One more week!

This past week has been extremely busy and this next week will not be less busy, and probly even more! This last week of school is probably the busiest week of the semester. I'll be happy when finals come ha!But, I'm not complaining about the business! As many of you might hadve heard me say, I'd rather be extremely busy, than bored, so having stuff to do makes me happy. Its a very difficult challenge to get everything done that I need to do, still have a social life and not neglect my friends, and focus on God. But I'm enjoying the challenge and know that God is making me stronger through it.

This past Friday, my brother Matthew's club, Omega, had their fall banquet. SOme of the guys have made it a "rule" that I have to be at all of their banquets because I'm getting pretty close to the whole club and like them all a lot and love to hang out with them. I was actually an official date this time...not a third wheel like my freshman year and not a last minute back up date like last year :). (not that I minded that...it was fun!) A friend of mine in omega, Justin, was my date....or rather I was his. WE had a great time. We all went to Kent and Nancy Hartman's (the missionaries in residence here at OC...they lived in Australia) house and had hamburgers and hot dogs. We played games and wacthed Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, the movie, on a bog screen (well, a sheet) outside on the back porch. That was awesome. Then we all went to Braums, as omega tradition and after braums some of us still hung out for a while until it was time to go to bed....I got to play Sonic the Hedgehog on the Sega, which I hadnt done in a really long time! It was great!

Then on Saturday I tried to do as much homework as I could until it was time for our Third Culture Kid get together. I'll explain this concept. A third culture kid is a person who has a spent a significant amount of their developing years in a culture that is not that of their parents. They acquire two different cultures as they grow up and thus 'create' their own third culture....We have a group of this kind of weird people here at OC and we try to get together once or twice a month to have a good cultural meal. We meet at Kent and Nancy Hartman's house and usually Nancy provides an amazing meal for us! We talk, get to know each other better, discuss difference between the cultures we've grown up in. Its amazing how much we have in common despite the fact that we grew up in completely different countries and even continents. We notice that things we do or dont like about differences between America and our other culture are often the same. After we ate and talked for a while we told eachother what Christmas is like in our non-american culture and told Christmas memories. Then we played a singing game called encore. We divide into groups, the moderator gives a word and we go around from group to group who has to sing at least 8 words of a song with that word in it. Its a ton of fun! especially if you adopt the rule that you can use a song from any language you know!

Well, now i have to continue my tons of homework.....please pray for all those students who have a ton to do nowadays! And thank the Lord that we dont have to do all this work during CHristmas! All you American students...be very thankful you dont have to do all this work during Xmas....In belgium, students have really really tough final exams after the xmas holidays, so they have to spend their whole break studying....one main reason i'm glad i didnt stay there for school :).

In His love,
Randa