Baggage Departure

So my new manager, Sheridan came into town yesterday. It was good to see him, Travis, and Simba all together again. To be such good friends, we really don't see each other much. It's strange how we can just pick up things like we haven't been away from each other for 3 months.

By the way I'm sitting in photography learning about the first photos and how they were created. Exciting. NOT.

Ok sorry. We had a meeting yesterday and it really challenged me in theory. So many times I go to meetings, church, or seminars that challenge me. They honestly challenge me to change and to be different. The problem lies with continuing the pattern and keeping my life consistent. We talked about how to let go of our baggage yesterday, mainly the summer. We cannot dwell on the summer and what we did wrong or else when those fears come back to us next summer, we will have the worries of the new summer and the ones from old summer. Sheridan helped us grasp the concept by explaining that we do this all the time with relationships (old girlfriends), grades, and all kinds of normal life events. To unload that baggage it's tough for me to decide who and when to talk about it.

Sometimes my issues or problems can be solved on my own. Other times I need to get another opinion in order to really see the big picture. My problem is figuring out what problems to share and what problems need to be fixed internally. There are plenty of things that we could ask other people, but ultimately the decision to be made has to be our own. However, there are other things that I keep inside and really I should be getting help with. My default is just to keep things in because it seems like every time I share something my opinion changes. It's like I tell someone my situation and they figure out the variables and my stances on each of these variables, but then it changes as soon as I leave the meeting. Simply by verbalizing my options and which one I lean toward, my mind becomes open to the other side. So the person I just talked to thought my view was from one point, but then I switch feel as if that whole conversation was a waste. Anyway, I also feel like my blogs and even my communicating in general has become vague. I feel like I can't express my self in the way that want and the messages I send are often blurry.

One last thing. I read another blog that had a cool idea. The main thing is this question: What's one risk you can take this week to make the world a better place?

I told you so.

So the last line of my blog was that today would be different. Honestly the day as a whole was not different, my attitude still wanted to be pissed. Well luckily, I proved that I learned something from last summer. I am in control of my emotions. In life we have to control the controllables and let everything else go. It is so not worth it to worry about things that are out of our hands. We cannot control other people's attitudes, the weather, or the fact that bad things will happen to us. As humans we are capable of creating a great attitude or outlook regardless of all those things previously mentioned. So I did. I wanted to stop being thick headed and just enjoy these last couple of weeks. Why? because that way I can have an enjoyable summer and an enjoyable next semester.

Another thing, is the wonderful world of communication. I am so thankful that I am a communication major and that I am able to learn things in class that are applicable to my life right after class. Granted sometimes it takes me a while to really learn them, but it pays off. When you realize that talking things out really does help, then you realize how dumb you have been for not expressing yourself. It's not enough just to write about it on this blog, or in your head or to other people. You have to go straight to the source. If you have a conflict with someone tell them, not their friends, go directly to them and straighten it out. It simplifies life and reduces the drama. That's all, time to go read, go to bed, and possibly post tomorrow!

Memory

So I just had one of best conversations of my college career, but there were so many topics there is no way that I could regenerate it. In fact, I don't know that I'm supposed to be able to. Maybe it was just one of those conversations that you figure things out and then they become part of you so much so that you don't even realize it did. Got it? That was a little confusing.

I know that I should be doing case study number 13 for my HR class, but instead I'm learning about relationships,society, stress,the past, God, and what is really important in life. I highly doubt that I will learn and retain as much as I just did in the past hour and a half. There's so much going through my head that I want to translate here, but I wouldn't even know where to begin. Also there are parts that simply cannot be displayed due to the nature of my viewers. The most important thing I learned is that when you know you're accepted by God and you really feel it, you won't worry or care about what other people think. All of the feelings of comparison to others or living up to the standards of our society vanish. Once you find that little sliver of security, it blasts into every area of your life. Find a way to reveal that you are loved and believe it. Once you do, life becomes more fun.

Thanks to my friends who help me find the type of love God shows each one of us. I know each of us hears this over and over, but only once you experience it will you understand why so many people are talking about it. The feeling of acceptance and self-worth is an awesome thing.

I can't stay away!

Here I am in bed again. I find that blogging at the end of my day helps me to see what I have accomplished or thought about during my day. Today I had thoughts but I also spent nine hours of my day with my friends. How awesome and ridiculous is that? The funny thing is that we didn't do anything spectacular or what most would qualify as fun. We just spent quality time together and talked. I wish all of my relationships could involve going somewhere and just talking. Anyway I'm just so thankful that I have such enjoyable friends. The only thing I have to worry about now is my last few weeks of schoolwork...to orrow is hump day woohoo!

Again

Two days in a row impressive huh? I find it very easy to blog just before I go to bed. All my thoughts from the day are unwindng and I have to use my iPod to sleep because my nieghbors love to play the guitar into the late hours of tomorrow when I should be sleeping. That being said I want to blog more go remember more. I want to learn from my mistakes. I want to watch how God answers prayers. I also want to just talk more and get these feelings and thoughts out.

All right well tonight my friend and I discovered that I like to skip on to new things frequently, including relationships. It could be because of hurt from past relationships, having to actually work at the relationships or something else. Anyhow I don't want to let myself take an easy way out or to just abandon people because things get hard. I think it will b a great thing for me to be conscious of and to really work on.

iPod post

I just realized that I can blog from my iPod touch. I love everything about apple products. They are so useful and efficient. Now on to real business. I love finding people that you can feel comfortable around. Believe it or not in the past two or three weeks I have an awesome group of people. I didn't really plan or try to make it happen but I m so glad in did. The real reason i'm writing this blog is to be thankful and to use my iPod ha ha j/k. In my last blog I talked about enjoying the spontaneity of life. The times when you feel so happy and really forget about the 20 pages you should be writing. Instead you get to rePly get to know somone or maybe a lot of someones. The sad part is that it will end. Summer is coming so quickly and I want to spend as much time with all my friends as possible. I k ow we'll be back next semester,but I don't want to wait that long. When I get to hang out and talk about future wives or cars or the way we want to live it excites me. It makes me look forward to life and the things to come. The relationships that God has then me this semester make me want to never grow up and for us to get stuck in a time space contiuum. I don't know if I spelled that right but who cares. I'm trying to be deep right now. All I really want to do is say thanks to the people in my life right now that are bringing so much joy and woo hoo to me. That is all.

The Few, The Proud, The Asburians

So over the past couple of days a friend and I went from Asbury all the way to Parris Island. Our goal was reached when we saw our other friend graduate from the Marines. While we were down there, we felt very inspired. Being around all the Marines and seeing proud parents, friends, and family it's a very emotional time. Even though my friend was just a friend, it still made me want to join the Marines. Obviously I am not going to right now. My goal for now is to finish college and then we'll see where God leads me.
Hearing him talk about his experiences, and just hearing how much he appreciates life so much makes you want what he has. While the military will definitely change your life, I think most of it is for the better. If you can endure the hardships and push yourself through then everything just seems better. He was telling us that he is less selfish, gets along with his family better and he just seems more confident in life. It's a good change.

After hearing all that I think I have learned similar lessons in this hard time at Asbury. I appreciate my family a lot more than I did even six months ago. I enjoy school. I appreciate the opportunities that are in front of me.

I'll be honest, I thought about a lot of things this weekend and it's hard for me to say what all is on my mind. Last night all I could think of was the blogs that were in my head. This has become kind of like a site of life aspects that I learn. I think I should sort my thoughts then come back and give them the time that they need.

Best Thursday Ever!

So you ask yourself, why is thursday so awesome?? It's the day before friday of course!!!

Well yesterday I was not excited about thursday and going to classes. After lunch, things turned around. I check my college postal box, CPO for short, and found a letter. The letter was from my Marine buddy Wiley Adams. I was so excited to hear from him. He's going through basic now and appears to be enjoying himself. I immediately wrote him back and that helped my day out some.

The other great thing that happened was a sweet concert I went to. Kellie Pickler (just hot that's about it), Rodney Atkins (great artist), and Brad Freakin Paisley. Ohhh man it was awesome. He has so many good songs that it made the night awesome. The only part that sucked about the concert was that my 8 friends bought their tickets together and i was not going to pay for someone else's ticket to go with me because they were $60. So I was sitting by myself. I eventually wandered down to talk with another girl. Things started out ok, and eventually i got the hint that she didn't really want to talk anymore. That's all for now.

New Friends

So this weekend I thought things were going to be dull as usual, but instead I talked with a friend, David Michaud and told him I wanted to make things happen this weekend. Wow, things happened. I attended a jazz concert, Kresge cafe, hung out with people playing capture the flag, then finally went to Taco Bell and an old bridge. Along the way I talked with soooo many people. I loved it. I got to interact with people that I knew of, but didn't really know. I also want to start hanging out with a guy named Abraham Parker. He is amazing at music. Seriously all kinds of music. Today we mixed a beat and it is sooooo fresh. I just want to say how much it propelled my motivation to keep music prevalent in my life. That's all.

Old Friend

First, last night I said I was going to write another blog right after, but I luckily got to talk to a friend that I haven't talked to in a long time. His story is interesting. He started out as a troubled guy, rough home life, and then he was married and had one little girl with his wife. After a while they began to come to our church. Well as it turned out, Brian, my friend decided that he was going to go back to college. He started back at school and also discovered that he was called to the ministry.
After a while, school got tough and a lot of things started sparking up in his home. His wife left him, I'm really not sure what all happened but things got bad. Then later probably a year or two ago, I found out that they had gotten a divorce and she remarried. He ran from God and he tried to commit suicide. The police came and he wound up in an insane asylum. He wasn't truly crazy or anything, but he was definitely unstable.
Anyway, I was talking to him last night, he randomly logged onto msn messenger. We began talking about his life things in my life also. We each talked about our relationships with God and how they were lacking right now for sure. He also expressed a lot of embarrassment from his previous experiences with suicide and being locked up. I tried to help him out and tell him that people still cared about him and that he should just start interacting with people again. Any advice you think I should give him???

Awkward People Meets

Alright so I was thinking today about how many people that I know of on campus, but don't really know. It is also awkward when you know a person through someone else, for example your best friend hangs out with someone so you know their name and hear stories about them but have never actually introduced yourself. It's kinda awkward I'm not gonna lie. What is even worse is after you talk to them about something you have in common. Here's my real life example.

There is a girl on the tennis team that I know who she is, but have never been really introduced to her. She knows of me I'm sure also. Anyway I was talking to her tonight about the new tennis coach and she was talking to me as well. After I left I realized that now it would be quite strange if I was like, "oh yeah and my name is Holland. I'm not sure if we've ever actually been introduced."

Does that make sense?

It just seems strange to me the round about way I meet people. I wish that everyone one would introduce themselves to me and I would introduce myself to them the first day. At least from then on I could say, oh yeah you don't remember me but we did meet I promise. Lol. That's kinda funny. Any way I have another thing I want to write about immediately after this. So, by the time you read this one, you'll have to scroll back up and read the other one. Sweet huh? OH yeah....

The Importance of Letters

So today, I was thinking about how we communicate with our friends. There are

phone calls, email, and so many other communication mediums.

One that is not as popular to use, but really awesome when you receive is good old fashioned snail mail. Think about how much more meaningful a real paper letter is compared to an image on a computer screen. While the content can be the same, the effort to sit down are write the letter can mean so much more.
While this is indeed a very random thought, it has inspired me to want to write more letters. I want people to know that I'm taking time to think about them enough that I would take more time and effort into keeping in touch with them. Please don't see this as a way for me to boost myself up and claim to be a better friend or something like that. I only want to be real. I want to truly show that they have certain place in my life and that I want them to feel cared about.

Porque hoy que nececitamos. Haha, that was supposed to say, Because that is what we need.

Everyone wants to feel loved and to love other people. We want to konw that people care about us and are actually wondering how others are doing. I hope this has inspired you to write more letters, or at least to stay in better touch with your friends, if not then that's fine too, maybe you didn't need inspiration. For me it was like a revelation.

Big Girls Don't Cry

Haha. Funny title I know, and maybe not funny as in haha, but maybe as in wierd.

I woke up this morning with so much peace and serenity (hence the title, that's what it made me think of). I just felt like I'm where I'm supposed to be with the people I should be with. That doesn't mean I can't have friends in other places, just that for now, these are the ones that should be in my life a lot. I do miss my friends Joey and Macie, but I feel like this weekend made us even closer, if that's possible.

I talked with my RD last night just about some things going on with school and how my relationships with my parents were. For me it always helps to talk to someone who doesn't really know you, but knows exactly what you are going through. He or she can present a side of the story that you may not see and give you great advice as to what you should do. It's also just nice to be able to say what you want to say and tell someone all the crap that you feel is pushing you down. In the end, most of that "crap" is stuff that isn't that big of a deal, but still it's nice to be able to tell someone about it and have them truly listen and understand what you are saying.
The End.

Mixed Feelings

So Joey and Macie left about an hour ago now. It made me very sad to see them go, but all good things must come to an end right? Well maybe not, but this one did. It sucks. I'll be honest, there are a ton of things running through my mind. Some things are goals, life questions, life directions, how to deal with my parents, my true feelings, friends, and some other stuff.
The main thing is trying to deal with how I feel about my family. My interactions with my family have done nothing but push me away from them in this past year. I want to enjoy spending time with them, but every time I'm around them I feel bored, trapped, different, and annoyed. This sounds horrible, but it's how I feel. I know they love me and I love them, but I feel like it's time for me to go and make my own life now, and they want to keep helping me. While I appreciate their concern and will listen to their input, they need to understand that I may choose another way. It may be harder, but at least it's what I want. If they want to make me happy it may take some sacrifices that hurt from their part. At the same time if I truly wanted my family to be happy then I feel like I would need to do exactly what they say, which takes away from MY experiences. It's frustrating for sure.

I also want to be in school. I like school. I would even go as a far as saying that I'm starting to enjoy Asbury a little more. I've made some really good friends and the small campus is nice ...at times. So school is becoming more important to me. I want to learn now. I want to be successful after college.

I don't really know where I was going with that ^ but the beauty is that it doesn't matter. These blogs don't have to make sense, it's just a place where you can get a glimpse of what kinds of things are going on in my head. I'll be back later.