the end is near!

school is almost over. year number 3 of my college career is very rapidly coming to a close. i can hardly believe that i only have 2 more weeks of classes after this week and even more difficult to grasp is the fact that i'm nearly a senior in college. for the most part this has been a good semester. it's had it's ups and downs, but test grades recently have been well worth a smile... so hopefully the improvement continues through finals. stress has been much more limited than last semester which has helped immensely. and chris has probably been the best part of it all. it's funny how much of a difference one person can make in a life and how that can alter perceptions of pretty much everything. i'm not gonna lie... it's really nice to always have him there to fall back on and to always have a shoulder to cry on and someone to reasure you. like really really nice. i was quite content being single, i'd gotten used to it and it worked for me, but this relationship stuff is pretty darn good.

so i'm pretty happy and life is pretty good right now. and if it were rational, i could make this work forever. but i'll be patient and see what God has in store. he smacked me in the face with chris earlier this year, so i'm slowly learning that he ultimately has a plan and it's pointless for me to try to figure things out on my own. i tend to come to the wrong conclusion a lot. in bible study last night we talked about what we are seeking in our lives and how we should be wholeheartedly seeking God. sometimes that's such a hard thing to master because the here and now is so distracting, but when we truly surrender and truly seek God's will... things just fall into place so much better! a lot of times i feel like i have much better ideas that would be easier on me, but that runs along with something pastor berg said on sunday: we can't depend on God to protect us from difficulties and suffering, we can only depend on him to get us through it. so often i feel like my ideas would be so much less painful and so much easier, but they wouldn't return the same results, so forget that idea! life is so exciting sometimes when God starts to give us a glimps of something that he's been holding in store of us! i feel like i've had a glimps recently... and yes... it's pretty exciting!

its spring break... and i'm bored. at one point in the not so distant past, i had fabulous illusions of doing great things and having fun adventures in places outside of the state over this break, but alas, the joyous dreams were merely wisps of delusion sprinkled generously over my excitement hungry mind. *sigh* oh what a time could have been had by all who dared to accompany me in whatever excursion i settled on... and there were many ideas to be sure. but... as usual, reality brought me firmly back to the ground and i am sitting here now facing a spring break of relative bordom and random observations of SLPs in various hospitals and nursing homes. sure, it's great that i'm getting my observations hours done... very responsible of me if you want my opinion... but it's surely not as exciting as going camping down south, or hitting up washington d.c. or driving to colorado.
so instead of the aforementioned activities, outside of my observation hours i've done an extensive amount of nothing. much time has been wasted by way of sitting around (or in front of this machine), napping and organizing everything under the sun. that's right... after i got home from observations today and after spending some considerable time investigating and then becoming depressed over the prospects of applying to grad school, of my own free will i just started organizing the contents hidden behind doors and the cabinets filled with all sorts of random things. who does that? bored people... that's who.
so here i am... a poor, lonely, bored college student on spring break.... strangely and sickly realizing that in the back of my mind somewhere there's a little part of me that might actually like being at school and might actually like my normal routine. whether or not that includes the classes has yet to be determined, but it's a possibility. oh well... such is life i suppose. after so many years you just get used to something, which is actually rather encouraging for the mere fact that i still have 3 more years of this education stuff to contend with.
but we'll concentrate on that later... for now, i'm going to go waste time somewhere- probably my living room, doing something- probably not productive, and then i'll go to bed... at maybe 10 o'clock as i did last night because it's simply divine to having the freedom to act like i'm old and require 9 hours of sleep a night. i mean really... i need to be at the hospital by 8am tomorrow, i can't possibly stay up past 10:30 and expect to function! heh... enough. ta ta.

i haven't posted in a long time. that's ok. nothing earth shattering has happened.

valentines day came and went. that was enjoyable. i've never gotten 2 dozen roses before, but now i have and they were beautiful and i liked them.

i went to texas this past weekend for josh's wedding. and got stuck there. darn wisconsin weather. planes don't like snow. we tried to leave sunday night. red letters spelling cancelled on the departure list prevented that. so we had to wait till tuesday. i missed more classes and an exam, but thankfully i was given the chance to bomb the exam as soon as i got back. (after having gotten up at 3:30am and traveling for like 11 hours... i was sooo prepared.... ahem, or not). it was 85 on monday. i was wearing shorts. in february. quite fun. one night i laid in the middle of a street, talked on the phone and watched the stars. that was fun as well. now i'm back and we have like 20 inches of snow or will by then end of the weekend at least. it's good to be back though.

so yeah... school. what a joy it is. i made salt and baking soda in chem lab today. how exhilarating. lets have a party. i'll bring the salt.

ok i'm done. adios.

it's been a long time since i've been on here. spring semester is off and running. how unexciting. it'll be better than the last though. winter break was nice, but very busy. my parents went to hawaii. i stayed home and was a farmer in -5 degree weather. that was a joy. jordan and heather are now engaged. i'm still struggling with the reality that i'm in that age where people around me will and are starting to get married. so weird. i learned things about myself over break. i'm officially a person who is unable to make decisions. just an fyi. and i cheat in certain areas of life cause i like trial periods. i'm going to texas in 4 weeks for josh and kristin's wedding. i've never been to texas before. i'm pumped. and i'm skipping classes. 4 of them. and rescheduling a test. thrilling to be sure. uhhh yeah. i'm done.

finals start tomorrow. i am in no way... and i mean no way... ready for them. any of them. i don't know what happened to this weekend. but i do know that my staff and i just had a prayer meeting in my room. i love those. they're so raw and genuine. and God makes his presence so clearly known. but i'm still stressed. math final tomorrow. whooo.... gonna hurt. and my 2 finals on tuesday will be equally as painful. *deeeeep breath*

ok. now the reason i'm on here. it's jordan's birthday today! WAHOO!!! welcome to 21 my friend. what a glorious age. not because of the legality of alcohol, cause clearly that's not me, but from this point forward, we're full fledged adults! but never fear... the requirment that you act your age hasn't entirely set in.

alright. that was my deal. now i must study. study until my brain bleeds or my eyes dry up. the latter feels more like reality at the moment. thursday afternoon is going to be so nice. later gator.

i have arrived...

God works in wonderful and mysterious ways. and sometimes, when his plans start coming into the light that our human eyes can recognize, i just find myself completely blown away. rightfully so i suspect. i mean, how could i ever even dream of understanding the ways of god? it's not possible to fully understand, he's god and we are not. and yet, i believe he may reveal more to us than we even know because we just can't see the whole picture. so we moan and complain about how god isn't showing us things, when really, we just can't see. i'm standing here awestruck at his power right now, captured by how he pieces things together and how can can make things happen so quickly when the time is right. and i'm blown away at how he has used me... me, who fights him, doubts and hesitates... used me in ways i didn't forsee i'd be used and given opportunities i never felt worthy of. who am i in the sight of god? i am his child. unworthy, but loved unconditionally. full of flaws, but made perfect in his sight. perfect. blameless. pure. i am loved. i am wanted. i am his. it's unbelievable. this isn't new to me, but sometimes things just hit me full force and knock me senseless, bringing to my knees... to this place where i'm awestruck. and the excitement within me keeps building. this is real. the beginning of real passion. this is what i want. this is how i always want to be. passionatly in love with my creator. i can't even express how i feel. so much has changed recently. God has been moving and i am vividly reminded of that every day now. and i'm so excited! i'm here... finally my heart and my mind are in one place... bowing before the king of the universe. and i'm content. cause i'm loved and i can feel it pulsing through my viens. this is life. this is love.

the semester is winding down. 2 weeks of classes and a week of finals is all that separates me from my continually life draining school work and a month of freedom and christmas with family. i have a ton of projects, long, monotonous, confusing and poorly clarified projects, to do in the next week and a half, but i've made it this far somehow, so i'm not going to go down without a fight. i can do it... i think. i hate doubting whether this major is right for me, but i can't seem to fully suppress those thoughts. i guess we'll see. i don't doubt enought to change, but i don't love it enough to be fully satisfied, and so i plunge on.

my birthday was on wednesday. t'was nice. i actually had time to spend with friends. *everyone gasps* we went out to dinner... it was amazing and mine was free. much drama surrounded whether or not i was going out since it was my 21st. it frustrated me. so i'm not talking about it either way, cause then no one can claim to have been right.

i'm exhausted. i was on duty last night and ended up working on my bulletin board for the month of december at 4 am. i slept through my 8am class. i woke up 4 times prior to when i'd have left for class and pondered getting up... and yet i was still mysteriously in my bed at 8:12 when i woke up yet again. so i managed to miss class. and i was on duty tonight again too. too many late nights this week. my body is complaining. and... i'm now listening, so nighty night.