brand new eyes.

third-best moment of my day? getting razzle gum in the mail. so good, it should be currency.

second-best moment of my day? finding out that paramore put their entire new album, brand new eyes, on their myspace, even though their album isn't out until tuesday. it's phenomenal. i'm so excited to get the boxed set in the mail, with the lyrics and vinyl and dvd and book and stuff.

first-best moment of my day? chapel today. absolutely phenomenal. i was mulling over a quote last night, about how we were created to be loved and have our stories known and just be known in general, to live in relationships... and i was thinking how strange yet opportune it is that for the first time in as long as i can remember i'm set in a brand-new location with brand-new people and building relationships more or less from scratch. today, we had our chapel in the fireside lounge for the first time... with those times, i think, the focus will be more on us as a community, and less of a service... more of a conversation. it was incredible; jim talked to us about how generally we present prayer requests in groups, almost preparing them to be suitable requests for God, then we invite Him into the room and pray for a few minutes on something we discussed for a far greater amount of time than we did pray for it. so today, everything we did was prayer. every request we presented and all the encouragement and of course all of the prayer and scripture we offered in response was all put forth with the awareness that God is as present as any of us... and it was really cool to see the burdens being lifted, the journeys that have started to begin... last night i scrawled in my journal: "i want this journey to begin, for me, my heart, and all of us and our hearts." i don't know what sort of journey God has for me specifically this year, but i know that it's begun for some of us individually, as well as our journey as a group.