rockbridge recap

As you may have noted in the past two years, after finals intervarsity folk head to the mountains to this camp called Rockbridge. I hesitate to call it a camp because we live in some fine dorms and get amazing food (I finally figured out we get the same menu every year, hahhhh), but nonetheless we do have scheduled time and then free time and there are like 500 people there. After my freshmen year I was required to go for small group leader training; last year I couldn't stay away and did a track called "identity transformed" (this was also a transformational time for my blog because I for the first time got more than 15 readers: read that post); this year I was also required to go, being on exec. My scheduled time included a lot of talking to the rest of our exec, assessing our chapter, setting goals for the next year, praying over our campus, etc. I wasn't sure what to expect in terms of spiritual growth, since all of that sounds like a lot of business.

I was planning for a week of business, relaxation and emotional draining because in the past exec seemed to be very tired after talking about priorities all day. And then after that they were incredibly kind to me--even though I was pretty sure they were the ones in need of some personal care, many of them spent time hanging out with me and listening to me work through problems. I greatly appreciated this and considered it then my duty to do the same for others. I confess that I was not particularly looking forward to being the advice-giver after a semester of already holding this position (or, more like a lifetime; I have been \gifted in terms of listening ability).

But let me tell you how that expectation was changed. I knew already that this year's exec got along really well. Although we have had tremendously long meetings, everyone's been a trooper about them, knowing that it's better for us to discuss important topics than for them to fester. We love hanging out together! Even though we have different social circles we've found time to eat giant bowls of ice cream or watch New Girl together, which has been very fun. So this week was looking pretty good: I got to have a week of exec meetings!! I feel like we never have enough time to talk about business, so it was great to talk through some of the things that we didn't have time for last semester. We also had fun together (we had an impromptu photoshoot so that we were sure to get pictures with Sharese, who had to leave early). :)

In the middle of the week I started getting overwhelmed with the amount of things we were expected to do and the very little time we had for them, so I kind of checked out. I thought: I can take care of this in the summer. I'll have so much time! But then I started getting overwhelmed at the thought of handling everything myself. Between planning events, thinking about the purpose behind everything we do, coordinating volunteers and so many more things to think about, I realized that would be impossible. I knew I wasn't supposed to do it on my own and yet I was still selfish enough to think that I could.

That's when God comes into the picture. I felt an overwhelming sense of peace during worship the last night and I suddenly realized what I had been doing wrong. God's got my back! Exec's got my back, too! For the logistical things, there's a reason that we have a team of people and not just a dictator/president/single student leader. It's helpful to talk about events and work through all the details and perspectives, and even if it doesn't feel productive, it's absolutely necessary. And for the scope of things I have to handle, from interpersonal issues to complaints to secrets (like Kennis coming to Rockbridge!!!), I'm not strong enough to rely on myself; even though I want to rely on exec, sometimes that doesn't work either. That's where I need God most. I want someone who I can share all of my stress and troubles and thoughts with? Sometimes friends say that they want that but I think we can all agree that it would take an INCREDIBLE friend to withstand all of our anger, pride, sorrow--not to mention joy--and to still be sympathetic and loving. Welp, I don't have to count on one person to do all that, and sometimes I can't find an impartial person to share that with, and that's when I just need to press in to who God is and accept his love. He wants to be my support and I am so grateful for that.

Other great things about Rockbridge:

• Kennis was back from Paris!
• Hanging out with  freshmen sophomores! I'm so excited for people who are newish in our community and there were a lot of newish faces, which was great! I wish I had more time to hang out with everyone :(
• The Big Ten
• The slides! I used to be scared of them, but actually they are probably the least scary thing about camp
• Semi-learning how to wobble
• Hunger Games and our best-dressed tributes
• Hanging out with Marty! Marty is such a huge blessing and great friend. I was so glad he got to be with us during track time!
• Chapter time; I love you allllll :)
• Picture time - many thanks for indulging my request to have pictures with as many people as possible!
• Graduates - so glad I got to see you guys for a week before you headed off to real life
• Worship - so good!  http://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL37B4C301EE7E918E&feature=view_all (especially 10,000 reasons!)
• God was so present in so many people's lives and I loved hearing about it! Keep telling your stories!

whatup summer 2012

Yeah, I'm back to blogging, maybe for realzies if I find enough time. What's that implication? Marisa won't  have much free time? Allow me to explain.

Things I'm doing this summer:

• Living on campus for both summer sessions
• Conducting upperclass Monroe research project involving economic experiments
• Starting work at Pita Pit
• Taking GRE
• Road tripping to Carlo's bakery
• Making cake pops
• READING (Jane Eyre/The Hobbit/Northanger Abbey/Shakespearean tragedies)
• Picking grad schools
• Cooking (learning how to make things other than just chicken and pasta)
• Tryna find a bible study
• Hanging out with my summer roommate (Tayrawr!) and other friends in the Burg
• Watching The Glee Project!!!
• Actually exploring CW
• Tanning? Or at least beaching
• Maybe seeing Tim Tebow if I'm forced to

So if you're tryna keep in touch, there are a variety of ways to do so:

• Read my blog
• Write me letters or give me your address and I'll write you letters!
• Visit me in the Burg (no guarantee I'll have free time, but it's a pleasant enough place)....but seriously if you want to see me come visit!
• Skype OR hang out on google+ (you know you want to)
• Facebook stalk
• Text/call/email/facebook/tweet/etc.
• Wait until August (not recommended)

spring 2012 accomplishments // notable moments

• Making turtles
• Helping Jamie pack her room
• Not crying at 50/50
• All of the coffee dates
• Running into LJ+grandma while shopping with Mom
• Miss Jones taught me English...
• Learning yoga, preferring pilates
• Late night Kelliann encounters
• So many cupcakes (per usue)
• Campus golf? so mainstream...
• Baking, blogging, tweeting...anything to avoid mathing
• Avoiding pudding wrestling
• Florida nbd
• Maybe getting tan?
• But definitely getting attacked by a seagull
• Hunger Games consumption
• "Let's be friends!"
• Getting adopted at Relevant
• Phone tag, Jamie style...also skyping while driving?!
• Emceeing large group
• Co-starring in three IV videos (bet you can't find the third)
• Joanna's birthday
• Monopoly beast
• Eating like 1/3 of an ice cream cake in one sitting
• Mad about chocolate...yum
• Getting my first applied-for job
• Joining Mortar Board
• Best dress week ever
• Painting out
• Losing twin appreciation week to the best twin ever
• Breaking the world record for most people spooning
• Establishing the term "studwellian"
• Late night exec timez (sometimes unintentionally)
• Hanging out with Katie all of the days...and also reading the beeblay all of the days
• Not getting mono for Rockbridge
• Actually being able to go outside for Blowout
• Writing 16 pages of non-fiction (which is to say a super long paper) in two days...most of which was written between dinner and lunch with a final in between
• Not failing any classes! (yet)

music loves

I have a new playlist on spotify called music loves. This is to distinguish songs from mere "music crushes" which are perfectly pleasant songs, but could come or go in my graces. A song now has to graduate from music crushes, and either goes to "music loves" or goes back into the oblivion of all music ever. I'm really excited about this new development in my organization of music and I hope successfully helps me differentiate songs!

Side note: this does not directly relate to starred songs, which could be on either or neither playlist. Music crushes are like new, popular, catchy songs that I like but that need some testing time to see if I can stand them for several months. Music loves are obviously great songs that make me happy to listen to them (even if they're sad songs). Starred songs are all good songs that I generally approve of, but haven't especially distinguished themselves. And nope, JBiebs hasn't made it to music loves.

Check it outttt!

a note to myself on a good day from C.S. Lewis

"If you have sound nerves and intelligence and health and popularity and a good upbringing, you are likely to be quite satisfied with your character as is. 'Why drag God into it?' you may ask. A certain level of good conduct comes fairly easily to you. You are not one of those wretched creatures who are always being tripped up by sex, or dipsomania, or nervousness, or bad temper. Everyone says you are a nice chap and (between ourselves) you agree with them. You are quite likely to believe that all this niceness is your own doing: and you may easily not feel the need for any better kind of goodness. Often people who have all these natural kinds of goodness cannot be brought to recognise their need for Christ at all until, one day, the natural goodness lets them down and their self-satisfaction is shattered. In other words, it is hard for those who are 'rich' in this sense to enter the Kingdom."

- C.S. Lewis in Mere Christianity

best econ pick up lines

• Is that a supply curve in your pocket?

...I'm sorry, I should have said best econ pick up line, because nothing can top that.

career planes

Today I was thinking about the major culture shock I experienced when I went from being homeschooled to attending a public high school of 2800 students. Aside from waking up early, meeting new people, making friends, having strict deadlines and figuring out PE, probably the roughest thing for me was figuring out the expectations I was supposed to be fulfilling. While some teachers would give us a detailed syllabus, I still had difficulty figuring out what was required reading, how to prepare for an exam and--most frustrating--how long they actually meant for my papers to be (does "4 pages" mean double-spaced or single-spaced? Do I count references or headers?). I really just wanted explicit directions before I could get started.

This got me thinking about an analogy for life. We start with some toys and we slowly begin to learn various unrelated things--the color wheel, multiplication, subject-verb agreement, the water cycle. These are tools that we all need at some point in our life but which may seem pointless and frustrating when you first learn them. This is analogous to learning a set of instructions for a task that you don't understand; you just know some basic math, communication skills and safety precautions.

So then you get to high school. You're expected to analyze situations and formulate opinions, but you're still expanding on that initial set of instructions that you learned. You're finding out the reason that they work but you still don't understand why you need them. At this time, you're introduced to the task that you're going to be expected to complete: you get an idea in your head that you're going to have to find a job, but you can't picture it and all of your work is highly irrelevant to that task of choosing a career.

Here's where things diverge. Either you go to college or you find a job, but in either case you're expected to begin the process of self-sufficiency. So you have your set of instructions and as soon as you graduate high school you can clearly see the task in front of you. In our analogy let us picture this as an airplane; up until this point you were picturing the planes your parents fly but you didn't know what yours would look like. You hop into the plane and expect everything to be great, but realize that there are a lot of things that your training didn't cover.

Suppose you go to college and realize that you have some time before your plane has to take off. You might find a co-pilot somewhere along the way, but even they can't tell you where you're flying. You spend some time learning new things: how to live with other people, how to complete ambiguous assignments, how to speak Russian, whatever. And while these are more practical than your previous experiences, they don't tell you how to navigate a plane at all. By the time you get to senior year, the engines are revving up and you're moving to the runway. Everything is shaky and scary and you suddenly have a fear of being up in the air even though you know that you've been training for this for years and that everyone else seems to handle it just fine. But every time you've been in another airplane, your parents were there and they knew how to figure out insurance and groceries and rent and taxes; this time, it seems like you have to know everything.

Once you're in the air, you remember that you still don't know where your destination is. So you just start flying and it feels great but you're burning up fuel. You may have to transfer flights halfway through your journey, and this is terrifying on the descent but once you're in the new plane you realize that this is a much nicer ride and that you really needed that extra fuel. Eventually you have to land. You've come as far as the plane can take you and you think you're ready to just get off. But as you near the ground you start thinking about the future and start wondering what it will be like without the comfort of your cockpit: you know everything you need to about flying a plane but now it's of little use to anyone. Even if you try to tell your kids about it, you realize that they need to fly by themselves in order to get anything out of it. So you land--it might be bumpy--and then you get out of the plane and you stare at it for a little while. You don't know who you are without it. You turn your back and walk away but you can't help but think of it when the morning comes and there aren't any switches to flip or people to call.

Here's the thing. I can't even see my plane. I don't know if it's an economy-sized plane or what. I'm going to climb into it in a year and I know it will be fine, but when it comes time to land I don't want to look back and realize that because I'm retired I no longer have an identity. Don't let your career/plane/destination define you...you spend most of your time making little decisions or even making small talk, and when you're up in the air, the color of the plane and the travel route really don't make any difference. What matters is how closely you're listening to your air traffic controller: are you taking directions from your gut or from someone who can see the big picture? We all have these big plans for our flights but if we all just go at it alone, sooner or later someone will get hurt. You're not always going to get explicit directions; you will have to rely on your previous training. But if you listen closely you may be able to avoid a crash.

What it comes down to is this: can you trust someone who you can't even see? Do you trust God or are you really tryna fly solo?