Time Marches On

Yesterday was my first day back at school. Aside from the anxiety I experienced at being called in for jury duty in Santa Barbara on the very same morning of my first day of classes in Pasadena, I was not nervous about the first day of school as I always have been in school years past. Once the Jury Duty situation was straightened out...and by straightened out I mean: Once I agreed to "fulfill my duty" by coming in during the kindly suggested week of my winter break to avoid the woman's promise/threat of "sheriffs at my front door."

*note: I wrote a paragraph of significant length expressing my frustration with the jury duty system on many levels, but a) I did not want to appear on this blog as an unhappy, unhelpful, bitter citizen unwilling to fulfill my duty or do my part to support everyones right to a fair trial and b) what if these said "enforcers of the (oppressive) system that is jury duty" read my blog? I can only imagine the repercussions...Alas, I was satisfied to vent my frustrations and then delete them.

Moving on. Once the situation was handled, I was able to settle into my fall routine, which I think is going to be fabulous. The drive down to Fuller only took an hour and a half, leaving me time to stop by Whole Foods before heading to the bookstore to pick up the books I wasn't able to get on Half.com. I settled in for two hours of Research Methods and listened to my professor try to convince me that I don't hate statistics- I just think I do. Well, I know that I stink at math (ask Hilary how long it takes me to add up simple scrabble scores), but I do like interesting research and am actually really looking forward to this class. It will be incredibly helpful in the inevitable loads of research that are in my future, and I think that with practice I will not be bad at it and might actually enjoy it.

Tuesday afternoons are going to be wonderful once classes are actually underway. I have a five hour break in the afternoon during which I will have plenty of time to read for class and work on assignments, which means less work at home and on weekends (woot). Yesterday, however, I had five hours to kill and no money to shop with so I took myself to a movie. I know a lot of people think I am strange for loving going to movies alone, but I think I actually prefer it to going with others. Especially when I see movies like Nights In Rodanthe, the choice for yesterday's matinee. It was my favorite kind of movie, full of breathtaking scenery, an incredibly dramatic, passionate, beautiful love story (in true Nocholas Sparks form), a romantic storm, love letters, an east coast clam bake, slow dancing on the pier under the stars... I mean, come on. If that's not a recipe for a great Tuesday-afternoon-movie-alone, I don't know what is. I cried (not just teared up, but cried) at least three times. Thankfully I had an hour and a half to drink a cup of coffee and recover from the emotional rollercoaster that was this movie and to daydream about the kind of love that filled my head and heart for the past two hours before heading to my evening class.

Oh, my evening class. Family Systems Dynamics. Maybe I am a total nerd, but I think really I just know that I am so lucky to be studying something I am so interested in and excited about. Three hours of lecture flew by, I even enjoyed reading through the syllabus! I'm going to get to do this stuff! Read this stuff! Learn this stuff! When I first studied systems theory in Interpersonal Communication my junior year at Westmont I remember thinking "gosh, I could read about this all day and not get bored." This was the beginning of my interest in finding a discipline that would provide me with a reason to study the complexities of human relationships and to find a career that would celebrate the depth and uniqueness, the beauty and the struggles that come with loving deeply and weaving your life together with another. Family Systems Dynamics is foundational to the study of Marriage and Family Therapy, and is a framework for viewing, studying, and working with other theories-just as I believe our relational systems are foundational to all we are and do.

Of course, being the first day of class, a history and overview of the devlopment of a systems approach to psychotherapy was given. While I'm tempted to like copy my notes onto this page every week because I think everyone should get the priviledge of hearing this stuff, I will spare you that and just share my favorite little nugget from last night's class. Human systems are dynamic, open systems. External factors are constantly coming into play. You cannot predict what will happen to you, what will change you. I cannot predict what I will hear or read that will change my perspective, alter my course. I cannot predict who will touch my life, move my soul, and stir my passion. I have no idea now what or who will challenge me, encourage me, love me, hire me, fire me, call me wife or mother or boss or loser. This life is full of surprises and twists and turns and road blocks and blessed detours bringing us to the very place that God created us for every single day.

I'd Like to Have That One Back

That day that I watched about 5 hours of old friends episodes on DVD. Okay, there were about 6 or more of those days this summer. I'd like to have those ones back.

Also, that other day(s) when the only thing I did all night was watch HGTV. Hours of Spice up my Kitchen, Property Virgins, Moving Up, House Hunters...

Or the long hours upon hours spent at the beach doing nothing but playing volleyball and working on my tan. They were great ones, but yeah, most of those ones too.

Of course all the hours on facebook. I'd like to have those hours back, if you don't mind.

Oh, and the hours spent at happy hour after work. Right now, I'd like to reclaim a lot of those hours as well, thank you.

Right, and those Saturdays where I let my obsessive compulsive tendencies get the best of me and cleaned every inch and corner of my house for hours. Can I have those too?

I'm going to need as many hours and minutes as I can get over the next week and a half. I made a brilliant decision during registration back in May to take three independant study courses this summer. Sounded great at the time. Full load? No problem. Independant study? Piece of cake, what could be better. Work full time on top of it? Sure! I thought to my naive, glass is always half full, beginning of the summer self.

All of the hours I'd like to reclaim right now were, at the time (and even now when I step outside of my current to-do list), time well wasted. But inside of my to-do list is where I'm currently standing, and from here, I'm going to need to go ahead and take those hours back. The next nine days are going to actually need to be 36 hours long, thanks God. I appreciate your help on this one.

I was on top of so much of my reading this summer, for the most part. I read some great books, took some good notes, listened to a few lectures. I did enough to deceive myself into believing that come this time of the summer quarter, I'd be fiiiiiine. Oops.

I realized last Monday that I was looking at a total of five papers, each written on books I was relatively close to having completed reading, although one of those papers was to be fifteen pages long. Did I mention that that one was on a book I had, as of last Monday, yet to order on Amazon? Got right on that, almost done reading it now, actually. Perfect. Also on the to-do list are three two hour essay exams as well. I know, you're jealous. Thankfully I became a hermit last weekend and didn't leave the house Friday night but just sat and toiled like a good little grad student, left twice Saturday to get coffee, and once Sunday to say goodbye to my pastor who is moving to Oregon, and was able to complete three of the short papers and fully prepare for and take one essay exam. Yes, I would like a cookie and a gold star, thanks.

So that leaves me with nine days to finish reading three books, write a fifteen page paper, edit the last of the short papers, and sufficiently prepare for and complete two essay exams. Sounds manageable enough, for real. I can do that. Add into the equation though working 40 hour weeks, two of my favorite people in the world coming to visit this weekend, and a fabulous wedding celebration on Sunday celebrating two of my closest friends getting married to each other (what could be better?!) and we've got a bit of a time crunch situation on our hands.

So, even though wasting time well is one of my favorite things about the extra long summer days (and one of my spiritual gifts year round, I think), right now I'd like to have some of those hours that were so sweet in the moment back to use more productively.

Count Me In

I confess.

I am not as good at blogging as I would have hoped.

Maybe it takes a while to get into a groove. Maybe it takes a while for the pressure of the posting process to wear off.

But I am still in the awkward beginning phases of this relationship. I mean, I really, truly enjoy it. I look forward to it. I think more often than ever before about writing; I actually think that the way I see the world has shifted a bit.

I swear, I have interesting thoughts all day long. Thoughts that I think you, my loyal readers, would be intrigued, enlightened, fascinated and entertained by. I come up with funny or insightful titles to things I would like to write about. At my desk at work, I often find myself literally lost in thoughts, questions, stories, musings, which I would like to commit to writing. Writing has a way of making me stop and appreciate things through language on an even deeper level. It frees me to come up with words to relish in the simple things that happen each day which make life worth celebrating and being thankful for. Except for the fact that when I sit down to post on this here site, a self monitor that I am not very familiar with comes out and I am hesitant to post.

I am reading a book right now for my Narrative Therapy class by Harlene Anderson called Conversation, Language, and Possibilities. I love this book, I love her perspective on human relationship and understanding, and I hope to be the kind of therapist that she is someday. So the book is all about how we construct meaning in our lives primarily through conversation (parts of it remind me a bit of something we may have read in Rhetoric, but with a significant amount more emphasis on the therapeutic process). We live storied lives with one another and find meaning, worth, healing, love, anger and everything in between through language and conversation. We gain understanding as we enter into conversation about things, whether those words are used to create an inner monologue or a dialogue with a trusted friend, spouse, therapist, or stranger on the street.

She makes a distinction between being transparent and being public in what we choose to reveal and share of ourselves- of our wonderings and fears, thoughts, speculations, opinions, everything. She says "I choose to use the word public rather than transparent...because I do not think that another person can see through us or we through him or her. Rather, we can only see what we choose to show the other." And this I think is so true. We choose what we share, and we present to others what we want them to see of us. Sometimes this comes so natural we don't even think twice about sharing pieces of ourselves. Other times it feels like such a vulnerable nakedness.

So, I self monitor when I blog.

I get nervous. I become self-conscious because things seem so permanent when they are in writing and I begin to feel incredibly uninteresting- or at least incapable of letting the interesting and insightful and funny out eloquently, which is maybe worse.

But you know what they say about practice. So I'm working on it.

It Just Comes Natural

My dear friend Hilary teaches me things constantly, I think.

Granted, she is a teacher, in the most literal sense of the word-sixth grade actually. But in her spirit, in her soul, she is a teacher. She is a teacher with her gentle words, with the humble grace with which she goes about her day to day life, and with her steady and constant encouragement and love for her family and friends, a loyalty and love which I daily count myself blessed to be the recipient of. She is grounded in a faith that is both childlike and mature, a delicate balance that isn't always easy to pull off, but is a beautiful example of how I think God wants us to live.

She is the kind of teacher that, if I were a parent, I would daily feel privileged to have molding and shaping the mind and character of my precious child.

So, to my friend, on her first day of school, which happens to fall on a Tuesday, as it should. I am thankful for you, amazed by you, and so proud of you. You get out there do what you were made for, in animal print! Go Getter.