.spanish.

Ok. Here is my attempt at three happy things for today (one of which just HAPPENS to be a huge prayer request!)
1. I found out that I can take medical Spanish in the spring during my last semester of classes.....WOOHOO! Although I can't take the school OT or ASL classes, I'm stoked to get back into Spanish.
2. My teacher curved our test (that I failed) so I now have a B-....hey, I'll take it.
3. I have the opportunity to go to Mazatlan, Mexico for 8 days in January with 6 girls from my school. The only problem= finances AND the fact that I need to decide what I'm doing within 5 days. I pray that God will open up doors to provide and that my parents will be open to the idea of letting me borrow money and go. PRAYERS!
4. Everyday I realize how blessed I am to have the boyfriend that I do. He is just over-the-top supportive, especially this semester as I've been freaking out about school and whether we can make our relationship work out despite being consumed by OT school/med school for him.

:)

.pdf files.

The best conversations happen at the weirdest times...and most often, they also come when I need them. So today at school, about 75% of our class was complaining about how they failed and/or got a C on our online test over the weekend. Yeah...super lame. After that time, I walked over to the library with a friend who was working on creating some PDF files for her job. So...we got to talking about how we (along with the 53 other second year OTSs) hate school this semester. They are trying to train us to think like OTs, but we just aren't understanding their teaching style, apparently. So my friend and I got to talking about how we are both normally QUITE optimistic people who just try to find the good in everything...but that we've been failing for the last month. It is just extremely difficult to be happy when you're surrounded with grumpy people all the time and you aren't doing well in school (aka this semester). Last night, she shared that she started a "happy moments" journal. Basically, she's writing 3 things a day that happen that are good, so she ends each day reflecting on the happy things in her life and not the sad/frustrating/annoying ones. Definitely a good CBT theory activity to stop focusing on the bad things in life. I concur. I have decided that my blog will be turning into the list of Em's happy moments. I suppose I shall start with today/yesterday.
1. All things camp. I work with a student on campus who used to be a camper and he SERIOUSLY brings me so much joy. Even though I'm just his on-call attendant for 2 nights/week, whenever he calls me, it's SO fun to just go talk to him and hang out for a bit. Yesterday, I also spent the afternoon with my beloved Canadian friend, the boy, and two other camp friends at CAMP! We walked around property and saw the new horse barn and rec pavilion that were only half finished when I left camp ~2 months ago. Just walking around camp and hanging out at our favorite place (which overlooks the lake) was AMAZING. Someday, I'll add pics to Facebook. :)
2. I got MAIL! My Daddy-O sent me a letter in it with some STAMPS! I looooooooove being a pen pal, but I always run out of stamps so quickly. Hmph. Now I can write more letters....YAY!!
3. Lily has arrived. For those who do not know, I have an un-biological twin. She had a baby. She's super adorable and I can't wait to meet her. Regardless, I would call that a happy thing...so here's a shout out to Team Hildebrand and Baby Lily! <3

.bb situation.

So, I will openly admit that I have a weakness for People magazine. It's my guilty pleasure, per se. This week in People, NOT ONLY was there a huge article about Teen Mom (ok...I also have a weakness for trashy reality TV) there was also an excerpt about bed bugs. Today when I opened up my Yahoo email, the front news story was about bed bugs in NYC. Clearly these things are taking over, which brings me to my conclusion. Over the summer, God used these stupid little bed bugs to remind me of the fact that He has a plan greater than I can see. At one point over the summer, the "bb situation" (the staff code for "oh crap...every cabin has been infested by bed begs") was more than I could handle. Really, it was more than any of us could handle. I'd never seen a 80+ person staff ripped apart by anything like this before. No one was sleeping because we were doing laundry til 3-4 AM and we were sleeping on concrete ground...for multiple nights. Not to mention that we couldn't live in our cabins AND the vast majority of us were showing bed bug bites mid-way through the week. I thought that I had made it through the clear, when one morning I woke up and I literally cried to see a few dozen bites on my left arm. That was my breaking point. Sure enough, God came through and I lived through that week. Not only did I live through it, I THRIVED the rest of that week. I have amazing memories from the rest of that week, including the highlight of my summer: adaptive water-skiing. Best ever.
Not only with the bed bugs, but God continues to blow my mind. My HS "sweetheart" (or whatever you prefer to call it) got married over the weekend. I remember at one point in my life when we broke up, that I thought life would never get better than the time I spent with him. False. Looking at his wedding pictures (um....yes, I am a facebook creeper), I realized how much happier I am now than I was with him. By going our separate ways, I have found true joy in what I'm doing (the camp/working with people with disabilities part...not so much the school part), learned what life is REALLY about, and found an even better guy. Win. <3

.speechless.

It takes a lot to make me speechless. I either have to be exhausted (beyond the point of slap happiness), exxxxxxxxtremely mad, or just in shock. "Just in shock" would be the polite way to put how I'm feeling now. Just about two hours ago, I found out that one of my favorite campers from this summer passed away from ALL (a form of childhood leukemia). He was 16, a junior in HS, and had been diagnosed for just over two years. I got a call from a counselor in my cabin during his week and we cried for awhile and then I got on Facebook to see that all of my campers from our Leadership cabin that week had posted things on their statuses about our friend. After seeing everyone's statuses and hanging up the phone with my friend, I was just in complete shock. This awesome kid who I had spend a solid 6 days with just 6 WEEKS ago had passed away. Such a shock.....
I knew that when he first came to camp in 2009, the doctors said he had less than two years to live. Seeing him at camp in 2010, I wouldn't have guessed anything was wrong. He exceeded every goal he set for himself (including trying watertubing, being a junior cabin counselor for a day, and hiking a combined 3 1/2 hour HIKE in a matter of 18 hours WITH his ankle brace on). I suppose I was really able to bond with him during watertubing and the leadership all-nighter on the last night of camp. I was in charge of watertubing and I remember having to talk him into just TRYING it; he ended up LOVING it and going multiple times and being SO excited to tell his parents about what he did. And then there was the all nighter.....
This camper had been talking ALL week about wanting to tell his story, so during the all-nighter, I promised to listen. He flat out told us how he knew he was sick, the whole process of starting chemo, living through leukemia while trying to be a regular teenager, coming to camp in 2009, still fighting leukemia...basically everything about his life from June 2008-present. The BEST part of all is that through his whole story he kept talking about how he knew that his faith was the only thing that would get him through this situation. He had his heart set on being a youth pastor and he knew that God had given him this challenge to be a light for Him and to use his testimony to change the lives of others when he was a pastor someday. Hearing his testimony made me speechless...what a strong, unwavering faith even in THE TOUGHEST of times! The most ironic thing, is that his last Facebook status ever says "I'm at home resting...." I'm am SO thankful that he loved the Lord and that He used this camper to touch so many lives while he lived here on earth. I have SO much respect for this camper and even though he will be missed here on earth, I can only REJOICE because I know that he is no longer suffering, but he is in HEAVEN!!!!
At the same time, I am reminded at how truly precious life is. You never know what day could be your last. Such a hard, but real lesson to remember. <3

.short people.

I love my friends. I am just SO thankful that God has given me such great friends in Indianapolis...just being back here feels so much like home!! More importantly, God has given me the gift of seeing people through His eyes, so even though my friends may be crazy different, I love them for it! So last night I went to hang out with two of my camp friends who recently moved to an apartment together. It was a GREAT night, but I'm sure that if anyone else had seen what we did all night, people would have been so confused. It was me, my friend with prosthetic legs, and my other friend who uses a wheelchair. We ALWAYS get strange looks when we go out places, but whatever. Getting to spend time with these guys has been such an eye-opening experience; it's crazy how much people will stare at things that are different from themselves! We had SO much fun and then we went back and the guys taught me to play Risk. It was a CRAZY long game....long enough that my friend was walking around without his legs on and my other friend was crawling around his house, instead of using his chair. When I got up to leave, one of them commented that I must have a thing for "short people", as both of the guys are sitting on the floor. It was a great comment and made me realize how strange it would look to some people, but how it seems strangely normal to me. And then (of course), being ONE WEEK back into school, I was already having all sorts of OT thoughts on how their apartment could be made more accessible. I'm such a nerd....:)

.capture.

I have the answer to the question. Not any sort of important and/or significant question, but rather the question asked by a dear friend last week at church. She asked me the most important lesson I'd learned this summer. The pastor at my church finally brought this lesson to my attention: love. Love is the answer to the question. Although it seems like such a simple and extremely obvious answer, it is the most important thing that allowed me to survive the summer. :) I suppose I should have learned this from the first week of kids' camps this summer....living with eight 8-11 year old boys with Down Syndrome will TRULY test anyone's sense of patience and love. While I think about how absolutely crazy/non-stop/chaotic this week was, I can only help but think about the happy memories and the hilarious comments from our boys. For every crazy/ridiculous thing that our boys did, I can only help but to love them a little more because they are such WONDERFUL children of God. This morning at church, our pastor gave an AMAZING sermon about creating a "rebellion of compassion" in the US.
There was a skit portraying two different families' reactions to seeing another family who had a child with a disability. One family complained about the child's behaviors while the other family accepted the child and invited her to play with them. Seeing a skit like this REALLY brought to life the reality of how my campers live on a daily basis. They are the ones catching the attention with their out of ordinary behaviors. The pastor brought in the "rebellion of compassion" by relating this skit to the story of Jesus raising the widow's son, found in Luke 17. The sermon focused on finding the people who desperately NEED to be loved on and how we can do it. This week seemed to focus a little bit on individuals with special needs, as our church has a very large ministry, dedicated to children with disabilities.
The following questions were posed at the end of the sermon:
-Do these people capture our attention, or are we blind to them?
-Do these people capture our hearts?
-Are we willing to do something our of the ordinary?

AHHHHHHHH. This sermon just blew my mind. It was simply a confirmation that I needed to hear. Although this summer was MASS chaos, I wouldn't have traded it for anything. Given the opportunity to love on these children, I couldn't have asked for anything different! Learning to love like Jesus has been a lesson I've truly experienced in my summers at camp. :) I thought I would quote a lil' Chris Tomlin right here from his Hello, Love album:

Love is the answer. Love will find a way. When we love one another, it's a brighter day. <3

.emails.

God is SO good. All the time, no questions asked. Seriously, tonight I felt closer to Him than I have in quite a long time and it was just plain AMAZING. :) I'm on such a high right now and I hope and pray that this continues as I begin what could be my last year of school! So today we had to go to orientation for the first years to meet our mentees (side note: it's SO weird that I'm a second year now!!). It was the first time I had seen all of my classmates in 3 1/2 months, so it was great to see everybody again, but I'm definitely not ready to start classes again, that's for sure! This evening, I just got back from church and being reunited with my woooooooonderful church community. It was beyond words epic. I hadn't really told anyone that I was back in Indy yet, so when I showed up at church tonight, people freaked....and I felt loved! :) There was lots of hugging, smiling, giggling, and story telling. I LOVED that soooo many of my friends told me that they enjoyed my email updates but they were glad to have me back in person. I was told that no emails could compare to my actualy enthusiasm in real life. SUCH a warm fuzzy feeling. :) But it was AWESOME to be back and I honestly feel like Indy is home, more than ever now. I am just SO thankful to be back and SO blessed to have found great friends here. When talking with my friends, I was challenged with the question of "What was the most important lesson you learned this summer?" And I am still stumped on that question....more on that question later...as soon as I figure something out....hmmmmmmmm......

.round two.

So....I'm thinking about what else sticks out from this past summer and I have drawn the conclusion of the importance of confidence. NOT OVERconfidence, as displayed by the competition of my alpha male lifeguards (WHICH would require pages and pages to describe, so I will refrain), but just a recognizable amount of confidence to be an effective leader. This summer I realized the importance of being confident in your decisions and making things work, even when you have NO clue what's going on. Having people trust you even when YOU don't know what's going on is a beautiful thing in the world of camp, and I'm hoping it's semi-applicable to the real world. The "fake it 'til you make it" theory has been suggested in my OT classes, so I feel like making rational and/or irrational decisions this summer on the fly, as the person in-charge of the waterfront, can only help in my future endeavors as an OT, right?!? :) In addition to that, I have realized the insignificant value of makeup this summer. I believe that our society places such a HIGH (and unspoken) demand on women to constantly be looking "the best"/wearing makeup or whatever. I've realized that the people most important to me in my life are the ones I wear NO makeup around. Why do I need to try to cover up who I REALLY am to impress people? Shouldn't people like me for ME and not what I look like? Needless to say, going 2 1/2 months with wearing ANY sort of makeup a handful of times, is quite a free-ing experience. I DID wear makeup when I went out several weekends for kicks, but Sunday-Friday I generally went with no sort of makeup. Best of all-- I still made friends (and somehow found a boyfriend...haha) even without makeup. Learning to be confident even when I felt like I wasn't "pretty enough" or "I look like crap" was quite a lesson and I loved being able to experience it. Since being back, I've even found myself wearing it less and just being ME! :)

.round one.

Ehhh....well I'm struggling with this blogging thing over the summer. Oops. Guess it's because I'm not on the computer all that often, unlike the school year.
I don't think it would be possible for me to sit down and collect all of my thoughts from my 2 1/2 month adventure at camp. This post has been designated at "Round One" since this will probably only cover the most basic lesson that Our Wonderful Creator pounded into my head over the summer. The biggest lesson I learned this summer was DEFINITELY on judgment. It is SO easy for us to look at people different than us and label them as weird, different, less than us.....SO EASY. Even when living in a community where judging others' abilities/differences is at an extreme minimum, it still happens. One of my favorite memories from the summer was during one of our first Challenge Days. One camper, who APPEARED to communicate non-verbally and only use a wheelchair, just ABSOLUTELY blew my mind throughout the week. Long story short, by the end of the week I had multiple verbal, humorous conversations with this camper AND on his Challenge Day, he walked 150 steps with his walker. AMAZING!!! Between 4 staff members and 25 minutes, our camper walked from the dining hall to the health center to cross his "finish line". Looking up and seeing his accomplishment (and the tears of all the other staff members) was just AMAZING. Definitely a moment I won't forget. I was able to help measure his walk with yarn.......150 is put into perspective when you are rolling it up around your hand!! SOOOO cool...and just to think that upon meeting him, I never would have guessed he was capable of that. That's one of the things I love about camp...people CONSTANTLY surprising you of their capabilities. And not only with campers....
I have been blessed this summer with getting to know an AWESOME guy at camp (who is "officially" my boyfriend at the time of this post)!! We worked together last summer at camp; although we hardly talked last summer, we had hung out a bit at camp throughout the school year. Naturally, we started conversation easily during CHIPS training. The more we talked, the more we realized we had in common. Things just kept going so well as we continued to talk all summer, followed by several dates, and ta-da! But honestly, I still sometimes am in disbelief that someone I have known for over a year has SO much in common with me once I started talking to him and actually getting to know him. Although he looks very different and has quite a different set of interests than any guy I've dated before, this is something VERY cool. :) A year ago, if you told me I'd be dating this guy, I would have probably laughed, but after actually getting to know him, there's no surprise that I am! :) <--- Pathetically cheesy I know, but I suppose that's how I get after being single for awhile.....:)

.communication.

Well, I'm not sure if anyone has the slightest interest in what's been happening in my life the past 2 1/2 months, but I have now left "the camp bubble" and have unfortunately returned to a place we call "the real world". That means that my communication (or stalking) will resume over the next couple weeks, and then we'll see what happens when my POTENTIAL last year of school starts! Mass craziness...
Regardless, I don't think I could fit into one entry the changes in my life and the lessons learned in the last 2 1/2 months; I've decided to break it down week by week to TRY to explain how I witnessed His work through the lives of our campers, staff, and situations/incidents of Summer 2010.
I suppose to put things into a short summary, I learned the importance of communication this summer. A majority of the problems from this summer came from a lack of communication between staff members, but there is SO much more to be learned here than just the mass chaos of 10 weeks at camp. I neglected to take my designated "2 hour a day breaks" because my job simply didn't allow me to do that and be around my campers as well. Since I didn't take my breaks, I didn't make any phone calls except an occasional one to the parentals on the weekend. Relationships suffer without communication. For sure. Not only between people, but between myself and Christ. I know that I fell away from devotions/alone time this summer MUCH more than I should, but given the circumstances of the summer and needing to find time to seek physical rest overtook the importance of spending time in the Word, in my mind. Bad choice. Although I feel that some areas of my life are disconnected right now (and trying to return to "normal"), learning to communicate with campers was AMAZING. Seriously, as much as I complained about my job, I LOVED it. Learning to communicate non-verbally with so many different people has been such a cool learning experience and it makes me more excited to go back to school to take my AAC class!!!!
Regardless of whether or not this post made sense, I am back in the blogging world and trying to reflect on how I made praising Him a habit this summer. <3