The Linkin Park Concert

Last Monday I went to a Linkin Park concert. I had been wanting to go to it for a long time but I couldn't find a way to do it because t he tickets were really expensive and it was all the way in Sacramento. Then I got an email from Music For Relief asking for volunteers for the concerts so I jumped on the opportunity and emailed back saying I could. After I emailed saying I could I asked my Bestemom if I could do it (our family is big on volunteering so I thought she'd probably say yes) and she said that if they had me volunteer I could go. The next day I got the reply saying that I was one of the 6 volunteers. That all happened like 3 weeks before the concert. Then the day before the concert I got a phone call to confirm that I was still able to do it. So the next day I went to the ARCO arena in Sacramento where the concert was going to be. I had to be early because I had to help out with setup. I thought it was so cool to be there and I even got to go in through the security entrance. The setting up was easy. Once the doors were opened we would talk to people about what MFR is and how it works. It was created in 2000 when the tsunamis hit to help people with shelter and they continued it to help people in New Orleans and Florida. They started working with Habitat for Humanity and Plant a Tree after the wild fires in San Diego and they also want to inform people about global warming and help stop carbon emissions. We met the guy that does all the videos for Linkin Park (that was really cool) . After the first opening band, we set up a table for the band to sign posters for people. After they were done we got every thing packed up and then went to our seats because the show was starting. It was SO fun to help with all the things that we did. The concert was awesome, but at that point most the people were drunk so it was fun to watch them too. As a volunteer I was given a free ticket for the floor. I didn't really want to be on the floor because I knew that I wouldn't be able to get close enough to see, but that was what I had and I knew it was cool to have so I was going to try to get close to the front. (I have no idea how I really thought that I would get to the front). Luckily we were told that if we found a seat that was empty we could sit in it and use it as our seat. To make this long and lame story short I found a seat in the front right next to the stage. It was soooooooo cool to be that close to the stage at a concert. The only problem was that they didn't do my favorite song which is Bleed It Out. They ended the concert and people started to leave and then they came back out for an encore, did several more songs and finished with Bleed It Out. It was perfect. I really like Linkin Park and the concert was great. I really hope I can see them in concert again. They'll be in Europe this summer but the closest they'll be to The Netherlands is Germany. Maybe everyone could start a write in campaign to get them to add a concert in Amsterdam.

African drums

A few weeks ago I went to an African drum thing at my church. We had a guy that teaches people how to play different tunes that were done in Africa come to teach us how to play African drums. We started the day off by eating and playing games. The food theme was African American food such as "fried chicken, corn bread" and other things like that. I really liked the chicken that was there but people didn't bring much so we only got 1 piece each (3 people brought corn bread so we had an abundance of it--corn bread is okay, sort of, but the chicken was better). I think they needed more chicken but what ever. Then after eating we all picked out a drum and were told how to put it on (its not hard you just take the 3'' rope thing, cross it so it looks like an x then loop the bottom of it on the drum base and then put the rest of it over your neck, put your arms through the rope like thing and...shazzam...you have it on.) OK it is easier to do when you see it then it is to do when it is just written down. Then he had us do some easy stuff just to teach us the three different types of things that are used. Then he started having us do things that were pieces of songs and after we had them down he would break us up into groups and have us do the different parts so we ended up playing songs. It was really fun and cool. Then we moved on to a different song that was harder to play. The teacher asked if there were any people that knew how to play normal drums and every one that was there said that me Andrew and Mathew knew how, so he told us we were doing the hard part. He told everyone else how to do the other parts of the song and then told us how to do our part. We didn't think it was that hard but it was a lot of fun. After we did that song he headed out, and the fun night of drumming was over. I hope we do it again some time, but not until I get back from Europe since I'm going back to Europe in just a few weeks.

snowboarding

Two in a half weeks ago I went snowboarding for my birthday thing. (I would like to point out that my birthday was a month before that.) We had to get up really early like 6:30 early and leave by 7 because it was a three day weekend and we knew there would be traffic so the whole way up I slept. (I like to sleep) When we finally got there at like 10 we didn't even have to wait in a long line or anything we just walked up to the window and bought the tickets. It had been a year since I had been snowboarding so I thought that it would be hard to get used to again because that is how it was in the past, but right when I got up there I didn't have any problem doing it so after two times of going on the little hill I started going on the normal one. I like the big one most but I only went on that a few times this time for some reason but I really don't know why. I took my first fall (yes I do fall but not often :D ) after going off a jump and landing wrong and then almost running into someone that just turned in front of the jump but instead I fell...but not because I wanted to. My next fall was later in the day when I was going down the hill and a little boy cut me off and I clipped the end of his ski and went flying(I even did a flip) and the kid fell so I got up and checked on the kid who was just fine luckily cuz his dad was right behind us. After that I went in and had lunch. I got a chili-n-bread bowl. They are yummmmmmmmmy. After that I went back out and started using the box. (for the people that don't know what that is, it is a big mettle rectangle that is in the snow that you can do tricks as you ride over it. It is about 6 or 7 feet long and is raised about a foot or so out of the snow but the length and height dose vary.) Then I went down the hill a few more times and then we headed home so again I went to sleep. When I got home I hung out with my friends till 3:30 am.(when my parents called to see where I was and when I got home I got in trouble for being out that late but it all ended up being OK). And they all lived happily ever after. I hope....

My Appendix

So a few days ago I had my appendix taken out. Now I don't know how most people feel when their appendix hurts but I know mine was not a good feeling. My stomach started hurting at around noon on Monday and it kept getting worse and worse and finally about 9:30 we thought that it would be good to go and get it checked out. At that point we really didn't know what was wrong but my stomach hurt a LOT. Finally after a few hours of waiting in the hospital and tests, they came in and said that I had appendicitis and that it needed to be taken out. By then it was Tuesday. I don't really remember much about what else happened till I went into surgery but I do know that I wasn't allowed to eat and I didn't like that but w/e. Right before surgery I remember that I had an IV in me and that they said that I would be groggy after the first shot but that after the second one I would be knocked out in 10 sec. Right after the first shot I don't remember anything till I woke up about 6 hours later. I couldn't move at first but after a little I could move a bit and then I was brought my dinner. For the next two days I was in the hospital and gradually was able to move more and started walking on Wednesday. I could walk before that but it hurt a lot and I couldn't walk fully upright. The food in the hospital was OK. It really had its ups and downs, but if you asked for something that they had they would get it for you if they could. The entire time I was there I drank so much apple juice that they ran out of it on my floor and had to order more for me from the other floors. I really like the apple juice but it was in really small packs so each one was only really like a few sips so I'd drink four at at time. Finally on Thursday I was released from the hospital and got to go home.

Field of Ladybugs

Last Saturday I went on a hike with a guy from my church named Brian. (but you don't read this blog to find out about people I know, you want to know about me so I won't talk about him too much.) He goes to my church and is a very active person in the youth activities, he likes to hike and run so he sets up hikes for the youth monthly. We decided to go up to a rest spot called Deer Flat to eat lunch so we started up the hill. As we went up we started seeing what the recent weather had done to the devil mountain. (oh, by the way, I call Mount. Diablo devil mountain.) There were trees that had been pulled out of the ground by the wind in piles that the park rangers had moved up out of the way and even more that hadn't been moved. However the view was really cool when we got up to Deer Flat. By the time we reached it I felt very relaxed. I guess I just felt better then when I started. After a nice break/lunch we started up a trail that I don't remember the name of, where we could see even more and Brian took a few pics. I really liked the view from there. Like 20 feet after we had looked at the view we turned on the wrong trail called Eagle Peak but we got a cool pic of me that I will put up when I get it, so you can see my new hair cut. When we figured out we were going the wrong way we turned around and only had to walk about ten meters and we were at the right trail which was called Back Creek Trail. This trail was practically non-existent and looked like it was made by animals. If you don't like tight spaces don't go down that trail. Once we were close to the bottom we ended up by a creek so we got a pic of the creek. Close by the creak we found a big mob of ladybugs so naturally I got a pic. We finally got back to the car after the 5 hour hike and we were both tired. Right when I got home I went to sleep.

Glide Memorial

On Sunday I went to Glide Memorial in S.F. with my church to help make bag lunches for the homeless then go to the service. I didn’t really want to go at first because we had to meet at Good Shepard at 8 in the morning (Why did we have to meet that early???) but I ended up having fun. It really surprised me, when we started to make the lunches, that we could make around 200 lunches in 15 min when we only had 23 people all together. The lunches had one ham and one peanut butter sandwich, one mustard packet and one fruit snack pack. After making all that and putting it in the brown bags we would count out 50 and put them into big trash bags and tie them up. We ended up making 658 lunches in 1 hour and then sat around till the first service at Glide was over so we could go to the second one. It was half an hour before the service was over but there was a line started so we stood in line so we would get good seats. Right when the first service was out we were aloud in to sit. The service was really cool and very fun. Most of the service was singing which is why it was so fun. The band there was great and the drummer made me look like I don’t even have any idea about playing the drums. The sermon was hard to understand for me because most of it was the pastor yelling but I think the sermon was about treating people equally. All in all I had a lot of fun there and hope we do it again some time.

Homeless In The City

Last Friday night my church went into to city to help with night ministry work for our former pastor who now runs the San Francisco night ministry and helped hand out jackets, pants, food and most importantly socks. Night Ministry is a group of ministers and volunteer that help people between 10pm and 3am. Most of the people that they help are homeless or part time homeless but they also help people that just need someone to talk to. This is my 3rd year of doing this and I really enjoy it. That Friday was rainy so there weren't as many homeless people out as there were last year but we still gave out a lot o' stuff and helped 11 people.

Last year was a bit of a weird time because we went out and were giving out stuff to people and these two women started fighting over a jacket. They were swearing and hitting each other and accidentally ran into me and my friend Patrick and then they both stopped fighting and hitting each other looked at us and apologised very nicely the returned to fighting like nothing happened. Patrick and I thought that that was really funny because after they started fighting again someone else came and took the jacket and walked away.

This year that didn't even come close to happening. We walked around and saw people in only 1s and 2s but never more and always under an over hang. I had a lot of fun and am looking forward to doing it next year too.

My Birthday

I had my 17th birthday last weekend, and spent it with my family. It was actually a lot of fun. I got to sit at home all day after sleeping in and going to IHOP for breakfast. I had a really big ham and cheese omelet and 3 pancakes It was yummmmmmmy.

After sitting at home relaxing and reading all day, I had band practise at 5 so I went to that and ended up having a lot of fun drumming there. We usually do slower songs and this time we were doing a really fun faster song so that made me really happy. Then I went out for dinner with all but my Aunt because she sucks and is in Den Haag (when you read this Aunt Tudy this is for you ;p ) I was going to go to P.F.Chang for dinner with the family, but the wait was too long for me so we went to Yan Can for dinner instead. Dinner was a lot of fun and really good I got to have Kung Pow chicken. When we got home I finally got my gifts and ended getting everything I wanted to get. My grandparents got me a lot of sweaters and shirts that I had shopped for with them, and my Aunt got me a new pair of shoes, a new pair of pants and a new jacket. We went shopping at Christmas, so I had picked out all the clothes myself, but I didn't know that they had bought everything for me. So, that was pretty good. And I also got a $50 I-tunes gift card from my great Aunt that I look forward to using. After all the gift giving, I had cake and went to sleep so I could go to church the next morning and not be asleep during it. My Bestamom makes my cake every year and it is my favorite kind. Last year, I didn't get a cake from her, so I convinced her to make me two cakes this year I have to finish this one first, and then she said she'll make me another one. SUCKER!!!!! ;-)

My Aunt Left

Sadly my Aunt left yesterday so now I am stuck with my Bestemom till I go back to Europe. (I hope she'll be really nice to me...hint, hint). I helped my Aunt go to the airport yesterday because A) she had a lot of stuff in her bags so they were pretty heavy and B) because its my Aunt and she is so cool that I had to see her off.

When we got there my Aunt didn't have a ticket with her because she had switched flights so we had to stand in a lllllooooonnnnnggggg line and when we were close to the last turn we had to make it that line the stupid United Airline worker told us to go to the other side because it was "faster" but when we got to that side they had one person working it and like 20 people in line. I guarantee, it was NOT faster.

Half an hour after we had gotten in the second line we had barely moved at all but the guy that was behind us in the FIRST line was done and walking to the gate and then half an hour later we got to the counter. From there, they sent my Aunt to yet ANOTHER line and then finally, it took another 15 to 20 minutes to get all the stuff like the ticket and checking the bags.

By then we had been there for about two hours which was nice to spend with my Aunt but not great to spend in the lines at the airport. I definitely would have preferred a nice conversation over a mexi melt at Taco Bell.

Then we walked my Aunt to the gate and couldn't go any further so we said goodbye and then left.

This morning she called and said she was home but the airport had lost one of the bags that she was taking with her so it seems that her flight sucked. All in all Twiga is happy to see her but we miss her here.

CNN NEWS

I was watching CNN this morning and there were a lot of interesting news stories. Iran had boats attacking ours and the Supreme Court is debating the way that our country administers the death penalty. However, I was most interested by the stories and reporting on the upcoming democratic primary elections and who will win.

Although I can't vote yet nor will I be able to for this coming election, I have been watching the polls and the candidates Sen. Barack Obama and Sen. Hillary Clinton to see who I would vote for if I could. Fortunately and unfortunately I still haven't fully decided which of the two I would vote for because they both seem like they could do a good job. It would be good if Sen. Clinton won because 1) she is a women and I think it would be good to get a women president because of all the great things they can think of and she was a first lady so she is already used to how things work in the white house and 2) because she has some really good ideas that she would try to put in motion if she was the president. One of her very good ideas is a health care plan that will help all Americans and that is really needed.

On the other hand, I think it would be good if Sen. Obama won because he has a lot of good ideas and although he doesn't have the experience that Hillary Clinton does, he seems very good at what he does. One of his really good ideas also has to do with health care and seems like it could work too. Right now Obama is doing great on his campaign leading 39% to Sen. Clinton's 29%. All though they both seem good only one can be presedent but the quesion is which one will it be. I hope all of you that can vote will and if you want you can leave coments on your opinion for the Democratic nominee for President and why you think one candidate is better than the other.