Being Content

Last summer I was not content at all. I didn’t stay with anything very long and was just unsure about everything. As my world fell in on its self after graduation, I realized that growing up was hard. But then I came to the Hill and everything was perfect and I couldn’t have been happier with my life. I was pretty sure that nothing could ever go wrong and that this place was absolutely perfect. However, nothing can stay perfect forever because that would just get boring. Right? Well, I wish it would have stayed that way.

Here I am in a place that I love with people that aren’t half bad and some of them I would even honor calling them best friends. However, real life compared to fairy tales - where everything ends the way the main character wants it to, has come back to me. My fairy tale has ended and I am being hit with the harsh reality that my life isn’t actually a fairy tale. So, if that wasn’t clear - I am not content. I am just plain old unhappy and beginning to have a harder time at hiding it.

I arrived on a Wednesday and was so excited to be back and seeing everyone. Things were great and I couldn’t imagine being anywhere else. Things last semester weren't always easy but I always felt like this is where I should be. However, this feeling of not being content has taken over, I thought it would pass and that it was only because the first weekend had come and I missed home a bit. A whole week has gone by and nothing has changed. I still feel like this isn’t for me.

There have been some pretty good times in this past week and a half that we’ve all been here. But they don’t last, the happy go lucky feeling always leaves and I am left feeling out of place in a way or like I am just a visitor here. I have lots of friends, it’s not like I’m loner but even when I am with them and we are laughing and having a good time, my heart just isn’t there and isn’t into it.

So, now with all that said, all I am doing is praying most of the time. Trying to figure out what in the world is going on inside of me and why I can’t shake it off. I know I like to travel and moving isn’t a problem for me. However, I want to see this year through with these people, I can’t imagine leaving them part way and not finishing together because we started together. And I am not saying that I have already started packing because I haven’t. All I really know is that something is not right.

Please Pray.
a.m

Adventure Time

Wednesdays are normally filled with long classes and fun afternoons at outreach. Probably the best day of the week, however, this Wednesday was a little bit different than most. Jordyn and I were waiting to hear what time we’d be leaving for outreach when Levi said ours had been canceled for the week. Oh no! What were we going to do all afternoon while everyone else was gone? Hmmm…thinking…idea! Its adventure time!

One of the Canadian guys drove down to school in September and was more than willing to let us use his car as long as we didn’t get in any accidents and filled his tank. Easy enough! The one thing left now is to figure out what to do with all our free time. As we drove off of the Hill we figured the best thing to do would be go to Wal-Mart and the Dollar Tree for some cheap snacks and goodies.

Life has been so busy since we got here finding time when no one else is around to talk isn’t the easiest. But when you are the only two people in the car and going to be together all afternoon it works out for talking quite well. It was an afternoon spent the best way – chilling with you bestie! We walked around Wal-Mart looking for the best deal and were amazed that everything in the Dollar Tree is actually a dollar.

Overall it was a very good afternoon spent! Probably one of the best days we’ve had here yet.
love,
a.m

Here we are again

The first half week is over. I didn’t think we would jump right into classes but we did. Thursday morning we started and got homework. So long for a chill first weekend back. For me things are mainly the same but they have changed a little. Like my room, I have two of the same room mates and then I have one of the new girls and then a girl from last semester was moved into my room. So it’s different but yet a lot the same. Noelle and I pulled out bunks apart so that neither of us would have a top bunk. Which is awesome and gives our room a whole new feeling; I enjoy being in my room so much more now because I can hang out on my bed without climbing up and down all the time.

One of my favorite guest speakers from last semester is coming this coming week and this time he is bring his wife and two daughters. Last time he talked about creation & evolution and this time he is going to talk about world views. I am so excited to hear him again. However, he is kind of hard to take notes on because he is all over the place but I am alright just listening and taking it in sometimes too.

Last night we had a game night and played a bunch of group games with who ever came to the Fish house. It was a lot of fun. We laughed until we were crying and holding out tummies. It was a good way to start the semester off, bonding with the four new students and being able to catch up with everyone else. We are trying to put together something awesome together for tonight as well. By the time supper rolls around everyone is going to be done with doing homework and ready to have some fun.

Love,

a.m

2012

12 Random Things I learned

1.       Going with the flow is sometimes better than planning everything in your head.

2.       Ketchup chips need to be taken worldwide.

3.       Hard work pays off.

4.       Every day is a new challenge.

5.       Every yoga pose can be modified.

6.       It’s easy to be a sore winner than loser.

7.        Grapes are delicious.

8.        Writing in cursive is slower than typing, faster than writing in print, and more liberating than both.

9.        It is good to talk.

10.    There is always someone to blame.

11.    We can get inspiration from unlikely sources.

12.    Mexican food isn’t my favorite.

12 Things kinda about God I learned

1.       God loves me unconditionally in spite of me. He LOVES me.

2.       Broken hearts heal. And if you let God be the healer and restorer, He’ll put you back together better than before.

3.       Pleasing God is more important that trying to please a person.

4.       I learned to remember what makes me happy: My family, my friends, my dreams, my talents, my gifts, & giving back.

5.       I learned to forgive and forget. Not for others, but for my freedom. Let go, let God and watch your life change.

6.       I realized my obsession with Derek Jeter may have gone too far.

7.       I learned eating Subway, Starbucks, & Tim Horton’s multiple times a week isn’t good for you.

8.       I learned time management.

9.       I learned God will take our mistakes, mess ups, and seemingly bad situations and bring a wonderful outcome that we couldn’t have expected or imagined!

10.   Sometimes when things don’t happen the way you’d hoped they would, they turn out better than you could have imagined.

11.   I learned who I am: A loved, forgiven, redeemed child of God, created for a purpose.  

12.   It’s important to surround yourself with people who are so proud of you they’re confident you’ll win a Nobel Prize one day.

Christmas

It has come and gone now. The advent calendars and count downs can be put away for 11 months and thus beginning a new year with new challenges, new people and new situations. So my Christmas, well it was surely different than years past, never before have I attending five family gatherings, four present opening or had that much turkey in one week. However, with all of that, it was wonderful, so many people to celebrate with and also reconnect with after being away since September. If I could I would go back and start the whole week over again, I wouldn’t add anything to the week and surprisingly I wouldn’t take anything away, not even one of the turkey dinners or when I got sat on. I could go on and list all the foods I ate, all the gifts I got and all the times I laughed until I cried. But that wouldn’t do anybody any good because those are my memories from my holiday and not yours. Everybody has their memories from their Christmas and has their own traditions (something I thought we, Archers, lacked in until they started). So, that is all I will say about my Christmas, just that is was one of the best yet.

I was asked if this was the best Christmas yet and I couldn’t say yes as in yes it was by far much better than all the rest but I could say yes because it was different than all the rest. I have spent four Christmas’s outside of Canada in three different countries and those are the ones I remember, I am sure I spent at least one in the USA with my American side of the family (however it would have been when I was younger and I hardly remember anything from those days). For me, there are no two Christmas’s that are the same, the ones I remember are all so different from each other, I wouldn’t even know where to start comparing them to each other. So, yes this was the best Christmas but only because I haven’t had one quite like this before.

Love,

a.m

Saskatchewan

So, I am home. This is so weird to say, three months felt like one day with a few naps.  That was really what it was like, and since most nights I was going to bed late and waking up semi-early it really was just like having a nap in the night time. But oh my, how nice it is to be home. To actually be allowed to make my own food, not have to climb into my bunk and here’s the big one, being able to watch TV (which I have now realized after watching TV, that there really isn’t anything on to watch). So many freedoms were taken away and that just became how life was down there, that I began to forget how many freedoms I have at home. That was until I went into the kitchen Saturday night to get something to eat, I felt a little overwhelmed by how much choice I had, it wasn’t all laid out for me but I actually had to do everything myself. Well I would have had to do everything for myself if my dad didn’t come in after I opened and closed the fridge for maybe the fourth time while my eyes popped out of my head. Now that day two of being home is done, I can say I did get myself food and figured out where everything in the house is since the house doesn’t look the way I left it on September 12.

Home Sweet Home!

a.m

Work Day

I can now count down using my fingers until the day I come home. HOORAY! As exciting that is, there is also another side of this coming home thing that isn’t so much fun – cleaning. We have to clean everything. I am not joking here when I say everything, there are lists everywhere and we have to go around finding our names to find out which things we have to do. Here is some of what we have to do:

In our rooms – the walls, the tall closets, the ceiling, the windows, the desks, the cupboards, the carpet, the beds, the mattress, the garbage bins, the walls, the fan, the door and the drawers. There can be no trace of sticky tack being on the walls, none of our stuff can be left in the room and the beds have to be put back the way we found them.

In the dorm – each tile on the floor, the glass sliding doors, all the windows, the walls, the staircases, the sofas/chairs, the tables, the lamps, the doors and the curtains.

In the bathroom – the drawers, the shower curtains, the walls above the showers, the toilets, the door, the tiled flooring, the light bulbs, the ceiling, the cupboards and the towel racks.

If it is not done and looking the way the staff want it they will take away our down payment or something like that. So we are all freaking out since that is a heck of a lot of work to do while we are still living here, going to classes and then they, as in the staff, have some end of the term ‘fun stuff’ planned for us. So when are we meant to clean? Yeah that is a question nobody has a really great answer too. It will probably end up being done Wednesday night since dorm check is Thursday at 1:30 but we are out until 1pm that day. Anyways, that’s what is going on at the Hill these days.

8 days and counting,

a.m