Alright, my first time blogging. Its kind of hard to know what to start off with but I think I'll start with my challenging move to WA. As many of you reading this know, I came from the happy town of Hopkins, MN, home of the Vikings and of 10,000 lakes. I had a pretty good life: a job, great friends, awesome sports, kick ass school, etc. Even though my family was going through some messed up times with my moms alcoholism and whatnot, I wasn't going to let that effect the life I've made for myself.

But, in the end, it didn't matter because my family split up anyway and my dad in WA took me in as a full time resident. At first I was psyched to start over with new friends, new school, a new life, but it wasn't until after I moved that I started to feel the loneliness that my life in MN never had. Especially coming into the middle of my junior year, everyone already had friendships that have lasted from years prior and it was hard making friends towards the end of my highschool career. Well, I'm sure most of you know that in highschool, there are cliques and certain groups of friends, so it was hard being friends with everyone. I felt that I needed to stick with one group. So I found myself hopping groups of friends. I found my weekends being very random in that way because I would be hanging out with different groups of friends every weekend and I wasn't used to that. I missed my solid group of friends in MN because we were all so close and almost nothing could take us apart.

Not only did friends have a MAJOR impact on my move and my life, but having a new set of parents and guidelines to follow by seemed pretty difficult. In MN, I didn't have to worry so much about being home by a certain time. But here, my parents don't give me that. Sometimes being home at 12 just doesn't work with me, so I found that sleepovers and occasionally sneaking out was a way to work around those rules. I also found that I'm more dependent on my parents and people in WA. In MN, I supported myself financially and usually found my own rides. But in WA, I find myself asking for money a lot more often along with rides from my parents. In that sense, I miss working and providing myself with my own money, so I'm still in the process of finding a job in order to do that.

Now that I look back on everything that I've been through, I know that I've changed my life almost completely, but I'll never forget the people in my life in MN, as I go back to visit on occasion. As far as my future goes, I've been looking at colleges within WA, and I don't know if that's exactly what I want to do. I figured if I wanted to go to a college outside of state, like Minnesota, I knew that I can always get into a community college and gain residency and then transfer to another college after a semester. I've really been thinking about that and its definitely hard and scary not knowing what I'm going to be doing 7 months from now. I'll figure it out though ... I hope.

Wow I wrote a lot and I still have a lot more to say but I guess there are other times for that. It's showa time for me!

"Until the cookie crumbles,"
This is Mikaela signing out