Moving rooms again today.  It's complicated, but now I will be living in the guest house!  Which means less walking back and forth from the two houses, which means less exercise.  lol

Hi all. I'm sorry, but I don't really have a blog for today. Right now I'm just really frustrated and upset, and I just can't think coherently. Something needs to change. Soon.
Anyway, I'll make my blog post later this week, but if you could, please pray that I am able to control my anger and just address the things that need to be addressed in a manner befitting a daughter of Christ.  I love you all.

Title a quote from An Ideal Husband (1895)  by Oscar Wilde
(awwww, look at me referencing things. It's as if I actually miss writing school assignments)     

           Hello from a quiet Friday. No LOTR, Star Wars, or random excursions. Just 1/3 productivity and 2/3 watching past episodes of various TV shows. Not that this week hasn’t had its fair share of friendship. There were language lessons, a bike ride, a garage sale, an awesome google+ chat, and some home cooking. That last bit was quite fun. Sara and Anna Beth came over to my house and we made a dinner of tacos, green beans, and delicious brownies (maybe the combination is a tad odd, but whatever). We also actually made some progress plot-wise for a web series to work on this summer.
                              …
        Ok, so I just wrote a lengthy paragraph and promptly deleted it. Seems I can’t like anything I write today. I can’t quite figure out how to take the thoughts from my head and actually put them out into the world – both in writing and speaking. I guess it’s essentially correct to say I’ve been fascinated by stories recently? Not in writing or anything (I can’t make myself actually write anything outside of an assignment) but just in messing with character and story ideas in my head or watching character development and the way certain scenes in different shows are put forward. Actually, that isn’t quite right. It doesn’t include the fact that I’ve watched perhaps a bit too much of a show called QI that involves comedians and generally not well known facts. What have I been obsessed with recently? Stories? Characters? Daydreams? Random little facts? Humor? Just being a nerd and enjoying it? I don’t quite know what to label it as. I’ve got an ever growing list of things I want to watch and/or read from a variety of different genres and I just want to consume it all at once. But that of course would be lame because then I would be left with nothing else to watch.  

        Ugh, I’ve been sitting here trying to think of words to continue this train of thought and it just isn’t coming to me. Any of you care to leave comments of advice or questions to bounce off of in order to actually have me develop a coherent thought for next week? Anyway, sorry about the short-ish blog.

Here’s a little clip of QI to help make up for it:
So, who expects the Spanish Inquisition?

You know the part in the movie Tangled, when Rapunzel and Flynn are in the boat, waiting for the lights to appear? (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pQ5_XEZ4mn8)

Rapunzel is waiting for her biggest dream to come true, just like all those months ago I waited. Years, really. I waited for my biggest dream—to travel the world—to come true. But unlike Rapunzel, I never worried that it wouldn’t be all I’d hoped for. I knew my semester at Harlaxton would be the most magical time of my life. And it was. It really was.

Nothing compares to the comfort of home, the love of my family, the bond of old friends, or the warmth of a cat on my lap, but the life I led at Harlaxton was like a new world. It was so dissimilar from anything I had ever experienced. I lived in a beautiful old manor house with some of the coolest people I’ve ever met. While I longed for my friends from home to experience it with me, I also made amazing new friends. Deep down, we were all nerds, and we were all ecstatic to be there, living it up and learning together in Europe.

I saw more of the world in 4 months than I had in the past 19 years of my life. England, Scotland, Wales, Ireland, France, and Italy showed me the best of the best, and I can’t wait to revisit them someday.

My parents came at the end of the semester and joined me on one last romp through England and France before we all headed home together. It was wonderful to get to experience Europe with them, especially because they had never dreamed they would get to do that, while I had been not just dreaming of it, but expecting it my entire life.

If I say that, do I sound like a spoiled brat? That’s not the intention. Yes, I had spent almost two decades expecting to go to Europe, to have these adventures. Not in a Daddy-I-want-it-now! kind of way, but in a way that it became more than just a dream; it became a life goal, and I was going to achieve it one way or another. At least that’s what I always told myself, when I really should have been more humble about it, praying that God would send me wherever His will dictated. Either way, God got me to Europe just the same, and I am so thankful that He did! It was one of the biggest blessings of my life, and I will remember it forever.

But now it’s over. One month ago I was in London.

Today I’m in Kentucky. 

It’s not that that’s so bad. I love being home, despite the occasional boredom and the looming dread of finding a summer job. It’s just that…I don’t know where I go from here.

Going back to Tangled, Rapunzel asks, “What if it is [all she dreamed it would be]? What do I do then?” And that’s the position I’m in now. Harlaxton was all I dreamed it would be and more, but now that dream is achieved.

Now here’s the part where I stop and try to explain my psyche. There are some people who take so much delight in the little things. They're fascinated with the seemingly unremarkable moments that make life so rich. And while I love those little moments when they happen, I’m the sort of person who needs a bigger dream to move forward. I feel like  I constantly need to be propelled toward a great something: a faraway dream, a seemingly impossible plan, a momentous project.

But I don’t know what that is now. And I’m probably wrong to need some great goal to obsess over. God will take care of my life. But I am a dreamer; I love daydreaming about adventures and probabilities. And now, as Flynn Rider says, I “get to go find a new dream.”

I already have some ideas up my sleeve, but ultimately it's up to God's perfect will.

Hello from the middle of study week! Too bad not a lot of studying is going on...
I'm hanging out at the Centre where there's free wifi, but it's not being too consistent. As part of my procrastination, I started a new drawing project and so far I'm really happy with the results :) They should be up in the "And Etc" section soon--I have one more to go.
I now have T-minus 18 days before I get back. 5 days until my first final.
My sleeping schedule has been really messed up, can't-fall-asleep-until-6-in-the-morning kind of messed up. So in order to try to fix it I forced myself awake at 11 am and will get stuff done today. We'll see how it goes.
I tried some Vietnamese food this past Sunday. Jeremy invited me to her friend's room where they cooked for us, and then we moved to another room in another hall where they got even more friends together (I think 10 was the final number) and they made us a huge meal. I was so stuffed with delicious food!
I got free pancakes last night (delicious as usual) and free lunch today--soup and bread. It's raining and a little chilly, so hot soup really hit the spot. Did you know that it's really common here for the sun to be out and shining brightly--but it's raining. It's really weird, and isn't that the time to look for rainbows? I've looked, but haven't seen one.
New Zealand Differences #6 (I think there's been 6...)
The Cereal
I don't think Kiwi's believe in sugary cereals. There's no Fruit Loops, Cinnamon Toast Crunch, or Captain Crunch here. There's cheerio-like kind or healthy bran stuff kind. The cereal with the most sugar is a chocolate rice crispy kind.
Not much else is going on right now, sorry.

Hello from pretty late on Tuesday! Sorry i haven't been posting early the past couple weeks. but when I have to get up at 6:30, blog posting is just not my top priority. So... this is probably going to keep happening. Anyways! Today was pretty good. After I got off work (feels really weird to type that...), I met Dwain, his sister, Jill, and Anna Beth for the Venus viewing on campus. Sanaa was there too, but with her family.  That was pretty cool, though we didn't stay too long. We left for pizza in the park. Other than that, I don't think much interesting stuff has happened in the last week. Jill already told you about the conclusion of LOTR Fridays (am I missing anything else that would jeopardize my nerd standing?)
So, about Abraham's Daughter: thanks for answering my question, AB! Personally, I thought of the song more specifically as referring to the very end of the games. Isaac would be Peeta, and Katniss is still the daughter, and her raising her bow signifies when she raises the berries, challenging the Capitol to make a decision: they can either have both of them or neither of them. Of course, that's looking at a pretty strict correlcation between the Hunger Games and the song. That's just the scene I pictured when I thought of the lyrics.
So I'm gonna move on to Question Tuesday now, for the sake of getting this posted in a timely manner:
Anna Beth:
If Sarasite is your superhero name, what's your supervillain name?
Ummmm. Cuddle bear?
If you could witness any event past, present, or future, what would it be?
Can I see the Creation of the Universe? That would be epic :)
If you had to work on only one project for the next year, what would it be?
Project? I'm not sure what you mean by that. The only "projects" I do are for school. And this, I guess. Probably this, then. It's fun :)
What movies, TV shows, or books have made you cry or tear up?
- My Sister’s Keeper. I watched that with my mom, and we were both reaching for Kleenexes pretty much the whole movie through.
- Deathly Hallows (the book) the part at the end when Harry uses the stone just killed me. I can’t remember what other specific parts made me cry. Probably a couple of the deaths.
- House series finale. Stop reading if you haven’t seen it and plan to. I mean, I had a feeling things would take a pretty Sherlock-y turn, but I just felt so bad for all the people at the funeral! Especially Wilson.
There’ve probably been several others, but Ican’t think of them right now. But hey! I have one from each category, and it wasn’t even on purpose! Isn’t that cool?
Update: I watched Single Father a few days ago cause it has David Tennant and Scottish-ness, and the first episode about killed me :/
What is something you learned in the last week?
That cardboard TARDISes are cool :)
What story does your family always tell about you?
Probably the one about when my mom tried to take away my pacifiers. Apparently I really liked them, like I could have 2 in my mouth and still talk really clearly, so when my mom decided I was getting too old for them, she thought it would be tough to take them away. I seemed to be doing ok, but then one day she found me behind the couch with two of them in my mouth, which I’d apparently been stashing in anticipation of losing them.
What is your first memory from your existence?
I sort of remember when I was little and decided to try and cut my hair with Barbie doll scissors (fyi- it worked). I was probably 3 or 4ish? I remember walking over to my mom and holding up my hair, saying, “Look, Mommy! It works on people hair, too!”
What is your favorite Bible verse?
I don’t know, there are too many to choose from.
What's your favorite quote, aside from a Bible verse?
Again, too many to choose from. I’m
o good at favorite questions!
Along with the 7 dwarfs question, assign each of us (the 8 of us on this blog...and Dwain because he felt left out last week in the casting) one of the Disney princesses based on our personalities.LOL
Shelby- Jasmine, cause she sings A Whole New World wonderfully, and she loves kitties, so Raja would be in good hands
Amy- Sleeping Beauty, for obvious reasons :)
Sara- Belle, cause I like to read, and it’s my list, so I can be whoever I want to :D
Rachael- Cinderella, cause Rachael’s the fashionable one, so I can imagine her in the beautiful ball gown, dancing the night away with her Prince Charming
Anna Beth- Rapunzel, cause she’d probably kill me if I didn’t give her her favorite… :P
Jill- Pocahantas, cause she’s the outdoorsy animal lover
Amber- Ariel, since she did tell me once that she was a mermaid…
Sanaa- Tiana, since the whole “I don’t need no man, I can succeed all on my own!” philosophy reminds me of her. Not that I disagree with said philosophy, I just like to imagine Sanaa saying that.
Dwain- Mulan, cause he’s going to Japan, and that’s the same thing as China, right? :P Plus it was either that or Snow White, and he refused to be in our Soot Gray movie…

Dwain:
Why is it that I’m your favorite when I ask questions? Is it because I don’t ask often? 
*favourite
You know, I’m pretty sure the only other time you asked me a question, I didn’t make you favorite. So that doesn’t make sense. And besides that, you were one of only two question askers, so your chances were pretty good. And it shouldn’t even be necessary for you to ask this question, seeing as I addressed it when I made you favorite in the first place.
How often do you check for questions? Do you check compulsively so you can have the most time to think if they’re philosophical or do you wait until the night
before?
I wouldn’t say “compulsively”… I do check a lot, though. I like to have the majority of my blog written well in advance, so I pretty much spend the whole week checking for questions and working on answers. Which is why, when I found Anna Beth’s questions from last week and saw that a lot of them would require pretty lengthy/thoughtful answers, I opted to save them for this week instead of using the several hours of the day I had left to go on and include them in the blog.
Have you been practicing your hiragana?
Yeah! Though I feel kind of bad: because of you, another writing system is being subjected to my awful penmanship…
And an easy question: How many questions have I asked? (both overall and this
week)
Overall, it’s looking like 11. (the one about losing accents when you sing, 6 from last week, and 4 for this week). I don’t really see the point in this question…

Rachael:
What questions haven’t been asked?
All questions haven’t been asked. Except the ones that have. (That’s some Captain Jack logic right there)
Can there be too much justice?
Certainly. You may have heard the definitions of mercy and grace - mercy is when we don’t get what we do deserve, while grace is when we do get what we don’t deserve. Neither of these is justice. If we had to pay for every bad thing we ever did, all of us would be in big trouble, but because God shows mercy, we can be forgiven and not have to receive the punishment we deserve, even though said punishment would be perfectly just.
How do you feel about oatmeal?
I’ve had it a couple of times, and I wasn’t a big fan. I haven’t tried a lot of different flavors, though, so I may like it if I had the right kind.
What do you see yourself doing in 3 months?
Going back to school… blech, I don’t want to think about that yet!
How does it feel to be 20?
Well, since turning 20 coincided almost perfectly with starting work, I feel like being 20 is a lot more grown up and responsibility-filled than being a teenager was…
Do you feel old? Especially now that Will O’Connor has graduated?
No. Though it does seem pretty surreal that my baby brother isn’t in school anymore :/
Why does it take so long for a new Lizzie Bennett video to be released?
Because they love to torture us :(

Jill:
Which is your favorite of the endings to the last Lord of the Rings movie?
I said this after we finished watching the movie, but I liked the wedding ending :)
Answer all the questions from Hank’s Table Topics video (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NY9pOVz28WM&feature=g-u-u)
So many questions… Here goes:
Do you live more in the past, the present, or the future?
Unfortunately, I am neither a Time Lord nor his companion, so I’m stuck in the present.
What quality do you think is most important in marriage?
Being unselfish: caring for the other person’s needs.
What’s your dream job?
Teaching and getting paid a good amount of money for it :P
What one question would you ask a psychic?
How many people are actually going to freak out on December 21st, 2012?
If money were no object, what kind of party would you throw and where?
I’d use it to fund a long term party where my friends and I drove to all the places we’ve ever wanted to visit in America, stopping at VidCon in the middle. We’d also have to have a jet or a
boat or something to get to all the cool places we wanted to visit outside of the country.
If you could be a famous athlete, who would you be?
Why would I want to be a famous athlete? That sounds like a really boring thing to be…
What’s the most significant problem facing the world?
Idiots.
If you owned a boat, what would you choose to name it?
I don’t name inanimate objects.
Which piece of land would you wish to preserved forever?
The rainforest.
What do you miss about childhood?
That it was ok to be apathetic, since your parents made all the decisions anyway :P
What remains undone that you’ve wanted to get done for years?
I don’t know? I mean, I’m only 20. I don’t think I have that problem as of yet.
What one goal do you hope to accomplish this year?
Get better at being a good Christian and doing the right things.

More Anna Beth:
If you could be invisible for a day, what would you do?
I dunno, spy on people? It’d be pretty fun, but I don’t think I have a set list of stuff to do. Maybe I’d take after Harry and just stare at the lack of reflection in the mirror all day. 
 So this week’s winner… Jill!
Although, technically, her questions came from the Vlogbrothers, who got them from Table Topics, so they’re the real winners. Jill can accept the prize for them, though :P So, have a good week everybody, and give me Questions please!

Love,

Sara

Sorry I didn't blog yesterday.  I had a bad day.
The end.
Also, I will leave you with an Anna Beth quote: "I'm sorry that you're feeling lonely, but at least you have that diarrhea medicine!"

Hello from a day of studying… ugh, that doesn’t really sound that fun. I’ll be honest: It’s not. However, after a long week (translated: 3 days of my first internship), it’s actually really relaxing to be able to sit on my couch and just watch the videos for my class that I need before my test on Monday. However, what this means is that this will be a fairly short blog… :( Sorry! Amber does need to study… Especially as Blackboard will be down from 2:30am-6pm tomorrow! WHY?!?!?! Why must they do maintenance the day before my exam?! As a result, I’m having to watch about 6 hours of class videos… and then another hour of videos tomorrow + 45 pages of handouts to finish studying.

Anyway. Amber should stop rambling about her lack of time because of the internship and actually start talking about how much I’m enjoying the internship.

Because, I’m surprised to find, I actually am enjoying it! I’ve never held a “real” job (meaning full-time) before, so working 8 hours a day is pretty exhausting for me. Granted, my time is just spend staring at my computer screen, but I’m having to do a lot of thinking, planning, processing, and coding for the program I’m scripting. Nonetheless, it’s a challenge. The program specifications I’ve been given don’t sound terribly difficult, but the main challenge I’m having to encounter is the data I’ve been given to work with. Essentially, my program has to input a 20,000 x 1,000 line text file of gene sample data from the lab, calculate the relationships between each data point and the others in its row, and then output the gene co-expressions. That’s 200,000 data points which I’m working with. Imagine if just one data point is invalid and is read in incorrectly. The whole program could fail. Hence, this is a fairly difficult challenge.

Surprisingly, I’m really happy to be working on it. :) I’m treating this internship as kind of a test run before actually getting a job as a programmer, and even though it’s only been two days, I’m enjoying what I’m doing. Essentially, I’m trying to solve a problem, and my solution, once developed, will be made available online so that other labs don’t have to create the same solution and can instead just use my software with their data. It’s a pretty remarkable thing, and so far, I am really happy with it.

The perks of my job: I have a really awesome work space. It’s a large cubicle next to the window on the 8th floor of this really fancy office building. I have a new computer, new supplies, new everything. I get to set the hours that I work- so long as I work 8 hours a day, they don’t care when I’m in and when I’m out. My co-workers are really friendly (they be awesome Asians!), and my faculty mentor seems very nice and helpful. Overall, I’m happy there. :) I’m also starting to become friends with another intern on the same floor. His name is Ezra, and he’s a senior at Vandy, majoring in Psychology and… something else starting with a P, lol. Anyway, he’s minoring in scientific computing, and we just discovered we were in the same class last semester but didn’t realize it. He’s very nice, and I hope we can become better friends- the other interns in our program are working 20 minutes away, so we’re pretty much isolated from the rest of our group. Still, I think we have more awesome jobs than everyone else in our group ;)

…Sorry this is short, but I’ve got to go back to studying. I still have another 3 hours of videos to watch tonight. Wish me luck on my test Monday! I <3 you all!

Without further ado, here’s my procrastination song of the week ;) (I’m fairly certain you all know it by now… ;)

Call Me Maybe- Carly Rae Jepsen

       Hello from yet another Lord of the Rings Friday. This one was held at Sara's house, but the party has moved to my house via a sleepover before the garage sale tomorrow. Anna Beth, Sara, and Sanaa are currently snuggling in my bed while I sit on the floor trying to figure out what to write.
       Ummmm.....I feel like I don't really have that much to talk about. I really should stop writing these when I'm hanging out with friends. Anna Beth has requested I pick out my favorite of the many endings to the last LOTR film. And if I had to pick , I suppose I like with Frodo finishing the book(s) he and Bilbo wrote. There's a question for Tuesday, Sara: which is your favorite.
        I haven't really done very many interesting things lately. I've just been going through my old stuff to find stuff for the sale while watching British television shows. So far I've finished Doctor Who, Sherlock, Single Father, and quite a few QI episodes. Until today I hadn't even seen anyone since Sara's birthday on Sunday. So uneventful week. And to echo Anna Beth, I totally had some interesting thoughts to discuss earlier this week, but I don't remember any of it now :/
      I think I'll wrap up this blog where I have nothing to talk about. But I will leave you with a fun game at least. Anyone ever play Robot Unicorn Attack? Well, they made a sequel and it's awesome :)
-The Original: Robot Unicorn Attack-
-The Sequel: Robot Unicorn Evolution-

Now I'm off to join the conversation I've been listening to this entire time: Sara desiring to marry and have kids with Pippin.

Love,
Jill

P.S.
Challenge: make a poem out of the following overheard conversations.

"We demoted Rachael to Frodo"
"Legolas was trained to fight, Frodo was more like, yo"
"Frodo, froyo"
"I'm not saying its a bad thing, everyone has weaknesses"
"Temptation exists, its whether or not you succumb to it"
"it takes hobbits several months"
"they're more simpleminded"
"the huge empire is not on the horizon at all"
"they don't have much access to the outside world"
"he's just so scottish...and he sings"
"you ain't speaking english then"
"do you fancy Billie Piper?"
"you speaking scottish now?"
"are you the doctor?"
"ewww, Sara DNA."
"Sccaawwishh"