Thanksgiving - Things I'm thankful for

Jesus
Pat
My family
My church
My friends
Mexico
THC (Templeton Honors College, not the active ingredient in marijuana...come on now...)
Emma (I miss having a warm puppy on my lap)
Being done with 25% of my classes! (PHEW!)
El Pozo
Good Food
Freedom of Speech
My grandparents
My brain
My professors
Cough syrup and tissues
Clean fresh water
Shelter
Opportunities to minister and serve people
House (because that show is awesome and you know it)
And now I must get dressed because my exam is in 2 hours and I have a class before it!
Love you all, and I'm thankful for you!!!

Nora

The week of death

This week has been crazy and it's only going to get crazier tomorrow.
I haven't prepared at all (I mean not even a tiny eency bit) for my last Literature class of the semester tomorrow because it's almost 12:30 am and I am exhausted. Today Liz and I stayed in the house of the missionaries who are out of town (Liz is dog sitting) and we are still here right now, I kid you not I've been here 11 hours and I have not finished studying for my exam tomorrow in Interpreting. It's killing me. I have so much to know and I'm just getting discouraged and I just want to go to sleep, you know? I haven't slept much in quite awhile...because it's been a crazy life... Yep, I've had something due and last weekend I went to a wedding, and so yeah, I haven't had sleep.

In other news, I'm so sad to leave Cholula. I really love Puebla, I really love the people, I really just adore life here, and I love learning so much every day. Although, I also have a lot of happy things to look forward to when I go home.

I called and talked to Hunter, my best friend and virtual big brother today. It was so great. I couldn't have spent 49 minutes in a better way. It was so good to talk to him, he said he has been missing me the past couple weeks and it really felt good to hear him say that - just as a girl, your guy friends don't tell you that much, so it feels good to hear it. It was really good to talk to him, because I realized that it's a lot harder to start up friendships with the opposite sex from scratch, you know? It feels awkward and they think that if you're hanging around the guys it's because you're trying to look for trouble. In my case, it's because I don't totally get girls...but I'm doing better. I think I'm really learning how to be a friend to girls, it's just really hard. I don't get the incessant giggling thing (unless it's 2am, and then there is just no choice).

I've been missing people more lately, but more missing people from Puebla than anything else. I've known for awhile that I'm the type of person who deals with problems in a more anticipatory manner than in any other way, so basically I get upset before something "bad" happens or before a big change. But then, on the bright side, I am always ready to adjust quickly and jump right back into life after the change is made.

Really, I've been kind of regretting some of my choices with regards to with whom I've spent my most time while I've been here. I think I've been blinded by wanting the younger kids in youth group at church to think I'm cool, instead of just being a minister to the people at school who really need someone to care about them and listen. I hope I can at least change that a little bit in my last (less than) 3 weeks here, but *sigh* I think I'll just have to come back this summer or something.

I'm really going to miss my church here. I've gotten so close to the people and the band and the families and everyone, I'm just really sad to say good-bye to that. It's ok though, God is so good, He always provides.


In other news, I get to see Melissa McClellan this weekend, and that's totally awesome! She's going to be visiting Puebla and so I'm going to meet up with her and the two priests she's travelling with (Well, her last name is McClellan :p) and Liz will come with me and we're going to take them to eat an early lunch. It will be really cool, we're excited! The only thing is, we're meeting up with her at like before 12, and I don't know if there will be much open for lunch time at that hour (usually it's like 1 or 2 at the earliest that people eat lunch) but oh well, it will still be good to see a familiar face, you know? And it's been a long time since I saw her!!

Well, I am exhausted and totally forgot what I was going to say. If anyone wants anything from México, they better tell me before I head back home, so please let me know, anyone. I'll try and get some good recipes out of Abril (the intern who cooks for Casa Verde).

Anyway, I need to get to studying andd then sleeping. Liz and I have had a lot of late nights lately...

Good night guys. Lots of love and hugs,

Nora

What a crazy weekend!

Okay so on Saturday I was supposed to sing and stuff at youth group without Joa and Keila because they had a wedding to be at, but the wedding ended early and they decided not to stay for the reception (lots of alcohol) so they ended up coming and Joa sang, even though Key didn't. We had a good time at youth group and stuff but then at the end it was cool because we stood in a circle and held hands and all prayed, and we were praying for things and Zuri (keila's cousin who lives with them and she's 19) said pray for Samuel (the 24 day old baby of Anita and Beto who are on the worship team with us and are a young sweet couple who I adore), because Friday night Beto had been really excited that Sammy was getting better (when he was born he went 45sec without oxygen and was a little deformed and had an extra finger). That was when Axel (the leader of the youth group) cut in and said, actually, a couple hours ago, Samuel died. You see, he couldn't breathe on his own, and on Friday he had been showing signs that he could, but on Saturday he couldn't again, and he died. So I decided not to go home Sat night, because I wanted to be sure I'd see Beto and Anita whenever I could and hug them, you know?
Well, anyway when Axel told the youth group that, we all got on our knees (there were like 30 of us) and prayed for like 15-20 minutes straight for Beto and Anita, it was the most beautiful thing ever. The youth group was so so there. We were all crying and just, really together. So like I said, I stayed with Keila and Joa, and Keila and I wrote a song for Beto and Anita, which we are very proud of. Sunday morning at church it was also a viewing/funeral thing, -we didn't sleep much saturday night - and then Sunday at 6 there was another service, and then this morning at 10 we buried him.
Guys, I don't think I've seen anything so incredibly sad as two really young people burying the 24 day old body of their first born son.
It broke my heart. I mean, yes, we know they're going to see him again, and I thank God for that faith, but these two people are in their 20's, and they've already had to do something more painful than I can ever imagine. They've been handling it so well too, I mean, everyone knows he's better off this way, he would have had tons of medical problems and everything had he lived, but still, Anita and Beto are parents now, and always will be, and they have had to live through a true tragedy.
I will never forget their faces when they handed the tiny coffin over to the gravedigger.
It was a long weekend.
Today we have off for the celebration of the Mexican revolution, which is nice, especially since my eye is killing me (I slept - very little - with my contacts in on Saturday so I'm pretty sure I gave myself a corneal abraision or something like that) and dude it hurts so bad. Plus it doesn't help I've been crying all weekend.
Anyway, it's been crazy here. I'm going to try to translate the song we wrote for Anita and Beto so you guys get an idea of it....but I'm going to do that after I take a shower in my own shower...it's been awhile...

Love you guys,
Nora

Slacker...

Yes, I know I'm a total epic slacker. Sorry for not writing. As you might not know, I am incredibly busy and I should be doing my 10-12 page research paper in Spanish on the European Union and junk. Unfortunately I am really sick of looking at it. Therefore I am writing a blog post about food, which is absolutely amazing here. Did I tell you that 100,000 times already? Well, here's 100,001: The food here is absolutely amazing.

I just had left-overs from last night for lunch, and it was so good, I can't even explain. That taco for 43 pesos was worth three meals, I'm not even kidding, which would come out to about a dollar a meal (But I ate it in 2, so it was more like 1.50 a meal). I love the food here. I love it all.

Really, I think I just love Mexico.

Either way, I am pretty bummed because it looks like no one will be coming to visit me (ie Nolan can't come because he has commitments to stuff and no one else is going to either). It's just a bummer because it would be really cool to share all the stuff I know with someone else. Not to like show off, but just to have them see a part of my life. I'm hoping Pat and I can come down for a little while this summer, but who knows if that will work. Heck, if I could find a job here I'd stay all summer. I should talk to people about that, because there are a lot of missionary organizations down here that I'm aware of, maybe they'd hire me as an interpreter or something (like for mission trips?) Who knows.
Either way, I adore Mexico.

I'm getting psyched about going back to the DR, I've heard a little bit from my team this year, which is really exciting and I've been chatting with Brian over email(one of the leaders) so that's really good. I'm excited to see Esperanza again (my sponsor daughter). And yeah, I even got an email from Wilman that said he took his church to Sabana Cruz and did a 3 day mini mission to help cut little kids' hair and do stuff with sanitation and what not. So that was really encouraging as well.

Either way, I have a lot of writing to do, in the next two weeks I have to do A LOT (I mean A LOT) of work for school, and that's in addition to all the activities I'm already involved in. Either way, I'm pretty stressed right now so I should get back to doing my paper, and try to calm down.

On the bright side: I have gotten a lot done, and I am almost done 5 entire pages - which is good considering I had 1 paragraph done on Thursday morning).

Oh yeah, by the way, you know you've been writing your paper for awhile when you start pressing ctrl+s on everything you type, like every 5 seconds (it's quite annoying when I do that on my blog post because it keeps trying to save the silly webpage as an html file, which totally doesn't help me haha). Either way, hooray keyboard short cuts (I know that my father and Pat are smiling at that in their hearts, as is Drew Cope if he ever read this).

Well, now I leave you with this request: Please pray for my productivity and focus. This weekend will be trying I think, and so any extra support would be greatly appreciated.
Also, please know that I really love that you read my blog and care about my thoughts and I'm so deeply touched by that simple fact (Becca - I thought this entire sentence with a british accent, which by the way my best mexican friends think is hilarious when I say "Mr. Darcy, do tell us of Pennbury, I hear it's beautiful in the springtime").

Okay, thanks guys. I love you!

Nora

Last Weekend Continued

Sorry you'll have to let this load for FOREVER...I'm a chatterbox...



Love you!

Nora

Popo at sunset

 

Okay this is popocateptl which is a volcano right near here, and this is a picture I took on Friday afternoon around sunset of the smoke coming out of it, this is a picture from campus, and the bleachers there are for the outdoor basketball courts. I love living in Cholula, it's so awesome. I just thought that it was so cool that Popo (it's a nickname) was smoking, and I needed a picture :D

Love you, I know, I need to finish my entry. I will do it soon, I promise.

Nora

Written, not recorded.

Okay, so I was going to post another video blog, but I really want to take a 15 minute power-nap before my class tonight at 5 (it's 4:22). So yeah, I'm going to do that instead of going through all the youtube uploading trouble.
I had a great and crazy weekend. For weeks I had been planning to take Liz out to celebrate her birthday (which was Oct 11) and so we decided to do that on Friday. We went to the centro historico (old city equivalent) and walked around and went shopping and bought some really cute earrings from a lovely artisan store where the ladies hand made everything there (I loved it so I wanted to make sure we supported their business). And then ate tacos al pastor (sooooo good) at a taco place right by the cathedral. We walked around a lot and then decided to come back because we had a flag football game at 4. We left old city at like 2:30. We sat on a bus going sort of the right direction for about 45 min and then we noted we were pretty much leaving the city. So yeah long story short, we were scared and ended up on a bus alone with a male bus driver at the top of a mountain outside of the city....it was scary, but then it was ok, and we got back into the city on the bus (it made a huge circle in the mountains outside of the city - tons of goats). And then we took a taxi from the city back to school and were only 30 min late for our football game...even though we were on the bus for almost 2 hours. And it was the worst bus ever, too.
But yeah, I don't mean to worry you. I am usually really good at using the buses here, but it's a lot harder getting back than going. But Liz and I have promised each other to always just take a taxi home from the beginning. It's not worth the trouble trying to find a bus when you don't know where to look.
And yeah, then after the tocho (football) game we did a little homework and then went over to the Basile's house and played games. I kicked serious but in scrabble and they were all impressed hehe. Then I stayed there because Saturday we had to go at like 6:30 am to our youth group conference because the band was going to play.
The conference was in Sardan City which is in the mountains and where my pastor grew up. It was so freaking cold. They said it was freakishly cold. Either way, not cool.
I'm going to finish this post later, I need my quick nap.

Love you,
Nora