Update, update.

This is what I used to do:

"Meet an Inventor" event. (Check out the second video.)

NOW, I work for these people:
Exciting, right? I got a summer internship with Varian Medical Systems here in town. They make X-ray tubes. I don't really know what that means or what I will be doing but it's SCIENCE! I mean, engineering, but whatever.

I start on Tuesday. If it's anything like my old jobs I'll have to do really tedious work for a supervisor that hates me. Cross your fingers!

Musical debut.

I did it folks, I really did it.

I've been playing the guitar since the 8th grade and, actually, my first musical debut was finger picking The Beatles' "Yesterday" during a Young Women's Achievement Night. I stared at the music the whole time and didn't smile once. Later, I played "Brown Eyed Girl" at a Ward Talent Show. Didn't sing then either. I did con a couple friends into singing for me though, so it's not like I was just up there strumming awkwardly. Not like that at all...

I had a brief stint in a Christmas band but really, that's pretty much the bulk of my public performances until...well, there was karaoke at my friend's going away party a few years ago. I sang "Blue Christmas" in a key that was far too low for my voice. My friend, hiding in a corner behind me, responsible for the "Ooh ooh's" in the background, froze in the spotlight. Really, she just stood there. So I was left alone, cowering in the front while the DJ yelled at me to sing louder. It was a tribute to our friend and we failed miserably.

You can imagine, then, how flatly I declined when I was invited to play at an acoustic night earlier this month.

Flatly, flatly, flatly.

...on further consideration, however, I decided that 1) I should be able to accept what I can currently do without expecting it to be perfect and 2) I shouldn't be afraid to try to be more than I currently am.

So I resigned myself to fearfully facing fear.

There was actually a part of me that felt like once I got up to perform I would be all right. I would realize I knew what I was playing and decide that I didn't care what people thought anyway.

Wrong. I was very, very wrong.

I sat down under icicle lighting, arranged my instrument, and looked out into a vast army of menacing strangers. I made a joke about castanets that nobody understood and promptly broke into a feverish sweat. Then I started playing.

I now present to you my measly efforts: (Please by kind, you're actually watching trauma unfold.)

Next stop: posting videos of solo performances in my bedroom on YouTube.

Island Parkour.

We jumped off the roof. We built a luge run. We sledded behind a 4-wheeler. We played the hot lava game. We fell. We tackled each other. We got covered in snow. We danced. We froze. We yelled a lot...

I can't say it enough.

I love this place.

My nickname.

In the spirit of giving I've decided to clear up an often confusing feature of this blog -- my display name.

When I decided to document my life for the world I thought it would be prudent to write under a semi-false identity -- a pseudonym, a nom de plume...a literary nom de guerre, if you will. A proverbial mask for my civilian identity. As if I were a superhero...who publicizes her superheroic exploits. And I don't think I need to assure you that my exploits are superheroic.

Ahem.

To be more direct, several years ago my parents adopted two boys from Ukraine. I called them The Russians, they pronounced my name Loh-rra and thus a nickname was born. Plus, Lohra Miller ran for District Attorney sealing the form of this nickname forever. Yes, I have a nickname that is merely an alternate spelling of my actual name...what?

Here's a brief video for documentation.

Ho Ho Home.

I am from an out of the way place known as the Upper Peninsula of Michigan. The U.P. The Siberia of the Midwest. Home of "da Yoopers, eh?"

There are a lot of rednecks up here. And trees. And deer. And the largest population of Finnish people. And their accents.

This Christmas my brother invited me to go ice fishing with a couple of his buddies and I felt obligated to go. As a regional experience. I felt ashamed as an official Yooper never having been, you see.

...I don't recommend it.

We sat around for 4 hours in the semi-cold and caught two tiny fish...which might be fine had we been hanging out in a sweet canoe on a pretty, warm pond or in the middle of a lazy river...but probably not even then, actually.

It turns out I don't care for fishing. At all. Surprise, right? I would much rather be doing something else...anything else. Like stunt sledding, for example!

...and by stunt I mostly mean leaping off a sled as it goes off a jump.

Yeah.

It didn't always go so well.

Attempted Superman + leap frog = random awesome times at the Shearer household.

Merry freaking Christmas.

I mean that.