Lydia has had a very busy week (as you will see), so she asked me to post this for her:
Dear Friends and Family,
Wow, sooo, I have two weeks to catch up on don’t I? We’ll I’ll try to hit the highlights. So two weeks ago, I was formally initiated into the Mirrors Sophomore Class Honorary, an honorary that I had applied for in February and had done an interview for as well. Every year a group of 40 students are selected by the current Mirrors members to be the next ‘generation’ I specifically wanted to get into this honorary because their main service project is volunteering for the St. James Cancer Hospital. I want to get involved in service to cancer patients since my grandmother on my mother’s side died of cancer.
Last Wednesday I received a letter of congratulations from the East Asian Studies Center at OSU. I had won their 1,500$ study abroad scholarship! Praise the Lord! I am very excited about this, obviously. Thanks all of you who have been praying for me and for my financial situation. The Lord is looking out for me and knows exactly how he is going to take care of everything. This is not a lot of money compared to how much my summer will cost me, but every bit helps and this shows that, yes, I can in fact win scholarships. Now I just have to win more of them. On another note, I got a ‘sorry’ letter from the Boren scholarship that I applied for (8,000$). I am not surprised, I didn’t really expect to win it since it is nation wide and they only give out four every year. But thanks for praying for that too, God his helping me be patient and have faith in him.
Last weekend, as everyone knows, our rugby team played in the Ohio Rugby Classics tournament. This is the big tournament of the year for OSU since it is our own tournament hosted in Columbus. We did win, as you know, Praise the Lord. I am very thankful for his help in this. I know for sure it was him, because two weeks before we were pathetic, losing to a mediocre team up in Kent by about 0-30. In the space of two weekends, the Lord turned us around and helped us get our act together. Last weekend was A TON OF FUN, probably the most fun I have had since my entomology camp back in highscool. I have never played a competitive team sport before, and I can tell you that the satisfaction you get from playing it and winning is like nothing else. I understand why for some people, sports is their life. However, as much as I love rugby, it has no place in my future, which is why I will not be playing it again next year. My goal is to graduate, get a job translating for ??? and travel around the world. Rugby could be a hobby if it didn’t take so much time. But because it takes time away from the work I have to do to prepare for my future, well, so long rugby. But, I am very very glad I played it this year, I have no regrets and it was an amazing experience that I will look back on with pleasure and pride for the rest of my life. And, I can always feel assured that, if I fail in getting a job anywhere else, I can always fall back on playing rugby for a living (just kidding really 😉 > that is kind of a death wish, playing rugby for a living).
So this week was probably my worst week yet of the year. There might have been some really bad one during winter quarter, but not one that I remember being as miserable as this week. The reason for my misery was manyfold: four games of rugby in two days = very physically tired and beat up + no homework done = stay up very late sunday night finishing stuff = very little sleep + two midterms and two midterm project = even less sleep each successive night = a slightly out of spirits me on the outside, a person ready to drop dead on the inside = not hell, but only the next step up from it. So, now that this week is over, I hope to get a little more sleep. (P.S. I think my midterms and projects went reasonably well, I had 1 arabic midterm, 1 arabic project, 1 chinese midterm, and 1 psychology project).
The reason I lived through my week was because I was constantly looking forward to the weekend (Saturday) and what it would bring, and therefore I wasn’t allowed to give up and die. This weekend the OSU Ren. club hosted the annual OSU Ren. Fair, which was so much fun!!!!!! I love renaissance fairs, I had been saving up for this one and spent quite a bit of money (some of it was for presents, don’t worry). I got some very nice sterling silver jewelry, and despite my almost overwhelming desire for one, I did not purchase anything sharp 🙁 *cries in the corner* I decided very firmly that I would only spend my money on things that had a practical use outside of dressing up for a Renaissance event, so that excluded stuff like leather boots, leather pouches, pirate hats (there was a really nice one I had my eye on), swords and knives, sword accessories, leather armor, costume stuff, the list goes on and on. And it basically only included jewelry, so that is what I got. There was some really nice jewelry that I really really liked, but I also decided that I would rather get a few not so expensive things than one expensive thing. Therefore I passed up on the russian silver necklace with the gorgeous amber pendant (I love amber by the way, along with onyx and jade it is my favorite stone). So, besides shopping 😉 > I also got to see dancing, a play or two, some good old medieval entertainment like fire juggling, acrobatics, and story telling, and of course dueling by the weapons masters. I took some pictures and I will try to get them up today, we’ll see.
Saturday night was our rugby teams last social get together of the year (we still have some events and will have some practice, but the season is more or less over). We inducted the new club officers, handed out awards and accusations (I’ll explain), and the played some games, after which I went home. So the accusations: all the members can write up things that their teammates did during the year and assign a punishment for them and we hold a ‘court’ with the graduating seniors of the club residing. Don’t worry, it is all in fun and none of the ‘punishments’ are bad. I was ‘courted’ for doing homework on the sidelines during a game and I had to wear a snoopy shirt for the rest of the night, passed on by the girl who was courted last year for doing the same thing. I also received the ‘most improved’ award for rugby playing, which I very much appreciated. I improved so much because I finally understood how things were supposed to work and once I understand something, I can throw myself into doing it better and better. Plus rugby is where I can do what I love best (hit people) and the fire inside me kind of comes out pretty strong once I get into a rugby game (ask my martial arts sparing partners about my little ‘fire inside’ thing if you don’t understand).
I dearly hope you don’t think this update too long, but I did promise to write you a nice long one since I missed last week and so much has happened. In general, I am happy (I love school), VERY excited about going to china, tired (I’m a college student after all), and ready for anything. So have a great week and enjoy life, because that is what it is for.
In Christ
Lydia