Finals coming up...

It's crazy to think this semester is over. It feels like fall finals weren't so long ago, and here we are about 3 weeks before spring finals. I'm not gonna lie though, I'll be glad when summer break is here.

Speaking of spring, spring has been beautiful on campus so far, save for the dead-fish smell of the Bradford Pear trees all over campus. The picture above is the school's courtyard from when the trees were still blooming. The weather has been amazing almost every day and the flowers everywhere have been a nice change from the deadness of winter.

In other news, I am still jobless, but I think that may be for the better at this point in time. There's less than a month left until I'll be home, and over the course of that month I'll need to be focusing on schoolwork and studying for finals. It should be relatively easy to find a job once I'm back home.

I feel like I had a lot more to say, but I can't really remember right now. If I do, I'll update again. For now, thanks for reading.

Love,

R. Forseth

Lift Camp and the Liberty Godparent Home

Hello!

Just wanted to give you all another update on the happenings here at Liberty. Lots of things have been going on with me lately and overall it's pretty awesome.

First of all, I'm going to start with the worst part. As some of you already know, I recently got fired from my job at the movie theater due to me completely forgetting about a meeting until after it was over. When I came back for my shift that night, they were nice enough to ask if I wanted to go ahead and work that night, so I did. Overall, I was only working about one day a week and there was a lot of miscommunication which resulted in me missing work and losing some of the very few days I did get, so hopefully when I find a new job it will be better.

Second, I received an e-mail a while ago from my communications teacher from last semester saying that one of her co-workers named Jenny needed to interview girls that are from divorced families. I decided to go ahead and do the interview. The whole time I have this overwhelming feeling that this was happening for a reason, so I kept waiting for her to say something really profound, but we kept talking for an hour after the interview an though it was a good conversation, nothing of that sort came. Then we started talking about how it's so crazy how things work out in such detailed, intricate ways, and how so many things would be completely different if even one miniscule detail had been changed. Then, I mention Lift Camp to her. Her literal response was "Lift Camp? Shut up! I worked there for 6 years..." So then we started talking about how I was thinking of applying, then found out the application deadline had passed a month beforehand. She called the person in charge of interviews and whatnot and told her about me, and they decided to allow me to go ahead and apply. So, I applied, and was accepted.

That being said, this summer, I will be travelling with a Christian youth camp called Lift Student Ministries for about a month later this coming summer. Each camp takes place at a different college campus, where we stay in dorms for a week. I am on the second part of the summer, so I will start in Longview, Texas, then go to Siloam Springs, Arkansas, then Cedarville, Ohio, then finish with two camps back to back in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. I'm very excited about this, but I'm also kind of nervous. I haven't figured out why I'm nervous yet, however, I do know that I will end up needing to raise about $1,000 by the beginning of May in order to be able to go, including a plane ticket to Texas. Any help that anyone would be able to give would be greatly appreciated!

In addition to helping me get in contact with Lift Camp, my new friend Jenny invited me to come work with a high school girls' small group that's part of a larger youth group, and I went for the first time this past Wednesday. Today we decided to pay a visit to the Liberty Godparent Home as one of several possible ways to do outreach in the community. Girls in the community can use the LGH as a safe place to stay while they make up their minds about what to do when their child is born. they also don't have to go out and face the criticism that the world gives girls in their situation, and can continue with their education through teachers and online learning programs. Today we just went and hung out with them and played board games, painted nails, and talked a lot. They were pretty awesome. I enjoy it. My proposal for next time? A chocolate fondue party. We'll see.

For now, I'm going to call it quits. Thank you for reading!

God bless,

~RLF

beginning of Spring Semester 2010

Welcome back to my blog. I obviously haven't updated much over winter break, but I figured most of you that read this, I saw on a semi-regular basis over the winter.

The new semester is currently in its third week, and we're also about to get our third snow for the winter. Just to give you an idea, to the right is a picture of my car parked outside the dorm. I parked it there Friday night and was finally able to get it out last night, which was Monday. It's amazing how hard it is to find a snow shovel on a college campus. On the plus side, some friends and i went sledding this past weekend, which was the first time I have ever been sledding in my life. It was awesome. There's some pictures on Facebook, and I'm sure a few videos, one including the best wipe-out I've seen in a while, courtesy of yours truly.

As for classes, so far so good. I'm not big on the massive amounts of math homework almost every night, but I guess you have to do what you have to do. Classes I'm taking: art appreciation, contemporary issues 2 (aka GNED, which is how I usually will refer to it), college algebra, developmental psychology, and zoology. This is a mixture of classes that will help me move forward with my degree whether I decide to stay with my biology major or switch to psychology, which I will most likely be doing this semester. Classes are decent. So far I have learned about fertilization and the beginning stages of life in 3 of my classes. Yay....One was zoology, because well most animals start out that way, one was developmental psych, because obviously those are the beginning stages of development, and the third was GNED because we're currently discussing abortion and at what point a cell, or zygote, or whatever become a person. It's pretty interesting, but I could've handled learning it once and that would have been alright. My main issue so far has been falling asleep at a reasonable time, but that is slowly getting better.

Regarding work, I really need to find a new job. My theater job has been giving me one day of work per week or less, and I have been given an automatic third write-up because I missed work on Tuesday, after they told me to call them on Wednesday to get my schedule. I'm pretty sick of this happening, since this is now the fourth time I've missed work for similar reasons.

Anyway, I hope you all are doing well. Love you all and hope to hear from you! Also, for those who were asking, my address is the same as it was last semester. If you want the address, either message me on Facebook or e-mail me.

Thanks for reading!

Love,

~RLF

Ready for break.

This week has been crazy so far. Classes got really busy all of a sudden now that break is coming up, but break is now only 2 days away. Sooooooo ready for it.

Well, this was a short read for once, just wanted to say something.

Love you all!

~RLF

Halloween!

Halloween is probably one of my favorite holidays. I know some people think it's all about satanic worship and child sacrifices and whatnot, but really, when was the last time you saw a child sacrifice on Halloween? I think dressing up and getting candy is fairly harmless, and even fun, as long as nobody poisons the candy.

Well, for the joint hall meeting this past week, I dressed up as a pirate. Of course someone had to dress up as Jack Sparrow, or Halloween would not have been complete. We took pictures of me slapping him, and he let me borrow one of his bottles of "rum" aka IBC cream soda. He then asked to borrow my corset to let his girlfriend wear to a party at VT. I don't loan my corsets to strangers, so I said no...

Anyway, last night I went to volunteer to help set up and decorate for a kid's carnival. When I got there, they asked me to have a seat and wait to be paired with a child, stating that the children would be there in an hour. This was a decent shock to me, since the sheet I was given had said the carnival was today and only set up was yesterday, but I didn't mind. Then, another lady comes and tells us that she had heard we didn't all know that the children were autistic. So I went from decorating for a Halloween party to playing with, watching out for, and feeding autistic children. The boy I was paired with, named Will, was dressed as Thomas the train and was very cute. We ended up crashing Hot Wheels into each other most of the night and shooting Nerf guns. Overall, it was a lot of fun, and when his older siblings, Steven and Lilly, who had been partnered with other Liberty students, were picked up, their mom asked if we were going to be back for Christmas, so maybe I will be. They were so cute! I wish I had pictures.

Also, last night after the carnival, I went out to Amherst County High School to help a church called Oasis with an outreach event that they were hosting. They had an amazing dunk team, which I didn't know existed, but they did all kinds of crazy stunts involving slam dunking basketballs. They gave away tons of free pizza, had a drawing for a Wii, and had an unplanned dance party in the parking lot. It was interesting standing in the area between the gym and the parking lot giving away pizza, since I could see and hear what was going on in both places. In the gym, one of the guys gave their testimony and they prayed and things like that, and on the other everyone was dancing like crazy. By the way, did you know that there is a dance to the song Jump Around? Well, I do. I looked out when that song was playing, and everyone was doing the electric slide to that song. What a concept. But it was interesting to witness these two contrasting events simultaneously. I think big things may be getting ready to happen in Amhurst. I may be getting more involved with this church in the near future.

As for today, Halloween, I am going to be working at the theater from 5:30-11:30, which is sad because we're going to be slammed since we have Saw VI and Halloween 2, and maybe even Nightmare Before Christmas 3D, and also because I'd rather be doing other things. But, I can't complain a whole lot, since I was partly expecting to be fired after what happened recently. I may go to Wal-mart tonight and get some discounted Halloween candy to make myself feel better.

Anyway, I hope you all have a fun and safe Halloween! I may possibly be back home for Thanksgiving break, so if you want to see me then, let me know!

Love and lots of candy,

~RLF

If you want to pray for me....

I know some of you reading this are not Christians, and that's ok. However, some of you are, and I know how some of us love prayer requests. So, if you'd like to pray for me, here are some things you can pray for:

-me figuring out if I'm going to stay a biology major or switch to psychology, and how to use my major in the future

-relationships with others Nothing terrible has happened, I just get short tempered with people sometimes, and that's not fair to them.

-summer plans- I'm considering joining staff for Lift Student Ministries for the summer, and/or going to Costa Rica as a small group leader through Liberty.

-finances!! -Finding money to take some tests so I can test out of a few courses, cutting down the amount of time I actually have to stay in college, and pay for it. Also, for me to get the scholarships I need to stay in school!

Thank you for your prayers! Let me know if there's anything I can do for any of you.

Much love and thanks,

~RLF

Halfway through the semester...

Well, things are going reasonably decent still. Ironically, I've had a problem making it to church since I've been here, but that is improving. Today's sermon was pretty good. We just had mid-terms this past week, which were alright. It's hard to believe the semester's half gone already, but that's alright I guess.

In other news, my job has been going well, except this past week. At the beginning of each week, I call to get my work schedule. At the beginning of last week, I was told by one of my co-workers that I was not on the schedule, which upset me, but I was alright with that since it gave me more time to study for my exams. However, I called today to get my schedule, and my manager answered. She informed me that I was supposed to have been there yesterday and today, but that she got someone to cover for me. As you can imagine, I was not happy about that. I basically was lied to and had someone else take 14 hours, my average work week, away from me, along with about $100 out of my paycheck. It might not be to you, but to me, $100 is a lot of money. Lesson: go in to check the schedule

On the bright side, the weather is perfect, 70s and sunny, and the trees changing color all over the mountains is beautiful. In about an hour, I leave to go up to Snowflex, where I will be an extra in a movie being shot up there today, called The Potential Inside. I'm not sure exactly what the movie is about, but I know it involves bike racing and they need spectators, so I'm going to go and spectate.

After that, I'm going to go to work and talk to my manager about this scheduling issue, make sure I'm not in danger of getting fired, and possibly get put on the schedule for this week.

In addition, for our weekly hall meeting, we will be having a joint-hall meeting with our brother and sister dorms for Halloween. We get to dress up, and I'm sure whatever we end up doing will be interesting because it always is when all of us get together....And we'll be in costumes, so that makes things open to a lot more possibilities.

Alright, well I will update again fairly soon.

Much love,

~ RLF