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.