if i had a million dollars

so folks. i'm starting to get a little worried about my trip on Semester at Sea. the campus staff here are absolutely zero help and just send me around in a circle pretty much so i spend hours trying to figure things out and...still nothing. so far, i dont know if my stafford loans will work with the Semester at Sea program...and I am unable to procure a loan at this point in time apparently. i'm not guaranteed a spot on the ship yet, even though i'm accepted because they require a $500 cabin reservation fee...and i havent paid that yet cuz i dont have the money...its really frustrating. soooooooo if you could keep me in your thoughts and prayers through all this that would be amazing.

in return..i've been working on some new songs so i'll throw one in this post for you :) ps...i'm the Singer Songwriter for the month of October here at MSU Mankato...so look forward to giant posters of me and keep your wednesday nights free for the most part cuz i'm not quite sure of the date i'm playing yet. Kyle and I are working on recording an album and some tshirts to have available at that showwwww so get ready!!!!!

(i dont have a name yet!! help)

gonna put off my plans with everyone else

gonna kick off my shoes and smile to myself

got this secret of mine and i'm oh so happy

gonna put on a dress and curl my hair

gonna dance in the street like there's nobody there

got this boy on my mind and i'm oh so happy

ohh how can this be?

that i am free to be me

no i dont have to be

something else, someone else for you

something else, someone else for you

gonna run real fast and spin around

gonna make this last until i hit the ground

but i'll stand up and laugh cuz i'm oh so happy

gonna write your name up in the sky

and people may laugh but i dont care

cuz you make me happy

ohhh how can this be?

that i am free to be me

no i dont have to be

something else, someone else for you

something else, someone else for you

YOUTHWORKS MISSIONS TRIP 2

JULY 13 2009
(birthday in 5 days)

so...we finally got to Heart Butte. we're staying in the school in the old band room. at first we were like - how is everyone gonna fit in here, but somehow we managed. i was not feeling good at all so i took some Tylenol and tried to sleep for a bit but you know how girls are, loud and talking ALL THE TIME! i went over to wait for dinner to start and met a few people from Utah. oh yeah so the other groups here are from Florida(they didnt show up til way later cuz their flight got delayed), Utah and Washington, so yeah we're all from pretty different parts of the country. the camp staff are Molly, Ranger, Dillon and Heather and they introduced themselves to us, and asked for volunteers. no one really raised their hands so of course i did. basically it meant that we had to clean up after dinner but we also got to eat first! yay! kyle and i talked to Dillon for a bit. turns out he is an engineer and has some super nerd cheer at his college football games. ahhh engineers. lol anywho then there's Heather who i got to chat with while mopping the kitchen. she's a music ed major. jealous! and has an extreeeeeeme amount of energy all the time. lol after that we had some youth orientation thing with the staff and played a game like rock paper scissors but everytime you win you evolve so i got to be 2 of the most awesome things ever- seeing as i was actually imitating them both earlier at the park. a raccoon and a t-rex. hahahahaha. then we had our big group worship thing- and itw as funny cuz we did the Bugaloo but our church was the only one that really knew it! and yeahhh then we had to split off into churches and have some group time and say what we were most excited for and i put that i was most excited to have a purpose. so i was really looking forward to finding out what that would be.

getting to sleep was kind of a problem because who goes to bed at 11:30! haha and martha just kept saying hilarious things and so ya know how that goes. oh and so this morning we got woken up by Heather playing violin. way way way cool. best wake up call ever i think. then we had morning devos which really resulted in me writing witty one line responses and taking pictures of the Res. dogs. haha then we had breakfast. i had to cash in some favors with KP and Martha ..aka begged them to get me coffee cuz it was for "adult leaders only". or else no one would be having fun. we found out what groups we were in. mine was : me, martha, alyssa, derek, jacob, jerry and then some floridians: garcia, matthew, connor and mary charlotte (who i think looks like freaking Miley Cyrus hahah crazy) our crew's name is the Wandering Cattle. "uhhh where are we? ...mooo..." lol phrase of course coined by Derek Harvey himself. so we set off to do our work projects after i volunteered to be the Youth Foreman who gets to supervise and encourage and make sure everything is getting done. oh i forgot to say that i was made to change out of my favorite thrift store purchase--the "i'm 50!" shirt. sorry kellner!!! lol our first project was to paint the community center walls, right across from the trading post! i wanna see what kind of stuff they have there. so anyways it was all going very well.

i assigned everybody jobs and they did them! i dont know why i was so surprised, it was just cool. we got to share alot of stories and the Florida people were so funny cuz they were like shivering in 60 degree weather. ahh and of course...global warming...we got rained on. and it wasnt a light drizzle either. no this was cold-hard-rain. we were getting so much done! i didnt wanna just quit. but i took one look at the shivering, teeth chattering Floridians, meanwhile getting drenched myself, and finally made the executive decision to break for lunch. ahhhh i got so much paint all over the place! so we made a break for the van to wait out the rain. it cleared up after we went to the post office to send postcards to our families and finished our tiny lunches. when we got back to the site, we realized we didnt have that much left to do which was really uplifting.

12:30 rolled around and we were getting back into the van when i thought of something ridiculous. we had four adult leaders with us but the two older ones were named Jerry and Garcia. hahah which makes my group the coolest cuz we have a Grateful Dead reference! ah and i immediately had to text Zachy about it but irght as i turned my phone on i got a text from him saying something about the The Dead too..hahaha mmm sdo we moved on to our next site which was a family's house where their trailers in the backyard got wrecked. one was set on fire and the other was victim to a very intense storm. our job was to pick up all the debris. i really love Native American names. the guy who lived in the house was called Winford Running Crane. lol bomb! we didnt get much of a chance to talk to him really, but we did get alot of work done- of course with two injuries. Mary Charlotte had a piece of glass go through her work gloves and Martha got cut on the ankle by something unknown and is time by this time i was worrying like crazy and made them get those taken care of asap.

we decided to clean up kind of early and head back to clean the brushes- but the tool shed ended up being locked up with our first site supplies int here so that plan was a no-go. we broke for the showers and freetime instead. for dinner we got alfredo and all that good stuff and it was awesome cuz i'd pretty much been super hungry for the last couple days. i got to eat til i was full. yay! our night activity was supposed to be olympics but the weather didnt really permit that. so some of the natives came for culture night. a lady named Jolene Vance spoke to us about her life and beliefs and she burned some sage! which was awesome. and then her sons and brothers had a giant drum circle and they performed for us while teaching us some of their dances. it was alot of fun. durhing one we like aerobically Jeanercized...suffice to say it was alot of work. haha then we went to Club and split off into church groups and went to bed...or tried to anyways. the door kept opening and waking me up.... boo.

YOUTHWORKS MISSIONS TRIP 1

JULY 12 2009

-3 hours til the Blackfeet reservation!! we're about to head into a major storm i think. kinda scary- but Carol Harvey is an awesome driver and the lightning is pretty much touching the mountains which is wicked sweet. so...you're wondering what all we've done so rar? well it's been a lot of driving. and it feels way longer cuz we stop so dang much. i prefer the driving straight thing- no stops. although we have gotten to see some cool stuff. like Wall Drug! i did my dancing across the USA clip in front of my favorite thing: the super random dinosaur in the Wall Drug backyard. and it was way different fromt he last time i went cuz everything was all finished. i really wanted to buy a pair of moccasins but we were kind of rushed :( oh well - alyssa and i both bought "WHERE THE HECK IS WALLDRUG?!" shirts- so we win! lol. a few more hours and we hit up a sonic! and made it to our campsite in Storm Mountain. our cabins were pretty decent. all compact and cute, hidden in like a valley type place.

lucky for us we were only 20 miles away from Mount Rushmore! so we headed out there...again- very rushed. it's hard to do these kinda things in big groups cuz you have to consider everyone's wishes. but all i know is i was really excited to be back with the "dead presidents" as Martha calls them. ohhhh Martha i'm so glad i met you on this trip! you make my day every day. lol so ...right aw we walk up the steps through the arch of state flags and i'm trying to take a super artsy photo of the Minnesota Flag flying in the wind---of course with my being so unlucky all the time- the camera battery dies. I was so upset-like you dont even know. and then they said we only had like half an hour to explore so we raced down to the cave: optimum photo taking spot. then hit up the giftshop, bought a really sweet shirt. martha bought this way cool bracelet made out of pennies. kinda jealous. okay and there was supposedly this great light show once it got dark...which basically could have been recreated by me shining my flashlight up at the monument and shouting various historical facts. hahaha oh well...

so then we went back to the campsite and i passed out asap. missing the evening and morning shower times. dont worry, its not like i smelled or anything. i just love to shower. lol and then we set out for one of what seemed like the longest days of driving ever. we didnt plan very accordingly because we didnt end up eating at all until like 5pm at bdubs. oh i forgot- we hit up custer state park. little big horn. ive never been there so it was really neat. i stepped it up a notch from incense obsession and bought some white sage. watch out roomies- the whole white house is gonnna smell awesome. the plants and wildlife were way crazy. i've never seen stuff like it. so i took pictures to look up later on the internet. haha and then we piled back in the vans and trekked onward as you can probably guess- tempers were running a bit high and arguments over nothing were ensuing. kyle and i didnt speak to eachother for like the last two hours. it was stupid but i admit, completely my fault. i'd been moody and blah all day. finally remedied by some guitar playing and my hobo shower when we finally got to our place for the night. this really nice UMC in Helena, Montana.

it was kinda confusing, like split into two buildings, one with classrooms and such, the other with sanctuary and fellowship hall. also this was one of those churches built to host missionaries, so they had a shwoer house too! i ended up taking a real shower this morning. and oh...um my straightener is broken. i have no idea how but yeah. its like all snapped. probably got stepped on in the van. no good. but thankfully one of the older adults, Judi was sympathetic and let me use her hair straightener- which was actually 10,000 times better than mine anyways and i'm convinced i need ito invest in that kind. cuz right now i literally look like my hair is naturally staright. i love it... mmm and then we went to the church service . it was really ironic because the pastor showed the Dancing Across The World video that we were making an imitation of! afterwards, we were kinda dragged into the fellowship hall because everyone was really excited that we were visiting and wanted to hear more about our trip ahead of us. we sat with an old lady named Mary who was 75 years old and still going on missions trips! she told us about her most recent missions trip to Mozambique, Africa and it was really interesting. like just some stuff you wouldnt even imagine it being like. ah! i'm so excited to go to Africa on my SAS trip!

anyways- Mary rocks and we exchanged emails. yes. i have a 75 year old pen pal now! look in the photo albums for a pic of her with us! haha so ...after that, we drove to a little park and grilled soem hamburgers. i...loved...this...park! it wasnt your typical park: like the stuff to play on could have passed for a sculpture garden of sorts.. like an abandoned tractor and army tank. and the slide was just...haha i dont really know but i liked it oh and they had these gorgeous trees perfect for climbing! and i did too. lol my goal on this trip is to release my inhibitions and just have fun. and i really think i'm doing it so far. i've had inexplicable urges to explore and hike and run around. i love it. plus it was gonna be our last chance to really run amuck until we got to our final destination for the week. i'm not sure what to expect really. so i've been asking Martha for insight on Montana (she lived here for a while last year) the mountains are simply amazing. there's either too many words to describe them or not enough. i havent figured it out yet. lol but yeah. we just survived a crazy mountain storm- lightning filling up the whole sky. okay so we just stopped. no idea where we are. soem old western town- complete with a casino i'm sure. haha every town has like 5 casinos. uhhh so this rundown old motel is here and some guests staying there just let people from our group use their bathroom. ummmm weird and creepy on so many levels so i think i will hold it. --okay that didnt really work. i just ran out and they ended up being really nice christian people. haha go figure.......

sitting, waiting, wishing

I've got all my documents in finally, after much deliberation and all the crazy running around, so I'm just here sitting on the edge of my seat, waiting.

I'm pretty confident that I'll get accepted. But i have no idea what I will do if I don't. Everyone who knows me is aware that I've been talking non-stop about this Semester at Sea trip for next spring...so if I don't...I'll probably go...live solitarily in a cave for the rest of my life! I mean I've already got thousands of ideas for trips in all the ports and it would just be an experience of a lifetime.

ahhhhhhhhhh. so anyways. if i get accepted and i'm on the ship, I'm gonna try and have this set up so that it forwards my blogs to facebook notes, that way it'll show up on newsfeeds if you forget to check up on my latest adventure!!!! haha

It's so crazy. They had an open-ship visit, but it was in Boston. Of course i wouldn't be able to go out there to look at it. So it'll be kind of like MSU where I didn't really get a good tour or anything at all before coming here. Haha. It's like a blind date with a ship. Although, having been on the Norwegian Cruise Line when i went to Alaska....I don't think any cruise ship could be anything less than amazing and beautiful. There are a few people I met from facebook groups for Semester At Sea that were able to go, so they took pictures and I'm just more excited every day! Haha I checked out videos and blogs and just...everything about it and ...

I can't wait.

Come on Semester at Sea admissions office!!!!!!!!!