Look! I am updating again!

I am hoping to start getting into the habit of updating my blog biweekly, and even though I am failing at that at the moment, perhaps this semi-frequent posting will train me for that endeavor.

Nothing overly noteworthy has happened since my last post...School is still kicking my butt and I have a laundry list of books I need to read this weekend, the amount of pages I don't even want to think about. My roommate sat me down the other day and had a "talk" with me about needing to get out more. She says the amount of time I spend doing homework in the room is not healthy for me and I need to make friends or something. She does not understand that I don't really have much time to do anything else besides homework, but I must admit that getting out and doing something fun would be a nice alteration to my forever-reading schedule. Not to mention my closest friends don't even go to this university, some of which don't even live in this state. It's a problem. But nonetheless, I think I am going to take her advice, crawl out of my hermit hole, and begin the discomforting task of being extroverted...

I guess I started my venture with my small, but not-to-be-considered-insignificant volunteer work. About once every couple weeks, I give tours of the University of Arizona to upper-elementary school and middle school students from the Tucson area. I am not overly articulate or well-versed in facts about the UA, but that doesn't seem to matter a lick to these kids; they are struck with utter admiration that a college student would take time out of their "no-rules-no-responsibility" day to lead them on a tour and they blush with the feeling of extra-ordinariness when they receive my answer to a question they have asked. It really brightens my day and even makes me swell with self-importance, perhaps undeservedly, for being able to mentor these students, even in the condensed time I get to spend with them. The more tours I do, I start to realize more and more that I might actually want to teach junior high school students for a living. Call me deranged, but I am not turned off by the incandescent rush of hormones or the awkward interactions; in fact, I find them rather entertaining and slightly endearing. Perhaps God will bring me to work in a junior high setting some day. Until then, the plan is still rooting for ninth and tenth grade English.

Speaking of which, (random interlude of something you probably don't care about, but is nonetheless intriguing for me and I am thus going to share with you regardless) I have been thinking a lot about what kind of material I would be teaching if I were to teach the age group previously mentioned. When I was that age, our curriculum focused greatly on Greek mythology and literature, reading The Odyssey and learning about the different myths. I have always found this be incredibly fascinating and have really enjoyed taking a mythology class two semesters ago and currently reading classical literature in my Women in Lit class. I am so seriously divulged in these subjects that I have even often thought about minoring in Classics. Since I am almost finished with my minor in Special Education (Deaf Studies), it's kind of pointless to make Classics my minor. However, I was talking to one of the girls in my classes and she is double minoring in two emphasis areas, something I am thinking of incorporating into my four year plan. If I can double minor without having to spend any more time at the U, I will double minor in Special Ed and Classics, but if I have to be here longer and pay more money (they're raising our tuition 31% for next semester, ugh), then I will just take Classics courses as some of my elective credits. Nevertheless, I am extremely looking forward to enriching my knowledge in the Classics, especially Greek mythology and literature, not to mention it will be very advantageous to have studied these traditions if I do end up teaching them in my future classroom.

So that's my life: completely mundane. This weekend I am taking Jenny's challenge and so I will be hanging out with my sister, which should be fun and then working. Not exactly my roommate's idea of "getting out," but I love my job, so I don't mind (I still work at Centennial Hall, the performance theater at UA, but as of last semester I was promoted from being an usher to being a manager, fancy fancy). Oh, and this weekend, I will be reading up the wazoo as usual. Breaks from school are most certainly welcome, so I invite you to give me a call or send me an IM/email to catch up/distract me from my homework. :) Take care and I can't wait to talk to all of you soon! Peace and Blessings

It has been brought to my attention

several times in the last few days that it has been nearly a year since I have updated this blog, and for those few and far between viewers, I have concealed the falling action of a rather mundane but nonetheless progressive story of my life. Since my last post, I have completed two semesters strongly at UA with a summer sabbatical working at a Christian kids camp in Bellingham, WA, in between. I guess "sabbatical" is a bit of a misnomer considering the fact that I was incredibly sleep-deprived, never showered, and was constantly on the go working with children first grade through twelfth grade (not all at the same time; each week I was working with a different age group). However, I can honestly say it was the best three months of my life. I made some of the closest friends I have ever had and could ever ask for, friendships that will last for a lifetime, no doubt. I had the unique opportunity of getting to hang out and play with kids, while at the same time being able to mentor them and show them Jesus' love. I have collected quite the array of hilarious anecdotes from working at camp, a few of which will have you laughing so hard you are crying. If you are interested in listening to some of my stories, just ask (I highly recommend the nudist fifth grader story or the hummingbird story). It was through working at Lutherwood that God really made it clear to me that I am supposed to be working with children and youth for a living and that He has designed me to help them grow in their faith and grow as human beings as well. Do not consider me vainglorious for boasting of these astute qualities for I can guarantee you it is not of my own doing; all the praise goes to God. I am just thankful He is allowing me to assist Him in being a shepherd to His flock, something He continued to remind me of every day while at Lutherwood, not only through the interactions I had with the kids but through my camp name as well. As counselors, you go through a small identity crisis at the beginning of staff training where you no longer use your birth-given name but it is instead replaced with a puerile name that will be used for the rest of the summer. It soon becomes the campers' unofficial game to try and guess your real name. I can honestly say that no camper ever guessed my real name and I remained imperishably Lamb Chop all summer long and will remain as such forever in the eyes of the other counselors. As ridiculous as said camp name is for me, it was God's reminder to me of my duties as a shepherd to his flock, and I most certainly owned and grew to enjoy being called Lamb Chop (or Chops, Choppy, Choppy Chop, Da Chopsta, etc.), a name I will continue to use when I return to Lutherwood this summer. Or that is the plan, at least. But until then, I have to finish this current semester...

Speaking of which, said semester is proposing itself to be far more difficult that I had previously gathered it to be. I started out taking three literature classes and two Deaf Studies classes, but due to a series of stressful and dramatic events, my class schedule has transformed into one Deaf Studies class and four English classes. Kill me now. When describing my course schedule to Manatee, another counselor from Lutherwood (as you can plainly tell by the inordinate nickname) and a fellow English major, he was completely shocked that I was taking so many literature courses at one time. I didn't realize the serious consequences of taking four English classes simultaneously until it was too late to drop any of them. My homework consists of mostly reading and analyzing novels and other literature but at an extremely rapid rate. I average reading around four to five books a week, something presenting itself to be rather difficult for someone like me who has not been fond of reading in the first place. I am reading my books every chance I get: in between classes, during classes, while eating lunch, at work, at parties my roommate invites me to, etc. This excessive reading is portraying me as an avid bookworm and introvert, but really, it's simply so I can trudge through my courses without failing miserably. I am praying that I find some way to survive and excel at these classes without getting too burnt out; additional prayers from you would be greatly appreciated.

I mentioned earlier about my roommate...Since my last post, I have roughly gone through three roommates. The first one who I was living with during my last post ended up transferring to NAU for the 2009 fall semester, leaving me with a random roommate, a freshman pre-med major. We had absolutely nothing in common other than we lived two miles away from each other back home, and we barely spoke to one another, never exceeding one two to three minute small talk conversation per week, complete with a couple angry exchanges about temperature control and sleep schedules. Needless to say, we didn't exactly get along. I had become very good friends with a girl who lived down the hall and I spent a lot of my time escaping my roommate in her room. Since we spent so much time together, we decided it would be best for the both of us if we moved in together. After much drama and cattiness, Jenny moved into my room and my roommate moved into her room with Jenny's old roommate. As of now, Jenny and I are very happy in our vintage-themed mess of a room and she has become to be one of my best friends. It is pretty evident to everyone that I am much happier this semester since my living situation has been remedied. However, it is also evident that I am a bit grouchier due to my intense workload, but there's not much I can do about that but traipse through all of my homework, something I should probably be doing right now...blarg...

Thank you all for reading my picayune troubles posted on my blog. I hope you all are doing well and I am hoping to update my blog more often. It has become my 2010 resolution to be better at keeping in contact with people who are important to me (that's you!). Help me out by emailing me/calling me/bugging me to update my blog. I hope to talk to all of you individually soon. Love and God Bless