Today is my dad's birthday. He wanted me to update this thing for his birthday. Yes, I got him another gift. Yes, I was guilted into updating this. No, you shouldn't expect another update until this time next year.

So, this one's for you, Dad.

I graduated from college. I have a double BA in History and International Relations. I'm working for the summer at Tyndale House Publishers, and I guess they'll decide if they like me enough to keep me. I like them enough to stay, so I'm hoping the feeling is mutual. I'll soon be rooming with Amy B from Blauen in our very own townhouse, renting from her parents. We are going to have a sweet apartment, if I do say so myself.

It's strange to be out of school. I'm already looking forward to graduate school in another two years. What can I say -- I'm a student at heart.

And if you want more updates on our family, you should really go to either my dad's site or my sister's site.

See you next year!

i am watching "A Christmas Story," that bit of american iconography that is an experience akin to coming home. (just finished the scene in the chinese restaurant. classsic!) it's a great experience to have as i miss germany and feel separated from so much of what i've traditionally (and not always correctly) associated with the christmas season. it's probably good for me. what happens to my christmas when it's seventy degrees outside in a country i'm still not used to? my christmas shouldn't disappear. christmas shouldn't change just because my environment does.

went to a lovely christmas eve service tonight. the music was bad, the congregation decidedly graying and wrinkled, but the Lord spoke. it was beautiful. God became flesh. the pastor reminded the congregation that Jesus was God, but he was completely human, something with which we're not always comfortable.

and in this season, as i am surrounded by my family, i also miss my "other family," the residents of michigan 709 and the community and support and encouragement and laughs and meaning they've added to my life this year. without them, the semester would have been in black and white -- you guys make life technicolor! =]

an amendment to that commune idea, after chatting with kevin: we need two apartments instead of one house, and one of the apartments need to be purple.

it seems somehow fitting that my last post was in the midst of one of the most hellish midterms/finals weeks of my college experience. this one comes two days after another finals week -- this one at the end of my last fall semester at wheaton. i never imagined i'd grow attached to wheaton, or be truly sad at the thought of leaving, or be less than excited about entering the work force. well, in fact, life surprises me yet again. i don't know that i'm attached to wheaton the city or the college, but i cannot begin to describe the prescious friendships that have taken me by surprise this semester. i'm just irrational enough to dread spring semester's commencement because i'll be so sad to begin the end of it all.

we joke about forming a commune after college. i don't think anyone is remotely serious except for me. when you've experienced overseas missionary communities and know that it's possible to make a family out of friends, suddenly something like friends becoming family doesn't seem that crazy. ah, to experience a perfect world. i'd love to be around for my best friends' weddings and new births and to be an aunt to their kids. at least there are some possibilities for roommates next year.

by the way, please don't ask me what i'm doing after college. when i know, i'll tell you. i promise.

one paper and presentation down. two papers and two finals to go. all in one week. honestly, i don't know how to keep an eternal perspective right now, though i want to try.

yet, at the same time, as i was walking to class yesterday morning, i realized how much i love being a "college student," and the study/social/communal living atmosphere, and how i'll miss this so much next year when i can't live with and next door to good friends, and can't catch up with people at the cafeteria, and can't have deep, intellectual, Christian conversations with peers at the drop of a hat. i enjoy walking to campus on bright, crisp mornings (though there aren't too many of those left before wintertime...) and sitting in lectures and learning all the time. maybe that's the perspective i need to keep this week...

autumn is arriving in all its fury this year...thunderstorms, flooding...and aside from all of the water damage houses and cars, the leaves are incredible and the chilly evenings are perfect. i wish that autumn would last months longer than it does here in the midwest.

the next week and a half is a period of midterms/finals for us. i happen to have three papers, three exams, and other bits of homework here and there. but it's going well so far, thanks to the disney music that's carrying me along! jade is getting a kick out of my musical selections. i just can't help it if beauty and the beast moves me!

one last headline in sarah's life: the half marathon is FINISHED! it was a blast. during the last few miles, it was a painful blast, but i'm so glad that i did it. i'd like to get better, though. they did take some pictures near the finish line that i can buy online...wow, not flattering. in fact, i can't describe the look on my face. it's downright terrible.

wow, what a crazy weekend! it was fun and it was hard and it was emotional. i feel drained and not terribly prepared for the busy week that is ahead of me. i have so much to think about -- more than my homework will allow time for -- and am already counting the days until the end of A quad. yes, that's right, only six more tuesday-thursday classes left, and eight more monday-wednesday-friday classes! yesss!

i love our lbc college group and jill and lisa and cindy and all of the people who take care of us so well. lisa had the entire group over to her house for a feast of a sunday lunch. she is incredible beyond words, and a natural mother/caretaker. i love getting her big hugs. and it was so good and painful to remember bruce and introduce the freshmen to the man who would have been their college pastor. i didn't -couldn't- share any of my memories, but they are plentiful. the Holy Light, the striped trick-or-treating shirt, the deodorant brand fetish, the smurfs, the days when he was the most eligible bachelor in the church and mrs. lauffer used to tease a certain someone about that all the time (haha, you know who you are), coming back from summer sophomore year and learning he'd gotten engaged, then meeting a fabulous and hilarious woman named jill. his particularity for the band's worship songs and his deep desire that the band should give thought to the words they were singing. it's been a hard weekend for me.

and holy cow! i am nervous about the half marathon! it's THIS SUNDAY! i just went on a short run, and i am having problems. i need a kines major to help me out. this is going to be a patheticly ignorant description, but...you know the muscle that runs up from your ankle, on the inside of the leg? mine are SO tight and feel very uncomfortable when i'm running and i can't figure out how to stretch them. can anyone clue me in?

i dropped one of my classes yesterday. i am now taking the bare minimum credits required for a full-time student. i feel like a slacker, but i was in over my head.

the junior research paper is completed and turned in. now i can be a real history major.

wish i could say what i'm really thinking on here. but not this time.

SO MUCH WORK to do. at the beginning of this semester, the Wheaton College president spoke in chapel about "Camp Wheaton" -- the excitement of coming to college, and the feeling of being at summer camp all year long, and the reality that that feeling ends as soon as the homework starts piling up and the temperature drastically drops. all of the freshmen were nervously laughing in their seats, and everyone else was unabashedly laughing and thinking to themselves, "Yeah, the freshmen have no idea. Just wait." the freshmen probably toured Wheaton's campus in May, which is pretty much a complete misrepresentation of what life here is like during our six month winters. well, the winter season may not have begun yet, but trust me when i say that Camp Wheaton ended about the third day of classes for at least all of the upperclassmen i know. i know my roommates and i wish there were at least 27 hours in a day.

on another note, last night's soccer game was fun...sorry, calvin students, but our men's team took the victory. i was supposed to go on a long run today, but i am still battling a cold and a bit of a fever, and according to tebbe, it's best to chill. this weekend is officially dedicated to my JUNIOR RESEARCH PAPER (twilight zone music enters here) -- that dreaded thing required of all history majors. it's due this friday (gasp!) and i think i still need to add several pages to it. oh vay.

i ADORE holidays, specifically long weekends. this is definitely a recovery weekend for me and most students at wheaton. we've already been practically pummeled with homework and activities and meetings, and now it's time to chill. jade and i went to the french market this morning -- if you haven't visited the outdoors lately, STOP READING THIS AND GO OUTSIDE! the prairie path is beautiful, and the weather is perfect. we don't belong indoors on days like this!

i feel like the Lord has really been speaking to me about priorities and what is eternally valuable lately. "ruthlessly eliminate hurry" -- right, LBC peeps? at the end of this life, what will matter? that we knew Christ and proclaimed his glory unashamedly. i know, i know, there is value in the things i am learning at wheaton. they'll equip me to be a more responsible agent of change in the future (hopefully). that said, i so often get the means and the ends and the overarching picture mixed up.

"i am still confident of this: i will see the goodness of the Lord in the land of the living. wait for the Lord; be strong and take heart and wait for the Lord." (ps 27:13-14)