So, I am supposed to update this or something. Well, a lot has happened since I last updated this, which was roughly 300 hundred years ago- give or take a few hundred years. Yeah, so stuff happened.

            For starters, I was in this little independent film thing. I had to dye my hair for the role. Can I tell you that waiting for your roots to grow in really sucks? I dyed my hair back red in March, but it keeps fading, and fading. And fading. So now I am sporting this weird red/blonde look. Oh well, all I can do is wait. I guess I’m learning a lesson or two from the whole experience: 1) patience is a virtue, and 2) any natural redhead that dyes his or her hair is a retard.  

            The rest of my semester was ok. Some parts sucked, some didn’t. The summer has been good though. The Genesians trip was better than I thought. I didn’t think it would suck, it just turned out to be a really good trip. However, I must back up a little for a really magical time in my life- no pun intended. In April I picked up Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone for the first time. I finished the second book at the beginning of May. I really enjoyed the first two, but since I still in school while I was reading them, I couldn’t fully immerse myself in the books. But then the summer started, and it was just Harry Potter and I. I read the third book while in Mississippi with the Genesians, and anyone can attest to the fact that I was sort of a psycho about it. I guess I am just a very animated reader; plus, I truly love those books.

            A few weeks after Mississippi, I was whisked away on an airplane that had a soccer ball painted on its nose. I was off the meet the German relatives with my parents and little sister. And Germany was frickin amazing! I really had no expectations of the trip, and it was wonderful.

            Currently I am working as an acting director at a theatre camp, and I absolutely love my job. That’s about it. Maybe I’ll write again in another fifty years, I don’t know, we’ll see.

So yeah, I haven’t written anything in a very long while. How about this: These last few months have been interesting. They weren’t good, but they weren’t bad- sort of like the weather we’ve been having lately. Overcast. I had to learn some tough lessons. Very briefly, here is what I have learned:

            #1: As Margaret Mitchell once put it "Death and taxes and childbirth! There's never any convenient time for any of them." (from Gone with the Wind). Death pretty much sucks. No matter how much you prepare for the inevitable, you are still unprepared for it when it comes.

            #2: I hate jumping through hoops. There are so many hoops in life that one must jump through. I could have refused, but then I would have had to fight. And I knew a fight meant scars.  I didn’t want scars. So I jumped through that hoop and emerged scar-free, but tainted. I’m not saying I did the wrong thing, I’m just saying it sucks.

            On a happier note, there are still many blessings in my life. Let me count them.

            #1: I got my roommate back after a short 3 month hiatus.

            #2: My dad is a very generous man.

            #3: I have the amazing opportunity to spend my spring break in NYC!!!

Life is still good!

            So about my trip to Mississippi for Hurricane Katrina Relief, hear it goes: I left Bethel with 94 others in hopes to help the people of Pascagoula, Mississippi. About 15 hours, 4 cheesy movies, and 80 rest stops later, we arrived at our destination. The large lot of us were housed in a local church; we stayed and sleep in the foyer. Inflatable mattresses and sleeping bags stretched as far as the eye could see. It was a good time.

            As the buses drove into Pascagoula, I couldn’t see very much damage. I was envisioning utter destruction and debris everywhere. At most, there was some minor wind damage to the roofs. However, at the time, I didn’t realize the nature of the damage. It wasn’t the wind that ruined so many homes along the coast; it was flooding. That is why the destruction was so deceptive; it was all internal. We would pass these beautiful homes with pools and perfect yards and think “So a category 5 hurricane hit here?” Based on the homes outer appearance, no one could have ever guessed the destruction and damage that took place inside. As a side note, how many people do you know like that? Beautiful, perfect people that appear to be unshakable, and yet it only takes a little while to discover the bruises and brokenness of the interior.

            After the storm hit, the water came a lot higher and farther than most expected. Many families even hired people to survey their homes to make sure that they were “flood proof,” that is, far enough from the coast or high enough off the ground. Many houses were approved too. So the families just assumed everything was going to be fine. Before they left, they had homes; when they returned, they had a water-logged skeleton of the homes they remembered.

            As we drove closer to the coast, my visualization of what Pascagoula might look like became a realization of what Pascagoula did look like. There was nothing. The houses were blown away and debris took their place. But these houses weren’t just houses, they were people’s lives. They were the places were people grew up. They were the places were people retired. They were the houses containing the memories of the people who inhabited them. It is a tragedy that I can’t truly understand.

            Now you are probably wondering what I did there. Well, the group from Bethel was divided into 9 different work teams. Some people were sent out into the community to tear down dry wall and instillation. You see, we showed up a month after the storm had hit, so before we came, most of the homeowners were able to remove all their ruined furniture and shovel out all the gunk that covered the floor. However, because of the moist environment, black mold soon becomes a problem. Therefore, the next step in cleaning up is to rip down the drywall and installation. So when all is said and done, all the homeowner is let with is a floor and walls.

            I actually spent the first couple of days repairing the church. The interior of the church was destroyed by the flooding, along with the other homes in the area. However, because the congregation wanted to house volunteers, it was frantically trying to repair the church.  I was put in charge of putting up installation. I was eventually promoted to drywall and I “nailed it”. Get it? I “nailed it”? Ok never mind.

            The last day I was there, I was sent to help out with the food distribution center. I must say, there are some people who are just selfless. For example, the customers were allowed to take up to 4 tomato sauce cans and there were people only taking one because they didn’t want to be selfish. Then there were some who took complete advantage of the system.

            Overall, the trip was exciting, exhausting, and eye-opening. It will attempt to convey this through the pictures that I took.

The church.

Our showers at the church.

The destruction.

My life hasn’t been xanga worthy for the last month-until now. The last week and a half of my life has been very rewarding, tiring, surprising, busy, and everything in between. Let me explain.

So picture it: IHOP. Mishawaka, IN. 2005. It is around 2am and I’m enjoying the company of some of my theatre friends at a near by IHOP. We are done eating, so we go up to the cash register to pay for our meal and in walks a man who looks shockingly like Vince Vaughn ( the guy from Wedding Crashers and Dodge Ball ect.) My first thought is “Gosh, that man looks shockingly like Vince Vaughn.” However, that thought was quickly followed by “Um, yeah right! This is Mishawaka, Indiana. There’s no way.” As he walks by, I gawk. I look at my friend, still not convinced. I gawk some more. As all this gawking is going on, a small crowd of waiters starts to gather around him. Then I hear “Can I have your autograph?”- Boys and girls, it was indeed Vince Vaughn. I met Vince Vaughn at an IHOP, at 2 o’clock in the morning, in Mishawaka, Indiana. Life doesn’t get any more random than that.

So after I realized it truly was Vince Vaughn, I thought about asking for an autograph, but then I felt too annoying- so I snapped a sniper shot from across the room instead. The picture turned out terribly, but some people think you can totally tell the small, blurry, dark figure in the picture is Vince Vaughn. Frankly, I think that small, blurry, dark figure could just as easily be my grandpa, but, whatever.

After about a minute of gawking, my friends started to walk towards the door and my roommate’s brother, Andy, was like “I don’t even want to ask him for his autograph. I just want to ask him what the heck he’s doing in Mishawaka, IN.” And then we started to walk out the doors, and I was like “Andy?!? Why don’t we?” And he was like “Are you serious?” And I was like “Yeah!” So we marched right back in and went straight up to his table (which just happened to be the exact same table we were sitting at) and Andy politely waited until he and his groupies were done talking and he was like “Hi, I’m Andy and I was just wondering, ‘What the heck are you doing in Mishawaka, Indiana?’” And Vince Vaughn politely explained to us that he had just finished a comedy routine at Notre Dame. So there you have it folks, Vince Vaughn was hungry and nothing else is open in this area at 2 in the morning. So yeah, I met Vince Vaughn.

Well, I was going to journal about my fall break, but I’ll just have to leave you waiting in suspense. I went down to Pascagoula, Mississippi with a large group from Bethel to help with hurricane relief. Fun times.

So I recently got a job at Don Pablos as a server. I have never waitressed before, but they threw me right in. I followed a server around for a day; then I was given my own tables the following day. And my second day on the job, a lady made me cry. I kid you not, it was pretty sweet. I could tell the lady was a bitch from the beginning (pardon my French), but I promise you that there is no other word to describe her.

So let me explain: I am not a person that cries easily or often by any means, but with that said, this lady had me sniffling for about 15 minutes.

This little episode taught me something though: #1. Always double check your order before you send it back to the cooks #2. People are always nicer to you when you cry, and #3, on a more philosophical note- humans truly don’t have much control over their emotions and how they feel. Let me explain.

This may sound weird, but I am not really used to people yelling at me and even though I didn’t give a flip what this lady thought of me, I found the tears welling up in my eyes. Crying was my emotional outlet. It was strange; I was thinking in my head “Rachel, what are you doing? Don’t even give this lady a second thought. She is probably just P.M.S.ing. You can’t take her seriously.” And I didn’t, but yet the tears still flowed.

I found myself thinking “Huh...I really don’t have any control over this. I know in my head that I shouldn’t be crying, and yet I can’t stop.” Interesting how that works, isn’t it? No wonder it takes people so long to get over a break up.

The whole concept of crying is weird in the first place. I mean, why do people cry, anyway? It is really strange when you think about it: Liquid flows from your eyes as a result of some emotional build up that takes place inside you. Whether the emotional build up is from frustration, exhaustion, sorrow, or sheer happiness, you always feel better after “a good cry,” as some my say.

And people are suddenly nicer to you when you cry. For instance, Miss Devil Incarnate was suddenly gracious when it became apparent to her that I had been crying. Well, ah, what can you do?