Glass

Glass, originally uploaded by sarah_laughingguts.

yep.

Wrapping Up!

Oh my. This year's Olympics are an odd combination for me. Watching some events and stories from China, most of them glorious tales of an emerging China, juxtaposed against a backdrop of having left that culture behind and with the addition of Cedar's summer (and my time there) drawing to an end.

Tonight several international and american crew will be watching the closing ceremony together. I wonder if any of them will feel as I do, that this will last as a sign of the end of an age. The end of summer 2008. A few last sails, some special meals, some movies on the big screen, a last ride to the dunes, popping in to the library for internet access, marvelling at the clouds rushing by in the changing season, and counting the days before we get to go back.

Looks like I'll be here 3 more weeks. Wrapping up program, making notes for next year, dreaming big while on the tails of summer, and in slight disbelief that the summer has truly come and gone.

I need to use more content words...the main words in my blog here are fillers! I have always had this problem - saying what I was saying with more words than necessary, and not always using words that counted. Or perhaps the words here are so varied there isn't much repetition?

Right.

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Deeply. Excitedly. Smiling!

If you know, then you know...it's because in less than 2 months I'm leaving for 2 months for foreign lands!

There are so many questions in my mind about that time.
Will it be an amazing vacation?
Will I find out some really super-important things about the world, God, and myself?
Will it merely (and a good merely, mind you) be a good time of kicking back and playing around with a dear friend?

One thing's for sure. Change is inevitable. And so I know at the least that will happen. Somehow.

But how do I prepare myself for that? Do I just do what I've been, and take it as it comes to me? Should I be reading up more, studying the language more, (yeah, with all the freetime I have here at the end of summer camping season. Pshaw.) networking with people to see who I should seek out?

I'm of a mind that what happens will happen and I'm just going to roll with the punches, enjoy the ride, not expect big things but be open to them (like meeting kindred spirits, possible future job leads, and witnessing breathtaking vistas).

The main thing I have been doing is looking at the working world out there. I'd love to work overseas, to live overseas, to take in those different worlds. But there's a big part of me that sees that as selfishness, and that it's jumping ahead of where I am. Rather than doing that, I'm at a point where I'll be needing a break. Those of you in camping world or who have worked in ministry know exactly what I mean! We don't have seminars and books on burnout at Christian, camping, and the nonprofit world for nothing. Stupid Americans.

I've been reading the series The No. 1 Ladies' Detective Agency and I hear mother Africa calling me to herself. To love her people, to lie on the land, to see the lives...

She calls.

Anyone out there think I should do different things in preparation?

Waaaaah!

Summer's end is upon us. August is here. That last month of summer.

And here in the UP, that means Lake Huron might hit 70 in the bay one of these days!

Somehow my feet are cleaner than they were yesterday. Apparently in order to prevent fungus, one must keep their feet clean and dry. That seems difficult.

I haven't anything more that should be said just now, except yes, I would love to try twitter, once I get more regular internet access in higher doses. It doesn't look like that will happen until 2009, however.

I think that's called biding time.

:)