School

I should be grading. Instead, I am vainly trying to update this blog, a place to which my thoughts have dug in their heels and refused to go for awhile. Stubborn. Anyway, I type an update on my life, with some pictures to prove that there are people here in this "new" place. (It doesn't feel quite so new anymore.) The ones below are in my charge for eight hours each day.

Grandparents' Day! We played the chimes and did a skit. I felt like Miss van der Molen, my music teacher thru high school.
All right, must go. More later.

Indiana!

In the kitchen of my Anderson apartment, I found counter space! I've been unpacking on and off this week, and now almost everything has a place of its own. Except my mountainload of books. Those are stacked in boxes in the living room.

I'm not sure what I think of Anderson yet. I'm taken with the church, the school, the people. Not sure about the town. I haven't done much exploring so I'll hold off on any opinion yet except to state that it's pretty flat. :)

Guide Magazine

I realize my previous posting about Guide was rather cryptic. Mostly because I wrote thinking everyone would know what I was thinking. That never works too well.

So, if you scroll down, you'll see I've revised it somewhat. I briefly considered making up all of the details and laughing silently while reading the comments about my obviously gargantumly unrealistic account, but it's been done. So I stuck with the facts.

Friendly

Starting over in a new place makes me thankful for good friends. Or rather, it reminds me, "Don't take them for granted." It's easy to do that with people you've been around for years, who you feel comfortable with, who you'd think nothing of calling in the middle of the day for a chat or to get together.

New places mean building relationships all over again, from scratch, easier said than done.

Blast from the not-so-distant past

Go look up Jonathan Meharry and listen to his song "To the End."

Now, some pictures from Guide.


This summer I spent approximately seven weeks at the Review & Herald offices in Hagerstown, Maryland. There I was given a kind welcome as the newest Guide intern. I enjoyed eating lunch with the staff, writing, and siphoning creative juices off of Randy and the Guide team. Here I sit in my office at the Review & Herald. When they revamped the previously (mostly) empty room, Randy and Rachel kindly and ingeniously replaced a heavy, somewhat morose painting with these colorful Guide frisbees.


The illustrious editor, Randy Fishell, in his campsite/office.


You'll notice with some surprise that I've taken over (all that siphoning was put to good use). Randy and Rachel, the assistant editor, seem mildly amused.
Okay, well, this part isn't entirely factual. Randy let me sit in his desk like he would any other huge Guide fan. Seriously. All the kids that visit his office get to do that if they want, and get their picture taken. So as you can see, I'm still a kid at heart.


And part of the bi-daily walking crew. Such a suave group of hopefuls.
(I don't even know what I meant by that phrase. But this really is part of the walking crew. Every day around 10am and 3pm, staff takes a break. This was part of the group with whom I took my break--we'd walk around the building in the sunshine. When it rained, we'd walk through shipping and the bindery and the hallways. Once we went through "paper roll storage.")


Last, but certainly not least, Frank and Dolly DeHaan. A pleasant stay thanks in ginormous part to this wonderful couple! I stayed with them while I worked at Guide. They made it homey and often offered to take me places or showed me things that were going on at church or in town. A wonderful Christian couple.

Appalachia

Crikey! It's the Appalachian Trail!











Which way to Georgia?

Lost

I have come to the sad realization that I will forever be getting lost. It's what I have to look forward to everytime I visit or move to a new place: getting in the car, directions in hand, then ending up in quite a different spot than I'd imagined, or taking three times as long as I should have to get there.

Case in point: Sunday, I took myself off to Antietam Battlefield, the great expanse of hilly fields and woods where the bloodiest battle fought on American soil took place. I made it there fine, but soon realized 1) I had not entered at the beginning but in the middle, 2) I was on a one-way driving tour road, and 3) I had lost track of the tour signs somewhere in a tiny town and had no way back.

That's when I took Harper's Ferry Road through the moutains, into West Virginia, and finally out again by route of a freeway whose sign miraculously matched one I could actually locate in my spiral RandMcNally road map. Home to Hagerstown!

I love exploring. But I did get a panicky feeling in my chest when I realized I was somewhat low on gas and had no idea where I was.

One first-rate event was that I walked down to the Burnside Bridge (historical sketch, top right) and felt Mr. Reichert's chalkboard diagrams come alive. I was hoping to go to Harper's Ferry, as well, but that was before I got lost.

P.S. I just realized that the last several posts have been made on dates that are multiples of seven. Ah, well. If you add up the 2 and the 5 from today's date, you can still end up with the perfect number! Ha.

Engaged!

I still haven't found free wireless internet, but . . . I'm taking a slight break from work anyway.

Mitch and I are tying the knot!

December 23, 2007
Cedar Lake, MI

Una Postita

I shouldn't be blogging from work, and I can't blog from home. That does it. Tomorrow I'm hunting down free internet.

Wishes

Regarding dandelions, I feel ambivalence.

Cons:
Dandelions are considered a weed.
They stink.
They grow profusely, taking over yards and fields and highway medians.

Pros:
Dandelions are bright.
They scream, "It's spring!" after what has usually been a very long, very cold, very dark winter.
They grow profusely, taking over yards and fields and highway medians.

Plus, I love how dandelions seed. I like looking out over a field of smoky dandies in sunset, feeling the silky fuzz between my fingers, blowing hard on the seeds in hope of a thousand wishes.

I think the pros win. Except, why, oh why, must people be allergic to dandelions?

Happy Easter!

In tradition's (and Jesus') honor:
Carrie, Vanessa and I sat down to an Easter picnic breakfast.
It was amazing.
(Note the monkey bread.)

Ecstatic

Right: NOT the first picture to come up after Googling "ecstatic". But so worth scrolling down for.

Teach

At right: The first image that came up when I Googled "teach".

I have sent three resumes, complete with cover letters, this week. Really, I could have sent a few more, but trips to the post office and library and walks in the neighborhood and fields around my house have taken up a lot of time. Plus, I spend forever trying to find information about the schools and their surrounding countryside.

Then, too, my mom and I went shopping on Tuesday to look for a suit. I remember sitting in an education class my (first) senior year at Union, listening to Yolanda Blake tell how she, suitless, would have missed out on a potential job. Point taken, Mrs. Blake. Suit boughten.

Query: is boughten even a word?

Anyway, T.J.Maxx is a wonderful place. God found this suit, in my size, of an amazingly soft fabric, for a reasonable price. I put it on, hoping it would make me look older. It didn't. I tried squaring my shoulders, raising my chin and squinting down my nose at the reflection in the dressing room mirror, piling my hair on top of my head. The hair trick worked, a little. No wonder the stereotypical teacher wears a bun.

Auugh. What am I saying? I don't want to be a stereotype. Or old.

I want to teach, like Jesus. Radically.

...The Rest of the Story

I like Paul Harvey. I listen to his radio show and it makes me happy, like tomato soup and grilled cheese sandwiches with pickels and french fries on the side. Yum.

Anyways, the point is that I have my own "rest of the story."

It started Friday, when I realized I couldn't drive on I-80 due to closings. I read that they actually put gates up and that since I wasn't in a movie, it probably wouldn't work out too well to drive on past or try to fly or tunnel underground to get to Muscatine, IA.

So I sat cozily in my apartment, curled up with a mug of hot chai tea, my fuzzy blanket, and a good book. I even went to bed early.

Sabbath, I enjoyed the sermon and visited the Something Else Sabbath School class. I was very blessed. (Thanks, Kristina, for your hopings.) For lunch, my roommate and I were welcomed by the Nazarios. Amazing food and company, by the way. There, I found out the news of Krissy and Jeremy's engagement. Woo hoo! I think you might be able to read about it on her blog.

Then, Saturday night. Mitch called. We had sundown worship together and then worked on a work proposal for an assistant ranger position at Camp Heritage. I looked up some examples online; I'm not sure any of them fit. But we went through generals and I told him I'd work on it later. It was difficult to do over the phone. He couldn't see what I was doing and it was confusing. The proposal is important, and it was by the grace of God that we stayed calm and collected.

Afterwards...

I felt as blue as a blueberry. It had been a wonderful weekend, but...

I checked the roads and found I-80 was open and yellow and green across the state of Iowa. No reds, pinks, or closings anywhere. It was nine o' clock, and I started to get this half-baked plan.

"Mitch?"

"Yeah?"

"If I started driving to Iowa right now, would you kill me?"

"Yes."

"How badly?"

His voice changed. He said I was crazy. But there was hope and excitement and a little bit of joy. I think my insanity rubbed off on him.

So, that's how I ended up in Muscatine, IA at 3:00 Sunday morning.

Amazing...

No Go

It's just me and Mr. Snowman this weekend.

Ah, well, I really have a lot of things to get done, anyway.

Ha. That's not true. For once, I'd done all Sunday's laundry and Monday's homework ahead of time so that I wouldn't be rushed to get back to Lincoln. Stooge.

At least I know I won't be stuck, freezing and alone, on the side of the road!

Moping Blizzards

This is Mitch.

I figure it's high time I posted a picture of him on my blog. He is my amazing boyfriend, and there aren't really words enough to tell you what he means to me.

I am thinking of him right now, especially now, because I am crazily thinking of driving through a blizzard to get to him tomorrow. Dangerous, I know. If he saw that I was even writing this...

I just miss him like crazy.

So I was looking online at the weather, at the roads, at the warnings, and I realized how many people are out of power or missing work or missing friends and family who are trying to get home. I have no right to complain.

Plus, this weather makes me think of the end of the world. When I put everything into perspective, into eternity, this weekend shrinks in comparison. It's a moment, a blink of the eye.

But oh, how I hope the roads are miraculously driveable by tomorrow!

Snow Day!

I didn't think we'd have one this year. Goes to show you pessimism is overrated.

My roommie and I woke up this morning to a world covered in white. Let me tell you, as we galloped through parking lot drifts to the Lifestyle Center for a morning treadmill jog, ours were the first footprints in the snow! It was beautiful.

Now the sun's behind the Thunderdome and the lot is mostly clear. Wind has swept a lot of the snow away; the grounds workers have shoveled and the plows have piled mounds of it, mostly, so school can resume tomorrow.

As for me, I've enjoyed sitting by the window, candles burning on the sill, clothes tossing in the dryer, and fingers typing...homework, job searches, e-mails. I've been thinking, too.

For those of you sometimes visitors who read my blog, I'm happy to say that, at long last, I have plans for an internship this summer! It probably doesn't seem like such a big deal; after all, I haven't blogged about it, and if I haven't blogged it, it isn't worth reading right? That's one fallacy.

So...I'll give you three guesses. Nope, I'm not raising alpacas in Montana. No, no newspaper job for me, either. Not even the amazing camp counselor/writer/designer position that Wendy dreamed up for me (thank you Wendy, Katie, and God). No, it looks like I'll be working (volunteering) at Guide magazine for a couple months this summer. Amazing! It's been my dream since...okay, well just since last semester. But it's proof that God works with dreams, even gives them to us in the first place. And, it's been an inspiration to me as I've seen one of my teachers work to make this happen. That's what I want to be for my students: an empowerer, a possiblity-maker. The cliche is true: it's not what you know, it's who you know. Which includes God, of course.

Before you go, here's a couple more pictures from this morning.

Snow!

Have you met...

Check out my other blogs.

Intercultural Communications: It's there till the class ends. Go now, before it's too late.
(jimneycricket.blogspot.com)

1000 Words: Wait, why does that sound so familiar? Anyways, its description says it all: "one picture, once a day, for one year". Yeah, let's see how long I can keep that one up.
(1000wordsapiece.blogspot.com)

I can't figure out how to post links.

Sleeping

Mitch has been lying on the floor, asleep, for over an hour. He looks so peaceful.

It's time to wake him up.

I know, I'm heartless.

It's just that it's Sabbath, he is here, and there's a few minutes left for a before-sundown-walk.

He's moving.

That's a good sign. Maybe it means he won't be adverse to a stroll...

(Note: This picture is NOT Mitch. I repeat, it is not him. But they're both so...zonked. Ha. I don't know this man, but I like the way he sleeps.)

Succumbed

Four jobs you have had in your life:
1. Camp Counselor
2. Cardboard box partitions assembler
3. Library...
4. Day care teacher

Four Movies you would watch over and over:
1. Pride and Prejudice
2. Braveheart
3. Anna and the King
4. Sound of Music

Four Places you have lived:
1. Kettering, OH
2. Munising, MI
3. Collegedale, TN
4. Lincoln, NE

Four of your favorite foods:
1. Grapefruit
2. Tofu
3. Kale salad
4. Traverse City Cherries

Places you’d rather be right now:
1. Lying in a hammock in the breeze
2. Kyaking on a woodsy river
3. Floating on my back in the ocean (PR)
4. Hanging out in Muscatine, IA

People I hope will respond by posting on their blogs:
1. I may be the last in a long line.
2. If not...
3. Anyone who hasn't posted.
4. Like...you.