massive braincase

Almost done with winter quarter!

I'm feeling pretty relaxed right now. I'm done with all of my tests and papers, so now I just have lectures to go to and notes to take until finals. Four weeks from tomorrow I'll be home for Spring Break! And the last week is just finals week, so there are no classes. So I only have three weeks left of actual classes this quarter. This year has gone by so quickly. I can't believe I'm only a few months away from being done with my freshman year of college. It's going by even faster than high school did. I'm glad about it though. I'm already ready to be done with school. I am soooo glad to be done with my assignments until finals. It's such a load off. Another thing that's putting me in a good mood is the surprisingly warm/gorgeous winter we've been having. it's been in the 50s and sunny! Which, for winter, is absolutely insane. There's just something about waking up and seeing the sunshine that makes my whole day infinitely better. The sunshine makes me think of my dad. It's amazing how quickly the time is flying.

Christmas

Well, this year's Christmas had some good elements and some bad, as to be expected. Bad, because it was my first Christmas without my dad and I missed him terribly. I hope he had a good Christmas and wasn't lonely without us. So that part sucked. It didn't feel much like Christmas though, so I guess that made it a little easier. I just didn't feel the same things I normally feel, and my mom said she and a lot of her coworkers feel the same way. Part of it might be the sunny weather, but my mom also thinks it's the economy. Who knows. Anyway, Christmas definitely had some slumps this year. But, there were some awesome things too. Jason and Denise came back from NYC for it, since our plans to go visit fell through, and I love seeing them. Also, I loved watching my mom's face when she got her new iPod, and how excited she was to get it set up and use it. Some of the best money I ever spent! We also got to spend Christmas Eve and Christmas Day with Jeff and Bunny and the kids, which was a lot of fun. Annnnd, last but not least, I got a MacBook Pro! I love it so far. It's so cool. There are so many great things about it that I'm not even going to list them because it would take forever. However, I will mention briefly - the display, the speed, and the keyboard are phenomenal. I also love the trackpad/button that does different things depending on how many fingers you use. It's so convenient. I love it! And it was easy to move my stuff over too. James also got me the Sims expansion pack, which I'm totally psyched about. Overall, an unusual, (but very good present-wise), Christmas.

Dear Santa,

This year for Christmas, I would like you to bring my dad back to life. I know he'll be studied at first and that will be unpleasant, but eventually he could come home and be normal again. It'll be a Christmas miracle! Anyway, my mom and Maddie and I have been very good this year and have dealt with this for long enough, so I think we're owed an extravagant gift this year. Bring him back, and none of us will ever ask for Christmas presents again. I understand you may not have the authority to do this sort of thing, but, since you use such extraordinary magic all the time I assume God helps you out every year. I'm sure if you explained to him these special circumstances, he could make the necessary arrrangements. We would very much appreciate it. Thank you! Love, Sierra Phares

This season

Well, I'm done with my first quarter of college. I got pretty good grades too. I got a B in math (miraculous for me), an A in French, and an A- in International Relations, which is probably the hardest class I've ever taken and I was positive I'd get a B or a C. So yay! Current GPA is 3.56. Next quarter I'll be taking chemistry, precalculus, and greek mythology. Should be an interesting quarter. I want to major in Philosophy - I've heard from a lot of people, and my advisor confirmed it, that that's a really good thing to major in if you want to go to med school. I really want to go to med school at NYU. I'm already stressed out about it though! But I'm decided. Sometimes I wish I was interested in something else as a career so it would be easier to get there, and I try! I try to be interested in law because my mom says I'd be good at it, the schooling is shorter, and I feel like it wouldn't be that hard for me, but I'm just not. The only career I'm genuinely interested in is obstetrics. Oh well! It's nice to be back home. I missed everyone and I actually missed Port Orchard. Also, I very much enjoy having no homework/getting to sit around and do nothing for three and a half weeks. I wish it would snow though. Also, my asthma is flaring up really badly from all the cat hair. It's obnoxious. Every night I get dizzy and wheezy and it's very uncomfortable. Luckily I got my inhaler prescription refilled and that helped last night. I miss my dad. Christmas Eve and Christmas will be wrong without him. I feel strange not getting him something. It makes me sad thinking that his stocking will be empty. I would just go ahead and buy him something anyway, but I don't have much money left after Christmas shopping and it would just sit around here and take up space. Who knows. All I know is that I miss him terribly and wish he'd come home. I dream about him a lot. Some of them are a bit silly, others are weird and I wake up with strange unsettled feelings, but one of them I'm convinced was really him. I was walking through an abandoned city and I heard a noise in one of the buildings. I went in, and my dad was in there playing his XBox 360 and wearing his really bright multicolored button-up shirt and having the time of his life. I ran over to him and I was crying and hugging him and he hugged me back. I knew that he was dead and had been gone, but I'm not so sure what he thought. It was weird - it was like he knew we had been separated for a long time and knew he had been dead, but he also didn't know. He was happy, and comforting me, and kind of saying there was nothing to be sad about. And we hugged and I told him how much I had missed him and he said he knew. But I'm convinced he visited me. I felt his presence in the dream. Not just the way he looked. I felt HIM, all of the things that make who he is were there in the dream with me, and when I woke up I felt him everywhere. So that's a comfort I suppose. Anyway, today is Maddie's 11th birthday, so everyone wish her a happy birthday!

Done with my first week

Well, I'm at Western now. My mom, Maddie, and I drove up on Saturday, a day before move-in, because I had to be on campus at 9 AM and we didn't want to have to get up at 5 AM to get here on time. So we spent the night in a hotel and then moved me in the next morning. It didn't take too long to move my stuff in at all. Unpacking took awhile though, because the outlet for the cable plug and ethernet is set up kind of awkwardly so it took awhile to arrange everything. But I was all unpacked and moved in by 5 PM. My roommate, Emily, is really nice. She's on the WWU volleyball team and got a scholarship for it, which is awesome. I'll probably be going to her games. She has one tomorrow that I might go to. Anyway, our room is really cute, and it's set up well. It's nice to have cable so I don't have to miss my shows, and I really like having a desk. I always wanted one back at my house. And I have my own printer now. :) Another cool thing is that James lives in this residence hall too, two floors up. It's convenient for when we want to see each other. The food here is pretty good too. I started class on Wednesday. I have three - French, Math, and International Relations. International Relations is definitely going to be the toughest. I'm hoping to get more into it once the ball gets rolling more, right now it's kind of dry to me. The professor seems pretty fierce. Also, we have to subscribe to the NY Times and read it everyday so we can discuss current events, which I do not like. I find the newspaper boring, so I didn't relish getting to pay $20 to read it everyday. Anyway, French and Math are pretty fun. It's nice to be able to take math and actually understand it. The teaching is much better here. My french professor's first language is french, so that's pretty cool too. I'm surprised by how much french I remember from high school - I should've signed up to be in a higher level. But oh well! It's nice to only have three classes. However, it's nice to have the weekend here. I'm done with all my weekend homework - it only took a few hours, so that was nice, and now I have the whole weekend free. Everything's been a blur so far because I've been busy, but so far Bellingham/Western are pretty cool.

Been back for awhile

Well, I've been back from London for about two weeks now. Sorry I didn't post anything sooner, I kept forgetting. I still think of this as his blog. Anyway, it was AMAZING. I've been missing it so much, it's like an achey feeling. Best place I've ever been and I definitely want to live there someday. First of all, the city is gorgeous and clean. There are people paid by the city who clean the streets everyday, so they always look very clean and hardly-walked on. The cleaning machines are quiet, they hardly get in your way, and they do different parts of the city at different times so you'll only normally run into one or two a day anyway. The people are way nicer, it seemed. If you pulled out a map or looked even a little confused, a person would walk over and ask where we were going and give us great, short directions that would always take us to the right place. When James and I were trying to find Abbey Road we didn't even look lost because we thought we were going the right way, but we must've looked like tourists because a guy asked where we were going. When we said Abbey Road, he told us we were going completely in the wrong direction and then told us how to get there. We LOVED the people. Everything in London is very easy to learn. After awhile we didn't even need a map, and sometimes people asked US for directions! It was so funny. We were even able to point them in the right way. Also, the Underground is fantastic. Anywhere you want to go, and it's super cheap. You pay 5 pounds for a ticket that will take you anywhere in London for the whole day, unlimited usage. There's also a special one you can buy that works for two weeks and it's like 25 pounds. We were very lucky in that we got to go into Westminster Abbey for Evensong, an actual service. It was so beautiful and sad at the same time. It's amazing being inside the Abbey and you can feel how old it is. They let anyone in for Evensong or any other service, but Monday through Friday when services aren't going on you have to pay to go in. We saw Churchill's burial spot. It was pretty amazing. One of my favorite things to do was to just sit on the ledges around Nelson's Column in Trafalgar Square and just watch the city move. It's a huge intersection, so there's always big buses, fancy cars, black cabs, bicyclists, and people moving through it just going about their day. Also, there's a great view of Big Ben from the ledge. Also in Trafalgar Square they have four big ledges to put statues on around the square. However, there are only three statues. On the fourth ledge, they're doing what's called "living statues" up until October. Every hour, they put a person up there to do whatever they want for their hour. One girl was doing her taxes, one guy was dancing crazily, another guy was holding up banners for things he supports...it was very cool to sit and watch them. Next up, the parks. The parks are amazing. Nothing like the stupid playground ones we have here. The closest I can think of is Central Park in New York. Hyde Park/Kensington Gardens are basically just like huge plots of land. The grass is well-maintained and soft, there are beautiful trees all over it to lounge under, and there are more statues and fountains and beautiful gardens than I could begin to describe. It's like being in a huge garden. And I mean huge. It took us all day to see everything in Hyde Park and Kensington Gardens. Also there's a place called Speaker's Corner where, on Saturdays and Sundays, huge masses of people gather to talk about whatever they want - preaching the gospel, speaking out against gay people, aid to Darfur - you name it. And anyone can get up and speak. Also there's this amazing pond/river type thing called the Serpentine where you can get out and paddle boats and stuff. AND, in front of Kensington Palace, there's a giant pond thing that has SWANS in it. Yes, SWANS. The park was like a dream. Of course we went to Abbey Road - we took a bunch of pictures of us walking across the crosswalk and a bunch of the wall in front of the studio. People have been writing on it for years so it's covered in writing, mostly dedicated to the Beatles. I even wrote something. I saw everything I wanted to see, I did everything I wanted to do, and it was even more than I thought it would be. I loved London sooo much and I miss it terribly. I can't wait to go back and stay there.

Taking time out of my vacation to make something clear

I want to make one thing clear to those who seem uncertain. My dad did not die because he didn't eat healthy enough. Again: My dad did NOT die because he didn't eat healthy enough. His diet had NOTHING to do with his getting lung cancer or with his death. He died from lung cancer because he had a disgusting habit of smoking cigarettes AKA inhaling poison for twenty years. "Smoking causes lung cancer because the smoke itself contains known carcinogenic chemicals such as benzo(a)pyrene and NNK. As these chemicals are deposited into the lungs year on year they cause DNA damage, oxidative stress and inflammation, which promote the initiation and growth of tumors. It is essentially the DNA damage, and the inability of the body to repair that damage, that results in cells starting to divide and multiply in a deviant way that ends up growing into a malignant tumor. Because the lungs are such essential organs for life (ie. healthy lungs are necessary for breathing) and because lung cancer is not easy to detect and cure at an early stage, lung cancer is very often fatal, with a 5-year survival rate around 15%." http://www.healthline.com/blogs/smoking_cessation/2008/03/smoking-and-lung-cancer.html It is good to eat healthy. However, my dad did not die because he ate junk food. Pretty sure the death sticks he smoked are the cause. His body didn't suddenly realize that he wasn't eating enough vegetables and create a tumor as punishment. Lung cancer is caused by SMOKING. He died because he SMOKED. Clear enough?

Almost time to go

Well, I had my wisdom teeth out, almost a month ago. All of the stitches are gone and now there are just small holes that will apparently be gone around the time six weeks has passed. I'm so glad to have that behind me. It sucked a lot. The tranquilizers didn't seem to help much at the time, but now when I try to remember the ride to the surgeon's office I don't remember much of it, so I guess it helped a lot more than I thought, haha. I was nervous about getting the IV, but they sprayed something cold on it before they stuck the needle in, (and I was apparently out of it), so I didn't feel anything at all. It took me a while longer for the pain to go away then I was told it would, but the pain wasn't all that bad. At times it could be, but mostly I had enough meds and ice packs and heating packs that it was bearable. Also the surgeon gave me this ointment to put on it, which was nice. I got to go to Moses Lake for a week, for those of you who don't know. I got to go with my lovely family and it was very beautiful and fun. I got some crazy tan lines, rode a bike for the first time since I broke my teeth out on one when I was little, and I went intertubing. It was a lot of fun, I'm so glad I went. I also attended a birthday barbecue for my cousin KC over the weekend. Happy birthday, KC! Love you lots and lots. It was pretty fun - it was cool seeing the look on his face when he got his new skimboard, and the cake was sooo yummy - DQ Girl Scout cookie ice cream cake. Sweet! Annnnd tomorrow morning James and I leave to go to London for two weeks. Yay! I've been wanting to go on this trip since I was a little kid, and now I finally get to. It's been a crazy day getting everything ready, but I think we finally finished everything. I can't wait. It's gonna be hard to get to sleep tonight! Also, I come back two days before my eighteenth birthday, giving you guys time to buy me some great presents. ;) See you all in two weeks!

Interesting

I was sitting here trying to think of something to say when suddenly I looked at the top of the screen, (where, in case you didn't notice, a random quote in my dad's long list is generated everytime you refresh), and it says: "Some people have a way with words, while others...erm...you know...thingy." I get the picture, Daddy. Nice to know you're still around. Mwah.

Benefit and upcoming doom

For those who don't already know, yesterday there was a fantastic benefit/fundraiser for my family. I would like to thank Brandon, Stephanie, and Laura a million times over for everything they did to organize the event. It was wonderful, and so so generous. My mom and Maddie and I are astounded by the kindness and love that surrounds us. Love you all so much, and thanks again to Brandon, Steph, Laura, and anyone else who helped, participated, or donated. Mwah. So the only bad thing looming ahead of me this summer is taking place this Friday at nine in the morning. I'm getting my wisdom teeth removed, and I am TERRIFIED. Any words of comfort would be greatly appreciated. I've been dreading getting them out since I was six years old when my aunt got hers out, and it's finally coming. Yikes! Hopefully the tranquilizers they gave me will work wonders. Miss Daddy. :( He would be able to calm me down about it.