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!