Ready, get set, STUDY!

It's 2:000am and Heidi and I have barely begun our long night of studying and projects. Help.

I have a COM. 250 exam and Hedi has a massive literature project to do.

Me: "Heidi, how do you feel with the burden of homework upon your back?"

Heidi: "Worried and frantic."
--Said while munching on a pauca(this is not a wild critter as it sounds...it's actually a delightful piece of bread)

There you have it. Wish us luck! :)

New passion: Jazz.

My weekend started out with the borrowing of Heidi's car to pick up two friends of mine- (Iris and Su). They are both from China and I'll inform you that Su is actually a guy...poor fellow. Must be rough having such a name. :) We met a bunch of other international kids at a Japanese restaurant here on campus. It was a ton of fun. I spent most of my meal looking very awkward while trying to eat with chopstics. Pretty much I'd whine about how much I hate chopsticks, get made fun of, and almost give up! However, I'll have you know that I managed to finish my whole meal without touching a fork or spoon! I was pretty proud of myself and I think everyone else was too. :) I do have to thank chopsticks for solving one of my biggest problems in life. I tend to eat way too fast resulting in me almost always being the first person done at any meal. Chopsticks really don't allow for fast eating...maybe I should force myself to eat with them permanently from now on. Perfect.

Iris and I had planned to head over to WL Bible study directly after dinner but realized that there was no way we'd be able to make it in time. We ended up accepting a very last-minute invitation to a Jazz concert on campus from another friend from China named Webb. His name is weird too...he said it was the first word he saw in English so he chose it for his English name. I'm just glad it wasn't something more ridiculous...that's a pretty risky way of naming yourself! So we(me and three Chinese kids)took off for the concert, and that's how I happened upon the realization that I really do like Jazz music. I need to be specific though: My favorit type of Jazz music is the kind that has the bongo drums and a lot of Brazilian influence. I also have a new appreciation for instruments after watching those people perform. All in all it was a pretty fun night.

The rest of my weekend was awesome too! Christen came home with me that night and she was able to join us for a couple of the last songs from the Jazz concert before we left campus. We later did some jazz karaoke which was a blast! Saturday was super relaxing with Christen. Saturday night I headed to Indy to baby-sit the Schafer boys. :) I spent the rest of the weekend in Indy and was able to see Adrian and Noah in their Easter program. They were adorable and it was so great to be with everyone. I was able to see Clint, Alesa, and Bryan too.:)

STUDY CLUB update.

Last night we embarked once again to the always faithful Hicks study lounge. Obviously, there was far too little studying and for too much laughing and acting retarded! It's great. I'm pretty sure I'll look back in a couple of years and smile at the thought of how much time we continually wasted.:) What is time compared to cherished memories with dear friends? I'm looking for a quote now...
hehe. I was looking for something inspiring and found this...it makes me laugh!
--------------------------"Friendship? Yes Please."
----------------------------------Charles Dickens.

I think it's really funny that quotes like these even exist. Here are some pictures with a little study club flavor for you:

(Keep in mind that these pictures were taken at about 3:00AM)

Valentines day...the holiday for lovers.

My valentine's day is something to talk about for sure. Where do I start?
Sadie and I had been wanting to meeet at Denny&Mary Ann's with our foreign friends for quite a while. It just hadn't happened...that was about to change.
We decided to plan a get-together the weekend of valentine's day. It ended up working perfectly and I'm so thankful we did it. Sadie brought 4 girls with her. Quinn Steffen came with his friend and Janessa, Kurt, Sam, Sam's asian friend, Kyle, Suneeta, and I came out from Lafayette, The group was wonderful. Sam, Sadie, Janessa, Kyle, and I had a blast cooking dinner Saturday! We were all crammed in the kitchen working magic with fresh ingredients. Denny was a great advisor(as always) through our cooking adveture. I don't think I've ever had so much fun making a meal in my life. :)

Friday night a very unplanned camp fire was formed on the deck by the pond. It was about 12:00am and lightly snowing...we were all hudled around the fire pit with big smiles while trying to stay warm. We sang some praise songs and talked. Totally unplanned things are always the best. We played some pretty fun pool games, guitar hero(Janessa and Sam kicked butt!), and DDR (I wouldn't say I'm any good, but my friends say...ha).

I really loved all of the foreign people we were able to connect with. We represented six countries that weekend. Russia, China, India, Taiwan, Morocco, and Japan. Each personality was so special and they were all so appreciative. I loved it.

Denny and MaryAnn were once again the perfect hosts. I don't know how they do it. They give such energy and love to any and all guests. Without them it would have never been possible. I'm really thankful.:) I'm hoping we can all meet again when it's warmer and do some outside stuff...we'll see.
These pictures aren't the best quality, but give you a little idea of what the group looked like.

God is amazing.

This week has been really nice so far. I do have an exam Thursdy, which isn't great...but I'm going to conquer the reading and get that grade!

For real. I first of all want to say thank you to all of the people that are part of my life! I'm realizing how amazing my friends are. Through each experience in my life I have people that I enjoy and love so much! It's amazing how much I can see God and experience God in my friendships. That's what quality friendships are all about.

This semester's classes are seeming to be easier than last semester, which is giving me more time to breath. It's been quite a good thing. So I'm thinking with the extra time I have, what should I do? And this leads me to share something very exciting. I'm not positive about it yet...but the idea alone excites me lots. And since I really can never keep my mouth shut about anything in my life I'll share it. I received an email from Charlotte Messmer today. Charlotte is the Global Connect leader for the foreign students here at Purdue and she emails out information to all of us that have signed up for exchange students and stuff. She told me that she had met with Iris and wanted to thank me for the time I spent with her over Christmas break. I was really touched by the email and sent back a "thank you for the thank you" sort of email. In my email to her I mentioned how much I really do have a heart for foreign students and I offered to help her with the program in any way I could. I really didn't think that she would acctually take me up on the offer...low and behold, she wrote back right away and would like to meet me if I'm interested! You have no idea how excited this makes me. :)

Quote from Charlotte herself: "I do have some ideas of things that have just been on the back burner, but if you have some interest, maybe we could get together to talk more about it sometime? Would you have time to do that?"

This would be the ideal opportunity to serve...something that I very much enjoy and am PASSIONATE about! We'll see what happens. Ideas on the back burner...jeepers?! It's so cool.

Maybe next time I blog I'll have new information on this subject. :)

No Title...none at all.

I know...What the heck!? It's only been a few days and I'm already posting!You can just call me the Freakishly Frequent blogger.

I feel the need to post because I'm SO HAPPY right now. I've just been realizing a lot of things lately...a lot of good things. People have always been important to me and my friendships mean the world to me. But as of late, spending time with people has been especially awesome. I think it has something to do with my relationship with Christ ultimately. I had a lot of time to think and relax over the weekend...and spending time with God was the best. The deeper my relationship with Christ the deeper my relationship with others! I know my experiences are magnified because Christ is in my heart doing the magnifying...i love it.

Recently a group of we Purdue kids started a new club here on campus (OK...so maybe it hasn't been approved by the Purdue board but we've decided it's official). We call it "coffee club" or maybe "breakfast club." I like the first better because it has no sketchy connotations to it. So we had our second meeting this morning at 9:00. We've decided upon Einstein Bagels as our meeting spot and I think it fits us well. Every time I'm there I think of Luke Gutwein and I'm not sure why. Maybe it's because I remember it was one of his favorite places to hang out when he was attending Purdue. Would you like to know who the privileged members of our group are?
-Christen-Kyle F.-Sarena-Sam-Janessa-Matt V.-Kaitlin-
(I'm not sure why I connected them all in a chainlike fashion). I'd say it's a quality group of people and wonderful diversity of personalities too. So now we have two clubs--- Study club and this one. I'm just super excited to create like 100 more...maybe hat club, book club, peanut butter lover's club(this one's for you Christen), dance club(Jenny- I was thinking you could make a guest appearance)...:)

I have class in about an hour. I must be off!
The picture Heidi and I took last week with my computer.:) It's in case you forgot what I look like, Jenny! It's been so long since I've seen you.

Home....delight

I awoke this morning to join Leah and Kendra for a conference talk thing about defending our faith. It was really good for me to hear it...I'm glad Leah asked me to go. I wasn't origionally planning to go but glad I did for sure. Other than getting up pretty early, my day has been extremely lazy and slow. I kinda feel guilty but not enough to do anything about it. :)

Ash is here working for Dad. Mom, Ash, and I have spent way too much time sitting by the cozy fire in the living room. It's a funny sight with all of our lap-tops open...you'd think we had no life with Me pointlessly looking at facebook photos and mom browsing vintage wallpaper. Ash seemed to be getting stuff done. I should probably do some text book reading...blah. Doesn't sound the most exciting. I do have to say that being productive produces good feelings, but so does relaxing...they're just totally different kinds of feelings. Probably not even related...not even distant cousins of each other.:)

Later this evening I might go hang out with Heidi and Kristian. This should be interesting. I feel honored that they'd want to spend time with me and I'll try to be as fun and engaging as possible. Or maybe I'll just bring my lap-top and continue my facebooking adventures. Hehe. I never used to be that into facebook...hmmm. I think I'm deciding now to stop the habit. I'm not a prisoner to any form of technology! Not even blogging! And that is why I'm ending this post...Now! :)
Have a wonderful day.