gross taste in my mouth

I'm 20!

What a weird age. It's not really that celebrated. It's kinda like 19 and 17... no one cares! oh and 11 isn't so great either. But my 20th was amazing. To start, I had a party on friday night with my closest friends. we dressed up obnoxiously 80's style and went BOWLiNG!!!!! It took weeks but i finally found a place IN MA that actually had REAL 10-pin bowling. Up here they have this weird bowling called "candlepin." I don't think it should be considered bowling.... you use miniature balls and i don't even know what. I don't know who made it up, but apparently I heard something like it was the original bowling? Naw... I won't believe it. It's made for people who have no strength and who want to make it easier on themselves. And people have candlepin bowling birthday parties? No thanks. I reserved lanes at a place like 25 mins away and we paid for an hour. it was so fun but needless to say,... my bowling skillz were lacking. Sometimes I used to get lucky. But seeing that I hadn't bowled in 3 years,... well... it was inevitable that I wasn't going to do very well. No matter what I did there would always be about 2 left standing. Not enough power!!


But yeah it was sweet. Everyone's costumes were great... and we went out for ice cream on the way home! Richardson's ice cream.... dairy fresh :-p Oh and then we watched a movie when we got back to campus!!

Saturday consisted of trying to make myself do my weekend homework. I failed.
Sunday was supposed to be just church and out to lunch for my birthday. Instead, I got something else.
Very early in the morning, becky, savannah, char, and koto come in my room and wake me up. I was totally disoriented, and asked what was going on.
"Get up, we gotta go!!"
"What? Where? Why?? It's so early!"
"Just come on"
"What time is it?"
"Just get dressed and put on sweats and a jacket!"
"I don't have a shirt on."
"Here, now hurry!"
"Are we going outside?"
They all look at me, laughing. (They are all dressed in coats and sweats. Of COURSE we're going outside.)

As soon as I could get out of bed and put on clothes, they threw a blindfold on me and led me downstairs outside. They made a rude joke about leading around a special girl. ;-) :-( They start running with me still holding their hands, I hear a car pull up, and Char pushed me in. Except I was turned backwards so i tried sitting but fell into the crack between the front and back seat (where your feet go)... i almost got stuck... it was the funniest thing ever since i was still half asleep! I was like WHERE ARE WE GOING?? the whole time and they wouldn't answer. They just kept saying hurry!! They helped me turn around and find the seat (i felt like i was upside down) ... and then we drove like 10mins... I had no idea where we were headed. I felt like I was being kidnapped. They dragged me out of the car again and started making lots of noise so that I wouldn't be able to tell where we were until we had walked a little bit. Then they took the blindfold off and I realized WE WERE AT THE BEACH!!!!!! And the sun hadn't come up yet! They threw down some blankets and I shouted with "glee" (haha i've always wanted to use that word!). We were here to see the sunrise on the beach!!





A little background break: I had written a list of 20 things I wanted to do when I was 20, before I turned 21. And on my 21st birthday I toast to the things I got done. Well number 16 is to watch the sunrise at Singing Beach.... so I got to check one off on the day of my birthday!!



It was the most perfect day and the most perfect sunrise! It was absolutely gorgeous, and not too cold! I felt pretty special. Just the fact that my friend Char had arisen at such an hour in the morning was a miracle and made me feel really good.... and Becky had gotten up too, and Koto drove us! And .... the idea was Charlotte's!!! It was sooo amazing. Now i've seen the sun SET and the sun RISE over the ocean and I still believe it is one of the prettiest things you can ever watch. And both times I saw such epic events (lol) I was with someone [or some people] very special. People I love. So it made my birthday! But that wasn't the end. I got blindfolded again (i think they just enjoyed watching me stumble around and ask dumb questions) and we stopped at Dunkin for breakfast. Then we went home and I took an hour nap before church. Church was so good, and then we dropped Lucas off at his dorm and Koto & Char were like "Eva we have to go to one more place now." I was like, what? Because we were supposed to just go back to Gordon and hang out until my friends could go out to lunch. So I had ANOTHER surprise ahead of me. We went to the mall, and when we got inside koto was like, "Eva our gift to you is a manicure!" So the 3 of us got manicures. I got a French:-) Looks so nice!!
As we were leaving, "Asian Island" caught our attention and Char said she wanted to pay for me to get a back massage. So we 3 got massages too! It was sooo nice. A little uncomfortable when the guy was massaging my BUTT ... but it really felt nice:-)

Then we went back to Gordon and picked up Emily, Savannah, and Becky, and went out to Carrabba's! That's a restaurant i used to love when we lived in SC so i wanted to go there again. It's Italian food.... and so of course I got fettuccini alfredo...with Shrimp! and i got sung to in Italian and a piece of delicious birthday cake! We didn't make it back to campus til like 5 and then it was basically the end of my birthday... time to STUDY and write a speech and paper... ew.
But Catacombs was at 8 so i went and practiced....and THEY gave me CUPCAKES and i got to blow out candles:-) and they gave me a signed card! So sweet and very much a surprise.
WHAT A BIRTHDAY!! It just made me realize what AMAZING friends I have here. I don't know How I'd do it without them. But they're so generous, genuine, sweet,. . . and FUN!!! Birthdays without family are always a little weird (still getting used to that) but this one was sooo good.

so how am i doing? Well... it's been rough. My birthday even was a little sad. There's a big part of my life that's still missing. And it'll be this way for at least another month. Maybe longer. Maybe forever. I don't even know and that is the hardest part. I don't know what there is left to hang on to but I can't forget about it or drop it either. It's part of me. Silence is NOT very golden right now (that was very cheesy; sorry). I have made it exactly 2 months but only because of God. I feel like this last month will be the hardest. It's been awesome having the support from my friends, and the great birthday they put together. I'm not ungrateful but life is different. I am just TRYING to get through... TRYING to focus on looking forward to when I'll be with my fam for thanksgiving (only 2 more weeks!)....and I feel like once thanksgiving passes things will start going really fast. We don't have much school left but most of my motivation is GONE. It's really hard to do work now.

I don't know why.

I don't know what my problem is.

I will get through with God's help though... I know that... I just want to feel sorry for myself and wallow a bit. :-(

evangeline

Taking a peek back into the past

I was talking to my sister yesterday and a bit today and just thinking back to my semester at Mauldin High in SC. I was a junior and was coming straight from being homeschooled my entire life, to the biggest pot head school around (or so people said)! But my older sister and brother both graduated from there so I was excited to go. And I had wanted to be in real school for soooo long so it was pretty exciting.

My whole semester there I never used my locker.
I tried a few times but never could quite figure out a combination lock and was too embarrassed fiddling around with it and didn't want to be late for class since it was on the first floor and all my classes were spread way far apart! I didn't bother. I walked around with a full backpack and stacks of textbooks in my hands. NERD! No WONDER i have back and shoulder problems!!!!!

I tried talking to people in different classes but never had friends to walk with to and from classes. It took me a full week to figure out where each class was and how to get to each place. "At this door, take a left. At this sign, turn right....walk down this hall, turn left..." I passed people in the breeze way every day and it was always so awkward because i recognized their face but never had met them, so I avoided their eyes.

I was made fun of by one kid in Chemistry because I told him about our massive van so he said I rode the short bus to school.

My "friend" who was my deskmate in Chem for half the semester tried pushing me out of my desk a few times. Thought it was hilarious. We got along for some reason. Maybe because he was a bando fat kid and i was a lost homeschooler. Weirdos click.

My other "friend" in history class had long black hair that he never washed and was a little too proud of the fact that it smelled like mouldy cheese. He talked to me.

I was not called Eva, but "Angel" at Mauldin because my journalism teacher couldn't pronounce Evangeline and would remember me as angel because i was so quiet. I never talked in that class especially. (Eva started when I moved to France and stuck in Congo). There are still people who know me only as Vange or Evangeline though.

I had a funny friend in Keyboarding who I really enjoyed sitting with but once he found out I was moving to Africa he never would stop trying to predict that I'd become a drug dealer and hoped i would send some his way.
To this day he would still ask me how my drug business is going.

In art, one of our teachers was fired because he'd yell at us and i think he cussed some kids out. It was the worst, most disbehaved class ever. I didn't learn any art.
I thought I made one friend in that class, but she was the girl that everyone was friends with who was half Asian, drop dead gorgeous, the tiniest girl in the world, always had a new outfit on every day (all aeropostale or AE or hollister clothes) or cutesy care bear cloud rainbow type shirts that were always pastel colors, matching ribbons in her hair (purple or pink usually), and! in always the same color as her shirt, she drew a heart on one cheek with a marker. She came that way to school every day. It took a while but i finally started sitting with her. She didn't really have friends in that class so she would talk to me just cuz it was convenient.

It took me a while, but I finally found a table to sit at in the cafeteria with my friend Lindsay. I don't know how we met since we didn't have any classes together, but we started going to the same youth group, and she would let me sit with her and we hung out out of school. She was my best friend at school I guess, but i only ever saw her at lunch.
Then through that youth group I met my friend Stephen and he was my other only good friend. I think he had been homeschooled as well:-) He was in my chem class so we were lab partners. I only saw him in Chem. and at tues. night youth group.

One day as I was walking across the cafeteria (more like POWER walking across cuz i didn't wanna be late for class), I stepped and slid on a pack of ketchup (but caught myself before falling)! A table of jocks saw me and laughed and I ran to the safety of the big hallway SO EMBARRASSED.

One time I walked into the girl's restroom and a "pretty girl" asked me "Do you even HAVE a butt??" I don't know why. She had never talked to me before, ... i didn't say hi to her or anything. I had just walked past her to go into a stall and that's what she asked me. It was weird but it made me embarrassed and self-conscious.

I could probably think of countless more embarrassing moments and embarrassing things that made up my half a year at Mauldin. For some reason, I remember liking it though. No I didn't really have good friends, but i was SLOWLY making progress. That's why I was pretty disappointed when I found out we were moving to Africa. I had just discovered an AWESOME youth group on Tues. nights that wasn't part of my church but made up of kids from churches and schools all over and it was definitely one of the best things about my life in SC. The youth group was helping me meet more christians that went to Mauldin and it was just amazing how I was growing spiritually through that group. If it hadn't been for that youth group, though, I don't think my attitude about moving to the Congo would have been the same. It helped me realize I had to be open to where God was calling my family. It made me see that all things work together for good, and this could be/would be a very good thing if i tried to make it a good thing and accept it. At my 16th birthday that year i had 20 friends who showed up.... and at my goodbye party, i think about the same number or more showed up to celebrate. I don't know how I had so many friends being SO shy! but that youth group helped me meet a lot of them and brought me closer to them.

Now I didn't take you back to my high school days at Mauldin to get you to feel sorry for me. I actually told you all this to get you to laugh. I do the same, when I look back. I kept thinking of these funny stories, and couldn't believe how shy I was and the stuff I put up with.... I think it's really funny how different of a person I am now. And I'm thankful for that.

Looking back at other things, I see how much I have made it through.
There were some guys who moved out of my life,
Some friends who I thought I'd be close to forever,
Some places I thought I'd be forever,
Emotions I thought I'd feel forever,
and more.... but all of this shows me I am becoming stronger every year.
There's only one person on earth (not including family) who I haven't lost yet through all my moves and all the different experiences I've faced.
His name is Zaq. I have called him my best friend now since 2003. No matter how much we see each other, we always know that nothing will ever change between us. I still somehow feel really close to him and we don't email "novels" very much anymore (though we did that for years and now I miss it) ...We don't get to talk on the phone every week, but we still talk like nothing has changed. We both have changed a lot though. We've both grown up a lot. I didn't see him for 2 whole years, then I saw him for 2 days in summer '07, and now I haven't seen him since. I've made a goal to see him again before I turn 21 or by my 21st birthday. It has just been too long!! I can't believe how much time has passed since we've lived in the same place and went to the same homeschool group (where we met). I won't forget his crazy talents including baking delicious, beautiful, amazingly creative cakes, making outstanding truffles for Valentines Day, making crazy (but scarily realistic) prosthetics including gross pirate teeth and weird noses & chins, his ability to ACT and DIRECT, the way he threw parties with his family, the way he can take a picture or film a movie, him telling me he is very unsocial.... his DVD collection, his knowledge of every movie ever made, his crazy knowledge of actors and directors,...even producers, ... his love for horror movies,....his support for me and all his advice,.... I could go on and on. I miss my best friend. My sort of non-related brother who I hope I will always be able to stay in touch with.

So,...now what? :-)

I went to the chiropractor today.
It's been great, I started going at the beginning of Aug. because I found out my insurance covers it! I have had a pinched nerve in my right shoulder for about 4 years so i finally got x-rayd everything to see if there is something bigger going on. Not that you need to know all this, but basically, i have lost most of the curve in my spinal part of my neck, and that has thrown everything off. So I've been going almost 3 times a week to this chiropractor and it has been really helping! Anywho, I rode my bike there today and I told him I had been swimming and was hoping to be on swim team or was at least considering it and seeing if i had time for it... .and he raised his eyebrows and looked very concerned and said: "Umm... I would definitely limit that right now."
And "limit" means going less than 3 times a week which is what I have to do right now to be able to be ready for swim team when it officially starts. We have 3x a week optional practices right now plus dry land training on the other 2 days....and I shouldn't be doing any of that I just found out. "Limit the arm over head exercises."
I have been praying so much that God would lead me and help me know where to get involved and how much time to put into different things. I am disappointed but at the same time, not at all, that I can't do swim team. It is kinda nice having a good real legit reason to not commit to the team. The chiropractor says I shouldn't! And if I can't be in the pool right NOW 3 times a week because he says my muscle is tryin to heal, i will never be able to catch up to the team and start swimming 6 days a week in October. I think I would ruin myself [shoulder].
So it looks like I've made my decision. Or God has. I can't swim. I'm physically not capable.
I really wanted to challenge myself and see if I could really do it. Balance my time between studies, swimming, work, friends, ministries, and alone/God time....but it looked impossible.... I was gonna try anyway.... But now God has shut that door.
I'm grateful in a way though. The pressure is off. I can commit to other things without worrying so much. I am definitely doing dance ministry now, and I am still praying that I got accepted into one of the 2 worship bands I auditioned for.

Well, I made 2 call-backs! And I've already been to the call-back auditions so now I have to sit and wait. and pray more.

I'm so excited for this year and what God has for me. It must not be swim team, so lead me God! I had a rough start with Orientation and other things in my life, but I am doing okay. I know that God has a plan, and I know He has His reasons for everything that's going on. He fills my loneliness, He takes away my sadness, He is there every minute of every day when other people can't be.
My joy is in Him. And I can trust that whatever happens, He worked it out that way and He just wants me to live for Him, live IN Him, live With Him.



the pictures you see are a few of my close friends (top left), my great roommate Emily on the right, and then me with Charlotte, my great suitemate (on right below the previous).