Monday, September 1, 2008

Blog trail

Hello dear readers,

Please follow the blog trail back to megankhansen.blogspot.com for further insights from yours truly. Should be exciting, as I'll begin the journey of post-BA, post-gap year, real-world confusion, which, let's be honest, will likely end with me bubbling in "some post-grad education" on future surveys.

If you're reading on facebook--which very few of you probably are--you don't have to follow any trail cause it'll just keep importing to my notes.

xo
Megan

p.s. I'm gonna miss Ireland--but it is so so wonderful to back in sunshine!!

SHINE

Hi folks, clearly I am not finding time to write about Shine.

Here's the quick version. Shine is the name for the annual local missions week in Coleraine.
I helped organize it this year--it was two weeks this time.

We do most of the stuff we do all year long weekly, except we did it everyday for two straight weeks. That means, kids club every morning, prayer on the streets every afternoon, evangelism every afternoon, community service (my thing!) working on people's yards etc--though this was difficult to plan since it rains the whole time...can't exactly mow a lawn or paint a fence in the pouring rain!

There was some other stuff we did, too, but that's the main thing! We had 37 visitors from Anaheim (a little taste of home in NI) for week 1, and 6 Slovakians for week 2.

It was cool to get to be a part of what they do and see why they do it. It's a really simple way to get disconnected people in the church connected, and get the church connected with the community. We were working with the city council and a few other local support organizations to serve people. I really loved getting to meet folks in my neighborhood and do nice things for them. I made a few friends I would've like to keep, but moving back home makes it difficult and trying to get an 80-year-old widower on facebook is beyond my capabilities!

And that's the big finish! Internship over.

Saturday, August 23, 2008

Home

I'm home!! And by home, I mean, driving all over the state. I'm currently in Santa Cruz, and enjoying the foggy morning after crashing for nearly 12 hours in my brother's room (thanks, daniel!). I'll drive down to San Luis Obispo soon to go to a friend's wedding and then I'll stick around to catch up the folks down there before finally getting back to my parents' house where I will reside in peace for an undetermined length of time.

I'll write more about Shine hopefully soon, so you can hear how my last couple weeks went. And again, I'll be soon changing my blog address back to a generic one. I don't think I'll create special blog addresses anymore for personal use--it's just silly, really.

Wednesday, August 13, 2008

Dream or Nightmare?

As previously noted, I have a cold, and quite possibly a fever--or so I think?? Last night I had a most disturbing dream. Possible reasons it was disturbing: 1) it reflects poorly on my health, or 2) it reflect poorly on my social life. I'll let you decide.

The dream was as follows-- I walking down the hospital corridor at Princeton Plainsboro with Dr. Gregory House explaining my woes while walking, as he was too busy/bored to diagnose me in a clinic room. He suddenly stopped and turned to look me straight in the eyes and he said, "The problem isn't in your head--it's in your legs." Naturally I was confused as to how a head cold could actually be a leg problem. I sent out my "but, but, Dr. House!?" at which point he cut me off with a cutting speech about his authority which broke the dream and I found myself awake in my bed--legs completely fine, still sniffling.

That's that.
9 days til homecoming.

Tuesday, August 12, 2008

Typical

Countdown??? 10 days. It's the 12th today, yes, I come home on the 22nd.

Helping with Shine this week and next. I'm organizing the community outreach, clean-up stuff. Also, I'm sick. Let's hope this doesn't persist or I'm not likely to have a very nice week.

Monday, July 28, 2008

Gutted

Jon Foreman is playing in SLO on 11th Aug.


This is the first time since I've been in Northern Ireland that I have seriously considered coming home early.


I absolutely canNOT believe it. Please, someone go for me.

Saturday, July 26, 2008

Education

There isn't much about my time here in Ireland that I wouldn't share with you. And by share I mean I would happily have you come along and experience things with me, or I could tell you about them.

Presently, I have discovered a traybake (Americans might say cookie?) which tastes like cookie dough--but has not made me sick--I'm guessing there's no eggs in it.

I also discovered a band that sounds strangely exactly like Delirious. Not an Irish band... actually Bethany "became a fan" of them on facebook--apparently they are from San Diego. But they are brilliant. "Future of Forestry" and I fell in love immediately.

But beyond that, since my intern family left in June, I spend my time at Ground, like this...

With my tea in my face.





I've been considering my future a great deal, mostly while sitting with tea in my face, at Ground.

I've been considering how many coffee shops use the coffee-making process to inform their shop name: Higher Groundz, Ground, It's a Grind (by far, the worst name), The Coffee Bean and Tea Leaf, the Nautical Bean to name a few. I prefer shops named for people, or at least having people names: Roughans, Linnaea's, Steynberg Gallery, and much much more. A second best option to a human name, is a street name, or a random name: Starbucks, Jamba Juice... oh wait. I guess I'm digressing (Di-gres: verb [intrans.] to leave the main subject temporarily in speech or writing) OH no. now I might be temped to go back through this document and change the size of words for effect.

Now I've done it.

Obviously I'm bored with this present Saturday. What you don't know is that I'm bored now after having watched Season 1 of House, mostly in the last two days. It's a great show. I believe I'm a better person for having seen it. But how much better could I be had I done something else??

seems to be the question facing me, and facing all of us who are so privileged that opportunity is like passing driftwood in a river on which we row steadily towards yet another bend. I mean, people who have the option to gainfully earn...specifically ones who want to do something besides earn, but who have a rich young ruler complex in spite of themselves.

In other news, I'm still in Ground, but my tea is all gone and the myspace music turned off, so there's no music coming through my headphones. I feel like I'm eavesdropping on the conversations around me, though I can tell they are dropping their voices, in spite of the fact that I shouldn't be able to hear them.

It's 4:48pm on a Saturday and they are about to come up here to start cleaning up so they can close at 5:30. It's okay though, I have books to read, vegetables to cook, scones to bake and more importantly, Alias Season 4.

(sorry the text become all tiny... not sure why it did that. c'est la blogger)