i'm thinking about deleting my blog. it's becoming overwhelming to me, meaning i feel like i have to post stuff but i never really post what i want to. i end up saying what i've been doing, what i will be doing and then not posting for weeks or months at a time. i'd rather use my blog as more of a place for an outlet of thoughts or ideas, but i can't get them out in a way that i'm comfortable with people reading. i have lots of things to say, but don't have the time to put them into well written form.
Tuesday, July 29, 2008
Wednesday, June 4, 2008
back when i was in high school and college...
how is it already june??? seriously. when did that happen! kids alive is in a month and 10 days. this has been a major stress for me lately, especially with rima being in sudan right now- literally EVERYTHING is on my shoulders for this event to be successful. this is not what i was expecting when i "signed up". i'm honestly really happy to be doing kids alive this year and it's going to be great, but it's a whole lot to try to do on my own. the deadline is now in the foreseeable future, not just a date. it's getting to the point where there is no room to slack off and take a break from it. i have to focus my attention which is really hard to do right now. there is so much going on- finals, my best friend moving, the general excitement of summer (including jeff coming home, yay!), and the everyday things that don't tend to stop when i feel overwhelmed/stressed (aka work, school, random events etc).
i'm just excited to be done with june, get into the meat of july, and then be able to relax.
**last night was a ridiculously fun night filled with way too much laughter and complete insanity that i really needed and enjoyed :) [courtesy of beck, marianne, elisabeth, and melin (and of course claude...what a good fellow) also, i think some credit should go to the RIP pops man, shotgun!! men, and the "greetings" crew]
i'm just excited to be done with june, get into the meat of july, and then be able to relax.
**last night was a ridiculously fun night filled with way too much laughter and complete insanity that i really needed and enjoyed :) [courtesy of beck, marianne, elisabeth, and melin (and of course claude...what a good fellow) also, i think some credit should go to the RIP pops man, shotgun!! men, and the "greetings" crew]
Monday, May 12, 2008
a little bit about myself
i've been learning a lot about myself lately, specifically when it comes to writing.
i have discovered that i have a VERY hard time writing something "assigned" or with a deadline if i have things going on in my personal life that i haven't released verbally or on paper. sometimes even if i've talked or vented about it, i still need to write it out and just let it go. i'm a very emotional person and my emotions get in the way easily.
i was recently trying to write an article for the children's newsletter at church but i couldn't focus on it or get inspiration to write it. it was about kids alive, which is now on my mind about 75% of the time (that percentage is rapidly rising!). i have known about the article for a week or two, but the deadline snuck up on me and so i found myself trying to force my mind into thinking about it and what i needed say instead of just letting it flow out. something that should have taken me 30 mins to write ended up taking me several days of jotting down thoughts/ideas and then about an hour to put them together and transition them. and i'm still not happy with it. it's now printed, but i'm not content about it.
i think i've put my finger on why it was so hard. every time i would go to work on the article (even a week in advance), my mind would want to write about the current "big deals" in my life and it wouldn't let me focus on what i told it to focus on. i would write one terrible sentence about kids alive and then either lose complete control of the pen and start word vomiting on paper or just stop writing altogether. it was really annoying and just made me mad to the point that i just blocked out the article until literally the very last minute.
i don't know why i didn't just let myself journal and write what i wanted/needed to (i think i told myself i didn't have time? or that it wasn't important or something. dumb.). things would have been so much less stressful if i would have just taken care of things in order. i see that now and will hopefully be able to take care of problems like this quicker in the future.
*this is the reason for so much time between my blog posts. if the things on my mind are too personal to post on here and i don't choose to just write or talk them out, i don't write for weeks at a time.
i have discovered that i have a VERY hard time writing something "assigned" or with a deadline if i have things going on in my personal life that i haven't released verbally or on paper. sometimes even if i've talked or vented about it, i still need to write it out and just let it go. i'm a very emotional person and my emotions get in the way easily.
i was recently trying to write an article for the children's newsletter at church but i couldn't focus on it or get inspiration to write it. it was about kids alive, which is now on my mind about 75% of the time (that percentage is rapidly rising!). i have known about the article for a week or two, but the deadline snuck up on me and so i found myself trying to force my mind into thinking about it and what i needed say instead of just letting it flow out. something that should have taken me 30 mins to write ended up taking me several days of jotting down thoughts/ideas and then about an hour to put them together and transition them. and i'm still not happy with it. it's now printed, but i'm not content about it.
i think i've put my finger on why it was so hard. every time i would go to work on the article (even a week in advance), my mind would want to write about the current "big deals" in my life and it wouldn't let me focus on what i told it to focus on. i would write one terrible sentence about kids alive and then either lose complete control of the pen and start word vomiting on paper or just stop writing altogether. it was really annoying and just made me mad to the point that i just blocked out the article until literally the very last minute.
i don't know why i didn't just let myself journal and write what i wanted/needed to (i think i told myself i didn't have time? or that it wasn't important or something. dumb.). things would have been so much less stressful if i would have just taken care of things in order. i see that now and will hopefully be able to take care of problems like this quicker in the future.
*this is the reason for so much time between my blog posts. if the things on my mind are too personal to post on here and i don't choose to just write or talk them out, i don't write for weeks at a time.
Friday, May 9, 2008
matrimonia
the best way to answer the question, "what was your favorite part of your trip?" is to say, "oh, you know, the part where i got married..." [it gets better after that, depending on how well i know the person ;)] i've gotten some fun looks and some majorly confused people :)
so here's what happened. first of all, i blame everything on bailee and louis. and maybe [s]ack (he was in on some of the translation but i really can't blame him for anything).
anyway...it was the second day on the job site and there were several of us standing around talking to the kids and just having a good time. we were teaching each other words and stuff. it was honestly one of my favorite parts of the trip. so after maybe five minutes of this, 2 guys started walking over and tried to talk to us. of course, our spanish knowledge is minimal and their english knowledge is nonexistent, so it was very broken and confusing. we found out that their names were olman and louis. louis was trying to communicate the idea that olman liked me. bailee, being the only one of the two of us actually talking, decided that this was a good time to marry me off. thanks friend :)
so this is the part where i say "si." louis asked if i liked olman. now...it is pretty much impossible to explain in spanish the difference between liking someone as a friend/just liking them as a person in general and actually "liking" them. so all i really could say was yes. well apparently i should have said "no." louis then brought up the idea of "matrimonia" (for any nit-wits out there, that means MARRIAGE!!). and again, my lovely friend who apparently wants me to move away, have nine children and live in honduras for the rest of my life starts encouraging the idea of matrimonia! louis wanted to have the wedding that afternoon. bailee suggested tomorrow. again, thanks friend. you really saved my skin on that one! *note the sarcasm.
here's a picture of the little conversation...olman is in the hat and louis is hiding behind micah, trying to scheme with bailee. (*notice the smile on my face that says, "i'm going to kill you!" not, "thank you. this is fun...")
so that was pretty much the end of the conversation. we left it at "wedding tomorrow". to be honest though, i was worried and felt pretty bad about it all because that isn't extremely abnormal for their culture. i was a little bit scared that he would come the next day expecting something...thankfully he didn't. (BUT, i did have to explain to his parents at the end of the trip why i wasn't going to marry him. that was just awkward. i felt horrible.)
i obviously didn't get married on the trip, but i think i came just about as close as you can. i even picked who was going to be in the wedding and we had a bit of a bachelorette party in our hotel room/by the pool that night. [thank you Lord for this day!]
word spread about the marriage and i would see kids pointing and laughing or the kitchen ladies smiling at me whenever i turned around. it was pretty funny. my favorite lady "sign language" brought it up every day and would point at him then me and give me a hug :) she was great.
okay, that's all i got for this story. have fun with the comments :)
so here's what happened. first of all, i blame everything on bailee and louis. and maybe [s]ack (he was in on some of the translation but i really can't blame him for anything).
anyway...it was the second day on the job site and there were several of us standing around talking to the kids and just having a good time. we were teaching each other words and stuff. it was honestly one of my favorite parts of the trip. so after maybe five minutes of this, 2 guys started walking over and tried to talk to us. of course, our spanish knowledge is minimal and their english knowledge is nonexistent, so it was very broken and confusing. we found out that their names were olman and louis. louis was trying to communicate the idea that olman liked me. bailee, being the only one of the two of us actually talking, decided that this was a good time to marry me off. thanks friend :)
so this is the part where i say "si." louis asked if i liked olman. now...it is pretty much impossible to explain in spanish the difference between liking someone as a friend/just liking them as a person in general and actually "liking" them. so all i really could say was yes. well apparently i should have said "no." louis then brought up the idea of "matrimonia" (for any nit-wits out there, that means MARRIAGE!!). and again, my lovely friend who apparently wants me to move away, have nine children and live in honduras for the rest of my life starts encouraging the idea of matrimonia! louis wanted to have the wedding that afternoon. bailee suggested tomorrow. again, thanks friend. you really saved my skin on that one! *note the sarcasm.
here's a picture of the little conversation...olman is in the hat and louis is hiding behind micah, trying to scheme with bailee. (*notice the smile on my face that says, "i'm going to kill you!" not, "thank you. this is fun...")
so that was pretty much the end of the conversation. we left it at "wedding tomorrow". to be honest though, i was worried and felt pretty bad about it all because that isn't extremely abnormal for their culture. i was a little bit scared that he would come the next day expecting something...thankfully he didn't. (BUT, i did have to explain to his parents at the end of the trip why i wasn't going to marry him. that was just awkward. i felt horrible.)
i obviously didn't get married on the trip, but i think i came just about as close as you can. i even picked who was going to be in the wedding and we had a bit of a bachelorette party in our hotel room/by the pool that night. [thank you Lord for this day!]
word spread about the marriage and i would see kids pointing and laughing or the kitchen ladies smiling at me whenever i turned around. it was pretty funny. my favorite lady "sign language" brought it up every day and would point at him then me and give me a hug :) she was great.
okay, that's all i got for this story. have fun with the comments :)
Friday, April 18, 2008
i'm a girl
okay, i'm going to try to tackle these stories in order of comments...except those of you who said all of them ha. sorry it's taken so long to post again. most of you probably know what's been going on with my grandpa and that's been consuming a lot of my time. thankfully, he's been doing a LOT better and hopefully that will continue.
let me start off this story by saying that i really only pulled the "i'm a girl" card a couple times. here are some pictures of me working, just to prove it :)
we helped build 8 trusses!
let me start off this story by saying that i really only pulled the "i'm a girl" card a couple times. here are some pictures of me working, just to prove it :)
we helped build 8 trusses!
ignore my face :)
okay, so now that i feel like i've proven myself a little bit i will go into more of a story/explanation.
it was my full intent to capitalize on the fact that i was the only high school girl going on this trip. why not?? :)
so the very first day, we got to the job site and jeff brady was telling people what they could help with and when he got to bailee and i, he suggested that we leave the job site and go work in the kitchen to prepare breakfast. what a brilliant idea! we were getting out of physical work already. we got to the kitchen and really had no way to communicate (nancy was there to help translate a little bit but she was running around doing other things to make breakfast etc.) with the ladies or ask them how we could help, so we pretty much just stood there. then one of the women came up to me (note: she didn't go up to bailee [aka JUMBO]) and asked if i was hungry. i'm never hungry, but said yes because that's obviously the polite thing to do and partially because "si" is usually the go-to answer when you aren't sure what to say in spanish ha. so about two minutes later the woman comes back with a plate full of breakfast for me. she served it to me about 10 or 15 minutes before anyone else...i would assume because i'm small and probably look, to them, like i need to eat :)
what does this have to do with being a girl? well...the guys came a few minutes later, after working for probably about an hour moving bricks and supplies and i had already eaten, having done nothing at all except watch and stand awkwardly. oh what a life :)
now, i really feel the need to say that i don't recall very many times (or even one time?) where i just said, "no i can't do this, i'm a girl..."
BUT... my lovely friend bailee definitely won some heaven points and creepy points by telling the boys how amazing they were for all of the hard work they were doing, as well as how funny, manly, strong, etc. they were. and i think the amount of times she did that is probably enough to blanket for me, or even the entire female population. haha it makes me proud.
[i think i remember once saying that i didn't want to do something because i was tired and one of the guys did it for me, but i really don't remember it. anyone know what that was? it's bugging me now.]
so this wasn't really the best story, sorry jer and everyone who read it. but the moral is, if you're a girl, you get the easier work and food first even (and especially) when you don't deserve it :)
it was my full intent to capitalize on the fact that i was the only high school girl going on this trip. why not?? :)
so the very first day, we got to the job site and jeff brady was telling people what they could help with and when he got to bailee and i, he suggested that we leave the job site and go work in the kitchen to prepare breakfast. what a brilliant idea! we were getting out of physical work already. we got to the kitchen and really had no way to communicate (nancy was there to help translate a little bit but she was running around doing other things to make breakfast etc.) with the ladies or ask them how we could help, so we pretty much just stood there. then one of the women came up to me (note: she didn't go up to bailee [aka JUMBO]) and asked if i was hungry. i'm never hungry, but said yes because that's obviously the polite thing to do and partially because "si" is usually the go-to answer when you aren't sure what to say in spanish ha. so about two minutes later the woman comes back with a plate full of breakfast for me. she served it to me about 10 or 15 minutes before anyone else...i would assume because i'm small and probably look, to them, like i need to eat :)
what does this have to do with being a girl? well...the guys came a few minutes later, after working for probably about an hour moving bricks and supplies and i had already eaten, having done nothing at all except watch and stand awkwardly. oh what a life :)
now, i really feel the need to say that i don't recall very many times (or even one time?) where i just said, "no i can't do this, i'm a girl..."
BUT... my lovely friend bailee definitely won some heaven points and creepy points by telling the boys how amazing they were for all of the hard work they were doing, as well as how funny, manly, strong, etc. they were. and i think the amount of times she did that is probably enough to blanket for me, or even the entire female population. haha it makes me proud.
[i think i remember once saying that i didn't want to do something because i was tired and one of the guys did it for me, but i really don't remember it. anyone know what that was? it's bugging me now.]
so this wasn't really the best story, sorry jer and everyone who read it. but the moral is, if you're a girl, you get the easier work and food first even (and especially) when you don't deserve it :)
Wednesday, April 9, 2008
choose your own adventure, honduras style
so i want to blog about a lot of different things about the trip but i DON'T want to #1 be boring and #2 be sitting here typing for 12 hours straight.
so here's what i've decided to do- i'm going to post a list of possible blog topics and you can leave a comment about which ones you want to hear more about. some will be really quick stories or jokes and others may take some further explanation. pictures will be included with each specific post. i'll try to write about as many as you ask for. so leave comments and tell me what to write about, and for those of you who went on the trip, enjoy the memories and laughs that will be sparked from this list [and remind me if i forget anything]! :)
so here's what i've decided to do- i'm going to post a list of possible blog topics and you can leave a comment about which ones you want to hear more about. some will be really quick stories or jokes and others may take some further explanation. pictures will be included with each specific post. i'll try to write about as many as you ask for. so leave comments and tell me what to write about, and for those of you who went on the trip, enjoy the memories and laughs that will be sparked from this list [and remind me if i forget anything]! :)
- the process of building the church
- the first service in the church
- traveling- bus rides, airports, etc
- papa leslie
- brothers in roatan
- serio!
- i'm a girl
- "we call those 'players' in america"
- how many times will glen say gringos?
- women will go to hell if they wear jeans...
- molestation monster
- i hope you have more than 5 minutes of happiness
- the clap
- matrimonia??
Thursday, March 13, 2008
sad, but true
i've had a huge desire to write and blog recently but i can't seem to find the time. finals are here and i'm trying to catch up on anything that isn't done as well as finish up final projects and such. i really want to write about several things, but unfortunately i don't have the time to sit and do it. hopefully by the time i go on break i will still have these thoughts and inspirations and i'll be able to write about them. but for now, i need to try to channel my desire to write "recreationally" into a desire to write my 12 page paper...
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