Funny Little Stories

I've had some funny little things happen over the past week... Here are two of them:

On thursday we had a huge snow storm, and at 1:30 in the morning the fire alarm went off in our dorm. I thought it was my alarm at first and then I heard my RA yelling at everyone who was sleeping to get out of the dorm. My roommate and I quickly threw on our boots and coats and ran through our smokey dorm right outside where there was a mob of people in their pajamas, covered in white. Turns out some guys were making pizza and didn't take the cardboard out from underneath it, and on top of that, left the popcorn in the microwave for 5 minutes. Good job guys. 

On sunday night I was taking a shower and shaving my long over due legs, when I of course cut my ankle. There was a little gasp of pain and then surprise as quite a bit of blood started showing up, but nothing too terrible. I proceeded to get out of the shower (leaving my foot in it so as not to get blood on our bathroom floor) and asked my roommate to get a band aid for me. When my RA found out I was bleeding, she hurried into the bathroom with the first aid kit. I assured her that all I needed was a bigger band aid to cover it up and it should be fine. She, however, said we had to make sure the (now slow) trickle of blood completely stopped bleeding before we put anything on it. So I stood there in my towel for fifteen minutes as she used one gauze pad after another. Fifteen minutes turned into thirty and I now sat on a chair in our bathroom in a towel as the same procedure occurred. She wasn't sure what to do because my cut would not stop bleeding, so she asked for another RA and then even had a thought of calling campus safety (all the while my roommate and I were telling her that she should just hold one gauze pad there for a couple of minutes and it would be fine). Finally my cut did stop bleeding and I was able to put my band aid on. As my very well- meaning RA left our room, my roommate and I broke out into laughter because of the huge ordeal my little shaving incident had made. 

Funny Little Stories

I've had some funny little things happen over the past week... Here are two of them:

Last week thursday we had a huge snow storm, and at 1:30 in the morning the fire alarm went off in our dorm. I thought it was my alarm at first and then I heard my RA yelling at everyone who was sleeping to get out of the dorm. My roommate and I quickly threw on our boots and coats and ran through our smokey dorm right outside where there was a mob of people in their pajamas, covered in white. Turns out some guys were making pizza and didn't take the cardboard out from underneath it, and on top of that, left the popcorn in the microwave for 5 minutes. Good job guys. 

On sunday night I was taking a shower and shaving my long over due legs, when I of course cut my ankle. There was a little gasp of pain and then surprise as quite a bit of blood started showing up, but nothing too terrible. I proceeded to get out of the shower (leaving my foot in it so as not to get blood on our bathroom floor) and asked my roommate to get a band aid for me. When my RA found out I was bleeding, she hurried into the bathroom with the first aid kit. I assured her that all I needed was a bigger band aid to cover it up and it should be fine. She, however, said we had to make sure the (now slow) trickle of blood completely stopped bleeding before we put anything on it. So I stood there in my towel for fifteen minutes as she used one gauze pad after another. Fifteen minutes turned into thirty and I now sat on a chair in our bathroom in a towel as the same procedure occurred. She wasn't sure what to do because my cut would not stop bleeding, so she asked for another RA and then even had a thought of calling campus safety (all the while my roommate and I were telling her that she should just hold one gauze pad there for a couple of minutes and it would be fine). Finally my cut did stop bleeding and I was able to put my band aid on. As my very well- meaning RA left our room, my roommate and I broke out into laughter because of the huge ordeal my little shaving incident had made. 

A Thanksgiving Story

Greetings from Jill and Jacki

It is currently midnight and Jacki And Jill are sitting in the kitchen patiently waiting for Grant, Katie, and Bowser to arrive. They smell like smoke (Jill chuckles.... and then chuckles some more) because they just came from some riveting games of bowling. Jill creamed both Drew and Jacki, scoring over 100 points two games in a row. 

They realize that they are going to be questioned thoroughly tomorrow during their Thanksgiving meal about what it is they are exactly thankful for. So, they are sitting together contemplating what they should say. Jill thinks aloud, "ummm, I have to think through this." Jacki encourages her to think really hard. "C'mon Jill, I believe in you, I know there is something." After thinking and trying really hard, she asks for another opinion. "Drew, what are you thankful for?".... "JESUS!" Shouts Drew from the computer room. Even after a second opinion, Jill is having trouble. She takes a break.

Five minutes later, Jill returns to the kitchen. She announces, "I think I am going to bed." "Ok Jill, you rest on in," replies Jacki. Encouraged, Jill agrees, "Yes, I am going to go rest!" 

And there the story ends. So to all a goodnight and a happy Thanksgiving. 

Animal Noises

I have heard and seen quite a lot of new and great things since starting college. Sunday night I was sitting in my dorm room doing my homework and all of a sudden I heard bird, elephant, lion, and monkey noises outside my window. Some people from different dorms decided to have a little "safari night" at Calvin and communicated with each other across the dorms for about five minutes with animal noises. Along with things such as this, we are constantly being serenaded by the guy floors, and my roommate and I recently discovered that we can communicate with our friends from first floor through our shower vent. As for some unique experiences, I think my "modest monday" experience covers that (I'll let you determine what that means!) and just this week we had fight club in the BV basement (basically, we had a wrestling tournament on mattresses), got lost in a corn maze by ourselves in the dark, prank called people on their Calvin phones, played marshmallow dodgeball, and many other great things. 

We'll see what exciting adventures this upcoming weekend has in store :)

Well Quite a bit of things have happened since my last post!

I am not quite sure where to begin. I could explain so many things about college, but I think that this note would be a little too long for you all to read, so I will try and spare you. I'll try and just talk about the highlights so far. 

 

First of all, I have never run on such a small amount of sleep in my life. During class, I cannot keep my eyes open no matter how hard I want to or try. Secondly, I never expected to be so swamped with homework ALL the time. I knew it was going to be hard, but not quite to this extent. Thirdly, I have been meeting so many great people here and I am so excited to see where these new friendships lead to. Lastly, chapels on fridays are amazing. They are called "Songfest" and it is one of the best parts of my week. More people than can fit in the chapel go to sing and praise God, and it's amazing to worship with so many believers in one room.

College has been a great experience so far, but sometimes I find that I get a little homesick, even though my home is across the street. I miss the slower-paced life and the feeling of having someone watching out for me. It's easy to feel a little lost about classes, homework, day to day decisions, and life in general. But a nice quote we were told during Prelude (Prelude is basically a class introducing us to Calvin's community and telling us Calvin's mission) was this, "The will of God won't lead you where the grace of God won't support you." This quote made me think of the verse from 1 Corinthians 10:13 which says, "No temptation has seized you except what is common to man. And God is faithful; he will not let you be tempted beyond what you can bear. But when you are tempted, he will also provide a way out so that you can stand up under it."I think that is so comforting, that no matter what comes our way, we can get through it, because God never gives us more than we can handle. (Not trying to be preachy, sorry!)

Hope that is a good enough summary of things for now. There is so, so much more that's going on, but I can't possibly write everything down, you'd get bored eventually :) Here are some pictures so far though... 

Description of each going down- Getting my parking sticker, being sworn in a senator, surround wrapping someone's room on his 21st birthday, chaos day, squeezing into a car, and in Chicago with Student Senate. 

   

College Excitement

Well, with work and all of this college excitement I am finding it hard to find time just for myself... so now that I have some alone time I will write a quick little update on life at the moment. Then I'm going to bed, because pretty soon I will have a hard time going to bed at a decent time (I am so excited though!) :)  

1. Tomorrow is my last day of work, but to end with a bang, I will be putting in 10 hours instead of my usual 9. Can't wait to wake up at 5:30!

2. I had one of my first "college experiences" last night. I went to a club downtown for the first time. It was quite fun. 

3. Saying goodbye to friends is harder than I thought it would be. Some of them I've gone to school with since preschool, and now we won't even be in the same part of the state or country anymore. I get a little choked up saying goodbye to them. I am ready to leave, but it's just weird that they won't be with me anymore.

4. I move into my dorm on monday... I cannot wait to meet new people as well as to have a change in life. I liked high school, but it was definitely time to move on. 

There you go, short and sweet. If I can figure out the picture stuff on here, I'll put some up of my dorm and things once I move in...

 

A Need for Joy

I'm sorry, but I am going to vent a little. Today happened to be one of those days where I felt I could do nothing right. I felt as if I was letting people down, I wasn't and am never fast enough, I make dumb mistakes and ask stupid questions, and so on. This feeling happens to me so often, especially when I want to please people. And I'm sick of it. I'm sick of being a people pleaser. I'm sick of not being confident in myself. I am sick of always trying to be PERFECT. Who says that I have to be? Who says there is a certain way of living and I should follow it? 

I AM NOT PERFECT. There. I said it. And I'm proud of it. 

And I want to be joyful in the fact that I'm not perfect. Yes, joyful. That's something that is lacking in my life. Sure, I'm a happy person and all, but at the moment, there is not a deep joy in me and that makes me sad. Why should I not be joyful? I have so many great things in my life, and I have a God who loves me for ME. How can I not be joyful in that? Why do I more often than not see the negative things in life? I really want to blame our society, and I think it definitely play a huge part in influencing everyone, so I will. Society has taken away the joy that is possible in me because I see what I "should" be and am disgusted with myself when I am not, and instead of saying that's ok, because I belong to God, I give into society and fool myself to think that if I can meet their standards, I can be given that joy. 

This honestly is more a guess as to why I have a lack of joy, because really, I don't know. And I don't know how to fix the problem, so I've decided the best thing to do is pray. I am going to pray that joyfulness would take the place of my worries, fears and anxieties because that is all I can think to do at the moment. 

 

Romans 15:13

May the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace as you trust in him, so that you may overflow with hope by the power of the Holy Spirit.

Experiences and Memories

Well, I've been a little behind on my "technology" these past couple of weeks. I've been traveling a lot and my ability to keep up with my facebook, email, text messages, phone calls, and now my blog has been not so great. I know pretty much everyone has to keep up with these things on a daily basis, and I should be able to do the same, but you are quite limited when you are staying in a Motel 6 with no internet access. 

I ended up visiting New York to work at a farm show this past week with my Dad and brother Drew. I just bought my MacBook Pro, printer, and iPod, so I'm kind of broke and in need of making as much money as I can. Plus I thought it would be fun to see what these farm shows are really like that my dad always talks about. We left last week sunday and arrived at our Motel 6 in Geneva at about 1:00 am. The next day was spent setting up for the show and the other days Drew and I blew up balloons for all of the kids that came to our booth as well as explored all of the other booths. I even ended up driving some tractors! While I was there, I learned how to really live like a farmer. It was unbelievably muddy, hot, and humid outside, and when we arrived at our motel at the end of the day, it wasn't necessarily clean (yes, there was a dead ant in our supposedly clean, new towels). I had to give up my well-nurtured, city sense of hygiene and take pride in the mud and sweat of the country life. My dad was so proud.  

Friday we arrived home at 4:00 am so I could babysit at 10:00. That afternoon I got ready to do some lively swing dancing downtown with my friends. My Aunt Hett had just arrived at my Grandma's house and I quick stopped over to say hello. All dressed up in my swing dancing attire (a dress with spaghetti straps) Aunt Hett asked if I was wearing a bathing suit. I tried very hard not to laugh. And then I was asked if the swing dancing I was going to was with a Christian Organization. Again, I tried not to laugh (apparently they were teasing when they asked... ha). After a good night of dancing and watching an old black and white film downtown, we camped out in my friend's backyard... a last hurrah for some who are going away to college in the next couple of days. 

It has been a busy couple of weeks, but it has been a good couple of weeks. Lots of good experiences and memories before I take off for college, and I can't wait to start creating those experiences and memories there either. 

  

Seaside Life

I decided it was time to get a blog. I may not use it very often, but I certainly would like to read and comment on other people's blogs. Besides, I miss writing like this with facebook. I know I could write a note, but it still just isn't the same.
Currently I am in North Carolina at the Outer Banks, sitting on the couch with my cousins... Elizabeth fell asleep on my lap :) It's been very nice to come here and relax after having a schedule every single day for the past three weeks! It's been good to spend some time with family and just be able to sit and talk. We have been busy swimming however... there is a pool in our backyard that Greta and Elizabeth love going in and the ocean has been great for boogie boarding, skim boarding, and playing in the waves and sand. I find that I am still pretty tired though... kind of funny when all we've been doing is sitting in the sun! I'm glad though, I sleep pretty good at night then :). This morning we woke up a little early to ride on some wave runners. Drew, Jill, and I went on one together and right when we got out there, Drew turned a little too quickly and we all fell off. I made sure that he knew I didn't want to before we went... so much for that! (Keith if you are reading this it's because of you! Remember at Jansma's cottage? I have been scarred for life.) We ended up falling off a second time and it was actually kind of fun. Hopefully now I've gotten over my fear of falling.

Well that's about all for now... bare with me as I figure this thing out!