Oh, may God bless you through this... I have never heard any preacher so powerful, nor a message so... I can't describe it, but you MUST listen to this, I know it's long, but listen anyway.
April 29, 2009
God's Gifts
There have been many things happening here, but the one that I most want to talk about is God's gifts through the ACT.
Thank you so much for your prayers - it is only via prayer that this happened...
First, there was supposed to be a huge snow storm showing up early in the morning of the ACT, which would have canceled it.
Then, there was a particular place in the room I wanted - in the front near an edge, because I'm not used to working in a classroom and the people would have been very distracting.
Then, there was a big problem. When I was doing practice tests, as soon as I was done, I crashed physically and psychologically. Well, the real test went a full hour and a half longer than my practice ones did because they read all the rules in between every single section. So, guess what? At just the time when I usually finished, I really crashed, really bad, and literally just randomly filled in the ovals on at least 1-15 questions out of 40.
But, God allowed what I think is a miracle - The snow was held off until the afternoon - I got the front CORNER seat, so I only had one person next to me, and I was next to the window, which was wonderful! Then, as to the crashing, first of all, that section that I crashed on, went JUST FINE! It wasn't my best score, but it was one that I had gotten before. However, the complete score, the composite was HIGHER than I have ever gotten through all the practice tests... It's amazing!
Praise God!
Thank you so much for your prayers - it is only via prayer that this happened...
First, there was supposed to be a huge snow storm showing up early in the morning of the ACT, which would have canceled it.
Then, there was a particular place in the room I wanted - in the front near an edge, because I'm not used to working in a classroom and the people would have been very distracting.
Then, there was a big problem. When I was doing practice tests, as soon as I was done, I crashed physically and psychologically. Well, the real test went a full hour and a half longer than my practice ones did because they read all the rules in between every single section. So, guess what? At just the time when I usually finished, I really crashed, really bad, and literally just randomly filled in the ovals on at least 1-15 questions out of 40.
But, God allowed what I think is a miracle - The snow was held off until the afternoon - I got the front CORNER seat, so I only had one person next to me, and I was next to the window, which was wonderful! Then, as to the crashing, first of all, that section that I crashed on, went JUST FINE! It wasn't my best score, but it was one that I had gotten before. However, the complete score, the composite was HIGHER than I have ever gotten through all the practice tests... It's amazing!
Praise God!
April 3, 2009
The ACT and Other News
I know it's been terribly long since I posted something that wasn't a video or political commentary, but I really have been doing a lot lately.
First, I completed geometry! Yay!
The amazing part is that I started it on February 4th, and then finished it on March 4th! I honestly don't understand how I did that, except that all of a sudden, just after finishing the Chaparral Cleanse that I think I mentioned, my brain "turned on" as I call it. I was able to do math better than I have literally in years.
That means, (drum roll) that I have actually finished all my high school coursework!!! I.E. I have graduated high school but haven't "walked" yet!!
That left me with exactly one month to study for that dreaded, avoided and generally feared ACT. I have now been studying for that month, and will be taking it tomorrow. I was doing quite well on the practice tests until yesterday, when I suddenly got a 19 (on a scale of 1-36 with 36 high) on the READING section of all things! I've been getting scores in reading between 30 and 34 or so, and then all of a sudden I got 19? It doesn't make sense. But, I think it may have something to do with the form of the test, that was the first one I did online. With the online tests, it scores for you and everything, but it also gives you much smaller type and you have to scroll through the text that you're reading, which I think makes it much harder to reference while asking the questions, so I was going far more by memory. (SAT people, on the ACT you can reference the passages as often as you like while answering the questions, and that includes the writing prompt).
Anyhow, I've been turning my clock around in preparation for this, and have been getting up consistently at 6:20am - an amazing feat for me! But, this morning and yesterday, I've been waking up at around 5:30, and having trouble getting back to sleep. That's hard, because I'm losing a bunch of sleep that I really need.
I could really use prayer about the ACT, that I'm not nervous, and that my brain doesn't just decide to quit on me and go to sleep, and also that I'm able to rest well today and tonight.
On another front, we have finally decided on a Church - send up a flare! It certainly took us long enough - 7 months since we moved here. It's a small congregation about 10-15 minutes from us, which is very nice, and we really like it. At the end of it all, we were deciding between that church, which we'd been visiting off and on for a few months now, and another that was down on the west side of the city. It was a hard choice! But, even though we picked the one closer up here, I'm actually getting involved in a group from the one further down in the city.
Actually, I'm scaring myself, because the group I've started attending is, get this, the college and career group! AHHHHH!!!!! It's just that I felt like it would be silly to join a youth group for 2 months until I had gone through a graduation ceremony just to leave and join the college group. And, since I've never been in a youth group, I didn't really think this was the time to start. So, I am now attending this group, and I have enjoyed the two weeks I've been to - there would have been more, but I had to skip a week, long story.
Oh, and really funny, Dad, my father, who is technologically advanced, but perhaps not so much on the Internet until recently, got a Face book! So, if you've got one, send him an friend invitation for me.