Faith, Science, and Reason continued

I haven't posted in a few days, but don't worry, I haven't forgotten you. 

Recently, Pope Francis stated that it looks like, from all the scientific evidence we have, evolution and the big bang theory are the most likely thing that happened at creation. People got really angry at this, Oh those Catholics aren't who they say they are, they're going against what the Bible says, blah blah blah, etc. 

One that sticks in my head is Catholics no longer teach creationism. 

Well guess what: 

We never have. 

*gasp* 

But seriously, I've mentioned this in a previous post. Genesis isn't supposed to tell us how God created, it's there to tell us why God created. 

Genesis is not a science textbook! 

All those people who think that Catholics can't believe in evolution or the big bang theory are wrong!!!! Faith and science go together (yes, they do). If God made the world with the big bang, fine then. Great. Genesis is there to explain why God created the world. Faith is open to science, believe it or not, because without faith we wouldn't have science! Faith is the mother of science! Science is the one that is not open to faith. 

Mostly. 
A lot of the time. 
There are some exceptions. 
But thats beside the point. 

So IN CONCLUSION, Catholics do NOT NOT NOT teach creationism. 

There. 
Sorted. 
I think I'm done. 

I really want tea. And rain. And a good book. My library card is still on hold, I guess you could say. 

*sigh* 


--Abby

Pumpkin Extravaganza!

Today was just pumpkins pumpkins pumpkins. There's this place right near our house and around Halloween they sell pumpkins and near Christmas they sell Christmas trees. So today we went down there in search of two pumpkins eligible to compete in our annual pumpkin carving competition. 

They also have games and a ton of those cuttout thingies you put you face into... What are those called? 

Anywho, I took pictures! 

Here's Penguin in the bearded lady thing. I love his face... 

Blaze is freaking me out in this pic, but it's my fault for telling him to do a scary face. 

So we came home and had our little competition we have every year. The teams are me and Mary Rose versus Blaze and Penguin. 

The outcome? 

... 

Supercalafragulisticexpialidotious!! 

Mine and Mary Rose's 

Blaze and Penguin's  

Our masterpieces! Aren't they pretty? 

Oh and for all those who are looking for an easier way to get all the gunk out of a pumpkin, (other than sticking your bare hand in there)(which Penguin did do)(gross) put a plastic bag around your hand. 

I know. Genius. 

--Abby 

HMS Pinafore continued, essence and all

Hello peoples! 

As you probably can tell, I've changed the background. That rose was starting to bug me. It would stare into my soul all dramatically and give me the evil eye... No, it wouldn't do at all. This is much better. And happier. Blue and turquoise are such nice colors. 

We're writing sonnets in English and I haven't started mine yet. I'm not even sure yet what I should write about. If you have any ideas for me, let me know in the comments section :). 

I'm a shy person by nature. I can't even order pizza without cringing and passing the phone off to someone else (Those poor Dominos guys...They probably get so confused). And yet, I'm trying out for the school play, HMS Pinafore, which I mentioned in the last post. 
I was going to try out for Buttercup and then I realized that she's supposed to be rather large and I'm rather not-large. Plus she has a lot of solos and I'm not sure if I would be able to do that. So I've decided to stick with the chorus and be a background person, one of those faces that people see but never remember. I'm good with that. 

And now I know what to write my sonnet on. XD 


I've been reading the script and its not like I wont have any lines at ALL. Theres a lot of singing, a few speaking roles, and a lot of moving around doing this and that. I'm really excited for it actually. I've done multiple plays in my life time, but this is the first comedy-- No thats a lie. My seventh grade play could definitely be considered a comedy. 

Voila! 

I can't wait for auditions!! 

--Abby

I have essence problems.

I wish I could do NaNoWriMo, but I have a feeling that if I try I would never get farther than 1,000 words at best. School is sucking up my very essence and I don't like it. 
But education is such a wonderful thing and you should be grateful that you get to learn all these amazing things and some kids never finish high school at all or don't get any education whatsoever... 
Yes, I know and I really am lucky for an opportunity to go to such a great school and I'm sure that once I hit college I'll look back on these days and be grateful. But I happen to like my essence right where it is thankyouverymuch. 

So. HMS Pinafore. Another thing that's sucking up my essence. 

HMS Pinafore is a play that my school is putting on this year. The high school is putting it on which includes yours truly. Basically, the play is a comedy about a boat. 

Wow. Theres a sentence thats never been spoken before. 

Ok, so theres a captain of a ship, the HMS Pinafore (where do they come up with these boat names??) and his daughter is in love with one of the crew members. But her father wants her to marry this other rich guy. So then, the crew member and the daughter dramatically declare their undying love for each other and plan to *cough* run away together. The father finds out and refuses to let her do this. And THEN a lady named Buttercup comes on who has a "dark secret" and her "dark secret" is revealed which turns the whole play upside down. Then the Hulk leaps onto the stage and... 

Ok, never mind the last part. 

I'm actually pretty excited, I've never done a play like this before. Of course, naturally the older kids get the fun parts, so I'm going to be in the chorus. Which is fine! I'm perfectly happy to have my essence sucked up while singing with twenty other kids. 

{Omigosh, I need to let my essence be sucked up and be DONE with it already!!! }

And now, I shall get excited about Magnus Chase and the gods of Asgard. 

Magnus CHASE. Do you know what this means????? Annabeth is somehow related to this Magnus character and perhaps Percy will live on!!! I'm sorry, but I love Percy too much, he can't simply be DONE WITH. 

And my books to read list grows longer still. 

Until next time, when Abby shall loose it completely. 

--Abby

I made Love seem evil. Mea culpa.

Alright I told you I had a story I was going to post. I hope you like it! The ending is a little bit unfinished, but I couldn't figure out a way to end it. The story in general is a little dark. I apologize. In English we're reading The Four Loves by C.S. Lewis and I guess that kinda gave me the idea, but I'm not sure where the darkness came from. 

One more thing: My artwork I promised to post is... coming along. Its taking longer than expected and I'm wondering if I should post it at all. I'm not good at drawing on screens... 

Ok, here we go: 

   He paced back and forth in the grand room, fire heating up in the back of his throught. Where was she? She had said twelve noon. The small table was perfectly set up; the tablecloth spotless, the china sparkling white and blue. 
   The fire kept building. He growled, "Where is she? She promised to be here!" His eyes sparkled like a mad man's when double crossed. 
   He was about to give up and leave when the door opened. A little girl, no more than five by appearance, walked in. "You weren't about to give up, were you? Anger is not one to give up so easily." 
   He looked at this little girl. "You couldn't be the one I am waiting for. She is not so innocent." 
   The little girl smiled. "But Love can be very inncocent. I believe you are waiting for my other form." 
   The girl changed into an older woman, young, but older. She was dressed in an orange outfit and her hands were connected by handcuffs. 
   She sighed, "Love is not always so innocent. Love can rip people apart. Sometimes, Love can be even more destructive than Anger, don't you think?" 
   She smiled teasingly. 
   His fire turned to a nuclear explosion.He screamed and kicked the beautiful tea table over. 
   "Now, now," she chided, "You're too obvious. That's your problem." She sat down in a chair nest to the overturned table and sipped a cup of tea. "Love is surprising. Love destroys silently." 
   "Who are you?" he breathed. 
   She shrugged. "I go by many names. I am Agape, to some. Eros, to others. To the little ones I am Philia. Or Storge. But how are you to know? Anger is never one to know who Love is." 
   He breathed slowly. This girl had come late, insulted him, and acted as though she didn't care. 
   "That's right," she said, a mischievous twinkle in her eye. "Love has no cares. Love will make or break you life and move on, never again thinking of it." 
   Had she read his thought?  

OK OK OK I KNOW I'M SORRY I'M REALLY SORRY LOVE ISN'T EVIL I WAS BEING WEIRD THAT DAY!!! Love is actually an amazing thing and now you should forget that I made Love seem horrible. 

I really like capitalizing words that usually aren't capitalized to make them seem like people, like Love and Anger for example. I don't know why. I'm crazy. 

Tonight is the school Oktoberfest. Oktoberfest is one of my favorite school events , so I'm pretty excited. Plus I now have a newfound knowledge of German food from International day. 

Au revoir! (I really like French, even though I only know a little) 

--Abby

"In the beginning God created philosophical thoughts... And God saw that it was good"

Ever have those days where all you want to do is sit down and listen to the rain for hours on end? I feel like that now. All I need is some rain and I could seriously stay locked up in my room for a few hours listening to the rain and reading. Writing. No, maybe thinking. I do a lot of thinking. Not many philosophical thoughts though, mainly creating a little fantasy worlds in my head... 

In science, we had a long, intense conversation about God. Yes, yes, I know what you're thinking; science class not theology class...  It's actually more of a faith, science, and reason class. At least, that's what it says on the cover of our textbooks; Faith, Science, and Reason. 

The big question was about Genesis. There's two creation stories in Genesis. How can both be true? And if only one is true, why would God include the other? Isn't that a lie? 

NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO!!!!! NO!!! 

To be precise, there are 39 creation stories in the Bible and they range from "In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth..." to "In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God..." Why did God make so many creation stories? Why doesn't he tell us how the earth was actually created so we don't have all these arguments between the scientific creationist and the scientists and those who believe in the big bang theory etc.? Other things in Genesis have been proven to be true, so why can't the same be said for the creation story? We can't prove if man was made first like in Genesis 2 or if man was made last like in Genesis 1. 

(Didn't I say that this science class was a brain stretcher?) 

God can do anything. The point of these stories aren't to explain scientifically how the world was made. They are there to prove that God can do things like this! That he is good, perfect, loving, merciful, powerful, etc. 

Maybe all 39 of them happened. That is an option. Maybe God is simply putting the story in a way that we can understand with our finite minds. 

It's hard for me to put this into the right words. We'll have to ask God about this when we meet him I guess. 

I wrote a story about Love and Anger. Its pretty cool actually. When I have more time I'll put it up here. I also have a poem I'm going to write that I'll post when I'm done. 

Blaze wants me to help him clean so we don't have to do it tomorrow. Thinking ahead... 

--Abby

Rick Riordan is dead to me

(Certain people will understand the title more than others) 

Rick Riordan is doing this Blood of Olympus tour and one of his shows happened to be near where I live. My friend told me about it a month or so ago and we made plans to get tickets. Well, we got the tickets, but were unable to get the ones that guaranteed seats. So the day finally comes, we're all excited, we get there and theres like 1000 people there. We go and stand in the line of people who have "stand by" tickets. 

And we stand. 

And we wait. For an hour. 

And we watch the people in the "guaranteed seats" line slowly file into the auditorium. We're praying that was get in, we're nervously shaking each other going, "WE MUST GET IN!!!!" 

And FINALLY our line starts slowly filing in. We were fairly close to the front and when we heard them announce that they would take fifty people from our line we were determined that we would be getting in, even if it was only standing room. 

So we walk slowly forward until we're right in front of the doors and the guy in charge (with his fancy microphone and his fancy accent)(I think it was an accent)(it wasn't normal American speaking) cuts us off and says, "Sorry, we are at our full capacity. There are too many bodies in the auditorium already." 

ARE YOU SERIOUS???? WE WAITED A MONTH AND THEN WE WAITED AN HOUR IN LINE SO WE COULD BE TOLD THAT THERE'S TOO MANY "BODIES" IN THERE? 

We were only a bunch of bodies to him. No hearts, souls, or feelings. We were bodies that he could simply shoo away and go home content with himself and check us off his to-do list. 

That could be my pain talking.... 

It worked out though. We went and got ice cream and had a fun time anyways, making fun of that microphone guy who cut us off and spurting out the comment to our imaginary Rick Riordan: So how does it feel to be dead to me?  

Even when something horrible like this happens, you have friends there to laugh with XD. 

This morning I woke up at 5:55 A.M. because the pro-life club at school was going to the LIFEsocal event down by Long Beach. It was a LONG drive, but we got there and it was worth it. 

There were 5,000 kids there, Catholic schools from all over. It was crazy when we got there! We found our seats, eventually, and tried to hear each other over the noise, which was deafening. And then, of course, everyone started screaming even louder when the celebrities came on for the game show at the beginning: David Henrie, a model (I forget her name, I think it was Britney something...), someone I've never heard of and can't remember his name, and of course, a high school senior from our school! Somehow she got picked to compete in it! How cool is that?? 

The speeches were awesome. Immaculee Ilibagiza gave a speech. Her story is amazing! She survived the genocide in her country hiding in a tiny bathroom with seven other people for three months! She's awesome! 

Ta-ta! 

--Abby

In which Penguin has no self-consciousness at all

Bonjour! I have returned for only a quick visit, I'm waiting for Blaze to be done with his piano lesson so I can have mine and I decided to pop in and post. 

My amazing grandparents hath come! They're staying for a few weeks, and their visits are always really fun. Saturday, for example, we spent the entire day swimming. Today we went bowling (we being me, my grandpa, Blaze, Penguin, and Mary Rose). Penguin hadn't been thrilled to go bowling, he complained that he just won so much he got bored. It ended up happening, and yes, he won. (I won the second round. Yay me!) 

Penguin is a child to be admired. He hardly ever gets embarrassed over the things I get embarrassed about. For example, we spent most of the morning out and about, going to Target for halloween costumes, bowling, and going out for lunch, and he (I love this) spent the whole time in his pajama pants. He went to TARGET in his flannel PJ pants! And a RESTAURANT! And to the BOWLING PLACE! And NO ONE looked twice. He's so confident and awesome and boss like that. He doesn't worry about what others are thinking about him. Mostly. Sometimes he.... never mind. 

But seriously, flannel PJ pants with blue and grey wolves on them. Why can't I have that kind of confidence?? 

Mary Rose has started taking piano lessons with us. She's only seven and doesn't really know how to read, but still she's doing pretty well! 

I know this was a short post, but Blaze's piano lesson is about to be over. I have a feeling I'll be posting again tomorrow, as it's going to be an interesting day... 

OH before I go, I want you all to know that I wrote a pretty cool story and I'm dying to share it with you but now isn't the time. 

Adieu! 

--Abby

International day and other stuff

Today was international day at school. Each class was given a country and we had to dress up like they do in that country and also prepare a feast. 9th grade was Germany. I know close to nothing about Germany. Well, I used to. Now I know that 

1) Germany is famous for their cakes

2) They have the best beer (...) 

3) They like meats

4) The men tend to brag about how much beer they can drink at once 

5) Germany is WAAAY less chaotic than my class XD 

Ok, so Germany is actually a pretty cool country and the above isn't all I learned. But we were doing a lot of preparation for the feast so I learned a lot about their food. 

We all showed up at school in costume and omigoodness, we are a bunch of weirdos. A good bunch of weirdos. XD A lot of the costumes were amazing! Mine was underwhelming... For the feast itself, each country got its own table and you decorate it and stuff. We decorated ours to look like a German bar, steins of rootbeer included. Plus bratwurst, sauerkraut, potato salad, rolls, German chocolate cake, black forest cake, etc. For our entertainment, we held a contest for the teachers: who could chug a whole stein of rootbeer in the least amount of time. Basically, this consisted of multiple teachers drinking rootbeer at a speed that shouldn't be humanly possible while we stand around screaming "CHUG! CHUG! CHUG!" and cheering. 

Yeah. 

Ok. 

It was actually kinda fun. The food itself was really good! I'm not a fan of sausage, but I have to admit, the bratwurst was pretty awesome. 

So thats international day. On to other things. 

Tonight my siblings and I watched Kung Fu Panda which we haven't done in like a billion years. Why are the villains the most awesome people in movies? Seriously, Tai Lung is so boss in the scene where he escapes prison. If he had been good, he would be so AWESOME. No, scratch that... If he had been good he would have been too perfect. 

But the story itself is actually really cool. The whole theme about being yourself even if "yourself" isn't what others want to see. Sometimes you wish you could add a "secret ingredient" to make yourself even better. 

But, there often isn't a secret ingredient. Its only you. And nobody else out there can be you better than you can

Ok, I need sleep. 

--Abby

Excuse me while I faint from excitement

HOLY COW PEOPLE THE BLOOD OF OLYMPUS CAME OUT TODAY I'M SO EXCITED!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! 

My friend Tessa went to Barnes and Noble ALREADY and could be reading it AS WE SPEAK. TYPE. WHATEVER. 
And yes, Tessa, I shall be borrowing it from you when you are done because thats what friends are for. XD 

THE LAST HEROES OF OLYMPUS BOOK EVER IS OUT AND PEOPLE ARE READING IT. 

Let me rephrase that. 

THE LAST PERCY JACKSON BOOK EVER IS OUT AND PEOPLE ARE READING IT!! 
THE LAST ONE! 
EVER! 

I'm going to go fangirl now. 

KSNLVEHRBKWFRNEIFOHUNRQ3UGHFNCHRGBFHVYHDGHFNHCEKSGAFNUCFHDSGBCDHNERUIFGHENRFGCNEHXKBDFNHSKAFBNCHFDSBFCNHDSFNCHDSBFNCHDSBFN!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! 

Oh, Percy, we've had some good times. The time you fought Medusa. The time you said hi to the pink poodle. The time you saved Mt. Olympus. The time you almost died. The time you and Frank got stuck in that fish tank. The time you lost your memory. The time you got your memory back. The time you almost died. Again. But this time it was in Tartarus so it was like MEGA almost died. 

And now its almost over. Over these ten books I made some awesome fictional friends. And enemies (I don't particularly care for Frank, thankyouverymuch). And I shall reread every book. A million times. And then another ten times, just because that how awesome these books are. 

I need to stop talking about it. 

Now, for all you who don't already know: 

Risk; the new Monopoly. 

Blaze and Penguin got Risk yesterday and the three of us started a game last night. Our team names (be prepared to gain a newfound respect for my talent of naming stuff): 

Blaze: The Rebels (red) 
Penguin: The Crusaders (green) 
Moi: The Bloody Waters of the Frozen Wasteland Filled With Butterflies and Rainbows (BLUE!) 

Within the first five minutes, I had all of Europe, Penguin had all of South America, and Blaze  had all of the Australia/New Guinea/Indonesia area. All I really cared about was getting Europe 'cause Europe has FRANCE. And ITALY. 
The game is still going on. 

School has been sucking up my life. Plus all the other stuff I'm doing: Piano, art, aerial, drama (possibly), confirmation class, and service hours (which I haven't started yet, but I seriously need to...) 
It may not seem like much, but its a lot if you think about it. I also need time to read, write, draw, sleep, and eat. Oh, and breath. Can't forget to breath... 


--Abby

Jog-a-thon

My school picked the worst day possible for a jog-a-thon. 

That's right. I ran almost five miles before lunch today. And then I ate Chick-Fil-A. And then I felt like throwing up. In this heat.

So we get to the park and its already heating up. They always have a table with bagels, muffins, water, lemonade, etc. I knew if I ate/drank something sugary I wouldn't make it through the jog-a-thon so all I had was water. EVEN SO I just barely made it. I was running with some friends and twice I said, "I'm gonna stop for a sec, I feel nauseous." 

IT WAS REALLY PATHETIC. I ONLY RAN 25 LAPS AND YET I FELT HORRIBLE. 

I'm a mess. I can't run. 

Blaze, however, ran 48 laps. And Penguin ran 30. 

After, everyone was sprawled out on the grass breathing slowly or running around the playground when they brought out--

drumroll, please

*drumroll* 

THE CHICK-FIL-A COW! 

It was girl, weirdly. Isn't it usually a boy? It had a pink shirt and a bow and stuff... Anyway, if you've never had a chicken sandwich from Chick-Fil-A, SHAME! MEGA-SHAME! YOU'RE MISSING OUT! It's like a little piece of Heaven has taken the form of chicken deliciousness and landed in your hands. They're so good!!!!! 

After that, some kids from my class and I sat on the grass and entertained ourselves with those mini cows they hand out and sang random songs. 

As soon as I got home, I kicked off my shoes and collapsed on my bed and just breathed... Until my mom said I had to go to my orthodontist appointment. I couldn't bring myself to get up. I could've spent an hour just laying on my bed and relaxing my tired feet. Finally I said to myself, Abby, you have to move now. I moved my leg over an inch. 

There, I moved. 

I have a couple stories I'm working on, but I'm too tired right now to work on them. I'll be back when I'm not dragging myself around and then collapsing anymore.

--Abby

Where's my rain?????????

Alrighty, people. I have a lot to say, so get comfortable. (I recommend a blanket and a cup of tea.) 

Today was a rather interesting day. First of all, I'd like to welcome our new guests: the Santa Anna winds and 90 degree weather. 
*opens door and welcomes guests* 
*secretly wishes guests would leave* 
IT WAS SO HOT. AND WINDY. AND DRY. I HATE IT. MY LIPS WERE CHAPPED ALL DAY. 

And its going to be even HOTTER tomorrow. The weather channel said it would rain today. Lies.

Besides that, in Latin we made a treasure hunt for the 10th grade Latin class. We made clues in Latin and they had to find them and translate them to find the grand prize: a large tray of homemade cookies! (I ate some too. I think I ate too many.) Anyways, it was fun, even if we had to run around campus in that wind/heat. At one point, my friend, her sister, who was in the treasure hunt, and I were walking towards the classroom where the grand prize was and neither I nor my friend realized it until we were at the threshold. My friend (I'm tired of calling "my friend". She shall henceforth be known as Rene) kinda blocked her sister and looked at me like ABBY! I, being me, didn't understand until Rene mouthed She's gonna see the cookies! Then I had a lightbulb moment and (finally) understood and said something like, "Uhhh, Rosie come here, I want to show you something!" 
As my science teacher says, one day my brain will kick in and then I'll be really dangerous. XD 

For Pro-Life Club, we're doing this thing where we adopt an unborn baby who's in danger of being aborted. We name it (theres a little certificate and everything!) and pray for him/her every day for the next nine months. Mine is a boy, I decided, and I named him Felix. HOW ADORABLE IS THAT. 
You don't have to be in the Pro-Life Club to do this, you know. You could adopt a baby of your own. Its really helpful and could save a life. 
Or you could help me pray for Felix. That's good too. 

I'm working on some drawings. I'll share them with you when they're presentable. 

{It's going to be sooooooooooooooo hot tomorrow........} 

--Abby