Home, Sweet Home

I know I promised a post about Relay for Life, and although it was only five or six days ago, I hardly remember anything about it, other than that nobody on my team stayed the full 24 hours. Altogether, we probably just did 11 hours, but it's okay. It turned out considerably better than any of us had bitterly expected; in fact, it was even quite fun albeit the sunburn. Everybody got the t-shirt, too. And you know me. I love "free" event t-shirts. My stacks of such shirts just keep growing, and I do not mind it one bit.

While putting on my retainers a few moments ago, I realized how many times I have recounted my whole third-grade best-friend experience and its impact on me. But then I remembered a friend I had met in seventh grade (and she was in eighth grade). We didn't start talking until around May, when we were put in the same group in orchestra. I didn't even know her name until then, actually. Now that I reflect on it, I'm so glad we were in the same group, because we became the closest of friends. Every day, we wrote notes to one another (despite seeing each other in orchestra anyway) and talked for hours on the phone or on AIM. It seemed that we could never run out of things to talk about or tell each other. And then she went off to high school, and I was sad. We kept talking sparsely for a while thereafter, and nowadays, our contact consists of yearly birthday wishes on Facebook. It's weird to have a conversation because, well, it never actually gets formulated despite (awkward) initiation. In any case, I'm not complaining, because at least we still remember and acknowledge one another.

Undeniably, this was one of the reasons I loved middle school so much. Because I made such a great friend so quickly. Via our extremely long conversations and our handwritten notes, I matured in a way that I didn't fully recognize until I hit eighth grade. I truly appreciated that friendship as well as every other friendship I have.

Gosh, friendship makes the downs in life so much more bearable and the ups in life so much more beautiful.

In any case, I still have the notes we wrote as well as the birthday gift she gave me during my winter orchestra performance in eighth grade (she had come back to watch the concert!). I wonder if she will read this.

Connecting that story to the third grade heartbreak one, I now recognize that after all, not all is lost. So many times, I have come so close to having another "best friend," and this indicates that although one may not last, there's always time and room for another. I just have to open my heart to it. However, I would rather have a plethora of extremely close friends than just one best friend, because my heart has so much room for friendship. But you'd better hurry up, because the space is filling up fast! Haha, just kidding... :)

Geez, I am so cheesy! But don't get me wrong; that was sincere.

If I were actually doing what I had planned to do, I would be finishing up my second English paper right about now. But I foppishly deviated from the plan and watched NigaHiga videos on YouTube instead. And now here I am, blogging because I felt the need to write but didn't want to write a paper. And because it's been a full week since I last blogged! Oh, my.

I'm actually running out of worthy-of-your-time and worthy-of-my-sleep things to say now. So my conclusion tonight is:

Boy, am I glad to be at home! I finally get to sleep in my own (purple!) bed, yay.