semester request

it has been requested by my dear old dad that i write a sort of "end of the semester" blog.  so this is it.  this is not necessarily the last blog for 2010, but it will be the last one before i come home from school.

this semester was everything i had ever dreamed of and expected from college and more.  i met amazing new friends, got involved, went on adventures, gained some maturity (how much lies in the eyes of the beholder) and of course studied a bit here and there ;)  i loved (almost) every minute of it and could not have asked for a better start to my college career.

so now it's finals time and at the moment i have taken 3 of my 4 finals, one that i aced, one that i b-ced, and one that i'm hoping didn't completely ruin my gpa.  we'll have to see about that one.  astronomy and i were not the best of friends test-wise this semester.  i'm glad our paths will not meet again.

now everyone knows that you can't study for hours on end without breaks.  that's just nuts and it will drive you nuts.  so what do i do during my breaks, you ask?  i bead, of course!  here are a few of my most recent pieces!

this one and the (future) headband below it are currently for sale (wink)!  $10 and $20, respectively

 this one was inspired by a piece of spanish tile for my good friend, Brittney Bell!  she is studying in Spain next semester and asked for a "spanishy looking one".  you can read her blog about Spain by clicking here.

i don't limit myself to beading, though.  there are great mind games and quizzes to do at Sporcle.com and amazing YouTube videos to watch...like these:

yeah...they're just great!  so there you have it.  an end of the semester blog, full of links to follow, pictures to look at, and fun to read about.  enjoy!

enjoyable?

in my 19 years on this earth i have come to realize a few things.  one of those things is that studying is not at the top of my list of "enjoyable" activities.  it's just not.  however, there are a few things that make it slightly more enjoyable, and at the moment those things are:

1. Tazo Chai Tea

2. an awesome iTunes playlist

3. and snackboxes provided by the UNT Parent Association

with the help of these 3 things i'm hoping to make it through the rest of dead week and finals week.  eep!

in other news, i have an interview tomorrow at 12:30 for BSM leadership.  i'm praying that it goes well and that the Lord places the correct people on the hearts of those choosing the leadership team.

that is all i have to say.  i know this is a pretty lame post but i needed a study break.  don't judge.

the news

there could only be 3 reasons why you are reading this blog post:
1. you are here to find out what my exciting announcement from yesterday is
2. you are a regular reader/subscriber of my blog
3. you saw this posted on facebook and decided to investigate and you now have plans to stalk the rest of my blog.

its ok if you have to admit to being a #3 person.  i don't mind. haha!

i won't keep you waiting any longer cause i just know i've had you on the edge of your seat wondering what my exciting announcement is!  to put it simply...i made it to "round two" of interviews for World Changers summer staff!!!!!

now, i realize that not everyone who reads this blog will know what World Changers is so i'll do my best to explain.  World Changers is a missions organization that organizes (how ironic that an organization actually "organizes", right? ha!) week long mission trips across the country for youth groups from southern baptist churches.  they do construction on houses and buildings in need, they provide services for people in the communities that they are working in and they just generally love on those around them.  every summer WC hires around 60-70 college students who have been on previous WC trips to be on teams that basically run the show for the time that they are in a particular city, and i applied to be one of those summer staffers!

my process started back in july when i went on a WC trip to North Pole, AK.

i spoke to one of the team members about being a summer staffer and decided that it was definitely something i was interested in.  it would be $250 a week for about 10 weeks in the summer to serve and minister to others all over the country.  i would totally do it for free but i don't mind at all that it's a paid job ;)  anyway, when i got home i started the lloooonnnnnggggg application and had it turned in by the end of september (it wasn't due until november...haha!).  after that it was just a waiting game.

about a week into november i received an email from WC saying that they would like to interview me over the phone.  awesome!  not everyone gets a phone interview so i was super stoked about that!  the next step in the process was to get invited to WC interview weekend in good ole' Nashville, TN at the end of january. 

well, you guessed it (and i already said it earlier in the blog so no points for guessing)!  i was invited to that weekend in january!  that is still not a guarantee of getting hired, but its a start!  this has been the desire of my heart for the past few months and it has been great to see how awesome God is and how faithful he is to answer prayers.  of course, he would be worthy of praise even if i did not get selected to attend the weekend.  i'm sure with all of my heart that he has a plan for me and his plan is better than mine any day, but i won't lie and say i'm not excited about how well this has worked out!  for those of you who knew about this already and have been praying for me, thank you!  i really appreciate it!  keep those prayers comin cause i still need them!

so that's my news!  i hope it was worth the anticipation i built up about it!  it totally was for me :)

if you wanna find out more about World Changers you can check them out on their facebook page or on their website at http://www.world-changers.net/

until next time, goodbye, my loves!

(insert clever title here)

oh boy, oh boy, what an eventful few weeks its been since i last blogged.  i've just had so much to do and the time that i would have usually used to blog has been taken up by more productive things...like sleeping and eating between doing loads of homework and some socializing.  college can be a little over-stimulating.  phew!  i'm over stimulated just thinking about how over-stimulating it is!


soooo yeah.  i have been in a bit of a beading frenzy lately (see excuses, excuses blog) and i just love it!  there is great satisfaction in seeing a project finished.  and it helps that beading and designing projects is a great distraction from homework when i need it.  i just finished a couple of pieces that i really like, and in a way i'm expanding my skills with one of them.  i finally branched out to something other than bracelets and i made my first beaded headband over thanksgiving break!  let me know what you think!

this giraffe is very similar to the first one i posted except this one has a border.

in other news, my foot is healing up very nicely.  everything went off without a hitch and i'm feelin fine.  i'll spare you a picture of that though cause pictures of feet (or scars, for that matter) are never attractive.

also, also, also!!!!!  i'm sooooooo excited!  i have some great news but i feel like that story deserves its own blog.  tune in tomorrow to discover the reason for my extreme excitement!  maybe if you're lucky ill post another blog today...now thats just unheard of!