Done.

Last night I finished up the last little detail work pertaining to the Fall 2007 semester. I am very happy, very relieved to have all that work behind me. The brunt of the work was writing. When I got back from Thanksgiving break, I added up the average page requirements for each assignment so that I would know how to pace myself. It came to 63 pages, which made for three solid weeks of not-one-minute-to-lose.

Now I am done. Done with all the meetings and the finals and the Social Justice Chapter events and the writing. Out of curiosity, I tallied up all that I had actually written:

82 pages (12 point font, double spaced, 1 inch margins, page breaks omitted).

Handel used the same time frame to write The Messiah, which fills 252 pages with just the vocal and piano parts, just to put it all in perspective.

how we party

Hoisting the heavy box higher in my grip, I backed through the door and turned around beneath the awning. The light of the building across the sidewalk caught my attention, and I heard the sound of conversation and laughter coming through the panes of its windows. "Looks like something fun is going on in the Fireside Room," I thought to myself. Then I laughed at myself. The Fireside Room is where I had just come from, but in the time it had taken to carry my stuff to the exit on this side of the sidewalk, that must have slipped my mind. It was definitely time for bed.

Last night was the Social Justice Chapter Christmas Extravaganza. Social justicians are really good party planners. We have to be, otherwise we'd get bogged down in the poverty, the hunger, the slavery, the war, the exploitation… Yes. A lot of bad things happen in this world, but we do not need to sit around pouting or escape into a world of superficial happiness. When the Social Justice Chapter has a party, we don't pour ashes over our heads and cry in sorrow (though there is a time for that) and we don't pour beer down our throats and laugh in denial (there's never a time for that).

This is what we do: We set out fair trade coffee for students to buy and fair trade gifts that give students an opportunity to tell their families about fair trade. We wait until the party is starting to light the fireplace, so as not to waste petroleum. We ponder ways that we could use less disposable products next time we serve food. We wear Christmas garb found at the thrift store. We sing Christmas carols of God's redemptive work and our desire for for the coming of Immanuel to ransom this world from captivity. We listen to the song a student wrote in response to watching the Invisible Children film. We rest our heads on comfy sofas, our ears on honest music, and our hearts in Christian friendship.

That is how the Social Justice Chapter parties.

Jump right in!

This is an ad I saw online.

I honestly thought it said "game trap" at first. It might as well, because that's what it is, if it's like all the other pointless escapes from reality that are part of reality today. A part of reality that is not reality must be a hole. A pit dug for a grave, a dent angrily punched in the wall, a quarry with dynamite still lying around.

Usually when people dig a trap, they cover it with sticks and leaves so that it doesn't look like a trap. Next time I'm trying to catch something, I'll dig a pit and put up a bright green sign that says "Escape into this trap! It'll be fun! It'll be violent! You'll be happy!" That strategy seems to be working.

What kind of traps do I jump into?

three more weeks

I once told a friend "Don't count the days. Make them count."

Tonight I got out the calculator and tallied up all the different reports, reflections, and essays that I have to write in the next three weeks. It came to sixty-three pages.

Now that I've counted, I must make these nineteen days count.

like I never do

I took one last glance out into the dark,
like I never do,
and I saw something beautiful.
Two foxes play fighting
on the volleyball court below my window.
Their shadows pounced
in the gleam of the lights of Tibstra hall.
They didn't care about the stress inside this dorm
just like I was probably the only one to see their struggle.
It was beautiful.
And the beauty of their freedom,
and their play,
and their energy,
called up to me,
telling me to let down my hair,
no longer carry my cares,
to let love climb up inside me
and make me whole.
I rest now,
reminded I am a little jewel
in the crown of God's beautiful creation.

Prickly Pear

Now we see the prickly is prickly free.
So what's the disparity in this pair of pears?
I don't care. They both taste good to me.

Hurdy Gurdy

Today:

I was trying to make it to a Chicago Humanities Festival Event that started at 10am, but a long train came across my path and then my debit card wouldn't work in the CTA's machine, so I had to use up all my cash, and then I was several stops down on the orange line when I realized that, once again, I had forgotten to shove the $2 into the little pay-for-parking slot. I got off the train and waited on the chilly platform for the next outbound train, which I took back to Midway. Since I didn't have any cash and I knew the ATM would charge me and not even give me the correct bills, I just went out to the parking lot in defeat. I was tired, in a very relaxed way, and it didn't bother me that I was just going to have to face the fact that I had not been paying attention to anything all morning and that I had to go back to Trinity, find some cash, and regroup.

So I'm driving down Cicero and suddenly I find myself turning into a strip mall's parking lot. I finally wake up and realize that this is good because I can get something I need and get cash back and get the correct bills all at the same time. So after that my day stopped being so lame.

Downtown again, I stopped by the Cultural Center to view the crocheted coral reef, then took my chance to wander around the Art Institute before the event there started. The event was a performance of Vivaldi's Four Seasons, done skillfully by four violins, a cello, a bass, and a harpsichord. It was so good that a joyful laughter was mixed with my applause. After exiting the auditorium when the concert came to its too-soon end, I realized that my very important name badge had fallen to the floor. I returned and found it in the hands of a volunteer who was cleaning up trash. While I was there, I noticed that several audience members had gone up on stage to talk to the musicians, and that there were two little girls oohing and awing over the beautiful harpsichord.


I saw my chance to make this not only the first day I've ever seen a harpsichord in action, but also the first day to see how a harpsichord works. I watched as he removed the board that covered the hammers and explained the acoustics of the instrument. The little girls moved on to looking at the painting on the underside of the harpsichord's lid, the harpsichordist asked me if I would like to try it out, and the harpsichordist moved on to talking to another audience member.

That is how I ended up seated at a harpsichord on the stage in the beautiful concert hall in the Art Institute of Chicago, playing "O Lord, You're Beautiful," not only because that is one of the only songs I have memorized, but because it just fit.

The next event I went to was a reenactment of a Mediaeval Bible play, Noye's Fludde. Part of the accompaniment to the song and dance was a hurdy gurdy, which I saw up close at the end of the performance.

I walked around Chicago for quite some time, enjoying just being alone, without a schedule, and yet still surrounded by activity. Then I went to an event called "Wars of Scarcity," in which they interviewed Valentino, a man who lived through war, estrangement from his family, refugee camps, and a transition to life in the United States. He is raising awareness of Sudan's plight while he finishes his education, which is preparing him to return to his country as a leader.

After some more wandering (Not all who wander are lost: during my wanderings, a passerby asked me "which way to Chestnut?" and I could tell her, thanks to my previous wanderings, in which I was kind of lost, I guess.), I found a secluded seat on the CTA and traveled back to Trinity.

Fresh pain wouldnt hurt either.

This was a line from the customer review of a resort were I might work next summer. The reviewer wasn't very impressed by Sol Duc Hot Spring's state of maintenance.

Please pray for me as I make decisions about this upcoming semester, the next summer, and even next school year. Pray for smooth transitions, good relationships, and fruitful ministry. Please pray that any fresh pain won't hurt.

a relaxing weekend

Every year, a committee in Chicago puts together a series of cultural events downtown that runs for about three weeks and focuses on an apt theme. This year's theme was climate change. Apt indeed. The events include panels, movies, concerts, and speakers. Hmm. It sounds like I'm advertising. But seriously, it's quite nice.

Trinity gets to send four students as Chicago Humanities Festival fellows each year. This is my second year going, and both years I've really enjoyed the experience. This was an especially fun weekend and I found it to be quite relaxing, actually.

Friday: Finished up classes and around-campus errand running. Carrie and I spent some good side-by-side time. I tried to do a little homework, but then I ended up talking to my long-lost friend Amy on the telephone, trying to catch up on a trimester of happenings. Talking to Amy comes before homework any day, especially Friday. Then I filled my camelbak, a pleasant reminder of many happy adventures, with stuff for the weekend, left my laptop on the desk and the books on the shelves, and headed off to the train station with my friend Kendra.

We armed ourselves with three-day unlimited CTA passes and rode the L downtown to the hostel, where we soon went to bed. I got more sleep than I had gotten in a long time, but Kendra couldn't seem to sleep. One of the things she kept thinking about was how we had completely forgotten to pay for parking. When she told me this the next morning, I shared in her sense of alarm, but there was nothing we could do about it.

After breakfasting at Panera, we attended The Paper Bag Players presentation of On Top of Spaghetti which really had nothing to do with climate change and was geared for 3-6 year olds. It made us laugh a lot. Next was a panel entitled, "What do philosophers have to offer?" (A lot.) Then we went to a concert of the Chicago Complaints Choir. Here's the general idea: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3eBPHDyu9jE. Hilarious and inspiring.

While waiting for the next event, "Writing Nature," I wrote my own list of complaints, including "the dishes fill up the sink within a few hours of washing them," "there is a whole in the bottom of my right foot black croc," "my joints pop," and "people are too refined in the wrong way." Now I just need to set my complaints to music.

Saturday's evening event was by far my favorite event of the festival. One eighty-year-old man performed the entire Apology of Socrates from memory with skill and humor. It was incredible to watch because I felt that this man was actually Socrates. Who knows, maybe instead of executing Socrates, they actually froze him and thawed him out just recently so that he could speak to us. And indeed, Socrates has much to say to our generation. A favorite quote: "The unexamined life is not worth living."

Incidentally, this performer also performs this work in the original Greek when he is called upon to do so.

When we returned to the hostel, still reveling in our encounter with the real live Socrates, we set the alarm for 7:00. Thankfully, this was on a auto-resetting cell phone, so we did take advantage of the extra hour of sleep. I wonder if Spain has daylight savings time. Will I have to loose an hour sometime next semester, or will I just throw that in with the jet lag?

Sunday morning we breakfasted "with" and listened to E.L. Doctorow at the Symphony Center. I've never read his works, but he sure is a great guy to listen to. Next we heard Kim Stanley Robinson talk about how much fun it can be to combat climate change. He asked us to examine our activities with these questions: Did I pay for it or do it for free? Did I do it indoors or outdoors? Did I do it alone, or did I do it with others? Did I watch someone else do it or do it myself? Usually the latter answers to these questions are both more fun and better for this planet. I also appreciated his renunciation of monocausotaxophilia.

We topped off the festival festivities by attending a panel called "Religion and the Environment." The Muslim representative talked about Islam's tradition of setting aside land for sanctuary. The Jewish representative talked about the idea of the Sabbath, even suggesting that America should take a sabbath year to reflect on where to go from here and realize that it isn't true that 'the more we have, the more we are.' But the Christian representative had few positive things to say. He could've talked about the purpose of God's creation and the Bible's explicit call for stewardship. Instead he focused solely on the reasons why evangelical America has failed to respond to climate change. As much as I was upset that Christianity was not fairly represented, I agreed with what he had to say. When we evangelicals see humans as exclusively important, expect a rapture at any moment, fear agreeing with New Age followers on any issue, and value objectives by corporate interests, it is no small wonder that we fall short of doing all that we can to care for the beautiful creation God has formed.

When we got back to my car, there was no ticket waiting for us, and we rejoiced in an answered prayer. We returned to this campus refreshed and ready for the Social Justice Chapter meetings, homework, and piled-up emails that awaited us.

And look up at the sky

Something remarkable: tonight as I strolled from South to Tibstra, thinking about the beauty and diversity of relationships, my head tilted back and my eyes opened wide. There above me were stars. Normally I can only make out about five stars thanks to the city lights and smog. But tonight I saw more stars than I've ever seen from the suburbs. I saw the Pleiades, I saw Orion, and I saw Cassiopeia.

"And I do this to remind me that I'm really very tiny
In the grand scheme of things and sometimes this terrifies me."

Devils such as cancer and divorce and tiredness

And though this world, with devils filled, should threaten to undo us,
we will not fear, for God has willed his truth to triumph through us.

Sleepsick In the Cave of Day

In the innards of the night
there is a hollow cave,
a space where time does not feel tight,
so dark that I am brave.
The threat I risk is sure to come
but I do hope it won't.
I risk the slap of running out,
but I sure hope I don't.
Soon I'll run out of energy
just when I need it most.
Yes, I feel fine and dandy now,
but I don't dare to boast.
For I have battled all night long
and forced my mind to play.
Then rode to morn on rising sun
and slept along the way.

I do not regret my quest.
I did it not to fail.
I do not regret my stops
to talk beside the trail.
I do regret I ever thought
that I could do it all.
Sleepsick in the cave of day,
for health to God I call.

Language and Stories

Ahora– right now– I am thinking en una mix de Español y English. I've just come from la clase de Español, and I am happy to say that this class makes me think in Spanish rather than stop thinking, which was the case a year ago. On the sidewalk, I have to stop myself from saying "hola" and I thanked the person who held the door open for me with "gracias." But now I am in cross-cultural psychology, an appropriate place to write about this code-switching, and the professor is talking about education in America, and he is using English to do this, and I must write in English para ustedes (for yall), so I am thinking more and more in English now.

As for my typing, also Spanglish. It just takes a keystroke to switch from the English layout to the Spanish layout, which is just a slight modification of the QWERTY layout. But my fingers lag a little behind, and when I try to make parenthesis, it doesn´t work right )like this=. Typing in Spanish used to be very slow for me, with the accents and the switched up punctuation, but now the only thing I am slow at is the switching back and forth thing.

When I went to Kentucky for a week each summer during high school, I would switch to their way of speaking within hours. When I came back, it took a little while to switch back. I noticed this especially when people would ask me about my week in Kentucky and I would slip into that beautiful Appalachian drawl subconsciously in order to tell the stories that took place in that place, in that dialect.

When I get to Spain, how long will it take me to switch from hearing the speedy Spanish flying around me as foreign musical syllables to hearing it as facts and opinions? How hard will it be to pick up the phone, punch in three dozen numbers, and say, "Hello, is this Alissa?" instead of "¿Hola, estás Alisa?" Pero no creo que será un problema muy grande.

But here's where a problem may lie: (Remember how I couldn't talk about Kentucky without slipping into Appalachian speak. Remember how it took me weeks and weeks of story-telling to debrief from my summer at Mt. Rainier. Realize that there are no words to perfectly describe any experience to anyone who didn't experience it themselves. And think about this: I usually describe my summer as FABulous or SOOOper or AWEsome, English words pronounced with a Glacier Dorm accent.) How will I ever describe my experience in Spain to English speakers?

Language and Music

Today is a good day.

At supper I just sat and basked in the sound of friends speaking Korean. It is good to just sit and know that ideas are flying past your face, but you have no obligation to understand or process or respond to them. You just get to listen to it like instrumental music. And it is beautiful to know that, in fact, they are not speaking a foreign language. They are speaking their own language, the one they don't even have to think about. It must feel good to go to supper and let their mouths spew ideas freely after a long day of classes in English.

Will I miss English next semester? I am sure that I won't be completely removed from English. Many of the students in the program will just be taking beginning Spanish courses. Today at Honors tea we were talking about facebook, which led to a discussion of things that people give up for lent, which led me to think, "Could I give up English for lent?"

Only if I found Keith Green's Albums in Spanish.

Hey Pumpkin.

My roommates asked what it was.

My resident assistant thought it was an octopus.

My pumpkin knows what's on my mind because it's on his face.

It's Mt. Rainier.

Reading Weekend

Reading weekend is for reading the call numbers of TCCS library books, magazines at the dentist's office, sale notices at the thrift store (c'mon, Mom!), the menu at Culvers, the birthday bread recipe, and wall posts on facebook. It is also a good time to watch movies, go on a hayride, carve pumpkins, cuddle with the sister, sing vociferously, make aloo gobi, and dance to Michael Card.

My first day of teacher aiding was phenomenal. I was greeted by the assistant principal, who showed me to my cooperating teacher's classroom. She was friendly and down to earth. As far as I can tell, she knows the names of all 140 students that she sees throughout the day in her 1st and 3rd year Spanish classes, and she demands respect from them while still being a very likable person. I found out that they put the native Spanish speakers in separate classes called "heritage" Spanish classes, so I wasn't overwhelmed by my lack of fluency. I was able to work one-on-one with a student who had joined her class late. He was trying very hard to catch up, and he had the brains and study skills to do it. He notebooked everything I told him, and asked me questions to make sure he understood. Later I graded tests and observed the way the teacher taught the class. Throughout the day I was introduced to many of my cooperating teacher's colleagues, who were also friendly and professional. And this made me feel friendly and professional, returning their "nice to meet you"s and standing, smiling, tall and confident while working with the students.

Scary!

Okay, so tomorrow at 7:30 (which is when I am usually just getting up) I have to be at my school in the next suburb, reader to be the most stellar teacher aid within my capabilities. Why is this scary? Because it's high schoolers, and it is inevitable that they won't accept me unconditionally like the special needs 5th graders I worked with last semester. Because it's Spanish class, which I am not nearly prepared to teach. Because it's a Hispanic community which means I won't know nearly as much as the students.

I wanted Spanish and high school and a Hispanic student body, but I don't know if I can handle all three at once!

But I don't have to be the teacher. Just the teacher aid. Breathe deeply. Go to bed early.

Dude! I'm excited!

wasting my time

It is late, therefore I am tired, therefore I am crabby, therefore I write this poem, which despite my cynical state of mind, ends on a hopeful note:

______

I'm wasting my time.
…I'll never be called lazy.
I'm burning it up.
…I burn the candle at both ends.
I'm throwing it to the wind.
…Running too fast to feel the wind in my hair.
I'm burying it in the mud.
…Digging myself deeper, I feel the weight of everything above me.

I chase after knowledge
That I'll soon forget
Because I don't stop
To ponder and rest
Before I must move on
To asking "What next?"
I'll be old before mature
If I don't stop and reflect.

Won't waste my talents–
I'm trying them all.
Can't waste my tuition–
I take a full load.
There's so much to learn,
I just have to get involved.
When I'm at an intersection
I take every road.

I'm wasting my time.
…There is a time for everything.
I'm burning it up.
…A season for everything under the burning sun.
I'm throwing it to the wind.
…So why am I chasing after the wind,
I'm burying it in the mud.
…when all that is good and true is as old and steadfast as mud?

____

So what have I been wasting my time with? All good things; nothing to complain about. Here's the past two days:

Friday– hit the snooze button. Alarm clock decides to be faulty and just not ring again. But I wake up anyway, although not on time to finish mi narración para la clase de español. So I go to Theology, then finish my narration for the class of Spanish, then go to Spanish, then eat some lunch, then cross cultural psychology, then history. Next I run errands to the offices of several professors. I get in contact with my cooperating teacher who I will be teacher aiding with starting next week. I read two chapters of a book just for fun. Then I realize that my reading time is done, and I go to supper, where I meet my cousins, and we have a pleasant time. Next, Trollstock. This is just plain fun, and I am still with my cousins, and so I have someone to sway to the music with. The band that plays at the end of the night is called Scatteredtrees, and they are amazing. I actually used to be in a band with the bass player and the drummer (Christian Life High School Pep Band). Now they are rock stars, as I always knew they would be. I buy their album and have them sign it, as we catch up on lives that share a piece of past. The rhymes they sing sink into me and I return to my desk to write my own. When I've written it all out, I crash up to my bed like a sluggish monkey.

Saturday- no snooze button to push, praise God for Saturdays. I complete this week's assigned cleaning duties while taking a shower. Finally dressed, fed, and ready for the day, I realize that a trip to the thrift store is in order, as another pair of my pants has sprung a leak in the left knee, and as much as I want to be the grungy girl, I don't want to be the grungy girl. After a completely unsuccesful trip to the thrift store, where everything that looks good is small, and everything my size is ugly, I return to campus, where I eat lunch with a group of friends who are my acquaintances. Then it is off to the Chicago Shakespeare Theater. "Gloria, if you put on black and white in five minutes you can see a show for free." And so she does, and we are off. First time downtown this semester, and first time I've ever driven there. Hardly harder than Rockford, which is hardly harder than Freeport, which is hardly harder than German Valley, which is no harder than Borchers Road when they've just graded (but now it's paved). No problem, even in the parking garage. We usher for the show, allowing us free seats on the upper balcony, which are still good seats, with the jut stage right below us. They tell the story of Cembeline with great skill. A series of Lori's intriguing questions gets us through the stop and go traffic filling the roads to Trinity. The Matthew West concert is just starting when we get back, so I go to that, and he sings words that remind me of truths I should never forget. Eat supper, watch a little of the movie that's on (because it's Princess Bride), talk on the phone, write a blog.

So far this weekend, I've just done fun things, and good fun at that. I haven't been wasting my time. But I haven't gotten any of the things that I need to get done done, which is what's really bugging me. There's responsibilities, and then there's opportunities, and then there's rest. Scared of the responsibilities, I take every opportunity, except for the rare opportunity to rest. Somehow I still manage to complete all my responsibilities, though not to the best of my ability. That is what I mean by wasting time. So here is this writing, an opportunity to rest the burden of the procrastinated responsibilities that try my abilities and test my agility. For me, this is a piece of peace.

Wildlife Pictures

More pictures from this summer!

See my Tabblo>

pictures of the mountain

See my Tabblo>

Notice

You may have noticed that this blog now contains all the entries of my old blog. I copied and pasted them all in, but I did not copy all the old comments, so if you remember writing an enlightening comment on one of my old posts, you can recomment. Just so you know.

to my family

Dear Family, Immediate and Extended,

You are amazing. I've realized this semester how much my life has been shaped by all of you. After coming back from a literal mountain-top experience this summer, focusing on school and feeling at home at Trinity has not been especially easy. Under the strain of loads of homework, leadership responsibilities, living with five other young women in a two-bedroom apartment, missing everything about Mt. Rainier, and getting headaches just from the smell of the city, I've been a little homesick. But when I'm homesick, it's not really for that place outside of Freeport. It's just for family in general. Phone conversations have been encouraging. It was so good to be in Michigan last weekend and to have Mom come visit this weekend. It's amazing to have my cousin on campus. It's crazy to realize that many of my best friends are related to me, that I've known them my whole life, that we've stayed connected the whole time even though we're spread all over the country, and that there's no reason why we can't stay connected for the rest of our lives. Sweet!

Love,

Rebecca

third times a charm

You may be thinking, "Why is she titling her first post 'third times a charm'?"

The answer is, this is just the latest in a lengthening line of blogs that I have kept. Previous blogging can be found at web.mac.com/thatrebecca (abandoned because it cost money and it had technical difficulties). Even earlier blogging (some of my best writing, actually, especially the stuff written in the wee hours of the morning after hours of pondering at the switch-making factory) can be found at www.xanga.com/galationsoneten (left behind because of its limitation to the xanga community).

So, a new blog is in order. With all this schoolwork and extracurriculars, I still have this deep urge to write and write and write. The keys feel good beneath the tips of my fingers, and the words seem to fit like brick after brick as I build something that leaves me more open and free.

Entry

I had something written here, but then iWeb locked up and lost its changes.

I think it was something about how all six of us ACMNP people are here now and that the Sunday service went well and how I am visiting Nate and Hannah for my days off.

We went bowling on Friday and we had a campfire in Ashford on Saturday and so I am getting to know lots of people.


I will always look back with fondness.

Sometimes people are paying for their order and they say, “So you guys drive up here everyday just to work? That must be quite a trek!” And I get to tell them that I live in the employee dorms nestled into the mountainside and half covered with snow just a five minute walk from the Jackson Visitor Center. That’s our dorm in the back, framed by the ranger’s station.

Staying in the dorms is tons of fun. Almost everyone is done with work by six or seven in the evening and no one ever has homework. When we aren’t doing ACMNP meetings or prayer times or Bible studies or music practice, we just play pool, foosball, darts, ping pong, mad gab, pictionary, scrabble, or cards. Or we watch movies or prank each other or just talk.
Everyone gets a couple days off each week, and since everyone here loves hiking, and since everyone here wants to be relatively safe, we automatically cooperate into hiking fellowships. Today it was Ryan, Felice, Erika, and I hiking together. We went down the mountain to were the trails are clear and dry. Erika was teaching me some Chinese and Felice was finding artistic points of view to capture with her digital SLR. Hao bung o! (That is indubitably spelled wrong!)

Tomorrow is the next day of my weekend, so I need to find out who else is off so we can hit the trails.

This is a picture of a grouse, I think. Quite nice. He and his mate were wandering around the dorm. And here’s one of the neighborhood foxes, checking our the preparing hikers in the parking lot.



Now I need to go take a shower, do my laundry, and pick out songs to go with the scripture for this Sunday.

beauty everywhere

The beauty of Grandma and Grandpa heading up to Northwest Iowa right when I needed to go there.

The beauty of hopping in a car with a guy I didn’t know, and just knowing that he is a Christian being enough for credentials.

The beauty of the Missouri River valley, the cheese of the prairie, the rock formations of Wyoming, the cottonwoods of Montana, the mountains of Idaho, and the fruit stands of Washington.

The beauty of a blizzard in May at the continental divide and the beauty of finally driving out of it.

The beauty of seeing the peak of Mt. Rainier when we were still hours away.

The beauty of the winding road to Ashford.

The beauty of being escorted straight back to the employee break room and fed tacos and chocolate walnut pie.

The beauty of arriving.

The beauty of 60• and deep piles of snow.

The beauty of a dresser and a closet and a sink in my room and a toilet and shower room shared with the room next door.

The beauty of having my own room for a couple days and the beauty of expecting my roommate’s arrival from Rwanda.

The beauty of 100% awesome teammates.

The beauty of the body of believers.

The beauty of teaching some Spanish to my Singaporean coworkers.

The beauty of the walk home after work.

The beauty of God directing my words in a conversation with a seeking unbeliever.

Discombobulated

I am discombobulated because I only have two more days of classes, four days of finals, two and one half days of packing and soaking in the midwestern countryside, and two days of sitting in a car before I am at Mt. Rainier National Park.

I am happy to have recovered from the twenty-four hour stomach flu. It is too bad my thermometer wasn’t healthy while I was sick. I really want to know if I really had a 108* fever like it said. I researched the internet to find out what happens when you have a 108* fever and they didn’t have a very large body of evidence to present. But the thing about your brains melting at precisely 106* is a farce. High temperatures like that can give you a seizure or make you go limp. They would kill the stores of vitamins in your body. They would kill your acidophilus.

Oh boy I feel swell! Maybe the fever damaged the worry part of my brain. Maybe I’m just happy to be feeling better. It sure feels good to feel good!

For all you curious people, no I did not draw that picture, it was found on the internet by typing in “discombobulated” to the Google image search.

Displaced

I spent Saturday night as a refugee. I slept in a sleeping bag on a piece of cardboard in a parking lot between the lake, the expressway, Soldier Field and McCormick place. 26 people from Trinity were refugees that night with more than 5000 other people from the midwest. We marched, we held signs, we yelled, we wrote letters to the Ugandan president, we filmed part of a message to congress, and we were nourished by saltines and water.

Why? Because in Uganda, there has been a war for 21 years. It’s the rebels (the LRA) against everyone else (the government and the regular people). And no one cares about there cause, because it has been going on so long and everyone just wants peace. But the LRA wants to keep fighting, and since they don’t have any volunteer soldiers, they go around abducting children.

They take the children and beat them and make them kill their loved ones. They say, “Shoot them, or we will beat you until you are dead.” And so they change from children into soldiers, having no way to live but to kill. They live with the army in the wilderness and fight. If they escape from their captains/captors, their nightmares still follow them.

Some children walk from their homes in the outlying villages into the cities every night so that they don’t get abducted. They run the streets with their peers and then settle onto a slab of cement for the night. There used to be more children who did this, but the situation is improving, in part because of last year’s protest/simulation, the Global Night Commute.

This year was Displace Me, to advocate for those who have been displaced. Because of the violence, many families chose to move into Internally Displaced Persons camps. About ten years ago, the fighting was getting so bad that the president of Uganda told all the people living in the countryside and villages, “You have 48 hours to move to the IDP camps.”

48 hours to pack for a camping trip that would last for ten years. What would you bring to survive? What would you bring to keep, knowing that while you were fenced into an IDP camp, your family home would be looted and burned by the rebels? How would you feed your family? You are a farmer and there is no land in the IDP camp. There is no clean water. There is no industry. There are no jobs, no schools, no nothing. Just dirt, germs, flies, mosquitoes, AIDS, malaria, and a little bit of diseased water.

1.5 million people live in these IDP camps. There are children who have gone from birth to death-by-starvation in these camps. Around 1000 people die in these camps every single day.

They want to go home. They want to farm and eat what they have grown, instead of the mush that the aid trucks drop off. They wanted to be treated like the intelligent, independent people that they are. They know the camps have done little to keep them from harm and much to harm them. They want to go home.

So we left our homes to bring them home.

What I might do

With this business of having to walk to the library’s internet to actually publish this blog, it seems that it is never up to date. So, tonight I have decided to write about what I might do in the future, so that by the time you read this, you can pester me and see if I’ve actually done it.
1. Take out the trash.
2. Sort the recycles.
3. Fill out at least one more job application.
4. Decide where to work, since I at least have one possibility now.
5. Practice Jabberwocky for Opus.
6. Prepare something to say about the Chicago Humanities Festival for Opus.
7. Write a couple papers.
8. Interview some people.
9. Clean up the mess on my bed.
10. Talk about future rooming situation.
11. Hang up some posters.

How I’ve been

I would say that I am busy and tired, but those words are overused, so I will just tell you that I have been flying by the seat of my pants and that it has been so much fun that now I am exhausted, but I am still glying by the seat of my paints.
Since spring break, I have surmounted rooming challenges and am excited about living in Tibstra next year with a few friends and a few friends of friends and maybe even some friends of friends of friends of friends, so it is clear that it will be a friendly living arrangement. If our housing request is granted, there will be six of us living in an apartment with two bedrooms, a deluxe multi-room bathroom and a good sized living room/ kitchenette area.

Another challenge recently is trying to find a good job for next summer because Honeywell is not rehiring student workers. I’ve been applying places but really have no idea what I will be doing in a month, or even where I will be living.

Last weekend was formal, a dinner cruise and dance on Lake Michigan. It was a good time and we had a great little informal group to hang out with. I wore Alissa’s bridesmaid dress and my $7 Goodwill peacoat kept me warm when we went out onto the deck to take in the Chicago skyline. Unfortunately, the d.j.s didn’t play any salsa, so all of my practice was for naught.

This week is filled with SJC (Social Justice Chapter) meetings, a talk about stewardship, hosting my grandparents on grandparents day, the SJC leading a forum as part of the LPS (Law and Politics Society) focus week, going to Chicago Shakespeare Theatre with my Shakespeare class to see Troilus and Cressida, babysitting at my roommate’s church, and going to see all of my friends in the play on Saturday. I’ll also try to get to the music festival that some of my friends are organizing for Friday night. And then there’s homework, classes, eating, showering, walking through the woods on a perfect spring day, and sleeping. Sleep always comes last.

And now I must exaunt and go make me some egg noodles before I have to register for next semester’s classes.

Spring Break

I had a good spring break. I got twenty-four hours more teacher aiding in. I now have only seven hours left to do this semester–and only seven weeks to do it in. I did not catch up on sleep and I did not get ahead on homework. Lori visited and I got to show her around the area. I filed my taxes and did the FAFSA. I watched Alissa run in a track meet. I performed Jabberwockiy at a talent show. There was a potluck at church.

Now I am back and the rest of the school year is going to go too fast.

Spring

A winsom-weathered weekend.

We started by driving to Dominick’s and finding flowers to fit a friend with a ruptured appendix. Then we headed to the hospital to see and support our sleeping sister.

Before supper I biked my mail to a box. Our evening entertainment included the Jazz Band and Ferris Bueller’s Day Off. I told myself as I sank into the sack that I should sleep until eleven.

I slept until 11:20, then bounced out of bed to load up my laundry. Lunch was in the gym, where we watched the wheelchair basketball game between the Wheelchair Bulls and the Trinity Trolls. Our team’s arms were aching.

After cleaning my corner, an amiga arrived to ask about some pronunciation problems. As I tutored Gloria, my new hispanic friend, on tricky words like “childhood” and “confusion,” I felt entirely in my element.

The quintessential sunshine summoned us to the tennis courts at the high school. It was my first time to try tennis, and I am not terribly talented at this activity. But it was fun.

We returned to ready ourselves for ushering at the Court Theatre on the south side. We rode in with the theatre director and his lovely wife. Viewing Flyin’ West for free was a fabulous favor offered in exchange for ripping tickets and saying “please turn your cell phones off” five hundred times.

It was almost time to change our clocks when I finally fell into bed. Not long enough later, I got up to go to church. After that I made myself a meal and slept with Shakespeare on my lap.

I took the long route all through the neighborhood to Liz’s vocal recital. Her lovely voice sang of spring.

"My soul hears by sight,
As to glorify the Creator
All things shout for joy, all things laugh.
Only listen: the splendor of the
Blossoming spring is the speech of nature,
Which plainly through our looking
Speaks to us everywhere."

. . . . .

I finally fished my roller blades out of my trunk and tried them out. I can’t brake when going downhill. But the warmth of the sun made it okay that I always had to coast to a stop and turn around to go back up to where I wanted to be.
All too soon the day was done and I had to come inside, settle down, and do my homework.

"When the streams turn pink in the setting sun,
And a slight shudder rushes through the wheat fields,
A plea for happiness seems to rise out of all things
And it climbs up towards the troubled heart.
A plea to relish the charm of life
While there is youth and the evening is fair,
For we pass away, as the wave passes;
The wave to the sea, we to the grave."





Aha!

Now I know where the movie Benny and Joon got the idea to make grilled cheese sandwiches with an iron. I quote Shakespeare’s Henry V, Act II, scene i: “I dare not fight, but I will wink and hold out mine iron. It is a simple one, but what though? It will toast cheese.”


Indeed.

Got him.

The second asian lady beetle of my winter at Trinity dropped in on my tonight. Although they had been on a lovely sabbatical, my survival instincts kicked right in and the ladybug was soon enveloped in duct tape.

I am angry

I hope that it is a long long time before I ever have to shop at Target again. I can’t stand that store. Not only did it take me twice as long to find what I needed, I ended up paying twice as much as I expected. And when I had finally made it through my list, I had no idea where the checkouts were. I was lost in an unfamiliar land of disgustingly skillful graphic design.
I happened upon a checkout and checked out. The cashier said, “Do you want a Target Redcard?” But really he said, “Djawannadargerekar?”

“A what?” I asked.”

“Adargar eckar. You can save 10%.”

I imagined a little keychain fob with red and white circles on it and thought back to how much I regretted never just getting a Hilander card during high school. And 10% is even better than the deals for cardholders at Hilander.

So I said sure and filled out the information they needed. Nothing too abnormal. Then he hands me the rest of the information and I instantly realize that they have signed me up for a credit card. So then I am really angry, but I have already spent at least forty minutes in the store, so I jut want to leave.

As I hastily put away my wallet and gathered my purchases, I heard the next-aisle cashier say to my cashier, “You got a Redcard? I’ve been trying to push them all day and I haven’t gotten anyone. They keep turning me down.”

I was furious. Now I wasn’t just a stupid girl who can’t tell a credit card scam when she sees one, I was the victim of their competition for commission. He had got me.

After wandering around the parking lot and finally finding my car, I sat down and took a look at the paperwork he had given me. What did 10% really mean? I found the section that said, “Shop RED. Get 10% off. Again. Again. And again.” The fine print reads, “Every time you use your REDcard, you will earn Target Rewards points. Every time you reach 1,000 points you’ll get another 10% off day at Target.”

So that’s what “You can get 10% off” means. I threw the paper down on the passenger seat and drove away from that stupid store.

Why did I choose to shop at Target anyway? It’s not like that was the first time I’ve been treated rudely at a Target. Well, first, because it is a little closer to school than the Wal-Mart. But mostly because in Social Justice Chapter we’ve been discussing how so many of our products are made by child laborers who never are able to receive an education or in sweatshops where they pay the workers fifteen cents an hour and force them to work ninety hours a week. And we’ve discussed that, in order to maintain its low prices, Wal-Mart is especially guilty of cooperating with and even setting up many of these factories, more guilty than stores like Target.

The only reason we can afford to have twenty t-shirts that we never use in our closets is because the people who make them can hardly afford one. So because Target has allegedly been less exploitative of its workers, I decided to shop there. Except today they made me feel exploited.

Anyway, I don’t know if shopping there makes any difference at all. I still bought Suave shampoo, Avery binders, and Nestle chocolate chips. They come from the same factory, and there’s no easy way to find out the conditions in these places. All department stores here routinely take advantage of extremely cheap labor in other countries and the cheap labor of trafficked human beings. The people who make our products are trapped between grueling, underpaid work and no work at all. They are slaves to the system that is so good to us. And if the best I can do to stop this is to shop at Target instead of Wal-Mart, it is a sad day.

So, I’m angry. I’m angry at mr. mumbling cashier. I’m angry at Target and there smooth, stealthy advertising (a turnoff to a career in graphic design). I’m angry at the companies who pay their workers wages that will never allow them to get out of debt and move on. I’m angry at the traffickers who tell foreigners that they’ll bring them to the United States and give them a job, only to lock them up in a factory when they get here.

But I’m not going to fall asleep tonight angry. I’m going to fall asleep dreaming of a store where everything is easy to find and my money goes to the people who deserve it. And there will be no credit card offers at this store.

Excuses:

There are plenty of good reasons why I haven’t really cracked a book since Wednesday night:

Amy came to visit and we were busy having delightful conversations and being friends.

We attended chapel with Justin McRoberts and got to have lunch with him.

The Social Justice Chapter hosted Justin McRoberts in concert that night.

Esther and I needed to take some more personality tests.

I went to see “Amazing Grace” in the theater today. You should too.

I didn’t have much homework due Friday, so I finished everything Wednesday night.

I am tired.

I saw a Robin yesterday

I saw a robin yesterday,
Or was it the day before?
At any rate, I saw it
On my way back from the store.

I heard it twirt and chipper
I saw it light upon the stone.
I smelled the smell of melting snow
I felt warmth in my bones.

This winter came and went so fast,
(at least I think it’s going.)
Today I didn’t wear a coat,
Last week we joyed for snowing.

Four little puppies once did gather
The snow up in a pile
But I will watch this winter melt
And skip and sing and smile.

stall art

That time in the bathroom stall is more than just a time of physical release, it is a time to release inner emotion s and thoughts.

Valentines Day with my mac

Imagine handling 1245 emails per semester within a Windows based web-mail system that didn’t work right on a Mac. I couldn’t search the email, I couldn’t keep an address book, and I couldn’t see if I had gotten any emails without typing in my username and password– no “remember me on this computer” for this one. No keyboard shortcuts, no graphical user interface, no message preview.

But all that has changed, many thanks to Nathan and the helpful, though busy and mac illiterate, computer services department of TCC. That was the triumph of the week. What superbly awesome thing is going to occur next?

:38

I looked at the clock at 9:38, 10:38, 11:38, and 1:38. I think at 12:38 I was in the art lab, so… yeah.

what we did

Lori and I spent some good quality time together this weekend. We went to see the Southwest Symphony Orchestra. We made up half of the students who walked from the dorms to the chapel to pay five dollars to see this local orchestra perform. We also skipped some sleep to talk late into the night.

Other things I did this weekend: benefit coffeehouse shindig for the homeless; singing with gospel choir for the Multicultural Alumni Network; eating with them because not very many multicultural alumni came; finding out that Kim nee. Ritzema and I both had the same room our freshman years; making stew in my crockpot; going downtown with Sunday Snacks to hand out lunches, coats, socks, and blankets; doing homework.

moving through the ranks

Yes, indeed, 18 credits last semester, 32 test based credits from AP, CLEP, and the Spanish entrance exam, 10 dual-credit credits, one FYF credit and two interim credits means that I am a junior. And no, just in case you are wondering, I am not planning on graduating early.

Cold

It is very cold and I want to snuggle under the covers and sleep until noon, like I did on Saturday.

Couscous

Another recommended recipe: couscous and alfalfa sprouts. I love being able to construct what I eat.

Meet Lori, my roommate: So I’m making couscous the other day, and she looks at it raises one eyebrow and says, “What’s that?”

“It’s couscous,” I answer, “a type of pasta from the Mediterranean somewhere. It’s just small.”

“Like grated noodles?”

“Yup.”

“So it’s for like babies and old people who can’t chew?” Lori asks seriously.

“No, it’s just small. It’s used like rice.”

“Why don’t they just use rice?”

“I don’t know! Maybe they can’t grow it. Maybe they can just grow wheat, so they make couscous. It’s good.”

“Oh.
Okay.”

As you may infer, Lori is a practical, skeptical, logical, lovable roommate.

Good things

Like jasmine rice, black beans, alfalfa sprouts, fresh orange and ginger. The sprouts grown in a jar in my dorm. Good things like a conversation in Esther’s room, or in the van on the way home from the Chicago Symphony Orchestra (another good thing, and my first chance to wear that seven dollar pea coat from Goodwill (another good thing)), or around the tables in the cafeteria. Good things like the gnome sitting in my spider plant, next to the aloe shoots shared by a friend. Like the complete works of Shakespeare, which will have all passed beneath my eyes by the end of the semester. Like a good beginning to this semester.

Phoenix, my own pictures

These are some of the pictures I took. I should be able to get more pictures of the rest of the week from other people. And my camera is working again. I think it just couldn’t deal with the drastic temperature changes every twelve hours.

in summary

We ate a lot of beans.
We said a lot of ‘quest,’ ‘coma’ and ‘intense.’
We talked a lot about smoking and dating.
We did a lot of hiking.
We biked a lot of miles.
We bought a lot of food.
We went through a lot neighbors.
We burned a lot of firewood.
We drank a lot of gatorade.

. . .

Now I am settled back in at Trinity, getting ready for my second semester. It is snowing gently and I can hear screaming outside, which means that life is normal and good and fun.
And my camera is working flawlessly again!

downright extraordinary

I never did climb that little mountain, but now I am soaring above them. I bit my lips during takeoff. As Phoenix sank below me I wished I didn’t have to leave.

From seat 16E, the seat I took in order to get out of the airport 1/2 hour earlier, I can see the snow on the taller mountains.
When I get home there will be a couple/few inches of snow. I hope I have time to go sledding before I need to return to Trinity.

The sun is already set. If we were still camping, we would be pulling supper together and gobbling it down. Or maybe we’d be washing dishes. Or maybe just sitting around the campfire talking about smoking, and first dates, and what we had seen today.

Today in the airport, while waiting in standby, I saw a Jewish family with three little boys as they also waited to get a seat on the plane. All with some sort of head covering.

The middle boy was counting airplanes (He counted almost forty that took of while we waited.) and his dad was telling him about airplanes. While their dad was busy taking a business call, the youngest brother, still wearing a pacifier, told the middle boy that he wasn’t allowed to count planes and that it was dumb.

So the middle brother went over and smacked the little brother. This was just as their dad came back. “But he said I wasn’t allowed to count planes!” was the boys excuse. They were both reprimanded.

Then the dad asked the middle brother, “Why did God make hands?”

“I don’t know,” middle brother whimpered.

“God made hands for helping, not for hurting,” his dad said gently.

If only everything was used for what God made it for. If words were used to build up, if land was used to be beautiful and to supply us with what we need. If work was for being productive, not for making money. If long flights were used for getting to know the person next to you instead of listening to music.

Just kidding. I’m just bored and a bit jealous. And I want more orange juice. My glass was half ice.

The turbulence is pretty crazy fun. Even while flying at a reduced altitude. It’s all black outside, but when we fly over a city, I can tell we are unusually close.

I hope that whoever comes to pick me up brings food. And I will use my sleeping bag to snuggle up in the cold of Illinois.

We went to the botanical gardens today. I loved it! Cacti of all shapes and sizes, and succulents that were even more bizarre. I wandered around dreamily taking in the beautiful weather and the green of the desert. (The desert fed with a drip irrigation system.)

Hensley said that, to keep a cactus alive, you should watch the weather, and if it rains in Phoenix, water you cactus. The man knows so much about the desert. He knows most of the flora and fauna, plus all the cool stuff about how they interact. How pack rats build nest out of teddy bear cholla. How birds can build their nests within the spikes of a cacti. How coyotes communicate across the desert. How saguaros kill off their nurse trees.

. . .

My pots and pans had to be packed with Rogers stuff, because they wouldn’t fit with mine. It is a good thing I didn’t fit them into my roller. It would have been overweight.

. . .

When I get home, I am going to take a long shower and qtip my ears.

. . .

Before I left, I didn’t have very many ideas for my parents to get me for my birthday. But now I can think of a few: a light to wear on my head, a thermarest and a camelback. And an ultra-warm mummy sleeping bag, except for that the one I have is quite new and I’m not planning on camping in thirty degree weather again anytime soon.

Funny how living (and even thriving) with less can still make me want more.

But this week has also proved that we humans don’t need lap tops to learn, and we don’t need houses to have heat. We don’t need a kitchen to cook, we don’t need computers to communicate. We don’t need to rest to relax and we don’t need a TV screen to see the world. I even discovered that I don’t need a camera to capture memories.

But we need people. I wouldn’t have survived this week without people.

I needed the moms, Sara and Amy, to have food ready when my aching muscles needed it. I needed Renae to share body heat with at night. I needed Aaron to give me water from his camelbak and I needed Michelle to go get my towel when I was naked and shivering in the shower.

I needed Derek’s advice and the smoke-free spot by the fire that Mike could have taken for himself. I needed Jason’s chipperness and Chris’s determination. I needed Josh to let me know it was okay to go sleep in the van.

I needed Hensley’s knowledge and Vander Weele’s coordination and Roger’s motivation (and the extra room in his luggage.) The people made this trip not only possible, but pleasant, productive, and downright extraordinary.

a continuation.

Life was great at Super 8. I took a long shower and put on one layer of clothes. One layer of clothes! Out here I’ve been wearing long underwear, three pairs of pants, a t-shirt, a long sleeved t-shirt three jackets, a hat, gloves, and two pairs of socks. What a blessing to fall asleep in comfy clothes in a comfy bed!

We were awakened at 7:30 so that we could start working on breakfast and laundry before checkout at 11. Some people did their laundry at the laundry mat. Derek, Josh and I combined ours and did it at the hotel next door, a motel actually, and the Super 8’s sister. Between the two hotels was a vacant lot of dirt, dry and dusty. Each step we took sent clouds around our ankles. The dryer took two cycles to actually dry, so we didn’t have time to go to Waffle House.

When we got back we had sandwiches and parted ways for road biking and mountain biking. I road biked. I was the slowest biker, which was okay. It would not have been okay if I were in one of my more competitive and stubborn moods. but I was just trying to get there and as far back as possible, and I did.

It was a good stop at Walgreens, but after turning around I felt like I was going to puke. A protein bar was stuck at the top of my stomach and the wind was in my face. Every time a car passed me, I could smell the exhaust. Sometimes four or five cars would pass me in a row. That was just too much. Sensory overload and an exhausted body.

I turned from Yuma to Citrus and hit the wind at a different direction. The protein bar began to settle. The traffic lightened up. So I kept going and going until I got sagged. Yeah sag wagon! I had biked about 30 miles.

We all got sagged that trip, except for Aaron. Even Michelle was forced into the back of the van. When we got back a taco supper was waiting. So delicious. Food becomes something entirely amazing when you are camping. Maybe that’s how the pioneers dealt with eating cornmeal and dried goods all the way across the country.

During the cold evening hours we sat in Starbucks to stay warm. We chatted and I worked on my journal and dipped my chocolate biscotti in my orange tea. We stayed until the minute it closed, then came back and went to bed. I slept well.

Since Dr. Hensley tore up his leg mountain biking yesterday, I got to mountain bike today while he sagged. That worked out well for me. I love tearing up and down those heard packed trails on a bike with a suspension fork and big fat tires.

Renae and I went around a big loop of the competitive track and then came back for chili dogs. We’ve been basking in the sun, nestled between the mountains and the tent and the clear blue sky, ever since. And so I have caught up in my writing, for now.

. . .

Here I am on a boulder. My back is to the sun and my butt is sitting in the cold rock. There are pebbles in my shoe. It is too late to climb the mountain, so I will just write about why I wish I could climb the mountain.

I wish I could climb a mountain because it would prove that I can. I wish I could climb the mountain because it looks pretty. I wish I could climb the mountain because last time I climbed a mountain was 1.5 years ago and it was a good experience. But at the same time, it was not a perfect experience, so I would like to move on in my mountain climbing career. I would like to climb that mountain because when I’d get to the top, I could look around and it would be beautiful. But actually, it would be
dark, so never mind.

recontinued.

After hiking back to camp, I was hungry for pancakes. And there was pancake batter on the table. And since the weather had been so cold, I wasn’t worried if it was spoiled. It was just crusty on the top.

I cooked it until it was no longer batter. Michelle said “gross.” Jason was jealous of my concoction, which made me feel better, like a chef instead of a garbage disposal. I enjoyed it. When I get home, I think I will make pancakes.

I am realizing now that I already wrote about this, back when I was in the van and I had just eaten them. But that writing was interrupted by a mountain biking excursion with Dr. Hensley, and I am finally writing again. The bike ride was good. More interesting than road biking, but less comfortable. I want to go over and try out the competitive track.

That night we made chili for supper. We scarfed it down before the sun went down and even cleaned it up. So we had a lot of time to sit around the fire, trying to stay warm as the weather fulfilled its frost warning. We went around the circle stating our favorite music groups, then the music of we grew up on, then our first concert, then our best concert. When we got to “What we would like Trinity to be in five years,” Josh said something about how whatever Calvin does, Trinity does five years later.

“That’s bullshit!” Professor Vander Weele promptly interjected. That caught us off guard and made us laugh. Oh Pascola, a mixture of seriousness and clowning. I think he was being serious right then.

That night was cold. I put on four pairs of pants, two pairs of socks, two t-shirts, and three jackets. A hood and a stocking cap attempted to keep the heat from escaping out the top. I snuggled as close to Renae as possible. The Renae side of me was okay, but the tent wall side was constricting in shivers. I knew I would not be able to sleep.

After hearing the van doors open and close, I decided to make the move as well. The van wasn’t much warmer and I slept fitfully until finally resting around 2;30 a.m. I was half awake the next morning when Chris came in and said “good morning beautiful!” I sat up and said “I’m not Josh. Josh is in the back.”

I checked my camera, which had been sleeping with me in the sleeping bag. Anything for its health. But alas, it was still sickly and seeing visions of things not real. Muy triste. Muy depresiado.

Apparently the weather had been in the 20’s. My internal thermometer was not surprised to hear that.

We had church in the van. A mixture of song, Bible reading and short meditations. There were only a few songs that all of us knew. Our faith does not overlap at the songs, and that may be just as well. It should come together at something more meaningful than that. Like what we believe and how our beliefs are so important that it comes out in our actions. But does it?

This is something I’ve been thinking a lot about. I’m trying to reconcile that my relatives (who can’t stand democrats, environmentalists, or smokers) and these friends of mine (some of them democrats, environmentalists, and/or smokers) are part of the same faith.

I feel the need for unity and the need for diversity. The need for rules and freedom, for protecting and fighting, for justice and mercy, and for love. I feel the need for acting on what we believe, whether that is by quitting smoking or loving smokers.

. . .

After lunch we went to SMOCA, the Scottsdale Museum of Contemporary Art. A gallery of abstract art was fun and colorful. Then we viewed the Border Film Project, a bunch of snapshots taken by minutemen, coyotes, and illegal immigrants. Artistic and telling. Sad, confusing, and stirring. I wonder what needs to change to improve this situation, both for the U.S. and Mexico and countries further south.

One Mexican guy on the video was talking about why so many Mexicans are facing financial trouble and deciding to move to the states. He said he was making 45 dollars a week, but immigrants from Central America had come up and taken the job for 15 dollars a week. He felt that he needed to come to the states to support his family. I wonder what the Central Americans would say? I wonder if anyone has had to leave the states to find better paying work elsewhere because they couldn’t support their family because all the immigrants were taking the jobs for lower pay?

. . .

On the way back to camp we made guacamole. Yes, we made guacamole in the rental van. Then we ate it all and it was good. Then we made an expert trip to the grocery store.

Back at camp, I was trying to fill the water jug so we could make spaghetti (fettucini) and meatballs. One false move and I was splattered with water. As the sun pulled the mountains up to its chin, I knew this wetness thing was bad. I had to change. Even with that hurdle mounted my mind remained focused on staying warm.

We finally got firewood. Supper was served. So good. The fire burned, but it wasn’t hot enough for all of us and some went to warm in the van. When I thought about the night ahead of us, I felt scared.

Poppa Weelee came over and offered a controversial suggestion: hotel/motel.

Hot shower. Warm bed. Soft.

Giving in? Giving up? Succumbing to the wooing of civilization?

I didn’t see it that way, and I’m glad that we chose that option. I’ve seen what trying to be all tough and unneedy can do.

continued.

…that she was in a great deal of pain. Since I didn’t have a comb, I just tried to stay calm as Sara pulled the cholla from her skin. Big drops of blood sprung up in several places.

That was actually the main reason we turned around right when we did. Especially since there was still a spike stuck deep in Sara’s palm We made our way down the mountain and met up with the rest of the group. Even Josh, eventually.

Back at camp, the plan was pancakes. But that plan wasn’t working in the least. Our bellies were empty, and the temperature was dropping quickly. To prevent a mutiny, our fearless leaders took us to KFC/A&W. Good choice. We stayed there until bedtime, then went back and went to bed.

The next day was Saturday. We knew it would be cold. It was windy, too. We escaped up the Waterfall Canyon, all the way up the creek bed to the white tank, where the waterfall, if there were any water, would gush through, polishing the rock to a slideable, smooth, white. The tank formed where the water always hit the hardest was filled with water. Beautiful. The water was there for itself. No trees could force their roots into those rocks to use it; very little plant life could be found. But it was an oasis nonetheless.

Before mountain biking with Hensley

In the van right now. Sara snores. Amy and Roger both sleeping, too. The rest, write.

For lunch I ate the rest of the pancake batter by heating it until it turned from liquid to solid, than scraping it off the pan and shoving it in my mouth. Then I had a peanut butter and banana sandwich– my first. It was everything these sandwiches have been alleged to be, and maybe even more. Now I am in the van because it’s in the 40’s now, the coldest day so far, I think, and even with three layers, life outside isn’t very fun.

Yesterday was similar, so we went out to lunch and then to the Heard museum. The fish tacos and native American art both gave me a broader perspective of the southwest. I’d go back to Macaya’s in a heartbeat.

Sara and Amy both just woke up. I guess it was Amy snoring, not Sara.

Anyway, yesterday when we got back to camp, we decided to go for a hike. We ended up going up a small “mountain.” We kept getting higher and higher until finally we got the idea that we might just get to the top. So we kept going. Josh made it to the top, but only because he went by himself. The rest of us thought about the setting sun and turned back. But we came back after dark anyway, because we were good friends and waited for Josh to make sure he was alive.

Another reason we turned back was because Sara, while slipping on some loose rock, stuck her hand out and grabbed hold of a teddy bear cholla ball. The string of expletives that she loudly listed sufficiently explained…

You know what’s funny?

It’s pretty funny that yesterday was my birthday and no one knew until I told them at the campfire. It didn’t really seem to matter; it was another day, with good things (weather, biking, friends) and bad things (camera not working, waiting for my bike to get fixed.) But now I am 19, not 18, which changes something, I guess.

I am tired and cold. Tired because it just isn’t as easy to sleep when the wind is blowing the tent halfway over and my hip is digging into the ground. Cold because that same wind exchanged clouds for the Arizona sun. Now it is only as warm as Illinois was last week.

Yesterday I was taking a shower and washing my clothes when I started thinking about how I am in a desert, and there isn’t much water, and how all the water has to be piped in or drawn up from a shrinking aquifer. I thought “maybe I should try to use less water.” And so I did, if only to take a few pennies off the park’s water bill.

I wonder how the area farmers view water. In the midwest, they just hope they get enough rain, and if they don’t, there’s nothing they can do but pray. Here they are bringing the water in, like a commodity. It’s in a natural and continual state of drought, so they already have a system in place to deal with it.

. . .

The thing about being at home is that you feel settled, like you have systems and routines. A set-up for food preparation, meal clean-up, bathrooming… I am at home in my dorm. I am no longer as at home at “home.” I use a futon, laundry baskets, and a cosmetic bag instead of a bed, a closet, and a shelf in the bathroom. I have that same level of at-homeness (in that sense) here, except that everything is new.

. . .

I hope it warms up now.
I hope the sun comes out.
I hope that generator quits.
I hope my camera can be fixed.

rose petals

It is already Thursday, so we have just a week to go. I’m a little chilly, but I am pretending that I am not, because this is Phoenix and I am on vacation, and I am not supposed to be chilly. I knew it would be cold at night, but it would be nice if 4:30 wasn’t the beginning of it.

From where I am sitting, I can see teddy bear cholla, buckthorn cholla, saguaro, palo verde, compass barrels, the tree that smells good in the rain [creosote], sagebrush, mistletoe, hedgehog cactus, and a few other things which I forget the names of. I learned a lot of the names on the walk we took yesterday morning with Dr. Hensley.

Later that day we got the bikes back to the campground. So thats what we did that afternoon. We split up between the road bikers and the mountain bikers. I was on the road bike and I noticed right away that I am not very fast or in shape. But that was okay, because my bike still gave out before I did. The chain was too short to stretch from biggest gear to biggest gear, so it just trashed the de-railer. So we got it back, half riding, half walking, half driving. Which is three halves. Oh well.
But we got it fixed today. Which took quite a while and about $100. and then Roger and I joined the group.
I liked it that way because the group was all tuckered out and I was fresh, so I felt skilled for once.

I feel very relaxed. I feel very at ease. I feel very non-OCD, very flexible. I feel very at home. I feel very much like no matter what happens, it will be okay. That is what a vacation must be. That is how life should be.

Something that contributes to this feeling is the overall friendliness of people around here. Not only this group, but the town, the people at the grocery store, the people running the campground. Pretty much everybody except that guy at Surprise Cycling.

Maybe the people are happy because they have the opportunity to get rose petals blown in their face by passing cars. That’s what happened to me today as I was biking past a rose farm.

Quiet.
When I have nothing to say.
When rose petals are blowing in my face.
When life is a stand-still chase.
Quiet.

in Arizona for Interim

The following entries are taken from my journal that I kept while on my interim around Phoenix, Arizona. This was a “travel writing and ecology” interim led by English professor Dr. Vander Weele, biology professor Dr. Hensley, and biking addict Roger Stoub. As I enter these, I am changing the date on the blog to match when I wrote it. However, this date will still not match the date on which these occurrences actually occurred, because I was always a little behind in my writing.

(In the plane on the way to Phoenix):

Mom, the pessimist, wondered if I would be okay sitting around at the airport.

“Yeah,” I ‘of coursed’ “I’ll be fine.” Inside, I was thinking I’d probably get on the first flight, because a lot of good things happen to me.

So I went through security checks. They raised their eyebrows at my mandarin oranges and confiscated my water bottle. I proceeded to my gate. When I checked in, my name was third on the standby list and there were two unsold seats. I was quite nervous about the whole thing as I sat in the waiting area listening to a very nice lady talk about her upcoming trip to Hawaii.

I kept glancing at the standby screen and saying little prayers. The started boarding the first class passengers, then the priority passengers.

I was just staring out the window when I heard the lady at the counter say “Vander Witt” and I knew she meant me. I squeezed through the boarding passengers and she handed me my ticket. My beautiful ticket.

So here I am on the plane. I just drank two glasses of orange juice. I wonder what this optimist would have done if things hadn’t worked out optimally. I wonder if my baggage will arrive on time.

(in the baggage claim area):

I’m sitting in the baggage claim area, listening to the never-ending beeping, throbbing, buzzing and “the escalator is ending, please watch your step.” I couldn’t be any happier, truly. I’ve got my baggage and I’m here on time. Ahead of time. I’m figuring on about 40 minutes until I see some comrades. Six will be coming on that flight. I don’t know about the rest.
When I look out the window I can see a cactus and palm trees. I’m going to take my jacket off before I go out there. What a beautiful day. Well worth getting up for at 5:15 (A.M.)

. . .

I wonder when they are going to start having people verify that the luggage they take is really there’s. I wonder how often someone just walks in off the street and rolls a suitcase away.

. . .

I was rubbing my eye and someone just walked by and said “Wake up!”
Weirdo.

. . .

The air conditioning is on in here, I think. There are a lot of senior citizens here. This is a pretty small airport. That lady has a nice parka. I just changed my watch. The lady with the nice parka just smiled at my pants.

. . .

It’s quarter to three (an hour and twenty minutes since their flight got here.) and I’m still in the baggage claim area. Turns out his airport is bigger than I though, and they came in on a different terminal. They meant terminal four, not carousel four. But that’s fine, thanks to cell phones, except now there’s a traffic jam between here and there. So they have the big van rented and they are gathering people from all different terminals, except the road is really backed up. Maybe I’ll go wait outside. It looks really nice. Except for the cigarettes smoldering on the sidewalk. How fresh.