My Thoughts on Transformers 2

It’s the biggest blockbuster of the summer, and everyone is talking, thinking, blogging about it. So here are my thoughts on this summer’s most explosive film.

Transformers 2, for me, started out very promising. Two years after the original Sam is going off to college, Mikaela is working in her dad’s shop and the autobots are teamed up with the US army hunting the remains of autobots left here on earth. However as the movie progresses the story becomes lost in battle scene after battle scene. I started to wonder what was going on and why all of these giant robots were fighting. While the first Transformers has the luxury of setting up back story on the autobots and develop main characters (both robot and human) there was still more of a story to fallow that kept you plugged into the movie. While watching Transformers 2, the reason I kept watching was to see when the story was really going take off. I felt that the basic plot was masked by big explosions and forced jokes. I really wanted to see characters interact with each other more. My two favorite scenes were when Sam goes to meet with Optimums Prime and Prime asks for Sam’s help, and when Sam and Bumblebee have an all to short of talk around a camp fire while they are in hiding.

Not to say that I did not enjoy the movie, because I did. I just think that it was lost by fireworks and clanging metal. I am looking forward to seeing it again, and hopfully getting more out of it a second time around. Why would I see it again, if I did not think it was the greatest movie of all time? Well I mean come on, who does not enjoy robot battles? Overall thoughts: 3.7 stars out of 5.

Running

When you live in the Coloradon rockies for nine months 8,684 feet is not a big deal after a while. You get used to the altitude and befor long are able to run around for two hours in a small gym playing indoor soccer.

I went running on Wednesday morning and found something rather interesting. As I was running my lungs did not get tired. They were full of air and I was not breathing hard at all. It was one of the easiest runs I had ever been on. Well, until my legs began to scream at me. My knees ached, my caves were tight, and my thighs were super sore. So as I’m running, my lungs are full of air and breathing like I am walking and my legs feels like they are about to fall off! Such a weird combination.

I think that this is how my spiritual life is at the moment. My lungs have gotten strong and are able to soak in everything needed for me to function, while my legs have not had a decent amount of exercise and need to get strong again. I need to start practicing and applying what I have learned at Ravencrest. The only question is, what does that look like. I guess this summer will let me know.

That’s really all I got, and it’s time for my morning run anyway. peace out.

The Final Week at Ravencrest

[This was supposed to be posted a while back, but thanks to slow internet it was not.]

Well, the last week of Ravencrest is finally here. It is crazy to think that it is the end. It’s one of those things that you think wont ever get there, and then suddenly you are facing it; like getting your drivers license. Crazy to think that I have been living here for 9 months. I feel as if I have known the people here for my whole life, and I can’t imagine life without them. I keep having this feeling that I’ll come back in a few weeks and see them all again. This place feels like home to me now, and I love it here.

Tonight is the showing of the yearbook, and to tell the truth, I’m finding myself being a bit nervous. I hope that people like it. I hope that I am able to get dvd’s to people this summer.

The other thing that I have been thinking about is keeping in contact with people from here when I get home. I don’t just want to go home and forget the people here. I want relationships that I have made to continue to grow and become deeper. It’s going to take some work. Realistically there is no way that I can be best friends with everyone, but there is definitely a list of people that I would love to keep in contact with.

This last week has looked a little like this: classes, last laundry day, hangin out in the sunshine,

Fear

I’m not sure that the only thing that we have to fear is fear itself. You may ask what I mean by this. I think that what people are really afraid of is not knowing. Even the people who say that they are fine with not knowing, may fool themselves. This thought of fear came to my mind this morning at 6:24 am or so.

I got up early this morning to hit up some snowboarding action behind the student parking lot. I was the only one out there, and the snow was rather icy from melting all day the day before and then freezing over night. And even though I have been boarding since I was in 7th grade a great sense of fear came over me. Why? What was I so afraid of? Sure it was a bit icy, but that had never stopped me before. I think that I was afraid because I did not know what was on the other side of the jump. How steep the trail was. I was unfamiliar with my surroundings. This was a type of environment that I had never tried to board in before. It makes me wonder why that people can be so scared of what is “new” or “unfamiliar” to them.

I think that most people are content to leave life the way that it is, for as long as possible. Anything else outside that world that they know is scary and strange. So we leave things the way they are to prevent ourselves from being hurt physically, emotionally, relationally, or even spiritually. I don’t want the unknown to hold me back.

I’ve been learning a lot of what it means to give up everything to God. That includes the future that He has for me. I had a plan, but that plan seems to be falling out and now all I am left to do is to sit and wait on Him. I’m not sure what I’m going to do with my future. It’s messy and foggy and nothing seems to fit. And its ok. I’m continued to be reminded that God is bigger than 36,000 dollars. That He is sufficient and wants the absolute best for me, and will bring me there. He is bigger than my plans, my dreams, and my attempts to do things my way. And even though I’m about to make my way into unfamiliar territory, I find myself being less and less afraid and being filled with excitement.

I don’t want to leave Ravencrest Chalet, but God has something big for me around the next corner. Even though the ground feels icy, and a bad fall could seriously hurt me, I’m feeling at peace. I may only be rambling about nothing at all of importance to anyone, but I guess I just have a lot on my mind. I guess that my point is, I’m not afraid anymore.

For Destry

So, I happened to check my facebook the other day. and I had a “wall post” from Destry that said “molly you must give me an update on your life seeing as your blog has long since been updated.” And so with that I signed in distress and shook my head. If there was a blogging class I would get an “F.” This I am conviced of.

I have six weeks left of school here at Ravencrest. This thought does sadden me greatly. I have a million things to do. Besides homework, I have a yearbook to work on, some student council stuff, money to continue to find, and books to read. The list just keeps on getting longer. Some exciting things have been happening though.

Over spring break myself and a group of 8 of my fellow students flew back to California, and we spent a week down in Mexico. I don’t think I have ever had such a grand time with friends down there before. We also got the opportunity to do some serving down there. Played with kids, passed out toys, served people food, and pulled lots of weeds. The rest of our time was spend hanging out on the beach and enjoying each other company very much. West loved the boys and glued himself to Matt the whole time. We went to the hot springs almost everyday, watched disney and dreamworks movies almost everynight, and ate lots of yummy food. It was a little bit of a bummer because there was not much wind to ride the land sails while we were down there, but we still had an awesome time. Back in California, we went to the beach, Downtown Disney, and a mall or two. Just hung out mostly. Great spring break. I think my favorite one of all time.

Lauren is coming to visit me in a few weeks! I’m sooo excited to see her. And for her to see what going to school here is like. I thik that she would love it. Planning to go to a pro soccer game as well, while she is here, and that will be awesome. I’m hoping to have the yearbook mostly done by the time she gets here.

Also, after school gets out, that night I am flying out to Chicago to meet up and hang out with Evan for a few days. Mom says that she thinks it will be a good transition for me. Going strait from here to home, could be a little rough. Since I’ve poured most of myself into here. But, I am rather excited about hanging out in Chicago for a few days. Hoping to even see some friends from RC while I am out there as well. Which will be fun.

Oh boy, there is just so much going on. Does life ever slow down? Maybe it only gets faster as we get older. They were not kidding when they said that time flys when you are having fun. Holy cow…it’s April 5th.

Coming to you live from Mexico

Spring break is here! Currently, I find myself on the floor of the living room laughing at Matt because is hair has been straitened. gross. This is our second night here. We arrived yesterday afternoon and explored the world. Tried to use the land sails, but we are uncertain of how to use them exactally. There are quite a lot of pullies.

The friends from school who have joined me south of the border are Joe Britt, Amanda Peterman, Matt Stern, Sarah Weibe, Rachel Roskilly, Eric Goosen, Katie Mansfeild, and Alicia Kewit. We have been haveing a really good time. This morning went to a church serviceat a local church. Very interesting. The congirgation was very small, and by small I mean about 5 or 6 people other than us. I’m not really sure how to describe the service but it was not like anything that I had ever been to before. The worship was the lead pastor on a keyboard and his wife singing, boy did she have a set of pipes. And she would dance around with the micraphone like she was the star of So You Think You Can Dance. I’m not really sure what the message was about. The pastero kind of rambled about God useing people if we let him use us. Which is cool, but he never used and scripture. It was interesting.

We spent the rest of the day lounging on the beach, swimming, and playing volleyball. Watched a movie int he afternoon, and later as the sun was going down walked down to the hotsprings. That was pretty much our day in a nutshell, and now we are about to watch a movie and eat some brownies with icecream.

Tomorrow, we are gong to go server some people. I plan to write about that more tomorrow night. The movie is starting. weee!

Joe Britt

I met this really cool awesome guy named Joe Britt. He’s about 6′2 from Wisconsin, plays volleyball, and heads up ladies he’s single and lookin to mingle. He’s pretty sweet. And I get to hang out with him for 10 days when we go to Mexico. Joe makes me laugh everyday, and says things like “that’s real nice.” Joe likes to point out the obvious to everyone such as someone haveing matching shirts. He also plays hockey (who knows why, I think he has brain damage from it…) If I had to describe Joe is three words they would be:”OH MY GOSH!”

Here is a picture of Joe:

creeper....

haha. oh dear, sometimes I wonder what I am going to do with myself. could I have a more creepy picture of someone? I guess I could…hmm.

But yea, Joe is a cool guy. In asking him what I should blog about, the answer I got was “me.” So there you go Joe. You got your 15 minutes of fame on the world wide web. Have a good day and stay cool brother.

Hemp

I like hemp. The way it smells, what you can make with it, the color. There is something about hemp that makes me happy. The reason I have this thought of hemp in my head, is that yesterday I looked at my right wrist and noticed that all of my bracelets were gone. Having been lost, or broken I was saddened my my right wrist being naked. So I decided to make a bracelet for it. To my joy, Claire had some hemp. So in class, as I listened to the speakers, I made myself a bracelet our of hemp. Then I made Amanda one. Then I made Matt a necklace. And then I made myself one more bracelet. Hemp extravaganza! I thoroughly enjoy making things our of hemp. Now I want to find some thread and make a bracelet out of that. Then my heart will be truly joyful of arts and crafts. How, I love arts and crafts.

The Ravencrest Year Book

Today my fellow classmate John and I went to the Estes Park library to organize our videos and brains so that we can get a move on the video year book for Ravencrest this year. Thats right, video year book. I thought that monthly videos were intence…oh boy. This project is going to rock my world. John and I are editing the video, Amanda, Joe and Christoph are gathering footage and My is our expert picture taker. I’m really excited about putting it together though. It will be great practice for what I hope to study next year at George Fox. We are hoping to make the video as if it were a week-in-the-life of a student. Going through each day and encorprating the entire year in one week. I think it will turn out good, we just have to do it right. We are also looking to have a two-disk special dvd. the first disk would have the year book on it and the second would have all of the monthly videos as well as the Christmas play that we did back in December. And of course I would love to throw in little bouns features here and there. The down side is, that there is so much to filter through. My pictures, other peoples pictures, videos from Amanda, and so on and so forth. So much! I feel like my brain is going to melt. Once myslef and a few other buddies are able to sift though and get all of the usless junk out then that will make life a tad bit eaiser, but even then there will be lots of footage. Oh well, I guess that could be a good thing right?

This past weekend was mid-term break. Got off of school on Wedneday after morning classes. Thursday I went to Timberlineto hang out at the school and chill with Wes. They have so much snow! Sarah, Amy, and I frolicked through a feild of snow that came about half way up our shins. So much fun, trying to walk through thick powedery snow like that. Rather cold too, but so worth it. I learned how to ice skate as well. ^_^ Everyone kept telling me “no, Molly! You will fall and hurt yourself even worse than before!” But I still rocked it. Amy helped me not to fall and I felt like those kids at Holiday Skate to hold on the wall and slowly roll around the rink. Except that I did not have any wall to hold on to, I held on to Amy’s arm.

Sarah in the snow

Sarah, Me, Alicia ice skating

Eventually I slow skated around by myself. And I was proud of myself. Ice skating is fun and I want to do it again when I don’t have to act like a porcelain doll. Then I could go fast! After ice skating those of us who went to Timberline for the day went into town and ate dinner at a little mexican restaurant and then went back to Timberline to watch the Ravencrest vs. Timberline hockey game. Our boys put up a good fight, but in the end lost by three. However it was very fun to watch the boys battle it out, and watch the snow slowly fall to the groud. Although, the guys said that the snow on the ice was rather annoying. I’m no hockey player but I can see where they are comming from.

The Ravencrest Hockey Team ( Joe, Matt, Landon, Andrew, Eric, Clayton, Graeme)

And after a hockey game of epic perportions those of us who rode with Andrew jumped in the car and began the very long treck home. The rest of my mid-term break was filled with hanging out at the Chalet, playing Monopoly and going out to dinner last night at Pasta Jay’s for Spencer’s birthday. A very good break indeed. Next break is spring break. How amazingly fun that will be and yet how sad it will be as well. Because that means that we are that much closer to the end of an amazing adventure of which I wish could last forever.

(clockwise from me) Sarah, Clayton, Eric...Sarah killed all of us

Life with One Arm

Life this past week has been one of the most challenging/interesting weeks of my entire life. Living with one arm in a sling is not as fun as I thought it was when I was in 4th grade. I used to think it would be really cool to get a hard core injury and have to get a cast or have my arm in a sling. Why did I think that would be cool? They don’t heal fast enough can you can’t do anything on your own. Thankfully I have 6 amazing room mates who are more than willing to drop everything to help me when I need it. I love them forever for that. I have never been more greatful either. And my family back home has shown me so much love. Grandma N sent me a card with $40 to Safeway and Aunt Ally and Aunt Jen sent me a package full of movies and treats. Sarah said that she made a little something to send me as well. So maybe there are some perks to severly breaking yourself. Thanks so much to everyone! You guys are so amazing.

Life here has been going on as usual. People are out and about at ministries tonight. I could not go to mine, because I’m broken. So I’ve been working on homework, my testimony tomorrow, and I would be working on some schoolarship stuff but the internet is not wanting to be my friend tonight. >_< It is my turn to give my testimony tomorrow, and I’m rather excited to do that. I just hope that it’s not about me. I want it to be the story of God working through me. I’m just a small little pice of a much bigger picture. (btw-today at family group that was the theme of the day. Issac would not stop talking about “the big picture.” haha I love family) I want my story tobe a glimse of how awesome God is and yet how personal he is. Not just the story of me.

We have midterm break in about a week and a half now. At the beginning of the year I was planning on going to Timberline over the break, but seeing as how I am broken now and it costs $30 a night I wont be going. Instead I’ll be chillin here with some friends and finding random things to do. It shall be just grand. And John and I are gonna get moving on the editing for the yearbook. Woo-hoo!

And now I’m listening to Eric tell stories about chickens…hmm…chickens. I remember when we had chickens. I’m glad we have a dog now.