School is wrapping up!!

I told myself to not blog again until my Japanese Pop Culture paper was finished...and now it is! ::dances:: =D No more papers for the rest of the semester!! Only finals!!

Here's what I've been up to..

Tokyo BEST club members came to Tucson! It was so great! We had so much fun entertaining Mary, Naoko, Masashi, and Saori, even with the general lack of things to do here...

We had a bbq, a baking party, went shopping, got lotsa Jamba Juice, went to church, played sports, went to Mt. Lemmon, and just had a fun time! It was also kinda crazy because it was the same weekend as the Noblemen ceremony and Mike and Ryan and even Ariel couldn't get much sleep from working with that, but we made it work!

Here is Taro and Masashi...oh I love this picture.
Then I went to the Switchfoot concert, with opener Copeland! Yay! This was a blast! Andy, John M., Cory, Michael, and Shawn went too!

Copeland was really good, but really weird while performing. Apparently they're always that way. Anyways I got to meet the whole Copeland band and get their autographs.

Then Switchfoot...oh they are just awesome performers! It was a super show! they tried to play 4 songs all at once :P And they played a few of their old songs! and Jon came and walked around in the audience for "Shadow Proves the Sunshine!" And the way they played "Faust" was so cool! And of course "We Are One!" (my fav!) (so I took a lot of pictures and videos this night, but they aren't loading. They didn't come out well anyway. For the videos, either the music's too loud so that you can't hear it, or it's quiet so you can hear me singing off key in the background. Embarassing!!) You can listen to the Tucson show at Switchfoot Bootlegs - they give out free bootleg CDs at every concert this tour! How cool is that?

Then it came time for me to write my book report for Chinese calligraphy...oh this class. Actually I'm learning a lot about humility. (this is from when I first started out)

I don't think I can ever be good at this, but I guess I'm improving. But for the book report, I picked out a book that was made for people that can't understand Asian calligraphy, and I actually enjoyed what I learned from that. It is a really cool art form, and it struck me while studying its history and techniques...God created this! It'll be a while before I can master it.(This is a recent assignment. You may think it looks cool, but you haven't seen the work of my classmates! I have a looong way to go).

And I watched the long Pride and Prejudice with Jen! It's sooo good! But what did I notice the most out of this viewing?

That Elizabeth looks a lot like Naoko!! Crazy!

BEST club also did some recruiting recently, you can read about it here. Wish I was there...

Easter was cool too. It was like every other Easter, except I was forced to hunt eggs again :/. I got to spend a lot of good time with my family and see my relatives on Easter day. My cousin Sarah has really grown up... And I went to my parents' church and it was really good. He talked about the truth of Christ's resurrection, the doubt we can have of its happening, and the faith it takes to trust Him and see that He is real and worth living for. I really liked it. It talked a lot about cultural relevancy and stuff, which is relevant to life today (imagine that?) But seriously it was good. We seriously have a lot to be thankful for God's gift of His Son. It's so much more than eggs.

And, I got a new job, a long-term job at CESL (the Center for English as a Second Language)! I am now a student activity coordinator! That means I plan the trips for the international students! Along with that, I hold office hours in the lounge for students to just come to me for help with homework or just to chat and practice English! It's really cool and I'm really exited... everyone has been so nice so far! Most are from Turkey and Saudi Arabia, and they are fascinating to talk to! The job is a lot more intimidating than I imagined, but I think once I get the hang of it I know I'll love it! Here's me and Alyssa, who will continue her job as an activity coordinator and teach me the ropes until she graduates in May, and maybe hang out over the summer too.
Then just now I finished up my Japanese pop culture paper. I had to watch anime to write it :( but I am happy with my paper. I compared the families in My Neighbor Totoro and Spirited Away. I think it turned out well. And Totoro is really cute...but I don't like anime anymore! Ahh!

What else?... hm, well I've been learning a lot from Christine Hnat's blog. She's this girl who is getting married to a guy she met blogging, a bloke named Mike from Austrailia! The whole engagement thing happened back in November and it's been fun to follow. But even better, she likes to post up discussions about Biblical roles for men and women and what can be done to encourage each other to live out and love their role. So who wouldn't want to read all of that? It's awesome - Check it out!

Also, Krista and I have been talking a lot about me becoming a Bible study leader next year. I definitely want to do it. I've been "discipled" for so long, so I would really like to give back a little. The idea of recruiting has started to scare me a little, but Krista's coming along side me to prepare me. And it's cool to start praying for next year's freshman now. I hear the current junior class prayed for us, and we all prayed for this year's freshman. Crazy to think about what may happen next year.

Through this, and my job, and my friends, I'm learning a lot, a lot more about fear, how it's okay to fear, and even cooler to move in the midst of that fear and trust God, and that I think about my future waaaay too much, and that I've been so busy trying to be used that I've forgotten to sit at Jesus' feet. ...Hey, that sounds like Martha. Guess that's why we have the Bible... Wow.

But through highs and lows, it's been cool, seeing how He's still been so faithful to me no matter what I do. I feel like I've learned more from this school year than ever before (esp. if you count last summer - dang gina!) and I really am happy to move on to this summer and next year. it's really sad too... Taka and Mizuki go back to Japan in less than a month! And Taro in July! That's insane. I am REALLY sad to see them go! I don't know how I can keep them here though. But who knows what next year's gonna be like. Certainly I could never have dreamed where I'm at now.

Well like I said, I need to stop thinking about it and just see what happens. We shall see!