flying and talking

I’ve been losing my voice over the past few days. Today it was gone. I think it is on vacation in Hawaii. I think the weather from Hawaii was on vacation in Palos Heights today. We benefitted from the tourism.

So anyway, my voice is gone. I never realized how many people I chat with every day and how important working vocal chords are for those interactions. My friends thought my whispering amusing, yet they sympathized.

In a noisy environment I was trying to sign what I was trying to say. It wasn’t working. My friend intervened and said, “She can’t talk.”

“Why not?”

I tried to explain, but when they heard the first frog-croak noise they said, “Oh! You really can’t talk.” So true.

What if I could never talk again. What if I had that strange disease that systematically shuts down your vocal chords. What if there was a reason for my building interest in sign language. What if I had to decide to be an author instead of a teacher.
What if I could never sing again.

So it was forty-five minutes before class started, I had a fifteen minute presentation due, and I had no voice to speak of. That’s when I realized that the wind had slammed my door shut so hard it had locked itself and all my materials were inside.
Thank God for suitemate’s friends, bobby pins, and a sympathetic professor.

And by the way, I had a dream that I learned how to fly. It was rather easy. In my dream I thought, “Millennia ago scientists were trying to figure out how people could fly. But they gave up and made planes to fly for them. If they had only known more about aerodynamics, they would have seen how easy it is to fly just with your own body.”

Then I woke up and found out that those giver-uppers were right and that I couldn’t talk.

If you had to say what you say in a whole different way,
what would you use? 
If you had to give up something to speak,
what would you lose?
If you had a choice between flying and talking, 
what would you choose?

A bouncy ball of ideas

It’s been too long since I have written, which makes writing one more difficult because something makes it seem like I should write something profound or at least important. As if I had needed the past week and a half to gather my thoughts.

Which could be true. There is not enough time to think. We could all get more out of life if we just stopped to reflect more often. And sleep more while we are at it.

But I’ve found many chances to reflect while I am out doing things. It is not very quiet type of reflection. Kind of a “community reflection,” a bouncy ball of ideas and opinions, which can be used as a weapon, but is usually a lot of fun.

I love college. I love having all these people around. I can walk out into the hall and poke my head in peoples rooms and ask them questions and tell them what I am excited about at any hour of the day. My roommate Lori and I can talk about random topics until two-thirty in the morning. We can encourage each other and identify with each other. I have learned so much from the people I have met already this year.

I love college.

Advertizzle

This video got an A and is now the teacher's favorite video to show off to people in his classes. Thank you to an amazing team! Group projects actually can be fun.

autumn on campus

There’s something about all those trees that makes the ground spring up into crunchiness this time of year. That noisy texture comes with a particular smell, which is a good smell that you’d like to keep if it wouldn’t go bad.

I’d like to keep this beautiful weather, but I know it won’t stay. Soon I won’t be comfortable without five layers wrapping me, the top one being a winter coat. I’ve heard that South stays pretty warm through the winter. I hope that the person who says that has the same definition as I do. Seventy-five is a good temperature. Eighty is good if it’s a sit-around-and-do-nothing day. But I haven’t had many of those!


journal jottings

It’s a beautiful day. I wish I was out on the lawn, but I have to do my homework. I could do my homework on the lawn, but that is not as simple as it sounds. It is easier to write a new entry here.

It’s quiet here today.

I might be able to change my website name. Any suggestions?

Group projects are not that great unless everyone is aiming for the same grade.

The musical Raisin is great. I saw it last night with the honors group plus one friend who didn’t know she was going until five minutes before. She kept a ticket from going to waste. I ate raisins during intermission.

If you do a google image search of “raisin,” you get pictures of grapes.

I got a Curious George sticker on the last banana I ate in the cafeteria.

I got a job designing flyers for houses for a real estate agent.

Singing happily along

Today I decided to hang out with a couple of my friends, seniors Esther and Josh, and go to Reba Place, because it sounded interesting in the email they sent out about it. But by this morning I had forgotten the details of the email (such as that it’s a Christian, largely Mennonite community in Evanston). So when we got there, I didn’t really know what to expect.
First, we did church. The service was globally focused, as in they were very aware that their congregation was just part of the world-wide body of Christ. The people were diverse and they didn’t were bonnets or aprons or black suspenders. We shared in communion with them. I shied away from the common-goblet and opted for a dixie-cup.
Afterwards there was a potluck. Mennonites cook good food. We talked about England, studies, and migration of ethnic groups throughout Chicago.

Then we went to the house where Tatiana and Chico live along with seven other young adults. We rode bikes (which they had taken off the streets and fixed up) to their garden plot which they rent from the city. We talked about our economical choices and how they affect the environment and those working in third-world countries. They shared with us some delicious cookies.
We all know that the food we eat comes from places all around the globe. What we buy at the grocery store has been shipped, using expensive resources, for thousands of miles. And it’s often still cheaper than the stuff grown locally. Which means that the laborers who raise our tomatoes so we can eat them fresh (although fakely ripened) in the dead of winter are getting paid next to nothing.

Unlike the rest of us, Tatiana and Chico allowed this information to affect there daily choices. They and their housemates eat organic, fair-trade, and locally grown food. And their grocery bills have actually decreased because they are making use of plant proteins and shopping wisely. Because meat is an inefficient use of land and energy resources, they don’t buy it.
They told us what they struggle with about communal living and what they’ve learned from their struggles. They showed us that consciously striving for holy living means being different, radical, set-apart. It’s in the definition.

What a beautiful day to sit at a picnic table in a flourishing garden, talking about things that matter with people who aren’t just talking. It makes me want to sing.