spring and hormones: crazy combinations

Well may term seems to have arrived for my hormones, because I have just been going crazy these past few days. Maybe it's because I spent a semester away from campus and around guys I am not attracted too, but whatever the reason I have been going giddy like there's no tomorrow. Spring is the time of the year when everything around you is blooming and procreating and I guess it makes sense that human beings follow suit. Spring hook-ups and may term flings seem to be common occurrences on GC campus, or maybe they just become more obvious as everyone starts to enjoy the warm weather. Meryl and I spent almost 3 hours or an entire evening talking about boys and good lord, I think I actually reached my fill. But of course there is a big difference between talking about boys and actually doing something about it.....sigh In other news it is the weekend! So I plan on sleeping in tomorrow and then trying to get some unpacking done at home. Then I will be attending the John McCutcheon concert Saturday evening and writing a review of it for the Record. That should be interesting and I have a front row seat (that is free mind you)

english letters

Today I opened my gmail inbox (which I am now forwarding all my goshen mail too) and there were two wonderful emails from England. The first from JP, my friend from my summer in N. Ireland. He has relocated to England and is ENGAGED and gonna be a Daddy! It was wonderful to hear from him and invite myself to his wedding :) The second email was from Jonathan who went on the Arts and Theatre in London May term. He just arrived yesterday and so was definitely still experiencing the good ole jet lag. But speaking of jet lag, I learned yesterday that China is 13 hours ahead of Goshen! Yeah talk about half way around the world. Mandarin is definitely kicking my butt, but we had a really good study session last night and this morning went rather well. Maybe I actually will learn some Chinese. I also applied at Panara Bread yesterday, so maybe I'll work there part-time over the summer. Or I may also try to apply at South Side Soda Shop. I have never been a waitress before, but it seems like a job I should try at least once.

I fell in love today

not with a boy, silly! with a language So this morning marked the beginning of my three week intensive attempt at learning Chinese. The class consists of the 20 of us or so who are going on China SST this fall, so this will provide some bonding time as well. Our teachers are (their english names) Kathrine, Ben and Mr. Brown. They are all from the Sichuan providence of China and English teachers at Sichuan Normal University. We learned the Chinese words for head, hand, eye, ear, hello, teacher, and goodbye and all about the five tones of Mandarin. I really loved it, Chinese is a very beautiful language. I think it will also drive me crazy with its new sounds that don't exist in english like "zh" and "r". I think this will be a love hate relationship. The other cool part of the class is that my whole room is all in it, so I will be spending a lot of time with my roomies. This may also be good, because I have a feeling we won't all be in the room at the same time a lot. It is really wonderful to be back in Goshen and around my friends who love me unconditionally and who I can be totally myself around. Anyways I really need to do my homework...

Goodbye to peace

okay so maybe just peace house I have a lot of mixed feelings as I get ready to leave Indy and return to Goshen, here they are in no particular order: - I abhor packing, wait is that a strong enough word? umm detest, hate with the passion of a thousand suns, okay maybe that is good enough - It is possible to reflect and evaluate 17 times in one day - I got to learn a lot about ethnic hair this semester - I am not a flirt, nor do I like PDA - I never have and never will love basketball - It always seems that just as you begin to really love a place, you leave it (although I don't think this will be true with Goshen) - I am really excited about May Term - I am more or less ready to leave the people and places of Peace House - I will miss them though - Brie is really good cheese - I usually don't drink enough water - I actually sort of like to vacuum if the vacuum is actually working - Miriam is a girl after my own heart - I will never love the popular girls - In a few weeks, I will look back at Peace House with even more nostalgia than I feel now - I am horrible at packing and I will never again pack as badly for a semester as I did for Peace House - I have more clothes than I ever wear, yet never seem to be able to make good outfits - I hate packing and enjoy procrastination

I am a goddess

I have rediscovered my love for the game of Sims 2! It rocks my procrastinatin world. So most of this weekend was spent either packing, cleaning or simmin. It is sort of cool in an amazingly geeky way, I started with one character, married her off, she had twins, married them off, and now they are having kids. So three generations of simulated life. On another random tangent, I have recently been thinking more about the whole idea of having a family. While this is not really an option in the near future, I have been realizing how much I really do want to get married have kids. Maybe its the spring weather (although that seems to have temporarily disappeared), or the cute children I keep seeing, but whatever it is I definitely have the baby bug.

the trip to Columbus or 9 hours in a radio-less car

We arrived back late last evening or early this morning from our quickie trip to Columbus Ohio, just in time for monstrous thunderstorms to soak the city. As I sit here the Friday 11am tornado sirens go off and as usual the city contentedly ignores them, which does ask the question: what would people do if there was an actual tornado on a Friday at 11am? We piled all 5 of us into the car Tuesday evening and headed east, enjoying the mixed tape that Miriam made us. It was a good random mix of sign-a-long classics, although some of them were slightly shortened from their original playing times. Around 8pm we arrived at Miriam's house and met her Hoya (mother is Somali) and were promptly fed an amazing heap of savory rice with beef and salad. I love Somali food! Then we met up with Miriam's friend from high school Richard and hung out at Blockbuster (yes we are incredibly cool). After which our coolness increased by going to Richard's house and watching Harold and Kumar go to White Castle, which was really hilarious in a very random stoner humor sort of way. The next morning we slept in before grabbing a very late breakfast at Tim Horton's (the Canadian import of donuts and coffee which Miriam swears by). Then we hit up a bunch of Somali hot spots around town and ended up at Miriam's Dad's house were we played with Miriams' adorable babies and had another incredible Somali meal. Stuffed once again we staggered to a really ritsy mall by the name of Easton where we wondered around before watching some movies. David and Samuka went to Sahara, Miriam to Sin City and Anna and I to the Upside of Anger. Thursday we again slept in and then were treated to lunch by Miriam's mother at a Somali restaurant. She ordered the "sport" platter for us with chicken and goat. The platter is so named because supposedly it is large enough to accomendate the ravenous appetites of men who play sports. But the five of us polished it off quite well. After our late lunch, Hoya bought us girls battais (spelling?) at another little Somali mall. These are thin fabric dresses, or more accurately folded over pieces of fabric with the sides stitched and neck and armholes made. Mine is a beautiful gray with blue splashes. To cap off the day we went to the dollar theater where Samuka saw National Treasure and the rest of us saw Wedding Date, which despite the very hot Dermot Mulroney (and that wasn't even the best picture of him!) was a little to cliche and sugary for my tastes. A few favorite lines were "I would miss you even if I had never met you" and "I would rather fight with you than make love to any other woman" When we finally arrived home late Thursday evening I was greeted by Tara, Jess, Becca and Meryl who had driven down to see the premiere of Lonesome Jim at the Indy Film Festival. Of course what followed was a late night of giggles and gossip, great fun. It is nice to know that I will see them all again in only 4 short days.

long good day

Wow I am exhausted. We just finished up our internship mentor appreciation event. It was the culminating event of a day of cooking and cleaning. I baked chocolate surprise cupcakes, that I must say turned out slightly disappointingly. They were supposed to be moist, but ended up dry. Like a lot of my baking projects this semester they have turned out not quite as planned. But our house turned out a nice spread including flan, chocolate dipped strawberries, meatballs, chicken wings, mango punch and a killer veggie tray. It feels like I have been going non-stop though since I got up almost 13 hours ago. But I also finished up my creative project which was embroidering a pair of jeans. However I still have the 12 page paper hanging over my head.......sigh. Although now I have decided that it is going to be an 8 page paper and that I need to stop caring and just write it, because I have yet to get anything other than a 100% on any project for the class. In other news our house is heading to Columbus tomorrow after our final exam. It should be a fun time! I should also take this time to say spring has arrived here in Indy. It started right after the two rainy days early last week and then almost overnight all the trees began blooming and leaves shooting up. I had forgotten how beautiful green can be, but my heart still belongs to blue :) Well I have a big paper to procrastinate on...

Um, yes my family is weird, no I wouldn't change them at all, yes my brother is wearing my shoes. 

Nothing really says spring quite like yellow pansies. I took this picture this week on our front porch where Anna planted pansies in the window box. 

making those family memories

I am done with my internships! It is a little bit bittersweet, but overall I was ready to be done. I learned a lot, but it is nice to be facing an emptier final week. However I still have plenty of things to fill it with, including a 12 page paper, creative project, trip to Columbus OH, and an appreciation event to make food for on Monday. So it should be a busy little week. This weekend really rocked because my family visited me! I got to see Tim for the first time in 3 month and be together with everyone in the family. They arrived on Friday evening and we went for a walk downtown. We stopped at the Chocolate Cafe on the circle and had ice cream and fondue from the Chocolate Fountain. I love spending time with my family because I always end up laughing my head off. We are a really goofy bunch as Miriam pointed out to me and I wouldn't have it any other way. Even walking downtown we spent most of the time watching Jonathan attack and climb pretty much any wall, set of stairs or monument that we passed and on the way back all three males in the family had ice spitting contests (although it was revealed that Jonathan cheated for most of the time and actually threw his ice instead of shooting it from his mouth). Then on Saturday we had our traditional baked oatmeal breakfast with mixed berries and then returned downtown and then walked out to the State Museum. We walked around the building looking at the various counties and then went inside when it opened at noon. Even though I had seen most of the exhibits while working there it was fun to explore them with my family. After that we grabbed a light lunch and headed out to the bike rental place next to the canal. Here we rented the "double surrey" which is a bicycle powered little cart, originally designed to fit only 4 adults. Of course we managed to fit 5 of us and the men in the family had a blast terrorizing pedestrians and of course Mom and myself. The rental lasted for an hour so we had plenty of time to race around the canal, find hills to fly down and swerve around curves. After the bicycle adventure we met my Dad's cousin and wife for dinner at Buca de Pepa, a family style Italian restaurant. The food was really yummy including the most rum flavored Tiramisu I have ever had. Then my family dropped me off at the peace house and headed back north to Goshen. Of course we all only remembered later that my purse was still in the trunk and that Jonathan was still wearing my shoes. But it was all worth it to get to spend time with the goofiest family I know!

umm not a big surprise, but still

You scored as Democrat. <'Imunimaginative's Deviantart Page'> Democrat 100% Green 75% Socialist 75% Communism 58% Anarchism 58% Republican 0% Nazi 0% Fascism 0% What Political Party Do Your Beliefs Put You In? created with QuizFarm.com

And here thanks to the collage function of picasa is a compilation of cuteness. 

Miriam and Anna 

Anna and I being cute, one of my favorite pictures from our half an hour spring inspired photo shoot last week. 

Other uses for the pool table....alternate title "my hot housemates" 

The ultimate bridesmaid dresses and one hot Crystal. We went a little wild at the mall trying on cute little dresses. 

Three beautiful people wading in the Gulf of Mexico. 

Okay so Spring Break was a while ago, but I haven't posted pictures yet, so here are some of the good ones. This one is in the State Museum in one of those curved mirror ball things. Aren't we all cute! 

happy again

Today was a good day, my second to last at H House, a bittersweet thing. I said goodbye to Tyra, who showed me the ropes when I was just getting started over a month ago. It feels that I have finally begun to get the ropes at H House, I had my first threat, my first flirty old man (okay that was a while back), my first few recognizing neighbors by name. I definitely feel that H House is a good place with good people working there. It also made me think that I might enjoy a career connected to social work more than I thought. Today Anna, Miriam and I went to the Indiana Ice hockey game. We had free tickets and I had never been to a hockey game before. It was a good time, I won a free tee-shirt and we all got free burgers from Hardies! It was also just fun to have a girl's night with Anna and Miriam, they are great girls. Tomorrow is our final class with M and our exam with J, so it should be a full day. Maybe I should go study....or maybe I should just go to sleep considering I only got 6 hours last night. Anyways for all you Goshen people out there, I am really looking forward to seeing you all again in just over two weeks. Oh and the other highlight of my day was getting an email from Charletta (my brother's fiance). This semester our family has been emailing each other back and forth with weekly emails from my Dad, which has been really wonderful. And so it was great to get hear from London. Goodnight world!

a little bit down, but nothing new

Let me start by saying that this past weekend was great! Nothing extremely specific just fun times with my housemates. It is getting close to the end of our time here at Peace House and I feel like in many ways we are finally beginning to click. Other times I just feel so frustrated. I feel like in many ways I haven't been true to myself this semester. Relating to my housemates has been both the best and most challenging part of my time here. While we have definitely come a long way to finding community together, I still feel like there are some barriers that haven't gone down or really been addressed. I guess I thought that living together would be easier than this. In many ways it was, but in the deeper, intimate connections it turned out much more difficult. I think part of it is that I have felt a lot like the odd one out this semester, which in all honesty is partially of my own making. When I feel uncomfortable I tend to withdrawal and that can definitely lead to a vicious cycle. I think the hardest part is feeling like my housemates haven't gotten to know the real me, I guess who I was this semester is part of me, just not all of me. In other news, internships are almost over and so are classes. But I am realizing that that means I really need to get a start on my final research paper.....sigh Other things I should post more about later: my visit to the Psychic Spiritialist Church next door my week long attempt at the Atkins' diet upcoming visit of parents/brothers

ugh I hate horror movies!

Oh my living word, I have always hated horror movies and scary movies and as a general policy never watch them. However tonight after being persuaded by Miriam I watched the movie Saw. I do not in any way recommend this movie! I repeat it was traumatically awful, evil incarnate. I won't go into the plot, but lets just say it is realistic portrayal of your worst nightmares come to life. Unfortunately I can't really offer much critique of it as a film, because I was too freaked out by it to pay attention to those details. Ugh, I really hope I can actually sleep tonight! I guess it is times like this where I am glad that I usually don't remember my dreams.

past my bedtime, but then its always posting time

Well today was almost 100% better than yesterday. Yesterday was sucky and long and I just didn't like it, although it was sunnier than today. Plus I felt out of sorts and alienated and pissed at the world. But today I woke up and felt better and both classes were great and the weather was nice. I also got a nice chunk of cash in exchange for my work at the Peace House Office last week. Plus I made yummy meat loaf for dinner and my housemates liked it. But even more importantly I had a great heart to heart chat with Miriam that just cleared up a lot of things. One of those conversations where afterwards you just feel like you can breathe better again and you are reassured that you do have friends in life. Then to top off the evening I watched the movie Alfie with Jude Law, who is a little bit too pretty boy for me, but incredibly sexy. And the movie was actually pretty entertaining and made me think a little bit about what one looks for in life. Oh and then I checked the blog and people had posted! and then I checked my email and Jonathan had written a great family email! Okay well enough of all that I am heading to bed, because my day starts at 7:30 tomorrow!

something I found while wondering around on blogs

I found this cool picture here Basically some people with some time on their hands took pictures of whatever was directly behind their monitor and then used it as their desktop making it appear as if their screens are transparent. Cool, ah?

Million Dollar Baby

Well after a whirl wind trip to Goshen yesterday to see the GCDC concert I arrived back in Indy slightly tired but content. Over all a pretty good time for only 6 hours in the car :) Of course GCDC did a spectacular job and totally rocked the Umble with a packed crowd (and I mean packed I almost got turned away at the door!). After arriving home I did something good for myself and went on a run, then after scrubbing up went out for dinner with Anna and David to La Bamba where their claim to fame is burritoes as big as your head. It was a good time although as sometimes is the case these days when spending time with Anna and David, I felt a little third wheelish. I think part of it is because I just don't know David as well and so it sort of makes Anna the go between, which is a bummer because I would have liked to get to know David better. But we had a good time and even stopped by DQ for dessert. Then we stopped back by the house to pick up Miriam and went to see Million Dollar Baby. It was really well done, I hadn't quite known what to expect, but it really delivered a good punch (awful pun I know!). The characters were well developed and very three dimensional, the writing and acting were all well done, essentially it really deserved the Best Picture. For those of you who don't know it revolves around three characters, two old boxing pros and a young woman determined to fight her way out of her hillbilly background. But at the heart of the movie is a touching father-daughter relationship between a boxer and a trainer. Morgan Freeman especially deserves kudos for his role as an old boxer who now helps run a boxing gym. After seeing his acting, it was crystal clear why he won an Academy for Best Supporting Actor. Overall I highly recommend it! While there is boxing related violence, the powerful story and the manner in which the violence is neither glorified or emphasized easily made up for it. I have to admit it was a tearjerker for me, but I have realized that in the past year I have been losing my ability to remove myself from characters and plotlines. Which means I end up crying at some pretty sappy stuff, but oh well I figure there are worse character flaws.