reports from week three

two days after bringing my computer home from the apple store with a shiny new logic board and keyboard, it started playing the same old games it played before i took it in. so, i head back to store and genius bar (repair center) tomorrow with stern words in tow. i need this computer to work! in the meantime, i've been battling public computers and borrowing friend's computers. and computing less. which is probably okay.

there have been some good things in motion this week, including lunch with a prof i'd never actually met but heard from everyone i talked to that i should meet. we had a lot to talk about! it was good to talk to someone older who'd been sort of where i want to go, is teaching the theory of what fascinates me, and is willing to be a sounding board. every now and then i think that what i'm interested in studying and perhaps doing with my life is either made up or too vague to even begin to relate to someone with, but i'm slowly finding this is not the case. someday soon i'll write a big thesis to get it out in words, but at the moment, it's just the intersection of ideas.

my schedule has evened out nicely, though, and goes as follows:
rhetorical theory
gender and social institutions (a quad)
psychology of religion
Christian thought
stellar astronomy (b quad)

the work of my grandfather has been referenced a few times in my psych of religion class, and it might quickly become my favorite.

weather is cold, snowy, and very sad. it's making me miss sydney heaps and wondering about how to get back!

much love.

more angels

more stories from the city:
a friend of mine and i went to usher for a production of titus andronicus, a shakespeare play i'd never heard of before with a reputation for being the least redeeming of his work. it was an interesting production, for sure, and i'd recommend it.
again, this meant enduring the fun of public transport: hour train ride to the city, short walk to an el, then a city bus. gobs of fun.
i am constantly amazed by people though, and i'll tell you this somewhat sad story. my friend and i, two young white women, are taking an el after dark from the mid-south side (university of chicago area) headed north. our car is essentially empty but for one or two men who are minding their own business.
at one stop we pick up an older man, who starts to make his way towards our end of the car. he starts announcing somewhat absently, "i'm a homeless man, i am looking for change. i am not looking for trouble but just a little help..." etc. he is still at a comfortable distance to not really worry us much, but one of the men who had been sitting in the car saw what was going on. he hopped up out of his seat and into one between the man and my friend and i. he sat there for a moment; the homeless man ended his speech and we told him we had no cash (this was true: we helped a woman trying to make it to a battered women's shelter in elgin. pray she made it.) and stayed at his comfortable distance. the man who had moved seats turned to us and said, "i only moved because he was coming closer," and went back to his original seat.

people are amazing. i don't know what good gets put into men sometimes to make them do things like that--to protect a couple of young white girls on the el from a kooky homeless guy--but i hope it keeps getting there. i hope this man treats every woman like that. granted, he moved back to his seat, but i have faith that he would have moved back had anything happened. perhaps this faith makes me naive. i'm okay with that.
the world of men may be fallen, but there are still angels out there.

there are still angels out there

week one down here at wheaton, and have been struggling to get my schedule together pending some new information i received from the registrar's office. it was good new,s it just caused a minor tizzy among the people i like to take classes from. but that's not what i want to write about here.

i tell this story not because i think it is that amazing of a story or because i think i can turn it into one, but because i do not wish to forget the little reminders to pay it forward.

i went into chicago today to attend a doctor's appointment on behalf of my sick computer and have dinner with a friend. this translates to an hour train ride from the suburbs into downtown and a short bus ride to the popular parts of the city. now, i spent all of last summer catching trains and buses, so you'd think i'd remember the process and be fairly comfortable with it. um. not so.
by the way, it's freezing. below freezing. the kind of cold that no one in the city can deny or try to be tough against. it's cold.
i step out of the train station looking for the bus station, and end up at another train station. i'm doing my best to not look lost.
a woman calls to me from across the little outdoor foyer, "honey? where are you trying to go?" i turned as she came up to me to look at her. she wore a puffy black jacket with the hood pulled up and around her face, but i could tell she honestly wanted to help me. i told her where i needed to go and she pointed me in the right direction. as i thanked her and turned to go, she asked, "is there anything you can do for the homeless?" as i turn back, i remembered some food i took from the dining hall that morning and packed in my bag in case i ran across someone who needed it. i told her about what i had and she was welcome to whatever. she just looked at me and started backing up. "no, sugar, i don't need food. it's cold. i'm looking for a place to stay." i, lacking better words, apologized i couldn't help her, thanked her again and turned to go.
this leads me to a whole new train of thought about the homeless and me, but that's not what i'm trying to point out at the moment.
i find my station and get onto a bus. i forget payment for a chicago bus means $2 in exact change. the smallest note i have is a $20. the bus driver advises me to ask people if they have change. to the five people sitting ion the front half of the bus, i screw up my courage and ask. one man, the person i would have thought least likely to answer me, was able to give me a ten and two fives. i asked again if anyone had five ones. no luck.
at this moment it hits me that i miss sydney buses. i missed my bus pass that took me anywhere, i missed the bus drivers that always gave change, i missed getting on a clean sydney bus with inherently friendly people on a warm sunny afternoon. the whole zeitgeist felt different here, and i missed sydney.
a woman who had her eyes shut the whole time called to me with a bus pass in her hand. "it doesn't have enough on it for a full ride, but it has some." i smiled and thanked her. it was $1.50 short when i ran it by the driver and turned back to the bus. if i didn't have a $1, no way i had quarters. before i really knew what was happening, the man who broke my twenty and the woman who gave me the bus card were next to me fishing in their pockets for quarters. both of them said, "here," and by sheer force of obedience my hand reached forward to accept the six quarters that fell into it. i looked up at the both of them in amazement. "thank you so much," i said. the woman responded, "hey, there are still angels out there." all i could do was repeat. "there are still angels out there." i wondered at the world as i walked back to the driver to drop my $1.50 in quarters.

i know this world is fallen, that people will be in conflict with each other and everything around until God finishes His redeeming work in us and, ultimately, comes back to claim the whole thing. i see it on the news and in every film and song and story with an antagonist. however, i am constantly amazed by how brightly light shines. i don't know if these people who helped me were Christian, and frankly, it doesn't matter to me at this moment. they are doers of good, helping those in need around them not because there was anything in it for them, but because they could. i want to be like that. i hope it reflects the Good. not because i have to or because there's anything in it for me, but because it's the right thing to do. this is my little reminder to always be paying it forward.

so what now?

okay. i started writing "let's recap" three weeks after my arrival and just, this very moment, january 3, 2008, completed it. there's not even pictures or video to accompany it. what's wrong with me? what's going on? what have i been doing? what now?

let's pick up where i left off--asleep in my bed the tuesday before thanksgiving. i wish i could say how long i slept that night, but i genuinely do not recall. i know i slept hard and awoke in a cleaner version of my room than i've ever actually been able to support. i spent the next week slowly destroying that clean room with exploding bags of dirty clothes, souvenirs, paperwork, and electronic doodads. but it didn't matter. there was family in the house.

on wednesday afternoon, my oldest brother matt and his wife victoria arrived. that night, dana came in.
[i realize now that before "this post comes out of left field" i had not mentioned dana. while i'm sure i've seen most of my readers face to face since returning to the states and have probably told them about dana, but just in case i have some lurking in the dark, i'll quickly explain. dana and i are dating--december 30 marked six months for us. if you do the math, that means we started dating just a few weeks before i left. distance was nothing new to us, but spending actual time together as a couple was almost completely uncharted territory. that's the short version. it was a huge blessing to have him.--that's another short version.]
and what do new friends and old family do together? we play wii.

yup.

thanksgiving came and so did my grandparents on thursday. it was a full house, in-depth, crazy/awesome/overwhelming reentry process that worked out perfectlly and would not have changed--except maybe to have brought in my other brother and sister-in-law! all the right people got all the australia fresh stories, i had no need to unpack and no opportunity to sit around and whine about not being in sydney anymore. i learned early on in the semester that the art of not missing is distraction and pushing myself to live in the present. having everyone here helped me do that. it was great.

the last guest left the following monday, at which point i started to actually unpack and consider how the rest of my time off would be spent. since then, i have not spent a consecutive 14 days in any one place.
i made a trip to wheaton to visit friends and reacquaint myself with campus. from there i went to iowa to visit dana's family--who welcomed me so warmly i went back a week or so later to spend Christmas with them. quick turnaround to spend new years with the thanksgiving crowd--sadly sans dana-- in beautiful jackson hole, wyoming.
during my handful of spare days at home, i've been unpacking, repacking, baking, crafting/knitting, cleaning closets, seeing friends, sleeping, and warming the couch. it's been great time off, and a fantastic way to spend six weeks.
i return to wheaton on the 12th, and classes start on the 14th. i'm looking forward to getting back, truly unpacking, and settling down for awhile. it's been an amazing year. i'm sorry i wasn't so good at keeping this place taken care of.

... ... ...

it is oddly normal to be back in the states. i miss bits of life in sydney, mostly the people and places connected with them. it's hard to look back through pictures and even think about making sense of them. i feel that sorting them and creating that little picture book for people to look at finishes it somehow. it's really over once i know how to answer the question "how was it?" the fact that i have not dealt with my pictures and video might also be a testament to the fact that my technology is touch and go with memory and capability to deal with such things. i'll get there someday. there are plans. sort of. in the meantime, i'm trying to still be fully where i am.

so what now? what about this place? i started this blog months ago when i was going to be absent from the world i know. i'm no longer absent. what will be left to try to leave updated? that question i leave to you and to whatever adventures may come my way. if there's interest, time, and adventures, i'll write. silences mean a lack of at least two of those three.

don't disappear for too long, we say to each other. i don't plan to. i just gained a new respect for the song "wunderkind" by alanis morissette, featured on the soundtrack to the chronicles of narnia: the lion, the witch, and the wardrobe. it claims:

i am a magnet for all kinds of deeper wonderment
i am a pioneer naïve enough to believe this...
destined to seek, destined to know...


i'm surely not yet done adventuring.