Okay, I Promise, No More Procrastination

So, I just need to get my thoughts out of my head before I sit down and focus on this huge stupid Chem lab due tomorrow. So, I wrote a History essay today handed in a document analysis, wrote a paragrph, have 100 MC questions to do tomorrow, and another document analysis. In Chemsitry, I just found out I got 62% on a test I thought I aced, and have two combined Chem lab formal write ups due tomorrow. AND just got a call from the other Lauren letting me know we're actually speaking TONIGHT not TOMORROW night at this resort. Meaning, hey, let's panic. Ready? GO
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Pressure point: Second bad chem test in a row. If my grades drop too much I lose my university acceptance, and some scholarships along with it...obviously. This 2-day History test will have the same effect on my mark if I don't do well. Lauren and I haven't reviewed our presentation for tonight...at all. What do I wear? And, Chemistry labs and tests are the two things we can't omit from our grades. Okay, I'm leaving now.

I will focus. Do well. Speak well. Wear whatever I'm wearing well.

Just Thinking

This is so uncommon to have to posts in such close timing. But what does it matter when I don't have a needy audience? Beautiful.
Anyways, I was going through my notebook (I dislike the words journal or diary...because that's not what it is for me)...and found this thing I'd written about Africa. It makes me think, I like it. So I thought I'd throw it into here so I can look at it a bit more, think about it some more, and maybe one day somebody will see this and it'll make think too.
Thinking is positive.
Here it is.

The world seems to think Africa needs us. That we need to tell them how to live (busily), how to love (conditionally), and how to succeed (with money). Of course, the aid we send and the children we sponsor are a blessing, a needed one. However, we've become so blind in our pursuit to change a continent that rarely have people paused to see who Africa is, what it has to teach the world, and the beauty of a lost culture. Maybe living in Zambia was about more than just saving orphans and feeding widows. My time there (I see now) was about more than sensationalized clinic visits. I love helping people - I tried to give what I could when I could, being in the situation I was in. The blessings the people of Zambia poured upon me were that of a lovely and forgotten kind though. They gave me wisdom, insight, and laughter. More than I could ask for, and all they had to offer.

That not could easily be taken the wrong way, but if you're reading this, eat it up for whatever it's worth. It never ceases to amaze me how 6 months of life completely and totally changed my mind, my heart, my friends, and my family. Not just for a moment, but forever. The changes keep coming and the impacts continue happening, always unexpected, always in the most gorgeous of ways.

Tonight

Tonight's one of those nights I feel like I need to write. And I feel like I need to write about...friends, maybe. Or maybe something about lacking sleep...perhaps love, or selflessness. I'm not sure. But I need to write.
And then I think about the things I listed, and I wonder if they, maybe, they're all one. I'm lacking sleep right now because I have friends who I love, friends who are teaching me about selflessness, and it's important to me to be around these people, or at least converse with them.
These aren't my only type or friends though. I have friends who consult me on their dieting techniques (why me?), friends who like to walk, friends who feel alive only why they're six feet under beer, friends who think they're somebody better, friends who think they're somebody worse, friends who think they are who they are because of who they are with.
They're all my friends, and they've all poked and prodded me until I was shaped into this person hitting the keys. Okay, I'm willing to admit that it was not all them, that I did some shaping and considering and contemplating myself. The point here is though, my life is surrounded by people, and one person who's just too far away right now.
One of my best friends moved to New Zealand with her family about a year and 5 months ago. Right now, she's not doing so well. One of her good friends in NZ was killed in a flash flood on Tuesday, she was 16. It doesn't feel right. Death holds a negative connotation, it's like the word is yucky and perhaps even rude to bring up. But it happened. And it hurt. No, I didn't know Natasha. I didn't know the other 6 who died along with her. But I know somebody who knew her, and it's odd and not quite sensible that I feel it so deeply, when that's my only connection. Do you think that's when you know that you've begun trying to shape your life around others? When you feel their hurt, a million thousand trillion miles away? I just don't know. All I know is losing a friend means losing a part of your life, restructuring and restoring something that brought itself along as such a blessing.
Live like Jesus. It's what I've been really challenged to do. Not to live like Jesus, but to really LIVE. LIKE. JESUS. It's different, you know. All my life, this whole Christian thing, I figured I was doing everything pretty well. Reading the Bible, praying, preaching. But that's not the end of this whole Christ follower deal. Feed the poor. Give everything you have. Why live in excess when some can't live day to day? Love everybody. EVERY-BODY. Take care of the earth, take care of each other.
Be a hippy? Okay...if that's the term you'd like to sugar coat these actions in. But simply, live like Jesus.
Who knows where the connections lay within all these words. All I know, is that caring about others makes life a thousand times more worth living, no matter how much hurt that involves. Being available to those people is important.