The last stretch

Ah, it’s nice to get a break. Technically I have 5 days, 2 finals,  and 1 essay between me and winter break, but my pinnacle of stress was last Wednesday, so now that the 1 am bedtimes have died down I’m feeling pretty good.

I finally got a chance to poke around the internets for some emergent blogs; I haven’t nosed around much for the last three weeks or so. I’m horrible at trying to get into distinct, daily routines, and even though I always bookmark interesting blogs with the intent of checking back everyday or so, a few days becomes a week, which turns into two weeks, and so on. Instead, I usually find an interesting post (admittedly, often from Patrick’s Facebook posts) and then branch off from there. It’s always a pleasant “ah HA!” moment when I read something from a person that was mentioned earlier at cohort or in casual conversation and finally understand what they were talking about. =)

While I get a decent break from school, my hands have been busy trying to catch up on my Christmas gift making. I knit almost non-stop yesterday (I may have actually sleep-knitted, about 5 of those hours I only vaguely remember) and not only got a mere two feet (TWO FEET! In a day. Seriously?!) further on a scarf, but also somehow managed to cause some splintering in my early Christmas present – beautiful handmade knitting needles from India.

I’m a little embarrassed; not only at my apparent aggression with knitting needles, but also my slowness – at this rate, I could knit 24/7 and still not be done by Christmas. Time to start prioritizing – I’d wager a guess that Heather is willing to wait a few extra days on her gloves, but my sister will be severely displeased if she doesn’t get her gifts on time.

Let it snow

Ah, I love watching big flakes of snow from my window. At this point, it looks like our grass has a mild to moderate case of dandruff, and I am firmly and rationally expecting to go to work in a couple hours, though my inner child is still shouting “WHEEEEE It’s snowing and we’re going to get ten feet of snow and I won’t have to go to school or work for days!” What? I can hope!

I have the distinct urge to sit around for the rest of the night drinking cider and knitting. In fact, I probably should – at least the knitting part. When I think about the presents I’m making for Christmas this year, I always think it’s no big deal – two scarves (one down), two hats, three pairs of gloves, and five toys. In the course of a month, that shouldn’t really be an issue, I mean, if that was my vocation I feel like I’d actually need to get more done in a month than that.

And then I sit down to knit and remember that I’m creating each object stitch by tiny little stitch.

Other than that, I’m trying to figure out how to do the painting my sister has requested for Christmas. The trees I’ve attempted look horrible, but if I take those out it just looks like a layer of brown color sitting over a layer of blue-green colors – or if you look closely, you might see a lake. Beach? Not so much. Arrrrgh.

Other than that, my last week or two has been an average of neutral or good, lots of ups and downs. Group project frustration is tempered by relaxing weekends spent watching Dr. Who with Alannah and spending my evening with Alex, etc. I’ve been invited to my courselink’s Christmas party and at first I was looking forward to going. Yet the more I think about it, I realize that these are…well, let’s just say stereotypically Chico girls, and there will undoubtedly be some activities going on that I would rather not take part in.

So now I have to weigh whether the fun of the first hour or so is worth the peer pressure and awkwardness of the next several hours. I can be the loner now or the loner then, but either way I’m stuck looking weird and antisocial. There are some times that I’m really annoyed by my generation.

Thanksgiving Break

Ahhhhhh. My first official day of Thanksgiving break. I’d originally planned to have this be my “yuck” day – errands, cleaning, and  homework – but it instead shaped up to have a lot of knitting, time relaxing with Alex, and going in to work a little early to snag a few extra hours. On the whole, not too bad. I’ve lucked out; not too much homework over break, only one bigger and slightly unpleasant project. I always say I’m going to get all of that done early on, but for once I’m not going to stress about homework and chores and I’m just going to do it. Seems simple, huh? We’ll see.

I’ve had a bit of time since my last post to work through some of my stuff about that Abbey – I had the nagging feeling that I was “next” in terms of who would be leaving, and I’m generally feeling comfortable and at home again. Funny how I can get mixed up and upset so quickly, but it had been building for awhile so I’m glad it finally bubbled up to the surface and got out.

Most of this week I’m dedicating to the joint causes of hanging out with my family and Alex, and making my Christmas presents. I’m attempting to make – knit, bake, paint, etc – all of my presents this year, but while it’s cheaper monetarily it means I spend a lot of time on them. I can live with that, I have lots of seasons of shows to put on in the background while I knit So, while it looks like I’m just lazing around watching TV all day, I’m actually doing something decently productive. I’ve put in about 12 hours since Friday, and I’m feeling pretty good about making everything this year.

Saturday we had a little coffee and theology with a decently sized and diverse group of people.  (I feel like an emergent snob saying “cohort”) Interestingly, we actually had a few women – usually the group is men and sometimes me or Robin. I must say, I enjoyed the moment when all of the women looked at each other and, at the same time, realized that all of us felt a bit out of place and like we didn’t completely understand everything that was being said. Something about safety in numbers, I think. Tuesday we’ll be heading down to Jason and Julissa’s for prayers, which I’m looking forward to as well. I like getting out of our routines, our boxes we (or at least I) pack our lives into.

That’s part of why I go to the cohort; I don’t really like coffee that much, and even when I understand what’s being said I usually feel like anything I would have to say has already been said or I can’t think of a response. But everyone there has a different perspective and we’re scattered across the spectrum in terms of theological and political beliefs (albeit we’re more left-leaning than right), and I enjoy getting little pieces of those ideas that I wouldn’t have thought of myself.

Other than that, not too much is going on. I’m prepping Alex for Thanksgiving with my family and generally snuggling in for the chilly weather with lots of books and chai. Though for now, I must venture out into the brisk winter air and head to work. Okay, fine, it’s really not that cold. I just despise winter.

Reflections

A few things have been on my mind the last couple days. I’ve had trouble articulating them, even in my own thoughts, and even now the thoughts probably won’t be very coherent written out. But writing always seems to help me think through things, so I’ll give it a shot.

The first part is thinking about what aspects of my life here I’ll take with me when I leave the Abbey. If nothing else, watching people leave over the last year is a reminder that even if I don’t plan to go, my time of usefulness and growth here may come to an end before I mean for it to.

That being said, this felt like a pretty straightforward answer; while I don’t know if I’ll ever live in a situation like this again, there are some of the common themes that I think I’ll take with me, and that would actually be hard for me to try to press out of my life.

If anything, being at the Abbey has made my view of “radical” much less intense. I’m living it right now, and it doesn’t mean going to Africa for 5 years or spending 8 hours a day in prayer. Whether or not I’m ever in an intentional community again, I can take a healthy chunk of what I’ve learned (and am learning) and translate into my context.

So then came the harder part. Talking about some recent events around here, I started thinking about my faith. I wondered about how different my life would be if there was no religion in it – especially with the congregational support portion of our regula gone, it’s not hard to imagine not stepping into a church for a significant amount of time.

Depressingly, it seemed like my life wouldn’t change all that much; there’s no logical reason why I couldn’t do exactly what I’m doing right now without any spiritual backing. I guess you could say this is what my parents would call a “crisis of faith”.

I was feeling pretty emotional since Christianity has always been a facet of my life, and it felt completely strange to contemplate life without it. I let it stew in the back of my head a bit while I scooped ice cream and cleaned – it’s amazing how much my brain can work while my hands are kept busy by simple tasks.

When I came back to the idea later, I felt a lot more clear headed about it. And I realized that, for whatever reason – if I was feeling cynical I would say because I’m comfortable and used to it – my life without God just wouldn’t feel right. There might be different ways to have that in my life, but once I started thinking about how I would feel, not just act, without it, I recognized that I would not be content without some form of spirituality/religion.

It’s all still bouncing around in my head a bit, still pondering some of it, but I feel okay with where I’m at now.

Yay for no more CSETs!

Since about 11:00 am on Saturday, I’ve been quite content. The last week has been fairly stressful, with midterms, big projects, and CSETs constantly looming. Interestingly, completely out of my normal form I was possibly even over prepared for everything; I stressed out right up until I actually started taking the test/planning the project/writing the paper, and then I instantly realized that I was totally okay. It was a pleasant reminder that I can actually get things done and be responsible, semi-functional adult.

I had some vague ideas of what I wanted to do after the big tests were over, but I ended up mostly vegging out and doing some minor creative work – like hand-making bows for my niece’s gifts, which I got a lovely thank you call from that made me smile (there’s just something particularly fun about “I love you aunt Rachel!” in an adorable 3 year old’s voice). But I’m okay with it; no big things due this week, and if I do say so myself I deserve some off time. I’ll be back to the grind tomorrow, but this weekend I’ve enjoyed myself.

For youth group this week we did more guerrilla raking – popping up at people’s houses to do yard work. It was more interesting since one of the kids was working through some grieving, and had some physical side effects, probably from lack of food. Grieving stuff is uncomfortable enough for me, because everyone handles it differently and I often don’t know the person well enough to know if they want to be alone or have someone be with them, be distracted or talk about it, etc. Adding in the physical stuff, it was hard for me to balance coddling versus being too harsh and/or cynical. By the end of the time she seemed okay, but it got me thinking about how to handle some of those situations.

Also on my mind is how my friendship is progressing with Heather. I didn’t notice it as much until I had some time away from her, but when she and I are together I tend to get pretty monopolized by her. I don’t mean that to say that it’s her fault or something like that, it’s more like I tend to gravitate and talk almost solely with her than with other people. I love the girl, and I love hanging out with her, especially since I don’t see her as much any more, but I’ve gotta work on that.

Finally, on a more positive note, I’m working on getting better about my follow-through. I think I’ve improved a lot in terms of situations involving other people, but in terms of things I commit myself to that are individual I don’t do a great job of being discerning. Often, it’s in terms of projects. There are so many interesting and creative ideas to try, and I whenever I get bogged down in a longer-term project I’m apt to distract myself with smaller, newer, more “exciting” ones. And then I feel guilty for not finishing what I started. Recently, I started writing down future ideas and limiting myself to 2 to 3 at a time. I’ve even crossed some off without doing them at all, not because they’re bad or I don’t like them. That may be great for someone else to do, but especially if it’s not already in my sphere of common projects (sewing/quilting/knitting/minor amounts of jewelry-making) or something that I would have use for, or want to make for someone else, what would be the point of spending time on it? That in and of itself weeds out a lot of things.

I’m also working on this for my personal productivity. I tend to fall in the trap of expecting too much of myself, like that I’ll go home and study and work on projects from the moment I get home from school until I go to work, or that I’ll get everything done super early. Those are good things to do, but trying to do that all the time just can’t work out. I need some healthier expectations for myself; it’s a bad sign when I feel guilty for sleeping more than six hours or having some down time.

Fall Colors

I should be doing my homework right now. Or sleeping. Or working up the willpower to go to the communal meal tonight. Instead, I’m entranced by the beautiful fall colors out my window. Being in fake light all day, albeit pretty good fake light, is getting to me, and realizing that this is probably one of the last beautiful days before winter gets its icy grip on the world isn’t helping.

I wonder how silly it would look to take a cup of tea, a blanket, and my laptop outside to do homework and sunbathe (probably more of the latter than the former). Probably fairly silly, and I’d be guaranteed a few snarky remarks from Patrick whenever he gets back, but I’m feeling like it’s worth it. Quick! Rationalize it to myself! Ummmm….tea might make me feel better with all those antioxidants and whatnot, I can stay warm with a blanket, and I might get homework done. Maybe. Well, I’m convinced!

All that to say, not too much is going on right now, or at least not too much that I haven’t repeated over and over by now – homework, CSETs this Saturday (blegh) and my poor nutrition and sleeping habits have done a number on my immune system so I don’t feel good…again. I’m currently being humbled by my knitting project, since whenever I start to feel like it’s easy and I’ve totally got it down, either a) I make a silly mistake and wonder why I did (and why I didn’t catch it until it’s too late to turn back) or b) I can’t even figure out what happened.

The sun and the fall leaves are calling. This is when I wish I could paint better, to capture these moments.

Week 9 Down

Woohoo, another week down! I must say, the highlight of my week was that I finally got a solid sabbath. For the last month or so, I’ve been so busy that the thought of a day off hasn’t even crossed my mind, but Thursday I had no homework due and no class until 2:00, so I spent the morning relaxing and rejuvenating. I’m still pretty tired – I don’t know why, I’ve been getting 6 – 7 hours of sleep a night, and while that isn’t exceptionally good, it shouldn’t be bad enough to make me this tired.

Unfortunately, technology was kinda iffy for me this week. My xbox finally broke down, my camera broke (while it seems it’s just the button that takes the picture that doesn’t work, I have no idea how to get that fixed) and, after months of printing stuff at school because I thought there was a cord missing from our printer, I finally found out that it was working and went to print a paper. It was out of ink. Grar.

School’s been chugging along, and I’m almost done with my placement hours. I cannot express how glad I will be to get that done. After that, it’s mostly just a few more minor papers and some tests, and it’s Christmas! Monday is the due date for one of my biggest projects, an approximately 15 page paper on the subject of my “personal practical philosophy” of teaching (the name should tell you how enjoyable that is), but once that’s done it should be smooth sailing.

Tomorrow’s art class will mark the half way point for this session. While up to this point it’s only been Summer and Josh’s kids, though I may have an extra couple this week, I still feel like there’s value in it. If nothing else, it gives me practice for consistently making lesson plans and making sure I have a purpose in each activity. Since I’ve never put in significant time with kids younger than about 7, it also gives me a better estimation of their attention span, as well as cognitive and physical abilities. So essentially, I’m getting more comfortable with the fact that, just as I don’t judge our communal meals or youth group purely by the amount of people, I’m finding that I can still find worth and purpose doing art classes. Even if it’s just for a first grader and several preschoolers.

Now, if you’ll excuse me, I have a well-deserved date night and a (hopefully) good weekend ahead of me.

Weekend! Well, sorta

This week is pretty busy, and while technically I’m on my weekend right now due to furloughs, it certainly doesn’t feel like it. I’m going in for my school placement tomorrow and Friday, so I actually leave earlier and are gone longer than I would be on a normal school day. Yay? Ah well, at least I’ll get my hours cleared up sooner. 45 hours are a chunk to fit in, and it’s a draining experience; it’s good for me, and I’m glad I’m doing it, but it makes for long days.

I need to prep for this Saturday’s art class. Last Saturday was our first session for the fall, and it went well; it was only Summer and Josh’s kids, but it wasn’t too insanely messy and everything worked out okay.

I forgot to get pictures of making our cave paintings and making bricks (hint: I may have been inspired by a certain cob house in Concow), but we painting our clay bricks and made a cute little pyramid out of them.

Sure, it’s crumbly and doesn’t fit together well, but it was made by kids ranging from ages 2 – 6, what do you expect? Okay, yes, I made about half of those bricks beforehand, but in my defense…actually, no, I don’t really have any excuse.

I made the mistake a couple of weeks earlier promising to help one of my friends finish a knitting project – she wasn’t sure how to cast off, and I thought it would be easier to show her rather than try to explain it – but as soon as a few girls around me saw me knitting, a queue started up of who I would help/teach/make something first for next. I can’t complain too much, it’s not like I have any of my own projects that I’m working on, but I’m not sure I like being the “weird knitting girl that lives in some crazy church in Paradise”. I should probably be used to it by now.

Play me off…

Since I graduated high school, quite a few of my former peers have gotten married, had kids, or both. It’s always been people I was only vaguely familiar with or didn’t care too much about, but for whatever reason it always stung a little bit to hear of another person’s engagement. In my classes, there are lots of wedding and engagement rings to be seen – granted, I’m definitely younger than most of these people.

As much as I try to rationalize my way out of it – because of course if I stop to think about it, there is no way I’d want to be married at this age, for a number of reasons – it still throws my mood every time, especially since this time it’s someone that I know pretty well. I’m truly happy for her and wish her the best, but….gah.

I guess I’ve been socialized in such a way that it feels as though the measure of my womanhood is being able to find a husband and start a family, though I know logically that isn’t true. All of those fairy tales ending with “happily ever after” are finally coming back to haunt me.

To make matters worse, since I found out about this friend getting married, I’ve had Keyboard Cat stuck in my head (link is to explanation).

I’ve been “played off” by my own subconscious.

Bakin’ Goodies

For whatever reason, when the winter gets colder I begin to cook impulsively. Actually, let me rephrase that: I begin to bake sweets impulsively. Last night I baked up some of my mom’s sugar cookies only to eat a couple and send most of the rest off to Alex for his birthday.

Today I was charged with a bigger task: making pan dulce for my culture group presentation tomorrow. I guessed that I could probably make a double batch and have my contribution for Tuesday’s meal, since Tuesday is routinely my busiest and most tiring day.

The first batch was decent, the frosting melted together so it didn’t have the nifty designs and it didn’t rise as much as I hoped, but they certainly looked festive.

The second batch…well…let’s just say that I know for sure now that the yeast I used for that batch is long past its prime (the big one is one from my first batch to show relative size).

Along with all of this was the usual baking mishaps – trying to halve a recipe but accidentally putting in the ingredients for a full recipe, running out of eggs/flour/powdered sugar and generally being frustrated with my ridiculous yeast. (If I remember correctly, in my biology class we proved that yeast is a living thing. Does that mean I’ve had a dead thing in my pantry for several months?)

My group is presenting tomorrow, and I’m pretty well set; book read, movie watched, interview completed, food baked, and I just have to write a summary of all of that. Ironically – since our assigned culture is Latinos – after eating Mexican food tonight I’m having a few digestive issues. To be fair, Alex was sick yesterday so I may have happened to catch something from him and it didn’t show up until I this evening.

The one bonus is that now I get out of my group meeting tonight. Not that I don’t like my group, in fact I enjoy working with them. But I can write out my portion and email it off in about 1/3 to 1/4 of the time it would take to meet with them. AND I can do it in my pj’s and not have to trek down to Chico. Don’t you like how I use “trek” as though Chico is an hour or more away?