Time Wasting

Reading other people's blogs always makes me want to blog again.

Tomorrow I'm moving out my summer apartment after work. It's hard to believe the summer is almost over. Granted, there is still almost a month left until school starts, but it feels like time has just flown by. I'm kind of disappointed in myself though. Maybe I did a lot this summer, but it doesn't really feel like it. I had so many high and lofty plans for the summer. I was going to read a lot of books and spend a lot of time in the Word and in prayer, I was going to go deeper in specific friendships, I was going to have a super memorable summer. But I don't feel as though I accomplished much. It's been really frustrating to me the last couple months of how complacent I have gotten with my life.

I visited my roommate Ginny down in Boonville last weekend which was a fun adventure. On Sunday we went to service at her church which is a Foursquare Church. For those of you like me who had no idea what that is, I think the best way to describe it would be a branch of Pentacostal. There were a lot of loud of loud voices singing and praying and proclaiming truth, people had their shoes off(yay, just like me!), they were exuberant in their worship, their faith was written all over their face. There was also some things that I wasn't very used to, like speaking in tongues and lots of praying over people.(to the point where they fell over, filled with the Holy Spirit perhaps?)

All that aside though, the sermon really spoke to me. The speaker talked about time. About using the time we are given to live the life God has called us to live. To not waste the time we have, because once it passes, we can never get it back. She talked about all the distractions in our life that cause us to waste our time.

Some of the things I wrote down while listening were:

"The purpose of distraction is to make you forget why God gave you time in the first place."

"We have been given time on this earth to do what God has called us to do."

"When we understand why we are here on this earth, what our specific calling is, we can focus on it. Getting rid of the distractions in your life gives you time."

"There is a difference between something being restorative and being a distraction. A distraction pulls you away from the work of God"

"When we misunderstand why we are here, we misuse our time."

All this really clicked with me and really frustrated me at the same time. Because I am a time waster. I remember listening to Adventures in Odyssey when I was younger(read a few years ago) and there was an episode done in a Twilight Zone fashion. The story within the story was about a girl who wasted time by always going to the mall and a boy who wasted time by always watching TV. Their lives were so consumed with their time wasters that they missed out on anything meaningful in life. Granted, those stories were a tad extreme; the girl spent 20 years in the mall to come out and find that life had gone on without her, but they still drive home a point. I try to cut out the distractions in my life, but I'm really good at finding new ones all the time. If I cut off facebook, I find a new website to browse. If I cut off TV, I find random things to read(read NOT homework). But I don't really know how to stop this. My goal for this next semester is to not waste time. I want to severely limit my time on the computer not related to school, I want to stop communicating with people via facebook or google+. I really want to be dedicated in my schoolwork and with building relationships with my roommates and other friends.

I truly believe that when we cut out distractions in our life, when we get things done that need to be done without procrastinating, that God can use that to open up possibilities for discussion with people, for kingdom work to be done. I want to be able to get my homework done in a timely manner so that when I have spare time, I can use it to write a letter to a friend, or read my Bible more, or tackle the stack of books I have sitting on my dresser.

I need some motivation and some sticking-to-my-guns-ness.

*sigh*

Now I REALLY should be in bed

Since that last post took a turn for the venting, I thought I would write another one that is a bit more light-hearted.

Things that have been happening in the last week:

Wednesday was swing at the engineering fountain which was entertaining. I danced a lot with a friend, Andrew, and it was quite delightful.

Thursday night was the midnight premiere of Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part 2. The final installment in the Harry Potter series and I went with Dan and Devon in full costume and it was SO much fun. Dressing up to go to midnight premieres has become one of my favorite things to do, I only wish I had gotten into the Harry Potter movies prior to the 7/8 and 8/8 ones. Oh well. Next up is The Hobbit apparently. :)

Friday night I went to a campfire at Camp Tecumseh and I got to visit with my old partner Abby and some friends that are working again this summer. I also got to see Josiah and Jess which was tons of fun. They were BOTH in Hip Hop clinic this year and they gave a killer performance at the campfire. I was so proud of both of them!

Saturday Dan and I went up to Michigan City to see Ethan perform in Guys and Dolls. From that night I learned that Ethan is a bang up dancer, yellow Amps and Salt and Vinegar chips are the best road trip food, you won't get mugged in Michigan City while sleeping in your car if you park in the right place, and the BEST dance move to do while singing EVER. :D Just ask me next time you see me and I'll show you.

Sunday Dan and I spent forever trying to do our laundry. Have I ever mentioned how much I thoroughly despise doing laundry? I also got my hair dyed(it's so prettiful!) and I got a smidge of a tan at the pool. :)

Things I'm looking forward to in the next week:

Wednesday night is a big DJ battle at swing, that should be thoroughly exciting. :D

Thursday night I think I'm going to head back to camp to spend the evening there with Abs on her night off. Thinking about maybe crashing Day Camp Family Night...

Friday night Dan is taking me out for a fancy date and I'm going to wear one of my new Goodwill dresses.

Saturday I have an all day micro lab in Terre Haute and then it's off to Boonesville, IN for a weekend with my roommate Ginny. We're going to go bridesmaid dress shopping for her wedding next summer!

I should be going to bed...

...but I felt like writing here instead.

I've been wanting to post something here for a while, but life seems to be too chaotic to ever get my priorities in line long enough to do anything. I can't say that it is too busy, because in all reality it's not too busy, it's just too chaotic. Things are all kind of messy right now and I am trying so hard to get it all back in order again. Despite how my room might get sometimes, I really do like things neat and organized so much better.

Work is taking a lot out of me. I feel like I'm there all the time, and when I am there, there is so much for me to do. Reports to write and tests to make up and boxes upon boxes of food to finagle around our tight spaces, plus a group of people to manage. I don't like managing people very much. I could have told you this before, but now I really know. It would be one thing if I had picked them all. For instance, I have no problem working with and directing my dancers, but I chose all of them to be there. At work, I just have to manage a group of people that 1. are mostly all older than me 2. I had no say in hiring and 3. I used to just be co-workers with. So I know the situation isn't ideal, but I still don't like managing people like that. It's far too frustrating.

I had a conversation with Dan the other night about the lack of standards in this world. Now I'm not talking about moral standards or ethical standards or what have you. I'm talking about work ethic. Whatever happened to it?? I truly don't understand how so many people can settle for less than the best they are capable of. I don't understand why we as a society have made it okay for people to be complete slackers in their job, and for that to not be okay. I don't understand when efficiency went out the window and why we can't make a few more steps to make things infinitely better. The more I continue to work at my job, the more I realize why Purdue deals with so much debt. Why budget cuts are consistently happening and what is preventing the school from a higher standard of education. We've settled. All of us. We have settled for far less than what we can obtain and we are all okay with that. In fact we choose to praise and reward it. This absolutely blows my mind. It kills me when I think of how much money we could save at the lab. Of how much more efficient we could be. How much more eco-friendly, responsible, and fiscal we could be. But we aren't. We give all of that up for what? Some might say convenience, but I don't think it's convenient at all. I think it's wasteful. Granted, I'm not a department head, I don't understand how every little facet works. But from my lay person perspective, I see so much room for SIMPLE improvement. GAAH!!!

Rant over.

Something to Talk About

2 Things that have happened recently:

1. Got "promoted" to a "supervisor" position at the sensory lab. I say "promoted" and "supervisor" because those are the easiest words to say, but not necessarily entirely accurate. Basically, the guy who was in charge of things on a day to day basis in the lab, Dan, got a real grown up person job in Chicago and left us this week. Which is awesome for him! And now in the words of my co-workers, I am "the new Dan." I am in charge of the product coming in, deciding when tests will be run, coordinating with the industry people that want us to do the tests,(mostly one person at Kroger, lol) keeping the lab clean and organized and running smoothly, fixing all the computer problems,(I know, makes you wonder why they picked me to do this) writing and sending reports and the like. I was helping out with a lot of these things when Dan was still there, but now it's actually what I am expected to do. Haven't heard anything about a raise yet, but we'll see...I also get to be the one who sends out the emails telling people we are doing tests which is fun times. :D I think my official title would be the Student Lead, but I prefer to pretend that I can fire my friends. :D

2. Learned the Lindy at swing lessons. This is the most common dance that the gang at Purdue does. (funny, because when I was at AU, my friend Josh always said that Purdue people were Lindy snobs and danced it entirely too much, little did I know I would be experiencing that first hand one day!) It's a lot of fun and has made dancing with random leads so much easier because I actually know the footwork they are doing rather than just pretending!

In the Pursuit of God

Today at church, (which was held outside due to the power mysteriously being out, along with most of Campus on top of the hill) Ken talked about pursuing God and what that looks like/why it is important. Aside from the brilliant reading of "What's the Matter, Bunny Blue? there were also a couple of points that really hit me that I thought I would share.


~Actively pursuing God is difficult.

It's not an easy task to yearn to know God. It's easy to read books about God, to talk about God, to tell others about God, but that is not intimately knowing who God is.
I thought a lot about this in the context of relationships and marriage. Partially because gave one example of it, and partially because after our first meeting with Garrett last Wednesday, I've been thinking about marriage a lot. Anywho.
Think about the person that you like/love. You could read a book about him. You could talk about him. You could tell other people about him and how great and wonderful he is. But how do you actually KNOW him? The way that I KNOW Dan, is because I talk to him, all the freaking time. I tell him about my day, he tells me about his, we share experiences with each other, we see each other frequently, etc. etc. But it's not always easy. Knowing Dan has taken A) a lot of time, B) many hard/difficult conversations, and C) a lot of tears and frustration. Was it worth it? Absolutely. Do I put that much effort and time into my relationship with my Lord and Creator? Absolutely not.

~Great relationships are formed when each person is actively pursuing each other to the same degree.

I have crushed on a lot of boys in my day. It pretty much started in Kindergarten and never stopped. I used to keep a list in the back of my diary of all the guys I had had crushes on so I wouldn't forget about any of them. Oh boy. I teased and flirted with all of those boys, to some extent, but I never had any sort of relationship with them. Why? Well partially because I was 10 years old and anyone who thinks that a 10 year old can have a boyfriend is off their rocker. But also because these boys probably didn't even know that I liked them and they never gave any effort or thought to pursuing me. I was pursuing them (in a way that 10 year olds can) but that pursuit was not reciprocated.
This was further understood when I thought about the boyfriends I actually did have when I was older and in high school. At some point all of them ended for one reason or another. Oftentimes it was because one of us didn't want to put as much work and effort into the relationship as the other. We were contributing unequally and we were in an unpleasant situation for both of us. The pursuit of one was not matching the pursuit of the other and therefore the relationship failed.

I feel like the same can apply to our relationship with God. Your relationship will be so much better, so much stronger, and so much more worthwhile, if you are pursuing God as much as He is pursuing you. And since it would be impossible to pursue God more than He is pursuing us, then a better way to look at it would be,

The more that you pursue(seek to KNOW) God, the better your relationship will be because the closer you will get to (unattainable) "equilibrium."

OR

Pursue God as much as He pursues you, that is when a relationship is formed.

Whichever one of those phrases from Allyson's crazy mind makes more sense to you...hehehe.

~When we seek God we will find Him, but we have to prepare for what comes with that.

Philippians 3:10-11

"I want to know Christ and the power of his resurrection and the fellowship of sharing in his sufferings, becoming like him in his death, and so, somehow, to attain tot he resurrection from the dead.

Sometimes knowing God intimately means that we will suffer trials and go through crap. He never promises that things will be easy, filled with fluffy pillows and chocolate fondue, but He does say that He will never leave us and the promise of a life with Him should be enough to press on toward the goal for which he has called us heavenward in Christ Jesus.

All this to say that I was really challenged today with what it means to pursue Christ and why is is so important. Recently I have put a lot of thought and effort and time into my relationship with Dan, because I think it is important and because I think it is worth it. Why should my relationship with my Creator look any different?

Not Camp, but that's okay

I've been feeling really restless the past week, really wishing that I was at Camp this summer. But those campsick thoughts were quickly overtaken by the knowledge that I am not supposed to be there this summer and God called me away from there. So this left me with a feeling of frustration of what to do with all these dumb emotions floating around. I'm trying to learn to be content with where I am, but also productive. I want to feel like God is DOING something with me this summer, but I'm having trouble making myself open to the Holy Spirit to allow Him to do that.

I'm not sure any of my thoughts right now will make any coherent sense or go together at all...too many things in my mind! ahhh!!!

I was reading back over the notes I wrote on facebook during my last summer as a Day Camp Counselor. It makes me happy to see how in tune I was with God that summer. I had attended CIY Move before going to Camp that summer, and while that summer was of course not perfect, I remember it with a lot of fond memories. I was so excited about heading to school and growing up and all the things God was going to do with me and through me. It's interesting because when I think back to that summer usually, I tend to remember the negative things. Like how frustrated I was with my boyfriend at the time and how I hadn't gotten the coord position that summer and so on and so forth, but it really was a good summer. It was a good summer though because of what I was allowing God to do through me. I want to get back to that aspect of it. Or not really get back to that, I don't want to regress, this isn't me missing the glory days or anything. I want to come to a place of similar spiritual dependence and rhythm.(does anyone else think that is the most obnoxious word in the world to spell?)

Hmmm....

Anyway, I just felt like vomiting things out in words here, because I can't seem to do much of anything else coherently.

Blank Mind

I've been wanting to write for over a week now. It pops into my mind that I haven't written anything recently, but then I start thinking about what I should write about and my mind goes blank.

I would say that I have writer's block, but I'm not really a writer, just someone who likes the idea of having a blog.

This blcok seems to be seeping into other areas of my life. I have a dance that I need to choreograph next semester, and I have no ideas of what I want to do whatsoever. This isn't such a big deal, I still have the rest of the summer to come up with a workable idea, but it's odd for me to not constantly have an idea rolling around in my head. It doesn't help that I'm not in class or rehearsal or anything, and I haven't been since the end of April.

This lack of motivation seems to be infiltrating every aspect of my life at this point. Not that I'm not enjoying where I'm at this summer. But my life so quickly got into this routine. Get up, go to work, come home, work on micro homework, or make dinner and go to swing. Go grocery shopping, watch movies, etc. etc. I can't really explain what's going on in my mind these days, but it's very boring whatever it is. I have all these ideas and plans. Lists of things that I want to do, and yet I can't seem to just go out and DO them ever.

On the bright side, I made rhubarb crisp this past week and 2 days and 6 people later, it was demolished. And my was it delicious. :D