The Mentals of Fundamentals

So classes have started back up again and the semester has begun. Yesterday was fun. Jeff and I carpooled to school (look how cute we are). It wasnt a cute moment though. I have class at 8am and was woken up at 7am. This is never a good thing. It's like waking up a bear in the middle of hibernation. 1) Its dangerous and your head could get bitten off or you could get clawed to death and 2) You just dont ever do that.

Anyways, we get to the campus and its Jeff's first day there so he doesn't know where anything is. So i point out all the places to him and all the buildings where his classes are. I felt like a mom walking her five year old around, holding his hand, and pointing everything out and trying to make him understand. At one point we were walking and I was like, "That's amador hall, where your history class is. Thats mariposa, your economics class is there....and that...that's a tree. Can you say tree?" Jeff didnt think it was funny. I thought i was hysterical. Take note heather nunn, this is how you be funny.

My classes were interesting. My first class is Micriobiology and i walk in and the last seat available is in the middle of a back row. So i had to crawl over about 10 people, stepping on about 101 toes (i swear one guy had 6 toes...weird). I sit down. There's no leg room, i'm eating my kneecaps. I pull out the retractable desk and hit the girl next to me in the elbow. The professor comes in...she's an interesting case. She's the kind that talks with her hands...A LOT. So she starts talking and I got confused. I wasnt sure if i was in microbiology or a sign language class. I swear, if i were a person walking by and peaked through the window, i would have thought the whole class was deaf the way that woman was using her hands.

So my class gets done and i dont have another one until 3p. I came home and counted all my change and for some reason decided it was a good time to start a tithing jar. I'll tell you about that tomorrow. We're focusing on school today.

Anyways, I go back to school for my bio lab at 3p. I get there and my professor that teaches the lab is this russian woman. I'll give you her name and see if you can pronounce it: Krassimira Hristova. Yeah. So i cant even begin to pronounce and therefore cant ever resort to asking questions in the class cause i dont know how to call her over. I suppose if i just cough like i have flem in my throat it sounds russian so she'll think i'm calling her name and come over. Sounds the same. Anyways, we're sitting in lab and she's going over safety procedures. Maybe it was just me, but after every procedure she read she sounded like she was gonna cry. She would talk about how to be careful with the microscopes cause they might break and all of a sudden her voice would crack and she choked up...i think i actually saw a few tears. Microscopes...man they get to you...make me so emotional sometimes...

I'm Awake and I'm Not Happy

So its 9:30 in the morning. And I'm awake. I am not happy here folks. Its my day off and I am awake. First my boyfriend comes into my room and wakes me up at 8 and wants to cuddle. I just want to sleep. So I breath my morning breath on him and it scares him away. Then Amanda Shilling calls me at some God-forsaken hour. I forgive her for that because she doesnt do it often and I would have loved to here from her, besides I didnt even hear my phone ring. Wait, were not done yet. Yet again, another phone call. This time its our home phone in the living room so I have to physically get out of bed. Its my mom. Going home today and she just wanted to know what I wanted for dinner, since its 9am and getting so close dinner time. So its apparent that God wanted me up this early for some reason...I assume its to post on my blog...so everybody better darn well appreciate this post cause I am sacrificing a lot here.

Anyways. So I told you I'm reading this Donald Miller book, Blue Like Jazz. I tell Jeff everyday....its amazing. You have got to read it or re-read it if you've already read it. This book is just stretching my mind so much and really giving me this passion. I was reading this chapter titled "Confession" the other day. I think this is the one I've gotten the most from so far because it talks about confessing your faith, and how to come across with it with other people. This is where I always tend to contradict myself or dont know what to do. In the book, he talks about this one time he was doing a radio interview and the DJ (who wasnt a christian) asks him to defend christianity. He replied to the DJ that he couldnt do it and didnt want to because he no longer knew what the term meant.

A few days ago at work I got into this discussion with my coworker about gay rights. She is a hard core democrat and asked me why i was a republican. She asked if it was because i was raised "religious". I cringed at the word but said yes. Her reply was, "Thats why youre so ignorant." She went on and on ripping christianity apart. I said nothing. The thing that has always frustrated me is how to defend Christianity. Here's the solution. I dont. I am done defending Christianity or even trying. And here is why. Nobody, when they ask you about, really wants you to defend it. They set out with the conversation simply to fight and to prove you wrong about everything. They want to point out everything wrong about you. They want to point out all the bad things that have been done in the name of Christ. They dont want to understand or listen to your defense, they want to make you look like an idiot. Like the girl at work. But do i blame her? I mean, if we're gonna start pointing out all the faults about Christians, let me get a pen to take notes. If we're gonna point out all the ways that Christians are hypocrites...then i'll be in line right behind you. And the first to take the blame.(Because I'm a hypocrite and hypocrites always have to take both sides). Not only that, but it seems that any attempt to defend the term would only make people more angry. I'm not going to defend something that lately I haven't been agreeing with or has been frustrating me. I know that sounds heathen, but let me explain. I will put no defense for those who claim to love and then kill in the name of love. Or so on. I will defend the God they claim to be loving. There is no fault with God. There is only truth and grace and joy and love. But as humans, we are dumb and self-centered and the perception of God to non-believers gets so construed. Our actions and our words that do not exemplify and glorify God hinder the truth and beauty of Him to be seen.

Anyways, this was just my thought. I'm not going to defend Christianity. I will apologize to no end for its mistakes and its flaws and the way I most often get caught up in the title and the hypocrisy. I will defend Christ. I will defend His love and His grace and the desire He has for every single person. That there is no mistakes and no flaws and no hypocrisy in Him. God IS love, that has just been pounding and pounding in my head. There is so much to learn from those 3 simple words. Everything we need to live by.

Well, I'm done. I'm gonna go take a shower and hurry home because it is a little after 10am which means its almost dinner time!!! I need to get home for dinner!!

Hilary Faye

So I woke up today and checked my email. I got an email from Governor Ahnald. I got all excited at first, for a second I thought he was sending out a mass email saying he was making a sequel to "Kindergarden Cop". It actually turned out that he just wanted me to vote for the budget reform. My hopes were shattered, so I continue to wait for the sequel. Been a chill day since then. Went for a run, then came back and just been relaxing since. I snuggled up under some warm laundry brewed freshly from the dryer and grabbed my book to read.

So I'm reading this book called "Blue Like Jazz" written by Donald Miller. Amazing book. Amazing writer. The guy has a talent for getting into your head and expressing every thought I've been feeling that I cant put into words. So its really refreshing to be reading something that relates to everything I've been feeling lately. The chapter I'm currently reading is entitled "Change: New Starts at Ancient Faith." The author makes the point that in every believer's life there comes a time when they decide they will either follow Him deeply or lag away and become stagnant. He gives the example of Paul who made the decision the second he met Christ. Whereas Peter endured years of half-hearted commitment before taking the leap to follow fully, with all his heart. He talks about in his life how he was the leader of a college group and everything was great. He was leading bible studies, he was popular, everybody looked up to him. Then one day he realizes that he has become somebody that he doesn't know. He's become fake. Superficial. His faith became a system of jumping through hoops...ritualistic. His words were empty, unmeaningful, and shallow. So he met with his pastor and told him he was leaving because he had to go on a journey.

So for the past year and a half this has been me. Something made me come to the point where I realized that jumping through hoops was not the way to have a relationship with Christ. The cliche phrases, the sunday school answers...yeah those werent working for me anymore and i started hating myself for quoting them all the time. I was Hilary Faye from "Saved" (though I dont recall ever throwing a Bible at somebody). As Donald Miller realized, "I have become an informercial for God, and I dont even use the product. I dont want to be who I am anymore." I guess the point I'm getting at is that today for the first time I have realized that I am on a spiritual journey. A year and a half ago I left the old me behind and ventured on discovering a new me. Let me rephrase that. A year and a half ago I left behind my version of "God in a box" and have ventured out to discover the immensity that is God. To discover the real God, not the Sunday School version I thought he was. The God that is beyond my understanding, not the version I thought I knew by saying the right things and seeing everything in black and white.

Anyways, I dont know why I blogged about it. I just got really excited about it. I'm on a spiritual journey. Sometimes I get impatient that the process takes so long but i like that it does. Its gonna take the rest of my life.

Mostly I wanted to brag that I got an email from Ahnald, I get excited about that too. If they would only make a sequel...

I'm goin' goin' back back to Cali Cali

So I know you all have missed me and fret no more...I am thus returning to California today. Or in the words of Biggie Smalls (Big Up to Brooklyn), "I'm goin' goin' back back to Cali Cali." I have been vacationing and enjoying freezing my noggin off in Oregon (Oregano as I like to call it), but the sleazy arms of corporate America (I'm so emo) must bring me back to Sacramento for work. Its been an amazing week of relaxation. Jeff and I have no money cause we both just got caught on the lam running from the Popo's...we're gangstas like that. So we spent the week staying up late, sleeping in, kicking it in our pj's, doing puzzles, and watching movies. I got an amazing array (vocab word--2 points!) of movies this week: Saved, Anchorman, Starsky & Hutch, Oscar, Intolerable Cruelty and of course...Napoleon Dynamite. We watched almost every single one twice except he has some prejudice against classics and refused to watch Oscar....if you havent seen it, watch it, its funny.

Anyways, we're about to roll out the door. California here I come...back. I shall return from my journey $40 short (stupid Craps tables), with a sore foot and fresh ink and bring Sacramento something new...an awesome musician...and my boyfriend, Jeff.