Vampires for Jesus

I went to church with Rachel Beth on Sunday. The church that one of her aunt's go to was having luncheon after the service, and Rachel and I decided that it was only polite to eat the food if we also attended the service. But this was not any normal church going experience for Rachel and me.

It was a very small church. When I say that the church was small, I mean it could seat 100 people, maybe. And in this particular service, there might have been 20 people if you include Rachel and me. And it was mostly elderly people. Rachel, her cousin, and I were the only people there under the age of 40. And a majority of the people were over 60.

It was a Methodist church, and Rachel was raised Baptist while I grew up non-denominational. So, we both knew that it wasn't going to be like anything we were used to. Though the church I went to in Chicago had me better prepared than Rachel was. Methodist practices, in my limited experience, include portions where the congregation repeats or recites something along with or back to the preacher. It's helpful for visitors to pick up a program on the way in so that they know what to say and when to say. Rachel and I did not have a program. That coupled with her aunt bringing us right up to the third row five minutes after the service began really got us off to a rocky start.

When we finally found the right hymnal to sing from, we at least were able to keep up with what was going on even if it was a little awkward. Then came time for the sermon. This service was special because the former preacher came back to give the sermon on this particular Sunday. Now, I've heard a sermon, or thirty, about the Lord's Supper and the meaning of Communion. But never, in my 22 years of life, have a heard a sermon about Communion that so clearly allowed me to understand where the myth of the vampire could have come from. That's right, I think it came from the Bible.

Before anyone says anything, I am not trying to bad-mouth anyone involved. I'm not trying to make light of the Bible or Communion. I am telling the story of the sermon that convinced me that Christians who believe in partaking in Communion are basically Jesus vampires.

The preacher comes up to the podium, and he says he's going to read from John 6. He says he'll be talking about Communion. At that point, I'm fine. Maybe I'll learn something new about Communion. I'm really trying to get something out of this sermon. I mean, I haven't been to church in a few months, so I'm really trying.

Now, if you don't know anything about Harry Potter, then this will mean nothing to you, but this man talked slower than Snape. The meme on Tumblr where Snape takes two text posts to finish a sentence has nothing on this man. He read three verses, without doing anything but reading the words, in 7 minutes. The verses were not that long. So, I'm starting to get antsy. This is going to be a long one.

Why I Am Single and Not Looking

     I am at that bright, young age of 22, and I have the rest of my life to look forward to. At least, that's the way I look at it.

     If you scroll down my Facebook feed, a vast majority of my friends between 18 and 25 are engaged, in various stages of wedding planning, married, or having kids. Meanwhile, I am single, working on my master's degree, deciding on doctoral programs, and spending copious amounts of time in my office at school. I am in no way trying to take away from the wonderful things that my Facebook friends are partaking in. Many of them even have advanced degrees, and I am happy for each and every one of them regardless of their education level. They are living their lives the way the want to, and for that I applaud them.

     But here's the catch: because they are all getting engaged and married and having kids, I am constantly asked if I am dating or being pulled into conversations about how many kids everyone wants to have. So, here are the three biggest reasons why I am single and not looking.

The Status of My Relationship with God, part 3

And finally, part 3. Find part 1 here [x]. And part 2 here [x].

When I left Chicago, I was really discouraged about finding a church in Monroe. And once, I got to Monroe, I gave up hope in finding a church that would make me feel like I belonged. There are pretty much two options here: Southern Baptist and Pentecostal. There's a handful of others, including a Methodist church and a couple Catholic churches. But there are so many Baptist churches. And the Pentecostal churches have pretty big congregations from what I can tell. These churches were not going to have the same values that I had loved about my church in Chicago. These were traditional, conservative churches, and I am neither of these things.

When I am home for the weekend or short visits, I will attend the youth and young adult services at the church in which I grew up. But I cannot go to the Sunday services any longer. The two out of the last three times that I attended on a Sunday I got up and left part way through the service. And the other time, I wanted to leave, but I was sitting with someone I know to whom I didn't feel comfortable explaining myself. I questioned the necessity of attending church regularly for a while. And the sad thing is that I have come to realize why church is something one should partake in regularly. But I don't, simply, because I do not have a place that feeds my spiritual needs that reflects the values that I have.

So, where am I now? I have been listening to the podcast of the services that my church in Chicago puts out. I don't have a regular schedule for doing that yet, but it's something that I have been making an effort to put into my weekly routine. Perhaps those podcasts can be something that I write about here in the future. I also have the sporadic youth and young adult services that I attend back home. I am not radio silent with God like I was a few years ago, but there are several things that I am working through. Trying to understand how my worldview and religious/spiritual life can coexist is far from easy.

I know that my time in Monroe is quickly ending. By this time next year, I will be moving somewhere else in the country to start my doctorate. I have started looking for churches that reflect the values that I have (without getting too crazy), and since they are almost all in larger cities, I am having some luck. For now, I am making due with what I've got, and I'm taking it all day-by-day.

Until next time,
<3 Amber Marie

The Status of My Relationship with God, part 2

As promised, this is part two to the timeline of my relationship with church and God. I left off with finding a church in Chicago, so I'm just going to jump right in. If you haven't read part 1, click here [x].

Finding a church in Chicago turned out to be a lot harder than I'd anticipated. Chicago is huge. I knew this, of course. But because it was so big, trying to find a church was daunting. I had really only ever attended two churches--the one I'd grown up in and my grandparent's church. There were denominations, locations, sizes, and traditional versus contemporary to consider. Luckily, my roommate was interested in finding a church too. One Saturday night in September, we finally decided on a church. It was a mega-church (6000 people there on a Sunday morning), but it had a promising college ministry. We went to service the next morning, and I did not like it. There were too many people. There was a program that had every minute planned out. And I don't know if it just happened to be the service that we went to, but they had some sort of induction for new members of the church. Like member members, the special elite club of the church. The ceremony took up quite a bit of time--there were like 50 people--that could probably have been spent on something more spiritual. I know that a lot of churches have membership like that, but it felt like something meant to condemn those who weren't part of the club. (And in any case, I, personally, don't think that a membership like that is something to be paraded in front of the rest of the congregation for the sake of exclusion.) Anyway, despite the both of us disliking the main service, we decided to check out the college service on Thursday.

Intro to My Ph.D. Program Search

As I prepare for the fall semester, I have some things to consider on top of the normal school things. Beginning in late September and early October, I have to start filling out applications for Ph.D. programs. And while I am normally a procrastinator, there is one thing that I have never procrastinated on and that is selecting the schools and programs that I want to apply to. I'm pretty sure that I started my undergrad search in the beginning of my junior year of high school, and I know that it was well before senior year started. And when I first thought of going to Chicago, I wasted no time looking for the programs that I could go to. When applying for graduate school, I had a list ready by the end of my junior year--though that was for law school and I changed my mind over the summer. So, of course, my search for Ph.D. programs started months ago. As a matter of fact, I have a detailed document with the schools and programs, the amount of funding they offer, the application fees and deadlines, and the averages of how long it takes people to get through the program.

And here's where you get to learn how ridiculous I am...

I have a system of rating programs to figure out which programs have the best combination of things that I desire. This involves the location of the school, the amount of funding available, and the features of the program. Each category gets a score, and then I add the scores together to get a composite score. Then the programs are ranked by composite score from lowest to highest with the lowest being number one on my list. I have 8 programs from 8 different schools on my list. I don't anticipate adding or subtracting any programs between now and the time applications are due.

So, let's go through the list.

The Status of My Relationship with God, part 1

For the first of my serious posts, I want to walk through the timeline of my relationship with church and with God. I think it will be helpful for readers to understand what got me to where I am now. I am prepared for this post to either be really long, or so long that I need to make it more than one post. This is your warning.

I'm going to begin as close to the beginning as I can. In 1997, my dad attended church with a work friend. My dad and mom grew up in church, but they had moved from Indiana to Louisiana in 1995, and they hadn't found a church in which they felt comfortable. This church was not the first church they'd attended since the move, but it was the place my dad finally felt comfortable. He attended for a while before he brought Mom and us to a service. But once Mom attended, it wasn't long before we were in attendance every week. That was in the summer of 1998. I was almost 6, and Ashley was turning 4.

Book Review! - Paper Towns ✭✭✭☆☆

     I spent my night on Tuesday reading. I haven't read like I read on Tuesday in a very long time, and it felt wonderful!

     I decided to read Paper Towns by John Green because the movie adaptation is coming out, and I wanted to make sure I read the book before I saw the movie. It's almost a requirement for myself. Anyway, I picked the book up off of the pile of books that I've collected in my room (They've been separated from the 100 or so books on the bookshelf in the living room.) around 7 pm. I read the final page at just before midnight. Like I said, I haven't read like that in a long time because school has been in the way, and there's enough to read for that.

     Now, I want to start off by saying that I think this book deserves more from me, and I think that I owe it to the story to read it more deeply than I did this first time around. Because I love literature, I understand that the superficial read that I gave this book does not do this book justice. As I was reading, I noticed that there was so much going on beneath the surface of the story of this boy that was obsessed with the girl that lived next door. But because I had the thirst for superficial consumption, I did not take my time to piece together the story beneath the story. And I want to acknowledge that that will affect my review of the book. However, that does not mean that, if and when I reread this book with the time it deserves, I will necessarily change my review. Hopefully, the summary doesn't contain too much spoilerage...

Some Quick Updates

Since I did abandon this blog for over a year, I figured it was only fair to do an update.

After I graduated from Roosevelt University in May of 2014, I said goodbye to Chicago to move back home to Louisiana. I didn't, and still don't, know how long I would be away from Chicago, but it remains my favorite place I've ever lived. From June until August, I worked as a temporary receptionist. I worked 40 hour weeks, and I learned that that is NOT the kind of job for me. I spent a lot of time during the summer with Rachel Kat* and Heather, especially while Ashley was in Japan for the month of June!

In August, I started graduate school in Monroe. I moved in with my DZ best friend, Jacie. Best roommate situation I've had since I lived with Ashley. And actually, let's be honest, I fight with Jacie far less than I did with Ashley. In October, I got a graduate assistantship at school and began working for two professors. That's were I got to know Rachel Beth. She and I work for the same professors. We had a class together, and I told her that I was going to apply for the open position. She told me that I'd be working with her, so we started hanging out. We were fast friends; close quarters cause you to get to know one another quickly, and luckily, we clicked! Also, in October, a tornado kind of blew through campus while we were in class. So that was fun.

The spring was far less interesting. We did end up with five snow days because of a couple snow and ice storms. There were some unfortunate falling out of friends things that happened, but I believe it's for the best. I, also, got my first B in grad school. I was not pleased. This summer hasn't been super interesting either. I am working two retail jobs until school starts.

Speaking of school, there are 31 days until it starts. I find myself saying I can't wait. I was never cut out for this summer thing. I think I thrive on deadlines and tasks, and summer just isn't productive enough for me. The fall is going to be a crazy time. On top of being a GA and a student, I'll be running an experiment-y thing and applying to PhD programs. So, that ought to prove interesting.

Now, that's out of the way. :)

<3 Amber Marie

* - I, now, have to differentiate between Rachels in my life because apparently I have a messenger bag full of them...don't ask...

I'm back! And it has been a while...

     So I have decided to revamp my blog after abandoning it for over a year. I don't want to make any promises about keeping it updated, but I would really like to.

     I am trying to set up some order in my life so that I have time for the things I want to do, as well as the things that I have to do. One thing that I think will help me is having time to write about what's going on in my life. And this time I don't want it to be the mundane, mindless recitation of that day's activities. I want it to be something deeper and more meaningful for myself. One of the things that held me back before was my desire to keep up a facade for those that see my blog. I still wasn't comfortable with myself and my viewpoints to put them out there for those that I thought didn't know how I felt. I have come to realize that my friends aren't blind. I didn't have to explicitly say things; my actions were noticed. I say all of that to say, I will talk probably talk about controversial topics. This is a part of me being real. I have been struggling with things, and I think that I am at a place in my life where I can talk about things that we may not see eye-to-eye on, and my friends will respect where I'm coming from, as I do the same. And my hope is that there will be growth and understanding that comes out of this.

     I know that I have had one or two pretty deep posts on here before, but there have been a couple that I've typed up and published in the middle of the night only to take them down before anyone read them. And there have been a couple that I typed up only to delete before posting. I don't want to do that anymore. Granted there are things that are better kept for the diary beside my bed, I want to put myself out there (maybe only for one person, *coughs* Heather...) and maybe create a dialogue. And I'm not saying that every single post will be controversial. I want to get in to the habit of reading my Bible. I have the desire to read it for myself, so that I might receive my own convictions and not those that another has decided for me. I'll be up front right now, I have been in what I have been calling a 'crisis of faith.' I am at a point in my life where I feel the need to question everything I've been taught in church because, at some point, I just started regurgitating what I was hearing without understanding what I was talking about. And that scared me.

     So, that's what you have to look forward to: potentially controversial topics, my Bible readings, and my 'crisis of faith.' I plan on a redesign of my blog as soon as this is published, and I've already updated my profile and picture.

<3 Amber Marie

I am officially a college grad!

On Friday, May 2, I was inducted into the Franklin Honor Society for having at least a 3.75 GPA, and I walked across the stage of the Auditorium Theatre and graduated from Roosevelt University.

Graduation was fun. We had an amazing commencement speaker, which made me very happy because there have been some flops as of late. And I managed to make a new friend in the graduation line. (Okay, so we had met before, but we had never really gotten to talk to each other. Then we were in line together and bonded over disdain for an obnoxious girl sitting in front of us who, very loudly, expressed her desire for the ceremony to be over.) I don't know if it was because it was my graduation, but it didn't seem to drag on for forever. Maybe it was because I had a better view of it all...either way, I enjoyed it. I wore flats, so there was no concern for breaking an ankle, but my gown's sleeve got caught on the stairs going down from the stage, and I had a moment of panic. Also, the entire day, my cap way crooked because I have an odd shaped head that the board didn't sit right with the tassel...anyways, it was a mess, and I was constantly trying to fix it, so the entire time I was walking across the stage, I was like, "Cap, don't fall. Cap, don't fall." And it didn't!! After the ceremony, the fam and I went to Portillo's for hot dogs. And thus, my day was celebrated! :)

I finished my last semester with 6 As out of 6, finally achieving a 4.0 semester at Roosevelt (and the second 4.0 semester of my undergrad career). I cannot think of a better way to end my time at Roosevelt and my undergraduate career.

It's crazy that I have completed four years of college and now have a Bachelor's degree. And I'm going to be starting a Master's program in the fall.

I am currently still awaiting the notification from ULM, so I can officially say whether ULL or ULM will be my home away form home for the next two years, but I was told that I should get the email this week. (FINGERS CROSSED FOR ULM!)

I am moving back to Louisiana on May 31, and I should be back in the state June 2. I'll be spending the summer in the New Orleans area before I head off to school in August (hopefully to Monroe with my BFF).

For now, my days are composed of watching Netflix, packing, and working at Bath & Body Works. Two and a half more weeks of Chicago living.

Until next time,
<3 Amber Marie

I have news!

1. Hi. I'm nearing the end of my undergraduate career, and I am very busy. (I missed the month of March. Oops.)
2. I graduate in 14 days.
3. I am moving back to Louisiana sometime around mid-June.
4. I was accepted to the University of Louisiana at Lafayette, which is my second choice.
5. I am still waiting to hear from the University of Louisiana at Monroe, which is my first choice.

I'll be back soon. :)
<3 Amber Marie

Welcome to the town of Procrastination...

Population: ME

I have 4 days of class until I'm on spring break. In those four days of class, I have 1 weekly reading reaction paper (1-2 pages), 1 weekly reading reflection (1-2 paragraphs), 1 critical analysis paper (3-5 pages), 1 quest (longer than a quiz, shorter than a test), and 1 test.

THEN I HAVE 10 DAYS OFF OF SCHOOL!

Then I have 7 weeks of school until I graduate!

Spring break is going to do one of two things to me:
1. I'm going to be super dedicated to school and get everything done and not skip class and be a perfect student until I graduate.
-OR-
2. I'm just not going to care anymore, and literally count every single day until I graduate because I'm ready for it to be over.

Let's hope it's the first one.

I suppose I'm off to get to work on all that homework...

<3 Amber Marie

p.s. 63 days until graduation!

The Tradition Continues!

Oh. My. Goodness. I cannot believe it is happening again.

Heather is another year older.

Were you not just nine years old??

Seriously, this is not cool.

You are making me feel old.

I do not like that feeling.

Such is life, I suppose.

So, Heather. Happy birthday.

Congratulations on being another year older.

I am glad to have been a part of your growing up.

I just cannot believe how old you are.

Anyway, love you, my beautiful friend.

<3 Amber Marie

p.s. Ashley and I was just discussing how old certain little kids that we used to watch in children's church are getting, so it's not just you who is making my 21 years of life seem like so much longer. :)

p.p.s. This one was a lot sappier than past years...I guess that comes with old age... ;)

Well...

...I got my first grad school rejection. I'm not going to Virginia. I thought I'd be more upset. But I'm kind of just like, eh.

So, yeah. That happened.

I don't know what to say.

<3 Amber Marie

A Day in the Life of a Senior in College in Chicago

6 inches of snow.

5 hours of studying.

4 hours of sleep.

3 tests.

2 instances of catastophizing.

1 day from hell.

I'm Proud of Myself

I'm sorry, I can't help it. I am proud that I have managed to keep up with the blog for the past month. Sure, I'm not posting every day, but this post makes half as many as I did the whole year last year, so I think that's progress. :)

Anyway, so the real reason I'm posting today is because it's February! It means that I have 1) survived the first month of 2014, 2) survived two weeks of my last undergraduate semester, and 3) made it one month closer to graduation! (88 days, by the way.)

I think I am getting back into the swing of school, and I am managing okay. It's not perfection, and it could be better, but I feel a lot better than I did three weeks ago.

One thing that I feel the same about now as I did three weeks ago is the weather. Okay, I understand that I live in Chicago. I understand; it gets cold, and it snows. But this whole 'polar vortex' thing needs to go back to Canada. I am sorry to my Canadian friends, but I just can't handle it anymore. I'm tired of 20 degree weather, like today, being a heat wave. This is NOT a heat wave. I want the light jacket weather that we skipped back in September and October. Seriously, it was over 90 degrees on my birthday and by Halloween, we had freezing temperatures. That's not fair! :(

So, basically, I want winter to end now because we were cheated out of fall.

<3 Amber Marie

Work, School, Life: An Update

I am taking a mental break from the reading that is to be accomplished before week 3 of school begins. The last article I read was so dense that I began to think that it was really just saying the same thing over and over again. Then I realized I had just read the same sentence five times.

So, work is frustrating me a bit as of late.  For the upcoming work week, which begins on Sunday, I have one call-in shift. The call-in shift, which is a shift that I have to call and ask if they want me to come in for, is a three hour shift. So, I have one, not-guaranteed three-hour shift in a seven-day work week. That does not pay the bills. I understand that I work in retail, and that payroll hours vary from week-to-week. That's not what I find frustrating. I find it frustrating that I now need to find another job to make up for weeks like this. I tried juggling two jobs and a 15-hour course load at school, and it didn't work for a variety of reasons. I couldn't get the jobs to cooperate with each other in terms of scheduling; that contributed to my stress at school, which caused me to fall behind. And all of that lead me to drop a class and quit one job. I am terrified that finding a second job with my 18-hour course load is another recipe for disaster, which may affect me graduating. But, alas, I need money to be able to live in Chicago through graduation. So, yeah. Guess I'll be job hunting in my limited free time. Wish me luck. (Oh, and my closest friend at work is leaving in favor of an adult job. So, that sucks for me.)

School...oh, school. I have only had two full weeks of school, and the work just keeps piling on. Dense article need read, and countless reading reflections/reactions/analyses need writing; EVERY SINGLE WEEK. I thought taking a bunch of classes on similar topics would help because the overlapping content would reinforce each other, and thus, it would be easier to remember. Instead, I am finding myself reading a dozen different views of the same concept, and it is not making it any easier to understand the complex, abstract idea that is 'the self.' I do have to say that I only have one class that I don't thoroughly enjoy though, and ironically, the one I'm not enjoying is in my chosen field. Oops! I think my favorite class is Intro to Women and Gender Studies. The social ideology of gender and gender roles and the degree to which it is engrained in everyone's daily lives is fascinating.

With all that has been said, you might be wondering what kind of life I could have outside of work and school. That's precisely the point. I have no social life to speak of, at the moment. I find myself not replying to the group text messages from my friends and have entire conversations going on around me that I am not, and cannot, partake in because I have no time and/or I will have a hard time getting back on track to what needs to get done. My DZ alumnae group has had activities that I can't go to because I am either in a night class or doing massive amounts of homework. I am used to seeing friends at least once a week because we had class together. Now, I haven't had quality time with them in two weeks. I am having a hard time adjusting. I have never been a person that thrives on social interaction, and I very much enjoy my time to myself. But I really only enjoy it when it's self-imposed. I don't like it when it's forced on me due to other obligations.

Everyone keeps telling me that it's my last semester, and that they know I can do it, and that I'll be free in May and on and on. And I know all of that is true. One way or another, May 2, 2014 will happen. But what state will I be in by that point? Sometimes it sucks to be a pessimist. But hopefully, I will have figured out the balancing act, and have made it through this semester with only minor psychological damage (lol).

I apologize for the long complaint that is this post. I apologize to everyone who listens to these complaints on a regular basis. I am trying to not complain as much. I know it cannot be a pleasant thing to hear.

I do not like not feeling that I'm in control of the things occurring in my life, and I certainly do not feel that level of control at the moment.

BLAH.

On that note...
<3 Amber Marie

Balancing is key.

It is literally only the end of my second day of classes, and I am feeling the pressure. Being at school for 12 hours on Monday and Wednesday are going to drain me. (I am not in class that entire time, but if I left school during my 4 hour break, I would not attend my night classes, and that would be bad.) After all day in class, I decided that I am going to use my commute time to read for fun. If I didn't have a fun outlet, I would probably be a blubbering mess before midterms. I challenged myself to read 10 books this year (via Goodreads). I am excited because I want to be able to read 10 books this year, but last year I challenged myself to 12, and I only read like 5, and 3 of those were for school. I am also saddened by this because I am used to reading like freaking crazy, and school has eliminated that from my life. After reading EVERYTHING for classes, reading for fun just makes me sleepy. But I am committed to reading 10 books that aren't assigned for school this year. I've finished 2 already, but that mostly due to the fact that I was stuck in Louisiana for 5 extra days. I hope you will hold me accountable and help me achieve beyond my 10 books. I will balance school and fun because I refuse to let myself become unhappy!

<3 Amber Marie

p.s. 108.5 days until graduation

First Day of My Last Semester of Undergrad

It's official. I am now in my last semester as an undergraduate.

My first class of the day, Contemporary Global Issues, was cancelled because the professor is sick. (Bad for the professor, good for me because I got more sleep!)

My second class of the day was Society and the Individual. The professor seems cool. He's a doctoral candidate at Northwestern, and this isn't the first class he's taught, so that's a plus. All-in-all, I don't think it will be that tough of a class. There are just some pesky once-a-week papers that will, no doubt, get tedious.

My third class was Urban Youth in a Culture of Violence. So far, this professor is shaping up to be my favorite of the semester. He is super detailed in his syllabus about what is required for the class and how he wants assignments completed, which is something I've come to value during my undergraduate career. He's one of those professors that go the distance to make sure you do well provided you can follow directions. The content for this course is right up my alley. This is a good chunk of what I want to study in my graduate career, so I'm excited.

My last class hasn't happened yet because it's not until 6:00 pm. It's Child and Adolescent Psychopathology. This is with a professor that I've had before, and I really like her teaching style. My only concern is that I've seen the syllabus, and the course load seems insane, even for a 300-level class. This will be the class that forces me to be the perfect student. I will have to be on my toes at all times to make sure all of the assignments get accomplished. It is, without a doubt, my hardest class this semester.

So that's what my day is like. I just finished lunch, and now I'm off to study some syllabi!

112 days until graduation!

<3 Amber Marie

Sweet Home Chicago

I am finally back in the Windy City. And it's is really, really cold outside. And it makes me want to go back to Louisiana where there isn't a foot and a half of snow on the sidewalks. But at the same time I am happy to be back, and I am looking forward to beginning my final semester of undergrad on Friday.

I have the syllabus for one class, the hardest class of the semester, and I can tell it's going to be busy and challenging. However, I am not going to let that get to me. I want to finish this semester with a 4.0. I was close last semester, but close isn't good enough. There were so many things I could have done in order to get that 4.0 in the fall, and I'm not letting anything slip through my fingers this semester.

114 days until graduation. :)

<3 Amber Marie