Dune - the LOTR of science-fiction. A very strange story...but a classic.
Ender's Game - another sci-fi novel, about a boy who is trained by the military to destroy an alien threat. One of my favorite books of all time.
Alice's Adventures in Wonderland and Through the Looking Glass - simply classic! Quirky, random and very entertaining.
Another thing that made the trip special was taking pictures, as you have already seen in my last few posts! And this led to another memorable part of vacation... While taking pictures one evening, I lost the lens cap and searched all around the place where it may have fell. I was wearing flip-flops and slipped into a crack in the rocks and fell forward, scratching my leg up and giving me quite the flesh wound on my foot. Luckily the dads helped me get back to our campsite and get it cleaned up!
Then JV kids camp! Many thanks to Becca for putting together such an amazing week! Also, thank you Andrea for awesome lessons on prayer. I lead worship along with Hannah and it was a great learning experience along with being just plain fun! Camp was in Croatia, and one way that I entertained myself on the 20 hour trips was...you guessed it - reading! I finished one whole 500-page book on the way down (Speaker for the Dead, the sequel to Ender's Game, and another favorite), and almost finished another one on the way back (Xenocide, the sequel to Speaker for the Dead, which I finished the following day)! Rather productive week, wouldn't you say?
School has started up once again, and there are positive things about it! We have great teachers this year (not all...but almost) and some interesting subjects, including a creative writing class with our home-room teacher, Mr. Till.
Along with the creative writing at school, I'm taking an online creative writing course this year. I most recently wrote a short story called The Alchemist and the Thief. I'm very proud of it, and after a little more cleaning-up it should be quite entertaining! If you're interested in reading it, go to jvteentyler.googlepages.com! At the bottom are some questions, so if you feel like answering them (for some it's mandatory - like for Hudson!) it'll help me a lot in making it better!
One very fun thing that I did a couple weeks ago was Live Action RolePlay (or LARP) in the style of Tolkien's Hobbit! I dressed up, made a wooden sword, padded arrows and took a fiberglass bow we had lying around the garage, and set off with Patrick, Mr. Till and some other guys to fight as Elves against the evil Orcs and Wargs! It was a lot of fun!!! (Can you find me in the second picture???)
One amazing experience from the past few weeks was going with some of my classmates to the Student Leadership Conference in Budapest. Students from Christian schools all over (as far as Sweden, Turkey, and Russia!) to attend seminars to train them to be leaders in their schools. It was really a great experience. (The worship, however, was not so good...and me being the musical type, I was noticing every little mistake! However, I soon learned to just ignore it and focus on the act of worshiping!)
This year I have a lot of responsibilities. On Monday is Tensing (the youth choir where Caleb plays bass and I'm the band leader), Tuesdays are free!!!, Wednesday I lead an Exit 316 group for my school with Patrick, Honza and Robert (maybe you remember me talking about them, if not, oh well!), Thursday is band practice for Tensing, and every other Friday is youth group! Saturdays are usually packed with something (like birthday parties, or mowing the lawn), and Sundays I either help with or lead worship. So it's pretty crazy! But God's been good and though it's not easy he's helping me balance and become more efficient with the free time I do have.
This weekend we had a big youth group event. We borrowed a big tent, a big stage and a big sound system. It was BIG. And at this BIG event, me and Caleb had our first BIG GIG!!! And man was it BIG. Our band was named Total Impro because of all the improvisation we would have to do! We had just formed that morning and practiced all day (it sure was tiring!) with a guy who's studying in Prague and plays guitar. He was awesome and all together - me on acoustic guitar and vocals, Caleb on bass and vocals, Peter - the guy from Prague on electric guitar and vocals, and Pavel - our drummer from Tensing. It was quite the show. The funniest part was when Caleb started to sing and all these girls started screaming from the audience! =) It's something I'll never forget.
Yesterday (October 8th) was Claire's 13th birthday!!! We had a small little party with just a few people over and it was fun. She got some new clothes and is trying out a new style, and it suits her quite well!
Nicholas and Zachary Pitcher are having their party next weekend, and I'm really looking forward to it! This will be the first party where I have my own Lord of the Rings figures to play with in the big strategy game they love to play! It'll be quite the battle.
Till next time, and don't forget to leave a comment and check out my story! Thanks!
