"i wanna turn the whole thing upside down..."

it's almost 3 am, and i'm still up...darn internet...


what am i doing up so late? obsessively checking my email (for no real reason, i just do that), listening to a new mix i made on itunes of fun dance music, anxiously awaiting the arrival of my new ipod, trying to look up iranian dance music online, checking myspace and facebook, and playing with this new celebrity face recognition thing i found--check it out:

i've tried quite a few pictures, and it seems like i most consistently look most like michelle rodriguez (Lost)--random, i know--and candace cameron (Full House), and emma watson (Harry Potter movies), which is pretty cool. however, it also said that i looked like bruce willis, william shatner, and billy idol, so it's not perfect, but definitely fun.

this week has been pretty nuts. actually the past 2 weeks. last week, the roommies and i were temporarily relocated to our supervisors' apartment so we could babysit their daughter while they were away. i say babysit, but she's 13, so that's not really the best way to put it. it was interesting, and a bit weird not being at our house, but we had some fun times, and learned a little about what it will be like to parent a teenager...

monday and tuesday we headed to a nearby hill station on an international student retreat. what a trip--about 70 students from at least 10 countries, sleeping in tents, treking around crazy tourist traps, lots of dancing and singing, nauseatingly scary bus rides, and more. it was wild, but also a lot of fun. i have to say, i really love iranians. i mean, they are a blast to hang out with. they are incredibly friendly and generous, and we had so much fun dancing and singing with them the whole trip. even tonight, a bunch of us got together and ended up singing and cutting up like mad in KFC. fabulous. oh, and did i mention that there were also 3 buddhist monks on the trip, dressed in their orange robes? they're awesome, and everybody wanted a picture with them.

the downside of the retreat was that the cooler weather made me sick again. ugh. but i went to the doctor and have been "taking steam" (a whole post in itself...), so hopefully i'll be back to normal soon.

but i have to admit that i'm starting to wonder, what is normal anyway? i mean, every time i think, "oh, after _____, it'll all go back to normal," i find myself sadly mistaken. not so much disappointed, just wrong, because things here seem to constantly be in a state of change. maybe life has always been that way, and it just seems more pronounced now because i find myself needing something stable/normal/familiar/whatever more here.

that leads me to the biggest event of the week...when we finally saw our supervisors after we got back from the retreat, they hit us with the big news that they're moving to thailand. like, next week. what?!?! i still have not even begun to really process this, but i know there are a mix of emotions waiting to come out in full force: fear, frustration, sadness, confusion, excitement, etc.

i know this is where they need to be, so their whole family can be together (the 2 oldest kids are in boarding school there already), but at the same time, the timing of it all just seems so nuts. things here are getting exciting and i can see God opening cool doors for our team and then WHAM...normal ceases to exist...again.

darn it...i wish i had more answers. i wish i even knew what questions to ask. i wish i didn't have to say goodbye again, especially to people who've been my family for the past year. and yet, at the same time i have this strange sense of peace, of okayness, if that makes sense. i'm sad, and a lot more, but i'm not really freaking out. i wish things didn't have to change, at least not like this, but i also have this confidence that God is in control and He's got good things in store for all of us through this. strange and refreshing...

i'm hoping this trusting Him becomes my new "normal." i could get used to that.

well, that's enough processing for now. it's about 3:30 am and i should get to bed, or get back to my fun with face recognition...i'll leave you with this random pic: me and my friend shaggy feeding a monkey at the retreat. gotta love these nasty little buggers.