New Journal

http://kimlarson.wordpress.com/

You can find me there now.

SuperBowl

The Colts won. Big surprise.

Tomorrow starts another hectic week. Wish me luck.

Time Management

This isn't the first time. I fill up my time with an almost unmanageable schedule and am constantly going. School, work, homework, groups, clubs, meetings, projects, etc. The list could go on forever. I don't find that I have any time to relax, be alone, or just be. Reading my Bible and praying becomes routine. Good deeds are done out of trying to be a nice person or well liked rather than trying to be more like Christ.

Every single semester ends up like this.

I become inflexible and unable to deal with the problems or arguments that I face along the way. So to protect myself, I shut people out. I become crabby and negative to a point where people don't like being around me...and I become okay with that.

It shouldn't be like that. I don't want it to be like that this semester.

I want a healthy balance between work, school, friends, God, and alone time. I work 20-some hours a week already and am taking 16.5 hours at Bradley. I can't really change that. But when it comes to my free time, I need to be open to hanging out but also need to make sure that I spend quality time with God everyday first. And I don't want to forget me time either. That's why I went through a bunch of websites last night and bookmarked them...so I could enjoy some leisurely reading.

You can make fun of me but the majority of my bookmarked websites are news (Fox, Newsweek, US New & World Report, etc.), business (The Economist, Fortune, Wall Street Journal, etc.), and blogs. Don't worry, I still have The Office Fan website, a site where you can watch all The Office episodes online, a bunch of music sites, IHOP, Relevant Magazine, sudoku, and other fun ones bookmarked as well. I didn't completely turn into a huge business/current events/technology dork.

A Big Blob of Blah

I've decided that Mondays, Tuesdays, and Thursdays are entirely too long.

The semester has started and it's time to buck up. Hardcore.

I still don't know who I'm rooting for on Sunday. I have always been an avid Bears fan up until this year when I didn't really care. And then they started winning...and I still didn't care. In fact, I really didn't think they deserved to win 98% of the games they did win. But I'm not a Colts fan, by any means.

Friends - New & Old

There's just something about the friends that you grew up with. I mean, the first time you ever split up for real is after senior year when you're all going different colleges and universities. Granted, some choose to stay at home and go to a community college or take a year off but for the most part, it's not the same as it used to be. Yet somehow, even though you've made a ton of new friends at school, these new friends could never, ever know you as well as your friends from home. They didn't experience the grade school years with you where all the girls hated all the boys and vice versa, they didn't get you to see you at your awkwardest (I'm not sure if that's a word) in junior high, they didn't see (and even participate in) all those dances, dates, and drama in high school.

As much as I love my friends from Bradley and realize that there is more of a chance that they'll be the ones I keep in touch with after college, I still can't help but feel a sense of loyalty to those from Morton. During my senior year (and even during my freshman year at BU), I really connected with a couple of solid group of people that I love. I got together with some of them last night for dinner in Bloomington and it was so much fun. Even though some of us hadn't seen each other in quite a while, it's like we just picked up where we left off. We've all grown as separate people with different experiences thus far in school but we've all grown together - just in different cities around central Illinois, whether it be Morton, Peoria, Chambana, or Bloomington.

I'm not trying to downplay my friendships at Bradley at all. In fact, they are a good reminder that life moves on. As hard as it is to realize that I'll probably lose touch with many of my Morton friends as we finish these next couple of years in school, I have connected with other people. I have made incredible bonds with such incredible people. As time passes and I get to experience new things with my BU friends and not the Mortonites, the more and more I become okay with that.

This is where God has placed me. This is what He intends.