i'm in a really good mood. it's been a fun week- much easier than last week thus far, which i appreciate. and i'm 2 hours into my evening/morning off combo day! yessssss. though i think i have to drive into town tomorrow to do paperwork, so i won't be getting quite as much sleeping in as i'd like.
oh well.
sometimes i decide that everything is my "favorite".
i love this so much that today i even accidently had it open in 2 different windows on my computer. hmmm. music glutton? maybe...
( pandora.com )
gotta give some love to my dear rachel, the birthday girl. (happy 24th!) if you're a super sleuth (and you're bored with time on your hands) you may be able to find some stuff i wrote for her hidden in her website... :)
i've been meaning to subscribe to this for a long time... so a month or so ago i did. i spent a good amount of time today reading the september/october edition. fantastic. especially the "not going back to school guide".
it's so tempting to just want life to be all sunshine and daisies all of the time. who doesn't want to sail through life with one good thing after another coming their way?
no hurt, no pain, no frustration.
but what good does that do?
i learn over and over again that through challenging situations we are stretched and grown. this is the stuff i teach to kids. but it's hard to believe for my own life. i try to get kids to transfer the things they learn at the high ropes course to their lives back at home, but i have a hard time doing it for myself. just this week we talked to the group i'm working with about how we will most certainly fail if we never even try.
but quitting is easier.
it's safer to not care than to have your feelings hurt.
i look at my life sometimes and think i'm crazy for the way i choose to live. it is by no means easy. it is by no means a get rich quick scheme.
it's tough. it's challenging. and it sucks sometimes.
but, as i feel like i'm always trying to explain to people, it's rewarding in different ways.
every once in awhile there is this moment, maybe even just a short amount of time in an entire week, where it's worth it. sometimes it comes in the form of a look on a kid's face when they finally connect the dots and grasp a concept you've been trying to teach them for days. other times it comes in watching a group of kids learn to work together and include the kids who have been labeled as 'outcasts'.
the kids i'm working with are rough. they are not always full of sunshine and laughter. this week they have been rude, disrespectful, and cruel to each other and staff members. but today we had some really good moments. i think my favorite came in the form of an unplanned event. kory was dealing with some discipline issues (about 1/5 of our class...) so i had to stall before our evening event. so i had my 20ish kids sit in our classroom and i read off a bunch of "would you rather" questions. we laughed so hard as we went through the deck, and it was so fun to watch them be so into the activity. it was the longest anything had held their attention all week. it was the first time i really feel like i got to laugh and connect with a lot of them and it happened purely by accident.
i had to remind one of the girls today (while she was being incredibly disrespectful to me) that i was a person with feelings too. it's easy to forget that these little 6th graders are hurting, confused, frustrated, broken people too. today i found myself constantly begging God to give me a heart to love them, even in their ungratefulness, knowing they may never show me any kind of love in return. maybe that is one of the lessons i'm here at the OEC to learn.
"lost and insecure, you found me... laying on the floor, surrounded.... why'd you have to wait? where were you?.... just a little late, you found me..." - the fray, you found me
i'm always tired. i really wish 8 hours was enough sleep each night for me. but nooooo i have to be a freak who needs more than that. agh.
last week flew by.
amanda kelly came and spent the night on wednesday on her way out to cali. it was SO good to see her again, even for just 12 hours. she came out to the waldorff with my coworkers and i and it was a lot of fun.
friday night i headed down to indy and was so thrilled to spend the weekend with the miller family. i can't believe it was 2 years since i'd seen them last! never ever ever again will i let myself go that long between visits!! i can't even put into words how much they mean to me.
last week on thursday i was offered to stay here through the school year (beginning of june). i'm practicing thinking before i speak- so i asked them if i could think about it. (which was also actually code for i need to pray about it... because i'm so confused by where God is leading me lately)
so i thought, and i prayed, and i went to indy for the weekend and had my heart just torn up with longing to stay there and help them start the new ministry they're working on in downtown indy. i so wanted to stay. but i had to decide by today whether or not to stay here at OEC.
so i said i'd stay in battle creek. and i'm still debating whether or not that was the right move. will i ever be sure??
i have one of those personalities... i'm always afraid i'm missing out on something 'better'. i guess i'll never know. i suppose this is the 'responsible' move. but is responsible always better? am i living by the reckless faith that i know provides a better life? or is staying here denying myself and practicing discipline? i can justify it either way. and i love to justify everything.
weekend #3 of exciting road tripping has come to a close. and i'm already looking forward to next weekend. (headed to indy to see the miller family!! i haven't seen them in 2 years!)
i made it up to evart in just over 2 hours on friday. the drive was beautiful. i hung out with courtney and kevin for a bit then headed over to springhill. it was good to see so many of those friends again! i spent the weekend mostly in the tpost, though i happened to be in the right place at the right time to assist with the tram crisis on saturday.
last night i hung out with the boys (philip, caleb, and derek) and we played some settlers. it was fantastic. i love those guys. :)
i just got back a few hours ago and my exhaustion is really catching up with me. don't think i'll make it too late tonight. but i probably need to shower at some point too... oh life is so taxing. i also sort of suck because i looked out my window and (besides the giant tree in my way) there was a beautiful sunset. but i was too lazy to walk out to the lake and see it in all its beauty.
i lost my pink watch again.
that happened last year around this time too... but somehow i don't think thesaurus (murphy's cat) is the culprit... i probably took it off my wrist then got distracted.
i think it's gone for good this time. *sigh*
i had a lot of those "how are you/how's life?" conversations this weekend with people. it's hard to feel like all i want in the world is the perfect job to just fall down from heaven right into my lap, and maybe by having one more of those i'm-desperate-for-a-job-that-suits-me conversations someone will magically present me with it.
i just want to be a small part of something big.
one step at a time. at least this point i'm not stressed out. i'm just trying to trust.
"if you wait for me then i will come for you although i have traveled far i always hold a place for you in my heart. if you think of me, if you miss me once in awhile then i'll return to you, i'll return and fill that space in your heart... " tracy chapman, the promise
i decided it must have been over 30 hours in 8 days. probably more...
i also listened to a lot of music. that was happy.
it was good to catch up with people last week. i got to see emmy & jenna
and we played with my new computer. :)
i also got to see my dad & stepmom, lunch with my sis, an afternoon with the heires', two nights out with elisabeth, and tittyung time. i was a busy kid.
friday i drove out to battle creek to drop off my stuff in my new room, then i headed over to chicago for the weekend. jess, heather, gregory and i had a wonderful time hanging out.
gpa musical.... ?? :)
us vs. the bean.
our usual photo shoot...
last night i drove back here and settled into my room. i met a few people last night and learned a new card game (and kind of dominated at it...)
today was our first day of work and it went really well. we did some get-to-know-you type stuff (of course. we're outdoor educators.) and high ropes training this afternoon. i like the people on my team and i'm looking forward to getting to know them over the next 6 weeks while i'm here. del (the director here) was already talking about how he wants to help me and anyone else who comes through here find jobs after our experience here, which was good to hear. i'm still torn in a lot of was as to exactly what i want to be doing next, but it's always good to have someone looking out for you.
"... i never told you what i should have said, no i never told you, i just held it in, and now i miss everything about you." - Colbie Caillat I Never Told You
Sunday, August 23, 2009
hello michigan. :)
my time at honeyrock has come to an end. and i'm back in my beloved mitten state.
we had a good GPA celebration dinner on friday night. it was a good way to wrap up our time. i drove all day yesterday and made it back around dinnertime.
i spent the evening trying to unpack and playing with my new computer. :)
life is good right now. i'm excited about moving and starting my new job over the next week. i've got a few days to spend with friends/family and a lot of random things to do before i move on friday.
:)
"I know you stay true when my world is false, everything around's breaking down to chaos. I always see you when my sight is lost." - mutemath, chaos
a week ago i led 'cowgirl camp' for 6 amazing adventure camp (10-12th grade) girls. we had SO much fun in those 2 days of hanging around the barn! we baked horse treats, groomed/bathed horses, went on rides, made LOTS of fires, and slept out at the wagon circle. andreea and i slept underneath the stars... well, until it started to rain at 4:02am... that went something like this
(3 droplets of rain on my face...) me: andreea... andreea... ANDREEA!!!! wake up! it's raining! get in the wagon! andreea: (unintelligible sounds) me: come on! andreea: (standing) i'm dizzy... me: that's because you went from sleeping to standing in 3 seconds.
and all was well. we all laughed a lot and truly enjoyed one another during our 2 days together. good times at cowgirl camp. :-)
i turned 24 this week. it was a pretty good birthday, as far as birthdays go. mom sent the usual package from the popcorn factory (thank you mom!) and i got a few other random cards as well. it was fun to be with my kids on my birthday, i think they were more excited than i was!
our last kid session ended on friday. well, the service team kids are still here until tomorrow... but they're special, so they're not included on that. :-)
i got the honeyrock influenza virus. yick. at least it waited until the end of the last session. seriously, illness couldnt have come at a better time, as obnoxious as it is to be sick on my few precious days off, it's better now than when i had a thousand things to do. friday i was only kind of sick and jess had told me she'd drive to wausau with me because all i wanted in the world was qdoba for weeeeks and i promised myself i'd get it once session ended as a birthday/celebration treat for myself. well, jess ended up being busy and no one else could/wanted to go... so i went by myself for a 2 hour drive to wausau. it was glorious to have some time alone. and my burrito was fantastic. i also was planning on going to starbucks... but i couldnt find it. so i settled for driving back to three lakes and having coffee at deja brew. which was delightful. and far more inexpensive. i sat and read from the donald miller anthology i'm borrowing from heather (i think i'm on "searching for God knows what"...) and i desperately want to finish reading it before i head home in 2 weeks.
yesterday i was too sick to join the rest of the staff on the staff trip to superior, which bummed me out, but what's a girl to do? well, i slept in, and, upon discovering that trying to read made me want to vomit, i borrowed season 6 of gilmore girls from becky. yes, yes, i know i was breaking honeyrock's "place apart" mentality... but i felt as though i had extremely limited options. i got a lot of rest and feel somewhat better today. i still can't stand for long periods of time, but i am on the mend.
lots of crazy going on here today... nothing i can expound upon at this moment.
