The Bright Side

Okay, so I guess I've been kind of a downer lately, for reasons that some of you know but are not really that important to begin with. So I've decided to go back over the last week and find all the things that were great about it.

1) The Over the Line tournament-- Fun stuff! Our college group split into about fifteen teams of three and went down to Coronado last Sunday afternoon for a little OTL. I played with Justin #2 and Tyler, and in keeping our OTL tradition from last year, we won the first two by a lot and then lost both the next games which kicked us out of the running. But then we played with a few of the other teams that had lost, which included Jesse, Brittney, James, and just had a no-pressure game, which was way more fun. I just want to put it on record right now that, while I can hold my own at bat, I am terrible at catching, but I managed to snag on of our very own baseball legend James McHugh's fly balls out of the air. That was my amazing moment of the day, and I am really quite proud of it.

2) Stupid movie night-- I got to spend some quality time with the Justins on Wednesday night. They had rented two stupid movies a few days earlier, and we watched the second one after we got foot long Subway sandwiches (yum, yum). This movie was defintely the stupidest of all stupid movies we have ever watched, and I am not even going to reveal its title here, lest any of you decide to actually go and waste money renting this horrible film.

3) College group dance lessons-- Don't freak out, all you CHC-ers! This is church-run, choreographed, and Doug Damon-approved. Question of the day: What do you get when you put two blondes together and try to teach them to dance? ..... Well, maybe not the exact routine, but Jesse and I still have a lot of fun! Actually, we do pretty well. We've been learning a lot of swing, and recently we've started a few other types, too. It's really fun seeing all of your friends' attempts at coordination. My friends, Kevin Costner and his dancing partner, are especially entertaining (see Liberty and Justin #2's xanga sites for details).

4) Friday chapel-- well, after a week of the Bible conference and one of the hardest to follow speakers I have ever heard, we had an amazing guy talk to us on Friday. This guy, Chris something, is a youth pastor at North Coast Church (not sure where that is), and he totally knew how to appeal to our college-level attitudes... he brought in flannel graph. Flannel graph! The guy's a genius! We were all on the edge of our seats as he put up pictures of David, Moses, a tree, Noah's ark, clouds, and even flannel depictions of heaven and hell. It brought me back to my childhood. Anyway, his main point was about God's love. Sounds simple, right? But the way he explained it all was just what I needed to hear right then. Best chapel all semester. We need that guy at the Bible conference next year.

5) Lip sync contest-- Well first of all, the best part of the night was my very own teammate's daring Sadie's invitation at the end of the well-known Relient K song (see Frijole's site). Other memorable moments were the girls soccer teams' line dancing, Paul's enldless list of puns, "Tina Turner and Aretha Franklin", and Josh's oh-oh-oh's, while dancing onstage in his khaki pants. It was great, and next year, I am so going to be part of it.
Afterward, Jenna and I went to Denny's with Jig and Spike, where the two guys told us funny stories about each other, before finally turning on us and demanding our own embarassing stories. I couldn't think of any, only stupid things I've said or done, that didn't really embarass me. But guess what, guys? I finally thought of one, and my friends agree that this is a good one. I'll tell ya all about it on Sunday.

6) Saturday night with friends-- Started off really good and promising, but we ran into some "disagreeable" things midway. But I learned a very valuable lesson through it: I have the best friends in the entire world. Actually, I already knew that, but that night just re-enforced my opinion. Johannah and Brittany and I spent a lot of time talking, while the guys, knowing I was upset, picked out a movie that they knew I liked, and convinced Johannah to make popcorn just for me, because they know I love it. Then they would not even start the stinkin' movie until I was in there with them, comfortably set up on the couch with my popcorn. I know this doesn't make much sense to anybody who wasn't there, but to those of you who were: I am so blessed to have you as my close friends. Justin, Justin, Jesse, Brittney, and Johannah-- you guys are awesome, and you have no idea how much I appreciate you.

So all in all, it has been a pretty good week. Sometimes you've just got to step around the disagreeable things in life and spend time focusing on the good ones.