Saturday, May 21, 2011

Like the new layout?

Mark is officially DONE WITH HIS FIRST YEAR AS A TEACHER!

He is such an incredible teacher. I hope and pray that when we have kids they have teachers as caring and compassionate as my hubby.


I, on the other hand, have a week (more or less), left of school. I am barely hanging in there....


Some thoughts:

1. swamp coolers can make life much better (when they are installed)
2. the inability to admit wrong is, I imagine, quite debilitating. Almost invokes feelings of pity.
3. Children no longer care about "losing their jobs" during the last bit of school.
4. A summer job is hard to come by. A new job is hard to come by.
5. Interviewing, and still being jobless....makes life hard.
6. Good thing that when life is hard, I have a sweet man, and a handful of mikes hard on hand....
7. Maung Way is far away. I. Am. Sad.
8. In a few precious days I will begin to kick my own butt into shape. I am hoping to shed a good dozen or two pounds-workout or diet advice?

Scrubs is excelllllllent. =)

Sunday, May 15, 2011

Carrie

I don't know if I have ever told ya'll about my first college roommate.

I showed up at CCU halfway through the semester, blown in by a huge snow storm. I set up my half of the room-brown subdued colors, then left for the evening.

I returned to find my roommate's decor-neon pink, blue, green. Anime paintings of Elvis and others. I was intrigued.

Then we met. Carrie is the least pretentious person you will ever meet. She is who she is and proud of it. Although we are pretty different, we clicked instantly.


I remember the Elephant Graveyard and the suitcases. The coffee mugs. ooOOooOO Miss Alissa (staying up until 4 am buying songs with our names in them on itunes). I remember reading Angus, Thongs and Full Frontal Snogging aloud in british accents. I remember Newsies and sing alongs. I remember my alarm going off every ten minutes and carrie bearing it. I remember school dances, Black Eyed Pea dinners, crazy 21st birthday stories, ice cream stores, and easter bunny costumes. I remember "molecules" and insanely crazy drawings on notes we turned into theology professors. I remember "please refrain from using emoticons on formal papers", and the need to work rap lyrics into research papers (like "the United States of America was a Showstopper"-Showstopper-Danity Kane). I remember iming while in the same room...specifically things like "throw up", cause our online personas would then comply.

Those were all fun things. Fun-this is my college experience and I sure wouldn't trade it for anything experiences. But there were also a lot of hard times for me, and Carrie was there. Listened to my problems, offered advice, never judged. She was (and is) a great friend.

Soooo thanks Carrie. I loved living with you. And I loved hanging out with you at your engagement party. Your approach to life is enviable, and a good reminder to me. I am so happy for you-so happy you found a guy that is captivated by you. Congratulations.

Aim

So, if you know me, you know my all time favorite band, without a doubt, is Over the Rhine. Music for the soul I tell you... On their latest album their is a song entitled "Only God Can Save Us Now", and I swear...the song is about my sister. Maybe not about her...but it definitely reminds me of her. And it always makes me cry, for two reasons.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7XNkkk_X8QI

First: My sister works in a nursing home. I can't imagine how difficult a job this is...for many reasons, including emotionally. To care, and love, and befriend people when they are physically and mentally deteriorating takes such a special heart. I am so proud of my sister for her ability to love and deal with her job in such a profound and professional way. I don't know that I have the strength to do such a job. I think God uses her in the lifes of forgotten people everyday. Awesome.

Second: Sometimes when we are young we get stripped of everything-our prestige, our talent, our security, our relationships. But, for alot of us,we don't and won't know what it means to be completely reliant on God, with nothing to show for ourselves, until we are older. I love the line "only God can Save us now"....love that when we have nothing left to show for ourselves, nothing really left to offer the world, that's when we finally see that God has been waiting all along to save, and love, and work through us.

Great song. Great sister. Great God. Amen.

Boy


This past week has been very dreary weather wise. On one rainy dreary morning drive to school, my ipod shuffled to Dashboard.

Oh Dashboard, you reflected the inner workings of my emo soul during those teenager years. And, you, always and forever, remind me of a bond formed between my brother and I. I vividly remember belting this song as I drove me and my brother home one late night.


"The Brilliant Dance"

So this is odd,
the painful realization that all has gone wrong.
And nobody cares at all,
and nobody cares at all.

So you buried all your lover's clothes
and burned the letters lover wrote,
but it doesn't make it any better.
Does it make it any better?
And the plaster dented from your fist
in the hall where you had your first kiss
reminds you that the memories will fade.

So this is strange,
our sidestepping has come to be a brilliant dance
where nobody leads at all,
where nobody leads at all.

And the picture frames are facing down
and the ringing from this empty sound
is deafening and keeping you from sleep.
And breathing is a foreign task
and thinking's just too much to ask
and you're measuring your minutes by a clock that's blinking eights.

This is incredible.
Starving, insatiable,
yes, this is love for the first time.
Well you'd like to think that you were invincible.
Yeah, well weren't we all once before we felt loss for the first time?
Well this is the last time.


The last part was our favorite...as we were both (at the same time, even though we are years apart) "in love" with our first little boy/girl friends of our lives. His was Hillary, mine was Colin. Our first kiss happened I think...a day apart? haha. I was just so happy that his first kiss wasn't before mine. And he absolutely loved that his first kiss happened so shortly after mine. And I remember taking his little girlfriend home from...a movie? youthgroup? ...who knows, and us talking and singing of love and crush's on our long drive home. We sure bonded during that time of our life. I love that memory. I'm glad I had that first boyfriend,pretty much just cause I got to share "the first" of it all with my little brother. =)