yes, I'm finally giving ya'll an update...

I honestly didn't think it was going to take this long to find the time to send out an update. I've been crazy busy! Oh and before I go any farther I really don't use the word "ya'll" I just thought I'd use it this once. Here are a few highlights of what has been happening with me and at CIU...
I had orientation and welcome week and got signed up for all my classes and moved into my dorm room. Thanks to my dad and his patience and willingness to drive, I went back to Wal-Mart about 6 times for things that I kept forgetting or finding out that I needed. So finally after almost 4 weeks of being on the CIU campus, my room is organized and pretty. My roommate, Beth, and I have quite different taste, but we've been able to agree on things (like the duck rug by the sink and the Sponge Bob poster that couldn't stay in our room so it's now on one of the hall bathroom doors). Beth and I have had lots of fun together.
One day I went in to the bathroom and was about to sit down when I (for no reason) looked down and saw something that doesn't belong in a toilet...a frog! So, needless to say (Phillip!!) I did not use that stall and I moved on to the next and left the frog for someone else.
Here's my class schedule in case anyone is interested (needless to say I really like my Weds/Fri class schedule and I REALLY like getting out early Fridays and not having classes on Monday...that means one long weekend. Oh, we can't do homework on Sundays, so that's our rest day) -
Monday - NO SCHOOL!
Tuesday/Thursday -
~ Western Civilization (8-9:15) which is wonderful since I love getting up early (haha!)
~ Old Testament Survey (9:25-10:40) we read through Genesis in two nights! and we're already in Numbers. I already had my first exam in this class and found out that college grading is a lot different than high school.
~ Chapel (10:50-11:40)
~ Lunch (11:41-12:30) the line goes through the length of the cafeteria, out the door, and down the sidewalk so it's quite the time standing in the heat and waiting.
~NAPTIME (12:35-1:10) an essential and energy booster. I've taken more naps in the past 3 weeks than my entire time in high school combined.
~ ICS introduction to the world christian movement (1:25-2:40) I love this class!!
~ Written Composition (2:50-4:05) Not too excited about this class.
Wednesday/Friday -
~ Old Testament Survey (9:25-10:40)
~ Chapel (10:50-11:40)
~ Field Education (12-12:50) this semester we're reading a book called "Uprising" for Wednesdays and meeting in small groups on Fridays. Next semester we actually go out and serve somewhere.
So one Saturday I'm standing in the cafeteria waiting in line and some guy gets up and makes an anouncement saying, "For anyone who's interested, a bunch of us are going to be up at the football field hitting each other with foam weapons. It might be a kinda Braveheart re-enactment with less blood. So if any of you all like that kind of stuff, we'll probably be up there for the next 6 hours." I just thought that was pretty random.
Many of the halls here have reputations, for example ours is the more quiet mature girls (my hall is Walker Basement by the way - it has windows and it's on a slope so it's not really a basement). There's one hall that is known as "The Morgue" because almost everyone is asleep before 8pm. There's another one known as "The Nunnery" because barely anyone has gotten engaged from that hall. Getting engaged is a big thing here. The girl to guy ratio is supposedly six (6 girls!!!) to one (1 guy!!!)
Since we're not allowed to do homework or anything that's working on Sunday's we had to sign this thing called "standards" that says you will adhere to all the rules in the handbook. One of the rules is "no hand holding" (not even if you're engaged) but we are allowed to hug the opposite sex so no one really understands the idea behind that rule. Anyway, classes started August 31 but standards didn't have to be signed until September 9, so some people waited until the last minute to sign standards so they could continue holding hands with their boyfriend/girlfriend. Speaking of holding hands. Each hall has a brother/sister hall that we get together and do things with. Our brother hall is West 1 and we actually have a sister hall, Petty 2 (because there are so many girls here). Petty 2 is the hyperactive loud girls (except for Becca who's a good friend of mine). It's interesting having our laid back Walker Basement mix with the party girls of Petty 2 and the interesting characteristics of the West 1 guys. So far we have had one "hall date" which was a cookout at someone's house. Then this past Saturday we had "open dorms" and all the guys got to come over to the girls side and check out people's rooms, hang out and play games and eat, wander around, or watch movies. Every other weekend the sides switch off, so next time we'll go see the guys side.
Other random things that have happened...FIRST - One night around 10:30 a couple of the girls on my hall really wanted pizza. Ok, let me explain the issue of food here. Most of us are used to eating around 6-6:30 and going to bed around 10-11, but since we've been at CIU we eat at 5:15 and by the time it's 9:30 we are SO HUNGRY and then sometimes we're up until 11 or 12 just talking or doing homework. It's not a good system. So on this particular night we ordered pizza hut then went on a little adventure to find the Pizza Hut (there happened to be 4 on that road and most of them closed at 11 so we kept going into them asking if they were the one with our pizza because we needed some pizza to fill our hungry stomachs). Eventually we found the place. However, I was on the phone with Chelsea and kind pacing in front of some of the stores while everyone else was inside getting the pizza. As I'm pacing, this black guy pulls up beside me in his kinda old red car and he looks over and starts to say something (I'm thinking oh no I'm going to be dragged off and kidnapped or offered drugs or something) but he says, "Hey...I've got dvd's. You want some?" and I looked at him, rolling me eyes, and said, "uuh...no." So he said cool and drove off. Haha! That was weird. It somewhat reminded me of Indonesia and pirated vcds. SECOND - one day in chapel we're just sitting there waiting and then a clip from Napoleon Dynamite comes on (the part when Pedro is about to go make his speech) so then the clip stops and this guy names Rodriego, who is in seminary at CIU and is from Costa Rica, comes out and makes the Pedro speech and he sounded just like him and it was hilarious (it's his real accent too which made it even funnier with a wig and everything). After "Pedro" finished his speech, "Napoleon" (real name is John) came on stage and did about 30 seconds of "the dance" before quickly running off as Napoleon does. After all this, the student senate and class presidents just wanted to introduce themselves in a different way. THIRD - The day after the Napoleon chapel, there was a girl sitting at my lunch table who got really excited when she found out that there were mini marshmallows over by the ice cream so she went and got a bowl full of mini marshmallows. When she came back she yelled over at a guy from the next table and she started throwing the marshmallows for him to catch in his mouth. He caught a few but a few hit the guy next to him in the back of the head. Then another guy from that table threw a little piece of roast beef, trying to get her to stop. But she picked up her whole piece of roast beef and looks over at them in a threatening but funny way and says, "you want me to throw this? i will." The guy nodded and opened his mouth (like he was gonna catch it) and she threw the whole piece over someone's head and it kinda bounced off the guys mouth and fell on the guy's foot next to him...at least it wasn't his head that time!
This is the best part...(by the way Phillip, this was taken and edited from an email I wrote you in case you're wondering why it sounds familiar)...Ok so we had a residence life meeting for all students to talk about campus rules and what to do in case of an earthquake and all that (this was a Wednesday night at 9). At 10pm we had a hall meeting to find out everyone's name, where they're from, what they're majoring in, and their favorite toe (my RA, Julie, is kind of random with her ideas). So that was over at 11pm and we all thought we were going to bed or going to finish homework since most of us had a very full day the next day (it only being our second day of classes). However, Julie screamed, "ok everyone has 5 minutes to change into something they don't care about...GO!" So we were getting kind of scared but we ran and changed anyway. By the time we all got out of our rooms, Petty 2 (sister hall) was in our hall and a lot of the girls were screaming and chanting and jumping and dancing and it was crazy loud. So the upperclassmen girls led us all running over to the guys dorms where West 1 (brother hall) was standing outside saluting us all as we ran by. We then ran up to the soccer field and separated into lines of Walker Basement (aka WB because it's shorter and that's what we say) and Petty 2. The older girls were walking by us saying, "you can do it!" and patting us on the head...we all touched our heads and were like "what is this?!" The older girls are said, "welcome to initiation girls!!!" They had put a huge glob of peanut butter in everyone's hair. After that, we had to line up and run and slide on this big tarp covered in stuff. As we ran by they dumped a bucket of something (that I thought was water but found out is was a mixture of pickle juice, ketchup, ajax, syrup, soap, salsa, and mustard among other things that we still don't know about) so they dumped the bucket on us and we slid on the tarp. Then they got out cans of shaving cream and covered everyone with it. After that they had us lay on the ground and one at a time roll over everyone else so we had this juice mixture, peanut butter, shaving cream and grass all over everyone. We heard some more yelling and we looked up to see West 1 riding in on two trucks and a car. They got out quickly and start running at us with 5-gallon buckets of water (i thought it was ok because then we could get rinsed off) but then they got out these bags of flour and shook those all over everyone. We sort of got the guys back by spraying the leftover 2 cans of shaving cream on them. This whole time there were girls running and screaming and laughing and rolling on the ground and trying to jump on the guys so they didn't get away. It was hilarious! After all this the girls went back and had a group shower time fully dressed and washed each others hair with dish soap to try and get all the junk out. So, by the time I got to bed it was 2 am and I had to be up the next morning for an 8am class.
So, I guess that's about all that's been going on in my life. I am enjoying college and having a lot of fun hanging out with the girls in my hall and some from other halls. I've met a few MKs and have made some close friends already. I can tell that Wal-Mart and Barnes & Noble are going to be places of interest for me. As far as prayer, I don't know how many people I've told, but I have decided not to major in Elementary Education. I didn't feel like it was what God wanted me to do. At the moment I am "undecided" and it's perfectly fine. All the classes I take this year all freshmen have to take no matter what major they have. Actually, in coming to CIU, each student has a Bible major and then chooses another major. I won't need to officially declare a major until my sophomore year. Just pray that I will understand and know God's direction in my life as far as a major, friends, and finding a church. Of course I miss my family and friends tremendously and it has been painful being away from everyone and everything that I knew to be home. I have really been struggling with my purpose in being at CIU and how I fit in. I have found it more difficult to make friends here than I ever have in the past. I have made a couple of really good friends (some by meeting in a hallway) that I am so thankful for and we have had a wonderful time laughing and hanging out together. I suppose the main problem with friends isn't so much the girls, but the guys. In Bandung I had a lot of guy friends but here it's hard to talk to a guy. I really miss hanging out with guys and just having them there as brothers in Christ and being good friends. Since so much of CIU is focused on the Bible, it's often easy for students to get so overwhelmed with all the class Bible reading assignments and other reading that they often don't feel like doing their own devotions because they're sick of reading. This is something I have really been trying to focus on. I've been praying a lot about keeping up a consistent relationship with God and so far I have been able to have my personal devotions on a regular basis. Just pray that I will be able to keep that up and realize that it is essential for my life and needs to remain the focus. Time management is also an issue for me and I know as I get to know people and get more social, that the desire to go out and do things will become even stronger. However, I need to not procrastinate and make sure to keep a good balance of homework/studying and having fun. So far it's been good and I have even finished things a couple of days before they were due...for those of you who know me well, this is a huge accomplishment considering in high school I never wrote anything (including 8 page research papers and final exams for history) more than 3 days in advance (my novelette was an exception but not by much!)...
Well, I truly hope to keep you all updated, though I doubt it will be every week. Please continue to pray for me. I have many of you in my prayers as well. Thank you so much for all the prayer, encouragement, emails, phone calls, and conversations so far. You all are a blessing in my life. By the way, I do read all of your emails and am very glad to hear from all of you even if I'm not the fastest at replying. Thanks for being an encouragement to me.
Now, I thought I was done writing for tonight and I was just about to finish up when I was VERY RUDELY interrupted by a well known "friend" on our hallway...the COCKROACH! As I was peacefully sitting here typing my leg kept itching but I subconsciously scratched it and when I did I noticed something fall to the floor. It was another cockroach. So I grabbed a flip flop and went to kill it but it was gone, I thought, under my bed so I moved boxes aside a moved the bed and looked around then I walked to the sink and saw it out of the corner of my eye on the bookshelf. I threw all the books of the shelf, flip flop in hand, ready to kill, and it wasn't there. So, I decided to sit back down and finish this up when I heard a slight noise beside my left ear... no, it wasn't crawling on my head...but it was crawling on my cell phone, so I hit it with the shoe and the guts squirted out but it fell to the ground and I didn't see it. At this point I am mad at the cockroach and I just want to kill it so I can throw it away and finish this up and go to bed. So I move everything off my shelf, pick up my lamp and drop it (so the bulb died and I had to change that) and then I shined it down and I saw the pathetic little cockroach on its back and wiggling it's legs. But I smashed it with a tissue and threw it away. Then of course got disinfectant wipes and wiped everything down. (WHITNEY REEVE - this was all in memory of you...one less cockroach for you to worry about in the world!) I am very proud of killing that thing. In fact it was not the first of the Walker Basement cockroaches for me to kill. One day a girl (who shall remain nameless) yelled down the hall, "who's not afraid to kill a cockroach?!" and me, being the brave MK that I am, marched down there and killed it. A couple days later, my friend across the hall made the same request. A short time later I killed a spider in someone else's room. And one day I was going to kill a bug for my roommate Beth (she had been sitting on her bed for 20 minutes, scared of the bug that was sticking out of her closet) I would have killed that one but I opened the closet to find out the "bug" was a piece of a string from her backpack. Poor girl.
For my birthday, which was one week ago today (yes John, I'm getting old), Beth decided to carry on the bug theme by giving me a special gold can of disinfectant ant and cockroach bug spray. She also bought me a little kid toy bug catching kit and a pretty orange cake with fake bugs all over it. By the way, I had an amazing birthday with a very special gift and cute little cake from Becca. I also got very special phone calls from my family in Indonesia and friends in the States, Korea, and Indonesia. And from Greg who randomly called but didn't know it was my birthday (very cool! thanks Greg!) It was a wonderful day!
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - -ENJOY the PICTURES below - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

The nasty slip'n'slide of our first special night at CIU.

Someone rolling down the long line of freshmen as the upperclassmen of our two halls stand around cheering and making sure none of us ran away.

Lined up and ready to be rolled on. That's me in the grey shirt in the middle looking quite content and ready to be smashed. I can't really tell who anyone else is.

Julie - our amazing RA who is so funny and very cool. She's pretending to look surprised at all of us getting messy. Haha! She's messy too.

After the guys (of West 1) came and the girls attacked unexpectedly. They tried to run over some of the girls and then drove off fast once they realized they weren't getting away without getting dirty and their cars getting very messed up.

Walker Basement (aka WB) and Petty 2 after all that fun!

Me, Kaitlin, and Darcy (across the hall to the right). This was right after the super fun initiation and right before our nice shower.

Group shower with the dish soap...that's me, Beth, Julie, Katie, and Jodi.

Becca Williams (my good friend that I met in a hallway - she lives on Petty 2 and is probably the only sane one there). We're with my birthday cake from O'Charley's. The girls all really wanted cake and since my birthday was 3 days later they asked the staff to come out and sing one of those very embarassing but funny clapping and loud happy birthday songs to me. At least the cake was good!

(L-R) Michelle (not on WB), Katie M, Katie, Dylia (not on WB), Shari, Jeanne, and Corrie. This was at O'Charley's as kind of a hall dinner out and relaxing time.

A picture of my dorm room (which I share with Beth). I like it...

On the left is Beth's desk and bed along with her cookie monster/got milk? poster, her James Dean poster, and Napoleon Dynamite poster. On the right is my side. In the middle is our cool green table with our very important cd player and pretty lamp.

My desk that's all nice and decorated and organized (which makes me so happy). On the other side of the desk is a bookshelf (that is not visible) that I put together myself and it's still standing! In the background is my closet and mirror and drawers.

Cool pictures all over my wall to remind me of Indonesia, friends, family, the summer, and trips I've been on...special things in my life! The other wall has cards and fun things. That's my nice comfortable bed that makes me think "I can't wait to get back in bed this afternoon/tonight" everytime I get out of it in the morning.

My bed, desk, the windows with cool lights, etc.

The lovely sink in our room which I am very happy about to help me with my OCD instead of having to walk all the way down the hall to wash the cockroach guts off my hands...j/k!

(L-R) Me, Katie (from down the hall - she's so sweet), Casie (in the room next door - she plays guitar and sings beautifully), and Jackie (from down the hall - she's cool and she's a "big sister" for the freshmen class).

Christina (left in pink she's across the hall to the right from me in WB, Michelle (i think that's her name - she's in the back in blue), Beth (my roommate - in front in red), me, Kaitlin (lives down the hall - she's in green), Jodi (lives across the hall to the left - she's our hall leader and very cool), Bekah (my wallmate - she's in pink on the right).

The frog that was strangely discolored and stuck in our toilet!!

The frog after its release from the dungeon of the toilet.

WB girls - Kaitlin (down the hall), Bekah (my wallmate), and me in my room tonight. Thanks for taking the picture Christina!

My bug birthday cake from Beth and Rebecca N. Williams (there are 4 Rebecca Williams at CIU and many many more Rebecca's and Rebekah's). We're keeping the bugs to decorate the hall for halloween, but then we won't be able to tell which bugs are real and which ones aren't!