la la la week :D

wow this week has certainly been an awesome one. so much stuff has been happening and it's been an eye-opening & fun experience. long blog, but i just feel like rambling, so you don't have to read if you don't want.

first of all, we had a short week because we had classes only on thursday and friday because of the rosh hashanah break. usually, since i have three classes spread out on thursdays, making my tuesdays and thursdays my longs days, they're not as awesome as my shorter days. but, this past thursday was pretty darn awesome.

i handed in my two papers on thursday, which took a huge load off my back. in cinema class at first i had a hard time not dozing off, but somehow in the middle of class i felt very awake and was able to pay attention as we watched the beginning half of citizen kane. it was cool because i was able to pick up on some cinematic aspects that we've sort of been talking about in class while also paying attention to the plot of the story...although, i still haven't figured out what "rosebud" is yet. but SHHH! don't tell me!

then for my contemporary fiction class i was expecting us to talk about the short stories that i did not read (because i was writing my papers!), but instead found that because of the breaks and my awesome teacher (ryan vaughan) going to california in the coming weeks for a wedding in california, we watched the beginning half of this movie called, Stranger Than Fiction with will ferrell (whom I don't normally like). i think we're watching the second half in our next class. every time i brush my teeth now i think about that movie. hehe. watch it and you'll know why.

then brit lit I class was pretty interesting. we read "the Dream of the Rood," which had a lot of core Christian values in it, which my professor talked about. he kept saying, "it's crazy, i know, but those are the Christian beliefs." i was like (to myself), "heck yeah, those are Christian beliefs!" it was fascinating how God had come into my classroom.

then on friday, i didn't have a geography quiz and instead we watched a film, of which we finished early and got to leave class a half-hour early. then i got lunch and met up with joanna and carrie for our leadership meeting, which went really well. the topic was spiritual habits, and it was interesting because one thing i've been struggling with was my quiet times with God. not saying that i was having trouble doing them, but i'm good at having the routine down of waking up early in the morning to do my quiet times. i just wasn't sure if it actually helped me grow in my relationship with Him, and if it didn't, then i've learned from others that maybe it's just better to have fruitful quiet times than to just go through the motion of doing it. but i also felt guilty when i didn't do it, so that confused me. i brought this up to carrie and she said that that's the discipline part of quiet times. quiet times is a spiritual discipline and therefore is an act of training, also means that sometimes we may not want to do it, but we should do it. and maybe my not feeling like my quiet times are fruitful in communicating and growing closer to God is a sign that i need to mix things up and try doing my quiet times in a different way. i think that's what i need to do.

my friday continued onward when i went with michelle, clam, jon yee and karen on a long walmart trip in which i got the smallest amount of items ever on a walmart run: curel lotion, detergent, and socks.

soon after was praise practice. i was so thankful that i wasn't sick anymore. it feels so much better to sing when you're not sick. oh, and glory rocked that djembe. it was awesome.
and THEN my dad showed up and i had to chase him down to give him a hug and say hello, but i couldn't even catch up to him cuz we were going so fast and i was afraid one or both of us were going to trip and fall! it was actually quite scary chasing him around. but it's kind of cool (and humbling...AND a teensy bit embarrassing) that my dad is 60 years old and can still out-run me, his 19-year-old (wow that's still weird to say...i still feel 18) daughter.
but i'm sooooo happy my dad came up to speak at our large group meeting. i don't get to hear him speak too often, but when i do i'm never disappointed. it was a really good message that got me thinking. and he used illustrations that made things a little easier to understand and enjoyable to listen to.
it was fun having dad come and be a part of my IV family for a night. he got to meet friends, even though he's probably already forgotten everyone's name (give or take a few who left a deeper impression), and he got to see a glimpse of what it's like here. plus, he brought pam & me some goodies: a lot of baos & pocky!

saturday morning pam, nicole (who also came to visit in passing through visiting a friend from cornell), my dad, and i went to corbin's cafe to eat breakfast (of which i had some delicious pumpkin pancakes) and go to the cider mill to buy some candied apples for sam, apple cider for mom, and mini pumpkins for digman 2east's phenomenal five (aka, michelle, me, pam, clam, and tuttle). hopefully i will get a picture of the pumpkins and post it up soon. pam & i thought we were rather clever & humorous in buying these mini pumpkins :]

then after stopping at jo-ann's fabrics and crafts store, we headed back to digman where tuttle finally woke up and apparently got "interrogated" by my dad (that's what tuttle claims. i was there and thought otherwise) before my dad and nicole headed back home.

then came football! oh man. i kind of wanted to play but didn't want to play at the same time because i knew i was gonna be mad tired and/or sore from playing. plus the fact that we had a town hall meeting right after was tempting me not to play. but i decided to because i knew it would be good exercise, and i was itching to tackle somebody anyway. unfortunately that opportunity never came. in the beginning i first covered gary, but i didn't like that cuz gary was mad fast and made me run around like crazy to keep up with him. and you all should know how much i hate running. but then priscilla came and i was so thankful to cover her instead. joe made a couple of passes to me and i accidentally let them slip through my arms, but i did get a touchdown! but slim or boaz never threw the football to priscilla, so i never got the chance to make a tackle. oh, and my sister was playing, but pam lee (the cooler pam) was covering her pretty well. oh well there will be next times!

after the town hall meeting pam, tuttle, michelle, & i went to olive garden (just for kicks), which began some meaningful, thought-provoking, and fun-filled discussions. it would be way too much to explain here, but it was pretty awesome. we carried it from dinner, through our car-ride back home, and then spent approximately another hour or two talking in digman 216. it was awesome. then we watched SNL (which i've never seen before), karen & gary came by, and i fell asleep.

today, bixler got baptized, koinonia practice was good, and "bix ball" was born! after practice i called tuttle to see where he was/what mischievous things he was up to (just kidding! i was checking to see if people had actually gone to the east gym field to play softball and if they had, if they were still there), and bixler picked up, saying they were playing bix ball. i was like, what? but michelle & i wandered down to the field to see what they were doing and had a lot of fun participating (michelle was the official catcher) & spectating (i was the official photographer/cheerleader minus the pom-poms) this new game. and surprise of all surprises, WES was there playing! michelle and i were so shocked but very excited that wes was playing. it was a barrel of laughs.

karen, btw, was extremely funny today. sometimes it's just unexplainable. i love her :]

also, another note, i really, really, really like my hair now. humongous did a wonderful job cutting layers. i trimmed my own bangs. i may never have to go to a hair salon place ever again.
and just for you, libby, here is a picture of my hair:

unfortunately, you can't really see a huge difference, but that doesn't matter to me. i notice and that's all that matters to me :P

okay that's all for now.