turnips and meat stuffing

change always surprises me. thanksgiving snuck up on me this year and as with anything that lacks a long excitement-filled count down period, it passed almost like any other day. don't get me wrong, it was nice to sit around with my family and catch up, but mostly it just reinforced my feeling that everything around me is changing at an ever accelerating pace as I continue to age. Sometimes I feel like the world should just stand still, in time and pose, while I get older and figure everything out. "little" michael, as we continue to call him, wasn't around this year because he joined the air force and is down in Florida training. my brother owns a condo now and when asked what he wants for Christmas, he said decorations for his house. tim and chris are both renting houses and dan will probably move in with chris after he graduates. my sis and tory are applying to college. Are my memories just so vivid? why does it feel like it was just yesterday that we were crawling around in Nana's family room pretending to be zoo animals or serving fake food to all the grown ups from our restaurant?

I still feel like my own life is like the marble I used to drop into the funnel of the marble works; it starts off going slowly around the wide rim of the funnel and gets faster and faster as it spins towards the bottom. again, the change is good, really good. it's just surprising. i keep making decisions that are keeping me on track (for what, i don't know exactly) or perhaps I'm not making decisions consciously so much as going along with what comes. Doing research is a good example. I asked one of my econ professors if she knew of any internships related to econ that I could look into for the summer. she told me she knew the director of the research center at uconn was looking for workers at the moment, sent me to him with a great recommendation, and the next thing I know I'm learning all about connecticut's healthcare system and contacting doctors' and dentists' associations and tracking down data sources. It all just sort of happened.

Sweden seems less real to me than my past trips. brazil, mexico, spain, peru- all were embarked on with the main purpose of serving God. Sweden is for study abroad, for me to travel and "see the world". It almost feels selfish, and perhaps that is why it still seems so abstract. it's also longer. really i get a little freaked out just thinking about it. i know i'll enjoy it but that it will also be hard. i also know that every time I come home, home tastes that much sweeter. when i arrived home from peru, i asked myself why i'm always in such a rush to leave. if this spring semester wasn't the best time, school speaking, to study abroad, i would've seriously considered pushing it back a little further because I've so enjoyed being home these last few months.

i think the change outside me just feels that much bigger because the change in my life seems so big. change used to be gradual. the story might vary a little from time to time, but it always had the same characters and same basic plot. now it has new characters (whom i am very thankful for) and new story lines, and the protagonist keeps running off to a new setting every few months. it is good that everyone else's worlds are changing and growing too- just hard to take it all in sometimes.

we still have turnips and meat stuffing every thanksgiving because my grandpa liked them. he died when i was seven. i can understand why nana still wants to have them tho (aside from the fact that a few of us have developed a taste for them), amidst the change in life, it's nice to keep some little things constant- i think it's calming to the human soul.

i'll never be too old to play dress-up

note to self: reduce stress

today i had a killer migraine. woke up with a headache at 9 and it was a migraine by 10:30. luckily I had already planned to skip my 12:00 class. I tried to be productive while laying in bed for a bit (I got this new job doing economics research! really exciting but challenging) but my brain just doesn't function with that level of pain. Just thinking about it brings me back to this summer, one night when I had a horrible migraine and was laying in Gringolandia (the intern room) under the desk with all the lights off between classes. When my class started at 7:15 I smiled and taught, and while my students did group work I went to the bathroom to throw up.

well the fire alarm just went off and I stood outside in the misty night for a while. i'm so glad i wasn't in great pain then like i was the rest of the day. i guess that's a blessing, but this whole day feels like it can be put in the category of "pain management". to someone who spends her life calculating opportunity cost, the fact that i had so much to do today just added to my physical pain.

lessons i should (and hopefully will) take from today and other days like it: think big picture, remember that history and econometrics exams do not validate me, and find ways to reduce stress. remember to breathe. find time for things i like and care about even at the expense of school work.

while trying to get my mind off the pain today i watched 'goodnight and goodluck' about television during the red scare. i appreciate a very ideological movie like that every now and then. the media can be a tool for good but so often sticks to what sells to an entertainment-seeking public. i don't blame them for trying to make money. its just hard for your average citizen to sort through the masses of information out there to know what's going on and what matters. I am often overwhelmed by the magnitude of information out there, so much of which I have a craving to know and understand, but even if I didn't take classes or work and just spent all day soaking up current events and good literature, I wouldn't begin to grasp even 1% of what there is to know (just about topics i find interesting!) No wonder our society is so cliquish- people have to specialize to know anything these days, but at the exclusion of knowing about a wide breadth of topics. I may just have to give up on being 'well-rounded' one of these days. Perhaps I already have.

newport

change

if i saw my current life walking down the street two years ago, there is no chance i would have recognized myself. that to say that i'm so glad God is sovereign and that he sees how all the pieces fit because i certainly don't. i feel like i spend so many of my days being pleasantly surprised by the little twists and turns my life is taking, which is doing a lot to strengthen my belief in God's goodness. all this is very vague but we can chat it up if you want specifics. i just felt like I had to capture for myself my overriding mood of this last month and a half which has been "pleasantly surprised". When I finally stopped trying so hard, good things just walked up to me and said "hello". Despite all my busyness, which never seems to go away, in my utmost I feel more restful and at peace than I have in years. If only I could remember that when my overanalyzing mind decides to ponder the future- that undefined set of possibilities.

Time is both racing and strolling along on a beautiful fall day. My life with Stephen is already so completely different than it was without him; that was less than two months ago. I suppose I should just learn the lesson God is teaching me and trust him and the plans he has for me, despite all the unknowns. What was a bit of "running away" to Sweden is definitely no longer serving the same purpose, but hopefully God has a place for those 5 long months of cold and darkness in his master plan.

weird to be home

It's weird that blogger is in English now, that everyone speaks English, that I blend in with the crowd, that the furniture is moved in my room and what was my brother's room is now the guest room. It's weird that everything is the same but not, that I am the same girl who left her stuff sprawled around the house before I left but I am not that same girl. I've only been in the states for about 12 hours now (if you count my time in the Atlanta airport), so hopefully this weird "I feel like this isn't real" feeling will wear off soon. I actually feel a little sad and out of place. Hopefully getting back into the normal schedule of school will take care of that.

It was so good to see Rich in Atlanta and my parents at the airport. My parents brought me lovely flowers. The journey was tough- I think I threw up about 12 times on Saturday. Poor Chase, I was so dead when I got to the airport to hang out with him. We made the most of it though. It almost feels like that journey needed to be long- sort of a time travel back to my past life.

Well I still have a ton of packing to do and I haven't slept more than 6 hours at a time in the last 4 nights so I'm quite exhausted. It's sad that I have to leave my comfy house so soon but I wouldn't be happy laying around if I was missing school. Cheers for the first day of Junior year!

Despididas. Saying Farewell.

Peruvians know how to do many things well, one of these is saying goodbye. Here they call it a despidida. So far I've had 2, and I have 4 more today (if you only count the 'official') ones! Tuesday night I despidida'd with the soccer players in Liberacion Social. We all stood around in the street chatting for a bit and drinking Coke. Last night I went out to Olviedo with Natali and Fiorella which was really nice. Excellent cappuccinos and excellent company. Today I'll eat lunch with Pastor Ricardo and Danni at the church and say goodbye to them. Then I'm having a little party with each of my night classes (and I'll probably swing by Natali's class to join Chase's despidida too) and then afterward we're going to Clara's for a despidida with all the interns. What this all means is that I will say goodbye about a million times, eat tons of cake/drink 4 glasses of Inka Kola, and tell people for the millionth time that I don't know when I'm coming back (or if, but they never like to hear that). Being a realist always makes goodbye more difficult!

Much has happened since I last wrote. I experienced my first earthquake, though here in Trujillo it wasn't serious. I was on the third floor of SALI watching Harry Potter 4 with my class (apparently they're big HP fans) when I felt the building moving. My students squealed a bit and laughed at me for looking so scared. They told me not to worry, that it was just a tremor and that they were pretty normal. Turns out it wasn't a normal tremor at all but a really serious earthquake down in Pisco and Ica, towns south of Lima. The death tole is upwards of 400 I think, and while there is aid pouring in, people are still without electricity and running water, living on the streets. Some people from our mission are going down with supplies today.

I'm really looking forward to setting foot on American soil in just a few short days. At the same time though, I'm starting to feel sad about leaving. I haven't really been that sad, since my "excited to get home, see friends and family, and start school" emotions have really had precedence. Now it's starting to hit me though. I almost cried saying goodbye to the Ferguson's yesterday.

Things I will miss most about Peru: the friends I've made here, the advantages of city life, the exchange rate making my money worth more, guaranteed sanctification (Heather and I were joking about making T-shirts that say "Come to Peru for Fast Track Sanctification." This is funnier because we have "fast track" English classes here for people who need to learn how to speak English in a hurry), getting lots of emails and letters, rice, freshly baked cakes every afternoon, delicious fresh bread for $.07 a piece, roller-coaster taxi rides (if I was a bad driver before, I'm going to be worse now. Cuidate.), and probably a lot of other things I'm just not thinking of right now. There are also things I will not miss, but I shan't get into that here because when I'm home that won't matter anymore. Let's just say I'm excited for the luxury of my dorm room and the American concept of cleanliness.

It's been a good summer; there's been a lot of maturing and growth I think. I've certainly learned a ton about myself and about living in a Christian community. I've also come to cherish being able to communicate! I look forward to speaking English in the street. People will probably ask me, "So are you fluent in Spanish now?" The answer is no. I have definitely improved, but I am a far cry from fluent. I can get around just fine but having a conversation about anything abstract is very difficult still, unless the person is used to speaking to Spanish-learners and talks very slowly. I decided not to take a Spanish class this fall so I haven't been very motivated to learn down here. I'm still looking to take some Swedish lessons this fall, so if you know anyone who speaks Swedish, let me know!

Now to say some more goodbyes...