The Beginning

I've never blogged before but recently I was indirectly challenged by my older sister to try it. She probably doesn't even know she did it. A few birthdays ago she gave me a book called 101 Things to do Before You're Old and Boring by Richard Horne and Helen Szirtes. I work on it when I'm bored, because surely the state of being bored precedes becoming boring. The book says the world "blog" is an abbreviation of "weblog" which makes sense. This discovery interested me. I'm supposed to be logging stuff on the web.
I'm an 18-year-old female. My mother wanted to name me Aspen but my father said it was too hippie so instead, I am Garnet. I'm proud of my unique name. I wouldn't be very happy with something more common. It just wouldn't fit me.
I belong to the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints, (aka- LDS, Mormons). My mother follows the same religion, but my father doesn't especially follow any religion, although he attends our church weekly. He's not open with his feelings but I would assume he's an agnostic.
Artistic things fascinate me. I make hemp necklaces and sell them at a local jewelry store. I want to make a website for myself so that I can sell more of my creations, not just the hemp items, but I don't know how. I embroider, cross-stitch, sketch, paint, design and decorate skateboard decks, paint miniature figurines, and I'm sure I do more things, but none of them come to mind at the moment. Lately I have been trying to learn to work with Polymer. I have also taken a class on glass blowing and it was wonderful. Learning more about that is definately in my future.
Travel is one of my passions. In the summer of 2006 I went with a youth tour group called EF to Greece, Italy, and a brief walk-around in Turkey. It was fun and I had a wonderful time, but the trip I got to take last summer was much more fun. I went with a group called Alliance for Youth Service (AYS) to Fiji for two weeks and we built toilets. It was hard work but it was one of the most rewarding experiences I've ever had. AYS travels all around the globe doing service. I made some wonderful friends in Fiji and I wanted to stay. One of the boys in my group watched me very carefully on the day we were to leave because he was honestly afraid I was going to try to escape. This is rediculous of course... although it was quite tempting.
I play a few computer games: Warcraft Frozen Throne, Oblivion, Call of Duty. I play the role-playing game Dungeons and Dragons (D&D) weekly with a group of friends. Occasionally I watch movies if I'm with people and we can't think of anything more entertaining to do. Snowboarding and skiing are very fun for me. I live in a small town in Idaho, USA and we get a lot of snow. The nearest hill is 14 miles by road from my house. My school work is done online through BYU Independent Study, however my schooling has not always been here. 1st-4th Grade I was in public school. For 5th grade I attended a private, one room school house with students in grades 1-8. In 6th grade I returned to public school. I started having migraines around this time in my life and they just suck. That year I missed 74 days of school, however I still had a 4.0 GPA thanks to my teachers who were willing to let me take home work to complete alone. I understood it well, so for the next two years I uused the online school K12. I liked it very much and learned a lot. I tried going back to the public High School for my freshman year because I didn't want to miss the "High-school experience." Also in that year I attended a private school for English and Literature called North Fork. Halfway through my freshman year, I was forced to leave the public highschool because of the jerk who they call the principal. Again, my teachers were allowing me to take home work that I missed due to migraines and again, I had above a 4.0GPA. The people who mattered were perfectly willing to work with me, but the principal, who does nothing but sit on his lazy butt all day entertaining ideas of vendetta against teachers he doesn't like, tried to force me to apply for a disabilities thing so that it would be "acceptable" for me to miss so much school. I was made to go and make a formal appeal to the school-board for every 7 periods of a class I missed. It was absurd. By the time all of this was over, I was ready to leave that highschool and never look back. I went to keystonehighschool online after that for the rest of my freshman year, and the two following that. They were nice. I continued to take from the private school, North Fork for several years, although I didn't return this year. Now I am inrolled in BYU Independent Study Online Highschool. They're pretty nice. I am behind in schooling due to my migraines, so I probably won't graduate until sometime next year or possibly early the year after, rather than this spring when the rest of my class-mates will be finished. This is depressing but I'm not sure why it should be. On the bright side, because of the classes I'm taking through BYU, I will graduate with several college credits under my belt so I guess everything works out OK...
Well, I suppose I should close now. I'm on the computer a lot because of my school so feel free to comment (if that is indeed how these things work.) I'll be happy to respond and make friends on here.

Garnet