not sure what to write. stuff from highschool, you could say it travels over into college. me carla and a friend were talking about that the other day, how we can think that highschoolers are so little now. truth is, i don't think i feel any different. besides more responsibility and the possibility of life-changing things happening (meeting the one, marriage, career-calling, jobs, etc) i feel mostly the same. maybe doing a little better with the procrastinating thing though i'm still doing it. for my A-Quad (half-semester long) classes I got Bs and so far in Chem i have a B. But in psych i've got a loooow grade. so gotta get that one up.

i think i'll write more later...today. carla's 'sleep and i should be, it's after one am. and it's not like i'm doing anything extremely important. hm...we've got chapel tomorrow at 10:35am and then chem at 11:30, and then i've got Theology of Culture from 2:00 to 3:00. we've kind of got a busy week,  a chem exam on wednesday and this Friday is Willie O's Brotha Appreciation banquet. Got lots of preparation to do for that, in addition to finding a white blouse to go with my skirt...and then the Sista's Appreciation is Saturday..so yeah. That's a little update because I know that I haven't really been good about keeping in touch...sorry!

here's my love!!

<3,

alexia

facebook is the new xanga...

well, sometimes.

Thank you Steve!! I cannot believe I am 18. It's--awkward and so very new. I think I liked 17 better. Turning 18 just means I'm older and gaining more responsibility, etc....

How can I squeeze in a month's worth of information into this little space??

This week will be my third week of class, oh yeah! Soemthing that most people do not know about us is that Wheaties are wild. All of the upperclassmen are really rubbing off on us. They welcomed us with waterballoons and cheers on two different days, respectively. ALL of the guys at wheaton are friendly and warm and genuine. Of course there are exceptions, but for the most part this has blown a lot of us girls away.

The food at Wheaton is indescribable. Need i say more?

We have chapel three days a week, the worship is awesome...the professors are all super unique and personal in their own ways (at least this is my take based on those i've met, in and out of my classes)

The Wheaton Improv Club rules!! They are the greatest!!

HoneyRock was beyond amazing. I learned so many things my head spun ...and still spins...i learned good and bad things...i learned some not so great things about myself, and some great things about God--for instance, His provision for me and faithfulness. I learned how to kayak and I mountainbiked and finished the trail although i thought i wouldn't--and though it was nice to try, i wil never do ANYTHING like that ever again--my limbs shook for twenty straight minutes afterward...and i met a lot of people--that was incredibly helpful, because so many of us new each other and had some sort of connection before getting to wheaton. the girls in my cabin--oh yeah, we're pretty close. One thing i've really loved though, is just the idea of dorm life and floor life and stuff. we sometimes call our dorm the fisch-bowl...and our floor is really wild. Once the sophomores moved in it was crazy...we'll be studying or in our rooms and hear all this shrieking down the hall. LOL There are several girls that I feel really close to already, and it feels good to have that connectiom with  some of the girls on my floor. Amanda and i usually eat breakfast together..we have our first Mon Wed Fri class together, and afterwards she'll say, "Alexia! Breakfast?" and i'll be like, oh yeah!" and then we eat! oh yeah, and we exercise togehter. And then there's Bianca, who knows Chinese!! And there's a girl named Alexis who goes by Lexie and our birthdays are similar. She's gonna be 19 sep 4. and. guess. what. there's a girl named elise, and we. have. the exact same birthday. She's 18 today too!!!!

yep...as the weeks go by i feel closer to my floor..oh yeah and we do these activities where we get to know our sister and brother floors (b/c fischer's a co-ed dorm) and we have dinner with them every wednesday, or we watch a movie together, etc.

i like chapel...i don't even mind the fact that we have it three days a week. i really think it's refreshing. i remember someone saying that it's easy to get into the routine of things b/c worship time is kind of already set in for us, and i can see how it'd be easy not to spend extra time with god individually. i have yet to do that, i haven't had quiet time since the day before we left honeyrock...and that was a while ago. there's a chapel room in fischer, so i am considering spending some time there this week...

which reminds me that i would like to make a schedule for all my daily activites...

ok, gotta go! family's taking me out for lunch!!

Tomorrow is my very last day of work. Frankly, some of it's been hell, dealing with coworkers and bossy people and head teachers cutting my hours. But i'm gonna miss the kids so badly. I mean, how do I explain to them, especially the ones that are attached to me, that tomorrow I go bye-bye for a really long time? i don't know. i'll probably cry. I was thinking it'd be lovely to give each toddler (or each toddler that is extremely attached to me, that is) a picture of me and him or her together...then he or she will remember me, no? only thing is, we ran late today and i didn't get an instant camera like i'd meant to. so if i took a picture with each of them i'd only be able to give it to them next week...but wouldn't that be weird, coming in just to leave some pictures? hm...maybe not. i think i'll do that.

i went to grow group yesterday. it was just me and carla and monica, but i really felt it was beneficial. and i feel so blessed that we are reading james. so much of what he says applies now and will definitely apply once we head off to college. and we're goin to the wheaton passage too, their camp at honeyrock, so we've got homework to do for that--reading a book, it's called Embracing the Love of God by James Bryan Smith and we also have several other readings to do in addition to keeping a journal and answering handout questions for each reading. at grow group we were talking about feeling discouraged, and edification and stuff, and boy oh boy. i'm already feeling discouraged. i read some of the questions and i was stumped...i feel like i don't even know what the questions are asking!!! but i am going to pray about it, and do my best. we're doing this work for our first two hours of credit, a class called Introduction to Spiritual Formation. i am looking forward to what I will learn...

among other things...sst this year could not have been more memorable, thought-provoking, and mind-blowing. every speaker, i felt, had something for me to learn. i felt like brittany did, that God used their lessons to tear down the wall she'd had . wednesday's lesson was what did it for me, Don Stubbs' lesson. i was like, he's summed it up right there--and i knew i was too me-focused. i am still struggling with that, opting for exercising or watching tv instead of reading my Word or pushing it off till later. I am struggling to maintain the kind of feeling i felt when i laid everything before God on wednesday of SST, struggling to have that feeling of dependency once again. and it's really all about laying my life down before him each day.