All of those who are hither and yonder, with love in our hearts we grow fonder and fonder, hail to those who we hold so dear.

I love when great things happen that I absolutely don't expect. Not to sound like a Debbie Downer, but it just doesn't occur that often. A lot of good things happen in my life, I just generally know they're coming and anticipate them. It's just such a thrill when something happens you didn't think was possible.

It is day four of Christmas break. I think I have twenty more days... I'm not sure how I'll spend them when Christmas is over. Probably lots of packing and cleaning. I'll never come home to this house again - I've had a lot of those moments, haha.

You know what I can't help but find annoying? When people post their grades on facebook. What is with that?? It seems like everyone does that and it bugs me like crazy. Before facebook, did you call all of your friends and brag about the test you just aced or send out mass emails to everyone you know about how this semester's really improved your gpa? .... Probably not, and if you did then I certainly am sorry. (The only person I exclude from this frustration is my aunt, because she's never just blatantly posted something.)

"OMGZZZZZ 100 A+ ON EVERY GRADE I'VE EVER HAD I AM SO SMART HOLY TOLEDO." Guess what, Grade-Poster-on-Facebook-Person - we all make grades, and no matter who congratulates you, no one but your mother actually cares. Everyone else who's still in college apparently makes good enough grades to stay there, just like you do.

Let it be noted that I still love everyone I know who does this, it just so happens that I find this particular action of yours to be quite silly. But we all do silly things from time to time, I hear.

For the records, it is an amazingly gorgeous day today, and I'm assuming tomorrow will be as well. Warm, too! There's so much I should be doing other than this, like laundry and cleaning my closet and taking a shower and cooking lasagna. I'm just trying to pass the time in less constructive ways.... as usual.

I'm so small I can barely be seen, how can this great love be inside of me?

I have now been back in the U.S. for five days. At first I was kind of bummed out because it all seemed like I had immediately fallen back into the same repetitive cycle that I had been so desperate to avoid. I didn't like not being in Europe anymore (I still don't) and it was so strange to suddenly see everyone again and to not be with my Vienna family anymore. I technically knew I'd want to come back as soon as I got home, but I didn't REALLY expect it. However, I never experienced culture shock or jet lag, which was surprising.

The Christmas lights at Lipscomb don't seem as magical as they did last year.

I do love being with people again, though. I love having coffee with my mom and watching movies with my friends and potentially going to Opryland Hotel this weekend.

Today was a different day, for the first time since I've been back, because I was legitimately inspired (again) to do something with my faith rather than sit back and stay safe and fall into our society's system. I want to love God and love people and do something that matters. I want to live differently and use what I've learned over the past three months to more effectively follow Christ.

I want to talk to people about things that matter and do more than sleep and eat and take up space.

I have something to be passionate about, regardless of whether it's practical or lucrative or easy.

May tomorrow the land be anew, may every bird sing unto you.

It is approximately three days, twelve hours, and thirty minutes until I land in Nashville, TN. It's hard to believe that it's been three months - that I spent three months away from nearly every thing and every place and every one that I know best, that I received this flash flood of language and culture, that I've gotten to know so well some people that I would never have otherwise known, that I've had to (been able to) make decisions for myself and do things on my own and be independent and learn who I am and what I believe about life and politics and humanity and God.

When I think about it, that's a lot for three months. I get worried about having missed out on things back home, but ... why, when I've been able to experience so much?

Two of my favorite classes ever are finished now - only one more exam, a German oral exam, and then a paper due the fourteenth and other than that I have absolutely nothing to do (educationally) until mid-January. That's so nice after this jam-packed semester.

.... I'm going to go watch True Blood.

We came to break the bad, we came to cheer the sad, we came to leave behind the world a better way.

HAPPY THANKSGIVING. Only seven more days in Vienna, which is surreal, and it's my first Thanksgiving to not be home. I'm sure this will probably happen fairly often as life goes on, but it is weird to not be "home for the holidays". On this holiday.

I'm having a Wuthering Heights problem lately. All I want to do is read it, and I feel like that will be the first book I attack when I get home. I miss the story - though it breaks my heart - and I miss the words. I regularly wish that I could speak with the eloquence and poetry of the Romantics.

"He wanted all to lie in an ecstasy of peace; I wanted all to sparkle and dance in a glorious jubilee. I said his heaven would be only half alive; and he said mine would be drunk: I said I should fall asleep in his; and he said he could not breathe in mine..."

Oh, right, Thanksgiving. I traded in my family this year to eat turkey & dressing (minus the dressing, for me) with the Lowrys and an extremely varied group of thirty with whom I've been living & exploring for the past three months. And it was great. I expected to be a bit melancholy, but I was completely happy; I expected to cry a bit, but I laughed too much instead ... if there's even such a thing as laughing too much.

Tomorrow we're heading just outside of Salzburg to get a cabin in the Alps and have another little community thanksgiving. I'm grateful for all of this (not to be cheesy) just because I have hda a better perspective on the holiday than ever before. This is possibly (extremely likely) because I'm not home, I'm not on a break from school, I'm not with my family, I'm not overwhelmed by food, and while generally you're supposed to be thankful for those things, I almost think they're so traditional and habitual that it's hard to remember the whole purpose of the holiday.

Being thrown out of that system has caused me to reflect on all the incredible blessings in my life far more than I ever really have before. I have so much, too much. I hope that I always share it, and share love, and share light. There's a lot of good and hope and sincerity in this world if we'd just look for it a little more often.

There's an east swell coming and it's howling offshore.

I don't exactly know when it happened, but sometime in between 2008 and 2009 I decided I didn't know how to write anymore. And so I just stopped writing. Lately I've realized that at some point I just might regret that decision, so I'm trying to pick it up again. Get back in the habit and all that.

I'm sure I'll especially regret not properly documenting Vienna and the rest of Europe that I've seen. I should have taken a few minutes every night to at least bullet point some thoughts down - they'll matter to me someday. And now, though I do intend to write a journal based on my calendar and pictures after I get home, I'm sure that some memories will have already slipped away. It's a pity.

Vienna blew me away today. I'm grateful that it still does that after three months. The weather was nice and the sun was out and I just wanted to take pictures of everything (I took pictures of nothing). I went to Cafe Central near the Hofburg and just tried to soak the feeling of the city in. I have less than nine days to really do so, after all.

Christmas lights are everywhere, which automatically amplifies the way that I see everything. In case the streets/buildings/sidewalks/monuments/lamp posts weren't beautiful enough, now they all twinkle when the sun goes down. Considering the fact that the sun goes down by five, I think that's a pretty great thing.

I want to be home for the holidays, but come January I'll be ready for Europe again.