Dawn

...cuts grease and saves wildlife...

the perfect shampoo and bodywash after a game of greasy watermelon football. For those who've never played, it's a great game and I highly recommend it if your into that sorta thing. The name basically says it all. We take a watermelon, slather it in Vaseline and chunk it into the middle of the shallow end (deep end, I think would be fun too), line up on each side, sprint for the uhh ...ball... and try to get it on top of the wall at your opponent's steps. Rules exist, but are minimal. It is generally acceptable to kick, elbow, hold under, and otherwise detain or hinder opponents. Accidental gouging of eyeballs may occur (and yes, eyeballs really do feel the way you probably think they do... sorry Cody). After a particularly difficult round, it is perfectly okay to smash the watermelon on your opponent's deck and eat the heart out of it... assuming you have a spare watermelon... otherwise, that signals the end of the game.

Work today was pretty great. After training, my parents brought me lunch, and few people came... I think Erin, our new best friend, scared them away with her gloomy thunderclouds of hope. Then, it started raining too hard to see the bottom of the pool, so we cleared the people out and played and danced in the rain and the kiddy sprinklers in the back, then sat out for thunder after the rain stopped, and closed an hour early.

Down the gravel path

In the shade of the fir trees sitting on the old wooden bench they sit. The red paint chips off, more each year, revealing the dark brown beneath. Soft dust twirls underfoot in the breeze. I break away from the group of youth when I see them. My heart beats faster with recognition and a smile crinkles the corners of my eyes. It's been so long since I last saw them, yet their identity is unmistakable. They look so frail, skin slightly yellower, nearer to transparency, hair lightening toward a pale gray. Despite it all, youth is in their sparkling, dancing eyes. Life is in their posture, their questions, their bright smiles. At once comfortable, feeling more at home with the parents than with the children, I embrace them and sit. For a time too short we talk, and then with a gentle word, they shoo me back to fellowship time with my peers. Time goes swirling past like the soft dirt in the wind, barely noticed as it drifts past, never returning.

Sunscreen on my shoulders makes me happy

Sunscreen in my eyes can make me cry...sunscreen on the water looks so *lovely*... Sunscreen almost always makes me high....

I finished my first week of swim lessons, and I'm still alive... more importantly, so are all the wee little darlin's, despite how much they tried letting go of the wall or bouncing off the steps the first few days. My private lesson is kinda boring because we go through everything so fast, but teaching anything more would be a little overload. The little girl is adorable, though... the first day before lessons started, she came into the guard shack and gave me a hug around my legs *aww* ..

My big classes are hectic and harder to maintain order or move between activities. My favorite class has 5 kids all about 4 years old. They aren't too fearful and listen well, and have the communication skills developed well enough to joke around with them more, and also go over rules and such. I've found that questions confuse little kids and should be avoided. On the first day, I asked them to say their name and their favorite color (and checked their name off on the role sheet as we went around the circle). I got a bunch of mumbled responses from all but my small group who all answered coherently. The next day, I asked for their favorite animal. I got things like my name is _ and I like Orange. In my small group, I got "my name is Pink" from one of the girls 2 days in a row after that.

One of the boys is really shy and won't answer the questions, but instead covers his eyes when you try to talk to him in the circle outside of the water. I think part of the reason he covers his eyes is because he know sign language and so it's his way of blocking out communication. He's a sweety and I like him bunches, though. I'm afraid he doesn't like the class at some times - like jumping into the water, he got at the end of the line and sat down. I had to get out of the water and bring him to the edge and hold him there so he didn't run away while I got back in, but as soon as I asked if he was ready, he gave me a big shy happy smile. There is another girl who when I ask her if she wants to do something shakes her head no very solemnly, but as soon as I go to take her off the wall has the prettiest smile.

Water water everywhere

When I grow up, I wanna be a teacher, an' I'm gonna have recess every day and get all the summers off! It's gonna be the greatest job in the world!

...yeah...I'm going to start teaching swim lessons on Monday, and I'm just a little terrified. The lessons I'll be teaching the first 2 weeks are water tots and water babies, and maybe private lessons to a 4-year-old. I don't know, I get my schedule today.

Anywho, the standing is:

Mom 170
Me 135
Dad 130

Burn the land and boil the sea

...you can't take the sky from me.

So the standings are:

Mom 120
Linda 110
Dad 96

Three of my laps came from a swim test for teaching swim lessons. The rest of the course is proving to be much more boring and time consuming, but hopefully worth it. When I came home from training last night, I grabbed a bowl of stew, and sat down in the living room for another episode of Firefly (it's become a nightly "tradition" since I came home). I think only my dad knew when he pressed play that it'd be the last one *whimper*.

Ten miles behind me

Ten thousand more to go...

I haven't posted about the swimming competition in a while. My reason? I haven't swam at all since the first twenty. Between work, fencing, school and laziness, I just haven't had the time. Fortunately, school's over now, and with it fencing. I can't work down here until I get re-certed for CPR, and we no longer have someone at work that can do that for us, so I have to arrange it with EMS. That leaves laziness as my only excuse. It gets lonely and caves easily, though, so we all packed up for the pool last night. My parents started swimming 2 weeks ago, so on Sunday, the standing was:

Mom - 70
Dad - 65
Me - 20

As of last night, the standing is:

Mom - 86
Dad - 81
Me - 40

I would have swam more, but the guard was an old friend/teammate/coworker, so I spent half the time talking to her and finding out who else came back for the summer. Other than that, I've spent my time back home running errands and playing in the backyard bramble patch. Yesterday, I found a lovely little oak tree growing up in the red roses. I haven't had the heart to cut it down yet. Maybe tomorrow.

Hero

I used to declare people "Hero of the day", but I haven't done that in a while.. until today. The Hero of the Day award goes to Ryan, a guy I work with. He also made me feel special. This is a bit of the conversation we had:

Me: "Ryan, you're my hero."
Ryan: "Linda, I juat can't take my eyes off of you."

Now while ya'll are all awww-ing, let me put it into context for you....

So, I got to run my own event today - easy as can be... just re-fill punch and trail mix, and thn when everyone leaves, take down the room. I put all the beverage holders onto a cart - water, coffee, punch, and loaded up all the cups and napkins, and brought them back to the sink to dump them all out... well, I've never taken a room down by myself before, so I missed a very important step in the pouring out of the coffee. There are these little cans filled with blue goop that are lit of fire and stuck under the coffee to keep it warm. Before moving the coffee containers, you are supposed to put the fire out. I didn't. So when I moved the pot again, the little jar flew off and fell, leaving little globs of flame on the floor and under the sink. Me: "oh... fire... umm... Ryan? I think I need your help." Ryan comes over, puts out the biggest glop, and together we watch the others die out, and then check to see if anything was damaged (all good... nobody was hurt in the making of this story).. Me: "Ryan, you're my hero." Ryan: exagerated sigh and rolling of the eyes... "Linda, I just can't take my eyes off of you..." Yeah... definately feeling umm. .*cough* ... uhh special...

Pains Sans Levain

Things Unleavened:

Dogs: check (well, they smell better now, at least)
Girlscout cookie box: check
Dorm room: nope
Home room: yep
Dorm building: (wild laughter) umm.. no. I'll be lucky to just have my section of my dorm room clean

I had a nightmare the other night. It's the first one I've ever had about unleavening. Ok, so I was straightening up my area before sundown, because, well, the Holy Day was starting. The sun was setting outside, and it was a beautiful sunset, all oranges and pinks - and it was obvious (in ways things can only be obvious in dreams) that I had approximately an hour before the sun was truly set. And on my shelf, I find a box of crackers. Unopened crackers. Leavened crackers. So I'm a little concerned, but set it aside and keep cleaning. Then I find another box, and another... and a whole can of baking powder (in a dorm room! what am I doing with baking powder?!?). Soon I have a whole pile of unopened packages, and I'm rather worried. I don't remember buying them, and I have no idea where they are coming from, or why I would have bought it all so close to ULB. So I scoop it all up in my arms, and go out into the hallway, and down the stairs, and out where I should be able to throw it away. And there is no dumpster. And I can't just dump them anywhere (for some reason, I'm back home now, and if I dump them anywhere, it's still on the property), so I'm frantically looking around for anywhere I can put these boxes... and then the dogs barked and woke me up. I was seriously freaking out the whole time, though.

My parents got me all the non-perishables for making ULB, so now all I have to do is get the eggs and butter and such, and ask my roommate if I can keep them in her fridge, or just make it all in one day down in the kitchenette (I also brought dish soap, b/c while they have pots and pans, they don't have soap, so they're all gross). Oh! And I'm HIGHLY disappointed in Wheat Thins. The Low Sodium crackers used to be unleavened (for that matter, so did original... it's not original if they change the recipie,now is it? Liars.) Now, Kroger-brand wheat thins are unleavened, so I'll see how those taste this year.

Against expectaion

You can't just know. You have to know that you know that you know something. But do you believe it? At pre-teen camp this year, we had a bit of free time at canoeing with the red girls (7-10 years), so we decided to "test" the life jackets with them. Everybody knows the purpose of a life jacket isn't fashion accessory or for comfort, but to keep you bobbing around at the surface of the water. And they know that they know this. So, the girls waded out to about hip-deep into the water and splashed about. The daring ones ventured out to maybe chest-deep with their toes just barely touching the mucky mud bottom, but none went further. At this point, I took it upon myself to grab them by their jacket straps and send them sailing out into deeper water where even I could not touch. The reaction was hilarious. "No! No, I can't touch. I can't swim... Don't let go of...." This was followed by a second of shocked silence, then giggles and shouts of delight as they found themselves suspended in the water, not sinking.

Another example: In Physics, we were learning about Newton's laws, and how things fall at the same rate, and air resistance and such. So the teacher takes a big heavy ball, and a little light ball and drops them. No surprise that they hit at the same time. Then, the big ball and a piece of paper. The ball falls, and the paper wafts slowly to the ground; but when the paper is crumpled, of course, air resistance is gone, and it is affected by gravity just the same as the ball. So, the question is, what happens to a feather on the moon when you drop it? There is no air on the moon, so there is no air resistance. Logic tells us that it would fall just like anything else, and we all know this, and we know that we know it. It would fall just like the crumpled piece of paper. The teacher then plays for us the video of the astronauts on the moon where they have a hammer and an eagle's feather. The guy holds them both up, and then lets them go. Even though I knew what would happen, I had every expectation for the feather to float gently down to the ground. Instead, to my amazement, it fell just like the hammer. Around the classroom, there were gasps of surprise and quiet laughs of astonishment.

I guess my question from all this is: What do you know that you know that you know, but still fail to believe?

Deep greens and blues are the colors I choose.

Spring is in the air, breezing its way through the fields and wrapping itself around me with its grassy smells and soft sunshine. Weather like this always fills me with the giddiness that comes with the nearness of the holy days and spring break and blooming flowers. I've been busy with delaying beginning projects by finding good books to read - I just finished Exodus by Leon Uris. It's a great book, and I highly recommend it. It is about Zionism, from the beginning of the movement in Russia, then about the World Wars and how they pushed more Jews into Palistine, and the fight to establish a nation. I've also worked some and wasted time on-line, but I'm going to be rather busy for the next couple of weeks, hopefully, starting all these projects which will be due after spring break. Ah, procrastination - the reason I start so many minor projects and such (avoiding others that I am dreading) - how I love it! There always comes an urge with this season to begin counting down to things. But I believe I will resist and try to enjoy each day as they happen - they are all going by so fast anyways, I should give them more credit than just crossing them off as having passed. What do you get as reward for "getting through another week" except to have another week ahead of it? So why cross off the time as if life was a race? Have a happy and productive Sabbath everyone.

Mark Twain

20 down, 980 to go. That is the equivalent of swimming approximately 273.4 Mark Twains. How many pages does that equal?

I saw something highly disturbing the other day... Americanized Tex-Mex... I mean, that's like re-Americanizing it... alot like re-warming or something... It was Macaroni and Casio. Next we're going to Americanize American food.

Official Challenge

After an inspirating week of running...and remembering that I'm NOT a runner, I have decided to issue my own challenge, one a bit more on my level. Swimming. First one to 1000 laps wins. That is 50,000 meters. Swim any stroke you chose, as fast or slow as you'd like.

Loneliness and Cheeseburgers

When I left for college, I was warned. It was a dire message repeated endlessly: you will be so unbearably homesick. So when I got here, I felt a little guilty not being homesick. I mean, I can call my parents whenever I want to talk to them, I can write them, e-mail them at almost anytime of the day - more than I could have in high school; and I don't miss my room - it's a nice room, but I've brought bits of it here, and that is enough for me. Most of my friends have lived so far from me for such a long time, that I'm used to the distance there.

There is one thing I miss, though. I miss meals at home. It's not the cooking, though nothing the cafeterias can come up with can beat my mom's cooking; it's the family time. At home, I would wake up at 6am to eat breakfast with my parents. I showered at nights so that I wouldn't miss it. After breakfast, I'd go back to sleep until 7, and then get ready for school. At night, schedules were rearranged to be sitting at the table together. This last year, I was working, so it got a little hectic. I'd tutor until 5 or 5:15, come home, eat dinner, and on Monday/Wednesday, leave for lifeguarding at 5:30. But I was at the table with my family. If I couldn't make it, which happened on occasion, especially when we had paste-up for newspaper until 8pm - well, those nights, there would be a rapping at the door at the end of the building we were in - my dad standing there, and sometimes my mom, too, with a plate of food fixed up by mom, still hot, with aluminum foil covering it, and a set of silverware and a napkin. There were less than a dozen times in my 12 years of public school when my mom didn't fix my lunch.

When I was little, after the church fruit sales, we would have half of our garage filled with towers of orange and grapefruit boxes. It smelled wonderful in there! It was my job in the mornings to fetch enough grapefruit for breakfast, so I would tiptoe out barefoot across the slippery ice-cold floor around the car to the fortress maze of citrus and pile as many grapefruit as I could into my arms. Then we'd all sit there, half asleep still, digging into our grapefruit half. I miss that. I miss groggy non-coherent dining together. I miss scheduling things around dinner time, not dinner time around things. It made it important.

P.S. 3.3 down, 21.7 to go.

Why I'm not a poet

In honor of the three days of snow fall we have had here (almost all of which has already melted), I will share with you the only poem I have ever written. It's from sometime in Jr. High. Happy winter, everyone!

A Houston Winter

Eating icecream in December,
thinking back I remember
all the snow I ever saw
- a snowcone stand owned by my pa.
Back inside I start to freeze.
Will that A/C ever cease?
I look outside and see
something I thought would never be.
The snow is falling fast and thick.
I really hope this snow will stick.
Racing out into the street
I try and taste this tiny treat.
Standing there full of hope
Soon my mouth is full of soap.
Looking up I find the plot
of a mischievious little tot.
He's standing there, the little dear,
Pouring out a box of Cheer.
And when his finished, does he hide?
No! He runs and gets a box of Tide.
And who's to blame
for this tremedous act of shame?
The mother? The father? The little tot Dale?
Perhaps it was the two-for-one sale.

Life Itself

Is the most wonderful Fairytale. - Hans Christian Anderson

I started work on Friday - catering on-campus events. I think I applied for dish-washing or something, but this is so much cooler, so I'm not going to mention that maybe my application got put in a different stack... It was very much like final banquet, and I felt so classy in my white blouse/black slacks as I ran back and forth down the wide concrete hallways that web their way around all the banquet halls. After we set the tables up, the people came, and we waited for the food...served the salad, and waited for the food some more. I found there was something ingrained deep down as we took the salad plates away with nothing to replace them with. Somehow this was Wrong. And as I stood behind the chairs before I served the main course, the only thing I could think was left or right, right or left? This wasn't something discussed at all in training. It went much deeper, but I couldn't remember right or left. What would Mrs. Weston think?

Lunch was amazing. We got to eat the left-overs while we waited for the people to clear the room so we could clean it. Beef tenderloin and berry parfait (everyone loves parfait). Then the cleaning started. The girl I had been working with up to that point, Kahori, had left, which left me and my manager, Josh. He started working 2 months ago, and in that time, both managers above him left (baby and graduation) leaving him doing 10 hour shifts every day, and yet he was friendly and helpful and outgoing - just like everyone else there. We emptied all of the glasses and stacked them into a crate, and stacked crate upon crate until it was about eye-level. One of the glasses broke from being tapped on the edge of the trashcan to remove the remaining parfait. Thus I learned it's ok if something breaks. The second glass met its demise when, as the tables cleared, it sat, alone, undisturbed, taunting us. The top crate was full, and the second-down looked that way too, so with a shrug, he said, well, I guess this one has to break, too.

In a different building, I met more of the staff. About half, I think is Japanese. The American names, I pick up fairly easily, but the Japanese names, I have to repeat 3 times just to make sure I'm hearing them right, so I think they will take much longer to learn. It surprised me how quickly everyone learned my name.

The schedule came out, and yep, I'm scheduled for Saturday again. I think they'll let me come in a few hours late, so that it's after sundown. They don't seem to have any problems working around schedules (or to be paying too much attention to our schedules - yet - I think it's a bit hectic for them at the moment with everything starting up again after the break, and everyone having new class schedules).

You, Reader

I wonder how you are going to feel when you find out that I wrote this instead of you.

My dad sent me a book during finals last semester of Billy Collins poetry. That is the first line of the first poem. I love it. It gave me something to clear my mind when I needed a break from studying. I finished th last coconut bar that my mom snuck into my bag of random college (non perishable) food. Those things are amazingly good. It disappeared somewhere in the middle of my last class - the forth one of the day, and three hours long. Not to rub it in, or anything, but my parents are some of the greatest parents ever. I type this as I munch on a batch of homemade trail mix...

The meeting

I just met my new RA. We did the whole get to know you bit where they interview and make notes and such. Her personality seems disturbingly similar to Priscilla's...not that Priscilla has a disturbing personality...oh no, I think that's what it sounds like I said...hey 'Cilla! I need you to apologize to someone for me... But really, she seems cool. Took me on an imaginary tour and everything. She needs some practice w/ that, because she kept running me into things...

Snow Buddy Knows

It snowed today! EEEE!!! Northerners have no idea what they have. Ok, maybe they do and just get too much of it, but this stuff ROCKS! I would have gone all Calvin and Hobbs on it, but there wasn't enough and I didn't want to hog all of it. It was a complete surprise. I woke up to my roommate's phone ringing, and then to her talking about snow, and I was up. Everyone else enjoyed the day off of school by sleeping, but I went off to romp and frolic. I made a little puppy dog with all the snow within about 4 feet of me, scrapped off the sidewalk. Then I set him on a bench and ran back to my dorm for a camera (not digital, so it will take me a while to get them developed) and some trail mix. I didn't have coal for eyes, so I used blue M&M's instead, and an almond nose, and a dried mango tongue. Then I set the pup - Snow Buddy - on a bench, and went on with my explorations. When I returned later, it was apparent someone had played fetch with him. His paws and ears were all dirty, and there was a stick in his mouth. Again, later, after I had warmed up, I left my dorm, and there was Buddy, sitting on a bench outside my dorm - a good 50 yards or more from where I had left him. Somebody had taken my pup for a walk, and given him a twiggy little tail, but he was definitely finished playing fetch. The stick was gone from his mouth. Some days people rock. The M&M dye had melted a bit, and he looks a little more like a blue-eyed panda cub now.

Icicles on a Chain-link Fench

Sabbath last week rocked! Church got cancelled. I came back up here early to avoid the ice storm. My parents didn't want me driving through it on Sunday, so they drove up with me on Friday. My parents are the greatest! But yeah, back to Sabbath. The Todds invited me to their house for living room services. We watched Mr. Wally Smith's first telecast as our sermonette, and then sang hymns. They have amazing voices. Seriously. And it isn't just because they are family and their voices are similar, although that does help. They can read music and know how to harmonize and all that jazz, too. After that, we were joined by the guys, rounding our total out to 10. They, too had watched Mr. Smith's sermonette at their place. Coincidence? I think not. After lunch, the sermon was fully downloaded, so we watched it. It was one from the feast, and covered a lot of what we had spent most of lunch discussing. I love it when things like that happen. So much fellowship and biblical discussion was definitely a treat, and to be taken in by another family is a lesson in love. I think I'd be horribly homesick without them.

Road to Yesterday

After 3 weeks of being home, I finally told my high school friends I was back in town. Part of the reason I waited so long is, well, I left all their phone numbers up at college - in a notebook, yeah, I'm low tech, and I need to program things into my phone - and I didn't feel like e-mailing anyone. We all got together yesterday, hung out at the fast food restaurant my friend's family owns. I still need to pay for lunch...I kept trying to, and then after a while I forgot.Then the girls (Candase, Chelsea and I - Nazia stayed at the restaurant) piled into Sean's truck, and Sterling went with Johnny. I forget that I miss these guys. I was feeling rather neither-here-nor-there-ish, and it was good getting out of the house. We ended up going to Petsmart, Target (and Starbucks), the movies, and then to Sterling's house. After all that, Sean drove me back to get my car, and Chelsea home. At about 8 minutes from home, my dad called me to say goodnight, and to come in the back door, as the front one was in the process of being locked. When I got home, the parents were still up, so we got to chat for a bit :) . In the morning, my car was dead. The headlights, appartently, don't turn off by themselves on this car like they do on my parents'. Oh well, home is definately the best place to learn this lesson, and Wal-Mart does free battery charges.