Okay, so I know I said that the Germany stuff would be coming soon, and it will... just not yet! Basically it's 11:40 pm, I just emailed my amazing mother my last two essays so that she can "bleed" all over them - note: my mother does not physically injure herself to do this, she just uses a red pen and her brilliant editing skills to make my papers look intelligible. - Anyway, so I'm hyper, I have tons of energy because once those last two papers are edited and turned in then I am done! Haha... that's such an exciting thing to say, I will have over a week to rock London like there's no tomorrow... Yea, super hyper and I have no idea what to do to calm down.
Quick update on life... things are going well, most of my lectures finished this week, I have one left on Monday that I can go to or not... my choice. I turned in two essays already and had a not-so-wonderful expereince with one of the receptionists in the psych. office, don't get me started on her, I'll just say she made me cry and I have to go see her again to turn in these other two essays (pray for the best). I went and say the London Symphony Orchestra once again, this time with Midori as a guest and they play pieces from British composers... I loved all of it... I went bowling the other night with some friends and Spanish exchange kids, we all had a great time and it was only 2GBP per game, that crazy! I sucked, but that's okay, we all had fun anyways.
OH MY GOODNESSS... and then the next morning I saw Chronicles of Narnia, oh dear goodness I loved it so very very much. I was excited to see it even before any of the Biola kids who got to go to the exclusive premire on the 8th before it was publicly released on the 9th (how you ask? it released on the 8th here, and with the 8 hour time difference, I basically say it at 3am your time on the 8th). This is what happens when I'm hyper, I post random things about time differences and information that probably no one else cares to know. Oh well, the movie was amazing, go see it! Yes, they cut a lot of the story and I am dissapointed about some of the things they cut, but... everything else makes up for it. The dynamic between Lucy and the Fawn is astounding. Lucy was perfectly cast, she pulled all the right heart strings... I could go on but you all should see it for yourselves and make your own judgement. Moving on...
Things that are coming up for me: Christmas shopping will hopefully get finished tomorrow, I get to see the LSO again, this time with the choral so that should be amamzing; there's talk of going iceskating in the open air somewhere... but we'll see; amazing Christmas concert at Royal Albert Hall that I know I'm going to get all emotional at because it's the day before I leave; and some other stuff but that's all I remember right now.
Right now I'm not ready to come home, I was ready when I had 5 essays to write in the matter of two weeks, but once I was done with 3 of them I didn't want to come home, and now I really don't. I have a good idea, everyone should move to London! Yea, it wouldn't work I know, but it would be interesting. I do miss my family, and it is hard to listen to Christmas music without having close friends and family around; but I'm afraid that once the holiday is over I will be ready to come back here. Oh, conflicted feeling are never fun!
Anyways, there's a brief snapshot of what's going on over here. Since I am basically done with my work I can focus more on getting info up about Germany, and if you're lucky I might bust out the lsat four days on my travels before coming to Roehampton (I know they should have been posted long ago, be patient with me). Well, goodnight and I hope that everything is going well on the home front. Lots of love to you all!
Cheers!

And even more photos! I'm really exciting because the internet actually wants to work now.
Here's a link to three albums:
Wndsor Castle, Stonehenge and Bath; Edinburgh, Scotland; My favorite place in downtown London
http://www.kodakgallery.com/I.jsp?c=qyghf15.vuknl59&x=1&y=-qxd93y
More updates to come!

So just real quick here's a link to some more photos... I hope you enjoy them. I'm going to bed now, it's nearly 2am... and I'm tired.
http://www.kodakgallery.com/I.jsp?c=qyghf15.dgtp4od&x=0&y=-kykr2
Hasta!

So I will get to my Germany trip eventually but first there are about a million things on my mind, particularly after reading Vanessa’s blog from the past month. Things are getting pretty hectic around here and I’m finding that procrastination is my doom… but that’s not really what I want to talk about.

The other day I was having a conversation with Sierra and she was telling me that one of her friends from high school had just died in a car accident. She said she Googled her to find here obituary and the first hits were for her blog and her wedding website. How tragic that she never got to see the day of her dreams fulfilled, it was all gone in a second. Another heart breaking thing is she was a Mormon… do I honestly believe that because she wasn’t a Christian and didn’t accept Jesus as the one who paid the price for her soul that she is now burning in hell for all eternity? I don’t want to believe it; I had the same questions when one of my friends died of a drug overdose. I couldn’t cry about it then because if I did then that just meant that I was somehow admitting to something that I didn’t want to be true. It’s all great and fine in theory and when you write it down on paper. I mean honestly how many papers have I had to write at Biola that include John 14:6 “Jesus said to him, ‘I am the way, and the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me.’” Paul and I have been trying to work out what it is that we believe so that we both know where each other stands on particular issues and we both agreed that Jesus is the only have a relationship with God. It is how that actually plays out in the world around me that I have a hard time with. God is a God of grace, love, and mercy, but he’s also a God of justice, and righteousness; he wouldn’t be the perfect being he is without having a balance of all these characteristics. This also just brings me to the question that seems so cliché at Biola, “What about the people who never even hear the Gospel message, like the people in deepest parts of the rainforest?” I have no idea what happens to them, I think that it’s one of those things that I just have to trust that God will hold those people accountable for what they do know. But what about in this case, and my friend who died years ago? I don’t even want to think about it anymore because it hurts too much, I feel like there’s no hope! When Dan Elkins passed away a year ago I was totally heartbroken but I knew in the back of my head that I would see him again one day in heaven, but that hope is just not there in this case.

On another not so related topic… while Sierra and I were having this conversation we got on the topic of faith. I had always grown up in the church thinking that the people in Jesus’ time were totally faithless and I didn’t understand how they could see Jesus perform miracles right in front of their eyes and then just turn a blind eye. But if I’m honest with myself I find that I do the exact same thing. I have heard countless stories of people praying for healing and God touches that person’s life and none of the doctors can explain how it happened. While in Germany I was told another one of those stories where the Tonnes (the people I stayed with) were visited by their neighbor whose son was in a horrible car accident and was going to die that night or the next morning because both of his lungs collapsed and he was severely brain damaged. The Tonnes prayed for his healing and that night things drastically improved. Today he is back in school only a year behind his peer! I look at that story and think, “Praise the Lord, that’s a total miracle!” But do I actually let that sink in and impact the rest of my life? No, I don’t, I let it stay as story and not a living testament that God is still alive and moving today. I am just as faithless as those people who saw Jesus’ miracles.

There are so many other things running through my head right now that I don’t think I can handle writing about them right now. Possibly more of my thoughts will come later on. I know that I am not the only person who struggles with these things; the question is what should be done about it?

Until next time…