The Life and Times of Kavan

Getting Back On Track

2012-02-10T19:13:00.002-06:00

Hello all! It's been far too long! I apologize for the long delay since the last post. I guess it's actually been since last year that I posted, technically. I haven't posted in almost six weeks! I haven't gone that long without blogging since I first moved to Kansas back in 2009. Ugh. Anyways, I'm back now. Part of why I haven't blogged is that there isn't a whole lot of new stuff going on. Part of it is because I've been ashamed at my lack of novel progress. However, enough time has passed that there are a couple new things to discuss, so here goes!

Work continues to go really well. My job is fun. We did shake things up a bit a few weeks ago. We decided that we weren't using our office space very efficiently, so we decided to rearrange who went well. I spent about a week imagining and evaluating the possibilities. Every time we settled on something, we got a new idea that threw everything back into disarray. My whiteboard got turned into a map and spreadsheet of all the possibilities.

It was pretty hectic. We finally figured out the best option and went for it. It took a lot fewer days than expected. I drafted us a schedule of moves that took us from Monday to Thursday. As things ended up, we got everyone moved to their new places by Tuesday or Wednesday (I can't remember). At one point my phone was in my new space, but my desk wasn't yet. The phone rang, and I took it on the floor, then had to apologize to the caller when I suddenly had to leave when Ryan and Ron suddenly brought my desk swooping into where I was sitting. It was rather amusing. It took a few days for us to get settled into our new places, but we're all set now. I like my new space. I have a lot less space, but I really didn't need any. I'm in our office's reception area now. Here's my new digs.

In other news, we also recently ordered in an extra baptismal robe. I tried it on to make sure it worked.

It does. I also got new glasses.

My apartment also got a new microwave. We used to have these awful tiny microwaves that weren't even big enough to pop a bag of popcorn. It was really upsetting. However, my roommate works at the complex and told me to request a new microwave when I resigned the lease. I thought I would have to negotiate it, but I just asked kindly and they said "Ok." It was disappointingly easy. I don't have a picture of the microwave, but I used it for lunch at the same time that I discovered my glasses arrived in the mail. I got really excited. New glasses and a new microwave during one lunch! (This was incidentally right after trying on the baptismal robe.) It was too much to handle on my own, so I called my mom and shared the moment with her. I figured she wouldn't judge me, or at least if she did, she'd still love me. She has to.

In other news, I'm doing an Alpha course. Some of you may be familiar with it. It's an internationally known introductory course on Christianity. I've heard great things about it, so I figured I'd join. My church is considering doing a course, so I decided to attend one that another church in town is hosting. It's been a good time so far. We meet in a bar down in Aggieville. We have the place to ourselves before it opens to the public at 9:00 PM. First is dinner, then a video, then discussion in small groups. I think it'll be a great time!

So that's been my life for the past few weeks. Looking forward . . . next week is Valentine's Day! Don't get excited. I have no romantic developments to speak of, which is fine with me. I'm just trying to decide what to do in protest of such a silly Hallmark-driven day. Fortunately I have Alpha to take up some of the time. I was thinking I'd watch a manly action movie with no romantic subplot for the rest of the evening. I can't decide what that will be. Perhaps The Transporter or Minority Report. My other option is to go watch Star Wars in 3D alone. Nobody else seems to want to see it. The only problem is that it's the one Star Wars movie that I'm not terribly enamored of and I'm not sure 3D is going to add much more beyond making Jar Jar Binks and whoever played Anakin Skywalker at age seven even more annoying. I think I still want to go though. I never saw Episode I in theaters. If all else fails, I'll spend the evening talking to Siri, even though she doesn't love me.

Sigh.

Anyways, the novel. Ugh. I've been off track pretty much since my nephew Nolan was born. (Nephew update: he is a fat little baby. So adorable. Apparently he's already 16 pounds at three months. 16 pounds isn't an average weight until six months. My brother must be so proud. I miss the kid.) I just had no motivation until recently when my friend Kate began viciously berating me to write (which I invited her to do and thank her for). I've finally got things going again somewhat. I've written three chapters in the last two weeks or so, meaning I'm done with chapter ten! Yay!

Despite the progress, I've realized my situation is growing dire. My goal has been to finish writing this by my 25th birthday on May 6. We're twelve weeks away from that. At this point, I have eleven more planned chapters to write. That's a tight schedule, especially if, as I suspect will happen, I need another couple chapters here and there. So it looks like I have my work cut out for me. It's probably good that I'm feeling the pressure. I work better that way.

I've discovered a possible motivational technique. The other day at church I saw in our church library that someone had donated a box of books that were free for the taking. In the box was the Left Behind series (apocalyptic Christian fiction, all the rage in the mid-to-late 90s). I took the entire series home. It's not all that great theologically, but they're highly entertaining and addictive. I had read the first 10 books of the 12 back in elementary school, but I eventually got sick of waiting for the next one to come out and trying to find a copy to borrow and trying to remember what had happened in the last year since I had read the previous installment. (Yes, I realized that was all a run-on sentence.) Now that I have the whole series (excluding the lame-sounding prequels and sequel), I've decided to re-read them all! (How does this relate to the novel? Keep reading.)

So this happened this past Tuesday. That evening I accidentally read the entire first book. I was up until 3 AM. Ooops. (Sometimes I accidentally read long books in one day. It's happened three times with the seventh Harry Potter book.) I started getting concerned that if I kept reading like that, I'd be even more delayed on my writing. Then I realized I could use reading as motivation for writing! After binging through the book, I decided that I wouldn't let myself start book two until I finished writing chapter ten. It worked! Yay! I probably won't do it where I write a chapter, read a book, write a chapter, read a book. That could go badly. I'll maybe just do half a book, write a chapter, finish the book, write a chapter, etc. That's the idea, anyways. I feel like the pieces of the novel are coming together and I just have to write it at this point. We'll see how it goes.

Well, I feel better about myself now that I caught up on my blog and that I'm getting back on track with the novel. I feel like I'm being a real person again. Huzzah! Not that real people are defined by blogging and writing novels. I just feel like I'm getting back to something I'm supposed to be doing. So that's good. And that's all I have for now. If I said any more here, this post would be even more disastrously scattered. Farewell!

2011 In Posts

2011-12-31T14:53:00.001-06:00

Hello all! It's that time of year again where the year is pretty much over. So far I'm celebrating the last day of the year by sleeping in until noon and laying in bed watching Deep Impact. In any case, I've had an annual tradition of listing various things that happened in the year or defined the year for me. Each list is not set in any specific order. It's my quick way of looking back on the year. Enjoy!

Movies That Defined 2011 For Me
1. Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part 2
2. Contagion
3. Mission Impossible: Ghost Protocol
4. Battle: LA
5. Titanic (old school chick flick, I know, but whatever)

Big Things I Learned in 2011
1. Finishing grad school is doable
2. Being out of school is amazing
3. Being a real person involves greater financial freedom . . .
4. . . . and responsibility.
5. More often than not, the opportunities that God offers aren't what you expect.

Places I've Been In 2011
1. Mississippi
2. Alabama
3. Nebraska
4. Oklahoma
5. Texas
6. Croatia!
7. Minnesota

Random Events of 2011
1. Blogging excessively about my old truck
2. Meeting some creepy old man in a park in Croatia
3. Referencing the movie Contagion and swine flu while announcing a hog roast at church in front of a large crowd
4. Playing Wheel of Fortune at work with a dartboard and whiteboard
5. Creating mazes on my whiteboard at work
6. Not getting the LOTR Pez dispenser set I wanted at the staff Christmas white elephant gift exchange
7. Waiting in line at Best Buy for four hours for a TV on Black Friday
8. Getting a Valentine from a student saying "I look forward to getting my heart broken by you.
9. Spinning out on the freeway on New Year's Day and hitting all four corners of my truck on the guardrails
10. Throwing old desks off the balcony at my new apartment
11. Examining dead pet cat ashes
12. Learning to make French toast
13. Surviving my first earthquake

Mistakes of 2011
1. Initially freaking out too much when my laptop died
2. Being too mopey/cynical/whiny about grad school
3. Generally lacking motivation

Songs That Define 2011 For Me
1. Wake Up Sleeper by Gungor
2. Run the World by Beyonce
3. You're Beautiful by Phil Wickham
4. Superbass by Nicki Minaj
5. We Found Love by Rihanna
6. ET by Katy Perry
7. Last Friday Night by Katy Perry
8. Someone Like You by Adele
9. I Wanna Go by Britney Spears
10. Til The World Ends By Britney Spears
11. Straight To You by Josh Groban

Highlights of 2011
1. Driving to Minnesota just in time to be there for my nephew Nolan's birth on Oct. 23!
2. All the weddings - David and Leah (January, Texas), Matt and Paula (May, Kansas), Jake and Katie (Minnesota, July), Austin and Amy (Kansas, July), Cary and Jinny (Kansas, August) and Seth and Karissa (Nebraska, November)
3. Mission trip to Croatia!
4. Getting a job!
5. Finishing school!
6. My new car
7. The new apartment
8. Running four miles on the beach in Florida last January at the Gulf Coast Getaway
9. Butterhorns and lefse at Christmas
10. Family time at Christmas, especially with my nephew
11. The last Harry Potter midnight showing with friends
12. Getting back on track somewhat with writing my novel

Things I'd Change
1. None

That's just a brief glance at my year. It's been an incredible year with a lot of big changes. It's very easy to see that I've been very blessed. God has definitely had his hand over me. I'm excited to see how 2012 plays out. I'm sure this list will be very different next year. That's all for this year! Have a great day and Happy New Year!

Confronting My Mortality

2011-12-29T23:52:00.002-06:00

Hello all! Lucky you, I'm actually blogging again! I've been remiss for much of December, but I'm getting back on board with my blogging (and also hopefully with my writing as well). We'll see how it goes. I'll post again on Saturday. It will by my annual lists of the year thing where I highlight movies, moments, highlights, lessons learned, and that sort of thing for the previous year. Huzzah.

Anyways, I just got back home to Kansas today after spending a week back in Minnesota with friends and family. There was much joy and merriment had all around. It was great to spend some time with my nephew. He's an adorable little person.

See? Precious. So yes, I hung out with him and the rest of the family. I also had several coffee (aka chai/hot chocolate) outings with friends and a couple of other outings. All in all it was a great Christmas with the family and a great time to catch up with friends.

On the downside, as of late, I have been confronting my mortality in a few ways. One of them really snuck up on me the other day at the coffee shop with some of my friends. We were discussing becoming "real people" with jobs and lives and paying bills and such. I mentioned how my car would take six years to pay off. I then blurted out that I would be thirty by the time I paid it off. I had never realized before that moment that I would be that age before I paid it off. I knew it was six years, but I had never added six and twenty-four. I was extremely startled and my friends laughed at me. Some friends they are. It wasn't really a confrontation of mortality per se, but it was something in my life that I'll be doing when I'm thirty. I hadn't planned anything happening then. I barely have any plans for next year. I thought the furthest thing I had planned out was that I signed a lease to stay in my apartment through July 2013. But no, I'll be paying my car until I'm thirty . . . frightening. Maybe I'll pay it off early. I'll keep you posted. I know how eagerly you all await news of my car payments.

A more serious confrontation of my mortality has been rather gradual. Some of you are going to find this completely ridiculous, but . . . I've put on some weight. Not a lot by any means, but enough that I'm starting to notice a bit of a belly. While a few pounds evenly distributed around my body would be quite welcome, the extra weight seems to be concentrated on my stomach. Sometimes I feel like I should suck it in when I talk to girls. It's not at all that I weigh too much. It's probably a perfectly healthy weight for my height. It's just concentrated in a place that's starting to make me look like I'm trying to emulate my nephew. I've also been noticing lately that my pants are getting tighter. That's always a telling sign.

I've been trying to discern what to do with it. Part of me is hesitant to lose weight. That seems so weird. I'm still a very small person. I feel like if I lose weight, I'll start to look like I have an eating disorder. It's not that I want to lose much. Just enough so the tummy isn't rounded and the pants aren't as tight as they're getting. I considered just accepting my new body shape. (And really, I'm actually pleased at the number of pounds, just not the location.) However, accepting the body shape means buying new pants soon. That gets expensive, and then I also can't wear the new jeans I got from Mom and Dad for Christmas. If I throw out their gift because I got too big, I feel like I'm just disrespecting them. So I suppose I'll have to go running and get back into a bit more of a flat shape.

How is this confronting my mortality? I'm rather shocked that this is happening to me. My metabolism was such a champ before. I thought it would just keep taking care of me until I had kids or something. I thought I would always just be super thin and my food choices would be irrelevant as it pertains to weight and exercise. However, that is not the case. My metabolism is slowing slightly now as I age. For the first time, I'm starting to see why the physical side of aging can suck. It's scary. I'm dying.

So yes. I'm starting to confront my mortality a bit more. I still don't understand it fully. Perhaps I'll ruminate someday on the meanings of mortality. Until then, I must sleep. Farewell!

This Is My Family

2011-12-22T21:01:00.001-06:00

Hello everyone! Sorry I've been so remiss in blogging. I was too embarrassed. I didn't finish chapter seven until last Saturday. Ugh. I'm so behind on my novel. Sorry. Chapter eight may not come quickly either since I'm home for Christmas for the week. It may have to wait until next year, unfortunately.

Anyways, today's post will be a very unusual departure. I will have several guest writers, namely my family. Earlier in the week, Mom sent out an email about Christmas to get things organized for family to come over. What began as a simple conversation about who was bringing what devolved into . . . well, you'll see. This just shows you all how awesome my family is. I present this as my Christmas present to you all. Merry Christmas!

(Some emails edited for length)
Email #1 - Naomi
Dear All,
Sorry this is a little late in coming! We are looking forward to seeing all of you here for Christmas Day!Matt and Judy - glad you can join us! Marcheta - wish you all could come, too..
We will have our family here on Christmas Day morning - to celebrate, and then we were thinking of eating around 1:00/1:30. How does that sound to all? Please let your families know they are welcome! Anyone is welcome to come around noon or so! I will make a ham, and one pan of potatoes. I will also have buns and lefse. So, we maybe need:
2 pans of potatoes
A couple of different veggies. (ie. corn/green beans/broccoli-cheese, etc..)
Fruit - or some type of jello salads
Relish trays
Any other thoughts?
So - does anyone have anything they specifically would like to bring?
Maybe copy everyone!

Love,
Naomi

(An innocuous beginning? Just wait.)
Email #2 - Judy (Aunt, married to Uncle Matt, Dad's brother)
Merry Christmas everyone - I am trying to figure out what I could bring. I would imagine it would be good if the potatoes, etc. could be done before we come and I know from prior years that it doesn't work to bring them from here. If I could bake them there I certainly could bring a pan of potatoes but it also depends on oven space.
I will bring a relish tray, a cheese ball and crackers for the evening meal, I have a great pumpkin cake recipe if that is something that would work for dessert I would be happy to bring that for dessert and I will bring a couple (or more)) bags of corn. Is there something else I could bring? Are you thinking of sandwiches for supper, Naomi and if so, do you need buns/bread for that?
We are excited to be with you all. We will come back home that evening and of course will bring Mom home.
Love to you all, Judy

Email #3 - Me
For the good of my family, I won't be bringing any food. Instead, I will bring cheer and good will.

Email #4 - Uncle Matt
Amen Kavan, that'd be true for me too! Matt

Email #5 - Aunt Jewel (Dad's sister)
How fun to plan together for Christmas Day! Matt, I would love for you to read the Christmas story for us? That is one thing I miss greatly with Dad gone.
I will bring another pan of potatoes (Dan please provide a legible copy of the recipe you tried at Thanksgiving)! I will also bring a jello salad (for dinner) and chips (for supper) in honor of Suzanne.
JJR

Email #6 - Uncle Dan (Dad's brother)
We will do a pan of potatoes and a corn dish made famous by Aggie Sorensen.
We will also bring soda for the evening.
It will be nice to see you all!
Dan

(Still sounds innocuous, but keep going. There is foreshadowing here that blew things out of the water. Trust me.)
Email #7 - Aunt Charlene (Married to Uncle Joel, Dad's brother)
Hello Family! Fun to plan for the day together!
Since Cheer and Good Will are already taken by Kavan and Matthew, I will bring a veggie dish, goodies for dessert, wine, lutefisk, liver and onions...
Charlene

Email #8 - Mom (replying to Judy)
Yes, we will do sandwiches for supper!
This sounds good - Judy! Thanks!

Email #9 - Marcheta (Dad's sister; to our knowledge, she was not coming)
Is it alright if all I bring is Steven?

(Steven is her husband. They live in Connecticut. This email sent us into frantic joy at the thought of their potential visit.)
Email #10 - Jewel
Seriously. Are you coming?!
(Didn't know Aunt Jewel was a valley girl. ?)

Email #11 - Dan
Of course! When will you arrive?
Dan

Email #12 - Matt
Let me know when you arrive so I can be there to pick you up - since I am the closest. Actually if you could come into Fargo you would not have as long a wait. Matt
(Shortly after this email, word spreads that Marcheta was joking. Keep reading though, the best stuff is around the corner.)

Emails #13 and #14 - Bryant (my brother)(He was unable to rein his thoughts into two emails, so I combine them here.)
We will bring a couple greens salads....keeping it healthy.
ps. thinking the salads would be for the evening meal......

Email #15 - Jewel
Thanks for keeping us healthy Bryant/Claire
Marcheta is not coming...rats! She had me going for a minute.
Charlene, Mom may humor you by eating some lutefisk, but I can't imagine you would have any takers on that liver/onions bit.
(This is where things start to happen . . .)

Email #16 - Bryant
I would be more than happy to participate on the liver and onions. I'm partial to whitefish livers from lake superior, but I'm assuming that would be a tough find this time of year.
I'm in!

Email #17 - Marcheta
Steven loves liver and onions...which I haven't made in years!
I sure wish we could join you all! But sadly we can't. One of these years we will have to join you! Steven thought we could maybe come for Thanksgiving this year...but instead I came out early....have a great time together...I will miss being there with you all!

Email #18 - Charlene
Well - my brother-in-law Alex assures me that if I tried duck or goose liver (foie gras) I would love it - but I will not be attempting to prepare that! :)
I'll leave the lutefisk to the professionals as well...

Email #19 - Bryant
I may just have to find some kind of game liver.....sounds delicious.....its on!

Email #20 - Dan (This is where the can of worms opens.)
Only make enough for Kavan. If he doesn’t eat it, I’m sure Orlin and Naomi will have it ready for him at breakfast the next morning.
(This is a reference to when I was little. If I didn't like the food and refused to eat it, Mom and Dad would say they'd save it for breakfast and I still have to eat it the next day. Not sure if they ever had to follow through with that . . . )

Email #21 - Me
If Charlene is really bringing wine, I'll try liver. I suggest riesling or a good moscato.

Email #22 - Bryant
You WOULD suggest a moscato or reisling.....boring.....while we're doing on those we might as well be on the veranda in our sundresses....love you kavan!!

Email #23 - Me
What's a more exciting wine? Chardonnay? And what's wrong with a veranda? I'm not doing a sundress, though. I'm with you on that.

Email #24 - Bryant
It seems that your definition of wine includes nothing of the red variety. Hence my concern that we may end up wearing sundresses and mixing mamosas.....

Email #25 - Me
I won't lie, I'm not a red wine fan. If there is a selection, I'll have the white and you can have the red. I've never worn a sundress or had a mimosa (spell it correctly, please), so don't worry. It's all going to be ok.

Email #26 - Bryant
Nothing else from the peanut gallery? Just going to let kavan and I go at it alone? come on!

Email #27 - Me
I have three options for why they're not concerned. There may be more.
1. They're not worried about sundresses/mimosas either.
2. They're more inclined towards white wine as I am.
3. They're more inclined towards red wine and are thus content to leave the white to me.
Also, if you could capitalize my name, I would appreciate that. My name is a proper noun, thank you very much.

Email #28 - Charlene
Dearest KAVAN and bryant -
Since I offered to bring the wine - you two are just going to have to see what's available and then "make do" with the choices at hand (unless of course you offer to bring your own!)
Don't worry - I will have a (very limited) selection.
I DID consider offering to make Margaritas and also bring the egg nog (with rum or cognac) - but didn't know if the oldest generation would be okay with that! (and no, I don't mean your parents' generation is the one I'm concerned about!)
Also - I wouldn't want to be responsible for the silliness that would certainly evolve with all that good liquid flowing freely - AND it all may lead to dancing - and we can't have THAT!!!
Love, cHaRlEnE

Email #29
Charlene,
First of all, I said capitalized, not CAPS. Second, if you give me a hint as to what selection you are providing, I could perhaps augment your selection. That could be categorized as the "good will/cheer" that I will bring. Third, I'm down with margaritas. Fourth, if you bring egg nog, I'm going to suggest cognac. I'm just not a fan of rum. Fifth, what's wrong with dancing? I don't know about the Joels, but all of the Orlins are wonderful dancers. Have you seen us at weddings? We are the party. Sixth, when you write it as cHaRlEnE, you look like a sixth grade girl pining hopelessly for Justin Bieber. I thought you were classier than that, Charlene.
With all sincerity,
Kavan
Email #30 - Dan (in reply to email #27)
Since your father’s aunt nicknamed me “Peanut” I will add a couple of more options:
1. We don’t appreciate you clogging up our email accounts – bah humbug!
2. We have work to do before the Christmas holiday – bah humbug, I attend a church named Ebenezer!
3. You two should settle your differences with a best of three contest:
a. An arm wrestling match
b. A speech off, with all of us as judges
c. And a karaoke sing off using the song “I cast all my cares upon you”.

Email #31 - Me
I think C is the only fair options. Bryant clearly has me beat in A and I clearly have him in B. However, I'm reminded of a movie.
Man in Black: I challenge you to a battle of wits.
Vizzini: For the Princess?
Man in Black: [nods]
Vizzini: To the death?
Man in Black: [nods]
Vizzini: I accept!
(My family is mildly obsessed with the film Princess Bride. We quote it constantly with each other and watch every couple years or so. We're probably due for another viewing come Sunday . . .)

Email #32 - Aunt Sue (Uncle Dan's wife)
Is C the only fair option, or the only fair options?

Email #33 - Aunt Sue again, referencing Charlene's email #28, specifically the line concerning how wine leads to dancing
...and dancing leads to pregnancy!

Email #34 - Uncle Dan (Married to the above Aunt Sue)
And now you know why we never had children. I was even forbidden from dancing in gym class during Junior High.

Email #35- Bryant (referencing my email #31)
Really kAVAN?
"I think C is the only fair options." What is wrong with that sentence? Grammar check please. You seem to have a plural agreement problem. Therefore, it is conceivable that I have you beat in all areas.
Going to be a long ride back to MN
Love you Kavan.

Email #36 - Me, replying to Dan's email #34
Don't worry. I've danced plenty of times and I've never gotten pregnant.

Email #37 - Sue
Have your dance partners gotten pregnant?

Email #38 - Me
Not by me.

Email #39 - Me again, replying to Bryant's email #35
I already admitted my error. That was about 5 emails ago. We've moved on to dancing and pregnancy. Get with it.

Email #40 - Bryant
Sorry, my emails typings was interrupted by poops squirtings out of a diapers.
Do this email make any senses with respects to plurals?

Email #41 - Dan
I think we need Giggity and Pookey to settle the dysfunction.
(This is a reference to BRaden and Cassie, my other siblings that have not participated in the conversation as of yet.)

Email #42 - Me
Pooky has no "e" in it. And his name is Billy. Giggity is just his catchphrase from a TV show that he thinks is funny in real life, but is actually not.

Email #43 - Bryant
Do I have a pet name?
Be honest.....

Email #44 - Me
I always called you Ugly at baseball games. I don't like using it on you out of that context, however. Perhaps Papa Bryant? Papa B? Papa Bry? It reflects your new role as a parent while still maintaining a certain level of familial informality. Not sure I like those, but I'm just brainstorming. Other thoughts?

Email #45 - Dan
Hyper Roggy Doggy.

Email #46 - Bryant
"Like"

Email #47 - Matt
I'm almost afraid to jump into this conversation - but with all the time this is taking - are you all on Sprint Break?
Matt

Email #48 - Matt again
OR if my fingers worked on the keyboard - Spring Break. MR

Email #49 - Sue
How 'bout Papa Bear Bryant? Some of you might understand this football coach reference.

Email #50 - Marcheta
I was going to offer to bring cheese and crackers with the "whine" but this conversation has progressed so far down the road with dancing, pregnancy, arm wrestling, etc. that I hesitate to join in for fear of something more egregious being broached. I notice the parental portion of the above siblings are wisely not chiming in!! Please don't let me know if I have somehow used improper verbiage whilst composing this missive!

Email #51 - Me
This entire conversation has been fantastic. I may print and frame.
(As it turned out, I compiled and blogged. That's probably more everlasting for me than printing and framing.)

Email #52 - Braden (my brother; this email was sent as I was compiling this post)
Uncle Billy would prefer a nice single malt with a cigar. For the record.
And, while I got your attention, here is my Christmas card:
http://billykiller.com/cards/2011-Christmas.html
Giggity.
William
(Yes, Braden suffers from a fractured personality known as Billy.)

So yes . . . this is my family. Clearly we are amazing. This is why I love them. I'm excited to see them all on Sunday. It'll be a great time. I hope you enjoyed the Christmas present of this post. Merry Christmas, everyone!

Utter Failure, Oklahoma, Nebraska, Weddings, Thievery, and Bleeding

2011-11-30T00:46:00.000-06:00

Yes, this post has it all. Thankfully I will address the topics in the post title sequentially. I may also pick up stray topics along the way. I'm like that. You've probably noticed. I'll attempt being concise. I think we all know how well that'll work.

First of all, I'm an utter failure. That's part of why it's been longer than usual since I've blogged. I have failed to complete chapter seven on time. I was supposed to finish way back on Nov. 13. That was sixteen days ago. For shame, I know. I've barely even started it. I don't really have a good reason for it beyond sheer laziness. It's kind of a transitional chapter that I'm not entirely sure what to do with. In any case, I've been needing to punish myself, but I haven't been sure how until recently. I decided that until I finish chapter seven (and perhaps eight), I cannot watch any Star Trek. I know that sounds silly, but I'm a bit of a Trekkie. In fact, in this moment, I'm wearing a T-shirt spelling out ten reasons why Captain Kirk is better than Captain Picard. (For the record, I totally think Picard is way better, but my roommate found the shirt at Target for about $2 and decided I needed it.) I've been semi-addicted to Star Trek over the last few months, so perhaps depriving myself there can give me the impetus to get back to writing. We'll see. In any case, the new goal is to finish chapter seven by Sunday, hopefully sooner. I don't know how I think I can try to be a writer. I can't seem to find the motivation to write. Sigh.

Anyways, on to Oklahoma. Last week I joined my friends Ben and Sharyn Worcester for Thanksgiving in Oklahoma! Since I wasn't going home, they invited me to join their family for a quick day trip to Stillwater, OK. We had a grand time in the car commenting on Oklahoma's rather noticeable lack of aesthetic sensibilities (aka massive random dirt piles ten feet from the road). It was quite the good time. They were very hospitable and fun to hang out with. There's nothing like one's own family, but the Worcester clan was a delightful alternative, except for the part where nobody knew what lefse was. It was mildly heartbreaking. It's bad enough to not have lefse, but it's worse when the people around you don't know what it is. Not even my spell check knows what it is right now. Then it got worse when all of my siblings and two of my cousins conspired to simultaneously send a plethora of picture texts of lefse to me. It's like showing a drug addict cocaine that they can't have. It's just rude. I thought they loved me. In any case, we had a fun time and then ran back to Manhattan that evening.

Then I stood in line at Best Buy for four hours before midnight to try to get an insanely amazing deal on a TV. I didn't get the TV that had the insanely amazing deal as there were only about 20 of them, but I did get a great deal on another TV. Great, but not insanely amazing. While I was waiting in the cold for four hours, I had some fun chats. Then we got inside and it was packed, but things remained orderly and civil. It's not like it was Walmart. The worst part was when I was in line to pay for half an hour and there were Twilight hair curlers and straighteners. Clearly this world is broken.

Moving on to Nebraska . . . that Friday Brock (my roommate) and I ran up to Nebraska for our friend/former roommate Seth's wedding. Naturally it was a rather boring drive. There's really nothing out there except WWII ammo bunkers disguised as hobbit holes, which was actually mildly disturbing. Then Brock got scared because he wasn't getting any reception on his phone. He was certain that if he didn't get any bars on his phone, he was going to be victimized in a less than savory fashion. Fortunately no such thing happened. In any case, Friday night was spent reconnecting with Seth and Karissa, his new wife, and doing the rehearsal. It was a good time!

Saturday was the wedding. Brock was a groomsman and I had the scripture reading. It was fun to be able to share in their special day. It was a really lovely wedding. There were a lot of touches that really put an emphasis on God and family, which I thought was really great. After the wedding, we made our way via party bus to the reception. We had a merry old time.

Except for the part where someone stole my suit coat! Early in the evening I took off my suit jacket and put it on my chair when I went to go dance or something. At the end of the night, I came back to my chair and it was gone! We searched the room for it, but someone must have mistakenly taken it. Or else it was outright thievery. Sigh. So I'm down a suit jacket. Silly Nebraska. Apparently Brock was right . . . we were victimized. At least, I was. Theft!

We drove back on Sunday. It was an uneventful drive. Speaking of drives, the American Red Cross had a blood drive at my church yesterday and today! (Great segue, right?) I donated for the first time. In the past, I either hadn't weighed enough or I'd traveled recently to places with malaria risks or something. It was finally time, and it went well. I was a champ. The only uncomfortable part for me was the iodine cleaning of where they put the needle in. The had this big Q-tip with iodine that they just rub on your arm. Doesn't sound bad? Well, it was, because I'm extremely ticklish. It was a big problem. I was laughing like a fool, trying not to move my arm, and nearly crying in the process. Sigh. Oh well. I'll donate again sometime. It was weird to know that the most I've ever bled was intentional and not messy. Ah, bleeding.

Well, it is time to go to bed. I'll try to get the novel back on track. Farewell!

11/11/11 - Ending The Tolkien Sabbatical

2011-11-11T11:11:00.114-06:00

Hello all! Today's post is something that has been in the works for a long time. The post itself had its genesis several months ago, dating back to last winter or spring. The actual inspiration of the post dates back to something that began five years ago. As a result, this post may be long and it may be scattered. (Don't worry, though; those are the only things it shares in common with the Occupy movements.)

First, we must go back to the genesis of this post. Several months ago, I was speaking with my beloved former office mate/graduate school classmate/GTA colleague Mauri Shelbourn. I'm not sure how we got started on it, but we were discussing my future and how far off it could be before I get married. I began to lament that I was single, as it meant that I would miss out on marrying on 11/11/11, a date that Mauri and I had previously discussed as an excellent day to get married. With no potential spouse on the horizon, I expressed my dismay that such an opportune date would pass me by without a marital union. My brother also considered that date as a potential day for a marital union, but such plans did not come to fruition for him, either. Alas, alas (one alas for each of us).

(I know what some of you are thinking . . . what about 12/12/12? Absolutely not. That's a Wednesday. I realize that a Wednesday Wedding has a great flow and alliterative feel, but who does that? Not me. Granted, the world may supposedly end near the end of December, so maybe a couple of weeks of marital bliss is worth the inconvenience of a Wednesday Wedding, but still, what if the ancients were wrong? Then I'm stuck with this random girl who was either dumb enough to let me convince her to get married on a Wednesday or manipulative enough to convince me to do the same. Either way, I'm not enthused.)

As we talked, however, we knew that something simply had to be done. 11/11/11 is too momentous an occasion to pass up. It's three elevens! (Little did we know at the time that the final installment of the Harry Potter film series was to be released on DVD today . . . clearly I shall be making that purchase immediately after work. I was also unaware that it would be Veteran's Day.) As such, Mauri and I began to discuss what we could do to mark 11/11/11. (I love the way it flows off the fingers onto the keyboard . . . 11/11/11 . . . one one slash one one slash one one . . . )

Suddenly it hit us . . . I could blog! We all know how much I simply love to indulge myself in a public display of written narcissism! As soon as we said it, we simply knew it had to be done. The question then was what to blog about? It couldn't simply be an ode to the day. Nay, something greater had to be done. But what? As we were pondering what may be happening in November that could be worth commemorating on 11/11/11, I suddenly realized the solution.

Now is the part where we must reverse back several years. It was my freshman year of college, near Christmastime. I was in the process of completing my annual Lord of the Rings reading around Christmas time. This had been a tradition of mine for about five years. It started with the release of the first Lord of the Rings (henceforth LOTR) film in 2001. That's when I first read all the LOTR books (though I had read The Hobbit, set before LOTR, back in fourth grade). When the second LOTR film arrived in 2002, I reread all the books to prepare for the movie. Naturally, this became a habit, and I reread them again in 2003 for the final LOTR movie. I proceeded to add in the Hobbit to this traditions, and I even read the Hobbit an extra time to catch it up with the amount of times that I had read the LOTR books. I did the same with the Silmarillion, which is basically the Old Testament of the LOTR universe. I didn't read the Silmarillion until much later, meaning at one point I read it two or three times in one year to catch it up to how many times I had read the others.

Eventually I had caught all these books up and I did another annual reading of the books between Thanksgiving and Christmas of 2005. This was at the end of my first semester of college. I accompanied the reading by viewing the LOTR movies that had been out on DVD. Over these years and with all this reading, I had become quite the avid fan, I guess you'd say. (You could also say geek/nerd/dork.) As much as I was enjoying this, however, I began to miss the thrill of the first read. Having read them annually, I felt like I could start to anticipate each page. It was nearly becoming a chore; I couldn't appreciate the words of Tolkien that brought his fictional realms to life.

I came up with a solution to that problem. I decided that since I had read them for five years in a row, I would take five years off. At the time, it seemed brilliant and symmetrical. Little did I know what was in store for me. All I knew was that I could let myself read them again around Thanksgiving of 2011. I believed at the time that this would be no great feat; it was simply not reading something.

Well, it hasn't been easy, but I have succeeded. I don't know how, but I have. There I have been times when I wanted nothing more than to open the volumes of Tolkien's works and again immerse myself in the epic stories of good and evil, cowardice and courage. I would watch the movies and yearn for the greater detail of the literary inspiration. A particularly difficult time came when I received a most wonderful gift. I once mentioned to a girl that I was dating then that I someday wanted to collect various editions of the LOTR saga. It was an offhand reference, but she remembered it and for Christmas that year and gave me a 50th anniversary edition LOTR set. All three books were combined in one book. It came leather bound in a leather box. It had the ribbon bookmark, maps, and gold-plated edges. It was like the Bible, only not divinely inspired and only slightly less epic. Though I loved the gift greatly, woe was I, for I was only two years into my sabbatical at the time! In the years that passed by, I would often take it out and simply feel the smooth tough of its scantly turned pages. I even missed the melancholy that accompanied finishing my reading, the sadness of a good story come to an end.

However, like I said, I succeeded. As each year passed, I looked forward to the day I could finally crack open the first pages of the Silmarillion. I don't know how I held myself accountable, but I did. I considered similar sabbaticals for other favorite works of literature like Harry Potter and Chronicles of Narnia, but I realized I could only handle one such sabbatical at a time. As such, I simply looked forward to the holiday season of 2011, the time when the sabbatical would end.

I remembered all this that day in the office when Mauri and I were discussing what to blog about. All of this hit me in a sudden flash of inspiration. What better to commemorate than the end of a draught? Granted, the sabbatical is not officially over until Thanksgiving has passed, but still! I rejoice, for the end of the sabbatical is ever so near! Although Mauri did not understand the reasoning behind my passion, she respected it and agreed that this is worth commemorating in a blog.

But what to do? Simply talking about it isn't enough, is it? Nay! It is not! In those moments of discussion, I suddenly burst forth into song. It wasn't an original tune, and I could not finish the song in that moment, but I was inspired. As such, I have written a song to commemorate the end of my LOTR sabbatical. I shall share it with you all now. The lyrics are a rewrite of Madonna's "Like A Virgin" and proceeds on the same tune. To give you the best feel for it, I've included the original song. I encourage you to play the song while reading the lyrics. (I considered posting the actual music video, but I'm not sure my mom wants to see Madonna writhing on the streets of Venice with a lion.) Without any further ado, here is "Reading Tolkien."

He made it through the wilderness

Frodo made it through

Didn’t know how far it was

To get to Mount Doom

Read them all several times

Took a break, took off several years

So the books will feel

Yeah I hope that they feel

Shiny and new

(Chorus)

Reading Tolkien

Like it’s the very first time

Reading Tolkien

Turning pages

Feeling fine

I remembered all the details

But now it’s fading fast

Been saving it all for years

But now five years have passed

I’m a dork, I hate orcs

There are dwarves, and then there’s the elves

And you’ve got to love

Yeah you’ve got to love

How hobbits are themselves

(Repeat chorus)

Oooh, oooh, oooh

Some fools fled, others bled

I read it all curled up in my bed

It all makes me feel

Yeah it makes me feel

Like I’m part of it all

(Repeat chorus)

Reading Tolkien, ooh, ooh

Reading Tolkien

Turning pages

Reading pages, all the pages, thousand pages

Oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh

Ooh, Tolkien

Can you see me reading

Like the very first time?

Huzzah! My Tolkien sabbatical nears its end! I'm so excited. I hope that you can share in some of my excitement for me, even if you don't share it with me. I also hope that you can commemorate 11/11/11 in your own unique way. You should also note that this blog was posted at 11:11 AM; how did I time that perfectly? I actually wrote this last night and set it to post at this time. Genius, I know. In any case, thank you for sharing in this day with me. Thank you for sharing in my enthusiasm. Thank you for sharing in this blog if you read this far. You are a special soul to come this far. I'd also like to shout out to Mauri, my former office mate (she is now pursuing a Ph. D. in Utah). Mauri, I miss you greatly. I pray that almost all of your new endeavors in Utah are a success. I think you know which ones I don't necessarily wish you success in. Love you!

Well, that's all for now. Have a wonderful day and God bless!

Reading Tolkien . . . like it's the very first time . . .

I Survived My First Earthquake (And My Second)

2011-11-07T23:47:00.000-06:00

Hello all! It's November. I haven't blogged since October. That makes it sounds like it's been a while, even though it's only been a week. Oh well. A week may as well be a year in Kavan blogging time.

In other news, I have survived my first earthquake. As many of you know, there was a 5.6 magnitude quake that struck in Oklahoma. I was able to feel it all the way in Kansas. Here is my thrilling tale of how I survived it.

It was a dark and (not) stormy Saturday night. I had spent the day relaxing and was capping off the evening by laying on my bed surfing the internet. As I lay there, iPad in hand, I suddenly realized that I was moving. At first I thought little of it. I have difficulty being still, so I often find myself bouncing slightly. I momentarily believed that I was doing so without having consciously initiated movement. After a moment, however, I realized that I wasn't intentionally moving. The movement was coming from another source, something that was not me. All of this happened in about the first five seconds.

I then began contemplating the other reasons why my bed may moving. My thoughts immediately went to the people below me. As many of you may know, I was alerted to my nephew's impending arrival a few weeks ago by the sounds of the people below me engaging in nighttime activities that may or may not involve a bed. On that night, I didn't mind being woken up by that as it led to the discovery of my sister-in-law's labor. However, on Friday night, the night before the quake, I was once again woken in the middle of the night by the sound of the bed colliding repeatedly from the wall. As such, I pounded on the floor to alert them to the fact that they were creating a lot of noise. They didn't seem to appreciate that as they angrily pounded on the ceiling in return.

In any case, after I realized the movement wasn't coming from me, I turned to blame the neighbors below me. I was puzzled though. Were they simply engaging in their activities? Or were they seeking revenge for my disruption of their activities? Both questions were soon overshadowed by other questions that were more pertinent. How were they shaking my bed through the ceiling? How could they do so without creating noise? As my mind raced through these questions, I realized that they could not be the culprits. Something else had to be the cause.

By now, I had been in motion for about ten seconds. As I put the pieces together, I remembered that Oklahoma had experienced smaller earthquakes earlier in the day. It dawned on me then that I could be experiencing my first earthquake! At this point, the shaking came to a cease, and I began investigating. I first went to my window to see if there was a strong. The wind was not strong, enabling me to rule that out as a cause of the shaking. I then proceeded to ask if we had experienced an earthquake on Twitter. Then I went to the kitchen. I discovered that some liquids in their bottles were still settling from movement, meaning that it wasn't localized to my bedroom. My earthquake hypothesis was growing stronger by the minute.

Naturally, I quickly took to the internet and soon discovered that there had been an earthquake in Oklahoma. I checked to see how far out people were feeling the effects, and others in Manhattan felt it too. I wasn't alone! I was pretty excited. It was my first earthquake ever. I survived.

Ironically enough, I started this post earlier this evening before dinner. Later after dinner, I was chatting with my roommate. As I was sitting in our living room, I thought I felt shaking again. I immediately stopped my conversation with my roommate and asked if he felt it. I was certain it was another earthquake. He didn't feel it. At first I didn't see anything online about it, so I thought it was a false alarm. A couple of hours later, however, I discovered that there was indeed another earthquake! I've now survived two earthquakes. As such, I have noted that in the title in a parenthetical statement. I'm a pro. I'm totally moving to California.

In other news, I finished chapter six on time last night. Things are right on schedule. Chapter six was really fun to write. I've been wanting to get to this chapter for a while as it simply oozes Star Trek references. As much as I enjoyed it, if there will be a chapter that gets axed completely, this chapter would mostly be the one axed. I'm not sure. We'll see. While I'm getting the chapters done on time, so to speak, I'm not motivated as I should be. I often end up doing the bulk of the writing on Sunday. That's fine as I don't really have other plans for Sundays, but I feel like I'd to better if I wrote in chunks during the week. Granted, I've always been a sit down and write it all at once kind of guy anyways, and that's worked well in the past. I don't know. In any case, chapter seven is up next. This chapter is a bit nebulous for me at this point, so it might be a tough one. I really want to get to chapter eight. That's when the story really gets going.

That's about all for now. It's bedtime. Tune in again on Friday. There's going to be an epic blog post. By epic, I mean that it will be long, scattered, and will contain references to Madonna. It's been in the works since last winter or spring. Actually, in a way, this blog post has been in the making for nearly five years, depending on your point of view. I'm sure I've intrigued you now. Tune in Friday. Until then . . . God bless!

Chapter Five Complete

2011-10-31T23:57:00.000-05:00

Hello all! I don't have a lot to say today. Mostly I just want to say that I met my goal and completed chapter five as of yesterday. This whole setting goals thing seems to be working well for me. I've made more progress in the last couple months on my novel than I have in all of the previous year since I started working on it.

As I get further into it, I'm simultaneously increasingly excited and more insecure about it. I'm excited because I'll often slip into my imagination and I'll think up new bits or lines or plot points to throw into the novel and I'll write them down to use later. The outline in my head and on paper is increasingly detailed. I have a far better idea of where it's going and how I'm getting there. There's also just parts that I'm just excited to write. For example, chapter six (which is next) is going to be lots of fun to write. I've been looking forward to it for a month. Hopefully that will motivate me. Chapter eight will be when things really get going. Sometimes I just want to write that next.

At the same time, I'm getting more insecure about it. Will it be long enough? Are there parts that are just filler that an editor will tell me to leave out? Will an edited version be too short? Am I the only one that likes this idea? Am I the only one that finds this funny? (I know you're not supposed to laugh at your own jokes . . . does that count in writing?) Does it say what I want it to say? Does it make sense? Is this even any good? The scary part of these questions is I won't know the answers until I'm done writing it. I have to risk it. I have to spend months working on it and then put it out there and take the risk of rejection. I can't not do this, but all these questions give me pause sometimes. I sometimes think that this is meant to be something I do, but I could very easily be deluding myself. I've done that before.

Well, since I can't know those answers until the end, I may as well ignore them for now, I guess. Moving along . . . chapter six! Personal deadline - next Sunday. You know the drill.

In other news, my nephew is eight days old today. I've seen a few pictures since I've been gone, and Nolan's still pretty cute. (Not that I expected otherwise.) Apparently he's a bit of a prodigy and already rolled over once. It may have been a fluke, but they had him laying on his belly. He pushed himself up on his arms and flopped over. It could well have been an accident, but regardless, Nolan rolled over at five days old! That's impressive. Nolan is definitely his father's son. I can't wait to see him again at Christmas!

Well, that's about all for tonight. Time for bed and time for November. God bless!

I'm An Uncle!

2011-10-27T23:06:00.001-05:00

Hello all! It's been a few days, and a lot has happened since then. I've become an uncle! It's really quite joyous. I'm sure many of you already know this, but as I have a tendency to blog about everything in my life, I would be remiss if I did not blog about this.

It all started last Sunday in the very early hours of the morning. Claire's water broke, so they went to the hospital. My brother Bryant sent out a text at 2 AM to the siblings alerting us that she was in labor. I woke up at four in the morning to what I thought was my roommate pounding the door. This confused me as I was fairly sure that I hadn't locked the door, so I checked my phone and saw the text from Bryant. After confirming that Claire was in labor, I started frantically packing a bag in the dark. I didn't want to turn my light on as I didn't feel like risking my retinas. I didn't have many clean clothes, but luckily I had enough to last me for four or five days. I was going to do laundry in the next couple of days so I could be ready as the baby wasn't due until Nov. 3, so I was in a slight panic! (I was also going to give myself a haircut before the baby arrived . . . alas.) As I was trying to fall back asleep, I realized that the pounding sound I had heard that woke me up wasn't someone trying to get into an apartment. It was actually the people in the bedroom below me, if you know what I mean. (If you don't know what I mean, I'll state it more clearly: they were engaging in intercourse.) I thought it was actually strangely appropriate; it was very much a "Circle of Life" moment a la Lion King.

Anyways, I went back to bed, got up, and went to church. I had to do announcements at both services, so I did that and made sure my coworkers knew I was going on and what was going on in my absence. As soon as I was done, I hit the road! I was glad to take Natalie for a more extended spin, and let me tell you, long car trips are far better (though still miserable) with her. Much more fuel efficient. I still have to stop for gas as often as with Laura, but I use almost half as much gas. It's great. Having an easy way to play music also helped. In any case, I got periodic updates from my family on Claire's progress. As I got closer, it seemed I may make it in time for the baby!

I got to the hospital in Stillwater, MN around 9:00 PM (I made good time - I left around 12:30!) When I arrived, I hadn't yet heard anything, so I was fairly sure I had made it in time. I made my way into the hospital and found the maternity ward. I should probably mention at this point that only my dad knew I was coming. The rest of my family was in the dark about my trip up there. As such, I surprised my mom, Braden, and Cassie. It was fun to do that. I don't know how they didn't suspect that I was coming. This is about the fifth time I've surprised them. The weird thing is that as I kept surprising the next people to come in (Claire's parents, then Bryant, then Claire) was that many of them asked how I got there. I had so many witty retorts in my head for that. "I rode my broomstick." "Floo network." "I Apparated." "I climbed into my magical wardrobe." "I had Scotty beam me up." How do you think I got there? Clearly I drove. Ah, family.

I digress. We waited for a while together and found out that it was a boy! He was born at 9:27 and weighed exactly eight pounds. After another few minutes, we were able to go see him! It was a really exciting moment, one that I got on video. This is also when Bryant and Claire first announced his name. Take a look! (You can also hear Claire ask how I got there . . . )

So yes, Nolan David is his name, and he's pretty much adorable. I saw him a couple of times of Monday and again on Wednesday. It's pretty great. It's fun to watch Bryant and Claire transition into parenting. They'll do a wonderful job. This kid will definitely be loved. I can't wait to see him again at Christmas. He's so cute! Don't believe me? Click here for proof.

I spent the rest of my brief time in MN meeting up with other friends and such. I also visited to Gustavus and saw the massive new academic building. It's amazing. I'm very jealous that I didn't get to work there. The speech team has their own area to themselves that's quite impressive. I drove back to Manhattan today. All in all, it was a great little trip. It's always fun to be reunited (albeit briefly) with family and friends, especially when there's a new life involved. It's an exciting new chapter for our family!

Speaking of chapters, with all the commotion, I didn't finish chapter five on schedule, so I'm bumping my personal deadline for that up to next Sunday. I think an extra week is fair with all that transpired. So that's that.

Anyways, that's all I have for now. Farewell!

Chapter Four Complete

2011-10-17T00:07:00.000-05:00

Hello all! This post probably won't be as exciting as the last. Sorry, but not every one can be a multimedia extravaganza featuring Adele. Also, I'm not highly irritated. The blogging app that I like to use is suddenly crashing and won't work. I have to use the internet interface. Ugh. This post was half done, and then I lost it. Consternation . . .

Natalie update: I love her. She's way more into my music interests than Laura ever was. Laura was kinda meh on my music tastes. She only gave me the options of radio and CD. Natalie just wants any opportunity to play my music. It's great. She has radio, CD, auxiliary and Bluetooth audio options. I can listen to almost anything I want with her without any hassle. It's quite wonderful. The other night I got one of the cords that can plug in directly to an iPod/phone/iPad. The iPad Bluetooth audio is fun, but eats the battery more quickly, so I figured a cord was going to be needed for longer trips or passengers with their devices.

Speaking of passengers, I've now had three! On Friday, Ryan (my boss), Ben (my coworker), and I went to lunch. They rode with me. It was very nice to get two people besides me in the car comfortably. I never had the option with Laura. Now that I think of it, Laura was very jealous and possessive in that respect. She didn't want to share me with others. Natalie is far more social, and I'm appreciating that about her.

There are two downsides so far: 1. Car insurance. Bleh. I'm not sure how to pick which company to go with. Enough said there. 2. I feel a sudden inclination to park farther away from other cars. I'm becoming my father, parked out in Timbuktu. Great. On the whole, though, I'm enthused. I'm quite eager to take Natalie to Minnesota and have our first real road trip together and to have her meet the family.

In other news, it's time for another novel update. Chapter four is done on time! It seems like this is working for me to set goals here on my blog and use that to hold me accountable. I think it's going well so far. If nothing else, it's getting onto the page, so to speak. The further I get into it, the more it comes together. It feels like I'm working on a puzzle. I have a few pieces in front of me that I'm putting together right now. I've got a few other puzzle pieces that I have, and I'm not using them quite yet, but I know the general area where they will fit. Then there are still other puzzle pieces that I know I don't have yet, but I'm getting closer to finding them. Today I found another such piece - I realized I would probably need to add a chapter. I sketched a loose plan for it and threw that in. I suppose that means it will take me a bit longer, but that's ok.

With times in mine, I've decided that for chapter five, I want to set a shorter time frame. I want to finish chapter five in one week. Check back next Sunday to see if I make it. Why shorten the time frame by my more usual two week time frames? Over the last few weeks, I've realized that I seem to not do much with it until the last couple days before a chapter is "due." It's an inefficient use of time, as Seven of Nine would say. (Voyager? Anyone?) I'm thinking that if I put a little more pressure on myself, I can get it done sooner. I don't want to rush myself. If I do wind up sacrificing quality for speed, I'll cut back on the speed. In the meantime, it's a worthwhile experiment. If it works ok and is a good pace to work at, I could finish in about three months. That would push me towards a completion date of January/February instead of March/April. We'll see how it goes. Inevitably, I will keep you all posted.

Other updates: the job is good. This week I've worked a lot on creating a new van policy. I think it's more or less ready to implement. Huzzah. Fall is in swing here, and I love it. Kansas falls have a much longer pleasant phase than in Minnesota. Yay. My sister-in-law is due in just a couple of months. We're all very excited. I suppose it could technically come at any time. I should probably go shopping for something for the baby at some point here. It's weird to think of my brother as a parent. He'll be a great father, but it's just weird.

Well, that's all for now. Have a great week!

Goodbye Laura, Hello Natalie!

2011-10-13T19:20:00.002-05:00

Hello all! The car buying saga that has been my life for the past few weeks is now over, thank goodness. I have sold Laura and purchased a new(er) car! I'm pretty excited about it.

Saying goodbye to Laura has been something that's been happening for a while. She's known it was coming for a few months, so she's had time to prepare. Fortunately, she kept things together right up until the very end. I thought I would have to be with her until she died, but fortunately, she outlived our relationship. As such, we were able to part fondly, respectfully, and as friends. I will always remember Laura as my first car. There's truly nothing like it. I know she's sad about it and didn't want it to end. Still, all things do come to an end, and today, Laura and I split for good. She did agree to take one final picture together before separating.

Yesterday was possibly going to be the day on which I purchased the new car. As I was driving home for lunch, I was thinking of telling Laura that that day could be our last together. Just as I was thinking that, a song came on the radio and I can't help but think that Laura chose it. I felt like Laura was singing it directly to me. The song came on the radio several more times in the following 24 hours before I sold Laura. I think it's a very fitting end to our relationship and perfectly sums up her feelings. The song is Someone Like You by Adele. I've included the music video below as a tribute to Laura.

Well, moving on! I would now like to introduce Natalie to you all! Here's a couple of pictures. You can see how happy she is in the first picture.

I didn't take any pictures of her interior quite yet. We don't know each other THAT well yet, but we will soon. I didn't feel it appropriate to post pictures of her interior as of yet. She's a 2010 Mazda3 with 43,000 miles. She gets 33 MPG on the highway, making it a much more efficient vehicle for my trips home to MN! I'm actually looking forward to my next chance to take a long trip. It'll be a good opportunity to get to know each other.

Natalie already has a couple of friends! She is equipped with Bluetooth, meaning she works with my phone. I knew that going into the deal, so I was enthused about that. As such, she can now talk with Xavier, my phone. They've bonded and have already helped me make a couple of hands free calls already. It's great. What surprised me was finding out that she could also sync up with Hermione, my iPad, via Bluetooth! I can play music wirelessly! I was pretty enthused to discover that. I'm glad that Natalie already has friends. It will make the adjustment easier.

Some of you may be wondering about my name choice. I named her Natalie after Natalie Portman, one of my favorite actresses. She's very beautiful, smart, and talented, much like the car. It was also somewhat inspired by Natalie Portman's performance in the film Black Swan. In that movie, she plays a beautiful dancer with a dark secret within. I felt that fit the cars sleek, pretty exterior and dark interior. Natalie just fit immediately.

So that's that. Laura and I are done, and I'm glad to have closure on that. I'm also glad to have something more reliable with a few new features (like power locks, power windows, etc). I'm looking forward to a great (minimum of) six years with her! I'd like to shout out to my friend Gino Leone for being a great salesman and helping me with the whole process. Thanks, Gino!

In other news, there was a slight chance the other day that I was going to get a bright red Mercedes convertible. I was at another dealership seeing if there were any other options I should consider. The salesman realized this convertible was within my price range. It was a bit older as it was a 2001, but it only had 30,000 miles on it and it was a convertible! We took it for a test drive, which was mildly terrifying. I'd never driven a Mercedes or a convertible. As we were pulling out of the parking lot, I told the salesman I had never driven a convertible, but I had driven a lawn mower. In retrospect, I can't believe I compared a John Deere to a Mercedes, but I did. While it was a very fun car to drive, it just wasn't practical. That and naming her would have been really tough. I was thinking Galadriel or Beyonce, but neither really fit well.

Anyways, time for me to go. I hope you all are having a great day!

Laura, The Novel, and Spawning

2011-10-05T23:09:00.001-05:00

Hello all! It's October! Yay! How exciting! I actually am excited . . . the past few months have been making me antsy as I wait for a niece or nephew. The wait is nearly over! Claire is due in about one month, so it's coming soon! (Speaking of Claire, it's her birthday today . . . Happy birthday Claire!)

Apparently the thing to do as of late is have babies, actually. It seems that more and more people my age are spawning. I just found out recently that one of my close friends from high school is pregnant! (You know who you are; congrats again, not only to the mother/father-to-be, but also the grandparents and great-grandparents! I know you're reading this . . .) It's kind of surreal, and I'm not even the one having the kid. I've known other people from high school and such that are my age that have had kids, but now it's happening to some of the people I was closest to. Yikes! I thought I was taking big steps in getting a newer car soon. (More on that in a moment.) (I'm making a lot of parenthetical statements today.) But people my age are having babies! And getting married! And engaged! (Though typically in the reverse order of what I wrote.) Theoretically this could all be happening to me . . . I guess I really am becoming a real adult/person.

In other news, it's time for an update on the novel. I didn't report last week on Wednesday. Sorry about that. However, I stayed on track and got the research done by then. The research was tricky as frankly, this topic is not often discussed, and all that is discussed is pure conjecture. It'll be tricky to write in a way that encompasses all the positions. In any case, I feel like I learned/found enough to move forward. I was initially going to delve right into chapter four right away, but I got sidetracked by the prologue. I had written that a while back and never really liked it much. It was unfocused and I don't feel like it did a good job of setting things up very well. I was considering axing it completely. However, as I was contemplating the novel as a whole one day, I realized a more concise focus for the entire novel. This led me to an idea for the prologue, which I rewrote. Then I had to go back through the three chapters I had and see if there were ways to incorporate or emphasize that focus. I also did minor edits along the way. In any case, I now have a much more focused prologue and direction for the novel.

Time for chapter four! I've barely started it. Chapter four is probably going to be my most complex chapter. It sets up a lot of the ideas or questions that inform the rest of the novel. Later chapters may draw heavily on chapter four and may take themes from chapter four into greater depth. Still, I need to set them up right in the first place so that when I do come back to those ideas later, it has the right foundation. It's important that I get it right, and I'm not sure how I'll do it. In any case, I want to finish this chapter in a week and a half. My goal for chapter four completion is thus October 16th. If I haven't finished by then, please verbally berate or physically damage me. You have helped me to get to this point, and I'm going to need it to keep me going.

Switching gears and heading back to cars . . . my car search has been intensifying. A couple weeks ago I had thought I had found the one. It was a car that I had taken for a test drive a couple months ago, and it had come down in price into something that was essentially irresistible. I thought it was mine. I had gone so far as to name it. I grew attached. Big mistake. Someone bought it before I could seal the deal. I was far more disappointed about it than I should have been. Sigh.

I've moved on now, however. I've got my eye on another one and will be considering that one closely this weekend. I may or may not have accidentally picked out a name. I tried not to, but I was trying to just brainstorm a new list as it wasn't a color or model that I had previously considered, so none of the old names fit. As I was creating a new list in my head, one stood out, and now I can't get it out of my head. I'm getting attached. It's not a good idea.

In all of this, I have spent time reflecting on my relationship with Laura, my truck. I've been in the process of preparing both of us for the coming separation. It may be harder for me than I realize. I've imagined the moment at the dealership when I must surrender my keys. Will I gladly give them up? Will waves of nostalgia wash over me? Will I weep? I've spent so much time thinking of why I need to move on that I haven't taken the time to appreciate what we've had.

As such, I've been making a greater effort to do not only appreciate Laura, but to tell her what I've appreciated about her. After all, what is appreciation if it's not expressed. When I'm driving places, I've started telling her what she's meant to me. While she can sometimes be a bit flaky (don't tell her I said that), she's actually worked really hard to stay with me over the last few years. She's listened to my singing without mocking me overtly. I don't understand how she works, but she seems to understand me. My lack of mechanical knowledge has put a wedge between us at times, which is my fault. Since I don't understand individual mechanical problems, I see such things as a problem with Laura as a hole. When I see a flaw in her, I see her as flawed. That's not fair. How can a relationship survive in that way? In relationships, we are to love the person, and that's hard to do when you apply one flaw to the entirety of their existence.

Part of the problem with us too is that I've been so focused on what I want, not what I have. I see these fancy new features on cars (power locks, power windows, etc) and bemoan that Laura doesn't have those things. As such, I'm not able to appreciate Laura as she is. I feel that her next owner will see her for what she is now, and if that's what they want or need, they can appreciate Laura for Laura.

I've learned a lot from Laura, and I'm glad I'm coming into this respect for her as we are preparing to part ways. I just hope that we can truly finish our relationship respectfully before anything else can happen to one of us. I want to see this through the right way.

Well, this post ended up being far longer than any of us wanted it to be, so . . . that's about all for now. Have a great day and God bless!

Chapter Three Complete

2011-09-24T16:24:00.001-05:00

Hello all! It's time for a bit of an update on the goals I set with the last post. It seems that asking others to help give me increased motivation to write has worked. I had some wonderful responses to my post from last week. I got a range of helpful input, from offers of free pizza if I succeed and violent beatings if I don't. In any case, I succeeded early. My goal was to finish by Sunday, but I got it done late last night. Huzzah!

Next up, naturally, is chapter four. However, I'm not sure I can jump in to start writing it. I need to do some research first. I'm not sure how much of it I need to do. It depends on how deeply I want to delve into the topic. It's a somewhat obscure topic, so I'm not sure how much there is, so it may not be too difficult to get a good grasp of the subject. At the same time, I'm not sure how much I need to know about it to write want I want to write. Nevertheless, I have to make sure I have enough grasp of it before I go any further. I hope to have that research finished by next week Wednesday. For those of you willing to beat me if I fail . . . hold me to it. I also may spend some time doing some more detailed planning for the rest of the book. I have the rest of the book roughly sketched out, but it would probably be good to put a bit more detail into my plan. I don't really know what I'm doing, so I'm not sure what a good process is for this. I'm kind of winging it.

With that said, I loosely looked at an overall time frame for the whole thing. If I take two weeks with each chapter, I figure it'll take about six months to finish the novel with the current amount of chapters I have. In theory, that takes me through March, approximately. My goal then is then to finish the novel by my 25th birthday in May. I'm allotting a bit of extra time to account for the novel possibly growing a bit or for busy times of year (like Christmas, etc).

Once I'm finished with the novel . . . I don't know what happens then. I have no idea if it'll be any good. I may find that even though it's been a dream of mine for years, I may not be good at it. That's fine if that's the case, but I need to find out. I'll try to publish. I'm hopeful that I'll succeed, but at the same time, I know it's not likely. I don't have any real creative writing training. I don't know the process at all. I'm trying not to be too hopeful, and I don't think I'll be too disappointed if I don't succeed. However, the first part is to try.

Well, that's all I have for now. Have a great weekend!

The Routines of Reality

2011-09-19T22:23:00.000-05:00

Hello all! Don't worry, this won't be a video post. (I'm sure you were all SO worried.) I was recently told that I'm a better writer than filmmaker, and I happen to agree with that assessment. As such, this post will be solely focused on the written word.

Things are going well here. Life is good. There's not much to report. Without being a student or teacher, I have a lot less to say here, and I'm ok with that. It hit me a couple days ago that this is now the longest that I've been out of school since I was five. I've been out of it for about four months now, and the longest it had been had been three month summers! It was a beautiful moment when I realized this. In any case, I've fallen into my routine of heading to work and then coming home and not having to do any homework. It's great, for the most part. I like being a real person.

The problem with these routines of reality is that I've become extremely lazy in my off time. When I come home from work, I basically check out and watch Star Trek: Voyager on Netflix or play games on my iPad. I've only just gotten back into a groove of reading recently. (By the way, Pride and Prejudice and Zombies is hilarious.) While I don't really need to be doing anything in my off time, I've been convicted lately that I'm just kind of wasting my time and not doing anything remotely useful (except for when I do social things with people).

This is been particularly bothering me as it pertains to my writing. I want to be a writer. I have ideas for books I want to write. I've started one and have it fairly well sketched out. There's nothing stopping me from writing, so why don't I? It's my dream. It has been since I was in fourth grade. I know that God wants me to utilize writing. Maybe it's not so I can be a bestselling novelist, but still, if God is calling me to write, why I am I not writing something?

I know that part of my issue is that I'm extrinsically motivated. I have very little internal motivation, unfortunately. I've talked about that quite often before, but I didn't think it would apply so much. I figured that once school wasn't in the picture, I'd be able and willing to write just because I wanted to. Still, somehow, I'm not doing much of it. And I'm starting to sound really whiny, so let's move on.

I've decided I need to create external motivation for myself. That's a little bit difficult as I can't show my work until I've completed. I have this weird idea that if I share the concept or let people see what I'm writing before I finish, I'll get input or something. I just need to go in and create and complete before I share. Still, I can set benchmarks and make promises to fulfill them. As such, I'd like to start using this blog as a means of accountability. I'll set goals for myself, put them up here, and report at the end of the designated period on if I accomplished it or not. All I ask from you is that you badger me and berate me in some way if I report that I didn't fulfill a goal. Seriously. Be aggressive.

As such, my first goal is this: I want to finish chapter three by Sunday. I've already started it, so it shouldn't be too hard. If I don't report that I completed the chapter by sometime on Sunday, start pestering me and chew me out in some way. I give you that authority . . . whoever you are. By the way, I hope at this point that you know me. If you don't know me and you read this and start castigating me on Monday, that's just creepy and not cool. But if you know me, by all means, reprimand me if I fail.

Anyways, those are my thoughts for today. Hopefully just putting this out there will be enough to get me into gear. It's an interesting experiment. Alright, that's all for now. Have a great night!

Croatia Videos

2011-09-16T20:17:00.000-05:00

Apparently I'm on a bit of a Youtube binge. I uploaded three more videos earlier, videos I thought you may want to see. I didn't take many videos when I was in Croatia. Apparently I was focused on taking pictures, which is fine. In any case, it's about time I put those videos up somewhere.

The first two videos are the Zadar stone sea organ. When we visited Zadar, a coastal town, we heard of some wave powered sea organ. We went and found it! I took a couple of videos. The sound on my camera isn't great, so I apologize for that. In any case, the waves come in and power the thing and it just makes the sound that comes from holes in the steps along the water. It's pretty nifty. You may have to turn the sound up some. There were bigger waves on the second video, so it sounds better.

This last video was from Zagreb. We went in this tower where they shoot off a cannon every day at noon. It's not the most exciting video and you have to watch until about 50 seconds in before they fire, but I thought I'd put it up anyways.

Well, that's all for now. Have a great weekend!

Destruction and Despair

2011-09-14T22:14:00.001-05:00

Hello all! This one will be a quick post. I'm starting to upload videos to Youtube instead of Facebook. That means I can show it here. Yay! Here's a couple videos of when our furniture arrived. We chucked the two old desks off the balcony. Enjoy!

The Incredible Reactions

2011-09-11T16:59:00.001-05:00

Hello all! I know it's been a while since I last blogged. My blogging habits are certainly slower now that I don't have school to complain about on a regular basis. Not a lot has been happening as of late. Work is great. The apartment is great. My truck still sucks. I hope to get something else in a month or so. I'm still on high baby alert. Whenever I see babies at church I get excited to be an uncle. I realized yesterday that I haven't purchased or eaten ramen noodles in over a month, so I'm really starting to feel graduated. It's great.

Today I wanted to talk about the elephant in the room. It's 9-11, a solemn day of remembrance. I was in Mrs. Settlemeyer's ninth grade English class when I first heard. The TV was on mute while we were watching speeches of some sort. Needless to say, nobody paid any attention the speeches. I'm not sure to this day how much I saw live and what was a replay. I may have seen the collapse live. I'm not sure. In any case, the rest of the day was going from class to class, watching the coverage on TV and trying to piece things together. Our junior high bible study group had an impromptu prayer meeting after school. One of the teacher's husbands was stranded in Hawaii since all the flights were grounded. Things were happening faster than we could process and rumors were everywhere. Kids on the bus thought World War Three was starting.

It was a dark day for all of us, but as is usual, the darkness brought out the best in a lot of us. People lined up for blocks to donate blood. Celebrities united for a televised event that raised millions of dollars for the victims. Rescue crews worked around the clock for days. Flags were raised above twisted steel and steel crosses were discovered in the wreckage. Our Congress stood on the steps of the Capitol in Washington and sang "God Bless America." Our reactions to this tragedy were reactions of generosity, love, and sacrifice. We were truly a country united.

Since then, I'm not sure where that unity has gone. Certainly, not everyone is going to have the same opinion all the time, and that's ok. That's necessary for a democracy to maintain balance. Still, where has our sense of unity gone? Are we still the same country that will go to extraordinary measures to help out our neighbors?

I would say though that a lot of our unity has been lost. So many of us, myself included, often get more focused on being right instead of doing right. The Congress that once sang in a united chorus can barely get things done. We flock to the internet to tell each other why the other party is wrong or why this movie is better than that one. Contention has replaced much of our unity.

I wouldn't say that all unity is lost. This year has seen a host of natural disasters fall upon our country (and other parts of the world). In each of those situations, people flocked in to help, and that's great. Before 9-11, we were often in a similar situation. It seems like these tragedies have a way of bringing out the best of us. These situations inspire incredibly reactions.

The problem is that they are reactions. They aren't our actions. Most of the time, something extraordinary has to happen to precipitate extraordinary behavior. Why is this the case? Why does it take darkness for us to realize the light we have within us?

I'm as much a part of this as anyone else is. It takes extraordinary circumstances for me to do something extraordinary, and frankly, those circumstances don't come about that often. However, we're still called to be extraordinary in the midst of the ordinary. Those incredible reactions that we have to crises and disasters need to become our actions, the way we live our daily lives. I'm not sure how to make this happen. It's a struggle for me too. Still, I'm convinced it's necessary.

Today is an important day to mourn and commemorate the lives lost on 9-11 and in the ensuing military conflicts. I think it's also important to remember the good that came out of that and do our best to be inspired by that. Let's turn the incredible reactions into our ordinary actions.

The New Apartment!

2011-08-21T21:15:00.001-05:00

Hello all! I promised new pictures of my apartment. I was going to do before and after pics, but I'm too lazy for that. If you really want those, go on Facebook, if you can. Before I get to the pics, quick update on things: life is good. I'm not getting ready for school for the first time in almost two decades, which is weird but great. Yesterday we helped move college students in. It was the first bigger even that I have organized here at UCC, so that was fun. Work is still going really well and I'm really enjoying it.

Cooking adventures update: I made chicken last Wednesday! I thought of blogging it, but I couldn't possibly have handled three burners at once. Regardless, it was a success, and I had a very tasty meal of chicken tortellini alfredo. I was very pleased with myself.

Car update: The other day in a parking lot I almost got in an accident. Some lady almost T-boned me as she was whipping out of the lot. My thought process wasn't "Oh no, she might hit me!" Rather, it was "Oh no! She's not going fast enough to total my truck!" Clearly I'm ready to move on to a newer car. I keep hoping someone will hit me hard enough to total the car but leave me uninjured. It's a dangerous thing to wish for.

Anyways, pictures!

Above is the new living room!

Kitchen . . .

Living room view from the kitchen. I didn't take pictures of the deck, but it's beyond that door. My roommate Brock is eventually going to make a bench for out there. It'll be a great place to relax.

My bedroom with the new bedding and new bed!

Desk . . .

Bathroom.

We still have some decorating to do on the walls and such, but for now, we're settled! I'm really enjoying it. It's nothing super nice, but it's a great step up from the last two years, so I'm quite happy with it. If anyone wants to visit, let me know!

Well, that's all for now. I'm going to attempt a bit of novel writing tonight. Farewell and God bless!

My First Blogged Cooking Experiment

2011-08-09T20:36:00.003-05:00

Hello all! In my last post, I mentioned taking the blog into a new phase of life. Today is one of those moments. I shall now be attempting to use my blog to help myself get over my fear of cooking. I will be live blogging through today's experience so that I have an outlet besides going into panic mode. I'm very nervous. My heart is honestly beating a bit faster than normal. I'm almost as nervous as when I first asked out a girl in tenth grade . . . you just don't know what's going to happen. I shall be attempting French toast!

I've already had a bit of a fiasco . . . as I was arriving home to my apartment, my eggs slipped off the top of the precarious pile I was taking in. 5/12 eggs destroyed. It felt like a massacre . . . so much senseless death. Granted, the intent of eggs is to eat them, but still . . . dropping them was senseless. Hopefully that will be the only problem. Also problematic could be the fact that I haven't cracked open an egg (intentionally for cooking purposes) since high school. Danger!

Ok, time to read the directions one last time. Here goes! Time begins at 7:35 PM!

7:38 PM
Eggs successfully broken without leaving shell in bowl! SUCCESS! My roommate Brock is laughing at me. I don't want a spectator. I'm already nervous.

7:45 PM
Other ingredients added. There's way too much going on. Brock is cooking something else. There's obscure music on the stereo. I'm scared. And I'm about to use a skillet. I'm scared.

7:54 PM
I think I cooked two successfully. I'm still scared. Brock is over here gloating about his healthy food. I do not appreciate his boasting.

7:55 PM
Crap. I semi-burned two of them. Cooking is scary. I realized a moment ago that I've never used this many ingredients on my own without supervision.

8:04 PM
Almost done. I think it's working! The recipe said it made 10 pieces . . . I got 12 out of it! If I did it right . . . that means dinner and breakfast! Double whammy!

8:07 PM
I hate my life. Entirely. I forgot to bring my syrup over from the other apartment, meaning it's gone as they cleaned out the fridge after we left. I AM SO ANGRY WITH MYSELF. I'll have to have sugar instead of syrup . . . I hate my life sometimes.

8:32 PM
I'm settled down now and I've cleaned up everything. I had half of the french toast tonight. It was good. I had to use sugar instead of syrup, but it wasn't bad. So really, it was actually a success, really. It tasted right and I didn't inflict a second Chernobyl upon the earth. It was almost exhilarating. I was practically giddy up to the point where I realized I had no syrup. All is well. I'm just really disappointed that I didn't have syrup. That would have made it perfect. Alas. I guess there's a lesson through this . . . pride goeth before the fall. I am Goliath and the syrup (or lack thereof) is David. I am Emperor Palpatine, cancerously cackling at the idea of victory before realizing a crucial element is missing. Sigh.

On the bright side, this experienced has kicked me into productivity mode. I shall do laundry and prepare for tomorrow's new furniture now. Farewell!

Note: This meal would not have been possible without my mom. First of all, she birthed me. Second, she provided the recipe and encouraging words. Thanks, Mom!

200 Posts!

2011-08-07T19:30:00.001-05:00

Hello all! It's been quite a few days since I last blogged. Things have been really busy for me, but in a good way. Before that, however, let's celebrate.

What are we celebrating? 200 posts! Yay! My blog just turned 200! This really isn't that special . . . it's more of an indicator of how often I ramble in narcissistic fashion, I think. Oh well. In honor of this moment, I revamped the blog, as you can see. I have a couple reasons for this. First, I just like to shake things up a bit every now and then. I like to keep things zesty. Second, as much as I love argyle, I was really getting sick of it being on my blog. I think it's more because that's the look it had for the second half of grad school. Seeing that layout reminds me of grad school, and that's just kind of an icky memory. Thus . . . blog renovation! I've been meaning to do it for a while, but I figured I might as well wait for more of an event, so to speak. Third, I'm kind of an a new life phase (being an "adult"), so I figured a blog refresh was in order to reflect that.

With me being in a new life phase, I think it's time to bring the blog into a new phase too. I'm not entirely sure what that means. I think I want to use it a bit more as a creative outlet. I think I'll start going through and posting some of my favorite pictures. I have thousands of pictures, I might as well make use of them. I've also been really behind on my novel writing attempt, so I'm going to try to use the blog to hold myself accountable. I'm also going to try to be a bit more reflective here. I know that makes some of you groan because that means long posts, but sometimes I need to do that. So . . . be prepared.

So that's that, I guess. In other news, I moved! I'm in my new apartment now. It's really nice. I'll post pictures in a few days once the new furniture arrives. I haven't entirely unpacked as of yet as the furniture isn't in yet. Once everything is truly set up, I'll take some pics and put them up. It's a huge improvement over the last place. I'm pretty happy with it! I've gotten new sheets and a new shower curtain and all that jazz. I haven't gotten the bedding out yet as the new furniture isn't here, but it'll be just a couple more days!

Well, that's all I've got for now. Farewell!

The Dissolution of a Relationship

2011-07-24T23:41:00.002-05:00

Before I get into the meat of this post, quick life update: things are good. The new job is going well. On Wednesday, a masseuse from the church stopped in to offer free 15 minute messages. I happily accepted. My office became a temporary massage parlor and smelled like it for the rest of the day. It was great. Then on Thursday when the internet was down, we improvised a game of Wheel of Fortune using the magnetic dartboard in my office. I love my job. I'm settling into a routine, which is nice. I'll try to get some pictures of my office up at some point in the nearish future.

Now that I'm getting settled in at work, it's time to get unsettled at my apartment. I move in about a week! I'm not exactly sure yet on the time frame, but I'm starting to pack up. It's not a big move as I'm just moving to a different unit in the same complex. Since these apartments are furnished, I really don't have that much to pack and move. Realistically, if someone told me I had to move tomorrow, I could probably pack up everything in just a couple hours. In any case, I'll be excited to get to the new place. It'll have new floors and paint and such. I'll put pictures of that up as well when the time comes. Huzzah!

So anyways . . . I've been having some difficulties lately, and I just have to get some things off my chest. I'm not really sure how to ease into this, so I'm just going to say it. I think Laura and I are splitting up. (Laura is, of course, my truck.) I've been sensing it for a while. Realistically, we both knew that this could never last forever. We've certainly been through a lot together, and she's helped me out in some tight spots. Still, I've known for a couple years now that there would be a time when we would split. Whether she would die when we were together or whether we would split before, I didn't know. She's definitely not as young as she used to be. There were many times when I thought Laura was on her deathbed, and I'm glad she pulled through. Nevertheless, I've known it couldn't be forever.

I don't think Laura really know it was going to come to an end though. She heard me voice my frustrations on occasion, but I don't think she ever took me seriously. In fact, I think she took me for granted. Laura would act up for no apparent reason and just make all these awful noises. Then later she would act like nothing happened and things were back to normal. Well, they weren't normal. They were different. It wasn't the same between us anymore. I lost a level of trust in her.

Well, unbeknownst to Laura, I started looking around a while ago. Don't judge me. I know I have a functioning truck, but can you really blame me for just seeing what else is out there? I'm only human. In any case, I started looking around a little bit, just to get a feel for what options there are out there. I came to see that there are other options out there for me, and dare I say it, there may be a better car out there for me. This has gradually become more real and more of an eventuality as grad school came to a close. I knew I'd be getting a job, so I knew that getting a newer vehicle was going to be possible in the next few months. Still, I never really told Laura. Maybe I should have.

This has really intensified over the last few days. I went looking at a couple of dealerships on Tuesday and Wednesday. I went with Laura, of course. Maybe that was insensitive of me to be looking at other cars with her right there. Maybe it was wrong. I don't know. I just think that's the first time that she realized that I was seriously considering moving on. I think she was just in shock for the first couple of days. She didn't act up until tonight when I was en route to Bible study. Suddenly her power steering died and steam started coming out. It was as if she was finally venting her frustrations. "Is that what you want? A newer model? One with less mileage and power locks and keyless entry? Is that really what you want??!??!?" What could I say? I do want less mileage. I do want power locks and keyless entry. I also want better gas mileage, but don't tell her I said that. She was very upset, so I pulled over. I didn't know what to do or what to say, so I just decided to let Laura cool off on her own. I got a ride to Bible study.

When I was there, I started really imagining a life without Laura. I'd thought of it before, but it was always very abstract. It was suddenly so real. I wasn't ready for it to be happening now, but it was quite possible that I would have to move on without her. Maybe it was time. And to be honest, I wasn't that upset by it. I was almost relieved that this could be the end for Laura and I, instead of it being some long protracted split.

In any case, I got a ride back to Laura after Bible study. My friend Austin examined her, and found out it was just a belt that had gone out. That caused the overheating and loss of power steering. It's a pretty inexpensive fix, so I'll go with it. Still, I think Laura and I both know it's over. I'll fix this belt, but I'm not sure how much else I'll fix. I'm glad that we'll get a little more time together. Maybe we can end on good terms. I hope that's the case. Really, I'm hoping that she'll keep herself in good shape so that she can keep her value for her next owner. You never know, though. Laura could just get spiteful and decide to fall to pieces on me. She's just so temperamental lately.

So that's that. We both know it's the end for us. It's just a matter of how and when now. I'd like to move on it in the next couple of months. I don't like dragging these things out, but I have to be ready financially as well. In the meantime, I'm just going to keep looking. Laura just has to accept that I'm ready to move on. We had something great; I have no regrets. I learned a lot with her. I just hope that we can end things well so that we can both just remember the good times. We'll see.

Well, that ended up being much longer than I expected. Thanks for reading. I feel better getting that off my chest. Time for me to head to bed. One more note: the next post will be a very special one. Beyond that, I shall say nothing except God bless!

My Hands Smelled Like Keys

2011-07-16T23:05:00.000-05:00

Hello all! I hope your summer is going well. I suppose we're about halfway through summer now. I think that means it's time for my Christmas in July Christmas music marathon to come soon. Once a year in July, I start to miss Christmas music, so I binge on it for a couple of days. I suppose I'll get to that point next week or so, maybe even this week. We'll see.

Anyways, I had a great stay in Minnesota. Jake and Katie's wedding was an absolute blast. It was great to catch up with friends and celebrate with Jake and Katie. And, of course, it was fun to dress up. It was quite a marvelous time. After the wedding, I went home and finally saw Bryant and Claire! They stayed over at our house that night. It was nice to finally see them again. Claire is definitely showing! She's about at the six month mark, I guess. It was weird to see her pregnant, but it finally kind of made it more real for me that they're having a kid. It was a bit abstract before.

Sunday was lots of fun. After church, we had lunch at our place. Aunt Jewel joined us as well for the afternoon, which was really fun. Later we took some family pictures. It was weird but cool to know that it was our last family picture together before we add another generation to our family. Along the same lines, saying goodbye to Bryant and Claire was also kind of surreal. It hit me as they were driving away that the next time I see them, they'll be parents! Bring on November!

On Monday, I had a safe and smooth trip back home to Manhattan. It was nice to know that I was back to stay. I have no plans to leave town for quite a while, so I feel like I can settle down and just relax. However, this week was not about relaxation. It was about work and Harry Potter! I'm kind of crazy, so I decided that after getting back from Croatia, I would try to read books 5-7 of the series and watch all of the movies before the final movie came out (yesterday). My plan didn't work so well. Going home to MN meant that I didn't really get started much on this until I got back here to Manhattan on Monday. As such, I had from Monday to Thursday to read the last three books (over 2,000 pages worth) and watch the first seven movies. I succeeded in getting all the movies watched in time, but alas, I failed to finish the books. I got halfway through the sixth. Oh well. In any case, the movie was phenomenal. I really can't describe it, so I won't bother. If you're a Harry Potter fan, you get it. If not, you don't. Whatever.

Work is going really well. I feel like I actually did things. I had a stack of building request forms that was literally about four or five inches thick. I organized them all chronologically. It took me about four or five hours, but I got it done, which feels much better. When I'm handling that much material, I like to have some form of organization. I've also been working a lot this week on our key situation. We rekeyed the buildings we own this week, meaning that a ton of people need new keys. I've been more or less in charge of that and will be in charge of that in the future. While it's a lot of work to get it going and that's a bit daunting at the start of a new job, I'm actually really glad it's happening. First of all, my hands smelled like keys for a couple days, which I enjoyed for some inexplicable reason. It's also a lot easier than trying to figure out the previous key system (which wasn't as well organized as I'd like) and trying to figure out who has a key and where it is. Now we know exactly how many functional keys are out there and who has them. It'll be easier in the long run. It's also been a great way to start meeting more people in the church since they have to come to me for keys.

From here on out, work will be about settling in and getting truly into the swing of things. I'm really enjoying it so far and I'm excited to see how God uses this time in my life. It's definitely a new phase for me, but a good one. I've been given a fair amount of responsibility. It's more than I'm used to but definitely manageable. It's helping me finally really realize that I'm not a student anymore, which is a great feeling. So far, at least. Multiple people have warned me that I'm going to miss being a student someday . . . I hope they're wrong.

So that's that. In other news, Kansas is cooking. It's been in the 90s or 100s every day that I've been back. At one point, next Monday was forecast to have a high of 108 degrees, but that has since come down. Still, it's an oven out there. It really puts a damper on my running plans. I have to wait until it cools down, but even to go running at 11 PM at night doesn't really work since it's often still in the upper 80s at that point, which just isn't very safe for a longer run. I may have to get up at 6 AM or so a couple of times a week to go running. I may have a goal in mind now, though. Ben, one of my friends at work, mentioned the Kansas City half marathon in October. I think I may try to run it! We'll see. I'll have to do some research.

Well, that's basically what's happening with me at the moment. I'll leave you with a nice little picture . . . me with my diploma! It finally came in yesterday. God bless!

I'm Back!

2011-07-09T10:40:00.002-05:00

Hello all! It's been far too hectic lately for me to update. That and I've been to lazy. I'm sorry. Oh well. Anyways, to know how the end of our project went, check out the team blog. I updated that, so go ahead and go to that. I don't feel like repeating myself.

Since I've been back, I've been busy. On Wednesday I went to work for my first day of work! It was pretty fun for me to go in and start to get things somewhat organized, sort of. I didn't get a whole lot done. There are a lot of papers left behind by the guy I'm partially replacing, and I don't know if they can be kept or thrown or moved elsewhere or what. So I didn't really touch that. I mostly just got my computer somewhat organized, so that felt good.

I did also have a bit of an adventure early in the day. The lady that runs our preschool called in a panic because of a dead mouse. I went over to deal with it. The two ladies were already standing outside the building. They couldn't go in. They said they were scared. I said that I was also, but she said that "You have boy parts." I told her I didn't need to use said parts to deal with it, but that's ok. There ended up being three dead mice in different traps around, so I dispensed with those calmly. It was pretty funny.

The rest of the day was fairly sedate. I went to Target and got some things. When my roommate vacated the apartment, he took everything in the bathroom that was his. He didn't even leave any toilet paper. I had to use a napkin for my first night back. I got myself some new bathroom rugs and then some matching towels. There's nothing like a new towel! It was less than ten dollars, but it felt so luxurious. Wednesday night I went out to eat with a friend. It was good to catch up. Then I went home to finish laundry and to pack.

Thursday morning came early. My friend Matt picked me up and drove me to the airport! It was good to catch up with him as well. He went to Croatia last year, so he had a lot of things to ask me about the people there. Things went smoothly at the airport, though my flight was delayed a couple of hours. It was pretty fun to fly on my own for the first time. I had never made my own arrangements or gone by myself before. It felt very adult. New towels and my first solo flight all within twenty-four hours . . . it's a very exciting time in my life.

Mom and Dad picked me up at the airport. It was great to see them again. Next we visited the mall to visit Cassie at work. It was great to see her too. I haven't seen her since January. I tried to find the shoes I wanted at the store she works at, but I have tiny feet and I can never find shoes that fit me. It's a constant struggle. Sigh. At another shoe store, the salesman and I yelled at my mom for giving me such small feet. Alas. Later in the evening, we went to watch the end of Braden's disastrous softball game (they lost by 20 runs) and then went to eat with him. That was fun. I hadn't seen him either since January. I still haven't seen Bryant and Claire quite yet, but I will today.

Friday, yesterday, was fun. I went to the dentist. As always, I have great teeth. It's a good thing Claire is a dentist. I would feel guilty if I wasn't regularly brushing. Later I went to coffee with a friend before heading to Jake and Katie's wedding rehearsal! They're a couple of friends of mine. We've all been friends for years, so it's really great to see them find happiness with each other. After the rehearsal, we went to Jake's place for the rehearsal dinner. It was great to catch up with everyone.

Today is the wedding! It'll be fun to watch that. I'm an usher, so I'll get to tux it up. I'm excited. I'll also get to see some other friends I haven't seen in quite a while. I'll also see Bryant and Claire today as they're coming home at some point. They're staying the night here and will be with us all tomorrow. It's a great weekend to be home.

Well, I have to run off to the church. Time for a wedding. Farewell and God bless!

The Final Days of Varazdin

2011-07-01T09:00:00.001-05:00

Oh hey everyone! I hope your day is going well. I guess it's July now. That's a bit weird to me. It means that an entire month passed when I was in another country. I've done that before, but it's just strange when that happens.

Anyways, I posted pictures of Zagreb a while ago. I may not have had the link attached when I last posted, but now there are pictures linked on the right, so feel free to check those out. Also, check out the team blog. I posted on it yesterday. In a nutshell, yesterday was our last day of reading with our readers. That means that our project is mostly over. All that remains is the farewell party tomorrow night. Beyond that, we're spending the weekend relaxing and spending time with readers and church members.

It's been a great project. I'm really glad I came, and I think you can look back on previous posts to see why. I'm sure I'll look back and reflect on it more later. It's hard to process right now because I'm kind of still in the middle of it. There was one kind of random thing I realized in the last couple of days - I never had culture shock on this trip! Culture shock is kind of a form of depression that can happen when you're in another culture. I had it in previous longer trips to Germany and Brazil, so I fully expected to experience it here. However, I never did. I'm not sure why. Maybe it's because I've become more used to being gone for longer periods of time. I'm not sure. I'm just glad and thankful I didn't experience it this time.

Something else has happened here that was negative, however. Europe killed my hair clippers. After I gave myself a haircut here, I tried to charge my hair clippers. Apparently the voltage is different here or something along those lines, and so my charger got really hot and would no longer charge my clippers. It's dead. Alas. But ultimately, it's ok because it was only about $20. It had paid itself within a couple of months as I no longer had to pay for haircuts, and then it last almost a year. I guess it's a pound in my luggage that I no longer have to worry about on my way home. I'll just get a new one upon returning to the US. Maybe I'll splurge and get one that's $25 this time. I'm moving up in the world.

So what are we doing with our last couple of days? Not much, thankfully. I'm glad we're not having a hectic weekend. We just had a relaxed lunch at a church member's house. It was very nice and very tasty. She had prepared some wiener schnitzel, something I had really enjoyed in Germany. Croatia and Germany are closely tied, so they share a lot of foods in common. It's been good to have a taste of that again. Tonight the three of us will spend some time with one of my readers, Dominik, and his mother Romana. I think we're going to Aqua City, a lake thing or something. I'm not really sure what it is, but I guess it's fun. At this point, we have no plans on Saturday beyond the party at 6:00 in the evening. I may go on my final run in Varazdin tomorrow. I'm not sure if I'll do it then or on Sunday. Sunday will be church, going out to lunch, and then packing and relaxing for the rest of the day. Then it'll be Monday, departure day!

I'm looking forward to coming home. I haven't seen my siblings or my Minnesota friends/family since January or more, so I'm excited to see them. I'm also excited to see Kansas friends and to start my new job. In a lot of ways, I'll be finally moving into my post-school phase of my life, and that's exciting. I've been waiting for that for a long time. Despite all this stuff that's going on for me at home, though, I'm glad to have a couple more days here to just enjoy Varazdin and the people we've met here. It's been a great experience.

Well, I don't have much else to say at the moment. I doubt I'll blog here again until I'm stateside. I'll probably mention something more on the team blog right before departure. Please pray that we have safe and smooth travels. I'm confident it'll go well. That's all for now. Farewell and God bless!

The Final Monday Live Blogged

2011-06-27T17:53:00.001-05:00

7:34 AM
I've decided once again to live blog my to give you a glimpse at our day. I did it once before, and I think it could be useful here again. Here goes! I just woke up. I hate how obnoxious my alarm is, but they need to be obnoxious, right? I can feel my allergies acting up. I haven't taken my pill yet. Time to go shower.

7:54 AM
I just finished my shower, got dressed, and made my bed. Mom would love that. Getting dressed here always has a bit wary. We air dry the clothes, so sometimes it feels like they will literally crack and break when you first unfold them. I'm going to enjoy fabric softener when I return. I'll also enjoy the new TV my roommate got. He just sent me a Facebook message letting me know he got a new TV for the new apartment we will move into at the end of July. I'm going to encourage him to get an AppleTV and a hammock while he's at it. I'm about to lead our morning devotional. We lead on a cyclical basis, so I will lead today and on Thursday this week. Today starts our last week! Time has gone quickly!

9:51 AM
The morning is already progressing at a solid clip. Devotions went well. We discussed 2 Corinthians 6:3-13 and how that needs to be the picture of our last week here. We're confident that it will end well. We also discussed how our trip is not existing in a vacuum. It's part of an ongoing ministry of the church and of LST. We didn't start it, and we're not finishing it. It's encouraging to know God's work here isn't done when we leave. That makes it easier to go.

In other news, I also found out immediately after I blogged at 7:54 that my cousin Eva had her baby! Congrats to Eva and husband Jay on their new son, to Joel and Charlene on their new grandson, and Derek, Torey and Brittany on their new nephew! We prayed to give thanks for that. In other prayer news, pray for Minot. There's a lot of flooding there. My dad has some cousins and uncles there, and they've evacuated. Apparently there's lots of flooding in the US right now, but you all probably know more about that than I do.

Anyways, right after the devotional and prayer time, I had a quick bowl of cereal and threw a load of laundry in the washing machine. I'm thinking it will be my last load of laundry while I'm here. Then it was time to start reading! I had my first reader at 9. Her name is Manuela. She works at a bank. We have a lot of fun. We've started a tradition of playing a couple card games to start our time together. She taught me Mau Mau (not sure how it's spelled), which is very similar to Uno. I taught her speed. Then we have really good discussions about the workbooks. She's very sweet and says she prays for us. I'll miss her.

Time to put my laundry on the drying rack quick before my next reader comes at 10.

11:00 AM
Well, my reader for 10:00 didn't show up. She didn't come last week either. However, my reader for tomorrow's 10:00 slot came today, thinking that she was scheduled for today, so it all worked out. Her name is Anita. She has a really strong faith in Christ, so we've had a few good conversations and have shared some book recommendations. She actually recommended the Purpose Driven Life to me, which I found interesting as I was already reading it! (Great book, by the way.) In our discussion today, she said something really great: "If you're not addicted to God, then you're addicted to something else." I thought it was a great insight. What are you addicted to? Think about it. Speaking of addiction, time for me to walk to a pharmacy and get some allergy medicine.

1:16 PM
We're well into the afternoon now. Going to the pharmacy was nice. It was good to talk a pleasant little walk. On the way home, I ran into Dominik, one of my readers. He just graduated from high school and found out this morning he got really good scores on his final tests. He was so excited and his enthusiasm was contagious. I'm sure we'll talk more about it when he comes today at 3:00. As soon as I got back, lunch was ready. Molly had prepared a psuedo-alfredo spaghetti thing. We can't find real alfredo, but what we found isn't bad. After lunch, I cleaned up and did the dishes. Molly cooks, Rod does the shopping (and sometimes helps to cook too) and I do the cleaning. It's a good arrangement. After I finished the dishes, I folded my clothes that were done drying. I'm glad to be done with my last load of laundry here (unless I get daily and repeatedly pooped on by birds). I think I may start packing in bits and pieces over the next few days so that I don't have to do it all at once. It's strange that we're getting ready to leave, but I guess that's what happens when you plan to stay in one place for six weeks and then six weeks starts to wind down. Now I have a break until 2:00. I think I'll Facebook stalk my cousins to see new pictures of the baby! It makes me excited to have my own niece or nephew.

2:57 PM
I just finished with Goran. He is my reader that probably has the least advanced English, so it's often a challenge to read with him. Still, he is very enthusiastic to learn, and that's refreshing. Even though I can't communicate much with him, I find his willingness to come inspiring. He has to take a few buses to get here and is often in a rush, but he's willing to make the trip despite how busy he is, and that's fun to see. My next reader is quite the contrast. Dominik is one of my most fluent students, so it's always fun to talk to him. It's almost as if he speaks better English than I do at times. Mine is getting so bad.

3:56 PM
I just finished reading with Dominik. I always enjoy my conversations with him. He's very fluent and has a very different perspective on life than I do, so we can delve into some really complicated discussions. This is when I notice most how bad my English has gotten over the last few weeks. I'll be talking with him and I'll have some really complex question to ask and I'll have no idea how to coherently phrase it. I'll say something and ask if it made any sense and he'll just stare at me and say "No." Still, it's been fun and we've had some really great discussions. I'm meeting him tonight to get ice cream or something like that tonight. It should be fun. Next up is Kristina. She's pretty fluent and easy to talk to.

5:40 PM
Kristina didn't come, so I've just sort of been killing time. When I have time like this, I usually do some reading, play a game on my iPad, or listen to some music. Or do all three. I have one more reader today at 7:00, in theory, so I'm probably going to go have a sandwich soon so I can just go meet Dominik afterwards and not have to think about dinner. Tomorrow and Wednesday are a bit lighter for my schedule, but on Thursday, my last day, I only have two spots open. It'll be a busy day if everyone shows up!

7:48 PM
My last reading session of the day just ended. I just read with Drazen and Ana, a father and daughter. Drazen has a lot better English. He and I have good conversations, and Ana is mostly listening. Her pronunciation is very good, though. We've had some good talks, and it sounds like they intend to come to the party on Saturday! Now I just changed and will meet Dominik here at the church before going out for coffee or ice cream or something like that. It should be a good time.

11:03 PM
I just got back from getting some ice cream with Dominik. It was really fun. It's nice to just go out and talk and not have a time limit or another person scheduled in an hour. We just got some ice cream and then sat in the park for a couple hours. The evening culminated in a hilarious encounter with an inappropriate drunk man. We saw this guy stagger past us a couple times. On the third time he started talking to us, meaning he talked to Dominik and I just smiled and nodded. He seemed to be really nice, but I couldn't tell at all what he was talking about. It could have been rabbits. It could have been a lecture on being out so late. Meanwhile he was staggering to the point where I was concerned that he would fall over and crack his head open. Eventually Dominik checked his phone and then got up, so we walked away. That's when I found out that this old man was accusing us of doing inappropriate things with each other's girlfriends. Dominik said it was pretty bad, so he told the man we had to leave. Needless to say, we walked away quickly. I found it pretty funny. I was a little bit concerned when I looked back and saw him attempting to talk to two young girls, but they were clearly creeped out and sped away quickly. Don't worry, Mom. I'm fine, and Varazdin is still a safe city. It was more funny than dangerous.

Anyways, time for the night routine. That means reading, updating Facebook, blogging, and chatting with folks back home. It's kind of our time to relax. Rod usually goes to bed at 10:00, so it's just Molly and I doing our thing. Time for me to Facebook my good friend Kelli. She sent me a great message a couple of days ago about my last blog post, so it's time to respond. Shout out to Kelli!

12:52 AM
Somehow I got sidetracked and didn't respond to Kelli yet. Kelli, if you're reading, I loved what you sent me and will do my best to respond tomorrow. I'm just pathetic. In any case, I don't know why I'm still awake. I keep staying up late for no reason whatsoever. I'm a night owl, I guess. That'll have to change in about a week. That's right, I'm home in about a week! Yay! Ok. Time for bed. Good night all! I hope you enjoyed my day. God bless!

Feeling 500

2011-06-24T16:52:00.001-05:00

Hello everyone! Please forgive the creepy title. It'll make sense in a moment. I hope things are going well for you. Things are going well for us here! On Wednesday we had our last regular LST party. It was a good time. Our next party will be a farewell BBQ that we'll have on the Saturday before we leave. We're already planning it. Thursday was another fairly regular reading day, though it was a bit slower as it was some sort of holiday here. Today, on Friday, we took the bus and went into Zagreb just to see the city and such. It was fun to get a change of pace for a few hours! I'll probably update the team blog tonight or tomorrow, so take a minute to check that out at some point soon. I'll also post more pictures on Facebook tomorrow (probably), so stay on it! There's not much time left. Time has gone so quickly, and a lot will be happening, so I'll try to stay on top of things as best as I can.

We actually talked about that some this morning during our devotional. Next week might be a tough week somewhat as we're going to be getting ready to go home. It'll be a mix of emotions. We'll all be excited to go back home and see friends and loved ones again. I'm really excited to start my job. I also have a couple of friends getting married the weekend I get back, so I'm excited to go home and be there for that. I'm thrilled that I get to see my family again. I haven't seen my siblings since Christmas/New Years, and I haven't seen Bryant and Claire since they got pregnant. It will be great to see everyone again. I'm looking forward to my quick visit to Minnesota and seeing old friends again. In a few weeks, I'll move into a different apartment, and it'll be fun to get settled in there.

At the same time, leaving will be difficult. I don't know when, if ever, I will be back here again. We've made some really strong connections here and it's hard to leave that after so short a time. We still want to get to know people here better and spend time with them, but that time is already so limited. It's hard to get close to people and then know that you may never see them again. It's a lot of conflicting emotions, but I suppose that's a good thing. It means we're developing strong relationships here, which is much of the point of what we're doing.

Once again, it's time for me to share some of the insights and such that I've been gaining from the reading sessions. The other day I read the story of the sinful woman who washed Jesus' feet with her hair (Luke 7:36-50) with two of my readers. In each instance, we discussed how burdened she must have felt. Think about it. She had to have cried enough tears to be able to wash his feet. That's a lot of tears. She must have had some serious sorrow and sin in her life to be that convicted. To then be forgiven of that must have been such a relief. She showed incredible love for Jesus.

Jesus noted that as well and then launched into a parable about two men who owed a debt. Two guys had debts of 50 and 500 silver coins wiped clean. Jesus tells us that the guy with the 500 coin debt will love more. It makes sense, right? The more that is forgiven, the more you love the person who gives the forgiveness. That's why that sinful woman loved Jesus so much. She'd had a lot of stuff forgiven.

Have you ever been that moved by the depth of your sin? Could you cry enough to wash someone's feet? If Jesus showed up at your neighbor's house, would you run over uninvited, begin to weep at His feet, wash his feet with your tears, then pour the most expensive perfume you had on them? Do you feel your sin that deeply?

I don't. I'm not sure if that's the "correct Christian answer," but it's the truth. There have been times when I've been deeply convicted by something, but never to that extent. I'm not saying this because I think I'm some great person who has never done anything terrible. We're all sinners, and God looks at all our sin equally. To him, 50 and 500 silver coins are the same thing. It's a debt. He is willing to and has forgiven the debt, but it was a debt that we could never pay. I owe God a debt that I could never pay back, whether it's 50 or 500. I can't do it.

This woman feels the incredible extent of that debt, and I have to confess that I don't. For me, this isn't so much an epiphany as something that brings up more questions than answers. I think they're worth wrestling with. I would really appreciate your responses to this as well. I'm open to any wisdom or advice that anyone has on this. Would I love God more if I felt the weight of my sin more? If I felt the true conviction of my sin, would I come to love God more by coming to a greater understanding of what His sacrifice was for? If the answer to these questions is yes, how do I do that? How do I come to feel the crushing weight of my sin? Can I really do that? Can I do that without letting it destroy me? How do I learn to feel those 500 coins and then turn around and accept complete forgiveness for it? How do I forgive myself?

I've been thinking of some of these things as of late. I'm not quite sure how to process it all. Any thoughts would be greatly appreciated. I'm sorry if it felt a bit jumbled there at the end, but it's jumbled in my head as well, so there's not much I can do about it.

Well, I'm getting pretty tired, so I'm going to call it good for today. Peace and God bless!

My English Is Getting Worser

2011-06-22T09:19:00.001-05:00

Hello all! Things are continuing to go well over here. I'd like to encourage you to look over at the team blog. I posted there yesterday and you can get more detail about our day to day things over there. Check it out! Today's post will just be a smattering of random thoughts, so don't expect any sort of cohesiveness.

We've been here for just over four weeks now, helping people to practice their English skills. It's been great because we can see many of our students gradually improving. It's one of the few tangible results of our work here. The downside of this is that my own English seems to be suffering. It's not so bad when I'm writing. I often write better than I speak. The problem is that with many of the people here that we work with, we have to speak more slowly and use simpler words so that they can all understand. As a result, when we speak with more fluent English speakers (or each other), we are having issues sometimes. At least, I know I am. I guess I can't entirely speak for Rod and Molly. There have been several times in the last couple of days with my more fluent readers when I don't remember a particular word and can't figure out what I'm try to say. I'm having difficulty expressing myself in my native tongue. It's a disaster. I'm going to get back to the states, go to work, and I'm going to be completely unable to interact with my coworkers. I'll go back to Minnesota to visit my family and friends and they're going to wonder when I stopped speaking English well. Alas.

In a completely unrelated note, the time difference between here and the states is still really strange for me. I'm completely adjusted to the time here, but it's sometimes hard to comprehend the fact that everyone else back home is seven hours behind me. When I'm having lunch, only a scant few people are even awake back home. All morning I'll be checking my email, expecting something from someone back home, all the while forgetting that I'm not going to get emails from home in the morning/early afternoon here because people are still slumbering. It's really odd. What's even stranger is that people in New Zealand are even further ahead. I can't fathom that. I wonder what would happen if we all just had one time zone. It would probably be a bad idea.

And now I suppose we should switch gears again. I just have to talk about how much I love running here. So far, it's my favorite city to go running in. Granted, I haven't gone running in that many cities around the world. Still, there's something so wonderful about running in Varazdin. It's just such a great way to experience the city and there can be so much variety. For example, last night, I went running for about six and a half miles (down from the eight I ran on Saturday . . . I think). I started out by running to the river. once there, it's very peaceful. There are lots of trees and you can watch the sunset reflecting on the water. It's fantastic. Then I cut into the city and run through a typical Varazdin neighborhood. This affords me the chance to simply see what passes for normal around here. Sometimes there will be kids out playing and such. Every now and then you'll pass an old, beautiful stately church. Then you get into the city center. Last night I came in right by the castle and ran up onto the defensive dikes. There you get a bit of an elevated view of the city and the castle. I just happened to be there right around sunset, so it was truly quite beautiful. Then I ran a zigzag pattern through the city. There are lots of great Baroque buildings, cobblestone streets, people relaxing and having coffee, a city square, and more. Then I ran through the city park that has nice pathways, trees, and that sort of thing. It all combines together for a unique running experience. Other than the great people we've met here and the ice cream, I think it's what I'll miss most about Varazdin.

And I will miss it. I'll be glad to be home, see my friends and family, and start my job. Still, the people here have been so great to us and it will be hard to say goodbye. However, such things must often happen, and now is one of those times. Goodbye and God bless!

Things Europe Does Better: Part Two

2011-06-19T16:46:00.001-05:00

Hello all! Time for another post about things that Europe does better than America. Before that, a quick update on things here . . . we are now at the end of our fourth week. Week five starts tomorrow! It's a bit weird to know a month has gone by. It makes sense, because we've been here for four weeks . . . but it's just gone quickly. It's a bit odd. We had a pretty relaxing weekend. On Friday we went to a church member's house to have lunch. A Croatian lunch is a bit commitment. There's a lot of food. You eat for about an hour, then munch on some desserts for another hour or two, and then settle it all with some coffee for a while. It's a good time. On Saturday morning I did a bit of shopping and then we went to another couple's house. They're good friends of ours from the church here. It was fun to eat with them and play Apples to Apples with them for a while! Later I went on a nice little run for about eight miles. This leads me to the first thing that Europe does better . . .

Places to run! Europe just has prettier places to run. On my average run, I can run by the river, through the forest, through the old Baroque city center area, through a more modern shopping area, around a castle, and so on. It's just so beautiful compared to the places I run back in the States. I will miss Varazdin and the sense of history that it has.

This leads conveniently to the second thing Europe does better . . . history! I mean that in a few different ways. First of all, you look around and everything is old in some places. It's amazing. In America, a lot of places or buildings are considered old if they've been around for 100 years. Boring! Here there is a true sense of history. When you walk in a church, you know that thousands of people have passed through to worship for hundreds of years. When you go shopping, you know this building has been used for commerce for hundreds of years. When you visit a castle, you know that battles were fought there. There's just a greater sense of connection to the past. It's great. Second, people just seem to have a greater grasp of history than we do in America. Often times, we get our Americanized view of everything that puts America in the center of all history. That's just a bit ignorant and arrogant. To me, it seems that people have a greater knowledge of history, and not just of their own country, but of others as well. Granted, part of that comes from the fact that their histories are far more intertwined with other nations, but that's part of what's cool over here.

While we're talking about cool, let's cool things off by opening a window and bringing in a breeze. How shall we do that? Let's use European windows! They're better than American windows. They open in multiple ways. German windows are even better than Croatia, but I'll show you Croatian windows. First, you can just have them closed.

Then you can open just the top. This lets in a nice breeze without opening the whole window.

However, if you want to just open the entire window, you just turn the handle the other way, and there you go!

There are also external shades that do a great job of blocking out the light. They roll up out of sight when needed, and then swoop in for shade.

That's the quick version of Croatian windows. German windows are even more versatile, but that's a whole others story. Yay for European windows.

One more thing that Europe does better is ice cream. I can't describe it. It's just better. I don't know if it's just richer or what, but it's just better. Italy has great gelato. Croatia has great ice cream. It's just great. I really can't say much more on the subject. It's just better.

So those are a few things Europe does better. Remember, I'm not saying Europe is better. I'm just noting differences. I love America and will enjoy being back, but I can also step back and say where we could improve.

Anyways, time for a quick update on today. It was a busy day! This morning's worship was pretty special as Mario, one of the teens in the church here, was baptized! It was a great time and I'm sure there will be more on that on the team blog in the next day or two. Then there was a huge BBQ party. We roasted an entire pig. It was yummy. Then I went out for coffee with one of my readers. It was a fun day! There are pictures of that and a couple other things added on Facebook. I filled up Croatia Vol. 1 and have started Croatia Vol. 2. Links to those are on the right!

Well, week five starts tomorrow, so I'd best be going. Farewell and God bless!

The Black And White Reminders

2011-06-14T12:40:00.001-05:00

Hello! I hope your day is going well. It's a bit weird to be writing this here sometimes. It's weird enough to write to an unknown audience. I know my blog is public, but I never really know how many are reading it, so it sometimes feels like writing into a void. Add in the Atlantic Ocean in between things and it starts to feel even more nebulous at times, but that's ok. I know at least Mom wants to read my updates.

Alright, I have good news, and I have bad news. I'll start with the good news, as that's more pleasant and I prefer to not dwell on the bad news. The first bit of good news is that we're not revered here! I know that sounds weird, so let's backtrack a bit to give it some context. Last year when we were in Brazil, some of the people had this weird level of reverence for us just because we were Americans. I wasn't really comfortable with it. They wanted to meet me just because I was an American, and they esteemed it as having a value that I didn't necessarily understand or give it. Here, however, that is happily not the case. Here, they are glad to get to know us and befriend us, but they don't add any special value to us just because we are Americans. They are curious about our culture and things like that at times, but it's not a big deal. I've been thankful for that on this LST project, in comparison to last year's trip.

In other news, I've recently learned to appreciate Jane Austen. A while ago, I tried reading some of her stuff and couldn't get into it. Last weekend, however, I decided to give Pride and Prejudice a chance as I had seen a couple movie versions and enjoyed them. I was pleasantly surprised by how much I was enjoying Pride and Prejudice as the weekend wore on. It began to get addictive. If I wasn't doing something for the project, I was reading. Yesterday, I probably read two thirds of the book to finish it! I thought it was fantastic. I keep wanting to start talking/writing in a British accent. I'm going to try to read the rest of hers over the course of the summer, so I downloaded them all to my iPad as they're all free (which makes them even better). To further sweeten the pot, in the iBooks app on my iPad, they all fit on their own on one shelf without overflowing to another or having another intrude! It really helps with my slight OCD tendencies.

Moving along . . . I said previously that throughout the trip, I would be reflecting on some insights I've gained from reading with my readers. Today has given me another one on a part of Scripture that I've often sort of glossed over in the past. Today I read the story of Christ's time of temptation in the desert with one of my readers. As we were talking, she put it in a very simple way. She said that you make a decision to choose God or choose the devil.

For some reason, that really struck me as quite profound. I suppose that I had always known that in some way in the past. In life, we either choose to resist temptation, or we submit to it. A lot of times, however, we seem to define it as falling to temptation. That does a couple of things. First, it makes it almost seem accidental, like tripping. It removes the element of responsibility and suggests that sin is inevitable. It's not. Sin is not inevitable. Certainly, we all will sin, but sin itself is not inevitable. We can choose not to. Likewise, it's not accidental. It doesn't just happen. We let it. We choose it.

Second, we often view temptation or sin as this independent third party. Temptation itself isn't the devil. It's the devil's action in our lives, but we sometimes view temptation or sin itself as the thing we fell to. I was coaxed by money into greed. I lied, which is a sin. I coveted my friend's car. These things are all sin, but we do not fall to money. We do not fall to lying or coveting or any other sin. Those are all just tools of the devil. When we do these things, we are choosing the devil instead of God. Again, I'm sure I knew this, but hearing it put it so simply helped really make it more black and white, which I think we need sometimes. I hope that as I go about my life, I can keep this question in the back of my mind: Am I choosing God in this, or am I choosing the devil?

I think this is part of the beauty of the Let's Start Talking program and the benefit for it's workers. We read these stories over and over, and sometimes something new about them sinks in. In addition, the text is simplified, which sometimes makes something new hit home. Finally, since many of our readers can only express things in very simple English, they must by default express things more bluntly, more black and white, and I think that's how faith works sometimes. There are a lot of gray areas in life, but we often need the black and white reminders. This project isn't about us; it's about the readers, and we are here more for them than for ourselves. Still, the beauty of God's power in our lives is that He can be working 80 different things in 80 different ways in one person all at the same time. He's using us to do something here, something we may never fully understand, but at the same time, he's using this time and this project to grow us in different ways.

That's more or less all the good news/good stuff. It's time for the bad news: this blog post is pretty much over. I could blather on, but I have nothing else of consequence to say, so farewell and God bless!

Halfway Done!

2011-06-12T13:53:00.003-05:00

Hello all! It's been a few days since I last posted. I need a fix, so I blogged here and on the team blog. Check the team blog for a greater level of details of recent goings on. It'll be a good time.

In any case, things are going pretty well for us right now. We're halfway through the project! Time is going by pretty quickly. Sometimes six weeks seems like a long time when you talk about it, but when you're in it and busy and in another country, it goes by pretty quickly. It seems like we're finally truly settled in and adjusting, and yet we're already thinking of how to start the process of finishing up the work here. It's a bit strange, but in a good way, I guess.

One way that we've settled in is that I think the dogs know my scent now. Whenever I walk into town, the dogs bark at me far less. I think they've gotten used to me. It makes me feel like a local! I'm also a lot less paranoid. For the first few days, I was always walking in fear that some dog would jump up by its fence and scare me half to death. Then I had this phase when I was just ready for it. Bring it on, barking puppy! Now, however, it's like I don't even have to be ready. They just chill out when they see me. Maybe I'm just not interesting. I don't know.

In any case, we had a good weekend. If the other post goes up, you can read about it. Nutshell version: we went to a castle called Trakoscan on Friday morning. I took lots of pictures. Whatever. I spent Friday afternoon on my own shopping and finally touring the Varazdin Castle. Pictures of both castles are in an album that I've linked to on the side. Note: I wrote all the captions as the story of Tom and Celia, a fake British couple. I was inspired by catalogliving.net. Check it out sometime. On Saturday we went to Mladen's house to extract honey from a beehive! It was pretty cool to observe. Pictures of that are in Croatia Vol. 1, found on Facebook or linked to the right.

I think that's about all I have for now. Please keep us in your prayers as we head into week number four. Have a great day!

The Lowly Birth

2011-06-08T08:00:00.001-05:00

Hello all! I know I blogged just yesterday, but that's ok. I allow myself to blog on consecutive days when I'm traveling. Besides, if I don't do it now, I'm not sure when I will have a chance. Something is always coming up!

I don't know why I'm trying to justify my blogging behavior. Sigh.

In any case, things are going really well. The readers are usually very prompt and on time. If they can't come, they usually tell us, which is very helpful. It's certainly far different than in Brazil when the time slots were often just a suggestion! I'm really starting to get to know some of them and am making plans to meet up with them for coffee or ice cream. Some of the conversations are very personal (so I won't share too many details) and thought provoking. I can certainly see God at work!

Our role here is to help teach them to speak better English, so in a sense, we are teachers. This is a very loose application of the term, of course. Still, it applies to a certain degree. Despite this, I think that the three of us are learning a lot from our conversations. For me, it sometimes gives a new perspective into some of the Scriptures.

One example has come from the story of Jesus' birth. Many of my readers and I have discussed why God would choose to have his son born in such a lowly place. One thing that many of my readers have brought up is that since Jesus was born in such a poor position, it shows us that life is really not about the material. I think that's a lesson that emerges in a lot of Jesus' teachings, of course, but I had never really thought to apply it to His birth. God gave his Son, the most perfect human ever created, a birth surrounded by filthy animals. How much more has He given us? If Jesus can make do from that birth and from poverty, I think we can do. This was a theme for me last year in Brazil is well - increasing conviction of how little the material means. God seems to be really driving that home for me.

Another reader brought up an interesting point. Perhaps Jesus would not have been crucified if He had been rich. The rich tend not to be persecuted in that way, so maybe Jesus had to be poor in order to face that. I'm not sure if that works out, but I thought that it was a very interesting idea.

Repeatedly going over the story of Jesus as a child and staying behind at the temple has also been interesting for me. I keep wondering what it would have been like to be a parent to Jesus. Mary and Joseph had a perfect child on their hands, but not by their doing. Jesus was probably more mature than they were. How do you handle that as a parent? What do you do when your child is right and you are wrong? They never would have had to discipline him, I'm sure. I'm starting to wish the Bible said more about what Jesus was like when he was a kid. I think it would be fascinating to know more about that.

He probably had a really interesting childhood. Jesus probably knew all along what was going to have to happen to him. How do you grow up as a kid knowing that you're going to bear the sin of all man upon you? To me, that's unthinkable. It would have been stifling to know that was my destiny.
It's the most terrifying childhood I can think of. How do you endure that? The only thing I can think of is that He had God. Jesus was obviously a man of prayer. I'm sure his relationship with God is what got him through knowing His fate. To me it just emphasizes the importance of having that relationship with God. Truly, you can get through anything. Jesus shows us that.

Well, that's about all for now. I have a reader coming shortly here. I'm sure I'll have some more thoughts on this later. Farewell and God bless!

Things Europe Does Better: Part One

2011-06-07T16:01:00.001-05:00

Hello all! This post is the first in a series of posts that will discuss . . . the things that Europe does better than America. Now Mom, don't worry, I'm not saying that my stay here is going to be permanent. As much as I love Europe, America is still my home in a lot of ways. Still, there's just a few things that Europe does better, and I'd like to talk about those.

First, pedestrian culture is way better here. That happens on a lot of levels. The first is that European towns generally tend to be more compact. Things are much closer together, meaning that there is less distance between things. As such, it's easier to walk/bike in between things. Since we've been here, we get around mostly by walking. It takes a while, but it's refreshing and much more energy efficient. Accessibility is another level. There are just lots of sidewalks and bike lines everywhere. If you can get there by car, there's usually a way on foot. In fact, it may be closer on foot. The final way Europe does better pedestrian culture is just by greater awareness. Cars often give you the right of way, which is nice.

The next things Europe does better is knowing multiple languages. Many of my readers aren't just studying English, but also German as well. For Europe, part of that is necessity. With so many countries so close together, you almost have to know another language. The need is more urgent as there is greater contact with foreign language speakers. Europeans often start learning a second (or third) language at a really young age when it's easier to learn. Alas, America. We rarely put any emphasis on a second language as we don't often encounter anything else. We only border two countries, and one of them is an English speaking country. We have no sense of urgency for it. I wish we did.

The last thing I'll talk about this time is measurements. America is really stupid. We do miles, inches, pounds, Farenheit, gallons, and all this other stuff that nobody else really does. In Europe, it's all metric, and that makes sense because that's what the rest of the world uses. When I went out for coffee with one of my readers the other day, we had a long discussion about this. It makes no sense for us to not be metric. It would be a tough transition, and we'd have to make a lot of adjustments, but guess what? It makes more sense. Let's do it, America! Yes we can!

Next up: I'd like to post some more reflective content on some insights I'm gaining on Luke. I may be the "teacher," but I'm learning too! God is at work, and it's fun to watch. That'll maybe be tomorrow. Until then . . . farewell and God bless!

Bullet Holes And Other Thoughts

2011-06-05T11:57:00.001-05:00

Hello! I suppose it's about high time for another post. I think I say that every time. We had a great weekend visiting Plitvice and Zadar. I already posted about it on the team blog. Click here to read more about that. I don't want to repeat myself, so check it out. There's a few pictures on that blog. I also posted a bunch of pictures of it to Facebook. If you're not on Facebook, there's a link on the right so that you can view it anyways. It was a great little trip!

Today I'd just like to expand on some of the things I mentioned in the other blog (so read that first, I guess). As I mentioned in the other blog, as we were driving to Plitvice, we noticed some of the war damage from over fifteen years ago. It generally wasn't a huge amount of damage - mostly just some bullet or shrapnel holes in the stucco of buildings. Other buildings were clearly mostly destroyed and just never rebuilt.

It was a bit surreal and sobering. I couldn't help but wonder what was worth fighting over. I do believe that there are things worth fighting for, but still, it's so stupid to me that it ever gets to that point. You'd think humanity would figure out other ways of dealing with conflict after a few thousand years. I guess not. In a way, I suppose it's similar to the larger human condition. We find it so hard to learn from our mistakes. There's no good reason for any of it. At all. We're so screwed up and for what? Do do what we want on occasion? To engage our own selfish desires? What does any of our own goals and aims really accomplish? I was a bit unsettled on this drive. I guess the fog outside matched this internal fog I was thinking of. Who knew some bullet holes in the stucco could be so thought provoking?

And Mom, I know what you're thinking. Don't worry. The war was over fifteen years ago. There's no reason to expect it to flare up again anytime soon. It's safe!

Shifting gears . . . Plitvice was so beautiful. I feel blessed to have been there. I've been lucky enough to experience a few of God's wonders. Even on a foggy, cloudy, it's easily one of the most beautiful places I've ever seen. If I could have a dry day there and have there be no people, it'd be an amazing place to go running. God has a great imagination.

A note from Zadar . . . we spent a bit of time at St. Donat's one of the churches there. If you look at the pictures, it's the old one that's kind of circular. It was so wonderful just to spend a few minutes inside. It was built in the 8th or 9th century, meaning it's well over 1,000 years old. I literally almost cried when I went in. I don't know what it was. There's just something about an old building like that that just gets to me. I wish we had that kind of history in America.

Other discovery of the weekend: Croatia is a gorgeous country to drive through. Apparently Varazdin is one of the few flat areas, and even here, we aren't far from the mountains. Apparently I slept through the mountains on the hour drive from Zagreb on our first ride here from the airport. The entire country is just rolling hills and fields and forests. We'll be driving along and suddenly there's a church perched up on a hill or a castle in some mountain niche. There will be scenic little villages here and there. A particularly surreal moment is driving through a tunnel on the way to and from Zadar. At one point, there's a 5.7 kilometer tunnel. On one side of the mountains, it's all lush and forested. Once you go through the tunnel and get to the other side, it's very rocky along the coast. It was very strange and like we were suddenly in a completely different place. There's so much variety in such a short drive! I wish taking pictures from a car was easier.

Speaking of pictures, I'm working on taming my rampant picture taking, or at least learning to cope with it better. In the past, I just took pictures endlessly thinking I'd go back and delete them soon. The problem is that I never did until five years later when it takes days and months to go through and delete them (a project I'm still not done with). As such, on this trip, I've been more conscious of the pictures I take. I still take a lot, but I delete unneeded/crappy pictures sooner. For example, this weekend I took approximately/exactly 778 pictures. 565 were on Friday alone, a personal record! However, on the way home, I went through and deleted unneeded pictures. I took out over four hundred! It's so much easier to go through when you just keep the good ones. I don't know why I didn't discover this sooner. Sigh. It's a great learning process, though. I feel like I'm teaching myself a lot about photography, even though I have no real clue what I'm doing.

Anyways, that's all that. Today was very relaxed. We had a normal church service. About five minutes prior to the start, they asked me to do the meditation/prayer/serving for the wine during communion, so I had to pull some thoughts together out of nowhere. That was fun. The rest of the day has been very relaxing. One of my readers and his girlfriend took me out for coffee. It was very nice to just sit out in the old part of town and talk. It was fun to get to know him better and to meet her. We talked a lot about our cultures and such, which is so much better than reading about it.

I feel like such a narcissist when I write this much. I'm sorry. It just helps me decompress, and I need to do that when I'm in another culture.

To wrap things up, I'll preview the week a bit. Tomorrow is the beginning of our third week here. Monday through Thursday will pretty much just be reading with our readers each day. Wednesday will be our next party. Our plans for the weekend are in flux, but are likely going to be less intense than last weekend. We're thinking of taking the bus to Zagreb to look around there a bit for one of the days. On the other day, we'll maybe head to Trachostan (not sure how to spell it), a nearby castle. It'll be pretty low key. I think we'll go to Graz, Austria the following weekend. I'm sure to be posting a few more times this week, so if you're into my incessant ramblings, stay tuned, I guess.

That's all for now. Thanks for reading and God bless!

Ranges, Exchanges, And Disconnections

2011-06-02T16:22:00.003-05:00

Hello! I figure it's about time that I posted again here. It's been a few days and I have a few things I want to say, so hang in there! I'll try to stay relatively brief. You know I struggle with that.

First I'd like to talk a little bit about my readers now that I've worked with most of them once or twice. My readers encompass a wide range of English ability. Some know very little English and can somewhat understand what I say, but have little to say in return. It's a challenge, but I'm doing my best with it. I also have a couple students who understand most of what I say and can talk a little in English. One in particular is fun to read with. I met her for the first time today and had a good time with her. She understands me pretty well but struggles to speak in English, so she responds in Croatian. She knows I don't understand it but says it anyways. Then we laugh about it. It was fairly amusing. Above that, I have a couple of students that can understand and speak pretty well and can converse decently. They sometimes struggle to articulate exactly what they want to say, but they clearly understand pretty well. I also have a couple readers that I would consider to be essentially fluent in English. With those ones, I'm still reading the same passages, but I've moved them out of the workbook we provide and I have them reading out of the NIV Bible. It's a little bit more challenging, but they are completely up to it. I never had readers this fluent last year in Brazil, so I'm glad I have this wide a spectrum this year!

In other random news, I went for a great run the other day. I found a new route with the help of one of my readers that took my by the river. I got a bit lost and accidentally almost ran to the next village out of town, but I figured it out and got back on track. I think I ended up doing about 7.5 miles. It was a great run. I saw so much of Varazdin - some residential areas, the river area, the center, some commercial stuff . . . a little bit of everything!

Next on my list is talking about the exchange rate a bit. I'm sure my mom is wondering. In Croatia they use the kuna. Five kuna are roughly equal to one dollar, which is a very easy exchange rate as you take any price here and divide by five. It's much easier than whatever it was in Brazil. The euro is also a bit tricky because it's 1.4 or something ridiculous and unwieldy like that. As a result, I really like the kuna! I'll include a couple of pictures here.

The first picture is of the lipa, like our cents. Here are a few different denominations. They also have coins for 1 kuna and 5 kuna. 5 kuna ($1) will get you an amazing ice cream cone!

This next picture is of some of the paper currency. The 20 is worth roughly $4, and the 100 is roughly $20. It makes me feel like I have more money than I really have! It's a bit disorienting. Sometimes when I'm in stores, I get sticker shock before remembering that I have to divide by five. Then things seem much better. I have to get used to it! Although I haven't been paying much attention as of yet and I haven't shopped much yet, prices seem to be similar to American prices, although my Allegra for my allergies seemed cheaper - about $10 for 10 pills.

The last main thing I wanted to talk about today is something a bit more personal. Whenever you're abroad, you naturally become a bit more introspective, or at least I do. There's been a couple things that have been on my mind since I have been here and even a bit before. I blogged about this a little while back as well. Lately I've really been noticing a disconnection or wall in between my head and my heart. It's kind of a strange phenomenon. If we're being honest, which I generally prefer when blogging, I think my head has a much better attitude, stronger faith, and greater willingness to follow the Holy Spirit than my heart. In my head, I completely know what attitude to have at a given time. In my head, I can completely trust God to take care of me. I could flush all my money down the drain (literally or otherwise) and I'd be fine. In my head, I know that I need to pray and seek the Spirit in all things I do. It's easy to know the right thing to do, but harder to follow through. I know all this in my head and it's wedged very firmly there.

At the same time, however, my heart is stubborn. My heart is flawed and human and it leads me astray. My attitude is sometimes not what it should be because I let petty things get in the way. I occasionally trust in things of this world for a sense of security instead of trusting solely on God. Prayer is rarely my first instinct or reaction. My heart recognizes what my head is saying and sometimes goes in a completely different direction.

I'm not sure if head and heart are the right words to use here, but they are the terms that I've been thinking in lately. For me, it makes sense because I know these things in my head. I have all the right ideas in the right cases. However, my feelings don't always match up, and I feel like my feelings come from the heart, and I often follow my feelings.

Like I said, I've really been noticing this separation between my heart and my head. I've been deeply convicted by it. I'm trying to change it, and I'm making some progress with God's help. I don't know if I have to connect the two or just learn to go with what's in my head, what I know to be true. Maybe the solution is ditching both and going with the Spirit, but doesn't the heart or the head have to be involved with that? Can you even really ditch both? And where should the Spirit be, in your heart or in your head? I'm not sure. Perhaps I shouldn't be blogging under the influence of tasty five kuna ice cream.

A couple of books are helping to sort this all out. One is The Purpose Driven Life by Rick Warren. It's a great read so far. It's a book you read in forty days, so it's very manageable. It does a really good job of helping you examine your life. The second is Radical by David Platt. It's an extremely eye-opening description of Christianity today in America. I'm not too far into it, but it's already been very thought provoking. I'm sure I'll be sharing more thoughts on those in the coming weeks, in between updates on the trip in general.

Other future posts may include the things Europe does better, things I'm noticing in Luke with the help of my readers, and maybe a discussion of the differences between this project and my project last year in Brazil. Cast your votes! I may consider your input. No guarantees.

I put some more pictures on Facebook. For those of you not on Facebook, there's the same link to them on the right side of the blog. Tomorrow is when our weekend starts! We've rented a car and are driving to Plitvice, a national park. Look it up on Google. It's stunning. Apparently it's one of the world's most beautiful places. In the evening, we'll head from there to Zadar, a city on the coast, and spend the evening and much of Saturday there before driving back. Stay tuned for pictures/updates!

Well, that's all for now. Please continue to keep us in your prayers. It is by God's power that anything gets done on these projects, not ours. Thank you for your support and God bless!

Week Two Begins

2011-05-30T06:22:00.001-05:00

Hello all! It's yet another sunny day in Varazdin. The weather has been great since we arrived. It's usually in the upper 70s and lower 80s so far with lots of sun. There was a bit of rain on Friday night into Saturday morning, but it wasn't bad at all. It's nice to step outside every so often to enjoy the weather.

A couple of notes before I dive in: some of you have been clamoring for pictures. I've put up around 50 on Facebook so far. If you want to see them, go to my Facebook page. If you're not on Facebook, I put a link to the photo album on the right of this page. Check it out! I'd put more on the blog itself, but there's so many that it's hard to choose. Thus, I'd rather not, so go take a look! Also, be checking up on the team blog. There's a link to that on the right as well. I haven't posted there for a couple of days, but Molly has, so you can get a sense of what's happening.

Onward! Last Friday evening was pretty relaxed. We just kind of relaxed here at the church. On Saturday I slept in. Later Mladen's family and a church member whose name I can't spell came over for lunch. We had a wonderful meal together and also celebrated Rjan's (Ryan) birthday. Rjyan is Mladen's son. He turned 15! Later that Rod, Molly and I went out to get some food and other supplies. We were a bit out of luck as many of the shops close early on Saturdays. It's a very quiet town!

After that, we went back to the church. I changed and went out for a run! I hadn't gone running since early May, so it felt so good. I love running in different places. I have no idea how far I went as everything here is in kilometers and I'm not familiar with the roads. I'm guessing I did about five miles as I was running for fifty minutes. Varazdin is very compact, so there aren't many long roads to run on in town, so I have to do a lot of random turning to stay running for that long. I sort of ended up getting lost. I mean that in the sense of I didn't know exactly where I was, but I always knew the general vicinity that I was in. It's very easy to get from anywhere here to the center of town, and once I'm in the center, I know how to get back to the church. I love just running and not exactly knowing where I'm going. It's more adventurous. It's also great just to run in this beautiful old town. It's very refreshing. I even ran around the castle. How many people get to say that? It sounds weird, but it's really a blessing for me.

Now Mom, I know what you're thinking. I should only stay in familiar places and all that and shouldn't be off on my own. Don't worry. It's very safe here! The only time I ever feel any sense of danger at all is when I walk or run by a place that has dogs. They will run at me and bark at me and they freak me out. They really shouldn't since they're behind fences and can't get at me at all. It's just very startling for me sometimes. I'm a bit of a wimp in that regard. There were a couple times on my run where a dog jumped up onto the fence and barked and nearly had me jumping out of my skin. I was so terrified. It's pathetic. Then again, that sort of thing scares me in America. I just don't do well with animals.

Sunday was a pretty hectic day for us. Church started in the morning at 10. People were here at 9 to start preparing for the lunch meal (more on that in a minute). I helped peel potatoes! I'd never peeled potatoes in my life, so I figured that Mom would be proud of me. Later we had a nice church service. Services here are fairly informal. It started out with some prayer, moved to some singing, followed by a sermon. Rod preached this week (and will for the duration of our time here, I believe) with the help of Jura's translation skills. After the sermon was some more singing, followed by communion. Then we went to lunch!

I was apparently unaware of what an event this Sunday was going to be. Unbeknownst to me, on the last Sunday of every month, this church and some other area churches from Zagreb and other areas get together for a massive party thing. We started right after church with lunch, which was goulash. It was a meat and potato soup cooked over a fire. Then there were desserts. At some point, a cake was brought out for all the people with May birthdays, including me! I even met a young woman from the Zagreb church who shared a birthday with me. That was fun. Then people just hung out and ate . . . and ate . . . and ate. Eventually Ray and Laura took the teens and kids away for a lesson. Then there was more eating . . . and more eating . . . it was far more than I was expecting. I was feeling a little bit overwhelmed, so eventually Ray, Laura and I ducked out for a few minutes around 5:30 or 6 to go grab some ice cream. Ray and Laura left this morning to go back to the US, so they wanted one last cone before they left. When we returned to the church, everyone was gone and the party was over. It had been pretty exhausting, so Molly, Rod and I just spent the rest of the evening relaxing.

That's about all that's going on now. Today we're getting more into our reading sessions. I didn't have as many this morning, but this afternoon is pretty busy. I'm excited to really get into the swing of things. It will be a good time. I might go for a run this evening. I'm not sure. If it's going to rain in the next few days, I may have to get a run in now.

Well, that's all for now. I'll likely be updating the team blog in the next day or two, so stay posted for that. Goodbye and God bless!

The Work Has Begun

2011-05-27T06:01:00.001-05:00

Hello! Today's post is just a smattering of random thoughts being shoved together in a blog post, so I apologize if this feels sporadic. Before I begin, I'd like to shout out to Christina Pick! She texted my Mom so that Mom would get on Skype the other day, which was very helpful. Thanks Christina!

First, I must address something about my airplane ride that deeply upset me that I forgot to mention. As we were on the DC to Munich flight, there was a girl across the aisle from me that was traveling with her cat. That's not the part that upset me. I heard her say that she was moving to Germany, so bringing a pet is legit. The part that upset me was when I saw the cat's name on the pet carrier - Happy. The cat's name was Happy. Who names a cat Happy? Was this cat plucked from a cartoon? "Hi, I'm Happy the Cat!" "And I'm Peppy the Penguin!" Ugh. Happy is an emotion, not a name. I honestly believe that a better name for the creature would have been Jean Claude Van Damme.

So anyways, life is progressing. Since I last wrote here, we've had our information meeting and begun our reading sessions. Click on the team blog on the right to hear about the info meeting (and see pictures of the church). Yesterday and today were the beginnings of our actual work. They are very slow days as most readers set up their first meetings for next week. Next week will be much better. I've already had all my readers for this week, and Molly is about to finish up with hers. Then we will go exploring in Varazdin a little bit more. I'm excited to start looking around the city a bit more. Rod will also be arriving later this afternoon, so we're looking forward to that. For the
rest of the weeks, we will not read on Friday. This is the only Friday that we read.

So far, the reading sessions that I have had have been very good. Many people here learn English just by watching English movies/TV with Croatian subtitles. It's surprising to me how good some of them are at learning English this way. A lot of Croatians also know some German, so it turns out that my slight knowledge of German may come in handy after all. One of my readers is actually from Germany, so today during our session when she was struggling with something in English, I asked her to say it in German. It worked! I understood! I was quite pleased.

Beyond that, not much has happened. Yesterday after our reading sessions, we went to Darko's house. Darko is a great guy here from the church with a wonderful family. Mladen (our missionary) and his family, and Ray and Laura (from Kansas) were also there. It was a great time of fellowship. I didn't understand much, but we still had fun. In fact, language barriers sometimes provided the amusement!

I think that's about all I have for now. Once I have a better idea of what's going on here, I'll have more to say, I think. Until then, farewell and God bless!

First Impressions of Croatia

2011-05-25T03:23:00.004-05:00

Good morning from Varazdin! It's about 10 AM here, meaning that most of you are asleep around 3 AM. I just thought I'd post some of my first impressions of Croatia so far. Warning - these thoughts will be very scattered.

One of the first and most obvious things is simply the European vibe Croatia has. I was immediately reminded of Germany once I got here. Residential architecture is very similar - brick and mortar buildings covered in stucco. Most houses have clay tiles. Homes tend to be more compact here. I love European windows. They can open in a couple different ways, depending on how you twist the handle. It's great.

From what I've seen, Croatia is pretty clean. I was noticing that both in the car ride from Zagreb and in what little I have so far seen of Varazdin. Varazdin is a fairly quiet town. Last night Molly and I went out to grab some groceries/exchange money, and it was just so relaxed in peaceful downtown despite it being about 5 PM at the time. I think I'll like it. There's not a whole lot of traffic, either. There are lots of pedestrians and bicyclists.

Everyone we have met so far (which isn't a whole lot of people quite yet, but will be more soon) has been extremely welcoming. It's almost like visiting family members you haven't seen in a while, even though I've never met them. It's been pretty wonderful in that respect. They seem quite genuinely excited to have us here.

Weather so far is pleasant. Yesterday was mostly sunny. I'm not sure what the temperature was, but it was a bit on the warm side, which I personally really like. We don't have air conditioning as it's just not common here, but I don't think that'll be a big deal for me. I grew up for most of my life without it. We keep the windows open a lot for nice breeze.

The Croatian language is way different than anything I know. This is the first time I've gone abroad without having any clue about the language. In Germany, I had studied German. When I went to Costa Rica, I had some Spanish to fall back on. In Canada, I was fluent in English. In Brazil, Spanish was relatively helpful. Here, I have nothing, which is kind of exciting. There are a scant few words I can pick up on, namely the names of countries that come up in conversation. When Molly and I were shopping for some groceries, there were some food items that had obviously similar names. However, once we're in a conversation, all I can really go off of is tone, passion, and emotion, and gestures. So far though, there hasn't been a situation where someone who can translate isn't there.

Last night was one example of this. Molly and I went with Mladen (the missionary here) and Ray and Laura (who are visiting from the church in Manhattan and arrived a day before us) to the home of a family at the church here. We spent an hour just talking and having a good time. Molly knew many of them from last year, as did Ray and Laura. We had some snacks (cookies and chips) and some lemonade while just laughing and catching up. After that, we spent some time reading the Bible and praying. It was a very moving time. Though I couldn't understanding what they were saying (and they couldn't understand us, entirely), we could hear the passion and emotion in the voices. It was clear that we serve the same God and that He transcends our language(s). It was a very powerful time.

Well, I have to get going. I put some pictures on Facebook. Hopefully I can link them to hear later when I have more time. Goodbye for now!

We're In Croatia!

2011-05-24T07:42:00.001-05:00

Hello all! We're here! Here's a quick rundown of our travels. First, I have a random observation. As I was leaving, people kept telling me to "be safe!" What do people think I'm going to do? Go on a machete-wielding rampage? Try to intentionally get AIDS? Of course I'm going to be safe! I'm too short to engage in risky behavior. It's more dangerous for me.

Anyways, Rod drove us to the airport on Monday morning. We got to the airport around 10 and got checked in fairly quickly. At this point, it's just Molly and I. Rod has a wedding to be at, so he won't get to Croatia until Friday. After sitting in the Kansas City airport for a while (which, by the way, is boring, as the KC airport is really lackluster), we hopped a flight for Dulles in DC. That flight went from 12:30 until 3:30 or so. We had a very brief layover with just enough time to get food and go to the bathroom before getting on our flight for Munich. Note on Dulles airport: not impressive. There's actually shopping and food past the gate (unlike KC), but it's just not big enough for the crowds.

The Munich flight left around 5:40 and lasted until about 7:30 (Munich/Europe time, seven hours ahead of most of you). It was a pretty uneventful flight. I watched Inception and then tried to sleep. I don't sleep extremely well on planes. Not many do. After the flight, we had to go through a quick security check before heading to the gate area. I was excited just to look out the windows and see Germany. We really can't see much of it, of course, but still, it just brings back memories of when I was here my sophomore year. Once at the gate, we had a few hours to kill, so we just did some walking, grabbed a bite to eat, and rested some. I attempted utilizing my limited and broken German. It was kind of a sad attempt, but I enjoyed doing it.

We got on the plane for Zagreb and got in the air around 11:40. We landed a bit late in Zagreb, but that's ok. Customs was basically a hallway that we breezed right through. Our bags were among the first on the conveyor belt. We waited outside for a few minutes, and then met Yura, a man from the church. He drove us to Varazdin, and here we are!

I'm just really glad this part went well. Travel can be stressful. Thanks for all the prayers! It is greatly appreciated. I'll post more when I have some time. God bless!

I Leave For Croatia Tomorrow

2011-05-23T01:40:00.001-05:00

WHAT? Yes. I leave for Croatia tomorrow. It's finally just hitting me today. It's really snuck up on me this year, which is a good year. Last year when I went to Brazil I was looking forward to it for months with antsy anticipation. I nearly drove myself crazy. This year I was so focused on finishing school and such that it just kind of happened upon me.

This year is also different in that I'm not escaping anything. Last year, part of the appeal was getting away from school and everything involved with it. It was forgetting for six weeks that I had to go back to school for another year. That's not the case this year. This year I'm done with school. I have a job that I really like to come back to. This morning when I was at church, I realized how much I'm going to miss my church here. I know I'll have a great experience in Croatia, but I'll miss what's happening here. I guess that means I've really found a sense of belonging at UCC. As much as I'll enjoy my experience in Croatia, I'll be glad to come back to this job, this church, and these new friendships I've developed at UCC.

So I think I'm all ready to go. Today has been all about packing and saying goodbyes for me. I think I'm all packed and ready to go. I should be ok. Today is a bit weird. Today was the day it hit me. All day I was realizing that I wouldn't see these places for or people for six weeks. It's a little bit scary. I've done it before with last year's six week trip to Brazil and my three-and-a-half month trip to Germany for a semester in my sophomore year of college. Still, this gets a little bit scary. This is how it's been for all my trips. The day before I leave, I realize that I'm leaving everything. I start to get nervous. On the day I leave, I get downright scared and start to wonder what on earth I was thinking. On the day I land, it borders on panic as I don't know the language, I'm being thrust into random cars with random people, and I realize that I've committed the next several weeks to these people that I don't know. It's mildly terrifying. Then once I hit the first full day there, I'm fine and I'm thrilled to be there. It's just the process of getting there and arriving that freaks me out a bit. It'll be fine.

That's all that. I'll get picked up tomorrow at my apartment at 7:45. We'll get to the airport around 10:00. At this point, it'll be just Molly and I. Rod will join us later in the week as he has a niece getting married on Wednesday. Our first flight leaves from Kansas City at 12:25. We'll land in Dulles (Washington DC) at 3:47. We'll leave Dulles at 5:30ish PM and land in Munich around 7:50 AM local time. Then we'll go from Munich to Zagreb from 11:40 AM to 12:45 PM on Tuesday. After that, it'll be a one hour car ride to Varazdin! Please pray that all the travels go smoothly. I'm thinking it'll be fine. It's just a bit nerve-racking.

I really don't want to sound negative about any of it. I am excited. This is just the scary phase, and that's ok. These things aren't supposed to be easy, per se. It's supposed to stretch us. That's how we grow. I'm looking forward to seeing how God will use us. I'm looking forward to the new culture. I'm looking forward to the people we'll meet and new relationships.

I'm also looking forward to growing closer to God. One thing I struggle with is that truly personal relationship with God. We talked about it tonight at our small group. A theme of the evening was things we believe in our heads but not always in our hearts, at least not entirely. For me, true personal relationship with God is one of those things. I believe that I have it in my head, but it's not always there in my heart. Two things seem to hinder me. First, God is so big. How can you be intimate and personal with something so infinite? Second, relationship with God relies a lot on intangibles. That's hard for me. Human relationships are very tangible; relationship with God isn't, in many cases. These aren't insurmountable challenges. I just don't know how to feel that personal connection to Him yet, and I'm hoping to work on that when I'm gone. I'll be with far fewer people that I know and who know me, so maybe it'll be the perfect chance to work on that.

That's all that. I'm going to Croatia tomorrow. Yikes. That's kind of scary, but that's ok. In other news, not a lot has happened since I last blogged. I go to work, play darts, and call it a day. It's a great job. I'm excited to come back to it. Yesterday was my good friend Matt's wedding. I was a groomsman, so we made a weekend out of it. We had a good time at the rehearsal and played some games after. The wedding was pretty perfect. They're a great couple and it was outside and the weather behaved for just the perfect amount of time, so it was really great. It's an honor to be a part of a wedding like that.

Well, that's about all for now. I'll do my best to keep things updated during travel. I would really appreciate your prayers during our travels especially, but also during the trip as well. I can't do it without you. I really can't. Thank you all for supporting me so far. It means a lot to me. God bless and see you soon!

An Ode of Victory

2011-05-18T00:20:00.001-05:00

Hello all! So I've been meaning to do this for a while, but I just haven't had the opportunity. I've been planning to post a psalm of sorts commemorating the completion of grad school. I figure it's about high time I finally got around to it. Before that, however, I have a couple quick things to say. First, Croatia is coming up on me quickly. Yikes! I'm excited though. It will be excellent. Second, I just took another step into adulthood. I booked my own plane ticket for the first time. In the past, people have done it for me. Now I just booked my own to fly from Kansas to Minnesota in July for a friend's wedding. I got a good deal, too. I feel so adult. Third, I'm excited about a couple new iPad apps I got. One is a blogging app that I'm testing as we speak. I'm excited. The other is a Facebook photo uploader. I think I'll like it.

Ok. That's all I can think of for now. Alright. Time for a psalm of sorts discussing finishing grad school. I'm really not sure what to call it, so . . . I'll just hop in.

I was held in darkness
My enemies bound my hands and feet
And threw me in the dark chamber
In that chamber I lingered
I cried out to God in my despair:

"O my God!
Free me from these chains!
Loose the bonds upon me!
Save me from this darkness!
Lord God, hear my prayer,
The prayer of your servant!"

And lo, my prayers were answered
The darkness was no more
And my chains fell away
I stood, no longer weary
I leaned upon the strength of the Lord
He led me from the dark chamber
Down the stairs of the dark tower He led me

I came to the final door
Again I cried out:
"Lord God! Free me from this place!"
And lo, again He heard me and had mercy
The last barrier was cast aside
And my enemies cried out in anguish and despair

The Lord led me from the dark tower
And I beheld it from outside
I gazed upon my former prison
Again, I cried out:
"Lord God, if it be your will:
Cast down my former prison!
Raze this ivory tower to the ground!
Destroy this place that I may return no more!"

Yet again, God heard my cry
The ivory tower crumbled
The enemies gnashed their teeth in despair
And wailed in their defeat
Not one stone was left standing
The ivory was crushed
And its dust scattered in the wind

One more time I cried out to God:
"God! Almighty!
Your power is greater
Than prisons of ivory!
Great is your mercy!
Your eyes beheld your servant
In the ivory tower
In your mercy, you freed me
And destroyed the fortress of my enemies
Great is your power!"

The Downside of Kansas and Grad School Complete

2011-05-16T21:01:00.001-05:00

Hello all! I'd just like to take a moment to dedicate this blog post to my little sister Cassie. For a while she was always trying to get me to write less on these blog posts, but today she said that she was upset that she checked my blog today and there was nothing new. As such, I would just like to dedicate this to Cassie. Love you!

Today's post is kind of a mix of bad and good stuff. I'll start with the bad. Last week my uncle Gary Larson passed away after an aortic aneurysm early on Wednesday morning. He was my mom's oldest brother. His health hadn't always been great (he was paralyzed years ago in a car accident), but this was kind of sudden. I never knew him super well, as I always lived far away from him since he was in Williston, North Dakota. Still, he was my uncle. It's tough.

I'm doing ok with it, mostly. To be honest, the hardest part is being so far away in Kansas here. I had the time, but it was just too expensive for me to get there, so I wasn't able to go to the funeral. It makes me feel kind of helpless to be so far away. The only thing I was able to do was to order a plant for the funeral. I just wish I could have been there for my mom. The only thing I wanted to do was give her a hug, but that was the one thing I couldn't do. I know I'm supposed to be here in Kansas and I'm glad I'm here. At the same time, it's times like this when it's hard to be away.

In any case, I hear that the funeral was really good. That was last Saturday. Apparently the church was packed and there were a lot of people sharing how Gary impacted people. He touched a lot of lives during his time. Mom said that it was one of the nicest funerals that she had been to. I'm really glad that it went well. I just wish I had been around more to get to know him more.

Like I said, I'm doing ok with it. Still, I would appreciate prayers for my family right now. He was an uncle, a son, a brother, a father, a grandfather, a friend, and much more to a lot of people. He will be missed.

That's the heavy stuff. I'm not really sure how to transition into the rest of the post, so I'm just going to jump right in and say that I'm 100% done with grad school! I was done with most of it over a week ago, but last week, I spent a lot of time wrapping up my loose ends with school. I gave my students' final, graded those, and finalized grades on Monday. I cleaned out my office and made sure I was set to get my diploma on Tuesday. On Wednesday, I turned in my paperwork to get my technical writing certificate and went to a final pseudo-class meeting that doesn't really count as class because we met in a bar and only loosely discussed our papers.

With all the loose ends wrapped up, I'm done with grad school! I'm graduated! I have a Master's Degree! You can start calling me Master Kavan if you want to. You don't have to. I won't have the diploma for about six weeks (or until I get home from Croatia), but who needs the paper? Not this guy! I'm Master Kavan!

So yes. . . I'm done with school. It hasn't really sunk in yet. It's weird to come home and not have any responsibilities to ignore. I'm pretty much doing the same stuff that I did when I was in school. I'm just not procrastinating anymore. I have little at-home responsibility now! Which is weird. I'm not quite sure what to do with myself yet. I think it'll sink in more once I come back from Croatia and really get into the swing of my real job.

It's just weird that this phase of my life is over. I'm very glad it is. I guess it's just surreal. Up until now, each phase of my life has had a distinct end date. Now that's not the case. The rest of my life is just undefined before me. I'm excited about that and I like it. It's just weird. It's different.

And to shift gears once more . . . I leave for Croatia in a week. That hasn't hit me yet either. I've been so focused on getting done with school and such that this has kind of snuck up on me. Last year when I was headed for Brazil, I was in need of an escape, a break. This year I'm not really escaping anything since I'm done with school, so it's snuck up on me more. I'm starting to really get ready now, though. I went shopping and got some socks and a new duffel bag and such. I'll pack in bits and pieces for the next few days until I go. It'll be a good time and I'm sure it will challenge me. I'm excited to see what God has in mind for me. To keep up on it, keep reading along in my blog and/or check out the team blog that we set up. All three of us will be posting to it, so stay tuned! There's a link to it at the right side of my blog. Yay!

This week will be all about getting everything together before I go. I signed a lease for an apartment today. I'll be staying in the same complex but moving with one of my current roommates to an upgraded two bedroom, two bath unit. It should be good. I'll have to make sure I have all the supplies I need for Croatia. I have to make sure everything at work is ready for me to be gone for six weeks. (By the way, that's part of why this job is perfect for me. They're so flexible and just willing to work with the fact that I'm going to be absent for six weeks. It's great.) I also have a wedding this weekend I'm a groomsman in. There's plenty to keep me busy this week! I prefer that, though. I get more done under pressure.

Well, that's about all I have for now. God bless!

So Much Good News!

2011-05-06T00:57:00.000-05:00

Hello all! I'm kind of bursting forth with good news at the moment. I'm not quite sure where to start with it all! I guess I'll start with the most immediate news . . .

I'm done with grad school! I can't believe it. Just a few minutes ago I submitted my last paper online. It's pretty surreal. It hasn't really hit me yet. Part of it is that I have nobody to celebrate the moment with right now as I am just at my apartment and my roommates are already asleep. Part of it is that it just doesn't seem real. I've been in grad school for two years, and now I'm not. It's just hard for that to hit me. Regardless, I'm done! YAY!!!!!

I still have some things to do here. My students take their final on Monday, and I have to grade that and then finalize all their grades and get all those things finished up. That doesn't really count as school though; that's more of a job than school, in my opinion. I also have a few loose ends and paperwork things to tie up to make sure I'm officially graduated. However, that's easy and it's not homework. I am done being a student! Huzzah!

However, I refuse to say that I'm done forever. It's quite likely that I am done with school pretty permanently. I'm definitely done for a good few years. I'm just scared to say that I'm done forever and that I'll never be in school again. The last time I did that, I was wrong and I ended up back in the classroom for two more years. I'm semi-terrified of saying that I'm done with school forever because I feel like that would mean I'd end up back in a desk for sure. I'm pretty sure that if I ever did go back, it'd be for seminary of some sort. I don't want to and I don't think that's in my future right now, but I could see it being a possibility in a few years (or decades) down the road. I think this fear of saying I'm done forever is somewhat tempering my excitement of finishing school, but I think the excitement will set in pretty quickly after I've had some sleep and I can wake up without having any homework! At all! For the forseeable, long-term future!

Ultimately, this is an excellent birthday present to myself. Yes, I'm going to be that guy and blog about myself on my own birthday. But really, did you expect anything less? Probably not. My birthday is an important part of this story, though. It was my motivation to finish all my class work in a timely fashion. None of my final projects/papers were due this week. For two of my classes, the material was due next Wednesday. For my third class, it wasn't due until Thursday next week. However, I just wanted to get it done. Months ago, I created this fantasy for myself that I could get all my work done prior to my birthday so that I could end up saying that once I turned 24 (which I am now . . . weird), I could say I was done with school. It's kind of a stupid motivation, but it turned out to be extremely effective. Otherwise, my only motivation would have been finishing before the deadlines next week. I'm glad I used my birthday as an effective motivational tool. So yes . . . happy birthday to me, I guess.

It should be noted that today is not just my birthday. I share this day with many people. I share it with my cousin Taylor who turns 21 today. I share it with my Great-Grandma Urdahl (who I met as a baby but never really knew). I also share it with acclaimed actor George Clooney, baseball (ugh) legend Willie Mays, "Touched By An Angel" actress Roma Downey, former British PM Tony Blair, "Dancing With The Stars" host Tom Bergeron, actor/writer/director Orson Welles, and renowned psychologist/creeper Sigmund Freud. It's a good day.

So that's all that business. Time to move into the next bit of big news. Really, this news is far bigger than finishing school. I'm going to be an uncle! I've actually known for a couple of months now that Bryant and Claire are expecting. They just didn't want to go public to everyone until they'd gotten out of the first trimester and had a chance to tell everyone themselves. The news is finally out now and I can finally talk about it. I've just been itching to blog about this!

They're going to make great parents. I think they will balance each other out very well as parents. Also, I'm 100% convinced that their children will simply be adorable, even more so than babies that I'm not related to, and I don't think I'm even biased in that. I really hope that they get Claire's dark hair and Bryant's blue eyes. That would be wonderful. I think I also want them to have a girl first. All of my cousins on my Dad's side that have kids right now have had boys. Some variety would be fun. I think that Bryant and Claire are waiting until the baby arrives to find out the sex, so I probably won't know for a while. They're due in early November. I'm already looking forward to it.

I've waited for this for four years since they first got married (their anniversary was yesterday, by the way). I think I view being an uncle as an interim step towards fatherhood. It'll be fun to do the fun things with kids but then hand them off to Bryant and Claire when they need food or diaper changes or money or anything like that. It's like the fun of parenting without the responsibility. It'll be great. The only drawback is that Bryant and Claire will be in Minnesota and I'll be here in Kansas. I always thought I'd be around when they had kids. It was actually probably the hardest part of deciding to stay here in Manhattan - knowing that I wouldn't get to see them grow up as closely as I would like. I guess that'll just mean that I'll just have to be the fun random uncle from Kansas that comes up and does crazy stuff. I think I'll make a good uncle. I'll be way better than Uncle Sam. I will not tax.

Until then, my baby creeping is going to be at an all-time high. This only exacerbates my awkward grocery shopping tendencies. Ever since I found out Claire was pregnant, I've been swooning at the sight of a baby at the other end of an aisle. Fortunately I have a cart upon which to stabilize myself. My mom's even worse. This weekend she was practically tearing up every time she saw a baby. She's so eager for a grandchild that when she baby creeps, she's not even subtle about it. It's a special time, I guess.

So that's all that. I may only be 24. I may not have much money. I may not have a car with power locks and windows. I may not live in a fancy apartment. Still, life is really good. I set up a new bank account like a real adult the other day. I have a job. I am done with school. I'm going to be an uncle. I'm incredibly blessed beyond what I deserve. Life is good and God is great.

That's about all I have for now. Have a great day and God bless!

I Get My Baby Creeping From Mom

2011-05-02T23:58:00.000-05:00

Hello all! Things have been happening quickly lately, leaving less time for blogging. I should be doing some sort of homework right now, but I decided blogging is a bit more important. It's really not, but it's more entertaining for me, so . . . here goes.

My parents came to visit me this weekend. It was a grand time. I hadn't seen them since I was last home in early January. They drove up on Friday and got to Manhattan at rather early hours in the morning. As such, I didn't see them until Saturday. We had breakfast at the hotel (SO MUCH BACON) and then just hung out for the day. We went to a garage sale, looked at some apartments, grabbed some ice cream, meandered on campus a bit, and just drove around Manhattan. Later we went out house hunting and found the ritziest area of Manhattan. I didn't even know it existed. I'd heard of it, but it's way off in the northwestern corner of town, and I have no reason to go out that way. It's a beautiful area. I'm going to go running out there someday. It'd be a good place for an eight mile run.

Later that evening we went to the Olive Garden for dinner. It was very tasty, as always, but the best part happened at the end as we were leaving. I spotted a really cute little newborn baby near the exit. I quickly turned around and told Mom. Throughout the weekend we had been noting cute babies and such. Mom asked where the baby was, and I said it was just around the corner from where we had just been. I thought she would discreetly walk back and look around, but no. I was wrong. She just creepily edged her head around until she could see the baby. She's a bigger baby creeper than I am in a grocery store. I guess I know where I get it from now. This woman needs grandkids.

Sunday was fun as well. I started off a bit like a chicken with my head cut off. I was running around church doing announcements and greetings at three of the four services. It was good, though. Mom and Dad went to both a contemporary service and a traditional one, so that was fun for them to see what goes on. After church, we went out to a place called Pillsbury Crossing. I'd heard of it, but I'd never been to it. Apparently it's a place where you can drive your car through the river. It's pretty awesome. I'll definitely head back out that way again sometime.

After that we grabbed lunch, did some shopping, went back to the hotel to rest a bit, and then went bowling. I didn't do very well the first game, but during the second game, I achieved my standard bowling goal of breaking 100. The better part, however, was Mr. Serious Bowler a couple lanes over. He had his own bowling shoes, his own ball, a towel for the ball, and the wrist brace thing that bowlers always wear. We figured he was going to be really good, and I ended up doing better. I bowled 104 on that game, and he bowled a 101. I was three points better than a (seemingly) serious bowler! We (not so) secretly laughed about it. He seemed to be doing a bit better in his second game, but we left before he could finish it.

After that, we had some ice cream and then said our goodbyes. It was a really short time to have them here, but it was great to see them again. Time with them is so rare, and it's a great reminder of what a blessing good family is. They were glad to get down before I went to Croatia as I won't be home until July. I just wish my siblings could have come.

With them gone, things are going to happen quickly. Once Wednesday hits, I will be done with classes! Today was more or less my last day with my students. We finished up our final speeches. I gave them Wednesday off unless they want to meet with me to review. After Wednesday, I'll just have to finish up a few projects and papers before I'm completely done with my student stuff! I'll be done completely with teaching after giving the final and grading it on Monday next week. I'm so excited. Lately when I say I'm going to work, it gets me really excited. I'll be happy to not have to say that I'm going to school. Once school ends, I'll have a couple weeks before a wedding and then I head to Croatia. I'm really excited for this summer.

I have one more thing to really talk about tonight. I've said this many times before in the past, but it's worth repeating. I'm continually impressed by my international students. It's scary enough for most people to get in front of a crowd to talk. To do so in a foreign language must be terrifying, but my international students generally not only get up there and do fine, but they tend to excel. They certainly work hard, and it shows and I'm proud of them.

Well, that's about all I have for now. Have a great day!

God Is Not Dr. Frankenstein

2011-04-23T18:21:00.000-05:00

Hello all! Don't worry, today won't be a long post chronicling my entire day. I probably won't do that again for a while, though I had fun doing it. I've gotten my sleep back, which is good. I'm no longer delirious. I almost was a bit earlier today. I went on an eight mile run today! It felt pretty good. I was getting a bit tired by the end of it, of course. At that point, your body just feels weird. I'm not sure how to describe it. But it's fun. I'm not sure why I want to keep running further and further. It makes little sense. There's no good reason to run more miles than I do. I suppose there's a reason if I want to get up to a half-marathon (which I'd like to at some point), but beyond that . . . why do I do this?

I have three weeks until school is over! It's really exciting to almost be done. I just have two more weeks of class followed by one week of finals. I shouldn't have to do much during finals as most of my class projects have to be done before that. I'm not sure if I have any more paperwork to put through. I should probably figure that out at some point. I'm not really even sure what I have to do to get my diploma. I probably won't get it until after I return from Croatia, which is fine. It'll be a nice little piece of paper to return to.

Moving right along . . . I read Frankenstein recently. The Apple iBookstore has a number of free books, and Frankenstein is one of them. I downloaded it (as well as a few other older classics that are free) in the hope that perhaps I'll be more enthused to actually read them if it's on a more interesting medium. I decided to start with Frankenstein as it's one of the shorter ones. I actually ended up really liking it. It's a good book.

There was one aspect of it that ended up being particularly striking for me. In the story, Dr. Frankenstein gives live to a monster of sorts. (The monster itself is not Frankenstein, as is popularly thought.) Dr. Frankenstein immediately spurns the creature, and the creature exacts revenge by wreaking murderous havoc on Frankenstein's life. As all of this happening, Dr. Frankenstein wants nothing more but to destroy the life that he created.

As I was reading, I couldn't help but think of how different Dr. Frankenstein's reaction is from God's reaction is to the beings that He has created. Dr. Frankenstein was essentially driven insane by the creature he created. He was tremendously upset over knowing the sorrow that his creation inflicted. The madness and sadness of Dr. Frankenstein was incredibly deep.

Humans have done far worse things than Frankenstein's monster. We've lied, cheated, stolen, raped, murdered, destroyed, belittled, and so much more. We're an incredibly flawed race, and we perhaps deserve the greatest destruction that could be poured out on us. For all the things that we have done, we deserve to be destroyed far more than Frankenstein's creature. And surely God knows this. Surely God has felt the pain we have inflicted on one another far more than Dr. Frankenstein did. God must feel the greatest sorrow. God must have the most broken heart.

Despite all this, God's reaction couldn't be further from Frankenstein's. Frankenstein wanted to have his creature destroyed; God wanted His creatures saved and redeemed. God's reaction is to give us His Spirit. God's reaction is to sacrifice His Son for us. The difference between these two reactions is love. Only infinite love could overcome the sorrow that we have created for God, and only infinite love can be that which saves us.

Well, those are my thoughts for the day. I hope you all have a blessed Easter. He is risen!

Anatomy of a Wednesday

2011-04-20T03:22:00.023-05:00

3:18 A.M.
I am up far too late. Sigh. I have been preparing for a book presentation I have to do tomorrow. I normally would head straight to bed, but I decided that on this Wednesday, it might be an interesting experiment to document as much of my day as possible. As such, I will be periodically updating this post as I go. It's going to be a dreadfully long day. I am only going to get two hours of sleep. I have to get up at 5:30 for a book discussion at church that starts at 6:00. Fortunately this only happens every other Wednesday, but unfortunately, it's today. I en have a break until 10:30 when I teach, but I have to use that time to get some other things done for the day. Why do I do this to myself? Alas. I may have to start exploring the art of twenty minute naps during my office hours. I will keep updating throughout the day. Enjoy!

5:45 A.M.
Why am I awake this early? Why aren't sweatpants considered business casual? Why has Lady Gaga's new song been stuck in my head since about ten last night? I do not understand the world this morning.

7:24 A.M.
Book discussion group was good this morning. I guess it was worth being sleep deprived for. We finished up our discussion on "A Life Well Lived" by Tommy Nelson. It's an exploration of Ecclesiastes. It's been a very good book. I mentioned to Ryan that I was running on two hours of sleep, and he asked why I was there. It's a great question. But it was good. One of the guys brought spsome cinnamon rolls, and some of you know how I feel about those, so... That's good. We talked a bit about how Jesus was actually a really funny guy. I always knew God had a sense of humor. After all, I have seen a mirror. I guess I just never really thought of how funny Jesus was. If He had been around in the digital age, I'll bet he would have used smiley face emoticons.

Anyways, I would normally take a two hour nap now, but I have to accomplish a few things first to get ready for class. Maybe I will get it done quickly so I can squeeze in thirty minutes or so. I get weird when I'm on low sleep. Basically I get loopy and really hyper awake before just crashing. Class tonight from seven to ten will be interesting, to stay the least. Stay tuned!

8:15 A.M.
Remarkable progress is being made. I have accomplished two of the three tasks I needed to get done before I go teach. I have about an hour and a half for the third. Go Kavan go! The Lady Gaga song is still stuck in my head, though. You win some, you lose some.

11:42 A.M.
So much has happened since 8:15 this morning. I accomplished the third task. I had to do half of it during my first class, but my students were just workshopping, so that's ok. I was intending to grab a couple of my Krispy Kremes for breakfast, but I was running short on time, and I figured that hunger would help to keep me awake, so I skipped that. Thankfully there was that cinnamon roll this morning. I'm looking forward to my Ramen.

Some things occurred to me as I was driving to class this morning. If two Fords collide with one another, is that like domestic violence in the auto realm? If two cars of different brands collide, is that like gang violence? Are automakers warring on our streets in our traffic accidents? It's a scary thought.

I left my apartment early so that I could get to campus early so I could print a few things for my 2:30 class today. Of course I rush to the library to find that my card won't let me print. I didn't have time to deal with it, so I went to class. Sigh.

Now I'm in class and blogging. I like workshop days. I just sit back. I have a few emails to send to students, but then I fully intend to sit back and read Frankenstein. I'm actually really enjoying it. I've never had any familiarity with the story, so I'm glad I can come to it with a relatively fresh perspective.

And one of my students just wished me a happy 4-20. I'm not sure what that means, but I guess I'm flattered. Didn't Hitler kill himself on this date? I should look that up . . . perhaps after emails/reading some Frankenstein. Email time!

12:07 P.M.
We've switched from morning to afternoon. I'm getting closer to my bed. I got all the emails sent out and I did some grading! I'm so productive today. Really, this week has been productive, which is exciting for some dorky reason. Also, I forgot to mention that I've warned some friends via text that I may be extra obnoxious due to sleep deprivation today. Oh, Wednesdays. To the office!

12:18 P.M.
I'm in the office. Lady Gaga's new song Judas is still stuck in my head, which is really annoying as I haven't even decided if I like it yet. Sigh. I'm reasonably awake, fortunately. We will see how long this lasts. I have two hours in my office before I go to class. I hope I don't crash.

12:30 P.M.
One of my students just finished a quiz. He turned in a pen with the quiz. He left and I was confused as I did not give him the pen. I soon found out that he was searching for a pen and asked my office mate for one, and I missed it entirely. This is either an indicator of my teaching abilities or lack of sleep. Or both.

2:07 P.M.
Note: For the first time in a long time, I had perfect attendance in both of my classes today. Good work, students!

So anyways, Lady Gaga is still stuck in my head. Urg. On the bright side, I got my things printed off at the library and I also squeezed a twenty-minute nap (without drooling) at my desk. I'm almost ready for class. Keep in mind that I'm doing a twenty minute book discussion followed by a time of discussion of said book. This should be fun. I think I need new socks.

3:59 P.M.
It's a class break. I am a fighter. I'm still awake. I present in a moment. We had a visit from another professor that has a penchant for manic laughter and mispronouncing my name. It went well. My headache was minimal. This is my one useful class that I'm taking, which surprises me as I'm not a very political person and it's political communication. One of the first year students is afraid to say anything negative about my paper that we peer reviewed because I'm a second year. I have discovered my powers too late in grad school. I have missed an opportunity.

7:11 P.M.
It is 7:11! Like the gas station! So anyways, I feel like my book presentation in my last class went well, I think. I had a fun time playing devil's advocate as it pertains to negative advertising. I actually really like that class, which thoroughly surprises me. Wow. I already talked about that. Anyways . . . after class, a bunch of us headed to Kite's, a local bar and restaurant. On Wednesdays, they serve sliders (mini-hamburgers) and unlimited fries for just a dollar per slider. That means we get a full meal with two sliders for two dollars. It's amazing. We do it every week in between our two three hour classes on Wednesdays. It takes the edge off of a long day. In any case, we ban discussions on words like study, salience, research, theory, variables, and other such words that remind us of school. It doesn't work well. School is what brings us all here, so inevitably, we discuss that. Sigh. Then we come to class here. It's a three hour class that starts at seven. It's a hard class to sit through. To make a long story short, the class is kind of split in two factions, communication studies and English departments. It creates friction. It's really aggressive. I fully expect to fall asleep at some point during class OR devolve into utter insanity. I might enjoy both options. Lady Gaga is still stuck in my head.

7:30 P.M.
I just hit that point in the day when I have the nearly uncontrollable urge to be barefoot. I just feel like I have had shoes and socks on for far too long. My friend Nicole and I are engaging in the 21st century version of note passing - typing messages to each other on our own screens. On the bright side (which I'm fond of as it is nice and shiny, and I like shiny things), this is our last normal class period. I'm pretty jazzed about that.

8:00 P.M.
Lady Gaga is still stuck in my head. Class is still useless, yet I'm still in it. I could probably list 100 places I would rather be. Let's do it!
1. Bavaria
2. Wittenberg, Germany
3. Rome
4. Mall of America
5. Banff, Canada
6. Honolulu
7. Croatia
8. Belo Horizonte, Brazil
9. Ouro Preto, Brazil
10. Playa de Flamingo, Costa Rica
11. Mom and Dad's house
12. My bed
13. My shower
14. My truck
15. At a bonfire
16. Running in Manhattan
17. Radina's (local coffee shop)
18. OLIVE GARDEN
19. A police station. It'd be fun and educational.
20. Rome
I'll stop there. I'm too tired. But you get the idea.

8:06 P.M.
I just realized I accidentally put Rome twice on that list. Fail.

8:23 P.M.
I wasn't paying attention and just completely said what everyone else said in our group discussion. Fail.

In other news, this discussion is repeating everything we've talked about all semester. My friend Nicole next to me is losing it. She's putting on her sunglasses because her "eyes are tired and the florescent lights are hurting them." We're falling apart. This class is sigh-worthy.

8:37 P.M.
We're almost done with our ten minute break. My friend Aaron has been tweeting about me during class. He also turned me on to the Weird Al Yankovich parody of Lady Gaga's Born This Way. I think Judas might finally be out of my head and may now be replaced with Born This Way. This is regression. Sigh. This glass is just continually regressing.

8:59 P.M.
The professor is trying to get us to simplify tax documents. My temptation is to write "Call H&R Block."

9:02 P.M.
Aaron is channeling Emeril Lagasse. He keeps saying "BAM!" when he types something.

9:19 P.M.
We're competing over who can reduce a tax form to the fewest words without losing information. The competition is fierce. The results are about to be decided. We're being sarcastic about jealousy over this activity. Nicole wishes she could have worked with Aaron and I. It's going to get feisty. Nicole is getting aggressive, which ultimately benefits us because if Nicole successfully defeats the arguments for Janet, Melanie, and LeAnn's form, that benefits us because Janet, Melanie and LeAnn's is the shortest, but ours is the second shortest at 90 words. Nicole's group's is the longest, but she's going to fight for it including the most necessary info. I'll support Nicole as it pertains to the Janet/Melanie/LeAnn document, but when it comes to their own, I will aggressively fight her.

9:26 P.M.
Born This Way is out of my head, but Judas is still definitely still stuck in my head. Silly Lady Gaga. This song has literally almost been in my head for a full 24 hours. This class activity is ridiculous. It's borderline honestly contentious, which is sad, because it's a useless class.

9:33 P.M.
In the midst of contentious negative campaigning against each other's documents, I've begun to serenade Nicole with a lullaby from Mary Poppins. Nicole started sleeping on the table, so I started the "Stay Awake" song.

9:37 P.M.
My group won the mini-contest! And class is over! Win-win! Also, Nicole just excitedly said crapton. I'm not sure why she was so enthused by the word. She was also quite enthused about the Mary Poppins reference. Alright. I'll see you all at home.

10:34 P.M.
So much has happened. First Nicole and I left class and went to the secret garden. It's a little (actually non-secret) courtyard that we've passed dozens of times but only noticed last week. We stopped there on the way back home. It's a pleasant little place with a couple chairs and trees and grass and such. As we were chatting, I suddenly heard this odd noise coming from my person. It felt like it was coming from my appendix. Then I realized it was immediately behind me. Then I realized that Hermione (my iPad) suddenly decided to loudly play music. I frantically got it out to turn it off. It freaked me out and left me a little bit giggly with delirious laughter. After our chat, Nicole and I went our separate ways. Then as I was on my way home, my dad of all people wished me a "Happy Pot Smoking Day." He just asked if anyone had filled me in on that. I've known for years. Oh parents.

Anyways, as I was getting out of my truck, I noticed some keys on the ground outside of my apartment. I was about to take them and bring them to a lost and found or something when Hermione activated her music again! I don't know what's gotten into it. I was distracted from the keys, so I ran into my apartment before taking my backpack off to take the iPad out. I suppose the keys are still out there, which is probably better. Whoever is missing them will likely retrace their steps, so it should be left in a place where they had walked. That's my justification for not leaving my apartment again.

So this was more or less a normal Wednesday. Usually I'm not so sleep deprived, but the rest was about par for the course. With that, I'm going to sign off for the day. I had fun with the live blogging experiment. It may happen again later. We'll see how this one went. Time to go read some Frankenstein and then go to bed without setting an alarm as Thursday is kind of a free day for me. Yay! Ok. Goodnight and God bless!

10:49 P.M.
Lady Gaga is still stuck in my head. It's been twenty-four hours.

The Awkward Grocery Shopper

2011-04-18T23:47:00.000-05:00

Hello all! I feel like I've been such a slacker lately when it comes to blogging. I want to blog about every two days, but I seem to only find time once a week lately. Sigh. I have a list of things to blog about, too. I'm making so little progress on it as of late. Sigh again. On a semi-related note . . . I need some advice. I don't want to name names, but one of my younger siblings seems to think I blog too much and that I should shorten things down to a couple paragraphs. The thought is abhorrent to me; I have much to say. I want to be a writer. How can I limit myself? Blog space is free. Why be so short? At the same time, there may be something to be said for the art of being concise. Thoughts?

Anyways, I'm settling into the whole idea of Having A Job When I Graduate. It's nice. It'll be a bit odd as it'll be the first time in my life where I'll be in a life phase that has no expiration date. I'll just be working. I wonder if that'll make me antsy. I've started apartment hunting a bit. I'm trying to figure out if I want a roommate or not. There's plenty of pros and cons to each. I'm not sure who I'd live with if I wanted a roommate, so if you have any ideas, let me know. I've also started bank hunting. I think I've picked one. I went bank hopping the other day and just drove from place to place collecting brochures. It'll be nice to have a bank that's not 550 miles away.

There is a bit of a downside to Having A Job When I Graduate. It has a bit of a negative impact on my (already minimal) scholastic motivation. Normally I struggle to start writing a paper until midnight the night before it's due. Now that I have a job lined up, I sometimes find myself not really starting a paper until one, two, or three in the morning. It's bad for me. I need my handsome sleep.

Croatia update: team funds are all raised, so that's all good to go. Thanks to all who donated! Thank you cards shall be in the mail soon, I promise. Things are hectic. We are having our last training session tomorrow night. We will probably still meet a few more times before departing to plan parties and just hang out or whatever. It's weird. I leave in five weeks from today. I haven't really been able to process my Croatia plans as I've been focused on finishing school (!) and getting a job (!!!!). I'm actually really glad I haven't been thinking of Croatia much. Last year I was so antsy to go to Brazil. This year I'm a bit more in the here and now. Croatia will sneak up on me a bit, which I think is better for me. Yay!

In other news, I'm a supremely awkward grocery shopper. (This is the part where I just randomly talk about myself . . . which has also been the entire preceding portion of the post.) I never realized how awkward I was when grocery shopping until I moved down here. The first time I was here, I called a friend because I was lonely and I was still struggling to adjust down here. The next time that I went shopping, however, I realized I was talking to the food. "Pringles? Where are you? There you are! Get in my cart!" Seriously. Or I'd be looking at two choices and trying to decide between the two. "Oh hey, Eggos. What's the difference between buttermilk and homestyle? Which should I get?" It's so awkward. I was worried that people would see me talking to myself/the food and judge me.

As such, I created a system in which I call people so that I'm talking on the phone while grocery shopping. This usually Rachel Ostroot (shout out to my homegirl!), but sometimes Cassie fills in as well. I still talk to the food, as Rachel can attest, but at least it's over the phone, and I look like a real person and not a crazy food psychic. Talking on the phone does present a problem in that it's more difficult to maneuver a cart one-handed, but still, I'd rather look sane.

However, I recently was without anyone to talk to on the phone whilst shopping. Rachel was busy, Cassie was busy, my parents didn't answer, and neither did my brothers or other friends. I was left alone to my own devices, and my awkwardness reached new heights. I was still talking to the food . . . par for the course. Whatever. That's fine. I discovered other weird habits. With no one to talk to, I start doing awkward lunges and dramatic turns with the grocery cart. I'll hold on to the handle and take these big sliding steps that basically become lunges as I try to decide if I need to go down a given aisle. It's so awkward. I don't even realize I'm doing it until I'm mid-lunge and talking to the syrup selection. On top of all this, I become a baby creeper. There is always someone with a baby and I always find myself trying to stare without getting noticed. They are just so cute. I can't not look, which makes me feel like a creeper. I'm trying to justify it as pre-parental paternal instincts. It's working well.

It's getting worse. I went shopping yesterday, and as usual, I called my dear Rachel to guide me through the process. The conversation drifted to me trying to decide if I want to get an apartment to myself or share with a roommate. She started listing off the pros and cons of each, but it was a bit disjointed. Out of nowhere, I put on my metaphoric teaching hat and gave her a mini version of my chapter eight public speaking lecture about divided and alternating comparison outlines. I'll spare you that lecture for now, but I suddenly found myself giving an improvised lecture in the ice cream aisle. This awkwardness just keeps escalating. I think I need a personal shopper.

I think that about does it for tonight. I'll try to get all up in the blog again before week's end. I suppose that since it's Easter weekend, I'll probably share my recent weird Jesus resurrection dream. It was kind of creepy yet revealing. More on that later, and possibly my thoughts on acting with Brad Pitt. We'll see where blogging takes me. Until then, farewell and God bless!

I Have A Job!

2011-04-12T23:23:00.001-05:00

I have a job! Yay! I'm excited! (We'll just jump right in today.) My internship at University Christian Church is basically being upgraded into an eventual full-time position. I think my eventual job title is "Executive Coordinator," but I don't think that's set in stone yet. It's kind of a fun title, though. I'm a bit biased, though, as I did make it up. In essence I'll be taking care of the churches volunteer management (organizing volunteers and volunteer opportunities), event planning, implementing church vision projects, and eventually buildings/grounds management. At the moment, it's kind of an in-progress position, which I actually really like. It's a bit more nebulous, but that means I'll probably have a lot of flexibility in just going at different projects that I want to make happen that fit our overall mission.

I've actually known that this has been a possibility since February or so. A while back, Ryan (the senior minister) and I were talking about different roles and administrative tasks at UCC. In the course of the conversation, Ryan mentioned how they'd like to eventually create an administrative role for a new staff member that would take things off of his plate so that he could focus on more important things. When we initially started discussing this theoretical jobs, bells just started going off in my head saying that it was the kind of job I wanted. Ryan mentioned during that conversation that he had me vaguely in mind for it. This was when I started really rethinking why I wanted to leave Manhattan. Up until that point, I had been planning on getting out of Kansas and going to Colorado or Utah or Arizona or something, but once this came up, it was kind of a big smack in the face. If nothing else, I knew then that God was saying "I'll put you where I want you." I wanted God to want me to be somewhere "interesting," but this all made me realize my version of "interesting" was code for "selfish."

Anyways, once we'd had that initial conversation, I couldn't get the idea out of my head. It kept growing and growing until I realized I really wanted that job. I even had a dream at one point that the possibility was taken away for some reason, and I was crushed. That was weird. As time went on, we started to clarify what the job would be and we started to have some more serious conversations about it. Some things still had to fall into place for it to all work out. In the meantime, I had to be patient (not my forte) and seek out if this was really God's plan for me. That's always difficult for me to discern when there's not a clear sign. In retrospect, it's clear, but when I'm in the midst of the decision process, it's hard for me to know.

In any case, I got to the point where I was able to tell Ryan that if offered, I'll accept a position. With that said, he started to put it out to the Elders that he'd like to keep me around. Ryant pitched it as "Let's keep him around for at least three months and go from there." He met with the Elders on Monday and they generally liked his idea, except that they figured instead of three months, at least six would be more appropriate. Ryan called me after the meeting to let me know, and that was that. I have a job!

At the moment, it's technically a temporary thing, but the plan is for it to be completely full time within a few months. For that to happen, a few more puzzle pieces need to fall into place, but those puzzle pieces have nothing to do with me, so I'm not going to worry about it at the moment. I'm just excited. It's such a departure from where I was at two years ago. I was a mess for the majority of my senior year with worrying what I was going to do post-college. I've been determined throughout grad school to not worry about post-school plans, and by and large, I've felt much better. I have such a greater trust this time that God will put me where he needs me and I'll be fine. Lo and behold . . . He pulled through. Surprise! (Not really.)

Looking back on it, a lot of things had to happen for this all to come to fruition. I think that's the thing that's really convinced me that this is where I need to be. To have this job, I first needed the internship. In order to have time for the internship, I needed to have crazy advisor drama to force me out of a thesis and into the comp exam option. To have the internship, I had to have been studying their office communication for my consulting project. I could have been in the groups that studied volunteers or larger events at UCC, but I was put in the office group. To have been doing that consulting project, I had to be in the class, and I had to knew I really liked that professor to take that class. The reason I liked that professor was because of a previous class that I had to take. I took that class because it was required. It was required because I went to grad school. I went to grad school because I trusted my speech coach. I trusted him because he was my mentor for four years and I thoroughly enjoyed my time here. I could keep going, but I won't. This is maybe all over-analyzing it, but maybe not. I think it's valuable to look back and see how God connected the dots to get you where you are now. Try it sometime. It can be interesting.

So yes. It's really exciting. It's the ideal work environment for me. I'm motivated by people, and this job gives me that in the sense that I'm working for people I respect and they need these things taken care of. The work itself plays to my strengths. To get a job with this level of responsibility elsewhere would be really difficult without better connections or more experience. It's a really great opportunity, and I'm excited. I keep saying that. Whatever. I'm not going to get rich off this, but I'm also not going to be dumpster diving for food, either. Granted, my culinary abilities are only a couple steps above dumpster diving . . .

I'll basically just start gradually easing into it. I'm not sure when I can actually assume my proposed "Executive Coordinator" title. I kind of hope it's soon because that sounds way cooler than "Administrative Intern/Consultant" in my email signature.(But that's completely selfish.) I'll start to do more hours as I can with school. I think my next big thing will be to start getting training on the buildings/grounds management stuff as that will eventually be a big part of my responsibilities. Once school finishes, I can basically work full time for a couple weeks before I head off to Croatia. Then once I come back from Croatia and a wedding in MN, I'll start full force on July 11 or so. Huzzah!

I know I keep saying this. I'm really excited and thankful to have this opportunity. Other than just the security of a job, the job itself seems to offer some interesting possibilities. Tonight we talked at LST training about how God prepares us for things. I can see that God has prepared me for this. Why? Not sure yet. I don't need to be. But I think God prepares us things that prepare us for other things. When we grow up, we learn to put on clothes. This prepares us to learn to tie shoes. Learning to tie shoes prepares us to tie awesome knots. Tying knots can prepare to be a sailor on an old-school giant sailboat. Once you're prepared for that, the sky (or ocean?) is the limit. God is always preparing us for the next thing He has in mind for us, whether we realize it or not.

Well, I've droned on about myself long enough. Farewell and God bless!

I'm Getting Sick Of Nebraska

2011-04-09T22:54:00.000-05:00

Hello all! I've had a bit of an odd week and a half or so. I spent several days (about six) there last week when I went to watch speech nationals. It was wonderful. More on that in a moment. Then last night I went to Nebraska again for a quick LST training thing. I just seem to not get away from the place. Well, I'm home now, and enjoying actually being back. I likely won't leave town for any overnight stays until I go to Croatia!

So yes . . . the rest of the speech national tournament went amazingly well. It was kind of nerve-wracking for a while as we didn't have as many students get to quarterfinals as last year when they got tenth place, so we weren't sure that we would repeat the success the team had last year. (I wasn't able to be there last year as it was too far away.) However, things turned out amazingly well. Gustavus once again got 10th place in the nation! It's really an incredibly achievement, especially when you consider that most of the schools in the top 20 (let alone the top ten) are D1 or D2 schools. There's no divisions in speech, so we go up against schools that have way more resources than we do, so getting 10th nationally is incredible. Gustavus is the only non-Division 1 school to be in the top 20 for the past five consecutive years. It's pretty impressive. Phil Helt became the program's fourth (and first male) All American, which is quite the feat.

We also had our first ever national champion! Chloe Radcliffe won prose, which is arguably the hardest category as it has the most competitors. She beat out 165 other students which are the best of the best once you get to nationals. I was so proud to be there and support them. It's a little bit hard to watch the quarterfinals, semifinals, and finals knowing that I never reached that level of competition when I wanted to so incredibly badly. Once awards came around, however, all of that went away and I was just proud of them. The current juniors and seniors were freshmen and sophomores during my senior year, so it was so great to be there with them and watch them have that success. I loved it.

So that was all over Monday night, and we drove back to Kansas on Tuesday. I spent a couple days doing the whole school thing. Some friends and I went out on Thursday evening to celebrate my completion of my comp exams. Then came Friday and suddenly I was off to Nebraska again! Rod (one of my teammates for Croatia) and I went up to York, Nebraska for an LST training thing. It was a fairly quick thing. We did some stuff on Friday night and then finished up this morning. We got back home around four. I am now done with Nebraska for the forseeable future.

Speaking of the forseeable future . . . school is winding down quickly! Right now, I have five weeks left until I'm done! That even includes the week of finals, and realistically, I won't have to do much during that week save for take a final (not sure which day), give my students their final and do all the grading, and finish a few last papers (possibly). Classes are done in four weeks! The light at the end of the tunnel is growing.

Well, I do have a few other things I could talk about right now (like my awkward grocery shopping tendencies) but those will have to wait for a few days, methinks. I'm thinking it's time to read some Frankentstein. I'm trying to read some of the older classic books as they're free on the iPad, so . . . Frankenstein it is. I hope you all have a lovely day. God bless!

I've Never Been This Happy To Be In Nebraska

2011-04-02T23:02:00.000-05:00

Hello all! It's been a while since I last blogged. I intended to blog again once spring break was winding down, and then once class started for the week, but the beginning of the week was a bit crazy, so blogging had to be put on hold for a while. I feel like that's a terrible excuse, but alas, such is my life. Sigh.

Before I get to the real meat of tonight's blog, I have a few life updates. First and for most, I passed my comp exams! These are the exams I did in place of doing a thesis. I did the exams before spring break and felt good about them, but I didn't know how I had done. Then last Monday I did my oral defense in which I talked to the professors about the strengths and weaknesses of my exams. To make a long story short . . . I passed and didn't have to make any revisions! I was a bit surprised at that, but I'll gladly take it. I'm done with it! Now that it's over, I'm so glad I didn't do a thesis. When I first decided against the thesis, I was a little bit bummed out, but now that it's over, I realize it was completely the right choice for me. I'm not self-motivated academically, so a thesis would likely have been my undoing. I passed comps! Now all I have to do for grad school is pass my classes and I'm done! The nice part about that is the heaviest work for each class is already done. The light at the end of the tunnel is growing.

Along similar lines, I hit an odd milestone with teaching this past week. I gave my last two lectures for teaching this past Monday and Wednesday. That means I'm essentially done teaching. The rest of the semester is just workshops, quizzes, and speech days. Actual teaching days are over. I have mixed feelings about it. I actually never minded doing the lectures. I even enjoyed them, to be honest. I think I like attention. I know I do. I will no longer have a captive audience. I'll have to earn people listening to me, which is much harder. I'm probably going to become increasingly desperate for attention. That may mean more blogging. On that end, it's a bit of a downer. On the bright side, which I'm ever so fond of as of late, being done with lessons is just another sign that school is almost over! Yay! I've enjoyed my two years of teaching, but it's not what I see myself doing long-term, and so I'm getting ready to move on.

Speaking of moving on . . . time for long story time. If you've been reading this blog for a while, you know that last year I really struggled at times with moving on after being so invested in speech when I was at Gustavus. This year I have been much better. I've missed the activity far less and I've haven't gotten depressed far less. I certainly still miss all the people, but I'm much more at peace with being done with it all.

Well, this year, I decided that it would be fun to join the speech team, if possible, for nationals. I wanted to last year, but it was just too far away and it didn't work with my school schedule. This year, it was possible. I hitched a ride here to Kearney, Nebraska with the K-State team and joined the Gustavus team this past Wednesday evening. The coaches knew I was coming as I'm judging for Gustavus, but I was able to surprise the students, which was super fun. I love surprising people. (Again, I clearly enjoy attention.) It's been so wonderful to reconnect with the team and meet this year's freshmen. I've got to coach them a little bit and they've brought some really wonderful speeches this year. I'm proud of them and excited to see what they accomplish this weekend.

So the first couple of days were practice days for them. Competition started today. I'm judging, which is something I've done before at smaller tournaments, but never at a big tournament like nationals. It's kind of fun to be on the other side of things. Honestly, though, I was a bit nervous about it. I struggled last year when I judged. It's nice to not be stressed out and constantly have speeches to work on, but I miss the thrill of competition and performance. Coming into this week, I've been worried that I would miss it again and that would start a cycle of envying those who get to still perform and envying those who reach the success I only ever dreamed of.

With that in mind, I'm doing very well with it. I feel that I have enough distance now to just enjoy the ride. It's nice that I can share in the success of the Gustavus team, but I don't have any chance of letting myself down. I did that a lot. I expected more of myself than I could actually do, and it just stewed inside me for too long. Now that I'm past that, I can just enjoy the activity and really just celebrate the team success. Team success had always meant more to me than my own. (I don't know why I didn't realize back then that I'm motivated by people and that I'm not self-motivated . . . that should have been a big clue. Why did I only realize that just this year?) Even though I'm not part of the team anymore, I can still just celebrate their success, and that's going to be quite the thrill for me, I think.

Day one of competition was today. I feel like it went well for the students. They all generally feel good about it. Most of the preliminary rounds were today. The rest will be tomorrow morning, and quarterfinals will be tomorrow afternoon. Semifinals and finals will be on Monday. At this point, it's impossible to say what will happen, but based on what I saw with coaching the past two days and what I saw as a judge today, I know that Gustavus could very possibly have a very good tournament and I'm so excited to see what will happen.

It's been so fun just to be with them the past couple days. I've never enjoyed Nebraska more. I hadn't seen many of them in almost a year, and I don't know how long it'll be before I see any of them again. I'm trying to enjoy it while it lasts and really treasure it. It's funny how just being with people for just a short time will remind you of how much you love them. They're great people and I'll miss them dearly when we part ways on Tuesday. I'm not looking forward to that part.

Well, I have to go do the whole sleep thing. It's kind of important, I suppose. By the way, before I forget, it's April. I'm so happy. School is slowly dying. I have just over a month left. Anyways, sleep. Farewell and God bless!

Disturbing Forays Into Adulthood

2011-03-23T23:52:00.000-05:00

Hello all! Today is going to be a bit more random than some other days. I realize that that may be concerning, but bear with me. It's going to be ok. I think.

First of all, the other day at church, I was noting how often I run into my students there. There was a day where I ran into about five of them at one service. It suddenly hit me that I've had a ton of students. I did some quick basic math (yes, I am somewhat capable of that . . . though I may have used a calculator) and realized that when all is said and done, I'll have taught around 240. That's almost a quarter of a thousand people. It's kind of scary. I've taught 240 people, for better or for worse (hopefully better). It weirds me out a bit. I guess it's also a reflection of the staggering amount of people we come into contact in our lives. Who are you being to all these people? Are you impacting hundreds of people for better or for worse on the whole? Hmm . . . this may warrant future introspection. But not now.

Right now, I want to talk about cinnamon. I know what you're thinking. "Cinnamon? Really, Kavan?" Yes. (New high? Or new low? You decide.) So recently I was making myself some toast and I realized that I was out of cinnamon! I was kind of surprised. A thing of cinnamon lasts forever. I got the first thing of cinnamon when I first moved to Kansas, I think. That's been about a year and a half. One thing of cinnamon lasts a long time when you're using it on my own. That's when it hit me . . . using one container of cinnamon on your own is kind of a step into adulthood. Kids don't go through cinnamon on their own. I did. I'm not a kid anymore.

It was an abrupt shove into adulthood for me. Granted, I'm kind of striving for that. I have never really felt like an adult as I've been a student forever. Going through my own thing of cinnamon is a step, I guess. I had to buy a second cinnamon container the other day. It was weird.

I've had other, more disturbing forays into adulthood as of late. I'm starting to see the dark underbelly of adulthood. Namely, you have to pay for things you took for granted as a kid. For example, my roommates and I were recently discussing the electric bills and paying to keep the apartment warm. Suddenly I realized that I have to pay money now to stay warm. I normally divorce the act of paying the bills from keeping myself warm, but when I pay my electric bill, I'm paying to stay warm (or cool in the summer). It was a weird realization. As a kid, I was just warm. I didn't think of how it happened. It just was. I took it for granted.

Along similar lines, seeing my family now pretty much costs money. Seeing my friends costs money. I have to pay to see the ones I love. That sounds a little odd, but with me living in Kansas and my family (and many friends) back in Minnesota, I have to pay money to go see them. With gas prices going way up as they are, I now have to budget visits back home and figure out how often I can go see my family. It wasn't like that when I was younger. Mom and Dad just piled us into a car and we saw Grandma and Grandpa or whatever once we emerged from the car. Money was still being paid to drive to their house, but it wasn't mine and I never conceptualized it as having to spend money to go see loved ones. Now I have to do that.

I'm gradually being exposed to the lesser levels of adulthood. Apparently it's not this shiny utopia of real people and real jobs and a salary. There are hidden realities that I never truly considered. Still, I must press on. Though I'm sure adulthood will present new trials and tribulations it is my destiny and I must not shy away.

And now to take the drama down a few notches . . . today was pretty productive. I cleaned up my desk and did taxes in one fell swoop. I'm getting a much more sizable return than last year, which is exciting. It was also a bit easier to file as I only had to file for Kansas this year, not Kansas and Minnesota. Huzzah! I also got all my quizzes graded. I still have another pile of papers I've been ignoring for a month to grade, but I'll hopefully tackle that tomorrow . . . or Friday . . . or Saturday. Sigh.

That's about it for now. Have a great day and God bless!

Trusting My Trust

2011-03-21T22:08:00.000-05:00

Why hello all! I hope you are all having a wonderful day. I know I've enjoyed mine. Today the weather here hit eighty degrees! It was most lovely. I decided to go for a nice little run. My goal was to get back up to seven miles as I'd been running six for a couple weeks now. Getting back up to seven would put me back to where I was last year. However, I underestimated the heat and I also didn't hydrate at all before my run, which was stupid. I got to feeling like I was going to pass out/die, so I ended up only doing about four and a half miles of running and a mile or so of walking. I was really disappointed in myself. I'm going to shoot for seven again later in the week, and this time I'll hydrate before going out and go when it's not so warm. Still, it was nice to be outside. Spring is definitely here. Green is beginning to emerge.

Spring break is going nicely so far. I've mostly just stayed home relaxing, reading, and such, which has been quite pleasant. Eventually I'm going to get to some of my projects like cleaning my desk, taxes, grading, and that sort of thing, but I may just stay home one more day. So far I've finished two books. I had started them earlier. One was Catcher in the Rye. Personally, I found it to be very overrated. The other was a book called Sex God by Rob Bell. I'm mixed on it. It's about the connections between sex and spirituality. It was decent, but the writing and style felt a bit gimmicky to me. I'm not quite sure what to think about it.

The internship continues to keep chugging along nicely. In addition to all of my other things I had to do last week, I finished my project of developing all the job descriptions for the staff. My next project is to start developing evaluations. We've got the groundwork in place, but I need to start tailoring some of the items to each individual staff member (a total of thirteen people). I'm going to hopefully get the bulk of that done before break as school will pick up again post-break. Sigh. It was pretty exciting though . . . when I was at work the other day, I received my first phone call that was for me! Someone called in wondering who to talk to about volunteer stuff . . . and that was me! I had my first phone call! I was fairly enthused.

So that's all that. Now that I finally have time on my hands to blog again, it's time to get introspective again. I haven't done that in a while. So lately I've been contemplating my future. It's about time to do that as I'm nearly done with school. As such, I have to figure out what to do in my next phase of life. (I've quit talking about "what to do with my life" as a whole as that implies that I can figure out the rest of my life; I can't.) This time around, I've been really wanting to let God take charge of things. He is kind of in charge anyways, but sometimes we get stubborn and pretend that's not the case.

I say "this time around" because realistically, I haven't really consciously allowed God to guide me on big decsisions, per se. I didn't really have big decisions in high school, really. High school was silly and easy and mostly just kind of there. Choosing a college was the first real choice I made; it was the right one, but I didn't really seek God's direction in it. Coming to grad school was my next big directional life choice. At the time, it seemed like it was just the best choice as it was the best(/only) opportunity on a variety of levels. Looking
back on it, it was more or less a choice God made for me, but it wasn't a choice I really sought His guidance on.

As such, this time around, I want God to guide me on my path. I've struggled with that lately, but in different ways than I have in the past. Throughout grad school, I've wanted to move out west to Colorado or something when I'm done. I kept thinking that God would provide a way for that to happen. I recently realized, however, that I wanted all of that for selfish reasons; I wanted God's will to conform to mine, and that's not how things work. I think I've kind of let go of that now, I think. I think I'm past the point of trying to decide where I want to be and then asking God to just make it happen. I'm trying to let God put me where I'm supposed to be.

With that, however, I'm led to my next difficulty. What I'm trying to do, in essence, is come to truly trust God in providing me with a path. I keep looking and praying for a definitive sign from Him about which direction to take things. However, God doesn't always work in definitive signs. I'm not sure if I just haven't waited long enough, but how long do you wait? I know that God wants us to be patient and that He does not work on our timeline. I also know that God sometimes doesn't just bluntly give us answers.

Without definitive signs from God, I'm trying to piece together how to follow God in this. I'm starting to think that this is perhaps God's way of trying to get me to trust myself to trust Him. I'm not sure if that makes sense. Basically, I don't really trust myself when it comes to trusting God. I'm human; I'm fallible. I'm not always who I want to be. I can't lay claim on any amazing insights or anything like that. In the past, I've told myself I trust God, but so often that has been just convincing myself what I want is actually what God wants. Now I'm wondering if roads are before me with no clear correct choice so that I can learn to make a choice and trust God in the choice I make, if that makes sense. Maybe I'm just supposed to step out in faith and trust that God will use whatever steps I take from here.

So that's what I'm trying to process right now. I'm glad I have some time to just sit back and think on it for a few days. I'm hoping to really sort some things out over break here. Hopefully I can come out of it with some clearer direction. If anyone has any thoughts or advice on any of this, I would really appreciate that. I'm all ears.

Well, that's about all I have for today. Time to go check a few other things off of my spring break project list. God bless!

Grad School 87.5% Complete!

2011-03-18T16:01:00.000-05:00

Hello! it's time for another update. A lot has happened over the past week, which is good. It's been my busiest week of grad school yet, so I was really dreading it. I was nervous because I had my comprehensive exams to do. The comp exams are basically the exams I decided to take in place of doing a thesis. My friend Nicole spent months preparing, and I didn't, so I was getting nervous. I also had a couple papers in the mix, so . . . yeah. There was a huge amount of work I had to get done, more than any other week of grad school that I've experienced.

I got the week off with a bang on Saturday. Basically I stayed up all night on Friday night playing on my iPad until 6 in the morning on Saturday. I noticed it was getting light out, so I went to bed for about four hours before waking up around 10:15. I couldn't go back to sleep, so I just decided to commit to the day. I received my exam questions for the first of my three exams. Basically the professors prepare a couple of questions, and then I have to respond within a certain time frame. One prof gave me a series of questions on Saturday that I had to finish by Tuesday. I decided to just get it over and done with so I could move on with my life. I started it on Saturday, hung out with friends on Saturday night until late hours, lost an hour, and then got up for church. (Notice a trend of sleep deprivation.) Sunday after church I went back home and spent a few hours finishing the exam. Comps part one was complete!

Not that I had a break after that, really. Once that was done, I went to Bible study, and after that, I came home and started preparing for my second comp exam. For this professor, I was going to have a tighter time frame of four hours on Monday, so I had to do more preparation. I was up until 4 in the morning getting ready for it. That meant five hours of sleep before getting up to teach my delightful students. Needless to say, I was amusingly loopy for them. And I was using a potent whiteboard marker for the lecture, which just slightly exacerbated my lack of sleep. Then when I got back to my office, I sat down and busted out my second comp exam. Comps part two was complete!

Still, I didn't have time to rest. Monday night I worked a bit on a smaller paper. I got a decent night's sleep that night. Tuesday I had staff meeting and then class, except that the prof canceled class without telling us. Alas. Still, that worked for me as it gave me time to go finish the paper I'd started Monday night. Then I had to put together a massive lit review for another class, so . . . I did that until 2 or 3 in the morning. I'm a crazy person.

Wednesday was as busy as ever. Teaching for two hours, office hours for two hours, class for three hours, break for an hour and half for dinner, and then class for three more hours. Normally I come home and crash after that, but I came home and then stayed up until three that morning to finish an annotated bibliography that was due Friday. I just needed it out of the way so that I could focus on part three of my comps.

With all my papers and the first two parts of my comp exams out of the way, it was time to do my last comp exam. After class on Thursday, I went grocery shopping and then a quick six mile run, which felt amazing. After that, I attempted starting my third comps exam, but focus issues prevented me from really starting until 10. Now mind you, I had until 8 am on Saturday to complete this exam, but I'd decided that I just wanted to get it done. As such, I stayed up until four in the morning again to finish it. I'm kind of crazy. I also stood to write most of it. When I go running for long distances, it becomes really uncomfortable to sit at a desk for some reason, so I stood at my desk. It looked completely ridiculous, I'm sure. I had to stack pillows and textbooks on my desk to raise my keyboard up to an appropriate standing height. I'm so crazy. But I got it done!

I was quite relieved to have it done, though I was too tired to process it. I'm kind of in the same mode today. I was so loopy. My students probably thought I was crazy, which is fair, I suppose. I'd been dreading these exams for months, and to have them out of the way (along with my papers) is quite the relief. What's really nice is that I actually wasn't that stressed about the whole thing. That could be because I'm just over school and don't care enough. It could also because God gave me the strength to not worry about it. I suspect it was a fair measure of each.

Now that this week is over, it means that I'm a little over 87.5% done with grad school! It's kind of exciting to think of it in those terms. Realistically, it's probably a little more with the comp exams done. I won't know how I did on them until the Monday after spring break when I have my oral exam, but I feel pretty good about them. The professors want me to pass and all, so I'm not too concerned about it. In any case, I'm done, and I'm ready to not think much about school for a few days.

Why? Because I'm now on spring break! Yay! I'm looking forward to reading, doing taxes, sleeping, blogging, running, and all that jazz. I have a list of things I want to blog about, and now I'll finally have some time to do that. I'm inordinately excited to blog. I'm such a loser. Judge me freely.

Well, it's time to go start celebrating. I'm not sure what that means, but I suppose I have all evening to figure off. Farewell and God bless!

Hello, Hermione!

2011-03-12T03:12:00.001-06:00

Hello, all! I'm writing to report that I have resolved my recent computer issues... I have gotten myself an iPad! I am really liking it so far, though it will certainly take some getting used to. It's just such a different interface, but yet it is so easy! Oh Apple... Such beautiful products.

While I still grieve the loss of Zulabelle, it is time for me to move on and welcome a new member to my family. My iPad is named Hermione. I was inspired by Hermione Granger from the Harry Potter novels. The Hermione in those books is just so capable, talented, and magical. I thought that the name would be fitting, thus, Hermione. I look forward to a wonderful life with Hermione.

It was kind of an event to get her. Last Sunday when I was at Best Buy, they were unsure as to when they would receive the iPad in stock. I then just decided to order it online. Then this morning when I went to place my order, it was two to three weeks of shipping! I can't do that! So then I called Best Buy to see if they would have it today, and they said they would! I was quite glad. I got there at 4:20 and there was already a fairly long line. It was kind of a fun atmosphere. We were all sharing our iPad stories... whether or not we already had one, which one we wanted, etc. Fortunately, they had enough that I was able to get model I was hoping for for! I also nabbed a cover, keyboard, and camera connector kit, so I went home happy! Since then I have been toying around a little bit with it and getting used to it. I'll like it. It's just a matter of time until I find the right apps and such. It will be fun.

I just had a really great day. It was beautiful outside... over 70 degrees! Take that, Minnesota! Also, I had some fun student speeches today. During class I also found out that some of my students have found my blog. That amused me. If you are my student, go do your homework. Also, shout out to Phillicia! Holla! Later in the day I went off to my internship, which I always enjoy. To cap off the day, I just had a couple meaningful conversations that I will likely get into at a later date.

Today has been a good energizer. I need it considering that next week may kill me. I am doing my massive final exams for grad school. I am a bit nervous about it, but I think it will be ok. I have those and two big papers to do, so it could bet rough. Prayers would be appreciated! I probably won't blog much during that time, but you never know. I may need an escape.

Today has just been a really big blessing. God is at work, as per usual. I guess I was just more aware of it today than other days. I hope I can keep this attitude. Yay. That's all I have for now. Farewell and God bless!

The Life And Death of Zulabelle

2011-03-05T02:51:00.000-06:00

Many of you have already heard, but my computer Zulabelle has recently passed away. Zulabelle began showing symptoms of failure a few weeks ago. Her original power cord ceased to function, so I got a new power cord for her. It seemed to be working. Over the past couple of weeks, however, it became increasingly difficult for Zulabelle to receive a charge. On Wednesday evening, she completely stopped taking a charge, and the battery stopped a few minutes later. After several consultations with the experts on Thursday, it was determined that repairs would be more costly than it's worth, effectively meaning that Zulabelle is no longer with is. While her passing is difficult, I choose to remember the time we had together and look back upon it with fondness.

Before I started college, I did not have my own"real" computer. I had a hand-me-down computer that had some limited capabilities, but I still rarely used it, and I used the family computer more often than not. It wasn't my first serious computer.

My first serious computer, Zulabelle, came when I was about to start college. It was summer. I'd never purchased my own computer before. I went to the Apple store in the Mall of America and looked around before finding Zulabelle. She was the top of the line at the time. I loved Zulabelle at first sight, and she loved me. I'd never had a computer like her before, and it changed my life.

Our connection was instant and intimate. Zulabelle was there as I transitioned into college. She helped me get my studies underway and helped me stay in touch with friends from high school. As time progressed, we grew closer and we grew closer. We listened to the same music and watched many of the same movies; she read everything I wrote; Zulabelle came to learn all my most intimate secrets. There was nothing I hid from her, and she never judged me.

We went through a lot together, Zulabelle and I. We spent a semester abroad together in Germany and traveled to Italy as well. Zulabelle carried all of my pictures of my travels and supported my budding interest in photography. She came with me to countless speech tournaments. When I finished with college, I began to wonder how much more life she had in her, and she continued to surprise me. Though her battery life began to wane, Zulabelle continued to function as I moved to Kansas. She was there when I struggled to adjust to life away from Minnesota. Zulabelle was with me when I was hit by a car, and like a champ, she was unhurt. She joined my family and I on a wonderful vacation to Costa Rica. Later she came with me for another extended stay abroad in Brazil. There is little that I have done without her over the past several years.

Zulabelle has been with me through good times and bad. We laughed together, cried together, and even prayed together. She has been a constant companion and close friend. Few computers have such a long life span. While I was hoping she would last through the rest of grad school, we had almost six years together. In the computer world, that is a lifetime. It is with great fondness that I look back on the cherished memories we have together. She lives on in my heart and in my backup hard drive.

Still, I must move forward. Thanks to the kindness of some of my UCC coworkers, I've been able to borrow a laptop for a few days or so as an interim computing solution. (Thanks, Ben and Storm, even though I doubt you read this!) I'm really grateful for that. The past couple of days of not having a computer have been really weird. You don't really realize how computer dependent you are until you're without one. I got home on Wednesday night and realized that I couldn't do a thing at home in terms of productivity. It's kind of disturbing, in a way. In any case, I now have a computer to use. My old computer was backed up and all the files I work on a lot are accessible via dropbox (which is an incredibly useful program . . . I highly recommend it), so I'm not actually going to lose much data, save for any work emails in between my last backup (last week) and whenever I get my new computer or whatever set up. I'm lucky in that respect. It could have been much worse. I could have lost all my data! I would have been a total mess if that had happened.

I almost was a total mess, actually. I was having a rough day anyways even before this happened on Wednesday. I had been getting really depressed, and basically only because I'm sick of school and am just really worn down by it. It's a completely stupid reason to get depressed. On the scale of "Legitimate Things To Be Depressed About," "Being In School" is on one extreme and things like "The Holocaust" or "Sex Trafficking" are on the other. In any case, I was down about it for most of Wednesday, and I was down on myself for being depressed for a stupid reason. I've been consistently frustrated by my inability to appreciate what is (if you think about it) literally one of the best opportunities on the planet. My computer dying on Wednesday kind of the straw that broke the proverbial camel's back. I was in this "Woe is Me" mode in which I couldn't help but think that my computer that could no longer charge was a perfect metaphor for me being burned out on school. I'm so dramatic sometimes.

Thursday was somehow a lot better. Thursday was moving into the "Acceptance" stage of things, both with my computer and with school. I'm not quite sure how I moved into this phase, but I think that prayer may or may not have had something to do with it. It's a vague suspicion. I suppose the computer thing kind of forced my to move into acceptance, which is maybe a good thing. The computer thing is a more tangible problem than being in school, and instead of whining about it my computer, I have to deal with it. I think the whole school thing is coming along for a ride with that at the moment, which is probably a good thing. I've needed a serious attitude adjustment, and this may be helping me get there.

So that was Thursday. After determining my computer was dead, I started examining my options for replacements. I'm lucky enough to have lined up suitable financing options, which is a tremendous, tremendous relief. My initial plan was to get a new iMac and iPad, but after talking about it with my brother Braden, I think my best bet is to just get an iPad. Apparently you can use them for everything, so I may not need as nice as a computer as I was considering getting. Also, the iMacs are probably going to be updated soon, so waiting may be ideal. As long as I can find a more permanent interim computer (which I'm pretty sure I can), I think I'll just get an iPad for now.

Which is completely exciting! I'm trying to look on the bright side of this whole situation. I'll get an iPad, which is fun. I'll get a new computer at some point. I didn't lose my data. I'm blessed to have financing options. I'm blessed to have an interim computer solution. I only have a little over two more months of school. In fact, I pretty much exactly have ten weeks left! That's weeks I can count on just two hands! That's a milestone I've been looking forward to. I have an internship that I love. I have friends. I have food. I have family. I have shelter. I have full length mirrors as closet doors. I'm fine. Life is good. God is good.

That's pretty much where I'm at right now. I've blabbered on long enough. Have a great day and God bless!

$10 By 10, $20 by 20

2011-02-28T23:49:00.001-06:00

Oh hello all! I figured I should blog again, by which I mean I have some compulsion to do so on a regular basis. I'll be a bit more focused than usual today, which I suppose is a little bit unusual. Today I received my flight itinerary for my trip to Croatia! I won't bore you with the details, but I do have to say that it's just one of those things that gets me excited again for it. It's been a bit harder this time around to get excited about it as I seem to have this borderline insurmountable amount of school in between now and the trip, but I'm starting to see the light at the end of the tunnel!

And there is a lot of light to see. Croatia will be a really interesting trip. On a somewhat selfish level, I'm just really excited to back to Europe. Last time I went to study abroad, and I tried to make the most of it in case I never went back. I feel kind of lucky to be going back! It's definitely going to be very different than my trip to Germany or to Brazil, though.

For starters, it'll be the first time I've been in another country with no language background whatsoever. For most countries that I've been to, I've had a bit of experience that helps. When I went to Germany, I knew some German. When I went to Costa Rica and Mexico, I knew some Spanish. Spanish helped me some in Italy and Brazil as Italian and Portuguese have some similarities to Spanish. When I went to Canada, I was fluent in English. Going to Croatia is a completely different story. I have no background in Croatian and I haven't learned anything similar. In that respect, I'll be a little more defenseless, which is strangely exciting. It'll be a new challenge.

It's also really different from my Brazil trip in that I'm going to a much smaller town. Varazdin is a town of about 40,000 people. Belo Horizonte in Brazil was a city of about three to four million. It's a big difference! I'm excited to be going to a smaller place this time as I think it'll allow us to be a little bit more independent. Apparently you can walk around a lot in Varazdin, something we couldn't do in Belo. In Brazil, we were a twenty-minute drive from our host home to the church, so we were very dependent on our missionary. That was fine, but I'm glad that we'll have a little more independence next time. I'm also hoping to be able to run a bit, something I couldn't do in Brazil.

With this being my second trip with the LST organization, I'm also a bit more prepared and I know a bit more of what to expect from the work itself. Last year I was able to see what an incredible tool the English language can be. There are people that are incredibly eager to learn more English and practice more English. It's a way of God providing a perfect window. I know English! God can use me! That's perhaps a simplistic view of it, but it is that simple. Serving God doesn't have to be this complicated thing. We have really powerful tools at our disposal. It's just up to us to figure out how and when to use them.

These things keep swirling up in my head and are getting me really excited about it all. It's the kind of thing that really can't be duplicated. I kind of want to fast forward everything and just go. Alas, I cannot do that. God has not given me a time machine, nor do I possess the knowledge to create one. I can barely do long division. Sigh.

Also, I suppose I have to do some fundraising before I throw myself onto another continent. That's where I could use some of your help. So far, fund raising is going pretty well. I've raised $2,355 of the $3,700. I need to raise the remaining $1,300 or so by April 15th (note to self: do taxes). I've already mailed some of you to ask for some help with this. Others, I'm asking for the first time. You may think that you can't help much, but I'm not asking for a lot of help. I'm asking for whatever you can give me. As such, I'm challenging you to give either $10 by March 10th or $20 by March 20th. If 100 of you donate $10, that's $1,000! If you can kick it up to $20, that would be doubly awesome. God can use a lot of you very quickly to add up to something impressive quickly. I know a lot of you are students, so I don't want to put pressure on you. Think of it as three fancy coffee drinks at Starbucks. If you give up three fancy drinks, you could help impact the lives of people on the other side of the world. I think that's kind of cool. And hey, if you want to give more (or just a different amount), awesome! Any help is greatly appreciated and helps me out. Click here to donate right away!

What I really need more than money is prayer support. I know a lot of you were in prayer for me last year, and it means a lot to me. I would appreciate your prayers once again. Please be in prayer as we do our training and fundraising. Be in prayer for the people we'll be working with and serving in Croatia, that their hearts may be open and receptive. Pray for safe travels. Prayer can accomplish a lot, and I would love that support.

Well, that's all I have for today. And this month. February is about to leave us for another year. Goodbye to February and goodbye to you. Until next time . . . God bless!

Dead Pet Cat Ashes And Inadvertent Accent Adoption

2011-02-24T22:36:00.000-06:00

Hello all! I'm writing to you in the midst of another fake Kansas winter storm. I say fake because once again, it's not actually snowing that much, but it manages to make roads miserable due to lackluster snow removal. Also, they're already canceling things for tomorrow. I suppose this would be the right moment to mention we're only getting about four inches at the moment. It's pretty weak. Sometimes I miss Minnesota, but then I remember that Minnesota just got eighteen inches last Sunday when it was over seventy degrees. I have a new theory about it all. I think that snow has proportional effects in Kansas and Minnesota. For every inch that Kansas gets, it has a similar effect that three inches would have in Minnesota. That means if we get four inches, it's akin to a foot of snow in Minnesota in terms of the effects on roads and closures and such. While it's really wimpy on the part of Kansas, I guess I'll still pick Kansas winters over Minnesota. Overall, they're milder. Win!

So it's time for a really random and uncomfortable story. I have an office mate named Mauri. Her cat recently passed away. I'm not a big cat fan, but I still feel bad for her. Fortunately, she's totally okay with cat jokes, so we've been able to have some funny conversations about the whole thing. This helps because I find it hard to comfort someone in this area as I have a hatred with cats, so being able to make a joke and help her laugh about it is a win for both of us. Apparently the cat's heart grew to be three times the size it should have been, thus causing its sudden and somewhat disturbing death (cat screams, gasping for breath, etc).

In any case, I wandered in to my office on Tuesday to find Mauri working with one of the speech team members. I said hello, and then Mauri said that she had someone to introduce me to. At this point, the speech team guy effectively ran out of the room. I was a bit befuddled. Mauri then went to her desk, turned to me while holding a small wooden box, and then introduced me to Edmund. She came to me, opened the box, and revealed a small clear plastic bag inside that contained the ashes of her late cat, Edmund. Mauri subsequently began to pet the bag of cat ashes. Needless to say, I was a bit uncomfortable, but then we just went back to making dead cat jokes and it was all good. It's kind of fun now because whenever random people visit our office, I make Mauri bring out Edmund. I enjoy the awkwardness involved. So yes . . . I now have dead pet cat ashes in my office. Great.

It's time to discuss something a little bit more serious now. When I first moved to Kansas, I often wrote about random cultural differences. One such thing that I've forgotten to mention is that Kansas folks have a strange affinity for having chili and cinnamon rolls. As a meal. Together. Chili and then cinnamon rolls. Anyways, what I really wanted to talk about was accents. I think I mentioned before that when I came here, people were surprised that I didn't have a "Minnesotan accent." I keep trying to argue that this "Minnesotan accent" is a mythical construct that doesn't exist, but they just keep acting as if I've been spared from some unfortunate linguistic fate.

There are a couple of words where I am noticeably different. These are typically words that end in "ag" such as bag or flag. They act like I say "beg" or "fleg" or something like that, which is completely not that case. Over time, I've become really self-conscious about such words, and I try to avoid saying them. In fact, sometimes I just spell it out. However, sometimes it just has to come out.

This happened once recently. In fact, it actually happened just a few minutes after I was introduced to Edmund, the bag of dead pet cat ash. I was talking with Mauri and Craig (a professor here) who meandered into the office. As I was talking, I said "bag." I was probably referring to Edmund's receptacle. In any case, both Mauri and Craig gasped and said that I said "bag" correctly. By correctly, they mean I said it like a Kansas person. I didn't even realize I was saying anything differently, but it happened. I'm so afraid of that word now because I'm not sure what it means if I say it. I think I'm gradually succumbing to the Kansas accent.

This isn't the only instance of that happening. Here in Kansas, they say "aunt" differently. When I say "aunt," I do it correctly and include the "u" sound, akin to "flaunt." However, they say "aunt" like "ant," as in the small insects that crawl around the ground and swarm your food. Personally, I really can't stand how they say it because there's a "u" there for a reason. Any other time you find an English word with "au," you pronounce the "u," such as "flaunt" or "auspicious" or "fauna." Also, I find it derogatory to refer to my wonderful aunts as small insects.

A few weeks ago, however, something happened. I was conversing with someone and she was referring to her great-aunt. She was basically saying "great-ANT." I didn't even notice it happening, but she was just saying it so much, and suddenly I said "great-ANT." I don't know how it happened. I felt terrible.

There have been a couple of other instances like this that people have noted my accent changing. I don't even notice it happening. It scares me some. What does this mean? Am I becoming a Kansan without trying? Am I being assimilated? Is resistance futile? If I visit home, will I sound funny? Will they make fun of me? Will my family ostracize me? I think I'm having an identity crisis. Sigh.

I suppose that's all I have for now. I have to go contemplate my accent. Farewell!

I Have A Crush On C. S. Lewis

2011-02-22T15:18:00.001-06:00

It's time for me to be honest with all of you. I have a literary crush on C. S. Lewis. There. I said it. I feel better already just putting that out there.

It's pretty serious. Over time, I have come to realize with a fair level of certainty that C. S. Lewis is my favorite writer. There are certainly others I have high respect for. J. K. Rowling (author of the Harry Potter series) has an incredible talent for creating gripping stories, an epic fictional world, and realistic, complex characters. J. R. R. Tolkien, the master behind Lord of the Rings, created an incredibly detailed world that feels incredibly real (despite the fact that there are short people - I mean hobbits - that are involved). Still, as much as I love the writings of Rowling and Tolkien, they just don't match up to C. S. Lewis for me.

Individually, I can't really say that any one of Lewis' works is my all time favorite piece of writing. (That would probably go to Rowling for Harry Potter.) However, when you look at the breadth and depth of Lewis' writings, it's incredible. Though it may have no relevance to you, I'm going to give you a crash course of the books I've read of Lewis and what it contributes to my existence/why I appreciate it. Again, you may not care, but I do, and it's my blog, so there.

I'm going to start with the one book of his that I have read that I didn't like. It's called 'Til We Have Faces. It details the myth of Pysche, which I was not familiar with at the time, nor am I now. When I read it, it was okay, but I simply found it to be a bit dull and boring. It didn't have much of a plot. With that said, I should also mention that I either read it in high school or in my early college years. Re-reading it sometime may give me a stronger appreciation for it.

Now I'll progress to the only non-fiction of his that I have read at this point. Mere Christianity is simply an amazing book that lays out some of the basic premises of the Christian faith. I haven't seen anything else quite like it. I read it right before I moved to Kansas for grad school. That was right around the time that I was realizing I needed to start taking my faith more seriously, and it was the perfect book for that moment in my life. I don't yet own it, but it's high on my list of books to buy at some point in my life.

We'll next move along into some of his more conceptual fiction. The Great Divorce is not about the epic dissolution of a marriage; nay, it is about a group of dreary denizens of hell that take a gander up to heaven. It's very abstract and it doesn't have the most gripping plot, but the mere description of the very edges of heaven is worth the read. The book also has some really interesting thoughts on what hell must be. It's pretty good.

That leads to Lewis' amazing book about demons, The Screwtape Letters. The book is setup as a senior demon writing letters to a lesser demon to instruct the lesser demon on temptation. It's mind-blowing. While it's hard to know if that's how demons actually function, it certainly does capture the functions and methods of temptation alarmingly well. Every time I read it (I've read it four or five times, probably), I'm shocked at how much it applies to certain things in my own life. I come away from it with something different every time, and over time, it's helped me develop a greater awareness of temptation. I honestly think it's one of the most important books of the last one hundred years, at least from a faith-based perspective. If you haven't read it yet, read it next. I also recommend reading it with a friend or a group. It's incredible discussion fodder.

Next up is C. S. Lewis' most famous work, The Chronicles of Narnia. Although it's comprised of seven books, I'll treat it as one entire work. In theory, it's a children's series that details the history of a fictional realm called Narnia. (Sadly, my computer does not accept Narnia as a legitimate word and thinks I'm misspelling something . . . nanny, perhaps?) On that level, it's a great series. I think I first read the Narnia series when I was in fourth grade, and I thoroughly enjoyed it at the time. While not as detailed as Rowling's Potter universe, that allows the reader room to fill in the blanks with his/her own imagination. Years later, probably in high school, I picked them up again and found I still really enjoyed them. (Sidenote: I was reading them on a plane one summer during high school. The woman next to me asked if Narnia was in Africa. I then had to explain to her that Narnia was a fictional realm where animals could talk, a lion was a metaphor for Jesus, and that you could only access it via magical wardrobe . . . or painting . . . It was kind of embarrassing as a high school student.) Over the years, I've developed a great appreciation for these books. Every time I read them, I'm surprised at how much depth there is. It's incredible that Lewis was able to craft a fantasy series that's accessible and interesting for kids yet also has enough depth to keep adult readers engaged and thinking critically about their own lives as well. I'm not sure how many times I've read it, but I love it every time.

Brief comment on the movie adaptations: The first two (The Lion, The Witch, And the Wardrobe and Prince Caspian) were pretty good in my opinion, but the third movie (The Voyage of the Dawn Treader) was a disappointing hot mess. Sigh. And Voyage of the Dawn Treader was my favorite of the books, too . . .

The final chunk of work that I'd like to address was his incredible Space Trilogy. What? C. S. Lewis? Space? YES! C. S. Lewis took on science fiction, and the result is amazing. I've read it four or five times now. We'll start off with the first book in the series. In Out of the Silent Planet, Lewis kicks off his book by introducing Ransom, the trilogy's protagonist, and his journey to Mars. While modern science shows us that the surface of Mars is quite different, Lewis does an incredible job in describing his theoretical Martian landscape. Along with an entertaining story, Lewis starts to lay out the basics of his ideas on exotheology (which, if you don't know what it is, you should look it up, because it's fascinating). In observing other species in the story, Lewis says some really interesting on the current state of humanity. The second book, Perelandra, is simply beautiful. In it, Ransom goes to Venus. What follows is amazing. Lewis creates a beautifully articulated Paradise. In it, we get a wonderful picture of a world without sin, a world spent with God, a world before our own fall. It's also a fascinating study of the possible mechanics of original sin. These first two books are relatively short books, but they do require some concentration. They're well worth the effort. The Space Trilogy closes in the masterful book called That Hideous Strength. This book deviates from the first two in that it's more plot driven than character driven. Also, Ransom is not the primary focus of the story, though he does hold a very important role. The third book takes place on Earth and details the struggles against a sinister demonic attack on humanity. It is an incredibly layered book that tackles internal politics, education, modern science, struggling marriages, Merlin (?), British history, the desire for acceptance, and so much more. It's an intellectually dense book that I still can't entirely grasp, but it's still a worthwhile read. The third book also has references to Tolkien, which just makes me unreasonably happy. I'm such a geek. The Space Trilogy as a whole is simply incredible and as soon as I finished re-reading it last Saturday, I knew I had to write about it.

All of the above is why I have a crush on C. S. Lewis. He's a brilliant writer on so many levels. Many of his works are incredible in their own right and can be appreciated on a very singular level. What continues to astound me is the incredible breadth of his career. He's taken on heaven, hell, Mars, Venus, earth, demons, aliens, children, adults, theology, academia . . . and every time he's done so, he's excelled at it. Few writers can match that. (Especially Stephanie Meyer . . . I've never read any of the Twilight books, but I've seen one of the movies, and that was enough to tell me that anything she writes cannot compare to the works of C. S. Lewis. If you ever put her on the same level, I will dissolve our friendship, both in reality and on facebook.)

With all that said, I'm not asking you to agree with me about C. S. Lewis. I just find him to be an incredible writer, and perhaps this will encourage someone to read something he's written. If you have any comments on C. S. Lewis, I'd love to hear it . . . provided that you don't equate him with Stephanie Meyer. As someone who wants to be a writer at some point in life, I look up to C. S. Lewis as an inspiration. I'll never be as good as he is, but he's definitely a role model.

That's about all I have for today. Have a great day and God bless!

The Descent Of Age and Other Thoughts

2011-02-21T00:52:00.000-06:00

Oh, hello, readers. I hope you all are having a dandy time. I suppose I'm doing fairly well. I'm not sure what I'm going to write tonight, but we'll see where this goes.

Today I had a couple of weird experiences. The first one made me feel old. As I was walking into church, I was texting a friend when suddenly I heard "Hello, Mr. Rogness." I looked up and saw one of my students from last semester. I said hello and went on my merry way, but it was a slightly odd moment. I'm not used to being called Mr. Rogness, and so it made me feel slightly old. Old isn't bad. I'm just not used to it. Age is descending upon me.

Then while I was at church I kept seeing current or former students. It was so sudden. I normally don't encounter them very often, but today I encountered or saw five of them. There was the girl in the parking lot. Then a girl from one of my current classes sat right in front of me, so we talked for a bit. After that, I noticed another former student in front of her. On the way out, I spoke with yet another student from last semester, and as we were walking/talking, the student pointed out another kid that had been in that same class. It was like my students were emerging from the ether or multiplying like rabbits or something, which is weird because it was a church. In any case, it was nice to see them. It's kind of nice to be on a real level with students, current or former. In the classroom, there's a weird power difference or something, but at church, that doesn't matter. Also, I'm glad that at least some of my students aren't heathens. (Just kidding.)

I also went running today. It felt wonderful. Today was over 70 degrees out, so I had to make the most of it as the rest of the week is getting a bit cold again in the upper 30s and lower 40s for much of it. Sigh. In any case, it was lovely to go running. I've been gradually running a bit more, and I'm up to 4.5 miles. It feels great. I think next time I'll up it to 5 miles. I haven't quite gotten to the point where I really have to push myself. As miserable as it is in the moment, I came to love those runs where you feel like you're going to die, and then you just push through it, and then you still want to die once you finish, but then the next day you're all jazzed about it and you want to go do it again. My goal is to eventually get up to half marathon range. It'll be epic. Possibly. I want to have calves like tree trunks.

Time to get slightly more serious. (This is the part where half of you likely leave as you anticipate the length increasing exponentially.) Tonight at Bible study we simply talked about what we're passionate about. Here's the blurb that we all spent a few minutes contemplating and then discussing. "What are you passionate about? What stirs your soul? What is it that if you knew you were going to do it that morning, you'd hop out of bed, maybe even get up early, full of energy, ready to go? Or if it was on your list of things to do that day, you would want to do it first - you wouldn't procrastinate, you wouldn't have to give yourself a pep talk to get started?"

I think it's a really interesting and even important notion to consider. What are your passions? What stirs your soul? I'd urge you to consider it and perhaps share it if you like. As for me, I struggled with this a bit. I'm trying to figure out some of these questions, to an extent, to help me figure out what to do after grad school. I'm just not quite sure what my passions are, per se. I know I love to read, and I enjoy writing. I'd love to be a writer at some point in my life, but that's likely a ways down the road. In the meantime, what are my other passions? I'm not entirely sure. I know that I'm not very self-motivated; I'm motivated by being surrounded by people I care about and want to work hard for. This is why I'm really motivated by my internship and not school right. It's why I was really motivated by speech when I was in undergrad. I love being a team player, I guess.

I suppose I need to do some more contemplation on this, but perhaps another time. It's getting late and I'm tired. Farewell, all!

I'm Headed to CROATIA!

2011-02-16T00:06:00.000-06:00

Hello all! It's been distressingly long since I blogged. I'm rather upset with myself for not blogging sooner. I'm especially disappointed that I didn't blog yesterday. I was going to write my Second Annual Semi-Cynical Valentine's Day Post. I was excited about it and everything. I was going to write a semi-complete guide to being single on Valentine's Day. Somehow, however, I forgot. I really don't know how this happened. I must be mentally unbalanced or something, because committing hundreds of words to the blogosphere is something I rarely forget. Alas.

Quick life update on life things: 1.5 of my 3 classes are train wrecks. Sigh. Last week our technical writing professor separated us so that we weren't sitting with our usual friends. It reminded me of third grade. I was most irritated. Teaching is going fine. Yesterday for Valentine's Day I dressed in white, pink, and red and used an excess of Valentine's examples. I made them talk about romantic gazebos and Cupid and such. It was rather amusing. I also read a Shakespearean sonnet. Epic. One student gave me a Valentine. It had a picture of two young children being cozy. It read "I look forward to having my feelings hurt by you." Perfect! The internship is still going really well. I'm really enjoying it. I maybe only do eight hours a week, but they always feel like my most useful hours in that given week.

Meanwhile, Kansas weather is increasingly seductive. Last week was silly. A week ago they were saying that we were supposed to get 1-3 inches of snow that night and that temperatures would be in the single digits. The radio announcer said you'd have to be "insane" to go out anywhere that night. Sigh. I went out. I guess I'm insane. (Perhaps that's the mental unbalance that made me forget to blog yesterday?) Now it's in the 50s and should be 70 or higher by Thursday. Cupid must have seduced the sun into coming to Kansas for a while. The warmer temperatures are very conducive to my desire to run. I ran 4.5 miles on Saturday, the longest I'd run since the summer when I (stupidly) did two 10-mile runs in a week. I'm getting back up to my longer runs and it feels great!

Moving along to the important part . . . so yes, we've gotten our site for my LST mission trip this summer! On May 23rd, I'll leave the US and go to Varazdin, Croatia! We'll return on July 5th. I'm pretty excited about it. Having a site makes it more tangible and more real. Click here to read a bit about the town and see a couple of pictures. It seems like a pretty nice town. It has about 40,000 people. It's kind of in the northeastern corner of Croatia, meaning that day/weekend trips to Hungary, Slovenia, or possible even Vienna (in Austria) may be possible. Tonight at a training meeting Rod said it's probably one of the safest countries he's been to in Europe, and Molly also mentioned how safe the town was. I don't know a whole lot about the local geography, but I think there may be a national park nearby with waterfalls or something. There seems to be hills and forests in the immediate vicinity, so it should be a pretty area.

Another LST team went there last year, so that town is very used to having us there. In fact, the other two people on my team, Rod and Molly, went there last year. Rod was on the other LST team that went for six weeks and Molly went there on a separate mission for two weeks. They're enthused to be going back. I'm the odd one out in that I'll be experiencing it afresh, but that's fine. In fact, I'm glad, in a way. Arriving in Brazil last year was a bit stressful as none of us had any clue what was going on. Going with two people with some experience of that location will be kind of nice as they maybe will have a clue about what's going on.

Now it's time to start preparing. We've started some training and will have weekly training meetings on Tuesdays for the next few weeks. We're also continuing with our fundraising. I've currently raised $2,130, which is just over half of the $3,700 I need to raise. Today was when half the funds were due, so I'm right on track! If you'd like to donate, I'd be very appreciative. Click here to donate or just to check my fundraising progress. There's also a link on the right of my blog if you want to go at it that way.

What would also really help is your prayers. Pray for our fundraising. Pray for our training. Pray for our eventual travels. Pray for the hearts of the people that we'll be interacting with in Croatia. I've seen a bit of how this program can work from my trip to Brazil last summer. A lot can happen, so please pray for that. This church has been very enthusiastic about receiving teams in the past and I know that they're very excited that we're coming. It should be a very good experience. I'm excited.

That's about all I have today. I suppose I should go to bed as I have a marathon Wednesday coming up tomorrow. Sigh. Wednesdays are the bane of my semester (and perhaps my overall existence). Farewell and God bless!

The Accidental Jonathan Taylor Thomas

2011-02-05T22:09:00.000-06:00

Hello all! I don't have a lot to say today. I suppose that may give some of you a sense of relief. This one shall not be a novel. In fact, this may become one of my shortest posts ever!

I have a bit of a story. So I have three students in one of my classes, and their names are Thomas, Jonathan, and Taylor. I randomly assign my students to their speech orders and then give it to them in class. As I was reading the orders in class yesterday, I realized that I put Thomas, Jonathan, and Taylor in such an order (by sheer accident) that it read as Jonathan Taylor Thomas. I completely astounded myself with that one. It was such a flashback to the 90s moment. (For those of you who don't know, Jonathan Taylor Thomas was one of the young actors on Home Improvement back in the day). I was fairly amused with myself.

I have little else to share at this point, but I do want you all to share something with me. Last time I mentioned I may be asking for some advice, and here it is. Basically I was wondering if anyone who feels so inclined could tell me what they think I should be looking for in a job. I'm not necessarily asking what specific jobs you'd suggest for me, but if you have any ideas on what to look for in a job, that'd be great. I think I need some outside perspectives. I'd appreciate anything you can tell me.

Well, that's all for today. God bless!

100 Days And Computer Dependency

2011-02-02T23:33:00.000-06:00

Hello all! I've just survived my second torturous Wednesday of the semester. They're pretty bad. At least this Wednesday I didn't have my 6 AM book group. That's every other week, which helps. Being in class or in the office for about ten straight hours is a little bit painful. It's far too intellectual. I have a high density of intellectualism on Wednesdays. I spend the rest of the week after that recovering and then rebuilding to survive the next Wednesday. Alas.

At least this week had an interesting start. An alleged blizzard has been waltzing its way across town for the past couple of days. I say alleged because in Minnesota, it would be a run of the mill minor snow storm. Down here, however, in the Land of Lackluster Snow Removal, this constitutes a natural disaster that necessitates cancellations galore. I can't complain. It got me Monday and Tuesday of class! Monday was cancelled more for ice, which was relatively legit (though I was able to get a couple places okay. Tuesday was supposed to be when all the snow hit, but not more than three to five inches came descended from the heavens. It blew around a bit and was "drifting," but again, by my elitist Minnesota winter standards, it was pretty weak. Granted, apparently we kind of caught the edge of the storm. It was much worse in other areas. I hear that Oklahoma got over a foot of snow . . .

In other news, my friend Nicole (a fellow communication studies grad student) informed me today that we have exactly one hundred days until graduation! It still seems like an overly vast amount of days, but tomorrow, it'll be less than one hundred. I'm trying to have hope. I'm also trying to piece together some metaphor about how the way I'm burnt out on school is akin to a candle at the end of its life, but it's not coming together very coherently, so I'll just say that that's the idea and let you piece together how it works. So yes . . . one hundred days remaining. I don't want to do much else for counting down because I just get anxious.

I just saw a really funny Cinnamon Toast Crunch commercial. It wasn't actually funny, but it's just one of those days where stupid things provide amusement.

On a minimally slightly more serious note, I had a bit of a wake-up call today. I arrived at my office today and pulled out my computer to work on a few things. As I tried to plug in my computer (as my battery is essentially dead) I noticed that one of the prong things on my plug in to my computer was missing. As a result, I could not turn on my computer. In other words, unless I could fix it, I could not use my computer at all. Needless to say, I went into a mild panic. Granted, I have all my documents that I use on a regular basis available to me online via a nifty application called Dropbox (you should look into it), I was still in mild panic mode over not having a computer.

I left my office and decided to gander on over to the Union bookstore to see if they did have a new plug in for my computer. I wasn't optimistic as my computer is almost six years old. As I was walking over, I suddenly realized that I'd have to restructure much of my activity to get anything whatsoever done. I'd have to use computer labs and libraries to work on anything anywhere. It was starting to freak me out. That's about when I realized how computer dependent I am. I honestly don't know how I'd accomplish anything without my computer. Granted, sometimes I can barely accomplish anything with my computer . . . a double-edged sword, I guess. It was definitely a bit of a wake-up call. It's mildly disturbing how computer dependent we are.

Fortunately, the bookstore had what I needed, so it ended up being okay. It's a slightly different cord than what I had before and so it's a bit of a nuisance, but I'm just glad I have something functional. I maybe could have gotten what I really want via Amazon for a bit less, but I don't have the time to wait for it to come in. Alas.

LST updates: Still not sure where we're going. I'm hoping to find out in the next couple of weeks. I have a fair idea of where it'll be, but I'd rather not say until I know for sure. Fundraising is going well. I'm optimistic about it. Half of my funds ($1,850) need to be raised by February 15th, and I'm almost there. Right now, I'm at $1,425. If you can help, I would really appreciate any donation you could make. Every dollar counts!

That's more or less all I have for now. I think I'll blog again in the next few days to ask for some advice, but that's for later. Until then . . . farewell and God bless!

The Meaningless Criteria

2011-01-28T17:16:00.000-06:00

Oh hey, all. I hope that you are all having a dandy Friday. I certainly am. I went for a bit of a job for the first time in a couple weeks. It was very nice. The day warmed up from upper thirties to mid-forties during my gander in the outdoors, so it was quite pleasant. It's now all up in the fifties. I do so like Kansas in January. It's like Minnesota in March/April. It's still winter, but it's really only a half-hearted commitment to winter. It'll be fifty or higher and then retreat back below freezing (as it shall next week, alas). It's a bit annoying, but considering that the actual winter where it's consistently cold doesn't take nearly as long to die as it does in Minnesota, I'll forgive it. Minnesota starts to seem more and more like Narnia stuck in a one hundred year winter (although at least Minnesota gets Christmas . . . and there's no White Which turning people into statues . . . ).

Last time I pseudo-promised a post on meaninglessness, and I'm going to deliver on that. I'm sure you all are so glad. I realize how unpromising this sounds . . . a long post about meaninglessness seems a bit futile. However, I am making a point, I think. We'll see. In any case, like I said last time, I've started a study of Ecclesiastes with five men from the church. We're reading through a book called A Life Well Lived by Tommy Nelson. It's a good exploration of Ecclesiastes. So far, I'm enjoying it. In any case, the first chapter of the book discussed the first chapter of Ecclesiastes which is simply about how everything is meaningless. The writer particularly gets into intellectualism, hedonism, and materialism and how they all basically leave you with nothing. Any pursuit within this world leaves you with nothing.

Upon first glance, that's a bit depressing, and I think that's okay. I think it's okay to acknowledge the futility of this world. Strangely, though, I ended up finding some hope in this discussion and this portion of Ecclesiastes. Obviously I'm a bit of a transitional period in my life, and so I'm trying to figure out what to do after this whole grad school thing. To figure that out, I have a few criteria that I've had in mind for a while. For example, I've wanted to be in a bigger city, go somewhere "interesting" (Colorado, Utah, etc), have some job that I can enjoy (whatever that is), and that sort of thing.

I also really wanted to listen to where God wanted to bring me. I've never really done that in the past when it comes to big life phases. I've just kind of ended up places and He used them to get me to where I needed to be. I never chose my schooling or anything until college. When I chose Gustavus, I just kind of went with what I knew and felt comfortable with as my brothers had been there. Even when I came to Kansas, I wasn't really listening to God when I came here. During my senior year, I kept formulating these ideas of what I wanted and then decided that that's what God was calling me to. I did end up in Kansas because God wanted me here, but I wasn't really listening. It was really the only door left open, so I took it.

So for the next phase of my life, I wanted to not just use my own criteria, but God's as well. However, as time ebbs on and graduation comes nearer, I've been wondering how I would sort the two out. When am I going by my criteria and when am I going by God's? When do they match? When do they not match? When am I just convincing myself that my criteria is the same as God's? I've done that before.

I was pondering these questions very recently, and then we conveniently started up this study of Ecclesiastes (convenient as in "someone clearly knows what I need to hear at certain times of my life"). Normally the idea that everything is meaningless is pretty dreary. However, it kind of gave me hope for me in terms of sorting out my criteria. If it's a thing of this earth, then it may well be a meaningless criteria, and as such, I can probably set it aside.

So why do I want to go to a bigger city? Because I want more Things to do. I want to be able to go to interesting museums or nifty city attractions. I want to have occasional access to an interesting downtown scene. I want to be in a place where I can meet a lot of people my age. I want to be somewhere that doesn't revolve around a school. But does any of that mean anything? Possibly (or probably?) not.

Why do I want to go somewhere "interesting" (Colorado, Washington, etc)? Because I think I want to be more Active or something. I want the option to hike a mountain. I want to be able to see something that rises up high from the horizon. I like to think that I could be more outdoorsy. I'm certainly not outdoorsy now (I've been sitting at this computer inside for a while), but I like to think that I could get into rock climbing and rafting and stuff like that. Is any of that real or substantial? Again, possibly (or probably) not.

If everything else is meaningless, that means there's only room for God's criteria. I'm not sure what that is yet. I'm not sure how to find it. I know it'll probably be easier said than done to utilize his criteria as opposed to mine. At least now I feel that I have a bit more clarity on what to make my decisions based off of. Clarity is nice.

Well, that's pretty much where that is. I hope that writing about meaninglessness wasn't meaningless. I'm off to figure out my evening. Farewell, all!

Another Six Week Adventure!

2011-01-26T23:32:00.000-06:00

Hello all! I'm so happy to finally get back to my blog. It's been a week but feels like longer. For some reason it depresses me when I don't blog for a while. Maybe it's because I have some narcissistic tendencies. Maybe I like to write. Maybe I just have a lot to say. I don't know. In any case, I'm back. Huzzah! I've wanted to blog since Sunday, but I haven't had time. Alas.

School is now really under way. Classes last week were a bit strange as there were some cancellations due to professorial illness and weather (although that would be better described as a lack of quality snow removal). This week is back on track. Mondays are very manageable as I just teach, have some office hours for my students, then maybe spend some time at the UCC office for my internship. On Tuesday mornings I have UCC staff meetings followed by a mid-afternoon class. Then I either will head home or back to UCC to work on whatever wherever. Wednesdays are the killer days. I'll get to that in a moment. Thursdays ease off as I start off with my mid-afternoon class, then some work at UCC. Fridays are the easiest as all I do is teach (unless I cancel class . . . which I would never even consider . . . ) and then possibly work some at UCC again.

So Wednesdays . . . the killer days. They are going to be the absolute bane of my existence this semester. At least I've found a good way to start them. Ryan, the senior paster at UCC, invited me to join a Bible study group of his. It started as four forty-ish guys and then they decided they wanted to diversify a bit, so they wanted a younger person (me) and an older person). I decided to take him up on the offer as it sounded interesting. The downfall is that it's at 6 AM. That's a pretty aggressive hour to be awake that early. I used to be far better at it. I need to relearn that skill, perhaps.

In any case, we're doing a study of Ecclesiastes. Some of you may be familiar with it as the book that's all about how life is meaningless. It sounds like a bit of a dreary way to start a long day, but I actually found myself getting some hope out of it. I think I'll discuss that (at length, probably) in the next post. Anyways, we met for about an hour and then I had a break for three hours. I was supposed to do homework, but I just had breakfast and perused the internet. Then I taught from 10:30 to 12:30, had office hours from 12:30 to 2:30, had class from 2:30 to 5:30, and then another class from 7:00 to 10:00. So it's a long day. The class at 7:00 is a bit of a train wreck. There are seven students (myself included) from communication studies in the class (which is an English class). We're taking over because the rest seem clueless (or else we're intellectual communication studies snobs, which is entirely possible). The class is so useless and so meaningless. However, I was able to find amusement in that as my day both started and ended with something meaningless. It was an appropriate bookend to my day.

Well now that I've blathered on for four paragraphs, I should probably get on to what I actually want to talk about. Many of you already know about this. Like I mentioned before, I spent the weekend in Oklahoma, but I never said why. Here's the reason: I was off to a training weekend for another LST trip! LST (or Let's Start Talking) is the organization I did my trip to Brazil with last summer. I decided (a few months ago actually) that I'm going to do it again! I'm a bit nervous to do it again as I should probably find a job. However, I realized that God has this strange tendency to take care of me, so it'll be ok. Also, I realized that I have the rest of my life to have a job and a real life. As such, I felt like it's a great chance for one last six-week hurrah before submitting to the realities of a non-academic life schedule that permits approximately two weeks tops per year.

So yes . . . I'm going abroad for another six-week mission trip! I'm pretty excited. Once again, I'll be on a three person team that uses English practice sessions as an evangelism tool. Rod is a KSU faculty member and has been doing LST for several years. Molly is just a wee bit younger than me and is an undergrad. I think we'll make a good team. We're not sure where we're headed yet. That's why I waited a while before officially announcing it here. I wanted to hold off until I knew, but alas. I know the two likely options, and I'm excited by each. I'll let you all know once I find out (which will hopefully be soon). It's going to be different than last year as I'm likely headed to Europe. At this point, it looks like we'll be leaving in late May and returning in early July. Yay!

With all this, it means that I have to once again raise money to go. Each of us has to raise $3,700. I'm well on my way. I'm currently just over $1,000, which puts me on track of reaching the halfway ($1,850) deadline on February 15th. I need to raise the rest by April 15th. It's tax deductible. I would greatly appreciate any donations that you could offer. If you can give $100, fantastic. If you can give $10, that's great. Both get me to my goal and both make you a part of this ministry. Click here to go to my fundraising page and donate securely there or click the link somewhere on the right side of my blog. I've already sent out letters to a lot of you, and many of you donated, and let me tell you now that it's deeply appreciated. It means a lot to me.

I think I have a very different perspective on it this time around. Last year when I did it, I didn't really know what to expect. This year, I know what it can be. In Brazil, I was so struck by what an amazing tool the English language can be for spreading the Gospel. It seems so simple, and in a way, it is. People want a skill that I grew up with. It's an amazing opportunity and I'm excited to make use of it.

What I'm even more excited for is all the new people I meet. Lately I've been really missing my friends from Brazil. There will be moments when I just want to talk to a particular one of them because something comes up that reminds me of one of them. It's hard to know that I won't see any of them for a very long time, if ever again. Still, even though that's hard, I certainly wouldn't trade it. They've influenced and inspired me. I hope I've done the same for them on some level. Those relationships are priceless. I have the opportunity to remember them in prayer and I'm sure that some of them are doing the same for me. Now I have the chance to do this in another place in the world and meet another great batch of people, and that's exciting to me. You never know who God is going to put into your life, especially in a situation like that.

So yes. I'm going abroad again for six weeks again next summer. Huzzah. I'm stoked. All right, that's about all I have for today. I'm ready to pass out and not wake up for about ten hours. Stay posted for the next post, which will likely be about finding hope in our meaningless lives. God bless!

All The Single Christians

2011-01-21T00:19:00.000-06:00

Hello all! It's time for another quickie post. I'm heading to Oklahoma this weekend for some training . . . more on that later. In the meantime, I thought I'd quickly post some lyrics. Several months ago, a friend and I joked around about rewriting the lyrics of Beyonce's "Single Ladies." We developed a bit of it back then. Last weekend while in the car, I went back and finished the rest of it. My friend and I were both amused by the results, so I thought I'd post it for lack of anything spicier on my blog. Note: If you're going to read these lyrics, you should probably play the actual song while listening to get the true flow of it.

(Intro)
All the single Christians! (Repeat several times)
Now put the Lord up!

(Verse one)
Up in the chuch
Ain't got a girl
Livin' it single and free
I'm gonna wait
Never hesitate
Until I find the one for me
Girls up on me
They're too easy
Don't pay them any attention
Cuz I got some fears
She been easy for years
She's gonna have an STD

(Chorus)
If she love Him
Then you better put a ring on it (repeat)
Don't be mad if she don't love the Lord your God
If she love Him
Then you better put a ring on it

Uh oh oh . . . (repeat chorus)

(Verse two)
She got praise on her lips
Did some mission trips
Only thinks about godly things
Breaking bread up
Sipping His cup
Girl once lost now is free
She faces temptation
All from Satan
She don't pay him any attention
She only got one turn
Doesn't wanna burn
So I know that she's the one for me

(Repeat chorus and uh ohs twice)

(Bridge)
Don't
Make me lust for things of this world
Don't want that kinda girl
God's love is what I prefer
What I deserve
Need a girl who cares for me
And prays with me
And shares with me
A great destiny
In eternity and beyond
Draw me into His arms
Say He's the one you want
If you don't
I'll be alarmed
And like an ex
I'll be gone

(Intro)

All the single Christians! (Repeat several times)

Now put the Lord up!

(Chorus)

So yes . . . this is what happens when you're bored in a car in the backwoods of Florida and Alabama. I hope it was at least moderately entertaining. Anyways, I have to go figure out what I'm teaching tomorrow. Farewell!

Cupid Vomit

2011-01-19T21:28:00.000-06:00

I feel so incredibly behind on my blogging life. I feel like I have four posts that I want to put up NOW but I just don't have enough days in the week, especially considering my self-imposed pseudo-rule that I shouldn't blog two days in a row. (That's an effort to avoid excessive blogging; this rule may be disregarded while traveling.)

The last time I left you I was about to head off for a student worship conference in Florida. We had a really great time. We had a bit of a long drive getting there, which was mildly unfortunate. However, it did speed me towards my goal of reaching all fifty states prior to my earthly demise as I added Arkansas, Missippi, and Alabama to my list. I've now been to thirty-three of all fifty states! Huzzah! 66% goal completion!

We quickly settled into our hotel for the weekend. It was pretty nice. We had a two bedroom, two bathroom suite for the eight of us. We had a full kitchen, a living area, and a balcony overlooking the Gulf of Mexico! The beaches were gorgeous. The weather was a bit cool, but it was still great to be outside in greater warmth than Kansas and watch a few sunsets and such. I loved it. I've determined that in a very general sense, I enjoy the ocean. It reminds us of how big God is.

The conference itself was also quite excellent. It was a really good way to get energized for the upcoming semester. I kind of needed a spiritual jump-start, and I think that's what I got in a lot of ways. I'm not sure yet what will come of that, but we'll see how it goes. We had some really good worship times as well as a variety of good speakers and such. I also got to go for a nice long run on the beach. I'm not sure how far I went, but it was probably in the 2-4 mile range. It was nice to just run out in the sunshine right along the water as waves came crashing in. I wish I could do it more often. It's very relaxing and cathartic.

(Sidenote: I'm technically in class right now. I'm supposed to be in a 7:00 PM night class, but snow has cancelled it, so we're conducting it via chat room. It's a disaster in progress, kind of like the American Idol tryouts I'm watching out at the moment. I've decided that multi-tasking on my blog is a better idea.)

The drive back was relatively uneventful, minus the Dairy Queen we stopped at on Sunday evening in Alabama. The place was already decorated for Valentine's Day. It was rather upsetting. The only holiday I can somewhat understand decorating for that early is Christmas because Jesus is kind of a big deal and all. We don't even get a day off for Valentine's Day, so why decorate so early? Furthermore, the decor looked as though Cupid had vomited everywhere. It reminded me of my second grade classroom. It honestly sapped me of my appetite, so I only had fries and a sundae. It was seriously awful. Also on the journey home, I completed a re-write of Beyonce's "All The Single Ladies." I may post the lyrics on a later date.

All in all, it was an excellent trip. It was a good way to kick off the semester. The other good way to kick of the semester was having my first class on Tuesday get cancelled. As such, today was (HOPEFULLY) my last first day of class ever. It went well. I'm teaching two sections this semester, and they seem decent. I had one of my classes start today. It seems alright. My evening class for today was cancelled and lived on in an online chat room that was masquerading as a train wreck. I'll just have one class, then go to work at UCC, then teach on Friday, and then I'm off to Oklahoma for the weekend! (More on that later.)

In other news, I've developed a recent and random interest in exotheology.

I thought I had a couple of other things to say, but it seems I've forgotten. Alas. Well, have a great day!

An Analogy Of Jesus And Twitter

2011-01-12T23:12:00.001-06:00

Hello all! Sorry that I've only been updating sporadically as of late. There isn't exactly a ton that's happening at the moment, and frankly, I tend to use writing as an escape. As such, I don't have much to escape from, so my blogging has been a bit lower than usual. I'm sure it'll pick up again once the semester starts, oddly enough. Things will be happening and I will surely have a need to escape the rigors of my last semester of grad school.

Anyways, the last few days have been pretty good. The wedding in Texas was a really nice time. David, a friend from here in Kansas, married the love of his life (which is apparently the thing you do at a wedding) down yonder in Dallas, Texas. A bunch of us carpooled and left on Friday night. We stayed the night in Wichita at a friend's parent's house and drove the rest of the day on Saturday morning. The wedding itself was really nice and a lot of fun. We even had time that evening to go to dinner and an arcade/bowling place to play some air hockey. After that, we had another long trip (eight hours) back to Kansas. By the time we got back, I was very glad. I went from Minnesota to Kansas on Tuesday, from Kansas to Texas on Friday/Saturday, and then back to Kansas on Sunday. That's a lot of driving for one week! I'm glad to have a break for a few days.

Alas . . . it's a regrettably short break. Tomorrow morning I get in a car again and drive for two days to Florida. I'm going to this student worship conference in Florida. I'm excited about it. It'll be fun. I'm just not looking forward to physically sitting in the vehicle for that long. It's two days there and two days back. We'll have fun with the people and all. It's just a lot of sitting. Furthermore, I'm going on yet another road trip to Oklahoma the weekend after. Apparently I've decided to be in a different state every weekend of January. Great idea! Spend your weekends in cars, Kavan! Yay! Still, I'm glad I have these opportunities. Each trip has a pretty good purpose, so I'm just trying to just be grateful for these opportunities. But yes . . . Florida will be fun. I'm sure I'll have some thoughts on that once I get back.

In other news, I've really gotten the ball rolling on my internship with University Christian Church. Like I've said before, I'm really excited about it. It's a really good opportunity. Over the last couple of days, I've been able to really dedicate a fair amount of time to it and get a good amount of progress going. I think it's actually prepping me to get back into the semester. Over break, it kind of felt like I forgot how to be a real, productive person. (Sidenote: I did have a list of twelve goals I wanted to get through over break. I've completed 8 and made progress on a couple others. Apparently going through ALL of my pictures and deleting what I could was a more ambitious project than anticipated. I've deleted over 10,000 and I've still only gone through about a year and half of pictures . . . ) The internship is getting me back into actually doing things. I'm also really motivated for it, unlike school. School sometimes feels so fake because the work I do is just for me. Generally, the work I do only has consequences for me. That doesn't feel real. Doing things for the internship feels real because the work I do actually has an impact on things. It's not necessarily a huge impact by any means, but there are tangible tasks that need to get done that I am doing. It's the first time where I've had a job that my education is actually leading me to it and qualifying me for it. It's really invigorating at the moment and has me excited for getting a job after school.

That's more or less what I'm to these days. It's a bit of a dull report. I feel like my blog posts as of late have been a bit dull, just recollections of what I'm up to lately. I'm sorry about that. I've noticed that over the last few months, I've stopped doing the more introspective, thoughtful posts that I did earlier last fall or during the summer. I think I've hit a bit of a dry spell as far as my personal/spiritual growth is concerned. I don't mean the dry spell in the sense of things are going badly. I'm just not growing much right now, and I'm pretty sure it has to do with my own lack of effort in the area.

This actually reminds me of a story that happened while I was in Brazil. I was reading with one of my students there, Laís. I may have mentioned her to some of you. She was a member of the family that took us in for the soccer games and such. One day we were reading a passage of Luke. I can't specifically remember what passage it was, but in it, there was a line where Jesus simply said, "Follow me." Laís suddenly started laughing, and when I looked at her, confused, she just said "Twitter." We had a good laugh about that. (I hope you get the joke . . . if you don't know anything about Twitter, when you go on someone's Twitter page, you click on the "Follow Me" button on their page to get their updates.) It was just such a random juxtaposition of social networking and theology combined with a language barrier that we couldn't help but laugh.

Later, however, I was thinking about it and there's actually a really interesting (I think) analogy there. A lot of people treat following Jesus like following a Twitter feed. They click a button, and boom, they're a follower. They don't have to read the updates or share it or anything. They certainly can and are encouraged to do so, but they can just click one button to be a "follower."

I think a lot of people treat actually following Jesus that way. They do it in name but not always in practice. I know there are absolutely plenty of times when I do this. There are periods when I'll do that well, and other periods where that doesn't happen as much. Apparently I'm in a "not as much" rut. It's hard to be a true follower. It requires active participation and engagement. You need to actively read the Word and do what you can to share it and live it. It's way more than just clicking a button.

Yes, that just happened. I just compared Jesus and Twitter. Whatever.

Clearly I've gotten to the point in the day where my thought processes are getting more sporadic and random, so I should probably call it good. Pray for me and those traveling with me. Safe travels to and from Florida would be nice. Have a great weekend and God bless!

Internships, Sideways Hourglasses, and My Girl Laura

2011-01-05T15:47:00.000-06:00

Today's post is a bit of a hodgepodge. I almost decided to title this post "There's No Place Like Home," but that would have been so nauseatingly cliche that I just couldn't bear it. In any case, I'm back in Kansas, and glad of it. I wasn't intending to be back this early, but you know, things happen. I actually came back yesterday evening. My trip to Gustavus ended up not happening and I ended up staying at home a couple days longer than intended.

Why is that? Well, I ended up having a "slight" road mishap on Saturday (New Years Day) that delayed my departure. No worries, I wasn't hurt at all. My truck is a bit dinged up, though. I hit some heavy wind on a patch of glare ice that made me fishtail. I managed to collide with guardrails on both sides of the freeway and hit all four corners of my truck without hitting any of the other cars around me and without setting off the airbags. I'm probably one of the few people on the planet that can say that. I'm very lucky that it wasn't worse. I was fine, and considering what happened, the truck fared well, too. Happy New Years, eh? The truck lost the lowest part of the front bumper, broke a front headlamp cover, dented the back ends, and ruined my front right tire, but all things considered, that's fine. Dad put in a lot of work on it to get it closer to normal. Thanks, Dad! We've decided that my truck now just has more character.

I think this has brought my truck and I closer together. Laura (my truck) and I have been through a lot over the last few years. We didn't speak for a while while she was broken down for a couple years, and I've sometimes been very disparaging towards her. However, she's done a great job of getting me to and from Kansas. I've put a lot of miles on her and she really hasn't complained that much. She even lost her bumper to protect me. For the few minutes on Saturday when I wasn't sure if she'd make it, I realized how much she meant to me. I realized how lucky I was to even have a vehicle when so many don't. For so long I've been focused on what Laura wasn't. She doesn't have great mileage, she's loud, she doesn't have power locks or windows, and all these other things. I never valued her for what she was until now.

So yes, I'm back in Kansas. It's nice to be back. I don't feel spread out anymore or something. It's nice to just have a few days back her before school gets going. On Friday, I'll start a road trip with a few friends to Texas for a wedding in Dallas. I'll have all next week off as well, and I head out on Thursday for Florida! I'm going to a student worship conference with some Cats for Christ folks. I'm excited. We'll get back from that on Monday the 17th. School starts on the 18th. Then that weekend I go to Oklahoma. It's a busy month. More on that later.

I'm almost excited for the semester. I just want to do it and get it over with. The sooner it starts, the sooner it ends. It's like I have an hourglass that counts down my days in grad school. Three quarters of the sand is in the bottom, but during break, the hourglass is laying on its side so that no sand goes to the bottom. I just want to get it turned upright again and get the sand moving.

In other news, running is going well! I ran three miles today! Outside! And it felt good! I'm so happy to be running again and feeling good doing. My brother is clearly a good trainer. I like him. I think I'll keep him. It was nice to be out in the brisk air listening to music and running and not just looking at the same stuff as you would on a treadmill. I felt alive!

Today was good for other reasons as well. I started my internship with the church today! I'll be tackling a variety of administrative tasks. It looks like I'll be reorganizing their volunteer system entirely, which is kind of a big deal. I'm excited to work on it. It'll be a good distraction to have during the semester. It'll feel like something real to work on. Sometimes school doesn't feel real, but this does. I also think it'll be really good experience for me. I'm excited to get on it.

Well, that's about all I have at the moment. I'm sure I'll have to say more before the week is out. Have a great day!

2010 in Lists

2010-12-31T02:53:00.003-06:00

Hello all! I did this last year, and I thought it would be fun to do it again. Here are a few lists that I've put together to kind of summarize the past year for me. Don't judge me. Items on the lists are not in any specific order.

Movies That Defined 2010 For Me:
1. Inception
2. Black Swan
3. The Twilight Saga: Eclipse (don't judge; it wasn't my choice, I did not pay to see it, and I thought it was horrible, but horrible to the point of being absolutely hilarious)
4. The Tourist
5. Iron Man 2
6. Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part I
7. The Social Network
8. Knight and Day (or in Portuguese, "Explosivo Encontro" or something like that)

Big Things I Learned in 2010:
1. God has more money than I do.
2. I have far more than I need.
3. The rest of grad school will not just be smooth.
4. Doing a thesis is overrated.
5. Teaching English is really hard.

Places I've Been in 2010: (which totally rhymes)
1. Minnesota
2. Williston, North Dakota
3. Iowa
4. Missouri
5. Kansas
6. Stillwater, Oklahoma
7. Dallas, Texas
8. York, Nebraska
9. Denver/Boulder, Colorado
10. Chicago, Illinois
11. Belo Horizonte and Ouro Preto, Brazil

Kavan's Random 2010 Events:
1. Witnessing the immediate aftermath of a pedestrian getting hit by a car.
2. Cruising around Belo Horizonte, Brazil while blaring "Jai Ho."
3. Dancing the "Waka Waka" with my Brazilian family.
4. Climbing Mt. Stanley in Colorado.
5. Shaving my head!
6. Growing a goatee.
7. Developing an interest in running . . .
8. . . . and then running a 10k and taking 10th place . . .
9. . . . and then later overdoing it and nearly giving myself a stress fracture after two 10-mile runs within a week.
10. Befriending a pizza waiter in Chicago.
11. Getting 30-something pizzas donated by local pizza establishments in Manhattan.
12. Running all the stairs in the lower bowl of the Bill Snyder Stadium.
13. Impersonating the White Witch while sinking into an academic delirium.
14. Staying in a home with avocado green shag carpet and purple velvet wallpaper.
15. Staying in a church where Martin Luther King, Jr. had worked.
16. Singing Celine Dion on a bus with my Brazilian friend Guilherme.
17. Counting the number of times my professor mispronounced my name this semester. (32.5 times)

Mistakes of 2010:
1. Teaching a class with my fly down.
2. Being so pessimistic/negative about grad school.
3. Taking far too many pictures (though this has been going on for years).
4. Almost everything at the Sao Paulo airport the first time we were there.
5. Trying to take Chase's car to Colorado.
6. Wasting a lot of time doing nothing.

Songs That Define 2010 For Me:
1. "Waka Waka" by Shakira
2. "Telephone" by Lady Gaga and Beyonce
3. "Jai Ho" by A. R. Rahman and the Pussycat Dolls
4. "He'll Take Care of The Rest" by Keith Green
5. "The Time Is Now" by Phil Wickham
6. "My Life Would Suck Without You In My Place" by DJ Earworm (mashup of Kelly Clarkson and Coldplay)
7. "California Gurls" by Katy Perry
8. "Alejandro" by Lady Gaga
9. "Teenage Dream" by Katy Perry
10. "Like A G6" by Far East Movement (I hate this song, but it still helps define the year)
11. "Haven't Met You Yet" by Michael Buble
12. "Eden" by Phil Wickham

Highlights of 2010:
1. Starting to really write again.
2. Mission trip to Chicago.
3. Mission trip to Brazil!
4. Being baptized.
5. This will seem weird, but my Grandpa's death actually makes this list; I'm so glad that he's now in peace and rid of his earthly body, and it was great for family to come together again.
6. Spending Christmas with my family.
7. Watching Cassie graduate and go to college at Gustavus!
8. Visiting Bryant and Claire in Colorado
9. Butterhorns and lefse. Always.
10. Having Mom, Dad, Braden and Cassie visit me in Kansas.
11. Learning to play Settlers of Catan.
12. Eating at a true Brazilian churrascaria.

Things I'd Change:
1. None.

I could probably go on adding more events and making new categories, but I think I'll just leave it as is. It's been a really interesting year and I'm sure that next year has a whole host of new surprises in store for me. I wish you all the best and hope that God blesses 2011 for you. Happy New Year!

Getting Back To The Sidewalk

2010-12-28T14:55:00.000-06:00

Hello all! I suppose that I have little else to do at the moment, so I might as well blog.

Christmas was lovely. It was just the seven of us this year. It wasn't this big huge family get together. Those are fun, but I'm glad we had a more low-key gathering. We figure that the last time we spent time together as just the seven of us was back before Bryant and Claire moved to Colorado and before I moved to Kansas. It was really nice to just have some quality time. I wish we could have had more time together, but alas, you can only have so much.

On another bright note, Bryant assessed my running and taught me a better running stride. Apparently shoes have retrained our running stride so it's a less natural running stride. A lot of us (like me) land with our heel first when we run. The more natural way is to land on the ball of your foot. That's what happens when you run barefoot or when you sprint. It's a somewhat healthier way to run. Now I'm practicing that by running barefoot on the treadmill for a bit before putting shoes on for the rest of the run.

Hopefully that'll help me to avoid some of the knee issues I'd been having. I'm really hoping that it'll help me get back into a running groove. I've missed it. There were times last semester when I had all this angry energy and I wanted to go running to let it off, but I couldn't. It's weird that I've missed running this much. I always used to think that I hated it. I didn't realize how much I liked it until I haven't been able to and I'd be jealous of the people I saw running when I was driving around town. I'm excited to hopefully be out on the sidewalk again soon.

Phase I of break is wrapping up pretty quickly. I only have a few more days at home before I leave. On Sunday I'll head down to Gustavus and spend a couple days there before heading back to Kansas. I'll then stop in at the University Christian Church office to get my internship underway! I'm excited to start working there. It should be interesting. Then I head of to Texas for a wedding on the 8th. Then I have a week off, a weekend in Florida, and then school starts . . . If you've ever read this blog, you know how I feel about that. I almost want to get it started so I can just get it over with.

Well, that's about all I have for today. Have a good day and God bless!

Settlers, Butterhorns, and Accordions

2010-12-24T12:50:00.001-06:00

Hello all! It's been a while since I was here. I've been too lazy to blog for the last few days. I guess that's what break is for, right? It's been nice to just check out and not really have any responsibilities. I have to enjoy this because this is the last such break that I really have. I'm going to miss winter breaks. This one was sorely needed. This last semester took a lot out of me on a lot of levels. Hopefully the rest of school will go smoothly, though I'm getting less confident of that as there have already been complications that have emerged even while on break. Grad school is just utterly determined to screw with me. Alas.

I came home last Friday. I had a pleasant drive home with a friend that I carpooled with. She and I played the license plate game where you count all the different states and plates you can. I won. I had nineteen, she had two. Being the driver is a bit of an advantage as you're required to pay a bit more attention than the passenger. I was impressed that between the two of us, we were able to count twenty-one of the states. That's 44% representation of the nation.

But yes. Since I've been home, I haven't exactly done all that much. Before leaving Kansas, I generated a list of 12 projects I wanted to accomplish. I'm making slight progress. The biggest thing I've been working on tackling is going through ALL of my thousands of pictures and deleting as many as I can. I've gone from March until December of 2010 as well as November 2005 - February 2006. So far, I've deleted 5,711 pictures. I still have to go through the rest of 2006, and then all of 2007, 2008, 2009, and the beginning of 2010. This all includes the 6,600 pictures I took in Germany and the myriad of pictures I took at speech tournaments.

Going through all my pictures has been interesting for me on a couple levels. First, it's a fun trip down memory lane. I've found a couple fun videos that have then gone up on facebook. Second, I've discovered that my photography skills have vastly improved. Apparently when I first got my camera, I was taking pictures just to take pictures. I've moved away from that. Third - although my photography skills have improved, I still keep too many pictures. Taking an excess of pictures isn't the issue. Keeping thousands of them is. It just takes up too much room. Braden just keeps telling me to get a bigger hard drive, but that just enables the habit. Finally, I think I've learned more of what constitutes a good picture in my mind. It's been a good exercise. Too bad it's going to take days to finish.

In other news, my whole family has been reunited for the first time since June, which is really nice. Bryant and Claire arrived on Wednesday evening. It's been fun to spend time with them again. It's also fun to see their puppies, Tica and Luna. I think they're the only two dogs in the world that I actually genuinely like. It's weird. I normally am not a fan of non-sentient creatures, but I like these two.

So I think it's time to get to the title of the post . . . my mother bought Settlers of Catan! It's a really fun game that's hard to explain if you haven't played it. It's one of my favorites and we play it all the time in Kansas. I was excited to teach my family.

Epic. Mistake.

It was the slowest game of Settlers I have ever played. Teaching five people at once is a painful process. I hope I never do it again. It took over two and a half hours to play the one game. Cassie thought it was stupid until she won the thing. Bryant was just being aggressively ADD about it. Claire wouldn't trade, Mom was half asleep, and Dad was just being Dad. At least we now all know how to play, so in the future, it could move more quickly, but it was pretty slow and painful. I almost don't want to play again with them. Almost. Next time would be better. I hope.

This morning was the first time in probably over a year that we had a meal with just the seven of us. That was pretty fun. What made it perfect was the butterhorns that Mom made. If you don't know what they are, you'll just have to marry into the family or wait until you die and go to heaven to experience them. (Bryant said last night that butterhorns have been kissed by Jesus. I agree.) The downside of butterhorns is that each batch makes only 36 butterhorns, which means that we only get five each (except for Dad, who gets six by virtue of being married to the maker of the butterhorns, which is a load of crap). Since we each only get five and since we're all competitive, it quickly became a very aggressive breakfast. Everyone is counting how many everyone else has to make sure fairness is achieved. Then when Mom and Claire didn't eat their allotted five, it became nearly hostile as we were competing for the remaining butterhorns. Dad and Bryant seemed to be the clear winners as they had spouses at the table. It was really unfair. Clearly I need to get married as soon as possible to ensure my stomach the greatest number of butterhorns as possible. I love family meals.

On a completely different note, the sounds of the accordion have been wafting through the house over the past couple of days. Mom inherited one of Grandpa's accordions, and so she's been practicing. Apparently she's playing as part of the prelude tonight at church. It's fun to hear. It reminds us all of Grandpa. Somehow Cassie's also kind of picking it up and proving herself somewhat competent at it, despite the fact that the accordion is approximately 75% of her body weight. Now Mom and Cassie can both play Silent Night. Next Bryant picked up and was able to somewhat bust out Silent Night. Then Claire played an alto harmony of the Same song, and then I played as well. It seems the only ones that haven't yet played Silent Night are Dad and Braden.

Well, I think that's about all I have for now. To end, I'd like to just wish everyone a very Merry Christmas! I hope that you all can celebrate this special time with family or whatever loved ones you can. Merry Christmas, everyone!

GRAD SCHOOL 75% COMPLETE!

2010-12-16T00:03:00.001-06:00

This has been the worst semester of my life. It's over now. And I'm so happy. I'm literally dancing in my room. It's such a fabulous moment in my life. You don't even know. This last semester has been so stressful. It hasn't been so stressful due to the classes themselves. Those were generally manageable. One was actually fantastic and seems to have yielded a paid internship! More on that later. This semester was more a struggle due to all the extra crap going on. I had a ton of thesis drama and stress trying to figure out what classes to take and that sort of thing. It was such a hassle and it had me very discouraged at times, but now it's all pretty much over! I'm SO HAPPY!

I'm not even going into the details of everything we had to do. All I'll say is that the last several days have sucked. I've been working on two group projects and it's been stressful. For one project, we kept finding more things that were a part of the final paper. It was super frustrating. It was a group paper, and so I was at my friend's apartment three separate times yesterday to work on the thing. Today we finally finished the other paper, and I'm so glad that's done. It was the last piece the puzzle. I'M SO HAPPY IT'S DONE!

The beginning of this week was awful. I had to administer and grade finals. I always hate that process. This year's final was particularly difficult, which meant that I had a lot of students that had grades that were lowered. That's so hard to deal with. They deserve a higher grade based on the effort they put in, but the scores on the finals don't always reflect that. It's incredibly difficult. They email me and tell me how hard they worked, and I know they worked hard, but I have to grade by the numbers. It's definitely the time in the semester when I hate my job the most. I feel so incredibly helpless. I truly do want to help them, but ethically, I can't change their grades. It's a very difficult position, but I just had to do it and get it over with. Now I just have to put it all behind me.

And put it behind me I shall. I'm excited to move on from here. I'm not looking forward to my classes next semester per se, but I'm just excited that I've passed most of the hurdles (as far as I can tell). It's just so great to have a month to rejuvenate and prepare for next semester. One more semester is all I have left in me, so I'm very glad that it's almost over. If I were a quitter, I would have quit a while ago, but now that I only have 25% left, I'm in. I'm going to do this. The light is semi-visible.

As for the paid internship, it seems I more or less have that in the bag. I think I'm heading over to the pastor's house tomorrow to give him the info to get paid, so I'm excited. It'll be really good experience. I also just really like the staff. They're a fun batch of people. I'd be happy to be one of them.

Narnia update: I've read all but the last book, The Last Battle. I'm stoked to read it. I'm hoping to finish it before I head home. It's a big book, so I'd rather not have to lug it home. I have more important things to read. I still haven't seen the new Chronicles of Narnia movie. I'm kind of upset about it. Perhaps I can convince my parents to take me once I come home (hint hint, Mother and Father).

Speaking of home, I'll be there in a couple of days. I'm excited to get out of this town and away from everything associated with school for a couple of days. I'm not sure exactly what day I'll get home, but it'll be soon. I'm very happy. I love the people here, but I just want to be far away from school. Also, I just don't get so see my family much, so I'm really excited to go home. It'll be the first time that all seven of us (Mom, Dad, Bryant, Claire, Braden, Cassie, and I) are home since June. I'm very excited for all of us to be together. There's just a great dynamic of us seven that's truly irreplaceable.

I'm also excited for the projects I have lined up over break. I have a few things I want to get accomplished.
1. I want to get a fair amount of work done on my novel.
2. I want to sort through and delete some of my thousands of ancient pictures. I have way too many.
3. I have a letter to write . . .
4. Spend time with family and friends.
5. Read for fun! (Not that I read for school, but knowing that I SHOULD read for school prevents my reading for fun.)
6. Travel. I think I'm going to be in a different state each weekend of January. More details on that later.

Whatever. That's all I have. I've been waiting to post this for days. I'm 75% through grad school. I'm so glad this semester is over. Huzzah!

150 And The Human Excuse

2010-12-10T01:59:00.000-06:00

Hello all! Today is a big day for the blog. Today the blog turns 150! Mind you, this isn't in years . . . if that were the case, this blog would have been around since 1860. I feel like the Civil War would have been even less civil had there been blogs at the time. Can you imagine the Union and Confederates and sniping each other on the battlefield and in the blogosphere? How awful. In any case, this is the 150th post. It also marks the 80th post this year alone, meaning I've doubled my blog output from 2009 to 2010. This means I write too much or something. Celebrate this milestone with me right now, wherever you are, by giving me a round of snaps. It's like applause, but with snapping.

Narnia update: I'm still re-reading my way through the Chronicles of Narnia in preparation for the release of the third Narnia movie, The Voyage of the Dawn Treader (which is technically now out, though I likely won't see it until Sunday at the very earliest). I've read four (The Magician's Nephew, The Lion, The Witch, and the Wardrobe, The Horse and his Boy, and Prince Caspian) and next up is The Voyage of the Dawn Treader. I'm excited as that's typically been my favorite of the series. Each time I read these books, I'm consistently impressed. I sometimes view it as a bit of a lightweight (though still enjoyable) series, but each time I go through them again, I'm impressed at the depth I find. I was particularly struck this time around by how good The Horse and His Boy is. C. S. Lewis was truly a remarkable writer.

I've also become mildly obsessed by British accents. I just love reading the way they talk as 1940's British school children. It's so incredibly proper and intelligent and just all around fun. It makes me want adorable British children. That means marrying into a British family, which also means me spending a great deal more time in England in the future, so you may want to prepare for that.

I also enjoy watching the movies. They do a pretty good job of bringing the books to life. Also, Georgie Henley as Lucy is pretty much one of the most adorable bits of casting ever. I just get mildly giddy at the movies. I love the moments that are true to the books, the action scenes, the snarky British one-liners (see above) . . . it's all just so wonderful! I'm watching Prince Caspian right now. Edmund is such a great character in this film. He shows such maturity that he didn't have in the previous book or film.

And now it's time to change the subject entirely . . . Tonight we had our last Josiah's Priests (men's fellowship group/Bible study) for the semester. It's been a really good semester overall. We've had some great discussions that have been very encouraging. Tonight was a conversation to kind of wrap things up for the semester, in a way. In the course of the discussion, we posed a question asking why it is we can't really internalize what we know about the need to make God central in our lives. Somebody mentioned that it's human nature to err and fall short. At that point, another asked if we often use human nature as an excuse.

I found that to be a really interesting question. Is it really human nature that makes us sin? Or is human nature an excuse that we use? Certainly sin is something uniquely human. Every human has sin. Still, humanity does not excuse sin, does it? Human nature lies in free will. Christ was human, but human nature did not cause Him to sin. When Christ was confronted with human nature (free will), Christ did not sin. He made the choice not to. If that's the case and human nature lies in free will, then what excuse do we have?

None? (None.)

That's about as far as I'm willing to go into philosophy/theology. It's dangerous territory for me as I am not educated at all in either subject. I may be wrong. In any case, I'm curious to see what others think about this. Please leave a message to let me know your thoughts on this.

Well, an epic battle is now underway in the movie. I'd best be going. Farewell and God bless!

Five More Months

2010-12-06T23:31:00.000-06:00

I'm quite aware that the title makes it sounds as though I have a wife that's four months pregnant. I assure you, that is most certainly not true. You shan't worry. Nor do I have a pregnant girlfriend. Rather, I have five months remaining until I am done with this whole school unpleasantness. I'm rather looking forward to that day. I think I am through the worst of it. Granted, historically, every time I have thought that, I've found myself wrong, so perhaps that's a premature sentiment. Regardless, it's exciting that I only have five months left. I can count down the months on just one hand! Oh, if only that were merely the countdown for weeks . . . alas. On the bright side, I suppose it's 20 weeks. That's toes and fingers! Simply marvelous.

Moving along . . . I last blogged in a state of anger. Let's just say that last week was fraught with difficulties, but I've managed to surpass those rather unfortunate circumstances for the time being. I dare say that things have improved. For one, I do believe I have completed all of my individual scholastic assignments! I'm quite pleased about it. All that remains is to complete some group projects. Even further, I have finished all of my grading at the present! Today I saw the last few speeches and graded them. My only responsibility remaining to my students is to administer the final exam. After I get all these done, I'm on holiday! I'm most enthused to nearly be done with this term. It has been ever so dreadful.

Another possible development has perhaps come along. It's quite possible that I shall have an internship for the spring term. One of my classes has been working on a consulting project with a church here called University Christian Church. I do quite enjoy it and have found myself attending worship there on several questions. In the process of conducting interviews and observing staff meetings, I have gotten to know a number of them and we have begun to discuss the possibility of an internship. It's perhaps too early to say much more, but truly, I'm excited by the mere chance of such an opportunity.

I've even had a bit of leisure time over the past couple days. As the newest Chronicles of Narnia film arrives in the cinema this weekend, I thought it appropriate to re-read the books and watch the films once more. It's been quite pleasant. I do so love those books and the films are simply lovely. Today I finished reading The Lion, The Witch, and The Wardrobe, and I subsequently watched the film. I was ever so pleased. I'd quite forgotten how wonderful the film was. In honor of my latest venture into back into the works of the incomparable C. S. Lewis, I've chosen to attempt writing this blog in a somewhat British voice. I do hope I've been successful.

I think that's perhaps all I have for today. The next post is a bit of a milestone, so do stay tuned! Cheerio!