Currently Playing
Underneath [Limited Edition w/Bonus DVD]
By Hanson
- Believe

Okay, so it's the end of the school year. My third year out of high school, my second year at AU. Let's review, shall we?

LMC ~

I hated it. I hated everything about it. All I wanted was to be at Anderson, away from home like everyone else. All my friends were gone, away at school but I was stuck still at home with my mom not giving me the independence I felt I needed, the independence I felt I would have if I were away at school. Classes at LMC were not challenging, they were boring, and had terrible professors. I did not fit in at church. I couldn't go to youth group - and didn't really want to either, because it would have just been weird. And I did not fit in with the young adult ministry either because everyone there were significantly older than me, mostly married, and some had children, and so I felt like an outsider there. I was gaining no spiritual growth because of this. But then I get a job babysitting for seven, count them SEVEN!! kids for two hours every Sunday night at The Chapel, and in the process I get to know Krista a little better. So... she graduates, I finish classes, and we start to hang out more and more and more. We both do Warner Camp for both JH2 and KK3 and we're best friends. But then it's time to leave. She goes up to Calvin, I come down to AU... and I could not be any happier...

AU Year 1 -

So I had been warned by Kelm that the first couple weeks of school I'd be in my room, all alone, lonely and depressed. But then I'd have friends and it would all be good. So... knowing that, I wasn't really all that upset when I didn't do much. But I knew Jess from home, so I'd go over to Rice and see her a few times, met the girls on her floor, they're all cool, hang out with them on occasion but that's all. Then in my Intro to Bible class we have to get into groups to work on a project for later in the semester, and these two girls invite me to join them - Traci and Melissa. Turns out they already knew each other because they lived across the hall from each other. Well... next class, World Civ, Traci is sitting next to me because well we just met in our Bible class so hey we know each other. Her notebook says Martin 221 and I think "wait a minute!" Turns out Traci and Melissa are both on my floor and I didn't even know it. Later in World Civ we get into groups, Traci and I end up being in a group with Ryan, who I had known from Family Groups (orientation). So eventually, Melissa, Traci, Lisa (Traci's roommate), Ryan and I are all really good friends. I never hang out with Jess or the people on her floor anymore. Sometimes I hang out with Angie (Melissa's roommate). Umm... I grow, a lot. Not in the ways I expected either. One of my friends, who, for their privacy's sake I will not reveal, told me something HUGE that they were (and still are) struggling with and through that I struggled. Not with the same issue but with just a lot of emotions revolved around that. It was something that I had never encountered before and never expected to encounter, and then one day in late October out of the blue BOOM there it is. So through that it brought me closer to God in ways I didn't know you could be close to God. I realized that you don't HAVE to go to church every Sunday, you don't HAVE to be involved in everything at your church, etc. All you need is a willingness to have a relationship with your Creator and to continue to work on building it. (Although yes, being involved with church helps). Anyway, so those are my friends and they are the only people I ever did stuff with, but we did stuff ALL the time. Really fun stuff. Random drives at 3:00 am, Steak n Shake every night, Cracker Barrel on the weekends, roadtrips to Castleton and Noblesville, Wal-Mart hunting, you name it, we did it. So then towards the end of the year, umm long story short Melissa started being a word that I don't like to use. I'm not gonna go into details of how it all happend but the point is, it happened. (So much so that later in the summer Traci called me up and asked me to be her bridesmaid since Melissa wasn't gonna do it anymore). So.. yeah. Oh, and I knew Ryan wasn't coming back to AU the next year and I was upset about that b/c he really is one of my best friends and a brother to me and I knew I'd miss him like crazy. So I was gonna live with Melissa in Myers, until she started acting like that, so then Lisa was gonna be my roommate. Summer comes. Traci tells us she and Josh (her then husband.. well... almost, she told us the day before the wedding) were not coming to AU. Then a week later Lisa tells me she's not coming back to AU. The next day my dad moves out. But.. summer came. I got really involved with church stuff. Rock Solid at The Chapel and Intermission at FCOG - it was great, something God-related every day of the week and friends on the weekends. Hanging out with Chris, Katie, Jeff, Krista, and Holly. I came to the conclusion 2003 was the best and worst year of my life.

AU Year 2 -

I start the year lonely and sad knowing I'd have to start over with all new friends. And it seemed to take a lot longer than I expected. But then one day in November, it was 3:00 am and I was leaving Arby's with some people I had been studying with and it hit me "these people are my friends". Keri, Gene, Tabby, Jeremy, Erin, Meagan, and Jonathan. I had friends. It made me know that the rest of the school year was gonna be good. But.. I still was worried about who I was gonna live with for the next year (they all already had plans). So Christmas break comes, that was fun. I come back and Stacy and Sarah ask me to live off campus with them and DeeDee (ppl on my floor). I didn't know them all that well but I was like yeah of course! So we all start hanging out and end up really good friends. Looking for houses ect. But now we don't know if we can live off campus, so for now we're stuck in a dorm, and Sarah's not living with us anymore (no details. I don't have any details so therefore how can I post them?) Anyway, also the beginning of second semester I switch AUCME teams and end up with Jenna, Tif, Caroyln, Scott, Phil, Kip, and Brent. After a few trips and a few weeks of practicing with them I get to know them all pretty well (and by default of housing of course I know the girls a little better than the guys) but we're all friends and we're all (except Phil I guess) gonna be on the same AUCME team next year, so I'm excited. Throughout this school year, which is coming to a close, I have grown a lot. I have gained independence. I have over come comfort zones and made so many new friends that I wouldn't have known if the people from last year were still here. Sure I miss things about last year it was the greatest and I'll never have that again, and true this year hasn't been AS fun, but it's definately been a great year. And I wasn't able to enjoy it until I just learned to give it to God and to stop worrying about things and to stop comparing it to last year. So now I just having even more great friends and even more great memories and just.. yeah.. it's great!!! Thank you to everyone who's ever been there for me. This is a long post I don't know if anyone has actually read it but yeah. That's all.

(Lyric of the moment - "murder wears a friendly smile like the perfect end in a plastic vial no pain" - 'Believe')

Currently Playing
Underneath [Limited Edition w/Bonus DVD]
By Hanson
- Broken Angel


On a lighter note (the past two entries have been about death, hmm)... I just want to say PRAISE GOD! Praise Him for great friends (near and far), great weather, hindsight, and for making it a tradition to end the school year with a bang. These next two weeks are going to be great! (Last year was great too, with all the trips to the ghetto park and going to SNS at 3:00am in the pouring rain and getting free food... well, I didn't get free food.) Anyway, yes indeed PRAISE HIM!

A woman from my church back home just passed away too. She was in her forties. I think she had cancer...

A girl I went to high school with died a few days ago. I didn't know her all that well, she was a freshman when I was a sophomore. She had always had something wrong with her heart, though I don't remember what exactly. It just puts life in perspective...

Ok. So. Yeah. I'm gonna quote Brent here: "Apparently in Kentucky 'youth' is short for people of all ages." Well said. So my Aucme team was supposed to go do a youth rally for "20-30 youth" (according to the pastor) and then do church on Sunday. Well.... is that who showed up? Well, to quote Tif quoting Kip, "nooooooooooooooooo". There were definately two thirteen-year-olds, a 14-year old, and a couple 5 year olds. Or something like that. And their middle-aged parents, and a few elderly. Well.. the idea was to start the rally off with Scott rapping. Old woman definately gave him "the look", got up, and walked out. Hehe. Jonathan Cox later tells me if he knew where we were going he would have warned me what NOT to do in Liberty, Kentucky. But oh well. Carolyn didn't get to say that she was a spiritual whore, but she did get to tell the little kids to ask their parents what a prostitue is. Hehe. Good times. I shared a bed with Jenna, because the other bed was full of spider egg sacks. Pretty nasty. Um...it was a good weekend, other than the fact that by the end of it all I was too tired to sleep last night, if that makes any sense. Yeah. Okay. Bye. Oh. Speaking of "bye" - everyone should go BUY Hanson's new CD, "Underneath" it comes out tomorrow and it's gonna be a good one. F'real. bye.

So. I will officially be working at Kilwins this summer. She said I'd probably get 30-40 hours a week, so hopefully I can work it out so that I can work at The Chapel too, but without having WAY too many hours this summer, and thus not having a life. I probably won't get to do all the cool stuff with Rock Solid like I did last year, but we'll see. I'm sure I can do some of it, just not every day like last time. My feet stink. But it's nice outside

Hey yo. Crazy week here. But a good one. I need to drink my Jones Soda (cream soda) now so I can tell Stacy what to do (based on what my cap says). It says "you should be able to make money and hold on to it." I'm gonna go tell her. I told her. We applied to her current situation of trying to decide to either do homework, work out, watch TV, or go to bed. I told her that she could apply it two ways. She had a job last semester and made money and she can hold onto that money by doing her homework so she doesn't fail and have to pay to re-take the class. Also, she can do her homework so that in the future she can graduate and get a job and hold onto the money she makes then. She said she'd keep that in mind. But the true motivation is the potty. We'll see.

I had a really good dinner tonight. Well, the food was gross, but I ate dinner with a friend I haven't talked to since last semester, well, one day at Chapel but that was like ten minutes. It was nice to talk and catch up, especially since she won't be here next year. (And if you're reading this, yes, you'll be missed.) Sometimes it's easy to let a friendship - or any sort of relationship for that matter - just slip through our fingers and never even think about it. That's what I was afraid of a year ago. But I was wrong. So wrong. The friendship(s?) I was afraid of losing I think have actually grown stronger, in a weird way. Friendships I expected to grow stronger grew very far apart, but now I can see that's a good thing. God knows what He's doing, even if it makes us mad. I was mad last year, but this year I see the good in it. I have grown, I've been stretched, and I am glad. I've been so blessed in so many ways, and this little online journal is no way to acknowledge that, so I'm not even going to try. Summer is coming. I can't believe another year has gone by. I enjoy the little moments. Like today - today was full of little moments. Talking to Erin before class. Reading an email from Ryan. Sitting on the hill with Gene and Meagan enjoying the weather. Worshipping with Carolyn, Jenna, Scott, Kip, and Brent at practice. Eating dinner with Kelly. Even my little chat with Jonathan at Mocha Joes. I thank God for days like these.

I have too many idols...

I went home this past weekend. I applied for summer jobs at a ton of places so hopefully someone will give me a call or something. I'm gonna work at the Chapel again but I'm gonna need more hours. So... I had fun hangin' out with Krista. Umm... nothing too exciting happened while I was home, other than seeing cool people like Krista, Anna, Jim, Jeff, Jenny, Abby, Britt, and Sara. Yeah that's about it. I woke up at 5:00am this morning (Indiana time) to come back to Anderson, because I didn't want to drive yesterday. So, yeah. Looong day ahead of me yo. Fo' shizzle. Why do you ask? BECAUSE. I really don't know what I'm typing here. I just have 20 minutes before a meeting and don't have anything better to do because it's not enough time to go back to the dorm. Well, it is, it's a small campus, but not enough time to go to the dorm and have time to actually do anything, other than maybe go to the bathroom. But I don't have to go to the bathroom. And even if I did, there's other places to do that. So yeah. I'm done. Have a great life. Woot.

God's teaching me a lot, and I mean A LOT this week. Here at Anderson it's "Vision/Revision" week, which I guess is sorta a week emphasized on art and how art glorifies God. But the cool thing is that it's not just art blah blah paintings, but ART. Poetry, music, dance, anything and everything considered art. Tuesday in Chapel they had this guy come in, he's a potter, and he made this vase while he talked. And he talked about how God's the potter and we're the clay. I'll admit, when he first started talking I was thinking to myself "yeah yeah I've heard this before, God molds us the way he wants us, okay." But this guy took it to a new level. He found a way to fit EVERYTHING into the analogy. I probably can't remember it all, but it was awesome. Like, one thing was he was explaining that as he made the pot bigger, it got weaker and weaker, but it when it is at it's weakest it is able to hold the most, ie be the most useful. And so that tied in with how we need to be weak so we can be useful through His strength. And man, I don't remember much, but it was really good. Anyone from AU out there please leave a comment or just tell me some of the other stuff. Then today in Chapel they had different students all do differnt things. A few people read poems and stuff. Scott rapped, and that was cool, no, better than cool. It was awesome. I don't know if you're reading this or not, Scott (hey it rhymed) but you truly have a gift. I know you know that though, and I know that you know it's from God, and it amazes me how humble you are, and I admire that. But I feel weird saying I admire someone's humility in a way, because it seems to take away from that humility. Hmm... weird. Then there was this other skit, too. It was to "Bring Me To Life" by Evanescence. My AUCME team last semester (not the same people as this semester) did a skit to that song and ours was about suicide. But today in Chapel it was.. amazing. It started out in the Garden of Eden, and God came out and made Adam, and then put him to sleep and made Eve. And then he showed them that everything in the garden was for them, except the one tree. But, of course, Adam and Eve ate the apples, and in the skit, as soon as they bit into the apples the people who were trees made a fence thing where they were blocking Adam and Eve from God. And they were trying to get through, but they couldn't, and meanwhile they kept fighting each other. Then Jesus came, broke the "fence" thing, and took the apples from Adam and Eve, and as soon as he took the apples, he was crucified, and then the apples fell from his hand. And then at the end, he came down from the cross, like the resurrection. When he came down, Eve started to go get the apple, but then saw Jesus and clung to him, but Adam just got his apple and left. And it just really spoke to me about how we constantly watch and see evidence of God's love and we think about the cross and we sit there and think "I can't believe he loves me that much" and all this stuff, but then we turn RIGHT around and go RIGHT back to our sin. We can't be perfect for even a SECOND. It's disgusting. We deserve to be hated, we deserve to be with Satan. I mean, even as I sit here and write about this and how disgusting it is and how much I hate sin, I know that in less time than can be measured I'll be sinning. I'll think about something I shouldn't, I'll hate someone I should love, I don't know what, but I do know that I'll do something evil. We all do.