To All Those Christmas Haters

           Christmas time truly the best time of the year and it’s never too early to start celebrating. The official time to start the Christmas festivities is considered after Thanksgiving. Scratch that; Christmas celebrations should start after Halloween! Some people believe that the Christmas season starts too early. LIKE WHAT? Never, ever will it be too early to start celebrating Christmas. Apparently those Christmas haters have not yet experienced the joy of the best holiday all year.

                The best part of Christmas is the wonderful music. There is even a whole station on the radio dedicated to just Christmas music! The sad part about this is that they only start playing the songs after Thanksgiving and they stop on Christmas Eve. Once again: LIKE WHAT? That only gives us about a month to enjoy it. I think they should start playing Christmas songs at the start of November.

                Another great think about the Christmas season is the decorations, especially Christmas trees. The best trees are the real trees. No fake trees up in here. Real trees make the house smell like pine and the outdoors. Plus each real tree that is bought is different. This makes each Christmas unique. If you don’t want a real tree go buy a fake one but probably thousands of other people have that exact same tree. Don’t be a follower.

                Apart from Christmas trees the best decorations are lights. Christmas lights just seem to make everything brighter and happier. The greatest lights are the multi-colored strands. White lights are boring so go with the different colors.

                Christmas movies are icing on the top of the cake when it comes to the Christmas season. Elf, It’s a Wonderful Life, and A Christmas Story are some of the best ones. These movies are great to watch even when it’s not Christmas time.  By far the best Christmas movie is Elf. It’s absolutely hilarious. Will Farrell does a great job of playing a lost adult elf in New York City. I would recommend this movie to anybody.

                Overall, Christmas is the greatest time of the year. Music, decorations, and movies all make up to a great holiday season. The true meaning of Christmas is to be giving and thankful for everything we have. It’s such a cheerful holiday.  How can someone not want to start celebrating as soon has possible? So to those Christmas haters: I hope one day you start to enjoy the wonderful festivities of the Christmas season.
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Typical Halloween.

Trick or treat, smell my feet, give me something good to eat. That's a classic saying. Well anyways, its halloween time! It is halloween, it is halloween, halloween, halloween, it is halloween. Halloween means free candy and dressing as crazy as you want. Some girls even think that halloween is an excuse to dress like a slut. I beg to differ. Its like honey, please cover some of that up. Halloween should be renamed to “the night of the slutty outfits”.

What I don't understand is that there is plenty of cute, non slutty, halloween costumes. Most girls insist on recreating non slutty outfits into slutty outfits. All you have to do is add “sexy” to the beginning. Sexy cat, sexy cop, sexy flight attendant. After doing that, cut off the stomach area then the legs but make sure you cut all the way up to the butt for extra sluttiness. And there ya go! A slutty halloween custom. Jk please don't do that.

Another thing that I don't understand is that some girls spend up to $80 on their costumes. You could use that money to buy things that are a lot better. Oh wait here's an a idea: maybe a normal halloween costume? And girls, we don't always have to be impressing everyone. Guys that really like slutty girls probably aren't dating material. I know is clique to say but guys should like you for your personality :)

Overall, let's try not to be too slutty on halloween. Keep it classy, ladies.

Moving on.. Literally.

My parents probably picked the best house and best neighborhood possible in the whole area of Cedar Crapids. I live on a nice little cul de sac that is surrounded by woods. I live about half way down the street and its great. The reason why I am writing such an odd blog describing how much I love my neighborhood is because we are moving. Yes, moving :( I mean not like moving moving, we are still staying on the NE side, but we are still getting a new house. Its crazy to think that someone else is going to live in my house. I have grown up on my little street since I was five years old. This is the only neighborhood I remember.

The greatest thing about my neighborhood is the people that live in it. I live in the fourth house down the street and in the three houses before me also have girls my age. We have grown up together and they are my very best friends. During the summer I was never alone. We would hang out with each day after day. I probably spent more nights at their houses than I did at mine during the summer. They also had older brothers and sisters who were the same age as my siblings. It just worked out really well because the kids were all friends and so were the adults. We would go on camping trips together and have barbecues.

Now, 12 years later, we still hang out all the time and so do our siblings. Not a lot has changed. This is why moving is going to be so hard. I am not only leaving behind a great home where I grew up, I am also leaving a wonderful neighborhood. Its going to be very hard to say goodbye but I guess that is just a part of life....

Music is a Mood Changer

Listening to music can really have a big impact. It can change your mood or even bring you to remember things that happened when you heard that song. I don't know about you but I like to listen to music basically any time I can. I listen to music the most when I am doing homework or just hanging out. I am in love with my mac book, its a amazing and I would totally recommend it to anyone. Well anyways, while I am doing homework on my wonderful lap top I get very bored. This is when I know I need to spice up my study experience with some music.

I usually don't like to listen to my itunes on my computer because I listen to it enough on my ipod. There are many websites that have online playlists for different genres or they can even play music to match your mood. Here are some examples of these websites:

8tracks:

www.8tracks.com/

8tracks is a really cool website that has different playlists. These playlists are categorized in many ways like by words like love, summer, or chill. Once you create an account you can like a playlist and then listen to it anytime. They have thousands and thousands of playlists and my favorite part is that these playlists are made by other users on the website.

Songza:

songza.com/

Songza is a lot like 8tracks except the playlists are made for your mood. When you first enter the website it will ask what you are doing like studying, having a dance party, or cooking. After choosing one it then asks you which genre you want like soft pop or rock. In the end you get a playlists that matches the mood and activity you are doing.

Pandora:

www.pandora.com/

Pandora is a classic. On pandora you create stations for different artist or songs. You can create as many stations as you want and if there is a song that you don't like you can dislike it and the song will never play again on your Pandora.

Well I hope these enhance your studying or hanging out experience. They become especially useful once finals come around. Happy studying!

Success?

Success - it's a simple word with a million definitions. As our life flies by, before we

know it we will be sitting close to the end, looking back at our life thinking: “Was I successful? Did I make something of myself?” Only you can answer these questions, with your own definition of success. To me, success isn't measured by how much money you make, how big your house is but by learning and growing everyday, caring and loving everyone and most importantly being happy.

Happiness is something that seems hard to get but its easier than we think. Sometimes we just go through the motions in life, we get so used to a certain lifestyle. Everyone is so busy all the time and its seems that stress is all we ever feel. I have to do this, do that, get this done or turn in that. If you just stop for a moment and think about how truly lucky we are. Maybe our stress is coming from hard classes in school but remember that many kids around the world don't have access to a good education. Maybe our stress is coming from sport but remember that we are grateful to get the chance to play a sport. Maybe our stress is coming from family, we are lucky to have people that love us.

For couple minutes, just stop everything and think about all that you have, not what you don't have, and that is happiness. Happiness is accepting the fact that life is hard and really sucks sometimes but that its something we can't control. Happiness comes with acceptance not from money, a lot of friends, or fancy things. Happiness is simple but we make it complicated.

So take a moment to just relax and think. Look up at the sky and remember that there are a lot bigger problems in the world than what we are dealing with in our personal lives'. By doing that, happiness will come and you will be successful.

Aussie, aussie, aussie!

One thing most people don't know about me is that I lived in Australia for two years. I was born in Seattle and my dad worked for the world's largest airplane company. When I was three years old his job was transferred to Brisbane, Australia. So the Gilbert family packed up and moved overseas! Since I was so young I don't remember it that well but I can't imagine how stressful it must have been on my parents to move three kids and all our stuff across the ocean.

Living in Australia was an amazing experience. Our house had a big pool in the backyard with tall, green palm trees surrounding. It was warm everyday and we lived close to the beach so we spent a lot of time at the ocean. We went to the Sydney Opera House, Great Barrier Reef, and even got to see the Crocodile Hunter. Since I was so young when we lived in Australia, I started to pick up the accent. It was very small but my parents said I spoke so differently from the time we got there to the time we left.

My favorite memory was when we snorkeled in the Great Barrier Reef. We got on a pure white motor boat. It wasn't just any normal boat. There was a big window on the floor which you could watch the wild life below. Looking down into the clear water below, four sea turtles swam under. They had a sort of grace and simplicity that was truly breath taking.

Once it was time to go back to the states my parents took us to China, Japan, and Indonesia on the way home. They figured since we were already half way around the world that we might as well go to Asia too. In China, they are only allowed to have one child so being three American kids with dark hair and blue eyes, we attracted a lot of attention. My mom said that one time I yelled, “These Chinese ladies won't stop squeezing my cheeks! I hate china people!” Cut me some slack I was was only four years old!

I am so thankful that my parents decided to move overseas. Granted it was very young, it still effected me. I got to experience many cultures and meet many different kinds people. My parents loved Australia so much that we almost stayed there. We only came back to be closer to family. Its crazy to think I could easily be living in a different country. I am so lucky and grateful for those amazing experiences.

Look good, feel good, play good

I still remember the first time I stepped on the ice. Its one of those life changing moments that no matter how old I get, I will never forget it. Hockey is my passion and I love it more than I can express in words. It produces a range of emotions for me because sometimes I hate it so much. Times when I have a hard practice or I am just feeling absolutely exhausted, I ask myself, “Why do I do this? Why do I put in so much effort?”

Those thoughts don't last every long because I remember why I play hockey and how much joy it brings me. I play for traveling with my team, scoring goals, and not only do I play for the wins but I play for the hard losses, the losses were I can't help but cry because even after giving it our all, it just doesn't turn out. During those rough times I always go back to the moment when I stepped on the ice for the first time, and that is what keeps me going.

When I was six years old, on a chilly saturday morning, I took my first step into a new passion. The feeling of butterflies as a started to skate around and the whisk of cold air on my face. Honestly, I could barely skate. Even have no idea what I was doing, I loved it. After an hour of practice, I stepped of the ice with a hug smile on my face and ran over to my dad yelling, “Daddy I didn't even fall once!”

I don't expect other people to understand the love and passion hockey players have for the sport. Its the kind of thing were you just have to play it to fully get it. We are different than other athletes. We would move away from home, and our friends, in a heartbeat to play for a better team. We love the long car rides and the tired feeling on sunday afternoons after playing five games. We love the sweaty smell of ice arena locker rooms but most of all, we love the feeling of the freezing cold air on our faces as we skate down the ice. My coach always says, “Play for the girl that feel in love with the game and play for the girl who never looked back.”