A Brain Dump to Begin the Week

...This has been the longest two week stretch ever. It started with an inservice day two weeks ago and has since contained two basketball tournaments, two trips including a flight and a bus trip, as well as my normal loads of teaching and grad school. Part of the reason the two weeks have seemed so long is that I inherited the girls' basketball team with about 30 hours' notice and have been, all of the sudden, going full blast with them on top of everything else. I'm not even going to pretend to be on track with anything any more. I'm just straight up behind on it all.

...That being said, I have officially made my varsity coaching debut in basketball. I coached a tournament last weekend where we finished third and this past weekend we took fifth in another tournament. Funny story-- being good sports actually cost us a chance to play for the championship. We finished third in our pool after losing a tie breaker by 4 points (as in 2 baskets). We played two teams we could have blown out by 40 to 50 points. We actually held one of those to a complete shut out, 32 to 0. I am a firm believer that no game needs to be won by more than 20 points, maybe 30 points playing young players, so I took active measures to stop my team from being that bully team. Well, we shot ourselves in the foot the first game against our #1 pool team when we just did not show up to play and lost by 30 points. We then blew out the next two teams, including the shut out, and then putzed around and ended up tying with a team we would beat 7 times out of 10 any other day. We lost the tie breaker to the #2 seed because they put up 4 more points against opponents than we did. And we could have easily posted another 50 points if I had let my team and/or we had shown up to play. I have no regrets about not posting a bigger score or being beaten when we didn't earn the victory anyhow. But I am snarkily amused the #5 team in the tournament should have been at least the #2 team and possibly the champion (I think we'd go 50/50 with the top team if we played well) just because they were good sports. What's the lesson learned? Play hard in every game. Never be the bully. And always wash your hands after using the bathroom. That's just common sense.

...I wouldn't go as far as to say that I am home sick, but I have really been missing my family back in the States. I blame it on the chance to coach the varsity basketball team. It is something that I could actively share with them and they could be around to see. Rehashing the game through text is just not the same as sitting down to talk things through in person. And sharing about victories with a 13-hour time difference is just not the same because it's usually a good 8 or 9 hours before I hear back from anybody. But this is just a good chance to remember the opportunity I have been given to improve myself while investing in students' lives through a game I love. I am also being reminded of all of the people who have chosen to invest in me through basketball throughout the years and I continue to push myself to make them proud. Always pay it forward.

...We leave for our annual school service trip a week from today and I am looking forward to it. We will be going to serve some Karen people in western Thailand, literally within walking distance of the Thailand-Myanmar border. I enjoy the opportunity to work with students outside the walls of the classroom to complete meaningful work by their own hands and efforts. Some kids love it, some kids hate it, but all kids always walk away changed regardless.

...With everything going on, I am continually reminded to live with grace, truth, and perseverance because this is the only life I will be given and it is my real life. I keep reminding myself:

(via)

I know this is meant for parents, but my students are who God has given me to invest in right now so they "my children" for this season of life. And for most of these students, I will have them for only one year so I must make the most of the opportunity that has been given me.

Soli deo gloria.

Glory to God alone.

16|| Now You All Can Know

"Most people don't know this but..."

... I really don't like cake. I think it's too much chewing for too little flavor. I much prefer pie and brownies for those very reasons.

... my pinky fingers are obnoxiously short on both hands. Each pinky reaches just the second knuckle on the ring finger of each hand.

... when I was little, my mom had me convinced I couldn't go to kindergarten unless I learned how to tie my shoes. A Saturday afternoon at McDonald's with grandpa helped solve that one. To this day, I don't tie my shoes the "normal" way and the only laced shoes I own are for workout purposes.

... when I was little, my dad told me that eating too much burnt popcorn would give me a bellyache. Now I know he didn't want me to eat too much so he could eat the rest of it. #Yooooouuusneakydad!

... when I worked with the youth group during one of my college summers at home, I convinced a couple of the boys that I was third in line for the role of Christine. I had to decline the second understudy role, though, because I couldn't miss that much school. #Asif 

... I also convinced one of my high school classes that Canada had bought the internet. That one didn't last too long, though. Clearly I learned my devious ways at a young age from my parents.

... I thought my parents were going to die of old age when they turned 40. I had an elaborate plan to move my siblings and I to my grandma's house 3 hours away. I had money set aside for bus tickets and notes written to our teachers explaining what was going on. It never dawned on me that my grandma was older than my parents. I was a proactive, albeit neurotic, third grader.

... I really love fresh cut flowers. Orchids and tulips are my favorites. I also love begonias and mums.

... I still cannot keep track of which is the independent and which is the dependent variable. A psychology minor and two years of graduate school still haven't solved the matter for me.

... I'm pretty sure I saw Bill Murray at the BTS station a couple of weeks ago. I didn't stop to ask because I wasn't 100% sure at the time. Now I am really wishing I would have.

Maybe Someday

Sometimes I just dream. I can honestly say I’m happy with where I am in life right now, although it’s never where I would have placed myself. As I daydream (or plan where I think I’d like my life to end up), these are some of the ideas that come to mind.

Maybe someday…

I will have a job in formal, full-time ministry.
p

I will be working in full-time academia as a college professor.
p

I will finally have this teaching thing figured out and I will be a competent, confident high school teacher.
p
I will have finished law school and be a practicing lawyer.
p

I will be a stay-at-home mom with my own mess of children to look after.
p

I will be putting dinner on the table as my husband gets home from work.
p

I will be sitting in a gym watching my own children in their athletic endeavors.
p

I will be sitting in an auditorium watching my own children in their musical endeavors.
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I will be on the sidelines coaching my own children in their sport of choice.
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I will be homeschooling my children and we’ll have all sorts of crazy projects going on throughout the house.
p

I will be meeting with my children’s teachers for parent-teacher conferences instead of being the one leading the conferences.
p

I will have completely packed up and left the United States behind to live in a one-room shack somewhere across the ocean.
p

I will have another Master’s or a Ph.D. or may have gone to law school… I wouldn’t mind being a professional student. (And I just outed myself for the nerd that I really am.)

I feel I would be just as happy for any of these things to happen and maybe none of them will ever happen. But I have found that a good pondering session always does my heart some good…

These are my wonderings for today. :)

It's a Girl Thing

Something I have come to realize about myself in the last couple of years is that I really dislike the spotlight. Now, I recognize this is coming from somebody who has no trouble standing in front of a room and carrying on like tomorrow will never come so, perhaps, I would be more accurate in saying this- I don't like having attention placed upon me for any reason having to do with personal accomplishments, recognition, or the like. Crowd control? Yes. Anything else? No thank you. However, I can truthfully say this is a 180-degree turn from where I was at growing up. 

Ready for a little secret? I loved the limelight as a child simply because I needed to know people liked me. Ready for another secret? I have, only in the last couple of years, decided to take stand against my insecurity and form, for myself, the healthy self image God intended me to have.

Well, that's a weight off the proverbial chest.

What I have really come to recognize after working with girls in a variety of contexts is the super difficult position in which our young ladies are placed in today's society. I was entirely overwhelmed at the beginning of my first summer at camp with all of the girls and their emotions and their general need for obsessive reassurance over the most trivial of daily issues. (No, I do not care whether you wear your purple shirt or your black shirt and, no, I don't think anybody will remember you wore that shirt to run to the bath house to brush your teeth last night. No, I do not think you are weird for wearing that shirt again and I promise to tell nobody... I'm just not going to tell you the last time I have, or haven't, washed this hoodie. Ha!) The all-consuming insecurities faced by these girls at all ages just broke. my. heart. And the staff wasn't immune to petty insecurity either. Approximately one night each week was spent in the bathroom over analyzing what other people may have thought of our behavior at a specific point, how the boys possibly did- or didn't- view us in a specific situation, whether we'll ever measure up as "big girls" in a consumingly degrading society... any sort of lighthearted material (*ahem*) we could muster at whatever hour of the day. Let me assure you... Girls in the school are not any different than those girls at camp. Uffda!

But, I digress. That summer, my heart really began to break for young women as a general subset of population, especially young Christian women. We, as a collective Christian community, are seeking to raise and disciple girls at a time where we are asking them to be meek and mild, supremely intelligent and self-disciplined, simultaneously be "in the world but not of it", and sharing the light of Christ with all while being strong, secure, and capable as the creation God has created each to be. Other than the fact some of those demands are directly contradictory, we are placing a ginormous burden upon out girls, many of whom are struggling to love themselves while we demand they show love to everybody else. Now yes, I often say that life is not about me and selfishness is not healthy, but I fear the number of girls we are losing because they become so overwhelmed with everything that they count it all a loss.

It seems like at least once a day, in whatever class for whatever grade, so many of my female students talk about how yet another boy ignored them for whatever reason or another boy did them wrong in one way or another. Some of it is teenage angst, but you can also tell that some of those girls actually believe it. I am so grateful that my dad sends me a little gifts every once in awhile, both because I felt special that he remembered and it was also a good example to my girls that life is what you make it. Of course I wouldn't have turned down flowers (or anything else for that matter!) from anybody else (I mean... the mysterious "KJ" sends me flowers every year on my birthday and I eat it up every year!), but I'm choosing to think that maybe they were just given an example that security and acceptance doesn't need to come from outside sources.

It's so tough to be a girl... Especially when you don't know where true love and acceptance really are.

How great is the love the Father has lavished on us, that we should be called children of God! And that is what we are! The reason the world does not know us is that is did not know him. 1 John 3:1