Thankful

1. A close family.

2. Everyone who cares about me.

3. The adoration and innocence of children.

4. A (finally) paid off car!

5. A father whose face lights up when he sees me.

6. Good teeth.

7. Cute monkeys.

8. Sunflowers.

9. Lavender things.

10. The opportunity to further my education.

11. Waking up in the morning feeling content.

12. Good smelling things.

13. Starbucks.

14. Pepperoni pizza.

15. A mother who is endearing with her ways.

16. Brothers who make me laugh.

17. Friends who are like family.

18. Second chances.

19. A pluses!

20. God's grace, mercy and love.

The Day Before Thanksgiving

I'm going home today to spend the rest of my break with my family. I love them and I'm looking forward to seeing them.

However, today, I'm also leaving. And I'm bad with goodbyes.

I know it's not that serious. Really. In our modern age, people are a phone call, a text, a tweet, a Facebook message, a video chat away. It's really not that serious. But there's just something inherently melancholy about the aspect of leaving. Yes, I know I might see you again sometime and that I'm always welcome to visit if time permits. Yes, I know we can very easily stay in touch. But it's not the same as in person. It just isn't.

What also gets me is the idea of something ending. No, not the friendship or the relationship or whatever, but the experience. Experiences are what they are because they begin and end. They exist in an ephemeral space and the only proof that they ever took place is that we remember them. That's all you're left with. The memory. (Or, in the case of a car wreck, a scar and an asymmetrical collarbone).

The fact that this is a rather dreary morning doesn't help, either. A dash of goodbye, a sprinkle of drear, a spoonful of morning airport drive . . . the perfect recipe for golden brown, bittersweet melancholy.

Folks Be Misspelling My Name For Real

Not cool, Starbucks. Not cool. As much time as I've spent with you and you still don't know how to spell my name right? Shooooot.

Superspiritual

I'm not superspiritual. Church folks know what I'm talking about. You can always hear superspiritual people praying out loud during prayer. Superspiritual people like testifying, and their testimonies consist of stories of going to WalMart and boldly walking up to people asking if they can pray for them. Right there in the middle of WalMart.

I'm not one of those people. I guess I sort of prided myself for not being one of those people, in a way.

But yesterday I was at the airport. I had just gotten off the plane and had to go to the bathroom to freshen up. Not soon after I walked in, so did another young lady who apparently worked at one of the food places in the airport and one of her friends. She walked in crying and proceeded to tell an ugly story about a man she was supposedly engaged to (because he had given her a ring) and how she had walked in on him with another woman, and how he had tried to use the fact that he had given her a ring to manipulate her and tell her that no matter what he did she was (supposedly) still his woman and was still going to be his wife, and how she was so stressed out because she was trying to move out of her mother's house and how she was stressed out about work because they were not giving her enough hours . . . it went on and on and she kept crying. I could not just stand there and brush my hair in the mirror and act like I wasn't hearing this.

My heart just went out to her because she was so young and beautiful and was in a situation where she was being manipulated and made to accept garbage. I hate it and I know that frustrating feeling. I hate it when women are in situations like that, frustrated, feeling like they have nowhere to turn, like they have no solution because I can feel the evil in it. It's palpable. It is a reality of this world. "The World" is more than just this tricky little thing that wants to pull you over to the dark side and make you want to start smoking cigarettes and drinking beer. It is an insidious system. A system of lies that people are deceived into believing, and when I see it in such concrete terms, it makes me sick.

So I did a superspiritual thing that I've never done before, and walked up to her (à la WalMart prayers) and asked if I could pray with her. I told her that I wasn't trying to get in her business, but I couldn't help but overhearing what she was going through and I wanted to tell her that she does not deserve that, that she deserves much more. She started crying even more and started thanking me and telling me that she needed to hear that. She said that I could pray with her and I just prayed that God would comfort her and give her encouragement and strength to overcome her circumstances in Jesus' name.

I'm still not superspiritual, though. I'm really not.

Old Professorial Loves

So, I got a friend request from one of my professors from undergrad today.

I remember the first time I saw him. I was a freshman. Idealistic. Naive. Susceptible to professorial crushes.

He strode in. Tall, lanky, hair coiffed in a tidy afro, bespectacled. He stood at the podium and grasped it. Silence. After a few seconds pregnant with expectation, he spoke. He didn't introduce himself, didn't speak sentences, he simply began to slowly, calmly intone single words:

"Myths," he said. "Ideology," he continued. "Constructions. Dominance." He paused and looked up, breathing in the spellbound air. He introduced a phrase that branded my tender, green, budding academic mind and the imprint has ever remained: "Dominant ideology."

I learned, and have never unlearned, the fact that everything, everything in this world, no matter how near, how far, how related, how unrelated, can always, unequivocably, undoubtedly be traced back to dominant ideology. Why is the drink I'm sipping out of a straw right now called Dr. Pepper? It's because the dominant ideology of the culture in which this drink was manufactured created the myth of Dr. Pepper that we accept as a soft drink. Why did I wake up this morning and take a shower? It's because the dominant ideology of American culture mandates that we bathe daily so that we can all comply with the myth of the "Clean American." See? Everything can be traced back to it.

He changed my life. When I beheld that tidy afro, those lanky limbs, and saw myself reflected in those bespectacled eyes, I knew I was a changed woman.

I began to hang around after class to "ask a question" where we would finish our conversation in his office. He asked who my favorite writers were and when I answered with such trivialities as "Edgar Allan Poe" and "Shakespeare" (both steeped in dominant ideology, no doubt) he took it upon himself to enlighten me. My gratefulness was boundless.

After one of his rants against the system, I asked him, oh, so innocently and politely, "What political ideas do you espouse?" He paused, and a roguish smile slowly spread across his face. He replied, "Let's just say that I believe in . . . sharing."

In seriousness, though, he was one of the first professors to encourage me to pursue a PhD. And at long last, here I am. Though my crush has long since abated, I still look back upon that enraptured time with fondness.

Procrastinator's Prayer

God, I know this is getting redundant. Please forgive me. I do this same thing over and over: I apologize and berate myself for being a poor steward of my time, and then I fall back into the same procrastinatory pattern. Despite this awful pattern, somehow, I still get it done, and I end up still getting good grades. I know it's not me, though. I know it's You. I'm trying to break out of my procrastinatory mold, though. For example, I'm going to try to write this Afro-Hispanic Idenity paper today even though it's not due until Tuesday. I guess part of the reason is that I know that I better do it today because I'm not going to really have time Sunday and definitely not Monday night. Unless I want be delirious come Tuesday morning.

God, You're so sweet. I mean, You try to help a sista out as much as You can. I just want to avoid that dreaded thing that's always floating around in the possibilities of my fears. That one day I'll fall back into my procrastinating ways and then come to at the last minute and shake myself like Sampson, but not realize that Your come-through-in-the-end power had departed from me.

That idea really fills me with dread. The idea that I'll have to come face to face with something less than a final A at the end of my first semester of a PhD program, when there was absolutely no excuse for that to have happened. If it happens, I won't die, but part of me is afraid that You will allow it to happen to teach me a lesson. Don't do it, God. I'll understand if You do, but I'm kindly asking You not to. Watch me finish this paper tonight. Oh let not the Lord be angry, and I will speak: Peradventure I finish this paper tonight. And he said, I will not do it for the paper's sake.

The Careful Blogger

I've learned throughout my years of bloggery that getting personal, even in pseudonymical, hypothetical terms, on the World Wide Web is a bad idea.

So I've kept everything pretty devoid of other characters for a while now, and for all intents and purposes, I plan to keep it that way. I mean, I suppose I do mention my family and close friends every once in a while, or the occasional person I come into contact with during this new gig as a PhD student, but that's about it.

I like that people come to my blog to read what I have to say. It's nice to have a little . . . platform, if you will, to share a few thoughts and experiences from my corner of the world. And therein lies the rub: I know that people are reading this and so I've (wisely, I think) omitted a lot of things as well.

However, part of me feels like I can't just act like stuff isn't (potentially) going on.

I've been so consumed with work lately, that I haven't had time to think and ponder over the implications of a journey I am to embark upon next week. And in a way, I'm really glad for that. I've been so focused on getting done what I have to get done that I haven't had time to sit and ponder and obsess over it. Because I really hate when I do that. It's annoying and it's draining and a very poor use of mental energy.

At the same time, however, I don't want to trivialize it. Go into it flippantly, shrugging my shoulders, with the air that this is just a routine stop on my way to wherever. I certainly don't want to imbue anything with meaning that it doesn't have, yet I don't want to ignore the potential it does have.

In the meantime, I've got to get more work done. (Imagine that.)

Procrastinatory Testimony

I know I need to get my work done. I need to delve into it with abandon. I need to get my act together and envelop myself in this mass of work. I need to wrap myself in a work cocoon and not come out until it gets done.

These are things that I know. And these are things that I don't do as purposely as I should, and so I find myself hanging onto God's coattails, relieved that somehow it got done. And I raise my hands and let the gratefulness wash over me. Part of my worship is letting the panic wash away, purposing in my mind to believe that He's going to get me through it, thanking Him for already getting me through things thus far.

This inertia, this reluctance, these habits. They're not an excuse. But maybe they're what keeps me grasping onto God's coattails, so to speak. They're what keeps me all too aware that I can't do this on my own and that I never have.

Academese

1. agency - Usually used with the verb "exercise," agency is self-will. If a character in a text "exercises agency," that means they made a choice or took action on his or her own terms or to exert his or her own will.

2. centric - Academics love to talk about centric stuff. Eurocentric, afrocentric, phallocentric, ethnocentric . . . we can't get enough of it.

3. construct - Used as a noun to describe what everything is. Commonly used with the adjective "social." Race is construct. So is gender. So is class. So is language. For academics, nothing you can think of in the world is preexistent, so it is a construct. That's a fancy way of saying we made it up.

4. de - Academics like to "de-" things. Demystify, deconstruct, delegitimize . . .

5. deconstruct - No academic worth his or her salt could get by without deconstructing something. Whatever it is that has been constructed, it just means to break the joker back down.

6. demystify - Not to be confused with "demythify" which is deconstructing a myth, demystify is to take either an esoteric, misunderstood subject, but more likely a taboo, usually erotic subject and "expose" it (read: talk about it ad nauseum) so that it loses its mystique.

7. dialogue - Used as a verb. It's a way to describe what happens when two discourses meet over drinks. The feminist discourse dialoguing with the racial discourse, or how class dialogues with gender for example.

8. discourse - Used to denote any kind of speech, thought or concept. Feminist discourse, national discourse, hegemonic discourse . . . the list goes on. Just add "discourse" after any adjective, and you've got an instamatic academically smooth term to bandy about.

9. dominant - Whatever is white, male, European, upper class, has political power, is slave-owning or colonizing.

10. hegemony - Composed of or held by whoever or whatever is "dominant". The adjective form "hegemonic" is also a favorite to be used in tandem with "discourse."

11. ideology - More or less a synonym of "discourse" except it usually has a negative, propagandizing connotation.

12. myth - What some ideology or other ends up constructing that academics end up taking on the burden to deconstruct for the greater good.

13. neo - A prefix academics add to make an old, played out concept fresh again.

14. phallus - No matter what you're talking about or where you are, the phallus is going to pop up in academic conversation. It's bound to. So get ready.

15. post - Another prefix academics add to make an old, played out concept fresh again.

16. wave - For some reason, for academics, feminist thought arrives to the world at large in waves.

This is my 1001st post!

What? I guess I have been blogging on this thing for a minute. My first post was a couple of months before I graduated from undergrad in 2005. Crazy. I've been blogging for almost 7 years. That's off the chain.

All I was going to do was tell my girl Gert that I finally finished her paper. Don't worry hun, I'll put a really cute picture of you on my PowerPoint. Girl, I'm gonna present your novel so good, it'll make Ignacio wish he put a ring on it. The only reason anyone even knows his trifling behind ever existed was because you wrote him mad love letters. Ha! His entire life has been reduced to "that guy Gertrudis was sweatin." Mmm, mmm, mmm. If you only knew how much brainpower people through the ages have invested in you, Gert. You'd be proud of yourself.

Back at This Thing

Spanish film paper must get done tonight. Still have my abolitionist, feminist, romantic paper in the works. Gotta finish that puppy up too (not tonight, but real soon).

I'm having some late nights, no doubt. Actually, I'm going to be nonstop until Thanksgiving break, pretty much. But thank God I haven't had this overwhelming feeling of despair. Seriously, thank you, God for that.

I'm feeling like, I should be freaking out right now. I should be feeling overwhelmed right now. But I have this feeling of like, it's going to get done. And it has been getting done, and it will get done. I thank God for just . . . I dunno, general calmness.

I really don't miss freaking out. And I don't want that freakoutingness to ever inhabit my mind again. Thank you for calm, focus and peace. And sweet chai tea to keep me awake.

Feminist, Abolitionist, Romantic Cuban Writer Ahead of Her Time

Ah, Gertrudis Gómez de Avellaneda, little did you know that one day your radical little 19th century novel that you tried to front on (yeah, we know you tried to act like you didn't write that junk when you conveniently left it out of your "Complete Works" that you published later) would be the cause of internal anguish for a poor little first semester PhD student with a propensity for procrastination trying to forge her way through the vast, unfamiliar land of the upper echelons academia.

I like you, Gertrudis, I do. I think we would've been friends. I would have called you Gert. Wassup, Gert! Gert-TAY, what you up to, girl? Oh, lamenting your life because Ignacio de Cepeda's being a jerk? Forget about that guy, girl. He ain't worth it. I mean, his name is Ignacio. Boo. Super unsexy name. Gert, I read this little passage you wrote in your diary, and I hope you don't mind that I share it with everybody. I think it embodies what a passionate, misunderstood woman you were, bound by the limitations of your gender and the expectations of your society:

"Where is the man who could fulfill the desires of this sensibility as fiery as it is delicate? I have looked for him for nine years in vain; in vain! I have met men; men, all similar to each other: none before whom I could prostrate myself with respect and tell him enthusiastically: 'You will be my God on earth; you are the absolute master of this passionate soul.'"

Gert, you are no joke, are you girl? A little dramatic, but I feel you. It's that Romanticism, I know. Anyway, back to my paper about your novel. If you only knew what a fuss we're all making about you now!

The One Thing I Can't Control

I haven't done the single thing in a while, but here we go.

One of my FB friends posted this article link from Relevant, and I thought it was pretty spot on. Spot on as in, this is exactly how I feel. What I like about this article is that it's not a lament; rather, it articulates exactly why being single has proven frustrating to me in the past. Because it's the one thing I can't control.

I feel like I'm just now realizing what it means to trust God. To finally let go of the reins. It's had to do with the move, I know it does. Like somehow, moving here, to literally start something new was a physical manifestation of a spiritual move God was working out in my life. Making this move was actually finally refusing to give in to a certain fear that I'd harbored for a long time—that if I made another move and committed more years of my life towards pursing something as time consuming and challenging as a PhD, that it would plunge me back into instability and take me even further from finally "settling down." Honestly, the control thing in my life was not limited to my singleness, and the author makes a point of that in the article. I like this quote:

"There is nothing more gracious than areas of our lives that remind us that we don’t have control. Praise the Lord that I don’t have control over my marital status. The pain of losing control reminds me that I actually never had control – in any aspect of my life. Some of you reading that might find it offensive, but it’s so gloriously liberating."

I never had control in the first place. It's almost funny. And it is gloriously liberating.

When we were little, my dad used to play this game with us. We loved the Christopher Reeve Superman movies and my dad used to make us think we could use our "powers" to change the TV channel. We would make a laser sound, point our hands in that way you do when you have powers towards the screen, and the channel would change. We'd do it again, and the channel would change again. We didn't know that dad was secretly using the remote control to do it. Then when he'd get tired of changing the channel, we'd use our "powers" again, but the channel wouldn't change. And then we'd get frustrated. "Dad! My powers aren't working anymore!" But we were never the ones doing it in the first place. We never had "powers." Dad was controlling it all along.

This is not to say that we do not have the power of choice. Even when dealing with singleness, it will ultimately come down to making a choice should the time arise when you would be single no longer. Mind you, the Superman game my dad would play is not an exact analogy . . . it just underscores the point of not having ultimate control. Resting in the knowledge that the One who does have ultimate control is good is what is liberating.

These Realizations

1. I have a presentation coming up in Afro-Hispanic Identity. It's a split level (grad/undergrad) and split department (AfAm Studies/Romance Languages) class. My presentation partner is a spunky, funny girl who's a sophmore. We make a pretty good team. I am 10 whole years older than she is. How did that happen? Just a couple of years ago, I was her. I still feel like her. But then I look back and think. I suppose I have done some things, been some places and had some experiences that would merit my being ten years her senior.

2. Pride is not just believing in your own ability, thinking you can do it on your own. It's also thinking you can't do it, thinking that it getting done nevertheless depends on you. Whether you think you can or think you can't, the problem is that you think it revolves around you, when it really doesn't. If you believe you can, don't forget that God is the one who does it through you. If you're afraid that you can't, believe that God is the one who will do it through you still.

3. Love is much less romantic than I used to think. Love is not romance, and romance is not love. Romance has its place, but it should not be conflated with love. Lots of people are unhappy today because they've failed to make that distinction.

4. Consistency. Waking up every morning, and doing it. Day after day. Some might argue that it leaves a bland taste in your mouth, it makes your movements robotic. Nah. Being consistent doesn't mean being inflexible. Here's what I can say: I don't miss the roller coaster.

Earthquake in Turkey

This is so horrible.

I feel especially touched by it because I've become friends with a really sweet young lady from Turkey through this program I signed up for with the International Student Organization. In fact, Saturday night she invited me over, and her boyfriend (also from Turkey—they actually met when they were in the same intensive English program when they arrived in the States), who had come down for the weekend, made a traditional Turkish dinner we all enjoyed. It was so sweet of them. They were so welcoming and hospitable and I felt so privileged. I felt that feeling I always feel when I am allowed access into a world apart from my own. When I'm able to begin to gain some sense of understanding of a different culture. I feel enriched, I feel like I'm a part of something bigger . . .

I immediately contacted my friend to express my concern and to ask if her friends and family were okay. When I read her response, this line brought tears to my eyes:

"My family and friends are ok, thank God, but my people are so bad situation. I am so upset for them."

The only thing I could do was offer to pray.

Current Song

Everlasting, your light will shine when all else fades . . . Never ending, your glory goes beyond all fame . . .

When productivity mode descends . . .

Oh, finally. It feels so good. Knocking these suckas out. I think I might even earn a gold star today.

My friend just had a baby,

and I'm so overwhelmed, and so happy, and wish I could be there so badly.

This is a friend I grew up with, from back in the day. Back in the Italy day. Before I moved back to the States and got culture shocked day. My only real childhood friend. And then we went to college together. I mean, I have other friends with babies, but this is the first time a friend of mine that is super close has had a baby and I'm just so excited. He's my first "nephew."

I can't wait to hold him. He is so beautiful.

Praise and Worship Repertoire

So far:

"Mighty to Save"

"Heart of Worship"

"The Anthem"

"How He Loves"

They're not perfect by any stretch of the imagination, but I'm so happy. There's something about strumming hippyish, dude-we-totally-love-God kinds of songs that fills my heart with Jesus-rock gladness.

Literature and Friendship

I realized today, while talking excitedly, sometimes talking over each other, about symbolism, themes, allegories, and the significance of certain plot points of a Joyce Carol Oates novella with a friend, that one of the things that makes a friend a really good friend is being able to talk literature with them.

There's something about engaging each other literarily that adds an element of dynamism to a relationship. There's something magical about being able to incite each others' minds to acts of critical thinking.

I'd venture to say that bonding over the written word is one of the most intimate forms of bonding. When you truly engage with a piece of writing, to some degree, your heart gets caught up in it. When you're able to share that ardor with someone else who taps into that same reserve, your brains become friends. There's something special about that.

Kinky Gazpacho

Just finished reading a memoir of an African-American woman who studies abroad in Spain and falls in love.

There were so many things I identified with, I just devoured it. Her identity issues because of the environment in which she grew up, her penchant for foreign language and culture, in some measure, as a way to escape the binary, the "Are You Black Enough? Police" as well as the "White People in Charge."

And then Spain. The places she explored were the same places I explored. Madrid, Salamanca, Sevilla, Cádiz. The liberation of being considered American before being considered black, but at the same time, the issues that arise from being black in a country where there are very few blacks and ideas about black people are heavily based on stereotypical representations and skewed towards exoticism.

And then her search for black culture and African presence within Spanish history. I sort of saw it as a parallel to my interest in Afro-Latin American studies.

It was a quick, engaging read. I don't know why, but it's funny when I'm presented with the fact that I'm more like other people than I think. I've always kind of clung to the idea that I'm a unicorn, a unique being who exists in a category of my own because there is no one else who has grown up the way I have AND has had the experiences that I've had AND believes the way I do AND is doing what I'm doing with my life . . . but not only is that kind of thinking a little absurd, it has allowed me to create and claim a place of tortured individuality. A self-imposed melancholy solitude due to the burden of "not being like everyone else." I am an individual, but I'm beginning to see that maybe I'm more like everybody else than perhaps I'm willing to admit.

Chopped

I absolutely love this cooking show. It's like an adrenaline rush. But this time the stakes were so much higher and it was so much more exciting. I know, it's a cooking show and I'm not a foodie or anything even close, but I can't explain its allure. I had to post it this time, though, because at the end, I teared up. Omg. You just have to watch it.

Today is not a day for lunch bringers.

No benches, no sitting in the sunshine, no visions of inhabiting a grassy knoll with my guitar. Today, I think the sun thought we took it for granted. Basking in those sun rays in as late a month as October as if you were entitled to it. It had been holding on to that hurt. Still trying to shine as if it didn't matter, but finally realized that it did matter and couldn't hold it in any longer.

A constant shower. Finally putting it all out there. Getting it off your chest. Desahogándose. Not even caring that you can say in one word in Spanish what it takes 5 to say in English. And not caring that it also works the other way around. That's okay, sun, sky, clouds and the rest of you celestial things that conspired (perhaps in sunnerly solidarity) to make this day the world of wet that it is. Knowing my carefully sculpted curls are going to give in as soon as they have an encounter with the sultry humidity.

I have something a lot of you weren't counting on. A sunflower umbrella. Oh, yes. Though I trudge through the valley of the puddle and mud, I will fear no evil. Stay in your gray. Go ahead and wallow, sun. I know. Sometimes you just have to have it out. But I've got my own rays. And I'm still bringing my lunch.

Knowing vs. Believing, Part II

After Sunday morning service. And I couldn't believe that one of the main points of the message was "comprehending" vs. "apprehending." Different words but the same idea I was pondering last night. Comprehending (knowing), apprehending (believing).

While comprehending is cerebral, an acknowledgement, apprehending is motivational, in the most literal, concrete sense of the word. It causes you to move. It impels you towards action.

When you know something, it is the acknowledgement of a fact. When you believe something, it causes you to embrace and apply that knowledge to your life.

So, maybe another way of articulating the difference between knowing and believing is that knowing is acknowledging truth while believing is living by truth.

Knowing vs. Believing

Productive Saturday. Finished a Chilean novel (and was first to post on the comment board for the class! #gettingmynerdon) Washed clothes and hair. (That's a lot right there. Especially the hair.) Made myself a nice dinner (+chocolate chip cookies). Now I'm about to get my chai tea on and get cozy with a (non-Spanish) novel.

My mom called earlier and we chatted for a while about everything. I call her "lady" and she calls me "daughter." I don't know when we started doing that. And during our conversation, I said to her, "I guess I always knew it, but I'm finally starting to believe it."

I knew what I meant when I said that, and she knew what I meant when I said that, but afterward, I kept thinking about it, and wondered how I would explain it to someone else.

What is the difference between knowing something and believing something? At face value, they seem to be the same. If you know something to be a fact, that must mean you believe it to be true, right? But then I thought about it this way: A long time ago, and I remember this as clear as day even though I must've been only 2 or 3 years old, my mom set an iron up on the ironing board and said "Don't touch it. It's hot." I knew that it was hot. I had watched my mom iron before and had seen the steam rise. I knew that it could burn. But I guess her telling me not to do it made me want to do it. And I put my whole hand on it. I got blisters. Maybe that's what it took for me to believe that it was hot? To experience it myself?

But then I realized the "experiential" argument didn't hold up either. There have been times in my life where I have experienced the goodness of God over and over and over. There's no doubt that He's good. He's proven it to me time and time again. But why can I say then that at one point in time I still didn't believe He was good even though I knew it from experience?

I think I've come up with a more satisfactory explanation. Knowledge is temporal. Many times, the validity of something is based on a set of circumstances. In this particular circumstance, God was good to me. On another occasion, He was good again. In this situation, He was good yet again. But what was the measure of God's goodness based upon in those instances? The outcome. I knew that God was good because He allowed good things to come my way. I knew He was good because things worked out positively in my favor.

But believing that He's good is holding fast to the idea, no, the truth of His goodness regardless of the outcome. I'm finally starting to believe that come what may, He is ultimately good. It's like a breath of fresh air. That's why the worries that used to cloud my mornings no longer have any sway. It's an unburdening. A catharsis. Those things I used to grasp so tightly were never my responsibility. Never in my power to control or change. They were never my burden to take on in the first place. I know things aren't always going to work out as I hope. But rebuilding dashed hopes is a part of His goodness. Leading me towards an ultimate plan, what may lie outside of the scope of my hopes, is a part of His goodness.

The prospect of turning 30 next year used to clench my stomach in adrenaline-drenched knots. Still unmarried, still unsettled, still unsure. And 30. As if when March 30th rolls around, the death knell is going to sound, my fertility levels are going to drop precipitously, and I will transform into a shriveled shell of my former, once youthful self, left to be further sapped by leeches of instability. The beginning of the end.

If that isn't the furthest from the truth. Thinking like that is what leads people to make unwise choices. It feels like I'm finally starting to live in the freedom God has always offered me, and it is beautiful. It is believing.

The Forty Rules of Love

I'm reading a lovely novel by a Turkish writer named Elif Shafak called The Forty Rules of Love (recommended to me by a new Turkish friend). Without getting into all the details of the plot, one of the main philosophies utilized in the book is Sufism, a mystical sect of Islam. I don't really know much about Sufism apart from one of its iconic figures—the whirling dervish.

Anyway, one of the characters in the novel within a novel is a dervish (so far, no whirling involved) who often cites certain Rules of Love that are related to the situation at hand. Some of the rules sound kind of New Agey and hippyishly mystical, but some of them are strikingly beautiful. This one about patience really caught my attention:

Patience does not mean to passively endure. It means to be farsighted enough to trust the end result of a process. What does patience mean? It means to look at the thorn and see the rose, to look at the night and see the dawn. Impatience means to be so shortsighted as to not be able to see the outcome. The lovers of God never run out of patience, for they know that time is needed for the crescent moon to become full.

I guess I've always associated patience with waiting and defined waiting as passive. Like, if you're being patient, you're just chilling indefinitely. That really isn't true. If you believe God (not just believe in God, but actually believe Him), then you believe in the truth of His nature. He is good. If you really believe God is good, then you trust He's not going to leave you hanging. When you are truly waiting on God, you're not just hanging out in this amorphous netherworld of uncertainty. You know that He has no choice other than to perform His Word.

One of my little bro's phrases would be "I got you," meaning, he would pay for my food or whatever it was I wanted (or that he was going to hook me up with some chicken or an ice cream cone when he worked at Chick-fil-a) or that he was going to take care of some detail or other that I either couldn't do myself or that I was worried about. I can see him now with his goofy grin: "Giiirl, you know I got you!"

Strange that I would compare my little brother's phrase to the nature of God Almighty, but it's true. God has always been like "I got you." Being patient is actively trusting that He really does.

Genesis: Protective Brothers Gone Wild

Genesis 34.

I have two brothers, and despite the fact that I was a quintessential bossy big sister (and still am when given the opportunity), they are pretty protective of me.

But Simeon and Levi took it to the next level. Chillax, guys, I know the prince got at your sis (and it's not like he didn't try to be honorable about it and make it right), but was slaying all the men (while recovering from having just circumcised themselves) of an entire city as well as pillaging the place really necessary? Sheesh.

Genesis: Biblical Mean Mug

I think Laban should be credited with the first recorded mean mug in history.

And Jacob beheld the countenance of Laban, and, behold, it was not toward him as before.

—Genesis 31:2

This was hilarious to me. What kind of look did Laban have? Bear in mind that Jacob had bamboozled Laban out of some cattle, so I'm sure he wasn't happy. (I guess he forgot about how he did Jacob dirty concerning his daughters.)

In any event, I think the Bible makes it clear that at some point in time Laban began mean mugging Jacob, after which Jacob took it upon himself to secretly deuce out. Nothing good can follow from a mean mug.

Weekend

It's always nice to go home for a little while.

Got my hair done, saw my people, showered my little babies with huggies and kissies, ate good food, had coffee with old friends, gave an impromptu guitar concert.

And now I'm back and ready to do this thing.

Genesis: Biblical Reality TV

Still re-reading Genesis. Why am I just now realizing how off the chain these people were? Mind you, these are the days before reality TV, et. al.

The whole Jacob/Rachel/Leah situation was a hot mess.

I nearly died reading Gen 30:1-13. It was like a baby-making war.

Rachel: Oh, you gon' have babies? Shoot, I'll just give Jacob my handmaid and have babies. Now!

Leah: Oh, you gon' give Jacob your handmaid? Shoot, I'mma give him my handmaid, too!

And then Gen 30:14-16. A mess.

Rachel: Girl, gimme some of your (aphrodisiac) mandrakes.

Leah: You must be outside yo mind. After you done stole my man?

Rachel: Oh, you fancy, huh? Just cause you got some mandrakes. Go head and get with him tonight with your trifling self.

Leah: (to Jacob) Wassup, baby? You gotta come see me tonight, sweet thang. I got some mandrakes that are gonna drive you wild. (to Rachel) Winning!

Jacob is strangely silent in these matters.

Another one of those nights . . .

Mmm, mmm, mmm. ::shaking my head like an old black lady thinking you oughtta be ashamed a yo'self::

I must exorcise the demon of procrastination before this thing is all said and done. But in the meantime . . . I gotta keep my head up, youknaaimean? That's what coffee's for.

II Corinthians 10:5

Yet, liberal as I claim to be, still I cling to the KJV:

Casting down imaginations, and every high thing that exalteth itself against the knowledge of God, and bringing into captivity every thought to the obedience of Christ.

Listening to the message this morning, this was the scripture that impacted me the most. I hear it all the time; it's so easy for me to let the usual just glide by. But today it stuck. Because today I realized (not that I hadn't realized it before, but I realized it again, in a way that I hadn't felt before) that not obeying this scripture has been the bane of my existence.

Decisions begin with thought. If something enters your mind, if you conceive it, and if you believe it, it will eventually lead to action. But what if what you allow to enter your mind is a lie? What if what you conceive, what you imagine, is a lie? What if what you believe is a lie? Then you make decisions and take action based on lies.

Isn't that what sin is? It's making a lie-based decision.

But back to thoughts. I have a pretty vivid imagination. I'm creative. I've used my creativity to benefit myself and others in a positive way. But there is a downside to imagination. A tendency to invent and dwell on thoughts that are destructive and fearful. If it's about tearing myself or others down, if it's based in fear, then it's not of God. And that is what I must constantly reject.

One of those Saturday mornings

listening to "Car Talk" and then "Wait, Wait, Don't Tell Me" on NPR.

drinking cafe au lait (though the "cafe" is American and weak) and eating a croissant (one out of a plastic container of 6 bought from WalMart, which would scandalize your average boulanger).

totally not looking forward to trudging through this Argentine novel. It's one thing to read a novel in Spanish. It's quite another to read a boring novel in Spanish. It's just so slow . . . women sitting around giving each other glances pregnant with ambiguity, subjectively remembering the past, having cloudy conversations which does zero to advance the action of the novel . . . por favor, sácame de esta miseria.

thinking about other blah things I must contend with. (Sigh.) What, did I think this was going to be a bright train ride through fields of sunflowery enlightenment? Naw, girl. This is work. Monotony, sometimes. So get used to it, and get it together.

* * * * * * *

The picture of the sunflower in my blog's header is one of the sunflowers grown with my little toddler's class I used to teach before I moved. We would go outside to water them every Sunday with a big, bright, yellow watering can. I miss my little kids. Little adorable, bad kids, crawling under tables, dumping crayons on the floor, spilling apple juice, putting playdoh in their mouths. Getting excited about stickers and animal crackers and bubbles and pouring dry macaroni into containers.

Sometimes I wonder how I will react when I have a baby that starts crying at inopportune times. Will the sound be shrill, annoying? Will I want to do anything to quiet the baby as soon as possible? Probably. But there's a part of me that thinks when I hear my baby cry it will be beautiful, every time. Like, of course I will want to quiet him/her down and alleviate whatever it is that made them cry in the first place, but there's a part of me that thinks I will be taken by hearing it. That I will feel this overwhelming feeling of "my baby is alive" instead of "omg, please stop." But I know that's probably another one of those things that will overturn my romanticism cart with an unmerciful swipe of realism.

Realism. Back to now. Back to the boring Argentine novel. Now.

Re-reading Genesis

Sarah, Abraham's wife, must have been the number one stunner.

I mean, homegirl was old as dirt and STILL had kings and stuff trying to holla at her! I'm sitting there thinking, isn't she like 90? She must've been something else.

I'm starting to realize

how serious this is. Whereas before, the focus was more on learning, taking in all the info, marveling at how interesting it all is, how this intersects with that, how this relates to that, sitting back in awe and observing how a great web of knowledge is being formed before my very eyes, now the focus is on producing. It's great that you're a lover of learning and whatnot, but now it's time for you to step up to the plate and make your own serious, meticulous, well-articulated contribution to the web.

I have to figure out how to make that jump. I have to nail down how to manage my time efficiently. I have to learn how to quiet the anxiety that rises up when what I'm learning becomes far outdistanced by what I'm finding out I haven't learned yet. The more you know, the more you know what you don't know. It's a fascinating and frustrating paradox.

A lot of it is in my head. The way I perceive myself. In a program full of native speakers who have what seems to be a better foundation in the traditions and history and context behind the literature I say I'm interested in it's easy to feel like a lightweight. Like someone who is tolerated and smiled at and even encouraged because of the obvious passion and interest and commentary I bring to the table during discussion, because I'm willing to put myself out there, but who lacks gravitas.

I have to learn how to channel the excitement I feel at the prospect of the developing Afro-Latin studies niche within the overarching Black Diaspora studies field, when all my synapses are lighting up when I can see how afrocubanismo and The Harlem Renaissance were two sides of the same transnational coin, into serious, weighty production.

Right now I feel like an academic butterfly, flitting from one interesting discovery to the next, my attention arrested by the outstanding, amusing, personally related things in the matters at hand. But that's not how dissertations get written. Enthusiasm only gets you so far.

I don't want to say I'm doubting myself. It's much too early in the game for any reasonable justifications for self-critique. But as one who is still obsessed with the big picture, with the destination, with viewing the overwhelmingness (which isn't a word) of what I've undertaken as a massive whole, I'm trying to condition myself to break it down. To enjoy the journey.

My New Favorite T-Shirt

On the subway

I dug the man digging on me

But the dude was hung up

In a mass of confusion

As to who I was

He thought he was trying to see

But you see, but you see

Me knowing me

Black proud and determined to be free . . .

This fills me with glee . . .

revealing a bit of undisclosed info at JUST the right time.

I want this positive me to last.

I've been on a pretty even keel since I've jumped into this new, still-not-quite-sure-of-how-it's-going-to-pan-out life. Like, I can't remember the last time I've had a true "hopeless" moment. I've had a few unsure moments trying to figure out what church I was going to go to and some other little things here and there (e.g. crying because I missed a guitar lesson, lol) but I haven't had an out and out, I am so emotionally broken trying to climb out of an abysmal abyss of abject despair moment. I'm so through with that stuff. I cannot tell you how glad I am that those dark days are over.

I'm starting to feel like the me I knew I always was. The me that is content with my little apartment and cups of tea and sunflower decorations. The me who always sits up front. The me who wants to learn new things and signs up for Global Friends and laughs at everything and wants to be passionate about whatever it is that I end up doing and wears flowers in my hair. The me who can't live without God's presence and finally wants to serve Him for myself and no one else.

I know my positive streak is probably going to be dealt a few negative blows. C'est la vie, really. But I feel so hopeful.

La liste du jour

1. Got up earlier than desired to finish reading for Afro-Hispanic.

2. Had a lovely lunch with my Caribbean grad school mentor. Lav heir acceint!

3. Brought a classmate double majoring in French and International Studies to la table francaise.

4. Trotted up to the museum for the inception of the Hispanic Heritage Month film festival. Viva la raza! Documentary Precious Knowledge is a must see. The Arizona school board and state legislature need to go saddown.

5. Shined up that paper proposal, and sent that baby off. Panel: "The Woman's Voice in the Americas in the 19th and Beginning of the 20th Century." Okay, how bout I write about Gertrudis Gomez de Avellaneda's linking of race and gender in her 19th century antislavery novel Sab? Awwww, whatchu say now?

6. Strummed some awesome sounding chords. Can't wait to bring my guitar out to get my hippie on sitting cross-legged in an open field!

Little Brother

Slim Jim, light-skinned string bean. He's a Reese's peanut butter cocoa puff coconut head. Banana smile boy. He laughs so hard his laugh is silent. His shoulders shake and tears stream down. He was a thumb sucker. So fat I called him nugget. Arms and legs with rolls like the Michelin man. He was a snaggletoothed kid. Teeth knocked out too soon from fallen toddles. A sensitive kid. He accidentally killed a lizard and cried.

He's a man now, though he doesn't look it. In my head, he's eternally 16. But he went off to basic training today and he won't be back for a while. He'll be fine. It'll be good for him. Give him some direction. But he will always be little brother.

Lizzie and Starbuck

For Madison

"Whereas ye know not what shall be on the morrow. For what is your life? It is even a vapour, that appeareth for a little time, and then vanisheth away."

— James 4:14

This is what I know. This morning, at the church I've just decided to attend, a red-haired girl sat in front of me. Her hair was a deep, coppery red. I caught flashes of her electric blue nails as she periodically inspected them. Tonight, at the same church, it was announced that this 15-year-old girl was dead. A four-wheeler accident.

I didn't know her. But she was sitting right in front of me this morning, and between the time I left morning service, went to WalMart, and came back for service tonight, she had passed away.

We are never ready to face the fact of our mortality. We will never be able to grasp that in an instant, we can cease to exist in this world. I prayed for her family with the rest of the congregation tonight. But a detached phrase kept ringing in my mind and bringing fresh tears to the surface: She was sitting right in front of me.

Today was a ridiculously gorgeous day.

Omg, I walked outside today and wanted to live it forever.

Remember that sternly-worded letter to D7? I'm so over D7. I put it in it's place a long time ago. Now I've moved on to full, rich, melodic sounding chords. I've almost got "Mighty to Save" under my thumb. LOVE that song. Call me Chan Dylan. Chantos Santana. I just gotta get a smooth way to change chords down. It's so funny how a little thing is bugging you like mad and when you get through it, you can't believe you used to be so worried about it.

I want to be outside frolicking in the sunshine, but instead I'm shackled to my laptop, translating an introduction to an account of a former Cuban slave for my faculty mentor. Esteban Montejo (the former slave, not my faculty mentor, lol), if you wanna get hip to the Afro-Hispanic identity tip.

I try not to look back, but sometimes it's good to do so to see how far you've come. What sticks out to me are mornings. Those moments of quiet lucidity after you first wake up. I used to dread mornings . . . once I got going it got a little better, but those morning moments, when I was faced with the prospect of another day, used to be so painful. Those moments when you realize you will always have to deal with yourself. I'd say those mornings started post-Auburn graduation, intensified post-France, and peaked during those days of the job that brought me to my knees.

Now, it's totally not that things have gotten easier. Rather, that my tasks, per se, have gotten easier. PhD is no joke . . . I'm just waiting for the hammer to fall during midterms. But now I wake up knowing I'm where I'm supposed to be right now. It's so reassuring. On bright days, I wake up bathed in sunshine. It filters in through my blinds and washes over me. The uncertainty still throws me off sometimes, but now I feel more secure within it. I thank God for my new mornings. I really do.

Best Comeback Ever

"My existence is celebrating the deliciousness of being me."

Take that, world-weary cynics bent on destabilizing the confidence level of PhD neophytes with your stifling, hegemonic discourse. Yo' dominant ideology ain't the stuff. This chick's got agency, youknaaimsayin?

Now, I shall weather another late-nighter (I don't believe in all-nighters) writing the second paper of my PhD career. We goin for the gold this time. Let's get it.

Today was the first chilly day.

Overcast. I wore a scarf. It is September, after all.

Today was the day I got back the first paper I've written in my PhD career. B+. Not terrible, but not great, either. I've got to step it up. This is a different ball game, honey. You've got to step it up.

Brother Says

Telling my brother about a church friend who happens to be Jewish, and he says, "What? He's Pentecostal and Jewish? Oh, you know he's going to Heaven."

You know those office signs

that say "Lack of planning on your part does not constitute an emergency on my part"?

I wish I had a t-shirt that said "Ignorance on your part does not constitute a history lesson on my part."

LOL! #crackingmyselfup

Lemme tell you what dis gul did.

Maaan, dis gul. Tuesday dis gul went outside to catch dat bus, youknaaimsayin? On the way she saw some orange thing on her windshield and she was like whaaaaat? $40 fine for parking in the wrong area? Naw. Naaaaaaw. Dis gul ain't pay $180 for a parking pass to be gettin no fine, youknaaimsayin? She park right near her apartment, real talk. Den dat gul saw she had got a pass for lot S20. She be parked in S19. Hmm. Now you tell me, do that make any kinda sense? How she was posed to know dat? She requested S20 cuz on dat map it correspond to Building B, yo. Lemme tell you what dis gul did. She call up Parking Services. Parking services talkin bout some you can file an appeal online and you can transfer your parking pass. Hmm. She got online and wrote an appeal, youknaaimsayin? She put in for a transfer to S19. She ain't gonna be walkin crazy from one end of the apartment complex to the other.

Dis gul check her email today, yo. Ol gul got this letter from Parking Services:

"The appeals committee has reviewed your appeal of the below listed citation and has decided to uphold your appeal. Student Appeals has determined that either a violation did not occur or that your violation was unavoidable. The citation has been voided and you are not responsible for the fine. Please come to the parking services office to exchange your permit for a S19 permit. Thank you."

You know das right. Dis gul wasn't finna pay no $40. Shoooot.

Ugh, I'm up late writing a paper.

This PhD road is going to be paved with nights like these . . . might as well get used to it. Relax, keep plugging away, keep the coffee machine going. Honey, you're just getting started. This little ol' 4-5 page reacción crítica is the least of your worries this semester. For real. Save your whining for midterms. Or your monster-sized final papers. This party is just getting started, baby. Go 'head and get warmed up.

I put together a 5-shelf bookcase.

And I did it by myself. I am the woman. The queen of putting stuff together. That is all.

Whut?

Huckleberry chuckler: So you mean to tell me you went to Alabama then to Auburn and now you're going to Georgia? Whut? (chuckle, chuckle)

Me: (folksy chuckler mode) I just tell everybody I'm working my way through the SEC. (chuckle, chuckle)

Me: (unspoken sarcastic mode) (Steps up to the mic. Taps it.) Is this thing on? Oh, okay. I've been meaning to make this announcement for a long time now. I was hoping people would catch on, but I guess it's only fair and honest for me to spell it out. (clears throat) I. Don't. Care. About. Football. Yeah, I said it. I don't. I barely understand the game. It's too slow. A bunch of hulking guys group together. Then they crunch together and the game stops. They line back up, they crunch together again . . . like I said, I don't care for it. Gasping for air, are you? Listen. I wasn't raised in the syrupy, football-obsessed culture the majority of you were. Sorry. I'm one of those who chose to go to the schools I went to based on a mixture of financial and geographical reasons, not one of those who went for the football team or because mumma n' diddy n' paw paw went there so now I go there and I bleed crimson and white or orange and blue or red and black. By the time I got transplanted here, I was already too far gone to grasp the allure of scandalously paid coaches organizing their strategies in accordance to the amount of heat generated from enraged rednecks breathing down their necks. So, try to understand, y'all. I gulp down sweet tea, and I will tear up a plate of whatever Southern-fried, slow-cooked, ham hock-flavored, heart-attack giving concoction you place in front of me. I love it when your gentlemen let me go first and hold the door open for me. I do. I like magnolia trees and stuff. This is the only "home" I've ever known. But I don't care about football, people. I have a Bear Bryant hat and an Auburn t-shirt and I'm sure I'll get a little stuffed bulldog or something for kicks without any overwhelming sense of cognitive dissonance. I'm a traitor, har, har, har. Like I've never heard that one before. I think you guys got it. Whoops! Said "you guys" instead of "y'all"! (Puts mic back and walks off stage.)

Les événements de la journée

I watched a Spanish film in Spanish.

I wore my French t-shirt and practiced my French at la table française for a good two hours. Magnifique.

I saw a squirrel nibbling on a half-eaten burger still wrapped up in the paper that he dug out of the trash.

As I was sitting on a bench waiting for my bus, a car containing two stupid guys drove by. One stupid guy honked while the other stupid guy stuck his head out of the window and made kissing noises at me.

I was praying that my Autobiography of a Slave that I ordered from Amazon would come in the mail really soon because I need to have a bunch of it read by Tuesday. And what was in the mail today? Awww, yeah.

Dear D7 Chord,

I'm kinda mad at you right now because you've rubbed my fingertips raw trying to play you. Who gave you permission to do that? Who told you that was okay? You have frustrated me immensely. Grrrrr! It makes me so mad just thinking about all of my futile efforts today. It really burns me up when something as simple as correctly strumming a chord lies just beyond my grasp.

But let me tell you something. Don't think for a minute it's over. If you don't know anything about me, know this: I don't give up easily. I will win. You may have won the battle, but I will win the war. It's just a matter of time. I will persistently practice until I master you. I will dominate you, own you, subject you to my will. Just wait. Just you wait.

Quick Quips

So, my fingers are hurting from guitar. But I'm starting to play the blues, honey.

Have you ever unwarrantedly thrust yourself (and someone else) into an awkward situation? I have a knack for that. I'm the queen of awkward. An awkward situation magnet.

Before you start grad school anywhere and in anything, just remember this: Everything is a "social construction." You can thank me later.

I've narrowed things down to two on the Great Church Search. You're so glad to have me? Well, I'm so glad to be here. And I might see you again.

Please, please . . . hold your applause, hold your applause.

Mr. Wonderful . . . helloooo? I don't hear your banging down my door . . . hellooo?

Politically Incorrect?

On Thursday, the two Asian girls sitting next to me on the bus were speaking Chinese.

The dark-haired, dark-eyed, olive-skinned guy sitting across from me was wearing a t-shirt that said "Tony's Pizzeria - New York, New York."

The skinny, pale, nerdy-looking guy with a Star Wars shirt on sitting a couple of seats down from the Italian guy was glued to his MacBook.

The pretty, brown-skinned black girl who got on and sat next to me after the Chinese girls got off did smell like cocoa butter.

And me? I had on a long denim skirt and a peasant blouse with a flower in my hair, an oriental purse I bought for $5 in Chinatown and a scuffed up NPR tote bag. And I was on my way to Afro-Hispanic Identity (in the Physics building).

It wasn't because . . .

I navigated the bus system like a pro today, or because I went to a student job fair and got some offers to teach test prep on the side, or because I went back to tear up another banh mi ga and ran into some colleagues and ended up having a lovely Spanish-speaking Vietnamese lunch, or because I had a fruitful meeting about my research project with my faculty mentor, or because I ran into a former colleague on the bus who was an instructor at Auburn the same time I was who is getting her doctorate in Education, or even because I went to church and was reminded that God and my brothers and sisters in Christ truly love me.

It was because I thought that since I was here, doing my thing, getting involved, establishing discipline and routine, it would go away. At least for a while. I thought making the right strokes on a clean slate would do it. But it will still take work. Faith and trust don't come easy for me. It takes constant effort and constantly deciding that I will turn it over to God and not try to take the reins myself. It takes waking up every day and choosing to believe that a God exists who has my best interests at heart.

Snatches of the Day

Walking out of my Afro-Hispanic Identity class (held in the Physics building for, I'm sure, some genius reason), headed to the bus stop. Suited professor walking on one side of the road, smug frat boy on the other. He calls out, from across the street, "Hey, Professor so-and-so! Did you get those papers graded?" Professor, unsuccessfully trying to ignore him, "No, not yet." Frat boy brazenly replies, "When are you going to get them done?" Professor, continuing to walk, "When they're all turned in." I, disbelieving, walking in front of the Professor after this exchange, turn around and say, with a hint of instructorial camaraderie, "Isn't that annoying?" Professor replies, "Yes . . . especially with that student." I laugh. "It's just so brazen, you know?" Professor asks, "Are you a professor? Do you teach here?" "Oh, no, but I've taught in the past, and that whole thing rang familiar." But what I really wanted to answer was: "Not yet."

Sitting at an outside table of a Vietnamese bistro downtown, tearing UP a banh mi ga (not even $5!) for lunch. A girl with natural hair and velvet skin walks out with her man and comments, "You look really stylish today," and keeps walking. I told her thank you, but I don't think she realized she made my day.

Heard twice today: "Love the flower." I told one guy that it was my favorite flower, and he said "It fits." It was one of those days that called for my sunflower hair clip.

First Day Done

So . . . I'm in a class surrounded by fantastic, expert native Spanish speakers, and I, long-skirted neophyte, sit wiping my sweaty palms, nervous Spanish tumbling out of my defiant mouth. Defiant against the rising feelings of insecurity. Uh-uh. Ain't no time for that here, honey. You got something to say? You betta speak up. I like it when (and this only happens in a seminar where the professor says something to the effect of "you will do as much talking as I will in this class") you make a point and one of your classmates refers to the point you made and elaborates on it.

I sat sipping a tall iced white mocha, nibbling on a piece of pumpkin loaf when I caught ol' boy checking me out as soon as he walked in the room. Ha! Caught you again! And again! A friend joined me later and we were engaged in conversation, so he had no chance to say anything when he got up to leave. He just gave me one last look which prompted my self-satisfied smile. That's right, ol' boy. Keep on walking. You didn't have nothing to say to me.

My jovial guitar instructor makes it fun. I can play a simplified C, G7, G and D7 chord. Matter of fact, I can now play a baby version of "He's Got the Whole World in His Hands." Awwww, whatchu say now? Only downside: Those manicured little nails had to go. Clip, clip. Callused fingertips, here you come.

And It Begins . . .

Tomorrow's the first day of class! Ay, ay, ay! Narrative Discourses. What, WHAT? (And a guitar lesson. Awww, yeah.)

Did some more church hunting today. Think I'm narrowing down the search. Question of the day: "So, are you a freshman?" Me: (chuckling) "No, I'm a doctoral student." Wide eyes of disbelief. I still blast my oily skin, but I guess it's helped me keep a somewhat fresh face.

I christened my apartment by having my first official cup of tea. And, boo, I had to settle for some plastic shower curtain rings since all the WalMarts around town have been ransacked by students galore. Ah, well. At least they're purple.

We gon do dis thang. We gon DO it.

At the End of Moving Day

In my cozy bed with my sunflower bedspread. Yay! So glad the sweat fest of moving is over with. My poor dad and little brother were troopers. Now, little by little, I've got to make my teeny tiny place home.

I will admit, though, that I was about to scream when I realized my beautiful shower curtain hooks were too small for the gignormous, permanently mounted shower rod in my bathroom. Ah, such a waste. They looked fabulous with my shower curtain. Ah, well. Ya win some, ya lose some.

Next on the agenda is church hunting. I went to one of the local churches Wednesday. The people were very nice and welcoming. I filled out a visitor information card, and let me tell you, pastor and company were blowing up my phone today! Chillax, church people. I haven't made up my mind yet, but I'll be back for a Sunday visit.

Mmmm . . . gonna sink into my silky covers and wake up bathed in sunshine.

Moving Day

I'm back in Montgomery to get my stuff. Tomorrow is moving day.

Let's see . . . this will be my 4th moving day. 1st-Into my first apartment. 2nd-Out of my first apartment into my 2nd apartment in Auburn. 3rd-Out of my apartment in Auburn into storage/my parent's house and now 4th-Out of storage/my parent's house into my apartment in GA. At this rate, there will definitely be a 5th and 6th.

I haaaaate moving. It's such a hassle. It's hot. It involves a 3 1/2 hour trip this time. It's expensive. It's draining. A bunch of reshuffling, resettling, repositioning . . . I just can't wait until the dust settles and I can settle down with a mug of chai tea (actually, I've been into Earl Grey lately) and admire how I've once again made a place "home."

My apartment is still smallish, but when I got my keys the other day and took everything in after it had been cleaned, vacuumed and repainted, I found the blinds completely pulled up and the sun shining in through the great big windows in both the living room and bedroom. I looked outside and found a lovely, calming view. I can do this.

So Far, So Good

So, I'm slowly getting the hang of this town. Meeting people, got my classes all nice and registered for, trying not to get too scared about the onslaught of work that is going to rise up like a mighty wave and wash over me. There's great public transportation, and a spunky, eclectic downtown area. I'm also getting my guitar journey underway, and I'm looking into doing a little tutoring on the side for some extra cash flow. I got my student ID card today. I'm official, baby!

The only slight negative so far is my future apartment. I can't get my keys until tomorrow, but I went over and took a little peek the other day, and it's uber small! Ay, caramba. I spent a lot of time last night formulating a furniture formation in my head that would maximize space. I can't complain too much, though. My rent includes literally everything--utilities, internet, cable (if I so decided to indulge), laundry, even. I need to just relax and get ready to get really cozy.

Anyway, turns out I don't even have to stay up here the whole week of orientation. It's geared mainly for the teaching assistants, and my advisor let me know that since I won't be teaching . . . most of it doesn't really apply to me. Yesterday and today had some pretty important and informative sessions, but she said I could skip the rest of the week. So, I may be going back to the Gump a little sooner and then come back Saturday for the horrendous, grueling move. Ugh, I despise moving.

This is funny. . . it's like, a month or so ago I had no idea what moving up here and plunging into a PhD program would even look like. Now, things are just naturally coming into focus and taking their course.

Tomorrow

is the beginning of the rest of my life.

I woke up this morning feeling slumpy. Why oh why do I do this? After just having received lots of encouragement during a Starbucks chat last night and a couple of "just checking on you" calls this morning, part of me is still tripping on uncertainty. I'm having hallucinations seeped in IdontknowwhatImdoing and Idontknowwhattoexpect.

I just remembered that a sister at church has a guitar that she'd offered to lend me. She bought one and took a few guitar lessons, but got busy and it started collecting dust. It just popped into my mind today that I could take her up on her offer and finally start checking off one more thing on my life's to-do list. Now's as good a time as any. There are so many David Gray songs I can imagine myself playing.

Now to finish packing. And maybe do a little shopping. Heh, heh. It is a tax-free weekend!

A Mixture of Myself and Other People Strained Through My Brain Sieve and Typed Out in Numbered Points

The Pep Talkers

1. It's time for you to move on. You're ready for a change of scene. You get to meet new people, get involved in new things . . . you're going to do really well. You always knew that where you are now is not where you wanted to settle down, so here's your chance. Rock it!

2. The Lord has opened up these doors for you. You just need to trust Him and walk through them. Pray that He will allow you to enjoy it, to live it, to get out of it what He wants you to.

3. It's a good fit for you. There are people in the department you already know you want to work with. You'll probably have more opportunities to travel. All the hard work will pay off in the end, and you'll be so glad you went for it!

And my personal favorite . . .

4. You never know! (wink)

The Melancholy Comforter Cocoon Dwellers

1. From here on out, nothing will be the same. You don't know anybody and you're going to have to start all over. And when you finally reach the top, it'll be a lonely, windswept apex where you'll remain in your own bubble of an existence.

2. You're going to have to face those same lonely, long-morninged Saturdays where you have lots to get done but you want to do something else relaxing and fun, but you don't have a lot of money or available people to hang with, so you're stuck the whole day trying to avoid doing what you have to do but don't want to do.

3. You're so ready to settle down in an imaginary, safe, predictable rose-colored life full of made breakfasts and fat babies and sidewalk chalk but you're stuck reading articles that try to read Marxism into medieval theater.

4. You're going to have to say no. Say no and mean it. Say no and stick by it. Say no and not feel guilty about it.

The Realistic Sarcasm-Laced Pragmatists

1. What else are you going to do? Work for some non-profit and become disillusioned? You know that what you were doing wasn't it, so you're doing something else, right? You're not making a lateral move, either, you're stepping it up, which will ultimately prove economically and vocationally beneficial to you. So suck it up and tell the rumored "hard professors" to bring it.

2. Why are you pining after an imaginary life? If you woke up tomorrow morning to the wail of a fat baby and sidewalk chalk streaks and the prospect of making perfect pancakes, would you be ready? Or would you wish you had the chance to breathe in oxygen-poor air from the ruins of Machu Picchu? You are living your life right now. So get your head out of the clouds and live your best now.

3. Oh, you poor, poor thing. You have the chance to get a world-class education for free and get paid to do it with a boatload of guidance along the way. Oh, you poor, deprived little wench.

4. The only certain thing in this life is change, dear. I thought you'd learned that a long time ago. Seriously. You'd think after growing up a military brat and already having been around the world that some semblance of the idea of the temporariness of every darn thing would have seeped in by now.

The Mind Wanderers

1. You can take stuff outside of your department. Like a painting class or a music class . . . you've always wanted to learn the guitar.

2. Maybe you can get a part-time job. Like at a coffee shop or something. Come home smelling like coffee grounds. Mmmmm.

3. You're going to be making your lunch a lot. Healthy stuff like turkey croissant sandwiches and yogurt and dried cranberries and granola bars. Remember those healthy, economical days? They're back. Frozen salmon fillets and casseroles that last, and don't forget that crock pot you've got in storage. They're back, baby.

4. You know you miss that student-status. That time when you have an acceptable, cute excuse for being broke. Here you go again.

Sorting through my accumulation of stuff

I have an overabundance of

1. scarves.

2. hats.

3. tote bags.

What am I going to do with

1. my tae kwon do uniform?

2. my blowdryers with mismatched/broken attachments?

3. my stuffed animals?

Why is it so hard to do away with

1. t-shirts (mostly old, faded, paint-splattered, etc.) I never wear?

2. an old address book (that I've since updated in a new one)?

3. clothes I haven't worn in over a year?

I will, for some reason, always keep

1. a never-eaten box of candies given to me by a cute tour guide the first time I went to Paris.

2. a set of "see no evil, hear no evil, speak no evil" frog figurines.

3. my Curious George doll.

I can't believe I still own

1. a boombox that plays cassette tapes.

2. a Game Boy.

3. a dress that I wore to my sweet 16 birthday party.

Georgia

The Age Old Connundrum

I always have too much to do or not enough. Or I have a lot of stuff that must eventually get done, but that I can't reasonably put on a to-do list and check off like most other tasks (i.e. create a reading list, choose an advisory committee or write a dissertation.)

One step at a time, one step at a time.

I did get a lot checked off today, though. I'm pleased with my progress.

Things are starting to coalesce. Paid rent for my apartment, reserved a U-Haul, made hotel reservations for the first few days after my arrival in GA, paid my last bit of rent for storage of all my stuff before I ship it on out. My answer used to be, "Uh, beginning of August sometime," but now my answer is definite. Specific. August 7th.

I started getting excited looking at the classes I might be taking: Issues of Race, Class and Gender, Hispanic Thought, Narrative Discourses, Survey of Literary and Cultural Theories and Criticism, Topics in Afro-Hispanic Identity. The nerd center of my brain is getting fired up, baby!

I will admit to a teeny tiny worry: church. God, please let me find a good one. Not a podunk one (bless their hearts), but one that's vibrant, growing, multicultural, and has at least a few 20 and 30somethings I can relate to. Atlanta's a big city nearby, but it's at least an hour and a half away. Don't make me have to do that every Sunday. I mean, I know some people from a couple of churches in ATL, so I wouldn't mind visiting every once in a while for fellowship, but (sigh) we'll cross that bridge when we get there, I guess.

Last Day

(sigh) The transition will descend in 5 . . . 4 . . . 3 . . . 2 . . .

Today (or shall I say yesterday, since it's after 12 a.m.) was my last day at my Plan B job. I was kinda ready for that gig to be up. I must say that it was a nice little respite from the job that brought me to my knees which drove me there, though. A Spanish teacher turned math teacher. Boy, I tell ya.

It was less stressful, but it was also less pay. Much less pay. But when you're in the thick of a desperate situation, all you want is out. You don't care about the money, you don't care about nothing but getting out of that sucka. Anyway, it felt good to close that chapter of my journey to who knows where.

Now, this coming week is a week off, if you can call it that. I need to get my life together before the big move, which, due to circumstances, will actually be a gradual move. August 7th, I'm outta here. August 8th, orientation begins. August 10th, I can safely move into my apartment (just me, some clothes, an air mattress and toiletries). August 13th, I move all my stuff into my apartment (with help, thankfully). August 15th, classes start.

I'm just a bag of mixed feelings. I'm so ready to go off and do my thing, but I also hate moving. I hate readjusting for the millionth time. I hate the fact that I'm diving headlong into yet another state of prolonged temporariness. But, who knows? You never know. You got that right, I never know. I like the idea of a clean slate, though. A new, new, new, new. But newness can be stark and awkward. At the beginning, anyway.

So, how long is that going to take you? Two more years? Ha. At least four years. Four years? (Dude, it's a PhD, do you know what I'm saying?) Yeah, more work. Yeah, more papers. But maybe, oh, just maybe, more travel, too. South America. America del Sur.

Well, oh, well. We'll just have to see, won't we?

McCain Goes Back to Maverick

Aw, shucks! This is that McCain. The McCain who got crunk and gangsta and maverick on y'all behind. This is the McCain I'm talmbout, SON!

Wow. Just . . . wow.

Oh, really?

I haven't gotten political in a while, but Republicans need to drink a cold, tall glass of sitcho self ALL the way down. I never though a bar graph would utterly blow my mind. Are you serious? Sweetie, Democrats are willing to make some cuts to entitlement programs, Lord knows we need to, but we GON have to close some loopholes and raise some taxes too, dear.

It's raining again,

so, thank you for my sunflower umbrella, friend.

Friends

Sometimes I think of how blessed I am to have friends who love me.

I've connected with several friends recently who are so dear to my heart. We've met at different times in my life.

One friend, a young man I've known since junior high. We don't talk often, but when we do, we pick up where we left off.

Another, a young woman I met in undergrad who is a sister to me. God literally brought us together. The story goes that she was in her dorm room, praying for God to send her a friend who was a believer. Another friend and I were at the student center with our parents, attending orientation sessions. She gets up from praying, walks into the student center, and is confronted with my mom's poofy, tell-tale hairbow. "Are you Pentecostal?" she asks her. A few minutes later, my friend and I came out of our orientation session to a tearful, joyous meeting of answered prayer. The rest is history.

The last, a partner-in-crime I met in grad school. He's a little older, married with a family. We are so different in so many ways, it's amazing we're friends. But somehow, the shared experience of earning a Masters degree made us family.

I love these people God has placed into my life. There are many others, of course, but this week, I've somehow interacted with the ones I've described above. I'm thinking of them right now, and I am thankful for them.

Patience

I was reading out of my little devotional book one morning this week. Here's a quotation from it that zinged me:

"Patience takes away all want. Your desire for the thing you wish is perhaps stronger than your desire for the will of God to be fulfilled in its arrival."

Ooh, zing. It made my brain juices churn, the blood in my bleeding heart run cold, my melancholic background music fade to uncomfortable silence. It was part of one of the most beautiful, most unsettling definitions of patience I had ever come across.

Ah, patience. As my hair grows a little longer, my skin a little clearer. As I notice oh, so slightly deeper lines near my eyes when I smile. As I grow a little less insecure, a little more resigned to going with life's flow. In your patience, possess ye your souls.

To celebrate their 30th wedding anniversary, my parents are renewing their vows tomorrow. My brothers and I are taking part in the ceremony. I'm no stranger to taking part in weddings (even though this is technically not a wedding) and neither am I a stranger to the inevitable "Next time, it'll be you"s, the most recent round of which has already started. Perhaps they'll be right this time. Ah, next time.

Cracking UP

This is ridiculous, but so funny to me right now.

So, way back when, before I accepted the teaching job that brought me to my knees, I had to decide between two schools. Let me say this: there really was no lesser of two evils. They were equal evils, it's just that one evil was closer to where I live. Plus the principal of the closer school was kind of my hero. At the other school, the principal was a former teacher of mine back in the day, and, well, I remember her teaching. That's all I'll say. Also, ALL of the top administrators there were women. God, that sounds sexist, and it is. I hate admitting this. But the idea of too many women in one place being my boss at the same time made me antsy. I feel like I can say this, as a woman, knowing how the management style of women in a profession of mainly women functions. Okay. So suffice it to say, I chose the closer of the two evils.

So when things started popping off at the closer of the two evils . . . administrators galore came pouring in to "evaluate." There I was, dutifully standing at the door between classes and along comes the principal of the school I turned down with a smug smile admonishing me with, "See, don't you wish you would have come work for me now? At my school, we have a smaller population and we aren't having all the problems you all are having here. I tried to tell you, but oh, well. This is what you chose." I smiled weakly, and laughed fakely, but grrrrrrrrrr.

So, today, one of my coworkers at my present Plan B job just told me she was going to sign the contract to work at my former school. She's a tough cookie, made of much sterner stuff than I am, and a fabulous teacher, so I wished her the best. "Guess who's the new principal?" she asked. When she told me, I could but laugh. At least I chose my fate. This little development, I can assure you, was NOT by choice.

I wonder if she's remembering her smug little comment to me in the hallway that day.

Middle Bro is Back!

I kept a secret for over a month. Now the cat's out of the bag. Tha kid is back!

My bro has been overseas in Iraq since February. He had been planning to come home in August, but he revealed to me that he would be coming home a month early and swore me to secrecy. He super surprised my parents. Little bro is coming home from work in a little while and he has no idea . . . Hee, hee, I was the only one to be in on the conspiracy. What a lovely Independence Day gift.

One Month Till My New Life Begins

It's already July. Already.

This thing is creeping up on me. Tryna be all sneaky. I'm gonna turn around and sirens will be going off all around me signaling I've run out of time. Nope. No looking back. Take a deep breath and dive in.

I always complain about my itinerant life of gigs. The whine of my biological clock has grown increasingly shrill, always whimpering about some notion of "settling down." But what's a girl to do but enjoy the ride?

What I love about being in school is that each semester, you get a new life. Every semester, you get the chance to close a chapter and start anew. It's so funny . . . my whole entire life, I've either been a teacher or a student.

I didn't plan to get my PhD, despite everyone's encouragement, despite all the "you're too smart not to"s. You can spend a chunk of your childbearing years publishing or perishing if you want to. Shooo . . .

But something made me change my mind, real quick-like. It was a little hole-in-the-wall called Room 127 where you could get some pan-seared Señorita simmered in crazy served up on a bed of stress topped with fresh depression and a disrespected side of mixed feelings drizzled with an off-the-chain vinaigrette. Needless to say, there was a no-tip policy.

I know that had I never gone through that, I would never have applied to a doctoral program. I guess the Man Upstairs had to make sure I was going to live up to my potential. Really, if I had accepted the job at my posh little former place of employment I would be chillin hard right now. God said, "No, ma'am!" He won't let me rest till I pass the test. He used those little hellions to light a fire under my derriere. All right, Buddy. You win.

There's a bit of figuring out to do. Okay, there's a lot of figuring out to do. See, there I go again. Always trying to figure stuff out. (sigh.) When will I ever learn?

I must 1. pay my bills 2. finish off my latest round of Youth fiction 3. decide what classes I'm going to take. I know this: I'm SO taking a painting class. We're allowed to take stuff outside of the department. I'm going to realize my childhood dream of becoming a modern Monet. And I know French now, too? Aww, shucks! I shall.