Saturday, February 21, 2009

meg...en

I am starting to think that the point of blogging is to make random crap available for the world to see...partly because one likes writing about themselves. Guilty! If you blog and you don't think you just like writing about yourself, you are in some serious denial. In fact, I'm starting to think that the only reason I read other peoples blogs is so I can gauge how funny I need to make my next blog post. I'm like: "well so-and-so said this in their blog, and that was pretty funny, but I'm going to say THIS in my blog and people are going to think I'm so much funnier". When in reality, other people are doing the same exact thing. No matter how many "clever" things I try to say, whoever reads this is only thinking of ways they can be cleverer (pretty sure cleverer isn't a word...). So anyway, I am going to put something completely random, and I bet you somebody out there reading will see this and think: "Wow that is pretty random, but I can totally think of something even more random and therefore my blog will be the coolest. Ha!" So here you go...beat this!

I've noticed something. Most people call me "Meg". My parents, my sister, my close friends, etc. But when they get annoyed/angry/frustrated with me, I suddenly become "Megen". Also this tends to happen early in the morning when people are generally in a bad mood. It's like I no longer am worthy of my nickname once I've done something to piss people off. I can just tell whether or not someone is in good humor by the way they address me. It's like they think adding the "en" to the end of Meg somehow makes things serious all of a sudden. That's kind of crazy don't you think? But maybe I do the same thing. Do I call me mom "mother" when I'm a little ill with her? I think not. So yeah, it's just other people who are weird like that.

So did you note the sarcasm? Pretty blog-tastic don't you think? Not that any of this matters at all to anyone, but in certain social situations or when something funny happens or when I make a major mental breakthrough (such as the above random fact) I often find myself thinking "hmmm...this would be something really good to blog about later, and then people will read it and wish they were as funny as me". Except for the fact that not that many people read this...reiterating my point that we bloggers do it for our own entertainment. What I didn't realize until recently is that when other people do read my blog they may be thinking its funny, but meanwhile they are conjuring up their own funny stories or witty comments, preparing to strike down any humor mine had with their own. So I think that instead of blogging, it should be called "battling"...battling for the funniest blog, that is.

Sunday, February 15, 2009

8 debs, 1 queen, and...a buffalo?

so the title of this post may have you a little confused...don't worry it will all come together, it has been a crazy weekend!

friday night kaylan and i went and got a little sushi at fuji followed by going to see SLUMDOG MILLIONAIRE!

omg. it was incredible. it's just one of those movies that makes you feel good, and believe me i'm a sucker for those. i went into the movie expecting it to be a drama based on a young man from the slums of india who wins a million dollars...this premise alone would have made for an AWESOME movie, but the surprise to me was the love story. in fact, the love story is the overlying factor throughout the entire film. i ate it up. the film takes you through the main character's, jamal, life and the experiences that taught him the answers to the questions on 'who wants to be a millionaire'. he isn't a genius and he isn't lucky, but every question in the show could be related to an impacting moment in his life. apparently the director is a pretty young guy and most of the actors were really from the slums of india. the main characters are portrayed at several different ages, so it was hard to believe that the actor playing 7 year old jamal is actually from the slums. pretty low budget, amazing performances. it just goes to show (in fact, i'm pretty sure this is a theme in the movie as well) that no matter where you are from or how you grow up you have as much potential as anyone.

on the the next thing!

saturday i rode with caitlin down down to montgomery! it was deb ball day! of the 8 debs, i knew lindsey and caroline (roomies), and allison. the queen deb was miss liz wiatt! but before i go into talking about the ball, there are quite a few occurences that need discussing that happened long before the ball...

once me and caitlin got to montgomery she went straight to get her hair chopped. i mean CHOPPED. 8 inches! you go girl, she gave it all to locks for love. we then had a delicious meal at Schlotzsky's. not nearly enought people have discovered this little peice of heaven that is a sandwhich restaurant. mmmm. after lunch caitlin dropped me off with lindsey and mrs. goodwyn at the shoe store. we were on the prowl for a pair of shoes for mrs. goodwyn. i knew this was going to be good...lindsey's mom has the sweetest southern accent i have ever heard, and the sweetest southern demeener i have ever seen. as you may guess, watching her pick out a pair of shoes was entertaining (for both linds and myself). "i just can't be showin' my toes at my age!" was said countless times along with other comments while me and lindsey exchanged looks. LOVE mrs. goodwyn!

later kathryn and caitlin came over to lindsey's and we all got ready for the ball together. here is where the fun began. kathryn caitlin and i needed to eat dinner before the ball (lindsey left early to go for pics), and caitlin was craving olive garden...girl was running half marathon the next day and needed her carbs! keep in mind this is VALENTINE'S DAY, so every restaurant within a 50 mile radius was gonna be packed. we took our chances and decided to call in an order and pick it up. 45 minutes later, the three of us were dressed and ready for the ball, all we needed was a little food in our tummy. as we pull into olive garden to pick up our food, the three of us begin panicking, realizing that we are 3 girls...ON VALENTINE'S DAY (why do i keep capitalizing this?) in formal attire at olive garden with no dates. ha! so we decided one of us should go in and get the food, that would look less stupid. yeah, right. i lost the paper-rock-scissors and ended up going in. by myself. got a couple of looks along the way. the food wasn't ready so i sat in the bar alone for about 20 minutes waiting. FINALLY i carried the food back out to the car (more looks) and we headed back to lindsey's to eat it.

WELL..

when we got to lindsey's house no one was there. john (her bro) had left for the ball. so we were all dressed up, had armfuls of food, and nowhere to eat it. did i mention we only had about 20 minutes till we had to be at the ball? we were planning on picking up emily on the way, but decided to go ahead to her house and eat the olive garden there. whew!





finally we made it to the montgomery country club (we had to run a few blocks in heals due to shortage of parking i might add) before the doors closed! it was a blast. all of the debs looked gorgeous (especially my faves lindsey, caroline, allison, and liz). there was dancing, socializing, and lots of meeting new people. as the night progressed people loosened up, side effect of an open bar, and the dance floor became PACKED! me and emily tore up the dance floor while lindsey and caro cut a rug with their dates. got a little electric slide injury however...didn't wear shoes and was victim to a foot smashing into my ankle. ouch. totally worth it, i kept going (it became the crippled electric slide however). we were all delirious by the time they served breakfast in the country club at 11pm, so tired! but a great end to a great night.

moving on to SUNDAY!

so we've had this tri-delta chapter bonding/i love my ddd sisters/gag me retreat planned for the past few weeks for today. the ENTIRE chapter was required to go, unless you wanted a $100 fine. we were going to la grange, ga to go on a WILD ANIMAL SAFARI...what? i don't know if you have ever heard of la grange, ga, but there are wild animals there. ummm...?

kathryn picked me up from lindsey's at 7AM. wow. def went to bed at 1am. moving on. as soon as we got to auburn we had to be at the chapter room for role call. ahhhh. it was a 45 minute drive to la grange. as we entered the 'wild animal safari' parking lot we noticed some white buses that had zebra stripes spray painted on them...we thought they were a joke but we soon found out this would be our mode of transportation through the safari. awesome. our "tour guide" was a man named william who may have had 8 teeth total. even more awesome.

as we entered the bus, which had no windows to enhance our experience, they gave us pellets to feed the animals. as soon as we drove into the safari about 45 different species of animal bombarded the bus. it was so ridiculous no one could stop laughing!

the picture on the right is just a small representation of what we encountered. yep, that is a bull with its tongue about 3 inches from my face. there were goats, emu, yaks, deer, buffalo, llamas, pigs, you name it...they had one. and they all lived together in the massive...african safari land? the only caged animals were the giraffe, the camel, the lions, tigers, oh...and the LIGER. you heard me: they had a liger, lion mixed with tiger. things couldn't have gotten more ridiculous once we saw this, but they did. the tour just kept going and going and going and meanwhile the animals just kept appearing, sticking their faces into the bus, mouths open, tongues flapping...when the tour finally ended we ate lunch and hit the road. part of the fun was wondering what made the non-tridelts who were there wake up that morning and decide to go for a redneck safari...why? lets just say we saw quite an array of people and felt severely out of place in our sorority sweatshirts and pearl earrings.


made it back to auburn around 1ish, went for my run (2 miles today), took a nice long nap (not to mention my shower was about an hour to wash off the smell of animal), and have been hanging out with the roomies tonight. it was a wild weekend (no pun intended, ha ha ha...) but i feel it was a good representation of my life as a college kid. unpredictable, friends all around, and so much fun!

Friday, February 13, 2009

tag!

I Am: a friend, a daughter, a sister, a Christian
I Have: more than i'll ever need
I Think: all the time, thoughts are always bouncing around in my head
I Know: that i don't know everything
I Dislike: cold days, asparagus, and lack of follow-through. i'm pretty easy to please
I Miss: my house in huntsville, mostly the people in it
I Fear: rejection
I Feel: loved
I Want: to be successful but never let my career define who i am. to be in love. to have a family, raise my children in a safe, loving, and Christian home like the one i was brought up in
I Smell: the Christmas candle sitting on my desk that i refuse to put away even though it's not Christmas anymore
I Crave: chocolate
I Cry: sometimes. my own brokenness helps me realize how much God loves me
I Usually: try to see the best in people
I Search: my soul
I Wonder: what i'll be doing in 5 years
I Care: a lot once i start caring
I Love: unconditionally, with my whole heart
I Regret: withholding love from others and not always trying my best
I Always: remember the good things that came out of hard times
I Worry: too much
I Am Not: perfect
I Remember: when my dad used to check me out of school just to take me to lunch
I Dance: to make people laugh
I Don't Always: think things through
I Write: a lot. part of being a PR major, but i love it. i'm always reading something
I Win: never. i'm extremely unlucky.
I Wish: i didn't let my mind get ahead of me and lived for today instead
I Argue: in my head when sometimes i should speak up
I Listen: well. i love hearing other people's stories
I Lose: sunglasses...or accidentally run over them with my car
I Don't Understand: why people choose not to get better, to heal themselves and their relationships with the ones they love
I Can Usually Be Found: listening to my ipod, sipping a coffee, reading a book
I Am Scared: to be alone
I Need: love, encouragement, words of affirmation, quality time
I Forget: to do things. i have everything written in my planner
I Am: blessed despite my own shortcomings

Thursday, February 12, 2009

you're not going to believe this...


I'M TRAINING FOR A HALF MARATHON!!! Ok, ok, I know what you're thinking. Why in the world would I want to do this? Truthfully, I've kind of always wanted to; it's one of those goals that I've set but have never actually planned on achieving. Since I'm going to be in Nashville April 25th to see DAVE MATTHEWS (kinda excited..), I might as well run in one of the most famous annual marathons in the country. Check it out here. It's the CMA Half Marathon, and I'm going to be running in it. Wow. Over the past few weeks I've been training for my training. Over the next 12 weeks I will hopefully go from barely being able to run 2.5 miles (today's accomplishment) to being able to run 13.1 miles on raceday.

To be honest I've never liked running. I think words like "hate", "can't stand", and "loathe" have even been used by me when referring to running. But since I've started training I've enjoyed the accomplishment of setting a goal on how far I will run that day and achieving it. And I guess it's starting to grow on me.

Tuesday, February 10, 2009

things i learned in 2008

So it has been a little while since I've posted a blog. Sorry! Just been getting settled into the new semester. School, friends, life. I thought my first post of 2009 should be a compilation of some things I learned last year. It was a BIG year for learning for me. I learned a lot when it came to school, but my soul was taught a few lessons also. So here is a brief run-down of some important changes and realizations I came to last year...

Life isn't about being perfect. Take off the mask. Receive the TRUTHS of God.

No matter what I do, put forth Christ crucified.

My emotions should not be so easily tossed, God is my rock, consistent, and His is the love that matters.

Sometimes it hurts to grow, that's when I've felt closest to God. Sometimes God is teaching me and I'm not even aware of it. If I have a pure, sincere love for something and want to go into the world in His name, even if I feel like God isn't doing anything in my life...HE IS!

My actions should be pure, God knows my motivations.

Surrendering to God doesn't always mean I will get what I want, but I will get what is best in my life.

No matter my status, I must remain in my calling and be committed in the things God has placed around me.

There is no need to make things more complicated than they should be. Every human relationship includes risk. Trust the wisdom and promises of God.

Even though I've always been a believer, the Lord met me where I was, helped me embrace my brokenness, and as a result I know Him like I never have before. He manifests Himself in miraculous ways.

I need to love equally. Not just my friends, family, or acquaintances. I need to love the person who I pass on the street, the person who cuts me off in traffic, the annoying kids in class. God, the Creator, the great I AM loves everyone equally; therefore EVERYone is worthy of my love, who am I to withhold it? COMPASSION.

What I lack in knowledge I make up for in resourcefulness.

There are so many lies in this world, listening for God's voice is hard but we can always find it. God aches for us just as we ache for Him.

In reference to YoungLife, the Lord taught me that I all had to do was GO to the school and be His servant; He took care of the rest. I have gotten the awesome opportunity to love on 9th grade girls and be just a tiny refection of the love God has for them.



Those are just a few things I came to realize, there is so much more: much I'm sure I'm not even aware of. Basically, God is good. So so good.

xoxo