Christmas Eve

Have I ever told you what my favorite part about Christmas is? It's the feeling of peace and the Christmas music. Those are my favorite parts about Christmas. And the feeling of peace I can feel the most on Christmas Eve, more than any other day. I think because on the days leading up to Christmas is all preparation, no time to just relax and soak in the warm feeling. Christmas day is too chaotic (at least at my house). So that leaves Christmas Eve. My favorite day in December.

I love getting together with the family, playing games and laughing together. I love spending Christmas Eve night at Grandma's, while she always reads us a new story. And our musical chime choir. And our puppet show of Luke 2. And just being there. It really is the greatest tradition.

So I'll try to keep this post short, since I know you all lead busy lives. Go, and be golden. And if you haven't before, maybe try to have a wonderful Christmas Eve with your family, it really is the greatest. :)

Raynaud & Dermatographia

Hello friends, friends of friends, and those who randomly stubble upon my blog.

Welcome.

Today's post is brought to you by a lifelong syndrome/disease I've been living with, and didn't even know it! Allow me to elaborate. For as long as I can remember, my hands have had this weird little thing where when I get cold, my fingers turn white. And not just turn white, but get numb and move really slow (which is kind of difficult to live with when you want to play the piano). I just shrugged it off as something that happens to everybody when their hands get cold. I mean, isn't that normal for you to loose feeling when you're freezing? Of course it is! But the catch that I didn't understand when I was yay tall (referring to smaller than I am now, not an actual measurement of height), was that I wasn't freezing. I was rarely even cold enough to be shivering when my fingers turned white! But being young and ignorant, I didn't care about it and moved on with life.

The second disorder I have is called Dermatographic Urticaria (meaning "skin writing"). What does that mean? Well, basically just what it says! I can write on my skin! Ok, well anybody can write on their skin with a pen or something. Let me be a little more specific. When I scratch myself, my skin 1) feels better after the scratching (which I hope is normal with all of you...), and 2) turns red. I can see all of you right now trying this out on yourself. Wait for it... Wait for it... WOAH! Your skin turns red too?! Great! Now let me continue. My skin stays red after I scratch it. Depending on how intensely I itch it or rub it, the time it stays red varies from a minute and a half to about three minutes. I bet your skin has probably returned to normal by now. If not, wait a couple more seconds.

. . .

Still red? Woo! We can be the 5% of the population with Dermatographia, together! So you may be wondering how I found out about these disorders. I'll tell you.

For the white finger syndrome, like I said, I didn't even realize it wasn't normal until my dad pointed it out one day. I had just come in from mowing the lawn in the early summer when the sun was shining bright and I was feelin' nice and warm! Then my dad said, "Woah, Trevor. What happened to your fingers?" That's when I looked down and realized I couldn't feel my fingers because they were white again. "Oh," I replied. "My fingers just get white at random times." My dad told me he thought that was odd, and gave me one of those looks. You know, with the raised eyebrow. I just shrugged, and continued on to my room. After thinking about it, I remember that my grip on the lawnmower was fairly tight, and the air was a little more crisp than it usually was (although it didn't seem like I was gripping the handle any tighter than I usually did). But another thing I realized that morning was that my little syndrome definitely wasn't normal.

How I found out about my Dermatographia was at school one day. It was in Jr. High and I was standing in the lunch line, when one of my friends who was standing behind me said, "Woah, Trevor, what happened to your neck?" My initial response was, Oh crap! What happened to my neck?! Then I decided to be rational and ask what he meant. "Well, you've got all these red lines across your neck! It looks like you were mauled." That's when I remembered that I had scratched myself a little while before on my neck. Then my little wheels got turning. Wait a minute, if the back of my neck is red... Then I scratched myself on my arm. HARD. After about 10 seconds, red lines started to appear. Huh! I didn't even realize that when I scratch myself, my skin turns red. Then I just assumed everybody's skin did that, until everybody started pointing it out. "Hey Trevor, you've got red lines across your neck!" "Hey Trevor, what happened to your cheek?" "Trevor. Trevor. Trevor. You're red all over!" So it wasn't normal.

Figures.

It was only earlier this year when I learned that these disorders I have actually have a name. There's Raynaud's Phenomenon (or Disease, called both ways), which is when my fingers turn white. And then there's Dermatographic Urticaria, which is my red skin... thing. (Although, if you visit the Wikipedia page that the Dermatographia links to, I'm not quite as extreme as the pictures show.)

Now the question that you've all formed in your minds sometime during this post: Are you going to die?


Answer:
Yes, I am. But not from these strange little syndromes.

Thank you for your time, and have a wonderful day. You've all just learned something to share with your moms.

(Meaning the syndromes, not that you're quirky friend who blogs about disorders has them.)

Christmas Poem

Christmas

Here we are again

Trimming the tree

Putting the lights

Where all can see

Here we are again

Singing along

To the radio stations

That play our favorite Christmas songs

Here we are again

Laughing with all

Smiling, and talking

And making a scene

Because here we are again

With all that Christmas brings

Here we are again

Angels in snow

Coats way to big

For anyone to know

Here we are again

The snowballs fly

Gracefully in the air

Until they smack into somebody's thigh

Here we are again

Laughing with all

Smiling, and talking

And making a scene

Because here we are again

With all that Christmas brings

Here we are again

Remembering Christ

Nativity scene

Read all through the night

Here we are again

With family and friends

Drawing closer together

With greetings to send

Here we are again

And as most like to know

That Christmastime is not all the time

Spent in the snow

Because here we are again

With Christ in our hearts

And the joy that we feel

Gets us ready to start

The feeling of Christmastime

- Trevor Howell

Life

So.

It's been a while. I know because... Because... Um. Well, I know that it's been a while. And you know that it's been a while, so let's just leave it at that. As many of you know, I've been quite heavily involved with a little somethin' somethin' called MDT (Musical Dance Theater). Yep, it has pretty much taken over my life in the month of November.

Let's talk about that.

When I first saw the rehearsal schedule for "Big" in the month of November, I just about died on the spot. And without even experiencing anything! But I lived through the moment, and life continued on. Fast forward a couple of days to November, and there we go. November 1st. The first of many 2:30 - 6:00 p.m. rehearsals yet to come. My thoughts for these rehearsals after school consisted of the following: "Yeah. My life is over." Or, "There goes my life." Or maybe even, "I shoulda known." I was sure that I was going to die, even though I, by some miracle, survived the initial shock of seeing the rehearsal schedule for November.

So November went on. Some days slow, some days quicker. But eventually we got to dress rehearsals. Our first dress rehearsal was on Saturday the 12.

8:00 a.m. - 5:00 p.m.

Big Bad Tech Day. That's what the directors like to call it, and I can now see why. It was crazy. We ran through the show twice, once with Kalin, once with Ryan. After we finally finished, I was ready to go home and crash, but of course my homework load came to haunt me.

The Monday following Big Bad Tech Day, we had our next dress rehearsal, 5:00 - 10:30. The next day was the same. Then Wednesday our call time was 7:30 a.m. because we were doing an in-school matinee for other schools who came on a field trip to see us. Then our very first performance was that night!

. . .

I'll just say it didn't go too well. After chatting about it the next day, and what we were doing, and why so many things messed up Wednesday night, our Thursday night show improved by 110%. Then Friday it improved at least another 100%. Then today, Saturday, we kept that same energy up. And our show is AWESOME! To say the least.

But why am I telling you all of this? What are you supposed to get out of this post? Let me tell you.

When I first looked at the November rehearsal schedule, I almost died. When I went to the actual rehearsals, I mentally died. When I got home at 6:00 every night, I felt like my life outside of MDT died as well. But looking back on this whole experience, I realize that this is life. Life is busy, that's just what it is! Out in the real word, you're not going to have a whole lot of free time. Out in the real world, you'll be working your butt off every day. And out in the real world, you're going to be exhausted.

What an experience this has been! It's amazing, really. To look how far this show came from being nothing, to being a whole heap of messed up jumbles a week before opening night, to opening night, to a day after opening night! All because of hard work and realizing that sometimes, things take up time. But work is good, and working for a goal in mind is even better. And when you have the opportunity to show somebody else your work of art is a very gratifying experience.

I'm so blessed to be able to be in MDT, as much as I thought it was taking over my life. I've learned a very valuable life lesson, and that is that good things take work. And usually, it takes up a lot of work. But it's almost always going to be worth it. I'm so grateful for the people that helped me learn this, maybe inadvertently, maybe not. But I'm so grateful nonetheless.

Everybody come see "Big the Musical" before we close on Tuesday night, and see the work that we've put the effort into for you!

Something to Spice Things Up

It's late. It's like, 9:14. NO WAIT! It's 9:15 now.

Anyways, I realize that it's a late hour and I also realize that my posts can get quite lengthy. So I'll just summarize. Ahem...

A little opera goes a long way

I am a pineapple's best friend

There goes the Cantaloupe Snatcher

Sitting next to the caramel campfire

Someday, I'll live in a honeycomb

My French friends live on oranges

Airline food

Airline french fries

Airline TWINKIES

Wait, I'm getting off topic. . .

Christmas is about to blanket our fingertips

Where has the little egg gone?

Space pirates

Ethereal sunset on the lake bed

CRAP IT'S ALREADY 9:22!!

Caterpillar siblings

The ice blanket slides down the afterglow

Michael Jackson

WOAH WOAH WAOHHHH. Wait up. Michael Jackson? Ok. It's late. I'm done.

Silly, Silly High School Kids

Silly, silly high school kids. Silly, silly indeed. 'Cause seriously? I'm only 15. K? Let's get that through everyone's mind before we begin this post.

. . .

Ok, well we've already begun, but just get that through your mind.

Incident #1 

Location - Seminary

Time - 6:50 AM

We were beginning class with the devotional and everything, when we got on the subject of the Night of Shakespear happening that night. People start getting curious and asking questions, when the girl sitting next to me leans over and whispers, "What time was that at again?" I told her it started at 7:00. She then proceeded to ask, "So what part are you?" "Oh I'm not in Drama 4," I replied. Shocked, she turned to face me and exclaimed, "What? With how good you are?!" (Which I'm really not all that great, by the way) "Why not?" "Well, I'm already in Musical Theater, and I didn't really have room in my schedule for any more drama besides that. Plus I'm only a sophomore, so I couldn't be in that class anyway." Even more shocked looking, she says, "Are you kidding me? I thought you were a senior!" I just sarcastically laughed, and half hid my face behind my hymn book until class started.

Incident #2

Location - Spanish II

Time - Around 8:40 AM

So Sr. Taylor was leading us in a class discussion about household items, and parts of the home and such. When we got to the computer, we started naming its parts. Monitor? La pantalla. Mouse? El Raton. Keyboard? El teclado. I was the one to answer what the keyboard was, because I vaguely remembered what I had learned about the computer back in Spanish I. "Muy bien!" Came Sr. Taylor's reply to my answer. Then without thinking, I made the comment, "Whew! 9th grade Spanish is staying with me!" After I said that, Sr. Taylor laughed, and went on with the things he was talking about. Then the girl sitting in front of me turned around and said, "You can remember way back to what you learned in 9th grade?" "Yeah..." I started to say kind of sheepishly. "I'm only in 10th grade..." "Oh really? I thought you were a senior!"

Bueno.

Incident #3

Location - The Bus

Time - 2:20 PM

School had just gotten out, and I had just gotten onto the bus. I was pretty early, which was different for me, 'cause I'm usually running to try and catch it before it pulls out of the lot (my bus is the very first one. Just my luck). So I got to claim which seat I wanted to sit in that day instead of having to lay on top of people with my books on somebody's face, and somebody sitting on my backpack. But no! I got to pick my own seat. Soon though there were swarms of kids coming onto the bus, and before I knew it, I suddenly couldn't see the ceiling anymore. But then I realized that's just cause I wasn't looking up. A few moments later, somebody from MDT sat down in the seat behind mine, and was like, "Oh man! Can you believe that dance today?!" I couldn't, and I informed them of that. Then she went on to say, "Yeah, but we'd better enjoy it while it lasts, 'cause this is going to be our last performance!" Psh. I didn't know what she was talking about! We still had one more that year! "No, because after this we still have Pippin!" I said. "Oh, no, that's not what I meant. I mean, we're going to be in college next year!"

Well. This was news for me. I thought I still had 2 years of high school left! "No, I've still got two more years of high school left actually." Being the stupid-kid-that-never-thinks-before-he-talks that I am. 

"What?! Aren't you a senior??"

Ok, it gets old after a while. Actually, it got old after the first time. I'd like to point out that these first two incidents were in the same day, and this third one was only a couple of days before the first two. I just ordered them this way, because time wise, that's how they went.  I'd also like to point out that every single person who stopped to say, "wait a minute..." was a girl.

Figures.

Don't get me wrong, I love being me! ...But I want to be me! Not this senior kid who is in Spanish II. I just want to be a sophomore! It kinda wears on you after a while. Although, there are a million ways to take advantage of this situation. And it may be fun to try some once in a while... XD.

But seriously. Do I really look like a senior to you?

Slacker-Bum Lazy-Pants

That basically describes me. I mean, seriously. The last time I posted was like, a month ago! A MONTHHH!!! What I really need is a meaningful post. Completely heart-felt. Strait from my soul.

. . .

But unfortunately, that's not what you guys get today. Just a remorseful little boy who blogs about being lazy.

 

P.S. I said blogs, not brags. Just in case you read that wrong.

P.P.S. This post is done now.

P.P.P.S. . . . For reals.

P.P.P.P.S. STOP READING!

P.P.P.P.P.S. Y'know what? Forget it.