Gotta Get Down on Friday!

Seeing as this is my last day at HCA, I am an excited mess! I have never been more ready to be done with work. So naturally, the day that I am all happy because of the last day of work, everyone (literally almost everyone I know) goes out of town. To make things even worse most of them are on my church's In-Tents Worship trip. Just so you know, this is probably one of the most fun, exciting, adventurous, Spiritually uplifting trips the youth group/college takes every year. For literally weeks I had been getting excited thinking that the trip was next weekend so my play would be over and I would get to go...but no of course not! I am stuck at home by myself all weekend. At least I have my play to keep me occupied. This is the last weekend and of course it is bittersweet. Being in plays always gives my self esteem a boost (even though I am playing a girl who is supossed to be plain and boring...hope I wasn't type casted).

Started to attempt to buy my school books today. I have a ton of stinkin books that I need this semester! But seriously..I have at least six books per class and I am taking five classes. You do the math. I really do think this is going to be a good semester. I am a little apprehensive about seeing some people and about getting back into the swing of things, as normal. Plus, this is my senior year so I feel like I will be constantly stressing about something. I can't even begin to think of how scary it is that in a year I will hopefully be getting back from Honduras and beginning to start a new stage of life. But, just seeing all the amazing things God has done for me this past year, I am not too terribly worried.

Spanish Bible verse of the week:

"Ya te lo he ordenado: Se fuerte y valiente! No tengas miedo ni te desanimes! Porque el Senor tu Dios te acompanara dondequiera que vayas."          - Josue 1:9

Preparation and Focus

So I am going to try to blog some of my journey to prepare myself for next summer. Laura and I have written out pretty detailed goals and objectives for the next year. We do not want this trip to creep up on us. I really think that God has had a hand in my decision to work in Honduras next summer. Later on today I am going to blog some about the actual trip. One thing that really stood out to me during our week in Honduras was how close we were able to get to the Hondurans on the brigade. I think that the container not being released was all part of the plan. So anyways I am trying to really work on my Spanish. I was recently given a Spanish/English Bible and it is really helping me. I have been memorizing versus in Spanish so I am not only getting practice in the language but I am able to really think about what the versus are saying. On August 1, Laura and I will begin teaching the children's class for the Hispanic congregation on Sundays. I am really nervous/excited about this. I think it will be very good for me to go out of my comfort zone and actually use the Spanish I have learned. Ana Maria always says that the best way to get comfortable with Spanish is to use it. Every time I see her she makes me recite a verse and speak some Spanish to her. I love being held accountable. Throughout the year we are going to try to keep ourselves focused on our longtime goal. Although there will be times when we get caught up in life and school, we want to remain focused and we want to make sure that we are prepared. I really think this is going to be a good year. Even though I wish it would just go fast (or that I could just skip my senior year) I think that God has great things planned for this year. More info on my Honduras trip later. About to leave work!

God Bless!

Hannah

Mission Statement and Life

So this topic was recently brought up in my church's college class. What is a mission statement? And what does it mean to have one? One thing I have really focused on this past year is living each day with a purpose, granted it is harder than it looks. It is so easy to get caught up in the daily routine and to forget what is really important. Even things that appear to be good can become a distraction; things like work and school. So how cool would it be to have a mission statement for life? Just something that you could write down and keep in your wallet or purse. It seems a little silly to me but the more I think about it the more sense it makes. It would be so much easier to live with a purpose if that purpose was clearly written down and thought out. So...needless to say, that is my homework for the week. I am going to write myself a mission statement!

So...anyway. This is my last week of work! This summer has gone by so extremely slow but I almost can't believe it is over! I have literally been sitting in an office all summer doing...well doing nothing. So I can't really imagine what I will do with myself when I don't have to get up and go to work everyday. Hopefully I will be somewhat productive...but I doubt it. Tangent...I am a senior in college. When this thought crosses my mind all I can think of is the little boy coming home from the dentist saying, "Is this real life?". I have no idea where the time has gone. It seems like just yesterday I was a freshman in college turning eighteen and me and my friends were running around campus with birthday maracas singing happy birthday at the top of their lungs. A lot has changed since then but it still only seems like yesterday. It kinda makes me wonder how different things will be in another three years. Crazy! Well...I guess I am gonna get to bed. Work tomorrow, gonna suck...but then again I only have to do this for one more week! Goodnight all!

God bless!

Hannah

Life In General

So life is good (except for the fact that I have been shut up in an office all summer). Granted at least they put three of us girls together. If I was working in this department by myself I don't think I would have made it this long. Hailey and Kelsey have definitely made things alot less boring. Luckily we all hit it off pretty quick (thanks to our obsession with Pretty Little Liars). But seriously, that show has been a lifesaver this summer. It's always the go to conversation when we are desperately bored. Just the other day we figured out how to access twitter and facebook on our work computers and that has definitely helped the overlying boredom we experience every day. So other than reading about our favorite celeb stars and the movies they are currently in and making, we have each had our own things that we do. I have been frantically trying to get into the Elementary Spanish I class. Since Laura and I are planning on spending all of next summer in Honduras we could really use some Spanish lessons. And I am thinking, "well I have to have a language to graduate so...why not Spanish?"! Who would have thought it would be so difficult to get into a class. Apparently they like to keep the classes at 18 students per class. My thoughts are..."what difference will one person make?". Well, I finally got a hold of the teacher and I think he is going to help me out. And so...our desperation to find some sort of entertainment continues. We listen to interviews of Tom Felton, listen to Glee music, watch Pretty Little Liar clips, and still it is only 2:30. I never realized how long a day could last! So the fam is at Six Flags today...totally jealous! The second weekend of my play is this weekend. Hopefully we will have a better turn out. It is a really good play, it is just hard to fill up the seats. Unfortunately this play is causing me to miss In-Tents. I am super bummed...but oh well...what can I do? Once more week of this internship. We can make it! Not sure yet what I will do for two weeks in August but I am sure I will find something! Well that's about all I have to say for now! Peace!

God Bless,

Hannah

It's True What They Say...Time Flies When You Are Having Fun

So I kinda slacked off on my blogging during last Spring semester. Yes, it was the beginning of many great changes in my life but it was also very hectic and I didn't always have time to get on and blog. So needless to say, I am going to start blogging more often. Alrighty, school wrapped up nicely! For the first time in my college career I got straight A's! Makes me wonder why I didn't decide to be an English major from the beginning. Oh well, I guess some lessons are only learned the hard way. During the school year I tried refocusing everything in my life. I felt like I woke up one day and I was on some strange road a hundred miles away from where I needed to be. So many good things happened last semester but there were definitely some things I regret. I purposefully pushed myself off the face of the earth. I thought it would be better for me to be safe then have to explain to everyone why I am making so many changes in my life. Bad idea. All that got me was a semi-lonely semester and a gas bill out the roof (I moved back home and commuted to school every day). So finals went well and, like I said before, I passed every class with an A! Snaps for me! I had a week of summer break before I was packing my bags and hopping on a plane to Washington State with a bunch of other Lipscomb kids to learn about saving the earth and hugging trees. It was definitley an experience to remember. I met a lot of new and interesting people and I got to check another state and geographical location off my bucket list. Come to find out...I also made A's in both my travel course classes! More snaps for me! One more week of summer break and...HCA internship starts (read previous blog for more info on how that experience has been). One week into the internship I was once again packing my bags and hopping on a plane. But this time I was headed to Honduras with some of the most amazing people I have ever met! Maybe some day I will put some clippets from my Honduras journal on a blog. It is just too hard to put into words what it is like to be in Honduras. So my advice to you would be...hop on a plane and go see for yourself! On arriving back in the states, Laura Burgess and I decided that next summer we are going to be interns at Jovenes en Camino. We fell in love with the country, the language, and the culture. We want to make Honduras and the people there a bigger part of our lives. And now here I am today, sitting in an office that makes me want to pull my hair out. One and a half weeks left and then I have most of August to enjoy my summer break! School starts on the 22nd. Can't wait! I am taking four English classes and hopefully Spanish. Well...that's all for now. So glad to be blogging again!

God bless!

Hannah

PLI aka Pretty Little Interns

Well yes indeed it has been a long time...I will catch  you up on all the details later but for now I thought I would post some fun from my summer internship...

So I thought I would take this moment to blog about some of our exciting adventures in the office (well I guess you can call them adventures). Day One: the three of us innocent little interns get plummeted by the nastiness of corporate America. We find out that our boss likes to purposefully set his employees up for failure and pop his head in our office every five min with a new life lesson, the entire department are hard core democrats, one of the lady's told us about her nipple rings, and they each have extremely awkward personalities. Week Three: Kelsey, Hailey, and I have discovered our mutual obsession with Pretty Little Liars. So instead of being completely miserable at work we decided to start leaving messages from A (hopefully you know about pretty little liars or I might have to disown you as a friend). We then invented our own little world where we were the pretty little interns and I am Hanna Marin, Kelsey is Spencer Hastings, and Hailey is Aria Montgomery (we decided to ignore Emily Fields who likes her story anyway?) Week Four: we are starting to run low on things to do to make our days go by fast. So...we decided to take up the task of stalking every hot guy we could find. What did we find? A beautiful but completely arrogant rich guy we named Wilogan, an cutie that we first spotted while I was warming up my food in the cafeteria (we call him hot Microwave guy), and a tall hot intern perfect for Kelsey (we don't know much about him other than he is friends with hot Microwave guy and he plays tennis). Haha...yes what can I say? We can get bored! Week five: I don't remember much about this week but I can assure you that our creepy stalking continued on. Because of my unnatural obsession with Harry Potter we began researching the actors and finding out fun facts. For more info check out kelsey's blog kelseyannej.blogspot.com it's pretty enlightening. And finally after catching you up on six weeks of this eventful internship...week seven: we continue to procrastinate our presentations that we have to present on friday. Instead we browse the interweb and twitter for all the latest juicy gossip on pll, Casey Anthony, and any other fun celeb info. Our bosses probably think we are crazy but what they don't know is that if we weren't acting like this we literally would go crazy!

So yeah, that's my internship so far. Enjoyable? Not exactly. Will I be glad when it's over? Absolutely. Will I miss all the crazy stuff we got away with all summer? My guilty answer...yep!