Fighting

This is ridiculous: I've literally been at school for less than two weeks, and I'm already sick. At first I thought it was allergies (gotta love Ohio in late summer), but I'm pretty sure it's a full-blown cold now. It started out as just sniffles; now I officially can't breathe AT ALL, and I have a horrendous cough.

Fabulous.

On a brighter note, I got the job on the custodial staff and have already put in two days. I love the lady I work with, and the work load isn't bad at all. Besides, I'll do just about anything if it means I'm making money.

....I'm not as desperate as that comment made me sound. :/

Since I've been back at school I've been reading Blue Like Jazz. Actually, re-reading it - I've gone through twice in the past few years, and I wanted to do it again as I was coming back to campus. In my opinion Donald Miller presents such a good representation of what Christianity is supposed to look like: not according to the religious institutions of today but as it was set down at the original foundation of the church in the books of Acts. To some people his approach is a little...shall we say "hippie-esque;" I explained the book to a very conservative friend of mine, and I realized halfway through my explanation that he prolly wouldn't appreciate it.

But personally, I like it. I agree with it.

You would think that it would be ridiculously deep and heavy. I mean, just take a gander at the title - this ambiguous phrase about a genre of music that is deep, moody, pondering, emotional. But then you crack open the book to find cartoons of sexy carrots and astronauts whose helmets are taken over by their beards when they are launched out into space for fifty-three years. You find chapter-long descriptions of the amazing people that Miller experienced on his journey to find God. Instead of referencing the Great Lord Reverend Whosoever, master of all things divine and sacred, he turns to "Julie the Canadian," "Tony the Beat Poet" (who is, in fact, not actually a poet), and "Andrew the Cussing Preacher" for his theology. He - and subsequently his approach to faith and God - is intense but at the same time very simple and basic.

It seems that somewhere between Christ's ascension and now, the mission and procedures of His followers have become seriously overcomplicated when it all started as "love God, love others." We have placed so many addendums around that relatively-simple mandate and have so emphasized those additions that we bog ourselves down and chase away other potential believers. When did loving your neighbor become something to do only when you can fit it into your schedule? Where did we pick up the notion of tithing only when we have nowhere else to spend our money?

And when did the Christian walk because a solitary one? Miller says so much on the importance of community among Christians - people in general, really. (That's been awesome to read lately since I'm trying to be more social.) But whether it's an American thing or a human thing, Christians are isolated in their spiritual growth, only sharing what they're dealing with over an hour-long coffee date or an intense chapel service. We feel content to give the "fine" answer - or the worst one, "oh I'm just so blessed" - and never get past the surface level, both in our questions and our answers.

Why is that? What are we afraid of? We're all a family, right? In my family we love each other even when one of us doesn't put his dishes in the dishwasher for days, or accidentally forgets to pick us up from school, or even disagrees with us on something that we feel strongly about. Why don't we race past the surface level and see what's lurking under the "blessed" face? How much deeper would our love and community be if we knew the true person and chose to love them anyway? Why don't we do that?

Yesterday we awoke to find that classes had been cancelled until noon because of a power outage. For about an hour and a half during our free morning, I sat in the lounge with five other girls in my unit, all of us half-ready or still in our pajamas because we had nowhere to be and no way to do online homework. One girl brought out a loaf of zucchini bread that her mom had made, another girl made tea, I made coffee (of course). And we talked. Like, face-to-face, "how's your semester starting out," "thank God we don't have classes this morning." It was small-talk, yes - there was no "diving into deep things," like I've been harping on for most of this entry. But nobody was sitting alone in their rooms on Facebook. Nobody had their headphones in, being unsocial. We were talking, enjoying each other's company. True, it was because we had nothing else to do, but that's not the point, is it? It was awesome.

Why do we only reserve that for when the electricity is out?

~

 

Loneliness is something that happens to us, but I think it is something we can move ourselves out of. I think a person who is lonely should dig into a community, give himself to a community, humble himself before his friends, initiate community, teach people to care for each other, love each other. Jesus does not want us floating through space or sitting in front of our televisions. Jesus wants us interacting, eating together, laughing together, praying together. Loneliness is something that came with the fall.

If loving other people is a bit of heaven then certainly isolation is a big of hell, and to that degree, here on earth, we decide in which state we would like to live.

Rick told me, a little later, I should be living in community. He said I should have people around bugging me and getting under my skin because without people I could not grow - I could not grow in God, and I could not grow as a human. We are born into families, he said, and we are needy at first as children because God wants us together, living among one another, not hiding ourselves under logs like fungus. You are not a fungus, he told me, you are a human, and you need other people in your life in order to be healthy.

-Donald Miller

Blue Like Jazz

Calvin

After spending the last four days sitting on my bed watching Jenna Marbles and Pinterest-ing (#newverb), I'm starting to fidget. Yes, classes have started. Yes, I have assignments to put in my agenda. (Color-coded, no less...I got new highlighters this year and was really excited to put them to good use.) Yes, I could work ahead for my homework that's due Monday.

But I don't have much homework; if I do it now, I won't have any to procrastinate this weekend. And I already put all my assignments in my agenda. (And put my highlighters to good use.) And I'm already caught up on all my homework that's due tomorrow, which is NONE. I'm even ahead of the ballgame: I worked out tonight. I've been on campus for less than a week and I've already been to the gym twice.

And ran. On a treadmill. For seven minutes. Stop your judgment: this is a big deal for the child who runs for NO MAN.

I've been sentimental, I've caught up with old friends, I've already made a few new ones, I've completely set up my room, I've Skyped with Linus and everything is right with the world. Now I'm ready to get busy. With only thirteen credits on my schedule (all of which, including the subsequent homework, will end at the end of October when I start working in a school), I have a lot of free time on my hands. So what do I do? So far, I've occupied myself right here where I sit now: on my bed, on YouTube, on Pinterest. What a life. But while there's a time and a place for that, that's NOT how I want to say I spent my senior year. This is the year that I become involved, get outside my dorm room, and see what this campus has to offer.

In the winter and spring I'm auditioning for the plays, but I can't sit around here and wait for those to come. I want to get my ass in shape again in Zumba. I want to see what this whole discipleship group thing is all about. (One of my friends is actually starting one with the book Radical, all you ladies should join, it's gonna be pretty swish.) I've always wanted to take a theatre class, and there's one offered this semester focusing on dialects, which I LOVE. (I just emailed the prof to see if there's still space, I'll let you know what she says.) I realized that, for a potential teacher, I really don't have much interaction with younger kids, so I'm thinking about getting involved in AWANA at a church downtown. I told my sister I'd host a Bingo night with her in the Student Center. Last week I applied for yet another job.

It's not because I feel guilty - for a while I felt really guilty not doing anything. It's just because I'm so damn BORED. If I really sit down and think about it (which I've had ample time to do), this is prolly the last year I have until I wheel myself into that retirement home when I have the choice to be active in things. I can choose to do things instead of being roped into them by my kids, my job, my husband, my whatever. And I should be taking advantage of every minute! It's really a miracle that I've caught myself at this point instead of in mid-November when it's too late. I know there's the potential to get so caught up in things that I start to feel overwhelmed, but honestly I'd rather have next summer be a sigh of relief instead of a continuation of the same.

Tomorrow night on campus is the big kick-off party (dear students, ya'll should come - it's gonna be great), tag-teamed with an Involvement Fair, where all the organizations on campus and from local areas come to sell their wares and get you, in an obvious word, involved. So it's a prime opportunity for a young person, bored out of her frickin' mind, to figure out what opportunities are available to get busy and do something with her life. I'm ready to start working with people and learn outside of a classroom setting and not sit around on my ass doing absolutely nothing.

Because really: who wants to waste their last year of freedom?

~

 

A thought for today:

 

I believe that the greatest trick of the devil is not to get us into some sort of evil but rather have us wasting time. This is why the devil tries so hard to get Christians to be religious. If he can sink a man's mind into habit, he will prevent his heart from engaging God. I was into that habit. I grew up going to church, so I got used to hearing about God. He was like Uncle Harry or Aunt Sally except we didn't have pictures.

-Donald Miller

Blue Like Jazz

 

UPDATE:

The dialects class is a go! I was looking through some of the notes online, and there's a section for South African.

 

This is about to be all kinds of epic.



Superman

Sometimes you can't get a good idea of what you're doing until you just welcome the inevitable and have yourself a good cry.

Or two.

I saw a quote on Pinterest (my Internet addiction. Along with Candy Crush) that said salt water cures everything - be it sweat, tears, or the sea. And it's seriously true. What do you do if you're feeling just pissed off at the world? Go work out super hard. What do you do if the weight of the world is crashing down on you? Pour it out on a welcoming shoulder. What do you do if you need a break from it all? Go to the frickin' beach.

Pinterest quote validated.

Today was considerably better than yesterday. For the first time in several months, I had the chance to sit in my room and write/watch Jenna Marbles videos/play Candy Crush. I've had those opportunities all summer, but today was different because of the considerable lack of other things to do. To coin a phrase that my mother decided to hang over my head sometime in my late high school years when I thought playing the piano was more important than AP Government homework (which, of course, it is), I "have the freedom" to sit on Pinterest for hours if I want to.

Tomorrow will be different strictly because I'm Pinterest-ed out and I need to get out of my dorm room. I'm thinking about crashing under a tree somewhere with a book I need to finish.

I did meet some of the girls in my unit today, and they're all very nice - good unit sisters. I also had the chance to catch up with some friends from previous years, including some high school buddies that I haven't talked to in for-absolutely-ever. Which was grand. :)

I told my sister earlier that I forget how many friends I do still have on campus. It's just different to look across the room and see a stranger where my best friend used to be. But different isn't always bad, and while these past two days have been really difficult, tomorrow will be better. Actually, once classes get started and we don't just have all this ridiculous free time to sit around and do nothing, that will be better. But that day isn't until Wednesday, and I refuse to mope inside for two more days. I just won't do it. Plus the weather has been beautiful and I need this last-minute scrounge for Vitamin D.

~

 

In everyone's life, at some time, our inner fire goes out. It is then burst into flame by an encounter with another human being. We should all be thankful for those people who rekindle the inner spirit.

-Albert Schweitzer





Night

A lull. For the first time this summer, I've actually got time to sit and write. No deadlines looming over my head, no wedding music to prepare, no packing to worry about. Because all the packing is done. All the deadlines have been met. And the wedding, as I've mentioned before, went off without a hitch.

Summer's over. And I'm sitting in my half-decorated room wondering what the hell this year holds for me. And from where I'm sitting....I'm not sure.

The classes aren't the problem: with thirteen credits, this is the lightest that my load's been since I was a freshman. I actually applied for a second job - that's just how much time I've got. But as I moaned in my last entry, a good number of my friends have graduated. And while I've put on the happy face all day - the "oh, I'll figure something out, I've got this whole thing covered" face - it didn't help me when I was sitting in the back of my parents' car on the way back from dinner, biting my lip and staring out the window to hold back the tears.

It won't be the same. It will be very, very different. And I might just have to get used to that.

I read a book once that dealt a lot with the moving-on of life, the having to say goodbye and press forward in a different fashion. And there was a story that was told by one of the characters to another. It goes something like this:

There used to be a lake close to our house. We loved it when the summertime rolled around; we would spend hours on the water, swimming, splashing around, floating, going around in a little raft. One time, this flock of ducks came and landed on the lake. And while they were still sitting there, the temperate dropped so fast that the lake froze, right then and there. But you shouldn't feel sad - those ducks flew off and took that lake with them. I hear now it's somewhere over in Georgia.

There really isn't any moral to that story; there's no lesson to be learned, no tidbit to be shared. But somehow it makes me feel better to see it again. So things happen. Sometimes you're going along, minding your own business, and all of a sudden you're stuck in a frozen lake.

The question is, what are you going to do with it?

I don't quite know how I'll tackle this frozen lake yet. I'm actually asking for some major prayers, if that's your thing, because tonight my heart is melancholy and I don't feel like putting up the happy face. But I ask for a curiosity, an eagerness to see what lies ahead of me in my senior year of college - my last little bit of freedom before the harsh reality of adulthood sets in with its taxes and its ridiculous medical examinations. I ask for bravery to face the trials that I will encounter, and strength enough to pull forward myself and the others around me.

And yes: that was a horrendously-written last sentence. But when you've written twenty-six pages in a week-and-a-half, you're really entitled to make as many grammatical faux pas as you damn well please.

Uniformity

My heart is busy tonight. With a week left of summer break, the reality of this year is fast approaching, and, from where I stand now, I am not ready. I've managed to narrow my summer work left to do down to a final exam and five pages in a paper, but then what about packing? And work? And the inevitable multitude of other things that I will be commissioned to do?

Not to mention this is the year I've been dreading since freshman year, when my roommate of three years and my best friends - the circle of people with whom I fit best for the whole of my college career up to this point - are gone. It really hit home over the wedding weekend (I road-tripped to Maryland with three college buddies for the first wedding of our little group) that the phase of my life with which I found the most comfort and stability is over. Now this year is looming ahead of me with a vast expanse of new experiences, new people, new places for me to get involved. I have one year left - isn't this supposed to be the time when I have everything set? I feel like a senior citizen having to be hip and likeable all over again, I thought that was what freshman year was for. Now I'm starting over and rebuilding that core group of friends since half of them have moved on to bigger and better things - grad school...employment...parents' basements... I know that now is the time to "be brave, young pup," because people are looking to me as "that senior," like the ones that I so admired last year. But am I ready to take on such responsibility? Am I really worthy to be "that senior?"

I think back to senior year of high school when I sorta rolled into the position of "having it all figured out" quite comfortably: I knew who and what I was, I was happy, I was confident in my strengths and flaws. And this summer has been really helpful in getting me back to that point, only this time as an adult and (hopefully) longer-lasting.  My ever-present weight battle is back to a happy compromise. I sat in English pubs and coffee shops (which, by the way, I located and travelled to solo) and was treated like a local (or at least ignored like one). I am realizing (about forty-six years too late) that I am better than I think I am. I am strong, in-all-ways-except-financially independent, smart, talented.

And may I venture to say that I'm happy? For those of you who have kept up with my blog for a while, you'll see that this is not always the case.

When I look at it this way, I get excited to get back to school and see how I will handle it all. My dad has always encouraged me to approach life with an unquenchable curiosity and enthusiasm, and when I look at my senior year of college like that, I don't feel nearly as afraid as I sometimes do.

And when enthusiasm doesn't work, a good solid "shit-not-given" goes a really long way. :)

Cheer up, kid. You're gonna be fine.

Hubbub

Today I’m staying close to the dorm after two days of cross-country travelling. We went to Oxford on Thursday to see C.S. Lewis-related stuff for the Calhoun students (I was geeking out the whole time like “Terry Jones was here!!!!”), which, I’m sorry to say, wasn't my favorite part of the trip. We saw some really cool stuff, let me say that: I was standing with my head lolled back contemplating cathedral ceilings for about half of it. But I don’t know/appreciate enough about C.S. Lewis to have my life made complete by walking up the steps to his office building at Magdalen College or eating at the pub where he got together with the Inklings. (Although it was excellent – a chicken and mushroom pie filled me up for the second time on this trip.) It was cool to see the college and the town and all, but I feel like I should have been more excited than I actually was. Or at least about the right stuff, like Lewis’ house instead of this awesome bookstore across from King’s College.

I got my souvenir, by the way – a book from the afore-said bookstore. The Way We Live Now by Anthony Trollope. I stayed up until about three the other night watching the four-hour BBC adaptation and absolutely fell in love with the story. I saw the buy-one-get-one-free copy at Blackwell’s and considered it fate.

Yesterday a friend and I planned to go back to London to see “The Taming of the Shrew” at the Globe, which meant catching a bus at 7.15 in the morning. On Thursday night I set my alarm at 5.15 just to make sure I had plenty of time, showered before I went to bed, and settled into so deep a sleep that I was dead to the world until my friend called me at 6.53 to see it I was coming. Ten minutes later I was downstairs, makeup and contacts shoved in my purse, and at 7.13 we were sitting on the bus, ready for the three-hour trek.

We were both starving when we arrived since neither of us had eaten breakfast, so we grabbed a muffin and coffee from Starbucks and sat on a ledge outside a dentist’s office, just watching the world go by.

(And what an interesting world it is too: when they say “it takes all kinds,” they mean it.)

We still had a few hours before the show, but we still had to navigate the Tube, so we bought day passes and successfully figured out which trains to take and how we would get back.

When we went to the Globe a few weeks ago, we passed this open-air market underneath a bridge, and being the open-market fan I am, I asked if we could go there.

Such places are really the crossroads of the world. They had everything: fresh fruits and vegetables, traditional English fare, freshly-made sangria, exotic meats (kangaroo meatballs and ostrich steaks, namely), fantastic-smelling fish, this Spanish stew with rice and seafood (it was beautiful) – all amid people from all walks of life, crammed together underneath a bridge in an obscure section of London. I get such a kick out of stuff like that. J

We kept going toward the Globe, grabbed lunch, and sat on a bench by the Thames until we discovered the free Wi Fi in the Globe and camped out there until the show started.

While we were waiting, I talked to an older gentleman about the theatre and Shakespeare and all. He was a patron of the theatre and really had been before the Globe was actually built in the 90s. He said that side of the river had been all warehouses for a long time, and the theatre has brought new life to the area. So cool to learn local history from actual locals. J

The production was totally different from what I thought it would. (All this exposure to Shakespeare is teaching me that his plays don’t have to be the puffy-sleeved, breeches-clad productions that you usually see: there’s such a wide range of artistic interpretations that can be done.) This was an all-female cast of about eight, so there was much switching around – “I’m this character who wears this and does this accent, but I’m also this character in this totally different persona.” It was quick, very diverse costume-wise (Grumio was in a 1930s pilot’s jumpsuit, and Gremio was in an all-white golf outfit – sweater, trousers, cap), full of random but awesome songs, and one of my favorite shows we’ve seen.

Our bus arrived back at Cheltenham around 9, and at that point we hadn’t eaten since about 11.45 that morning. So we feasted on frozen pizza, garlic bread, vegetables, and Coke, talking in our little kitchen with two other girls until nearly midnight.

We traveled a lot for one thing. I stood up during the show, so I was a little sore this morning. The day started a little crazy and ended with me passing out from exhaustion at the end. (Not literally, Ma.) But it was the best way to spend my last travel day here. The rest of the time will be spent wrapping up another section of homework for an essay and exam on Monday, packing, laundry, etc. Today there’s a farmer’s market downtown, so a friend and I are going there to try meat pies for lunch. But yesterday will stand out in my memory as my last hoorah of the trip. We were independent, smart, safe, and, above all, having a blast.

There may be one or two more blog entries about the scenery or what I’ve learned, but this will prolly be the last one I write here since the rest of the weekend will be spent working and we go home on Tuesday. If you’ve been keeping up with my escapades over the past few weeks, thank you so much for reading – I’ve enjoyed writing for you. : )

Orono

This morning started with breakfast and studying at a small coffee shop downtown, then a little bit of wandering around the shops, picking up a few things, being very independent and grown-up. Oh, and for those of you wondering about my sanity: I found a piano and was able to play for a minute. I think that'll hold me over until I get home next week. : )

At dinner a few of us were talking about going home. It'll be the same as it was before we left, we all know that. But it'll be a little different now that we've seen somewhere else. I for one am realizing (yet again) that the world is so much bigger than I imagine when all I do at home is go back and forth between home in a small town and school in a small town. There are people all over the world doing things and going places and meeting other people who are doing things and going places. If you think about it, life on this side of the world isn't much different from the side that I come from. Sure, there are little things: the roads are different and the money is a little more complicated and there are words like "kerfuffle." But yesterday I saw a mom eating breakfast with her daughter while another woman scarfed down a scone in her hurry to get to church on time. People go to the grocery store, pay their bills, do their jobs, read books on benches, wonder and dream and think about life. People all over are just trying to keep it together, raise their families, come out on top. I'm a long way from home on a very large globe, but the world isn't really as big as I think it is.

Also at dinner I was watching us sitting around and talking. There were four of the normal six who cook together at the dorm and enjoy a few hours in between classes and doing homework, and usually we'll sit around and talk for most of it. We're all part of the same school doing mostly the same thing over here, but while I'm learning about this new culture over here, I'm also getting to know the people that I get to travel with. Who are in their turn not all that different from me either. We have our dreams, our fears, our wonderings, our questions, our things that we get excited over; and each one of us is dying to share if we can just get a word in. Because we're international, our cell phones don't work, and the internet here is wireless so our computers stay mostly at our desks hooked up to the wall by a very short cable. Which means that we're actually looking at each other while we're talking. Not once did someone snort at something they'd read on their phones; at no point did one of us say, "Hang on, let me respond to so-and-so." We were sitting around a small table, in the here and now, talking and laughing about the thing we were talking about right then.

And it was awesome.

How often do I really get the chance to do that? I've already talked to a couple friends about getting together for a meal when I get home (if you're one of them, just know that I'm REALLY excited about it :D ), but those moments are usually few and far between. We have a no-cell-phones-at-the-table rule at my house, but when I eat dinner with my friends at school, when I'm riding in the car with my mom, when I'm standing around the kitchen with my brother - when do I really put down my phone, completely disconnect from CyberSpace, and focus on the flesh-and-blood people in front of me for a change? And when I finally do, why don't I recognize the awesome-ness of it and do it even more? Don't get me wrong, it's not like I'm a fifteen-year-old boy who sits in the back seat and grunts in answer to questions while I'm texting somebody (.....although I do get pretty into Candy Crush when I play it). But there are so many times when I'm going somewhere with my mom and I'll be checking my Twitter while she's driving. Or I'll have my phone on the table ready to answer any texts or calls right away (not that I'm getting any, but it's there just in case I ever do). I get so focused on not missing out on what's happening online that I completely ignore the person who's sitting right in front of me.

I've been thinking a lot about what I'll take away from this trip when I head back home, and, though it's not English or literature-related, I think that disconnect will be a major thing: put down the phone and listen to somebody alive for a while.

And also, don't settle for cheap cereal. Because you'll prolly wind up with some Fiber Flakes pish and that's just no fun at all.