Archive for October, 2007

Absolutely unsystematic

I love watching the Disney Channel.  seriously.  It makes me laugh out loud.  Although if I hear “fantabulous” one more time I may be forced to change the channel.  I am considering disowning anyone who uses that word around me so consider yourself forewarned.

I need to clean up, this place is looking rough.  Let’s hope that actually happens and I don’t ignore it then feel guilty until I do actually muster the strength to straighten.  But I’m so tired. 
You know what else I need to do?  Finish the supplemental applications to medical school.  eek.  I got a packet in the mail from one of the schools and I got pretty excited. 
I’m pretty much not up for anything involving me expending energy.  I must save what’s left for the moving of my body from the couch to the bed. 

Tonight I made breakfast for dinner, I thought it was pretty awesome.  Last night I made pesto with fettucine and broccoli, and marinaded chicken, which was a bit of a repeat of what Cecilia made Sunday night.  I love this combination and honestly think I would eat it everyday if I could. 

DANG IT! they just said fantabulous again.  jerks.  and AGAIN. 

This morning I woke up and found a mysterious red spot near my left elbow.  I’m not sure how or when it got there, thus the “mysterious.”  I’m thinking I burned myself at Starbucks, as that happens, oh, about 10 times a day, making it difficult to recall each and every instance and said instance’s location on my body.

I think that is enough crazy-talk for one night.

LOVE!

ps I think someone from California is stalking me.  Someone from Belgium has frequented my blog as well.

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I’m not getting much response on what I fondly call the “grumpy post” and that’s okay.

I have forgotten SO much due to pouting clouding my memory.  I HAVE READ THE WHOLE ENTIRE BIBLE IN ITS ENTIRITY WHOLENESS!  Yeah, I know you’re thinking, “Mandy, you’ve been a believer for what, 20 years now?  and you are JUST now reading the whole bible?”  My response would be, “yes, yes I am.”  I read the New Testament all the way through during sophomore year (I think) of college as it was assigned.  The Old Testament has always seemed a tad more of an arduous read to me.  This time I decided instead of reading Genesis through Malachi, I would read backwards!  AHA!  Way to outsmart myself!  When I say reading backwards I mean reading the books the regular way only starting with Malachi and moving toward Genesis, I can’t read backwards.  And Friday I finished Genesis!  woot! 
This is the part where I have to mention my dad.  Every time any of us talks about buying a new bible my dad WITHOUT fail says, “Have you read the one you have?”  The answer, of course, is always negative.  So, dad, I guess I can rightfully buy myself a new bible. 

I finished Sex God (which I told Cecilia was a how-to manual) yesterday.  I think I will have to read in again before I can formulate an opinion.  The one concept that has stuck out in my mind, that I’ve been ruminating over is that people who live together but are not legally married are perhaps married in God’s opinion.  Marriage rituals and ceremonies vary so much between cultures and have changed so much over the history of the world, how do we know when a marriage is a marriage in God’s eyes?  Is it only “right” or “righteous” when a judge is present, when it’s legally sound by US standards?  (*movie spoiler alert*)  And this makes me think of the scene from Cold Mountain where the two main characters/lovers are reunited and the woman, Ada, speaks of a religion where you merely say “I marry you” three times and you are married.

And just for fun, this is where I start my COUNTDOWN UNTIL MY BROTHER GETS HERE FOR THANKSGIVING! 
19 days!  Can’t hardly wait!

LOVE!

ps.  wishing I could order one of these from j.crew along with the outfit.

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To best describe today I would have to tell you what I told Cecilia and my cousin Katie earlier, which was: “I’m cranky today.” I may be the only person, though I very much doubt it, that experiences unreasonable bouts of crankiness, and that’s okay. I don’t know what my deal was. Maybe it’s because I am cheerful all day everyday at Starbucks or because I didn’t get to sleep in on my one day off (oh the cruelty!) or because I spent WAY too much time in a crowded room with lots of strange people touching me this morning. And when I say “WAY too much time” I mean approximately half an hour. We accompanied my cousin Katie to the Marine Corps Marathon Expo (because she is running the MCM tomorrow), where there were many booths and millions of people. There were free samples of various things such as Snickers (yay!), Almond Non-Dairy Milk (ew) and beer (seriously? it was 10AM).

Now all of you know I don’t like large crowds of people in confined spaces because these two factors combined equals STRANGE PEOPLE TOUCHING ME. and we just cannot have that. ever. I self-diagnosed myself as claustrophobic the summer between eighth and ninth grade over a certain incident involving a cave in Austria, a torch and me trapped between two people. It’s very possible that I am a huge hypochondriac and make things into huger deals, but I guess we’ll never know, will we? I start to panic and imagine what would happen if a fire were to break out while I was among all these strange people standing too closely to me (lovely, I know). And my conclusion usually is that I would be trampled. to death. Which doesn’t sound like much fun to me. And, really, who likes strange people pushing and touching them, breathing the same air as them and doing exponentially annoying things like STOPPING in the MIDDLE OF THE AISLE and holding up the other million people trying to move about. WHY must I share breathing air with those people? These are the reasons I avoid situations just like the one I encountered this morning. Just TALKING about shopping in a mall on a weekend between Thanksgiving and Christmas causes me to become light-headed. I can’t make logical gift-purchasing decisions under that kind of pressure.

Well I guess we figured out what my deal was today. Nothing a nap and road rage couldn’t cure though! Sorry if you were driving today around D.C. and/or Alexandria but, really? MUST you drive so painfully SLOW and full of indecision?

Today’s lesson is: Beware and be kind to cranky people, because sometimes it’s just an off day for them and they had to be subjected to a plethora of unknown people touching them that morning.

Don’t worry about me though. I’m drowning my sorrows in some massive amounts of DP.

LOVE!

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Yes, it has come to this. I am currently the creepiest person I know. I’m sitting in my car “scamming” Wi-Fi from a shopping center. It’s not really scamming when I shop here, is it? I’m a creepy quasi-scammer, I’m so ashamed. I thought about just waiting until this weekend (aka TOMORROW) to blog but I just wanted to do it tonight, so blog I SHALL!

I know I’ve talked a lot about being tired in the past, but I take it all back because I am exhausted! It wouldn’t matter if I got 9 hours of blissfully deep sleep every night, I think I’d still want a nap when I get home from Starbucks. It’s one of those exhausted where the mere weight of living multiplies your tiredness by 10,000,000. Seriously. I calculated. Tomorrow was supposed to be my day off, but, alas, my manager called and since I can’t say no, and I’ll be working with my favorite co-worker Tim (don’t get any ideas), I’m going in. Plus I can use extra hours. This means that Saturday is the only day this week I won’t be working, gah. If ever there was a person who worked hard for the money, it is I.

I had my first small group meeting last night. I missed the first one because of a freak illness where I didn’t read the entirity of emails being sent to me, so I was nervous. I mean, I was nervous to start with, because, HELLO new group of woman who I was going to talk about my relationship with God with = new opportunities for people to judge me (not to say that Christian women are judgemental, don’t you read between those unreadable lines people). BUT mound on top of that lovely initial nervousness the added pleasure of missing the first meeting because I’m a big goofball and you’ve got a bit of a mess. I mean, everybody already knows each other and sits at that certain table at lunch and know exactly how every other girl likes her hair braided and what boy she has a crush on, so on and so forth. I got there and no one talked me, of course there were only two other ladies there, but that’s moot. So I pretty much sat there and said nothing for two hours, thinking over and over, “how come nobody sat next to me on the couch, I can’t believe I wore this, do they think my feet are ugly, I shouldn’t have worn flip-flops, gah” while concentrating on God and our subject for the night, relationships. And then the clouds parted and they asked me to talk about myself and then I walked out with two other girls, and ohmygosh I’m totally in, they’ve invited me to sit at their table at lunch and braid their hair, awesome.

I’m reading a very good book (see below) and honestly can’t put it down. I feel like Mr. Bell has written a book addressing all my thoughts and questions and so far I agree with him. Yes, for those of you who remember little details, I am STILL working through The Brothers Karamazov, but am starting to think my mind can’t handle reading JUST ONE BOOK at a time. I only have, like, 80 years of life yet and SO MANY BOOKS to read, so simultaneous action MUST occur.

Okay I better go before someone calls the shopping center patrol and tells them there’s a super-creep sitting in her car.

LOVE!

ps I’m addicted to the Stock Exchange, it’s insane and I love it! more on that later…

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Okay, as this medical school application thing is very time, emotion and thought consuming, I must elaborate, plus I need to say this, for my own sanity.  I always feel crazy when I am brutally honest on here, like who lays everything out there on the INTERNET?  I do.

For more than half of my life I’ve wanted to be a doctor.  Things were promising when I was in high school, as high school was easy.  Then I went to college and things weren’t so easy, actually they were QUITE the opposite.  The combination of no really well-developed study skills (who studied in high school?), with mom getting sick (I’m not blaming anyone…well maybe the kidneys and liver) and a void of same-major friends with whom to study equalled some bad things freshman year.  And I never really recovered.  But this is not a big essay on how many excuses I have, because that is not how I feel.  I am fully responsible for my academic achievement during college, I realize this.  Well JBU has this lovely thing called the H.P.A.C. (which stands for something that I must’ve mentally blocked from memory), a committee of mostly science professors who evaluate your performance, give you feedback, criticism and talk about your future.  Let’s just say that both times I met with this committee I had to try my absolute hardest to wait until I left the room to cry.  So I felt as if the door to my dream of going to medical school was closed, deadbolted, and plaster-boarded over so that you couldn’t find it again if if you wanted to.  I took the MCAT anyway, kept taking science courses, and moderately hoped for a miracle.  I graduated and decided to do something different, I honestly couldn’t even think about science, the H.P.A.C. or applying to medical school without developing an ulcer (quite dramatic, I know), so a long, un-scientific break I had.  Funny thing though, every time I would go home and attend church, the message was, without fail, about following your dream, even if it wasn’t logical, made no sense, seemed crazy and out of reach.  Then there was an incident last winter where a preacher prophesied over my life.  I still can’t think of that without tearing up (again with the dramatics!).  I wasn’t doing very well at that point, in fact I was rather depressed, something that no one knew and this man absolutely called me out on it, in front of my boss.  He also said that I would get my doctorate from a big name school, that it didn’t matter what I looked like on paper, that I had God’s favor.  So there was that too.  Now there is this shortage of medical professionals and someone has offered to help me pay for medical school, which was also a big concern.  It feels like everything has been laid out before me, but I still never really thought I’d do it, never actually apply, open up communication with the H.P.A.C. again and whatnot.  It is absolutely crazy that I applied, to tell you the truth, and realistically I have barely a chance at being considered, much less accepted.  Then I remind myself of the crazy and revolutionary things Jesus did, or God called others to do.  Things that made NO sense, that didn’t stand a chance of working, but with faith DID work.  So I have the faith now.  The question now is, do I really want to be a doctor?  You’re probably thinking, “GEEZ LUIS, you went through all that and now you don’t even know if you want it?”  In short, yes.  Honestly what I want is whatever God has for me.  So I will be applying to osteopathic medical schools and accelerated second-degree nursing programs.   I’ve opened up communication with H.P.A.C. again, which was, until today, relatively pain-free.  Today I was reminded of how crazy I am to apply to medical school, I am paraphrasing of course.  I came home and threw a 5-minute pity-party (it’d been a hard day before the YOU ARE CRAZY email), closed my eyes and laid on my couch.  Then I got up, responded to the YOU ARE CRAZY email and moved on.  It feels good to have grown out of the “you can reduce me to tears by being mean” stage of life, I must say.  I don’t think they were/are being mean on purpose either. 

I can’t believe anyone would actually read all of that.  If you did, thank you. 

LOVE!

ps God is SO good.

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I’m currently sitting outside as C washes Possum, it’s quite lovely.  Oh, did I forget to mention that I JUST SUBMITTED MY APPLICATION TO MEDICAL SCHOOL??  because I so just did.  It’s quite surreal actually, that is something that all those OTHER people do, not me.  I’m feeling good though because what I truly want is God’s will, my heart is not wrapped in attending medical school or nursing school.  I do long to work in the medical field, to start my career instead of working these in-between jobs, but if He has me not in the medical field, that’s okay too.

I’m working fervently on securing the permanent title of spinsta, as I feel it is knitting season again.  I just can’t bring myself to knit in the summer, who wants a heavy cotton something-or-other on their lap and needles slipping due to hand-sweatage?  I’ve decided that I want to buy a sweet little cottage like the one Kate Winslet’s character owns in The Holiday, although I’ve not seen many like it in the DC area.  Certainly if there were such a precious dwelling it would not be within my affordability range, which, let’s face it, nothing anywhere is.  Someday though!  Can’t you picture me in that cottage, brewing some tea, then cozying up on my comfy couch with a worn quilt covering my legs, the warm glow from the fire in the fireplace illuminating my knitting project?  I can!

Okay I will leave you some pictures from Homecoming, just Because I Can!

the girls at Cathy’s.  SO GOOD!

those J.Alvin boys are so darn creative

after the Great Flat Tire Fiasco 2007.  She totally knows how and when to fill those tires now!!

LOVE!

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Still here.

Edited some photographs the other night, I quite like it. 
Here are some I really like:

this is my most favorite place, the Bishop’s Garden at the National Cathedral

warm light from the Herb Cottage

our favorite bench

more later when it’s not my bedtime

LOVE!

ps the pictures look better on flickr, so click on my little flickr window if you don’t believe me.

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“my heart overflows with a good theme” Psalm 43:1

SURPRISE! look who showed up in NW Arkansas this weekend and caused me to bawl like a little girl.

I would write more but Safari has eaten my two previous attempts at lengthy xanga entries.

LOVE!

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I AM IN ARKANSAS!  I don’t know if I mentioned that I would be here for Homecoming, but here I am!  This is the first free moment I’ve had and it is, indeed, only a moment!  I shall write more later and include some pictures!

LOVE!

ps Happy Columbus Day weekend (I think that’s this weekend, right?)

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