Relax @ MindSay

Well, the rain has finally moved to the east and we have been enjoying beautiful cool weather around these parts! It is perfect for cycling and my friends and I are taking advantage of it!
Yesterday we rode 38 miles to Big Sugar State park  and it was simply breath taking! The road parallels Sugar creek on one side and the other is forest and bluffs. The honey suckle and wild roses were in full bloom and smelled divine!
Today we're riding 47 miles and tomorrow 50 so if your wondering if I died...nope...I'm really living and enjoying the hell  out of it!
I may not post much but I am reading your blogs first thing in the morning and casting my votes. I'm trying not to think about politics or religion (though it's hard living in the bible belt in a 'red state") for a few days. 
I'm sure something will piss me off soon and I'll tell you all about it! Until then....be well!

Oh man, this past weekend was nuts. I guess my "weekend" technically started on Thursday, even though I had classes the next day. On Thursday night, I had to go to this event called Fresh Formal where all the Freshman Leadership Organizations (FLOs) would get together and get a chance to meet each other and dance. Well, a group of friends of mine decided we would go out and grab dinner beforehand and then pregame before going to the dance (as everyone was planning on being drunk to this thing). We ended up eating kind of late, and meeting up at a friends frat house and I had a few drinks. The dance was lame, so I was glad to be somewhat tipsy just based off of how awkward things were. Afterwards we ended up going out again and drinking some more. I was pretty much fine all night, but I decided I would mess around with my roommate Nathan some and make him think I was totally gone. I will admit though, I had a mad case of the giggles, and would laugh really hard at funny stuff.

On Friday, I thought it would be a relaxing night, and I ended up hanging out with Nathan again. We went to the GT baseball game against UNC, and we lost, but it was fun to watch. Afterward, we ended up going to the Varsity and had my second dinner, which wasn't really smart of me. I ended up getting some mad heartburn later in the night, but it didn't really matter much. After hanging out with the roommate, I ended up going out with a couple of my buddies David and Michael to check out some of the frat parties. Man, that was a good decision. We mainly checked out two big parties, and after a while, we realized we really needed some girls to dance with, so we called up a few of them, and only really managed to get my friend Meghan to come out. We danced for a while, and then went inside the frat house to try to find some drinks. Lo and behold, we found some damn strong Bourbon. Not a smart choice, but hey, we had quite a bit of it, and while I was perfectly fine, my friend David was completely gone, and Michael was pretty drunk. The night was really great, it was the first time in such a while I had gone out and enjoyed myself. As luck would have it, I ended up finding a new friend Zach who I had just met that day, and we had an even better time doing some social drinking.

The next day (Saturday) I didn't really plan on doing any partying, but I ended up getting my mind changed.. AGAIN. The night started out great and ended.. alright, but my cousin Ivan came down to Tech to visit me and chill out. We ate dinner with a bunch of my friends, and walked to the nearest movie theater in Atlantic Station to see the new Fast and Furious movie (which wasn't really that good in my opinion). Now, even though we got back around midnight, I still went with my cousin to show him what the life was like at tech when it came to parties and stuff, and luckily there were some huge parties going on. We were sober the entire time we were at the band party we went to (shockingly, I know), but ended up going to David's frat house and drinking there. Nathan (my roommate) was feeling kind of down and had wayyyyy too much to drink, so we had to carry him back on our shoulders, but he was fucking hilarious. He ended up puking that night, and while I was a bad influence on my cousin, he had a good time. He got to see what college life is really like I suppose, and that's always a good thing. We got back into the room around 6 AM Sunday morning, and I only got about 3-4 hours of sleep.

Sunday sucked. I barely remember anything, just because I was so sleep deprived. I know I dropped Ivan off at his car, and I had to go to audition the bands for the Battle of the Bands I'm organizing, but besides that things were blurry. I think throughout the entire week I got somewhere around 25 hours of sleep, with about 6 or 7 of those hours over the 3 days I partied. I got very sick because my immune system was sucking from lack of rest, and thank goodness I had some friends to take care of me. I'm still feeling sick, but at least I'm doing better than Sunday. I slept 15 hours straight that night, so that's pretty epic. And that's not counting the 5 or 6 hours that I was sleeping on and off before that (right after I finished those auditions).

Life is busy as ever, and this Battle of the Bands deal is quickly approaching (it's next Thursday), so I hope it's a success. Classes are as rough as ever, and I just got through a decently difficult Calc II test (I actually think I did pretty well). I know I've sucked at keeping up with the blog, and I'm sorry. Life is just busy, and this weekend I wasn't exactly on the computer much, I was just having way too much fun. :P

Wow, I've just realized it's April 7th. My birthday is in 10 days, and I didn't even realize it til now. I'm not really a big fan of my birthday or anything, but this just kind of shocks me. It feels like it hasn't been a year since my last birthday, and that's how I know that I'm getting old. Time is going by too fast! I'm going to try to keep up with this better, and sorry for making such a long post! Hope to hear from you all!

I've been thinking.

A couple of us have been throwing words like "persecution" around, but remember our bible heroes, the ones off the top of my head that I can think of are Paul and Peter. And Daniel, from the Old Testament.

They were persecuted much worse for what they believe than anything I've ever seen on mindsay, and not only did they endure it, they rejoiced in it. Nothing made them prouder for the opportunity to be persecuted for the sake of the Christ, who they loved.

So just relax. Nothing I've read on mindsay has yet inspired tears of joy in me, like Peter's tears.

On another note, I'm not always in the mood to defend my faith every single time I log in to mindsay. I don't waver in my faith, but I don't always feel like being God's advocate. Not every day. My faith helps me be a better person. I don't want to always want to have to defend it.

I can endure this, though. My faith is strong enough to survive mindsay. Let me just relax a while, though. Kay?

Swinging legs in a tree

where I wish to be -

 If monkey see monkey do,

will you join me too?

 

There's fat lil' robins round,

waddling hopping on the ground

if we act like those

and be light on our toes,

where would we chance to end up?

 

bitter by flutterfly

soar and dance into the sky

 horizon is an illusion

won't you sway with me?

 

The wind is singing

feathered lullabies upon our skin

breathing life into the soul

Caressing your weary winter wounds

does it seduce you too?

 

I'll brew us a cup strong enough

 of bittersweet melodies

and once drunk up

to the pine I'm going,

gaze to the clouds

all the while unknowing

 I'm just a mortal human -

I cannot fly.

Afraid of heights as well.

 

 But should I ever pass

in untimely ways,

what a wonderful story left to tell~

 

Here's to hoping your legs dangle in the breeze, light of mind, and deep of soul...

~Lilli

One of my exes, after I broke up with him, offered the dagger throw of, "Each time your heart gets broken, it's a little easier to put the pieces back together, because you know how they go."

I don't know that that's the case, and I don't know that I'd be that histrionic, but I do know that this time when I get a particular piece of somewhat recurring bad news, well, I still react to it. But not by flipping out or forming my own hysterics. Rather, I apparently just lose the ability to focus. And, okay, this is bad because I had a lot of work to get done this weekend.

And instead, I'm using my lack of focus to check out cool and lethally poisonous Australian marine life. Because, they're cool, y'know? And it's stuff you can die from that it's highly unlikely I will ever encounter (unless I fall in an aquarium or something, and I don't think you can legally possess any of these in the U.S.), so, I can just admire it.

Australia's got all KINDS of cool dangerous animals. I don't think Britain quite realized what they were doing when they planned their colonies. "Gee, the Americas rebelled, we can't use them as our prison anymore. Hey, what about that great big island way off yonder that we never do anything with? Let's send 'em there!" Decades later, "What's that you say? Nine of the world's ten-most-venomous snakes? Evidence of saber-toothed kangaroos? Walnut-sized invisible deadly octopi in the tide pools? We're brilliant!" Also, "Let's send the really bad'uns to Tasmania. Wonder what they'll find down there?"

I don't know why, but I find marine life relaxing, and often, the more dangerous it would be to me, the better. Possibly because I'm observing it through thick practically-transparisteel glass, and it can't possibly get me, so I enjoy the metaphor, because whatever stress-monster is currently chewing at me I would very much prefer to have on the other side of the glass. And I just find water relaxing in general.

Back in the day, I was at some point planning on going to school up in the Cities. This is not so very far from the MOA, which has, among its attractions, some very, very cool aquariums. And I'd planned (because I already knew how stressful nursing was going to be) that at least once a week, I would go down there and just...chill. For a couple hours, or whatever. (Yearly pass to the aquariums doesn't actually cost all that much, especially if you're going once a week). I still want to do that. Whenever I get too stressed, go to the aquarium, and watch the sharks. The sharks make me feel better.