Californians Must Be Crazy

A few hours ago, I was sitting in my car, patiently counting down the minutes to the end of my lunch break. That's when a drop of water hit my windshield. Another one followed. Then another, and another, and suddenly it was drizzling. The only thoughts running through my head at this point had to do with dreading the idea of moving all my stuff from one house to another in the rain, which is what I have to do today, come 5 o'clock. I also inexplicably had a craving for blueberries and ice cream, a craving that California rain almost always brings out in me.

My lunch break ended, and I briskly walked through the rain into the office where I work. This is where the pandemonium began.


Minutes after I approached my bosses' desk:

My boss (L), after tilting her head to one side and hearing the sounds of rain drops on the windows and roof: Is it raining?

Me: Yeah, it was kind of drizzling-

L: It's RAINING?!?!?

Woman who works next door (M): It IS! It IS raining!! Come look, come look!!

After this command, five of the women who work in the office huddled in front of a nearby window, where they proceeded to exclaim in high pitched voices over the (ridiculously small) amount of rain drops falling from the sky.

And then the unimaginable happened:

L: IS THAT HAIL?!?!?!?

M: No, it couldn't be hailing!!!!

L: It IS!! Look at the GRASS!! It's HAIL!!!

And then they all ran outside - outside - to watch it rain. And they weren't the only ones standing outside. Most of the people who work in this building were also standing outside. Watching. The. Rain.

Later, we had another episode where L realized that other boss, C's car window was rolled down, so L had to race around the office in search of an umbrella - M burst out with a chorus of "Under my umbrella, ella, ella" here - so C could run outside and close her windows.

Since then, the lights have flickered a couple of times and have completely gone out twice. It's also turned into a full-on thunderstorm, with loud noises and even lightning!

The most annoying thing about this rain is that two days ago, the temperature was in the hundreds. And I thought rainy season in Ecuador was bipolar.






I'm just praying that rain will never make me as psychotic as it makes most people who live here.

So let's make it rock

Well I'm sitting in an empty dorm room, surrounded by the scent of Clorox. That's what us college students use to clean our desks at the end of the year when it's covered in layers of dust and eye sleepies.

The end of the year. Really? Already?

It's amazing how quickly something that you've looked forward to for so long can pass. During my last year of high school, I couldn't wait for May 13th so that I could finally graduate and start my life in the real world.

And then you realize that what makes life real is how much you put into it.

I took Philosophy this semester, and we studied all sorts of ontological and rational and empiricistical stuff. We talked about Plato's cave example and what happens when you die and if there really is a God.

But none of that really matters. All philosophical theories are just ideas that men have had over the past hundred (thousands, even) of years. It's just speculation. It never comes to any conclusions, which actually drove me crazy during the process of learning about it, but thinking about it now, it's not so bad. It feels like a metaphor for life; we all live without conclusions, without finishing our thoughts or determining exactly who we are.

Life is about what you make of it. If you don't put that effort into making your life exciting, interesting, adventurous, and in the end, liveable, it won't be any of those things. It will be boring. It will be dull. It will be monotonous, beating to the rhythm of a drum that lost its prime long ago.

Life's what you make it.

It happens

Only during finals week can 12:00 midnight feel more like 12:00 noon.

I took a lovely walk over to Crestview a few hours ago for a study party (more like a "complain about this horrible horrible week" party) and it was ridiculously hot outside, due to this crazy thing called summer. I'm still completely not used to actually seeing seasons change. This spring has been the first spring I've experienced in a very very long time.

So anyway, on my way back from my study party, I walked by Trinity tables. There were dozens of people out there and even some guy playing a very pretty tune on his guitar. I was impressed. Also freaked out by the fact that it was midnight and I was hours away from sleep.

And then these words floated into my head: "I am such a college student."

God's Love Letter to You

I found this in my mailbox this morning. I don't know who put it in there or where it came from, but it definitely put a smile on my face as I was walking back to my dormroom and I couldn't stop thinking about it all day. I think that's the sign of a great love letter.

God's Love Letter to You

I made her... she is different. She's Unique. With love I formed her in her mother's womb. I fashioned her with great joy. I remember, with pleasure, the day I created her.

I love her smile.
I love her ways.
I love to hear her laugh!
And the silly things she says and does.
She brings me great pleasure.
This is how I made her...

I made her pretty and not beautiful, because I knew her heart, and I knew she would be vain... I wanted her to search out her heart, and to learn that it would be Me in her that would make her beautiful... and it would be Me in her that would draw friends to her.

I made her in such a way that she would need Me. I made her a little more lonesome than she would like to be... only because i need for her to learn to depend on Me... I know her heart, I know if I had not made her like this she would go her own chosen way and forget Me... her creator.

I have given her many good and happy things... because I love her.

Because I love her, I have seen her broken heart, and the tears that she has cried alone. I have cried with her, and had a broken heart too.

Many times she has stumbled and fallen alone only because she would not hold My hand. So many lessons she's learned the hard way because she would not listen to My voice.

So many times I have sat back and sadly watched her go her merry way alone. Only to watch her return to My arms, sad and broken.

And now she is Mine again. I made her. Then bought her. Because I love her.

I have to reshape her and remold her... to renew her to what I had planned for her to be. It has not been easy for her or for me.

I want her to be conformed to My image. This high goal I have set for her.

Because I love her.

Colonel T. M. Everett

I have a new fish languishing in pink fishy-paradise on the top shelf of my desk right now. His name is Colonel Theodore Michael Everett, and he kind of loves his new home. Sometimes he swims across his bowl and I can't stop looking at him because his tail-fin is so lovely. I think he knows how beautiful he is because I've caught him a couple of times looking up at the reflective surface of the water like he's checking himself out. I would have a fish like that. I would.

A house

Tonight, I'm in Colorado Springs.

It's funny how many memories can be connected with just one house. My grandparents have owned this particular home for as long as I can remember and probably even before that; countless Christmases and various summer vacations have been spent here, miniature golfing at the Putt-Putt course down the road, cracking nuts in the living room, and of course, getting as much of the family together as possible for that essential family portrait, many of which hang in positions of importance in this house.

The last time I was here, I was spending only a night before a long road trip back to Dana Point, California. I was preoccupied with thoughts of "major" social events I was missing, a church choir program and several all-important date nights in particular. (In fact, I was so consumed by those thoughts that I even forgot to notice the brand-new shelving unit in the living room.)

A house can measure your growth just like those enormous rulers your parents used to draw on the back of your bedroom door. Every time you enter a house, all the feelings you felt the last time you were there welcome you at the entrance, and for a slight moment, you're exactly the same person you were two years ago.

whimsical, thankyou

The search for the end of the perfect rainbow was on.
Gena was once again caught up in wonder. Her heart felt as light as the after-rain sky above and every shadow, storm, and cloud that had previously been holding her captive had cleared. These were the effects of the fascination that took control of her senses every time a long rain finally ended. But unlike other gloomy showers, this one had put a flawless, perfect rainbow in the sky above her small town of Chestnut, California and Gena was intent on finding the end.
It wasn’t that she expected to find a pot of gold or even a leprechaun. In fact, Gena had actually developed a fear of the little green Irishmen during her fourth grade year when her best friend, Mara had dressed up as a leprechaun for Halloween; Gena was sure that the costume wasn’t meant to instill a fear of all things Irish in small, impressionable children, but unfortunately that’s what had happened. Since then, Gena had always secretly questioned the exact intentions of leprechauns.
No, it definitely wasn’t a leprechaun that Gena wanted to find at the end of this rainbow.
An old pink bicycle was accompanying her on her quest. Together, they traveled up Potter’s Grove Street and down an unnamed side street, where Gena said out loud to herself (altogether a very charming and annoying habit), “I wonder why this street doesn’t have a name” and continued down the redwood-lined road. Her eyes were stuck on the brilliant rainbow as all other thoughts were pushed out of her preoccupied mind.
It was an obsession, really; Gena felt she couldn’t focus on anything else until she reached the end of that all-consuming rainbow and witnessed for herself the magic she was convinced was waiting, just waiting for someone curious enough to snatch it. And she had to be that curious someone. Her desire to reach the magic flowed out of her heart and into her fingertips. All over, her body tingled with the anticipation of discovering something new and a silent, joyous song began to hum its way down, down to her toes.
Looking ahead, Gena could see where the rainbow dipped into a tightly huddled grove of trees halfway up Pistachio Mountain. The only problem was that she had run straight into a roadblock: Mr. Duskin, the owner of the sliver of the mountain where the rainbow-glowing grove of trees resided, happened to be the most overbearing, overprotective, overparanoid man Gena knew. He was always complaining to the town mayor, Gena’s grandfather that yet another group of “teeny boppers” had trampled the neon-red “WARNING” signs that littered Mr. Duskin’s property fence from one side to the other.
As she had been throughout her life, Gena was completely aware of the trouble she was getting herself into as she pushed her slight body through the one hole in the fence that hadn’t yet been secured with twelve planks of wood. “At least I have a good reason for trespassing,” she said out loud to herself, again in that offhanded manner of hers. Any anxiety she might have had about intruding on Mr. Duskin’s property was dissipated by the thought of reaching that perfect rainbow and Gena began to run up the side of the mountain, so consumed by the thought of finally reaching the magic that wonder and enthrallment took control of her footsteps and propelled her towards the as-yet unseen trunk of the rainbow.

Eleven Things My Mama Should Have Taught Me

After one (happy, crazy, growthful, changing, difficult, spectacular, lovely, joyful, lonely) semester of college, I have come to understand these things:

1) Mostly, you relate to the people you knew previous to your first college experience in a completely different way after you've come home. To me, this means that I am officially an adult in the Cline/Scholl crowd; I partake in adult conversations, without fear of giving my own opinion or even telling Kevin to shut up. It also means that stupid high school cliques are no longer in control of my social life. (This is where I insert a five-minute long sigh of relief.)

2) People are hard to live with. It doesn't matter who they are, where they came from, how similar they are to your own personality; people are just hard to live with. And once you can master the "art of losing" all the things that make your life familiar, it is five hundred thousand times easier to live with another person.

3) Pop-tarts and string cheese can be a suitable meal for anytime of the day!

4) It is completely normal to eat by yourself, whether you're in the cafeteria or hiding out in your dorm room.

5) Friends require upkeep. After about six years of having three perfectly synced friends who practically fell into my life, this was the hardest for me to come to terms with. It takes time for faces to become acquaintances, acquaintances to become casual friends, casual friends to become close.

6) Facebook is a SICKNESS.

7) No matter how awkward I feel about the whole "Third Culture Kids of APU Unite!" thing, I have to admit that it does make me feel ten times more comfortable when I realize that a professor is a former MK or a classmate spent most of her life in a different country. It's not because I can't relate to your average American, it's because I can relate better to people who have had similar experiences to mine. And that's true for everyone, whether we're talking about the language you speak, or the kind of school you graduated from, or the place you grew up in. People are naturally drawn to those who are like themselves. And no matter how self-obsessive that might seem, it's good.

8) You are different. I am different. We are all freakin' different, so it's completely futile to go around acting like you're God's gift to society. Get over yourself.

9) 7:15 Walk/Jog classes are never a good idea.

10) Sometimes people suck. (That's why forgiveness is such an intense theme in the Bible.)

11) Tie-dye is way cool in college.



I started this blog entry about a month ago, but I got frustrated with how Blogger changes the language if you're in a different country and since I was in Ecuador (South America, not Africa), everything was in Spanish and it just bothered me. So even though the new semester has already started, pretend it hasn't.