oh, winter break, what will i do with you?

1. read Word Power Made Easy. my vocab is lacking as of late, and I promised my pops. can't let a good birthday present go to waste...plus, it's academic!
2. read many other books, such as don miller's latest, finally knock out that autobiography by gandhi, maybe an anne lamott or two...we'll see how many i can really check off the list. but seriously. i am in the mood to be in the mood for reading.
3. hang out with some long lost friends, and some others who aren't so lost. i would mention names...but i won't.
4. go to the west side market, along with the north market when i visit hillary, jen, and other columbus friends (refer to #3). i'm already anticipating all the yummy food...mmm. (can i include cooking in this category too? i'm really aiming to whip up some good eats these upcoming six weeks.)
5. learn how to KNIT! it has been a skill i have been desperately longing to acquire. the excitement is already bubbling for all the hats, scarves, mittens, socks, sweaters i could make, plus (once i get really good) i could blow up the planet with some of this crazy stuff. yep. feel the warmth already.

i could include other activities on this list, such as getting a job, getting baptized (for realz...courtesy of my very own gramps), skyping with becca, sleeping a whole bunch, or just hanging with my fam, but those are a given. i've fallen in love with this place and these people over the past 9 weeks, and i'll be missin it for sure, but the thought of laying in my own bed is pretty much incomparable with anything else.

that's all i've got. feel free to suggest some more activities for my winter break extravaganza. i am a white canvas when it comes to time spent this nov/dec. conclusion: paint on me.

...that's not what she said.


edit:
read wendell berry - the unsettling of america

i feel so blessed to have such great friends




i will not waste this time

it would be nice to be healthy. and to choose such things. i have come to realize that life is such a huge choice. we were chosen to be given life. our parents chose to have sex and (possibly) chose to have children, except they didn't choose the gender (maybe they could now). and then they choose how they (our parents) will raise us, what they will feed us, how they will clothe us, where we will live and go to school. and maybe, they will choose if we go to college or not. they will choose whether they make us get a job young or let us have a car or let us go on a road trip after our senior year. but also, i've been discovering that i now get to choose what i make of my life. a lot of the time this includes being scared of life until the last moment, when i have to cram everything in because i was too intimidated by it in the first place (by "it," i am referring to homework, normally). i get to choose who i want to be and what (/Who) i want to follow, who i want to hang out with, what type of path i want to take in life, how i spend my free time, how i am nurturing my mindbodysoul, what i am keeping within me and what i am revealing to the world. i can choose when i go to class or when i don't, what time i go to bed, what i eat and where i go. i can choose to rejoice over life or to only search for the darkness. but i must first choose. and no one can make this decision except me.

note: this may not apply to your life, because i was applying it to mine. and it also may not apply to your life unless you live in america. thank you. goodnight

leave me

your favorite books
(in a comment)

so i can read them.

thank you

"Aren't you, like me, hoping that some person, thing, or event will come along to give you that final feeling of inner well-being you desire? Don't you often hope: 'May this book, idea, course, trip, job, country, or relationship fulfill my deepest desire.' But as long as you are waiting for that mysterious moment you will go on running helter-skelter, always anxious and restless, always lustful and angry, never fully satisfied. You know that this is the compulsiveness that keeps us going and busy, but at the same time makes us wonder whether we are getting anywhere in the long run. This is the way to spiritual exhaustion and burn-out. This is the way to spiritual death.

Well, you and I don't have to kill ourselves. We are the Beloved. We are intimately loved long before our parents, teachers, spouses, children, and friends loved or wounded us. That's the truth of our lives. That's the truth I want you to claim for yourself. That's the truth spoken by the voice that says, 'You are my Beloved.'

Listening to that voice with great inner attentiveness, I hear at my center words that say: 'I have called you by name, from the very beginning. You are mine and I am yours. You are my Beloved, on you my favor rests. I have molded you in the depths of the earth and knitted you together in your mother's womb. I have carved you in the palms of my hands and hidden you in the shadow of my embrace. I look at you with infinite tenderness and care for you with a care more intimate that that of a mother for her child. I have counted every hair on your head and guided you at every step. Wherever you go, I go with you, and wherever you rest, I keep watch. I will give you food that will satisfy all your hunger and drink that will quench all your thirst. I will not hide my face from you. You know me as your own as I know you as my own. You belong to me. I am your father, your mother, your brother, your sister, your lover, and your spouse... yes, even your child... wherever you are I will be. Nothing will ever separate us. We are one.'"

+"Life of the Beloved," Henri Nouwen

today

a melody sang softly into my sleep, and i woke from a dream i no longer remember. i sat, heard, thought, sat, climbed, dressed, ate, walked, sat, listened, responded, stood, sat, stood, walked, reviewed (quickly), sat, calculated, thought, wrote, stood, sat, ate, stood, walked, looked, talked, saw, and now here i am, sitting again, watching the world around me from a small room, walls bare and blinds closed. sociology awaits but i am not yet ready to cover such a feat- i will drink (water) and begin, typing, thinking, sitting, and then later i will stand and talk and sit and hear, and visit with friends i havent seen in quite a while (has it been a week?). and maybe i will breathe the october air, crunch the leaves and remember to take note, to really see this place i call home for a short while. to listen (one, two), speak (one). the autumn sky beckons. i will watch from this window.

i am thankful for my friends

for rain and sunshine and air, roots and trees and leaves underneath my feet and warm meals every. single. day. for education and birds and squirrels and moms and dads and sisters and brothers and small rooms with many people, pictures and books and words to remember. for ice cream and tea and shoes on my feet. for new faces and places and old ones too. for skype and chocolate soymilk and the knowledge to know, even if sometimes it feels like a curse. for heartache and brokenness- for the ability to feel. for just waking up every day and witnessing miracles even though i hardly remember to utter these words. for being human. for love, even though i don't deserve it. even though i don't even know what it is. for truth and ignorance and knowing that my eyes will be opened someday, maybe, but that i am blind on my own. completely freakin' blind. i am thankful to be here. to be hurting in the midst of all this, to not really know what's going on, to just be learning and to be struggling and to realize that i am dust and i will blow away. i am thankful to know you. each and every one of you, even though i may not always show it. i am thankful to be a part of this. and i hope you are too, friend.

cuz even though life will just knock ya down sometimes, "...do not lose heart. though outwardly we are wasting away, yet inwardly we are being renewed day by day. for our light and momentary troubles are achieving for us an eternal glory that far outweighs them all. so we fix our eyes not on what is seen, but on what is unseen. for what is seen is temporary, but what is unseen is eternal." - 2. cor 4:16-18.

and that's the truth. goodnight all