Proud to be an oddball

I was quite young when I decided my best option was to be an eccentric.  I'm not the sort of person that stands out - I'm neither beautiful nor ugly.  I am not stupid, or smart.  I am rarely overwhelmingly obnoxious, but I am not particularly polite, either.  Though I am not athletic, I am also not completely incapable.  My physical appearance is completely nondescript.  I'm of medium height, neither fat nor thin, with brown hair and hazel eyes.  My voice is unremarkable.

It's not that I wanted to stand out in a crowd.  In fact, I was thankful for being able to blend in.  But I would still like to be memorable to people I meet, and respect.  No peer will ever be amazed at my wit or talent.  No teacher will ever point me out as an example - of success or failure.  That frustrated me, especially in middle school.  The students that the adults liked and respected were either rowdy or brilliant or beautiful or willfully ignorant.

So I had to play my strengths.  In the South-Eastern states, I was already unusual for being a Reformed Christian.  I read more quickly and of a greater variety than most students, and never watched television.  I generally got along with my parents and brothers.  I had lived overseas (on a volcano, no less). And before that I had lived in North Dakota, which was equally foreign.  I had had snowball fights and gone sledding on a regular basis, and without having to pay for a ski resort.  I rarely met my extended relatives, and couldn't even name all of my cousins.  I also had experience with RPG's - both PC and tabletop.

Instead of hiding my differences, I used them to define myself relative to other people.  As a eccentric, there was little pressure to fit in.  I was expected not to share mainstream interests, to dress oddly (i.e. cheaply), to discuss thoughtfully, and to be socially awkward.  If I was bored or uncomfortable in a situation, people accepted the fact that I was a bookworm and allowed me to hide behind ink and paper.  If my pants were ugly and too long, well it was comfortable and I've never cared much for my appearance.  There were limitations, of course.  I was often left out when the talk turned to popular culture.  While people were generally very gracious about my lack of social skills, it didn't change the fact that they were (and are) lacking.  I'd rather write an exam than have a conversation.  I would often get in trouble in English class for reading ahead or disagreeing with the textbook.

By the end of high school, I had gotten very comfortable with this label and stereotype.  I had learned to knit, and found other people who enjoyed it.  A small group of us became obsessed with classic film.  I read popular fantasy series that other students were eager to chat about.  I avoided the lunchroom, instead visiting teachers or attending a philosophy club.  A friend and I played with my family's video camera.  English teachers gave me old textbooks they were throwing away, and lent me other books.     

There are more of us than you would think.  On television, high school consists of jocks, cheerleaders, honor students, and the dreaded unpopular crowd which usually consists of goths and geeks.  Geeks, of course, wear glasses, have a very substandard notion of appropriate hygiene, wear dark ill-fitting clothes, and desperately wish to be a cheerleader or jock.  And they are usually proficient with computers.  I know it may shock you, but this is rarely the case.  It is possible for a person to enjoy cheerleading, chemistry, and opera at the same time.  It is possible for a person to be a brilliant and skilled artist/mathematician/athlete.

There are more of us than you would think.  And we can see you.  Mwa ha ha ha!!!!

My Christmas Holidays…

So… My brother and i go to school a few hundred miles from my parents home – in clear weather and on good roads, this trip takes 12 hours to drive. Of course, this was the first time my brother and i had driven our new vehicle for any length of time. It is also my first winter driving up North, and was his first time driving at all in some months (and i know my tense changed, but i think it makes more sense that way. I’ve never understood why people freak out about tense changes). If you live in the states, and have been paying any attention whatsoever to the national weather… It took us 45 minutes just to get out of the neighborhood. We had to shovel approximately 10 inches of snow out of the driveway, and then i drove while my brother followed me with a shovel. If the postman hadn’t been stuck and willing to help us, i think we would have stayed there until the thaw. It took us another 45 minutes to get out of the city proper, and on the highway (or expressway? There’s a difference, i think…). About 3.5 hours later, my brother expectorates – or explodes, take your pick. While driving. On icy roads. In heavy traffic. Of course, it could have been worse – he might have eaten more than an orange for breakfast. Guess who got to drive the entire rest of the way? Oh, and guess who couldn’t eat because someone else couldn’t stand the smell of food? On the drive back, some poor transportationless sucker was talked into coming along and assisting with money for gasoline. She didn’t realize at the time that the way my brother and i stay awake is to sing. We spared her our jazzy/operatic/harmonized/rap/just-plain-weird version of 99 Bottles of Beer on the Wall (which kills about 1.5 hours, if you’re curious), but she was forced to listen to us “singing” along with Ella Fitzgerald, Louis Armstrong, Julie Andrews, Nickle Creek, and the Beatles. I think she must have decided it was best to simply humour us, as she joined in our impromptu (and improvised) hymnsing, and even attempted to harmonize with our attempts at the melody. In fact, if my dearly beloved brother had not driven 50 miles off course before noticing… I just realized i haven’t written about my actual holidays at all. So i guess my title line kind of mislead you. I’ll imagine you are all absolutely panting to read about my Christmas vacation, and you imagine i’m desperately apologetic, and we’ll get along fine. Or not.

One of these days...

I'm going to give that jogging coach person an honest answer when he asks me, "So, how'd it go today?" So far i've contented myself with simply lifting my hands in exasperation and focusing on the positive, such as "I'm still breathing." Envisualizing this situation is the one of the ways i try to stay focused. My favourite responses so far... "I can imagine few forms of exercise as agonizing, as humiliating, and as pointless as jogging." "Why do you ask that question? How can any activity known by such an unpleasant name as 'jogging' ever have gone well?" "Look at me. I'm limping. I'm gasping for breath. My face is flushed. I believe my expression must reflect at least a portion of my nausea and my absolute loathing of this activity. There are few circumstances where i would consider this state of being to be positive, although it is probable that your ideas of good are considerably different than mine." "I have no pretense or desire towards athleticism. I have always disliked running. In fact, for the last five years i have been unable to run. However, i now no longer dislike running. I loathe and despise and detest and am revolted at the thought of running." "I suspect that your motivation in asking that question is similar to the motivation of those who pull the legs off spiders. Please, i beg of you, allow me to wallow in my disgrace on my own - truly, i require no assistance." "&^$~%+#!!!!"

Nacirema

(This is for my sociology class, based on this article by Horace Miner.) This study is merely a natural continuation of Mr. Miner’s excellent and groundbreaking piece on the Nacirema culture. I myself have observed the Nacirema, and I have found that his work is accurate in every respect. In addition to their unnatural obsession and dissatisfaction with the human body, they are also infatuated with all things new. In most societies and throughout history, the word “traditional” is used in a positive sense. It denotes trust and dependability, safety and stability. However, the Nacirema have almost completely rejected this meaning of the word. They react to the label “traditional” in the same way a skittish horse reacts to laundry hung on a line – it is suspicious and probably dangerous. Those Nacirema who sell and market food know this, and take advantage of it to an absurd extent. It is not even necessary that the food actually be different, although that is definitely a common selling point; merely, the food must look new (shape, size, and/or colouring). It is not at all exceptional to see a package labeled “New Look, Same Great Taste!” These “New Looks” are purported to be more economical, environmental, or fun. For instance, a favourite sauce of the Nacirema – supposedly derived from tomatoes – is generally red. One of the primary purveyors of this sauce marketed it in the colours of green and purple, and it sold well. Margarine companies also will occasionally release “new” exciting colours such as pink or blue. Of course, food vendors are not the only Nacirema to recognize this – most other marketable businesses also make use of this fact. Those who retail technology (yet another Nacirema fascination – that plethora of paradoxical devices which allow the Nacirema to remain isolated from any intimate contact with another human, yet anonymously connected to millions) are always releasing something new. “Bigger, Better, Faster!” seems to be their mantra. Also those who sell the charms placed in the household shrine, and those who sell furniture, and soaps, and laundry baskets, and apparel – in fact, to the Nacirema mind, it is possible and desirable for anything and everything to be “New and Improved!” This is also seen in the way they dress. While it is usual in other cultures to wear the same clothes three days in a row, the Nacirema find the idea of wearing anything other than a coat more than one day in a row to be completely repellant. A person coming into work wearing the same clothes worn the day before, or even two days before, is mocked. For the Nacirema celebrities, it is a tragedy to be seen at an event in the same clothes as another person and even worse to be seen in the same outfit twice. This is especially true of Nacirema women – it is considered uncouth to always wear one’s hair in the same style, and to have less than six pairs of shoes. Even in their temples – the latipsos – tradition is most decidedly not a virtue. The Nacirema are always on the lookout for the newest procedures and up-to-date techniques and most modern facilities. They will often switch temples if they find one to be newer than another. If their treatment is so new that it is all but untested and incredibly risky, the Nacirema are that much happier, for they have almost complete trust in their latipso and believe that the newer must be better. This is, in fact, true of all their religious systems. The churches of the Nacirema are continually writing new creeds, redecorating their buildings, and searching for younger worship leaders. One of the most popular holy books – the Bible – has been translated innumerable times and there are uncountable versions of it, with more coming out every year, each claiming something new has been uncovered, clarified, or fixed from the previous versions. The Nacirema also reveal this fixation on the new in their educational system. Events that occurred within the living memory of teenagers are covered extensively in history lessons, while culturally defining events from a century ago receive little more than a paragraph. To receive college or university degrees, it is often a requirement that the student have new studies and provide original research. Nacirema educationists firmly believe that filling their places of learning with the latest and greatest technology, with exciting new methods, and with innovative presentations of ideas will speed up the intellectual development of their youth, despite continued evidence to the contrary. Indeed, it has come to the point that the concept of “evidence”, being traditional, is scorned in favor of more immediate appeals. With Mr. Miner, I must confess surprise that this society, with its rejection of anything that could be called old, has survived as long as it has. It is a culture of constant struggle, with “the future” held out before it as a mirage to a man dying of thirst. Until the Nacirema learn to look to the past, they will never be able to face the future.

chronicles of humiliation (i.e. school)

So, let's see... Don't tell my parents, but now that it's my car, and my gas... I slow down for speed bumps, stop at stop signs, turn the car off as soon as i park instead of finishing the song, i don't speed (as much)... My first class is an intro to computer course - what's a CPU, how to use excel, basic programming stuff. Vaguely interesting. Actually, i would probably be bored out of my mind except for the fact that the prof reads from The Imitation of Christ by Thomas a Kempis, which i think is sooo cool. How many people would connect a fifteenth century monk with modern technology? Next is world literature. So far, nothing i haven't heard before. Art. The idea of growing up to be a painter has appealed to me from a young age. Unfortunately (or perhaps fortunately), i have never learned to paint. I can sketch a little, but that is all. Not that this matters, since our first assignment is to draw on a banana. Because it is unconventional, and nothing in this world is worthwhile unless it be nontraditional or unconventional. Another way to be unconventional is to not comb your hair, roll up your pants, and get a tattoo. Or you could cut up random pieces of paper (magazines, cartoons, etc), take black and white photos of them, and then let the roll of film soak for a little while before developing. Or you could interpose shots of slavery and the holocaust with that of cute monkeys and bullfights, since obviously owning a pet is the same thing as genocide. This is also known as art. My most humiliating class is jogging. What kind of word is that, anyway? It always reminds me of hogs, from that nursery rhyme about the farmer coming home again. Why would anyone want to jog? I can walk much faster than i can jog. As a matter of fact, so could a turtle. I have now progressed so that i can run two whole laps without stopping. Are you not incredibly impressed? And i can run one and onehalf more before my legs fall off and i get sick. Yeah for regular exercise!! At least my example must be and incredible encouragement to the rest of the class.

First Day

I have internet!!! Wireless, even. One would think that after fourteen years of going to school, the First Day would lose most of its anticipation and agony. Well, perhaps it has lost some, but i still get an adrenaline rush from it. Actually, i suppose most people don't get an adrenaline rush from school. However, for me, the fear of large groups of people, and of getting lost, and of being late (heightened because of the messed up schedule for Convocation) is quite enough. Needless to say i am not exactly athletic (although i do need three PE credits to graduate - how sucky is that? - so i'm taking jogging this semester). Well, and my brother decided to attend the same school as i, so that's kinda nice. I took him and his roommate to a $3.50 movie this evening (Indiana Jones and the Crystal Skull - rather Indy meets X-files, but it's cute). It's so weird being a responsible adult (or even a reasonable facsimile thereof). I do have my own room this year - blue walls ( i'm so sick of white), a proper closet (though, of course, nothing can beat a wardrobe), and three windows. It's an older house, with delightfully creaky stairs, odd corners, and comfortably ugly carpeting. It makes rather a nice change from military housing and cookie cutter development projects. I'm renting it from a lady whose kids are all out of the house at the moment, but she has a gorgeous fluffy cat that already seems awfully fond of sleeping on my stomache, and her eldest son (who lives not ten minutes away) has the most gorgeous dog - some type of husky, i think.

Exams...

so, like, i'm kinda really busy write now, b/c i was, like, an imbassilic idiotic stupid person and, like, majorly overextended myself this semester, and, like, i'd really rather be writing blog posts, but, like, i kinda need to finish my papers and study and maybe if i'm, like, extremely lucky i'll have time to sleep. so if i don't post anything for the next couple of weeks (b/c i know you're all simply drooling to see what i'll come up with next, which, at the moment, looks like it will be either the first time i met jane austen or the next chapter in my "moving" series - btw, don't i just have the most original titles? - or umm... yeah... where was i?) oh yeah - actually, like, really working, like, really. okay. can you tell i have a paper due tomorrow? okay. i gotta go now. really. like, i so totally mean it. okay. like, 'bye. i hope you miss me, but i know you won't. or don't. or whatever. okay. no. back to the utrecht psalter!!!

On Learning Latin

When i was in eighth grade, i had a choice between Home Ec/Art (i never did figure out what the Ec stood for) and Latin. My dad chose Latin. I love to bake and to sketch, and hate grammar, so you may imagine my dismay and resentment. On the first day of class we found the the original Latin teacher had dropped out last minute and instead we were going to be taught by a poor, innocent math teacher because she was able to speak Spanish (or at least, we were to assume so as she had spent some months in Mexico). Our textbooks were hand-me-downs from another school, and had scribbles throughout (some of them not very "nice" and we enjoyed shocking some of the more conservative teachers with them until they forced us to white it all out). While she laboured over dipthongs, i worked on my algebra homework and cogitated on various ways to talk my dad around. About a month in, we were informed that a new Latin teacher had been found, and hired. A couple of weeks later, we walked into class, and there was the Magister. No one would call him diminuitive, though he was not tall. He had come out of retirement to teach us, and had formerly taught not only Latin, but also English, Spanish, and French. Often he would forget and start speaking in the wrong language, but it made us all feel very cosmopolitan, so we didn't mind. His taste in dress was exquisite and his outfits were always perfectly coordinated - shoes, socks, vest, shirt, and tie. He traveled often, and could tell the most wondrous stories. And he had a most gorgeous tenor voice combined with a suavity of manner James Bond would envy. He was, to put it simply, a Gentleman. I can totally see him fighting a duel. I'm afraid we didn't learn much Latin. It was rather late for him to crack down on us and he hadn't been teaching in a while. However, we learned quite a lot of mythology that year, and Magister's stories were always instructive on some level. And when the fire alarm went off because the Home Ec teacher had left something in the oven, and i heard all her students moan about having to make accounts and all the busy work, i began to appreciate my father's choice. They were not, after all, learning anything i did not already know how to do, and somehow Magister was much more adept than the Home Ec teacher (also our Bible teacher) at capturing the imagination. I continued Latin until the tenth grade. Some days he would be very active, jumping all around and shouting at us. Other days he had a migraine, so he would sit holding his head with the lights off, and tell us to behave. Sometimes we did. Sometimes we would all go outside, or watch movies - Spartacus or The Oddysey. We started actually working at Latin, but i think we still learned much more about mythology, and English grammar, than Latin. We discussed many things in that class - Politics, Theology, Biology, Wrestling, Music, and even Knitting. One day we spent learning how to waltz, and the next we would argue about Ecclesiastes, and the next over whether his car was cranberry or purple. In discussions of the latter sort, or whenever he felt that we were being ridiculous, he would exclaim "When donkeys fly!" Further absurdity would drive him to adding "...with a rubber hose!" and in greatest extremity he would end with "...up your left nostril!" I loved that class. Thanks, Dad.

Non nobis, Domine, sed nomini tuo da gloriam.

My high school choir teacher died this week. Cancer killed her. Years and years of fighting. Chemo. Wigs. Weakness. Her husband is confined to a wheelchair. One of her sons is known as "a disappointment." She taught all of the choirs for the school - elementary, advanced elementary (Wed. afternoons), middle school, high school, and a capella. She was also involved in church choirs. Before Mrs. T, choir was held in a beat up trailer behind the school (band still is), and had been for years. The school focused on their atheletics; the fine arts program existed because all schools need a fine arts program. It is a small high school - around 200 children. Mrs. T got between 70 and 80 of them to school an hour early every school day, and several other days beside. The choir was moved inside, and eventually the room (with the technical capacity of 30) was revamped with more acoustic friendly tiling. The guys wore tuxedos. She got the school to help fund an annual choir trip - to New York, Toronto, Orlando, San Antonio... She continued teaching until less than a month ago. I can't picture the place without her. More importantly, she loved the Lord. She was passionate, dedicated, and tireless. I never saw her without a smile. Her patience with me gave me the courage to continue to sing wherever i can; to volunteer for church choirs. I know how much she means to so many people, and how her example inspired. Now she is dead. Life goes on. Her funeral is hundreds and hundreds of miles away. My brothers still need to be teased and my papers still need to be written. She is dead.

April Rain Means May Mud

So, just in case you were curious, those toes at the top of the page are mine. 100% flesh and blood Marshymallow toes. Okay, that sounds really gross, but you get the point. The toes at the top of the page are on a beach one autumn evening. They are near Sally chasing the tiny sand crabs into the water, and in turn being chased by the surf. Those toes are wiggling over the soft green moss proud of the way the metallic-purple polish is set off. Balancing precariously on the rocks, they know that if they falter the camera risks injury. Those toes are inherited from my father. They stick out like radar. They are big and fat an ugly. And they don't even match - if i ever got shoes that fit properly my left foot would wear size 10 and my right a size 8 1/2. And those toes love to walk in the mud. I remember when my mother used to read the Laura Ingalls Wilder books - i always envied the children because they were allowed to run around barefoot half the year. I love shoes - i love to look pretty, and feet (at least, mine) are never going to be at all aesthetically pleasing. But for comfort, i'll kick off the shoes any day. In North Dakota my brothers and i would have mud circuses. With my brothers those toes ran unshod over the gravel parking lot and through the fields, capturing poor little toads (or frogs?) and putting them in buckets 1/4 full of mud. We were convinced that they were having as much fun as we were, and hopped around out of sheer gratitude, for sharing the mud with them. The shoe-kicking habit stayed with us in Sicily, even though there was rather a shortage of mud. My toes tread on the cold marble floors, up and down the asphalt street, around the balcony - it didn't really matter. As i have grown older i've been forced to retain my shoes in more and more situations. Yet, i've become a master of unobtrusively removing and then replacing my shoes under or at picnic benches, desks, pews, dinner tables, et cetera. I believe it's quite an art. I never buy a pair of shoes without taking into consideration its kick-off-ability. So you can imagine how ecstatic i was upon finding that, excepting the food preparation locations, the college i attend has no policy regarding footwear. It was nearly two months (well, i did wear shoes to church, or at least bring them) before my toes touched another shoe. Freedom!!! I went to class, to work, to choir practice, to my grandmother's, to the library - all with naked feet. Have you ever watched an infant or a small child explore something? They want to know all about it - how it looks, tastes, smells, and feels. Often they place objects in their mouth so they can experience the object with their sensitive gums. I walk everywhere, but I reveled in the different textures and temperatures of the various surfaces - the grass (sometimes dry and prickly, other times deliciously spongy and squelchy, or smooth and verdant), the cement (rather like walking on varying grades of sandpaper), the asphalt (HOT in the sun, but otherwise its a free foot massage), the thick road paint (very smooth, and it always felt deliciously cool after the black asphalt), and the mud. Perhaps you will scoff, but i didn't expect many people to notice. However... Odd looks, comments from fellow students. I noticed a couple approving glances from fellow free feeters. On my way to the (public) library one day, a red truck stopped in front of me. A man called out - "Why aren't you wearing shoes?" "It's such a gorgeous day, and i didn't want to." He smiled, and pulled out. I have found out that it was a main subject of conversation over coffee break in the Archives. I painted my nails bright blue in response. There is even a vocal minority among my fellow choristers protesting my choice. Rumours of passing a plate around for a Marshymallow toe covering came to my ears. But i stood firm on my exposed extremities. Winter came, and with it heavy boots and socks. Blackened remnants of the towering white mountains still remain. Yet, spring is definitely in the air. I have gone puddling twice now this year, and there look to be many more opportunities to track mud inside of the dormitory before i leave forever. It's drizzling outside. Over it i hear the construction being constructed and various people prating and prattling. It's grey and dreary outside, but i don't mind because it will mean more delicious mud. UPDATE: Scientific Proof! Bare feet are better!

What I Learned in School Today:

The Bayeux Tapestry is pretty awesome - to learn more, go here.

SPRING IS...not

It's snowing. UPDATE: The ground is, again, pristine and white and beautiful. It covers the piles of mud and trampled grass left by the construction people. Fat flakes swirl and float around the lamppost - Narnia is just through my mud-splattered window. Tomorrow it will be brown and muddy and gross. As i slosh my way through the now icy puddles, i will curse it. But for now, it is beautiful. And i thank God i still haven't put away my winter boots.

the smallness of it all

I was reading my medieval history book the other day, and i started to get this strange feeling, as if i were a slinky bouncing back and forth in time. Or not quite that, but... Time is linear, they say. Well, it is, but i don't think that's the end of it. Do you ever feel like Time is a sort of telescope, pointing at something? And sometimes you just barely manage to catch a glimpse down the barrel? You can see Time all at once, as in everything is happening on top of each other, and you can see the patterns, and you feel a strange unity with all people in the past and present and future. Truly there is nothing new under the sun. At the same time there is a strange, unfulfilled yearning for you know not what, and you wonder if you are looking up or down the telescope barrel, and if what you saw was the focus of the telescope or the person doing the focusing. you think of all of the small, seemingly insignificant details that have made you who you are and have brought you to this, specific place... and of all the things you thought were significant but aren't, really - at least, not anymore. Time is flying, running up and down, twisting and turning like some vast rollercoaster (and for some reason, it's always blue - dunno why), and all of the sudden it's over, and you're you, and you think how irrelevant it is that you're sitting on a faded green couch that you bought for $100 at a thrift store, drinking a can of apple juice.... everything is slightly out of focus and you think you know how those people in movies feel when they're in slo-mo... and all those famous names and places one can't help hearing about - they're given context. they were born, raised, etc. and you wonder if anyone you know will make it into a history book, and how strange it will seem... you imagine trying to explain to your children what life was like "back in the nineties" or how you thought that those people telling you planes were crashing into the WTC must be joking, and how you felt that after that everything was different, yet nothing had changed or how people used to not have internet and how weird cellphones were when they first come out. You imagine them laughing at the silly outfits people wear in your yearbooks, just like you laugh at your parents... you wonder how people can look at the vast expanse of history and the smallness of you and not believe in a God, and you wonder how, if there is a God, you ever came to believe he might spare thought on your slight concerns, such as finding your nail clippers for that hangnail that's really bugging you and which it now seems almost conceited of you to notice. then you look back at your book and remember that you have a test tomorrow and you really have to study, and where did you put those nailclippers?

March

Umm... what happened to February? I swear it was here a minute ago... I still miss the Netherlands. I didn't think I could become so attached to a place, ever, much less in only two weeks. It's exam time, with Spring (not Easter) Break coming up soon. Blaargh!!!

Next Door

They are trying on each other's brassiere's. Loudly, with much giggling, and exclamations of "BOOBIES!!". Why?

My Professors

So, this semester I am taking a History of the English Language, a Medieval Art History, a Late Medieval History, a Shakespeare, and Dutch. H.E.L. is a tall, solid looking man, very erudite and fond of dictionaries. He has perfected the technique of maintaining a perpetual geniality towards his students at the same time as an appropriate reserve. He is unquestionably our superior, and unquestionably our friend. He's the sort of person who must make very interesting after-dinner conversation. M.A.H. strikes me as a rather young man, though I don't believe he is really. He is also tall, but lacks the imposing presence of H.E.L. He is rather unstructured and unspecific (i don't mean to be disparaging, since i happen to share those sterling qualities), and totally absorbing. It's a very interesting class. L.M.H. is a small Dutchman. His rather bizzare shirt/tie combinations (which are, I find, typical of the Dutch) may be rather distracting, but the depth and breadth of his knowledge are even more amazing. Besides which, he has (rather unexpectedly) revealed an appreciation for both Monty Python and Asterix & Obelix, after which it is impossible that anything should be said against him. Sh. has the most intriguing voice. He doesn't look it, but has this incredibly deep bass, and generally sounds as if he's about to yawn. He spends half the class staring at the something on the back wall, it seems, and has a continual smirk. However, though I would prefer to go more in depth with the material, it is a very rewarding experience (as are all my classes, of course). Dtch. is the most generous of men, and looks absolutely adorable in the grey stockingcap which he favours. He is generally at least five minutes late, and rather disorganized, but I don't know if that is normal or a product of his wife's illness. I have had him for almost two years now, and so have been able to participate more in the class. I just realized that all my prof's are male - bizarre, huh?

When I Grow Up...

I want to be... It's the all-important question - you are asked it from the time you are four to the time you are fourty-four, and after that. What do you want to be when you grow up? What are you plans for your future? What are your goals? What are you working toward? What do you want out of life? You need to take control of your future. You need to prepare. You need to take your life into your own hands. I remember the first time I was asked what I wanted to be when I grow up. We lived in North Dakota at the time. I attended the local middle school which was about four miles down the narrow, gravel road. There were 25 other children attending the school. There are less, now. I was probably in first grade at the time. I remember the teacher, Miss Briss, was calling us up to her desk one at a time. She was filling in some sort of form, which would be turned into a project to make the parents smile and sigh. It must have been a sunny day, because her desk was in front of a window and I remember how bright the sun was shining in. I blinked. So she smiled at me and asked, "Now Dana, what would you like to be when you grow up?" I didn't know. After carefull consideration, I announced I would like to be a fairy. Maybe a tooth fairy, maybe not. I wasn't picky. She smiled and nodded, and bent her head to write it down. Then she looked up at me again. I still remember the look of incredulity on her face. I remember feeling a little taken aback - she had asked me what I wanted to be hadn't she? not what I thought I could actually be. I knew faeries weren't real. She asked if there was anything else I would like to be. "Well..." no, I thought. But I remember feeling vaguely sorry for her, because she had outgrown the possibility of magic. And the next best thing to magic, I realized, was money. So I told her I would like to be the person at the store you took your money. Then, I said, I would get very rich. She looked at me, still slightly exasperated, which I could not understand. She wrote down salesclerk. The next memory I have of that question I was in the 3rd or 4th grade. I was living in Sicily, and was being homeschooled. I had now experienced the world. I knew now that cashiers didn't keep the money they took, and that fairies were dorky. I said I would like to be an artist. I dreamed of Da Vinci, and Michelangelo. By the time I had reached middleschool, we had moved to Virginia Beach. I started attending school again, and I was something of a cynic. By that time I knew that growing up was something to be avoided at all cost. But I knew I would have to be something, and I was by turns a busdriver, a veterinarian, a photographer, and a librarian. It was not until highschool that the question really started to annoy me. I didn't know where I was going to be next year - how was I supposed to know what I was going to do in five years? or ten? I turned to Ecclesiastes, and told everyone I was leaving it in God's hands, as mine were full at the moment. My senior year of highschool was the first time I took the question under serious consideration. It was the first time I really prayed about it. By the grace of God I chose a school. I chose some classes. I got a job. I still haven't the faintest clue what I want to be when I grow up. I'm ashamed to say I don't really care. I am leaving it in God's hands, as mine are full at the moment.