so far

i'll i've done today is eat and sleep.
and listen to this song:
http://www.mediafire.com/?jml2onx2l5j
spring break. let's go.

things and spring break 2k10

last weekend Berit's best friend was in town so we went to the Getty- probably one of my favorite places in LA, it's an awesome art museum with some really good pieces and has fabulous gardens. definitely worth checking out if you're in LA.
we then went to Pink's- a hotdog place Daisy said we had to go to. We stood in line far too long, but we eventually got our food and had a good time.

Louis the 14th and us- with mustaches (which are the most entertaining things you could ever bring to a museum)


Some of the gardens at the Getty


Pink's

and now i am officially on spring break- all my classes tomorrow were canceled.
i got through this week and we're going to San Francisco on Saturday, and after that the year is almost over.
when did that happen?

Forward by Wesley Jensen:
http://www.mediafire.com/?mkedzzcwozq

this is my new favorite cartoon

oh my goodness

berit and i just found our xangas.
seriously.
nonsense.

C. S. Lewis

amen

http://www.mediafire.com/?oytndyznzgn

Four Strong Walls

"when everything else in this world
flickers and falters and falls
and the thunder is under our feet
you feel like four strong walls"

Karine Polwart

Kahlil Gibran

"Perhaps time's definition of coal is the diamond."

good & true things

learning

God has been teaching me so much about living for things that are not here, not transient, not fading, but living for and really supremely loving things that will last forever.
and this was in my book of quotes by mother theresa for today:

"The fruit of prayer is the deepening of love, deepening of faith. If we believe, we will be able to pray, and the fruit of love is service. Therefore works of love are always works of peace, and to be able to put our hearts and hands into loving service we must know God, we must know God is love, that He loves us and that He has created us- each one of us- for greater things."



beautiful.

crazy day

i woke up this morning at 4ish to an earthquake.
yeah.
an earthquake.
which was crazy- you'd think it would be quick but they go on for a couple of seconds. this one was only a 4.4 but APU was really close to the epicenter so most people felt it. there were the people like my roommate though who were dead asleep. As soon as it started i was awake and i yelled at daisy, "holy crap, what the heck is that?!" to which she responded by grunting and rolling over. charming. anyways, that was just kind of a wild experience. they are quite freaky while actually happening. to you.
and then i had a huge exam in my world civ class and i wrote about the start of world war 1 which was not nearly as bad as my last exam in that class, i feel good about it, but the whole time i was thinking about the plays we did in mr. rogers' class about the assassination of franz ferdinand and it made it hard to take the whole thing very seriously.
in my christian life, faith, and ministry class we watched silly songs with larry from veggie tales. yeah. you know you go to a christian school when veggie tales becomes curriculum.
after that i had ceramics during which i spent 3 hours making a triangular teapot. there is a reason that normal teapots are not triangular. teapots were not designed to be that way, and i spent 3 hours paying the price for that, but my teacher LOVES it, so hopefully i'll get a really good grade on it cause it's a major project. continuous piece projects in ceramics=death.
yeah. that's it.
if Azusa gets hit by a tornado, or someone i know gets leprosy later today, i'll let you know.

EDIT:
it got crazier.
as in crazy awesome. i just got back from the south africa meeting about what's up for next and year and to give us a chance to meet other people that are going too and i am excited to say the least. it's setting in a little and it's starting to make more sense that next semester i will be going on morning runs with zebras, and working with people with AIDs, and traveling, and climbing waterfalls, and CAGED SHARK DIVING (don't tell my mom- she doesn't want me to go!), and bungee jumping, and learning and living and loving new people and places.
the staff seems to be incredible and it seems small and intimate (kind of like being at camp in africa for a semester) and i can't wait to see what God is going to do with that kind of space with these kinds of people that will be on this journey with me.

just to give you a visual- here's the apu south africa promo video for the program:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EzeHZADr0E0

See the World by Gomez

"And so my prayer is that your story will have involved some leaving and some coming home, some summer and some winter, some roses blooming out like children in a play. My hope is your story will be about changing, about getting something beautiful born inside of you, about learning to love a woman or a man, about learning to love a child, about moving yourself around water, around mountains, around friends, about learning to love others more than we love ourselves, about learning oneness as a way of understanding God. We get one story, you and I, and one story alone. God has established the elements, the setting and the climax, and the resolution. It would be a crime not to venture out, wouldn't it?"

Donald Miller
Author's Note from Through Painted Deserts

http://www.mediafire.com/file/n3nn0yjziwe/02%20See%20the%20World.mp3

the love song of alfred j. prufrock

I have heard the mermaids singing, each to each.
I do not think that they will sing to me.

every music video should have ducks in it

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FOHCmr8shWc

teaching english

this is a cool organization that sends college kids to other countries over the summer or for a year to teach english- kind of a cool alternative to the peace corps or just a good thing to do for a summer:

http://www.worldteach.org/index.html

check it out!



http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zqinAiqxgK4

did you know

that there are more people in slavery now then in the 18th and 19th century?

our campus is participating in this initiative and i can not encourage you enough to check it out:

http://humanwrong.org/

click on the "take action" tab and fill out the form that will send an email to your congressmen and women to ask them to support the child protection compact act.

and this is a video by the new york times about the actual girls that are being trafficked.

we need to be crying out against this until it can no longer be ignored and tolerated.

i love these women

just look at their faces whenever he picks something up:
http://video.nytimes.com/video/2010/03/08/opinion/1247467297119/what-are-you%20-carrying.html?scp=1&sq=what%20are%20you%20carrying&st=cse

real living

satisfaction comes from doing the will of God
and our God is good

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DIhm94a-8SE&feature=related

this may be my new favorite poem

God
And I have become
Like two giant fat people
Living in a
Tiny boat.
We
Keep
Bumping into each other and
L
a
u
g
h
i
n
g
.

-Hafiz

Philippians 1:21

"Alive, I'm Christ's messenger; dead, I'm his bounty. Life versus even more life! I can't lose."



No guilt in life, no fear in death;
This is the power of Christ in me.

http://www.brookhills.org/media/series/radical/

changing and leaving

i love this quote from the author's note in donald miller's book through pained deserts

"It might be time for you to go. It might be time to change, to shine out.
I want to repeat one word for you:
Leave.
Roll the word around on your tongue for a bit. It is a beautiful word, isn't it? So strong and forceful, the way you have always wanted to be. And you will not be alone. You have never been alone. Don't worry. Everything will still be here when you get back. It is you who will have changed."

i believe that we as people change through conflict and that conflict does not happen if we stay in the same place.
and i think our culture puts much too high a premium on a sense of security that is not all that secure in the first place.