Greetings and warm salutations,

Although I do not feel that if I were to greet you in person right now that I would do so with a smile or very 'warmly', I greet you none the less.

In the middle of my second semester at college, I find myself struggling with so much.
  It feels like I am struggling with every possible thing right now.
  (What does that even mean? Struggling with something? People always say that, especially in Bible class. “As we struggle with this subject...” or “As we wrestle with this concept”.
  I mean I know what they intend to convey by such a statement, but everyone says it – although I think ‘everyone’ is really only the people in this Bible-belt-bubble.
  Struggle with something, to violently fight something? To persevere through difficult circumstances…) I am taking 18 hours, I have a job, and I’m in a directing scene for a senior here.
  It’s quite a bit.
  Plus I’m still working through my own issues and trying to live life and be normal.
  Plus my summer plans are getting all jumbled around.
  But I’m learning a lot.

Concerning learning academic related things, I’m mainly just trying to survive.
  So much for maintaining a 3.93 GPA!
  It’s taken a while to get into the ‘groove of things’ (as my mother would say) but I think I’m getting it…

I’m learning that perseverance is much more of a decision than anything else.
  It’s deciding to do something.
  Putting your foot down and deciding that despite how much you hate math with all of your entire heart and no room left over, you will study and finish your homework, even though you really, truly and honestly do not give if you completely fail it or not.
  And sometimes it pays off and sometimes it doesn’t.
  But you are a better, stronger person in the end, so I guess in that sense it always pays off.
  Perseverance being the edifying quality, characteristic, trait, that it is, can only lead to further good things.
  A good thing can’t lead to a bad thing, so go ahead and go with the good thing.
  Right?

I’m learning to write again, to be okay with writing despite having a recent revelation worth writing about or not.
  I’m learning to be vulnerable with people again.
  That’s a tough one.
  I never thought I don’t let people in, but I think, somehow, I’m developing a habit of doing that with certain types of peeps.
  I think it’s good to practice vulnerability before people. It humbles you, it enables you to be loved and shown grace; it leaves you open to danger and harm and such a risk can only build more courage.

I’m learning to say no to certain things.
  I prefer to say yes to everything and think that I can do so much, which is possible, but one is meant to enjoy life.
  To
live life, to experience a moment.
  This I am learning.

I am also learning that friends are so important, and that the people you spend the most time with (and sometimes one says that their best friends are the ones they don’t even spend the most time with – this is actually true for me) are people who will be challenging your thoughts and ideas, who spur you on and edify you.
  Evaluate who you are spending the most time with in your week and then evaluate if they edify, encourage and challenge you and your way of thinking.

I work at the ACU calling center, we are supposed to call alumni and other peeps and ask them for money.
  We have to ask them at least three times for different amounts each time.
  Sometimes they will say “No I can’t give anything,” during the first ask, and you still have to ask two more times.
  They tend to feel badgered and annoyed.
  Tonight, I got my asking amounts wrong and got written up.
  It sucked.
  Then I talked to this one oldish lady and she said she couldn’t give anything and that her husband just died and wada wada wada.
  If a person’s spouse recently died that is one of three exceptions to the rule of having to ask for money.
  But we have to ask
when the person died.
  Right after I got written up for not asking the right amounts, I got the call (people randomly decide to answer their telephones right when my boss decides to listen to my conversations when NOBODY answered for the whole ¾’s of my shift till then!) from the widow lady and I did everything except ask when her husband died because she said “recently” and that wasn’t precise enough.
  My boss randomly decided to listen to that call (you never know when they are going to listen to your calls) and I got in trouble for that too.
  TWICE IN ONE SECOND!
  When the whole month I was doing just fine!
  Jee willy…

I have all these wonderful ideas about how I want to live my life in my room.
  How I want to measure out just the right amount of coffee for in the morning so that when I wake up the next day I can easily do so (wake up) knowing that there is coffee just down the ladder of my bunk bed and all I have to do is press the button.
  How I can just press the button, open up my laptop, turn on Jens Lekman or the Rosebuds and listen to “Blue Bird” as I take a gander in the mirror and pick out an out fit for the day or pull out my prayer rug and Bible.
  But all of this is ruined because I don’t have a little fridgerator.
  And the lack of such a thing inhibits my ability to have milk.
  And I cannot thoroughly enjoy coffee without a dollop (I love that word) of milk in it.
  Thus, the surrogate for such an idealistic morning is my crazy alarm going off, me sitting up, turning it off, lying back down, sitting back up, making my bed, climbing down my ladder, putting on the first things my hands touch when I reach into my drawers or closet, brushing my teeth, putting on a touch of mascara, and rushing to my 8 o’clock dailies looking like a ragamuffin (I love that word too, especially when my dad says it).
  And all this because I’m too spoiled to not drink coffee unless I have my utterly essential dollop of milk.
  ‘Tis pitiful.

Anyways, this is what happens when I haven’t written in a long time; my writing is sloppy and my hands are eager to express my racing, chaotic thoughts and feelings.
  But that is that.