The Beginning of the End

It's so weird to think that this is my last year of high school. Four years ago, I started out this week as an awkward, 5'5, brace faced, nerdy girl on color guard with no social skills or fashion sense whatsoever.

Did I mention I also sprained my ankle the week before school started? No? Well, now you know. My first day of Freshman Year, and I was in a boot. My awkwardness exceeded THAT level.

Four years later, and looking at the way things have changed is kind of amazing.

Myself, Miranda and Kami from Block Forensics

Okay. Well. From that picture it really doesn't look like things have changed that much. But I've grown about 4 inches, lost a good 15 lbs, and underneath my new Forensics jumpsuit (yes, you heard me right, Forensics! My fourth science class is a total win) I have, in fact, gained a fashion sense. You can kind of tell from the earrings and sandals. You can't? Oh, well, pretend you can.

Four years ago, I had no idea what I wanted to be when I got out of school. Back then, I think I was leaning towards cooking or writing books for a living, neither of which I seriously consider a viable career for myself anymore. Now, I'm looking at a career in Public Relations or Event Management, thanks to a little organization I joined called DECA as an equally as awkward Sophomore.

I know I brag on DECA a lot, but I think it was the turning point in my high school career. DECA made me really think about my future and where I was and am going with it. DECA made me challenge the processes in a lot of things, including the way classes for students are set up at our school (say Hello to the Birdville Center of Technology's only full time student!) and has given me the chance to grow as a networker and as a public speaker (I also just realized I forgot to mention-while in LA for ELS last month, I was chosen as the first Social Media Correspondent for DECA Direct, DECA's new national publication. More on that soon). I just finished a call with the other members of the State Action Team, where we put our plans into place for the fall, and I am SO excited for this next year with my organization.

The 2012-2013 National DECA theme is Thrive, and I think Thrive we will!

The new official picture of the 2012-2013 officers. President Kate looks so awesome.

I feel like everything in the last four years has kind of been a build up-all getting me ready for this novel climax worthy year at the end of my high school career. I've got a lot planned for the next 9 months in school, I don't know how I'm going to do it all, but it's going to be so worth it in the end.

Leadership at its Finest

I am more than willing to admit that I am not an athletic person - at all. Perhaps it's my lack of grace, or utter inability to walk on flat land without falling on my fave, but forgiving my semester Freshman year in Color Guard, and the few years I spent in cheer, I have never really liked sports.

So maybe it was just the fact that I was with friends, but I actually had a SUPER fun time at the Rangers game with my Texas DECA cohorts.

From left-Secretary Daniel, VP Scott, President Kate, me, and Sgt. Caleb

President Kate and I spent the entire time chit chatting, in between cheering at random spots for home runs. They were going to welcome us, but by the 8th inning, people were starting to leave, so Kate and I headed out. Ten minutes later I got a text from Sgt. Caleb saying they announced us on the big screen. Score 1 for Texas DECA!

We left the next morning for Los Angeles, and let me tell you, that was probably one of the most fun trips I've ever taken with DECA.

The first night in LA, we went bowling with Virginia DECA. (From left-Mrs. Hinesly, my advisor, Natalie, myself, Brandon and Emily)

We found a few awesome spots along the way to grab a bite that even I hadn't been to. One of my personal favorites was Botega de Louie, this half Italian restaurant half French patisserie, with deserts to die for. 

My desert choice at one of my new favorite LA spots, tiramisu.

Out of all the exotic choices, President Kate went for a strawberry cupcake. 

There was some amazing training lead by Tri Leadership, the same company who employs our awesome coach, Curtis. Curtis lead some of the training at ELS, along with a few other trainers we'd met at DECA LEADS, the leadership camp held at DECA International Competition for incoming State/Association officers.

Curtis also lead the training at our New Braunfels leadership retreat, which you can read about here.

Ikya, Nevada DECA State Officer, with Jordan, former Texas President and current Southern Region Vice President (National Officer)

Texas DECA State Action Team with the National Officer Team.
Back from Left: Secretary Daniel, SRVP Jordan, President Morgan, Sgt. Caleb
Front from Left: Me, North Atlantic VP Emily, President Kate, Central Region VP Christine, VP Scott

As an officer team, we get along pretty well. So needless to say, we found some time to play too. We went with the other State/Association officers in attendance to the Grammy Museum downtown, and had fun bonding with some awesome other officers. While in LA, we also filmed a new promo video for Texas DECA. More hilarity ensued when the boys started being silly.

Sgt. Caleb and VP Scott. Caleb claims that this is the best promotion for Texas DECA. Ever.

Overall, it was an awesome week spent with some amazing people. President Kate and I joined in on an old tradition, the friendship between the Michigan and Ontario officers, so named Ontichigan. With us, we became Ontichigexas. 

Ontichigexas love.

Now, I'm gonna go watch The Glee Project with my little sister before I go get a new pair of (hopefully cat eye) glasses.

I can feel it

Just one month till school starts. One month, and so much to do!

I'm currently enrolled in French II and PE online, and I've literally done one lesson out of the two semesters worth of classes I need to take. These, along with my online Econ class I plan on enrolling in, will allow me to be at the district Technology Center all day, rather than my home high school.

I praise Jesus for letting that happen. Seriously. But I can feel school slowly closing in on me. Between now and the 27th of August, I've got DECA trips, Fish Camp (Freshman Orientation, for which I am one of the couselors), work, work, and oh, more work.

As I'm writing things down in my (brand new, Lilly Pulitzer) agenda, I'm literally just sitting there going "OH MY GOD I HAVE NO TIME."

Yes. You heard me right. My mother, or as I like to call her, Master Planner, after hearing my comment about Carly from The College Prepster having the cutest Lilly Pulitzer agenda, bought me one. I use my iCalendar for almost everything, but this is great for times where I'm on the phone, or want to have something open with my dates while checking my email.

August so far. Note that no work days have been added yet.

My personal favorite part of the agenda-STICKERS.

I had a heart attack looking at those three weeks in September. This is what I get for being homecoming chair!

There are moments where I regret taking so much on-when I miss events with friends or have to reschedule plans. But then I remember that it's what's going to get me places in life.

Speaking of life, I've had a recent development. I got-get this-a puppy!

One of my Faire Family members and her mother found a brother and sister schnauzer pair running across a major street near their house before a party they were hosting for July Birthdays  (IE, mine).

Everyone say hello to Lacey!

I took home the sister, and my parents are still hesitant about her, but I've been taking care of her while I'm at home (which is in the three hours I'm awake before work, and the three after). She's currently laying next to me on my bed, belly up with her feet straight in the air. I was told by a friend at the party that she is me in dog form. I sincerely hope I don't look like that when I'm asleep.

Things are about to get fun again around here. Sunday, myself and the rest of the Texas State Officers are going to the Rangers game, before we leave for the Emerging Leader Summit in LA Monday. Part of me is super excited to go back home to LA, but another is super sad because I won't be seeing any family or friends while I'm out there.

I have a round of back to school outfits I'll be posting pretty soon-when Mom and I went shopping we did a round of back to school stuff too.

PS: What do you guys think about the new layout? I find it quite fetching, if I do say so myself.

Till then, toodles,

Holly

Baking before breaking

So. I tried to bake last night.

After being cut from work and still having to stay another hour to bus tables and refill ice, I was in a fould mood, and decided to try my hand at baking some cupcakes for a birthday party I'm attending tonight.

It was, in two words, a fail.

Yeah. The double chocolate Reese's ones turned out fine. But like an idiot, I tried out this recipe I found on Pinterest for super rich Red Velvet cupcakes from a box.

Not to self-when recipe calls for milk, buttermilk may have gross tasting results.

Ridiculousness

Look at this.

This is what happens when Stephen and I try to take a decent picture. He makes these faces. 

This was the first of many hilarious moments at the Texas DECA Leadership Retreat for District and State Officers in New Braunfels this past week. Stephen, pictured above, is the incoming District 4 President, and a second time attendant of the retreat (he was an officer last year too). I got to bond with him, and so many more amazing people over the week. (You can find Stephen, a fellow internet addict and an amazing male blogger, at his website here.)

Elvia and Sophia trying to worm their way out of the ropes.

During the retreat, the 30 or so of us (25 District and 5 State officers) got to participate in some pretty fun activities, including trying to bust out of rope hand cuffs (above), and lilypad over alligator infested waters (below). All the activities focused on bettering our communication skills, and learning each other's strengths and weaknesses. We learned that the majority of us have large, loud personalities as well.

They also got to climb up some super tall poles and fly through the air on ropes (so called High Ropes by the camp). I say they, because, as I told my advisor, you get me more than ten feet off the ground and you may be saying hello to my breakfast and goodbye to my consciousness. But I did have a lot of fun cheering everyone on, and getting some amazing pictures with my advisor's camera (which I have yet to see).

Students prepping to jump for a gold ring mid air.

We also had time for some sillyness.

The males of the Texas DECA State Officer Team, and our coach, Curtis, in the background.

Caleb (State Sgt-At-Arms) and Brooke (D5 President) in our epic Rock Paper Scissors game.

And as any true DECA students, we had time for putting our big kid clothes on.

Hey look, Stephen and I in an actually decent picture! 

Myself and Kate, the State President. DECA Girls FTW.

Overall, it was an amazing experience, and the first of many for the 2012-2013 school year with Texas DECA. We're off to LA in early August for the Emerging Leader Summit as a State Officer Team, and I'm so excited to finally be going back home for a bit! 

All for now-

Toodles,

Holly

Stop the World

As if I can't say it enough, life has become insane!

I've literally worked almost every day I've been in town since the beginning of June-I'm beginning to think I'll never get the smell of BBQ out of my clothes.

But I am finding a little more free time. I got about 4,000 words into my book that started as a NaNoWriMo (that's National Novel Writing Month for you non-nerds) project a while back when I hit an inspirational spike last night while closing up at work. Yay for having mind numbing tasks where you can think about other things!

In short, the book is about a school for girls with special powers (yes, similar to X-Men), which has to make some serious changes when their all male brother school burns down and they have to house the boys for a year.

I always picture the clique from the early seasons of Gossip Girl when I'm working on it.

It's been a pet project since I was 12, originally a short story, but it's since expanded to this crazyness that's barely 3 chapters in and over 12,000 words long.

I'm also trying to find a way to start getting really into my summer school classes. With the way my schedule worked for this upcoming year (Seniors '13, woot woot!), I'll be at our local Technology Center all day, rather than my home campus, so I'm trying to find a way to fit in all the classes I still need before graduation. At the moment, I'm in the middle of a ridiculously hard online PE class (my Travel Tourism class counted for one semester, now I'm just trying to get the second semester done without getting gross in public) and have yet to start my online French II course, both provided by Texas Tech ISD-two things I never thought I'd see together; my name with any Texas school.

I did recently stumble across an adorable site/blog called College Prep, and it's not what you might necessarily think. It's actually this really cute blog run by a college girl named Carly who seems to be as pearl obsessed as I am! I love finding people who manage to be awesomely smart and stylish at the same time. I'm adoring her use of Lily Pulitzer sticky notes and Kate Spade agendas-if all my paychecks weren't already being allocated towards DECA, I might invest in both!

Carly's super cute agenda. I have a similar one from Walmart in Tiffany Blue.

But alas, I'm sticking to being a high school recessionista. I will always love my designers, but for now it's Dollar Tree and Walgreens for me as far as school supplies go.

I'm also managing to catch up on my TV shows while cleaning. I'm on Season 5 of Eureka, Season 2 of Game of Thrones, and Season 5 of Mad Men. I'm still trying to catch up on Degrassi, but I can't get myself to sit down and actually watch. I know, a former Degrassi Die Hard, saying she can't watch Degrassi. I'm just having issues loving any of the plotlines in the later bits of this last season-Dave kind of annoys me, Clare/Eli have gone a bit stale, and Fiona needs to go back to curly hair!

That's all for now, I think. I'll probably do another post tonight about my recent Leadership Retreat with the officers of Texas DECA, but for now, I've gotta go get ready for another rousing night of serving BBQ to crying children and elderly couples.

Toodles,

Holly

Life is a Maze

It's a blessing to have a few minutes to breathe this summer.

When school let out, I had a few of those "Oh, thank God, I can actually relax," days. Until I was told "No, you need to get a job."

I'm not going to say I wasn't mad. Because I was. As spoiled as it may sound, when I decided to run for Texas DECA office (which I won, back in April, thanks very much), there was a kind of mutual unspoken promise between myself and my parents that they wouldn't heap anything else onto my plate. With Scarborough (that has now come to an end with a tear filled, amazing closing weekend), school (and now summer school), DECA and friends, it was a miracle if I got 5 or 6 hours of sleep.

Well. So much for that.

So, here's to my new job as a waitress at a local BBQ joint. Sure, I have to wear the same tee shirt every day. But I make it my own (teased hair and all).

And to finding a few spare hours to dress up and go out with the best friend of almost 8 years (so weird to think it's been that long since I started in the public school system!).

Dress from H&M, Necklace and belt from Forever 21

I still have my moments to be a closet fashionista, at least. If I were stuck in the same jeans and tee shirt every day at work, I'd probably die of boredom! 

Pinterest has also captured my attention as of late. I'll admit-I've found myself endlessly scrolling though peoples boards in the wee hours of the morning after I get off work. You can find my boards here. 

The last thing I have to fangirl about at the moment is the recent release of Disney's Brave, which I saw the Saturday after it came out.

I will freely admit that when asked what I would want my medieval dress to look like should I go to a medieval faire (earlier period than renaissance), I said "look at anything from Brave." 

Being that I'm a huge history nerd (no shame), I dragged le best friend to see this. The theatre we were at actually had one of their employees-poor girl-dressed up in a dark velveteen dress, with her hair dyed bright red, holding a bow and arrow and posing for pictures with small children who were also there to see the movie. Being that I spend 16 days a year in 100 degree heat in full Scottish garb, I expressed my sympathy to her as we passed, and asked if she felt like a character at Disneyland yet.

I absolutely adored the movie. It was a little slow paced towards the end, but the ideals and the plotline was well thought out, and the accents were AWESOME.

I will admit, I fangirled quite a bit as we left. Best friend even cried.

That's all for now. I expect there'll be more later on this week.


Toodaloo for now.


Holly

Title lyrics C/O "The Show" by Lenka.

Haven't you heard? I'm stuck on a verse.

It's been feeling like summer in Texas for weeks, but we've been stuck inside school, not able to enjoy it. And now, the first day we can finally go outside and call it our real, official summer, I don't even feel like getting out of bed.

I swore 2012 would be different. I'd make something of myself. I'd treat myself and those around me better. I've done some of that. I won the 2012-2013 Texas DECA State Reporter position. I've done a pretty good job of being nicer (even though it wasn't that big of a problem to begin with), and yet Karma continues to bite me in the butt.

This is the second summer in a row I've started off with something disappointing. Last summer, though, it turned out to be a bad start to an amazing few months. For Take #2, I'm aiming to make this summer, this last summer before graduation, count for something.

I've still got a few things going on before summer actually starts. Tomorrow marks the closing weekend of Scarborough Renaissance Festival, quite possibly the highlight of my year. After joining Scarborough Celtic Troupe, I've made more friends and second-family members than I can count. For those of you unaware of what any of this means...I basically walk around for eight hours a day pretending to be Scottish Royalty. It's like working at Disneyland. Only you sweat more.

(That's me there, on the far right.)

There are also two grad parties going on tomorrow, for which I have to race home from Waxahachie to attend. There were originally three, but, well, that ship sailed far away via text message this morning.

I'm already making great plans for this summer. I have so many things I want to do, see, and accomplish before I leave this big ol' state for greener pastures after graduation.

• I have to have fun. I feel like fun gets put on the back burner for me, with all the stressing I do over family, friends, the house (which we're still unpacking, two months after moving in!), school and DECA. With school out of the way, and one less person in my life to worry about, Fun is one of my major priorities this year.
• I want to finish a book. No, not reading. Writing. I have three or four ideas that have been maturing in the depths of my Word Documents since my Freshman year, and I'd like to actually see one of them completed.
• Cross more items off my bucket list. I made this long list of things to do in 2012, and this summer is going to present opportunities to complete a lot more of them.
• Be a better me. I may sound vain, but I'm always looking for ways to improve my personal style and beauty regiment. This summer, I'm focusing on being more fit, and healthy, with an improved diet and workout routine. Out with the fast food, in with the greenery. 

Summer 2012, I've been patiently awaiting your arrival (there's an Apostrophe, brought to you by my scores-yet-to-arrive AP English Test). Now, let's see what you can do.

Title lyrics c/o "Your Song" by Kate Walsh