"Brain Child" and Transitions

 My paper-as-pregnancy analogy almost got a baby rumor started on Facebook this weekend when I posted this as my status:

“I feel like I just gave birth! My paper...this ginormous brain child...is finally all out on the page (ok, all 18 pages). Momma needs to sleep for a week.”

One of my overseas friends (who speaks Romanian as her first language) thought that I was talking about a REAL baby. Apparently the Americanism “brain child” doesn’t translate clearly.

Right now, the only school-related thing standing between me and graduation is my Spanish final exam. I wish I could say it will be a breeze, but my mind gets so turned around when confronted by the minute differences between the zillion verb conjugations ….  So it’s safe to say I have one more heavy day of study before I’m in the clear. I know that God will give me strength to persevere!

“Skillful Navigation of Transitions”

As I recovered from the sleepless night on Thursday, I was reading friend’s blogs (what else do you do when sleep-deprived, right?) and I came across a post by my Uncle Dave.

Aside: This particular uncle is like a walking, balding skyscraper chock-full of wisdom, witticisms and puns. He is the pastor of a large church in Houston, and granddad to five. He is also an excellent writer. In this case, he was sharing his thoughts on a book called Transitions by William Bridges. Ok, on to the article.

In it, he writes about something that all of us have experienced: losing something we didn’t want to lose.

It may be severe—like losing a parent. 

It may be mild—like getting a stubborn stain on a favorite T-shirt. 

But in every case, there are three stages:

1)    Death—this is when “something ends.” It may be a literal death, or simply the end of a loved season of life, a job, etc.

2)    Chaos and Confusion—the emotions we feel in the aftermath, like confusion, anger, sadness and anxiety because we don’t see a solution in sight.

3)    Rebirth—In this stage, the void we felt is now filled, even if the precious thing or person we lost can never be exactly replaced. We no longer feel confusion, and the grief has faded into acceptance or even beauty.

This resonated with me, because it gave a name to my recent emotions about friends, and about graduation. As friends move away, something ends, even if the friendship lives on in facebook chats and blogs. As I graduate, something ends, even if the next phase is full and beautiful. I guess I’ve been...grieving...in a mild way. 

His advice for each step can be boiled down to one thing: “Stay close to the Shepherd”.

In stage one, we can’t ignore the pain or say it doesn’t hurt. We have to be authentic with ourselves and let the grieving happen. Oh, and this is a biggie: “resist the urge to self-medicate”. Above all, get close to God.

In stage two, we have to fight the tendency to withdraw or give in to pessimism. Stay connected to people. Test their advice with clear thinking and prayer. (Aka, stay close to the Shepherd again).

Stage three is all about thankfulness for the rebirth that has happened (to who else? Jesus). Cherish it and share the story—it might encourage people who lost something similar but are still in stage 1 or 2.

Good stuff for my heart. To read the full article, click here. 

No Worrying Allowed

All this mental stretching, the waiting, the groaning under the weight of everything that I have to do.

Hmm...I think final exam week must be a small taste of what the final stage of pregnancy is like.

A) Pregnant girls can't go to the rec center and work out very hard, and neither can I.

B) They can't get very good sleep, and neither can I. 

C) They also have weird cravings for certain snack foods. (My craving: salted, roasted almonds, mixed with chocolate chips.)

If it's not a good comparison, my pregnant friend, Mrs. Kroeger, can correct me later. 

In the meantime, here's a little guy who made me smile today while I was walking on campus: 

Someone put a bowl of food for him outside their office window. Mr. Squirrel was so absorbed in his meal that he hardly noticed as I crept close and snapped this shot with my phone. 

It brought to mind something that my Savior said one day to a crowd: 

"Therefore I tell you, do not worry about your life, what you will eat or drink; or about your body, what you will wear. Is not life more than food, and the body more than clothes? Look at the birds of the air; they do not sow or reap or store away in barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not much more valuable than they? Can any one of you by worrying add a single hour to your life?" (Matthew 6:25-34) 

Yes. My heart totally needed that reminder. If God feeds this little squirrel, He can certainly give me enough time and energy to finish this paper. 

And to get ready for graduation. 

And to pack for Italy.

And to train my replacement at work. 

He is faithful. :)

Last Day of Class

Ok, people, sappy alert! If you hate that kind of stuff, click away now, because I'm a girl who needs to process some stuff.

Everyday view on campus

My last log-in at the library on campus

I just went back and re-read my first post, back in January when this semester had barely begun. Even then I felt the nostalgia pressing on the edges of my thoughts, the calendar already running faster toward graduation than I wanted it to.

This whole semester has felt like the final chapter of a great book. You don't want the book to end, but the more invested you are in the story, the faster the pages turn under your thumb. Suddenly you realize that the characters you've grown to love are only two or three sheets of pressed tree pulp from being put back on the shelf.

I know that the sequel will be good, but seriously...why is change so hard?

Sitting in my last class, 4/26/12

Yesterday was THE LAST day of class for my entire undergraduate career.

My teachers were so cute. They all tried, in various ways, to delay the end of class, to put off the coming closure. I will sincerely miss their lectures.  My profs have all been great, but I had some real gems this spring. (Click here for some hilarious proof.)

I wish I could say I savored yesterday fully, soaked up buckets of fun memories and felt only joy and relief, but the main thing I felt was

profound...

exhaustion. 

I used to scoff, but now I'm a believer: senioritis is a real, honest-to-goodness disease, and sister, I've got it BAD. My eyes are sagging with lack of sleep, and my motivation is sagging even worse. I told Hubby that I wanted to hibernate like a bear  and then wake up in two weeks to get my diploma. He laughed at me, but I know he understood.

But then, after an exhausting last day, we went to the last homegroup meeting. :)

Fifteen of us sat, knees and elbows crammed into the small space filled with friends. As the room swelled with the sound of our worship, my shoulders untwisted and my heart calmed. Jesus was there, in the room with us, and nothing else--not my tiredness or the papers I had to write, or my million other worries--were as important as Him.

We drank purple juice and ate pinches of bread from a chewy loaf as we remembered His deep love. The love that never runs out, never gets tired.

We each shared the things God has been teaching us this semester, and to hear the recitation was to worship all over again!  It was beautiful to see and hear what He is doing in all of us: teaching us patience, getting us out of addictive behavior, bringing us out of depression or control-freak tendencies or co-dependent relationships.

Then--the best moment! Almost-graduates, like me, sat in the middle while the rest crowded around and hugged us as they thanked God for us and prayed for us. Under my arm, I could feel Kerri's shoulders move with silent tears.

I could cry happy tears now for the ways that God has been so faithful!

But now I really REALLY need to sleep.  G'night and gig'em!

Laugh Collection

I have a pocketful of really funny stories from the past few weeks to share with you.

#1: The other day, my sassy, pregnant, and highly intelligent professor of Communication couldn't wait to tell us about what had happened to her.

Earlier that week, she had walked into an 8:00 class to fill in for one of her grad students who was in the hospital. Immediately, two young guys in the front row looked up at her, declared "It's a sub!"...and promptly began acting classically immature.

Remember how your friends acted in middle school when you had a substitute?  Yeah. This was the college version.

They began to discuss--loudly--a number of stupid things they had done or were planning to do, including the jello shots they planned to serve at their house party that Friday. They even got rude with Dr. J-B, asking her, "have you ever taken jello shots?" "Of course, not while you're pregnant." "You ARE pregnant, aren't you?"

She was shaking her head in disbelief as she related the story. "I had never been so amused by college-level stupidity in my life!" she said.

The best moment of her story came when she called the class to order. She stood up and announced, "Hello, my name is Dr. J-B. I am the course director for this class."

She said you could have knocked the two jerks in the front row over with a feather. Their eyes widened and their spines slumped down in their seats with mortification. This woman controlled their destiny.

"You-you wouldn't judge a book by it's cover, would you?" they asked.

"No" she smiled. "I won't judge either of you by a cover. I'll judge you by the many stupid things you've said to me over the past ten minutes."

Oh snap.

The irony is that they judged her by her pregnant belly, her youth, or simply the fact that she wasn't the usual guy, and made a huge mistake!

#2. My second story happened to me last week in a dark parking garage at around 2am.

Yes, it sounds creepy, but don't worry.

I had been studying for hours in the campus library, head poked into a tiny cubicle table just big enough for my laptop and the stack of books I was referencing for a research paper. The plan was to stay there until the bitter end. But...my growling stomach and my need for some free caffeine finally won.

As I walked through the garage to my car, two guys passed me in the opposite direction.

"Woah, you're just now going out?" one asked, amazed. "You party hard-core!"

My tired brain took its sweet time to recognize that they were talking to me. a) Random guys don't usually talk to me, and b)I was thinking about citation formats.

I think they pitied me when I told them the truth.



#3. I saw this sign by the library.  Not so weird...except that I saw it last week.

Maybe the campus staff was pulling a late April Fools prank?

That's all for now!  Do any of you have some funny stories from recent weeks? Share 'em!

Letter to Louise

Dear Louise Erdrich,

The fact that you are a living author makes it very hard to write your biography. 

Please don’t get me wrong; I want you to have a long happy life! But it’s the nature of the thing. However popular your work may be, no one knows nearly as much about your life while you’re living it as they will when you’re gone.

Fame is ironic, isn't it?

Of course, it’s better this way.  You’re a normal person who deserves your privacy. You want to choose how much of your life to reveal.

But for all of us poor college students who have to write 5-page biographies about you, could you please reveal a little more?

-That Poor College Student

[picture credit]



[I have put in about 4 addtional hours of research since originally writing this letter of mild frustration. Since then, I've found enough about her life to easily fill five pages. I was simply looking in the wrong places. 
Lesson learned: don't blame the subject if your research is bad. :) ]

A long post about a long Valentine's Day

Valentines Day was a glorious mix of the horrible and the absolutely wonderful. In the end, the blend of the two left me exhausted, but so thankful for the love of God, my friends, and my wonderful husband.

It started badly, long before daylight.  I was writing a paper, and somehow a 3-page assignment morphed into an 8-page monstrocity of over-achievement. (Mom, I know you're reading this and thinking "oh, no, not again...")

Three AM found me finally stumbling into bed, only to jerk awake to my 6:30 alarm so I could finish preparing for a presentation. Blech. It was one of those unfortunate circumstances where too many assignments fell on a too-busy weekend (which can be fatal when paired with my tendency to be too-conscientious.) 

Then the day got sweeter. I came out to the kitchen and found JC (aka Hubby) peeking around a mini-forest of long-stemmed red roses that towered over his bowl of cereal and some chocolate-covered strawberries. Awww!

(Just in case you were wondering if I did anything Valentine-y for him, a friend of ours delivered a "singing valentine", along with some chocolate and a letter, at his work during the afternoon.)

Classes also went well.  I'm one of those weird people whom God has blessed with an over-abundance of adrenaline in the morning hours, so until the inevitable afternoon crash, I was pretty energetic.

During my English presentation I discovered--once again--that I love teaching things to people. Where on earth did this come from? It was a group presentation about a really thought-provoking play called A Raisin in The Sun, by Lorraine Hansberry.  (Here is a link to the trailer for the 2008 movie version)

Before class, I still hadn't heard back from my two presentation teammates, but thankfully both showed up early to class. I was relieved, but my heart flopped over when one of my teammates pulled me aside and asked "What am I supposed to say again?" Oh no....  During the presentation, it was obvious that not only did he have stage fright, he also had next to nothing prepared. When he looked desperate after about a minute, the other guy and I stepped in to lead the discussion.  I know he felt really bad, but who could he blame but himself? 

The evening was my favorite part of the day. JC was at an equipping class at church until 10, so I had the whole evening to make our house romantic.

But then, my wonderful friend, Macie, came over for a surprise visit!!  Isn't her sweet little girl just precious? (see pic) We talked while I folded laundry, and by the time she left, I felt so encouraged. 

When Jordan got home, I surprised him with a candle-lit house, music playing, and a yummy treat: gluten-free crepes served with Nutella and banana slices!  I was almost falling asleep by that time, but it was awesome nonetheless.

Valentine's Day could have been awful on so many levels.  Days after a sleepless night are usually emotional swamps of disaster.

 It could have, but it wasn't, mainly because of the absolutely wonderful love of God shown to me through Jordan and sweet friends like Macie, Kelsey, and Marianne. I feel so thankful and loved.