Summer exits, rising stress enters

I'm in the homestretch of summer. I'm once again an only child, my brothers left on Monday. This week is full of some last minute money making by babysitting, spending time with friends before saying goodbye for another semester, and packing up my life once again to roadtrip back to Wheaton with my parents. This time next week I'll be... probably somewhere in South Dakota. In a week and a half, I'll be back in Wheaton and start my job as an RA... Wow.
I am so incredibly excited to be an RA. I've wanted to be one since my brother was one four years ago. It fits my personality almost perfectly. Naturally, I've been a bit nervous about being an RA, but it seemed so far away, so I wasn't too worried about it. Now with returning back to campus to start training in sight, and freshmen moving in in less than a month, it's feeling extremely real. A little too real. As summer has been coming to a close, stress, nervousness, and worries have made their entrance back into my life. Thoughts like "what if I don't have enough decorations? What if my decorations don't work out the way I want them to? What if I forget something? What if all the other RAs have really awesome ideas and mine just seem lame in comparison? What if my girls hate the decorations... what if my girls hate ME? What if I'm a horrible RA? I just want to be what my RAs have been to me for my girls... but I'll never be as good of RA as they were. What if I ruin someone's Wheaton experience? What if I ruin someone's LIFE?" Okay. I realize that I'm getting a little carried away. But remember? This is hyperbolea here. I'm a worrier (thanks, mom), and worries tend to build upon each other and escalate quickly. And I realize that things will turn out okay. Maybe not how I'm expecting them, but they will turn out how God wants them to be, and I'll learn and grow throughout the year. I realize that it's very possible not all my girls will like me, and it's impossible that I'll be best friends with all of them. But still. These things worry me. Along with a whole host of others things that I won't get into here.
But there is hope. There is encouragement. This summer, my pastor started going through Nehemiah in his morning sermons. This past Sunday was chapter 4:10-15. His first point hit close to home: Don't Get Discouraged When the Job is Too Big. RA is a big job. I have a lot to do before I leave, and I'll have a lot to do throughout the course of the year. But I can't get discouraged. I won't go into the whole details of this point and how it was exactly what I needed to hear, because I could go on about it forever. Ask me about it if you're curious. But another awesome thing was how well it connected to two other things that had been on my mind as well. First, the passage that I'm memorizing for RA this summer, I Peter 4:7-11, especially verses 10 and 11. "Each of you should use whatever gift you have received to serve others, faithfully administering God's grace in its various forms. If anyone speaks, they should do so as one who speaks the very words of God. If anyone serves, they should do so with the strength God provides, so that in all things God may be praised through Jesus Christ." My pastor had talked about how though we have a huge job of living his Word and spreading it, he has given us gifts to use, and puts us in places where we can use the gifts, making the job easier. I have a servant's heart. I have a listening ear. Though I am not perfect, and I have a lot to learn and grow in, I have the ability to be a good RA. The second thing the sermon reminded me of was a sermon I heard at my church in Wheaton this past semester. (I should also give credit to one of my best friends for reminding me of the sermon when I was freaking out this past weekend and talked to her about it all.) Anyways, in this sermon, there were three main points:
1. The call is colossal  2. Our credentials are inconsequential 3. Christ is close, using Moses, Gideon, and Jeremiah as examples. God calls us to a huge job. We are not qualified or capable of doing it. But Jesus is with us, and with his help, we can do it.
So. Am I still nervous? Yes. Am I still worry about ridiculous things? A little bit. But do I feel more confident after being reminded of these things? Absolutely.

Okay. Time to go look at my room and stress out about how messy it is and how I'll never get it cleaned up and packed before Monday.

Mountains vs ocean

A couple weeks ago, my brother asked me two questions. First, do I prefer mountains or ocean? Second, do I prefer cake or pie? I said mountains and cake. Apparently as long as you have one of the two in common with someone, you will get along with them. Of course, this isn't foolproof. So take it with a grain of salt.

Earlier this week, my family, along with my brothers' girlfriends who are visiting, went up to our favorite vacation spot, Point no Point. Located on Vancouver Island, about an hour or so west of Victoria, Point no Point has a series of cabins along the coast of the Strait of Juan de Fuca. There's a series of trails leading from the cabins down to various beaches. Throughout my childhood, my family and I would go for several days every other summer. It's been 3 years since we last went, so we were excited to return, and especially to share this favorite spot with the girlfriends. If you want to see pictures, look at my facebook. I just posted some. If you want to see more, creep through my photo albums on facebook, there's more in there somewhere.

Being back at Point no Point made me realize how much I love the ocean, the feel of sand between my toes, watching the sunset over the water. It's beautiful. I commented to my brother "Maybe I am a ocean cake after all". He scoffed (he's a mountain pie), and said though it is beautiful, he still preferred mountains. Though mountains will always be dear to my heart, how could I not be love with sights like this?

It's pretty gorgeous. And I'm in love with this place. But then today, I went up to Artist Point with my dad, brother, and his fiancee. And it was pretty darn gorgeous too. 

Table Mountain

Mt. Baker is in the background

Mt. Shuksan over Picture Lake (classic Washington picture) 

So I think I'm still a mountain person. But I really do love the ocean. I guess it's a good thing I live in a place where both are so near by! Or at least for breaks... and then I go back to the midwest where mountains and beaches are only a distant memory.  

So there's an update with what I've been the past week! Time is speeding up and summer is coming to close... I leave two weeks from this coming Monday afternoon. I know. I can't believe it either. 

Excuses, excuses

Often times, my mom asks me to do various chores around the house. Which is fair, seeing as I am living here, and my parents aren't charging me rent or anything, so I should do my share of the work load. But often times, I don't do all the things they ask me to do, whether it's clean the barn, weed the garden, clean the kitchen, or whatever. When my parents get home, they ask me if I finished the things they had asked me to do during the course of the day. And often times, I haven't. And instead of apologizing and admitting that I hadn't done what they asked, I start streaming off excuses. "I would've, but I had to work today, and I was really tired when I got home" "I had a headache, so I just slept all day" "You told me to do it when I was still half asleep, so I had forgotten by the time I woke up" "I was busy with other stuff". The list goes on and on. One of these instances happened last week. When I realized I hadn't done what my mom asked me to, I started listing off my excuses. My brother took one look at me and said, "You are so full of excuses." That made me think. I really do make excuses a lot. I guess I knew that about myself, but hadn't really thought about it. Or really thought about why I make so many excuses. I guess it comes down to another characteristic that I've always known about myself-my defensiveness. You could ask any of my friends or family-as soon as they make some sort of jab at me, playful or serious, my guard goes up, I have to defend myself. And usually that happens through excuses. Reasons that I am the way that I am. Trying to cover up any responsibility I have for my short comings. And I've realized that's pretty immature of me to do. In a way, when I work to cover up my mistakes, I'm denying grace. Grace from God, from friends, from family. These people love me, and they will show me grace. So why do I feel the need to appear perfect, to have a reason for anything I do wrong? I am sinful, messed up person, just like everyone else, so why? Insecurity and pride are the two reasons that come to mind. I've always been insecure, and so I use excuses to pass the blame away from me. I'm also extremely prideful, not wanting to let people see my faults. So this is something I want to work on for the rest of the summer and into the school year as well. When I mess up, I want to admit that I messed up. When a friend playfully jabs at one of my faults, I want to acknowledge that maybe they're right, and I should work to improve instead covering up. But most importantly, I want to remember that it's okay to acknowledge my mistakes, and to humbly accept grace instead of pridefully passing off the blame.

My enemy, thy name is The Lower Arbor

As I mentioned in my last post, I've been working at the farm I worked at in high school. This job consists mostly of weeding. The farm I work at has several beautiful flower beds and gardens that I weed throughout the summer, but the one I always have to come back to, even when I first worked there 5 years ago, is the lower arbor. The arbor consists of 4 flower beds, two small, two large. I'm much better with pictures than describing it, so here's a basic layout to help you understand:
                                                   xxxxxx        xxxxxxx

                                                   xxxxxx        xxxxxxx
                                                             x        x
                                                             x        x
                                                             x        x
                                                             x        x
     
I feel like it's self explanatory, but just in case not, the Xs represent the four flower beds, the space between them is the walkway. This whole area is covered by an arbor with roses and grape vines growing through it. It's quite beautiful, actually. The only problem is that once these flower beds are left alone for awhile, grass and horse tail along with other various weeds take over, making it a several day job to get the whole thing weeded. The past several work days (they're kind of spread out, depending on my schedule and the schedule of the people I work for, along with the weather) I've been slowly working away at getting it weeded. The two small flower beds are easy; there's some clumps of horse tail, but these beds are much more frequently weeded as they're constantly in the shade and much smaller, therefore much easier to weed. I finished those in less than a day, then went on to various other tasks around the farm. It's the two big ones that are a little more scary. Field grass completely takes over these two arbors, which are still full of flowers (mostly irises) underneath the jungle. These beds are hard to weed for several reasons, which I won't go into. But mostly because it's majority field grass, which is extremely difficult to pull out completely and there is little shade covering these flower beds. Finally today, after working in these flower beds for numerous hours this summer, I'm at a point where I can confidently say the end is in sight. There's maybe an hour worth, if that, left that hasn't been touched at all, and then maybe 2 hours of going through and getting anything that has grown since I first started, several weeks ago. This is a big moment for me. Never, in my 3 summers of working there, have I completed finished the lower arbor. That's a testament to how difficult it is, my poor weeding skills, and how much time was spent doing other tasks around the farm. This is a project I've poured blood, sweat, and tears into-well at least the blood (from getting stabbed by a rose bush a few too many times) and sweat (cause you know, it's hot and stuff), but I'll probably shed tears of joy after finishing it tomorrow.

But all this to say, as a continuation of sorts of my last post, I really do love farm work. I believe it gives a sense of accomplishment not found anywhere else. Is it hard work? Yes, but how many worthwhile things aren't? Is it difficult to make myself go do it? Extremely. I mean, wouldn't you rather relax in your nice cool house, or enjoy the warm weather at the beach or hiking, than work in the 80˚+ weather? No? Well I guess I'm alone here... But farm work, especially weeding, gives me time to think about life, and other profound stuff like that, unlike any other job I've had. Like I mentioned before, it gives me a certain sense of accomplishment I have yet to find elsewhere. And it gives me the opportunity to delude myself into thinking I'm getting a tan, while it's really just layers of dirt.

Some of my inner farm girl has surfaced (part 2)

About 2 years ago, I wrote this note and posted it on facebook. I was in a somewhat similar position as I am this summer; due to not being available to work full time until June and having to leave earlier than most college students, I was unable to find a job. So, like this summer, my parents decided to pay me if I did various chores around the farm. I wasn't exactly excited about this job, since I had worked on a different farm for the past 3 summers and was looking forward to something different. However, as I say in the note, I rediscovered my love for farm work during the beginning of that summer. I closed the note with pointing out the fact that it was still the beginning of the summer, and by the time I left for college I'd be ready never to do another farm chore again. Well, that wasn't quite true. Probably because I eventually just gave up trying to work on a regular basis and then got hired by the Washington State Migrant Council (which I will write a post on, and my experiences there, someday) for the last portion of my summer. But once I got to Wheaton, I did find that I really missed farm work, and when I was home for a short amount of time during Christmas break and had a job, again at the migrant council, during the summer, I throughly enjoyed working out in the barn and occasionally helping out with other tasks around the farm. This is what I expected to experience once again this summer; I would have a full time job outside of the farm, but would help out when I had time.

My plan seemed perfect until I was notified that I wouldn't be able to work at the migrant council this summer due to needing to leave 3 weeks before the end of the season. I had no idea what I would do; I had already booked my ticket to Japan, which wouldn't put me back in Washington until June, leaving only 2 months to work. No one would hire someone new when they're available for so little time. So I accepted my fate for the summer. I was going to work on the farm once again, so similar to 2 years ago, but without the possibility of getting a job at the end of the summer. So for the past 4-5 weeks since I got back from Japan, I've been working not only for my parents, but at the farm I had worked at in high school as well. But once again, my love of farm work has surfaced, this time with a more appreciative attitude after being gone for 2 years, albeit, not quite as appreciative as perhaps my parents would like :)

So now that I've rambled on about how I got to the point I'm at, and tried to compare this summer to summer 2011, I can write about the real point of this post. Earlier this week, a small group consisting of myself, my brother, my dad, and some friends picked up and put away 459 bales from our field down the road. Doing hay, or bucking bales, whatever you want to call it, is by far my favorite part of living on a farm during the summer. For you non farm folk, here's a quick description: first, the grass must be cut, then a few days later, raked and baled. If it rains at any point after the grass has been cut, the entire crop is ruined, so we have to wait until there's a long stretch of good weather, which, as you can imagine, can be difficult in Washington (but not as difficult as probably many of you non-Washingtonians may think). Once the hay has been baled, we go down to our field, about a half mile away from our house with our tractor and hay wagon hitched on. Once we get to the field, I take over the tractor driving while my dad goes to help Ben on the wagon stacking the hay. Everyone else grabs and lifts the bales onto the wagon as I drive past. Once the wagon is full, usually about 130-160 bales, depending on the size of the wagon, we climb onto the wagon to the top, and drive back to our farm and park the tractor behind the hay barn. Then several of us stay on top of the wagon while the rest go into the barn. We pass the hay down via a hay elevator (which we decided this year is more of a hay moving walkway). This continues until all the hay is stacked in the barn. Then we go back to the field and do it all again. It's a difficult chore, and by the end of the night, everyone is drenched in sweat, covered with hay as well as small scratches from the hay. Though we're tired and feel disgusting, we feel accomplished. We've completed the difficult task once more, and won't have to do it again for another year. This is also a fun activity because of the company, the awesome view from the top of a wagon filled with hay, and the delicious pizza, lemonade, and DQ blizzards we consume throughout the night.

As I grow older, the likelihood of me being home for summer grows less and less. I have no idea where I'm going to be next summer. I could be home, I could be in Spain, or Guatemala, or Wheaton, or some place I haven't even considered going. I can't imagine missing a PNW (Pacific Northwest for you Wheaton people... one of my friends once thought it stood for prisoners of nuclear war... don't ask me how that makes sense.) summer, for so many different reasons, but especially because this chore, which probably sounds so bizarre to many of you, has become part of my summer. I can't fathom the day when I won't be a farm girl anymore, no bales to buck, stalls to clean, or gardens to weed. I guess that though I may not always act like it, I will always be a farm girl at heart.

About me, this blog, and whatever else I feel like writing about.

Why hello there. If you're reading this, you're probably either:
A. My mom, who is ecstatic because I have finally started a blog like she's been bugging me about for the past billion years.
B. My dad, because mom told him to.
C. One of my brothers to keep track of my life, but also (and mostly) to get new material to make fun of me.
D. One of my friends because I begged you to go to my blog so that I can feel not absolutely pathetic.

Anyways, whoever you may be, you probably already know a fair amount about me, but I'm going to give you the low down on Lea Gibson anyways.
-For those of you who understand what this means, I'm an ISFJ on Myers-Briggs and a type 2 (The Helper) on the Enneagram
-I grew up in a small town in Northwest Washington, about 10-15 minutes from the Canadian border.
-I am attending Wheaton College near Chicago to get a degree in Spanish education and just finished my second year there
-I love horses. Love, love, love.
-My top pet peeves are all about my name: being called Eleanor (my full name), people pronouncing my name Lay-uh (especially being called Princess Leia), or people spelling my name wrong (I know, I know, there's like 20 different ways to spell it. I think mine is the simplest.)
-I love writing, and have since elementary school when forced to write a book in 3rd grade. Though I don't write as much as I used to, I still do occasionally, but it usually ends up being angsty teenager song lyrics that I can't get away with writing since I'm no longer a teenager. (But wait... neither is Taylor Swift, yet she gets away with it...? A topic for a day I feel especially like ranting)  
-I also love music. I took piano lessons from kindergarten through high school, sung in various choirs for 5 years, and got a ukulele for Christmas this year.

Enough about me. Now about this blog. Why start one? Why pick this name? Why should you bother reading it? As I mentioned at the beginning, my mom has telling me to start a blog since I was in high school. I always said that I had nothing interesting to write about, so why bother? I still don't have anything particularly interesting to write about, but I really miss writing just for fun, so I thought that I'd start this up. The name comes from two major things about my character: I tend to exaggerate a lot, and I external process a lot. Hyperbolea (pronounced like hyperbole but with a "uh" at the end so it sounds like my name) was one of the many nicknames my brothers came up for me. It only lasted for a summer, but it always stuck out to me as one that I liked.... maybe that's why they stopped using it. But anyways, my guess is that the title is a pretty good indication of what this blog will end up consisting of: exaggerations/over reactions and external processing. As for why you should bother reading this, hopefully it will be entertaining. I know it may surprise some of you, but I can have some insightful thoughts, and I'll share those on here as well. And if for nothing else, at least stay for the post showing all my failed decoration attempts for my floor next year that I'll post at some point this summer. It's pretty pathetic, and I'm not even close to done yet. I did not become an RA because I'm artistic and have the capability of decorating a floor well. But enough for now. Good job to all of you who actually read all of this!