Today is my off day.

Or one of my off days. As I mentioned earlier, the department is keeping me on as an assistant even though my teaching gigs are up and I'm working a very flexible 10 hours a week.

I like having time to get stuff done. I like having time to relax. There's a lot of stuff to get done, and I like to relax. But sometimes I hate having time to think. I hate having the possibility of wasting time, brain space, and emotional energy absorbed in the perceived complexities of my existence.

I'm not that big of a deal. It's not all about me. I'm almost done with A Million Miles in a Thousand Years by, yes, Don Miller, and as he put it in his book, we're just trees in a story about a forest.

It just doesn't help that the sky is overcast, that my aunt went back to Philly this morning, and that I'm left to inevitably mull over a nearly 5-hour conversation last night. That started at 11 p.m.

Sometimes I wish I could be George W. Bush. I could be the decider. Not do nuance. See things in black and white. Stick to my guns. Go with my gut. Look people in the eye and see into their souls. But instead I'm Barack Obama, pensive, calculating, achingly aware of the complexity and consequence and nuance inherent in every decision I make and every situation I face and nearly paralyzed because of it. It's not as simple a matter as either sending more troops to Afghanistan or deucing out of Afghanistan completely. It's not as simple a matter as either continuing to see someone or completely cutting them out of your life.

Where there is clear black and white, a Rock of Ages, I unashamedly cling to it. I make no excuses. But, try as I might to be Dubya, there are simply too many shades of gray to ignore.

Prayer changes and helps, I know it. It has brought me out of many a pit of pseudo-despair. I guess I'm still learning what it means to be a tree in a story about a forest.

This Morning

I woke up.

I sat on the bed, wrapped in the same teddy bear robe I've had since I was a teenager and looked out the window.

I allowed tears to fall until I noticed a solitary rose still left on the rosebush in the backyard.

I put on those clogs my aunt gave me, found a pair of scissors, and went outside.

Careful not to scratch myself on the thorns, I clipped it.

I examined it. Frail.

I smelled it. Its fragrance had all but gone.

I carried it back into my room and set it on my chest of drawers.

If roses could know things, I would want it to know that it died giving someone a bit of wonder instead of out there on the rosebush alone.

Smell that?

It's the sweet aroma of my ticket for the A Million Miles Tour that I got in the mail yesterday. See?

When an envelope from iTickets.com was brought into me on a silver charger along with the other letters and calling cards of the day, I had to instruct my heart to be still. When I opened it up with the letter opener with an ivory handle that Lord Smithsworth purchased for me during his sojourn in the exotic climes of Asia, my senses were flooded with such a sweet fragrance that I swooned. Once my devoted lady-in-waiting, Agnes, revived me with smelling salts, I grasped my Don Miller-penned tome, A Million Miles in a Thousand Years and clutched it to my breast, exhaling scores of melancholy sighs and allowing a solitary tear to escape, in expectation of the day, the fateful day, where Sir Don shall sign my book and I shall experience a brush with very Destiny.

Realignment

Things are slowly realigning. Getting back into whack.

1. Got my medical check up to say I'm healthy enough to spend 6 months abroad. Now I have everything together in order to get my tickets, which will set in stone that I'm going to France (and then I'll have one more thing I need to get my visa). Imagine this said to you in a British accent: "Well, it appears that you're disgustingly healthy." He said it in a quite jocular manner. Indeed, he was joshing. Quite.

2. I got my Don Miller t-shirt in the mail. Yes, I got a t-shirt custom made to wear to the fateful event. Please let him love me back. I have conscripted at least one buddy, possibly a few others, to join me on this glorious occasion. Hilarity shall ensue. And I will have the pictures to prove it.

3. There are friends, and then there are friends, unfiltered. This blog, as if you already didn't know, is filtered. There have been times that I wish I would have filtered it a wee bit more in the past, but alas. On this blog, I gotta check myself before I wreck myself. There are friends that you have to filter with. You know, you share politely, and titter at their jokes. There's a filter in place. But then there are friends, unfiltered. You share unashamedly and cackle at their jokes. You open your mouth really wide and let all your teeth show without reservation. I love friends like that. I love them boundlessly.

4. I love my children. My wannabe children/Sunday school students. They dressed up like Moses (i.e. I draped them in bath towels) and we climbed an imaginary mountain to get "God's ten rules." There's a little girl in my class who always wants the pink one. No matter what it is. She wants pink construction paper, and she wants the pink playdoh. She was very specific about the fact that she was a girl Moses. My kinda gal.

Okay, so

I'm freaking out because I have crazy paperwork to fill out to apply for a French visa. That's not including the procedures and stuff I have to complete even after I get there. What was I thinking? I don't remember it being this involved when I applied for a Spanish visa before I spent a semester abroad in Spain (you can read all about that here). Picky Frenchies. Always having to make things très compliqué. I had a dude from the French Consulate in Atlanta call me up to respond to an email I sent and I had to rewind my mind light years to catch what he was saying. And he was speaking English. Uh, oh . . .

Not only have I been getting paid for teaching two classes at the rate I was getting paid for teaching four (score!), but it appears that the department is going to try to keep me on to do other projects. I was totally not expecting to continue working after colleague #2 got back from having her baby. For real. After this gig was up, I was planning on joining the long line of the currently unemployed and milking the system, but they're trying to work something out for me, which is totally unexpected, totally unsolicited, and totally a blessing. Cuz tha kid need to keep chasin that paper, ya smell me?

He Heard Me

A good thing about being Pentecostal is that emotional responses to God are the norm and even encouraged. Granted, as with most things taken to the extreme, it can also be negative because people can get addicted to responding emotionally without responding with a commitment to Him. Nevertheless, sometimes all you need is an emotional release. A time and space to completely empty yourself. To let go of all the pent up frustration and anger and loneliness. A catharsis. A cleansing. To be allowed to break down into your most basic substance and allow God to do with it what He will.

I'm glad that I'm in a place where I feel the freedom to be completely open with God and with my feelings and that I can publicly and unashamedly lay everything out before Him. That I can get completely, for lack of a better word, ugly before Him without restraint or regret.

Last night was one of those services. No preaching. Just praying. Just opening up to Him.

Before I knew it, I found myself doubled over, screaming over and over again. I know this may sound kind of hard core and odd to people who have never had an experience like this, but I feel compelled to share it. I found myself on the floor, broken, unable to form intelligible words yet still communicating to Him to take it all. Because I'm so weary of trying to do it myself. Because I wasn't meant to do it by myself or for myself.

The world hasn't changed. Negative situations haven't become miraculously undone. But I know that He heard me.

In my distress I cried unto the LORD, and he heard me (Psalm 120:1).

Letters From My Friend: Response to Molluskophobia

Dearest K,

I'm no expert, to be sure, but I'm willing to bet part of what allows you to cope with your phobia is the idea of empowerment. Sure. When you have that cylindrical container of salt at your disposal, you are empowered. Mollusks have no hold on you. You can tell them mollusks that the devil is a liya when you get your salt on. Even the thug slugs.

The same can be said of the feeling I get when I'm in my taekwondo class. Though I have no specific phobias, I will admit that at times I feel intimidated. I do. I feel intimidated as a young, slight female. I feel like the violators and predators of the world would pick me out of a crowd as an easy target. But not so. Not when I can execute deadly knife hand strikes. And I know a few one-step sparring moves now, too? Aww, shucks.

But talking about feeling empowered due to my taekwondo class was only a segue into what I really want to talk about. And that is my instructor. Tonight, I had a private lesson. Hee, hee. It appears that people have better things to do on a Friday night than go to a 6:30 karate class . . . except for me. I could have had a private lesson last Friday night, too, but the thought of me alone with Mr. Kim (not his real name) was too much to bear. There would have been no one else to hide behind, to mask my foibles and lack of coordination. But tonight, I was up to the titillating challenge. Just me and Mr. Kim.

He stretched me out to my limit. Really, I felt muscles I didn't know I had. I practiced fake beating him up with crescent kicks and punches. I jumped rope 115 times in a minute. I did 10 real push-ups and 15 sit ups. I discovered that he was 24. He couldn't believe I was 27. Heh, heh. And I told him kam-sa-ham-ni-dah when I left. That's Korean for "thank you." He seemed impressed. (sigh.)

May you continue to kill slugs with impunity and relish with your all-powerful salt. And I will continue to garner the skills to do much damage to any wannabe adversaries (while nursing a slight instructorial crush). Together, we will perpetuate empowerment until the end of our days.

Yours,

Chantell

Letters From My Friend: Molluskophobia

Dear Chantell,

After much googling and dictionarying.com, I have discovered the name of my problem. Molluskophobia. Molluskophobia is a fear of slugs. I know how ridiculous it is to have as a phobia, but that's what a phobia is, an irrational fear. This fear is also slightly inclusive of worms and caterpillars. It's the bonelessness, I think, that bothers me. It's their movement.

Slugs come out with the rain. An online comment from a fellow molluskophobia sufferer stated, " I dread the rain, because that's when the slugs come out." This is so true. Everytime it rains, like now, I look down when I walk. The part of the fear that is the silliest, though seemingly the most true, is that the slugs will get on my shoes. If they get on my shoes, they can move up my shoes, and onto me. I'm most afraid of skin-to-skin contact. If a slug is within ten feet away, I can be calm. However, if I see more than one slug, I know they are all around me. This typically causes me to breathe faster and sometimes, I hyperventilate. I panic. I check my shoes repeatedly. I have to remove myself from the vicinity.

Salt. I love it. I can never have enough. Salt is the only thing I know that immediately kills slugs. It also gives them what I perceive to be an agonizing death. When salt is poured on a slug, they begin to melt, their bodies twisting and writhing, until there is only a liquid stain where they were. Though I cringe while killing them, it gives me immense satisfaction. To ward off slugs from being around my house, I sprinkle salt everywhere. Everytime it rains, I sprinkle salt on the slick concrete of the back patio--slugs love slick concrete. I sprinkle it on the front porch. This practice may seem absurd, but I would see slugs in my house when I was growing up. They do come in.

Molluskophobia has interfered with decisions in my life. I am a part of a poetry program, as you know, called Cave Canem. Every year they have a week long poetry retreat. I was accepted last year so for the first time I drove to Greensburg, Pennslyvania, a.k.a the "Land of Slugs." Here, the slugs had "slug life" tattooed on their backs. It was cool to be a slug in Greensburg because they dominated. The fattest, discolored slugs hung hard in the cracks of the sidewalks, and at night, hundreds moved out onto the slick, cool, concrete. I was in bed early every night. People would ask me if I was going to this or that night activity. "No." I said. Finally after an embarrassing episode during the day, it came out that I was afraid of the slugs. Everyone was really supportive. When they wanted to hang out with me, they came to my room and walked me to the next location. I even had one sweet woman remove slugs off the steps for me, while I looked on, hyperventilating and moaning. The best place to have something weird about you is at a poetry retreat. This past summer, one of my reasons for not attending the retreat was the overwhelming presence of slugs in PA. I couldn't do it. When I do return, I am taking several containers of salt with me, and I lie to you not.

So as you can see, Chantell, slugs are the bane of my existence. And there is no psychotherapy, no hypnotism, and no Maury episode that will relieve me because I will have none of it. I will never familiarize myself with a slug. I will continue hating them. I will be vigilant. If it is within my power, I will kill every one I see.

Countdown

The time is drawing near when I must prepare to see him. Yes, him. The one about whom I fantasize meeting at the airport. My husband-in-my-mind. Don Miller. If you wish to grasp the depth of my Don Miller love, feel free to peruse these additional past posts:

I (Heart) Don Miller

More Don

Don Miller Has a New Blog!

Don Miller: Speaking Something into Nothing

Co-Author with Don Miller!

I've posted previously about his coming, but I've since found that the stop originally planned in my fair city has been cancelled. However, there is an event that has been added in Birmingham (about an hour and a half away) on November 19, so I'm on it.

I've already bought his newest book, A Million Miles in a Thousand Years (which he must autograph) and I'm quite a ways through it already, and I've custom ordered a t-shirt that says "I (heart) Don Miller" to wear on the big day. I was trying to conscript someone to go with me. I feel like I might be tempted to do something outlandish and I'm going to need someone to hold me back.

There's got to be some way to let Don Miller know how much I love him. I have to somehow make him realize that I'm not like the other groupie girls who like him because he's Christian yet cool. I don't care about his edginess. His Christian "bad boy" air. I love him because he speaks to a raw hollow in my soul. His words reach in and wrench my adrenaline-laced gut until my heart beats to their cadence. They strum a harrowing chord of recognition within me until my tears dance to the sound. He must understand this.

I've added a widget in the sidebar to count down, with growing expectation, the days before my brush with destiny.

Oh, this is glorious.

So, today's the last day I'm covering for one of my colleagues who's on maternity leave. She's coming back Wednesday. The day she comes back, I'll still come in to work to tie up loose ends with grading, etc., we'll have a transitional meeting with the GTAs who, up to this point, I've been "mentoring," and then I'll hand things over to her.

Starting Friday, I'll start with the 2nd colleague I'm covering for who's about to have her baby. Once she goes into labor, I'll take over her classes until she comes back. She's only teaching two classes (down from the four I've been covering) and the earliest class is at 1p.m. (in contrast to the 8 a.m. which has heretofore started out my day. And let's not forget factoring in the 45 minute commute.) And since she's a 2nd year GTA herself, there are no GTAs to mentor. I'll be getting paid a little less, but I'm still making that paper.

Oh, this is glorious.

*UPDATE @ 4:38 p.m.*

So much for "starting Friday" for colleague #2. Homegirl had the baby today. Looks like I've got the reins on Wednesday!

Obama Wins Nobel Peace Prize

Caramba. I love my boy, but I nearly veered off the road when I heard on NPR this morning that he won the Nobel Peace Prize!

Even for me that was a little too much to swallow. I guess my slight problem with this baffling info is not that Obama has been awarded it, but the blatantly political, more so than other, reasons in awarding it. The committee is using my boy to send a message about how much the world couldn't stand Bush. I mean, we get it. I couldn't stand him either, but don't use my boy and the credibility of the Peace Prize for that.

But here's the irony. I, along with everyone else who may pooh-pooh the prize committee's decision to award the Prize to Obama would say something to the effect of, "He's only been in office for 9 months! Let the guy get some stuff done first, and then we'll see." (I must emphasize that some would say that more rabidly than others.) BUT some of the same folks who say, "He's only been in office 9 months!" i.e. He hasn't been in office enough time to get substantial stuff done, are some of the same ones who would say, "He's been in office 9 months, and what does he have to show for it?" i.e. He has been in office enough time to get substantial stuff done and hasn't done it. So, is 9 months long enough or not? Make up your minds, folks.

I say he has made significant positive strides within these 9 months. But I'm unsure whether those strides are worthy of a Mother Teresa, Nelson Mandela, Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. Nobel Peace Prize. Now. I think Obama would agree, judging from his statement this morning. But I'm satisfied with his rationale for accepting it.

From the NYT transcript of his comments:

"I am both surprised and deeply humbled by the decision of the Nobel Committee.

Let me be clear, I do not view it as a recognition of my own accomplishments, but rather as an affirmation of American leadership on behalf of aspirations held by people in all nations.

To be honest, I do not feel that I deserve to be in the company of so many of the transformative figures who've been honored by this prize, men and women who've inspired me and inspired the entire world through their courageous pursuit of peace.

But I also know that this prize reflects the kind of world that those men and women and all Americans want to build, a world that gives life to the promise of our founding documents.

And I know that throughout history the Nobel Peace Prize has not just been used to honor specific achievement; it's also been used as a means to give momentum to a set of causes.

And that is why I will accept this award as a call to action, a call for all nations to confront the common challenges of the 21st century."

That's my boy.

I like when people do cute things.

I have this colleague/buddy who makes me laugh. He's the best person to sit by during mind-numbing meetings in order to amuse yourself with whispered snarky commentary and to struggle to stifle shoulder-shaking laughs with, and you can always count on him for conversations of political solidarity. (Which is a rarity for an Obama fan in a bleeding red state like Alabama.)

Our schedules are different this time around, so I rarely see him nowadays, but this morning he did something really cute, and I warned him that I would blog about it.

There I am in my office, putting the finishing touches on my lesson plan a little after 7 am. My cell chimes with the receipt of a text message. Who could that be this early? I read it and it says, "It's me." Before I could scroll down to see who it was from, he appears in my office doorway! The timing was perfect. It was like from a sitcom or something.

I love things like that. They're simple, but sweet. It put a smile on my face and got my day off to a good start.

I don't know how to title this post.

There are several things I'd like to discuss, yet they are only tangentially related.

First, I was going to name this post "The Waning of Pedicure Display Season" because I wanted to lament the fact that even though the French pedicure I got quite a while ago is still looking decent, the seasons are changing and I have a hankering for my boots, which = toes hidden under a bushel instead of being allowed to shine. But then I remembered that I do still have occasion to unashamedly exhibit my toes, and that is during my taekwondo class, so then I was going to name it "Mr. Kim and Master Woo, Pseudonyms" to talk self-deprecatingly about my lack of coordination, Master Woo's hardcoreness, and my slight crush on Mr. Kim. And then I realized there are characteristics about Mr. Kim that make me have a slight crush on him that are common to many I've had a slight crush on, so then I was going to enumerate those characteristics and title the post "How to Make Me Have a Crush on You."

Sigh. So, what to do? Pedicures . . . *yawn* So . . . taekwondo? Knife hand strikes are only exciting when witnessed live. Oh, and I witnessed a couple of black belts sparring last night. That was pretty cool. I'm still a lowly white belt. Which basically means I ain't nothin. My crush characteristics, then.

How to Make Me Have a Crush on You
by smartgirl

1. Be tall. If you're tall, you've gained major points by virtue of your existence.

2. Have bad eyesight. Because if you do, chances are you'll wear glasses. And I like glasses very much.

3. Have a slightly dorky/goofy manner about you. It's endearing. And it will make my inner nerd feel at ease when I'm around you.

4. Have something foreign about you. Not necessarily from another country. If there is anything different looking or sounding about you, I will probably have a crush on you.

5. Have specialized knowledge in something. If you know a lot about a particular area, I will be intrigued, especially if it's something I don't know a lot about.

6. Be funny. I'm easily amused, and have a very forthcoming laugh, so this one is probably the least insuperable.

Mr. Kim (not his name), along with others who come to mind, fits the bill perfectly. He's 1. very tall, 2. bespectacled, 3. on the dorky side 4. Korean and speaks heavily accented English, 5. teaches taekwondo which definitely counts as specialized knowledge, 6. makes everyone laugh.

And . . . I'm finally finished grading the absurd mountain of stuff I had to grade recently. Now I think I have one-millionth of an idea of how Jesus felt when he said, "It is finished."

And . . . I've been officially admitted to the Insititut de Touraine in Tours, France! Magnifique!

How to Test a Guy's Resolve

Have him spend an entire evening helping you grade exams.

An Analogy

Let's say a guy and a girl went to dinner. They both wanted dessert, but the guy only had enough money for one dessert, and the girl didn't have enough room for a whole dessert to herself anyway, so they both agreed to share. Of the choices, there was traditional chocolate cake with chocolate icing as well as dark chocolate cake with dark chocolate icing. To the guy, chocolate was chocolate. Both choices were chocolate cake with chocolate icing. Both choices were fine with him. But the girl was a little pickier. She had to have the dark chocolate. Sure, chocolate was chocolate, but they weren't the same to her. She preferred the dark chocolate. She would even go as far as to say that the dark chocolate was the best choice. He didn't have a preference, but she did. And since they were going to share, what would make the most sense for the guy to order?