Jibbin-Cornfields and Puddle Hoppin

There has been a ridiculous amount of time since last time I posted. A lot has been going on and changing for me. I’m not going into the details though. Over the weekend I spent some time with friends I don’t normally see, including one of my best friends who came in town for the weekend from England. I’m not sure how the idea came up but two of my friends who are particularly good at skiing decided that they wanted to “jib cornfields “ and go “puddle-hoppin”. This was not something I had ever witnessed, but I decided that I better take pictures!

I don’t think too many of my pictures turned out amazing due to the fact that I didn’t use my zoom lenses, and therefore I had to do a large amount of cropping and they only cleared the jump a limited number of times.

Below are a few pictures I took…if you have any suggestions or comments please leave them!

 

Thankyou!

Bad News

My friend who lives in China has recently tried to view my page and she couldn’t because it is blocked there…looks like I can’t use this blog to keep in touch while I am there next year. But I will for sure link the blog I keep there to this blog!

On the bright side I posted a few pictures yesterday on flickr. I have lots more to post, just not the time because I have been busy studying for exams.

Here are a few:

They were taken in Perrysburg, Ohio
Click on the pictures to view larger. Thanks!

Attitudes

I despise journaling, which is ironic because blogging is similar to journaling. I have probably five different journals in my room with about three entries in each one. When reading through my journals on a later date I always find myself sounding petty, in particular when writing about the latest drama or problems I’m having with people. This is stupid because often this is the point of a journal.

Today, while in my room, I found a journal that I wrote in October of 2007. I had a record of five journal entries, each one becoming less detailed and shorter. I started journaling, in this particular journal, after my great grandmothers memorial service. At the time I found out that she kept a journal. Great Grammy, my great grandmother, wrote more about her beliefs, and about life in general in her journal, in comparison to the petty things I mentioned that I usually kept in mine. Her journal held things similar to what someone might keep in their blog verses their diary, because she gave a lot of insight .

 

At her memorial service a passage from her journal was read:

 

“The longer I live, the more I realize the impact of attitude on life.

Attitude, to me, is more important then the past,

than education, than money, than circumstances, than failures, than successes,

than what other people think or say or do.

It is more important then experience, giftedness, or skill.

It will make or break a company, a church, or a home.

The remarkable thing is everyday regarding the attitude we will embrace for that day.

We cannot change our past.

We cant change the fact that people will act a certain way.

We cannot change the fact that people will act a certain way.

We cannot change the inevitable.

The only thing we can do is play on the one string we have and that is our attitude.”

 

At the time this passage really resonated with me, and still does today. When I am confused about others or my own life it helps just to read through this passage. It helps me to, more or less, get my priorities straight.

 

Hello world!

I have found myself starting a blog. I am honestly not really sure why. My friends who have blogs write about traveling, their faith, photography, and life in general.

One reason why I am starting a blog is because that’s how I will keep in touch with my family and friends next year when I am in China for three months teaching English.

Instead of graduating from high school and immediately going to college as most teenagers do I have decided to take a gap year. Gap years are very popular in Europe and other regions of the world, but, sadly, are only usually considered in the United States by teens with a lot of money to blow. My friend Zivile, my grandmother, and a few other individuals really helped me make this decision. I have no idea what I would like to major in college and to me a gap year is an amazing way to learn more about what I may want to do in the future.

I do not have my entire year planned out but what I have so far is that I will go on an outbound course for three weeks, and sail from Maine to Bermuda and back and go to China, and teach English. This will keep me occupied from graduation until the end of November of 2009. After that I will come home fill out college applications for two weeks and spend two weeks in Costa Rica with my entire family. After that im clueless to what I will be up to. I have friends in Europe who I would love to visit, and I would love to volunteer in Africa. I also have a very strong interest in photography. Maybe I will figure out a way to work all three of those things into my “second semester” of my Gap year. 

 

 

This is a picture I took when I was in China in 2007. Not an amazing picture but it holds a lot of memories.

 

 

 

I am never alone. Faith is a hand to hold in times of light or shadow.