Done...and still alive!

Okay, so it's been a while. Forgive me, I'm just now beginning to recover from all the insanity. My lack of updates is pretty inexcusable, but let me give you some excuses.

I hit the ground running after returning from Thanksgiving, and there hasn't been a moment to breathe since then. Exams, late night rehearsals, work, final projects, and more papers than I've ever written have filled every hour of my days and sleepless nights for the past couple of weeks. My friend Paul okingly proposed recently that a good night's sleep should be a basic human right, mandated by law, and I'm beginning to agree. I just don't function on four hours like I did in high school.
But now, I'm breathing once again. Life is good. I had a few days to relax with my friends in Greensboro after my last exam, and now I'm back home for the holidays. It's marvelous to feel completely free from the anxiety of homework.

Coming out to the end of the semester always feels somewhat strange. Your life has been utterly consumed with academic assignments, and then all of a sudden, it all disappears. No more constant nagging pressure in your mind or guilt when you're doing something just for fun. Suddenly, the priorities that seemed so important, the work that consumed your thoughts....it all seems utterly irrelevant and meaningless. It's something I've thought about a lot this semester, as my classes have utterly dominated my time and mental energy more than ever.
I remember one night a couple of months ago I was sitting in my living room writing a paper, when I heard one of my roommates say on the phone, "Oh, I can't. I really have to stay at home and do homework tonight." Any other time, this would have seemed like a completely ordinary sentance, but all of a sudden, her words hit me as remarkably strange and sad. "We're sitting at home doing homework?" I echoed disbelievingly. I thought about all the people our age around the world who at that very moment were out fighting for food on the streets, taking care of their families, doing hours of backbreaking labor just to get enough money to survive, or countless other pursuits that are infinitely removed from this small academic world of students spending their hours doing arbitrary assignments designated by professors who are also secluded to this small academic world, just so we can get a degree that "means something" because the people from this limited world say it does. Most of the classes required for my two degrees don't even have any practical application for what I want to do with the rest of my life. We talk and write endlessly about all of this theoretical knowledge and pride ourselves on our academic capabilities, but what good does it do in the world? I could tell you some fascinating stuff about global dance history and critical literary theory...but who cares?

I know that's a limited view of education, and I realize that a quality education can be a valuable resource and a foundation for more tangible pursuits. Don't get me wrong, I am normally the first to argue for the value of knowledge for knowledge's sake.....I just think academics can't become the end goal of your life. It's so easy to get caught up in that system of work and reward, when the whole system of grades and gaining professorial approval is so fleeting.
Okay, sorry for the long tangent. This is what happens when I don't write for weeks....

In the stressful final weeks of the semester, here are my top 5 highlights:
1) I was studying one day in the coffee shop down the street from my house, when the subject of foreign languages came up in my conversation with the owner as he served me my latte. He asked if I spoke anything besides English and I replied, "Well, a minimal amount of Czech." His face lit up as he spoke, "Dobry den! Jak se mate?" I was so taken aback ( and remarkably rusty on my Czech skills) that I stammered for a reply, but it certainly made me happy to hear someone speaking it, and made me wish I had more practice.

2) One of my friends gave me The Silmarillion for Christmas. Needless to say, I was thrilled. When most people think of Tolkien, the Lord of the Rings trilogy comes to mind, but Tolkien actually considered The Silmarillion to be his defining life work. He worked on it his whole life, writing stories for it even in his days as a young soldier fighting in the trenches. I've never read the whole thing, but I'm super excited to delve into it over Christmas. We began reading it aloud before I left Greensboro, and it's really beautiful to hear Tolkien's rich mythology spoken out loud.

3) Another coffee shop moment, but this one was on campus (probably some of the worst coffee known to man, but sometimes I get desperate). After one of my bleary-eyed 8 AM choroegraphy rehearsals, I spent a couple of hours writing papers in the coffee shop before my next class. I tend to get very distracted trying to work in public settings, as I can't help my fascination with people-watching. I sat in the corner and observed as student after student came through the line, placing their orders, all of them flippantly ignoring the kind older woman who served them. Without fail, she called each customer "Honey" or "Sweetie" or "Dear," and gave them the same warm smile, no matter how demanding or rude they were. After a long time of watching this interaction, I was starting to feel quite sad for this woman, and surprised at how consumed my fellow students were with their own lives that they couldn't show a bit of cordiality. Then all of a sudden, this guy came to the front of the line, and actually smiled at this woman. Not only did he smile, but he also called her by name, asked her how her family was doing, joked and laughed with her. He was just an average student, just like all the others who ignored her.The fact that someone would take the time to just treat this worker like an actual human being was a wonderfully bright moment of kindness in the middle of my stressful week.

4) Finishing LOST! This is one of the monumental achievements of my year. My friends and I started the series from Season 1 at the beginning of the year, and it's been a year long journey until last week, when we finally finished the emotional finale of Season 4 after many nights of watching episode after episode. I've been behind for so long that it almost feels strange to finally be caught up with the rest of the world. Action, mystery, suspense, romance, philosophy, intriguing chracacters, crazy plotlines....it just doesn't get much better. Season 5 premieres in January, and it can't come a moment too soon. I'm hooked for good.

5)And the crowning moment.....CHRISTMAS PARTY! A night of laughter, live music jams, games, good conversation, and wonderful friends, old and new. My roommates and I hosted a magnificant Christmas celebration at our home, and I must say, I never would have believed how many multitudes of people we could cram into our cozy living room. We cooked some food ourseleves, and then people came through the door with dish after dish....chocolate chunk cookies, gingerbread, baked brie, butternut squash soup, homemade fudge....by the end of the night, we had a table piled high with delicious treats (which fed us for the next few days). As the house got crowded, we decided to take the celebration out into the streets. We walked (in a rather festively dressed mob) around campus, dancing and singing carols at the top of our lungs, speading cheer (and getting quite a few odd looks) wherever we went.
Nothing says Christmas spirit quite like that!
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frequently listening to: "15 Step," by Radiohead and "Everyday," by Buddy Holly

I will never eat Subway again

So there are many reasons for my infrequent writing, but the first and foremost would be this:

Technology has decided to hate me. In this semester alone, I have experienced a personal technological breakdown: first my camera, then my phone, then my iPod, and the finishing touch this past week, my laptop. It began when my internet stopped working, but at least that was temporarily manageable. Most recently, it has stopped showing any image on the monitor all together. I feel a bit like a laptop pirate these days, seizing open computer time from my friends whenever a brief opportunity arises. I never realized how dependent I am on my computer until now, and I'm seeing how difficult it becomes to write papers, submit school assignments, talk to friends, and keep up with the outside world.

I went to see Twilight at midnight on Thursday with my friend Rachel, which I realize is ridiculously cheesy and probably aimed at a demographic far younger than me, but I simply don't care. I had to go see it after just finishing the book, and midnight just seems to be an ideal time for watching a movie about vampires. This younger demographic I mentioned became quite evident when the movie began. High-pitched squeals of teenage girlish delight filled the theater when the dashing male lead made his first appearance, and continued through most of the movie. Despite a few loud admonishments from the few adult members of the audience (myself included), the shrieking and giggling at every moment that even hinted of romantic tension continued throughout the film, much to my chagrin. Ugh, teenagers. My personal favorite was when an irate adult yelled that they should all be in bed because it was a school night.

I was delighted to walk out of the movie at 2:30 AM to find beautiful white snowflakes falling thick in the cold night air. My exuberance(which led to some parking-lot twirling and jumps of joy) paled in comparison to that of the hoard of high-schoolers charging out of the theater with screams of excitement. Sadly, all the snow had melted by noon the next day, but still, it was a nice way to welcome the holiday season.

And speaking of holiday season....my house is now decked out for Christmas! I came home tired from an afternoon of boring work on Friday, only to be marvelously surprised by the twins, who had spent the afternoon putting up festive decorations around our living room. Peaceful strains of James Taylor crooning "Have Yourself a Marry Little Christmas" floated through the air and the sound of a whistling tea kettle rang out from the kitchen, while sparkling white lights and shimmering ribbons filled the room with holiday magic. It was quite the heart-warming scene discover upon coming home.

That evening, we enjoyed the cozy glow of our twinkle lights as we watched The Painted Veil. This is a recent movie, starring Edward Norton and Naomi Watts as a bitterly unhappy married couple during a deadly epidemic of cholera in 1920' s China. The cinematography and music are both absolutely stunning, and I found the story deeply moving. Two people, utterly flawed and horrible, make their lives mutually miserable through infidelity and isolation, but are still forced to co-exist as a married couple through this horrific cholera epidemic. I won't give away the ending, but I would suggest seeing it for yourself.

My friend Peter came home from the Navy for a couple of days at the beginning of this week, and it was wonderful to get to see him after so many months. Monday night, we called our friend (and his girlfriend) Rachel, who is serving as a missionary in Kenya right now. It was incredible to hear her beautiful voice from across the globe, and it made us miss her terribly.

Then came Tuesday....ugh, yuck. As far as I can tell, I got a bad case of food poisoning (and as far as I can deduce, Subway was the culprit. I hate you, Subway). I've spent the past couple of days being very, very sick, curled up in a ball on my couch, and surviving mostly off of saltine crackers and Gatorade. I'm just hoping for a miraculous recovery at this point so that I can eat at least a few tiny bites of Thanksgiving dinner!

Pilobolus and Prayer

Good gracious, I am glad this week is over. Sickness has been spreading around my friends like the plague, and me and one of my roommates were the latest victims this week. Massive papers due at the end of the week were just the icing on the cake.

There were some wonderfully bright spots to this week- in particular, Tuesday, the day of Pilobolus at UNCG. If you have never heard of them, well, you're missing out on some spectacular stuff. They're a famous modern dance company that combines stunning athleticism with visual grandeur. You might have seen them doing some silhouette work at the Academy Awards or in some car commercials. A Pilobolus performance = dance meets circus meets gymnastics meets awesome. Not only did they perform Tuesday night, but they also taught a class for my dance department that morning, which I got to sit in on. They all seemed incredibly nice, very full of energy....and built like steel. You'd have to be to do their choreography. It's the most high energy, high intensity, strength-demanding dance I've ever seen. Hence, the majority of the company is also male, though I've gotta say, the two women definitely held their own in the strength department.

Another great part of the week was 24/7 prayer at my church. Starting this past Sunday, my small church was open 24 hours a day for people from all over the city to come and pray. Though people were free to come in at any time, people also chose to sign up for timeslots during the day, so that at least one person was there praying at all hours of the day or night. Me and a few of my friends took a midnight-2:00 AM shift, and my breath was taken away as I walked in. You could pray as you work on a mosaic, knit, weave on a loom, paint, play music, write on walls, collage, read books, write in books....I can't even describe the environment, but it was a very engaging and beautiful way to commune with God. My church is the most vibrant, loving, artistically and intellectually stimulating church body I've ever seen, and I just consider myself incredibly blessed to get to be a part of it.


Speaking of blessings, I spent Saturday night with some wonderful friends, as we decided to celebrate Christmas early with a mushy romantic holiday movie. We realized we would only have a little over a week after returning from Thanksgiving break to celebrate the best time of the year ..and that simply isn't enough. So we all broke out our our best Christmas pajamas and headed over to my friend Sarah's house for some delicious homemade apple crisp and hot chocolate, which was divine. I'm so excited that the holiday season is upon us!

Election Reflections

Boy, it's been a crazy week. In the university environment, political tensions and passions rose to a fevored pitch by Monday. Professors pleaded with their students to vote, and it was no small secret who they supported. Tuesday was filled with an air of anticipation and excitement. My roommates and I dragged ourselves out of bed at 6:00 in the morning to go vote. I got to my polling place by 6:30, where I stood in line for an hour and a half before being able to cast my vote. It was incredible to see a huge campus ballroom packed with students eager to vote so early in the morning. Despite my extreme fatigue from getting four hours of sleep, I felt energized by the pride I felt to be a part of such a monumental event. After voting, my roommates and I made a celebratory election breakfast, with chocolate chip pancakes, scrambled eggs and as always, coffee! After a day full of classes, we headed out to take advantage of election freebies, such as free coffee at Starbucks and free ice cream at Ben and Jerry's....mmm, nothing says democracy like dessert. We gathered in my friend's living room to watch and listen to election coverage all evening, which was interesting, since we were all pretty much politically split down the middle.

After the election was called, we sat up to watch the concession and victory speeches. When we left my friend's house (quite late), there was pandamonium in the streets of our neighborhood. People were running out in streets, honking horns, screaming and chanting. It was pretty a pretty wild experience. I found out the next day that the celebration on campus got so crazy that the police had to block off the streets and move the excited crowd into my neighborhood. The next day, it was practically a campus-wide holiday. My English professor started crying in front of the class in joy, and my dance teachers didn't even teach their normal classes in the spirit of celebration.
I wish I could say that I felt strongly one way or another.....I had friends who were jubilant, and others who felt defeated and bitter. Here's my confession: despite all the pressure from both sides, I didn't vote for Obama or McCain. I followed politics closely for many months, and researched the issues and the political positions of both candidates. I felt that I needed to feel passionately about one or the other....but I could never get myself to that point. Both had extreme flaws, and both had stances I admired. In the final couple of weeks before the election, I realized that I could not give my vote to either of these two men in good conscience. I heard a lot of dejected people lament that they simply had to vote for "the lesser of two evils." Why vote for an evil at all, I asked? Just because these are my only two options does not mean I have to support one of them. Casting my vote is not merely a one time decision. I need to be able to support and accept the consequences of putting this candidate into leadership for the next four years. In voting for Obama or McCain, I knew I would be voting against my conscience. I'm not saying this is a universal standard... I believe that some people would be going against their conscience by not voting. I only have a couple of friends who made the same choice that I did, and I have many friends (and family members) both Republican and Democrat, who felt that they were voting according to their highest sense of principle, and I fully support their decisions. I know they did what they believed was right in voting for Obama or McCain.

After I had settled on this decision, I found a really great article by one of my favorite musicians, Derek Webb, who articulated many of my feelings concerning the relationship between Christianity and voting. You can read the full article at http://www.patrolmag.com/times/922/how-shall-we-then-vote, but here are a few portions that I found particularly compelling (emphasis mine):

"Depending on when you’re reading this, we could be on either side of one of the most evocative elections in our country’s recent history. It shouldn’t really matter, as this writing isn’t necessarily about our current election but rather on living an honest and integrated political life....Ultimately our problems will not be solved by the right man (or woman) in the White House. It simply doesn’t work that way. We live in a democracy, a representative form of government, where it’s as much if not more our responsibility to love and take care of our neighbors than our politician’s responsibility. Real and lasting change comes from knowing and loving the folks who live in the houses that sit next to ours rather than saving all of our longing and hope for the voting booth.

Now that’s not to say that we shouldn’t make informed decisions, be involved in the process. Of course we should. I mean, if your conscience allows, you can even vote.

Some would say that not voting is giving your vote over to those who seek to use the governmental process for evil. I would actually argue the opposite. By voting, especially when based on just one or two issues, you’re giving your ‘yes’ and ‘amen’ to that party’s entire platform, which likely goes far beyond the statement you’re trying to make on these few issues. This is certainly more perilous and less nuanced than abstaining altogether. No party can co-opt a vote that isn’t cast.

Others would say, ‘Jesus said to “render unto Caesar what is Caesar’s.” Therefore we have a biblical obligation to vote.’ And of course Jesus said that. That’s why I pay my taxes and try to drive the speed limit. These are among the laws of the land. But my conscience doesn’t belong to Caesar, therefore I don’t render it unto him. Caesar cannot force me to violate my conscience. Voting is a legal right, like carrying a gun or having an abortion. And I can abstain from doing anything that I have a legal right to if it violates my conscience.

Some say that we’ll never completely agree with the agenda or platform of a politician, that if we wait for a candidate that we line up with 100% we’ll never vote. I completely agree. There are many issues upon which I can disagree with a politician that don’t amount to a crisis of conscience. So there will always be necessary and acceptable compromises to make when engaging in the system of politics, but never when your conscience is on the line.

These matters of conscience are serious and should be considered at great length. I have many friends who have considered the issues of this current election in all their nuances and have chosen to vote for either Obama, McCain, or a 3rd party candidate, and I support them in doing so. Again, we are diverse members of one body in our following of Jesus. It would be suspicious if we all reached identical conclusions to such complex problems. So again, maybe there is no conflict of conscience for you in this election. But if there is, be at liberty not to vote.

Our ultimate hope is not in politicians or powers or governments, but in a day coming when all things will be made right. And our ultimate concern isn’t success but faithfulness. So if you find it necessary to abstain from voting in this election because to do so would be a violation of your conscience, be at liberty to remain faithful and leave the worry of success or outcome to God."

"The Times They Are A-Changin'"

Friday was Halloween, as you may know. My friend Rachel and I planned to dress up as vampires, but we discovered that cheap teeth are remarkably unadhesive. After about twenty tries of sticking lots of nasty putty in our mouths, we gave up. We settled instead for wearing black and putting ghostly white makeup on our faces...so I think ultimately, we just looked really sickly all night. After passing through a massive police checkpoint (which I'm sure caught loads of drunk students), we cruised around downtown in my car a little after midnight, marveling at the ridiculously long lines outside of every night club. Not surprisingly, every line was filled with dozens of girls wearing the most minimal amount of clothing possible...I could only laugh and feel a bit of pity as I watched them all shivering in the freezing cold. Sorry, you brought that one on yourselves, ladies.

This has also been a weekend of memories. My old friend Michael Way, who is currently in his first year of grad school for cello in El Paso, TX, came up to visit. It was so good to see him (despite the massive fear that he induced for me all weekend). Michael has a bad reputation for enjoying the experience of scaring the living daylights out of his friends (particularly me, the jumpy one). I actually barricaded my house doors Friday night, and walked on eggshells for the rest of the weekend, I kid you not.

Then right after he left, I got a call from another familiar voice. My good friend Andrew and his new wife Katherine (is June new? I suppose not) came up for the evening to spend a couple of hours with us tonight. For a couple of hours, everything seemed just like it used to be: we ate stir-fry and drank Paul's delicious coffee while we all talked about music, movies, politics, relationships, education, television, faith....all the usuals. I just wished it could stay like that, but it had to end, so abruptly. I used to take it all for granted, and now the moments with all these people are precious. I wish I could go back to those years when we were all together, but I can still find happiness in seeing the ways my friends' lives are growing in new directions, to see the ways they are all making a difference in the world in their new locatations.

I miss so much of the way things were, and it's just hard to watch everyone growing up.
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Currently listening to: "Chicago," by Sufjan Stevens....."all things go, all things go"

The Last Days of Fall

In the category of "Things You Must Try": Reed's Spiced Apple Cider. It's cold, fizzy, and bursting with spicy apple deliciousness. I think if you could bottle autumn, it would taste remarkably similar.It's a great beverage to consume while carving pumpkins and eating pumpkin cake, both of which I have enjoyed with my friends this week. I love celebrating fall, and I wish it wasn't leaving so quickly.

In the category of "Things You Should Never Try," I would nominate the recently released movie Love in the Time of Cholera. We decided to rent this movie during our fun girl's night this weekend, and now we'll never get those three miserable hours of our lives back again. Horrible makeup (you just can't pretend that 30-somthing actors look like they're 80), contrived and revolting plot, and dreadfully poor acting. I'm still sort of gagging just thinking about it.

You know, the bummer about fall is that it turns into winter, and winter is remarkably chilly. My house, being over 100 years old and rather large, is rather impossible (and costly) to heat. The temperature has fallen swiftly this past week. I'm starting to get a taste of what the colder months will be like, and I have to say I'm not looking forward to it. I'm sitting here writing in my living room, bundled up in a sweatshirt, thick scarf, and woolen slippers, and it's only October.

As I've found myself complaining a great deal about this state of affairs, I saw something this past week that made me pause. I was sprinting to work one morning after sleeping past my alarm, shivering as I ran against the freezing wind, when I looked across the street and saw a homeless man, sleeping on the steps of the church down the street from my house. He was curled up under a thin blanket on the frosty concrete, and I shuddered as I thought about him sleeping the night there. My house may be drafty and cold, but it is a home, and I am incredibly blessed to have it. How quickly I forget about the millions in this country who still struggle daily to survive. They fight continually for shelter, warmth, protection, food, all the basic necessities of life...while I feel overwhlemed with the stress of academic papers and making it to work on time.
Oh how quickly I forget.

Fall Break, Mountain Style!


BEST FALL BREAK PICTURE OF ALL TIME

Really, not much more needs to be said. That pretty much sums up the best five days ever.

So, we set out from Greensboro on Friday, listened to lots of seventies jams as we rolled towards the mountains, enjoying the beautiful changing leaves along the road. We arrived at my home Friday night, greeted by my wonderful family...it was so good to see them! We were also greeted with loads of delicious cookies (three different kinds!) and played a great deal of Cranium. My brother Josh, Rachel and I formed "Team Universal Cosmic Power," and pretty much wiped the floor with the competition. We also had an awesome team gang sign, which you can see modeled to your right. We spent the rest of the evening rockin' a little jam session on my family drum collection, which was mostly painfully uncoordinated...but lots of fun.

We spent Saturday hiking my mountain, which is not really meant to be hiked....its virtually straight uphill. Our calves were exhausted and our lungs had collapsed by the time we finally reached the peak. It worth it though, for the sheer beauty of climbing on piles of fallen red and golden leaves, and running across the expansive grassy pastures we discovered at the top of the woods. After the hike we were ravenous, which was perfect, since my parents had prepared a feast of home cooked barbeque, macaroni and cheese (786 calories per serving, I kid you not. I found this out the day after I ate it), baked beans, and of course, more delicious cookies. We spent the afternoon playing a little game I picked up in Prague called "Nutty Nuggets," and I seem to remember dancing the Macarena as well. There's always dancing when our crew is around.

We set out Sunday afternoon for Paul's house in Tuckasegee, after lots of picture-posing in my front yard with my family's extensive arsenal of guns. We stopped off in Asheville for the afternoon, enjoying some delicious pizza at Barley's Taproom and walking around the fun shops in downtown. . We originally planned to camp in Tuckasegee that evening, but upon arriving late that night to discover horribly frigid temperatures, we decided that sleeping in the warm cabin would be a better alternative. Paul's family lives in a lovely little solar-powered, wood-stove heated one room cabin, secluded out in the middle of the mountains. It was really cozy and fun with all of us bunking in there. It made me wish I could live in a little cabin in the woods.....it seemed like a really simple, wonderful lifestyle. Paul's dad fried us up some yummy blueberry pancakes for breakfast, and then we set out for a day of hiking. We traversed various trails along the Blue Ridge Parkway, drinking in the incredible mountain outlooks and wading in cold streams. Of course, the only problem about traveling with friends in couples is that they all stop at every scenic moment along the trail and act very romantic. Rachel and I enjoyed mocking them in rather ridiculous fashion and gagging at opportune moments. We spent Saturday evening roasting hotdogs and telling stories over a nice fire outside the cabin.

Sadly, it all had to end Tuesday, when we packed up and had a long sleepy drive back to Greensboro. It was so wonderful just to unplug for the weekend, being able to forget our jobs and our homework, leaving our cell phones off and our laptops at home. Just pure relaxation, fun, and friendship. It was good to step outside the crazy grind of school life for a few days and remember that life doesn't have to be insanely stressful all the time.

One of the great parts of the trip was our new friend Warren. Warren is Lauren's friend from South Africa who has been staying at our house for the past two weeks. We've become rather attached to him, and had so much fun teaching him "ghetto" culture over the break....particularly gang signs (see the demonstration to your left) and cool street phrases that he can take back to South Africa. Hearing him say "Don't be hatin', y'all" or "I keeps it real" in his proper, British-sounding accent was quite delightful. We also introduced him to important American cultural institutions such as Wal-Mart, Bojangles, and BBQ pork. He just boarded a bus bound for Miami, where he'll fly to South America for the next couple of months. We were very sad to say goodbye to him tonight...he really became a part of our little family quite quickly, and he will be greatly missed around here.

Too busy living to write about life

My apologies....When my life gets crazy, communication falls through the cracks, both in keeping up with friends and keeping up with writing on here. Blogging is a luxury for those with spare time, which is a commodity I can afford very little of these days. This past week was particularly insane...four papers, one huge exam, and trying to finish choreographing a duet. Top that off with rehearsals at night and work in the morning, and you've got some very full days and a few emotional breakdowns.

Sometimes I feel like a hamster running on a wheel, endlessly running as fast as I can to get nowhere. It's so easy to get bogged down in what's happening hour to hour, day to day, and forgetting that all this insanity will really just be a temporary blur in the big picture of my life. Those are the moments when I just have to breathe and let it all go.

Also after this week, if I never hear words like "prepositional phrase," "olfactory semiotics," or "grammatical bound derivational morphemes" again, I'll be quite happy. A similar sentiment applies to my thoughts towards Bach's Goldburg Variations, which we are required to use in my choreography class right now...try dancing to every beat of Variatio 8. a 2 Clav. and you'll see how I feel.

But enough of that!

Cultural highlights of my week: Last weekend, my friends and I went to see Shakespeare's Much Ado About Nothing. Very hilariously witty, and particularly enjoyable when followed by eating two large pizzas at midnight. This weekend we went to see Big River, which is a musical adaptation of Huckleberry Finn. It was decently good, but let me just say I think Mark Twain would have been rolling in his grave...and not with laughter. Some books are simply not meant to be musicals, and the content gets pretty trivialized when key elements are made into big show numbers. What's next, Crime and Punishment hits Broadway? I'd like to hear those songs.
The other "artistic" moment of the week was one of our own making...one of my house-mates is working on a choreography project that uses group improvisation, so most of my friends, dancers and non-dancers alike are involved. It's a lot of fun to get together once a week, put on some music, and just go with the flow! The results are always an equal mixture of beauty and craziness, so it's intriguing to watch what happens.

Culinary highlights of the week: I've decided that communal cooking is really the way to go. You get to enjoy the companionship of your friends, while cooking something that is more delicious and less time consuming than anything you could normally make on your own. We did this three times this week. One night featured pasta with homemade tomato and vegetable sauce. The next meal was a gigantic stir fry with a smorgasbord of shared ingredients....broccoli, zucchini, squash, tofu, potatoes, egg, carrots, and onions. The third event was Saturday morning breakfast (at noon, of course), with homemade biscuits, sausage gravy (vegan sausage, which is surprisingly good) and scrambled eggs.

Mmm, it's making me hungry just writing about it. Time for lunch and as always, more homework.
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Currently reading: lots of Emerson and Whitman, for American Lit class. I remember really liking their stuff in high school, and while I still find them intriguing, they mostly seem like pretty arrogant, self-obsessed twats now. Perhaps as a 15 year old I just identified so well with their arrogant self-obsession that their writing seemed delightful.
Currently listening to: The new Coldplay album! Viva La Vida is one of the albums I missed while I was away this summer, and it's great.... the soaringly triumphant title track is my particular favorite.

Wordle wonders

Coolest site ever: Wordle. You basically type in the name of a website, and it gives you a neat graphic featuring a randomized assortment and design of the words that are featured most often on that particular sight. The words that are most frequently used are the largest in font. I used my Prague blog, and I thought it was an interesting summation of my summer:

Check it out. It's fun to stare at for a long time.

Happy Autumn!

Tonight I am so bogged down with work that I have no choice but to simply stop. Sometimes you just have to drop everything and take a step back. So tonight, I'm doing that with a brief blog update. And I'm also celebrating the first day of fall with my roomates by drinking hot apple cider and eating popcorn!

My top 3 from this past week (besides my birthday, of course):

1) the Farmer's Market. I really love walking through fresh markets and buying produce....what a perfect way to spend a crisp autumn Saturday. I savored some tasty homemade peach ice cream that reminded me of childhood, as well as buying some lovely tomatoes, onions, crispy lettuce, and a thick loaf of crusty sourdough bread. The twins got similar items, so we had a delicious lunch that consisted of the best BLT's you've ever tasted.

2)Babysitting. I babysat for five great little kids Sunday evening. Apparently, my name is circulating around the families in my church, which is pretty sweet, because I make far more money in a few hours of babysitting than at a few hours of my job. Not to mention that it's a billion times more enjoyable.

3) Moments of rest. I was pretty sick for the first half of this week, probably due in large part to my continual lack of sleep. Being a night person who has to be at work early every morning has not turned out so well for me this semester. Tuesday morning, as I sleepily slogged through the Dewey Decimal system, my shuffling iPod gave me a sermon by Tim Keller about the importance of rest. I found this was interesting, considering my constant lack of rest, but I thought little of it for the rest of the day. I should interject here that my lack of rest was more than simply not sleeping... I was spending very little of my time alone and very little in prayer and contemplation. Sadly, when life gets hectic and crowded the first thing to go is typically solitude. So back to Tuesday...that evening, as I was praying, I got the strong sense that I was supposed to wake up early to spend some time alone with God. Of course, I complained at length about this idea, considering how late I was already going to bed, but with a sigh, I set my alarm a half an hour earlier than my typical dreadful awakening.

In an ironic twist, I awoke two hours later than my alarm the next morning, which was twenty minutes past the time I was supposed to be at work. I bolted out of bed and frantically scrambled to get out the door, followed by a mad dash across campus to the library. I went to apologize and explain my situation to my boss, but after hearing my faint, scratchy voice, she said, "You sound really sick. Why don't you just go home instead of working today?" I tried to protest, but she would have none of it...so I had to go home.

I got a couple of unexpected hours of restful solitude that morning in a way I never could have planned. God moves in mysterious ways....

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Music of the week: Bob Dylan and Patsy Cline. I suppose I'm feeling rather folksy.
Book of the week: the final Harry Potter. I know, it's absurd that I still haven't read it.

Farewell to the Teenage Years

I think this was the best birthday ever. I always say that, but really, they just seem to get better every year. I'm hoping this trend of improvement will just increase at a steady exponential rate forever, and life will be grand.

This is a card from my parents, who also sent me some delicious chocolates and cookies and other delightful edible things....they know me well, I must say! I have enough chocolate to last me a lifetime right now, and I'm very happy with that state of affairs.


In addition to the wonderful gifts from my friends here, I also got an amazing package in the mail from my Prague intern friend Lindsay! It was a little taste of the summer, with a wonderful picture of the girls at the American embassy, as well as some chips and salsa to bring back old memories. Our tradition was to come back to our flat every night and sit around our little kitchen table eating chips and salsa as we talked about the experiences of our day.

This is a little reminder of my birthday duties from one of my lovely roommates, Lauren. I did eat cake until I was full up to there, a delicious homemade dark chocolate cake, after lots of dancing to some of the best musical hits to emerge from the 1970's and 60's (as well as some tunes from our favorite show, which is, of course, LOST....i.e. "Make Your Own Kind of Music" and "Downtown"). Such good times! I am truly blessed with a marvelous group of crazy friends.

Rainy day recollections

Today was just one of those wistful days. On my lunch break, I began reading something from a blog of one of the missionaries in Prague, which led me to reading multiple other blogs and looking at pictures of all of their beautiful faces and families and stories. I felt an ache rise in my heart as the rain fell softly outside, wishing I could be with them all. As I walked out of my last dance class of the day, a fellow student beside me commented that the weather reminded her of the time she visited Prague. The familiar sadness welled up in me again, as I closed my eyes and imagined walking along the city streets, peering up in wonder at the buildings which always took my breath away. That chilly rain made me want to walk the cobblestone streets to Cafe Kalma and eat a chocolate filled croissant (or two), sipping my espresso as I write in my journal and read my Bible. Feeling rather blue, I stopped in my local coffee shop on my walk back home from campus (nothing says comfort like a warm latte). Just walking in there for a brief moment brought a surge of joy into my day. I deeply inhaled the familiar smell of freshly brewed coffee as I soaked in the sounds of jazz melodies and a million strands of conversation. Something just feels right about that sensation.

I feel so strangely out of place these days, longing for the past and hoping for the future. I suppose that's a lifelong tension, and I'll always exist somewhere in the middle.
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currently listening to: "Sunday," by John Coltrane and "Secret Garden," by Bruce Springsteen

Music and Memories

On Saturday night I finally fulfilled my dream of seeing Derek Webb in concert. If you don't know Derek, I suggest you familiarize yourself with his music, because he is simply amazing. I'm not very fond of most things I hear coming out of the Christian music scene these days, but he defies the narrow musical/lyrical confines of the genre. He's pretty uncategorizable, actually....some have called him the Bob Dylan of Christian music, and I think that's a pretty good description. He actually played a cover of a Bob Dylan song at the concert ("With God On Our Side"...really incredible). His lyrics are raw, honest, and passionate, something you don't hear very often on fluffy Christian radio stations....hence him never being played on Christian radio.

For those of you who do know his stuff, the song set was:
A Love That's Stronger than our Fear, A Savior on Capitol Hill, Name, I Wanna Marry You All Over Again, Can't Lose You, Lover, I Just Don't Want Coffee, A King and a Kingdom, I Hate Everything (but you), and A New Law. He closed with This Too Shall Be Made Right and Wedding Dress, arguably his two best and definitely two of my favorites.
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But there was more to Saturday night than just the music. I reunited with my recently married friends Andrew and Katherine, saw my old camp friends Rachel, McKinney, and Megan, and as I drove to the concert, I talked to my fellow Prague intern Lindsay. It was an intersection of interactions with people from all different parts of my past life, and I was reminded of how catching up with old friends is equally wonderful and painful. People change and conversations aren't the same and you're reminded of all the time you can't get back. It's inevitable, but it's not easy to face. I wished I could run down the halls of my old college dorm, talk by moonlight on the porch of my cabin at camp, or sit around the kitchen table eating chips and salsa in Prague. As I poured over the evening driving home, my head felt like a muddled collage, flooded with times and places and people and stories that were everything but here and now.
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But here and now are where I am....so I will keep on struggling to surrender those chapters of my story into the hands of the One who gives and takes away, and press on torwards a sure and certain hope in the midst of continual change.

The Perks of Working Life

Libraries try to fool you. They masquerade as these peaceful centers of happy learning, but really, they destroy their employees. Normally I would mean this in the figurative sense of boredom and monotony, but yesterday it became a physical reality. At the dreadful hour of 8:00, as I sleepily stacked books onto shelves on the the seventh floor, I suddenly found myself gashed across the shin with the razor sharp edge of a kickstand. Kickstands are those little rolling stools you stand on to reach the books on the very top shelf, and apparently, they are quite hazardous to your legs. Happily for me, there is this marvelous little perk of being a student employee: Worker's Comp. My boss raced me across campus to the Student Health Center in the little Library-mobile, and then I spent several delightful hours of my morning getting stitches across my shinbone (oh, the joy) and a lovely tetanus shot.

Really, it was quite an adventure. And it got me out of work for a couple of hours.

The library is not all bad. Today, as I shelved books, I found a book of Czech poetry and a book about the characteristics of spoken Czech in Prague. I checked them about immediately, and I'm pretty excited about purusing them soon.

It's been a long day, but I just finished devouring an authentic Italian dinner fixed by my lovely friend Gina. Mmmm, life is good.
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Favorite song of the week: "Sunday Bloody Sunday," by U2. Re-discovering a classic is always sweet.
Book I'm reading: "Surprised by Hope: Rethinking Heaven, the Resurrection, and the Mission of the Church," by NT Wright. Very thought-provoking...so go read it.

The Contents of a Good Weekend are....




My blooming culinary skills. I made this little feast all by myself, and I am quite proud of my humble beginnings.





A daylong trip to the coast with my family. A little bit of beach, a lot of seafood....just the way a good vacation should be. I polished off almost an entire pound of shrimp, and let me tell you, it was delicious.





A yummy breakfast cooked by the lovely and talented Sarah! Mmm, gravy and biscuits. There's nothing like a lazy breakfast in pajamas while watching some sensational "Lost" episodes. (I'm hooked again, by the way. TV just doesn't get any better or more addicting!)
Coffee dates with two really great gals, one at the world dominating force known as Starbucks, one at my faithful little Tate Street Coffee. Equally delightful and tasty. Ahh, the joy of caffinated conversation.

The Classy Life

Last night, my friends Paul and Sam decided to have a poetry reading competition. It turned into less of a competition and more of a friendly, animated verbal exchange of their favorite poems, much to the delight of all their listeners. The night culminated in a lovely moment when Sam turned off the lights and read to all of us by the flickering illumination of a single candle. The last stanza:

the tangle of the heart
Black coffee, bitter, hot
smoke rises straight and calm
air
Still and cool

I just like any poem that features black coffee. And I really like looking around at a room full of my wonderful friends, glowing with candlelight and comraderie. How simply marvelous....

The Return

I really enjoyed blogging this summer from Prague, so I thought perhaps I should keep it up. This will most likely be quite different from my other blog...less exciting European adventures to record...but then again, all of life is an adventure. My guess is that this will blog will more often feature lyrics, quotes, books I'm reading, music I'm listening to, possibly thoughts on life...but who knows yet? We'll see where it goes.

I'm back in Greensboro, back in school, starting my junior year. It's hard to believe how much has happened and changed in two years of college. Grace and blessing have been poured out on me here beyond what I could have ever foreseen or hoped.

Things that are good about being back:

1) My HOUSE!

It is quite old and lovely (and happens to be a Greensboro historical monument, oddly enough). I share it with Lauren and Megan, a wonderful pair of twins and fellow dancers. I have a fireplace (nonfunctional) in my room and a front porch swing- you can't get much better than that.

I'm really thankful I decided to move out of the dorm when I did. It would be hard to come back from a city apartment to a dormitory. So far I'm really enjoying the solitude of living off campus. Now if I can just learn to become a spectacular cook, life will be delightful. Thus far I am living on pasta, omlettes, and cereal. My friend Laura in Prague had a cookbook called "How to Become a Domestic Goddess".....I am happily working torwards that goal these days, and I am confident that it will eventually be accomplished someday!

2) My FRIENDS!

This picture is of a reunion celebration on the sidewalk of TCBY. Yummy. As I write this, we're sitting here having a heated debate about the values of Community vs. Individualism/Independence, which gradually moved into a broad discussion about the nature of heaven and eternity. Yeah, it's amazing. Seriously, I have a great circle of intellectually and spiritually stimulating friends...we just sit around and talk about things like this for hours sometimes. I've undoubtedly learned more from these conversations than from any of my academic classes, and I'm so thankful for the blessing of their friendship.


3) Spring Garden Community Church!
That place is home, and I have missed it greatly. Being back Sunday felt marvelous.


Things that are not so good about being back:

1) Classes
Bah, humbug. Need I say more? But seriously, on the bright side, despite the loads of homework I see looming in my future. these classes do seem very valuable. I'm taking things like "Dance Education" and "Linguistics for Teachers." So hopefully that means I will learn how to teach dance and English this semester. And that actually feels useful, for once.

2) Work
The library at 8:00 AM. What a dreadful thought.

3)Missing Friends
The sad thing about reuniting with old friends is the enhanced realization of those who are are missing from the reunion. I keep thinking about my graduated friends from UNCG have moved onto graduate school in Texas, the Navy, missions in Kenya, marriage, and working life... or my camp friends that I haven't seen in months... or the WHM interns that are off working and studying in Texas, Maryland, Philadelphia, and Tennessee...or all my friends in Prague that are seperated from me by a vast ocean. There are so many reminders of each of them every day, and it's a battle sometimes to rejoice for the time that they were a part of my story and not mourn their absence in my present life.

4) Missing Prague
I'll probably write more about this later...I have a feeling it might be a reoccuring theme this year. Being the introverted mountain girl that I am, I never thought I would long for the city life, but I do now. My street seems quiet and my life seems ordinary. I miss the bustling, vibrant, active, colorful spirit of Prague. I miss my friends there greatly. I even miss the things that seemed strange and unfamiliar there, because now they are more distinctly lacking here.

I am ever so thankful that God is the same, my unfailing Rock and my Refuge, my point of continuity from this summer to my life as it is now.
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book of the moment: "Searching for God Knows What," by Donald Miller (who is perhaps more well known for his "Blue Like Jazz"). Quite good...an emphasis on the relational nature of the gospel.
song of the moment: "Rock of Ages," the Sandra McCracken version. I would highly recommend her album "The Builder and the Architect." Beautiful stuff.

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