inspired by Rebecca and J.

Friday night at home with my lil bro. Gotta love it. I ate Ben and Jerry's oatmeal cookie crunch and thought lovingly of my dearest Beckyboobear and watched Night At the Roxbury (with big sister sensoring... it was Sam's first time seeing it) which brought fond memories of J-Nathan. Good people, good movie, GREAT icecream...

Virginia Pictures

Me and my hot surfing instructor after a hard day's work catching the waves.

Here's Megan (Becca's sister), Chazzy my brother, Rebecca my darling, and me at the airshow in Norfolk (pronounced Norfuk).

See this girl? I love this girl. I live to love this girl. I miss her. I need her. :-( 

Romans 13:1

Thoughts which are the result of 3 months of daily reading in the books of prophesy:
It is interesting to me that it is such an unacceptable supposition to imply that God was fully in control of and gave the authority to modern day oppressors such as Hitler, Stalin, or Sadaam. When we interpret verses like Romans 13:1 it is inevitably brought up that surely a good and loving God could not have put evil men such as these into power and expected us to respect him. I believe it is a result of this strain of thought that leads many respected bible teachers to teach that the correct interpretation of this verse is not that God appoints individual athorities and leaders but the positions of leadership which are then filled by man's free will and choice. Although I am not discounting the possibility that this could be the correct interpretation I believe we get a very different picture when we look at his establishment of the Babylonian, Assyrian, and Mede/Persian empires and I do not see why if it was not unacceptable for him to establish evil rulers as a part of his divine will then it is unacceptable to entertain the idea he could do so still today. We have no problem accepting that he was fully behind the establishment of kings Nebuchadnezzar, Belshazzar, or Darius the Mede - or at least we should not as it is clearly spelled out for us throughout prophetic and historic books that he did so fully of his own will and for his own purposes. These kings and the empires the represented, however, were amoung the most ruthless, destructive, and bent on personal conquest the world has ever known - yet God used them to fulfill his purposes. I often don't think of it as I read but realize that the Babylonian empire took over and exiled not only Israel but also all of Egypt and all the surrounding areas from the North where Babylon is all the way into the South. If we allow that this was a part of God's will why will we not allow that Hilter could have been? Further more, though I do not like to dwell long on the thought as it is difficult, it is also clear that Satan has no authority or power on this earth but that which God has given him and all that he does is allowed by God.
Does this negate the idea of our God as loving, gracious, and merciful? By no means! It only shows just how much his ways are not our ways and his understanding of the greater scheme of things is infinately above our own.

Post Script: if I'm posting a lot lately it's probably becuase I have many much more important things I need to be writing but do not want to and therefore am finding ways to feel like I have accomplished something in the way of writing while not filling out my dreaded application essays for Wheaton. Bleck. Oh yeah, and I'm sorry if there were any inacuracies in that, I really didn't research it - it was just from what I could remember from what I've been reading and thinking about lately.

Urban Sprawl

Oh my goodness, I had no idea who different living in a city would be. I went job hunting today - there are more waitressing jobs within a 1 mile radius of my house here than there are within a 20 mile radius of my house back home. There is so much stuff everywhere! If I want to go to Target I have my choice of 3 within 15 minutes of me, not to mention a plethora of K-Marts, Fred Myers, and just about any other huge corporate store you could think of to boot! On one hand I can only stand in awe of the amazing creative power of humans to produce so much stuff! On the other it makes me want to run away and hide my head in the nearest grassy knoll I can find! This is certainly one of the strangest adventures I've taken yet, living in a city, and I have a few to choose from - I may love it, I may hate it, only time will tell.

Virginia is For Lovers.

I'm home from one of the best weeks of my life! A full 7 days speant never more than 20 feet away from my darling Rebecca Beers- we even slept in the same bed - and hardly any time away from our darling Chazzy too. What beautiful people! How am I so blessed to have them as friends?! I will publish pictures later but am still having computer problems so I'll just recount some highlights for now. Probably my favorite was fulfilling my life long dream of learning to surf. She lives right on the beach and we speant hours bobbing in the waves and having Chaz help us catch em to ride. I never rode a full wave standing up but I got to my feet twice and I got a couple sick rides on my knees. Not bad for my first 2 days of surfing in my life... of course if I had been paddling into them on my own rather than Chaz holding the board till the right moment and then pushing me into the wave I never would have gotten anything but I think it still counts. Then there is sunrise, Rebecca's parent's breakfast and lunch resturant where I got to eat for free which has the worlds best chocolate chip pancakes and 2nd best burgers (sorry... I always have to put Paul's Place first, it's the rules of being an ex-employee, I risk my life by saying any different). I made a couple terrific clothing purchases including a pair of jeans from TJ Mac's orgionally $145 sold to me for just $29.95 and a perfect black t-shirt from, yes it's true, H & M (insert squealing noises from all the west-coast-ex-europe girls reading this here).
Rebecca and I speant a LOVELY day in Richmond. I'll be sure to include pictures of that. The best part of that was taking our picnic into this gorgeous grandeous park and praying together just like old times under a giant Magnoila tree the branches of which touched the ground. We were sad Heidi couldn't meet us in Richmond though, it didn't work out. (btw Heidi, not to make it even worse but we hung out with Becca's friend Joel who publishes The Drama and he gave me 2 free copies and is totally rad, I really wished you could've been there for that). We celebrated my birthday the night I got in and then we celebrated Rebecca's birthday for the next 2 nights after that (she turned 23, not 16 and many of her customers as Sunrise guessed). There is much more I can't even begin to go into. Oh - if any of you ever stumble across the game Quiddler buy it, then throw away the directions of how they say to play it and e-mail Me, Rebecca, or Chaz for the right, fun, way to play it.
I really don't think I could have had a better birthday present. Thanks mom and dad! Thank you soooo much!

Oh, as long as I'm posting I have a crazy story to tell which is post Virginia. So I flew in last night and then my mom brought me up my car this morning and i took her to the airport (ally lives like 10 minutes away from the airport... so if any of ya'll fly into Portland you know who to call to get picked up!) and we decided to stop at Starbucks on the way. Now this was an unlikely occurence for 2 reasons: 1, we really didn't have time to but just needed coffee, and 2, I generally refuse to "use" starbucks as a rebellion against all they generally stand for (although I must admit, they do make some dang good mochas). So we're sitting in there for a couple minutes chatting when who comes and taps my shoulder but Amy from Tauernhof!! Those of you who don't know, amy was a kitchen girl at t-hof. She's 25, gorgeous, AMAZING, and was the mom of my family group as well as one of my favorite people who came to Romania. She just flew in from Austria to Seattle and is in Portland for like TWO DAYS visiting her brothers at Multnomah before she goes home to ALASKA where she's from! How amazing that we ran into each other!! Ah, I love Amy, I love Rebecca, and yes Chaz, I love you too! God is so good to me!

Thank You!!!

I was overwhelmed and blessed by everyone who called, e-mailed, blogged, or wrote me on my birthday! In all sincerity I couldn't have asked for better gifts from the richest person in the world (except maybe that he fly you all out to see me in person). If you had asked me that was all I wanted for my birthday but I hadn't dared to think so many of you wonderful people would remember! Honestly, you couldn't have called or wrote a more appreciative recipient. I was beaming all day long. I love you all from the bottom of my heart. I am so blessed to have you as my friends! And now I'm in Virginia with my very own Becca and Chazzy and it's just too much. I don't deserve all this! I love you and thank you so much!
Pamela

Thank You!!!

I was overwhelmed and blessed by everyone who called, e-mailed, blogged, or wrote me on my birthday! In all sincerity I couldn't have asked for better gifts from the richest person in the world (except maybe that he fly you all out to see me in person). If you had asked me that was all I wanted for my birthday but I hadn't dared to think so many of you wonderful people would remember! Honestly, you couldn't have called or wrote a more appreciative recipient. I was beaming all day long. I love you all from the bottom of my heart. I am so blessed to have you as my friends! And now I'm in Virginia with my very own Becca and Chazzy and it's just too much. I don't deserve all this! I love you and thank you so much!
Pamela

International Pamela turns 20 day!!

Yay! My birthday! I'm soooo old and cool now! I'm not above begging so I will now ask that everyone who reads this responds and tells me happy birthday and maybe a couple nice things to supplement if you REALLY care.
love,
Pamela

So this is another picture I found while I was packing today and it was just too good not to share with you all. Yes, that is me, in 2nd grade. That was my Christmas dress... I wore it to school for picture day, and the pearls too. Actually I just wore those pearls this summer to someone's wedidng (they are very fake). But at least I was happy. I was apparently a very compliant, sweet, and mild mannered child. Seriously, my mom told me so... and she doesn't say the same for my brothers and sisters either! Yes. I may have been dorky, but at least I was good! 

packing is the devil

I seriously hate packing. I hate it I hate it I hate it. As grand and exciting as this new phase of life is - the phase in which I flit around from school to school, town to town, and country to country, I'd say the biggest draw back is the amount of packing that it involves. I don't even want to count how many times I have packed this year. All different kinds of packing. Short trips, long trips, plane rides, car rides... moves changes, bleck! I can't decide if it would have been better to pack little by little and thus extend the agony over several days in smaller portions or, as I have done, to save it all until my last day home so that an ENTIRE day of my life is consumed with nothing but sorting and boxing. It is almost unbearable - but before long I will forget it ever happened at all.

Stuff that bugs me.

In honor of my dear friend Marty's 21st birthday (I don't know why I'm using inside jokes from camp since no one from camp reads this but oh well) I shall now take an exerpt from the Marty and Melvin show (the late night show from camp, hosted by Makenzie who's birthday it actually is today... don't try to follow... just enjoy the segment) and do my very own segement of "Stuff that bugs me."
1. Space Travel. - I'm sorry but think about it - it's a completely USELESS, other than to satisfy our curiousity, waste of government recources, and my tax paying dollars (well not actually MY tax paying dollars as of now... since I don't work and therefore am not taxed... but still). How many of our nations problems could be solved if we took the millions of govermental funding put into this program and reallocated them?! The budget defecit, education funding, welfare, international aide for goodness sake! Man, that really bugs me.

2. Milk. It's disgusting - just look at what it comes out of.

3. Women's facial hair. It's not the fact that they grow it that bugs me... it's the laziness of not doing anything about it. If guys can shave their whole faces every day in a society where it would be acceptable for them to have facial hair should they so desire, why can't these women take the 15 seconds twice a week to deal with those scraggaly little hairs on their chins! That bugs me man.

4. Avril Lavigne. The song skaterboy. Nuff said. - I don't want to hear any rebuttles to this one. If you rebut I will no longer be your friend.

5. When people say "alls", as in "Alls we've gotta do here is give her a bit of a jump and she should be up and runnin' in no time." People from Bellfountain say alls. I'm sorry if you say it, it's not the people I dislike, merely the word, you are merely a product of your culture.

6. iTunes 4.9 and spending 3 FULL days trying to get if off my stinking computer only to STILL have problems. Oooo, don't get me started. That REEEEEAALLY bugs me.

Warning

Warning to all Windows Applications users! (I refuse to use the term PC... as if macs aren't personal computers?!) DO NOT under any circumstances download iTunes 4.9 Seriously, don't do it. I have just had one of the worst days of my life thanks to the friendly pc sabotaging people down at Apple. I can't express the depth of my frustration. It got into my system and froze everything so that it moves at about 50 times or more slower speed. Even when I have deleted all conceivable traces of the program. Yes I am sure it was the program and no it was not a user error... I am sure of this because thinking it was a user error I tried to reinstall it after it had screwed me over the first time and then discovered half way through I had done everything right the first time and it was the program that was the problem so I stopped the installation but then that screwed it up even more because there is no simple procedure for removing it from my hard-drive.

This is the other picture I took today and I also thought it would make a funny post. That is 5, count them, FIVE currencies which were randomly laying on my dresser today. Laying just about like that too. I scrunched 'em together a little for the photo but they were all just laying around like that. That Chzec crowns, Romanian Lei, a Euro, a pound, and 15 cents american. Weird world we live in these days is it not? 

I came across this picture when I was cleaning my room today and I thought it would be fun to post. That's my sister and I sitting on my dad's lap and my mom in a GREAT 80's dress and hair style. My favorite thing about this picture is that I can distinctly remember what was running through my head when it was taken. You see how one of my hands is upraised in a pinching motion? That's becuase I was thinking "I was the photographer to see my pretty red hair" and so I was holding it up to show it off. Honest to goodness that's what I was thinking. I now think it's pretty weird that they didn't make me put my hand down, but at the time I would have been rather miffed at them if they had. Being that there is no little brother in this picture and my mom doesn't even look pregant I would say this picture was taken sometime between 1987-88. Which would make me no more than 2 or 3. Aren't I cute!