I hung out with Kat this night! We went to the Lakewood Towne Center and I purchased some fire truck red athletic fashion shorts for 5 bucks and 52 cents, tax included :D Then we browsed and wandered and finally ended up at McDonald's for ice cream.. and we took so long trying to find change that the nice boy just gave us a 15 cent discount! It was soooo awesome! And the ice cream was delicious. And biodegradable! Speaking of which:

http://www.mcdonalds.co.kr/..
How incredibly cool is THAT? :O

Us conservatives have had a very, VERY nice last four days!! I am excited. No, I am THRILLED after this convention! Holy crap, holy crap, holy crap. Tomorrow afternoon shall be devoted to rewatching most of the speeches on cspan.com. :D (Well, after my meeting w/ Keri, Saoly's b-day, studying for psats, and running.)

Well, after hearing President Bush's speech today, I truly love this guy for the person that he is. I mean, speech-wise, it was alright, but not great (doesn't win the Zelly award ;D). Started out too slowly for my tastes and kind of repetitive. By the end though, Bush was kickin' some major ass. He's just so sincere, so honest. Yeah, sure, he's not the best speaker in the world, but he's passionate. When he was talking about the troops and he had tears in his eyes, I was on the verge of crying myself.

No, Bush's speech didn't give me that overwhelming feeling of "HOLY SH#T" that I got after hearing Rudy or Ahnold or my man Zelly, but instead, I felt more like, hey, this is real. This is Bush. He stumbles over words, he pokes fun at himself, he almost cries in front of millions of people across the nation-- all of which illustrates his greatest strength. He's so strong and so confident that he allows himself to show his real personality instead of some fabricated "perfect" political front. He really says what he thinks and does what he says. He's a leader. He's my President. :D FOUR MORE YEARS!

But still, seriously, Zell Miller's speech was my fave. XD If you haven't seen it, BUST YOUR BOOTY to cspan.com and check it out. It's soooo good. Mmm. And then witness Zell kick Chrissy-boy a few good hard ones where it hurts :D (I unfortunately didn't see it live, but I saw it here. It was so good-- was DYING! MUST SEE)

Well I gotta go sleep. Meeting with Keri Rooney again tomorrow at the auditor's office! Oh CRAP, I don't know where that is.. well, it'll be interesting ^^;

This is why I LOVE Ray~~! He's so smart and hilarious and witty and clever and sweet and caring and cool and bomb and HOT (:D), but most of all, he does things to make me smile!

And if you don't get why something like this makes me smile, then you're just not crazy like us!

[EDIT: okay. NO MORE POSTS until I make myself a new layout!! this one is soooo old....]

First things first: Packers rock. Bring on da Bears... and buy me this shirt, someone, it's beautiful.

Now anyway, HEY guess what! I made a new layout for my tabulas, FINALLY. I think it's merely okay, but it was definitely a time for a change. And do you know what needs to happen in Version 9? I need to make a name for this blog. Like a title. "Victoria's Tabulas" is just much too bland! I don't want anything gay-sounding though, and I haven't thought of one yet that's not rather retarded. Man, I need to improve my nick-naming in general! The name on my XC sweatshirt: Vickie. XD Would have been Victoria, but we were limited to 7-letters. Would have been Kirst, but I wanted a slight change. So I chose "Vickie" and I wrote it the way that I used to write my name in kindergarten, with "ie." I guess that's technically creative, if creativity can be a technicality.

Tomorrow's the orientation for Pierce College Running Start students! I'm so excited. I have to miss a XC meet though ;O! I was so terrified to tell Coach Salzman, but he was fine with it (and for that, I love Jesus). I like Coach Salzman during XC season. He's so much more laid back and approachable than during Basketball or Track (although I'm still much MUCH more comfortable talking with Mangrum). Knock on wood, by the way.

And ANOTHER "by the way": Holly spat on my leg (lower calf, to be more accurate) while we were running! It was soooo disgusting, yet hilarious XDXD I was cracking up and trying to wipe it off and run all at the same time, and I got these spittle strands all tangled in my hand.. oh geez, it was GROSS XD That girl has too much saliva! I gave her a ride home anyway though, since I still love her :D Oh, and I gave Alex D. a ride home too (but not so much love there) :/ We had plenty of extra loud, bombastic chatter and high speed, last minute turns in the rain to make the experience sehr interessant. And the Gig Harbor thing was hilarious and I can't believe it worked!

Whoop, I'm off to shower! Last note: by having a Wisconsonian father, I can contest that this is funny and true.

[Pre-Shower EDIT: aw CRAP I just realized that I forgot to format the comments on this layout, so that's reeking in suckage right now x_x; on the plus side, I just remembered that I have about 7 unread chapters of Kimi wa Pet somewhere on my HD *grins* OKAY shower now!]

The Running Start orientation was as boring as it was pointless. Which isn't quite as bad as it sounds because there was some point to coming, as there were free subway sandwiches, chips, soda, and peppermint patties available to the attendees. There were brief moments in the lectures and speeches where they mildly captivated my interest, but a lot of it was the typical BS of "yup, this isn't high school, yup, you have to work, yup, mommy and daddy aren't holding your hand, yup, if you fail you're screwed." Still, I'm so excited for Pierce! I want to work at the bookstore. Or at the very least, I want to work! It'll be cool.

Backing out of the parking lot, though, I realized that I had momentarily forgotten how crappy of a driver I truly am. With a false sense of confidence in my driving, I attempted to make a left-handed left turn (my other hand was preoccupied with a diet coke) and lo and behold-- I had to slam on the brakes to stop myself from colliding into a parked car on the side of the road. I think that was my car's (or God's) way of reminding me, "Hey Vic, you still suck considerably at driving. Don't get cocky, fool."

Eh. I'm kind of mad though-- I missed the cross country meet! Isn't this a contrast from last season: I'm actually disappointed that I missed the meet?? Unthinkable! But now that I'm not so self-conscious about my suckiness (and I do say myself that I am not nearly as sucky as before, which helps) and now that I know most of the people on the team, I have a lot of fun at the meets! And from the pics that Tammy showed me, the meet was so much fun. Oh well, there's still a lot of season left-- next meet is on Saturday!.

Can't wait 'til Saturday, not only because of the meet (and the mall w/ kat and a mysterious friend, hopefully), but because that means there's only one day until next week begins, and next week is going to be incredible. I might meet the Secretary of State, Running Start will officially begin, and.... XC's going to STANFORD!! And on that 3-day trip includes lots of shopping, possible campus tours of the university, and.... CHINATOWN!! I think the San Francisco one too... holy crap!! I. am. so. PUMPED!! :D

I had a marvelous day today. First, I talked to my German teacher from last year and she said that I could take her 3rd year class and just attend whenever I can, and she'd be fine! So today I went in and I had German with, my favorite, HEIDI!!! It was so fun; I just love talking with Heidi :D Next time I shall bring baked goods too ^_^

Then I stayed for lunch too, and I got to talk to Jinny a lot! Oh geez, I adore that girl. I LOVE talking to her-- she's so fun and crazy and animated (her subconscious banging on the table XDXDXD). And when we ran into... SOMEONE... XDXDXDD!!!! That was hilarious. BTW, GOOD LUCK AT THE GOLD MATCH TODAY JINNY!!! During lunch I got to talk with Heather some too, and Joo. If I just had Ray and Caro there, then it'd be all of my favorite lunch people!

XC practice was great! A pretty moderate run at a little over four miles, and I kept up with Natalie and Tammy (and Vanessa for a liiiittle bit :P). One really horrible thing: Holly hurt herself again. I'm praying that it's not as serious as before.. that girl works herself so hard; God needs to give her a break!

After XC was a lot better though. Details on the Stanford trip, plans for pasta tomorrow, and then... the car ride home with Holly and Alex. The topic of discussion: politics. Oh. My. God. XD Holly and Alex have the complete opposite views of me for politics in general, so there was a LOT of shouting, hehe. Well me and Alex did the screaming, of course, because Holly's more refined and not as hot-headed :P

It started up with the typical liberal appetizer of how Bush "is an idiot" (*siiiigh*) and other wonderful stererotypes about conservatives, and then we moved on to education reforms and finally started screaming about Iraq. Due to the discussion, I almost crashed during a couple of left turns (whoa, left turns? just noticed the unintentional symbolism there). Oops :P

(A general analysis of that little venture found here)

And regardless of political affiliation, doesn't this just break your heart? Poor thing. Look at the face on the dad, and then that asshole next to him who's laughing. Hat tip (and a nice take on it) goes to Allah.

After this morning's 5-hour-long cross country meet in the rain, wind, and bitter cold, I came home and I could not get warm. It was one of those weird and horrible situations where the cold kind of nests into your bones and refuses to leave. Now I'm changed into three layers of sweatshirts, two pairs of socks, and a pair of sweats over my jeans in an attempt to warm up. I feel sort of like a big fat marshmellow, and I know I look ridiculous in this choice apparel, but hey, it's working!

It's weird though -- the warmth from the multiple layers of clothing is very similar to that of my bed, so whenever I stop moving, I start going right to sleep! Even now as I'm typing this, I'm nodding off. Geez I'm exhausted.

Oh wow, from Thursday, September 23rd at about 10 am to Saturday, September 5th at 7 pm, I was in California, preparing and participating in the Stanford Cross Country Invitational! It was. So. Incredibly. Fun. This was probably the most fun I've ever had on a school trip, ever.

The Rundown: Day One
(ps: the pun on RUN is very much intended)

- Picked up by the gracious and wonderful Mr. Nicole's Dad at Tammy's house at about 4:50 am, talked and babbled the entire car ride there
- Plane ride to Cali -- relaxing!
- Rented three vans; we got the semi-cool van! (mangrum got the really nice one :/ but salzman got the sucky one!) Our van-troop consisted of: Ms. Zaring, Tammy, Emi, Nora, Adrienne, Nicole, and me!
- Raced w/ vans on the San Fran highway XD hilarious-- mangrum speeds SO much! but we beat them most of the time at least :P
- At 12:30ish, the following conversation took place:
boys in mangrum's van: "mangrum, we're hungry. let's eat lunch."
mangrum: "naaah I'm not too bad-- let's run!"
*everyone drives to Golden Gate Park*
*two seconds into the run* Mangrum: "hmm, I'm hungry"
- After the run (at like, 2 pm T_T) we hit Fisherman's Wharf in San Francisco for lunch. Me and April went to Subway and then the seaside and then Ghiradelli Square (who gave us free caramel chocolate squares!!) I had a GREAT time bonding with her! :D:D
- Went to our ghetto motel (Palo Alto Travelodge), with roommates Tammy and April~ and our rooms were connected to Morgan, Nicole, and Kaori (AWESOME GROUP!!)
- Morgan's room had an extra "kids" annex that was haunted and haunting
- I got to sleep in this incredibly creepy "Roly-Bed" with diseased yellow woolen blankets, so I used the haunted teddy bear blankets instead
- Phone calls around 6 pm -- called home and Bento! :D
- Went out as a team to Olive Garden (AHHH so expensive) and ate something w/ chicken, hehe. Dinner group: April, Kaori, Morgan! Morgan's finger thing was hilarious XD And we pretended it was Mangrum's birthday and he got an ice cream (which michael z immediately started devouring XDXD!)
- Went to grocery store and got fruit, bagels and cream cheese
- Back to motel, made more phone calls.. jinny and meg this time!
- Played a charades-like game w/ most of the team. My team: Emi, Adrienne, Chase, April, Sean, Ben, Salzman, Mangrum, and me. SO much fun!
- Studied outside on the balcany with Tammy...
- Slept!

The Rundown: Day Two
- Woke up to find over ten baby ANTS crawling out of the hole in the bathroom sink -- it was completely disgusting! X__X
- Ate breakfast and went to Stanford... to run.
- Explored the campus with Tammy during our run-- it's absolutely beautiful! I love it.
- Went to campus bookstore and bought a red Stanford sweatshirt! Kid-sized, because the women's were $45-50 while kids were "only" $30-some. Uhh, only one problem: I only had 43 dollars to spare, and the shirt cost (tax included) $32-something XD I had to make the decision: some overpriced piece of sewn red cloth, or food for two days? ...I chose the cloth of course.
- Ate lunch at motel (I mooched for food, hehe) then drove to Alcatraz. Had a great political discussion in the van! Although Nicole and (I think) Tammy fell asleep :P At least me, Nora, Emi, and Adrienne were into it! Nora = Dem, Emi and me = Repub, Adrienne = Independent w/ Conservative Leaning. It was civilized, yet so highly entertaining!
- Reached Alcatraz. Beautiful boat ride there, and a very interesting experience. Sometimes it got a little dull, but the stories were incredible. The most interesting places were off-limits though :/
- Went back to Fisherman's Wharf-- didn't have time for Chinatown! :(! I was so sad. But me and Tammy had a great time exploring! Creepy people in San Francisco, but good fun. And when it got too creepy, we found the XC boys and followed them
- Chase dropped two coffee mugs off of a display and breaks one of them; I didn't know he broke it, so when the storekeep came by to kill him I insisted that he didn't break it and he got off the hook XD whoops
- Back at home... made phone calls, jumped on the bed, ate lots, and talked with my roomies :)

The Rundown: Day Three
- RACE DAY! Packed, prepped, and raced... had some wonderful inspirational speeches and musical packages from Holly and Gloria ;.; I was so touched! I truly felt like an XC family
- Long day of racing... Close to 200 high schools from across the USA. People are freakin' fast too. I was so greatful to run JV! Shorter course (3k), less hills, AND I beat approx. 10 people, heck YEAH
- This one high school in orange had a REALLY hot guys' team *grins*
- Nike gave out free dogtags, posters, and stickers-- including one that says "I believe in cross country." Is that not hilarious?? Apparently everyone else says that it's not. But I found it hysterical -- and it's on my car right now!
- Wow I ate a lot that day, hehe
- Post-race, went to the airport, I ALMOST forgot my return ticket in the bathroom, geez
- On the plane, we were such a team! hehe. We started cheering at everything... the introduction of the pilot, when we were about to take off, everything.
- I started the entire plane doing the wave XD then Cap'n Mike led the XC kids in the Hand Jive! (ben did drums)
- Airplane pillow wars with Mangrum = beyond hilarious
- Cool male stewardess who kept giving the coaches cool SW Airlines crap! Including coloring books, playing cards, and pens.
- Arrived home at about 10:30 pm, messed w/ my cell phone, then slept.

OVERALL: It was a long trip, and I had and have tons of make-up schoolwork, but worth it in every which way. Tons of memories. Can't wait until Tammy posts her digicam pics; she took over 400 in less than three days, literally!

You Should Vote For Bush

(You May Want to Hide This From Your Left-y Blogger Friends)

(A short, self-explanatory post for those too lazy to read the one before it)

It's crazy how much your body controls your mind. It's kind of funny when you think about it: I have a ton of worries and concerns about school and college, I'm going through possibly the craziest class situation ever experienced by a high school student, I'm thinking about getting a job, I've been reading more (for both fun and school) than I have ever in the last few weeks, I've been finding some hilarious gossip relating to my social circle, there's been great news in the campaign world, and there's just so much that is happening in my world as of this very second.

And yet, all I can think or write about is how much my legs hurt from cross-country practice today.