Chicago was, well, interesting. I guess it wasn't my favorite movie ever, but you know. And it's not just cause I don't like musicals. I loved Moulin Rouge. And honestly, this was good talent and stuff, I just didn't find it extraordinary.
I guess nothing these days is really that though. I mean, if I were writing movies I'd be left with old plots and used ideas. They're all resorting to re-doing old flicks or trying out new stuff like musicals or documentaries or telling "true-life" stories. I can't really ask for much more, I mean,, what else is there to write?
Somehow though, any old love story would do. I mean, just check out "While You were Sleeping", I mean, that's an awesome chick flick and it's just normal people. Okay, and how about Hope Floats? I mean, it's got divorce, death, old crappy high school memories and yet it's still got romance and it works. Guys might not think so, but I love it to death. And as for you guys--I mean, haven't you seen enough movies about Al Capone types whose happy-go-lucky under person tries to prove he's tough? Or people stealing cars and making it big with girls? At least the humor stuff is new I guess, right? Good, Old School stuff, you know? Funny stuff.
Anyway, yeah, I don't know about movies. People are always, you know, asking me about them at work cause we rent them and I guess I'm supposed to rent them all so I can recommend them to different people, but sometimes there's just not an interest. Maybe if I had a free rental account. =o)
The Chick Flicks are honestly doing good right now, though. Action is kinda taking a back seat. I'm basically just done with season four of friends and impatiently waiting for the fifth and there's nothing tiein me over...but nobody's complaining. Once school starts I'll never be bored again. I suddenly realized I have like, 18 hours this semester and that's major studying. Well, so maybe Chicago was the last for awhile, it was worth it I suppose. Watch it sometime, or don't, what's it to me?

Does anyone else think it's a bit ridiculous that the American Public is always saying " a terrorist could do this" about anything "tragic" that occurs in America? I mean, honestly. Do you really depend on electricity so much that if denied it you will enevitably die as a result? Are we as an american people seriously living on electricity like life support?
I can see that we may need electricity to function more efficiently and to do a lot of things, but when denied it we act like the world may be ending. Sometimes I think that maybe we have created an end to our own simply by trying to make things as convenient as possible. And all you people talking about Natural selection are missing the boat here...I mean, by using the earth's resources to do things we are creating an animal that cannot survive on it's own--how is that helping?
But anyway, I honestly feel like you can make anything into a terrorist attack. Blackouts are "genious" because they are so depended on in big cities like New York  and as a terrorist it would be both funny and ironic to use a tool as such. I mean, here are a bunch of people who think they are like the center of the world who are suddenly standing dead still in the middle of the street, paralyzed because there is no electricity. Move to Iowa people. What are they going to do to us? Set the cattle free in some sort of stampede down the interstate? "OOH! Terrorists could do that!" And so what if they could? Am I going to just not drive on the interstate ever again for fear that they come up with this ingenious plan?

Okay, okay, so maybe with the recent blackout, this type of attack seems more likely and there's more people to anger there and maybe I'm being a little uncaring toward my feelow Americans. I don't mean to say it isn't terrible that there is no electricity. I can say I'd miss it terribly, but I'm not going to panic and think that I'm in the worst position in the world. When it snows here and the power goes out, I don't think that a terrorist is attacking me. Luckily, my dad always melted snow over the little heater thing so we could use it to cook at stuff, but, you know, I might as well say the terrorists made the snow or infected the clouds with some acid so that I would die.
I can see a new movie bursting forth in theatres: "Blackout!!" creepy music and murders and robberies and terrorists from the Middle East. Why not "Stampede!!" ?? I mean, IT COULD HAPPEN. I'm more scared of natural disasters, I mean the odds are much higher. I feel deeply for people affected with tornados and hurricanes and tropical storms--and you guys are worried that you might not get to shower for a day or two?

So my thoughts are, I'm sorry guys, I wish you had electricity and that you're lives return to normal soon, but stop playing like you're dying and stop panicing about terrorists. If you live your whole life thinking you're going to be the next victim, you're going to end up in a nuthouse. Be strong, stick it out, and if you really want to get away from that action, move here.

People would tell you that a missions trip to Mexico is interesting. They might tell you it's a really cool thing for you to do and that it's really awesome that someone enjoys doing that. The only thing is that they don't understand at all. They glance at my photos and they say "cool" and maybe ask a question but they get bored five minutes later. The strangest thing is that there's no way for me to explain it anyway. If someone were to ask me "what is it that you experienced down there?" I couldn't really say. I could try to sum it up in a few vague words like "love" or even "dirt" or "simple joys", but they would neither know more from that or understand what I meant without a much longer explanation or doing the trip themselves.
Honestly, I'd say there are a few things that mean more than others on the trip. The first is seeing the people's faces. The students on the trip who have never been there gaze out the windows of our bus seeing what they expected to see but yet something completely different. In just four days you become a completely different person. And the faces of the families we work for touches me at an even deeper level. How is it that these people are so happy? How is it that they have so much love and joy for us when we have so much and they have so little? When one photograph means as much to them as having a bed to sleep on or something to eat for lunch I can't help but wonder why I need so much in my life.

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So some people are reading this and wondering what I am talking about so I'll talk about it quickly and you can talk to me more if you have questions. This is my fifth year on this missions trip with my church-First Christian of Council Bluffs, IA. We get a group of people together and drive down to Mexico and work with AMOR ministries. We give our time and money and love to our project: building a house for a family in Mexico who can't afford one but really needs it. We demonstrate God's love and he dishes it right back to us. Every year is completely different and every year gets better by far. I can't say I know what I want to do with my life, but I'm hoping God's will asks me to devote it to this ministry. It is completely amazing and completely humbling and more than I could experince any place else. I cannot allow my life to remain unchanged for even one day after seeing the beautiful things these people offer us out of so little. I don't know what to expect when I rely on God, but he's always amazing me!
As for the people here who see me day in and day out, they always ask me how my trip was and I rely on those simple words "Great or "good" to describe the indescribable. They ask me strange questions like, "Do the people there smell?" "What did you eat?" and the thing I realize is that I totally do not know and did not notice or cannot even remember. Of course the banos smell bad and of course my air mattress cannot compare to a bed and obviously I missed having a hot shower, but you hardly notice anything more. It's like bare hearts just walking around, bumping into each other and not saying anything but hearing the words "I love you".
People ask me why I go all the time and what I get out of it and I really have no answer. Some may think I go because it "looks good" and surely the trips add to my list of good deeds, but it isn't that at all. It's just that this trips are not just something I do every year, not just a vacation I feel like I have to do for God, these trips are a part of me and without them I would be incomplete. Maybe this is the way you should feel when you're doing God's work, but it's definately changed my life and I can't begin to explain it in a single entry. If you truly want to know you're just going to have to keep asking or go for yourself. God Bless-- 

Photos

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Not quite sure how you start a "blog" thing but I figured I'd give it a try--
So I am gonna kinda talk about who I am cause I don't really do much of that.
I'm a college kid which means that, as you may suspect, I attend classes that cost a large sum of money with the knowledge that I will either a) not learn anything or b) not retain what I do learn, all with the hopes of acquireing some sort of job that pays me more than 10 bucks an hour and that I possibly enjoy. Some older people believe that college kids fit a completely different discription which is "those ungrateful little punks who take money and school for granted when I had no money and had to walk uphill both ways". Funny thing is that we college kids still have no money and that hills go both up and down. I dunno though. Life isn't terrible as a college kid, it's just not the bowl of cherries those old people think it is. I'm not talking about, say, my grandma or anything cause she thinks college is great and she loves me, but the people that live here in a college town that think we're destroying it when, in fact, we're making it what it is.
Seriously, the other day this guy came in to my work and I went out of my way to help him and he pretty much called me stupid. So, another category in which I fit is a HyVee employee. Hopefully not for too much longer. But this guy, he had some fruit and I didn't knoiw how to ring it up and he wanted me to multiply some stuff. I will admit to anyone who is around that I really really stink when it comes to math problems, but this dude, he goes "When I graduated in 1933, we didn't have computers" blah blah...and I'm sure the calculator is such a new invention. I mean, honestly. I'm sorry old guy that I know how to use the internet instead of the phonebook. Basically I just told him I was a stupid person and that I was sorry I couldn't be smart and that I do own a computer, but I guess you know, college kids just aren't what they used to be.
One of the strangest distinctions in life is that the only old people you really like are your relatives and people you grew up knowing, you know? And the same for them. They only like their grandkids and their friends' grandkids. This world is so filled with love it's unbelieveable. To be honest with you, I think it's more an issue of pride than it is of love. I mean, they're "proud" of their grandkid for going to law school. They put pictures up and show them around to their neighbors. I can just see that guy sitting in his recliner or at his card table doing nothing, living on retirement money saying "my grandson got a 35 on his ACTs" and all the other guys are going "wow" "good job" and looking at the guys' picture and thinking to themselves "the jerk, did he pay someone off or something?"
And that's the other strange thing. Why can't we just be happy for each other? Honestly? It's almost always jealousy when their really should be pride. You know, "I'm so proud of you for getting that job" when inside you're thinking "Why is she happy?" It's terrible.
I really think that's the motivation behind most people. I mean, to do better than anyone else and to look humble. I guess it took a psychology degree and 6 years at HyVee to understand that. I mean, few and far between there's the really nice people or just the people in a good mood for the day. Oh well, I guess my advice to any of you is to imagine that the person you are next to really is someone you know and care about...then you don't get all carried away and call them stupid over something as simple as being old and ignorant. Okay, I'm done, I'm sorry, the guy was just too mean.