regret

You know that feeling when you're forgetting something? It probably means you did. Like coffee at Boston's with girls that you don't get to have many conversations with--real conversations anyway.




That's a sucky feeling for sure.

Today I'm forgetting beautiful weather, wonderful conversations and nice deep breaths in order for productivity in the crazy academia-land of late.

I think I made a poor choice.


also..i like this one:

A little bit of this...

Yesterday I accepted a full time job offer. Here's to growing up and getting old. And having a steady income. I want a tree with glass bottles hanging from it. I want to learn how to cook fancy dishes for no special occasion. I want to join a book club. These are definitely the first things on the "grown-up" Kaylyn list. I also eventually want to take a ball-room dancing class. That's right. Get your kicks.

Is it too soon to be thinking about how I want to decorate my apartment? I'm excited for crafting and for consignment shopping/yard sale-ing.

As far as the work, if I can handle 12 weeks, why not 40 more? I may need a few more suits for this though. I'll try to find some less-prominent shoulder pads.

I went camping with the CCFers (new student retreat) this weekend. I got red bug bites. I refuse to call them chiggers. That makes me think its some communal disease. I did learn that they aren't embedded under your skin. That's a myth. Good news for paranoid Kaylyn. Piece of advice to you all: don't google image chigger bites to diagnose yourself. Just don't.

Other than everyone getting infested with invisible bugs, there was good conversation, springs exploring, grilled hamburgers, s'mores, laughter, transparency, fierce apples to apples gaming, ghost stories, and one excruciatingly hot sleepless night spend on the ground in a tent.

I painted my fingernails hot pink, and it has proved to be a great motivator/mood lightener this week whilst paper-writing, researching, and textbook reading.

The week has introduced the revival of the PB&J. Triangles, not rectangles.

The call with the executive to seal the job above happened at 9:30am and 20 seconds. My alarm went of at 9:30am. Benadryl the night before because of above infestation. Great experience.

This semester has Case Study Tuesdays and Exam Thursdays. No seriously. Every. week.

Today I brought back the happy shoes. The yellow ones.

Listen to my new friend mike's youtube station. Here's a sample.

bee tea dubs...a little bit of that.

Time to Breathe

The past few weeks have been. . .well normal. I've completely failed my goal of keeping a disciplined sleep schedule...I've completely failed at keeping a sleep at all in some moments. I have just gotten very frustrated with the lack of time.

There's not enough time to do all my school work, take care of my "jobs" on campus, and also be an encourager to those whom I serve in CCF, a student ministry I'm in on campus.

And this semester I've made a different choice. I've chosen to spend more time with people than with my books. I know it just sounds like Senioritis, but really--this has been a sacrifice for me. My pride of being perfect in my grades has been very hard to swallow. Now, I'm not saying that I'm going to flunk out of college to make a bunch of friends. But, as someone once told me, the only two eternal investments are in God's Word (and Himself) and in man's soul.

More lunches talking with new students on campus and less in cubicles hiding in the library. More meetings with small group leaders, and more time in prayer for our student ministry than sitting watching online TV shows in my room.

(Now, with that said--I'm learning my lesson on the need for rest and renewal. There is no more important thing that being continually Filled in order to pour into others. I can't keep this up much longer without seeking the One who can give me the energy, and the patience, and the will to continue.)

A rundown of my Friday:

I woke up at 4:45AM to get ready and check-out of a hotel in Orlando. I began working at 6 that morning for the firm that I interned with this summer. They invited me back to staff a non profit conference for around 300 CFOs & CEOs of ministries, charities, schools, and other non profits. They had various guest speakers come in and they shut down the office so I got to see all my staff family from the summer.

Little did I know I was going to have to sit at the front of the main lecture room to hold up signs with the "5 Minute/1 Minute" warning signs for the speakers. I guess, being the lowest on the totem pole, it makes sense.

I wrap all of that up around 4:30, head back through Friday Orlando Traffic, grab some dinner and get back to Stetson at around 7pm. I don't even remember putting my PJs on or getting in my bed (the previous two nights I got about 4 hours sleep)...my friends came and woke me up around 8:30pm because there was a hangout night downstairs.

Groggy, Dazed, and Confused I stumbled downstairs...not really sure if I should have just stayed in the bed.

Last night was my favorite night in the past two years (at least) at school. Nothing had really been planned for the night, just get people together and hang out. We ended up doing a ton of things--starting with man-hunt in a pitch black building. Awesome. Then we switched to indoor frisbee/basketball and finally Mafia. It was around 10:30-11 when we finished our final game of Mafia and I thought that people would be heading out...

But people just naturally moved on to a new thing. We ended up pulling out some pots and pans and a foam ball and then playing a pretty roudy game of indoor baseball. I served as a mascot halfway through with my ghettofabulous dance moves included.

Again, after the game was over it was nearing midnight and I was sure that people would need to be heading out.

But my new friend Mike pulled out his guitar and a sing-along ensued. Oh man, between the dim lighting the acoustics of the room, the friends surrounding me, and the awesome choice of song...i just got the shivers. I'm going to miss moments like that so much after graduation.

We ended up sitting around in a circle just talking about random things...funny how funny things are at 2am. I love how at 8pm I barely knew some of the people and then I felt so close to everyone just a few hours later. The Lord is so faithful in allowing us relationships. I am all too often a poor steward of the blessing of them.

We decided that since most of us had to be up a few hours later we should wrap things up...but no one wanted to be the first one to leave. We all knew how special the night had been. How rare it is that, in life, we will get to have a time like that again.

So---tomorrow I will be a hermit in the library. I will stress about getting all my projects done and not failing out of college my senior year. But today I am thankful for time. I am thankful for a time to sit and sing and laugh and learn and be silly and be serious.

Have a little Faith

This semester, along with the normal load of accounting classes I'm auditing a Religious Studies seminar called "The Dynamics of Faith". Don't worry, I'm not that much of an over-achiever. I was roped into this, and partially out of my own pride and partially out of curiosity I don't want to back out now.

The professor taught both of my parents when they were students here and he's already made it clear that embarrassing me is on his top list of things to do in his last year teaching. He's a sassy one. Very dry/sarcastic and you, no matter how perceptive you may be, can fully read him nor predict where he's going next. His personality is both elusive and intriguing and makes the class a heart attack and a half.

The first assignment was to write about "what concerns you about Faith?"

Aside from the fact that this question is very vague and can be interpreted in many different ways, it sparked some interesting conversation this week. Hot topics of my paper were:

• The historical use of faith to create boundaries and barriers between people of different genders, races, ethnic groups, etc.
• The use religion, masqueraded as faith, as a means to gain personal power
• Self-centered faith. (God bless America for example)
• "one-size-fits-all" faith.

and then things get more personal, some things discussed among students that are also in the class:

• the fear of becoming comfortable and stagnant in my faith
• the fear that my definition of faith isn't the same as God's definition and therefore that I lack faith.
• fear of loosing my faith
• the degree of faith we put in material things, relationships, etc. ---what's acceptable, what's not?

Good questions, great conversation. So I pose to you--what concerns you about faith?

How to Love

Not the typical post you'll see on this blog....

Heard this song on the radio this summer, just got around to watching the video. It's pretty powerful. Unfortunately real stuff people deal with everyday.

Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs. Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth.

-1 Corinthians 13:4-6

Some thing in the previous blog reminded me of this.

Summer of Healing

At the beginning of the summer I made a challenge to myself to make this summer the "Summer of Discipline." This challenge included healthy eating/exercising habits, daily quiet time with the Lord (including elements of prayer and Scripture meditation), diligent work ethic, positive attitude, and a regular sleep schedule (normal beditme=10:00pm)

I would urge you to look me up on twitter and peruse the "#SummerOfDiscipline" tags to see what some of my fun and no so fun moments of the learning experience were.

But as I sit and think about what this summer has really been about, Discipline is not the first word that comes to my mind. I don't think that it was the end, but maybe the means. The first word I thought of when reflecting on the summer was (assuming you've read the title this shouldn't come as a shocker) "healing".

I think back to May--I was in a bad place. I felt out of control and lost within myself. Scared of a summer job and new living situation. Bitter about what I chose as my summer plan. Lonely in unfamiliar territory. Angry that I wasn't more grateful at what I had been given. Easily frustrated. Anti-social. Depressed. And the list goes on.

Where strong emotion once dictated my attitude/actions/thoughts/decisions, now stands the discipline to refuse to be enslaved.

Last fall when I sat in a dark dorm room crying for the Lord to make it clear what decision I should make about this summer He heard me. He answered my prayer. It wasn't the answer I wanted. I let doubt edge its way into my life and shy-ed away at going to the true Source of Wisdom. I wanted an easy way out.

Hindsight is 20/20. Camp for me this summer would've been a mistake. I was not in a good place to be ministering to students and to be working with staff. I was broken. I needed healing.

After 12 weeks of barely any internet, no TV, regular sleeping hours, a healthy exercising routine and eating habits, and a full work schedule I feel so different than 3 months prior. Couple the previous list with the fact that most of my friends were busy with opposite schedules and it made for the perfect Kaylyn rehab.

Less. Is. More.

The Lord stripped away a lot of things in my life weighing me down, and left me with so much more.

I'm so thankful for a God who knows what's best for me and forgives me for my short memory. It was only a year before that I had been stressing about a summer at a church camp--worried that the people there might try to suck the fun out of my soul or something like that. . . .only for August to come leaving me friendships that I'll treasure forever.

I feel different. In a way that's hard to describe. Free would be a good word--free from dependencies I had once let myself become enslaved to. Resolved would be another--resolved to continue to monitor the role that my emotions have in my life, and to continue to actively pursue discipline. Peaceful.

I'm a little apprehensive about returning to the real world of distractions and technology. It's kinda like celebrity rehab or something. (or maybe not at all.)

There's that short term memory loss acting up again.

Tomorrow will be the end of the Summer of Discipline, the end of my internship, and the end of my stay with the Edwards. While I may or may not shed a few tears on my drive, I'm definitely thankful that the Healing will continue.