Matchless Grace

Before the Morning

2010-09-08T01:08:00.001-05:00

So, I should probably be listening to my professor as he lectures about the origins of the United Nations, but I’m not. Call me a horrible student, but I’ve really never cared about the United Nations, and I’ve already heard much more than I ever wanted to know about how it started and what it hasn’t done since then.

My mind is much more inclined to focus on other things today. Like how I’ve allowed myself to get so bogged down in the details and the disappointments that I lost sight of the grace in my life. Over the past few months, I’ve felt like life not only knocked me to the ground, but taunted and kicked me while I was down. Every time I’d nearly gathered the strength to stand up, it would land another punch. Needless to say, I didn’t have high hopes going into a new semester. I felt like I should have been sidelined and useless as far as anyone, anything, or even God was concerned. To my shame, the lyrics from Josh Wilson’s “Before the Morning” sounded truer than ever: “Do you wonder why you have to, feel the things that hurt you, if there's a God who loves you, where is He now?”

Fortunately, God’s been tapping me on the shoulder, whispering my name, giving me glimpses of grace, sometimes at the moments when I didn't know how else to keep going. Tonight, I not-so-randomly discovered this beautifully broken song from Tenth Avenue North, Times:

I know i need you
I need to love you
I love to see you, but its been so long
i long to feel you
i feel this need for you
and i need to hear you
is that so wrong?
oh oh oh, oh oh oh, oh oh oh
now you pulled me near you
when we're close i fear you
still im afraid to tell you
all that i've done
are you done forgiving?
or can you look past my pretending?
Lord i'm so tired of defending
what i've become
what have i become?
oh oh, oh oh, oh oh.
i hear you say "my love is over,
it’s underneath, it’s inside, it’s in between
the times you doubt me, when you can't feel
the times that you've questioned 'is this for real?'
the times you've broken, the times that you mend
the times you hate me and the times that you bend
well my love is over, its underneath
it’s inside, it’s in between,
these times you're healing
and when your heart breaks
the times that you feel like you've fallen from grace
the times you're hurting
the times that you heal
the times you go hungry and *are tempted* to steal
in times of confusion and chaos and pain
im there in your sorrow under the weight of your shame
im there through your heartache
im there in the storm
my love i will keep you by my power alone
i dont care where you've fallen, where you have been
i'll never forsake you
my love never ends, it never ends
mmm, mmm
oh oh, oh oh, oh oh

In soft, gentle whispers, He’s reminding me that I’m not broken beyond repair, as much as the broken pieces bewilder me, and as much as they don’t fit where I thought they should be. His love is over, underneath, inside, and in-between every one: every mistake, every success, every disappointment, every failure, every longing, every joy, every hurt. Now, maybe I'm beginning to see the rest of the truth in that Josh Wilson song: that maybe there are things I can't see, and all these things are happening to bring a better ending, some day, somehow, I'll see.

Would you dare, would you dare, to believe,
that you still have a reason to sing,
'cause the pain you've been feeling,
can't compare to the joy that's coming

so hold on, you got to wait for the light
press on, just fight the good fight
because the pain you've been feeling,
it's just the dark before the morning

long overdue...but posted nonetheless

2010-09-02T00:43:00.000-05:00

Yeah, so I'm really bad about posting. What can I say? I'm pretty flaky when it comes to blogging. Maybe I'll get better, maybe I won't. (I haven't so far...but I guess there's always hope.)

I just can't sleep tonight, and I need to distract myself so that my brain will actually calm down enough to let me rest. (Just eight hours...that's all I need from you, brain. Can you just chill for that long? I promise you can go at it again in the morning. :P)

So what can I say that will keep me busy for a while, I wonder. School started last week. That's kind of exciting. I think that I'm going to like my new schedule -- starting at 10:50 and 11:00am every day keeps me from stressing out as much, I think. I'm out by 4 or 4:15 every day, which doesn't feel really late to me. I can still take care of things in the afternoon and evening, or in the morning if I feel like it. The workload isn't bad so far, just a lot of reading, and I seem to have a really great combination of professors to work with. I can already tell that Gender Communications is going to have the most interesting and thought-provoking discussions (and probably the tendency to irritate me), and that UN & Intl. Politics is going to be the longest, most boring class I've ever attended. I'm going to be doing something else on my laptop for an hour and fifteen minutes every Tuesday and Thursday afternoon and NOT feeling guilty about it. Don't get me wrong. I like to be respectful of my professors and pay attention to the material during lecture classes, because usually they're pretty interesting to me anyway. But the possibility of feeling guilty for distracting myself in this class vanished when I realized that my professor doesn't finish his sentences, can't explain all of the terms he puts up on the board, and feels the need to spend five minutes defining terms like "peacekeepers" by explaining that they "keep the peace." Yeah, it's going to be a long semester in that class. Silver lining (alright, maybe silver plated): I have the option of volunteering at the Model UN later this year. That could be interesting. Fortunately, my Sociolinguistics, Event Planning, and French courses all have much more potential to provide some stimulating material. Talking about language with language nerds every week rocks...and Event Planning will involve pulling off an actual event, which is awesome because practical experience trumps lectures any day. My French independent study and capstone shouldn't be too taxing, given that those are just my opportunities to do what I love and get credit for it. I can focus on whatever I want to, basically, since a lot of the texts I'll be translating are of my own choice.

I've already decided that I'd like to read at least one book a month this semester to give my mind some new ideas to think about, so maybe I'll find one that I wouldn't mind translating into French. Perhaps some C.S. Lewis? It would be a challenge, but a worthwhile one. I'd like to read The Phantom of the Opera in its original French, and Les Miserables too. I have a copy somewhere. Yeah. Story of my life: "mmhmm...I have that...somewhere...") I joined GoodReads this week to hopefully kickstart my reading project. I should probably add more books to it if I'm going to accomplish anything, though.

So today was my birthday. Feels kind of weird to be 22. More specifically, it feels old. Yes, yes, I know that, relatively speaking, 22 is not old. Maybe I just feel behind, like I should somehow be a lot more mature and have a lot more things figured out than I actually do at this age. It's quite unnerving. I guess I should probably just get used to being unnerved by life, though, because I don't see that changing anytime soon.

I suppose I've sufficiently distracted myself now, since I'm getting sleepy. That makes me happy. I'm going to get some rest now and hopefully...you'll hear from me again before the year's over.

Renting Books

2010-08-12T12:51:00.001-05:00

Hey everyone,

I just rented a couple of textbooks from Bookrenter.com, since I know I won't be keeping them at the end of the semester. I was tired of losing money selling them back! If you decide to rent any textbooks this year, click this link to save 5%: http://bkrent.tellapal.com/a/clk/5HX0f . Not only will you save money, but I'll earn credit as well. Win, win!

Have a great day!
Grace

Thoughts on the South

2010-07-23T00:18:00.001-05:00

Well, now that I'm home, I find myself wondering what to do with this blog. My first thought is that I won't have all of the captivating, entertaining, amusing stories to share anymore since I'm in Arkansas, not France. But my second thought is, why can't life be captivating and entertaining and amusing right here, where I live? It's not like I don't notice the little things that make life, well, life -- I just don't write about them as much as I ought to.

Speaking of observations, someone asked me last Sunday how I felt when I first saw the American flag hanging in Customs after landing in the States again, and I realized that I honestly couldn't remember seeing it. It's not that I'm not patriotic. I was very happy to be back on American soil. But the first thing I remember noticing in the Dallas airport wasn't the flag; it was being surrounded by that thick southern accent again. (The second thing? Spray tans and tacky attempts at being fashionable. Americans have a long way to go.) What made me feel even more at home was overhearing a couple of strangers deep in a conversation about South Arkansas farming and chicken breeds while waiting to board the plane to Little Rock. Sure, the topic seemed pretty natural. But two total strangers striking up a conversation? Hadn't seen that in months!

Another thing I hadn't seen in months? Wal-mart. I must say, when I ventured out into American society (i.e. Wal-mart) on my second day home, even the rednecks amused me more than usual (and usually they do a pretty good job). I never thought I'd miss those impromptu family reunions that always appear somewhere near the checkout lines, either, but it was strangely comforting to see people talking and hugging and laughing together again, talking about who's cooking what for the 4th of July and who's going to so and so's birthday party next week, like warm-blooded Southern people do. French grocery stores never seemed to have that same down-home, familial neighborhood feeling that our Wal-Marts and Knight's and Krogers have so much of.

Even our summer recreational habits have their own special Southern charm. For example, when I think of the lake, I think of ham sandwich and potato chip picnics and stuffy, dirty state park bathrooms. I also see the beer cans and cigarette butts lying half-buried in the sand next to wrinkled grandmas half-hanging out of their bikinis, and I remember how I always end up learning the full name of every kid within a 100 foot radius - complete with all of their colorful prefixes and suffixes. My trips to the lake have definitely provided me with a handy collection of truly Southern snapshot memories, but that's not all. They've also helped shape my standards when it comes to family relationships. The way I see it, as long as my grandmother isn't the half-clad 80 year old on the beach with a cigarette hanging out of her mouth, swearing and yelling at her grandkids to get their a**es out of the water, I figure I'm doing pretty good. All in all, I may leave the lake having seen more than I wanted to see and having heard more than I wanted to hear, but at least I have stories to tell.

So, yes, I knew I'd missed Southern culture, but I guess I just didn't realize how much. Now that I'm thinking about it, though, I do remember talking a lot about it when I was in France. Whenever I made generalizations about American culture or my personal background, I would always have to clarify that I was talking mostly about the South. I remember thinking that it felt strange. I hadn't expected to talk about America that way because I had only thought of myself as an American at first, not so much an Arkansan or a Southerner. I realized for the first time that you still can't describe American culture to a foreigner without making the North/South distinction (even more so than East/West). And I also realized that I'm really and truly not ashamed of being from the South and calling myself an Arkansan.

Sure, we've got our issues, but doesn't everybody? It's the last thing on my mind when I'm sittin' on the porch swing drinkin' sweet tea listenin' to the cicadas sing. Call us uncultured if you want, but you don't know what you're missin'. I sure didn't.

Home

2010-07-08T12:39:00.000-05:00

Haha, I didn't realize that my last post was about Normandy. It's pretty ridiculous to have a month-long gap in posts! I still haven't regained my sense of time since I returned home, though. If you had asked me the date on any day since the 17th, I wouldn't have been able to tell you 9 times out of 10. The jet lag hit me pretty hard, harder than I expected, so for about a week after the flight home, I was non-functional by dinner time every day.

But...anyway, the last week or two in Angers were pretty tough, what with the goodbyes and the subconscious stress about the impending change. They were also pretty special, because we were able to spend time with Clemence and her family before leaving, and my landlady had a sudden change of heart and became a totally different woman. Evidently, she quit work for a while and her stress disappeared, which translated into a farewell dinner Sunday night, crepes Monday night, breakfast Tuesday morning, and then a surprise lunch that nearly made us late for the train that afternoon. I was really shocked when she dropped a gift in my lap Sunday night: a lovely rose-embroidered tea towel and rose perfume from Doué-de-la-Fontaine (a town famous for its rose-centered culture). I had crocheted a scarf for her in her favorite muted blues and grays because I wanted her to know I cared about her, but I really wasn't expecting anything from her. She just seemed too overwhelmed and depressed most of the time. I realized that I had been too, though, especially towards the end, so I wrote a letter thanking her for taking care of me and apologized for being so distant sometimes. I know that didn't exactly help our relationship to grow. We exchanged our thoughts the morning of my departure, so even though I'm very glad that we ended up apologizing, hugging, and spending some really pleasant time together -- I can't help but wish it hadn't have taken so long in coming. I suppose that's just how life goes.

She wasn't done surprising me though. Not only did she give me a gift, but she loaded me down with gifts and notes for my entire family! For my dad, she found a special bottle of wine that she thought he might like; for my mom, it was a another rose-themed gift. And for my brother and sister, she bought two different kinds of chocolate (the really good stuff, too). Then she wrote a sweet note to both of them, and one to the whole family. Looking back on the stories from this semester in her house, I'm sure you're just as surprised was I was by this sudden outpouring of affection.

Unfortunately, obsessive habits die hard. She still spent 15 minutes digging through the bags of trash I brought down after emptying my room, just to make sure I wasn't throwing out anything that was recyclable. I told her that the contents were mostly old supermarket sacks and such, which was the truth. But, I kid you not, she went through every inch of that trash, admonishing me with every discovery of recyclable paper or cardboard that I'd missed, "Now THIS, this is not a sack, ma biche!" ("Biche" is a pet name that translates literally to "doe" - I promise) She even pulled out sack of months-old potatoes I'd thrown away because she "just couldn't bear to throw away good food" -- it was just too ingrained in her by her upbringing on the farm. I was just pacing the floor, praying that God would help her speed up the process, because lunch was getting cold on the table, Kendra and I had a train to catch in a little over an hour, and the suitcases weren't even loaded in the car yet. I sighed a sigh of relief when she finished rifling through the trash, only to stifle a cry of exasperation when she announced that she needed to go buy bread because we didn't have enough for lunch. When all was said and done, Kendra and I made it to the platform JUST as the train pulled in, and three minutes later (after almost *throwing* our suitcases onto it and exchanging hurried hugs goodbye from the edge of the train as the attendants started securing the doors) we were speeding away toward Nantes.

I'll always cherish my memories from the last couple of days we spent with Clémence at her house and in Paris. Crazy card games, old family photos, laughing at the high-class "bourgeoisie" sitting across from us on the train to Paris...and then lugging ALL of our bags through the Paris Metro to Clém's sister's tiny apartment...good times. Just picture three girls loaded down with three huge backpacks and an extra handbag dragging, kicking, hoisting, and all but throwing four solidly-packed suitcases down stairs, up stairs, down escalators, up escalators, onto and off of crowded Metro trains, through countless turnstiles, down the street, into a tiny 3 person max. elevator, and finally into two room flat. It took at least four trips in the elevator to get everything up to the 7th floor, and we had to suck in our breath on the last trip to get the doors open far enough for Clém to fall out. (The doors opened inward.) And then imagine doing most of that all over again the next morning to make it to the airport on time! I wish I had video documentation of this adventure because it would definitely win some kind of award, if not for bravery, strength, and sheer determination, at least for hilarity. :P

After one last coffee with Clém, Kendra and I did our time in the security line. The passport check felt like the Inquisition, but I survived.
What have you been doing in France?
Studying.
What?
French...and international studies.
*hmmm*
Are you travelling with anyone?
My friend, Kendra, over there.
How long have you known her?
A couple of years.
Where did you meet her?
At university.
What does she do?
Studies.....
Where did you pack your suitcases?
In my room.
Were you alone?
No, she was with me.
Did she help you?
No, I did it all myself.
Where else have your suitcases been?
We came with another friend to Paris, to an apartment.
How long have you known this friend?
5 months.
Where did you meet her?
University.
What does she do?
Studies...........
Did you repack your suitcase in Paris?
Yes, a little.
Did anyone help you?
Nope, it was just me.
Did you receive any gifts or letters in France?
Yes, but I opened all the letters. (Ok, I admit, I didn't open my mom's gift, but seriously...how many bombs are flat and smell like roses?)
What technology are you carrying with you?
Camera, laptop, phone, iPod...
What's the newest one you've acquired?
(my gosh) uh, the camera - it's my dad's, I started using it 5 months ago
*long, wary look* Ok.

And then I got a little sticker on my passport. I don't think I've ever worked so hard for a sticker. :P I mean, I understand why they would want to know if you've let some strange man who looks like Bin Laden help you pack your suitcase...some people just don't think about these things. "Oh sure, sir, you don't have room for your suspiciously bomb-shaped brown paper package in your luggage from ...Pakistan? I have room in mine, so of course I can give it to your aunt in Georgia!" Sounds totally legit. :P

Anyway, security checks went smoothly, and we made all connecting flights with no problems. That was a huge blessing. Our flight home was a little late, but that's ok -- it just meant that everyone had had time to build up some extra anticipation. ;) Audrey made the dash for the first hug, and I couldn't believe how much she'd grown, or my brother either, for that matter! Everyone laughed when I looked up and couldn't find his face where I'd expected it to be. It was so wonderful to see all of my family's and friends' faces again, and be able to actually touch them. It was a fantastic "welcome home."

The past couple of weeks are still kind of blur for me. Like I said, jet lag really hit me hard, but that hasn't been the only thing. Mentally and emotionally, the adjusting has been difficult. Drama between people that had been developing for weeks and weeks finally exploded, and finding my new place in relationships and
life is taking a toll on me. I knew that things would change while I was gone, but I thought that I would still be working on the same life "puzzle," so to speak, just with some new pieces. Now it feels like I'm staring at a totally different puzzle which happens to have some of the same pieces. I don't know what to do with it all right now, how to process it, how to fit in -- but I'm trying. Please be patient with me!

Anyway, I should probably go now and find out if my brother has started any fires so I can put them out before Mom gets home from VBS. ;) Maybe I'll have more time later to write out some thoughts about home and culture shock. (It goes both ways!)

Enjoy the rest of your week!

Normandy

2010-06-06T10:18:00.001-05:00

So, Kendra and I hopped on a train Friday morning, bound for Caen. I'm guessing most people in the U.S. haven't ever heard of Caen, or most of the little towns along the coast in Normandy, but they know all about us. All of them were under German control up until 1944 when the Allies stormed the beaches and started the bombardments. I never realized how much suffering and destruction those French villagers experienced. Our men went through hell too, running across open beaches under enemy fire, parachuting into enemy territory, and climbing up cliffs only to be sniped down. But can you imagine living under German oppression, only to be freed by having your entire town and way of life bombed into nothingness? Towns like Saint Lô basically didn't *exist* anymore at the end of Allied bombing. The photos show nothing but debris and parts of what used to be houses. When our forces finally took possession of those towns, one by one, they were welcomed by the French, of course, but with somberness. They accepted that their freedom would come at a price, and were grateful to have it nonetheless, but that couldn't take away the pain of their loss. How blessed we have been to have not experienced this kind of sacrifice.

I've always heard that something happens, something changes inside, when you see the white crosses at the American cemetery in Colleville-sur-Mer. It's true. There's something so real about seeing 9,000 white crosses stretching as far as you can see, understanding just how many lives they represent, and realizing that even that number is only a fraction of how many lives were actually sacrificed. Those 9,000 are only 39% of the casualty total; the rest were taken home. I just couldn't manage to imagine what it must have been like on the Beach down below the cemetery 66 years ago. Bloody Omaha, they call it, because 3,000 American men fell that morning as they stormed the beach. It was so beautiful yesterday. Blue skies and sunshine, cheerful birdsongs floating on the soft, cool breeze -- how could it be the site of a massacre? They were all just fathers and sons and brothers. I have no sympathy for the German cause, nor do I in any way condone its horrors, but I do grieve for the loss of life on all sides. The wages of sin...

I will always remember meeting Bob at the cemetery. Bob is a D-Day veteran with a Scottish accent and a soldier's eye for pretty girls. I walked up to him and his comrade at the Gold Beach bunkers to shake their hands and thank them for their sacrifice, and he stopped to talk to us when we met again at the American cemetery with his friends calling out, "Come on Bob, not again, Bob!" He told us that he was in the parachute division on D-Day and he was only 19 when he jumped out of that plane over Saint-Mère-Église. "I wasn't frightened," he said. "No?" we both gasped. "Nope. I was scared stiff." I can't imagine. "I couldn't have been much older than you girls," he ventured.
"What are you, 16?"
"21, actually."
"Nawww!"
He wondered why in the world young people like us would be interested in coming to Normandy, and I realized that most of the people around us really weren't our age. I shrugged. "We care about what happened. I wish more people did." If they did, they wouldn't miss out on meeting men like Bob. They might even see some of them show off the magic tricks they learned during all those hours in the barracks. He was still pulling coins out of nowhere for us when our tour guide found us, and we realized that we'd lost track of time and were late for our rendez-vous back at the touring bus. Oops. It was worth it, though. I have a picture of us together so I won't forget him. Thank you, Bob, for everything.

Our tour of the Gold Beach, Omaha Beach, and Pointe du Hoc wouldn't have been the same without the great tour group we were with. Kendra and I hit it off with an older couple named Sue and Tom, who are from Oklahoma but have living in Belgium for the past few years. (What are the odds? It was like us meeting the girl from Little Rock on the tour of the chateaus who lives in a neighborhood right next to Kendra's family. 0_o) Sue was just like a Southern grandma and took good care of us, even though we'd hardly met. :) We all giggled when we drove past one of the d-day weekend barbecues going on and realized they were grilling bratwurst and serving it with sauerkraut. They must have been digging into those German food reserves they captured... ;)

Our hotel was really more like a hostel with a TV, but I was able to take my first bath in 5 months, and we watched some World Cup soccer and Get Smart in French. We ate dry muesli out of plastic hotel cups for breakfast. It was awesome. ;) We took off Friday night to explore the town a little and get dinner, and it turned out that the castle was free to explore. So we took goofy pictures with the statues inside the walls and climbed up onto the ramparts and took pictures of the sunset. It was starting to get dark, so we decided to head back to the hotel; unfortunately, we couldn't find the bus line back. We finally figured out how to get to the right stop, and when we got there we found out we had a 55 minute wait for the last bus back. :P That's right. Thank you French public transit system. As much as they love to go out and hang out in town at night, there's never an easy way to get back home for us tourists. I wanted to just sit down on the sidewalk and throw a temper tantrum and cry. I'm so weary of feeling stranded and scared that I'm going to be stuck on a dark street somewhere, even though I tried my best to get home. But...we made the best of it and took more goofy pictures of ourselves at the bus stop. You can see the evidence on Facebook (fortunately or not). lol

Oh, and here's a Kendra quote of the trip: "The world, it's so BIG, Grace, so big!"

It's true. It's just so big...

I've seen so much here, but it's only the very tiniest tip of the iceberg!!

Catching up

2010-06-06T08:38:00.000-05:00

Good morning world. :) Only ten days left until I come home. It's a bittersweet feeling. On one hand, I have really grown to appreciate many aspects of European culture...and on the other hand, I'm ready to be with the ones I love (and not have to worry about getting stuck in a dark alley somewhere with no way home). Cars are a marvelous invention. Of course, if I were here for longer, I could really settle in and take care of things like that, but living as a half-tourist, half-resident can be quite a hassle. That said, I wouldn't trade my experiences for anything.

I think I've pretty much wrapped up my shopping (hehe, no pun intended). Tomorrow is my last real free day before the next whirlwind of travel begins. Tuesday, Kendra and I will set off for the Netherlands to visit Laura and Isabel until Sunday. :) I'm so excited! The Monday after we come home, we'll head to Nantes to spend some time with Clémence and her family, and then on Tuesday, we're setting off on an adventurous road trip in search of a little village called Mortagne-sur-Perche. My great-uncle has traced his ancestry back to this little town and asked if I could possibly find it and bring something back from there. I couldn't find any bus lines that could get us close enough, and then I had the brilliant idea of asking Clémence if we could make a road trip. That way, we can hang out and have some more good times together before I leave...AND I can find this village for my uncle Gene. Happiness all around. :) Wednesday, we'll be back in Nantes, heading for Paris to stay the night with Clémence's sister who is graciously opening her apartment to us to crash for the night. If we took the train to Paris the morning of the flight, we'd run a high risk of missing it. So...anyway, that's how the next week and a half should pan out if things go mostly according to plan, but life never does...so who knows?

I'm thinking about what I've done lately, now that school is out. Taking the ALP exam was a huge milestone...it was hanging over my head for so long. I hated it. But, nevertheless, I'm glad I took it because it definitely enriched my experience here. The exam was probably the strangest exam I've ever taken, though. Here's how it worked. First of all, I walked in, drew a card, and took a seat at the desk in the office to prepare my answer. My task was "Prepare a tourism itinerary for a group of 20 adults on an October afternoon based on the theme of 'medieval Angers.'" Hmm, ok -- most of historic Angers is medieval. :P It really wasn't as difficult as it could have been, because I had access to a collection of tourism brochures in front of me to prepare my presentation. After about 30 minutes, I walked into the jury room and sat down across the table from three judges and the older of my two professors, and then I presented my itinerary, responding to questions from them as I went along. This church here, that church there...you can see this art gallery that's housed in this abbey...that tower dates to blah blah blah...I was pretty nervous, so some of my French broke down, but I felt like I was able to show them that I knew the material. I didn't make it as far as the chateau, which I really wanted to mention, but they decided we need to move on. Hopefully that won't count against me too much. The next phase of the exam felt extremely risky, because I had to draw three cards at random from a selection of questions about Angers and Anjou. They could have been about anything or everything. :P Fortunately, I nailed all of them without having to stop to think. Praise the Lord. Then all three judges picked a letter of the alphabet and asked me to come up with something that started with their letter that was related to Angers/Anjou. M...Mauges.....F...Fontevraud.....B...Bateau, gabares...check, check, and check. Fortunately, they seemed quite satisfied with my explanations of each one, and I noticed that they were putting down checkmarks as they took notes -- that bodes well for me! After all of that, it still wasn't over, though. I still had to piece together a three-part model of a cathedral and give the terminology of certain parts of the architecture in both English and French before it was over. The results will be posted on the 8th (the same day I leave for Holland) - so I can check them when I get back. It's a little unnerving to know that my score will be posted on the wall for everyone to see! :P Anyway, whether I passed or not, I'm thankful to have had the chance to take the class. I'll get a certificate either way, and if I passed, I'll have a tourism diploma of some kind. That could be useful in the future.

Anyway, after the ALP exam was out of the way, I spent Saturday at the beach with the young adults group from church. Well...I say that we spent the day at the beach, but that gives the wrong impression. We stepped off the train in Le Pouliguen in Bretagne into the cold, the drizzle, and the blustery wind, and we thought about climbing back on a train to go back! And, of course, I had picked *that* day to wear my new shorts, since it had been so much warmer the day before. :P We decided to make the most of it and found shelter under the awning of a closed restaurant on the beach, and when it stopped raining, most of us braved the chilliness to play some soccer in the sand and take a walk down to the edge of the sea. Our picnic was rather "n'importe quoi" (whatever, anything, and everything), kind of like us, and we had a blast. We walked around the beach for a while after lunch, ate homemade brownies to celebrate a birthday, and laughed hysterically as Stephane tormented Yolande with the soccer ball. (She gives the perfect reaction every time.) Then on our way back through town, we were passed by a string of cars honking to celebrate a marriage. That's one tradition I love here. If someone gets married, they have a procession through town and you can honk all you want. :) We celebrated with them and then headed back to the train station. Unfortunately, it started raining again as we headed back, and no one could really remember *exactly* which direction the train station was.....and we only had ten minutes to get there. I think we made it with about 2 or 3 minutes to spare because Yannez picked the right direction. Yay, Yannez! We were all so tired...and my hot shower that night felt SO good.

Oh, and church the next day was so wonderful! We had great conversations over lunch about our experiences here, French wedding dinners that last until breakfast, and even international politics. Wei Wei got her first Chinese Bible, too. :) And then we had to say our goodbyes (the not so wonderful part). :( I don't like goodbyes. I had to say goodbye to Magdalena, then Yumi, and Gaelle this past week, as well, and then we had our farewell dinner at Stephane and Véro's place. That was one of the BEST parties we've had here. I don't think I've laughed that hard in a long time. Half of us had tears in our eyes from laughing, and my stomach was sore. (the best kind of soreness, for sure) Léon tried to explain a strange Chinese game, we all broke out into Sunday school songs from our childhood (like "I am a C-H-R-I-S-T-I-A-N and Father Abraham), and Stephane tried to poison me and Kendra with tea from his mother. (No one likes it, so they try to get rid of it when company comes...and then Yannez started reading the box, and it was "best consumed by October 2008.") :P The taco soup and apple pie that Kendra and I made together were huge hits, too, which made me happy. All the other dishes I've tried to make for picnics have turned out a little strange because the ingredients aren't quite the same here, but these two were pretty simple -- and it gave them a taste of what my momma's cooking is like. Now they all want to come home with me. :) Seriously, I really do want them all to come visit, however unlikely that might be. (With God all things are possible!!!) At least they want me to come back here, too, and do ministry! (and play with Stephane and Véro's new baby when it arrives in October!) :) They said that the west of France is one of the most needy areas when it comes to missions. Heh, wonder why God sent me here. 0_o

Oh yeah, btw, in the middle of all the other things I was trying to do last week, Joselyne informed me that it was urgent that I defrost my refrigerator. I didn't have time the next day, and I asked her if I could just wait until I moved out, since it would only be two weeks. She adamantly insisted that it couldn't wait. :P I didn't have time to take care of it the next day, and when I got home that evening, she had left a note for me on the table saying, "If you would please defrost the fridge *tomorrow*." *sigh* Alright, so I did...but I couldn't stay and watch it all day. I knew all that water was going to have to go somewhere, so I tried to catch what I could with the plastic trays inside, but there was still a little water on the rug when I got home. It wasn't a big problem though, fortunately, because I would have hated to have done something accidentally to these wood floors. That's the last thing I want to deal with right now. Anyway, getting all the water to my window to dump it out was a bit of an ordeal...you know, draining the tray into a plastic wash basin, climbing onto my desk, pouring it down the roof into the gutter...that's just what I thought I'd be doing last week. :P What a house I live in. (Oh, btw, Wei Wei said that Joselyne explained away the "stair stains" episodes by saying that she had had something to drink. Evidently! lol Makes me feel better about her sanity.)

Oh hey, I watched a movie in French last weekend: l'Arnacoeur. And I understood most of it! :) I was so happy. Yolande had to explain a few things that were mumbled in the movie, but for the most part, I knew exactly what was going on. And, it was actually a pretty good movie; I wish it was available in English. As it is, I could watch it with my buddies at home, but they wouldn't get anything out of it. lol Darn this cross-cultural thing.

Kendra and I wrapped up school details with the head of study abroad last week. We ended up talking to her for a while, and she related some of her impressions of the U.S. from her visits. She absolutely loved San Francisco (that's the city that all the French talk about for some reason), but she hated Atlanta and didn't want to ever go back, just because of a random racist comment from someone in the airport. Evidently, she noticed that most of the cleaning and runway employees were black, and when she asked a black man where to find something in the airport, a white middle-aged woman rushed over, took her by the arm, and assured her that "he wouldn't know." Granted, she might have indeed asked a homeless man, but in general, I can see how she would get an unfavorable impression. That was 20 years ago, too, so she admitted that it may have improved since then. They have a much different perspective on black/white racism here in France, so I think that *any* sign of it, however small, is really striking to them. However, they have their own problems when it comes to the Arab/North African population, so it seems pretty hypocritical to me. Oh well, we all have our prejudices and blind spots.

Even though I think that French people are a bit obsessed with appearance, I do think she did hit the nail on the head when she started talking about the obesity problem she witnessed, though. She went to Las Vegas and saw an obese man in a wheelchair, pushing buttons on a slot machine, with a straw stuck in his mouth, drinking Coke out of a supersized cup with a straw. She thought he was handicapped, but then she saw him move his motorized wheelchair to the bathroom and get out of it. She realized that he was only in a wheelchair because of his size, and he was just conserving his joints. She's right; that doesn't happen here in Europe. I haven't seen one single person in that condition. They do have a mentality that values self-care. It's certainly a healthy mentality. I wish it would catch on in the US, but we're so busy in our rush to go nowhere that we don't think we have enough time to think about it. If only we would STOP and realize that our striving to be busy all the time isn't getting us anywhere, and to top it all off, it's making the journey to nowhere absolutely miserable. :P

She also started talking about the difficulties of travel nowadays, with all the restrictions and paperwork brought on by terror threats. After 9/11, the U.S. become more or less paranoid, a mindset which is reflected in all of our rules and regulations. We noticed that the French and Europeans in general don't seem quite as obsessed with security measures as we are. She agreed, and contrasted our attitude to theirs by reminding us that Europe has already been through so many wars and tragedies on its own soil that they've just adopted an attitude of fatalism. What happens, happens. Rules and regulations just make life difficult, and they don't prevent determined people from committing crimes. If anything, they can accelerate the adaptation and evolution of terror techniques. Makes sense to me. The longer I'm here, the more I realize that America's youth is really quite evident to the European world. They tend to view her as the kid sister. :P

Anyway, I've rambled on about anything and everything for quite some time now. I wouldn't blame you if you read this in installments. :P I just got burned out on processing things these past few weeks, so I guess I'm catching up. There's just too much to process after it's been building up for 5 months, at least for someone like me. I'll talk about my trip to Normandy and the D-Day beaches later. :)

Weekends and Day trips :)

2010-05-26T17:05:00.000-05:00

Well, it’s a beautiful cool night (finally!) and I’m looking at the moonlit outlines of the clouds from my skylight window, thinking about how crazy it is that I’ll be looking at the clouds over Arkansas in just a few short weeks. I’m not really sure why, but I think it hit me this week just how little time I have left. I'm trying to wrap up my shopping and enjoy the things I haven't had a chance to see yet (or taste). ;) A lot of people ask if I’m sad to leave, and I have to say “not really,” in a general sense. I’m ready to come home and be a part of life with my family and friends there. Of course, I am sad that I have to leave behind so many fledgling relationships, not knowing if or when I will have the chance to come back and deepen them in person. That’s what so hard about being here for only five months. It’s just long enough to establish a foundation for friendships, but not long enough to really build them. Anyway, there is a season for everything, and knowing that makes it easier to move on. Besides, I’m not leaving my new friends behind; I’m just “moving out of visual range.” ;) Sorry, trekkie reference there.

I’m super-excited about the fact that three UCO students will be doing a semester-long exchange at UCA this fall. I know they’re coming to learn English, but I’m definitely going to be begging for a least a little bit of French time so I don’t lose everything I’ve worked so hard for this semester. I hope they won’t mind! Maybe we can play bilingual Scrabble...with French and English words. I played in French with Joselyne and Wei Wei the other day, and it was definitely a lot of fun -- and definitely challenging. Believe it or not, I did score points! That made my night.

Sooo...I forgot to mention that I’ve had two amazing weekends in a row: the first with UCA choir friends and the second with Clémence and Azilys and Kendra. The weekend with the choir was full of the unexpected. I hopped on a train for Orléans on Thursday, hoping to catch up with them at their hotel and surprise them, since they didn’t know when or where I was going to show up. I almost didn’t find them, because they deviated from their itinerary. (Figures.) After getting my bearings from the map in the train station, I wandered in what seemed like the right direction to find the hotel. It took about 45 minutes, one stop to ask directions from a nice lady on the sidewalk, and a little bit of backtracking because of the uncrossable highways, but I finally made it. Unfortunately, they didn’t. :P So I left to find the restaurant where they were supposed to be having lunch, and I didn’t find it, but I found the tour bus in the square (which was hard to miss). I just happened to catch the bus driver getting the bus ready for them and asked if I could wait for them on board. He had no idea who I was, or what I was doing, but he said “sure” with no questions asked. I’m glad I’m not a terrorist. :P Anyway, I was so nervous about seeing them that I’m pretty sure I was shaking. It seemed so surreal to think that I’d be touching people from home and talking to them in person! It was priceless to watch their faces as they filed onto the bus one by one. I snuck up behind Evan and gave him a hug, but I think it took a few hours for it to actually sink in that I was really there. What’s interesting is that I hadn’t planned on sticking around long -- just catching a train back to Angers that night and finding them again in another city. Fortunately, Annie and Ashleigh didn’t let me go, and I just lived out of Annie’s suitcase until Sunday, taking the bus with them to Blois, Tours, and Nantes. It was super, super, super fun hanging out with my buddies, and being a French speaker, I think I came in kind of handy at least a few times. Here’s what I remember most about the weekend:

- Twirly chairs by the Loire. Yeah, they’re on rollers. 0_o
- Orléans being the sketchiest French city I’ve ever visited. Seriously. It didn’t matter who I was with.
- Hanging out with the staff at the hotel bar, teaching Sean and Evan some French, and learning that Evan’s last name doesn’t translate well into French.
- Nutella ice cream!!
- Tasting real champagne for Evan’s 21st...in France. What are the odds?
- Uhhhhh....petit français! (Ben was trying to say he spoke only a little French...but kept saying “little frenchman” -- until some waitresses finally lost it. And then it was just too funny to stop saying it.)
- Goodies from Bretagne, including pork intestine. Yeah...even I couldn’t get that down.
- Wondering if perhaps Annie and I have the same...parents? Hmm...
- An American choir and a French choir, lots of cider, and lots of singing -- in a creperie. I’m sure the Star Spangled Banner never sounded so good. (And neither has Lookin’ for a City...beat boxing included!)

I teared up when we said goodbye on Sunday morning, but at least I’ll see them soon. Not much longer!

Last weekend was awesome, too. Clémence, Azilys, Kendra, and I set off for Nantes Friday morning and had a lovely lunch with Clémence’s mom. It felt so good to be with a real family again. For some reason, we ended up talking about our host families, and I recounted some of my most interesting experiences. (I hate feeling like I'm complaining, but people ask, and I feel like I have to be at least honest.) She was really disappointed and a little bit shocked that we’ve had to go through what we have here. (Not that it’s been horrific; all the same, it’s not exactly ideal.) It’s just like if I found out someone had been through some difficult living situations in the U.S. Not only does it reflect badly on Americans, but I don’t want anyone to have a bad experience when they’re visiting my country. I want them feel warmly welcomed, to enjoy their time, and to have a rich cultural and relational experience without being burdened. Anyway, she said that she knew that the English had a reputation of being very exacting, cold, and very profit-oriented when hosting French students, but she had thought better of the French. Evidently it’s becoming just as much of a problem here. (Even our tour guide to the chateaus of the Loire pointed that out to us today, and he’s hosted students before.) Makes sense though...after all, the love of money isn’t limited to a particular nationality. All of my friends have told me that my rent is definitely high for what I’m getting, and wi-fi and laundry and meals aren’t even included. 3 euros extra for her to do a load of my laundry, 8 euros a month for wi-fi, and 6 euros per meal if I choose to have her cook for me. I’ll probably be writing a letter to the housing office here to let them know about my particular situation as well as some of the other experiences other students have told me about. I don’t think students have reported things as much as they should have in the past, or else the university has ignored the complaints. In any case, they need to do a better job of screening and keeping tabs on their host families, because in most cases, they aren’t really hosting -- they’re just offering a hotel -- or at the worst, abusing the trust of the university in the way they provide for the students. :P

Annnnnyway, back to the weekend. We packed up the dog and headed to the beach for the afternoon - about an hour’s drive. It was great, being on the road, in the sunshine, wind blowing in my hair...and even if walking around in the sun was a bit warm, the Speculoos ice cream did a fantastic job of cooling me off. We all had a wonderful time with her family at dinner, laughing and telling stories (one thing I’m going to miss SO much), before collapsing on the couch for Finding Nemo in French. Oh yeah, Clémence had to wrestle with the bedsheets first...but those pictures are on Facebook. 0_o

Saturday, Clémence’s parents took us out for lunch at a little restaurant on the shore of the Erdre river -- one of the most beautiful rivers in France. (THE most beautiful, according to the Sun King Louis XIV, and we all know how important his opinion was. :P ) The smoked seasoned salmon, white wine, fish in white butter sauce, cheeses, and profiteroles were *amazing*, especially since we were enjoying them outside with such a gorgeous view. It was probably one of the best meals I’ve had in France. To continue the good times, her parents rented pedal-boats, and we all climbed in for a leisurely pedal up and down the river. I couldn’t have imagined a lovelier way to spend the afternoon. And, as if that wasn’t enough fun for the day, we headed to Chateaubriant for a cookout soirée and night out with friends from the language department. We all goofed off for a while before heading out to the Bilbok to dance. It was quite an adventurous evening (and quite a long one), but I had lots of fun and now have lots of memories. :)

Other than those two weekends, a day of shopping with Gillie and Kendra yesterday, I’ve been laying low, trying to get rid of this chest cold I picked up somewhere. It’s been hanging around for a little while now, and I’m ready for it to be on its way. :P However, I did get the chance to take a day trip with Gillie, Kendra, and Ninh today to see several chateaus of the Loire. :) It was absolutely beautiful today, except for a little rain this afternoon, but overall it was the perfect weather for visiting Chenonceau, Clos Lucé, Langeais, and Ussé. We took the train to Tours early this morning to catch the all-day tour from the office of tourism. (Too bad no one gives prizes for the abundant usage of the word “tour”; I could have won today!) :P Our driver was quite friendly, and I really enjoyed our drives through the countryside just as much as visiting the chateaus. I hadn't realized just how much of France is rural or agricultural. These chateaus were a lovely change of scenery from what I'm used to, since they’re from the Renaissance era, and the ones I’m used to seeing in my region are better examples of medieval fortresses: impressive, of course, but not quite as aesthetically pleasing. (Oh, just a bit of trivia for you: Ussé is better known as the chateau in Sleeping Beauty.) I thought Kendra was going to faint. ;)

Well.....I think I’ve about written myself to sleep, or written up an appetite, so I’m going to find some fruit and head to bed. Tomorrow I have some hard-core reviewing to do for my ALP exam, but at least part of that will be giving a tour of Angers to Kendra to practice my tourism skills. Even so, I will be SO glad when this is finally behind me and not hanging over my head anymore. Night everyone!

Cold showers, but short ones.

2010-05-23T18:03:00.000-05:00

Oy, I didn’t think I would get this hot in France! My room is on the top floor, with a skylight window, so I’ve discovered that during the day the heat in here is rather abominable even if it’s not scorching outside. I felt like I should be taking a Spanish siesta this afternoon and took a cold shower just to cool off. :P (No, I didn’t count the liters.)

The whole “water usage” obsession has gotten ridiculous. Joselyne basically told my housemate the other day that she needed to find another place to live after her summer holidays because it made Joselyne sick to hear so much water running. She also used the same wording to express how bad it would make her feel if Wei Wei moved out, which made me mad. How can you put a human being, especially a human being that you’ve developed a friendship with over the course of a year and a half, on the same level of importance as a few liters of water? For a person as friendly as Joselyne, it’s not logical. It’s not like she’s obsessive about everything else; on the contrary, she’s a pretty spontaneous kind of person, not the anal retentive kind that keeps track of everything meticulously. Well, she was pretty obsessive about a couple of marks on the stove and wouldn’t let anyone use that burner for weeks until she finally cleaned it, and she doesn’t know how to use her oven, so she doesn’t let us use it either. :P But everyone has their quirks, and it’s understandable that she’s being careful with the kitchen she just remodeled. The water is just a strange obsession, though, and I can’t help but wonder if something is a little...”off”...there. It’s plausible, especially since the “stains on the stairs” incident, when she called me and Wei Wei out of our rooms at 11pm to tell us that there were marks on the stairs that had just ... appeared. Now, this is an old wooden spiral staircase, with lots of marks from use over years and years and years, and it’s not especially “finished,” so there are a lot of imperfections and darkened places just due to the natural appearance of the wood grain. At first, though, I thought maybe someone had tracked something in on their shoes, so we checked ours, but there was nothing there. Neither me nor Wei Wei had brought any heavy loads upstairs that would have made any marks on the stairs, but Joselyne insisted that the dark places on the stairs were new and weren’t there the other day when she looked at them. She spent a good ten minutes pointing them out and talking about them, while Wei Wei and I stood at the top of the stairs shaking our heads. I even scratched at the marks with my fingernails and rubbed them with the bottom of my shoe, and absolutely nothing came off. But still, she insisted that it would only come off if we scrubbed it with some kind of cleaning solution. (Right...cleaning solution will magically remove, what, the wood?) Finally she went to bed, telling us not to worry about cleaning it right then and that it could wait until later. (Yes...it most definitely could. I love her, but I’m not scrubbing imaginary stains on the stairs at 11:30 at night...) Anyway, every day is an adventure, that’s for sure.

I do need something to keep me on my toes, I suppose, because without classes to keep me busy, the hours can pass pretty slowly during the week. Kendra and I did enjoy an afternoon of sight-seeing and shopping with Cassie during the middle of the week, though, which was really refreshing (and much needed). She studied abroad like us when she was an undergrad, and this semester, she was asked to come back and teach an American culture class at UCO. It was super-helpful to hear about her experiences (from another American’s perspective) and to glean some wisdom about taking advantage of the time here and preparing for the culture shock of going home. I had been feeling rather anxious about whether or not I was really taking advantage of my time here, but talking to her really helped put some of those doubts to rest. Evidently, I have had the opportunity to see the region and spend time with French friends a lot more than most exchange students. So, even though it’s still hard to feel “integrated,” I’m extremely thankful for what I *have* experienced. Cassie introduced us to her first host mom, who is probably one of the best host moms here - probably because she’s more like a grandma! I’m making a mental note of all of the good host families I hear about here, just in case I need to make recommendations. It’s hard to find a good one. Andrew’s family takes him shopping, barbecues in the backyard, buys him French candy...it’s insane. Mine just complains about less than 5 minute showers. (I timed myself.) Oh well, I’m here for a reason...I just don’t know how best to take care of her yet! She’s taken care of me -- even brought me a rose when my grandma passed away. That’s why I’m kind of confused about this whole thing...

Anyway, yeah...I only have one exam left now: ALP on Friday. Not looking forward to it. Well, I take that back; I’m ready to finish it. I just have no idea if I’ll be prepared for it or not. There’s really no way to tell! I could be asked anything from the entire semester, whether it be castle or church architecture, the history of the kings of France and the dukes of this region, traditions of the different areas of Anjou, the different scenes in some tapestry somewhere -- there’s no telling. There was information in some of the practice questions they gave us a few weeks ago that we hadn’t ever covered, so, I’ll do what I can, but I can’t guarantee anything. :P Overall, I’m just glad that I had the opportunity to take the class and learn more about where I’ve been living.

Hmm, what else have I been up to lately? I’m generally occupied with friends on the weekends, fortunately. A couple of weeks ago, the group of young adults from church had a Bible study fellowship which was super-fun. I always love hanging out with them, and I am going to be sad to leave them in a few weeks. Going to Louis’ baptism a few weeks ago was special, too. I don’t think I’ve ever seen so many people crowded around a tiny backyard pool! In a country like France where so few people actually follow Christ, a baptism is a cause for a huge celebration. It hasn’t lost its significance, and I love that. I’m pretty sure the entire church was there, and we all sang together, prayed together, and celebrated together in Louis’ backyard. (I think they must have asked for a “feed the 5000” miracle, because there was a seemingly endless supply of little pastries. Every time I finished one off, I was being offered another one from a newly-replenished tray. I wasn’t complaining, though.) Anyway, Louis has health problems, especially with his feet, which makes mobility especially difficult. Three of the guys in the church, fully clothed, jumped into the pool to help get Louis in the water and baptize him. Watching it nearly brought me to tears. I just love it when the body of Christ gets it.

Soooo, wow, it’s later than I thought and I should be getting caught up on some sleep. It was a great weekend, but that story will have to wait. :) Night!

(Oh by the way, 25 days...but who's counting? ;) )

Daily Happenings

2010-05-12T04:09:00.003-05:00

So, I realized that I haven’t really caught you up on the happenings around here lately. Not that they’re ground-breaking or anything; I thought you might find some of them amusing.

After I got home from London a few weeks ago, Joselyne left for a week in Toulouse with some friends and family. Wei Wei was still gone on vacation, too, which left me in charge of the house for the week. No big deal, right? Just go on with life as usual, and close the shutters at night. It really wouldn’t have been a big deal -- had it not been for the strange man at the door. Yes, the very same day that Joselyne left, a young-ish looking man passed in front of the kitchen window (that faces the street) and rang the doorbell. He’d already seen me in the window, so I obviously couldn’t pretend no one was home. I opened the door, thinking it was the person who brings her newspapers every now and then. He asked for Mme. Leau, I told him she wasn’t there at the moment; he paused and wondered aloud if she was on vacation. Suspicious, I said no, but he followed up by asking if she would perhaps be home in the evening. I played the “I’m an exchange student and she has a different schedule and I’m clueless” card, and asked him if he needed something in particular. He said no and left, just like that. I closed the door, and the freak-out commenced. Was he a burglar scouting out the territory? A rapist? A murderer? I talked to my mom and a few friends for advice and decided to assume the worst. I spent the afternoon doing my best to think like an unsavory character on Criminal Minds, finding all of the possible ways into the house and accounting for all of the possible scenarios. I probably looked a little odd walking around the outside of the house, taking note of all of the windows and doors. At least no one could see me moving the living room armchairs in front of the doors after I bolted the shutters, putting the big iron frying pan at my bedside, and bundling up all of the kitchen knives to hide them in my room. (Hey, you’d be paranoid too if you were home alone in a foreign country in house that wasn’t yours after a strange man stopped by with no motive other than to find out if the owner was home and when she was coming back. Trust me. It makes sense.)

Fortunately, nothing happened, so all of the precautions were largely unnecessary, apart from the fact that they gave me a bit more peace of mind. I had thought about spending the night with Kendra, but then I realized that I wouldn’t know if something happened at my house. I also considered calling Kendra and having her spend the night, but I decided against it, because really: who wants to get a call that essentially says, “Hey, I think someone’s going to break into my house tonight, you wanna come over and be my human shield?” 0_o

So...that was my week at home alone. I was incredibly lonely, probably the loneliest I’ve been to date in France. I had just enough homework to do that I couldn’t justify occupying myself outside of the house. You can’t imagine how slow the hours go by when you’re by yourself, in a quiet house, with no one to talk to and not enough work to hold your attention. You can't imagine how glad I was just to have someone to eat dinner with when they came home!

After that week, I was down to the last week or two of classes, which were kind of like the last week or two of classes at home: long. At least I was able to finish up two of my classes for good, because the final exams took place during the last week of class instead of during the weeks of finals. In addition to that, my 20 page dossier and my 3-text translation project kept me pretty busy. Call me crazy, but I actually liked working on them. Maybe it was because the work didn’t seem useless or pointless; it had a purpose. I was actually learning and growing by doing the projects.

Not last weekend but the weekend before, I spent a couple of days with Azilys, Clémence, Kendra, and Andrew at Azilys’ house in St. Pazanne, a lovely little village west of Angers, close to the Atlantic. We spent Saturday afternoon enjoying the sunshine and the breeze on the beach, marvelling at the tide at the Passage du Gois, and laughing at Andrew’s fascination with cows. Saturday night we ate homemade crêpes, thanks to Azilys’ dad, and watched our favorite youtube videos, and Sunday we enjoyed a wonderful traditional family lunch on the patio. I don’t know if I’ve ever eaten that much in my life: marsala from Italy, fresh oysters, salad, bread (of course), homemade ratatouille, grilled sausages, white wine from Azilys’ grandfather’s vineyard, an assortment of French cheeses, fruit cocktail, coffee, and Italian hazelnut and Croatian fig cookies. (Her mom had just gotten back from a trip to Italy and the surrounding region, so that’s why the meal had such an international flair.) Azilys’ mom is American, and her father is French, so we had some interesting discussions about cultural practices and the challenges of growing up multilingual. I learned that it’s not just my perception; the French really do value their “joie de vivre,” and they are very protective of their “living” time: whether that’s playing, eating, enjoying personal relationships. Even in the world of business, taking time to be interested in your business partner’s life outside of the workplace is considered to be as important as the work itself. Taking time to have a glass of wine or a coffee together is just as much a part of the deal and the business relationship as hammering out the details. Americans are much more to the point, and it’s very difficult for the French to understand and adapt to that mentality. That’s one reason why diplomacy and international relations issues involving France and the U.S. can be so complicated. Americans have a mentality of directness, of a solution-based process; the French do not. They focus on the process, the exploration, the relationships, and the openness of the end-result (and even the lack of a definite solution). If you can understand that, you can begin to understand why we misinterpret each other so much. Diplomacy is complicated. What’s funny is that the only reason we Americans wonder why it’s complicated is because we have a typically American mindset of, “There’s the problem. We can do this. Let’s fix it. Now.” Not every culture has that.....but of course, we wouldn’t pay attention to a little detail like that...

Well, it’s time that I got ready for my exam this afternoon. I’ve been reviewing the history of France during the 19th century off and on for the past few days, and I’m honestly not sure how much more I can remember. I’ll read everything again over lunch and then wing it from there. :P I’m all for doing my best, and striving for excellence, but honestly, there’s not much reason to know what date a certain number of miners in some tiny French village went on strike (for the fourth time). Anyway, I’ll write more when I don’t have more studying to do. Which will be...later this week. My last two exams until the 28th are next Monday, and I don’t have to study for them. (translation exams) Later!

and today is...

2010-05-10T09:34:00.002-05:00

6h43: Birds are singing, rain is pattering, nature is calling. Unghhh, 8h30 is too early to get up today. 9h15 sounds better. Reset alarm.

11h57: Wow, it feels late. Why hasn’t the alarm gone off yet? I must have been really into that dream. *look at phone* NOON?! My alarm obviously didn’t go off.

12h15: I try to wake myself up with some cereal. It doesn’t seem to be working.

13h03: Maybe some history homework will perk up my brain. Nope.

13h26: Coffee? ...

14h22: Ok, maybe exercise. Hmm. Good idea, but it’s not working today either.

14h54: Browse ThinkGeek and find adorable Star Trek uniform onesies for babies. Post link on profile like a loser.

14h58: Video chat with Mom for a while, discover that she can’t seem to wake up either. (Mom: “Dead sea horses are so funny.”) It’s just one of those days.

15h42: I eat an apple, because somewhere I heard that they can wake you up better than coffee. I’m not so sure.

16h08: Give up and take a shower. I don’t care how many liters of water I use today. :P

16h29: Reluctantly trudge to the library to return overdue books. Oh, wonderful...I’m out of toilet paper too. Looks like a trip to the store as well.

Ten hours in, and my conclusion? It’s a Monday. Most definitely, without a doubt, Monday.

Optimism? Nah.

2010-05-06T17:09:00.000-05:00

Well, I haven't accomplished much today, so I thought I might write something to at least be able to say I did ONE thing. (Well...I did eat lunch with Clemence, and that definitely counts. So two things.) I actually didn't wake up until 11:57 this morning because my shutter was closed; thus, my room was dark. I must have needed the rest after this week, though. Unfortunately, I was also supposed to meet Clemence at noon, so I rushed around and was out the door in five minutes -- not a bad record! All that energy expended in such a short amount of time must have done me in for the day, though, because I've been worthless ever since. I balanced my checkbook, talked with my mom, and watched clips from The Match Game. :P But...taking into account the fact that I walked all over Angers with Cassie and Kendra on Tuesday, finished classes last Thursday, spent the weekend with friends by the beach, got sick Sunday night, turned in a 3-text translation project Monday morning, finished a 20 page paper for Wednesday, took a test Wednesday afternoon, and then attended my grandmother's funeral by webcam Wednesday evening...I'd say I probably needed some rest today.

I am so, so, so thankful for God's provision in my life right now. Over the past few weeks, I guess I've been struggling with the fact that I can't really *feel* Him or *hear* Him right now, but today, one of my friends reminded me of something very simple, but very true. "God takes care of us in his own way. He may not be speaking because it's working as planned. All you need to do is endure and serve and let HIM be your strength."

So yeah, given that I have a tendency to overanalyze, I had totally missed that completely obvious truth. (Yes, it's true, I overanalyze things. You don't have to pretend to look so surprised. :P ) Things *are* working as planned. He *is* taking care of me. And He's taking care of the people around me, too. I just wasn’t expecting Him to be so quiet about it. I guess this is just another reminder that he isn’t a *tame* lion, and He isn’t constrained to working the way I expect Him to. I had gotten used to very obvious, charismatic, emotional experiences with Him over the course of the past year, but here, it’s been different. He’s been consistent and caring, but a lot more quiet. However, I could still give you an example from any given day of how He's been involved in some of the most important situations and some of the tiniest details of my life. He’s been perfectly faithful and perfectly present all along; I guess was just looking for Him to show up how *I* expected Him to - silly sheep that I am. :P I just need to learn to calm down and trust Him to show up the way *HE* wants to.

Here are just a few examples of His amazing care, despite my silly sheep-ness:

- I have wonderful friends here that I love spending time with.
I have Kendra, who puts up with me and all of my weirdness, all the time. She’s also a great prayer partner.
- I have a beautiful church family here that has welcomed me with open arms and that cared for me with sweet notes of encouragement as soon as they heard about the loss of my grandmother
- I have an incredibly sweet host mom who is interested in my life and brought me the most gorgeous pink rose and affectionate card this afternoon with her condolences
- My family and Sylvania church family were kept safe during the tornadoes and storms as they cared for one another and for Grandma while she was in the hospital
- I have not only survived several tests and projects so far, but I have been able to do work that I am proud of. His grace is sufficient, even in learning a foreign language!
- All of my injuries or health issues have been healed or if not, I’ve at least been given the strength to endure them.
- I have been blessed to see the world from so many new perspectives, with so many special people, in so many different places: London, Paris, Marseilles, Strasbourg, Offenburg, Angers, Nantes, Ile de Noirmoutier, Saumur, the Loire, various châteaux. I never imagined I would have experiences like this.
- I have a fresh view of life: what's really important, and what really isn't.

I can say that I am truly thankful for all of this despite having come through some very difficult moments here: my knee injury, my difficult first living situation, loneliness, an OCD relapse, academic challenges and stresses, the loss of my grandmother.

Some people say that I have a very optimistic outlook despite these setbacks. I disagree. I think it’s a very realistic outlook. Consider this: I have a God who promises me that He has plans for me, to prosper me and not to harm me, to give me a hope and a future. He promises me that all things work together for the good of those who love Him and are called according to His purpose. He promises that His Spirit will testify to the truth and be my Comforter. He promises me that He will never leave or forsake me. And he has delivered on every one of those promises, every step of the way. That is a basis for very real faith, not just optimism.

Well, perhaps I was a bit more ambitious than I should have been. I had other things to write about so that you'd have an idea of what I've been up to lately (other than final projects...). I suppose that can wait until tomorrow, because I'm utterly exhausted. It never ceases to amaze me how I can be exhausted by doing nothing sometimes. :P I'll just blame it on the week catching up to me. Anyway, goodnight!

In Memory and Celebration

2010-05-05T07:24:00.000-05:00

The Saturday evening before my flight left for France, my mind was swirling with all of the last-minute travel details still waiting for my attention. As I pulled up to the retirement home to visit Grandma one last time, somehow through all the noise I could hear something whispering, “Go love on your Grandma now. She might not be here when you get back.” And so I did. We talked about my trip, my studies, my plans, and she told me she was proud of me. She told me she loved me. And we almost didn’t manage to let go of each other when we said goodbye. Her kisses were always the best kind of Grandma kisses, whether they were the messy ones for her little grand-baby or the sweet ones for her grown-up granddaughter. This time they were even more tender than usual.

I will always cherish the memory of that last visit with her.

It was a Saturday, so none of her favorite shows were on. Her TV was sitting on the dresser, dark and gray. Now it reminds me of the times I spent at her house when I was little, watching Wheel of Fortune, Jeopardy, and the Price is Right -- calling out the answers I knew and surprising her when I got them right. That was back when I was small enough to sit in her lap. We loved to sit and work word-search puzzles together in her recliner. As a matter of fact, I’m pretty sure I can attribute much of my puzzle-working prowess to her. Of course, I did get bored from time to time, and that’s when I amused myself by playing with her arm flab. She always rolled her eyes and scolded me, but I could tell she was just trying not to laugh. When we weren’t working puzzles or watching TV, we were playing Yahtzee or Dominoes and she was teaching me how to score points. Playing with double-nines sure was complicated for a seven year old’s brain.

Visiting Grandma also meant eating Cheerios for breakfast and wondering why anyone would want to drink prune juice every morning. I got to eat graham crackers and milk out of a big, green glass goblet for dinner, too, and for some reason, she even let me eat peanut butter out of the jar with a toothpick when I got hungry for a snack. It wasn’t often that she didn’t have a Werthers in her candy dish or a big jar of crisp chocolate chip cookies to munch on. That was life at Grandma's house. She used to take me to the beauty shop all the time just so she could show me off to all of her friends. I still remember climbing into her Lincoln Town Car to drive over there, mostly because her leather seats always burned the backs of my legs. That’s okay, though; I cherish that memory, too, because it reminds me of she always made sure I knew that she was proud of me -- always.

Life with Grandma wasn’t all about fun and games and cookies and trips to the beauty shop, though. She taught me the value of working hard, whether it was shelling peas, shucking corn, or studying for school. She also knew how to motivate me with quick mention of the fly swatter on the wall, and all it took was one look in her sharp blue eyes to know she was serious. I guess you didn’t always have to look in her eyes to know it, though. After all, it was dark that one night a hoodlum tried to break into her house, and all she had to do was let him know that she already had her shotgun in her hand. I've always been proud to have a Grandma like that. She was such a strong woman. (She was also rather strong-*willed* -- or tenacious, independent, stubborn...however you want to say it -- as anyone who knew her well could tell you. But that’s another story. We’ll just suffice it to say that now you know where I get it.)

My family would also tell you that I must have inherited my sense of humor from my Grandma, although I can only hope to one day have a wit half as sharp as hers (and to know how to use it half as well). With her sly sense of humor, she could always slip in the best quips when no one expected them. She always managed to look away so you couldn’t see her snicker, but if you caught her eye, you couldn’t miss that telltale sparkle. Those lively blue eyes of hers would always let you know when she was up to something mischievous, and that was a lot of the time.

We were always going somewhere when we were together, because Grandma was a woman who never let a day go to waste. She truly squeezed every last drop out of life: always on the go and hardly ever still! That’s actually how she earned her nickname: Verla Go Berkau. I know she was so happy that I had this opportunity to study in France. I think that I’m following in her footsteps, seeing the world and experiencing all that I can every day, and that makes me happy because it's just what she would have wanted.

What makes me the happiest, though, is knowing that my Grandma was a woman who loved her Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. She was a woman who left a strong legacy of faith to her family, and that steadfast faith not only touched my father’s life, but it has touched the life of every member of my family. She may not be with us now, but we will all see her again, and the next time we see her, she’ll be wearing her well-deserved heavenly crown. I’m sure the jewels will be a rich, royal purple, too; I can’t see her wearing anything else.

That last Saturday night I spent with Grandma, I asked her if she had any advice for a girl my age. I’ll always remember what she said: “Hold on to the Lord, appreciate what you have, and live life to the fullest every day, because you won’t be 21 forever.” Looking back on her life, it’s obvious that she lived by that advice, and I plan to do the same.

So, I guess this is goodbye for now, Grandma, but only for a little while. I’m holding onto the Lord, and I’ll see you soon. (Oh, and make some blackberry cobbler for Jesus, okay? I'm sure He'd love it.)

London Chronicles, the Fourth

2010-04-28T16:26:00.003-05:00

The Fourth, and final, installment of the London Chronicles, I think. There's not much to say after Sunday, because we obviously arrived safely in Angers. :)

Alright...Friday Friday Friday. What do I have to say about Friday? Oh yes. Bon-bons and mal-mals.

Hehehe.

I’ll have to let you in on a little secret: if you leave us alone too long without supervision, Kendra and I have a tendency to get a little goofy. Or...maybe a lot goofy. And given the fact that we’ve been unsupervised for going on four months now, you can imagine how much a “lot” goofy really is. Just give us some chocolate bars, ice cream, and a camera, and you’ll see. 0_o Or, take for example the story of the bon-bons and mal-mals. (I just realized that all of these stories seem to involve sugar of some kind. Hmm.) Anyway, we were taking a short ride on the Underground, going...somewhere...(only God knows where now)...and I pulled out a little bag of candies (bon-bons) that a friend at church had given me before we left. I asked if she wanted a bon-bon, because I’m nice. ;) But, I used the French word instead of the English one by habit, like we usually end up doing. We chuckled about that for a second, and then all of a sudden I had one of my “linguistic moments.” That’s when all of a sudden, I make a connection or think of a question that has never occurred to me before. It’s usually something obvious. :P This time, I was wondering why bon-bons are called bon-bons. “Bon” means good...so I assumed that perhaps they were “good-goods.” I mean, it makes sense, given that it’s candy we’re talking about. So, I wondered this aloud, and Kendra took the question even further, wondering if perhaps there could be such as thing as a “mal-mal,” because “mal” means “bad,” and if there’s a “good-good,” it stands to reason that there could be a “bad-bad.” And then we both realized how ridiculous the whole thing was and cracked up laughing in the middle of the train car.

Yeah...I know, it’s not really all that funny to most of you. But to us? It’s priceless.

Friday we actually did succeed in seeing the changing of the guard at Buckingham Palace, and once again, I could hardly believe I was really there. The ceremony took forever, and I’m awfully glad I’m not one of those guards who has to stand there for over an hour, or one of the officers who has to march to and fro for no practical reason whatsoever. However, I am glad that I could be one of the tourists who took pictures of them while they did it. I have to say, though, that my favorite part of the ceremony was the concert given by the guys in the furry black hats. (Yes, I know they have a special name, but I kind of like calling them that.) Anyway, I know beyond the shadow of a doubt that God planned it for me, because why else would the band have picked that day to play a medley of Star Trek theme songs? It was soooo beyond awesome. I couldn't wipe the grin off my face, and I'm pretty sure Kendra thought I was weird. ;) I took a video of the whole thing, but I haven’t had a chance to upload it yet. Chances are it will take a great deal of time to put it on Facebook, but I’ll try.

We also saw some of the Veterans’ Monuments before heading off to Covent Garden. I’ve always kind of wondered exactly what Covent Garden *was* - and now I know. It’s basically just a shopping area, more posh than anything else. There are a lot of name brand boutiques, interesting specialty stores, and open spaces for street shows, as well as a few market areas displaying the goods of local artisans. I know it’s kind of touristy, but I really do like watching certain kinds of street shows. I’ve seen some incredibly talented acrobats and breakdancers who are also quite good at entertaining a crowd.

Anyway, after freshening up at the hostel, we found a well-established diner, where I ordered more fish and chips, and Kendra and I split an apple crumble with vanilla ice cream. It was like being in the South again, I’m tellin’ ya. :)

And then...one of my biggest, wildest dreams came true: I went to see a performance of the Phantom of the Opera. Live. And in London, no less! Aside from the small pillar in front of us and the restricted view of the ceiling (and the inebriated man behind me who felt the need to sing from time to time), our seats were actually very good. Honestly, it wouldn’t have mattered which seat I was in - it was the freakin’ Phantom of the Opera for cryin’ out loud. I had to pinch myself three times to make sure I was really there! It is one of the memories that will always be vivid in my mind. Not only was it absolutely surreal just to be there, but the performance itself was truly spectacular. The cast was well-chosen; I think that their Phantom is one of the best I’ve ever heard, and Christine was definitely a star as well. Raoul, well, I think he was probably just a bit too old for my taste, but a good Raoul despite that little detail. As a general rule, though, I never really like Raoul very much anyway; his character is just too much of a pansy.

After the performance, Kendra and I made our way past all of the nightclubs in the Piccadilly Circus quarter, winding through the wild, half-drunken crowds on the sidewalks waiting to get into clubs like “Tiger Tiger” and “Koko.” I’m so glad I wasn’t one of the crowd. If I had been, Kendra and I wouldn’t have heard strains of “Open the Eyes of my Heart” bleeding through noises of other street performers, and we wouldn’t have been able to join their tiny group of Christians doing ministry in the madness, and we wouldn’t have been able to pray with them before heading back to our hostel. Honestly, the way God orchestrates things still amazes me. :)

Saturday was a more slow-paced day, because by that time, we were pretty well exhausted. We ended up spending the day at the Imperial War Museum (and outside on the grass, picnicking in the sunshine), and I’m very glad we did. The WWI and WWII exhibits were interesting, but the Holocaust exhibit really grabbed me. It was so dark, so heavy, and so real, but so absolutely beyond comprehension. I wanted to cry for the victims, but I couldn’t. Instead, I found myself angry at the men and women who could commit such horrific, satanic evils. But then, I was reminded of Jesus’ response to such cruel and unjust acts committed against him: “Forgive them, Father, for they know not what they do.” All of a sudden, I was aware of the fact that every person who could be named a perpetrator of Holocaust atrocities was a human being - a human being just like me.

By birth, I am no different from a German who slaughtered ten thousand Jews.

Yes, me. I was born with the same depraved human nature and the same capacity to sin. But, by God’s grace, I was redeemed. I was bought from that slavery, and it’s humbling to think that any one of those criminals could be bought back, just like me. By believing on Jesus Christ, they could be freely given the same pardon, just like Paul, who had devoted his life to eliminating Christian believers before Jesus called him to new life. That is a truly mind-blowing concept, after having seen the filmed documentation of those Holocaust atrocities and heard the testimonies of the traumatized eye-witnesses who saw as children their parents brutally murdered in front of them. Of course, most of the Nazis I saw didn’t repent of their wanton bloodlust; their hearts were hardened to the reality of their sin. But how incredible would have been the grace of God for those few who might have believed?

And so ends the London Chronicles. I am so thankful to have been blessed with the opportunity to visit London after having dreamed about it for so long, and I will definitely treasure the experience for the rest of my life. :) That said, London is not the only blessing I've been given...after all, God has been faithful every day of my stay here in France, just as he was in the United States. For that, I will always be thankful as well.

London Chronicles, the Third

2010-04-27T02:54:00.002-05:00

So, Thursday was kind of an off-day, for me anyway. We tried to see the changing of the guard in the morning, but we found out when we got there that they only change them every other day (MWF) during certain seasons. Friday would be our last chance. So, instead we took some pictures around Buckingham Palace (which looks exactly like it does in the movies...of course), and goofed off by the fountains before taking a stroll down The Mall. Now, in my opinion, it bears a strange resemblance to the Champs-Elysées in Paris...but I’m sure that’s just me. ;) There are some beautiful mansions that line it one side, and Hyde Park on the other, with two arches at either end. It leads straight to Trafalgar Square, so we wandered past once again and found our way to the scenic walkway along the Thames. The London Marathon was planned for the Sunday our our departure, so the sidewalks were teeming with runners. When we weren’t dodging them, we were admiring the view and the monuments along the way to London Bridge. One of my favorites was Cleopatra’s Needle, with its Sphinxes on either side, one of which still bears the war wounds left by the Blitzkrieg. I can’t imagine what it must have been like to endure night after night of bombings in London. Thankfully, we’ve been spared that kind of terror in the United States so far. I’ve always been impressed by the strength with which the British faced that trial. I wonder how we would react?

On our very long walk, we also passed by Cannon Street, which is in the financial sector of London, and found ourselves in front of The Monument. Yes, that’s the only name it has. “THE Monument.” As if there aren’t hundreds of others. :P Anyway, THE Monument stands in remembrance of the Great Fire - another horrible tragedy that I simply can’t manage to wrap my mind around. A city as large as London...engulfed in flames. I guess I would have felt pretty helpless, like all of those people who just sat down to paint it. What else could they do?

Anyway, we also found St. Paul’s Cathedral, which turned out to be even more massive than I thought. We didn’t feel like paying several pounds to go inside another church, even though I’m sure it was impressive, so we just admired the architecture from the outside and continued our pilgrimage toward London Bridge and the Tower of London. London Bridge isn’t really that pretty (I wasn’t expecting it to be), and the view was definitely not as spectacular as the view from some of the other bridges. But, now I can say I’ve been there. :P I can also say I’ve visited the Tower of London, and I have to say it wasn’t exactly what I expected. It felt more like a tourist trap than a historical site. The tour was also extremely expensive, and we were exhausted and starving by that point. Of course, the history behind the Tower of London has always intrigued me, and I would have liked to have seen the ravens and maybe the Crown Jewels, but I realized that it wasn’t really worth as much to me as I thought. So, we ate a picnic lunch in Hyde Park, watching a man do some sort of really strange yoga. It looked pretty boring, since he kept doing the same thing over and over and over. Anyway, that wasn’t really the highlight of the afternoon. Hehe. The highlight of the afternoon was the British Library.

I’ve wanted to see the British Library for a long time (just like a lot of things in London), and it was definitely not a disappointment. Well...that is, once we found it. Let’s just say we encountered some navigational difficulties. Anyway, there is one room in the Library completely devoted to their collection of famous, original works. I’m pretty sure my mouth was hanging open during half the time I spent in there, because - get this - not only do they have the original Magna Carta and its subsequent editions, but the earliest copy of Beowulf, some of Shakespeare’s printed plays and collaborative work, one of Jane Austen’s teenage diaries filled with her early stories, Jane Austen’s writing desk, Charlotte Bronte’s “Jane Eyre” manuscript, three pages of sketchings and theorems from Da Vinci’s scientific notebooks, a Gutenberg Bible, Caxton’s Aesop’s Fables, the illustrated “Alice in Wonderland” manuscript given as a gift to the real Alice, the Codex Sinaiticus, a piece of papyrus displaying one of the Psalms, an original manuscript copy of Handel’s Messiah, Ravel’s “Bolero,” and original manuscripts of Mozart, Beethoven, Chopin, Haydn, and Schubert.

So yes, I saw the Magna Carta. I read part of the last chapter of “Jane Eyre” in Charlotte’s handwriting. I took a peek into Jane Austen’s imaginative diary. I stood a foot away from the pages of Da Vinci’s famous theorems written in mirror-image Italian. I gazed at the oldest copy of the Greek New Testament known to exist (Codex Sinaiticus). I noticed the stylistic differences of notation in the written music of Mozart and Handel and Beethoven.

It was humbling to be surrounded by the lingering remnants of so much creativity and discipline, but at the same time, it was even more humbling to realize that those remnants, those legacies, are all that remain of those great men and women. None of them cheated death, no matter how famous, creative, or talented they were. And I’m a human being just like them, gifted with my own unique talents and my own potential to shape the world, but ultimately, I am finite, just like the rest of humanity.

But, there is 1 Corinthians 15.

50I declare to you, brothers, that flesh and blood cannot inherit the kingdom of God, nor does the perishable inherit the imperishable. 51Listen, I tell you a mystery: We will not all sleep, but we will all be changed— 52in a flash, in the twinkling of an eye, at the last trumpet. For the trumpet will sound, the dead will be raised imperishable, and we will be changed. 53For the perishable must clothe itself with the imperishable, and the mortal with immortality. 54When the perishable has been clothed with the imperishable, and the mortal with immortality, then the saying that is written will come true: "Death has been swallowed up in victory."[g]   55"Where, O death, is your victory?   Where, O death, is your sting?"[h] 56The sting of death is sin, and the power of sin is the law. 57But thanks be to God! He gives us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ.
58Therefore, my dear brothers, stand firm. Let nothing move you. Always give yourselves fully to the work of the Lord, because you know that your labor in the Lord is not in vain.
And that was Thursday. More on Friday later. :)

London Chronicles, the Second

2010-04-25T07:58:00.006-05:00

Alright, I’m done with classes for the day, and I don’t have anything else pressing to finish...and I’m actually rather bored. Everyone else seems pretty busy, and hanging out at the park alone gets old after a while. So I’ll write another installation of “The London Chronicles” for you while I eat my fresh endive salad. (That’s my new addiction.)

Where was I anyway? Oh...umm, the end of Tuesday. That’s right. There were a couple of things I forgot to mention about that day. In Westminster Abbey, you can see the memorial stone on the floor where Oliver Cromwell - the guy who had King Charles I beheaded and disposed of the monarchy for about 9 years - *was* buried for about three years, that is, until the new king, Charles II, the son of Charles I, just couldn’t stand the fact that he had gotten away with killing his father and had him dug up and executed by hanging (you know, just to make sure he was dead). As if that wasn’t enough, he was then beheaded, and his body was thrown into a well. (Good riddance.) What did they do with his head, you ask? Well, what else would you do with the decomposed head of the man who murdered your father but mount it on a spike over Westminster Abbey? Right, I knew you were about to say that. Anyway, it stayed up there for close to 25 years, and then it just toppled off in a strong wind and somebody took it home. (“What’s that new centerpiece on the mantel there, George?” “Oh, just something I picked up on the street this afternoon.”) 0_o

Oh yes, and we also saw St. Margaret’s church, next to Westminster Abbey, which was full of plaques and stones and graves, too. Sir Walter Raleigh (in two pieces, of course) is buried under the altar. Some of the members of the Parliament still meet at St. Margaret’s to take Holy Communion and then have breakfast together once a month. I thought that was interesting. Whether it means anything to them or not, it’s still completely opposite of the mentality I’m surrounded by in France: this mentality of “laicity” to which they are extremely attached.

Alright, so here we are at Wednesday (finally, after my longwinded “bizarre secrets of history” lesson). Wednesday, of course, was another full day of exploring. We dashed off first thing to find the British Museum, and we spent all morning wandering around amidst the mummies and artifacts and books and sculptures and really, really, really old rocks. Well, I am giving a bit of a tongue-in-cheek description there, but honestly, I did find it interesting. It’s not every day that you find yourself face to face with ancient Egyptian bodies and relics that you could reach out and touch (even though you’re not supposed to), nor bits and pieces of culture that date back to the time of Jesus. The intricacies of the written artifacts from thousands of years ago, the evidences of scientific developments, the belief systems whose mythologies bear remarkable resemblances to Biblical accounts...it was all right there. I couldn’t begin to count the number of historical discoveries that prove the authenticity of the Bible, but that were cleverly ignored by museum historians. Check this one out:

Hmm. Great Flood anyone?

So, Kendra and I goofed off a bit in the Museum too, because looking at history for too long just does something to you.

Oh yeah - and we saw the Rosetta Stone. Yep, the real thing.

For lunch, we decided that fish and chips were in order, so we found a pub by Trafalgar Square and that’s what we got. The verdict? Not bad, not bad at all. It’s fried fish and thick-cut french fries, served with green peas. It honestly reminded me of the South. :)

On the agenda for the afternoon was The National Gallery. I remember seeing a street preacher in front of the Gallery. I think I rolled my eyes at first, because I’ve seen so many who just spew hatred and lies, but then I started listening to what he said, and he was actually speaking the truth - in love! It was actually rather refreshing. It was also an abrupt change from the completely a-religious environment I’ve become accustomed to here in France. Anyway, the National Gallery. So many rooms, so many paintings. Van Gogh, Monet, Cézanne, Rembrandt, Roden, Da Vinci - so much astounding talent displayed in one location. It made me wonder though: what about those not-so-famous painters and artists? I’m sure they were rather talented in their own right. I honestly couldn’t tell the difference between a Monet and another impressionist if Monet’s paintings weren’t so famous. So why do we give all the glory to one, and not the others? I’m sure it’s not because all of those famous painters were the first or the best. I mean, it can be true, but it’s definitely not always the case. Walking around gazing at all of their works of art also made me wonder why God gifts certain people with creative talents like that. It must be because he is a beautiful God, and wants his creation to reflect that beauty. It’s the only reason I can think of, because looking at paintings is something to enjoy more than anything else. I also realized as I wandered through the maze of galleries that each of those painters represents more than just a name in the pages of history. Each one was a human being just like me. Each one had his or her share of joys and heartaches, struggles, setbacks, and successes. Most of them weren’t even famous during their lifetimes. And, I’m sure most of them probably underestimated the quality of their work, thinking there was always someone better than them. There probably was, but that didn’t keep them from working, persevering, and creating something that was their own. There’s a lot to think about, walking through a gallery of paintings. Or, maybe I just have an overactive mind. I like to compare myself to August in the novel, “The Secret Life of Bees” (that I read while in London). The author says that some people bite off more than they can chew, but August, she always chewed more than she bit off. That sounds an awful lot like me.

After spending some time in the Gallery, we headed off to Harrod’s to see what all the fuss was about.

Indeed, it is one of the biggest and fanciest places to spend money on over-priced merchandise that I’ve ever seen. Everything you could think of is there: gourmet food, makeup, perfumes, designer clothing, accessories and jewelry, toys -- you name it, it’s there, and it’s expensive. Honestly, most of the luxury goods in that store are only expensive because someone said they should be. I guess I just don’t really understand the obsession with name-brands and fashion. It just seems extravagant to me (being my father’s daughter). ;)

Well, that brings me to the end of Wednesday, so I'll stop here and pick up with Thursday when I have more time to write.

London: the First

2010-04-20T15:48:00.002-05:00

Alright, so, I promised a blog post. This is a rather daunting, I hope you understand. (That might be why I’ve put it off!) There are simply too many things I could say, and too many ways in which I could say them. In any case, I’m going to make an attempt, and hopefully you won’t mind reading it too much.

Monday morning, I woke up extra early without any outside prompting (meaning, I woke up earlier than my alarm clock did), just like a five year old on Christmas morning. I arrived at the train station a little early just in case I ran into any trouble picking up the pre-booked tickets, and I discovered that certain lines were not running normally because the workers who had been on strike over the weekend evidently weren’t tired of striking yet. (I’m telling you, they make it a hobby here.) Fortunately, there wouldn’t be any problem getting to Paris or taking the Eurostar to London. Kendra and I climbed on board and settled in, even though I was still super-nervous about making our connection in Paris. The Eurostar was leaving from a station on the opposite side of Paris from the train station where we would be arriving, so we would have about an hour to make the connection - and our train was already running 15 minutes behind schedule. Not good for someone with my personality. :P When we arrived in Paris, we rushed through the terminal, got stuck in a long line waiting to buy Metro tickets, rushed to the Metro line, rode the Metro for at least 10 minutes, and then arrived in the right station, only to be required to go through a series of check-ins: ticket check-in, French passport check, British passport check (with an extra paper to fill out for non-EU citizens), and a luggage security checkpoint.

Here I have to pause and say that it’s odd how certain border officials can make me feel like I should be deported to Gitmo, even when I haven’t done a thing wrong.
“Are you travelling alone?”
“Well, with my friend over there.”
“Then no, you’re not.”
“Oh, uh...right. No.” (I feel stupid now.)
“Where are you from?”
“The United States.”
“Mmhmm. Where are you staying in the UK?”
“Uhhh, Palmer’s Lodge.”
“Well, do you have the address?”
“Uhhhhh (fumbling for papers) -- 40 College Crescent?”
“And when did you arrive in France?”
“January 17.”
“And when are you leaving?”
“June 17, at least that’s the plan.”
“Uh-huh. Well, what have you been doing there all this time?”
“Studying...at the University, uh, the Catholic University of the West.” (No, I obviously look like I’ve been living on the streets like a hobo selling drugs...)
He gives me another suspicious glance before slamming his stamp down on my passport. None of the questions are difficult, and I have nothing to hide, but they always make me so nervous that I feel like I’m guilty of drug trafficking and arms smuggling by the time they’re done. Ugh. Anyway, by the time all of that was done and we finally found the platform and boarded the train, we had about seven minutes left. Honestly, with all that we had to go through to get on that train, it felt like we should have had less! It was like God slowed down the hands of time so we could make it. (I wouldn’t put it past Him.)

I have to say, taking the Eurostar to London was a good choice for one of two reasons. First of all, it meant that we got to go through the Chunnel. Second of all, halfway through our trip, all of the airports in the British Isles were shut down and all planes grounded because of the volcanic ash cloud produced by the eruptions in Iceland. There are still students stuck in Scotland, England, and the U.S. who haven’t been able to get a flight back after their vacation. Fortunately, we were blessed to not have to deal with that hassle.

At the train station, we remembered that we would need pounds to buy our Underground passes, so we wandered back to the opposite end of the terminal to find the ATMs before we took the Underground for the first time. I still remember changing trains for the first time. Our first stop was the Baker Street station, and the staircases and walls were wood-paneled, like a parlor straight out of a Sherlock Holmes novel. Of course, not all of the stations are like that, but I thought it was a nice touch for Baker Street. I absolutely loved the character of the Underground, with the lovely English woman telling us to “Mind the gap, please,” every time a train arrived or departed, and the recorded voices letting us know that “The good service is operating on all London Underground lines.” I couldn’t help but wonder when some joker would come on the intercom one day to tell us that “The sucky service is operating on all London Underground lines.” Even better was when they told us that “The good service is operating on all existing Underground lines.” What about the imaginary and non-existing lines? :P

Anyway, our hostel in London was probably one of the best hostels I’ve stayed in: charming old English house with plenty of character, beds with privacy curtains, free continental breakfast, TV/reading lounge, free internet access, and helpful and friendly staff (even the one that kept trying to hit on me). It was in a safe part of town, just a short walk from the Underground station and plenty of restaurants, and the clientele were generally nice and trustworthy. The only drawback was the bathroom. Sure, you can only expect so much from shared toilets and showers, and they really weren’t bad, but sharing a bathroom with guys was a bit awkward. No, let me take that back. A *lot* awkward. Imagine standing there brushing your teeth with a man old enough to be your father washing his face at the sink beside you. And then imagine him turning to you to comment on how cold the water is. Not only do you have to mumble through your mouthful of minty foam that yes, indeed, it sure is cold, but you have to mumble this friendly banter to a complete stranger of the opposite sex. In your bathroom. Of course, the showers and toilets were equipped with locks, but it was still quite an experience.

The first night, we decided to try out a nearby Indian restaurant, since we’d been told that Indian food in London is really quite good. We discovered that Indian food is in fact one of the most delicious culinary inventions on the planet. Chicken and lamb and spiced sauces and coconut rice and naan bread...mmm. The second night, I think we ate peanut butter sandwiches and leftover fruit, but we had fish and chips at a local pub for lunch. It’s nothing incredibly spectacular, but the fried fish definitely reminded me of home, which made it taste even better. We also tried some Thai food at Jimmy’s Thai, and my green chicken curry was delicious, if a little on the spicy side. Before going to the theatre Friday night, we visited a local diner-type restaurant that had been around for about 50 years - a very good choice, I must say. I ordered more fish and chips to see if there was any difference (I mean, why not?), and we split an apple crumble for dessert. It was like being in the South again. Our last day, we tried out a little café that a Londoner living in the hostel recommended to us, and I really enjoyed sitting out on the patio in the sunshine, savoring my salad with fresh mozzarella cheese and avocado. Needless to say, I’m going to have a brain chock full of new meal ideas when I come home. Everybody get ready! ;) Overall, I would say that the French eat better than the British do. There is a lot more fast food, fried food, and generally food of lower quality in typical restaurants. (Try comparing a French meal of an aperatif, an endive, cucumber, and gouda cheese salad with a dijon vinaigrette, buttery pasta and a spiced chicken dish, French bread, French cheese, and dessert (just take your pick) -- all enjoyed over about three hours -- to a plate of unseasoned fried fish and thick, unsalted fried potatoes with a glob of mushy, puréed green peas, or maybe a plate of sausages and more potatoes. It doesn't quite stack up.) All that to say: the French really are foodies, and that I can appreciate.

That first evening, I think it finally hit us that we were totally free: we had nowhere to be, no one to tell us what to do, and a Metro pass that would take us nearly anywhere we could want to go, whenever we wanted to go there. In London. At first, just walking down the street was fascinating: the accents, the new expressions, the strange road signs, the people driving on the wrong side of the road. I never quite got used to seeing a empty “driver’s seat” or a woman reading a newspaper when she was “supposed” to be driving. And I can’t say I’ve ever seen exit signs that say “Way Out” instead of “Exit” or yield signs that say “Give Way.” Even funnier, I’ve never seen orange juice cartons that say “Extra Juicy Bits” instead of pulp, or chocolate bars like Yorkie that say “Extra Chunks.” :P Believe it or not, I actually had trouble understanding some of the English I heard, especially at first when my brain was trying to make the switch back to English from French. British English is just different enough from American English that I think my brain was trying to decode it as a new language, like French, and it wasn’t making sense! After a while it got easier, and I love their accent, but I was actually really, really happy to come back to France and hear this lovely language in my ears again.

The first thing we did Tuesday morning when we woke up was eat breakfast and head to the Underground to find Big Ben like good little tourists. When we popped up in the middle of London and actually caught our first glimpse of it, we both start giggling -- we just couldn’t believe we were actually there! After taking our cheesy pictures, we just started rounding corners. The Parliament building is HUGE and absolutely magnificent. In my opinion, its architecture rivals that of all the cathedrals I’ve seen. We marvelled at it from all angles before wandering into St. James Park to take a peek at the Thames and the beautiful spring flowers blooming under, yes, the sun -- in London! It didn’t rain all week long, not one bit, and nearly every day was warm and sunny. Perfect springtime weather for a vacation, and in London, no less! What a gift from God.

We also found Trafalgar Square (which I’ve always wanted to see) and climbed up on the lion statues to take pictures. I couldn’t help but think of Aslan, and then of Christ as I curled up next to the giant, warm, solid lion.

By then, lunch sounded like a good idea, so we found a sandwich shop and took our lunches over to another royal park and basked in the sunshine next to the daffodils, watching toddlers giggle and trip their way through the flowers. We also happened across some of the Mounted Royal Cavalry and watched as they stood guard with flocks of tourists around them trying their hardest to be obnoxious. What a rough job. I wonder how those guards feel about being in countless photo albums of complete strangers. I guess it could be kind of flattering. Or then again, maybe it’s just annoying.

Our next stop was Westminster Abbey, where we decided to take the guided tour for just a little extra. There was a French woman at the register who was lost and didn’t really speak English well, so I was able to help her find her way in French. I felt quite useful. :) Kendra and I were the only ones who signed up for the tour, so it was just us and the verger for our own private tour of the Abbey! In the choir, he explained to us how the royal officials were seated when they came to services or meetings. Since it was just the two of us, he let us each take a seat in the chair reserved for the Queen! (I knew there was a reason I’ve practiced that royal wave.) Anyway, there are over 3000 people buried in the Abbey (and probably even more memorial stones), and they are still allowed to bury ashes in it, so you still have a chance of being buried there if you do something special enough that the Dean decides you deserve to be. St. Edward the Confessor is buried in the only complete shrine in all of England in the middle of the Abbey, and some of it’s pretty darn old -- about 800 years old. Henry III, Edward I, Eleanor of Castile, Edward III, Philippa of Hainault, and Richard II and Queen Anne of Bohemia are all buried in their coffins surrounding him, because they thought being close to the saint would get them to heaven faster. Henry V had to one-up everyone, though, by building himself a bigger and better chapel in front of the shrine: one shaped like an H so no one would forget who he was. :P Kings and their egos. Then there was the Lady Chapel of Henry VII, which was even more extravagant, complete with a carved stone ceiling. It only took 16 years to build it. Yeah, no big deal. Elizabeth I and her half-sister, Mary I, are kept nearby in their own chapel, where Mary’s son made sure his mother’s grave looked every bit as regal as Elizabeth’s (even though Mary was the traitor). Gotta love that family pride. Poet’s Corner contains the coffin of Geoffrey Chaucer (yes, he was super short), and Dryden, Tennyson, Robert Browning, Dr. Samuel Johnson, Kipling, Hardy, and Dickens are buried there as well. One of my favorite sights was George Frederick Handel’s grave, and his sculpture which displays a piece of music that you could actually play. Darwin, Livingstone, and Isaac Newton are buried in the nave in Scientists’ Corner. The Unknown Warrior from the Great War was buried close to the front door in 1920, and his grave is always surrounded by red poppies so that no one can walk over it. Even the Queen walks around it when she enters the Abbey. The brass lettering on the black Belgian marble gravestone was made from melted ammunition found on the battlefield. One of the other amazing, and less sobering, sights in the Abbey was the Coronation Chair. It is the original chair ordered by Edward I in 1296 to house the Stone of Scone captured from Scotland (and not given back until the 1990s), and it is the chair on which all but two of England’s monarch’s have been crowned. Yep, it was just right there. Hard to believe! Anyway, Kendra and I decided to stay for the Evensong service, and our tour guide was kind enough to save us two special seats: the Commissioner’s chairs in the Choir for South Africa and Canada. The service was actually very meaningful; I felt like there was at least some sincere prayer and worship happening.

And now...I must stop, first of all because you probably don’t feel like reading any more, and second of all, because I’m so tired I don’t feel like writing any more. Good reasons, I think. I’ll pick it up again soon, though, just in case you’re interested. :)

Still alive!

2010-04-05T02:33:00.007-05:00

I'm still alive, I promise! :) Probably still a little damp from all this crazy rain, but alive and well nonetheless. This is evidently the time of year when the weather gets really bizarre. Let me describe Saturday for you. It started out sunny, with hardly a cloud in the sky. This lasted for a couple of hours, and then within the span of fifteen minutes, the sky had turned to nothing but a layer of gray, as though it had been raining all day. Then the wind started gusting, the heavens opened up, and the rain poured down for about half an hour (sometimes interspersed with little bits of ice). And then it all blew away, and the weather was perfectly sunny again for a couple of hours, like it had never rained and wouldn’t rain again for a week. Haha. Clever trick. In thirty minutes to an hour, the clouds roll back in again, and you rinse and repeat. Try that five or six times in a day. It's one of the most deceptive weather patterns I've ever seen, and it makes it extremely difficult to make outdoor plans! There is one upside though, and it’s a beautiful one:

Three days in a row, I’ve seen the most gigantic, brilliant rainbows I have ever seen in my life - sometimes two at a time! The one in this photo stretched all the way across the sky, visible from end to end. We could even see where it touched the ground on both sides. It would have been amazing to make a dash for the fields to play in it, but I don’t think I could have convinced the bus driver to stop.

So, what have I done lately that you would find interesting? Looking at rainbows, definitely. Listening to that lecture on French union workers in the 1890s...um...probably not. Oh! We were given a four day weekend in honor of Easter, so Friday morning I decided to take a walk to get some air and take some pictures of the beautiful blooming trees. I ended up in a park across town when, of course, one of those crazy unexpected rainstorms blew in. Needless to say, I was soaked and freezing by the time I got home. But - le Jardin des Plantes is always so gorgeous:

And the city is full of new spring flowers:

I haven't really taken any spectacular shots, but I think these capture a little bit of the raw beauty of spring here - the kind of beauty I notice when I walk to school every day.

Speaking of school, it's almost over! I can hardly believe it. I will have a rather normal week of classes this week, then a week of spring break, then a couple of weeks of classes, one week of catch-up classes, and then a few days of break before the week of written exams. By the middle of May, nearly all of my exams will be finished, and I will only have my oral exam for Arts, Langues, et Patrimoine left to take at the end of May. As short as the academic semester has seemed, I have still managed to learn an amazingly immense quantity of information. At the same time, I’ve realized just how vast the sea of information is that I *don’t* know (and could never begin to fathom, even if I tried). In any case, I've discovered a new passion that might help me to focus a little bit. It's been a while since I found something I could get excited about doing, something I could get lost in for hours without it being a chore, but I can definitely do that with translation. It’s interesting to think about how I felt before I came here, when all I wanted to do was get my degree and get out of the straitjacket of education. Now I am considering pursuing a master's or graduate certificate in translation. Go figure. Dr. Bailey even offered to let me do an independent study class on translation with him in the fall! I'm super-excited about that.

And, I'm actually super-excited about the fall semester in general! We found out that a French student from UCO is coming to study abroad at UCA, which will be like bringing a little bit of Angers back home with us! :) Kendra and I are going to meet her for the first time this afternoon to answer some of her questions about our university and Arkansas and Conway. Speaking of UCA, I was able to set aside some time last week to structure my fall schedule and register for classes, and here's what it looks like:

Sociolinguistics
Independent Study: Translation
UN & International Politics
Event Planning
Gender Communication
Choir

I'm so beyond excited...probably because my schedule also allows me to start classes no earlier than 10:50 and end no later than 4:15 every day. Annnnnnnd...it looks like Ali and I will be able to get an apartment together, with private rooms, *just* off-campus, for cheaper than what it cost to live on campus. It's unfurnished, too, which means we get to use the odds and ends that we've acquired over the years to create our own truly eclectic, cheap, college-student apartment style. Hehe. (That also means we get spend an afternoon this August sipping lemonade and watching all of our guys move our furniture in.) ;) I’m disappointed that we won’t be able to live with Caitlin, because that would have made for a pretty awesome suite, but University Park is cheaper and more practical, a definite bonus for my family.

Hummm, I know I’ve done a few other exciting things that might interest you. Oh, right, I haven’t mentioned the Chateau de Serrant yet. Our last ALP excursion was a little bit outside of Angers, to this reconstructed chateau:

This one is a bit more recent, with Renaissance-style architecture, but there are still remnants of the original Medieval castle, like the passageways underground. Anyway, the fact that you can walk around in period-furnished 15-16-17-18th century castles and princely residences still blows my mind. They're just so - normal - when you walk around in them, like huge houses with fancy stone rooms adorned with tapestries, but they have moats and drawbridges and towers on the outside! It's hard to imagine that men and women in fancy suits and dresses actually wandered around in those huge bedrooms, getting their hair meticulously coiffed so that they could go sit in the awkwardly stiff living rooms and talk about the weather and their latest expensive piece of furniture. Queen Elizabeth even came to stay in the Chateau de Serrant for a few days once. There are pictures of her piles of suitcases and huge assortment of hats on display. Anyway, the houses are beautiful, and the libraries are AMAZING (I might kill for the one I saw at Serrant, with all of its ladders and polished wood and original encyclopedia sets), but I still think it would have been boring to live like that. The libraries are full of books no one would ever read. And, the canopy beds with flowing curtains are beautiful, but I would have been afraid that mine would have fallen off the wall and crushed me. The paintings of French generals and kings and random sons of nobles no one's heard of get kind of old, too. They all look like Napoleons and Louis’s and Charles’s to me. And the women are usually rather ugly. So yes...boredom, falling canopies, and stereotyped paintings. Three good reasons that I like looking at chateaus, but wouldn't have wanted to live in one. However, I have also thought of three reasons I *would* want to live in one (at least nowadays): 1) bedrooms that have small bathrooms hidden inside small rooms disguised as armoires, 2) the surrounding countryside with winding paths and lakes and towering trees, and 3) a personal library. Not to mention it would be awesome for entertaining guests and having balls (because I'm just that high-class). ;)

Anyway, I will probably write my next post after I get back from spring break. Kendra and I are leaving for LONDON next Monday. I can’t wait! :) I’ve dreamed about going to London since I was a little girl.

I hope you all have a great week! <3

Raclette!!!

2010-03-23T14:50:00.006-05:00

So, I promised I would tell you about raclette.

Oh my goodness.

Seriously, you guys don't know what you've been missing. I'm convinced that whoever invented this idea should get an extra room tacked onto his mansion in heaven. It's that good.

Alright, get on with it, you say. What IS this wonderful thing with a weird name? Well, to start with, to eat raclette you have to have an apparatus like the one in the middle of the table:

This is one version of what is called an "appareil à raclette." There are plenty of others with grills on top or fancy attachments, but really all you need is an apparatus that melts the cheese in individual trays. Oh yes. Cheese. The best part. Raclette actually refers to the type of cheese used as well as to the meal itself. The difference in French is that the cheese is masculine and the meal is feminine. The cheese isn't particularly special, from what I can tell; it's just a soft cheese made from cow's milk. But, all cheese in France is better. Believe me. Anyway, the real magic happens when you place your slice of cheese in one of the little trays (les coupelles) and slide it inside the raclette oven. While your cheese is melting, you fill your plate with your choice of an assortment of sliced bacon, ham, sausage, boiled potatoes, or vegetables. When you notice that the cheese is bubbling, you take it out and scrape the cheese over whatever you like. ("Raclette" comes from the French verb "racler," which means "to scrape.") Then you refill the tray and start eating. Everyone else does the same, so that there is a constant supply of melted cheese in the oven, ready for someone to grab. Ideally, you keep going until all the cheese is gone. :) That's why raclette meals can last hours. But, the main focus is not the raclette -- it's the people. Raclette meals are meant to be relational, a concept that is a lot more common here than in the United States. I love the fact that they have a tradition built around gathering friends together to enjoy a meal and each others' company...especially since it's a meal that involves a never-ending supply of melted French cheese. ;) It has already provided me with amazing memories, like this one involving Suzanne, who fancied a bit of cheese with her eyeglasses:

We definitely laughed about that one.

So yes. Raclette is a must-try before you die. I'm seriously considering buying my own grill before I leave France, even if I do have to pay extra for overweight luggage. I hear they're hard to find in the US. (silly Americans)

Oh, by the way. The rest of the day with the church family was absolutely refreshing. The weather was intoxicatingly perfect, and I was able to see the Loire river for the first time, as well as the amazing beauty of the area surrounding it. I could live there, I really could. It would have been great just to experience the wonder of nature on such a beautiful day, but God supplied even more blessings through the precious time spent with brothers and sisters in Christ here. Nearly the entire church was able to come to the retreat (which is amazing in and of itself), and we spent the morning singing songs and reading passages proposed by one another, praying, and discussing verses related to sharing life within the church family. Then we took a break for the raclette lunch and a relaxed hike on a nearby forest trail before coming together again for a little more worship and taking the Lord's Supper. It was so refreshing to be with everyone and to spend the day in fellowship with them and with God. I'm so thankful!

Yesterday was a crazy day...and probably one of the longest I've had here in France. I shadowed a class of 8th graders at a private middle school as a part of my internship for my Didactique de l'Anglais class. Their day starts at 8am and goes until 5pm. I don't think I've been that exhausted in a long time. How I survived being that age, I'm not sure. In any case, I'm glad that my parents were never led to put me in school, because I would have hated it. Of course, there are differences between the US and American systems, but I know enough to be quite certain that 15 year olds act like 15 year olds no matter what country they live in. Anyway, I attended all of their classes with them, which included Technology (like shop/tech/real-life problem solving), Spanish, English, Math, Latin, and French. I wouldn't mind learning Spanish now, to be honest. I actually understood a bit of what they were discussing in class. In math, however, I was totally lost, and I *know* I learned how to find those angles.

That was the problem.

This is what me and Agnes did instead. Yeah, that's my sorry attempt at a US map, locating states by memory. And yeah, we were bored in math class. What else is new?

I couldn't remember how to do all of that now, even if you paid me. (However, I'm sure I could find out, if you offered me enough. lol) I suppose it must not be necessary for my field of interest if I haven't used it for so long that I forgot it, so oh well. A word of wisdom, though, for all of you young-ish people reading this: you still have to study it and master it, even if you think you'll just forget it later. It's a good discipline. Seriously. Learn it.

This math professor with a stereotypical appearance agrees with me.

;) Okay, I think I have a little more chocolate to eat and a bit of French journaling to do before I turn out the lights tonight. Tomorrow is my long day of classes, but I'm looking forward to it because Kendra and I are cooking dinner and hanging out together at the end of it. :) I'll talk to you guys later! Gros bisous!

First visit to a chateau :)

2010-03-21T03:03:00.008-05:00

Good morning! Well, it's not morning in the U.S. yet. Anyway, it's morning somewhere, namely here. I just have a few minutes before I head out the door to meet Myriam, my ride to the church gathering today. This is the Saturday and Sunday of "Weekend d'Eglise," when the entire church goes on retreat and focuses on caring for itself. I wasn't able to go to the activities yesterday because of my ALP excursion, but I can't wait to see what's going on today. I think we're going to spend some time sharing, praying, singing, taking communion, and eating raclette. I'll describe that later when I know better what it is. ;)

Anyway, this past week hasn't been extremely fun overall, since I came down with a cold, but fortunately, it was just a little cold, and I'm already feeling better. The weather did get warmer, though! I bought some bread at the bakery and went to a local park for lunch on Wednesday before my examen blanc. It was wonderful to have the chance to simply exist: leaning against a tree, savoring my lunch, soaking in the sunshine, letting my thoughts wander. At home, I think I had become so focused and driven that I forgot it was possible, and not only possible, but necessary sometimes, to stop multitasking and just be. It's not that I don't have work to do here - I do -it's just that it's not being shoved down my throat by someone else to the extent that I feel like I'm out of control. I have the responsibility to decide how and when I need to do it to best prepare myself. That is a freedom I wish American schools could adopt, because I feel so much more human here.

I did finish the examen blanc on Wednesday, something I'm very proud of myself for having accomplished. I took close to 3 of the 4 hours I was allowed to answer the essay question in a fully developed dissertation format: 3 segments, 3 arguments per segment, 1 example per argument. It might sound impressive, but I can tell you right now that mine wasn't. :P I still have trouble expressing ideas in essay format intelligently, because I'm used to using certain turns of phrases in English that you wouldn't use in French. I'm still getting used to the French manner of expression. Verbally, it's getting a lot easier, but overall, it takes quite a bit of time to sink in. It's not enough to just look words up in the dictionary; you have to absorb the structure and the vocabulary at the same time. So, all that to say that I have no idea how I did; I could fail, I could pass...it's all up to how merciful and understanding the professor is.

Generally, I am definitely improving in self-expression. The other day, I was assigned a short story in Expression Ecrite/Orale which gave me some room to be creative, and I was really pleased with what I was able to do with it without very much help from my dictionary or my notes. Even writing in my French study abroad journal is no longer a chore, but rather something I look forward to. Unfortunately, I still get into trouble if I start in on a conversation about some uncommon subject like Native American burial mounds or bizarre weather phenomena or the story of Saint Patrick, because the vocabulary is so unfamiliar. (Yeah, try explaining those burial mounds without a dictionary. I did -- it didn't turn out very well.) But, normal life topics are getting a lot easier to talk about. I'm also understanding about 80-90% of what I hear now, as opposed to about 40-50%, which definitely makes me feel a lot more at ease. My brain doesn't just tune it out as noise now. What's even cooler is that my brain is not actively translating what I hear anymore: it's automatically registering the French as comprehensible communication without going through English first. :) Just the fact that my brain can do that astounds me. I've also had the chance to hear German and Spanish here, and I really want to pick up more languages now. I can actually understand some of the Spanish now that my French is more natural! Believe it or not, I really want to pick up Arabic. I'm disappointed that the only university that offers it in Arkansas is in Fayetteville... :P

So aside from writing and talking and taking exams, I've also been seeing a little bit of France - the part that I've really wanted to see for so long. On Saturday afternoon, my ALP class went on an excursion to the Plessis-Bourré Chateau, which is in the countryside about 30 minutes from Angers (by car). Its history dates back to the 15th century, when it was built by Jean Bourré, the Minister of Finance of Louis XI. It hasn't been altered since its construction was completed in 1473. That means you can still walk across the moat on its double draw-bridges (the larger one for carriages and the smaller one for pedestrians) and view its defensive towers. The moat, drawbridges, and towers all identify it as typical fortress of the Middle Ages, but it's large rooms, gardens, and even the windows show a clear crossover into Renaissance characteristics; thus, it is classified as a chateau in the Transition style.

Voila! Anyway, I couldn't understand most of what the guide was saying, because he chewed his words and couldn't decide how fast he was going to talk. So, I decided I wasn't going to worry about it, since concentrating harder wasn't getting me anywhere at all. I just started looking around for myself and enjoying the chateau for what I personally thought was interesting or beautiful. Oh...there was one other memorable incident: when the guide demonstrated how the counterbalance system of the drawbridge worked. He lifted the smaller drawbridge halfway, and then when he had sufficiently explained the mechanics, he let it drop. Now, there are a lot of birds that fly around the chateau, it being situated in the country and all. Unfortunately, one of them decided to land underneath the end of the drawbridge just as the guide let go of the counterbalance. It didn't take long for everyone to realize what had happened, especially after the drawbridge bounced back up again. :P Fortunately, I wasn't looking, but I got a kick out of the rest of the girls' reactions. They ranged from "Eww!" to "Aww!" to "Meh, c'est la vie!" I just took a picture. :P

We finished the day's field trip with a stop at Collegiale Saint Martin, the oldest church still existing in Angers. It dates back to the 11th century, but of course, it's been mostly reconstructed. You can still see parts of the original structure, though. The original church was established in the 5th century, which means that the archeological dig in the crypt below the church site has unearthed roadways and walls and artifacts from the 5th century occupation of the Romans in the city, when it was known as Juliomagus. We were able to view some of those ancient ruins underground, and some super old skeletal remains upstairs, both of which were pretty stinkin' awesome. If you want to see some pictures of the day's excursion, I've posted them on Facebook. :)

A tout à l'heure!

just hangin' out

2010-03-12T03:11:00.006-06:00

So, I've been thinking for the past few days...if I were to write a blog post...what would I write about? I don't feel like I've done a lot that's grand, magnificent, or out of the ordinary, because I haven't been feeling that well physically, but then Caitlin reminded me that no one cares if it's ordinary or extraordinary. You guys just want to know what I'm doing and *how* I'm doing over here! lol Keeping that in mind, I'll just let you in on some of the little, everyday things I've been doing this week.

Last weekend, my ALP class took a field trip (yes, I can still go on those, and I'm 21!) to the Doutre: the part of Angers on the other side of the Maine river. The term "Doutre" comes from "d'outre mer," meaning "other side of the water." Historically, it was the Protestant region of the city, because they, as well as the outcasts, were pushed to the outskirts by the Catholics. There are some beautiful churches there, like L'Eglise de la Trinité and Abbaye Ronceray, as well as l'Hôtel des Pénitents, a refuge for women in need and repentant women from "sullied" backgrounds. I really enjoyed our tour of l'Hôpital St-Jean, which is actually an extremely old hospital built with money donated by Henry II when he began to feel remorse for having allowed his men to assassinate his friend, the archbishop of Canterbury, Thomas Beckett. The hospital is now the home of Le Chant du Monde - the series of tapestries designed by Jean Lurçat as his response to the Tapestries of the Apocalypse (on display at the Chateau). They are really fantastic pieces of art, even if their subject matter is rather bizarre. He designed them in the 1950s after his experience fighting in World War II and during the birth of the Cold War nuclear crisis, so his perception of the apocolypse awaiting the Earth was one of nuclear holocaust. (He was also an atheist, so his interpretation has little to do with biblical accounts and everything to do with humanism and new ageism.) I thought his interpretations, the symbolism, and especially the artwork itself were quite impressive, even if I don't necessarily agree with his outlook. You should definitely look up some images if you get the chance, although to get the full effect, you really have to be standing in front of the floor to ceiling woven masterpiece. It still amazes me that a tapestry can be planned with that much intricate detail and then woven on a loom upside-down, so that the weaver doesn't see his progress until the product is finished!

Sunday, I decided to take the afternoon to visit the Chateau d'Angers, since the first Sunday of the month is free admission day for everyone. Unfortunately, it was bitterly cold, and the wind was blowing fiercely, so I didn't stay long. All the same, it was an amazing experience, standing on top of the ramparts overlooking the Maine, imagining what it must have been like to be a soldier looking out on the hills and trees of the Loire valley stretching to the horizon, without the roads and townhouses and cell phone towers blocking the view. I still can't believe that parts of that castle date back 800 years. And to think that there are things still older than that in this world. We really are but specks of dust in the wind.

Anyway, it was just too cold to stick around at the castle, so I started walking back. I happened to run across a flea market on a side street, so I made a little detour to explore and ran into some friends from school who informed me that I had to go check out the car show at the end of the street. So I did...and seriously...oh my goodness...I have never seen that much money parked in one place before. Jaguars, Ferraris, Porsches, a Lotus, Vipers, antique roadsters -- you name it, it was there, and in fantastic, oh-so-drivable condition. Maybe God will have a sports car waiting in my mansion in heaven. Until then, though, I had to content myself with touching that jet black Ferrari and that bright red Lotus, and snapping some pictures, like these:

And then I went home and tried to thaw out.

I realized that I also had to fill out my official class registration paper to turn in Wednesday, so I worked on that. Turned out I needed two signatures: one from the head of each department I'm taking classes in. I tracked down one of them through e-mail, but the other one just responded to my request to meet with him by referring me to his office hours posted on his door (which I'd already seen). Of course, his 45 minutes of office hours on Tuesday conflicted with one of my classes, so I emailed him back and asked for other options. He told me to come on Wednesday during his office hours, which happened to be right after my last class, at 4:45: 30 minutes before the office where I had to turn in the completed paper would close. Fantastic. So I show up, right? And is he there? Nope. All of the other ten students who were there waiting with me were in the same predicament. So, someone found out that we could just slide the papers under his door and he'd take care of them at some point. I just rolled my eyes, shoved mine under the door, and muttered something about the educational system here. I just can't figure it out.

Hah, and that was before my history class on Wednesday, when the prof started talking about this "examen blanc" that was coming up this week. Wait...what "examen blanc"? When? Over what? *sigh* "Examen blanc" means "practice test" - so basically, it's just like the final exam, except the grade doesn't count. This class is validated only by "dissertation," or "written essay," which is written according to strict French methodology during a four hour block of time on one of two essay questions covering material from the semester's study. Mmhmm. Exciting. I'm pretty sure I'm going to flunk it, considering the fact that I'm not familiar with the correct "methodology" of writing these things (and no one will tell me what it is so I can learn it), and I'm struggling to make sense of all of the French history from 1815-1914, much less how to write about it in French. Anyway, Dr. Bailey keeps telling me to relax, do my best, and we'll sort it all out...I just wish it were that easy. Since no one will tell me how to prepare, and it's impossible to know everything, I find myself hard-pressed to find the motivation to study. I mean, where would I start, and where would I stop? It's discouraging just to think about it. Even so, I think I've decided that the best course of action is to just make a plan for myself: something concrete that I can use study, even if it isn't comprehensive. It's better than nothing! At least the work in my translation classes is going well. I earned a compliment and a very good grade from my third-year Theme professor for my practice test translation in his class. If I can do even nearly that well on the real test, I'll be really happy! Plus, I just really like my translation classes...I'm always learning something new and interesting about words or about the meanings we put behind them because of our culture or our outlook on life. There is so much more hidden inside a word than just a literal translation. Words and the ways we structure them reveal a way of looking at life. I'll try to find some examples in my work this week for you. One thing I have found interesting though is how much richer the vocabulary in French seems to an English speaker. It is easy to overtranslate French verbs into English. Take for example, "suffire" which means "to suffice, or to be enough." In everyday spoken French, you would say "ça suffit" to mean "that's enough." And you would be tempted to translate the phrase as "that suffices" in English...but alas, it's an over-translation. Another thing I've learned is that translation enriches my English vocabulary! I love that, since there are a lot of words that I have either lost or haven't learned. And the more I speak French, and then switch back to English, the more I realize that we don't speak with a very rich vocabulary at all. It's a wonder any foreigners can understand anything we say when we use "get" in every other sentence instead of a verb with a specific meaning. (I got lost = je me suis perdue = I lost myself) Much more specific.

Anyway...language tangent complete...and on to other events of the week. Towards the middle of the week, I started craving some philosophical discussions with someone (in English!) so Drew and I sat down on Google Chat and had a long debate about Christianity and politics, and I laid out some questions I've been turning over in my mind based on the observations I've been making about culture and society here. I've been storing up so much to think about, from capitalism/socialism, to perspectives on daily life, marriage and children, morality, economy, environmental issues, racism, politics, national history and past decisions of ancestors that bring shame - you name it, I've probably got an idea about it floating around up there somewhere. Just ask me sometime if you want to talk. I'm definitely up for some challenging conversation (or just interesting and informative conversation, if you don't want to debate anything). I honestly don't know enough to really debate; I just want to keep discovering: to keep asking questions to figure out why things are they way they are, and perhaps how they should be instead. (and where I fit in it all)

And...I wrapped up the week with a fantastic, relaxing weekend with friends in Nantes, at Clemence's family's house. (Thank you again for opening your home to us!) We had some of the best pizza I've ever had in my life (I never knew you could put apples on pizza), I learned a bit of a French drinking song from some acquaintances of hers that came over, we watched plenty of hilarious youtube videos and Disney movies in French, and stuffed ourselves with cookies and popcorn and Pringles. It was the perfect sleepover weekend, and just what I needed to feel at home, too. :) We watched La Belle et La Bête (Beauty and the Beast), La Petite Sirène 2 (The Little Mermaid 2), Aladdin, and The Mask - all in French - and Shrek in English with French subtitles. And yes, The Mask was just as bizarre in French as it was in English. Oh, and I tasted this:

And before you think I've been drinking hard vodka...that's not at all what that is. It's a carbonated beverage - yes, soda - with a tiny bit of alcohol (4.5% by volume) that tastes more like blue popsicles and Robitussin than alcohol. Not exactly my cup of tea, but interesting all the same. The sparkling cider we had, on the other hand...mmm, wow. Delicious.

Annnnnnnyway, it's about time that I wrap this up, since it's getting late and I should get some sleep. (Btw, I do find it rather awesome that there is only a 6 hour time difference between here and the U.S. for this week, because France doesn't change to Daylight Savings Time until this weekend. Take advantage of it!) ;) Have a great Monday, everyone, and remember that it's blessed because He created it. :) Peace!

Vacation!

2010-03-04T15:56:00.007-06:00

I've been admonished in recent days that I should write more often, so here I am. I have been super busy and otherwise occupied, which has been a good thing, for the most part. Train rides, sight-seeing, walking, eating, laughing, more walking, buying things, and more walking...and marveling at the wonders of creation, awe-inspiring architecture, and intriguing differences in culture...that's what I've been doing lately. Oh, and did I mention walking? I'm pretty sure I could be a magazine model by the time summer comes around. ;)

I could probably write pages and pages about this whirlwind of a vacation and my return home to Angers, but I don't really have the time or the energy to write them, and I'm going to assume that you don't have the time or the energy to read them, either! (Don't worry, though, Ali - I've recorded even the little details in my journal so I won't forget.) So, allow me to share with you a list of the top 15 reasons I will never forget my vacation to Paris, Marseille, and Strasbourg (other than the obvious fact that I did indeed go to Paris, Marseille, and Strasbourg - for real-real, not for play-play). ;)

1. the train rides from Paris to Marseille, from Marseille to Strasbourg, from Strasbourg to Angers...
I really like train rides, except for the fact that I tend to get a little nauseous if I read or write too much. Getting to the right platform, into the right car, and getting out at the right stop always feels like an adventure no matter how many times you do it, and the train ride itself is always full of surprises. You never know when the police might hop on board for a visit, or what kind of random person you might strike up a conversation with. Kendra and I talked with an older woman from northern France for a couple of hours on our way to Strasbourg about work, education, church, marriage...and mistletoe. Yes, we happened to see some strange plant growths on the trees we were passing, and she explained that it was a parasitic plant called "gui" - which is mistletoe. So next time you kiss under the mistletoe at Christmas, remember...it's just a parasitic plant. :P Anyway, I really enjoyed having the downtime on the train, and especially having the time to observe the scenery of different parts of France. On the way from Marseilles to Strasbourg, the scenery reminded me of the western United States (Colorado, northern New Mexico), then it gradually changed until the rolling green hills reminded me of Virginia, and then it change yet again into something that resembled the Ozarks region, around the Buffalo river. I find all three to be extremely beautiful, so it was a lovely train ride. :) Oh, and with our student discount passes, we were also able to snag 1st class seats twice!

2. the FOOD!!!
I don’t even know where to begin, talking about the food we tasted on this trip. If we had come home after just our trip to Paris, I probably would have been satisfied with the yummy Parisian pastries we enjoyed every morning on our way to the Metro stop. (My romantic mind was definitely content with finding the nearest boulangerie/patisserie and then taking a stroll with a fresh raisin pastry or chocolate croissant in hand. It didn’t really matter what street we were on, since it was all Paris!) But, the pastries were not the only memorable cuisine from Paris. The egg, cheese, and ham filled crêpe that I bought from a tiny one-man stand in the Latin quarter was possibly one of the most amazing, mouth-watering delicious things I’ve ever eaten. But, there were even better things to come. In Marseilles, Kendra and I decided that we couldn’t leave until we’d tried some seafood. After all, it would be a shame to travel all that way and not taste the local specialties, straight from the source. I doubt that I’ve ever had seafood quite that fresh before -- as in, my oysters and mussels and shrimps were on ice and very ... raw. I managed to get several down, just to say I’d had the experience, but I don’t think they’re my favorite type of cuisine. However, the bouillabaisse was another matter entirely. Bouillabaisse was a tradition said to be started by hard-working mothers in the seaside towns who would take the leftovers of the day’s catches and throw them all together into a pot to make a fish stew. Fortunately, the tradition has evolved into something a bit, um, fresher. Our bouillabaisse was made with oysters, three different kinds of fish, and potatoes. The fish were cooked whole, because we could see the waiter cutting them up and pouring the broth over them before he brought the soup to the table. As odd as it might sound, it was one of the tastiest soups I’ve ever eaten! It does take time to eat it, though, since you have to pick out all of the bones. So, after our culinary highlight in Marseilles, we set our sights on Strasbourg and all of the yummy German-influenced foods we had heard about. And indeed they were yummy! Tarte flambée, kougelhopf, vin chaud...all amazing. Tarte flambée is like a crispy thin crust pizza topped with a thin layer of sour cream/white cheese, bacon (more like bacon fat), and onions. You can order it with other toppings, too, such as mushrooms, garlic, etc., like I did. Quite tasty. Kougelhopf is a traditional Alsacian bread made with currants or raisins and topped with almonds. It’s always made in the same shape, kind of like a Bundt pan form, and it’s not as sweet as you would expect from a raisin bread. In fact, if it’s traditionally made, it’s supposed to be a savory bread. And...I can’t finish this point on food without mentioning that yes, we did eat German food...in Germany. :) My sausage salad reminded me of high-quality bologna shredded on salad with cheese and a dijon-style dressing...a salad which I enjoyed, but didn’t know existed!

3. the walking!!
I will never forget the sheer quantity of walking we did on this vacation. I think that if you calculated the number of hours that we spent on foot, it would come to an average of 6 to 8 hours per day. (mostly because we’re too cheap to use the bus and the metro, and walking gives you a better feel for the atmosphere of a city in such a short time) We discovered lots of neat little shops and restaurants just by walking around, like the leather boutique in Marseille where the woman designs her own purses and leather goods and was more than willing to explain her work to us. I will say, though, that by the end of the vacation, I was much less willing to go out of my way to walk somewhere, because my feet were killing me. But, at least we burned enough calories to work up enough of an appetite for lots of local food!

4. the Eiffel Tower
Now I’m sure you’re wondering why this made it on the list. After all, everyone knows that it’s in Paris, but it’s still the ugliest structure in the world. If that’s true, then I must not be everyone. It’s not the most breathtakingly beautiful thing I’ve seen, for sure, but it’s not bad-looking on a pretty day. At night, though, it’s a completely different story. Laura secretly took Kendra and I to a lookout point after dark one night around 7:00, and we weren’t sure exactly what we were going to see next. We just climbed the stairs out of the Metro station and started following her to the next sight. As soon as we turned the corner, there was the Eiffel Tower, glittering and sparkling in the night sky. I’ll admit, I just stood there with a huge grin that you couldn’t have wiped off of my face, like a kid who just walked into Disneyworld for the first time. Of course, the tower didn’t hold quite the same sense of wonder the next day, but I’ll always be grateful that I had the opportunity to see it for the first time like that. Thank you, Laura, for remembering that it would be lit up on the hour, and for sharing it with us. :)

5. the deepened understanding of the importance of relationships
I would be lying if I said that I felt perfectly content throughout the entire vacation. To be honest, I would have to say that I missed my family and friends even more while I was gone than when I was in Angers (if that’s possible!). It seemed like every time I turned around, I was in the middle of another experience I wanted so badly to share with someone...but I couldn’t. Don’t get me wrong; I’m so, so, so grateful that I had the chance to travel with Laura and Kendra! I just wish that more of you could have been there with me to see the blue water, to feel the power of the wind, to play in the sand, to marvel at the churches and monuments, to enjoy a meal together. I felt like, as amazing as it was, it was only half as amazing as it would have been with the most important people in my life there to savor it with me. So, does that mean that I had a miserable vacation? No. It just means that I have a renewed sense of appreciation for the relationships God has given me. :) You are all so special to me.

6. the history
From the monuments and landmarks of Paris, to the old port and the Chateau d’If in Marseille, to the unique Alsacian heritage and identity in Strasbourg, there was always something historical to intrigue me on this trip - even things to inspire my reluctant imagination. The tomb of the Unknown Soldier under the Arc de Triomphe reminded me of the sacrifices of men and women whose names and faces we don’t even know, and the sacrifices made by their families and friends and countrymen. They were all important to someone. The fact that a country like France lost a million men in one war still blows my mind. Visiting Notre-Dame in Paris was also a special experience. The very building itself is awe-inspiring, but it somehow it held more meaning because we happened to visit during mass. It’s overwhelming to imagine how many people have come to mass there over its years of existence, who they were, and what they might have been like. I found my imagination to be even more lively when we visited Marseille and got caught in a blustery rainstorm out on the calanques of the Isle of Frioul. The wind was dashing the waves against the rocks like I’ve always heard it can do, but I’ve never seen or experienced the sheer power of it for myself. Since we were only witnessing a small rainstorm, I couldn’t help but imagine the terror of being stranded on a ship in the middle of a real storm or imprisoned in a fortress in the middle of the ocean like Edmond Dantes in the Count of Monte Cristo.

7. the playful moments, when we forgot we were 21 and decided to be 8 again

...of swinging in the park
...of climbing onto whimsical statues of birds that spin, just to see how fast we could go and make ourselves dizzy
...of running and jumping into the wind and letting it lift us off the ground
...of eating Kougelhopf, food of champions!!!
...of drawing pictures in the sand and wading in the ocean
...of trying to open a can of tuna without a can opener and laughing hysterically at the looks from the guy behind us on the train
...of eating ice cream for dinner
...of taking pictures of angry faces, sad faces, serious faces, sleepy faces, happy faces, and all faces that might occur in between

8. Kendra
It was such a blessing to be able to wake up with her, to sometimes share something we’d read in the Bible or talk about something we didn’t quite understand, to pray together, to talk over all the cultural differences we’d never seen before, and most of all to take the time to really get to know one another and discover dreams and quirks and personality we’d never seen in the other before. I will always remember the time we laughed until we couldn’t breathe at the can of tuna, which was really “man-bait,” the endless jokes we made about Kougelhopf and the Place Kleber, and the glare she gave that drunk guy who put his arm around my shoulder at the fruit stand. (I pity her children when they do something to cross her in the future...) ;) She was even the perfect person to take shopping, because she is just like me...we’re both so indecisive. We understand each other!

9. Laura
I also enjoyed spending those few days with Laura and getting to know her better! I was really glad to have the opportunity to see not only the big things in Paris, but the tiny little things she loves. The falafel, the tiny crêpe stand, the Eiffel Tower at night, the Toys’R’Us with the 5kg jar of Nutella...it was all awesome...but doubly awesome because she was there to enjoy it with us. She’s not only best guide to Paris ever, but a good friend. :)

10. the Beach and the Calanques
cold water. distant horizon. blue sky. white clouds. soft sand. messages. shells. freshest, sweetest air I’ve ever smelled. roaring wind. laughter. awe. indescribable.

11. Germany
We hopped on a train Sunday morning just to say we’d been there. Offenburg was pretty much deserted for most of the day, but we managed to find a restaurant that was open, where we ended up being the American tourists who didn’t speak a word of the native language and had to fall on the mercy of the waitress who happened to speak some English. We didn’t even know how to count or say the days of the week in German! It was a completely new feeling, since we could always fall back on our French before. Anyway, we loved listening to the normal German people having conversations around us, and we had a great deal of fun on our quest to find postcards (that we couldn’t read), stamps (we probably stuck on enough to send the cards around the world twice), and a drop box (that didn’t have a separate slot for foreign mail - but it’s not like we could read it if it did). We had a long talk over dessert that afternoon about some ideas we have for the future, and we ended up doing some impromptu brainstorming. I love afternoons like that.

12. the Markets
Strasbourg has three different outdoor markets: the produce market, the book market, and the flea market. We hit up all three on Saturday, and it was one of the best things we did in Strasbourg. The book market boasted stand after stand of old books, new books, trashy books, childrens’ books, antique books, postcards, and posters, and I found a book about all the known phobias in the world -- which should be humorous and a good opportunity to learn vocabulary. However, the flea market was where I found the real treasures, both in objects and in memories. I found a little ceramic bowl I liked, and the old man sold it to me for a euro. Not bad. But then I found a painted plate that really, really wanted...but I didn’t want to pay the 10 euros the guy was asking (even though he said he was giving me a good deal since I was pretty, or the bowl was pretty...I’m still not sure which pronoun he used). Then he offered me two plates for 15 euros...but I didn’t want the other one. I’d seen him working over a couple who was looking at a tricycle at his stand, and I got the impression that I could bargain with him, so I stood up a little straighter and told him I only had 7 euros for the one plate I wanted, and he didn’t waste a second taking me up on it. I’m sure I could have gone lower, but it was my first time...and I was bargaining in French...so I was super-proud of myself. And I now own the plate I really liked, too. After that, I found a beautiful locket at a different stand, and I came back to it three times because I just couldn’t leave without at least trying to buy it. The lady tried to sell it to me for 20 euros, and then she offered it to me for 10 euros if Kendra bought the 20 euro item she was considering for 10 euros as well. Kendra didn’t really want it, so I asked the lady if she would take 15 for the one I wanted, and then thought better of it and offered 12, which she also took. I was quite happy with that. :) Then we headed off to the produce market, where most of the vendors were packing up, but we still got to taste some locally-produced Munster cheese, 1 week old and 3 weeks old. I think I prefer the taste of the newer cheese, even though most people prefer the older. Anyway, all in all, it was a great day at the markets that I won’t soon forget.

13. the increased confidence
I CAN speak French. I CAN travel on my own. I CAN navigate a city without getting hopelessly lost. All with His help. :)

14. the new friends at the hostel
Nearly every night we stayed in the hostel, a new person came to share our the room with us, which made for great opportunities to share backgrounds and having deep, interesting conversations. I’m really glad we had the opportunity to meet Kayt, Caroline, and all of the others. :) They’ve each left me to think about a little bit of their own perspective on life, which I think is a valuable asset.

15. the realization that He is Emmanuel, God with Us, Jehovah Shalom, our Peace and Jehovah Jireh, our Provider
He is the God who sees. So many times, we could have been in the wrong place at the wrong time, or could even have been in grave danger, but he delivered us because of his mercy. I didn't find out that there was a massive storm that killed over 50 people in France until I was safe in Strasbourg after the storm had passed. Thankfully, He kept the knowledge of the storm from my parents until I was able to talk to them. What i find amazing about the entire situation is that Kendra and I were getting on our train from Paris to Marseille at the same time that Paris was instituting warnings and watches and cancelling flights. Before long, Paris was buffeted by the winds and flooding -- but we were already in the south of France, out of harm's way, enjoying the sand and the waves and the beauty of His creation. How amazing and merciful is our God!

Well, hopefully these 15 highlights give you an idea of how amazing this trip was. Unfortunately, it was also exhausting, and on top of that, I'm currently dealing with some health issues. This too shall pass. I'm pretty sleepy now though, so I'm going to sign off. Bisous!

Lots to say. Not a lot of time to say it.

2010-02-18T13:19:00.004-06:00

Oyyy, what a week! Thank you guys so much for commenting and encouraging me. :) Since I have food on the brain, I’m going to compare my moving day last weekend to ice cream: smooth, but frozen. I use frozen in the sense of “ow, my fingers are going to fall off from rolling this suitcase to the car because it’s 30 degrees outside” as well as in the sense that Jacqueline couldn’t have been more cold towards me if she tried. (I’m pretty sure she *did* try, but anyway.) I stopped by a florist shop just down the street from the house (after I got lost taking a different road...but that’s beside the point) with the goal of finding a special plant or flower bouquet for Jacqueline. It was the day before Valentine’s Day, so it wasn’t too difficult. I happened to find a purple hyacinth bulb in a water-filled glass vase on the outdoor display table for only 6 euros, and I felt like it was meant just for her. After all, she was always talking about her garden and about how she adores the color purple. The florist shop even wrapped it up in cellophane with a pink ribbon -- for free! I left it on my desk with the key to the room before I went upstairs to tell her goodbye. She shoved my rent refund in my hand and all but demanded to know where the key was, and she wasn’t happy to find out that I’d left it on my desk. I followed her downstairs and listened to her huff about the things I hadn’t picked up to carry outside yet (because I could obviously carry all of them at one time), and then she told me to take the plant, too. I told her it was for her, and she almost yelled “NO” at me. Fortunately, I was able to convince her to accept it as a Valentine’s Day gift and a “thank you” for her hospitality. Maybe it will truly be a sign of kindness to her; I don’t know. In any case, I think it was the right thing to do.

I’m happy to report that making the adjustment to my new room has been superbly easy! Even while I was unpacking, I knew that I was going to feel a lot more at home here because I could hear Jocelyn, my new hostess, cranking up the French rock music and singing along while she did housework downstairs. She is quite energetic and spontaneous, but very motherly as well. And, the Chinese girl who already lives here is super-friendly, too! The location is perfect - right next to the convenience grocery store, bakery, patisserie, supermarket, the bus stop, and the bank. :)

I must say that I’m a little scared to use the kitchen, but I’ve managed to do it once without messing anything up. She has just finished remodeling it, so all of the appliances are new, including the induction stovetop. She’s very particular about it, but not in the same way that Jacqueline was particular about things. From talking to her (and even through my encounters with Jacqueline), I’ve also become a lot more aware of the general emphasis in France on being environmentally friendly. Part of it is due to the high cost of energy; part of it is due to a heightened sense of responsibility to the environment that we don’t have in the United States. I’m looking forward to learning a new kind of lifestyle, but it does seem a little daunting at first, trying to learn these new habits. I have trouble remembering what’s recyclable and what isn’t, remembering to be more careful about how much light and heat I use, and remembering not to turn the water on all the way when a small amount will suffice. I’m even learning to take even shorter showers and to do little bits of laundry by hand, which is definitely something to get used to.

Have I mentioned that I can’t wait to go to Paris this weekend? Kendra and I, along with our new friend Laura, will be taking the train there Saturday morning and staying until Monday night, when Kendra and I will take a late train to Marseilles. We got an awesome deal on the tickets - first class for less than the price of second class! That’s what the 12-25 pass can get you. It pays to be young sometimes! That said, it was still a bit of a headache trying to find all the tickets and accommodations...but it's done. After a few days in Marseilles, the plan is to head up to Strasbourg for the rest of our week-long vacation. I’m really looking forward to seeing the monuments and tasting the foods that I’ve heard about for so long! Also, a couple of new friends have invited Kendra and I to visit their hometowns for a weekend later in the semester, too, which is super nice. :) It will be our chance to see Nantes and the region of Bretagne.

Fortunately, I’ve also had a chance to experience more of what life has to offer here in Angers over the past week. Friday night, some new friends invited Kendra and I to join them at McDonald’s before heading to a local pub to watch another friend play in his band. Just a little side note here: happy meals in France are the bomb! Cheeseburger, fries, drink, AND dessert. They NEVER skip dessert. (It’s not as unhealthy as it sounds, though. Usually it’s fruit, fruit compote, a light creme anglaise, mousse, or light cakes. It’s not always very sugary.) Anyway, the evening at the pub was entertaining, to say the least. I enjoyed the band, but the most memorable event of the night was probably when a completely inebriated man tried to hit on me. I was with a group of French friends who made sure he minded his own business, so don’t worry - I was fine. Honestly, I found it quite amusing, being asked to talk in a Texan accent by a guy who couldn’t tell whether he was talking in English or French.

Saturday, I had the opportunity to hang out with the ‘singles’ group at church for an evening of singing, bible study, breton-style galettes, and crêpes. Goodness, I ate so much. Galettes are thin pancakes (like crêpes), made with a darker wheat flour and filled with your choice of fillings: mushrooms, eggs, cheese, turkey, bacon, tomatoes, etc. Crêpes are their sweeter counterpart, made with white flour and filled with your choice of nutella, peanut butter, jams, honey, sugar, etc. They just keep passing the plate around until they’re gone! Ohhhh, it’s like heaven. Anyway, visiting with everyone makes Angers seem much more like home. Being with other Christians and developing those friendships is encouraging and refreshing, and I love being there every week. I’m sad that I’ll have to miss for the next couple of weeks because of vacation!

Sunday evening, I enjoyed a short organ concert in St-Maurice Cathedral and hung out with some friends at a cozy little restaurant. I tried an odd little carbonated beverage called Schweppes that tasted of bitter grapefruit and citrus. I’ll try just about anything once, but I don’t think I’ll be ordering that again.

Monday...was a good day. I tried to take care of some paperwork, but I found that a lot of stores and offices are closed on Mondays (and pretty much whenever they decide to be). So, I took a grand walking tour instead - finding quiet historic backstreets, getting my first up-close look at the Chateau, discovering perfect hidden parks, taking note of future picnic spots, walking across and then along the quay by the Maine river, watching people. My knee has been healing nicely, and this week, it has been nearly pain-free. :) (Thank you all for covering it with your prayers!) I took tons of pictures, so hopefully I’ll be able to upload them soon. One thing I’ve found especially amazing? The fact that I can be walking down a busy street, my ears filled with the sounds of sirens wailing and people chattering, but with one step through an iron gate coated with peeling green paint, everything can suddenly be completely still. It’s like walking through the wardrobe, into a green, peaceful sanctuary. You think I’m exaggerating, but really - it’s a night and day difference. They have an extensive system of city parks, some of them large, some tiny, and some tucked away so that foreigners like me just happen upon them by chance.

Another interesting thing I’ve noticed? Every city in France seems to have a Victor Hugo street. Rue Victor Hugo must be the French equivalent of JFK Boulevard. :P

The rest of the week has had its ups and downs. Kendra and I watched the second installment of “Kirikou” Tuesday night over peanut butter and jelly sandwiches...but she came down with the stomach bug later that night, so I haven’t seen her since. :( Classes were rough Wednesday, probably because it’s my longest day, but things were better after I got home and tested out a new recipe. Lentil soup with vegetables - because I was absolutely craving some real nourishment. It’s hard to find vegetables to eat!! They eat more bread and cheese, especially in the winter. I can’t keep that up for long before I have to have some variety, no matter how good the bread is. Today, I got the results back from my first “contrôle” - translation test. I scored an 11 out of 20, which is enough to pass. I’m actually quite content to have earned that on my first assessment, after having been in class for two weeks. It’s encouraging to know that I’m off to a good start (at least in that class!).

Well, it’s late, and this entry is already long enough (very much so), so I’ll wrap it up and write another entry later to talk about some of my cultural observations. For some reason, I’ve racked up quite a few this week: some from very insightful and informative conversations, and some from good old-fashioned people-watching. ;) I’ll leave you with this blessing tonight from Psalm 34:

1 I will extol the LORD at all times; his praise will always be on my lips.
2 My soul will boast in the LORD; let the afflicted hear and rejoice.
3 Glorify the LORD with me; let us exalt his name together.
4 I sought the LORD, and he answered me;  he delivered me from all my fears.
5 Those who look to him are radiant; their faces are never covered with shame.
6 This poor man called, and the LORD heard him;  he saved him out of all his troubles.
7 The angel of the LORD encamps around those who fear him,  and he delivers them.
8 Taste and see that the LORD is good; blessed is the man who takes refuge in him.

only two days?!

2010-02-09T15:13:00.004-06:00

My life here changes so quickly, and I forget you guys are in the dark until I update you! The biggest news is that I'm moving to a different house on Saturday (and Saturday can't come quickly enough!). The past few days have been really rough, but I've learned some important lessons.

Yesterday morning, I paid a visit to another family to take a look at my second housing option. It was definitely agreeable, but not quite what I wanted in the long run. I didn't want to be tied down to obligatory family dinners every night, and to be honest, the room was rather cramped. I liked the flexibility, privacy, and space of the other room - and it costs less too, because food is available on a pay-as-you-go basis. And, I can still have contact with the family without it becoming a hindrance. Anyway...I came home and asked Jacqueline if she'd gone to the university to talk with the housing department, and I honestly wasn't prepared for the tirade that followed. She spent a good ten or fifteen minutes on it, and I'm not sure exactly when she came up for air. She had to show me the paper from the university which outlined all the rules she could make and that she was going to implement in the future because of her bad experience with me. Then she told me how she was going to begin counting down my "one month's notice" from yesterday, the 8th, not the 6th, when I first talked to her, so that I would owe her for some of March's rent in addition to the February rent I'd already paid. She informed me in no uncertain terms that I would pay her for one-third of March's rent (even though I only owed for 8 days), and when I tried to ask her why she didn't divide the rent by four (since there are four weeks in a month, not three), she told me it wouldn't work because that would add up to 32 days in March and "there aren't 32 days in March, so you'll pay me a third." I just let that go, because there wasn't any use in arguing, which left her free to explain to me that if another student became available to take my place anytime before the 8th of March, I would be forced to leave. And then she continued by asking me why I wanted to go to the trouble of leaving anyway, for just a few months. I tried to explain the difficulty of living so far from the university, and wanting to make sure I was safe at night, and she threw it back at me by saying, "Well, you come home late every night, so I can't understand why you'd be concerned about that!" My attempts at explaining the difficulties with the bus were futile, because she just assumed a condescending tone and told me to get to the bus stop on time and make a signal to the bus, because "it's that simple! The busses don't wait for Grace, you know." Her tone really hurt my feelings, especially when she made the dig at my sense of responsibility, because I've been trying so hard to do my best at figuring out a new country and staying safe at the same time. Then she had to twist the knife by telling me that I have parents who take care of me and she doesn't, even though I tried to explain that they're not rich, either. She honestly didn't want to listen to anything I said. By the time she had finished with me, all I could do was walk down the stairs and collapse on my bed. It was 6am in Arkansas, but Dad was awake, so I started a video chat and burst into tears. I'm so thankful for him. He listened, and reminded me that it wasn't about me, and reassured me that he would support me in whatever I needed to do. That, and an awesome chat with Ian, Caleb, Matt, and Max, helped me pull myself together, and go up to the university to talk with the housing office myself. Let me tell you -- I did SO much praying on the way there!

So, I explained my situation to the ladies in the office, and they chuckled a bit before reassuring me that she couldn't actually make good on any of her threats. She can't make me move out before the 8th, and she can't make me pay extra rent. By the time I walked out of that office, I had not only made my decision to move to the house that I mentioned before (which is closer to the university than the other one and closer to Kendra, too) but made arrangements to move this Saturday. And - get this - I found out that because they can replace me with another student on the 22nd, Jacqueline owes ME money! Yes, after all that we went through...she owes me rent for the part of February I won't be living here. I was laughing out loud when I walked out the door, and I'm sure everyone outside was wondering what was wrong with this crazy girl, laughing at nothing and no one. Well, that's not exactly true. I was laughing at God's sense of humor, and reveling in the joy of knowing that He answered my prayer (in the most ironic way I could think of, no less!). Anyway, I had another little conversation with Jacqueline that night when I got home from choir practice, and I asked her what the university had said when they called (because they called as I left the office). She said she knew that I was leaving Saturday, but that they hadn't said anything else in particular. Funny...it seems there was one other thing they mentioned.....

Anyway, she's made a point of making my life miserable since then. She confronted me about using the heater in my kitchen downstairs when I wasn't cooking, saying that it was entirely too warm down there and I was wasting energy. I tried to explain that my room was cold, so I was just using my computer there for a little while to eat and stay warm, but she wouldn't have any of it. I could see it wasn't going anywhere, so after she'd thoroughly said her piece, I just said I was sorry, and she told me she didn't want me to say I was sorry because "that doesn't mean anything. I just want you to comport yourself normally, and not heat rooms excessively. That's just unacceptable." I tried to explain that when I said I was sorry, that meant I was sorry and I would try to respect her better in the future...but I don't think she really understood. All I could do was just tell her thank you and walk away before I said something out of anger. In any case, the drama continued today when I was sitting in the kitchen after cooking lunch. I only had one heater on, and it was pleasant but not too warm (by any means) in the kitchen, and I was cooking and eating, not anything else, so I thought I was following her instructions. Still, I cringed when I heard her coming, and for good reason. As soon as she opened the door, she hit the light switch and started huffing as she crossed the room about how it was surely "warm enough" in there. I tried to talk to her before she went outside to let the dogs go to the bathroom, but she told me to wait, so I just got up and turned the light back on. :P I had to stop her on her way back through to ask her if there was a problem, and she asked me why I needed the light on to eat. I admit that I told her liked to see what I was eating (because obviously, it's not an extravagant measure to turn the light on when you're eating lunch), to which she responded with another lecture about not wasting energy, and about how much energy costs in France (she didn't know about the US) and how when she was young they only turned things on when they needed them. *sigh* She told me I could do work upstairs in order to save energy downstairs, so I took her at her word and did some homework upstairs while she was gone this afternoon. Unfortunately, she didn't tell me I wasn't allowed to drink coffee in the living room, so she made a huffy comment about that, too, when she got home - after she told me to move to the other chair so she could sit on the couch. (Because it's not like I wouldn't have moved if she had just asked...)

Anyway, after all of the drama of yesterday and today, I was just exhausted. It started weighing on me more and more, and I started taking it personally. It's tough when every time you try to fix one problem, someone is coming along behind you, obsessively searching for another one to point out. I honestly think that she should write a rule book that details the "right way" to do everything in her house, from the exact measurement of force necessary to shut off the water faucet properly to how many minutes one can use a light bulb until it becomes "excessive" to which kind of sponge is acceptable for washing pans as opposed to dishes. (Yes, Soni told me that Jacqueline informed her there is a difference.)

So, why do I relate all of this? First of all, it's NOT to complain or to make you hate her. I just needed to be honest about what's been going on in my life and to let you know what's been happening so my other updates don't sound odd and out of context. Second of all, it IS to provide a background for the lessons I have learned. A friend of mine reminded me today that it's easy to become bitter in situations like these, and that I should be careful to guard my heart so that bitterness doesn't creep in. He was absolutely right, and I realized that I needed to repent of some of that already. Since then, I've asked the Holy Spirit to renew my mind so that I can reflect his love instead of project my selfish desire for the kind of treatment I think I "deserve." Please pray for Jacqueline. People who treat others the way she does, people who live only by the rules with no hope for grace, can't have truly experienced the love, mercy, and grace of God in their own lives.

That said, I'm still looking forward to moving on Saturday. Maybe then I'll be able to better settle into a routine and be able to focus more on my studies without being mentally and emotionally weighed down by the turmoil in the house. I feel like I haven't given proper attention to homework...but then again, there really hasn't been much that I would actually call "homework." It's more like self-directed learning. No quizzes, no tests, no assignments that count for anything right now. Of course, it's better to stay prepared, but I think I can allow myself this grace period, considering that it's taken me a couple of weeks to *find* the right classes, I've had an injured knee to contend with, and now I've been faced with landlady issues. It's a lot to handle. It'll all be fine. :)

Oh sweet, I just remembered class starts a little later tomorrow, so that gives me some time to sleep - awesome. I hope you all are enjoying your snow days (those of you in Arkansas or Virginia). It snowed this afternoon here, but nothing stuck. It's just bitterly cold! I'm staying properly fueled with plenty of French bread, cheese, and chocolate, though, so don't worry about me. ;)

And thanks for reading this...whoever actually read all the way to the end...and leave me a comment if you have time so I know I'm not writing into thin air. ;) I love hearing from you guys. Bisous!

updates on housing and my knee

2010-02-06T18:30:00.002-06:00

So...I came home Friday night after cramming my head full of architectural terms pertaining to cathedrals and chateaus in class. (That vocabulary will be the death of me.) However, I do find it interesting to be able now to hold an intelligent and informed conversation about the differences between abbeys, cathedrals, and churches, and what each part of the architecture symbolizes or how each part functions. I’m also becoming more familiar with the unique styles belonging to roman, gothic, baroque, and neo-roman eras. Anyway, I hadn’t eaten dinner yet, but I couldn’t let my mind rest until I’d talked to Jacqueline about moving. I finally gathered up the courage to go talk to her, thinking that, after all, she and I had been developing a rapport, and she might at least be understanding of my reasoning if I explained well that I didn’t have a problem with her, just the distance/safety.

Nope.

Definitely not the outcome I was hoping for.

As soon as I’d finished trying to explain, her face turned stony and she stopped making eye contact with me, opting to address the TV across the room instead. Then for the next five minutes, if I heard it once, I heard it ten times: “I’ll just have to go up to the university myself on Monday. This just won’t do. I kept that room for you. The university told me I would have two students, and I have to have two students. It simply won’t work any other way. I have to go up to the university on Monday to talk to them.” I tried my best to explain that I was grateful for how she’d taken care of me, and my main reason for needing to move was safety. To that she responded with another monologue about how none of her other students have ever had any trouble with the busses, and there shouldn’t be any problem for me. After all, she said, there are busses in the evening so you don’t have to walk. I tried to explain again what I’ve told her before: that there is only one bus per hour after 9pm that can bring me back to my stop, and I’ve tried twice to take it -- and it didn’t stop for me either time. I explained that I can’t take that kind of risk all the time. Her response was, “Well, they have to stop! And if you aren’t there on time, just walk with your friends or wait at the bus stop for the hour until the next one.” I just couldn’t find a gentle way to make her understand the fact that it doesn’t matter if the busses are supposed to stop; what matters is whether they DO or not. And, I don’t have friends who can wait for me at the stop all the time, especially if they’re trying to stay safe themselves, and no one else goes my direction anyway. What’s more, I’d like to see HER sit at the bus stop for an hour when it’s 10:30pm and 35 degrees outside. (Actually, I don’t literally want to see that - I just want her to actually comprehend what I’m talking about.) :P I think she’s living in her own world, and I can’t get in. What I realized is that she doesn’t *want* to understand. She just wants my rent, and she wants things to unfold the way they’re *supposed* to unfold, according to her neat, tidy, perfect little plan. Just like every door has to be closed, every pan situated correctly, every window just so, and the cleaning has to be done like clockwork. Mom likened her to the old woman in Pollyanna. :P Personally, I feel like Anne of Green Gables, except I haven’t found the sweet side of Marilla yet. I know it’s there...somewhere...but I feel like God’s saying He wants me somewhere else. Even if I move, though, I think I could stay in contact. I hope that we can continue to have a relationship. Maybe I can visit her to help tend her garden every now and then. I was looking forward to that.

Anyway, I did visit the house that is closest to the university today. The owner was extremely nice, and she didn’t seem like an austere, rule-driven kind of taskmaster when it came to keeping house and taking care of renters. She even told me that she does laundry for her guests for a small fee - much less than the 10+ euros I would pay at the laundromat! The rent is just a bit higher than what I pay now, but the price and frequency of the meals would be flexible. The neighborhood is charming. The skylight in the bedroom offers a view of a local cathedral. The bedroom even has its own microwave and mini-fridge, lots of storage space, a bigger bed, and lots of room to move around. And...an adjustable radiator! HEAT!!! Anyway, I’m thinking that it sounds like a great option, but I would appreciate prayer that God would make it super clear what I should do. It’s not being held for me, so if He doesn’t hold it for me until Monday, I guess I’ll know that he meant “no.” The owners of the other house are out of town until Monday, so I can’t pay them a visit yet, and Jacqueline can’t have her “talk” with the university officials until then anyway. So, Monday will be the big day.

Oh, and I did pay a visit to the doctor this morning. It was surprisingly pleasant and not at all unnerving. (I felt kind of like a little kid going to the doctor for the first time. :P A language barrier can make any experience seem new, unfamiliar, and scary.) She told me that it seems like I have a bruised bone, which is why it has been causing me pain for so long. It will still take several weeks for it to heal completely. She gave a prescription for some cream and pain relievers, though. The crazy thing is that the visit only cost me 22 euros, and the prescriptions were only about 7 euros together. Crazy, these French people are. Anyway, at least now I know that I don’t have pieces of bone floating around, or torn cartilage, or something awful like that. Bone bruises are painful, but they heal eventually, and I can still walk on it without doing damage. As Caitlin told me, God must have thought I needed an extra challenge here in France, so he gave me a handicap for this level. Is it sad that I then started comparing my life to Halo? “Yeah, I shouldn’t have gone for the triple kill on that heroic campaign - you know, last semester. God’s making me play France on legendary now.” :P I suppose I could also make some Mario references...like, it sure would be nice to find some star power or some mushrooms right now. I like the green ones, but the red ones are good too.

Anyway, I’m pretty exhausted after all of that, plus an hour of wandering around trying to find Kendra's house (which looks totally different in the daylight), an afternoon of vacation planning and then a wonderful dinner with said Kendra. ;) We had a fantastically long dinner, complete with some deep and encouraging conversation. :) It made me happy. That happiness was somewhat diminished by my hour-long wait for a bus, and then my 20 minute wait IN that unheated bus at the next terminal, though. (Don’t ask me why it stops for 20 minutes...right after you get on.) In any case, I was glad for a hot shower when I got home, and now I’m quite content snuggled down under my covers where it’s warm. And I’m looking forward to church tomorrow!! :D

Much love! Bisous!

beginning of the weeeeeek-eeennnddd!

2010-02-06T12:00:00.000-06:00

Oyyyy, what to write first? The end of the week has been full of surprises. Kendra and I finished class on Thursday and decided to plan out some ideas for our end-of-February week-long break, and then wander around the shopping district for a while to window shop and find something yummy for dinner. I enjoyed the company of course, and we found several interesting places, including a huge bookstore (4 stories) that could probably be the equivalent of a Barnes and Noble. I can't decide if finding it was a good or bad thing. ;) Anyway, it took a while to decide on something to eat because neither one of us are incredibly decisive, but we finally settled on a comfy little Italian place on Rue Bressigny. The waitress thought we were a bit odd for sharing a pizza, but she was really kind and had the cook make it just a tiny bit larger for us anyway. One of the other customers was celebrating her birthday that day, and after everyone sang to her she was just beaming, and evidently so touched that she gave the traditional cheek-kiss greeting to every single person in the restaurant - including us American girls in the corner. :)

By the way, did you know that the French for window shopping literally means to "lick the windows"? Hehehe. It amused me, too. I also think that those of you who are "of age" should do a little research to find out why this sentence doesn't convey quite what the speaker intended: "I like France because they don't use preservatives like they do in the U.S." Yes, the key word is preservative.

Anyway, Friday was an interesting day for several reasons. First of all, I had to explain the connotations of 'queer,' the offensiveness of 'nigger,' and the proper use of 'howdy' in translation class. I don't think my professor is capable of asking a question and listening for the answer, which made it all the more interesting. He's also not able to say "howdy" without making a hand gesture to signify a cowboy hat. :P

The second reason I found it interesting was the fact that I experienced my first "contrôle" - or in other words, a big auditorium filled with lots of students taking two or three different tests that are then graded but don't actually count for anything in the end. Mine was a "Version" exam, which meant that I was given a 207 word text in English, in this case an excerpt from a book, and asked to translate it into French without the use of any aids. I discovered that I can find very creative ways of expressing ideas in a more roundabout way when I have no idea what the exact French vocabulary would be. It's kinda fun, actually. Anyway, we'll see how it turns out.

The third interesting occurrence of the day was my visit to "Espace Social Santé" - the health and housing office. I made an appointment with a doctor for today, and spent some time visiting with the nurse, who is one of my favorite people on campus. She genuinely shows an interest in you and shares whatever helpful information she can on any subject, whether it be local doctors or the upcoming concert of the Gospel choir that she thoroughly enjoys listening to. Anyway, the woman in charge of housing was slightly less friendly, but not rude. She informed me that it would be possible to change housing, but I would have to notify Jacqueline at least a month in advance or be obligated by French law to pay her that month's rent. Not a problem - that seems like common courtesy - but I started to get really nervous about talking to Jacqueline. I hadn't broached the subject of moving because I wasn't at all sure if it was even an option, and I didn't want to complain. At this point, though, I have two other options: a space with a family and a girl that I've already met that seems to offer a lively, friendly atmosphere and regular meals with the family that is only 15 minutes from the university (half the distance I have now) or a space with a woman and a Japanese student who will be leaving soon that is just 10 minutes from the university, with the opportunity for meals with her as well. I'm going to meet her in about 45 minutes, so maybe I'll know better then what I'd like to do. Speaking of which, I gotta run. Oh snap, it’s raining now. Grrrr.

Wednesdays are hump days in France too

2010-02-03T11:18:00.005-06:00

Well, an awful lot can happen in one day, and I hate how it usually turns a good week just a little sour. Maybe I'll have a better perspective on it in the morning.

History class was not quite as bad as I thought it would be. The professor, unlike others I've met, seems kind and helpful, and she said that the exchange students in the past have made better grades on the exam than the French students. (That's promising.) However, listening to a history lecture in French that lasts an hour and a half is quite draining. You don't realize how much energy it takes to be that meticulously attentive until you are trying to listen, comprehend, and take notes when you don't know all of the words being used.

Langue Pratique was a joke, because it's an English grammar and comprehension class. The professor looks like the type who eats raw lemons for breakfast, so it makes it all the more entertaining for me. (It wouldn't be so amusing if I was concerned about the subject matter, but as it is, I don't care if she likes me or not. I think she'd still talk down to me even if she secretly did.)

Over lunch Kendra and I discussed our dilemma when it came to the homework for Didactics. Should we try to do the spreadsheet by hand, or wait to ask the professor to clarify the assignment? She didn't seem to be taking into account our special situation. Fortunately, we decided to wait, and it turned out for the best. The professor is probably the most willing to work with us to make our experience in her class interesting and beneficial.

French Expression - boring. Ugh, learning how to make an outline. I'm an exchange student from a college, for goodness sake. I'm just trying to learn a language. I'm not in remedial school. :P

Then came the two big trials of the day. Of course, they would come *after* I was already exhausted. Evidently, it pays to eavesdrop on others' conversations here, because that's how you find out about everything important to the life of a student. So, there are these things called "contrôles" here. No one talks about them in class, the professors are curiously silent on the subject, and no one tells you when or where to look for any kind of notice that warns you of their coming. But, everyone has to take these "tests" or "quizzes" or whatever they are, some of which count and some of which don't; others make up part of what's called "continuous assessment." This all means that, yes, there was another tangled mess of spreadsheets to hack my way through, figuring out which classes and which teachers have contrôles, and most importantly, if I have any. My eavesdropping was very timely, given that the first ones begin this Friday. Yes, 3 weeks into the semester...2 for the exchange students. I don't even know what there is to test over yet. We haven't been in class long enough. It's especially odd, but mostly frustrating, because we've been told that we still have time to change our schedules and find the right classes - but at the same time, we're now being told that we can't miss these "exams." There are a few classes that I'm attending for the first time this week! *sigh* Every time I think I'm getting my footing, the system throws me another curveball. I'm learning to just let them whiz past and wait for the next one. It's not worth worrying about. The French students don't seem bothered at all.

Anyway, the second trial of the day was the discovery that there is a family nearby who is looking for a student to fill their empty room. There are already other students there (the one I met seemed extremely nice), and the family has teenage children. Meals are included in the rent, and it's half the distance from the university as my house now. I'm praying that God would show me clearly and quickly what I should do. Should I stay here because He has ministry for me to do, or should I go because He has somewhere else for me to be? It seems safer there, and I would have more access to the university and to activities with my friends. I don't know. If God brings me to mind, please pray with me.

Oh, and I found out why I'm always freezing in my room. The thermometer says it's 17 or 18 degrees Celsius. Yeah, that's 62-64 degrees. What to do about that.........

Time for bed, though. A bientot!

Getting settled

2010-02-03T01:38:00.002-06:00

This week has started off much more agreeably: I feel more settled, more excited, more ambitious, but also more relaxed. I do have some new classes to attend this week, though, so I'm a bit nervous about them. Especially today's contemporary history class. It's sink or swim, so I hope I don't drown! I'm also feeling rather lost in my Didactic of English class, because she's assigning homework and asking us to prepare for the internship without realizing that she needs to give separate directions for the exchange students. Unfortunately, professors are hard to track down.

In any case, this week will also be interesting because our new exchange student has arrived in the house. She's from South Korea, so she asked me to just call her Soni, since her Korean name is too hard for us to pronounce. I was very, very thankful that I was here when she arrived, because she hardly speaks French, and understands very little of what Jacqueline says. I've spent the past couple of nights translating into English and trying to make her feel as at ease here as I can. It is very difficult for Asian students to pick up the accent and structure of French.

Last night was a wonderful French food night, because February 2 is the French holiday of La Chandeleur (Candlemas). I didn't know what it was, so I researched it a little and found that it was "originally Virgin Mary's Blessing Day but became known as "avec Crêpe Day", referring to the tradition of offering crêpes. The belief was that if you could catch the crêpe with a frying pan after tossing it in the air with your left hand and holding a gold coin in your right hand, you would become rich that year." I didn't test out the whole gold coin bit, but I certainly became rich in crêpes last night!

On a slightly odd note, I caught up on a little news from Arkansas yesterday, and I found out that UCA is not only reconstructing its sidewalks (in the same place), but they are turning Arkansas Hall into a science/math/technology residential hall. Interesting idea, but somehow I just can't see college students flocking to use study rooms called "Nerd Nodes." Really, UCA?

Anyway, I have to leave a little early today to show Soni the bus system (and hope that it isn't late)! A bientôt!

the rest of "that week from..."

2010-02-01T17:32:00.001-06:00

That brings me to Thursday. More classes, nothing extremely remarkable. Still a lot of mental processing going on, though. Kendra and I started talking about how we were feeling after our first week and a half abroad, and we decided that it felt good to have a separation from life at UCA. After being immersed in that for over two years, it has almost become like a cocoon, so it’s helpful to take a step back, or in this case, a huge leap back. From here, it’s much easier to have a fresh perspective on life. As Kendra said, being here is means that parts of you are being drained that have never been drained before, but the other parts of you are being refilled and refreshed. Another thought? Living on my own here is so much different from “living on my own” at UCA. And, I’ve realized that it’s okay to not figure all of this out perfectly the first time. Learning by trial and error is a process I’m finally learning to accept. I’ve also found it much easier to look at life with a bigger picture mindset -- beyond college life. University classes and credits and hours are just little paths in life that move you from Point A to Point B. Why keep staring at the road when you can look up and find relationships and the little experiences in life that make the journey worthwhile? :) There’s nothing like a little perspective.

So, Friday afternoon, I decided to take a trip to the Carrefour, because I was almost out of groceries and needed school supplies. I had four hours before my night class, so I figured I had enough time to catch the bus over and get back in time. I did make it there, fortunately, and I found most of what I needed, but things got interesting when I tried to get back. An African man struck up a conversation with me at the bus stop, and he seemed pretty friendly. I couldn't understand his french, so he switched to english, which I could hardly understand either. We chatted about studies and work - you know, the usual small talk. He said he came from Darfur, Sudan, a year ago, and I couldn’t quite catch what he does here in Angers. But he kept getting more specific about what I was studying, where I was studying, and where I lived...to which I gave very vague responses. And then he goes, "You have family?" Yes, in the US: a mom, dad, brother, sister. “Baby, you have baby?” Oh, noooo, I don't. “Ah, ok ok." And then he leans in closer. "I'm looking for baby, you give me number for you?" Uhhh. No. “No? You no give me your number?" No. Thanks though. "Ah ok. What is your name?" Katrine. :P

*sigh* Never a dull moment here. And then ended up getting on the bus going the wrong way, and had to get off and turn around...lugging a HUGE bag and a stuffed backpack, because I underestimated how much I would have to carry. I thought my arms were going to fall off by the time I got home, and my shoulders are still sore. :P Oh well, another lesson to chalk up to trial and error.

So Friday night was my first ALP class, i.e. crash course in Angers history, art, language, and culture. It was actually really interesting, although it will take some work to remember all of the names and dates and stories. Kendra and a friend unexpectedly picked me up after class to go to Bible study at the evangelical church. They’re beginning a study of Habakkuk, which I admit I’ve never read. (I don’t know a lot of people who have!) It was good, but it made me miss Christ Church a lot. There wasn’t anything wrong with the Bible study - not at all - it was just one of those times when I realized that I just don’t feel at home. It’ll take some time.

Anyway, Saturday afternoon was my first ALP excursion. We were going to visit the cathedral St. Maurice, l’Abbaye Toussaint, la Galerie de David d’Angers, and some other historical landmarks, and I was looking forward to it because the sun had actually come out. Of course, by the time I arrived at the school, the sun was hiding behind the clouds, and it was starting to snow. :P Figures. I hadn’t worn my heavy coat because I’d gotten much too warm the day before. Again, it figures. We all nearly froze to death walking around Angers, and let me tell you: it’s really hard to take notes by hand in blowing snow. Ugh. It’s also really difficult to take notes on an outdoor lecture about architecture and art when you don’t know how to spell the vocabulary you’ve never seen before. 0_o

By the time Saturday evening rolled around, I was tired and discouraged and frozen through, but trying my hardest to hold it together. After all, I’m in France - I should be having a great time, right? Yeah. It’s hard to feel that way after a week like that. I started talking to Ali and my mom that night, and I fell apart, and then I felt worse because I felt guilty for not holding it together. :P But, Ali and mom both encouraged me and helped me to learn a valuable lesson: life has rough spots wherever you are, even in the most idealized country of all, and you don’t have to pretend that everything’s perfect when it isn’t. It’s okay to have a bad week, and it’s completely understandable to feel less-than-ideal after adjusting to so many new things in such a short time. Another valuable lesson I learned? It’s ok to ask for help, and just because I’m here doesn’t mean I don’t need my support network back home. God gave them to me for a reason. :)

Sunday morning, one of the young ladies from the evangelical church came to pick me up with Kendra and Gilly in tow. I was looking forward to the Sunday service, but I was a little nervous too. I found that it’s about the size of Christ Church, probably smaller. They start by interspersing songs with commentary on a passage of Scripture - that day it was Joshua 1:7-9 (big surprise...God's been teaching me about courage and refuge everywhere ).

Only be strong and very courageous, being careful to do according to all the law that Moses my servant commanded you. Do not turn from it to the right hand or to the left, that you may have good success wherever you go. This Book of the Law shall not depart from your mouth, but you shall meditate on it day and night, so that you may be careful to do according to all that is written in it. For then you will make your way prosperous, and then you will have good success. Have I not commanded you? Be strong and courageous. Do not be frightened, and do not be dismayed, for the LORD your God is with you wherever you go."

The encouragement of that verse and the songs were just what I needed to hear. Of course, I was getting teary-eyed, so it was hard to sing, but some of the tunes were familiar, like translations of Shout to the Lord and I Need Thee Every Hour. So, after God had encouraged me to be courageous and strong in Him by reminding me that He will make me successful in accomplishing His plan in His time, and even though I am weak and cannot keep from turning left and right from His law, that I am covered by His blood - yes, after that - we prayed together, like popcorn prayer, and then took the Lord's Supper. That was when I felt like God actually said something to me again. (He keeps doing that here.) I put the cracker in my mouth and I felt like He was saying "I am in you and you are in Me." Which completely pulled together everything He's been teaching me lately, from the Psalms, from songs, from encouragement from people. I've been reading about how He's my refuge and my strength, and from the song “This is Home” the other day, I felt like He was telling me that in Him, I am home. And then Sunday, He made me realize that Him being in me, and me being in Him by His body and blood - that IS what refuge means. I never leave His refuge, because He is in me, and I am always in Him.

It probably sounds stupidly simple, but I felt like I *understood* for the first time. Anyway, the preacher then got up and gave a message on Acts 20:16-38, where Paul is talking to the Ephesian elders, and how what he says outlines how the church should be. I was really happy that I was understanding most of the French. And then, after more prayer, they ended the service, we got to talk to several people, including a homeschooling family from London who was in town visiting family. They still get strange looks for homeschooling in England, because it's so rare. Anyway, we started getting to know the people better, and soon, we all ate lunch together. The pastor’s wife makes it and some stay to share the meal every week. It's only 2 euros, if you can pay. So, we took advantage of the opportunity to visit with French Christians, chatting with the few college girls who go there. The pastor asked me about Christ Church, too, and he was interested by the idea of us teaching each other during the service.

And I ate SO MUCH. It was really good.

I also found out that the bus system really has been taking advantage of me. One of the girls told me that they sell a 1 week pass, but no one told me about that when I went to the terminal. I don't even think it was listed on the sign. Of course, it's to their advantage to have me buy a ticket each time, because they're only valid for an hour after their first use. Unfortunately, the 10 tickets I bought = the price of a one week pass. :P But as Mom said, God knows what they did. ;)

Sunday afternoon was the benefit concert put on by Jacqueline’s choir, and she was kind enough to pay for my ticket! I asked to be dropped off at the church where I thought it was after we left church, and it was empty. I thought it was because I was an hour early, so I started taking pictures, and then I noticed the sign that advertised the concert, which was at a different church. :P I didn't know which streets connected where, because my map didn't detail all of them, so I headed off in what I thought might be a good direction to find a main road, and I found a park that was on the map, and then I realized that the road up the hill looked familiar. I started thanking God for my semi-photographic memory, because I remembered where I was from the one time she drove me to church, and I was able to figure out how to get back to my street, and then to the right church. It was a good 45 minute walk, but I made it just in time. :) A nd the concert was so wonderful. There's nothing like hearing French people sing What a Wonderful World. ;) One of these days I’ll find an internet connection fast enough to upload my video of it. Anyway, the music was so enjoyable. I find that choral and classical music concerts are my favorite way of relaxing and refreshing my mind. :)

Just in case you were worrying/wondering, Jacqueline and I are getting along quite well now. We just needed to get used to one another. Now I think we’re reaching the point where we can be friends. I asked her how I could pray for her the other day, and I realized that she is still carrying all of the pain from her son’s death and her husband’s leaving. Please pray for her, that God would release her from that bondage and bring her peace.

That’s about all I have to say for now. I feel much better, being caught up. I’ll try not to get behind anymore, if only to keep it from bothering me. :P I know, I’m weird. Anyway, à bientôt - may the God of peace shelter you beneath His wings.

And "that week" continues...

2010-02-01T07:17:00.005-06:00

Where was I? Ah yes, Wednesday.

More courses, more wrestling with the class schedules. That really took it out of me. I have never seen such a complicated system before! Some courses you can only take together because the test is over both courses...but nothing on a schedule or board or website can tell you that...and some classes are connected to others but not by obligation...and there are year 1, year 2, and year 3 classes with levels 1, 2, and 3 within them, which makes for I don't even know how many combinations...and three or four different groups of each class meet at different times throughout the week...and some classes have names that are one word different than another class, or they may have totally different names but refer to the same thing. And that's just the Language department. If you try to mix classes from different departments, it gets even more complicated. You could take a course at 10:15 in one department, but the classes start at 10:00 in another department, which means that you have difficulties with classes overlapping. Ugh, it was enough to make me want to scream and shatter something breakable. But I didn't.

I did, however, attend an interesting course in Didactics of English, which is the equivalent of Teaching English as a Second Language - except in French, to French students who want to teach English in French schools. Mr. Atkinson says it should be a really interesting course for us, and that he’s excited that we’re the first exchange students to take it. The class includes an internship at a French school, where we would do observations and such. Mr. Atkinson said that they’re trying to expand their horizons a bit in the Language department, so finding a way for two American students to do the internship would be a huge step forward, not to mention a fascinating experience for us. We’ll see how it works out. Until then, I’m enjoying the subject matter in the class. It’s all about learning environments, techniques, and tools, right now, and the difference between pedagogy and didacticism.

Kendra and I also paid a visit to the housing office to ask about a possible relocation for me. Unfortunately, they won't let me consider moving closer until all of the students have arrived, and when I explained my difficulties with the bus system, they just said to be sure to make signals at the busses so they know to stop. Ok...so now it’s MY fault that the bus comes early and doesn’t stop, because I didn’t signal it. I’m obviously psychic and sensed it coming down the street from my seat inside the bus stop. Ugh, but seriously. If there’s only one bus per hour, and it’s 35 degrees outside, and there are PEOPLE AT THE BUS STOP, you should STOP THE BUS! That’s common sense to me! It’s what a BUS STOP is for, and I don’t care if it’s in France or not. Grr, in case you couldn’t tell, it made me really mad. The housing department told me to see if the student who’s moving in with me soon gets along with me, because we could accompany each other, but I’m not going to ask her to go everywhere with me all the time so we can walk home together! For goodness sakes, she’s got her own life, and a different schedule because she’s in a different program. They also recommended getting a bike, which you can get for free if you have a bank account to verify your residency, which is another thing I’d have to get. But, the traffic here is absolutely insane, and I’m afraid I’d be killed. Besides, it’s not much safer on a bike at night anyway. (And my knee won’t let me do that at the moment, all of the other reasons aside.) All that to say, I’m in a bit of a predicament, and I don’t know how to resolve it at the moment. I’m trying to just work with it and let it resolve with a little time, but it’s hard. You all know how I like to have things sorted out and all the pieces of the machine working in their places as soon as possible. ;)

That brings me to Thursday. More classes, nothing extremely remarkable. Still a lot of mental processing going on, though. Kendra and I started talking about how we were feeling after our first week and a half abroad, and we decided that it felt good to be separated from life at UCA. After being immersed in that environment and that life for over two years, it has become like a cocoon, so it’s helpful to take a step back, or in this case, a huge leap back. Here in France, away from everything familiar, it’s much easier to get a fresh perspective on life. As Kendra said, being here means that parts of you are being drained that have never been drained before, but the other parts of you are being refilled and refreshed. Another thing I've realized, and that I rather like, is that living on my own here is so much different from “living on my own” at UCA. It's forcing me to become much more independent and creative, even when it comes to little things like doing laundry or going shopping. And, I’ve realized that it’s okay to not do everything perfectly the first time. (I know, shocker!) I've always fought so hard to do everything "right" and I've always felt crushed when I failed, so one of the biggest steps forward that I've taken so far in France is just accepting that life is a process of trial and error. I can finally say that when I don't get something right the first time, it's not the end of the world! A lot of things just really don't matter in the scheme of things. I’ve also found it much easier to look at life with a bigger picture mindset -- beyond college life. University classes and credits and hours are just little paths in life that move you from Point A to Point B. Why stare at the road when you can look up and find relationships and the little experiences in life that make the journey worthwhile? (That said, I am going to continue paying attention to the streets here so I don't get lost.) ;)

There's so much more in my head that I can't express very well in words: all of the things I'm learning, everything I feel like I'm becoming. It's overwhelming, but it's good. :)

Even so, Friday and Saturday were pretty tough for me. By that time, Kendra and I were totally confused by the schedules, and we decided to go see Mr. Atkinson, because it looked like he was going to be our only hope for making sense of things. We sat in his office for about 45 minutes, and we discovered that even he was having trouble finding the right information. :P Finally, things started to make a little more sense, and we were able to sit down and make a workable schedule that afternoon. We even have Mondays off, so we can take long weekend trips if we want! :) God is merciful.

Kendra and I also enjoyed a delightful lunch with two French students who asked us to join them. We talked about our families, our studies, the frequent strikes in France, educational systems, language evolution, and our favorite movies, which was awesome practice when it came to vocabulary and conversational phrasing. There's nothing like having a friend to talk to who can correct your mistakes without getting upset like a professor! They even taught us some of the expressions for "cool" and "fun," which are terribly hard to translate. (In case you were wondering, they don't say "chouette" anymore, but they do say "super-cool!") ;) Evidently, student strikes are really common in the public universities here, because there is a lot of turmoil right now over changes that are being made to the educational system. The government is trying to update it, and the professors are in an uproar because they don't want the old ways to change. I must say, I have never seen an American university physically blockaded by people.....but that's what they said happens all the time. Evidently, strikes among train workers are terribly common, too, enough so that you have to be careful when you want to go somewhere so as not to get stranded.

Anyway, it's time for me to continue being productive today. The laundry is mostly done (I couldn't get it to finish drying at the laundromat, so I have it hanging up in the house now). Jacqueline was kind enough to take me with her to the Carrefour, and I bought myself a French press coffeemaker. Hallelujah, I can make coffee again! Anyway, I still have to buy a monthly bus pass since today is the 1st of the month, so I'm off again! Can't wait until choir practice later. Oh, and I'll tell you all about my Saturday excursions and about Sunday church as soon as I get a chance.

A bientot! Bisous!

Day 2 of "That Week."

2010-02-01T07:17:00.001-06:00

So, I’m sitting in the “laverie” waiting for my clothes to wash and dry. I’m fairly sure I manipulated the machine correctly, although I may have chosen a washing machine that is too large for fear of cramming too much in one of the smaller ones. It cost me 5.50 euros just to wash my clothes, which comes to about $8. To an American, that’s just insane!

Anyway, Tuesday was yet another day full of adventures and misadventures. My knee was still causing me quite a bit of pain, so I decided to take the bus again. It was one of the coldest mornings we’ve had since I arrived, so everyone was shivering at the bus stop. And we shivered. And we waited. And we shivered. And we looked at our watches (or iPods or iPhones). The bus was five - no, seven - no, ten minutes late. So we waited for the next bus. Nothing. After thirty minutes at the bus stop and two non-existent busses, we finally spotted one. Of course, it was already packed full of people, so there was hardly any room to squeeze on. It was a rather awkward ride to the ‘centre-ville,’ and by the time I arrived, I was at least 15 minutes late for the class I was trying to attend for the first time. I didn’t have much other choice, so I walked in, and the professor just had to be one of those stern looking, no-nonsense, uptight schoolmarm types. *sigh* I was already embarrassed for being late, flustered by the bus mishap, and still mostly frozen, and her cold stare certainly didn’t help that condition. She asked what class I was looking for, and I stammered that I was sorry for interrupting, but that I was exchange student looking for the Version class. “This is it. It starts at 10:15,” she said with a glare. I wanted to tell her plainly that being an exchange student didn’t make me stupid, and that I knew how to tell time, but instead I explained that I was really sorry, but that the bus was late. She didn’t seem to care and told me to find someone in the class who had the text. I slipped as quietly as I could to the back of the class where I had spotted Kendra. I suppose those kinds of professors exist everywhere, but that still doesn’t change my opinion that they need to find another line of work. :P

After that horrible experience, Kendra and I spent a little more time in front of the schedule boards trying to figure things out, and grabbed some lunch at the student café. They have really good tuna tomato sandwiches, even if they are packaged. Then, we ran off to the meeting scheduled for exchange students interested in classes in the History, Literature, and Arts department. It was there that we received a lot of information about finding classes that we should have gotten the week before, which was extremely frustrating. I also found out that some classes change times and classrooms every week, and you have to be really careful to watch the posted notices. When things change, though, they just say “Oh, that’s life!” Gah, this much spontaneity is almost too much for me sometimes!

We met a girl from the states who has been here for a semester already, and we picked her brain for a while about her experiences. Looking back, I think it was a bad idea, actually, because Kendra and I were terrified at the end of the conversation. She shared her difficulties with professors and with understanding the classes, keeping up with the changing classrooms, trying to adjust to the environment, the fact that the professors and officials aren’t always very helpful, the bike accidents she’s seen, the awful final exams that were nothing like what the professor clearly hinted at. Everything. All her frustrations. Granted, there were some good things, but it was definitely not the conversation I needed to have in the middle of last week. I spent most of the afternoon stressed and depressed, and Kendra did too, at least until we went to our next class: Thème with Mr. Atkinson. He’s such a friendly, good-humored British man that it’s hard not to smile when you’re around him. And, I found that translation is what makes me happy! Working with the text and finding the right words and phrases to accurately express the ideas of the author is the perfect mix of structure and creativity for my brain. You have to be faithful to the text, which is where the structure and regulation come into play, but you also have to be creative enough to find the expressions that get at the heart of the text. By the end of the class, I felt energized, and quite excited about the opportunities I’ll have to improve my French this semester. It had been a while since I’d been that excited about school. :) I’ve even come up with some other ideas for improving my French since then, like using my newly acquired translation techniques to translate some of my favorite songs. It feels so good to find something that truly lights me up inside, something I feel God has designed me for.

Kendra and I had the chance to talk to another French student, Azilys, who was super nice and was able to help us with some French expressions that we’ve never been able to get the hang of. She spent last semester in North Carolina, so we talked a lot about the differences between French and American universities. Comparing her perspective to that of our American friend, I would have to say that talking to Azilys was much more helpful! I didn’t feel overwhelmed or depressed after talking to her, just interested and a bit more excited. I learned that there really is a distance between most professors and students, so it’s best not to expect a friendly rapport like we have in the U.S. I also learned that French students don’t stay up until 2am studying -- they actually think that’s pretty stupid. They would rather study during the day (which is easier when your classes only meet once per week) and spend time with friends, go out, and relax in the evenings. They’re very protective of their sleep, and Azilys told us that the one thing she found so strange about American students is that they nap! Talking to her was quite fascinating. Kendra and I were getting hungry again, though, so we left to hang out on the Rue Bressigny, which is where most of the internationals go to hang out at the bars and restaurants. We enjoyed some more good Lebanese food before heading to the famous “Mardi Café” meetup for internationals and French students at K’lypso Bar. It wasn’t too bad at first, mingling with people, but before long, the music was blaring and it was so crowded that you couldn’t move from one side of the room to the other. Not helpful for having conversations at all. I did win a free drink though, so I decided to taste pure apricot juice for the first time. Pretty darn good, I must say. Then Kendra and I got out of there, because it was just too loud and crowded, and it was getting late. A couple of the French students in R.I.R.E., the international welcome club, accompanied me to the bus stop so I wouldn’t get lost and so I would have someone to wait with. They practiced their English with me, and I practiced my French with them, and I realized that they’re so good at English because they’ve been studying it since elementary school! That makes me feel a lot better and a lot less behind, because I’ve only been studying since high school. I can’t expect myself to have an equivalent level of proficiency by any means.

Anyway, there were several other people at the stop, but for some reason, the bus drove right on by without stopping. It was the only one going my direction for another hour, so one of the girls was kind enough to ask her dad, who was going to pick her up anyway, to pick me up, too, and drive me home. It was at that point that I realized that dealing with this bus system was going to be a knock-down, drag-out, fight. To the pain, of course. :P You see, this is what I’m up against:

I am living 30 minutes away from the university by foot, and there are hardly any busses after 8:50pm that can take me to my stop. The night of Mardi Café was the third time the bus system had put me in a predicament, and I’m afraid that one day I’m going to find myself in less than ideal, maybe even dangerous, circumstances because the bus is so unreliable. Being stuck alone at 11pm in 35 degree weather at a dark bus stop is much worse than just being late for a class, although I need to avoid both. I can't risk not having a way to get back safely if something happens and they ignore me again.

So...I was really quite frustrated, exhausted, and emotionally drained when I arrived home after midnight Tuesday. I’m gonna check my laundry in the dryer now...and then maybe update you on Wednesday.

Permission to speak freely, Captain?

2010-02-01T03:24:00.001-06:00

I shall preface this entry (and the new few entries) with a small but important disclaimer: all experiences related herein are not and should not be taken as expressions of my dreadful misery here or ungratefulness to be in France. Instead, they should be taken in aggregate as my honest commentary on life, which is, as always, not perfect.

In other words, “Permission to speak freely, Captain?” ;)

I just don’t want anyone to think that I’m miserable or ungrateful, because I’m really not. I’ve talked to a few friends from home over the past week, and they caught me when I was in the middle of figuring out some tricky challenges, so they started asking, “Well, isn’t there anything GOOD about Angers?” I’m afraid they started getting the wrong impression. Anyway, I just wanted to correct any misperceptions, because I most certainly am aware of and rejoicing in many blessings in the midst of the struggles. It’s life though -- and it’s still messy. That fact remains the same in France and in any other country. But, I’m so glad to have the opportunity to be here figuring out life on my own (with God, that is).

Monday was full of stories, so I’ll start my update there. It was about then that walking became really difficult, because I somehow injured my knee. I started to walk to school, and it started hurting so much that I couldn’t keep going, so I had to take the bus. I did eventually make it to school though, to get my ID card made. Unfortunately, after that, I had trouble finding my classroom but arrived on time for what turned out to be English grammar class. How exciting. :P And I even got things wrong...in my own language. At least I made a new friend though! So, the day continued, with me limping from the pain and taking the elevator as often as possible. My second course was called “Thème,” which means translation from French into English. I have an older, very talkative Irish-English professor who gets sidetracked a lot, but loves to make the international students feel welcome. I haven’t decided if I like it yet or not, because while it’s nice to feel welcome, I’d like for the class to progress enough to actually learn something! For lunch, we met up with some of our new friends in the exchange program and walked to a nearby crêperie, -- very slowly, to give me time to limp. :P It was a lovely little restaurant, and I enjoyed tasting real French galettes and crêpes for the first time: the first with cheese and mushroom and the latter with dark chocolate sauce. Mmmm. It’s also worth noting that they don’t rush mealtime, so it’s always really relaxing, unless you’re running late for something! I did need to get back for a class, though -- a class on the Psalms. Unfortunately, I couldn’t figure out where in the world the classroom was, and then I walked into the wrong one. An extremely kind French girl named Hélène led me to the secretary’s office and then helped me find the right room, and then I discovered that the class was way over my head anyway. I made a new friend, Maylis, in that class, too, though, so if nothing else, Monday was a good day for finding friends! The one thing that day was NOT good for, however, was my knee. I left that class early because I was in so much pain, and I called Mom on Skype in tears. There’s nothing like motherly comfort and advice, no matter where you are. Somewhere in all of this, I found the e-mail that notified me that I’d been accepted into the Arts, Langues, et Patrimoine class I really wanted to take, so that brightened the day a bit. :) Anyway, I just happened to find Kendra after her class, and she kindly accompanied me to the student health clinic to find out if they could give me some advice or maybe a knee brace. It wasn’t what I expected though, and the nurse just offered to make an appointment for me with a doctor near where I live. I wasn’t quite ready to take that step yet, since I’m not sure how their system works here, and there was always the chance that it would just take a couple of days for it to heal. Kendra and I also had the chance to talk with the study abroad director to find out about choir opportunities on campus, which resulted in some helpful information as well as some very needed encouragement. She told us that we actually speak really good French, accent and everything.

Now for two very random thoughts before I finish talking about Monday:
- If you start typing in “french boys” on google, the first results are:

1) french boys names

2) french boys names list

french boys in speedos

To remember the random letters and number in my UCO online password, I now say “charles de gaulle killed nazis, sometimes zebras 3” every time I type it in. It works! :)

Ok. :) Kendra and I walked to the one of the nearby pharmacies, because we heard that they’re extremely helpful and the pharmacists are quite knowledgeable, probably even more so than in the U.S. I found a brace for my knee, and the pharmacist took me back into a room to help me put it on. I found out when I came back that I’d freaked Kendra out by following this strange man into a dark hallway! lol By that time, we had to head back to find the choir room, which turned into an adventure itself. We tried the door we thought it was, but it was locked, so ended up making our way through a maze of dark hallways in the wrong building to find the wrong class, whose professor directed us back to the locked door, which had since then been unlocked. The director welcomed us warmly and invited us to join in and share music with the soprano section. It was just the respite I needed after the long day. The choir is small - about 30 people, maybe less, and the director is good-humored and doesn’t speechify as much as Mr. Erwin. ;) They sing mostly French repertoire, but we did practice “Psalm 23” by Bobby McFerrin, which was quite the source of amusement for me. “He leads me beside green meeeedows...” I didn’t have the heart to correct the pronunciation then, partly because I didn’t want to seem like the American know-it-all. Anyway, Kendra and I discovered that choir kid syndrome is universal - other than the language, you couldn’t have told the difference between UCA and UCO students. The tenors were standing on chairs, the sopranos were talking and giggling, the altos were so quiet you forgot they were there, and the basses just went with the flow. When Kendra and I walked out after practice, some of the guys started jumping over things and goofing off, and we just looked at each other and laughed. Some things just don’t change, no matter where you are! The director invited us to come back and be a part of the choir, so I’m super-excited about that. I think it will be a highlight of my stay here.

At that point, we were both starving, so we decided to find something to eat on Rue Bressigny. The Lebanese kebab restaurant called Ali Baba looked warm and inviting, so we stopped in there. As soon as we walked in, the 30ish year old arab-looking-owner-guy pegged us as americans - "So you’re the american girls!" It was really cozy inside, and hardly anyone was in there, so we grabbed a little table for two in the second half of the restaurant, farther away from the cold air at the door. We enjoyed some good conversation, both in French and English, and a yummy dinner of kebab wraps. A few more customers came in, but it was still really quiet. Then the guy (whose father also was working there) brought us sweet mint tea and stopped to chat, because he evidently likes talking to Americans. (Caitlin says it’s also because we’re pretty, which I might also buy.) So, we talked about Arkansas, about France, his favorite places to go, where some interesting zoos are located, and where to find some natural scenery outside the city. We even started comparing "strangest animals we eat" stories. He couldn't believe we hunted and ate squirrels. It was the most hilarious thing watching his face as we explained that people do hunt and eat squirrels in Arkansas, and that squirrel is super-delicious with dumplings. Anyway, we probably spent at least an hour talking, and he offered us more tea, which we were hesitant to accept because it was getting late. But he made some, and we kept talking a minute or two. She and I barely touched the tea, because we were paranoid he might have slipped something in it, however unlikely that may have been. And then the other people in the restaurant began to leave all of a sudden, leaving us alone with him and his dad (who looked like a harmless nice old man). To tell the truth, the son seemed genuinely nice, too, but we were still alone with them, and it was late. So, I started thinking of ways to get out of there as quickly as possible, which had to include paying him for our meal and not seeming panicked. And then his dad left. And locked the door. I tried to speed up the process even more, and the guy started asking questions about why we had to go, and if we had to be home at a certain time. I evaded, making up excuses about not wanting the dogs to make noise at home and having catching the bus on time. He responded by asking where we lived (I evaded) and how far it was (again I evaded). Then he said, "Oh, I have a car, it's not a problem for me to take you home."

Now, this immediately reminded me of Taken and my extreme panic alarms started going off, and I was thinking, "I have to find a way to get out of here NOW." So I pulled out enough cash to pay for both of us, told Kendra I'd get hers, and said "No, it's not far, we gotta go," almost threw the money at him, and we rushed to the front door as quickly as we could. We didn't stop running until we turned the corner. :P And then, the garbage truck drove past and the garbage man catcalled...the first time I’ve been singled out in France, and it was a garbage man. :P Gotta love it.

So, that’s how my first nice restaurant experience turned sketchy. Kendra and I were sitting at the bus stop in the freezing cold waiting for my bus (which only comes once an hour after 9pm), and she goes, “So, the next time a sketchy lebanese waiter offers us more tea, we make like a tea and leaf!” I love how she can make any situation seem brighter. :) It was a good thing, too, because the bus came 6 minutes early and didn’t stop for me. My only options were to call Jacqueline and ask for a ride or call Jacqueline and tell her I was spending the night with Kendra, neither of which I wanted to do at 11:45 at night. But, Jacqueline was very kind and came to pick me up (she wasn’t in bed). And then I discovered just how good hot showers can feel when you’re absolutely frozen through.

That was how my week started...an injured knee, hidden classrooms, sketchy waiters, bus problems, and the fear of being the worst room-renter ever. I’ll let you know about the rest of the week a little later. I gotta go do some laundry now. :) It’s nice having no classes on Monday!

tonight's unexpected revelation

2010-01-24T14:18:00.002-06:00

i've got my memories
they're always inside of me
but I can't go back
back to how it was
i believe it now
i've seen too much
but I can't go back
back to how it was
created for a place I've never known

this is Home
now I'm finally where I belong
where I belong
yeah, this is home
i've been searching for a place of my own
now I've found it,
yeah this is home
yeah, this is home

belief over misery
i've seen the enemy
and I won't go back
back to how it was
and I've got my heart set on what happens next
i've got my eyes wide and it's not over yet
we are miracles
and we're not alone

and now after all my searching
after all my questions
i'm gonna call it home
i've got a brand new mindset
i can finally see the sunset
i'm gonna call it home

now I know, yeah this is home
i've come too far
no, I won't go back
this is home

the first week of adventures. :)

2010-01-24T11:28:00.004-06:00

Maybe I shouldn't let so many days go by without an update! Then there won't be so much to pack into one entry. The past few days have been full of ups and downs, and I'm not sure where to start. I met up with Kendra on Wednesday to talk over experiences and look for phones together. I didn't have as much trouble communicating with the saleslady at the phone store as I thought I would! It was quite encouraging. I also did some asking at the bus terminal about bus passes, since it looks like I'm going to need to make good use of them, but the monthly pass is only good from the 1st to the end of each month. It wouldn't do me any good to buy one now, so I just got a booklet of 10 tickets instead. 'Tis a good 30 minute walk from my house to the university, and it's still cold and misty on most days, so I'm hoping to take advantage of the bus. When spring comes in the next month or so, I'm sure it will be more comfortable to walk. There is a lot of construction downtown because of the new trolley system they're installing, so the sidewalks take a lot of detours, but that just makes it interesting. ;)

Anyway, I called that a productive day and went home to cook dinner for myself. I found a recipe for Stracciatella, an italian chicken soup, that looked really simple, and I had all the ingredients on hand. So, I set about thawing chicken...in an unheated room. Yeah, that was going to take a while, so I thought maybe, just maybe, I could heat it in water and make some light broth at the same time for the soup. Obstacle #1 cleared! On to chopping the onion and garlic.....without a cutting board or a knife. Oh boy. Well, I did find a cheese grater. I mean, why not? Use what you've got, I always say. So I set about grating garlic and, err, shredding/mashing the onion with a cheese grater. I finally just finished off the onion by hacking at it with a slightly serrated butter knife. (Hey, it worked.) You can't tell what the onion looks like once you cook it anyway. :P Obstacle #2 cleared! Into the warm butter went the onions and garlic, and then I sliced up a few mushrooms and tore up some fresh spinach to toss in. The chicken was mostly cooked by that time, so I chunked it and threw it into the onion/garlic skillet with some herbs, salt, pepper, and the spinach/mushroom mix. It was starting to smell really good, and it was actually looking pretty too, so I was having second thoughts about the soup. Why not throw some parmesan garlic tomato sauce in with the chicken and make some pasta in the chicken broth? Check, and check...but how to drain the pasta? *sigh* No strainer. Well, in case you ever find yourself in a similar situation, I found that a bowl and a paper towel can do the trick for a bit of pasta. (Just don't touch the wet paper towel, because it's hot. :P ) Obstacle #3 cleared! I threw some of that good French butter into the pasta, covered it with my chicken concoction, and toasted some French bread. I even cut up a little cheese to put on the side, and voila - I could call my experiment a success. :) Thank heavens for the ingenuity my mother taught me to use in the kitchen!

Thursday was orientation day for international students, so I woke up early and took the bus to school. It's always amazingly awkward trying to break the ice between international students who are all trying to speak a foreign language, because everyone is at a different level. I, for one, just feel like I'm the worst of the lot, so I hate starting conversations because I feel embarrassed and intimidated. It's always harder with the European students who have had more practice speaking in more than one language. Anyway, despite that, I visited a bit with a few of the students, and then listened as I was inundated with a flood of information from the university officials. ID cards, campus history, colleges & department details, classes, French government paperwork, class registration, internet protocol, meetings scheduled with departments, exchange program activities and planned excursions -- all of that information in one sitting. It was enough to make my already aching head swim. At least I know that there are activities planned for us, in case the French students totally ignore us. They're planning trips to Paris, Lille, the beach, and some other really fun-sounding places. :) After that info spill session, they took us on a brief tour of the campus and down some city streets until we ended up back at one of the university restaurants (just another cafeteria). I was able to spend some time talking to a new friend, Dorota, who is from Poland, as we were walking around in the cold, though. She had noticed that my last name looked Polish, so we talked about family backgrounds a bit. She doesn't speak French, though, and she was really glad to find someone who could speak English with her and help her figure out what was going on. The cafeteria food was...cafeteria food, but the linguine and fish weren't terrible. We had to rush back to the university for an obligatory meeting with the "Living Languages" department, though. It was then that I discovered just how far in over my head I truly was. Their system of dividing levels of classes in that department is one of the most confusing, frustrating things I have ever encountered. I'm sure it makes sense to them, but for an exchange student, working your way through the charts on the wall of schedules is like taking a trip to you-know-where and back. (You can see pictures of me and Kendra trying to figure it out on facebook. :P it's amusing, I'm sure.) If our UCA system is anywhere near this complicated for foreign students, I pray God's tender mercies on their souls.

I did find a bit of respite in the meeting with a British professor, a certain Mr. Terence Atkinson (spoken with true British flair). He is offering an Anglophone Literature class at an advanced level that I am interested in taking to keep my courseload from being too difficult. I also think it would be interesting to take a literature class from a British perspective in a French school, but that's just me. I know everyone is going to ask me why I would want to take a class like that while I'm in France...but to that I will simply respond with the advice I received from Mr. Atkinson himself: "Be ambitious, but be reasonable. You are not here to make your life misery." With that in mind, I am going to find classes that are interesting, some that are challenging, and all that provide opportunities that I don't have in the U.S. -- but nothing that is going to make me want to kill myself. That's not my goal in giving myself an education, and never will be. That said, I am also interested in some of the classes offered by the theology department, namely Paul and his Epistles, Ethics in Business and Politics, Islam, and Exegesis. In the language department, the translation classes (from English to French and vice versa), as well as the class in teaching English as a second language in French schools, have caught my eye. Both types of classes would be interesting from a French perspective. There's also a class in French language, art, and history that sounds amazing, and it's open to international students. They spend a limited amount of time in the classroom and go on field trips to local places of interest, even the lesser-known places that are full of culture. I would *love* to get into that class, but there is limited space and entry is competitive, it seems. I won't find out about the French literature or history classes until Tuesday, because the department head is still on vacation and there are no schedules posted yet. Even with all of these options and all of this uncertainty, I do know for sure that I will be taking one class, though: the French class they place all exchange students in according to their level. I already had my first homework assignment: to turn in a written essay test to determine my placement. :P We'll see how that turns out this week.

Kendra and I spent Friday in more meetings and at the language class schedule board, wracking our brains to find a way to make sense of it all. Finally, I started to crack the code, and I was able to write down the days and times of the classes that might work. The odd thing is, some of their classes have already started, some will start this week, and other not until later on. It's unlike anything I've ever seen! I feel like I've been thrown into a blender, and one that was already on, at that. Oh well, it's all part of the adventure. We don't have to officially register for classes until March, so we can waltz in and out of whatever classes we want until then to find the ones that fit the best. This week will be quite full of experimentation. Let's hope I can take good notes and remember which classes I like.

Friday night, I went back to Kendra's house with her for a nap and a peanut butter and jelly sandwich before heading out with some new friends for a chat at a local bar called K'lypso. You'll find a few pictures of that outing on Facebook. :) It was quite enjoyable, and I'm getting much better at communicating in French. Also, Perrier with a lime wedge is quite tasty. (it's like the French version of club soda) Unfortunately, I couldn't find a bus home that night, even though it was only 10:30. Evidently, most lines stop after 8:30. So I had to walk the half-hour back to my house in the dark and drizzle. Again, I don't mind -- it's all part of the adventure. I wouldn't be happy if I didn't have challenges to surmount. (then again, it might not be a good thing, since the challenges have to keep getting stickier to keep me satisified) ;) Anyway, I made it safe and sound, although I'd rather not have to do that very often. I don't have a knife, or mace, or bricks to carry around with me. (and bricks are heavy) And the French frown upon guns. :P Ah well, I think I found a bus line that can get me home later at night. Hopefully it can, anyway, because I want to be able to experience things with my new friends, and most of that activity is going to happen after school hours.

So...what new things have I discovered this week? I'll make a list for you to keep it short and sweet:

- everyone wears scarves. everyone. even the guys.
- nearly all of the girls wear tights and boots.
- the library is the only warm place on campus, or in any French building. this explains the tights, boots, and scarves.
- the library is also my favorite place on campus, because it has study tables (with individual lamps!) that face huge windows overlooking the old buildings on campus. and it smells good. overall, it's 10x more comfortable than UCA's library.
- they don't have peanut butter here. sad day.
- I haven't found Goldfish either. I guess the French don't like tiny cheese-flavored baked fish snacks.
- the museum de beaux-arts here is currently in the middle of a Rodin exhibition
- the international choir no longer exists, but I might have a chance at getting into another choir (we'll see)
- I like 'pain du raisin' and 'pain chocolat'. I actually might like the raisin pastries a bit more, but I'll have to keep tasting to know for sure. ;)
- it's almost as gray and damp here as it is in England. let's hope I don't start developing symptoms of SAD. :P
- maybe one of these days I'll do something right in this house, but those days have not occurred this week. I'm constantly paranoid that I've left a door open, or a heater on, or shut off one of the water faucets too tightly. Jacqueline notices everything, and she usually finds the door open about 10 seconds after I've walked through it, intending to come right back. :P
- french microwaves don't shut off when you open the door, which led to another one of Jacqueline's admonishments. this I understand, though. I don't want to cook my hand.
- a mental health day is good every once in a while. Saturday was good for catching up on sleep and having breakfast in bed, and I still managed to be rather productive.
- French mass in a 1000 year old abbey = wow
- (for more mature audiences) you can buy condoms from vending machines mounted on the city sidewalks. 2 euros each. evidently for those who just can't wait to walk inside the store that's 2 feet away. (and I thought the French *wanted* babies?)
- they look at you funny and express genuine concern for you if you eat a late lunch. meal times are apparently sacred and well-protected here.
- i miss singing in my choir.

I think that is all. I'm going to make a habit of doing one distinctly French thing every day, whether it be singing in an empty cathedral or trying a new pastry or taking a picnic lunch to a park I've never seen before. I'm sure the list will grow. :)

And this entry has definitely grown. I'll try to make them shorter in the future! Until I write again...
<3 à bientot!

Je suis arrivée!

2010-01-19T05:01:00.003-06:00

:) Well, here I am! You have before you my first official blog post from France. Thank you, everyone, for your encouraging notes, letters, and prayers! I feel so loved, and I hope you know that you are loved as well.

My little desk is situated next to the window in my room, which takes up most of the wall, so I can sit here as long as I want, watching tiny European cars whizzing down the street and French people ambling purposefully down the sidewalk - some singing, some with little ones in tow. It’s a charming downtown neighborhood (as much as anything can be charming when the sky is so gray), and it’s still difficult for me to believe that I’m actually living in it after having dreamed, imagined, and planned for so long.

I'm not suffering from culture shock as much as I thought I would. I suppose the time I spent in Québec last summer helped me learn how to acclimate quickly. There are still many odd culture quirks that I notice, and I'm sure I will continue to notice, but I don't feel as though I'm drowning this time. Believe me, it’s not a feeling I miss. I was rather exhausted by the end of my travels, though, since I was only able to sleep for a total of about 3 hours on the plane. Both flights went smoothly, with no major turbulence or problems at the airports. My luggage was even waiting for me as soon as I walked into the terminal. I must say, though, that I was a bit like a kid in a candy store on that plane. I've never been in a plane so big that I couldn’t see the front from my seat. They even had TV screens on the wall that showed a map and a tiny plane icon that moved across the globe to show where we were, and how fast we were going, and how far we still had to go, and how cold it was outside the plane. Kendra and I were so excited about the plane food, which was so-so, but we were quite enthralled with the rolls that came in sealed plastic. :P I felt really odd being one of the few passengers who wasn't asleep, because whenever I walked back to the lavatory, everyone was sprawled out on the seats like they knew what they were doing. I also had to go to the bathroom after the captain had turned the seatbelt light on again (I think he was a little trigger-happy), so the 'return to your seat' sign was lit up in the lavatory, and it started making that annoyingly nice "ding" to let me know as much. Unfortunately, it's kind of hard to return to your seat when you're still using the toilet. I was sure that at any moment the flight attendant was going to knock on the door and kick me out or something. :P Anyway, the movies weren’t anything special, so I just wrote in my journal, looked at the stars, and watched the sunrise when we got closer to Paris. Seeing the breaking of the dawn from the plane was one of the most breath-takingly beautiful things I've ever seen. The colors were so rich! When the sky started to show signs of light, I was listening to Chris Rice on my iPod. ( I find it funny how many moments in my life have an analogous Chris Rice song.) Anyway, his song "Sleepyhead Sun" came on. Look it up -- you'll see why it was really special to me. My personal opinion is that Abba was just giving me a token of his affection. :) He knew I’d been struggling with the fact that I was feeling as though I had lost lot of the awe and wonder in life.

We did eventually arrive in Paris, although it took forever for the plane to park and for us to get off the plane and be bussed to the terminal. They didn't make a fuss over the passport screening at all, so Kendra and were quickly off to find an ATM and the train station (which was conveniently placed at the opposite end of the airport). :P I finally found a place to buy a calling card so I could notify my hostess that I had arrived and which train I would be taking. Unfortunately, she didn't answer either of her phone numbers. Kendra's hostess did, though, so we waited until the marquis displayed the platform for our train (they aren’t displayed until 20 minutes before departure) and discovered that it was below us, and the only way down was an escalator. Now, you probably haven’t seen my suitcases, but you can probably imagine that the two of them are rather bulky and a bit heavy (but NOT over the airline’s 50lb weight limit, I might add). With that in mind, you can probably also understand my great trepidation at taking those by hand down an escalator. I thought I was surely going to plunge to my death, and death by escalator was not what I had in mind after having come so far with no problems. Anyway, I managed to perform some amazing feats of balance and strength to keep myself from tumbling down the stairs, and we hopped on the train ... well, I say "hopped" but it was more like a wrestling match with those suitcases. TGV doors are narrow. A couple of guys helped me with mine, but no one offered to help me stack them in the baggage area, which was about as large as telephone booth. No one bothered to let us know that there were more storage areas throughout the train. Oh well. After I found a seat, I pretty much just collapsed...and it was all I could do to try to keep my eyes open for the train ride. I nodded off about 8 times and had to summon all the willpower I could to stay awake. (Kendra wasn't there for me to talk to because her ticket put her in a different car.) I enjoyed talking to the train ticket checker guy, though - a really sweet older gentleman. He told me I had a lovely accent and that I didn't need to change a thing. (So, evidently my accent is cute - that's great, but I'd really like to be able to say the right words with it. lol) That will come with time, though, and I'm actually understanding a good deal more than I thought I would. I’m not even feeling guilty for not being perfectly fluent (I did that last time, too). It's not nearly as difficult to speak as it used to be, so I think I'll start making some good progress fairly quickly.

Anyway, Kendra's hostess met her at the train station, but mine didn't. Mme. Thomas was very hospitable and called Mme. Ramakers with her phone, and then she stayed with us both until Mme. Ramakers came for me. Turns out she got the dates mixed up and thought I was coming two days later. It wasn't a problem though, and she took me home and introduced me to her two dogs: Trobinette the Jack Russell terrier and Chaussette the Bichon-Maltese. I've really hit it off with Trobinette. :) Jacqueline, my hostess, is 70 and doesn't have any other family. Her husband and son have both passed away, and from what I can tell, it is still extremely difficult for her to talk about it. She didn't even say the word "dead" when she mentioned her son; she wrote it down. I think her son died when he was about my age, because I haven't seen any pictures of him when he was older than late teens/early twenties. She was born in Angers, and has lived here all of her life. She is also devoutly Catholic, so her baptism, communion, and marriage have all taken place at L’Eglise de St-Serge. As she started talking about everything she does in the church and the community, I realized that she is probably one of the most involved Catholics I've ever met. Jacqueline takes care of decorating the church and preparing for services and taking communion to the elderly shut-ins on Sundays after mass. She's very nice and a bit like a grandmother, if a bit more disciplined of a woman than I'm accustomed to meeting. For example, she has a list of rules posted to my room walls, which intimidated me at first. It goes something like this, if paraphrased:

- An evaluation of your room will be done when you arrive and when you leave.
- You will vacuum and clean your room once a week.
- You can take your shower in the evening and for a maximum of 10 minutes
- You must warn one day in advance if you’re going to be gone.
- You cannot do laundry in the room or the house. There are laundries nearby.
- No university boyfriends in the house.
- No smoking.
- If requested, dinner price is 6 euros and at 8pm, and breakfast costs 2 euros.
- Do not leave any hair in the sink.
- I wish you a pleasant stay.

A lot of it is common courtesy, but there were a few things that caught me off guard. I wasn't expecting the extra dinner charges or the need to go to a laundry-mat, but those are just things to adjust to. It could be an adventure. In any case, it will be interesting to try the lifestyle of another culture. That's a main reason for me being here. :) One exciting benefit that I wasn’t expecting is that I do have access to my own kitchen, with a fridge, range, oven, sink, and a little table with a couple of chairs. The shower is right next to the kitchen, and it's tiny, but at least it warms up quickly. That part of the house is not heated, and right now it's rather cold, of course. So...going to the bathroom is rather......chilly, shall we say. :P Maybe I'll have time to post some pictures, or maybe a video, of my living arrangements later. I'd like to liven it up a bit over the course of my stay, but for the most party, it’s perfectly agreeable. The coverlet on the bed is SO soft and warm. I didn't think it would be warm enough with one blanket, but gosh, it's toasty. And I have an armoire to myself...which I've always wanted in my room. :)

Now, as for Jacqueline...I'm kind of in that awkward stage, still. I'm not sure how to read her yet, and of course, with the language barrier crumbling but still high in some places, it's difficult. After observing and thinking for a couple of days, I've come to the conclusion that she's probably really lonely, so I hope that I can be a little bit of sunshine in her life. Eventually, I hope I can be more than just a girl who rents out her extra room downstairs. For now, I'm trying my best to be a good guest and follow all the etiquette rules I can think of, but I'm still so afraid of tripping up and making her think I'm some kind of ungrateful, impolite American. She's been very accomodating so far, letting me use her phone and feeding me my first meals here: dinner, breakfast and lunch. She also took me to the supermarket last night, so I was able to purchase some groceries. I’m glad I’ve had practice with making up an impromptu menu! I’m also glad that the supermarket is kind of like Kroger and Wal-Mart all in one, but on steroids. I've never seen three whole aisles of yogurt, or plastic bottles of unrefrigerated milk. I was able to find a good ol' hair straightener, too, which I needed desperately. I hate to sound like the kind of girl who can’t live without her beauty appliances, but I honestly tried to make do with a blow dryer the night I arrived and it looked frightful when I woke up in the morning. :P Fortunately, the French women here don't seem to put a lot of effort into their hair. Clothes, yes -- hair and makeup, not so much. At least from what I've seen so far.

By the way, the food here is, indeed, amazing. I was invited to eat a casual but typical French lunch upstairs with Jacqueline and her friend, which consisted of an apératif, bread, chicken and pasta, cheeses and more bread, and then a dessert of raspberry filled custard-like pastries that her friend brought with some frozen nougat. I’ve never seen frozen nougat before, but this one was like a block of nutty, creamy ice cream with a stripe of raspberry sorbet in the middle. The whole thing was beautiful, with nuts and fruits arranged on top as a garnish. People don’t pull that kind of thing out in America unless you’re at a fancy restaurant, and this was just a basic lunch shared with a friend in a tiny kitchen. Crazy!

Well, I think I’m going to get out of my pajamas and start checking off other things on my list. I’m glad I arrived a little early so I could settle in before diving headlong into university life. Kendra and I don't have reliable communication set up yet, so I’m hoping that we can find a way to meet up and explore a bit today. We should be able to take care of buying SIM cards for our phones and getting bus passes soon. Classes don't start until next week. Orientation is this Thursday. I have to make some kind of trip to some kind of government office before too long so they can verify that I'm here or something. It sounds really official. The paper says something about me being summoned for a medical examination too (which of course, is going to cost ME money). :P Anyway, I'll let you know how it goes. Should be an entertaining story. ;)

À bientot!

Ps. Take a look at my actual blog page here: http://www.matchlessgrace.blogspot.com. The layout looks really pretty now, if I do say so myself. ;)

Soldier

2010-01-06T12:05:00.002-06:00

I don't believe in anything but myself
I don't believe in anything but myself
But then you opened up a door, you opened up a door
Now I start to believe in something else

But how do I know if I'll make it through?
How do I know? Where's the proof in you?

And so it goes, this soldier knows
The battle with the heart isn't easily won
And so it goes, this soldier knows
The battle with the heart isn't easily won
But it can be won

I sit in the back of a bus watching the world grow old
Watching the world go by all by myself
I took a faith full leap and packed up all my things and
All my love and gave it to somebody else

But how do I know if I'll make it through?
How do I know? Where's the proof in you?

And so it goes, this soldier knows
The battle with the heart isn't easily won
And so it goes, this soldier knows
The battle with the heart isn't easily won
But it can be won, but it can be won
But it can be won, but it can be won

And so it goes, this soldier knows
The battle with the heart isn't easily won
And so it goes, this soldier knows
The battle with the heart isn't easily won

And so it goes, this soldier knows
(And so it goes)
The battle with the heart isn't easily won
(The war is won)

And so it goes, this soldier knows
(And so it goes)
The battle with the heart isn't easily won
(The war is won)
But it can be won, but it can be won

- "Soldier" by Ingrid Michaelson

I bought more of her music this morning on a whim, and this is the first song on her new album. It grabbed my attention from the very first line.

"I don't believe in anything but myself."

I've been there. It's not a good place to be. I didn't like the inherently self-sufficient start to this song, and I started wondering if the rest of the lyrics would annoy me.

"But then you opened up a door, you opened up a door
Now I start to believe in something else."

It's strange how you can catch glimpses of God in the most secular of songs. I'm sure this song was most likely intended as a kind of love song about a girl and a boy and the fight for love, but it reminds me instead of the love story between me and God. She even asks the questions I ask of Him when I walk through those darker times in life.

"But how do I know if I'll make it through?
How do I know? Where's the proof in you?"

Even the chorus echoes the story of my Christian life, because I know all too well how stubborn my heart can be. But I also know just how steadfast His heart is.

"And so it goes, this soldier knows
The battle with the heart isn't easily won
But it can be won."

Yes, it can be won. It can be won by a leap of faith and a daring surrender.

"I sit in the back of a bus watching the world grow old
Watching the world go by all by myself
I took a faith full leap and packed up all my things and
All my love and gave it to somebody else."

Who knew that a song like this could remind me of so much truth?

A new decade?

2010-01-04T12:17:00.004-06:00

So, it's 2010. When I was little, I used to think that we'd have crazy cool technology now, but most of my fantasies were somehow related to things I'd seen on Star Trek. I suppose it's not surprising, then, that I'm a little disappointed now. My expectations were rather high. ;)

It's a little disconcerting to be able to clearly remember the last decade of my life for the first time. 11 to 21...it was only ten years, but it was probably one of the most eventful ten of my life. Growing into young adulthood will do that, I suppose. It's rather convenient to be born so close to a decade mark because it gives me the ability to think of the stages of my life in increments of ten as the decades tick by. Of course, this makes my OCD brain happy.

I started thinking about the events that defined 2000-2010, and I realized that I can finally finish that gosh-awful chapter of my life called adolescence. I suppose the best title for the chapter would be: "Adolescence: thank God it only comes once." It was characterized by a lot of angst, a lot of anxiety, a lot of awkward moments, some amazing memories...and a lot more awkward moments. In fact, it was just mostly awkward. But now, my feet are a little more firmly planted, and I have 2010-2020 to look forward to as a young adult and all the adventures that come with that stage of life. It's amazing to me how many things these next ten years could hold. I plan on finishing college, and after that -- it's a mystery. I might find a job here or a job abroad; I might be asked to devote myself to mission work - again, here or abroad. I might find a man to stand beside in marriage, or I might be called to serve God in singleness. Whatever God has in store for me, I'm learning to have faith that He'll make me ready.

I admit that I've been very scared lately about leaving everything behind for the semester. I've probably cycled through just about any emotion you can think of during the break -- like they're on a color wheel, and someone's spinning it. Fast. I've been excited, I've been nervous, I've been sad...but most recently, I've just been afraid. But...the fear is beginning to fall away as Abba keeps gently reminding me that He is in total control of my life. I can rest in that, because He is holy. I'm not. It doesn't matter where I am, whether it be at home, at UCA, or exploring castles in France.

This may seem unrelated at first, but bear with me. Chris was teaching on Sunday from James about the idolatry we commit when it comes to money and how important it is to trust God instead of our worldly wealth and our own wisdom. What I felt like God was teaching me (and probably a lot of us) was that money is not the issue. It's just the indicator of the real problem: self-sufficiency. Anyone who trusts in himself instead of in God becomes a two-souled person, and everyone knows what happens to a divided house. I don't want to be the kind of person with two souls. I've realized that I become that person when I let my fears control me and stop trusting God to take care of me. So, I'm letting go again and remembering that I shattered my glass vase. I'm not supposed to be wandering around in the broken glass trying to pick up the pieces. It is His good pleasure to put my life together, with love and absolute holiness.

It's that paradox again. Surrendering everything is risky, but it's the only place I'm safe. So, I'll pack my bags and walk onto that plane in less than two weeks, and I'll remember that He's not just my Abba in the United States. He speaks French, too. :)

Le prudent gardien

2009-10-18T16:30:00.002-05:00

Vous, Livre, usé par les doigts des décennies,
Présente à moi vos pages toutes pleines des plats visages.
Leurs yeux me regardent d’un milieu noir: les bannis
Relégué, si loin du soleil qui endommage.

Les images préservés par ce prudent gardien,
Attirent l’avenir de revivre son passé:
Un réalité noir et blanc et ancien.
Chaque visage se maintient dans un instant, glacé.

Les souris et les froncements ensemble mélangent;
Ils forment un collage poignant de l’humanité.
Les autos et les robes reflètent les temps qui changent,
Qui enterrent les ancêtres dans la modernité.

Cher Livre, je vous confie aux pages déchirés
Les seules vestiges inanimés de mon passé.

- Grace Berkau

This is the French sonnet I've been writing for my French literature class. It being my first attempt, I'm rather proud of it. The fact that it has 3 quatrains and a couplet, 12 syllables per line, and a consistent rhyme scheme is quite an accomplishment!

I ate your plums.

2009-10-15T10:06:00.002-05:00

This Is Just To Say
by William Carlos Williams

I have eaten
the plums
that were in
the icebox

and which
you were probably
saving
for breakfast

Forgive me
they were delicious
so sweet
and so cold

That poem amused me this morning, so I thought I'd share the smile. There have always been certain people in my family that were a bit...particular...about the items in the refrigerator. ;)

So, today is the official first day of Fall Break. I'm so thankful that I don't have to slog through a normal Thursday this week. Tuesdays and Thursdays seems to be the bane of my existence, but oh well, there are only 33 days of class left in this semester (which is hard to believe!). It should be bearable...that is, if it will EVER stop raining. I don't usually mind the rain -- it helps me focus when I need to study or think -- but I can't stand it for days and days on end. Anyway, it's supposed to stop raining by tomorrow, so I'm looking forward to hiking with my family at Petit Jean and getting lost in a corn maze Saturday night with some friends.

It feels like there are a million other things on the tip of my tongue, but I can't put any of them into words. Maybe I'll be able to put my thoughts together while I'm out of school for a few days. Right now I think I'm going to ... get ready for bed. Sleep sounds good.

His words are new every day

2009-10-05T13:58:00.002-05:00

Paul, an apostle of Christ Jesus by the will of God,

To the saints who are in Ephesus, and are faithful in Christ Jesus:

Grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ.

Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us in Christ with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places, even as he chose us in him before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy and blameless before him. In love he predestined us for adoption as sons through Jesus Christ, according to the purpose of his will, to the praise of his glorious grace, with which he has blessed us in the Beloved. In him we have redemption through his blood, the forgiveness of our trespasses, according to the riches of his grace, which he lavished upon us, in all wisdom and insight making known to us the mystery of his will, according to his purpose, which he set forth in Christ as a plan for the fullness of time, to unite all things in him, things in heaven and things on earth.

In him we have obtained an inheritance, having been predestined according to the purpose of him who works all things according to the counsel of his will, so that we who were the first to hope in Christ might be to the praise of his glory. In him you also, when you heard the word of truth, the gospel of your salvation, and believed in him, were sealed with the promised Holy Spirit, who is the guarantee of our inheritance until we acquire possession of it, to the praise of his glory.

For this reason, because I have heard of your faith in the Lord Jesus and your love toward all the saints, I do not cease to give thanks for you, remembering you in my prayers, that the God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of glory, may give you a spirit of wisdom and of revelation in the knowledge of him, having the eyes of your hearts enlightened, that you may know what is the hope to which he has called you, what are the riches of his glorious inheritance in the saints, and what is the immeasurable greatness of his power toward us who believe, according to the working of his great might that he worked in Christ when he raised him from the dead and seated him at his right hand in the heavenly places, far above all rule and authority and power and dominion, and above every name that is named, not only in this age but also in the one to come. And he put all things under his feet and gave him as head over all things to the church, which is his body, the fullness of him who fills all in all.

why was I scared again?

2009-10-03T23:36:00.003-05:00

Is it really October already? And not only October, but October 3rd? The time speeds by so quickly. Only two months of school remain. On one hand, it's a comforting thought, knowing that this semester will be over and done with before too long. On the other hand, it's a thought that makes me nervous, because when this semester is gone, I'll be counting down the days until I fly away to France. There's still a small possibility that the details won't fall into place, and I'll just be here, but it's looking more and more like I'll be studying abroad in the spring. Everyone assumes that I'm super excited, and in a way, I am. It's the opportunity of a lifetime. But, as wonderful as the opportunity seems to be, I'm also feeling extremely apprehensive, nervous, and just plain scared of it. I'm going to live in a different country, a few thousand miles from home and everyone I love, for four months, where I'll be forced to acclimate to a new culture and surroundings and to study subjects I'm not even sure I'll like. I'm going to feel overwhelmed, stressed, and even stupid at times because no one will understand what I'm *really* trying to say. Taking this trip is taking a big risk.

That's what goes on in my head -- all the things I don't say. This is me when the walls are down. I'm not always brave. I'm not always strong. And I don't always have the faith I should. I *know* that God has never let me down. I *know* that He's the same God here as he is in France. I *know* that He has a perfect purpose for me, and that he's even more excited about it than I am. But even those guys in the Bible who should have known better got scared, and here I am in the same boat as them. The story about Jesus calming the storm just popped into my head. That means I should probably read it.

Mark 4:35-41 (New International Version)

That day when evening came, he said to his disciples, "Let us go over to the other side." Leaving the crowd behind, they took him along, just as he was, in the boat. There were also other boats with him. A furious squall came up, and the waves broke over the boat, so that it was nearly swamped. Jesus was in the stern, sleeping on a cushion. The disciples woke him and said to him, "Teacher, don't you care if we drown?" He got up, rebuked the wind and said to the waves, "Quiet! Be still!" Then the wind died down and it was completely calm. He said to his disciples, "Why are you so afraid? Do you still have no faith?" They were terrified and asked each other, "Who is this? Even the wind and the waves obey him!"

Let's see. The first thing that jumps out to me is the fact that they weren't just out on the lake for a joy ride; they had a purpose, and a purpose-giver. Jesus initiated the trip. The second thing I notice is that his own disciples asked Jesus if he really cared if they drowned. Even *they* had doubts. The third thing that seems significant to me is that Jesus didn't scream at his disciples in anger; rather, he calmed the storm and taught them the importance of faith.

If God asks me to "go over to the other side" and leave this "crowd" behind, I know that I will be taking Him along on the journey. I know that I don't have to be afraid because He cares about me - even if I do give in to my doubts and fears. He will still be the all-powerful and infinitely merciful King of the universe, and the wind and the waves will obey Him. But, I pray that I will have the faith and the strength to let the wind and waves rage if it accomplishes His will and brings Him more glory.

Taking this trip seems risky -- just like sailing into a storm -- but with Abba, the storm the safest place I can be.

rainy morning musings

2009-09-16T08:30:00.002-05:00

The raindrops outside remind me of my own thoughts. Large ones, small ones, significant, insignificant, spattering the ground, losing themselves in puddles, then streams. Some stick to the window. Others slip away. Still, the deluge persists. But in the midst of the cold downpour, I find hope and I find peace in the sovereign power and steadfast goodness of God.

Oh, if I could read the Psalms all day, I would.

Psalm 121

A song of ascents.

1 I lift up my eyes to the hills—
where does my help come from?
2 My help comes from the LORD,
the Maker of heaven and earth.

3 He will not let your foot slip—
he who watches over you will not slumber;

4 indeed, he who watches over Israel
will neither slumber nor sleep.

5 The LORD watches over you—
the LORD is your shade at your right hand;

6 the sun will not harm you by day,
nor the moon by night.

7 The LORD will keep you from all harm—
he will watch over your life;

8 the LORD will watch over your coming and going
both now and forevermore.

a really long catch-up post

2009-09-12T01:02:00.002-05:00

So, I’m sitting here before bed with a bowl of vanilla frozen yogurt (which is even creamier and yummier than regular ice cream) and a mug of hot chocolate. Just in case you were still wondering, there’s the proof of my indecisiveness. I must say that it’s a rather delectable combination, though. I think they sell hot chocolate ice cream floats (called Snowballs, maybe?) in the Saloon at Silver Dollar City, but I’ve never had one. I guess this is close. Anyway, I still have a few minutes to stay curled up in my robe before I move on to bed, so I figured I’d take the opportunity to catch up on everything I haven’t written over the past few weeks. Well, probably not everything, since that’s ... a lot ... but as close as I can get. (Btw, I just realized that my last post was post number 117, and that made me happy. I'm a nerd. :P )

First in my brain queue is school, oddly enough. :P It may only be the third week, but school has snowed me under like a blizzard in Québec. I dropped the upper division History and Structure of the English Language class after the second week of school because I couldn’t see a point to devoting hours to complicated phonetics problems that would serve no purpose in my life -- none whatsoever. I transferred into Lifespan Development after a fruitless search for classes within my majors. This class is at least slightly within my field of interest, although it doesn’t count for anything but general hours, and it should be an easy A. Dr. Bailey questioned me thoroughly about why I was adding that class, and I had to explain how difficult it is to find classes that I can take within both of my major fields that don’t conflict with one another. I often wish the departments at UCA would learn to communicate more effectively. I also often wish that International Studies and French professors would learn to get over their Tuesday/Thursday class fetish. I am now taking 5 classes on Tuesdays and Thursdays alone, just because those professors happen to love those days. My classes start at 8am and don’t end until 4pm, with only a 1 hour break at x-period from 1:30 to 2:30, and believe me: those six hours of class turn into some of the longest hours of the week. It also makes Wednesdays horrible, because certain professors take sadistic delight in assigning extra work for me to do between Tuesday and Thursday, on top of everything else. Hopefully I’ll make it through -- alive and mentally sound. I’m cramming so much history into my brain right now that I think it might explode. History of Europe, History of American Diplomacy, History of French Literature...they’re all interesting, but so overwhelming all at once. I’ve never felt like I knew so little and couldn’t figure out a way to catch up.

Fortunately, I have the privilege of singing in choir every single day, and those aren’t long, overwhelming hours at all. Not everyone gets to do something they love every day and get college credit, stress relief, *and* fantastic memories for it. I am so excited about some of the repertoire we’re preparing; it’s going to be awesome. “Cloudburst” is probably my favorite, because I’m just a sucker for Eric Whitacre’s work. Borodin’s “Polovtsian Dances” are going to be fantastic, too. I can’t wait to perform those with Mr. Getzov and the Conway Symphony.

Despite the workload of the past few weeks, I’ve had the opportunity to make some of the best memories of my life. I played laser tag with the guys at Brett’s birthday party at Playtime Pizza...and schooled them all. I saw Tim Hawkins live -- yes, *live* -- and laughed harder than I had in a long time. I honestly don’t think that I’ve laughed so hard or so long in my life: I was laughing nearly constantly for the entire 2 hour show. After the show, Tim Hawkins let Ali and I pose for pictures with him, which is probably one of the most exciting things to happen to me all year. (Sure, call me pathetic. I don’t care. I think he’s one of the funniest men on earth.)

I spent a night and a day on choir retreat at the Heifer Ranch, too, singing and getting to know my choir-mates. I have to say that it is one of my best college memories so far. The singing was awesome, but what was even more awesome was what God did that night in the cabin with a few girls gathered for a Bible study. Before the night was over, the Holy Spirit had changed our attitudes regarding a negative situation, forged strong sisterly bonds, and given us a new sense of our identity as Christians and our purpose in the choir. It certainly wasn’t what I was expecting out of a choir retreat, but then again -- when has God been anything I expected?

I celebrated my birthday on the 1st by going to class; it was just another day. I was excited about going to church that night though, and then...Ali threw me a curve ball: a surprise party! She knew that I love Tuesday night church...and that I love seeing my friends...so she combined the two, and the result was the perfect surprise and the perfect party. Everything was French-themed: Megan drew the coolest poster and Mrs. Amy baked and decorated the perfect cake. Most importantly, my friends, my family, and even my church family were there to celebrate with me. I was completely taken aback and humbled as I looked around at all of the faces: all of the people who took the time to make my birthday special. I’ve always wondered what it would be like if someone threw me a surprise party, but I doubted anyone ever would. I still can’t believe I didn’t ruin the surprise. I’ve always ruined my birthday and Christmas surprises, but this time, I was clueless until I walked in the door. Ali had me totally fooled into thinking we were arriving early to babysit, and I was so surprised when everyone flooded out of the back room yelling Happy Birthday that I was still shaking as I started hugging everyone! I just couldn’t believe that all of those people were there.

The best part of the celebration, though, was when Chris asked everyone to participate in his family’s birthday tradition. When someone in his family has a birthday, they get to choose their favorite dinner, which is served on the special blue plate. At dinner, each member of the family talks about the character qualities of the birthday person, seeking to encourage and build them up in the faith. Chris opened the floor, and one by one, my closest friends began pouring words of blessing and encouragement into my life. They told me of ways I had helped them that I didn’t even know about, and I realized that God had been using me in ways I hadn’t imagined. I also realized that even the things that I struggled to do, God had turned into blessings for others. After hearing what everyone had to say, I was overwhelmed and moved almost to tears with gratefulness for the grace and mercy of God. I left church that night with an uplifted heart and renewed strength. I’ve never had a birthday party like *that* before, and I can honestly say that I’ve never had a better birthday. :)

Well, it’s a lot later than I’d intended to go to bed, but better late than never, I suppose. I have a lot of reading to do tomorrow, so I’m going to rest up so I can knock it out quickly. I want to be able to hang out with Mom sometime this weekend. We were talking about pedicures, restaurants, coffee, shopping, a symphony concert...who knows what combination we’ll actually settle on. Anyway, good night. Rest in the grace and peace of Christ Jesus our Lord.

the first two days

2009-08-22T19:14:00.004-05:00

So, Ali and I were standing in the kitchen Wednesday night, cooking (me) and talking (her), when we heard a key in the door, and it opened. My first thought was, "Great. The RA didn't even knock." But, I was wrong. Three girls walked in, each burdened with bags, boxes, and suitcases. They quickly tossed their names at us as they headed for Candice's room, leaving Ali and I stare at one another in bewilderment. Two of them had appeared to be African, and their words, which we overheard from the bedroom, seemed strangely indistinguishable. We figured out that Mary was the one actually moving in, and she came into the kitchen to put something in the freezer. She told us that she had been moved into Stadium Park apartments, but something was wrong with the room, so Housing moved her to our suite. None of us had been informed, but that's par for the course. She said she hoped that we were friendly, and we realized that she had gotten the wrong impression from the surprised looks on our faces when she walked in, so we assured her that she was quite welcome. She went to visit with Candice, and it wasn't long before we found out that Mary's from Cameroon, and she speaks French. I was so excited I wanted to squeal and dance around like a little girl. Well, actually, I did, come to think of it, but...hey, how crazy is it that I would be assigned a suitemate that speaks French? We started talking in French, and I could understand her really well. She said that I spoke extremely well, too, which was encouraging. I feel much more confident when native speakers can understand me, not just professors.

Anyway, my first two days of classes went quite well. All of my professors are either energetic, sarcastic, interesting, or a combination of the three, which I love. I think this semester's assignments will be mostly reading. I can handle that. I've had the chance to hang out with some old acquaintances, and I'm slowing starting to see more of the gang. It's good to be back. :) Ali and I have had some great times already - Star Trek and Robin Hood: Men in Tights, poptarts and chocolate - and I'm looking forward to many more.

I've been having dizzy spells today, though, so I'm going to head to bed and see if I can sleep it off. Night!

crazy first day

2009-08-18T00:09:00.000-05:00

I have to start by expressing how thankful I am for the gift God gave me this year: a summer with my family. Honestly, I thought that living at home with them during the summer months was going to be a trial, but God proved me wrong. Once again, He illustrated the fact that His plans are better than mine. There was healing, restoration, growth, laughter -- so many good things -- and I was sad that it had to end. So, God's plan: 1, Grace's plan: 0.

Now that I've moved into my apartment though, I can say that God has a season for everything. It's okay to be sad about the end of one season, and it's also okay to be excited about the beginning of another one. Which brings me to today. What. a. day. I have missed the insanity of girl time. It was so refreshing to start off the morning with Candice and Ali in the kitchen, chatting and cooking breakfast. I have been blessed with the most wonderful suite - better than I could have planned. Actually, it isn't what I planned, but as usual, God's plans are better. Ali and I had arranged to share the apartment with two friends that we already knew, but because of extenuating circumstances both of them had to change their plans, and another girl was assigned to our suite to replace one of them. At first I was a little skeptical about this idea of a random suitemate...but then I met Candice. She is amazing. I honestly can't wait to live with her this semester. So...yes, God's plan: 2, Grace's plan: 0.

Unfortunately, our apartment does not have working internet, so I'm using someone else's weak signal from the corner of our apartment. It hasn't been working for weeks, from what I've heard, so tomorrow, they're going to hear about it - again - in no uncertain terms. I hate dealing with the UCA Housing Department; they're never helpful, and you have to be abrasive to get anything accomplished. :/ I'm waiting on God's plan to come through on this one...

But anyway, today was also an awesome day because I got to spend it with Ali, hanging out, eating, having girl talk, laughing until we couldn't stand up...the usual. Most of my stuff has been unpacked and melded with hers in an organized fashion, as well, which gives me a good feeling. This apartment really feels home-y. There are still a few odds and ends we need to pick up at the Stuffmart, like an ice tray, but...overall, it's quite comfortable. I love the feeling I get from walking into a real kitchen to get a glass of water when I'm thirsty. I even love the feeling I get from doing the dishes. Weird, I know, but that's just me.

The other highlight of my day was finding out that I will be in the Concert Choir this semester. :) I've wanted to sing with them since freshman year, but I was too nervous about adding the time commitment at first. Now, though, I realize that I'm here at college not only for the classes, but for the experiences, and it's worth it to make time for something like this that I want to do. Singing makes me happy. Singing in a choir makes me happier. Singing in a *good* choir makes me the happiest! :)

Anyway, I need to get some sleep now so that I can get up in the morning and be fully awake for all of things I need to accomplish: friends to see, appointments to keep, errands to run, internet functionality to procure...you know, the usual. I'll be in touch.

<3

not for the faint of...stomach?

2009-08-12T08:42:00.003-05:00

Since my thoughts are not very organized right now, this is probably going to end up as "mind vomit." My apologies in advance to those of weaker constitution.

As a result of babysitting over the past week and a half, I've discovered once again how much I enjoy the quiet, early morning hours. I haven't seen many of them this summer, but I'm hoping to overhaul my schedule this fall. Fortunately, my classes are going to force me to make some changes anyway. Class starts at 10am MWF and 9:25am TTh, but Ali has an 8am class MWF, so I'm sure I'll be waking up early every day. Strangely enough, I think I actually prefer that. Getting up at the same hour(especially an earlier hour) generally makes me feel better, and it gives me time to work out or work on homework without the distractions that present themselves later in the day. This is all theory so far, though -- I make no promises as to how my REAL schedule is going to fall into place.

My store manager told me last week that it's become a very real possibility again that I could be transferred to a Conway store. She and one of the other store managers would like for me to be able to stay in the company instead of being terminated. (It's a good feeling, being wanted.) :) It all depends on the store manager in Conway, though. If she can make room for me, I'll gladly join her team; if not, I'll trust that God has something else in mind. However, one thing is for sure: I'm going to miss working at the Cabot store. :(

Speaking of work, schedules, and classes...I need to order books for my History of American Diplomacy class and sell the textbook I bought for the Logic class I dropped. Taking three classes that don't directly count for either of my majors was stressing me out, so a few weeks ago, I decided to look through the list of classes once again to see if I missed a possibility. That's when I found the Diplomacy class. I don't know how I missed it before! It counts for my International Studies major, which I definitely need to be working on, since I'm almost done with the requirements for my French major. Anyway, I'm glad to be taking three, instead of two, upper division classes that are worth something. I was feeling the pressure of time running out (even though I know I have some breathing room). It's hard to remind myself to slow down and remember that I don't have to rush through everything.

I have a tendency to obsess about productivity to the point that every minute serves a purpose, which can be both a good and a bad thing. I suppose there's a reason that I'm as driven and ambitious as I am, but I'm trying to learn to strike a balance. I think using time wisely is about moderation, not obsessive achievement. Maybe if I can remember that more often, I can eliminate some of this guilt, stress, and fear over not having done "enough." I'm sure there's a spiritual principle here that I've been forgetting...probably something about trusting God. I think it would be worth some thought and prayer later.

Oh - I've been thinking over the past couple of days about something I heard on the radio. It was just one of those 2 minute devotional spots that air on KLOVE or SpiritFM; I don't remember which station it was, and I don't remember who was talking. Anyway, the guy was challenging listeners to rethink the way they look at each day, and what he said really made sense to me. Instead of waking up every day, staggering under the weight of our emotional, relational, or financial stresses, or just moaning about another Monday, we should look at ourselves as being "one day closer." Today, I am one day closer to Christ, one day closer to healing in a relationship, one day closer to the other side of a financial crunch, one day closer to freedom from a habit, one day closer to spiritual maturity, one day closer seeing Him face to face in heaven. The burden seems so much lighter when I remind myself that today, I really am one day closer.

Anyway, I should see what else needs to be taken care of today. I have some Mexican layered dip to make for Mishal's party tonight, and I need to call the body shop to ask why they haven't called me back about the part I ordered for the car. :P

Grace and peace in Christ. :)

In honor of my brother.

2009-07-30T09:48:00.006-05:00

I can't believe that yesterday marked the first fifteen years of my brother's life. It seems like just yesterday that I was stepping in his baby drool (he always left a trail wherever he crawled), racing his Hot Wheels down the hallway, or sliding down the stairs in a pillow-stuffed sleeping bag. We used to be so young. Where did the years go? We still bicker and argue and wrestle (and I still win), but I have to look up to tell him that now because he's a strapping, 6 foot 3 inch teenager. He's not a little boy anymore.

When he was born, I used to think about what it would be like in six years, when I was 12 and he was 6, or what it would be like in ten years, when he was 10 and I was 16. It was always hard to imagine how we would look and what we would do, but I knew one thing for sure: he was my precious little brother and I would always love him like crazy, no matter how old we were. Now that I'm almost 21, and he's 15, that little boy has become a young man who I still love (even in his adolescent moments). He's also become more than just my brother and a young man; he's become a friend. Of course, like any good friend, he makes me laugh, gives me good advice, and drives me nuts, but I wouldn't trade him for anything. ;)

So, Isaac, if you're reading this, I want you to know how proud I am of you. With a strong and caring spirit, you stand up for those that others put down and protect those who are weaker than you. You are sensitive and compassionate, seeking out ways to help those around you with a servant's heart. You even use your sense of humor to lighten the mood in difficult and tense situations. You are growing into a man of strong character, Isaac, and strength of character is infinitely more valuable than any amount of muscle you can build. :) I admire you, I love you, and I thank God for the fifteen years I've been blessed to spend with you. I look forward to many more. <3

33 days.

2009-07-27T13:28:00.003-05:00

More has happened in my life during the last 33 days than I could ever hope to capture in words, much less in a blog post. I think that very fact has been the reason I’ve avoided writing for so long; everything is just so overwhelming at times. I’m going to write, though, even if the words aren’t adequate, because what I’ve shoved to my mental back burner is now boiling over. :P

This post may be a little more personal, a little more honest, a little more vulnerable than other things I’ve written. Maybe it’s because I believe I’m reaching a place in life where what people think of me doesn’t matter so much. I probably feel that way because the situations I’ve faced during the past month have brought me to a new threshold in this growth process. I still feel like the little girl tripping along at her Daddy’s side, lagging a bit behind because her legs are still shorter than His, but I’m doing my best to follow my heart and keep in step with my Abba, even when the decisions are hard. Putting on my spiritual big-girl pants, as Chris likes to call them, is never an easy thing to do! But, God has been faithful in every way possible, strengthening and comforting me in every step of obedience.

Two situations in particular stand out in my mind. Both involve relationships, so I’ll handle them with care. After spending couple of happy months in a dating relationship, I started to notice a nagging feeling deep down inside that something wasn’t quite right. A few of my closest friends were sharing observations with me that seemed to confirm that something wasn’t right, even though I didn’t want to listen, and it took a few weeks for me to realize that maybe God was trying to tell me something. It took a lot of courage to get quiet, to pray, and to listen, because I wasn’t sure I was going to like what I heard. Unfortunately, I knew I wouldn’t have peace until I did. So, after a few days of deep soul-searching and intense emotional and spiritual struggle, I realized that God was asking me to let go of the relationship. It was becoming a distraction to me, keeping me from serving Him with all that I am, and to continue would be extremely unhealthy to both of us. I hope no one misunderstands me, though, because I don’t regret this relationship or any other relationship I’ve had. There is a season for everything, and this season was fruitful for both of us. I wholeheartedly thank God for that blessing. I just believe that He’s now asking me to be content in a season of singleness for a while.

Looking back, I realize that my friends and family were speaking words of insight, wisdom, and even prophecy into my life, because they were all confirmed in my spirit and by other Christians - both before and after the fact. We’ve been learning about spiritual gifting and attempting to walk more intimately with the Spirit as a Body at Christ Church over the past month or two, and to see it play out in my life is amazing.

The other situation I’ve faced during the last 33 days involved my relationship with my mother. It’s no secret that I love my mother dearly, but we’ve encountered our share of rocky patches as most mothers and daughters do. After all, every human relationship has its issues. Personalities clash, opinions differ, roles change. Thankfully, we were able to talk at the beginning of summer when I moved home, which began the healing and growth process for both of us. As the weeks progressed, I kept studying 1 Corinthians 6 and 7 on Tuesday nights and asking for prayer over our relationship. Of course, when you ask God for something like that, He usually deals with your end of the problem first. :P He began convicting me that I needed to examine my role in creating tension in the relationship and take responsibility for making peace. (If it is possible, as far as it depends on you, live at peace with everyone. Romans 12:18) When I realized that my false assumptions, perceptions, and fears were contributing to our problem, I knew it was time for me to put on my big-girl pants and communicate honestly with my mom. There were certain subjects that I’d never addressed with her since I started college because I was afraid she would disagree with my judgment. What God showed me was that if I claim to be mature enough make independent decisions, I should be mature enough to own them. I finally reached a point in my personal growth where I was able to find the courage to do it, and the funny thing is: I can actually laugh about it now. Why? Because it turned out that my mom and I actually see things quite similarly. Our relationship was essentially suffering from miscommunication, false assumptions, and a lack of openness. However, I’m so happy to say that nothing could be further from the truth now. I feel like my mom and I have a better relationship now than we’ve ever had! :)

So, overall, life is good. Step by step, I’m learning to match my Daddy’s stride. He has proven Himself so loving and patient, even when I lag behind or trip over my feet, and nothing compares to the feeling I have when I know, deep down, that I’m walking in step with Him. He has given me such indescribable peace and joy at his side, a peace and joy that comfort my heart when the steps are hard to take. It's like a warm squeeze of the hand, a strong arm around the shoulder. More and more, I’m amazed by His closeness, His care - His intimate involvement in my everyday life. I see His fingerprints all over the little things every single day. Sometimes it’s a lesson from Scripture, a word of insight or encouragement from a friend, or providentially arranged circumstances, and sometimes it’s finding out that God has woven together past events to put me in the right place at the right time, or that He’s somehow used me to speak into someone else’s life just when they needed it. I shared my excitement with Mom the other day, and she said, “It feels like this is what life’s supposed to be, doesn’t it?”

And she’s right. This is what life is supposed to be. A little girl walking hand in hand with her loving Father.

Nothing can be better than this.

hired! and other news.

2009-06-24T22:45:00.004-05:00

I just realized that I haven't written anything in a while, and that I'm not exactly sure where I left off. I spent the first part of last week preparing for my trip to Virginia, Thursday to Sunday in Virginia, and Monday and Tuesday being lazy and recuperating from Virginia. I'm tired of being lazy now, though, and I need to be productive. Speaking of which, I got the job at Cato! I spent four hours in training on Tuesday morning, and Monday will be my first work day. My manager scheduled me for eight hours - 12:30 to 9:30; we'll see how that goes! I only work five hours on Thursday, but I agreed to work at the Jacksonville store an extra three hours on the 4th of July. I need as many hours as I can get.

Kendra sent me a draft of her budget for the spring semester in France, and I honestly don't know where all of the money is going to come from. Even though I know that God's always taken care of the details in the past, I'm starting to stress about it now. I know I shouldn't. :P I just don't have $6000, or a definite plan for getting it. Anyway. I'm just going to put that aside for now and think about it tomorrow when I'm not tired and I've had time to sleep on it and pray about it.

In other news, the trip was ctrl-alt-awesome! I just wish that I'd been able to stay longer. I miss Lindsey. :( But seeing her for three and a half days was better than not seeing her at all. She'll be coming back for Bop on the Lake in September, so I'll have a chance to spend more time with her then. :) Anyway, the combination of Lindsey and me with Stephen, Nathan, Tiffany, and Ian was amazing. Except for the few hours we had to crash for at least a little sleep, we were filling the time with pedicures, hot tubs, impulsive Target trips, failed tequila runs, hair highlighting, dancing, Catch Phrase, Rock Band, metro hopping, conversation, spy missions, and other random craziness. I really enjoyed meeting Tiffany, Ian, and Nathan (it was about time!). ;) Hopefully, it won't be the last time that I see any of them, because they're all rather awesome in their own right. I would definitely invite them to come with me and T-Pain on a boat. ;)

After such an eventful weekend and a late flight home on Sunday, I crashed hard on Monday, physically and emotionally. I was so exhausted, and I actually felt kinda blue. Looking forward to the weekend for so long and realizing it was over was a bit of a let down, but that's just how things go. I never want good times to be over. On the bright side, though, at least I can make new good times! :) I've decided that I'm ready to spend my time more productively this summer, and I seem to have plenty to think about and plenty to do, too. I need to prepare things to move into my apartment, balance my bank accounts and figure out a budget for the next year (including France), get involved in some of the ministry opportunities coming up at church, schedule the repair for my car, and take care of some Mary Kay business. I suppose, if I have the time, I'd also like to do more reading, and maybe I'll finally finish the scrapbook of my trip to Québec. I bought a really cute scrapbook today that I'm going to use for France pictures - a random Tuesday Morning find. :) Probably the last thing I'm going to buy for the next six months, too. :/

Anyway.....despite all these things that have crept onto my mind, I'm still feeling much more at peace this week than I have been. God's helped me to surrender a few things to Him, and I think I'm finally allowing myself to just be still -- still enough to feel His strong, steady hands around me and to remember the peace and security of being His. There is such freedom in being owned by Christ; I don't understand why I think my way is better sometimes. :P *sigh* Once again, I find myself pushing every hindrance aside, out of my way. Such is life, I think.

Well, I'm going to go pick up my room and get ready for bed. I'm getting sleepy. I just caught myself typing, "It's been nice talking to you." Hehe. I guess I do feel like I'm talking to someone when I write, if only to myself. The conversation I have in my head really helps me to identify and organize my feelings and process problems. Anyway, I've enjoyed the chat. :) Later.

exhaustion, and new recipes.

2009-06-15T20:31:00.004-05:00

I'm not sure what I'm going to write about, but it's been a few days...and I don't have the energy to do anything else at the moment. I've been on the verge of a headache all day, and I can't figure out why. Hopefully it won't linger. Mom is taking us to the lake tomorrow afternoon to swim since it's finally getting warm enough. Some of my best summer memories have been made at the lake on lazy afternoons with my family, a friend or two, some splash bombs, lots of snacks, the sand, and the water. Throw in a stop at Sonic or Pizza Hut on the way home, and I call it a great day. :)

I didn't realize until I collapsed on my bed a little while ago how crazy today was. I was describing it to Stephen, and it was just one thing after another. It even started oddly, because I woke myself up at 8:30 by falling out of bed. :P I caught myself on my hands and knees, so I didn't hurt myself, but it was such a strange experience, waking up and staring at the floor. My first thought was just, "What the heck? I haven't fallen off my bed since...I don't even remember when!" I hadn't been sleeping well, I suppose, and I was tossing and turning. Anyway, I made sure I looked extra-cute (well, at least I hope so), made a Mary Kay delivery at 12:30 and then interviewed with the manager at Cato. I think I'd have a great chance at the job if I was going to be available for a longer period of time. No one is looking for temporary employees. :P The manager who interviewed me did say that she'd consider me if she didn't find someone who could fill the position on a more permanent basis, though, so I suppose I have more of a chance than I would otherwise. She scheduled my interview before she knew I was only looking for work during the summer.

After the interview, I made a run to the grocery store to pick up some produce and a few extra ingredients I needed to make risotto for dinner. Mom called when I was almost through, asking me to pick her up at the body shop, because they needed over an hour to look at the van. We stopped at a couple of furniture stores because she and Dad wanted my opinion on the couch and chair they're trying to find for the living room. By that time, I was pretty hungry, having not eaten in six hours, so I made myself a grilled cheese sandwich when we got back home. (For some reason, I've been craving grilled cheese this week.) I'd just sat down when the shop called to tell us the van was ready, so I had to finish my sandwich, wait for a bit of family drama to cool down, and then take Mom back to the shop to pick it up. By the time I got home again, it was time to start prepping dinner. Hehe.

I spent a couple hours working on Fennel and Onion Risotto (my first try at risotto) and Lemon-Garlic Chicken (my own experiment). The risotto took a while, since I'd never made it before, but it was super-delicious. Everyone said they liked it, but the proof was in the fact that they actually ate it, and Dad even went back for seconds. :) I'm excited about trying different risotto recipes now. :) Even though I was pretty tired after dinner was done, I decided to whip up a batch of Banana Chocolate Chip Cookies, a recipe that Lindsey shared with me. She said they're her favorites, so I figured I couldn't go wrong. Sure enough, they're fantastic! There isn't any plain sugar in the recipe - only rolled oats, bananas, oil, vanilla, cinnamon, salt, almond meal, shredded coconut, and chocolate chips. I substituted some extra oats for the coconut, since I didn't have any on hand, and I adjusted for the loss of sweetness by using cocoa-roasted almonds to make the almond meal and using very ripe bananas. It looks like an easy recipe to experiment with, so I may do that when I have some extra time after the trip.

Speaking of which, it's only two days 'til I fly to Virginia! :D I still need to do laundry and wrap up some last-minute tasks, but I should be more than ready to hop on the plane Thursday morning. I'm so excited!

I'm also very tired, so I'm going to finish this episode of Lie to Me and call it a night.
~Grace

new things.

2009-06-11T12:52:00.003-05:00

So, it's one o'clock on a Thursday afternoon, and I'm still in bed, pondering the wonderfulness of summer days with nothing to do. :) I had a thoroughly enjoyable day yesterday with Stephen, wandering around at the mall and trying on weird outfits, hanging out with Justin and Britany, swing dancing at the Bop Club, and drinking milkshakes at Sonic. My car battery even died at Sonic, so that was a small adventure in itself. There was a very kind lady there who had a pair of jumper cables, though, and helped us out. I need to tell Dad about that tonight and get some cables for myself to keep in the car. It's not the first time this car has died.

Anyway, I wish that I had some extra spending money at the moment. If I did, I'm pretty sure I would have gotten one of the dresses I tried on at Dillard's. They were holding one of their after-prom clearance sales, so the dresses were actually affordable, and there were one or two that were absolutely stunning. :D Oh well, it won't be the last time I find a pretty dress. :) Stephen bought me some earrings that I can't wait to wear. The fleur de lis caught my eye. ;)

I'd been warming Stephen up to the idea of learning how to swing dance, so when Lindsey mentioned that we might go dancing next Friday night, I figured I should take him to the Bop Club at least once to give him a crash course. Last night, they were teaching the Basic II, which is close enough to the beginning to catch on. The instructors were extremely helpful and actually gave him private tutoring and practice after the lesson. I'm excited -- he caught on really quickly and wants to improve. :) In his words, I now have a dance partner that I like and who isn't a creepy old man. ;)

Oh, just finished watching the pilot episode of Mental on Hulu, and I genuinely liked it. For me, it was a perfect combination: intellectually interesting, emotionally touching, amusingly witty, and at times, laugh-out-loud funny. The cute and British Dr. Jack Gallagher factor is a plus, too. ;) Anyway, overall, it seemed real. Or maybe I just have too much interest in or experience with mental disorders. :P That aspect of the show is actually intriguing; in that sense, it reminds me a bit of Monk. At certain points, it flashes to what a particular patient in the psychiatric hospital is seeing, and it's interesting to guess what kind of disorder they have. I figured out a couple of them. Anyway, I'm looking forward to catching up on more episodes...there's only three so far. Yay - new show! :)

Well, I should probably get out of my pjs or something. :P Probably. Maybe I will, maybe I won't. lol

maybe too lazy?

2009-06-08T10:19:00.002-05:00

The days seem to be getting lazier. I need to find something to do. :P I've accomplished some important things over the past couple of weeks, but my level of productivity is slowly waning. Maybe I should take a few hints from Lindsey, though, and learn that it's actually okay to relax! :)

I made some banana bread with Mom's new stand mixer last weekend, and it turned out to be rather tasty. Just using the stand mixer was a dream come true, since I've been patiently waiting for years while Mom and Dad talked about getting one but never did. :P Anyway, I was just lying on my bed staring at my shelves, and I realized that I haven't watched all of my Good Eats DVDs yet, much less tried all of the recipes. That sounds like a good summer project. I'm sure Mom won't object to my planning some meals over the next few weeks - the more time she has to sew, the better. Perhaps I'll finally get to wear those skirts she's been working on for months. ;) (just kidding, Mom)

I should probably make a packing list for my trip to Virginia so that I don't forget anything important. I'm so excited...I haven't seen Lindsey in nearly a year, and Stephen's flying out with me on the 18th for a four day visit. 9 days, 21 hrs, 05 mins! :D

I have a couple of job interviews coming up that I'm a little tiny bit nervous about. I don't know how they'll go, or what will come of them, but hopefully one of them will result in a job. Then maybe some of the financial pressure will be off. There are several large-ish expenses coming up that I really want to be able to take care of on my own. I guess this is one of those times when I have to trust God to work things out.

Anyway...I'm off to do...things.....

:)

lazy days.

2009-05-30T20:04:00.002-05:00

Today's one of those lazy days...just a summer Saturday with nothing pressing to do. So, I've spent it playing Monkey Snowfight and Battleship online with Stephen, watching people pull pranks in YouTube videos, playing around on my violin, looking up songs from Keith Urban's new album (and a few of his older songs that I hadn't heard), and helping Mom throw dinner together. That turned out fabulously, by the way: grilled hamburgers, hot dogs, and lamb (o.m.g. - delicious), with marinated zucchini, squash, red onion, and mushrooms, and raw cauliflower with ranch dip. Mmm.

Now everyone's in the other room watching Indiana Jones: The Last Crusade. I guess I'm just not in the mood for it. The sad thing is, I don't know what I *am* in the mood for. I'm sure if I actually opened up my notebook, I'd find a huge list of things I could do...but I'm not really in the mood to get up and get it either. :P Heh, I know...I sound awfully pathetic. I figure I can afford to be every once in a while during the summer. I've been pretty productive this week, I think, though. Wednesday morning, I decided to look over the list of required books for next semester's classes, since I find that it's easier to order them early so I don't have to worry about it later in the summer. If I'd bought them all new from the campus bookstore, the total would have been somewhere around $470. (Yeah...not cool.) But, thanks to the handy shopping skills I learned from my mom, I got what I needed for $330. Heck to the yes. ;) I was excited, and a little proud of myself.

What I'd really like to do is find a new comforter for my new apartment bedroom so that I can leave the one I have in my room here, since it matches the walls and curtains. All of Ali's stuff is blue, but I'm not sure if I'm going to try to match any of it. I think I might go for a contrasting dark red, maybe a red toile print. Whatever I pick, I'll probably be hanging onto it for a while and using it as the centerpiece for my bedroom ensemble. Our suite is already starting to break up - even before we've moved in - so I don't know what my living arrangements will be next year. Danielle will be getting married in October or November, and I'll hopefully be spending the spring semester in France. Things will be drastically different by next summer, I'm sure. Maybe I'll have a steady job or an internship. ... Maybe not. I'll be many hours closer to finishing my degree, though, which is scary. I'm reaching that point of pressure where I'd really like to know what the next step is going to be. *sigh* I don't know -- too many options. I think I'm going to go play with my violin some more. Perhaps more thoughts later...

contentedness

2009-05-26T22:15:00.002-05:00

I don't really have a lot to say except that I'm super happy right now. Well, maybe "happy" isn't the best word -- "contented" would be a better one. Life still isn't perfect (shocker), but I have so much to be thankful for. Just a few things...

I don't have a job yet, but there are a few opportunities that might work out. We'll see. I'm glad I have my Mary Kay business to fall back on; sales have been good this month, and I should be getting a commission check, too. I'd like to book some facials to refresh my memory, so if you have a few minutes and want to try a new look, let me know. :)

My best friend of 10 years and pseudo-sis, Lindsey, lives 982 miles away, but I had the chance to talk for quite a while with her on the phone yesterday, which is something that doesn't happen very often. We laughed until I was collapsed on the floor in tears. :D I can't wait to find out for sure if our plans will work out for a visit in June. Hanging out, photo shoots, a luau...just seeing her again...so excited!

I haven't been in the best spiritual shape lately, so to speak, but church this week was extremely constructive. I've been feeling that nudge to make some changes, and tonight I had the chance to start. Love and selflessness were the two major concepts that hit home. I'm going to post 1 Corinthians 13 somewhere I will see it every day, because when Aaron read it tonight, I couldn't help but cringe. I haven't been doing a fantastic job of living out that kind of love. If my brothers and sisters can't count on me to be gracious, loving, forgiving, and to put their best interests above my own -- who can they count on? We need each other.

I still have boxes and boxes of stuff from school to go through and organize, but my room looks fantastic now. I cleaned out all of the other junk, dusted, and vacuumed, and I just love the way it feels and smells. :) I don't know what it is about vacuuming that makes a room feel so good. Anyway, despite all the junk I still have to sort through, I'm happy -- and thankful just to have a room and things to put in it.

My to-do list was so long today, but I accomplished nearly everything on it. It feels great. Now I'm so ready for tomorrow... :D Speaking of which, I should probably go to bed and get some rest.

Psalm 107:1 Give thanks to the LORD, for he is good; his love endures forever.

summer memories. :)

2009-05-22T02:49:00.007-05:00

Wow, it's hard to believe what an amazing week I've had. Granted, my sleep schedule is a little wacky at the moment, and my room is an absolute wreck, but I don't mind. It's been worth it. I'm just thankful that my family is understanding, because most of the boxes, baskets, mirrors, and shelving units from my dorm room are still cluttering the floor behind the couches in the living room. I did finally move all of my clothes from my suitcases into my closet this weekend, though, which (surprise, surprise) makes it easier to get dressed in the morning. :P The "other side of my bed" is my next project, although I haven't conjured up the courage to tackle it yet. There's so much junk in the floor over there that has accumulated over the course of my two years of college, and I'm pretty sure I could throw most of it away and never miss it. I think I even stepped on an old soap mold earlier... :P (Remember those crazy huge American flags, Lindsey?) At this point, I just want to get rid of the clutter so I have a place for the stuff I actually need. It's a daunting task.

Anyway, I spent the majority of my week away from home, or at least out of my room. Stephen came to Cabot Monday afternoon, and we enjoyed the gorgeous weather hanging out at the park, drinking slushes, playing old-school Super Smash Bros. on the N64 (as usual), and watching Star Wars: The Phantom Menace (finally!). Tuesday was spent playing with Justin's crossbow and hunting bow, rocking out with the top down in Justin's Jeep, and pulling off Stephen's surprise birthday party -- which we did flawlessly, I might add. He was clueless up until he walked through the door, thanks to his awesome mom and some quick thinking on the part of his best friend. Justin, Britany, and I had to concoct a plan to keep him occupied for 45 minutes after he got his work schedule from the theater. We tossed around some ideas on the way to pick him up, but we didn't know what was actually going to come out of Justin's mouth when he got in. Stephen jumped into the Jeep and Justin promptly informed him that Britany and I needed some "feminine products" at Wal-Mart. :P (great.) So, Britany and I wandered around for a while, smelling random body washes and finding the cheapest "products" we could find to keep it believable. It was all worth it for the surprise, though, and we had a great time eating, watching American Idol (and wondering how "No Boundaries" made it to the stage), and sharing funny stories and memories. Most of us crashed his house afterwards for some Rock Band (which I'm kind of addicted to now). I didn't head home 'til about 2 in the morning. Fun times! Thank goodness for being able to sleep in.

Wednesday was Stephen's actual birthday, so I hung out at his house for the afternoon and went out to dinner with his family at Bonefish Grill. We made sure we were back at his house for the end of the American Idol finale, though, and we all screamed when Ryan announced that the 2009 American Idol was Kris Allen. For a while, I couldn't think of anything to say but, "My gosh, are you kidding? I can't believe it!" and I still think it's beyond crazy. Our very own Kris Allen, the worship leader at Chi Alpha that I admired so much from my freshman year -- is *the* American Idol. I can't wait for his albums to come out. God's given him so much talent and is obviously doing something amazing with him. (I'm looking forward to Adam Lambert's music, too -- he's definitely got an awesome voice and a lot of creativity.) Anyway...now that Idol is over for the year, I guess we'll have to come up with new conversation topics. No more talk about last night's biggest argument between the judges, discussions over the best and worst song choices, or defending the favorite contestant who got slighted. *sniff* Goodbye Idol mania - at least for a few months. :'( It's back to real life.

So...Thursday afternoon, I watched Stephen for a while as he slaughtered his enemies as Wolverine, all the while lamenting the damage to Hugh Jackman's 3D body. Such a shame. ;) Anyway, Stephen took me rock climbing at the climbing center later, and then we joined the rest of his family, Cassie, Caleb, and some other friends for Liz's going-away-to-Africa dinner at the Macaroni Grill before watching 300 at his house. Kick-awesome movie!! (minus the few scenes we skipped)

Sometime during the last couple of weeks, I also discovered that my fingers still remember how to play my violin. I thought for sure that I'd lost everything I'd ever learned, having not touched it for nearly a year, but Stephen convinced me to pick it up and give it a try, and happily, I was wrong. :) Now I think I'll pick it up every now and then just for fun.

So yes...I've loved the first two weeks of summer. There's nothing like fun friends, loud music, good movies, late nights and lazy mornings, Happy Hour Sonic slushes, or starry nights and fireflies to kick off a great summer break. I'd still like to find a job, but we'll see how that turns out. It would be nice if the opportunity at Pier 1 came through. If nothing works out, though, I'll just work on Mary Kay and spend some time volunteering. That will make it easier to go out to Virginia to visit Lindsey for her graduation in June. :) :) :) I'm trying so hard not to get my hopes up too high, but I want to go so badly! I can take care of the airfare to get there -- I just have to make sure I'm not working. (It would be doubly awesome if Stephen could go with me...but that would be more difficult to work out because of his job, so I'm not counting on it.) Anyway. Next on the agenda is planning my trip to France -- which I'm also trying to be realistic about. I need to find a price tag somewhere...

I guess I've written about enough for one evening. Kudos to you if you actually read all of my ramblings! I think I'm going to either tackle some of the junk in my room or plan out my week now...

Summertime

2009-05-17T22:59:00.003-05:00

Hello world. My name's Grace. It's a pleasure to meet you - again. Summer's here, and I have time for you now. It's a shame that papers, tests, quizzes, social drama, sleep deprivation, and stress monopolize the other nine months of my life; they're so inconsiderate. I really should find some better companions. There's something about this whole college thing that keeps me coming back for more, though, so I guess I'll just have to put up with them. It's not the dorm room, the caf food, or the rainy walks to class, that's for sure. Maybe it's the sister I have for a roommate, the friends who have become family, the crazy late nights we spend talking and praying instead of studying, the chance to earn a degree in a language I love, and the opportunity to experience God for myself. Yeah. I think that must be it.

Anyway, back to you, world. I don't know if you're ready or not, but here I am. You've been warned. ;)

boredom and sleepiness

2009-04-07T16:53:00.000-05:00

It's only 9:45am, and I am so tired and bored already. I want to be done with my classes. Summer is calling my name...singing like the Sirens. It's rather inconvenient, considering that I still have a month left. There is so much to look forward to afterward, though! Ali and I will be able to stay in Conway and then move into our new apartment, and hopefully we will both have jobs by then. I'm looking forward to decorating our new home - as if having a bathroom for 2, not 4, a kitchen, and our own laundry room isn't enough to look forward to. And the free time this summer? More time to read, volunteer, work, work out...goof off. Yesssss.

So, yesterday was a good day. Ali and I dropped off our job applications, she found out her creative writing professor approves of her novel idea, and I spent some time catching up and hanging out with Nathaniel and the old high school gang. That was enjoyable, even if I did have to finish studying when I got back. We all still have a lot in common - especially a penchant for politics. There aren't many people here at school who like going in-depth with that topic like we do.

Anyway, this class is dragging on, and on, and on...and I'm having trouble staying awake. Hence the writing. I just want to get out of here, take my politics test, and get to 4pm - naptime. Then dinner, church, and Idol. But there's a lot to get through before now and then, unfortunately.

***

Funny, how Tuesdays and Thursdays improve after lunch. I feel really good about the politics test I took today, so that worry isn't weighing on me anymore. And church is tonight!

Mind Vomit

2009-04-03T00:15:00.002-05:00

So, I've already posted once today, but I just can't go to bed without talking about how amazing my God is. It's been a rough week -- lots of ups and downs, but he's given me lots of little "hugs" throughout the week to get me through, and it's gotten better. I have been feeling down about the way I've been feeling lately, though. I've been in one of those places where I just don't "feel" passionate about God. I'm not really all that hungry for Him, and I just feel like doing my own thing. I hate it. But I have to be honest. Now I know this walk is not about "feeling" spiritual, or "feeling" like I want God, but I still wish I didn't go through these times of feeling so distant. So, I told Him tonight how I felt, because I hate feeling so selfish and guilty, and I felt like his response was..."It doesn't matter - you're still mine."

Still His.

And then Chris taught us about the importance of staying connected with one another, because we're so much more vulnerable when we allow ourselves to become distant and secretive. That's when we do things we regret. So, just an hour after he left, I had the opportunity to live it out when one friend, and then another, walked in my door needing to talk and pray together. I can't tell you how much I love my brothers and sisters here at school. We can laugh together, study together, talk together, cry together, and drop to our knees together at a moment's notice. It's one of the most beautiful things I've ever experienced. Tonight was a powerful reminder of Jesus' presence with us whenever we gather, and my heart was so encouraged. In fact, I think it lifted me out of my guilty despair and began renewing my hunger...it reminded me of who I am in Christ, and of the fact that He truly is more valuable to me than anything. It's funny...when I stop focusing on the way I feel, which is the problem, and start focusing on Him, everything starts falling into place.

Anyway. A lot of this would probably make more sense if I thought it out and wrote it tomorrow, but...nah. Mind vomit is the best.

It's Thursday!

2009-04-02T08:59:00.002-05:00

I could say a lot of things today. The fact that the weekend is almost here gives me great joy, mixed with a bit of apprehension. It means that only four weeks of classes remain in the semester, but it also means that I have to study for another killer Comparative Politics test, write a history paper, and catch up on all of my other reading. Oh well. Just four more weeks. Oh wait, I have to look for a job, judge in a debate tournament, and choose all of my classes for next semester, too. *sigh*

Yesterday was one of those roller-coaster days. I thought I was prepared well enough for my international relations test, but...alas, it didn't go so well. Ali and Lea's test didn't go well for them, either, so we were all pretty bummed. Ali and I decided to cheer ourselves up by going out to dinner, because sometimes we just need to get out of the room and remember there's a real world out there. So we found a coffeehouse/café that we hadn't tried yet, and it happened to be the perfect choice. We basked outside in the sunshine, watched the birds (and almost got smacked in the head by a wild one), spotted a raccoon in a tree, savored some coffee while listening to some live Irish music, and giggled about the guy in the corner who kept looking our way. It was the one of the best pick-me-ups I could have asked for -- kind of like a hug from God. After all, what a coincidence that we ended up at this particular coffeehouse on the one day of the month when they have live Irish music? Really.

Oh, another highlight of yesterday...Ali pulled one of the best pranks ever. She and Aaron had our pastor, Chris, completely convinced that she was pregnant. It couldn't have gotten much better -- he fell for it hook, line, and sinker.

Anyway, I'm off to face the day. Later!

Psalm 19

For the director of music. A psalm of David.

1 The heavens declare the glory of God;
the skies proclaim the work of his hands.

2 Day after day they pour forth speech;
night after night they display knowledge.

3 There is no speech or language
where their voice is not heard.

4 Their voice goes out into all the earth,
their words to the ends of the world.
In the heavens he has pitched a tent for the sun,

5 which is like a bridegroom coming forth from his pavilion,
like a champion rejoicing to run his course.

6 It rises at one end of the heavens
and makes its circuit to the other;
nothing is hidden from its heat.

7 The law of the LORD is perfect,
reviving the soul.
The statutes of the LORD are trustworthy,
making wise the simple.

8 The precepts of the LORD are right,
giving joy to the heart.
The commands of the LORD are radiant,
giving light to the eyes.

9 The fear of the LORD is pure,
enduring forever.
The ordinances of the LORD are sure
and altogether righteous.

10 They are more precious than gold,
than much pure gold;
they are sweeter than honey,
than honey from the comb.

11 By them is your servant warned;
in keeping them there is great reward.

12 Who can discern his errors?
Forgive my hidden faults.

13 Keep your servant also from willful sins;
may they not rule over me.
Then will I be blameless,
innocent of great transgression.

14 May the words of my mouth and the meditation of my heart
be pleasing in your sight,
O LORD, my Rock and my Redeemer.

Fruit vs. Feeling

2009-03-24T11:36:00.003-05:00

It took all day to write this, but it still seems fitting. You know, I hate those mornings when I wake up and all I want is to be left alone, but there's no escape to be found. I don't want to snap at everyone. I just need space. Reading doesn't work, because anyone can interrupt, and disappearing in my car doesn't work, either, because I spend the entire trip feeling guilty and apprehensive. I haven't figured out the most effective way of dealing with this state of mind, so if you have any ideas, feel free to share. As it is, I'll just wait for the mood to pass and try to be amicable.

I guess days like these make me feel like even more of a ragamuffin. :/ I mean, really, Christians are supposed to be nice, happy, charming, sweet, and obliging all the time. We walk around with smiles plastered on our faces and sing, "This is the day, this is the day that the Lord has made, that the Lord has made!" After all, Paul never got up on the wrong side of the bed.

Hah. Please.

There's no way any human on this planet could wake up and feel great every single day, and I've never found a Biblical expectation for Christians to be nice, happy, charming, sweet, or obliging all the time. I do find, however, an exhortation to live by the Spirit, producing the fruit of the Spirit: love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control Funny thing, though: the fruit of the Spirit are not feelings; each one is either a conscious state of being or a chosen action. Unfortunately, it’s easy to confuse the two in mainstream Christianity: niceness for love, happiness for joy, charm for goodness, sweetness for patience, and being obliging for kindness. They do seem similar, but they spring from radically different motives and heart attitudes. You can have the fruit of the Spirit when you crawl out of bed in a bad mood, but good luck conjuring up your counterfeit emotions!

So, that brings me back to my mood today. I may not feel like smiling (I don’t), I may not feel like singing (I don’t), and I may not feel like being “nice” (I don’t), but I can choose to live by the Spirit inside of me today. I wish I made the choice more consistently to be who I am in Christ as opposed to who I was, but with time and maturity, I pray the choice becomes more natural. Until then, please be patient with me and my childish moods. I’m still growing up.

A fitting plea.

2009-03-22T21:40:00.003-05:00

Savior, please take my hand
I work so hard, I live so fast
This life begins, and then it ends
And I do the best that I can, but I don't know how long I'll last

I try to be so tough
But I'm just not strong enough
I can't do this alone, God I need You to hold on to me
I try to be good enough
But I'm nothing without Your love
Savior, please keep saving me

Savior, please help me stand
I fall so hard, I fade so fast
Will You begin right where I end
And be the God of all I am because You're all I have

Hallelujah
Everything You are to me
Is everything I'll ever need
And I am learning to believe
That I don't have to prove a thing
'Cause You're the one who's saving me

Spring Break...day 1

2009-03-21T12:58:00.003-05:00

Spring Break has arrived, an unexpected but welcome rest. I knew it was coming, but it still doesn't seem like the semester should be this far gone! We only have four weeks of classes left after this break (that is, before finals week). Tests and projects have gone well so far, so I'm trying to spend some time thinking about this summer, next fall, and next spring. Dr. Bailey wants to send me to France or Belgium, but I honestly need a way to fund it. I could use my UCA scholarship or fund it privately, in which case, it could be cheaper. Or, I could try for one of many other scholarships. The Rotary Club's Ambassadorial Scholarship would be amazing...$25,000 to spend a year studying anywhere I want.

Anyway, it feels so good to come home and do whatever I feel like doing. I helped Mom and Leeanne cook an amazing Asian-style dinner last night and followed it up with an episode of Lie to Me, and today I'm going to catch up on some laundry and do some baking and reading. It's a cloudy, pensive day - perfect for that sort of thing. I snagged some really ripe bananas from the cafeteria before I left yesterday so I could test out some banana recipes. Today I think I'm going to try making Banana Spice Muffins and Banana Oatmeal Bread since I'm in a healthy, whole-grainy kind of mood.

Mom and Leeanne are working on home ec projects, so I might get in on a little bit of that action, too. I've had a few pairs of old, worn-out jeans sitting in the laundry room for a couple of years that Mom was going to make into skirts, and I think she's finally getting around to it this weekend. Better late than never, I suppose. I'm hoping they turn out like the image I have in my mind, with the top made from the waist and seat of the jeans and the skirt made from patchwork material.

So far, I'm enjoying good, girly conversation while they rip seams and I take care of lining up speech/debate judges. Maybe I'll work up the motivation to work out later today...but I'm enjoying my PJs and coffee at the moment (even though it is three o'clock in the afternoon).

More some other time...

the blessings of weekends

2009-02-27T16:21:00.003-06:00

Well, I have two test scores back now, and they weren't as bad as I thought they were going to be. I've decided that I can afford to take a breather this weekend. My class today was cancelled, so my weekend technically started last night. Everyone's jealous, but hey, I can't help it. I kicked it off last night with Bible study, prayer, and worship with Chris here in our room, cheering on Kris Allen as he secured his spot in the top 12, enjoying some good conversation over coffee at IHOP, having a sweet heart-to-heart with Ali, and then sleeping in this morning, so it couldn't have started out much better. :) This afternoon, I turned in the SGA forms asking for funding for a French concert next fall which I'm excited about, and now I'm looking forward to Cabin Fever night at BLS with lots of Swing and Latin...it should be a blast. Tomorrow morning, I'll be going to the Roland Crisis Closet to volunteer, probably drop by my house to visit my family for a while in the afternoon, and then go to a movie tomorrow night with Ali and my two future suitemates. :) Church is Sunday morning, and the Symphony's performance of Ode to Joy is Sunday afternoon. And...I just found some money I didn't know I had in a wallet I wasn't using in the back of my desk drawer. It's shaping up to be a fantastic weekend!

I hope yours is, too. :)

Feeling a bit battered...

2009-02-25T00:10:00.004-06:00

Gah, I feel like I'm a horrible person. I've never felt such a strong urge to hate a professor or say such un-Jesusy things before. Fortunately, it was in the middle of a test, so I couldn't do anything -- but it took me a good 15 minutes to cool down and stay focused on the exam. He didn't give us a study guide before the test; he just told us to know everything from four book chapters, all of his lectures, and any bit of stray information that may have floated its way into the class. I made a detailed outline of one of the chapters, studied and highlighted the outlines of the other three that my classmates had written (after I'd read all three), and compiled all of my notes and studied them all the way through twice. I felt like I understood all of the material. He promised that he wouldn't be like his old college professor who wrote questions from the footnotes of chapters, but what did he do? He picked the trivia, the nitty-gritty details, and the things that weren't in bold type to write confusing fill-in-the-blank sentences and multiple choice trick questions. Now I know why everyone said they hated him and his god-forsaken tests. :\

I suppose that it didn't help that I had just finished a rather boring lecture on the causes of the Cold War and finished taking a French test that I didn't feel too confident about. I thought that I was ready for it, but I wasn't quite prepared for her exam style. At least I'll know for next time. As if I didn't feel battered enough by that point, this older French woman who hangs around and attends some of the classes came up to me in the hallway and asked if I was the French Club president. I could tell she wasn't asking just to say 'hello,' though. She evidently just wanted to know so that she could criticize me. I obviously wasn't doing an adequate job because she hadn't heard about the Mardi Gras party until Dr. Bailey mentioned crêpes to her last week. I tried to explain that it was planned at rather short notice, so the flyers weren't posted until late last week. That wasn't good enough for her evidently, and she had to complain about the fact that the meetings were advertised either. Of course, I had to try to communicate the fact we haven't *had* any meetings, because we've either been busy, had little interest, or hadn't had anything to meet about. The whole conversation felt like an attack, which irritated me. Of course, I haven't been a perfect or outstanding French Club President, but at least I'm trying to do *something* now.

The day did improve at the Mardi Gras party, though. There's just something about cheery Cajun music and fresh crêpes that makes everything alright with the world for a little while. I met a new Sénégalese exchange student from France and talked with him for a little while, and Dr. Bailey gave Cody and I some good ideas for French club activities. I need to apply for SAFA funding for next semester's activities later this week -- hopefully, I'll be a good president and remember. :P Unfortunately, there was a blight on even this delightful part of the day. Dr. Bailey informed me that only three upper-division French classes will be offered next fall: French Literature, taught by him, French Cinema, taught by Dr. Monty, and Advanced Grammar/Comp II, which I'm already taking. Essentially, that means I have to choose between a workload that will bring me to the brink of a nervous breakdown or a semester of hardcore feminism. Hmm, which will it be? *sigh* Can someone just shoot me now?

I wouldn't be so hesitant to take Dr. Monty again next semester if I didn't feel so abused in this class. I don't say much, so no one directly attacks me, but every rant seems to belittle my beliefs. I suppose that's not a big deal in and of itself, but in most cases, there is also a pervading attitude of condescension and disdain for anyone who could be "stupid enough" to hold those beliefs. Political viewpoints, moral convictions...it doesn't matter - they're all subject to criticism. That's why I wonder if I'm cut out for the Honors College. I've heard it's a tough place for Christians, but it's still so tempting because of the money available for studying abroad. I need to pray about it this week. One of the girls I've met recently in my classes is checking on the application process for me. If it works out, and if I feel led to do it, then it could provide me with a minor so that I can just major in French and double minor in International Studies and Honors. If I don't double minor in Honors, though, I'll still be looking for another minor. I'm not so sure I need to double major in I.S. and French anymore. Grad school can take care of that for me. Anyway.

After some rather irritating discussions about abortion, feminism, gay adoption, and socialized health care, I finally headed back to my room and decompressed for a little while before church. Amy's food was amazing tonight, and church was encouraging as usual. I love meeting God there every week - Sundays and Tuesdays - and now I'm even looking forward to meeting Him on Thursdays, too. Chris is coming up this week to meet with "us college kids," and I'm praying for amazing things to happen.

I suppose another highlight of the day was the free plate of pancakes at IHOP. Those were delicious. Granted, I need to work out hardcore tomorrow, but they were still delicious. ;) I've actually been very proud of the progress I've made in working out lately. Since all of the guys go every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday, it's easier to hold myself accountable and go three times a week. I've gotten in some good work, too, since the guys are challenging and I'm competitive. Caleb and Ian are great at making up goofy games, too. I can't believe the increase in stamina and energy I've noticed lately, just from having worked out regularly for a few weeks. I can now jog a mile without stopping or spend 20 minutes apiece on the elliptical, rowing, and stairstepping machines. Several weeks ago, that would have been close to impossible. :)

Anyway, I need to get some sleep now that the pressure is off; I've taken as much beating as I can for the day. Thank goodness that His mercy is new in the morning.

Oh. Bleh. I have to get up early-ish in the morning to run through the pronunciations in my vocal piece. I forgot to work on that this week. *sigh* Oh well. At least I've had ten years of practicing how to fake in music lessons. ;) Hehehe.

Grace and peace.

Alarm Clocks and Gold Standards

2009-02-18T13:48:00.011-06:00

God reminds me of my alarm clock. Every morning it when it sings to me, I hit the snooze button, and every time I hit the snooze button, it sings the same thing again nine minutes later. The Holy Spirit seems kind of like that to me: my ever-faithful Reminder. There are times when I think I've learned my lesson, but He keeps coming back and reinforcing it - maybe not every nine minutes, but always at the right time. His faithful reminders are what make the difference for poor, dumb, blundering, forgetful sheep like me, because I have a tendency to forget even the most obvious of spiritual truths, and I have an even stronger tendency to forget to live them out every day.

I realized today that my spiritual alarm clock has been singing to me lately, saying, "Don't waste your life." I've learned that lesson before; I even wrote a speech about it. But that's the thing about living the Christian life -- God never stops refining you, reminding you of those lessons. Over the past few weeks, through numerous friends and a few powerful songs, he's reminded me how fleeting and how precious life is. One of the most dangerous aspects of college life is the temptation to get caught up in the daily routine and forget the value of those days.

I tend to measure the value of a day like the United States measures the value of a dollar: relatively. Without a gold standard, the value of a dollar depends on the market, on inflation, on public opinion. What is it worth today? What will it buy for me? Likewise, with time, I wonder, "What is it worth to me today?" or "What will it buy for me?" I forget that time, unlike money, does operate on a gold standard. God gives an unchanging value to every day, an intrinsic worth. The question is, do I choose to value time based on my own fluctuating desires and standards, or do I choose to value time with God's mindset? The truth is, my time can purchase more things of higher value when I use His eternal value system. Colossians 3:1-4 explains, "Since, then, you have been raised with Christ, set your hearts on things above, where Christ is seated at the right hand of God. Set your minds on things above, not on earthly things. For you died, and your life is now hidden with Christ in God. When Christ, who is your life, appears, then you also will appear with him in glory." Dying to myself and being raised with Christ means that I no longer belong to myself, and time is valued by what brings Him the most glory, not what satisfies my desires.

Larry Red wanted to retire in a few years, buy a Winnebago, explore the country's best fishing spots, and start a band. During his near-death experience in the hospital last week, he realized just how fleeting life is and reexamined his value system. I felt the passion in his voice as he urged all of the young adults in our church body to live each day as if it were our last, and then he shared his new plan: to buy a Winnebago, tour the country, start a rock 'n' roll worship band, and share the testimony of how God has miraculously saved and transformed his life. That's a life sold out to God -- a life that values time on a heavenly standard.

Several contemporary musical artists have poignantly captured the truth about the value of time in their song lyrics:

"Every day is a gift we've been given; make the most of the time every minute you're livin'." - Life Means So Much by Chris RIce

"Welcome to the fallout. Welcome to resistance. The tension is here; the tension is here, between who you are and who you could be, between how it is and how it should be." - Dare You to Move by Switchfoot

"This is your time. This is your dance. Live every moment. leave nothing to chance. Swim in the sea. Drink of the deep. Embrace the mystery of all you can be. This is your time." - This Is Your Time by Michael W. Smith

Last Tuesday night, two of the amazing guys in our church body brought these ethereal lyrics down to earth for me. They began to communicate their mutual dislike of mid-life birthdays and the generally uncomfortable feeling that accompanies them. One shared that he feels uneasy thinking about being forty years old; after all, at forty, life seems halfway over. There are two questions that he knows he must ask of himself: "What have I done with the first half of my life?" and "What do I have to show for it?" My focus instantly snapped to my own life. At twenty, am I wasting my life? What am I doing of eternal value every day? In another twenty years, what kind of account will I be able to give for the life entrusted to me?

These are tough questions, but I'm grateful for the grace of God that allows me to wrestle with them. I know I'll never have it together, and I know I'll never be able to value time by God's perfect gold standard, but at least I can wake up each morning and give it everything I have, living out Romans 12:2: "Do not conform any longer to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind. Then you will be able to test and approve what God's will is—his good, pleasing and perfect will."

Thank you, God, for being my spiritual alarm clock.

Busy week...

2009-02-16T00:32:00.002-06:00

I probably don't have time to do this, but I'm going to make a quick post anyway. I have a few short things written up in random notebooks from boring classes that I planned to post later, but I haven't gotten around to it, and honestly, they're probably not worth reading.

Mishal and I cooked dinner for Caleb, Drew, and Trevor tonight, and it reminded me how much I really, really miss my kitchen. Cooking is stress relief. Mishal pieced together recipes for a North African-themed meal with strip steaks, carrots, shredded potatoes, mushrooms, salad, and pumpkin pie -- and it was amazing. I've never cooked carrots with garlic, cumin, paprika, and coriander before, but it was an interesting flavor combination. We threw in a little bit of liquid reserved from the cooked mushrooms and a little bit of beef broth, and I think it added the body they needed. Anyway, the only seasoning the steak needed was the flavored butter she made, and the potatoes only needed olive oil, onions, chicken seasoning, and paprika. They were a beautiful caramelized color and tasted as good as they looked. We topped off the evening with a pumpkin pie fight, so it really couldn't have gotten any better.

Now back to the real world, I guess. I have four tests this week: French Civilization on Tuesday, International Relations Critical Thinking on Wednesday, Comparative Politics part one on Thursday, and International Relations on Friday. My workbooks and hypothesis project are due in Comparative on Tuesday, and I have a little bit of homework to finish up for my other French class. That shouldn't be too bad, but I still need to set aside some time to practice the vocal music that Dr. Antolik gave me to work on. At least after this week, I won't have to feel like I'm going crazy...it'll all be behind me.

Time for bed for me...maybe I'll take a break later this week and post something else.

Another boring class

2009-02-04T00:25:00.003-06:00

So, I’m going to sit in Comparative Politics class again today and write for my own pleasure, because I’ve already studied Stanley Milgram’s “authority” experiment at least three times.

I’m currently addicted to new song, “Gotta Be Somebody” by Nickelback. The fact that I really like a Nickelback song is still surprising to me, since that particular band has never really appealed to me, but there always seems to be that one song that can reach out and grab you when you’re not expecting it. Fortunately, though, we don’t have to watch music performed live anymore, because watching Nickelback would annoy the heck out of me. I watched the music video for the song this morning while I was waiting for class to start, and the lead singer looks like he’s having an epileptic seizure with all of his head-bobbing and eye-blinking.

I'm also really enjoying the book "Lest Innocent Blood Be Shed" right now. It was assigned for the history class I'm taking, but it's one of the best assigned books I've ever had to read. It's the story of the French village of Le Chambon-sur-Lignon and the people who lived there and sheltered Jews during WWII, and there's a lot more spiritual significance in the story than I expected. The Protestant pastor of the village and his wife were instrumental in the rescue efforts, although in their eyes, they were only doing something that needed to be done. They didn't see themselves as heros. It's the best kind of historical human interest story - one with humble Christian servants at the heart of it. I'm learning so much more than Dr. Jones ever expected we would.

By the way, on a completely different subject, it’s hard to believe that my brother is old enough to be attending the week-long TeenPact class. Mom e-mailed me pictures this morning of Isaac in his suit, and I must say he looks pretty spiffy. I hope that this week provides him with as many amazing memories as my TeenPact experiences did for me. I still remember the slapstick bill skits, the crazy mock legislature debates, the powerful prayer walks, and the intense camaraderie that developed within each class, and I’m really not sure if I’d ever had that much fun in the span of four days before. TeenPact had such an incredible role in shaping my life; hopefully, God will use it to do some awesome things in Isaac's life, too.

Well, class is long over, since I wasn't able to finish this earlier, and I'm ready for bed now. It's a lot later than I realized. Fortunately I don't have class until 10am tomorrow. :) 'Til later...

A beautiful dress

2009-01-29T19:40:00.001-06:00

I'd love to have this one.

Distraction

2009-01-29T13:31:00.001-06:00

I don’t particularly feel like listening to my professor right now. I know, I know – you’re judging me already. You would be paying rapt attention to his animated explanation of row and column percentages and avidly examining his graph of the extremely pertinent and serious topic of how many freshmen, sophomores, juniors, and seniors eat cat food. What could be more relevant to any ambitious student’s higher education? *rolls eyes*

At least I get amazingly amusing quotes from this guy. It makes up for his annoying cockiness and complicated quiz questions, at least to some degree. “For nominal level data, we’ll use the example of religion, so you could have categories such as Jews, Baptists, Catholics, Muslims, Atheists, etc, and you either fit in one or the other. Now, you can’t perform mathematical operations on nominal level data; they’re simply labels, or categories. That means you can’t subtract a Baptist from a Jew and get a Catholic. I know you might have thought you could, but you can’t.” Or… “How would you be able to collect data about revolutionaries in Mexico? (Marshall: “I can’t think of a safe way.”) Well, I wasn’t talking about a safe way. That’s what grad students are for.”

Don’t worry; I’m not going to fail this class. I’m half listening at the moment, and I already learned this material in my Poli Stats class last semester. Well, I’m assuming you care. If not, that’s just fyi.

LOL He just told us about a random statistical discovery he made. Evidently, Hispanics do not settle near clusters of mobile homes. Where you find great concentrations of mobile homes, you do not find Hispanic populations. So, my thoughts are…if we start replacing American buildings with mobile home compounds, we will have automatically solved our illegal immigration problem. They’ll just leave. Wow, I knew the South was good for something.

Yay, lunchtime!

Another gray day

2009-01-29T02:20:00.003-06:00

Today was a normal day, more or less. Nothing spectacular. Classes weren't canceled, like I had suspected, so it was just another soggy, gray morning. I really enjoyed my voice lesson, though, and I think I'm beginning to make some progress with my tone. She's helping me to borrow some of the support from my lower register to blend my middle register with my upper register. Right now, it's really breathy, but it's improving. She said my high notes were " pingy " - which is evidently a good thing. Interesting adjective, that is. Anyway, I rushed off after lunch to an optometrist appointment in Cabot, found out that my eyes are perfectly fine (which was a relief -- they've been doing weird things which are evidently nothing to worry about), picked up stuff I forgot last week from Mom in the parking lot, and then drove back to school and went straight to voice lab. Despite the fact that I hated walking in the bitter cold from the parking lot all the way over to the music building, the lab was quite enjoyable. I liked listening to the older students sing since it gave me a lot of insight about technique. Dr. Antolik also did quite a bit of individual coaching with them in front of everyone, so we were all able to reap the benefits of their " lesson. "

So, I tried to spend some time on homework tonight, and I got through the chapter I needed to read for my quiz tomorrow, but I decided to put off the rest and go work out with Cameron for a little while, which was quite a good idea, if I do say so myself. I challenged myself a bit more than usual and tried some new things. I thought I was going to come right back and finish the homework...but as usual, God had other plans. I ended up talking about some pretty important stuff with a couple of good friends, and it was definitely one of those instances where people and spiritual growth took priority over school. The homework that I'll have half-finished for tomorrow isn't crucial, though, and the ability to watch God work in and through me is well worth a couple of homework points. I'm glad I've finally learned that lesson. Sure, there's a place for academic responsibility - I don't take it lightly - but spiritual responsibilities must take priority sometimes.

Oh, for anyone reading this...if you would pray for my computer, I'd really appreciate it. I wasn't planning on replacing it for another couple of months, but the bottom 1/3 of my screen is starting to go out. It's hung on for 4 years...a few more months is all I'm asking!

Anyway, I'm going to go shower now because I'm all sweaty and smelly from working out, and then I'm going to get some sleep. Wow, that combination sounds so good. I'm excited.

A Fresh Start

2009-01-28T01:51:00.003-06:00

So, a lot has changed in my life over the past few months, but I'm not going to worry about explaining any of that here. As far as I'm concerned, this is a fresh start. :)

You know...I really couldn't be happier with life than I am right now. It's just ridiculous. And it's more than just having amazing friends, intriguing classes, rediscovered passions, or a sense of vitality and confidence; it's having a peace that quiets the mind, a contentment that calms the soul, and a joy that overflows my spirit.

I suppose it didn't all appear suddenly. Actually, I'm sure it didn't. I think it was born when I shattered my jar a couple of weeks ago, and it's grown since then as God has taught me to choose faith, choose hope, choose peace, choose contentment, and choose joy. I think I'm going to write all of those down and stick them to the ceiling above my bed tomorrow so that they're the first thing I see in the morning when I open my eyes.

Anyway, it's really late, and I'm not enjoying the feeling of tiredness quite so much anymore. Maybe classes will be canceled tomorrow; maybe they won't. Either way, life goes on, and God is good. What more can I ask for?

Life is Sweet

2009-01-23T12:46:00.001-06:00