Life in the Dorm I Don't Live in

Diane and I knew something was not right when our first response to the speed dating recruiter was not, "That's laaa-ame," but "We don't have the time."



"I *too* will have a small chocolate frosty... oh, you gave me two."

After all the things that have happened

Why is this one the hardest to forgive?

Welcome to the 300th Episode of Amy's Life...

"Louis, I think this is the beginning of a beautiful friendship..."
- Casablanca

I may be a sucker for believing things, but...

Errgh, why do I always have to have major computer problems randomly? Paaaiiiinnnn...

Sunny Days and Rain

Today was definitely an umbrella and galoshes day, a fact I was oblivious to until I was standing on the corner of where I work in the coldest shower I've had in months, waiting for the five minute long light to change to let me catch my bus. It's definitely one of those days where you are more likely to giggle about it than freak out. However, it rained so much on me that my jeans turned a completely different color.

Music is surprisingly important in my life considering I'm not that musical or involved in musical things anymore. Music is my memory. I'm the kind of person who instantly loves a song and plays it over and over again and completely makes it my own. So instead of smelling baking cookies and being instantly transported back to my Christmas time or something, I hear a song and can practically enter an exact memory of my life at the time. When I hear certain DC Talk or Newboys songs (old school, right), I go back to summers in our house in Leonia with the window open and the smells and sounds of summer coming in, the checked curtains, the breeze, and whatever nerdy things I did when I was fourteen (I'll never tell...). Love Don't Let Me Go or Put Your Hands Up for Detroit is instantaneous transportation to going out with my girls in England. Star Mile reminds me of quiet nights in my room in England. Over and Over Again was always playing on the radio in the bathroom freshman year. Breathe goes back to the smell and feel of Rice Hall last summer when I was an au pair. Any Coldplay song, the last three or four years of my life. Ben Folds, the Fray, and Regina Spektor are these seasons memory makers. I have an actual playlist on iTunes called Songs of my Life.

When Jeremiah was up here last week (yay AU!), he introduced me to Regina Spektor. One of her songs has been on repeat a lot on my iPod and computer, and today I realized that it would be the perfect closing song to one of my shorts that I'm working on. I don't know what it's like to get rights to a song for a student short, but if I end up making this before I graduate, which I'm going to try, I'm also going to try to get the rights. Or maybe I'll just use it without permission. : ) These are the lyrics to the song, but I also put up the link to the youTube video, because I think if you just read the lyrics, you might get a completely wrong impression of the song. It's a HAPPY song. It's like the Fray's Cable Car or Ben Folds Still Fighting It, where it *looks* sorta depressing, but in a strange way, it makes you feel better. I don't know; I've created a new genre for music called Happy Sad songs. Because that's what they are. And I love them.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wigqKfLWjvM

"Fidelity" by Regina Spektor

(Shake it up)

I never loved nobody fully
Always one foot on the ground
And by protecting my heart truly
I got lost in the sounds
I hear in my mind
All these voices
I hear in my mind all these words
I hear in my mind all this music

And it breaks my heart
And it breaks my heart
And it breaks my heart
It breaks my heart

And suppose I never met you
Suppose we never fell in love
Suppose I never ever let you kiss me so sweet and so soft
Suppose I never ever saw you
Suppose we never ever called
Suppose I kept on singing love songs just to break my own fall
Just to break my fall
Just to break my fall
Break my fall
Break my fall

All my friends say that of course its gonna get better
Gonna get better
Better better better better
Better better better

I never love nobody fully
Always one foot on the ground
And by protecting by heart truly
I got lost
In the sounds
I hear in my mind
All these voices
I hear in my mind all these words
I hear in my mind
All this music
And it breaks my heart
It breaks my heart
Breaks my
Heart
Breaks my heart

Sunny Days (and rain)

Good morning, son.
I am a bird
Wearing a brown polyester shirt
You want a coke?
Maybe some fries?
The roast beef combo's only $9.95
It's okay, you don't have to pay
I've got all the change

Everybody knows
It hurts to grow up
And everybody does
It's so weird to be back here
Let me tell you what
The years go on and
We're still fighting it, we're still fighting it
And you're so much like me
I'm sorry

Good morning, son
In twenty years from now
Maybe we'll both sit down and have a few beers
And I can tell you 'bout today
And how I picked you up and everything changed
It was pain
Sunny days and rain
I knew you'd feel the same things

Everybody knows
It sucks to grow up
And everybody does
It's so weird to be back here.
Let me tell you what
The years go on and
We're still fighting it, we're still fighting it
You'll try and try and one day you'll fly
Away from me

Good morning, son
I am a bird

It was pain
Sunny days and rain
I knew you'd feel the same things

Everybody knows
It hurts to grow up
And everybody does
It's so weird to be back here.
Let me tell you what
The years go on and
We're still fighting it, we're still fighting it
Oh, we're still fighting it, we're still fighting it

And you're so much like me
I'm sorry

- "We're still Fighting it," Ben Folds

"no need to wonder what's been on my mind"

It's 1230, my computer just crashed with my original post, and I still have at least an hour's worth of work ahead of me. I haven't been able to stop thinking for the past two weeks. You know my entire life can be summed up in song lyrics?

Our pastor today talked about the church community, the real relationships and true love and genuine trust we're supposed to be able to find there. Ever wonder what would happen if we stopped lying to each other? I try to be honest in my relationships, to be open, genuine, etc. etc. I'm wondering about what the next level's like. Do people really want to see the honest you (or me)? Aren't they more comfortable not knowing? Maybe I'll just adopt a policy of if you ask, I'll tell.

I was looking through my old posts, and I saw this that I wrote sometime in the fall:

Just pray that God makes it really really really obvious what He wants me to do. I know what I want to do and I know what will probably end up happening, but I want to make sure that I do what He wants. I'm scared that I'll just have to make a blind choice, and that God will show me *afterwards* that I made the one He wanted. I want to know before I do it.

When I was applying to colleges, I made a deal with God. According to the terms of this deal, I felt pretty good about whatever He told me to do. I guess I was just sure that He was going to clearly guide me into what He wanted me to do. Then I realized that this deal was *mine* and that I had set it all up for Him, and really, He hadn't agreed to anything. And when it came time to make my college decisions, I didn't have that clear voice of God telling me what to do. I just had to make the smartest choice on blind faith. As a result, I've had to spend days where the one thing reverberating in my head over and over again is, Why the heck am I here? Not why am I here in the existential way, but why am I here, at Michigan, doing the things I'm doing. Because the thing is, I don't feel God's guidance. I don't know what He wants me to do here. Right now I'm getting pulled through life by its sheer force, my faith tied to my wrist on a string, convincing myself that I did not make a mistake. A huge $40,000 per year mistake. I know I didn't. I would probably have that fear at any new school. The adjustment period, you know.

I felt like I should know what I'm supposed to be doing here by now. I feel like I should know God's reason. I feel like I should *hear* Him. And I talked to my sister about it, and she was amazing. She always was the more rational one. The thing is, after talking to her, I knew that it's coming. Whatever it is, whatever God has planned for me, I'll know what it is soon enough. "Yes I can see a light that is coming for the heart that holds on..." My faith is a string. It's so frail, it's so little, but it's holding up my entire life.

And even if it was a mistake, God knows how to make it better.

I can't stop playing the songs of my life over and over again in my head. I can't keep from returning to the convictions that mixed up my life in the first place. I can't stop thinking.

You Never Let Go

Even though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death
Your perfect love is casting out fear
And even when I'm caught in the middle of the storms of this life
I won't turn back
I know you are near

And I will fear no evil
For my God is with me
And if my God is with me
Whom then shall I fear?
Whom then shall I fear?

Oh no, You never let go
Through the calm and through the storm
Oh no, You never let go
In every high and every low
Oh no, You never let go
Lord, You never let go of me

And I can see a light that is coming for the heart that holds on
A glorious light beyond all compare
And there will be an end to these troubles
But until that day comes
We'll live to know You here on the earth

Oh no, You never let go
Through the calm and through the storm
Oh no, You never let go
In every high and every low
Oh no, You never let go
Lord, You never let go of me

Yes, I can see a light that is coming for the heart that holds on
And there will be an end to these troubles
But until that day comes
Still I will praise You, still I will praise You

- Matt Redman

As per my sister's suggestion...

The best of evangelicalism didn't prepare me for this struggle.
By Charles Colson with Anne Morse

Faith isn't really faith if we can always rely on the still, small voice of God cheering us on. A prominent pastor once told me he experienced the Holy Spirit's presence every moment. Contemporary evangelicals regard this as maturity. Perhaps it is—or maybe it is a form of presumption. True faith trusts even when every outward reality tells us there is no reason to.

Romans 8:18
I consider that our present sufferings are not worth comparing with the glory that will be revealed in us.

2 Corinthians 5:7
We live by faith, not by sight.

Stolen from Emily Blake's blog

"If I show up at your door, chances are you did something to bring me there."

Where is the fine line

Between -

Being dissastisfied and "fixing" it

and

Being dissatisfied and being happy with it

"A ship in a harbor is safe. But that's not what ships are made for."

"Life should not be a journey to the grave with the intention of arriving safely in an attractive and well preserved body, but rather to skid in sideways, chocolate in one hand, wine in the other, body thoroughly used up, totally worn out and screaming 'WOO HOO what a ride!' "

Today's a good day for waxing philosophical

Today I realized that I had about 30 comments hanging out waiting to be "moderated" that I never knew I had. So for everyone who's ever written something back to me on this blog in the past year or so 1) don't be offended that I never mentioned it to you and 2) thank you so much! I didn't know that people read this or cared too much (the more I think people don't read it, the more I write a little too honestly), but it was really cool to go back and read everything people have written to me.

So I went back and re read the last two years or so of my posts. It's crazy. This is one reason why I love writing, love having this record of my life. Half those things I wrote about, I wouldn't even remember if I hadn't spent twenty minutes writing them down. C.S. Lewis thought that journals are a waste of time, and while I can understand meticulous documenting of your life as being perhaps a little extreme, I treasure everything I've written. Not because it's genius or because I was "right" about some philosophy or because I was especially clever, but because it's my life. Maybe only a few freeze frames, but I'm lucky to have them.

I have so much on my mind. I have so much to think about. It's no good talking aloud to myself. Where's my pen...