Thursday, September 18, 2008

making the switch

you could say that I gave up and gave in...

I finally made the permanent switch from Xanga to Wordpress. I have a feeling Xanga will be soon nonexistent for a lot of me fellow bloggers.

So I guess a new switch is worthy of a long overdue update, huh? But where to start? No better place than the present!

I've been back at school for a month now, and back in classes for about 3 weeks. Senior year is underway and going quickly. I love this place. Taylor University definitely blesses my heart. It has been really neat to think back to freshman year and transferring here and to note how much this place has helped changed me. I cannot begin to say how much this place means to me. Leaving in a few months will be bittersweet. Bitter because I have to leave, sweet because I get to leave. And join the real world, whatever that means!

I am a nerd through and through. I love school, I love my classes. I LOVE learning. And most of all, I am not ashamed of it. Going to class (generally) gets me excited. Especially my ridiculously hard Stats and Research Design class that I'm taking right not. I'm not exaggerating when I say that its basically a graduate level course. It is, and I love that. I also love that I'm getting my hand dirty in some legit research this semester. I'm applying what I'm learning and seriously loving every second of it.

All the nerdy academics aside, I should mention that I made the best decision ever to live in the dorm again this year, as a senior. Not just because I'm a PA (Taylor's version of an RA), but because I love this. I love doing life with 300 other girls, sharing a bathroom with 50 of them, staying up late talking about life, serving and being served in a way that can only happen in a place like Grace Olson Hall. It is and has been home to me for almost 4 years. Sure, come May 23rd, I will have to probably find my own place and even live all alone. But for this time, I am enjoying my senior year surrounded by so many beautiful women.

At the same time, I am so enjoying being back with some of the best friends of my life. Jillian, Steph, Allie, Bhead (Brittany Head), Bliss,(Elizabeth) Eagan, Christine, Kathy...the list could go on forever. They are so good for my heart. We can sit and talk for hours and never run out of things to say. We laugh together, we cry together. We go thrifting together. We have pancakes on Saturdays together. It is so wonderful and I will be sad to see this end. But its so neat to know that it won't even end, but simply change come May.

Being surrounded by such great friends is so great. Especially when I have the best best friend, whom I fall more and more in love with every single day. Justin Kyle Van Leuven Rush is so amazing. So much more than my boyfriend, he is truly my best friend. Its so fun to be back at school with him after a summer apart. We cook at his house sometimes (because I'm extremely money conscious), we go on walks, we sit around with others and just laugh, we watch movies (and I mostly sleep through them), we try to do homework together but have so much fun we don't get anything done, we make inside jokes out of everything, we have date night, we have mutual friends that make our friendship even more fun!, we talk about everything, and sometimes we even talk about the future. i could not be more grateful for what he brings into my life, especially what he teaches me about God.

But most importantly, I am at such a sweet, beautiful, joyful place with Jesus right now in my life. He has just been meeting me in such precious ways. Prayer has become such a part of my life and I am falling in love with it. The joy of knowing that Jesus lives in me and that my life belongs to him fills me to overflowing. And just being in constant conversation with him has changed me.

So thats the (long) jist of things. Life is beautiful. I am learning and being challenged and growing in so many things. How are you? What has Jesus been talking to you about lately? :)

Katie

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