I have to keep listening to this song to remind me that I really do not want to spend the next five months here in Littleton. I get really awful pre-trip jitters, and I tend to be like, "Hey, I like it here. Why on earth would I want to leave?" Even when I've spent all break going, "I hate this teeny town. Why on earth would anybody ever live here?"I'm honestly feeling a bit overwhelmed right now. I keep getting a lot of random advice from people, and a lot of it is contradictory. If I need help I'll ask, but at this point there's not a lot I can change.

Although a lot of people have been to this program, this is going to be my unique adventure, and at some point, I'm just going to have to get on the plane and go. What stresses me out the most is people telling me, "It's going to change your life" or "It's going to be the best thing you've ever done." Not that I doubt them, but there's always that little voice in the back of my mind going, "This absolutely, positively must be the best thing I've done, and I absolutely must do everything right." As you can see I tend to over think things, so right now I'm trying to take deep breaths and relax.

I'm also trying to spend a lot of time with my family, who I won't see or really talk to for five months. I have to admit that I call home pretty much every day when I'm at school, so my lack of phone-ness is going to be really hard. Of course, there's always email, but it's just not the same as having an hour long chat with your mom after a hard day.

This is all to say: I'm completely terrified. But I am so glad that some of best friends will be coming with me. I'll miss the ones at home in Texas, but I can't wait to compare experiences, Junior year!  I'd also like to say thank you to all the people who are making this trip possible for me! Only 2 more days!

So, I'm leaving for Rome on Friday. Yes, Friday. And yes, I'm kind of freaking out, a lot. Did I mention that I haven't packed? Yeah, I'm leaving the country for 5 months, and I just started packing. If space-bagging one's socks counts as packing. I'm pretty sure that all my clothes will fit into my suitcase. Pretty sure, not positive.

What I'm taking:

• 10 Shirts in various shades of blue and grey (a bit excessive, perhaps, but I really hate doing laundry).
• 2 pairs of dark, skinny jeans
• 3 skirts (all knee length)
• 3 Cardigans (Orange, purple, and black- that's some color, right?)
• 4 dresses most for cold weather, but 2 that can be worn without tights. Just in case. 
• 4 scarves (2 black and white, 1 orange, and 1 light pink)
• 1 winter coat with a zip out lining. 
• Jammies
• Unmentionables
• Purse
• Backpack
• 1 towel
• 1 blue fleece blanket
• Also, shoes. That's kind of important. 

I'm really afraid that this will be way more stuff that I could possibly need. Everyone who has done this program says that they threw away half their stuff at the end of the semester, but most of my stuff's from Goodwill, so I'm not terribly attached to it, and my motto is "Better to have it and not need it than need it and not have it." I'm also justifying my over packing with my sneaking suspicion that one of my roommates is going to underpack. Sorry, Candace, love, but we all know it's true. 

Now, I'm going to go have fun with my space bags. Nothing says fun like making your clothes look like packaged meat. I'm sure there will be several more posts before I leave, as well as lots from Rome! Stay tuned!

Epiphany

Happy Feast of the Epiphany, everyone. As Fr. Clark said in Mass today, "Unless your Jewish this is your feast day, "and I was sitting there going, "Why, yes it is! Thank you for noticing." This year my birthday was duly celebrated many times over the last twelve days, so today was nice and low key.

The past year has been...strange, goofy, fun, and awesome, but still really, really strange. I was going to post pictures from my last birthday to illustrate how strange this year started off, but all of them were too strange for the internet. So I'm just going to skip that bit. Anyway, second semester of Freshman year was a whole lot better than first semester. Instead of bawling my way through finals, I laughed... hysterically from stress, but laughed none the less and breezed right through that week.

Then I got my first real job as a counselor at Camp Cheery, which I loved. Totally loved. But it was not exactly what I expected. I mean, even for an all girls' camp, it was awfully girly. I did not realize that one simply cannot over pack for a week at camp. I turned up with a backpack, the other counselors turned up with trunks, suitcases, boxes, and bags. I'm pretty sure I didn't have that much stuff in my dorm room, but okay. Although some of the counselors and I were rather different, I did bond with the two other counselors who were not in sororities, and we had a great time just being our dorky selves. But most importantly, I loved my campers! I had a cabin of ten, yes ten, second grade girls, and they were just the cutest things ever! We had so much fun dancing at the dance party, singing camp songs at dinner, keeping the cabin clean... Of course I had my favorite little camper (don't tell), but I thought each one of them was just terrific.

After that I worked as a nanny for a while, but that didn't work out, so I went to work at the bookstore which was the best thing ever. Basically I clean stuff and then I get to play around with stuff I don't own. And by play I mean creatively arrange in a way that makes other people want to buy it. It works too. I am a very good merchandise arranger. Of course, I always have to stop myself from spending my other paychecks in that store.

I spent just about all my free time in Goodwill with Joy. Talk about most fun ever. Goodwill is not only a clothing store- it's a way of life. That's why in Mass, during the Gloria we say, "peace to people of Goodwill." That's just Jesus' way of saying he loves Joy and me best. Just kidding. Anyway, Joy really encouraged me to expand my clothing horizons, to wear clothes that aren't blue and grey! She also got me into wearing dresses, which I still do, even though they're all blue and grey. Sorry, Joy. We spent the summer plotting to do all these cool things, but in the end we just went to goodwill, which was A-okay.

In August I went back to school. It was hard. Once all the novelty of Freshman year wears off, college really stinks. It also stinks when half of your class, including many of your best friends, are in Italy having fun and posting pictures on facebook. Call it jealousy, but you try concentrating on Moby Dick, while all your friends are drinking wine and chilling in Italy. Of course I still had a bunch of friends on campus, and we all had a lot of fun together. I really bonded with my new roommate, and we had a great time listening to country music, going dancing, and just hanging out with the remnant of our class.

My classes this semester were hard. Not just a little hard, like really, really hard, but I loved them all. Except biology. I still really hate biology, but other than that I was motivated to do well in all my classes because I loved them so much. Probably my favorite class was my Anglo-Saxon England class taught by the coolest professor ever. I must have talked about this class all the time because most of the books I got for Christmas are Anglo-Saxons related. I also enjoyed my German class very much. It wasn't as hard as my other classes, probably because my dad speaks fluent German and has been talking at me all my life, but it was great to learn a language that people still speak. I was super stressed all semester, but when grades came back, my hard work had paid off!

I've spent my Christmas holiday relaxing and looking forward to an amazing semester in Italy, which I haven't eve begun to pack for. And because it's not yet midnight where I am. I will wish you all a Merry Christmas one last time. Thank you everyone for making this a great, if slightly strange year!

Happy New Year! (Belated)

In the midst of all my frantic packing and other preparations for my journey abroad, I have indeed found some time to think about my New Year's resolutions. I know it's kind of cheesy, so please don't laugh. In 2013 I resolve to live life to the fullest. I mean this academically, spiritually, and socially. I resolve to enjoy my semester abroad to the fullest by soaking in the culture, art, and spirituality. I'm also going to enjoy this time to be young with my friends, traveling, learning, eating, and, drinking (responsibly). This is a big year for me, and I refuse to waste it!

Happy New Year to all my readers!

Sheep and Shepherds, Don't You Know

Every Christmas we all put out our nativity sets: Mary, Joseph, Baby Jesus, an angel, and of course the obligatory shepherd. I feel like the shepherds and their fuzzy charges are the cause for more Christmas hilarity and awkwardness than anyone else. For example: as a small child I was a sheep in our church Christmas pageant. I worked very hard on my costume, trying to be a very convincing sheep. My endeavors do not seem to have been successful because the vicar took one look at me and said, "Epiphany, what are you supposed to be?" It crushed my acting dreams for ever. Just kidding, but I do remember several of my friends becoming inexplicably entangled in the tea towel portions of their shepherds' costumes and having to be rescued.

  Another one of my absolute favorite Sheep/ Shepherd stories is one my dad tells about a bad gospel acclamation contest held by several Anglican priests of his acquaintance. The winning verse ran something like this:
Lector:While shepherds watch their flocks by night.
Congregation: (With gusto) All seated on the ground!

One of my seminarian friends recently posted the following picture of his favorite character in his parish's nativity set.

As he says, "Not many people know this, but according to a gloss on the text of the Gospels, one of the lambs present at the Nativity of Our Lord, so touched by the Incarnation of the Word as a tiny baby, so awed at the presence of the Almighty Creator in human flesh, tossed his cookies. Hence the ancient tradition of the Veneration of the Barfing Lamb." 

Finally a quick reminder that shepherds should not be discriminated against-particularly not in nativity plays.

Also, there will be a New Year's post, once I've had a chance to think long and hard about my resolutions. So expect a post, y'know, mid July?

The 6th Day of Christmas

It feels like Christmas is well over. Wal-mart is full of Valentines Day candy, and they're already out of chocolate oranges, much to Joy and my dismay. Christmas trees are on the curb and all the christmas socks are on sale. Being born of the Feast of the Epiphany, I feel like my feast day will, yet again, be totally ignored, even by many Catholics. Now that my finals are over, and I have all this free time, I'd love to get into the Christmas spirit, sing some carols and bake some cookies. Unfortunately, I have a whole lot of work to do, fun work, but work all the same.

I may or may not have just realized that I will be heading to Italy in exactly, um, exactly... 20 days. (I did just check my itinerary to make sure I actually knew what day we're leaving). If you want to know exactly how I feel bang your head on your keyboard and then read the resulting word. You get my meaning.

Although I have been out of the country many many times, I'm still a little nervous. This will be my first trip abroad without my parents or grandparents. And did I mention it's a five month trip. Yeah, no big deal, just living in a country I've never been to with a language I don't speak. Yeah. Yeah. No. If you need me I'll be curled up under my bed, shaking with fright. But seriously, this is really nerve-wracking. I have to figure out what clothes I need, where else I plan to travel, heck, I even need to apply for summer jobs. Ahhhhhh!

I keep seeing all these pinterest-picture things that say, "I would gladly live out of a suitcase if it meant I could see the world". While that is a touching sentiment, I always think, "depends on what's in the suitcase..." I am not one of those people who can just throw something on. I am, and have always been, very picky about my clothes (sorry, mom), so I tend to over pack... A lot.  I am also a firm believer in blending in, so my best pal and I have been looking through European clothing sites going, "uh huh, uh huh, yeah, we have stuff like that. Yeah, we can pull this off."So European and comfortable. Uh huh. No problem. You know what? Perhaps I just won't pack at all. Perhaps I'll just sit here and think about packing until the world ends (unless it already has, and I managed to miss it).

I am also not looking forward to dealing with toiletries. I have curly hair that requires a lot of, shall we say, taming. The whole "Curly Girl" system has been a lifesaver for me, but I'm not really sure that I'll be able to find my special conditioner and various other products abroad. So I'm afraid I'll have to stock up. I love having beautiful, silky curls, but buying a three month supply of products in one fell swoop is slightly terrifying. I'd just give up on it all, but I'm afraid my hair would poof and take over the entire country. So for the sake of all those poor Italians who would otherwise be crushed by the great ginger frizz, I will make the sacrifice.

Finally to keep us all in the Christmas Spirit despite what the rest of the world is doing, I'd like to introduce you to my absolute favorite Christmas carol sung by my absolute favorite choir! It just doesn't feel like Christmas here in the King household without Lessons and Carols from King's College Cambridge! Merry Christmas!

Merry Christmas

   From Our Family to Yours