Post-midnight random thoughts while trying to stay awake on the overnight shift...

While explaining to my mom what exactly a blog is, I decided that I like this blogging thing... it saves me the trouble of writing lots of emails, the discomfort of sending mass emails, and the guilt of never actually sending any emails, while giving me a way to keep in touch with people I care about. I hate to think that after a few years, my college friends will be strangers. I hope this blogging thing we've all got going on continues for years. It's good.
Home, to me, is a very relative term. I've never really had one in particular. Home happens when I have people who care about me, who I can feel safe and comfortable with, and who I look forward to spending lazy evenings with discussing anything that comes to mind. As I helped my parents move out of their home of the past four years, (a house that never felt like home to me and always like I was just a visitor when seeing my parents), I realized that Sioux Center, IA has become my home. Not because I love the town (if it weren't for Dordt and the people in it, I'da left long ago...), but because of you all. So, to finish off this cheezy moment... Thank you to all of you who have helped make this my home for the past few years. I think I will miss this home as much as much as I have missed my Mexico home.

On a completely different note, my aversion to spiders has become a phobia, with good reason. I was putting gas in my car, on the way to MI this weekend, and I felt something on my neck. Assuming it was just a wayward strand of hair, I took no notice of it...until the light tickle turned into a sharp prick. I grabbed at whatever was on my neck and threw it onto my car. It was a huge spider! I was bit by a spider that came out of nowhere! The next few hours consisted of me checking my forhead every five minutes to make sure I wasn't getting a fever, consciously taking note of any heart rate changes, and waiting for my neck to swell up until I couldn't breath any more and died, sending the car careening off the road and taking Matt with me to his untimely death. Of course, that didn't happen, and I didn't even get a bite mark to show for it... The emotional scars, however, are permanent. For the past few days, any time I feel even a slight tickle or brush of something anywhere on my body, I freak out and start flailing arms, jumping around, and brushing away every imaginary eight-legged creature on me.