Dreaming ...

July can't come fast enough! This is what I am looking forward to in about 55 days!


The Waipouli Resort in Kapaa, Kauai

Getting By On Grace

I tend to write a lot of spiritual, introspective blogs in my head and that's about as far as they go. But I've been feeling compelled to get some of these feelings out in the open, so here we go...In the last few months I have become paralyzed by a fear of failure. I chalk it up to a combination of feeling inadequate in my statistics class last semester and the presence of new people in my life who are actually more Type A than I am when it comes to certain things. (I say "certain things," because if you know me, then you'll understand that I can be completely neurotic when it comes to something like getting the best grades, but then be a total free spirit when it comes to how often I do the laundry or clean the windows - so maybe I'm more of a Type A-.) Justin used to tell me my weird competitive drive stemmed from the fact that I never played organized sports as a child. (I contend that bowling is in fact an organized sport.) I noticed that when I started running a couple of years ago that some of that competitive drive was unleashed in a more appropriate direction, so maybe Justin's on to something with that theory of his. But, unfortunately that pursuit has gone by the wayside since I started juggling the work/school/home life trifecta, and my weirdly misdirected competitive drive has returned. This time coupled with high anxiety and a fear of coming up short in the eyes of my professors, my colleagues, my friends, my family, etc.

I gained a new perspective on this whole thing yesterday at church. (As an aside, "the church" and I have had a weird relationship for several months, so this was an unexpected surprise for me.) The guest speaker talked about a really simple concept - simple at least to a person who has grown up in church and feels like they have "heard it all before" - the concept of Grace. The whole point of grace is that the person on the receiving end has done nothing to deserve it. It isn't something you can earn by being the best at something, getting the highest grade, or being the perfect employee. Grace is a gift that is given freely because of God's love for us. The beauty of it is that while there is nothing we can do to earn grace, there is also nothing we can do to lose it. So, while there is something to be said for the earthly rewards that come with getting good grades and being a successful employee, I shouldn't fear failure because God's grace is sufficient enough to get me through anything and, for the lack of a better, more spiritual explanation - grace means that God's got my back. And with Him, failure isn't even a possibility, let alone an option.

Down at Fraggle Rock!

I just read the following at perezhilton.com.

"The Weinstein Co. is going to turn Fraggle Rock into a live-action musical movie!

A new generation will get to dance their cares away and worry another day.
According to Variety, just like the series, the film will be populated by a mix of human characters and Fraggle Rock puppets. The pic will take the core characters Gogo, Wembley, Mokey, Boober and Red outside of their home in Fraggle Rock, where they interact with humans, which they think are aliens. "

So exciting! As long as they don't dumb it down or ruin it with fart jokes or drug references like so many other live action remakes. Make Jim Henson proud!

Happy Friday!

Which Character From The Office Are You?

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I'm not too sure about this...

Time Management

I really wanted to attend a "Time Management" seminar today at work. The problem? It's 3 hours long! Who has the TIME for that?!?

Getting Rick-Rolled

On April 1st, youtube played a prank on site visitors by linking every video on its main page to the music video of 80's pop phenom Rick Astley's one-hit wonder "Never Gonna Give You Up." For the record, I have loved this song since the first time I saw it - probably in the late 80's. I remember watching the video on VH1 and thinking, "wow, he sure is dreamy."

Here it is, 20 years later, and the time warp continues...

If you can dodge a wrench . . .

On Wednesday night, the Pacific Young Alumni Club decided to participate in the campus RecSports dodgeball tournament!!! We assembled a full team, made shirts, and gathered to face off against a handfull of student teams. Not exactly sure how the students felt about the whole thing, but we had a super fun time! I am also proud to say that we held our own remarkably well! We won two rounds and lost in the third - which was good for 3rd place. (I think. . . this was my own unofficial ranking - it was never confirmed.) As the various matches and rounds progressed, I remembered the reason I never participated in organized sports. I SUCKED at dodgeball. I couldn't throw the ball to save my life. It was sad and mildly depressing. I guess I'll stick with individual athletic events like running and triathlons.


Team Young Alumni!


Getting ready to dodge!


Justin was a good dodger. I'm hoping our children get his athletic genes.


Finally! Something in my skill set: taking charge!

If My Life Was a Musical

It would look something like this . . .

Shuffling Along...

Ugh. It's Monday morning and the office is too quiet! What to do? Plug into my ipod shuffle! Here are the first (lucky 13) random songs that came up this morning - mind you this is from my "leaving on a jet plane mix" which I created to ease my nerves during a recent trip to Texas, so the selections are of a more mellow variety.

1. Stars - Switchfoot
2. Wink and a Smile - Harry Connick Jr.
3. Ain't No Mountain High Enough - Marvin Gaye & Tammi Terrell
4. Step Up - Samantha Jade
5. 1234 - Feist
6. Such Great Heights - Iron & Wine
7. In the Waiting Line - Zero 7
8. Teardrops on My Guitar - Taylor Swift
9. 525,600 Minutes - Rent Soundtrack
10. Star Mile - Joshua Radin
11. What Time Is It? - HSM 2 (hangs head in shame)
12. Blessed Be Your Name - Matt Redman
13. Beautiful Broken World - Warren Barfield

Time is Flying!

My lovely desk calendar - a Sommer Perry original - tells me that today is March 10th. That means 1/3 of the month is already gone. Where is the time going????

TGIF!

Friday nights are the best part of the whole week. For a few short hours I try to forget about everything I need to do and set aside the guilt that plagues me the rest of the week about how behind I am on housework, regular work, school work, projects for all my extra curricular stuff, etc. Sometimes I feel like I can never get caught up on anything, let alone everything. But, on Friday nights I just try to let it all go and enjoy a few lazy hours watching a movie or laying around on the couch. It's still hard to put it all aside, but for a short time I can feel a little less guilty about taking some time for myself.

Happy Friday!!!!!!!!!!!

Happy Valentine's Day! UPDATE

I have to take a statistics test today. Definitely not feeling the love.

Update: So, stats wasn't so bad. Maybe this COMM major is smarter than she thought. :)