Virgin Africa

"Africa is still the 'dark' continent and so Yoga is still a phenomenon we know exists but haven't yet come in contact with. CNN and the rest of the foreign media seem not to consider it as an evil/idol practice. They claim it's some form of exercise which helps relax the mind and body. My suspicion was kindled some time ago(.3yrs) when I heard the practitioners were considered enemies of the State of China by the authorities there. It then sounded like a cultish thing. America and Americans!! If only you guys knew the amount of influence you have on the rest of the world especially virgin Africa, you'd be more careful on what you do. We all look up to you as the land of hope, a sort of Utopia a.k.a God's own country." --ZZ's reply to my whining about Yoga.

Bowling for Answers

Raining and warm--perfect. I can't stop cogitating about a certain situation. Really so much hinges on what I might decide. I'm worried that "he" doesn't realize the gravity of it all. Maybe he does. He says he does. But it's so hard to pick up on emotions given the circumstances. I see my whole future depending on what I choose here. And then there are so many other factors he can't control, that I can, that make the decision that much more difficult. I got called into work early yesterday--I worked a long and boring shift with this on my mind. Advent and the impending Christmas season in the near distance always bring this sense of urgency out of me. I don't like ambiguity or shades of gray--I like everything being accounted for, so I can raise my head high and proclaim to everyone, including myself, what's happening without hesitancy. Maybe that's a selfish reason to desire expedition, but it's a strong part of it and it matters to me. In my more optimistic moments, I'm excited and anxious about what could be; in my more pessimistic ones, I'm just tired. Off to eat and then bowl. It's just S and I this time around, so we'll see how that goes.

Baby in Blue

http://uchuks.4t.com/photo.html The one in the middle of the second photo wearing a brand new blue Igbo dress....

JFK and the Greeks

What do y'all think of JFK and the Greek idea of the person being well-rounded with athletics, philosophy, spirituality, academics, etc.? Should a person focus and specialize early on, or first learn the basics of all these subjects? Are they all connected in a way?

I know someone who is smart in his major, athletic, poetic, musical and religious. I wish I could be like that. My lungs pop if I try to go up too many stairs! And poetry is a near impossibility to me sometimes....

What's scarier? Bigfoot or Nessie?
Which is more believable, if either?

I was woken up at 230am the other night to my housemates screaming at the top of their lungs in a singsong voice: "Jimmy Carter! His wife and daughter!" Is this from a song or something? They sang it over and over and over again until they were all joining in. They must have been bombed. It was so funny I laughed even though I was tired. I love living in a college town. :)

Good Times marathon this weekend!

Talked to IK for a long time yesterday. I was picking up the phone to call him when he rang me. (Insert Twilight Zone music.) He shed some light on some problems I've been having and we made some plans. I love talking to him because he's extremely intelligent and perceptive and I feel comfortable with him. His opinions are usually correct and he somehow knows me inside and out.

"When we receive the Eucharist with Faith, we walk away from the table of the Lord as Lions, breathing fire, rendered as objects of terror to the Devil" -St. John Chrysostom

angrytwins.blogspot.com

Baba Yetu

Click on "Baba Yetu" to hear the Our Father in Swahili: http://www.christophertin.com/samples.html

HAPPY THANKSGIVING!

Although, I have a sort of ambivalence about Thanksgiving these days (see http://chi.gospelcom.net/GLIMPSEF/Glimpses/glmps071.shtml to get a feel for why: anti-Catholics and especially Puritans don't really do it for me; also, I've been hanging around prisoners for too long. Prisoners like to protest, and since Thanksgiving has a latent anti-Native American tone, it's fallen prey to their long list of things to despise), I am trying to thank the Lord a little more today than usual for all His Blessings. Some things I'm particularly thankful for:
Passing my courses
My dogs
My family and friends (these aren't in order, folks!)
Life!
Health
My job (though you wouldn't know it)
My new car!
Material things that sustain me
Spiritual blessings; the Church, the Sacraments, etc.
TV Land
Etc.

I'll be seeing some friends in a little while, but I think I'm on my own for dinner. Then this evening, Thanksgiving bowling! Crazy, huh?

Footloose and Fancy Free

Yesterday we had First Aid and CPR training for work. I'll get a nice little certification card with my name on it. Then if someone gets hurt around me I can yell, "I'm trained in First Aid! You call 911, you bring me the First Aid kit and AED, you prop his legs up 12 inches with that box." Oh, how I've always desired this power!!! :-D I think I followed the course pretty well too, expect when we got to the CPR training my stupid dummy's chest refused to go up when I blew into the mouth. Ugh. I have the lung power of a lifetime smoker. Maybe the victim should give me CPR first.

In pleasant news, I finally got some time last night to read over one of my stories. I haven't worked on it for about 2 months now (!!!) so the recent additions seemed completely foreign to me. I was even surprised by outcomes of situations and anxiously awaiting certain events. Cool. So now I have at least 3 or 4 novels or novellas that I feel ready to go ahead with and put on print. Finally. I really need not to be such a perfectionist.

Thanks to O. who voiced some concerns about my state of mind yesterday. It's good to know at least one person cares. I guess the rest just don't know what I'm feeling, but how could they? They're soaked up in their own little worlds anyways....
Now that I have a social life again, I feel strong enough to kick some sorry things to the curb and do better for myself.
I might be throwing the baby out with the bathwater every now and again, but at this point I'm not even worried about that. It's like I'm a different person somehow. I guess this is what "fed up and tired" feels like! Fed up with broken promises, dashed hopes, and weary concerns. If people want to mess their lives up, fine, let them do it--I'm not standing in anyone's way anymore. I get paid to be a babysitter on my job, and I look out for people I minister to in a special way because I want to...but people who are supposed to be my friends don't deserve or want my attention after a certain point. I've talked till I've been blue in my face and now I'm through.
(Yeah, I know, I keep saying I'm through, but how come I keep dwelling enough to bother to repeat it?)
I told you it takes me forever to say goodbye.

I need to learn the art of just walking away, and not looking back.

Christ the King

+JMJ
Yesterday was the Feast of Christ the King. Today is the beginning of a new liturgical year. Christ the King is my favorite feast of the whole year. I didn't make it to Mass however, and I even forgot about it until FC told me about the lovely procession he and his parish did.

Why is everyone disappointing me lately? I put too much stock in people, people that I shouldn't. I'm such a dreamer--I believe all sorts of things are possible, that I can squeeze blood from stone. I know some things won't happen, but I try anyway and think, "But imagine if they DID happen?" It sets me up for disappointment more than the average rational being.
But I just won't give up. Even as I'm telling myself to cut myself loose from a particular fantasy or engagement, I'm imagining the possiblities. I fume and rant about how I'm giving up and leaving, but every morning I wake up and forget those ideas entirely. I'm either a complete push-over, a pathetic desperate soul, or an oblivious loser. Maybe all three.

I finally got to go out and have some social activities tonight. Lots of fun. All our hard work setting this up finally paid off. It turns out I'm a halfway decent bowler, too. Who'd have guessed?

Things will look better in the morning. But I'm tired of feeling like I always place myself in situations where I don't belong. I'm tired of "settling." I know where my crowd is, and I know who my friends are. Why do I keep pretending some people will change when they actually won't? I know the truth down inside but there's always that little area of my brain feeding me the poisonous "what-ifs."
I need to learn the word "No." I need to learn how to say "Goodbye." And mean it.
I need to move on from some people, places and things. I need to let go of some dreams. I need to bury some ghosts.
It's a new year. The time is perfect.

The White Crown Suits Him

To work is to pray. I know that. So does St. Josemaria and Cardinal Francis Xavier. But all work and no play makes Jack a dull boy. Also, as Father said: We are not supposed to be slaves to work.
That's why I need to set boundaries with my boss. There is more to my life than work and I'm neglecting all my other responsibilities and duties just to work. I'm making enough $ right now with the usual hours; I don't need to keep adding them on. Especially not when there are other workers who WANT more hours. Why am I always chosen?
I'm finally drawing the line at pagan practices. My boss keeps wanting to drag me to them for some reason. No more! (Hopefully. Sometimes I'm a coward and sometimes these things are sprung on me literally last moment.)
An email from my brother ZZ really strengthened me on this today. He left a relationship that was causing him to sin and cited Jesus' words that if an eye causes you to sin, pluck it out. I shot back at him the quote from a saint, "Flee from places of sin as from the plague." I'm very proud of him but I need to imitate him more. I know my boss is upset, but if she fires me I have a better job waiting for me in Feb. anyways.

Praise Jesus I finished those exams and I think I did OK!

Runaway (Styl-Plus)

I could search for a million years
I would still never find the words
And the greatest of all the things
I fear is that my true feelings will never be heard by you
You'll never know how much I care
You'll never know how much your love will mean to me
Your love will mean to me

If I could runaway
I'll run with you far away
To a place where there'll be angels
Who'll describe to you the way I feel
Feel for you, feel about you
My heart and my soul's desire

I could walk all around the world
I would still never find the words
'Cos the feeling I feel inside my heart is a feeling that has never been felt
By me I've never been so deep in love
It's never been so hard to say the way I feel To say the way I feel

If I could pick a day to run away
I'd surely pick a Sunday
Cos the angels would be totally there at the disposal of you and me
The reason I need the angels to talk to you for me is that you're my angel
So maybe you will understand the angels when they tell you how I feel.

I spent most of yesterday thinking, talking and whining about studying rather than really studying. Then I talked to IK and realized that medical exams are probably way more difficult than my stupid Latin and Crim. Just. so I eased up a little. I've been kinda down the past two days, probably because of "girl issues" but also because there really are a host of things in my life I'm unhappy about at the moment. I just never realized it because I was too busy for so long. But now that I had a couple of free hours to just sit and write and think, it turns out a couple of my "friends" are complete . . . fools. So I'm through depending on some of them for now. Also, I need to be making more concrete plans for the future, but I don't know what I can do with my dogs. If you're not a dog person, this will make no sense to you. But if you're like I am, your dogs are like family members, and the idea of just giving them up because you want to move or get a career really is just plain heartless. This has weighed on my mind for years now, when considering grad school, or missionary work, or any kind of major change. The other things I have on my mind are either too trivial to care to post or too personal to put up here. I'm not seriously down in the dumps or anything, and I'm sure hormones have a LOT to do with this, but still--I'm usually one of those "glass half full" types, so feeling like this is strange.

Other Things

My new car is here and is wonderful. No more driving in fear of getting stranded. No more frequent stops at gas stations to pump air in the front right tire. No more embarassment when I meet a new person and show them my car. Now I can do all those things I haven't been able to do in so long, like:
open the hatch in the back
listen to music while driving
spray my windshield with the water thingy that cleans it
use high beams at night on country roads
brake without fear
use power windows!!! (a true luxury)
put on A/C and heat! (climate control? in a car? for real? wow, I can drive with the windows UP for a change....)
you get the point. i'm seriously ecstatic.

working like a dog. my boss is a slave driver. now I know how my ancestors felt...
at the hands of the Romans
at the hands of the Ottomans
at the hands of the Communists
at the hands of the Nazis
(you get the point)

Nah, she's not really a slave driver, but I do have fleeting thoughts like this at various moments throughout the day. I basically have the same duties as a house slave would. It's interesting. I've found out I'm more patient than I'd have assumed in some ways, but much less patient in others. You really get to examine yourself in a job like this.
I still maintain this is one of the greatest jobs I could have right now and marvel that CJ hooked me up.
Whoa, I just re-read this and saw that it appears I was likening my boss to the Nazis! LOL. No, I had just started that string on something and it snowballed into something different. I do love hyperbole though, just for the records.
None of this makes any sense--I'm exhaused and don't know why I'm still awake. I just wanted to write something on this blog because I don't keep it up these days; also (probably because of a particularly stressful and long day, and because of the lack of sleep), I'm a bit wistful and needed to share. I wish I was in Africa. Or I wish that Africa was here with me. I can't tell you how lonely it gets sometimes when I come home at night and realize there's no one to complain to about my day, or seek advice from, or share with. No one. OK, my dogs and some buddies here and there, but y'all know what I mean. Even a nun has her community. It's ironic: for months I was cooped up inside here alone and I wasn't the least bit lonely. Now I'm out all day and evening and the aloneness has caught up with me. I guess I just wish I had someone to share my health and good fortune and blessings with. But the ocean is wide and after all I should be focusing on other things.