hmmm...

so no one wants to come with me to my island. ok fine people. i can take a hint, but it's your loss. a major loss.

i clearly should have gotten more sleep last night, but katie had the same amount as me and it affected us oddly but amusingly in ice skating. we did some drills today that we were told would be hard for every level skater... i think i did quite well, as long as no one was ruining my patterns and running into me because they can't control themselves. i've found that if i really like literally don't think about what i'm doing... i'm really not bad. i just think too much and work against the natural forces pulling on me. i need to just not think about what i'm doing because i get so happy with myself when i succeed. our friend chris was there today, he skipped last week and we were sad. yesterday was his 21st birthday and i do believe that perhaps he was still ever so slightly drunk this morning. the only noticable difference was that he was perhaps a bit more talkative and i think just slightly less coordinated, though on skates, that's a hard thing to judge. i think he finds us amusing though. katie and i really know how to make the most of the experience. i make jonnie rae skate with me sometimes because she can demonstrate things well and she just laughs at me. it's fun though, i have to admit that i am enjoying myself.

ya know... on the whole, life is good right now. i'm comfortable with who i am and while my life isn't exactly roses, i'm not bitter or depressed. nothing is perfect, that's for sure, but i'm satisfied and i think, dare i say, for the most part i like myself. my experiences are shaping and growing me in a good way and i'm learning how to live this thing we call life. ash told me last night that i seem confident to her because i'm happy and satisfied with myself. i loved hearing that and i love that jesus is the stablizing point in my life. so yeah... i'm happy!

i'm going far, far away...

last night it was decided that i'm going to run away from school to my very own tropical island. and on this island there will be wonderful things. every kind of animal i have ever dreamed of encountering or having for a pet will be there and the food and temperature and weather will be perfectly devine. it will be a jolly time.... no, more than jolly... it will be amazingly wonderful. and this will be a private island as well... so only a select group of people will be able to join me on my island paradise. are you one of them? tell the reason should i choose you...

remember... it's going to be WONDERFUL on my island!

thoughts by me

here are some random thoughts from the past week or so:

i was asked yesterday when the last time i hung out with my best friend was. i had no answer. i didn't know when the last time was that i truly neglected everything and spent some real quality time with people. am i doing something so very different with my life that i don't have an answer to that question?

why do so many people measure their worth against whether or not they're in a dating relationship? why can't they see how that can be harmful to their self worth? it makes me sad.

why do humans have to place blame in the wrong places?

how impossible is it to make or keep everyone happy?

why is a strong relationship with the creator of the universe a hard thing to maintain when it's the greatest thing we'll ever be offered?

why are humans so dense?

is life really as hard as it seems? or do i blow things out of proportion?

if there aren't any bumps in the road for a little while... is that normal or am i overlooking something?

am i boring? are people interested in or by me? do i have a likable personality?

why do i live far away from the people who mean the most to me and who i want to be around all the time?

how come good things are usually so hard to get?

these are just some random thoughts that have made their way through my head and since i had nothing else to write about... here they are. that's all i'm going to write out for the moment.

what's that i hear?

today ash and i discussed silence. it was a quiet conversation. we went to our classes, poli sci then anatomy, and by the time we were through my head was pounding and i was miserable. that is an increasingly common thing which bothers me. either i'm allergic to poli sci and anatomy, or some illness is overtaking me- i vote the first. anyway, we went to lunch and ended up sitting through the entire meal without saying a single word to eachother. that ended when i found myself unconsciously staring at ash while thinking about how perfectly comfortable our extended silence was. we then discussed that and decided that you know you're pretty close to someone when you can just sit in silence for however long and have it be comfortable and not the least bit awkward. so that's the consensus- ash and i are close enough that we have comfortable silences. i do find it interesting that with the people you're not comfortable with it feels like there has to be conversation, even if you don't know them and have nothing to talk about. so then the conversation is just as awkward as the silence. oh how i appreciate comfortable conversation and silence. well that's all, unless you care to join me in my silence.....

Meet Ferdinand!

this here is Ferdinand... my new friend. he came to me quite by surprise in the mail yesterday and we've bonded ever so nicely. there is a strong possibility that Ferdy will be joining me in future pictures... so remember him!

i've come to the conclusion that impressions, like the impression you leave on a person after meeting them or getting to know them, are strange and unpredictable. you can do everything right, be the coolest person ever and praise this other person up and down... but that still doesn't mean that the impression you leave on their mind is that of someone in whom they necessarily want to invest a lot of time, or someone they even like at all. and how about relationships? things start out wonderful and adoration is abundant, but if/when it ends, what are you left with? that initial impression is now distorted, oftentimes trashed. and what about those people you think the world of, but the feeling isn't quite mutual? clearly one party didn't quite leave the impression they had hoped for, but what governs that? and what if you're that person who didn't leave the perfect impression? what if you've invested all you can and still are unable to leave an impression that makes that other person just long to be with you? is that when you have to take defeat and settle with what you've got? when do we draw the line? how much is too much and is there any way to become a more impressive person?

you're probably wondering what possessed my mind to head down this path... but i'm honestly not quite sure. i think part of it had to do with a conversation with lisa, but my mind is an untamed wilderness filled with random things, nothing has a clear cut reason it would seem. life is filled with so much unpredictability. not that that's a bad thing... i can't say that i enjoy everything being totally predictable... but sometimes life just defies logic, and in my defense, i'm a big supporter of logic. i appreciate common sense and i appreciate life moving along logically, not necessarily predictably, but logically. i suppose in the grand scheme of things, life is logical because of who created it, but wouldn't it be nice to be able understand and look back on a confusing situation and say, 'oh...well i guess that was logical'? i guess that's why impressions are frustrating to me... there is no visible logic in them at all! nothing about the human mind's way of picking who it likes and who it doesn't makes any sense. when god created us... he sure did an astonishing job of forming a being that is truly understandable only to the mind of an infinate creator. i guess that's why we have to live on blind faith. even if we had the answers, there is not a chance that we would understand them. and its a good thing i've got an eternity in heaven waiting for me... because it might just take me that long to rattle off all the questions my curiosity has sparked. *sigh* won't heaven be wonderful?

look! i've got curls!

yes indeed... my hair had a random day and the front part decided to curl last night after i took a shower. mind you, my hair is really not what one would consider curly. the underlayer is perfect curls, but the rest is mostly straight, wavy with humidity. i know i have some curl in me because when it's really humid i get ringlets around my face, but that's just the really fine hair. anyway, i thought i was cool. here's to hoping all of my hair starts doing this. that would be quite exciting.

this weekend was dull. i worked desk friday and saturday night, but other than that, i was mostly hanging out in my room... alone. yes, i know i'm cool. life has returned to my room though, because ash is now back... but the excitment is limited since she's now taking a nap, which i did earlier. hmm... i think we're getting old. anyway, ash said it was -30 at 6:45am yesterday. i can't help but find some enjoyment in getting insanely low temperatures because it's just not all that typical and sounds absolutely horrid! if i had to be outside i'd be complaining right now though. oh goodness do i feel bad for my dad.... poor guy spends all day everyday outside. i think -30 is pushing it on cow comfort too... i'm sure they were all crowding into the shed. the life of a farmer is harsh. i need to give dad more credit and praise for his hard work. well that's all for now... bubye 

mhmm... i'm bored.

i'm bored. desk is boring. no one comes around from 9-12 at night and this chair has shocked me about 30 times now so i'm unhappy with it. it's bitterly cold outside. my hair froze this morning coming back from swimming. that was cool... i can't say i've experienced it much though, since i have not left this building since returning from lunch (i'm considering become a hermit or something), but it's -10 right now, and supposedly feels like -27. suppose to go down to -22 tonite. because i'm strange, when i close up desk, i might step outside to say i felt it, then i'll run swiftly to my room and be warm and cozy. the end of this week of classes marked the halfway point to spring break. ironic that it's -10 and we're talking about our proximity to spring break. the winter has decided to come back with vengence this week. ash and i survived our anatomy exam today. it went seemingly quite well. false sense of security? maybe, but i felt like i knew the material, so lets all just have faith in me. i like having faith in me... its a rare enough feeling that i've learned to treasure it. mmm yeah... i should be doing homework. that paper isn't going to write itself. mmmm.... yeah... gotta go.

winter is returning...

it's a winter wonderland outside! it was snowing when i woke up and continued all day. i don't know how much we have, but it would be measured in inches, thats for sure. already at 7:30 this morning all the schools in what seemed to be central wisconsin were closed... all EXCEPT the university which i attend. close the university? never. i do believe i was told that 5 years ago school was cancelled one day... but for the most part, a UWSP school closing is major news... like write it down in the history books news. so no... we got a friendly letter from the chancellor saying we should use extreme caution. extreme caution eh? extreme caution in my mind would be 'don't leave your room' but hey, i'm not the chancellor. choir did get cancelled, and ice skating is optional when the stevens point schools are closed, but all my not fun classes continued as scheduled. the darn comm d professors are just too hardy. tomorrow our temp high is supposed to be 9 degrees and tomorrow night... the low expected is -17! yeah that's pretty freaking cold. ahh wisconsin... how i love thee.

in other news... ashley and i have been studying anatomy like crazy for the past few days for the dreaded exam tomorrow. i can't say that i'm feeling confident, but on the verge of slightly comfortable may fit the situation. i've got the physiology concepts and terms and stuff down... it's just all those muscles. 28 muscles with their origin, insertion, course and function. i know they're all in my head, but really, a body isn't that big, so many muscles overlap in their origins. so remembering that it's the serratus posterior inferior that originates in T11-T12, L1-L3 and courses superior and lateral to insert into ribs 7-12, not the subcostal or any other posterior thorax muscle for expiration... or merely remembering where the heck something originates and inserts... will be a true test. good luck to me? we'll see how well i fare tomorrow. t'will be a lovely day: phonetics quiz, poli sci quiz, then anatomy quiz- all in a row. i may not survive, i may get buried under snow, but we'll see. until then... i bid you adieu.

so it's valentines today, but more importantly it's the lovely girl in this photograph's birthday (not me of course... the other one). boy do i love her. happy birthday allison!

this is one of my favorite pictures of me and my grandma from my cousin's wedding in 2004. yesterday would have been her 80th birthday.

hair today... gone tomorrow?

i had a close call with a scissors today. i was almost swayed into cutting off my hair for locks of love. that sounds somewhat like i'm against such action... on the contrary, i'm in full support it and i'm fully planning on donating my hair... just not quite yet. i've been planning on cutting it for quite some time now, just waiting for it to get long enough that cutting it would leave me with a little to work with. summer had been my plan, then my friend laura was working on talking me into march, then today she said she was going to do it and asked if i'd like to join. her roommate stephanie just did it yesterday, which inspired laura, who started asking me, which started my roommate pushing me to 'seize the day and stop living so cautiously', which had me accompanying laura to the salon to look at books to see if i could find a cut i liked. for a little while i was almost pushed over the edge, then i pulled back and i decided to wait till after finals in may. but after laura's hair turned out so cute, and stephanie's looked so cute and short... i suddenly found myself longing to have mine cut, which left me standing in front of my mirror playing with my hair, attempting to make it look short to give me some visual ideas. so i think potentially i've gone from summer, to may, to spring break... maybe. leaving humility behind... i do have lovely hair and it looks quite nice long, but locks of love is so worth it and hair grows. besides, i haven't had short hair since i was about 6... i think its time for a change. at this moment, cutting a foot off would leave it at chin length, shorter when cut and shaped. so here's to hoping my hair does a lot of growing in the next month because i think spring break might be the perfect time for a cut. we shall see...

ice skating...

amusement never ceases when katie and i are at our ice skating class. last week was just plain horrid... i got progressively worse. my wrist is still a bit sore, but my finger is healing quite nicely. anyway, this morning was much better. the drills we do are usually a humbling experience and i've been told countless times by katie that my facial expressions are priceless. apparently i've got that 'you have GOT to be kidding me...' look down quite well as well as the 'why am i here? i can not do that' look. katie calls me precious and i always leave her laughing. but... big news. i can almost stop like he showed us now! ya know that fun little hockey stop? the one where you just turn slideways to stop and basically shave off the top layer of ice looking real cool and talented? yeah... i think i'm at the point of being 1/4 of the way to halfway decent! quite exciting indeed. and we skate backwards looking about as ridiculous as humanly possible. our instructions sound something like this: 'bend your knees and stick your butt out! now... march in place, turn your toes inward and just go backwards! NO! i said BEND YOUR KNEES!' someone today said that it felt like boot camp and i do belive i muttered something about hating the coach... but its really not that bad; nothing like a little public humiliation to start the day out right. we made a new friend though. chris was working with us on the stopping stuff and we lovingly call him the nazi. oh the joys of ice skating class. what a thrill it is to go for a 15 minute walk at 8am in 10 degree weather and then skate around in a building that is supposedly 10 degrees colder than the temp outside all to merely find out that i have no natural talent for anything other than skating around in a circle. coach told us that falling is the best way to improve because it gets you out of your comfort zone, so katie left feeling driven to fall next class... 'Melanie, our goal for next week is to fall at least once'...'Uhh Katie, i've already fallen. it's your turn now'. i do wonder about that girl somtimes. we were calmly walking to class today when she suddenly took this huge and awkward step. i asked her what the heck that was about and she looked at me and said, 'oh, well i was just avoiding stepping on the cracks. i play that game all the time. hmm... i wonder if i always look so weird. i wonder what people think?' my goodness that girl is hilarious. never in my life have i heard so many funny life stories out of one person. ahh good times with katie. alright, that's all. ta ta

February 12. 1926 - January 30, 2006: that is the length of time my grandmother, Lorraine Alice Blank, walked this earth, guiding and serving her family and friends in her sweet and gentle way and going way above and beyond the call of duty on a regular basis. it's unfortunate that people rarely realize the true impact of a life until that life is taken away. my grandmother was one of those people who had an incredibly strong impact on her family and small community. her funeral was evidence of her love for people and their love for her. 3 1/2 hours of visiting friday night, 5 hours of visiting, a funeral and a luncheon on saturday, 117 cards and memorials, countless handshakes and hugs from family, friends and people whose only connection to me was that they knew my grandmother and a church with seating not adequate for the number of people wanting to pay tribute to my grandma's life.

the funeral was beautiful. the pastor was a dear friend, so it had a very personal feel to it. everyone sang Jesus Loves Me because grandma had been a sunday school teacher for longer than i know and had taught so many people that song. that was the moment i fell apart. i had been doing really well, not that it matters really, but i had handled this well because i had my time with her over christmas break, but i uttered 2 words to that song and then it was nothing more than tears until both verses were through. the grandsons were pall-bearers; granddaughters read scripture (mine was pslam 46). as i said, it was a beautiful service.

that evening we were all at the farm, going through the house, reading cards, ect. i'll probably never meet another person who documented things as well as my grandma. she wrote out histories on some of the more valuable or larger pieces in the house. she designated certain cross stitches she had made to each grandchild, with an explanation of why. it seems like everything she had been given had a label saying from whom and when it was given. i don't know when she did all this... but she was on top of everything. the only thing i specifically wanted was gramma's bible. it's not old or valuable, but she and i spent a night a few weeks ago talking about favorite verses and stories. that bible held a very important memory and i wanted that to treasure... and i got it. and that memory brought tears to my eyes the night after the funeral when i was reading it. i also was given gramma's china... the china her parents gave her on her wedding day. i can hardly believe it was given to me. it's beautiful. it's so strange to think of how different things will be now. what i know and how i feel don't match up. it really doesn't seem like she's gone. i suppose time will make it real, but reality is a hard concept to master. so many things in life are changing... it's easy to get lost in it.