Sisters are cool, Part 2!!!

Today's sister-visiting activities included the following: Half-Price Books, White Rock Lake views, chicken fried rice - then I went to class.  Lame - stalking George W. Bush and Chuck Norris's homes, cheeseburger dinner, watching the Brandy version of Cinderella, playing with the Wii Fit, Pokey-Os, and a night drive about SMU.

More on all this later.  Right now, we're about to watch Charlie Bartlett (a Half-Price Books purchase), and so I'm shutting of the computer in favor of sister time.

All these events will be elaborated on soon, never fear.  There's more to Hannah's visit than meets the eye...just like Chuck Norris.

Sisters are cool!!!!

My lovely sister Hannah is in town visiting for a few days.  This has improved my mood drastically, although I'm already sad about her leaving Friday night.

This is a short post because I absolutely MUST take a shower and go to bed...I only got about 4 hours of sleep last night, and need to catch up.  But, to list things off, today's activities included frolicking about the apartment complex lake with turduckens, eating Tex Mex at Chuy's (awesome!!), making muffins, making cupcakes, watching "The Man in the Iron Mask," and making a list of potential Dallas area celebrity homes to track down...so far the homes of George W. Bush, Chuck Norris, and the Jonas brothers are probable candidates.  Unfortunately, the Jonas brothers live like 45 minutes away, so we'll have to see how serious we are about that.

Anyway, stay posted.

Das ist nicht so gut

Stressed out.  Cried the whole way back from campus tonight.  Feel sick and jittery.  Don't particularly want to type about it.  Going to sleep.

Stuff to Doooooooo....

This post is short and sweet because it's 12:30 and I have a massive pile of laundry sitting on my bed that I've vowed to fold and put away before going to bed, and I have a short response paper to write before 3:00 tomorrow, but my brain won't hold still long enough to write it.  SO, I'm going to fold the laundry, go to bed, and try to get up at a decent hour in the morning and write said paper then.  The next two weeks are going to be RIDICULOUS in the amount of homework I have to get through...so sorry, but this is all you're getting on this post.  Have a good night/day.

Dance It Off, Yo!

So I took a foray into the world of cheesy workout DVDs today.

I was going to just do the Wii Fit as usual (if you count my rather sporadic habits of using it recently as "usual"), but then I remembered this workout DVD that I acquired some four years ago called "Dance It Off!"  Yes.  Weight loss through dancing.  I've used this DVD a couple of times before, but I've never really had the space (or the solitude) to really be able to do the workouts without falling into a dresser or being mocked by passerby.  But, now I have a single-person apartment with a wide space in the middle of the main room, and no excuse not to get my groove on.  Maybe it's because my friends and I watched "Center Stage" last night, or maybe I  just wanted a change from the Wii Fit exercies...but I decided that dancing for exercise was the way to go.

Let's just say that I'm happy that there was no one around to witness the event.

But it WAS fun...although I'm an absolutely horrible dancer (something I was already well aware of), I am able to laugh at myself, and that happened frequently and made the general workout experience much more entertaining.  The DVD has 4 dance routines, including hip-hop, latin, jazz, and ballet.  Since hip-hop was the first one listed, that's the one I chose.  I'll let you all just rest for a second, picturing me hip-hop dancing.

Yeah.  There isn't a drop of hip-hop in my blood.

My little sister has always been oddly hip-hop, and we've never quite known where it came from.  She probably has this double life dancing in hip-hop groups on the streets.  In any case, I was generally falling all over myself.  Also, that funky bouncey-ness that you always see in hip-hop some how evades my suburban white girl persona, and I bounce more like an excited child than like someone who's dropping it like it's hot.  After the general hip-hop experience, I opted for the ballet routine, which is WAY more up my alley.  Not that I'm good at it (flexibility has never been my strong suit), but I had my fair share of pliees and feet positions back in the Color Guard high school days.  And ballet uses all these French phrases like "rond de jambe" that make me feel all important and experienced because I understand them.  I may not be the most graceful person in the world, but I made it through the ballet routine as well.  Toss in a warm-up and a cool-down (in their appropriate chronological positions), and I was WELL worn out by the time I decided that I'd had sufficient exercise for the day.  Even dancing horribly is a workout, it would seem.

So anyway, I just wanted to let you all know of my dancing adventures of the evening.  For your enjoyment, please refer to these clips from the DVD to better picture how ridiculous I looked doing these various dance moves.  If you know me at all, you will appreciate the mental image.   

"So, wait, what do you do?"

I find that my job perplexes people.

I'm not super surprised by that, really...since I work from home, there's rarely anyone around who actually witnesses my work, and it's not the sort of thing that you just happen across.  One of my best friends works for JCPenny...that's much more self-explanatory and familiar to the general public than the organization I work for which, besides having a lengthy name, has a repetitive acronym that people generally don't even remember either.  No, people really have no idea what I do.  One person I talked to lately thought I sold insurance, and when I mentioned my job to another friend he just said confusedly, "Uh, wait, you just mean seminary?"

So, I thought that I'd take the time to explain this mystery job, so that maybe people will know what I'm talking about when I say that I'm "working."

The organization that I work for is called The Christian Community Foundation of France, commonly known as the CCFOF.  Long name right?  It's not so complicated; community foundations are, to quote Wikipedia, "instruments of civil society designed to pool donations into a coordinated investment and grant making facility dedicated primarily to the social improvement of a given place."  So, essentially, we are a non-profit Christian organization that acts as a mediator for financial donations to ministries located in France, as well as providing resources to pray for said ministries.

Besides redistributing financial donations to French ministries (fun fact: 98.5% of all financial gifts goes directly to aid French ministries; the rest is retained for administrative necessities), we do several other things.  Most notable among these is the annual Pray for France movement, a worldwide prayer movement for France that takes place during the three weeks before Easter (aka, starting tomorrow) in which we partner with a French ministry group (Objectif France) by translating their 21-day devotional prayer guide to English and making it available to the English-speaking community.  We also support various missionaries to France, and are in the process of developing an online resource for Christian students studying abroad in France to help them connect with a church in their area and meet French Christians.

So, why bother praying for France, you ask?  Good question.  On the whole, Europe is a widely forgotten mission field for the Christian church, because the Christian tradition is so steeped in its history (gotta love those French gothic cathedrals, right?).  But, Christianity in France has been on the decline; things like the Crusades and rigid church/state connections are so deeply embedded in French history that the French people, like much of Europe, have a very negative opinion of the Christian tradition.  Furthermore, since the concept of Christianity as a personal relationship with God is often lacking in French Christianity, they see faith as entirely irrelevant and archaic.  Basically, the people who go to church are old people and the infant grandchildren they bring along, and most of those people don't go to church regularly anyway.  In addition to this, French society promotes the value of laicite, loosely translated as "secularity," which essentially bans religious expression from the public sphere, making freedom of religion the freedom of a PRIVATE religion.  This is causing all sorts of problems with the influx of Islam that has been happening over the past couple of decades, as religious distrust and political complications fuel racism against Muslim people in France; a situation that is being revealed by the political tendencies displayed by early polls for France's upcoming elections, in which Marine Le Pen, the daughter of the leader of the bigoted Front National group of the 1980s, is carrying majority numbers in the race for the French presidency.  People in France were horrified when the Front National got a significant amount of votes in the 80s...apparently, that horror is wearing off, or the memory of the racist atrocities committed by the Front National is becoming a distant memory.

SO, to sum things up, praying for France is worthwhile.

Now, where do I come into all this?

My job position at the CCFOF is the Executive Assistant, meaning that I provide information management support to the president of the organization, represent the president to others when needed (primarily through email communications), and manage special projects (aka, the Pray for France campaign, and the student website development I mentioned earlier).  I also have an honorary title of "Pray for France" coordinator that pops up at this time of year - as such I translate portions of the prayer guide I mentioned, email people to coordinate prayer groups and generate interest, provide encouragement and support to prayer group leaders, and oversaw development/maintenance of the Pray for France website (which can be seen here).  Other common tasks include the paraphrased translation of weekly French prayer newsletters to English, assembly of monthly prayer letters, updating the prayer calendar, current event research, media research, and managing social networking resources.  I'm also hoping to get the ball rolling on Students for France (that student website) following the busy-ness that is Pray for France.  Also, hopefully I'll get to travel to Paris in the fall for a ministry conference, provided that I can raise the necessary financial support.

Because of the wonders of technology, our entire organization is run online; the president to which I am the assistant lives in Atlanta, yet I'm able to successfully do my job from Texas, Missouri, or wherever I happen to be.  The important sounding word that my college career center came up with is that I "telecommute."  This tends to sound very important and impressive on resumes even though it's just a fancy way of saying that I work online, from home.  So I may work from my couch, but I do a whole lot of stuff from it.  It's really cool, too, because I get to keep my French active and regularly communicate with people from all over the world - example, Pray for France currently has groups in the USA, France, Australia, Benin, Canada, Peru, South Africa, Ukraine, and the United Kingdom.  It's a sweet gig, and I feel really blessed to have been able to work with the CCFOF for the past year and a half.  It's an organization with a lot of potential, and I'm excited to watch it grow and grow with it!

I hope that clarifies some things...at the very least, it shows that I don't sell insurance, and that even though I wear pajama pants to work, I have a real job :)

PS, if you want, you can check the website, yo!

Je suis fatiguee...

You know those moments when you're so tired that even going to bed seems like too tiring of an activity to engage in?  Yeah...that's where I'm at.  Metaphorically, anyway.  Physically, I'm laying on my couch, staring at my laptop with a Snuggie thrown haphazardly over my upper body and cartoons playing on the TV in the background.  I would get up and go to bed, but it just seems so far away at the present...

I blame the present exhaustion on three factors.

Factor #1: I had to wake up 2 hours earlier than usual to welcome maintenance people who came to "inspect the GFI outlets in the kitchen," which apparently meant just replacing the outlet covers?  I don't know what they did exactly, it all looks the same to me...they're doing this to all the apartments, not just mine.  Basically, there was a pounding on my door along with an enthusiastic declaration of "maintenance!"  I opened the door to a cavalier company of three men, who marched into the kitchen and messed about with the outlets for 10 minutes or so while I chatted with Ruben the lead maintenance guys (we became BFFs during all the flood nonsense, you know), and then they all marched back out and the outlets all looked basically the same as they did before they started.  Weird.

Factor #2: An extensive quest all over the grocery store in search of red lentils, which I know for a fact used to be abundantly available for sale in the rice and bean isle, and which naturally vanished the week I decide to make sweet potato and red lentil soup.  I settled for some non-red lentils eventually, which still took a great deal of work to hunt down.  I'm pretty sure that they just magically appeared there on my 4th trip down that aisle.

Factor #3: I did my socializing thing at a triple birthday party for much of the night (my friends Rachel and Sarah and this guy George all have March birthdays so they combined parties into one celebration).  As parties generally do, this required general extroversion and merry-making and standing and sitting and chatting and laughing and loudness and the like.  It also included grilling out and assorted cupcakes and taco dip.  Tasty tasty things.  It also included alcohol, of which I did not partake, although I did vastly enjoy the comment my friend Erin made when she saw me holding a red Solo cup (of water) in one hand and a chocolate cupcake in the other and, sizing me up, said "You lush!"  That's me...lush-ing it up at the party.  All in all, it was a fun night.  All in all it was a fun night; chatted with friends, met new people, looked all cute and stuff.  And, despite the presence of approximately 18 cars crowding the (albeit spacious) driveway, I actually didn't get horribly blocked in, which was also good.

So now I'm all sleepy and stuff.  But I'm still awake.  Why?

I don't know really.  So I'm going to bed.

Bonne soiree :)

Things I Love Thursdays

My friend Ashley has been doing this thing called TILT for the last year or so, otherwise known as "Things I Love Thursdays."  You can read about things she loves in more detail here.  I forget whether I've done a TILT post on this blog before, and if I have then there's no point in me explaining it.  In any case, since today is Thursday, I thought I'd list off some things that I love :)

*This new top I bought at Target yesterday:

*Saying intelligent things in my church history class and having my professor praise my Blackboard post

*The final segment of Lost in Austen that I'm currently watching

*Listening to The Band Perry while driving with the windows down*

*Saying "Molly, you in danger, girl" at random instances:

*Orange Chicken bowls at Panda Express

*Writing stream-of-conscious French poetry that sounds lovely when read aloud

*This picture:

*Summer weather in March

*New cookbooks

*This clip from Sense and Sensibility:

*Browsing ridiculous jewelry and dresses at the fancy mall with friends

*Reading through family genealogy charts

*Free boxes of Thin Mints

*This video:



*And, of course...the fact that in my present life, the weekend starts on Thursdays :)

Ecrire

J'écris

J'écris des mots anglais, français

J'écris des mots qu'on ne souviendra pas

Je donne des conseils qu'on ne tiendra pas

J'écris à toi

J'écris à moi

J'écris dans une telle façon 

De déguiser les sentiments plus profonds

J'écris pour toi

J'écris pour moi

Les mots me viennent, tiens,

D'une espace dans ma tête 

Ou cachent des mémoires que je regrette,

Ou coulent la colère que je jette

Sur mon écran, encore déguisée

Pour qu'on ne prenne pas d'offense.

Des autres temps, ces mots ont le sens

de rire, sourire, en espérance.

J'écris les mots qui me viennent,

De jour en jour,

comme le day before.

Mais aujourd'hui, les mots m'échappent

Ce n’est pas les mots anglais qui me frappe,

Mais les mots français dans mes pensées.

Tu me demande pourquoi?

Bref, je ne sais pas.

Dis-moi, est-ce toi, tu sais 

D'ou viennent les mots du "day-to-day"?

Moi, je sais, ces mots me viennent

Des coins du l'esprit qui est la mienne.

Aujourd'hui, j'écris français.

Peut-être demain, ce serait anglais.

C'est ca que j'aime beaucoup a propos des langues

Quand les mots s'échappent ma propre langue

Je peux partir dans un autre.

Je peux écrire des mots nouveaux.

Alors, j'écris.

J'écris pour toi.

J'écris pour moi.

Mais d'autrefois,

J'écris.

AAH!!!!

Today I had a terrifying moment where I didn't think I was going to be able to graduate in July of 2012 as planned.

Basically, to make a long story short, I went and talked to the registrar today and discovered that, although the course planning guide I received indicates that only 2 education classes are required for my degree, I actually need 3...and, because so few people are in my degree program at all, there wasn't an additional course for me to take next year.  Essentially, this would mean that I'd have to stick around in Dallas for an entire extra semester for one class; this also had ramifications of a semester without government aid, and the need to take out an additional half-year on my apartment lease or else be stuck in Dallas for 8 months following graduation.  Also, a byproduct of this conversation was that I found out that I had been assigned the wrong advisor at the beginning of the year - they placed me with the Urban Ministries advisor instead of the Christian Education one.  Nice job there, SMU.

And so, in all these revelations, I went on with my natural response to stress as of late: I started crying.  Right there in the registrar's office.

Lovely.

Thankfully, by the grace of God, the woman who is SUPPOSED to be my advisor (and who is currently my professor) wandered by in the hallway at precisely that moment, and came in and joined the conversation (attempting to comfort me in the meantime with many "There there"s and the like).  Suddenly, after a good deal of deliberation, I managed to pull myself together enough to have a coherent thought, and asked if I could do an independent study to complete that requirement.  This idea was received well by my (new) advisor and the registrar, and so that is now the plan.  I will do an independent study in the spring of 2012, and therefore still be able to graduate by August of 2012.

So all's well that ends well, right?

I'm telling you though, I'm sick of this degree program smacking me in the face.  I mean yes, I'm one of the 5% minority of people that is in the CMM program, but that doesn't mean that we don't need courses too.  I'm a bit bitter.

Also, even though I know that everything's fine now, I still FEEL like it isn't fine.  I guess I'll feel better after course registration, and once I figure out the details of this independent study thing.  Baaaaaaaah.  Humbug.

What's worse is that it's the all-too-often moments like these that make me wish I'd gone to Asbury instead...that I'd gotten my application in sooner and gotten a scholarship there instead (which I'm very confident I could have done).  And I'm QUITE tired of regretting that.

OK, rant over.  Thanks for listening.

A Rambley Post With No Concrete Direction

The first day of implemented "reading is my favorite" mentality served me well.  All in all, I'd say that I got somewhere in the neighborhood of 120 pages of reading done for class.  That, my friends, is what we call a marked improvement.  Also, I spent probably an hour doing Facebook/Youtube related things throughout the whole day.  This is another giant improvement.  I also resisted random internet browsing while in class, cooked a vaguely complex baked pasta, did my new daily Bible devotional, straightened my hair, played the guitar, made up hours for my job, and went out to dinner with some women from my class (not in that order).  It's amazing how much time you have when you aren't on the internet all the time.  I feel pathetic saying that, but it's true.

Furthermore, in the course of these class readings, I've been reading Thomas Moore's The Dark Night of the Soul for a report for my "Prayer and Spirituality" class.  In the process, I've been having some major insights into my own dark night through which I am currently traversing, and found some hope in the process.  But, I'm kind of still in the process of developing these thoughts, so I'll get back to you with more details.  Also, I think I've found the opportunity for a wonderful mentor-esque connection with the two women I went to dinner with tonight.  They are at once older/wiser than me (40+ in age), but they're simultaneously my peers as my classmates.  Every time I speak with these ladies, I end up feeling encouraged, revitalized, and affirmed in my presence in seminary.  I'm thinking I ought to spend more time with them.

So the first day back from spring break was highly productive.  Two thumbs up.

Also, Dallas feels like summertime.  Right now, this is beautiful and wonderful, and I get to lay out by the pool and do class reading and wear flip-flops in March.  It's awesome.  But still, I know that the REAL summer of 110+ degrees is yet to come, and I'm not looking forward to that so much.

The only thing I didn't accomplish today that I intended to do was some Wii Fit exercise; ironically, that was replaced with a trip to Backyard Burgers with Kristi and Pam (the aforementioned women of awesomeness), which might not have been the healthiest of things but was super nourishing for my soul.  So that's okay.  I also fell about 20 pages short of reading I hoped to accomplish and didn't get to do a Blackboard post for my church history class, but that's alright.  I already got a lot more done than I usually do...all because I turned this silly computer off.

My New Success Scheme

I have a new scheme for academic success: to make reading my primary hobby.

I've discovered this trend in my life where my primary hobbies have become 1) Facebook, 2) YouTube, and 3) TV.  That's healthy right?  Not so much.  But they're like a vicious cycle of electronic addiction.  I tend to leave my computer open and on all the time because my internet is really finicky for some reason, and the wireless doesn't like to connect to my laptop when I first turn it on, even though the computer is less than 10 feet away from the router.  In order to avoid undue frustration, I just turn my computer on, and leave it on.

The problem with this, though, is that then the internet is ALWAYS there, giving easy access to unproductive hobbies #1 and #2.  And, when I've watched all the YouTube videos I care to, and Facebook gets boring, I turn the TV on in the background to make hobby  #1 more interesting.

See the cycle?

But then, I had this brilliant idea!  Instead of having these pointless things be my hobbies, I'm going to make READING my hobby.  I'm going to make READING be the thing that I do most often, and my go-to activity when I have some length of time to fill.

The beauty of this plan is that I have a GIGANTIC amount of reading to do for classes before the end of the semester, especially if I want to pull my church history grade up from the depths to which I expect that unfortunate midterm has caused it to plummet.  More and more, course reading has become this seemingly insurmountable task, and I avoid school stress by avoiding class reading and trying to get by on the bare minimum.  It doesn't take a genius to know that that's not a good study technique.  But, if I can make studying seem like this cozy time of me snuggling up with a book, it won't seem as intimidating.  That's the theory, anyway.  And, of course, reading will include fun books too, to balance things out.

So, two plans for moving forward.

First, Don't have the computer open unless it's necessary for 1) Classwork, 2) Work work, 3) Skype Dates, or 4) Non-excessive facebook/email/youtube time.  And, of course, blog-writing.

Second, READING IS MY NEW FAVORITE THING TO DO.

A Photo Tour of the World's Largest Gift Store

As Spring Break draws to a close, it becomes necessary for me to make my valiant return to my home on the range (aka, my Dallas apartment).  Phase One typically consists of a 4 hour drive to a hotel in the southwestern corner of Missouri.  Unfortunately, due to persistent and semi-torrential rain, four hours turned into five and a half, as I was forced TWICE to pull of the road and wait out the rain.  The second stop included me walking bitterly around some random Lowe's for half an hour, pricing lawn mowers and water heaters to my parents and generally walking laps around the store while waiting for the rain to subside.  It wasn't all that interesting.

What WAS interesting was my first rain-induced stop: the World's Largest Gift Store.  That's right.  The WORLD'S LARGEST GIFT STORE.

Whether or not this is actually the world's largest gift store is up for debate.  But it was pretty huge:

Just to be clear, that's not actually the whole building...the World's Largest Gift Store is clearly too large for photographs.  

Inside a magnificent assortment of obscure treasures of the gift variety awaited me.  After standing in the store for about 6 seconds, I quickly realized that my unplanned venture into this store would be the most blog-worthy event of my day, and ran back out to my car to get the camera.  Now, for your viewing pleasure, here is what you can purchase at the World's Largest Gift Store...in photographic form.  

These 4ft-tall dolls in Victorian apparel...

This painting that resembles Diane's portrait in Ever After...

This angry garden stepping-stone instructing you to stop being lazy and WEED already...

This ornate brass clock...

A wide selection of animal print/striped/polka-dotted luggage...

This creepy display of realistic-looking fake pets....that "really breathed"...

These tire swings that look like horses...

The Mona Lisa...

This collection of creepy pandas...yay AOII?

A plethora of carved wooden motorcycles...

The world's creepiest Dora the Explorer and Elmo...

An original 1950s Box Car Derby box car...

A tall, armless woman in pink...

A Jesus bank...because Jesus saves, and so should you...

And, the most obscure, irrelevant, and unexpected piece of paraphernalia...

...Lucy's 1940s Cadillac. 

Just to clarify, that's an actual, legitimate car.  I doubt whether it's actually Lucy's cadillac (which would lead me to believe that it's the car they used for filming), but it is a real car.  They had it in this glass room, behind a locked door.  It was odd.  And there's no indication anywhere that you're going to happen upon an antique car...you just turn the corner by a bunch of beanie babies, Twilight posters, and quilted potholders, and suddenly there's a giant car on display.

Weird.

Still, according to the sign outside, none this really matters, because what the World's Largest Gift Store is REALLY famous for...

...is clean restrooms.

For the record, the restrooms weren't all that nice.  But they WERE clean.

Thank you for participating in the photo tour of the World's Largest Gift Store.  Please wait until the tour comes to a complete stop before exiting.  Enjoy your day!

The Baby Gift Quest

I spent nearly the entire day today running all over creation looking for a gift for my new baby cousin, Emile, who my parents will be visiting in New Orleans next week (along with other assorted family members).

Now, on the off chance that someone associated with that group reads this blog post, I cannot actually disclose the object for which we were searching...that would kind of take the surprise element out of the gift.  But, I can tell you that I think it's adorable and lovely.

My mom and I set out on this quest together, following a hearty restaurant breakfast, which served us well even though at that point we didn't know the folly into which we were entering.  In the first store we went to, my mom had the idea for the gift...unfortunately, the item that we were looking at had some imperfections, and so we decided to look for something similar elsewhere.  This quest would take us to the following locations throughout the course of the day:

-Hobby Lobby
-Home Goods
-Marshalls
-Target
-Babies-R-Us
-World Market
-Wal-Mart
-Toys-R-Us
-Bed, Bath, and Beyond
-Weekends Only
-Ashley Furniture
-Seasonal Concepts

Anyone familiar with West St. Louis County will be able to imagine how much gas we used up as we criss-crossed this side of town in its entirety searching for what we (perhaps naively) thought would be an easy product to locate.  By the time we got to Weekends Only, my feet were painfully blistered up from the flats that I was wearing, and my mom and I were both getting tired and frustrated.  It is perhaps for this reason that when an overly persistent salesman started (literally) following us around the store with the usual "My name is so-and-so, welcome to Weekends Only, where everything is blah blah blah, and can I help you find anything today", I started to snap.  I abruptly stopped in place, turned on my heel to face this persistent salesman (almost knocking him out with my left elbow as I stuck my hand dramatically on my hip), and said a bit too emphatically "DO YOU SELL ______ HERE???"  The poor man just blinked at me, and maintaining his overly helpful demeanor, said "Well, you're in the right section if we DID sell those here.  Perhaps I can interest you in..."  Unfortunately, he couldn't interest us in whatever that was, and my mom quickly said "OK, thank you," and we shuffled back out the door.  Unsurprisingly, my mom banished me from going into the last two stores, suggesting instead that I stay in the car and "rest."

Anyway, you'll be happy to know that eventually we DID find the item that we were looking for, after returning home defeated and calling stores all over the area, and then going BACK out to purchase said item. Ironically, the thing we ended up getting is exactly what we first wanted...just from a different store.  And the gift is all adorable, so I suppose our hard work paid off.

Perhaps if you stay tuned to this blog, you'll find out what this mysterious item was.  Ooh...cliffhanger.

Food and Friends

It is a truth universally acknowledged that coming home for Spring Break will result in one gaining back all the weight that one has lost over the course of the past few months.

OK, I don't actually know if that is true...or if that is universally acknowledged.  All I know is that getting together with old friends seems to mean eating inordinate amounts of food while catching up on various details of our lives.

Case and point: I've been home for 5.5 days and have gone out for some sort of ice cream product 4 times.

I really don't need to say much more, do I?  Still, blogs are meant to be written upon, so I shall tell you of the various adventures of my day.

I started off the day eating lunch at California Pizza Kitchen with my friend Nick the Weatherman.  Nick belongs to the "Nick-and-Ashley" combination that together make up the surviving remnant of my middle school acquaintance.  I call him "Nick the Weatherman" because a weatherman is what he is aspiring to be, and he occasionally gives forecasts for Columbia, MO's NBC affiliate, and I have every confidence that he'll get a job as a meteorologist one day.  Nick has that way of pursuing his dreams in a practical and diligent fashion that makes dreams seem actually achievable.  He blogs about various weather events, and you can read about them here if you so desire.  

Anyway, I ate an ever-delicious Thai Crunch salad while brainstorming cities for Nick to send out resumes to in his continuing job hunt, and generally catching up on one another's lives.  And, because no Nick/Celia gathering is complete without ice cream, we followed our lunch with a trip to Oberweis Dairy (an ice cream place that also sells milk).  Naturally,  I chose the ever-healthy option of a chocolate-dipped waffle cone with chocolate and peanut-butter ice cream.  OK, not ever-healthy...but in my defense, it WAS the "small"...though, if what I ordered was the small, I never want to see the large.  Anyway, the draw of Oberwies is that they have chess boards on their tables, providing boundless entertainment for the chess non-officianados that Nick and I are.  I won, by a total fluke (although Nick and I are evenly matched, it's because both of us don't play with any sort of concrete strategy, so Nick still acquired most of my pieces in the meantime).  Things are even though, because Nick beat me at "flash chess", which was my newly invented game of chess where you take all the pawns off the board and just play with the interesting pieces.  It's like what happens to chess once the pawns have rebelled against the monarchy in revolution, and the monarchial bodies are left to fend for themselves without the help of their peasant army.  Anyway, Nick won that round.

So those were my early-afternoon food and social adventures.

Then I got my hair cut.  Less interesting than it sounds.

The evening consisted of a Chinese-food dinner with my best friend Jessica (General Tso's for me), which neither of us could finish in its entirety.  Still, that didn't stop us from bopping off to McDonalds for ice cream cones, which we ate at a nearby park, then wandered over to the adjacent elementary school playground where we sat on the swings and talked forever.  The sky seemed extra-huge tonight, making me feel extra small, and sitting there under the expanse of the dark blue sky on the swings of an elementary playground and talking to a friend that I've known since I was eleven years old, all the trouble and stress and worry of my life seemed less significant.  It's funny how sometimes feeling small can make you feel better.  And there's something to be said for sitting out in the open air in the place you grew up with a childhood friend.  Everything just seems better.

Last day at home tomorrow.

Family Ties

Lately I've become more curious about my family's history.  I think it's something about growing up and entering the "adult world," so to speak...I'm kind of beginning to see my extended family members as people with an entire life history, instead of just MY grandparents, aunt, uncle, etc.

The seeds of this fascination started earlier this year, when my Dad forwarded me a picture that my aunt had found of my grandmother at my age.  In this picture, the family became aware of my striking resemblance to my grandmother - the same curly hair, the same smile, the same nose.  I even have a touch of my grandmother's redness of hair that appears in selectivity in the summer months.  It's kind of remarkable.  If you're friends with me on Facebook you will have seen the picture, since it was my profile picture for most of the last few months.  If not, here it is, juxtaposed with my senior AOII composite photo (making my grandmother 19 and myself 21 in these images):

I'm ashamed to say that, before coming across this picture, I never really thought much about my grandmother as a young adult.  Of course, there had been snippets of family stories here and there, but since my sister and I grew up in Missouri and the extended family mostly remained in my parents' hometown in West Virginia, I wasn't necessarily raised on the family stories.  At least, not my grandparents'.  I could tell you all kinds of things about my parents' high school years.  But that's another story.

Anyway, over the last couple of months my interest in my family history has grown.  Call it the proverbial quest of a young woman to get in touch with her roots, because at its essence that's what it is.  Little by little, without any effort on my part, pieces of my grandparents' past have been slipping into my life...in addition to the portrait of my grandmother I already mentioned, a photo (posted to Facebook by an aunt) of my maternal grandparents standing on a porch in their own young adulthood, smiling at each other, completely unaware of their life as I know it...

Or a letter that my great-grandfather sent to my grandfather while he was serving in World War II that, like many letters to soldiers during that time, never reached its recipient...a letter collected by some WWII buff who recently passed away, and which his daughter, upon going through his things, took the initiative to connect with my family, placing the letter in my grandmother's hands, three years after my grandfather's death and sixty-nine years after it was written...a letter which, decades after its time, reveals a hidden undercurrent of love and pride in a father-son relationship that was generally unspoken of because of its rocky and unfriendly nature...

And, an even more direct way to connect with my family: a published memoir, written by my great aunt, Nina Holland), who after enduring the death of a child and of her husband, left the United States at age 57 to become a missionary to the Philippines.  The book, called "Children, The Creek Runs On," has sat on some shelf or other around my house for the last seven years, and since I'm likely serving as an intern in a Filipino church next year, I asked my mom to search it out for me, and yesterday read through several passages of it.  It's a unique experience to read in published print the life story of a family member.  I only met Nina one time, and I was about 3 years old and probably more interested in getting this unfamiliar woman out of my house than anything else.  But as I flipped idly through the pages, story after story grabbed my attention as I read of this tall, 57-year-old American woman, my grandfather's sister, who left behind everything she knew and traveled halfway around the world because she believed God wanted her to.  That journey would lead her into face-to-face encounters with multiple cobras, but would also allow her to help other people in vital ways, both physically and spiritually.

My Aunt Nina wrote these words in the preface to her book - "If there is anything noteworthy or anything exceptional in my life, it is because of God’s hand that has led me and sustained me through the years."  Even so, in reflecting on her life, she wrote these words, that I found extremely comforting and encouraging as I face my own struggles in a world away from the familiar (albeit closer than the Philippines): "I know what is between the lines of these letters that I wrote home.  Only I can know the times of homesickness, uncertainties, and discouragements.  But, it is also only I who knows of the great experiences, the joys, and the quiet peace of being where I felt God wanted me to be."  To read of such faith in the face of hardship was quite likely the best thing that I could choose to read at this point in my life, where homesickness, loneliness, uncertainty, and doubt threaten to consume me on a daily basis.  To read of such faith in the words of a family member, and to be so inspired by them, was a privilege.

Still, there is much more to be learned about my family.  Take, for example, this conversation which ensued between my mother and myself today:

Me - So I read Aunt Nina's book last night.
Mom - The whole thing?
Me - No, I just skimmed most of it, and read the sections about the Philippines.
Mom - How'd you like it?
Me - (babble about how the book was enjoyable)
Mom - I'm glad.  That's cool how you're going to work with Filipinos next year too.  I think I'll write to Aunt Nina about you.
Me - AUNT NINA'S ALIVE?????


Yes, all that time that I was reading and being inspired by those words, I thought that I was reading the words of a great-aunt who had passed away.  Not so.  Aunt Nina is apparently still alive and well, living in the hills of West Virginia where she grew up before her Filipino adventures and to which she eventually returned.

Like I said...still a lot to learn about the family :)

The Ends Justify the Means

Today I went to a Schnucks grocery store that had solar-powered sink faucets, a mezzanine seating area/cooking school, a walk-in wine and cheese cooler with complimentary outerwear, and light sensors in their freezer displays that made pizza rolls seem as refined and elegant as any objet d'art deemed worthy of museum display.  It was intense.  Unfortunately I was sans-camera, otherwise this could have been an equally dramatic blog post.  You'll just have to take my word for it.  (For you St. Louis-ans, it's the Schnucks in Des Peres, by West County Center.  Take a field trip).

I have a new life motto for my grad school years: the ends justify the means.  Negative Machiavellian connotations aside, I think this is a good way to look at grad school as far as individual courses are concerned.  Let's face it: being a CMM in a sea of MDiv's kind of screws you over as far as courses are concerned (for non-seminary folk, CMM = my Christian Education degree program, and MDiv = practically everyone else's degree program and the one required for ordination in the United Methodist church).  Courses that intrigued me when I applied aren't being offered, and most of the courses seem completely irrelevant.  Case and point: over the summer, I intend to take two three-week intensive courses, Greek 1 and Greek 2.  Why?  Because I have to take 2 courses over the summer to finish my degree before my scholarship runs out....and because the scheduling office is all whacked out, that's practically my only option.

I've come to peace with the Greek thing because 1) I'm a language person and 2) It will be a nice change from abstract theology and church history.  For the fall, I'm aiming for the required Old Testament course and Systematic Theology course, and a Children's Ministry course for my required age-level Christian Ed class, along with my internship (which, fingers crossed, will be at that Filipino church I interviewed with a few weeks ago).  Add a January Term course, 3 Spring courses, and 1 leftover summer course, and I will be DONE my degree and OUT of seminary by July of 2012.  That leaves me with just 15 and a half months until I have a masters degree in hand.

And, when I stop and think about things logically, the Masters degree is what matters.  It doesn't matter if the courses aren't the most relevant or interesting things along the way...with this degree I'll easily be able to get a job as a children's pastor or something similar, which will be a decent enough salary to begin paying off student loans, even if it's not what I want to do forever.  To be honest, I've thought long and hard about dropping out, calling the grad school thing quits and finding a job doing something entirely different from ministry.  But, in the end, I can't get a decent salaried job with just a French bachelors degree.  And, as painful as it may be along the way, I'll have a masters next year.

So it seems like I'm in this thing until July 2012.  Eyes on the prize.

Visualizing Peace

Another hard day.  More tears.  More uncertainty.  More frustration.  More stress.  More doubt.

I was thinking about stained glass tonight...how the colorful beams of light continue to dance across the stone floors of cathedrals even when no one shows up for church.  How you can't appreciate their beauty unless you're in some sort of darkness with which to contrast it.  When it's dark inside, the light illuminates the interior...when it's dark outside and the light shines from within, it stands as a testament of beauty, order, peace to the rest of the world.

I think God's work in my life is like the light through stained glass windows.

When God's light is shining through me, when my actions are aligned with His will and when I'm focusing on living a life for Him, the beauty of God's magnificence is made manifest through my life, and other people can benefit from the light that God is revealing through me.  I am a vessel for God's light to bring comfort to those who are surrounded by darkness.

But when my own soul is darkened, depressed, downtrodden, and desperate, when the darkness lies within rather than without, that is when God's love still shines through.  And, like dawn's rays cast colorful spots of light across stone and marble floors even when the church doors are shut and no one has entered in to worship God in that space, the effects of the light remain.  Just like God continues to work in my life even when I refuse to pay him any attention.

God illuminates my soul - empty, abandoned, forgotten, and neglected as it is.  Beauty remains, and beauty will return.

Blogger's Writer's Block

I'm having serious trouble coming up with interesting blog topics lately.  Lame.

I'm starting to question whether or not I want to be in ministry again.  Depressing.  Frustrating.

But, then I don't have a strong inclination to go do anything else...so I might as well stick around for another year to finish my degree.  And this is my continual circle of thought.  It would be nice to know if other people have similar circles.

Also, it's odd how being at home can make you miss home more than when you're away from home, just knowing that the minutes are ticking by until you'll have to leave it again.

I have this tendency to go and go and go and go and go and go.  And now I'm starting to wonder why I don't just stay instead of always going.

These are vague thoughts, I know, and I would develop them further if I weren't so tired.  I'll leave that for another day.

Home Sweet Home

So here I am back again, laying on my twin-sized bed in my multi-colored adolescent bedroom, back home in St. Louis once more.  It's good to be back with the family :)

This is going to be the world's shortest blog post, because 1) I'm sleepy, 2) I forgot about the time change until 10 minutes ago, and 3) I'm going to the 8:00 church service tomorrow morning and therefore have to get up early.

Nothing too substantial to report on today: drove 234 miles across Missouri, passed billboards for the World's Largest Rocking Chair, the Precious Moments Chapel, the Vacuum Cleaner Museum, and the World's Largest Gift Shop, among other things.  I-44 runs both through the Branson area and along the historic Route 66, so you get a lot of random sights along the way.  I almost turned off the road to see the giant rocking chair, but decided that I'd rather just get home to my family.  Maybe I'll take advantage of that rare delight on the return trip.  Once home, I relaxed with the family, mocked Degrassi episodes with my sister (our favorite pastime), and went for frozen custard.  And then I emailed people for 2 hours for my job...because even though SMU is on spring break, this is actually the busiest time of the year for the CCFOF.

But anyway, I'm going to sleep.  Glad to be home :)

Postscript: I've recently become a fan of country music via The Band Perry (of which my friend's friend is the fiddle player - yeah, I'm famous by extension), and spent much of the 10-hour drive from Dallas to St. Louis listening to their CD.  There's something about country music and road trips across the southern midwest that just seems to go together nicely.  Anyway, check their music, yo:

Where the Wind Comes Sweepin' Down the Plain

The bright side of driving miles and miles through Oklahoma is that it has lots of random stuff to look at along the way.  Stuff like this random tee-pee

And this gigantic casino that Austin and Santino stayed in:

And this really shiny Denny's:

And other weird stuff that I couldn't take a picture of because I was driving at 75mph and that is too obscure to find a picture of on Google.  All in all, it was a good drive.  After maneuvering your way out of Dallas traffic, there's really no traffic worth complaining about...except for a 20 mile stretch through Muskogee, OK, where one of the two lanes was closed for no apparent reason and traffic bopped along at a roaring 10mph in a stop-and-go fashion.  That just gave me more time to contemplate that tee pee I told you about.  

About 6 hours exactly after I set out on my journey, I arrived at my hotel in Joplin where I have since been laying around - did some working, did some facebooking - and eventually ventured out to Moe's, got a burrito to-go, and ate it while watching Roman Holiday on my laptop.  I'm wrapping up the evening now with the abundance of Molly Ringwald movies that always seems to be on Vh1 late at night.  This time it's Pretty in Pink and Sixteen Candles.  I've never seen Sixteen Candles all the way through before, and I kind of find it annoying...but now I feel committed to watching the whole thing just to have seen it.

Well, that's all I have to report.  Excited to see the family tomorrow :)

Urgh...

So despite the massive studying of yesterweek, the midterm kicked my butt.  I nearly began crying mid-test....that's how bad it was.  After it was over, I was so upset that I decided to skip my next class...and made it across the street to the parking garage before pulling myself together and going back to class.  Not that I paid attention much...but, in talking to friends, I discovered that everyone else in the class also felt like they did absolutely horrible.  The study guide, which is usually very good preparation for the test, didn't end up being as effective as it did in the past.  Whatever, it's over now.  I don't particularly wish to discuss it further.

After class my friend Miranda and I went and gorged ourselves on barbecue until we were physically incapacitated.  I'm still feeling the effects of this decision now...but, the social aspect was good.  I may never eat again, but that will make my food bill much cheaper.

After dinner, I did the following: laid on the couch, watched the end of Titanic on TV, laid on the couch, facebooked, laid on the couch, talked to my mom, laid on the couch, talked to my friend Brandi....and then I eventually got up off my butt and packed and cleaned and cleaned and packed and cleaned.  And now I'm all tired and stuff, so I'm going to make a morning to-do list to wrap things up, before hitting the road for St. Louis tomorrow.  Because, in case I didn't mention it, my spring break began as of 6:00...not that it's off to that great of a start, but I could definitely use a week of home time.  I'm driving halfway home tomorrow (about 6 hours, including scenic north Texas and Oklahoma), staying in a hotel on the Missouri border, and picking up the last 4 hours to St. Louis on Saturday.  I'm looking forward to the long drive...I'm going to throw my bags in the trunk, turn some music up, drive forever, and let my frustrations and stress fade away like the stretches of road behind me.

See you in Joplin.

Midterms Midterms Midterrrrrrrrrms

(The title was like a song in my head)

Today was study mania.  I studied from 10-12:30, slept from 1:00-2:45, and studied on and off from 3:00 until 8:00, when I suddenly remembered that I have a job and spent an hour emailing professional important-sounding emails and checking on website updates and stuff.  Then I continued studying from 9:00-10:15 (like, 20 minutes ago)

In total, that's almost 9 hours.  That's really good for me studying one subject in one day.  Truth be told, I don't have the best study skills when it comes to memorizing massive quantities of information...but, I think I have a fairly good handle on the material for my church history midterm tomorrow.  If you're wondering, it covers the Protestant Reformation, and basically every country, every person, every doctrine, every writing, and every war that happened during that time.  AKA: a lot of stuff.

Stuff like the heyschasts and the Huguenots and the Hapsburgs and Thomas Cramner and Thomas More and Henry VIIII and Henry II and Henry IV and Catherine de Medici and St. Bartholomew's Day Massacre, and Elizabeth I and Mary Tudor and Edward VI and John Calvin and Martin Luther and Ulrich Zwingli and the Anabaptists and Oliver Cromwell and the Independents and the Council of Trent and the Edict of Nantes and the Edict of Fontainebleau and Louis XIV and Cardinal Richelieu and original sin and predestination and double predestination and William Tyndale and King James I and Ferdinand and Isabella and Francisco Jimenez de Cisneros and Philip II and the pope and Charles V and Germany and the Low Countries and Frederick the Wise and Menno Simons and Scandinavia and Gustavus Vassa and stuff.

I had this vague idea that this post would be some awesome collection of witty and entertaining reflections on the Protestant Reformation, but I'm feeling a tad under the weather (stubborn sore throat) and it seems to be impairing my wit.  Odd.  But true.

I'm hitting the bed early as a self-preservation/study tactic.  The only thing that stands between me and Spring Break is this midterm and one other class!  Woohoo!

Hitting the sack early and hoping that I'll feel a bit better in the morning.

Interview Day!

My day started bright and early this morning.  Okay, actually, I woke up around 8:00, which might not be the very crack of dawn, but my general wake-up time is approximately 10:30am (recall my evening-heavy schedule), so it FELT super early.  I'll actually have to wake up even earlier for class tomorrow morning, so I really shouldn't complain too much.

The Power Outfit.

Anyway, back to the point at hand: the reason for my early rise was that I had another interview for my required internship next year.  The third one, in fact: the first one fell through for staffing reasons, and the second just wasn't the best fit (the school internship office sets these appointments up, and then it has to be a mutual decision by both me and the church).  But anyway, third time is the charm, right?  Naturally, I wore my power outfit (as I told my friend Amy once, "I put this outfit on, and then I just can't be stopped in business").  The interview actually went quite well (although I tend to lose my interview mojo about halfway through longer interviews, and this one was an hour long).  Anyway, the pastor was impressed with me enough to invite me to lunch with himself and the associate pastor.  We went to a Chinese buffet - if you know me at all, you know that this is an excellent way to win me over.  In all seriousness, though, the interview went quite well, and I think it'll be a really interesting opportunity.  The church is very culturally diverse, with a majority of Filipinos making up the congregation (and a lunch of Filipino/Asian food following service every Sunday.  Bonus points).  Also, the bulk of their ministries happen on Sunday, which will work quite well with my schedule since I'll be taking classes simultaneously.  All in all, I think it's a good fit :)

And yes, I did set a self-timer on my camera and balance it on my dresser to take that picture.  The things I do for you blog-readers...

Anyway, the rest of the day was filled with class after class after class.  The Protestant Reformation followed by the Deutero-Pauline Epistles followed by the Multiple Intelligence Theory and its application to Groome's 5-Step Praxis.  Yeah.  That is my life in grad school.

A Difficult Post to Write

Three years ago today, I didn't die.

That was my first thought today, when I woke up and wandered to the hallway and turned my dial calendar to say "March 7."  Today was the 3-year anniversary of my near-death car wreck, which by an utter miracle my friend and I escaped from relatively unscathed.

This post isn't meant to be overly dramatic or depressing.  But nothing really stood out today otherwise, and this seemed worth noting.

You'd think after three years, I'd stop being haunted by it...but somehow, it still creeps up on me.  When it's raining/snowing and I have to drive, when I'm laying in bed and can't sleep, whenever car insurance commercials think that a sudden crash scene is a good sales technique.  I can't seem to escape it somehow...not really.

When I remember that day, I remember that the first emotion that my friend and I had upon emerging from the totaled car was absolute joy...we were laughing, joking, yelling "praise God" at the top of our lungs.  Our positivity probably confused the assortment of people who had shown up to help...it wasn't until later that both of us broke down.  It wasn't until we saw them towing the crushed car out of that ditch, up the snow-covered hill, that we really realized the magnitude of the situation...a realization that recurred for months as I continued to find bits of glass among my possessions, and continued for the next 2 years as I drove by that spot regularly on my trips from St. Louis to Lexington.

In a lot of very real ways, I want to be able to fully escape from that situation.  I remember those few moments more vividly than a lot of things.  But, at the same time, I wish that I could just distill it down to that moment when I got out of the car.  That moment when I was filled with a gratefulness to God for the gift of life, and for extending mine a bit longer...the certainty I had in that moment that God had a plan for my life that extended beyond March of 2008.  A confidence that God was going to do great things in me and through me.

How strange that I constantly let the normalcy of life stomp that feeling out of me.

There is a crucifix hanging from the rear view mirror of my current car.  My mom and I found it abandoned in the parking lot of the Hamburg Wal-Mart, and I picked it up and kept it, thinking it inappropriate for it to be lying forgotten on the ground.  I'm not sure what I did with it then...I'm fairly certain I just set it in a cup holder or tray of some sort.  Months later, when my parents were cleaning out the remains of my crushed and snow-filled car, my dad found it again, and asked my mom what it was - of course, she recognized it, and gave it back to me.  As small as it was, the reappearance of that cross at that moment was a strong reminder of God's protection, and how He continues to watch over my life in difficult times as in easy times.

When I got my new car the next fall, I took a red ribbon from some piece of AOII paraphernalia, looped it through the link at the top of the cross, and tied it from my mirror.  It still hangs there - a daily reminder of the power of God's love and the love of the sisters who helped get me through one of the roughest patches of my life, and who continue to do support and encourage me on a daily basis.

This is love.  This is life.

A Post About Nothing

Today is one of those days when a brilliant writing topic evades me, because I did absolutely nothing all day.

This isn't exactly true.  In fact, I did several things...but nothing truly blog-worthy.

I might tell you about how I woke up and felt sick and skipped church, but you might get depressed by hearing of my vague ailment or judgmental of the fact that I blew off Sunday morning worship as a seminarian.

I might tell you about how I spent most of the day watching Pride and Prejudice and Lost in Austen, but you might get all wistful thinking about Mr. Darcy and then listen to nothing else that I had to say.

I might tell you about how I spent all of the time watching those movies working on my church history study guide simultaneously, but you might still be swooning about Mr. Darcy and not pay me any attention, or you might get so bored by random historical facts that you'd click away from this page, or else you might be so intrigued that you want me to elaborate on points that I have only a limited knowledge about.

I might tell you how I ate a peppy provolone slice for lunch, but you might not know what that is.

I might tell you how I went for a walk to try to feel better and less sickly, but you might tell me that was a horrible idea and what I really should have done was lay in bed and eat soup.

I might tell you about how I skyped with my parents this afternoon, but you might get bored of me telling you all the technical difficulties that ensued, and I'd probably get all frustrated with technology by telling you about them.

I might tell you how I ate a bowl of oatmeal for dinner, but you might just think that's pathetic.

I might tell  you about how I went to my small group tonight, and how we talked about Chinese folk religions, but you might want me to tell you all about what we talked about, and I'm too tired to go into all that now.

I might tell you about how I made cinnamon toast like I ate as a kid for a nighttime snack, but you might get all nostalgic and go make some yourself.

So really, I don't have anything to talk about.  Sorry.

Demographic Discoveries

I just found this tab on here that lets you show how many times certain blog pages have been viewed, and what countries people are viewing you from.  Apparently people have viewed this blog from the USA, France, Denmark, the UK, China, Russia, Canada, the United Arab Emirates, Italy, and the Philippines.  I find that odd. Either my friends are lying on some profile or other, or else my life is fascinating enough to attract worldwide attention.  Clearly, option number two is the correct choice.  To clarify, all those countries except for the USA and France (where I actually have acquaintances) have viewed my blog 6 or less times total, so I'm not a massive international sensation.  Still, it intrigues me...

As far as posts go, apparently the favorite topics are my recent Julie and Julia encounter, and that post about how Texans buy chicken en masse at the mention of snow.

I'm sure that this demographic information will come in handy at some future date...how exactly, I'm not so sure.  But, while all this is interesting, it remains kind of irrelevant since I'm primarily doing this for myself.  Not that I don't appreciate you people who show up to read whatever ends up on the screen from day-to-day.  In fact, I admire your dedication.  You deserve a cookie.  Go ahead, go get a cookie.  I'd get you one myself, but they haven't perfected that whole WonkaVision food transporter thing just yet.

Nothing much to report from today...spent the whole day working on a midterm study guide while watching assorted musicals and cartoons.  I'm afraid I may be getting sick...my throat is all scratchy and unpleasant.  I would love to NOT be sick over Spring Break next week; being home and sick is much less of a vacation than being home and not sick.

Anyway, I could regale you with fascinating stories about the Protestant Reformation and assorted musical numbers from Hairspray and The Producers, but I don't feel a strong need to recreate my day for you in that much detail.  I'm calling it an early night.  Bonne soiree, tout le monde.

Spring Cleaning

Pledge Cleaner is my new best friend.

Since the post-flood maintenance is finally definitively completed - walls patched up, shower replaced, carpet padding replaced, walls retextured and painted, drains replaced - I've finally been able to make steps toward getting my living space back in order.  Chatting with my friend on speaker phone for entertainment, I spent two hours today running a Swiffer duster over literally every surface of my apartment (minus the bedroom, which remained unaffected throughout this whole thing).  It was a dusting fiesta - not just tabletops, but books, dvds, even individual sheets of paper.  Grimy white dust from the sanding of the walls had covered the entire room.  If the US government had walked into my apartment a few years back, it would have been condemned as an anthrax scare and HazMat guys would have taken over the scene while I was questioned under a spotlight about my evil intentions.  It was that bad.

Still, even the dusting wasn't sufficient, and I continued the cleaning process by wiping down every bit of furniture with pledge cleaner (minus the sofa), polishing everything up with a dishcloth as I went.  Let me tell you...my furniture is GORGEOUS.  Seriously.  I'm not sure it's ever been this clean.  It certainly hasn't been this clean since the moment it was first delivered.  That stuff is magical.  I felt like I was channeling Monica Gellar in my cleanliness obsession, cleaning more thoroughly than I've ever cleaned before - I was even polishing my glass coasters.  It was epic.  It was fantastic.  I feel as though, until today, I have never really cleaned.  That's how amazing it was.

Now it must be remembered that I was starting with a particularly dirty apartment, so my excitement at the effects of the Pledge cleaner is probably much more exaggerated than the usual response elicited by its shiny results.  Whatever.  It was an exciting moment.

The cleaning will continue tomorrow; an impromptu pizza/movie night with friends caused the process to be put on hold, and there's still a good amount of clutter going on.  The kitchen and bathroom also need attention, and my bedroom is laying in anxious anticipation of the day when it can stop being a storage area for random decor objects and assorted kitchen appliances.  A good vacuum run is also called for.  Much remains on my quest...but I will make this apartment the cleanest that it has ever been.

I will be victorious.  Always be victorius.  All rising.

Climbing

I had something of an odd moment today because I saw a plane.

I was sitting in the usual mid-day traffic at a stoplight on Mockingbird Lane, just a block from SMU's campus (my destination, of course), when I glanced up and saw a plane flying up from the horizon toward the infinite blueness of the sky.  Love Field (the smaller of the two Dallas airports) is only ten minutes further down the road, so seeing planes near campus isn't really unusual.  By its blue body and orange wings, I could easily identify the plane as one belonging to Southwest Airlines.  You always picture airplanes being white because that's how they look in picture books as a kid, and it was weird to think that when I fly on Southwest, I'm inside this giant blue and orange thing.  Then for some reason, I started thinking about when I traveled in Europe on Ryanair, a super cheap Irish airline boasting bright yellow interior accents with dark blue seats upholstered in bad fake leather and stewardesses in bright blue floor-length suits with hair pulled into a bun that is more suited to the 1960s than the 21st century.  It's not the epitome of class, but it gets you where you're going for cheap.

And then, something strange happened...sitting in my still-dented car on a Texas street, I watched this plane fly into the sky and felt as though I was watching the plane that once carried me from Paris to Ireland.  It was almost like I could sense a tiny version of myself inside that distant plane, flying off to places unknown without a care in the world and only excited anticipation of the imminent adventure of discovering a new place.

Maybe you think I'm weird.  You should.  It was a weird moment.  I can't really describe it well...in a way, it was like an out-of-body experience.

Sometimes thinking about my past blows my mind.  It's weird to me to think, in my present life, that this is just one of the many different contexts that my life has taken on throughout the last 22 years.  The feet that carry me wearily across Bishop Boulevard for class are the same feet that took me down the Rue Faubourg-Saint-Honore in Paris, that treaded the length of the Santa Cruz wharf, that carefully teetered across the rocky coast of the Irish Sea, that climbed the steps of the Colosseum.  On the climbing theme, my feet have managed to propel my body to the top of Notre Dame Cathedral, the Arc de Triomphe, and the Sacre Coeur Basilica in Paris, the Brugge Belfrey in Belgium, the Jockey's Ridge sand dune in North Carolina, the Oratoire Saint-Joseph in Montreal, the top of a waterfall in Yosemite Valley, the tip of Mont Saint-Michel, and the top of Blarney Castle, among other things.

Somehow, the view from all these places was better than the views that I got from taking elevators.  Seriously.  The view of Paris from the tip of the Eiffel Tower is a let-down because you can't SEE Paris's most characteristic landmark when you've taken an elevator to stand on top of it.  And though the view of Dublin from the Sky Bar in the Guinness Storehouse is nothing to sneeze at, it's not the most remarkable of the views I've seen.

No, there's something about relying on the strength of your own two feet.  It's a special moment when, right when you think that you're going to keel over in the middle of a 14th century spiral stone staircase and die a slow death being trampled by tourists and religious pilgrims, the repetitive turning of the steps suddenly gives way onto open air and reveals the intricacy of a city skyline spreading out below you.  It takes your breath away...or, at least, whatever breath remains in your lungs post-climb.  The difficulty of the journey is released and forgotten in the reward, anguish lost in awe of the beauty that lays before you.  The Notre Dame Cathedral is particularly good at yielding this effect.  The stone gargoyles that looked so small from the ground now join you in a height not far off from your own, scowling down at Paris while you look out at the city in admiration.  It's almost like those gargoyles have spent too much time up there...maybe if they left for awhile, they would remember the beauty of the view when they returned.

My feet have accomplished marvelous things, overcome countless obstacles for the anticipated reward of yet to be disclosed wonders.  But somehow, this year, the walk across Bishop Boulevard, an entirely flat journey from the parking garage to the lecture halls of the theology school, has seemed horribly difficult.

And that is what I started thinking about when I saw that plane flying unafraid and uninhibited overhead.

During my time in Europe, I thought that hopping on a plane to another country was nothing.  There was no fear, only excited anticipation of exploring the unknown that awaited me as soon as my plane touched down.  I hopped off to Ireland and Italy at the drop of a hat, decided on a Monday to go to Belgium on the following Friday.  I trusted myself to be able to figure things out as I went along, and to be okay with that.  On all my trips, the only things planned in advance were the plane/train tickets, airport shuttle/bus tickets, and hostel reservations. Every other aspect of the trip was open for suggestion.

In all rationality, my European escapades were much more daunting than my present situation in graduate school.  Really, grad school simply requires me to show up, pay attention, take notes, do homework, and pass tests.  I've been doing that successfully for the last 17 years of my life.  The Celia that arrived at a downtown Roman train station a few minutes before midnight and successfully made it to her hostel alone and unscathed to meet up with her friends, the Celia that accidentally got on a bus to Iverkeithing when she meant to go to Edinburgh (about a 40 minute difference), the Celia that got off the bus in Flemish-speaking Brugge and discovered that she didn't have the hostel address, and managed to survive these and other travel fiascos can certainly manage to survive two and a half years in seminary.

There's a Bible verse that says "wide is the gate and broad is the road that leads to destruction...but small is the gate and narrow the road that leads to life."  I've been in some narrow staircases that yielded much more worthwhile views than those attained by way of a spacious elevator.  I think life is like that.  Just because it's easy to get somewhere in life doesn't mean that you'll love the view of the world that you'll wind up with.  There's no guarantee that the difficult moments will lead to something beautiful...but the difficulty of the journey will certainly make you appreciate the end result more.  Right now, graduate school is my 14th-century spiral staircase, turning and turning and making me dizzy with the unique confusion that comes from repetition and the vague frustration of thinking the end is near only to keep turning around and around.  But the sunlight that peeks over those last stairs is so much more valuable to me than the vast wealth of sunshine that spreads freely across the ground.

Out of struggle comes beauty.

I'll leave you with these words from "Enchantment Passing Through," one of my favorite songs from the musical Aida.  I feel as though, indirectly, they relate...they convey the attraction of the unknown that comes with traveling, and yet manages to evade our everyday existence.

To sail away to half-discovered places,
To see the secrets so few eyes have seen,
To see moments of enchantment on our faces,
The moments when we smile, and those between.


If I could leave this place, then I'd go sailing
To corners of my land where there would be
Sweet southern winds of liberty prevailing,
A beauty so majestic and so free.


There'd be no ties of time and space to bind me,
And no horizons I would not pursue.
I'd leave the world's misfortunes far behind me.
I'd put my faith and trust in something new.