happy(?) new year

Usually I enter a new year with a little bit of regret but a whole lot of optimism. This year, I enter with not too much regret, but no optimism either. I know it's going to be a difficult year, and honestly, I'm not looking forward to dealing with it.

This year has been so intense. I've had some incredible opportunities and it's been a lot of fun, but there's been a lot of work and tears that's went into it too. I know that this new year holds a lot of change and I'm not looking forward to it. I will be deciding on grad schools, which will narrow my options for the next five years or so. I'll be graduating, which means that I'll be saying goodbye to a lot of my best friends. I will be moving away somewhere for grad school, which means adjusting to a life farther away from my family than I'm used to, and finding a new place to live, new friends, a new church, and all kinds of new responsibility. It's a really big life change, and it will affect everything from closest relationships to everyday routines. I know I can handle it. I don't doubt my capability because I've proven it to myself many times that I can grow where I'm planted. It's just not always fun to start over, especially when it's like right now and I feel content and settled. Classes are not fun, but besides that I live in a dream come true. I love where I live and what I do. I love my church very much, and it's taken me three years to find one where I'm happy. I have awesome friends, an incredible family, and a supportive boyfriend. I have everything I need and most everything I've ever wanted. It feels like I'm going to have to give most of that up in five months or so, and I'm not okay with that yet.

I am trying very hard to see this as an opportunity, because it is. Starting over is bittersweet. You leave a lot behind but at the same time it's awesome to be able to become whoever you want to be, with no reputation or expectations preceding you. I'm going to love making new friends. I hope to buy a house and I am going to be so happy to live in the same place for an extended period of time and not always be dragging things in and out of boxes. I want to play an intramural sport (need to learn how to play something first) and to be involved in the community where I live. And of course, with grad school, I get to invest a lot more time and thought into the research that I'm passionate about, so that'll be awesome. I have all these pictures in my head of a very happy grad school Lauren. I wear my glasses a lot more, and I spend a lot of time doing research but I'm also doing a lot of other things I enjoy. I have a house with a kitchen that is painted green and has enough counter space and cabinet space for me to actually work in. My house is big enough to host dinner parties in. There's a back porch, and I've planted a summer garden. I run in the mornings, work hard during the day, and spend time doing what I want to in the evenings. I play piano because I want to, I have people over for dinner, I spend all kinds of time outside. Yeah, I know it may not turn out this way, but that's the picture that's in my head and it makes me happy.

So anyhow. I'll begin this year both excited and afraid. I know God is sovereign and that he works things together for my good. It will be difficult to start over but well worth it in the end. Between now and then I'm going to try to be fairly short-sighted. There are some things I have to think about well in advance, but I'm going to delay dealing with other difficult matters until later because I'm just not ready to address them now.

Happy new year, everyone :) I hope it holds a lot of growth and opportunity for you!

now for the rest of break

Christmas with my family was just plain wonderful. I can't tell you how much I love these people. The more time I spend with my family, the more I wish that I could go back to being 17 or something and just staying here forever. But people grow up, move on, and begin their own lives. That's the way things go.

I haven't been doing much beyond family stuff. I'm still not ready to pick up something requiring persistence or thinking yet. Maybe it's senioritis. Or maybe I'll get over it and start reading a book tomorrow.

Victoria and I have been going to the Y every morning, which is nice. I want to get back into routine with things again. Plus, that gives me a chance to spend some time with Victoria. We've done a lot together over break. Nothing exceedingly exciting, just shopping and cooking and that kind of thing. It's been good because I still consider her one of my closest friends and I miss her a whole lot when she's away. I've also got to spend a good bit of time with Briana, which is good as well. My family is just full of awesome people and I'm so thankful that I get to hang out with them over break.

Well, tonight Alex and I had dinner and we said goodbye since he's moving to Boston. I hate goodbyes. I'm already bracing myself for all the ones I'll have to say at the end of this semester. It's not happy, but I'll deal. I have no choice. It'd be nice if things stayed the same all the time (I'm a fan of stability) but they don't so I have to grow up and deal with it.

As for the rest of break...not much planned. On Monday Patrick & I are going to the state museum together. Victoria and I will be going to the Y every day it's open. Andrew, Chad, Jason, & I leave for Rhode Island to visit Brown on January 5, and will be returning a few days after. No plans beside those. I'm going to try to scrape together some motivation to do something useful, like read a book or two, or finish a grad school application. We'll see.

Mmk. Speaking of doing something useful...I think I'll clean up my room so that I can eventually go to bed tonight! 'Night, sleep well.

merry Christmas!

 Usually at Christmas, we are focused on a thousand things that distract us from anything Christ-related at all. We're caught up in finding perfect gifts, in organizing things with our family, in sleeping in for a couple days to enjoy our time off, in mourning the loss of the people who have left us since last year, in preserving the traditions that we associate with the season. But every once in a while, God is exceedingly graceful and breaks through all the noise to speak and remind me of who He is and why we should be celebrating.

Growing up I associated Christmas with Christ's birth--which is, of course, fitting and proper, because that's what the celebration is about. However, this year more than ever I've been thinking more about what Christ's birth has to do with the rest of his life and with our lives. Yes, it is incredible that God chose to become a person, that he chose to come to Earth as a baby into a humble family and that the angels announced his arrival to shepherds and not kings. However, if Jesus just came to be a person to show solidarity with us, or to be a perfect person, then overall it requires nothing from us and it's just a warm fuzzy story.  Fortunately, this is not the case.

This Christmas I have been thinking about the implications of Christ's coming.  The Bible makes it clear why Jesus came:

Isaiah 53 (ESV)

1 Who has believed what he has heard from us?
And to whom has the arm of the Lord been revealed?
2 For he grew up before him like a young plant,
and like a root out of dry ground;
he had no form or majesty that we should look at him,
and no beauty that we should desire him.
3 He was despised and rejected by men;
a man of sorrows, and acquainted with grief;
and as one from whom men hide their faces
he was despised, and we esteemed him not.

4 Surely he has borne our griefs
and carried our sorrows;
yet we esteemed him stricken,
smitten by God, and afflicted.
5 But he was wounded for our transgressions;
he was crushed for our iniquities;
upon him was the chastisement that brought us peace,
and with his stripes we are healed.
6 All we like sheep have gone astray;
we have turned—every one—to his own way;
and the Lord has laid on him
the iniquity of us all.

7 He was oppressed, and he was afflicted,
yet he opened not his mouth;
like a lamb that is led to the slaughter,
and like a sheep that before its shearers is silent,
so he opened not his mouth.
8 By oppression and judgment he was taken away;
and as for his generation, who considered
that he was cut off out of the land of the living,
stricken for the transgression of my people?
9 And they made his grave with the wicked
and with a rich man in his death,
although he had done no violence,
and there was no deceit in his mouth.

10 Yet it was the will of the Lord to crush him;
he has put him to grief; 
when his soul makes an offering for guilt,
he shall see his offspring; he shall prolong his days;
the will of the Lord shall prosper in his hand.
11 Out of the anguish of his soul he shall see and be satisfied;
by his knowledge shall the righteous one, my servant,
make many to be accounted righteous,
and he shall bear their iniquities.
12 Therefore I will divide him a portion with the many, 
and he shall divide the spoil with the strong, 
because he poured out his soul to death
and was numbered with the transgressors;
yet he bore the sin of many,
and makes intercession for the transgressors.

Jesus didn't come to be a cute baby or a role model (although he was those things and we are thankful). He came to bear the wrath of God that stood against us. He was sent to die for our sin, to be our covering, to pour out grace on us, to live out and show in his death the heights and depths and widths and lengths of God's love for us. It was God's will to crush him. Jesus was born to die so that we could be reconciled to God and spend eternity with him, and if we don't associate his death with his birth, we miss the whole point of the Christmas story.

I've also been thinking about the future implications of Christ's coming, particularly the fact that he is coming again. Even in the celebration of Christmas we find ourselves broken in so many ways. We hurt the people we should love the most. We are wrapped up in selfishness. We mourn the loss of the people we love and wish that they were here with us. The wonderful truth of the Christmas story and Christ's death and resurrection, though, is that he has promised to come again and to take away all sin and sorrow, taking his rightful place as Lord of all and demanding submission from the enemies that pull us apart from him. And that will be beautiful. I look forward to it. 

This year it has been incredible for me to think about the big picture of Christ's advent, of his coming near. I am so thankful to be loved by God and to be covered by his grace, and his arrival deserves a response of worship and submission. I adore him and I want to live my life in awe of who he is and what he has done.

May God prompt the same sense of wonder in your hearts. Merry Christmas, everyone :)

grades: A A A A B (i deserved a C)

i feel like last semester has permanently exhausted me. Usually by this time of break I'm ready to start a project, read a book, write some code, something. Right now though I am perfectly content to stare idly out windows, or sit watching TV, or do some other mindless task for hours on end. This can't happen. I have to finish school, five and a half more years of it. I need apathy to leave.

break (so far)

I have been home for three and a half days and it has been absolutely glorious. I haven't written a line of code or read a sentence of a textbook. Victoria & I joined the Y for this gap month and have been going to work out together every morning. I've been to two parties, spent plenty of time with family, and completed most of my Christmas shopping. And today, I got up, went to the gym, put back on my pajamas, and sat around forever. I was going to go to the Sarahs' Christmas party but I had a headache so I just stayed in. It was wonderful.

Speaking of wonderful :), on Tuesday Patrick brought me these beautiful flowers that I have in my room now--lilies, chrysanthemums, carnations, daisies, some other stuff mixed in. They make me smile. Things are going well between us. He's coming up for his church's Christmas Eve service, and I'm going with him to it. That should be good.

I'm enjoying spending time with my sisters. Victoria and I have done a bunch together and that's been good. Briana and I haven't got to hang out much but we have been beating each other up as usual, so I've enjoyed that, haha. I love my family. I'm not sure there are any others like us. But I think it's great that my sisters and I are 21, 18, and 13, and still wrestling each other to the ground, and that Mom, Victoria, and I randomly drift into heated theological conversations, that we make art out of tangerine peels at breakfast, and that decapitated gingerbread people are legitimate works of art in our household. I love it. Go ahead, you can think we're all crazy, but I wouldn't want it any other way :)

I anxiously await my class grades. Those last two weeks were intense. I've never worked so hard as I did the week following Thanksgiving with all those projects due. I was sleeping far too little and writing code for 6 and 8 hours at a time. It was terrible, and I have no idea how my grades will turn out, but we'll find out in a few days. I'm not even thinking about next semester until later. I can't handle any more class right now.

In other school-related news, on Tuesday I think I finally decided that I'm definitely going to Clemson and I may not even fill out any grad school apps. I don't know, I just think I belong there. It feels right. And if I hate it, I'll finish out my masters there and go somewhere else for the Ph.D. I'm not giving an official answer yet. I'm not quitting my other applications yet. But I think I'm getting closer being okay with making those decisions.

Well, I think that's all to report on that's of significance. I'm sure there will be more reflection later. Not being in class all the time frees me to think about other things like God and myself and overall just processing everything that's happened in the past semester because it's felt like a blur. It'll come clear later when I have time to think about it. 

If I don't write before, I hope that you all have an awesome Christmas :)

Can I just tell you how nice it is to be called anything but "smart" sometimes?

Don't get me wrong, I appreciate your respect for my intellect, and I want that to be one of my better qualities. But I hope that there are other adjectives that describe me as well. For the sake of humility, I will not list the characteristics that I aspire to embody, but I'm just saying, thank you to anyone who's ever used another word to describe me. 

I don't want intelligence to be my ultimate value.

that's all.

come on, guys.

from http://xkcd.com/513/

Sad story. It happens a lot.

Step up, ask the girl out. There's no gain without risk.