a lot of stuff....

first of all this is a bit late but HAPPY BIRTHDAY BRITTA! her birthday was on friday the 30th! she's old now! The best part of that day was when the housemates got together and went out for some very yummy breakfast in town! So good to start off the day with something yummy in my tummy! Oh and lets not forget that this weekend was also Schwarz's birthday. happy birthday to him! Although I am quite fuzzy on the details of the actual day of his birthday. I do hear that his party was quite a good one though. (My apologies for not getting a start on the idea of swimming earlier! my bad)

other than birthdays... (this is a few days old now... but to continue...)

We had a frisbee tourney over the weekend and it was a lot of fun. Exit 69 in Northfield,MN was a blast. The weather was lovely minus the wind that came about.Overall a good time had by all. We went 4-2 over the weekend and had a bit of a tif with one of the teams about time cap. Oh well.The girls were fun to hang out with and nothing says cozy like stuffing 13? girls into one hotel room:-)

------------------------------------------------

alright seriously i put this off all week and so now I will actually finish this post. Last weekend was quite fun up in Northfield. Since last weekend though it was quite a week I guess... academic-wise... kind of bad. Two tests came back to me on friday with not such great grades. I decided to look on the bright side and think about how I have seven weeks I can use to improve those grades! HOPEFULLY. Plus Fall break starts next weekend which gives me a few days at home and away from school and hopefully will help me get caught up on homework. Paper status: the Biodiversity one... not started, apparently my topic isn't good enough. Am pretty confused about that one and pretty bummed that I have to talk to the professor about it. SHOOT! Have another paper due this week and still need an article or two. Am a little scared to write it because my article reviews have been kind of crap already for the same class. The senior paper... didn't work on it at all this week! Not good. Got the book I asked for through the library though. Eek! i just want to write it! Happy thing academic-wise... Laura and I are all caught up on our experiments with our rat!

Enough about academics... life in general ... I LOVE my friends. It's been a good week with them. The frisbee girls are so great! we played in our Luther tournament yesterday with the men because well, no women's teams came! We had a great time though! They are so awesome. Kristin...definitely my new favorite! She wore a gorilla's mask to the games and she tackled Rookie! Oh it was just fantastic and I really hope that someone has a photo of her in the mask! Seriously it is so great to have so many friends. These girls are growing on me and they seem to really like me too! Also yesterday I went to my first wedding. After missing out on three of them because I was first away in Australia and then back at school, I got to finally see a friend get married! Kari and Bryan got married yesterday and it was great. Good weather, good service, nice reception! Plus I got to see friends from home which was also very lovely! I went up to the wedding, and then came back down to school so that I could go to the homecoming dance which was also fabulous! Oh did I also mention that it was Leah's birthday yesterday?! HAPPY BIRTHDAY LEAH! oh and I think it's Elena's today! So many birthdays!

other things that I wanted to write about in this blog from last weekend... my brother got a job at a restaraunt as a cook! I guess he doesn't cook anything fancy yet, but how cool?!? He has a job and that's exciting! :-) Also my sister did something really really cool! She ran a freaking marathon! Finished in 5hours and 10 mins! How awesome is that?! i feel like I should try that some day. Seriously i just think it's so cool that she ran a marathon. My cousin Jesse ran the same marathon (Twin Cities Marathon) and he was trying to qualify for the Boston Marathon. Not sure how he did but he had to get something like 3 hours i think. That's all quite an accomplishment. Maybe I can train with AJ sometime to run one some day! That would be so cool.

Alright as to keep this from getting too long I will stop here. I'm getting kind of a mental block too anyway. no doubt I will think of something I wanted to inform you probably five people who still read this. I'm quite surprised I haven't been yelled at by Mel to update :-) (ps. Mel so sorry that I'm never online! I am very bummed that we haven't been able to chat in awhile! miss you heaps!)

cheers
em

I LOVE our ULTIMATE team!

so this was the best day ever with the frisbee girls.First it's been raining all weekend so we had one hell of a fun practice! Layouts? Unnecessary bids anyone?! OH YES! we sure did! :) It was such a fun practice playing in the rain and doing heaps of bids and layouts! After we went and found the largest puddle on the field and just started to slide through it. We got very wet and grassy! Here's a photo to give ya'll a little taste of what we looked like. Some of the freshmen girls ran back to their dorm and took a photo so it's only a few of the members of the team but this is why I love these girls!
so yeah... meet Claire, Ellie (Pepe), Melissa, Sanna, Tiffany, and Andrea (Oops):-) What lovely girls. Also tonight we went "Blading". But what it is I can not tell. Just know it was a lot of fun! :-)

saving the world? and soulmates

first of all I need to say how much I *heart* Bad Religion and Flogging Molly and Ben Folds. I have pretty much been constantly listening to all three this past week. Love Love LOVE them! All great music.

Anyway here are some things from the past few days.

Wednesday after a depressing video in Biodiversity telling us how we are overpopulating the world and will kill it by doing so Leah and I chatted about how we could save the world. Leah told me she would do her part by being a repulsive human being so as to not have any children, thus bringing down the population. I mentioned maybe we should get rid of plastic surgeons because then we don't have to worry so much about beautiful people who want to procreate. hmmm good theory huh? The best part of this discussion... on how to save the world... was Leah's quote "Saving the world one dateless friday night at a time". :-) Believe me it was really funny at the time. Kayla also chipped in some insight to this theory when I discussed it with her later. According to her we won't overpopulate the world because of natural disasters. She said it kind of like when the world or God decides that there's too many people on the earth, they do a little population regulation and send out a natural disaster to get rid of some people (ie the Tsunami and the hurricanes) This might not be a good thing to joke about...but really... it's a fairly decent idea. Population control via natural disasters?

Another thing. Kayla and I have determined that we are soulmates. Academic soulmates anyway. We sat around one night doing homework and chatting a bit and we both realized that we have pretty much the exact same attitude and outlook on life when it comes to academics. We're both have B averages, we sometimes feel like idiots around smart people who like to use large words, and we both had a bit of a difficult time trying to get our point or arguments across to people. I don't know if I had ever met anyone on the Luther campus that had these same thoughts. So many people here say they're such "bad students" or are like me when it comes to academics but really they're not. Kayla...she's for real. This probably seems like such a random thing to talk about but it was quite enlightening and just good to hear.

It's parents weekend and well my parents are not coming. It was however they're anniversary yesterday and I did not tell them Happy Anniversary or anything... no card either. I'm a bad daughter. So since my parents aren't coming I get to hang out with everyone else's parents! Ma Pa Schaffmeyer came last night and brought heaps of "hippie food" as they like to call it. It was nice to see them again! YAY! Well it's off to go see Britta's birthday presents and start the day of studying/hanging with people's folks.!

cheers!
em

the grinell tourney

well this is a couple days late but i had to write anyway....

The frisbee tournament at Grinell this past weekend was FANTASTIC! we took a team of... 16? girls and had a BLAST! <---- check out the photo! Most of our team consisted of new players but they, and we still did amazing and we even got compliments from other teams! Overall I had such a blast that it's hard for me to explain in words. Not only did I LOVE playing in a tournament again with the Luther Women's Team 'Glad Bestandig' and that I got to be playing with my friends from last year, but I got to meet heaps of new girls too! I now have like 10 new friends and people I have to say "hi" to while walking around campus. I had a blast with these girls. Everyone wanted to play and was excited to play, we had fun car rides -- dance parties in all, great conversations, good times camping and...although our team NEVER goes to the party... this time the WHOLE TEAM went! Most of the men's team went too so we could interact not only with our other Luther team but with all the teams! So good!

Basically I can not explain in any other way than by saying that this weekend was AMAZING FUN! I'm pretty tired and can't really think of much to say either except that i loved playing frisbee this weekend and it was good!

That is all.

HAPPY BIRTHDAY KAYLA!

So today is Kayla's 22nd birthday. YAY! :-) If you don't know Kayla she is one of my roomies and my new friend. I did not know Kayla until this year and I feel like I missed out on her awesomeness! Anyway exciting times for Kayla's birthday! We got up heaps early this morning and ate breakfast together (everyone) and had mimossa's. Mmmm champagne and juice! Tonight Marissa is cooking Lasagna for the house and some other friends. It should be great! 1. I *HEART* Lasagna, and 2. someone else cooking a nice hot meal for me?! EXCELLENT! Love to Maris! Anyway ...

Besides birthday fun it's been a weird week. I can't think straight. I am having a complete mental block over my senior paper! Eek! There are very mixed feelings I have about it. I thought I had this great topic but now I'm thinking...meh, it's not so great, maybe I want to change it. And I though I had a topic to change it to but now I'm thinking...shoot, it's not a solid topic!

My Mind is Blank! -- not a good thing when i am supposed to have an outline by tomorrow afternoon and well now I'm meeting with my professor any how because I told him via email that I'm rethinking my topic! Eek! I'm very excited to write this paper but I want it to be GOOD! So good that it rocks my face, and my advisor's face off! Not only that but anybody else's face who might read it! It's scary thinking about leaving school after this year and getting a job but then I also think of the great opportunities I could have and find if i would just look. I sat in Abnormal Psych yesterday thinking about how cool it would be to get an internship with a clinical psychologist. My friend Sarah is doing one starting soon. Our Abnormal professor is also a clinical psychologist and so it makes the class very interesting and that's who Sarah is doing her internship with. I"m thinking maybe I'll do an internship over J Term even though i really want to be here. I have to start dealing with trying new things. Clearly I did fine trying a new thing for five months: Australia! Duh! Oooh and about Australia...so cool to get an email today about having a get together with other people that went to Australia for a semester to talk about experiences and about our programs. Other fun about Aus... was watching "Jeff Corwin Experience" on Animal Planet Tuesday and so cool to watch him in Aus, in Adelaide and then KI. It was quite exciting to sit there and point at the tv and say "i've been there! I rode on that ferry! I saw that site! I LIVED there!" SO GOOD!

alright it's already a quarter past 10 and I haven't done anything I was supposed to yet. As in study and get a check cut for the frisbee tourney this weekend! (that's going to be HEAPS good and I'm sure I'll write ALL about it when I get home!) Love to all!

Hokay, so...Here's the Earth....

alright so Mel was getting all up in my face about needing a new post, so to procrastinate a little bit from doing homework I'm doing so.

First let me tell you all how EXCITED I am that movie production of RENT is coming to theatres November 23!!!!!!!!!!!!!! This afternoon I watched movie previews online for quite awhile and not only did i get excited for Corpse Bride, MirrorMask, Harry Potter, a new Pride and Prejudice and The Chronicles of Narnia, but... I got to see a preview for RENT! I can't explain how much i love this production! The play is so awesome and so inspiring and just gives me an awesome feeling. I was literally bouncing off the walls over the movie this afternoon. Why? well not only is this an awesome production but... get this... the movie cast.... is the original broadway cast (minus the girl who played Mimi --Daphne Rubin-Vega what are you up to?!) Still very pumped though. They are all amazing actors and singers and I can't wait to see it again and be able to watch it over and over and over. I'm hoping it's awesome and that I don't bring too high of expectations. I want to enjoy this movie. I have a feeling I will not be disappointed though. Out of my excitement I called my sister and we're planning on going the day it comes out! I still can not express very well at the moment how much i love RENT. If I figure it out I'll let you all know. But praise and thanks to Jonathan Larson. What a fucking genius!

On to other topics... So to go along with the title of this blog... if you don't know the ebaum's world cartoon about the End of the world..here's a blurb I would like to share:

"Hokay, so here's the Earth. Chillin'. Dame you might say that's a pretty sweet Earth. ROUND! Hanyway... Ruling out the ice caps melting, meteors become crash into us, the ozone leaving and the sun exploding, we are definitely going to blow ourselves up...hokay so..."

So, I don't really think we are going to blow ourselves up, but rather we are just going to destroy the Earth in general with our materialistic life styles. I'm taking a class on Biodiversity this semester here at Luther and for my first journal entry that I had to write responding to what we've been talking about in class i wrote three pages about deforestation. Deforestation. It's a big deal I feel. My deal is that I can't believe how much we still do it. It's going to ruin us if we keep cutting down forests and rainforests! This may just seem like simple logic, or complete common sense but i guess I just don't understand why we still do it. If we keep cutting down for paper, excuse me but what happened to recyling? And if it's to make way for more people because our population is growing, i'm thinking maybe we try to keep the # of children to a minimum, but I really don't want to be the one to tell you to only have one kid and that you can't have the family you've always wanted. Anyway I was also thinking about all the rainforest that gets destroyed and cleared away. This makes me soooo sad. Our professor mentioned in class about how many things we can get from the rainforest. Ailments for diseases and such, but if we keep destroying the rainforest and don't use it resourcefully then we're missing out. Clearly! About being resourceful... When I was in Australia, Ann Marie and I took a horseback ride through a forest that wasn't an actual rainforest, it was kind of low on the scale of what constitutes an actual rainforest but there was still heaps to learn. Our tour guide Glenn was very informative and taught us all about the plants that were in the forest and how resourceful we could be and how useful the plants and things were. Nature and the environment can really be interesting! Glenn lived, I think in a rainforest for years when he was adopted by Aboriginees and they taught him all they knew about the rainforest and its resources. The best thing was at the end of the ride he showed us how this plant when broken up and dipped in water could be used as soap! how awesome is that?! Anyway what I'm getting at again is that resourcefulness is good. I'm thinking we need to be a little bit more of that and a little less of the materialistic. Pretty much it's just a matter of us taking care of the environment and not using so much of it's resources. My question now is... can we do it? Are people willing to make that sacrifice? Clearly i feel like some people do already, other cultures around the world live off the land. Can the rest of us do so?

MISSING: Adelaide!

just a quick one to say ... I Miss You Adelaide! I miss you heaps!

i miss the pubs,
i miss the Cooper's
i miss the people...sha'll i make a list? (I don't think I can... it would take up heaps of space!)
i miss the parks,
i miss the swans and the grace emily
i miss you O'Connell and late night food,
i miss the balconies,
i miss the chats in Shannon's room,
i miss the chats and movies in Mel and Jess'
i miss the one pitcher that turned into six
i miss the frisbee fun and traveling,
i miss it all... i miss all of you....

"and here you know the world could turn or crash and burn and you would never know it! going where the air is clear there's better beer in Adelaide..."

I *heart* my room mates!

so the first week of classes are over. Ok not the first full week of classes, only the first three days of classes! anyway things look like they will be good. I have already slacked a bit on doing some of my readings but that's ok I will survive. Today's plans... well I made a list of homework and things I need to get done but nothing has gotten done yet. Britta and I ate breakfast for about an hour this morning and watched ER, and two eps of Sex in the City. It was all happy and not to sound like a downer I have this terrible feeling that the show Sex in the City is just fucking with me right now and that it will get sad again sooner or later. Have this sneaky feeling Carrie and Aidan will NOT get married (oh shit, I'm obsessed! make it stop!...oh but it's so fun to watch!)

On top of that I *HEART* my room mates! They are all so fun and so crazy. Las night all but two of us went out last night. Krista and I hung around for the night and watched a movie. Good times. Anyway the girls have wanted to get a chance to talk to Shannon on the phone. So they got lucky last night since he was around. He rang and Marissa, Kayla, Britta and Krista all got the chance to say hello to an Aussie. (am still hoping it wasn't very awkward for shannon to talk to four girls he has never met). Anyway it was all pretty funny especially since Kayla was a bit drunk at the time too. The girls are just fantastic and I love living with them! This is going to be a great year!

i'm off now... Britta calls and so does some frisbee socializing i think...

love to all~

em

the last few days (boring, but it's all i got...)

what a great start to the year... besides watching the full third season of sex in the city, i really haven't gotten much done. Uni starts tomorrow. Luckily I don't have class until 11 am! I almost feel like i'm being really slack with having only three actual classes which don't start until about 11 am everyday and no class on thursday. Anyway, the unlucky part about tomorrow is that I'm scheduled to work at 6am tomorrow! gross! Even though the lady that does my scheduling says I don't start until thursday, my schedule says tomorrow morning. Oh well at least i can take a nap after work.:-) Also I have some time to get my shit together for school. Nothing is put together yet! oops! The roomies and I spent the whole night just keeping it real and having some fun by watching a movie and also having dinner together before that. These are a great bunch of girls and we are goign to have so much fun!

Also these past couple of days... there was a toga party last night! So fun! The girls and I got our butts up from the couches in the living room, grabbed our bed sheets and toga-ed it up! It was all great til 11 pm when it got broken up. Kris and I came back to watch some ER and then we all crashed. Well most of us did...

Today was also fantastic because I got to play some ultimate! Heaps of freshman girls and newbies came out to join us which was specatcular! It was such a great feeling. The not so good feeling was how much my body wanted to collapse after. Anyway it was a beautiful afternoon and was so great to spend it playing some disc.

that's it for now! much love

em

back at school...

alright so real quick...

am back to uni! YAY! down at Luther College again and it's awesome. I just moved down today and it's still pretty quiet around the joint. I'm hesitant to actually go on campus amongst the academic buildings! hahaha. No one is around at the house either but it's a pretty awesome place. I don't feel like I should be in a house and stuff ... i don't feel old enough. it's weird but good. Tonight's plans are to unpack a little, and to drink some beers with Justin. Am sooo excited for this! yay! beer, hot chocolate and tea are the only things I own for "food" in the house right now. Anyway... that's it. More later... Love to all!!

em

better day today...

had a much better day today. I didn't let myself think so much and coming home to emails and comments on the blog was very comforting. I somehow made it through the whole day of looking at watches. I don't know how it worked really but I had enough to keep me busy and kept me from thinking too much. So all in all I was in a great mood. Thanks to people who left me comments and all that jazz (specifically Ms. Westbrook! ;-) )

Anyway a good day. An unproductive day when I got home. I thought about dong a lot of stuff after work but what I ended up doing was very little. Didn't do laundry, didn't pack, didn't read, didn't work out, didn't take the new bike out for a ride. Did buy myself some chai and did write a whole 1 email! That's about it though.

Moving back to Uni means packing, which sucks and doesn't put me in high spirits but things that do put me in high spirits about moving to Uni...
-Britta's great idea for dodgeball
-the lovely frisbee team girls
-Living in Baker Village with some very awesome roomies!
-new classes!
- the package I know i will receive not long after i get there (thanks you lovely aussies!)
-fun parties and good times with the roomies and friends and....
-Drinking beers with Justin! ;-) (this is a really exciting thing)

so yeah that's life. not very eventful but that's me.

much love,
em

A.D.D. sort of day...

so I decided to start doing some packing for the move back down to uni next saturday. It's been making me go crazy. I barely ate today and realized that at about 3 or so this afternoon. Pretty much I've been a case of ADD all day not being able to finish any one task. One accomplishment was getting all of my books together. Crap! that reminds me I should have ordered books online! Ugh...getting ready for school can be such a drag man! :-) haha...

to brighten my day Amber called which was excellent! She is back from her Lithuania trip and so we got to do some much needed catching up! It's nice to have that connection every once in awhile and to reminisce (spelling?) about Australia. She's such a good listener too! She was lovely and listened to me talk about how I was sick all week and quite an emotional wreck. Oh she's lovely...

So yeah all day has been pretty uneventful. I've checked my email like ten times, and probably should write some back to people, have made lists of things i need for school and am still quite wired from lack of sleep and food. I am not feeling the idea of going to work tomorrow! BOO to getting up heaps early in the morning! :-P blah! I like my weekends that leave me free to stay up late! oh well... until a later day... much love all!

-em

answered

well the 'how do you...?' has been answered... sort of.

basically Shannon told Jess. Not sure where the three of us will go from here or where any of it will go from here. Don't really want to pour my heart our over this one on the blog, but we'll see how things go...

(will try to have something happy on here soon... will probably rant about book shopping tomorrow.)

later

love!

em

how do you...?

so Mel informed me that it had been way too long since i have posted anything on here. My apologies. Although I think that is mostly an apology for Mel and the Aussies + my sister and D who are the ones that usually read this. :-) Anyway I've been sick for the past week and am finally feeling better but for most of the week all I did was go to work, come home, eat dinner, maybe check my email and go to bed.

Mel told me I should write about something that would spark conversation. Boobs apparently has worked well for her ( it really has... check out her blog www.elementsofchaos.blogspot.com )

so here's what I have to say... it's something i've been thinking about and did a lot of thinking about today... here's my question... it's a "how do you?"

how do you...
tell you friend who, you are told loves you and adores you, that you REALLY like their ex?

how do you...
break this news to them when they are across the world from you?

how do you...
feel like you haven't betrayed their friendship when you already feel like you have?

how do you...
not feel like you've made liking him such a sticky situation that could result in bad feelings amongst no only you and the other two involved but amongst other friends?

how do you...
tell your friend you've kept this secret from them for two months and that they are possibly the last person to find out?

how do you...
know when it's the right time to tell them? and will you ever know?

how do you...
cope with the fact that this could all become a HUGE fucking mess and that things just won't be the same?

how do you...
not cry thinking about this and feeling like I have betrayed a friend by keeping this secret but can't help your feelings for the other?

how do you...
not think about the heartache and heartbreak this could cause?

and how do you...
deal with the feelings of your friends that this affects?

Ok so really i realize this is kind of a depressing one but it's what's been on my mind and it's something I could use a little bit of feedback on. I'm scared about this situation it makes my stomach flip thinking about some of the consequences and about the relationships.

cheers everyone.
-em

el fin de semana de mi cumpleano

[first of all there should be a tilde ( ~ ) over the 'n' in the the word cumpleanos, but I don't know how to make one. And I haven't taken any spanish in over five months so it's probably bad grammar.]

Anyway, this weekend was a blast! SO GOOD! Friday night was my 21st birthday and it was a lot of fun. Went to see Flogging Molly, hung out with friends, went to a couple pubs and came home to hang out with Krista and Britta. I didn't get sick or throw up which was a plus, but I must say I was a champ. Jeff bought me my first legal shot in the US, Dan my first legal drink in a pub, and my sister the first HUGEST drink I have ever had!! I had heaps of fun and it was great that Krista and Britta could make it to town for the weekend. The three of us are so good together and I love it! We had a lot of catching up to do! I am sorry to those to whom I promised a drunken phone call and did not get one. But thanks Sunny, Shannon and Mel for calling. Twice! Mel I hope the shoe shopping went well ;-). Oh and by the way I remember barely anything from the conversation I had with Sunny and Shannon. :-P

Saturday I got to hang out with Britta and Krista all day and it was fabulous. Got coffee, had breakfast, shopped for ugly dresses, bought dinner and made it, had some drinks and watched some movies. Overall a wonderful day. Today was spent hanging out. Kris and Britta took off for the day but i met up with Britta and her friend Tom to see a movie. We saw the movie 'Crash'. Was SO good. A bit depressing but so good and done very well. Main theme of the movie: Racism. I thought it did well at showing the shit that can go down because of racism and even though I've never witnessed this stuff happen in real life, I know that kind of stuff still happens and that people think that way. Tom said he thought the racism was maybe overplayed, that it wasn't very realistic but I dunno, I think that the things said in the movie are things people still say. I'm not very good at explaining but it was still a good movie and very interesting no doubt.

that's all for now!
great weekend! so happy!
much love all!

cheers!
em

quick share

today is Justin's birthday! Happy Birthday Justin! (he's now 22! Oldie!) --(My birthday on friday! FLOGGING MOLLY! YES!)

D got in an accident yesterday! :-( She's alive and well but still hurt and on meds and probably can't go our for my birthday on friday :-( bummer! I miss you D and hope you feel better soon! All my love sweetheart! Feel Better!!!!

I can't wait for the week to be over... looking at watches all day at work is getting boring. (Luckily an email in my inbox brightened my day before the work day started :-) )

Britta is staying with me this weekend!

Krista is coming to Minneapolis this weekend too!

I visited with Leah tonight and we threw frisbees! It was so good. she's awesome!

I hung out with Natalie tonight! YAY!

It was GORGEOUS out today!

Traffic was not bad today

I went to Dunn Bros. twice for chai! YUM!

I'm still running out of money but the job will give me money! YAY!

The parcel to be sent to Australia is almost ready to go and...

it was day four at the job and I'm still in love with the bubble wrap! ;-)

much love,
smuder

Happy Birthday Lil' Brudder!

So today is my brother Kyle's 18th birthday! Crazy! He's not little anymore! Anyway we celebrated tonight by going out for food and then having ice cream cake. YUM! Happy Birthday to Kyle! (only four more days til my birthday! YES! -- 2 days til Justin's!)

Other things: This past Sunday I actually went to church. I don't think I have been since the February...7th? The Sunday before I left for Australia. Even though I feel like not much of a Christian and don't really consider myself much of one, I still really like going to church and listening to the sermons and stuff. It was a bit awkward I must say because Deb the pastor had us do a little exercise with the people around us about praying. Not only did I feel awkward because of how I feel about religion right now but, I also did not know the people I was talking to and praying in a group was kind of always a little uncomfortable for me. Anyway I still made it through and overall I enjoyed the service. I still can't sing a hymn to save my life, but whatever. My group was this older couple Marlene and Bill. Bill didn't talk much and neither did I so Marlene kind of kept things going. In fact I don't think Bill talked at all, but they were still a lovely couple. After going through a list of things to pray for in our hymnals we were to pray for eachother. So we could share things about ourselves if we wanted. Marlene was smart and asked me about school and stuff to we used that to pray for me. :-) she really was a lovely lady. She told me about their grand daughter going into her last year of uni also and about housing situations and all of that. She asked me what I was studying and what I wanted to do with my major. It was pleasant. Marlene even shared with me that she battled cancer a few years back and about how much she loved the congregation for all their support and letters and notes and things. That was great to hear, and it's good to know that the congregation cares and that they made a difference in her fight to beat cancer. :-)

Overall things are going well. Was kind of a crap day at work. Forgot my two forms of ID for Matt in HR and also forgot my key card! :-P Made it through the day still. Did more packaging of watches! (got some bubble wrap too! ;-) ...hahaha). Also at work today every possible cliche song was on the radio. The ladies that I work with in the warehouse tend to listen to the lite rock station. :-P Every possible song about love or relationships or about missing someone was on the radio today! It kind of got on my nerves but i ended up letting it go... life is a bunch of cliches sometimes! (ok so a lot of the time)

Anyway I think that's it for now.
much love,
em

I *heart* bubble wrap!

today was the first day of work. Most exciting thing about work... the BUBBLE WRAP! :-) How exciting! seriously bubble wrap thoughts got me through most of my day at work. 8 hours of going through boxes of watches putting them in little bubble wrap bags! ALthough the bags were so cool, the best was to see the HUGE rolls of bubble wrap that were in the warehouse near the mail room and also the roll that was a bit smaller but only 100 feet from my reach! I so badly want some bubble wrap and I was temtped ALL day to just sit and pop it! Oh the joy that is popping bubble wrap!!!SO GOOD!

ok so to add to the excitement that was bubble wrap today... I was up so early and it was a long day, but dad bought me yummy coffee and a bagel this morning too. After work we met up with me big seeeeester AJ and went to the Twins game! The twins usually lose when I go to games but tonight was definitely NOT one of those nights. It had been awhile since I had been to a game so what better way to enjoy it all than with my dad and sister, dome dogs, and a 12-0 shutout! YES! GO TWINS! That's right they beat the World Champs from last year The Boston Red Sox! ('amazing how america wins the WORLD series every year!" -Eddie Izzard!) So yeah it was soooo good. Manda made friends with the guys in front of us and overall it was such a good game. Lew Ford played an awesome game! Go him! (Llllllleeeeewwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwww) :-)

K I think that's all I have. Excited to see Kari tomorrow,a nd will renew my driver's license! w00t!

much love,
em

p.s. love you "sissyka" :-)
p.p.s. 7 DAYS TIL MY BIRTHDAY! THAT'S ONE WEEK! YES! :-)

grumpy bums are no fun

I was such a grumpy person yesterday. I definitely could have been one of the seven dwarves. Luckily I got out of my funk by this afternoon. Pretty much it was all about missing Australia and a certain someone of course! It blows but then you think about happy stuff and are thankful for the experience and the fun that you had and you manage. I don't feel like thinking so much about the future... a year from now I will get to see Shannon and around Christmas time I will get to see Will. (Maybe others will visit around those times too?!) So i have things to look forward to! So stay happy right?! RIGHT!

life has been good to me. I went to the art museum with Jeff on wednesday and it was great. Free admission and free parking! No doubt a good deal and some great art! It was heaps good overall! So badly want to check out more art galleries in the cities! But summer is quickly but slowly coming to an end. I no longer have that much time to dick around because I am finally working for the next three weeks before I head to school. Sucks to work, but some money will be good even though the job isn't super cool! The people seem nice though and I get to ride to work with dad everyday! I'm looking forward to the coffee he promises to buy me! :)

what else? Life has just been good in general! Nat is coming home on Tuesday to visit, my birthday is coming up ! (8 more days!). I heard from Beth today! So great! Had another chat on the phone with Shannon and Sunny... so good!
must go to bed... I had more to talk about but I have to work in the morning and it's late! much love to all!

-em

Nordicfest

This past weekend I spent down in Decorah, Iowa. Why you may ask? Well because Nordicfest was going on and it was the easiest way for me to meet up with heaps and heaps of mates from uni(<--a very Aussie worded sentence there :-) ). Anyway Leah and I made the trip down on Friday night. After getting a bit of a late start because of traffic I ran into on the way to her place, traffic on highway 52 and a freaking detour down in Preston, MN we made it down in three hours and made our way to Rachel and Allison's. We were heaps excited to be going down to Decorah to see everyone but once we got there it was quite anticlimatic. Rachel was home but left to get Chris and Allison was out getting drinks. Finally a group of us congregated and we made our way to the streets of Decorah to check out the Nordicfest goodness. The night was dedicated to the pubs and hanging out outside on the street. So good.

Happily the next morning Leah and I awoke with no hangovers and headed to breakfast at McDonalds and then to get Darci for the parade. The three of us spent most of the day together hanging out at the parade then the festival trying some Norwegian food. Yum! We really enjoyed the small town fun. All day we had issues trying to get a hold of another group of friends but we managed. The three of us took a beautiful little walk/hike at Manaphy Falls ( I think I got the name right, whatever). It was so awesome! the trees so green! The cobwebs I kept running into though not as cool. We made it to the falls and had some fun around there for a bit. It's so great to experience the cool little things in decorah! It really is a beautiful little town! We went to dinner later that night at Sabor Latino , the service took forever! I guess the kitchen lost our order but no worries , a guy sang "Margaritaville" to us and since our dinner took so long we got some free margaritas! ;-) We spent the night checking out some more of Nordicfest and running into friends which was so good! Went to a couple pubs and I got my phone call from Australia again! So good to hear Sarah and Sunny this time! Hadn't talked to them in ages! It really excited me ! I later went to find Suzanne and hung out with her for the rest of evening, walked home only to find no one at Allison and Rachel's and so waited for one of them to arrive home. It was a lovely night out so it really wasn't bad sitting outside on the step!

The next morning we were lazy and took our time to get going. Britta stopped over and we had a chat with her which was lovely. Finally Leah and I made our way back from Decorah and the loveliness that was Nordicfest. Overall--good weekend! Enjoyed every minute of my time there.

Crazy stuff though... I got to learn about all the drama and what not that happened while I was away spring semester! craziness really! I reckon it was good that I was not around for it. It was spectacular to get to see so many people and talk about moving back to school at the end of August! It will be so good! I am so excited to see people and to be living with a great group of girls. It will be even better if I can get Maggie talking to me again before then.

Today is probably my last day of summer freedom during the week. I will most likely start working in the warehouse at Asset Marketing tomorrow or wednesday! It's been a good day althoguh I'm pissed that the art museums are not open today! psh! what is that?! bummer! I did however get to chat with Shannon and Sunny again today which was lovely of course and put some brightness into my day! Well thats it for now I reckon. Not much else to report. much love all!

-em

It's August 1st!!!! 12 days til my birthday!!!!!! YES!