Big Girls Don't Cry

The title is definitely my guilty pleasure song of the moment, not to mention a sentiment I probably need to learn. It drives me crazy that, at 21 years old, my natural reaction to frustration is still tears. I hate that a minor setback in something not even remotely important in the long run can make me cry. Thankfully, the last few days (after realizing how much I hate behaving this way) have been better. I hope this continues.

I'm really bad at writing in this thing. I want to record my thoughts as life goes on... but sometimes it seems like I'm not having any coherent thoughts, and other times it seems like I can't stop my mind from spinning long enough to get some of them down "on paper." Here are a few of the things running through my mind right now:

- School is so freaking hard. This semester is going to be rough. But, right now at least, I can see that everyone else thinks it's really hard, too. And all I can do is try hard. God has put me here, and He knows where He'll take me next. So there's no reason to worry. This is a moderately revolutionary way of thinking for me, for the first week of school.

- I'm in love with the show "Scrubs." I'd easily put it up among my favorites, thanks to the first two seasons I've been working through over the summer and this past week.

- I really want to find THE guy. This sounds ridiculously corny, and probably fairly immature, and I'm sure it is evidence of the lack of faith and patience in my life. But... there it is. I don't know... I don't really care about all the goofy dating stuff our society dwells on so much. I just want a guy who fits me mentally, emotionally, and spiritually. Who knows if or when it will happen, but I've been thinking about it lately.

- I really want to be more patient and have more faith. I want to have more faith in God, in my friends, in myself.

- Why is it SO hard to focus on homework?

That's all I've got for now.

It's been a while

I haven't written in a while. Life got busy with finals, and then I went home and spent time doing things that were completely entertaining but would have been exceptionally boring to read about. And this past week has just been CRAZY... so I haven't had the time or ability to sit down and write. So, here's some sort of attempt to make up for my lack of communication.

Work has been good. Fun, hard, exhausting, and challenging... but good. I swam 300 yards, which is about 280 yards more than I would have thought that I could swim. I pulled my boss from the bottom of the swimming pool and worked with a coworker to get him out of the pool on a backboard (for a test... he wasn't really drowning). I did CPR on dummies, shot arrows at a target, fel into the arms of coworkers, completed five hours on the ropes course, and rode on a mountain bike trail.

This week, the kids show up. I think it'll be a very different feel at camp, and my job will be less busy and more of what I expected. I'll be distributing medicine to kids, treating minor injuries, and talking to lots of parents about the health of their children. I'm looking forward to it, and I think I will be glad once I have a feel for how everything is going to go. I really want this summer to be one in which I focus on God. I read a Madeleine L'Engle quote once, and it said something about how the greatest doctors are those who realize that it is God, not them, who is saving lives. I know I'm not a doctor, and I know the odds are pretty good I won't face a situation in which I have to save a life, but I really want to live and work with that mindset. I want to realize that God is what makes it possible for me to be here, and God is who will guide me each day at work. I want Him to guide me.

Other than that... life is good. I really like my coworkers. They're good kids, and hilarious. I hope that we get to know each other well, and I'm certain I'll learn from and have fun with all of them. I got to hang out with some CCF'ers this weekend, and that was really great, too. We watched "Pirates of the Caribbean," played Trivial Pursuit: 90s Edition, watched "The Office," and had a blast hanging out.

That's all I've got for now.

Seriously... every Monday night. Never asleep before 2:30 am. It's sick. At least there was a good reason tonight. (Much more adorable than my usual Digital Signal Processing lab report, that's for sure.)

Today can be characterized by my proximity to moderately famous people who I absolutely adore.

Person one: Barack Obama. His campaign brought him to Atlanta (more specifically, the heart of Georgia Tech's campus), and I was lucky enough to be one of the 20,000 people who heard him speak in person - I was actually standing about 20 feet away from the walkway he came in on, and I was close enough to make eye contact and exchange waves with him after his speech. In between these close encounters, he said some interesting, exciting things about how he would like to shape the country.

Person two: Patty Griffin. One of my good friends introduced me to Patty Griffin's music about a year ago (it was included on a "nap" playlist that was playing while I napped on her futon)... we found out that she was going to play in Atlanta, and that friend and I knew we had to be there. Her show was AMAZING. The venue is one of the more well-known but unique in Atlanta: The Tabernacle, an old church that has been converted to a music venue. Patty (can I call her Patty?) sang for almost two hours, and it was nothing short of amazing. The music was loud and energizing, and her voice has strength and beauty that I can only wish mine had. (In fact, I'm exceptionally tone deaf.) It might be the best concert I've ever been to.

In other news, I think I am just DONE with this semester. I feel drained mentally, physically, emotionally, and so on. I feel simultaneously overly busy and exceedingly lazy. I feel lonely, but I don't really wish I were spending more time with people. I usually hate change, but I feel incredibly anxious for a break from this atmosphere. I feel like this impending disaster is somewhere, waiting in the wings. But I lack the energy or desire to go seek it out.

I just don't know. Nothing's really wrong, but something's not quite right. I think I had bed bugs. I never saw them, but I would wake up each morning with a new collection of bites. I washed my sheets, though - hopefully this will fix the problem. At least I have a whole playlist of Patty Griffin to choose from, right?

But if you break down
I'll drive out and find you
If you forget my love
I'll try to remind you
And stay by you when it don't come easy
- "When it Don't Come Easy," Patty Griffin

"So far, I don't really mind old age."
- Grammy, on the subject of turning 83 years old

There may be some flaws with the overall structure or dynamic of my community. There are things about my ministry that rub me the wrong way, make me uncomfortable, irritate me, whatever. But at the core, my community consists of people, and I absolutely LOVE those people. The ones who laugh with me about ridiculous things, who turn and look at me with excitement every time certain worship songs begin, who greet me (and then harass me repeatedly) by wiping their hands across my face, who tease me about anything and everything, who "tag" me and say it's my turn to go to the country they live in, who get so excited about 8:30 a.m. breakfast the day they are leaving for a huge, exhausting mission trip they have been working towards for months. I love that I have a friend I see no more than once a month who can walk in, hear one sentence, and tell me that she's "completely positive that God will do amazing things" by using me as a doctor. I love that the past few weeks have seen a roommate become a genuine friend, and that we can admit to being criers, talk about serious things, and decide that only the sensitive boys have smelly feet. And I love that I have a friend who "gets me" better than I can even begin to explain...considering the amazing friends I have, the fact that she clearly stands out as "best" (and she really does) really means something.

This past week has been awful, in a lot of ways. I didn't have a real weekend - I spent the whole thing putting in around 15-18 hours of work on one lab report (roughly 3% of my grade). I spoke up for myself and I really feel like I did the right thing... and it left me with an angry friend. I stayed up late and woke up early, and I can't remember a day this week or even in the last couple of weeks that has been truly focused on God. I've felt empty, to be honest. And I don't totally know what caused me to feel so much better right now. I mean, I do know...I can feel God's presence again. Not in a stunning way, but it's there, holding me up and giving me peace. And peace is a pretty good start.

A friend and I were talking the other day about how internal change seems to be very gradual. Even when thrown into a brand new situation (a new country, job, school, community, whatever), the mental/emotional/spiritual change doesn't seem to change quite so abruptly. I guess, in a way, that's cool - it seems like that is part of what allows us to keep learning from a situation even when we are no longer in that location. At the same time, though, I find it very frustrating at times. I guess some people are exceptionally adaptable, and maybe they don't have this problem as much as I do. As for me, though, I have to learn and change slowly. I know that the person I am is not the person I want to be; however, I cannot simply do a complete turnaround and be "new and improved" Audrey overnight. How frustrating. I would love it if I could keep calm and not care when DSP doesn't work like I want it to (like tonight).

Maybe that's part of who we are as humans, though. I don't know. There's that cheesy bumper sticker that says "Christians aren't perfect, just forgiven." It seems like a lot of the secular world sees Christians as people who think they're perfect. For me, though, my faith makes me all the more aware of my struggles. I don't mean that in a negative way necessarily... it's just that many of the things I would like to change about myself are only wrong because of my belief system. Putting school first, stressing about a test, deriving worth from grades are all things that the world has no problem with (and even encourages). I think it's good - I like the person I am when I step away and serve God a lot more than when I focus on the other stuff.

I feel lke I have more to say, but right now I'm just ready to be done with the day.