*cautiously looks around, then whispers* the peeps are watchin me
04.29.05 (3:33 pm) [edit]today has been one of those days that life makes you wish you were deaf, dumb, and blind; then you find yourself singin in the rain. i guess that's what ya gotta do when life gets ya down- just sing through whatever rain showers/storms/tornadoes/ hurricanes/blizzards/hail life sends your way.
just liked that analogy, and thought i would share. also liked this pic, and also thought i'd share.
courage and strength abounding?
04.27.05 (3:40 pm) [edit]i've been really busy herely lately with graduation looming closer, teachers deciding that they'll pile a semester's worth of work on us during the last month of school, getting my summer plans cemeted, etc. i did go to my prom last weekend, but i have greg's to attend this coming weekend, so i will summarize both at a later date, but for now...
i've been thinking alot about those that are persecuted for their faith. around here, i've got it pretty good; my city isn't nick named the buckle of the Bible belt for nothing. we were in the guinness book of world records for the most churches per capita a few years back, so ya, we are a typically Christian town, so i can't say i'm daily "burnt at the stake" and what not for my faith, but i am aware there are brothers and sisters out there who are. there's a story i once read (in the book Jesus freaks to be exact. if you're interested in martyr's stories check that out!) about a girl in asia, maybe china- i'm not sure of what country- who was about my age when her story occured in either the 70s or 80s. (as you can see, i'm not certain on the details, but the heart of the story is what matters.) she was at an illegal house church having worship, and a lesson, when the police stormed the house. the officers disrupted the meeting, then demanded pay for the Christians' disobedience to the law on the spot- spit on a Bible, or be shot. one after another, the Christians lined up and spat on the Bible the officers had thrown into the dirt floor of the house, and slunk outside, except for the youngest girl in the group. she gingerly picked up the Bible, wipped the spittle from it's front, gave that precious book a hug, and requested her punishment. she died that day, but she died with honor. could i die for my faith? could you die for yours? do we have the courage? that's what's been floating around in my mind for about a week. do i have the courage? not even to death, but just persecution even? the prophet jeremiah was whipped, jailed, harrassed, and who knows what else because he was calling out the Isaeralites on their unGodly behavior. could i endure physical, or emotional suffering for my faith? could you? do we have the strength?
i've answered both of those questions in the negatory for myself, because i know i'm a weakling. i know i could have at one point in my faith journey, but no, not now, and that saddens me so that i'm about to cry here and now as i confront myself with this epiphany. i see people, my friends even, doing wrong everyday, things that will send them straight to the firey depths of hell if they continue, but i do nothing. i just sit there; i watch; i listen. to make no objection is to agree. let me challenge you, as i challenge myself, to stand up for what you believe in... no, actively stand up, say something, shout from a mountain top... or just don't let your friend cheat off you during your next test. that works too. :D God bless ya'll reall good, ya hear? :wink:
i wish i was a pirate...they make great noises
04.21.05 (8:02 pm) [edit]so ya, nothing has really happened here lately, and ya'll know i hate to make my blog go, "today i went here, and did this, but did you here about you know who!" so i really don't have much to write about, except a few humorous incidents.
last saturday, i went kicking and screaming to an ap review session. one of the only things that will get me out of bed at 7:30 in the morning to go to school is the possibility of winning a door prize at these ap review sessions. the sessions usually go all morning/afternoon/day, so you can go to several different subject areas to review, and every session you attend you are rewarded with another chance in the door prize drawing at the end. some of the prizes are awesome, like $30 to target, or 2 free movie tickets, some aren't like $5 at starbucks, cause we all know $5 doesn't get you anything at starbucks. anyway, greg's friend, cris, was there and got a hold of a roll of the tickets used in the prize drawing, and scribbled his name name on something like 46 and threw them in the bucket, compared to most everyone else 4 or 5, so his chances were pretty good. he didn't win a thing!! not one! other people got 2, and one person even got 3, but cris with his huge chances got nothing! God's wrath, i'm tellin ya. :lol:
i registered for classes up at hsu on friday. the advisor i got is such a ditz! it took him 2 hours to get me and 2 other people registered! wow. me and the other girl in the room were just looking at each other like, "come on!" cause he would not stop talking, or get to the point. worst of all, he was a fill in for our real advisor, so didn't really know what he was talking about, so i've already found a mistake in my classes, and will have to go change that here soon. the girl in there with me, natalie, and i became pretty good pals through it all anyway, and have several classes together, as we've got the same major direction, which isn't athletic training for me anymore...surprise! changed my major. they say the average college student changes their major 7 times...i've got 3, so i'm well on my way. :D now i'm thinking exercise science, but i haven't offically declared that yet. so currently i am listed as an undecided. yeah for we undecideds!! :P
i've been selected to be published in who's who in poetry... 1 of 200 across the world :D yeah me. and just found out i blog; therefore, i am- aka the book of blogs- is out and due in stores in about a month or so, which i am also in. *puffs up* just a lil pride poke... and... *air fizzles out* i'm me again. ok, next topic...
i haven't really done much at school this week due the lovely taks test. as seniors, we get to stay home in the morning, so sleeping late for no reason has been great. :D although all the under classmen are all grumpy, but i'm all smiles; lots of sleep good :D
oh here's a funny one... me and greg were out last saturday night. we decided to park and talk and listen to some tunes. listening to those tunes required the battery to remain on...so 2 hours later when we were gettin ready to leave, yeah, *dink, dink, dink* it was kinda funny cause it sounded like rapid gun fire, and that's pretty common in the neighborhood we were in, so we laughed at that, after we got over our horror at not having any battery juice. so greg called his friend, josh, to come jump us. too bad we killed josh's battery in the process of trying to jump us. so then i called tyler, who got josh jumped, but diagnosed greg's truck with a bad starter, so greg and i caught a ride with josh, and i promised tyler a pizza soon in return. lol. so i get dropped off at my house, and apparently on the way to greg's, josh's truck runs out of juice again. score!
well, that's the extent of my haha's right now. guess i'll talk to ya'll later. God bless!
catch up, check in
04.15.05 (9:07 pm) [edit]so, a catch up to the present, shall we?
well, i have a boyfriend. that's new...to the roving internet community, anyway. i picked greg, the one owning the blog on the left side over there. *gasp* i know. i thought i was crazy, myself. here i've been on a kick for around 2 years, and just posted a declaration for the world to see on here to not date, and here i go again! "what's up with that," i questioned my inner self, my motives, my goals, my entire life with this! really. i mean, what in the world was i thinking?! that's just it...i wasn't thinking at all. usually that sort of statement points toward something negative, but this time it doesn't, so please, continue reading. i quit thinking, and chugging along on the path i was comfortable in, and took a second to check in with God. i felt a sense of peace about being with greg; it is my understanding that greg felt something similiar to my peace, but you can ask him that. so, i've been happily dating for around 2 months now. i didn't blog about it sooner because i had to sort this all out in my head first. i still don't understand why God has me off my track. for a while i felt like i had failed, not only myself, but the one other person i knew of that was doing the no dating thing too, jett. i didn't really know him, just of him. (apparently, he's been reading my blog so he could freak me out with how much he knew about me when he finally did meet me, so a shout out to jett!) but i finally actually met the kid, and hung out with him, our mutual friend lindsey, and her guy, ben. (shout out to lindsey, and ben too!) apparently, jett's aquired a girl, so that made me feel like i was on the right track... like a sign. i hope i didn't take that wrong. i'm still sort of doubting my decision. being on the same path for years, and all of a sudden flip flopping in about a 2 sec time span is an enormous bite to swallow. so needless to say, i'm in waters that have been sailed by me before, but not recently enough to know what i'm doing except by the Lighthouse. so keep a prayer out for me and greg.
my prom's next weekend. got an awesome dress...turquoise and lime green strapless 2 piece a-line with sequins and beads on the top...really cute. going with greg, and a gaggle of pals. :D i'm excited to say the least. going to greg's prom too. (he goes to my school's cross town rival; blast those eagles! *shakes fist* :wink:) borrowing my friend's, tabby, dress for that one. hot pink halter with lace up back 2 piece a-line (2 piece a-line is the only type that looks remotely good on me)with beads and sequins on the top. very cute for a borrow-er. the funny part is that i'm wearing flip-flops to a prom. i can't wear heels because tabby is really short, so the dress is perfect length on me when i'm just barefoot. :D yeah for tall people. i feel sorry for this one girl i know, tiana. she's taller than i am, so most dresses don't come long enough for her. so here it is a week before prom, and she has no dress. poor dear. i still need a purse myself. greg suggested getting an umbrella to match my dress too, because apparently some of his friends are going to come water ballon our prom as their senior prank on the rival school. if they get me wet, i will hike up my dress, kick off my heels, chase them down, and beat them with my purse. i am SO not even kidding!
i signed a whole bunch of money out of my hands today. (signed up for college classes.) i spent around 5 hours up there and didn't get everything done i need to for registration, so i have to go back tomorrow to finish. UGH! got my lil school id and everything. bad pic, though :P. had my honors interview, made a few new friends, and met several that i will probably be seeing alot of the next few years, because we're all in the same degree field. o ya, and i changed my major; i'm back to an undecided. yeah! go me! *sarcasm* my dad nearly had a heart attack when i told him. i told him i wanted to change from athletic training to excersise science, or sports, rec. and leisure. you wanna know the first thing out of his mouth? "but they don't make much money." :P big freakin woo hoo! i like living frugally (i nearly died when i payed $40 yesterday for a top to wear to my honor's interview today. i don't even pay that much for jeans. i didn't even get to wear it because my mom said it wasn't conservative enough. *steams* i think everyone knows my position on shopping; i despise shopping. if shopping were to materialize into a person, i would strangle her. not ONE store has modest clothes that don't look like an old grandma. ok, i better get off that soap box before i go on forever.)and besides that, i'm going to pysical therapy school, so money won't be a problem, unless i get in the habit of spending too much... which i don't see happening. i think i'd be more likely to get myself in a hole because i gave too much away to charity. so yes, that's what i did today after class.
graduation is slithering upon me faster than ever. i started stuffin my graduation annoucements last night. got all teary-eyed. here's to the last 13 years of my short life. my gpa is finalized, although i don't know what it is finalized as right now. won't know for another week at least. i'm biting my nails on that one. i got some more scholarship money, and my college fund gained some! (my college fund rides the stock market, so i have a personal grudge against osama, and his lil thugs. they wiped out half my college fund with their lil 9/11 stunt. not cool. :evil:)i'm doing my best to not let senioritis squeeze the last bit of effort i have to give out of me just yet. in euro, we got a 1200 question review packet... *smashes head on keyboard* to say the least. that's why i haven't blogged in forever. been typing on that, and scholarship essays, so typing has not been on my list of extracirriculars here lately. besides, euro, all the rest of my classes are winding down, cause ap tests are coming up, and the teachers are just as tired of school as we students are. i just want to be done with high school. i so tired of all the stupid people. greg had a good idea: there should be a government buearu for the mentally stunted. these government officals would castrate those who are deemed stupid (the definition i'm using for stupid here is not mentally challenged, i'm meaning those that know better but do retarded stuff anyway) as stupid people don't need to reproduce, yet at this time, it is they that have 10 kids a piece, because they don't know any better. anyway, off of castrating stupid people, and back to this, the last leg of the high school graduation race. i've begun to realize i might not see my friends much more after this year. that saddens me a bit, but i'll be glad to start over. most of these people i've known since i was knee high to a grasshopper. i'd like to meet some new people, and make new friends like i did today. i've changed alot from when i first arrived here and made the friends i have now. i was shy, not interested in God, and interesting in pleasing people. that's not me anymore. i can be one the loudest people i know...depending on my mood, i love God, and don't care as much about pleasing others, as pleasing myself, and God above all. so it'll be nice to have people around that know me just as the current me, and not my former self.
well, this blog is getting really long, so i'll say ta-ta for now. you had better hope something interesting pops up in my life soon, cause i'm kinda tired of making alot out of nothing. i'm a writer, not a miracle worker. God bless ya'll reall good, ya hear? :wink:
30 hour famine '05: part 3
04.11.05 (4:22 pm) [edit]sorry i haven't been blogging. i've had to write several scholarship essays, and have begun a 1200 question euro review packet for the ap test. :-p to say the least. why doesn't doc. fink just shoot us now, and put us out of our misery? *sigh* anyway... back to 30 hour famine...i'll try to make this one short.
we were rudely awakened by parm singing-he couldn't carry a tune if his life depended on it- at 6:30 am, so we all slowly drug out of bed, and got dressed. one girl got dumped off her blow up matress because she wouldn't wake up. poor thing. we dressed ever so slowly, and loaded the buses to head for the mission. we were assigned the task of making breakfast burritos, but it didn't phase me too much, because i was still on quite a spiritual high, even though breakfast burritos are like my favorite food in the world! i got to be the cheese girl in our lil food prep line. :D after making about 200 burritos, we re-located outside to the parking lot to set up several racks of clothes for the clothing give away at 8 that morning. people began arriving, and we handed out burritos, bottled water, helped pick out clothes, entertained small children, and picked the skeletal hangers out of the jam packed clothes racks. after a bit, a closed bed truck was loaded with about half the group. we felt like illegal aliens. shhh...the boarder patrol might find us. :D we drove a lil ways with some burritos to a few homeless camps and handed out the remaining burritos, then chugged back to the mission in our illegal alien truck, so the rest of the group could have a chance at with the other homeless camps while those who had just gotten back cleaned up the remains of burritos in the parking lot, and piled clothes into a truck for relocation back to the main storage space. once the other group returned, we headed back to the school gym, said a lil prayer, and dug into a whole bunch of pizza to end our fast. that was the best gatti's i've ever tasted! (the general opinion of gatti's pizza around here is that it tastes like cardboard, but everyone dug in like they were starving...oh wait, we were!)
30 hour famine was an unbelievable experience! i would totally do it again if the opportunity surfaced. if you'd like to get more info on 30 hour famine, world vision, or donate, click right over there -- http://www.30hourfamine.org
nyc mission trip '05: pics!
04.05.05 (9:24 pm) [edit]pics are here!!!
http://community.webshots.com/user/babe4jesus55" title="http://community.webshots.com/user/babe4jesus55" target="_blank"http://community.webshots.com...
have fun kids! God bless ya'll!
30 hour famine '05: part 2
04.03.05 (10:26 pm) [edit]alright, picking up the story where we left off...
after finishing the "survival" game, we picked up the desserts we brought-my brownies were still screaming my name- and we jumped on a pair of yellow dogs. woo hoo! and so we rode to the mission. the mission is of course an all the time mission serving my area's homeless. they provide food, showers, clothing, personal hygene stuff, and they could find ya a job if one homeless person was really lookin for one. after finding out we'll be working with homeless people all weekend, i got a lil freaked out; i've always been taught to never EVER help a homeless person, because all they do is take, but don't care to better themselves with your help. i know this is a wrong attitude (WWJD, right?) but when a belief has been beat into you for your entire short life span, it doesn't just disappear. i had prayed several times not too long ago, for God to change my attitude about serving others, especially the homeless. let's just say i was in for a ride! so we show up at the mission, and walk in...no one's around, so we sit, and chit chat in the auditorium, until the master mind of all this comes in to talk to us. he informs us we will be cooking and serving hamburgers to the homeless. normally, that'd be cool, but i am STARVING, and they're HOMELESS! *sigh* i ask God for some mighty strength, cause i'm not gonna make it without His help, that's for sure! the homeless begin to arrive, and actually, most of them you wouldn't be able to pick them out of a crowd as homeless... hicks, yes, homeless, no. (have to understand, there are ALOT of hicks around here, being texas, and all.) truthfully, i didn't even know they were homeless at all, until the head honcho made an annoucement, but to that announcement in a bit. just figured they were regular mission congregation members (mission also has a congregation) so the band takes the stage, and leads us in some praise and worship, and boy, did i praise and worship! i sang out loud, raised my hands up high, closed my eyes tight, i think i even caught myself jumpin to the beat a couple of times. :D i heart that kind of worship; it makes me and my relationship with God feel so alive, and tangeable. personally, praise and worship keeps me, and my faith goin, cause i need to have that tangeable feeling. anyway, that wound down, and head dude-never got his name- announced that a couple of the homeless would speak to the students. i sat up stiff, ready to face whatever it was that was about to attack me. a few of the students were asked what a homeless person was to them. the typical answers were given: poor, jobless, drunk. so this guy, randy, a bit of a raggle-muffin saunters up to the front, and tells his tale. he's a veitnam vet; barely got his ged just a few years ago; has been living out of doors ever since he returned from the war. that's a long time! he described living as homeless. he lives in a tent on the edge of town, and shares his camp with one other guy a few hundred feet away, and his two dogs. we asked why he keeps the dogs, he replied with a story. "when you visit an indian village in the fall, there a lots of dogs running around, but come back in spring after a hard winter, and there isn't a dog in sight. doesn't taste half bad boiled." iissh. *shudders* anyway, he also described his rat eating experiences, and how he landed out there- little education, alcoholic, former drugie. i began to soften. perhaps these people don't take what we give and decide right then and there to turn the lives around, but we're being Christ to them. showing them love, and kindness...that someone actually cares about them, the lost and purposfully forgotten. *angelic illumination from above* i see the light! i was so prepared to serve these people now! so the students were invited down to pray for randy. one by one, we crept up there, and laid hands on him, and began to pray. i couldn't believe, i, one that scorns the homeless for dirtying our street corners, was actually praying for this dude! praise God! answered prayer! answered prayer! after praying, the students remained up front for a few more praise songs, then we were dismissed to serve. i went up to a lady, and her son, and took their burger order, and returned promptly with 2 burgers in hand, a smile on my face, a song in my heart; my soul was so satisfied, i totally forgot about being hungry! answered prayer! answered prayer! after serving all the burgers, we dished out all our desserts; people left the building with armloads of styrofoam take outs of burgers, and assorted cookies, and cakes. after most everyone left, most of the students sat down to rest, as we were all rather beat due to lack of engergy, but derek kept on chuggin, and had to be pulled away from vacuuming the entire sanctuary, and food serving area! props to you, derek!
after we loaded the buses again, and headed back, we had a bit of a lesson on world hunger. there were bowls of rice prepared representing the world food supply, and were divided up amongst the continents. we students were also divided up according to population of each continent. there were about 25 students in africa, 15 in south america, 18 in asia, 20 in europe, and 2 in north america. now, watch the bowl counts... 8 bowls for africa, 11 for s. america, 20 for asia, 42 in europe, and 60 for north america. (these aren't exact numbers but are logical guesses according to my memory.) ah, so THAT'S why the world hates the usa. it all makes sense. i sure didn't like north america over there, myself being in africa! grrrr!!! not even half a bowl for myself...if i were to actually eat the rice. so we prayed, and were given permission to eat the rice if we didn't think we could make it; a few ate it i heard, although i didn't see anyone eat it, nor did i. so we went to the smaller gym, and prepared for bed; girls on one side of the half court mark, and guys on the other with a death threat looming over heads if that line were to be crossed, and a sponser posted at each end of that line. they weren't foolin! so i went to sleep, and slept as soundly as one can when sleeping on a hard wood floor. the next morning, i heard that people had been on the roof shining flash lights in people's eyes. apparently it was a few college kids in town for their spring break. also heard that others heard lots of rattling wrappers through the night. somebody cheated! oh well, their loss. so, will finish with the next day next time! God bless you guys real good!
