I wish mizzou had this

sigh

Oh college, filled with....unique and interesting people. As much as I love being in college I can't wait to 1. not live in a dorm and 2. not have to be waken up every night at 3 am by loud drunk people. I have yet to sleep 3 straight hours this week for various reasons. Last night was a rude reminder of many things. For one it reminded me why I don't drink and why I'm not interested in it. It also reminded me of, even though I don't miss living at home I do miss having my own room with no one else around to wake me up. Most of all it reminded me of how much I love the church.
I'm going to try and explain last night as best as I can even though I'm not 100% on a few of the details. There's a girl on my floor who's a friend of my roommate, lets just say that this girl is exactly opposite of myself in morals and behavior. When she gets completely hammered she gets bipolar and will get really mad at people. Apparently last night she slugged a guy in the back for no real reason and was trying to fight with him. Her friend who's here for the weekend is usually able to control her but ever since she's been at college apparently (sorry I'm going to use apparently a lot when explaining this) her drinking habits have changed for the worse or something of that sort where the friend can't control her anymore. These two have been best friends since freshman year of high school and know everything about each other and are attached at the hip. Apparently the girl was exceptionally violent to the friend in a way that's inexcusable. My roommate and the girl's roommate were walking around, sober thank goodness, and found them. I'm not sure what exactly happened but something went on and the girl threw the friend's stuff out of her room. At this point I got woken up at 3:30 by the friend coming into my room crying followed by my roommate who was trying to help her. To make a long story short everyone was up in my room till about 5 trying to get the girl to figure out what she was doing was not right. Though in my opinion this seemed impossible since she was blacking out and probably won't remember anything. Apparently this particular situation was so bad that their friendship is really dicey right now. Well the friend slept in our room last night and none of us really know what the girl's reaction is going to be now that she's sober or for that matter if she's gonna remember any of this.
Reflection time. I wish with all my heart that she remembers last night and realizes what excessive drinking is tearing apart her friendships. First off even though I never really considered drinking and partying, I really don't now. I see what an excess does to relationships and to the person themselves. I'm just glad none of my close friends in stl were ever like this so I didn't/don't have to deal with this personally. At the moment I'm just a bystander and that's the most I ever want my involvement in situations like this to be. It reminds me even more of how I need to establish strong relationships with the girls in my bible study and the people at RUF because I need people that see the world as I do.
I find it ironic that for the first 18 years of my life I had biblical influences around me 24/7 and yet now with hardly any influence my faith is strongest. I guess being in the minority makes you realize certain things. First off when I had it around me all the time it just became routine and mundane and annoying. I was tired of a Christian school that forced us to go to chapel every wednesday. Now that I don't have the family and school around all the time I actually enjoy going to church. For most of my life I saw church services (not youth group)as a negative thing and just another thing I was required to do. But now I love those times when I'm at The Crossing or RUF and listening to sermons. For instance I woke up early this morning to go to The Crossing and it felt so good to get off of campus and away from the influence of the dorm for just an hour. I think that being outside the Christian bubble and seeing what everyone else is like has made me that much more thankful for Christianity and the fact that I know what true happiness is and where to put the center of my world. It's kind of that old addage of you don't know what you have until you don't have it anymore. A parallel that I can make is kind of like dorm food. It just gets so old having the same pre cooked stuff every day that's from a menu. You want a home cooked meal so bad and when you eventually get one it's the best thing in the world. That's how I felt this morning when I went to church. I'm tired of getting woken up every morning by drunk people and dealing with them that when I stepped out of the dorm and spent that 1.5 hours at church this morning it was one of the best feelings I've had in a long time. I felt like I could breathe and chill out for a little while. They sung In Christ Alone and at the point I felt closer to God than I have in a while. Cause I'm always around people and don't have time or personal space to chill out. I know this is extremely cliche but lately God has truely become my refuge from all of this. I now know what that saying means and love it. I've always enjoyed bible studies/small groups in the past but about half the reason I went is to socialize with my friends. Now, even though I go to build up relationships with the other kids in the bible study, I primarily go because for some reason hearing people talk about the Bible makes me feel at home and gives me relief for a bit.
I don't know why I've been tying everything back to religion lately but it's strange. I guess I never relized how big of a deal it was, I never really understood how to make Chrisitanity your identity and not just another label, but now I know and I'm alright with being in the minority.

glowing mtn dew

will somebody please do this. marta and allie you guys need to do this in some skit at krew or something

early bird

this morning I was reminded of why I love being a morning person. Being that it's been cloudy, cold, and rainy the past few weeks the sun has been conspicuously missing. This morning was a particularly good morning. First off because the morning weather at 6 am wasn't 30 degrees but rather 55. So my walk to the rec was infinitely better than usual. Secondly I haven't worked out since the tournament this weekend so felt awesome get back in the gym. Thirdly I was able to go to the gym and walmart (which was so nice because there weren't a million people to dodge around) before 8. Fourthly the sunrise was beautiful. It was starting to come up when I came out of the rec at about 6:30 and was all the way up by the time I got to walmart at 7ish. Early mornings are just a great time of day that not many people get to enjoy willingly a lot. I love being an early bird and would never switch it for being a night owl for the world.

postsecret

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frisbee

It seems that every progressive tournament I go to the more I love frisbee. It's an awesome sport with awesome people. When we're not playing frisbee we play games. My favorite is pokey ,which despite the fact that I'm left handed and always have to play with my right hand I'm pretty darn good. Look down look up (where everyone looks down and when told so look at someones eyes and if they're looking back both are out), the ninja game which is too complicated to describe but it involves awesome ninja sounds. And one of the funniest, monster trucks, where everybody gets on hands and knees in a circle and have to get to the other side in a straight line-everybody ends up crawling over and under each other which makes for great entertainment. I also discovered t-rex style playing which we obviously don't do for games but it's one of the funniest things I've ever seen(the video doesn't do it justice). I'm also finally getting to know the people on the team. Especially one vet who's a sophomore who's basically been my coach and encourager whether I'm playing good or bad. Probably one of my favorite people at the moment.

off to an ultimate tournament in Wisconsion!

thought of the day

I was talking with one of my friends in my Bible study the other day. Her mom told her something I'll keep to heart. You need a mentor, someone you're mentoring, Christian friends, and non-christian friends mixed in. Well 2.5 out of 4 ain't bad.

postsecret

jim and pam

The office was amazing this week. I have loved that show since about the 2nd season. I honestly thought they were going to make michael overbearing in this episode, and even though he was slightly annoying I think they kept it at as much as a minimum as possible. I have to say that my favorite part of the episode was the scene where they imitate the youtube video of the really cool wedding entrance to 'forever'. Probably my favorite scene in the series so far. If it comes up on youtube for a day or two I'll try and get it up before it gets taken down by the powers that be.

battleship

I was having a nostalgic moment remembering the amazingness that is battleship

ultimate

We had an ultimate frisbee tournament this weekend. It was probably one of the best weekends I've ever had. Granted I'm extremely sore but it was completely worth it. I learned a lot about tournament play/the ultimate community/parties. First off I love the ultimate community, they are probably some of the coolest people I've ever met. There's no hostility between teams and even though everybody there is super competitive we don't let that get in the way of having a good time. I made friends with a lot of the kids on the other teams. After a game both teams would play the pokey game (the one where you try and poke the other person with your finger while holding their hand) and some really cool and confusing ninja game. The people in the ultimate community are very down to earth people know how to compete but also have a lot of fun doing it. Secondly, I went to my first college party. By definition it was only for the teams playing in the tournament it was still a college party. Even though it was quite an experience and I don't mind going on tournament weekends, it's not really my thing. I happily was and will remain to be the designated driver. But, I have to say ultimate players know how to throw a good party. I was fine chilling on the wall with my dr. Pepper while watching beer pong and keg stands with the other designated drivers. Also, the girls on my team are awesome. They're such a chill group of people who are easy to get along with. There is not a single person on the team that I don't like. And out of a group of about 18 girls the odds are that there should be at least one person who is disfunctional. To sum it up, it was awesome and I can't wait to do it 2 more times this month.

We're reading 'go tell it on the mountain' in my history class. If you didn't know, the book is about a black pentecostal family sometime in the early to mid 20th century. Being that it focuses a lot about the family's Christian religion I understand the book very easily and find it just as simple to read as any other book. The terminology that is used in the book is second nature for me to understand. But, I figured out that when I went to the lecture part of the history class that I was pretty much the only one who found the reading easy.
The thing is that I'm so use to growing up with a christian family, school, and friends that I forgot that not everyone understands Christianity like I do. Everybody is on the same page about a lot of topics. In class I was the only one who was able to answer questions the teacher asked. I never realized how nice it was to be around people who think the same way you do and have the same morals as you (I can talk for an hour about how my morals are different than other kids on campus and in my dorm). I'm so use to being forced into 5 years of Bible classes and school and going to a Christian school where the religion is always being pressed into you. All the terminology and behaviors associated with Christianity become second nature. This thought just popped into my head-it's interesting how religion is such an important part of life that we have entire schools devoted to people that belong to that particular religion.
My main point is that it's weird to be in a classroom talking about Christianity and nobody knows anything. I answered a question about the difference between the modern liberalist (a sort of messed up kind of "christianity" according to the article) view of Jesus and what the New Testament shows Jesus as being. I answered it fairly easily and in an educated kind of way because those are the questions I've been having to provide answers to since 2nd grade. Some of the kids seemed surprised at my answer I guess because I answered it indepth in a way that noone else would have been able to. It's deffinetly a different atmosphere.

this is part of 'christianity v liberalism' an article i had to read for history class. The whole entire article is about 8 pages and very interesting but I can't attach a microsoft word document.

"This doctrine is of course rejected by modern liberalism. And it is rejected in a very simple way--by the elimination of the whole higher nature of our Lord. But such radicalism is not a bit more successful than the heresies of the past. The Jesus who is supposed to be left after the elimination of the supernatural element is at best a very shadowy figure; for the elimination of the supernatural logically involves the elimination of much that remains, and the historian constantly approaches the absurd view which effaces Jesus altogether from the pages of history. But even after such dangers have been avoided, even after the historian, by setting arbitrary limits to his process of elimination, has succeeded in reconstructing a purely human Jesus, the Jesus thus constructed is found to be entirely unreal. He has a moral contradiction at the very center of His being--a contradiction due to His Messianic consciousness. He was pure and humble and strong and sane, yet He supposed, without basis in fact, that He was to be the final Judge of all the earth! The liberal Jesus, despite all the efforts of modern psychological reconstruction to galvanize Him into life, remains a manufactured figure of the stage. Very different is the Jesus of the New Testament and of the great Scriptural creeds. That Jesus is indeed mysterious. Who can fathom the mystery of His Person? But the mystery is a mystery in which a man can rest. The Jesus of the New Testament has at least one advantage over the Jesus of modern reconstruction--He is real. He is not a manufactured figure suitable as a point of support for ethical maxims, but a genuine Person whom a man can love. Men have loved Him through all the Christian centuries. And the strange thing is that despite all the efforts to remove Him from the pages of history. There are those who love Him still. "