Faith means that although life does not appear to be turning out the way we had hoped, we believe that God's hidden will is being done on earth as it is in heaven. So we continue to endure, love, serve, and worship. We resist the temptation to turn bitter, seek revenge, view the world cynically, or whine about how hard life is, even though these temptations are as natural to us as hunger pains and fatigue. In short, we train our eyes to see signs of God's redemptive work. We wait patiently for God's will to be accomplished. ~Jerry Sittser, Discovering God's Will (aka The Will of God as a Way of Life)

so it's nearing 3 am and i wanna go to be-e-ed.

well actually, i want to be doing my capstone homework. but the book is staring at me and i can't bring myself to pick it up. what a perfect time to blog?

so it's been a month. yep, i've returned from ireland. if you want to know about it, ask me. but don't ask me if you only want that three sentence long answer, okay? that's just annoying, and quite frankly, i'll have to deal enough with that over Easter with my extended family. but, on a more "positive" note...it was amazing.

the showcase goes up in two weeks. that is pretty much the all-consuming portion of my life right now. that, and capstone. and...i've gotten really back in to reading the Bible again. for a while there, it was just a nice book that i looked at and thought, oh, i should spend some time reading that...naw, i've got homework, and friend time, and this and that and a really long list of stuff that doesn't really matter but sometimes- most times- i like to pretend it does...so i am in joshua right now. and i am wrestling with some big questions...mainly with the events of chapter 7. if anyone wants to wrestle the big questions with me, let me know?

last week basically....was one of "those" weeks. those, breaking weeks...where i was crying for nearly five days straight....well, when i wasn't out in public. but in my room...in erin's car...on quiet walks...i was crying. overwhelmed-ness...if that's a word.

but, i have discovered that mandy and i are really sisters separated at birth or something. we have a lot more in common than i realized. i enjoy that girl so much...her smile and her wonderful humor and deep insights bring a joy to my life!

i have an audition with saltworks in a week...well, less than a week, really. and i am genuinely excited for it. i briefly talked with tammie tonight, after strike/post-play asessment, and told her, and her face literally lit up...so, thursday she is going to work on my monologues with me (which i seriously seriously have to review).

so i definitely want to go to grad. school sometime in the future. and i when i say definitely, i mean...that's what i want now, and next year that might very well change. i can't believe that in four weeks, all of these people that have formed this unique community are not going to be a part of my life in the same way ever again. i keep having "senior" moments. and boy do they creep me out.

brian has been in bowling green since friday, editing his movie. i don't think he slept last night, and i don't think he's sleeping tonight. and he's driving back without sleeping...i swear, sometimes i think i just might kill the boy if he doesn't end up hurting himself. and i mean that he scares the life out of me when he does things like this. so, my answer? i buy him some caramel cadbury cream eggs. because those are his favorite. i suck as a friend.

and i have decided that i might be failing at life...but i've definitely gotten better at it over the past four years at mal-one. so much reflection...i kind of hate reflection right now, because it is with me EVERYWHERE i turn. i can't escape it! the little hampster in my head has been pretty tired for quite some time, but he keeps prancing around that da**ed wheel like exhaustion fuels him. and of course it's a him...(waiting for a bevy of "kristy you are being sexist" comments now...)

i can't wait to just go home and spend some time with my family...and my puppy. i just long for that sense of community with them...because i know the community i have now is fast slipping away, so i guess i am trying to cling to one thing that has been there (though i haven't always enjoyed it) for the past 22 years. but i am afraid my puppy is going to die...my other puppy, katie, passed away the day after Christmas. and that was hard and traumatic for me still, even at 22...my dogs are like my children to me. i go home, and i am the one that takes full care...and they know it. but, katie passed away, and just last week (amidst all the stress) i had the most terrible dream that charlie had died and my dad was crying, staring at his body, which for some reason kept moving even though he was dead, and katie was alive still and tried to comfort me...but when she did, she was climbing up on to the couch where i was curled up crying, and she all of a sudden started to look like a skeleton and her eyes turned this eerie shade of white or silver and she was, i swear, going to explode. yeah, i know...it's creep enough typed out...imagine waking up crying in the middle of the night to the glow of flourescent lights through some blinds and a dorm room with those images dancing through your mind.

change of subject...

how do my relationships help me to better love God? to serve God?

i think i try to serve myself too often. i am a control-freak. sometimes, i even get power hungry. and i don't think it's in a "good" way. something i should probably work on.

i can't wait for all of the busy stuff in my life to be over with...i love it A LOT...but the showcase eats up my time like a tape worm in a giant and brian is busy with the film fest and i am procrastinating on my work and making sheetz runs with erin (which are so much more fun than reading about Freud) but i miss the relationships in my life a lot. i miss being able to just randomly sit up until four am talking and not having to worry too much about the next day...saturday, because i could sleep in until 11 and life wouldn't end...i wouldn't fall behind on things, and i could actually get rest. but it seems to be the farthest thing away these days. does it only get harder from here?

if you are a friend, and reading this...please know that i love you. and i hate saying that over something like the internet. but i feel that i have failed you in some way...in many ways...by failing to invest more time in you. i love you and i cherish you more than you could ever know. i have been truly blessed by you....God has blessed me with quite a few friends whom i love dearly....please know that you are not forgotten.

i leave for ireland in less than 48 hours. nothing else matters to me at this point. i know i should be working my tail off for homework, but i just want to get on that plane and be across the ocean for spring break and have a grande time serving and learning with the team. i cannot even begin to explain how excited i am....how much i can't even believe that i, kristy o., am going to be in ireland in less than three days!!! i girlie squeal couldn't near cover it...for real, yo.

i like brian. a lot. even when i am having a spacey day and i'm completely out of it, i smile just getting to sit with him for a few minutes. sometimes i can't stand the girliness that comes out of me...like, what the crap is all this sighing and dreaminess? am i actually swooning? you've got to be kidding me...because, my vision of who i am does *not* do that.

okay, i am going to try to do homework. and laundry. and packing. yeah.

dialogue is interesting. ever just listen to people? how much you can tell just by listening...to more than *just* the words, too.

okay, ireland, here i come.

<><

I LEAVE FOR IRELAND IN FOUR DAYS!!!!!!!!!!!!!

that was excitement. that is excitement.

so the rest of the *stuff* i have to do this week just seems like crap...pointless, worthless, boring. even though i know in reality it's not...because it's where i'm supposed to be and i am just extremely anxious to get over the atlantic and to the land o' the irish.

i've had a wonderful past few weeks. i will fill you in, faithful blog reader, at a later time.

and yes, i have seen the Passion. that is a blog unto itself.

okay, off to do more homework and studying...hope the day is as wonderful as it is long.

in between american history 2 and playwriting right now...

and i just got back from *randomly* seeing an old friend that i haven't seen and actually talked with in about two, no three years.

and it was great because we just talked and accepted each other for how we each have changed and grown. well, as much as one can in a 30 minute surprise conversation. it was good, as the Lord said. and i wonder why more relationships can't just be like that? why we have to feel this sense of obligation as to who we maintain relationship with and we have to have these reasonings that don't seem all that sound to me sometimes.

for online philosophy, we had to post some threaded discussions answering the question "does knowledge require certainty?" from descartes and from 2 of 3 conversations about knowing. i want to post my two threads here sometime soon. and i want to hear thoughts on them when i do. i need to find a way to do the whole "comments" thing and the links on the side thing. i don't know how...andrew, can you teach me that too?

sometimes i feel like a puppet. and i'm not always sure who the puppeteer is. is that a bad thing? because sometimes, i just want to go. just, go...i don't know where or why or even if with anyone. perhaps it's the spiritual equivalent to a nudist colony. ha, that sounds so blasphemous...but i swear i don't mean it that way. what i mean, is that, i so strongly desire to be free from things that i believe are weighing me down that i want to literally throw them off, tear them away, burn them, forget about them...and just go. and be. stupid concept of freedom. what in the world do i want to be free from? (insert sarcasm here, but i'm not quite sure why).

okay, off to class. the posts on certainty and knowledge shall come later<><

i leave for ireland in 23 days.

i think skits is the irish slang for what i feel (which translated, roughly means, crap my pants).

brian burned a cd for me...damien rice. and i like it, a lot. it's my latest "cd's to listen to while i work so i can focus and get my work done" cd things.

i don't know if i'll want to be back in the states after being in ireland for 9 days. ps, if you'd like to send support my way to help fund the trip (any questions about what the trip is please email me at dramachick837@yahoo.com) i'm all for it. and above that, if you could pray for me, and for the team that is going, that would be fantastic.

i need to figure out about all this audition stuff for NYC before i leave for ireland...seeing as it's like, four days after i get back that i will have to audition.

brian's RA referred to me as "your girlfriend" to brian tonight. that was weird. i don't know how to take that, without a clear definition in our relationship. i am cool with where brian and i are, but i'm not sure quite what it looks like to an outsider...if that makes any sense?

and all this with valentine's day coming up. well, isn't this fun. i think it's a hallmark holiday, really. but still, i am a girl. and there's this part of me that kind of nags in the back of my mind, loving the romance of it all, while this other part of me kind of grunts with hatred toward the couples and lovey-dovey cheese that the holiday seems to promote. that part makes me want to vomit. the other part...well, it makes me appreciate the abundance of love God has so graciously bestowed upon me at this point in my life, in such *tangible* ways as relationships.

okay, i need to do capstone.

stupid needing to do "stuff"

so this whole traveling two weekends in a row kicks me in the pants.

i seem to be in the habit of sleeping a maximum of four hours a night and taking a three hour nap late afternoon/early evening.

and don't get me wrong- yeah for sleep...but i have all this *work* to do and all of these amazing people i WANT to spend time with (ahem, trena, again i apologize~ i didn't mean to bow out on you this evening) and then i go for this looooooooong nap. hopefully this weekend helps me catch up on things and straighten out my sleeping patterns.

i am tired of food. that does not mean i am gonna be all anorexic...have no fears. i'm just bombarded with food at every turn in my day practically and i am just tired of it. i don't need all of this fried crap and things, things that i used to love, do not even taste that good to me anymore...like bananas. in theory, mmmm. in reality, i take a bite and it's done. i think the traveling had something to do with that as well.

i cannot begin to say how i adore NYC. i just wanted to wander around Times Square for hours and stand at the doors of theaters and maybe pretend that i am graduated and a starving artist in NYC and i'll have to get on the subway and go to my apartment in brooklyn that i share with two other people and i will love it and want to wet my pants all at once because of the beauty of life...not a "this is all there is?" type of thing...but a joy in the every moment of it all.

i am excited for auditions there in march. but that is the week after ireland, and ireland is my first priority. *amen*

i get to help baby-sit the rudd children tomorrow. or, later today if you want to get all technical. and i am so down wit dat (quote, unquote, andrew rudd).

i performed for tammie's oral interp. class today, and then dez and i answered questions after...and for one of the first times outwardly, i've truly realized that i can't please everyone...that no one can. and i am comfortable in my own skin in such a way that if someone doesn't like how i perform, then they don't. yes, i still want to always be learning new ways to stretch myself and to improve. yes, i want to always do my best. but does *my* best mean what some director or auditor or judge thinks is best? maybe. maybe not. and i am completely okay with that.
i know, that sounds kind of whiney and immature. so be it. it took me a while to get to this place. i have too long depended on the opinions of others to justify my self-worth in this world. i have measured my self in so many unhealthy ways. i probably still am in ways that i haven't realized yet. but either way, i am here now. and i like here. and i choose to like there, somewhere down the road, over the rainbow (of college/school) and whatnot...

okay, now back to the american history paper.

peace out yo.