Quickie

Okay so this blog post will have to be a quickie as I quickly finish up all my online business in the Starbucks of Safeway. I really should write my blogs beforehand so that when I get a chance like this I can actually post them all online.

I have now been on Vancouver Island for one week to the day and have had a cold/flu a week from tomorrow. Yet I haven't let me get that down! I have walked down to the beach on four days and have the sun burns to prove it, but the sun tan as well! I am going to have such a dark tan by the end of this summer.... :D I have also walked to church...a very long walk but that is a story for another time.

Of course what I am really looking forward to is Monday and Tuesday. On Monday my boyfriend is finally going to becoming to BC and I am going to see him and be spending the rest of the summer (and someday the rest of my life? :P) with him. I also will be heading to my future roommates place for a birthday party as well as spending the next day watching cartoons with my boyfriend and just hanging out and catching up.

So many things have happened this summer that have gone astray from how I wanted them to got. but in the end everything has worked out! Yay!!

So how is your summer going?

Quirky

I am quirky...or at least thats what I like to call my self. I am not weird or crazy, I'm just quirky. Random little things make me ridiculously happy, like blowing bubbles, biking through puddles and guess what? Scrubbing floors. I love to scrub, not mop, scrub, floors. I don't know what is so thrilling and exciting about getting down on my knees with a rag and a bucket of warm soapy water but I just love it.

Another quirk, there are certain times of night where I can't control my tongue. For example my boyfriend Jesse often phones me early in the morning as he walks to work and usually I am able to form coherent sentences and have an actual conversation....but sometimes I am not. Take last night for instance. I wasn't able to sleep so I watched Mamma Mia (which I loved by the way!) for the second time in the past couple days, on my laptop, talked to Jesse for the first time and then went to bed.....the second and third times he called I was so tired that I lost control of my tongue and started talking about random things from the movie that I had watched, the second time realizing part way through what was going on and spent about 3 minutes trying to shut myself up before I embarrassed myself further.

I also have this bad habit of not being able to remember sayings and metaphors once telling my sister that she was "off her cracker" instead of off her rocker and that she'd be the life of me instead of the death of me.

I have many other little quirks that just add to who I am. Yes, perhaps I am a crazy but you know what, I am unique and I'd like to see you try to make a copy of me...actually no I wouldn't, that might be a bit scary......

So what are some quirks that you have? What makes you unique?

Friends

Well its time for another midnight post! Either that or I am just not able to sleep and need something to do.....

Every once in a while one of my friends will do something totally unexpected that makes me stop and think "You know, I have really good friends." I don't know whether it is that I pick really awesome friends or they pick me (because I am just that awesome....or my quirkiness doesn't scare them off) but I must say that my friends are awesome and I will be proud to brag about them.

My friends care for me, yes they tease me and sometimes for the most outlandish reasons but they are almost always able to make me laugh. Yet while I am able to have fun, my friends (my close friends at least) are willing to talk to me and give me advice and constructive criticism. They have a strong faith and they all have beautiful hearts (and they don't look half bad themselves ;) ) and I thank God for bringing them into my life.

So to my friends; if I have not thanked you and told you that you are awesome and you mean so much to me, You are awesome and you mean so much to me!

So have you thanked your friends lately?

Annoyance

Do you know one thing that really annoys me? When people talk about me when I'm not around, or more specifically when people talk negatively or criticize me when I am not around (I don't mind if you are saying nice things about me ;P). I am guessing most people feel this way, or just don't care, but this is one of the few things that really annoy me.

I guess my biggest problem with it is that I used to hate it when people criticized me or gave me advice because I felt that they were judging me and that basically I just wasn't good enough for them. Now I want to hear that advice because I know that often, while there might not always be total truth to what is being said often there is at least a hint of it and this advice will help me to grow. So how am I supposed to grow if you talk to everyone but me about the mistakes I've made or how I need to change? How is THAT of all things supposed to help me? And if it just so happens that what you are thinking and saying is more fiction then fact, what do you think you are doing to others opinion of me?

Last semester I had several of my friends who were a tad worried and upset about a relationship that I started rather hastily, and all things considered they were a right, but from my view then and now, it was the right place for me to be and still is. What was sad was that only a small amount of them actually approached me with their concerns and I am so happy they did and feel so loved by them. I now understand why most of them didn't talk to me about it (for reason like they didn't want to show disapproval or hurt my feeling etc) but back then I didn't understand especially when I heard through the grapevine that so-and-so said this or that. So I did the stupid thing, instead of talking to my friends about it I ran off and focused my attention elsewhere aka my new boyfriend (which only went to prove some points that they had made). Near the end of the semester I finally realized that oh....maybe I should go to my friends and talk to them about this and let them know that I want to hear what they have to say. So before school started I went to a couple of my closest friends and talked to them about my thoughts and feelings on the topic and they did they same. It was very freeing and I am sad that I didn't get a chance to talk or explain it to everyone.

So the lesson that I learned is that sometimes I need to ask for help or advice instead of expecting it to be given.....a lesson that I finally was starting to learn during my Grade 12 (Math made so much sense when you actually asked the teacher for help)

So what annoys you? What lessons have you learned lately?

Family

My oldest sister Tara has been visiting us over the past couple weeks and it has been wonderful! I have really missed her since I haven't seen her in over a year. Having a sisters that range from the 17-39 and a family that moves a lot we tend to leave a sister behind once in a while and while they usually come home for Christmas at least it has been hard for them to come out the past couple years as they both have pets and Tara spends and cooks Christmas dinner for her boyfriend and his grandmother.

Finally seeing my oldest sister makes me wish that I had spent more time with her when I could have and gotten closer to all my sisters. So I have decided that while I am in Calgary I am going to do what I can to occasionally make a trip out to visit her as well as make more of an effort to get closer to the rest of my sisters. Family is important to me, but it seems lately they have been taking second, third, or even fourth place in my life. I don't want to wake up one morning and find that I no longer have that family or have grown so far apart from them that it's like they are gone.

So how is your relationship with your family thriving?

Taking off the Mask

This is something that I have been thinking a lot about lately. And I am going to try to put my thoughts into words, I don't know how intelligible it will be and perhaps I will just end up running around in circles and if it just sounds like a bunch of gibberish I apologize, I would definitely not place myself among the intellectual of my friends (sometimes falling back to the "ignorance is bliss" saying when I don't want to have a deep theological talk with my friends) yet I don't think I'm shallow (at least I hope I don't come across that way ;P), I often just have trouble saying what I think and why I think it.

I am starting to see that life is just one huge masquerade. We get up ever morning and choose a mask to wear. Depending on the people we see we may change that mask, putting on one that will disguise us even more or one that is more revealing about who we truly are. Very rarely do we find a person who doesn't wear a mask at all.

In this day and age we seem to be almost encouraged not to be ourselves, we are bombarded from all sorts of different media telling us how we should look, dress and act and foolishly we believe it. We chase after someone else's version of who we should be and in the process we lose who we truly are.

Even in the Christian world we often cannot be who we truly are. As Christian we 'have' to be perfect people, we cannot let other people see the flaws that we have in case we give Christianity a bad name. But then in our intolerance for imperfection and our goals of being that ideal Christian we drive people away from the church. We are not a perfect people and our goal doesn't have to be an unattainable one.

The process of taking off our masks can be a painful one. I am sad to say that I have only ever taken off my mask completely to one person ever and it hurt something awful. It took weeks of striping away at my mask, slowly revealing who I truly was. And once I was done it was almost if I was standing there naked with my heart open saying 'here is my heart, accept at it or take a stab at it'. If this person had decided to reject who I was I would have to say that my life would be alot different that it is now, I would have rushed to replace my mask and added even more layers. But instead this person gathered me, and my heart, into their arms and loved me for who I was.

Yet I still have trouble, trouble revealing my heart, soul and mind to others. Yes my mask has thinned when I am around my close friends yet it is still there. There will always be parts of who I am that I will probably never share with others unless the situation presents its and even then there is the danger if they are not understanding that my mask will go on thicker then ever.

In conclusion, at least as best of one I can make, we all struggle with acceptance, how could someone ever like or love someone like me? So we become someone we are not just for the benefit of others. And in the process we lose ourselves.

My cry? You are a wonderful person, no matter what you have done. You have been made by God and you are loved by him no matter what you have done. If you are living a life that is pleasing to the Lord, one that is absent sin (that does not mean that you have to be perfect for we all have sin, but you have to be willing to see where you have gone wrong and change), then if someone cannot accept who you are and the mistakes you have made as a HUMAN BEING, then personally they are not true friends. I know who my true friends because they are willing to accept me for who I am. But how can they do that if they do not know who I am? For example, I tease other people and love being teased, but often I do not show people how sensitive I actually am. People will start to tease me and all of a sudden they say something that hurts me and instead of saying something I laugh and just add another layer on to hide my hurt. But I have come to realize that I must not lose WHO I am, the beautiful person that God made me, just to make other people like you.

Do not lose the beautiful person who you are just for the benefit of others, because, no matter what people say, YOU, my dear friend, are beautiful and if other people can't see that well that is their loss.

People might think that the saying "be yourself" is over-rated but personally it is under-rated for how many people follow that advice?

Stereotyped

My sister made a remark earlier in the week, mostly out of humour but it is so true. Both her and I are members of three stereotyped people. We are first of all adopted, second of all pastors kids and third of all we are homeschoolers. Combine that in to one person (or actually two since its both of us) and you have a person that everyone thinks they can understand and explain. So just because I was adopted into a pastors' family and homeschooled my whole life means that you can understand me? Ha! Fat chance! So this blog will be devoted to me clearing up the stereotypes I have been placed in and maybe you'll get to know a little bit more about who I am as a person and not just someone who fits into a category.

Of course going to University this year the pastors' kids stereotype wasn't that bad because a good number of the kids were either a pk or mk. But I have had other instances when people have found out that I am a pk and instantly put me into this group. I am a pastors kid so I have to be perfect, I have to act a certain way and the way that I act is because I am a pastors kid and not because it is actually who I am. Oh and I am going to rebel. Just because I am a pk, I am going to end up rebelling and doing something stupid because all pk's do it eventually right? Because we are so confined we are going to runaway from all that and become someone totally different, right? Wrong. Perhaps that is true about some, maybe many pk's but you know what? I act they way that I act because that who I am. Yes, alot of how I act is influenced by my parents and the church, after all I have people watching me to see if I screw up, as well as people who are watching me and wanting to be like me (like the kids in the preschool class that I worked in). So yes the church is influential in my life but it is not who I am.

Another BIG stereotype is being a schooled at home. One of my favorite videos about homeschooling is found here: http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=100000161649158&v=box_3#!/video/video.php?v=126113226496&ref=share it's on facebook so I apologize to those of you who don't have facebook. I once had someone come down on me, actually my parents, because I was homeschooled. I was a bit shocked and so didn't have time to explain, plus we were in a group of people so a big arguement about me and my family wouldn't be the funnest way to spend the evening. But one reason that I was homeschooled is that in my childhood I had both ADD and ADHD which meant that it was really hard for me to go to school. For a period in grade 1 I actually did attend a Christian school but it was not a good experience for me and so my parents pulled me out. Yes being a pastors kid and homeschooled means that I am more sheltered then most, but you know what? I'm okay with that and I am so blessed that my mom put so much work into me. Unlike some kids, my mom refused to put me on medication to help with my ADD or ADHD problems and instead pretty much trained them out of me, helped me find ways to focus and concentrate. Also I am happy that I was protected from the world of school. I hear lots of bad things both from friends and the news and you know what? I don't believe you have to experience something to know whether it is right or wrong. When the time comes and you have Christ in your heart you will know what is right and wrong and how to handle it. Of course that is my thoughts. Also, unlike most homeschooled kids I did online school, which is actually becoming quiet popular. So I had real teachers, real tests, and I went to a school to do my provincials and I had a grad ceremony and have my grade 12 diploma just as if I had gone to a real school. And guess what? At the same time I was able to spend more time with my family and, if I was ahead in my studies (yes I had due dates as well) then I could take the day off. Oh and I never 'went to school' in my pjs and I worked on my classes from 9am until 3pm with a lunch break and a walk-the-dog recess. I'm a normal kid.

Adopted. Now this is an interesting topic. I don't often bring up this fact but it has come up more and more lately, mostly because people will ask how old my oldest sister is and when they hear she is 39 and that my youngest sister is 17 they usually get this funny look across their faces. Now one thing that I find both amusing and annoying is when people as "What does it feel like being adopted?" it both makes me want to laugh and glare and humourously answer "How does it feel to not be adopted?" I won't go into details now about my adoption story but I will tell you it is one of the foundations of my faith because I see it as a miracle in my life. My parents treat me and love me the same as one of their own kids and I love them and treat them the same as my own parents. Very rarely have I thought about me being adopted because I feel no different then you would feel living with your natural parents. Sure, unlike my little sister, I have memories of when I was a kid before being adopted (even though I was only 3) but I love my family now and as far as I am concerned they are my only and true parents.

So here I am.... yah, I am different then the average kid, sure I may be a bit weird, yes I can be naive but you know what? I wouldn't change my life for the world (its too messed up anyways :P). I am proud to be who I am and I am ME, not a pastors kid, not adopted, not a homeschooler but ME, those labels are only aspects of my life and not just who I am. Perhaps they have helped make me who I am but they are not me, make sense?

So what stereotypes are you in and how do you handle it?