M&M Poker Night

Last night, Sonia, Aaron, Donald, Darrin, and I played Texas Hold 'em using m&ms as poker chips. It was great fun. We dumped out three bags-- one plain, one peanut, and one peanut butter, and divied up the candies by color. Then we had all the leftovers in the community bucket, where all night long we picked out the plain ones to trade for the peanut or peanut butter in our own piles. Let's just say by the end of it, we were all feeling kind of sick. Darrin opted out early, eating a handful of his pile and dumping the rest in the bucket. Aaron went all in on a crummy hand and lost to Sonia. So for the final showdown, Sonia, Donald, and I went all in and held our breaths as Aaron flipped over the five cards. My roomie ended up winning, and she gathered all the m&m's toward her in glee- it was a fun night. Sonia and I took pictures the entire time, to the mocking of Aaron and Donald, even though when we were at the beach earlier all I heard from Donald and Darrin was, "I wish I had a camera!" Donald defended himself with, "Yeah, but that was the ocean- this is m&m's!"

Dear Adelaide

It is very disconcerting not being able to post comments on your blog. So many times I have had some witty remark to one of your essays and have not had the oppurtunity for the world to hear it.
Well, tonight I just wanted to comment about "the neighbor boy." Sonia and I have been discussing the situation, and we wonder if "the neighbor boy" has anything to do with the lack of committment of returning to good ol' San Diego at the end of this semester? Just a thought.

P.S. ~ Pleeeeeeeeeaaaaaaaaassssseeee come back. Sometimes life gets boring here.

P.P.S. ~ Your call on Saturday morning started a chain of other early morning phone calls. I think between the two of us we had five calls after your beginning 7 a.m. wake-up.

P.P.P.S ~ I loved that blog entry. It brought back memories of camp. Ah, camp.

P.P.P.P.S. ~ Speaking of camp, here's a cute picture of us:

Starbucks experiences

I hate coffee. And tea. And anything that has to do with or tastes like coffee or tea.

In high school, Justin Aubrey and I unofficially started the "I Hate Coffee Club." The mere taste of the stuff fills us with horror.

Over the years, many friends have forced sips of their favorite beverages down our throats. And all have been turned away with a look of disgust and a vow to never try that again.

Jesse and Justin Gibson once took me to Starbucks for the sole purpose of finding a drink I would like. I already knew which one Starbucks drink I like-- that slushie lemonade tasting thing (official name of aforementioned drink changes depending on what Starbucks you're at). But they insisted on finding a hot drink for me. They even got the guy behind the counter in on their little mission and the three of them made me try some vanilla milk thing and some mint tasting beverage. They weren't terrible, but I wouldn't fork over three bucks for them either. Plus, all that milk just gave me a stomachache.

Well, all this is to say that last night, Saturday, the 12 of November 2005, at the boy's intramural football championship game, Tim Askew offered me a sip of his peppermint white mocha... and I liked it.

I now have something on which to spend the nine or ten Starbucks cards I've collected over the last few years.







Here is a picture of me during my first Starbucks experience.

Battle Wounds and Broomball

The greatest battle wound I ever got came from a snowboarding trip. A friend gave up trying to teach me how to stay on the board and told me slide down the hill using the board as a sled, while he stayed close enought to keep me from killing myself. Well, as boys do, he tried to show off a little and strayed a bit too far on a hill that was just a little too steep. My board flipped around and I careened over the side of the hill, heading, thankfully not over the side of a ravigne, but just over a slight drop and then full speed for a water tank off to the side. My friend of course only saw me disappear over the side and he freaked out not knowing where I would end up. Fortunately, my board came to a stop before I hit the water tank (or I would have ended up with much worse battle wounds), and I lay there in the snow by my board, which I had slid off about halfway down my little short cut. Later on, someone noticed the tip of a dark bruise on my side and I discovered a big purple bruise about the size of a tennis ball on my left hip, apparently from hitting something big during my slide. It was my most glorious battle wound ever.

Those glory days came back to me last night as I sat in front of my computer holding a bag of ice to my eye. A game of broomball had gotten a little out of hand and I got the ball kicked right at my face. Don't worry-- after the initial worries of concussion and blurred vision I was fine. But now I have what could be considered my first black eye-- even if the bruised part is just enough in the crease of my eyelid that no one can really tell. But it's there all right.

The glory days are back....

I was pretty proud of the fact that I had "corrupted" my roommates by getting them hooked on the TV show Friends, of which I have seasons 7,8,9, and now 5 in my possession. Tonight Sonia walks in our room and informs me that our neighbors, whom had asked to borrow season 9, were at that moment watching Friends in their apartment, and she knew this because she heard the theme song playing as she walked by. Yes. I have corrupted not just Apartment 11... but the entire community.

Reflections

I played kickback with Josh Masopust in the gym tonight. It felt so good to kick the soccer ball around again and I was suddenly filled with regret that I never played during college, not even one year. I could have been on the team freshman year, but I chose to focus on work and school instead-- I just didn't have time.

I wish I had made time. But then I think about how different my life would have been. Spending most of my time at practice and games, travelling, making close friends with the other girls-- my life would be completely different right now, my senior year. Who knows what would have happened had I just made a different choice on one simple decision.

This got me really thinking about my choices. How often do I miss out on things because of choices? Not that I necessarily make wrong choices, but that if another good choice could have led me down a path that could open up doors to other things-- and I missed it because I chose something else.

Then I think, "Well, God's got everything worked out." But how often does He let us mess up our own lives? This is something I really struggle with. At camp, they tell us God is in absolute control of everything and that anything that happens was specifically chosen by God to happen. I wrestle with that a lot, because I don't understand that God would create us with the ultimate plan for us to fail. It doesn't make sense to me. I do believe that he controls things when He wants to. He hardened Pharoah's heart, and didn't let the Israelites leave Egypt right away. Why? To test them? To strengthen them? If God had left Pharoah to make the choice, would he have just let them go? To what extent does God harden my heart to things or people?

Sometimes these things are so confusing....