Passion 2011

This year at Passion was interesting. The group of people I was with were really great people and I realize that I am in an extremely different place in my life than last year. However I have really yet to process and unpack everything I learned and experienced from Passion so I'm not sure what I learned, or if something is going to happen in the next few weeks or months and something I heard at Passion will influence that. I'm in this really weird place right now where a lot is happening around me and I think the gist of it is that I'm unhappy.
I'm not a fan of being done with school right now. I'm not a person designed to just work in a job that doesn't involve my degree and field that I love. Which is what I'm doing right now. I miss the excitement of a new year and of mountains of school work as stressful as they are. Yet today I'm realizing that my unhappiness is taking me away from being present in this season of my life. I'm not really a fan of that either.
So I'm working on my attitude with my station in life right now and trying to enjoy the people in my life. I want my focus to be on my relationship with God and with others, and not on me as much. I often focus on my plan and the way I think things should go. However, I have to remember that I am not in control! I just need to rely on God and let Him do His thing, while I respond in such a manner that I carry His name effectively to those around me.

What have I gotten myself into!

So I basically fail at blogging about Europe. I don't like to blog about it if I can't get the pictures up and Belgium pictures are the trickiest. It was a crazy day and they are just a bunch of random monument pictures. But I'm going to get them soon. However my life has been consumed by school this past month. Senior Seminar is in full swing and I'm working on my lovely topic, which I changed the focus of two days ago. I'm writing about Nurses and other Women who served in Vietnam during the war. I orgianally was going to focus on their involvement with Vietnamese civilians, but now I'm going to argue that Vietnam was a transitional war for women's roles in war kinda thing. Oh man I have no idea how exactly it's going to work yet. But it'll be fine in fact I think it will turn out better than before.
In other news I am taking the GRE on Saturday. I've been dreading it for months and now I am finally taking it. Unfortunatly I haven't really studied for it so I am hoping that I do well. I will be able to find out my score on two of the three sections right away because it is a computer based test so that is nice. I will know whether or not I need to take it again. I'm hoping for not, but I have a feeling that I will need to.
Other than that I've just been hanging out in between the mountains of school work. I started the Beth Moore Revelation study at church which is amazing and I'm super invovled with Fusion still. Hopefully I'll blog about Belgium and Germany soon!

Summer

Summer has begun for me. I am done with my Spring semester at Flagler. So far I have 3 B's and I think one A but it hasn't all been confirmed quite yet. I didn't do as well as I was really hoping this semester but it's better.
I've really enjoyed by internship this semester and I'm currently waiting to find out if it will turn into a job for the rest of my time in St. Augustine. It would really be awesome and I'm really anxious to find out and praying that I will be hired!
I will also be moving into my first apartment sometime in May. I'm really excited to be living with the 3 other girls that are sharing the apartment. It should be fun!
I also am really looking forward to my Europe trip in June! I'm trying to plan things and hopefully will be buying some stuff for my trip. But that is all I'm sure I'll have much more to talk about soon.

Knitting and Misc

So I have started a new and fabulous project for me!!

It is the Whisper Cardigan from Interweave Spring 2009, and I am using Brown Sheep Cotton Fine in this beautiful blue color. I am totally in love with it. This is all that I have done so far.
It is coming along nicely, there are some mistakes but I'm just going to let it go for now I don't really care that much...I think. I am kind of a perfectionist when it comes to my knitting especially when I am knitting for myself but right now I'm just going to go with the flow on this one and see how it turns out.
In other news I was walking around St. Augustine the other day and happened on this lovely thing
An old Mail box!! I love it this town has so many cool little gems all over it!
Also my roommate and I decorated our door for Valentines Day, well really she did and I helped. It turned out adorable. Unfortunately we didn't win the contest but I think it's only because we won the last time. Well that's really it for now, I guess I'm back to the grind of endless school work!

What A Week

I feel like this week has been a blur. I didn't have to work at my internship on Monday so I basically had a day off, but since then I've just been running around busy. I am absolutely loving my internship! It is a ton of work but the work that I am doing is so amazing, I literally feel like I'm a part of history at my internship just with the changes that are happening there. I also found out that another amazing thing will be happening at school in the next few weeks but I will wait to post about that until after it has happened. Anyways I just can't believe that I am taking the classes that I am taking.
At the moment I am taking a class called Oral History and I will have the opportunity to interview people in the area who have been veterans. My goal is to interview women which should provide a very interesting paper that I am ecstatic about! I literally am giddy about a paper and it is so strange to me. However I am taking another history class called Southern Religious History and my paper topic for that is still very unclear and I am hoping that next week I can really nail down an idea which hopefully one of the people who works at my internship will be able to give me some ideas. Although I'm not swamped yet with school work (which is amazing!) I am still incredibly busy just with classes and my jobs. But so far this school year has been interesting just there have been some downs with some of my friends just being strange and stuff and I am hoping that they will just straighten out a little bit or just get over their issues a little bit. However I am determined to just have a good semester and knit because it makes me happy. I am working on a lovely Alpaca scarf and will soon be starting the Whisper Cardigan from Interweave Knitting Spring 2009. I am still waiting on my yarn to come in for that though. Sorry about the random post but this is just how my mind is working right now.

New Year New Semester

Oh man it has been a long time since I've written. Many things have happened and much has stayed the same. The Fall Semester finally ended in a whirl wind that was not as successful as I would have liked it to be. My GPA dropped but I am confident that I can raise it back up to a more successful (in my view that is) number. I spent much of my break working at the craft store so that I could make some money for my Europe trip this summer, however I as always got spendy and spent a lot of it on Christmas Presents. However I came back this semester to school and have started my internship at the St. Augustine Historical Society Research Library. I am responsible for one main project involving a reorganization of biographical photographs and also assisting with the development of a tour about the house that the library is headquartered. There are also several other projects that I will have the opportunity to be involved in which will give me a ton of experience for my future career in public history. One of the most exciting things about this internship is that this experience will be amazing for my grad school applications because as my professors have told me is that many undergrads who apply for the public history degress in grad schools do not have this kind of experience to back up their interest. So basically I'm ahead of the game which makes me really excited. I am a bit nervous about my course load and am praying for all As! That would just make my year I feel like. Well this has been an incredibly random post and I also have plans to write about my experience at Passion 2010 which was probably one of the best experiences of my life, I loved Atlanta!

It's About That Time

There comes a point in every college students semester where they just get into a funk. I am at that point. Everything has piled up into the same week and well I'm just there. I need a vacation, but my school doesn't have vacations it's pretty much one of the only draw backs though. I can't explain this time right now I'm anxious and in a funk really that's all there is to it. I am trying to rely on God though and it helps but my mind tells me that it's not. However I just try to keep focusing on God and this particular verse has been helping me out for the past few days. Philippians 4:6-7 "do not be anxious about anything, but in everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made known to God. And the peace of God which surpasses all understanding will guard your hears and your minds in Christ Jesus."

BACK AT SCHOOL

I moved back into Flagler yesterday. I am so glad to be back! I moved into a different dorm entirely so it's been interesting getting used to the way things are over in this dorm. I have a fabulous roommate who is just awesome! We get along great and in a sense were practically roommates last year I spent so much time in her room last year. I am an orientation leader so I was able to move in 4 days early which was so nice since there was no where near the traffic and chaos there will be on Saturday when all the Freshman move in. Hopefully everything will go smoothly. It's a bit strange to be on a practically empty campus but I kinda like having it to myself, it's fun. Classes start in 6 days and I'm excited but not at the same time, after all it is class. Soon I will be finishing up a post about what I did this summer working at the Museum of Science and History. Which was a ton of fun and I have really cool pictures and stuff to share.

My Life

My life has been insane lately. With all of my school work I've barely had time to do anything but study, sleep, and eat, with not much sleep. However, school is done until fall and to be honest I'm not very happy about that. I truly wasn't ready to leave school I just wanted new classes. I am taking a WWII from the American Perspective class next semester that I am really excited about since WWII is my favorite time period to study and I would like to focus my history studies. So now with the summer I am starting an internship in May at the MOSH where I will basically be working with artifacts and inventorying what the museum has I am really excited about it as I am thinking of going into that field as I do not want to teach history which is what everyone always asks me.
Anyway so I know that this post is very random but I also wanted to share what I have finished on the knitting front. Over Easter break I finally finished my sister's vest and it turned out really well and she got a ton of compliments from her friends about it which made me very happy! After all I've been working on it for about a year.

Now I'm working on a lace shawl and so far I love it! I also have been working on multiple dishcloths and am probably going to be giving a bunch of them to a friend who is about to get married.
Let me talk about my wonderful morning yesterday. I share a room with my sister at home and yesterday morning around 6:30 am I was in my bed sleeping and my sister was getting ready for school and our entire closet collapses. The shelf and bar just collapsed and woke me up. I jumped up in bed, I thought that it was our computers falling off our little table. I was so annoyed and I couldn't go back to sleep so I was very very annoyed. Anyway so that was my morning.
I realize that this post is a bit disjointed and completely random, however this is what my life is about LOL.

M.I.A.

So there hasn't really been that much to talk about lately. I've been updating a lot with Twitter though. I just have been crazy busy with school and haven't been able to sit down and write a blog post about well my random life :) Well school is about to be done in less than 30 days which is a relief from the school end, but makes me kinda sad and depressed because I'm going to miss everyone here at school so much especially my roomie. We've gotten a long so great this past semester and I couldn't have asked for a better roomie. I also have been very busy with school as I've alluded to but it's winding down which also means that there is about two months of work packed into one. I have about 3 papers left to write this semester but they are all huge. One paper is 15 pages and the other paper is 10 pages. I'm not looking forward to writing them. But everything has been going pretty well. I'm super excited because this weekend my little sister Amy is coming to stay a weekend at college with me and I can't wait for her to get to meet everyone down here and the added bonus that everyone is staying here this weekend and not going home makes it better so she'll get to meet everyone!

I actually haven't been knitting that much which makes me sad. I've been to busy. I am almost done with Amy's vest which she is excited about as am I since I've been working on the thing for about a year. I can't wait to see her wear it as it's really cute. I've also been working on some discloths for a friend who is getting married in May!

I did go home last weekend for my "spring blink" it was so much fun. I relaxed a little bit and hung out with some good friends. I also bought a new dress (for easter) and a super cute pair of brown wedges from payless! It was spectacular. I also got a dress in that I had ordered from Old Navy that is this really bright but pretty coral color and I can't wait to wear it!

Alrighty well I'm off to read about the Irish Gaelic Revival for my class so I can write a paper on it.

School

Oh school how I loathe thee a little bit. you've been kicking my but lately and it's just a bit annoying. However, I know that I will be sad once you are done for the semester, so I'll just keep plugging along without trying to go to insane!

So yes this is my life lately. I have so much to do and so little time. And then I procrastinate by writing on my blog, twittering, facebooking, you name it and I do it. However school is going pretty well, but we are at the point in the semester where teachers are like oh yeah you need to have a test/quiz/paper due and they decide to do them all at the same time! That's my life.

Another thing I've been doing lately is a Bible Study with my church down here. I was in it part of last semester as well. However, we are studying the book Captivating by John and Stasi Eldredge. And let me tell you it is awesome!! I have learned so much in the last 3 weeks about myself and why I do the things that I do. It's been amazing so far. I highly recommend every teenage girl, young woman, and every woman really to buy this book and read it. It will change your life!

Alrighty well I am going to go and enjoy my ICEE while studying for my test and quiz tomorrow because I have procrastinated on here enough.

Back at School

Well winter break is over and I'm back at school for my spring semester. I have a new roommate, and she is fabulous we get along so well. My classes are pretty interesting I'm taking History since 1877, with a professor that I love; History of Ireland, with the professor who happens to be my advisor so that's kinda cool; Middle East: WWI to present, the professor is really old and it should be an interesting class we have to do role play debates which I'm not really fond of but I'm sure that it will be okay; Comparative Politics, with a very cool professor who is actually from Britain; and Cultural Anthropology, I'm thinking of picking up anthropology as a minor because I have so much free time class requirements wise. I didn't get as much knitting done over the break as I wanted to because I worked so much. However, I did start over on my sister's Bryant Slipover vest so that now it will probably fit her and I also started a new scarf for myself out of Bernat Natural Alpaca blend in a pretty charcol gray color. It's super soft and I love it. I guess that is all for now. It's Martin Luther King Jr. Day so I don't have classs which is nice I got to sleep in.

My Little Adventure

So I pass by this everyday on my way from my dorm to the campus.
We call it the pumpkin church. So I just couldn't resist and I bought one to bring back to my dorm room!
Here is my baby pumpkin, isn't it so cute! They also gave me this lovely little sticker which is just adorable!
I think it's the cutest and I put it in my window for now
I'm going to draw a face on it soon, I just don't know when. Oh and this weekend I went to my sister's band competition They got First place in their catagory and 5th place over all Go TCA Marching Band.

Oh Fall

I knew fall weather wasn't going to last very long. I mean it's certainly not hot now but I'm so ready for sweater weather. School is starting to get busy now. I love going to class but boy do I hate studying for test. I'm so tired to, I just feel so exhausted. I need to sleep!! I went to a new church yesterday and it was really good. I mean it's not as good as FBC, but I think I'm going to end up going there the most. It's called Anastasia Baptist Church (ABC). And on a funny note, the wife of the college leader graduated from my high school. So cool. I haven't really been knitting much as I've been studying but I really want to, maybe when I get back to my room this afternoon I will. I'm soooo tired right now I just want to sleep! Well that is my life right now class, study, sleep. I did have a fun time this weekend though. I went to my sister's marching band competition. Whew it was such a long day. I was there from 9 a.m. until about 11:30 that night. They did so good though and I was impressed. They were best in class for Division 1 A and ended up placing 5th overall which if I remember correctly last year at this same competition they placed 6th so that is a good improvement. I really love going to marching band competitions they are so cool and I was never even in Marching Band. I kinda find that hilarious.

I think my Dorm Room is Making me Sick

That's right my dorm room is making me sick I'm convinced. Well really I don't truly believe that but it is crazy cold. I actually wore flannel pants and a hoodie last night and I never do that not even in the winter at home. I'm going to the store today after I'm done with classes to get some medicine. I think it's really just allergies though, or maybe a combination. I don't know but it's really cold. Classes are going well. I have my first real speech on Monday and it's on Happiness...I'm really not happy about it. I love my U.S. History class my professor is so good. I also like my other history classes but my U.S. History is the best. Oh so another political shout out I guess. I must say all of the comparison of inexperience between Palin and Obama is driving me crazy. First of all I would say that yes Obama probably has more experience than Palin on national and international issues, but Obama is running for President and Palin is not. Palin is running for Vice President. Therefore it is not a very good argument in my opinion. Besides Palin does have John McCain to I guess teach her, and I guess the same argument can be made for Biden. Anyway that is getting on my nerves when I read articles or watch the news (which I don't do that often because I don't have a TV). I guess that's it for now. I haven't really been knitting much, but I've been working on my sister's Bryant's Slipover so I'm about half way done with the waist shaping which is good. Oh and the new Knitty is out and I love it, there are some things I just have to knit from it.

Politics

I don't think I've ever talked about politics on here before but right now I'm so very frustrated that I have to write about it. Today I had a class about Women in American History. I pretty much knew that going into this that it was going to be a very liberal feminist class. I mean I'm all for women's rights but there are somethings that I don't agree with. So of course Governor Sarah Palin came up. Okay here is the thing I don't think anybody really likes her in that class. Some of the things that they talk about are that she is either going to be a bad mother or a bad VP or do a half okay job on both. I think that she can do both. Be a great mother and a great VP, because here is the thing if her husband was running for VP nobody would ask those questions. Also, her abortion stance in right on in my opinion. I realize that people disagree and this is the United States of America we are allowed to disagree. I believe in the sanctity of life so to me abortion is never right. Also her pregnant daughter, apparently this is a huge issue. My view on that, there is only so much a parent can do to hopefully prevent their teenager from getting pregnant. Even if her mom had been a say stay-at-home mom her daughter could have still gone out and gotten pregnant. I mean I know well not personally but I know of Christian girls that have gotten pregnant outside of marriage. Oh and it was mentioned in my class today that Evangelical Christians may not vote for Palin because of the belief that a man should be the head of the household and not be up front leaders in church. Which is a slightly untrue statement, I believe that women should not be preachers however I do believe that women are necessary in leadership especially to lead other women. Trust me my church has tons of women leaders. Anyway I wish I had said this but James Dobson is as far as I know completely behind Palin. Therefore if Dobson is behind her than Evangelica Christians take that into consideration more than the argument about women being leaders in church. With all that I think Palin is awesome and could do great things for this nation. I hope this post makes some kind of sense. Oh and for history I'm reading Thomas Paine's Common Sense which I kind of feel is appropriate right now LOL.

School

I am now at college and I absolutely love it here!! I have 3 history classes which I'm so happy about because that is my major. I am also taking a political science class as well as speech. I'm really not to happy about speech, but I have to take it. Here are some pictures of what my mom calls my "not normal dorm room"

My bed

My desk area

My spiffy ceiling light

the view from my room (it's one of our 2 courtyards)

my fruit plate that my mom thinks is adorable

Some of these places look different now because I have been here for about 5 days now and have some more stuff like I just got some more posters yesterday plus my school books. But I'm having so much fun. I haven't really been knitting because I forgot my Bryant Slipover pattern at home. I can't decide what I want to start right now so I'm kind of waiting. Other than that things are going good and now I have to do some reading.

Update

It's way over due for a post. I only have one FO to show and that is my Ravelympics Project here is a link to it on ravelry Maroma Scarf.
This is my Maroma Wrap Scarf


And here is a close up.



I'm thinking of trying to make a hat to match it. I haven't every designed anything before but really I'm just taking the stitch pattern and adapting it. I don't know I'm still thinking about it. I have also finished my monkey socks, but I haven't taken pictures of them yet. I also have made a rug for my dorm room and it is super cute! I'll take more pictures soon and add them .
I leave for school in 5 days and I'm so super excited! I am so ready for school to start. Also as you can tell I'm slowly making changes to my blog. I'm ready for a change, it's slow going because I'm playing the the HTML codes and since I don't really know HTML I'm just kinda playing with it. So that's all that's going on lately.

Limbo

So I'm really disliking this period of my life that I'm in right now. It's like I'm in limbo just waiting for things to happen, or things are happening and I'm not part of them. It's a rather hard thing to explain. Hopefully once school starts I can get into a nice routine that I will be happy with. I am excitied though because today I got my room and roommate assignment. Although I'm not in the dorm that I wanted, I am in a brand new building which is less than 1/2 a mile from the main campus block. The dorm that I wanted is on the main campus block. But the more I looked into my dorm building the happier I became about it. I am only having one roommate as opposed to two or three. We have our own bathroom and I will get my own sink. So there are some upsides. Also better parking because of where my college is the parking is really bad and hard to find. So I'm just trusting that God has put me in that dorm room in that building for a reason and I just have to trust Him!

Frustration

I'm in this weird and lovely frustration period. First of all my job. I really do enjoy my job, but they keep scheduling me on days that I really can't work on, like Sundays which is when I go to church. I talked to my boss about it and He said that He wouldn't schedule me anymore but that my hours would probably be cut. I mean I understand but I've given him 5 and even 6 if He needs to schedule me, and I'm available on any of those days at any time. I'm just so frustrated. Secondly, school. I need money and I don't know where it's coming from. I realize that it isn't really any one's fault but my own, but I'm still frustrated about what to do. I guess it'll all work out, but in the meantime I'm still going to be frustrated.