I'm getting kinda chubs. So here is my resolution: I'm going to work out at least 30 minutes 4 times a week at Rock Creek.

This just needed to be documented. That is all.

I'm sitting in Graham Memorial on a big, soft leather couch. My jeans are rolled up because it's raining, and the sky is gray, but bright. I have an hour until my next class starts, and I have my first Clinical Psyc midterm behind me.

I also don't have my contacts in, and everything is real blurry.

I realized that the peak of my morning is when I first step outside of the apartment. After about 30 minutes of rushing to get ready (following 20 minutes of snooze-button-pushing) I grab two special k waffles out of the toaster and rush out the door. Then, the warmth of the morning hits me. I see trees and sky and breathe summer air. Of course, then I have to rush to catch the bus. But those few moments of being outside are really wonderful. On cloudy days like today, the air is rich with the smell of rain. I wish I could be outdoors more often.

Maybe sometime soon I'll have my "campus is the most beautiful in the summer" rant.

In an attempt to be frugal, I started getting my checking account balance sent to me every morning. There are a lot of things I want to save for. Both things I want to buy soon and things that are way far into the future that I just need to have funds for.

40 minutes till class. The thing I love about Graham Memorial is that it makes me feel like I go to an Ivy League school. The couches are soft leather ones that could have easily been here 50 years ago. Everything is very brown and elegant.

This place suits my mood right now. But I would really like to be in wilderness right now-- maybe in a field in the middle of nowhere. With a warm breeze. And maybe a trustworthy hand to hold. And that reminds me. I think I've been really afraid of marriage, for myself anyway. When I see people getting engaged and married, I feel like it is something incredibly foreign to me, to be engaged and truly happy. To be confident, even excited about spending my life with someone. Because, honestly, the connotation I have with myself getting engaged or married is sheer anxiety and panic. To imagine myself being proposed to, and myself being full of inexplicable joy, is something I see as too good to be true. To good to happen for me. I have a lot to learn and a long way to go. But at least I'm aware of my skepticism, I suppose. And maybe it will help me see when I am in the right relationship with the right person. I just need to get rid of that baggage at some point.

Hm. That was more of a rant than I was planning on. Oh well.

I'm really hungery mungery.

With love and bare feet,
Megan

Maybe not THE best lyrics that have ever been written on the face of the earth, but they are really good, okay!

I'm going to go answer an incredibly unrealistic environmental ethics dilemma and eat raspberry yogurt with too many seeds in it.

That'll show ya.

With love and pink sunglasses,
Megan

The answer is no.

Except maybe Being for the Benefit of Mr. Kite. That one's pretty trippy. But I like it, anyhow.

This morning, Sandy (my new roommate from Mexico) came to church with me! She was pretty skeptical beforehand. She had only been to catholic mass before, and this was usually to accompany weddings or holidays. Walking in to Summit, her first words were, "This is like a party!" She really liked the service, especially the worship and the fact that J.D. explained how to apply scripture. I was really excited. This is how the church should be!!

This is the week of weddings!! One tomorrow, one Saturday. And one in less than a month! Everyone is so growing up! I can't even believe it.

It's funny how people the same age can be at such different stages of life. Some are so ready to enter a lifelong commitment with someone they love. Some trying to figure out how to live week to week. Some who are trying to figure out life after graduation. Some who have been on their own since they were 17.

People have such different experiences, and I love to hear their stories. I love the uniqueness and understanding that comes with being human. We all feel so similarly as a result of different circumstances that brought us to that place.

I'm reading The Horse and His Boy. I like it so much. I'm almost finished.

And I officially have a place to live come August 1!

And I get to celebrate the joy of my friends throughout the summer!

Beautiful.

With love and honeysuckles,
Megan

There have been different concepts floating around in my head the past few days. I think I would like to make them into poetry (blank verse?) or music. I need to bring my keyboard to the new apt. in August. Maybe I'll re-learn guitar. Whenever I fail to exercise creativity (like I have failed to write in my journal since who knows when), It's like I've forgotten part of myself, or let something lie dormant, unused, neglected.


Disclaimer: This is a theraputic paragraph. You can skip it.
Voglio tornare a l'Italia. Mi manca. Tutto-- viaggare, scrivere, vedere le cose nuove. Non posso vedere niente tanta maestosa come la vista di Firenze della Piazzale di Michelangelo. Non posso camminare sulle strade che diventavono tante familiare. Ho bisogno di tornare. O, a meno, ho bisogno di fare cosa importante, avventurosa, nuova, meravigliosa con la mia vita.

Sometimes I just need to think in Italian for a minute. Is that really dumb? Do I need to just move on?

In other news, I'm in an environmental ethics class that makes me read 60 pages every night about corn, and it makes me not want to eat beef (the typical cattle factory farm procedure is super-cruel). I really like burgers and steak, though. But I'm really sad for the cows that lead really crappy lives.

This is where my "I would have been a really good hippie minus the hard drugs and free love" side kicks in.

And I bought earrings with birds on them.

With love and multigrain cheerios,
Megan

I've been listening to "fever" over and over again. It's on the Dan in Real Life soundtrack, which I have also been listening to compulsively. This Icelandic guy does most of the songs, and he's just fantastic. Good job, Iceland.

Bristol and I went to the beach yesterday (and experienced the most fantastic weather EVER, just so you know). And I bought a hemp necklace, which takes me back to high school days when I used to make them. That was fun times. But it was really nice to be away, on the sand (and in it), walking with a strong breeze swirling about me.

Bristol knows that's the biggest understatement of the century.

I got my class ring last week. It's so scary/exciting/thrilling/sad that I'm gonna be graduating in a year. I'm actually getting really excited about it. The world is so open to you. You can just hop a plane to Africa or who knows where. Ok, so you have to get a work visa and all that jazz, but that's really amazing. Gosh, I'm excited.

I'm reading Ezekiel right now, which, it turns out, is a real bummer a lot of the time. Lots about God's judgment and wrath. But one thing that sticks out to me is how Ezekiel asks God, essentially, "Why do you have to do this? I don't understand." And God responds by addressing the severity of sin as well as His power-- the fact that He is holy and always just. It's hard to think about God being simultaneously just and full of mercy. I'm so glad that He is both of these. And I'm so glad for Jesus, who made a way for both justice and mercy by giving himself for me. I am so happy for how the gospel fits everything together!!! It makes so much sense, and it is such a part of everything-- from our innate desire for justice to nature to sex to the order of things in the universe.

Isn't it really great how beautiful and strong and totally beyond comprehension God is?

With love and purple flowers,
Megan

One astronomy exam stands between me and 5 days of freedom. Huzzah. I have never been so demotivated to study for anything, ever. Not only have I squeaked by with a C- on each exam in this class so far, but I really don't know much of anything from this class. When did my brain become this incapable of retaining knowledge? I don't even know.

I just moved into my roommate's room (which doesn't seem to make sense-- all it means is that I get my own room in the apartment for the summer, and that makes me happy). The only downside is that a big poster of Johnny Depp is always watching me. I might have to do something about that.

I've been way too focused on relationships and the future lately. I'm sure the series on Song of Solomon at Summit didn't help that. But it's been consuming my mind-- evaluating the current state of things, thinking about what my marriage would be like one day, thinking of how I probably wouldn't be able to simultaneously date someone and do all these crazy things I want to do after college. I think I keep finding other things to occupy my mind with instead of being enveloped in God and the things He wants to teach me, especially in this new time of singleness and real freedom to do anything. It's funny how the thing I should be freed of ends up finding a way to creep back in and distract me from what I should be doing.


With love and music,
Megan