Sunday, December 25, 2005
Life or something like it
I dunno why that movie title just popped into my head, but it did.
The bahamas was fun and relaxing...minus being sick. I havn't been that sick in a long time. Which made me in a bad mood for a couple of days, so I pity the people around me. I got to ride on the beach!!! It was wonderful. Not the ride single file in a line thing either. I was on a stunt horse names Sun Dancer who had a beautiful canter. I think I got closer to my family and Justin and Matt which was good too.
This break has been weird. Come home unpack and pack in the same day. Leave. Come home unpack, pack in a two day period. Leave. When I get back I'll come back, unpack, probably pack and leave again.... Restful? Doesn't feel like it. But at least I'll have a few days before school starts at home to see people here....maybe.... But its a very good break. I'm enjoying every part of it.
Christmas was fun. I think Christmas is the time of year that everyone likes to send their pastor cookies and fudge, so we're swimming in it right now and myself control decided to take a vacation. This morning was a bit crazy running back and forth between unpacking from the last trip and cooking, but I had music on and enjoyed it. Sadly, the day hit a downward spiral when mom asked me if I wanted to go for a walk. She asked me how far I wanted to go. I jokingly said 4 miles. How about 8 she replied. She wanted to walk to Food Lion. I knew dad would kill us but I was up for it anyway cause I'm dumb that way. When we left I glanced at the clock which said 4pm, or so I thought. Later I learned I misread it and it actually read 5pm. we decided to walk on the other side of a fence next to North Rugby road in the undeveloped Sky Top Farms property because we thought it'd be safer. When the fence ended I started to go back to the road. "Why don't we just take that trail Ashley. It'll probably lead to that dirt road that hooks over to North Rugby a bit further up. I agreed. A ways up the trail, we still hadn't seen the dirt road and the trail forked. Mom wanted to take the right trail cause it was pretty, but I refused because it would put us on the wrong side of the river. She didn't believe me, but gave in. Sure enough, when we reached the river we saw the trail mom wanted on the other side. I smiled and teased her a bit. About that time we came to the open fields along side 191. They were so muddy that our shoes were quickly heavy with it. Then, when we tried to cut over to the road we encountered a wall of thorns. After fighting our way through it, we began our hike along 191. Normally, I would have said we should have turned back then, but it was starting to get dark and I prefered the well lit road over the woods in the dark. It was then we realized our big mistake. We were wearing black, had no flashlights and no cell phone. So we figured we'd hike to the nearest place open and call someone to take us home. We made it to the gas station across from Food Lion that was not only remarkably open, but was also giving away free coffee. So with a warm drink we attempted to call someone to help us. Mom wanted to call Dad. I told her it would be a bad idea. She called him anyway saying that he'd be happy that we called him instead of walking back. He was pissed. I have never seen him so mad. Not at me. At mom, saying she was the one responsible. Which made me feel worse cause I felt responsible. I went along with it. I could have said no. I know that mom comes up with a lot of bad adventure ideas, but I went along with it and enjoyed the adventure despite the stupidity of it. Now dad is mad at mom and I'm leaving early in the morning and feel responsible.
Something else happened that made me cry. I'm not saying what, but saying I cried to make a point. Merry Christmas does not mean that it is necessarily happy or without pain. Merry refers to the joy and peace from the love of a God who not only enters into our world but our skin to experience what we experience first hand. Its been said that intimacy is experiencing someone else's world, entering into it and seeing it from their point of view. God performed the most intimate love by coming into our skin, our world, our sin. Amazing how little I comprehend it and even more amazing how I take advantage of it by taking it for granted. May your Christmas be Merry and full of joy.
Please be praying for me on this trip. Pray God will use me despite of myself. Pray for patience and that I will love others above myself. Also, pray for the safety of the team.
The bahamas was fun and relaxing...minus being sick. I havn't been that sick in a long time. Which made me in a bad mood for a couple of days, so I pity the people around me. I got to ride on the beach!!! It was wonderful. Not the ride single file in a line thing either. I was on a stunt horse names Sun Dancer who had a beautiful canter. I think I got closer to my family and Justin and Matt which was good too.
This break has been weird. Come home unpack and pack in the same day. Leave. Come home unpack, pack in a two day period. Leave. When I get back I'll come back, unpack, probably pack and leave again.... Restful? Doesn't feel like it. But at least I'll have a few days before school starts at home to see people here....maybe.... But its a very good break. I'm enjoying every part of it.
Christmas was fun. I think Christmas is the time of year that everyone likes to send their pastor cookies and fudge, so we're swimming in it right now and myself control decided to take a vacation. This morning was a bit crazy running back and forth between unpacking from the last trip and cooking, but I had music on and enjoyed it. Sadly, the day hit a downward spiral when mom asked me if I wanted to go for a walk. She asked me how far I wanted to go. I jokingly said 4 miles. How about 8 she replied. She wanted to walk to Food Lion. I knew dad would kill us but I was up for it anyway cause I'm dumb that way. When we left I glanced at the clock which said 4pm, or so I thought. Later I learned I misread it and it actually read 5pm. we decided to walk on the other side of a fence next to North Rugby road in the undeveloped Sky Top Farms property because we thought it'd be safer. When the fence ended I started to go back to the road. "Why don't we just take that trail Ashley. It'll probably lead to that dirt road that hooks over to North Rugby a bit further up. I agreed. A ways up the trail, we still hadn't seen the dirt road and the trail forked. Mom wanted to take the right trail cause it was pretty, but I refused because it would put us on the wrong side of the river. She didn't believe me, but gave in. Sure enough, when we reached the river we saw the trail mom wanted on the other side. I smiled and teased her a bit. About that time we came to the open fields along side 191. They were so muddy that our shoes were quickly heavy with it. Then, when we tried to cut over to the road we encountered a wall of thorns. After fighting our way through it, we began our hike along 191. Normally, I would have said we should have turned back then, but it was starting to get dark and I prefered the well lit road over the woods in the dark. It was then we realized our big mistake. We were wearing black, had no flashlights and no cell phone. So we figured we'd hike to the nearest place open and call someone to take us home. We made it to the gas station across from Food Lion that was not only remarkably open, but was also giving away free coffee. So with a warm drink we attempted to call someone to help us. Mom wanted to call Dad. I told her it would be a bad idea. She called him anyway saying that he'd be happy that we called him instead of walking back. He was pissed. I have never seen him so mad. Not at me. At mom, saying she was the one responsible. Which made me feel worse cause I felt responsible. I went along with it. I could have said no. I know that mom comes up with a lot of bad adventure ideas, but I went along with it and enjoyed the adventure despite the stupidity of it. Now dad is mad at mom and I'm leaving early in the morning and feel responsible.
Something else happened that made me cry. I'm not saying what, but saying I cried to make a point. Merry Christmas does not mean that it is necessarily happy or without pain. Merry refers to the joy and peace from the love of a God who not only enters into our world but our skin to experience what we experience first hand. Its been said that intimacy is experiencing someone else's world, entering into it and seeing it from their point of view. God performed the most intimate love by coming into our skin, our world, our sin. Amazing how little I comprehend it and even more amazing how I take advantage of it by taking it for granted. May your Christmas be Merry and full of joy.
Please be praying for me on this trip. Pray God will use me despite of myself. Pray for patience and that I will love others above myself. Also, pray for the safety of the team.
Wednesday, December 14, 2005
Wow...
Ok, funny moment of the week:
The dorm was quiet, everyone was gone to various places and I was relaxing.
I thought I heard someone knock on the door while I was in the bathroom, so I quickly opened the bathroom door to go into my room...
...out of the corner of my eye I thought I saw a figure wearing a black hoody.
I jumped sky high and gasped...yup, that's right, so shocked I couldn't scream.
Who was it?
My roommate's hooding hanging on her closet door that was open. Wow.
So, exams are finally done!! Man this was a rough semester... I'm never putting that on myself again. I'll miss working with the health clinic, but not the added stress on top of classes. Exams went ok. Today's I'm not so sure about. If I get a B in the class cause of this exam I will be very VERY mad. It'd be sad to make it this far in a rough semester to let it slip on exam week cause I was sick of studying...
I have never had a shot hurt that badly! The woman put the typhoid in my right arm and the tetnus in my left arm so I could take my exam after that. Typhoid only hurts some people....I'm one of those people. My arm swelled up and has been horribly in pain. I can't even feel the tetnus in comparison. Hey, but its over right? The lady who gave me a shot was nice though. She had a cool accent that I couldn't place. I kept meaning to ask her where she was from...
Man, I should post more often cause by the time I post I have so much to say that I say none of it....lol. Yea...
I don't feel adequate to be going on the mission trip to Honduras. I feel too ... weak? But I guess that's exactly how I should feel so that God can use me. He's definitely been confronting me with the sin in my life lately. Pray that He will give me the desire to change and the help I need to do so.
I learned a lot from this semester. I learned I could handle more than I thought, I also learned my limits. I learned what I value most (because when you have only a little bit of spare time, how you use it says a lot) and I learned where I fail and need to change. I learned the value of the small things to someone who is struggling. Tea is wonderful. I learned to I need to stop looking at the now and relax and see the big picture. Everytime I think its bad, someone is going through something a whole lot harder. You can never know what is going on in someone's life so always treat them with that in mind.
And the most important thing is relationship and love.
Yea, all stuff I knew or should have known before, but this semester I related to it all in a tangible way.
I am:
stubborn, perfectionistic, stick to preconcieved ideas of people and let them get in the way, self-centered, greedy
And most of all a work in progress. Forgive me, but God isn't done with me yet and I have hope and joy and peace in that.
I learned the meaning of peace over the last year and a half. God has been showing me peace in various ways and various scenerios. Really cool.
Real cool thought that's been on my mind: God has us in this specific moment for a specific reason even if we think we messed up (or even if we did mess up)
Haha, my roommate, Josh and David eat came back with a pack of cookie dough. Earlier while baking cookies I gave them cookie dough and made them all crave it. Haha, spreading the joys of sugar from one end of the hall to the other =-P
The dorm was quiet, everyone was gone to various places and I was relaxing.
I thought I heard someone knock on the door while I was in the bathroom, so I quickly opened the bathroom door to go into my room...
...out of the corner of my eye I thought I saw a figure wearing a black hoody.
I jumped sky high and gasped...yup, that's right, so shocked I couldn't scream.
Who was it?
My roommate's hooding hanging on her closet door that was open. Wow.
So, exams are finally done!! Man this was a rough semester... I'm never putting that on myself again. I'll miss working with the health clinic, but not the added stress on top of classes. Exams went ok. Today's I'm not so sure about. If I get a B in the class cause of this exam I will be very VERY mad. It'd be sad to make it this far in a rough semester to let it slip on exam week cause I was sick of studying...
I have never had a shot hurt that badly! The woman put the typhoid in my right arm and the tetnus in my left arm so I could take my exam after that. Typhoid only hurts some people....I'm one of those people. My arm swelled up and has been horribly in pain. I can't even feel the tetnus in comparison. Hey, but its over right? The lady who gave me a shot was nice though. She had a cool accent that I couldn't place. I kept meaning to ask her where she was from...
Man, I should post more often cause by the time I post I have so much to say that I say none of it....lol. Yea...
I don't feel adequate to be going on the mission trip to Honduras. I feel too ... weak? But I guess that's exactly how I should feel so that God can use me. He's definitely been confronting me with the sin in my life lately. Pray that He will give me the desire to change and the help I need to do so.
I learned a lot from this semester. I learned I could handle more than I thought, I also learned my limits. I learned what I value most (because when you have only a little bit of spare time, how you use it says a lot) and I learned where I fail and need to change. I learned the value of the small things to someone who is struggling. Tea is wonderful. I learned to I need to stop looking at the now and relax and see the big picture. Everytime I think its bad, someone is going through something a whole lot harder. You can never know what is going on in someone's life so always treat them with that in mind.
And the most important thing is relationship and love.
Yea, all stuff I knew or should have known before, but this semester I related to it all in a tangible way.
I am:
stubborn, perfectionistic, stick to preconcieved ideas of people and let them get in the way, self-centered, greedy
And most of all a work in progress. Forgive me, but God isn't done with me yet and I have hope and joy and peace in that.
I learned the meaning of peace over the last year and a half. God has been showing me peace in various ways and various scenerios. Really cool.
Real cool thought that's been on my mind: God has us in this specific moment for a specific reason even if we think we messed up (or even if we did mess up)
Haha, my roommate, Josh and David eat came back with a pack of cookie dough. Earlier while baking cookies I gave them cookie dough and made them all crave it. Haha, spreading the joys of sugar from one end of the hall to the other =-P
Wednesday, December 07, 2005
I dont' know what to day...but I figure that if I just start writing I'll say something...
I got up early to run this morning. Take that back, my alarm went off early, but I soon as I moved my blanket off myself, I decided it was too cold and went back to sleep. Oh well, better luck another day. I'm never motivated to get up and wrong unless I'm going with someone else. But I figured it was worth a try.
So...God keeps blessing me with opportunities. This summer I really wanted to stay in Clemson and do research in my field and blah blah blah. But the only professors who are doing research in my field don't have grants to pay undergrads...and I need a paid position. But, my boss at the health clinic where I worked this fall offered me a part time positions (15-20 hours per week) for the summer. Not quite enough hours, but hey, I can always pick up something small on the side and at least its in Clemson. But when I went home for the Honduras meeting, I got offered a spot as a youth intern with the church... So please be praying for me for wisdom as I figure out what I'm doing this summer. But no matter where I am, I will be taking a couple of classes online. Probably abnormal psychology and either tech writing or econ 212 (assuming I survive econ 211 this spring).
Speaking of schedules...Clemson changed the schedule I had registered for next fall without telling me!! Yea, definitely not happy about that one. I think I'll go talk to the department head and see what I can do about changing it back.
As far as exams go, I could care less. Which isn't really a good thing, but not bad either. Not good becauase I don't study, not bad because I don't stress. Did I mention that last time I posted? I have the weird feeling I did, but I'm too lazy to check...
Man, God keeps using people to show me places in my life that need change. I keep being confronted with my stubbornness, self-pity, self-centered, perfectionist traits. Only by His Grace can I change and I'm seeking for hope in that. That He showed me, now He will help me if I ask. Sounds easy huh? Wish it were simple... Gah.
About that time, eh chaps? .... Righto.
I got up early to run this morning. Take that back, my alarm went off early, but I soon as I moved my blanket off myself, I decided it was too cold and went back to sleep. Oh well, better luck another day. I'm never motivated to get up and wrong unless I'm going with someone else. But I figured it was worth a try.
So...God keeps blessing me with opportunities. This summer I really wanted to stay in Clemson and do research in my field and blah blah blah. But the only professors who are doing research in my field don't have grants to pay undergrads...and I need a paid position. But, my boss at the health clinic where I worked this fall offered me a part time positions (15-20 hours per week) for the summer. Not quite enough hours, but hey, I can always pick up something small on the side and at least its in Clemson. But when I went home for the Honduras meeting, I got offered a spot as a youth intern with the church... So please be praying for me for wisdom as I figure out what I'm doing this summer. But no matter where I am, I will be taking a couple of classes online. Probably abnormal psychology and either tech writing or econ 212 (assuming I survive econ 211 this spring).
Speaking of schedules...Clemson changed the schedule I had registered for next fall without telling me!! Yea, definitely not happy about that one. I think I'll go talk to the department head and see what I can do about changing it back.
As far as exams go, I could care less. Which isn't really a good thing, but not bad either. Not good becauase I don't study, not bad because I don't stress. Did I mention that last time I posted? I have the weird feeling I did, but I'm too lazy to check...
Man, God keeps using people to show me places in my life that need change. I keep being confronted with my stubbornness, self-pity, self-centered, perfectionist traits. Only by His Grace can I change and I'm seeking for hope in that. That He showed me, now He will help me if I ask. Sounds easy huh? Wish it were simple... Gah.
About that time, eh chaps? .... Righto.
Tuesday, December 06, 2005
Hmm..that was weird. I hit a button on accident and my post was published. Hope i didn't say anything I didn't want too...
So I guess that's a sign for me to shut up. I'll just finish up what I was saying about soccer. The varisty girls team found out about our soccer night, and they starting coming. Now there's so many people that we don't get to play. Sad. The people who started Monday Night Football having to leave. Dumb. We're going to try to make a club indoor team next semester so we can have a gym reserved and controll how many people are there (in a way). We'll see if it happens. It'd be awesome if it did.
Class calls...
So I guess that's a sign for me to shut up. I'll just finish up what I was saying about soccer. The varisty girls team found out about our soccer night, and they starting coming. Now there's so many people that we don't get to play. Sad. The people who started Monday Night Football having to leave. Dumb. We're going to try to make a club indoor team next semester so we can have a gym reserved and controll how many people are there (in a way). We'll see if it happens. It'd be awesome if it did.
Class calls...
Okay, yea... So I'm definitely feeling unmotivated. Its not that I don't care about what final grade I get, but I just don't feel like putting the effort into it. I don't really want to post, cause I don't know where to begin. So much I could say! But I don't really feel like doing anything else with this ten minutes before class begins, so here I am.
Rule 1: Debating is not something I should be allowed to do. I get into it too much, personally. Very good thing I'm not becoming a lawyer.
Why did I make that a rule? I don't know.
It was good hanging out with Rachel at the small group dinner and just talking. I connect with her better than most people. We talked about life and faith and randomness. I've been realizing lately how self-centered I've become. Someone says they're tired, my first thought is "You think you're tired..." Terrible!! Aweful! I'm just so focused no my own problems that its getting in the way of loving others. Yea, its hard, but it could be worse and it is worse for other people. Its not as bad as I make it out to be in my own head. I'm just too focused on myself to step outside that and see the big picture...
I'm really excited about the Honduras trip though. We looked at pictures of the girls on Sunday. I brouht Winn back pictures of the girls his house church is sponsering. He seemed excited about it as well. Its cool that he's getting involved and excited. I had felt really brushed off by Stuart about the whole thing. Even when I asked him to pray for me and the girls, he just kinda brushed it aside. I dunno, he's probably just really busy especially with his wife being pregnant. Alot on his mind.
I had a lot more fun at soccer last night than I've had in awhile. We played indoor soccer in the raquetball courts, 3 on 3. Much more enjoyable.
Rule 1: Debating is not something I should be allowed to do. I get into it too much, personally. Very good thing I'm not becoming a lawyer.
Why did I make that a rule? I don't know.
It was good hanging out with Rachel at the small group dinner and just talking. I connect with her better than most people. We talked about life and faith and randomness. I've been realizing lately how self-centered I've become. Someone says they're tired, my first thought is "You think you're tired..." Terrible!! Aweful! I'm just so focused no my own problems that its getting in the way of loving others. Yea, its hard, but it could be worse and it is worse for other people. Its not as bad as I make it out to be in my own head. I'm just too focused on myself to step outside that and see the big picture...
I'm really excited about the Honduras trip though. We looked at pictures of the girls on Sunday. I brouht Winn back pictures of the girls his house church is sponsering. He seemed excited about it as well. Its cool that he's getting involved and excited. I had felt really brushed off by Stuart about the whole thing. Even when I asked him to pray for me and the girls, he just kinda brushed it aside. I dunno, he's probably just really busy especially with his wife being pregnant. Alot on his mind.
I had a lot more fun at soccer last night than I've had in awhile. We played indoor soccer in the raquetball courts, 3 on 3. Much more enjoyable.
