across the pale parabola of joy

life in my house is very interesting.

I started laughing at my dad's jokes again today. out of the blue, it was just really funny, somehow. I didn't even have to try. it was cool.

My great grandma died last night. before you start in with the condolences, I'm okay. we were never really close and these last few years she's had Alzheimer's so half the time she didn't know who I was. I'm sad about it, but I'm not really upset or anything. it affects me more roundaboutly because my dad has been so upset today. like, crying buckets all day long. and my dad never cries. but he's not crying so much for missing his grandma, but because his mom is really really really hurting right now. For me, it's losing a great-grandma. but I can't imagine losing my mom. it's gonna be tough on the whole family and I'm not sure where I fit in there.

my parents leave Wednesday for nine days. I'm not allowed to have a party but I am allowed to have friends over. we'll have to work on the fine line between the two.... *smirks*

my parents have gotten a total of three e-mails from John (the guy I'm staying with in India) over that last two days, all related to specific things they were asking him about, nothing related to my trip. I've been waiting to hear from him about the trip for four days now. whoever is praying that I'll be more patient, please STOP NOW. :) oh gosh our God is really interesting.

I went to youth group again on Thursday, after about a month off. the break was really good for me. Our youth pastor is on sabbatical for six months or something, so Roger (amazing man, I posted about him a while back) is taking over. and he's the best teacher in the whole world. he's asked for our input about changes in the group, and has laid down much-needed rules. I don't want it to look like it was a personal thing that I left and now I'm coming back, because it's not. but I think I'm ready now to get involved in making this change happen fully. but someone else needed to start it.

Becca and I are going through Do Hard Things together, and last week was AMAZING. all of it pertained to us personally and how we related to the youth group, and big changes that need to happen. something about Starbucks in our culture inspires conversation. methinks I should have put this into a paper somewhere.....

but if you haven't read Do Hard Things, you NEED to. not should, NEED. and the best part - it was written by teenagers. it's not one of those "I'm 50 telling you kids how not to screw up your life" kind of books. as good as the info in those books is, we teens hate them (no matter how hard we try not to). that's why Do Hard Things is so challenging and inspiring at the same time.

Also, we're getting another exchange student in August, for the full school year. We applied today for a German girl who looks really sweet and cool, and is my size so we can share clothes. and who has played piano since she was two. Basically, we wanted a French student for the second semester (since I'll be leaving for India right when the students come, which is kind of awkward). through a long series of events, we ended up applying for this German girl, all year. like I said, we serve an interesting God.

I'm actually looking forward to being on worship this weekend, despite losing an hour of sleep and needing to get gas (again). How Great Thou Art probably has something to do with it. I'm finding worshiping and talking to God is getting easier.

I finally buckled down and I'm learning Hindi numbers (notoriously difficult). I figure if I just write them out fifty billion times each I'm bound to remember them. oh yeah speaking of languages this German girl has five years of Latin. I thought that was kind of cool.

I guess I can't think of anything else going on. I'm filling all my time up pretty successfully without even trying. mostly homework. I think I will write about homework in my next paper. how much it sucks and what a bad idea it is.

*grins*