Make note of the first, second, and third sketch; then notice how the first and second, third, and fourth photo mirror the first images!

Uploading to YouTube

Finally, after half a year and more, a few of my videos are coming up on YouTube.

Like the monkeys.


Looking at little Binti dancing in Amba's kitchen, taking another tour of her house, even looking at some old college videos has me smiling with delight. It's so wonderful to look back and remember what great times I've already had with dear friends.



For instance, there was this one time all my classes for the day were canceled due to hail and ice. Of course I had already walked halfway to my building before hearing that...but I was able to capture the sparkle since my camera was always with me!

And there was another time friends at Cedar Campus filled the camp van with more people than I had thought was humanly possible.

I've worked with some great people so far. I hope the next 25 years brings even better memories! Some people claim that the best times of their lives were high school, or college, or right after. I hope that I'm not able to say the same. There's a lot of living and a lot more to do with the wisdom and experience that are yet to come, I'm pretty much sure of it!

Surrounded!

It seems I am surrounded by people getting married or having babies (or both..)

Which is normal, given my 20-something age. The odd thing in my thoughts, however, is the fact that so many are becoming younger and younger. A tad frightening.

They all look so happy in their cute little facebook pictures, and gush so prettily. And I'm happy for them. I am! But I am also so not there.

The exciting thing in my life right now is trying to figure out when I can make my way south to Houston and visit cousins, or east to New York and visit Ambakisiye. Good place to be in, if you ask me!

In some ways, travel becomes more expensive - since you have to book plane tickets for two. But if you're driving, it's cheaper, because you can cut the cost in two. You also don't get the quiet and the ability to belt out those songs on the radio, though (you know, the ones where they keep changing the words you're sure you knew...)

The fact remains, though; I'm surrounded by matrimonious relationships and babies. Singles, don't all leave me in the dust, please!

Yesterday

Spoiler: This will be a rather lame post. I'm really just delaying my need to get dressed for work this morning. And enjoying having time to breathe before getting in there, like last week. Starting the workday at 8am is harsh for Silly Sarah.

Yesterday I had a fantastic time doing absolutely nothing except surf and watch a season of sitcom on dvd, a good way to recover from a day with the extended family and their friends, a combined reunion/birthday/anniversary/birthday/independence day celebration.



The biggest task now? Figuring out which weekend goes where - PVM, C+C, Chicago, Detroit.. but the weekend of August 7 is sorted out! I'm one of the happiest passengers to Portland, OR for a delightful little wedding in the west and introduction to a new member of the family.

Hills

I rode up the steepest hill today. Just about killed me. I had to get off the bike halfway up and walk the rest of the way, it was so long and grueling. Made me feel like such a twerp of a rider. And as I was walking, still getting out of breath, I was deciding that this hill would be nice to come down but I was never, ever, ever coming back this way again. The hill just wasn't worth it.

But when I got to the top, there was an equally satisfying descent.

And all my plans changed. I just might have decided to go that way every time, because even though there's great cost to my fragile little ego in the climb, there's incredible reward in the 30 mile per hour + coast down the other side.

Seems to me that might just be the key to enjoying fitness. For me, anyway, the tougher it beats me up and pays me back, the more I appreciate it.

But tomorrow I might just take a break from riding...

2nd time

So today I hop in the car without my sandals on because I left them in the back seat earlier this weekend.

I drive to work, glad to have free feet (it's easier to shift without those particular sandals on.

Get to work, look behind me, and no sandals.

But...joke's on me (yes, for the 2nd time) since they're under my blanket back there...

HAH!

Status

I don't quite know what to do with myself when there is unscheduled downtime. Unless it's read a good book...

And after this week's over-read night (I got to sleep after 3:30) I'm taking a break from reading.

Can't even go out for a ride - there's no sun out there and after 3+ hours walking in the Relay for Life last night, biking probably wouldn't be a good idea :)

Maybe I'll...organize my book collection?

Goal

I'm pretty sure I haven't blogged about this yet, but since biking around at Cedar in the summer/spring/fall, I've decided that this form of physical exercise is very enjoyable to me, mostly for the following reasons:

• Cycling is much better for the knees and my metalrod scoliotic back than running
• Since I shouldn't really be running but still like being cooled by speed, walking isn't enough but biking is way better
• You can go farther biking and feel more accomplishment. A long ride for me right now is 20 miles
  
• It smells so good to be outside (unless allergies drive you inside, I really have a hard time understanding why people choose the gym)
• Even when it's hot out, if you're biking it feels cooler!
• As a form of transportation it's much cheaper than driving, especially around town. Problem is nighttime...

And now the local fresh strawberries call. More later!

Only 5 pages in!

And already I have a favorite line. In the book Too Soon Old, Too Late Smart, Gordon Livingston talks about Kindness: "This most desirable of virtues governs all the others, including a capacity for empathy and love. Like other forms of art, we may find it hard to define, but when we are in its presence, we feel it."

Food for thought.

Naturalization

She has her books...

I had my books, stacks and stacks of them. I kept them beside my bed, hauled them and myself to the library on my bike, and read there for hours until I felt as if I'd emerged as a distinctly different person from the one who had parked at the front door. You could disappear there; make sure your old self never came back. --Daughter of the Queen of Sheba by Jacki Lyden

You know, I think the outdoors can be like a library as well. Sometimes, when I'm riding through the countryside. The places those smells, those sights...they just take hold and sweep you away sometimes, don't they?

I was sorry to see the spring slip away from me, but glad to find that the coming of summer brings more delightful scents.

And those great Midwestern USA thunderstorms!

It was jean day at work today. I had to pay $3 toward Relay for Life in order to feel like my normal casual jean-wearing self.

Felt great.

How long can I submit to this culture, though? (Probably quite awhile.)

Good thing it becomes bike-time and play-in-the-pool-time and sweatshirt-culture outside of work!

New Ground

I'm in a place I've never been to before...

In a job, in a place that I could realistically imagine staying more than a year or two..

There was college, volunteering, part-time jobs, doing the camp thing for over a year, then traipsing about the world a few months!

Which brings us to now. Now, in a job where I'm not the youngest person present nor the lowest on the totem pole of staff. I have a computer, a desk, a personal phone number, and responsibility! Most of the people I work with have been there for years. Not working in my hometown is a nice change of perspective.

Kalamazoo is a bigger little town than I've given it credit for. I feel a bit landlocked here, but with the opportunity to maybe work my way up to biking to lake Michigan this summer, the water feels closer even if it's not. :o) I've gone 20 miles a couple days this week, we're getting there slowly but surely.

I've never been in this place. People here, as a whole, are settled. I think that's the difference between what I experienced at PVM, Cedar (school and camp in general) and here. People come and go, yes, but Summer and Winter aren't so drastically different people/socially. I lucked out and still am working on summer programming, although it's less than I've worked on 'summer' things for over 7 years!

Happy day to you too.

Weekend!

This post is dedicated to the weekend and thoughts of how wonderful it is to be on the water in springtime with a friend.



Ilene and I walked on the riverfront this weekend, and that just makes me want to live in a city all over again. We visited an amazing place which popped up on our walk, ate incredible Indian and Middle-Eastern foods, and I loved the fact that I got great coffee for 25 cents because it was world fair-trade day.



Didn't even matter that it was graduation weekend, because we discovered the 40s station on Sirius.

Dad would be proud

So many things are going well at the moment. I'm soaking it up.

Tonight the only thing that's wrong is my most recent book was a huge letdown when I finished it last night.

On the good side, though, I have a bike to ride. Hopefully the old one is still seeing some good action up north at Cedar. It's very good that I have a bike now, because this is going to be my main mode of exercise and town transportation for the summer. Might even be my means of travel to work some too!

Today was a beautiful day and I was able to keep the window down and let the hair fly on the way home from a long day at work.

Willow and Silla only bark/jump a couple times when I come in the door now. They're growing on me. Being a cat person, I at least tolerate dogs but definitely prefer the quietness, purring, and independence of cats. These gals are good ones.

But what dad would be most proud of is my management of finances. Of course I can't go into much detail with it because I'm too private for that, but doing well with savings, insurance, income, and the paying off of those darned school loans are going great!

All this in the face of the people I work with - many who've lost jobs and many who are losing hope for a new job soon.

I'm blessed not just because things are going so well - but all this stuff adds together to make it easier to help others.

3 years

Today marks 3 years since my last day oncampus as a student of CMU. Three years ago my plans were to work my butt off for the 4-day weekend and finish my heart-attack of a paper, attend a wedding shower, and somehow write and edit a monstrous amount of pages in a ridiculous amount of time.

But I woke up to a policeman practically beating my door down. And down with the door came news of my dad's sudden death.

Home I went. Adrift I went. Moved ahead with plans to travel and study in China for 6 months that fall. And returned again to finish that dratted paper, finally. Before the finish, I began to work at Cedar Campus as an intern. I ended up joining staff later and staying through two summers. It was a good place to heal, apart from the many memories left behind in my hometown.

A delightful detour to Africa and Europe, then I came back to this place. This house where my father lived the last 22 years of his life.

After a couple months of confusion about immediate future (thank you economic depression) I'm feeling back. I've got a job, a couple friends nearby, family, and it's finally spring in this place!

One little life, but God's brought me through a lot. There's still life after loved ones depart. I still miss him most days, even wonder if that car outside is him getting home; but missing 'em is one of the proofs that you love 'em isn't it?

Older and wiser, I hope. Wonder what's going to be coming around the corner?


Bring it!

Confession

I know that many people are annoyed by dog-eared books, and it's considered rude to do this to books which are not your own. But for myself, I don't mind. I less than don't mind; a dog-eared page to me is a sign of a treasure-hunt. Much of the time dog-earing is done only to hold the place for a page, but I always wonder - is it for some other reason? Was there a great line on this page? Especially if the dog-ear is not on the upper right side. Particularly if it's the bottom of the page.

So without further ado here are a couple of the memorable moments I deem most notable from books 5 and 6 of the Lord of the Rings. Otherwise known as The Return of the King!

The first one comes when Sam and Frodo are in the land of Mordor, and the darkness increases moment by moment as they come closer to the fire and the end of their barely conceivable mission. Sam sees a white star twinkle. The beauty of it smote his heart, as he looked up out of the forsaken land, and hope returned to him. For like a shaft, clear and cold, the thought pierced him that in the end the Shadow was only a small and passing thing: there was light and high beauty forever beyond its reach. I can see a direct corelation to some of the things we see here on earth and the way I view goodness and God's love. It's something that only seems a twinkle at times. But it can't be winked out by something like hunger, family heartache, or war. Massive problems, yes, but bad as they are, there remains light.

And the second one comes after the ring has perished in the fire and Sam and Frodo are being honored by all the warriors. Sam had dreamed often of the idea that someday songs would be sung about the war of the Ring and their part in it. But I don't think ever thought it truly would happen for his ears to hear! When Sam heard that he laughed aloud for sheer delight, and he stood up and cried: "O great glory and splendour! And all my wishes have come true!" And he wept. And all the host laughed and wept, and in the midst of their merriment and tears the clear voice of the minstrel rose like silver and gold, and all men were hushed. And he sang to them...until their hearts, wounded with sweet words, overflowed, and their joy was like swords, and they passed in thought out to regions where pain and delight flow together and tears are the very wine of blessedness. What an idea. I know lots of people have said it before, but the thoght of pain and delight flowing together and the tears that come are blessed. There's sadness, yes, but great joy. I'll just leave it at that.

Oh. And the confession? I sometimes dog-ear particularly splendid passages of library books.

I think it's okay, though, because I pay for the library to buy lots of books with my overdue fines!

Walking into Summer

I stepped out of the house this morning, and it happened.

For a couple weeks now, we've been dealing with the smell of rainy pavement (a smell I love) but today - well today it was the smell of summer in the air. Morning, wet, summer air. And I was tempted not to sniff, it was so tantalizing.

Such good memories, of so many days spent in summer air doing campy things! But those days are not present days. (Somebody's been reading of Middle Earth recently)

Today I was headed to the office, and it's an office in which my chair does not face a window, or even spin around to easily face a window!

I don't know how people can spend years working in offices like that.

And I am determined not to be one of them. It's simply not possible. My mental state just won't take it. For those of you living 9-5 in a windowless cubicle, goodness, I'm impressed by you. I don't know how you do it.

Bring it, summer! I think I need to go camping. And soon!

Red River Gorge, here I come...

;-)

It's ccccold

Not quite as bad as this was, though -


What I would give for a sauna to jump into right about now!

Lions and Lambs

There's a part of me that wonders if March will turn out to have been warmer and sunnier than April.