p.s.

I realize that my posts have been somewhat full of sour grapes and moving/cultural-readjustment-angst for the past little while. So I just wanted to say that tonight was about all kinds of perfect, and it was even more perfect because none of it was planned to be perfect.

Does that make sense? Is there such a thing as spontaneous perfection?

once in how many thousand tries can you walk through a wall?

I hate the cafeteria. I surprise myself by the vehemence of this thought, jumping out at me as I walk through Lottie and spot an empty table by the windows. Somehow, without all of you waiting at a table on the far left end, the affectionately nicknamed "Lottie" diminishes into just another institutional cafeteria.

It's even weirder now that the cafeteria is full of Messianic Jews. Now, I figure, probably anybody that chills with Jesus is a relative of mine. That includes this entire conference. So, in theory, I should totally like all of them. But I don't. There are too many of them, and I'm surprised at how many similarities there are between a Messianic Jewish conference and a Bible-thumping evangelical conference (which, come to think of it, I'm not too fond of either).

For instance, the totally insincere man at the coffee pot this morning, who asked me how I was. Nice, sort of, except that then he didn't even wait for me to reply before he went off into how blessed he was on this particularly fine morning.

I'm not a morning person in any case. So perhaps it's unfair of me to judge an entire conference on that one early-morning experience.

Take, instead, the people at the end of my table at lunch. Yes, my nice empty table by the window soon developed other inhabitants (like a kind of disease). The group was comprised of two women, a man, and a ten-year-old boy. The woman to my immediate right was wearing a skullcap, which confused me. It confused me further when Woman-With-Skullcap began chatting excitedly about how tomorrow is 7-7-07 and we'd better be ready for what's coming, we better be in waiting, we better prepare ourselves.

Oh brother.

As I watched and listened longer, another woman approached the table. Immediately the original four set up a clamor. This woman with badly-dyed red hair was from Israel!

Predictably enough, Woman-Wearing-A-Skullcap expressed the most excitement. So much so, in fact, that she grabbed Badly-Dyed-Red-Hair by the shoulder, looked deep into her eyes and said in a voice half an octave below her normal one and throbbing with emotion, "Do you think we have a Connection?"

I'm reminded of a certain woman from Alabama who raised her hands in worship during the singing of the national anthem.

It makes me squirm when Christianity of any kind is tied up in any kind of nationalist sentiment, I'll admit. I feel like maybe Jews have an excuse, seeing as they're God's chosen people and all (and this was, originally at least, a nationalistic proposition), but seriously. I still think God is a smidge bigger than any country, and that just because someone is from a particular country doesn't give them awesome spiritual powers or privilege in the kingdom of God.

Maybe that's just me spitting up democratic claptrap imbibed from too many years in America.

But it does, in fact, seem like the minute religion gets tied up with government, bad things start to happen. This could, in fact, be why I didn't give a sigh of appreciation along with everyone else in my Sunday school class when I learned that some town in Alabama had passed a town-wide government-level edict that the town humble itself before God and pray for rain. And then it rained.

Because seriously, too many people are sticking their noses into my business already. Do I need the government sticking its nose into my religion? No. So I don't stick my nose into its religion, or preferably lack thereof.

Then again, I'm also at the stage where I kind of doubt God answers prayers about the weather.

Where did I start? I hate the cafeteria. And I kind of hate mystical claptrap. When the cafeteria includes mystical claptrap, well, we definitely got trouble.

for pony!

I got to say, that's the best war cry I've evere heard: "For pony!" (You should read Looking for Group.)

I saw Matt at dinner. He seems busy with his rewrite. He commented that I blogged the most this semester, even though I had totally crappy internte access. Well, I'm not going to apologize for that, nor am I going to apologize for the fact that I'm probably going to post like every day now that I have real internet access. I am what I am and probably I am going to keep blogging.

Work is going to be tough for the next couple of weeks. We do a lot of publications, and there's a lot of details to remember about everything. It was a long workday. But I made it and I guess that's all that matters? I think I can do this, though, I really do. The combination of newspaper experience and grading experience from working with Dr. Dzaka is pretty perfect for this job. Also, they said that my job duties may involve blogging about my study abroad travels. How funny is that? They have no idea, but I'm all over it.

The U.S., I'm noticing, is kind of lonely actually. In Bertram House and the convent both, there were people that I love just chillin' at all hours, and I had standing invitations to do fun stuff. Now it's kind of like. . . I have to make up my social circle all over again, kinda. I wonder how much work it's going to be?

It's been raining here like crazy. It kinda makes me sleepy.

My card refuses to work on my floor, so I guess I have to go bug the card services lady again tomorrow on my lunch break. Sigh. That means delaying my parking permit process and signing contract process and everything else. But what can you do? At least they managed to fix my meal plan today.

and i'll keep the area clear

Hey loves.

It's me again, back in Grantham, PA. It's eerily familiar to be posting from a dorm room, but also really weird. I thought I was basically done with the traditional dorm room last year. Turns out I was pretty wrong. Somehow they all manage to smell the same.

I had a minor revelation on the trip from Craig and Laura's today. Maybe this is totally, absurdly obvious, but this is what I thought:

It all started as I was listening to a song about how if we focused on Jesus, the things of earth will grow strangely dim (in the light of his glory and grace) - I'm sure you've heard it. And I realized that, in fact, when I actually feel like there's something out there beyond what we can see and touch and smell and taste and think up, that's when the things of earth seem the sharpest and most potent.

I started to try and say in my printmaking portfolio this semester how inadequate it is to say that I love God. I haven't the faintest idea how to even begin to try to love something like God. Haven't got a clue. I mean, he's God, right? How much more ineffable and unlovable can you get?

But I do love the things of earth. Really a lot, in fact. That sounds bad, but hear me out. I love my work. I love my family. There are certain other people that I love, and even someone that I somewhere in between. I love honesty and poetry and water brushing along the tops of my feet. And so I can't love God; I don't know how. But I love these things he's given me, and maybe that's all the closer to loving God we can ever get - it's loving the things and the people and the calling he's given us the best way we possibly can, and hoping that we're loving his reflection in them.

Does that make sense?

It strikes me that I am possibly a heretic. And also possibly very sleep-deprived.

Anyway, think on that.

The end.

p.s.

Two days at home is not enough.

I dislike moving.

It's a bizarre experience to feel completely awake and alert and unable to fall back asleep at 5 a.m. (because hey, your body still really thinks it's noon).

i remember quite clearly - i hate packing!

Wow. That's my first thought on walking into my room, now strewn with opened boxes, clothing, and various piles of various man-made materials: to keep. storage. to get rid of. the maybe pile.

Today packing was even more dramatic, because after living for four months out of two suitcases, I'm overwhelmed at the sheer amount of stuff I own (my suitcases, by the way, were reclaimed with rejoicing at Huntsville airport at approximately 11 a.m. today). The closet holds a never-ending stream of boxes which spill their contents without apology all over my floor. In fact, I'm unpacking boxes from when we moved to Alabama before my ninth grade year of high school - and chucking most of their contents.

Yes, I've gotten ruthless. I don't need so many knicknacks. I don't need so many little papers to remember the past. I'm quite ready to move on, in fact. So I'm chucking them, without a second thought.

The thing I found that threw me the most? Apparently I kept a picture a friend drew for me way back in eighth grade. A small, approximately 3"x3" colored pencil drawing with an 18-word message written lightly on the back in all-caps. I kept, actually, quite a few artifacts from my eighth grade year. I suppose it was a memorable one.

Jenn, you'll laugh at this - I kept a piece of paper with our little ditty about Isaiah Paine and Nicole (to the tune of We Three Kings. . . remember?). I kept a little ceramic cow milk pitcher (which is, in fact, quite ugly). And I even have Cow-ee-pooh still.

There ought to be a moral to this story, I am aware. But there isn't, really, except that I'm slimming down my life a little. Probably not as much as I should, considering the small size of my dorm room this summer and my apartment next year, but slimming down nonetheless.

I've moved a total of five times in this calendar year. That's kind of a lot. No wonder I hate packing.

Last time I moved up to school it was horribly depressing, because I knew that all but one or two of my friends were gone, and no one was waiting for me. This year, even though I'm moving up in the summer, I hope it's better.

Yes, I've gotten more sleep, but no, it's not helped my fractured way of telling a story. I'm afraid that's going to take a lot more time to recover.

"your eyes are like stars - you know, the kind that go supernova and kill baby planets"

The roads are too big.

That was my first thought on getting into our grey Toyota Tundra outside the Atlanta airport. The car is too big and the roads are too big and what happened to all of the cobblestones?

Yes, a little prick of fear as my mother pulled out onto highway traffic, eastbound on 283. There are a lot of other big cars rushing along with us.

And what, the roadsigns are all in English? And the menu at Arby's? What? Why so much, why so many?

"Vorrei" I start to say to the woman behind the cash register, then I swallow it. Because I'm in America now and I should order my food in English: "A jamocha shake, please." Please, not per favore.

I stood in the airport at the Lufthansa desk, wanting really badly to reclaim my gigantic purple suitcases (even though I hate dealing with the awkward weight of them) so that I could pass through customs and meet Mom. Unfortunately, I learned, my suitcases remained on German soil. Poor suitcases, sitting in a dirty terminal corner somewhere in Frankfurt. All of my possessions, everything I owned for a whole semester, everything I acquired for four months. Somehow I'm leaving this semester even more stripped down, slimmed out and streamlined than I started.

Today we had pork chops for lunch. Pork chops, baked potatoes (unlike the Italians my mother does believe in sour cream), mint tea, salad-with-real-salad-dressing, whoopie pies, fruit salad (I miss succo di ananas). I watched myself eat this feast from behind and a little bit above.

I'm not sure if this floating thing is related to jetlag-exhaustion or readjustment or both, but a little bit of me is standing off a ways in constant surprise at where I am (constantly surprised that I remember how to do this) wanting to use its hard-won Italian.

They say that we're having a drought. The south always seemed superabundant to me, too much, too green, too hot. If this is a drought then a normal summer would be a jungle, because still where I look there's green, there's vegetation over everything, the sky is monolithic blue. I gathered up my courage this morning, though, and drove to church. I'd forgotten completely that one stretch of road - even though we're in drought it's a verdant unbroken arch across the black road.

I remember. I like driving.

I know that when I left I missed the internet a lot. I missed the constant ready entertainment and communication it provided.

Yesterday, I declined to use the internet.