hello 2010

My new year's resolutions:

1. Pray.

I'm the kind of girl who tries to achieve everything on her own; if 2009 has taught me anything, it's that I'm not the one in charge.  Thank goodness!

I hope 2010 is a wonderfully blessed year for everyone.  (And GO DUCKS!)

oh come let us adore

bookshelf

When you work full-time and go to school full-time, one of the (many, many, many) things that falls by the wayside is reading for pleasure.  Don't get me wrong; I love reading my six-volume, 2600-page Best Practices in School Psychology for hours on end (cough), but I'm trying to cram as much enjoyable reading as possible into my two weeks of blessed free time.  Here's my list:

Comfort reading at its finest.  Weirdly enough, I first read this because it was on a list of book options for my freshman year honors English summer reading assignment in high school.  I normally hate any romantic-historical-fiction-type books, but I love this one.  I pull it out whenever I feel like the world doesn't make sense - "This is nothing that can't be solved by Christy, her selfless work with the mountain folk, and her strange attraction to the moody, brooding Dr. MacNeill."

 

The author is also the teaching pastor of a church I've been attending in Seattle.  People I love and respect have a wide array of opinions about him; I've enjoyed his sermons because he really knows his Bible history.  The apologetics fiend in me loves that.  This particular book is an attempt to explain Jesus's message to a (buzzword time) postmodern culture that can be unreceptive.  I've only read the first chapter, but so far I think he's pushing the "Jesus is relevant" thing a little too hard.  I happen to believe that He is relevant without a lot of tedious over-justification from us, so I'm hoping the rest of the book isn't as heavy-handed.

Written by my cousin, who is an English professor at a liberal arts college on the East Coast.  He's also done a lot of research that interests me concerning Eliot's religious influences, but as I know pretty much nothing about T.S. Eliot, I thought this would be a good primer.

What can I say?  I really do love grammar this much.  I read a few chapters last year but never got a chance to finish it.

home again, home again

... jiggity jig!

I'm back in Portland and I could not be happier.  For the past couple weeks I've been so intent on finishing school and getting ready for a two-week absence that I never actually found time to get excited.  The "HOME!" feeling didn't really hit me until I was driving across the Marquam bridge with an incredible view of the city I love all lit up.

It's wonderful to spend time with friends and family.  I don't think I realized how inwardly-focused I've been during my time in Seattle.  I mean, I AM typically pretty self-centered (being an only child and, um, a blogger doesn't help), but between work, school, and living alone, my days were generally centered on what I needed to do next, what I wanted for dinner, what I was going to do in my half hour of free time before I had to be in bed, etc. etc.  (If you're keeping score at home, there were ten commas in that last sentence.)  It is so refreshing to be with people I love and adore and share their lives for a little while, instead of constantly trying to manage my own.  Bonus: I've been here for about 53.5 hours and I haven't had a fight with my mom yet! 

I'll leave you with two great moments from the last day of work on Friday (setting: student presentations on major weather events in a general ed science class).

Student I work with (explaining his emergency preparedness kit): "And here's some alcohol, in case you need it after you get hurt."
Teacher: "Uh ... you mean rubbing alcohol to clean wounds, right?"

Random student presenter: "That's everything you need to know about the blizzard that trapped the Donner party."
Teacher: "Great job.  Where's your visual aid?"
Student: (pulls a sandwich out of his sweatshirt pocket) "Now I will demonstrate how the Donner party survived.  They didn't have bread, though."

under the tree

thankful

The more I live, the more clumsy I feel.  So frequently I am too much (too loud, too impatient, too insensitive, too judgmental) or not enough (not diligent, not attentive, not kind, not forgiving).  Recently my posture toward God has been one of shame: "What do You want with a terrible person like me?  I think I might be physically incapable of doing anything that would honor You."

I know - insanely self-pitying, right?

Which brings me to what I'm thankful for today.  First, I'm thankful for Christians who (unlike me) skip the whining and go out and worship God with their lives.  Luckily, I know a lot of them.  It's incredibly reassuring to watch teachers, cashiers, and doctors who work hard at what they do because they love the Lord and they believe that we should respond to the reality of God in a practical way.  I feel fortunate to have these people to look up to as I pray for God to teach me what faith looks like in ordinary times.

Even more importantly, I am thankful that God has already dealt with the sins and shortcomings that I can't seem to let go of for myself:

But when the time had fully come, God sent his Son, born of a woman, born under law, to redeem those under law, that we might receive the full rights of sons. Because you are sons, God sent the Spirit of his Son into our hearts, the Spirit who calls out, "Abba, Father." So you are no longer a slave, but a son; and since you are a son, God has made you also an heir. (Galatians 4:5-7)

if you're worried and you can't sleep

Love this so bad.  I wish YouTube had a complete version and/or a version where the music was actually synced with the video ... I guess I'm just a dreamer.  You know it's been a good day when you've seen White Christmas, Fiddler on the Roof, AND a local production of The Nutcracker.  I'm in musical/theater heaven.

I'm now 24 hours removed from the end of my first quarter of grad school!  I spent last night procrastinating/finishing a final paper that was due at midnight.  I didn't actually wait until midnight to turn it in, but let's be honest, I came pretty close.  In honor of this momentous occasion, here's a selection of things I've learned in grad school so far:

1) One word: acronyms.
2) It doesn't matter what you write as long as you end each sentence with three or four arbitrary citations.
3) Group projects are lame.  Also, there are certain people in my program who are fantastic to work with - and then there are some other people.
4) Jargon!  How many times can I work "evidence-based practice" into a group discussion?
5) School psychologists = Type A.  Counselors = Type B.

Oh, and I probably learned some stuff about being a school psychologist too.