North Carolina, Play, and Random Stuff

Sorry for not updating sooner! I've been really busy with schoolwork. I've pretty much just been going to school, getting home and doing homework and then going to sleep. Oh yeah, and going to GFit and a little TV here and there. I haven't read a book in a while though :(.
Okay so last weekend I skipped school on Friday in favor of driving about ten hours down to North Carolina with my parents. They were going down to see a Duke basketball game and I was going down to see my friends that live there, Max and Elise Moses. It was a lot of fun, sadly we could only stay one full day because I had to be back at school on Monday (way to be a downer, BACS.) It was really nice being able to sleep in the car. I was just lying across the back like it was a bed. Then we also stopped at Cracker Barrel for lunch! I love Cracker Barrel, the food there is so good. We arrived at the Moses' house, I don't know, around sixish? From there we sat down and had dinner. Unfortunately I was still filled from Cracker Barrel so I didn't have much of an appetite. I'm sorry, but that dinner was not too interesting. Whenever I'm over at anyone's house, it takes me a bit to warm up to everyone so I was just kinda quietly sitting at the table while my parents talked about their work. Not the most interesting topic for me.
After dinner, Max and I started a game of Monopoly. By the time Elise got home, I was already winning by well, a lot. It's funny because last time I saw Elise and Max I was constantly beating Max at card games. Ah, I love card games.
On Saturday Elise and I made cookies, but they were out of vanilla so they tasted a little funny. Then I went to Elise's soccer game. It was really cold and I just kinda sat there and watched whilst listening to music for four hours. North Carolina isn't that much warmer than it is here in Pennsylvania. Kinda embarrassing but I was falling asleep on the car ride back to the house. I was very tired, besides, whenever I'm in a car I get tired. Once we got back to the house, Elise and I went up to her room and I spent the next hour trying to convince her to put on a bathing suit. She finally did so, probably just to shut me up. But when we were all ready to go in the hot tub, the dinner guests came over, so we put clothes on over the bathing suits and went down for dinner. So the dinner guests were also friends of my parents' and they brought their grandson, Cam, with them. Elise and I had fun playing with him, that is, until he started crying. Funny story about that, actually. So when he started crying Elise and I tried singing to him, he started crying harder. Then later we tried singing to him when he was happy... seconds later he started crying. Ouch.
Then we finally got into the hot tub! I love hot tubs. Especially in the winter. It was warm. Haha. We had Max take a bunch of pictures.
One of the things I really loved down there, were all of the Moses' dogs. If you were unaware, I've always wanted a dog. Man's best friend, right? The Moses' had four. It was awesome. Their names were Lulu, Clint, Izzy and Maggie (I think it was Maggie and Clint). My favorite was Lulu, she was really cute and sweet. It was funny because when we were in the hot tub, Izzy kept dropping a basketball into the water so we'd throw it for her.
Our 8th Grade play is coming up fast! March 3rd and 5th at 7:30 PM in the Bryn Athyn Church School, you should totally come. I can't say it's really good because I haven't seen many other scenes (haha) beside m own, but you should still come. All our work on building the set is almost done (it looks interesting) and I'm pretty sure we've rehearsed all the scenes a couple times. Next next week we're going to be having all day rehearsals, NO SCHOOL! :D
As mentioned before, I've been going to GFit. In my last post I'd gone twice, now I'm no even sure how many times I've gone, I'm going to try and go three times a week, but sometimes things come up and I can't go every class. It's a lot of  fun and I'm getting better at it :D Like I'm not sore afterwards anymore, which is great.
Valentines Day is tomorrow? Have any plans? I do, I'm making myself cupcakes tonight haha. #loner But I'm helping Caroline bake cookies and cupcakes for Drake today, so that's something.
See you next time,
-Anj

Reading

“Only the weak minded refuse to be influenced by literature and poetry.” That was said by the famed author, Cassandra Clare. Reading is an inspiring and relaxing pastime that is enjoyed by many people across the world. Books can give people fond memories of places they have never been and even change the way some people view life.


When asked if he found reading inspiring, David Cooper answered, ”Yes, because it enables you to see different perspectives and consider alternate points of view.”


Sherri Cooper commented that, “Reading does inspire. Good books are inspirational because they often tell of people overcoming obstacles or tragedies and doing great things with their lives, or they give you a glimpse into the human mind.” Even though both answers are vastly diverse they show that a lot of people find books inspiring but in different ways.


“I don’t have a lot of time to read all the time, but when I do read, I enjoy it and it calms me,” answers Caroline O’Hagan when asked if she liked reading. Her comment shows that though some people who are quite busy still find time to enjoy a good book.


Some people read books to get lost in the plot, while others read to relax. “I like that reading is a way to relax my mind after a long day at work,” says David Cooper.


Books can strongly impact peoples’ lives. “How will I ever get out of this labyrinth?” This quote from Looking for Alaska by John Green was found particularly inspiring by student Dara Rogers. “The labyrinth is very important to the plot.” She explains, “and it reminds you that if you’re stuck, there’s always a way out.”


The following poem by J.R.R. Tolkien from his trilogy “Lord of the Rings” was found very intriguing by Sherri Cooper as a young child and she still remembers it today.

“All that is gold does not glitter;

Not all those who wander are lost.

The old that is strong does not whither;

Deep roots are not reached by the frost.

From the ashes a fire shall be woken;

A light from the shadows shall spring.

Renewed shall be blade that was broken;

The crownless again shall be king.”


(ha that was off the top of my head)
“I find that poem to be very true, especially in the spiritual sense.” Sherri says, “It’s about good versus evil and how good isn’t always about that which looks good on the outside.”


“The Word has also helped me from not being afraid,” she adds thoughtfully, “There are some quotes I remember that show me God’s love.”


Many people enjoy reading. Whether it’s to escape the life they live in or to relax themselves after a long day’s work, reading is a popular pastime that is inspiring, educating and intriguing all in one.  “Books were a necessary escape I always gladly jumped into headfirst,” writes New York Times bestselling author, Jennifer Armentrout. This shows that an interest in reading can lead to astounding writers. 

Homemade Doll

At BACS if you're a girl and in seventh grade you get to make a doll. It's a lot of fun, really. The hardest part would probably be sewing the doll together/connecting the head to the body. I remember when I was sewing I stabbed myself in the thumb and got blood on my doll's face.... Yeah that upset me, but luckily I was able to get most of it out by using a tide stain stick. Like I said before, it was really fun making the doll, I was thinking about buying two more kits to make my doll's brothers, Jace and Alec but I decided that making all the clothes and the hair and stuff would take too much time and energy when I could be doing something else more useful.... like reading and writing blog posts with multiple grammatical mistakes. I should probably apologize for my spelling and grammar mistakes now, it's just I never actually read over these beforeI post them so, I'm really sorry for all the stupid spelling mistakes and stuff you'll come across on my blogs.
So for my doll I made everything by hand, from the doll to the clothes. I spent like seven hours straight on the clothes, actually. At the end of spring break I was at my grandparents so my grandma and I spent all day sewing the dress, shoes and jacket. The necklace was harder to make because I had to find a jewel that fit the description. I had finally began to give up on making the necklace when I found the perfect red stone for it. Then getting a, I forget what it's called, the circle thing to connect to the chain I'd put together (Just wrapped a chain around my wrist then put the connecting things on it) and sticking it on was fairly easy.
If you didn't know, the doll I made is Isabelle Sophia Lightwood from The Mortal Instruments by Cassandra Clare, my favorite book series. It was the series that got me into reading and as Fiona says 'ruined my life' haha. Isabelle is my favorite female character out of all my books because she's strong and can handle things for herself along with a lot of other things though, I don't feel like mentioning all of them right now. I didn't know what to think of her at first, but by the end of the first book I liked her and by the end of City of Fallen Angels she was my favorite character. She has some great quotes that I enjoy reading and quoting...

"But I watch my brothers give their hearts away and I think, don't you know better? Hearts are breakable. And I think even when you heal, you're never what you were before."
-Isabelle Sophia Lightwood

Anyway, making the dolls was really fun. I enjoyed it, anyways, I don't know about other people. If you couldn't tell I didn't really have anything to say..... Okay well I'll see you guys next time.
Xoxo
Anji

Ballroom Dancing 2014

Ballroom Dancing week 2 (Caroline: left Me: middle Fiona: Right Pause

Ballroom dancing was so much fun! I really enjoyed it. At first I was really scared and nervous, I'm not really sure why, oh yeah, it's because I suck at dancing. I was afraid I would break somebody's toes or something. I literally stated hyperventilating before the first dance. It's not actually that bad. Like I said before, I really liked it. It was really fun, and anyone who was there when I slapped Fiona- I DID NOT SLAP HER THAT HARD THE SLAP JUST ECHOED! Okay now that we got that through. My favorite dance would have to have been the last dance, it was longer and really fun. Though, some people were more fun to dance with than others. *Cough* After the last dance Yates, Coleman, Layne, Winston, Fiona, Camryn, Faith, Emma, Dara and I went to Nifty Fifties for milkshakes and stuff. I'm pretty sure Yates freaked out our waiter a little too  much.
Tip for all you people going to ballroom dancing- don't use baby powder. Everyone says to, I don't know why. One you'll probably get white handprints on the boy/girls outfit and I'm not sure how the boy would take it but I can tell you the girl won't like it. Also both of your hands are going to sweat. Deal with it. The dress shopping was really fun too. I got most of my dresses at Forever 21. They have really nice dresses for only like $22. Now here's a tip for all of you who say you can never find anything good at Forever 21 (Females) that is the biggest BS I've ever heard. You just really have to look through the racks, sometimes the good clothes are hidden in between things and stuff. Not all the good clothes are on display. Seriously, that store would have to be a lot bigger if everything was on display. The funny thing is, if you're freaking out about how you look, no one cares except for you. Another tip for ballroom dancing is to brush your teeth before you go or/and use breath mints or something. You really don't want to be dancing with someone when you have really bad breath, it's just not a good experience for either of you. ALSO talk. It doesn't matter what you talk about, but it's a whole lot less awkward dancing if you are talking about something. If you're a horrible dancer like me and a naturally shy person just bring up something like the weather. Haha just kidding, that's just grasping in thin air and it's obvious. Maybe talk about how bad you are at dancing, or something.
The first week was really frightening for me, Fi and I got ready together that week and Zia did my hair in a heart braid. If you looked at the top of my head you'd see a braid in the shape of a heart. Like I said before, I was FREAKING OUT before that dance. The second week we got ready for dancing I got ready with Care and Fi. Care was nice enough to curl my hair, look at the picture, isn't it pretty looking? I wish my hair was naturally curly. She also was nice enough to do a waterfall braid. I love Care, she's so good with hair, make up, nails and everything beauty. Unfortunately she had to rush to get ready so she never again went anywhere to get ready.  I remember we were all sitting in a row, Care blow drying my hair, and then me blow drying Fi's hair while Care curled my hair and then me straightening Fi's hair while Care continued to curl mine. It was a rush but fun.
The third week I got ready with Dara and Ursyboo. We.... uh.... locked Ursula under my bed for like a half an hour. My bed has drawers, so yes, that's possible. The pictures were difficult because in almost every picture Ursy was doing something weird. For week four I just got ready with Fi. She didn't want to be in a picture so..... I'm with Zia... Week five was so much fun except for I left those five idiots in my room for a half and hour and they SEVERELY messed up my room. That may not be a big deal to all of you, but I'm a clean freak, Care even calls me on her phone Anji OCD Cooper. So I freaked out, especially when I found MELTED CHOCOLATE on my bed, Ursula.
The last dance was SO much fun. I loved how much longer it was and dancing with the eighth grade boys was a lot of fun, too.
I would write more but I have to study for a test tomorrow, study some French and then other things to do(Secret Sister gift). Sorry guys! Hopefully I'll see you tomorrow! Xoxo
Anji

Random Stuff About Me

As my first post I talked about myself but I'm bored so I decided to make a more about me post because I'm sure you all want to know. My full name is Anji Mei Cooper
pronounced On-ji May (I'm from China hence the weird name.)
I was adopted from China by my parents David and Sherri on March 17, 2002. The only reason I remember that date is because it is also St. Patricks day. You see, I'm good with dates like book and movie releases and my friends' birthdays but I can never remember my parents' birthdays or my house address. I have one sibling, Zia Mei Cooper, we share a middle name, how awkward. Zia is two and a half years older than me, she's currently in her sophomore year of high school and we're complete opposites. Where she likes sports I like reading and writing, where she prefers netflix I again, like reading more. She also has no idea what a blog is and I own like twenty three blogs so if I didn't know what one was there would be something supremely wrong with me. Where I'm more concentrated on my academics, she's more interested in sports, stuff like that. Zia and I also don't get along very well, we get into arguments a lot. I have two cats, Nix and Lily, they're siamese cats which is what my mom had when she was a kid. I don't have that big of a family compared to other people, where some people have hundreds of cousins I have seven, mom and dad's side. I have two cousin's on my mom's side, Austin and Andy, I don't really know them that well since there's a pretty big age gap. On my dad's side there's Anders and Ivan Croft, Meagan and Ryan Cooper and Ethan Cooper. Again, don't really know Ethan that well because of the age gap. Meg is a year younger than me ad Ryan is like two or three years younger then me, I can't remember.
Anders is Zia's age and Ivan's my age which is really convenient, we go camping with their family every year and spend Thanksgiving and Christmas together. There isn't really much contact out of that since Anders and Ivan never really seem to text back.
I went to preschool at Apple Cheeks and had three best friends there, Amelia, who was a year older than me, Colin Drennan who is my age and Timothy Moxey who is also my age. Colin and Timothy were actually my two best friends in preschool since they were the same age as me, but Amelia and I were good friends and I was really sad when she left preschool. I remember Colin always liked to brag about he was a whole quarter of a year older than Timothy and I. I'm not in contact with any of them anymore which is kind of sad but, well, can't really do anything about it. I remember having a crush on Colin when we were little. Yes, four-year-olds can have crushes. I was friends with this girl named Brooke, too, she was my shadow in preschool, I remember she liked to follow me around a lot and copy me, which annoyed my four-year-old self sometimes.
For my kindergarten year my mom had a sabbatical in Maine, so for my first year of school I went to it in Maine. My best friends there were Amanda, Laney, Sophie, Nyx, Lillie, Tristan, Isaac and Cooper. Cooper Hogan, it's funny because his name is a combination of Fiona and my last names. Please ignore the fact there was a Nyx and Lillie. Ah Maine was a fun year. I remember Zia and I went slug hunting, I took a ceramics class, a glass making class along with other things. We lived on Oars Island with a massive amount of property. The beaches around where we lived were rocky ones, but I didn't mind. There were some really bad snow storms in Maine, but they were used to it, so our school had a gigantic generator, we had hardly any snow days. Once a storm was so bad we had to leave our house in the jeep, drive out into the woods around the road and stay at a hotel. I remember it snowed near Easter time and I made a snow bunny. The snow wasn't really snow man (or bunny) material, it was an icy snow that was better for sledding. So whenever I stuck an ear on the bunny, an eye fell out and whenever I stuck the eye back in somehow the ear fell off.  In Maine I was on every sports team a kindergartener could be in, which was cross country and basketball. My favorite was definitely cross country, I loved it.
First Grade was kind of hard for me, it was in a different school, in a different state, with completely different people. The boys were insane, loud and rowdy and the girls were very... different from the ones in Maine. I was the 'new girl' in first grade even though I had lived in Bryn Athyn before Maine. I stuck by Ursula a lot of that year because I knew her. I also became friends with Camryn Buss, Emma Reuter, and Sophie Bostock that year. Camryn turns out was that person who lived down the street from us with the bikes always in the driveway. When our parents first tried to introduce us at the Bryn Athyn Pool we were both so shy we didn't want to talk to each other. But later, Camryn was staring down at the pool where her torpedo was and I ask her if she wanted me to get if for her and our friendship blossomed from there. I'm not exactly sure how I became friends with Sophie and Emma I just remember it happening.
Not exactly sure when I'll continue this very stimulating story of my life but stay tuned! ;) 

Fairies and Chocolate

Remember back in my Friends: Emma post I said my most prominent memory from our childhood together was the fairy and the chocolate eggs, well, here's what happened. Back when we were in first grade, maybe second grade, so younger than we were in this picture, we stole chocolate eggs. It was around Easter time and her family had this gigantic box of chocolate eggs and as younglings we really liked candy. I mean, I still do like candy I just like ice cream more. Her mom said we could have two chocolate eggs, and then she went upstairs to take a nap. I guess since Emma was the oldest she was supposed to be responsible, but hey, we were like six or seven. So anyway, when we were little, Emma and I spent 90% of our time at her house down in her basement where all the toys and stuff were. Those two chocolate eggs were delicious, and since Emma's mom was upstairs taking a nap, we decided the only logical thing to do was to get more. So up the stairs we went and into the pantry. Taking handfuls and bundling a bunch of eggs into our shirts, we snuck back downstairs. I just sat by the trash can eating my share of the eggs and throwing out the wrappers, but Emma thought that her parents would see the wrappers in the trash, so she sat by the furniture and tucked the wrappers under there. I'm pretty sure several trips were made up the stairs and into the pantry to get more chocolate.
After maybe the second trip or possibly the third Emma started getting anxious about her mom coming downstairs and she was fiddling with this fairy toy that if you pull at the edges it will go higher. 

And so our brilliant minds came up with this idea, completely forgetting the whole 'taking a nap' thing. The fairy staying up must have been what was keeping her mom upstairs instead of coming into the basement! SO Emma and I took turns keeping the fairy up, then, since we were on a roll with these bright ideas, we came up with another idea, if we put our hair into her parents' possessions we could track them. Yeah, don't even ask me what logic that was. After going into her small bathroom in the basement we used those child scissors and cut of pieces of our hair. We put my strand in her mom's shoe and when her dad came home Emma was super sneaky by slipping the hair in his pocket when she hugged him. Except she wasn't, so her dad pulled the hair out of his back pocket and I'm pretty sure Emma got in some trouble after I left. And then of course, the next day her family moved their furniture around in the basement and discovered all the candy wrappers under the furniture, they never even looked in the trash, but Emma got in more trouble after that. And that is my most memorable childhood memory with Emma. 

Ursula

Ursula Hope Friesen 'Urs' 'Ursy' 'Ursyboo' 
Ursula is my older younger sister I never wanted. What do I mean by that? She's older than me but she acts younger so I think of her as my younger sister, sometimes I treat her like my younger sister, too. She plays field hockey, tennis, hockey and softball, her best sport is hockey, she's really good. Ursy likes reading, not as much as me, but she likes it. Her true passion is for YouTube she's practically obsessed with it, like we'll be in the middle of a conversation, headphones go in and she's on YouTube watching Dan and Phil. -_- Click here to see her YouTube account and click here to see mine. Urs and I have been literally friends forever, we've known each other since pre-schoolbut we became really really good friends in first grade, when I moved back to Pennsylvania. We were together a lot of the time. I remember playing numerous games in her basement, and trying to figure out how to lock her cats in a room with a hole in the wall with only pillows (Oh shush we were 6). We loved to go down and play in the creek by her house, we even made a museum there which was pretty cool, but it got ruined later. Oh, once we took her mom's perfume when we were in second grade and 'cleaned' Ursula's room by spraying everything. Her mom found out and I had to go home early.
In seventh grade, I remember meeting Ursula and Dara for dinner at bwell and then, after dropping Dara off, we went back to her house to hang out. We were there alone and if you didn't know, her house is 80% windows. So when these guys we didn't recognize came and knocked on the door, naturally we flipped out. Ursula bolted for her parents' room while I grabbed her laptop and my milkshake and then bolted to her parents' room after her (#priorities). Since we had to run back to the kitchen to get something like a knife for protection, and there were windows, Ursula handed me a screw driver and she grabbed a pair of scissors. Yeah, a screw driver. Anyway we had freaked out, thinking we would be murdered or kidnapped or something, so she called her dad a bunch of times until he picked up. Turns out those guys were there to work on her yard or something and they just happened to have a creepy white beat up truck that looked ultra suspicious. Guess I won't be using that screw driver any time soon.