time for a real post.

so yeah, another weekend begins to end and the insanity of the 48 hours between sunday and tuesday afternoons will begin. i'm supposed to be asleep, but yeah, i'm me.

maybe i should put off this until later...my thoughts are jumbled together in a mess and spelling out the "S L E E P" :-) Life is as good as I consider it, feeling very much on the edge of being a full-fledged adult, grown-up. it's scary. observation looks to go well--i have a good teacher. it'll be scary the day i get up and do a mini-lesson on slope and put together a bulletin board in an actual classroom with actual students! :-| I'm glad I'm not alone though--I have supportive--albeit teasing--friends and dear ones and I know that teaching math to high-schoolers is what God has in store for me. (just one of the things in store!)

oh yeah, i was highly amused as i was entertained by a discussion on principles tonight by friends, and even more so last night to take pictures of Ardith flicking out a knife on Scholl. and Jonathan beating Jared with a Bible. and having 16 people (one being myself) enjoy peanut butter pie that came out well if i say so myself. a good end to a busy yesterday (work, lunch, observation, committee meeting, work, dinner, photo project, lisl's birthday scavenger hunt, a brief doze, and than Bible study, whew!) and today i woke up earlier than i would have liked to work on lily with, excuse me, with lily on a math theorem and than lunch and than with ardith to figure something out for leadership in a little over a week on papacy, and than reading only to find myself asleep. went to a cook-out with mabee 1, than to a c^2 activity (college and career group from LCF), and than back to watch american history x.

i'm sleepy *head nods* *eyes flutter* *keyboard gets closer...*

goodnight...tomorrow, maybe a review on the next church to visit: Woodland Christian Church

       <"Learning Teacher"> 2:21 AM 

 

   click me.

       <"Learning Teacher"> 4:47 PM 

 

   eh, it's an okay quiz.


Tarzan!


What movie Do you Belong in?(many different outcomes!)
brought to you by Quizilla

       <"Learning Teacher"> 12:34 AM 

 

   well. it's all done and over with--my two tests. and i begin the next round of things to do. the things that never end...gotta love life :-)

admittedly, that is a fake smile for me right now. pray for me with my attitude towards another person, some anger i'm dealing with right now. i was journaling about it elsewhere and have come to the conclusion that i need to some studying in the Bible about anger--what is good and what is bad. can I be angry at circumstances without being angry at the ways of God?

in other news--it was a longer weekend with some reminders from my heart. it's better now--and it's still nothing compared to last year. but i need to stay out of the doctor's for at least six months.

i've gotta to run off now to some other things...i'll be back.

       <"Learning Teacher"> 6:58 PM 

 

   mmm....been a good two days....

Yesterday, a day of no classes for me, was nice with beautiful weather, productivity--including depositing money into my checking account (*ignores fact that money will soon disappear*) I also went to see "Bruce Almighty" last night--twas a decent comedy.

Today I slept in, read for Inklings, and than had the symphony beauty fest in my room as my fairly Lily worked some magic that escapes my powers with make-up and other such girly stuff. and then I went to symphony with my handsome boyfriend, and other good-looking friends Ardith, Jenny, Moore, Sharon, and Jonathan. It was a great symphony. My favorite part was Sibelius, but the Tchaikovsky overture and Part (put two dots above 'a') were both excellent too. I love to reflect on how so many instruments come across as one sound, one voice. and I love to watch the movements of the bows across the strings--I'm captivated. Tonight I was amazed at the speed during the first piece (Part with two dots)

After this we enjoyed a good meal and good fellowship with other 1B Bandits and their friends at Applebees. Yum!

Well, church is on the morrow and I'm in need of some good rest. Farewell, Adieu to you and you and you....

       <"Learning Teacher"> 12:40 AM 

 

   "Don't laugh at me, Don't call me names
Don't get your pleasure from my pain
In god's eyes we're all the same
Someday we'll all have perfect wings
Don’t laugh at me

I'm Fat, I'm thin
I'm Short, I'm tall
I'm deaf, I'm blind
Hey aren't we all"
(excerpt from Mark Wills' song, "Don't Laugh at Me")

I just heard that on the radio and being in a musing mood, began to remember the first time I heard the song oh so long ago. I think I was a freshman in high school. The very first time I heard it, I think I may have cried. For my younger brother and I were the objects of many a brutal laugh in school. I was the geek with glasses, goodie too shoes. He was the one in trouble, labeled ADHD who was weird and annoying. My older siblings, particularly my sister, were out of the house yet my sister still persisted in picking on me when she was home--the brutal kind that grate on that of the self-concious. You know, those things about yourself you wish you could change, the embarrassments of yourself. (For me, one of those was my younger brother--it wasn't the only one.) I had a very small group of awesome, blessed friends. Yet it really seemed like the hurt could be stronger than their love. And there were days that it was--days the hand of God saved me from myself.

But even as I feel the tinges of the pain again in remembering, and grander memory overpower it--a reminder of the present and my blessed, God-given friends. A tear comes to my eye of joy and gratitude. I still have my trouble not reacting to even loving teasing at times--may times because they unintentionally rub some old sores that still need healing (how else will they heal if they aren't broken open again to receive medicine though?)

How blessed it is to be in the Grace of God. I can't imagine what life would be like outside of it--the meaninglessness and superficiality, the incompleteness. Praise God that I'm not.

Praise God from Whom All Blessings Flow
Praise God All Creatures Here Below
Praise God All Ye Heavenly Hosts
Praise Father, Son, and Holy Ghost!

       <"Learning Teacher"> 1:29 AM 

 

   Insanity surrounds me, but I can't really help but stay smiling and cheerful. The rose continues to bloom--I am 100% confident it is the most beautiful rose I've ever had, ever seen. I hope the pictures come out because drying it wouldn't do it justice and it's a little past that point anyways.

Things really feel like they are going mostly well--in some ways, feeling at peace with everything right now puts that little bit (so it isn't total peace) that little bit of doubt that things are too good to be true. How can I be so blessed? Is this the calm before the storm?

I'm in debt--the credit card causes a hair of worry but I received the check that'll pay at least half of that off. Barring any emergencies, I should have my finances back to a neutral level in about six months. As God wills.

Other than the fact that my heart won't let me push too hard--I fall asleep and don't get things done, things seem to still be working out okay and my heart is holding up. It hasn't kept me from any classes! I have the reminders every now and then granted...but it's nothing compared to last year.

But those are nothing compared to the blessings I have in my life in the way of people. My family, my friends, my special someone, I'm not deserving of any. I don't deserve to be here with the respect given me.

I sit here and ponder when and how the breaking will come again. But fulling trusting in God means not worrying about that. maybe God just wants me to enjoy the present...the future is truly in his hands. I'm scared the breaking will mean losing the people. Yup. I'm human and my worst fear is being alone.

I wonder if that fear of being alone is another evidence of God's existence and calling to all people. We talk about his presence being made known in creation around us and through an inborn morality--but maybe that lack of his presence, that loneliness that we fear is also a part of his calling us to him. (I've been spending a lot of time thinking about general revelation and such these last two weeks with that paper I turned in on Tuesday).

Well...I'm going to be in trouble with those dear ones looking out for me if I don't get some sleep sometime tonight. So after some wrapping up things and a shower, I must be abed. Goodnight, sleep well and in all prayer--God bless you (as I also pray he blesses the man behind the yellow rose.)

       <"Learning Teacher"> 12:42 AM 

 

   God smiles down.

Yup. It's been a good day, and instead of updating you on just how busy my life is, (I was going to do that later but I was inspired to post after the following event of the day) let me share with you how God is smiling down.

I almost didn't go to the store today to pick up some stuff for Common Grounds, but having to go deposit some checks into the bank so the my account doesn't go negative, I decided I might as well pick up some whip cream to hold us until the chargers come in. I went into the store and remembered that I needed long tea spoons also for the cart so I found those, picked up four cans of whip cream and than proceeded to the checkout lanes. I got into a line, but just as quickly departed to pick up some bleach also--since I was there and we were going to need some soon. I picked a lane and after a couple of minutes looked over at the only other open lane and saw people with just two or three items. Thinking it might proceed faster than the one I was in with the lady in front of me having a full cart, I walked over and got in line again.

While in line, two people ahead of me--one with a full cart the other with some batteries, I noticed a container of really pretty roses in various colors and than saw the sign that said $1.00, and than noticed the words above it saying "single rose". The price of a dozen was $8. I was contemplating buying some for the floor or maybe just a few for myself or a friend or two or so, and was deciding against it this time. So i looked ahead of me realizing that I had unfortunately picked a slower line--but wasn't in a hurry. The gentleman in front of me (who had just the batteries to buy) must have watched me as I was looking upon the roses because he said something to the effect of "Those are sure pretty roses aren't they?" I replied yes--sort of caught surprised since people in grocery lines tend not to talk to each other. He was a friendly sort and proceeded to talk to me--I think he asked me if I would like some and asked if I was married (no guys, he wasn't interested in me. . .just making small chat, he actually assumed I was married.) I told him, no I was just a college student picking some stuff up for the coffee cart, He mentioned that coffee was on sale last week and did we use that? I said no, we buy our coffee from a place that donates their profits to orphanages and such. Than he asked if I would do him a favor--realizing he was thinking about buying me a rose, I said "no, I really couldn't." he said "why not?" I thought for about a minute and was drawing a blank on a good reason so I agreed and picked out a yellow rose. He told me to get another so I picked out a second yellow rose and smiled at him with my thanks, making a few other comments like "Have a good afternoon" and such. He saw someone and said hello real quick, greeted the cashier and was friendly to everyone around. He left by telling me that any lady with a smile as pretty as mine should have roses and to keep smiling. He bought his batteries and left the store, I checked out with my purchases and left the store sending a prayer to God to bless that gentleman today.

A simple, random act of kindness on a gorgeous sunshiney day. God smiles down on me and probably smiles down even more so on that gentleman. I gave the other rose to Miss Shirley down at the Hive, because she is another of the friendly sort and I could keep two roses for myself. At least one of those roses belonged to someone other than me. and now I share the story--much in hopes that people who hear might think about being "randomly kind" to someone else today, even a total stranger. If you don't, no worries really--I'm not even the sort who does such things for other people.

and God smiles down--I can feel it in the sunshine.

       <"Learning Teacher"> 2:36 PM 

 

   I wrote this in ponderings for another journal of mine and decided to go ahead and publish it here. just some ponderings of my head...

Let me tell you some more things about this wonderful things called love.

Romance is the expression of love. Love truly is blind as we become blind to another's faults, to our own desires and wants in favor of another's, and blind sometimes to the rest of the world. Love is real when you spend time with another person, even God, and you become oblivious to the rest of the world--you enter another realm.

Love fills in the crevices of one's heart, of one's entire being. Love makes one complete. It's the realization that you have something you've been missing and longing for all your life.

and how very much this should be our relationship with God. When you are in love with a person, you want to spend every spare moment with him or her. That's what God wants with us; and he wants us to be like for him.

I sit here pondering on how love is an escape in many ways from the real world, it's another world in itself. and I think about how we're learning about myths and fairy stories in one of my classes and the concept of sub-creation. I wonder, maybe we could define love as a myth, a sub-creation of God maybe.

I sit here one month into my junior year of college bearing much responsibility. They say that when it comes to college, you're allowed to pick two out of three: social life, school, and sleep. Sometimes that seems so true. There is such a thing as doing too much. There are many things to be involved in, many opportunities to serve God and others--but we can only spread ourselves so thin. We are called to serve others, but we must remember that God has blessed each of with different gifts and called us to different places and different jobs. We can't do everything. Right now, I'm a manager at the coffee cart, a grader, a chaplain, a girlfriend, a friend, a sister, a daughter, a Christian, a student. God is providing for me to get what I need to done and to survive through it, but I'm learning that I'm doing too much also. I can't put as much effort as I really want to and should into something like the chaplaincy because I've got other things I need to take care of and do with the other hats of mine. I don't spend as much time with God like I should or want to. God is our priority. Everything else goes through him, is from him, is of him, is with him, is for him.

       <"Learning Teacher"> 5:05 PM 

 

   arghhhhhh.

yeah, i'm supposed to be asleep. . .but my mind isn't ready to sleep yet. i have to be up in five and a half hours. it wasn't supposed to be that way. . .but. . . .

so yesterday at common grounds was like the demon was screwing with everything. i was given less than 24 hour notice that someone couldn't work a shift, on a day that i happen to be going insane and spend most of my waking hours in the classroom. and we forgot to program one or two things on the register, so the register tape didn't match the cash in the drawer. and i had an employee complaining about a few things. and the grinder temporarily quit working. and there was a sour milk smell that was in msc-1, it did go away. everything was taken care of though and all was well. . .until closing tonight.

so i get this call at 1130. the pump didn't work and apparently the valve didn't get closed all the way when they removed the pump so the waste water went all over the carpet. i trekked down there to discover one soggy, smelly section of carpet. after getting the pump off and emptying the rest of the tank onto the carpet because the valve still didn't close, i spent 40 minutes tracking down a mini-extractor--a machine i used this summer when cleaning carpets. then we had the hose connected wrong so that water was blowing everywhere instead of getting sucked up. got that fixed and so we went at the slow process of cleaning the carpet. they're still down there right now probably. and we locked up the hive but needed to get back in. now our key won't unlock the door. . .the same key which locked the same door. i left messages at phys plant to get some stuff down there in the morning, now i have to be down there at 730 to take care of some things.

in happier notes. . .classes are going quite well. i have lots of work, but thing are evening out some so that i'm not going insane when there isn't a common grounds emergency. i love inklings, for as much work as is needed and i enjoy doctrines greatly too. numerical is okay, real i have my first test in later today but i'm not too worried. the education lab. . .well, it insults my intelligence and it's a lot of busy work, but hey practice helps now for some of this stuff. and the leadership seminar is decent too.

devos went well again tonight i thought--i got to beat on the bongo drum and that was quite fun. i think i'd like to practice at that more. and i love being around all my dear friends again and slowly getting to know some of our new fish. i'm not getting to know as many as i would have liked. . .but it's okay. God has a great way of setting things up for people to develop friendships and relationships with one another as he wills for them. I'm blessed with an awesome group of friends here between gals on my floor, honors pals and others. and I was graced with a good boyfriend too. and if you don't see me quite so often or hear from me, it doesn't mean i haven't forgotten you. i do think about you. i've been a horrible sister and haven't even talked to my sister in over a month--and this is probably a time when she'd like to know she has family praying for her.

if you want to know how you can pray for me. . .well, you can probably figure out a lot from above. but also pray that my car sells soon and fairly.

       <"Learning Teacher"> 1:58 AM 

 

   again i say, it's been quite the week.

wrapped up 20 hours of work at the coffee cart last night. those hours don't include grading. yesterday ended well. . .although it started off pourly. i had gone to bed late the night before with the thoughts of getting up for a BAB (ELH 2) breakfast at 6. . .after waking up to the alarm four hours after falling off to sleep, I woke up. . .was too tired and decided to sleep a little longer. and was quite annoyed at a cheery loud voice out in the hall at 6am. i woke up a couple hours of later and wasn't feeling well again. so i didn't really eat much until d inner. anyways. twas a good night, busy at acousticafe and than having another good week of Bible Study. I went to bed after listening to a kind of stressed message from my mother with the thoughts to call her after Blitz. I hoped that it wasn't serious and decided it probably wasn't since they didn't call my cell.

woke up this morning, went to Blitz and had a generally good time getting stuff done. we got some good people to work with and quite a few. and than called my mom after getting back.

everything is generally okay, she needed my insurance info. but also needed to inform me that my sister had lost the baby. :-( i know it'll all be good though because she can still have another baby later and at least this was quite early on. . .like three weeks i think. and after mentioning this to my mother, she explained a little bit more what the doctors said after doing a sonogram and it provided me a little bit of thought to the controversial question of when a baby becomes a person--when the embryo becomes a baby, a little being. apparently the doctors said that the heartbeat failed to develop or something of the sort. . . .the sac was there, but it was empty. i'm not good at explaining medical things, but anyways.

so when does that baby have life? I do not advocate abortion one tiny bit at all, some people like to hedge on those first six weeks after conception. There's the whole thing about taking a pill in those first few weeks--claims of being non-abortive. what point of time do we claim to be the start of human life? Do we take into account only the medical piece? add in the spiritual? how about the point of being a concept to a person--for example, one who discovers she is pregnant and than begins to dream about the baby?

It's a fuzzy issue. I welcome your comments.

and all to say, the day did end well. it was a GORGEOUS day. . .who says East Texas isn't Paradise? :-p I even got a little bit done that was productive. oh yeah, and I saw Fiddler on the Roof for the first time. Tis an excellent movie and definitely a tear-jerker. It hurts so much to see the pain caused by people. It's a good movie for various thoughts on history, on people, on Judaism, and more. i could probably write more, but methinks i had better get to bed so as to wake up for church tomorrow.

       <"Learning Teacher"> 1:23 AM 

 

   whew! what a week.

I guess I could start with Sunday. . .

So I was also on that crew that went to the infamous church of the mystery kingdom. I don't think I've ever rushed to the car so fast in order to get the laughter and amazement out of my system. So the church hunt shall continue. . .I direct you to the other blogs for better reviews. I can't do it justice like they can.

Sunday afternoon was full with common grounds interviews and just as we were finishing up, a crew of friends came by and dragged me to dinner with them at this authentican Mexican restaurant that they heard was good. It seemed decent enough; I've had better and wow were the pico de gallo and salsa hot. but it was fun to drink sprite out of a glass bottle and such. monday passed by busily enough with working all morning at the cart and than having class most of the afternoon and evening. Applications of technology looks to be fun--it's just a lab class where we practice doing bulletin boards, web stuff, using classroom machines and such. Leadership seminar will be okay enough and Inklings will be quite interesting although a lot of reading--what else does one expect from a literature class? and i have all week to do it. . .

and than I woke up Tuesday not feeling quite well. as the first hour of being awake before class passed, i gradually felt worse to the point that I figured I had better not attend my first class. I walked my homework down to Dr. Anderson and than came back up and slept. I woke up and my roommate asked if i was feeling any better--my response was my throwing up in the sink. I emailed my afternoon professors (and received an amusing response from Dr. Roden) and than went back to sleep. I was too weak to move much, so i directed things that needed to be done from my bed--like having a meeting with Shoey regarding hiring new people for the cart in my room as opposed to meeting her down at msc-1 like planned. I graded calc 3 papers after waking up again (four hours worth) and than went back to sleep. my roommate wasn't well either, but not feeling quite as bad, and I found out that moore and ziggy were sick too. We began to be suspicious of the mexican restaurant, although it's odd because food poisioning hits within six hours, maybe within 24.

our suspicions gained more ground the next day as scholl, toad, and damian became sick too. Luckily, I didn't have classes wednesday. I felt better, but not tops as i dragged myself to work in the morning and too chapel and continued on a fast, although I could at least intake liquids now. I caught up on hw and other things in the afternoon, worked a little bit, managed to eat some ramen and crackers for dinner, went to chapel, bummed around a bit with friends, and than had our first devos on the floor. Devos went rather well I would say. I wasn't quite so organized as I would have like to be or should have been, but God was good and it still felt meaningful. We really have a good crew of gals on the floor this year. I then betook myself to my room and having some spare time to myself, decided to shower and than read myself to sleep.

and than today came back around. kelly left roses and notes outside all of the girls' doors; i went to class; i've cleaned up what i can in the room without access to the cleaning closet (the vacuum and mop being what i need). (quiet you about wenches and cleaning and how we have room specs and you don't!) i managed to eat something at lunch. . .although it was just saga. . .

and now the insanity continues. i should finish the reading for my next class (in an hour) and what not. but first i shall see if any of ya'll have updated your blogs since i last checked. . .

       <"Learning Teacher"> 12:35 PM 

 

   INSANITY!!!!!

       <"Learning Teacher"> 12:45 AM