Hey...it's 1:14am, and I just got back from some long hours at work. I checked my email and my pal's websites. I just read Mandy's, and it touched my heart. It is just (well, pretty close) what I have been needing to learn the last 24 hours. See, I'm a passionate person. When I love something, I love it through and through, and passionately. Zealously. And I love love. I think it is an idol of mine at times. I want something that Mandy has, that Mel has, that a lot of my good friends have. But it freakin' takes work. I make up these little plans of how my love life is going to work out, and when something comes in the way of that or threatens to, I get all mussed up and turmoil erupts inside for a few days. I decide to isolate myself from the source of my love, and the person who evokes love within me as well as this unknown misery. I put myself in a tortuous place: alone with my own thoughts. Sure, I pray, ask Jesus to take the thoughts away. But the truth is I want to analyze everything and figure it all out on my own. I'm so scared. I'm scared I won't ever be loved the way I see my friends being loved, the way I want to be loved--the way I love. It just seems impossible. Lately I'm thinkin' this weird rash on my chin and my frizzy hair is definitely going to get in the way of someone loving me like that. My lack of style. I have people around me telling me positive things about myself, uplifting me, but deep down in my heart there's this spot that seems like it will forever be repeating,"Nah...not true. All your intuition is stupid, if you think he likes you you're stupid, and if you think anyone else likes you, that's stupid as well." Maybe this seems to be quite personal information, but if you see me seeming down lately or in the next couple of days, just know it is a thing I go through every couple of months or so when I see that I don't have everything worked out in the love department and have to learn to give more of it to God. Why can't I ever just give it all, all at once, at one time? I hope I can do that this time.

Yo, yo, yo. Well, I figure that today I will finish my break story....where was I? Oh yeah. My dad and I left on the Sunday 'fore New Years. So we drove almost all the way up to Oklahoma and spent the night at a rest stop. Pretty uncomfortable. And I had a bad cough, so my dad was like,"arghfrursghghes shhhhh!!!" a lot. I felt bad! Oh well. We woke up around 8 o'clock and tried to re-do the tarp in the truck bed since it was shredding from flapping around so much. I ate some applesauce and my dad went and got some coffee. Then we proceeded to drive across the most boring part of Texas. Finally we hit New Mexico, and my dad let me drive. We stopped at a Denny's about an hour before Albequerque and an hour or so later I got real sleepy. When we headed into the city, which was huge and awesome and completely full of lights, we changed the station to a local dance station and "What is love" was on. My dad, of all people, goes,"Hey! I love this song!" and turned it up (he's got a great sound system in there) and we started doing the head-bobbing thing. Hmmm, how long has it been since I had that much fun with my dad? I don't even remember. I got La-la out and made her dance around to make my dad laugh. So we kept that station on as long as we could. We started to see mountains after the city, but it was dark. The last song that came on before the station faded was the new Madonna "Die Another Day" and we turned that one up too. We listened to Elton John and my dad told me that the one song where he sings,"You'll be blessed" always reminded him of me since I'm his first born. Sniff sniff--I know. We made it to Flagstaff, Arizona, and got a hotel room, the last one, for $28. Wow! It had three beds, including a separate room that I stayed in so that I could cough whenever I wanted. I woke up to the sound of that Madonna song, and then right after that, my dad opened my door and came in with the radio blaring, "What is Love?" He he it cracked me up. We showered then looked around for a place to eat. We stopped at IHOP and had a yummy breakfast, then I drove up part of the way to the Grand Canyon. Wow, was it beautiful in northern Arizona. We came into a nice forested area before the Canyon and paid $20 to get in. It was so dense you couldn't see the canyon until you came right up to it. OH MI GOSH. I couldn't believe my eyes. It was the biggest thing I have ever seen. It filled me with more awe than even the ocean does. That's pretty big. I took pictures, got scared cause my dad was hovering ever so close to the edge to get some good shots, then we went to the touristy area. I insisted on buying my mom a shot glass from there (she collects them and I get her one everywhere I go) and a post card. We didn't stay there long. Late afternoon we started the drive to Vegas to spend New Year's Eve there. We crossed the Hoover dam at night, stopping to go to the bathroom right before. These crazy kids drove up with Weezer "Only in Dreams" blaring out of their car so loud I got scared while I was in the outhouse thing. My dad joked around with those kids so it was okay. I couldn't see much, but what I could see was cool. I'm kinda weird about dams though; they screw up the environment so I get kind of mad at them even though they provide us with lots of resources. Oh well. You could see the lights to Vegas like a 100 miles away. When we came over the hills to see into the valley and saw the city it was insanely bright. You could see the strip. It was so rad. We headed in. What followed was a crazy, crazy night. We first stopped at the old, covered downtown area, where my dad got a chicken sandwich at McD's and got confused at my cautiousness about leaving the stuff in the truck's bed while we wandered around in the middle of Vegas. We couldn't get into the main area (it's the old downtown of Vegas and they have built a huge covering over it and have all kinds of events there) cause it was about 30 bucks to get in, so after trying to sneak in and nearly succeeding (my dad just walked right in past the line, but because I hesitated cause I didn't know what he was doing, I got caught and had to call my dad back) we had to go back. So we decided to try to go to the Stratosphere and see if we could ride the rollercoaster at the top (I think it's up there) So we finally ended up parked and everything, walk in, and find out it is closed to the public for private parties. Darn it! So then my dad decided we should go further downtown to the Pyramid-shaped casino. The Luxor. We searched for an okay parking spot for at least an hour, and finally made it close to 11pm. We went in and found a place to eat. Wow, was that a good meal. The casino started to clear out by the time we finished, so my dad asked me where the entrance was cause he couldn't remember, and we found it and headed outside just in time to see the choreographed fireworks off of all the tall buildings on the strip. It was crazy. My dad and I hugged and my sister called and we had her listen to the noise. :) It was great. We started heading back to the truck and then got into the biggest mess ever. First, we went down a road that ended up leading us into a parking garage. So we had to turn around in the garage and wait to get waved out. Man! All these people started honking their horns in there just to celebrate and have fun waiting. We finally got out of that mess, and my dad took another (wrong) turn that got us into a huge traffic jam. We basically went in circles for an hour. My dad did pretty good at keeping his patience though. We finally got out of there at around 1:30am or so and started to head out to the Nevada desert. Alien country, or so I found out from our first gas station. I went to the restroom and all inside was this UFO memorabilia and when I got back in the truck, my dad had this radio station on with this host that always talks about aliens and stuff. My dad thinks he's cool for some reason but I don't. Seems to promote devilry if you ask me. The guy's name is Art Bell if you're interested. So I got kind of creeped out, out there in the middle of nowhere with that stuff playing and my dad intently listening....eventually we stopped in a little town and my dad was gonna take a nap....we woke up about 6 hours later. :) He was grumpy. But, after we freshened up and he got a gallon of coffee, he put in Shania Twain and cheered up. We went through an old mining town a few hours later and basically just drove through old desert and mountains. There was NOTHING out there but telephone poles, a straight road, and beautiful, dead, mountains. Sound like an oxymoron? It is, kinda. At first, I was like,"Wah! There's nothing here!" and didn't let myself like it. But then, I started thinkin' bout it, contemplating what it used to look like, how long it'd been there, etc, and was suddenly struck by it's beauty. It was kind of how I felt when we were driving through the Scottish highlands last summer and there wasn't much on the mountains but I 'got' their beauty anyways. God is awesome. Finally, we started coming upon higher snow-covered mountains and put in some Dwight Yoakum. That was fun. We got down. We came to a cool lake and a weird military area/town, and I put in the Lord of the Rings soundtrack and started telling my dad how we had to watch both movies, about the book, how it makes me feel, etc. It was cool cause at one point my dad said,"Tell me all you know about Tolkien" and I went on and on. I love talkin' bout that stuff. The mountains got higher, we finally came to the river, and my dad told me about the area and showed me the place he works, in a little niche in the mountains right outside Reno. We came around the corner and there was the valley, just like I remembered it. It's so nice there. Wow, were we in for some nice weather. Till next time I feel like tellin....

Last night was fun. I had a great leadership meeting, resource meeting, and helped Phil study le francais. Nicole was great at our resource group (we all talk about our small groups and just get to know each other better) cause we played one of those games where you write down what you'd do in a circumstance in a made up story and then find out the significance of your answer afterwards. I found that (well, according to the thingie) one of my most favorite places to be is in a library and the person I trust the most is Jesus. Hey! that was cool. I also found out that I will have two loves before I get married. So, looks like my next relationship will be the one!!! Ha ha. Yeah. But I jumped up and down anyways. Got some laughs teachin' Phil the french. Did my homework, conked out. It was a great day. Anyways....

Emperor's New Groove quote of the day:
"What are the odds that that trap door'd lead me here!"~Kronk

Hewwo! How are you all. Sorry I've been so blatantly slacking, like my Moo has been. Oh well. I am so incredibly busy this semester it is sickening! I started my practicum at Ski Shack this last weekend. It was so fun. I get along with all of them so well. I can't believe it. Usually I take about two months to warm up to people when I start a new job. But not this time. The manager is a techie nerd like me so it works out great. Except for he's, well, a bit too flirty. I don't know what to do with it. It's kind of uncomfortable for me. I think I am handling it good, though. God's giving me help in so many areas and answering so many prayers lately! Wow. I guess He always does, but I don't always notice. Yesterday was the fab Super Bowl Sunday. I only watched the half-time show. The rest of my time was spent trying to do homework, talking to Lacy for almost an hour, playing about 15 minutes of guitar, and then going to the library to do some homework and try to study. The studying didn't happen but the homework did. When I got home, my Mandy Moo called me (to my utter delight, cause I had just been thinking about her!) and we talked till close to 2 am. Not good for my Geography test, which I flunked this morning. How do I know already? Well, see, we graded it in class. And I got a 34 out of 73. Yup, I think that's the worst grade I've ever gotten on a test. Hmmmm, I'll get better though.

It was so great to talk to Mandy and Lacy. Today I finally got to chat it up with Mel, who said I am going to be her maid of honor in her wedding! What!!! I was so stoked, but I didn't believe her at first. Finally she goes,"Please don't be all girly on me!" and I said,"Come on, let me be girly for just a couple of seconds!" and I jumped up and down and hugged her. Wow. I'm gonna be in two weddings this year. My little sister's getting married the weekend before finals, and then Mel and GJ are in August. Craziness. I had my second day at Ski Shack today and got to know another one of the guys. We had a good time. It is so laid back there it's insane. Okay, I need to go eat some din-din now. Got some quotes up my sleeve.

"Oh, yeah. It needs to be on..."--TJ today while we were running errands, trying to put his car in reverse

"Whatever! You're rapping on my coat!!"--Me to Karissa finals week

"Micah smells like fish?"--Phil misunderstanding what I said at church yesterday

Emperor's New Groove quote of the day:
"Llama face!! Wa ha ha ha ha ha!!!"~Kuzco discovering he's a llama