Sister Time

The main reason I flew home to Delaware for this first part of the summer was to be here for Michelle's graduation. She graduated second in her class, and consequently had to give a speech at graduation. Michelle, like me, is very sensitive, and she has a acute fear of public speaking. Nevertheless, she decided not to back out of the opportunity (other people offered to do the speech for her) and to face down her phobia. I was so proud of her! She got a bit choked up a couple of times during her speech, but everyone in the audience clapped for her until she was able to keep on going. I nearly started crying myself - I was so proud.

Michelle with some of her graduation presents.

After we went home and Michelle opened some of her graduation presents, I took her out to IHOP for a late-night celebration dinner. She has now experienced the joys of stuffed french toast covered with strawberries (one of my IHOP favorites!) We got a booth by the windows so that we could watch the thunderstorm outside.

It's been great to have time to hang out with Michelle. We've had fun watching a ridiculous number of movies, listening to and critiquing music, dyeing our hair, shopping, playing card games (and creating our own rules), and just generally being silly. I've also been teaching Michelle ballroom dancing.

We tried to dye our hair red, but it didn't entirely work. Here are pictures.

Fun at the Beach

Mom, Michelle and I drove to the beach today. It's only an hour away, but we hardly ever go. It's a bit crowded, and very much commercialized, but we had fun anyway. We created two different sand sculptures (Mom did most of the artistic work) played in the water some, sat in the sun, and got a bit crispy around the edges (I forgot to put sunscreen on my lower back).

The horse was about life-sized, and the cat was a bit bigger than a house cat. It got washed away once while we were working on it, so we had to start over. It's one of the hazards of making sand sculptures.

On the drive there and back, we listened to the radio, and sang along with some of the songs we knew. Mom put up with it nobly.

Tie Dye Fashion

Two summers ago, I was the arts and crafts director at a camp in Pennsylvania. I created quite a few extra shirts as templates, and I found some of them in my closet. On a whim, I decided to cut them up a bit and see what kinds of styles I create. Here are some of the results.

Girl Time

Last weekend my friends Lynne and Jenn came from St. Louis to visit. It was great to have some girl time. We got all dressed up, and went out on the town - first to the Piano Bar to listen to some live music, then to Generic (a local dance club). We got home around 1:30am, had icecream and cheetoes, and started watching "The Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants." In the morning, we finished the movie, made apple cinamon chocolate chip pancakes (yummy!) and then went thrift-store shopping. While we were shopping downtown, it started pouring rain. At first we tried to stay dry, then we embraced the downpour, and went running and laughing and screeching through it. We were a bit cold in our wet T-shirts at Chipotle when we went to dinner, but it was a fun experience. I need to play in the rain more often. :-)

Creating an Open Space

Allowing God to work in us and through us requires us to make space in our hearts and minds. Today as I was praying, I saw more clearly some of what I need to let go to create that open space.

I have been thinking for some time of what it would be like to live every day in trust, and with a full expectation of goodness - to have a deep certainty that God would provide all that I needed, and that most importantly, God had already placed within me all that I needed for happiness, wholeness, success, and fullness of joy. The question then is, if I truly believe that God is our Father and Mother, why am I so reluctant to accept this goodness?

I think what I need to let go of is the willful belief that it is my job to carve out for myself a place in this world, and the fearful belief that I am incompetent to do it. With these beliefs come a huge weight of human baggage.

In letting them go I can see:

• My success as defined by God, not by society
• My happiness as built-in, not gained by achieving certain goals set by myself or others
• My worth as established by God, not conferred on me by anyone else
• My spiritual strength as a beloved child of God
• My beauty as spiritual and pure, not physical
• My unbroken relationship with my Father, Mother, God

To experience this freedom, there are some old habits of thought and action that I need to set aside. I need to stop accepting a false picture of who I am.

We read in the Bible the following injunction: "Put off concerning the former conversation the old man, which is corrupt according to the deceitful lusts; And be renewed in the spirit of your mind; And that ye put on the new man, which after God is created in righteousness and true holiness." Ephesians

Setting aside the fear, willfulness, cynicism, and baggage of an imperfect human history is not an easy thing. I think in my case it requires that I stop the human effort to change myself from something flawed and imperfect into something better and more "worthy." This is hard to do, because then I have to face the fear human rejection and failure. But, unless I stop this human striving, I can't be open to see that God has already created me (as He created each of us) complete, whole, and perfectly good. I have to trust with my whole heart, that even if I cannot see my true identity clearly right now, and even if others never see it, it is who I am, because it is what God created.

"Beloved, now are we the sons of God, and it doth not yet appear what we shall be: but we know that, when he shall appear, we shall be like him; for we shall see him as he is." I John 3:2

Thoughts on TAing

This was my first year serving as a TA (teaching assistant). As a TA, I led discussion sections, reviewed material from the lectures, graded papers and exams, and answered student questions.

It's very different from teaching environmental education to little kids. However, I enjoy being able to lead "grown up" discussions. I could only talk about how Mr. Tree needs sunlight to grow and Mr. Deer needs leaves to eat for so long before Ms. Crystal began to need to talk to someone who exceeded the height of Mr. Knee and could carry on an actual conversation.

Here are some of my general conclusions on teaching college students:

1. Giving out grades is not as heinous as being graded oneself, but it is close.
2. College students actually have about the same attention spans as three-year-olds. They just try harder at faking attentiveness.
3. College students are better than three-year-olds at figuring out when I don't know what I'm talking about.
4. Three-year-olds are more motivated to be "good" than college students. It's just that the three-year-olds lack the self control to follow the rules. College students have the control, but lack the motivation.
5. Text messaging is the devil's invention.
6. Students who fall asleep in class do not enjoy having erasers thrown at them, but it makes class much more enjoyable for me.

I leave you with a few excerpts from one of the papers on cloning that I graded at the end of the semester. The student who wrote it appeared to be generally intelligent, and participated in discussions. I really don't know what happened with this paper. I'm not sure if the student was awake while writing. My suspicion is that she wasn't. Here are a few choice passages:

"Just because a parent has the thought of a potential life saving bonus coming from cloning doesn't shy away from deeper feeling of desire to have that clone."

"Cloning could have potential peril effects"

I love the lack of punctuation here:

"Human dignity is the underlying subject that is trying to be protected by this objection and it is saying that we should treat them in ways that they themselves on reflection and deliberation would believe to be good and cloning is a possible downfall of violating their human dignity and subjecting clones to being used on instrumentally."

And my very favorite:

"No one wants to be used, or be a pon, or be the escape goat for anyone else, so this objection for cloning violating human dignity appears to be a solid argument."

Classes and Dancing

Spring semester went well as a whole. The classes I took were very challenging, but in the end, I got As, and my writing improved, so I think it counts as a success. My dancing has also improved, and has become my favorite passtime, my primary social activity, my exercise, and my passion. I've never been very athletic, but dancing has shown me the exhileration that can come from physical activity. When I can feel the music through my body, connect with my partner, and let my movements just flow, it is like magic. There is nothing else like it.

It may seem a bit odd, but as a generally guarded and closed person, I tend not to be very physically affectionate, even with my friends. Dancing has been great in helping me to be more comfortable opening up and expressing myself in that way.

Dancing is also great when you don't have a boyfriend - you can still experience romance and be swept off of your feet. :-)

It's great to have dance partners that I am friends with as well, because then I can just let the chemistry and magic of dance happen without feeling awkward. I dance best with people I know and trust - at least to some degree. For lindy and blues, I primarily dance with Scott, and for the ballroom dances, I have been dancing with Krishna.

Here are some pictures of me dancing with Scott.

Photos were taken by Mandy Watkins.

Winter Wanderings

I love the winter, particularly the time before Christmas. There's just something magical about the snow and the Christmas lights together. One snowy night near the end of the semester I was walking outside my apartment, and saw three deer. I tracked them through the woods for a while in the falling snow, and there was something almost other-worldly about it. The woods change in the snow - they become a hushed sparkling twilight waiting for magic to happen.

I hoped to go sledding, but ended up being too busy with grading and such when my friends had time. Perhaps I'll get a chance to go later in the winter. However, I did find time to do a snow sculpture. :-) It only took a bit over an hour, though I had some trouble getting the icicle for the horn. I had to go out on my balcony (third floor), and knock down icicles from the roof with a broom handle (and hope no one walked underneath at just the wrong time ;-).

The semester ended very well - I was able to pull my final papers together, and I got As in all of my classes, which I had barely dared to hope was possible. It's good because it will give me a bit of a buffer for if I take harder classes in the future (I have to maintain around a 3.5 GPA to keep my funding).

Christmas with my family was very lovely, and I've been having a great time hanging out in Delaware and relaxing.

Updates and Photos

The first semester is coming to a close, and so far I think it has gone fairly well. These last few papers and assignments will probably determine it all, but I have definitely enjoyed my classes, and I'm really hoping I do well enough to keep my funding. It's so refreshing to actually enjoy my coursework and find it intriguing and thought-provoking. Being a TA has been fun as well, though I'm dreading giving out final grades. I don't like having that kind of power.

Halloween was definitely the most fun time of the semester. Lynne came to visit, and we hung out, watched the movie Hitch (one of my favorites), baked a pumpkin pie, and ate far too much in the way of festive halloween snacks and treats (it turns out that popcorn, cheetoes, chocolate-covered raisins, and candy corn taste really good all mixed together). Then we dressed up in our lovely costumes and went to Club Tropicana for a Halloween dance.

The next day we went with Celesete to a local corn maze, and had lots of fun girl-talk time.

The following weekend was the dance competition, which went fairly well, I suppose, but not as well as I had hoped. However, they did have a costume part at the end, which gave me another fun chance to dress up.

Socially, things have been going fairly well - I have made quite a few female friends/acquaintances from the the latin dance club and ballroom dance clubs, and I get along well with the other philosophy grad students (even though I don't really spend much time with them other than hanging around in the grad student office). Some of the guys in the dance clubs are decent fellows (though others are not so much), but none of them appear to be potential dance partners. I had hoped that I would find someone to practice moves with so that I could progress as a dancer and remember the moves I learned, but it looks like there is little prospect for that, even if I had time for it. Ah well, at least I am getting better at following salsa, that's something. I just wish there were more places to practice the other dances.

A new start

Sometimes life changes leave me feeling a bit schizophrenic. Coming down here to Missouri for grad school was a fulfillment of my dream of pursuing philosophy, but I had to leave Frank behind to do it. It's hard to loose a boyfriend and a best friend at once. I understand that we need to date other people, or we'll never be certain if we have the "right person," but emotional ties are hard to sever.

The excitment of meeting new people and having wonderful new adventures is counterbalanced by pining for what used to be. The rush of learning new dance steps and dancing with new partners is pitted against the regret of loosing a wonderful dance partner. Then with classes, the freshness and excitiment of learning new material in a field I love is offset by my fear that I will not learn quickly enough or be competent enough to survive the program.

It's times like these where I'm so glad God is there to lead me through the mental confusion and show me which course my life is meant to take.

My new apartment!

Upon arrival, (having driven through the night) my mom and I scoped out the apartment and immediately began shopping for furniture. We didn't sleep until that night. In the space of three days, we had my apartment fully furnished, and feeling quite like home. Here are some pictures.

The trip to Missouri

At the beginning of August, mom and I packed up the car and headed west to pick up the things I left at the school in Elgin. We stayed at Frank's for the weekend, which involved much dancing, cutesy noises, and bouncing around with a huge smile on my face. Every time Frank and I see each other, it gets harder to say goodbye, but I guess that's just how things go in life. After a very happy two days, mom and I drove down to Missouri where I am now going to graduate school.

Earlier this summer

Back in the end of June I flew out to visit Frank for a week. We had a wonderful time dancing, visiting the Chicago Botanic Garden, going roller skating with Sarah, going mini-golfing with Mike, and generally hanging out. (First photo at the mini-golf place, second at Dance World in Hoffman Estates).

The summer at home

I had a wonderful summer at home with my family, and got in plenty of quality time with them (and the cats, which were oh so fun to play with). I particularly enjoyed hanging out with Michelle. We talked, watched movies together, made fun of anything and everything, and read Harry Potter together. I also got Michelle all dolled up for her senior photos (I'll post a picture of one when I can), and dressed up as Harry Potter characters the night before the book came out. We also dressed up to go to the movie. We even did some useful work - I helped Michelle sort through university options and start planning for college. (In the photos: Michelle as a Hogwarts student, and me as Professor Treelawny, the divination teacher)