hullo 2010

I think I'm ready for 2010.

It's kind of weird, being a child of the 80's, that I'm a full decade into the 21st century. Yeah, it's a whole lot different from my childhood imaginations, but in a relatively pleasant, realistic manner.

For example, it would be highly impractical for me to be an astronaut, detective, and rancher all at the same time.

I like where I'm at in life,
Which brings us to the plot, plot we've got, quite a lot
As it unfolds you'll see what starts like a scary tale ends like a fairy tale
And life couldn't possibly better be.

revelations

new love.
somewhere along the way, i've uncovered/discovered a subconscious love affair with hippos.
between songs like "i want a hippopotamus for christmas" and "the hiphopopotamus and the rhymnocerous," i've come to wonder what it'd be like to have a large, yawning water horse in my backyard. trying to keep it at school would be truly amusing. perhaps it could live on the sport court? there's a wonderful indoor swimming pool: this might be a better locale.

expansion.
i need to join a team. sports. basketball/soccer. either one would be great. i simply go through annoying little stages where for four weeks out of the year, my metabolism takes a vacation and i start wondering what i'll look like at fifty. slender and gorgeous like my mother is the goal. we'll see? in the meantime, the Y has no idea how awesome they are. i'll be shooting hoops at 8am if you'd like to join me.

connections.
i had my first shrimp taco today, courtesy of a very bored and amazingly awesome fuzzy's manager by the name of pedro. beware! he claims he can't cook, but he lies! as always, fuzzy's rocks my planet.

letters of the day

Dear Fuzzy's.

Thank you for inventing chips and queso. Also, your salads are ridiculous.

Quite full,
Rachel

<><><><><><><><><><><><><><><>

Dear human race,

Combining mustard yellow, bright purple, and neon orange is a mistake. Sunsets can get away with it. A tie-died XXXL t-shirt cannot. Somewhere, a sunset is weeping. Please do not ever commit such an atrocity again.

Horrified,
Rachel

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Dear Stella Russell Hall,

Hot water is a wonderful invention. We know for sure that the Romans, in the very early years of civilization, piped it into their cities using ingenious mazes of aqueducts and indoor plumbing. It was significantly before Wal Mart's time, and I'm quite certain that even the ancient Egyptians may have also managed to generate hot water.
In addition, singing in the shower is not as much fun in cold water.
Please get with the times.

Shivering,
Rachel

glorious life

the explanation.
It's been a long, eventful, yet boring semester. Same-o, same-o.
Living on campus has solved old problems and created new ones. We solved the problem of gas, traffic, and leaving campus at 11pm to drive home. The temptation to remain in bed until the last possible second and the ability to pull all-nighters have put a serious cramp or two in my style. Discipline was something I realized I needed about halfway through, and by then, I was already in something of a rut.

Classes were actually pretty decent considering my considerable, if atypical, over-commitments. I still have a professor chat to attend, then deliver Christmas gifts to various friends - including the one in Taiwan.

sidenote. because every note needs one.
Speaking of...What's the zip code for Taiwan supposed to look like anyway? Does UPS consider it to be part of China? And why does it look like "Taipei City" and "Taiwan" are the same thing? Oh I know it's not. Taipei City is the name of the city and Taiwan is the province within the ROC (Republic of China), but that still doesn't explain what I'm supposed to do with the zip code or why UPS won't accept either specification as valid.

no. no. no. please? well ok.
Sometimes, I think I must have "I don't say no" tattooed on my forehead where everyone else can see it. Or it could just be that I'm a pushover and know that if I say no the first time, all someone has to do is give me pleading looks and possibly a hug and I'll do just about anything. I just save everyone the time and trouble and say yes. It's alright, usually. I'm slightly addicted to the feeling that someone wants me around, even if it is for purely practical reasons. And I'm fairly decent with schedule juggling. Outside of August 17-19 where I was literally bouncing between 3 different places for 3 different training sessions, I haven't actually run into any kind of crises involving my physical location.

It has felt a bit odd at times, though. Kind of like a golden retriever with too many sticks to chase. You eventually just want to lay down and simply look at them all, trying to decide which one to tackle first.


hating wordpress.
Yeah. That's pretty much it.
I'm really disliking wordpress at the moment. Not because they're horrid or whatever, but because I've been staring at it for the last two hours. This rambler graduation salute is becoming more of a pain and less of a salute by the moment.

baby, it's cold outside
Anyway, Christmas break is kind of exciting. I haven't actually been this excited about Christmas, decorating, cooking, presents, etc, in a long time. But spending time with friends, shopping for gifts [and sending said gifts], and decorating like Martha Stewart on steroids has been so wonderful! I've missed it. I'm still very much a summer child. I miss my tan, my golden hair, and the ability to run around in flip flops with no make up and wet hair. But if we must have winter, I'm glad Christmas is a big part of the package.

chestnuts roasting on an open fire
There is a fire in the fireplace that's keeping me warm and toasty. I love sitting less than four feet from it - of course, you have to turn every so often like a rotisserie chicken to keep from getting too well done on one side or the other. I think that's my favorite part about winter at home. We make good use of our fireplace.


After feeling nothing short of awful most of yesterday, I think I'm now back to %100...perhaps a bit more. I love laughing with my family and we laughed for a long time last night. We're probably all a bit strange, but then again, who isn't? Heh, discourse communities! we communicate differently based upon where we're at and who we're with - why wouldn't it be the same with family?

So today - hang with family, deliver presents, work, hang with friends, finish salute. I like this schedule.

To all the sensual world proclaim,
One crowded hour of glorious life
Is worth an age without a name.
-Walter Scott

fear and faith

Not really sure what it is about being sick that drives me to blog. I think it's just that being sick forces me to stop my constant movement in every direction long enough to think. In this particular instance, I've had the chance to sleep and think. What a happy combination!
So between spoonfuls of echinaccea/goldenseal, pieces of apple, cups of tea, and bowls of chicken noodle soup, I've had time, lots of time, to really think about life, my purpose in it, and some of my fears.

Faith is to believe what we do not see, and the reward of this faith is to see what we believe. -- Augustine

Fear, by its nature is an emotion caused by a lack of security. It's the dark mutterings that tell you that you're too weak, too small, too insignificant for things to work out. Sometimes, it's disguised by practicality and whispers that your actions are insignificant in the long run.

True faith goes into operation when there are not answers. -- Elisabeth Elliot

I was sharing this with my mother the other day; that there are a handful of things that I feel very strongly about, but I'm afraid that when I try them, they're going to flip, flop, and fail. Fear is a powerful paralytic.

She let me talk; voicing my fears drained me of most of my energy. Being sick and fearful all at once made me want to crawl back in bed and hide. Yet God gave us mothers for a multitude of wonderful, amazing, and fascinating reasons. [Besides the ones about washing or wearing enough clothes in cold weather.]

"Maybe," she said, "instead of worrying about it, you should give it to God." They were simple words, but somehow, I felt loads lifted and suddenly, there was a light at the end of the tunnel. The thought had simply not occurred to me. God knows my future, and He's the one that's put me in the position I am in. As long as I do my dead level best, there's no reason I cannot simply leave the results in God's hands. She went on to say that I should take it a step further. This is where it's going to get a bit tricky, but I think it could work. I once heard a devotional on Proverbs 3:5-6.

Trust in the Lord with all thine heart, and lean not unto thine own understanding; in all thy ways acknowledge Him and He shall direct thy paths.

Essentially, he noted that when we acknowledge Christ in all that we do, we maintain a Christ-centered focus. When that happens, our paths are directed and "all these things shall be added unto you." In short, God is able to both use and bless you.

So my mother's point was that should I ensure that my professors, those I interact with know that the source of my strength, my creativity, and even my ability to communicate well is God-given.

I don't know how the future is going to play out, but I see that my mother is right. Perfect love casts out fear, and God is love. The closer I stay to Christ, the less I have to fear.

Christ demands of the man who trusts Him the same reckless spirit... that is daring enough to step out of the crowd and bank his faith on the character of God. --Oswald Chambers

survival with value...

So last semester was definitely a study in many things. Juggling a tight schedule, learning to deal with classes I didn't want or like, trying to build a GPA, survival of the fittest both the mental and physical senses...[what little "good stuff" in the cafeteria was gone if you didn't get there fast!]
If I were to identify a theme, though for last semester, it would definitely be learning to read people.

It's true. I've never been the most intuitive people-person. Some people are just naturally and obviously readable, others look as though they're readable, but aren't in reality. Still others are impossible to read at all. As of last semester, I was definitely still on level one.



I had always been in situations where, even if I couldn't read the person, I would know their back-ground. Homeschooled, conservative, public schooled, church member...they all had titles that I knew and could build a profile for. After my first few weeks of school, however, I suddenly realized that I no longer had that safety net. I was on my own and would have to learn to either read people as individuals, or figure out the context in which they fit.

As the semester wore on, though, I realized that reading people wasn't as difficult as I thought it'd be. After a while, it comes naturally. Knowing when a new acquaintance is ready to talk, would make a good study partner, or would be a great person to grab a cup of coffee with goes a long ways towards the beginning of a friendship.

I doubt that I'll have any truly close friends at Wesleyan, simply because we're all so different. But maybe, just maybe, there'll be a few this semester.

"Friendship is unnecessary, like philosophy, like art... It has no survival value; rather is one of those things that give value to survival."
- C. S. Lewis

jack's on his way...

i used the heater in my car tonight and it kind of shocked me into realizing that wow. it really is cold outside.

so i guess winter's almost here when:

i'm planning a camp-out

shopping for long-sleeved items

4 more weeks til school's out

i regularly wear a light jacket when walking outside

i have a stash of hot chocolate mix

i can no longer comfortably wear flip-flops

I think there's still a few more weeks' wear left in my shoe of choice, but there's no denying that it's getting closer. I'd actually like to see the global cooling people proven right...lots of snow would be cool.