hmm

this afternoon i proofread joanne's paper for her psychology of adult development course, it was about "quarterlife crisis" and the search for identity that 20-somethings have once they are done college. there was a quote in it from erik erikson that i found interesting, something about how the stage we are in now (the early 20-somethings) is intimacy versus isolation... and how we are afraid to get hurt and that is why we don't find love, that we can't find love until we are willing to get hurt.

and then later tonight joanne asked me why i didn't just make a move instead of waiting for him... and what would i do if he (the guy i am particularly fond of) fell in love with someone else and married them, then would i marry this other guy who likes me (whom i do not like in that particular way). this part of joanne's personality frustrates me. my brain doesn't work that way.

i am not sitting around waiting for someone to ask me out so i can fall in love with them, nor am i going to marry someone just because they like me, oh, i am not sure if this makes sense or not even, but this frustrates me. i can't properly thought process what i am trying to say into words... it's late, i need sleep.

reindeer shortbread

tonight my friend erin came, with her little sister shannon, they are here for the Christmas musical which we shall partake of tomorrow night, and are leaving unfortunately on saturday morning.

erin is one of those people that when i think of her i think "hey, how did i luck out and get to be her friend?" she is very very sweet. whoever marries erin will be one very lucky man.

and, they brought us food... munchies for exam time and goodies like pizza and white cheddar and bagels and cream cheese and Christmas oranges and that premade shortbread cookie dough with reindeer pictures in in. : )

must get to bed, it's after 1am...

star light, star bright,
first star i see tonight...

for who You are

today is a great day:

a) i got a B+ on my lit review for research design class... i did not think it was very good but the prof said my paper is "a great apologetic for the use of the internet today, clear, organized, and written well."

b) i got a transfer analysis in my student box notifying me that after this semester i only have 12 credits left until i have my masters... oh my gosh.

c) i got a care card from a boy telling me i'm awesome.

"For who You are
You're the Great I Am
For who You are
You're the Son of man
For who You are
I am who I am."
- Caedmon's Call, "Who You Are"

speechless

i was told by a boy today that he thinks of me as a woman of virtue… and not knowing exactly what it meant i looked it up in a thesaurus. some synonyms include asset, good quality , good feature, desirable quality, good value, good worth, high merit, high caliber.

how do you take a compliment that leaves you speechless?

i would jump if

(typed this last night but never got it posted)
another good day… i like good days. went to chapel this morning (tuesdays we have chapel for the high school, college, and seminary all together), it was a good message on thankfulness, awesome worship afterwards as well.

sat in the bean afterwards for an hour with jodi and carol (my old residence director from college) and a freshman girl from california, and just chatted which was nice. carol had just been to montreal last week and had some pictures so it was neat to see those. carol has grown a lot in the three years i've known her.

worked on some homework this afternoon, my powerpoint presentation is looking pretty good, I just need to add some more substance and a few more graphics and can call it done. Then I need to work on some handouts and notes to go along with it. we never actually have to give the presentation, just hand it all in ready to go.

worked on yearbook for about three hours, got all the layouts for the student photographs set up, 16 pages and almost 800 pictures. typed in all the names but need to go over them and correct spelling errors and such. that is a big chunk of work done though, that makes me happy. : )

came home and had a nice house supper, we have not done that in awhile. There are still remains of the Christmas party everywhere, but no one is seeming to mind so we are just leaving it for now until someone or all of us get the ambition to deal with it i suppose.

went to the library and read poetry tonight… have not done that for a long time and it was most enjoyable. David Helwig. Emily Dickinson. Bliss Carman. found a great treasury from the 1930s with neat woodcut illustrations. every day I miss art, it feels so go to get back to it. "I tint the dawn with crimson, I tinge the sea with blue, My track is in the desert, My trail is in the dew." From "earth voices," Bliss Carman.

and, in other news, a boy told me i was wonderful today.


A promise or a dare
I would jump if I knew you'd catch me
Staring over the edge
I can't tell if you'll be here for me
I close my eyes and make a wish
Turn out the lights and take a breath
- Jars of Clay, "Five Candles"

chats with chums

i had a great day yesterday, actually got some homework done. am working on a powerpoint presentation entitled "Lessons from the Master: The Incarnational Ministry of Jesus, Lessons from the Gospel of John". i've never used powerpoint before, and it is turning out alright so that is good. :)

my good chum carolyn that i shared a cabin while we both worked at camp this summer called, and we had a great chat. i miss her a lot, i wish i lived closer. she says she's going to start taking up a collection for my plane ticket so i can come to the camp staff reunion the week after Christmas. : ) that would be sweet if that really happened! i have been really bummed out about Christmas break lately, i feel as though i have nothing to do.

my friend erin also called, she went to college here two years ago and lives a couple of hours away. she's coming thursday night and staying until saturday morning, so that should be really fun. and saturday i'm going shopping with jodi and holly in regina so that should be fun too, i haven't really been shopping since the summer and we will have a chance to spend some quality time together and do some Christmas shopping as well.

at about midnight last night, rachel, holly, joanne, tamara, tony, and i were sitting in the dining room all talking and then my chair broke... very funny but now we are less one chair! chuckle chuckle.

well, i should probably best get off the internet and do some more homework and maybe go and work on yearbook a bit although i am avoiding it this week...

"Whoever believes in me, as the Scripture has said, streams of living water will flow from within him."
- John 7:38

a few template changes

I'd walk a thousand miles

i like this song, and i know that i'll be saying it soon. i wish sometimes that transportation was never invented because then people would never move away or leave. would our lives be more constant? would our lives be simpler and less complicated? sometimes i think so, but sometimes i know that, no, it would not be so.

it's always times like these when I think of you
and I wonder if you ever think of me
'cause everything's so wrong and I don't belong
living in your precious memory
cuz I need you
and I miss you
and now I wonder...
oh 'cause you know I'd walk a thousand miles
if I could just see you tonight
I, I don't wanna let you know
I, I drown in your memory
I, I don't wanna let this go
I, I don't ...
- Vanessa Carlton - A Thousand Miles

i don't like it when people don't personalize their blog layouts.

like mike

and jess

and her

blowing, blustery

this morning there is a blowing and blustery day going outside, bringing to an end the uncovered ground once again. it looks cold and bitter out, and i am faced with decided whether or not to actually venture out today. saturday was actually the first day i did not leave my house at all, but that was because of busyness, and today would be because of stubborness.

do i or do i not? a strange and twisted metaphor.

"I'm not particularly concerned with whether or not you like me, because I... I live to like you, and, and I can't like you anymore."
- Duckie, Pretty In Pink

on communion

this is not very eloquent, but i have been wondering lately, why is it we never celebrate communion at a meal? why is it always in a church service? did Jesus do communion at a church service?

for awhile i was noticing it was in vogue to do communion services at the churches i was going to where you had to walk up to the servers and get your bread and grape juice... but then we have gone back to the passing around. and sometimes it is "cool" to do the dipping of the bread, but then we go back to the little cups. when i was interning at a (free methodist) church in illinois i can remember having to ask what the kneeling benches were for at the front of the church because i had never seen them before (i've only ever seen one methodist church in Canada that i can recall).

each church has a different "proper" way of serving communion, but in fact it is merely tradition. why is it that we so impose our traditions on something like this? we do not do it the way Jesus did, but our eyes are blind. but does it really matter?

breathe on

my day began with church, as oft sundays do, communion sunday, and a sunday with a mass choir as well, which I always enjoy. there is something almost magical and definitely spiritual about voices in unison giving praise.

after church our house was in a mad rush to get ready for our Christmas party, and we finished in time to pray which was awesome. It is so neat and humbling to live in an environment where we can give a party in God's honour and give it over and up to him. : )

numbers tallied, we had about sixty-five people come through, some stayed for a half hour, and some stayed the whole time. we tried to guess who would be the first to show up, and i made a farce guess because i think that deep down i really knew who it would be. he was the first to arrive and the last to leave, about forty-five minutes after everyone else… i am trying not to over-analyze it, although my friends are not helping.

awkward conversation plagues me, although not so much as it once did. free me Father.

i went to 'surrender' tonight, which is our sunday night church service, held in a place we call the landing, a building that was originally built as a theatre and dance hall during the 1940s when our little town was not yet a town and was an army base to train soldiers for war. i love the landing, even though it is not as beautiful as I am sure it once was, it's history enthralls me. how many words of love have been exchanged within it's walls? and now from it we adore and praise our Father. my first week of college the evenings we spent after sessions of orientation in praise and worship, and these shall always be some of my favorite memories. I often think the landing would be a wonderful place to be wed.

after worship i went to a surprise party for my friend cory, and left early though because I am tired and should toddle off to bed. today was a good day, a nice chance to see many friends not often seen and meet new people (friends of roommates) and share times together with people i love. thank you Jesus.

fall on me
ever so gently…
breathe on, breathe on
these dry bones, these dry bones
and break these chains

millions and millions and millions of cookies

i just finished making cookies, from 11:00am to 4:00pm, sugar cookies and gingerbread, as fast as the oven could churn them out. now our front living room is covered in a mass of plates of festive cookies. i did not know baking was such hard work. i cannot imagine what it must be like being a mom and a housewife.

thankfully joanne and kiko are making supper.... mmm.... curry. : )

"i hope these guests are hungry."

space ranger cookies

today, i am very embarassed to say, i bought a jar of mod podge. what is mod podge, you ask? well, mod podge is a kind of glue you use to decoupage, decoupage being smearing an object with glue, covering it with cut outs from magazines or fabric or whatever, and then smearing glue all over the covered object. some examples of decoupage would be the plastic fabric-covered swan on top of the back of your granny's toilet fillet with bobby pins and misscelaneous other granny bathroom stuff, and anything that rosie o'donnell made during the craft part of her ill-fated show.

why did i buy mod podge you ask? well, my desk was in terrible shape, a lovely number gleaned from the student housing furniture co-op at the beginning of september, and i couldn't stand to look at it's sad bashed and battered state any longer. so i got some mod podge, cut up magazines, and covered the fronts of the drawers. i cut out squares and rectangles of solid colour, a mondrian-esque look i suppose... the top drawer is now various shades of green, the second drawer blue, and the bottom one is is now shades of orange and red. the piece of wood above where the chair goes under is shades of beige and tan, and i must say, i quite enjoy that section. the total tackiness of the whole desk may just get to me... i thought perhaps it could pass for funky, but alas, i think i was mistaken. i am considering covering the whole thing in shades of tan and beige because it matches the wood and i think could actually look cool. the only problem is i don't have much time.

there are less than 48 hours until our aforementioned Christmas party... yesterday i made two quadruple batches of chocolate crackles, last week i made two loaves of zucchini bread, yesterday i made some shortbread, and today i made some space ranger cookies (they came out of the better homes and gardens cookbook, they were actually just called ranger cookies but i modified the ingredients so i felt justified in changing the name). kelly made some caramel popcorn today. but other than that, no one has done any cooking or baking for the party. i think that this shall be one very very very busy house tomorrow, not only in the kitchen but also in the rest of the house because we need to clean big time.... this should be interesting. ninety people... in our house.

and, in good news, tomorrow morning, or should i say this morning because it is already well into the a.m., i get to sleep in for the first time all week. whooohoooo. usually i sleep in pretty much every day, but not this week, so is the life of a busy seminary student! ; )

i have no quote for today. i am uninspired.

endless delights

A random and eclectic list of things that bring me delight and for which I am thankful:

- feeling that tingly feeling when I hear a really good song
- Spreading paint across a sheet of paper or on a canvas
- Eating cotton candy
- Colours, especially nice greens
- Completing a layout for yearbook
- Spending time with friends
- Spending time alone
- Reading the Bible
- The sense of freedom that biking gives
- Feeling the wind upon my face and racing through my hair
- Large expanses of prairie and wheatfields
- sunsets and sunrises
- Seeing the Northern Lights illuminate up the expanse of the never-ending sky
- Car rides where it is understood that you don't have to talk, where it is alright just to sit and look out the window and take i all in
- Being loved
- The feeling of satisfaction after watching a really good movie or seeing a really good piece of theatre
- Seeing other people enjoy things, no matter how small or insignificant
- Visiting my Gramma
- Creating little pieces of art out of unexpected things
- Sewing, creating something out of cloth, making something that did not exist before
- Drinking in the richness of good books
- Realizing God's truths
- Laughing
- Listening to those songs that take me back to fond memories of when I first listened to them
- Wool sweaters
- The feeling I get every Christmas Eve
- Picking up with an old friend right where we left off
- Walking or biking in a summer rain
- My cat Blackey
- Spending good times with my three siblings
- Worshipping God
- Reminiscing with old roommates
- Getting dimes in my change
- The scent of laundry dried on the line
- Lying on a blanket in the middle of a field on a sunny summer's day
- Pink fabric
- Knowing what I am doing is what God wants for me to do
- Taking really great photos
- Being complimented, especially when I never expect it
- When guys take the time to make me feel special
- Reading comments left on my blog
- Discovering good things like chai tea and the joy of flip flops in the summer
- Autumn leaves
- Pajama pants that are just a little bit too big
- Cotton button-up shirts
- Pea coats
- Fresh carrots and peas straight from the garden
- Blooming lilies
- The road by our old farm
- Corduroy pants
- Waking up from a dream
- The quilt and pillows on my bed
- friends who take the time to really listen
- Getting a new watercolour paint set
- Not being anxious about the future
- Knowing that God has a perfect plan for me
- The scent of lavender
- Cooking stir frys and pastas and other good things
- Partially realizing the depth of God's love for us, because we never will really understand it
- Walking under a light and lofty blanket of stars
- great conversation
- Seeing that the Big Dipper is wherever I go
- The little surprises of life
- Making collages of poetry and quotes and words
- Writing what I think is a really good poem out of those little word fridge magnets
- Shopping and buying nothing at all
- Trying on prom dresses
- Walking outside on beautiful nights
- Lying in the middle of a really great field of grass and just gazing upwards
- Seeing a harvest moon
- The smell after a rain, the finest over all perfumes
- Cherries
- Fresh raspberries with sugar and cream
- Finding a passage in the Bible that I had forgotten about or did not realize was there
- Making jewelry out of beads from my grandmother's attic
- Visiting with old friends
- Sharing life
- Walking a deserted road
- Meeting people I have never met
- Making postcards to send away
- Getting an email from someone I was just thinking about
- Getting a real letter or package in the mail
- Care cards from my college days
- Road trips with friends
- Shopping alone
- Shopping with another
- My mom picking me up upon my return home
- Having people over for supper
- Dreaming about days to come
- Thinking about all the myriads of possibilities of roads my life could take, knowing that God will lead me down the right one
- Knowing that somewhere, out there, is the one that God has made for me and I for him. May we wait patiently for the delights that are to come.

Our God is a great God...

reckless sense

It is after midnight and my eyes beg me to close them, all the while trying to close themselves. But yet I refuse. Silly me.

Long day, went to Moose Jaw with Rachel and Holly to get baking supplies for our Christmas party this Sunday… which we are beginning to think will be the mother of all Christmas parties, certainly the biggest private non-school sponsored one it town. What were we thinking? The invite list is over 85 people and growing day by day. Certainly not everyone will come, but I think we have ourselves in over our heads. And sure, we can bake a gazillion cookies before Sunday. What, that's only three days away? No problem. Ha ha.

Did not get any homework done today, which is not good since all my assignments for the class I took in the middle of September (Essentials of Youth and Family Ministry) are due December 2. Yes, I will be up all night December 1st.

I have realized too many times this semester that anything I or anyone tell Holly will be repeated to Jodi, and so if we want any personal details of our life, no matter how big or how small, to be repeated and blasted about, hey, we just have to tell Holly. I think this is mostly because Jodi is Holly's only friend at school outside of our household, but still I don't think that she needs to know everything. Jodi was is a friend of mine, but, yeah, I think you know what I mean. Sometimes it is so very very very frustrating. Last night I went with her and a few other people (mixed group of guys/girls) to Subway and I ended up regretting it because it was like hanging with a bunch of teenagers trying to impress each other while I stood like a dork trying to not be annoyed and trying to have a good time but really not being even remotely successful at either endeavor.

I took a girl in the dorm some cookies tonight because she was having a horrible day, and I rode Tamara's bike because I wanted it to be quick. I haven't ridden a bike since before summer… I had forgotten how freeing and invigorating it is. I used to bike all the time in high school, but since college really haven't had the opportunity to much because I've never had a bike here. My freshman year I used to always rent a bike from a friend of mine. Anyways, I ended up going all around town tonight and it was splendid. Saw the Big Dipper (when was the last time I saw it? I don't remember when that was. It has turned a lot since I last did). How can one look at the stars and not believe something Divine has created all this?

I had forgotten that this town has unpaved streets… and very muddy ones at that especially today, I had mud all up the back of my coat and all over my jeans, small sacrifice to pay however for the exhilarating sense of freedom and abandon.

"…let us draw near to God with a sincere heart."
- Hebrews 10:22a

KELLY GOT ENGAGED!

mystery solved

after wondering for some time, i have solved the mystery of where my archives have gone for september and october.... i was doing an msn search for something else...and came across them, tagged onto someone else's blog. they are currently housing themselves at http://pocketlitter.blogspot.com/2002_09_01_mikao_archive.htm and http://pocketlitter.blogspot.com/2002_10_01_mikao_archive.htm.

does anyone know how i can get them back to being attached to my blog???

the lover's in love and the other's run away

last night i watched "indian summer" with joanne, old movie but interesting, and tonight i watched "reality bites" with joanne and rachel and after it was over rachel said "i am sooo glad you get this movie michelle, i watched it with tamara and she didn't get it." and i was like, "geez, what is there not to get?" a commentary on our time.

last night joanne and i put our plastic owl on robert's doorstep as a prank... and tonight we went to get it back, and (insert scary music here)......... it was gone. now i'm going to have to tell him it was us to get it back.

if he hasn't already guessed.

"You say I only hear what I want to
And you say I talk so all the time-so

And I thought what I felt was simple
And I thought that I don't belong
And now that I am leaving
Now I know that I did something wrong cause I missed you
Yeah, I missed you

And you say I only hear what I want to
I don't listen hard
I don't pay attention to the distance that you're running or to
Anyone, anywhere
I don't understand if you really care
I'm only hearing negative, no no no-bad

So I turned the radio on I turned the radio up
And this woman was singing my song
The lover's in love and the other's run away
The lover is crying cause the other won't stay"
- Lisa Loeb, "Stay"

bottle of rain

worked on yearbook this afternoon for four hours, mostly just with melissa (the "co-editor"), but robert was there for a little while too. i'm layout editor, so i basically get to decide how everything is going to look. that's the fun part. i also "get to" format all the pictures, scan them, digitally alter them, sort through lists upon lists of names to figure out who we have pictures of and who we don't, etc. funners! : )

joanne and i went to the high school drama production before... i had never gone in four years of living here, but i always heard it was good. the people beside us left after less than ten minutes... and joanne and i left after a little over half an hour. they were good actors.... but the play was terribly boring. is that bad? : [

yesterday i was reminded of a song i used to really like, and i think i still do a lot, rod stewart's "broken arrow." there are some good lines in that song. i'm not really all too sure exactly what the song is intending to mean, i haven't listed to it since junior high or early high school probably. but i am hoping that someday there will be a wonderful guy out there totally in love with me who shows me his love in unique ways. boys, girls melt over unique stuff. or maybe it's just me. i'm not a dozen red roses kind of gal... be creative, a bouquet of lillies or wild daisies shows that you care enough to be original and not just a cookie cutter mold of who everyone thinks you should be.

"Who else is going to bring you a broken arrow
Who else is going to bring you a bottle of rain
There he goes moving across the water
There he goes turning my whole world around
- Rod Stewart, "Broken Arrow"