sportsmanship

i hate competition, but at the same time, there's something about sports that just makes it so appealing and exciting. any sport.

flag football tournament today up in mercer county, new jersey. six teams of girls, ages ranging from college students to young adults (some of them were even moms!). competition got intense, yeah, and everyone wanted to win.

but i saw some cool things there.

like a little kid dressed in a finding nemo costume.
like a frog prince mascot for the team that had moms on it.
like girls playing their hearts out, regardless of the score or the likelihood of wins.
like coaches being patient with refs who didn't always make appropriate calls.
like players who kept asking, "are you okay?" if they knocked someone over.
like the continuous emphasis on fellowship at the tournament, not competition.
like a certain team wearing yellow who wished the opposite team good luck with smiles and handshakes before the game.
like two teams coming to circle up on one of the teams' sides, all so they could include an injured player in their circle of prayer before and after the game.
like teammates supporting each other through good plays and bad(this sounds so corny, but it is SO true).

i guess maybe sometimes i love sports and competitions :)

xoxo,
smiley sunshine

when they have "nothing"

this has happened to me so many times now that i can't even keep track.

it'll be an ugly day, or i'll be having an angry day, and there will be some stupid volunteer gig that i signed up for that i won't want to go to anymore, but since i signed up for it i HAVE to go, and so i go.

and then after i go, i always come out so happy and blessed. every single time this happens, i just think: "the people who you think you're going to go and help are always the ones who end up blessing you."

there's a soup kitchen at a lutheran church on 37th and chestnut that is there every tuesday. it's cool because they'll have bible study first, then dinner for everyone, then worship. bible study and worship are for whoever wants to go and stuff, and in all three times i've gone so far, there's always been people there listening to bible study.

today was pretty similar to most days, except for two things:

one, after the normal announcements guy, frank, was finished with his announcements, another man came and started talking. it sounded like he was usually there but had been gone for a while for some reason. anyway, he ended with, "thank you! i love you guys so much." and it sounded so sincere, and it was just SO cute. ahhhh. so so so cute.

two, a different pastor than usual prayed over the group today - a church came to prepare/serve the food, so the pastor from there (rather than the pastor of the host church, like normally) prayed. anyway, as he prayed over everyone, the "AMEN!"s and "YES!"s that could be heard were so frequent and so loud and enthusiastic and meaningful.

it's so amazing to see how people who go to soup kitchens - people who don't have the means to get their own food, people who have to beg sometimes, people who are going through just hard times in their lives - it's so amazing to see how these people are often the ones most enthusiastic in their prayers and in counting their blessings. it always opens my eyes to how little i have to complain about and to how much i have to be thankful for.

so to the people who were at the soup kitchen today:
THANK YOU!!!!

xoxo,
smiley sunshine

yum

disclaimer: this is not a deep, meaningful entry about someone who did something super nice or something that really touched my life.

but, this is just a blog to write about little things that people do that have brightened my day, and this is really all too fitting.

so on wharton spike, which is the main homepage for everything wharton, there's a marketplace. normally, people will post up apartment subletting information or furniture sales and stuff like that - just people trying to sell and buy stuff from other people in wharton.

today, however, there was this:

"Found Cheesecake in Computer Lab."

This is the description that followed:

"OK, sounds weird but I found a box of gourmet mail-order cheesecake in the Forum Level Computer Lab.

Following the instructions on the package, it is being preserved in my freezer. If you believe this is your lost cheesecake, let me know."

wow. all i can say is - whoever found this cheesecake is one honest person. and i must say that this is by far my favorite post that i have ever seen on wharton spike's marketplace.

so to whomever lost their cheesecake - shame on you. HOW COULD YOU TREAT SUCH AN AMAZING PIECE OF FOOD LIKE THAT???

xoxo,
smiley sunshine

hay ride

dear little boy on a hay ride today in chinatown,

i don't know how old you are, and i don't know your name, or where you live, or anything about you (in fact, if i did...that would be kind of creepy. haha).

but i just wanted to let you know...little boy in a white striped shirt. you seriously were a sunshine in everyone's day whom you passed by. because no matter what they were going through today, seeing you with your smile so big and your wave so enthusiastic...it was enough to brighten anyone's day.

thank youuu little boy. you were adorable and i hope i see you again sometime, even though that would be slightly creepy also haha. but thank you being you :)

xoxo,
smiley sunshine

"hi"

i hate to be skewed and keep writing about my friends, but seeing as how this is only my second entry...i hope that's okay.

i really honestly am not a huge fan of times when you stand in a huge group of people and people randomly go talk to each other and make small talk and stuff...(unless there's music, cause then you can dance, but the situations i'm talking about don't really involve dancing or music. haha).

anyway, i was standing there with a friend, semi-listening/semi-starting to join in whatever conversation she was having with someone else. girl with a gray scarf, black jacket, hair up in a half ponytail, pearl earrings...(guess who? haha). so their conversation more or less ended, and she turned to me, and we kind of started to talk.

but then she interrupted me, looked past my shoulder. "we should go talk to X," she said. i turned around and saw the person she was talking about. he wasn't talking to anybody at the moment, and i knew he was relatively new. so she started to walk over to him and proceeded to make conversation.

it seems like the simplest gesture, and i still don't really know this guy that well, so i don't know if he felt really glad that someone had come up to him and started a conversation. and like, yeah, i don't know if he felt awkward or if he was just waiting for someone. but the mere fact that there's people who will see someone standing there alone, and will take the initiative to go introduce themselves and try to make that person comfortable....

so many blessings this day/week, and this was only one of the ones i saw/experienced.
people say the world's damaged and corrupt, but it's the little things that really do make a difference.

xoxo,
smiley sunshineee

bowling

i slipped and fell today. not in the rain. and not in the dining hall like last year, either. but because i took one step too many when i went bowling with the fg, and next thing i knew, the slick lane made me fall on my butt.

it was hilarious, to say the least. i'm smiling just thinking about it. but you know what else makes me smile? or rather, who else?

well, this girl with a green sweater. she takes genuine pleasure at the simplest things, and it makes the world that much brighter. as i watched her bowl, and she got a spare, she raised her arms up in victory - did a little dance, even. and even when she didn't get a spare, and the ball veered sideways, she tried to use her arms to motion the ball to go the other way (against all the scientific logic that she knows...haha).

adorable. need more people like her in the world -

xoxo,

smiley sunshine

first post.

so as i was telling s., this is my new project for the year. last year, it was all about the candid pictures.

but this year, i figured i need to write more, anyway. so this is gonna be a gossip girl-esque blog, except of course i won't gossip about anyone...TOO much :)

just kidding. it won't really be gossip - i want this blog to bring smiles to peoples' faces. i will be writing about people i know, of course, but this is a public blog, and it's all going to be nice things - hopefully something nice at least once a week about some person, maybe more than one person.

i'm excited. some of the people i write about, you'll know. some of the other people, you won't know. but who cares? maybe one day, you'll meet them, and you'll know: "YOU'RE the one smiley sunshine was talking about!"

so really, you should think of this as a way to get famous - in a good way.

xoxo,

smiley sunshine