Updates: Part 2

Hello there,  Readers!

Thanks for coming back to read more about those updates!

Last week, we left off at the end of the summer. Since it's now almost the end of the semester, I'll catch you up on school (Late August to Now).

First of all, I moved to LA and started school at Biola right at the end ofAugust. September began, and so did all my classes. Currently, I'm in Experimental Psychology, Psych & Christian Thought, Foundations of Christian Thought, Psych Statistics Lab, Biblical Interpretation&Spiritual Formation, and New Testament History and Literature. Phew, that's a mouthful. There isn't a whole lot to say about my classes that's really exciting, but I have made some awesome friends. I didn't have a roommate when I first got here, but I asked a girl I had met if she wanted to be my roommate and now she's one of my best friends! I also made friends with a girl in my Foundations class who's also a psych major and this girl who added everyone as a friend on Facebook over the summer.

September didn't have a whole lot going on, except for my birthday toward the beginning. Kosmos is seriously awesome and took a bus to come see me. We went to our friend's place in North Ridge and stayed there for the weekend. I was definitely sad when the weekend ended and Kosmos had to leave, but it was by far one of the best birthdays I've had so far in my life.

When October finally came around, there was a lot going on. Toward the middle of the month, Biola's annual Torrey Conference began. I have to admit, I wasn't expecting to enjoy it so much. The first day of Torrey, they held it on the lawn. But things got a little crazy. To give you some background, apparently, one of the on campus ministries had been sent a message by God through prayer that the lawn would be revitalized. Then, this year, one of the various ministry groups here began holding their meetings on the lawn. But then Torrey was held there too! But here's where it gets really crazy. That night, we were worshiping and the worship leader was in the middle of prayer. We had just finished singing "How He Loves" (If you're unfamiliar with the title, just think "Loves like a hurricane, I am a tree") and "Spirit Break Out" ("Can you hear the sound of heaven touching earth"). All of a sudden, there's a flash of light. I think a lot of people were confused and thought maybe it was a photographer since they had been taking pictures earlier, but then BOOM! Thunder. The worship leader had barely said Jesus' name when that happened. Everyone cheered. The worship leader tried to continue her prayer and repeated Jesus' name. More lighting and thunder. More cheers. One more time she tried, she said Jesus' name and all of a sudden lighting struck right on top of us. It honestly looked light it hit right next to the stage. Then she asked Jesus to cover us with his love and grace. Then out of no where, these HUGE drops of rain started falling. It barely started when all of a sudden, it was pouring on top of us. Everyone ran for cover and a good portion of people ran back to the dorms. I think I can safely say, based on the Facebook and Instagram posts that followed, that we all heard "the sound of heaven touching earth". It was incredible. I don't know about anyone else that night, but for me the message was loud and clear, "I AM here."

One of the girls on my floor captured that video of the lighting that seemed to strike near the stage. The rest of Torrey was great, but this was the highlight.

Reaching the end of October, Halloween weekend came, and I had the chance to go home! I was more than a little excited. I went home for my little brother's birthday, but while I was there, I of course got to see Kosmos. Actually, he was there with my family basically every night except K's birthday and he picked me up from the airport. Needless to say, I very much enjoyed my time home.

Which brings me to November. Since being home, I have been absolutely swamped with papers and tests. Actually, I need to go finish one now. But, by the time you read this, I'll be done and ready for Thanksgiving to start. Hooray! And boy, will I have an post following Thanksgiving weekend. But I can't say anything today about it. Exciting things happening! Tune back in next week for more!

With Love,
PolarBearMoose <3

Updates: Part 1

Hey Readers!

It has been an awfully long time since I have made a detailed post on this blog. I am deeply sorry about that because I have had a few things that I could have been more active in blogging about even though I updated Instagram. So lets start with some updates, shall we?

First of all, I graduated from Community College Cum Laude with my Associate's Degree in June. And I finished my IGETC for transferring. Woot! Of course, nothing is ever easy when you want it to be, so of course there were/are some bumps. I had to go in to get my Associate's degree, even though I was told in June it would be mailed to me. And of course, something wasn't properly filled out on my IGETC, so I have to get that resent. When I went in to the Registrar's office, the woman working at the counter responded to my claim of needing the IGETC resent with, "Oh they've been doing this for a long time, they wouldn't mess up." To which, I had to hold my tongue. Honestly, time does not mean that you don't make mistakes every once in a while. So now I need to call the office to get it fixed since I'm not close enough to take care of it in person. I'm not happy about that. But I know it's done. I just need to get it fixed.

Second! I went to Alaska on a cruise in July for my step-dad's 50th and my step-brother's 21st. Before I get into this, you should be informed that I get horribly sea-sick. So, here we are at sea, and I am the only one who can feel the boat (sorry, ship) rocking. Did I mention I get sea-sick? After the first day at sea, I'm already nauseated. But I didn't think it would get too much worse. Wrong. We make it to our first stop, Ketchikan, and the tour that my step-brother and I were meant to go on had been cancelled due to fog I believe. Ketchikan is small, and there's not a lot to do at port, so going on a tour was really our only option besides browsing a gift shop that we didn't have money for. Alistair decided to go on a quick hike and I decided to go back on the ship (it can't rock too much at port, so at least that was alright), but I did stay on land in the rain for a while before I did go back. The day ended, and we went back to sea.
The next stop was Juneau. This one was a lot more exciting. Even though I don't like boats, I went on a whale watching tour. This part was seriously cool because we were able to see the whales (humpbacks) bubble-net feeding. From what I understood, basically, the whales dive down and herd the fish to one spot. Then they all dive down and form a circle around the fish and start blowing bubbles while narrowing their circle until they get to the top and catch as many fish in their mouths as they can. The bubbles form a net because the fish are too stupid to swim out of the bubble net. I'm glad I brought my camera, but I wish I had been able to capture some better pictures. These guys move fast!

Our next stop on the trip was Skagway, which apparently was a gold mining town. If you've ever been around the Sutter's Mill area where they preserve history by basically not updating any building to make it more appealing for tourists, then you know about what Skagway looks like, except with less trees around the town itself. And there's a train. The cool part about this was that we got to ride the train and see a lot of different things. The bad part was that the guide decided to talk over the main guide person on loudspeaker so you couldn't actually hear any of the things about the railway history. And she didn't know the history very well, so she'd say things like, "Oh I think this, this and this, but the conductors can tell you more!" While talking over the conductor. One really cool part thing that also happened in Skagway was we got to meet a dog sledding team (the dogs and the trainer) and we got to see a little of how they train and how the racer prepares. He was really passionate about it and he definitely had things planned out well of what he wanted to talk about. And the best part: we got to hold some of the puppies. If I weren't allergic, I'd be all over getting a dog this cute.

Then, we were supposed to go around the fjord, but something happened with the sewage where it didn't get emptied and we couldn't actually go see it. Xander and my mom were pissed. So instead of going around the fjord, we stopped in Sitka. See, I actually really enjoyed Sitka, and I honestly wish we'd had more time there. It was pretty cool. My grandma, my step-brother, and I were the only ones to get off at this point, so we just enjoyed walking around the historical path way. Alistair and I decided to have some fun with the things around the trail. My favorite one though, is this one:

There's a lot of history about Sitka, and if you ever have the chance, I highly recommend going. We actually ended up hijacking part of tour and learned a lot about the St. Michael's Cathedral. Again, a lot of history and I highly recommend looking it up or visiting if/when you have the chance. But our time in Sitka did have to end, and so we returned to the boat, somewhat satisfied with our adventure. 

Then the terror of the long days at sea began. The boat actually got rocky enough that my family could actually feel it. Since I felt the rocking since the beginning, you might be able to guess that this is when I got really really sick. It was bad enough that they gave me nausea pills. And with these motion sickness pills, what happens is that you're awake long enough to eat, which is good because you take one of these pills and breakfast, lunch, and dinner. And after you eat/take the pill, you have maybe an hour before you sleep. So basically, for the rest of the days that we spent at sea, I was asleep. 

Finally, we stopped in Victoria, BC. We were able to see the Butterfly Gardens and Butchart Gardens. These places were absolutely spectacular. I mean beautiful. I wish they allowed wedding photos to be taken at these places or something because it was wonderful. It was also way hotter than the rest of our trip. I mean, sun shining, not a cloud to be seen. I honestly don't think I could describe this stop accurately enough to give you a good picture. It's another one of those places that if you ever have the chance, you should definitely go check out. 

And finally, we were ended up back home. Phew. As much as I loved the sight-seeing, never again. I hate boats. 

Kosmos' birthday is in July, but I had been away during that time, so we celebrated when I got back. I gave him a cool necklace and a treasure chest that I painted to look like a Kingdom Heart's chest. And that pretty much sums up July.

On to August! First of all, I quit my job so that my last day was right before we celebrated my mom's birthday by going to Bennihana's. She had a nice birthday so that was awesome. 

Then, Kosmos and I celebrated our one year anniversary! We planned out a trip to Disneyland a few months prior and spent a week in Anaheim. We agreed that if we do it again (and we definitely will), we want to have more time and a bigger budget for food. It was Kosmos' first time there and his favorite part by far was the food. On our actual anniversary day, he slept in a bit while I ran to the park to get beignets and mint juleps to bring back to the hotel. He was very pleasantly surprised when he woke up to the food. He had the beignets the first day in the parks and insisted we have them as much as possible every other day, so I was sure to get extra for us. It was definitely the best way I could think of to end the summer with. 

Kosmos tearing up after having his first mint Julep and beignet

His first time on space mountain. He liked it.

Playing with his bubble gun. Like a kid at Christmas

Anniversary Dinner at the Blue Bayou with Fantastmic tickets

New hats for both of us!

But unfortunately all things must come to an end and we did have to go back after our week was over. And then it was time for me to prepare to move to Biola.  

And with that dear readers, I will end my first set of updates. If you want to read more about what I've been up to, check in next week (I have a post written and scheduled, so it will definitely be there!)

I have more to tell, but you'll just have to wait!

With Love,

PolarBearMoose <3

The Last Three Months

Hey Readers!

It's been a while, eh? Alright, let me catch you up on the major parts of the last three months and hopefully I'll be able to blog some more without such long hiatus.

Aight. First, let's talk pre-september, things I didn't mention. First, I started dating this guy in August who for the purposes of this blog, we're calling Kosmos. Second, my depression started acting up again, also august, but unrelated to really anything except chemical imbalances and the unwanted idea of the end of summer vacation.

Starting off the catch-up with September. Last time we caught up, it was right before my birthday. It actually went pretty well! Kosmos planned a bunch of stuff at two in the morning for me and managed to get a lot of people to come. We went to Buca Di Beppo for dinner. Oh, and my grandparents sent me an email letting me know a card was in the mail, which meant a lot given the circumstances. Fall quarter started. I had five classes, but I had to drop astronomy after day 2 because it was at 7:30 in the morning. Bleh. Anyways, the quarter started off mostly well. The only class (besides astronomy) that I really liked was Psych Stats. Still true. Though Writing was a breeze. And finally, my depression started getting worse.

Moving on to October. Things started getting difficult. The one-year anniversary of my dear friend Walker's death came around and it really got to me. Mixed in was the realization that my cat Silky, who had been a constant last year, was gone too, I felt the loss very strongly. I'll admit, I broke down a few times this month, sometimes I let people in, sometimes I didn't. Kosmos helped me through it a lot. He helped me find Walker's grave so I could visit and leave a spoon and he stayed by my side when I was in tears every time I needed it. To say that he was incredibly supportive is really an understatement. Especially since we were hitting month two right around the anniversary of Walker's death, and it's not something that is very easily taken in. Shout-outs to GI, FN, AG, and HN for the also amazing supportiveness when I called them in tears for support. It really means a lot to have friends like you.

Getting closer to caught up, we enter into November. Things started getting a little better. I'd started on anti-depressants by this point, but the jury was still out on whether they work (I'll give you a spoiler here, I'm still not totally sure. It'll take some more time to figure that out). Kosmos and I made an agreement to both apply to quite a few jobs. I made a trip to the mall to get my glasses fixed and figured since I was there, I'd pick up job applications. I texted Kosmos about this and he asked me to pick some up for him as well, which I did. He had dinner with my family for the first official time since we've been dating, though he'd met them plenty of times by now. Kosmos is hired to the job he least expected and I'm hired to two different ones, I made a mistake and work for one that I thought might be better, but as it turns out, it's not my favorite place. I guess it's good I'm only seasonal. And by the end of the month, things were starting to look grim again. I found out, I might fail my Human Biology class. I panicked and started doing the math, and re doing it, and re doing it, until I was sure I'd got it right and that I have a chance. Thanksgiving break rolls around, I get to eat Thanksgiving dinner with Kosmos' family. I'm feeling really serious about this relationship. At this point, we'd had numerous "hypothetical" conversations about what we'd do if we were married, or had kids, or lived together. Not too nitty-gritty details, but things we can agree on, like what we want our dream house to look like and things like that. And the final detail of November, AG left to visit his girlfriend in Japan for a month and a half.

And now finally, we begin December. Not as much to catch up on since the month just started, but there's still quite a bit. Earlier this week, I discovered that despite all my calculations, I was even more likely to fail Bio because of the lab portion. I cried. Quite a bit. I've been stressed for a while about this and I finally just broke. I sat in my car for two hours crying and if I'm being completely honest, I'm so stressed about my grades, that I honestly wasn't sure if I wanted to live to find out what my grade would be. I know, I know, that's a stupid reason to want to kill yourself. I know that grades aren't everything. I know that life goes on and things would work out, but you should all know that my mental state isn't always on point. And so, Tuesday, I was researching suicide methods and editing my plan. Yes, I've had a plan for a while. It's not really something you forget that you've made and when you're hitting these kinds of points, you don't remake the plan, you just edit and perfect it. But I know it's not a good option. Believe me, I've heard it all. That suicide isn't a way out, that it just transfers the pain to others, that it doesn't solve anything, all of it. And there's not a lot you can say to change my mind. Let me be clear though, I plan to live a hell of a lot longer. No need to panic. At least not yet. After Tuesday evening, I was able to hang out with Kosmos, HN, and FN. Kosmos was giving FN a ride home, but if he hadn't been, I'd have asked him to stay with me. In fact, I did anyways, and while he was totally prepared to, I decided that it was better he just give FN a ride and go home. Wednesday, Kosmos was in a car accident. Thank God he was okay, just minor whiplash, serious shock, and some small cuts and bruises. He hydroplaned and crashed into a highway wall. I of course met up with him as soon as possible and made sure he was alright. Thursday, I was almost in a car accident, but fortunately, Gertie (my beautifully old car) is still somewhat in shape and was able to stop in time to not hit the butthead who cut me off and slowed down to a near halt on the freeway. And to make things very clear, I wasn't speeding, I even tried to slow down prior to them cutting me off to let them in. They (and I) are very lucky no one was close behind me, or there would have been a pile-up. But I figure it happened cause I wasn't stressed out enough already, right? Amiright? But the day did improve, I figured out, I do in fact have a chance at passing Bio, a chance that keeps getting better and better as the points add up. And to also lessen the stress, my English Writing professor decided to just give me a take home test. How's that for awesome. Two of my four classes gave me take home finals. I think I'm going to rock finals week.

And now readers, I do believe you are caught up. Thank you and goodnight.

With Love,
PolarBearMoose <3

Birthday Season

Hello Readers,

It's that time of year again! The time of year when it gets close to my birthday and I rant about it. Last year, I talked about the one thing I wanted for my birthday and how it was the one thing I knew wouldn't happen. This year, it's kind of the same thing, but I feel much more capable of describing exactly why my birthday is so important to me and I can explain why I hate celebrating it.

Why is my birthday so important to me? Good question. I had a realization recently about why my birthday is so special. It's because for 364 days of the year, I try to be humble and compromise and for the most part accommodate others before my self. Do I do a perfect job of it? No, but that's beside the point. Outside of unique occasions such as performances, I try very hard to make sure that others get what they need and I try very hard to make sure others are able to enjoy their day even if it's at the cost of my own day. But my birthday is the one day of the year that I feel unique and special and important. Maybe it's vain. Maybe it's selfish, but it's the one day that I can celebrate totally unashamed that I have lived another year. That I am still alive and kicking. That I have such amazing friends and family around me. And quite frankly, I like to celebrate all of these things, with said friends and family. I honestly just want to be able to spend the time with them and enjoy my day. I want to actually have a birthday that I feel great about myself the whole day through.

So why do I hate celebrating my birthday? Because so far I can name one birthday that I remember being perfect and exactly what I want in a birthday. I won't go into it in this post, but in the last post I made about my birthday, I went into detail, so check that out if you want to hear that story.

I am an idealist you could say. I set expectations not for what will happen, but the emotional state of the day and I feel disappointed almost every year when I don't feel that way. I try to set my expectations lower for my birthday because if I don't make a huge deal out of it, it's my own fault for being hurt by it. And because I feel disappointed by my birthday almost every year, I don't know if I even want to celebrate it anymore. What's the point? On the one day of the year I want to feel the most special, I often ended up feeling that the least.

You may be wondering if something brought on this post and to be honest, yeah. Something is bothering me. Recently, Stormblades celebrated a major milestone birthday for Andy whose actual birthday is only a few days away from mine. Now, I understand wanting to party and celebrate for while, but I feel like his birthday has over shadowed mine a bit. After talking about birthdays, I mentioned mine is not that far off and when I mentioned when it was, most of their responses were along the lines of "Oh crud". Because pretty much everyone forgot. I got to spend an entire evening listening to them all making plans for their week about them having fun and doing all these things because they forgot that I wanted to celebrate mine too. Is it unreasonable to want to spend time with my friends around my birthday? Or to want to celebrate with them? I don't really think so, no. But this forgetting of my birthday gets better. Normally, around my birthday, I have extended family who send some very sweet cards to me. And normally, I get these cards at least a week in advance. Now it's possible that they got lost in the mail, but I've received nothing except a bank statement. So I feel like my family forgot too. I have plans to celebrate with some lunch bunch members and family, but now I don't know if I even want to do that. What's the point in celebrating my birthday, or even trying to when I just end up hurt and angry and upset by the whole thing? Maybe things will get better once it's over, but I guess for now, I'm just feeling incredibly pessimistic about the whole ordeal.

Anyways readers, thanks for sticking through with me on these rants. And I hope you all are having a better week than I am.

With Love,
PolarBearMoose <3

Birthdays

My birthday is in September, but all my friends (at least most of my guy friends) are going off to college at the end of August. Now, normally, I try to not make a big deal out of my birthday. I shrug it off, I do whatever. I set the bar low, because if I don't tell people that I have an expectation, I won't be disappointed when it isn't met. Because after all, how can it be met if no one knows what it is. Part of that is also that I don't always know what my own expectation is. But I can mope by myself when my birthday isn't what I wanted.

Well this year is different. I know exactly what I want. The thing that would mean absolutely everything to me. More so than any gift I could possibly receive, I wanted to spend my birthday with the people I care about. I wanted to spend my 18th with the people I love, doing things I love, following traditions I love. I had and have every detail planned that would make it perfect. But unfortunately, life doesn't work that way. And that seems to be true especially for me sometimes.

The only thing I wanted for my birthday, and I mean only because I don't care about receiving any sort of gift from anyone, was for the day to go as ideally as in my head. I wanted to eat lunch in Mrs. I's office, which probably seems weird for the reader who knows where that is. Following that, I didn't care what I did, as long as I could spend it with my lunch bunch. In fact, I would be totally and completely happy playing video games, or even watching the guys play video games for an entire afternoon, as long as I got to spend time with them, especially before they all leave for college. Because, while they're all away at school (with other friends!) I'll be alone at community college. But that's rant for a later time.

The point is, for once, I know exactly what I want, and it's the one ting, I know will never happen. As I said, I try to not make a big deal out of my birthday, as though it doesn't matter. But I care much more than I let on. Almost every year, I would plan my birthday party months in advance trying to make each year special. And y'know, just for once. Just one time, I'd like to actually have it go as planned.

Anyways, I guess I should stop now before I go off on a bunch of tangents. I'll save that for another time ;)

Don't forget to check out my photos on tumblr, which I do update daily:
polarbearmoosepics.tumblr.com

With Love,
PolarBearMoose <3