PHILLIES

So as some of you may or may not know, the Phillies are the World Series Champions and let me tell you that apparently...that is a HUGE deal around here. I had cheerleading practice the night of the last game for the series title, and all of the girls were going around with perminate marker putting a P and a heart on their hand to rep throughout practice that their hearts were with the Philles. Practice ends and the entire time (except me) run into the weight room to see what the score was, and all I hear are loud cheers and a statement saying "THE PHILLIES WON". At that moment about 5 text messages came in stating the same thing as though I didn't already know. I proceded to walk outside of the gym and all I could hear were loud yells and and chanting coming from the dorms. As the night progress my campus became more and more alive, with riots and cheers and STREAKING! and vomiting (apparently some people were drinking) and just the spirit of the Phillies was alive on campus. It was the funniest, most exciting moment that I've seen on my campus thus far. Today there is a parade in Philly and apparently they are expecting 2 million people to show up at this event. I unfortunatly am not there and actually stayed for classes today, but talk about ridiculous!.




is this what heaven will be like?

One love,
a.

much needed...

UPDATE!
So basically these past few weeks have been a bit on the crazy side, and honestly I'm not even sure why. Although we just had midterms which I did great on by the way we are getting ready for finals in a lot of my classes. It is overwhelming because well I just finished writing a 10 page paper due tomorrow and yesterday night I wrote a 5 page paper due today. It's just weird being in college I guess you could say , a lot of work and not a lot of time to do it. Listen to me complaining, I'm so lame, but it's my blog so I'll do what I want.
Well let's seeee what did I do this weekend? Well Friday as all of you read and saw I performed for the first time as a college cheerleader, and I'm not ging to lie...I LOVED IT. Then out of course with some friends, which was fun. Saturday...well like every other Saturday did my homework and hung out with BRONTEE! I dont know why we dont go out on Saturdays but just did laundry, homework, watched movies, and ordered pizza...SOUNDS LIKE THE COLLEGE LIFE eh?


Well my eyes are tired I've been in from of this computer since 6 o'clock...and it's 10:40...you do the math. I just though I'd update everyone before I forgot.

7 weeks & back to nebraska.

: )
one love,
a.

updaaates.

So yesterday ... it was our first cheerleading perfomance of the year. It was fuuuun. I had missed doing a lot of things that I"m doing for cheerleading now, like stunting and just doing something with a concrete coach that actually cares if you get better or not...HERE IS A VIDEO OF OUR PERFORMANCE

: )

family.

This weekend has surely been what I have needed. For those of you who know me you know that I am basically best friends with my aunt and uncle! And they live in Virginia...where I was this weekend. They have the CUTEST little children Donovan (5) and Kyla (1) . These children, I call them my own, are what bring joy to me when I need to be happy again. They are just both full of energy and spunk and both have minds of their own. Donovan this weekend, I noticed, although very cute, needs some help when it comes to the listening department. I know, I know, all ya'll who read my blog constantly are SO tired of hearing about how I tie everything I talk about to God, but I'm sorry it's part of who I am and who I am is a child of God and strive to be like Him more and more everyday. So watching Donovan and listening to what he's been told and seeing him not act upon it I was noticing how annoyed and how angry I was getting, not completely at him because he was not listening but I was becoming frustrated in myself because i was afraid that I was not relying the message of what exactly I wanted him to do, correctly. This must be how God feels. Having to repeat himself over and over again, and trying to get us to listen the first time because He knows the consequences if we do not follow through and the last thing He, God the father, wants to do is have to make our lives more difficult then it actually has to be.
And then there is Kyla, who is the happiest baby I have ever seen in my life. She did not cry unless she had woken from her nap, or she fell down, as all babies do. But other than that we played games, as all babies do...peek-a-boo, we sang songs but most importantly we read Goodnight Moon! (Yes mom, you're favorite book) For the first time I realized why my mother loves this book so much. It's like a sentimental moment between you and whoever you are reading it with. With a calming voice, as my mother once did, I read this book to my baby cousin..."goodnight chair, goodnight mush, goodnight little old lady whispering hush..." and as I read that line, I looked into the big eyes of my baby cousin and she smiled as if she knew what was being read to her and she thought that I was the old lady whispering hush. As crazy as that sounds it was at that moment that I realized how precious and how meaningful this little baby that I do not see often means the world to me, and that she is more than just my "baby cousin" to me, she is like a little person that I would do anything for. She is like a little person that I will make time to go out of my way to see and make sure that I am up to date on the happenings of her life. It was at that moment that I realized that this girl was never going to have me out of her life. For the first time I realized that there are so many kids out there just like her that just want someone to love them because no one wants to love them, and it was at this moment that I realized I wanted to be that person to love those children for the rest of my life. YOUTH MINISTRY.

So tomorrow I head back to school, and begin to take in the information that will allow me to love the children that God has planted in my life as well as being able to shed the knowledge of Christ to them as well.

One love,
a.

ps. happy birthday jordan : )

being away from school.

Being away from school for only 2 days now has brought to my attention how much I have begun to rely on the people at school as my family! I miss them all. I miss hanging out with them, and i miss the community of campus actually as weird as that might sound. I have learned and adapted to the fact that these people I've been around for the past 8 weeks are my family. I keep thinking that being at my grandparents is making me miss my actual parents, but it's not, it's making me miss school! I guess I can now say, I'm LOVING school! It's so funny family is who you are around now who is technically your blood.


One love,
a.

relaxing weekend.

I'm planning on doing absolutely nothing but homework.laundry.and the occasionally nap while I'm here this weekend. This break couldn't have come at a better time. School was getting stressful, cheerleading, although not even at it's peek, was getting frustrating, and I just needed to be around some family.

I saw my children today, Kyla & Donovan. They are so big, and I only haven't seen them in about 8 weeks. My, my, my, how time flies. I'LL BE HOME IN LESS THAN 8 WEEKS!

One love,

a.

You are Good.

"Lord you are good and your mercy endures forever,
Lord you are good and your mercy endures forever,
People from every nation and tongue, from generation to generation,
We worship you, hallelujah, hallelujah, We worship you for who you are...
YOU ARE GOOD!"
-Israel Houghton (You are Good)

This song is one that keeps playing over and over in my life at the moment. The song has been sung in various church services I've attending, including Chapel today and this previous Sunday at Christ Church of the Valley. We are learning in my bible class, that the bible is written in repition and that is because if God wants us to understand something, he is going to repeat himself. So I think that it is interesting how this song has come up repeatedly in my life. In a Christian lifestyle it is easy for us, as Christians to get caught up in the idea that everything is going to be okay in our lives because we have God on our side. Although this is true, the devil is still alive and well, and too many times do we neglect God during the good times, but we tend to run to God when we are under attack. And I'm not saying do not run to God when you are under attack DO IT, for goodness sake I do, I mean who wouldn't we have the creator of the universe on our side. Although this is all true we need to remember to praise God when things in our lives are going great in our lives. We tend to sing praise and worships songs with lyrics such as :
"I'm trading my sorrows, I'm trading my shame, I'm laying it down for the joy of the Lord."
In this song we are praising God because we are in trama or something bad is going on in our lives at the moment, but if we just praise God for being God. For waking me up in the morning, or even getting a B on a test that I had studied so hard for. GIVE GOD PRAISE WHERE IT'S DUE!
Also, we are all so guilty of seeking God in the troubled times, and then he gets us through it and we forget who brought us through, and we do not give praise where it is due. So that's something I'm going to work out with God, giving him praise where it is due, no matter the situation!

I'm off to Virginia in the morning!


One love,
a.

exams.

It's midterms. I had another Bible test today.
I think I did AMAZING!

: )

the things I have learned.

So first and foremost, I would like to say I had a GREAT weekend with my mother while she was here, and I enjoyed her company a lot. I cried when she left, of course, but I knew I would but I'm very glad that she got to come and see me, even though it was just for a little while.

Her being here brought up a lot of good discussion and I was able to share the things I have been learning in class to her, and get to talk to an outsider of ALL the drama that's been going on at school, and that was good. So thing one I learned: Don't hold things in, because they will eventually build up. Learn how to let things go, by talking to someone, or GET A BLOG : ).

Also, being here with my mother made me realize a lot of things about myself: I have grown up. Not only have a I grown up from when i was little until now, but I mean maturity level I have grown up. This trip was one of the first times that I felt the maturity level of myself heighten, and I'm not really sure why I noticed it then, but I did. I have also realized, and i was telling my mother this earlier, that coming to this school has been the first time that I have understood the phrase "pray without ceasing". Because when you are in the presence of God and you are talking to him always, and relying on him with every decision that you make, and you are praying, and with that you are not ceasing! I love it.

This blog was random.
Thanks mom from coming to visit, I had a blast! : )

One love,
a.

mommy's here

So this entire weekend my mother is here! And let me tell you I LOVE IT, and I love her. This is one of the first times that I've been away from my parents for an extended amoung of time, and let me tell you, I've learned to love it and hate it all at the same time. But when I saw my mother today, it was a moment where I realized that I hated being away from my family, and I appreciate everything that they did for me while I was at home. I have made friends here, many of which are not even from this country and one of my really good friends parent's actually live in Rwanda. So it's partens weekend and everyone is walking about with their parents and here he is with no one. Yes, he's made lots of friends while being here, and honestly who hasn't, but when you are seeing people with their family, the people that raised them, and the people you grew up with, it is something that you cannot even explain. So tomorrow we are going to New York, and yes I'm talking New York City, to all ya'll who haven't ever been it's going to be amazing, and yes you should be jealous.

The saddest part, is that this weekend is going to eventually end and I will have to wait another two months to see my parents again.


One love,
alleigh.

Romans 15:5-6

"May the God who gives endurance and encouragement give you a spirit of unity among yourselves as you follow Christ Jesus, so that with one heart and mouth you may gloify the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ"

This is the verse that our squad has this year as it scripture verse. Apparently every year one is chosen and this year this happens to be the one that was picked, and laid on the hearts of the coaches and captians to have has the thing we live by during this season. I love this scripture verse because not only is it just great because it's the Lord's but in a way I kind of feel as though it's related to cheerleading. Let's break it down. May the god who gives you endurance and encouragement, I don't know about ya'll put lifting these girls up in the air takes a lot of endurance AND who is the encourager of a sports team...uh hello THE CHEERLEADERS. Then the verse goes on to talk about the spirit of unity. If there's one thing that a team of 14 girls needs ... it's unity. And the big thing around here is praising God with everything you do, that includes cheerleading. We always talk about in cheer how our voices need to sound like one person is yelling the cheer, so with one heard & one mouth we glorify our Lord. I dont know. Maybe it makes sense to ya'll maybe not. I just really like the concept of LOVING GOD with all your heart & in EVERYTHING that you do. I think I'm just going to keeeeeeep saying that over and over and over again until I actually do it.

Early night tonight.

Mom comes tomorrow.

One love,

a.

today.

So things involving my school work are looking up. I got a B on my Western Civilization Midterm as well as a B on the paper that went along with it. I'm beginning to remember what I had started to notice when I first entered school, the praising God can be done with my school work. Somehow I had forgotten that because I was too busy with my social life and figuring out who my friends are, and are going to be. This week I've been getting reminders to keep God first. And that is what I plan on doing.
Well I'm off to service learning for a bit, and I'll be back later. I want to share about the God aspect of cheerleading that I have to know and love.

One love,
a.

Donald Miller!

So basically I LOVE OBAMA and DONALD MILLER! I think it was an amazing thing to have a man that all of us on campus know and have read his book. Donald Miller brought up the idea and stated a lot of things that Democrats believe and the idea of being Democrat and a Christian. I believe that too many times we are prone to believe that if we are Christian there is no possible way that you can be Democrat as well. I think that Donald put it well. The Republicans were putting a lot of things out there to be against as Christians and it's time that we as Christians are able to for something in our generation. I took a lot of notes and I agreed with a lot of things that were said. At the end of the talk, which I'm sad I didn't get recorded, there was a time for open questions and answers and I'll tell you, it got a little heated. I loved that! I love that we live in a country where we can come together as different people, with different ideas and just talk. talk about agreeing, talk about not agreeing, and just listen to one another. Although I did agree with a lot of the things that were said, it was good to hear things on the other side.
I'm going to try and upload my recording that I did of the question and answer session, although you can't really understand what the questions are, but you can hear the answers. So I encourage ya'll to listen once I get it up. Someone from the McCain campaign is coming as well, and I can't wait to see who it is, and what they have to say

One love,
a.

cheerleading : )

So today was the first offical day of practice and I must say, everything that I ever did in high school did not prepare me for what is happening on this college squad. We stunted today, and I must say it is the one thing i missed during cheering in high school, because I think it is the most complicated. And now that I honestly think about it, there is no way that we would have stunted at my high school. We were not dedicated enough, nor did we take it seriously enough to actually do what it takes to make and actually stunt work.
I think this is that same with being a Christian. You need to be willing to put in the work, of digging into the word of God, pressing forward in your walk with Jesus in order for things to work out with you relationship with God. It's one thing to stand around in a cheerleading uniform and look pretty, or to just claim the fact that you are a Christian, but its another thing to be in the gym 3 times a week and lifting to get better, or reading your bible staying accountable for your actions and talking to God on a regular basis.
Just a thing to think about.
I HAVE SOMETHING ELSE TO TALK ABOUT !! I just remembered :)
So being in college we have amazing speakers come to our school so that we get to hear talk about their walks with Jesus. A book that we must read as freshman is Blue Like Jazz by Donald Miller. And he is coming to talk tomorrow and I get to hear him, I am soooo excited.

I'll definatly let ya'll know how things go.

One love,
a.

a few things i've learned

Here is a littlet thing that I learned since coming to college.

• The drama will always follow you

For some odd reason it's like drama never goes away. You will ALWAYS have it, it'll just be with different people. No matter how hard you try and stay out of drama, you will always get drawn back in. Even if you move, you'll have drama, not with the same people but you will have drama with the new people you meet no matter how hard you try to keep yourself out of it.

• Watch what you say

Especially in a SMALL school, there are always people who want to be my enemy. Speak love to people, even if you "hate" them. Talking bad about someone is not going to change the fact that they are who they are, and you are who you are, it just is what it is, so you might as well love them.

• Get close friends

This is part of my problem, I want to be friends with the world, I want no one to hate me. No one at all, and so i try and be nice to everyone : ) . It's a gift, not a curse. I dont know how to just be friends with a few people, so this is something that I need to learn, becaue not everyone in the world is going to want to be my friend, and i need to learn how to be okay with that.

I miss my few friends in Nebraska.

One love,

a.

wasting time.

So I have a class in about a half hour, so this blog is basically just me wasting time before I go.
It feels like I haven't really been here that long, but my goodness it is ALREADY midterms, I have my first one on Wed. so I hope that goes well.
I was talking to my dad the other day about Christmas and all of us being home, and of my goodness did I realize that everyone will be home for the first time and I dont really know how all of that is going to go. As much as I love my brother whenever he would come home, it would drive me craaaazy. I had just gotten used to the way things were while he was one and then he came back and just as I was getting used to him being around, it was time for him to leave again. My poor parents is all I keep thinking to myself. They have been alone since basically June and now all of a sudden my brother and I will now come home and stir up a few things. It wont be bad, and to be honest I am so excited about going home. I miss all my friends and my doggy (I still can't believe my parents put my other dog to sleep I guess I'll have to learn to love Santana).
My mother will be here this weekend so that should be gooood.


I'll update more later.

One love,
a.

Halloween.

So the weekend is sloowly coming to an end, and it was a good one. Movie night on Friday and then we just went out on Saturday as girls and had a buuuunch of fun.
One of these days of this weekend, I can't really remember which day all of the days become a blur after awhile, but we went to the mall and my friends wanted to look at Halloween costumes, so I was all for going with them (plus I got some Chik-fil-A out of the deal). So we walked into the store and on one side there were scary mannequins and on the other side there were costumes. We made our way to the side for the "adult costumes". Okay, when was anyone going to tell me that adult costumes meant, dress with as much clothes as possible. These outfits are fiiiiilled with low cut shirts and short skirts, high heels, and fish nets. All I could do while walking through the isles was have my mouth WIDE open and just be amazing at how little fabric was being called a baseball player. I'm pretty sure baseball players were loooong pants and a button up to the neck short sleeve jersey, no heels included.
So why is it that we feel that it is needed to dress like a slut one day out of the year? I asked the girls I was with this question, and the answer was because we have permission. Which my response was from God, but apparently not, we have permission for "culture" or so I was told.
So let me explain why these outfits are inappropriate:

1. It's October, it is FREEZING outside and you should probably wear more clothes than the ones provided
2. Some of the outfits you can't even tell who you are trying to be because you need MORE CLOTHES to express it
3. Why spend 50 dollars on an outfit with less fabric used to make it
4. 1 Corinthians 6:19 "your body is a temple"

The most important reason is the last, your body is a temple. Use it, and who it, the way that God has made for it to be used and shown.

Just a thing to ponder.

One love.

a.

movie night.

So tonight all of my friends went out to the club, except for my friend Bronte and I. We just sat in her room all night and watched her roommate get ready and go out to the club while we had a little girls night and sat in our PJ's and watched a movie. We got calls about lost ID's and missing money and quite frankly we didn't care because we were content in our little dorm room with our movie.

So let me tell you about Bronte. She is one of the only people so far at campus that I can honestly say that I have been able to feel completely myself around. We've had some deep conversations and some not so deep conversations, and whenever all our other friends are being annoying or what have you, she is who I run to. Bronte's faith is one that I can't put into words. She is a daughter of Christ and you can see that by the way that she lives out her everyday life. She's good to have around in a world where not everyone has the same faith, or displays it the same way you do. We are chapel buddies and attend Wed morning chapels and sing to the Lord one morning we even danced to the Lord. And as I sit here in her room we are talking about God. It's weird every conversation we have together I feel we're having for a reason led by God it helps my growth with the Lord. She argrees with me on almost everything (including the fact the OBAMA is amazing, but neither of us can vote, because I'm too young and because she's from Australia). I can say that this girl has become one of my best friends here on campus, which is what I have been praying for and it's funny because I've known this girl since day one at this school and it just NOW that I'm realizing God has planted her in my life for a reason...

One Love,

a.

results.

I made the team !


I am offically an Eastern University Cheerleader. Wow and the trend continues.


One love,
a.

cheerleading.

Once and cheerleader, always a cheerleader. At least that's what it seems to be for me. The first night of tryouts were last night & I think they went well. We learned two dance a cheer and a sideline, for those of you who doing cheer your confused by what all of those are, but hey come and watch me cheer sometime and you will find out. Tonight is when we find out if we make the team or not. I'm excited but I won't be disappointed if i dont make it, I mean hey! this is college let's remember. Not only will i have school but cheerleading on top of that, TALK ABOUT BUSY!

I'll keep you posted with the result of what happens. Keep me in your prayers.


One love,
a.