I have a ton of energy right now

I am so incredibly excited that it is now springtime and a weekend!!! Things have been oh so crazy for oh so long, that I think crazy is becoming normal so it doesn't feel crazy any more. I dropped my physics class, which is one less thing for me to freak about, and frees up a boat load of time for me to study! Whoo-hoo for more study time! Kinda, because that now means that I actually have to fill that time with studying.

Lets make a list:

1. My crazy avocado paper got turned in today. Finally!!! I only started it, what, 8 WEEKS ago!!But I really like that class:

a) because the topics of conversation are HILARIOUS!

b) my classmates are super fun in general

c) it is cancelled A LOT

d) the slow pace is a reprieve from my other fast paced classes.

2. I am starting an argument paper and picking the topic is hard because there are so many good topics that I can't seem to pick.

3. There are only 2 months left in the semester!! Crazy!! Yet awesome all at the same time!

4. I have been spending some time thinking this week about how much of a self talker I am. Really. It seems like ALL DAY long I am constantly talking myself into and out of doing things. I have talked myself into lunch, studying, sleeping, "napping", reading a book in class despite being rude", not reading a book in class because it would be rude", and so many more things that I couldn't begin to list.

5. I want to go to next weeks baseball game. I think I have more school spirit for non-football sports than for football. Not that I don't have school spirit for football, just more for other things.

6. I am listening to Bekah sing rather off key while she is "tanning" in my parents backyard. I say tanning like that because it is really burning, she just doesn't want to believe that.

7. Bekah and I are at my parents house tonight because our AC is broken. She had wanted to stay here anyway, but I wanted to wait and just come over here in the morning. She got her way by default.

8. I read Utopia by Thomas More just because I saw it in the bookstore, and it had a pretty cover, and it was mentioned in Ever After which is a movie that I like very much. That was one of the things I self-talked myself into buying, then reading instead of studying, then possibly using to further my argument for prohibition of alcohol in my argument paper. I have since self-talked myself out of using that as a topic due to the lack of current media on the topic.)

9. I love, love, love pickles. Dill pickles that is. Cindy got me some. She is awesome. Sometimes I think I cohabitate (is that the right word? Is that a word at all actually) better with her than I do with Bekah.

10. A sister is a really great thing to have. I miss all of mine.

11. I am really enjoying where I am at in life right now. Though I am constantly thinking about things I need to do that would make where I am at more productive for myself in the long run, I need to do those things.

12. I am taking the MCAT in the fall. Just for practice, I'm sure I will take it again. Yay for med-school entrance exams.

13. Some goofy person on Greenwell Springs Road (the same road that I live on) paid $20 for me to ship them a stupid diploma frame rather than just drive to LSU and pick one up. I was quite frustrated with them earlier this week because it was quite the hassle. If it were not rude and unprofessional I would write them a letter informing them of their utter stupidity regarding this matter.

14. I am bored with this now. So I am going to stop and go back to browsing el interneto.

So how am I going to get a 5 page paper out of this:

Hmm...and I want to go down there for April?

Fox News:


Soldiers stand guard around a presentation of arms captured in arrest of Jaime Gonzalez Duran, alias 'El Hummer' in Mexico City in November, 2008.

They were armed to the teeth. Their arsenal ranged
from semi-automatic rifles to rocket-propelled grenades. When the smoke finally
cleared and the government had prevailed, Mexican federal agents captured 540
assault rifles, more than 500,000 rounds of ammunition, 150 grenades, 14
cartridges of dynamite, 98 fragmentation grenades, 67 bulletproof vests, seven
Barrett .50-caliber sniper rifles and a Light Anti Tank (LAW) rocket.

CBS: Mexican Drug Gang Goes On Killing Spree

A drug gang kidnapped and
killed six people near a town in the U.S.-Mexican border region Tuesday,
prompting a series of gunbattles with soldiers that left 15 others dead. The
violence started when gunmen kidnapped nine alleged members of a rival drug gang
in Villa Ahumada and later executed six of them along the PanAmerican highway
outside of the town, 80 miles south of Ciudad Juarez, across the border from El
Paso, Texas, said Enrique Torres, spokesman for a joint military-police
operation in Chihuahua state. Assailants later released three of the men,
although their whereabouts was not immediately known, Torres said. Soldiers
later caught up with the gunmen and a series of shootouts ensued, leaving 14
alleged gunmen and one soldier dead Tuesday, Torres said. Another soldier was
wounded. Mexico's has been besieged by drug violence amid a two-year government
crackdown. President Felipe Calderon said Monday that more than 6,000 people
have died in drug-related violence. Villa Ahumada, a town of 1,500 people, was
virtually taken over by drug gangs last year when gangs killed two consecutive
police chiefs, and two officers. The rest of the 20-member force resigned in
fear, forcing the Mexican military to take over for months until the town was
able to recruit new officers. The town's mayor, Fidel Chavez, fled to the state
capital for his own safety.

Times: Mexican Man Admits Using Acid on Bodies, Army Says

MEXICO CITY — Pozole is a popular Mexican stew that can feature
pork, hominy and an array of vegetables and seasonings. But the name of the
delicacy has taken on a sinister new meaning: Mexican authorities have detained
a man linked to hundreds of deaths in the drug war who is being called the
Pozole Maker.
The man, Santiago Meza López, known as “el Pozolero” in the
Mexican news media, has confessed to dissolving the remains of 300 people in
acid while working for a top drug trafficker, the Mexican Army said Friday.
Dissolving bodies is gaining increasing popularity in the internecine killings
between rival traffickers that is playing out here, and the practice has become
known as making pozole (pronounced poh-ZOH-leh).
Mr. Meza, 45, confessed to
receiving $600 a week to dispose of bodies for Teodoro García Simental, a drug
kingpin who broke with the Tijuana-based Arellano Félix cartel and is said to be
at war with Fernando Sánchez Arellano, his former boss, the authorities said.
Soldiers and police officers paraded Mr. Meza before reporters on Friday in
a remote area on the outskirts of Tijuana, where he was accused of dumping
bodies into pits over the last decade, pouring acid on them and letting them
dissolve underground.
Mr. Meza admitted as much as the authorities
surrounded him and ordered him to speak up to the press. “I ask for forgiveness
from the families of these people,” he said, according to the newspaper Reforma.
In September, the police found three barrels of acid containing human
remains outside a seafood restaurant with a note attached that said, “We’re
going to make pozole” of those who work with the engineer, a reference to Mr.
Sánchez Arellano’s nickname.
The authorities suspect that Mr. García is
behind those killings and others in which mutilated bodies have turned up on
Tijuana’s streets. The military nearly arrested Mr. García on Thursday,
officials said.

I think I will be praying quite earnestly about this trip!

It is quite pathetic. I know.

I don't even think there are words to express how far past "long overdue" for a post I am.

Quick update:

I am entering the 5th week of my 4th semester at LSU.
I switched my major to Kinesiology: Human Movement Science -physical therapy pretty much.
I love living in an apt with my sister.
I think I may go to Mexico with the BCM over spring break (tentatively- Cindy says that they are shooting up all the white people down there).
I have 3 tests this week so this will be a short post.


Something timely:

This past weekend has been so refereshing and brought me such a peace. I don't really know what to say other than God is doing a mighty work in my heart that is producing a change in my actions and outlook.

Isaiah 54: 4-8 kind of sums it up ( it is talking about God's covenant of peace)

4"Do not fear, for you will not be ashamed; Neither be
disgraced, for you will not be put to shame; For you will forget the shame of
your youth, And will not remember the reproach of your widowhood anymore.
5 For your Maker is your husband, The LORD of hosts is
His name; And your Redeemer is the Holy One of Israel; He is called the God of
the whole earth.
6 For the LORD has called you Like a woman
forsaken and grieved in spirit, Like a youthful wife when you were refused,"
Says your God.
7 "For a mere moment I have forsaken you, But with
great mercies I will gather you.
8 With a little wrath I hid My face from you for a
moment; But with everlasting kindness I will have mercy on you," Says the LORD,
your Redeemer."

Long overdue.

So, I am getting back in the swing of things on campus, and my classes are steady moving along. While leaving the bookstore today, I was blitzkrieged (a super fun word don't you think) with a cacophony of voices. The Consuming Fire Fellowship preachers were at it again. There were 6 or 7 of them with their hellfire and brimstone sandwich boards, and of course the young ones giving out the tracks.  In all reality, I couldn't care less what they say, because the way they are presenting it makes what they say of little to no value. I asked my friend what he thought of it when I got to class, and he said that he would give no credence to what they say, simply because of how they say it. People don't gather to listen and learn, but for the sheer entertainment value. People wait to hear someone get in a yelling match, or blast loud music, or spit on them, not because they are seriously concerned for their souls. If it turns me off to modern Christianity, then I can't even imagine what it does to the hundreds of other people who listen. Example: As I was walking away, someone came up yelling back at them " Yeah! I know your Christians by the fact that I can hear your NOISE from halfway across campus!" 

What happened to "They will know you are Christians by your LOVE for one another!" 

 They are supposed to be coming bi-weekly, so I may get to talk to one of them at some point. That is, if I can get one of them to stop yelling at me long enough to do the "good person test" The irony of it is, that on the Consuming fire website there is an open letter to Healing Place Church explaining why they were bashing them at some other street preaching event; and who else would happen to be on campus today passing out tracks and bottled water ( last week it was packs of gum) but Healing Place Church!  I found it amusing!

Here is a video clip of their annual open air conference at LSU (there are 4 videos of this kind, this is just a sample):

A few quotes from these videos which are shockingly enough not taken too far out of context since they are so random:

1. You're ignoramuses! (2:47)
2.  You're bible illiterates! (3:05)
3. Behold-Exhibit A! --at this point a student held up a sign that said "He worships BAMA! (as in Alabama, one of LSU's major rivals)" (6:00)
4. Can I get an "Amen!" for Exhibit A!?!?! - loud whooping followed (6:10)

A few quotes from the subsequent videos:

• "Turn'up your nose! Stiffen your neck! Rebel against the Lord Jesus Christ!" said with all the flair of a classic southern baptist preacher
• "STOOOOOOP!!!! YOU'RE ON YOUR WAY TO A PIT OF SNAKES!!!"
• 
  

Aside from that, I have decided to collect all the tracks that I receive in my time at LSU, and eventually scrapbook them. But in return, I will see how many I can give out.

For all of our bikers:

And I just love these commercials! Sorry, the voice-over is a little bit off.

A post to the long neglected public who reads this blog

No excuses, I haven't posted, so sorry.

So, I was sorely disappointed with the BCM last night. At least with the family group leaders who headed the circle of people that I was in. I expected a bit more than what was delivered. It started out with going around the circle and answering questions that were on a sheet of paper. We only answered the first 2 questions( which were like name, hometown, major, why you chose LSU etc.) Then the group leaders ( if you can call them that, they "lead" the conversation no where) said something along the lines of " Wow, these questions are pretty deep, why don't we make up our own questions?!?! So, whats your favorite food/drink?!" The previous questions were good. They asked things like "how are your parents handling your going to college?, What are your spiritual beliefs?, What sort of church did you attend growing up?, What are your spiritual goals for the year?, Who has inspired you most spiritually?" Good questions, way better than "What is your favorite food?". I hoped for more, I am not necessarily surprised, but a tad disappointed. It's not like it shattered all my hopes and dreams or anything, I mean, I do realize that they function similarly to a religious institution, so I didn't expect too much, just more than was delivered. And perhaps if I stayed longer I would have gotten to have a more meaningful conversation with one of the people there ( Beege and I bailed after the questions), which is really all I wanted, but, oh well. I don't think it was really the time and place for that sort of thing? I will attempt going to the regular Thursday night bible study a few more times, and if no fruit seems appears from it, then that will be the end of it, but if by any chance God allows even one ounce of Glory to come to His name through my going, then last night will have been worth it, and I will continue to seek to bring Him glory in that manner.

So, aside from my futile attempts to build fruitful relationships, school starts next week, and I am taking an intense beginning Spanish class that I am excited about! I hope that my Spanish will really improve, so get prepared to hear me rambling half Spanish, half English sentences and then laughing at myself, because that is most likely what is going to happen.