this is no longer my blog

may it rest in peace.
this site is just remaining open so that crazy spammers don't come and make it a site inappropriate for the eyes of children.
that has been known to happen.

Well, we played our first dodgeball game. And, I think it is safe to say that we got annihilated. We didn't win a single match, however we had a good time and that is all that matters. Now the thing is that my ability to have children might be debatable... I got nailed in my fragiles.
There was also this man who some of the kids and I nicknamed "the freak" or "freakboy" or something like that last semester because of his large size and tendency to hurl the balls at inhuman speeds, with such ferocity that a savage grunt would erupt from his lips. He seemed to be gunning for me, and at least four times hurled these foam balls of death at alarming speeds coming within centimeters of my head. At one point he tried to blame it on my height. Like it was MY fault he was trying to knock my head off. I fail to see the logic in that.
One woman on our team was taken out with a ball to the face. Knocked her glasses nearly off her face, and she fell to the ground and was seeing double until we got her back to her room about 10 minutes ago. She was standing up, so really the guy that hit her should have been taken out of the game for the head shot. But that didn't happen. He stayed in the game and we got to substitute a person in for her.
Anyway, now I've got this adrenaline surging through my system and I need to figure out an appropriate outlet for my excess energy.
I will talk with all of you, my people, later.

I haven't been very good at updating this thing. To be honest, the idea hasn't even crossed my mind lately, and when it has I just think, "Hmmm... maybe later...." This is a hectic and uncertain time in the life of this church nerd.
Hectic because I'm pretty busy. Working, and getting ready to go on a school trip to Seattle, a committee meeting or two... Ok, so I'm not very busy, just have a lot on my mind, I guess. I'm excited about going to Seattle, uncertain about financial matters concerning the trip... yadda yadda yadda... you don't want to hear about that.
Things are uncertain because my future rests in the hands of other people. Up to this point in my life, I've had pretty good control over where I was headed. I chose to go to a little, liberal arts college in Nebraska. I chose to accept a position as a youth director after graduation. I chose to leave that position when I finally figured out it wasn't a good place for me. I chose to attend seminary in Iowa. My life has been guided by my choices. However, this next HUGE step in my life will not be determined by me. Sure, I filled out the forms, I answered the questions, I told them where I'd like to end up, but they still have the option to put me almost anywhere. In about a month and a half, a large group of people are going to get together, look over the forms I have filled out, and then make a decision that will impact the rest of my life. It's exciting on one hand, and unnerving on the other.
I ran across something that helped to read. It comes from good ol' Thomas Merton, and I want to share it with you all:

After having a hectic couple of weeks of trying to cram in all the work that I should have been wisely working on for much longer, the intitial feeling of turning in that final paper and realizing that I did not have any other school work to be done, I have to admit the feeling was a bit euphoric. While I did not run up and down the hallway screaming, I did knock on my friend's door and jump around and scream, "I'm dooooo-o-o-oooo-oo-o-ooooone!" As she had to finish a paper, she was not as amused or as excited as I would have hoped.

But now the excitement is wearing off, a bit. A lot of people have packed up and headed off to their various Christmas destinations. I don't leave for mine until Monday, because I have a SENIOR GRADUATION COMMITTEE meeting on Monday morning. The fact that we have to start planning that stuff seems a bit unreal. And, of course, I'm on the committee. I've always had a tendency to overextend myself. This year is no exception. In fact, it's like it has gone above and beyond the call of duty to prove the rule. Working in the Admissions office and the youth room on campus, co-vice president of the student government association, on the youth committee, on the Feminist issues newsletter team, in charge of planning our weekly evening vespers service (we've been doing Holden Evening Prayer lately... boo yah!), add into that schoolwork and a social life (very important!), and then two committees I'm on that haven't met yet (the senior banquet committee - the one that meets Monday - and then the senior gift committee. We've decided to all pledge enough money to redo the playground on campus, so that it is up to code for the wee ones. I'm super excited that our class has decided to do that, and I thought that since I have been a strong youth ministry presence on campus during my years, that I just couldn't NOT be on that committee. So, I volunteered.) Yeah. I have this desire to be plugged into the life of campus, I guess you could say.

But now, since Friday was the last official day of the semester, things have just kind of stopped. People are gone for break, the seminary has quieted down a bit, I have nothing going on or that needs to be done. I have had time to sit and think, and chat with friends, about first call assignment and how close graduation is and how soon we'll be heading out from this place into the Great Unknown. Makes me want to say, "Eek!"

Anyway, I will be heading to my parents' house for Christmas. I'll be leaving Monday after my committee meeting. I know that they have internet access, and so chances are that there will be time and opportunity to write, but I am unsure of my schedule. I know that my parents want to spend time with my older brother, so I can actually meet my niece. She's about a year old now, I think, and I have yet to see her in person. Of course, it's been more than a year since I have been back to my parents' house. And my brother and his family don't live too far from them. So, that would be why I haven't met her.

Also, over Christmas break I have rescheduled my approval interview with my candidacy committee. So, I'll be able to get that last step of the process out of the way. Plus, it's at the camp I worked at during the summers of my college years. And they have done a lot of building out there, so it will look completely different.

Well, then. Now that I've completely bored you all to tears, I will go. No need to pretend that this was interesting. I don't think that even I think any of what I wrote is worth reading. It's like the movie Billy Madison, when Adam Sandler does that long speech about the poky little puppy, or whatever, and the moderator says, "I think we are all a bit more stupid after having had to sit through that." Or something like that. I'm sure that's how most of you feel. But please keep coming back and reading. I assure you, someday somewhere I might, once again, pull something witty and humorous and intelligent out of the blackhole that now exists in my head.

I just turned in my last paper of the semester. I have too much energy to sit and write a real entry right now. I'm going to go run around the halls screaming. Be back soon.

I KNOW! I know that I said I would be taking a break from this blog until I was finished with what I needed to do to finish up this semester. But the truth is, I enjoy my blogging time too much. I like putting my thoughts and observations into written form. So, I think that it is an outlet for me in the midst of this end of the semester busyness to be able to take a moment to write something down. I guess that means I'm going to disregard my earlier entry and continue to blog when I feel so moved.

And now I have an announcement... My first call forms are filled out and have been sent in. These forms which will directly impact the next few years of my life... heck, who am I kidding, the REST of my life... are filled out and I've e-mailed them off and now I can't change anything about them. Immediately after I e-mailed them to the place where they are supposed to go I read through them. I second guessed some of my answers, thought I should have worded some of them differently or better, wondered if I should have even said some of the things that I did, or added some things that I had chosen to leave off. I freaked out a bit about the order I put to the preferences that I chose. There were some synods that I thought about choosing, where people I know and love currently live, and that are doing great things to minister to people in their context, but I didn't feel like they had as many opportunities to do the ministry to which I most feel called. There are some synods that important people have recommended that they think I would find more opportunities to find my ideal call. The only thing about some of those synods were that I have never lived near them and I don't know very many people in them.

I decided that following the call of God is not supposed to be easy and safe. It reminds me of a conversation that takes place in The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe (soon to be released as a major motion picture!! go see it!!!) where Susan and Lucy are talking to Mr. Beaver about Aslan:

Well, it's getting to that time of the semester when one gets bogged down by trying to cram 14 weeks of work into the remaining two. It's a little bit of a struggle for me to keep my head above water at this point, with papers due and first call paperwork needing to be finished and books to read and projects to finish up. Unfortunately, some things need to give, and I'm afraid that one of those will need to be this blog. But do not fret! This is not good-bye. It is merely a "see you later" until I finish what NEEDS to be finished. And, I'm sure, I will continue to poke my head in here, if only briefly. Maybe just to drop a note to say that I am, indeed, still alive and kicking. And who knows. My resolve to focus on what I should be focusing on might not be that great. Or I might be struck with some great idea that I will just need to share with my blogging community. In that case, I'm sure I will find my way back here among you all. But, for right now, my intentions are to spend my time wisely on the work that needs doing.
Blessings during this holiday season, and I look forward to engaging in conversation with you all again, when I get to a point in my life where I am more capable to do some engaging.