the weird thing about having surgery (even if it is minor and doesn't hurt that bad) is that every treats you like a princess. like, my parents went to the grocery store and bought me french bread just so i could eat the soft middle part and throw away the crust. i always wanted to do that when i was a kid, but they would just look at me, like are you crazy? this is a luxury i am glad to have experienced at least once.

what is not as cool though is falling asleep like every five minutes. i do not know how people get addicted to pain medicine because it is turning me into a very dizzy, nauseated zombie. i keep sleeping through movies i have been looking forward to watching. i somehow managed to not fall asleep through the original footloose though, and i do not know why, because i would have rather watched any of the other movies here. oh well.

i am going a little bit stir-crazy, but i still do not want to go back to classes. spanish is too tiring anymore. i feel like i am taking a science class because nothing makes sense. as for my four other classes, they are just computers, so i can manage okay.

if i find one more bb on the floor, i am reporting spencer to the government as a terrorist.

things are going funny right now. four of my five professors are computers. i never even see them, but i judge them based on how good their powerpoints are or why they are using comic sans to write a textbook. i am also spending a lot more hours at work, with jakob and russell, who says 'literally' all of the time like chris. our members are all so happy and friendly lately. it is not hard to go to work except that i am tired of dress clothes. all of my pants are too loose so it looks like i am wearing yoga pants.

friday my wisdom teeth are coming out. i hope this doesn't affect my ability to watch the weekend football games without falling asleep.

everytime I get home from a trip I bring a sickness with me. This year it's the cough of a thirty-years-of-smoking veteran. So that is sort of a bummer. The cool thing though is that today at work a lady looked at my MALE coworker the whole time I was talking, because she thought I was a dude. So that is actually not that cool, but really funny.

Four whole days. That is a long time.

"Look at those people. They are such gorillas."
"Noah, do you mean granolas?"
"Oh yeah, those."
--A normal day with Noah Hahn, age 14.

I have been so lazy with writing, mainly because I feel like my heart has been so numb for the past few months. Honestly I feel like I have been numb since the summertime or long before.

And then Faithwalkers.

Every year I go to Faithwalkers during such a time of spiritual dryness. It gets discouraging because in my head I worry that I will get nothing out of it because of my callousness. Always, though, I come away amazed by God's constant patience and willingness to work with me. God loves me when I am discouraged or in a rough place and he shows himself to me in even bigger ways. This year I was blown away by the love of God. I feel like I need the whole entire year to unpack all of the incredible teachings and breakout sessions that I went to. I am so encouraged to see God working on my heart and literally peeling away the layers of callous and distrust that have built up. Steve Nelson's teaching broke my heart for relationship with God. Nothing else I try to pursue is even remotely worth what I receive from relationship in Christ. It breaks my heart to think of all the things I have put before him and how it makes him feel. Steve shared the story of Ezekiel 16, which is pretty brutal and horrible, but such a picture of our relationship with God when we seek other things. So that leads me to a new year and a lot of changes. The Bible is a source of joy, not something I have to read. It is so easy for me to fall into the habit of 'reading because I have to'--and there is no fulfillment in that. God's word will never return void, but I do not want to pursue God religiously or emptily, I want to know His heart.

So that leads into this new year. I don't expect it to be easy, I honestly don't want it to be. Mitch (I think) spoke about crushing everything that gets in the way of God and that is what I want to do--even if it means evaluating relationships (which ends in crying over the phone, like always). Even if it means less selfish time to myself. This is going to be a big year, a year of, by the grace of God:

-Moving out

-Traveling
-Finishing school

-Waiting on God's perfect plan and timing
-GRACE. Faith in action. Hope for the future.

I am excited. I am terrified.

SOLI DEO GLORIA.

when i go back to school in the spring i will be a senior. and for the second senior year of my life i will not know where to go next.

things are good, things are busy, things are happening.

and, just like that, i am done with all of my spanish homework. for the entire semester. this feels so good, but i am afraid i will forget all of my phrases over the next month off.

i got a promotion at work today. finally, after six months of waiting, the paperwork went all the way to wherever it needed to go. this feels good, even though it adds barely anything to my paycheck.

That time I almost had a heart attack:

As in, Saturday.

I was sitting in the drive-up waiting for a car to come--our branch is only open in the drive-up on Saturdays, so the rest of the bank is dark and closed and sort of eerie, come to think of it. I turned around for a minute because I heard a noise, and there was a man. In the lobby, just standing there. I have frequent nightmares about this. Anyways, nothing bad happened, except that he got very embarrassed (because if you can't tell a bank is closed by no one being in it, that's a bad sign), and we were all freaked out for the rest of the day. If he wanted to, he could've taken a whole lot of money, but instead he just fumbled out the door, and left someone to get in very big trouble Monday.

As in today.

When, housesitting, someone walked into the house, like it was no big deal.



But besides the half heart-attacks, days have been good. I haven't gotten anything done for school, but I did get to redecorate my room and spend some good time with my family this weekend. I miss my little brother a lot around the holidays because it's hard not being able to do traditional things with him. I will really miss decorating the tree together because that is a long-standing Evenson tradition. He will hopefully be back in Utah for awhile in January, so maybe we can make up for lost time then. Right now he is lost in a fantasy world of throwing grenades and going to the ocean every weekend. I can't imagine living that life, but he seems to enjoy it. I am so proud of him.

School is out in two weeks. I guess I should start acting like I know how to write a paper, but I think what happened is that I forgot everything I ever learned about writing. So that is a no fun problem to deal with. All this football I have been watching is killing my brain cells.