Birthday Presents

So some of you know that my birthday was at the end of June. I thought i would just take this time to inform you on the presents i got. There was some money from the family and Meg and Becca took me out to dinner. And also Byron and Jean (my great-aunt and uncle, whom i live with) got me a present this year. The best way to describe it is it's a neck stretcher or officially a "Deluxe Overdoor Cervical Traction Set." It actually works, just make sure you don't put too much water in it.

Telephone French!!!

(Me practicing talking on the phone)
Today the coolest thing happened, like one of my biggest dreams was fullfiled! I was at the Quality Inn, where i am working, and one of the cleaning girls came up to the front desk and told me that her boyfriend-from France!-was going to call her in the next 5 min. I said I had always been excited at the prospect of doing my front desk duties in French-I was even practicing in French earlier that day. She and I decided that it would be totally cool if i gave my phone answering schpiel in French. So I told her what I had been practicing (and she corrected me). And then we waited, giddy at the idea of totally shocking her bf. So some customers came to check in (and i promptly checked them into a dirty room on the third floor... hahaha they were cool with it, I had warned them since they were checking early, but the managers wife gave me a good lecture, and i guess i could have called to check, but anyways...) So while i was pretty much finished with the customers at the front desk the phone rang and i said, "Bonjour, je vous remerciez (and i just realized i conjugated that wrong) pour avoir choisi le <> (ka li tay ang). Je m'appelle <>. Comment peux-je vous aider? Translated: Hello, thank you for choosing Quality Inn. I'm Clay. How can I help you? Then there was a pause and a garble of french and then I transfered the call to the lobby phone 7 feet away from me. They both giggled and then had a nice part French/part English conversation. Yea it was definately the highlight of my day. And as Becca so often says (refering to music, that is): I'm a nerd. And I add: I love it.

PARTY AT MY HOUSE!!!!

Hey, Anyone interested in a party at my place? Maybe we can cook, eat, play some pool, watch a movie and dance a bit! Let me know what ya'll think-what, where, when...

Chi Alpha Rafting Trip!!!

My campus ministry group-Chi Alpha- went on a rafting trip today. It was a lot of fun. I was in a boat with our captian Lance, and also Rachael, Holly, Bennett, Jaret, and Jenna. Our boat started out as the first boat for the first hour and then after that we were the last. People kept trying to attack us "secretly" so we had to make up a new pace setting word other than "stroke." So we decided since we were like Vikings we would use the words "UUUF DA" to help us keep pace. Out of the 3 boats we hit and got hung up the most rocks. Yea we were special. We didn't really row so we were way behind the others after a couple of hours. And then we also decided to stop and jump off the bridge. That was so scary. I thought i was going to lose my contacts and i could hardly walk on the rocks because they were slimy and the stream was fast. Oh, and we saw a bear b4 we jumped off the bridge. And then when we left we saw it (or another like it) along the river. We were admiring it when... all of a sudden we hit a big huge rock. Our boat tipped over part ways and filled with 2 feet of water! Someone yelled "Get on the rock!" so Jenna jumped on the rock. It happened that just as she jumped on we were freed from the snag and we left her stranded in the middle of the river on the rock. Haha. So she had to swim to us. Then we met our very hungry friends (we had 2 of the coolers, and we had been taking our time.) I ate my 8 grain wheat french bread with butter, onions, spam, french goat cheese and celery. It actually wasn't too bad. The others didn't believe us about the young black bear, until they saw it standing on someone's picnic table eating someone's food above us! After we ate we went on a few good rapids and then everyone in my boat decided that we wanted to lay down and rest. So we did that for the next hour. We were going to ride by the get out spot "sleeping", but there so many drunk tubbers there that no one would have noticed us. And I now realize that my telling you all this is not that interesting to you, unless you were on the trip. Too Bad! Hahaha

Getting ready to do the France thing!!!

It has definitely been a fun and frustrating job getting ready to go to France. And God has certainly shown up to show me that he wants me to take this trip. Since I'm a French Major and I love to travel and learn languages I decided that I wanted to go to France for a whole year. So starting the end of my freshman year i started going to the study abroad workshops and stuff to figure out what all i needed to do. I got in my recomendations, essays, and other paper work. While i was doing all this preliminary stuff i wasn't sure If this was what God wanted to do at this time in my life, but i decided to keep doing what i needed to so i wouldn't cheat myself out of it if it was God's will. I also prayed that he would show me exactily yes or no on if i should take this trip. ...
One day during the fall semester of '05 when i was still doing the prelim. paper work i decided that after class i was going to go take a nap on one of the couches in the upstairs of the UC (University Center where there are bunch of food places to eat, and many offices, a book store...). I had heard my campus pastor (Scott Barnett) talk about how he always did that when he was a student here at UM. It really appealed to me, but when i got up to the couches I decided to go back down to the second floor, i can't really remember why, either the couches were full or i got hungry... IDK (i dont know). So I went to the food court (where I had decided not to go) and got some food and ate it. After that I wondered what i should do... I decided to start working on some of the France paper work stuff there in the dining area. Just as i was shuffling through the papers a girl from my campus ministry group (Chi Alpha, see link on the side bar of the main page of my blog) walked right past me and almost sat with her back to me at the table ahead of me, but I called out her name and she turned around and said hi. So she sat down with me at the table and we started talking about whatever and then she saw my paperwork and asked about that. I told her what i was applying for and then that I wasn't sure If this was really where God wanted me to go. bla bla bla (Up to this point in my life i've always been afraid of messing up God's plans for my life by making the wrong choice in something big like this.) She told me that she felt that God wanted me to know that it wasn't like that, that We as Christians had so much freedom in Christ and that as long as we are loving God and loving people as God wanted us to that we had the choice of weather or not to do certain things(she used a story from her life to demonstrate this-God didn't show her what to do in a big situation and he helped her understand this truth about freedom in Christ). This answered my prayers Big time! God always like to confirm things to me by killing two birds with one stone. First of all he showed me that i had alot of freedom and that i didn't need to be so worried about making choices in these types of situations. And because he had used this girl (Faith) to reveal this truth to me I knew that God thought it was a very good idea to go to france. The fact that I hadn't planned to be in the food court at all that day (I wanted to do somethign differently that day) and how God got me down there to meet up with her also proves this was from Him. How awesome and exciting! It is so awesome to have God active in your life like this, I can't even tell you all. This was no coincidence, it was a God-incidence! So sweet!
So I went out with a confidence and got the paper work all done and handed in. The funny thing about all the deadlines is that I have either been very close to the deadline or even late and things keep working out for me. I believe that i even missed a deadline that was to determine howmany students would be switching between franc and Montana, but it still worked out. God really wants me to go on this trip, despite me things are working out!
My plane leaves from Billing, MT on Aug, 29 then i fly to Minneapolis, MN and then to Amsterdam, netherlands and then to Lyon, france where the univesity is that i will studying at.
Ok another cool thing. One of my best friends is going to school at Lyon 3/Jean Moullin (names of my university). Alice Bartz, the exchange student that came to my school my senior year transfered there this past school year. Out of all the universities in France God made it work out that she would go there and that it would be one of the three partner universities that the University of Montana has with france.
As far as housing goes I signed up, again on the last day possible, to live in a dorm/appartament thing jsut a couple minutes from the university. I also had probems this summer with getting my passport and visa. My Passport was locked in a small safe back at home on the ranch (northe eastern Montana) and the correct safe got lost so i waited for ever to have the family open a safe that i thought was the correct safe (it took forever because we didn't have a key for that safe). Once we found out it wasn't in there I applied for a new one so i'm waiting until the first week in august to get it. Then I have to go to SAN FRANSISCO to get my visa because the office in Seattle was all booked up. ( I couldn't make plans until i knew the status of my passport.
I still have many advernture to go through before I make it to France, but i'm confident that my God will make it work out. It's so exciting!


Please pray that God's plans for me in France would be fullfilled. It seems that he really has something up his sleeves or he wouldn't be so present in this whole process. Please also pray that I could impact many peoples lives for Christ while I am over there. Thank You all so much!

Chat Blog!

Use this Blog as a chat blog. Say "Hi" or say something profound... whatever you want. Just click the word "comment" under this post. Make sure to somehow add your name. I'd love to hear from y'all!

Answer to Question in my Profile

The children are waiting! Please tell them the story about the bald frog with the wig:

Ok so I've gone through 9 fish this past year. Only number 6 (Nestor, a betta) is left. I felt sorry for the purple little guy so I decided to buy him a new friend from the new fish store down by Albertsons in the middle of town. So I went there and bought a frog, something he wouldn't try to shred to pieces. Well happens that he did get a little violent with our little friend and he bit Tutalor's (the frog) scalp completely off!!! The frog, being a hermit crab cross, got very embarassed about his baldness and whittled himself a makeshift wig out of sea- weed. Now he looks like "the king" and has lost his social anxiety. And they all lived happily ever after....

Explination of Blog Name

Ok So i guess you guys are wondering what the heck my blog name means. well... Argile Ecossais Wallanklagebank simply means: Clay Scot Murdock in a mixture of French, German and English. It's really simple actually... Argile means Clay in French (The linguist in me will give you the correct pronounciations.: Argile-ar (short a and r makes guttural french sound, almost like when you make a lugie) geel (funky g as in massage l as in luh), Ecossais is the french word for a man who comes from Scotland so: Scot (Ecossais is e (somewhere inbetween long a and eh), co-cuh, ssais-say, NO final s sound!) and now the fun part. If you split Murdock in to Mur and dock Mur (myur) in French means Wall and a really funny sounding and looking German word for "dock" is anklegeband (ankle (ankluh) ge (guh) band (bahnd)). So there is the long and drawn out map of the name of my Blog.