My adventures...

So I figured since I'm going to be an RA this summer, I needed fun summer-y things for everyone to do. So I got a slackline today. Amazing. It's so much fun. If you don't know what it is, you're missing out. Here's a sweet video of what it is so you can enjoy: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mWcItWvGNUk&feature=fvsr I'm working up to this.

Update

My grandpa is now at the nursing home where I work for a short-term stay while they work to get his blood thinners at therapeutic levels.  Once that happens he should be in the clear to go home. Yay!  I'm finding it's really hard to balance how my family, mom especially, sees things with how I see things because I work there and I know the protocols and how things need to work.  But having my family go through this will help me better understand others.  Thanks for all your prayers, now we just need the transition home to go smoothly!

Sooooo...

I would love it if you would all pray for my grandpa again.  On Thursday morning he got up, got really short of breath and wound up on the floor.  My grandma called 911, grandpa went to the ER and my dad took grandma and the spent the whole day there.  My mom was down in IL all week to get Han back from school so she wasn't around either.  They finally figured out that my grandpa has a bunch of blood clots in his lungs that are of significant size and potentially fatal if they break loose as they could lodge in his heart, brain, etc. and block blood flow.  It explains a lot as he's been short of breath for a while but the doctors couldn't figure out why.  They've put him on blood thinners to try dissolve the clots, but the body really needs to take care of them on its own.  He'll be in the hospital well into next week and while he is stable right now, that could change.  So far the family seems to be doing well, but it's very odd for me to have the dual perspective of granddaughter and geriatric social worker.  I've seen families make end of life decisions and worked with hospice and I know that in the end, working to keep someone here longer doesn't often mean that their quality of life is great.  On the other hand, being part of the family that makes that kind of decision is waaaaay different.  It's not a huge hang-up for me yet, but still, it's weird.  So yeah, your prayers would be much appreciated!

Well...

Is anyone else intimidated by the formalness of publishing a post?  I feel like I have to write something really worthy of being read instead of the random things that flit in my head.

A. Reagan, I think you would be a fantastic lawyer.  And I don't think you should be agonizing over not wanting to do what some of the rest of us do.  It's not glamorous at all (not that you necessarily thought it was), and some people really try your patience and are just down right irritating.  But being where you fit is a wonderful thing.  And I think you should pursue that in whatever form that may take.  One thing I am learning is to enjoy what I am good at and live the way that fits how I have been made, to not covet my neighbor's way of life.  Which also means to not covet my neighbor's spiritual walk, which I shall talk about later.

B. Brianne, I love hearing about the outdoorsy, active things you do and being able to 'see' how happy those things make you.  Also, I'm sorry your year is ending on sucky notes.  But I am confident your summer will be awesome, because you, my friend, are awesome.  So it really can't be anything else.  :)

So here are the things I am learning/doing: 
1. Don't be jealous over someone else's journey.  Which is hard b/c other people's journeys look really fun and sometimes mine doesn't.  I'm learning to see that things take time to happen, most people's significant events don't happen in a series of days, which is how it sounds when you read books b/c let's face it: all the boring day to day stuff rarely makes good reading material.  So I'm trying to enjoy my day to day life in the small things because the small things add up.  And if I've lived well in the small things, the big things will be just that much more fun!
2.  Ok, so some of you may remember me talking about TEC, which is was a high school retreat thing that was pretty significant to my high school years.  I learned a lot about Jesus and that was good.  However, there were a lot of things that didn't fit right, especially after I came back from Costa Rica, so they kind of fell by the wayside and I haven't really thought about TEC and all that jazz for a very long time.  Last week someone that I had done TEC with was at the nursing home, of all places, and stopped in my office to talk to me and I found myself saying that I would try Joppa, which is one of the very few young adult ministries in my area.  The people that go to Joppa have a reputation of being a little "out there" and I don't do that so well so I've been fairly hesitant to go.  Anyways, I went last Tuesday and I went again last night b/c it was only fair to try a couple times before saying yea or nay.  It's still a maybe so I guess I'll go again.  All of that to say, it's brought back a lot of things from my TEC days that I'm not sure I want to go back to and I'm trying to figure that all out.  Pretty vague, I know, but it's hard to put into words all of the things I feel.  I tend to be rather skeptical/cynical of the way a lot of people do church/express their faith b/c it sounds so trite and insincere.  Which isn't fair and there really is more to it than that because people really are sincere.  If I've offended you or just confused you, I'm sorry.  Like I said, it's hard to explain.  Maybe it's just really easy to pretend that we have God figured out and he's just doing so much in my life and everything's grand and...I don't buy it.  Which is why I love going to a liturgical church.  I can lose myself in the expression of faith that has been expressed by Christians for centuries and not feel manipulated by it and know that it's true.  And when I do feel like God has something he's trying to tell me I'm less likely to assume it's a result of well orchestrated atmosphere and more likely to listen. 


Wow, that was a lot of convoluted thinking.  Guess I needed to thought-vomit too. And now all the thoughts are gone and it's time for some sleep.  Love you all!

P.S. Brittany, if you took part in the chapel flash mob thing, that was fantastic.  Wish we'd thought of something cool like that!

My life as of 2:12am May 3rd:

Alright, so as it seems to be a theme tonight to update on everything in life, I will continue said theme. I am tired though, so if it's not totally coherent, you know why.

Life has been a bit difficult lately. The biggest issue right now is my roommates. I never thought things would get this bad, but I really just can't wait until the next two weeks are over. My one roommate, Amanda, is manic depressive which already makes things difficult at times, but she's just being cruel and rude and making life miserable. Any petty, 5-year-old passive-aggressive thing you can think to do, she's done. This includes cleaning only her side of the bathroom, slamming all the kitchen cabinets and apartment doors, hiding dish soap so we can't do dishes for a week until we go out and buy more and then hiding the silverware. It seems to be focused on my, and I'm not entirely sure why. I've confronted her three times, the first two times to get nothing, the third to get a couple of horrible, non-applicable excuses. Now she has taken to giving me the silent treatment, throwing out my food, washing all the dishes except mine (this includes my only having one spoon so that it alone is left), slamming doors in my face quite literally when I said such appalling things as, "good morning" or "hi", shutting off lights when I'm in that room, or walking into her room and slamming the door as soon as I walk into the apartment. One thing that shocked me speechless was when Amanda said to my other roommate Jamie, right in front on me, that "someone" (and it was obviously me because they already knew it was not Kait, thus leaving me as the only other option) "used the wrong dish soap, because someone knows I hate this dish soap". Yesterday really got to me as I was gone backpacking for the weekend, and when I get back she leaves before I can even get into the shower and ignores my "hello" when I walked into the apartment. Then when she came back and I said "hi" she ignored me and said, "Oh, Kait, happy birthday! We need to make you a cake! How was home? What did you do? What other big plans do you have tonight?" and on and on. Only for my birthday, she was in her room, came into the kitchen, slammed some things around, and went back into her room, then left, without a single word to me. It hurt. I wish it didn't, but it really did. It hurt a lot. I'm sick of putting up with this crap, but I'm trying with all my might, and A LOT of prayer, to be kind and to do the right thing, but it's getting to be super hard even to continue to say "hi" to her instead of succumbing to her pettiness and giving her the silent treatment back and stop saying "hi" or "see you later". My other roommates Kait and Jamie are interesting in this whole deal. According to Amanda, Jamie can't do anything wrong, at least to her face. For instance, Jaime always listens to the TV extremely loud, and Amanda came out and said to her, because she can't talk to me anymore, said "what the hell?!" to Jamie and Jamie said it was her's she was like, "oh ok" and walked right back into their bedroom. Behind each other's back though, I'm tired of them complaining about what the other did. Kait is very non-confrontational so she puts up with the crap Amanda gives her, which is similar to the treatment I am getting, unless I'm around in which case Amanda is all of a sudden all buddy-buddy with her. It drives me crazy. It helps that I do know it's some issue of Amanda's and isn't actually about me at all, but I'm just getting all the fallout. So anyway, any prayer on that would be extremely welcome.

Enough of that, on another note I am having major senioritis. I have two weeks left in this semester, so I've just got to buckle down and finish it. So I'm writing this instead of my biology paper. Go me.

Then I'm graduating on the 21st! Well, walking anyway. I still have my internship to complete this summer then five more classes in the fall, THEN I will be graduated officially. The internship should be good. I'm doing it at the Kroc Center doing things I love and getting paid for half of it, so I'm happy. Oh, and I'm going to be an RA this summer too! I'm excited about that. I've really felt frustrated lately about Calvin and the lack of openness to anything that's not Dutch CRC theology. It's also very segregated, so I'm excited to be an RA with lots of the international students and hopefully get some change rolling around here. It has been hard not to just give up on the whole thing lately though. It's tough to get shut down before you even get going. I know it's where God wants me to be, but it's tough work right now.

Ok, so I'll end on yay things because I've been kind of a downer with the rest of this post. I'm TAing recreation classes this year and one of them is wilderness pursuits, which basically is how to live in the backcountry. So, for part of the class I got to take them up to the national park on a weekend backpacking trip. The prof and I were shuttling the vans back and forth, so we got a later start and just met up with the other groups later on and it was so nice just to talk to him while hiking. He's awesome. Although he had a cold last week and now I have a cold, so that kind of stinks that he gave me his cold, but he's still awesome. We got to take about half an hour alone Sunday morning before the hike too to just enjoy nature and God. It was sweet.

Today we had a "celebrate your major day". It was sweet. The department name changed today too, which was a good thing because it had been HPERDS (health, PE, rec, dance, and sports man) but everyone called it herpes. It is now the Kinesiology Dept. We got free lunch (actually all the food I ate today was not mine-snack/breakfast in religion class, lunch with the celebration, snack/dessert with the celebration, snack/dinner in recreation class tonight, and dessert/beer at a friend's tonight, I was pretty impressed with myself), then I had class during the next event so I couldn't go to it, but then we had an adventure race with each major competing against each other. Fun times. Then the rec majors, who are all short, played a basketball game against my boss at the climbing wall and some of our profs who are all around 6'6". It was fun and kind of ridiculous. Then we all played dodge ball. The life of recreation majors. In the words of my friend John, "we know how to fun".

One more thing then I think I'm going to go to bed. I have no idea what I will be doing come January, but I kind of love that idea. It means I can be wherever, go wherever, do whatever. I'm excited for what will come. I have lots of ideas and options. I don't know what I want to do just yet, but some of the more serious options right now are finding a GA position being in charge of outdoor rec/rec dept/intramurals; going to med school at San Diego State, traveling around the US/Europe with some friends provided the money is there, or finding a job somewhere in the recreation/fitness world and enjoying life in some warm climate.

Oh, and also I had a big slumber party with some friends to get up and watch the royal wedding at 4 in the morning. It was fun. Also history.

Also, OSAMA IS DEAD! That too is history.

I hope y'all are enjoying your night and I love you all. I will also comment on the previous posts sometime tomorrow when I'm a bit more awake. Love y'all, miss you!

Bethany -

I am so glad your mom's surgery went well! I will keep praying for her. God's taking care of you guys.

I'm so glad you didn't need surgery, but that's crazy about your ovaries and uterus. Did you get another check-up? Praying for that too. Dealing with those kinds of potential problems is scary.

CONGRATULATIONS, YOU'RE HIRED! I'm so excited about your official graduate student-hood and internship and living on your own. You are a grown-up. Yay!

Lindsay -

Your life sounds glorious. I'm so excited that God has you right where He wants you, doing exactly what He wants you to do. It sounds like you are really being used in the lives of many people (at work and at church), and that's awesome! Keep it up. And Jesus is the best boyfriend.

Update on my life...

Everything is mostly the same. Job, singleness, no solid plans. Honestly, I've been feeling depressed lately. Not crazy/suicidal/can't-get-out-of-bed depressed, but just bummed and feeling ignored by God. Like I keep asking Him what I'm supposed to do, or to at least just open a door or give me a hint, and there just hasn't been anything. I still love the people I'm around, but I'm just not feeling fulfilled by much that I'm doing.

Over the past week, though, I've had some ideas. I talked about this in my personal blog, but I'm thinking again about going on The World Race (and so is Brittany, as it turns out!). I signed up for this a little over a year ago, but for various reasons, decided not to go. But I'm feeling antsy, ready for something new, something different. My heart and passion have been for world change, seeing God do the impossible, getting to be a part of it... And this is one of those things where all of that is just inevitable. It makes me scared and excited: living out of ONE FREAKING BACKPACK for 11 months, depending entirely on God, peeing in a hole, being outside for a long time, and we won't even go into the whole hair and makeup thing (you all know full well how much effort I put into not looking ridiculous), and somehow coming up with 15 grand. I know a lot of those things just aren't me. But I feel a tug on my heart for a change. For a tight-knit community of people who are all about God. To expand myself. Really, to just get over myself. Because I care way too much about things that just aren't important.

So, there is that. I updated my application I put in last year and resubmitted it (haven't paid that "application fee" yet, though... I guess it takes $39 for a person to be capable of reading it), so it's not really official or anything. But that's where I'm leaning right now. And I'm stoked!

Also, I'm thinking about going to law school. Ha! Seriously, though. I've played with the idea of counseling or social work for awhile now, but I'll be honest with you guys: I just don't have the heart for it. I've watched most of you love on people that I could just never stand to be around. And I admire you so much. I wish I could be as patient and gracious and loving as you are (God's working on me, don't worry), but social work just isn't my heartbeat. But I do want to make a difference, just in a different way. Like social work, there are so many different facets of being a lawyer: domestic abuse, adoption, public defense, international justice... And I feel like that line of work might be more where I live. As in, "here is the problem, and here are all the things I know how to do, and this is the procedure for how we are going to do them." And lots of jobs are like that, but I feel like my M.O. will work best in this one. But I don't know. I guess I don't have very good or solid reasons for this, but to me it makes sense. Maybe The World Race, work a "semester", and then law school. Or maybe I'll move to Alaska and be a missionary with all my camp friends. Or something. We'll see. It's easy to come up with lots of crazy ideas when you spend a lot of time by yourself.

As for romance: No men in my life, as usual, but I went on a date with a Catholic a couple of weeks ago. We were set up by his aunt, who is in charge of the outreach team at The Bridge. I went into it with pretty low expectations for more than one reason, and it didn't exceed any of them. So I guess that's good, haha. He's nice, but super quiet, and a Catholic. We had coffee at Panera, and after about 45 minutes (that's when you know things are going super well), I said, "Well, do you have anything you need to get to tonight?" which he clearly took as, 'I think you're super awesome - let's go do something else now!' So he responded, "Well, I was going to go work out, but I can do that later if you want to do something." And then I felt dumb and just said, "Oh, I was going to go to church..." which was true, as it it was Celebrate Recovery night; but it didn't start for another 1 1/2 hr. So then he felt kind of embarrassed but managed to say something about getting together again sometime, to which I responded (as nicely as I could), "Yeah, we'll talk." Fail. Then he sent me a Facebook message this morning to see if I wanted to hang out again sometime, and I told him I don't want to date anybody right now because I don't know how much longer I'll be in Anderson. Which is all the way true. Good times. I think I should start a blog called "The Chronicles of First and Only Dates."

Uhhh... Yes. Oh, Brianne and I are hanging out this weekend! YEAH!

Anyway, those are all the things. Sorry this was so long and mostly about nothing concrete. Ha. I guess it's one of those much-needed thought vomit times.

I love and miss you all!