Heather’s Blog

This morning was very gray, yesterday was rainy as well.

I like gray days. They make the leaves seem so much greener.

When I was younger, I went to a private school for two years, and it was kind of far from my house, so a little bus would come and pick up me and the kids in my area. My bus driver used to encourage us when it was gray or rainy to look at the bright side of things. That when it was gone it was like the earth just took a bath, and to breath the clean air. It is refreshing. I think we should also look for the bright things in the gray though... not just look for the bright that comes after.

Hello finals week.

Posted by Heather at 2:44 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

I had planned on writing about more of the things I did this week. About how I went to the circus for work and my brother's intramural hockey championship game. And then I had also thought about writing about how the last week of classes is now over, and as usual it is bittersweet.

Well, now you know all those things... but now I will write to you about how I have become a "dualistic nomad" and why I realized this.
Yesterday, I went to the bank with the purpose of opening a bank account there. I already have a bank account at a credit union back at home, but that is seven hours away. So yesterday I was sitting in an office on a Saturday morning, looking at the pictures and various items on the desk in front of me. waiting. I was waiting for forms that I would most likely have to fill out, the manager had gone to get them and therefore I was left in her office. And as I contemplated making weird faces at the security camera directly in front of me, I thought about the fact that my life is becoming more divided.
What does that mean?
I have two lives, two bank accounts, and even to a point, two different climates. Who would have thought that 7 hours, 400 miles, would make such a difference?

Thinking about my two lives yesterday made me think about me living two lives, even though I have two completely different settings for the storybook of my life, do I remain the same? I think this is a big issue for most of us... are we the same person in church and school? at home and in sunday school? So I thought about whether I am the same person in western New York and 20 minutes north of Philly?
And now today, and yesterday, as I am contemplating how to pack up my room so that I can go home... I realize that I am not only living dual lives, but that I am also a nomad... living by what I can pack into my car. I bring decorations, make my place of inhabitance homey... then 8 months later I pack it all up again.
It becomes routine and tiresome.
Its a phase in my life.
A chapter in my storybook.
And part of the process of me learning how to spread my wings and fly, slowly becoming more and more independent.

How can I do that in a God-honoring way? and how do I remain who I am, without compromising, not just morally, but character as well?

Posted by Heather at 2:19 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Tonight, a group of us that work together plus some friends went to Desi Village, a little Indian food restaurant that you can walk to from school. It was a lot of fun eating with everyone! Jon taught us how to say "thank you" so that we could thank our waiters... I think you would pronounce it "Banya-bad"? Or something close to that... I love learning about different cultures and trying some of their food, I had never had Indian food until I came to college. You should check out Desi Village sometime! It is great food and the people there are very kind as well.

After that I walked over to the Eagle's Nest where the PBU Jazz band was playing, they are really good! It was very chill, people were doing homework or socializing, and some were just listening. Live music really adds to an environment I think.

Posted by Heather at 10:18 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Hello...
I decided today that I would greet whoever is reading this, you know my life and I don't think that I ever once said "hi". Well now I did :)
Today was formal, it was a lot of fun! I went with my friend Brittany so we got all dressed up and went.

I am still getting over being sick, so I was kind of exhausted all night...meaning that it was a little blur and I will probably go to bed as soon as I am done writing this!
Below is a picture of some of the girls that I will be living with next year in the school apartments, we are only missing one who didn't go to formal.

Well, I think that is all I am going to write right now... I am so tired! Have a good night!
Sincerely,
Heather

Posted by Heather at 10:04 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

So today me and a couple friends went to the Passover Seder that the Institute of Jewish Studies hosts at our school. It was really neat to learn about the different traditions. The speaker was a Jewish Christian, who had been a tradtional Jew for much of his life and therefore had an interesting story.

The IJS students were the servers, which was fun, but also a little weird because they are our friends and were serving us dinner, but they did a great job!

The above is a picture of Kevin and Dani serving us dinner.
Then after, because it was our friend Abby's birthday, we decided to go to the mall (we didn't have very much time- about 45 minutes- and we couldn't think of something more creative on the fly to do to celebrate, but we had a good time!)


And since we had a really good parking spot before we left, our friend Bill said he would SIT in our parking spot to save it for us.

We didn't think that he would actually sit there the whole time.. but he did! So after that we all went our seperate ways to get some homework done... I had to finish my Greek translation because it was due the next day, and guess what! Only one more translation to do and then I am done with Greek! I am sad and excited about that, I have really enjoyed Greek class and learning Greek (everyone should learn it I think) But also it is so time consuming that it will be nice to not have Greek hanging over my head everyday. Bittersweet would be a good adjective for the end of a school year.

Posted by Heather at 11:34 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Today me and a couple of friends decided to go to Philly to get some cheesesteaks for lunch. It was a beautiful day, really warm. So we drove to Philly (to be more specific, I drove which semi-terrified me!) We parked at Wholefoods and walked a couple blocks to Jim's.
Then... realizing that Jim's seating area was pretty packed, after some brainstorming:

we thought that we would go on a little picnic.
Well.
This was a great idea.
Problem: where would we have a picnic that we could walk to without our cheesesteaks getting cold?
So we start walking towards the water because I am convinced that there is a park right by the water (we didn't find it).
Instead, we ended up eating our lunch on this little grassy knoll right in between two major roads; here are some pictures of our picnic location and our wonderful scenery-
So that is where we ate our cheesesteaks
and also enjoyed Brittany telling us that 1 in 3 Americans have a tapeworm... and then she told us this meant that one of us probably had a tapeworm... good thing to learn while eating a cheesesteak right?

On the way back to Wholefoods, we stopped at a cool antique shop
and when we finally got to Wholefoods... we discovered that really we never needed to buy lunch at all because they offered so many samples! and good samples too! Here is a picture of all of us with, I think, the sixth sample of the day

So what is there to do on the weekends here?
Well.. you can go to Philly and get lunch with some friends...and then, after you could play around with a frisbee, go to Target to hoola hoop and play with toys
or perhaps climb a lamp post just for the fun of it
and to top it all off... you could end at Nifty Fifties, just catching up with friends and eating some cheese fries.
"Taste the Memories" and you know... those were just a few of our ideas for a Saturday... I am sure that you will have many of your own little adventures to go on if you come here, and your own memories to make...and maybe one day I will be able to read them here!

Posted by Heather at 12:25 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Sometimes I wish my life was a musical... actually most times. Do you think that if I just randomly broke into song and dance people around me would join in?
There is a lot going on around campus this week... SOAR is tomorrow, some of you might be coming, for those of you who have no idea what it is, SOAR is the first part of orientation for freshmen. Not only SOAR, but also the school musical Oklahoma is playing this week, I went tonight and it was awesome!!!! Also on people's minds this week is housing for next year. This is the week that everyone signs up for the room/room mate that they want to live with next year. So all of that and more is happening this week at school making it a little hectic. Even though it is sometimes hectic though, you ever notice how a really nice day just seems to calm everything? It has been a beautiful day, it hasn't even seemed like everything is happening around us... the sun just seems to pause everything. I hope you enjoyed today just as much as I did!

Posted by Heather at 11:44 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Yesterday, my fish Earnest died. He had been in my possession for about 2 years, he was a really cool fish. Slightly suicidal, but a good fish. For the last year he has been living in the Admissions Office where I work, it made sense because I see him more there than I would in my room. So when Earnest died it was not just me that was upset, but also the whole office, he was our mascot in a sense.
(the above is a picture of poor Earnest going to his porcelain burial)

So yesterday evening me and my friend went out for dinner (we got Thai food!) and afterwards we went out and bought a new fish. Whereas Earnest was blue, this fish is red. Earnest was lackadaisical, new fish is active and flutters his fins a lot. So new fish needed a name, and I decided to take on the task. I made a huge list of names and was contemplating names but none seemed to fit. Earnest got his name from some obscure person who had hiked across Antartica and lived without extra oxygen. So I thought, new fish needs a name from some obscure person who did something great.
At 11:00am I have Church History II, still pondering the name thing while alternately learning about people of the English Reformation, and my professor showed a drawing of John Frith who was burned at the stake with his "disciple". His disciple's name was Andrew Hewitt, who was given the chance to recant and say that he did not believe the same doctrines as his teacher and mentor, or to burn with him. Hewitt decided to burn, because he belieed he was right and that it would be sinful for him to recant. So now new fish's name is Hewitt, after John Frith's somewhat obscure student.

(Hewitt in his bowl, he is so photogenic!)

Posted by Heather at 5:03 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

"So I'll keep calling down the rain,
to recognize the sun when it shines." -Joel Dobbins

Its been raining for a couple of days here at PBU. Whats your weather like? Rain can be such a powerful metaphor, it seems like we often use it to show some form of depression or picture it for sad days. Its like the sky is crying. Interesting that water is so essential to physical life, so much that you would think that we would be celebrating the rain, however as a whole we do not.
Yesterday I had a rough day. It wasn't necessarily bad, just one of those days that everyone has every once in awhile and no one particularly enjoys. So it was raining yesterday and the rain just seemed to fit my day, I felt like nothing was going right, that I couldn't do anything right. What do you think our responsibilty should be as Christians on those days? Just wondering... anyways, I know my attitude yesterday as a whole was not right, and I had to apologize to several of my friends for my crankiness. While I was in this mood though, I felt comforted by the rain, its weird and kind of hard to explain, but it was like the weather was sympathizing with me. And when I woke up this morning and stepped outside to feel the splat splat of rain drops against my face and on my hair that I had just finished drying, I thought "here we go again...will this day be like the last?".
No worries though, today was a great day, besides the fact that my fish Earnest died. So I sat in my classes, a little distracted with the window next to me and the rain tapping to get my attention, and I was thinking about how emotional the rain is. I realized that although I may not be thrilled with a rainy day (metaphorically or literally, and I do really enjoy some rainy days), I realized that I should be thankful for the rain, because it brings growth and the flowers, leaves, and grass. Just like the troubled times that we go through too, God can grow us through those times.
So when the sun finally did come out this evening around 6, it was such a beautiful thing, and the lyrics of this song have been in my mind and I wanted to share a part of them with you because they were the catalyst to my thinking. "So I'll keep calling down the rain, to recognize the sun when it shines." by Joel Dobbins. If we did not have rainy or gray days, we would not (at least I would not) appreciate the sun for all that it is, and I think it is the same with God, if we did not have troubles, harships, bad days, or unfortunate events in our lives, would we take God for granted? Because sometimes it is through those moments that we grow in God the most and appreciate Him for all that He is and alll that He has done.

If only I could put into words how I felt when after seeing raindrops for several days, I finally was able to step into the sun and feel its warmth on my face...

Posted by Heather at 4:46 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)