Roomies

I have to tell this story, but it may be one of those you had to be there moments.

So I’m coming home from Kelsey and Julie’s apartment and I pull into my driveway. One of my roommates’ car is sitting on the side of the road running. I wonder why she just sitting in her car, but I hear music, so I assume she’s just looking through her iPod or something. I walk inside and see her and another roommate and a friend sitting in the living room, watching Project Runway. I look at her, very puzzled. “Kim,” I said. “Is there someone in your car?” “Oh crap!” she jumps up and runs outside. Come to find out, she left her car running for AN HOUR AND A HALF. It was just sitting out there. I haven’t laughed that hard in a while. Oh goodness…

Sunny 99.1

Thanksgiving is over, unfortunately. But Christmas is next! I love the Christmas season, it’s so cheerful. Except for the crazy shoppers. Even though I have papers and finals to do within the next 3 weeks, I’m still happy. My dad makes this awesome mac and cheese for Thanksgiving and Christmas and he made some extra for me to take back to school. I can’t wait to eat it. I also love that it’s cold. Yesterday was freezing.

So my dog got neutered last Tuesday. It was kinda sad, but it needed to happen. The whole day all he did was lay on our couch and look at us. He was probably wondering why we did this to him. The next day he moved around more, but when he walked it looked painful. He was a little bow-legged. Poor guy. He’s back to his old self now, but he’s more affectionate than he used to be. I wonder if that has to do with the neutering…

My friend Tommy called me yesterday from Hong Kong. It was really cool to hear from him and hear about the stuff God’s doing over there. He’s an intern at a church and he works with the youth. They’ll be taking a trip to India sometime, so he’ll be going on a mission trip while on a mission trip. Pretty sweet.

This may sound sick, but I love finals week.

Happy Thanksgiving!

Eat and be merry.

Smile

I am finished with all my classes this week. I can’t wait until tomorrow, all I have is work then I’m going home!

I’d say that Thanksgiving is probably my second favorite holiday (besides Christmas, of course). I just love being with my family. What I really like about my family is that we’re all pretty laid-back. Unlike some other families, we don’t have anything planned.  All we do is eat and hang out. That’s probably why I am the way that I am. I don’t have to do anything with people, I just like to be around them. I’m perfectly content with sitting around and talking or doing nothing (or reading).  Does that make any sense? I think I’m a prime example of a quality timer. So, if you want to make me content, just spend time with me, okay?

This song always makes me happy. It’s in my head right now. It’s by Nat King Cole.

Smile though your heart is aching
Smile even though it’s breaking
When there are clouds in the sky, you’ll get by
If you smile through your fear and sorrow
Smile and maybe tomorrow
You’ll see the sun come shining through for you

Light up your face with gladness
Hide every trace of sadness
Although a tear may be ever so near
That’s the time you must keep on trying
Smile, what’s the use of crying?
You’ll find that life is still worthwhile
If you just smile

can ‘o soup

So I’m in the kitchen at the BSM. I’m preparing a lovely meal of soup for my lunch. I pour the soup in a bowl and put it in the microwave. As some of you know, Shawn is a recycling fiend, which is a really good thing. But not when it comes at a harmful cost. So I have this empty can ‘o soup that I can recycle. I rinse the can and peel off the label. The lid is hanging on by a sliver of metal, so I think to my self, ‘I’ll just maneuver the lid off and throw it away.’ While I’m twisting, another thought comes into my head. ‘You know, I could probably cut myself the way I’m holding this lid.’ And then what happened? I met my demise. The lid sliced my thumb. I couldn’t yell because there was a meeting going on in the fellowship hall, which is directly connected to the kitchen. (I had to do that breathy cry, the one where you’re trying to be silent, but something escapes anyways.) I run my finger under the water for a while and stings like crap. But my stupid thumb will not stop bleeding.

(At this point, my story becomes uncool, so I’m going to add some embellishment.) I race out of the room and into the hallway. “Martha!” I scream. “There’s blood all over the place, I can’t stop it!” Martha (our secretary) hurries out of the office and looks at my finger. It’s cut to the bone. She looks at me sternly. “We have to get you to the hospital,” she says. I grab a handful of paper towels and cover my bare wound. We jump into my car. The pain begins to be unbearable. But I have to stay strong for Martha. We make it to Scott & White hospital in about 10 minutes. They rush me back to ICU in a wheelchair. I hear the doctor say to Martha, “It’s a good thing you got here when you did. Any later and she might not have made it.” I immediately go into surgery and they stitch my thumb up. Then after the surgery, the whole BSM staff comes to visit me in the hospital.

Now you may be wondering, how in the world can I be typing if I just had surgery on my thumb? Well the answer is, the doctors are just that good. I’m already back home, alive and running. Thanks God, for the Scott and White doctors! They are truly miracle workers!

(Actual story: I walked calmly down the hall to the office and told Martha I need a band aid. I rinsed off my finger again and she brought me Neosporin and a band aid. I put them both on my thumb. The same band aid is on this very second.)

Nothing profound here

3 papers down, 4 to go…

On Wednesdays, I have a night class called Death and Dying. It’s actually an interesting class even though it sounds morbid. You get a lot of useful info from it. I’ve created my own epitaph, eulogy, and obituary, which was kinda surreal. For our last project, we had to interview someone who had experienced death. I interviewed my boss, Shawn Shannon. It was really cool to hear her talk about her past and to see that her life isn’t perfect. She’s the kind of person that you could never imagine something going wrong in her life. Or at least to me.

Anyways, it was a blessing to me to hear her story and hear her talk about her brother. It was almost like a movie, all of the stuff that happened. Then in class we got to present our papers and I got to hear some really sad stories. But they were good stories, if that makes any sense. A few almost made me cry. But it made me think about people in my life dying. I’ve never really experienced someone close to me die. I even have all 4 of my grandparents. I don’t even want to think about not having them in my life. I know I’m lucky to have all of them, but it’s going to suck that much more when they die.

Shawn said something that really stuck with me. She said that everyone that she cares for is going to die, and that brings a new perspective on life. And rightly so, it should. I’m not really sure where I’m going with all this, but I guess my hope is that I can have that perspective as well. And now I end my vulnerability…

On another note, this is my favorite show right now. Check it out.

Oh the joys of role playing

Today in my social work class, we had to film ourselves role playing. Now, role playing is when you get a partner and one persona acts as the social worker and the other acts as a client with an issue. We’ve been doing it some in class, but today we went over to the community center and had to record it for a grade. Well, Julie is my partner, so I know it’s not going to be easy “pretending.” So I’m the first to play social worker. The recording begins and Julie comes in. Things are going well, I’m asking her questions, she gives me good responses. Then I ask her what kinds of things she’s involved at in school (side note: Julie is a pregnant 15 year old). Because we basically have to make up our answers, she thought for a while and said, “Drill team?” For some reason, we both thought that was really funny. I can see her looking down and laughing while I’m trying to be serious and write it in my notebook. Then we make eye contact and we can’t stop laughing. We try to keep it in and make it look normal, but the mics are super sensitive in the rooms, so there’s no way to cover it up. And usually when you try to hold in your laugh, it just gets worse. We laugh silently for a good minute. We eventually ended up rewinding the tape and starting over and I had to run to the bathroom. I guess you had to be there…

Papers & Hymns

I have so many papers to do this semester and frankly, I don’t want them. You hear that papers? I don’t want you.

Here’s my soapbox for the day:
Kelsey and I were talking about this a few days ago and I just wanted to bring it up. One thing I’ve kind of been burnt out by lately is worship music. I feel like I hear the same songs over and over again. I feel like we go through “scenes” of musicians. Right now it’s Hillsong, before that it was Crowder or Shane & Shane, and so forth. That really bothers me. Often I think we pay more attention to who’s doing the music than what the music actually says. Also, I feel like songs today just aren’t as good as they used to be. They’re so repetitive and are all about us. I want this or do this for me, lalala. Since when was anything ever about us?

Now think about hymns. The lyrics are so profound and heartfelt. And rarely do they center around I or me or we. They lift up God. Okay well they do mention those words, but I feel like they’re more pious and illustrate the sovereignty of God in a much better way. I think I used to actually dislike hymns, probably because I didn’t understand them. But now that I do, it’s what I want to sing. Sunday was I not only blessed with a really good message, but we also got to sing a hymn. It was Jesus Paid It All. I really like this song and one part in particular. I’m not even sure if it’s part of the original hymn, which in that case it could negate my whole post (regardless, it’s part of the song). But, the bridge says this:
Oh praise the One who paid my debt and raised this life up from the dead.

I love the fact that I can now appreciate these songs. I would sing them when I was younger, not really aware of what I was singing. Thinking about them brings me back to childhood…

I end my lecture here.

Community

I just saw a squirrel scaling up a brick wall. I thought it was pretty cool.

So yesterday at church, I heard one of the best messages delivered by Dave, my pastor here in Belton. We’ve been going through of Gospel of John and I really like it. It’s a nice change from your typical topical sermons. Anyways, we were in John 13, which is where Jesus predicts Judas’ betrayal. Dave proceeds to talk about community and how the disciples were so immensely close to each other and Jesus. They were together almost 24/7 for about 3 years. Moving on to verse 34, Jesus gives us the command to love one another like He has loved us. People should know we are Christ followers by the way that we love.

Dave then spouts off some statistics that are very heart breaking. They pertain to the lack of community we have nowadays, especially in the U.S. People just don’t desire and value community anymore, but it’s what we’re designed for. Then he gave us 3 reasons for why close relationships have decreased: 1. It’s inconvenient. No one has time anymore and everyone is too busy. I personally get tired thinking about all the people I know that are tired right now. It honestly sucks. 2. It involves being vulnerable. We have to sometimes reveal things about ourselves that we feel no one should ever know. This is where I struggle the most. I completely abhor being vulnerable. Sure I have no problem telling people I don’t have it all together, but when it comes to what I actually do lack, the discussion is over. 3. We were betrayed by someone in the past. Everyone has and it’s hard to recover from. But the thing is, Jesus was betrayed worse than any of us could ever know. He absolutely knew what Judas was going to do, but He chose to love Judas anyways. And this is where our love should tie in. Loving people no matter what they have done to us and no matter what their past entails. This is frickin hard.

All this to say, I have started this blog in attempt to make myself more vulnerable. (And hopefully communicate with my Mom more. Ha) There will be blood, sweat, and tears and I probably won’t like this very much at first. But i think in the end, it could help me somewhat. The next step will be being vulnerable in person. I’ll save that for later in life. We’ll see…