ARRRRRRRRGGGHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH

Just had to let out a frustrated yell into cyberspace. Really, everything is great.

Welcome to 2006. It will probably be the most crazy, eventful, interesting year of my life to date. High expectations? Yes, but no. I think it's just the nature of the beast. One very full semester, two overseas excursions to plan and undertake, graduating from college, looking for (and hopefully finding) a job...I don't know how it could not be crazy. For the most part I'm looking forward to it.

I have lots of stuff on my mind tonight, but I don't have the coherency to explain it. I've been thinking about the American church, real Christianity, my own life, "full-time ministry" (whatever the hell that really is) and other things. Wondering if I even know what Christianity is. Wondering how I could ever get a job at a church. Wondering how I can snap out of the deadness I already feel toward a profession I haven't even started.

I'm frustrated. I'm inspired. I'm curious. I'm excited. I'm scared. But at least I feel something. I never want to keep from feeling, to be dead. I've been there and I hate it. I fear the apathy much more than I fear the questions.

It is so lovely to be at home, to have my own room, an on-site washer and dryer, someone else cooking dinner. Aside from the material things it's also nice to get some family time in and just be in a place that I'm pretty dang comfortable in. Nineteen years in one house is a long time, and it's a place I'm always glad to come back to.

Mainly I've been a sloth since I've been at home. While being a teacher is a very demanding job, it does have it's perks which are currently on display on our kitchen counter. Translation: all kinds of sugary crap to fill my body with over the holidays. It just sits there and stares at you. Talk about a lesson in self-control (or lack thereof). Not to mention my father's promotion has also earned him some congratulatory (and suck up) gifts, namely five pounds of See's candy he brought home yesterday. We will not be eating all of it, but it's definitely all sitting in our kitchen right now.

I've been trying to do some productive things. I went to the library a couple days ago and checked out some books on Russian history. I'm hoping to get myself caught up to current after leaving off in late 1917 this semester. Actually I pretty much started and stopped in 1917...25 pages later. It's going to be a monumental task. I'm not sure I'll get through all of it, but thus far it's proved an interesting endeavor. My Mom asked me if I was reading the book just because, and when I responded in the affirmative she said to me, "You are one strange child Krystle." I suppose so. I'm not sure how many people check out 1000 page Russian history books for recreational reading over Christmas break. But honestly, a year ago I would have never thought this would be me. I've pretty much always hated history. But as I've traveled and experienced more things I have a much greater interest in context.

So lately I've had this thought of how ridiculous God's love is. Which I guess is one of the most cliche things you could say, right behind "God's love is awesome!" or something like that. But seriously, it's ridiculous. He should not love us. First of all, we're totally inferior. I do not choose to love ants. Further, I don't choose to create ants and then love them. And then we totally turn our backs on Him and hate him.

Okay and I had so much more written down on that subject and others and I seriously just lost it all. Granted I would have lost everything if it wasn't for that nice "recover post" button, but I can't be bothered to write it all again. But basically God's been rocking me some and it's been a really good thing.

SCHOOL IS OVER!!!! Now if only I didn't have that 8am call time tomorrow for choir...

Okay this wasn't going to be the topic of my post but I just need to say it. I was looking at my index of posts and my last one is from 12/08/05 and I was seriously confused thinking it was a post from a long time ago or another year because it was December. Here I am sitting in my short sleeved shirt, the weather is supposed to be in the high sixties all week...it's just weird living in southern California. You'd think I'd be used to it by now, but I'm not. Though I think part of the reason why I feel so hot is because our heater makes it pretty warm in here. Yay for free utilities.

On with the show. (what?) School is over. Not really, but it might as well be because I don't have anything of consequence left to do. I just have to read and comment on two peoples' papers (20 page papers mind you) and take an easy as heck test on Thursday. After that the "school" part is done and I just have a choir concert ALL BLOODY DAY on Friday, then I fly home on Saturday. It's funny, I thought I was going to feel super relieved today after having my really hard final and jury out of the way, but I really don't. Though maybe that's because I was never all that stressed in the first place. Or maybe that I'm allergic to this city and have been fighting headaches for the past 24 hours since I've been back here. Somewhere, somehow that relates, I promise.

I realized that paragraph sounded a bit weird. And more than a bit cynical. I'm just in a strange mood. I got up at 6:30 this morning, let's blame that.

Tonight is our first team Russia meeting. I'm so excited! It's funny though, because my co-leader mentioned how she can't wait for the awkwardness and she's pretty much right on. We've met all of them, but they've never met each other. And we know how close we're going to be six months from now, but they have no idea. Or maybe they do have an idea, but this is definitely something they've never experienced before. I seriously want to be all buddy-buddy with them now but I have to remind myself "Krystle, they don't know you." Still, I'm very excited. I'm also very excited about the fact that we interviewed a really great guy last night and have two more guy prospects beside that. We could have our entire team in another week or so!

Last night I had one of those "what the hell?" experiences, in a good way. Long story short, a friend from school told me about an open position at a church on Monday, last night I was there checking it out, and last night they offered me the position if I want it. Funny how things can change in a week. It's low key, one or two days a week working with the band for the high school group. I'll get some gas money out of it, but more importantly a lot of great experience working with youth and musicians. Prayers would be appreciated. I'm basically praying that God makes it way obvious if this is not something I'm supposed to do. This would start in January, so I have the next few weeks to decide. But pretty much I'm stoked.

The end of school is so close. So close I can almost taste it. All my papers are done, I just have to live through a small presentation, two juries and two finals. It's all very doable from here on out. And it finally got cold here so it actually feels like winter. We're decorating our place for Christmas today, should be lots of fun.

You should get Sara Groves' new album.

The weekend is over already? I can't believe it. Actually Friday seems like a million years ago. I think I'm living in some weird kind of time warp. Fifteen interviews down, nine to go. We can do this. Three Italian pages to learn before my lesson tomorrow...not going to happen. Maybe my teacher will forget he assigned it to me, sometimes this happens. I'm not thinking it will tomorrow.

I had a good talk with God yesterday. Actually mainly I just talked to him. But it was to him, not at him. That's how I've felt lately. I felt honest. It's not that I haven't been honest with him lately, I just felt like I was able to sort through some things with him. It was like starting over in a lot of ways. I think my theology class semester is really going to screw me up. Lord help me.

Commence chaos: now.

I'm at this weird place right now. I just saw an intense movie so that's not really helpful, but maybe it is. I've been in this place for a few weeks or maybe a month or maybe a little bit longer. Maybe it's that I'm taking philosophy again, I'm not sure. It's like I'm leading this dual life, except I know I'm not because they are connecting, just not in the way I'd like them to. I'd like them to connect in terms of being reconciled, but they are not reconciled. See, I'm taking this worldviews class and it's just making me think through things. And it's not as though I'm doubting God at all, because I'm totally not. He is there and real and I want to serve Him for the rest of my life. And I want to know him personally as a subject, not objectively. I want to know HIM, not characteristics or theology or just facts. Because just the facts can be made up. I think that's what I'm starting to get at...my faith could just be another one of those worldviews that seems to be at least as coherent (if not more) than Christianity. But if I've experienced it, if I know Him...really know him, not just say I know him than it's more than just a theory, it's more than just a religion, it's more than just a projection we made up because we want something greater than us to affirm us (thanks Feuerbach).

I am just scratching the surface. I hope something is going on. I don't feel like I ever have enough time to work through these things. Life is too busy, I have to write papers, go to meetings. And soon (though not soon enough) the semester will be over along with my class and maybe my questions too. I don't want to go through life glossing over things. I want to go through life wrestling things and living and breathing and really feeling.

On a different note, I realized today that I'll be ordering a cap and gown and graduation announcements pretty shortly. I've thought about graduation and life after and jobs, but yet not about these practical things. It was weird.

I would just like to say that I love daylight savings. Except I just realized now I'm an hour off Mel again. Dang.

I really wish I was as good about writing here as I used to be. Or as good as I was way back in the d-x days, that was amazing. Of course I think I had a lot more angst then (or something) but it was so helpful. It was so helpful to have some catharsis and just figure out where I was at. Right now I feel like a chicken running around with my head cut off all the time. And the times that I'm not running around I was to be NOT thinking about the times that I am running around. Seriously, whoever thought it would be okay to be this busy in college should be shot. I wish I had the time to just let myself dwell on what I've been questioning and learning. I'm only taking 13 units this semester (two real classes pretty much) and I already have enough to think on. Next semester is going to be insane. I just want to process.

In my worldviews class we're talking about salvation. We've already talked about non-ultimate reality and human existence. Both those things were interesting enough. But now we're talking about salvation and I'm thinking "what is salvation anyway?" As a Christian I'm not sure if I'm supposed to be asking that question. What I mean is...shouldn't I already know the answer. Funny that I might think I do, but I really don't. I don't think salvation is just a fire escape, I don't think it's just "leading a happy life," I don't think it's running around doing all this crazy stuff like a good Christian woman, I don't think it's being super disciplined. I don't know what it is. There are different elements. I'm just working through that.

I've also been reading heaps of Russian history this past week which has been so interesting. I am so thankful I was not born in Russia, seriously. I'm only reading about the revolutions of 1917 and that's seriously enough. What a crazy year. Protests in the streets all the times, people arming themselves and overthrowing the government, starvation, economic crisis...it's total insanity. Not to mention I also have a ton of Marxist theory floating around in my head. I think it's mainly crap, but it has got me thinking about capitalism and how screwed up it is. In some ways I think the Christian view of economics should be like the Marxist...except believing in God and absolute truths and all that. But Christians should definitely see the oppression of the capitalist system. We cannot shut our eyes to the majority of people in this world that are being crushed by a western capitalist system.

Oh that's just the tip of the iceberg folks, but I don't have any more time to write. My parents are coming out tomorrow morning and I'm really excited. I'm going to be old soon.

Good weekend. GOOD weekend. It was so nice to get away and see something beside my small apartment or campus. It was a bit more driving than I would care to do, but still it was well worth it.

I had a great time hanging out with the family yesterday. I always come away from my time with them feeling...something. I don't know what it is. It's a good feeling...I think it's good just in the fact that is is a feeling. Being with them forces me to feel...love, anger, compassion, longing...all in different ways at different times. God uses them to reconnect me with my heart I think. I feel like I've lost a lot of feeling recently and I actually went into the weekend feeling rather lost. It was good to pull back and regain some footing.

I love the times that I get to talk with my cousins. There at that great age gap where they're young, but they're substantially older than me. It's this mutual respect where they see me as an adult, but at the same time see me as their little cousin that they want to take care of. I love it. And I absolutely love how honest they are with me. They are most often far more honest with me than I am with them, even with spiritual things. My non-Christian cousin said she could totally see me working at a church in charge of music. I could learn something from that.

I really went into this post with something more to say. I was going to talk about yesterday then hit on something else, and I can't even remember what that is now. Probably indicative of how little sleep I've gotten this weekend. That's definitely the one bad thing about going out of town. More later if I ever remember.

This has been the longest week. THE longest. Not to say there weren't good parts, because there were (see last post) but it's just been long. I seriously can't believe my last post was only three days ago. It seems like years. Still, the events of that day have me excited. I'm pondering classes to take in the absence of Spanish, and I've already met with my co-leader and hashed out some planning responsibilities/scheduling etc. It's all a bit hectic but it's also amazing.

So right now I feel like I'm on cloud nine because this week (and all the assignments it contained) are over and I can finally just relax. I'm headed to southtown tonight to hang out with the fam down there for part of the weekend. I can't wait to be away from school and just have fun. Not that I don't like it here, things are really going great, but you just need a change of scenery.

I've been thinking about God some recently (yeah imagine that) and I've just been having a hard time wrapping my head around him...for obvious reasons. I think now that I'm back in philosophy mode I've turned into a nut case again. I think it's mostly a good thing but sometimes I just get a bit too mental and I just need to calm down and rest in the fact that God is God and I am his child. It's as simple as that. But so completely not simple at the same time.

Today I was thinking about this summer (this is actually while I was trying to pray ha) and going to Russia and then getting back and maybe applying for jobs. This was not a new thought for me. This is something I've thought about multiple times for the last several months. But for whatever reason, it pretty much freaked me out really for the first time. Finding a job. Moving away. I know I'm already moved away now but this is moving for a job. Like a career where I settle somewhere for a while and establish a new community and don't necessarily go home all the time for holidays and actually have to take care of myself. Whoa there. A little freaky, but also exciting. Still, I'm glad that these things are months away.

And now I'm ten minutes closer to getting on the road. Damn so cal traffic.

Today has pretty much been the best, at least within the realm of possibility for the day. First, the monstrous quiz I was supposed to have this morning was postponed. This is both good and bad because now I have to worry about it later, but it's still pretty amazing. Next I took my Spanish placement test. That's right, I'm a senior in college and I still haven't dealt with my foreign language requirement. The original plan was to study the summer after I graduated high school, take the CLEP and get credit for all of it. Needless to say, that did not happen. So here I am in my seventh semester of college trying to recall my Spanish skills from like three years ago. Oh dear. So I take the test this morning and I feel pretty good about it. The proctor graded it right away, and it turns out I was one question shy of testing out of not one (as I'd planned) but two semesters! We talked a little, she asked me why I'd waited so long, how much Spanish I'd taken before, and decided to wave the whole thing anyway! Talk about grace, I was so amazed. God answers prayers folks. I've seriously been praying that God would grant me favor with whoever proctored the test and that they would be merciful with me. This was totally beyond what I expected.

As if that's not good enough, there's more!

After I got out of my wonderful placement test, I see that I've just missed a call and have a message. The caller id was blocked, which meant that it was the call I've been expecting since yesterday: the call to determine my fate for the summer. To make the morning complete, I'M GOING BACK TO RUSSIA NEXT JUNE! I'm still not completely sure what I've gotten myself into but I'm so glad to just know things for certain and to be able to look ahead. Already we have all kinds of stuff to do this week which is slightly stressful now with a postponed quiz and big paper due on Friday, but ah well. How am I helping myself with that now? By doing nothing. I made an outline for my paper, that has to count for something. Actually, that was my goal for today but it's a pretty slack outline and didn't take as long as I thought it would...probably because it's so slack.

So, all of that before noon! Things have been pretty non eventful since then, but I'm not sure if I could take much more excitement in one day. Of course I wouldn't mind if it happened.

To continue the thoughts of my last post for just a second, that night we had even BETTER weather. Starting at about 11 there was thunder and lightening, and then at 3am it was just nuts and I thought our house was going to fall down. Then the whole next day it was cloudy but warm and humid and there were scattered electrical storms. It was so amazing. Now we're back to sun sun sun. So boring, and the fires are starting which is always awful on a number of levels.

Basic update: things are great. I enjoy some classes, choir is awesome, internship is awesome...everything is great. Right now I'm just trying to enjoy life as it comes. Last week in chapel I heard probably one of the most influential messages I've ever heard in my life (at least it could be) and I'm still trying to wrap my head around it. John Piper spoke on God's love and the glory of God. Basically it really challenged me in the way I looked at God and myself and how I relate to him. If you want to check it out (which I seriously recommend) go to http://www.apu.edu/chapel/calendar/fall/ and then click on John Piper.

Now my "real reason" for posting. Last night I went to the current play my school has running. A girl from choir who's a good friend of many of my good friends was a lead in it, which in a cast of four people is a pretty substantial part. The play is called "Dinner with Friends." Basically it's all about marriage. There are these two couples that are really good friends and have spent tons of time investing in each other, and one of the men decides to have an affair because he feels trapped and constricted in his marriage. So it basically revolves around the aftermath of that and how they all interact with each other and all change. So you get to see one hideous marriage that's falling apart, and then a strong marriage that also has it's problems, but they stick things out and work through them. It was amazing. Amazing acting, amazing story line. I cried multiple times. After it was over all I wanted to do was call up my parents and thank them for not getting a divorce. Not that I think my parents were ever about to get a divorce, but just to thank them generally. Actually, I don't really understand my parents' marriage. I mean, I guess you can't understand someone else's marriage anyway, but my parents' has always intruiged me. But I do know that they love each other and have loved each other for over 30 years, and that's pretty dang amazing. So the play scared the crap out of me about marriage on one hand, but in some small ways made me look forward to it. But much more about the scared part.

We had exciting weather tonight. There was a thunderstorm. And really by thunderstorm I mean about ten lightening strikes, but you take what you can get in California. Thunder and lightening always excite me, that is until they make the power go out. But this mentality is just a by-product of my growing up in the country on a small power grid. No need to worry of such things in LA.

Life's just good right now. Classes are fine, not extremely overwhelming. I'm researching a paper I'm actually interested in writing (that's happened few times in my college career...sad), my internship started yesterday, choir is taking off, I've learned how to hit a drum...how could it be any better? Oh wait, it can get better because my Aussie boys are coming the day after tomorrow and we get to hang out all week and go to Disneyland on Saturday.

I could post some deep (or not-so-deep) thoughts right now on where I'm at and what I feel God is doing but I just don't have the energy. But I'm just really excited right now. The passion isn't completely there, but I want it and I ask for it. I've got a lot of decisions coming my way over the next several months and I know all these things will drive me to him. I'm so grateful in that respect. I actually have a very huge decision I need to make by the end of this month which I'm going to be purposefully non-specific about, but if anyone even reads this thing anymore I'd really appreciate your prayers. I trust that God is going to be faithful to guide me in this situation, and I'm actually really glad for this time where I just need to be seeking Him and listening to Him. What if I did that all the time? There's an interesting thought...probably the only one of this post. Now I'm going to bed.

Today I learned how to hit a drum. Not just hit a drum, but actually do it correctly. I had my frist drum lesson today, and literally all he did was teach me four different strokes. Might seem boring, but I'm totally stoked. I can totally see how this is going to affect my playing and I'm pretty dang excited.

First full week down. So I think I said this at the end of last week (which was only three days long), was that really just one week? I can't believe I've only been to eight days of school. It's going really slowly. I guess I should be glad for that though, because after a while it's going to totally fly by and before I know it I'm going to be bloody graduating from college. That's a strange thought.

I think I'm going to take the rest of this blog to talk about how amazing my roommates are. I don't understand how I ended up with them. I am amazed at the conversation and laughs we've already had and I can't wait for more of it. And to end things I'd like to say that we have a Madagascar Dragon Tree named Martin.

This is ridiculous.

New template...Finally. Not that I don't still miss Australia but I've left many places since then and it was just time for a change. Instead, a non-specific picture of a tree in a field. I like to think that this could be anywhere in my hometown, and could certainly be Russia as well (though it's much more likely that it would be a Birch tree there).

First week of school is over. I've actually found myself thinking "that was really just one week?" Dang. It was only three days even. It felt like forever...but it wasn't a bad thing. I'm really liking my philosophy class and am psyched at the possibility of a huge paper on the Bolshevik revolution and the Soviet worldview. It's so much more meaningful when you have connected with a culture. I'm someone that needs that relational context first, then I'm interested in the historical. Some people need the context before they approach the relationship. Anyway, it's really nice to be in a thinking class again. My other classes (all two of them) are okay. Actually one is going to be killer and boring and I'm not interested in it at all, but I'll get by. The other should be somewhat interesting and not hard. Still thinking about my internship options but am narrowing things down...I think. Today I think I've sortof made up my mind, but I need to talk it out with someone first I think.

I feel God doing major renovation in my heart and mind the past week. Too much to go into but I have a renewed desire to know Him and just be with Him. I'm horrible at it. I am SO ADD in my relationship with him. I have no focus, no discipline. But slowly I'm trying to get there and really listen and seek. I feel like I had my first "real" conversation with him the other day for the first time in ages. I could finally think and feel and just be honest. I want to be with Him. I want to walk with Him every moment of every day and know He's there with me and tell him my hopes and fears and give him my concerns and continually commit myself to him and his purpose. Lord help me. Be my love...