June 2006 Archives

The last few weeks have been an absolute whirlwind. I finished the class requirements for my CLAD credential. I finished my spring semester for my graduate classes. I ended the school year with my students, including all the grading and cleaning and whatnot. I put together purchase proposals for classes next year. I started my summer graduate classes & have been working my pa-tooty off on those. And, a bunch of other things.

One big highlight was this past weekend down in Redlands, CA, where my dear friends got married! So, here's a neat pic of Brian and Melanie after they finally got hitched.

It was a Greek Orthodox wedding, so the ceremony was totally loaded with symbolism and interesting parts that I've never seen before. Seriously, you should go to a Greek wedding. I hope to post soon some of the information about the wedding ceremony so you can see how cool it was. Josh and I were both baffled by the difference between their wedding ceremony and every other one we've been to.

This summer I'm doing grad school full time and an internship at the Krause Center for Innovation. I'm pretty excited about it and have been working really hard lately. But, I suppose I should just stop talking about how hard I work because - what else is new? Seriously though, I'm planning on slowing my life down eventually....

Anyway, the main event is a huge congratulations to my dear friends Brian & Mel. May the Lord bless and keep your marriage strong through many years.

So, if you've played Battlefield Vietnam, then you totally know what I'm talking about. While you're running around in destroyed buildings and swampy areas, there are these annoying speakers that chant over and over and over in a vietnamese accent, "American soldier, you government has betray you..." It was supposedly a tactic to play mind games with the American soldiers, make them go crazy and go against their government. Well, I've been hearing that same voice in my head since Thursday night, except it's saying a slightly different tune, "Stephanie, your body has betray you..."

And that's because it has. So far today I've been able to keep down less than a cup of white rice. Everything else, including water, has been against me. Yesterday was better, I was able to eat some spaghetti noodles and a piece of toast. Saturday I was able to eat two tacos. And Friday... well, Friday nothing would agree with me.

I'm pretty sure it's food poisoning from a BBQ I went to Thursday night. Whatever it is, it is causing my body to revolt and I hate it for that. My current problem is that ALL food seems disgusting to me now. It's like, I have to prep myself like, "Okay, Steph, you really should eat something today." But then my body shudders because everything has been a risk this weekend. Today the rice has been good so far, but tomorrow? Who knows!

Hopefully this will pass soon. I'm too tired to keep going this way.

Man, I've been really sad at blogging this year. I've had lots of things going on including the much awaited visit by my parents in February. My mom and dad finally made it out to see sunny California and I showed them everything I could from Monterey to San Francisco. It was so good to spend time with them.

On newer news, I chopped my hair off again this week, so I look more like the Freshman year of college/wedding day/move to California Stephanie. I just realized that I had been putting my hair in a stupid ponytail every single day and was frustrated that it took a half hour just to blow dry my hair, let alone style it (hence the ponytail). So, I decided to go short but fabulous & am loving it.

I had some interesting spiritual realizations a week ago. Josh was gone at Neal & Jess's wedding, so I had lots of time to myself to think. I got to thinking and praying about what keeps us from fully experiencing God in this life. I listened to a sermon on lust, only this pastor defined lust not purely as a sexual thing. He said it was a demand thing, as in "I want it and I want it now." When people want something so bad that they'll go around all the proper routes in order to get it sooner. I realized that this translated to many things in life - lust for money, lust for power, lust for acceptance, lust for sex, lust for material items, etc. And what pushes us toward these things? I think it's fear. Fear that we won't be loved, fear that people won't like us if we don't have the right things, fear that we'll get defeated, fear that we'll end up poor and on the streets, fear that we won't be respected... you get the idea. So, I've been praying for God to reveal my fears to me and to defeat them. It's amazing how He answers this prayer and I had my deepest fears revealed to me very soon after that prayer. I'm not going to get into what they are here, but I will say that understanding your deepest fears is a huge step to understanding who you are and why you make the decisions you do. I also learned that it's at the root of many addictions as well. Anyway, just some thoughts and praise to God for being so faithful as my Teacher.

Josh and I went to a Beck concert on Tuesday night. That was pretty sweet. You gotta love Beck. Especially when he has puppets. Puppets and teddy bears.

Oh, and I got food poisoning on Thursday night. Today (Saturday) I was finally able to keep some solid food down around dinnertime, so you can guess what a rough couple of days it's been. Bright side is that I was able to fit into my skinny jeans today. I'd rather wear the fat jeans and not have food poisoning, but I'm just trying to find the positive side to food poisoning to make it seem less depressing.

Peace!