do it.

just click here and do this.
warning: it's addicting. and AWESOME.
speaking of awesome... i love 1000 awesome things. it adds happy to my days :)
i know that awesome is a strong word... these things are not awesome in the way it really means, but they are great.
praise the Lord for awesome!

WOOP!

i passed my interview! praise God! i found out sooner than i thought i would, which was nice. now i get to start the incredibly long and detailed process of getting all my visa documents together... it should be a good time. technically it's not a done deal until all of those are sent, but i have every intention of getting them in as soon as i possibly can. it has the potential to be very stressful, but, honestly, the only thing about it that i am slightly concerned about is getting my reference letter hard copies from australia. but i know that God is good and He will work it all out, so i'm really not worried.
anyways... i'm excited. a few friends and i went out for some celebratory milkshakes, which was delightful. but really, i still have a long way to go...
anyways, this weekend is all about BRYAN and his leaving for uganda on SUNDAY! i'll miss him lots, but mostly i'm just excited for him!
praise God for... everything!

time zones.

in 1 hour i am going to receive a phone call from epik and i will begin my interview to teach in korea this fall. that's right... look at what time this is posted and add an hour. midnight. dang time zones. (i just realized that for some reason it's saying it was posted at 10. it's not... it's 11. so much for that neat little thing i tried to do...)
i'm not super nervous, but i am aware of the significance of the situation. my australian recruiter just called me and made me feel better by saying "you're going to nail this interview. they're gonna love you. you're an english speaking north american female... no worries!" it actually worked... i do feel better about it now.
i'll find out the results in about 48 hours... so expect an update then. eep!
praise the Lord that He has a plan and i don't have to worry about my life! that's all i can think about right now...

busy busy

i actually haven't been that busy... i've basically had the last 2 weeks off from work, so i've had a lot of free time. but i've managed to fill it somehow, and now time has gotten away from me.
i feel like nothing terribly exciting has happened to me in these last weeks, but i also feel like i've been excited a lot over little things. and 2 really big things... but they didn't actually happen to me.
so here's a list of what has been going on:

i'm starting with the most exciting because... well... i want to.

BRYAN'S GOING TO AFRICA! for those who don't know... my baby brother has been wanting to go to uganda for years, and i have been pushing for it since he graduated high school. well, after a couple years of figuring his stuff out, he's finally going to live and volunteer at a really sweet orphanage called musana children's home. i somehow heard about it through my church (flatirons), told bryan about it, he got in touch with them, and they basically told him to come as soon as he can. so he's leaving in like 3 weeks, which is very soon, but also very exciting! i could go on and on about this because i love bryan and i know that this is what he's supposed to be doing with his life... but i'll stop now. EEE!

i'm still training for the half marathon (i know right?! i'm shocked too...) it's going well... i'm ahead of where my training schedule says i should be, so that's good. i can run a billion years on the treadmill (by that, i mean like an hour without killing myself. which is phenomenal considering like a month ago i could only go about 10 minutes before i wanted to die) and the other day i ran around a lake near my house, which is 2.54 miles (haha... and i really did go exactly that. i took note of the pole that i started at and stopped there.) this is about 3 times further than i've been able to run since i finished soccer my sophomore year of high school, so i'm excited. i'm still a long way from half marathon status, but i'm getting there :)

things are moving along with korea stuff... i talked to a recruiter a few weeks ago, turned in my application and one letter of recommendation, and i'm waiting on my second letter so i can do an interview sometime in the beginning of april. if i pass the interview, i have to hurry and send in a buttload of papers and stuff before i can be offered a job, so it's still pretty far off. if you think of it, pray for me that everything gets turned in and that my interview goes well! that would be wonderful!

i'm starting a mentorship thing through a program called mi casa that my roommate carly works for. i've only gone in a couple of times, and i haven't officially started yet, but i'll probably be mentoring a 6th grade girl named krystal, and i'm really really excited about it!

AND of course i am VERY excited about baby austin... and i will be even MORE excited when i get to meet him :)

that's all i can really think of right now... other than that i'm just working on school (5 papers and a presentation and i'm DONE!) and my tefl and hanging out... tonight i'm going home for spring break, which i'm very stoked on.

praise God for exciting things! for opportunities and strength and His plan and babies :)

inspired.

this weekend was the spring retreat. the theme was (in)spired... essentially it was about figuring out your calling, but it was actually way cooler than that. mostly it was just a time to get away and just be somewhere else, which was good. but also surprisingly harder to do than i thought it would be... i just couldn't stop thinking about all the things i need to do.

but there was a short time where i was really just content. saturday we had a lot of free time, and for about an hour i just got to be with some dear friends that i love doing one of my favorite things in the world.

let me just tell you about some wonderful people.

larissa has been my friend since the first few days of high school. she was my photography partner (and just overall good friend) in high school, then we came to ccu together, had an... interesting... freshman year living together, and have grown in our relationship over the last couple of years. she always inspires me and makes me laugh, and i just love her. she is also an amazing photographer... and she's not opposed to getting all up in people's business to get the shot.

then there is melanie. she's a little hippie (even though she hates that label). she's a weirdo and i love it! but really she's just passionate about life and learning and loving and people, and she's not afraid to show it. she has a beautiful voice that is going to take her far... here she is singing. it looks like she's worshipping, but really she's singing "let it be," by the beatles of course.

and this one is just because i like it...

and finally... there's megan. i don't know how to describe megan. she's one of the coolest people ever... she speaks russian and loves being irish and from milwaukee and she tells the funniest stories, mostly because she does the most random things, and she has one of my favorite voices of anyone ever. seriously... ever since i met her freshman year, one of my favorite things is to just sit and listen to megan sing. it doesn't even matter what she's singing... she just makes my heart happy.

praise God for wonderful friends and those moments of peace and relaxation!

running hard

so i've been having trouble focusing... you know.
and i've been so excited about this whole running thing (o yea... i'm now going to train for a half marathon with Carly! it's in june... i'll keep you updated on my progress. should be quite the experience.)
anyways... i've been praying for motivation and for focus and for God to give me His strength to run and for clarity about my life and what i'm supposed to do.
and then today we sang this song in chapel. and i realized that this is what my prayer needs to be.

give me one pure and holy passion

give me one magnificent obsession

give me one glorious ambition for my life

to know and follow hard after You

to know and follow hard after You

to grow as Your disciple in Your truth

this world is empty, pale, and poor

compared to knowing You, my Lord

lead me on and i will run after You

lead me on and i will run after You

i think that if this is my prayer, i will see the way that God works all the other stuff out.

praise the Lord for that!

focus.

so... lately i have not been able to focus.
i've been productive in some areas, but not in the areas that i really need to be. like school. and my tefl, which i should probably have finished by now.
and it's funny because the things like school and my tefl have been on my mind a lot, but i literally have not been able to take all the thoughts i have and focus them enough to put them on paper. it's like i have all these ideas and thoughts and troubling issues floating around in my head, but i can't seem to get them out in a way that makes sense. which is also the reason i haven't been on here. also i've been very busy.
i've been thinking about a few things recently. here is what has been on my mind:

justice

teaching overseas

plans

God's faithfulness

having faith and what it means

contentment

excercise (namely: running!)

the future

the past

missy

people

goals

papers

balance

joy

thankfulness

restlessness

i could keep going. but seriously... my mind is all over the place. i'm supposed to write a paper in my justice class. it's on a book that is one of the best books i've ever read. and it's funny, because i seriously just want to talk about the book and how i feel about it, but i can't get it out to write the paper. make sense? the book is all about justice and how God hates injustice and how we can't just sit idly by and let the terrible injustices around the world happen. but it's not a guilt-inducing type of justice book. it's actually very encouraging and makes me want to go out and do justice. and it makes me feel like i actually can do something. and it brings me back to the place that i've been for so many years where i just want to get out and do it. it makes me frustrated that i still have to finish school and that i'm going to be in so much debt that i can't just go and volunteer and be poor.

and i'm excited about going to korea and i know it's going to be awesome and hopefully by the time i'm done there my debt will be paid, but i wish that i didn't have to limit my options because of money. i hate money.

i just want to go volunteer. all i need is a place to sleep and some food please. someday i will talk about "my cause" on here. but right now it's hard to talk about because i know that what i really want to do is not feasable yet, and that is annoying. and then i get frustrated.

right now i need to write my paper. and work on my tefl. these are things that i need to do, but instead i am doing other things that are not quite as important but still productive and good.

like running. i hate running. i always have. really i've always hated all excercise that comes in the form of going to a gym or purposely doing something for the sake of excercise. except recently that is not the case. turns out i actually love it. not running. i can just stand running now. but i love excercising now. it makes me feel good. and i get urges to do it, which never used to happen. and i feel weird if i go too long without it. and i also get urges to run. which is weird. but actually good because i'm going to run a 5k. and my friend carly is going to run it with me. and then a few weeks after that one i'm going to run another one with my mom. and now that fact is out on the world wide web so she has to. and so do i for that matter. i'm excited.

see... these are the random things that distract me.

also the fact that i haven't written a letter and sealed it with wax in a while, and that is sad. i'll write one. probably tomorrow actually because tonight i have other things that need to be done.

ok... this is just ridiculous now.

praise the Lord for randomness and motivation, even if it is not in the areas that i think i need it the most.