Seventy-Three

The Lord gave me a few sweet surprises today at work, which as He knows - was desperately needed.

The first surprise went by the names of Annie Lawrence and her parents Quigg and Annette, who were passing through town towards Annapolis, Maryland and decided to stop in and say hello. I desperately lamented after they left.

The second surprise was Lauren and Kate who came in to eat for lunch. I also lamented after they left.

The third surprise was table nine: two Germans from Southern Germany (near Heidelberg). I talked their ears off and then I majorly lamented because I missed Germany so much.

After all of that lamenting, came the fourth and final surprise of the day.

Every now and then, believers will slip little evangelism papers into the check holders (this was the second one I've gotten this week). Whenever this happens, my face always lights up and I literally skip over to the table and ask enthusiastically, "You all are CHRISTIANS?!" and it's game over for the rest of my tables for the next five minutes or so.

I love when this happens.

For one, I get to meet some amazing Christians and feel somewhat normal for a change and two, I get to hold on to the paper for the rest of my shift and read it whenever possible. Yes, I already know what it says, but I love being able to escape into His rest for a few moments. I know He does this just for me - to remind me of His love - and it never gets old.

I pray it never will.


So aside from all of the lamenting, work was good today - it was just super long. I just got home and am now laying in bed. My feet are still throbbing, but I just spotted my ticket for CFAW laying on my desk...

...and suddenly my feet aren't throbbing anymore -

                                                                           (my heart is).

73 days and counting,
C

Seventy-Four

Well, geez.

Thanks :)

Seventy-Five

Seventy-five days, and I'll be moving into my apartment-style dorm room, meeting the five girls I'll be living with for the semester, and I'll have everything paid for (theoretically speaking) and all of my classes set in stone.

I reiterate this because today has been a bearer of bad news and I already feel myself starting to go into freak-out mode.

Financial Check-in opened up at the beginning of October and registration started on the 23rd.
I, however, have had a little trouble trying to get everything squared away before doing financial check-in.
My scholarships have made their way onto my account, minus one or two (which together are equaling about $1000) and I was hoping that they would be enough to pay my remaining balance so I wouldn't have to apply for another loan, but sadly, it wasn't enough. I still have about another $2,600 to come up with before I can complete financial check-in and register for classes.

See? I told you. As jaw-dropping as Obama and the Nobel Peace Prize. And we haven't even gotten to Miley Cyrus yet - that's only about a quarter of what the entire semester costs.

My husband is going to think twice about marrying me for sure - What's that saying? What's mine is yours?
(a.k.a: "My debt is your debt")?

I felt bad for him, so I tried doing him a favor:
before I resulted to looking up more student loans on the web, I tried deciphering my student accounts page just in case.

What I found out was that for spring semester, I was only getting about $1,500 out of the $6,500 I already have in the Stafford Loans for the year '09-10.
I called Liberty up (sadly, John didn't answer this time), asked some questions, and found out that since I've been doing Liberty Online, the total was split up three different ways since most online students take classes throughout the summer (which was true in my case). For residential students, however, they only tend to split it up two ways for fall and spring semester. This answers why I was getting so little from my Stafford for the spring semester.

I did some math (yeah, I know - hard to believe) and figured out that if I got the rest of my Stafford loans released to spring semester that I'd be able to pay the total in full except for a measley $260, of which, I will hopefully be able to afford out of my own pocket. The bad news however, is that I had to fill out a loan request form to do that and fax it to Liberty. It's now going to take another 1-2 weeks for the loans to be released.

So now that you have a headache from trying to follow all of that (I most certainly do), I will now delight you with some pictures I found on my camera about an hour ago.

And that, my friends - is what true friendship is all about.


75 days and counting,
C

Seventy-Six

“So, when is your last day?”

It’s the end of my shift. I’m about to cash out and head home and my manager Jenn decides to ask the big question - one I don't yet have an answer to.

To be honest, it has somewhat been the elephant in the workplace lately. Whether by my own making or not, it was hard enough telling work that I got accepted into Liberty, nevertheless telling them exactly when I would be leaving. Managers aren’t really all that happy to hear that a percentage point is going to be added to their turnover rate (not that my leaving would really affect any of that), but when it’s in due to one of their employees leaving to attend a Christian University, well – let’s just say I’d be better off knocking over someone’s Margarita and dropping a hot plate of crispy chicken tacos onto their lap in one fell swoop (which, believe it or not, has happened a time or two); obviously (and thankfully), waitressing is not my calling.

For the most part, they’ve been really accepting and encouraging...

....sort of.

It’s just, now this.

It all comes down to the beckoning question on all of my employers' minds. Who knows how they're going to take it. Roll their eyes? Fire me now? I mean, the hems on all of my jeans are frayed, but how is that really my fault?

“I’m not sure – but move-in is January 13th,” I say.

She sort of does this awkward, pressing-of-the-lips/nodding-of-the-head sort of thing and continues to peck away at the calculator and sort through my credit card receipts.

Not an opportune time to request for time off; the tension in the air has already claimed it's territory, but it’s either now or never so I somehow round up the courage to ask. After all, failure is never fatal - so I’ve heard.

Apparently however, for me, this whole "failure is never fatal, success is never found, courage is the only thing" mentality only tends to come out in moron when I'm dealing with Jenn.

You see, Jenn makes me nervous. Really nervous.
I'm pretty sure she hates me, and now that I’m leaving to go to Liberty, I’m really sure she hates me.

So as I’m preparing to ask for days off, I try this thing of pretending she’s Byrd, Sarah, or Lauren to help calm my nerves, but not surprisingly, it doesn’t hack it. I’ve never really been a fan of imagining people in their underwear either (call me crazy), so I have to result to simply getting it over with as quickly and as painlessly as possible. In doing that, I ended up falling over my words as badly as Beyonce fell on her face in Orlando. Click that link. Trust me. You’ll be glad you did.

I manage to get “the 5th-8th of November” out of my mouth and as we flip through the scheduling book, I take my pen in shaky hand and pen in my name and the dates requested. Then she asks, “what do you need off for?”

“Uhh, CFAW. I, I mean College for a Weekend. It’s uh, this thing at Liberty….”

Awkward silence. Blank stare.

“Well, Is it necessary that you go?"

“Well, not really, but kind of, yes. I uh…well, you see, there’s this audition for a ministry team – well, it’s like a worship team….you know….a band – and well, the auditions are being held that weekend, and if I make it into one of them, I, uh, get a full-tuition scholarship."

"Well, that’s cool...”

                               Hold up.

Cool?
Did she really just say that was cool?
I mean, I said the words “ministry team.”


I couldn't believe it. It actually went over pretty well -
“um’s,” “uh’s," stutters, stammers and all.

I was going to wait for another day to ask off for Winterfest - afterall, I didn’t want to be given an inch and take a yard, but I really didn’t want to do this again, so I just went ahead and asked for the 30th and 31st of December off as well. We flipped through the rest of November and skipped right to the end of December where she stops for a brief second, and then says, “You can have the 30th off but not the 31st.”

“What? Really? But I just bought a $60 ticket…"

“Sorry, Felicia.”

“Serious, Jenn?”

“Yeah, do you know what night that is? Do you know how busy we’re going to be?”

I stop and try to swallow this, but then I’m suddenly struck with the most profound “aha” moment of my life. Before I could stop the words they were already hanging in the air:

“Well, then. I guess I know now when my last day of work is going to be…”

Jenn turns her head to look at me, almost as to ask, "are you serious?" and then when she realized I was, the most beautiful thing happened:

laughter. Racous laughter.

Victory.

 And so it is: the most recent development on my trek towards Liberty. Last day of work.
December 29, 2009

• 61 days
• 1487 hours
• 89239 minutes
• 5354340 seconds 

...and counting,

-C

Seventy-Eight

I broke my first guitar string.

Isn't it beautiful?

Eighty-One

Not too much excitement going on today.
I woke up around 11:30, but laid in bed until I smelt waffles.

Apparently, that’s what it takes.

I played guitar for a couple hours – nothing too intentional. Just re-visited the very few songs I’ve learned to play this past year.

I did, however, seem to impress myself in the slightest (if I can say that and not sound too overtly pompous). I mean, the reality of it is, I am no guitar maestro whatsoever; therefore, it’s fairly easy for me to impress myself over the simplest things.

Today’s achievement:

I found three songs that flow right into the other pretty effortlessly.

It's alright. "Ooo"'s and "ahhh"'s are not mandatory.

Hypothetically speaking, if I did somehow get to play out in public sometime soon, I would open up with these three songs. They’re just three out of only a handful of songs I know and they just so happened to flow together relatively nicely, making me look like I have somewhat of a clue as to what I’m doing.
Drum roll, please...

• No Not One – Christy Nockels
• Deciphering Me – Brooke Fraser
• Lifeline – Brooke Fraser

I know, right? Impression factor went way out of the roof - although somehow, I doubt that Kanye would agree.

On the Lynchburg home front, a good friend of mine was kind enough to tell me all about the sweet local spots around town. Apparently Osaka is going to change my life, as is the dollar theatre, the indoor rock climbing gym, Drowsy Poet Café, White Hart, and other various restaurants and coffee shops around. This makes me all the more excited to call Lynchburg home for a time.
I'm stoked to see what the Lord has in store there.

A new set of classes start up on Monday:
Theology 202 and English 102.

While I was able to pull out of my psychology class with a C this past eight weeks, I somehow get the feeling that my English class is not going to be as generous.

81 days and counting,

-C

Eighty-Two

Seriously, who needs a husband these days when your best friend drives a half hour to surprise you with a card of encouragement and a bouquet of flowers "just because"?

Thanks, Byrd.

:)