Halloween

On Wednesday Amy and I are throwing a little "costume party" for our Club 56ers. We need some ideas of games and stuff to do with them that's Halloween related, with a relatively low budget. We probably won't have nearly as many kids as normal since it's Halloween night. But we don't want the kids who did come to wish they'd gone trick or treating instead!

Any ideas???

A Week of Nothing?

Because of the fires school has been canceled all week. I've had a couple of days where I have had nothing that I had to do and no where that I had to be. It's been amazing. I haven't had any type of day off since the first day of school. Technically there's a lot of school work I could be doing, but I'll get to that in the next couple of days. I know it's not under the best circumstances, but it's still been so nice to have a couple of real days off.

Fire Damage so Far (Thursday 11:30am)

Just in San Diego:

- Almost 300,000 acres burned
- 560,000 total number of people evacuated
- 50,000 have been able to return home
- 6 deaths related to the fires have been reported by the Medical Examiner.
- More than 1,350 structures destroyed

Very Quiet

Outside it is very calm and quiet right now. In San Diego alone over 500,000 people have been evacuated. Other people are staying indoors to avoid the ash and smoke in the air. All schools are closed through the rest of the week. Many businesses are closed. Many freeways are closed.
Most people are glued to the news or the radio or their phone, waiting for a reverse 911 call to evacuate. Many phone calls aren't going through because the lines are tied up. Power has gone out in many places.
It's actually expected to be at least until mid next week until all the fires are contained.

The worst fires San Diego has ever seen.

A good source for more information: www.nbcsandiego.com

Going Back

I am way too antsy not being in San Diego. I'm going back home to San Diego on a train in a couple of hours.

People to pray for:

- Marla and her family (Amy's room mate) who have been evacuated from Ramona since Sunday and don't currently know if they have a house.
- The Cooks, the Children's pastor at my church and her husband and 3 kids have just been evacuated from Rancho San Diego where one of the biggest fires has turned and started to head.
- The Peterson's, the Pastor of my church and his wife and 2 kids have also just been evacuated from Rancho San Diego.
- My mom's Uncle Jed who had to evacuate Fallbrook.

Left

A fire started on the corner of our street. It started from some flaming material that flew over all the way from one of the first fires. I was actually taking a nap and Cerise came home kind of freaking out. She told me about the fire on the corner that was spreading really fast. We rushed to pack up stuff as a police car came through our complex telling everyone they needed to leave. That actual fire was contained pretty quickly and it looks like our apartments are safe. By the time it was contained we had already thrown stuff in Cerise's car and left to go to her boyfriend Justin's apartment. There are many houses that we could have gone to stay at of people from the church. But instead we just decided to get out of San Diego and we're now at Cerise's house in Orange County. Our other roomie Jackie decided to stay at her sorority house near SDSU. The only freeway left open to get out of San Diego was the 5 North so it was very slow, but moving. Listening to the radio on the way out of San Diego they were evacuating areas only a couple of miles away from Justin's apartment
Almost all of the schools in San Diego county have been closed, including my school SDSU. So it doesn't hurt to be here at least until tomorrow.

Here's some facts for San Diego at the moment:

- The worst fires the city has EVER seen
- At least 14 fires are burning in Southern California
- At least one person has been killed and dozens have been injured
- 260,000 people have evacuated.
- over 145,000 acres of san diego are completely burned.
- At least 655 homes have been burned
- over 100 businesses are gone.

PLEEEASE pray!

Getting Scarier

There are now officially 7 fires in and around San Diego county (not including the fire in Malibu).

Here's a picture of where the fires are. I'm currently right about where the "D" in the San Diego sign is. Still not super close to the fires, and they shouldn't reach where I'm at. But we're definitely feeling the effects of smoke and ash. The strong winds and really dry weather are not helping at all.

Wildfires

Anyone who has lived for any length of time in Southern California knows about the fires that we get occassionally. Usually they are contained pretty quickly, but sometimes they're not.
Right now we have a pretty bad one that's been spreading since this morning in San Diego County. The fire isn't super close to where I am, but the winds have already managed to bring smoke and some ash to the air here.
At least one person has died so far, and there are at least 7 seriously injured firefighters.
Please pray for the injured and lost. Also for the family's that are losing their homes as I write this, and for those that are having to evacuate. Specifically my friend Amy's room mate's family just received a mandatory evacuation notice. They're about 9 miles from the fires right now.

Free Dinner

Tonight I had dinner with my adopted family from church. Once a month I get a good home cooked dinner. I've started to look more and more forward to these dinners. Tonight it was both of the kids birthdays. Yes, they have the exact same birthday how odd is that? Faith turned 11 and Grace turned 9. They each had their own ice cream cake. Yah for dinner and ice cream cake! Oh... and left overs, so excited.
P.S. that's Faith in the picture below :)

Haha

I know I post lots of pictures of them... But basically they are just cooler than many other people.

Shouldn't Be This Stressful

I think I need to quit my hotel job. There's a few reasons why, and recently some are really sticking out.

Mainly it is not flexible AT ALL. Which is just the nature of the job. Everyone else that works there this is their career, it is full time for them. But I am still a college student. I need to be able to ask for days off or to be able to switch my schedule around sometimes if I have a big test coming up or a paper due or if I want to go home and visit my family. I work every weekend both Saturday and Sunday so I NEVER have a day off from life.

I'm also starting to think about the holidays and the fact that over Christmas break I'm just going to do a bunch of commuting back and forth to San Diego. I might not even have Christmas off.

I actually got overly emotional tonight because I was so frustrated with the lack of flexibility of this job. I tried switching my shift with someone and it didn't work, so I am missing out on something that was important to me. I don't think that I should be able to get anything I want off, but I can't seem to get anything at all.

This is getting a little repetitive.

Basically I don't think that my part time college job should make me this upset or overwhelmed. It's ok to quit. The frustrating part is that I need to go through the whole process of trying to find another job again. Which is not something I have time for. And I can't afford to quit this job until I find another one.

I don't believe in the theory of "oh just stick with it, life isn't easy sometimes". It's true, but I am not ever going to work in a job that makes me miserable. What is the point?

Getting Sick

Is really stupid. I refuse.

22?

Happy Birthday to me :)

Not Even Functioning Anymore

All I've done for the past 4 days is study study study study. I feel like my brain is going to explode! I had 1 midterm today, I have a midterm and quiz tomorrow, and a paper due Wednesday. Seriously??