There's a ring on my finger that gleams in the sun and sparkles out of the corner of my eye, reminding me of the wonderful fact that when I graduate college, I'll be getting married!
My wonderful, wonderful boyfriend has now become my wonderful, wonderful fiance. He proposed on a summer evening, August 21st. I'll never forget his sheepish, happy grin as he knelt before me bearing a black box in which was nestled the shiny diamond that now adorns my left hand. We met Thanksgiving my freshman year of college and we've worked hard ever since to stay in contact in spite of the hundreds of miles between our respective colleges, our various busy schedules, my frequent trips outside of the country, away from America's cell service and easy wifi. It hasn't been the easiest relationship yet, but it just makes me all the more sure of him, of our future, and of how happy he makes me.
While we got to spend a wonderful summer together, we're back in our busy school schedules and hours apart once again. But it's easier to be apart now that I have a concept of a whole life together. Two years doesn't seem too long at all, before we can start a life together, become our own little family. And I am so excited for that future. Whatever the future has in store, I know that I'll have someone to share it with.
I love you, Cody :) And I can't wait to share my life with you.
Friday, September 6, 2013
Sunday, June 16, 2013
Halfway Done with College- Halfway an Adult?
Halfway done with college and I hardly even recognize myself sometimes. I look in the mirror and see an adult, a young woman I'm still getting to know. She hasn't grown in years, but it hasn't stopped her face, her body, from maturing into new lines, new curves, new angles. She wears more makeup now, sophisticated amounts of eyeliner and mascara, even carefully applied eyeshadows in muted colors that blend from lids to eyebrows more expertly each day. She's learning to be as at home in her business casual work clothes as she always has been in Tshirts and jeans. She's learning to walk in heels for hours each day without winces of pain. She wants so desperately to look the part of the adult she's become.
I have bills to pay now: Rent, gas, electric, credit card. I get paychecks. I make lists to take with me to the grocery store, buying chicken breast in sealed plastic, produce in filmy bags, pasta sauces and loaves of bread, even dishwashing detergent and paper towels. I have to wash each pot after I use it, clean the stove when the water boils over. I have to get up earlier than even ROTC made me to drive to work and sit in my cubicle, typing busily on a company laptop while learning my way around an office. For the first time in years, I carry a lunch box again, making my own lunchmeat sandwiches each morning, or bringing in tupperwares full of last night's leftovers.
I don't get to see my parents, my home on the other side of the world, this summer. My middle and high school age brothers grow taller, grow bigger, get deeper voices every day, without their sister there to watch. I moved my bed, my desk, my sidetables and chests- the furniture that had been mine- from the house in Florida, where it'd been waiting for the day to come when I could move it into it's new home, my own apartment. Furniture that once adorned my bedroom in my parents' house now occupies the ground floor apartment of a wood-paneled complex in Western Michigan, far away.
I finished sophomore year of college as successfully as I started. I adapted easily to the rhythm of college life, adapted easily to the pathway to adulthood. I've learned so much, come so far. And I've only to do it over again, only to go two more years, and my formal education will be over, at least for awhile. Then it will be time to let life be my teacher.
Life has been good to me. My transitions have been smooth and easy, I have people in my life who love me and care for me, who want to see me succeed. Most prominently, of course, my own parents, whose wonderful support and love for me have allowed me to thrive so well on my own now. But bosses, colleagues, friends, mentors, professors, my boyfriend's parents, so many other people also want to see me succeed, it's hard not to feel like everything is all going work out perfectly, regardless of how many questions I still have about the course of my future. I've made such progress, these past two years, in shaping an adult from my girlhood, how could I doubt I'll fail to grow into a successful graduate, post-graduate, and working woman in the next two, four, eight years I have to face? I'm really very blessed.
I have bills to pay now: Rent, gas, electric, credit card. I get paychecks. I make lists to take with me to the grocery store, buying chicken breast in sealed plastic, produce in filmy bags, pasta sauces and loaves of bread, even dishwashing detergent and paper towels. I have to wash each pot after I use it, clean the stove when the water boils over. I have to get up earlier than even ROTC made me to drive to work and sit in my cubicle, typing busily on a company laptop while learning my way around an office. For the first time in years, I carry a lunch box again, making my own lunchmeat sandwiches each morning, or bringing in tupperwares full of last night's leftovers.
I don't get to see my parents, my home on the other side of the world, this summer. My middle and high school age brothers grow taller, grow bigger, get deeper voices every day, without their sister there to watch. I moved my bed, my desk, my sidetables and chests- the furniture that had been mine- from the house in Florida, where it'd been waiting for the day to come when I could move it into it's new home, my own apartment. Furniture that once adorned my bedroom in my parents' house now occupies the ground floor apartment of a wood-paneled complex in Western Michigan, far away.
I finished sophomore year of college as successfully as I started. I adapted easily to the rhythm of college life, adapted easily to the pathway to adulthood. I've learned so much, come so far. And I've only to do it over again, only to go two more years, and my formal education will be over, at least for awhile. Then it will be time to let life be my teacher.
Life has been good to me. My transitions have been smooth and easy, I have people in my life who love me and care for me, who want to see me succeed. Most prominently, of course, my own parents, whose wonderful support and love for me have allowed me to thrive so well on my own now. But bosses, colleagues, friends, mentors, professors, my boyfriend's parents, so many other people also want to see me succeed, it's hard not to feel like everything is all going work out perfectly, regardless of how many questions I still have about the course of my future. I've made such progress, these past two years, in shaping an adult from my girlhood, how could I doubt I'll fail to grow into a successful graduate, post-graduate, and working woman in the next two, four, eight years I have to face? I'm really very blessed.
Sunday, November 11, 2012
The Comfort of Familiarity, or How Sophomore Year is Easy
The difference between freshman and sophomore year is the familiarity with which each day passes. Last year, fall semester was one of the most novel, most empowering and exhilarating experiences I could remember. Every week of the semester I learned something new, did something different, participated in an event that I'd never done before, or exercised a freedom I'd never before had. I learned to schedule, to plan, to take charge of each minute of my life, responsible for the manner in which I spent it. The experience was so novel, so unique, that so often I found myself pouring my overwhelmed thoughts to a blog post, to a journal entry, to my mom, just to be able to synthesize and evaluate it, to take it to heart and to apply it the next time.
This year, on the other hand, is solid and familiar and easy. Living in a dorm, walking across campus to class, scheduling out homework times, meeting up with groups for projects, studying for tests... I've done it all before. It's like reliving freshman year with all the knowledge and experience of having completed it already; only my classes are harder. There was nothing baffling at ROTC, nothing new in the dorms. It's been easy and repetitive- little wonder I've had little need to journal! My life has taken on order and regularity. I know what I do each day of the week, what I have time to add and what I can afford to miss. I know which afternoons I'm busy and which afternoons I'm free.
Monday is a busy day. With hour-long squad meetings at 4 and work at the observatory at 7 until 11, there isn't time for much more than a couple hours of homework. Tuesdays too are busy- ROTC lab lasting from 2 to 4 and with ROTC class going from 4:30 to 6, the remainder of my evening goes into finishing the Engineering homework due each week on Wednesday morning. Wednesdays are my sigh of relief day. At long last I've reached the hump in the week, and I've a day on which my responsiblilites end at noon. I can go to the gym, get ahead on homework, get off-campus chores done, or kick my feet up and relax a bit. Thursdays are my enigma day- they never feel busy until evening rolls around and I realize I've been busy all day. With 2 labs, I spend most of the day beneath the fluorescent lights of a classroom, and spend my evenings perfecting the math homework always due bright and early Friday morning.
Unlike last year, however, my weekends now are often filled with activity. Last year, I worked studiously Saturday, after spending most of the morning in a deep, weekend sleep, on hours' worth of homework saved explicitly for those empty weekend days. And then Sunday, after church, I'd drive down the street to the wonderful, two-story Barnes and Nobel and indulge in multiple happy hours sitting on the hard floor with my back pressed against the bookshelves and my feet tucked out of the way of the occasional passerby, reading the first few chapters of book after book, creating long mental lists for myself to someday read in their entirety. This year, however, I don't do homework on the weekends. This year, a significant portion of my weekends are spent in Chicago, where I get to spend two smiling days with my wonderful boyfriend Cody after a fortnight or so of text messages, phone calls, and stunningly horrible-quality Skype conversations in which often both picture and voice pixellate and distort so as to be unrecognizable. Instead, we get a special 48 hours or so together, in the flesh, face to face, though not quite eye to eye as his chin can rest on my head. It's been almost a year since we met, last Thanksgiving, when I spent the holiday far from home at a friend's house in Chicago. Almost 12 months and countless text messages later, we can finally watch Fight Club together again, the movie which brought us together, henceforth our Thanksgiving tradition. Yes, I'm very much looking forward to this Thanksgiving. In the meantime, I've another week and a half of following my schedule, of filling my social life into the patterned skeleton of scheduling I've developed for myself this sophomore year, of PT and lab, of classes and homework, of gyms and laundry, of work and of play. And afterwards, a mere two weeks until my third round of college finals, my third week of exams, and my second December as a college student. Yes, sophomore year is not too hard at all.
This year, on the other hand, is solid and familiar and easy. Living in a dorm, walking across campus to class, scheduling out homework times, meeting up with groups for projects, studying for tests... I've done it all before. It's like reliving freshman year with all the knowledge and experience of having completed it already; only my classes are harder. There was nothing baffling at ROTC, nothing new in the dorms. It's been easy and repetitive- little wonder I've had little need to journal! My life has taken on order and regularity. I know what I do each day of the week, what I have time to add and what I can afford to miss. I know which afternoons I'm busy and which afternoons I'm free.
Monday is a busy day. With hour-long squad meetings at 4 and work at the observatory at 7 until 11, there isn't time for much more than a couple hours of homework. Tuesdays too are busy- ROTC lab lasting from 2 to 4 and with ROTC class going from 4:30 to 6, the remainder of my evening goes into finishing the Engineering homework due each week on Wednesday morning. Wednesdays are my sigh of relief day. At long last I've reached the hump in the week, and I've a day on which my responsiblilites end at noon. I can go to the gym, get ahead on homework, get off-campus chores done, or kick my feet up and relax a bit. Thursdays are my enigma day- they never feel busy until evening rolls around and I realize I've been busy all day. With 2 labs, I spend most of the day beneath the fluorescent lights of a classroom, and spend my evenings perfecting the math homework always due bright and early Friday morning.
Unlike last year, however, my weekends now are often filled with activity. Last year, I worked studiously Saturday, after spending most of the morning in a deep, weekend sleep, on hours' worth of homework saved explicitly for those empty weekend days. And then Sunday, after church, I'd drive down the street to the wonderful, two-story Barnes and Nobel and indulge in multiple happy hours sitting on the hard floor with my back pressed against the bookshelves and my feet tucked out of the way of the occasional passerby, reading the first few chapters of book after book, creating long mental lists for myself to someday read in their entirety. This year, however, I don't do homework on the weekends. This year, a significant portion of my weekends are spent in Chicago, where I get to spend two smiling days with my wonderful boyfriend Cody after a fortnight or so of text messages, phone calls, and stunningly horrible-quality Skype conversations in which often both picture and voice pixellate and distort so as to be unrecognizable. Instead, we get a special 48 hours or so together, in the flesh, face to face, though not quite eye to eye as his chin can rest on my head. It's been almost a year since we met, last Thanksgiving, when I spent the holiday far from home at a friend's house in Chicago. Almost 12 months and countless text messages later, we can finally watch Fight Club together again, the movie which brought us together, henceforth our Thanksgiving tradition. Yes, I'm very much looking forward to this Thanksgiving. In the meantime, I've another week and a half of following my schedule, of filling my social life into the patterned skeleton of scheduling I've developed for myself this sophomore year, of PT and lab, of classes and homework, of gyms and laundry, of work and of play. And afterwards, a mere two weeks until my third round of college finals, my third week of exams, and my second December as a college student. Yes, sophomore year is not too hard at all.
Monday, August 20, 2012
Four Months Pass Once More
It's August now, and time still passes as indifferently as before. I still look back and wonder where the time has gone, wonder how I managed to fit so much life into a time that passed in almost the blink of the eye of hindsight. From December to April I looked back on four quickly passing months of my second semester of college. And now I look back on four quickly passing months of my first summer break of college. What have I done in this time? I've been to three different countries, entertained two sets of friends, and moved once. And now, with only two weeks until the start of a new school year, I can look back on it as more or less complete.
I didn't know, until two days out, whether I would even be traveling with the Army this summer. After finding out in June that I would likely NOT be going to Angola as I'd assumed since winter of last year, I spent weeks wondering just what my fate would in fact be. As it turns out, I was fated to go to Romania. I spent just under a month living in Romania with twelve other cadets and our two cadre officers. During the week we stayed at a hotel in a city called Buzau teaching English to Romanian paratroopers and special forces soldiers. On the weekends, we were able to make ventures beyond the city limits of Buzau, spending a few nights in Bucharest, a night in Brasov near one of the so-called "Dracula's Castles" and a few nights in Constanta, a beach city on the shores of the Black Sea. The experience was not so kind to me at the time as I had hoped it would be. I had a crash course on Army travel, and learned a lot about what I don't like about soldiers- the stereotypical crude male. But, tempered by the soft brush of memory, the experience has become much prettier as the little annoyances fade into oblivion and the better memories of travel and companionship and new experiences take the fore.
I flew back to Florida briefly for a quick stop at the old house, where Galen met me. Shortly thereafter, the two of us flew out to San Diego to meet up with the rest of the family for our every-so-often Tolsma family reunion. We spent the weekend in a nice hotel seeing aunts, uncles, and cousins we hadn't seen in months to years. It would have been a very pleasant experience had it not be for the robbery. My computer, my mom's computer, and most of the other small electronics in the room, were stolen from my mom's and my hotel room the last night at the resort. Our wallets, with all our IDs, were stolen with only a day to spare before our flight out to Korea. It was a bit of a nuisance procuring new military IDs, and the information lost on my computer particularly will never, ever be recovered. But we've learned to move on, to learn from the experience, and to trust in God's providence to get us through the experience.
Living in Korea is going to be a different experience than anywhere we've ever lived, and this move has proved different from any move this family has ever gone through. For me in particular, this move is represents the first move in which I am uninvolved, the first move where I don't feel as though the destination is "home." These few weeks have been a limbo phase for all of us. Waiting for our household goods, waiting for our car, it's hard for my parents and brothers to make this house home so far. And waiting for college, it's hard to me to be patient to get back to the life that I'm beginning to make for myself, to friends and classes, dorm rooms and cafeteria food, my wonderful boyfriend and the Army. Good things and bad, I'm looking forward to it all and am ready to get back to my life again, to unpack my dorm room, to get myself settled, and to drive my loyal PT Cruiser again. Four months down, I've made it to August. Where has the time gone?
I didn't know, until two days out, whether I would even be traveling with the Army this summer. After finding out in June that I would likely NOT be going to Angola as I'd assumed since winter of last year, I spent weeks wondering just what my fate would in fact be. As it turns out, I was fated to go to Romania. I spent just under a month living in Romania with twelve other cadets and our two cadre officers. During the week we stayed at a hotel in a city called Buzau teaching English to Romanian paratroopers and special forces soldiers. On the weekends, we were able to make ventures beyond the city limits of Buzau, spending a few nights in Bucharest, a night in Brasov near one of the so-called "Dracula's Castles" and a few nights in Constanta, a beach city on the shores of the Black Sea. The experience was not so kind to me at the time as I had hoped it would be. I had a crash course on Army travel, and learned a lot about what I don't like about soldiers- the stereotypical crude male. But, tempered by the soft brush of memory, the experience has become much prettier as the little annoyances fade into oblivion and the better memories of travel and companionship and new experiences take the fore.
I flew back to Florida briefly for a quick stop at the old house, where Galen met me. Shortly thereafter, the two of us flew out to San Diego to meet up with the rest of the family for our every-so-often Tolsma family reunion. We spent the weekend in a nice hotel seeing aunts, uncles, and cousins we hadn't seen in months to years. It would have been a very pleasant experience had it not be for the robbery. My computer, my mom's computer, and most of the other small electronics in the room, were stolen from my mom's and my hotel room the last night at the resort. Our wallets, with all our IDs, were stolen with only a day to spare before our flight out to Korea. It was a bit of a nuisance procuring new military IDs, and the information lost on my computer particularly will never, ever be recovered. But we've learned to move on, to learn from the experience, and to trust in God's providence to get us through the experience.
Living in Korea is going to be a different experience than anywhere we've ever lived, and this move has proved different from any move this family has ever gone through. For me in particular, this move is represents the first move in which I am uninvolved, the first move where I don't feel as though the destination is "home." These few weeks have been a limbo phase for all of us. Waiting for our household goods, waiting for our car, it's hard for my parents and brothers to make this house home so far. And waiting for college, it's hard to me to be patient to get back to the life that I'm beginning to make for myself, to friends and classes, dorm rooms and cafeteria food, my wonderful boyfriend and the Army. Good things and bad, I'm looking forward to it all and am ready to get back to my life again, to unpack my dorm room, to get myself settled, and to drive my loyal PT Cruiser again. Four months down, I've made it to August. Where has the time gone?
Sunday, June 17, 2012
Leaving Paradise?
Who wants to leave paradise? This has been a fantastic summer thus far, and I'm so happy with my time since school got out. I've loved being home with my family, loved having friends and family visit. I went on my first cruise and toured an underwater cave in Cozumel, Mexico. I watched my brother graduate high school. I lay on the beach and soaked up the sun.
On Wednesday, I was finally able to bring Cody home to meet my parents, and to show him where I live and the beautiful South I love so much. I've enjoyed having him here with me so much, these past few days, it's really made me happy. Happier than even this awesome summer had already made me. I'm so glad he was able to come down, so glad to have him here with me, so glad to spend eleven days with him, day after day after day. Thank you for coming, Cody.
I do wish I had more confidence in the rest of the summer, however. I've yet to find out from the Army if I'm going anywhere this summer, or when or where that might be, exactly. And I was supposed to leave in less than 10 days... The stress of uncertainty is too much, so I've been ignoring it now pretty entirely. I hope it all works out... The stress of moving to Korea is less my burden to bear than it is my parents' though. I'm not really moving, I'm just visiting. But for their sakes, I pray for a safe move, that all the details fall smoothly into place, and that they like their home in Korea. And I pray too that Galen find college to be all he'd hoped and more, that he comes to really enjoy his time at Calvin and that he does well. Gah, the future.... I don't want to think about it when the present is so perfect.
Saturday, June 2, 2012
Homecoming
I had a final during the last time slot of the last day of testing. It was my hardest of the semester, and studying for it proved more difficult than I had anticipated. Who wants to study when all around you happy students pack to go home with smiles of excitement and relief, celebrating the completion of their first year of college, or the half-way milestone. I sat in my more-or-less empty room, surrounded by the few things I'd packed into the one suitcase to go home, and read laboriously over pages and pages of engineering notes. The exam itself was comparable to a lobotomy; my eyes throbbed and my head ached from the glare of the fluorescent lights on white paper and the strain of three hours of testing. But then it was all over. My summer could begin.
I spent the first four days of my summer vacation in the Chicago suburbs with my boyfriend and his family. It was such a relief to relax together, both finished with school and preparing for our various summer adventures. But for those few days, we had no stress, no commitments, no worries. It was summer and we were together.
Coming home was also nice, in it's own way. The joy of family, the comfort of home, the familiarity of an old routine... Due to a mix of guests, friends and family, the routine was not long lived, but it was comforting while it lasted.
My brother graduated from high school yesterday. Which marks a year since I did the same. I'm so proud of him, graduating magna cum laude, and so happy he had friends to celebrate the event with afterwards. I wish him all the best making such friends next year at Calvin, and I hope he has as good a freshman year there as I did, full of adventure and trial and reward and success and failure and unexpected turns of events that keep him on his toes. Graduation is an exciting time, and freshman year goes by so quickly. With all the new experience to learn, all the new things to do, it's over before it really begins. I hope he's ready for it.
A cog was thrown in my own summer plans when the Army trip to Angola fell through. With less than a month to go until the big trip was supposed to occur, I got an email saying the trip was a no-go. Talk is in the air of a trip to Romania instead, but the potential still exists for no trip at all. And there's nothing I can do but sit and wait and wonder, and twiddle my thumbs aimlessly and hem and haw and do my best to plan one way or another. If I go, will the dates be changed? And how will that affect the precise plans my mom has spent hours formulating for the reunion in San Diego and the move to Korea? If I stay, do I get any compensation for my time and effort? Where will I go? Will I need shots? A visa? More paperwork? If I stay, can I make plans for the suddenly open weeks, or will it be too late? Bah, I hate not knowing the answer, with the time so close. Lessons in patience, in trust, and in the way the Army works.
The summer is almost 1/3 of the way over, and I don't even know what the next 2/3 will look like. But no matter what happens in the intervening months, whether perfect or a mess, I look forward at the end of August to returning to Grand Rapids, moving Galen into his dorm room, and reuniting with Cody before my own third semester of college begins. I can't wait to see what the next few months, and this next year, have in store.
I spent the first four days of my summer vacation in the Chicago suburbs with my boyfriend and his family. It was such a relief to relax together, both finished with school and preparing for our various summer adventures. But for those few days, we had no stress, no commitments, no worries. It was summer and we were together.
Coming home was also nice, in it's own way. The joy of family, the comfort of home, the familiarity of an old routine... Due to a mix of guests, friends and family, the routine was not long lived, but it was comforting while it lasted.
My brother graduated from high school yesterday. Which marks a year since I did the same. I'm so proud of him, graduating magna cum laude, and so happy he had friends to celebrate the event with afterwards. I wish him all the best making such friends next year at Calvin, and I hope he has as good a freshman year there as I did, full of adventure and trial and reward and success and failure and unexpected turns of events that keep him on his toes. Graduation is an exciting time, and freshman year goes by so quickly. With all the new experience to learn, all the new things to do, it's over before it really begins. I hope he's ready for it.
A cog was thrown in my own summer plans when the Army trip to Angola fell through. With less than a month to go until the big trip was supposed to occur, I got an email saying the trip was a no-go. Talk is in the air of a trip to Romania instead, but the potential still exists for no trip at all. And there's nothing I can do but sit and wait and wonder, and twiddle my thumbs aimlessly and hem and haw and do my best to plan one way or another. If I go, will the dates be changed? And how will that affect the precise plans my mom has spent hours formulating for the reunion in San Diego and the move to Korea? If I stay, do I get any compensation for my time and effort? Where will I go? Will I need shots? A visa? More paperwork? If I stay, can I make plans for the suddenly open weeks, or will it be too late? Bah, I hate not knowing the answer, with the time so close. Lessons in patience, in trust, and in the way the Army works.
The summer is almost 1/3 of the way over, and I don't even know what the next 2/3 will look like. But no matter what happens in the intervening months, whether perfect or a mess, I look forward at the end of August to returning to Grand Rapids, moving Galen into his dorm room, and reuniting with Cody before my own third semester of college begins. I can't wait to see what the next few months, and this next year, have in store.
Tuesday, April 10, 2012
Time Passes Indifferently
Christmas was 4 months ago now. On Christmas I sat in my Florida paradise and looked forward to the next half of my freshman year. There was so much more life to be lived, so many more opportunities to explore, experiences to have, at Calvin College in the coming semester. My first January interim, the trials of a Michigan winter, beginning a new round of classes, with all the work and learning that implied, friends to grow closer to, a room to myself, holidays and work days, spring break and long weeks with no break at all. April seemed such a long way off, separated from the present by so many hours, so many experiences, so many plans. And looking back, I am once more struck by the ease with which time passes. All the things I looked forward to and all the things I dreaded, all have now passed into mere memory. Some of those memories are pleasant: my first date with my boyfriend, Interim break, the first day of spring classes, spring break in Florida, days off at Easter. Some of these memories less so: the spring FTX, interim finals, snow storms, long weeks of trudging through classes, early morning PT. From where I sit now, the end of Freshman year is so close. The last week of ROTC is next week, classes wrap up in a month, finals are over in just a week more. I have a summer of fun and adventure. A cruise, a trip to Angola, a family reunion, moving to Korea. Friends visiting in May, boyfriend visiting in June. Weeks in the sun and weeks in uniform. And then a flight back to Grand Rapids in August with my brother, to start the cycle all over again. And when August rolls around, in another 4 months, that is, I'm sure I'll be looking back at this very blog post wondering what happened to all that time. Because those four months will pass just as quickly as these have, and I'll be sitting at the end thinking, "well, it's all over now. Where has the time gone?"
Saturday, December 24, 2011
Merry Christmas!
I woke up to sunshine this Christmas eve, looked out my bedroom window at a diamond ocean glittering in the sun. After more than a week at home, I've succeeded in studying a bit of Arabic, reading a few pages of a few books, running a few miles, and absorbing some sun. Which is fine, really. I'm on break.
I spent the weekend before Finals Week huddled like a recluse in a darkened room, drinking pots of coffee and tea and frantically scribbling notes, organizing papers, and flipping through books for hours upon hours.
I had a test a day Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, each represented by a colored balloon taped to the door frame. The greatest satisfaction of Finals Week was coming back to the room after each test and violently popping each balloon with whatever sharp object happened to be lying around. Calculus was the most difficult of them all. Three solid hours of the most tedious math problems organized on eye-watering colored paper in a stuffy basement room with ancient lecture hall chairs whose fold out desks were almost smaller than the paper itself. But it was all worth it when Thursday evening I got to come home to my stately room, my wall of bookshelves, my soft brown queen-sized bed, and my ecstatic cat. And my family. It was so good to be home, and the weather has been gorgeous. Sunny and warm, with a few days of wind and clouds, Florida is putting on quite a show for my time back. It's so nice to be celebrating a warm, sunny Christmas with family.
I spent the weekend before Finals Week huddled like a recluse in a darkened room, drinking pots of coffee and tea and frantically scribbling notes, organizing papers, and flipping through books for hours upon hours.
I had a test a day Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, each represented by a colored balloon taped to the door frame. The greatest satisfaction of Finals Week was coming back to the room after each test and violently popping each balloon with whatever sharp object happened to be lying around. Calculus was the most difficult of them all. Three solid hours of the most tedious math problems organized on eye-watering colored paper in a stuffy basement room with ancient lecture hall chairs whose fold out desks were almost smaller than the paper itself. But it was all worth it when Thursday evening I got to come home to my stately room, my wall of bookshelves, my soft brown queen-sized bed, and my ecstatic cat. And my family. It was so good to be home, and the weather has been gorgeous. Sunny and warm, with a few days of wind and clouds, Florida is putting on quite a show for my time back. It's so nice to be celebrating a warm, sunny Christmas with family.
Thursday, December 1, 2011
Christmas [Cookies] in the Air
December first and the air smells like Christmas cookies. At least, I smelled Christmas cookies, shuffling off to class through the frozen air, breathe billowing from me as smoke from a dragon's nostrils. Call me unobservant, but I'd never noticed the evergreens along the path by the Timmer apartments are Christmas trees. I don't mean they're shaped like Christmas tress, I mean they literally are the same trees that one finds under the big white tents this time of year, lopped off at the base and impaled in a bucket of water, waiting to be shoved into plastic netting and tied with twine atop the family minivan in anticipation of a few weeks of standing sentinel in some corner, stalwartly guarding a pile of gaudily wrapped packages and adorned with heavy porcelain balls and light little crafts made by kids in preschool covered in macaroni and glitter, to await the end of the season when the packages will be torn to shreds and the tree divested of its ornaments to sit ignominiously on the curb for the garbage man. I wanted to hug it, but decided to be on time to class instead. Also, people were watching me.
It's been getting steadily colder lately. It used to be, a few weeks ago, a day this cold would come around, and I would shiver half-heartedly and check the forecast, where I would experience a moment of hope and happiness as the numbers increased back up again throughout the week. No more. While there is still no snow on the horizon, it is becoming apparent that this cruel weather is here to stay.
This post has been waiting to come out for a few days now, ever since Tuesday afternoon when I lay once again prone on the ground clutching my weapon in cold, gloved hands, spending a solid twenty minutes in reflective silence. It occurred to me that those 20 or so minutes on Tuesday afternoons are some of the calmest, quietest moments of my week. By no means are they the most comfortable. For them to be comfortable, I would have needed the weather around 20 degrees warmer to begin with. I would have wanted to spend a moment clearing all the sticks and twigs from beneath me, particularly the one digging relentlessly into the base of my breastbone. I would have situated myself so my feet were slightly lower than my head, rather than the other way around, which had me feeling slightly vertiginous and also made it that much more difficult to deal with my helmet, the major bane of a STX lane. I can never see wearing it, as it sits so far down my forehead to accommodate my bun that I spend every STX lane feeling like I have an acute case of tunnel vision. It is heavy, so heavy, so that the muscles in my neck and shoulders burn trying to keep my head up, at a level that I can partially see beneath, so that on my otherwise cold body there is a lump of completely unwanted, scalding muscular heat that I can't ignore. And my blood throbs in my temples and my head aches with the pressure of all the bobby pins in my hair being pressed into my scalp by the tight leather headband that holds the cursed thing in place. Even gloved, my fingers feel numb against the mock trigger, like my toes, unable to wiggle confined in the tight boots. No, it is not at all comfortable. But it is quiet. For those few moments, I have no other purpose than to lie there in silence, awake and motionless and alert. I can't do homework or play games or plug in my iPod. So I think. I think about the naked trees rocking in the strong wind and how sentient they look, like lethargic dancers or swaying dryads of myth and legend, their thin, supple bodies bending far more than seems possible, their spiny fingers extended towards one another like amorous lovers or demented fiends. I think about the years' and years' worth of leaf accumulation below me, fertilizing in death the very trees that produced and nurtured them in a system that could go on endlessly, completely irrelevant of human behavior. I thought about the chipmunks I know longer saw running through the undergrowth, now firmly established in their hibernation, content to let the season pass without being involved in it, confident that the natural cycle will continue without their presence or aide. I had just started thinking about what Army camouflage would look like, were the war zone ever to move to the tundra, where green is unnatural and irregular and brown and white the predominant color tones, when operations began.
We ran a successful lane, ignoring a few snags and hitches along the way. Predominant among these was the irate civilian and her fluffy snow dog, disgruntled and annoyed to find college students playing soldier laying quietly in the woods of what, apparently, was her property. How dare you come into my part of the woods, the woman asked us, when the college's land so clearly ends a few trees back the other way? I just want to walk my dog without having to deal with you people creeping in silence through the brambles. Oops. Our bad. Silly us for thinking woods were woods and that we had any right to crawl through them when they were so obviously yours and not the college's, leaving out the fact that the only reason we're even out here in the cold woods in the first place is to practice serving our country, and ipso facto you, by defending America against all enemies both foreign and domestic. Forgive us for thinking that you wouldn't mind us spending an hour or so a week walking though, if we'd even known this was your land, which for the record we didn't. Ah well, no blood no foul. I was sick of high crawling over sticks anyway.
And that's it. One semester's worth of Army training and STX lanes over with. Now that wasn't so bad, was it? And now it's almost Christmas, when I have weeks of no responsibility, no pressure, no worries until January. Ready for some Florida sunshine :D
It's been getting steadily colder lately. It used to be, a few weeks ago, a day this cold would come around, and I would shiver half-heartedly and check the forecast, where I would experience a moment of hope and happiness as the numbers increased back up again throughout the week. No more. While there is still no snow on the horizon, it is becoming apparent that this cruel weather is here to stay.
This post has been waiting to come out for a few days now, ever since Tuesday afternoon when I lay once again prone on the ground clutching my weapon in cold, gloved hands, spending a solid twenty minutes in reflective silence. It occurred to me that those 20 or so minutes on Tuesday afternoons are some of the calmest, quietest moments of my week. By no means are they the most comfortable. For them to be comfortable, I would have needed the weather around 20 degrees warmer to begin with. I would have wanted to spend a moment clearing all the sticks and twigs from beneath me, particularly the one digging relentlessly into the base of my breastbone. I would have situated myself so my feet were slightly lower than my head, rather than the other way around, which had me feeling slightly vertiginous and also made it that much more difficult to deal with my helmet, the major bane of a STX lane. I can never see wearing it, as it sits so far down my forehead to accommodate my bun that I spend every STX lane feeling like I have an acute case of tunnel vision. It is heavy, so heavy, so that the muscles in my neck and shoulders burn trying to keep my head up, at a level that I can partially see beneath, so that on my otherwise cold body there is a lump of completely unwanted, scalding muscular heat that I can't ignore. And my blood throbs in my temples and my head aches with the pressure of all the bobby pins in my hair being pressed into my scalp by the tight leather headband that holds the cursed thing in place. Even gloved, my fingers feel numb against the mock trigger, like my toes, unable to wiggle confined in the tight boots. No, it is not at all comfortable. But it is quiet. For those few moments, I have no other purpose than to lie there in silence, awake and motionless and alert. I can't do homework or play games or plug in my iPod. So I think. I think about the naked trees rocking in the strong wind and how sentient they look, like lethargic dancers or swaying dryads of myth and legend, their thin, supple bodies bending far more than seems possible, their spiny fingers extended towards one another like amorous lovers or demented fiends. I think about the years' and years' worth of leaf accumulation below me, fertilizing in death the very trees that produced and nurtured them in a system that could go on endlessly, completely irrelevant of human behavior. I thought about the chipmunks I know longer saw running through the undergrowth, now firmly established in their hibernation, content to let the season pass without being involved in it, confident that the natural cycle will continue without their presence or aide. I had just started thinking about what Army camouflage would look like, were the war zone ever to move to the tundra, where green is unnatural and irregular and brown and white the predominant color tones, when operations began.
We ran a successful lane, ignoring a few snags and hitches along the way. Predominant among these was the irate civilian and her fluffy snow dog, disgruntled and annoyed to find college students playing soldier laying quietly in the woods of what, apparently, was her property. How dare you come into my part of the woods, the woman asked us, when the college's land so clearly ends a few trees back the other way? I just want to walk my dog without having to deal with you people creeping in silence through the brambles. Oops. Our bad. Silly us for thinking woods were woods and that we had any right to crawl through them when they were so obviously yours and not the college's, leaving out the fact that the only reason we're even out here in the cold woods in the first place is to practice serving our country, and ipso facto you, by defending America against all enemies both foreign and domestic. Forgive us for thinking that you wouldn't mind us spending an hour or so a week walking though, if we'd even known this was your land, which for the record we didn't. Ah well, no blood no foul. I was sick of high crawling over sticks anyway.
And that's it. One semester's worth of Army training and STX lanes over with. Now that wasn't so bad, was it? And now it's almost Christmas, when I have weeks of no responsibility, no pressure, no worries until January. Ready for some Florida sunshine :D
Saturday, November 26, 2011
Treading Water
I'm keeping my head above the water. Not so easy in the metaphoric sense than the physical. In school, I have to work. I have to remember to study for the Calculus test on Friday that I need to do well on. I have to remember to buy new laundry detergent, since the first bottle ran out. I have to remember to clean my room, do my homework, not let the milk go rotten. Not like swimming. Treading water is peaceful, relaxing. It's so effortless, when you know and understand the water. When you understand how each kick, each twist of the arm will contribute to your buoyancy, it is easy to float, to keep your head up. Familiarity makes it easy. So perhaps the same is true for life. As college life becomes a routine, it will become easier and easier, until it's finally time to move from "big world" to "real world," to a job and a house and adult responsibilities. I did so well at our Combat Water Survival Training lab because I knew and understood water. Going from swimming circles around the diving well, treading water with friends to jumping blindfolded from a diving board three meters up holding a rubber duck M-4 and wearing a uniform, swimming fully clothed 25 yards with the duck above your head, falling in and removing a vest underwater, is not so very difficult if you understand the basics of navigating water. It's even fun, swimming with friends, jumping off the high dive, getting to lap the guys time after time instead of watching them run by me day after day, lap after lap; walking fully clothed into a shower and just standing as the hot water poured down my dry ACUs and soaked in to the bathing suit underneath; getting out of the water and watching it pour from my sleeves like a hose, squirt from my shoes as I walked; taking it all off to change into soft, warm yoga pants for class, tying my hair in a sloppy wet bun behind my head. And in the end, I get to throw it all straight into a washing machine and press the button. Voila. All done.
It's been nice to have some time off. I celebrated Thanksgiving in Chicago with a friend of mine and her family. I got some homework done, ate some turkey, laughed a lot. It's Saturday morning and I'm going downtown. I've never seen downtown Chicago. But I'm dreading Monday morning. Having to haul out of bed at six and do pushups and run circles and stand at attention does not appeal to me, stuffed with food and well-slept as I am now. Staring down the barrel of a scary Calc test doesn't make matters better. Stop. Don't think about it. Think about Thursday and going downtown to see Les Miserables, think about going from there to the airport to bring your brother to Calvin. Think about the Calvin-Hope hockey game Friday night, and the low key weekend to follow. Low key... Nothing will be low key again until after Finals are over, in three weeks. Stop. Don't think about it. Think about December 15 and flying home for Christmas and seeing family and friends and the beautiful beach.
It's been nice to have some time off. I celebrated Thanksgiving in Chicago with a friend of mine and her family. I got some homework done, ate some turkey, laughed a lot. It's Saturday morning and I'm going downtown. I've never seen downtown Chicago. But I'm dreading Monday morning. Having to haul out of bed at six and do pushups and run circles and stand at attention does not appeal to me, stuffed with food and well-slept as I am now. Staring down the barrel of a scary Calc test doesn't make matters better. Stop. Don't think about it. Think about Thursday and going downtown to see Les Miserables, think about going from there to the airport to bring your brother to Calvin. Think about the Calvin-Hope hockey game Friday night, and the low key weekend to follow. Low key... Nothing will be low key again until after Finals are over, in three weeks. Stop. Don't think about it. Think about December 15 and flying home for Christmas and seeing family and friends and the beautiful beach.
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