HisLoveneverfails -- (She's also pretty smart for a young un' , seemingly full-focused on God over guys) Plans in life now?
Sorry for the late response, Green. I didn't see this one earlier.
My current plan is to finish school. I'm majoring in music with an emphasis in education. After my bachelor's degree I'll go into our post-bachelor program and get my teaching certificate. After that.. well technically I want to be a private music instructor (I mostly focus on piano but I also teach guitar, flute, and voice). I want to be a stay-at-home mom some day and teaching private lessons from home is something that works out quite well with that. That said, I'm still getting my teaching certificate sort of as a back-up plan. I'd be equipped to teach music at any level, K-12, but I'd prefer to teach elementary music.
Loveneverfails: I saw in another thread that you like to sew! What's your favorite thing you've ever made?
In that thread I was talking about cosplay, and even though I still sew a little, my favorite project is still my first cosplay. It was my first sewing project in over 10 years, so I was really nervous about it, but I was surprised to find that my previous sewing knowledge all started coming back to me. My costume didn't use a pattern, but rather just a reference photo of a fictional, animated character, and I ended up having dozens of experienced cosplayers tell me it was one of the most accurate representations of that character they'd ever seen. That made me quite happy as both a nerd and a seamstress ^_^
LoveNeverFails: I thought of this question for you a week ago before I made this thread, but when I posted the thread I was running on only a few hours sleep and forgot it, so here it is now
. You mentioned that your parents had a long distance relationship. Could you share the story? It sounds really sweet
.
Haha, aww, you put so much thought into this thread! That's why your threads are awesome.
Well, I don't usually share how my parents met, because some people misunderstand and actually think it was a mail-order bride type of situation, which it very certainly was not, but I'd be willing to try and explain here.
My dad and I both share a love for learning about new cultures. In his younger days, he had a habit of maintaining penpals from all over the world, just for the sake of learning fascinating things about their countries and cultures. He had a small handful of male and female penpals from the Philippines, because he thought it was such a beautiful and interesting country. Over time, he started to see my mother's virtuous character and compassionate heart through her letters, and he began to favor her over all his other contacts. The letters between them became more and more frequent, and the number of penpals he corresponded with decreased until he was only writing to her.
On my mother's side, she had corresponded with Americans before and she was usually quite unimpressed, especially with the men, because they would typically have no care for her as a unique person but would jump quite quickly to marriage proposals, and brag about all the wealth they could provide to her as a poor little Filipino girl, and my mama simply wouldn't put up with it. My dad was different, though. Aside from telling her fascinating stories about a far-away land called Alaska, his letters were always focused on his faith in Christ. This intrigued her because she had grown up in a very religious Filipino-Roman Catholic background, and all she knew was religion, not faith. He would leave bible verse references at the bottom of his signature, and out of curiosity she would look them up every time. She wanted to know more about this Christ, because He didn't sound like the Christ she'd learned about in church, and she wanted to know more about this penpal who loved Christ so much.
Eventually, my dad came to visit the Philippines, and my mom toured him around to several beautiful locations on multiple different islands. They were always accompanied by at least a few of her 6 brothers or some close female friends, in order to protect her reputation from scandalous rumors. (At the time and in her community, if a filipina woman was seen with a western man, there was immediately an assumption that there was an inappropriate exchange of money/sex)
After returning to Alaska, the letters became more and more marriage minded. Questions like "may I visit you again?", or "would you like to visit Alaska?" became more frequent, and one very important letter ended was very short and the bible reference at the bottom was
John 14:3.
One day he told her that he had shipped her a package and it should be at a particular delivery area at a certain date and time. When she went to go pick up the package, she found instead that it was my dad himself.
He went and asked her father for permission to marry her, then they filled out the paperwork for a fiancee visa and he went back to Alaska, and she followed him shortly on a first-class flight (her first flight ever, actually) all the way to Alaska. They wed two weeks later in a small filipino church, and she wore a dress that her aunts had handmade for her. That's right, my super romantic dad never actually got on one knee and said "will you marry me", and we still joke about that today. He figured he had been "obvious enough" with that bible verse I posted above, and with the fiancee visa. *facepalm* Oh well, I still think they're cute, and my parents find it funny that my dad is currently on an extended trip in the Philippines and my mama is here in Alaska. At least they have internet access this time around
Anyway, that's my long-winded story. Hope I didn't bore everyone out of their minds.