* tiny but powerful *

[This text is a placeholder until I can finish my post about Bryan's and Kari's birthdays. Yay for Bryan and Kari!]

AHHHH! It's official! I will be teaching pre-calculus and chemistry at The King's Academy next year!!!

This has happened so fast I can hardly believe it, but one thing that both the school and I know is that this was all God's doing. There were just so many things that had to work out for everything to fit so well. Just...WOW. He is so faithful to provide. I'm so excited!!!

SOLI DEO GLORIA.

Wow.

My computer died. :( It won't boot up anymore. We're not sure if it's a hard disk problem or a more serious internal problem. Brian's trying to recover some of my more important recent data (e.g., the crazy application I've been trying to finish), and the rest of it we're hoping to restore from the complete backup we did about a month ago (my computer has been on the fritz for awhile, so we saw this coming). It just sucks that I lost my application work. SIGH. So if I'm less reachable than usual, that's why. I'll probably borrow Brian's laptop for a little awhile, but I'm very sad about my poor computer. :( Wake up, computer...come back...

*edit: Brian managed to find some recovery software where the demo version allows free recovery of files under 64K...so he was able to get my application files off the hard disk! YAY! Thanks Brian!!!

Last night Minna threw a dinner party, like a welcome-Minna-back-into-the-country/ wow-graduation-is-in-four-days kind of party. She cooked up a storm and we all got to taste some amazing Bolivian cuisine! The main dish was this pile-it-yourself towering pyramid of (in this order) brown rice, meat patty, fried egg, fried potato slices, and diced vegetables. It was delicious! We also got to taste the wonders of Mineragua, which was like a cross between Sprite and Squirt. I liked it all...yummy yummy. Thanks Minna!

Then we got to see an entertaining slideshow of all her pictures from three months in Bolivia. She was there with Hospitals of Hope, which provides basic medical services to people in third-world countries. From what I could tell, Minna was at any time serving as some combination of: nurse, pharmacist, teacher, babysitter, musician, dancer, actor, carpenter, painter, janitor, and arsonist. ;) It was so cool to see pictures of all the things we'd been hearing about in her update letters. I can't wait to hear more!

What was also really cool about the party is that I got to see a whole bunch of old orchestra friends that I haven't really seen or talked to in the past year (or two, or three...). Scott Blankenship, Mike Kodiak, Evan Kirby...man, we go back a long way. We realized that we were all on the SSO tour *two* tours ago, in the summer of 2002. I've known Mike and Evan even longer than that: we relived memories of being in the same building during Sophomore College (what a bonding experience that was during September 11th) and competing against each other in The Game; we all went on the CUE soundtrack recording trip to Skywalker Ranch at the end of our first year in SSO; and Mike and I reminisced about the group project we did on Frankenstein for IHUM fall quarter of freshman year. That's, like, almost 6 years ago! So crazy!

*Side note 1: Bryan, Eric, Kari, and I were also recently marveling at how long it's been that we've been friends, but that warrants its own post. It'll come soon, I promise.
*Side note 2: We realized that Evan single-handedly inspired me to start keeping a quote page during Sophomore College. See for yourself the first three quotes I recorded for all eternity (they're at the bottom of the page).
*Side note 3: Speaking of quotes, here's one from the party:
"Did you speak Bolivian to them?" - Mike K.
"... you mean, Spanish?" - Minna

I guess I realized last night how much I really miss orchestra. Mike had chamber music playing during the dinner party, and everyone was looking at the memorabilia collection from last summer's SSO tour (which Minna went on with all our mutual orchestra friends. It's so funny that she and I were never actually in SSO at the same time!). We were laughing at all the tour memories, and the nostalgia just really hit me. I've been missing playing classical music for awhile, and there's a culture of musician humor that you just don't find anywhere else. I'm seriously entertaining the thought of re-auditioning for SSO instead of doing DL next year. Of course, I'm so out of practice that I'm not sure I'd get in anymore...but it's definitely worth some thought. Maybe this summer Minna can kick me into shape! We could play duets! :-D

It was so much fun to reconnect with my orchestra self last night and to hang out again with good music friends. I hope to run into them more often now that I'll be holding Minna hostage in the next ro--I mean, living with Minna. ;) Actually, I'm sure she could attack me in my sleep in more ways than one, so there won't be any funny business from me...

Here's to old friends and memories! :)

There's a lot to be thankful for, so I just wanted to share!

In no particular order...
- May is OVER!
- not having to commute 2+ hours anymore
- seeing my kiddies again
- the Kindergarteners ran over to give me a big, long hug
- having gotten to know the Hacienda teachers and kids well, even though I was only there for a month
- God totally seeing me through the housing situation even though I was frustrated about only having one week to decide
- Brian's constant reminders that God will provide
- Minna and I both convinced that He intercepted us Tuesday night and made it possible for us to talk... (if you want to hear the story, ask me!)
- I'm soooooo exciiiiiited to live with Minnaaaaaaaa for the coming year!!!
- NOT HAVING TO MOVE. AHHHH!
- Brian: "See, God's efficient -- answering two prayers in one!"
- having found decent room options in the case that I would have had to move
- thank God for craigslist!
- Justin: "also, God works through Google. clearly."
- fun dim sum outing with my family and Brian's family over the weekend
- they seemed to like each other :)
- catching up with moo
- looking forward to dinner with David and Mindi next week! and seeing Kylieeeeeeee hopefully awake!!!
- awesome discussions with my small group
- Mindi always has the best cheese...yummm
- Jenn's coming up just in time for the RUF party!
- friends who trust me
- seeing God's faithfulness in both the good things and the bad
- so much more that I'm not remembering right now...