Last Day of Semester

I’m really tired. I’m writing this really late and I should probably be in bed but some nights you just need to stay up late writing. The last day of school before exams then Christmas break is tomorrow and I’m really excited about that. I’ve been looking forward to this since Thanksgiving break ended.

Tomorrow I will give all my lovely friends their Christmas presents. In some classes I’ll have to pay attention to exam review, but in most of them I’ll hopefully be able to zone out and write or read or catch up on sleep. I remember last year I read a really sad book during exam review days, called 13 Reasons Why, and it ended with me awkwardly crying in the back corner of the room during class. Maybe I’ll just sleep.

In band we’re having our Christmas party and this will be very good. There will be food and when there is food parties are fun. And my band friends will be there, and it will just be a good time in general and yeah I’m going to bed, good night world.

Injustice Within the Church?

Recently I read about an organization called New Horizon Youth Ministries, and a school known as Escuela Caribe. Located in the Dominican Republic, this was a boarding reform school that was supposedly Christian. The horror stories I read about it compelled me to look further to make sure that it really had been shut down (yes, the whole ministry was bought in 2011 and the schools shut down).

Apparently, this school had been open since the 1970’s, and the alumni told stories of physical and emotional abuse that went on at the school. Parents in the States sent their kids here not fully knowing what the place was like, and the realities of “the program” that went on at the school were kept mostly secret for years, until some students began talking about it and a documentary called “Kidnapped for Christ” was made about the place. Students were sent to this school for all sorts of behavior problems, troubles with the law or authority, and homosexuality; and this school would try to break them into submissive behavior in the name of God.

The whole thing just sounded so sickening, that people would be abused in the name of Christianity. In fact, many of the past students interviewed said that their experiences at the school had led them to be distrustful of Christianity or the church.

The church is supposed to be loving and accepting, as Jesus was; and obviously this isn’t always happening. Why not?

Scotland

My brother is coming home from Scotland in one week, and I’m really looking forward to seeing him. He’s been spending the semester studying at St. Andrew’s University, so I haven’t seen him in person in four months and I miss him a lot. I didn’t expect to miss him so much. Growing up, we got along really well and were pretty close, but I didn’t really understand what an impact he made on my life until he wasn’t there all the time anymore. It wasn’t until he went off to college that I really understood what he meant to me. Guess it goes to show that you shouldn’t take anything for granted. Thankfully, he’s still around for me to not take for granted for a good long while.

Anyway, I’m really excited to hear all about Europe and see all the pictures. He’s posted some on facebook, but there’s something different about hearing about the stories behind the pictures firsthand. My mom’s probably going to get really emotional because she’s never been apart from her son for this long, but it’s understandable so we’ll all forgive her.

Now I’ve just got to get through this next week of exams!

Youth and Government

Today I went to the Youth and Government Pre-Conference, and I think I’m really going to like this year a lot better than my freshman year. My freshman year was fun, but I felt shy and awkward and young. This year, a ton of my friends are going, and I’ve already met a couple of new people from other schools that seem really nice and hopefully I will get to know them better in February at the conference.

Youth and Government is really interesting because you see such a diversity of people there that you don’t ever see at the private Christian school I go to. Not only racial diversity, because now we’ve got some of that at school. But also diversity in political beliefs and opinions, and diversity in sexualities. It’s all very interesting to talk to people that I otherwise probably wouldn’t ever meet. Like today, a girl presented her bill which is about having insurance companies cover abortions, and that caused a lot of debate as abortion is pretty controversial. I mostly just sat and watched and realized that I have very unique opinions. I can’t completely agree with abortions, but I don’t think abortion clinics should be shut down since they are the safe way to have an abortion and women will have abortions somehow whether they’re legal or not; it’s been happening that way for years. However she didn’t seem fazed by the criticism at all and she was confident, and I admired her for that and I look forward to debating more bills in the future.

Progressive-Agressive Dinner

Today was the progressive aggressive dinner with my youth group. An annual event around Christmastime, it combines a progressive house-to-house dinner with an aggressive citywide scavenger hunt, and this year’s was pretty memorable. I was on a team with my friends Laura, Christa, and Natalie; and Kayla was our driver. Kayla’s awesome and she’s only two years older than me. Well, what Kayla didn’t tell us was that her car was a two-door and basically the tiniest vehicle ever, with the possible exception of smarts and VW bugs.

Somehow we all squeezed in and began our night of food, fun, and ticking the youth pastor’s crazy scavenger hunt ideas off the list one by one as we finished them. These included a video of us playing leapfrog, which we poorly chose to do in the salad dressing aisle of Target, which got us “asked to leave” by the employees (oops!). We somehow moved on from that embarrassing fiasco and finished the evening with several points. Although we didn’t win, we got closer as friends and all in all it was an evening I won’t forget for a long time.

Bacon

I just spent a wonderful day with my friend Emily, who is a pretty awesome chica. She came over to my house and we made sandwiches out of warm chewy chocolate chip cookies and cold soft ice cream, which are the best kind of sandwiches in my opinion. Then we watched funny movies and of course laughed for a long time. She’s one of those people that always makes me laugh, and I think you need to always hold on to those people that make you laugh. Then came the 2 AM conversations about everything from God to boys to girls to school and what we wanted to do with our lives.

Then this morning we woke up and ate bacon and it was lovely and greasy and wonderfully tasty. Emily had never had bacon before so it was quite an experience for her. I feel very honored to be part of someone’s first ever bacon-eating moments in life.

Lately I've Been Happy

Lately, I’ve been happy. Like something, somewhere, deep down inside, is finally okay. Maybe while the joints of my body are falling out of place, the fragmented pieces of my soul are starting to fall into place, and hold together with the glue that the rest of me doesn’t seem to have.

Lately this fear I’ve been suppressing about what could possibly be wrong with me to cause these joint problems and pain has been hovering closer to the surface, threatening to break through the thin barrier that separates the back of my mind from my overanalyzed thoughts. And I keep on pushing it back, refusing to think about it.

But lately I’ve been learning how to get past it. Yes, it is kind of scary to have joints go where they don’t belong and you don’t know why. It is kind of scary to wake up not knowing what’s going to hurt that day, how far you’ll feel like walking that day. But it doesn’t change anything. Just something new to deal with, another challenge to conquer. Like depression, except this is physical. And maybe I’ll learn something. After all, I have plenty to be thankful for.