New iPods and Being Sick

Last week right before Thanksgiving my iPod decided it didn't want to work anymore. It kept making a funny clicking sound and then telling me to go to the help website. I found my warranty on it and saw that it expired TODAY. So I took it in yesterday and the guy just gave me a new one. He did notice the big dent on the back that I managed to do when I first got the thing. And then proceeded to tell me that that was probably WHY it was having problems. But without me arguing or anything he still replaced mine! Sweet!
Oh except I forgot to mention that yesterday when I tried to turn it on again all of my songs were gone. I had about 800 songs that aren't from my computer that are now lost forever. That's pretty sad. BUT I still got a brand new iPod after 2 years.

Today I called in "sick" for only the second time that I've worked at the bookstore. Except the first time was legitimate. This time I called out so I could study. Not even for anything fun. I spent about 5 hours studying for an Econ test that I'm pretty sure I failed anyway. Sad.

Ok... time to go get ready for Club 56. Amy and I wrote a lesson last night using a clip from the movie "Elf". I'm kind of excited about it :)

Going Home

I'm leaving tonight to go home for Thanksgiving. It'll be nice to go home for a few days. I'm kind of antsy to get going and could technically leave right now. But I just looked at the traffic report and there are at least 2 sig alerts and it's extremely slow. Which I expected, but couldn't leave any earlier because I had class. Sooo... I think I might take a quick nap before I go.
I managed to finish both of my papers. But the last couple of nights have resulted in a serious lack of sleep. Ok... nighty night!

Kidz Church

So Amy and I led kids church on Sunday since the children's pastor was out of town for Thanksgiving. My church has a pretty large children's program, pretty awesome. I was a little nervous to be "in charge" of so much for one Sunday. But Amy and I make a good team and everything went fairly smoothly :)

Oh and I love being part of a church in general. I had a few families on Sunday asking me what I was doing for Thanksgiving and making sure I had somewhere to be :) It does help working with the kids to get to know some of the family's. I know it seems like a small gesture, but I thought it was pretty cool. Something I didn't "grow up" with and am not used to. That's how churches should be right?

We Live We Love

I love being able to look back and see how God has worked in part of my life. I know He is ALWAYS working and ALWAYS there. But we don't always recognize where he has worked. I think if we were to truly see how much he is involved we wouldn't be able to fathom it, it would blow us away, probably scare us at His sheer power and awesomeness.
It's a blessing for us when we can see the connections from one small thing that God had His hand in.
Thank you Father!

"We Live" by the Superchicks:

We live we love
We forgive and never give up
Cause the days we are given are gifts from above
And today we remember to live and to love

I Need A Break

Lets be honest. School isn't going so great this semester. I will probably still "pass" all of my classes (probably being a key word here). But I am usually not one to just pass. I am kind of frustrated with myself for being such a slacker lately. No excuses, I mean I could come up with some legitimate ones, but really no excuses.
I have 2 philosophy papers due next week. One Monday night and one Tuesday morning. The one for Monday is worth 1/3 of our grade and we've known about it for at least a month. And I haven't even started. I still have to come up with what I am even writing about. All I have is the topic of Paternalism. Actually one of the easier topics, but this is not a research paper. I know what paternalism is, but I have to come up with some type of pretty good philosophical argument for or against it.
And the other paper is well... this:
"Using concepts and arguments from Bernard Williams’s piece “A Critique of Utilitarianism” fashion a response to Peter Singer’s account of our duties to the poor and needy in foreign lands that Williams would be likely to endorse. Then, present an argument assessing the plausibility of the response."
Considering I haven't finished reading Williams yet I'm not off to a great start. Although at least it doesn't seem quite as difficult, except for the fact that Williams and Singer aren't generally philosophers that are put together or compared.
And well, here I am. Instead of writing I am writing about writing.
Tonight I'm going over to hang out with a friend who is housesitting. Tomorrow Amy and I are leading Kids Church. That should be fun. Of course I probably won't even start writing until about 3:00.
Ok, no more rambling or complaining. Off to write!

I like...

Living paycheck to paycheck...

Oh, and being in debt...

WAIT. No, no I don't.

Kitten

Cerise and her boyfriend have a new kitten named Maverick, and I am his auntie :) He is adorably cute and at the same time probably the most psycho kitten I have ever seen! Today when I went to visit he was at first really sweet. But then he turned psycho and started running out of nowhere and attacking my face. I screamed once when I didn't realize he was coming and he flipped out and ran into the acordian door. Haha. Then as I was leaving he pounced my foot and climbed up my leg. Ouch! BUT he is still my favorite kitten ever!

One of his calm moments, sleeping on his mommy

Free Food?

So I managed to get 3 free meals today. Breakfast from Sunday School. Lunch at a place called Sammy's Woodfired Pizza that Amy and I invited a middle age couple to. Definitely not with the intent of them paying I promise. More of a "hey, we were going out to lunch would you like to join us". Pretty excited when they said yes. Our new goal is to go out with a new "older" couple or group each week :) THEN dinner at Chili's with the children's Pastor. Sweet!

Saturday

Yesterday I had the day off for Veteran's day. Today our school is closed still so that's 2 days in a row of no work or school. Pretty nice. My day of having almost nothing planned yesterday turned into a fully busy day. I woke up a little before noon (I needed that chance to sleep in SOO bad) to a text message from Amy seeing if I wanted to do lunch. I met her and Corrie at Chipotle shortly thereafter. Then we came back and hung out for a bit before they had to go back to campus. Then I went and saw the Prestige with Jackie. Very good movie by the way. I like movies that keep you thinking and then twist at the very end. I had about 15 minutes to get ready before going over to a "Chili" dinner party at Katie's. Then Corrie came back over and we watched a movie. Then time for bed again! So far today all I have planned is doing laundry (about 2.5 weeks worth), getting as much homework as I can done, and then going to the football game at 5:00. Our team basically sucks, we've only won one game so far this season. BUT it is still something free and fun to do with a group of friends... so it works :)

I Got My Passport!!

Woohoo!! I'm soo excited! Just 6 weeks and 4 days until I leave! 7 weeks and 2 days until I actually get to London. I'm doing a pre-program tour to Paris, Brussels, and a couple of other places. Paris in the beginning of January?? Did I mention I was EXCITED??

Some Days Not as Easy

Tonight I had my Club 56 group. It was definitely a little more straining than normal. I don't know what it was but they were all SUPER HYPER. There was 12 of them there... which by the way is amazingly awesome to have so many kids from just 2 grades. I'm pretty sure we have 14 or 15 regulars for Wednesday nights. BUT tonight was just a difficult focus slash respect the people giving the lesson night. I mean I love them all to death and I love having fun with them and messing around. But at some point it has to settle down a bit. Anyway, just a tad more draining than usual. I would have to say I'm getting better at the "stern" voice / threaten to discipline thing though. I don't really like this part, but I know at some point it becomes necessary.
They really are a pretty good group of kids most of the time and I'm not complaining... Just a draining night...

What?? Another Post Already??

Last night I went over to Amy's and played Hungry Hungry Hippos while watching Mean Girls and eating Winter Oreos. Good times. I like friends. :)

Family Visit

Tomorrow my family's coming to visit for the day. They're actually coming early enough to go to church with me in the morning, which I'm pretty excited about! Then we're going to go spend the day at Coronado. I've actually never been there, but it seems like the kind of laid back, shop around a little, relax a little, kind of thing my family enjoys.
Ok... time to get some more studying in before they come! I've actually been really productive today... although I'm still way behind. Oh well, little by little.

A Little Pumpkin Carving...

Update Anyone?

Lets see. Last Thursday I was supposed to go to the Price is Right. But long story really short the lady in charge of organizing our group told us the wrong time to be there more than once. Because of this we were 15 minutes too late and lost our spot. Pretty sad.

Last Friday I worked at my church's Harvest Carnival. I was a ceiling "fan". I made a shirt that said "Go Ceilings!" and "Ceilings are #1!" and carried around a pom pom and painted my face and arms. Make sense? Most people didn't get it, but when they DID figure it out, or I told them, they enjoyed it :) Amy was gum stuck on the bottom of a shoe. I was in charge of the the thing where you are bungeed in and try to run as far as you can to put your velcroed marker thing in the middle and then get yanked back. I'm pretty sure I was in charge of the best one, not gonna lie :) That was a ton of fun.

Afterwards our Club 56ers had a sleepover. Amy and I were with the girls at the children's pastors house. Of course the kids pastor went to bed at midnight so we were in charge. I don't know if anyone remembers that age, but it is definitely the "lets see if we can stay up all night" age. Which was fine with us, we weren't going to stop it. Out of 10 girls 2 managed to stay awake all night. Amy and I lasted until about 4:45 in the morning and then basically passed out.

Saturday night after working at the football game I went to a costume party. Cerise and I were both care bears :)

Tuesday night, actual Halloween night, was Taco Tuesday, so we did that one. And then Amy and I watched "The Others" back at my apartment. Have to do something semi scary on Halloween!

I tried to make this week a catch up week. I'm really not doing too hot this semester because I don't have nearly enough time to study or read as I need to. I had 2 tests and a paper due last week. Both of the tests were for business classes and I got D's in them, although one ended up being a C curved. The paper was nice though. After my Ethics professor finished telling everyone how poorly the class did, how this paper was much worse than the last one, how only 4 people did better than the last one, and a bunch of other negative things, I got mine back and I received a 95%! Woohoo! So maybe now is the time to switch my major? Failing pre-business courses and doing really well in 500 level philosophy courses? hmm...

Anyway, my family is coming to visit on Sunday. My mom keeps sounding like she really misses me and wants to see me, but I seriously don't have time to take a weekend off and drive home. So I told them they could visit for a day.

Lets see.. any more randomness? Well yes, but I've already written so much! So we'll save it for another post... Here's a picture of our Club 56 group! I love these guys!