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spanishevenstar
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Name: Elizabeth
Country: United States
State: Wisconsin
Metro: Stevens Point
Birthday: 7/31/1985
Gender: Female
Interests: Music is my life. Especially if it's classical music. I speak fluent Spanish, I lived in Europe for 7 years, I went to boarding school for high school in Germany. I'm a sophomore, I'm 21 years old, and I don't have my driver's license.
Expertise: Performing/Fine arts.
Occupation: Unemployed/Between Jobs
Industry: Entertainment
Message: message meEmail: email me
Website: visit my website
AIM:  rhpsdy in blue
MSN: iluvsk8ers2000
Yahoo:  euskadigirl_2000
Member Since:
5/29/2004
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| Heh, so it's been forever since I've updated my Xanga. XD I have no reason to use it anymore, what with the introduction of Facebook and MySpace into my life...the X is no longer necessary. I spend WAY too much time on the aforementioned sites than I should, but hey, it keeps me in contact with all my friends whom I never see anymore. SO anyway, let me debrief. I'm in Jersey, working at my mission organization's HQ, which is also a camp, doing housekeeping and serving/preparing meals for the guests. It's not so bad, and I get paid and get to spend time in pretty much the best place ever. I've already gone into Manhattan once, am planning another trip for either next week or the week after...and I think I've met the man of my dreams. I know, sounds crazy, right? I mean, I'm almost 22, and I think I've actually met the man God has intended for me to spend the rest of my life with. Well, I still don't know all of that for sure, but I'm waiting on the Lord to see what He really has to say and do about all of this, and surrendering all elements of control to Him. So that's where I am right now. Let me explain. Every two years, my mission (the American branch), holds a conference for all the missionaries who serve. Anyone who is able to come can come, and on the Saturday of the week we have our Mission Day (which is technically every year), which is open for the public. New members of the organization are "inducted", as it were, and we all welcome them and make them a part of the so-called family. This year, the newest member turned out to be a young, single guy serving in Northern Ireland with the youth there. Those of us who have lived in Europe know what it's like to live there, among the disenchanted youth who have turned to atheism and whatever else to fill the void. This guy is doing amazing work there, and it's hard. But the point is, my parents are no longer the only American missionaries to Europe with our organization, so of course they latched on to this guy and practically made him a member of the family. XD Add to that the fact that he has the personality to keep my parents "entertained" so what we have is pretty much craziness. Where I'm going with this is that over the course of the week I spent with this guy, so many things had been brought to my attention. Let me start by saying about a week and a half earlier I had discussed with my mom my disillusionment and my frustration at *still* being single. I know to some of you it's like "What's she talking about, she's still in her 20's?" But when you're in your early twenties, have only had one boyfriend and it didn't turn out so well, and people younger than you are getting married and having kids...and you can't find one possible reason why in the world you're still single, you begin to wonder. Wonder all sorts of things. So in this conversation I made it clear to myself, and to God ultimately, that I would not be even considering marriage until I had left Wisconsin, graduated from college, and began a career of my own. I needed someone who could understand what I'd been through in my life, living overseas, particularly in Europe, and I needed someone who had been through all that. I also needed someone who was completely devoted to God and everything He wanted for His life, the way I'm working on being. I'm nowhere near perfect, but I want to be the exact woman that God is calling me to be, whoever she may be. These were my two priorities, the things I just could not just lay by the wayside whenever I met a guy who was halfway interested in me. Two weeks later I meet a guy who's older, as is necessary to me as well because let's face it, I'm more mature than most girls I've met my own age. I'm not bragging, it's just a fact. It comes from spending 7 years of my life and all of my teenage years in Europe. This guy is also young and single, and a missionary. To Europe. So he knows EXACTLY where I'm coming from as an MK in a European country. He may not have grown up as an MK himself, but he understands the culture and has lived there himself. OMG! =D So far so good. It's not too much later when I also find in him a deep sense of security in willing to look like a complete dork through playing with action figures (Yes, action figures. Some souvenirs from the Toys R Us in Times Square!) in a dorky fake (albeit very convincingly fake!) British accent (they were Pirates of the Caribbean action figures...). We then proceeded to have an impromptu movie night with a showing of Monty Python and the Holy Grail, which is of course, amazing. So let's recap. He's young (but older than me for sure!), single, goofy, and a missionary. So far so good. :) To make this story a teensy bit shorter, I'll add what else happened, and what else makes him just completely amazing. The next day, he spent two whole hours in the camp pool with my sister, two younger girls (14 & 11), and me. We played games like "Follow the Leader" and proceeded to teach each other non-stop, because I'm terrible at eye-body coordination, and he's just the biggest dork on two legs. He didn't even HAVE to spend time with us because we were fully capable of entertaining ourselves, and he could have hung out with people closer to his age, but no, he chose to hang out with four girls. Nice. I also find out at this point that he's eight-and-a-half years older than me, but since that is for now the only negative I have found about him, I'm choosing to ignore that little fact because it really shouldn't make me give a crap, should it? :) That night it is also brought to my attention that he is an amazing guitar player (I'm going to admit, it takes a lot for a man to impress me on the guitar since pretty much everyone and his dog plays the guitar these days.), and not only that, but can hold his own on the piano (Though he claims he's not too skilled on the ivories. So modest!). *dies* To add to his repertoire, he plays the Irish penny whistle, which just makes him all-around amazing. Basically, God has brought into my life a guy who seems to be everything I've ever even desired in a guy, at a time I did not expect, and then proceeded to give me the chance to have and seek a long-distance relationship. This adds to the whole fact that I have henceforth refused to date, thinking it a terrible custom and not very suitable for me. It's a personal issue really, but I'd rather not go into it in-depth right now. I think I've done that already, actually. :) I'm still waiting to see if this guy really is the man God wants me to marry or if it's just wishful thinking, even though the emotional high has since worn down (because I haven't seen or heard from him in over two weeks). I'm keeping all my options open, though there aren't many since again, I'm not going to actually meet the guy I'm going to marry while living in Wisconsin and while I'm still in school. It's just not going to happen. I have just felt God working so much in my life the past couple of weeks that I'm not ready to go back to Wisconsin and return to a life of normalcy and stress, where everything has the potential to make me go crazy and question certain issues that I really shouldn't even be worried about. So there, I've taken a whole forty-five minutes or so to ramble on about some guy who I probably won't be hearing from in a while, regardless of the fact that he was the one who actually gave me his MySpace address and told me to friend him. Which of course I did, and of course he did...but he just doesn't use it now that he's back in Northern Ireland. I'm back to square one, which is actually okay by me, because at least now I don't have to worry about crazy emotions screwing everything up. All I can do is pray and know God does have someone amazing picked out for me. And if it's this guy, that'd be awesome. If not, that's totally fine too, because I'm sure that whoever God has planned for me to marry is going to be the most amazing guy in the world. And I couldn't ask for anything less. | | |
| Well, I'd figure I'd update on my plans for summer. :) On May 17th I have my last final, after which I'm going back to Neenah for a day and a half (or so), and then I'll take a bus from Appleton to Milwaukee, where I'll be hanging out for about three hours. Then I'll be hopping on a train to Chicago, where I'll have a three-hour layover/stopover in the downtown area (Union Station, if any of you know where that is). From there, I'll be on the train for 17 hours until I get to Washington DC, where I'll have an hour to take pictures of the Capitol Building and Washington Monument. :) THEN I'm finally ending up in Newark International Airport, because I'll be spending the rest of the summer working at my mission's headquarters at their Retreat Center for inner-city churches. :) So I'll basically be out there all summer long until school starts again in the Fall. I'll be an hour away from NYC, how cool is that?! =D I'm excited. Yes, I'll be working, but I'll have days off so it won't be so bad.
I've been looking forward to this for awhile now. This summer had better be as cool as I hope it will be.
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| I'm jumping on the bandwagon with a quiz. Whee!
Take this quiz!
You don't know me as well as you think you do. Believe me. ;) | | |
| I'm really feeling much better now. Thanks to those of you who commented; it really made me feel encouraged. :)
On a new note, I've realized that it will probably be a very long time before I get married; if I ever do. Let me explain.
The people who know me best now (which is very few...I don't even think my parents know this about me) know (or should know) that I do not belong in this century. At all. I tolerate the 21st century because I live in it, but there are so many times when I'd rather be living in the past. There are a few time periods of preference to me, mainly pre-Conquest Britain (that is, before William the Conqueror decided to be a royal pain in the butt and marched into England in 1066), the 18th century United States (primarily Revolutionary War, but I'll take the entire 18th century), and the '50s and '60s (mainly '50s because they were much more "innocent"). Yeah, this makes it incredibly difficult to tolerate this century, but I'm doing my best. And please don't talk to me about computers, because I could learn to survive very well without them. But only if no one else had them. ;)
A lot of this is due to my upbringing, I think. We didn't have cable growing up, and mainly only watched PBS after schools and Disney movies during the weekends (when we weren't watching Saturday Morning cartoons, of course!). Every once in awhile, my parents would put on some of their movies, like My Fair Lady and The Sound of Music. I think the latter made the biggest impression on me as a child. As often as I watched Disney movies, most of them were animated and it's kind of hard to relate animated characters to your own life. The Sound of Music on the other hand, was special. Very special. ABC Family, the cable channel, has been running it all weekend (last showing today!) and I've caught it both times so far. I missed the first hour on Friday, but caught it again yesterday, but I watched it all the way through twice. I hadn't seen it all the way through in so long, so my feelings towards it managed to manifest themselves quite strongly over the past couple days. It made me realize my own romantic aspirations and ideals, and even standards. And this is why I don't think I'll be getting married anytime soon, from a romantic standpoint.
First of all, the obvious. Wisconsin boys are not for me. Most of them have no idea about what's going on outside of Wisconsin and are too busy obsessing with football to care otherwise (note I said MOST, not ALL). They are just not the type of guy I can ever imagine myself marrying and spending the rest of my life with. It would drive me absolutely bonkers and I just don't want to have to deal with that. This means I'm probably going to end up marrying a TCK/MK or someone from another country. I don't care which country or ethnicity as long as he's a Christian. DUH. :)
Secondly, I hate dating. Dating is stupid and pointless and only makes things awkward and stressful. Back in the good ol' days (before the '70s, really, as far as I can gather), there was no such thing as dating. There was what's called "courtship." From what I've gathered about this practice, it involves a girl and a guy, spending a lot of time together. The catch is, there's a pretty good feeling they're going to marry each other. It's basically a very close friendship, in essence. The girl is pursued by a guy, who later proposes. She may or may not accept, and that's that. He can be persistent, but either way, it's far less stressful than dating. In dating, the guy asks out the girl (or she does in an unconventional relationship) and then has to do many things to prove to others that they are in fact, dating. Such as dinners together and so on. He buys her gifts, but it's all to prove something. It's far more stressful, and so much pressure is put on the guy to behave a certain way, because gee, he's dating someone! Courtship is much more relaxed at the same time that it is more serious. The couple spends a lot of time with each other getting to know each other, while without the false pretenses. This works because each person knows what is going on, and this is why courtship doesn't work today. The girl might get frustrated because she thinks the guy isn't serious about her if he's the one "courting", as it were, and he feels that she's not into him enough if she's the one with courtship on her mind. However, in times when there was no dating and it was just courtship, that's the way it was done, so there were no false pretenses. In essence, the love is truer because there's nothing to define the relationship.
In short, courtship is what goes on in stories such as Pride and Prejudice. I like it because the guy is the one doing the pursuing. The girl is pursued, the girl is proposed to, and there's no dating. There's no "Would you like to go out with me" with the fear of rejection. There's no jealousy on the part of the girl because the courting is done with the intent on marriage, not just to see if the person's right. If it turns out that said person is not right, they just stop seeing each other, easy as that. There may be some tears involved, but it's certainly far less painful than "I think we should take a break", because let's face it, there's nothing to take a break from, if you get what I'm saying. You know you're not meant to marry this person. Also, there's a lot less of an emphasis on the physical during courtship than there is with dating. With dating, you're pretty much expected to kiss your boyfriend or girlfriend. With courtship, it's perfectly normal to not kiss until the wedding, letting the emotional connection begin without being affected by the physical. Which, let's be honest, happens. I can say this from experience. =P
Yes, I do realize there's a book entitled I Kissed Dating Goodbye. Maybe I should read it, maybe I shouldn't. We'll see. I just believe on a personal note that dating is just not for me and thus I don't need to be convinced of the superiority of courtship.
Here's where the problems lie. First of all, how many guys these days actually know about courtship and are willing to go through with it? How many guys are willing to not be physical in their relationships? How many guys actually pursue girls in the good way, not just looking for a nice body? That said, my chances of landing a guy are slim to none. If I can find a wonderful guy who's willing to break his dating routine for me, that would be wonderful, but I'm not counting on it. Secondly, I realize my ideas of romance are incredibly antiquated to the point of people yelling at me saying that my standards are too high. But if I don't have high standards where would I be? I'm not going to lower my standards just because I'm not going to get married otherwise. No, I don't want to be alone for the rest of my life, but if I have loving friends, who needs a husband? I just absolutely refuse to conform to the norm of society that says if you're not dating anyone you're a loser.
This is why I only tolerate this century without completely enjoying it. I'm not saying bad things didn't happen in the past (I'm a History minor, I know this!) because they sure did, but what has society become now? It's become sex-craved and relationship-driven, with people breathing down your back asking why you're not dating anyone, and claiming that something must be wrong with you if you do. We have thirteen-year-old girls pregnant and not always from thirty-year-old men who are married to them. We have thirteen-year-old girls having consentual sex with boys their own age because they feel they are losers if they don't. And society has supposedly evolved. Right. Could've had me fooled.
I'm not trying to promote my views as what should be done by everyone on the planet, because I don't believe that. I believe we have the right to be determining and discerning about what we do with our lives and who we spend them with. I know who I don't want to spend the rest of my life with and I shouldn't be forced to change that just because no one can handle the fact that I don't want to date. I know that the guy I ultimately marry is going to be classy, in a Gregory Peck/Cary Grant/James Stewart, 1950s fedora-wearing style. He's going to pursue me because I'm worth the chase to him, and he can't imagine his life without me. This is where The Sound of Music comes in, because in a kind of bizarre way, I see my ideal husband in the character of Captain von Trapp. He doesn't have to have kids nor does he have to be rigidly militaristic or almost twice my age, but honestly, watch the movie and watch Christopher Plummer in that role. The man is charming, only running his house in a military fashion because he misses his deceased wife so much that allowing his children to be children only reminds him of her. He is a complete gentleman in every sense of the word, and while strict, he commands respect. Throughout the movie he's changed by his governess, who does not completely disrespect him and he loosens up when he finally begins to let go and start a new life. But the man is charming, he's decent, he's respectable (not to mention that he's also extremely good-looking, but then again, I'm stuck in the past). He's exactly the kind of man I would love to have as a husband. He is the head of the household and knows it, but he does not treat anyone else as though they are less than him. When he finally realizes he's in love with Maria, he treats her so beautifully, even after the wedding. She's devoted to him and he's devoted to her, yet he knows he has duties to fulfill (and the obligation not to fulfill them if he feels they conflict with his beliefs). This is the kind of love that I dream of.
Today's modern idea of love is such an idea of 50-50 that the idea of love being 100-100 is alien to so many people. People have no idea of devotion and submission, especially women. We feel that we should not be treated as less than any man and should have the right to be just like them. What we don't realize is that love is devotion. You are devoted to those you love, which means that sometimes you have to do as the person you love tells you. However, you know you truly love the person when you do it happily and faithfully, and the other person does the same for you. Women are called to be submissive to their husbands by God, but at the same time men are commanded to love their wives as God loves the Church. That is the way love is supposed to be.
So there you have it. My thoughts on the past and present of love, my ideal husband, and why my standards will be my downfall romantically...and why it doesn't bother me.
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| So, it's been awhile since I've updated, n'est-ce pas? :)
And if you're hoping for something upbeat and exciting, then read someone else's Xanga. Because right now, my life is looking nowhere but down. But I suppose that's what I get for being such a cynic and such an evil person for not being extroverted.
The next person to tell me that I should be more outgoing should be taken out and shot. Because I'm sick and tired of being pressured into being someone I'm not. And I'm NOT an extrovert. I'm an introvert; get over it. I like living in my own little world and I like being a listener. If I have something to say I'll say it, and move on with my life. I don't spend every waking minute of the day wondering how I'll make more friends or how much better my life will be if I can make one more person my friend today. If you're one of those people, that's awesome. But I'm not, and please stop trying to make my life better by making me more like you. I don't need it, nor do I want it.
I would just like to know why people seem to enjoy ignoring me so much. Do I smell bad? Do I look like a terrorist? These things would be good to know, of course. If everything really is my fault and you tell me so, you then assume that life would be so much better without me haunting it and your life would be infinitely better without me in it. However, there are other people in this world who actually do care about me, so I suppose you're at a loss there. So I'm not offing myself. Glad we got that straightened out, eh? :) I would like to know, however, why those who claim to be illuminated and enlightened by my presence are so that I can actually feel comfortable around people.
Because lately, people are becoming more and more disappointing to me. Maybe I am better off in my own little world, because in my own little world, I have friends and don't have to worry about anything. I am strong, I am confident, and I have everything I could ever need. In my own little world, no one bothers me and I'm loved. In my own little world, I'm comfortable and life has meaning. In my own little world, I am understood. I don't need to sit and explain my life story to people in the hopes that that finally allows them to come in and understand me so that I don't have to feel so alone anymore. Because in my own little world, nothing can destroy my life.
The scariest part is the ultimate moment that destroyed my life was September 11th, and I don't exaggerate. I think that's when I really started becoming depressed and wondering whether people really did care about me or if they just wanted me to stop bawling my eyes out. Because that's when life as I knew it came crashing down and I realized that maybe I was truly alone in the world and no one understood me. So for five and a half years, that's the way I've felt. Alone and almost unwanted, trying to make friends in an attempt to turn everything around and finally bring meaning to life. Guess I set my goals too high, because I haven't been comfortable with anything since that day that so many people have now forgotten. It really did affect peoples' personal lives, you guys, and I was in GERMANY when the towers were attacked and went down. I didn't lose anyone in the tragedy, but what I lost was a part of my soul, a part of my soul that was grounded. My soul lost its ground, and I haven't found one again. Maybe I'm not trying hard enough. I know God loves me and knows exactly how I feel. But the question is, if God shows his love through people, then how am I to be sure there is a God, because I certainly haven't felt His love through any person besides my parents, and they're on another continent.
I'm not denouncing my beliefs. I know God is there and I have placed my faith and trust in him, don't doubt that. But if God calls his people to love, why is it so hard for me to feel it? I have wonderful friends here, I relish my time at my Bible Study because I'm with people who truly care about me. And yet I still feel there's something missing. Maybe it's just me, or maybe I really am missing something, maybe I've been held out on. And why is that? Am I truly so intimidating that no one wishes to be close to me anymore?
I'll let you answer that. This will be imported directly to Facebook, so I should get comments there too. If I receive nothing, I guess I'll really know I'm alone in the world, and will go back to finding God's love my own way, as people are not to be trusted, no matter how badly I want them to be.
Enjoy your day.
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