from distress to dancing

I was feeling pretty unsettled earlier today after figuring out what my schedule would look like this spring. This has come to be my start-of-the-semester ritual, it seems: I sign up for what seems to be a nicely manageable workload; I write it out on a calendar and have a moment of panic as I wonder what I've gotten myself into; and finally, I plunge into the semester and manage to get everything done somehow.

This evening, my panic-time was cut short due to my T/Th night class: Swing and Lindy Hop. Janie, the prof, is the most energetic, fun, and sassy woman you'll ever dance with. I was lucky enough to spend January with her in Turkey - she and her husband, Jim, were our professors for the trip - and now it will be fun to see her in her element. I've never taken a swing lesson before in my life, but I can tell you this: there's nothing like an hour and a half of dancing to kick worry out of your system. It's going to be a great semester.

a return to the (semi-) normal

Tomorrow is the first day of my last semester as a college undergrad. It will be nice to get back into a routine of classes, choir, and homework after 8 weeks away from it all. I should be in bed, but I'm not feeling too tired so I'm munching on chocolate-covered chickpeas, drinking water, and typing.

Turkey was amazing. The people I was with, the places that we visited, the knowledge and insights that we gained... it all combined into an experience that I know I'll be thinking through and learning from for a long time. I'm in the process of typing up my journal, and when I'm done I'll post some of it into a separate blog.

I flew back to Seattle on Tuesday the 23rd. I spent a week at home visiting friends and family, and then came back to Spokane last Wednesday. My roommates didn't return until today, so I've had the house to myself for the last four days. It has been restful and much-needed: last semester was packed, Christmas break was busy, and Turkey (although wonderful) was another month of zero alone time. I'm thankful that I've had this sabbath to regroup before spring semester.

Last night and tonight we had our "choir retreat," which is essentially two 3-hour practice sessions to get us launched into our spring repetoire. It was beautiful. It's hard enough to describe what it feels like to sing with a group like that; to describe how it feels to come back to it after 8 weeks away, or what it's like to sing through the Credo and Sicut Cervus and be a part of their exquisite harmonies, is impossible. It's like coming home.

time to fly...

How time flies. December got absorbed by classes, concerts, finals, family, friends, and Christmas. And now it's January 1, 2007.

In a few short hours, I'm going to be on a plane bound for Turkey. It's highly unlikely that I'll be able to communicate while I'm there... if I get a chance to use the internet at some point I'll give a quick update.

roses, cars, and colors

So, last weekend my friend Rose came to visit me. It was pretty awesome. I got to see a friend who I don't get to see often enough, and she got to see where my world has been for the last three-and-a-half years.

And what was the most interesting thing we did when she was here? We watched Cars. And dyed our hair. Rose, Katie, and I. Neither Katie nor I had ever dyed our hair before. She went for a natural black: I went for a reddish-brown. Rose went a darker brown, and got a haircut to boot.

As you can see, my hair isn't so much reddish-brown as it is ORANGE.

So, I washed it vigorously the next morning and it faded some. Now it's what I like to call a "violent strawberry blonde." In dim lighting, you can't really tell it's been dyed.

So I'm a temporary redhead. My blonde should be back in a month or so.

glow sticks and the french language

A few random thoughts (four to be exact):

1.
I haven't written here for about a month, unless you count the post on Halloween that I wrote 15 minutes ago but dated as being written 4 days ago just because I wanted to make it a separate post. (I know, nerdy of me.) A lot has happened: papers, pumpkin smashing, mid-terms, studying, visiting friends, the Car Rally. Now that the second half of the semester is starting, I feel like I have a little bit of breathing room, but not too much. I really need to work on minimizing distractions, and getting my rocks into the jar before I start adding gravel and sand.

2.
It's been cold recently. It even snowed a few days ago. This brings me great joy. Although it's been a bit warmer in the last couple of days, I'm hoping that this early freeze means we're in for a cold, snowy, and fun winter. I took these pictures a couple weeks ago while I was on on one of my morning runs in the frost.

Note that this picture is entirely and completely posed. I normally don't have such a victorious grin on my face as I'm running, nor do I look at the sky. I find that it's more useful to keep an eye on the ground ahead of me. It prevents painful and unnecessary things from occurring (falling on my face, for example).

3.
In church this morning, Pastor Bill made a distinction between knowing information about God and knowing God personally. It was a passing comment; it wasn't the main point of the sermon, but it made me think of French. In French, there are two different words for the verb "to know," as opposed to English's one. Savoir (pronounced saav-woir) means to know about, to know intellectually: You'd say "I sais that Courtney is that short girl with blonde hair in my Hist o' Christ class. She is a Theology major, and she lives in a Theme House." But connaitre means to know personally. You'd say, "I connais Courtney: I sit by her in Hist o' Christ and we laugh together at the professor's jokes. We like to go ice skating together, and talk about life." I think that the distinction is an important one, and I'm sad that it's been lost in English. We shouldn't just know about (savoir) God... we need to know (connaitre) God.

4.
These last few days I've had several different "moments" when I'm convicted, either by something I'm reading or thinking about or hearing. But it's not a complete conviction: I'm almost-convicted. It's hard to describe. I feel like if I could just force the concepts that I'm mulling over into my head and heart, it would have a big effect on the way I live and operate, whether it be physically, emotionally, or spiritually. But it's like that conviction is just beyond my grasp. Today the perfect illustration came to me. In the middle of the sermon, I suddenly thought, I feel like a glow stick. I've got all these truths bumming around inside of my head, and all I need is a SNAP! and they'll break through their little intellectual barrier and combine with my life, causing me to glow.


So I'll end with this picture that I took while I was home for Fall Break. Calm; peaceful; beautiful; glowing. All I need is to be bent until I snap. If that makes any sense at all.