Dieu est bon

Oui, c'est vrai.

Je veux ecrire en francais* maintenant parce que je viens de regarder Amelie. J'aime ce-film la!! Et aussi quand j'ecrit en francais, personne ne peut pas le lire! Eh bien presque personne.

Merci a Dieu, il m'aime beaucoup. Je sais sans doute qu'il me regarde et m'ecoute. J'ai prie pour faire le reconnaissance de les nouveux personnes qui peuvent devenir les amis. Et alors un life group a Rock Harbor pour les gens qui ont 18-26 ans a Costa Mesa est overt!!! Je suis heureuse, j'espere que je peux joigner.

Et aussi, j'ai pris mon diplome de Vanguard l'autre jour. Je suis une diplomee SUMMA CUM LAUDE!!! Je suis tres tres tres heureuse pour ca parce que j'ai travaille et etudie beaucoup avec tous mon coeur, espirit, et corps!

La vie est bonne, tres bonne. Et je suis heureuse en depit de les jours mauvais, parce qu'on ne peut pas les eviter, n'est-ce pas?

Je manque Paris.



*Excusez-moi pour ne pas pouvoir utiliser des accents.

Tuesday morning

Well I'm not working this morning since Emma is still sick. So I'm home watching Friends and doing my budget, which I've been working on for nearly 4 hours!!! Oh my goodness! Well I've accomplished a lot in my boredom and my wishing to be at work. My spending in January was ridiculous though! I made a pie chart of my miscellaneous spending. It's intense. And this blog is yet another device of mine to be unbored until I have to go to my afternoon job at 2pm.

Tim* is amazing!!!

from...































to...



























Any questions?


Closing remarks: I'm thinking and praying about no longer serving at Saddleback and plugging into Rock Harbor more... I can smell my lavender tea so if you are looking for me during these final few hours of my Sabbath I'll be in my living room listening to Nickel Creek, drinking Parisian tea from a fancy teacup, and reading in my pajamas.



*guy who cut my hair

Pan's Labyrinth

I finally saw "Pan's Labyrinth". It's a Spanish sci-fi/ fantasy/ horror/ drama film. Crazy. My body is sore from the anxiety and revulsion. One scene my leg was in the air kicking and I was crawling up my seat.... mind you this is in a public theater. There are scenes of INTENSE gore. I'm not talking about the movies males typically watch and laugh and say, "oh man!" when they see some violence. No. Most of the people killed are killed close up by either a knife, a gun, or a glass bottle (a very brutal scene) in the face. And there are two characters who make your flesh crawl... one is an extremely imaginative villainous creature that is positively grotesque, yeah just check him out as seen here:












and the other was this horribly sadistic Spanish Fascist captain. Anyway the director Guillermo del Toro did an AMAZING job! The images really engage you emotionally. He really shows you evil, so much so that you process it viscerally. Go see the movie. It's well-worth the nauseating realism. $9.25 well spent.

my hair

I watched Stranger than Fiction at the dollar theater tonight and noticed once again how cute Maggie Gyllenhaal's hair is in that movie. Lately I've been thinking that I need to cut my hair mostly out of necessity since I haven't cut it since October or November. And now I'm thinking about cutting it much shorter. I'm talking about maybe 8 inches shorter or something maybe not as short as Maggie's.... It's still a thought. I nearly did it impetuously tonight but unfortunately (or maybe fortunately) my friend's roommate who cuts hair could not be found. I'm still seriously considering the prospect of chopping it off. Hey, it grows back! If you have an opinion either way let me know!

And to refresh your memory here's my hair as of Christmas break (not much has changed in 3 weeks)

the call

I was getting ready for work when my phone rang and the number 777-777-7777 appeared on the screen. My eyes grew wide as I wondered if I was receiving a divine call... Well almost. It was Carrie!!! The phone broke off, but I was able to talk to her tonight (her morning). Aaagh I miss her so much! Hey Carrie, I miss you.

Anyway yeah, I miss my 3 best girlfriends. Carrie is, well, in Asia, Sarah is at Cal Poly, and Dana is moving up to mt. hermon after being in Greece for 3 months. Dana was here this weekend and we had the greatest time! My highlight was a romantic dinner together at my house including music, candles, bruschetta, salad, pine ridge wine, fondue, and soy lattes. It was amazing! Romantic dinners are fun! I think I should have them more often. And by romantic I mean the secondary definition meaning sentimental or idealized.

And I really like Beth Moore. I shall go read some of her lovely writing now....

my baking stone and 3rd grade behavior

A snapshot into my life:

music: "Power of love" Celine Dion
noises: my feet rubbing, the heater pumping lovely warm air through the house vents
the floor: a mess, airport base station packaging and stuff from work
me: lying on my bed enjoying the wireless I set up and thinking....

It just struck me as funny. What can I say?

Life is good, except for one thing. Anyway I went to William Sonoma to use my Christmas gift card. Sheesh! That place is sooo expensive. I was hoping that amazing countertop mixer would be within my price range. (My gift card was $25) Yeah... not so much. I bought a baking stone. I can't wait to use it! It's random, but I've been wanting one and it only cost $32 opposed to $299.95 for the countertop mixer.

So I finished my first good amount of time with the kids at my new job. Let's review, shall we?

-beware of the phrase "this is boring" it's like kryptonite for teachers... all that work for the lesson and they tell you it's boring!
-science experiments with fire are always fun!!!
-make friends with the naughty kids and have them be your helpers
-so the kids sing inappropriate songs they hear on the radio, but I'm convinced they have no idea what they mean especially since one kid was singing, "booty booty booty rockin' in a well, rockin' in a well"
-French lessons are always a hit! Yes, I'm teaching ESL students French. If I need their attention I just start speaking French really fast then they pay attention, and it amuses me.
-frisbee is fun for everyone
-kids can say and ask profound things without knowing it. I had a lesson on Martin Luther King Jr. We read an excerpt of his speech and had a discussion afterward that was impressive! One girl asked, "Why do white people always have the power? Why not the black people or the brown people?" Oh how I wanted to go into that, but we were interrupted.
-clouds are fun
-rainy days are not fun for teachers
-the 5 p's are crucial for any undertaking! (Proper Planning Prevents Poor Performance)
-say something offensive about a person or people with disabilities and fear my wrath...
-kids naturally are concerned about others
-Miss Jenny's special student tickets are a hit!
-fun is very important to these kids
-you end up loving these kids, even the ones that can be pains sometimes

Now Jack Johnson is making me tired. So goodnight.

Friendship

I treasure nights like this when I am face to face with one of those wonderful people I have the privilege to call friends and am reminded of why I care for them as much as I do. Tonight I had tea at home with my best guy friend since freshman year. We have seen each other grow so much. I was so encouraged when he told me that I had grown into "an amazing woman" since freshman year. We both agreed that Paris was the turning point. So Sabrina, so cliche, but so true. And at the same time he called me out on a blindspot I have that is my eager embrace of intellectualism and that side of myself. Friends that can act as a mirror and can be honest with you are very rare, but he's one of those. And tonight I was reminded to embrace the person in all her glory and beauty that is Jenny, simply Jenny, aside from activities and accomplishments. No changing one fig leaf for another.


All that to say.... good things happen over a cup of tea

a thought...

I'm planning on going to Europe this summer, though I can't yet decide where I want to go. I like the idea of staying in one place for a while because I think it's a more worthwhile experience as opposed to going to 13 countries and spending only one or two days in each. Currently I'm playing with the idea of studying something somewhere for 1 or 2 weeks while I'm there. I really want to learn Spanish. Wouldn't it be amazing to learn Spanish in Spain??

Or study theology in beloved Oxford... Now that would be incredible.
go here: http://www.conted.ox.ac.uk/courses/international/theology.asp#whoisitfor

oh Thursday...

So today was loooong. I feel too tired to narrate, here are thoughts:

I work 8 hour days now, that's fun and means paying rent won't feel as painful.

I was talking to my roommate Summer about guys and its weird that we have to go OUT to meet guys because we won't just meet them in class or something. Not that I'm going to start hitting up singles' groups, but ugh nevermind I don't want to talk about it. Awkward.

I love my roommates! The three of us finally hung out together for a while. We talked about Allison's not-so-great blind date. Oh blind dates.... they're hell. But the stories are always worth hearing!!

Little Emma is so precious! The first part of my day is always a pleasure...

...but now instead of "The Girl who Owned a City" (remember that book??) I feel like the girl who swallowed a city. I now have a third job, well technically it's through the school district so now it's "miscellaneous income" on the paycheck I already receive. I'm a sub. teacher for the after school program and it's been heinous on my first two days. Apparently my 16 3rd graders who I'll have for about 2 weeks are "bad kids" and most of them are known by all the teachers at the school. Yikes. It is quite a challenge, which I like. I need to start planning some fun hands-on activities since they have sooo much energy! sheesh. I want to do that mentos diet coke geyser thing I saw on mythbusters a few months ago, but I don't know how I'd make it educational in a way that they would understand. We did fingerprinting today, that was sweet. Let me just say going from my 7 years of experience working one-on-one with kids with special needs to having 16 mischievious and often deceitful 3rd graders is quite a shift!

I do care about the kids despite themselves, which meant I had to do the hard part of that... I wrote up an abuse report for a kid. It's the first one I've done, but unfortunately I know it won't be the last.

Working and especially working at something I enjoy and challenges me is so incredible! Life is very good.

poker, theology, the sky, and the man I will cherish... (reasons for elation and hope)

What a lovely day, week, break... Some thoughts to serve as an outlet for the overwhelming enthusiasm for life I feel:

Poker is fun! I played for the first time and did very well. Yeah! And I was complimented by the guy who I was head to head with for the last few rounds who admired my courage. Though I did eventually lose all my winnings.

Friends from home are special, we realized tonight that most of us have been friends for 10 years!

Thinking about summer travels...

Thinking about writing books. Especially in partnership with my wonderfully imaginitive younger brother who told me he would get back to me on the prospect of working together. haha

I loooove books and theology!!!! Julian Norwich's "Revelations of Divine Love" as well as Joan Chittister's "In Search of Belief" and "Called to Question" are staring me down currently begging to be read. I must take a break from my literary love affair with Mr. Lewis to listen to the words and stories of my Christian mothers and sisters.... Dorothy Day, Mother Theresa, Joan Chittister, Julian of Norwich, Joan of Arc, Madeleine L'Engle, Simone Weil, Corrie ten Boom, etc. These women have so much to offer the body and so do the men of course. I just hope more protestant women will rise up as leaders in theology and elsewhere because most of the leading female theologians come from the Catholic tradition. Hmmm protestants....

Nature is amazing. I love the sky the most I think... I forced my brother to look at the sunset this evening despite his protest that he would "go blind" because it was absolutely breath-taking--the sky was on fire with orange and an amazing dusty gold pink. And on these cold windy nights the sky and the moon have been so clear!

My relationship history... well I like to call it a comedy of errors; some of it is hilarious because it is so ridiculous and all of it is riddled with mistakes, small and monumental. That is not why I am enthusiastic about life, it is just that I know how faithful and wonderful God is and that despite the past he has someone who will exceed my expectations! And when I imagine the "man of my dreams," I imagine a man with dazzling intelligence who loves theology, beauty, and academia in general. Someone who passionately loves and obeys God. Someone who I greatly respect and admire for his mind and his character. Who I can discuss complex concepts with and be challenged, learn, and even debate. I want to learn from him and I hope he will be able to learn from me. Who has a rich, full personality with layers, someone 3-dimensional. He must understand just "being", having the ability to just sit with me without words. Who makes me laugh and helps me not be too serious. Who is adventurous and will travel with me through the world and through life. This man I will cherish and love passionately for my whole life and he will love me with open arms and an open heart.


So maybe I gush sometimes...

spiders and drugs

faith for the future

Though my foe pursues me,
and evil grasps for my life--
I shall not be afraid.

The enemy knows my scent,
wolves bay in the darkness,
but you are my rear guard.

Every day it battles for me,
it knows where I am weak,
but you have made me stouthearted.

I am yours, it cannot take me.
You are with me, whom shall I fear?
In my weakness you are strong.
Therefore the enemy has no power here.
You go with me.