i hate forwards

As the title suggests, I hate forwards. A lot. But my mom still insists on sending them to me. I used to just delete ANY email I got that said "fwd" in the front, even if it seemed like it was actually a real email someone was FWDing me. That learned them quickly to ever send me forwards.

This one is from my mom. It's kind of funny actually. After every one, think about someone actually doing this in real life. It will make you at least giggle.

W ays to Maintain A Healthy Level Of Insanity

1. At Lunch Time, Sit In Your Parked Car With Sunglasses on and point a Hair Dryer At Passing Cars. See If They Slow Down.

2. Page Yourself Over The Intercom. Don't Disguise Your Voice.

3. Every Time Someone Asks You To Do Something, Ask If They Want Fries with that.

4. Put Your Garbage Can On Your Desk And Label It "In."

5. Put Decaf In The Coffee Maker For 3 Weeks . Once Everyone has Gotten Over Their Caffeine Addictions, Switch to Espresso.

6. In The Memo Field Of All Your Checks, Write " For Smuggling Diamonds"

7. Finish All Your sentences with "In Accordance With The Prophecy."

8 . Don't use any punctuation

9. As Often As Possible, Skip Rather Than Walk.

10. Order a Diet Water whenever you go out to eat, with a serious face.

11. Specify That Your Drive-through Order Is"To Go."

12. Sing Along At The Opera.

13. Go To A Poetry Recital And Ask Why The Poems Don't Rhyme?

14. Put Mosquito Netting Around Your Work Area And Play tropical Sounds All Day.

15. Five Days In Advance, Tell Your Friends You Can't Attend Their Party Because You're Not In The Mood.

16. Have Your Co-workers Address You By Your Wrestling Name, Rock Bottom.

17. When The Money Comes Out The ATM, Scream "I Won!, I Won!"

18. When Leaving The Zoo, Start Running Towards The Parking lot, Yelling "Run For Your Lives, They're Loose!!"

19. Tell Your Children Over Dinner. "Due To The Economy, We Are Going To Have To Let One Of You Go."

20. And The Final Way To Keep A Healthy Level Of Insanity.......

Send This E-mail To Someone To Make Them Smile.

Its Called therapy

sacrifice

Today after one of my classes (actually, my only class on Tuesday) we got to talking about plans for next year. A couple of the girls were mentioning some of the grad schools that they're applying to. As I was walking home I started to feel left out and in some ways kind of mourning the fact that I'm not going through this whole grad-school application process along with them. I'm not going to be able to sit around with them and complain/discuss their application papers that they're writing; I'm not going to be able to be a part of the academic world that they'll be pursuing next year. It makes me sad to think that I'm not going to be reading articles about political drama unfolding against the state in colonial Kenya next year. I'm not going to have that academic prestige that my friends are going to have.

I'm not doubting what I'm supposed to be doing, and I'm not saying that I should change my plans just because I want to go to grad school. I want a lot of things, but it doesn't make it good or right for me. I know that I'm following the path that God is leading me on. I guess I'm realizing more and more the sacrifices that I will have to make in joining staff... like getting married. A lot of single women who join staff never get married, or don't get married until a lot later in life. Plus, I'm eventually going to have to tell my peers what I'm doing after school and risk them think I'm some religious colonizer who cares nothing for people's actual well-being and have this western imperialist agenda, rather than it being Christ's love that compels me to do this - cause if it were up to me I'd probably say 'let them live the consequences of the choices they make, even if it is in ignorance of a free life they could be living' and do my own thing @ grad school or wherever. That's going to be scary!

gulp

It's my second week of classes and I just realized I'm 110 pages behind on the readings in one of my classes. Fantastic. Way to start the year well, jess.

And it begins

Today marks the first day of my final year at university. It's so strange to think that I wont be here next fall. My life has been pretty crazy since I finished work and last posted. There was half a week of pre-frosh week organizing, I went on a Servant Team retreat which was fun, and then had an insane week last week doing frosh week stuff. Basically we just spent as much time as we could letting the frosh know that Campus for Christ existed if they wanted to join. We handed out free packages (real life kits) that had a new testament, a book, a pillowcase (?) and a highlighter. Random about the pillow case... We still have a rat and a squirrel that seem to be immune to rat poison. I have a huge stack of over 100 contacts that we gleaned from frosh week sitting on my desk waiting to be followed up on. I went to my only class so far today (AIDS, Power and Poverty) and tidied my living room, and got a bit of my life together this afternoon.

But as I write this I'm so so nervous. I'm so so anxious. I'm looking at this pile of contacts wondering if they'll actually be contacted by the people I've asked to do it. I'm thinking about my classes and wondering if I'll be able to balance my school work and the amount of time I'm going to need to spend discipling women this year. I'm wondering if I'll fail and drop the ball and leave 130 women who have reached out in one way or another to C4C for information, or friendship, or fellowship, or learning. Will I be able to live up to my own expectations for myself? Probably not. I'm not going to be able to do all this. But, what I do know is that God has been answering my prayers like never before (or at least like I never noticed before). And He's going to provide for all of my needs, and for all of the needs of C4C and the women in it.

Being women's ministry coordinator kind of feels like I'd imagine it would feel like being a mom. You pray for your children, you encourage them, teach them, challenge them, rebuke them, and love them. Now try that for ..... 50-80 women. That's pretty crazy! I'm so glad that God cares about all of their needs more than I do. Because I will inevitably drop the ball, and He'll be there to catch it just after I relax my hands.