the weather today is magnificent.
march madness is fantastic.
it's a great day to be alive.
jesus loves me even when i struggle to love myself.
what a crazy world we live in.

hi.

it's been so long since ive signed into xanga or even thought about it that it freakin took me 5 minutes to figure out the new look and find the button that says update. awesome.

i've missed having an outlet to write so i think i might get back into this deal. isnt it amazing how our lives can change so fast? or maybe we arent changing but things around us are?

i am conflicted.

i am complicated.

i'm getting married in four months. HOLY WHAT. i am ready. that's weird to say but i am ready.

do you ever feel so many things at one time it is hard to think straight? i am at a point in my life where i am learning so much about myself and others and how we work in this crazy beautiful world that i spend a lot of my time feeling completely overwhelmed. i love the process though. the learning, the struggle... it's all so intense and meaningful.

do you ever feel so sad about the state of the world and the injustices and the problems and the hurt and pain that you feel like you dont even want to try and make it better? i think my mind wants to fix everything. i need to slow down. i am 22 (almost 23 monday...), i have my whole life ahead of me (or do i? i could be dead tomorrow) and so i struggle with what do i devote my time to? where am i supposed to be? i care about so many things, how do i pick one? i can't. but that is hard when the days are just so short.

i am rambling.

i am getting my masters in higher ed and we were talking today about the "cooling out" function in higher education, which in short says that community colleges weed out those students that arent capable of going to a 4 year college by sending them to the 2 year place to basically fail. and i got so mad bc the american education system is SOOO wack. education is SO important. people that spend just ONE semester in a community college will make more over the course of their lives than someone that doesnt. you want to lower crime rates, we need to EDUCATE people. its like the system is set up for you to fail... especially if you come from a low socioeconomic background. and its not even jsut about the higher education level. research shows that the top two things that prepare young kids brains for kindergarten from birth till 5 years old is that they need nutrition and they need to be talked to. from birth, even if they dont understand it. so in essence, if you are poor-- you wont get those things. food is hard to come by and if you are from a broken family or your parents work all the time to provide, they cant spend the time they need to with you. so a 5 year old is set up for failure. there are obviously exceptions.... it upsets me. we, as people, should care more.

we, as human beings, should care more.

we, as christians, should CARE MORE.

i hope this election and this new president will spend time the time on improving education liek it needs to. but im skeptical...

jeff buckley's version of hallelujah pulls on my heart. it is beautiful.

"and when the broken hearted people living in this world agree,
there will be answer, let it be".

I leave you wiht this: "I think the Republicans are right. It must really be God's party if they could care less about helping poor and needy people." (sarcasm obviously...)

um so yeah. i miss you guys...

my key got stuck in the ignition on friday and would not come out for the life of me. of course i could drive the car where ever but couldnt turn the darn thing off. there is NO saturn dealer in slidell so after driving all over kingdom come trying to see if i could get it fixed here, i had to drive to slidell. (all of this was after i helped 400 freshmen move into their dorms and was up at 5am) i dropped the car off at the dealer and had 5 minutes to get to the rental car place before they closed. barely made it... but i did. and now i have to go back to slidell tomorrow to get my car back.

sometimes i wonder why frustrating things always happen to me when i am already frustrated. like it's never just one little thing. it's always 46 things piling up on top of me and i feel like i am drowning in stuff to do and things that arent going the way i want them too. i think i have an anxiety disorder. can you disagnose those yourself? haha dale tells me im overrreacting and i tell him to shut his freakin mouth. now that he isnt even here, it feels like i am more alone and responsible for getting things done on my own which i guess isnt a bad thing but it is definitely taking some getting used to. i hate having a "long distance relationship". esp when you are engaged. i'm trying to deal with it... some days are worse than others though. i've never been a phone talker and having to rely on the phone for the majority of our conversations now just plain sucks haha.

in other news, i start "working" towards my graduate degree on Wednesday night, when I have my first class. YIKES.

pps. i love this brand new cd. i am going to see them nov 20 in new orleans and i've been waiting YEARS for that day. when they were on tour last summer, i was in africa and didn't get to see them!