do you remember/that cold day in december/leaving everythign you knew behind

Wow, I guess the writing bug left me for a few days. sorry guys.

Christmas break - so far so good. or rather, so far amazing! I have all these tentative plans though, and never seem to get definitive answers from anyone.

but that's ok I guess. I am DONE with Christmas shopping, and done with wrapping. just one more homemade present that I'm going to make tomorrow (procrastination, yes?).

I finished the Mystery of Edwin Drood a few days ago. it was Dickens' last novel, and he died before completing it. the last part he wrote is the very crescendo of the work - just as the amateur detective (who may or may not actually be the protagonist of the title, in disguise, who had disappeared inexplicably earlier in the book and may or may not have been murdered) has figured out the solution. he has a conversation with someone that sheds no light on the reader's befuddled mind, but seems to blow the whole thing wide open for him. he goes home, apparently well satisfied with the day's work.

and that's it. the next chapter ought to have revealed everything. and then, after a hard day's work on the most intense section of the book, Dickens had a stroke and the next day he was dead. and the world was mourning.

of course, amateurs have attempted completing the mystery themselves. some inferior minds have even dared to postulate (as a certainty) that Jasper killed Drood, and have written their own endings for the novel to this effect. this is, of course, ridiculous.

but it's just so frustrating that we'll never know what genius twist Dickens was going to throw into the plot. I was so worked up thinking about what was going to happen, that it took me a full two days before I could comfortably start the Hobbit.

However, you will be happy to learn that I am recovered now, and about five chapters into the Hobbit(!). fourth time reading it....and I swear it gets better every time. this little childhood break is about the most refreshing thing EVER for me right now, and I'm actually a little scary of moving on to Crime and Punishment next. as a friend of mine observed, Dostoevsky "can rip your heart out with just a few sentences."

but, if I finish Crime and Punishment over break, I'm going to start on the last two Austen novels that I haven't read yet (Mansfield Park and Northanger Abbey). so this incentive may be enough to pull me through!

I think I'm having a youth group party-ish thing on Tuesday. I was going to, and then my friend Anthony had a party, so I decided not to worry about it. and then everyone started bugging me about it again, so now I guess I am. and as I was informed this morning, you can't have a Christmas party after Christmas. so.....Tuesday it is. tomorrow I'm baking a bunch of cookies that will need to be decorated.

what else?....I'm stoked for Christmas Eve service. church this morning was AMAZING - I'll just say it again: I LOVE MY CHURCH! I couldn't hardly sing half the time because I was just so joyful and thankful for my church and my God. this morning Roger blended a bunch of worship songs in with some lesser-known Christmas carols, and it was incredible how it worked. it's like...everyone stopped to rethink the words they were singing, and it became a true worship service. and then my pastor was so giddy with Christmas spirit that his sermon was kind of all over the place; but generally speaking it was all about God's love for us and how Christ was the living-breathing-walking-talking embodiment of God's thoughts/will/mind/emotions. and he is very very very very excited for Christmas, just like me. so that made me happy too.

and Christmas Eve service is just amazing in general. fantastically talented musicians, dark room lots of Christmas lights. people who only come for Christmas and Easter. goodwill and joy and this holy awe feeling that just kind of pervades everything. 10:00 PM service......you leave so late and then just go straight to bed and the next thing that happens is Christmas morning!

anyway. you'll probably get a hugely long post about that after it happens.

still trying to figure out the week after Christmas. I still want to do a LotR marathon; it will probably be a last-minute thing with just whoever can come for the day/overnight. I wanna hang out with Dexter if he ever makes up his mind that he's going to come over here (told him I'd take them around Pike Place). my aunt Kari wants to have a day with me....probably New Year's Day, which will be fun....but squeezing it in somewhere is kind of tricky.

it sounds like my schedule is busy but it really isn't. I mean, I'm doing a lot of stuff, but I'm not going a lot of places. I'm doing stuff that I really enjoy....last-minute hanging out time with friends, sticking around home decorating gingerbread houses, plinking nothing serious on my piano (my fingers are SO out of shape right now it's ridiculous), watching too many movies and reading books until too late at night. going places for a few hours, but not being gone from home or family or friends too much. it's been really nice.

in fact, I never want it to end.............

I'm making this sort of pact with myself, I think. it's not a New Year's resolution. just something I need to do. I've got a PE class two days a week at 10:00 next quarter, and I'm thinking it really wouldn't kill me to work out in the gym the other three days I don't have PE. ok, so I kind of desperately need to work out, and by the end of Christmas and New Year I'm going to need it about five times more desperately. so yes. I'm doing it.

let's see....on Friday night we went and say A Christmas Carol at ACT (we being my parents, grandparents, and me). for the first time in 16 years, we broke tradition and did A Christmas Carol instead of the Nutcracker. it was pretty fantastic. the theater is perfect for it - small and intimate, interactive, and it's a round theater with the seating all around the stage. the acting and costuming was fantastic, and most of the script was direct from the book. as a purist, this made me happy. even though it was a late showing, my grandparents both stayed awake, and everybody totally loved it and was raving about it. though I found a few parts I would have done differently myself (hey, I've read the book four times), I loved the performance, and I've got to say this is probably one of the very best productions of A Christmas Carol out there. I think (and hope) it will become our new yearly tradition.

hmmm.........

today was kind of crazy. after church we went to my mom's family Christmas party (as you all probably know, I'm not too big on extended family gatherings, since my extended family is rather interesting/sketchy). it was pretty good though. one of my uncles got into this big long sarcastic rant thing about me + India, which kind of made me mad for awhile, but I let it go. some people are just so obstinate and stuck in their ways that you can't reason with them.

my dad figured out how to turn the heat up so it wasn't 62 degrees for the whole party. you know those thermostats that have lock boxes over them, so people without a key can't get in and tamper with the settings? well there are tiny holes all around the outside of the box, and with a metal coat hanger and some creativity, you too can have a comfortably-heated room as we did.

my mom gave out the news to all and sundry that she's donating a kidney, and of course it was met with the variety of reactions. so far it seems that the majority of the world is worried about me....."what if your daughter needs it someday?"

this. is. ridiculous.

I mean, my mom and I don't even know if we are the same blood type, much less a kidney match. and we know somebody who needs it right NOW. as my mom replies, "I don't live life by 'what if.'" I'm proud of her for that. she'd be selfish if she was keeping it for me for just-in-case, when people are dying right now because they need an organ.

not to mention, it seems to me that she's more likely to need one of my kidneys in the distant future, than I would be to need one of hers. true, health is health and can go good or bad, but we don't have any history of bad kidneys, and age seems to be more of a factor in the organs shutting down, when everything else is normal health-wise. I wish people wouldn't worry so much. I so wish my family had a Christian worldview and could trust like we trust.

it may sound weird, but worry really bothers me. not saying that I don't worry about stuff, because I do, but this needless "what if" worry drives me insane. like when I go to India and extended family or those barely-acquaintances from church are like "you be careful, be safe, isn't it dangerous? aren't you worried about this/that? I could never do anything like that," etc.

drives me crazy.

I mean, I'm glad people love me and are concerned for my safety. but if I'm absolutely convinced that this is God's will, and I'm not worried and my parents aren't worried, then I feel terrible when other people worry. I want them to REJOICE with me that God is in control of this unknown situation, that He's working things out even before they happen......not worry about every little thing that could go wrong.

but enough ranting for now. I'm not even sure how I got on this tyrade.

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another co-op friend of mine got married today. Brittany Grant, just a couple years older than me.....after about 9 months of dating a long-time family friend, and an 88-day engagement, she too has tied the knot.

it's weird. it's weird when it's my friends who are getting married - people just two or three years older than me. though Brittany isn't a really close friend, and we haven't kept in touch much the last couple of years, I always liked her a lot, and it's strange to see her getting married to this guy.

I am a little melancholy, for two reasons. the first is trivial - both Lauren's wedding and Brittany's had receptions completely devoid of dancing. in my mind the reception is the absolutely best part and MUST include dancing. at my wedding (if I have one), I intend to have a reception that goes extremely late, with an amazing band and dancing practically all night.

but the second reason is a little more serious: both these girls, young women I know well, have gotten married on somewhat short notice to guys who, in my opinion, just aren't worthy of them. I'm not saying I have bleak thought about their futures - I think they both stand a good chance of staying together and being very happy. but somehow it just upsets me that these guys aren't what they ought to be. with Lauren it was tough, because I really am not crazy about her new husband.....he hasn't grown up yet, and I don't think he's ready to be a husband and take care of a wife. when the "in love" infatuation wears off for both of these couples, I'm afraid they'll find themselves in a tough spot for awhile. I think they'll both make it through, but I also think they could have gone into it more prepared.

with Brittany, I don't know her husband well, but I've met him before, and I saw them today, and I'm afraid they've married very much on "in love" feelings. I don't know how much sacrificial love they're prepared to do yet. what scares me, I guess, is their situation. fast dating, faster engagement....family doesn't really approve of the match 100%. neither of them have a job or a house right now (scary). I mean, they're literally "living on love." which sounds nice until you look at it closely. and then it gets terrifying.

in both these cases, I just don't approve of the men my dear friends have chosen to be their lifelong soulmates. some of it has to do with personal taste, which of course makes it none of my business. but other parts have to do with just plain maturity, wisdom, and gentlemanly behavior. I guess maybe I'm afraid that my other dear friends will fall for guys who turn out to be unworthy too. and as everybody knows, you can't reason with somebody who's in love.

I'm not really worried about myself. I may or may not get married someday, and really it's all the same to me. but my standards are sky high - like Mr. Darcy high - and this guy is going to have to be amazing if he expects to be my husband. because I know the difference between a crush and the real deal. and I know the difference between "in love" feelings and true love, which is an action/behavior/lifestyle.

and I'm not saying the guy will be perfect. I may think he is for awhile, and then I'll discover the flaws.

but what I am saying is, this man had better be better than what I've seen so far. I pray that my friends don't settle for something less than what they deserve as God's daughters. I pray that men out there are preparing themselves to treat my friends - their future wives - as the most precious treasure God ever let them have during their stay on earth. and I pray that my friends listen to their friends' and family's council when they think they've found love.

on the bright side of things, I saw a lot of old friends from bygone co-op days.....people I haven't seen in literally years. it was really fun catching up with people, though of course there were little surprises too. my old friend Spencer has changed a lot from the guy he used to be. he's going to the Honor Academy now, and he's really a different person. I think that inside he's a better person....more godly and more mature than he used to be. I don't think he's as vain as he once was. but he is harder to talk to - harder to have a conversation with. just didn't seem interested in reviving an old friendship. he doesn't seem at all interested in girl friendships like he used to be. I wasn't prepared for that, so it was surprising.

EVERYONE IS TALLER. I swear, these people are growing up and I am just the same. I stopped growing sometime during my co-op days, so aside from hairstyle and stuff, I haven't changed much. everyone else is changing and some people I'd hardly recognize anymore. but luckily most of them are still the warm, open people they always were, and we just pick up conversation again like we still see each other every week and are the best of friends. though things would never be the same now, say I was still in co-op, it's fun to reminisce about the old, wonderful days. we had something really special in our co-op and youth group, and though the thing itself is gone, all the memories and some of the feelings still linger, somewhere deep in most of our hearts, and when we get together they start to come out, and it's kind of like the old days. it's bittersweet, because I love the reminiscing, but I miss those happy, innocent days so much. we were different people then. all best friends....no boy/girl stuff going on. every time we got together was a time of laughter and fun, jokes and games and sometimes hard work - but it never seemed as hard when we did it together. man, we had good times. that I miss. learning (the hard way) that all good things come to an end.........it's like the major tragedy of childhood. or rather, it's the end of childhood. it's the very beginning - the first step - into the mindset of adulthood.

one of the first people I ran into upon walking through the door was Andrew Hilzendeger (yes MNM, that Andrew!). Good old Andrew. this is the boy that EVERY GIRL had a crush on at one point, and I'm not sure he ever knew it. one of the most gentlemanly guys I'll ever meet. he's intelligent, funny, good-looking, and honorable, and is just the best guy I know at having girl friends who aren't girlfriends. in fact, I'm not sure he's ever dated.

haven't seen the guy in years.....years and years. got an invitation to his gradutation two years back but couldn't go because of Father/Daughter camp. we lost touch and never had much of an excuse to find it again.

but, as these things tend to do, a mutual friend gets married and we start talking again like we never stopped. it's funny - he looks exactly the same as he has always looked, except maybe a little taller. like some time warp happened and we're just freshmen again, in Biology together. Andrew was always easy to get along with, and we have a ton of common interests which makes conversation easy.

so we talked about LotR, and English stuff, and movies, and college and family and God and life, and the good old co-op days, and how everybody's getting married, and how neither of us have any plans to get married for a long, long time. though we each knew several people there, most of the others who were our age and our good friends back in co-op were in the wedding party and so were quite occupied. so we ended up talking for most of the reception together, and agreed to keep in touch in the future.

so. something quite good came out of today. :) I love old friendships rekindled.

and the very last thing - a piece of good news:

the bride had seven bridesmaids and the groom had seven groomsmen. it was all the brothers and sisters of the bride and groom combined, plus a couple of friends.

so my friends, we are all perfectly allowed to have as many bridesmaids as we wish. this is a great relief to me, because if I ever get married I think I'm going to have about ten of you, when all is said and done. I'm glad to know someone else has done it first. :P