Season 4 LOST!!

I'm currently sitting at Barnes & Nobles (my favorite place in the whole wide world!!!) with a few of my students. They are gift wrapping as a fundraiser and I am "supervising." I can't complain. I would probably hang out here on my own free will.

The search for a roommate continues. We are exactly 4 days away from Christmas break, and soon I will be getting a whole new group of students. CRAZY!! I can't believe I'm almost done with my first semester! Here's to hoping for a less stressful 2nd semester....

Guess who I'm going to see in concert Saturday!!!! Bethany Dillion! With Shane & Shane!!!! I'm so stoked. I love them. I went to their Christmas concert last year and it was thebomb.com. Can't wait! I don't know if Daniel is as excited about it as I am, but oh well.

So random. I'm sitting here typing away and some of my students come over to ask me a question and the guy at the table facing me says "YOU'RE a teacher? How old are you?!?"
But it led to an awesome conversation. He just got out of the Army. He was in for 3 years and most of that served in Iraq until he got injured. Spent 18 months in a hospital over there. Anyway, had a great conversation just about the attitude of the troops and such, but he said something really interesting. He said you go over there believing in God and your country but you see so much pain and turmoil, that you no longer believe in any of that, especially not religion. He said to survive you can only believe in yourself and the other troops watching your back. This is hard for me to understand. I would think that at such a low and difficult place in your life you would lose belief and hope in everything BUT God. Something to contemplate. He said he misses life there though, fighting for our freedom. He feels unsettled here and like he's just coasting with out a reason to fight. I hadn't heard this perspective before on the war. Gives me something to think about.

I'm very ready for Christmas break. I'm looking forward to sleeping in!!

baby hippos and early mornings

I have decided that I officially detest waking up so early. My 4:30 am alarm has now become a 5:15 am alarm. Arrival at school by 6:15 is now more like 6:45... Waking up so early wouldn't be that bad if I went to bed earlier, but well... I'm not giving that up just yet. When I was "younger" I used to think about being an adult. Living on my own, being responsible for myself, having my own place... who knew it also included lack of sleep, bills, and sending kids to the principal. I miss being a kid...

I'm watching the news and they just showed a picture of a baby hippo... TOO cute. I want one for Christmas... Go here to see the video.

Blogalicious

Well I'm once again blogging at work. I feel so rebellious.

Thanksgiving Break was wonderful. Home was refreshing. I missed my family so much! I can't believe how much the kids have changed in just the past few months! They keep growing and growing! Nothing too exciting happened over break, which was nice. I loved getting to sleep in, lay around the house, read, and play with the kids. That is my favorite type of break. I took a lot of pictures. I'll post some later.

On the right hand side of my page click the "Loyal Readers" thing and start following my blog.

Now back at school the kids are definitely still on break mode. I'm not complaining though because amazingly enough they have been pretty quiet (ie: sleepy) in class. We are doing a unit on debate for the next three weeks. I'm really starting to enjoy debate and my students like having a reason to argue. My debate team has an out of town tournament this weekend so I'll be chaperoning 11 students for the weekend at a hotel... say a little prayer for me. It will be fun though. One of my students won 2nd place in novice poetry last tournament, so I'm hoping for another trophy this weekend. I sure complain a lot about coaching debate, but I'm really starting to enjoy it.

Only 2.5 weeks until Christmas break. However, I'll admit that my mind has been focused on a different break... summer break. I'm already starting to make plans for the summer (although I know they will all change between now and then).

My lease will be up in February and then I'm hoping to move into a rent house. I'm looking for some roommates if anybody has any ideas! I miss having roomies. Living by myself is lonely and boring. Even if I'm not there all that much, it's just nice knowing you are not alone.

I've started reading Same Kind of Different As Me. SO good. Part of it takes place in Fort Worth which is cool because I can picture the places they refer to. The story is very powerful. I don't want to ruin it for anyone, but it is a must read.

My classroom smells weird today. It's kind of making me nauseous... Well, I've run out of things to say.

Give Thanks

Things I am thankful for this Thanksgiving (in no particular order):

My family (parents, sisters, the brother, brother-in-laws, Meelo, Isaiah, Andrew)
green tea
tradition
nice weather
my car
Daniel
education
Mo
Pine Cove
pictures
good health
my laptop
peanut butter m&ms
music
my church
books
The Ralls, Houghs, and Gires.
Emily Poteet
international travel
my passport
granny smith apples
target
my converse shoes
dogs
karaoke
cherry pie
lower gas prices
my overseas friends (Beate, Aylen)
Jessie
my small group (the one i'm in and the one i led)
straws
Nintendo 64
youtube
my job
my students
good conversations
Gods unconditional love
my ipod
Apple products
Ouachita
grandparents


God has blessed me greatly indeed.

holla!

So my lack of blogs is due to the fact that I don't have a ton of time to sit and blog, but today I have discovered that blogger is not blocked at my school! Hooray! I now have a new way to misuse my planning period! Haha.

Life has been pretty crazy these last few days. School is in full swing, just finished our 2nd 6-weeks. I can't believe I only have this group of students for 6 more weeks! I'm excited about getting all new students next semester, but not looking forward to learning 120 new names! I've been making lists of things I want to do differently in class next semester, so hopefully that will help with the management of the class.

This past weekend we had a super fun party at Tammi's. There was a great turn out, tons of food, and lots of laughter. Rock Band was a hit and I lost at (big time) at Nertz. All in all it was a wonderful evening. God has blessed me with some great friends.

In exactly 5 days I will be home! For a whole week! Hooray!!! I can't wait. I haven't been home since August! Crazy! I'm looking forward to spending time with the fam and especially with Isaiah and Meelo. OH and I haven't seen Sarah since shortly after she found out she was pregnant so I'm looking forward to seeing her. She will be having another boy. They're naming him Joshua James (Josh after my brother!), but Isaiah has called the baby "Alligator" since the day she found out she was pregnant, so I feel some nicknames coming. She'll be due right around... May? Yea that sounds about right. I'm so homesick! This will be great.

Thanksgiving is my absolute favorite holiday. I love going over to my Aunt Karen's with my moms whole family and just enjoying the fellowship. Playing with my cousins kids, beating everyone at UNO, watching Travis out eat everyone, enjoying the pie, and listening to my dad and Dustin compare cell phones (I can already hear them now... "Oh yea but can your's do this?" Anna you know what I'm talkin about!). The absolute best part though comes at just a few minutes before 11:30 PM when Josh starts taking orders for Whataburger breakfast burritos. That has been a tradition in my family for as long as I can remember. Every Thanksgiving we all go eat a late-night breakfast burrito from Whataburger. When we were younger we all piled in the car and went together. Now we just take orders and send someone. It is a great tradition. Yes it will truly be a wonderful day. To make it even better, Aunt Judy and Aunt Paula will be there this year! I can't wait. I'm trying to come up with a list of things I want to do and people I want to see while I'm home. I figure if I can't get it all in over Thanksgiving break, I can finish the list when I come home for Christmas.

Well I figure that's enough for now. The rest of this week will be great. Today I have a party with my debate team, then a basketball game. Wednesday is another basketball game and Thanksgiving dinner with the church college+ group. Friday I have a debate tournament and Saturday is Daniels senior recital (hoooray!!!). AND SUNDAY I'M FLYING HOME!!! 5 days... 5 days to home...

thoughts on Heaven

Well, it's only been... 10 days since my last post? Yeah 10 days. Not too bad. Life has been pretty busy. School is going good, although I will admit there are a few students giving me some gray hairs. But that is expected, right? Debate team did MUCH better this past weekend with a few students moving on to the semi-finals. Very proud of them. They are currently working on their 3rd speech- a group speech. They love the fact that it's group work... because then they have an excuse to talk all class long. Haha! Speaking of school... here's a picture of MY classroom!!


So before I start blogging about what I actually wanted to blog about, here's a run down of my super-fun weekend:

Friday: Debate vs. Clear Lake. I got to drive the party bus (also known as a 15 passenger van). Takes me back to my Rock On days at PC (shout out to Tim Holms!).

Saturday: I GOT TO SLEEP IN! Holla! Then I went to U of H to take a test... but afterwards Daniel took me ice skating! Hooray! Is it possible to get worse at something? I do not remember being extremely bad at ice skating when I went soph year. Katie Holt- do you remember? Anyway. I was pretty much awful at ice skating but I blame the extremely wet ice. Seriously, it was a total melt down.

Sunday: church (have I mentioned how much I love my church?), then guess who came to visit?!? KATIE BUCHER!!


Love her. She drove down from C-Stat just to hang out with me. So blessed. We had a great time catching up. She's pretty much thebomb.com. Then I went to small groups where we planned the most ballin' party ever. And we took pictures (see below).

So that was my super-fun weekend. Now onto the original motivation for updating this blog....

So this book Crazy Love that I've blogged a few times about is still one of the best books I've read. If you haven't gotten a copy of it yet, GO NOW! It will change your life. Anyway, here is a portion of the book that we talked about for a while last night at small groups and has continued to be on my mind. It's from the book, but was actually taken from God is the Gospel by John Piper:

"The critical question for our generation- and for every generation- is this: If you could have heaven, with no sickness, and with all the friends you ever had on earth, and all the food you ever liked, and all the leisure activities you ever enjoyed, and all the natural beauties you ever saw, all the physical pleasures you ever tasted, and no human conflict or any natural disaters, could you be satisfied with heaven, if Christ were not there?"

AH! So tough, right? I'll be honest with you. My immediate reaction was "yeah, I just might be ok with that" and there is still a little part of me that could be. I've been letting this thought "marinate" in my mind. I think about all the good things it named, friends, food, activities I enjoy, etc. and think about how good those things are. Truly enjoyable because they are good. I've known a lot of good in my life, and rarely do I experience something good and think "wow God, thank you." Good is an everyday part of my life. I see good and become... desenitized? to it. I expect a day with at least a few good things. How can I so easily forget that every good thing in my life is because of God? It could not exist with out Him. Therefore a heaven with all the good things in my life could not possibly exists with out Him, right? But what if it could? What if a heaven could exisit with good but not with God? Would I be satisfied? I know my answer to this is no, but I'll be honest. It's easy to say yes. Good things in life are easy. We know how to enjoy. Living a life for the Almighty is hardwork, and I guess for me when I think of an eternity of worshiping God it could sound like work, or at least not as pleasurable as the good things I have come to expect in life. But heaven is going to be so much more than just worshiping God! I mean we will be in the presence of our Creator! We wont want to do anything but worship Him. Singing praises to Him will give us more pleasure than any good thing we could ever experience here on this earth. It will be so much better than a heaven with all our friends, no sickness, no conflict. It will surpass any good we could ever imagine. It will be... uh I don't even have the words. That's just how truly awesome it will be. So, could I be truly satisfied in a heaven like John Piper described? No. I certainly could not be satisfied.

have i mentioned how much i like fridays?

Well this week has been pretty good. My students delivered their informative speeches this week and did a very good job. Yesterday was quite eventful. We had a fire drill, I sent a kid to the principal, went to the worlds longest staff meeting (2.5 hours!), and waited in line for over an hour to exercise my right to vote. I really wont mind if today is less eventful... But I am going ice skating tonight!

I sure do miss my best friend Em. She's in Australia. I figure in her honor, I'll post the most recent Facebook wall message we shared.

I wrote:
thursday routine of the past (senior year):

go to the chic for pizza/bosco sticks
watch greys anatomy (in my room while the office was recording in yours)
you go down to the lobby for duty, i "do homework"
you come back and we watch the office in your room
we sit and talk too long and i have to force myself to get up and leave you to be responsible and do more homework while i go crash in my room.

She replied:
Thursday Routine of Sophomore year:

Come back after class and pretty much do nothing.
4:00 watch and make fun of 7th heaven reruns
5:00 watch smallville reruns and make fun of it too
5:35ish RUN to chic-fil-A during a commercial break and run back for the ending.
6:00 Watch the following movie after smallville and groan because of all the commercials for Wildfire.
8:00 to the rest of the night we would then feel sick of TV and then not think of anything else to do and then around 10 or 11 I would do tons of reading while you and Katie would watch the foodnetwork.



you know, I never thought I would miss making fun of 7th Heaven.... Em. Come home soon.