Lists on Lists Baylor Edition

Guys. I'm a college graduate. How weird is that? I honestly don't feel different. Like I realize I'm not going back to Waco in August, but I'm not like WAHHH. Not that I expected I would be. I don't really cry often. Can we just pause a moment and acknowledge that the only time I cried or sort of almost cried or just actually got teary eyed at a graduation, it wasn't even one of my own? It was also my freshman year of high school. I didn't cry at all at my own high school graduation or at college graduation. My emotions are strange. Definitely missing Waco already though. It's barely been a week. As in it hasn't even been a week. Yet, I find myself thinking about Waco things all the time. I find myself seeing people in public that look like people I only saw in Texas.

So this was an idea I was going to do BEFORE graduation. But alas, time took over and ran out, so I never did it. It was supposed to be a daily thing for the 10 days counting down. I don't know what every number will be as I type this. This is a forewarning that it could get cheesy.

10 People Who Made My Baylor Journey
1. Heidi Stump- the first person to put Baylor on my radar when I was a freshman in high school
2. David Crowder- he had to be on here somewhere right? the first reason why I wanted to go to Baylor
3. Kelly Pickett- the first friend I made at Baylor. The only friend I've had for all 4 years.
4. Christine Lau- WW leader turned life groupie. Praises that I had you and Bethany as leaders.
5. Allyson Jacks- the friend who even when we haven't seen each other in forever, it's okay. Always up for adventures.
6. David & Eva Bull- my first life group leaders, who let me stay at their apartment before I could move in to mine on campus, who told me about social work, who loved me and who I always think of when I think of good cooking or constellations.
7. Sara Bates- the first person I met at my new section worship night, who didn't even know my name, but prayed for me, sweetest servant-hearted friend who lived right down the hall in NoRo our freshman year and we never realized it.
8. Erin Gentry-the 2nd person I met at that worship night who also prayed for me, a fighter, a fun, Jesus lover, someone who I look up to even though we're the same age
9. Anne Claire Cowan- the person who I couldn't have made it through senior year without, the only person I'm pretty sure I've had every social work class with except stats.
10. God- told you I'd get cheesy, but I probably wouldn't have come to Baylor if it wasn't for Him and for my parents' support and love that I know stems from their love of God.


9 Things because of Baylor and/or Texas living
1. I own cowboy boots.
2. I listen to country music when I miss Texas even though I hardly ever listened to it in my 4 years at Baylor.
3. Y'all. It rolls off the tongue so nicely.
4. HEB: Here everything is better.
5. I think I kind of like Dr Pepper even though I don't like pop (yep, haven't lost that one!)
6. I get extra excited meeting people not from Texas and when I see Indiana things.
7. I actually mostly understand what's happening during a football game and enjoy it.
8. I have sung and danced on a stage and liked it.
9. Home is more than just Noblesville, IN.

8 Things I'll miss about living in Waco
1. Sunsets and low humidity
2. Being able to walk to my friends' houses and campus (aka a nice hangout)
3. Cameron Park
4. Common Grounds concerts
5. HEB
6. Baylor School of Social Work
7. Friends from all over the country/world all in one place
8. Knowing that my Fall Saturdays would be Baylor football.

7 Songs that somehow relate to my 4 years at Baylor
1. This Ain't Rock & Roll- Steve Moakler
2. Jireh- Antioch Community Church
3. My Portion is You- Antioch Live
4. Keep Your Eyes Open- NEEDTOBREATHE
5. Little Lies- Dave Barnes
6. I am a Seed- David Crowder* Band
7. That Good Old Baylor Line- DUH

6 Things I learned
1. I learned that I'm not that picky about food.
2. That God doesn't make empty promises.
3. That a little motivation goes a long way.
4. That sometimes good things do happen after midnight.
5. That learning isn't the same as speed reading to finish an assignment because you know you have a quiz the next day.
6. That I'm not that same as other people and that's okay.

5 Favorite Baylor Traditions
1. Singing That Good Old Baylor Line at the end of football games, basketball games, other important things
2. Homecoming bonfire because who doesn't want to almost burn down campus?
3. Diadeloso because someone understood that students need a day off sometimes especially in the spring
4. The bells in Pat Neff playing every day at 5 pm because it's nice to stop and listen to or ride my bike by
5. Christmas on 5th because I love Christmas and the off chance that it gets cold in Texas

4 Concerts I Experienced because of Baylor
1. Chris August and Sidewalk Prophets- bringing the chance for awkward photos and surprise birthday gifts
2. Dave Barnes- 4 times in 4 years!!
3. NEEDTOBREATHE- the best Diadeloso musical guest
4. Mat Kearney and Drew Holcomb & the Neighbors- storming Waco Hall was worth it

3 Indiana friends I saw at Baylor (convenient that it was actually exactly 3!)
1. Brielle Peters- who would've thought you'd have a friend from Waco at Samford?
2. Heather Hochstedler- the best reunion, seeing you twice in my Texas home was surreal
3. Jordan Bear- that time you went to SMU and took a fan bus to pretend to be a Baylor fan for a game

2 Favorite Classes I took at Baylor
1. Sociology with Kevin Doughtery
2.  Social Work Practice I with Dennis Myers

1 Final Word
SIC EM BEARS.

(Sorry, that had to end like that. It was only fitting.)

Yep, I did it!

De Nile

It's been a whirlwind of a senior year. It still hasn't really hit me yet that when I leave Waco in 12 days that I won't be coming back anytime soon. I think I recognize it to some extent, but it hasn't REALLY hit me, you know? It's hard for me to imagine not being here at Baylor, in Texas, doing school. I'm probably going to go through one of those weird phases of nostalgia and regret and whatever else where all I can think about is the past and it feels weird and I don't know what to do with myself.

But I'll save all the reflections and such for a later post, perhaps it will be the final post of this blog. Sorry it's been severely neglected this year. Senior year was much crazier than anticipated. I also feel like I've gotten into this bad habit of not reflecting on things and not letting myself process which is kind of terrible.

So before I get all sappy dappy and reflection oriented about Baylor and college etc., I do want to indulge you lovely readers with a little bit of an update. Picture style! I think the last pictures I shared were from October. Yikes. I'll be selective.

Christmas on 5th!

Spent Thanksgiving with puppies, ha!

Final football game was FRIGID.

I made a worry doll at my internship. Looks just like me, right?

Finally got to experience Passion in Houston in February

Found the Waco Waterfall!

Celebrated Diadeloso in April!

Easter in Arizona with my sweet friend, Erica

Spring break trip to Edinburg, TX with Antioch

 So that's most of my year in a snapshot or two. It was a blast. Here's to 12 more days in Waco and to knocking out my bucket list!

short and somewhat sweet.

So senior year has been nothing like I expected in pretty much every way. I'm still deciding whether that's good or bad. In some ways it is disappointing, frustrating, and hard, but in other ways it's helpful, exciting, and crazy good.

I don't really want to go into detail on much of it for a myriad of reasons, but I do want to reach out for prayer. A lot of this year has been busy [see: it's November and the last time I posted was the beginning of September]. I've never been as busy as I have been this year. On top of the full schedule, there are things internally and externally beating on me. How's that for vague? I just want some sense of peace and encouragement in the midst of these hard times. Pray for my attitude to remain positive towards all parts of my life and for me to not pull away from things because it's easier, but to press into the hard places.

As for all the exciting and good things, there are equally as many of those things are there have been rough things.

For starters, I mentioned in my last post how I was doing Pigskin. I'm not a singer, dancer, or performer by any means and I did all that and loved nearly every minute of it. Performing was actually really exhilarating and fulfilling when I finally performed all my parts without messing up!

Pigskin photo booth with some awesome friends!

I've gone to a bunch of football games and sweat till I thought I'd turn into a puddle and shivered two weeks later. Thanks Texas. I never thought I'd enjoy football games. Granted, half the time I'm still confused as to what's happening, but I do know Baylor is super legit and we can score!

Homecoming football!

Fall break was really fun, too. I went to Independence, TX and Brenham, TX. Independence is the home of the original Baylor campus and sort of a right of passage place that freshmen who go to Line Camp in the summer do. But I didn't go to Line Camp, and it's my senior year. So we went. It was really neat to see all the history and the iconic pillars.

Independence, TX

Brenham, TX is home of the first Bluebell Ice Cream Factory. It's obvious why I wanted to visit there. I was amazed at the insane number of cows it takes to make enough milk for the ice cream each day...something like 160,000 if I remember correctly. What?! So much ice cream! We got a free taste at the end. Who wants to guess what kind I had?

Chocolate peanut butter, anyone?

Kelly and I with loads of ice cream flavors

So that's the fun in a nutshell. There are more fun things I've done, but those are the biggest things. I'll likely post in May about my senior year bucket list. Aka when it's all said and done. All of these fun things I've mentioned here are things that were on my bucket list. It's keeping me sane. Checking things off a list is so nice. When everything else seems out of control and overwhelming, I remember my bucket list. And things I'm thankful for! 

Today I'm thankful for:

1. Cool morning walks to campus when riding my bike would be quicker, but I need to slow down.

2. Friends who help me accomplish things on my bucket list and things that aren't!

3. Surprise mail from my mom.
4. Fridays.

busy busy beth

Alright, I tried to think of a clever title, but that's nothing too exciting...par usual. Y'all, it's a Christmas miracle that I am actually posting again in August. Oh my gosh, just realized it's not actually August anymore. Failboat.

So guess it's back to the monthly blog updates! Although September may be able to swing more than one since I'm posting early in this month. I'm at work again posting. It's Friday. I just want to be done. Done with everything, but sadly it's only September. It's actually been moving pretty quickly which scares me a little but is also kind of nice. I'm insanely busy, something I'm not used to, but it's been okay. I have to get used to not having time to extensively relax since I don't get home until after 5 every day except Fridays. And weekends, but that's implied, right? So at least I still have my weekends. Granted, my weekends aren't exactly not busy. Football games are on Saturdays and Sundays are church days and grocery shopping every other week. I also start Pigskin (winners of SING from February perform their song/dance acts over Homecoming) practices this Monday and practices are also on Sundays, so I'll have to be diligent about getting things done on Saturdays...or become that person who does homework on Friday nights. Ugh.

Enough of the blah, "I'm so busy" rant. I'm sure there are people that are busier than me (see: roommate). I'm trying to be more intentional with my time and with people and with myself. I think I may restart my thankfulness journal. I started one last year, but I don't think I got past October. I need to be less structured with it and just write in it when I can about whatever I want. On that note:

Today I'm thankful for borrowed bicycles that get me exercise and to campus and friends' houses.
For lunchboxes so I don't end up with bruised apples (afterthought of thankfulness because I didn't use my lunchbox today and my apple is all sorts of bruised).
For friends who give me rides when I need to get places too far to bike or walk.
For professors who don't give quizzes on days you don't do the reading (whoops already slacking).
For the color blue.
For Floyd Casey allowing any kind of water bottle into the stadium for the football game tomorrow.
For worship songs that I wake up singing.
For time, to make decisions, to sleep, to spend in solitude.
For the SUB and its comfy couches and cozy rooms and old yearbooks.
For Fridays full of adventure.
For posts that end up nothing like expected, but no less refreshing.

once a month

This is a post that's taken entirely too long to share. I started it last week. So there's that.

It's funny to think I thought I'd write more than once a month on this blog. Although, it's early in August and school has yet to start, after which time I'm sure I will have much to share in terms of my internship and Welcome Week and fun things like that.

I'm at work or I'd be able to include nice photos along with this post, so I apologize in advance for the lack of pictures. This post is rather long overdue seeing as the biggest adventure to be blogged about was like 3 weeks ago...It's really difficult for me to keep track of the days when it's summertime. July also went by in a flash, so I'm still in denial that it's pretty much mid-August. So whenever it was, I took the biggest adventure I've taken in a long time!

I took a spontaneous road trip to the panhandle of Texas with my roommate and best Baylor friend, Kelly. She's a real peach and lets me be weird and indulges my crazy ideas. Although, this idea was hers. It was a Thursday. It was a great day because I got a bunch of free things: a Baylor Theatre fleece zip-up, McAllister's sweet tea, a slice of pizza from Nizza Pizza. The best part was that I had Friday off from work because our office was moving buildings, so I would have just been in the way. So I got off work at 3, and Kelly picked me up so she could get some things from my office for her future teaching career and then we got free tea and pizza. We came home and decided to try to check something off our collaborative senior year bucket list. We thought about going to Independence to picnic and explore the original Baylor campus and go to the Blue Bell factory since it's not too far from Independence, but to go on a tour on Friday we would've had to schedule it by 3 the day before [aka Thursday, aka the time that I got off work and we were getting tea]. So that idea couldn't happen that weekend. Thus, the idea to go to Amarillo and see Cadillac Ranch and other random roadside attractions came into fruition. We managed to throw together food and essentials fairly quickly and create some semblance of directions all getting us on the road by 5:45 that evening. Like whoa. We got kolaches for the next morning at Czech Stop and drove through lots of nothingness. We didn't really have a plan for the night; I might have thought we could just drive through the night and nap, or snooze at a rest stop. We did try the latter, but freaked ourselves out and decided it wasn't a good idea to do that. The search for the least sketchy, but cheap motel began and eventually we settled into an American Inn in small town Texas, about 2 hours away from Amarillo.
The morning greeted us much quicker than desired, and it became a full day of driving. Literally spent all of Friday in a car, minus an hour or two. Bleck. It was really a great day though! We originally planned getting into Amarillo and hitting up Cadillac Ranch and then going to New Mexico since we would be about an hour and a half from the border. But, we made the split decision to go to Oklahoma instead to be in two places at once (on Kelly's bucket list) at the border and that took longer than we thought. Ha. Then we took a recommendation from Kelly's brother to go to this state park called Palo Duro. Aka the second largest canyon in the U.S. or so it claims. It really was a magnificent place, so much red dirt and beautiful rock formations. I like nature. I was really glad we took that detour even if we didn't plan it so we got there when it was hot and we couldn't hike because Kelly is in a boot because of some weird injury. Ha.
Finally, we got to Cadillac Ranch. It was great because since it's one of those famous roadside attractions and on the path of Route 66, there were a lot of people clearly making the stop on their own huge Route 66 road trips [see people wearing shirts emblazoned with roads and maps and "Route 66"]. There was also this cute musical group playing the song "Route 66" in front of the cars. Gosh, I wish I could put pictures! Perhaps I'll create a separate post for some pictures since I know everyone who reads this doesn't have Facebook.
Anyways, after we visited Cadillac Ranch, we stumbled upon this hilarious roadside restaurant that seemingly encapsulated everything that is so Texan. 72 oz steaks because everything's bigger in Texas. Don't Mess With Texas trash cans. A swimming pool shaped like Texas. A motel that looked like an old Western town. A giant dinosaur wearing a cowboy hat. Texas brewed beers. It was fantastic. We spent a lot longer there than anticipated, so a visit to the parody Cadillac Ranch (VW Beetles!) was decided against and instead we hit up downtown Amarillo. We found some beautiful churches and lots of horse statues. Much like the race cars that were in Indianapolis a while back or the panda bears in DC. There was one painted like an American flag that we took pictures with. Haha. We ventured around some more and found a sign that marked the area of Amarillo that was on Route 66, which was in this cute area of town that if it weren't so far from Waco, we probably would have stayed to explore later. But alas, we needed to get home, so we embarked on our return journey. We got home sometime after midnight, so for real: in the car a good 2/3 of the day. Whoo!
So that's my adventure to middle of nowhere Texas for you. I will try to remember to post pictures when I'm home from work today!

first world problems

Well, again, it's been nearly a month since I had the goal of blogging a lot more this summer. I don't know why I don't blog more, but in the recent past whenever I wanted to blog...I couldn't. First, I didn't have wifi at my house in Waco for a good week and a half. So that was fun. Thankfully we got it fixed a week ago and were able to avoid being scammed by the router/modem company I called for assistance in resetting our password system, which ideally would've been way easier with the CD that came with the router, but my roommate misplaced. Never fear, we got it figured out with the great help of her father, computer extraordinaire. Then, she found the CD. Isn't that how it always goes? You can't find what you need, then when you buy a new one or figure it out some other lengthy way, you find what you need after it's all said and done. Ha. So I couldn't blog at home.
I couldn't blog at work either. Not sure why...I think my computer here is just jank and old so it can't load pages correctly and such. I wrote a whole blog and it didn't upload and I didn't have the heart to try again, so praying that this will work. I'm using Google Chrome instead of Internet Explorer so that's hopefully going to allow me to post successfully.

I haven't been up to much of anything besides work every day. It's rather tedious because there's never much to do and most of the time I'm completely alone. Our building is moving to a different building so we're the only office still here in the old building, and then half the office is out of town. People may think it's great not having anything to do at work, but it isn't all that fun day after day. Granted, I could probably be more productive on the grad school research front, but at this point, I'm not really feeling like doing school so we'll see how that goes. I know I should do grad school, but I'd rather be traveling the world. Obviously, it's unlikely I will be traveling the world, but maybe somehow I can swing it to do social work and travel? Meh. Anyone know anyone who is a social worker and gets to travel? International adoption, please. Would I get to travel for that? I'm just having a lot of second thoughts about my future when suddenly I have to really start looking to the real world. Wahhh. I had it easy getting into Baylor, so that makes it even harder for grad school. Plus just looking at the grad school applications makes me want to cry.

I need adventure. The first summer Dwelling Place I went to, the section leader that spoke talked about how much she craves adventure and I was like shoot, why are we not friends? Haha but the craving and longing for adventure, she said isn't ultimately a bad thing, but what if we turned our longings over to God? What if we prayed "God, take my longing and turn it into longing for You."? Oh gosh. That's like so what I need right now. I have a lot of unfulfilled earthly longings, but there's got to be so much more satisfaction in letting those things go and turning my wants into a want for God.
This blog post is literally all over the place and disconnected. But I needed some writing time and it took up time at work to write this. At least I'm getting paid to sit here and do whatever. I tried to make a friendship bracelet last week off of one I'd started forever ago, but couldn't get the pattern right so that's sad. I honestly contemplated untying the whole thing and starting over. Literally would take up a good hour or so of time at work. Oh gosh, my life. Y'all probably think I'm crazy.

speedy summer

Well, this summer is just cruising by and I'm not doing very well at updating. Sorry! I'm honestly not even sure how time went by so fast. But I'll be nice and give y'all a little update for real instead of some weird rambling.

So I guess since I last blogged with the hope of actually blogging this summer I have...

                                           Visited the Indianapolis Art Museum TWICE.

Gone running: at Butler, by a llama farm, at Potter's Bridge, not nearly as much as I should have.

                       Driven to pick up my parents' CSA vegetable share at the farm many a time.

         Completed The Indianapolis Star crossword puzzle nearly every day; I've become a pro.

                                                  Reunited with camp friends on a rainy day.

                              Cleaned & found gems of my past from when I cadet taught in high school.

                             Traveled to Colorado to visit the relatives and enjoy the mountains.

                                          Made homemade ice cream and picked fresh strawberries.

                                  Taken a blitz of an online summer school class on women's studies.

                      Secured a wicked tan and excellent memories from working a week at SpringHill.

                    Journeyed to the middle of nowhere Indiana on a photoshooting adventure.

           Read more books than I have in ages: memoirs, nonfiction, mysteries, advice, Scottish fiction.

So that's my summer thus far in a quick photo nutshell. I go back to Texas in a week which is exciting, yet a little sad. I feel like time moves faster than I expect it and I'm like shoot I only have one week to do all these things that I could've done all summer. Granted I had a busy month with going to Colorado, taking my summer school class, and working SpringHill, but it was worth it. Summer at home has been pretty quiet, but nice to spend time with my parents and enjoy some random adventures.

Here's to spending the rest of my summer in the Texas heat. Waco, give me some good adventures!

this is embarassing

I seriously used to be so good at updating this! I apologize to anyone that still follows this. You probably haven't checked my blog in months, so I hope you use one of those blog organizers so this will show up under new posts. Ha.
I can't attempt to update you, only because I honestly don't know what to update you on. I think the last thing I wrote was about the Bearathon? So that's great. I'm officially a senior now! Yay! I almost got a 4.0 again this semester. It's actually more of a miracle that I pulled off a B+ in my Economics class, so I'll take that over another 4.0. Crazy. Junior year was nice. Hard, but good. Frustrating, but satisfying. Alright, I'm getting weird. I'll stop. I haven't really been up to anything exciting since the Bearathon. That's awkward. Sorry I'm the person who chooses school and sleep over having a social life. Yeah, I promise I'm really in college. Plans to get out more start now. or rather, once I get back to Waco. There's nowhere to do anything here and no one to do anything with. Gotta love Noblesville. I don't have a car either. So there's that.
In all actuality, I had a purpose for writing this blog post. Really. Besides the fact that I haven't in forever, I really do want to try to bring it back and I feel like this summer will be the perfect opportunity. So lezdothiz.

But really. If I didn't have all that lead-in, I'd title this blog something like "Airplane Life." or "Travel Woes." or "That time I had the best time on a flight even though it took way longer than normal". So I guess I'll start by saying I don't think I've ever talked past a few sentences with the people I end up next to on the plane. Usually it's just an excuse me I have the window seat, if the middle or aisle person beats me there. Otherwise, it might just be a smile. I'm the worst at starting conversations even with people I know. But there's something about travel troubles that get people chatting. We left DFW en route to Indianapolis at 6 pm. But a half hour later, we're turning around and going back to Dallas. Worst. Why? Electrical problems. That's when my seat buddy, as I like to call him, and I started talking. First it was just about how unfortunate it was that we were turning around and the general Are you from Indiana?...but praise God, my seat buddy was literally the coolest. Okay, exaggeration, but I went on to learn he had just come back from a year-long discipleship school basically that was in small town Texas and there were a bunch of other people on the flight that had just finished the same thing. How cool is that? So thankful that he was so friendly and Jesus-loving. We marveled at the earth, so intricately created below us, intermixed with complaining about how late we were going to get home and how this was his second flight ever. What?! Crazy. We hung out when we got back to Dallas and had to wait a little bit for our new plane and I met some of his friends from the discipleship thing. Normally on flights I just keep to myself and listen to music and try to sleep. None of that happened. We talked the whole time. Who am I? Okay, it wasn't like the whole time, but still, I never talk to people that much. It was so great to have someone to commiserate about our ridiculous flight home and make flying fun. I will say it is always a little uncomfortable never talking to my seat buddies normally, but normally they are older business men or a couple or something like that. But I got lucky this time with someone close to me in age and someone who loves Jesus, too! I'm raving, and I'm not sorry. It was so refreshing. I don't much care for flying anymore, which is really sad because it used to be so fun. Okay, I still like going places, but the waiting in the airport isn't as fun as it was when it was rare, and I never liked the take off or landing or turbulence. But who does? Haha. Traveling alone is okay, but it's so much nicer to have someone to talk to when things get weird or you're stuck waiting forever. So thanks to my seat buddy for making my flight so much more fun and reminding me how cool God is. That's all.
I've zoned out. So if there was more I had to say...whoops. I think I pretty much summed it up. Holler.  God is good.

hibernation

Remember when I used to update this blog like all the time?!
I apologize I have slacked majorly on it since Scotland.
I don't even know what to write about because it's been so long. SINCE NOVEMBER. and before that was September. Whoops.
Obviously, my life at school has escalated to very little free time. I work on campus now so during times where I'd normally be at home doing homework or fiddling my thumbs avoiding homework, I could blog, but I don't have that time anymore. I have turned into a person who doesn't do homework until after dinner almost every day and I don't like it that way, but I have no other options. Sadness.
I actually thought I'd blog today because I blogged about this same event 2 years ago. It seemed fitting to compare experiences. So read this blogpost, then finish this one.
Alright. Today was the Bearathon. I wasn't nearly as excited about it as I thought I'd be. Especially since I trained wayyy better for it this year. The longest run I did was 9 miles instead of maybe 5. Ha. I ran more than 3 miles every day. Well I didn't actually run every day and usually it wasn't more than 3 miles during the week, but my Saturdays were long run days, the shortest being 5. So really, with those real training runs, I felt better prepared and in some shape. Haha. I didn't have my high school running background to back me up for a lack of training.
This year I also didn't have a running partner, which I really missed. It's so much better to actually have someone you know running at your side when the miles get rough. I met up with some people in my section beforehand and we took a picture [sadly not on my camera so I don't know when I'll get to see it]. Then we prepped and I stuck with the 2 girls doing the Bearathon..mostly because we lost the guys. Haha I knew one of the girls was going to be faster than me because she used to run for Baylor, I think. Regardless, I knew she was faster. The other girl I'd never run with so I had no idea. I figured we'd run together for at least the first part, but boom, the gun goes off and they took off and I wasn't going to kill myself trying to stay with them. Unfortunately, because we were closer to the front and they took off fast, I took off faster than I should have and it came back to bite me at the end. I also used my phone for music and its nike+ app, which is different than the one on my ipod, so I couldn't figure out how to get it to tell me my pace; it only told me every mile, so I knew I went out too fast, but had trouble gauging how much to slow down because I didn't want to slow down too much. Needless to say, my mile times decreased from that point on and by mile 8, I just wanted it to be over. I had to walk way more than I wanted to and my calves got really tight so I had to stretch them out several times. My hips also started aching a lot around mile 8, too. So nice. I don't want to be negative or get pity, because I really do like running. This experience just wasn't my favorite one. The only positive was that I still managed to beat my last time by 6 minutes. I was disappointed I wasn't able to beat it by more because I knew I could, but shame on me for not pacing myself well. Probs won't run with my iphone anymore...or if anyone knows how you can get it to tell you your pace more...because I couldn't just click the home button to get it to speak to me. Lame. Technically, I should've been able to tell intuitively that my pace was too fast, and I could...so I don't really know what was going on because I was dragging by the end. It was bad, y'all. I walked part of the last freakin' mile. I don't think I ran a straight mile after the first time I walked around mile 6. It was rather ridiculous. But enough of that. You all now know that this Bearathon experience was pretty much the complete opposite of the first one. Unfortunate, but it's not going to stop me from probably doing it again next year. I really want to train for a 5k, so might try to find some 5k race to do in the future..I think there's one in May in Waco that because I ran the Bearathon, I get $10 off registration so that's cool. If I'm still here...high possibility I'll try to run it. Because let's be real, 5ks are perfect race distance. Long enough to make you train for it, short enough that you're not dying at the end.
To end...just because I can and I don't feel like writing about everything else..here are some random pictures of stuff that's happened since I last blogged...

Went to Chicago to visit my friend, Elizabeth whom I met while abroad.

Got lots of snow over Christmas Break, so I loved my life.

Ate a tofu "chicken" sandwich in Bloomington, visiting Dianne at IU.

Went on a SB trip with tons of people I didn't know, but can now call friends!

The video is from a Ben Rector concert I went to last week at Common Grounds. Soo good!

eventually you have to move

Maybe it's because my life has been a lot crazier, and I haven't had a lot of time where I just want to sit and write things. Maybe I just haven't had a lot of blog-worthy things happen. I've gotten into this thing where there are things I'd love to write about, but they don't need to be in the blogosphere for any random person to see. So I don't write anything. but guys, I can't not write right now. I've put it off, but too much is whirling around now. I should be doing homework. I really just have a lot of feelings floating around right now and I can't settle and I'm listening to epic soundtrack music as study jams and clearly it's not working. oops. I just spent the last hour watching the recap/not-really-livestream-since-it-was-yesterday  video stream from MOVE:DC. and I'm just so conflicted. I WAS SUPPOSED TO BE THERE. I am so so extremely bummed things didn't work out for me to be there and it's eating away at my concentration because I know it was literally the most amazing experience and so world-changing and inspiring and it kills me that I wasn't there. I should have made it happen. I'm going to try to not dwell on it, but it just was such a shot to my heart when I gotten my hopes so high to be going and then it came crunch time and we just couldn't pull it off. Crushed. My concentration was so gone that first week I got the crazy idea in my head to go. I hadn't considered going until the end of October when Invisible Children did a screening at Baylor. I was just so re-energized and inspired by that, that it just made sense to go to DC. and then I didn't and this weekend all I could think about was how I was supposed to be in DC. I mean seeing Baylor crush the #1 team in the country was pretty legit, but not world changing. I went for a run Saturday morning and had Jake Hamilton's "The Anthem" on repeat. I prayed for my friends who were at MOVE:DC and it was all I could do to not want to go crazy listening to that song and thinking about everything that was going on in DC. If you haven't heard the song, I highly recommend it...for lack of a better phrase, it's been my anthem for the past month or so. I'm obsessed.
I JUST WANT TO CHANGE THE WORLD. But really. Me going to DC was going to be my little piece in the world changing puzzle. Now I don't know what to do. I want to travel and see the world and experience new things and get messed up for justice. I want to see history in the making. I want to be a part of something bigger than me. I want to MOVE.
There isn't a real point to this blogpost, but I just needed to get that out there. If no one reads this or if you do and think "Okay...that was silly." then so be it. I do care what you think, but not about me. I just want people to care about Invisible Children and stopping Joseph Kony and the LRA. Or if they aren't going to care about that...care about something! Care about something big! You don't have to care about the same things I do, but let's all at least respect each other and don't bash things till you actually do research and have looked into it and know the facts more. I realize this is kind of off topic, but not. People bashed Invisible Children after the whole breakdown after Kony 2012 and people...seriously? We're all human. How quick we are to judge people we don't know. I hate it. Enough on that.
Again, this is a blur of a post with no real point except to get my thoughts out. So love it or leave it. Boom.

it's raining, it's pouring, i'm almost snoring

I wish. Ha. It's actually only like 6pm so I'm nowhere near snoring. But I've been sitting at my computer for far too long working on fixing this assignment I didn't do right for my social work practice class. and watching some How I Met Your Mother in the mix of that. It's been raining literally all day. I woke up and thought about running in the rain, but something about that seemed so depressing and wet-rat feeling so I nixed that idea and went back to sleep longer.
I know I haven't written in a long time about random things of the semester, so I thought I'd try to do that a bit. I'll just make a little list of exciting things that have happened so far this semester, some probably bigger than others, but you know.

1. Well the other day, I went on a spontaneous adventure with one of my roommates around Waco. We visited some places that made me feel like a tourist in my own town, which was loads of fun. The best part was discovering a castle. Yep, you read that right. Waco has a castle!! After being in Scotland and seeing amazing castles in my travels abroad, this castle was pretty weak, but still amazing to see even a little guy!

2. A couple weeks ago, one of my good friends from high school was in Waco for a conference with her team from Invisible Children. It was such refreshment to get to hang out with her where I am so much of my life now and show her cool places and see her joy and passion. I absolutely love her and am so glad she gets to be back here at the end of October!

3. That same week my friend was here I went to my first concert since being back in the states and praise Jesus, it was $5 and at Common Grounds. Love. The artist was Steve Moakler and I actually had never heard his music until like 2 months ago when I saw that he was coming to Common Grounds. I had heard of his name because he's friends with a lot of other musical artists I like. So I started on a kick of nothing but Steve Moakler for the longest time leading up to the concert. I went with a freshman friend and her roommate and then we ran into one of her guy friends while waiting in line, so we all hung out and concerted it up together. It was lots of fun to get to hang out with people I don't see all the time and make new friends.

4. I've started volunteering for my Poverty in Waco class at the church I go to down here with this program they do every Friday night called FEAST. It's a meal and a sort of church service, ministry time for the poor. It's really cool. I sit with the people and try to talk to them and get to know them and engage them in the service. It's hard because I'm not as comfortable around adults, and being a new volunteer is weird because almost all the other volunteers have been doing it forever/are adults so I feel a little out of place, but whatever. There's this one guy I've sat with the past 2 weeks named Carl who is a sweet old man who I hope I'll get to know more.

5. Once forever ago at the beginning of the year, I was a Welcome Week Leader.
6. I've gotten better at Tai Chi. I have my midterm next week. Eek.
7. I made a recipe I found on Pinterest. It was a rousing success.
9. I actually did something for Labor Day and went to Austin.
10. Then I went to the only Baylor game I've gone to all year. Boo away games and schedule conflicts. But I saw a friend from Indiana who's at SMU this semester! That was a blasty blast.

That's all I...WAIT. NO IT'S NOT. I almost forgot about another one of my favorite moments from this past week.
11. Thursday, I went to lunch with my sociology professor. I absolutely love his class because he is so unique in the way he does things and he definitely makes class and learning fun for everyone. He also does awesome stuff like invite whoever to go to lunch in the dining hall with him. So I did. Granted, I probably wouldn't have gone if my one friend in the class wasn't going either and he's kind of a legend in class now because of his social norm breaking, so yeah. Haha either way, lunch was really a good experience. I think my professor [Kevin, as he asks us to call him] said it best. He said something to the effect that Baylor is a top research university with the heart of a liberal arts college. So we get the amazing opportunity to be able to not only go to great big sporting events and the like, but also enjoy the chance to get to go to lunch with professors and it not be out of place. Baylor's in the sweet spot of higher education and I'm so glad I took advantage of that sweet spot to go to lunch with a professor! Not many people get that chance, so sic 'em bears. Haha

Indiana friends!

Pinterest success.

postcard perfect weekend.

Waco's very own castle!

living the dream.

like tumbleweed

I feel a bit like tumbleweed.
Can't settle, always moving.
Changing, gathering, growing.

Well this was going to be just a poem, but I'm not really feeling the poetry wave right now, so I'm just gonna write some. So yeah. Tumbleweed. My life. I'm back in Waco and while I am enjoying it, I feel out of place. I don't really get it. I mean, maybe it's the whole being gone a semester when so much happened and so many people I loved transitioned out of college so I feel a bit like a newbie even though clearly I'm not. I wasn't in contact as easily and even when I was back in the States for the summer, I still didn't have Texas contact very much. But let's be real, I know Baylor. But I feel like everything I don't anymore. This is one of those moments where I'm like oh yeah, well God's the same yesterday, today, and tomorrow so shoot, even though I feel like I'm just floating around in all the weird feelings, I've still got God who's always been the same whether I'm in Scotland, having the greatest summer of my life, or back in the Wack. I can hold onto Him and trust Him to bring me foundation. Consistency? I'm not really sure; all I know is that I'm a mix of all sorts of feelings about anything and everything going on in my life right now, so ask me how I'm feeling and anything could really go. Because I'm happy, I'm sad, I'm upset, I'm excited, I'm scared, I'm frustrated, I'm wishful.
So much has happened in myself since I was last in Waco and so much has happened in Waco since I was here too. It's like I've grown, and now my clothes don't fit? Is that a weird metaphor? Maybe, but it kind of works. Like the things I'm used to are still here, they're just not the same. I'm kind of tired of change. I thrive on sameness, routine, whatever you want to call it. So the fact that I feel uprooted is hard. Being back in the States after Scotland is hard. Being back in Waco after an amazing summer is hard. But I'll get back into the swing of things eventually, I can only pray. I've gotten used to always meeting new people and being in new situations for the longest time; I feel like that's all my life is and while it's got its pluses [shout out Scottish/study abroad friends, SpringHill buds!], I'm stuck in a rut of missing it all when I'm back to what I called my second home, but it doesn't feel that way. I'm trying to live in the now, but it's hard when I'm not comfortable with it all yet again and everything I held so close is so many miles away. What is this? I sound so weird right now. I don't even know if that's really what it is...it just kinda came out like that? But I'm too lazy to try to think of a better way to describe it.
Well, if there's one thing I'm missing that isn't a person or whatever, it's definitely the UK/European educational system. I've got to go do a bunch of homework and study for a big quiz...and wake my napping roommate. Ha.

study abroad videos

I should probably post this on my study abroad blog, but that's gone into hiatus so no one's going to read it anymore and I'm really only posting these videos for those of you who read my blog and maybe don't get on facebook or have one at all, but would enjoy these videos! Also, the second one got removed because I don't have copyright to technically use the songs I did in it so that's a bummer. Hope it is still okay to try to put it on here. I'm not trying to break copyright; I just want to have a cool video!

springhill lovin' had me a blast

Time certainly flies when you're having fun. This summer is pretty much over and I'm in shock at how quickly it went. I feel like it was just yesterday that I was driving to Seymour with a future coworker I barely knew, and now I know so many more people and every time we're together it is the best! I remember being overwhelmed going to training knowing no one, but now here I am finished with Week 8 and thus, my summer with SpringHill, and all those unfamiliar faces are the faces of good friends. I love looking back and seeing that change. I remember in training, they talked about how by week 5 or 6 you have everything down and you barely even need your curriculum book...I didn't think that'd ever come...but it's so true! I still use it, but I pretty much know the stories like the back of my hand and I love it. Our memory verse this summer has been Jeremiah 29:11-13 and believe me, I can recite it on a dime complete with motions, yet it has only been in the last week or so that I've really thought about what it says. It's such a promise-filled few verses and a great reminder for the future and all. I am constantly reminded of how I need to seek God and seek Him wholeheartedly to really find Him. I know He has a great plan for me, but hey, sometimes we all forget when things get crazy...He's not going to harm us! His plan will prosper us; His plan gives us hope! Oh what a beautiful thing.
I can't begin to tell you how thankful I have been for this summer. I knew from the minute I got off the phone after my interview, that I was supposed to work for SpringHill and I am ever so thankful that things didn't end up working out with another camp that I had wanted to work for maybe a little more at the start. I say it a lot but, I'll say it again, the Indy Day Camps team is the best. I love every one so much. It's going to be weird going back to school and 'normal' life without them. I have been so blessed by the encouragement my teammates give me and how challenged we are to grow in our faith daily. I needed that this summer for sure.
Going through SpringHill withdrawal. It's weird not being at the next site setting up Eurobungy, unpacking the trailer and finding out who my co for the week is. I'm done. I can sleep in Monday morning. I might even miss having dance parties every morning. Not seeing the people I've seen pretty much every day for the past 9 weeks is going to take some getting used to. Honestly though, saying goodbye on Friday wasn't as bad as I thought it'd be. Maybe I'm just weird and don't get emotional over goodbyes...but that's not true because the week before when it was only like 4 people leaving, I was on the verge of tears. Maybe it was because I knew I still had one more week and this week, almost everyone was done with camp so it wasn't like I was still working or missing out on as much? Who knows, but it creeps me out a little that I wasn't sadder. Maybe it just hasn't hit me; I'm not really a crier though, and I am missing everyone. 
My prayer for myself as I will soon be heading back to Texas for school is that I won't forget everything I learned this summer; I want to be able to apply the things I applied to myself this summer to my school life...like constantly relying on God for strength, trying to step out of my comfort zone, also that I will be able to keep in touch with friends from the summer too! I don't want these friendships to just be short-lived, so many of these people I met mean so much to me and I can only pray that our friendships are meant to last!
I know this summer will be one that I won't forget and I am so blessed by it. Let's end this post with some fun photos of the summer, sure?

Week 1

hi-ad team minus steph

Michigan Smith skit

rock wall pros

awesome area!

internal processor

this is more for me because i need a quick write and my mind is spinning, but also for whoever actually reads this and knows me to some extent.
Just some things that are rolling through my mind right now. Today I guess was a really stressful day or something, because tonight as I was alone driving to Carmel, getting lost and hitting a breaking point to where I was feeling so overwhelmed/frustrated that I kept missing my turns and that traffic was bad, I found myself in tears. It was at that point that I was reminded of how glad I was to be going to Bible study because I'm Jesus deficient right now, even though I'm working at a camp that is all about Jesus. I also was reminded how I need my alone time and apparently I'd hit that point where I needed it bad, so also not completely pumped to be going to hang out with lots of people. I love my team, don't get me wrong at all, but I haven't had a lot of decompression time and the kids this week, even though they are smaller numbers, can be hard to handle. I don't even know where I'm going with this anymore.
Another thing, I know God loves me and I know that I'll never be able to comprehend it, but sometimes I forget or something. We read Luke 15:1-10 tonight and there's so much in there. Lost people, giving 100%, a loving God, found people. A lot of the time I think, I'm not living in that joy of knowing that I am loved no matter what and I am saved by grace and should be excited to share that with others. I think a lot of the time I get caught up in myself or distractions or worry about what others will think or that I'm not good enough, but I pray that I won't forget my value in God and I will be filled with a sense of urgency to go out and find those people who need God. Also, I'm not a huge expresser of emotion so even if I am really excited or something, I am not always good at effectively displaying it. I think another thing is that I'm not much of a sayer, I listen and am more to myself processing as opposed to hashing it out with others. Sometimes I'm down with that, but I'm horrible at articulating what I'm thinking so mostly I just sit and people look at me and I feel awkward never talking, but I don't know what to say or how to say it or someone else says what I was thinking so I'm like...yeahhh. Sigh, it's just frustrating to me and it's probably frustrating to other people that I'm not a talker, because I feel like that's the only way to get to know people more and I feel like I can't talk to anyone in real life well enough for them to really know me and I hate it. I don't want to dwell on this too long because I know again, God has a plan and a purpose for my life being how it is. There's a lot more I'm thinking about, but I need to get to sleep soon so I'm not crabby, I think that was part of it too tonight; I was tired and hot and that makes me crabby and easily frustrated. But again, so much of tonight has got me thinking about seeking the lost, applying myself to helping others find God, being reminded of God's great love for me, trying to figure out how I can be found by God, getting uncomfortable for Jesus...boy oh boy.
Just give me more Jesus.
Prayer:
1. Mentioned earlier, for a constant reminder of who I am in Christ, loved, valued, worth it...be content with who/how I am.
2. That I will be filled with excitement and urgency for sharing the good news of God with others.
3. Help me to be able to share more with other people and make those deeper connections with teammates and even our campers this week too since it is a smaller week.
4. Patience.
5. Quality alone time. Hey just remembered tomorrow is solo time in the morning..although I was semi-excited for another small morning meeting...
I think that's it and I hope this makes some sense, even in writing sometimes I can't articulate my thoughts very well. Sigh. It's all good. Thanks for reading.

look everybody, look who's back again!

So I still have to close my Scotland blog, but I don't have my journal with me that has what I want to end it with, so I'm bringing back this blog since it's been forever since I've blogged and I don't want to lose it. I want my blog to stay alive! Hopefully people will still be reading this. Ha.
Anyways, since being back from Scotland, things have been crazy. I only had 4 days at home until I headed down to Seymour, IN for training for working with SpringHill Day Camps- Indy Team! I was apprehensive about it at the start just because I was going in knowing no one or totally what I was getting myself into and not having that much time to process study abroad. I still feel like I haven't found closure on study abroad because I haven't had much time to really sit and take time to write my thoughts. I did a little before I left for Seymour, but didn't have time to finish or get it on my blog so when I'm home again, I will hopefully finish it! 
This is week 3 of day camps and so far, I'm really loving it. Last week was a rough week for me on the camper front. My campers were hard to deal with in many ways, but I made it through and am so blessed to have a team that looks out for each other. I'm realizing how every week is entirely different even if we are doing the same curriculum and the same activities; the campers and how everything flows is a little different at each location so I have to continually reminding myself that it's not going to be rainbows and butterflies every week and I have to rely on God. I can't do this on my own.
I know some people probably don't know exactly what I'm doing this summer, and I don't want to get super into it so I'll try to give a short synopsis. Basically we do day camp at different churches or schools every week; if you know SpringHill, we bring that experience the best we can to a day camp setting. We have flying squirrel and other high adventure activities as well as the classics like water and archery and tie dye. We have small groups and the big thing with SpringHill is how we incorporate faith and fun in everything we do. So we don't keep the Jesus stuff to just large group or small groups, but after everything we do we debrief it and try to have the kids make connections to the Bible stories we read or just God in general. It's great. I think that's one of the really neat things about SpringHill. I'm also as I said earlier, so blessed by this team. Everyone is amazing. Being in Scotland and not super connected into any church or with Christians was hard, especially since at Baylor I've got a great community of support. So coming back and basically going straight into camp with God at the core is nice. We have different areas that we do morning meetings and are the people we are partnered with throughout the summer and my group's pretty legit. It's actually not really been complete ever, but it's cool. Also, we have set-up and tear-down teams and I got placed on the high adventure team. At first I thought that was going to be horrible to be perfectly honest because high ad is really complex and is like all the really intense activities. But praise Jesus, it's not horrible at all. Some days it is frustrating because things don't work right or whatever, but the people on the team are legitimately some of my favorite people. I know they always say you shouldn't pick favorite campers, but no one said anything about picking favorite other counselors or whatever. Haha. But really, I'm in love with our whole Indy Day Camp team. Everyone is so encouraging and so much fun. Sometimes it is hard for me because I'm definitely an introvert and being around people constantly and having to be full of energy wears on me. I relish my alone time, which thankfully does exist even if it is in small doses.
To end this, I'd love to leave you with some prayer requests:
1. First, that I will remember to rely on God and to find my strength in Him and not myself and to look to Him to be filled up each day.
2. For this coming week, that I will work well with my co-counselor and that our kids will be better than the kids I had last week.
3. That the friendships I am forming will deepen into lasting relationships, not just for the summer.
4. That I won't let Satan bring me down in feeling like I'm not a good enough counselor or anything like that. That I will remember I am loved and valued by God and comparing myself to others isn't productive.

Thanks lovely readers!

important news!

Hey friends, readers, whoever,
As some of you probably know, I'm studying abroad this coming semester in Edinburgh, Scotland! I am going to make a separate blog for my study abroad adventures. Please add it to your favorites or whatever if you're interested in reading about my experiences across the pond!

http://bagpipebeth.blogspot.com/

yeah. this blog will be on hiatus while i'm abroad. so go to bagpipe beth! =)

we've got to rise up

this is probably going to be a work in progress blog. like i'm starting it at 11:09 pm on January 3rd but it probably won't get posted till later because I'll have more to add to it.
so let's start by saying that sometimes i really hate technology but now is not one of those times. some generous people made it possible for the Passion 2012 conference to be streamed live from Atlanta so people all over the world can experience it too! Last night I watched David Crowder* Band's last performance as a full band. I may have gotten a little emotional but it was fantastic albeit the abrupt ending because the stream stopped and then they did an encore which the stream wasn't restarted for. meh. Then today I watched part of the first session live. Then I watched the last session live which was amazing. It was my first time hearing Francis Chan speak and let me tell you. That man is filled with passion for Jesus and the Word. He has been blessed. He is so powerful, yet what he speaks is so simple. Beautiful. After that ended I decided to watch the middle session of today that I missed. I didn't watch it straight through; I skipped some singing stuff but once Christine Caine started speaking I watched to the end. And that's where my title of this post comes from. Matt Redman and some others wrote this song called "27 Million" the number of slaves that exist TODAY in the world. It is going to be released to secular radio in the UK and US and eventually Australia. I can't wait to see how God moves in the world through that song. The chorus is "We've got to rise up..." oops sorry I don't remember it anymore. Just you wait till spring when it kicks off on the radio and BE MOVED.
It's now Wednesday afternoon. Just finished watching the afternoon session. I watched the morning session too. This is the life. I love getting to experience Passion to some extent from home. Obviously it isn't exactly the same, missing out on the community groups and such, but it's pretty dang good. You get the worship, the speakers, the emotions. It's awesome.
The hardest part for me though is how I feel so much and I want to be able to do things, to make a difference, to help stop human trafficking [that's a lot of the focus of this conference this year], but there's only so much I can do. Christine Caine said something this afternoon that encouraged me to not lose heart. PRAYER. People, it works! She said it's something we all can do. Don't discount what a difference it makes. She went on to share this story: I don't remember when exactly it was, maybe it was legitimately 3 days ago? Anyways, we're gonna go for it. So someone felt like the girls of the "-stan" nations needed some real prayer. This person posted on their twitter "Pray for the girls of the -stan nations." People prayed. 3 days pass and there comes word to A21? [that's Christine's organization created to bring restoration and freedom to girls caught in sex trafficking] that 11 girls from Uzbekistan were freed in northern Greece. That apparently never happens and was a huge deal. The girls share their part of the story. They said that 3 days earlier they had been praying to Allah to get them out of the hellhole they were in. They'd been praying that for a year. Then they remembered someone who had told them about this God of Europe who they remembered his name was Jesus..so they prayed to Jesus something like "If you're really real, get us out of here!" and then 3 days later they are freed! PRAYER WORKS. that's really what I'm getting at here. If you feel like you can't do anything, just pray. It's miracle bringing. It's encouraging when you feel overwhelmed by everything and want to make a difference. You can! Pray. AH! I love it.
Also, please check out www.slaveryfootprint.org and find out how many slaves are working for you. That sounds awful, but it's true. Everything you've eaten, bought, what you're wearing was most likely made possible because of a slave. It's a little hard to take in, but we can change it! The creators of the site are creating resources and this app and ways we can share with the stores etc to bring awareness and to make a change in the industry so less things are slave-created, more slaves can be freed, and what we consume as a world will not be made by someone in slavery. Share your footprint with others so more people can jump on board and things can change!
I don't want to be a part of the stragglers who do nothing, who hide out but say "Yes! We did it!" when great things happen. I want to be like Jonathan and his weapon bearer who went and took on the army of Philistines because they knew God was with them. If I'm not a Jonathan then I want to be a part of the second group who sees those few going and then they support and help out the few to bring about the ultimate outcome of freedom or whatever movement. (Check out 1 Samuel 14 if you want to read the thing straight from the Word of God!)
I realize this blog is very choppy, but I'm hoping someone will get something out of this. There's a lot to take in, maybe you should just check out http://live.268generation.com/all-sessions/ and get a dose of Jesus for yourself!

don't wear it out

I'm tempted to go to bed without ringing in the new year. Honestly, I'm a bit over it. Having parties and watching a ball drop on TV is just sort of lame. Sure it's a new year, but it's not like it's going to be drastically different world when the clock hits midnight. Let's be real. It's already 2012 in half the world. It's been 2012 in Australia for like ever. [I don't know the time difference but isn't it like 10 hours? I have no clue.] Although I think it'd be neat to be in Times Square for the New Year, I can't say I see any reason to celebrate this day any different than any other. We should be thankful we've made it this far. Thank God for all the good He's brought and thank Him for bringing us through the trials. He provides and will continue to provide regardless of whether it's a new year or not. I don't know. I'm just feeling a little cynical about the whole craze about a new year. Why does the new year get celebrated but not a new month? No one posts Facebook statuses saying "Yes, April's been great, can't wait to see what May's got in store!". Maybe I should start something. ha.
Whatever. Party on, friends. I'll probably be sleeping. Might as well live up to my nickname my roommates pegged for me. Might as well ring in the new year like any other night...sleeping before midnight. I'm probably the coolest kid there is. I'm more in a chill mood, rather than a whoooohoooo mood so that's probably why at this time I could care less it's going to be 2012 in like 2 hours. I'm so exciting.