Refreshing Breaks

It's been a week since I drove up to Niagara Falls for Thanksgiving Break. Feels like it's been a day or a year. I gathered together four friends, one of whom had a car, and we crossed the boarder into Canada and drove eight hours toward the Niagara area.

Plans never quite work out, so we ended up stopping at the Toronto airport where I was dropped off to go search for my boyfriend and his family. He stepped off the plane just after I got dropped off, so in the end it worked. Then we all drove down to his parents' house and ended the night with hot soup and a movie.

The break was amazing. I felt so relaxed and smiled so much. At one point Friday night I was just feeling tired and was worrying about whether or not everything was going well, but my boyfriend was right there beside me and was able to point to my friends, who were all laughing like crazy over some toy in a Christmas Shop, and assured me that they were having fun, that his parents were enjoying the company, and that it was a good trip. He then pulled me into a room lit up on all sides with Christmas lights and moving paintings of candles, and we pretended to know how to waltz.

That evening we played Camouflage and Lave Monster on a little playground and we realized that there's a huge difference in the endurance levels of elementary school kids verses college students. We all woke up sore the next morning.

We got to do a lot of hiking, through different sections of the Bruce trail, beside the train tracks that passed the house, along the strip of river leading up to Niagara Falls. Everything was beautiful, and breathtaking, and I was able to forget about school.

Well, other than to check emails and find that my professor had graded a huge group project (A!) and then to consider reading the non-fiction pieces I would have to workshop as soon as I was back on campus. I got a few sentences into one all about anime, drugs, and sex and decided not to keep reading. So instead we played another round of Dominion and laughed some more.

It was beautiful, and wonderful, and I can't wait to go back in just two weeks. So close! I cannot wait to see my boyfriend again, and his family, this time including his sister who's getting married! I'm so excited for her and so excited to see her.

Now I just need to figure out how to push through this last week of classes and the week of finals and finish up the semester well. Easier said than done I'm afraid...

Washing Machine Life

Everything is changing.
My oh my how that little sentence has been true over the last couple of weeks. I've watched, from England, as all of my classmates graduate and get ready to go all over the world. It's so strange to think that all of those people will no longer be in the same place, that even if I went 'back' I could never go back. Everything is changed now.

So after a few days of panic over the fact that my friends have all graduated and moved or will move soon and then panic over the fact that I'm not going home after this and won't ever live at home again and then panic of "why in the world am I going to college in a state where I don't know anyone?" Honestly, though, what prompted me to go so far away?

I still can't believe this is where I've been going to school!

Then again, I am in England right now, and it's even further away than Vermont will be. And while one of my friends followed me here from Oaxaca, I did still come here alone. So I don't know why college seems so much more daunting.

Yeah, I guess the pictures don't really have anything to do with my post, but open doorway, you know, like a door to my future...

But that's the big abstract change that sometimes seems unconnected from my life, like I'm watching it happen to someone else. Right now the change is the end of Bible School coming up in just one week. I know I've done a terrible job at updating everyone, but these two months really have been incredible. It will be hard to leave, but I am so excited to see how I can take everything that has been poured into me during my time here and then turn it into the rest of my life.

And road to the future...

I'm trying to think of some highlights from the time here. Elephant Table Tennis was definitely fun, when a group of us played the most ridiculous table tennis ever and could not stop laughing. Parties in the Beehive are also fantastic, eating chocolate and gummy bears when we're upset about something or when we have some reason to celebrate. Reading my novel out loud to one of my friends here has also definitely been a highlight.

So many sheep here!

Of course I've also loved all of the lectures and spending time alone with the creator of all of this fantastic greenery and watching the British sunset fall over the hills. I am amazed at what God has done during this time, and I pray that as I move through a world that's spinning around and changing way too quickly for me, that I will be able to continue to grow and learn and store all of these stories for my future novels.

I went to the Pencil Museum in Keswick. How random is that? I didn't know pencils came from Keswick England.

I just need to focus on the adventure and forget the fear.

There is beauty everywhere as long as I remember to look for it.

Beyond the Blinds

"I try to pay attention, honestly I do. But outside the window I hear the sun calling to me, practically begging me to join her in her frolic. I want to give in. I want to join the blue sky in its search for freedom, and play catch with the clouds.

This room feels something like a prison, trapping me from all the things that my heart longs to do. Despite all of my attempts to keep my wandering brain focused on the matter at hand- I cannot truly listen of absorb the words that continue to slide over my head. I fail to find motivation as the grade I will receive from this class is my sole purpose for sitting here in the first place.

How I long to escape this cage! the blinds blocking the world from view only taunt my imagination- as I fins myself creating the view that I could see if the blinds rose. Anything could be on the other side, anything at all.

Here in this stifling room there is no space for magic, but beyond the blinds anything could be waiting. If I could only make a mad dash for the door- where I can see nothing but greens and yellows- but I cannot. I am trapped. Whether by my own foolishness or by the pressure from everyone around me, I do not know, but it hardly matters. The fact is all hope is lost, and the time for change has gone.... "


So, I wrote this today in school- (don't judge). The truth is, I am a nerd, and I do enjoy learning and taking (and passing) notes, and I love the influx of knowledge that school provides. But at the same time... Sometimes all I want to do is write, or read, and I can't stand sitting there hearing how many electrons are in each energy level. I can't help thinking to myself: "What does it matter?" I mean, I know it matters, and I know a lot of people care.

So I was just going to post the link to show where I got the picture from...
but this site cracked me up.
And confirmed my status as a Nerd. :D

Just, I don't. I won't use it after college, or after high school if I'm lucky, and I don't see why I need to do all these things that are keeping me from the one thing I really love: writing.

I read all these dystopian novels, (Hunger Games, The Giver, Divergent, 1984, etc...) and I see everything wrong with the supposed utopia that these people have created. And I can't help but wonder how much of the problems are already beginning in our society. It's easy for me to read the Giver and see the kids getting their jobs assigned to them and think that maybe there's a problem.

From here.

Yet I almost feel like people are planning out my future too. You're going to go to school, and you are going to take these classes, and you are going to go to college and you are going to get a job and learn how to drive and make money and have a family.

And I sometimes wonder how much of a say I get in the matter. Isn't it my life anyway? Or are we just a dystopia of our own, and we only think we get to choose. (Like the Choosing Ceremony in Divergent.)

Maybe none of it matters anyway.

Maybe I want to go through with this preplanned future anyway. I think I do most of the time.

But sometimes- all I want to do is write.