Josiah just left a few hours ago to go back to his home in Waterloo, Iowa, and I miss him already.
We weren't planning to be together on Christmas, since I'll be home on Thursday and then he's moving to Chicago to attend Moody Bible Institute. But when the night of the 23rd rolled around and I came to the sad conclusion that I would be alone on Christmas, Josiah said goodbye to his buddies and got permission from his parents to make a trip to the city. He left the next morning and got here around 3:30pm... and it was so exciting to see him. We stayed in the room mostly, napping, making freezer meals, and watching dvd's on my laptop. His parents gave me "The March of the Penguins" on dvd, which I had never seen, so we watched it together. What a great movie.
It has been really hard being away from Josiah this past semester. I can't even express how he makes me feel. When I look back on old high school dating relationships, whether mine or others', I am amazed how apparently shallow they were. It's one thing to have a crush on someone, to like someone. But it's totally different when you find someone who you can truly love, and who loves you just the same. Someone who is there to grow with you, emotionally and spiritually. Someone who looks forward to every moment with you. Who wraps his arms around you when you're happy, sad, or even just bored. Someone who picks the big chips out of the bag because he knows you don't like the crumbs. I feel so blessed to have someone like that.
Having found such a wonderful person and such a wonderful love has taught me a lot about the love of my Heavenly Father. The love that Josiah and I share is amazing to me - how much more amazing is the love of Jesus? His love is perfect, unfailing, unconditional. He loves us no matter how many times we betray Him. No matter how many times we let Him down.
one of my favorite scriptures about love is Ephesians 5:2, "Observe how Christ loved us. His love was not cautious but extravagant. He didn't love in order to get something from us but to give everything of himself to us. Love like that."
My love for Christ has inspired me to love like he loved, with my whole heart, unselfishly. It surely is a challenge to meet such a high standard.
12/27/2005
12/23/2005
What do you do when you're poor and bored to pieces?
So I'm still here in Chicago until the 29th, just hanging out and working (I work at H&M on state street). I didn't think it would be so bad. Sure, I would much prefer being home right now, but this gives me the chance to unwind, have some "me" time, make some money. My life here is pretty... what's the word... sufficient? I live in a building in which I could never leave and be fine... There's a cafeteria and a gym on the second floor, a laundry room on my floor, I have my own full bathroom, 7-eleven downstairs, and Panera just opened up on the ground floor as well. I have my tv and dvd player in my room, surround sound (no I am not rich - far from it - my surround cost $40), and my laptop. Not to mention my phone, in which a decent chunk of time is spent each day talking with Josiah. Life here during the holidays would be awesome, so I thought.
I came to find that my meal plan for the cafeteria is de-activated for the break, so basically, I'm on my own until January 23rd. Today I ate my last freezer meal, a hot pocket, which isn't generally my cuisine of choice, but satisfied my appetite. Apart from the unused box of stove top stuffing, some triscuits, and my favorite peach applesauce cups that still remain, I'm eating chips and salsa. For all of my meals. It's a bit redundant. Oooh I just remembered, I still have some leftover ice cream cake from my birthday in the freezer. I'll eat that tomorrow. Like I mentioned earlier, there's a 7-eleven and a Panera in my building, which would come in handy if I had money... haha. It's my own fault for using the last of my previous paycheck on clothes at H&M, but it's ok... I get paid tomorrow. I'll go to the grocery store and buy some milk and some macaroni or something.
So my food options are... less than stellar, but I still have my entertainment, right? hmm. Well, yesterday before my roommate went home, she tried turning on the TV, and said, "hey, what's wrong with the TV?" There's no picture. It's black. With a white line across the top. No sound. I can still see the channel numbers, faintly. I went to the menu to see if the settings somehow messed themselves up (funny how electronics, systematic as they are, seem to have evil personalities sometimes), and discovered that if I move the brightness and color all the way to 100, I can see the picture. However, the picture is scrunched to the top 2/3 of the screen, and the bottom 1/3 is still black. I don't get it... I just watched 'the wedding singer' the night before, and it worked perfect. Oh well. I can handle a break from watching dvd's I guess. Josiah's best friend is home from the military for a couple weeks, so I don't get to talk to him as much, and the gym downstairs closes really early. Tonight I got all excited and went down in my workout clothes, and they told me they were closing in 10 minutes, so I pedaled as hard as I could for 10 minutes.
so I was really bored today, wanna know what I did? I woke up at 10, checked my email and sat around doing pointless stuff on the internet till 1pm, went back to sleep, woke up at 4:45 and called Josiah, checked my email, ate a hot pocket, talked with my family on the phone, checked my email, laid around, rode an exercise bike for 10 minutes, then came back up to check my email. For the fourth time today. I think I must deep inside believe that I will get some amazing email, one that is thoroughly entertaining, making me laugh so hard, then being touching at the end, so a tear will run down my cheek. Then this email will send me to a webpage with lots of entertaining things to do, and will play scenes from my favorite movies. If someone could invent an email like that, I would give them a hug.
Ahh, college life...
p.s. I miss everyone at home, can't wait to see ya and say, "hi!!"
I came to find that my meal plan for the cafeteria is de-activated for the break, so basically, I'm on my own until January 23rd. Today I ate my last freezer meal, a hot pocket, which isn't generally my cuisine of choice, but satisfied my appetite. Apart from the unused box of stove top stuffing, some triscuits, and my favorite peach applesauce cups that still remain, I'm eating chips and salsa. For all of my meals. It's a bit redundant. Oooh I just remembered, I still have some leftover ice cream cake from my birthday in the freezer. I'll eat that tomorrow. Like I mentioned earlier, there's a 7-eleven and a Panera in my building, which would come in handy if I had money... haha. It's my own fault for using the last of my previous paycheck on clothes at H&M, but it's ok... I get paid tomorrow. I'll go to the grocery store and buy some milk and some macaroni or something.
So my food options are... less than stellar, but I still have my entertainment, right? hmm. Well, yesterday before my roommate went home, she tried turning on the TV, and said, "hey, what's wrong with the TV?" There's no picture. It's black. With a white line across the top. No sound. I can still see the channel numbers, faintly. I went to the menu to see if the settings somehow messed themselves up (funny how electronics, systematic as they are, seem to have evil personalities sometimes), and discovered that if I move the brightness and color all the way to 100, I can see the picture. However, the picture is scrunched to the top 2/3 of the screen, and the bottom 1/3 is still black. I don't get it... I just watched 'the wedding singer' the night before, and it worked perfect. Oh well. I can handle a break from watching dvd's I guess. Josiah's best friend is home from the military for a couple weeks, so I don't get to talk to him as much, and the gym downstairs closes really early. Tonight I got all excited and went down in my workout clothes, and they told me they were closing in 10 minutes, so I pedaled as hard as I could for 10 minutes.
so I was really bored today, wanna know what I did? I woke up at 10, checked my email and sat around doing pointless stuff on the internet till 1pm, went back to sleep, woke up at 4:45 and called Josiah, checked my email, ate a hot pocket, talked with my family on the phone, checked my email, laid around, rode an exercise bike for 10 minutes, then came back up to check my email. For the fourth time today. I think I must deep inside believe that I will get some amazing email, one that is thoroughly entertaining, making me laugh so hard, then being touching at the end, so a tear will run down my cheek. Then this email will send me to a webpage with lots of entertaining things to do, and will play scenes from my favorite movies. If someone could invent an email like that, I would give them a hug.
Ahh, college life...
p.s. I miss everyone at home, can't wait to see ya and say, "hi!!"
12/19/2005
It's c-c-c-cold
So, Chicago isn't called the windy city because of the wind. It's called the windy city because of the politicians. But it is so cold and windy here! This morning I went to move my car (to avoid being ticketed - I park for free in a neighborhood in which I don't live...) and I definitely should have worn TWO pairs of sweatpants instead of one!
By the way, yes, my sense of style has changed since living in the big city, but you wouldn't be able to tell when I go to move my car - so stylish in my Nike's, grey sweats, and long wool pea coat!
By the way, yes, my sense of style has changed since living in the big city, but you wouldn't be able to tell when I go to move my car - so stylish in my Nike's, grey sweats, and long wool pea coat!
12/17/2005
Ahh... Now I can relax!
Finals are FINALLY over! Hence, my title.
Tonight on the phone, my older brother asked me what kind of finals college students at an art school had to do... for two of my classes I DID have the usual test/research paper. Once I actually took the time to do these, they were a breeze. For my photography and darkroom classes, I had to present a 10-photo final project. Finally, for my design class, I was to design a 7-panel cd insert and the cd label.
My brother quickly came to the conclusion that art students have it easy. HA. It's a little more complicated than it sounds...
I don't even want to try and calculate the hours I was in the 10th floor darkroom the past three weeks developing and printing photos. It's so tedious. Perfection in the darkroom is not as easy as I thought it would be. For one of my photos, I probably printed 12 different copies, maybe more to get it right, so about an hour and a half at LEAST on a single image. I finished my 10 prints on Thursday afternoon, after being in the darkroom for 6 long hours. I came back after my Thursday night class to cut my mats and mount the photos. Phew... what a relief it was to have them done!
(Here are the photos)
The cd design thing... that's another story. Yes, I did procrastinate an awful lot. After the darkroom on Thursday, I hurried to my place and worked to finish it as fast as I could. My printer is not large enough to print the format my project was in, so I thought, no problem, I'll take it to Kinko's...
What a mistake.
After explaining to the man behind the counter (which is underneath a huge sign saying, "we're here to help you!!") what a rush I was in and what I needed him to help me with, he casually said, "Well, I'm a little busy, so you'll have to do this yourself on the self-serve copiers." He also explained that Kinko's can only print on 8.5X11 paper just like my own printer, and I would have to reduce my image. Why, I wonder, does a professional printing shop not have a larger-format printer? The final step in my Kinko's plan was to print a computer file onto the image. The man behind the counter argued with me for 5 minutes that I could not print text on top of an image, because after all, the background of my text is white... thus, the white would cover my image... At this point, you can understand I was getting a little fed up. I asked why white would cover the image one more time, he told me that because the background on the screen is white, it will print out that way and ruin my colorful image.
"What... you have white ink in your printers?!?" I exclaimed, pretty sarcastically. I'm sorry Mr. Kinko's man, I didn't mean it.
I gave up on the self-serve guess-and-check Kinko's and went to my class. Luckily, my teacher gave me an extension until Tuesday.
Friday morning I presented my photos, then hopped on the L to the north side of Chicago, where I went to an Aveda salon/spa. I had a scalp massage, shampoo, deep conditioning treatment, haircut, and aromatherapy hand massage... it was sooooo wonderful! (I think, if I can afford it, this may have to be an after-finals ritual.) I came back to my room, talked with Josiah for a while, and SLEPT.
Still posted on my bulletin board is my 4-week layout of the previous month, with my plans for getting finals done. Though I originally laughed hysterically when my good friend Megz told me she felt she would need a straight-jacket by the end of finals, I can almost understand that.
Tonight on the phone, my older brother asked me what kind of finals college students at an art school had to do... for two of my classes I DID have the usual test/research paper. Once I actually took the time to do these, they were a breeze. For my photography and darkroom classes, I had to present a 10-photo final project. Finally, for my design class, I was to design a 7-panel cd insert and the cd label.
My brother quickly came to the conclusion that art students have it easy. HA. It's a little more complicated than it sounds...
I don't even want to try and calculate the hours I was in the 10th floor darkroom the past three weeks developing and printing photos. It's so tedious. Perfection in the darkroom is not as easy as I thought it would be. For one of my photos, I probably printed 12 different copies, maybe more to get it right, so about an hour and a half at LEAST on a single image. I finished my 10 prints on Thursday afternoon, after being in the darkroom for 6 long hours. I came back after my Thursday night class to cut my mats and mount the photos. Phew... what a relief it was to have them done!
(Here are the photos)
The cd design thing... that's another story. Yes, I did procrastinate an awful lot. After the darkroom on Thursday, I hurried to my place and worked to finish it as fast as I could. My printer is not large enough to print the format my project was in, so I thought, no problem, I'll take it to Kinko's...
What a mistake.
After explaining to the man behind the counter (which is underneath a huge sign saying, "we're here to help you!!") what a rush I was in and what I needed him to help me with, he casually said, "Well, I'm a little busy, so you'll have to do this yourself on the self-serve copiers." He also explained that Kinko's can only print on 8.5X11 paper just like my own printer, and I would have to reduce my image. Why, I wonder, does a professional printing shop not have a larger-format printer? The final step in my Kinko's plan was to print a computer file onto the image. The man behind the counter argued with me for 5 minutes that I could not print text on top of an image, because after all, the background of my text is white... thus, the white would cover my image... At this point, you can understand I was getting a little fed up. I asked why white would cover the image one more time, he told me that because the background on the screen is white, it will print out that way and ruin my colorful image.
"What... you have white ink in your printers?!?" I exclaimed, pretty sarcastically. I'm sorry Mr. Kinko's man, I didn't mean it.
I gave up on the self-serve guess-and-check Kinko's and went to my class. Luckily, my teacher gave me an extension until Tuesday.
Friday morning I presented my photos, then hopped on the L to the north side of Chicago, where I went to an Aveda salon/spa. I had a scalp massage, shampoo, deep conditioning treatment, haircut, and aromatherapy hand massage... it was sooooo wonderful! (I think, if I can afford it, this may have to be an after-finals ritual.) I came back to my room, talked with Josiah for a while, and SLEPT.
Still posted on my bulletin board is my 4-week layout of the previous month, with my plans for getting finals done. Though I originally laughed hysterically when my good friend Megz told me she felt she would need a straight-jacket by the end of finals, I can almost understand that.
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