look in your heart and you'll find

As I sit here writing this post, I can not sit still and I cannot understand why. Today has been just one of those days where I have gone back and forth from being hyper and energetic to completely drained and then back to completely hyper. Sitting in my Bible class today, I could not sit still and was in the mood of laughing at almost everything (even those things that were not actually funny), which I’m sure was much to the chagrin of those around me. This action is currently continuing as I sit here in the office and I’m sure will continue as I go on to pick up things at the library and go back to my room to work on finishing my massive Children’s Literature paper that is due tomorrow.

Funnily, when I look back to a year ago today, I was in the exact same mood. On October 8th, 2008, I traveled up to Scranton in order to see Jason Mraz, and if any of you know me and my love of Jason you can assume I was pretty excited and needless to say…a little hyper. It is funny that a year later I am in the same exact mood, despite not going to see Jason tonight.
But despite my unexplainable craziness today, I do have things to be excited about…

1. The week is finally coming to an end. As I wrote in one of my past blogs, it has been a very busy past two weeks filled with papers, class presentations, tests, etc. etc. Even though the busyness of life will not end once I hand in my children’s literature paper tomorrow morning, it will be a definite relief to know that the past two weeks are over and all of the work that I had to do is completed.

2. Going along with school work…it is extremely exciting for me to say that I took the dreaded EDUC 301 Phonics test last night and feel pretty confident in how I did. Since I have done a number of my education classes a little out of order, I have always been in a class with junior elementary education majors in the fall and have heard their fears in taking this test, which is a two hour long, 120 question mid-term taken at night filled with a ton of information on phonics generalizations and early reading theories and practices. Knowing that I have never been able to understand phonics led me to have some worries about this test even two years before I would be having to take it myself. However, after all of the preparation that we did in class and then studying on my on for the test, I felt well prepared. So if you are an Education major awaiting this test…do not fear. You will be ready. But it is exciting to finally say, “I have survived the Phonics test!”
3. I am going home tomorrow for IUP homecoming. I have yet to be home since arriving on campus at the end of August and am not planning on going home again until Thanksgiving, so it will be nice to take a break and visit with family and friends. I love IUP homecoming too. Despite some of the cheesy things that we do, it is always fun to go watch the parade and  go to the football game. It is also just an exciting time in Indiana compared to the typical weekend in Indiana. Needless to say, I cannot wait.

So as I go off with the rest of my day…I am excited. There are lots of good things ahead of me and lots of worries behind me. Watch out world! Alyssa and her hyperness is about to leave the office!

It is now fall and October. In some ways, it is crazy to think that the first month of school is already done. In others, its hard to believe that we still have two months until finals. This month is going to be a busy one. As we fall into the month of changing leaves, pumpkins, Halloween, etc. etc., I see so many things that are coming up on my calendar. Not only do I have a ton of school work to do this month, but there are a ton of events going on as well. Next weekend I am going home for IUP homecoming. The following weekend is Messiah’s homecoming. The week after that brings fall break. We then finally come to Halloween and November. With everything that I have in front of me, I hope the busyness helps the month to go by quickly. Again, a paradox occurs though. While wanting everything to go quickly because of excitement and anticipation, I won’t want individual events to go by quickly. For example, I can’t wait to go home and see everyone again, but when I do I also know that I will not want to come back to Messiah only two days after leaving. I’m sure the same will be true for fall break. Even though I have decided to do a service trip this year instead of going home or visiting friends, I’m sure it will be such a great exerience that I wont want it to end either. Looking outside at the falling leaves, getting to watch football on tv, and hear stories from home about my 12-year-old brother’s successes in his first year of football excites me to no end, but I also just can’t wait to see snow and make it to the end of the month where everything will be crossed off of my calendar.

Since my last post so much has happened it is hard to summarize it into one entry. I have finished finals, said good-bye to all of friends studying abroad for this spring semester, left Messiah after the end of fall semester and went home for break. Being home was amazing. It is so nice to take a break especially when there is no school work involved. In high school even though the couple weeks off at Christmas were always greatly enjoyed, there was always those couple papers, projects, or assignments lingering over your head that you had to worry about. Being in college the semester is over and there are no worries (at least school work related ones). My time at home consisted of a lot of visiting as any break usually does. I visited with all of my friends from home (numerous times complete with secret Santa, movies, sleepovers, Patty’s Pancakes, eat ‘n park runs, Commonplace coffee dates, and etc. etc.) I visited my extended family for Christmas and the couple of days after that. I did a lot of visiting with my immediate family as well. Not only did I live under the same roof with them again, but Christmas Eve my brother and I were surprised with an amazing gift, a trip to California to go to the Rose Bowl, so I spent almost an entire week with them on the other side of the country. While we were there, we did the typical Hollywood tourist stuff and went to Legoland for my brother. The Rose Bowl was amazing however. Being that my favorite team is USC and my family’s favorite is Penn State (my second favorite, if they were playing anyone other than USC I would have been rooting for them too), it was perfect for the entire family and provided a nice little rivalry between all of us. The day of the game we got up and left the hotel at 4 am, went and got in line for the Rose Bowl Parade at 5 am, the parade started at 8 am, and then we walked over to the stadium after the parade ended around 10 am. Before the start of the actual game we stopped to see the players from both teams get off of their buses and did a little souvenir shopping. Then we finally went to the seats to watch the game. Being a USC fan in the middle of Pennsylvania is very out of the ordinary so it was nice to be surrounded by USC fans and get to experience some of the USC spirit first hand and having them dominate in the game was amazing as well.

Now I am back at Messiah to begin J-Term and a new semester. My roommate from last semester, Emily, is gone to study abroad in England, but Danielle, who was studying in Greece last semester, has come back and taken her place. It is completely different, but I am so excited that she has come back to Messiah. J-term classes started this morning and even though my class looks like a fair amount of work especially reading, it should be a fun time. I get to spend over half of the days in the Early Learning Center with the kids which will be super exciting and a good time I’m sure. Even though part of me does wish it was still break and I wasn’t back to school work again, the other part of me is glad to be back.

This is the time of the year when everyone is super busy. Students are trying to finish the semester and have a bunch of tests to study for on top of a bunch of papers to write. Even those who don’t find themselves at the end of the semester are still running around doing holiday activities. This is the time when we all visit our family and friends, go shopping a million times, since one trip is just not enough to finish off our Christmas gift lists, and bake all of those holiday goodies.

This past week I have found myself super busy. While the rest of the semester I have a fair amount of spare time the past week has not been that way and I see the next week being the same. This weekend I had two large papers to write (which are still not entirely finished) along with other small assignments and studying. I was only able to take a break Friday night for a holiday/gingerbread house decorating party and then Saturday for a few hours to watch the USC game (during which I was too stressed to do any work and now I’m super excited/super nervous for the Rose bowl, but thats an entirely different story).  Looking ahead to the eight days I have two papers, one reflection paper, three presentations, one test, and three finals. On top of that our Gospel choir concert is this weekend (Saturday at 7:30 in Miller auditorium, you should come!) and some Christmas shopping to get done. I cannot wait for this semester to be over. I am definitely ready to go home, visit with my family and high school friends, and relax for a couple weeks. Even though I know I will be busy running around, I know I will still be able to slow down at least a little bit once break comes. And I just can’t wait!

Lately I have picked up a new hobby when I am bored…coloring. I know I am a sophomore in college, but I’m definitely still a kid at heart (hence the Early Childhood Education major) and what kid doesn’t love to color. Now I came to college with not only a 24 box of Crayola Crayons but also a 64 box so I was armed and ready to go with this. About a month ago, however, I finally bought a Sesame Street coloring book at Walmart and have had quite a blast coloring in it (ask my friends who all have atleast one picture from it). It astounds me how much fun I can have simply coloring.

Being fall and seeing all of the colors around campus as I walked to work today really got me thinking though. There are so many more colors in this world than are simply given to us in the 64 box by Crayola. There are even more colors than there are in the 94 box of crayons which every 3rd grader got excited about while I was in elementary school. God’s crayon box comes with an infinite amount of crayons. I can’t even imagine! Fall’s colors are absolutely gorgeous. The oranges, browns, yellows and reds of the trees are amazing, especially growing up surrounded by the tree-covered mountains of Pennsylvania. Those colors are one of the two things I really like about fall (the second of those things being football). I believe those colors are an amazing way in which God displays his beauty to us. It is even more amazing when you think about those colors essentially meaning the “death” of those leaves. But even through death, God can clearly do amazing things with his box of crayons and bag of tricks.

As I said in the last post I went home this weekend for IUP homecomming, so I figured I should update about how that went. I actually had a really good time. It is always nice to go back home and meet up with friends I havn’t seen in a while and to see my family as well.

Friday night, I went to Ransomed which is the college ministries group at Graystone church in town. Ransomed usually consists of worship, some sort of talk, another worship session, and then just chilling late into the night. Friday’s worship was really good and the talk even though unconventional to say the least was good as well. Afterwards it was nice to just relax and catch up with people. After leaving ransomed a little after midnight, I went to visit my friend Tyler who works the nightshift at the front desk at a new hotel in town. Even though it was late, it was nice to catchup with him as well and sort of funny to see him being all professional.

Saturday was the day of IUP homecomming festivities. The day started off watching the parade downtown with my mom, brother and a few family friends. After that I met up with a couple friends from high school. We then got lunch, visited a friend at work and went to hang out in the dorm before the football game. This year’s football game was against IUP’s greatest rival, Slippery Rock. So just as years past, the game was full of excitement and suspense. IUP went on to win the game after tying it up with 25 seconds left and sending it into double overtime. The game also led to more catching up with people and hanging out afterwards. The day ended with midnight mission, which is where our church walks up and down the main street and frat row handing out free hotdogs to all of the “slightly inhabilitated” college kids. Even though this year seemed much tamer than last, it was still a really good time.

Yesterday actually turned into another full day of festivities. I went to my home church which is always nice to return to. It was especially nice yesterday because I got to see some of the kids that I worked with this summer. Seeing them again especially the littlest one in the group really made me smile. After church I went to see one of my highschool friends production of Violet Sharp, a story of the Charles Lindbergh baby kidnapping. After the show I met up with one last friend for coffee before heading back to Messiah.

It was a long but definitely enjoyable weekend. Even though its hard to be at class again, it’s nice to know that I only have 2 more days until Fall break and the Jason Mraz concert.

Right now I am definitely high on life. The past month I have been happier than I have been almost ever. It’s really not like anything monumental or noteworthy has happened. Actually when I give my reasons for being ecstatic about life people usually look at me like I’m crazy, but I can’t help it. I’m simply happy.

I believe the main reason for my current euphoria comes from the fact that about a month ago I bought tickets to a Jason Mraz concert. In five days, my friend Kelly and I will be heading up to Scranton and beginning our fall break with this concert and I can’t wait! Just to let you know I really am not obsessed with Jason Mraz just really really excited. Up until this point I have been to one concert. Sadly enough this was a Backstreet Boys concert, and even though I loved it at the time I think that needs to be fixed. Jason Mraz has been my favorite artist for about four years, and his live performances are insanely better than his actual recording studio CDs (as opposed to the other way around for most singers). So really it does make sense that I should be so excited. Every time I think about how I am going to this concert excitement just takes over. I become so excited and so insanely hyper that most of the time can’t sleep either. Just ask my friends. I’m sure they can all attest to this, and I’m sure they are all ready to kill me since it has been basically a month of this. I just really can’t wait!! Five more days and I will finally be there which I really can’t imagine how I’m going to be when I actually get there. *And to be honest while I write this entry I’m listening to his new cd on my ipod (I’m really not obsessed though, trust me)*

Last night another simple pleasure in life really excited me, restaurant night in Lottie. Now this sounds even worse than the concert but it was amazing. Now for mass produced college food Lottie is pretty good, don’t get me wrong, it just gets old week after week, which is to be expected. About once or twice a semester though Lottie has restaurant night. On this night a restaurant from around Messiah brings in their food for us to have for dinner. Last night we had Panera Bread and desserts from the Pennsylvania bakery. It was so fantasically delicious. *Panera Bread ceaser salad, sandwiches, and soup followed by a roll, cake, and brownies from the bakery = Unbelievable excitement* And once again after eating such a delicious meal and thinking about the fact that Jason Mraz was less than a week away my excitement was endless.

Finally I am so excited to be going home this weekend. I’m from Indiana, Pennsylvania which basically equals IUP (Indiana University of Pennsylvania), a major party school. This weekend is homecomming which is a huge deal in my town. My church every year holds midnight mission which is where we hand out hot dogs to the “less than sober” kids that are walking downtown and on frat row on Saturday night. Last year was the first year I helped out and I had a blast. I can not wait to do it again tomorrow night. Tomorrow in general is going to be filled will traditional activies of homecomming parade, football game, getting together with my townie friends, and finally midnight mission. Again I can’t wait!!

My life right now is just so high up there I can’t even reach it. I am really enjoying this Euphoria I am experiencing. My life is just amazing and I can’t explain it. I have a smile that cannot be wiped off of my face and I am LOVING IT!!