the cross to save us from our sins. 

What do my days look like? Well, I am a junior at Snohomish High School-- I go there for four periods: Photography, Pre Calculus, US History, and Physics. I would say that the whole high school scene isn’t really my thing any more. Two years has done me well, and I am ready and have been moving on to, in my opinion, better things in my life and with my education. For the second part of my day, I go to Everett Community College, where I am a Running Start student, and take an American Sign Language (ASL) class. Finally, my last class is this English class. I took this class because I am looking to improve my English skills as well as working towards fulfilling my high school graduation requirements. After school, I usually have some church function that I go to. In between this and that, you can find me at Starbucks. This is a place where I am most productive and most focused. It is away from many distractions, I love the atmosphere of the place, and of course I love their coffee! In fact, most of the work for this course will be done from some Starbucks. After all of that, I head home and usually work out. If I am too tired for that, I’ll pick up a good book, listen to music, or surf the web. Somehow, I’ll find my self still awake around 11:30 PM wondering why I am still up... This is something has has to change soon, haha! Oh, and in the midst of all of that, I do my homework, read my bible, and occasionally hang out with friends. 

Up until this year, I have been actively involved with sports. I have played basketball, volleyball, soccer, and golf. But the sport I have focused on the most, is soccer. I have been playing soccer since I was six, that’s a total of ten years. And for the past five or six years I have basically devoted my time and energy to year-round, select soccer. Now, I wouldn’t have given up all the time or traveling if I didn’t love it, but this year I decided that it wasn’t something I wanted to continue with, so I stopped playing on my select team. This was a very difficult decision I made, but it was worthwhile, and I’m glad I did. Although I am happy with the decision I made, I still miss it and my team from time to time, but that’s okay because come fall time, I will be playing on my high school team, which I enjoy very much.

I am an organized, self-motivated, and dedicated leader. I value friendships very much and love to give to others as much as I can. I try my hardest at everything that is put in front of me, and I am constantly setting newer, and higher goals for myself. Typically, you can find a couple sticky notes on my desk at home with a list of things to do. I am a dedicated and focused student, and I am also looking forward to the rest of this quarter, as I hope this class with open my eyes to a new horizon of English and its culture.

This Is A Test

This is a test.