and...for Kristen.

Hm. Haven't for real posted since the new year. Well, a whole bunch is happened since then and I know I can't cover it all. So here's a list.

- celebrated New Year's day with Patrick's family/family friends, when I tried oysters for the first time
- went to Rhode Island with Jason, Chad, and Andrew to visit Brown University. We stayed at Dr. DeNoia's house and heard good fishing stories from her husband and ate their tasty food. (Thanks, Mr. & Dr. DeNoia!)
- came back to school, still dreading the semester and all the changes it would bring
- a dear friend's dad died, was heartbroken for him (still am). The snow day came the day after I found out. After he called me I couldn't do work that evening, just called my family and cried. The snow was wonderful, like a reprieve, gave me a little time to refocus and get some work done.
- played in the snow with Patrick, we built a snowman
- dealt with some crazy drama going on with my friends, I don't even want to talk about it
- made chili for my UNCC friends one Friday
- had the Bible study group down and made spaghetti for them one Sunday
- Patrick surprised me and took me to see Rent, where we met Samantha & Evan, some other friends, that was really sweet
- made sushi for the super bowl with the Bible study friends
- hosted ACM speaker last week, he was pretty cool
- did a whole bunch of schoolwork
- failed at making petits four for Valentine's day
- succeeded at making gluten-free cake (from a mix)
- went home to spend time with my family a couple times, I'm more homesick every time I go home
- submitted a paper to INTERACT with VT people
- got a paper accepted into ACMSE with UNCC people
- had a lovely first non-single Valentine's day
- got my assistantship and fellowship letters from Clemson
- bought my cap and gown
- Bubbles, my fish, got sick twice, but he's all better now

...uhh, there's probably more. I can't remember it all. It's detailed in other journals, I'm sure. Overall it's just been really busy and really intense. All this thinking towards the coming transition wears me out. Generally I'm a pretty even-keel kind of girl. I don't get upset that often, I cry only rarely, I ignore things instead of turning them into huge issues. This is just not so this semester. I'm a mess. I'll cry at the drop of a hat. I run miles to get out all the tension. I hide under the covers and in video games and behind computer monitors to delay dealing with the inevitable. I've recently realized that this is most likely a selfish and ineffective way of dealing with things, and it probably isn't good for me or for the people I care about. I'm working on it, I promise. Just too much transition at once and too many unknowns. I'm breaking it into little pieces and taking them as I can. I'm trying to do better.

So there's a brief summary. I'd like to be a bit more reflective but there is no time for that. I'm looking forward to this weekend, not because I get a break, but because it presents two solid, uninterrupted work days that I desperately need. Despite my greatest efforts, I am terribly behind in most everything. So, in lieu of a blog post during the next two or so weeks of my life, here's a list of what I will be doing:

- making a poster to present at SIGCSE
- presenting that poster at SIGCSE
- visiting Kevin, Emily, & Chloe in Knoxville
- submitting camera-ready version of my paper for ACMSE
- building a website for myself
- submitting an internship application to IBM
- practicing piano lots
- filling out bunches of SLC event reports
- assigning tasks to my SLC team and being their Junior Achievement contact
- planning and hosting ACM meetings
- planning & helping to host a Women in STEM lunch
- writing a paper for my religion class
- finishing implementation of my project for software engineering
- dealing with whatever other chaos that ensues; I'm sure there will be plenty of it

so there.
more later. probably much later.

from 22 words (twentytwowords.com)

A Valentine reminder for those in unlikely love.

February 14, 2009 at 7:23 am · Filed under Love, Quotes

Charity:

But marry you! How could we get married…?

Sid:

The question is not how we’d manage, it’s do you want to.

(Crossing to Safety, 82)

yeah, I know, nothing but reposts lately. I can't get through all my schoolwork long enough to sit and write.

speaking of schoolwork, I should be working on a study guide right now.

hahahaha.

from thisisindexed.com

I have important things to write about, but no time to do that. Maybe tomorrow?

i enjoyed this.

http://www.lifebeyondcode.com/2009/01/22/insights-from-steve-jobs/

a weightier blog post coming later this weekend; I have a whole lot to write about.

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 :)