I DON'T UNDERSTAND ENTHALPY!!!

This has not been a very happy day.

DISCLAIMER - please do not read further if you get grossed out. Not my fault. (only half joking)

Started out with a frusterating time in bio lab because I couldn't find the required organs in my fetal pig, it was to underdeveloped. HINT: always grab a LARGE pig. Then I wanted to look at its brain, but my lab partners thought me sick to wanna try and get it out. So I went over to my roomie's table and took a peek at her job. It was super cool! They got an eyeball out of theirs to look at too. Not a ton of detail to see since it is so small, but it was neat. Anyhows, I went to breakfast and could not eat the bacon. I don't normally get squeamish, but that was just too much right afterwords. Made me feel sick.

K, You can resume reading my words of  depression now...
 
So I went back to the room and did homework. Braved the cold to have lunch with my speech buddies, only a girl wanted to sit with us, and I didn't wanna be rude and say no to her, so that kinda was disapointing cause we couldn't have our little chat time. :| But it is better to ruin your day than someone else's.

So then I did more homework, and got very frustrated with chemistry. My tutor couldn't even figure it out for the longest time, and when she did, I still didn't get it. After a long long time of her trying to explain it to me multiple ways I broke down and cried from frustration. Felt really bad because she is such an awesome person for helping me so much, and I was being so stupid and a cry-baby. Groan. I just wanna get this over with. NO WAIT. I don't.

So I went to bio study session tonight and cried more on the cold walk back. But not because my ears were freezing off. Because I didn't know a clue of what was being talked about! Review of the first test didn't help...I got more questions wrong this time around than the first time. And I failed the first time. Sigh. I just wanna quit right now. I cannot do this!! I have to re-learn everything and then some to be ready for Chem and Bio finals, not to mention OT.

I have been working on catch-up reading for OT all day because I am just so fed-up with bio and chem. I CAN'T DO THIS ANYMORE!! I am quitting college and becoming a hermit. No, seriously, I haven't a job yet, and no scholarships for next semester (since I haven't taken the time to apply!!!) so I can't come back. I can't. Fail. Fail. Fail.

:'(

It is so so so hard to remember that no matter what your grades are, God still loves you and has a plan for you. Yet, how can he fulfill his plan if I fail school?!
I am going to go cry now, ok?
ok.
Night......you may not hear from me again.

.................................................................................................................................................
Verse of the day didn't help much either. How can I live a godly life? All that I have been reading in the Bible is not being comprehended by my brain or life or actions or anything. This is just not not good....

“But the day of the Lord will come like a thief. The heavens will disappear with a roar; the elements will be destroyed by fire, and the earth and everything done in it will be laid bare. Since everything will be destroyed in this way, what kind of people ought you to be? You ought to live holy and godly lives” - 2 Peter 3:10-11

BLACK Friday!

A rather boring title for such a fun day!

So thankgiving evening my Daddy drove me to Katana's house (it is quite inconvenient to not have your own car! but I work with it). While parents chatted in the doorway, we spontaneously wrestled on the floor and ate dark chocolate covered ginger. Yum! Then we finished watching Clash of the Titans (i had seen it before, a pretty decent movie!) and headed to bed. Our plans to sleep lots so we would be well rested failed however, due to some much needed chat time in the dark to catch up on life. :)

We finally fell asleep around 12:30ish, only to get less than 3 hrs of sleep. You see, we had to wake up at 3am to get the deals! Though we didn't exactly research the opening times or doorbusters, so by the time we arrived at Kohls they were already open. That is alright though, cause we were satisfied with the Mcdonalds breakfast we bought. Anxious to get inside and start the hectic shopping, we left the egg sandwiches in the car and again braved the 5 degree weather to get inside. BUURRRR!!!!

The two of us wandered for a little while, Katana found a few things, then we picked a line. An hour and a half later we reached the register! During that time we picked up a few extra things, chatted with the nice lady standing in front of us, and discovered there are a lot of different types of meat thermometers! LOL
Tired and starving, we went to Caribu and warmed ourselves up while planning the rest of the itinerary. Wal-Mart, Target, home.

Got the sweetest deals at wal-mart! Though there was a highly creepy old man who was staring at Katana in the electronics department. *shudders*
Haha, we tried to go into Savers to see if they had any deals. Trying the door and finding it locked, we remembered it was only 7:30am. Felt like 4pm!! Crazyness.
Deals were abundant at Target, and I was evil and made Katana try on a ton of clothes. She fell in love with them, which resulted in her spending a lot more than planned. Oops. BUT SHE HAS CUTE CLOTHES NOW! ;D hehe Myself got a jacket and dress. *happy times*

This was the first time I had ever gone black friday shopping! I was amazed at the crowds and glad to be with someone who was a pro at this...

We ate a nice lunch - thanksgiving leftovers - and I failed at keeping Katana from making herself sick with eating to many nerds. :p
She played Sims while I knitted because we were both too hyper to take a nap (very hyperactive activities we participated in though right? LOL), and wasted more time wresting over my phone, haha!

Then it was finally time to go to MOA (in case you don't know what it is, that is Minnesotan talk for the most incredibly big and busy mall of america ;) and meet our senior class for some bell ringing at the red kettles! We arrived early enough to speed down and purchase Katana's favorite drink - bubble tea! I had never tried it and do not particularily like green tea or squishy black tapiocia, but it was actually really really good! :D

I was disappointed when only 3 others showed up, and slightly depressed afterwards that our group is breaking apart.... :'(    ...I need us to stay friends!!!!
I ruffled one guys feathers because I split him and his girlfriend up.. But I felt only partly guilty, because I was being selfish and wanted to talk with Ruth. She goes to college in Chicago you see, and I hadn't seen her since August!! I had much fun belting out christmas carols in the skyway and torturing the fellow shoppers with my horrendous singing voice (i am not a liar, i do NOT know how to sing. :p its embarrassing...) I only knew the lyrics to about 5 carols, and was made fun of by Fluffy Feathers because I didn't know Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer. Whateves.

So the twosome had to leave early to meet the family for dinner, and the other lameo boy didn't wanna be stuck with us too amazing girls, so he left as well. Katana and I braved through the last hour, which froze off our toes so we could not walk properly to shop afterwards. Because of that and the lack of sleep we did not stay much longer to shop, only stopped at one store to get a couple last gifts before heading home, dancing all the way to stay alert to drive! *throw your hands up in the air!* haha, the general line from every secular song on the radio...

Katana generously drove me home, and that was the end to a very very exhaustively long but FUN day. I don't think I have quite recovered from the lack of sleep yet, and have a paper to edit for a friend. So I shall bid you farewell and leave you with this thought...

Why do we celebrate Christmas with so much consumerism/materialism? Besides that, Jesus was born in the spring!!
(more on that later...see if you can discover the answer!)
Good Night my good friends, sleep well and be blessed. <3


“Give praise to the LORD, proclaim his name; make known among the nations what he has done.” - 1 Chronicles 16:8

Vasaline and Lotsa String!

So the RA's had a brilliant idea to have a brother/sister hall thanksgiving dinner last Thursday. Our sister hall signed up to bring deserts, and the brother hall immediately claimed the side dishes. So we were stuck with the turkey and drinks. Yay?

Ken, the RA of our brother hall, had suggested a few days before that we make it an ugly sweater party. Our hall readily agreed, and promptly adventured to Goodwill to stake out some horrendous outfits. Haha, What we did not know is that the store had an ugly sweater event just the week before! They were overflowing with the picked-over fluffy shirts. *happy dance*
So after trying on large armfuls of the hilarious sweaters (including one that was giant enough to be a dress!) my hallmate and I finally chose a couple on sale and checked out.

We also went shopping and used the hall funds to get two large turkeys, some bottles of soda, and a ton of supplies for making hot cranberry punch (my specialty!). I was glad of that, because I really did not have money to buy food. I am guessing that is why the other halls wanted to bring the "easy" stuff. But it is ok, I enjoyed spending a couple hours boiling the drink!! The red liquid smelled just delish, filling up our whole room with the smell of fresh cranberries and cinnamon. Yum! Boy oh boy did our dorm smell good with stuffing and turkey cooking just down the hall...*stomach rumbles*

I felt bad for our RA Bella, she ended up doing most of the work setting up the room we reserved, and she made the turkey and all too. But she sure did a good job of it, cause everyone LOVED it! The other girls showed up around the same time we did, bearing good gifts of sugary foods. Disappointingly, they were not wearing sweaters. The guys however...could have used some help. They WERE wearing sweaters (most of them anyways), and a couple were quite atrocious! Ironically, Ken did not have his own ugly sweater and Bella made him borrow one of hers!! :D The help part though pertained to their food. I honestly was expecting them to COOK something. But I learned to never expect much outta boys. They brought a pineapple, carrots, corn chips, pizza rolls, canned corn, and a buncha other random junk. LAME!! So there was not quite enough food to go around, and that was highly annoying to Bella after all the work she put into making the dinner a success. It was still fun though, because home is where the heart is, and that day my heart was with my friends.

"Nice sweater Zoe..." "THANKS!!" I replied enthusiastically to their uncertain comments. After all, the point for it is to be an UGLY sweater. Haha. It was also que fun listening to the comments people made about my cranberry drink before they knew I had made it. Several guys guessed it was apple cider, and some comments about it "exploding in their mouth" made me think they didn't really like it very much. Contrary to popular belief, it was NOT hot jello, and I DID make it myself. I thought it good, and though they said the same to my face, I don't think many others enjoyed it. Ah well, it sure was worth seeing the look on their faces! Perhaps I shoulda warned them it was warm cranberry juice...LOL. Good times.

So Bella and a couple hallmates and I had been planning for awhile to prank our bro hall. We decided that  it was the PERFECT night of least expecting. Sides, we had to get back at them for not cooking proper sides! I mean, how can you have thanksgiving without mashed potatoes, hu?!
Anyhoo, a bunch of them were going to see a midnight movie showing, we figured we'd do it at approx. 4:30am to give them enough time to fall asleep. Then the excitement began...Bec runs the night shift at student center desk. At 4am, Ken was STILL awake doing homework at a table right across from her! So she frantically (but with outside calm) called Bella to alert her to call off the prank. By the time we all knew about it, it was already 4:30 and he was heading to bed. We decided to go ahead with the scheme, and waited only a half hour.
So at promptly 5am we slothfully prowled down to the guys side, equipped with string, Vaseline, and tape. (Bella had though to gain permission to break visit hours, she has friends on the other side. ;)
After pasting Disney princess name-tags over their own, we smeared Vaseline on the door handles. I suggested tying handles together, and after arguing that it is NOT a fire hazard, away I went, creating a zig-zag pattern from door to door. Heh heh, I should love to have watched them try and get out of their rooms since the doors open IN!! :D

It took us nearly an hour to tape and tangle string from floor to ceiling and wall to wall. Hehe, it looked like a ginormous can of silly string exploded! After noticing it was almost 6am, I urged everyone we needed to skedaddle. Guys wake up early to exercise. They are weird like that. We quickly collected our supplies, but not before being caught by a couple guys from the neighboring hall! They promised not to tell, apparently they are their nemesis and prank each other a lot. SCORE! Now they will never guess it is us...
Until Bella told Ken during RA duty that night. Sigh. She is a terrible lair and secret keeper. But its alright, I am excited to see what they have planned! And we are already formulating a conspiracy to get them back.......beware of the Aqua babies.
So that is (so far) my Thanksgiving adventure of the week! More to come...

Psalm 103
READ IT!

Plastic Oranges and Turkish Delight

NOTE: If you are wondering why this has such poor grammar, I have edited a total of 3 papers in the past week for friends of mine...so I feel it is time to use some terrible grammar to make up for all that I corrected into good stuff... Meh, I need to learn how to say NO and do my own homework...yeah. :p

This weekend has been very good for me in releaving stress. I had a majorly fun study party with my core group of friends here at NWC, just the 4 of us. Super fun! We did get yelled at for being to noisy though. It was past quiet hours in the hall, and apparently the end lounge counts too. So we woke some girl up and she was crabby at us. I felt bad after and then we quieted down. But before that we were having a dance party, ran down to the cafe to get smoothies, skipped down the hall, threw plastic oranges at each other (randomly they were sitting in a basket by the couches!!) ate grapes, and just generally got hyper.
 I think TeeHee and my music war was what the final straw was in getting us yelled at. Oops. It was great times while it lasted though! I feel I did prepare well enough for the major OT exam, even with the distractions. Up til one, awake at 7, yeah 6 hrs of sleep baby! :D Though it is best to get 4 1/2 hours of sleep, 6 hours of sleep, or 10 hours of sleep because of the REM cycle patterns. If you wake up before one is complete you will be very tired. I don't know the details of it, but it is very interesting...

I finished up the last bit of homework that was due Friday night after I got back from the choir concert. That was really good! If you have never heard a rendition of Eric Whitacre's Animal Crackers song, well, you need too. Super hilarious!! :D Went there with my softball girl, that was fun.

I had gotten a call spontaneously from Katana late Friday afternoon! She had the night off of work and wanted to stay over! I felt so special that I was the first she thought to ask. :) She did end up getting here, later than we expected, but boy oh boy did we have a BLAST!!!!!

So let me try and remember it all in order...
After arriving, we hauled up her stuff and passed by the group of guys that previously was running through the girl's halls and pounding on doors. They gave a couple strange looks (though Katana said not that strange, I thought they were) and laughed at us. haha! Mostly on a Friday night college students are moving OUT instead of IN. We like to break the mold. Katana showed me her special book that she is working on writing. What a talented aspiring author she is! I am very excited to see the final outcome. It is gonna be good!
Our Narnia party then started, and we tried some of her Turkish Delight. It is the TRUE and REAL stuff which is just very very DELICIOUS! Jelly candy covered with powdered sugar. Mmmmazing!
We built a blanket fort with the numerous blankets she brought, my hair clips, a table we found in the closet, a paper clip, some rubber bands, and an ethernet cable. It was very epic and spanned almost the entire room!!
I then decided we needed something to eat, however after walking down to the cafe we found it closed. Lame.

Then the adventure began....

You see, I did not have any food because our fridge is broken. I had just gone shopping on Wednesday and bought a TON of stuff. Yet I had not opened the fridge since my Thursday night study party. When I did finally look for food that night it was late, around 11pm, and a smell of sour milk and beans flooded me out of the small compartment. ICK! So long and frustrating story short, I now had no food for the weekend. Grr.
Katana to the rescue! She suggested we make a gormet Asian meal. After donning our coats and grabbing the GPS, we headed off to Target. Only as it turns out, they close at 11pm. Grr. So we back-tracked to Cub and got some stuffs for it. Leeks, ginger, meat, soy sauce, rice, and don't forget the chopsticks! Yum! PDA and bored employees made the trip slightly amusing. After bagging our prizes, we passed the exit and found it was snowing! Heavily! The first snow of the year! Mixed feelings about that. haha.

So we applied our mad chef skills to the task of our delish gourmet midnight meal. I was delayed by the lack of owning a large enough pan to cook the rice in, until I grabbed on from the girl next door. Just so happens that she came with it! Haha! So the threesome of us had fun taking pics and taking over an hour to make our meal. By the time it was finished we had half filled up on carrots and cookies from our deep hunger, but it proved just as delish as expected! Cozying up in our blanket fort, we then proceeded to eat and drink tea while watching Narnia: Prince Caspian. We all fell asleep, only to wake up halfway though and finally sleepwalking to bed at 4am.

Katana woke me up early (7am?) and dragged me out of bed to look at the snow! It was near 5 inches deep already and coated the trees in beauteous wonder. We remarked at how a particular tree was a perfect example of Narnia because it was dropping the rest of its orange leaves on top of the snow as if the season had changed drastically. Which it did! :D Went back to bed only to roll out of bed later and make similar remarks about the unexpected snowfall. Ate turkish delight and lucky charms (yay for college food?!) while watching an anime. Then we donned snow gear to made the trek through near 6 inches of snow to drag Katana's stuff back to her truck. By the time we got there we were very very wet and white.

I made a snowman while Katana wiped off her green truck, and then we hurried back to get warm again. We didn't have much time left to stalk her friend who didn't know she was visiting, because the icky slushy weather caused her to have to leave early for work. But we did manage to go on yet another Narnia adventure in the pretty snow covered woods. I lent her a pair of warm socks, and her jacket was rather soaked by the time she left... it was que fun!! I was sad to see her go, but glad that she did get home safely. I greatly enjoy my time off of school. I honestly did not think of homework once when I was with her! She was such a great stress reliever. :) I only wish she could stay with me forever and ever...

God has blessed me with such amazing friends. It makes me cry to think how good He is to me!! What an amazing savior, and what an amazing day...

Proverbs 18:24
One who has unreliable friends soon comes to ruin, but there is a friend who sticks closer than a brother.

Stress

It has been quite some time since I have posted, and for good reason. I have not only been busy, but have also been stressed. It has been quite the theme in my life that I need to STOP being so stressed. I never even realize how worried and worked up over things I get until someone points it out. There are ways to be busy without being stressed, and I for sure need to learn these ways.

 There was one day last week, Monday it was, a classmate stopped me after Bio and asked me how things were going. There was a sincerity about her that caused me to feel very sad because I knew I couldn't brush her off with a simple, "Life is good!" smile. She saw that I have been struggling with stress, and knew I needed help. She was an amazing witness to me that day. It is werid, when we think of witnessing (or at least when I think of it) I think of it meaning that we need to tell others of Jesus' gift of salvation to us. But I think witnessing can really be more of a broad term, because she truly was lifting me up and encouraging me that afternoon with the Word of the Lord. She walked with me and sat me down at a couple quiet chairs in the library, and just talked me through what has been going on in my life. She saw that I have been putting grades as a high priority in my life, and stressing over homework and such. I know that I was doing this and needed to change my perspectives so that God was first, but when she pointed that out to me I was just like, wow.

I really didn't think that others notice how much I was stressing! I was trying to hide it. But it shows when you are disconnected with God because you are not putting Him first! It def shows. Which made me sad that day to think that I had been neglecting my relationship with God all because I wanted to get good grades. Because I wanted to do well. Because my attitude towards things would reflect on ME. So selfish! So I have been struggling with that...with putting God before my homework...for being able to be content with homework and to not stress over it! And then after that Mary invited me to a Bible study with her that night. I went, and it was phenomenal. It is weird how sometimes it is like God is speaking directly to you through others! It was quite eye opening to have God contantly putting reminders in my life this week that I need to STOP stressing! At our Wednesday night hall Bible study, the theme was, you guessed it, STRESS. How we need can be busy and not stress during it! Wow.

Then it so happens that tonight was stress relief night in the student center. I went with my most awesome friend TeeHee and it was really fun. Down time with twinkle lights, Disney coloring books, and music. I loved  it. Sigh. It is wonderful how when God really wants you to "get" something He will bring the issue across your path time and time again. When you keep ignoring it, sometimes He stops. But maybe it just seems that way because you are ignoring Him! That is what I think. So yeah, stress needs to stop in my life. I don't know how. But somehow I need to figure this out. Because my neck and back has been feeling the tension lately. Not good. :p
Stress has SO many negative affects on your body and mind! It actually detracts from your life instead of adds to it...Just causes caous in your mind and doesn't really help you get stuff done any faster than normal. Just hinders me really, because I am thinking about what other homework I have to do when I am working on a subject, and then nothing gets done well. Its bad.

Matthew 6:27
Can any one of you by worrying add a single hour to your life?

Matthew 6:25
[ Do Not Worry ] “Therefore I tell you, do not worry about your life, what you will eat or drink; or about your body, what you will wear. Is not life more than food, and the body more than clothes?

Matthew 10:19
But when they arrest you, do not worry about what to say or how to say it. At that time you will be given what to say,

Yahweh is Beautious

It was different today going to church. There was a theme going about the names of God and how we treat him.

They were discussing about the names of God…Elohim, which means God as all powerful, omnipotent, and creator of the universe, and Yahweh, which is the personal name of God, showing that He wants to have relationship with us, love on us, and teach us…and how we need to treat God as both our father and as omnipotent. This I agree on. Yes, we need to have respect for God. Yes, we need to have father and daughter/son relationship with our God. But after that my views differ…I do NOT think we need to put God on a pedestal and keep him there untouched! 

They were talking about achieving a balance between having God distant and yet close. It was weird to hear the other students at church talk about how we have to have a balance with keeping God on a pedestal of sorts, keeping him distant enough that we have respect for him, but yet also having a balanced relationship with him. That sounds so OFF to me!! So unbiblical. I want to pour my life out for God so much that he is in every area of my life!! Why try to balance what God can be in or not? 

That just doesn't make sense to me. 

I love God far far too much to ever intentionally exclude him from a part of my life. And if He is so distant to us, why the personal name of God? Why is the name Yahweh used 6,519 x’s and Elohim only 2,602 x’s in the Old Testament? That just doesn’t make sense to me why you would not view God as your father first, and all powerful second. Or maybe I am viewing it wrong. Maybe we DO need to view God as both and possessing equal qualities of both! I want to sort this out…

It is hard for me sometimes to imagine God as my personal father who cares for me and loves me. Most people relate it to their own father here on earth, but I find that hard to do. You see, I LOVE my dad!  It is just that growing up he was always working and very distant from me. It was rare for him to come home in time for family dinners, and our family was rather separated in that respect. During our family's yearly fishing trip I would get to spend time with him; he taught me a lot through those quiet times on the lake. My last year as a senior in high school I also got to spend time with him as he drove me to the senior meetings, and we talked as I or he drove. Even bonding in the quiet moments in the car was super cool. Yet, other than those times, Dad has been rather absent in my life. I always know that he loves me and cares for me and our family. After all, that is why he is working so often and so hard! So he can provide for us. On Sunday when we went to church there would be times of rifts and arguments, and times of showing love. But those were just a twice a week at most!

So it is hard for me sometimes to imagine how God is like our father.  My relationship with my dad is not necessarily broken, but it isn't a strong bond between us. 

How God WANTS to be involved in our life, and acts on that sincere desire, is beauteous. God truly wants you to feel loved! For you to tell Him EVERYTHING! I love to just ramble to Jesus about the diverse happenings in my day. I never remember feeling guilty for disobeying my earthly father, or disappointed that I did not live up to his standards. Yet somehow God has placed in me a way to understand HIM as my father! That is amazing to me. J Sometimes it is hard for me to apologize. To admit that I did something wrong. It makes me cry to think that I hurt or let my father down. I know though that God is always here to comfort me. That is another neat thing, God will not leave you alone. Earthly people fail us, but God never does. He is our true father who has “got our back.”

The other students argued that if we are super close and buddy-buddy to God, that causes us to loose respect for his omnipotent and awesomeness.

Have you ever had a relationship with friends where the more you get to know them, the more you realize their character just stinks and you don't really want to be friends with them anymore? You lose some respect for them after hearing what they have done that is bad and stuff. Well, that is what I was thinking of when they said this. I feel like that is not even remotely possible with God though!! He is perfect! So we shall never ever lose respect for God in that way, since all that He does is good. But is it possible to be so super close to Him that we forget Jesus knows all and sees all? I think not. Cause if we are tight with God, we shall be telling him everything anyways. So why would that matter?  Why would we lose respect for His omnipotent awesomeness by getting closer to Him? I would think this would make us respect and honor Him more.

Now think of a friend who is just so amazingly awesome you want to spend all your free time with them. You feel like you may pester them a lot because you want to spend every waking moment with them. (EVERY moment may be a bit of an exaggeration, but sometimes I feel like this towards a friend) They lift you up. Encourage you. Inspire you! This is what God wants us to feel towards Him. He wants us to see Him in the light of being so incredibly awesome that we just want to cling to Him at ALL times.

I want to remain thinking of him as beauteous. I don’t want to get too “buddy-buddy” with God that I should forget that He is also my father as well as my friend. I am not an expert on this matter, but I do know that when I get closer to people, it is more often than not that my respect for them grows.

My RA has said several times to me, “A relationship gets stale if all you never do anything different.” She gives the example that if all you and your friend ever do is go out to Caribou for coffee, that relationship will get stale and old. You need to do different things to keep the relationship growing and keep learning about one another. So then, since I never did all that much with my dad, the relationship kinda got stale.

(Tangent!  That got me to thinking, if all we ever do is pray and sing to God, is that causing the relationship to get stale? I mean, how can you ever learn more about God if all you are doing is the same stuff with Him day in and out? Will we really get to know how powerful and amazing He is if we do all the talking? NO! We need to listen.)

However, our God is our friend and our father! When you have a friend that is really really close, you still respect them, don’t you? I do. Especially with my family. Like, when my friend asks me to get them a glass of water or hand them something, don’t you still do it? I do! Because I have respect for them. And I do obey my father. When he asks me to take out the trash or something, I still do it because I know you need to be obedient. Being super close to a person I shouldn’t think would hinder our respect for them or our obedience to them (if they are higher than us in authority as a father would be). 

I don’t have proof on this matter, this is just what I have observed. What do you think? I welcome opinions on the matter. Thank you for reading through my rambles! It means a lot to me. 

Galatians 4:6-7

"Because you are his sons, God sent the Spirit of his Son into our hearts, the Spirit who calls out, “Abba, Father.” So you are no longer a slave, but God’s child; and since you are his child, God has made you also an heir."

Ho Hum Day

So I stayed up late last night working on homework. Yes, it was a Friday night and I did homework. Deal with it! I am responsible like that. Though it may be true that on Sunday night others shall be cramming to do homework, now I can just have fun reviewing the stuff I learned and know it better. YAY. That is the theory anyways.
I didn't get as much done today as I wanted to.

I went on a walk with Krissy and found a random park! It had a giant green plastic caterpillar that we tried to climb on, but it was really slippery. Krissy made it up and then promptly named it Phred. haha! Then we swang for awhile on a ho hum bench swing.
It was a good distraction from homework!

I did study OT for awhile though. That was fun. I discovered a "new" website, http://www.studyblue.com! You can make your own flash cards and not waste paper. It is SUPER handy! AND the best part is you can look up any other students who have your same class and have used the site! Then you can use their notecards too. Brilliant stuff. I was able to fill in gaps in my notes this way. Love it! You should try it out. I recommend it highly :)

K, so what else? I am not tuned into writing anything profound tonight. Not that I ever do. It has just been random life stuff lately. BUT I did warn you that would happen. Or maybe I didn't. But I thought about it! And it is the thought that counts, right? Yes, I do believe so. LOL!

So other than homework I listened to music on Pandora.com, another website I am learning to like. New music is good for me. I REALLY love audio adrenaline! It is too bad that their band broke up...cause I really want their song Big Big House. But I don't have itunes and they don't sell the CDs anymore. Sad.

I got a text today that said, "Sardines in Naz at 10:30?" and I was like, WHA?! hahahahahaha! Random. What college student would in their right mind eat a sardine? Apparently a lot. Though I find out later they were referencing the GAME of sardines and not the food. Silly people. hehe. :D

 Well I should go to bed. Perhaps tomorrow I shall be in a better writing mood. Not likley. I think it would be really interesting to participate in NanoWrimo!! I had never heard of it until coming here to college...and now I just don't have the time. Maybe next year....we shall see. Trying a new church tomorrow. No friends to go with, but that is OK. I am going anyways. I need to focus on my Jesus and loving people more than homework. YAY. Very excited.

Don't forget to turn your clocks back! It is time-warp night!!!! WOO HOO!! Funzies. :D

Nighters my friends! Dream of Cold Stone Creamery hot chocolate and musicals with opera singers...

Recycling Saves

Here is a copy of my speech's rough draft. It turned out shorter and more concise once I gave it...enjoy? LOL

With the big “green movement” that started back in the 70’s and continues on today, most people have become more aware about recycling. You know you should do it. You hear a lot about it today. But do you actually think about it? Do you think about what happens when you throw that pop can in the trash instead of the recycling bin? Do you think about the affects it has on the environment? As college students with a busy academic and social life, we tend to just tune out all the information about recycling. We tend to not care.

Well I am here to tell you today that recycling matters, and recycling saves. It saves energy, saves space, saves the economy, and saves money. I want you to know that recycling is an important issue, and a big one at that. I shall cite some statistics today about recycling, And I hope that when I am through, you shall know a little more about the benefits that come from recycling, and be inspired to recycle more.

Recycling takes items out of the main waste stream by turning them into something more useful. Something new. Not only does this save the time and energy needed to haul the loads far distances to landfills, but it saves energy by making them into new things. Let me give you a few examples.  According to Oberlin College’s extensive research on recycling, Making paper from recycled paper requires only 60% of the energy that is required to make paper from new wood pulp. That is a 40% electricity savings! In one year, a supermarket can go through over 6 million paper bags. Imagine if all the paper bags from all the grocery stores in the US were recycled? Imagine how much energy that would save!! However, paper is not the only source that saves an incredible amount of energy. The energy saved from recycling one glass bottle can be enough to light a 100-watt light bulb for four hours! Likewise, recycling one aluminum can saves enough energy to power an 100-watt light bulb for twenty hours. When you throw away an aluminum can, you waste as much energy as if you had filled the can half full of gasoline, and poured it on the ground. Manufacturing recycled aluminum cans takes 95% less energy! Think about it. Recycling saves energy.

To provide some contrast to how much energy we can save by recycling, ponder how much of recyclable materials we throw away on a regular basis. Each year, enough plastic wrap is thrown away to shrink wrap Texas.  Americans throw away enough aluminum every month to rebuild our entire commercial air fleet. More than 20 million Hershey's Kisses are wrapped each day, using 133 square miles of aluminum foil. And believe it not, ALL that foil is recyclable, but not many people realize it so most it goes in the trash!

Which leads me to my next point of where all this garbage goes. The answer? To landfills. This is exactly why recycling is such a big issue.

Everything you do affects directly or indirectly everything else on the earth. Recycling is a big solution to a big problem. That problem is garbage! The average American creates 4 and 1/2 lbs of garbage each day.  This adds up to almost a ton of trash per person, per year. This means that the average American is throwing away 600xs their average body weight a year! That is huge! And where does all this trash go? To landfills.

And what does this garbage do as it sits in landfills? Rots. That is a landfills’ purpose. To allow trash to sit and decompose. To sit and waste away. What a waste when you think about it! According to the Environmental Protection Agency, The US dumps more than 100 million tons of trash into landfills each year. 75% of this garbage is recyclable. 75%! Yet American’s recycling rate is only 32%. 32% you say, well hey, that is not bad! That is pretty good! Not really. That means the remaining 68% of the 100 million tons of trash annually being thrown away is not recycled. 60 million tons thrown into landfills to have no further purpose than smelling up a large plot of land. How can this be a good thing? It certainly is not being efficient. If we recycled all of the 75% that is able to be recycled, we would have 75% less garbage in our landfills. 75% less land needed for garbage disposal, and therefore 75% more land that can be used for something else. Recycling saves space.

Recycling a ton of “waste” has twice the economic impact of burying it in the ground. It is pretty obvious that a landfill near your home decreases the property value. After all, garbage smells! That is exactly the point of hauling it far away, so we don’t have to live by it, cause who would want to? Right? Well, since recycling reduces the amount of space needed for landfills, less landfills are needed. This means there are less houses that are near landfills, and this keeps property values up, and homeowners happy!

 Not only does it keep property values up, but recycling also creates jobs for people. All of the centers that melt down and process the items to be recycled need people to work in them, file paperwork for them, and don’t forget the workers that go pick up the recycles at the end of your driveway! Recycling centers and enterprises employ over 1 million workers nationwide. You may have noticed the numerous recycle bins around campus. Well in large businesses, such as here at NWC, workers are needed to service these bins. According to StarTribune, the metrodome recycles more beverage containers than any other stadium in the country. Workers are needed to collect the recycles from these bins too! According to the National Recycling Coalition, Recycling jobs (on average) pay $100 dollars more in every salary and wage vs. a job at a landfill. This year, recycling accounts for 85,000 jobs and generates $4 billion in salaries and wages. 

Now here is a good incentive on recycling - Recycling not only creates jobs, but it is also is saving money. You are taxed on every lb of trash that is thrown away. I’ll give you an example of how this affects us. According to Jim Rinehart, the facilities manager here at NWC, the city of Roseville taxes 70% of all the garbage that is thrown away. NWC threw away 344 tons of garbage last year. That is a lot of lbs of garbage that is being taxed. As stated earlier, recycling takes items out of the main garbage stream. This means that when you recycle your pop can, that pop can’s weight is now not being taxed since it is recycled instead of thrown away. This saves the college money immediately. In contrast to that 344 tons of trash that NWC threw away, NWC only recycled 42 tons. This is roughly 12% of recycles out of all those 344 tons of trash. Remember the stat that said 75% of garbage is recyclable? Yet we are only recycling 12%!! This is unacceptable. We need to change that by recycling more. On average, it costs $30 per ton to recycle trash, $50 to send it to the landfill. So then, versus sending garbage to a landfill, we save $20 per ton of recycled items. This doesn’t even factor in the tax that we now do not have to pay on the recyclable items! Recycling saves money. 

I have cited a lot of statistics. They might have bored you, they might have inspired you. But what I hope you take away from this is not a mind dulled from information, but knowing that what we do today does affect the rest of the world. Saving energy, saving space, and aiding the economy are just three of the many ways recycling benefits us. I encourage you to be a good steward of these resources that God gave us to work with. Be responsible and wisely reuse your trash by recycling it, instead of burying it in a landfill. Put a paper bag or extra bin next to your regular garbage can in your dorm room. Every time you go to throw something away, stop yourself and check to see if it is recyclable. You are given the choice to recycle. Please take up this advantage and just do it! I promise you your pop can shall be much happier as a new pop can than buried under a banana peel. 

Thank you.

Elated

I am in such a weird mood right now! Elated is all I can think to describe it. I gave my speech, though I had a last minute freak-out and asked professor if I could go on Thursday instead. He calmly said that we would have plenty of time for me to go today. So I was like, well, ok then. That calmed me down oddly, and I pulled it off! Was nervous and shaking, blanked on one part of the speech and messed up in the order of the stats (so I missed giving some of them). But otherwise it was pretty good! :D

I am very thankful for my friend Lisa who let me practice my speech to her after Bio lab today. That was SO super helpful! She is such a good friend to me. And bio lab was super easy today and we got out an HOUR early! Crazyness! I dropped off a card and some chocolate for Prof Hage. Did I tell you about last Thursday? Chem lab was canceled cause he had to go into get emergency eye surgery. Apparently his retina was FALLING OFF HIS EYE! Yikes. Gross. Sad. :\
I felt so badly that he had to do that, though the rumors prove to not have any backing behind them - it was NOT the result of getting chemicals splashed in his eye. The funny part about it is that he was seeing yellow and blue spots, so he googled it to see what was wrong instead of just going into the doctor. Our professors here are just awesome like that. I love it! :D

So yeah. I have a TON of homework to do, and no motivation to do it! Well, I am getting some as the time goes on. But not much. I just feel so happy! It must be the joy of the Lord and answered prayers. It is cool, I have had SO many answered prayers these past weeks of school! I don't know if it is the atmosphere, or others praying for me, or what. But God has been so very good to me. He is faithful even when I get poor grades. That is what I have to keep remembering. That NO MATTER WHAT, I shall ALWAYS follow my Lord and savior Jesus. Cause He is the best and tops all the rest! :D

No, I am not on drugs. I am high on Jesus! He is fantabulouso!! (according to Karl.)

haha, have a wonderfully splendid night my friends, I am off to work on homework. God bless!!!

“But you are a chosen people, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, God’s special possession, that you may declare the praises of him who called you out of darkness into his wonderful light.”- 1 Peter 2:9