Ten years from now

Being my father's daughter, i'm not much for celebrating an "arbitrary calendar event", but i do like reflecting and looking ahead on New Year's Eve. Last New Year's was different from any other. It was fun but not terribly reflective. I can't remember the one before that (except that there was no alcohol involved, so i'm not sure why i can't remember anything!). The one before that was spent singing, catching up, and doing dishes with long-ago friends and per former-life tradition, having pancakes, strong coffee, and fresh juice for breakfast. This New Year's Eve i'll stay up reflecting and playing games with friends, and then i'm heading to a soulcare/solitude retreat (paradoxically, with a friend! Ha ha. We're carpooling.) I'm looking forward to beginning the new calendar year this way.

Someone asked me today what i dreamed: where would they find me in ten years. I didn't know i knew until i answered. This dream is one i'm writing down, and i may even put it somewhere to remind me on distracting days. It will be interesting to see if it changes or if it sticks around for ten years.

Favorite places

I went to the Wild Animal Park with two of my former students this week. One of the baby elephants is only a month old! I think we watched it and the other baby elephants for almost half an hour.

Isn't it adorable? She can completely walk under the adult elephants in the enclosure without even grazing their tummies.

Tradition

Since moving to California, my family's Christmas day traditions include going to the beach Christmas afternoon. After stockings, breakfast, story, and presents, we pack up cold cut sandwiches, marinated artichoke hearts, Christmas cookies, a flask of coffee, and picnic plates, and off we go. The first years we went to Huntington Beach just north of the pier, where there is lots of secondary seating (landscape-speak for things you can sit on that aren't specifically chairs). The past several years we've gone to Corona del Mar. The weather is lovely (i even wore shorts one year) and the sunset is always beautiful. Many other people have the same idea and stroll around enjoying the weather and the view. Over half of the people there have dogs with them, and i usually end up half-wishing i'd received a puppy for Christmas. (Half wishing. Someday, but not yet!)

We stayed, as always, until the sun slipped behind Santa Catalina island.

here is where i am for now

Who says we have no fall color in southern California?

This is the white-blossom crape myrtle in my parents' backyard.

And a close-up of the same tree, with a vine weaving itself in.

Merry Christmas

This entry is a excerpt which i love, because it restores my hope on bad days and reminds me of the source of my hope on good days.

"Jesus bar-Joseph, the carpenter of Nazareth, was in fact and in truth, and in the most exact and literal sense of the words, the God 'by whom all things were made.' His body and brain were those of a common man; His personality was the personality of God, so far as that personality could be expressed in human terms. He was not a kind of demon or fairy pretending to be human; He was in every respect a genuine living man. He was not merely a man so good as to be 'like God'--He was God.

Now, this is not just a pious commonplace; it is not commonplace at all. For what this means is this, among other things: that for whatever reason God chose to make man as he is--limited and suffering and subject to sorrows and death--He had the honesty and the courage to take His own medicine. Whatever game He is playing with His creation, He has kept His own rules and played fair. He can exact nothing from man that He has not exacted from Himself. He has Himself gone through the whole of human experience, from the trivial irritations of family life and the cramping restrictions of hard work and lack of money to the worst horrors of pain and humiliation, defeat, despair, and death. When He was a man, He played the man. He was born in poverty and died in disgrace and thought it worthwhile....

....So that is the outline of the official story--the tale of the time when God was the underdog and got beaten, when He submitted to the conditions He had laid down and became a man like the men He had made, and the men He had made broke Him and killed Him. This is the dogma we find so dull--this terrifying drama of which God is the victim and the hero.

If this is dull, then what, in Heaven's name, is worthy to be called exciting?"

Sayers, Dorothy L. "The Greatest Drama Ever Staged is the official Creed of Christendom". In Creed or Chaos?, 6-9. Manchester, NH: Sophia Institute Press, 1999.

Califonia Scenario

Our last field trip for the quarter blitzed all over south Orange County. We started at Roger's Gardens, a lovely nursery in Corona Del Mar. It's one of my mom's favorites: a bit spendy, but everything is beautiful there. They have interesting specimen trees (i want a Harry Lauder Walking Stick) and the plants aren't laid out in boring flats; they are arranged tastefully. Being near Christmas, all the colors were silver-sage, pink, red, white and green, not my favorites, but our prof took us there to see micro-design and planting arrangements--a very nice idea.

The next stop was the Irvine Water Management District and the Sea & Sage Audubon duck area. That was a quick stop and parking was amusing. We followed the visitor signs, honest, but somehow all eight cars were parked somewhere we should not have been, and we got locked in, and probably heads rolled. (Not ours--security's). (The construction guys didn't do a good job directing us past rumbling lorries, either. Yikes!) I want to go back with my bird book over Christmas break, although it seemed to be mostly coots.

The final stop was in Santa Ana near South Coast Plaza. This is a square in-between several large office buildings, and the designer is Isamu Noguchi. It was a cold day, and dreary. One of my classmates said that in summer, it's quite hot--the walls are white, the ground is stone, there is little shade, and the albedo of the surrounding buildings is high. There are concerts there during lunch time sometimes too...a mini Pershing Square, albeit more successful? I want to return and observe more here too. I got lost looking for this California Scenario: there are no signs, and parking is limited and expensive. No one knows it as "California Scenario" either--but a man from whom i asked directions did know of it as "the Noguchi place".

I thought this tree looked like a dear, but what's with the picket fence? That made it a bit kitschy.

This is the mountains, whence our water comes. It trickles down the groove in this sculpture and meanders through the plaza. There are foot bridges but, if you aren't wearing heels and are feeling bold, you can leap over the stream in most places.

This is Los Angeles, which sucks up all the water. The stream disappears under Los Angeles to the right. Notice the grid line? That's supposedly a reference to city streets. Bad Los Angeles (whatever). The scale is hard to detect: the sculpture is about ten feet high at the peak.

Running a race

In high school, they said they needed a fifth runner. All i needed to do was to keep going-- run, walk, limp--just cross that line. Not every runner who began a race crossed the finish, but i want to be one who placed instead of the last to cross, the one who set a real record instead of shaving scant seconds off my time.

Fifteen years later, i still want to be the one who crosses victorious with arms raised high instead of who i am: shin-splinted, barely into the first mile and already lagging far behind bronze.

The pack and the stands say: keep moving ahead. You can do it! Keep going! Run! Drop everything that hinders! If you can't run, walk. Or crawl. Or at the least fall forward.

I know i can cross the finish, but i don't want to run merely to limp across the line.
Instead of the one kindly cheered for, i want to be the one to cheer the others in.

Christmas list

All i want for Christmas is to

• sleep 40 extra hours and eight hours every night
  
• read or finish books (Founding Brothers, Love & Respect, Transforming Discipleship, The Divine Conspiracy, Making Room, Lest Innocent Blood Be Shed)
• move my furniture into my apartment from my parents' house (done over Thanksgiving--thanks Mike & Tim!)
  
• play the violin
• hang out with my brothers & sister-in-law
  
• make my friend in Malawi a tea cozy
• make another friend a baby quilt
• hike at least twice (once at San Diego Creek of the IRWD) and bird while out there
  
• stargaze
• really learn how to use my spiffy new camera

To see peace on earth through God fully reigning would be nice, too.

To sleep...to dream

I came home from work yesterday and, having had a headache all day that got progressively worse (Santa Ana's? Allergies? Stress? Something?) i decided to take a nap before tackling a response paper and a stack of readings. That was 4:30.

"Nap, then dinner", i thought, "then study".

Next thing i knew, it was 1:30 in the morning. I almost got up to study. Then i thought twice about that, decided that getting up to study at 1:30 in the morning was more than a little ridiculous, and went back to bed until 5:30...

...which means i had 13 hours of glorious sleep.

I can hardly wait until Christmas break!

ZZZZzzzzzzzz.

Contour project

Today two projects and a paper were due and homework (but the homework has been adjourned until Monday). The projects are turned in. The paper is being reviewed by my project partner. It's at least four hours before when i have been going to bed, no projects or homework due until Monday, and i feel like celebrating!

Wait a minute. There's a pile of readings due at midnight tomorrow, and another pile with a response paper due Friday morning. The celebration will be limited to air-popped popcorn and hot cocoa. No sprinkles.

This lovely thing is one project that was due today. I think i was supposed to sand off the burn marks from the angle grinder, but i liked the dark lines and didn't sand to the point where they were removed. I learned a lot:

• Plywood is harder to seriously damage than you might think.
• Sanding off wood glue drips takes effort and layers. The stuff soaks in!
  
• Routers and angle grinders are difficult to control. I have a lot of respect for intricate woodwork (unless it's done with a laser cutter, which our shop has but i haven't used).
• Sanding for five hours can almost take the fingerprints off your thumbs!
• Even after sanding with 600 grit, a water-based coat will make the plywood buckle a bit. Sand and reapply.
• Expressing a concept in wood is tricky. Does this say "swirl" and "wave" to you?

And now, back to polishing touches on that paper, and to reading, and then to bed...before tomorrow. Yay!

Salk Institute

Our most recent field trip was to three points south, and while the other two were interesting i have no photos of them. This is an ocean-facing view of the main courtyard at the Salk Institute in La Jolla, designed by Louis Kahn. Quite an amazing place architecturally, several visual tools are used here. For one thing, notice the lines toward the horizon? They aren't equal in width to length, making the courtyard look much larger than it is. (I have a photo with a classmate to the side that neatly puts it to scale, but he's identifiable and i don't want to post a photo without permission!) The ocean isn't visible from this point, but if you step forward a little all of a sudden it's there, and when people walk across the far end, their heads line up with the horizon. Architecturally, that is a position of power and dominance for this courtyard. You have to watch where you step because little drainage ditches are carved into the stone, as well as a runnel. Our tour guide said they cover up the ditches and stop the runnel for the annual gala so that people don't break the heels off their shoes. And it's very windy!

The architect chose materials that blend together: the color of the water echoes the eucalyptus and lime trees at the other end of the courtyard, and the concrete walls were finished so that as they age, they will more and more closely resemble the travertine used on the ground plane. The ocean is just barely distinguishable in this photo--it was a hazy, overcast, cold day, and a lot of the time the sea blended into the sky.

Last but not least, i walked over this several times before i noticed it glint in the faint sunlight. I didn't merely take a photo because i like the subtle inlay (the color blends in and you walk on it, versus some bold and brassy confrontational entrance plaque).

A normal life, or, I have slept too much this week

Doing some research today, i came across this quote by Albert Camus:

"Nobody realizes that some people expend tremendous energy merely to be normal."

Ah. Maybe that's why i am tired? ;-)

Nah. If only it was that easy. I am tired because i am silly and trying to work while going to school in a program for which i was forewarned that people who try to work usually don't make it through the three years, that there have been divorces, that sometimes you just need to cry to your classmates who will understand. Work and have a life. What was i thinking? I'm slowly cutting out the life, but i am very reluctant to cut out work. One of my profs just paid off his credit card debt from grad school--i don't want that! Besides the (very nice) money, i love my job and i enjoy my older adult students very much. But i don't want to be a busy person, nor a workaholic, nor live like i believe in salvation through works instead of grace...

I'm not as tired as i should be. One project was due yesterday but our prof postponed it until next week, very clearly saying "it's not because I feel sorry for you!". (Sure it isn't--we were falling asleep or looking at him glassy-eyed from the project we'd turned in at 8:30 that morning and i have only teaching IGCSE Geography getting me through contour grading). Anyway, that reprieve somehow messed up my stress-level-motivation index, and i'm now feeling quite lahteedah about the whole thing. Focus, focus, stay up, read! Draw those sketches! Three weeks to go!

Long Beach: downtown

These photos are from downtown Long Beach during our weekly field trip. We were waiting to cross the street. I don't know what the building is, but there were several others from a similar era and style in the vicinity. I like seeing a city that has preserved its old buildings, even if the interiors were gutted to bring them up to code and it's just the outside that looks neat. By the way, you can kind of tell what part of Long Beach you are in by the streetlights. Just a few blocks away, the lampposts are old-fashioned and painted bright blue and yellow, like a circus.

This photo below is of the Pike area. I thought the contrast from the park in San Pedro was worth highlighting--palms, broad streets, little shade. We were there in the late afternoon and it was quite cool; i'm not sure i'd enjoy the area during a hot summer day. On the other hand, to the right are restaurants mostly patronized for dinner, and on the left, a multi-use shopping area mostly used at night, so maybe shade isn't such a concern as a feeling of visibility and openness that large old trees would obscure. There are interesting issues involved in re-development...some people miss the rough character of old Long Beach. Other people love the liveliness (and the moolah doesn't hurt). The condos are affordable...for a certain income bracket. Hmmm. Tricky questions without easy answers. At least parking was (relatively) cheap for a downtown area.

My apologies to my classmates: I used to avoid having people in my photos but now i am always snapping them in for scale. This sidewalk was huge! because it doubles as a bike path.

A park in San Pedro

Our weekly field trip was supposed to be to San Diego, but due to the fires, that was postponed until November. Instead, we went to the Los Angeles Harbor area (and could have spent several more hours there--we didn't get to the berths or docks.)

These photos are from a park at the very end of Gaffey Street in San Pedro. It's a relatively old park, designed on the passive recreation model (strolling, picnicking, concerts). The more recent park model is active: soccer & baseball fields, basketball courts, things like that. I kind of liked this old park--it's around an old lighthouse and perched on cliffs. The ocean didn't smell so good as it is one of the most polluted bits of ocean in the US. Sad. The view was decent considering the air was filled with smoke from the recent fires--i bet it's breathtaking in scope on a clear day. The photo below is of the restrooms: very discreetly hidden, no?

This huge old tree is representative of many others planted around the edges of the park. It's a kind of magnolia--grandiflora? Not sure. The man with the hat is 6 feet tall, to give you an idea of the scale.

Up the hill from here is an old gun turret base left-over from WWII. Up the hill from that is an enormous bell: the Korean Friendship Bell. I didn't take any photos of it because i was in the wrong place (my class was meeting at the lighthouse) but i'm going to go back sometime to hear it rung!

Now i have been to Arizona

It is hot, dry, and incredibly lovely.

This is the Chapel of the Holy Cross in Sedona. I have a major assignment to investigate the design and history of the chapel, after which i hope i will have a greater appreciation for it and not mental exhaustion. ;-) A few more photos to come, after i download them from my (new very exciting yay!) camera.

a smoggy day in...

After the weekend rain, my drive to school on Monday was gorgeous. The mountains on the horizon were crisp and sharp, the sky was clear blue, and all the plants had the dust and grit washed off so their leaves shone vivid green.

It was smoggy today, and i could tell. Today the mountains, although quite visible, didn't seem quite as close, and haze hung in the air. Nonetheless i saw Catalina Island and another one behind it (San Miguel?) as i drove over the hill on Colima, so the air must not have been that bad!

Why are they called "parkways" when we drive on them?

Reading The Power Broker, a biography of Robert Moses, i think i've learned why they are called "parkways". They were designed for passenger vehicles and, in New York, they were the main routes to public parks and beaches. Tree and lawn plantings along the road were supposed to be park-like in contrast to expressways that were solely meant to get from one place to another and allowed truck traffic. So, there's the answer to that!

We need more parkways in Southern California--having ivy and concrete stamps on a wall is nice and all that, but you're still sandwiched between to walls of concrete and thousands of pounds of fast-moving steel. On top of that, i hate it when gravel trunks are on the freeway because invariably little stones come whizzing by and scratch my poor car and chip the windshield, arg.

I didn't find an answer to the driveway part, but maybe "driveways" are called that because the original ones, for large homes, were the carriage drive and not merely the short distance from the curb to the garage.

back to class

The fall quarter began on Friday. My first impression is that i hate sitting still for hours and hours inside! Ack! I began this program so that i can have an inside-outside career, but a good portion of the prep for that career is sitting inside. :-( Helping my mother rearrange plants this afternoon and assembling stuff at my apartment reminds me of how much i like to play in the dirt and work with my hands.

After being merrily scatterbrained Friday night and running around today, my second impression is that these profs are stellar, they are going to stretch us in a variety of ways, and they bring very different strengths to the program. It's going to be a tough quarter (why am i taking 14 grad-level units!?) but it's going to be good.

So, back to school it is. We do get to walk around the studio, we have a quiet sun-speckled courtyard with very nice teak bench samples, and we will have lots of field trips all over Southern California and the Southwest. Yay for school!

Pura Vida: a new stamp in my passport

My most recent adventure was a trip to Costa Rica with a two-fold purpose: to have a mini vacation in-between quarters, and to see & encourage a friend who lives and works there. I'll grant that the above photo is not what one would normally think of for a vacation photo, but it was one of my favorite spots: the La Paz Waterfall Gardens. We didn't stay there--it's very posh--but you can visit the waterfalls and creature exhibits without being a hotel guest. I have other photos of steps and walkways for landscape architecture ideas--some people take travel photos of people. I take travel photos of rocks, railings, and bugs.

The butterfly sanctuary is breath-taking, almost literally. The interior is full of natural light and very warm and steamy to provide a good environment for the butterflies and the plants they need. There are stands holding ripe bananas and guavas for them to snack on, lots of lantana and other plants, and signs explaining the twenty species and the plants they require. Most amazing are all the gorgeous butterflies fluttering around. One brushed past my cheek. Another brand-new one landed on my friend and didn't want to get off her arm.

The butterflies seem to know they are inside. Even though the windows were impermeable, they hovered around the windows as if they wanted to get out. I didn't see any 'butterfly paintings' in Costa Rica like there are in Cameroon (i.e. pictures made of butterfly wings: very lovely, but very sad). Nonetheless, even though Costa Rica apparently does a good job in habitat conservation, there is still less land for butterflies. Weather, such as the 1987 El Nino, also can do in a species. Because of this, the butterfly sanctuary raises butterflies through the entire life cycle, hence the chrysalises above. They find where the chrysalises have formed and carefully pin the bit of leaf or whatever to the sticks, sorted by species. The added advantage to not having chrysalises stolen or stepped on is that visitors can watch butterflies emerging!

Did you know that butterflies emerge with their wings all wrinkled up? They have to struggle out of their chrysalis shell in order to pump blood-fluid through their wings to open them up. Then they hang & hover for a while, letting their wings dry out. If you help a butterfly out of its chrysalis, the wings will remain wrinkled and it will never fly. Besides, their wings rub off onto our fingers and that damages them, too.

Here is a photo of an emerging Myscelia cyaniris butterfly:

Below are two photos of the Morpho peleides limpida "Blue Morph" butterfly:
Camouflage side
Iridescent side

City of (our Lady of the) Angels

I'm not an Angeleno: I don't live in Los Angeles. I don't even live in LA County, although it is just 100 yards to the north. I don't think LA looks like a city where angels live and i don't think it looks like a city where Mary, the mother of Jesus, has much influence. Nonetheless, i do find it kind of fun to take the metrolink downtown and hop on the subway to go to the library and have cheap ice cream & great Lebanese food at Grand Central Market while i'm there. There are lots of nifty buildings to gawk at: Grand Central Station, Olvera Street, the Bradbury, the Biltmore, the DWP...

This is a view of the Bunker Hill area from the DWP building. The shiny building is Walt Disney Concert Hall and the tall colonnade building on the far left is the Dorothy Chandler Pavilion. I don't know the names of the other skyscrapers.

Since two of the summer's projects involved redesigning a park in downtown Los Angeles, we had several field trips out there. I'd been on a walking tour given by the Los Angeles Conservancy when i was a lot younger, too. I talked about LA a lot, and one of my friends wanted to see what downtown was like, so we went yesterday to walk around. I took her everywhere my professor took us except i forgot the new cathedral. How did i do that!? I thought it was one of the friendliest buildings downtown, and i really liked the architecture and the tapestries. Oh well. Next trip. I also didn't take her down the government building section, because it was hot (over 100F) and my feet hurt. Somehow, even wearing flip flops, her feet didn't hurt until we sat down on the train to go home!

The cathedral is probably my current favorite downtown building, right before the Bradbury. The stone is a warm color, and the building is thoroughly modern in shape although ageless in function. I like all the tables with patio umbrellas too. The Bradbury is the kind of office building i would build if i was going to build an office building--a huge skylight for a roof, and beautiful wrought iron, so that you don't even really feel like you're inside. I guess it had been used for lots of movies but i haven't seen any of them.

The Millennium Biltmore is lavishly decorated and wonderfully hushed inside, even when lots of guests are coming through. My friend and i saw someone famous, but we don't know who it was--a musician of some sort who must be a regular guest because a desk person said "Nice to have you back, sir." And everyone is polite--even though i wander around downtown in rugged sandals and a straw hat, they've politely answered my questions about the tours (LA Conservancy does them) and they don't turn up their noses. Very elegant. Someday i want to dress properly and have afternoon tea in the Rendevous Court.

And then the library. It's air-conditioned. There are drinking fountains in mosaic-covered recessed nooks. The bathrooms are clean. There are comfy reading chairs, well-lit study tables, and tons and tons of books. It's also a nifty building, going down into the ground instead of going up, and a large atrium of natural light brightens all those subterranean floors.

Tuolumne Meadows

This was a tiny islet in the river/creek that runs through Tuolumne Meadows and the nearby backcountry. There hadn't been a lot of snow this past winter, so the river wasn't very high; the island was about two feet above water level. It's wooded with lodge pole pines (Pinus contorta). One in the middle is taller and thicker than the rest, but it looks mostly dead. Maybe an old fire burned it or lightning struck it and the rest--all about the same height and i have no idea how old--have grown since then. The undergrowth is wild onion (smelling it made me hungry!) and two other plants i can't yet identify.

I sat on the bow of the island to sketch for several hours on a comfy seat of roots and large granite stones, with the sound of the river and my classmates and the warm sun and a cool breeze...it was a lovely day, far from the very crowded Yosemite Valley that most everyone else visits. I must say though, it doesn't very much feel like 'wilderness' when you're only a 45 minute hike from a road and other hikers pass through to other parts of the park.

Bodie--a town with few right angles

This is a photo from Bodie, CA, one of the best-preserved ghost towns in the West. That may be because it was a living town until the 1930's, when an accidentally set fire (don't play with matches!!) burned nearly 95% of the buildings, and it was preserved after that by a family until the state park system purchased it in the 1960's. The town is kept in what the rangers call "a state of arrested decay". They try to keep the town just the way it was when the state parks inherited it. Some buildings are propped up a bit, some of the firewood looks freshly chopped, the meeting hall is a museum and the houses with intact curtains are used as ranger residences, but other than that it is as it was found.

Bodie looks like people were sucked away by an alien spaceship, leaving clothes on pegs, dishes on the table, suitcases open at the hotels...the reason is that all the roads into or out of town were toll roads. It cost much less to walk out with as little as you needed, or ride a horse out, than to take a wagon or two of your belongings. It even cost less to replace all those belongings wherever you ended up than to pay the tolls to haul them out. That's why so much was left behind.

Bodie was one of the sites where we spent a day to sketch. Because of the streets, hills, rocks and ruins about, it's a fantastic place to practice perspective drawing. On the other hand, if you try to draw things exactly as they are (which we're supposed to be practicing) the buildings look cockeyed, because so few walls, doors, and roofs are at proper right angles anymore. I chose to sketch one of the few buildings that was still pretty straight, from the front, so that i could tell if it was me or the building that was off. :-)

You can find out more about Bodie from this organization or from the state park website. The park is open all year round but the road is not plowed in the winter.

more from the field trip

This is a photo of the cemetery at Manzanar, which is a historic site now part of the national park service. That's Mt. Williamson in the background (i think); Mt. Whitney is just a tad bit south.

There are more graves in the cemetery than people actually buried there, but more people died in the camp than are buried there too. I guess family members came and got the remains to rebury them closer to home. One of the internees designed the monument, and many people come to pay homage to the dead: there are paper cranes, coins, and other paraphernalia on the fence and around the markers.

Manzanar is definitely worth a stop if you're on your way to Mt. Whitney, Mammoth or the Sierras from SoCal! For one thing, the exhibit is incredibly informative and has lots of artifacts to look at, including a model of the housing and the entire camp. The exhibits are also air-conditioned, and there are clean bathrooms and great-tasting drinking fountains. And it's free! What more does one need for a great stop on a long trip?

Eastern Sierra Field Trip

This is a photo of tufa from the South Tufa Scenic Area at Mono Lake.

I just got back from this summer's field trip up to the Eastern Sierras. We saw Manzanar, the Lower Owens River Project, various hot springs, Mono Lake, Bodie, Rush Creek, Lee Vining & Lee Vining Canyon (a glacier-carved canyon), and Tuolumne Meadows. I'll post more photos in time...this is a study break. The trip and the company--my classmates and a professor and his wife--were fantastic, but it was sure nice to get home and take a hot shower! My hair still smelled of camp smoke last night.

The tufa posts out in the water are home to several osprey nests, which you can see through binocs or a telescope. They are formed by calcium carbonate precipitates from fresh water springs that bubble into the highly alkaline, carbonated lake. The weather was hot, and the scenery was a little surreal albeit gorgeous. Lots of seagulls bobbed around like bath duckies because of the buoyancy of the water as they ate brine shrimp and brine fly larvae.

field trips

Who says Los Angeles isn't beautiful? Blue sky, summer days, shiny buildings, trees...There was a sliver of moon above those buildings which is why i took the photo. I'll have to adjust it and see if the moon shows up.

birding

Yesterday our sambucus provided habitat for a bird we hadn't seen in our yard before. There were two of them; they bonked their beaks against the branches, looking for bugs. My mother and i can't agree on what it is though, because our three bird books have very different pictures for a variety of species. We do agree that we hope it doesn't start bonking holes in our house. (At least there are no acorns around here--i've seen redwood trees and gazebos jammed full of acorns to the point that they no longer look structurally sound.)

According to one, it looks very much like a ladder-backed woodpecker, but their range is East Coast. It looked a bit like a flicker, except that the back seemed more white with black stripes than black with white stripes. It looked a bit like something else, but because we didn't get a very good view (i had just groggily awoken from a nap, the binocs were downstairs, the sun was in our eyes), i think it had a red head but she thinks it had an orange head--and that makes a big difference! Hopefully we will be better prepared when it comes back and i can add something else to my life-list. Yay!

being nice to the core

During snack-time today, one of my students mentioned that his wife said she didn't want to dance anymore. He was rather forlorn over this and grieving to some of his friends. "She said she just doesn't want to dance anymore", he said. "I really like dancing but I can't dance without her, so I guess that's that". One of the other men suggested she might change her mind--he said his wife often did--but K didn't think so.

I've never met his wife. Perhaps she said this months ago and it just came up today; perhaps she has arthritis and it hurts too much to dance. At any rate, there was not much i could offer by means of consolation. I asked him what kind of dancing they used to do: mostly ballroom, he said. He's right--that is a style in which it is difficult to change partners. It's not like going square or line dancing.

I enjoy (tame) ballroom dancing very much--it's about music and love and communication and partnership--and i can't imagine what i'd feel if i had a life-long dancing partner who didn't want to dance [with me] anymore someday. I hope i never do something like that to whoever he may be...

...just like i hope i lose the ability to speak rather than become an old lady who randomly swears at people in the hallway.

hope and Helm's Deep

My view of the world used to be that life--whether mine specifically or human existence in general--was like the battle at Helm's Deep in Tolkien's trilogy. We're stuck in a dismal chasm with no escape, a small band fighting to the death and watching our friends fall beside us. It is deep night with dawn a long way off, and hope of rescue even further. The enemy blankets the valley in front of us, foully raging at us and mocking our predicament. We sent for help--we know it is coming--but it seems highly unlikely that help will arrive in time.

And then, just when we completely lose hope and charge out to deaths that will be, at least, valiant, Gandalf comes charging over the mountains with reinforcements and drives away the hordes. The tide of battle shifts completely--but it is a gift, an amazing miracle, that he arrived in time.

I have been told--and i am coming to realize--that this is not an accurate view of the world. ;-) People have different metaphors for life, and mine will probably always be a battle (versus a race, a game or a journey) but i'm trying to no longer see it as a losing battle. I don't even think it's accurate to see it as losing-the-battle-but-winning-the-war. On the other hand, i have no solid image with which to replace the picture of Helm's Deep in my mind.

I may be the elf that dies on the wall or i may be Eowyn who lives to fight another battle, but in either case, the situation is not hopeless. (Okay. I'd probably be a mere peasant, not Eowyn or an elf.) Hope was not in vain, not even for those who died before seeing that hope fulfilled. Things might (and did, and do) get worse, but they will be all right someday. It isn't a fluffy, imaginary hope--it was based on something and someone solid and dependable, a person who had given them that hope and had the means to fulfill it.

That is something i would like to see aptly captured in a film: Hope, especially a desperate hope, fulfilled.

I am camembert

This is from a cute little test that i stumbled across while doing research for my boss on a hiring/recruiting website...i took note of the title and took it tonight. I turned out as blue cheese a few times, once as chevre, but mostly as camembert--but i don't think any of the descriptions are much like me! I'm not very organized (although i'd like to be) and i'm quite a klutz. On the other hand, camembert and bleu combined on a cracker is quite delicious...mmmm.
Try it for yourself


You are camembert!

"You are a creamy, delicate tasting cheese. You are refined and graceful and very organized. As a very insightful cheese, you like to ponder the meaning of life.

A very famous French cheese, Camembert dates back to the 18th century and is named for a Norman village in which there is a statue of the creator of this particular variety (Marie Harel). Originally, this cheese was dry and yellow-brown, but after a few modifications it became softer and more earthy. In 1855 one of Marie Harel's daughters presented Napoleon with a piece of that cheese, saying that it came from village called Camembert. He liked it a lot and from that moment Camembert became known by its contemporary name. At the beginning of its ripening, Camembert is crumbly and soft and gets creamier over time (usually 2-3 weeks). A genuine Camembert has a delicate salty taste.
[ Country: France || Milk: cow milk || Texture: soft ]"

toddlers

A friend of mine has a brother currently with the military in Iraq. He told his family he was very discouraged because the Iraqi soldiers they work with steal from them. He said the people don't seem to know right from wrong, and they don't choose the good even when it is offered to them. [This isn't a political comment: i've heard equally valid stories from other friends that share how much good and improvement is going on, so i guess there is both. This post, however, is meant as a comment on humans in general.]

I wonder if that's analogous to how God feels when he looks at Earth. Humans in general--myself included--don't often choose to do, say, or believe what is good. On the other hand, maybe God doesn't become discouraged at all because he knows the end of the story in detail. It did make me reflect on how i'm living at the moment and want to not be a disappointment to God.

A wise woman told me that God isn't disappointed in us. Not to underestimate his holiness or glory, but she said to think of myself as a toddler--are parents disappointed when, in attempting to walk, their two-year-old plops down on her diaper-padded rear? No. They get her back up and encourage her to walk to their arms.

I guess i need to have a more accurate self-image. I'm not yet a finished, mature product although i have learned many things and have even matured a little. I am a toddler, especially if (and i believe it to be true) we are immortal. When i choose to not do right, discipline is in order; when i am unable to accomplish something, God is merciful.

(Discipline is a sort of mercy, too. Thank God he doesn't leave us stuck the way we are!)

okay. maybe not the end.

Chattering loudly to each other, a small flock of parrots flew overhead as i sat in my car at work this evening in Fullerton. Certainly gregarious little creatures, i wonder where they live? Why hasn't anyone caught them? Are they an indigenous species regaining strength in numbers, or are they released (or escaped) imports? They were too high up to clearly distinguish size or color for an identification. They're noisier than flocks of Greys, which whistle and click more than shriek (in the wild. In captivity they definitely shriek. Mine has picked up a nasty ear-piercing imitation of the smoke detector dead battery alarm).

the end

cats, and why i think they are evil

As i went to put on my sneakers which were by the back door (since they were dusty from hiking & camping), i noticed that one of the cats had demonstrated delightful aim when regurgitating a meal. Of all the places in the house, why one of my sneakers? They were only a month old! They didn't even smell like feet yet, and now they will forever reek of regurgitated cat food. Lovely.

Sometimes i really understand why people in the 1500's thought they were witches' familiars: they have an uncanny ability to be obnoxious.

happy birthday to me

I went camping at Anza Borrego State Desert for a night. It's a long way to drive for just one night, but that's all i had--and it's worth it. The drive there was mostly in the dark, especially as low clouds (can there be fog in the desert?) blocked sunset light, but the drive back was gorgeous--live oak, blooming ceanothus, and elderberry all green on the hills with other things i can't yet identify: Ocotillo, i think, in the desert. Red fuschia-looking things. Some sort of white trumpet-shaped flower. Mistletoe in the trees.

As we set up the tents, few stars were visible because of the clouds; but as the night grew later, ah, how many stars there were! I know it's not half as many as could be seen in a truly dark place, or one not surrounded by hills and trees. The sky was not a star-strewn as some nights i've seen in New Hampshire or Vermont or Maine, but i hadn't seen that many stars since i'd spent a week in Maroua a few summers ago, out in a village on a flood plain with no electricity. That sky was pale with stars, not a dark sky at all. This one sparkled.

I found Leo again. Saturn was bright. I think i can finally id Gemini without confusing it with every other pair of bright stars. There was a shooting star. And then i saw the sunrise too, coming up between the trees.

missing neighbors

Last night i realized something else that i miss very much. Not fufu and njama njama--i can make a meal that passably resembles that here. Not the heat or plenteous sunshine, although i do miss those too. No, i miss the community.

Granted, it can be aggravating to live and work with the same people, but the community wasn't that tiny: a good hundred people or more. I did hang out with people with whom i did not work directly. Besides that, i was teaching: a most lone ranger sort of career even if one is on a team.

Several hours a week (if not per day) were spent talking about life, politics, history, and our work with a colleague as we sat at our adjacent desks and watched the students walk past our window. I'd exchange waves with people as we passed going to or from the neighborhood. I spent several evenings a week hanging out or grading papers with another colleague, and we ate dinner together several nights a week too (I'd prepare mine and climb up two flights of stairs to eat with her and her housemate). I had tea or just a nice chat with someone in the office, and could pop by on weekends to say hello. Those were friends for two years or even for only one, but the amount of hours we spent together is much more than what i spend with friends here, which is probably why friendships deepen[ed] so much faster overseas.

That doesn't happen here. I do not work with people, i work alone. I do not live with colleagues. My friends do not live upstairs or across the street. I could make friends with the people across the street, i suppose, and i should be more friendly than exchanging mere salutations, but there is also something to be said for the deep bond of a faith community and a shared goal (which most of my neighbors do not have as of yet, and they're hardly home too).

I miss that. I've realized that you can't really return to a place; i've moved enough to know that through experience. It wouldn't be the same if i went back to where i was: many people, including my best friends, are no longer there. One does make new friends and it doesn't take as long, but it is always changing. And in that same token, i was fooling myself to think i really could come back here and feel like i belonged. Who was it that said "You cannot step into the same river twice"? (Ah, Heraclitus. Next question: where did i hear that!?)

I even miss the shallow things, like greeting the elderly lady who sat and knitted in the sunshine outside her house at the foot of the road, and the little kids that would run up to greet any adult who passed.

Ah, it's hard. A new circle will be built, but it does take a dismayingly long time.

time for some good things

The other day i caught myself singing a song:

Sachez que l'Eternel est Dieu, Il est le Roi, Il est bon...Il nous a donné la vie: Il est bon; Il nous a donné Son Fils: Il est bon. Il nous a donné sa joie: Il est bon.

It's a song that was sung at church and sometimes at school where i was. The basic translation is "Know that the Lord is God, He is the King, He is good...He's given us eternal life: he is good; He's given to us his Son, He is good; He's given to us his joy: He is good." The melody is cheerful and celebratory, and it's a call-response song, meaning that the song leader usually would put in the "He's given to us _____" bit and the congregation would respond: He is good.

Sometimes people here complain about how some songs are repetitive (or how the song is simple and we sing it through four times). I must admit, i do often see their point.

It never bothered me to sing call-response songs for an hour, though, even though they are by nature repetitive and change but only a little. Maybe it's because it's more like a meditative (and cheerful) chant, and an elaboration of a theme. I like meditating on God's goodness through that song, thinking of all the good things he has given as i sing.

going out for coffee

I didn't realize i needed to unwind from the past two years until just before i began this blog. Since nothing much has struck me lately, this may be coming to an end although there are cultural differences that still stand out.

For example:
I just got home from coffee with a friend. I probably shouldn't give that big green logo as much business as i do (although my usual is merely a tall decaf, nothing froofy) but i am as happy as a clam to have a relatively inexpensive place to go, the independent vehicular means to get myself there, the freedom to stay out as late as i like without a safety-curfew (or carjackings) to worry about...i do appreciate this very much.

Two cheers for America. It's far from perfect but it does have many good points.

I felt the earth move

Why do these things always happen while i am home alone?

It serves me right. If i had been in bed and asleep like a sane person i wouldn't have felt it at all. At least i had the handy dandy United States Geological Survey website to check: that way i knew it really was an earthquake and not someone trying to break into the house. It was very mild, merely rattling desk implements and my nerves.

I used to check the USGS website frequently when i was in Cameroon. My family and many friends live in earthquake prone areas, and i'd check every time a tremor was mentioned in their vicinities to see if it really was near them or not. I checked once because several of us felt something like an earthquake, but no earthquake showed up nearby. It might have been the large one in eastern Congo, but i doubt we would have felt it from so far way.

And now, i am near them.

new shoes!

A long time ago i read a short story by Ray Bradbury entitled The Sound of Summer Running. In it he extols the delightful feeling of new sneakers and how they can make a person feel exuberantly ready to run.

Although i do enjoy the springiness of new shoes, i don't particularly like running. I like gamboling, frisking around like a puppy after Frisbees i rarely catch. In Cameroon i walked several miles several times a week with a friend or two, and sometimes we'd run up the hills to get them over sooner. I'd bolt if it was raining and i was unprepared to be soaked. But in general, i haven't run much in recent history.

So, coming back without a lot of luggage room, my sneakers didn't make the cut. They had been dyed a dusty orange from walking & jogging on a orange dirt road for two years, the tread was nearly worn, and besides, they'd been to all kinds of agricultural land and through all kinds of...stuff. Not exactly the thing to make customs agents happy.

I didn't buy a new pair as soon as i got back. I have 'nice' shoes for work where sneakers are unacceptable. I don't run; it's too cold (to me) to hike right now; i'm happy walking in my sturdy sandals. I've gotten back into a walking routine, slowly--it's less fun alone, most of the time, although i do enjoy the quasi-solitude and quietness. Sometimes i walk with a friend--but it's a little creepy at night, even with a friend and a stick. Last night i felt like breaking into a run, but i didn't--it's hard to run holding a stick--and i was wearing sandals. I trip just walking when wearing my sandals; sometimes i trip while barefoot; and i had just had a painful reminder of my klutziness:

Last week i exuberantly broke into a run, randomly, while fetching something from my car. Alas, i was wearing loose flats. One slid off mid-stride, i tripped over it, and in painful slow motion crashed and skidded to my hands and knees. Jeans sure do come in handy in times like that! I have a huge bruise on one knee (why only one i don't know since they both hurt).

I decided it was time to invest in a pair of good sneakers.

So, today on the way to work i trotted down to my favorite out-doorsie store. A nice lady asked me about my plans for my sneakers, made recommendations, measured my feet, and brought out four varieties. I happily tried them on, walked up and down a ramp, skipped around a little bit...15, maybe 20 minutes later, i was the happy owner of a new pair of sneakers. Yay! Effortless, painless, and now i have happy feet. Tomorrow i am going to run.

(Until i find out i need my inhaler. That is harder to get here.)

birds

I'm consolidating my life list--birds that i have seen in various places. I also overhead some people complaining about dating. Oddly enough, the way my brain works (a bit like a ping pong ball) weaver birds came to mind.

There are many species of weaver bird; i'm still checking which one i saw in Cameroon. They build purse-shaped nests out of plant material, usually strips of palm fronds. The palm trees around the country were often spindly-looking--not the lush images you see in tropical beach photos of Hawaii or touristic posters. The birds nearly kill trees by stripping off all the leaf material.

Then they load up the nearly-empty fronds with the hanging nests. It can look a bit decorative, especially on non-palm trees. If you have ever seen a pomegranate tree in winter with the ripe red fruit hanging on the bare branches, you've seen a similar silhouette. The main difference is that weaver bird nests are grey-ish instead of a vivid red, and a cacophony follows wherever they go.

Male weaver birds are the ones who weave the nests.

Somehow they convince a female weaver bird to come check out the nest they have built. My understanding is that she does her best to destroy the thing. If she is unsuccessful, they live happily ever after (until the breeding season is over). If she does destroy the nest, the poor bloke has lost his chance with her and must start over to try and woo another.

Sometimes, despite the male's best architectural designs and the female's careful choosing, the nests do end up on the ground. Maybe a human decided to chop down that bamboo stick. Maybe there is a particularly bad storm and the nest is blown away. Maybe a snake or another predator gets to the nest. No way the birds could have predicted that; they did their best with the knowledge they had.

I wonder how eagles and Canada geese choose each other? Mating for life, their choice is of greater significance than that of serially monogamous birds yet i've never heard of them testing a nest first.

garments

There are clothes in my closet that i do not wear.

I suppose that is true for many people.

What i am getting used to again is that i'm not wearing them NOT because they don't fit or because they are out of style, but mostly because they are for (very) warm weather and it is currently cold. Sometimes i do wonder if i'll ever wear them again--my favorite sundresses from Cameroon, for example. They are comfortable and they are blue, two qualities most of my favorite clothes share, however they are not the most fashionable garments around. I'm not particularly trendy and i don't choose my clothes because they are (or are not) fashionable, but now that i'm around a full-length mirror i have realized that these dresses aren't...flattering...particularly. They are very simple, very loose, shifts. The prints are bold and bright. They are perfect for the tropics where air movement is essential in the humid heat and the bright blue fabric contrasted nicely with iron-rich dirt and green plants. I'm not so sure i have the requisite confidence to wear them in hip, sexy Southern California.

Meanwhile, they hang in my closet taking up space. Should i give them away? i wonder. Would that benefit anyone: would anyone wear them? Should i cut them up for a quilt? Should i have left them in Cameroon? I can't undo that decision--and i miss some of the clothes i did leave there! I can't find things just like them because they're three years old.

Clothing choices here *are* plentiful, and i can find anything in my size. Clothes shopping here is easier than going to Mokolo, the imported-used-clothing market in Yaounde. Very nice things from Korea, Germany and other countries were available there, but if you saw a skirt or shoes you liked and they weren't in your size, too bad. No other choices. Here, there are changing rooms so that you can try things on instead of giving it your best guess. Here, you can say "I'm just looking" and the salespeople believe you. Here, other than sales (where the crowds freak me out) anytime is pretty much as good as the next for someone who is not a fashionista. There were definitely better times to go to Mokolo: right after a shipment there were more options but prices were relatively high. Right before a shipment there were fewer choices but more bargains. It's been quite a jolt to go from paying about $2 for something to paying much, much more here!

I think i'll let the dresses hang for a little longer, at least until it is feasibly warm enough to wear them again. And if i don't wear them then...well, i have five months to get used to the idea of letting go.

my mother found my blog

Actually, i told her about it. We were talking about the various merits and demerits of blogs, & i mentioned that i had started one and gave her the url.

She questioned if perhaps i was being a bit harsh. About what? i asked--about the idle loafers in front of bars (see "culture is how you look"). Perhaps they work at night, she said.

Okay, maybe. Maybe they work at night. That doesn't change the fact that during the day they loafed at bars and made nasty comments to women walking by. If you've read any of the #1 Ladies' Detective Agency books, think of the young men who work at the garage and add some R-rated material.

So, here is my caveat: all of this is my opinion. The contents are merely my observations and i'm not trying to be objective. Perhaps i'll begin using my historiography training in a few months to write more well-rounded, objective, positive observations but i'm not trying to convey any other than what comes to mind at the moment, because that's what processing is.

A man i respect greatly read all of my newsletters. He also got my quasi bi-weekly updates. He said, when i got home, that he often wondered what was really going on in my life, and what i wasn't saying. He wondered if my newsletters were censored.

Censoring is a difficult word to weigh as it carries highly negative connotations. There were newsletter readers and they were not oppressive, but i did feel a burden to give an overall positive impression with each communiqué. Was that censorship? I don't think so. I still feel a burden to give good impressions--isn't that what humans usually want to do? And the readers checked spelling and layout, too; it wasn't only linguistic content that they checked, and i found that very helpful.

So. There is Truth. It has many sides. I don't claim to know all of them and have a whole picture, but my bits ought to count, too.

gardening

Good plants, like clover, come out easily. As a leguminous plant, clover is good for the soil and a good pasture plant, even if it is often considered a weed in rose beds or lawns.

More insidious plants are nigh impossible to completely remove. I'm gardening for a lady at my church who is going blind. Her yard must have been beautiful once, but as she has reduced mobility and vision, she hasn't been able to keep up. We're going to make it blossom again but first i have to get rid of the choking things: an ivy that's ripping apart the fence. A morning glory vine that's taking over three back yards. Creeping grass. And then a nasty fern thing with thorns, red berries, and root suckers all over the place.

I always found plant rate of growth amazing in the tropics. If you cut a stick off a tree and put it in the ground, in rainy season, it will sprout a new plant. People are constantly cutting the grass, cleaning plants out of gutters, and clearing the ground in front of their houses. The trick is, it isn't only good plants that grow at that rate: unwanted vines climb up corn stalks and drag them to the ground. On the other hand, many Cameroonians i met knew the nutritional and medicinal value of plants that, to the uninitiated, look like mere weeds. They weren't cultivated, but they were plucked for use where they did sprout up. Like a spinach-like plant--it had purple flowers and grew in the lawn. I found out you can eat it. Steamed, it was very tasty.

ignorance is not bliss, but i am tempted to be an ostrich

Here is a little advert: I enjoying listening to NPR. I listen to it on 89.9 and hear well-written news items, thoughtful non-gratuitous human interest, Which Way LA, and very interesting music.

I heard on the news that England was considering a ban on the creation human-animal hybrid cells. In fact, it was news to me that ban--legal or personally internalized from ethics--doesn't exist right now. One of the arguments AGAINST the ban was that England, who leads (i guess) in cloning research as with Dolly the Sheep, would fall behind places like Singapore and China...

...who allow such hybrid research.

My mind is boggled.

I cannot imagine nor fathom the decrepit state of ethical reasoning that demands the right to do research like this. "Let's do something horribly wrong because it might give us a chance to defend ourselves against other things that aren't right with the universe. And by the way, we'll make lots of money and keep a healthy science research economy here."

As if everyone would benefit from medicines derived from hybrid cell research--i bet it's very costly.

As if money was the end that justified all means.

Slightly offsetting that nasty shock is the news that Japan's parliament is considering a bill to ban human cloning, and also to ban hybrid human-animal cell research. It's a very short news blurb but here it is for reference: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/asia-pacific/713606.stm. If you follow such news, you probably already know more than that. If you don't...well, sorry to put a damper on your day.

lessons

I consider that our present sufferings are not worth comparing with the glory that will be revealed in us. (Paul, Romans 8:18)

This coming from a man who was shipwrecked, hungry, cold, sleepless, nearly killed by stoning, chased from town to town, beaten several times, and experienced a mid-life crisis/change of status i never will. If i feel like i haven't gotten anywhere, i wonder how Paul felt when he realized his goals had been off-target? No wonder he breaks out in praise of God's grace in his writing.

I need to suffer more graciously--to not discount whatever i'm going through, it isn't fun or easy--but to see it as an opportunity to improve my responses to situations not of my choosing. Life is an opportunity to become more Christlike. If even Jesus had to suffer to learn obedience, i certainly will need more than few bumps in the road.

Maybe i should start fasting regularly. If i can go through a day without eating and remain pleasant, without grumpiness or complaining, that training may help me go through days like yesterday without feeling self-pity, too.

fulfillment

Today was a bad day. The sun was shining brightly, the sky was clear and blue, it was warm enough that i could wear clothes that didn't go to my ankles...but i'm sure glad the day is over.

First bad thing: Overslept, so breakfast was in car instead of at kitchen table studying, putting me behind schedule with that classwork. Need to not oversleep even if sick.

Second bad thing: Dropped the back of a new earring while trying to put it in while driving to work. Note to self: stop doing two things at once while driving stick!

Third bad thing: I like my office job most times--but today was phone calls, phone calls, and more phone calls. I hate telephones (see entry #3). On top of that, i hate how receptionists change from a cheery welcoming tone to drab "go away and stop bothering me because you are worthless" voices when they discover that rather than a cash-bringing customer, you are a cash-taking vendor. I'm still human, and i'm bringing something they do need.

Fourth bad thing: I didn't get through half as much studying at lunch as i wanted to and i'm overall discouraged on that. Once Thursday is over the dice will be cast. Until then i'm stewing and studying.

Obvious* good thing: Found back of earring.

Fifth bad thing: On one of my calls, a man answered the phone as if i was his wife, because he thought it was his wife calling. Now, i would only do that if i had caller ID and KNEW it was my spouse; and even then, what if he (in my case) had lent his phone to someone? That's happened to friends of mine.This might have been a good amusing thing if phones didn't already make me nervous: it was terribly embarrassing. I'm not sure why--i don't know the man, he doesn't know me--but since i hate phones already, i really didn't want to pick up the handle and make another call after that!

Sixth bad thing: I parked under a tree. Birds were making a nest in the tree.

Seventh and worst bad thing: Yesterday i got an email from my alma matter. Today i read it. It had a link to the newly-launched newsletter of the history department. Do you know how many people in my class or younger now have prestigious PhD's and teaching positions at national recognized universities and measurable career milestones? And here i am, loathing history studies, applying to graduate school in a completely different field with slim hopes of getting in, rejected in a previous attempt at graduate school (for history, so maybe that wasn't so bad although still wince-worthy), having very little direction (because i'm pointing in several at once), and on my third career change.

People have told me: hey, you have had interesting experiences. Yes. That's true. But they don't get me anywhere. They don't add up to anything. I'd be happy if i was 90 years old and people said: "Hey, you've had interesting experiences!". Right now, at 28, i need a resumé instead of a conglomeration of miscellaneous adventures. I think i've found what i want to do until i retire (and probably after that too), but i'm not sure my curricula vitae hasn't messed up my chances of getting to do it.

I didn't have bad days like this in Cameroon. I had direction. I had purpose. I had sunshine all year 'round.

But i don't want to be teaching history to impressionable young people and i'm not yet qualified to teach anything else.

I believe that God is good all the time. I believe that despite my free will, His sovereignty means that wherever i am, that is His best for me at the moment. But i can't help feeling that His best right now is to teach me a lesson, only i can't figure out what that lesson is.

Sigh.

*I know my life relatively isn't that bad at all. I have food to eat, tidy clothes to wear, shelter, a relatively warm bed, clean water to drink, a pet, friends, family, freedom of worship, freedom to vote, lots of education, some sort of employment, and access to masses of information in my language. Add to that that i'm female and still have all the above, since most of the world's women do not. I'm not sure i agree with that psychology scale of needs though: right now i'm in desperate need of fulfillment and i'd go hungry, petless, cold, bed-less and clad in rags to have it.

precipitation

It is drizzling here tonight.

There is an African proverb that i love:

Let your love be like the misty rain: coming softly, but flooding the river.

But i only experienced misty clouds, not misty rains, in Africa. Rains were usually tempestuous, temperamental downpours that you could hear coming for kilometers, thanks to corrugated metal roofs. Sometimes that advance warning was enough time to bolt for home before getting soaked (and having one's laptop and grading get soaked). Sometimes you were too far from home, and could feel your shoulders instinctively droop in the hopelessness of staying dry. I like playing in the rain, but not with my computer, work clothes, and books!

I miss the rains in Africa (yes, like the song). :-) But because i am tired, if i finish this entry now it will be more melancholy than it ought to be. I will wait until tomorrow.

Today: The canyon winds are blowing. The sky is clear; the air is dry. Despite last night's rain, i need to water the plants in pots on the porch.

Back to about Cameroon: Even under an umbrella or overhang people got wet, because the water ran ankle-deep on the ground, and came down so hard it splashed up waist-high. Walls there are spattered with orange about one meter up--hence why it's aesthetically smart to have mud-brick houses, or paint the plaster a nice terracotta color: the splashes blend in. A good half of the rains were thunderstorms: the lightning was amazing, spidering horizontally across the sky or staking the ground. I liked it when the power was knocked out (for a short while) and you could sit in awe of the power of the storm outside. The thunder drowned out the sound of everything else (even the raindrops on roofs) and made me think of some Psalms where God's voice is described as thunder: mighty, awe-striking, and not to be taken lightly.

culture is how you look

In Cameroon a modest woman, national or foreigner, doesn't boldly look unfamiliar men in the eye. To do so, at least in the city, invites more lewd comments than usual from the idle loafers in front of the road-side shops and bars, who spend their time playing checkers, discussing sports, & checking out girls.

In Cameroon, the route to school did not have a sidewalk, only a wide shoulder. It was paved but uneven, with all sorts of interesting bits of things on the road. Chickens and dogs crossed at leisure, and either began browsing (the chickens) or flopped down for a nap (the dogs).

Because of all this going on, and because i have a tendency to trip over nothing as it is, i usually kept my eyes down as i walked to school. Sometimes this was embarrassing, as when i would pass someone i knew well. They would catch my arm, i would look up startled, and then we would laugh and greet each other. Overall, i developed a tendency to either look down as i walked, or if i held my head high, look straight ahead and make little eye contact with men.

I come back to the States and discover i'm doing the same thing. I pass a kindly-looking older gentleman on the street walking to a mailbox, and i don't acknowledge him. I'm at Starbucks reading, look up for a breath, notice a man just walked in, and look away hoping he didn't notice what i just risked. Even at church, i avoided eye contact with men.

This poses several problems!

For one thing, i think Dallas Willard is right on target in Restoration of the Heart when he says the two ways humans hurt each other are through attack and withdrawal. He writes that drivers where he grew up used to acknowledge each other with a friendly fingers-off-the-steering-wheel wave, even to people they did not know. It was a simple, polite acknowledgment of the other's existence and human dignity. We don't really do that anymore in the general public.

I think our society (and world in general, it's not a particularly American flaw) suffers from both attack and withdrawal. I'm not talking about how personal/family relations are messed up here, but regarding strangers. People don't smile, wave, or even make eye contact. I feel like i've failed to be Christ-like when i don't. It feels almost as bad as when i do look up to smile and acknowledge passers-by, but they are looking down or straight ahead: ouch, rejection!

The other problem is that, ahem, i want to appear open and friendly. I want to meet new people and make new friends, men and women, and maybe have a few coffee dates with interesting guys. That isn't going to happen if i don't appear friendly!

So, i'm practicing. When at a stop light, sometimes i'll look over and acknowledge the other drivers. Instead of looking away, which might (or might not) be taken as a huff, i'm trying to smile. I know, no sane, sober man is going to roll down his window and ask for my number, but it's practice for when smiling does count.

2007

My supervisor in Cameroon had a fantastic tradition of asking people where they had been in the past year. She'd usually ask at your birthday: what were you doing or where were you last year? I started asking myself those reflective questions at other milestones, like Christmas and New Year's Eve.

I can't remember what i did for New Year last year, which bothers me, and i have no immediate resource to check. I have a journal entry for 23 December 2005--while in Maroua, describing the trip and jotting down notes of what i needed to write from the past few days (which i didn't do, oops). The next entry is 15 January 2006, after going to Kribi with friends for a quick weekend away after the first week of the semester.

2005-2006 was a very different holiday season--traveling and away for Christmas, friends out of town when i was back--i wish i had written down more. One day just blends in to the next when they're spent in similar ways. Perhaps i could try capturing bits of it now before even more memories fade, and i could ask a few friends with whom i know i spent it.

This New Year was fun, although it was also very different. I didn't write down a letter to read in September, and we didn't have a reflection time before midnight. Kind of missed that. It's interesting how a similar setting throws into sharp relief what isn't the same.