Bucket List

Jenna's Bucket List :)

1. Go to Kansas with at least one other person besides me, then leave and say, "We're not in Kansas anymore!"
2. Ride an elephant
3. Bungee jump off a bridge
4. Zipline through Brazil
5. Get called to court for jury duty
6. Grow above 5'4"
7. Go on a cruise to Hawaii
8. Pet a dolphin
9. Move back to North Carolina
10. Be some type of teacher at some time
11. Take a hot air balloon ride
12. Fly in a helicopter
13. Go to the moon
14. Own a guinea pig
15. Visit California
16. Go scuba diving with sharks
17. Start a contemporary ensemble at my church
18. Meet Michelle Obama
19. Help with Cardio Kool Kids as an adult
20. Become some type of lawyer at some time
21. Go skydiving
22. Go hangliding
23. Own a farm
24. Go to Antartica
25. Be an elf at the mall
26. Drive a race car
27. Own a cow
28. Ride a horse in the Tennessee mountains again
29. Go bridge jumping
30. Waterskii
31. Help my mom meet Kenny Ortega
32. Eat at Zinos again
33. Go to a commedy show
34. Pet a lion
35. Go to Africa on a mission trip
36. Learn how to surf
37. Write a book
38. Write a script
39. Fly a plane
40. Invent something
41. Pass all of my classes on the first try every year in college
42. Take APUSH my junior year
43. Read the entire Bible before I graduate
44. Visit New Jersey and eat cake from the Cake Boss people
45. Crack open a coconut
46. Get fired from a cannon
47. Meet someone named Sasquatch
48. Become fluent in Spanish
49. Eat baked Alaska
50. Go inside the White House
51. Go on a safari in Africa
52. Go indoor skydiving
53. Learn how to play the piano at a higher level than I am at now
54. Get an A in all of my classes this semester
55. Be in marching band sophmore year
56. Play soccer at least one season per year until I graduate high school
57. Have kids
58. Go parasailing
59. Participate in a triathalon
60. Work as a chef at a restraunt before I graduate high school
61. Get at least a 3.8 GPA in high school
62. Become a better public speaker
63. Do something with singing
64. Run VBS at RFBC as an adult
65. Work with preschoolers as a side/volunteer job as an adult
66. Build a more stable bridge between my house and Grace's
67. Go to Spain and have a conversation in Spanish with a random person
68. Eat a Belguim waffle
69. Meet someone with the same birthday and name as me
70. Donate 1/3 of my life savings to some charity...preferably Red Bowl
71. Go to Italy
72. Ride a cammel through the Sahara desert
73. Make a fire from scratch
74. Have a garden
75. Build a legit sandcastle
76. Find a 4 leaf clover
77. Eat something made by a famous chef
78. Set foot in every continent
79. Meet the shortest person on Earth
80. Take a picture with the shortest person on Earth
81. Be on a T.V. show for at least one episode
82. Pick an apple from a tree and then eat it
83. Start a garden
84. Grow homegrown tomatoes
85. Meet Donald Trump
86. Write, create, edit, and produce a comercial
87. Solve a crime mystery
88. Own my own buisness
89. Learn how to do a split
90. Get an A in all of my AP classes in highschool
91. Give a speech at my church graduation
92. Perform a solo with my friend Sarah at church
93. Be in another play
94. Leave a legacy bigger than me
95. Be on Family Feud
96. Host a game show
97. Visit the Middle East
98. Do some type of mission work for like a year or two
99. Start a charity
100. Bake a cake completely from scratch

Friends are...

     Friends are essential in a person's life. Friends are the people who understand you and what you are going through because they are going through very similar experiences. Parents are there for you, they want to help, they love you no matter what, but they can't relate to you in the same way that your friends can. Friends can really help each other alleviate school, family, job, or any other stress. Friends are tough though. It is hard to find a really good friend. It's even harder to keep that person as your "really good friend" especially as you grow older and develop new interests and groups. I've lived in three states, so I know a lot about making friends. I have a pretty good idea as to what to look for in a friend. In North Carolina, I was pretty much everyone's friend. I lived in a small town where everyone knew everyone. It was annoying at times, but usually it was a lot of fun. There were many personalities in Lumberton. You had to get along with everyone and still be your own person and stick up for what you thought was right. By the first grade almost everyone had at least one enemy and one best friend. Strangely enough, the friendships would grow apart long before the enemies forgave each other... IF they forgave each other. It was kind of hard for me there because my family was very well known in the town, so everyone wanted to be my friend. That sounds like a good thing and it was, but it was hard for me to know who my true friends were. In kindergarten, I got into a fight with this girl....a fist fight (those weren't as uncommon in Lumberton as they are here). Well, from my end of it, it wasn't much of a fight because I didn't punch her back. My friend Jordan, with alacrity, stepped infront of me about 30 seconds into the fight. She continued the fight with the other girl for about 3 minutes (which is actually really short for a fight in elementary school in Lumberton) until the teacher came and gave us her edict to stop. That day I realized that Jordan was actually my friend, and she wasn't just hanging around me because I was "popular". Unlike the 10-15 kids who lolled around appalled at the fight take place, Jordan knew that I would never hit the other girl back, and so she risked both getting in trouble and getting beaten up to try to stop the other girl. The droll thing is, we had become friends just a few days before that incident. Before that, we were very dissonant. Our personalities at first seemed to be antitheses, so we were usually pretty bellicose. She helped me realize that your friends aren't just the people who you play with on the playground, invite to your parties, work on group projects with, or go see movies with on the weekends, but the people who you can count on. They are there for you when no one else is. However, you don't just get those friends. You have to be the friend you want to have. I never stepped infront of Jordan in a fight because I didn't have to, but I did hold her or someone else back from one. A friendship is two sided. You get what you dish out. You can't disparage your friends and then get mad when they do it to you. It's hard to elucidate what friends are because who your friends are really depends on who you are. In my opinion, true friends are magnanimous. They laud your accomplishments, but they don't ditch or rescind on you in your nondescript moments. Whether they are loquacious, phlegmatic, or vivacious, their personality is a good match for yours and they whet you, rather than put you down. They do not make anything mandatory because in friendships, respect is key. Friends are...essential. Friends are fun to be around. True friends are dependable.

Song: Lean on Me by: Bill Withers

Family is...

     I live in a house with my mom, dad, and brother. I have grandparents, aunts, uncles, and cousins that I am related to by blood. I also have grandparents, aunts, uncles, and cousins that I am not related to by blood. These are all my "patent" family if you will. No one and nothing can make them not be my family because we are related. But they aren't the only people that make up my family. I'm not sure what the technical definition of family is because honestly, I don't really care. My family is made up of the people that i can be myself around, I feel close to, and those people that know me so well that sometimes they know me better than I know myself. There are times where I have antipathy towards them, and they have it twords me, but we always end up getting along in the end, and we even tend to be closer after moments of militating each other. Like all of these blog topics, family is different for everyone which, I'm guessing is why these are the topics Mr. Neumann wants us to write about. For some, the people they live with are not family to them. I am lucky to have a good family that supports each other and for the most part gets along really well. However, I know that some families are not like that, which is why I would say that family is not limited to the people who you share a home and common blood line with. Now, I will tell an applicable story. I work with elementary school kids every Wednesday after school. I help my mom teach a dance and fitness class called Cardio Kool Kids. There are two classes, one of primarily kindergarten through 3rd graders and the other of primarily 3rd and 4th graders. In the class of 3rd and 4th graders, everyone has taken Cardio Kool Kids for at least 2 years. They all know each other really well, so that class has a family like atmosphere to it. Each person in there is an asset to the group, but not everyone gets along. Some are exuberant, funny, stentorian people. Some are very sedated. Others always seem implacable. One day, I was talking with one of the implacable 3rd grade girls. I wanted to understand why she was still singing up for the class if she really didn't like it. As we were talking, I realized her attitude in the class actually had nothing to do with the class. She is constantly besetted at school by a group of girls (one who is also in our class). She also had lots of trouble at home. She has way more prowess than I do because I don't think I could handle what she's going through. The people who are supposed to support her and help her actually make her life harder. She didn't tell me all of this looking for compassion or trying to stipulate getting out of participating in class that day, she told me because she needed someone to be there for her. She also didn't make the conversation into some type of duress. The conversation was difficult to imbibe, but at the end of it I told her that I would make sure no one bullied her in the 3 hours that I was at Tritt during the week. However, as an ultimatum, she had to make sure she didn't let them push her around the rest of the week and she had to have decorum towards them. This past Wednesday was our last class at Tritt for this year. During the 8 weeks after that conversation, the girl and I have become very close. Her innocuous, yet negative comments stopped, and I think she realized that she isn't infinitesimal. See, in those eight weeks, I got to know her better than I know some of my cousins and she told me things she hasn't been able to tell her dad. She is now like a part of our family. My definition of family isn't a facsimile of a family tree. It's the people who care about you and who you care about. Family is... different for everyone. Family is... the most important group a person will ever be a part of.

Song: We are Family by: Sister Sledge