my first snow angel!

spur of the moment, i decided to run out (still in my pjs) to make a snow angel... awesome!

let it snow

yay for cheesy cliches! but it is the coolest thing to go to sleep with not a bit of snow on the ground, and then wake up to this!!!!
i did a major double take, and then jumped out of bed for breakfast... moose pj bottoms, snow coat, snow boots, and my hat.
snow is AMAZING. and it is still snowing now, and is supposed to be all weekend! i think my xmas movie just might get made after all!
but for now, i've got another 1400 words to go before i can play in the snow. enjoy the pics!

s-n-o-w

SNOW!
it has been snowing ALL day, and it is starting to build up... and i have been LOVING it. i could hardly focus in philosophy as i just sat there staring out the window at the tons of snowing falling... it's pretty amazing.
sidenote about philosophy... when our professor takes a while to get to class, we all sit around and try to guess what he'll be wearing (he has unusual taste in dressing... kind of hard to explain). anyway, today i nailed: my predictions was his grey tweed blazer, light colored turtle neck, and dark pants. he walks in, and the entire class just laughs because i got it on the dot.
anyway, back to the snow...

the wind is also blowing super hard, so the snow is going all over the place.


after philosophy, me and some of the girls gathered up a little bit of snow for a snow ball... so i threw my first snowball out here! it was actually more like a powder ball, but that's okay, it was fun.
snow is absolutely fascinating to watch... trying to watch a flake fall is so much fun, cause snow goes up, down, left, right... it doesn't just fall like rain drops do... they can spend an extended period of time just hanging out, looping around before actually falling to the ground. when the wind isn't blowing, snowflakes are actually rather lazy... they kind of just hang there. i love when the wind is blowing super fast and the snow is blowing completely horizontal, and then all of the sudden the wind stops, and the snow flakes stall and hang in mid air... seeing how snow just kind of floats around made me realize that impressive accuracy of snow globes... that is exactly what it looks like! i felt like i was inside a snow globe.
and what fun it is to realize that the snow falling outside the window is real, and it's not just someone sitting above your window sifting crushed styrofoam packing peanuts down if front of your window.
there are even these moments where it seems like all the snow is rising from the ground... the wind is lifting it, and it looks so crazy.
it's snow, it's real, and it's fun! i heart snow.

and these are pics from monday night. we had lifestories in our room monday night, so we decided to bust out the fro yo machine and give it a shot.
it was disgusting. but that's probably because we didn't choose the best recipe, and we weren't too keen with the whole following the recipe thing.

so, for good measure, i will say it one more time... SNOW!!!!

michigan is awesome! i'm so loving it!

4 is a lovely number

after theology today, i decided to go back to the dorms a different way and stop by the library on the way... having never been there, i felt a bit adventurous and wanted to check it out. so, i've noticed that the library has tons of books. pretty impressive. i made my way to the fourth floor (one shy from the top) because i remember rebekah said she was gonna be there. so i found her and said hi, and then continued to meander around the floor. what i found is pretty much the coolest thing ever.
there is this whole section that has old collections of periodicals and journals and stuff... both local and foreign. they had everything from Time to Reader's Digest, dating back to the 1930s... every magazine! some of these collections were really old, like 1880s and stuff... pretty awesome. remembering that Helen Wills was in Time magazine a lot, i went online to look up the dates of a few articles...so i grabbed a few of the Time collections from 1935 and 1938 went through them. It was so much fun to go through these magazines and seeing the advertisements and the happenings of the time... SOOO awesome... and the tennis articles were great... there were some quality journalists back then. there was this one advertisement for Camel cigarettes, and it had a bunch of professional athletes on it, showing two of them smoking. this ad claimed that camel was the mild cigarette, the athlete's choice, and the cigarette that you could smoke as much as you want. wow, have things changed or what!
so i spent about an hour and a half there, going through old periodicals and stuff... it's kind of my new favorite thing to do... who knew that a library could be so cool?

in other news... i get emails from calvin when certain things are going on in relation to my major and stuff, things like speakers coming, get-togethers for people of the same major, that kind of stuff. so i get an email today that starts out like this:
"Future Teachers - We invite you to consider teaching in California! Eleven Christian Schools in California are sponsoring a free pizza dinner and drinks for Calvin Education majors considering teaching in California."
at this point, i am kind of laughing at the irony, but at the same time thinking: "free pizza? sweet." and as i continue to read, i stop laughing...
"As Superintendent at Valley Christian Schools (near the border of Los Angeles and Orange Counties in Cerritos, California) I am coming to give hints about what teaching candidates should know regarding the application process, interviews, and how to seek teaching opportunities in Southern California."
.... Say what?
"Joining me will be Dan Noteboom, a Calvin alumnus who is now the worship leader at Valley Christian Schools."
... and it is signed, Kevin Kaemingk.
hey, i know those people. haha, i just started laughing super hard...so that's how they got all those calvin alumni to teach at valley... free pizza. valley's pretty smart. :)

so that concludes today's adventures. i've got tennis tonight, and then a big paper to write tomorrow, due on friday. yet, i feel rather calm about it.

ciao for now!

most awesome roommate

first off... i feel a ton better this morning... i actually slept in til 10:20am! i know, crazy

so there has been this pretty hilarious thing that goes on at night in this dorm room of ours.
it all started one night about almost two months ago, but basically, we discovered that lindsey is a sleep talker. i've gotten her permission to tell you guys these stories, cause we agree that it is pretty much stinkin hilarious.
i've never experienced anyone sleep talking before, so this was quite fun when i first discovered it. i would wake up to her mumbling, and then hear her whispering short sentences or a word here and there. i've learned to try and continue the conversation to see if i can figure out what she is dreaming about. during one of our "conversations," she said a stern "i blame you," toward me, and when i asked what, she said very nicely, "nothing," and went back to sleep.
it's quite funny, cause things have kind of escalated... no longer does she whisper, but she actually talks fairly loud (making it easier for me to understand). one time i found her curled up in the corner of her bed, holding a cell phone as if she were talking... but the cellphone was closed. two mornings ago, i woke up about two minutes before my alarm went off, and i saw here sitting up in her bed staring at the fast blinking lights on our christmas tree. she just sat there, laughing at the lights. and then my alarm went off, and she became serious, then went back to sleep.
last night, though, was by far the most hilarious. i woke up to her mumbling, and when the mumbling grew louder, i turned to see what was going on. there was lindsey, standing in her bed, extending her arm as if she were picking an apple, standing there perfectly still.. i had to refrain from laughing out loud, and tried to ask what she was doing. she brought her arm down and looked straight at me, saying, "oh my gosh." then she laid back down and as i asked what was wrong, she plainly said, "that's ridiculous."
so we had a good laugh this morning when we woke up and i re-enacted the nights events for her. hilarious. we still can't get over it.

so, yes, good times happening in 324, even in the middle of the night.

ugh

today's lesson is going to be physics 101... straight from freshman year, valley's intro to physics with mr. fang.
okay, lets say that i am holding a tennis ball in my hand. i hold my hand (which is holding the tennis ball) straight-arm in front of me. now, with my arm straight out, just there holding the ball, the tennis ball possesses potential energy, and only potential energy. once my hand releases the ball and it starts to fall, that's when it possesses kinetic energy.
here's the connection:
right now, i am the tennis ball, and my nerves/mind are the hand. for some reason, i just can't manage to turn that potential part of me into the actual kinectic action stuff. the paradox of it is that the more i realize the lack of kinetic happening in relation to the potential, the harder i "hold on to the tennis ball."
one fun fact: the "oy ve" is still there :)
and i seem to have a knack... a knack for very long games, and very long sets... a knack for a game with 10 deuces, holding the ad on 9 of them, and then the one ad i don't hold... well, you can guess
here's a not so fun thing...
there's a stomach-thing going around on our floor, and about half of the floor has got it. i happen to be in that half... turns out it wasn't only butterflies messing with my stomoach. and it gets even worse when your ride back from tennis isn't the smoothest shifter driving a manual car... oh man.
so first the head cold, now the stomach? i guess i'll get it all over with in one shot.

other news in this day, after a very very windy day, the pumpkin that the squirrel put in the tree has finally come down.
and the weather for today said: 25 degrees... feels like 15.
do you know what that feels like? to have wind pass through you and chill you to the bone? it's the type of weather that makes a hat and gloves mandatory in order to keep all your fiingers and make sure your brain doesn't freeze.

i need to stop now.
but hey, two weeks from tomorrow

"every shot, every shot, every shot..."

this is gonna be a pure tennis post.... just to let you know :) and i have an inkling that it's gonna be long.
so butterfilies are aweful (and jenny would say they were ugly), so i have to say, i didn't enjoy them today.
of course i am not talking about real ones, i am talking about the ones you get when you are super nervous. kind of like a, lost-my-appetite and always-know-where-the-closest-trash-can-is feeling. kind of stuck with me all day. then the mail came this afternoon and i got my book.
here's a little sidenote: so i ordered this book off of amazon.com that was a biographical book on suzanne lenglen and helen wills (the two tennis girls i was trying to decide between to do my PE paper on... i know, both in the same book? awesome!) and it was only 10 cents. cool thing though that i want to spread the word about... i bought it used through a company that sells through amazon called "Books for the Future", and i got this email after i ordered it saying that because i bought a book from them, they planted a tree! every book they sell, they plant a tree in "the village of Willanen, in the department of Kaffrine, Senegal, an area devastated by deforestation and global climate change." isn't that awesome? so if you are buying a book through amazon, i encourage you to check if this place has it first.
so, back to tennis/the book. i got the book, which is like 470 pages and huge... i was impressed, i thought it would be dinky. but it turns out that there is a lot to be told between the two of them. the way the book is set up is that it tells about suzanne, then helen, then the match between the two, and then a bunch of stuff that happens after (it goes in chronological order for the most part). so i read the first little bit of suzanne, and i wasn't liking it too much. i just couldn't relate to much of it, and she was a bit of a drama queen, and maybe a bit like what i would say sharapova or serena would have been in that day (except suzanne would drink brandy on changeovers every once in a while... i don't think that is allowed anymore). i won't deny the fact that she was an amazing tennis player though.
so after a bit, i skipped ahead to helen's section... and from the start, i liked what i was reading. i can't even begin to describe how incredible she is. and i have to say that this author did an amazing job with the writing and all his info in stuff... he uses a lot of quotes of helen, of people that knew her, of journalists that wrote, and he incorporates a lot of history and the development of tennis in to it.
so turns out, california was where it was at for tennis... the westerners (californians) gained this sweet reputation for being really good in comparison to the east... and in california, tennis was for every one, with hard courts springing up all over the place and being free to play on, where as on the east coast being grass courts in country clubs that required membership. there was this funny quote to tell why californians were rising up so fast: "Of course they play well out there, where it is always June!" cause the grass courts were often soggy and couldn't be played on in the east. funny stuff.
so i have chosen helen wills for my based on many things, but i think a few of her quotes will sum it up:
"...to slide, lunge, and dive does not conform to good style in tennis, but there is dignity of sincerity in the scramble."
"By working steadily on the thing that i like (tennis) i can remove from my mind momentary spells of sadness or irritation or anger, and afterwards feel happy and almost peaceful."
"What indeed does anything matter, either during a match or after, if you have done as well as you are able on every shot?"
(this is something the author said of her... keep in mind she was a teenager during this time)"In 1921 she had been promising. in 1922 she had been promising and accomplished. in 1923 she was awesome."
"but really it is much more fun to run to the net and try some smashing volleying shots. They seem to call that a 'man's game.' But i don't. I just call it fun."

so reading all this got me pumped for tryouts. they talked about her amazing focus and concentration, and ability to tune everything out. i started to relax a bit, and this last quote is what i thought, hey, this could work. she said that during her matches, she always would have some kind of mantra, something she would keep repeating to herself. and more often than not, it was this: "every shot, every shot, every shot." she said that the only shot she would think about was the present one. the moment the ball left her racket, no matter good or bad, that shot was now in the past and forgotten. she focused on each shot as it came, and let it go as it went. so i says to myself i says, "there ya go, think about that!"

and it worked... for the first 15 minutes. and then the butterflies were back, and the realization of the moment came back... and i don't like being watched very much... and when you realize it's tryouts, you realize that that is all that is happening... everyone is being watched, and everyone is watching eachother, and it's just, aaaahhhhh. so i say phooey to tonight's tennis... pretty ugly tennis, without a lot of pretty (although my serve was doing well...). i need to work on focusing.
but, to end on a good note, i still had a good ol' time hitting that fuzzy yellow tennis ball. i'm out there doing what i love to do, and i can't really ask for more.

and, to jump back a paragraph, i think "every shot, every shot, every shot" could be transferred over to life... "every day, every day, every day." in college, it is very easy to think way ahead... i mean, it's not even winter yet and i am lining up a summer job (i'm gonna wait on sharing this one... but i will say one word: colorado)! it's so easy to think about tomorrow, and next month, and so on. but if you take your eye off the ball, you just might swing in miss like i did on one shot tonight (i know, ouch). so... "every day, every day, every day."

and to go back on what i just said...
not next week but the week after... i'ma comin' home for christmas break!
i love you guys. remember that. and, as my roomie would say, make good choices. that's important.

:)

christmas decor is here

so my roomie is back and we decorated our room tonight... so much fun. you like?

have you ever kissed a cactus?

i did... just about 5 minutes ago. i was watering my cactus (i know, strange concept) when i realized that i never smelled the flowers on my cactus before (they are orange). kind of curious, i held the cactus up to my nose to smell the flowers (which are situated on the top of my cactus). forgetting about the needles below the flowers and the mouth below my nose, the two met and "ouch!"

that's my pet cactus. do you see how it happened? those are long spikes!

so i've still got my little cold, and now i've lost my voice... it's kind of pathetic sounding, which makes me laugh.

despite that, i managed to make my way to joanne's fabric store... little did i know that this massive sale was going on... pretty awesome. super cheap yarn and stuff... did you know that vanna white has her own yarn? well i bought some, cause her's was on major sale.

i also watched the movie "michael" today. i have to say, despite the numerous times i have seen it, i always cry like a baby when sparky gets hit by that truck... oh my goodness, i get teary eyed just thinking about it.

pie pie, me oh my...

i hear malibu is on fire again... crazy.

i read some more to prepare for my paper due on friday... i'm having a hard time following it, it doesn't flow very well (the author even warned about that in the preface), so if anyone has read "simply christian" by NT Wright, i would be interested in what you have to say about it.

it's really just been a ho-hum day (that is a saying, ya? if not, i sound incredibly stupid) so that is why i'm just saying random stuff.

people have been trickling back in to the dorms... i think the count is up to 4 people on the floor now? tomorrow, most will be back... i'm excited to get back in to the swing of things.

! i completely forgot that tennis was monday. crazy!

hmm, i think that is pretty much it... enjoy the rest of the weekend!

and by the way, flowers on a cactus don't smell like anything... i realized i never mentioned that.

:)

cold

i'm pretty sure that i ate some amazing food and had a great thanksgiving. first off, it was different than any thanksgiving i have ever had before. one thing, on holidays and sundays, "dinner" is actually at lunchtime... so i had thanksgiving "dinner". i think i like it better that way, because then you have the rest of the day to just hang out, have a good time, and digest that food! and football... lots of football (go packers!).. both watching and playing football. rebekah's cousins (who are a bit younger) were there, so that was a blast. we always talk about how much we miss kids... they're just so much fun, but living on campus, we don't see many little kids.
i hope all of you had wonderful thanksgivings!

so i had a lazy day today... watched a lot of i love lucy (i love that show!)... and it was nice to just lay there and watch some tv. since i stopped watching my one show two episodes in to the season earlier this year (thinking i had '24' to look forward to... boy was i wrong), i haven't watched tv since the end of september. i don't feel so guilty about how much tv i watched today because of that.
another factor to the laziness of the day is i've caught a cold, and it's completely just pummeled me... one of those nose-ear-head-throat-sneeze-cough things that just zaps your energy. i guess when it's this cold out here, it's a bit easier to catch one. i was hoping to play a bit of tennis tomorrow, but i think i might have to skip if i plan on being healthy in time for tryouts on monday! eek, tryouts.
i think nervous would be an understatement... it's kind of like sophomore year of highschool all over again. it's one of those things where i'm super nervous, really antsy and wanting monday to come, but at the same time don't want it to come.
especially since i've got a 10 page theology paper due on friday. i am not enjoying that. and then my other 10 page paper due on the monday after that.

so the holidays are upon us... and i've gotten a little more excited for this holiday season than i have for others i think. we're gonna decorate our room with lights and what-not, and i think there is even a door-decorating contest within the dorms, so that should be fun.
another thing i am a bit nervous for... my christmas movie. yes, it's that time again, and i am super excited about it... or at least i could be super excited about it. i've got my movie all written up and ready to shoot... there's just one problem. i've cast the character of snow in my movie... so, in order for it to work, i need snow, and i need it for at least a whole day, probably two. hopefully the weather will cooperate in the next two and a half weeks. if not, i'm gonna have to scratch that movie and shoot a different one back home. maybe i should start writing my backup script?
so with that in mind, "let it snow!"

ciao for now!

happy thanksgiving!

so what is a turkey's favorite desert?
peach gobbler...
haha, get it? gobbler, cobbler... i thought of that one during the race :)

so, this morning was exciting... i woke up, and excited to see the snow, i headed over to the prince conference center at 6:30 am to register... i jogged over cause it was stinking cold and snowing! turns out, in all the excitement of the snow, i forgot my wallet. so i ran back to my dorm, grabbed my wallet, and ran back, and registered. sweet tshirts this year :) then i met up with two of my friends from the ultimate team. one of them is crazy. he's run a 36 something 10K... he's a hardcore runner. he was nervous though cause he hasn't been running for the past few months. i'll come back to that in a sec.
so we ran, and as usual, i run for fun... and it was even more fun cause it was snowing! its amazing that at below 30 degrees, you can feel warm just cause you are running. but then 10 minutes after the race, it is so cold that your hands are burning... does that make sense, hands burning cause they are so cold? my friend finished 5th in the entire race... 5th! and he was worried? his time was something in the 16:00s... ya, he finished as i was hitting the two mile mark. haha
so, time for pictures!

so its not a ton of snow, but... its snow!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

i bet most of you will be betting that the number of exclamation points will decrease rather rapidly once january and february hit, eh? well, i guess we'll see, but for now...

it's snow!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

haha

so i've gone from running along long beach last year to running around calvin in the snow this year... slight change, eh? :)

check it out... icicles !!!! i have never had to spell that word before... kind of wierd lookind...

aren't those cool? right outside my window!

well, have a wonderful thanksgiving!

sticky situation

snow, and lots of it in the forecast... and it is supposed to stick!

good and bad. good, cause snow is cool.

bad, because i am running in a little turkey trot tomorrow morning here at calvin (its not put on by calvin, just hosted). so its a little 5K run around calvin's campus, and of course, tshirts!


is it bad when, as you are running from your dorm to your car because it is raining multiple times throughout the day, you think to yourself, hey, got a little bit of running in today, good preparation for the race...and then call that your training? hmmm


so tonight i had a blast with rebekah at her grandparent's house... which is awesome, by the way. we played air hockey, worked on puzzles, had a wonderful dinner (you forget what real food is like after adjusting to the dining halls... haha, just kidding, the dining halls arent that bad). we even saw some deer (which is what the video is of). i must say, i am pretty good with wildlife documentaries... you think national geographic would hire me?

so, happy thanksgiving to all! in light of the holiday, i am gonna share one thing that i am thankful for... of course i am thankful for each and every one of you (even the random people that might come across this blog who i don't even know... i am thankful for you too), but also that i get to be here... truly, this, being at calvin, taking on this pretty crazy adventure... its a blessing to be able to do this.

i am also thankful that it is three weeks until i visit home! its gonna be a blast...

and so i will end with my thanksgiving farewell that i've been giving:

miss ya guys, love ya guys... eat a lot of mashed potatoes.

sweet caroline... doo doo doo

yesterday (monday) as i was walking back to my dorm from my one class of the day, a pumpkin ran across my path.

-----

it wasn't until about 10 minutes ago that i got excited for thanksgiving. i mean, i was excited for the meal because rebakah has invited me to thanksgiving at her grandparents, and i was excited for that. but, the story was originally this: my roommate left this morning for home, and my suitmates are leaving tomorrow morning (wednesday) for home, so i was gonna be alone in my sute for four days. on top of that, rebekah was spending the break at her grandparents, and shiloh is flying back home tomorrow... plus everyone else and their mom. solitude for four days? i can understand a day or two would be nice, but four?
well turns out i had been invited to stay with rebekah this whole time, i just didn't know it... and rebekah didn't know i didn't know it haha, it was a good time once it was all straightened out. so i have a home this thanksgiving! yay thanks rebekah!

----
then this pumpkin started climbing up the tree.
----

so i had this tangerine today, and it was a pity tangering. i was at meijer yesterday, and this lady had a little sample booth set up with pieces of sunburst tangerine. she sat there and explained to me the thinner easier to peel skin, and how they have almost no seeds... she was trying real hard, i could tell. so, i figured i could use some fruit, so i grabbed two tangerines from her (plus they were delicious). so back to the pity tangerine... i was peeling it. it wasn't the easiet to peel, but i loved peeling it because you know how when you peel an orange or something of the like, how when you break the peel, this white kind of a cloud-thing bursts from it and it smells amazing... i live for that smell. really. if you are ever peeling an orange or something by me, i will probably sit there and wait for that just to smell that smell. anyway, back to the pity orange. i started to eat it. delicious, but i have never had a seedier tangerine in all my life. at least two seeds per piece of tangerine. i was baffled by the situation.

----
so, of course it wasn't just a pumpkin running across my path... it was a squirrel carrying a pumpkin in its mouth... the pumpkin was about the size of a softball! I have decided that this is indeed the number one time that i have been most disappointed and upset that i did not have my camera with me. it was right there in front of me, climbing up a tree about three feet away. have you ever seen a squirrel climb up a tree with a pumpkin?!?! had i had my camera, you could say that you have. anyway, i watched it climb all the way to the top, and i ran to get my camera. when i got back, the squirrel was making its way down the tree. but where was the pumpkin? i looked to the very top of the tree... low and behold, in one of the top branches, there sat a pumpkin. a pumpkin in a tree. what a sight! so then, since this tree is super tall but super skinny, i laughed at the idea of someone walking by, having a pumpkin fall in front of them, and then look around, look up, and have absolutely no idea what in the world just happened... i mean, pumpkins falling from the sky?!? what would you think? and then i thought, hey, i walk under that tree everyday, and even considered breaking out my helmet...
so everytime i walked by the tree, i would check for the pumpkin... and i can see it from the stairwell in my dorm. but it rained last night, and as the rain picked up, the first thing i thought of was, "for sure the pumpkin is gonna fall!" i woke up and eagerly checked for the pumpkin... and in the words of my grampa: "still there!"
so i do a pumpkin check every once in a while... i sure do hope i get to witness its falling... or at least the squirrels retrieval of it.
i forgot the greatest part... where did this pumpkin come from in the first place?
the windowsill of a room on 2nd VanDellen... theres a whole line of little pumpkins, but one is missing now. and i know where it is.
i love calvin squirrels.

i just wrote a post about a pumpkin in a tree... that's a first.

CUPPS mug

there it is! and below is the full design flat. i have to say, they are much better than the last two years (they have just been the reduce reuse recycle logo, with words defining each of the words... it was ugly... as were the colors... i was worried it was going to be the same as those, but it wasn't!)
SO excited

the showdown

on top, we have suzanne lenglen, and below is helen wills moody (pretty stylin', eh? how much would you pay me if i wore an outfit like that to tryouts???). what are they battlling for? to be the topic of my 10 page research paper in PE. suzanne is a french woman, the first player to go professional, and paved the way for women's tennis...born with bad asthma, her dad thought that tennis would strengthen her... she turned out to be pretty good! she was also famous for her revealing appareal that showed both her calves and arms (i know, that's a lot of skin... i wonder what people back then would say to maria sharapova or serena williams...) with 81 titles, most consider her to be one of the best players ever. her training consisted of her dad dropping a hankerchief somewhere on the court, and she would nail it.... pretty good if you ask me. she died at 39 from pernicious anemia.
close behind her, though, is helen wills moody, a california native, with 31 grand slam titles... known as little miss poker face, she is also arguably on the best female tennis players of all time. she followed in suzannes footsteps as far as clothing goes... she had a 180-match winning streak... not dropping a single set in any of those matches. charlie chaplin had a crush on her, and she was the pride of american tennis. she died at the age of 92 of, well, old age. but, cool thing, she played tennis (recreationally of course) til the age of 82!
these two players only played head to head once, and suzanne lenglen prevailed in a 6-3 8-6 final (they didn't have tie breakers!) both had men as their practice partners so that they could hit harder than everyone else out there. they are both pretty stinking awesome if you ask me.

who would you choose?

so i am excited for two reasons. 1. whichever one i choose, it's gonna be a fun paper. 2. thanks to suzanne, i don't have to wear petticoats and what-nots that restrict my movement (and my lungs) when i play tennis. hooray

guess what, i get my CUPPS mug tonight!!!! finally!!!! we were supposed to get them in the first week of school, but they took forever! oh, CUPPS stands for "can't use paper plastic styrofoam".... it gives us a discount at the fish house too! i am pretty excited for it.

tis all for now.

armadillo

no procrastination here... i wrote all my papers and did all my work yesterday (except i wrote the last page of one of my papers this morning). feels good to be done, except now i don't have anything to do. hmmm

i am happy for tomorrow... i only have my pe class (my theology is out of town... in california actually..) so 50 minutes of class and i am done. again, gotta love college...
and in case any of you were wondering, yes, i still do get that goofy grin/feeling every so often while walking around campus or just sitting in my room... i got the feeling today while sitting down, and just realizing that i have been in absolute freedom for the last 5 months... no grown ups! haha
and i love the squirrels here at calvin. they're probably my favorite.

moment of the day: leaving the dining hall, i went through the left door slightly before rebekah went through the right door and i got nailed in the back/behind by the door. we laughed pretty hard.

question of the day: when you count with your fingers, do you start with your thumb or your index finger?

accessory of the day: MITTENS!

quote of the day: "He's kind of a dork... well, he's really dorky." -my roommate in the process of telling her parents that she's dating someone.
we got a good laugh out of that one :)

ponders of the day:
If God sneezed, what would you say to him?
Isn't it a bit scary that doctors call what they do, "practice?"
How much deeper would the ocean be if all the sponges didn't live in it?

BONUS: why is this post titled "armadillo?"

man oh man

my apologies... y'all are probably what i've been up to... and i bet half of you are hoping that the madlib wasn't the only thing i've done this week. well it wasn't, and contrary to the lack of posts, my week has been filled with quite a bit.
it's kind of crazy to think that it's only about three and a half weeks until i come home for christmas... what's crazier is all the things that will go on withing those three weeks... many projects and papers (most of which are due this tuesday...eek), tennis tryouts (double eek), and my very first college final exams. in three and a half weeks, i will be done with my first semester of college. it's nice to know, though, that for the three weeks that i'll be home, i'll have absolutely nothing to worry about homework-wise (unlike in highschool where although you may not actually study for your exams during christmas, they are still looming ahead of you). so as these events unfold over the next few weeks, i am sure there will be plenty to talk about.
but as for here, now, my life has been pretty much sleeping, eating, class, homework, knitting, class, and tennis. it's pretty much routine to be playing tennis at 9pm now (really the only time i have time)... which is a good thing, because tryouts will be from 8pm to 10 pm... crazy!
in between those things, i do manage to get out once in a while. in fact, there was this awesome adventure that rebekah and i took to "bed bath and beyond". we were walking around and got sidetracked in the candle section. oh my goodness. candles. okay, so the thing is we can't burn candles in the dorms (for obvious reasons), but rebekah wanted to find something that they could use to add some holiday smells to her room. we found these plug in outlet fresheners, random non-burning incense, and stuff like that. we were smelling ALL the fragrances... no, really. picture rebekah and me just sitting in the middle of the holiday fragrance/candle section, grabbing items from the shelves, sniffing them, holding it out for the other to sniff, and then critique. yes. we critiqued the scents... "mmm, well, this one isn't warm enough... this is a bit fruity... i think i need a bit more spice...mmm, yes, this is it." well, the one that happened to be it was an actual candle. so what to do? well, i found this really cool thing called a "candle warmer" which is kind of like a hot plate that you put contained candles on, and it will melt the wax and release the scent (i believe i remember spotting one of these in the office in the PE house at Valley???). anyway, this made us super excited... like, super super excited. we kind of went a bit crazy.. maybe is was the hour of sniffing every candle in the shop... is it possible to get a littl high off of candles? we think so.
anyway, we each got a candle warmer and a candle to go with it. i purchased pumpkin pie... AMAZING
speaking of pumpkin pie (haha, i love those transitions)... thursday, yesterday, was thanksgiving in the dining halls. again... AMAZING. we actually waited in line before the doors opened, and it was SNOWING! haha, we'll do anything for a helping of mashed potatoes and a slice (or two in my case) of pumpkin pie. good food.
and today i went climbing!!! there is this place called 'inside moves' and my suite mate works there. so i went with a group of random people (this has become a more common idea... groups of random people) and went climbing. this place is kind of like a climbX on steroids. i have to say, i am a bit partial to climbX and The Rock Gym though in comparison to this place. it was funny because two other girls came along who hadn't climbed before, so i kind of went back in to wilderness challenge mode and was teaching knots and belaying and stuff(maybe it was cause i was wearing my wilderness challenge tshirt). anyway, i haven't climbed in a while, and my arms didn't last very long. i had the will to keep climbin, except my arms refused to move after a while. good stuff.
so the week was good (and the madlib was a highlight of mine... by the way, i looked up a pic of mother teresa, and for the record, she does not have raunchy teeth.)... good classes (minus the test in theology... ick), good time knitting, good tennis, good phone calls... good stuff.

but. this weekend. it's gonna be a long one. let me break it down for ya.

-two movie reviews (includes watching two movies and writing a three page paper response each of them)

-a 3to5 page paper for communications (i am excited for it though, cause it's an analysis on Little Miss Sunshine , which i watched probably for the 7th time on monday... and olive hoover is still my hero)

-i have to read kierkegaard (some guy who thought about stuff and put it in a book) which is super confusing and makes my head hurt

-i have to read the rest of "Simply Christian" for theology.. which isn't so bad in contrast to "lament for a son." but i will eventually writing a large paper on it.

-and i need to pick out who i am going to write my paper on for PE... so many choices, but i am for sure picking one of the early tennis stars... super exciting.

a lot of stuff, eh? but the weird thing is, it's not all the papers that worry me... those are no problem. it's the reading. i fall asleep pretty fast when reading.

anyway, it's gonna be busy, but i will find my ways to take a break... most likely in the form of tennis or knitting :)

and, to end the post, i have got a little thanksgiving humor for you, brought to us by none other than snoopy:

that's it!

and remember

make good choices.

:)

cute video to start off your friday (thanks jenny)

sometimes all we need to do is sit next to 'em :)

INFOMERCIAL (as heard by cristina)

Hello, all you puny ladies and gentlemen! Are you tired of having puce teeth? Are you tired of putt-ing around hiding your practical, preposterous puce teeth? Do you wish you could have raunchy teeth like Mother Teresa? Wish no longer! For only Pi dollars and 17 cents you can have spicy teeth today! Simply, before you go to the bottom of the ocean each night, apply this weathered substance to your Sternocleidomastoid (neck muscle). It has the wonderful taste of skunk! You will feel it working right away by the dry flapping sensation. By the next morning, this frigid substance will have dissolved away your sketch/shady old teeth! Finally, coat your gums with blue wall tack and hold your new teeth (included in this painful kit at no extra charge!) firmly in place for 444 minutes. It's as easy as that! Don't delay! Buy today! (Side effects may include prancing, cholera, and mad cow disease.)

******

i must say, you guys did a good job... way to pull through! haha, the worst yet funniest line of the entire thing... "Do you wish you could have raunchy teeth like Mother Teresa?"
and then Pi dollars... i'd like to see how someone would work that one out.

i hope this made you smile... i know that i am still laughing... we might have to do this again sometime in the future.
it's almost friday, hang in there!

a little participation, porfavor

hey all, for today's post, i'd like a little participation... have you ever done a madlib before??? well, they're a ton of fun, so i'd like to do one with y'all. so, if you would like to join in the madlib fun, please leave a comment with the number of the blank you are filling, and your choice of any word that fits that description... please, if you don't know what an adjective it, don't try and guess. :) and yes, you can do multiple words, just don't hog all the fun. there are plenty of words.
lets make it work. i want to try and post this by friday enjoy.
by the way, make sure to check yours hasn't already been done
hmm this could get confusin
i will try my best to update the ones that are taken...

1. Adjective : puny
2. Color : puce
3. Verb Ending in -ing: putting
4. Adjective: practical
5. Adjective: preposterous
6. Color: puce
7. Adjective: raunchy
8. Famous Person: Mother Teresa
9. Number: pi (3.14 and so on)
10. Number: 17 (in the words of bex, stylish and prime)
11. Adjective: spicy
12. Place: the bottom of the ocean
13. Adjective: weathered
14. Body Part: Sternocleidomastoid (neck muscle)
15. Animal: skunk
16. Adjective: dry
17. Verb Ending in -ing: flapping
18. Adjective: frigid
19. Adjective: sketch
20. Sticky Substance: blue wall tack
21. Adjective: painful
22. Number: 444
23. Verb Ending in -ing: prancing
24. Illness : cholera
25. Disease: Mad Cow Disease

then and now

first week of school...

today...

My Haiku for you

Haikus confuse me,
Often random in topic,
Frozen oatmeal smells.

...

Church today was awesome because one of my favorite authors/writing hero was the speaker for today... Donald Miller! I have read a couple of his books, and about to start another one, so i was super excited to hear him speak. He is an awesome speaker and spoke today on how the elements of story can apply to our lives... a really interesting idea. if you are interested in hearing it, go on itunes, probably tomorrow, and search "Mars Hill Bible Church" and their podcast will come up. i am guessing todays service will be on sometime soon... i highly recommend listening to this!

...

have you ever found yourself in the middle of the most random conversation and then wondering how in the world you ended up with that topic? when you notice this, more than likely you and whoever you are conversing with will probably take a sec and try to retrace your steps in your conversation... and after a couple minutes work of connecting the dots, you realize that although the conversation started with squirrels, because of resemblance you ended up talking about your dog, leading to the fact that he doesn't like corn, then to corn fields in iowa, then to Knight's Inn in Altoona, IA, eventually leading up to your current topic of the proper way to make an omlette because the knight's cafe here at calvin makes excellent omlettes. you're bound to miss a few minor connections, making the trail of topics a bit more confusing to begin with, but nonetheless a bit more hilarious... i mean, from squirrels to omlettes?

as i was sitting in my bed last night, i kind of had that same feeling and found myself asking the question that so many have asked me in the past few months... how in the world did i end up here? i mean, to make reference to the example above, this conversation started with redondo beach, california and now it's about grand rapids, michigan... how in the world? okay, so when you put the word "bellflower" in the mix, a lot of people find a satisfactory connection that explains the topic change. however last night, i traced back in a bit more detail as to how exactly i ended up here, and i was pleased to find a better reason, basically coming down to a decision i made in 2nd grade... but i will start a bit further back to make a point that i will get to in a bit.
we'll start with where i was born (although if i had some more time, i would love to go back a few generations on both sides of the family)... redondo beach, ca. so how did we end up in bellflower? well, actually lakewood first... and we ended up there because i believe my parents worked with someone who lived in lakewood or something. so, they checked it out and liked it, so we moved. the move from lakewood to bellflower wasn't huge--not even a mile away as the crow flies. so that's how we ended up in bellflower.
second grade, though, is where it all happened. being an energetic and involved kid, i was in the process of testing out dance (as in ballet--pink tutus, ballet slippers, leotards...which i always managed to put on backwards..., and pirouettes... the whole shebang), brownies (as in girl scout cookies, troop meetings, brown vests, and making new friends but keeping the old), and soccer (as in AYSO, oranges at half time, and occasionally scoring in the wrong goal). dance, girl scouts, and soccer... all at once, while enduring the work load of second grade! i know, and i was worried about taking 16 credits while participating in a sport?
anyway, there came a point where i needed to make a decision... although i was perfectly willing to (and had enough energy to) do all of the above, there was this problem of being in three places at once (which apparently is impossible, although not to a 9-year-old) and the matter of having a means of getting there. so, as any 9-year-old would do, i observed the pros and cons, benefits and costs, logistics and statistics of all three options in order to make a well-thought and logical decision.
whatever
this is how it went... dance-- i suck, i hate pink, and i always get dizzy when i spin. that was easy to kick to the curb. brownie-- i hate singing those stupid songs, and, does anyone know, what exactly goes on between cookie sales... although i enjoy my brown and blue uniform and the free food at troop meetings, i think i can deal with out it. soccer-- running around kicking things, oranges at halftime, treats at the end... sweet uniforms... playing in rain and mud...and running around kicking things??? well, DUH, i choose soccer!!!
now, not to limit God's many ways he can open doors in a life, but i think this is the moment he opened the door for me to end up here in grand rapids, mi.
lets make a quick trip to show how... through the many years of soccer, i was asked to be on a club team lead by stan lopez who's daughters (who i quickly became friends with) went to bellflower christian elementary (which i had no idea even existed... i am a lindstrom lion all the way :) anyway, my family and the lopez family became close, so when middle school came around, my parents were curious about the school system then known as bellflower christian schools... through a series of events, i ended up at VCMS... and that, i think, is where the rest is history. the line between valley and calvin isn't too hard to make.
kind of funny, eh?
it's kind of crazy to look back in life and realize all the forks in the road that you come across, and how if you chose another way, it is very possible that things would be different. again, i am not trying to limit God in the sense that had not all that stuff happened i wouldn't be here, because God could have very easily chosen a different way to put Calvin on my radar.
the point is, it's pretty trippy to go back and retrace steps, and find out how you've ended up here (i LOVE going back generations and generations to how we ended up in America... one of my favorite stories)... and although most of the time we don't often think about how we got here, i think it is important to remember that we are only where we are because of where we've been. and i think that stands for all aspects of life... geographically, personally, spiritually, academically, career-ally???
so it might be a fun thing for you to go back and retrace your own steps, cause i already know a few people who probably have some fun stories... and after retracing your own, maybe hear someone else's path to where they are now... i love hearing these kinds of stories, so if you'd like to share, please, do tell!

have a good day :)

just what i needed

after many many full weekends, i have finally reached a weekend with no plans... and what did i decided to do??? make my way back to holland!
i haven't been back to holland since the second week of school, so i was SUPER excited... hence me jumping 3 feet in the air :)

funny thing... since holland is closer to the lake, it's noticably colder in holland than it is in GR. so, shiloh and i had a fantastic lunch at 8th street grill, complete with a pumpkin pie milkshake... THE most amazing milkshake i have EVER had... vanilla ice crea, milk, and REAL pumpkin pie filling, with whipped cream on top. MMMMM

and that's all that became of it after we got a hold of it :)

holland also has this amazing yarn/knitting place that during the summer i passed by with a smirk thinking to myself, uh, okay, not that exciting... so i never stepped foot in it... until today. now that i am pretty much obsessed with knitting, i was thoroughly enjoying the abundance of yarn and knitting stuff in this place... awesome.

we had to get back to GR, so we didn't do much else... but i am gonna make it back real soon and stop by the brands' house to go say hi and hang around for a bit.

it's nice having a home away from home :)

too much fun

its kind of scary how much fun we can have with a camera. while waiting an hour in line/in our seats for dance guild to start, we brought shiloh's camera out, and i found out a few fun things it could do... like color accent and color swap.

you see, they weren't wearing paint or anything... the camera did this... pretty sweet, eh?

and then we chose my vest as the accent color, and everything else is black and white... except my face... so i guess my face is orange too.... as is rebekah's.

and then we just started taking some silly pictures... we are too weird... i think rebekah was a little embarassed of us... cause you'd see this flash, then a pause, and then a choruse of giggles once we've seen what the picture turned out like.
shiloh looks so... scary... haha

i was trying to say something... i don't remember what, but that's why i look weird.

sadly it is true

the hit tv series '24' will not air this season due to the hollywood writer strike.

no jack bauer??? its gonna be a long winter.

so, do the writers on strike carry blank picket signs?

"and snowflakes on... kittens?"

okay, so, at this point yesteday, us non-snow-knowing californians mistaked clumps of frozen precipitation as snow. if i might say in my defense, pretty much anything that's not rain or hail is snow to us.

so what you see in the video... ya, we got really excited... and i don't know why i sound so congested?

but, on the flip side, this morning on the way back from breakfast... REAL SNOW FLAKES!!! so now i really know what snowflakes look like... more like, instant potato flakes rather than dippin' dots.

it's all new to me... which i think i am making quite clear to those around me when i freak out about the snow, and it's something they are used to... even dreading.

haha, okay, so thats it...

oh, and anyone know the verse for "few of my favorite things" from sound of music? i loved that movie as a kid and had the whole thing memorized, but its been a while, and i am pretty sure it doesn't have the line, "snowflakes on kittens" in it.

thanks

dressed for success

again, she's awesome. so i had this scholarship dinner to go to, and it was a semi-formal event at "the devos place"... some really fancy schmancy place. so lindsey took advantage of this formal opportunity to play "dress up." everything you see from head to toe is lindsey's... including the boots. yes, i wore something with heals higher than the inch in my flipflops. i had to learn to walk in these things, and let me say that stairs were my enemy... i nearly fell about 6 times.

anyway, it's nice being the same size... and she had a lot of fun laughing at what i was planning to wear before she stepped in to help, and then laughing at me trying to walk.

good times had by all.

38... feels like 29.

that's our current weather...chill factor at those temperatures... ya, that's a new thing for me. but before i continue to talk about that, i want to share something with you:

i saw FOUR SNOWFLAKES today!!!!!! AWESOME!


*regains composure* okay. lets continue


let me say for the record that this is by far the coldest weather i have ever experienced in my life... and it's gonna get way colder... way colder.


i have to say, however, that i am handling this rather well. I finally found a way to overcome the iciest wind my body has ever been in the path of. The liner of my snow jacket is awesome (yes, the snow jacket that i got at a used gearsale!)... wind cannot get through it... now i just have to figure out how to keep my nose from icing over.


* * *


I am pretty sure that last night i was THE happiest girl in michigan...

It all started with a dream. Actually, it was a horrible nightmare that i will NEVER forget. The funny thing is that i didn't remember that i had the dream until i was sitting in class that morning and flashes of the dream made their way to my mind. What was this horrific nightmare? I was serving tennis ball after tennis ball, and every single one of them was going in to the net... i was getting so frustrated because EVERY serve was going in to the net... i just kept serving and serving and serving... and my form was all off... and serve after serve went in to the net... i was distraught when i remembered this nightmare in the middle of class, and i almost felt sick just thinking about it.


Like me, my father saw it as a desperate call out to go and hit a tennis ball. We discovered the MAC (michigan athletic club) online, and turns out they have sweet student rates, are located not even two minutes down the road from calvin, and has tons of sweet facilities... most importantly, 6 INDOOR TENNIS COURTS! so i immediately headed over there after lunch and signed up, and within minutes of signing up, i had my reservations with the ball machine at 9pm.


It was the strangest thing that 8:45pm, it was stinkin cold outside, raining/hailing, and i was packing my bag to go play tennis.


However, that wasn't as strange as the looks i got when i walked on to my court wearing heavy sweatpants and a long sleeve shirt. When i got dressed to go play tennis, all that occurred to me was that it was freezing cold outside, therefore, i must dress warm. what didn't occur to me was the indoor part of "indoor courts..." i have never played indoor before (unless you count that rainy day back home where i practiced my volleys against the wall of... i mean... uh, i don't know why there are a bunch of dirty smudge marks on the wall of my bedroom). so as the lady led me to the indoor courts (passing a ton of raquet ball rooms/courts, and even the same kind of thing for ping pong!!!) i was SUPER excited to finally play and use a ball machine... i was also realizing that it was kind of warm...


So we reach the indoor facility that has 6 courts and a track that goes around the courts, and immediately i am just bursting with excitement... dude, the smell of indoor courts, it's like rubber and then 1000 cans of new tennis balls being opened simultaneously... amazing. and the sound, the sound of tennis balls bouncing, being hit, and then echoing throughout the entire huge facility... and the sight of how huge this thing is, and realizing that it is covered, and no element of weather can prevent the joyous game of tennis being played under neath its roof... its just incredible!


so, at that point my first indoor experience began. i got the ball machine going (which is the same one that el dorado uses) and ran to the other side with what i imagine was a goofy looking grin, and hit my heart out.


i also sweat like crazy. i looked around at what everyone else was wearing... shorts and a tshirt. ya, i'll remember that next time.


anyway, it was awesome... i hit about 5 rounds of the ball machine, and then served a round too... i was a little nervous to hit that first serve because of my nightmare i had... but you know what? only ONE ball went in to the net (that does not mean the rest went in--i had a good share of ones that went went long or wide)...i was so glad to not be hitting them short.


to be out there hitting... it was amazing... it's such a great feeling to just jump right back in to it.


so this is my new tennis home for now. i look forward to many good times of hanging out with my friends the fuzzy yellow tennis ball and mr. machine.

random pictures that i hope you enjoy.

so, i pretty much have the most awesome room mate... look what she made to put on our walls... she bought wooden letters and then painted them!

WARNING: guy theighs and and man guts ahead. so here are a few pics from the ohio tournament that i never posted. if i survived it in person, i am sure y'all can survive it via blog. these are a few of the "ultimate characters" that i have dealt with. and the last pic of our team is just a pic to show the mansion and how we were playing on its front lawn.

and this is jenny's christmas sweater-vest i have been knitting.... isn't it pretty sweet?!?! what you see in the pic is the work of two days of knitting. i have been delayed in the fact that i ran out of yarn (i went through two complete balls of yarn!) and meijer hasn't restocked yet.

these are pics from yesterday... for shiloh's birthday celebration, shiloh took us to this jacuzzi gardens place where they have a bunch of these private jacuzzi rooms that you can rent out. it was pretty stinking awesome and relaxing... and warm!

this is my crazy group of friends... and that is NOT alcohol in shiloh's cup... haha

and this is my squirrel friend that hangs out in the tree by my window. i am not sure if i already posted this pic, but oh well.

isn't he cute, all curled up and taking a nice afternoon nap?

'tis all