Blog Revisited

Whew, I've been pretty bad at keeping up with this blog thing. I skip a few months and there's way too much to even write about in one post. The reason I haven't been keeping up with it is because for the last couple of months in school, I've been through a lifetime of stress. Not going to elaborate on that.
Bottom line, I've graduated high school, kind of. I haven't gotten my diploma yet because I haven't finished an independent Personal Finance course yet. It's slowly killing me, but I have up until the first day at Truman to finish it. Oh yeah, I'm going to Truman. I had my heart set on Drury University, but after going to a meeting to talk with them about the expenses, God shut the door on Drury pretty abruptly. So, Truman State University it is, and I'm not looking forward to going to college. I need to stop saying that in public because people look at me like I'm crazy.
Summer 2011 started, and right after my grad party I was swept away to Italy with my mom. Poor me, haha. Needless to say, it was the experience of a lifetime. As beautiful and magical as it was, it made me really appreciate the cleanliness and moderate family-friendliness America.
I was home for a day after Italy, in which my neighbor invited me to a rendition of "The Taming of the Shrew." It was an outdoor play at Forrest Park and it was awesome. However, jetlag got the best of me and I slept through half of it in my comfy folding chair.
The next day I left for Taiwan, and I successfully navigated through LAX on my own! From there it was a cramped thirteen hour flight to Taipei, where Christina and her uncle picked me up. We had a blast for two weeks. The cool thing about Taiwan was the fact that we stayed in Taiwanese homes, were shown around by friends, and really got to immerse ourselves in the culture of Taiwan. In Italy it was all sight-seeing and hotels, and we didn't get to experience what it's like actually living in that country. It was so cool to get to go on these trips back-to-back, but they were exhausting and I slept for a week when I got home.

Something slightly monumental has happened since I got back from my trips. I was struggling immensely with a sin that I had been immersed in for a long time, and after the third time of God "hitting me over the head with a brick," He forcefully pulled me out of it, although it was extremely painful. It amazes me that while completely aware that I was sinning, I went back to it over and over. Thank God for purging it from me. The pain is still reverberating, but it is the best thing that could have happened.
In a nutshell, that's been my summer. Next big thing is the start of college in a month. I'm terrified and reluctant, but a part of me knows this is going to be very good.