My Summer by the Numbers, Final Update

Since today is the unofficial end to summer in the States (aka Labor Day weekend), I figured now would be as good of time as any to do a final update on my "Top 10 List for Summer 2014!" I mean, my summer has been over for a month now, but I was still living off the American summer. Our midterm grade reports are due this week. We are already 1/8 done with the school year! Now that the American summer is over, I need to stop living on borrowed time. Here it goes!

1. Read The Divergent trilogy. I loved the first book. The second book was okay. 
    The third book was brutal. Consider yourself warned. 

2. Finish the remainder of my grad school class work. Done! I am currently

    working on my thesis proposal and one other class for my speech endorsement

    but as far as classes for my M.S. go, I am all ready to go!

3. Read Dave Ramsey's Financial Peace University. I looked at my book a couple

    of times if that counts for anything.

4. Visit Medora on our family's 17th annual summer excursion. Complete! As is

    my usual, I didn't take as many pictures as I meant to, but I did remember to

    take a couple. Medora is one of my favorite places. All I need is 24 hours in the 

    little town before I feel like my summer has been made.

5. Read Khaled Hosseini's And the Mountains Echoed. Finito! I didn't enjoy this 

    book nearly as much as the other two, but I still think Hosseini is a master

    storyteller. 

6. Sew my sister's T-shirt quilt. I'll, uhh, just have to bundle her high school and

    college quilts together.

7. Read Harry Wong's First Days of School. I think I will just add this to next 

    summer's reading list.

8. Finish my own jean quilt from high school. I'll just go for the trifecta next 

    summer when I finish #6.

9. Clean, organize, and purge my current belongings. I'm not sure I'll ever get to

    the point of feeling purged enough, but I made a very solid start this summer. I

    will continue to look at my belongings and make changes to what I need at 

    various points in life, but I'm feeling okay with where I am at this point.

10. Watch the entire series of "Boy Meets World" with my sister. She finished,

      but I didn't. I did get caught up on Grey's if that counts for anything. #Itdoesn't 

Clearly I didn't accomplish everything I included on my list, but I'm okay with that. I feel like I packed quite a bit into my six weeks of summer I had this year and I enjoyed every minute I spent with other people. I also moved halfway across the world and started a new job if that counts for anything too. Maybe it does, maybe it doesn't. I'll leave the jury out on that one.

Clearly

Radio, Driving, ATM, Proposal, and Punches

One. I am using iTunes radio for the first time and I can't believe I didn't know about this earlier! I've been going through Pandora withdrawals for the last six weeks and I didn't even know I had an alternative right in front of me!

Two. I'm currently listening to the Country Weekly Top 50 playlist and it's taking me right back to cruising the country roads of North Dakota. I loved driving home on a warm fall evening with my windows down and country music playing. It'll be awhile before I'm back in North Dakota for another fall evening, but I'm already looking forward to the next one when I will be!

Three. The ATM ate my bank card tonight so I'll be venturing out for a new card come Monday. Thankfully I can use my bank card from the States for a pretty minimal fee, but I need my Thai card since that's where my paychecks are deposited. So my Monday evening adventure will be going to the mall to get a new bank card. Chalk that one up for another Thailand experience.

Four. I have a thesis proposal to write this weekend. And a million papers to correct. I slowly started to fall behind last week and the wheels just fell off this week. This weekend will be a weekend of no plans and self-imposed grounding... Especially since I don't a bank card anymore.

Five. Thailand apparently does not have three hole punches. Seriously. They use an odd two hole punch system that annoys me because it doesn't have a centering point. All of my paperwork from the States is on the three hole system and I didn't bring a punch because I didn't want the extra weight. I figured I would just pick one up when I got here. And the paper here is a funny A4 size. I've not found my adjustment to Thai office supplies to be the easiest. Clearly mine is a hard life I am living overseas.

A Point of Intersection

When I was a little girl, I remember hoping and praying that God would allow me to be a missionary in a foreign country some day. I could not have been older than eight because I remember making those prayers while sitting in the pews at Faith E Free. I really had no understanding of what it meant to be a missionary in another country-- in my child's mind, God sent the people who were really good at their faith to be missionaries overseas and everybody else had to stay in the States. Clearly I was mistaken in my beliefs, but at the core of my being was a desire to serve God with my life.

Somewhere during middle school and high school, I decided I wanted to change the world. I also decided that I wanted to play college basketball and make as much money as possible. It's funny how some things work out better than others. At that point, my motivations weren't the same as my younger self because I wanted the attention for changing the world. I honestly cannot remember where I first read it, but I once read a story about a person (although I'm pretty sure it wasn't Nelson Mandala) who wanted to make a difference in the lives of youth, so s/he was going to pursue a career in law. This person quickly realized, though, that the best way to help youth in the system was to keep them out of the system in the first place and the best way by which to do that was to keep them in school. In turn, s/he decided to become a teacher. Once I finally got my head on straight in college and decided I really wanted to be a teacher, I realized the glorious burden God had placed in my life. He had (has) provided me the chance to change the world each day with the students he has placed in my classroom. I finally desired to be a teacher because of the students, in spite of myself. I want(ed) to take full advantage of the opportunity God had (has) placed in my life.

During the spring break of my sophomore year of college, Rachel and I and a mess of other friends chose to spend the week serving with a church in Tijuana, Mexico. I distinctly remember our first Sunday and the multi-hour affair that church was for them. I loved it. I also remember looking around the sanctuary during corporate worship and realizing that I am worshipping with the worldwide body of Christ. These people are my brothers and sisters in Christ. THIS is what eternity will be. Last week in church, our pastor pointed out that our church alone offers worship services in six different languages. Although I was attending the service offered in English, I would venture to bet at least ten different languages were spoken by the people in attendance. I saw people of at least ten different ethnicities and I myself was sitting with two Canadians. During class last week, we were exploring the ideas of self and identity in terms of multilingualism and multiculturalism. In my class of sixteen students, I had nine different languages spoken at competent fluency. And that's excluding my own fluency in sarcasm.

(via)

All this to say, my life has hit a point of intersection and it is beyond anything I could have ever dreamed. Never would I have imagined as a little girl that I would actually be teaching English overseas. Never would I have imagined as a teenager that I would be given the opportunity each day to change the life of our world's youth. Never would I have imagined that I would be surrounding myself with people of all nations. But this is my life right now and, more than ever, I don't want to waste a moment of it! Every day I am living amongst the masses of the lost and hurting who are looking to be word changers themselves. My prayers as a small child are being answered at the same time as my prayers as a selfish teen as are my prayers as a humbled college student. These are the moments I was meant to live. This is the hand of God in my life. This is the life I certainly don't deserve.

Soli deo gloria.

I Don't Get It

One of my co-workers lost his brother in a car wreck yesterday.

His situation sounds eerily similar to what my dad went through a couple of years ago.

Why did my dad get to live and my co-worker's brother not?

In talking with my co-worker, his stories and mine are very similar. But where he has suffered loss, I was blessed with gain.

I've had a decent bout of survivor's guilt today.

I will never understand it all but I know that I am thankful for what I have been given. I don't understand why God has chosen to give me what He has but has taken the same from others.

I love my dad and told him as much today.

Today as I laid hands on a friend in his time of loss, I praised God for my gain. Maybe it was selfish of me, but I just couldn't help it.

I don't get it and I never will. But regardless, the name of the Lord shall be praised.

This picture was taken two days after dad came home from rehab. I remember I was in such a bad mood this evening. It was Christmas Eve 2011 and I just wasn't having it. I wasn't excited to go to church, I wasn't liking my hair, I'm wearing my fat pants, and I really didn't get going on life that day because I wore my glasses all day. I completely missed out on the blessing of the day. It is now one of my favorite pictures ever.

30 Before 30, v.26.5

 As of today, I am 1.5 years into this journey. I'm making progress in some places but I can really see where I need to pick it up here in the next couple of years!

1. Finish my Master's degree. One more academic year! At this time next year, I will be done!
2. Knock out Baby Steps 2 & 3. Still. working. on. Baby Step 2. Oi vey.
3. Complete the C25K program. This is another changed goal. I have started this program many times but have never finished it.
4. Build my blog to 100 followers. Again, a change to the program. I've been praying about the purpose of my blog and I'm excited to see what God does with it in the next couple of years!
5. Take an international vacation... alone.
6. Coach in a state basketball tournament.
7. Buy a nice camera to document life's adventures. Done! I purchased a Sony DSC-RX100 before I moved this summer. Now I just need to get figuring out how to use it.
8. Read and notate through the Bible five different times, in four translations (NIV, NKJV, ESV, NASB). (0/5)
9. Run a marathon.
10. Hit my goal weight (160 pounds... Dream weight is 145 pounds). Still working on this. I don't have a scale with me right now but I feel better than I have in a long time so I'm feeling better than were I had been.
11. Do something really nice for somebody... something I never thought I'd be able to do... somewhere, at sometime.
12. Send out snail mail Christmas cards one year.
13. Read 100 new (never before read) books. 1Fat Angie. 2Single Infertile Female: Adventures in Life, Love, and Infertility. 3Sparkly Green Earrings: Catching the Light at Every Turn. 4The Help. 5Monster. 6The Book Thief.7Eat, Pray, Love. 8Same Kind of Different as Me. 9Winning Balance.10Thirteen Reasons Why. 11Zack's Lie. 12Water for Elephants. 13The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo. 14The Girl Who Played With Fire. 15The Language of Flowers. 16The Girl Who Kicked the Hornet's Nest. 17Miss Peregrine's Home for Peculiar Children. 18Jack's Run. 19Gone Girl. 20My Sister's Voice. 21The Heavy: A Mother, A Daughter, A Diet-- A Memoir. 22Divergent. 23The Fault in Our Stars. 24Inferno. 25The Time Keeper. 26Arranged. 27The Anti-Prom. 28The Boyfriend App. 29Going Vintage. 30Deception Point. 31The Tyrant's Daughter. 32Hollow City. 33And the Mountains Echoed. 34Unbroken. 35Calico Joe. (35/100)
14. Try at least 30 new recipes. (0/30)
15. Write 500 notes of encouragement to those around me. (3/500)
16. Go skydiving.
17. Crochet a baby afghan. I still haven't found a pattern I liked so this one is back on the shelf.
18. Have a photo shoot done of myself... Insecurities set aside.
19. Go on another missions trip.
20. Complete a semester of calculus.
21. Earn my permit to carry a concealed weapon.
22. Sleep a night under the stars.
23. Get three stamps in my passport. (1/3) I'm obviously back in Thailand, but I'm waiting to get some travel plans going so I can get a couple more stamps!
24. Make a kite and fly it.
25. Achieve complete financial independence.
26. Take a dance class.
27. Tear a phone book in half.
28. Solve a Rubik's cube.
29. Learn to swim.
30. Visit New York City... Perhaps for a 30th birthday celebration?

Start date: February 15, 2013
End date: February 15, 2018

Life Got Real This Last Week

If I could, I'd be on the next plane back to the States. 

This last week was difficult.

I feel like I finally figured everything out this week. I did actually move halfway across the world to a completely new land. The students actually did come to class this week expecting to be taught. I really can't go home until Christmas. I really am going to miss out on some pretty important-to-me goings on while I'm gone.

I am bummed that I am going to miss my sister's entire senior season of basketball. I am bummed that I won't be home to watch the Macy's Thanksgiving Day parade or Thanksgiving Day football this year. I am super bummed that I had to turn down being in a friend's wedding because I won't be have the funds or schedule to make it back.

These are the things that make me not like Bangkok right now.

Not everything has been terrible, though. I can honestly say 95% of my issues lie with myself. I've told myself any number of solutions or situations that would resolve my current state of dissatisfaction, but the fact of the matter is that those solutions are all out of my control.

I remember going through many of these same feelings when I moved back home to teach at Trenton. In many ways, this whole situation is much of the same. I'm starting all over at a new school. I'm living in a new place where I need to find a new routine and a new rhythm. I still have college classes to get completed. 

Life is just a little uncertain right now.

I'm not being fair by having this attitude and making these judgments only one week into the school year. I need to make the most of my two years ahead of me. God has placed me in Thailand intentionally. As much as I may doubt my own call, I feel a great conviction to trust the administration and authority God has placed over me. If they found me fit to serve in this place in life, then I need to believe in myself as well.

Faith refined by fire. Beauty in the ashes. God uses the underdog. Work for God and not for man. Trust in the Lord with all your heart.

Be.Do.Say.Go.