life

it's a friday night and i am sitting alone in my dorm room doing homework. how things have changed from last year. i'm not going to lie. right now, i really miss last year. i miss having tons of people around that i knew. i miss wandering up to the fourth floor to see what people were doing and just hanging out in people's rooms. things are so different this year. i've mostly resigned myself to the fact that housing makes poor decisions, but i really wasn't expecting their decision to not allow upperclassmen in the dorms to affect me so much. sure, the freshmen wouldn't have the same built-in structure and community when they moved into the dorms, but i never dreamed that i would be missing that so much. it's a bit like living in the upperclassmen dorms last year, minus having the refuge of the honors dorm.

it's left me kind of lonely and with the feeling that i'm drifting. there's no group of people that i'm always around, no close group of friends. i'm in a funk and it's about to drive me crazy. i hate people and yet i want to cling to people at the same time, yet withdraw myself. i don't understand myself and i get frustrated. there's so much stuff that i need to deal with and yet i have no motivation and no energy.

i suppose that once again i will have to learn how to meet people. it's something i always forget how to do. i suppose i have to do it every year, but it's never seemed to intimidating.

oh well, life goes on. and i've never had a semester that wasn't better than the last. God is good.

visitation

i got kicked out of evans 4 past visitation hours tonight. the semester has now officially begun.

facebook

facebook is great for many reasons. today, however, i got a message that just made the entire thing worthwhile. i have a facebook account at mizzou too, for no apparent reason, just felt like it. all the information on it is wrong, though. so the other day i got a message. it read like this: "who is this, and why do you have that you live in Tri Delt in room 18?" yup folks, my secret life is finally catching up with me. apparently she is actually the one living in tri delt room 18. bummer.

in other news: i ate my cheerios with chopsticks last night. they were good.

i think i am more on top of my electronics class than i was. yay for office hours. i, however, know nothing about real-world applications. unfortunate since we have to build a robot for that class.

met some boys in evans4 last night. i had kind of already met them before, but it was still pretty cool. i think the stairwell might become my study room again soon. while andrea and i were up there, we saw the paint cans from what used to be evans4 and andrea suggested that we salvage them. so now we have 5 partially-full paint cans in our room. i need to stop listening to andrea.

that's all. need to finish up some homework in matlab...

sabrina

andrea made me row a 5k today and i pretty much hurt all over. yesterday's theory is proven again.

sarala

i finished mere christianity today. i consider this week a success now. i suppose it really only took me three months from when i last started it to finish, which sounds a lot better than the year it took me from starting it the first time and finishing it.

i've been listening to share the well (caedmon's call) and why should the fire die? (nickel creek) albums over itunes. they are both absolutely amazing. i think i'm going to have to purchase them soon. my ipod wants new music.

this week was actually fairly blah. i seem to be the only one who thought this. everyone else seemed to have a lot of homework/just general bad weekishness.

i was talking to andrea about crew tonight and she was really making me want to do it. that girl has probably more influence on me than is good for me, or perhaps it's just that everthing sounds interesting to me. anyhow, i remembered that i don't know how to swim. just sunk that boat (sorry for the pun). i should probably figure out how to swim pretty soon. i'm still mildly bitter at my parents. i'm pretty sure naomi and seth got swimming lessons. my poor future potential children. i think they're going to start swim lessons when they're two...

currently reading: blue like jazz, donald miller
currently listening: when in rome, nickel creek

my favorite things...

so, i think today is one of my favorite days of the semester. it's the day the spring schedule comes out on enroll. i know, i am pathetic.

in other news, engineers without borders is now an official ou student organization and has made it on the national webpage. neat.

love is harder than a word

do you ever feel like a worst version of yourself. as though you knew if you could see yourself from someone else's perspective, you would hate yourself even more than you do right now. that you're screwing everything up and you just can't seem to stop yourself. that you do things you don't want to, but you don't want to do the things that you should.

i feel like a hateful, selfish, grumpy, mean, lazy, unmotivated, unloving jerk right now. i feel disappointed with myself and fearful that i won't be able to get myself out of this rut. but that's just it. i can't. there's no way i can. only God can. only by His blood. only through His saving grace. there is nothing i can do, nothing that i will ever be able to do that can make things better. only once i turn to God and admit my weeknesses to Him will i have the strength to become the person i want to be, the person he wants me to be.

As obedient children, do not conform to the evil desires you had when you lived in ignorance. But just as he who called you is holy, so be holy in all you do; for it is written: "Be holy, because I am holy."
-I Peter 1:14-16

How great is the love the Father has lavished on us, that we should be called children of God! And that is what we are! The reason the world does not know us is that it did not know him.
-I John 3:1

away from the sun again

i was thinking about engineers without borders today and looking at stuff on their website. it kind of got me thinking about the peace corps and what i want to do with my life. my education right now is preparing me for the rest of my life and my future career. i'm not actually sure i've ever thought of it that way. in the past, i've always thought, "well, i'm going to be a professor, so i'll teach, advise students, and do research if i have to." but, i started thinking today, how would i feel if the help and support i could give to people in other countries was limited by the fact that i was just sliding by in school. obviously, i'm not literally just sliding by in school. i have a good gpa, i learn the material. usually though, i do a lot of learning the material just for the test. i remember very little of what i learned last semester. granted, i've had a whole summer full of other stuff to help me forget, but i still find my recollection levels unacceptably low.

it's so much more inspiring to want to learn material so i will have the necessary skills to help other countries develop, than to want those skills so it will land me a good job with a good company. my main goal in life is not earning money. i want to have a job that i enjoy and where i feel like i am helping people. i can't exactly see myself designing chips for a living for the rest of my life. it's easier to see myself writing code, but i definitely know human interaction is important to my sanity though.

i really do want to go abroad though. i want to visit third world countries, i want to experience life as they do. and when i leave, i want it to leave a lasting impression of what is really important. in the grand scheme of things, i feel that the degree i'm going for is really quite worthless. it's a degree aimed at convenience more than necessities. i know that's not really true, because the implications of some of the current research going on makes other more "worthwhile" pursuits possible.

i really don't know what this post was about. it may be incoherent when i read it in the morning. we'll see.