The Treffen has come and gone.  I'm ridiculously sad and have no idea what in the world I'm supposed to do over Labor Day weekend.  Phili 2010 was incredible, and I loved every minute of it.  From getting yodelled at in the mall to sweating off ten pounds in a day from the heat to nights that no one can remember, this year is currently tied for the best trachtenfest ever [Detroit 2009].

What makes these events so amazing is the people.  When you meet people through sports, school, church, or something of the like, your relationships are always conditional to your interest in the sport, your attendance at the school, your belief in the church.  You can't quit where you come from.  The schwobs are connected by an element of ourselves that will never change, and therefore our friendships with one another will never change.  These are the epitome of life-long friendships.  These are the very definition of friends-turned-family.  These are people that are like you in a way that no one else can be.  The people I've met over the Labor Day are the best I've ever known, and they're all people I consider as close as family to me.  I mean, seriously, who else is going to run around in a dirndl/livel dancing a polka with you under a tent, or march in with you in the ridiculous heat and pretend to listen to the speakers switching between English and Schwobish at random intervals, or spill beer on your face as you take shots from a ceramic chicken?  Honestly.

Long story short, I'm counting down the days until Mansfield 2011.  Ich bin ein Schwob!

Oh yeah, ten days until school starts.
1st - A/V Production (probably dropping for an off period)
2nd - Psychology AP
3rd - Stats AP
4th - LUNCH
5th - Bio II AP
6th - English IV AP
7th - Macro Eco/Gov AP
8th - German IV AP
My life will be spent in the library at school.  And have I mentioned I'm not close to done with summer reading?

So I just got home from the best weekend of my entire life.  I can't even begin to explain how Teen ACTS 2010 has completely and utterly changed my entire perspective on humanity, faith, and God Himself.  It was a beautiful experience that blew my mind.

Because it's an ACTS retreat, I can't recap what exactly we did on the retreat.  What I can talk about is how I felt going in and how I feel now that I'm out.  I went into the retreat really broken.  I was desperately clinging to God, but I was also selfishly clinging to what I thought would make me happy.  Before the retreat, I would describe myself as a serial dater, always in one relationship or another.  I was using other people, drawing out there pain, in order to make myself feel better.  I failed to see what would be best for those around me and only saw what would, I mistakenly thought, would enrich my life.  I was so confused.  I wanted to move on, but I couldn't without hurting someone.  I wanted to make one person happy, but I was hiding behind this veil where I didn't have to take the blame for my own decisions. 

This weekend has opened me up to a lot of truths about the Lord my God and about myself.  I saw the real reason behind my own decisions and was blessed with the strength to finally stand behind them and present them to the world.  I was blessed enough to see the beauty that lies in the souls of people truly encompassed in their love of God and how that beauty allows them to purely love other people.  I have learned that I do not need a relationship to escape feeling alone in this life, for I have a fabulous network of friends-turned-family and Almight God to lift up my heart.  My brokeness has been made whole by the power of the Holy Spirit, and there is nothing to fear.

If you've never experienced an ACTS retreat before, you just have to.  It will radically change everything in your life.  I love my ACTS family, and I can't say thank you enough to everyone that made this retreat possible.  God is good, all the time, all the time, God is good!  Amen!

So this week has been insane.  Absolutely a whirlwind or emotions and events.

It is with an extremely heavy heart that I relay the passing of Matt McKenzie, a senior football player at O'Connor.  I can't say that I was particularly close to Matt, but I knew him.  Matt's death impacted everyone in the community, no matter how well you knew him or did not know him, because that could have been any one of us.  I was out driving on Sunday night, my boyfriend was out driving on Sunday night, countless numbers of my friends were out driving on Sunday night.  Matt was driving home from his girlfriend's, not doing anything particularly out of the ordinary.  Any one of us could have lost control.  Now one of us is missing, gone Home to be with his Father, and that is a severe reality check.  I pray to the Lord that He keeps Matt as close to His Heart as he was to all of ours, and I pray for peace to come to his friends and family, especially tonight and tomorrow for the viewing and funeral.  I can only imagine what it's like for Matt's close friends, for the O'Connor football team, and for his family and girlfriend.  I am so sorry, all of you, for your loss, and please let me know if there is anything I can personally do for you in addition to my prayers.

On a different note, I just got home from a trip back home to good old north Georgia for a combination of a heart procedure [which I will not dwell on because of my positive thinking practice, but it did go extremely well] and my cousin's Confirmation.  In addition to these, I got to spend time with some of my best friends from back home, which was absolutely amazing.  I miss those kids so much, it's ridiculous, but I got to catch up on their lives somewhat and made some plans to hopefully go back during the summer to hang some more.  My cousin's Confirmation also rocked, because I got to celebrate the Holy Mass with Archbishop of the Archdiocese of Atlanta, Wilton Gregory.  He's so cool!  Oh, and my mommy was Kristen's sponsor :D  But after all is said and done, it was a fabulous time with my family that I haven't seen in a very long time, and I wish I could do that more often.  Final words: Chase got freaking tall, Josie grew up (!), Brendan and Colin got cuter, if that was possible, Ryan's still funny as hay-uhl, Kristen looked hot in her dress, I met Kevin's girlfriend, and I am probably going to get strep because I refused to stay away from Brendan.  Good times!

Lifeteen rocked tonight, even though I was super late because I had just got home from the airport.  Adoration was beautiful, and there were not many, if any, dry eyes in the room.  Our God is so incredibly awesome, and the fact that we had artifacts from St. Thomas Aquinas and St. Agnus to help us in asking those saints to pray for us made the night that much cooler.  Although the guy next to me did laugh while I cried...oh well.

I've been reading like a fiend lately, since TAKS was this week [by the way, because of the Georgia trip, I have to make up my Social Studies TAKS in July.  fabulous.].  I should probably be reading now, as I'm supposed to be finished with A Prayer for Owen Meany already.  Oops.

AP testing starts this week with US History on Friday!  AHHH!!!  I'm nervous, but after this, it's smooth sailing the rest of the year.  Yeah buddy!

UIL OAP State Competition is this coming weekend!  Holy cow, I'm so excited!!!

I'm going to go take a bath and read my book some more.  Goodnight, and good luck!