Category: Rambling

Full

I have stacks of books unread. Lists of story ideas unwritten. Room messy. Life unorganized. I want to read those books, write those stories, clean my room, organize my life. But lately, the fullness of being involved in the lives of so many, of loving so many people keeps getting in the way of these things I want to do “for me.” Eventually, I believe I will strike a better balance where I get better at setting time aside for those creative (or life organizing) “me things.” But for now, even as I look at some of the things that have fallen by the wayside in my life right now, I am delighted by the life I get to live, even while missing some of those things. Baby showers, making food at 10 pm for a potluck tomorrow, wedding showers, hanging out with friends and getting half-price sonic shakes, graduation parties–and that’s just this week! Life is full of people I love, and it is good.

In other news, this weather is ridiculous. Yesterday, it was too hot. Today it is too cold. Dear weather: please just be sunny with a high of 75.

Discipline

When I started 2013, I had ideas of what I thought the year would like like. Then things happened and a lot is not what I thought it would be. My laptop crashed and I still haven’t done anything about it because I don’t want to deal with it. I got a nasty stomach bug on my Mexican vacation and spent two days sleeping off the sickness. Other unexpected things are happening and I don’t really know what to do with them except wait and see what happens next.

As I started this year, I really liked the idea of One Word 365, and even picked a word, “whimsy,” inspired by my reading Bob Goff’s Love Does. Then life happened and whimsy was not even close to how 2013 was going to be defined.  Whimsy as my one word went out the door and it has been replaced by “discipline.”  With the loss of things that were important to me, I decided to take that unpleasant opportunity and change parts of my life, one discipline at a time. They’re simple disciplines, but, a la The Happiness Project, it really is sometimes the simplest of changes that can bring about happiness.

First, I pick my outfit for the next day every night. I kind of hate doing this, but I’m much happier in the morning with everything already decided when my early-morning brain is not interested in thinking or deciding. After two years of only having to decide which color uniform polo to wear, this whole choosing “professional attire” is still difficult, even though I’ve been doing it for seven months. The simple discipline of choosing ahead of time means I can think less at 6:30 AM.

Second, I pack my lunch for the next day every night. I eat better and more healthily when I choose at night instead of in a rush in the morning. Again, the simple discipline of choosing ahead of time means I can think less at 6:30 AM.

Third, I joined a gym and I work out with a coworker and I go to Yoga/BodyFlow classes. Part of my motivation for this discipline is the “Healthier You Challenge” that’s happening at my work. I don’t care about losing weight, I just want to be fit, strong, and healthy. In theory, this regular exercise should help me be healthier. I felt good for the first few weeks of this new discipline for me, but the fact that I’m lying in bed with a cold writing this post would seem to lend less credence to the theory of exercise improving health. Thanks preschoolers!

Fourth, I want to read 50 books this year. Right now, according to my Goodreads Challenge widget, I’m right on track, having read 6 books so far this year. I’ve been trying to read one book a week alongside my other activities in my work health challenge. I have been slightly successful.  Lately, being with other people (going to work events or Bible study or hanging out with friends) has taken over reading time. Also, I like to sleep.

This all brings me to today, Ash Wednesday, the first day of Lent. My hope for this Lenten season is to keep going with the disciplines I’ve started, as well as being open to adding new disciplines along the way. I’m also not going to Starbucks. I generally only go once a week or so, but it’s a luxury I’ve come to expect and I really need to not expect it anymore. I want it to be more holy than that, but that’s just what it is.  I’m also going to attempt to write more during this season for this blog, but that’s going to depend on what happens in my life these next 40 days.

Let’s see what happens.

TV

I think I’ve mentioned before that over the last two years, my entertainment and escapist world of choice has been TV shows. I don’t sit in front of the television, ironically.  Instead I indulge with Netflix and DVDs on my laptop.

This development has come about for a number of reasons.  First, I’m tired. And I’m busy. I love my job, but it’s demanding. At the end of the day, I’m exhausted physically, mentally, and emotionally.  I wrote a paragraph that scratches the surface of what I do in a day, but that just got exhausting so I stopped writing and decided I’d elaborate on that another day. Just picture a lot of preschoolers, co-workers, volunteers, cleaning, and running around like a crazy person. That’s my life. And I love it. But when I come home I don’t want to read.  My brain is sleepy and I want to do something that demands less from me.  Reading requires a lot of my brain and my emotions.  Shows pull on my emotions, but in a different and less demanding way than reading.  So, TV it is.

Second, I enjoy TV shows more than movies.  Movies are an hour and a half or two, and then they’re over.  Unless it’s Firefly (tears), TV shows have multiple seasons with many episodes.  More stories? More character development? More of my favorite actors? Yes please. I enjoy being able to immerse myself in a show’s universe, story arcs, and characters over a longer period of time than movies allow. Escapism!

Third, Netflix has better TV shows than movies.

Fourth, when I do read, I’ve become interested in mostly memoirs and non-fiction.  Fiction, except for young adult literature, doesn’t really strike a chord with me anymore.  I loved The Help, but I read that last Spring Break and I haven’t read any good fiction since then.  I know it’s out there, I just can’t/won’t make the investment. I mostly read Christian fiction in high school, and I don’t like that anymore either.  My most recent reading binge of 20 books on my trip to Mexico only included three works of fiction, all Christian. And I hated two of of them, because they were so insipid and useless. But I like to finish things, so there you go. Despite these disappointments, I still love stories of things not real. And since written fiction has been letting me down, TV comes to save the day.  Oh, the stories I have found and loved in television over the last two years!  Like books always have, the stories in shows are making a mark in my life.

Fifth, I love the ridiculous.  Time traveling alien? Yes. A forensic anthropologist and her crack science and FBI team? Check. A political drama set in space? Awesome. A sci-fi western? No doubt. A cute nerd and some spies? Definitely.  I don’t watch shows to experience real life.  Reality need not invade on my entertainment.  I want to see what’s possible on the edge of imagination. I want a window on what life is like without some of the limits put on mine. I want to dream about adventures that are impossible. I love seeing how a super-spy mission, a trip to an imaginary planet or a battle against a terrifying foe can give insight into my own life. Because it does. I will elaborate on that another day, though.

Sixth, I like the funny. My job is ridiculous and hilarious most days. But some days it’s soul-wearying.  I dwell in reality, where life is hard for my students and their families. Again, a story for another day. But while dwelling in reality is the only place I want to be, it can be draining. And sometimes I just want to laugh.  A crazy paper company staff? Of course. A dysfunctional family who is perpetually ridiculous? Hilarious. Crazy friends living the New York life trying to find love and happiness?  Absolutely.  The cast of a made-up comedy show constantly becoming involved in shenanigans? Always. I don’t care if people aren’t that funny in real life. That’s why I’m watching: to appreciate humor in a world that needs some.

Seventh, I just like TV shows.

 

Now that I’ve analyzed my current obsession to some detail, it’s time to play Guess Those Shows (a distant cousin of my family game of Guess Who’s Dead). I’m not especially clever with my descriptions nor do I watch obscure TV shows, but I’m curious if my scant readership knows which shows I described. So, Guess Those Shows?

Daybreak

I finished the last episode of Battlestar Galactica today. Yes, I know watching BSG makes me an epic nerd, but I care not. It’s amazing. And terrifying.  I could have been done ages ago, but I kept putting off watching the last few episodes because I couldn’t handle it ending. Even though it actually ended a couple of years ago.

There are so many philosophical, spiritual, and ethical questions that BSG raises. It’s a fascinating show, a political drama of sorts that happens to be in space. It’s bleak, it’s fascinating, it’s crazy, it’s thought-provoking.

Yet, all I can think about is how I don’t think I’ll ever be able to forgive the hair people on Season 4 for the travesty that was done to Jamie Bamber’s/Lee Adama’s hair.

 

Not Real Problems

I was trying to post once a day in November, which resulted in some four sentence gems of posts. But yesterday I forgot. And I’ve gotten over it.

I’d like to discuss problems which are not real problems. I often find myself watching tv shows and reading books where people or characters begin complaining about the difficulties they are having with things that either don’t matter or problems they have created. This drives me bonkers, in both media and real life.

Take Sister Wives. The sister wives often discuss the difficulties of sharing a husband. Well, yes. Sharing one man amongst four women will be a little tricky. Yes, he’ll have to split his time. Yes, you knew this when you got married. This is not a real problem. It frustrates you, but since you created and expected this outcome, this is not the same as a legitimate problem.

Another example of not real problems are situations where people make a huge deal out of something nearly everyone sees as something simple. You know those people, who blow small situations out of proportion. I’m not claiming I’ve never done it, but I certainly try not to make a habit of creating Everest out of a mustard seed.

I’ve spent too much time with people like this in my life. And I don’t know why I put up with it. Probably because I don’t know how to end it without flat-out telling people they’re stupid and just need to stop. I haven’t actually tried that approach, because polite society discourages that. Think it might work, though?  Probably not.

If you’re going to have a problem, please make it a real one. I’m quite good at helping and supporting those who have real problems. Not real problems just make me want to smack you.

Aftershocks

I’ve been making up aftershocks, inadvertently. Ok, maybe not always inadvertently. Sometimes on purpose. Every loud noise or rumble sounds like an earthquake. Now that I’ve experienced two, I feel like an expert. In Oklahoma.

This is ridiculous.

It’s storming tonight, so there are rumbles of thunder. I think there will be a lot of “aftershocks” tonight.

Aftershocks, real or imagined, are funny things. Whether they follow earthquakes or difficult events, they’re still surprising, sometimes terrifying.

Events ripple. Tectonic plates shift. Aftershocks startle.

Neither philosophy nor poetry were ever my strong suit.

Learning

I enjoy learning. It’s part of my nature to attempt to derive meanings and lessons from my life experiences. Everything has to have a reason. I can find a silver lining of a lesson in any hurricane. Things don’t turn out the way I hoped? That’s ok, I learned something about myself. Someone hurt me? That’s ok, now I know how to approach a similar situation in the future.  Finding the bright side is how I cope with most of my sadnesses.

In general, I find it to be a valuable skill to see what I’ve learned out of my experiences.  Sometimes, though, I want to just be unhappy. I don’t want to know the lesson. I want things to turn out the way I wanted with the lesson I had in mind. I don’t want to see the bright side.

So I won’t.

I’ll learn a lesson later.

Trippy

If I remember correctly, the weird art installation I wrote about previously was part of this exhibition.

I still have no idea what art was at the end of the black tunnel. The blurb about the exhibition doesn’t describe the part I remember.  However, the entire exhibition was a whole floor and the dark dark dark dark was just a sliver of that floor.

Memory in the 21st Century

That title promises a fancy and intriguing appraisal of memory in this modern age. Alas, all it really means is that I have learned over the last few months that if I don’t email myself something, I might not remember it. I’ll be falling asleep and remember something I need to remember to bring to work the next day. The best way for me to actually remember the thing is to send myself an email. Seriously. I know I’ll glance at email before I go out the door in the morning. However, there is no guarantee that I will glance through my brain to make sure I haven’t forgotten anything. Thanks Gmail, for being there for me. You’re saving space on my desktop memory.

I could be a Google Chrome commercial.

Space

Sometimes I wish we had intergalactic space travel, as found in any science fiction book or television show. Just imagine seeing the entire universe.

Then I remember that unknown dark spaces freak me out. At the Hirshhorn Museum of Modern Art in DC this summer, they had displays that were completely in the dark. I couldn’t handle them. Even the cool ones that had to do with time. Modern art is weird, beyond belief.
Space basically equals dark spaces. There’s almost no way you could convince me to travel in space, even if it were possible. But for some reason, I still wish it were real.

Everything just seems more exciting in space. Or maybe, just more dramatic.

The things I think when watching Firefly while filling out attendance forms.

Spiders

Ever since I was eaten (bitten really, but the way the aftermath took over my life, I might as well have been eaten) by a brown recluse spider last May, every time I feel a little unknown tickle or a scratch, I panic. Just a tiny, tiny bit. Since tickles, scratches, or weird feelings happen often, I inwardly panic much more often than previously typical.

And I really don’t like spiders anymore.

Update

I hadn’t updated my About page in a year. My life isn’t super different, but some things have definitely changed. So I updated it.

I am not a graduate student anymore. I have no idea when or if I’ll return to that.

I don’t really play ultimate anymore.

My life is different in other ways, but ways that aren’t quantifiable enough for an online list describing me. My life is constantly changing, while also somewhat staying the same. Life is weird.

Waiting Is Hard

I know waiting is hard.

My students’ attention spans can be the size of gnats, so I repeat that statement many, many times over the course of the school day.  Waiting for a turn to spell a name, waiting for snack, waiting for a spot in the bathroom, waiting for another classroom to leave the gym, waiting for an activity to start, waiting for other friends to behave, waiting for lunch, waiting for parents to arrive, and on and on it goes.  They react to waiting in so many different ways: screaming, crying, kicking, talking incessantly, and even running away.  I talk to them over and over again about the difficulty of waiting and that I understand. But they forget, so I keep reminding.

One would think that this perpetual lesson in waiting would help me remember that waiting is a struggle common to all. It’s an inevitable part of life. Sometimes I can handle waiting with no problem, content in the moment.

Other times I just want some things to HAPPEN already. There are so many things on the periphery of my life that I want moved to the center, but they remain stubbornly on the outside. I want to know how to prepare for my next steps since I will not be an assistant forever, but the steps remain hidden.

Patience has never been my strong suit.

Blurs

Today two of my kids did something ridiculous during Morning Circle. I could’t stop laughing so I had to cover my face and pretend I was crying so the kids wouldn’t notice I was laughing at them. Because whatever it was, they weren’t supposed to be doing it. But I have no memory of what the ridiculousness was.

My days are sometimes such a blur.  My students do hilarious and random things that I can’t always remember, even if I want to remember.  It’s like being a parent, but with fake children.  But still with  bodily functions. And tantrums. And screaming. And crying. And timeouts. And, as I like to call them, costume changes (meaning me having to change into scrubs because some kind of bodily fluid makes its way onto my clothes).  Never a dull moment, my job. Those moments are sometimes disgusting, but never dull.

Merry Chri-Chri

I love Christmas. This year, I celebrated Christmas approximately five times.

  • LLH Family Christmas Party
  • Classroom Birthday party for Jesus
  • LLH Staff Christmas Party
  • Crazies Christmas [friend Christmas]
  • Today

This abundance of celebration has not been overwhelming or stressful–instead, it has been a blessing.  I see the work of the Lord in the lives of my friends, family, co-workers, students, and more. It’s been pretty amazing.

So, in the words of one of my beloved students: Merry Chri-Chri.

December, It Always Happens in December

The last month of 2010 is about to arrive.

Whirl. Wind. A whirl of wind. [30 rock is in my brain]  That’s the only way to describe this year. As I think about the year, I almost don’t recognize myself from who I was last December. But it’s not the end of the year yet, who knows what else could change in the next 31 days.

So November.  The last 30 days have been like each month before it, full of busyness. I’ve been trying to figure out my life, what I want, where to find friends. I have had mixed success.

I love my job. I can’t wait to quit grad school. I’m excited to find another program that fits me better. In my heart, I think I know where I’ll head. But I haven’t done enough research or found a pot of gold at the end of a rainbow to do it.

This last day of November was long. I’m exhausted. Life is good.

 

Coldplay releases a new song tomorrow. I want it badly.

I love Christmas music. Coldplay’s new song is entitled “Christmas Lights.” I hope this combination is good.

December, be splendid.

Oh Harry

I watched the penultimate Harry Potter movie at midnight Friday.  It’s a miracle I stayed awake while waiting for midnight and a further miracle that I stayed awake through the whole movie.  This difficulty staying awake had nothing to do with the film itself and all to do with my working 40 hours a week, having a typical bedtime of 10:30 PM, and waking up at 6 AM most days.  Even with my tiredness the next day, it was so worth it.  The movie was fabulous.  It captured the first half of the Deathly Hallows almost perfectly.

Apparently, reviewers were falling asleep, but because they thought the movie was slow.  I feel like every review I’ve read was written by someone who hasn’t read or doesn’t love the books.  It’s SUPPOSED to be slower in some parts. Harry, Ron, and Hermione are wandering around the UK trying to save the world but they have no idea how. Of course everything won’t move at the speed of light.  They’re searching, they’re confused, they’re wandering. And really, they’re in the mountains and forests of the UK, so every background is gorgeous.  With or without the UK landscape, the film captured the frustration, desperation, and despair of the trio.

I think it was the best of the Harry movies so far.  Deathly Hallows was my favorite of the books, which is perhaps why I enjoyed the films so much.  I can’t really picture things when I read, so by watching the movie  I could finally see what I’d read.  I can’t believe there’s only one film left.

Halftime

Those six assignments I had to complete in about a week’s time?  Done.

Do I know it’s November? Yes.

Is November half way over? Yes.

Is it almost Thanksgiving? Yes.

Is it almost 2011? Yes.

Yikes. I did many things I did not expect in 2010.  I didn’t do many things I wanted to do.

I will not be an official student in 2011. Maybe then I’ll be able to do some of 2010’s uncompleted items.

Waiting?

In a quest to find a new graduate program, I have discovered what I already knew: Getting a master’s degree in something in which I’m really interested is expensive. Anything remotely ministry-inclined is more than twice as much as the degree I’m quitting. I find this to be ridiculous.  How can master’s degrees in fields specifically non-profit be so expensive?  Hello? I won’t be making any money with this degree?

I don’t want to go into more debt just to get a master’s degree.  But I don’t really see a way around it/  I’ve read a lot about avoiding debt and I’m totally on board with that. It’s just so unavoidable.

I’ve read about how Christian women my age who want to someday get married and eventually stay at home with their kids shouldn’t acquire debt because they won’t be able to pay it off.  There are two problems with that statement to me: someday and eventually.  I’m not going to put off graduate school for someday or eventually.

I believe in being prudent, planning for the future (whoa how I plan), etc, but I don’t believe in just twiddling my thumbs. I have no prospects in the young man department. None. Whatsoever. I’m not waiting around for nothing.  I don’t think God wants me to wait for nothing. I just don’t know what I’m waiting for or what I should do/what I should spend while I’m waiting.

Live every week like it’s shark week [Tracy Jordan, 30 Rock]