Ignorance is exhaustion

Dear Blog,

I know when I'm tired; I know all the signs.  It seems, however, that I'm too good at ignoring them - certainly this weekend, I was. 

Before I left to go bowling with my friends yesterday, my throat was sore... and I chose to ignore it.

During dinner, I was having a hard time keeping up with the conversation.  What jokes I tried to make were really lame (like, awful) mainly because they didn't make any sense, because my mind wasn't moving fast enough.  My stomach started to hurt and my head started to spin, and by that point I couldn't ignore it, because there was no way I could keep going, much less drive myself home - or another person, as I had originally planned.

I should have known it was going to happen; I had been up and about since 8 o'clock that morning.  Twelve straight hours of activity, with only a half hour rest in between.  And I spent a good chunk of Saturday out too, so usually I would limit myself to just one activity for Sunday.

It's strange, because I'm doing so well, and I try to tell my friends that yet how do I still make them understand that "so well" is still pretty bad by their standards?  How can I explain that I literally can be fine one minute and five minutes later hardly able to move? 

I'm glad I don't have a job this summer.  I've spent so much time barely doing anything.  Thing is, my body knows what it needs, and it always tells me what it needs.  Lately, it's been telling me to slow down, to sit down, to stay where I am for a little while. 

I need to stop ignoring it.

- Judith

Not All Who Wander Are Lost... But Most of Us Are

Dear Blog,

This summer, so far, has been pretty aimless for me.  I get up, do nothing, waste time, and hate myself for it.  You see, for a long time I've acknowledged that I don't know when the morning will come that I won't wake up.  Probability-wise, that morning isn't soon - but from my own experience with God, I know that He invented probability, and is completely comfortable with bending its rules. 

In that vein, I've begun creating goals for this summer; exercise every day (currently, I'm walking 30-45 minutes every day), read two books a week (I have so many of them languishing on my shelf unread), begin learning from Mum all of the little (and not so little) things I really ought to know how to do by now.  I want to save up some money this summer, because I just realize how expensive grad school will be (and suddenly, my plans for leaving the state are halted by the fact that the least expensive program - and one of the best I've found - is in San Jose, a city I'm already quite comfortable and familiar with).  I plan to write... but this is the hard one.  I'm finding it nearly impossible to write.  I had an unusual dream last night that has me thinking about a story; but all I've got is a beginning.  But, sometimes those unexpected plots are the most fun. 

I'm doing really well.  Still tired, but high-functioning.  I find myself growing more independent from my family every week - which is both fantastic, and occasionally creates a few arguments.  I'm beginning to feel my age; for so long I was convinced I was stuck at seventeen.  Still, like a seventeen year old, I often find myself expressing an opinion and then realizing that I have so little experience and so little credibility or knowledge that really, what right have I to express an opinion?  I can acknowledge my immaturity, but I can't seem to get rid of it. 

I hope that I can find more to blog about the rest of this summer.

- Judith

Do you feel like you're all grown up now?

Dear Blog,

I have my two biggest finals tomorrow, and I'll be honest, it's a bit of a struggle to study.  I'm tired.  I'm kind of done with school already.

And I'm a little bit frustrated.  I was browsing Facebook, and decided to look up a few of my old friends from primary school, see where they ended up.  And it was pretty saddening what I saw: quite a few of them party, a lot.  I get that the drinking age in Scotland is 18, and I'm not against drinking or having a good time with friends... but to the point where it's disrespectful, where it's unhealthy, where it's just ridiculous, in the way it was for these people; that really frustrates me.

Some people talk about how, if the drinking age in the US was lowered to 18, less people would drink underage.  True, yes they would.  But that would not make them any more responsible about it once they did start drinking.  And to the person who says, while the drinking age is 21, "I'm a mature person, I can handle drinking before I turn 21" - they are not in fact a mature person if they cannot also say, "But I can wait.  It's not going to add or detract from my life."

I've found that college kids seem to think they're all grown-up and mature because they do whatever they want; they party like they're old enough to get so drunk they can't walk, they choose not to go to class or to study because they have the choice, they say and do things that would make their parents ashamed.  Maybe I'm just a frumpy old maid, but that doesn't look like maturity to me; that looks like kids trying to look like adults, and failing miserably, because they haven't grasped the most basic tenet of maturity: responsibility.

So, speaking of maturity and responsibility, I'm going to return to my studying now, and I'm going to plow through because I don't really have another option, and because I need to do well on my finals to keep my scholarship (without which I could not afford to attend my school).  And after finals are over, I'll bury my head in good books and watch TV and movies and go out for walks or hang out with friends, because I'll have the time for it.

Not the zenith of responsibility, but a sober, reasoned, practical decision.

- Judith

Over-Scheduled and Over-run

Dear Blog,

I got the best email in my inbox in a long time.

My club meeting for tonight was cancelled.

I love Not for Sale.  If meetings were twice a week, I'd be sooo excited.  If meetings were every day, I'd probably go.  I care about the issues we discuss and I desperately want people to know that this stuff is going on, in their own backyards. 

But there is so much going on right now.  I'm exhausted.  I can't think straight.  I go to sleep in and I physically can't because there's just too much stuff to do.  I was tired and sick last week - and it slowed me down - and this week I'm paying for it.

So, finding out that I won't be at school from 3:45-10 tonight was kind of exciting.  I can go, work on my group project, come home, finish my homework, and maybe skip both Lost and Glee and just go to bed early.

I would never have made the decision to skip the meeting on my own.

Sometimes God provides in the littlest, best, most unexpected of ways.

- Judith

A Christian Biblical take on a Political issue

Dear Blog,

I don't like to get political in this blog, but people frustrate me sometimes.  Sometimes it's Christians more than anyone else.  I just read "Luther's Address to the Christian Nobility" for Rel 100, and it's crazy that in 500 years, people haven't changed.  It's not the Pope people follow blindly anymore, but it's just as ridiculous sometimes.  People take the word of teachers, politicians, and pastors without taking the time to verify the statements being made to them.

I know a lot of Christians who are Republicans just because they are Christians, and that's "what they should do," (without actually taking a look at policy and thinking all of it through - if that still leads them to the same conclusion, I'm fine with that - I just want people to be informed) and because they are Republicans, they are obligated to hate the recent attempts at health care reform.  But these same Christians would not, outside of this reform, pay for the health care of the poor and the sick and needy and the widows (and if these same Christians read their Bible, taking care of the poor and needy is one of the most frequently cited duties of a Christian in the gospels - though don't take my word for it, read it for yourself!).  So, if the right to life - which I'm sure we'll all agree is a far more significant and bigger right than anything so trivial as taxation - is being jeopardized because people's health is not being taken care of, who will defend their right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness?

A lot of people died for the freedom to so much as read the Bible in English, and so few Christians nowadays actually do.  Which is ridiculous.  I've been reading it for fourteen years, and still I come upon passages I must have skimmed over before or not understood before, because I go, "Whoa!?  Seriously!?" more often than any person who merely listens to the preacher would think.

So, before Christians go on and on about the various things they're going on about, perhaps they should go and read their Bible, and then do what it says (because "Anyone, then, who knows the good he ought to do and doesn't do it, sins" - James 4:17).  I'm not saying I've got this one down - I most certainly do not.  But I know that I ought to be helping the poor and the needy - and finding ways I can do so (which I have been trying - most recently, I've decided to donate groceries to Manna once a month.  That certainly isn't much at all, but I've no income, and will certainly do more once I am earning).  It's just that most of these people who are going on complaining about their "rights" - or at least the people that I've heard complain - are very wealthy, going out to eat multiple times a week, seeing movies for eleven bucks a ticket as soon as they are released, buying brand-new cars every few years.  It would only take a couple of lifestyle changes, which would not in any way hamper their quality or enjoyment of life, to provide for the people who are not in a position - financially or physically or mentally - to provide these things for themselves (and not just health care, but healthy food and shelter and education, too).

And if that's too much for a Christian to do, then perhaps they should have considered that before "committing their life to Christ."  Following Jesus is not about being a good person; it is about being willing to give up absolutely everything - even your own breath - for Him.  In light of that, the things American Christians are arguing over right now, are trivial. 

Seriously people.

- Judith

EDIT:  Okay, I'm going to add this, because I realize I was ranting a bit in my post.  I am not anti-Republican, and I know there are a lot of issues at work in the situation, beyond just "rights."  This situation was an awkward example of two principles that have been frustrating me for a long time: people who just do what they're told without understanding why they are being told to do so, and Christians who don't read their Bible - and thus cannot know whether or not they are truly living the life Christ meant for them to live.  I'm not going to take down the previous post, but I did want to add a little calm note onto the end.

The Center

Dear Blog,

Lately, I have developed a theory, and it probably requires some more testing to be proven true or not, but it seems to have worked for the past few years of my life.

The fact is, bad things can happen in your life - big bad things can happen.  Stuff that makes you want to cry, stuff that makes you wonder how on earth you can move forward because you sure can't see the road from where you're standing.  But those big bad things aren't really all that big.

Not to say that they're not often important things.  Majorly important.  But not the most important.  For instance, recently, there's been so much stuff whirling around in my head it's amazing I can put two coherent words together.  But - and I don't know when this happened - I realized that those things whirling around in my head, if I focused on them obsessively, if I let the big bad things take over my life like big bad things, they would become even bigger, badder things than they really were.  Because, I've always known - intellectually - that the most important things were the time I spent reading my Bible to make sure I know exactly who God is and how He operates, so that when I pray (important thing number two) I know how to approach Him, and so that my focus is not on the big bad things, but on walking with him through them.

That's how I could have a good week this week.  I feel like I should be more depressed, like these things demand more of my self-righteous anger.  But I can't do that.  If I do that, I'll be sucked under by those things, and then it's good for nobody.  I've actually had to remind myself recently that to be joyful in the face of such big-bad-crazy stuff isn't callous; it's confidence in Christ.

Not to say that I always manage to focus on God instead of on my own worries (which, in light of the real, big world full of such injustices I cannot begin to comprehend, are paltry).  Too often I say, "Oh, I'll read my Bible later" and then put it off and put it off until it's now - 12:15 in the morning, and all I've done today was read a couple of chapters while killing time waiting to talk to my adviser, and say a quick prayer in the car that today might not suck.

I have to speak to a group of high schoolers on Monday about my story, and I think this might be my focus; the fact is, there is nothing in my life more important than God.  And that thought is strangely reassuring - because no matter what happens, whether I'm living in a gutter or a mansion, healthy or close to dead, He is always the center.

- Judith

People don't always think things through

Dear Blog,

Though our house hasn't sold yet, my parents still like to view other houses on the market, to be informed and aware of what's available for when we do sell (though they won't make an appointment to view, because that's a lot of trouble on the sellers part; they just go to open houses).  I went with my parents today, desiring a break from my insane-seriously-I-have-no-idea-how-to-write-this-only-compounded-by-how-long-I-left-it paper.

Firstly, if you're reading this blog, then chances are you know me.  If you know me, or my family at all, you know that we are clean.  Very, very clean.  So, of course, the first thing we notice upon walking into the house is that it's an open house, and they haven't bothered to tidy up.  You can see that the carpets have been recently (like, within 24-hours) steam-cleaned, and there is visible brown dirt on the white staircase banister.  This doesn't bode well for the remainder of the house.  In our experience, if you buy it and think nothing's wrong with it, once the furniture's out and the paintings off the walls, there'll be a whole lot you realize you didn't see.  So if you can already see that things need repainting and recarpeting - what would you find in those places you can't see?

It was a nice house plan, only a couple of years older than ours, but still owned by the original owners, who had done nearly no work on it since they bought it.  The kitchen was all original appliances (and, sadly, a mid-80s fridge isn't exactly cool and vintage), and the cabinets were in desperate need of replacement, or at least resurfacing.  Any place that did have upgrades (granite or tile or new sink), had upgrades over the original cabinets or surfaces, that clearly needed some work done.

So, here's the thing.  People think my mother is crazy when they find out how much she works to keep our house immaculately clean, but the fact is that no one's going to walk in here and automatically be turned off by the place.  A person who cleans their house implies that same person takes care of the place - fixes things when they're broken, replaces them when they become too old to run efficiently anymore.  We know that our house needs work; we have two bathrooms that could use a remodel, and a really hideous chandelier.  But we've done a lot of upkeep; new carpets, new paint, new windows (all save for a couple unusually shaped ones), new pool, redone the yard, granite in the kitchen and refaced the cabinets, new (and recently refinished) wooden floors, one very beautifully remodeled bathroom, all new appliances when we moved in, refinished the basketball area, regularly trimmed the oak trees, new air conditioning units.  Sadly, this is what's frustrating about selling this house; nobody sees those things.  They see that a house of similar size is cheaper, and harp on about it.  But that same house needs all new appliances and windows and paint and who knows what else that isn't visible; that's why it's cheaper.  At least in the housing market, you do get what you pay for.