New post for a new year

I didn't do anything particularly festive for New Year's (although I did make chocolate covered strawberries and toasted with my roommate and her boyfriend using sparkling cider). I watched Invincible and nurtured my love for Philly, while I organized my papers and bills. I had this mound of papers I hadn't really sorted since, oh, May, and last night just sat down and went through it. I haven't got any real resolutions for the new year, but at least I'm going into it slightly more organized :).

Break was good, if short. The day after I got home we had a nasty storm. Thankfully, I was headed up to the Poconos for a summer camp staff reunion and my friend was driving. While all we got was ice at home, there were about 8-10" of beautiful snow up in the wooded mountains. It was glorious. I had wanted snow when I went home, I just didn't expect that prayer to be answered so quickly or abundantly. I got to play in the snow, and go tubing and cross-country skiing on Saturday. I thoroughly enjoy cross-country skiing - so easy, and so much fun, and so peaceful too - and wish I lived somewhere where I could go cross-country skiing, well, ever. And Sunday it snowed again and I got to go for a walk by the waterfalls by myself before church, in the snow. Beautiful. Of course I enjoyed catching up with people, as well.

And that relates to one plan - not resolution, plan - for this semester/new year/however you'd like to frame it: I plan to keep in better contact with people. Maybe rather than watching TV when I get home, I'll write a letter each night, or make a phone call, or (unrelated to other people but for personal sanity) read a book or sew or do something else. It will likely make me feel much more peaceful and connected and less scattered & anxious. So if you're reading this, hopefully you'll hear from me soon.

Back to break: I definitely enjoyed my time at home. It was very busy, and not as restful as I'd hoped (thankfully I get some time this week, without classes or pressing work, to sleep in and take it easy, even though I'm at work for a few hours every day), but I got to spend time with my family and friends. I'm not ready to be back and am decidedly homesick already, but I suppose once life gets busy again I'll have less time to actively dwell on that. Hopefully this semester won't be underscored by the perpetual homesickness last semester was. I'm looking forward to church and community and what God's got in store with that this semester.

Thanksgiving!

Things have lifted a bit since the last post - the light at the end of the tunnel of this semester is quite visible and it's making me happy. God also used a women's retreat at church to help me make some friends, which helps now and will hopefully do so more in the future. Things aren't perfect, but my perspective's a bit better most days.

Anyway, since it's Thanksgiving, I sat down and made a list (in as many colors of markers as I could find) of things I'm thankful to God for. And in no particular order, I thank God...

That he's made me His daughter, His friend, His bride

That the semester's almost done!

For a warm apartment, warm clothes, warm blankets, and warm socks

That the Phillies won the WORLD SERIES!

For the luxury to give back

For abundant food

For comfort

For giving me an amazing roommate I get along so well with, have no conflict with, and just the perfect fit of it - as it was totally in His hands

For an apartment where I can find refuge & beauty & trees, in a lovely, calm, & safe neighborhood

For an amazing church with a passionate people and a passionate preacher

For breaking me on the women's retreat

For women from the retreat

For friends from home who love and pray for and reach out to me

For my lab and my new friends here and being welcomed so quickly

For fellow Philly fans

For coordinating my classes so they overlap and reducing my workload

For supportive advisors

For peanut butter and jelly and CHEERIOS

That teaching is going well

For my loving, amazing family

That I get to go home in three weeks!

That I have somewhere to go for Thanksgiving

For my "family" in Savannah

For my teddy bear

For giving me good teaching positions

That my life is in His hands

For people who understand & love me

For toesocks & pigtails & stocking caps

For my SIT's

For an amazing summer at camp

For the leadership team at camp

For letting me SCUBA dive

For friends' happiness

For placing me where He has

For good memories

That I haven't gotten hurt or sick since moving here

For the ocean

For His love

FOR SNAILS & SLUGS & INVERTEBRATES!

For healing & delivering me

For the bike from Uncle Jim

For the cabinets & computer from Uncle Bob & Uncle Mark

For sanity

For a place to play flute & glorify the Lord

For a mission field

Fora good landlord

For making ends meet

For sleep and rest

For baby carrot zombies (see upcoming post)

For play

...and the list goes on. Really it out to be infinitely long as God is infinitely good...but you know the saying about trees and pens and oceans and ink and sky and parchment.


Happy Thanksgiving to all of you! May God bless you richly as you reflect upon His beautiful bounty!

la vie en gris

This is going to be a short post, so if you want more details, feel free to contact me.

I know I'm often a bit of a gloomy gus, and that probably influences this right now. But things either are not or do not seem to be going well right now. In a nutshell, I'm homesick, doing poorly in school, not plugging into community, and am questioning whether or not I'm even cut out to do this. The negative thinking enmeshed in all of this isn't entirely from me either, which I can see. In any case, if you've got some spare words when you're talking to God, if you wouldn't mind praying about it, that'd be great, because I don't currently see much of a prospect for getting myself out of this.

Thanks & love.

Phillies win the World Series!!!!!!

They did it! They won! It's like Christmas in October! I wish I was in Philly celebrating with all the other fans! The curse of William Penn has been broken!

WHEEEEEEEEEEEE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Names

Yesterday I found an awesome French name website, and after tossing around a few ideas, here are the names of those things in the previous e-mail:

(drumroll please)...

My garbage disposal: Sheol (look back to Christmas post)

My bike: Aimeric (em-er-EEK), French version of a Nordic name, it means "home ruler"...which doesn't have anything to do with a bike. But I like it.

Plants:
Tall broad-leaved - Clara (as has been named for a while)
Many small-leaved plants that tend to spread - the Borg
(so yes, in one pot it is "Clara and the Borg)
Tall and spindly - Etienne (eh-tyEHNN) (French version of Stephanos, meaning "crown")

(it's really hard to write phonetically without phonetic symbols)

I may name my oven Beelzebub if it keeps acting up.

wanting more time

**I will add pictures to this later, but it's been a long day and I'm missing friends, so I'm posting it now, sans pictures**

So I’m aware that it’s been forever since I wrote. I don’t have internet at home, and I often feel bad using the internet at work for non-work purposes (although I’m getting more used to it, especially because I work at home, so why not home at work, right?). I’ve been here in Atlanta for 6 weeks at least now, which is a long time. It’s been bumpy, but there have been some good things, and it’s growing on me.


I cooked an awesome dinner this week. It was the first time I’ve gotten to do real cooking since I’ve been here (pasta and sautéed everything and pb&j clearly do not count). It was vegetable tian with breaded chicken and rice. I could have picked a better combination of foods, but individually they weren’t too bad (and they weren’t bad together either, but it could have been a little more perfect). The tian was possibly one of the most attractive dishes I’ve made yet, and it was French, which was even better. It also caused me to fall in love with Gruyere cheese…so delicious. Mmm.


These are my plants. I’ve been really stuck on naming things here and haven’t been able to come up with fitting names for them yet. The one with large leaves is Clara; she used to live with Rufus and George the cacti, but Rufus rotted out and George is slowly passing away (yes, I am skilled enough to kill a cactus). The tall spindly one is male (I decided), and I think the smaller ones surrounding clara are female…but I just can’t name them. They make me happy, though. *Tall one may be Edsel or Giuseppe, and the short ones may be Elsa. Still taking suggestions.


I am also having a horrid problem naming my “new” bike (my uncle found it in a dump and fixed it up for me, and I love it). It’s an old Schwinn Worldsport, and just looks so lithe (elegant, slender, athletic, graceful, agile – lithe). I feel a little weird riding it because I’m not the world’s greatest city rider, nor have I really ridden hills before. I’m getting used to it, but the gears are a little messed up on it still and that makes hills more difficult of course. Riding in the city is definitely something else. I love not having to drive to work, and my 25-30 minute walk to campus cuts down to 5-10 on my bike (depending on traffic and construction). I feel much more environmentally friendly this way. Most of the way in, there’s a bike lane, so that helps greatly. I have ridden on more crowded streets, and that’s still nervewracking. Maybe I’ll work my way up to that. People tend to ride on the sidewalks a lot here too, which is less than optimal for the pedestrians. I try not to. But this is my bike. I think it deserves a good European or Asian name, but I’m not coming up with much that fits its look. Any suggestions would be very very welcome. *Currently mulling Didier, or maybe Loic.
Classes have been going well, although it’s of course hard and more than a little overwhelming. I feel like I’m never getting enough done, but, as I’ve been told, they’ll let you know if you need to work harder, so don’t stress too much about it. I’ve so far gotten a good reaction from my advisor about the research that I’d like to do, so that’s really exciting. Yay sea slug defenses! I really like my labmates, they’re all really friendly and it’s been great getting to know them.
I may have found a church, as well, but will give more details on that as it develops in terms of small group and all. I feel like I really heard from God there in the sermon and worship the past few weeks, and the people are so warm and friendly (some my age, but lots of other generations too). And it's a nice, humble, real church. And it's one of very few within walking distance of my apartment. I like it a lot so far.
Contra dancing has been fun, but people are less friendly than they were in Savannah and the men are a bit more forward, which makes me uncomfortable. I think it’s because there are more northerners in Atlanta (and they don’t have as much respect I suppose).
I read Howard Pyle’s version of Robin Hood recently, and absolutely adored it. It was immediately preceded by Peter Pan, which I also found thoroughly delightful. After I finish rereading the Princess Bride (yes…again…) I plan to find some T.S. Eliot at the library. I did read Cyrano de Bergerac as soon as I got to Atlanta (in French), and really liked the satire and playfulness of the play. Speaking of puns, I’m starting to fall back into that niche here (there was a category of puns on Jeopardy the other night!), and that’s good for me; as I get more comfortable, I start to become more of who I really am (something I really miss about this summer).
This is, of course, exceptionally long. Hopefully I’ll be better at regular updates from here on out.

Church searching

I've been looking for a church home here in Atlanta for about 3 weeks now, and I still feel the need to keep searching. The first one wasn't welcoming; beautiful building, decent sermon, but not welcoming. The second one was good worship, decent teaching, and somewhat welcoming, but the church body was quite large (to the point where 2 long-time members just met for the first time that morning. Not a great sign). Today was a church planted by a campus church at Penn. It was a nice service, but again not welcoming. I think this time it was because it was mostly students. As a student I too wasn't so concerned about newcomers, I suppose, or didn't know how to handle them. I did recognize some people from Penn, but I don't think they recognized me. I might still try the latter two churches again, but I'm not sure.

I suppose I'm really looking for something smaller with a good community. Maybe I've been spoiled by my last few churches - I'm really missing the ones in Savannah and Lansdale right now. But I would really like to have a church family to be a part of for the next few years. Dealing with the transition is of course much harder without that community around me, and it's a bit discouraging. I don't know what plagues most churches that they don't reach out to new people. Maybe it's complacency and self-focus, as plagues me too. I just wish that it wasn't there.

So yes, if you could keep in prayer my search for a church home and family, I would appreciate it very much. For me to listen to God when He says "stay" and "go" with different churches. And openness to His leading.