Gold Award?!

I'M STARTING MY GOLD AWARD!!

What it got approved what?!

23 Beautifully Written Pages.

Here's a long and (maybe boring) diary entry that (may be) interesting in the future. Above is my overly excited face bc my project got approved!

So I thought I was done with stress once school ended, but apparently not. There was stress from AP Scores, stress from JO's, stress from the ACT, stress from relatives going "You're taking the ACT? *scoffs* Colleges only look at the SAT", and stress from starting the Gold Award Proposal!

I've been wanting to start my Gold Award forever, but with AP's and finals and such I didn't really have time until school ended. It was tough because my family already bought tickets for July 28th, so I would have to get my project approved sometime in July....which meant that I had to turn in my Proposal paperwork on the 1st of July. And before all of that I had to find an orphanage that was not well known, not that well off yet, and one with a phone number and address but NOT a website. This took forever because I think I e-mailed 20 different orphanage organizations....and got 3 e-mails back. Then I was switching back and forth between two organizations, because the one Dr. Kabaila recommended led me to a dead end--the interpreter wouldn't respond to any of my e-mails. So I contacted Sister Marie Kham, who was in charge of VS1, but that didn't work because she all of the sudden stopped answering my e-mails....after around 5 back and forth, she just decided to stop e-mailing me. And all of this was happening at Volleyball JO's in New Orleans, where I played most of the day, and where there was absolutely terrible Wi-Fi. I mean you would think there would be Wi-Fi at a hotel, but apparently not. (Anyway here are some pics from Louisiana):

A lil bit of NOLA for ya :) [Hot, Humid, Beer, Cigarettes, Good Food]

So this whole time I'm just thinking like "Okay, whatever. You're just gonna do this even if it's not for the Gold Award. You're gonna freaking help out some orphans in Vietnam". And I don't even care how cheesy that sounds bc this is 100% something I want to do! So I started typing up my whole proposal (which was like 23 pages of size 12 font!!) but I left some parts vague or blank in regards to the particular orphanage, and in regards to my project advisor. I contacted Carissa Dragan and she told me that an e-mail from the organization would be fine; I didn't need a letter. She also told me she would try to get me an interview in the beginning of July (yay!). I think it was 2 days before the due date for my proposal--I frantically e-mailed Dr. Kabaila, asked him to be my project advisor, got his approval, sent him my proposal and had him sign, then send the proposal to my troop leader and get her signature. And the very night before the due date, I had it all assembled. I actually had a beach tournament the day it was due (of course), so I played in the tournament in Santa Monica, and had my dad drive me to the center in Marina del Ray where I submitted my proposal 1.5 hours before it closed. But I freaking did it! I turned it in!! Now I had to just wait for them to e-mail me with my interview date and additional info.

When you're planning a bake sale

Then, of course, I find out Carissa Dragan is done working with Girl Scouts. And the person in charge of interviews is conveniently "away" for 2 weeks and won't be able to get me an interview for another 3 weeks. I totally freaked out and started yelling and sweating and acting like a complete maniac because the STRESS, man. The freaking stress. Buuuut my mom calms me down and tells me to call the people at the Arcadia center. So I call Deanne--who is so so so nice; after I anxiously explain my situation, she tells me to e-mail her my proposal. And then my printer stops working. I can't scan my papers. (at this point my mom's all like "yeah, the whole world is against you", but she says it sarcastically. Like that should definitely not be said sarcastically...everything was a mess and nothing was going my way!) But I wait it out and the printer starts to work, and I e-mail Deanne an hour later. She doesn't reply for like 3 days!! I always have my phone with me, too, so I'm like constantly refreshing my G-mail app but nothing appears.....

Me & Murnd post e-mail!

THE e-mail.

3 days later, I'm at Pacific Palisades playing in a beach volleyball tournament again, and I'm refreshing my phone every 5 minutes...and I GET HER E-MAIL! At this point I'm completely freaking out. She's asking if I can meet on Saturday in the middle of the day....the day I was planning to do a bake sale. (Wow, loving life lol) BUT my mom shifts her working schedule, and she tells me that I'm able to do it! So I reply to Deanne like 7 minutes later that yes yes yes yes I CAN meet. :)

So between the e-mail and my interview/bake sale date, I texted like 25 of my friends asking if they want to maybe contribute some baked goods for the bake sale at my mom's salon. Suprisingly, a lot of them offer to! So I get my dad to pick up some stuff when he's already driving and in the area (of course he makes me go with him though)...and then it literally takes me hours to wrap these treats individually (it's hard!!). Thursday I bake with Mads--we make Lemon Cupcakes (from scratch!) and Lemon Icing (from scratch also!). We also make these Chocolate Caramel Pecan Turtle Cookies which are absolutely DELICIOUSSSS. Actually, both were amazing. Friday I bake with Sammy and make Promiscuous Brownies (3 layers: brownie, oreo, and chocolate chip cookie). We also make my usual White Chocolate Chip Macadamia Nut Cookies which are heavenly and just melt in your mouth. (older recipe on this blog! just click under "FOOD")

Alameda location 

Magnolia location!

TODAY, Saturday, I went to my mom's salon with Aidan, and we set up a bake sale. We made over $100 at the Magnolia location, and we made like $20 at the other location....probably bc we weren't actually there, but that's okay! That's still almost a quarter of my budget goal!! Here's some stuff I learned:

-everyone in Burbank is on a diet. "I would.....but I cant!"
-everyone (almost) is super generous so THANK YOU
-cute kids help sell more stuff

When business is slow :/

And you're bored :/

In the middle of the day, we took a fam roadtrip (jk) to Arcadia, where I had my interview. I was SO NERVOUS!! I prepared a powerpoint several days before, and I kept practicing in the car rides, but I still felt so scared! Mostly scared of rejection, I think. So I got there 20 minutes early, and I'm expecting some time to chill in the waiting area, practicing some more, but the second I get there, Deanne brings me into a small, confined room. She leaves the door OPEN so practically everyone in the entire building can hear our conversation. Also, the clock is the loudest clock I have ever heard in my entire freaking life. It TICKS every second that goes by. I thought that only happened in books and in the 1900's. But it was a very loud, defining tick. Every. Single. Second.

"notecards" with my amazing, new, high quality, HD printer

The minute I step in the room, I start uncontrollably sweating. I mean, there's definitely air conditioning....but I can't stop sweating!! The whole time, I have zero control over my perspiration levels. My voice is so shaky. And my voice keeps catching--you know, when you can't manage to finish words/sentences because you're so nervous...so you keep thinking ahead to the next word you plan on saying, but that doesn't really work out so all your words just become a jumbled heck of a mess. My HANDS are sweating. That's only supposed to happen to my mom! My legs are sweating in the long, tragically uncomfortable and baggy khakis that I have to wear. I keep telling myself to freaking breeeeaaathhe. Soon the interview is over and she's saying that I'm good to go?!?!?! WHAT THE HECK MY PROJECT GOT APPROVED OMG!! HECK YA I was (and am!) way too psyched about this. :-) The interview wasn't actually that bad--I basically just explained what I was doing, and she gave me a bunch of suggestions.

Unreal how good this was omg

Taken in LC! 

I'm really happy. I can officially start my project!! I got some celebratory Thai Tea Boba. 100% recommend it. Also shout out to Hannah Chew who helped me through irrational stress regarding the interview and typing up the proposal. Love ya twin :-)

I will keep updating about my progress!! Much love to all y'all.

Audge