Oh Wisconsin How I Love Thee

So Thursday night I went to a bar downtown to meet up with Brian and some friends. We are sitting outside the bar enjoying our beers and people watching when a guy walked into the bar wearing a blaze orange knit hat. This wouldn't have been so weird had it been November and 20 below, but it was July and 80 degrees. Also would not have been so weird had he been going to some redneck bar, but he wasn't.
Anyway, it made me realize how much i have missed those little quirks of Wisconsin.

Insert witty comment here

So I am finally over the high of first coming back home. The excitement has worn off, i've seen most of my friends and visited my favorite places. Now it's back to being mundane Milwaukee. Oh well, it couldn't be exciting forever.
I finished reading the new Harry Potter. I can't say that it was my favorite of the series, but it was 1.) better than i expected and 2.) a great way to end the series. There are a few parts that i could have done without, but that'll happen in a 700+ page book. I think i am going to reread the 6th one again. I kind of forgot what happened in that book.
Yesterday i went to Chicago to visit Jon. It was a pretty good time. He has an AMAZING apartment and has gotten to know the city pretty well. We went to a neat little cafe for dinner and then went to an awesome bar for drinks. The bar has a bookshelf that has like 100 board games on it. So everyone in the place is playing some board game and yelling at their opponents. It's way fun! I won 1 game of Scrabble and 2 games of Trouble. I am awesome. But then i got a parking ticket, which made my winnings not so sweet.
In other, semi-morbid, news: yesterday was the anniversary of when my Grandma passed away. I still haven't been to her grave site yet. Maybe i'll go out there today. It also means that i arrived in Turlock one year ago yesterday. Wow, lots has changed since then!

New Job

I started my new job on Thursday. I'm a parking attendant at a parking lot near the Summerfest Grounds. It might be the most boring job ever. I work 9 hour days and don't really get to interact with people. I do get to listen to a lot of music on my iPod though, so if you have any musical suggestions please let me know.

Perks to this job:

• I get to drive a golf cart
• I'll get a suntan
• I don't have to think about it at all
• Old men flirt with me
  

Downfalls of this job:

• It's boring
• I work long hours
• Some of my co-workers are trying to set me up with another co-worker
• It takes up my whole weekend

I guess i just need to suck it up. It's good money and i can't turn that down right now. I'm glad it's Sunday night and i don't have to go back to work until Friday.

I started reading the new Harry Potter! I might not sleep tonight.

Pictures from Home

Lakefront Brewery Tour: The Best Brewery Tour Ever!


Wrigley Field


More Wrigley Field (Doesn't it look like i'm giving him the finger?)


Goose Island Brewery and their 1/2 lb. brat


Ginger and Jim being a cute married couple


On the "L"


The Art Museum

Home Sweet Home

I arrived in Milwaukee last night at 11:30. They lost my luggage, well they didn't lose it. It just didn't make on my flight when i transferred in Phoenix. It should come in sometime today and they will deliver to the house.
I think I'm going to Bastille Days with Brian and his girlfriend tonight. That should be fun. I remember always going to Bastille Days growing up, but never thinking it was very cool. But it'll be time spent with friends, so even if it's lame, it'll be worth it.
It's weird to be home. Everything is the same, but at the same time everything is so different. This is going to be an interesting 5 weeks.

Today was my last Sunday at Good Shepherd. It was kind of sad, but i got to say a lot of goodbyes that i didn't get to say last week. Now i'm not one to fish for compliments but when you leave somewhere people tend to tell you all the things they love about you. It's kind of nice. A lot of people told me that they think i did well here and that i will do well in Macau just because i'm an outgoing person. This compliment made me realize how much i have had to trust in God, because i do not consider myself an outgoing person at all. Actually i'm quite shy. I'm actually amazingly uncomfortable around people i don't know, but God gives me the abilities to get over that un-comfortableness when i need to.
On another note, my apartment is almost all packed up. I have shipped 10 boxes home so far and 4 are sitting in my apartment waiting for the post office to open tomorrow morning. I have a Goodwill pile that takes up most of my living room and 3 almost full suitcases that will accompany my on the place. Moving sucks!
On another very random note: My sister is the coolest person ever! She bought her husband a moped for his birthday! I'm so jealous!

Anyone want to be my date to a wedding next weekend? My friend Bethany is getting married in Milwaukee and I am kind of in need of a date since i won't really know anyone there. Anyone interested? :) You'll get to see me in a pretty outfit!

A Good Day

Yesterday two exciting things happened! First I got a cute new haircut and then after my haircut I walked over to the Gap and tried on some jeans. At the Gap I found out that I wear a size smaller than I thought I did. Which means that I have dropped 3 sizes since Christmas! Woohoo! Then I looked at the price tag of said smaller jeans and found that they only cost $10!

I guess that means three exciting things happened:
1. cute new haircut,
2. 3 sizes smaller
3. Jeans were only $10

You can't really tell that's a super cute, but she did take a ton of the weight and thickness out of my hair.

Home, Home on the Range

After a 2 hour layover in the Denver airport, a 1 hour layover on the plane, and a trip to Ikea, I am now back in Turlock. It was good to be home. My cat is starved for attention. I have no food in my apartment, and i need to do laundry. Ah, it's good to be home.

It's official!

I am officially certified at a Director of Christian Outreach! Finally! I had my exit interview this morning. It went quite well. I didn't cry or throw up (even though I wanted to do both), so I consider it successful. It really wasn't as bad as I thought it was going to be. They stumped me on a few questions, but helped me think through the answers, which was good. I'm so glad that it is done and over with.
Speaking of done and over with, missionary training ended last night with a commissioning service. It was a great end of the training. I feel ready to go, still scared, but ready. I'm excited to see how God is working in Macau and how He will use little ol' me in that process.
The past 3 weeks have been an emotional roller coaster, and I'm ready to go back to Turlock and sleep for like 4 days. Granted in the next 2 weeks I will be saying my goodbyes to the people at Good Shepherd, so I guess I'm not getting an emotional break. Oh well, God is faithful, he'll take care of me.

ADD in the Cities

As much as I love being at CSP, i wish missionary orientation was held somewhere else. I am very distracted by everything here. I kind of wish they would have done it in St. Louis, or even some random place in the middle of nowhere. Then i would focus and wouldn't be always waiting for class to be done so i could do something else.

Overwhelming

I know i just posted something, but i figured these are two different topics so it's okay.

So right now i am in St. Paul at Concordia doing my LCMS World Mission training. It has been great in so many ways: meeting new friends, seeing old friends, learning about what to expect, learning what not to do, going to my favorite places, showing people around. It has been great, but also very tiring. I haven't went to bed at a normal hour since i got here.
Other news, everyone has to talk to the pschologist while they are here for training. I talked to him yesterday and i broke down crying and it made me feel like I was crazy (which maybe since I am a female and all females are crazy...at least a little). He just made me more insecure than usual, not really a good feeling. But i guess it was good. He pointed out some personality disorders that might come up when i get put under a lot of stress, so they are things that i should look out for once i get there. It was an interesting conversation.
Otherwise i have had a lot of fun and it's been good to be back at my second home.

Devastation

I am back safe and sound from New Orleans. We had a great time and got a lot done. We got to do some yard work at a church in the 9th Ward, gut a house in that same area of town, and paint the inside of a woman's house. It was very hard work. I don't think i have ever worked so hard in my life.
There is still so much more to be done. There are over 100,000 houses that still need to be rebuilt, and more that need to be completely demolished and rebuilt. We stopped into Harrah's while we were there and talked to one of the casino workers. She told us about how when it used to rain she would stop whatever she was doing and curl up on her lazyboy and read a book. Now when it rains she gets nervous and is ready to pack her bags in case she needs to evacuate. It just broke my heart talking to her. She said she hasn't started rebuilding her home yet because she doesn't know who she can trust to do it. How sad is that? Apparently contracters were signing up to do jobs, taking the money and jumping town. So sad that people would take advantage of those in need.
Overall the trip was good and we enjoyed the work we did (well we enjoyed the finish product of the work we did). I'm glad to be done with it though. I can't handle more than a week of work like that.
Pictures to come soon....

And I'm out....

I am leaving for New Orleans today to lead a servant event. I'll be back in a week (and then immediately off to CSP for LCMS World Mission training).
I'll let you know how it goes when i get back.

Stories from a Chinese Student

I was e-mailed these stories by one of my chinese students.

1) Long long ,long long time ago,there was a guy who looks like...a bike.

One day,on the street, he squatted to lace up his shoes,and then, was ridden away by another one........................

2) Long long ,long long time ago,there was a boy whose head always was said by others that it just looks like a brick...

One day,he cried to ask his mother whether his head looks like a brick.And his mother didn't wanna break his heart,so she told he went to a well to look it by himself.

The boy went to the well and looked into it,while under the well came out a vioce -- "Hey! Dodn't throw dowm the brick!"

Gaahhh!!!!!

So i'm sitting here in Panera doing some homework and there's this couple sitting a table away. For some reason they are talking about faith stuff. He is talking about how religion is man's way of coping with life and how there are certain personality types that need christianity because otherwise they couldn't deal with their day to day life.
He also just said that there isn't anything special about Christianity that makes it different from any other religion. Umm.. yeah there is, Christianity is the only religion that you don't have to do any work to get to Heaven. Jesus did all the work for me! I just have to believe.
Oh goodness.... I want to punch this guy. Which i know that is not the right thing to do, but i don't even think i could talk to him. I would scream at him.

Last Visitor of Internship

Matt was the lucky one who will be the last person to visit me while I'm on internship, unless somebody's planning on coming and hasn't told me. I have been blessed this year to have lots of people come and visit. It's been great to show people around California and just be able to share this experience with others.
Most of you know that i like to play the "Good Idea/Bad Idea" game, so here's a list of good ideas and bad ideas from this weekend.

Good Ideas:

• Going hiking in Yosemite
• Seeing the Twins vs. the A's game in Oakland on fireworks night
• Seeing Knocked Up
• Going bowling
• Going mini-golfing
• Seeing Pirates
  

Bad Ideas:

• Not bringing sunscreen when hiking at Yosemite
• Swimming at 11 o' clock at night in an outdoor/unheated pool
• Letting Matt drive my car (He hit 2 animals in 1 day!)
• Seeing Bug

As you can see, the good ideas outweighed the bad ideas, so i guess that makes for a pretty successful weekend.
Here are some pictures from the weekend:

Hiking in Yosemite

At the Twins Game

Prayers have been answered!

I got a summer job! Well for the month i am home this summer, i got a job. This has been stressing me out, so i'm glad i got something figured out.
I'll be working at a parking lot over by the Summerfest grounds where i can charge exhorbent amounts of money for parking in the lot for 6 hours. My mom usually does it for her summer job, but she didn't want to this year and it just worked out that i can do it while i'm home.
This means i'll be working on weekends and won't be able to go to most of the festivals this summer, but i'm sure i can manage. I'd still love to get another weekday job. Maybe i'll mow people's lawns or something. I'll figure something out.

....

I don't really have much to update on. Life has been pretty normal. I went to Lake Tahoe last week for a retreat. That's about it. 42 days left of internship. That's about all. Oh and the Star Wars stamps come out next week... yeah i know i'm a nerd.

Correction to Last Post

Well i talked to Phil and we will do my exit interview when I am back at Concordia for World Mission Training week. This takes a load off. It will give me some more time to brush up on my Bible knowledge and stuff. But we also decided that my portfolio is due next week. I'm almost finished with everything that needs to be in it, now i just need to make it look nice.
Thanks to everyone who has been encouraging me on this, i appreciate it.