pictures of my day.

Hello... I am waiting for my theatre class to start... I got out of social psych early because we had a test... which didn't go as bad as I was expecting...
I was sitting outside for a while, but I got so cold! I have decided that I am going to make this a day-long blog following what I am doing with pictures and commentary... and then other important information inbetween.
Anyway, until just now, I was sitting outside the science building, and it was so quiet and peaceful... All you could really hear were the fountains and the wind blowing...Yup... But then I was getting a little chilly... because it is currently extremely overcast and 66 degrees outside... so I moved inside the science building...
So this is where I am sitting now.
Updates:
Wednesday, I had my theatre exam. I got a 100. And was done in less than 15 minutes. SCORE.
Thursday, instead of having coffee with a friend, who is the social worker for UBC, we went on an adventure with our community pastor and hid David Crowder Band cd release party tickets in the library... they were giving them away on twitter for the partayy that was on Monday. It was fun.
This weekend, I went to camp. I went to the main office and sat in Jason's office while he was in a meeting with Kevin and went to Sonic with Adrianne and talked to Matt and Amanda and a random assortment of forge students who stopped by at different times.
I definitely miss the main office the most from everything this summer. aahhh I love that place. And the people there.
The conference at the Towers this weekend was Mother/Son. aka AWESOME. Those conferences are always so sweet. There were so many little 5 year old boys who couldn't read and they were so cute! I worked at the high ropes course all afternoon and it was so great to get to talk to different moms and sons... I talked to a couple kindergartners about Star Wars... Another precious 2nd grade baylor bear about the differences between an iPod nano and an iTouch... One mom had just started sending her 6th grader to Coram Deo... Well that's convenient, I started going to Coram Deo in 6th grade... We talked about the different pros and cons about CDA and I tried to assure her that if he could stick with it, the school wouldn't kill him and he would probably even leave for college more prepared than most.
My bears lost on Saturday. Lame.
On Sunday, I talked to two moms about abuse and community... It was definitely interesting, because I found these women asking me for advise... I had never thought about the possibility of these middle-aged women looking up to the college students that volunteered for a weekend as spiritual role-models... I'm so glad we were able to provide encouragement and refreshment for them that weekend. The speaker was a Baylor graduate and has a daughter who is a senior at Baylor right now! She was great!
On Sunday, I went to Sarah and Meloni's house... Brittany wasn't there, but I sat in Sarah's room and we talked about life, goals, and dreams...
Now, I am going to walk to class... It is quite dreary outside... But I love it!
Ok, well now I am sitting in class waiting for it to start... I am sitting by two freshmen. Oh freshmen... you bring me such unintentional joy...
Oh, we have a "special" guest... the dean of the theatre department...
Memorable quotes from walking to class this morning:
* "It's ok, because today is Wednesday, which means it's almost Friday..."
* There was another great line but it is slightly offensive so I decided not to write it.
CD review for the week:
Church Music- David Crowder Band
LOVE it. My favorite song is probably Shadows... but I really like Eastern Hymn, and their version of How He Loves too...
Go check it out, yo!
I love the line from Eastern Hymn:

"Bring us love, You who are Love.
Bring us peace, You who are Peace.
We need love, Oh divine Love.
We need peace, your merciful peace."

Yesssss.... That, along with a few other lines on the album, just continue to speak to me about what I learned this summer about peace and rest...

"In His shadow, there is peace.
In His arms, there is rest.
In His word, there is hope.
In His hands, there is grace."
[In The End]

I've decided I don't like the term, "Christian music..." "oohhh I only listen to Christian music, I am such a good Christian..." or "If you don't listen to Christian music, you love Satan..." What does that term even mean!? How can music be a Christian? Does it have to be about Jesus to be Christian, or just honorable lyrics by Christians? Is it the Christian label? Relient K is with a Christian label but most of their songs have nothing to do with Jesus... Does that mean it isn't Christian music and shouldn't be listened to at church, etc.? What about Eisley? The family isn't on a Christian label, doesn't sing all the time about Jesus, but leads worship at a church in Tyler... What about the instrumental pieces by Michael W. Smith and Stephen Curtis Chapman? I'm just going to go out on a limb and say that most "Christian" music is LAME. It's as if all these people want an excuse to be heard on the radio so they pretend they can write music and yell in a mic because they "can do all things through Christ..." Those people might be really nice and love Jesus a lot... But that doesn't mean they should be making music. It's the artists that get past the "Christian" theme and use their amazing talent to create art for God's glory that actually sound good. The other day at church, dcb played the theme song for the NFL because it was opening Sunday... No one was singing, but there were 6 guys and gnome on stage passionately worshiping the God who gave them the ability to make music.

ok, enough of that... After class, I went back to the apt and watched the office.
Me laying on my bed watching the office. This was the freak commercial on hulu while I was watching the office.
Guitar was canceled...
I went to work... only got hit in the face twice by girls doing backflips. Well, it was the same girl twice...
Then I came home and watched last year's sing acts with Lacey and Abbey...
Then watched Heroes... ooohhh man it was intense! And then Nick interrupted me... so I took pictures while talking to him/listening to him and Dan fight over something dumb.
Then I finished Heroes... Oh, hey Milo... You're cute.
And now I am going to finish reading for my BIC class... "The Importance of Living" by Lin Yutang. Bestseller, apparently.
Peace.

Take Control...

hey-O!

well I have been meaning to update this thing for quite some time, but always found a reason not to...

I got my macbook pro!! And yesterday I made the most ADORABLE website on iWeb, but I don't want to have to pay for a website... boooo! I saved it just in case. haha.

Update on classes:
Social Psych- Still in the basics... aka not that interesting.
Theatre- Still super easy. And interesting. I have an exam on Wednesday, and it's my goal to get a 100. haha.
Guitar- I HATE the F and G7 chords!! What the heck!? F is just stupid and G7 KILLS my little hand...
Extreme Deviance- We have a group project, and my group is doing white supremacy. haha. ooh man. We are reading Tearoom Trade right now... I'm not going to write what it is about here, but seriously, it's WEIRD.
Intro to Sociology- Still easy. Still fun. Still a slight waste of time. ha.
BIC- Well, we are now into the core part of the class... China... and it's super interesting... Except for the fact that on Tuesday, I was assigned 92 pages of reading for Thursday. Yeah, bombed that quiz.

I had my first home group for UBC last night... it was stellar! I love my leaders... He is a professor in the film department and she is just great! We had taco salad and some great conversations and I really enjoyed it...

Ok so my word for the semester is Freedom... I've said that a few times... Anyway, I was sitting by Judge Baylor the other day between classes, studying for the gre, and this girl who I have never seen before walked by me, smiled, but kept going... I saw her stop, stand in one place for a few seconds, and then came back and was like, "This is going to sound so weird... But I just feel like I should ask you this... Is there anything I can be praying for you about?" I couldn't think of too much, but I shared a little piece of how I sometimes have anxiety attacks, and how I didn't want to get one that weekend with friends and family traveling... So she asked if she could pray for me there, and she did... and the first thing she said was, "Lord, just give her freedom from anxiety and fear..." YEAHH... FREEDOM... :) I wanted to tell her why that was so exciting, but I didn't...

I was reading in 2nd Corinthians the other day... and I just loved it so much! Paul talks so much about confidence, which is something I was really convicted of recently... I need to be confident in the promises God has given me, and I need to encourage others to grow in confidence as well. I love these verses:
* But thank God! He has made us His captives and continues to lead us along in Christ's triumphal procession. Now He uses us to spread the knowledge of Christ everywhere, like a sweet perfume.-- I love that the analogy of a captive is used... Because we are free to be captivated... :) I love it.
* But whenever someone turns to the Lord, the veil is taken away. For the Lord is the Spirit and wherever the SPirit of the Lord is, there is FREEDOM. So all of us who have had that veil removed can see and reflect the glory of the Lord. And the Lord- who is the Spirit- makes us more and more like Him as we are changed into His glorious image.

So I started this last night, and was once again interrupted... my amazing friends had a little surprise for my birthday... that was a month ago... haha. And Blair and Allison and Abby and Lindsey came and surprised me! Ohhhh man I have missed them so much... I don't think I realized how much until I saw them... We went to dinner and then watched friends... The waitor, who happened to be a week 8 camper with me and Abby (ha), got me a free drink since it was my birthday... It was pretty good... The only problem I had with it was that it was artificially blue, and I don't eat artificially blue things... But it's ok, it didn't turn my mouth blue. haha.
Anyway, I love all of my roomies and friends so much and they just make my life so much more amazing...

Take control of everything.
Of our lives, our hopes, our dreams.
All we are and all we will be,
we surrender to our King.

Seniors, 2010... wait, what?

Hello!
I don't really have a computer right now, which is why I have not posted in quite a while. Well, technically, as of a few hours ago, I have a computer... a freakin sweet brand new macbook pro. However, it is not in my hands right now. It is probably sitting on my dining room table with my siblings and parents drooling over it right now. I'm too happy to let that make me nervous. As badly as I want to drive home after class tomorrow to pick it up, I am going to wait until my brother drives through Waco on Friday. I can wait that long, right?

Well let's see. Life is good. Senior year is REALLY good. Besides worrying about grad school and studying for the GRE, it's a walk in the park, and I'm loving it. Here is a summary of each of my classes, in the order that I have them. Of course.

* Social Psychology- My only psychology class this semester... I love my teacher and I love the subject. People are so interesting. I am an observer, and this class is about what observers observe when they are observing! Thus, I am a fan. Right now we are going over research methods... Something we learn over again in every single psych class... and in case we didn't get it all those times, we had an entire class on it... called Research Methods in Psychology... Needless to say this week hasn't been too difficult.

* Theatre Appreciation- With 300 of my favorite Baylor freshmen. This was when I realized that I loved senior year. It's easy. My teacher is so great. She's like 4 years older than me, ps. And it's interesting. I mean, who doesn't like to take an easy class where you actually learn? I feel like it's helping me become a more well-rounded individual. And helping my GPA while I'm at it.

* Beginning Guitar- Besides the fact that my fingers HURT, I really like this class. My teacher is a little strange, but he knows what he's doing and is very eager to help. There are 14 of us, so it's small enough to make it personal. We haven't learned much yet... Just started chords... And of course we started with the chords that I have the most trouble with... C, G7, and F. Ouch. My fingers aren't long enough! But hopefully I will have them down soon.

* Extreme Deviance- Oh man. This class is so strange. And my professor is the strangest man I have ever experienced in my entire life. He needs to write a book. He tells the greatest stories of big foot hunts and ghost explorations and visiting Westborrow Baptist Church. He is just fascinated by people and their strange beliefs and will follow them around asking questions until they let him see for himself. This class is not hard. I'm not sure how it will apply to the rest of my life, but at least I'm learning something.

* Introduction to Sociology- Another freshman staple. But with my roommate! Hooray! There are 4 seniors in a group of 150 students. Our professor is an incredible woman. She's so nice and really wants everyone to learn. And wants to get to know every single one of us. She says, "Go bears go" after every single sentence. haha.

* BIC- World Cultures V- The class that could possibly ruin my 4.0. Oh well. We have spent the past 2 weeks talking about globalization. And the past couple days talking about how globalization and religion have worked together. Globalization is fascinating, really. Although I have gotten tired of the lectures, it has been interesting for the most part. After tomorrow, we will break into small groups for the rest of the semester, and each group has a different country/worldview that they are studying. My subject is China. I am excited because I am pretty sure China is going to take over the world over the next decade or so. The United States dynasty has ended and I believe China is next. I had my professor sophomore year and he's great. I'm excited to see how it goes.

I chose a word for this semester/year. Freedom. Toward the end of camp God really started drawing my attention to the concept of being free. I love the idea of being free in Christ! What does that look like? What does that even mean? I feel like there are so many levels we don't realize are there. I also love that it goes so well with my word for the summer, surrender. When I surrender, I am free! And when I abide, I am free to surrender! Oh, it works together so well! I cannot wait to see what God will teach me about freedom and my freedom in Him.

I am reading The Cost of Discipleship by Dietrich Bonhoeffer. I have only read 2 chapters so far but I am really loving it. Here is one of my favorite quotes thus far:
(He is talking about cheap grace and how it's the "deadly enemy of the Church" and how it just involves living in the world and asthe world and being no different from the world...)

"The upshot of it all is that my only duty as a Christian is to leave the world for an hour or so on a Sunday morning and go to church to be assured that my sins are all forgiven.
I need no longer try to follow Christ, for cheap grace, the bitterest foe of discipleship,
which true discipleship must loathe and detest, has freed me from that."

What a great reminder. Slash slap in the face.

I am also reading Life Together by Bonhoeffer. I have not gotten as far in this one, because that little book has so many hard words! It's not as easy to read as TCOD. But I have really been challenged by this quote by Luther... I would love for it to become a reminder for myself and my roommates as we face our last year in Waco together.

"The Kingdom is to be in the midst of your enemies. And he who will not suffer this does not want to be of the Kingdom of Christ; he wants to be among friends, to sit among roses and lilies, not with the bad people but the devout people. O you blasphemers and betrayers of Christ! If Christ had done what you are doing who would ever have been spared?"
(Martin Luther)

I am so glad a few people in this world decide to be bold and speak truth into our lives rather than say what we want to hear.

And in light of no school on Monday, as my favorite little singing mutated beans say, "let's paint the town, we'll shut it down, let's burn the roof, and then we'll do it again."

haha. peace.