Where'd it go??

So not to keep going back to the same point, but until now, i have been a relatively healthy person. I never really HAD to stay in...for sickness anyway. Then last week the whole McAlister's incident. Well, Thursday, i had a sore throat...by Friday i had a severe case of strep. I'm recovering...antibiotics are wonderful. I can't say who gave me strep....although there are a few possibilities. See, once my immune system was down from my stomach virus/flu thing, it hasn't had a chance to recover. I live in a germ pit. I'm not being mean. I live with 32 girls, so there is little choice but for it to be in a germ pit. Well, since the only thing i really do is sleep there, it wouldn't really be bad, but then I work in a germ pit. Once again, not being mean. I work with toddlers. So maybe when i find that respite i've been waiting for, I'll be healthy again, but until then, I drudge to the germ pits.

Pain: not a depressing post

So right now, i am in some intense pain...i really have no idea what i did, but my back is rebelling against the common misconception that your body is supposed to move. (Like i said, i don't know what i did, but it could have something to do with my trying to attack heather last night.) Any way, i have been sitting here, trying not to move, or laugh which heather (and mike online) have been making me do all night. Just warning you all, i have been very pensive lately. God has really been working in my life, and i am really excited about it. It amazes me that i see God doing so much in my life, but i am searching more than ever about what i believe, and i feel like i know less now than i ever have in my whole life. Maybe that's how it is, maybe when you have no idea where you are, you can rely on God more. It's really like pain, the more you are in, the more you can rely on the doctor, and people around you, instead of pushing through life trying to make it on your own. God is amazing because he can take something that looks worthless and hopeless and mold it into something so amazing and breathtaking, that people will come from miles away, just to see the transformation.

Well, i'm gonna go find some painkillers...mike your mental one isn't working...

Not for those with weak stomachs

A legacy has ended. A fear overcome. Neither by my choice. Those with weak stomachs may want to stop reading now, but i know that sense of adventure will keep you reading on. Don't say i didn't warn you. Saturday started like any other sat. I got up, went to "storytime with Bob" (a.k.a. visitation), and then went about doing various random things that i can't write about due to the possibility of disciplinary action...lol. I hadn't been feeling well since Tues., but i didn't think much of it...because i hadn't felt good since tues, and i felt the same, so why should i stay in the little box they try to call a room and sleep, when i could be out having fun with my friends? So out i went to Mcalisters. McAlisters is definitely one of my favorite places in the world. We got our typical nacho basket, which i didn't really feel like eating, so after a handful of chips or so, i called it quits on that. For another two hours, i sat there talking, chatting, and having a good old time. I was talking to my good friend mike, when i had this intense urge to leave. (Mike had just told me i should go home and lie down) I asked the girls if we could go, and then it was all over. The poor cali's crew had a floor to clean, and i was in the bathroom...(don't say i didn't warn you). Now, when your food...revisits you in public, it can be a quite embarrassing situation. Add that to the trauma of not throwing up in 12 years, and having 4 friends running around trying to help and it can lend itself (looking back) to be a pretty funny incident. Pretty much, Sunday didn't exist for me, as i slept about 21 hours of it away. Here i am sitting in a mail room about to go to work when i should be in my little box of a room sleeping away a monday. O well...at least i've kept my jello and popsicles down so far.

Redneck day...

Though i have been living in the south for about three years now, i have tried hard to ignore my surroundings and go on living like the good yankee i am. Well, today was an exception. I allowed myself to be included in the most redneck day of all time. It all started on my way back from lunch (and my first piano lesson). I was riding along looking out the window and saw a side view mirror laying on the side of the road that looked very similar to the one that had been hanging off my friend's truck since she hit a mailbox last week. I looked on the door and realized that it was the mirror that HAD been hanging there when i saw several wires in the place where the mirror used to be. I told my friend who hadn't really noticed that the mirror had fallen off, so we pulled into the parking lot, and i, being the good friend i am, proceeded to walk the side of beavercreek to get to the mirror (that was much farther away than i seemed to remember). I finally got there and inconspicuously picked up the mirror (now when i say mirror, please understand that it is just the casing of the mirror, all the glass shattered out of it during the mailbox incident last week). I waved to the ppl i knew that were driving by, ran back to the truck, and continued to laugh about it for a good while.

We went back to the dorm to change before we went out for a day we hoped wouldn't be mind numbingly boring. While we were there, i went to the fridge and grabbed the mammoth pie my boss had given me on Friday and a few forks. So here we were, all three of us back in the truck (yeah the truck with no mirror) eating pie and listening to oldies. One of my friends was singing into her fork, thankfully she wasn't the one driving. We headed to one of our favorite hangouts...McKay's...it is only one of the coolest used bookstores in the entire world! We had to park in the overflow parking because the whole McKay's lot was full. We didn't think too much about it, parked and went in. I found a piano book, and my friends found various interesting books that were published cerca 1974. We paid and walked out to the truck. It was then we noticed the ginormous "pools and spas" service van behind us, and realized there was no possible way we were going to make it out with both the van and my friend's truck in one piece, well except the pieces my friend's truck was already in. We tried for a few minutes and then i trudged my way to the pools and spa store to ask if they wouldn't mind backing their huge van up about a foot and a half. The guy at the counter told me there was nothing he could do because he wasn't on "the list" of ppl that were allowed to drive it, and he wasn't really going to do anything about moving it. So i just stared at him. I told him that we really didn't WANT to hit the van, and he replied that he didn't want us to hit it either. Despite the desire he had that we not hit the van, he still wasn't going to offer me anyway to help the situation, so i asked him if anyone was there that could move it. He looked at me blankly, and then told me that if i go out and look around outside for a different guy, then that guy might be able to help me. Instead of trying to get anything else (like him finding his coworker for me) from this guy, i walked outside hoping to find the guy that was on "the list." Amidst the throng of people that had decided they wanted to check out McKay's today, i found a guy that looked like he might have worked with the jerk i had been talking to. I explained the situation, and he volunteered to get my friend's truck out for her. He got in and zipped it out in about five seconds...i don't think he was as nervous about the big van as we were. We all got back in the truck, which now that i think of it, was probably a little wierd to the guy that we had all gotten out in the first place. O well, that's what happens when a girl goes to a Christian college where you aren't really supposed to ride with any guy for any reason, unless you share part of their genetic code.

It's now only 5:15, so who knows how crazy the rest of our day could get, but so far...it's been interesting.

Searching isn't bad

Why is it that when someone questions a commonly held belief, most people have a heart attack, and practically call that person a heretic? I have come to this realization lately as I have been really evaluating the things I believe. I was blessed with a great church that has done a great job not only teaching me what to believe, but why to believe it, but even with that I want to strike out and my own and study and know the truth for myself. I refuse to be what many people in my generation have become content with. I refuse to answer any question with, “Well, I believe it because my church believes it.” Or “I believe it because that is what I am supposed to believe.” We sing that song Faith of our Fathers, but I want it to be mine. I love my church, and I am sure that anything I study out will be aligned with their doctrine, but I am determined to be a Berean and discover the truths of the Bible all over again. I want the truths not to just be something that someone told me once upon a time, but I want them to be real and living to me. God knows my heart, and I believe anyone searching for the truth will find it. It really concerns me how many guys I see everyday that are studying to go into the ministry and lead a church that are just going to teach the “things I learned that I am supposed to believe.” How can you tell someone about something when you are unsure of the veracity of it? How can you teach someone when you can’t explain to yourself why it is the truth.

Imagine walking into an ice cream shop and asking someone what you should try, and they adamantly tell you that a certain flavor is the best in the store. When you ask when they tried it, they tell you that they have never actually tried it, but they heard it was good. Wouldn’t you want to try if for yourself before you agree with them? It is just like salvation. How can you tell someone convincingly that God loves them if you have never experienced that soul altering love for yourself? God didn’t mean for us to be blind robot Christians. He didn’t mean for us to get our programming, and then go and do the good Christian things and live a life that is a mile and a half wide but only a half inch deep. I want to dig in, and find out what is really out there. I don’t just make it the faith of my fathers…I want to make it real to myself.

Don’t ever get down on someone who is genuinely searching for the truth. Help them, or maybe you should even join them.

It's not what you know

So i think it is about time that the last of us holding on to the integrity of the educational system of the US give it up, or should i say the integrity of the Christian educational system. I'm not specifying the Christian educational system because i have some affinity for the public school system or because i have some unexplained dislike for Christian schools. I guess we just expect public school kids to know nothing. I personally went to public school and received a very good education, but most people see the poster children of public schools to be kids that don't care, raised by parents who don't care, and taught by teachers who don't care. The Christian school is different, or at least it should be. The Christian school should be a school that teaches and challenges children, so that Christians can excel and glorify Christ in any field they feel God is leading. I used to have this ideal view of a Christian utopia when i thought of a Christian school.

I guess i should explain what has finally moved me from indifference to action (or at least blogging) on this subject. This morning i attended my first Teaching Math class. The book is a 5th grade math level, but people in the class are freaking out because they don't think they can do it. I am a junior in college, and i personally think we should be able to handle 5th grade math. That still isn't even the reason for this blog. The reason is, i am an elementary education major, and im taking classes with other education majors, and if our future teachers haven't been taught how to do these things without looking in a reference book for the rest of their lives how do we expect our childen to know the subject? And it's not just math, but every methods class we have. In my Teaching history and Geography class last semester, most of my classmates couldn't label a map of the US.

I still don't think that would be so bad if it wasn't for the fact that i have been at a Bible college for almost three years, and i don't feel like i have learned anything in class that someone who grew up in church their whole life doesn't already know. I have memorized more outlines from commentaries than i have memorized Bible verses. I know more about the authors of various books than i do about the authors of the old and new testaments. I can't really think that a school that was Such and Such college of engineering would really learn as little about engineering as i have learned about the Bible at "such and such" college of the Bible. I am not saying this is entirely the fault of my teachers. They walk into a classroom of students who genuinely don't want to learn. I am just as guilty, when i hear that a teacher is actually challenging, my first thought isn't "yes, i am going to learn something, and actually make good use of the money i am spending." It is more like "Man, why does he have to be like that, doesn't he realize that we have other classes and jobs and social lives?? Can't he just lighten up?" O well, that is why we need to dig in and learn on our own. We have so much at our finger tips...all of man's knowledge is a click away, and yet we are the most intellectually lazy people in all of history.

**This doesn't reflect on my school specifically I know that the faculty and administration are working very hard to ensure that we know as much as possible about the Bible, but they really have to start at the basics for some ppl. I'm not "bashing" Crown, but this is a blog and as such i have the right to express my opinions as i see fit...so get over it.

Moving on

Well, i'm back at school and i am sitting in a coffee shop. I can't believe im already back here; it feels like just yesterday we left. Of course, there are new ppl, and there are the ppl that everyone thought was coming back who came back, got their stuff and left. I am glad to be here, but i just can't help wanting to count down the days until the end of the semester. I guess i can just post it on here now since i've already told most of the ppl that i wanted to. This is my last semester here. I have really prayed about it and talked to my pastor about it and most likely, next year i will be a transfer student at Maranatha. I really can't believe this and i am keep wanting to kick myself, and ask myself, what are you thinking?!?!?! Im going to be a senior when i transfer, which means i will prolly have to stay there an extra year. I don't even know what credits are going to transfer yet, but i know God has something for me there, and i don't want to allow something as trivial as a year to prevent me from getting what He has for me. It is going to be hard. To be completely honest, i scared. I only know three people there that are going to be there next year. I am going to a new place with new rules and new people. I am going to have to develop a new routine. I am going to have to find a new job. Frankly, all of that makes me anxious. Yes, i mean anxious as in nervously excited. I know that one thing that is an answer to prayer is that if i want to there is a chance i can teach in a public school. I have always had a burden for public schools. Maybe cause i went to one for most of my life.

I am thankful for Crown and for all i have learned here, and i know that God has something to teach me here this semester. I know that God had a purpose for me to come here, and it was His will for me to come here, but now i believe He is telling me to move on.

On another note...my computer is being graphically challenged and i can't figure out why. I can't see half of the pictures on the pages i am looking at and it is driving me crazy!!!