I just returned from an incredible weekend where God touched my life in so many ways and through so many people. To be absolutely honest, I dreaded this Valentine's Day, the first time I had been single on February 14th since I was 14. But the day was spent with my friends, relaxing and actually doing crazy things. I was removed from "the world" and was spared the crazy people running around with flowers and could really just have fun with my friends. RUF got major points in my book for having 2 fun games (much better than the fall) AND insanely fun sledding. (Need I say that there were two girls who were termed "extremists".. and that I was one of them?) It didn't matter that until the night before there had been no snow, we found a hill in the shade where there was enough snow to go crazy sledding and went wild.. it was so much fun.
I guess the reason I enjoyed the weekend so much was the it was probably the first time since I've been here that I really felt at home.. I wasn't worried about what people would think of me, I didn't feel awkward just sitting in the common room and studying.. I played cards with people I liked until all hours of the night.. I guess I'm coming to realize that RUF really is becoming "mine", in a very good way.. it will never replace Young Life (and I did heave a couple of sighs over missing the winter conference this weekend), but I can still love the people just as much.
The speaker over the weekend was Stuart, the pastor from Grace (and the sermons were the thing about Grace that I wholeheartedly approve of). The first message was on loving God, the second was on loving others. In a "divine moment" that I felt like really hasn't happened in a long time, the second message was made for me. He talked about people that have been so hurt by love that they build up walls and feel like it will just be better for them never to let anyone get close and how that is not part of God's plan at all, and if we let Him teach us how to love and let our love come from Him, then everything will be ok. I was really struggling this week with disillusionment, feeling like there really is no reason to ever let people get close to you because all anyone does is disappoint you and there is no real love in this world, only pain. And his sermon really, really helped me. It was great, because I went into the retreat not expecting any kind of spiritual renewal, but I was so overwhelmed by God's grace and love that it was just really neat. :) (And I remembered all the years that I went to the winter conference longing for renewal, and then was disappointed.)
So now I'm back, relaxed, renewed, and refreshed, and ready to dive into the last few weeks of the quarter.
Sunday, February 15, 2009
Friday, February 6, 2009
Yesterday, a guy asked me to move into his apartment with him.
His name is Aiden, he is four years old, and I am in love. ;) Even though I know I've mentioned this before, I really wanted to reiterate how much I love my job, what happiness it brings me, and how I feel about my kids. Aiden is a completely new blessing: he just started coming a few weeks ago, and has already decided that I am his very favorite teacher. His mom says he talks about me all the time (it's awesome when you realize that not only do you remember them, but they also remember you!). Yesterday, he was having a hard day, and wanted to do absolutely nothing but sit in my lap. In the afternoon, I was in charge of the art area and also of timing the kids' turns at the computer, so Aiden got really good at hopping up every ten minutes and informing the child at the computer that it was time to switch. :)
Just to show you how absolutely precious and wonderful my children are, here are some ridiculous and silly things they said while we were talking yesterday:
Ferran: My daddy works at Northwestern!
Me: Really? That's awesome. Alice, where does your daddy work?
Alice: In a tall building.
Jovan: I can't go outside, 'cause I'm allergic to snowflakes.
Me: Faith, can your sister play the violin?
Faith: Sometimes.
The most heartrending things happened yesterday as well, though. Apparently Ferran's parents are divorced, and every month they fight over who will pay tuition for Ferran to continue to come to school. According to the director, Ferran had already been coming for two weeks without paying, and unless his parents paid, could not continue to come to school any longer. So, at the end of the day, Ferran asked me if I knew "the news" about tomorrow: whether he could come back or not. He was so sad, it absolutely broke me heart. The fact that the parents' arguement was affecting his life so directly and dramatically just seemed.. horrible.
Also, we have a wonderful girl, Jade, who has recently moved into a foster home. All day yesterday, she was absolutely certain that her mommy was going to come pick her up. "My mommy's going to come get me after nap," she told me again and again. Regular pick up time is between 4:30 and 5:30. A handful of children from the entire school stay until 6. As the time moved on, closer and closer to 5:30, Jade kept saying, "My mommy's coming soon! My mommy's coming soon!" And no one came. We moved to the other building, with the "late" children, and she started asking, "Jackie, where's my mommy?" Five minutes before six, a teenage boy walked in, apparently her babysitter at her foster home. Jade went into hysterics, screaming that no, her mommy told her on the phone she was going to come pick her up, no she didn't want to go home with Roy... eventually he took her away, but the difficulties in her life touched and saddened mine.
I guess my work makes me appreciate my incredible and irreplaceable childhood, my wonderful parents, and my full and very happy life. It makes me appreciate the little things in life (like running around with excitement because there's a ladybug in the classroom.. or learning to draw a heart and thinking it's the most incredible thing ever) and enjoy myself every minute.
I LOVE YOU, GROUP E! :)
His name is Aiden, he is four years old, and I am in love. ;) Even though I know I've mentioned this before, I really wanted to reiterate how much I love my job, what happiness it brings me, and how I feel about my kids. Aiden is a completely new blessing: he just started coming a few weeks ago, and has already decided that I am his very favorite teacher. His mom says he talks about me all the time (it's awesome when you realize that not only do you remember them, but they also remember you!). Yesterday, he was having a hard day, and wanted to do absolutely nothing but sit in my lap. In the afternoon, I was in charge of the art area and also of timing the kids' turns at the computer, so Aiden got really good at hopping up every ten minutes and informing the child at the computer that it was time to switch. :)
Just to show you how absolutely precious and wonderful my children are, here are some ridiculous and silly things they said while we were talking yesterday:
Ferran: My daddy works at Northwestern!
Me: Really? That's awesome. Alice, where does your daddy work?
Alice: In a tall building.
Jovan: I can't go outside, 'cause I'm allergic to snowflakes.
Me: Faith, can your sister play the violin?
Faith: Sometimes.
The most heartrending things happened yesterday as well, though. Apparently Ferran's parents are divorced, and every month they fight over who will pay tuition for Ferran to continue to come to school. According to the director, Ferran had already been coming for two weeks without paying, and unless his parents paid, could not continue to come to school any longer. So, at the end of the day, Ferran asked me if I knew "the news" about tomorrow: whether he could come back or not. He was so sad, it absolutely broke me heart. The fact that the parents' arguement was affecting his life so directly and dramatically just seemed.. horrible.
Also, we have a wonderful girl, Jade, who has recently moved into a foster home. All day yesterday, she was absolutely certain that her mommy was going to come pick her up. "My mommy's going to come get me after nap," she told me again and again. Regular pick up time is between 4:30 and 5:30. A handful of children from the entire school stay until 6. As the time moved on, closer and closer to 5:30, Jade kept saying, "My mommy's coming soon! My mommy's coming soon!" And no one came. We moved to the other building, with the "late" children, and she started asking, "Jackie, where's my mommy?" Five minutes before six, a teenage boy walked in, apparently her babysitter at her foster home. Jade went into hysterics, screaming that no, her mommy told her on the phone she was going to come pick her up, no she didn't want to go home with Roy... eventually he took her away, but the difficulties in her life touched and saddened mine.
I guess my work makes me appreciate my incredible and irreplaceable childhood, my wonderful parents, and my full and very happy life. It makes me appreciate the little things in life (like running around with excitement because there's a ladybug in the classroom.. or learning to draw a heart and thinking it's the most incredible thing ever) and enjoy myself every minute.
I LOVE YOU, GROUP E! :)
Thursday, January 22, 2009
I am lying on my bed after my marathon Thursday, utterly exhausted, listening to the German version of Thumbelina's "Let Me Be Your Wings" and trying to figure out how long I can wait until I have to start my homework.
My day started most definitely in the middle of a REM cycle. I did manage to roll myself out of bed and get to work only 10 minutes late, though, which was not a problem. The teacher at work gave me a cup full of Cheerios when I got in the door (breakfast! Since they figured out that I'm a poor college student, both the teachers want to make sure I can eat at work, so I don't have to "waste" meals on things like eating. I love them so much) and we headed upstairs to their Montessori classroom. An awesome thing I've been doing this quarter is coming in the mornings on Thursdays, so I get to see them actually doing official Montessori work. I realized that my favorite, Ferran, knows all his letters, and can actually spell some words. He's four, but I had just never seen him doing any of that before.
At 10:30, I zoomed off to my Politcal Science class in Tech. The 25 minute walk was infinitely more pleasant than last week (last week, with windchill the temperature was -25 degrees Farenheit, so today's +15 felt absolutely balmy). I was incredibly exhausted, so I used my points to buy a can of Starbucks energy/caffeine something or other from "Lisa's Cafe." It did manage to keep me awake during my 90 minute lecture, but by the time it was over, I felt ready to collapse. My lecture gets out at 12:20 and my discussion section starts at 1. Usually, I use those 40 minutes to buy a salad and go over the readings for discussion to be sure I'm able to discuss things intelligently. Well. Today I passed another initiation in the life of a college student. Tech has incredible couches outside of all the huge lecture halls. Instead of getting lunch, I curled up in the corner of one, put my headphones in and my hood up and slept for thirty minutes. It was absolutely incredible.. I was then able to go to discussion awake and refreshed. I just felt like such a college student, sleeping in an extremely public place.. but the funny thing was that about every other couch has a sleeping occupant in the corner.. sometimes they even stretch out, occupying the whole thing. Obviously, that was one of the things I never thought I would do, because that's just so ridiculous, but the kind of late nights that I've been pulling made me rethink that. :)
At work this afternoon, for the third time in a row, they pulled me from my kids to strange children in another group. This makes me very unhappy.. but I try and be flexible and work wherever they need me. I just have the feeling that this is going to be a pattern, and I feel so inadequate when I don't know the group's routine, the kids.. and I feel extremely unhelpful. My motto this week at work has been, "You only have to show me once, but you have to show me once." The first teacher was incredibly unhelpful and got angry with me for not performing my tasks (which I was unaware of).. anyway. But this class (Group D) won all the awards for unusual names. Not one kids had a "normal" name.. I wondered if maybe they categorized them that way on purpose: "oh, you have a strange name.. off to group D!" I think the most normal were Asher and Clive. (Meaning, the names that I had heard before.) Nakaya (girl), Durius (boy), and Dresdon (also boy) were possibly the most unusual.
After work it was back to Chapin for my mystery class, and now it's fifteen minutes after I first started writing this, my German "A Whole New World" has also ended, and I'll probably go and try to get some work done. Tomorrow is another busy day!
My day started most definitely in the middle of a REM cycle. I did manage to roll myself out of bed and get to work only 10 minutes late, though, which was not a problem. The teacher at work gave me a cup full of Cheerios when I got in the door (breakfast! Since they figured out that I'm a poor college student, both the teachers want to make sure I can eat at work, so I don't have to "waste" meals on things like eating. I love them so much) and we headed upstairs to their Montessori classroom. An awesome thing I've been doing this quarter is coming in the mornings on Thursdays, so I get to see them actually doing official Montessori work. I realized that my favorite, Ferran, knows all his letters, and can actually spell some words. He's four, but I had just never seen him doing any of that before.
At 10:30, I zoomed off to my Politcal Science class in Tech. The 25 minute walk was infinitely more pleasant than last week (last week, with windchill the temperature was -25 degrees Farenheit, so today's +15 felt absolutely balmy). I was incredibly exhausted, so I used my points to buy a can of Starbucks energy/caffeine something or other from "Lisa's Cafe." It did manage to keep me awake during my 90 minute lecture, but by the time it was over, I felt ready to collapse. My lecture gets out at 12:20 and my discussion section starts at 1. Usually, I use those 40 minutes to buy a salad and go over the readings for discussion to be sure I'm able to discuss things intelligently. Well. Today I passed another initiation in the life of a college student. Tech has incredible couches outside of all the huge lecture halls. Instead of getting lunch, I curled up in the corner of one, put my headphones in and my hood up and slept for thirty minutes. It was absolutely incredible.. I was then able to go to discussion awake and refreshed. I just felt like such a college student, sleeping in an extremely public place.. but the funny thing was that about every other couch has a sleeping occupant in the corner.. sometimes they even stretch out, occupying the whole thing. Obviously, that was one of the things I never thought I would do, because that's just so ridiculous, but the kind of late nights that I've been pulling made me rethink that. :)
At work this afternoon, for the third time in a row, they pulled me from my kids to strange children in another group. This makes me very unhappy.. but I try and be flexible and work wherever they need me. I just have the feeling that this is going to be a pattern, and I feel so inadequate when I don't know the group's routine, the kids.. and I feel extremely unhelpful. My motto this week at work has been, "You only have to show me once, but you have to show me once." The first teacher was incredibly unhelpful and got angry with me for not performing my tasks (which I was unaware of).. anyway. But this class (Group D) won all the awards for unusual names. Not one kids had a "normal" name.. I wondered if maybe they categorized them that way on purpose: "oh, you have a strange name.. off to group D!" I think the most normal were Asher and Clive. (Meaning, the names that I had heard before.) Nakaya (girl), Durius (boy), and Dresdon (also boy) were possibly the most unusual.
After work it was back to Chapin for my mystery class, and now it's fifteen minutes after I first started writing this, my German "A Whole New World" has also ended, and I'll probably go and try to get some work done. Tomorrow is another busy day!
Sunday, January 18, 2009
Redefining busy...
If I thought I knew what being busy was before this quarter, I was drastically wrong. The last week has shown me just how little I ever understood about really being busy- and yet I'm also coming to understand the insane amount that God is enabling me to accomplish. The knowledge that He is giving me strength to get through each day and to keep going full steam all the time is what gets me through the times when I am so busy that I have no time to breathe.
This weekend, though, is a really nice and relaxing weekend. I only have one research project to do, and I'm about to go to the library and take care of that, but otherwise, I just have reading. Medill decided to give us the week off from insane assignments, and all I have to do is photograph an event on MLK day and pick a place to do a bio piece on for Wednesday. Incredible, I know. And usually I have papers due every Monday, but this week Monday is a holiday, and our paper was cancelled! So essentially, I am enraptured by this blessing of free time- and I'm definitely enjoying it to the fullest! Yesterday, I read 2 Agatha Christies (one of them was for class.. my very favorite class is a mystery tutorial, where every week we read a couple of mystery novels and discuss the development of the novel.. it is incredible!), watched the final episode of Survivor with my roommate, worked out, went out to lunch with a friend, and sat on the floor of my hall with girls talking the night away. Relaxing? I should say so.
Another revelation I had yesterday came from watching The Devil Wears Prada. Now, I had seen this movie before, but not recently enough to realize how scarily close it could be to my life. See, the main character is a journalist who graduated from Northwestern and went to New York looking for a big job to start off her career. Of course, the movie is a bit extreme, but I could see a lot of parallels to my life in it. Just sk Tricia.. I kept yelling, "This could be me!!" at opportune (or maybe inopportune?) moments. But the possibility of a life filled with craziness doesn't faze me.. and in fact it excites me! Someday, I will be the person running around everywhere, someday I will learn to operate under high stress and fulfill the wishes of my boss and my company, someday I will change my small corner of the world. They say that if you want to change the world, don't be a journalist.. but I plan to impact the place where I live and the people around me. And even as a journalist, I'll bet I can do that.
This weekend, though, is a really nice and relaxing weekend. I only have one research project to do, and I'm about to go to the library and take care of that, but otherwise, I just have reading. Medill decided to give us the week off from insane assignments, and all I have to do is photograph an event on MLK day and pick a place to do a bio piece on for Wednesday. Incredible, I know. And usually I have papers due every Monday, but this week Monday is a holiday, and our paper was cancelled! So essentially, I am enraptured by this blessing of free time- and I'm definitely enjoying it to the fullest! Yesterday, I read 2 Agatha Christies (one of them was for class.. my very favorite class is a mystery tutorial, where every week we read a couple of mystery novels and discuss the development of the novel.. it is incredible!), watched the final episode of Survivor with my roommate, worked out, went out to lunch with a friend, and sat on the floor of my hall with girls talking the night away. Relaxing? I should say so.
Another revelation I had yesterday came from watching The Devil Wears Prada. Now, I had seen this movie before, but not recently enough to realize how scarily close it could be to my life. See, the main character is a journalist who graduated from Northwestern and went to New York looking for a big job to start off her career. Of course, the movie is a bit extreme, but I could see a lot of parallels to my life in it. Just sk Tricia.. I kept yelling, "This could be me!!" at opportune (or maybe inopportune?) moments. But the possibility of a life filled with craziness doesn't faze me.. and in fact it excites me! Someday, I will be the person running around everywhere, someday I will learn to operate under high stress and fulfill the wishes of my boss and my company, someday I will change my small corner of the world. They say that if you want to change the world, don't be a journalist.. but I plan to impact the place where I live and the people around me. And even as a journalist, I'll bet I can do that.
Thursday, January 8, 2009
Happy New Year and welcome back to school...
After an incredible three weeks away from school and with my family, I was a bit shocked to come back to school and be hit by the insane amount of work that comes with being a Medill student. But I'm getting into the groove now, which is good, considering that I'm possibly twice as busy this quarter as I was last quarter. I feel that maybe, just maybe, I might be working to my full potential. When every second is planned, every hour mapped out so that I am doing something that accomplishes and/or furthers my goals and plans, I feel so happy and successful. Today, for example, is my craziest day: start work at 8:30, work til 10:30 when I run to class in Tech which starts at 11 (and yes, I do have to run.. Tech is 15 minutes away from my dorm, and my work is 10 minutes away, in the opposite direction), have class til 2, then run back to work and work til 5:30. At 5:30, I dash back to Chapin for my 6-9 class. Exciting? I should say so. But I thrive under pressure and find myself enjoying the fact that I have absolutely no time at all. Oh, and of course I forgot to mention the metric tons of homework which must be accomplished every night.
My current Medill challenge is an article suitable for publication in Chicago Bride. I thought and thought and finally came up with a pitch to write something about how the current economic recession is affecting weddings and brides, kind of like an advice column about how to plan a beautiful but cheap wedding. Tomorrow after class, I'll go talk to dress salons, florists, and bakeries, to see what they can tell me. Hopefully, I'll find customers in some of them who will be willing to tell me about their personal experiences, or at least give some insight. I hope I can pull it off.. my current journalism professor is not quite as marvelous as my first one, and I can already tell that she expects much, much more of us than was expected in 201-1. The level of professionalism that she expects us to uphold and the ease with which she expects us to maintain it.. let's just say I'm not quite there yet. But challenges are good, and hopefully she will push me but not break me.
Oh, and in case anyone was wondering how I managed to be posting in the middle of my self-proclaimed insane day.. I'm at work, watching the desk. Which, to tell the absolute truth, is a terribly depressing thing to do. Instead of sitting and playing with small children, I have to sit at a desk and do nothing, unless someone walks up to the door, in which case I press a button and let them in. Stimulating, I know.
My current Medill challenge is an article suitable for publication in Chicago Bride. I thought and thought and finally came up with a pitch to write something about how the current economic recession is affecting weddings and brides, kind of like an advice column about how to plan a beautiful but cheap wedding. Tomorrow after class, I'll go talk to dress salons, florists, and bakeries, to see what they can tell me. Hopefully, I'll find customers in some of them who will be willing to tell me about their personal experiences, or at least give some insight. I hope I can pull it off.. my current journalism professor is not quite as marvelous as my first one, and I can already tell that she expects much, much more of us than was expected in 201-1. The level of professionalism that she expects us to uphold and the ease with which she expects us to maintain it.. let's just say I'm not quite there yet. But challenges are good, and hopefully she will push me but not break me.
Oh, and in case anyone was wondering how I managed to be posting in the middle of my self-proclaimed insane day.. I'm at work, watching the desk. Which, to tell the absolute truth, is a terribly depressing thing to do. Instead of sitting and playing with small children, I have to sit at a desk and do nothing, unless someone walks up to the door, in which case I press a button and let them in. Stimulating, I know.
Thursday, December 4, 2008
Only in the Humanities dorm...
... is the phrase "let's sing some Christmas songs!" followed by an impromtu performance of eight people singing "Angels We Have Heard on High" in four different harmonies around a piano. It was pretty amazing. We had sopranos, altos, a bass, and a tenor. (I was the "#*%$ soprano" who got to carry the melody. :) Yes, only in college are those things called by such lovely names.)
I just love the amount of musical, artistic, and literary talent that is buried all around Chapin. We had a "talent show" before Thanksgiving in which we had an impromtu sight-reading music performance by our piano performance major and a violin major, which involved a lot of flying pages with notes, but sounded absolutely incredible (and they had never seen the music before!), a salsa/rhumba by Suz (soooo good, I was stunned), a flooring acapella duet, and some original, very well written and composed, songs. And this is what these people do for FUN!
I just love the amount of musical, artistic, and literary talent that is buried all around Chapin. We had a "talent show" before Thanksgiving in which we had an impromtu sight-reading music performance by our piano performance major and a violin major, which involved a lot of flying pages with notes, but sounded absolutely incredible (and they had never seen the music before!), a salsa/rhumba by Suz (soooo good, I was stunned), a flooring acapella duet, and some original, very well written and composed, songs. And this is what these people do for FUN!
Sunday, November 30, 2008
Happy Thanksgiving!
I had a wonderful first-holiday-away-from-home, enjoying the wonders of extended family this Thanksgiving season. Favorite tidbits were getting ALL the visting-with-grandparents time to myself, finally going to a Bed, Bath and Beyond, sleeping eight hours a night, eating home-cooked and non-dining hall food, and catching up with my life-long friend Leah!
Today consisted mainly of working on my final draft for my Medill project, which is actually coming along rather nicely. I just need an interview (really, just a sentence) with the Northwestern police that I'll get Monday morning, as soon as they'll let me talk to them, and then I'll read it outloud one final time.. and then submit it to the CMS system and be done! Except for my final presentation, which is just talking and easy to get ready.
Another incredible highlight of my weekend was talking on the phone to Marina, Diana, and Vika! Ahhh.. so much fun. I miss my friends a lot.. and it's fun to realize that but a great moment was leaving campus and realizing that I missed Chrissy, Suz, and Tricia too! I used more texting this weekend than I have since I've gotten here put together, probably. :)
I'm watching the ending of Return of the King with Papa on TV right now.. and remembering being obsessed four years ago.. I still know it by heart, though. Fun times..
"My friend.. you bow to no one!"
"And thus it was that the fourth age of Middle Earth began.. and the fellowship of the Ring, though eternally bound by friendship and love.. was ended. Thirteen months to the day since Gandalf sent us on our long journey, we found oursevles looking upon a familiar place.. we were home."
You know a story is a real classic when you find parallels to it in your life no matter when, where, or who you are.
Today consisted mainly of working on my final draft for my Medill project, which is actually coming along rather nicely. I just need an interview (really, just a sentence) with the Northwestern police that I'll get Monday morning, as soon as they'll let me talk to them, and then I'll read it outloud one final time.. and then submit it to the CMS system and be done! Except for my final presentation, which is just talking and easy to get ready.
Another incredible highlight of my weekend was talking on the phone to Marina, Diana, and Vika! Ahhh.. so much fun. I miss my friends a lot.. and it's fun to realize that but a great moment was leaving campus and realizing that I missed Chrissy, Suz, and Tricia too! I used more texting this weekend than I have since I've gotten here put together, probably. :)
I'm watching the ending of Return of the King with Papa on TV right now.. and remembering being obsessed four years ago.. I still know it by heart, though. Fun times..
"My friend.. you bow to no one!"
"And thus it was that the fourth age of Middle Earth began.. and the fellowship of the Ring, though eternally bound by friendship and love.. was ended. Thirteen months to the day since Gandalf sent us on our long journey, we found oursevles looking upon a familiar place.. we were home."
You know a story is a real classic when you find parallels to it in your life no matter when, where, or who you are.
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