Living the Questions

y'all. i never thought this week would end. there was so much to do and i just didn't know how it was all going to get done. in fact, starting on sunday, i was completely overwhelmed by all that was due. and on tuesday, i felt like i was going to cry at any moment trying to get it done. because i knew that though i really, really wanted to turn it all in on time, there was just no possible way it was going to happen. i didn't even procrastinate that much (i'd be lying if i said i didn't procrastinate at all). i started to work on the first and biggest assignment awhile ago. i thought i would finish it, then do the second assignment, then do the third. haha. it came to monday night and i realized i wasn't going to finish the first paper, so i started the second one. stayed up all night wednesday night. i mean, seriously. i slept maybe 45 minutes. luckily i have a couple of amazing friends who helped me stay awake that long because they were working on stuff, too.

we're about three weeks until the end of this semester. i. can. not. wait. standing between me and two-ish weeks of NOTHING PRESSING to do are: a drive back to nola 1 15-20 page research paper 1 10-12 page research paper 1 8-10 page research paper 1 3-5 page paper at least 200 pages worth of reading about 5 journal entries lots of fun holiday things in the city two finals and all those papers? yeah, they're all due within 3 days of each other. which basically means that once i get back to nola, i'll be going into hibernation. i have a feeling the library and i are going to be best friends at the end of these two weeks. and also that i may have to up my intake of caffeine in hopes that it *might* keep me awake. here's hoping i'll finish this first semester on campus with excellence and mental capacities that are still intact and functioning properly. :)

the entire purpose of this post is because i should be writing a paper that should be easy to write, but i'm not in the writing mood, so inspiration is slim. it's really cold here today. and it will be tomorrow, too, but after that it's going to be warm again. new orleans is a fun city, but its weather is going to frustrate me :) we have 5 weeks left in the semester and there is so much to do! i have 5 papers, 2 tests, and numerous books to read. that's just school work. i'll be sooo glad when this semester is finished and there's a break that doesn't involve school work to be done! come on christmas!

i think you should know that as i was typing the title to this post, i was singing it to a made up tune in my head... i have two papers due next week. one massive one and one that won't be so difficult. this means however, that i have less than a week to finish both of them and that means that i cannot spend any time doing anything other than work, school, or writing/researching. but. i've developed this "fall break is almost here, i don't want to do anything important right now" mentality. which is curious since i'll be doing school stuff all during fall break simply to catch up and then get ahead a little. so tonight, as i am about to get started on my work, i made a "motivation sheet!" that i can look at when i want to give up: using that verse might be a bit of a stretch, since i doubt the writer was thinking about writing 20 pg papers when he said it, but it seemed to fit. it includes baking and crafting and spending time with people, of cours

the weather here right now is kind of great. it was hot-ish today, but tonight has been almost chilly. yesterday, we sent home several kids who were throwing up. one mom picked her kid up and said, "you threw up? are you practicing for bulimia?" i'm sorry. even if you are joking and your kid can't understand what you're saying, why on earth would you joke with your child about that? i about died. i'm super tired right now, and i'm not sure why. i had to turn in a theology paper the other day, and it was a bit of a struggle. i've never written a theology paper before....i guess we'll see how it went when i get it back. my roommate lori and i went to see the movie "one day" last weekend (which my sister and i both wanted to see, but we don't live in the same city :( ). it was a wonderful movie. definitely one that i will buy when it comes out if i have the money :) if it is playing in a theater near you, you should go see it. speak

classes started this week. on top of a job and spending time with people, there's now a ton of work to do, which is exciting :) i've been in new orleans for 4 weeks as of friday. coming into seminary, i think i was woefully unprepared for what i would be doing and getting into. i expected to have an amazing experience, to make wonderful friends, to learn a lot and to simply enjoy being here. i knew it would be difficult sometimes, because life always is, but i didn't really think that it would be a lot of trouble. i didn't expect to have the struggles i've had. i didn't expect for it to be this hard, only 4 weeks in. i didn't expect to have to buy a new computer. or to feel like i had no friends. or to feel like i was so out of place. or to get a job at a place i'm not particularly excited about, and within a few days start hoping that i could find something else. i didn't expect any of that. they said at orientation that if you don't have a bre

not a big one, and one that had been forgotten by me until the answer presented itself...at least, what i'm assuming to be the answer... i drive past city park everyday on the way to work. it is absolutely beautiful, so i have been wanting to spend some time there (we all know how much i love the park). i got back from buying some groceries, and i decided to go today and explore city park a little, since i had the time. i looked up the park online to make sure i knew a bit about the layout of the park and to see what all city park had to offer, when i saw the description of storyland .  and all of a sudden, i remembered something i hadn't thought about in a really long time. when i was little, we lived in the middle of nowhere. the road was dirt and we were surrounded by woods and a few other houses. we walked down our road to pick blackberries, and the creek was behind our house (granted, my sister and i weren't the play in the woods types, so we didn't venture back

i beg you...to have patience with everything unresolved in your heart and try to love the questions themselves as if they were locked rooms or books written in a foreign language. don't search for the answers, which could not be given to you now, because you would not be able to live them. and the point is, to live everything. live the questions now. perhaps then, someday far in the future, you will gradually, without even noticing it, live your way into the answer.... rainer maria rilke

i posted just a couple days ago, but this time i'm including a few pictures! the new state i'm living in.... my new living space...  a picture wall/closet...   i got a library card yesterday! it rained a lot the other day... and on a side note, i've been to the grocery store twice and each time the sky has decided to open in a big way...both times i was caught without an umbrella...and i've now decided i should probably just keep a spare in my car... while i was in said grocery store, i had to ask for help finding honey, and the guy stocking the cans told me where it was. when i said thank you, he said, "no problem. i always like helping the pretty girls." that may be the nicest thing someone has said to me since i've been here. which, admittedly has only been a week as of yesterday. and it's not like people are walking around being rude, it was just nice.... today i went to the satchmo summerfest, which is just a jazz fest to celebrate louis

that's right. i now live in new orleans. to go to seminary. to study for full-time ministry. i can't believe i just wrote those sentences. when we first got here, all i could think was surreal. surely i'm not actually doing this. surely this is wrong. i'm living here? to learn and do ministry? God, are you sure? this was not in the plan. my plan never including having 6 different jobs since graduating from college or moving to baltimore, back to atlanta, and then to new orleans. my plan never included thinking about leaving teaching for a completely different career. my plan also never included being single at 26 (or when i graduated college for that matter). other people said to me, "you'll end up doing _________" (like my sister, who randomly told me once while we were in high school i was going to be a missionary to peru), but i never listened. i guess part of it was fear -- i don't know that life! that's scary, to be far from home and engage

i haven't written in awhile. i started a post about how this year has been so full of the unexpected, so full of the spectrum of life, ebbing and flowing from joy to sadness, from fear to peace, and back again. the post was complete with pictures of the happenings of 2011 so far...which has by far been, and will continue to be, a year full of changes i never expected (but have mostly welcomed, nonetheless). i never finished it. it's still sitting in draft mode. instead, i want to write about the many thoughts i'm processing. i am, however, finding it more difficult to express them than i originally considered.  so i guess i'll go with one. about a week ago i started listening to the series andy stanley did at northpoint earlier this year for singles called the new rules for love, sex, and dating (and, by the way, kudos to him for preaching an entire 4 week series focused solely on the single and dating people, rather than a series on marriage and devoting one week to

i just had the inexplicable desire for christmas. and i love summer and fall...there's no way i want to skip over them! hmmm......

i discovered a couple weeks ago that i'm a rockstar at meeting the page length requirement for papers.....unless the paper has to be about me. all semester long, i've written book reports and lesson plans and research papers and so on. every single one of them was way beyond the required length. some to the point of spending hours just cutting stuff out while still making the paper sound good. this past thursday i had a paper due -- a personal evaluation of my field experience this semester. it only had to be 3-4 pages long. going into it, i thought it would be a breeze....tha'ts nothing. y'all. it took me forever to write those three pages. i didn't think i would ever finish, or make it to three pages. but then, i had a final due two days later, and i could not for the life of me keep it to the required page length. one page per answer....i averaged one and a half. goodness. i hope i don't have many of those personal papers to write...they might kill me! i

now that i've watched most of the 20 hours or so of the wedding coverage i taped, i felt the need to do a little (maybe?) blog post about it :) first of all, the watching the crowds was fun....they were so excited! it made me wish i could have been there to feel the electricity and experience the atmosphere in person. people from all over the world coming together to celebrate love, a new beginning, restoring that which was lost. a true community feeling took over on friday. it wasn't just a wedding, but a time to come together as a people. we were part of something. something that wasn't terrible or heartbreaking, but wonderful and joyful. i loved the anticipation surrounding catherine's dress. what will it look like? modern? traditional? who will design it? finally seeing the dress did not disappoint. she looked stunning. the dress was simple and elegant, and both traditional and modern. not over the top, but definitely a dress for a princess. in fact, nothing was o

we're doing an autobiography project in class. one of the pieces of the project is where the kids talk about their future goals: will they go to college? where? if not, why? what do you want to do? why? etc. they also have to write about their life when they are 30. what will they be doing? will they be married and have kids? what will their job be? they were writing them today, and i thoroughly enjoyed reading them, so i thought i would share some of the things they wrote or said. "i want to be a lawyer. because i like being all up in everyone's business all the time. and i want to be on tv. the show will be called 'judge bs'." (said by a girl whose initials are l. b-s.) "i'm going to be a pro soccer player. but when i'm 30 i'm going to work at McDonald's because my soccer career will be over." kid: what do you go to college for if you want to work at ruby tuesday? me: well, what do you want to do at ruby tuesday? kid: be

videi watched this video this afternoon, and it was so wonderful, i wanted to share! this is also the first time i've figured out how to include a video in a post, so i hope it works :) made me teary :) and here's a quote i read the other day. it's from a sermon given by george w. truett in 1920: God does not raise up a nation to go strutting selfishly, forgetful of the high interests of humanity. national selfishness leads to destruction as truly as does individual selfishness. nations can no more live to themselves than can individuals. humanity is bound up together in the big bundle of life. the world is now one big neighborhood. there are no longer any hermit nations. national isolation is no longer possible in the earth. the markets of the world instantly register every commercial change. an earthquake in asia is at once registered in washington city. the people on one side of the world may not dare be indifferent to the people on the other side. every man of

update: all that's left of this to-do list is taking test #2 and correcting the research paper! as a lover of to-do lists, i thought i might make one for the next two weeks. take internet class test 1 -- done!! write a lesson plan -- done!! write a paper about said lesson plan -- done!! write a research paper -- done!! turn research paper in to an analyzing website -- done!! correct said paper, then turn in to professor read about 200 pages for internet class -- done!! take internet class test 2 do laundry -- done (thanks to my mom, who took all the laundry in the house to the laundromat when the dryer broke)!! finish cleaning -- done!! pack -- done!! travel to new orleans and back -- done!! other things i can't remember b/c i don't know where my calendar is at the moment... not. go. crazy. remember to smile :)

i want one of these shirts: http://veritascolumbus.com/serve/shehasaname/ writing papers again? not. fun. great stuff from world vision: http://www.worldvisionacts.org/ i'm ready for spring to come back....it's soo dreary and cold here lately....yuck. looking for a way to donate to help some people out? http://dosomethingnow.com/ when i was in nashville this weekend, i decided i kind of like nashville. people watching/encountering while walking around the downtown scene late that night was enjoyable. people are interesting. wicked awesome calendar creator that lets you see the days getting longer: http://www.sunrisesunset.com/custom_srss_calendar.asp spring break starts tomorrow at 3pm! and i'm sooo ready :)

5 days til nashville 10 days (school days, that is) til spring break 17 days til new orleans 7 weeks til classes are over 8 weeks til beck gets married (and my sister turns 25)!! 10 weeks til school lets out for the summer!

to begin with, this post is not about frustration you make up in your head, but frustration about the fictional stories (and the true ones) that we read... i really love reading historical biblical fiction. redeeming love and a lineage of grace are two of the best books i've ever read. also enjoyable are historical fiction books about believers (see lori wick's tucker mills series as an example). enter pearl in the sand by tessa afshar, which i found sitting on the coffee table, begging to be read. it is a retelling of the story of rahab, the lady from jericho who saved the lives of the hebrew spies and then moved into israel after jericho's wall came tumbling down. oh. my. goodness. this book is simply wonderful. i read it twice this weekend (which isn't really that unusual since i've been known to watch the same movie back to back in one day). and i'm in the middle of reading it again right now. if you like redeeming love, you will probably like this bo

i love a good quote, y'all. and in my readings for my classes, i've stumbled across a few that i really like. so i thought i would share. my name from the palms of His hands eternity will not erase; impressed on His heart it remains, in marks of indelible grace. yes, i to the end shall endure, as sure as the earnest is giv’n; more happy, but not more secure, the glorified spirits in heav’n. augustus toplady   because of who man is, he can accept or reject God's invitation of grace; because of who God is, there is a gracious invitation to accept. robert b. stewart   expect great things from God, attempt great things for God. william carey   the place God calls you is the place where your deep gladness and the world's deep hunger meet. frederick buechner

are you ever just inexplicably overcome with some emotion -- be it sadness, joy, worry, stress, love, etc? that's happened to me a lot over the last week or so. on another note, today at school we had a situation with a coupke of kids. kid 1 came to us and said, "my yo-yo is missing out of my desk. it was right there." no worries, we'll look for it, i told him. so while the kids were being taught a lesson, i went looking for it -- and found it in a bookbag. i told the whole class what had happened and that i wanted to guilty party just to give the yo-yo back by the end of recess, without letting them know that i knew who it was. i was hoping the guilty party would come forward. when kid 2 (aka the guilty party) went to get his agenda out of his bag, the yo-yo in question rolled right out of his bag, with kid 1's name written on it and everything. so i ask kid 2, "what just rolled out of your bookbag?" to which he replies, "i don't know. i didn