Life of a Warner Girl

Tricky tricky Pottermore

2011-08-10T11:50:00.000-07:00

This morning I woke up to find an email in my inbox from the folks at Pottermore and my heart started beating faster. Finally I would be able to get into the beta site, something I've been waiting for since the day I found out about J.K. Rowling's creation and when I learned of the competition that would let a few fans in months early. When I opened the message I got this instead:

Unfortunately it was only a letter confirming my early entrance; it didn't actually give me access. While searching for a reason why it was taking so long, I came across multiple blogs and news pages describing what exactly is going on in London. Young people are rioting because of what seems to have started out as a peaceful protest against police brutality. Now buildings are being burned down and shops looted. What they are doing is completely unacceptable and now I don't care as much about getting into a website, but instead I pray for all of the families in London and surrounding areas in hopes they will stay safe through this time.

Psalm 4:8
In peace I will lie down and sleep, for you alone, LORD, make me dwell in safety.

Carry On (An Entry by Isabella Garcia)

2010-11-11T14:03:00.000-08:00

Hey guys,
Today I read a post that a friend of mine wrote on Facebook and she was kind enough to let me re-post it into my Warner Girl blog. I hope you all enjoy it as much as I did!

In the last couple of months, I have seen myself grow both spiritually and emotionally. Battling through the worst imaginable pain has completely changed the person that I am and has caused me to attempt to find the best in everything. I have found myself turning to God for guidance, strength, courage, and peace now more than ever. I have realized that sometimes being strong is one of the hardest things to do and that you never really know just how strong you are until it's the only thing that you really have to hold on to. I have realized that it is perfectly fine to cry and to let all emotions out even if it shows even the slightest sign of weakness. I have learned that the best of friends are those who will be there to carry you through everything, will love you for the person that you are, will cry with you, and will do just about anything to make you happy once again. I have learned that sometimes all you really need is someone to be there for you and tell you that everything will eventually get better. I have also learned that sometimes you need someone to carry you when you feel like you are broken. I have learned to listen to those around me and to know that they only want the best for me. Losing a very important part of me has caused the worst imaginable pain and has brought with it so many feelings and emotions. But I know that God never puts us through situations that He knows we can't handle and that there is a reason for everything.

A couple of days ago, I was looking at verses from The Bible that would help with coping with the loss of a loved one and came across Lamentations 3:22-26; 31-32. It showed me that the Lord will ALWAYS hold me together when it seems like everything around me is falling apart. Lamentations 3:22-26: 31-32 says:

"The unfailing love of the Lord never ends! By his mercies we have been kept from complete destruction. Great is his faithfulness; his mercies begin afresh each day. I say to myself, "The Lord is my inheritance; therefore, I will hope in Him!" The Lord is wonderfully good to those who wait for him and seek him. So it is good to wait quietly for salvation from the Lord. For the Lord does not abandon anyone forever. Though he brings grief, he also shows compassion according to the greatness of his unfailing love."

I also came across a prayer that has helped me deal with this situation better!

"Dear Lord,
Please help me in this time of loss and overwhelming grief. I don't understand why my life is filled with this pain and heartache. But I turn my eyes to you as I seek to find the strength to trust in your faithfulness. I will wait on you and not despair; I will quietly wait for your salvation. My heart is crushed, but I know that you will not abandon me forever. Please show me your compassion, Lord. Help me through the pain so that I will hope in you again. I believe this promise in your Word to send me fresh mercy each day. Though I can't see past today, I trust your great love will never fail me.
Amen."

God's never-ending love has allowed me to realize that I can question everything and think of every possible different outcome to change my reality, but I know that nothing will ever change it. Only His grace will carry me through this and will give both my family and I the strength that we need to carry on.

On another note, it is not the end of the eleventh week of this semester! It is so crazy to think that the semester is almost over and that I will be heading back to the beautiful Renton for an entire month soon enough! Being three hours away from home has been hard especially in this situation but the only thing that keeps me going is knowing that my family's love for me will never change regardless of where I am. My family gives me the motivation and undying support that I need every single day to carry on and to know that life does not stop when someone you love dies. I am excited for the next couple of weeks and can't wait to see my family in thirteen days! Oh and I must say that I am glad that I decided to return to Warner Pacific College. I have found the best of friends, have gained the most amazing support group, and have strengthened my faith in more ways than one!

Become Known Worldwide with Stumble Upon!

2010-09-08T16:19:00.001-07:00

Yesterday, I decided to add my blog to the world of Stumble Upon, which is a website that "deliver[s] high-quality pages matched to your personal preferences," Meaning that it is the ultimate procrastination tool for a college student.

Since then, I have had 41 new people visit my Warner Girl blog and of those 41 people, 19 are from Denmark, 10 from the United Kingdom, and 12 from Latvia, China, Ireland, Germany, Greece, and of course America! I don't know about you, but I find that to be pretty cool. Also, Warner now posts a link on Facebook whenever one of their bloggers writes something new. Because of that, I had 145 page views Yesterday! That is seriously exciting! I hope all of my readers continue to read and tell their friends about me!

Serve Wholeheartedly as if You Were Serving the Lord, Not Men.

2010-09-07T15:47:00.000-07:00

(Ephesians 6:7)

As president Andrea Cook said in her inaugural speech this last fall, "I am committed – with God as my strength – to giving my all to lead the college to a new level of engagement with the city of Portland. God did not place Warner Pacific College in the heart of this vibrant city for us to keep to ourselves. He is calling us to be a force for change—a community that demonstrates inclusion and diversity and that is unafraid to address issues of injustice and need in our community." This Wednesday we get the chance to do just that! Common Day of Service has been a great Warner tradition where everybody on campus, professors included, take a day off from classes and go out into the city to serve wherever we are needed. From clearing Mt. Tabor from the abundance of blackberry bushes to helping children learn to read at Atkinson Elementary School. Over the years that Common Day of Service has been a part of Warner, we have saved the city from spending thousands on the cleanup of Tabor, assisted elementary school teachers in their sometimes over-sized classes, beautified both Atkinson elementary and Pioneer School, and created important bonds in our wonderful city. This is honestly one of my favorite things about our community. Our saying is "Where faith and scholarship lead to service" and what better way to serve than spend an entire day improving the city where we currently reside! I hope to see everybody out there serving on Wednesday!

Dorms VS. Apartments: A New Year at Warner

2010-09-02T16:00:00.000-07:00

Classes have officially started and I am now swamped with homework, but I do not see it as a negative. Sure I may complain while reading chapter after chapter of language acquisition and mythology, but I know that I am learning important information that will benefit me at some point. I am thankful for the education I am receiving from Warner and enjoy most of my classes immensely.

The largest change this year is the transition into an apartment. I've spent the last two years in the dorms, just like any other traditional Warner student. Although I had a lot of fun living in close proximity with my girls, it is good to have my own space. I am now in a Saxon Apartment with my two roommates and loving it. Having a kitchen and living room is a large improvement! The only downside so far is no longer having a coffee shop account. I will miss my "free" iced mochas and socializing with the Sodexo staff, who are wonderful people!

It is a bit overwhelming to see such a large amount of new students on campus. There are around 190 new faces this year! I would like to meet as much as them as possible which means I need to make a bit of an effort this year since I am no longer in the dorms and I could hide out in my apartment if I choose to do so. My roommates and I are thinking about inviting some of the new girls over for a movie night so that we have a chance to get to know them, so if you are in the dorms, look out for an invite to our Saxon apartment!

Although all of this change is a lot to get used to, I am looking forward to discovering how this school year turns out!

Battle of the Cliches

2010-06-27T11:46:00.000-07:00

I've noticed recently that when people want to start a deep and moving blog about God, friendships, life, etc. they like to start off with the time (It is 3:30 in the morning and I cannot fall asleep because of all the thoughts swimming through my mind. I have to write this down before I can be at peace....blah blah blah). It is highly cliched! I must admit, I've fallen into this trap more than once. It's such an easy way to start something off without putting some thought into it.
Moving on...

It is 11:50 in the morning and a cat nap sounds wonderful, but I can't fall asleep with all these random thoughts in my brain.....blah blah blah....But seriously folks, I do want to write a little summer blog, since I haven't kept up on this thing as well as I would have hoped to.

Summer break. The 3 months that every single person, ages 5 to 18 look forward to. Why is it, that my feelings have drastically changed? (I already know the answer, but it allows my readers to ponder for a bit...............) I remember those high school days when I used to count down until that beautiful day in June when my teachers would wish me a happy summer and my mind was filled with sleeping in until noon, laying out on the beach with a good book to read...Who am I kidding? There were no books. It was summer! A whole three months where I wasn't expected to crack open one of those miserable text books! I thoroughly enjoyed summer vacation. Now? Not so much. Summer in high school wasn't much different from the school year in the sense of people and popular hang out spots. I now see myself as a Portland girl, not a part of a cookie-cutter family with perfectly manicured lawns and clean cars. I now live in the guest room and all of my friends live miles away. What fun is that? I miss that beautiful community that we call Warner Pacific College. Sure, my life here is pretty good. I have some great high school buddies, but no offense to any of them, but my close friends at Warner completely blow them out of the water. I believe it is because we were all forced to live with each other, so we had to learn to at least tolerate the girls in our hall. Tolerance turned in to love after a few short weeks (my freshman year) and those friendships still hold true. I understand that next year it will be harder to keep all of my friends because I will no longer be living in the dorms, but as long as I make a decent attempt to keep them in my life, I will keep those strong bonds and hopefully make them even stronger than they were before. Every year I leave Warner, I fear that I will drift from my friends, but that has been proven false. Although many of us don't talk much, once in a while one of them will send me an encouraging text or write to me on Facebook, and I do the same to them. I also wonder if they feel the same way. Do they fear that they will lose their friendships with me, (or others) over the long break, or are they much more confident than me? Maybe it's because of my past that I think that way. I'm used to having friendships come and go, like they're no big deal. I almost feel like I used people in middle/high school just so someone would pay attention to me, but whenever something different came around, I would dump them like it was no big deal. That's not who I am anymore, but I have a true and honest fear that some of my friends at Warner will treat me in the same manner, sort of like a karma thing, ya know? So I am curious. Not only with my Warner friends, but anyone. Do you have a fear of losing friends when they are far away, or has that been proven false to you? Please respond by leaving a comment. I am curious to hear everyone's views!

It's True. I Love Forums

2010-01-16T22:28:00.000-08:00

Guilty! I love going into forums and debating with others about random topics. I love hearing others perspectives on different matters and I enjoy making my point known. Going into a forum hard-headed can easily lead to destruction. I keep an open mind and sometimes what I believe completely changes. Even when I go into forums about religion. If somebody makes fun of my religion, I do not argue with them saying, "You're wrong" or "That is not true at all." No. I listen to their arguments, let them know that I understand where they are coming from and kindly tell them why I believe what I do, then if the other person is mature enough, we end up having a healthy debate, both of us learning a little bit more about what others believe. It is a lot of fun and educational as well :) I apologize if it sounds a bit choppy. I didn't edit it before posting:

I was in a forum today and one of the topics was, "To Christians: Why are YOU a Christian." Intrigued, I entered into this conversation and realized that people were posting why they did or did not believe, then the author of this forum would ask them questions about their answers. I found this to be interesting so I decided to post my "life story" and see what questions she would ask me. I just posted it, so she has not responded yet, but as I was writing, I thought to myself. Hmmm.. My blog readers haven't gotten the chance to hear my story, so here it is, exactly what I wrote in the forum. A very condensed version of my story. If you want to hear it all, feel free to comment this post with whatever questions you might have and I will be more than happy to answer you :)

"I can tell you why I am a Christian.

It is true that I grew up in a Christian family and I've held on to the title of "Christian" because of what I grew up knowing. I did not know the true meaning until the end of 2008.

My whole life, I learned that God was Father of all, loving, caring, and longing for a relationship with all of his people, weather they believed in him or not. All of this, I believed in, but I did not know what it meant to "be in a relationship" with Him. I treated Him as more of an aquaintance than my dearest friend. I would pray, but my heart would not be in it. Going to church bored me. I couldn't stand reading my bible, because I had trouble understanding what God was trying to say by doing the things that He did and it seemed like more of a hassle than a joy.

So for my entire life, when people asked, I would tell them that I was a Christian, which is not entirely false. I believed that God sent His one and only son down to Earth to die for our sins and that His love was unfailing, but I never attempted to wrap my head around what I thought was the highest form of truth. I was very ignorant to my own faith.

Then I entered the world of College in August of 2008. Warner Pacific College to be exact. What I've learned here and am continuing to learn has turned my world upside down! Through his faithful followers here, I have been able to get a glimpse into the life of a Christian who actually had a relationship with God. Who talked to him casually multiple times in a day, absolutely loved opening up their bibles to try and better understand the great and unfailing love of our God, who couldn't wait to get up early Sunday morning to go to church, and who could tell me "I will pray for you," and I knew that they were being completely sincere in what they were saying.

After meeting and getting to know these wonderful people, I started to feel a great longing to have what they had with our Almighty God. So I started reading my bible more often (which started out as a struggle, because I still found it a bit dull), I made it a priority to pray every morning and night for everything that I could think to pray of, I started making prayer lists and when I would hear that a friend was struggling, I would put them on my list and make sure to pray about them at least once a day, I bought a new devotional book (a great help. I learned a lot through them), and I tried to avoid all of the temptations that would make me falter in the past such as swearing and other bad habits that I picked up from high school and it's great peer pressures.

I wish I could say that the first month went smoothly, but that would be a lie. It was hard, but I could feel a change happening inside me. A change that at the time seemed small, but by Christmas it had grown a substantial amount. I began to actually trust in God and believe that He was hearing all that I was praying for and He began to bless me with a completely new outlook on life. I began to trust again, which has always been hard for me to do, but most of all, I was starting to feel a genuine desire to be closer to my God and experience for the first time in my life what the feeling of love felt like.

Since then, I have been completely changed. I feel that God is the greatest part of my life and I can feel His love. It gives me great joy to know, without a doubt that my God loves me more than I could ever imagine and I know that it gives him joy to know that I know that I could never love someone as much as I love Him. I have given up a lot in these past two years so that I could grow closer to my God. I don't date anymore, because I want to spend more time thinking of my God and not some guy. When God shows me that I am ready to go out and find someone I am meant to spend the rest of my life with, He will let me know. No matter what people have and without a doubt will continue to tell me, I fully trust that He will let me know when I am ready to start looking for my "other half." I've also given up bad habits that I've struggled with most of my life. Some that I would not rather share with complete strangers, but things that I have lifted up to God and He has almost completely taken those temptations away. Sure, I still fall back into old ways, but every time I do something that is not pleasing to God, I cry for his forgiveness and try to stay away from what keeps me from honoring Him. My temptations have been lessened a great deal and I know that someday they will be completely gone and I am looking forward to that day!

Now that I know what a true relationship with God feels like, I am positive that I will trust in Him for the rest of my life, no matter how bad life may get. With God, I will never hit rock bottom. I can and will come close, but if I trust in my God, he will catch me before I fall too far. The bible tells me that God will never make me face trials that I am not strong enough to face. That doesn't mean that it will be easy and I know that. He's shown me that a few times now, but like I said earlier, He will NOT let me fall!"

This Whole Staying up Late Thing...

2010-01-16T02:04:00.000-08:00

It's really not for me, but for some odd reason, I can't bring myself to crawl into bed and pass out for the night. I've been exhausted all week long, because of a great lack of sleep and the entire mountain range of homework my first week back. I suppose it is my fault for taking 17 credits, most of which are English classes and one is the feared "War and Peace." It's the reading that's getting to me. I haven't had an excess of written assignments yet, but the reading is killer! In a few weeks, I'm hoping to have a decent homework schedule worked out that leaves time for a bit of a social life. Becoming a complete hermit this semester is NOT an option! Spending time with friends is very important to me. I need to be able to balance both a social (however small) and a school life. Also, I know that I haven't been updating my blog too often lately and I wish I said that I could do this more often, but it is hard to find enough time in this busy schedule. Today was good. I spent time OUTSIDE my room cheering on my Knights and then went for a movie night at Larry's apartment. The rest of my week was spent strictly on homework. I found little time for myself which resulted in unnatural levels of stress. When I get stressed, I tend to get a bit testy. My friends can attribute to the statement that I became annoyed easily and would snap at any rude/obscure gesture, how ever small they were. Things should get better as the semester goes on and I become more accustomed to my workload and hopefully stress levels will go down, at least a bit so that I can go back to enjoying life a bit more. It's only one hard week of classes. I'm just overreacting, right?

Re-kindle my Addiction?

2009-12-06T16:09:00.000-08:00

Sources are telling me that I should blog more often and you know what? I completely agree! I want to write this blog about a wonderful someone that I know. His name is God. Me and Him went on a date last night and stayed up together for hours. We talked about everything! My past, present, and dabbled a bit into my future. Pretty great stuff. He also let me in on a few bible verses that I needed to read to help me out with a few problems I've had lately. No problems that you have to worry about my kind readers, just small things that only my closest friends know about. Last night I went through my entire journal, reflecting on this past summer and my first few weeks at Warner as a sophomore. A lot of change has been happening inside me and I give God all of the credit! My God has given me so much lately and I am so incredibly grateful! I read one entry that I wrote during a mini freak out about what the future has in store for me and most of it was either asking God to help me or thanking Him for what He's already done. I'm glad to know that whenever I'm in a time of need, I run straight to my God and I'm hoping that I continue this habit for the rest of my time here on Earth. I am glad to say that since that entry, which was written a bit before midterm break, God has given me more insight on my future. He lead me to become an English major and with that I am thinking about working at a small Christian publishing company someday. I am one who loves to sit down and read a good book and to think that I could possibly help get more books published is an exciting thing to me! I would want to work for a Christian company, mainly because I do not want to help in publishing books that I find inappropriate and do not agree with in any way. I would love to help spread God's love in some way, and I believe that through books, my dream may just come true! How remarkable that would be!

This is Great!

2009-12-05T16:23:00.000-08:00

HowManyOfMe.com

There are

people with my name in the U.S.A.

How many have your name?

I thought I'd share :)

I Lied to You

2009-12-04T15:04:00.003-08:00

And I apologize! I promised that I would write another blog soon and I did not. How could you blame me? It's near the end of the semester and I'm getting a bit lazy. I started out this year great, getting all my homework done, studying, yadda yadda yadda. Unfortunately with the laziness comes a lack of motivation to blog. One thing that I absolutely love doing! So to my readers, I say sorry a hundred times over and I will try to write more often in the upcoming weeks.

I bet you all are wondering how Thanksgiving break went, because I know I have avid readers who must know what I'm doing at all times. To you, I say thank you :). So Thanksgiving break... It was a lot of fun! I hadn't been home in nearly two months. The longest I had ever been away from my family. They were thrilled to see me and I was ecstatic to be back, even if only for a few short days. My parents gave me the responsibility of preparing Thanksgiving dinner, and to my great surprise, I can cook.. WELL! My pies were scrumptious, and that was a direct quote from my brother. I saw a few of my Washington friends that weekend, which made me miss my Warner friends even more than I already did. On my way back down to school on Sunday night, I stopped by my friend, Steve's house who lives a little over an hour away from Portland (a little over an hour if I drive at least 85 the entire way) and hung out. I meant to leave by nine so that I could get back on campus at a decent hour, but ended up staying till 10:45, meaning that I got back at around 12:15 am and stayed up a little later waiting for my roomie to get back from church so that we could catch up on each other's weekends and start decorating our room for Christmas. She did all the decorating. I'm pretty sure I sat around on facebook, which in my opinion was the better option for me, since I fail at anything that has to do with decorating. So now our room is nice and festive for the holiday season :)

I just realized the other day that I have one more week until finals. It's not the finals that are getting to me though. It's the fact that I have to leave Warner for near a month. That's a bit long for me. If you haven't realized in the former posts, I'm quite a fan of WPC and being away from it for long periods of time is not something I like to do. I will enjoy more time with my family though. I do miss and love them dearly. If only they lived in Portland...

Other than that, life has been pretty decent. I still love near every aspect of Warner, I am deeply in love with my God, yearbook is going well, and the basketball team is having a great season. What more could I want? A nice bowl of cookie dough ice cream with a mug of hot cocoa would be nice.

This time I mean it. I will try to update this more often.

God bless you all!

I've Missed This + Carver

2009-11-06T11:12:00.001-08:00

The whole blogging thing. It's been in the back of my mind since I wrote my last one, which was midterm break. Wow. That's quite a while! I've been keeping myself busy with a lot these past few weeks with homework and other responsibilities. Alright. Quick recap on the happenings of Erin:

I'm starting to play piano again! Piano has been my passion for 12 years now, but last year when I started school I completely forgot of my love for it so I didn't play for a complete year. This fall I enrolled in a beginning piano course to try to relearn old techniques and it rekindled my passion! A couple of weeks ago, I printed out the song, "Deathbed" by Relient K and the other day I found, "Promise of a Lifetime" buy Kutless. Still have yet to play the Kutless song. I'm thinking of going over to the piano room after writing up this blog and get some practice done. These songs are fairly simple, but I need to start of at a lower level than I am capable of so that I can remember the techniques of basic play before I can go back to Bach and Beethoven. Soon enough I'll be back to my old skill level and hopefully excel to an even higher level.

You know how I wrote about missing home in my last blog? I really do! I was half tempted to go home this weekend, but because of money restrictions I decided not to. I miss my family so much right now! My mom sent me cookies the other day but she didn't send a card like she usually does and I realized how much I miss even a little note saying "I love you" from my mom. You'd think cookies would be enough! ;)

I wrote something in my Life and Teachings of Paul class a few days ago and meant to put it in my blog, but it completely slipped my mind. Here it is:
"Dr. Carver is a genius. I am sitting in class right now and am blown away. He's talking about the christology according to Paul, which is a simple concept, but the way he teaches it...WOW! You ask this man a question and he never fails to pull out the perfect bible verse. If he wrote his own study bible, I would buy a copy and recommend it to all of my friends! He gives me a much deeper understanding of christology and his faith is apparent. I especially love that he starts out every class with a significant bible verse pertaining to the lesson and prayer. There is a reason that Warner students call Carver the bible ninja!"
I remember last year, I was awed by Carver's intelligence, but his class seemed a little dull to be honest, but it's because of the class he was teaching. It was a freshman level class and I've come to realize that taking his upper level classes are far more interesting. Carver is a great professor. One that I will probably never forget.

I have much more to write about, but I will continue writing tomorrow. I promise :)

I'll Admit It....

2009-10-17T22:16:00.002-07:00

I really did miss home. We are now on midterm break and I'm laying in my new room. My parents decided that my brother could have my old room and they proceeded to move all of my belongings into the guest room (which has a bunk bed...not too shabby), so I am now officially a guest in my own home. I don't really see Washington as home as much as I do Warner Pacific these days, but you get my drift. My parents are slowly kicking me out. With love, of course :). Last year, after I got over the initial homesickness, It seemed like more of a chore to come home than a joy. I enjoyed spending time on campus too much to visit my family. I was pretty sure I would feel the same way this year, which I sort of do, but I actually become exited when I talk of my Washington home. I've really missed my parents and my puppy :). The first couple of days of midterm break, Heather and Rebecca came home with me, which was great, but I'd be lying to say that I wasn't a little glad that they left early. With no offense to them, I really wanted to spend a little one on one time with my family, and now that I have I'm feeling great! I am really going to miss them when I leave for Warner tomorrow, but I'll feel much better when I'm back in my Lower B room with my super fantastic roomie (who I miss like crazy, by the way)!

Other than that, I believe that it has been a while since my last update, so lets see what down this past week:

I know you are all wondering about my essay that I've been procrastinating on. I did finish it, thankfully! Sadly, I was not in class to turn it in, so I emailed it to my professor. Going to classes was not an easy thing to do this past week. On Monday, I had a horrible sneezing attack that had me laying in bed all day. The sneezing left me extremely light headed, so standing up was not an option.

Tuesday was a pretty good day! I took my English midterm, which, I am glad to say, went really well. Study in college kids! It's good for you! The best part of Tuesday was intramural volleyball, because...WE WON! Our very first win! we are now 1-2!! Our team played really well. Go Legits!

What else...Oh yeah, me and Nicki stayed up till 5 am on Wednesday (well technically Thursday, but you know what I mean). We started out our night by going to 7 Eleven for Slurpees and other goodies, then watched Glee. Nicki didn't stay to watch. I knew it wasn't her kind of show. I went back to our room a little after the show and Nicki texted me telling me that they were watching The Proposal in the guys lounge, so I rushed down to watch. It was a great movie! Two thumbs up from me. We hung out in the lounge till around 2, when we decided to be good and get back to our room and go to bed, but we didn't. I don't really remember what we did. Pretty sure we just talked and listened to music until 5 and woke up around 9. Nicki left for Pullman at 9:30, and I left shortly after for home, and this is where my blog comes full circle.

Glad to catch you up on the happenings of me :)

I'm going to read my bible and fall asleep. Goodnight everyone!

To Blog or Not to Blog

2009-10-12T00:32:00.000-07:00

The obvious answer is "to" of course.

Here's some advice to you prospective students. NEVER PROCRASTINATE IN COLLEGE! I did all weekend and now my homework load is stressing me out. Especially since this is midterms week. Dun dun DUUUUN! I haven't even started the essay for my 400 level class. Thank goodness only the rough draft is due on Wednesday. I am actually writing this blog as a form of procrastination. I am a horrible person. The worst thing about this is that I have nothing to write about. I am in quite a pickle. If you read my last blog, you saw that I lied about doing my work.

What did I do instead of homework you might ask? Let's see...I skipped brunch, then went to Safeway with Nicki where we bought sushi, chips, and two two liter bottles of Diet 7up. We got back and watched Jurassic Park with Heather and Rebecca (fondly known as Bitz). All of the food is now gone. Was gone before the movie ended. And let me tell ya, 2 liters of Diet 7up in less than 2 hours...oh man did I have to pee!! After relieving my bladder, us ladies went down to dinner. Dinner was no good, so I ate nothing. Me and Heather ended up going to Carl's Jr. where I got two delectable spicy chicken sandwiches. And boy were they good! A bit later, Nicki got back from church (by the way, Nicki went to church after dinner), and we made another trip to Carl's Jr. I bought chicken strips. YUMMY! And then I attempted to do homework, talked to an old friend from high school on facebook, and here I am. Laying in bed, my eyes begging to shut. I think I'll give into my heavy lids. Goodnight all!

Family Weekend

2009-10-10T19:41:00.001-07:00

As you may have noticed by the title, this weekend was family weekend. My parents came down to visit. It was the first time they saw my dorm room, and their first reaction was, "It's clean!" You see, my room last year was never clean. It was gross. For some reason, I now despise a dirty room. There is no explanation to my sudden need for cleanliness. I wish I could tell you how I changed so suddenly, but all that matters is that I did. Thankfully! Back to family weekend. We went out to dinner with Nicki's family at Sizzlers, which was delicious! We then went to the volleyball game and Concordia University. We lost sadly, but I had fun. It was the first game I went to this season. Afterward, Warner put on an ice cream social and gave us free mugs!

Cool aren't they? I thought so.

Sarah, Robin, Corby, and Ryan held me back at the ice cream social and filled my cup to the top, when I only wanted a small scoop or two. They were trying to get rid of the insane amount of ice cream that nobody else would eat. My roomie and I were able to finish the whole thing. Not gonna lie, it was yummy.

My parents left shortly after for the night and Nicki went to work out, so I decided to watch The Lion King. A good choice on my part. I realized that I have every single line memorized including tone of voices, grunts, and facial expressions. Also, I still tear up the scene that Mufasa dies. STILL! And you can ask anyone. I do not normally cry. Oh AND I always get chills when Mufasa comes to Simba in the clouds chanting, "Remember who you are." Lion King will remain one of my favorite movies for many years to come, that's for sure!

The next day, my parents went to McGuire to listen to Paul Young, author of the Shack speak then shortly after fixed my car! :D It has been dead for a few weeks now and since midterm break is coming up, I thought that it'd be a good idea to have a working car to drive home in. Note to my readers. Never name your car after your dead fish. It will die!

We went to lunch and left my car running. (Safe, I know). It should be good and healthy now. Then all the families went on a photo scavenger hunt. My family was put in a group with Ben Conn's family. We had a great time running around the city taking random pictures. Our team came in second and won a ten dollar gift card to Cold Stone! Ben was nice enough to give me the gift card. How sweet of him :). I'll post pictures of this after I steal Ben's memory card. Look forward to em!

I have not done any homework yet. Thankfully I don't have a large load due this week. Tomorrow (Sunday) will be completely dedicated to homework..possibly. :)

Make that Three

2009-10-08T20:21:00.000-07:00

THREE FOLLOWERS! Thanks Nicki :D

The Legits

2009-10-08T19:35:00.000-07:00

More like legit pansies! I'm on an intramural volleyball team also known as the Legits. Our original name was the Pansies and our bible verse was Joel 3:10-Beat your plowshares into swords and your pruning hooks into spears. Let the weakling say, "I am strong!" I thought it was pretty clever, but one person who is to remain nameless.... (Michael) did not like our team name, so we changed it to the Legits. We've played two games so far...and lost both of them, but I'm positive that we will win sometime...Probably not tonight sadly. Our best player is laying in bed sick, and the rest of us are....well...bad at volleyball. And we're playing The Volleyballers tonight. Even with our star player, we would probably lose against them, but it's all right. I'm in for the fun of it and I am enjoy playing some v-ball with my friends.

Tonight I'm going to start taking photos for my yearbook page. Yes, I am in yearbook and as photo editor, I feel that I've been slacking. I have zero pictures for my intramural volleyball page. That will change tonight. I've talked to one team, and they've allowed me to take a team shot. Their name, "The Badonkadonks." I haven't actually seen them play, but I'm going to go out on a ledge and say that they're a great team, but not as hard-core as the Legits ;)

Oh and a bit of good news. I officially have two, yes TWO followers on here! I'm starting to feel the pressure of popularity bearing down on me!

Exciting News!

2009-10-07T14:25:00.000-07:00

Hey reader(s?),
Great news!! I got an email, via facebook this morning asking if Warner could link this blog to their website! How swell :) I'm really excited and thankful that Warner thinks that my blog is worthy enough to be displayed to all. This is all thanks to Vik Schaaf. She let Kraig know about my blog, and the rest is history. Thanks Vik. This gives me motivation to continue writing. Hooray for Warner!

Please Hold Your Tears...

2009-10-06T17:35:00.000-07:00

...For this is not a sad occasion, but a joyous one! I now no longer have to constantly look over my shoulder in fear, I can stop twitching when I hear someone walk past my window, and I can walk outside at a humanly pace and enjoy the sunshine! If you haven't already guessed, I'm out of the game...on day two! It's not a huge deal. I wasn't as into it as I was last year. There was no evil scheming, lies (well...maybe a few), or large groups of people surrounding me this time around. I was playing for the fun of it. A freshman got me out. I believe her name was Chelsea. She was well planned. I hear that she waited in the lounge right outside my hall for hours! Congrats girl. I hope you go as far as I did last year :)

The Game!

2009-10-05T14:08:00.002-07:00

It has officially begun! "The Game!" A Warner tradition as of last year. If you've ever played assassins, it's the same thing, except we use socks. Also, indoors and off campus are safe zones. For the next two weeks, students will be running to class and constantly looking behind their backs to see if their "assassin" is after them. I've changed the route I take to get to every class, avoiding corners of buildings and large trees. Anything that could hide a potential assassin. It is day one and sadly my roommate is already out...I do not have an easy target. I saw this person in the cafeteria today, but I had to run to class, so I didn't get to attack my first target yet.

Last year, with the help of Nicki, I made it to the top 5! I believe I eliminated 6 targets. After Nicki got out last year, she would follow me wherever I went, making sure that no one was following us, or grabbing a sock out of their backpack. It got to the point where she would drive me to class! If you've never seen Warner, then you wouldn't fully understand the hilarity of this statement. Warner is minuscule. We have around 600 students this year and if you include the apartments, Warner takes up a little over 3 blocks. Last year's game was great and I hope for similar results this year. The only difference is that I found out who was after me last year and I figured out his schedule so I could avoid him at all costs. I have no idea who's after me this year and it's nerve-racking! Every time someone walks past my window, I'm looking out, hoping it's my target and I'm formulating plans for different scenarios. I am a hard-core member of the game. I think it would be so cool if I won this year.

Man! I am so jumpy! I hear voices and freak out! I feel like a stalker, staring everybody down through my window. John Cotton is eying me. Does that mean he thinks I have him, or does that mean he has me?!?! If he does, I'm as good as out. This guy knows how to play the game! He's the only person who got more players out than I did last year! I'm keeping an eye out for him. John has Cameron and he just walked by. Cotton just missed his target. Sad day. Oh well. He'll get him eventually. Like I said, Cotton's got skills!

Ooh quick update! Cameron is still in and he knows who his target is. Tricky tricky. OK well I'm off to class. Thank goodness it's in the same building I'm in right now. Hooray for safe zones!

Daily Blog?

2009-10-04T12:56:00.000-07:00

No way! If I had time, I would write a blog every day, but sadly I do not... I'm writing two days in a row because, for one, I have nothing to do but homework today, and two, I've decided to write a little bit about me just in case I do get some readers on here ;)

Alright, so let's start out with my name. I'm Erin Flynn....

That's me :)

Alright. Let's pick apart this picture. I am the one on the left. My good friend, Katie Dye is on the right. A little bit about Katie: She lives on the same hall as me and she is my designated hair dyer :). We've been friends since last year when we lived on Upper D (our current hall is Lower B). I have no idea why she is wearing a University of Portland shirt, when she goes to Warner Pacific...Silly Katie. Our thumbs are covered in paint. It is because we were painting a wall for community service. Us Warner kids love serving! Well at least some of us do. Our slogan here is "Where faith and scholarship lead to service." We are told that we need to do at least ten hours a semester, but so far, I have 24! Hmm.. This picking apart thing is a lot of fun! Let's do another!!!

This is a picture of Heather, me, and Nicki

OK well you already know who I am, so let's introduce the other two. These are my two closest friends. Heather, on the left is from Virginia and she also lives on my hall. The one on the right is my best friend, Nicki. She's my roommate :). This picture was actually taken at her house. As you see, there is a mound of food in front of us. We had a chocolate fondue and Disney movie night, even though we only watched one movie (Beauty and the Beast). This was taken on one of our many weekend adventures. This is actually the first full weekend I spent on campus this year. So far I've gone to Montana with Rebecca, Nicki, and Heather; Nicki's house with Nicki, Heather, and Jordan; My house with Rebecca, Nicki, and Heather; and Seaside with my parents and Nicki. Seeing a pattern here? Rebecca, Nicki, and Heather are my closest friends here at Warner. Heck. They're my closest friends PERIOD! So yeah. That's all I got for this picture :) One more? I think so!

Nicki, Matt Thiessen, And me

Yes folks. That is Matt Thiessen of Relient K. This is actually the second photo I have of him. Me and Nicki went to a RK concert a month after school ended last year. It was amazing, to say the least. I've gone to over 30 concerts in my life and this was my number one! True, I did almost pass out and I had to sit on the ground to keep my head from spinning, but that added to the excitement! Funny fact about this concert. There was a guy totally hitting on Nicki the entire time and four months later, she says to me, "You know, I think that guy at the Relient K concert may have liked me..." I was like, "Ya think?" But yeah, great concert. The Classic Crime and Owl City was also there.

So back to me. I completely forgot that this blog was supposed to be about me, but I guess you got some insight to my life via photos.

The most important thing about me is that I am a Christian. One who is in a deep relationship with Jesus Christ. He is my everything. If you've met me, then you already know this about me. I talk about my God whenever a chance opens up :)

I love horses. Yeah, I know, sounds lame. But I'm not like ooh look mommy! A pony! No. I actually ride and I'm well educated in riding and instructing. I believe that horses are an animal that is to be respected. I was thinking about working at a summer camp for riding, but I'm not sure that is what God wants me to do, so I am going to pray about it until He gives me a clear answer.

I do not date. I have in the past, but that is not who I am anymore. I am also not looking for a relationship. I am in the best relationship right now with my God and it is getting stronger day by day. I have sworn off guys for this year. I believe that when God knows I'm ready to find the guy I am going to marry, He will let me know, but for now I am loving the single life :)

I go to Warner Pacific (if that wasn't obvious) and this place is showing me who I really am. So far, my relationship with God has grown more than I thought possible, I've met some amazing people. People who I hope to have in my life for years to come, and of course, this place is forcing me to mature.

Anyways that is basically me. If you want to know anything else, look up my facebook. :)

God Bless!

Getting Started

2009-10-03T15:37:00.000-07:00

Well I just started my account. I thought it'd be a good way to keep family and friends updated on my life here at Warner. This year has been great so far. I have made a complete 180 to what I was last year. I do my homework, get a full nights rest, read my bible on almost a daily basis, eat better, I've stopped snacking (mainly because I can't afford food), coffee is no longer a staple to my survival, and I keep my side of the room clean! It's true that I don't have much of a life outside of schoolwork, but I'm OK with the fact. Especially since I'm rooming with my best friend, so I get a lot of my needed social interaction in my room while doing school work.

I've been told that it is a horrible idea to room with your best friend, but I didn't listen to the warnings, and I'm glad! I have the best roommate ever! It's great to live with someone I'm completely comfortable with and already knows everything about me, so we never had to go through that awkward stage that some roomies have to suffer through the first few weeks of college. In all honesty, I was a bit worried about rooming with Nicki. I was scared that us spending so much time together after a summer of barely seeing each other, we'd want to rip each others heads off within the first week! But we definatly do not have that problem and I'm glad! We have the perfect schedules to where we spend plenty of time together, but at the same time, we have a bit of time to be alone with ourselves for silent reflection, or, usually in my case, homework. I can't describe how excited I am that it worked out for us being roommates. I'm pretty sure I found my roommate for the rest of my college career!

Oh and my hall is great! I have Rebecca next door, Kim, Katie, and Heather are right down the hall as well! I love having all of my closest friends right here with me. Our entire small group is on this hall as well, which is a huge plus, cause they are girls I feel I can talk to about my walk with God more than I can with anyone else. I don't know what I would do without my friends here at Warner. I would not be nearly this happy without them!

Alright so Now on to classes. This year I'm taking 15 credits. A normal amount, but I decided that a 400 level class would be a great idea for a sophomore. DON'T DO THAT! I love my class, but it's stressing me out. OK here's my class schedule....

Monday:
11:00-12:15~History of Christianity
Great class! Professor Cassie Trentaz is amazing!
1:00-2:15~History and Systems of Psychology
This is my 410 class. It's not an easy one, but it's definatly interesting.
2:15-4:00~Yearbook
I'm photo editor..YAY!
4:00-4:50~Class Piano
It is sooo easy. I haven't told my professor that I've played 12 years of my life ;)

Tuesday:
10:30-11:20~Chapel
The usual. Worship is really good this year
11:35-12:50~Urban Literature
Not as much reading as Global Literature thankfully
1:00-2:15~Life and Teachings of Paul
Taught by Carver. The "Bible Ninja." He's such a good professor

Wednesday is the same as Monday, except that I don't have yearbook. Thursday is the same as Tuesday, and I have no Friday classes!

Other than that, life has been good. I spend most weekends off campus, going to various places like Montana, Nicki's house, my house, and Seaside. There's really nothing else going on with my life at the moment, but I'll keep you updated as things change :)