Recent thoughts and wanderings...

Life is busy, as usual. Work, fellowship, life...so it goes, on and on.

I had a thought a few moments ago, it made me laugh, then ponder.

"They say you shouldn't swim after you eat."

"They're saying to stay inside till the storm blows over."

"They say that causes cancer"

We use these types of phrases every day. I'm sure half of the time "they" is something we've read or heard from someone who heard it from someone. "They" seems to have a lot of credibility. After all, would YOU argue if "they" said something? It's almost as if we feel more credible ourselves if there is an unascribable person, with seemingly hours of research backing us up. How often do we say this? Is it a bad habit of passing on information as fact when we may not have
the whole story? I am guilty of doing this, are you?

Just a thought...

On another note, I moved again. This time, for the whole school year! I love my new room. Since I'm going to be an RA, I get my own :) It's still in progress, but here are some pics I snapped on my phone last night.

new stuff!

So, it's been a while again. Life has been busy, but nothing extraordinary. I am working at the Trib Lib Media Center, which is what my post is about mostly. I came across some awesome websites today, which I will share :)


The first one is www.aviary.com. It's like combining Garageband, PhotoShop, and other editing software for different mediums and putting it all online for free. It's great. I'm looking forward to exploring. They are even making it so you can order a DVD of your work, which you can get in on early if you contact them via the FAQ page.

Next is an easy and fun one, www.wordle.net. All you do it take text (Bible verse, lyrics to a song, document, etc.) and paste it into their creator. it turns the words into a piece of art. You can mix them up to a design and font you like. Colors can be changed too. Makes awesome art for any room/office space. Would also make a great gift that could be very meaningful. Here's an example made with a paper on astronomy by a pretty awesome person:
title="Wordle: black holes"> src="http://www.wordle.net/thumb/wrdl/2241643/black_holes"
alt="Wordle: black holes"
style="padding:4px;border:1px solid #ddd">


The third, www.xtranormal.com is just for fun. You can make videos with the animations they already have, but all hyou do is direct their actions, expressions, and words. It took me very little time to get my bearings and start a movie. I'm sure someone smart could figure out a useful way to use this.

Aside from checking out cool websites at work, I've been running a leadership camp, named LAUNCH, on Wednesdays and Fridays. The kids (ages 11-14) are great and have a lot of leadership potential. I have a blast doing crafts and activities with them. I am hoping they learn and have a great time. I want them to look back and remember this experience and go on to become leaders in their community. I was blessed so much in high school. I want to give back and this is a way I can. CNU gace me money through the Ferguson Fellowship to do this free of charge for these kids. It's as much of a learning experience for me as it is for them.
The added bonus is that my leadership professor is watching me tomorrow--talk about nerve wracking! She has been such an encouragement and champion for this project. I really could not have done it without her. Thanks Dr. Wood!

Pics of the kiddos

Life is always keeping me on my toes. The day after I found out I would be an RA for the summer, I was offered a job with my old boss, working in the Media Center on campus. The grass really is greener on the other side, seeing as I wasn't fond of this job during school and now I'd give anything to have it back. She offered me forty hours a week, 8am-4pm. I quit at McDonald's the same day. I liked my job, along with all the adventures, experiences and crazy stories it brought. But this makes more sense to stay and work on campus. Less gas money, and a chance to take the skills and lessons I learned working fast food and apply them to my job as a Media Center Associate.

I really did learn valuable life lessons in my short 5 week stint at Mickey D's.

-A respectful job comes in many different forms
-If you work hard, people love you and are sad to see you go
-There are people in worse situations than you
-All the early mornings don't seem to matter at 2pm every other Monday when the paychecks are distributed
-You can survive with very little sleep

Another thing that got me thinking was that everybody I come in contact with has a story--customers, coworkers, bosses. I found myself wanting to find out what their life stories were, especially those of the regular customers. I hardly knew them and they hardly knew me, but the little things I learned about them over 5 weeks of getting them a small senior coffee every morning, or a large sweet tea at lunch made the job worth it.

My last day, this past Saturday, a gentleman that comes in every morning for coffee told me I was doing a great job and asked if I lived there because he sees me everyday. I told him it was my last day, but that I enjoyed it. A few minutes later, as I was cleaning tables, he wished me luck in my future endeavors. These little words of kindness kept me going. Encouragement from complete strangers was something I looked forward to every day.

I will miss my regulars. I'll miss having coffee ready for them before they even walk through the door. I'll miss Mr. Elijah and him telling me I'm doing great after he had me memorize his order--2 sausage biscuits, well done, and a senior coffee with 1 cream and 2 sugars put in.

I'll miss the staff I worked with. Many of them had hard lives and worked there, not for extra summer money, but to support their families. I'll miss Ms. Rhonda and racing her. She knew I loved competition.

But, alas, life changes. This was something I told myself I'd never do. But I did, and I am glad.

Whoa!

This morning my summer took an interesting turn. I am going to be a resident assistant this fall at CNU, which I already knew, but this morning I got an email asking for summer RA's. I quickly jumped on that opportunity, so I will be moving into a CNU apartment in a little less than 2 weeks.

I like living at home, but it is so hard going from being on my own to living with family again. I share a room with my awesome little sisters (13 and 8 years old) but sometimes with all three of us and our mess, it gets crazy. I will admit, I am not the neatest person in the world, but combining all three of our collections of junk equals one fantastic mess.

I am excited about being around people my own age again. I miss the community of college, and especially CNU. I can't wait to see what apartment I get and what it looks like.

Of course, this also means I will be commuting 20+ minutes to work at the crack of dawn, but I think it'll be worth it.

The beginning?

I have so many thoughts in a day that I would love to write (or type) down and save. I doubt anyone has a huge interest in the daily happenings of my life, but at least if I have a good story of two, I can share them. This summer I am doing something I said I would never do--working fast food. After lining up a job working as a secretary for my university, I figured I was good to go, until I received an email a week after summer started telling me I was no longer needed due to "changing needs of the department". I was fully disappointed, but moved on, applying to dozens of places and calling forty retail stores all together, with no luck. I finally gave in. I walked in, applied, and was hired on the spot, mostly due to the fact that I turned in a resume with my application, which is hardly seen in this industry.
I deal with hundreds of customers everyday, some more pleasant than others. I am in manager training. I'm still not sure what that means, but I'm happy they like me. It's an adventure in itself and I'm sure I will have plenty of good times and funny stories to post over my summer stint at a fast food joint, along with other random thoughts and adventures. I hope you enjoy!