End of Semester Update

So I have one week left of my junior year and wanted to procrastinate studying for finals and thought I would chase away any confusion about what is going on in my life. 

This Friday after finals are over I will be going home to Norwalk for about 1 1/2 weeks.  During this time I anticipate a few good bonfires. 

Thursday the 17th of May I will be leaving Norwalk for my internship in North Dakota with Hess Oil Company.  On my drive there I will spend the night in Wisconsin with my cousin before finishing the 21 hour drive on Friday. 

I and another intern will be renting a room from one of the employees since there is so very little housing available in Minot because I am headed straight for an OIL BOOM! (sounds impressive anyways).

All summer I will learn amazing complicated wonderful petro stuff and work on a project assigned to me.  At the conclusion of my project the company will fly me to Houston for a week to present my project to some important people there. 

After that I’m not sure if I will be back in ND or in OH or what. 

Then, in August….SOCCER!

I have one more year of school in Marietta and in the spring of 2013 I will graduate with a Bachelor of Science in Petroleum Engineering. 

So yeah, that’s the plan.  Can’t wait for all the wonderful adventures along the way.

Driving

My favorite thing to do next to running.  I love going.  Driving is a great way to do that in case anybody was wondering.  I love driving because you have a destination, a mission, a goal to complete.  You are going somewhere, doing something, seeing people, conforming to the system of traffic which for the most part flows smoothly (sorry the engineer in me really loves that part).  It is an adventure.  It is quality time (the biggest way that I feel loved besides food).  Driving is thinking and praying time, or if I have the pleasure of transporting other people it is a number one way to get to know them. 

So yeah.  Driving. 

I’ve done alot of it the past two weekends.  And since this blog is about keeping up with me I suppose I should share. 

Last weekend I left Friday after my classes headed towards PA to visit a family I met in New Mexico last summer. (Read about it here).  They are originally from PA and now serve as missionaries to the Navajo people and were home for a couple of months.  Some people might say that 5 hours one way is a long way to drive just to see some kids but when you don’t know when you will see them next and compare it with driving to NM and just the pure awesomeness of these kids it all it is totally worth it.  Plus I had some extra adventures along the way. 

My drive took me through 4 states including OH, WV, MD, and PA.  The WV part (that stands for West Virginia) involved driving through Fairmont.  Now, this is a special place because a special person (namely Auntie Linda) lives there.  So on my way through Friday evening I stopped and had a wonderful surprise visit with her.

I spent the day Saturday playing with previously mentioned awesome children.  This included (but was not limited to) rubber band wars, riding down a hill in a wagon, playing a board game, going for a hike and building a fort. 

The next morning (April Fools better known as Palm Sunday) I drove back to that state called West Virginia and (being the good pastor’s daughter that I am) attended church.  But not just any church, this particular one is run by some very dear family friends and I walked in and surprised them. (I do like surprises).  It was great to see them :D  So after that I finished driving back to my city and that concluded last weekend’s travels. 

This weekend (A very important weekend because of EASTER) I wanted to be everywhere with everyone.  I have never not been home for Easter, I wanted to visit my sister in Steubenville, and I really missed my Valley Harvest family here in Marietta.  So yep, you guessed it.  I did all three. 

I drove home Friday after my soccer practice and went (dress) shopping with Mother Dear and Aunt Linda who were most helpful.  Then I saw Joey ride his bike WITH NO TRAINING WHEELS (sniff sniff, tear, they grow up so fast).  And got to hang out with the family which is hard to describe how glorious and refreshing this always is.  AND my Mother made me spaghetti (which means she loves me). 

Saturday I proceeded to drive to Steubenville for a Catholic Easter celebration with my sister (and as a result my Nicaragua people who I also love).  Now, I have never been to a Catholic Easter before but I heard it would be awesome and it was. 

There was of course a three hour mass that I had to endure but really it wasn’t that bad.  In fact, there were some really cool parts.  For example, they start the mass with fire, which is my favorite.  And even though the readings take a long time it is good to go back and remember what everything is all about.  It reminded me a little of going to see Handel’s Messiah; the overall experience takes a long time and there are definitely some dry parts, but the overall declaring of God’s kingdom is “totally wicked!” (Name that movie quote).

Also, there were some really cool parts, like the Hallelujah Chorus part of the Messiah.  Oh yeah that reminds me, that part was when all the Catholics, who haven’t said hallelujah for 40 days start singing and shouting Hallelujah! Christ is Risen!  Yeah.  I gotta say. Pretty Awesome.     

And then, there was an Easter party with food and music and dancing until 4 am.  Which was a blast. 

Then, (back to the title) I drove back to my city to join my family at Valley Harvest to celebrate Easter morning :)  It was wonderful to be with everyone again and I do love it here.  And, I got to have dinner with some of my favorite people.

One thing I have learned the past 2 years.  I love going, and I hate leaving.  I love going to see people and have new adventures and I am grateful for my many experiences and relationships but it is always hard when I have to leave because I want to be with everybody all the time.

Nicaragua

So I have been back from Nicaragua for a couple of weeks now and have been working on writing about it in other places but I wanted to add it to my blog too because it was a pretty significant adventure.  I don’t have a ton of time to write so I will focus on adding some of the pictures that will convey most of the story.

*Note – hover over the pictures to understand*

This is the orphanage we stayed at in Diriamba

 

Everyday we ate rice and beans and sometimes we even got it twice!

For our construction project we were told to tear down a building….and so we did.

     

Everyday after work we got to play with the kids.

 

After three days of work we had a day off to go adventuring, and these are some of the adventures. 

        

We also had a day to go visit the dump and sewing center.  Afterwards we went and played with the kids some more. 

 

Our very last day, only a few hours before leaving, I thought I would get a little soccer in. 

 

Don’t worry, it is almost all the way better.  Overall the trip was an amazing time and I’m so glad that I went.

We arrived safely and were picked up at the airport by Norwalk’s new mayor and got home just in time for Jordan’s birthday dinner. 

Now I’m back in my city ready for a new semester!

It’s a Wonderful Life

I know it has been so very long since I posted last, I mean it is almost Christmas here and my last post was from New Mexico.  There are so many things I could write about….school, soccer, my trip to Denver, the amazing Thanksgiving break I just had.  These are all really great stories but I feel like it would take me forever to catch up.  So I’m not even going to try.  But I figured I would post about my night last night so that you all could know how much fun I have in college and why I love it so much. 

It started when I got done working on a group project and went to work.  Now whenever I say work and I am talking about college you should assume that I don’t really mean work because it isn’t.  If anything they pay me to have fun around here.  I started my job at the theatre up again this week because the soccer season is ended so now I have time.  Yesterday at work I moved chair around for a performance tonight, then I got to climb up on the grid (the beams up in the ceiling with no harness or support and the possibility of danger everywhere) to rig up some curtains. 

After that adventure I worked out with some of the soccer girls and I am very proud of the current sophomore class for stepping it up so much.  I had alot of fun with them because it was so laid back yet we were pushing each other to do our best. 

Next, was the third annual December 2nd tradition of PUMPKIN SMASHING! Yes, this mayor’s daughter drove around town (my city, not my dad’s) and stole pumpkins to throw out the dorm windows. (note for those of you who look down on this practice I justify it in several ways.  1. We always clean up our mess 2. It is after all December 2nd. I consider it an act of charity helping people dispose of their soon-to-be-rotting pumpkins so that they can start celebrating Christmas. 3. It is so much fun) The past two years we have always done it out of my 3rd floor window but this year my window screen is locked in so we had to go visit some friends on the 4th floor of Parsons.  I must say the effect of the extra floor makes for a smashing good show. 

     

After all of this activity I was feeling the need for a college burrito.  I couldn’t find any pumpkin smashing friends or soccer friends to go with me to acquire said burrito so I wandered upstairs.  Now, for most people upstairs is like, ok, another floor up.  But this upstairs happens to be the honors floor, thus people who understand me for me.  Now I found some friends with adventure hats and three of us went and got some delicious burritos.  As I was sitting in the honors dorm surrounded by people of a like mind and a love for awesome, we got a brilliant idea. 

What happened next brought so much joy to my heart.  About 20 of us got on coats and hats and headed downstairs to….. the laundry room (of course).  At which location we found a sock and lint and put the lint in the sock and proceeded in parade like fashion outside where……WE BURNED IT ALL!!!!!! (whooo loud applause). Ok so maybe the fire wasn’t that great and the lint really didn’t burn well at all but the company was amazing and fire never ceases to amaze me even if it is only a small flame and it was wonderful just to have that much excitement over fire.  It reminds of one time with flour……

After the fire adventures we watched The Hunt for Red October, a comedy about how the US wins a “really big butt” from the Russians, then I watched a little Monty Python Ni! before going to bed having had a wonderful evening.

Note* This post was not posted until Sunday but there is no need for wars over the print date of this material and it lining up on some special timeline.  Everything will be ok. 

Ya’ll watch out now!

So, this is what I did last Saturday that I mentioned in my last post.  Sorry it has taken so long to get up.      

       

Ok, so now ya’ll know what’s up, from last weekend.  Hopefully I will have time tomorrow to blog about this weekend.

Children, Guns, N Rainbows

Yep, that’s what went down this week, I will give you a brief written update, then let the pictures say the rest.  Hint: in order to find the secret treasure, hold your mouse over the picture to discover great things (for those of you who desire to unlock the best part of my blog).

On Sunday and Tuesday evenings I went to hang out with a family from the church that has 5 young children.  Most of the time I was there there were actually nine because the neighbor kids came over.  It was so wonderful to be able to hang out with kids and be myself and have a good time.  We played soccer,  baseball, super mario, ping pong, danced, ate pizza sitting on the floor, pillow fights, went to the park, and other various activities those two days. 

In other news, it has actually rained several days here and it has been glorious.  One day, I heard the thunder and went out on the back porch to watch, it was cool because the storm wasn’t to the house yet but you could look out over the city and see it rolling in.  I so wanted to go on the roof to watch but when my people left for Ireland I had to promise them several things and that was one of them.  So I took a few pictures from the back porch to the best of my abilities. 

On Friday after work I went with two other interns to a shooting range.  I had a blast.  ‘nough said.

On Saturday I went for a hike with Miss Serena and we saw the white owl again and this time we got some footage, I will see if I can get that up in the near future.  Saturday afternoon I did exciting stuff that will get it’s own blog post soon. 

Which leads up to today.  Went to church and now back at the house chilling and cleaning and preping for this next week. 

Ok, enough talk.  Picture time.