WPM.

My name is Sarah Smith and I am currently a sophomore but in eight days I will offically be a junior. I am way to stingent when it comes to spelling and grammar, as you can clearly see by my usage of the word “to” instead of “too.” I love writing and reading and spending time with family and my dog and my friends and by myself. I am an introvert, which is awesomeness. I like coookies, especially when the word is splled correctly, and especially especially when “spelled” is spelled correctly. That’s always fantastic.

The purpose of writing all of this is to see how many words I can type per minute: my wpm. Currently it is 60, but that’s bound to change any moment here. I am also doing this so that I can have a little blog post while I am writing the blog post about my new job at Pamlico Jack’s, which is currently (and slowly) under way.

According to yWriter (one of my writing softwears), my wpm peak was 90. I didn’t expect that, but it probably only got up that high when I was spelling badly and rambling.

Have a wonderful Memorial Day weekend!

Word of the day: troubadour

~Sarah Smith

An interview.

Or something like that.

Mom recently had a young lady in college email her, asking if I could answer some questions for some childhood/teenage cancer research of hers. Which, as it were, not only helps the young lady, but also makes for a new blog post!

The questions are in italics, and the anwers are in norm print.

1. Who other than your parents did you turn to for support following your diagnosis?

I turned to my older brother Nathan, my grandparents, my best friend Victoria, and my dog Snowy. The doctors and nurses were also very supportive of me.

2. Did you or do you currently participate in any support groups? If so how often did they take place and what seemed to help, or not help?

I have not participated in a support group that meets regularly, but I have attended Victory Junction Gang Camp for about five years. It is a weeklong summer camp just for kids who struggle or have struggled with medical problems. While it does not focus on our illnesses, it does show kids like me that we’re not alone and that we can still have fun.

3. Research shows that during teenage years kids like to spend as much time with their friends as possible. Research also says that teenagers with cancer spend more time with adults than they do with kids their own age. Were you able to maintain a social life, with old friends, or was there a way for you to find support in new friends maybe going through a similar situation?

Although I love my friends dearly, I am an introvert. I value my alone time, so even if I could, I would not want to spend every free moment with my friends. I also love spending time with my family. Being a pastor’s daughter as well as being a cancer survivor, I have learned to enjoy the company of adults perhaps more than other teens do, but I don’t hang out with them like I do with friends my own age. Though I spent much of my time in the hospital during treatment, a few close friends of mine and family friends would visit. I also got to go home occasionally and go to church and see my friends there, so for me, being home schooled, that was my social life. Ever since I was sick, I’ve only met two other kids who I’ve really been able to connect with about medical struggles and we have not really kept in contact. So having non-cancer friends has helped me just as much, or even more, than having cancer friends.

4. What research do you feel should be done to help other families in this situation know what type of support, and discussion helps improve quality of life, and add some normalcy to a teenager’s life who is living with cancer?

The support of other teens going through some of the same things is always helpful, but the support of non-cancer friends is always beneficial, as well. They may not always know exactly how to sympathize, but if they are a true friend, they’ll want to stay with their friend who is going through an illness and be a part of their life. As far as discussion goes, it should not completely avoid the subject of the cancer or of treatment, but the cancer or treatment should not be the focus of discussion, either. Disease cannot be ignored in conversation, but it really helps the patient to be spoken to like a “normal” person. Bringing up old cherished memories, singing familiar songs, and sharing inside jokes do not make everything better, of course, but they do provide the patient with a sense that their world has not been completely shattered by cells multiplying too quickly in their body.

Being a teen who has survived a childhood cancer, it is an incredibly sobering idea that so many my age are fighting cancer and so many have fallen on the battlefield. But it has also given me a new appreciation of life and those around me. If I had not had cancer, sure, I would still have two adrenal glands again and have three fewer scars marking my body, but I would also be such a different young woman; so different, in fact, I am not sure I would recognize her if I met her.

~~~

Word of the day: bona fides

~Sarah Smith

Another math post?

EDIT:

We got back to the high school Thursday around 4 pm. We were exausted and I am speaking for all of the math contest attendants that having Friday off of school was nothing less of a boon after practically a 10 hour school day.

We won first place in Comprehensive, second place in Algebra II, either third or second place in Algebra I (and I think we got in the top three for Geometry) along with some students going to the state contest. Thank you for everyone’s words of encouragement It was a great time, but boy was I glad to come home.

ORIGINAL POST:

Two blog posts related to math all in one month?

One post complaining of how the writer thought her math book was incorrect, and now this one where she isn’t even ranting?

Wow.

Tomorrow I am attending the Elizabeth City State University Math Contest. To say I am not looking forward to it would be a lie, but it’s not like a Writer’s Convention or a library groundbreaking.

The main reason I am going is because the Algebra I group was scarce and I’ve had A’s and high B’s all this year. When my teacher announced the contest, her eyes flickered my way.

I’m not going simply to appease my or any of the other math teacher at Manteo High School, or so that there can be an Algebra I team. In whole. I’m not even going primarily to prove to myself that I can.

I’m going because for as long as I can remember, I have disliked math. Oh, sure, I like some parts of it. I love puzzles, and many puzzles involve math. I like the patterns that math presents and how they all work together to get an answer. But I’m a writer. A reader. An artist. I know these things about myself, and I have known for a long time. But math has tended to come slowly for me; it’s not the natural way that my brain works. And having a childhood cancer fought by chemotherapy and radiation did not help at all in that regard. A friend as well as leader of my church dance team had talked to my mom a few months ago and had really learned about what chemo had done to my processing skills. She approached me with a prayer and a challange. She prayed with me that God would see me through to a success in math, that he would heal what cancer had done completely. She challanged me to thank God for that success, for that healing, even before I recieved it.

So no, I’m not going to the contest to prove anything to myself. I’m going to the contest, as my third grade teacher always told us, to “give the Devil a black eye.”

Word of the day: luxate

~ Sarah Smith

It’s funny how.

It’s funny how blogs don’t write themselves.

It’s funny how letter keys don’t push themselves down in an intelligent manner by themselves.

It’s funny how love and eye for an eye makes the world go blind and round, respectively.

It’s funny how there’s a poem by the same name of this post that is written in the same format that I did not know about previous to writing the post.

It’s funny how long it’s taken to think of the above “it’s funny how”s.

It’s funny how it’s taking awhile to think of a topic for a longer, more thought-provoking or entertaining post.

It’s funny how short this post is.

Word of the day: conniption

~ Sarah Smith

 

The math book is wrong.

I know my last name is neither McDougal or Littell, but I am declaring that my Algebra 1 book is incorrect.

For homework tonight, we were assigned a quiz from the book. The answers are in the back of the book, which we must use to check our work and bring any questions we have to class tomorrow. I was feeling very confident about exponents problems 1-13 out of 23. After finishing problem 13 with flourish, I moseyed on down the row of equations to 14, copied it down on my notebook paper, and got to work. It was not too bad of a problem, and I came up with a solid answer of -64x⁵. I flipped forward about three hundred pages to good ol’ page SA23, that is, page 23 of the Selected Answers section of my book. Instead of the answer for problem 14 saying “-64x⁵” like I was expecting, it said the answer was ”-32x⁵“. I shrugged, not too put off because for about half of the previous problems, I had had to go back and fix them. But once I knew what the correct answers for the previous problems were, I could always find my mistake quite painlessly.

Not for problem 14 though.

I thought the problem through, thought through it again, erased my work, did it over and still came up with -64x⁵ as the solution. I had the x⁵ part right, but not the integer part. How I was getting the -64 was by taking 2 to the fifth power. Now, the assignment clearly said “no calculators” so I can’t check my work. If any who are mathematically more brainy than me are laughing at my heinous error, enjoy your endorphins. I’ll see what I did wrong in class tomorrow and have a laugh of my own at my little mistake with my good-natured math teacher.

But if I am right in this, well, a bookworm has just bested a math book.

EDIT:

Okay, so now that I’m done with homework, I feel like the rule of no calculators does not apply. I punched in 2 * 2 * 2 * 2 * 2 and low and behold… it really is 32. Drat.

What Is “This”?

Matthew 18:1-5
“At about the same time, the disciples came to Jesus asking, “Who gets the highest rank in God’s kingdom?” For an answer Jesus called over a child, whom he stood in the middle of the room, and said, “I’m telling you, once and for all, that unless you return to square one and start over like children, you’re not even going to get a look at the kingdom, let alone get in. Whoever becomes simple and elemental again, like this child, will rank high in God’s kingdom. What’s more, when you receive the childlike on my account, it’s the same as receiving me.”

This passage from the Message Bible has been in my mind since last night. Our church had a South African-themed sleepover for all of the girls’ ministries. Of forty girls and about fifteen women, two friends and me were the only teens under the roof. We slept in our classroom with our teacher while the others slept in the fellowship hall with their teachers. But before that, from 6 pm to 9:30, the evening would be spent eating snacks, drinking ”Bug Juice” punch, playing games, listening to stories, and sitting criss-cross-apple-sauce which was oddly uncomfortable to do in Sperries.

I love people and I love kids, but being an introvert, I don’t love crowds or constant noise all too much. So these sleep-overs end up being fun every year, but prepping myself the whole of the Friday mornings and afternoons beforehand tends to keep the fun at bay in my mind. Now, as an understood junior leader, if the girls are misbehaving, you need to gently reprimand them, and if they don’t listen to you, get one of the main leaders’ attention. If you’re feeling overwhelmed by all that’s going on, take a deep breath and find something you can do to help. Don’t complain about anything. Say yes ma’am and no ma’am. Eat your vegetables. Only ask for seconds on the barbecue once everyone’s had some.

I would tell myself how to cope with so many younger children rather than looking forward to the event and the fun we would have learning about God and South Africa. I should have been telling myself, Hey, my age group and teacher will be sleeping separately, watching our own movie – a real privilege - so I should have fun with the youngsters before retiring for the night.

I tried to follow this second train of advice, and I think I succeeded. I found myself having fun right off the bat. The food was great. The games and activities were… interesting, shall we say. The older girls and I even put on a puppet show to help with the safari theme of the night. Sometime after the puppet show, a girl came up to me asked me if I was one of the puppets. I cheerfully replied yes. She then went on ask normal kid-questions and make normal kid-statements. “My name’s Lily. Your name is Sarah? I like that name. What grade are you in? Tenth? Wow. Do you have a sister here at the sleepover? Me neither.”

We hung out (or whatever it is a sixteen and nine-year-old who have just met do) for the rest of the evening. When it came time for worship, I watched to see what the kids would do. Most of them only come on Wednesday nights and so I was curious to see how they would react to the slow, Worship Jamz songs. Revival did not exactly happen, but they did worship. It was a bit following-the-leader, I’ve-never-heard-this-song-before-have-you-ever-heard-this-song-before?, and easily distracted worship, but there was a good number of girls who could disengage from their socializing to sing to the Lord, and to Him, it was as beautiful as any choir full of mature adults – probably even more so.

Standing there with my little friend Lily, I covered my eyes and uncovered them during the repetitive verses of “Open The Eyes Of My Heart,” clapped my hands above my head, and even got a funky sway going as I sang along.

“And I’ll become even more undignified than this.“

What is “this” for you? Singing in the shower? Smiling at a stranger when you accidently make eye contact? Tell of some ways this week that you’ve stepped out of your comfort zone to make God happy or did something anyone else but the Father would think foolish.

Word of the day: Bandy

~Sarah Smith

Enter title here

Enter interesting blog here

Yay for defaults.

As I mentioned before, the tail end of last week was a bit out of the norm, hence no blog from the tail end of last week. Mom and Dad went on a marriage retreat with the church, thus they made plans for me to stay with my friend, Taylor. But before that, Taylor and her sister stayed with us while her parents were out-of-town. So we had lots of fun, girl-time but not much blogging time for me.

Yesterday was a teacher work day for President’s Day (happy late President’s Day!) in which I slept late until 8:00 and made videos and finished math homework and hoped as well as failed to catch the two new Phineas and Ferb episodes on Disney Channel and edited my story and read Sherlock Holmes (Blue Carbuncle, to be specific) with Dad but didn’t write a blog.

So here I am today, on Mardi Gras (happy not-late-right-on-time Mardi Gras!), which I don’t celebrate but it means “Fat Tuesday” in French so that’s cool. Our church is not really doing anything for Lent, but it is a good time to give up some fleshy stuff for 40 days in anticipation for celebrating and remembering Christ’s death and resurrection.

Speaking of Christ, every now and then I’ll being putting in a prayer request for any who are so inclined. So here’s the first on the blog, probably of many: a  friend of mine and his dad are on a sort of mission’s trip. I’m saying this not only to promote his blog or his family, but also because they’re going to need some prayer for the people and church they are currently with. So here’s a trick for remembering to pray for them: whenever you feel even slightly colder than usual (if it’s not exactly what the rest of the world calls “winter” in your corner of the galaxy, maybe just when someone notches the air conditioning down a few degrees or you walk into a supermarket), ask God for strength and guidance for these guys and all who are helping them on their way. They’re somewhere in Canada (somewhere being the operative word) and it’s a bit nippy; hence the memory trick.

On another note, since ending things in writing can often be difficult and can be repetitive (as in, “Okay well I should probably end this entry now but I don’t know what to say to end it but I’m bound and determined to come up with something witty and original just like I did for the previous entry and I still don’t know what to say so I’m just going to keep on typing words until I think of something or I ‘accidentally’ click ‘Publish’ and this entry is finally put out of its misery”), I am going to sign off along with a word of the day. If it’s an unusual word, than it might strike up some conversation!

Word of the day: Bespeak

~Sarah Smith