random decision

because i haven't gone to bed yet, i thought i would let you in on a decision i just made because it's really funny to me right now as i am in the state of weird tiredness. i decided i'm going to call cell phones 'cellophones'. i think it's funny because it sounds like cellophane. i know that tomorrow i will not think it nearly as humorous and i will probably regret this blog entry. oh well. at least now you get a glimpse of what i'm like when i'm really tired.

funny thing . . .

. . . while i've been in kansas, i've seen a lot of my friends that don't live in the same town as i do but i have yet to see my friends who actually live here. i'm really super glad that i saw all the people i did. can i just tell you that i have great friends!! i would, however, think it really sad if i never got to see my salina friends. i have tried to contact but only failure.

i have to get shot tomorrow (third shot in the hepatitis b series) and then i'll do my darndest to find my friends.

going to sleep now . . .

next stop: epiphany!!

christmas has come and gone. it was good. kansas is a good place to be (even though there is no snow!). i had christmas with my folks on christmas morning and got lots of goodies. then we went to my grandma kenyon's and had christmas all day there. my cousin's son, bryson, is adorable and awfully rambunctious. i got some good card-playing in . . . hope it holds me over until next year. today, we went to my grandma garst's for christmas. it was pretty good too. for some reason, i never really felt connected to that side of the family. i think it's because they all grew up kind of close to each other and my family was farther away. but, i feel like i talked more with my cousins this year than any other year (besides when we were kids and all played together). that made me happy. my cousin deb is engaged!

now, i have to figure out how to see all my friends here and maybe do a bit of studying. hummmm. (that's my version of an typed sigh) i really want to see a lot of people and i don't know how to see everyone (in a 'quality time' kind of way) in less than a week. but, do not fear! i am the queen of creative planning . . . at least i hope so.

i don't know what to do with myself now that the big holiday of the season is over. i can't really celebrate on new year's eve because i'm leaving kansas on the 1st and i prolly need a good night's sleep before i drive twelve-ish hours the next day. and boy-howdy, let me tell you that i have been going to sleep earlier than ever in my adult-ish life. and it's good. bad thing = i wake up before nine and can't sleep any later. i remember the days when i could sleep into the afternoon. but even more scary is that i have started to realize that i think i would be wasting a good part of the day if i slept that late. i know that i promised myself i would never think that way and alas . . . i think maybe a bit of maturity has creeped in. don't worry. don't worry. i will find a way to compensate by becoming more frivolous in another part of my life. any suggestions on where i could use some frivolity?

so, my next holiday to look forward to . . . epiphany!! yay for the wise persons (notice the inclusive language!). i really do think gifts should be exchanged on epiphany rather than christmas but i don't know how to instigate a massive moment in that direction. and, doing something like that might make people realize that the gift-giving of christmas really should have something to do with religious tradition. that would mess up all the commerciality of our great country. this year, i found out that i thought people who aren't christians shouldn't really celebrate christmas. and, goodness do i know that that might make a whole bunch of people mad. christmas, however, really is a religious holiday first . . . it probably shouldn't be national.

well, didn't really mean to go off on that tangent. oh well. but, if anyone wants to give me a gift on january 6th, feel free to do so ;)

secret santa = super sensational!

have a holly jolly christmas!

folks in the pic: back row - krista, ann, jenny, sarah. second row - katy, larissa, emily, nicole h., nicole r. first row - becky.

tonight we had the secret santa party! it was fun!! i'm glad everyone came and had a good ol' time! ohmygoodness, joanne gave me the most random (but fun) present ever. she gave me a cigar and a cigar-end-chopper-offer-thingy. how crazy is that?! but i love it!!!!!!

everyone got really fun gifts (as seen in the above picture!). good food, good drinks, good clean fun. yay Jesus!

oh, and we played my new favorite game! well, i showed everyone how to play it and no one would try it. it's called "sing popular christmas songs in an accent". we decided that i do some sort of eastern european accent but it's not really decipherable beyond that. love that game! let's play some time together!

bugger it all

so, i didn't make it to my class. i really tried though. i was getting ready and i was still slightly before my minute-to-dash deadline. and then . . . [dun, dun, dun] . . . i can't find my stupid keys. i'm searching and searching and the time keeps marching and marching forward. i still haven't found those stupid keys. i suppose i could have gone to class late but i really don't see that as worth all the people staring at you as you walk in and interrupt the instructor and then they all watch you try to find a seat in the packed room and you have to crawl over people to get to that seat and you feel so foolish because you try to look inconspicuous during all this and it's really the opposite of what happens and then you can't concentrate on the lecture because you're so embarrassed and seeing how i can't concentrate anyway, i did not want to add to my dilemma. (this may be an exaggeration in light of my frustration)

oh, and if you don't believe my sincerity about wanting to go to class (maybe because you read the previous post), just ask yourself this: if kyle really was planning on skipping class, wouldn't she still be sleeping in her comfy bed and dreaming of all the things she should be learning instead of sitting at her computer lamenting how she did get up because she was going to be good and go but since she missed it anyway she could still be sleeping?!

really don't want to go to class . . .

. . . but i really should because it's our last day in this particular class. i should be getting ready but instead i'm blogging. where has my motivation gone? don't worry though . . . i left for class on tuesday with only a minute to get there and i totally made it.

so much to say, so little time

que lastima! tengo muchas experiencias desde entonces la semana pasada. pero, no tengo mucho tiempo para escribir. si es la verdad, por que escribo en espanol cuando no hay muchas personas que leer espanol?! (need help? go to an online translator. keep in mind that all phrases are not a literal translation and that i don't have special characters.)

i have many things that are interesting to write about since last wednesday but this post is only serving as a means of procrastination from paper writing so i must be brief.

wednesday new york trip and b-day party = heyya good. highlight = hanging out with cool folks.
friday formal and dance = good. highlight = lap dance.
saturday going to the photoshop = okay. highlight = cute boy skipping.
sunday shopping, movie and dinner = fun. lowlight = my confusion for most of the day.
monday greek recitation and presentation = satisfactory. highlight = they're done.
tuesday computer being stupid = frustration. highlight = love system restore.
previous blog experiment = results as anticipated.

i must give a shout out to ann's dad who apparantly reads my blog at times . . . hi carl!!! you're awesome!!

never thought i would use the scientific theory outside of high school

i've decided that people are more apt to comment on shorter blog entries. and they are more likely to read them as well. let's test the hypothesis.

must tell you that 'phantom of the opera' on broadway was as cool of an experience as you would expect. loved it! maybe will tell more later but must keep this short for experimental purposes.

my confession

i went to the well tonight and it was really good for me. last week, i heard a message that really encouraged me but i must have forgotten about it during the week. i still felt better about things last week and i could tell things were getting better but my relationship with God was still not where it should have been. tonight, i realized some of the things that are wrong with my heart. first revelation is that i'm trying to restrict/confine God. i have been so focused on missing the kind of worship that i had at southwestern that i didn't believe it was possible for God to be present here. and when i say that, i can hear how ridiculous it is. but that's what i have been doing. i wouldn't let myself think that the Spirit could be moving here as well. and because my mind wasn't open to it, my heart wasn't open to it either and i stagnated. i came here from a summer of doing ministry but i know that my heart was not right when i was doing that either. i'm beginning to see how much leaving southwestern has affected me. sc was a huge blessing in my life. really the best i've ever felt. but i have to learn how to let go of that so that i can begin to let it happen all over. basically, i'm confessing that my relationship has been going downhill since last may (and possibly even earlier than that). this whole time at seminary, i have been thinking that maybe seminary is not right for me. but i'm beginning to realize that i haven't been right for seminary. this is a place to train the faithful for ministry. but i have not been faithful for a while. as you may have heard me say before, i have not been impacted by my studies and i always blamed the content. but maybe, just maybe, the problem is me. when my relationship with God is not right, everything in my life is not right. the second revelation i had was that i have been severely struggling with two sins in particular. these two sins have worsened during my time in seminary. ha. you would think that seminary is a place where sins would not abound. but as i said before, my heart has never really been in tune with the call of God while i've been here. because i am excessively ashamed of these sins (mind you, i know they're not the only sins i have committed but they have been repeated several times and they are things i am aware of and still consciously commit), i don't feel i can reveal the nature of them, especially in such a public forum. but i feel compelled to confess the struggle and hope that maybe someone will hold me accountable. the third thing that really affected me tonight is that i was finally able to cry honestly to God. i have known that my relationship with God was faltering, to say the least. i am not ignorant that i have been unfaithful. i have tried to pray and i have tried to be repentent and i have tried to be honest but i never gave God the chance to answer me. i would say my prayers and pleas and then turn over immediately and try to let my false dreams and sleep help me. i felt i was being honest with God but i never let God come back to me. tonight, i realized how desperate i am for God and how much i need Him (this realization came while singing 'breathe' . . . the chorus= "i'm desperate for you. i'm lost without you."). i cried. and it's not just that i cried, it's that i was able to cry. i was able to feel something again. for so long, i have been emotionless before God. i could not be joyful and i could not be remorseful. my heart has been awakened again. praise God! and though the feelings are painful, i am so glad that i can feel. i just felt i should share this because i don't want to forget again. i want this to be a reminder to me. i always want to feel God afresh in me. i can sense that the Father is loving me, the Son is healing me, and the Spirit is working in me. i choose not to be lost anymore. i choose to make the first steps on the long road back to glory. not my glory, but God's glory reigning in me and over me. i choose to be God's again. and i pray that God is choosing to forgive and love His servant once more.

no longer lost in the abyss of anti-intellectualism

well, i did have lots of things that i wanted to share and now i only remember the main one. alastima.

i did remember one other than the main story . . . my address labels finally arrived today. i ordered ones with all the seasons. too bad they came AFTER i sent all 52 of my hand-addressed christmas cards. stupid label company.

okay, so my exciting news (no one else so far seems as excited as i but they might not know what the underpinnings of my apathy is)! today, in my philosophy class 'paradigms and progress in theology', i paid attention the whole time. i took notes . . . three pages front and back. there was no doodling. i understood everything and i really tried to think about it (as much as i could . . . he was going really fast!). i loved it! this is what i have been missing! i had the thought of "this is why i'm coming to school . . . to be engaged". i am so glad to discover that my newfound apathy/indifference to furthering education does not have to be a permanent state. i just hadn't found anything that really sparked my interest or forced me to really think. i am fairly convinced that all my friends here think i am completely lethargic in the area of study. and, i have been since i've been here. but i want to say that even if i don't do all my homework (or any of it), my mind can be engaged and really considering/learning. since i've been at pts, i have often wondered why i'm here and how they possibly let me in. although, i am appropriately impressed with the level of skill and expertise my professors hold, i haven't really gotten much from my experience thus far. most of this stems from the repeat of a lot of information that i already "learned" while in college (i use quotation marks because my memory is not the best and there is room for review). all this is to say that i'm glad i'm not dead in the world of expanding knowledge. i was afraid i was lost forever in thinking that there really is no point in further education. i even started to formulate hypotheses that ignorance was preferable to education because i was a much happier person when i knew less. i consider education extremely valuable and it was alarming to see that i had fallen into that kind of thinking. anyway, i was very pleased with class and i hope that, as i continue here at pts, i will continue to find that kind of engagement. p.s. i'll be so very glad when i'm done with survey courses!

three more things: first, i'm going to poo on broadway tomorrow. (this 'poo' is me trying to be clever by making an acronym for 'phantom of the opera' . . . it makes me laugh. hope it's not sacrilege to theatre buffs!) new york here i come!!
second, it has been raining since yesterday morning. ann commented today on the plethora of umbrellas that appear at this school and her perplexity of it. i'm so glad that someone else has noticed this as well and has articulated that finding!
third, the random question of the day is "do i have peanut butter on my face?" per krista

see, i remembered some of the things i had forgotten when i started this entry. aren't you glad? now, i have to go write a paper for a book that i seriously tried to read and of which i only got to page 40. wish me luck. wish me awakeness. wish me the ability to b.s. logically.

so confused . . .

what's up with this?!

well, tonight instead of finishing my homework that i started way earlier, i decided to visit my alma mater's webite. (ha! i'm alumni . . . i get to say alma mater!) so, i took the campus tour and i stumbled on this picture. it totally confuses me. there is no sign like that at my school. i don't know where it is if there is one. i even asked my friend nicole to go outside and check to see and she said it's not there; doesn't exist. on the page, it showed two pictures. the top pic shows how it really looks and the bottom one is the picture that is so weird. are there any other sc'ers that now what this is about?!

hey! guess what!

i actually started doing homework before six p.m. today!!!!! that's way before my usual 11 p.m. starting time. unfortunately, i was working on my homework in the oratory with other folks around. so, most of my time was spent distracting them and myself and taking 'study breaks'. and i'm still working on it. but, i am much farther along than i normally would be!

i would also like to say that i like to separate my colored candies before eating them. this may be one of my few anal tendencies. another one is that i really like my c.d.'s to be organized and facing in the proper direction. otherwise, i'm generally a type b personality! (no joanne, not the blood type!).

so, jenny and joanne and i just went to wal-mart and hoagie haven. jenny and i have run out of clean necessities (jenny needed socks and i needed underwear) so we decided to buy new ones instead of doing laundry! we win! then, joanne and i wanted to split a hoagie cause we were disappointed with dinner tonight and kinda got hungry and all i had was snacks. so, now, i'm going to go eat my yummy delicious hoagie.

one more thing, it is now 11:11. love that time! other cool one is 12:34. also enjoy 11:23. but my absolute favorite is 6:09 (9:06 works too) because even when your clock is upside down, it still says the right time.

why did an email from a russian orthodox pastor make me so happy?

larissa, krista and i just got back from seeing 'closer'. i'm still trying to figure out what i think about that movie. i didn't like it at first. the characters were tragically flawed one-dimensionally. but somehow, when it was over, i said 'that can't be it' in my head. i wanted more. very confused on my feelings about it.

earlier, i emailed a pastor at a nearby russian orthodox church to see if he would be wiling to let me (with my partner) research his church for a project in a class. i received a reply from him and i just felt happy after i read it. there wasn't anything spectacular about it really. it just seems as though he was very welcoming and willing to let us come. he tactfully informed me that i was welcome to pray and worship but not able to take communion. i think i just don't know much about the orthodox church and it makes me very happy when churches welcome people with questions (especially when it's for research and not for conversion). i'm going to be very glad to visit their service next saturday.

christmas cards

krista and i went to borders this evening and it was a lot of fun! we had some tea (my chai wasn't the best but hey, it was chai!) and krista brought some greek to memorize. i, on the other hand, kept my sabbath by not doing any homework. i did, however, work on christmas cards. and i'm still working on christmas cards. four hours of christmas cards. but i love it!

joy of joys

i don't have to climb the three flights of stairs in stuart hall this morning because our ot precept is meeting in the caf.

failed

i went through half the day meeting my goal! and then, 12:30 came. every thursday, i meet with my two dual methodist pals (stina and mira) for lunch. well, i had remembered this all day. i knew it was going to happen . . . was looking forward to it. then, i'm at work. and i think to myself, i have to work until 12:30. so i did. i'm driving back and it hits me at 12:45 that this isn't right! i'm supposed to meet them at 12:30. dumb. my schedule used to be until 12:30 but i changed it for the meeting. so, i didn't forget, i just had a lapse into idiocy.

the funny thing is that i don't really have the guilt/shame/whatever that feeling is when you do something dumb or embarrass yourself. i think setting the goal made me realize that it all doesn't really matter anyway!! so, now my goal is to make it through the rest of the day without any more lapses of stupidity!

oh, and another kind of comical thing. i got to read/record for the first time at my job at recording for the blind and dyslexic. it was fun! the book was on the beginnings of evangelicals talking about whitefield, edwards, the wesleys, etc. (two things that i really loved was the talk about the wesleys since i'm a methodist and they mentioned a place in kansas in the acknowledgements). anyway, the word 'evangelicalism' is used a ton! and i told the director (the guy who follows along and makes sure i say the right thing) that i hope i didn't screw up that word since it happens all the time. well, the very first thing i do is read the title and mess up that word!! oh gosh . . . i thought i was in for a long read but i got all the rest of them right! (i did mess up on saying my roman numerals . . . dang that number xiv!)

goal of the day . . .

. . . is to not have an embarrassing moment or feel like an idiot once today.

[not likely to happen because both are in my nature. improbability intensified by my lack of sleep. no, i was not up doing homework or procrastinating by any other means. i just couldn't sleep. sucks. also not helpful is the fact that i have greek today which generally makes me feel dumb. oh well, there's always hope!]

i was the first one to shower because i got up so dang early

oh man! why did i get up so early this morning?! oh yeah, cause i forgot to pay my bill that was due yesterday. but let me tell you, it's terribly difficult to get up at 7:32 a.m. when one slept until 12:27 p.m. the previous day.

last night, we had joanne's birthday party. it was a lot of fun! she was genuinely surprised! apparently, jenny is a really good liar . . . kinda scary.

i really enjoyed the message at 'the well' last night. it was really something i needed to hear. it put into words some of the things i had been feeling since i've been here at pts.

well, must go do my errands before class. it is totally anti-kyle to be productive before i go to my first class so maybe today will bring a lot of exhilirating new changes. or it will teach me that responsibility can be a good thing.

this is a shout out to ann cause i know she loves them!! and she might need a bit of cheering because her fish died yesterday . . .