Today I walked into a small gym, where I approached the lady with the clip board of last names A-L. She then checked my name off and pointed me to the ballot lady. The ballot lady then gave me the precious folded piece of paper, not the cheap kind, it was thicker, and the words Official Ballot were on the front. She also gave me a sticker, where if I wanted to I could have gone to Starbucks for a free cup of coffee. Then I saw the curtains. I approached them confidently, looked for one that no legs were visible underneath, and found a good spot towards the end. I closed the curtain and instantly felt more grown up. I opened the piece of paper, read the directions, because I want my vote to count, and started the process. 3/4 of the names I didn't recognize, but I made a distinct "x" next to McCain and Palin. I folded the paper up, and walked to the Ballot Collectors who took my name and address and crossed off my name so I couldn't vote more than once. And then it went... into the box with all the other votes. I voted for the first time today, and it felt so cool.

The End.

Hairstyles: I'm gonna hang out with Lis on Friday and am possibly bringing back a hairstyle I haven't had since I was 8. I guess you will just have to wait and see...

The Election: Tomorrow is my first time being able to vote ever. I'm kind of excited... mainly because it will all be over.

The Pharisees: Why is it so east to create our own rules and regulations and lose sight of what truly matters... believing in and loving Jesus?

Quote from my Educational Psych Class:

"We Remember...
10% of what we read
20% of what we hear
30% of what we see
50% of what we see and hear
70% of what we discuss with others
80% of what we experience personally
95% of what we teach"

This quote scares me, because this is proof that teaching is difficult. It's hard to make learning fun and memorable, and as a hopeful future teacher someday, this quote is really eye opening for me.


My prayer for the evening:

"Open the eyes of my heart Lord, I want to see you."

I'm listening to the song "Wedding Dress" by Derek Webb and am thinking about sin and how it takes away from God. The distraction it plays to pull us away from Him and everything I strive to live for. Does anyone else ever get frusterated with how weak we can be or how self-righteous we can be in judging others when we are capable of the same things?


In other news from my deep thinking I want to watch gilmore girls season 7. I also have a good amount of homework. blah.

I am taking the NaBloPoMo (National Blog Posting Month) Challenge! It's with Pastor Darin and Jackie though so it will be all good :)

I'm still trying to decide on where I will be posting, but for today it's right here!

The haunted house went over pretty well. Gotta go tear things down today and then I can close the book on it and be done!

So I have some random thoughts about last night's haunted house and halloween and in general that I'm trying to work through...

The first is that it was kind of fun to be scary, mainly with the older kids. I was actually feeling quite amused all evening. I heard everything from "you're not scary," to "ahhh!! you're so scary" to pure shrieks just from pointing a fake black rose in their direction. I also got hit on by about 5 junior high boys. My favorite was the one that sat down next to me, took off his mask, waved his hair around like that annoying prince in shrek. Then proceeded to tell me that he was already an "eternal vampire" ahahaha. It was hysterical. But some things weren't so funny.

Motherly instints that surprised me were coming out last night. Do you know what it's like to see about 40+ students from the school that you work at walk through? Some were fine and smiled at me when they recognized me and were giggling at my costume and said, "Hi Miss LaFave!" But then you had the others that walked through with pure terror on their face. I immediatley took my fake teeth out and spoke loud and clear saying it's all pretend and I got my costume at a store just like they did. But a few of the kids I knew really well still looked at me with such fear in their eyes and struggled with wondering if they could trust me even though I was offering them candy without having to go into the vault. Those looks are what I've been thinking about this morning. It's amazing how easy it is to fall in love with the students you work with and that urge in me that jumps out to do whatever I can to protect them. I know it was all fun and games, but some of the kids were so young and the fear in their eyes was unmistakable and it left me feeling awful. Hopefully at school on monday they will be all smiles and say that they saw me. But I can't help but wonder if some of the trust they had in me might be gone.

I also was thinking about an analogy. When we are faced with fear we lose sight of everything. I do that with God. When I am faced with a situation that scares me or angers me my faith completley shatters and it's because I am so in the situation I lose sight of the One in control. Just like the kids who knew they could trust me, couldn't even look at me or listen to the words of comfort I spoke because they were dwelling in fear.

Does anyone ever wonder how Job did it? I don't get it, the slightest thing and I feel my faith crumble. I don't want to be like that. Is it because Job had a good life and had years of practicing his faith without trials? I wonder if that makes the difference? In my case however I have been through some awful things in my 21 years before I accepted Christ, and up till now. My life has been up, down, sideways, all over the place. So I can't help but wonder... if Job's years of practice of getting to know God without facing trials, and the distraction and pain that come with them, made his faith what it was? So that when He finally was faced with trials He was ready for them?

Is that my problem? That maybe I have never truly gotten to a point of knowing and loving God deep enough so that when I come face to face with a trial I don't lose sight of my trust in Him? It was like the older kids that went through the haunted house, years of practice and experience gave them the wisdom that everything was pretend. That was why more of the older kids were able to go through the haunted house and break a smile. Maybe in my faith I am still the small child who is doubting and wondering what is true and real. Maybe I haven't had enough time to stand up before the next thing knocks me back to my knees.

I truly have no idea, but I would like to hear from others about my analysis of Job's life. Do you think the lack of trials in his life up until the time they all hit played a big part in making his faith stronger?

This is going to be very random because I'm starting to feel guilty that I haven't been blogging...

There are so many things I want to do before Christmas. I want to go to NYC and see everything all lit up and beautiful. I want to go to the beach when it's snowing... just because I think that must be beautiful as well. I want to go to Pennsylvania to see my friends! Well... I guess that's not such a long list :)

In other news I'm addicted to a fiction book series about a girl who falls in love with a vampire. Definetley not anything I thought I'd ever read but a lot of my friends have been raving about them. I really enjoyed the books and am looking forward to the movie coming out!!!

I finally have a work buddy as of monday so my stress has gone down A LOT!

I'm heading up a crew to help out with the haunted house at Charlie's.


There I blogged.... :)