On the Lighter Side...

Yeah, talked to my dad about graduation and ICTC this afternoon, and here are some precious quotes about what he had to say:

Dad: Graduation? You're graduating? Man, I gotta get a bottle!
Me: Of what?
Dad: Whiskey!
Me: For me or for you?
Dad: For me, of course. Whew, 22 years...

[...]

Dad: Man, I could get you a $60,000/year job at some genetics firm... and you gotta do this?
Me: What do you care?
Dad: Oh, more than you can know. ... I'm getting old, honey.
Me: Yeah?
Dad: Yeah, and social security isn't gonna cut it.

[...]

You're just 22... what are you gonna teach? Spelling?

[...]

Teaching, eh? I remember my third grade teacher.... man, did she have a big rack.

Friendship and ICTC

My command is this: Love each other as I have loved you. Greater love has no one than this, that he lay down his life for his friends. You are my friends if you do what I command.

John 15:12-14


Something I am beginning to understand more and more is just how active the act of friendship is. It's not something that you just let happen and accept for granted like the sun rising in the morning. At least, real friendship isn't. It's a process that you keep up on a daily basis. An act of will. You need to show how much you love your friends or your friendship will just wither and rot away.

I am so blessed by friends who really let me know what our friendship means. I'm even more blessed by those friends who keep me in check and let me know when I'm not acting like a friend. THat is so important. What good is a friendship, afterall, if your friend is content to let you be just who you are, forever stagnant, forever unchanged? The point of friends is to love you for who you are now, of course. But they also must love you for who you can be and forever be pushing you to grow towards that. Friends grow together. And that is so powerful.

It follws then that friendship with Jesus must be proactive. The difference between friendship with Jesus and friendship with everybody else is that Jesus already showed us that his love was so great he would lay down his life for us. We have no greater love, no greater friendship than Jesus. His friendship with us, the fact that he deeply, deeply loves us even to death, is never in question.

But friendship is a two-way relationship. We have to reciprocate. We have to lay down our lives for Jesus, because we are his friend. How do we do this? By loving each other as he loved us, by putting ourselves on the line for our friends.

Next year I will be in Chicago, volunteer teaching in a school on the southside with a program called Inner-City Teaching Corps. (See: www.ictc-chicago.org) A lot of people have asked me, why? Why do you want to do this? This, in part, explains it. All I have that I can give to Jesus is my life, and I will do that with my whole heart.

please please please prayers! I am in desperate need of understanding physical chemistry.

EEEEEP!!!

Wow. God is so great. I just got back from seeing The Passion. God is so so wonderful, oh goodness. And my suitemates are so wonderful, too. I am so glad that I got to see it with them and with Eric.

I wish I could post more, but I am drained from the movie and I need to get sleep anyways. So, more later. Well, it will have to be postponed until after finals. But then you can be sure I will post.

Yay for biological metaphors!! Hehehe... this quiz is funny. DO IT! (it's great procrastination for finals week!)


You are glucose. People feed off of you. You are
sweet, caring, and a source of energy for
everyone around you. You can inspire others
with your creativity and depth, and you can
keep people alive when in times of famine.
People love you...or at least the way you
taste.


Which Biological Molecule Are You?
brought to you by Quizilla

I have the most wonderful friends in the whole world!!

Goodness, what wonderful surprises from my darling friends! I have to admit that I was a wee bit suspicious on Wednesday night, but I definitely did not know what to expect. Why was I suspicious, you ask? Well, the evening went like this:

MARCH 4TH, 2004 --

9:30pm -- get together with Viennese Opening for cake and super-sweet cranberry juice and to watch a video of our performance. This was particularly nice because I had been going through severe Opening withdrawal. Of course, Tina had no sympathy for me. I believe the direct quote is, "uh, Erin, we wouldn't have even had rehearsal yet...". And then when I told her that I had been listening to the waltz and polka on my computer and dancing up and down the hallway she just looked at me like I was the strangest thing she had ever seen.

10:45ish pm -- preparing to leave the Opening get together. They were all really sweet and sang to Walter and I (who knew that we shared the same birthday! of course, he is a lot older, but I won't hold that against him...) and then Eric asked if I wanted to go back to FloMo with him to do some reading and whatnot, and I said, well, the conversation went something like this:

Me: Baby, I'm really tired, I think I just want to go back and clean my room and try to get to bed early.
Eric (dubiuos look on his face): Hm... I see. Uhh... Let me ask you a question. Do you trust me?
Me: Ooh, is this like Aladdin?
Eric: Uhm, yes, just like Aladdin...
Me: Kay! Yes!
Eric: Okay, let's go to FloMo.
Me: Oh... kay!

And then off we go to FloMo. I start to get suspicious around 11:30 when I ask when I can go back and then he had this sort of mischievous look on his face and then it hit me that 'ohhh, this is what we did for Bea and Lauren when they had their birthdays. I bet they are decorating my room!' and so I sort of chuckled all pleased with myself for having figured it out.

11:55 PM -- Eric: Well, we'd better get you back to your dorm!
And off we went!

12:00 AM -- Happy Birthday to me!! (except that I was really born at 12:36AM so I wasn't quite 22 years old, but it was my official birthday!)

12:05 AM -- Get to dorm and find the front door locked. Veery suspicious now. Open it up and it is all dimmed inside. We go in and lo and behold there is a whole group of my wonderful friends smiling at me! They break out in to the most beeeauuuiful Happy Birthday song I have ever had sung to me before, complete with the talented Cindy on the violin! It was even better than at Max's Opera Cafe! While singing I was crowned with my Happy Birthday Princess Tiara and I looked around to notice that everything was decorated with Strawberry Shortcake!! How *cool* is that?! Oh goodness, that definitely takes me back... When I was little I absolutely adored Strawberry Shortcake, and even had pillow cases and sheets and bedroom curtains with her on them! Tee hee... Anyways, after singing they poured me a glass of martinelli's and they had angel food cake with whipped cream and strawberries and even fresh *mint* leaves!

My friends are sooooo wonderful!! I felt so special and so loved! =) It was a great way to start off a birthday!

***

The day of my birthday was nice too. I had class from 9 am to 6 pm, so that was sort of sad. But it was interspersed with a number of phone calls from friends and family, so that was nice! In the evening another group of friends took me out to Max's at the Stanford Shopping Center and I had a big ol' piece of carrot cake. mmm... very very good. Unfortunately the dessert session had to be cut short because I had Squares rehearsal at 9:30 (I ended up being only 1/2 an hour late...). That was fun because we are working on a group-choreographed gender-bender square with *tons* of aerials. It is going to be so much fun! At the end of rehearsal I did 22 pivots with Deb. =D

Then I went back to the suite, and Bea gave me a really pretty pink-and-purple button-up shirt from Banana Republic. She said that she thought of me when she saw it not only because of the color but because she knew I would be teaching and it would be a good work shirt. She is so supportive of me! (not to mention confident in me and my future!) I love her so much!!

I also opened the package my mom sent to me, which was hilarious. It was product after product of Mary Kay makeup. Tee hee... yeeeah, my mom just started working with MK. Hehehe... Seriously, though, it was like I just kept pulling out one thing after another. She is so cute! I really miss her.

Then today (inspired by Cindy's recent aquisitions...) I stopped by the jewelery booth in front of the bookstore. Ooohhhhh goodness, such beautiful shiney things!!! Did I mention to you that I am like a racoon? I swear. I am just so attracted to things that sparkle! Sooo... I ended up splurging and getting two necklaces and a pair of earings. It was a little pricey, but I figured that y'know, it's my birthday and my relatives gave me money anyways and so I can spend something on myself! Plus there were so many pink and purple things there. =D Jen H. saw me and when I told her that I loved all of the pink here she commented that I was a girly-girl. I guess I am!

All in all, it has been a good birthday. To all my friends, you are so so soooo wonderful and I love you all!

Happy Birthday, Bubba!!

It's my brother's happy birthday today! I got to talk to him for just a little bit because he was getting ready for work. Apparently he had an interview yesterday for another job that he really wants to get. I hope that he does!