Celebrating Biola Style

This year, instead of heading down to San Diego from LA after finishing finals, I did the opposite. I was at home for a day, and then headed up to the Biola area for the weekend. And what a weekend it was.

I rode up to Orange County on Friday morning with Anja. We had fun talking in the car, espeically about how wonderful it was to not have school for a month. She dropped me off at Krista's house where I hung out with Krista's brother and sister while Krista got ready. Soon as she was ready we joined Becky at her place where the rest of us got ready to go to Biola graduation.

Dorothy (the graduate among us) picked Sizzler for dinner, which is conveniently between Becky's townhouse and Biola. I shared a combination plate of steak, shrimp, and ribs with Dorothy. Yum, I had forgotten how much I like Sizzler! We ate quicky since we were a bit short on time. Becky's and Dorhty's rommate Melissa and I went ahead early to the gym to save seats. It was wonderful (as it has been every time) to be back on campus. I became very excited when we walked past the Biola Christmas tree.

The gym was decorated festively with more Christmas trees. The ceremony was nice. I knew a few of the other graduates, mostly music people. Afterwards, we went with Dorothy and her family to the reception in the caf. The caf was also decorated with Christmas trees and such, and had delicious dessserts, eggnog, and cider. My dad made the point later that if you lived in the area you could make a point to go to that every year, lol.

After the reception we went down to Hart to pick up Becky's sister Jen, and happened upon a lot of Hart alumni. I got to chat with Beth for a while about grad school, and compare the programs at SDSU and Redlands. It's a bit of a relief to know that I'm not the only one who's thrilled with graduate coursework, haha

Saturday morning (after walking to Albertson's for milk) Becky made pancakes for her, me and Jen, which we ate with apple butter, very tasty. The rest of my Saturday was spent at Amy and Dave's wedding, which was beautiful.

I love weddings, love them, oh my goodness. Amy and Dave are friends I know, in a round about way, because of Valencia. Amy has a dog from GDB, and she was visiting Dave (who just graduated from Talbot) one week, and they came to a Symphonic Winds concert. My mom and Amy met in the bathroom with the two dogs. Amy and Dave are the couple that Tad and I went on a double date with to Hermosa Beach back in March (which happened to be the night before they got engaged).

Anywho

Their wedding was at the church Dave has been interning at. It's a small baptist church, with a tall steeple like a classic old church house, and very nice people. It was a beautiful ceremony, Amy sang a duet in Mandarin with her maid of honor, the wedding party read 2 Cor 13, they wrote their own vows, and at the end we all sang hymns together.

Immediately following the service was picture time, the favorite of which was the guide dog picture. Including Amy's dog Donna, there were five guides present. Donna was the star among the dogs, donning two different party dresses over the course of the afternoon and evening.

There was a reception in the church fellowship hall after the ceremony. Since they were also having a dinner reception, I assumed the church one would be just cake and punch. But they had a full array of food, including fruit and veggie platters, teriyaki chicken, california rolls, and several kinds of Chinese pastries. They had a slideshow of pictures of Amy and Dave and had a number of people say a message to Amy and Dave.

The dinner reception was at a restaurant across town called Happy Habor Seafood. Amy found a ride for me with one of her friends. We got a bit lost on the way, but found it a lot sooner than most of the guests.

The restaurant was a very nice, elegant, Chinese seafood place. Between receptions, Amy had changed from her traditional western wedding dress, into a traditional Chinese dress, red with beautiful gold embroidery. She and Dave looked great together with his matching red button down shirt. They're such a great couple!

Dinner was incredible, all nine courses of it! I tried several things I had never had before. Course one was jellyfish and a cold slice of beef. It was followed by delicious walnut shrimp. Then came the shark fin soup. Then there was shitaki mushrooms, bak choi, and abilone. Then there was the lobster, after which was the Peking duck. Next was the baked fish, and we finished off with a bowl of fried rice. Dessert was lotus paste cookies and red bean soup, both were amazingly delicious!

Amy and Dave came around to each table individually to toast and I got a chance to chat with them a bit. They sent me home with a vase of beautiful red and yellow roses from one o the tables. Presently, they are in Waikiki, lucky ducks :)

There were several things I decided from the day. 1. I want an afternoon wedding, 2. I want a slightly fancier reception locaiton than a church fellowship hall (though I want the ceremony in a church) and 3. White cake with straberries in it makes a delicious wedding cake layer.

Sunday I wrapped up my visit with church at Grace EV Free with Krista dnd Jen and then lunch at Panda Express.

Below are a few pictures from the weekend:


I am no longer in the most recent graduating class from Biola, weird


What a beautiful bride Amy is :)


the centerpiece at my table at their dinner reception


me with the happy couple, isn't Amy's dress gorgeous???

5-24/25 LAX to Bucharest

During the trip I bullet pointed the day's events in the "notes" section of my Heart2Heart handbook. Apparently I was so out of everything from all the traveling, I didn't even make note of the two days we spent traveling to get to Romania. There isn't a whole lot to tell anyway.

Sunday morning (the 24th) I got up, said goodbye to Hart Hall, and headed to the music building for rehearsal. Yes, we had rehearsal the day of an international flight. It was definitely needed though. The Fellers were nice enough to pick us up lunch from In N Out after. After lunch we loaded up the buses and made it with plenty of time to the airport.

Check in and security went by without a hitch and we had about half an hour to wait at our gate. Our flight from LA was to London and from there we flew to Bucharest. The flight was, well, long. About 10 hours of sitting in a teeny tiny little space, not ideal, but tolerable. British airways has those nice personal tv screens too. I, unfortunately, slept very little on the flight, not for lack of trying. In between nap attempts I ended up watching the last 4th or so of Bride Wars, and determined I didn't need to see the first 3/4.

By the time I did finally fall asleep, it was only for about an hour before they served us breakfast. Our layover in London is entirely a blur. We had about an hour and a half to get off the plane, go through passport control, go through security, take a tram to a different terminal, and find our gate. By the time we got there, they were already boarding. This flight was quite exciting for me because there were people speaking Romanian on it, and I managed to sleep a bit more.

We finally arrived in the Bucharest airport at about 4 pm Bucharest time (6 am California time) H2H staff met us and drove us back to the team house. It took great effort not to crash in our very comfy looking beds once we got there. They fed us dinner, chicken salad on croissants chips and drinks, and gave us some needed info about the house. From there we played card games, explored, and did everything we could to keep ourselves awake until at least 10 pm.

I managed to sleep pretty well. The only thing was around 4 or 5 am I started thinking it was time to get up, so I'd sleep, and then wake up every 5 minutes. Once I checked the time though I was ok.

Bye Bye Biola

Oh goodness, I created this entry about 3 weeks ago, better late than never though right?

I spent the entirety of finals week trying to blog, but time did not permit. I ended up journaling this by hand after my computer (and the rest of my stuff) had gone home after graduation. The first chunk is just the events, the second is thoughts and reflections. Because of length, I'm making them two separate posts. Here we go!

"I'm writing this from the inside of my wardrobe. Kind of random, but it's silly, so I like it.

I've been trying to blog since Sunday, but never found time. Honestly, maybe it's best I didn't. I've been all over the place: both excited and anticipating graduation and dreading the closing of this chapter of my life. Being my last week as a student here, however, I have not been lacking in fun events.

Last Thursday was the Comm Disorders dinner. Teri spoke about professional, personal, and spiritual advice she wanted to pass on, and Krista and I shared an amazing flan

Friday night was senior dinner. My parents and grandparents were able to come, which was great, especially since my grandparents weren't able to make it for graduation. Fred Sanders, professor of the year despite being on sabbatical, spoke, and it was a great final dinner on Metzger.

Saturday morning we put on a Clarinet Club End of the Year Recital with solo and ensemble performances as well as a few original compositions. That evening I went out to dinner with Ally and Sara to Pizza Z to catch up on life before we all scattered after graduation.

Sunday morning was my last service at Redeemer. I'm so thankful I found that church, even if it wasn't til the beginning of my final year. Teri had the girls from her classes this semester over for dessert in the evening. She had this amazing strawberry pie, chocolate cake, and coffee. We played Pass the Pigs and wii bowling. I pwned at wii bowling, I was pleased. It was nice getting to spend more time with her and get to know her husband Jacob a little. They're a great couple.

Upon returning to campus, I scurried down to our check out all hall. Hart has a tradition of praying over the seniors at the end after they share what their plans are for next year. Immediately after we went to study break.

I had my last final Tuesday afternoon. Tuesday evening was Baccalaureate. It was a beautiful service. Dr. Corey spoke about moving through chapters of life and how even though it can be hard, God always has us where he wants us. A number of seniors shared about how God had worked in their lives in their time at Biola. Then we walked from Calvary Chapel to the belltower through a path of luminaries as bagpipes played Amazing Grace. Under the belltower we took communion and sang Be Thou My VIsion. This was particularly meaningful because we began our Biola careers with a communion service under the belltower at the end of move in weekend with our families.

Wednesday I hung out one last time with Kathleen at Golden Spoon. We walked around Toys R Us, and I bought her the Star Wars action figure she picked out as an early birthday gift. That evening I got ready for Winds banquet with Becky, Jen, and Justine and rode out to Downtown Disney with Amberly, Erin, and Rachel T. Banquet was really fun as usual. I sat with Becky, Jen, Justine, Matt, and Mark. Mark kept us thoroughly entertained prior to dinner. One word: "fail!" The senior tribute was really nice, and much to my delight, even though I missed one semester of Winds, I received a Senior Service Award.

I came back with Becky, Jen, Dorothy, and Casey and Becky, Krista, Jen, and I watched Amazing Grace. Thursday afternoon I got to meet up with Emily Joynes at Commons to chat, and in the evening I went to a double composition recital for Kenny Lindsey and Dave Martina. Friday morning we sat through 1.5 hours of graduation rehearsal. Slightly ridiculous, but we got our Biola Alum license plate holders and Bye-ola tshirts. I had rehearsal and then played my (hopefully) last graduation ever.

The craziness began Saturday morning. Becky and I got up at 7 to get ready. We found her family and they fed me breakfast and took pictures. Soon after I found my own family and went to line up. I discovered that when they said it took 45 minutes to line everybody up, they really meant it took 45 minutes for everybody to show up.

The ceremony was nice, a bit long though due to the combination of hot sun and 606 graduates (only 26 more than my high school class). George Verwer gave a nice message, nothing too insanely memorable. I enjoyed it more than my high school graduation. High school was very focused on the past, while this was focused on the future. After the ceremony I made a quick stop by Calvary Chapel for a few band hugs and then made my way to McNally for the Comm Disorders reception. Raelene got to meet a lot of my Biola friends and my parents got to meet my professors.

The 6 of us had lunch at Woodranch Grill and I opened my cards and presents. That was some very good food. Mom and Raelene helped me pack up the car and then they and Valencia went home. It was really hard watching her go. We've never been apart for more than 6 hours at a time.

We had one final Hart BBQ for the people who were staying over Saturday night. I finished up my Romania packing and checked in. On my way back to Hart, I stopped by the fountain to just sit and think for a while."

Stayed tuned for the second half, and so much more :o)

Grad School, Capstone, and Life

All I really need to say to explain everything in this post is senioritis. Oh man, I'm glad I never really got it in high school, because it is BAD. Right about Wednesday this week I started feeling completely and entirely apathetic about school. I had a Spanish paper due yesterday and my capstone pages due tonight (working on those while I type this) and I did no homework between Tuesday afternoon and yesterday afternoon. yeah...bad

I suppose grad schools are the biggest update right now. I got into Chapman, yay!!!! I did not get into San Francisco or San Jose. That leaves Fullerton and the final word from San Diego. I don't feel too bad about San Fran and San Jose; San Fran was my last choice, and San Jose said they had almost 300 applicants and were only able to accept 20. Once I receive my official letter from Chapman (they called to tell me I was accepted) I have two weeks to notify. If I don't get in to SD, and I haven't heard from Fullerton before the Chapman window closes, that's where I'll go. But I think Chapman is still after Fullerton because of cost.

In other news, capstone is chugging along, my current page count is 24, that leaves 16. Our rough draft is due sometime between next Wed and the Monday after Easter break. I would really like to have it done by Wed so I don't have to work on it over Easter, but we'll see.

Couple random fun things, well, I was home last weekend for my grandpa's birthday. I went Tuesday evening with Krista, Raeleen, Charlotte, Tia, and a few other girls to Cheesecake Factory just for fun. I got chocolate raspberry truffle, it was delicious. This morning we had another "No Make Up Wake Up" with our brother floor. The girls go to breakfast in their pjs (I didn't, I don't go outside in pajamas) and the guys are all dressed up and give us roses and serve us in the caf. It was a lot of fun.

And now it's back to finishing my chunk of capstone for the week...joyous

Nine Thousand Words

A few pictures from the all hall, Missions Conference, and the double date with Amy and Dave.

Enjoying some funkalicious drinks at the
all hall.

Silly candids :)

The Parade of Nations in the opening session.

George Verwer holding up the world.

Donna and Valencia having some doggie bonding time in the back of Dave's car.

On the Hermosa Beach pier

Dave, Amy, and Donna

The day before they got engaged :)

The Lord is Gracious and Merciful

...slow to anger and abounding in steadfast love.

And he gave me another wonderful week with my wonderful boyfriend. As predicted, Spanish on Tues was painfully slow, it did however eventually end. Raeleen took me to the airport and a slightly amusing story ensued.

When we got there, Tad was still waiting for his bag, so Raeleen suggested I go in and find him and surprise him. Great idea, except that neither of us had noticed we were at the drop off section, not pick up. I was greeted with ticket counters upon entering the terminal. I called Tad and was told "ok, do us a favor, stay right where you are, I'm coming to find you." I did as I was told and several minutes later received a phone call "Are you upstairs, or down?" "Down" "No, you're upstairs." "what? no I'm not, I can see escalators going up-" At this moment I was glomped behind by a very attractive young man. Long story short, I was a level above where he was. Luckily he was smart enough to figure that out.

We had dinner in the caf with a large group of Hart people and then hung out in the lower lobby with Justine for a couple hours. Then it was time for our funk-tastic all hall. Seriously, Hart is amazing. People were dressed up like out of the 70's and it was a totally lower campus all hall. Dancing, drinking, an gambling...kinda, haha. Mel and Beardo were our fabulous "bar tenders." Shirley Temples, Sprite with margarita mix, and Sprite with rainbow sherbet. It was basically a casino night: bingo, craps, black jack, and poker (with chips, not money). And the dancing...well, some of it was choreographed, no comment on the rest. ;)

Highlights from the evening include Tad getting "drunk" off a Shirley Temple, Justine teaching me how to par-ty, "hey, stop spooning me in the lobby!", and Ryan Low singing play that funky music white boy.

Wednesday brought the opening session for Missions Conference. "Fragrance of a New Covenant" was the theme for this year. Tad, Becky, and I sat in the gym for the opening session with the parade of nations and George Verwer (our graduation speaker this year) pouring a bottle of water over his head, frying a mic. I absolutely love Missions. We switched to Crowell for the afternoon session with Marilyn Laszlo (amazing!) and checked out the mission organization booths. After dinner Tad and I took advantage of there being open hours; he napped and I worked on homework. We finished off the evening by raiding the International House of Drinks and hanging out in Eagles.

Thursday we went to a really cool seminar on missions at home in America and enjoyed the ethnic lunch on Metzger. We timed it just right to get through global awareness. This year's rooms were Uganda, Honduras, Iran, China, and Burma. Poor Valencia got very frightened in Burma because of the army kidnapping people.

The afternoon speaker was Grant Porter, an Aussie who has been working on the field in the Middle East. I slipped out a little early from the ession to get ready and go to my interview at Chapman. It went really well, and I'm rather excited to hear back from them now. The sad part was that they were running 45 minutes behind schedule, so I missed Marylin's second session. I also missed the capand gown buying time in the bookstore, but Tad was amazing enough to get mine for me, before I called to ask him to do that.

Friday morning Tad wasn't feeling well, so I went with Justine to Marilyn's final session. I really enjoyed her. I bought her book and had her sign it for me. I ended up collecting 4 books over the course of the week. After George Verwer's first session I bought "Amazing Faith" which tells little bios about a lot of different people, including George Verwer. Tad and I got "Revolution in World Missions" free from the Mission for Asia table in the missions booths. They gave out free copies of "The Skeptic's Guide to the World AIDS Crisis." And of course Marilyn's book "Mission Possible" about her work with the people in Papua New Guinea.

After lunch Tad and I got ready and met up with my friend Dave and went to meet his girlfriend (now fiance) Amy at the CSUN technology conference at the Marriott in LA. Us two couples went our separate ways to check out the exhibit halls. I found a couple of things I was veyr interested in: a *good* portable CCTV and a portable zoomtext-like program on a flashdrive. I shall look into both of these things further. The exhibits closed at 5, and at that time we went to Amy's room at the Marriott to feed our doggies. Amy has a yellow lab guide dog named Donna. Donna and Valencia were overjoyed to get to have some play time.

Once the pups had eaten, it was time for the people to. Dave drove us to Hermosa Beach where we walked the pier. It was overcast, but still beautiful. I will never get over how amazingly gorgeous the ocean is. One of Dave's friends from back home in Wisconsin, A.J. met us for dinner at a seafood place called "Sangria." Amy and I discovered that the couples had ordered the same things. Amy and I both got shrimp scampi and Tad and Dave both got chicken picante.

Anyway, so Dave's friend A.J. does a comedy magic sketch at the Comedy and Magic Club in Hermosa Beach (the club where Jay Leno presents his weekly sketches) and offered to get us in for free to the show that night. We certainly couldn't have said no to that! We had a little while to wait after dinner and move our group to get gelato. It was very tasty! The show was really enjoyable. I was very happy that all but one of the comedians had very clean routine's. After the show we got our picture taken with Larry Miller, the headliner, dropped Amy off at her hotel, and returned to Biola.

Saturday and Sunday were a little dull, as they were spent catching up on all the homework I hadn't been doing. Sunday we did get to church at Redeemer and had lunch at Panera with Kathleen. And (to my inevitable sadness) Tad flew home yesterday.

So yes, a very, very fun week. I'll post pictures in another entry, as this one is plenty long enough already :o)

Top o' the Morning to Ya!

Happy St Patrick's Day! A day originally to celebrate St. Patrick chasing the snakes out of Ireland, now a day for Americans to celebrate *something*, wear green, and in secular culture, go drink at a pub. Gotta love Americans :)

I am very excited about my plans for today (no, they do not include a pub, thank you very much). Tad is currently in Seattle waiting to catch his plane to LAX. Knowing this will make it very difficult to sit through Spanish Literature this afternoon. Raeleen agreed to take me to pick him up. He's flying in just in time for our "St. Patrick's Day Funkship Cruise" All Hall. Have I ever mentioned that I love Hart?

Tad will be here until next Monday. He really enjoyed Missions Conference two years ago when he came, so we thought we'd bring him for it again. Other plans for this week include an interview at Chapman (hopefully on Thursday, that's been a little bit of craziness) and hanging out with Amy, Donna (the yellow lab) and Dave at the beach on Friday. I still have a lot of homework looming over my head, but I can take a couple days off to not think about it.

Anyway, I'm off to enjoy corn beef and cabbage or "Luck of the Irish Green Mac & Cheese" in the caf. God bless

Girls Just Wanna Have Fun

Last Friday and Saturday was our spring floor retreat. There were about 15 of us who went, which in my opinion is a good number for a "large" group. We went to Shanelle's house in Valencia, so I was quite happy to take Valencia somewhere that bears her name. Charlotte had made CDs for each car to listen to on the drive up, gotta love random 90s CCM and Disney songs, haha.

There was a surprising lack of Friday evening traffic on the 5, so we made it in pretty good time. Shanelle's house is really nice and her family was very welcoming to us. Upon arrival we took some time to relax with chips and salsa and a few teen magazines. I should mention that our theme was "sleepover" in case that might clarify a few things. We made personal pizzas for dinner. It's amazing to me the variety the caf has for pack out meals. Anyway, we enjoyed pizzas and just hanging out.

After dinner we played a couple rounds of Truth or Dare Jenga (always interesting, espeically with Biola people) and several rounds of Twister in our pajamas. There were definitely some fun photo moments in there. :)

Let's recap, random 90s music, chips and salsa, pizza, truth or dare, twister, teen magazines...what are missing? More junk food and a movie! We made some pretty amazing icecream sundaes and watched "Made of Honor" Interesting movie, good for a sleepover, enjoyable enough, but I don't know if I'd necessarily opt to watch it again. After the movie some people wanted to watch another one, but about half of us (who had the "sleep deprived college student" mode kick in) opted to go to bed. I was very glad I did the next morning when I heard they had watched Edward Scissorhands, I hate that movie, but that's for another discussion.

I definitely got way more sleep that night that I had in quite some time. In the morning we had our caf pack out breakfast and slowly got ourselves ready to head back to school. We stopped at a mall foodcourt for lunch and then trekked back to homework land.

Really fun relaxing weekend, I needed that. In the meantime, I'm feeling fairly alright with my wschoolwork load. I read about 200 pages this weekend, but enjoyed all of it. I highly recommend reading "When God Weeps" by Joni Earackson Tada, it's amazing, a little intense, but amazing. The news for the week is that I'm on the waitlist for acceptance into San Diego State. I'm #4 out of 28 on the list, so I'm really hoping and praying that means I'll get in.

Enjoy a few pictures from the weekend :)


Discovering that Twister is a little difficult with six college students at a time

Valentine's or SAD?

For not having a boyfriend here to celebrate Valentine's Day with, I certainly have been busy this weekend.

Friday evening was the Clarinet/Winds Women's Bible Study party. Amanda had it at her house, and Becky, Jen, Justine, Krista, Amberly, Lisa, Jessica Geels, and myself went. It's always a lot of fun to have some time to just hang out and relax, especially in a home. We enjoyed a very yummy chocolate cake Amanda made as well as tea and icecream. We played a couple rounds of Apples to Apples, always a great party game. My favorite quote from that - Amanda: I don't have any dead people, Justine: I have plenty, I keep them all in your closet. LOL I <3 my friends

Lisa and Jessica left after Apples to Apples. The rest of us had rootbeer flaots and watched Sleepless in Seattle. SUCH a cute movie, oh my goodness, I love it

I also love our brother floor. They filled our hallway with red, white, and pink balloons at 4 am and gave us chocolate. Like my brother floor freshman year. Hallways full of balloons are amazing, I need to remember this when I want to do something random and fun for my kids someday. I did a bit of homework yesterday, and then went to the beginning of the Midori concert. I wish I could have stayed longer, I was only actually there for 2 Sonatas, lol

After the second sonata, Becky and I skidaddled our way back to Hart for the Huod/Hub PJ spa and dessert (SAD, get the title now?) party. That was so much fun, I love my dorm. We had brownies and icecream and oreos and all sorts of other kinds of goodies. There may or may not have been an impromptu dance party (including doing the electric slide to hip hop) We're not contract breakers!

Speaking of which...we then played a game in which we took turns asking each other awkward questions, such as "what's the most embarassing thing you've been caught borrowing" and "have you ever laughed so hard you peed yourself?" This was followed by everyone sharing who their first Biola crush was. I have actually only had one, which ended very abruptly when I met Tad (hehe) I was rather thankful no one in the room seemed to know who he was (the crush, not Tad)

We finished the evening by watching "Fireproof" I had vaguely heard of it when it was in theaters. I'm so glad I got to see it. It's kind of a low budget film, but it has a wonderful message. I did a good bit of crying though

I've held up very well for the weekend, having girl time plans makes not having a fancy date to look forward to a lot easier. I broke down a bit last night on the phone with Tad, this holiday makes me miss him a lot more than typical, but I see him in about a month, so it'll be fine. I love Valentine's Day, and I'll love it even more when I get to spend it with my love :)