Moving...and other stuff...

First off, let me apologize (AGAIN) for disappearing off the face of the earth. This is what summer does to me. But I think summer is a good enough excuse...sort of... When you're homeschooled, Summer can do dangerous things to you...

And secondly, I'm not moving literally (thank goodness. Not planning to move anytime soon...). I've decided to 'move' to a different blog, for a number of reasons. I'll give you the url in a bit - it only has like, one post so far. I'll miss this dear blog that I've started four years ago in '07, with all its weird and childish or childlike compositions and ramblings. But I think it's time to grow up a little bit. And there have been a lot of other changes in life too, so I thought, 'oh, might as well'. (as if I couldn't handle one blog enough XD)
In my new blog I will try to post more meditations and the like (I never knew how much improvement it did to my writing skills), as well as music videos and maybe some book reviews. But I'm afraid I don't have time to post my old "saints' stuff" like I did when I was...er, younger. That was fun, though. And even though I stopped that a long time ago, I'll miss that as well...

Another big change is that I have changed my username to 'Akalei'. That is my name in Hawaiian, and Charity Therese is/was only my pen name. I go by Akalei in a lot of other things and places, and it's also my artist name. So it should be easier to recognize me...sort of. I'll miss being called 'CT' though!

So...if there are any readers left out there, thank you for your patience! This will be one of my last posts here. All your sweet comments (if there are any left, lol) and sharings and such have been much appreciated. Thank you for taking your time to read this neglected blog. :)

I'm still alive...

I totally apologize for the disappearance (AGAIN). You have no idea how many times I tried to get into my blogger account! I even tried commenting on my previous post to let my readers know that I couldn't access my account, but then realized that I had 'locked' my comment box so that I could only publish it once I was logged in as blog administer. (Yep, epic fail.)
So there I was furiously typing in my password again and again and again and again to absolutely no avail, when I FINALLY saw those three little words and a question mark.

Forgot your password?

Thank God for people who have pity on airheads like me.

Anyway, I will get back to posting soon. Thank you for your amazing patience, and I apologize again for the inconvenience!

Rest assured...

...I have NOT fallen off the face of the earth, thank God. I've just slipped. ;)

I know, where in the world has this writer gone to, especially before Lent? Doesn't she owe you a post? Yes, I do owe you a post. In fact, I'll give you this one long post!

I'll spare you on the details, but things in life have been changing. A lot. Besides the annoying teenager hormones and my siblings who are almost ALL taller than me (except for one...) and the war with acne finally subsiding, of course.

It's mostly about growing up, that's been 'up' lately. I know, all of the above were about growing up...but...ok, read at little bit more and you'll find out.

First of all, it just hit me that I AM a teenager. girl. With a face and some sort of aura God created me to have, and that eventually, a boy or two...or five...will notice. Scary thought, ya? I totally agree. I say I need a frying pan or two to keep those buggies away.
Okay, I didn't mean that seriously (well...maybe a little... :P ;) ), I DO have some really nice friends who are guys. Yes, they all ARE scary, immature, and childish at times, but it took me a while to realize they're just little boys...with big hearts.
And NO, I know what you're thinking, but no. Miss CT is not planning on dating anytime soon, noooo sireee... Like I said, rest assured. I believe that those kind of relationships should first and foremost be built upon Christ's holy and pure love, as we build our friendship as true brothers and sisters - whether we feel any 'feelings' or not, or whether things would work out the way we think they will or not. That goes for every kind of relationship. You just need to make sure it's firm and strongly built, not on sand, but on a nice sturdy Rock. But I'm not going further there, (unless you want me to) so please bear with me as I hop onto the next paragraph.
So there you have it. I'm being chased around by boys - a position I have never thought of being pulled into... I know that's very un-girly of me, but I assure you that I am not even close to an average Catholic teenage girl. (Weird, huh? It's like I see romance as the worst thing that could ever happen to me! lol. But no, it's definitely not worst thing that could happen to me, it just may not be for me yet.) The situation used to bother me a lot. Not much these days. It's not the fact that I am being chased around that bothers me the most, it's the horrid fact that when I give them a 'no', they break...and so do I.
The first time happened a couple of years ago - a total bolt from the blue. He was a friend from Church, and I didn't know him that well. When I realized of the drama he was asking of me, I was totally dazed. Just by the thought of that 'boyfriend/girlfriend' relationship, I felt sick and ruined. I never wanted anyone to like me in that way. ...So obviously, nothing ever came out of it. It hurt my friend for a while, but he's alright now. But that was the first time. Now it's like I have every guy I know under suspicion of 'chasing me'.

So let me fast-forward to last month. I had been completely devastated over this fact that bore the question: How far am I supposed to go to love people??
I don't want to boys to keep falling for me, only for them to go away with a broken heart. Of course, I guard my heart pretty well - I'm definitely not an easy fish to catch, as they have learned very well. I asked myself, did/am I doing something wrong?? I put up more 'walls'. But they follow me anyway. I was disgusted with myself. Felt like the only person who hated me, was me. And if you haven't guessed yet, I DO care for my guy friends, whether they want to chase me or not. It's just that the matter is so fragile and complicated...I don't want to be the one to cause the pain. I know and knew what St. Paul was saying 'Love is patient, Love is kind...' And I do want to potray that perfect love with all my heart to everyone, (as everbody should desire that! I hope.) but... How far should I go before somebody's heart breaks? If not theirs, what about mine? Can't I be a better friend and spare everybody of wasted pain?

I decided to pray on this at an Adoration night...
And I got my answer.

"Love until it hurts."
Me: Whaaaat? That doesn't help at all. Love 'til it hurts - how do you do that???
Then I raise my eyes from the Eucharist and freeze at it rests on my Lover hanging on the Cross.
I was all, "Ohh." (*buries face in arms*)
'Love until it hurts'... I had missed one important part of St. Paul's definition of love: Love endures all things.

...I'll end that part of this post there. But before I go on...
Um, honestly? Right now, I'm still wrapping my mind around that. I feel more assured and confident about matter, but not 100%. Really, if we were 100% ok about everything - sure things would be a lot easier - but life would be so boring, don't you agree?! It's testing that faith, hope, and love that bring out the beautiful things in life.

Anyway. I do suppose I owe you a post on Lent.
Now, I've said a lot about Lent before in the past, so I don't want to repeat myself here... But here's something that I've gotten out of Lent so far.
One of my resolutions was to give up my extra computer time. Yes, facebook too. But I didn't say I was giving up facebook entirely.
Why? Not just because some of my friends aren't giving up facebook. I had decided on using facebook to reach out to my friends in need, in whatever distress or problems they were going through. One of my friends lost his job. Another one of my friends needed encouragement and someone to talk to. So far, it's gone pretty alright, except for the fact that facebook has some pretty nasty glitches that make me miss messages... :P
Anyways. Besides that, I realized that without all that extra time to play around on facebook, 'stalk' my lovable friends and read all their posts, play with the flair apps and bejeweled games...the days suddenly got longer. I'm not kidding! I find my afternoon hours so long and empty. Especially 3-6pm. Then it hit me: What in the world do I do for 2-3 hours on facebook?? There's a lot I could do in three hours without facebook. Cook, clean, draw some saint pics, write a song, watch some VeggieTales stuff with my siblings...and well, blog.
It made me think, if we gave up something that consumes so much of our time, then what could we do to fit in those hours that would make our days so much longer and fulfilling? I find that if time feels slow, it means you do a lot in your day and get a lot out of it.

Next week we'll be halfway finished through Lent. Has time been seemingly slow for you or not? :)

pic source

Okay, who threw their watch out the window...?

I blame you for making time fly by!!!!

Can you believe it's October already? *doesn't raise hand* I still remember Christmas Caroling down in Waikiki with some of my bestest friends...and that only feels like five months ago.
For me, October is always that moment when you think somewhere along the lines of: "Darn. It'll be Halloween, then Thanksgiving, then Christmas, then New Years one after another. And before you know it, it'll be Valentines day, and then Lent AGAIN!"

Don't you hate it when life throws itself at you like that? Life should be treated like chocolate; savored slowly and with each little bite, you feel that satisfying sensation. Chocolates shouldn't be gobbled up. Where's the fun in that?


I've had a lot of grown-up moments this year. Several times I had to assume the title of 'big sister' when my older sister wasn't around. I'm pretty bad at it, but at least I've got a brother who looks centuries older than me. We don't even look alike...(on the sidenote, my younger sister just told me that if we weren't related, and she saw me walking around Waikiki, she'd definitely think I was a tourist).
Besides being stressed out about moving, which I never really had before, there was the teenage drama going on with my friends, and that whole friendship thing, when you talk to someone about why you're hurting and God's miraculous intervention. This was the first time I've talked about stuff like that to a friend. Okay, it wasn't a real-life conversation, nor a phone conversation. ...It wasn't email either. It was uh, Facebook messaging... (you can laugh now) But that still counts, right??
I can remember the many times I've rolled my eyes whenever my mom talks about stuff like that with her friends. I was like, 8-ish, and seeing my mom cry about emotional stuff that has happened was amusing(my mom has this really loud & jiggily laughter that you can hear a mile away). But now that I've experienced it, I can really understand why talking about it brings you to tears. Wow. Just amazing. Weird, but amazing.

Another grown-up moment was when I was camping this weekend. I snuck away with my older sister to go stargazing on the beach. Lying there on the cool and fine sand, I wondered about a lot of things that had happened lately. I realized that there was a very big difference between two times of the homeschool group I have been in. The one that seemed like decades ago, and the one now. Why do I think of them as almost two seperate groups? Because the one decades ago - almost all of the members had either moved away to the mainland(military), or decided to non-homeschool their kids. They were all replaced with new friends and families. Anyway, the old group had lots of kids around 8-12yrs. There was a teenager or two, but that was it. Now? I can count up to almost twenty teenagers, most of them around my age. And not a lot of them are military. I realized that these would be those friends that you'd grow up with - throughout the rest of highschool year, graduation, and possibly college. Years ago, those things would never come to mind. Years ago, growing up never existed. And years ago, it felt like God was holding the future in His Hands, and there was nothing to worry about.

That's another thing that I've been wondering about. Why is it that the older we get, we worry more? God HAS been holding the future in His Hands, before we were all born. It's not like the future is like one of those annoying toy thingies - you know that plastic tube/thingy with sparkley liquid in it that you can't squeeze? Something like that.

This school year I'm doing my best to be a Junior. Already, you may ask? Homeschooling can be confusing, yet extremely organized. The good news is that I've caught up with some school work and have gotten ahead in those areas. The bad news is that I'm still behind in some areas. The plan so far that I've tried to sketch in my head goes somewhere along the lines of getting enrolled in Seton Home Study School for my Senior year, so that I can fly to Virginia in 2012 for graduation.
I have a lot of friends graduating that year, and are also flying to Virginia. That gives me a year to catch up with my not-so-good areas. It's not impossible; it's just that I have those moments where motivation is very much lacking in me. So do keep me in your prayers. :) And if you have any helpful advice, please, do share!

What goes beyond that, I am not entirely sure. I do know though, that I'd like to do something with art (art history is so AWESOME!!...that, and I love to do artwork). I'm self-taught, and very sad that I can't afford art lessons. I suppose my top area is manga/anime art. I'm not much of a fanatic, and haven't had much time lately to do anything, but I'm pretty surprised that in a period of about a year, I've gotten farther than I've expected to. (to close friends: I can email you a couple of pics I've done before). But an ultra-awesome thing is that I've drawn several saints in this style. I don't think they look as awesome as they deserve, but it's still pretty cool. So I suppose this brings me to an idea of learning to do animation? That would be really neat. John Paul the Great University provides classes on animation. Other than that, I do want to learn other art styles. But who knows what will happen? Only God does. :)

Another thing is writing. As you can probably guess by this super-long blog post, I do love it (Yes. I know. I'm weird.). I admit that I have had many attempts at writing a book, fantasy/fiction, and maybe a short story or two that's connected to another story, but that's it. It's either lack of motivation, or another idea springs up and I want to go with that one that stops me. Believe me, I have plenty of ideas, stories, and fun stuff in my head that I want to write, but those ideas outweigh my writing skills. In other words, I can't write it all out very well. I'm still trying to find out my writing style. But now that I'm getting older, and running out of time before Senior year, I really want to finish up at least a draft of a story. That sense of accomplishment would be really great. On another area, essays don't prove to be too hard unless there is absolutely no inspiration. Do pray for me regarding that...

One last thing is music. I'm no prodigy - all I can do is play the piano and a bit of the violin. But I've also done a little experimenting here and there, and actually has gotten into song writing. Song writing? Really? Yep. It's a lot more fun than I thought!

So...any college hope for me? I've taken a look at lists of degrees and majors and whatnots, and looked at the list of "These are more necessary if you want to get a nice and well-paying job." Is it just me, or is that kind of scary?

Oh, and another grown-up moment: I lost my keys. (No, not my car keys!!! I don't wanna drive yet!! ...That comes next summer.) Now I know how annoying that feels...


P.S.~I hope this post made up for the absence. The picture is a sunrise at the campsite I was at.