wow, what a crazy weekend! it was fun and it was hard and it was emotional. i feel drained and not terribly prepared for the busy week that is ahead of me. i have so much to think about -- more than my homework will allow time for -- and am already counting the days until the end of A quad. yes, that's right, only six more tuesday-thursday classes left, and eight more monday-wednesday-friday classes! yesss!

i love our lbc college group and jill and lisa and cindy and all of the people who take care of us so well. lisa had the entire group over to her house for a feast of a sunday lunch. she is incredible beyond words, and a natural mother/caretaker. i love getting her big hugs. and it was so good and painful to remember bruce and introduce the freshmen to the man who would have been their college pastor. i didn't -couldn't- share any of my memories, but they are plentiful. the Holy Light, the striped trick-or-treating shirt, the deodorant brand fetish, the smurfs, the days when he was the most eligible bachelor in the church and mrs. lauffer used to tease a certain someone about that all the time (haha, you know who you are), coming back from summer sophomore year and learning he'd gotten engaged, then meeting a fabulous and hilarious woman named jill. his particularity for the band's worship songs and his deep desire that the band should give thought to the words they were singing. it's been a hard weekend for me.

and holy cow! i am nervous about the half marathon! it's THIS SUNDAY! i just went on a short run, and i am having problems. i need a kines major to help me out. this is going to be a patheticly ignorant description, but...you know the muscle that runs up from your ankle, on the inside of the leg? mine are SO tight and feel very uncomfortable when i'm running and i can't figure out how to stretch them. can anyone clue me in?

i dropped one of my classes yesterday. i am now taking the bare minimum credits required for a full-time student. i feel like a slacker, but i was in over my head.

the junior research paper is completed and turned in. now i can be a real history major.

wish i could say what i'm really thinking on here. but not this time.

SO MUCH WORK to do. at the beginning of this semester, the Wheaton College president spoke in chapel about "Camp Wheaton" -- the excitement of coming to college, and the feeling of being at summer camp all year long, and the reality that that feeling ends as soon as the homework starts piling up and the temperature drastically drops. all of the freshmen were nervously laughing in their seats, and everyone else was unabashedly laughing and thinking to themselves, "Yeah, the freshmen have no idea. Just wait." the freshmen probably toured Wheaton's campus in May, which is pretty much a complete misrepresentation of what life here is like during our six month winters. well, the winter season may not have begun yet, but trust me when i say that Camp Wheaton ended about the third day of classes for at least all of the upperclassmen i know. i know my roommates and i wish there were at least 27 hours in a day.

on another note, last night's soccer game was fun...sorry, calvin students, but our men's team took the victory. i was supposed to go on a long run today, but i am still battling a cold and a bit of a fever, and according to tebbe, it's best to chill. this weekend is officially dedicated to my JUNIOR RESEARCH PAPER (twilight zone music enters here) -- that dreaded thing required of all history majors. it's due this friday (gasp!) and i think i still need to add several pages to it. oh vay.

i ADORE holidays, specifically long weekends. this is definitely a recovery weekend for me and most students at wheaton. we've already been practically pummeled with homework and activities and meetings, and now it's time to chill. jade and i went to the french market this morning -- if you haven't visited the outdoors lately, STOP READING THIS AND GO OUTSIDE! the prairie path is beautiful, and the weather is perfect. we don't belong indoors on days like this!

i feel like the Lord has really been speaking to me about priorities and what is eternally valuable lately. "ruthlessly eliminate hurry" -- right, LBC peeps? at the end of this life, what will matter? that we knew Christ and proclaimed his glory unashamedly. i know, i know, there is value in the things i am learning at wheaton. they'll equip me to be a more responsible agent of change in the future (hopefully). that said, i so often get the means and the ends and the overarching picture mixed up.

"i am still confident of this: i will see the goodness of the Lord in the land of the living. wait for the Lord; be strong and take heart and wait for the Lord." (ps 27:13-14)