I am pretty sure that i stand as the purest example of what happens to an overly entertained generation when amusement of all sorts ceases for even a moment without prior warning. We can only writhe in pain and moan as pangs of boredom sweep over us like a thousand sharpened razors.

...I've been known to exaggerate a story in my time.

That said, however harmless this "boredom" thing is in actuality, my reality is that of the thousand sharpened razors sweeping through my soul. It is 11:21 pm, i turned down an invitation to hang out with matt, justin, and colin (i guess the idea of having fun 2 nights in a row was too much for me to handle...) so that i could sit on my butt and surf facebook for...er... a long time. i made no effort to hand out with joe and berger which i easily could have. I might have even tried to add ntiza to the mix if for no other reason than to have a reason to say "nitza to the mix." However, I'm still bitter about his refusal to come to the movies with us last night because he "didn't feel like it." lame, anyone?

So now I'm just sitting, still on my butt, updating my xanga. Because, I figure, if i'm going to waste my life away on the computer, i might as well have something to show for it.

A Couple things...

i'm reading through Numbers (...a real page turner for anyone looking to read something in the Bible with obvious life application and edge-of-your-seat excitement...)

and I'm left wondering-well-a lot of things, really. My mind is still spinning from the Leviticus (or Deuteronomy as Yopp and I like to call it <---inside joke alert). I can't for the life of me understand what present day Jews are reading and obeying. They say its the Old Testament law, but the only time I ever saw anyone sacrifice anything was in the Guatemalan cemeteries...and I'm pretty sure they weren't Jewish.

Moving on to Numbers...

(before I begin, all mathematicians and bible scholars back up- don't go correcting me up one side and down the other-- i'll have to punch you in the face if you do.)

i added up the number of men in each tribe multiplied it by 4 (assuming that each man had a wife and 2 little Israelite kiddies in tow.) then added in the Levites etc, and blah blah blah... (and yes I'm aware that I could have googled it and found a far more accurate number...)

anyway I came up with something like 1.8 million people. one point eight MILLION people just up and following a cloud every time it moved. are you KIDDING me??

i don't get it. i just don't get it.

i planned on telling a story after I finished my old testament ramblings... but I'm tired now. See you all soon :)

My semester is more or less over.

Well, lets be honest, my semester was pretty much over before it ever began. I have had three...one two THREE...hours of class this week- pretty standard these days.

I'm genuinely scared to enter into second semester with a significant work load waiting for me. Real classes, real assignments, real things to do....what the heck?

One thing I think I've noticed is that when you have nothing to do, you waste a lot of time. You take breaks and holidays for granted and you generally become a less productive person and I'm not into that. so maaaaybe, just maybe, the new sense of responsibility will be a good one.

While I have plenty more to do next semester, the good news is I don't have to start doing any of it until 11:30- and that's only three days a week! Tues and thurs I don't get moving till 1:30. niiiice. Even though I do so precious little this semester, my one meaningful class starts at 9:30 mon, wed, fri, and that, my friends, sucks.

Anyway, nothing really glorious to talk about right now. I'm sitting in Allen Hall finishing up the education "assignments" that are due today. I use quotations here to invoke a sense of sarcasm due to the fact that to be an assignment it is generally assumed that said projects needs to, at some point, have been assigned...which they were not.

I'm going to turn these babies in, get some chick-fil-a , and start being christmas break Chelsy...more or less.

Read me.

The trend amongst those few souls whose xangas I still take the time out of my busy schedule to read (i.e. the four people left who actually submit something on occasion...) seems to be to update without any particular cause. (If that were a sentence on one of the papers I was grading, I would have most likely underlined it and scribbled something that looked remotely like "Wordiness" or "run-on" next to it. And then I'd probably add a comment about how not to use parentheses when they are unnecessary. I would also probably throw something in about keeping the main thing the main thing. That's just a teacherese for stick to the point.)

But I digress.

I, keeping in line with you faithful few, have no great reference point at which to begin. Mostly i just don't want to fade out entirely, so here i am just making an appearance.

It's 1:27 in Weirton right now, which, despite the fact we are in the same time zone, is the equivalent of, like, 4 am in Morgantown. Seriously, I. am. beat. I'm only awake right now because I feel like a shmuck (sorry Gevas...) for going to bed at 10 pm the night before last.  10 pm? are you kidding me? The real shame of it is, i was ready for bed at 7:30. My PARENTS kept me up till 10. Unbelievable. Jm called at 2:30, sure that I'd be up and available- but was I? Oh no. I let him down. I let myself down. So now I'm pushing the outer limits. I WILL stay up until 2. i WILL.

rambling...

So, I'm trying to go to East Asia this summer. I'm working on getting money from my church right now, and i have NO idea what to expect. I got a few details about some funds they have and what sort of things they need to know if I'm to speak to the congregation and bladdy bladdy blah... nothing definite yet, and thas cool. But I just have no clue what to expect! I mean, they could hand me a hundred bucks or they could pay my trip in full. Neither would surprise me much. It's a 4000 member church so we have tons o' resources, but it's also a CMA church so we have lots of funds too. I don't know how high on the list this will rank in the end,but God is good, and He will provide.

I'm still teaching at Bridgeport. As far as high school and host teachers and students and first classroom experiences go, everything's great. But as far as me wanting to do this for the rest of my life is concerned, I'm not feeling it.

Here's what I've noticed in my life: I am passionate about the Gospel and people. i am most happy in an environment where I can introduce the latter to the former. And coming from the girl that swore up and down she'd never be in ministry, that's kind of a big deal. What I know about me is that any group of people I get to spend an extended about of time with, I fall in love with. That's why I love inner city kids. I've worked with them and been friends with them and I know that I could spend the rest of my life ministering to them, but i ALSO know that anywhere I find people hungry for Jesus, I will love them too. Whether it's the inner city or a college campus or the jungles of Gambia or Appalachia or China or the Middle East or- where ever...i'm in.

"Bur Chelsy," you say, "you couldn't wait to teach! You said it was exactly what you wanted, a perfect fit!" And for that i have four little words... BUT IS IT THOUGH????

My thought process on this really can't be xanged in full, so ask if you're genuinely curious, but here's the over view. From day one i felt claustrophobic in the classroom. I walked around the first day before teacher or students arrived and felt myself breathing heavy, thinking, "is this is? is this what i want to do for the rest of my life? is THIS what I want to look back on?" I got so nervous, and I never have fully shaken that feeling.

Also, I hate my classes. I mean, I legitimately loathe them. My professors admit that any dummy could teach with the right tools, but we've got to string out the process for 5 years to make sure that we don't get just that- a bunch of dummies teaching our kids. So now I am literally jumping through hoops. Hoops that, ironically are taking me to a place i no longer even want to go.

Now as for that last reason, true as it may be, i try to not give it too much weight. After all, as far as i know, 2 years down the line it could all have been worth it. But this next reason is the one that's really been getting me. And i mean the keeping-me-up-at-night kind of getting at me. Brooke Powell who i have always admired but never got a chance to know all that well, threw out one little idea one night that just won't get out of my head. Yopp had made some comment about me never being a teacher (an idea which she fully supports) and I responded with a casual roll of the eyes. Brooke, who I will remind you knows very little about me personally, just offers up "Oh no, no way. Chelsy will never be a teacher. She has too much to say."

WHAT?  i was offended for about .00001 seconds and then i realized that she was right. Half of the reason i was and am still continuing to feel claustrophobic in the classroom is that i see and hear people crying out of Christ and i can offer them so precious little. When i find out that one of the girls in my class is being abused by an alcoholic father, I don't want to correct her grammar and then tip toe around school policies and administration in order to eventually refer her to the school guidance counselor. I WANT to hold her and CRY with her and TELL her about her REAL Father in heaven. But i can't do that. All i can do it remind her that in her essay it's "my sister and I," not "my sister and me." My sister and I get beat up every night. I.

Thank you Brooke. Thank you for getting under my skin and becoming an avenue through which God is working on my heart.

 I'm also thinking about interning with Crusade after i graduate in a decade or two. Ha! try telling the me from exactly one year ago that. I would laugh in your face.

It's 1:59 now. Probably time for me to punch out. To (in alphabetical order) Ben, Cass, Joe, and Jon- i salute you. I hope that you  still read my xangas, however rare, as i read yours. And know that even if my comments are not posted on your site physically, they are there with your entry in spirit.

Happy thanksgiving everyone. I hope that your week off provides you with the escape and renewal that I am hoping to find in it, God bless.

It's just been...

One of those...

humdrum, unexpected thunderstorm, eat lunch with a sweet girl from Taiwan, remember at the last minute that you have a midterm due tomorrow then have the computer delete it and type it again, lead a bible study on the sweetest chapter of Tozer's sweetest book, add fifteen things to your to-do list and cross out nothing, practice a parody in the shower, clean up your messy room, have a midday calzone and a pumpkin blizzard instead of three square meals, wonder what the fall retreat t-shirts are going to look like, wish you'd done your laundry, miss old friends, wait around for nothing, consider the impossible, waste yout time on facebook, write a random xanga entry...

...kinds of days.

scary dreams, faulty electronics, and a new friend.

Today is Saturday the 15th and it's just about 5 pm and my mind is racing. The rest of my body is slowly dragging somewhere behind- but my mind is racing. 

I just woke up from a really frustrating dream. I'm debating posting it on here at all for fear of one of you trying to have me committed. Well, we talked about being vulnerable at Women's Time this weekend- so here goes. I was at Cassady's house, but she wasn't there- just her dad. And it wasn't actually her house at all. This house was very big and it had guest beds everywhere. Also, in the kitchen there was a bar, like the kind that any Joe-shmo walking down the street can come in and drink at. So I'm sitting  underneath the bar waiting for a phone call from my parents telling me to come eat. I wait and I wait and in the meantime I keep having to do really frustrating things like breathe only through a straw or have a full conversation with someone with my head tilted all the way back. Finally I get a call from my parents telling me that I can join them downtown for dinner. So I get in my Mini (which is actually now an orange snow mobile...) and I head out. But then I remember it was a little cold today so I should put my coat on. For some reason I have to go down to the basement of a parking garage to put my coat on. So now I'm in this really sketch bathroom with nothing but a giant mirror and cinder block walls. I try to put the coat on, but it weighs like a million pounds. Just to make matters worse, my vision starts, kinda, sticking. Imagine you're watching a DVD and the sound keeps going but the image gets stuck on one scene. It's kinda like that, but instead of getting stuck on a clear image it gets stuck on a blurred, I took-a-picture-of-something-moving-really-fast kind of image. So I can still feel my body moving but I'm seeing things slower than they are happening. Once I managed to get the coat on, I see that there is a brown sort of mold all over my face and no matter how desperately I try to get it off in a panic, it won't all go away. plus my vision is still sticking so I can tell if I'm making progress or not.By the time I'm ready to go it's far too late to join my parents anywhere and the dreams ends with me being certain that I'm never going to see them again.

So that, mixed with the fact that my computer has a virus and my phone has ceased  to work entirely, has contributed to my mind-rushing anxiety and feelings of being entirely disconnected from the world...and reality. maybe someone should have me committed.

 On a much lighter and more sane note: as I mentioned, women's time was this weekend and it went beautifully. God was so good. He held off the rain so that we were able to carry on exactly as planned (well, close enough anyway...) and I think everyone had a really awesome time. Whatever it is that makes girls come together and bond deeply over the course of just a few hours- there was a lot if it. I was so encouraged by the friendships I saw being formed and the love I saw being lived out. so awesome.

Most importantly for me, I made a new friend this weekend. One that I didn't expect to make, and one that God in his grace allowed me to find anyway. Walls were broken down and we got a taste of radical unity-- God. is. so. good. Yeeeeah women's time.

Love to my sisters <3