This One's for you Tracy

About a month ago my friend Tracy "tagged" me in one of her posts. I had no idea what that even meant. Apparently I was supposed to follow the lead of her post and respond to the following questions. At the time I balked (remember, I don't like peer pressure) but currently I am "studying" for my classis exams tomorrow and am obviously desperate for distractions. So here we go:

4 Things I Did 10 Years Ago (1998)
...lived in a house with 16 other women with barely any drama.
...got caught streaking by Hope College's Public Safety (I completely blame Elizabeth, Libby and Jenny B. Amy, you, as our fearless get-away driver did your best).
...had a crazy Young Life summer which involved a month at Windy Gap, followed directly by a week hiking in Colorado, followed directly by a week at Castaway.
...was asked to lead a spring break trip to a country I had never heard of before: the Dominican Republic.

4 Things I Did 5 Years Ago (2003)...
...was in my third year of working for Young Life in Santiago, Dominican Republic.
...survived the first mass exodus of my close friends in the DR.
...navigated the insurance system in the DR after getting in a car wreck.
...spent a month eliminating as much English from my life as possible in hopes to learn more Spanish. This included watching the dubbed version of Blue Crush many, many times.

4 Things I Did Yesterday...
...went to church.
...tried to figure out if I had food poisoning or just my normal odd digestion (yes, that seems like an oxymoron...welcome to my life).
...walked on the beach with three good friends and three crazy dogs.
...went to a concert at a coffee shop.

4 Shows I Love To Watch (in no particular order)
...So You Think You Can Dance
...The Amazing Race
...The Office
...LOST

4 Things That Make Me Really Happy
...sunshine (especially when sitting in it).
...my friends (especially all those with crazy dogs).
...cookies (especially oatmeal chocolate chip).
...sitting on the beach (especially during that time of day when the light makes everything look extra beautiful).

Fired Up

It's been a while, and I had pretty much resigned myself to being done with the blog. The main reason being that I couldn't figure out what the purpose of blogging was. When I first started this sucker it was to keep people in the loop about Africa (and save me from writing email updates). And then I kept it up due to peer pressure (which is never a good reason to do anything). And then I stopped to prove that I don't always fold to peer pressure. Plus I started getting squeamish about posting my thoughts (I mean what I really think) on the internet. Especially thinking through being a chaplain at Hope College (yes, I have now mastered the divine and have a job). I have been thinking through what public life versus private life looks like as a person in a smallish community with a fairly public profile (these thoughts, by the way, may someday become a post in and of themselves...it will be entitled: "Longing for Days When People Didn't Try to Sneakily Look Into My Cart to See What I am Buying at the Grocery Store").

So why this post, this morning? Because I read this on the internet this morning and I got pretty internally fired up. I mean, you have got.to.be.kidding.me.

This is the point in the post where I am supposed to explain more fully and eloquently why this has fired me up and why I think it should fire you up too. Or question again why the heck it is that I live in this country? But I'll let you do your own thinking. Plus, I have been waiting for an incentive to get a new car and so I need to get on the road to go and take advantage of this offer given that it expires at the end of the month...