So I’m kind of thinking of this column in terms of numbers—number of days until things happen, number of days since something has happened, number of any random thing that comes to my mind....

Maybe I’ll start with the number of songs on my iPod. I’m at 2,987…no, 2,983, now that I’ve successfully removed any annoying Nickelback songs that have somehow snuck their way into my iTunes library. At this point, I’m feeling pretty relieved that I can Facebook in peace. I no longer need to keep one hand on the speaker volume knob at all times should Chad Kroeger’s creepy, raspy voice and snore-worthy chord progressions suddenly make my ears bleed. With each Nickelback song I delete, I agree more and more with Kroeger—“every time I do it makes me laugh.”

From the date this issue will be published, April 30, I have calculated the number of days it is until several things I’m looking forward to or the number of days it’s been since things have happened.

In the past 145 days, I’ve had two knee surgeries—one to repair my torn ACL and one to fix my meniscus. It’s been a real pain (har har), but I’m getting through it. As I’ve spent time reflecting on these long, frustrating days, I have come to more fully realize how much I’ve learned. Watching an entire season of basketball from the bench really opened my eyes to the way my coach sees the game, how much more there is to life than sports, and that I can complete an insane amount of homework during the two-hour practice.

Swim team starts in 26 days. I’m pretty much totally pumped to be back on the team. Last summer I decided I’d be trying to do too much if I added swim team to my millions of other activities. I was definitely right. But this year, since I may not be able to play basketball because of my recovering knee, swimming would be great for rehabbing and getting back into shape.

My mom is also planning on being the head coach, and she thoroughly enjoys taking out any of her frustrations on me as I toil lap after lap, gasping for a single precious breath of oxygen.

I’m kidding. Swim team is super great. If you can swim a lap and like it, you should consider coming out. You can talk to the people in that building by the library for a form if you’re interested.

I’m going to Europe in 40 days. There’s a group of, like, 25 upperclassmen from Hillsboro High School going, led by two pretty cool teachers, Mr. Dalke and Mr. Woelk. It’s not a school-sponsored trip, we’re going with EF Tours. I’m crazy excited because not only are several of my friends going, but we will get to take sweet pictures AND I’m allowed to refer to Mr. Woelk as “Bobby.” He promised me I could, and I’m going to be pretty upset if that ends up not happening.

In 61 days, as many as 17 people will be staying at my house. Under usual circumstances this would probably make me want to cry—but since they are some of my best friends I’m definitely OK with it.

If 17 actually end up coming, that’ll be about half of the friends I made during the different Ministry Quest retreats last fall and this winter. This is probably the thing I’m MOST excited about out of the zillions of things I’m doing this summer. I feel so close to all of these people, even though I’ve only known them a fraction of the time I’ve known all my other friends. And half of them are Canadians, so they’re automatically super awesome.

So just in case all of my day-counting and energy has been making you weary and leaves you thinking that maybe I shouldn’t be quite so excited about boxes on a calendar, I’ll let you know something really, really sad...you know, just to even things out a bit.

School starts again in 104 days.

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