Chicago Banana

Blow Blow thou Winter Wind

2007-01-08T16:48:00.000-06:00

It's a line from one of Shakespeare's plays:

Blow Blow thou Winter Wind
Thy tooth is not so keen
Because thou art not seen
And thou thy breath be rude
Hey ho, sing hey ho
Unto the green holly
Most friendship is fading
Most loving folly
So hey ho the holly
This life is most jolly

I miss being in a place where people understand me. And here few do. And I haven't seen them recently. So I've been living in a world of loneliness. I've gotten used to it again. The numbness factor. I can either cry myself to sleep at night or be grateful that my friends aren't around, for I wanted to watch a movie anyway, instead of talking to them. I'm digging myself into the latter again. No wonder I and others feel so close to actors and muscians. They are the ones who are there for us when no one else is. They are the ones who will share their hearts when everyone else stays tight lipped.

I'm scared that I'm going back to a place I thought I escaped from, but coping mechanisms exist for a reason. And I don't know how to fill up this hole except with these legal drugs.

Stand in the Rain...

2006-09-23T17:07:00.001-05:00

It's raining outside, and I'm listening to Superchick's "Stand in the Rain." The only thing keeping me from going and doing the action myself is that I already had a shower today, and because it is cold rain, I would only stand out there a few minutes. Besides, it would be consumed by loneliness and self-pity.

I don't post on here much anymore. It is because there is not much I feel the need to share with someone, yet not share with anyone who knows me. But today there is something. I've spoke of the difficulties I had with a roommate last year. This year I moved in with girls from my church, and as a whole it has been incredible. But community incorporates the pain in life as well as the joys, and this evening is painful.

A few minutes ago two of my roommates left for downtown Chicago to celebrate the birthday of one of our friends. I really wanted to celebrate that friend's birthday with her, but I didn't know about this excursion until an hour ago. And it was because I asked where they were going; I wasn't invited.

And that hurts. I know the thoughts in my head saying that no one likes hanging out with me are nothing but lies, but it still hurts. My other roommate works tonight, then has plans to hang out with a coworker who will be leaving soon. I don't fault her; she didn't know about it either. But it is hard to ignore the anger towards the other two. A picture of the four of us sits on a side table, and I turned it over so I won't have to look at during this long lonely night.

Because my emotions hurt, because there is a hole, the temptation is to fill it with a movie. Or an endless stream of songs, such as this one. But I think I will try to do homework instead. Get it done now so I'll be available if something comes up where people do want to hang out with me. The songs may have to be in the background, however. When one is lonely, the sound of rain hitting the pavement only makes one lonelier.

It is moments like this when hope is hardest to hold on to. And when it is most necessary.

Stand in the Rain...

2006-09-23T17:07:00.000-05:00

Financial Catastrophe

2006-05-26T15:16:00.001-05:00

Financial catastrophe:

I don't know if it is something even worth being upset about, but I am. To the point that I don't want anyone to know. Except an anonymous blog.

I want to be able to sort through this and for someone to be able to help, but I don't want to journal about it and have to deal with the lies that might pop into my head as I do so. I want someone there to tell me when the thoughts are lies.

But I don't want anyone to know. So I hang my head in shame, averting eyecontact, as I question God.

And maybe its those last four words which make me the most ashamed.

Financial Catastrophe

2006-05-26T15:16:00.000-05:00

Writing to no one

2006-04-29T22:09:00.000-05:00

I've lost my readers, haven't I?

Not that that matters, for at peak I think I had three. It is most discouraging to loose Feesh. I only knew her through blogs and to know that all contact is gone is pretty discouraging.

At times like this my default has been, and to a certain extent still is, to wonder what I did to drive them away. Was it something I said?

I'm trying to not automatically assume now that people are mad at me when we lose touch. It is probably healthier this way, but doesn't do much to deaden the pain.

I'm considering writing a book comprised of letters to people who have died. That is the easy part, though, writing to the dead, for I know they won't reject the letter, they won't reply, they won't hate me for it. It is writing to the living that is truly difficult, for they can reject.

Who cares about ghosts, deep down I fear the living more than the dead.

The desparity of Holy Weekend

2006-04-15T21:13:00.000-05:00

I've observed Holy Weekend in a much more significant way this year than I have since entering college. The despairaging thing is exactly how sad this all makes me. Not a visible sadness, but something very prevalent. I can't tell if it is the happiness or the joy that is gone. No, you won't see that if you're around me. I am too happy around people, and I forget how hard this week is. But in these silent moments, alone, this is when I find myself in the state of mourning, wondering if I really understand the joy that will come tomorrow, or have I missed out on that too.

In reality, I'm afraid, afraid that in my heart I don't understand why Jesus had to die, despite the benefit of hindsight and two thousand years of theology to explain to me. Why did he have to die? And how could one man, even a perfect man, atone for all of us?

I worry that I don't understand. I worry that even after tomorrow, I still won't understand.

Crying for Shani

2006-03-23T21:19:00.000-06:00

I meant to post this a long time ago, back when the Olympics were still on. But here goes...

The Chicago Tribune had a fair amount of coverage for one of its hometown heros, Shani Davis. One of the articles talked about the antagonism between Davis and Chad Hedrick. Hedrick was mad at Davis for not supporting the team and losing sight of that aspect. Davis' argument was that no one supported him when the going was rough, so now he was just out there for himself.

I identify with Davis a lot. I felt alone and abandoned by my high school cross country and track teams. I'm still not sure how close I feel to my college team. In early March some hard thinking brought me to a place of feeling very, very alone when I was around them.

But God is a God of grace. I'm working to forgive all of these teammates, every single one of them.

Meanwhile, for Shani, I say this. My sophomore year of highschool track I had a huge fight with the coach right before the State meet. We're about the same age, you and I Shani. You're less than a year older than me. I nearly got kicked off the team the night before we left. It was agony. I went to State and I ran my event. Second, I got second, and a PR. Silence from my teammates, silence from my coaches. They saw me as someone who had neglected the team. I won't go into details. Fact of the matter is I did push them aside a little in pursuit of my own goals, with their original approval. When they withdrew that approval, they were all mad.

I don't regret my stance. I had to stand up for myself, not get walked on. But it is a lonely, lonely thing to conquer and have everyone turn their backs. For you, Shani, my heart weeps.

The Geraniums on my sill

2006-02-28T22:44:00.000-06:00

One of my geraniums is blooming.

I don't understand why it does. It lives on a basement sill in the Chicago winter, in a pot much too small for its current height. I water it once a week or so. I never talk to it, or play Mozart. No fertilizer is involved.

And yet is blooming. Five red blossoms doing their best to share beauty with the world, while two buds wait expectantly for their turn.

They overcome such adversity. And yet, they bloom.

Why do I have to be thin?

2006-02-24T11:30:00.000-06:00

At five feet five inches and a weight of 156 pounds, I am, according to the BMI scale, marginally overweight. For that reason, I am attempting to lose some weight in hopes that control of my pounds as a 22 year old will translate into better health in the future.

The thing is, I only have to lose a few pounds in order to become "healthy."

I'm a size 14 in jeans. The few pounds I hope to lose will bump me down to a 12.

But I get the feeling I'm supposed to be thinner. Honestly, most stores only make up to a size 16, and then you have to shop at special places. And people frequently point out that everyone in the U.S. is far heftier than people were twenty years ago.

So, other than a little bit of weight shed for health reasons, do I have to be thin?

Encountering Sam

2006-02-13T20:16:00.000-06:00

Today I ran into a guy named Sam who was a counselor at the camp I worked at last summer. Sam used to go to this school, but is taking a year off and was just visiting for the weekend.

I don't really like Sam. I find him a little annoying, at times negative, at times mean, not to me, but to others, which irks me just as much.

But Sam seemed glad to see me. He asked me if I would sit with him as he ate lunch, but I brushed away the question and left, intent upon going to the library and getting some homework done in the hour I had before class.

As I was walking away I wondered if I should talk to him afterall. I really didn't want to, and if it was only a matter of feeling guilty, that wasn't a good enough reason either. Suddenly I stopped and looked up. "God, if this is just me feeling guilty, I don't want to go." Then came the whisper: "If you knew that talking to someone was going to change their life, would you go?" Well, yeah. And in I went. Sam was a little surprised to see me, but didn't seem to mind too much.

We talked. I challenged him on some areas. It's easier to challenge people I don't like than people I do, which is completely opposite the way it should be. What is that thing in Proverbs, something about how you can't trust the compliaments of your foe but rebukes from a friend are sweet?

Anyway, I didn't feel like I made much of any sort of dent. But when I got up to leave, as he was finishing his salad, he thanked me for coming back, and said "It's always good to see you." I can't honestly say the same thing about him. I got other compliaments as well, about that I was nice and stuff. Considering he is one of the people I have not been nice to at times, that came as a surprise. What is it about me that makes him think I'm noteworthy?

Why is it that I spend forever trying to impress some people, wondering if they'll ever notice me beyond accidently sitting on my feet, but other people whom I have no intention of ever impressing and couldn't care less about greet me cheerfully, genuinely appreciate me spending some time with them, and honestly respect me, when really I don't deserve it?

Either those people see the broken mess of me and actually appreciate it because I'm not pulling wool over their eyes, or, and this is more likely, God has a twisted sense of humor.

Of Loyalty and Friendship

2006-01-21T10:41:00.000-06:00

Last night I realized that a year and a half ago there were two specific people whom I considered to be just about my best friends, and both relationships have gone to pot. We'll call these people Samuel and Shannon.

After a fight between Samuel and I last spring we have technically patched things up, but other than some apologies and acknowledgments of forgiveness, we have not been in contact since then. And yes, I am glad that there is not antagonism between us, but I really miss talking to Samuel.

Shannon got a boyfriend this time last year, and like several other friends spent a great deal with the boyfriend and other relationships suffered as a result. I knew Shannon and I hadn't been quite as close, but if I'm honest with myself, the fact that Shannon is getting married in the spring and I'm not invited, well, it downright hurts. I don't know what my response should be to that. Shannon still emails me occasionally, so I know she isn't completely bitter towards me. I think the other think I wonder about is that Shannon's roommate Melissa, who graduated the year before, didn't invite me to her wedding either, even though I thought I was really good friends with Melissa as well. So then I wonder if both of them just wanted tiny weddings, and I didn't make the cut or if I have done something to offend them.

And if I considered all these people, Samuel, Shannon, and Melissa, such good friends, what really is a good friend.

You know, in the Middle Eastern culture it takes awhile to develop a friendship, but once it is there, the two people would literally die for each other. Sometimes I think I was raised in the wrong culture. Because that is much more of my response. I am often hestitant to call someone a friend because of all the weight that term carries for me, but it is difficult to shake my loyalty after that.

One of the most touching things I saw over break was a certain scene in "A Beautiful Mind", when John Nash goes to Princeton to ask if he might study in the university's library. While in the office, he has a schizophrenic moment, then asks Hansen if he would be willing to pretend it had not happened. "What are friends for?" says Hansen. Nash pauses. "Is that what we are?" he asks, "friends?" "Of course" Hansen replies. Nash spent so much time pitting brains against Hansen that he never considered it a friendship, only a rivalry. I think the scene touched me because I'm beginning to realize that the people whom I consider to be close might not be, and maybe the closest people are ones whom I have never considered. Maybe they are the ones who will still be loyal to me years from now. And I wonder if I have done anything to push away those whom I love.

Grrr!

2006-01-15T17:10:00.000-06:00

I know this is something everybody rants about, but it is really bothering me right now, so I am going to rant about it anyway.

I hate finding out that my friends have changed. To be more specific, looking at blogs of friends I have, who just graduated recently, who I knew well even a year ago and having to double check and make sure it is them, because all I can think of is, "Who are you? I don't know you any more!"

And it makes me wonder if I ever did know them.

Improbable but True?

2005-12-10T10:16:00.000-06:00

Do you ever have those thoughts come to your mind, where you realize that the string of events which your mind pictures is improbable, but if true would explain a lot of the confusing events of the past year and a half?

It's one of those things where you're scared it might be true, but you kind of want it to be true because if it's not then the events of the past year and a half are still a mystery, still confusing.

Sometimes I wish I was the type of person who was okay with being confused and not having a clue what is going on.

The changes between autumns

2005-12-08T18:59:00.000-06:00

Last fall I had the worst time concentrating. It is something I often spoke about on here, my fears that I have ADD and my frustrations that I never could seem to concentrate.

This year has been so much different. There have been specific times where lack of concentration is present (with roots in spiritual warfare) but for the most part, as a whole, I am able to concentrate so much that I zone. It is one reason I have updated so much less, because I am not bored, because I am able to focus, so I do. It is a whole new world of intense concentration.

Thank you God for granting me this ability. Thank you for constantly pointing out that my desires to drop out of school are lies placed within me that I am not smart enough. Thank you that above all I know that you love me.

God With Us

2005-11-29T23:52:00.000-06:00

For the most part, I prefer contemporary worship songs to hymns.

Except at Christmas time. And Easter too actually.

As I was walking to my night class a few hours ago, some nearby bells rang out the hour, then proceeded in the melody of "Angels from the Realms of Glory". It is not the most popular of Christmas hymns, and I have never heard anyone carol with it, but it created the desired effect.

A couple was walking past me and I wanted to jump in front of them and exhuberantly yell, "Emmanuel is with us!" But I didn't. Still, my heart lept.

I love Advent. I love the waiting, which is only compounded now, for in a sense I have been waiting all year long.

You can disciple anyone, as long as you love them enough

2005-11-27T17:52:00.000-06:00

So I am one of those weird females who has never dated but still has a bunch of names picked out for her kids already. First and middle names. And she hopes with the last name, but that is another story, a private story, one that must not be printed, even here at this rediculously anonymous site.

One of the many things incorporated into the names I have picked out is that most of them have a tie in somehow to one of my siblings or close friends. That is intentional, and though I am not Catholic and don't really know much about godparents, I think that I would really like to assign primary responsibility of each of my children to one person in particular. I mean, if I ever have kids I'd like them all to be close to my siblings. But that is probably not hugely feasible, and I guess I always wished I had a mentor, especially an uncle or aunt that I was really close to. Half of my aunts and uncles aren't Christians and the other half I mostly never ever talk to. Ever. It would just be really cool to have one of them invested in my life, writing me once a month, knowing what was going on, having known me as an individual from the day I was born.

I guess I want that for my children as well. And since I have six siblings, all of whom are growing into men and women of God, that seems feasible.

The thought struck me the other day, what if they don't get along? You can't just assign random people to each other based on a name which was assigned before they were a fertilized egg!

Oh, but maybe you can. I have some people who I am friends with, though not my closest friends, who I don't know why I am friends with. These women have just decided to take an interest in me and to still be around when all is said and done. It's not something I really understand. But at the end of the day, both as a theory and as a practicality, I think that:

"You can disciple anyone, as long as you love them enough."

Yes, feesh, there is a Duchess of Hope

2005-11-27T17:28:00.000-06:00

Feesh, the little doubts in your heart are wrong. They have been affected by the skepticism of a skeptical age. They do not believe except what they see. They think that nothing can be which is not actually on the Internet for them to read. All doubts, feesh, whether they be big or small, are worthy of question. In this great universe of ours known as the Internet, doubts are a mere virus, a distraction, making us think that the friends we have gained in the virtual world are dead, in a coma, or no longer interested in speaking with us.

Yes, feesh, there is a Duchess of Hope.

She exists as certainly as websites and blogs and comments exist, and you know that they abound and give to your life its highest beauty and joy. Alas! how dreary would be the world if there were no Chicago banana! It would be as dreary as if there were no Feesh. There would be no intellectual discourse, no emotional compassion via comments, no reassurance that romance will one day come our way. We should have no enjoyment, except in online cartoons and in formatting webpages. The true beauty in writing a post for the world to read or ignore would be extinguished.

Chicago Banana has left the air! You might as well not believe in fairies. You might not be able to find my posts on the blog every day, but what would that prove? Nobody sees Duchess of Hope post, but that is no sign that there is no Chicago banana. The most real things in the world are those that neither you nor I can see. Did you ever see fairies dancing on the lawn? Of course not, but that's no proof that they are not there. Nobody can conceive or imagine all the wonders there are unseen and unseeable in the world.

You analyze the website and see that it is a series of 0s and 1s, but there is a far greater mystery entwined within the heart and soul of those 0s and 1s which not even the strongest man, nor even the united strength of all the strongest men that ever lived could tear apart. Only faith, poetry, love, romance, can push aside those mundane letters and view and picture the supernatural beauty and glory beyond. Is it all still on air? Ah, feesh, in all this world there is nothing else real and abiding.

No Chicago banana? Thank God she lives and lives forever, well, for a while yet anyway, barring strange and unusual circumstances, like spontaneous combustion. A thousand days from now, feesh, nay 10 times 10,000 days from now, she will continue to make glad the heart of feesh.

Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year!!!!

(This was poorly parodied and half-stolen from the famous editorial you can find reprinted here: http://www.newseum.org/yesvirginia/)

On-Air

2005-10-24T23:11:00.000-05:00

I did my first live solo dj radio shift tonight. What an exhilarating experience! Beforehand I was so nervous I thought I would throw up. Afterwards I was pumped with all the adrenaline coursing through my veins. There would be chunks of dead time, interweaved with on-air nervousness. It is like going on highs and coming back off of them twenty times in two hours. Oh the rush!

Happier on crutches?

2005-10-20T21:22:00.000-05:00

Why is it easier to be happy when I am on crutches?

Is it because I long to be noticed and people who haven't said a word to me thus far suddenly ask me what happened? Is it because I am experiencing a tangible difficulty which I can persevere through as if I was in some inspirational movie, instead of just wallowing in an indescribable nothingness? Is it because it is easier to bunch all of my pain into one area and then ignore it? Is it a grandiose state of denial, as I crutch around smiling, all the while not acknowledging that I wish I could be running across golf coursese, my hair flying in the wind? Is it because I don't want to think about how my church friends, the people whom I was happiest around a month ago, seem disappointed that God didn't heal me so they don't even look at my crutches anymore?

I don't know.

Surreality

2005-10-20T21:15:00.000-05:00

My period started yesterday, and it feels surreal. I don't know why. I have been having it like clockwork ever since I was 12; almost ten years now. Almost one hundred and twenty times. It bothers me, but not in an annoying way.

I think it is that my body feels so weak right now. I can't even walk without pain. And yet my flesh is still showing signs that it could support another human being. It just seems wrong. Other than the amounts of fat that make me a size 12, nothing about this body seems suited to be a home to another person.

I was actually a weak late and thought I might be skipping this month, which would have been weird, since most of the time if girls lose their period it is because they are exercising too much, not because they stop exercising.

But this, this just feels surreal.

Ticked on behalf of men...

2005-10-10T14:23:00.000-05:00

As far as my roommate and I can discern, a lot of the women in our academic program have crushes on this guy named Daniel. In some ways this makes sense. There are not that many single men in this program, I only know of three, and Daniel is goodlooking and polite.

But what about the other two? John and Brian may not be as cute as Daniel, but I think they are a lot more interesting. So I don't understand why the group of girls May and I have deemed "The Wolf Pack" is only interested in flirting with Daniel. Who, by the way, isn't the type of charmer who flirts back.

I think the thing that really dissappoints me is that this program is for people who wish to be a missionary someday, and it is really hard for me to see all of these girls be shallow enough to fawn over the cute guy and ignore the other two. Missionary training should be above junior high antics and games.

The humbleness of crutches...

2005-10-03T23:10:00.000-05:00

I'm on crutches now. It was a huge step for me to take because it advertises to everyone that something is wrong, whereas walking slow is noticed by less people and is commented on by even fewer, and the noticeability rating does not easily correspond to my natural reluctance to be vocal about this injury.

But this has been good, a chance to see another area of my life where pride oozes in. It has been humbling to see how not everyone understands, how many belittle and don't realize I am already struggling, despite the smile on my face.

I've only had my crutches since two and am still getting used to them. Because I can in fact walk without them, it is tempting to return them to the training room and continue my hobble around campus, which is still faster than my crutch around campus. The thing that keeps these metal sticks under my arms is the knowledge that I will probably heal faster with them, and since my other stress fractures, for which I never used crutches, all took longer than normal to heal, hopefully this will help me heal at the prescribed rate instead of the elongated one.

One problem: crutches function on the assumption that a person still has one good leg. And I don't. I have a better leg, but not a good leg. I'm toying with the idea of a wheelchair, but I'm really not sure it is worth the hassle. And that would really raise questions...but maybe that is just my pride again.

It Is Well With My Soul...

2005-10-01T15:08:00.000-05:00

That is the simplest way of saying it. Because ultimately that is the only thing I am sure of.

Yesterday I came to the realization that the shin splints that have given me minor pain for only one week, and major pain for only a week after that, are now a stress fracture. Maybe two.

This is either four out of four (years) or five out of four. I'm used to this by now. At least I'm supposed to be. I can do the self-diagnosis, I know which red tape to wade through, how to set the wheels in motion of getting official proof that I am injured. Otherwise very few believe me.

Which irritates me. When someone says, "I have a cold" do people say "Are you sure?" No, we believe them and express sympathy and reminders to do what we know must be done for colds: orange juice, sleep, chicken soup, and echinaea. I don't think people realize that I get injuries as often as I get sick now. Stress fractures in particular, but when knees are added, it all comes down to that I know what bad pain is. I am not a wimp, and I am not backing out on practice. Why don't people understand that?

Fact is, I'm not okay. I decided during warmup yesterday and finished running to the park because I didn't have a ride until I got there. Then I went behind a tree and sobbed for half an hour while everyone else did intervals. Somehow I regained composure, and by the time I went to the training room to set up a doctor's appointment (I'm actually curious to see if I only have one stress fracture or if I have two. There is a slight chance I have three) and to supper, I was surprisingly cheerful. When I got my wisedom teeth out several years ago they told me that the laughing gas would make me not care that they were sticking an IV in my arm. They were wrong, and I cared very much, for the gas only made me even more hysterical than usual. Last night was actually kinda funny, because I asked a freshman, the one who is taking Latin, about his day, and he asked me about mine. I am so sick of being injured that I tend to not tell people anymore, and I even debated about writing it here, but I probably need to express some of this stuff. Anyway, I was telling him about how I had had some major assignments in the past few days, so after my Arabic test that morning, everything had been pretty laid back. Then I cheerfully told him I have a stress fracture and the season is over for me. The look on his face was priceless. His eyes were so big. It was actually pretty cool. There was so much compassion in them. But it felt like I was on drugs, or really strong laughing gas. For a moment I didn't care.

One thing for which I am very grateful is that God cleared away the other junk in my life before he brought this. I have gotten along well with my roommate this week, and she has actually been very supportive. But she went to Minneapolis to run a marathon this weekend, and in the silence, in the barrenness of the apartment, it is really hard. I see some of the signs of depression coming. I don't understand why God did not heal me despite my furtive prayers when a mere week ago he reassured me there was a purpose to running, and a purpose to running fast. Why? I don't have answers. Part of me still believes that God will supernaturally heal me, but part of me wonders if I am just in denial. I wasn't ready to end the season.

I wasn't ready.

Running in a Dream

2005-09-25T21:45:00.000-05:00

Last night, either in a dream or in a vision right before I fell asleep, I found myself running. I was running by the side of the constitution trail, in Normal, where I used to live, running through the gardens tended beneath the bank that used to make up a railroad line, running in the most beautiful way, fast, with long bounding strides that never stumble or fall, leaping over the wooden boards that separate sections of the gardens but never growing tired, and feeling a beauty better than adrenaline.

And suddenly I understood what it meant to run and feel God's pleasure. I understood another part of what I hope heaven will be like. To run and not grow weary.

Tension

2005-09-25T15:58:00.000-05:00

I once heard a sermon about how tension between ministry partners is good. Close to the most worthless sermon I've ever heard.

But I am coming to realize that tension can be good, especially in a generic sense of balance.

Case in point: sometimes recently I have been really lonely, in addition to feeling far from God. Yet several times a week he shows me that he is using me for his glory, orchestrating things in some really cool ways. This only happens, however, when I am aware of how insufficient I am. I was kinda self-righteous for awhile, a few weeks back, thinking I could do all this on my own power, that if I willed it enough, I would love her and do just what she asked. Now when she ticks me off I just tell God there is no way I can love her. Any love at all is from God, for I can't even love those who love me, and if I don't feel loved by her, there is no way I can generate anything for her. I get so tired, tired of trying, tired of failing, tired of only receiving more things I need to do in order to be her ideal roommate.

Yet when I am in this frame of mind, God shows me amazing stuff. Like Friday night.

This morning a girl asked me how grad school chapel compared to undergrad, and one of the things I mentioned is that we don't pray as a community, something I really miss. She says she doesn't like those prayers because it is so depressing about how many people are in pain and hurting, how there is always someone sick with cancer, or whose baby is struggling, or who is mourning the loss of a loved one. Yeah, that can be depresssing, but I am so grateful for those reminders. Because life is not a bed of feathers or a garden of roses. Well. it is, but we are all allergic to feathers, and all of those roses have thorns. Life is hard, and in a community of two thousand people there are always people in pain. Even if there are not, people around the world are suffering, and what right do we have to ignore that because it makes us uncomfortable. We ignore the starving in Sudan, the child prostitutes in India, the persecuted Christians in Indonesia, the baby girls killed in China, but if that isn't enough, we don't even want to hear that our friends are in pain. Leave that to yourself, this girl seemed to say.

Nay, young one, nay. We are called to mourn with each other. To care that each other is in pain. And if you don't understand that, you have probably never been in true pain yourself. Hopefully you can learn without having the experience, for true pain is not something I would ever want to inflict on anyone.

Last Wednesday we sang "It is Well with My Soul" in chapel. My admiration for the song increased threefold as I looked at the verses and what they really say. To summarize, "Life is hard, God is good, heaven will be cool". Sometimes we try to skip to the last two verses, but that is only wonderful because of the first verse. It is this very tension which makes it wonderful. Wonderful.

Friday night

2005-09-25T15:43:00.000-05:00

Friday night was amazing. As I ran in a cross country meet I reached a point of weariness about half way through, and suddenly into my head came the whisper, "Even this has a purpose. Even running faster has a purpose." Good enough; it gave me the strength to run faster.

Afterwards I went to the award ceremony and recognized the guy who won the men's race. I had prayed for him after a race two years ago when he was looking and feeling discouraged. I went up to him later and told him this. He looked at me with shining eyes and gave me a hug. I had realized his college was at the meet but I wasn't sure he was still around, nor was I positive what he looked like. God had really recalled that instance in my mind, and from talking to this guy, it sounds like God had recalled it in his mind as well over the past few years. I was just surprised to learn that he remembered who he was. Yet he seemed so grateful. I am just happy to see that God is giving him success in running.

After the meet we were on the bus, and one of the freshmen was doing Latin homework. I asked him why he had picked Latin and he didn't have a good answer but was pretty sure he would stick with it through the requisite three semesters. As he closed his eyes to drift off to sleep, I heard God once again whisper, "Even this has a purpose" and sat there with a full confidence that God would somehow use this knowledge of Latin for his glory, even that I should pray this freshman would be dilligent in his studies of this dead language. Sweetness.

True Motivations

2005-09-19T23:14:00.000-05:00

So between this blog and another shallower one which I keep more for my friends, I feel like I am writing this profound stuff and not getting any comments.

That bothers me. Partly because it makes me feel like no one reads my entries. And partly because it has this vague flavor of always starting new conversations in which no one else wants to be involved. Here is the mental picture I'm getting: walking up to a group at a party and asking a question, and really wanting to hear everyone's answer. And everyone looks at each other for a moment and picks another topic. Makes me feel like the awkward kid I guess.

But it keeps my motivations true. I started posting on here because I had all these thoughts in my head and I didn't think anyone wanted to hear them, but just in case I started writing them down here, because I did want to share them. So if no one does read them, I haven't really lost anything, especially as I can type faster than I can write, and this stuff isn't stuff I would take the time to record in my hardcopy journal.

So really it's a win-win-win situation. I always like those.

Something more

2005-09-17T19:27:00.000-05:00

I got to see my brother compete in a race at today: amazing. It was really cool how God worked a lot of it out. My sister and I left for the race at 10, but until 8:45 we really weren't sure we were going to have any transportation there. It's only 76 miles, but that's a tad too far to walk in three hours. Or even run.

Anyway, we arrived in good time, I went for a run, my sister hung out, my brother did really well, I found some out of the way places and yelled my head off cheering for him and his teammates, and had fun being at a cross country meet where I didn't have to run. Yeah, even running gets a little old sometimes.

Then came the really interesting part of the day. I was talking to my brother afterwards, asking him if he had done his strategy (running with two guys on his team and taking off at the three mile mark; the race is five miles long) and he said one of the guys hadn't made it to three miles because he "fell". I asked for an elaboration: fell down or fell back. He fell. Soon after that the coach pulled the team together and said this kid, Dan, had fallen down unconscious while on the trails in the woods. When the medics reached him he was barely breathing, his heart was barely beating, and he barely had a pulse. So he was rushed off to the hospital.

The coach called for prayer, and the group stood around and prayed. Standing behind the circle I began to hear sniffles, and I didn't know if others were afflicted with the nasal drip that I get after hard physical exertion in a race or if people were crying. Looking at their faces after the prayer confirmed that latter.

Watching people's reactions was just this really intense time. I don't know Dan, but my heart broke for all of the others who were so scared and sad and confused. I wanted to go around hugging all of them, even if they were still dripping with sweat. But I wasn't sure that would mean anything; most of them didn't even know who I was. I didn't know their names either, but that didn't matter right then.

Because I ran hard yesterday and was expecting my nose to drip a lot today, I had a lot of tissues in my pockets. As God would have it, my nose wasn't very runny today, so I had a bunch of clean tissues in my pocket. I gave three or four of them away to the people whose faces were the wettest. That was especially important to me for this reason: when I was in eighth grade a girl in ninth committed suicide. I didn't know her well enough to be upset. One of the hardest parts for me was watching all of my friends cry and not being able to do anything. One of them asked me for a tissue, and I didn't have a clean one. I didn't even have that to offer. That is why having clean tissues today meant a lot.

Soon the another men's team came over and said they wanted to pray for Dan too. Whoa. Totally unexpected, at least on my part. But very encouraging too, since my team sees that team so much that I have begun to know a lot of their names and I try to talk to them at meets. So we got into a big circle, put our arms around each other, and prayed. Sniffles were coming from the guys next to me, and I tried to reassure them by gently moving my thumbs over the bare skin on their shoulder blades. Several people prayed, from both teams, and then the circle broke. But how powerful it was, as two complete teams and representatives from a third team, as well as some parents all got together and prayed.

My brother's team was still in shock. I don't know if taking pictures at a time like that is completely appropriate, but I surrepticiously took one of a runner who just sat down by his bag and opened up his Bible. In the background is another runner, on his cell phone, calling for people to pray. I have no idea who either of the guys in the photo are, but I think that will be a really powerful picture, to me at least, for years to come.

The thing is, my brother's team won. Tied for first, rather, but if the rules of tiebreaking are placed into effect, they won, beating the two top ranked division three teams in the region. And the tie is with a really good division TWO school. But that didn't matter. Sometimes I get so tired with the idea that running is life. It was a mentality fed to me in high school, and sometimes I still see it now. In the face of this, it becomes so unimportant. The upperclassmen and coaches had to drag some of these guys into their cool down, something they partly did so that the runners would have time to process and think about all of this.

I later learned that one of the reasons the other team may have come over is that a guy from my brother's team transferred to the other school this fall; hopefully through this he'll have a path to reach out to some of his teammates. But he didn't appear to be the leader; the coach appeared to be the one drawing his team over into unity. That really impresses me, someone able to exert that subtle leadership, which is sometimes far more effective than direct leadership. One of the my brother's coaches had also been wrestling with this guy's transfer, but reasons were already becoming clear.

You see, that guy didn't transfer in order to run for a better team or get better academia; he transferred because he wanted to reach out to a secular campus. Inspiring. Every time anyone at my school begins to look at social activities as the sole purpose of college I think they get a lot of flak about not wasting their education. But what if we didn't look at this time as solely academic learning but as a mission field.

The last report, which came before we left the meet at 2:30, was that Dan was conscious, on oxygen, trying to speak and failing, but able to answer questions with his fingers, such as when his birthday is. But if any of you pray, keep him in your prayers.

From Wealth to Poverty

2005-09-17T18:16:00.000-05:00

The title isn't quite accurate: I never was truly wealthy, and I am not in true poverty now.

But I do think it interesting that a matter of months ago I checked calorie content of my foods to make sure I wasn't eating too many per day (symbol of an affluent country with too much food so its citizens become fat) and now I check calorie content to make sure I am eating enough (sign that I am on a small meal plan and am often too cheap to buy the extra food that makes up the other 14 meals in the week).

Hey, it takes three days too starve. And meanwhile, I'm slowly loosing weight, a feat I haven't been able to do in years.

The Smiles of Children

2005-09-16T10:52:00.000-05:00

I love how kids around the world all look the same.

I mean, they dress different, their hair styles might be different, and ethnic features come into play physically, but ultimately, when they smile, they look like they could be from anywhere. I don't think it is the same with older people. By the time people reach adolescence they have this wearing down of the face. Or maybe it's because they start wearing makeup. Or because proper decorum dictates how they look and act.

But seeing a picture of a kid grin? Man, I 'm starting to realize that is one of the best things in the world.

Named and Claimed

2005-09-13T13:40:00.000-05:00

I'm not sure I have the right to rant about this, since I have never been personally affected by it, but I do not like it nonetheless.

From what I understand of American culture (yes, I grew up here, but that doesn't mean I understand it) once a girl decides that she likes a certain guy, none of her friends are allowed to like him. Her crush upon him has made him unavailable, especially once it has been declared, and anyone who goes out with "her" guy with full possession of another's crush is engaging in a deep sense of betrayal. It doesn't matter if the guy doesn't like the first girl and has secretly liked the second girl for a couple years and is just now getting up the nerve to ask her out, and if the second girl has secretly liked him back and has merely refrained from announcing this to all of her friends. It doesn't seem to matter, it is still grounds for lifelong hatred, and if the girls were close friends, deep hurt.

I seem to remember something slightly correlative to this in "Bend it Like Beckham" but since I haven't actually seen the whole movie, I can't be sure.

Is this true, or am I unaware of major clauses of exception in this unspoken and unwritten rule? Is the same true for guys, or is it more of a firstcome, first served, since, traditionally, they are the ones who ask girls out anyway? The guy in "Chariots of Fire" seemed mildly shocked when the girl he had been "worshipping from afar for years" was swept off her feet by his friend who had just met her, but at least in the movie they are still friends.

I hate getting half of my knowledge of how the world works from films.

Pancakes and Being Creepy

2005-09-12T20:45:00.000-05:00

So one of my professors has people over to his house for supper on Sunday nights. I signed up for last night and went, me and three others from my class. I'm more food conscious now because it is mostly me, which is probably why it disturbed me more than usual when he told us that any pancakes we didn't eat he was going to throw away. This was about ten pancakes (I tried not to count them, for I knew it would only bother me) and I sat there thinking how I could make a couple meals out of that. I very nearly asked if I could take them home with me, but chickened out. I already felt very juvenile, as if I didn't belong, and that seemed it would just exacerbate the situation. Part of that came from my two most significant conversations at our department retreat the day before being with a sixteen year old named Wesley, nephew of a professor, and a four year old named Ruth, daughter of a co-student. It's like I can't relate to adults or something.

Along that vein, on Sunday I was walking back from church, and a boy on my street was blowing bubbles in his front yard, near the street. I stood there and watched them, popping some of the bubbles. A woman in a truck was watching us, and I turned to go, but the boy began following me. I told him I would change clothes and come back with my own bubbles. By this time the boy's mother was calling him from the front door, "Matthew! Matthew!"

So I changed and came back, and realized I had probably creeped the mom out, which I later learned that I did. Apparently Matthew is friendly to all strangers, but I decided to make amends by going to the front door, ringing the door bell, and introducing myself to the mother, Valerie. I blew bubbles with Matthew for awhile before he ran off with the neighbor boys, then talked to the Valerie for about an hour. She told me she had had a long talk with Matthew explaining to him why he shouldn't talk to strangers. The woman in the truck had been a neighbor who was also concerned.

Do I look creepy? I realize people have to be careful, but I guess I am not used to being someone who is potentially threatening. No one was worried about me when I was six, and sometimes I still feel six. Or maybe twelve. And since I wasn't really sure how to go about meeting neighbors (they only live a block away from me) that felt like a lot of pressure as well. But I told Matthew I would come back, and I think it was good that I did. He was already a little wary of me, probably thinking I was one of those kidnappers his mother told him about, and not returning would have reinforced the perception.

So I am learning about life. About growing up.

Discovery of the Day

2005-09-07T18:01:00.000-05:00

I've stopped combing my hair while in our apartment, mostly so that I limit the amount of hair I shed on the floor. Now I comb my hair while walking to school. It looks slightly uncouth, but it saves me grief. But I've misplaced my good comb, so meanwhile...

Yesterday I learned that it is possible to give my hair a good comb-through with only my fingers.

Love thy neighbor?

2005-08-31T19:33:00.000-05:00

What would you do?

I'm a Christian. As a Christian, I'm supposed to love my neighbor, with the definition of "neighbor" extending to all mankind. This is something which most people, whether Christian or not, would concede is a good thing, to show love to the people of the world.

If you aren't aware of the news right now, hurricane Katrina has devastated parts of the south, particularly New Orleans, which sits below sea level. A levee broke and flood waters have rushed in. There is no victim count, for every resident of New Orleans is a victim. Deathcount? The mayor of New Orleans said, "Minimum, hundreds. Most likely, thousands."

They knew Katrina was coming, but there is no way to stop a hurricane. The best you can do is get out of the way. But as in most major cities, a percentage of the population does not have the means to leave. So the Superdome became a refugee center, a place for everyone to go.

Hundreds of people packed in a football stadium. No place to go. Knowing their homes are being devastated. Leaky ceilings. Breaking toilets. Dwindling supplies of food, water, and medication.

Would you have ceased this opportunity to show love, or would you have gotten out? Would you have given your car, or plane ticket, or bus ticket, to someone else so that they could go, knowing you would be left behind? Would you sacrifice your transportation for the elderly, the pregnant, the children? Would you seize this unique opportunity to for once in your life show love to your neighbor not by baking them cookies, but by helping them escape a hurricane?

I'd like to think that I would have seized this moment, but I'm not there. I can't be sure.

So what would you do? Do you believe you should love your neighbor, and if so, how strong is that love?

To laugh

2005-08-29T20:34:00.000-05:00

Just now I realized that what I really wanted to be doing at this exact moment was rewatching a movie I saw once called "Down Periscope." This movie isn't particularly touching, deep, serious, or rewarding of my time. But it was funny. And thinking of it made me chuckle inside.

That's what I really want right now, something to laugh about. Why did this hit me all of a sudden, because I left the apartment on a bad note? Is homework starting to get to me? I wish a lot of this would just go away. I wish the conflict would go away.

And

2005-08-29T20:19:00.000-05:00

And....

I got nothing.

I live with a perfectionist. That's about all there is to it.

High Standards Mean You Have to Work for Them

2005-08-28T13:21:00.000-05:00

A lot of the high standards I have I also receive some support in. At this evangelical Christian school I don't get teased for being a virgin. No one makes fun of me going to church every single Sunday morning. And although it hasn't been an issue yet, I even think most people would at least respect my not wanting to kiss a guy until we were engaged.

There are, however, about two areas which I receive flak about: headcoverings for women and serious observance of the Sabbath. Some people think my adherence to these things is cool, others try to argue me out of them. I wonder if they think I am legalistic or something.

Case in point: I just did an entry about bending over backwards for my roommate and just accomodating to her. The one issue I didn't back down on is that she wanted to make cookies for our neighbors. Fine, great. We decided to make them today, and we decided on a time. Great. Last night we were going to go shopping for the stuff we didn't have yet: butter, baking soda, and vanilla. I was doing homework, but I said that I was available anytime to go with her. That's when she decided that she was tired and didn't want to go to the store last evening.

I was going to be okay with that, but I felt so convicted. After about five minutes I knew I could not bake those cookies in good conscience if I let materials for them be bought on a Sunday when I could cause them to be bought on a Saturday. So I got up to walk to the store.

May could have covered the distance in five minutes, for that is how long it takes to drive to Jewel. But I don't have a licence, so for me the store is a thirty to forty minute walk. It was 7:20, and I had no clue when the store closed. I considered running, which I knew might screw up my knee, and maybe the store closed at 7 and it would all be for naught. Or maybe it closed at nine and I didn't have to run. After a brisk five to ten minutes, I ran into a friend I haven't seen yet this year. He was coming out of the library and heading to his car and he offered to give me a ride.

It was very much the graciousness of God. I exited the store at 7:50 with a huge smile on my face. My friend hadn't had the time to drive me back, but that was okay, for the really important part was getting there on time, and I did. Rarely have I been so overwhelmed by God's grace in looking out for me as I attempt to follow my convictions. He provided. The walk back hardly seemed bad at all, so full of joy I was at this newfound revelation. I felt like some sort of an Eric Liddell. And it was wonderful.

I'm Walking On...Eggshells?

2005-08-28T12:59:00.000-05:00

And roommate drama begins again. Maybe I'm just not used to a normal relationship. Maybe this is suppossed to be like a marriage, which I once heard described as functioning when you both feel like you're investing sixty percent and the other person only forty, but sometimes it can feel like you are investing eighty percent.

I love my roommate, May, but much of how she functions is far more high maintenance than the laid back persona she claimed last spring. Last week I learned that I am comfortable when I am surrounded by clutter. Really clean and organized places make me feel on edge. Consequently, I am not at home in my apartment. No matter. It is a ten to fifteen minute walk, so I spend most of the day on campus. Yet she is the one who complains about how far away it is. Ironic.

I haven't brought up any of my reservations with her. I don't care enough about being comfortable to demand we not keep our apartment tidy. Besides, since so many people strive for tidiness, demanding otherwise would just seem to be weird, even to me.

Yet I walk on eggshells, never sure if I am doing everything correctly. That N'SYNC, or is it Justin Timberlake, song often runs through my head, "Every little thing I do/ never is enough for you." I'm scared I'll mess up and she'll move out. I guess that is not really feasible, since we both signed a lease guaranteeing we would stay until May. But it worries me. I wonder if I just have difficult roommates, or if I am that difficult to live with. Strange, for May has thanked me several times for being so accomodating.

At the same time, I'm happy. I am honestly grateful for the way God has worked things out. And May talks to me. Since my love language is quality time, it is nice to have a roommate who indulges that, instead of just mutually living in the same three rooms. But since I don't know if I am enough for her, it just feels like loveing someone a lot who you never know if will run out of the relationship. I think I know now why divorces are hard.

Embracing Slavery

2005-08-08T18:35:00.000-05:00

My greatest fear for the coming school year is not the increased academic work of grad school, the possibility of humiliation and leg pain in cross country and track, or the tight budget I will have to keep. It is the idea that I may not be able to remove myself from the second-class citizen mentality I have been forced into for the summer.

Really it was the only way to survive, to view myself as a slave, the willing sacrificial martyr whose pain allowed others pleasure. But because the people receiving pleasure were always "out there", on the other side of the counter, it was weird to be sitting among them tonight.

It was weird to know three-quarters of the people there, receive hugs from three of them, and know several more of them well enough to bestow hugs upon. But wait, aren't these people my superiors? Aren't I supposed to sacrifice my very blood for them? Yet they treat me as an equal. I know better. It is taboo to sit at their table. For the sake of group bonding, I'll sit with the other rejects.

This could be overexaggeration, but because of this summer I very keenly feel what it was like to be a slave in the deep south, and all of the struggles of kind masters and emancipation.

The danger and the apathy

2005-08-02T18:19:00.000-05:00

There is spiritual warfare up here. I can feel it, mostly in the apathy. I was away for a few days and I was fine, but now, it has all come back. I want, no, I need to get out of here, but I have prayed about ditching out early and the answer seems to be no. All I know is, it's dark up here.

Reflections on the Summer

2005-07-31T18:16:00.000-05:00

I’ve Had a Great Summer

and I can say that with complete honesty, although some disclaimers need to be included. You see, I cannot summarize my time up here as happy. There have been good parts, but there have also been so many difficult moments that are left unresolved to this day. This summer has been wonderful because I have learned so much, and one of the primary things I have discovered is the difficulty of being a pastor’s daughter.

In some ways it seems ironic that this summer was the course to self-discovery. My father has been a pastor all of my life, and I have already experienced many of the bumps that jolt the child of such a professional. But not until this past week did my reflections about my summer up here give me understanding about a significant challenge that I and others must face: overcoming the lie that I am unimportant.

The truth is, I am unimportant, a mere speck, a grain of sand. But God gives us importance, and when his instruments neglect, there is no recourse, no promise of Christ to which to turn.

Many of the rough times I’ve had this summer cames as a result of feeling terribly alone, that despite the fact that I was surrounded by people, no one invested into my soul on a regular basis. My problems were addressed when they began to affect others. When I began to complain, or cynicism and bitterness arose, I was told that in order to achieve the Biblical stance
of a cheerful worker these feelings and emotions should not be present. But I couldn’t get rid of them, so the only recourse I had was to stifle them. When I did so, all the anger became pent up inside of me, and I struggled even more.

As the daughter of a pastor I watched my father minister to others. I have nothing but respect for all of the work he has done. But in many ways I have felt shafted. I was important, but not as important as those around me whose ministry needs had to be attended to first. My sins and issues and dilemmas might be significant to me, but they were small in comparison to everyone else in the church. And I might need love, but the dissertation had to be written, and I learned to accept all of the consequences of that, both the lack of time my father had for me, and the impatience he showed me, the lack of grace which fell upon me because it couldn’t fall upon others. The point is, it’s not true. I am important. I need to be loved and for reasons which I still don’t understand, God has created within me a desire to be loved not only by him, but by those around me. I know people love me, but I don’t always feel it to the extent I long for.

I am grateful I learned more this summer about the struggles of being a pastor’s kid, because whether we always realize it or not, we are far too often told lies, not from the mouths of those around us, but by their actions. Consequently, I will always be grateful of what I learned this summer, and I sincerely hope that it will help me better minister to those whom I meet in the future.

Tell me one more time...

2005-07-15T16:59:00.000-05:00

Last night I realized the disjunction that seems to be present in our society. "Stop me if I've told this story before...", I say, and we joke about elderly people who always tell the same story every time they visit.

But we are content to watch the same movies, over, and over, and over again. Until they are virtually memorized.

Are not the stories of our life more interesting, more captivating? When did we forget? When did we begin to neglect each other and ask for an outside world to tell us stories.

Maybe we have none. Maybe we should go make ourselves some.

But does anyone want to hear the stories that make up a life. For life, says Randy Stonehill, is not a garden of roses. Life is not always happy endings. Life is not karma, or the health and wealth gospel; life is...LIFE. And we have been given it more abundantly.

So now go and live.

Watching Time

2005-06-21T18:10:00.000-05:00

There is not clock in my corner of the kitchen. I can see what time it is when I enter the main kitchen in order to wash my hands or throw something away, but only if I remember, since the clock isn't in my main line of sight.

For the most part, time is marked by happenings. I got to work after devotionals, then there is one breakfast shift eating, and afterwards the cooks eat, usually around nine. When new people walk into the kitchen I know that the p.m. shift has arrived, and it's around eleven, give or take ten minutes, depending on whether Esther came early to grab breakfast before work, or if Kara is late again. Hoards of people arrive around 12:15 and again sometime around 1. If none of the cooks care to inform me of when we are eating, my stomach usually complains enough to drive me out of my corner. Lunch is usually over around 2:30, and the morning shift leaves at 3. Sometime between then and supper at 5:15, when another hoard of people arrives, a bell rings.

Those are about my only signals, but it makes for an interesting time, like a modern interpretation of people who observed the wilderness in order to know when parts of the day should occur. And maybe in that way, not in the camping and hiking way, I am returning to the wilderness.

Max

2005-06-21T18:00:00.000-05:00

Max got sent home yesterday.

Max was here with service team, a bunch of high schoolers who are too young for real jobs here, but too old for every other program, so they help out around camp. Max was here for a week, in the kitchen, so I got to know him a little bit through that.

I won't say he was a good worker, because he wasn't. I won't say he obeyed all of the rules, because he didn't. He acted like a punk, like he was the coolest thing in the world.

But I liked that kid. That was something really cool about him, beyond the coolness he thought he exuded. Because something about him was real. He was someone whom I was praying God would show me how to love, that God would give me the opportunity to love, that somehow God would use me to impact this young man.

He got in trouble more than anyone else on the service team, and when he got into trouble, it was deeper trouble than everyone else. Others did things that caused there to be new rules, like riding in dryers at the laundromat, things where they should know better. Max broke already existing laws. In the midst of all this, I wasn't sure how he lived out his faith, but I wanted so badly for him to become a deeper man of God. l wanted to watch him grow and become who he was meant to be. I felt like everyone was giving up on him, but I wasn't. I don't. I won't.

I'll miss that kid.

Strange birthdays

2005-06-14T20:20:00.000-05:00

On May 28th I turned twenty-two. I don't mention this for congratulations but because I wanted to comment on the fact that I always spend my birthdays doing strange things.

This year was actually pretty good. I worked late for a ten hour day, not including breaks for meals, but my roommate Bethany made me an incredible dessert, and right after work was over I changed into a skirt and went to a square dance. My feet hurt when it was over three hours later, but I had a wonderful time. I love it when guys swing me hard. I definitely thought of Mark and my first square dance and how hard he swung me and how I threw up. He swung me more gently after that, but I was dissappointed because I so loved being swung around. Isn't that the point?

Last year I worked in housekeeping, an ordinary day. Only three people who were there with me knew it was my birthday, and one can be ditzy and the other two weren't talking to each other because they were attracted to each other. Then I made some confusing decisions about who to spend the evening with and it just all seemed a mess.

My 20th birthday I was at home. My mom wished me happy birthday, my dad forgot until four days later, my sister went to a banquet that night, and I spent the evening getting certified for first aid. Exciting.

My 19th birthday I was getting ready to go to Amsterdam. My grandparents dropped me off, I spent the day in the library on the Internet, and zero of the people whom I was going on the missions trip with remembered it was my birthday. But Andrew did, and got me seven yellow carnations when he found out I was on campus. Yea! Best birthday present I've ever had, especially because I didn't even know he was on campus.

18th: It was Memorial day. I might have run a race. I know I spent the day studying for finals, which were the following four days.

17th: Can't remember.

16th: It was the first day of the two-day State track meet. I nearly got thrown off the team two days before. None of my coaches talked to me. Neither did any of my teammates.

15th: Can't remember.

14th: That was a good one. I got back some tests that I had done well on, and had taken a test I felt good about. My parents took us to Dairy Queen to use all of the free tokens we had hanging around the house and rarely got around to useing. One drawback: Phil Hartman, the actor, was murdered by this wife that day. Not that I was a big fan, but I knew who he was, and it was slightly traumatizing to have it happen on my birthday.

I don't have solid recollections of previous birthdays. I know I had some parties occasionally. Accidently ignored a friend at one, probably eighth grade one.

Not yet gone

2005-06-14T20:15:00.000-05:00

It has been forever and a day since I have written anything here. My life seems boring. Sometimes I am completely happy with where I am, amazed at how God has changed my heart, and other times I am miserable, pleading with God to tell me why he has forced me to come here. I sound bi-polar. Add that to the list of manical tendencies I possess.

Meanwhile, I've missed you all, in a very virtual sense.

Changing the Face of How I Look at Things

2005-05-26T18:10:00.000-05:00

So I'm not the only person working in the kitchen who is struggling with depression. And since I room with kitchen staff, I room with depressed people.

I have four roommates. Three of them struggle with depression, one of them only sporadically, and the other two more hardcore. Of the three of us who are really struggling, only one is taking medication for it.

The other struggler was late in returning to work from her break today. Really late. She left for her break at nine, and no one noticed she was missing (it wasn't that busy of a day) until after we finished lunch. At two. At that point me and another roommate walked over to our dorm to wake her up. She was in the shower, and she takes long showers. It was 2:45 before she returned.

There were a lot of reasons to be indignant at her. No, we weren't busy as a kitchen, but my section is and I could have used the extra help afforded by her presence, either by her or by someone else being freed up to work with me.

But since I know she is struggling, I didn't chew her out when she walked in. The first thing I did was ask if she was okay. She wasn't. A friend of hers died last fall and she got a letter from her mom saying there was a memorial service for the friend today. She already struggles with not being home this summer, and this just made it more so.

No, it's not a good thing that she skipped nearly six hours of work. But she is working right now to make up for it. Some might argue that the depressed shouldn't be hired, but personally I need to be able to get up and go to work each morning. Being told I was ineligible to be hired anywhere because I have a tendency to be depressed sometimes would only catapult me into depression more.

Moreso I am glad that I understand. Its interesting: on any given day only one of the three of us is depressed, which means the others can support her. In many ways I feel so fortunate to be in this situation because there is this mutual understanding, and we all got desperate and forlorn enough to let it spill out instead of hiding it inside. The other interesting part is that we all retreat to our rooms a lot, which is fairly common in depressed people, but since we all share the same room, we are just all there, all the time, except for the girl who isn't depressed and who is always galavanting off with her friends and such. But we don't mope around. We either all read books or we do fun stuff, like hold random conversations about old movies and musicals and goats and growing up and what we like and pants and food, or we watch movies together (so far "Clue" twice and the 2003 version of "Peter Pan" once). If there is anything I like about this place it is the fact that I feel like for the first time in my life I have a rooming situation that I don't want to change. I like it. And rooming with people I like and talk to is a new thing for me.

(no title)

2005-05-24T20:17:00.000-05:00

I was definitely depressed today, although I think it might have partly been not eating well. If you have everything else primed for depression, makeing sure you sleep enough and eat well is a good thing. I have definitely been sleeping enough. Everyone comments that I still look tired, but if I slept more, I think it would just be the depression sleeping.

The weird thing is I wasn't planning on telling anyone, because I was afraid they would report me. That is one of those things that once it gets on your medical transcript you're toast. No one cares that I had bronchitis two and a half years ago, although it means I start coughing when I breathe too deeply while inside the walk-in freezer. I wasn't even planning on typing this here, since I can well imagine one of you contacting this camp and telling on me. (I won't share my lollipops with you if you do! Nyahh!).

I wish I could hear what people say. I wish I was absorbing the compliaments and encouragment people are giving me here. I wish I wasn't viewing it all from inside of a bubble. That was the prayer I just repeated over and over again at the worst point this afternoon, "Open my ears, God, open my ears."

Why don't I leave, Mark? A huge reason is that I honestly, honestly, honestly believe this is where God wants me. I am actually having a great time with my roommates, at least two of them who are also depressed. Laughing together somehow makes it better when we know we are all depressed.

I could be overdramatizing this. Miller once accused me of that doing that a lot.

The bigger reason is that I have nowhere to go, nowhere I guarantee will be better. I don't like my home in Pennsylvania. My dad is moving to New Hampshire midway through the summer because that is where his new job is, while my mom stays in PA to finish working on the house and to sell it, so my family won't even be together this summer. I don't have the airfare to go to Europe, and I would probably be just as lonely there. I can't guarantee I will be better if I go to Colorado will I worked last summer.

For me depression really just comes when I feel alone, unappreciated, lonely, friendless, longing for a community I am not even sure exists, longing for friends I don't even know that well. I also miss a certain guy, but he doesn't know I miss him and can't know I miss him. So I just really want to get to a place where I can see the people around me, to remember that I just had a really cool conversation the night before, that my roommates care, that they don't mind if I sob in front of them, that most of my coworkers are cool, that people are very affirming here.

There's a wall. I need to get over it.

If nothing else, I'm remember what it feels like. I already went through all of this and more in high school. But I forgot what these feelings are like. So now I am remembering.

Ignoring the temporary

2005-05-23T14:52:00.000-05:00

So I decided yesterday that the easiest way to deal with my current problems would be to ignore them. Yes, I hate it up here, but I will be gone in a short three months. And what's three months? So I don't like it. Who cares? No one's dead. I'll just put myself into a mental coma and wake up when its all over.

The one drawback (well, maybe there are more. The one that scares me) is the potential that I could go insane and just completely ignore reality until I am so far removed from it that it no longer exists.

I wonder what kind of mental patient I would be. I am reminded of an old movie called "Arsenic and Old Lace" in which there are a bunch of slightly loony people. One of them was convinced he was Teddy Roosevelt. I can't think of any famous persona that I will lapse into. Any suggestions for consideration?

Actually the more realistic worry is that this won't be a temporary problem and I'll have to pay attention to them. Or that God is trying to get my attention this way and by ignoring my problems and hurt things will just get worse until I am sitting in the middle of the driveway sobbing and literally tearing my hair out. I hope not. I like my hair.

"I Know, Because I Wrote a Paper About It..."

2005-05-19T18:12:00.000-05:00

I have begun to realize lately how stuck up a sentence "I know, because I wrote a paper about it" is, and how often it is used. It is like this punctuation mark, probably an exclamation point, a so there. I didn't realize how annoying it is until it was flung in my face last fall.

It has taken me this long to figure out what bothered me so about that night.

But it is used, so much. By college students, at least at my college, probably at others also. As if writing a paper about it makes us an expert on it. No, it doesn't. It means you have done some thinking about it; it doesn't mean we should all bow to your superior wisedom. It doesn't mean that if you write about a controversial topic that we must all assume your point of view. Writing a paper is nothing. I have chugged out plenty of those in a very short amount of time.

Sorry, this post sounds a little angry. One of the people who flung it in my face last fall is up here at the camp too, and it was decided at noon today that as of Monday she will be working in the kitchen all summer. With me. Groan. This is the last person I want to work with. I don't feel respect from her, or any of her friends, whom I once tried being friends with and then gave up. Her friends are the ones who speak Thai. Figuratively anyway.

Yuck. Things were getting better and now they are just getting worse.

Erasing the Tower of Babel

2005-05-16T19:47:00.000-05:00

English is becoming this language know around the world. So a couple months back I began to worry about the possibility that we were erasing the effects of the tower of Babel, and then I began wondering if God would punish us, or do something to prevent the erasure from happening, or what.

Then I realized that he doesn't have to do anything. So what if we can all speak English? That doesnt' mean we will be able to communicate? I just spent four years studying anthropology and how to communicate with people in other cultures and I can't stand being in this subset of American culture. Communication majors spend years just trying to figure out how to communicate with people, and fail, might I add, since both my ex-friend-kinda-friends-again and my younger sister are communication majors. Fat lot of good it did them in relating to me.

I mean, miscommunication is huge amoung Americans! Even within marriages, the big thing is always lack of communication. We don't need another Tower of Babel, because even if everyone in the world spoke English, we still wouldn't have the foggiest what each other were saying.

Freud and Cinderelly

2005-05-15T14:20:00.000-05:00

One of my first cohesive thoughts this morning was that a debate I would really like to see/hear woud be one between Freud and Cinderella with her "a dream is a wish your heart makes" philosophy.

I don't know that I would agree with either, but I'd still like to see the two of them dukeing it out. But since one is dead and the other is imaginary, the likelihood of it happening anytime soon is pretty minimal.

Take me away

2005-05-12T20:43:00.000-05:00

I have now been at this camp I am working at 76.5 hours, and I still don't like it. I keep waiting for my wanting to leave to wear off, but it hasn't gone anywhere. Let me rephrase that: I don't want to leave because I honestly believe I am exactly where God wants me for the summer, so I am not planning on going anywhere. And I do like some of the people I have met up here.

Its just that I don't like it. I feel like I am looking at a summer where I will learn more from the pain than from the joy. I think I am lonely. I miss all of the friendships I have worked so hard at, especially since part of their philosophy here is to isolate everyone since that helps community. Yeah, it does, but I don't want to leave friendships that are just getting good.

The really hard part is that I had so many people say I would love it up here. And I don't. I didn't want to tell anyone that I don't like it. I wasn't even planning on typing it here. But I don't like it. I feel so out of place. I am trying to view it as a different culture, the one of rugged, unshaved mountain men. But the people here are too like me to think that. I thought about trying to pretend I was Laura Ingalls Wilder, but although that pretense might get me through a half hour of not wanting to be here, I can't spend the rest of the summer living in a fantasy world.

My mind drifts to everyone, except those here. I don't think I have ever felt more homesick than I do now. But I don't know where I want to go. I am tired of my suburbia school. I don't want to return to my parents' house with all of the tension and soon packing, which I hate. I want to run and escape this all, but I can't even physically do that. So I have played seven games of solitary pool in the last three days, just trying to keep my mind off of everything. I want to write my parents, but I don't know what to say. Tell them I don't like it here and the highlight of my day is throwing away rancid food? Can I go to Germany? I am already trying to escape there by reading a book about a WWII battalion and carrying German vocabulary flash cards in my back pocket.

Since people seem to expect that I will like it here, I feel like I am letting them down by not likeing it. I hope it gets better once more of my friends are here. I think two more of them arrive Sunday. No, people isn't the problem. I just don't like here.

Manipulation

2005-05-11T20:06:00.000-05:00

So here is the thing. I have already made mournful comments on this blog about my finanical status. And now a solution has arisen that may solve it all.

It was my dad who came up with the idea and on Sunday told me to do it. He hates the idea of me being in debt even more than I do, especially because he knows I want to enter ministry, and he is living a life where the ministry is not paying, even though he has a doctorate.

As my family was sitting around, chiling, before commencement began, he suggested I ask my maternal grandparents to lend me the money for grad school. Borrowing from my family is a better option than borrowing from the government since they have the money and they won't charge me interest or financing charges. I could borrow some from my older sister. A lot from my paternal grandparents. But my dad wants me to ask my maternal grandparents.

Here's why: We both know they will probably refuse to lend me the money and just give it to me. Yeah, they would give me the $25, 000 I am thinking about asking for. They have a ton of money but don't spend it on much. They might be very happy to give it to me.

In some ways this seems so ideal. I have trusted God to provide this money and here is a very viable option. Not radical like I thought it would be, but simplistic and perfect.

Problem is, it feels a little like manipulation, asking my grandparents for a loan, yet knowing they would probably just give me all of the money. I love my maternal grandparents so much. At times I have felt so unloved, but I have always been able to know that they love me, literally unconditionally. I don't have to be enough of something for them, and that has meant so much to me.

So how can I ask them for this money? Two weeks ago I had to apologize for trying to manipulate a friendship and in the process I damaged it. How can I do this to people I love more?

At this point I don't know if I still haven't forgiven myself from two weeks ago or if I am full of pride about my own ability to conquer insurmountable debt or what? And the thing is, if this is literally God showing me a way out of my debt, turning it down for any reason would be the most foolish thing in the world.

Any of you guys have any input?

Helpfulness

2005-05-11T19:58:00.000-05:00

I am starting to realize how important a trait I view helpfulness to be. I don't think about it as being an important trait, but the words I say or hear other people say, reflect its value. "The secretary is so helpful" people gushed about the woman in the missions department, and they were right. The lady in the scholarship department, on the other hand, was unhelpful, and that was all I had to say to people for them to empathize.

No, it is more than that. One of those last in-your-face remarks I want to make to some people is: "You" as I point at them, "Are not being helpful." And then storm out. Nearly happened at graduation. We had to walk by all of the professors and one in particular, who had a rediculous class which I dropped to pass/fail and who can not teach and who very nearly made me abandon all plans for Germany, was smiling at me, and I had to look the other way. Otherwise I just wanted to yell, "You! You were not helpful to my being here today!" But I restrained myself.

As if being helpful was a requirement. I don't say kind, or gentle, or compassionate. Helpful. I have a keychain from Korea because I was helpful three summers ago. And I was helpful at dinner on Monday night, partly because I was bored, partly because I wanted to be, and partly because I figured that would be a good first impression for all of these people whom I was meeting. So much in a small and overlooked word. Weird.

Graduation

2005-05-09T00:47:00.000-05:00

Yes feesh I graduated today. It was actually pretty sweet. Joni Erickson Tada was the speaker, and I think everyone really respected what she had to say. I mean, I respected my sister's graduation speaker too two years ago but he was also just boring.

I had a decent amount of fun. One of my friends has the same last name as me, so even though we aren't super tight, we talked the whole time. I was definitely a talker. Talked up a storm. But my pseudo sister liked it, appreciated the fact that I was loud. Its always nice to find people like that.

Traditionally gifts are handed to the president of the college as we shake his hand. I gave him a nickel. He could take it the wrong way, but he shouldn't. A nickel is important. I am honestly thinking about writing a novel entitled, "Do not despise the nickel..." It already has a lilt to it.

Okay, lets start posting graduation stories. Feesh, Mark, Ben, Sarah, anyone else who comes here, let's hear them, high school AND college.

One song, two memories

2005-05-09T00:30:00.000-05:00

This morning in church we sang a song called, "We Will Dance." Afterwards the pastor got up and spoke of how there had been a revival at my school back in March of 1995, and that was the closing song sung after all of the confession and prayer was done.

I find it interesting that this is his association with the song, because for me it is completely different. Obviously I wasn't around in 1995 to sing the song at the closing time. But I was around in the fall of 2002 when Zack died and we sang that song at his memorial service. It was emphasized that it was his favorite song, and now I will always link it to him.

One song, two different reactions. I guess I should remember that many things are that way.

Can I respect you if you don't respect me?

2005-05-08T01:26:00.000-05:00

Today was our final track meet, and as always we voted on awards and new team captains. I didn't get any, but I am used to that, as bad as that sounds. Though generally an optimist this is honestly an area where I go in expecting the worst in order to prevent disappointment.

What threw me for a loop was the new long distance women's captain for next year: my sister. Yeah, she is fast. Yeah, she'll be a junior. Yeah, she has influence. And if I wasn't going to be on the team next year, I would be okay with their choice. But I am going to be on the team. And suddenly it feels like a little bit of the pull we have always had. My older sister was captain as a junior. My younger sister will be captain as a junior. Me? I am not going to be captain at all. And if there is one thing that can crush all of the nice things people said to me at the "goodbye to seniors" time, this recognition is probably it.

No, that I could all get past. The real problem is that her captain status will technically mean she will have some kind of authority on the team. So I am supposed to look up to her.

A. That feels highly unnatural as my younger sister
B. She doesn't treat me with respect, so I don't know how I am going to treat her with any. I don't want to look up to her. I am not even sure I can.

I'll probably be fine by the time track season roles around, but tonight it is a little irritiating and hurtful, and probably something else too.

The need to be needed

2005-05-05T02:55:00.000-05:00

Weird. I am up at an insane hour, taking a short break from packing which is still going to be another 45 minutes to an hour. But right now what I want most is an paniked email or phone call from a friend who needs me to talk to them. I think I view that as a good enough reason for me to be up at this hour, and I want that reason to present itself. Right now I just need to be needed.

Third time's the charm...

2005-05-04T23:43:00.000-05:00

Midway up the back of my right shin just started hurting really badly. I've had shin splints for the past month, but this is specific and more painful than the minor shin ache I have been dealing with. I am not going to tell my coach since I still want to run on Saturday and there is nothing he can do for it. I may or may not run tomorrow. I honestly think this is a stress fracture, in which case it would be the third one I have inflicted upon myself. I amaze myself, either at my stupidity or at my studliness, I can't decide which.

The Beauty of Simplicity

2005-05-04T19:32:00.000-05:00

Its packing time here at college. Well, its finals too, but the two I cared about are over, and packing stresses me out way more than finals ever did. I had a nightmare about packing last year, and I have never had one about finals.

It is at times like this that I wish I lived the simple life: two shirts, two pairs of jeans, none of the books which I never get around to reading anyway...

In this frame of mind I rejoice at the fact that I am discarding some stuff. One pair of jeans has significant holes at an unacceptable spot. Two of my nice shirts have stains, one of which I am going to throw away for sure.

Then comes the drawback: I have this many clothes for a reason. The pair of jeans I am wearing right now are beginning to tear at the same unacceptable spot. There are about three more in my room, all too tight, which I guess will be an incentive to lose weight. And there is also the fact that I wore two pairs of jeans to shreds last summer, and if I do the same this summer I am not going to have anything to wear. And those nice shirts? I have them for a reason. They match my skirt. I will only have one nice short-sleeved shirt left after this, and I know both the pink and white matched the skirt, but I will have to check the pale green one.

I can't decide if I sound pathetic or like a spoiled brat.

Reading as a hobby

2005-05-04T00:27:00.000-05:00

Sometimes I feel guilty putting reading down as a hobby because I do so little of it outside of school. That changed today.

I was thinking about my summer schedule. I had two finals this morning. I'll pack tomorrow, finish Thursday, take my final final, go to a track meet Friday and Saturday, walk the stage and shake the mighty president's hand on Sunday, then head up to the camp I'll work at this summer on Monday. I'll be there until the weekend before grad school starts in the fall.

"I need a vacation" I thought. But what would I do? I really like hanging out with friends, but most of my good interactions are unplanned. I'll have a couple weekends off this summer, but I don't know if I will feel rested, or just more stressed with all of the traveling.

"What do you want to do for a vacation?" I asked myself, and I answered myself so quickly I was shocked. "I just want some time to read all of those books I really want to read but never get around to." Yeah. That is my idea of a vacation. Learning, at exactly my own pace, my own rhythm, my own interests. And to write, to finally develop one of the ideas I have for short stories and novels and screenplays and plays. I think being able to do these two things, reading and writing, would let me stretch out myself and be who I want to be. But I also like being around people, so a complete retreat wouldn't work. I don't know. I need to be introverted, but I also need to have people around.

Actually maybe I just need to be by myself with a constant flow of communication from those whom I am sure love me. I do better with long distance communication anyway. And the whole written thing is so nonintrusive because you can read it when you want to and as many times as you want to. Wow, maybe I wouldn't mind solitary confinement. Maybe it would feel like a vacation.

Tips of the day for females

2005-05-03T23:56:00.000-05:00

Yeah, so what I learned today is not to pull your shirt off until you are absolutely sure no one of the opposite gender is within eyeshot. No, nothing happened, but it was a little too close of a call.

I also decided that there are times when a guy is just too cute to talk to, but at times you just gotta get past it and talk to him if it is important. If you work hard enough you can forget for awhile that he is cute and just talk to him. For example, a month or two ago the most handsome guy I have ever seen came to my German class. All of the other girls just kinda sat there with their mouths open. My jaw definitely dropped the first time I saw him, especially because he was smiling and his smile makes my heart melt (clicheish but true). But eventually I got past it and got to ask him a ton of questions about Germany, my true love.

Second example: This past weekend I was around the guy that I like and it was distracting. I couldn't really look at him, but then I ended up in a conversation with another guy who was there. The guy I like was watching us as we did this intense discussion, and I was so aware that he was watching me, but, maybe this sounds pathetic, I really cared about the discussion and so I focused on arguing my point and not about him, and I'm glad. I guess I have some strange priorities. Oh well.

Harmonious sharing in the midst of wealth discrepancies

2005-05-01T23:12:00.000-05:00

I kinda already posted about this, but it still is getting to me.

"Share and share alike." It is the attitude I would like to go into next year with. But what if one person has a lot less than the other? How do I explain to her that I can't afford to buy meat? That I plan to eat my full from the 7 meals a week I get, supplement it with the money I am being forced to use at the coffee shop, and live on cereal and peanutbutter the rest of the time. How do I explain to someone whose parents are paying for grad school and who will pay for a second grad degree if she chooses to pursue it that I am going to be working my butt off for the next three semesters but will graduate with somewhere between $20,000 and $30,000 in debt. I mean, I actually expect God to magically make this money appear from somewhere. But I am not going to live recklessly meanwhile.

I went to a concert with her and another friend on Friday night, and that is when I really began to realize how different we are. It was a loud rock music concert, quite a difference for someone who is graduating from the conservatory. I wasn't even sure why she was going. But the thing is that she did not relate to the people there at all. You know, the teenagers who dress all in black and smoke outside inbetween sets, who mosh in the middle of the floor. The guy who helped us get in when we got there late and will call had shut down had three lip rings, I think. But these are the people I want to reach. I felt more comfortable around them than I do around her in some ways. Except for my clothes don't fit into either. But I already posted about that.

So that is my question, how do two roommates live together and share their stuff if one has way more than the other? I don't want to exploit her so I will probably swing the other way and not eat anything she buys, which can be grossly insulting. I am so confused. I wish I could watch a successful scenario of this.

Elders and morals and music

2005-05-01T22:24:00.000-05:00

The identity of those critisized in this post might be a little too obvious to some of my friends. For that, I apologize.

Yesterday I was working at the radio station as I frequently do. One of my coworkers asked me if I own the first Lifehouse CD, and I do. He asked if he could borrow it and I said yes, but that I wanted it back within the week so I could have it over the summer. He said he wouldn't be long, he just wanted to download one song.

And that is where the problem arose. I am not cool with that. This radio job pays me to know a lot about the Christian music world, and the more I know about it the more I realize that not many of these people are rich off of their jobs. The artists genuinely need money. And they give up a lot for this life. But even if they didn't, I just think its wrong. So I told this guy this, and he told me he wasn't going to buy the whole CD for just one song. And besides he spends plenty of money on music already. I told him about iTunes, and he went and looked but he said he can't use it since he doesn't have the internet at home.

It basically felt like he was trying to guilt trip me into loaning him the CD. Sorry, no dice.

Here are my issues, why this really got to me:
1. Up until I began working with this man this year, I really respected him. He has gone through a lot and I talked to him my freshman year and was so impressed by his journey and his faith and where God has brought him. At the beginning of the year he definitely grabbed for power and tried to tell me how to do my job. When I confronted him on it, he made me feel like I was entirely ignorant about what should happen. And yeah, he has more experience at the station than me, but I was given this job, not him. A couple days later he apologized and I forgave him, but I have still been cautious around him, afraid of more critisism.

Yesterday didn't help. He is older than me, substantially, enough to be my dad, and I hate telling my elders that they are doing something wrong. In this case all I was doing was preventing him from using me to contribute to a sin. I wanted to tell him to go home and erase all of his downloaded music off of his computer. But I didn't.

2. Recently we have had some problems with CDs leaving the station. I'll look for a CD I know we have and pillage the station unable to find it. And two days or a week later it will be in a very obvious spot. Happened several times. Now I really think it was him. No, I am nearly sure it is, because he was going to borrow the Lifehouse CD from the station but he couldn't find it. At that moment I realized he has been using the station to rip off artists. I literally felt sick. My stomach turned and I wanted to throw up. I honestly view my work down there as a ministry, both to the artists and to the people who listen, and I felt like he was undermining all of it. Almost like embezzling from a church.

And he had authority to be the station's representative at the college's bookstore and get CDs for play on the radio, and I wonder how many of those he has downloaded onto his computer. Oh man, I feel sick. I wish I could tell him. I might, but I know he will get mad at me for it. Brush me off, again. You know, my college really emphasizes "loving confrontation" and this one time I feel like it is so necessary I am almost sure I am going to be ripped apart if I do it. He already knows I think it is wrong. What else do I tell him?

Tons of food or nothing

2005-05-01T22:15:00.000-05:00

Sometimes I amaze myself with my anorexic tendencies.

Earlier today I had two bowls of cereal and a banana and some candy. I went over to some friends' house late in the afternoon to see Mark, who was visiting. While I was there they were grilling, and I was a little hungry, but by the time everyone had scarfed down the meat, I was in a deep conversation and feeling a lot less hungry. I didn't plan on eating there since I was a little hungry and I am not always sure I am completely welcome there, especially since Mark had left by this time. But they offered me food, insisting they want to get rid of it before we all move out in a week, so I accepted. By the time the food was ready, my hunger was almost gone, yet they gave me this monstrous thing of potatoes, carrots, and meat inside a pie crust. I expressed my doubts about being able to eat the whole thing, but Dan told me to plunge in and see how far I got.

We sat down and began to play cards, and I worked my way through the entire thing, not even feeling close to full until close to the end. I could have come back to my room and been too lazy to fix anything beyond ramen and a few cookies. Instead I ate this monstrous thing. And now I am still hungry.

It feels like an all or nothing game. This could be because I am more conscious of my weight now that the jeans that fit me are ripping and the intact ones require less oxygen to wear. Being more conscious of my weight means I question my body so often as to whether it is actually hungry that it sometimes gets tired of telling me and lets me think I have had enough calories for the day. But right now I am starving again. No matter, there are some cookies I have to finish up.

My digits

2005-05-01T01:13:00.000-05:00

Sometimes people doubt me when I tell them I am from a different culture. They question its validity. I can't always explain it, but I know it.

So I just found another example. I was reading some random blog and the girl commented that a cute guy had asked for her phone number. She said that usually when guys ask for her phone number she gives them her brother's number.

Amusing. Even funny. Then I realized that I have never had a guy ask for my phone number. Literaly the only examples I can think of are guys who are going to call me to study or to take me to church, unless you count the junior high kid at the Switchfoot concert last year, which I don't. Did I miss something? Was this a vital part of the American culture that I have been too dense to realize that I missed?

On the other hand I am not sure I want a guy to call me. What would we talk about? It actually seems like a stupid and pointless endeavor that is just a waste of time. It is kind of like catcalls and whistles: it took so long for me to receive any that I only recently became insulted by them. And really the first ones I got were directed at clumps of the cross country team running down the street. Is there something about females engaged in the act of sweating like a pig that guys find attractive? Can they smell the phenomes from inside their car?

So I have never "given a guy my digits" and I don't know if I missed out on some part of culture or not.

Speaking Thai

2005-04-30T16:16:00.000-05:00

Why do I do this to myself?

I frequently write about my craving for love, for friends, for a best friend. There are some people who have reached out to me this whole year, but whom I now find myself instinctively avoiding. Because they are the ones who speak Thai. And I worry that they will put pressure on me to speak Thai. Or reject me if I don't learn. It is not something they have ever explicitly instructed me to do. But the feeling is there.

I spoke Thai, their dialect, my freshman year. It is a wonderful language, and I love the people who do so. But I was also snobbish about it, really only wanting to be friends with the other Thai speakers. Then I hit sophomore year, and my life experiences didn't allow me to honestly speak Thai, so I stopped, and I was abandoned. The people whom I thought were my friends wouldn't let me speak German. Not many others speak this language, though everyone instinctively knows it, and I scare some by my growing competence.

Um, let me make that a little more lucid. The people who reach out to me are often those who will never admit that anything is ever wrong in their lives. When I ask how they are doing, they reply with something like "God sustains me". Yeah, he does. And yes, if they only thing that is wrong in your life is the sniffles and a math test, you are doing fine. And if you have reached the end of yourself and found that God was there to meet you even before you asked him, "God sustains me" is the answer that best describes everything.

But more often I feel like the atmosphere that is created is one of falsity. No one's burdens are shared, because Jesus is taking all of our burdens, right? Wow, I just realized that I feel like I typed the Lord's name in vain. I purposefully used the term "Jesus" because that is how these people tend to refer to him, that particular name instead of the many other names of God. And it has made the name become slightly repulsive to me, because now it oozes with the idea of people who deny hurt and reality and hardship and pain.

Sidenote: It suddenly seems very odd to be typing this on a pink blog.

Falsity. I felt like they don't want to know my pain. When they ask my telling of it strikes them dumb. I've confronted two of them so far, and that has helped a little, but it still all seems stifled.

My frustration extends to its consequences for other people. He might have told me at the time, but I think I just found out that a friend struggled from depression in November. And, yeah, it is nice to eventually know, but why didn't he tell me at the time? I get so frustrated walking around wondering if I am the only one who is hurting, but I get more frustrated when I find out MY friends were hurting, and I wasn't there for them, not even in prayer.

Those who speak Thai meet together to pray for our campus. They want to change the campus. But do they even know the people, do they even seek to know the people, for whom they pray?

Clothes make the...

2005-04-30T01:34:00.000-05:00

Um, ben if you still read this you are going to think it is in reaction to your post, and it kind of is, but I was planning on writing it anyway. I just forgot, and you reminded me of it.

A week ago I went and saw a play on campus. From helping usher for previous plays I knew if I wanted a good seat I should arrive early. But I also had a paper due, so I made use of the fact that I had bought a laptop and toted the whole thing over.

I also dressed up, something I like to do to show the performers that I view their work as important.

These two things created a dichotomy within me. Like I was trying to feel glamorous and nerdy at the same time. In reality I am neither. I slump around with t-shirts tucked neatly into Wal-Mart/thrift store jeans. My long hair is rarely pulled back, unless it is into a blue bandana that perches atop my head and juts out at weird angles.

Sometimes I wish I wore more than just t-shirts all of the time. And some days when my friends have made me feel especially beautiful I wear a nice shirt. I used to wear necklaces with the nice shirts before I broke/lost/gave away all of them.

Secretly I really like the grunge look. Of course there is something really nice looking about guys in suits. But I magnate to those in ripped jeans, black hoodies, and tight t-shirts advertising a hard rock band with a bunch of holes in their face. Maybe I hope they are real and fresh. Whatever it is, I don't fit in, even if I do admire the style.

Fact is, I am not sure I fit into any of these styles. Every time I wear something different I feel like I am donning a costume, attempting to fit the part of the role I am about to play. But I am an awful actress, at least in this respect, and I don't fake it well. I feel like a fake.

Friends and Garnet hallways

2005-04-30T00:07:00.000-05:00

There is a saying I can't quite remember right now. It has something to do with knowing who your friends are when the times are hard.

I haven't talked about it much on here, probably not at all, but my family has been going through a really rough time lately. My father is a pastor and our church has been falling apart in multiple ways. One of them is that he is no longer getting paid for his work. That has worried me for some time. But I am becoming more and more aware that the most challenging part has been the lack of encouragement the church family has been providing. Many of the older people have been dying; two in particular this past year have really hit my dad hard, especially one man who was a father to my dad in a way my grandpa never was.

Beyond that, a lot of people have just been up and leaving. If you had told any of us several years ago that our church would fall apart and given me the pick of who would stick with it and who would leave, we would have been wrong. The family whom I felt closest to for years suddenly left in December, leaving a ton of gaps. Another influential man followed soon after. But a woman whom no one in my family ever felt close to has stuck by my mom in ways I would never expect. I will never be able to convey to her how grateful I am for that. Growing up the only times I saw my mom cry was when she and my dad fought, but over spring break I saw tears stream as she described how much it meant to her that this woman was willing to be there for her, just in being willing to listen.

And now I'm crying as I type this. I can't believe it. I haven't cried about this whole thing so far. But right now I am.

Today I got an email from my mom which told of something one of my brothers' track coaches said to her. We have been considering moving since last fall, and rumors of us doing so have been circulating just as long. About seven years ago my family clashed with the coaches at the high school. Some were worse than others, but most banded together. This particular coach wasn't the worst of the bunch, but I got the impression he was someone I should avoid if possible. Back then I read people even less well than I do now, so while I couldn't pinpoint anything, I instinctively shyed away. His two daughters said some really nasty stuff to my sister and I along the way. So much for teammates.

Seven years is a long time, but I know my parents have been cautious of the coaches since then. Thus it came as a complete surprise to my mom when this coach said about my dad that he "has done a lot for a lot of kids... his place is right HERE."

Up until today I wasn't torn up about my family moving. I wanted them to, wanted my parents to leave the spiritually dark town, to go some place where they felt appreciated and encouraged. Where my dad stopped doubting that he should be in the ministry, stopped spending all of his spare time watching tv and playing computer games, where he began running again.

In that same email my mom wrote that the upstairs hallway had been painted a Victorian garnet. In the twelve years we have lived in the house it has been a dimly lit, drab white hallway, wallpapered in posters that never ceased to flap in drafts of a person walking down the hall. Now there is a light fixture in there: I got to see it over Easter. Now it has been painted a Victorian garnet. I got so excited to hear about it. Then I remembered I might never see it. I'm not going home this summer. And my parents might have moved by Thanksgiving. That was the hardest part, this sudden realization that I won't get to see the ugly hallway beautiful for the first time in its life.

Alone

2005-04-29T23:48:00.000-05:00

Two events ocurred today that were potentially severely isolating.

The first was during work this afternoon. My boss requested extra help so I went in beyond my normal hours. I ended up telling the story of why I don't have a driver's license. From the many interruptions and skepticism given my answers I realized that the story made me sound exceedingly odd. I mentioned that I don't often tell people such stories since they think, "Ooh, you're weird! I don't want to be friends with you!" The guy I was working with said, "Well, you can't blame them..."

Maybe he was joking. I don't understand guy humor. But that hurt. I know I am different. That is why I stopped telling such stories, because I fear others' reaction. There is a lot of messed up stuff in my family, straight disfunctionalism. Me not having a driver's license is more of a curiosity, not a symptom of my family's underlying problems. Actually it is a sign of how little money we have.

At times like these I always want to band to my siblings, others who understand that we are not normal but that realize we are being laughed at for things we can't change and aren't even sure we want to. When I don't feel close to my siblings, however, the one set of allies I thought I had disappears. And I am left feeling alone.

The second instance was during chapel. It was senior chapel: run by seniors, put together by seniors, for seniors. And for other people too. Often highly nostalgic. Today's was as well. But during it I began to slip into self pity as I realized something. The emotion wasn't good but the realization was:

At nostalgic times such as these people begin to pull in tighter with their core clumps. Peripheral is waylaid in favor of clump. Except that if you don't have a clump, you are left alone.

I don't have a clump. I have some friends and a gross number of acquaintences, but I don't have a clump. I am beginning to wonder how many friends I have at all in my graduating class. The two people I thought I was closest too have clumped with their houses this year.

So I began to cry out of loneliness and self-pity. The one thing that sustained me was coming to a realization: ben tells me it is hard to be close to two communities that are so far away from each other. The true community I long for is lasting and tight and goes beyond next week's graduation. Yet if I had this amazing community here, it would always be pulling me away from any other community I will ever encounter. The multitude of temporary communites I have been in serve a purpose, a very important purpose, but they aren't my longterm community. I have to believe that God has placed this desire within me and that I will one day belong to a community that will last a lifetime. But I am not there yet. It is not time for me to be in that community. Meanwhile I am practicing, practicing honesty and tact and vulnerability and compassion and everything I lack. And when I find that community, I will realize that God has prepared each of us within it for each other and that we have come together in his perfect time.

Read it, if you dare

2005-04-28T23:00:00.000-05:00

Ben told me blogging was just a passing phase. He's wrong. Blogging is this outpouring of everything that is in my brain. It is there whether it comes out or not.

Mark asked me whether I prefer solitude or people. I like both, but sometimes solitude scares me, because my brain runs rampant. If people are around I can talk to them, or watch them, or just listen to them. Do anything to distract myself from the overwhelming number of thoughts that crowd my brain, which I want someone to respond to, someone to contradict. Or sometimes I just want to get them out so they aren't tormenting me any longer. Or get them someplace in writing so that I can see them again. For over the years I have learned that the times in my life I most want to forget are the ones it is most important that I remember.

Yes, I write a lot. It's here for anyone to read. If you dare.

Slaps for Ice Cream

2005-04-28T22:44:00.000-05:00

My mind began to wonder while I caught the tail end of a performance in the coffee house. It continued to wander while I shot hoops.

I began to worry, again, about my lack of finances. My brain is active, so bear with me here, but I came to the realization that if one of my brothers were to die tonight, I don't have enough money to buy a plane ticket home for the funeral. And that scares me.

Logically my fears are unjustified. I actually do have a savings account back at home with some money in it, and if I completely cleaned out my checking account I would be fine. Home, but penniless. I know if I were really in that situation I have some grandparents who would fly me home, even some rich friends who might bail me out, and even a couple devoted friends who just might be willing to drive me home.

But what this did was give me a picture of what being really truly poor is like. Because for all of my worries, I am not it. Really poor is probably the table I passed today asking students to write letters to congressmen asking them to forgive the debts in Africa, for as it now stands Africans are being born into debt. That is poor. That is the hardest, to have debt. That is what I am really scared of, this embarkation into it. The visual that keeps running through my head is of me trying to run, and always falling, and crying, unable to keep this relentless pace. Or of Rocky running along a beach after his trainer died, getting so discouraged that he doesn't even finish the short race.

In February a recent alumna from our college visited my theology class and talked about the work she is doing, living among the poor in San Francisco. The point of the ministry is to enter into their lives with them. At the conclusion of her talk she asked about the cost of ice cream at our coffeeshop thing on campus, whether it had remained the same. I privately told her I would use some of my allotment to buy her a serving. She brushed it off, whispering that the mission organization she works with would pay for it.

I wanted to slap her. She doesn't get it. She has no clue. I viewed her as a missionary, and yes, maybe the ministry is paying for it, but she shouldn't be wasting resources like that. She views it as a flippant thing. The objective is for her to get a scoop of her ice cream. She doesn't understand what it is like to be poor, or even just what it is like to not have ice cream. Until the new system, under which the money is already charged to us so we might as well use it, was in place, I got ice cream from that coffeehouse thing about three times. In as many years. She has no comprehension of my world. And I am not even one of the people she is trying to reach.

Shooting Hoops

2005-04-28T22:41:00.000-05:00

My computer was being stupid (actually it's still being stupid: I'm typing this in the library) so I went to the gym to shoot hoops, which is one of the worst possible things I could do to my wrists.

Shooting hoops reminded me of Hoosiers. And of how much I hate Hoosiers. And Miracle. And that football one with Denzel Washington. I haven't seen it yet, but I think Friday Night Lights explains why.

"This is how it feels to be held..." - Natalie Grant

Pushing them down on my way up

2005-04-28T18:32:00.000-05:00

I have probably talked about this before, but I still think it is really sad that I do this. I am finding that some of my most significant bonding times come when I and another person complain/gossip about other people, usually one person in particular.

Like with my roommate two days ago. We bonded over our mutual dislike of a German professor whom we have both had. And one vacation I got closer to my younger sister because my youngest sister was driving us up the wall. And last summer I spent an entire day with a girl whose personality really tried me. It was only some of many hours I had spent with her, but I was reaching my wits' end. When I returned to my room I admitted to one of my roommates, Emily, that I was having a lot of trouble. I expected her to give the typical Christian advice of that I just have to get over it and pray for the girl, and she would be praying for me. Instead Emily dropped open her mouth and said, "I thought you were friends with her!" Apparently that presumption was what had kept her mouth shut. We spent the next hour recounting how annoying and mystifying the girl was. Through that conversation I realized that no one on the team liked her, in fact several of the others, including the team leader, made fun of her in front of her face, but she didn't recognize it as anything other than attention.

I am grateful for the relationships that have come out of these times, but at what cost? Deep down I don't believe it is ever right to talk badly about someone. Mostly because I hate the fact that there are probably people who rant about how annoying, weird, and everything else I am, and the idea sickens me. Yet I do it to other people. Why? What is my problem?

At times my oddness scares even me

2005-04-27T21:12:00.000-05:00

I am not your typical 21 year old white female American. This can be expressed negatively (strange, weird, abnormal, freakish) or positively (unique, special) but either way it is true, true in multiple and various ways.

In the ways that I am funny-odd, I like it. I like my lack of inhibitions that allow me to walk up and talk to random people at track meets, or to cheer for strangers by telling them to "be the bunny" or to "be a beacon in his sad and lonely life", stuff more likely to make one laugh then run faster as I nod toward old commercials and aging movies.

In other ways I am physically odd, but I can't control it so I just accept it. I don't know why my arms have been weak recently. I don't know why I got motion sick on a twenty minute bus ride to the meet this afternoon. I don't know why the only thing that made me feel better was to strip down and sit in the cold air until the goosebumps on my arms made my headache subside. I don't know why eating unrefrigerated meat and dairy products makes my digestive system go berserk while everyone else is fine.

In other ways I am odd out of necessity. Some people are okay with that. No one today minded that I snagged all of the leftover mustard and mayonaise packets. But I wonder if my roommate for next year will mind when I tell her I would much rather just use all of these packets than buy either product at the store. No, it is not super expensive. But as I near graduation debt-free but with a dwindling bank account, the idea of plunging myself into massive debt over the course of the next year and a half frightens me. Every little bit helps. I don't know if I will be able to explain this, especially if I am ultimately just trying to trust God for everything. My parents taught me this. God has provided food, even Thanksgiving turkeys, when we weren't sure where they would come from over the years. But my parents are also very frugal. I learned this habit from them; this is such a thing my mom would do.

And this is the oddness that scares me because it is the one I least want to give up if I am rebuked for it. I enjoy making myself laugh, but I know I sometimes need to cool it. And I can't control my body. But this is something I can control but don't want to give up either. I don't know how groceries will work next year, and I want things to be fair, while still recognizing that my roommate isn't stressing about money. I am willing to scrape by on a small meal plan supplemented by soup, cereal, and spaghetti. Will she?

Laughing into memories

2005-04-27T14:29:00.000-05:00

The things that have been making me laugh today are memories.

In chapel we sang our school's hymn, and when I reached the line in the third verse that talks about glorifying God with our heart and soul and brain, I began cracking up as I remembered all of the jokes that have been made about that last word. A girl two rows ahead of me turned around and looked at me. Not the thing to do in a fairly solemn ceremony. I stifled my giggles until they were inaudible, but the smile remained upon my face.

This morning I thought of how my jeans are ripping and the fact that I will need more. There is a grocery bag full of some in my closet. I have to try them on soon. Someone at our church gave them to my mom. Pretty typical. All my life I have been wearing hand-me-downs, not only from my older sister but also from other people, sometimes people I don't even know. My paternal grandmother would also bring clothes for us, sometimes her old things, sometimes things she had found in thrift stores. There was often a bunch of clothes for my mom and two sisters and I to sort through, finding things that fit us and which we liked. Some of the stuff wasn't that good. I have never epitomized fashion, but some of that stuff was just bad. Especially the stuff from my grandmother. My maternal grandmother has the sense to know she shouldn't pick out clothes for us. My paternal grandmother often brings clothes which my sisters and I dubbed "old lady clothes" somewhere along the way. The stuff that only overweight women over sixty wear. We didn't want to wear it, nor would we let our mom wear it. Sometimes she would try something on and ask our opinion. "No", we'd say, "it's too old lady." Yet somewhere in the middle of this my sisters and I each picked up a slightly different style. I was the one who would wear interesting patterns of interesting colors stuck together. So sometimes I was handed some weird stuff.

One time when I was somewhere between 8 and 12 I saw a bit of a movie or a tv show from the sixties. I don't remember much of it anymore, but a couple was getting married, and things weren't coming together. The day before the wedding the brides maids' dresses came, but the wrong dresses had been delivered. The women pulled the incorrect dresses out of boxes and held them up, expressing astonishment at the error, and their horification at what was given to them instead. One said, "I wouldn't be caught dead in a chicken coop in this". Somehow I have always remembered that phrase, and when my mom presented me with a particularly vile article of clothing I would use the same expression to convey my disgust.

This morning I realized for the first time how odd it was for me to say that. My youngest sister is 11, and I pictured her saying "I wouldn't be caught dead in a chicken coop in this". No wonder my mom gave me a strange look the first time I said it!

But that stems from my current underestimation of children. Long ago I set a goal that I have been failing to reach. When I was young I promised myself never to look down on children and how they think and how they act. Sure I think ten is young. But when I was that age I pulled out funny expressions. More importantly, I had responsibility. By the time I was nine there would be days when I cooked a simple meal (useing the oven), washed the dishes afterward, put two brothers down for their naps, changed diapers of the youngest one and tried to potty train the older one. Sure, my dad was in the house, but he wasn't helping any. I didn't do all of this every day, but probably at least once every other week. Whenever my mom worked one of me or my two sisters did all of this. My one sister is two years younger than me, and she was doing it all too. When my youngest sister was born I did all this and more. It was my sister and I who taught the youngest to walk and crawl. I still remember my older sister yelling at me for teaching my sister to crawl up the stairs, because she didn't know how to crawl back down. She learned.

Now I watch the local kids bike around my school and I marvel at all I once did. How quickly I forget. No, maybe these kids don't raise their siblings, but they could. I did. I forget. No wonder a woman thought I was clutching a doll when I held my baby sister. I saw a young child pick up another and wondered how she could manage the weight. But we did. We cradled the babies against our shoulder when they were especially young, and later slung them onto a hip, thrust out for them to sit upon. If we were in a hurry we even ran while carrying them. It wasn't easy, but we did it.

How quickly I forget, forget my childhood, forget my past, forget what the young and small are capable of doing.

Reconciliation

2005-04-26T19:06:00.000-05:00

Today's been an interesting day. Strange, but interesting.

-My sister spoke a sentence to me and looked at me. It wasn't a dirty look either, just a "I acknowledge your presence" look.

-I just finished a half hour conversation about a really bad professor with my roommate. We haven't talked that much in months, at least since Christmas. I had lunch with her roommate from last year, and Ashley urged me to begin talking to Hannah again, but I didn't know how to begin a conversation with her. Hannah initiated. Did she talk to Ashley? Or just decide to ask me how I was doing?

- Based on some stuff feesh wrote and some stuff ben rey said I felt convicted of some stuff I had done. I apologized to my ex-friend via email. Apparently he read it instead of deleting it and both accepted my apology and forgave me. I am still processing a lot of this. I am glad I can say hello to him again, but I have also seen a lot of his ugliness through this, which is a hard thing to come to grips with. Mostly I am just relieved. I literally thought it would be years before we reconciled. But I also feel bad, since I am the one who was wrong. I wanted him to be wrong, the one asking me for forgiveness. But I am the one who God convicted; I am the one who was wrong. Somewhere in the middle of this I just want to break down and cry. People ask me how I am doing, and I don't know what to say. I'm relieved and convicted and torn and joyful and surprised and...and...words I can't think of right now.

Obviously not everything is solved. But all of these three situations got better today. Two of them exponentially. I don't know what to say. I don't know what to think.

Rebellious Rebellion

2005-04-25T22:49:00.000-05:00

This morning our school president spoke about alcohol and our school's policy toward it...again. Since I have been 21 for less than a year, and I already have few enough inhibitions as it is, I have yet to touch the stuff, so the nitty-gritty of our rules doesn't really concern me. But it concerns others, so I tolerate the sermons, not enraptured. But I don't protest.

There was almost a protest today. Stories of its organization had been flying around campus yesterday. It was the news. I found out who was spearheading it and my sister and I agreed she had the guts to do it too. But she didn't. The wording of chapel was carefully crafted and it successfully thwarted any rebellion/revolt/protest.

And I was glad. I don't like people rocking the boat. As an anthropology major I have been encouraged to rock the school's boat for four years (you can't trust those anthropology majors! Or the sociology ones either for that matter) but I don't want to.

Originally I thought it was a backlash against the pressure to rebell. Don't tell me what to do, so I'll rebell by not rebelling.

But as I walked to chapel today I realized there is more to it. I am not trying to rebell because I barely have anything to rebell against. Sometimes I feel like my very existence rocks the boat. There are plenty of small protests I make, but I do them by living them, silently absorbing all the consequences, all the stares and repeated answers to the same questions, occasionally garnering respect but more often receiving an argument why I should stop doing these things and be more like them. I tried. I don't want to. Yet sometimes I still fight the embarassment that comes from blatantly doing these things in public.

My anthropology professors want me to rebell against the system. But they don't understand how long I have spent sorting through my oddities, deciding which ones are worth discarding and which are worth keeping, keeping because I want to, and in doing so silently living out a protest which they will never agree with and always misunderstand.

This one taboo

2005-04-24T16:02:00.000-05:00

Last night I was thinking about songs which I love and which are the right genre but which I will never put on the radio. These songs are too beautiful, too serious, too heavy. Too truthful.

One is by Hawk Nelson and is called "36 days". It is about how much this musician who is only beginning the life of touring misses his mom and girlfriend in the month that he is away. Halfway through, at twenty down and sixteen to go, he is aching from this life he loves.

The other two are about divorce. The Newsboys "Always" and Paul Wright's "Mommy, Where's Daddy?" both speak from the perspective of a child whose father walked out on him and all of the pain that resulted. I have never been personally affected by divorce yet these songs make me want to cry.

I am trying to figure out exactly why I am reluctant to put them on the radio. Do I still think only "happy" songs should be on the radio? No, I play plenty of stuff that comes close to yelling at God and the world. Is divorce the final frontier, the final taboo? Or is it that I think these songs would be tarnished by the songs played next to them? Maybe both.

These are beautiful songs, and I want everyone to hear them. So why do I keep them to myself?

in deepest darkest Peru

2005-04-24T14:31:00.000-05:00

Sometimes I wish I knew one of those languages which nobody else knows. Like one spoken by about four hundred people in Papua New Guinea. Or one spoken by about twelve people in northern Finland.

But I am not sure there would be a point to it. Currently I speak Spanish and German, in addition to English (duh!) and I have a hard enough time not trying to speak to others in these languages, even though I shouldn't expect them to understand me when I do. Next fall I'll be learning Arabic in the palestinian dialect, and that in itself will be more isolating, even though Arabic is so common that it doesn't seem to fulfill this fantasy of a secret language.

I mean, seriously, what would I do with it? Walk around talking to myself in this language no one knows? I already feel like I am on the verge of getting sent to an institution with some of my behaviors, and the looks I get from walking around muttering in German are enough.

Through Your Eyes

2005-04-24T12:55:00.000-05:00

I don't know why I started thinking about it this morning. The sermon was on humility, and one of the questions was whether we had someone in our lives who could help us see ourselves as God sees us. The sermon was also on brokenness and hurt, and I became overwhelmed with hurt that has happened over the past year or so. It was on community and I once again remembered how desperately I long for community, but how every time I try I feel uncomfortable, or I am pushed away. I connect well with individuals, but not with groups as a whole. But not every individual either. Some have outright rejected my love. Not just my suspicions, but when I have persevered in loveing them despite the pain they begin to cause, they have sat me down and explained that they don't want my friendship. One of the guys from last summer did that, then asked, "Does that hurt?" Well, yeah. I had tears streaming down my face.

I have so many people like that in my life. Sometimes the people I try the hardest with are the ones who push away. This roommate. Last summer's roommate. The woman who was almost my roommate this year (although we have reconciled). My sister. My ex-friend. The guy from last summer. When I see myself through their eyes, I see a person who is clumsy in love and who isn't good enough to love them.

Which is why I try to avoid looking at myself through their eyes. For I have others around me who help me see my worth as a person, my gifts, my beauty. That guy over there showed me that being loud and funny is not a bad thing. That one over shows me that I am worth knowing. That woman shows me that the love I have for others is beautiful. That guy over there told me once that he couldn't believe I was once unable to love others since my current nature is so contrary to that. Those two women rejoice in my musical tastes and don't make me feel masculine for likeing rock. I like to think this is the group, not the other one, which sees me as God sees me. And to each I am grateful, for they show me what I cannot see myself.

"Who am I? They often tell me I stepped from my cell's confinement calmly, cheerfully, firmly, like a Squire from his country house. Who am I? They often tell me I used to speak to my warders freely and friendly and clearly as though it were mine to command. Who am I? They also tell me I bore the days of misfortune equably, smilingly, proudly, like one accustomed to win.

"Am I then really that which other men tell of? Or am I only what I myself know of myself? Restless and longing and sick, like a bird in a cage, struggling for breath, as though hands were compressing my throat, yearning for colours, for flowers, for the voices of birds, thirsting for words of kindness, for neighbourliness, tossing in expectation of great events, powerlessly trembling for friends at an infinite distance, weary and empty at praying, at thinking, at making, faint, and ready to say farewell to it all.

"Who am I? This or the Other? Am I one person today and tomorrow another? Am I both at once? A hypocrite before others, and before myself a contemptible wobegone weakling? Or is something within me still like a beaten army fleeing in disorder from victory already achieved? Who am I? They mock me, these lonely questions of mine. Whoever I am, Thou knowest, O God, I am thine!" - Dietrich Bonhoeffer

I deserve better

2005-04-24T00:28:00.000-05:00

Tonight I went to a concert. It was very unexpected and very clearly a gift from God, because I had wanted to go so badly and at the last moment I was provided with a ride and a free ticket, both of which were huge.

So that gave me the impression that God wanted me there. But why? The first two bands were entertaining, but unremarkable. The fourth band was a lot of fun to see, but it was the third which really got me.

Sometimes the only thing that is necessary for church is that I have blocked time out of my schedule to listen to God. That is what happened tonight at the concert. Standing amidst a sea of perspiring bodies the words of the songs crept into places of my soul which I wouldn't have normally thought about.

Yep, I was thinking about my ex-friend again. What I realized tonight was that in the final talk we had just before the email that completely cut things out, he somehow conveyed to me a message that I was simultaneously too feminine and not feminine enough. That I hold too many of the "negative" female traits without enough of the "positive" ones. And that damaged me.

Tobymac really has a heart for women. I realized that as he sang his songs. He stands up for them. I would love to be his sister because I know he would confront any guy who was treating me poorly. During his song "Gone" I came to the realization that my ex-friend fed me lies. I deserve to be treated better. There are a lot of things I don't deserve in life but I do deserve to be treated better.

I got the feeling that Tobymac understands this, and he cries for all of the women who have been hurt by guys who don't treat them well. Yet afterwards when I thanked him for being an instrument to help heal my wounds, he just pointed to God. He's right. God is the one who is scraping away these stringy black lies clinging to my heart. I am just grateful that the instrument was available. Tobymac can be a good scalpel at times.

The song "Gone" reads: I wanna know what you were thinking/ I can't imagine why it didn't even sink in/ they say you never know what you got till its gone. She said she's had enough/ so it looks to me like you're straight out of luck/ she said she's all though/ life's not blowing her kisses thanks to you/...She said you came crawling back/ but after what you did to her she wouldn't have any of that/ she said she's going to be all right/ God made a way through the pain

and he opened her eyes.

To feel His pleasure

2005-04-23T14:31:00.000-05:00

Yesterday I ran the 1500 meter run at a track meet. There are always a lot of things that can be said about a race, but what I wanted to mention was what happened in the minutes leading up to it.

The steeplechase was supposed to be run before the 1500, but they canceled the men's version, so when Ellen and I got back from our warmup, we were supposed to have twenty minutes and we had five. The guys had it worse. Dan ran up to the starting line, pulled off his sweats, and went.

The funny thing is I think I actually like it better being that rushed, that pressed for time, with no time to worry about the results or the pain or the weather. No time to be nervous.

No time to mentally prepare either, but that doesn't bother me. I grew up being told to alwasy focus and mentally prepare for the race, but that just made me really care about how well I ran. I am still coming off of injuries, and right now I just want to get out there and rejoice in the fact that I can run now and still walk tomorrow. That I can feel my body move. That by the grace of God I am a good enough runner after a pittance of training to score points for the team even if it is at a small track meet.

I liked being rushed because I don't want to focus on running anymore. I want to focus on who runs and their worries and fears and joys and tears. I want to try to feel what Eric Liddell felt and feel God's pleasure when I run, not elusive expectations that I have placed upon myself, not the weight of always trying to be better and never feeling that I am good enough.

Find out and report back to me

2005-04-23T14:25:00.000-05:00

I am finding it increasingly awkward when people ask me how my roommate or my sister, or my ex-friend are doing. All I can do is shrug and admit that I don't know. A part of me always wants to tell them to go find out and report back to me. But since I am trying to keep the number of people who know about these fights down to a minimum then that desired sentence is a little too telling.

I really miss my ex-friend. I am getting used to my sister and my roommate being abscent from my life, but his abscense is still fresh enough to hurt. I think he is the reason for my recent insomnia, especially because I was dizzy tired at midnight last night, then still wide awake at three after something happened that profoundly reminded me of the reasons I value his friendship, his presence. I forced myself to go to bed, but if I weren't so German and actually had some Italian heritage I'd have been sobbing, because that was what I felt like doing anyway.

Not Enough

2005-04-23T00:36:00.000-05:00

This morning in chapel the woman who spoke admitted that she entered this college wanting to develop friendships with guys, especially football players. She was able to do this, but she always ended up wondering if she was cute enough for them, if she was good enough to suit her roommates.

She echoes my sentiments. Afterwards I began to think of people whom I would have liked to be friends with and what got in the way. Many times it was that I was not enough. I was not fast enough when it comes to running. I wasn't spiritual enough for some. I wasn't joyful enough for others. There are certainly some to whom I am not pretty enough. To those same people I am probably not thin enough. In high school I wasn't popular enough. To some "friends" it took years before I could prove that I was smart enough. I don't dress grunge enough for one group. And my clothes would have to be far more in fashion to be part of that group over there. For one man I was always trying to be cool enough, but I always failed. I would have taken up hiking mountains for two of my friends last summer, but even that wasn't enough.

So I float, always on the periphery, not claiming one type of friends, because I am not enough for any of those groups. And in searching for friends I continually look for those who will look at me and say, "It's enough."

the run in my stocking

2005-04-22T00:45:00.000-05:00

There is a run in my stocking, an imperfection. It is the third one in this pair of stockings, and though one of the holes is clandestine, this one has grown long and snakes up higher than the brims of my shoes to where the whole world can see it.

I rather like the look of it as it streams down my foot, making a pattern. The shimmer as it traces the curve of my foot looks sexy, the same way a slit in a dress does, and I wish I could show it to some guys and say, "Look! Doesn't this allure you?"

But I doubt they would see it. For it is not a sign of beauty. It is a sign of bad taste, and of sloppiness that I would dare go in public with such stockings, a sign of cheapness that I stretch out the wear on my stockings as long as I do. And none of these are good. This is but one more pair of stockings that I'll be throwing away. Because the streak across my arch is not what anyone wants to see.

One more snub

2005-04-21T00:11:00.000-05:00

Okay, this blog is not entitled "62 ways my sister hurts me" even though it sometimes seems like it. But I am not going to go around telling all of our mutual friends this stuff, so I write it on the anonymous blog.

My sister finally talked to me today. It was after supper. I could tell she was going to say something because she looked at me when we were walking toward each other. I had encouraged her to usher at graduation because I have more family members coming to the ceremony than I have tickets, and that way she could get in without needing a ticket. I did this for my older sister, I figured she could do it for me. But she decided not to, that she would rather sit in overflow seating anyway. The reasons are obvious: she can go wander around and talk during the ceremony. Makes sense in a freedom respect, but honestly it just hurts yet again. Like I am not important enough for even that.

Maybe this is something I am getting more upset about than I should. But it hurts. I don't know what to do about it. But it hurts. I don't expect anyone who reads this to fix anything. But it hurts.

Beef about Mentors

2005-04-20T14:25:00.000-05:00

All my life I have heard about mentors and how everyone should have one. And in general I think they are right. A mentor can be a very good thing.

But they also have the ability to be negative. Some of the women who have tried to mentor me I feel like are trying to tell me what to do. Which has to do with mentoring, so that makes sense. But they get irritated when I don't do it. Frankly, I didn't do it because I think they are wrong.

Peer mentoring I like: two friends getting together and being honest about their lives and their struggles and learning from their different life experiences.

Traditional mentoring puts people up on a pedestal, something I have tried to stop doing because I know that if I do they will just fall down. There is wisedom I could learn from everyone in this world, some more than others, but I don't want one specific person telling me what to do.

Something that specifically makes me think of this is that Jeremy Thiessen (drummer of band downhere) recently wrote on his blog that his fiancee's mentor is an amazingly Godly woman, but she doesn't like praying specifically because that could go against the will of God. Personally, and Thiessen concurrs, I do not believe that is the Biblical attitude at all. But what if this woman were my mentor? Would she try to impose that belief on me?

As I was thinking about this earlier today I also remembered a random Seinfeld episode I had seen. Jerry was dating a woman whose mentor was dating a guy Jerry couldn't stand. He wasn't sure he could date a woman who looked up to someone who dated that guy. Pedestals, it is all a bunch of pedestals...

My fortune cookie yesterday said, "Knowledge speaks. Wisedom listens." I think all mentors should be wise. Shut up and listen, because most of the time, that is all we really need anyway.

Disclaimer: I have to admit that I am a mentor through a program at my school, and because of that I have had a mentor for the past two years. The first year one didn't work well, but the one this year is much more of a peer relationship, so it works.

Another snub

2005-04-20T14:14:00.000-05:00

Today's chapel was a sending-out of people who are doing some ministries this summer.

My sister skipped chapel.

Could be unrelated. But I don't think they were. I did one of those ministries three years ago. And she skipped last year's version of this chapel as well. I have always wanted her to go, to have an idea of what being overseas for a summer was like for me, to have the smallest grasp of how it changed my life. But she doesn't go. And maybe it is coincidence. Finals are coming soon, and I know she has a lot to do.

But it feels like a snub.

Tonight I'm Scared

2005-04-19T23:17:00.000-05:00

Tonight I'm scared. I keep checking my email accounts, my blogs, the blogs of everyone I know, chatrooms I visit. I have this overwhelming feeling that there is something I need to know, someone I need to be comforting, someone I need to be praying for, but nothing turns up. And as I progressively enter the time of night when no one I know is awake, save for my older sister in Japan and a teammate in New Zealand, my fear seems more and more foolish with the passing moments.

Ich habe Angst, that I am carrying around fear, that it is what is keeping me up at night, that it causes my insomnia, that it drives away sleep during the day. I am ready to burst out crying, but no one will tell me the thing I am supposed to be crying about.

What do I say? This is probably my worries from last week, and the week before, manifesting themselves in terms of stress: long wakeful nights with wrists that crack like my finger joints used to growing up. Only this time the pain goes beyond the quick cracks and steeps up into my forearms, creating an interminable ache, a fire that runs up and down, to match the one in my lower legs as the muscles rip themselves away from the bone.

By the way, that last sentence means that I have shin splints. I sound crazy. I'm not. Or maybe I am. Crazy with fear, with worry, with Angst, with tears that can't be shed, that won't be shed.

I should try going to bed now.

It's the little things that sting like a paper cut

2005-04-19T00:41:00.000-05:00

Ever have those moments where you are like, "Shoot! I shouldn't have checked my email. Then I could be in bliss for another few hours!"?

Yeah, so my sister definitely doesn't want me reading her blog (which isn't a surprise) and a friend has indefinitely postponed her wedding.

I wish I had gone to bed before checking my email.

What Danielle never told me...

2005-04-18T00:33:00.000-05:00

I was thinking just now about a sophomore in my Bible study group named Danielle. I have known Danielle ever since she entered this college, and having been in a Bible study group together this past year, I have especially gotten to know her well.

But it was only a few weeks ago that I learned she lost an older sister a few years back. We were pointing out meaningful passages in the Bible, and she showed us one which she turned to a lot during that time. Her sister died in a car accident, drunk driver. Danielle told us that this particular sister was her closest friend, and sometimes she still wakes up sobbing because she misses her so much.

As I was thinking about it just now I realized that for a year and a half I have been formulating impressions of Danielle that don't go a lot past the idea of a really sweet petite girl with a ready smile. It is a little disquieting for me to sit here and fully realize that she has been walking around with this pain this whole time, and I never knew about it.

Bridal Showers

2005-04-17T17:28:00.000-05:00

I just got back from a bridal shower. It was fun. But the anthropology major in me kicked in, possibly because that was the easiest mechanism to employ in a situation where I felt so out of place.

I wish I had known what to wear. I am glad I wasn't throwing it because I wouldn't have known what games we were supposed to play. As the bride opened her presents, one woman took a paper plate and began tying bows to it. Honestly, I haven't a clue as to why. Does the bride save it? I'm glad I knew enough to bring a gift.

Probably the worst thing was at the end, when they were reading this list of expressions the bride might say to the groom on their wedding night, based upon her responses to some of the gifts. The responses were supposed to be funny, and they were, but only in a sexual way, and it seemed to go against everything we had been told to do as good evangelical Christian girls.

That can rabbit trail into a bunch of areas, but my primary reason for posting is that I wish someone would do an ethnography of bridal showers.

Avoidance

2005-04-17T17:26:00.000-05:00

Let me just say that it never ceases to awe me how well my sister manages to avoid me when she is ticked with me. What awes me more is that more people don't pick up on the tension. Maybe they don't realize that she never speaks to me, or even looks at me.

A Pilgrim Longing

2005-04-17T17:17:00.000-05:00

In the past five Sundays I have worshipped God with five different communities of believers. I do not use those expressions lightly. I believe each community genuinely seeks God. I was able to interact with God at each location.

Because I am not attached to any one community as of yet, I have been drifting. A small rural church, a preppie church in the suburbs, a catholic church in the north side of Chicago with a Polish heritage, a Chinese church in Chicago's China town, and a small but vibrant church plant that meets inside a technical college.

Honestly, today was the best one. But before today's experience I realized that I could commune with God at each place and be comfortable, but would probably not be happy there with repeated Sundays.

And ultimately it is the pilgrim feeling, of feeling comfortable everywhere, accepted nowhere.

I may have found a home today. If not, I'll keep on drifting, I guess...

Not as bad as I thought...

2005-04-17T17:14:00.000-05:00

I am beginning to face situations in which people whom I used to hold in high regard did not speak well of certain people, and because of that I had a negative opinion of those people. But now that I have had falling outs of my own with people I used to respect, I am seeing that they probably lump me into that category. And suddenly those people I used to hold in low regard...

don't seem so bad anymore.

Posting with Frequency

2005-04-16T13:11:00.000-05:00

I am starting to realize that between this and my other blog, I post more than anyone else I know.

It's because I am lonely and bored, and my homework isn't quite interesting enough to distract me from those two feelings.

I am not looking for pity, just stating revelations about myself which I am accumulating.

Game's Up

2005-04-16T10:37:00.000-05:00

So I just found out that my sister found out a couple days ago that I found her blog. I sent her an email offering not to return to the site anymore. She'll probably accept.

A large part of this is probably my fault, seeking intimacy with someone who would prefer to keep distance. Not that this is rare, for I keep running across such people. I guess everyone else does too. I went to an independent film festival last night and ended up sitting next to a woman who has been in a couple of my classes and who lives in my dorm, but who I don't know well. Because many of the films were artsy, I admitted afterwards that I didn't understand many of them. One which I mentioned she was able to explain to me. The creator of the film told a pictoral story of a couple who were going out, but the woman was afraid of intimacy, and they eventually broke up. Then the woman next to me said she dated someone like that for awhile, and it was really hard.

Yeah, I can see where she is coming from. I would blame these people more, except that I know I have done that with some people, scared of becoming friends with them because I think they will believe they understand me, and I am not sure they will. Maybe my heart has had other reasons as well. So I guess I have done that too people. But it still hurts to have it done to me.

Strange: I am still pulling myself up out of the mud from one thing and the next ocurrs. I'm not sure what to make of it. Life will coast along fairly smoothily for awhile and then things fall apart.

At this moment I am exceedingly grateful that this has been an easy quad homework wise. I was under so much homework load last quad that I don't think I could have handled the emotional stress as well. In that respect I truly believe that God only gives us what we can handle. Like, apparently my sister has known for a few days, but I just found out she knew this morning, and if I had not had release last night from a lot of my other problems, I don't know if I could have handled this this morning. It doesn't make any of these situations easier, for all three are still very difficult, but I am glad I could deal with each separately.