The Great Game Plan... Again!

About three years ago, I was in a play that my mom wrote called "The Great Game Plan". Don't confuse it with "The Game Plan". No, it is a PLAY on that name (HA! Clever wordPLAY...). It has nothing to do with football. It has to do with classic board games.

You see, the story is that Teagan, a little girl, likes to play with her board games. In her dream, she is somehow "shrunk down" and is in the world of her board games with various characters like the Chutes and Ladders kids. But, the mice from the Mouse Trap game are loose but they can't capture them without the Old Man's tub! So, the search for the tub is on along with Teagan's search for what makes her feel... complete!

When I was first in "The Great Game Plan", I played Teagan. We are now doing it again, and I am going to playing Teagan's mom, the captain from the Battleship game, a cherry picker from the Hi-ho Cherry-o game and the Broker who sells insurance from Life.

Believe it or not, I am actually excited not to be the lead. With Teagan, she was basically a regular girl. There wasn't much work to put into the acting of the character. And the costume was just my normal clothes! Now, with my new characters, I can do all sorts of fun and funny things! My Mom's personality could be like this WHILE MY CAPTAIN'S PERSONALITY COULD BE LIKE THIS and the cherry picker's personality could be like this while the Broker's personality could be like this. I didn't have this much exploration to do with Teagan.

Also, it is bringing back so many good memories from the first time I did "The Great Game Plan". I loved being in it from what I can remember. It was my first actual decent part in a play and now I really love to act! I'm so glad I get to be part of a new cast performing "The Great Game Plan".

If you want to come see it, it is showing at the end of March near the beginning of April. It's a dinner theater at my school and we're raising money for our big trip! Make my memories happier by coming that night!

Relationships

This week at church, the pastor talked about love. Even though this wasn't the most important topic he was trying to get us to get out of his sermon, he talked about how we should be open to relationships and try to keep the relationships we have. This is the part that spoke to me.

It got me thinking. How many times have I actually contacted anyone from Iowa? Not many times. I can assure you of that. When's the last time I actually had conversation with friends from NJ? I don't have them often. I haven't heard from some of my NJ friends in a long while.

I feel like I'm not very good when it comes to relationships. I think I became like that because of the two moves in my life.

The first move made me shy. It made me not comfortable around people like I was in NJ. Not as outgoing. I didn't want to say the wrong thing. I wanted to make friends. The shyness was probably made worse in public school. Public school showed me that there were certain expectations and if you didn't meet those expectations or if you exceeded those expectations, you basically just weren't friend-worthy. And with my move and all, I tried to fit in. I don't think I even noticed it until the next year when I was homeschooled again, but I changed. I was immature and disobedient when I was homeschooled before. I became a brat when I was in public school. But now, I'm neither. I think I became a better person because of it. But, I have not been able to shake off being shy when I first meet a person.

The second move left a scar. Honestly, I had some pretty shaky friendships in Iowa. There was a period of time when I had no friends. I was ready for new friendships when I still lived in Iowa, but when I finally moved I didn't want any friends. I just wanted to be alone. I wanted my only friends to be my family and Nancy Drew. It's kind of hard to try to make friends, and I know isolation isn't the answer. I had also gotten into a bad habit. I seemed to think that if they wanted to hang out with me they could just call me and ask me. I wasn't going to call them and make an effort to hang out with them. And, in thinking that, I lost the chance to learn the etiquette of asking someone to come over. That'll make things harder in TX.

All in all, I want to make a commitment to make more of an effort to have new friendships with people in Texas, to reacquaint with my friends in IA, and to get back in contact with my friends in NJ. Friendship is important. I just need to remember that.

My New Dog

I got a new dog! His name is Wheatly and he is very cute. He is the sweetest dog in the world until you put him in his crate and leave. Then, he becomes destructive. Very destructive.

Thus far, he has torn the wall up in the laundry room (very bad!), tore up his bed we got for him, ate a hole through his plastic crate, scratched the wall up behind the new metal crate we got him, figured out how to get out of the metal crate and figured it out again after we got things to hold it closed.

But his exploits out of the cage are cute and fun. When I lie down on the floor, (you know from being exhausted/lazy) he licks my face. When someone hugs another person in the house, Wheatly jumps up on top of both of them. (It's cute, but now we can't have any meaningful hugs!) He has officially learned to play with his squeaky fox but he had it all tore up a few hours later! And we have a game we play outside. He'll run and I'll stand in the middle of the yard and try to block him from passing me. (He is very good at faking me!)

Altogether, I am so glad I chose Wheatly. He is very sweet and very cute and I couldn't have asked for a better dog.

Summit Christian Academy

Hello, Eastin is here! I realized that I haven't posted in a long, long time, so I will now post about my new school - Summit Christian Academy!

Summit Christian is a half private school and half home school. How is that possible you ask? Well, we 7th and 8th graders only have classes in school on Tuesday, Thursday and Friday (Elementary school students have off on Friday). The rest of the days we have school at home.

I have only two other people in my grade but five other people in my class. The 7th and 8th graders are nearly always together in class. And I love them all! Here is all of them with their bio which I wrote up for them.

H. - The principal's daughter. She's in 7th grade and her electives consist of Drama and Cross Country. She also helps out with the Elementary school P.E. She is really nice and says she invented "Football Baby". (She didn't. I did. Maybe I should write about Football Baby next post?)

A. - The first graders' teacher's daughter. She's in 8th grade and she is the stage manager for the play in Drama but is technically not in the elective. She also babysits for some of the parents' kids. She and I are currently writing song about traffic.

C. - His mom helps out in the third grade class. He's in 8th grade and is in the electives Drama and Cross Country. He is a little crazy but it's the good kind of crazy.

J. - He's in 7th grade and he's not in any of the electives. He loves playing Nintendo games and let me borrow his Sherlock Holmes game.

L. - He's in 7th grade and he's not in any of the electives. He loves playing "Call of Duty" on his X-box and made up a rap about it.

Eastin (That's me!) - She's in 8th grade and is in the electives Drama and Cross Country. She is crazy, fun, awesome and loves writing traffic songs! (Maybe I should post about that song next, hmm?)

As you can probably tell, it's an awesome class. We're all different but we're all friends! That's the beauty of having small classes. It's really brought out me. I feel like I can be myself in class.

(And we have a break almost every month!)

So that's my school! Thanks for reading!