:) 5 days!

So, Here is the deal, in 5 days I move to TN. Yup 5 (give or take a few hours...)! So I have decided... with much MUCH DEBATE to start a new blog.

Here is the link http://kiraintn.blogspot.com/ so come check it out.

I'm not sure how much I will update this blog while I'm at the ranch, so make sure you check out that blog! And please let me know when I need to update if I have been a slacker!

I'm DONE!

So, I just finished more of my final project, now I will blog.

So, I'm just really going to procrastinate right now.  I just finished one of my three papers that I have to write for Don by Monday.  It is Friday... I don't know what is wrong with me... I think I'm just ready to be finished.  Hmm... that and I have to do the stupid exit exam... errga. I don't want to talk about that here though. 

Isn't that a cute kid with me?  Ok, probably not the best picture ever, but she really is cute. I promise.  Hmm... that is all about her because I believe I just talked about her recently.  Lissy (one of the youth girls) took this and recently put them on facebook so I stole this one and so more.  I stole them to put in my portfolio for the retreat.  That was one of the projects that I had for Don.  That isn't due until Monday, but was done yesterday! Yay for having only two more papers for him. 

I'm sitting a Panera Bread right now working on paper with Jordan.  I'm kind of nervous that she will finish soon and I won't be done with the second paper if I start now... but honestly, I think I would rather do this right now.  So there are about 8 days until I graduate from college. WOW.  Crazy.  And on Tuesday I will officially be DONE with school.  Woohoo!

This school talk is getting boring.  So true story... I have the best roommates ever!  We went to Mellow Mushroom last night and had a graduation celebration! It was a of fun!  I would share pictures with you but I don't currently have any because for some reason I forgot my camera when we went out... kind of like today when we all went to lunch with Renee... how weird.  I think it has something to do with not wanting to hold it.  I miss taking pictures though.  But honestly we don't really do anything exciting we just sit around and do homework and watch HIMYM.  If you don't know what that is I truly feel sorry for you, and believe that you need to go look it up and become a fan.  Or maybe wait a year or so because I'm pretty sure it has to end soon... but maybe not, and then you can watch all the episodes by DVD without commercials on NetFlix, or buy the seasons, either way.  Anyway. Mellow Mushroom... right, so we went to mellow mushroom and Rikki paid for my meal! And Suz gave me a bear and they "all" gave me a framed picture that Rikki photo shopped and Suz painted the frame... Rhia was just... well... there.  That is alright though.   I kind of love my roommates they are awesome!

And in honor of getting to talk to Aly tomorrow here is a fun picture! I love  her lots!

Okkk... I think I'm going to do not homework with Jordan now! Yay!

OOpppss... I forgot to name this... but true story. I'm done with class!

Hey! Guess what?!
Some may know this already, but I GOT A MAC! Woo hoo!  A big thanks to Mom and Nana for buying such an awesome birthday/graduation gift.  Really, it is lovely.
I am still trying to get the hang of it, but I already love it!  I have had it about three weeks now.  And all I have to say is that I'm glass that is turns when I want it to, gets on the internet, and has provided me with something else to get distracted with.  It has been lovely!
It has also provided me away to actually get a hold of Aly.  In fact we actually got to talk on Skype the other day! It was really nice!  Well kind of, if anyone has tried talking to her you know that it is really delayed.

Also another guess what?! Today is the LAST DAY OF CLASSES!  I was starting to wonder if this day would ever come.  This day comes with JOY and sadness.  I mean I'm graduation a WEEK FROM SATURDAY!  Who thought that would EVER happen?!?  I'm graduating... it hasn't completely sunk in yet... but it is coming!  But first I have three major things to finish. One beginning work for Spiritual Formation, Two being stuff for teaching and learning, and the last thing is my exit exam.  I would get into how upset I am about the exit exam, but I don't feel like getting upset again.... Of course I still have my Spanish exam, but that is all!  And then I am done with my undergrad.  Wow.  And I am not saying that I am done school forever for two reasons.  First because my job that I will be starting at in approximately 22 days I will have to be 'teaching' students, but not in a classroom.  The second reason is because I don't know what the Lord has in store for me.  For all I know I will be back in school for some reason or another after I have worked for a few years.

Although I am getting nervous about what is coming up I am still super excited!  I can't wait to see what is going to happen...

I'm off to finish some work! Woohoo!
Bye!

"When the daylight breaks through the buildings of Chicago, I will stand alone in the valley of tomorrow..."

Hello Friends!
I am awful at updating... but maybe once summer hits this will be easier.  There are a few things that I want to talk about during this entry!  Chicago, the middle school retreat and perhaps the silent retreat!

First off - Chicago! The picture on the left is of Scout, Breena, and I.  I went to Chicago with Montreat Pres because they are amazing and they love me!  We went for a youth workers convention and it was awesome!  Actually I'm not sure if I liked this one or the one in Atlanta last semester better.  But I definitely enjoyed the location more.  I really can not wait to be doing youth ministry full time because things like this remind me that the time in school is worth it.  Hopefully when I am paying back loans I will still say that.  As much as I want to be in a church doing ministry, I am really excited about being at the Ranch next year.  It is going to be amazing.  Anyway... that has nothing to do with Chicago!  I got to spend the better half of a week in Chicago with some amazing people and learned a lot about middle school ministry.  Yay! I love middle schoolers!  One of the cool things that we got to do while we were in Chicago was going up in the Sears Tower.  The picture above is of Marcella, Breena and I laying in one of the sky boxes :)  It was so awesome!  And a beautiful day to do it.  One thing that I was told before going was that I was going to freeze while I was there because I am from Charleston and I have to say that person lied to me... true story it was honestly kind of hot for the end of February.  But all in all it was a good time.

This whole semester has basically been formed around the middle school retreat.  In one of my classes we spent the ENTIRE semester working on this retreat... I'm not sure if I learned anything other than to build a retreat from the ground up.  And I'm thankful for it, but it was a lot of work... outside of class.  And I had to do something that I did not want to do.... call someone.  I hate using the phone to call people, especially people that I have never met!  I know that God was preparing me for when I have to call people all the time, but still, I am not a fan.  And I was even more frustrated because I was not suppose to even be helping with that part of the retreat, because I knew NOTHING about it.  But it all turned out Amazing!  The picture above is the whole group that went in addition to the students that I will be working with next year at Wears Valley!  On Saturday for a service project we went to Wears Valley Ranch and served the students and house parents there.  It was amazing.  Many of the girls remembered who I was and it was so much fun to hang out with them!  They have already stolen my heart!  It will be bittersweet to leave the student that we went with, but I know that I am going to an amazing place and I can't wait to start. 

The other thing that we got to do on Saturday was ride go-karts!  Here is a picture of some of the students on the track!  Hooray for Breena for taking pictures!  It is a legit wooden track, and pretty much awesome!  Hopefully something that can be done at the ranch next year?  This was one of the most difficult things to get passed with our group.  Shawn, the youth pastor for these students, bought tickets to the go-kart place and a couple of people in my class really tried to get him to cancel it... which would have been awful!  But its all good!  We got to go and it was a BLAST!

Also for my entertainment  I have to tell you about this little girl.  She has stolen my heart for reals, and I'm not going to lie she is going to be the hardest part about leaving Montreat.  This is Scout for those of you who don't know.  Her name came from To Kill a Mocking Bird, if I am correct, and I think I am, but someone correct me if I am wrong.  Anyway - This is Breena's child (and David's just so you know that she is not a single mother :]) and she LOVES me.  To the point that when she sees me and someone else is holding her she starts reaching for me and has some AMAZING pouty faces!  In fact on this day, Breena was holding her, and this is somewhat of a rarity, and I was holding her and then I gave her back because Breena needed to feed her.  When Breena got her back Scout made herself cry because she wanted me to hold her so bad.  Now this has gotten to the point where all the youth kids know that she likes me more so when they are holding her, they run away from me because they do know want her to see me.  Ha ha... I love this kid.  I'm not so sure why she loves me, but its all good.  This by the way has happened ever since this trip, she wants me over the other people around her.  YaY babies!

You know, I'm not going to talk about the silent retreat because frankly, I didn't like it.  I was going to leave you with a video, but I'm not sure how to do that anymore.

So here are a few pictures of the awesome things in my apt...







Oh, PS... the title is lyrics from a NeedToBreathe song.

"Sitting in restaurants thought we were so grown up but I know now that we were not the people that we turned out to be..."

I have been completely terrible about this whole updating thing. I blame being lazy and amazing roommates :) God is so good! I say that honestly because looking at what he has prepared by bring the four of us together is AWESOME!  I could not have picked better roommates, but God knows what he is doing.  He even knew that the four of us would all have enough of the same humor to feel the need to watch How I Met Your Mother together!

I did a lot of reflecting yesterday about how amazing God's timing is.  It started a few days ago, but Saturday is when it really hit me.  I got to spend a lot of time with a dear friend of mine.  Although we get together at least once a week to catch up there are some stories that take us a while to tell each other.  I was driving her back to the dorm on Saturday and we began the conversation about how Suz, Rhia, Rikki, and I all became roommates.  See the thing is - Suz and I had nothing to do with it.  It was all about God and his timing.  The way things fell into place last semester was ridiculous... in fact the craziness starts back when I came into the apartment.  Long story short there... I was suppose to be an RA, but God was like no you aren't going to be an RA... You are going to become roommates with Suz because she is going to need you spring of 2010 and you have to know each other before than or else you won't trust one another.

The amazing part of this story is both Rikki and Rhia tried out to be RA's this semester and they were not chosen.  Normally you could just say that is because the people who interviewed them didn't have what they wanted... I don't believe that for a second.  I know that God knew that both of them would be here, even if Suz and I took wrong turns to get there first.  Anyway - point being my roommates are amazing and God is the only reason that they are in my apt.

My roommates and I also have very similar taste in music and Rikki made me a cd in 5 minutes because I needed to get on the road, but one of the songs was Merry Happy by Kate Nash.  The song has been stuck in my head for days... DAYS!  But one of the lyrics is the title to this blog today and it encompasses how I have been feeling.  "Sitting in restaurants thought we were so grown up but I
know now that we were not the people that we turned out to be..."

So one of the reasons that this has been stuck in my head is because it is truth for me.  I think about the times at SMC where I thought I was so grown up, but I wasn't.  I'm not saying that I am now, but I'm more grown up than I was.  The person at SMC is not the person I turned out to be, the people I was friends with are not the people that I surround myself with still, but they are still a part of me.  Each of them changed me in some way.  Some of those ways were good, but they came in a bad package.  Either way I flashback to a time when I was sitting with my boyfriend at the time and I know I was thinking that I was grown up because I had a boyfriend and that some day I would be married to him... we see how that turned out.

The truth is that I'm glad I haven't turned out to be that person I was.  I'm glad that I do no surround myself with those same people.  Not that they are bad people, but those weren't the people they turned out to be.  God is all knowing, and he knows us better than we could know ourselves.  I struggle sometimes with not being friends with the same person since the fifth grade, but God has been faithful.  He has provided me with amazing people that change my life on a daily basis and for that I am thankful.  He knows what I need and he provides for me.

"For you created my inmost being; you knit me together in my mother's womb.  I praise you because I am fearfully and wonderfully made; your works are wonderful, I know that full well."
Psalm 139:13,14

"Baby, be prepared to be surprised ..."

Happy 2010! I do hope that everyone brought in the new year with class! :) This year I brought in the new year a little bit different than normal. I was in Kansas, which is a hour off from New York's wonderful ball drop. So at eleven pm in Kansas I watched the ball drop and then I went to bed, because I was the only one still awake. Some may be wondering why I was in Kansas and that is easily answered by stating... Oz. Yup. I wanted to meet the wizard :]. Okay... really for those who don't know my dad moved to Kansas and I thought I would take advantage of the long break in classes and head out to see him.

So that picture is a picture of the snow!! I love snow. Really. It makes the cold worth having. I don't understand why God put in Charleston all my life. I love winter. And Fall. And Spring... Summer, I could do without that one. But anyway - the picture seemed to be good for this blog.

The title is from a Sondre Lerche song called "To Be Surprised". I have no reasoning for it other than Suz is playing it and we watched Dan in Real Life the other day. And it was better than the other two movies that we have watched this weekend. Also for this year, I really want to be surprised. I want to be surprised at what God is doing in my life and what will happen.

So, I have to admit something. Suz got me addicted to Deviant Art. Which is a website were people post there art work and it is really cool. I was look on there the other day and I ran into this writing... and it broke my heart.

Shelved

"she sees the world through batted eyelashes and a plastered smile. her appearance is flawless - a doll in a window display.
he walks by the window day after day and looks in. he sees a beautiful image, lace and sparkles and shiny accessories.
into the store he goes and puts his money on the counter. the old shopkeep with the grey beard and the dirty spectacles nods and hands the doll over.
she is porcelain and she's easy to break. her tag reads 'handle with care' but he rips it off before he can read it. he doesn't care about her details. he just wants her pretty exterior.
he takes her home and plays with her, undressing and dressing and undressing and dressing. when he is done, he places her on his shelf beside the others he's grown weary of.

and he leaves her there.

she is porcelain and she's easy to break. she collects dust and sits among all the other dolls. they scratch together and chip each other. she misses the glossy store window; flawless and untouched."

Again, let me repeat I did not write this! I just really liked it because I feel like there is a lot of human emotion in it. Girls do this to themselves all the time. I feel like we tend to become someone that we aren't at times in our lives and we do things that we wish we hadn't. At once we were perfected and untouched and then something happen, and we did something for someone or something and that thing let us down. It is hard it read that.

It is because of things like this poem and the emotions that I get from it that makes me want to work with youth. Most of the time they have so much to say and so much emotion that they need someone that will be there for them. I want to be that person. I want to be there for people who are hurting because of the regrets that they made. I want to be there for people who are so excited about life and want to burst in excitement. How does that not sound awesome?

I really only wanted to update with the story. So this is all for tonight :).