Praise the Lord!

My Financial Aid FINALLY went through today!!! I could feel this heavy burden being lifted off my shoulders the second I found out. Not only do I have enough to pay the rest of my tuition, but I should get a little bit back. :D Good thing, I'm in desperate need right now. So I wanted to let y'all know that. Thank you so much for your prayers. I'm excited. I GET TO GRADUATE!!! :D

On the other hand, I still am not going to be able to start Grad School in the fall. So, I'm looking for a job. If any of y'all know of any openings, PLEASE let me know. I know this is not what I had planned, but maybe God has something better in store. At the moment, I still have every intention of going to grad school, just not right away. I'm shooting for winter quarter though. I'm afraid if I take too much time off, I won't do it. It will be nice to have a 5 month break from school for the first time in my life. :D

So be keeping all that in your prayers. I'm not in the clear yet, but at least things are looking up. I've also been doing much better about spending time in the word and in prayer. It feels good to be getting back in the habit of it. I missed it, even though I was the one that was choosing not to do it. The human soul works funny that way.

Thank you so much for your prayers. I am so thankful for all of you. I'm keeping all of you in my thoughts and prayers continuously. I love you all!!

God bless!

Pepto

Crossroads...

they're quite a phenomenon. A place in your life where you have a decision to make and it's the kind of situation that determines if your life will go in one direction or the other. I'm there except I don't even know what directions I have to choose from. I'm supposed to graduate in 3 weeks which may not actually happen because I STILL don't have financial aid. I've had to fix it 4 times thus far which has not been enough which is also related to possibly not getting into grad school. A) I don't have any way to pay for grad school as of right now and B) The financial situation has made me unable to take the GRE which I'm supposed to do. I'm at a loss. I don't know if I should just continue to pray that I get into grad school and subsequently get a Graduate Assistantship or if I should get a "real job." That's a pretty loose term nowadays. Of the friends of mine that have recently graduated which is about 10 of then, I think 2 actually have what you would consider professional jobs. A bachelor's degree (especially in art) is worth about the same as a high school diploma was 10 years ago. I think my experience in my job is worth more than the education I paid thousands of dollars for. So I'm left pretty clueless. Responsibilities are piling up and I have no way to take care of them because of this whole lack of financial aid/VA money problem. I'm afraid if I just get a job that I'll never go back to grad school and I'll end up in a job I hate for the rest of my life. Then again, the more I think about it, the more difficult it is to see myself in the professional world, ever. I'm just not a 9-5 kind of person. I'm too free spirited. I don't know what the heck to do with that though. I have a lot of far-fetched dreams that I've had for a while, but people would think I was crazy if I went after them. Musician, author, actress, missionary, photographer. Ok, so maybe the last two aren't so crazy. But I also have no way of doing it short of leaving here which A) I don't want to leave yet, and B) I can't leave yet. I have a 12 month lease.

So I'm obviously at a loss. Part of the reason why I've gotten so lost probably has a lot to do with my spritual life becoming virtually non-existent. I'm showing up at church and everything, but that's just it. I'm showing up. A few months ago I was on the verge of doing some great things for the Lord, but satan has beat me down. I've been defeated this time. It leaves a bad taste in my mouth to say that, but I have to face the truth. I've been hiding in this weird obsession I've developed with Pirates of the Caribbean and Johnny Depp. I've been spending all of my free time looking up stuff about it on the internet, talking about it, and watching all of Johnny's movies. I've gotten obsessive about stuff like this before but this time I know exactly why I'm doing it. I'm trying to hide from the reality that is my life right now. No matter how deep into this obsession I get though, reality is always there lurking just over my shoulder.

To put it eloquently, this stinks. I could use your prayers and any advice you're willing to dispense. I'd really appreciate it.

Pepto

Almost done

So here I sit in my LAST CLASS as an undergrad, not paying attention to a word the prof is saying. I'm such a good student. 17 more class periods until I'm a graduate. It's pretty weird especially now that I'm really starting to look at my post-graduation options. I still have every intention of going to grad school, but I may be taking a different approach. There is a job opening at the main library here on campus that involves doing a lot of the same things that I do now, so I have plenty of experience which will give me an advantage over other applicants. This would be a full time job, around $23,000 a year plus I can take up to 8 credit hours at Wright State for free. So if I do this, it will take me a bit longer to get my masters, but it will help me to get rid of my credit card debt by the time I graduate and to start saving money for the future. So keep that in your prayers for me, please. This would be a great opportunity for me.

In other news, my parents are in town. :D I'm so excited about them being here. This is the first time they've really been able to spend time with me in my home (Dayton). We're staying at Minister and Detergents house because I'm house/dog sitting for them and they said it was perfectly fine if my parents stayed there. I must say their dog is driving me up a wall. Last night was better than the night before, but she's still being a bit of a pain. Anyway, I'm going to see Pirates (4th time) with mom and dad this evening after I get off work, so that will be fun. Who know what we'll do the rest of this weekend.

This has been a whirlwind kind of week. Monday, my car ran out of gas on the way to my first day of class. I had to call GM roadside assistance and I ended up being nearly an hour late to my first class. Things went down hill from there. A lot of stuff I won't go into here, but I topped it off by ripping a big hole in my jeans at work. Tuesday didn't start off much better. I locked myself out of Minister's house and had to get a ladder to climb in the window. That was a painful experience. On top of all that, Toolman called me Sunday night, but didn't leave a message. So I called him back Monday night to find out what he wanted. He's in New Orleans with his church and he wanted me to look up the phone number of someone we met in New Orleans. I found it for him, but I got to talk to him for a bit in the meantime which was good. It was nice to talk to him after all this time.

So there it is. Also, if you could keep the financial aid situation in your prayers I would really appreciate it. It turns out that there was something else wrong with my application (my parents needed to sign it) that they NEVER said anything about. Since my parents are here, I'm having them physically sign in and then I'm turning it in to the F.A. office to make sure it gets done. So yeah, the saga continues. It should finally be taken care of by the end of next week, but just pray that they don't cancel my class in the meantime for lack of payment.

I hope all is well with everyone. I'm praying for y'all.

God bless!

Pepto

Craziness

Yes, it is VBS week. Under normal circumstances that makes life rather hectic, but add on to that the fact that I'm still working 30 hours, finishing my last week of class, writing an 8 page paper, and trying to hang out with me dear friend Homeslice while she's in town, that makes it even more crazy. So I haven't gotten much sleep the last couple nights, but I will totally take the blame for that. Sunday night we were up late playing Clue and just goofing off, and last night we went to see Pirates of the Caribbean for the 2nd time. That movie rocks my socks off. Orlando and Johnny are HOT! Just thought I'd make that declaration. Everyone should go see it, and if you want someone to go with you, give me a call.

So yeah, what's been going on.... We got a dog on Saturday, her name is Ginger, she's a Beagle/Golden Retriever mix. She's a sweetie, but a bit of a pain with her running out the door everytime it opens habit. Otherwise, she's been doing great.

I've calmed down about the whole mission trip thing. The trip is off, I had talked to the missions person at church before but he was mainly just asking what he could do to help like driving or something. Once I get a bit more free time, which should be next week, I want to look into planning a trip for next summer. It may not be New Orleans, because who knows if they'll even be down there then, but something. There are a lot of people in this world who need Jesus, we just need to find them. This time I have every intention of getting full support from the staff and elders for this and I want to create a team of people to organize and advertise instead of just doing it all on my own. I don't have that kind of time. No one person does, but spreading the responsibility among a few people will make it much easier. So keep that in your prayers, and we'll see what happens. I'm determined to make missions a bigger priority in Bethany than it currently is, I'll just have to keep trying until something works.

The Toolman situation has become virtually nonexistant now, so don't even bother to ask. Unfortunately though, I have become extremely unhappy with my single status. I want to find someone, I want to get married, and I want it now. Simple as that. Please do not say the cliches of "it'll happen when you're not looking" or "when you least expect it." That does not help. I personally think that concept is a load of hooey. It has happened to other people when they were looking and there was quite a long period of time when I was not looking and it still didn't happen. I know it'll all happen in God's time and not my own, but this desire has gotten to a point where it's pretty much consuming my thoughts. I'm not able to concentrate on anything. It's even creeping into my dreams at night. I'm feeling very Bruce Almightyish about the whole thing. If you haven't seen that movie, it means I feel like God's ignoring me completely on the issue. I know it's not true, but still. I just wish that God would either take the desire away until it's the right time, or he would bring me my prince. I would prefer the second, but either way, it's better than feeling the way I do now.

So enough of my complaining. I do have some work I have to get done. I hope all is well with everyone. Try to keep your heads attached this week as difficult as it is with the VBS phenomenon.

God bless.

Pepto

Long time again

Yeah, I've really been bad about updating this thing. I guess it's just not that high of a priority anymore. Anyway, things are still going. Still working, almost done with my Genesis class then I'll start a Philosophy class, the kind that I don't really have to go to because there's 200 people in it.

I don't quite know how to explain how I've been doing. I guess I've been doing ok, but at the same time I'm really frustrated, and kinda sick and tired of almost everything. Basically, I'm stuck in a rut...spiritually, emotionally, physically, the whole smack. All I keep hearing from everyone is that I need to "take care of myself." What that means, I don't know.

I'm not going to hide it anymore. I'm really frustrated with Bethany. I am so disappointed about this proposed trip to New Orleans. I am the only person committed to going at this point and it's supposed to be in less than a month and a half. I've decided that I'm just going to toss it out the window. We're not going. Why? Because there is no "we" about it. It's just I. I'm not talking to any of the Journal Goddesses, because you all either have a baby, or you're pregnant. But there are so many people...people my age, and people that are older, maybe retired even, whatever that can't go for ten million different reasons. I saw something that the church was lacking and I decided to do something about it hoping that I would get support, and I really haven't. Minister and Beef who have both said they want to go have not committed nor have they done anything to get people to go. I just feel like nobody cares about what I have to say because I'm a 22 year old college student. I don't know anything, I don't have a husband and kids to take care of like everyone else, therefore it's easier for me to just go down there for a week. Ok, I'm rambling. Sorry, but I just wanted to get that off my chest.

In other news, I've become quite discontent with my singleness. No particular reason. I'm just tired of waiting for Mr. Wonderful.

Sorry I was so negative, but I'm kinda tired of trying to hide it. Now y'all know why I've been moody. I'm going to go now. I'm still praying for everyone.

God bless.

Pepto