I'm thankful for...

I got to spend my first every thanksgiving in the United States with my mum's family! Apparently it is a right of passage into adulthood since two of my elder sisters were in my position exactly a year ago...hurray! I can finally be an adult...oh wait...I can't drive...shoot! :)

It was a lovely time staying with my Aunt and Uncle and the turkey was fabulously cut by my uncle with an ELECTRIC KNIFE!!! okay, call me ignorant but i had no idea that there was such a thing as an electric carving knife! I mean yes, once we discovered self-cleaning toilet seats, it was only a small leap to electric knives, BUT STILL!!! Gee, I must really be behind the times.

Well, now I'm chillin' in the Tampa Bay airport, and I've come to discover that I feel very at home in an airport....I've never been to this one before, (besides arriving through it a week ago!), and yet most airports have the same basic elements, even if some are ridiculously hard to navigate.

This is my first time travelling alone, and I'm enjoying it immensely. True, it's a mere two-hour flight with only one connecting flight but hey! Come on! Give me some credit! I'm a teen with self-esteem problems....that is the correct terminology right? :)

So have I gotten off track here? Gone from talking of family and thanksgiving to praising my natural abilities to travel independantly? Slightly, but there is a point to this selfish rant...

Honestly I think I usually find myself substituting thankfulness with attention; in other words, rather than actually SAYING "I'm thankful for the ability to go to college" I simply say "Wow...I'm going to college!" In one sense I am appreciative, but on the other hand, I am making no conscious decision to give thanks to the One who bestowed these things on me.

God, thank you for making it clear to me that I belong at Belhaven right now.

Thank you for helping me in my classes so that I have not been overwhelmed.

Thank you for providing such beautiful, precious friends here.

Thank you for my dearest friends who minister to me despite the distance between us now.

Thank you for a family that loves me and cares about the little things in my life.

Thank you for technology that allows me to be so well-connected with all of my family.

Thank you for taking away my fear of life so that I can enjoy such things as hanging out in airports.

Thank you for all of this, and I admit that there are things I still wish I had. I wish I had them, but I acknowledge that I do not need them.

Useless sight

What is the use of looking when we also have the ability to choose what we are seeing? Sometimes...well, most of the time I don't feel very able when it comes to seeing things.

Looking at Mississippi....looking at new friends...looking at a face....all of these things I have looked at and come up with different impressions based on my mood at the time...how sick is that? and that's the BAD kind of sick by the way.

I came to Mississippi having little pride for "my country" much less any pride for a particular state. I hold no bitterness or disgust towards either state or country. On the contrary, I am excited to finally get to know places that I've never had a chance to experience. Still...I would be lying if I said that I have not had a hard time "seeing" myself ever coming to take pride in the state of Mississippi.

Well tonight my aunt and I went to see the movie Blindside. (a brilliantly lovely movie by the way...everyone should see it at some point if not more than once) It is the story of a young man from a harsh background who overcomes extreme obstacles and ends up playing pro-football. The film is filled with southern lifestyle...accents included! Ole' Miss is featured in the film, and I found myself cheering for a place that I had not expected to be excited about!

I spent the last few hours before leaving for break taking pictures with friends. Then we drove to the airport to scatter ourselves to different places. Four college freshmen. Four people who did not know each other four months ago. Four people who were tightly hugging each other and promising to send word when we had safely reached our destinations.

I look at where I am. I look at faces I see every day.
What I could see is a new place that is not home and people that are not the friends I left when I came here.

What I do see is a place that has so much potential to love, and people that I love a lot...

...Oh how useless my sight is.

Head Shot

I will write more a bit later, but Patrick this is the head shot i had to end up using....it consisted of me pushing the timer button and then running to sit in front of the camera!

Mallory, you will be taking my new head shots at christmas time!!!

A beautiful thing

Is God in control? I have asked myself that question on a few separate occasions, and mostly the answer has come back with a clear resounding YES.

In the last few days I was somehow able to let go of the tight grip I have held on my life lately, and let God do something beautiful with it. It was only a few days, and I fear I am already falling back into the bad habit of making blind choices and ignoring the powerful sight of God.

This last friday was audition day in our departmental meeting. As a brand new student I was only required to have four monologues prepared...starting next semester I will need at least ten.
I was only prepared for three, so I asked my friendly Texan to lend me her more experienced opinion, and she gave me a wonderful play called "The Effects of Gamma Rays on Man-On-The-Moon Marigolds"!
Delightful as it is to try and say the title five times fast, it is even MORE delightful to read! Unfortunately my reading took place at two in the morning since the entire day had been spent trying to figure out how to print my headshot.

With everything that Audition Day entailed, and knowing I had a tech rehearsal right afterwards AND a few quizzes that day, I had plenty of excuses to run around like a chicken with its head cut off and scream at the top of my lungs that I deserved to be pitied!

Incredibly, I was able to hear the Holy Spirit's soft voice saying, "Don't worry, don't panic, everything will work out fine. There is no need to rush, you only need to do what needs to be done in an orderly manner."

Well I offered to do head-shots for two of my friends, (just temporary!!), and that ended up taking the majority of my evening time...but all the while God spoke to me that I was doing the right thing, and there would be plenty of time to memorize the monologue, (the auditions were the next day).

In the end, my day went so smoothly, my monologues felt great, and tech rehearsal went well too....

It's a splendid thing to trust in the Lord...I believe that it is not a blind thing that we do when we trust in Him who we cannot see...instead, when we trust in him, we open our eyes for a short while and allow him to lead us by the hand while we enjoy the scenery going by.

It's a beautiful thing...

Mississippi???

I was born in Oregon. I spent eight years in lithuania and seven years in the Black Forest. So what the heck am I doing in Mississippi? Well...

I am doing many things in Mississippi.

I am making wedding rings for Nora and Torvald Helmer.

I am dressing in a cloak and dancing violently around pictures of Ibsen, Strindberg, and Chekhov with forks.

I am creating tableaus with ten other people while each of us wears an unfortunate black spandex suit.

I am spending hours at McCallister's with my Texan friend.

I am walking to Laurel Park with my friend from Washington.

I am living the life God has called me to...or at least trying not to bungle anything up!

That there is my dorm. Gillespie. God blessed me with a lovely big room and wonderful roommate who does not mind the ever growing pile of clothes on the floor next to my bed! And to top it all off, my dorm is situated on a beautiful little lake with fountains, and a charming pathway around it. I found this lonely clump of brilliance on one such walk.

What am I doing here? Why am I here? The simple answers are: theater, God, I have been called. The not so simple answer would involve trying to explain why I did not feel the need to apply to any other school...or why I would choose a small christian school in a state I had never been to, in a place where I knew not a single person.

But then again...why should the answers be complicated? God did call me. And all I truly know right now, is that I am meant to be doing theater, and I am loving it so much!