quote of the day

Bible Study.

Brandi: "I kinda just picture God being half Irish and half Nigerian."
Janna: "Word."

Irish Sports Report

My passport is in! I still can't beleive I had to wait 23 years to have a reason to get one, but who cares really. My prof. sent me the readings that he's requiring his Globilization in Sport class to read before taking our adventure to Ireland. I haven't read them yet, so today's fact isn't from anything academic. It's just that the whole point of this here trip is to experience sport in another country. What kind of sports do they got over there? Well I'm glad you asked.

Gaelic football is the most popular sport in Ireland in terms of match attendance and community involvement, and represents 34% of total sports attendances at events in Ireland and abroad, followed by hurling at 23%, soccer at 16% and rugby at 8% and the All-Ireland Football Final is the most watched event in Ireland's sporting calendar.

Actually I've been cultured all along, seeing as how I've played soccer my whole life and soccer is THE sport of the world. I just love everything about it. Too bad no one else in America does. But I've always had this weird interest in Cricket. First of all, I just really like that a sport is called Cricket. I don't really know all the rules and I've only seen a few clips of it on tv, but if baseball and kickball had a baby, it would be Cricket. I feel like you have to be wicked athletic to play it or be a student at Hogwarts or somethnig but I would love to give it a try. Ireland's Cricket team played in the 2007 World Cup and was one of the final 8 teams. The next Cricket World Cup will happen in 2011 in India, Shri Lanka, Bangladesh and ending in Mumbai. Anyone who's reading this is bored.

The Meaning of Everything

Seeing people come to either know the Lord for the first time or desire to grow in their relationship with him IS the best thing on this side of heaven. I have seen, in literally ONE week how perfect God is and how much control He has and that He never messes up. He can't mess up. Thousands of people died on Tuesday and the reality is that this world will continually fail us, but luckily my hope isn't in that. A lot of people ask why bad things happen to good people and no human will ever have the answer to that. But if you ask me, I'll just tell you that no one is good. We were born into this world as a sinner and we all took a bite of that apple and durn it, I'll always be a screw up. So I don't think that God is selective when it comes to death for just no reason. He always knows what's up and sometimes bad things happen to good people and good things happen to bad people. What I know is that whether I'm GOOD or BAD on a given day, that's not what makes me righteous. And seeing as how 10 out of 10 people die, I know that what's after that is a lot more important. Gotta love that junk.

And this pretty much sums it up....
Me: "What are yall doin?"
Janna: "We're just chillin and talking about Jesus and stuff."
Me: "I really like Jesus."
Janna: "We do too! He's like God and stuff."
Me: "Yea and He's like really huge and things."
Janna: "Yea, He like made the world and has the whole thing in His hands!"
Me: "Yea. I can't do that.
Janna: "Me neither."

quote of the day

Brittany: "Look at Gaffney on the couch, falling asleep."
Erin: "Gaffney's tired."

quote of the day

Sydney: "What if you really did have 6,000 chicken minis. Just lining your room."
Janna: "That's a lot of crumbs in your bed."

B-A-N-A-N-A-S!

It's been hard for me to figure out why psychologists make people take all these personality tests. I mean I can tell you I'm outgoing if you ask. In my health promotion class on tuesday night we took a personality test that I'd never done before. You had a list of 4 words in a row and you had to categorize them with a 1-4 as to which word most describes you. The results consisted of placing you into 4 categories: Grapes, Oranges, Bananas, and Melons (i dont know which type of melon exactly). Turns out I'm a banana! This is perfect, I love bananas! Here is what it says about me:

Natural abilities include: Planning, Fact-finding, Organizing, Following directions
Bananas learn best when they: Have an orderly environment, Have specific outcomes, Can trust others to do their part, and Have predictable situations.
Bananas may have trouble: Understanding feelings, Dealing with opposition, and answering "what if" questions.
To expand their style, bananas need to: Express their own feelings, Get explanations of others' views.

dang. These tests are popular because they are so legit. This is why I'm set for the business world. I don't want your opinion, I just want you to tell me what to do and I'll go do it. If you ask me, "what if....?" I'll probably tell you I don't care "what if" and tell you to come back when something actually happens. It's true, it's the way I roll. It seems as if I didn't really need to take this test afterall, I kinda already knew these things. But it's always good to know which peice of fruit I am. I hope everyone caught the Gwen Stefani reference in the title. She rocks.

Leap Year

It seems as if Amy Adams is right! Hollywood wasn't just trippin in order to make a new movie full of hot Irish men. Leap Year (the movie) comes out today and while most of you could care less about a romantic comedy, you should know that the actual plot of the movie is in fact a real tradition in Ireland. Girl power.

In the English speaking world, it is a tradition that women may propose marriage only on leap years. Because men felt that put them at too great a risk, the tradition was in some places tightened to restricting female proposals to the modern leap day, February 29, or to the medieval leap day, February 24.

I wanna know where the gold at

As cool as I look on the outside, I'm really a nerd on the inside. I like to google things and I think useless facts are useless fun. So it was perfect when Uncle Jim gave me a book of 101 facts on Irish history for Christmas. I will be supplying you with such facts in the coming days for your entertainment. Some will be interesting. Others might find you losing some brain cells, we'll see.

My first fact doesn't come from the book, but from my curious mind and one of my favorite youtube videos. The origin of the Leprechaun. A leprechaun is a type of fairy in Irish Folklore, usually taking the form of an old man, clad in a red or green coat, who enjoys partaking in mischief. Like other fairy creatures, leprechauns have been linked to Irish mythology. Popular depiction shows them as being no taller than a small child.

Luckily the National Leprechaun Museum is opening it's doors this March in Dublin, so hopefully we'll get to check it out.

2010

My new years resolution is to love Jesus more. Everything after that will take care of itself.

"For I resolved to know nothing while I was with you except Jesus Christ and him crucified."
-1 Corinthians 2:2