Martha's Bloomers

We went to Martha's Bloomers today with bible study.  As you know I do love a good restaurant.  Have you ever been there?

It's a fun place to go with girls.  It's a gardening haven with a little tea room in the back that serves delicious chicken salad and iced tea.  We also had sample "shots" of tea in tiny tea cups with butterflies for handles.  Cute :)

I absolutely love the girls in my bible study and I will miss them so much!  Kelsey and I have been leading these girls since they were freshmen, and it has been such a blessing to learn about Philippians and then Daniel with them.  This all started because 2 girls decided to invest their time and wisdom into me and Kelsey and some other fun girls when we were freshmen and sophomores in hopes that we would learn and someday lead our own study and help more girls know Jesus more deeply in college.  Since then Kelsey and I have started our own study with three girls--Amanda, Lauren, and Kate.

We recently (almost finished!--we're going to finish over the summer) the Beth Moore study on Daniel.  I loved it.  If you want to read a book about a true man of God, and also learn a ton of crazy/awesome prophesy read Daniel!  And we loved doing it with the Beth Moore study.  I don't think I'd touched Daniel since I was in preschool learning about Daniel in the Lion's den.  Which is a really cool story, but there is so much more to his life!  He is a great example of a man who lived counter-culturally, and faced much persecution in his life because he feared the Lord.  Amazing! 

Tomorrow I will clean my room.  Deep clean.  I mean it this time.  I'm also going to find a place for my sister to live next year.  If anyone has any good College Station dorm/apartment suggestions please let me know!

love ya'll

Today I sat in bed all day long...

Today I woke up around 8 and literally did not get off of my bed until I went to the allergy doctor at 1.  :)  I don't know what's wrong with me, but lately I can't breathe very well, so I saw the doctor and he gave me some samples.  I hope that helps.  I think I just need an inhaler.

Tonight I went to dinner with my dear friend Holly.  Holly has been my very good friend for such a long time, I guess you could say our friendship blossomed when we were officers of the 9th grade drill team, had a common interest of shopping at Agasi, and thought we looked cool in braces.  We actually thought we looked cool all the time.

We didn't...

Anyways, now my dear Texas girl is planning to up and move to Boston to start married life with her new fiance, David.  I love talking with Holly about her plans.  Everything is so exciting right now.  Holly is literally about to be a wife, a teacher, and a northerner (eww).  Everything in her life is changing!  Everything in our lives is changing I guess.  I don't know how we got here.  Every time I talk with Holly I learn something from her.  As I was sitting across from her tonight at dinner I just kind of realized how important it is to maintain friendships.  There is really nothing more comforting nor healing than being with a person who knows you inside and out, and has for a long time.  My friends and I are all about to graduate and scatter all over the world, and I'm not very good at keeping in touch, but it's so important!  So i'm gonna try real hard.  Even more than that I guess I've just been learning to value people a whole lot more lately.

God puts all kinds of people in our lives for a reason.  We are made to live in community with people.  Heather Hendricks says that as believers, our unity points others to God (John 17:20).  So if this is the way we point others to God we better know each other deeply, and let people know us deeply.  I am so thankful to have friends who love me enough to know me.  Know what's going on inside of me.  I will strive to do that for people around me so that we may point to Jesus because of our unity.

By the way, I'm learning this stuff because I'm reading this blog: http://www.herhands.blogspot.com/.

If you are a girl you should read it.

I'll be floating the river tomorrow. :)  That sounds delightful!

Goodnight

Today a miracle has happened...

It is a rainy day in college station.  And it is perfect.  My finance class was cancelled today and so I called Katie and Michele and we decided to go eat lunch at Madden's.  I believe that if we eat food in heaven it will be from Madden's.  I mean it.  If you have never been to Madden's for lunch, go and order the Bacon and avocado grilled havarti and white cheddar cheese sandwich on focaccia with a cup of

bisque.  Yum.  It will melt in your mouth.

I want a labradoodle.  

i mean is that not just the cutest thing you've ever seen???  My family has one, Moe.  He is very cute, but I want one of my own.  Katie and I are watching When Harry Met Sally in my bed.  We made coffee and ate cake.  I love to grind my own HEB coffee.  Taste of the Hill Country is my favorite.  It has light hints of vanilla and cinnamon.  Really good with hazlenut creamer.  Perfect.

i forgot that i restarted my blog

i'm going to work on the design. 

Coming back...

I think I've decided I might just start this blog up again.  The only thing that was holding me back is my own self-consciousness in my writing skills...well, and my thinking skills.  I feel like people who keep blogs are really deep thinkers, and I would never really call myself a deep thinker.  I take that back, I would say that I have deep thoughts, they're just not overly intellectual.  If that's possible.

I think I won't tell anyone that I'm doing this for awhile, and then later if I feel like it I'll spread the word.

Anyways that's besides the point.  I'm going to keep a blog starting now and going through the next semester documenting a major life transition time.  I started getting serious about my graduation and future job today.  I visited with my advisor in the COMM department this morning to make sure that I am lined up to graduate in the fall.  I forgot to register in November like I was supposed to, and so right now I don't have all of the classes I need.  I need to get into Finance 409, and I've been trying, but it looks like I might have to wait until add-drop week.  I also made a stop into the Texas A&M Career Center this afternoon to meet with an advisor who helped me put together my resume.  As I was sitting in the waiting room I started to get overwhelmed with the whole job search that I'm just beginning.  Apparently resume writing is its own art form, so is interviewing.  Then, if I do happen to get a job when will I start and what exactly will it be?  I'm just not sure that I know what I want to do yet.  How did college go by so fast?  I was supposed to have it figured out by now.  Right now I'm looking into an entry level Human Resources position, possibly directed toward college recruiting.  Wouldn't that be fun??  I'll keep updating as the search progresses.  

Did I mention I'm going with Campbell to see George W. Bush speak at Graduation convocation this Friday?  That's right.  The current president of the United States will be in College Station this Friday.  I'm stoked.  :)

hmm ok that's all for now.

love sarah

Barcelona

Hello from Barcelona!



Today we arrived in Barcelona after a 12 hour, over-night train ride across Spain. The train had little compartments where the seats folded out into bunk beds. Three beds stacked on top of each other. Calli, Katie, Katie and I shared our compartment with a nice lady from Salamanca who used to be an english teacher but now doesn't remember any english. She said that she barely spoke english in the classroom when she was teaching it anyway. We were a little confused.



So who wants to guess the first place we went to in Barcelona? Of course we went to starbucks. I love spain's coffee (Café con Leche), but my iced caramel machiatto was refreshing and reminded me of home. We hung out for a few hours and wandered around Madrid until we could check into our hotel. Our hotel is nice. The four of us are sharing one room with two twin beds, so we'll just have to squeeze tight for the next few nights.



Today we went on a Fat Tire Bike Tour of Barcelona. It was a four hour tour, and we saw all the important sites of the city. We saw Gaudi's La Sagrada Familia, we went to a pretty park with a beautiful fountain, also by Gaudi called "Cascades". In the park there were lots of people picnicking and enjoying the beautiful day. We ended the tour at the beach where we ate dinner with the rest of the people on the tour. Every person on our tour went to A&M. It was the four of us and then 6 other finance students studying abroad with the A&M. The aggie network is everwhere!!

...i had left off here in Barcelona and now i will finish:

The next day we went to the park where we saw Gaudi's cascades and read for hours and that night we saw a movie in english--What Happens in Vegas. It wasn't a great movie but we were so glad to be watching a movie that we understood that we didn't really care! After the movie we went to Hard Rock Cafe. Needless to say, we had a very American night.

Our last day in Barcelona we went to the beach. The beaches in Barcelona are part of the Mediterranean and it was absolutely beautiful. We laid out all afternoon. The sell everything at the beach. There were men walking around singing little songs about all the cold drinks they had for sale, and Calli and I both got massages from Asian women walking around saying "massage?" I'm not sure how certified their services were, but Calli and I both enjoyed it very much. If we decide not to come home, we can just give people massages at the beach to make a living...That night we ate at a nice restaurant on the beach called "Arenal". There we celebrated Katie Crawford's 21st birthday and enjoyed watching people at the beach. Later that night we went to watch the "magic fountains" of Barcelona. They are these huge fountains that turn all different colors and change as music plays. I'm going to try to post a video of that on this blog. I took about 5. I'll do that in just a little while.

We took an 11 hour train ride home on Sunday. It was almost too much to handle, but we survived. The trains are a very nerve racking thing because they don't give you much time to get on or get off. The four of us brought 2 gigantic suitcases to Barcelona (we packed for 3 weeks instead of 3 days) and they were hard to get on and off the train. So in all the hustle and bustle of getting everything off the train I forgot to grab my school work from under my seat. Every single handout and every single note I've taken in the last 2 weeks is gone. I started from scratch on Monday. Oops. I don't think it'll be that big of a deal though because I'll just study with Katie and the tests shouldn't be that hard. I can't believe we only have 2 weeks left! It's flown by!

Tonight we will probably lay low and start studying for exams. Clemen has lots of movies so we might try to find one that has english subtitles. I think that's all for now! Thanks for checking in! OH...i'll post that video in a sec.

Santander

Hello friends!

I'm sorry that it has been awhile since I've blogged. Our internet was out at the house for the majority of last week and we were out of town this weekend. So let me start where I left off last time and take you up to this very moment.

The weather in Salamanca got better starting on Tuesday, and our moods got better too. The cold weather was really starting to wear on us and we have been so happy to welcome the warm sun each afternoon after our classes. It still starts off a little chilly in the mornings, but by the time we're done with class the weather is perfect. It's probably been in the 80's every afternoon here. Muy bien.

We have really been wanting to try this Spanish/European fast food company called "Pans & Company" so on Thursday we decided that we would skip lunch at our respective houses and eat Pans together in the Plaza. The food, the company, and the weather was all very good as we sat and talked and read together in the Plaza for the majority of the afternoon. There has been a big festival going on for the last 2 weeks (as I mentioned in my previous blog, the video is from the festival) so on Thursday there was a Spanish radio station there to hear what the people of Salamanca had to say about all of it. Katie and katie left at about 5 and Calli and I stayed to read a little more and we listened to the DJ's as they interviewed different people walking through the plaza. When I saw one of the DJ's walking toward Calli and I, I had a moment of panic and then calmed myself as she chose to interview Calli first. She started speaking very fast asking Calli lots of questions. I guess Calli kind of got nervous too and couldn't really understand the girl and so when she put the microphone to Calli's mouth all Calli could say was "No hablo mucho Ingles". Oops. She meant spanish. Everyone knew that, so it was OK. So then the girl says (in spanish), OK then we will talk to your friend here and put the microphone up to my mouth and all I could think to say was "I speak even worse than her" but what came out was "mas menor" which means "more smaller" or "more younger" to which Calli burst out laughing and I just put down my head. Every eye in Salamanca zeroed in on us and the main DJ at the front just kept repeating "mas menor...hmm....mas menor".

On Friday after class we left to go to a town called Santander for the weekend. Santander is a beach town in north Spain. We were a little nervous about the weather because when we got there it was really cold, but the next morning when we walked out of our hotel the sun was shining and it was a really pretty day! We stayed at the beach all afternoon. We had lunch at telepizza, which is another European fast food place and went back out to the beach. We've all been reading a lot on this trip. I started a new book, A Severe Mercy, and I have not been able to take my nose out of it since I opened it. Santander was beautiful. We went to the cutest little park on Saturday afternoon. We saw 2 brides getting married, lots of little kids playing in beautiful green fields, and a beautiful, old palace. In the park there was also a small zoo that had penguins, ducks and sea lions. Dinner Saturday night was kind of an adventure. We took a taxi to a Mexican food restaurant (yes, they have mexican food in Spain) but the restaurant was completely empty so we wandered around the town until we found somewhere better. Dinner was very good, and Santander was fun to walk around in at night. Calli got a lot of pictures of Santander, so I will steal them from her and post them soon.

We just got home and are worn out and ready to go to bed. I will try to be better about updating more frequently. What an adventure we are having here in Spain! I hope that who ever is reading this is getting to experience it a little bit with us :) more later...