Pure Joy

Pure (adj): Free from any contaminating substance
Joy (noun): a source or cause of keen pleasure or delight; something greatly valued or appreciated

Today I realized, that I am purely joyful when I am surrounded by kids and sharing Christ's love. I was looking through pictures from Chovember Fest and camp, and I realized that my smile is more genuine and of sheer happiness when I am surrounded by God's beautiful children and getting the privilege to teach them about their Heavenly Father and show them a Christ-centered love. The feeling that I get when pouring into these children is unmatched when compared to anything else I have ever experienced. It is then that I am at my true high and where I believe I am at my best.

This makes me excited for the road that I have ahead of me. I will be in Honduras in January sharing Christ's love to the orphaned children, the poor, and the homeless. Next summer I will hopefully be back at camp participating in a ministry that I have a love and deep passion for. I am pursuing an education degree where one day I will have my own classroom and will get to live out St. Francis of Assisi's saying "preach the gospel at all times; when necessary, use words." I will have the opportunity to love on kids and show them a caring that they may not get at home (this is where my passion for the poorer school districts comes into effect). If I ever have the chance to go into children's or camp ministry I will still more than likely jump on it, as I believe that is where my true passions lie and where I can fulfill what God has placed on my heart to the best capacity. Until then though, I am satisfied loving on kids every chance I get, and sharing Christs love wherever I go! Because it is these 2 things that bring me PURE JOY!

Polo and Camp... what a weekend!

This weekend was one of my favorites so far!! Maybe because it included water polo AND camp? haha :)

On Saturday we hosted a tournament at A&M. I was excited to play, but kind of skeptical about the entire thing because I didn't really know what to expect. We had been practicing for about 10 weeks, and so I knew the girls on the team pretty well. I don't hang out with many of them outside of the pool because how we spend our nights and weekends very CONSIDERABLY, but in the water they are great people to be around.

The tourney was a BLAST! I was thoroughly exhausted by the end of it, but I loved it! I had so much fun playing on the A&M team (not to mention that a girl I know from camp who graduated from A&M last year was coaching us). I never realized how much I missed getting to play. Definitely makes the time commitment worth it!

Then on Sunday I had a camp event all day in Houston! It is called Chovember Fest, and essentially it is just a huge fall-festival type camp reunion. I had 9 campers of mine show up, and it was a lot of fun! I got pied in the face 4 times by my girls (they would win tickets for playing games that we had set up, and then could use the tickets to pie us), and I think I still have whipped cream in my ears...

There was also a fundraiser for the Honduras mission trip there. People could buy tomatoes, flour, eggs, and water balloons to throw at us while we ran through an obstacle course. Somehow I made it through the obstacle course pretty clean... that's because all of my girls then chased me around the entire site throwing things at me. I was DISGUSTING by the end of it... but I think we made somewhere around $500 to put towards the mission trip! WHOOP!

I also got to see Carley and Laura while we were at Chovember Fest. I hadn't seen Carley in about a month, and hadn't seen Laura in about 6 weeks. Seeing them was also a major bonus. I miss those two like CRAZY!!

I got back to College Station (WITH MY CAR!!) around 7:30 last night and then studied for a while. But overall, it was a great weekend!!!

Endurance? Strength? Agility? Nerve?

I ran across this quote on ESPN earlier and LOVED it! It makes me laugh when people don't consider water polo a sport. :)

"Endurance? A water polo player swims 1.5 miles a game, with another player dragging and climbing all over him, pushing his head under the water and saying unkind things about his mamma when he comes up for air.
Strength? These guys egg-beater their legs for 32 minutes in nine feet of water, muscle each other for position and rise up into the air like they’re jumping off a trampoline to shoot and block shots.
Agility? They work back-cuts and spin-moves like Kobe and Marvin Harrison.
Nerve? They take 50-mph shots in the face and breathe in lungs-full of water. And they keep coming back for more."
-ESPN

I can't wait to play some real polo this weekend!!!

I need a weekend...

...and it's only MONDAY!

I feel like I didn't have a weekend this weekend. I spent ALL day Saturday studying (literally--Saturday from 11 AM - 10 PM). On Sunday we had Kyle Field Clean Up (where we have to go pick up a certain section of stands at Kyle Field the morning after a football game in order to receive funding for water polo) at 7:30 (AH, too early!). I didn't get back to my room till nearly 11 and by the time I had showered I was too late to go to church. Major bummer because I absolutely love the church that I'm going to here! I then studying until 4 (with a 30 minute phone date with one of my really good friends from camp, Laura). I played polo from 4-5:45, had tutoring/test prep from 6-7, and then studied until 9. I was then in bed by 9:30 and asleep by 10.

Yeah, so no wonder I can't focus today when I try to study... I should go to the Rec and run or do something active in order to have a little change in routine, but I need to do well on these tests so that I'm not stressing when it's time for finals. AGH! I need a weekend!

This upcoming weekend is going to be crazy too, and I really need to study at some point for a polisci test I have next week. On Saturday I play polo all day in a tournament, and then on Sunday I have a camp "family reunion" where all of the campers have the opportunity to come back and see their counselors and just hang out.

I'm in desperate need of a lazy weekend! Or Thanksgiving... Actually, can it just be Christmastime? Yeah, that sounds pretty good right now!!

Alright--study break over... here we go again! Air masses, clouds and climates are calling my name! Then classical and romantic era music. Then secession of Texas... oh yippee yay yahooooo!

Halloween Hatred

I despise Halloween. Never been a huge fan, and this year, it's WORSE!

1. It's crazy expensive between costumes and candy and blah blah blah.
2. Nobody needs that much candy. Sorry, they just don't! (The average amount of candy that one American consumes in the month surrounding Halloween is 24.7 pounds)
3. The costumes are so skimpy (essentially they cover about 10% of your body and that's it. If you're lucky).
4. Most of the characters that people become are WAY innapropriate. (For example: the guy that I heard about who dressed up as a terrorist and crashed a party... really? Grow up).
5. All that candy makes you feel blah and lethargic. Who really wants to feel like that?
6. In college it's an excuse for everybody to get drunk... It's gross.
7. People get WAY more into character than they need to, especially walking around campus. Seriously, grow up. You're not 5 anymore...
8. It's not just October 31st that is celebrated, it's the entire week prior. So stinkin' dumb.

Halloween is SOOOO dumb!!!

Anyway

Anyway by Mother Theresa

"People are often unreasonable, illogical and self centered;
Forgive them anyway.

If you are kind, people may accuse you of selfish, ulterior motives;
Be kind anyway.

If you are successful, you will win some false friends and some true enemies;
Succeed anyway.

If you are honest and frank, people may cheat you;
Be honest and frank anyway.

What you spend years building, someone could destroy overnight;
Build anyway.

If you find serenity and happiness, they may be jealous;
Be happy anyway.

The good you do today, people will often forget tomorrow;
Do good anyway.

Give the world the best you have, and it may never be enough;
Give the world the best you've got anyway.

You see, in the final analysis, it is between you and your God;
It was never between you and them anyway."

Productive Friday Night!

Surprisingly, tonight has been REALLY productive! Weekends in College Station aren't exactly the most fun-filled experience of your life (especially considering I'm not a huge fan of going to football games, but that's a different story), so I have been kind of dreading this one because A) there's a lot of studying to be done, B) I don't have my car so can't run errands if I want to, C) I don't like having to rely on people for rides because I worry that I'll want to go back on campus earlier than they will and will be stuck, D) There's Kyle Field Clean Up on Sunday morning. So, granted, I wasn't too excited about tonight...

BUT: I've gotten this much accomplished!
I have gone through THREE chapters in Geography and taken notes over all of them (One chapter takes about 1.5 hours). Genny and I delofted and redid our rooms to make it a lot more functional. I was able to have a good 30 minute phone conversation with Renee. I sat and laughed with Genny, Ryan & Jeff (Ryan is Genny's boyfriend, and Jeff is a mutual friend). We got our heater fixed (WHOOOOOOP! Thank you engineering friends who are smart enough to break it apart and put it back together to get it to work!). It wasn't anything major of a Friday evening, but it was relaxing and I got A LOT accomplished!

Now, time to snuggle in my new un-lofted bed (YAY!) and read for a while! God is SO good :)