Sleepy

I am possibly the most messed up on sleep I have ever been.
College set me on a whole other clock for when sleeping was appropriate. For example, at the beginning of the year I never napped and was usually asleep by 12:30. That was late, in high school I- uh, actually I can't remember. That's probably speaking volumes for how well my brain is functioning under these conditions.
Anyway, I started staying up later and then spending more time falling asleep. I napped during the day at least for 20 minutes but when it's the 20 minutes right before class, I felt all groggy and gross and wanted to sleep immediately after class. Sometimes I did and then bedtime was a joke. Who was I kidding I had 2 naps that day, how could I get a good night's sleep? Plus I added coffee more routinely into my life which I will never apologize for because it's too delicious.
Then finals week hit and sleep became a "grab it when you can" kind of thing. Now, I am home (hurray!) and I don't have anything to wake up for at least for a couple weeks. The sleeping now has zero pattern because I have become an expert alarm clock ignorer. Darn my non-useful talents!
I have plans to take another stab at ALL THE STUFF I brought home with me. I hate having all this junk! I get this idea that I should just toss it all and then I think "Wait, but what if I..." and hence the accumulation of all this stuff. Ugh!
My self imposed bedtime is in 20 minutes- nighty night!

It's Going to be a Bumpy Ride

I do this more often than I would like. I think to myself "I've got nothing to blog this morning" and then I leave my room sans computer. I sit down at McConn and realize I've got tons of things on my mind and no way to empty it. Pencil and paper you say? Peeshaw!!
Actually that's a great idea. Hmm.
Anyway, this morning I got halfway down the hall before I thought "I have things the world must know!" so I turned around and grabbed my computer.

This is a "treat myself" kind of morning partially because I am up earlier than I have been the last few days and partially because I have the points left to do it.

I am a sucker for the cold. I hate it. My very Swedish family would be disappointed but I don't care. When it was cold in our room this morning, the only word my brain could think of was "NO." That's it. Oh, and "Long underwear" which I am currently sporting underneath my jeans. Do you ever get that cold and tired, shaking from the core, kind of feeling? It's weird and it doesn't happen very often but it usually results in me complaining. Sorry about that this morning, Heidi. I recover once I have lots of layers on, but it's pretty childish until then.

Do you listen to The Black Keys? They're kind of modern blues/rock? I don't know how to classify them but they make excellent company when you're getting stuff done. Like background noise but better.

Last night I couldn't fall asleep and as I was drifiting off my brain yelled "Menelaus!" and I thought, "Oh brain, you are silly. He is a character from....dang it."

My world literature exam is this morning and when I was suddenly struck with this name last night, nothing inside of my could get me to flip over and Google the man. He was Helen's husband in the myth about the Trojan war and he appears in The Iliad (Roman, by Homer, literary {not folk} epic).
Heidi and I stayed up and talked for a long time last night because neither of us could sleep. Did you know there's a Christian flag? It looks like this: (the white border is invisible- click and drag to get the whole picture!)

Heidi went to a small, private school and they said the pledge of allegiance to the American flag, a pledge to the Bible, and a pledge to the Christian flag. I didn't know there was anything but the pledge of allegiance. Crazy!

I've been wearing my glasses a lot more often. And by wearing my glasses, I mean squinting and blinking and thinking to myself "Dang, I wish I had my glasses" but that's what I get for switching school bags all the time.

I know this post has pretty much nothing in the way of transitions, but I'm saving all my literary greatness for the essay I have to write with my final this morning.

The Blackhawks are out of the playoffs as of last night and I'm bummed. I would have liked for them to go farther- they're my team! but I'm also bummed because I wanted to watch at least one playoff game with my dad.  As is the Chicago professional sports motto, there's always next year.
One of my friends on Facebook wrote "At least the bandwagoners are gone?" and I laughed. I know practically nothing about the individual players on other teams, but I'm willing to bet we have the best looking team. Patrick Sharp (Sharpie!) was named Most Attractive Chicagoan. Seriously. Even our coach is handsome. Look at this guy!

This was before the loss that ended they're playoff run. I don't know every single thing about every player nor do I understand everything about hockey, but that's okay. I can still support the team by buying merch and watching games and occasionally attending. Seriously, Blackhawks have the best fans. The Chicago Wolves are the semi-pro team and those games are fun too. I've only been to one (or two?) but they were exciting. A lot of those players are hoping to get picked up by NHL teams.


 I also like the Cubs over the White Sox and there's pretty much no such thing as a fair weather Cubs fan because we haven't won it all in over 100 years. No, I'm not kidding. There's an entire culture around Wrigley Field and people go nuts. The Milwaukee Brewers' stadium is way nicer than Wrigley but there's something to be said for tradition and history. I'm a Bears and a Bulls fan but I kind of forget about them when they are out of season. A lot of the Bears players live near my home town because they train nearby so it's pretty common to run into them in public. People will talk about running into Brian Urlacher at Chipotle or Best Buy and word on the street is he's pretty legit. Also, Vince Vaughn goes to Blackhawks games and they always show him. His wife is from my area so people saw him at the mall or whatever when they were planning the wedding.

Ugh I just clicked on a news story on WGN about teens drinking hand sanitzer to get high. BLEGH. That's disgusting. And it sounds like one of those stories to scare parents- there's no way teens are actually doing that. Or like 10 people did it ever in the history of earth. And those people are idiots.

Woo- did I lose you? I hope not :)

Freshman Year (check the box)

Recently, I have been following a lot more blogs. I don't like to follow a ton of them. I really want to read your stories, get to know you and know about your life. I imagine that would be tough if I was following 40+ blogs. It's a whole thing about wanting to do whatever I do 100%. 
Anyway, some of you are having babies, having birthday celebrations for husbands, or anniversaries. 
I'm not at that stage of life yet, but here's my milestone:
I am finished with all of my classes for my freshman year of college! Woohoo!
I still have finals early next week, but that's it. I'm willing to label this year as the most stressful school year of my life. I've made it and only by the grace of God. He provided me with an awesome family to support me (emotionally and financially), Christian professors who care about their students (my 80+ Old Testament professor cried at the end of our last class and told us he loved us and that he will miss us all), and friends to laugh and cry with. 


God is so good. 


 It's so good to be done! All that remains is final exams to show what I've learned all year. 

Style

I'll be the first to admit my closet is strange. It's this weird compilation of things I love and wear too much, things I never wear but keep just in case, and things that don't fall into either category.
I really don't have a "wardrobe" per say. I have clothes. It's a picky distinction, but it's true.
Even though my closet is a weird mix, one thing I love about it is that everything has a story.
I love things with a story.
Here's what I wore today:

Here's the story:
This is my one and only pair of TOMS. Every time I think "It would be nice to have this color" I look at them on the website and then I second guess myself. They are comfortable and easy, but kind of stinky. Does any one else have that problem? They are getting worn where you can see the outline of my toes which I think is kind of cool. I'll make the decision on getting another pair once these have worn out. I bought them in August 2010 so they have lasted a long time!

This skirt is from the Gap and it has pockets. I don't actually remember getting it, but every time I wear it I think "I wish everything I owned has pockets like this!" It's black and basic but a little unique. Hurray!

This shirt is my favorite t-shirt. It's the shirt I bought at the Manchester Orchestra concert I went to in May 2011 with Kate in Chicago. The design on the front is the cover to their album "Simple Math"which, as it so happens, sounds delightful coming out of my car's stereo.

The necklace is a little robot with a red heart and jewel eyes and his arms move! I got him for $1.50 at an H&M clearance rack when I went to a far away mall with some people from my DR mission trip. He's cute and nerdy.

My earrings (I would post a close up photo but ears are weird) are as follows from top to bottom:
Earrings I bought at camp to support someone's mission trip and I'm pretty sure they were handmade so they are one of a kind. Then I have the cubic zirconia studs that I got for Christmas one year (or my birthday?) from my mom. They were in a four pack of different sizes. They are the best. Finally, I have these circle earrings that are 4 circles, one inside of the other that hang down. They are a little jingle-jangley and really fun. My friend Maggie gave them to me as a gift.

The bracelet is from Mexico. It was the first thing I bought in the market there when I visited in 2008 with my youth group for a mission trip. You are expected to barter, but I didn't because everything I bought was cheap anyway. The man told me it was all different shells, but I knew he was embellishing and I didn't care because I liked it regardless.



Even though my clothes aren't really high class, I like them and I like their stories even better.

This is a Rant

This is a rant about Twitter. If you love Twitter, I don't expect you to read on. That being said, here we go.


I did have a Twitter. All I was doing was following the podcast guys I listen to and a couple of celebrities. A lot the tweets I saw were ads for things these celebs support. I think I tweeted once or twice. I have a lot to say (DUH) but I can't say it all that quickly and that frequently. I practically never update my status on Facebook. I think people who update their Facebook status more than 5 times a day should definitely get themselves a Twitter. 


What is this cultural obsession with the food celebrities are eating, the places they're going, and the things they are wearing? Entire publications have been based on this phenomenon of wanting to know ever single thing about the lives of the rich and famous. Apparently People magazines once a week are not enough. Followers want info as frequently as it will come to them. This instant gratification thing has gotten way out of control.  

Twitter is a media that doesn't encourage editing oneself. It's always there on your computer or on your phone if you are not near it. It takes all of five seconds to type something and hit "send" or "enter" or "tweet this now" and then whatever you were thinking about is out there forever. That's how the whole Internet is but there's something about it being that instant.

There is a tendency in my generation to lose focus quickly. I can only imagine this tendency will continue. Twitter creators have defined tweets as "a short burst of inconsequential information," and that could potentially be useful in a situation like this:
"Iceberg ahead, send help" or "Took poison, not really dead, @Romeo"
Here are some situations in which Twitter is not really helping anyone:

“Classical music is tight yo” and “Man…whatever happened to my antique fish tank”

Those are tweets by Kanye West who, of course, is everything that is wrong with the world in his own way. I think he knows it too and plays off of that.

But anyway, I really enjoy books and readings. It’s still difficult for me to sit down and read. I get distracted and know that somewhere on the Internet, there’s an explanation that will take me 5 minutes to read. What a waste! Books are meant to be read not summarized and sliced down. I can’t imagine how literature classes go for people who don’t like to read. I can’t imagine what their life is like either. When there is news on the Internet in one page articles with a few sentences in a paragraph and summaries of everything you might not want to read, how do you allow someone to appreciate decent writing and enjoy it?

In one big run on sentence, here’s Twitter: you’ve got the instant gratification component that whatever you say it’s there for everyone, you have the over exposure of everything in your life that you choose to tweet (do I really care that your turkey sandwich was a lot better yesterday than the one you got today?), you have the constant insight into the lives of your favorite celebrity to you can further the illusion that you know them, and you have the bits of news from all outlets that translates into being well informed.

All this craziness is too much to handle. Perhaps one day I will reopen my Twitter account and use it for good. I don’t think every Twitter user is out to stupefy their followers, but I can see it happening. Do you have Twitter? What do you use it for? What are the upsides I'm totally ignoring? 

Mary Poppins and Bert

I love to laugh. Quite often when I say that, I hear the "Ha ha ha ha" that follows from that song in Mary Poppins. I like Julie Andrews and Dick Van Dyke. That movie is fantastic. Today, I watched a funny Youtube video to make me smile because I needed it.


I wish I would have watched Mary Poppins last night instead of a scary movie. My roommate got it in her head that we should watch a scary movie. During the movie, we were on edge (kind of the point) and at one point, Heidi freaked out and we ended up hitting heads.

Unfortunately for her, my future roommate Erin, and myself, we didn't sleep until about 2AM. Erin was too freaked out to sleep in her own room, so she took the top bunk, I slept in the bottom bunk, and Heidi slept on the floor. Heidi slept on the floor until she got too freaked out and shared my bed. I could NOT get comfortable and at 7AM, decided to get 1 good hour of sleep on the floor. I should have done that in the first place! When Heidi got up for her 7:50 class, she stepped on my head. That was a bummer.

When I woke up for my 8:55, they were both gone and I had a huge headache. I got a text from out campus emergency alert that someone robbed the Dollar General at gunpoint this morning. There was a lot of information trying to get into my brain at my math review and all of this nuttiness was not helping.
This week is off to a very strange start. Maybe I'll watch Mary Poppins after class this afternoon.

I hope your week is starting off less strangely than mine. Is that even right? I don't have the brain power.

Friday Day

Here's the thing. I understand the whole "Thank God It's Friday!" thing but really I would like to thank the Lord that today is Friday. This week was rough.


It's not that any one thing really brought me down but lots of little things compounded on one another and I ended up with sighing with relief after my last class. Not literally, but it would have been appropriate to do that.

I have one week left of classes before finals. That means lots of final projects, papers, and yes, tests right before the finals.

I just picked my classes for the fall which 1. it's nice to have it done 2. seems a little daunting 3. makes me glad I'm on my way.

Last week I declared a Psychology major with and Addictions Counseling minor. Woohoo!

My brain is a little scattered about what to do when but I have a list made for this weekend because that's the kind of person I am.

One thing I have to do this weekend is edit my math project. Lucky for me, I do not have to do my whole math project to do because I was a responsible student and did my project a week in advance. Just kidding. I thought it was due this Wednesday and it's not due until next weekend. I roped Kayla into helping me and explaining mathematical things to me. She's pretty great that way. I have to make some minor changes to a section I did wrong. That's one wonderful thing about having stuff done early- your prof can tell you what you need to fix!

Speaking of projects, here are photos of my Old Testament project I told you about.

Enjoy your weekend! 

Celebrity Encounters

Ok, when I get excited about things, I get REALLY excited about things. My mother calls it dramatic, but that's honestly how I feel. Why should I hide what I feel inside? (not exactly the lyrics to Mulan, but close enough)

At IWU, we have a society of World Changers which basically means one person every year is honored for doing awesome things for God in the world. They get an award and a chapel to talk about their awesomeness and they get a bronze bust in the library. The artist who makes the busts was in chapel which was really cool!

Today, this very day, Kirk Cameron was on our campus. That's right, ladies and gents- the 80's teen heart throb himself. Okay, so he's done a lot more than than. He became a Christian in 1989 and has been married to Chelsea for 21 years. They have 6 kiddos which is really cool and his oldest son, who is 15, was on campus with him today. Also, Chelsea played Mike Seaver's girl friend on Growing Pains but she was not obsessed with Mike Seaver. She got to know the real Kirk and did not have a Mike Seaver pillow case. Note to all fangirls- memorabilia is not the way to his heart.

Jessica and I watched the first disc of season 1 of Growing Pains last night in order to prepare ourselves. I was glad people cheered a little when Mr. Cameron talked about the show because I wanted to "Woo!" too :) When he was talking about the Make-A-Wish foundation things they got to do on set, he said kids wanted to meet Mike and Carol and Ben and sit on the Seaver couch- I was proud Jessica knew what he was talking about!

Kirk was named after Captain Kirk on Star Trek because it was his dad's favorite TV show (who knew?) and the family joke was that his sister, Candace Cameron (DJ on Full House!) was going to be named Spock.

Mr. Cameron had some great things to say and I was jotting them down as fast as I could. They aren't exact but you will get the idea.

When he was talking about his faith and walk with God, he said "I'm not where I could be and I'm not where I should be, but I'm not where I was." That was incredibly encouraging. I like that one a LOT.
Recently, Mr. Cameron was sort of slammed in the media for calling homosexuality "unnatural" and when he was talking about that, he talked about how tough a situation he was in but that he hopes other Christians will not wimp out. He hopes they will stick to what they believe and that he would have thought the controversy would be bigger if he had contradicted himself, not if he said what he believes in. When discussing the media, he had an interesting take on main stream media values. He said they have a god of political corecteness, and when someone (Kirk Cameron) or anyone else blasphemes it, they (the media) feel the need to defend it. Similarly, when someone blasphemes the one, true God, Christians feel the need to defend Him. People stand up when the thing they are loyal to is attacked.

Then Kirk talked about other World Changers a little bit and said "God uses nobodies from nowhere with nothing to offer but a fully surrendered heart" to build up His kingdom. It was a cool encouragement to students and he mentioned Moses and a few other Biblical characters who, by the world's standard, had nothing going for them, but God used them in big ways.

Kirk talked about that he knows "who I am and who's I am" (whose? I never know) and that when we are climbing to success, to make sure your ladder is propped up against the right building. If you are climbing the corporate ladder, are you doing it for the good of the Lord? If you are working hard to be the mom of the year, are you doing it to further the Kingdom? That part was really cool.

I took this photo! Wahh!

 After chapel, I sat at McConn with Jessica and Dr. Smith got coffee with Kirk Cameron! Jessica chased them down the mallway and I took her picture. He was in a rush, otherwise I would have taken a photo as well. Here are all the photos I took during Chapel. Some of them it's tough to tell where he is, but I'll do my best to explain them.

Just to the right of the harp is Mr. Cameron

Wahoo for jumbo screens!

Instead of giving a speech, it was interview style. 

That way, it was much more personal and interactive.

Aww Kirk and Chelsea! He commented that he did not have any say in the photos in the slideshow and that 80's hair was bad. 

There's President Smith at the microphone

President Smith is giving Kirk the award.

Woohoo awards!

Liz took this photo for me before chapel.

I couldn't resist. 

Literature Madness!

Wowsa I have so many things to say. Sometimes I think "I should write something on my blog but I don't have anything to say" and then ideas creep into my head so that when I have one thing to say, I have a zillion things to say and I can't type fast enough! Henceforth, this point will be disjointed and likely without transitions. Good luck.

This weekend was wonderful. My university hosted an event called Fusion where there was a speaker and a bunch of bands and high school students stayed Friday night and Saturday day. Heidi and I hosted three girls. It was pretty late when they were in our room but they seemed to have a good time. Jillian, Meagan, and Casey were all very sweet :)
Friday night and Saturday afternoon I sold Fusion t-shirts. When I signed up, I asked if the math was tough (I wanted to help but not if I was going to be a hindrance) but it turns out they were only $5. Super easy math- yay!

While I worked the table, it was my intention to read Aldous Huxley's "The Island." It has been on my shelf since the beginning of the year and I never got around to reading it. I started, got confused, and put it down. I am now 50 pages in and enjoying it thus far. I loved "Brave New World" and actually read it for 2 different classes in high school. I lent it to Jessica, scribbled margins and all. I write in all my books. I underline key things and circle and make notes to myself, especially in things that are hard to read. It keeps me focused and it makes me feel like I have read it. If we get a hand out in class, when I look back at it later I have no memory of reading it unless I have written on it. My freshman year of high school I took Freshman Literature Honors. It was probably the hardest class I took in high school. We started the year with Homer's "The Odyssey" and Shakespeare's "Julius Caesar" which were higher brow than anything I had read. We were required to annotate like CRAZY and, as much as I resented it at the time, it really did help me.

I had the urge to listen to Ingrid Michaleson's "The Chain" so I searched chain in my iTunes. It also brought up Chris Tomlin's "Amazing Grace (My Chains are Gone)". Part of the song says "The earth will soon dissolve like snow" and I started thinking about 2012 and how the world is supposedly going to end.  I don't really believe it. 1 Thessalonians 5:2 says that Jesus will return like a thief in the night, which is why every time there's someone yelling about the date the world will end, I can pretty much mark that off as the day that Jesus will not come back.

On Sunday, I went to Mt. Etna Wesleyan Church. My suite mate Jessica's dad is the senior pastor there. This Sunday, my R.A. Danielle gave the message. She is studying to be a youth minister and needs experience in a church. Mt. Etna is old. It has orange carpet, a small, smile shaped sanctuary, a bell tower, a creepy basement room, and stained glass. It is totally different than the Evangelical Free Church of Libertyville where I grew up. It's strange going into another church when you don't know how things go. I hate that feeling. When I walked in, I saw Jessica's dad and he showed me where I needed to go. I sat with Lauren's mom and she is so sweet. After church, a bunch of us went back to Jessica's house where her mom made lunch for us. Her mom is sweet too!
We ate outside and played in the yard. When Lauren and her family were leaving, Jessica took me on a little tour where I saw her high school and elementary school.
It was a great Sunday.

As one of the announcements in church, Lauren's dad talked about this mission trip he is going on to Australia. Their ministry is teaching troubled teens to produce videos to tell their story. I don't understand all of it but the use of technology to reach the hearts of youth sounds really cool.
He asked us to pray for these kids by name. Lauren's family are missionaries and when they traveled years ago to New Zealand, the people in that church had been praying for them by name. It's cool to pray for people generically, but I think it much more personal to pray for them by name.
If you get the chance or are willing to make the time, please pray for these kids in Australia that their hearts will be open to this ministry in a place that is spiritually dark.
Daniel, Mitch, Jess, Edin, Ryleigh, Cindy, Fergus, Gabby, Raphael, Erin, Teresa, and Michelle are all going to be apart of this AV project. It was heart breaking to hear Lauren's dad saying some of these kids have never heard "I love you" or "good job." Wow. I can't imagine.

I'm working on setting up a YouVersion account that will work on my phone and my computer. The website is sometimes wonky and tells me "502 bad connection" which is a bummer. I've never read The Message version of the Bible and I like the way it is phrased. I realize it's not a direct translation, but it's nice to get another perspective on it. 2 Corinthians 5:17 is my favorite verse so I started with 2 Corinthians. I'm reading out loud (UGH!) because I am bad at it and I want to get better. I don't want to ask God for an Aaron one day because I'm too chicken!
Do you remember The Donut Man? We had VHS tapes when I was little of his show and it's a kids ministry thing. Anyway, that's where I learned the verse 2 Corinthians 5:17. Watch it here!
Also, since I have been reading 2 Corinthians, I have learned the words glib, voluble, inaugural, and goaded. I know the president gives the inaugural address, but I never really knew what it meant. Silly.