Rhonda's Ramblings

I’m sure google will enjoy this post title and will send lots of peple to my blog who aren’t gonna find what they are looking for, but oh well.

I have been looking through photo albums. And am reminded lately how much I miss my friend. If ever I have had a bosom friend it would be Avril. And like Anne and Diana, we are very different. (If you didn’t get that reference, you are probably a boy.)

Avril is a romantic. I am a realist. She is what might be called loud and loves to be the center of attention, and I am generally more quiet and like to sit back and watch what is going on. She is a dreamer. I tend to be more logical. I am much more of a rule follower than she is.

I think when I first realized how opposite we were was when we were in a lecture about learning styles. We took a test on “types of intelligence”. There were 7 possible types of intelligence or ways we learn best. Linguistics and Logic were at the very top of my list and the very bottom of hers. Our whole lists were exactly opposite. So, we think and interact quite differently. But we sure managed to get past those differences and become fast friends.

I met Avril when we were in Australia attending a 6 month DTS (Disipleship Training School). (Someday I will blog about that…an amazing time in my life.) She and I lived in the same house along with 16 other girls. And she thought that I didn’t really like her at first. One thing about a DTS is that you tend to become close to people very quickly. God is doing so much in your lives that you share a lot of stuff on a deep emotional level and plus you live together, and spend so much time together that bonds are formed right away.

So many memories of our times in Australia. Swimming. Sitting together in lectures, and getting dirty looks for talking too much. Laughing together, crying together, praying together. Falling for the same guy. Oops. (more on that later) Interpretive Dance. Planning trips around the world. And making hand signals for the name of our trip. (Around the world 4 Him) Camping in the rain in my tiny $20 tent.

One thing we do have in common is that we are both super competitive. One of my favorite stories is when we became “the dirty girls”. For some reason, in response to some sort of challenge by our guy friends, 5 of us girls decided to see who could go the longest without washing our hair. Thankfully, we could only go two weeks, because we were leaving for ministry outreach and we had to wash our hair before going. But this became quite the competition. The guys were determined to force us to wash our hair, so they did things like put sugar and flour and dishsoap in our hair. But we remained strong. And maybe fought back a little by putting butter in their hair. So, they decided to smear onion dip in my hair, which they thought would force me to wash my hair. But they were wrong. I, for some strange reason (pride) still refused, even though I had to wear a hat when I slept because it smelled so bad. I also sprayed a lot of country apple body spray on my hair. But, thanks to the onion dip, I won the contest and was declared “Dirty Girl #1″. Something to be proud of. Avril came in second, and the competitive nature of our friendship is locked in. It was a really dumb thing to do, but really fun. And the guys bought us Dirty Girl t-shirts in the deal with the motto that they made up for us “Total Pride, No Shame”.

OK…this is getting long and I have only touched on the first couple of months of our friendship. I guess I will be like Kari and spread this out over a few posts.

Here is a picture of Avril and I (with clean hair) and with our boys who remained our friends despite our dirty girl status.