Thanksgiving Break!!!

Looking forward to getting away, getting some sleep, and getting reconnected with some friends.

I managed to break my phone yesterday. Talented, huh?

Proper Safety Procedures in the Chemistry Laboratory (a visual documentary by three bored and over-scienced college students)

Thank goodness they have an emergency eye wash station for those of us who forget to wear goggles.



But the eye protection does no good if you try to be cool and just wear them on your forehead, Jayme.....



Tara, however, followed proper safety procedures.

Speaking of birthdays.........the way to celebrate a birthday at Hesston College

Yesterday was Tara’s birthday, and it was a long, super fun, and interesting day. At 12:01 a.m. November 20, I was in Tara’s room talking. It was officially her birthday now, so the celebration could begin!! Tara, Tyler Birky, Tyler Derochowski, Peter, and I went to McDonalds at about 1 a.m. to get some food. Then we all went to bed (kind of an early night for us, I mean, we don’t do stuff every night but when we do, we stay up pretty late). The actual day was pretty much business as usual. We – Tara, Jayme, and I - went on a Zoology field trip to a buffalo ranch (Tara was sure excited about freezing outside while dodging buffalo on her birthday - not). But it was fun just because of the company. We had Tara’s camera and we made all these stupid videos that I’m sure will end up on Facebook sometime soon. Then we relinquished Tara to her family because they wanted to take her out to eat. When she got back, we went to Newells and all ate cheese fries. After driving back to the campus, we went down to the Pit (basement of Erb, the building where I live) and played Soul Caliber and Guitar Hero for several hours. Tara wanted to have a “sleepover”, so everybody claimed a couch over by one TV and we started The Prince of Egypt. Everybody fell asleep. I was good with the whole sleepover idea because my roomie and I are hosting two prospectives this weekend and I was letting one of them use my bed. So it was either the floor in my room or a couch in the Pit. We all woke up gradually this morning and declared Tara’s birthday officially celebrated. And I’m glad that nobody else in our group has a birthday until February (mine) because we will all need some time to recover from this last one.
HAPPY BIRTHDAY TARA!!!!

HAPPY BIRTHDAY!!!!!!

Today a wonderful woman was born.......my Mom!!!
Happy Birthday Mom...I hope you have a good birthday and thank you for being such a great mom to me. I know you miss me when I'm off at college but you prepared me well for this. Thanks for being understanding when I decide to stay here on weekends; I know you'd rather just have me home. I love you!!!!

Pictures

Well, the first picture is me, Tara, and Jayme taking dorky pictures in chem lab.... more of those coming later.
The next three pictures are at Newells - a truck stop in Newton. Home of the BEST (and most disgusting) cheese fries EVER! *as Tyler is showing in that second picture.* The next one is of me and Peter, and the next is me, Tyler, and Evan.
The last picture is of a midnight trip to Wally World. These seem to happen quite frequently.

College Kids

Someone please save us/Us college kids/........We're poor, we're starving, we're flat broke, we've got no cash to spend/.......Oh no, not for me, not for me, Call it torture, call it university/ Arts and Crafts is all I need/ I'll take calligraphy and then I'll make a fake degree

(sorry, it's been awhile since I've quoted Relient K - had to get it out, haha)
So I'm going to try to put some pictures on here.......what poor college students do for fun......

Speaking of having a bad day......

One of my good friends here was just told some life-shattering news......please pray for him and his family.

Did you know........

Just so you know, today is officially "Have A Bad Day" Day. So if you were worried because you are having a bad day and were afraid you weren't allowed to have a bad day, don't worry! Have a bad a day as you like! In fact, if you are having a good day you better do something about it really fast.....

A friend's Facebook note

This should probably be taped
to your bathroom mirror
where one could read it every day.
You may not realize it,
but it's 100% true.
1. There are at least two people in this world
that you would die for.
2. At least 15 people in this world
love you in some way.
3. The only reason anyone would ever hate you
is because they want to
be just like you.
4. A smile from you can bring happiness to anyone,
even if they don't
like you.
5. Every night,
SOMEONE thinks about you
before they go to sleep.
6. You mean the world to someone.
7. You are special and unique.
8.. Someone that you don't even know exists loves you.
9. When you make the biggest mistake ever,
something good comes from it.
10. When you think the world has
turned its back on you, take another look.
11. Always remember the compliments you received..
Forget about the rude remarks.

Star-tipping

Last night, I and a couple friends were really bored, so we grabbed a flashlight and headed out to the dark soccer field to do a little star-tipping.

Remembering......

That morning at CYIA...... the day Tim gave the chapel.

My dreams keep sliding off the altar, but with God's help I shove them back up.

In Zoology

Tara: *answers a question Hugo just asked the class*
Kari: Eat chalk, Tara!

Dustin Galyon makes my day (every time I see him)

Dustin Galyon is an admissions counselor and the head men's basketball coach here at HC. He's young (25), extremely friendly, and indescribably energetic. The Energizer Bunny has NOTHING on this guy. If you've ever seen the animated movie Hoodwinked, he has the energy of that squirrel (if you haven't seen this movie, you should. It's a cute and funny movie.)He gave the message at Campus Worship tonight. He's the only person I know who can talk at the speed of light for 40 minutes straight without a pause. He paced up and down the rows of chairs, stopping at empty ones to climb up on top of them to speak for about 30 seconds before he clambered down again. His message was so good though.....he made his whole basketball team come. Big, tough guys who don't come from the greatest backgrounds or the greatest neighborhoods heard his passionate invitation. He told the story of Peter denying Jesus three times, and how Jesus later asked Peter three times "Do you love me?" He talked about struggles in his own life and about his favorite name for Jesus: Redeemer. It was a powerful and convicting message.

**Ok, I have to stick a quote or two in here**
Dustin: "And do you know what Peter did when he realized it was Jesus standing there on the shore? He jumped over the side of the boat, into the freezing cold water, and started swimming! He's heading straight for Jesus, blazing through the water, Michael-Phelps-ing it to shore!"
Dustin: "Now I know I'm nowhere close to perfect. I mean, I blow my nose in the shower!" (a popular campus rumor about Dustin)
Dustin: (yelling) "That tomb was empty so that your lives don't have to be!"

Prof. Quotes

Hugo Boschmann: "Having a smoking section in a restaurant is like having a peeing section in a swimming pool."
Hugo: (holding up a piece of a smoker's lung) "I'm so glad somebody smoked and died so I could buy this! *assumes innocent, slightly defensive look* What? I didn't tell them to smoke!"
Hugo: "I sat at home and graded your lab exams.... and I started bawling. My wife asked me, 'Hugo, what is wrong?' and I said, 'No one knew what the function of the lateral line on a perch is!'"
Hugo: "For next five weeks in lab we will focus on one thing: piggy dissection. Now first before you cut up Piggy, you must name Piggy."
Hugo: "Dissection is not demolition!"
Hugo: (practically every week) "Who's ready for a quizzy?"

Jim Yoder: (every single time he finishes explaining something) "Nod your heads."
Jim: "Barium is the undertaker's element. Think about it." (and the entire class groans)
Jim: "Helium is the doctor's element. Think about it."
Jim: "Now we chemists of course forget that most people do not know the proper names for things. That's why whenever we have a headache we tell the drugstore clerk we want to buy some acetosalicylic acid."
Jim: "Now some of you in this class did not do well at all on these problems. That's why I wrote F U on your papers." *entire class looks at each other in stunned silence. Jim is oblivious. He explains that "f u" is some abbreviation for some chemical term. The entire class gives slightly stunned laughs. Jim has no idea what was so funny.*

I think all these science profs have spent waaay too time studying and teaching their respective subjects. Jim and Hugo have been teaching at Hesston for a combined total of about 70 years.

I miss basketball

Maybe I'll go to the Wellness Center today and do something that will make me sore and out of breath. That should help.

"The medium is the message"

"The content of the medium is the juicy piece of meat carried by the burglar to distract the watchdog of the mind" - Marshall McLuhan
Recently attended a fascinating chapel where Shane Hipps talked about media and today's electronic culture. I want to tell you about it but instead I have to write a paper for General Psychology. :(

My Theme Song for the Past Week

"Dance Floor Anthem" by Good Charlotte

:)

More thoughts (not on my theme song) coming later today.

My latest Facebook note

I write notes on Facebook and they don't often make it to my blog - this one I'm going to put on here though.

><>< I'm Still Waiting For You To Be The One I'm Waiting For ><><

I have to admit, I love the band Relient K. One of their songs, The One I’m Waiting For, has really made me think. I’ve used the phrase “I’m still waiting for You to be the one I’m waiting for” in my status messages and had people ask me what it meant. So I am going to attempt to answer (at least what it means to me).

We talk a lot about waiting for the right guy or girl to come along. Sometimes we use it as an explanation (“I’ve never dated because I’m waiting for the right one to come along”) or we whine about it (“How much longer to do I have to wait for it? I wish I had a boy/girlfriend now!”). I think we all feel a longing for that special relationship. But where does that longing come from? God knew from the very beginning that we as humans need someone, when he saw that it was “not good for the man (Adam) to be alone” and created Eve. But the love that we can feel for someone on this earth is just a poor reflection, a cheap imitation of the love God has for us. The closeness we long for with another human being comes from the way we were created. God wants us to know that we are not complete without Him, and He gave us a desire to seek Him out. We try to fulfill that desire with other people or material possessions and not with God.

A very wise older Christian friend once said to me, “I have this longing inside me for a special relationship with a guy. But then I realized that if God, who loves me more than I can ever imagine and is truly the best thing that ever happened to me, can't fulfill that desire why do I think another person can? Only once I am content in God will I be able to be content in someone else.” That really hit home to me, and I try to live by those words. Sometimes I end up kicking myself because I spend waaaay more time thinking about earthly relationships than I do thinking about my relationship with God. I’m still waiting for myself to change enough that it is a desire for a deep relationship with God that I long for more than anything. That’s why I often have to confess, “Lord, I’m still waiting for You to be the one I’m waiting for.”

I’m not saying that God doesn’t want us to have a relationship with that special guy/girl. On the contrary, God created us with that desire and that is why a relationship like that is so amazing. I’m just saying that when both people in the relationship are focused on God as well as each other, that is when it is in God’s will and that makes it even more amazing.
(Ok, like I would know, right? These are just my thoughts right now.)

If we aren't satisfied with the Creator, why do we expect to be satisfied with the created thing?

Quote for the week.....

Nate Snyder and Chris Moyer were talking about going clubbing, so they could play pool and dance. Now let me just say that these guys are about the last ones in the world you would expect to actually go clubbing.

Chris: Man, we'd have to take some girls along - we'd look totally lame without girls.
Nate: DUDE! That's the point! You want to find some girls - you don't take them with you!

One last thought......

....then it is really time to give this up.

Obama talks about change, but his plans seem rather naive. To me, his refrain is reminiscent of Bob the Builder (Can we fix it? Yes we can!)
It only remains to be seen how this change will actually work.
I don't take quite as pessimistic a view as one of my friends here, who texted me as soon as the results were in: "Goodbye American dream..... Hello European socialism." Simply because Obama was elected does not mean America is going to become Russia overnight. I also tend to frown on insinuations that Obama is the anti-christ.

(Just for the record, I voted for McCain, however, I am not so polarized for him that I thought he was America's only hope and Obama was the ultimate embodiment of evil. Both candidates disgusted me with their political pandering to their parties, publicity stunts, and concern for image over issues.)

And lastly......Mennonites. Here at Hesston College, a liberal Mennonite college, the sentiment is overwhelmingly for Obama. This has a lot to do with his plans for getting out of Iraq (Mennonites being pacifists and all). If you even mention other issues in the campaign....take abortion, for example,....you can get attacked pretty quickly. I don't know how many times I've heard the standard Mennonite response to the abortion issue: "Well, the number of deaths of Iraqi innocents and soldiers as well as US soldiers far outweighs the number of abortions that have taken place within the last year. Something to consider as opposed to voting on a single issue." This statement seems kind of hypocritical to me, but whatever. (If anybody reading this is Mennonite, I apologize. I don't mean to stereotype you or anything like that. This is just what I've encountered here.)

No matter how you feel about the election, we have made history. We have a new president, and he has a lot of work ahead of him. He has to deal with a national recession, put together a timetable for Iraq, decide what we are going to do about Afganistan, and deal with the energy crisis and a wide variety of other problems. What Obama and our nation need right now is prayer.

Obamination

Random thought:
When you are not pro-Obama, a Mennonite campus is not the place for you.

A response for Michaela.....

Yeah, I can usually think of a song to describe my life and thought processes at any given point in time. So get used to it. :)

Right now "Apologize" by OneRepublic is running through my head, due to some stuff that happened to a friend recently.....

But don't worry, anybody! I'm lovin' life!

Thought on the election

No matter what....keep this in mind: Ultimately, Barack Obama or John McCain cannot determine America's fate.....

We are one great nation under God
Indivisible, with a spirit strong and free....

To bring peace, to bring light
with our torch of freedom
is the one great hope
of one great nation under God

The guys...

...are all starting to look a little scruffy. Look out Hesston College - here comes No Shave November!

Hallowe'en

7:30 (or so): Rachel is sitting in her room, feeling bored and sorry for herself that she is doing nothing special on Halloween. But she doesn't have a good costume idea, so what else is she supposed to do? Just then, Johnny comes by. He tells her that he wants to go trick-or-treating because he's never done that before (he's from Mexico, what do you expect?) He talks her in to going with him, and before she knows it they are in a group of about 8 people.

Ok, back to first person. I stole my roomie's Lebron James jersey and Peter made me wear his huge black wig. So I had a costume now! We walked all over Hesston. Most of the group bailed partway through, but Peter, Jetca, and I trick-or-treated for about an hour and a half and got 2 Wal-mart sacks full of candy! Yum!

Then a big group of us watched a movie. Since it was Halloween, we had to watch a scary movie......and we really outdid ourselves picking it. We ended up watching The Grudge 2. Wow. Freaky. I am never going to Japan. It was a lot of fun though.