Another Turning Point, a Fork Stuck in the Road

Alright well I guess this isn’t really a turning point in my life but the song lyric seemed like such a fun title for a blog so it won out anyways.  Maybe I can maniputate my blog into a convincing story about the imaginary fork which has been stuck in my road of life.

Well school has officially begun and despite my previous, and slightly panicy, beliefs I got all of my paperwork and other necessary errands run before classes began.  I started off the moring on a good foot and was ontime and everything for my first class, modern college geometry.  In typical math department style we began learning out of the book on the first day and have a homework assignment.  I have come to accept this as the norm however so there will be no rant following on assigning homework on the first day of classes.  Unlike math department style we did get out of class early so our professor could prepare for Academic Convocation Chapel. 

Yes, the most dreaded chapel of the year when professors all dress up in their academic robes and parade across the stage in front of all of the students.  Perhaps it is done to inspire us to seek the accomplishment and education for which those robes represent, however it has become the most dreaded chapel experience.  I had every intention of attending chapel today until I heard the news of the oncoming academic ritual.  So starting the school year off right, I ditched the first chapel.

Continuing on with my educational experience today, I attended my second class: Intro to Chemistry.  Until today I had honestly forgotten my earlier debate over which Chemistry class to take.  My freshman year I decided that I should take chemistry for my physical science general education class.  Olivet, however, offers two different freshman level chemistry classes.  One states that a chemistry class in high school is a prerequisite and the other states that 2 any high school math classes are the only prerequisites.  Well… since I didn’t take chemistry in high school I convinced myself that I shouldn’t press the system to get into the harder class.  I late decided that maybe I should take the harder one though because I really should learn to challenge myself a little.  Now having forgotten this whole debate with myself from years ago, I signed up for the easy chemistry in a panic to get my schedule for this semester finally figured out.  As I sat in class today and was told we are starting from the very beginning with measurement and numbers and hopefully by the end of the semester we will cover what a high school chemistry class would get through in a year, I remembered my long forgotten chemistry class debate.  I think I will stay though.  I have other challenging classes that I am taking and there are many other things that I would rather dedicate my time to other than chemistry, and besides, he doesn’t take attendance.  I calculated today that I can never attend class except on test days, skip my 7am lab nearly every week and go to the make up evening lab, only take 3 of the 4 tests, and never do any homework and only miss 25 out of 700 points from the class.  Maybe I should challenge myself more but this is sure sounding like a good deal.  This way I can better dedicate myself to my other classes, the youth group, my student teaching class for next year, and my husband, right?

My last class then was mysteriously moved without me knowing.  I found it though after walking into the wrong class and wandering around looking lost.

We’ll see how this all goes.

Along Came a Fire Hydrant

I spent this past week in Colorado visiting family and friends. Most of my time was spent with family at my grandparents’ 50^th Anniversary Party / Family Reunion. It was good to see family that I haven’t seen in years and to see my cousin’s new baby. When I wasn’t family reunioning, I spent time catching up with friends. After going bouldering and rock climbing, I received quite an injury from an unusual place.

Hannah, Alyssa, and I met Julie, Shauna, Laurie, and Kaitlyn for lunch in downtown Denver. After dining at Chilies and convincing Hannah to skip her class the three of us decided to get haircuts and promised to go show the others from lunch when we were done. So the haircutting went well, no physical injuries (although Hannah was slightly traumatized by the notion of her newly chopped not-at-all-mullet-like bangs). So along we went back to the office that our friends work at to show our big reveals all along the way discussing our plans for the rest of the day (nose piercing??!).

 

As we were rounding the corner to get to the door of the building, along comes the most beautiful bright yellow fire hydrant. As my eye caught the obstacle in my path my brain began sending signals to my legs to avoid cette object. Unfortunately, my right pinky toe was a little slow on the comprehension. Yep, she collided head on with the bright yellow fire hydrant. Ouch, but not a big deal I think, as I have much practice in stubbed toes. Then my eye glanced down to make sure no blood was pouring out and to ensure my toe nail was still attached. My eyes instead caught sight of a crooked toe (granted not a 90 degree angle but definitely not pointing its normal direction). Now my foot was pretty numb at this point but as I glanced between my feet noting the difference in pinky toe direction, I began to worry. I noted to Hannah and Alyssa that I ran into the fire hydrant and thought my toe looked broken. Fortunately we were steps away from the elevator in our intended destination building so we continued on decided to assess the damages there. As I hobbled, dizziness began to set in. Safely inside the elevator I grasped the arm rails, became quite pale and informed them that I was going to pass out. Luckily I regained my balance enough to collapse into the office chair instead of the elevator floor.

The kind people there took good care of me gathering ice and water and searching for hospital phone numbers and all of that. Initially I think to call my mom, the nurse, but she was in a certification class at the hospital and, of course like always, had her phone turned off. So my friends called around, I sat on the phone with Denver general, and we debated what to do because of my lack of health insurance. Well rumor had it that they don’t really do anything to fix broken toes anyways so I saw no reason to pay at least $100 to be told that again. My parents and I had tickets to see Cirque de Soleil that night and I was flying back to Chicago early the next morning. So after my mom seemed not concerned in the slightest I decided to hobble along to the night’s activities as planned, minus the nose piercing. As we went along my mom’s concern increased but I became more stubborn that a stupid fire hydrant would not ruin my night.

So here I am in Chicago now with my toes neatly taped together, as painful as it was to get them that way. Hopefully my toe will heal straight and I will once again be able to wear real shoes, even though I prefer sandals anyways.

Thus concludes the epic story of Megatron and the bright yellow fire hydrant. As Hannah so eloquently put it, “I am Optimus Prime. Here to stop your evil doings, Megatron. You will never conquer the world, not while I still have this fire hydrant.”

Forgiveness Amidst Mourning

I’m reminded of the story of Jesus calling a man to follow him and the man said, let me first burry my father who has died, and Jesus said to let the dead burry the dead. This never really has made that much sense to me and frankly seemed kind of cld of Jesus. I’ve heard various interpretations of it being a common excuse or brushing off the detail by saying it’s Jesus just talking about not hesitating to be a follower. This whole situation has given it new meaning to me, however. I don’t know if this is the original meaning, probably not, but this is what it means to me. I want to wait to consider offering forgiveness to that man until we all have mourned and gotten some sense of closure on everything that happened. I want to go and burry Emily before I worry about loving my enemy as Jesus has commanded. I want to not think about it yet but Jesus is calling for more and for deeper. Let the dead burry the dead, Megan let his evil die with him and Emily and offer forgiveness now, no waiting for closure. Now I still battle with forgiving someone who I see as evil, I battle with sepatating his actions from his person. Someone who would do something so hanous seems to be evil not just do evil. But I know that I have to try and I have to learn how now even when I’d rather only mourn. No benifit will come from hating him, but rather hating what he did.

Dazed

I’m in a daze. It all seems so surreal. I can either cry or pretend that it’s not that bad but either way it’s constantly in my mind. I wasn’t there, I didn’t know Emily, but still the pain is fresh and deep. Our poor little mountain community. It’ll always be home for me, yet now home has changed and I wasn’t there to experience the pain with my community. So far away from it all, no one here gets it. They try to pin what is wrong on one connection or one reason but it’s not. I’m not crying because I know the classroom or because I was worried about my friends or because our community is mourning. I’m crying because it hurts, whatever it is. I’m disgusted by the horror of it all. And I’m trapped by the fear everyone must have felt. I’m exhausted, yet I can’t sleep. How do we move on? How do I move on being so connected yet disconnected? I face people here in some daze yet trying to appear normal. I may laugh or act normal but I don’t really feel it once the moment up I return to the horror. I want so badly to be connected, to be there with everyone and hug them and tell them I’m so glad you’re ok. From here it’s SO hard. I can’t hardly think about that man. I don’t think of him with a name but as a monster. Who could do something so horrible. Commit suicide, sad but fine, but why destroy the lives of so many before you do. You’ll be gone either way, it’ll make no difference. I can’t see him as a person, I see so much evil. God, how do I love him? How do I ofter forgiveness? How do I love someone who can do something so inhuman? I can’t separate his action from who he must be, who he was!! He’s the epitome of an enemy to me and I can’t seem to love him and hate his sin, it blends too close together. Help. God, couldn’t she have at least been Your’s?

Home Alone with Kitties

We have two kittens who are 10 weeks old. They are cute I’ll admit and I love them to death. They seems to not understand that they are capable of hurting us. See you have to wait until they are 3 month old before they can be declawed so until then, we get stratches. It’s not as if they do it out of malicious intent; they just want to play and we make the best jungle gyms.

Anyways this whole this has made me realize that I’m not ready to have kids. Not that I was planning on having any for a while but just re-affirmed that notion. Disciplining a kitty is a lot harder than I ever realized let alone a kid. I guess that’s what they say for people to do before they have kids is to have a plant and then a pet. I don’t have time or really the desire to play with the kittens as much as they’d like, I get annoyed with them even though they’re cute (just know one walked across the keyboard causing several windows to pop up, sigh), and they prevent us from sleeping. If we shut them out of our room they sit outside the door meowing to come in, but if we let them in, they run and play over us all night.

I wonder, however, if I will ever come to that point where I feel like I could be a good parent. I think it might just be one of those things that your not any good at till you do it and make a few mistakes.

For now I’ll stick with my rebellious kitty.

Here we go

Ahh the joys of beginning a new blog. With all the things I have to do and all the time I feel like I don’t have, I’m using this opportunity to begin a blog. I’m not sure what it will end up being; I’ll do my best not to turn it into a complain fest like many other blogs I’ve read. This is an insight into my random thoughts for those who are interested. It probably won’t be anything spectacular and I can about guarantee no one will be trying to publish it. View it as a vent (for both the good and the bad) from me. Take it or leave it.