In which we discuss the word "survive"

I wanted to post last night but I had my presentation this morning at 9:00 and I thought I should probably get some sleep instead.

Last night rocked my pants off. (To quote me on my brother's birthday.) Not literally -- I was still fully clothed. I DID still feel like a skank, but that was largely due to my more-revealing-than-normal new tank top. (And my lovely new bra that was the exact same color as my tank top. Yummy. A delicious shade of mulberry.) It did not leave uncovered anything that should be covered, but it was still much more revealing than I'm used to. I was at church last night and I turned to Kelly and I said, "I don't look like a skank, do I? I feel like a skank . . ." She just laughed at me and said, "No, you don't look like a skank." There was an older gentleman sitting on the other side of her and he turned to me and said, "What's a skank?" I turned all red and said, "It's kinda a nicer term for a whore."

Cru was SO fun. It was crazy sports night. We got divided up into teams and we did three games. Guess who was on my team. KLOMP! That boy makes me feel very small. He's like 6'10 or something like that and when I stand next to him I think the top of my head reaches just above his elbow. It's an odd feeling to have someone THAT tall standing by you. I bet you can't guess who else was on my team. Eeek! The King! Yay! It was totally fun. We had what they called "Balloon golf" where you had to blow up a baloon and then let it go and whoever got closest to the target won. We won. *YAY Riippa!* Then we had 4 people sit in a row and 4 more people face them and they had to take a shoe and pass it from one person to the next down the line and back -- with their feet -- and the person who ran to the front with their shoe first won. We got second place (I think) in that one. *YAY Klomp!* The last game was a trivia game. We had to select someone to run to the front with our answers. Klomp won that one for us. We pretty much dominated that one. *Yay Klomp!* Then they did a great skit -- an athletic version of the apostles healing a crippled man. And then Andy talked about giving God the glory and honor when positive things happen in our lives. (Yay -- it was VERY basic, but it was perfect. Our Cru needs milk -- it can't handle meat and potatoes.) Then we went to Perkins and I was sitting in a booth and Andy and 4 other guys came and attempted to sit with me. It doesn't work to have 5 athletes and one girl try to fit into one booth. The girl gets squished. So, we moved over to a table. Andy asked me if I ever wish I could have gone to school instead of being homeschooled and I said, "every day." Then Z, trying to be funny, said, "Do you ever miss it?" Lol -- I said, "I cry every day, wishing I could go back . . ." Then I got serious and I said, "No, really. When I was about 16 I did wish I could have gone to school. But, when I was really young, I was paranoid. People freaked me out. My mom would threaten me with things like 'if you don't cooperate with me then someone is going to find out and they'll come and put you in a public school.' It totally freaked me out. But I survived. It was ok." Andy and Scoop burst into song -- something about being a survivor. I love it when people sing to me . . . It's like . . . music conveys strong emotion and by singing to someone, you're giving a little of that to the person you're singing to. It's totally cool. Then we just hung out and talked and that was fun too. It was SO busy at Perkins last night. Lotsa high school kids fresh out of coronation. When I left, I found that someone had written "Hi MJ! Jesus loves you!" in the dust on my car and I was like, "Dude -- who knows what my car looks like?" Z . . . Scoop . . . Andy . . . Kris . . . Sarah . . . I think it was one of the boys. Made my day. :-)

I was thinking the other day about a song about being a survivor -- different than the one the boys were singing. They started talking about the TV show after they sang. Lol -- they make me giggle.

And I survived my presentation and my test. Yay!

And at dinner tonight, Idriss told me I should be an RA and I said I'd applied like 3 times and I'll never be hired because they "know" stuff about me as a result of my lousy RA my freshman year -- stuff that is very untrue. He said, "You should apply. I'll even be your reference. Having me as your reference would help a LOT. That was such a huge blessing. I love it when people believe in me. Idriss is my hero. :-)
~MK