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.

Christmas Break

I can't begin to tell you how completely relaxing this break has been for me! It started out awesome and is continuing that way. Christen, Suneeta, Iris, Karmi and I traversed VERY ICY roads to Denny and MaryAnn's house. It's amazing we made it there alive. In the beginning, we had planned to visit Sadie in Peoria, but only made it to MaryAnn's before deciding that we'd never get there driving 40mph. And,40mph was pretty risky...you have no idea. Turned out that we had an awesome night taking pointless pictures in thick darkness after the electricity went out during the ice storm. We also watched a movie titled Bounce. Doesn't that sound like a happy movie title...it wasn't. The main character's husband dies in a plane crash (I wouldn't recommend this movie for Jenny)and it was sad. But, we managed...the rest of the night we were smiling despite the tears shed during the movie. :)

I know you are all wondering...how could such fun girls get together and not have a dance party? Don't worry, we definitely did have a crazy dance party. :)
"shimmy shake to the right and shimmy shake to the left!"

Here are a few pictures we took during the power-outage:








These following pictures are the next morning before we took off.

There are only two days of school this week due to thanksgiving break! How wonderful. I'm not sure what I'm going to do with the three days off. I MUST get most of my ENT 105 book project done. This could turn out to take a lot of time too...kinda stressful. I'm planning to get together with my global connect partner over the break, which will be great. I was thinking I could take her to Indy or something. I also want to visit Homer IL Thursday or Friday maybe.

Sarena, Janessa, and I want to plan something for the girl cousins before our get-together on Saturday. That could turn out to be a pretty fun time with some girls I don't get to see often. I really do hope that we can all be real with each other. Sometimes it's hard to get past the formalities with people you haven't been with for a long time. And then there's the complexity of trying not to offend someone else becuase your convictions are a little different...that can be hard. I'm sure it'll be good, especially if I put forth the effort to make it so. :)

So I have a funny story...it makes me look pretty dumb too. You'd better all feel sorry for me!
Saturday night I was with Sadie at a foreign exchange dinner and we were playing games and stuff. Well, someone asked if any of us could do the splits. It just so happens that I can! I wasn't about to pass up the opportunity to showcase such an impressive ability! This is where it get bad...no stretching and not easing into it at all. I went straight into the splits and there was a pretty loud tearing in the back of my thigh. I was pretty far away from the group so no one heard it but me. so I acted like nothing happened and stiffly sat back down on my chair. Yeah. I just sat there not moving for quite a while...wondering if I could actually stand up while feeling a burning pain shooting through my leg. Not cool at all. so I'm waiting for one of my doctor relatives to take a look. Oh and, Christen just convinced me to sign up for the mini-marathon. This leg better cooperate and heal before then!
Happy Thanksgiving! I can't wait to gain ten pounds this weekend. :)