Well, Wow.

In the past week and a half or so, my life has been a rollercoaster, as cliche as that sounds. I've been struggling a lot with sliding back toward depression and pulling myself away from my friends. At the same time, I've been exceedingly overcommitted with classes, work, various clubs and organizations, and BadgerCru. Just as my excitement and passion for being back on campus was being drained away by all of these things, my closest friends here and I had a fairly large misunderstanding. I'll spare you the details, but basically what transpired left me in a much worse place than where I had started the week - not the thing I needed to be added to my plate. So, that was last Wednesday night - I was up until 3:30 AM, crying, tossing and turning, frustrated, and angry. As you may imagine, that's not a good combination.

Luckily, even though these friends were not understanding what I needed, I latched onto my family and a couple other close friends and through the grace of God, I made it through the remainder of the week. During the weekend, I hung out with other friends and my sister, brother-in-law and niece came to visit! Even aside from the turmoil happening with my friends, however, I've been feeling discontent.

This brings me to the next "big thing." As you may or may not know, I was planning to co-lead a freshman bible study here on campus. The troubling thing was, however, that I had begun to dread all things having to do with Cru and the bible study. I am so overcommitted, that I started viewing this bible study as an obligation - something I was being forced to do instead of something I wanted to do, something that I was choosing to help me pursue Jesus and help others to do the same. In turn, I could tell I was starting to feel resentment toward my faith in general. The things I was doing last year because I wanted to grow closer to God were now more like things I had to check off my list for the week. I have been growing farther away from Jesus. After praying and talking this through with my co-leader and mentor, I decided to take a step back and focus on my personal relationship with God right now. As with backing out of the summer camp counselor position, I can't help but wonder if I'm doing this for selfish reasons - if I'm just afraid to commit to anything lengthy involving my faith. It's something I'm still struggling with and I'm trusting God will help me see what he has in store for me/give me the courage to commit to the opportunities he wants me to commit to.

So, though a lot of things have been stressful, I have been focusing on the little blessings in my life. The next few weeks are when a lot of interviews for summer actuarial science internships occur - and I already have 4 interviews scheduled! I don't know what will transpire, if anything, from these, but I recognize that I'm blessed to even have the opportunity to interview with four different companies.

Additionally, I have started swimming with the UW-Madison swimming club! It seems to be the perfect commitment. I've gone to two practices so far, and it's so great to be surrounded by people who like to swim and will keep me somewhat accountable for working out. I'm not sure yet if I will be travelling with the team, but either way - it seems to be a good fit for me and a wonderful way to relieve some of the stress.

Lastly, perhaps the most troubling thing of the past few weeks has been the spike in violence in and around campus. On Wednesday night, much of the University of Wisconsin campus went on lock down, as there were shots fired on a street just off campus, and the gunman fled into campus. Additionally, there have been numerous armed robberies/muggings/break-ins. While I have never been afraid to walk across campus before, extra safety precautions are a must now - even as early as 9:00 at night. It's both saddening and frightening, and I am praying that God protect our campus and strengthen the men and women working to keep us safe!

I hope you are blessed by the little things this week. As for me, I'm off to the Badger game! On Wisconsin!

-Theresa

Another family vacation is on the horizon!

Although I thought that the end of soccer season/nights spent reffing would leave me with more than enough free time, I've once again managed to fill it up quickly! Tomorrow night is dinner and hanging out with a couple friends, Thursday night is dinner with two close friends and their boyfriends, and on Friday afternoon, we leave to go camping as a family - the start of a week-long adventure! Meanwhile, I'm still working about 6 hours Monday-Friday as a wannabe programmer - although both yesterday and today I've worked 30 to 45 minutes extra. I'm extremely happy to report, however, that things do seem to be starting to click! I've been able to program a little bit on my own, and often the problems that I'm unable to solve take my bosses a while to figure out, too! I'm still not thinking this is the career path I want in life, but I have begrudgingly started to admit that there are moments where solving a programming problem can be almost.. fun! Since I will be off next week, I'm down to only 2.5 weeks left to work, which is hard to believe!

I'm also happy to report that I've been back on track with my running. Two weeks ago, I logged 13 miles, last week was 15, and this week I've already run 8.5! To reach my goal of 100 by the time I go back to school, I have about 48 left to go. I'm determined, and barring any injury or other unexpected circumstance, I think I'll be able to reach that goal!

I've also started teaching myself how to play piano again. That project started toward the end of my junior year of high school, and continued with a Class II piano solo at Solo/Ensemble my senior year. Last summer and this past fall I didn't make time to keep practicing, and it wasn't until I discovered the grand piano in the basement of my dorm spring semester that I realized how much I actually missed it. Again, though, by the end of the semester and the beginning of the summer, practicing was not a priority, and much of the progress I had made on my latest "goal song" seemed to be lost. This had a bit of a snowball effect, as I was dreading discovering how much I had fallen behind and therefore just never started. Two weeks ago, however, I started up again and I'm thrilled with how quickly I'm falling back into the swing of it! In case you're curious, my goal song is "God Gave Me You" by Dave Barnes. For someone who has only made her way through John Thompson's First Grade Piano Book (for those of you unfamiliar with this - the EASY, beginning stuff), this song is certainly a challenge. It's one of my favorite songs, though, and there a few certain close friends of mine with whom it holds certain significance, so the idea of being able to play it for them helps give me motivation to get through the frustrating times. Here's a link to a similar piano version as I am learning (although mine is slightly easier). Dave Barnes - God Gave Me You (Piano Cover) And if you aren't familiar with the original song, definitely check it out, as it is absolutely wonderful! Dave Barnes - God Gave Me You (Original).

Later this week, I'll post more about our upcoming family adventure out west. For now, I'm extremely excited to spend time with friends in the next few days here!

God bless!
-Theresa

No Complaining

This will be a short post, I think, but I need to put this in writing. After so much self-misery and complaining, I've decided to challenge myself to as little (or hopefully no) complaining as possible for the rest of the week. For the next four days, I'm going to try to be positive about everything and count my blessings rather than dwell on my problems. It'll be interesting, and undoubtedly difficult, but I think if I take it seriously and really commit to this self challenge, it could also completely shift my entire attitude toward this summer. And, as noted in the past post, to this point, my attitude has been..well, stinky.

And because I work best when people tell me they don't think I can do something, I'm betting myself that I won't be able to get through the next four days complaint-free. ..and I'm prepared to prove myself wrong!

The positives of today:

• I'm once again a member of the Y! I walked/ran 2.8 miles today!
• I followed what was happening at work for the most part.
• I had a good, meaningful talk with a dear friend of mine.
• I made dinner almost by myself without burning the house down.
• Plans were made for my weekend visit to Chicago! (WOOT.)

Farewell for now - praying for the strength to be positive!