BOSTON!!

I'm in Boston!! I'm w/ Linds & Kel checkin' out this place. I also get to see my friend Erin who is finishing her PhD work at Brown University. I'm really xcited. We're leaving Waco in just a few minutes. Yes, it's 3:30 on Thursday morning. It's early, and I didn't get much sleep because of my excitement. I'll be back too soon!!

Fixed Links

I fixed the links on that last post. Myles taught me how to create them the easy way. Now I'm having a lot of fun making links. Oh wait, that's the wrong kind of link. Oh well.

The Bane of Baylor

In light of my post a few days ago about getting my paycheck, I was thinking about how much I love Baylor, minus one thing. Everyday that I walk across campus I am captivated by so many things about my home for the past 3+ years.

I never ceased to be amazed by my professors. They are so willing to work with you and help you succeed. I have talked to numerous people at other schools and I am always struck my how different our views of professors and classes are. I have always (for the most part) enjoyed going to class and the mandatory 75% attendance policy is not a problem for me. Some of my friends at other schools have never even seen their professors at a distance closer than 30ft.

Our campus is absolutely beautiful. I love to walk down Fifth Street and stare up at good 'ol Rufus wearing his long trench coat and 1920's top hat. With the view of Old Main in the background with its spires I am taken back to the end of the nineteenth century and I wonder what it was like to be a student at Baylor at that time; during the time when the men lived on the east side of the creek (in Brooks) and the women lived on the west side of the creek (in Memorial) and just about the only social time they were allotted was the all-time favorite "Coke Hour" which we all know and love now as “Dr. Pepper Hour.”

I love the history and the traditions of Baylor. I can walk across campus and tell you the history of nearly every brick that was laid. (O-kay, I'm not quite that good, but you get the point.) I love the stories that tell about the history and development of the great institution.

I even love walking through the North Village and the
Baylor Science Building and seeing where our school is going. Though 2012 (or 2015, or whatever it is now,) has received countless criticisms, I am still an advocate. I know that some of my friends will disagree with me, but I think that the goals and methods of reaching those goals are honorable and will place Baylor in a highly esteemed position.

I also adore the people at Baylor. Though there is the fair share of ditzes and jerks, I have been so fortunate to surround myself with people of amazing quality. I have made friends that are so diverse in every possible area. God has used these people to shape me and challenge me and love me in ways that I never thought possible.

I will never regret my decision to be at Baylor.

I still have one problem though. The Cashier’s Office has been the bane of my existence here at Baylor. I have fought with them to get things done the way that they need to be done and in the time that I need for them to be every semester. I’m not venting at the people who work there, but rather the system that they work under. I nearly had to drop my classes this semester because they changed the financial settlement date from the ninth day of classes to the third day of classes and didn’t bother to make any announcement about it until the first day of class. They then proceeded to put the burden on the professors to tell the students that they needed to get settled or else they would have to be dropped from the class. It is not the responsibility of my professors to rake in the cash. They are there to teach because they care about teaching and obviously not because of making money. My Greek professor was so ticked off at the Cashier’s Office that he forbid us to stop coming to class even if we did get dropped because we could not get settled in time. “Classical Greek is more important than your tuition money,” he told us.

Yes, this was all about five weeks ago that all of this occurred, but it was brought fresh to mind when I was five weeks late in receiving my paycheck. A big part of receiving it that late was because it was the first chance the Cashier’s Office had to get to it. They were so overwhelmed with changing the financial settlement date that they couldn’t keep up with their own system.

There may be a bigger picture than just the Cashier’s Office that I don’t see and know about but it seems as thought they are the ones who have caused much grief for myself and many of my friends. I have had a few friends leave Baylor because they cannot seem to get the money that they need to stay or the money that they were promised. This may have something to do with 2012, or lack of donations due to the falling economy, (or 2012 again,) or some other factor unbeknownst to me, or all of the above. At any rate, something does not seem to be functioning as smoothly as it should.

As much as I love my university, it could use some serious reforming in the area of raking in the cash. They talk so much about how they care about students, but the tuition rate seems to be limited to those who can afford it. I only hope that future students do not encounter the amount of stress that I have had to deal with regarding financial settlement.

I don’t want this post to be a bashing Baylor post and it was not my intent to come across that way. Please be discerning in any comments that you may want to put regarding this post.

My "Heretical" Statement

Today one of my friends and I were looking at my books. We were making fun of the fact that I used to wrap the covers in contact paper so that there was less chance of them getting messed up. She asked if they were all covered and I pulled a book off that had many bubbles in the contact covering. I explained that I got frustrated when it had bubbles in it and that is why I stopped covering them. I'd rather deal with trying to keep the corners nice than with bubbles. This is a place where my obsessive compulsive disorder comes out strong. As I was putting the book back on my shelf, she read the title:
"131 Christians Everyone Should Know"
I explained that it was a book that had a one hundred and thirty-one, 3-4 page biographies of Christians in it. She liked the idea of the book as she indicated by her smile. Our conversation continued like this:
"Pick a famous Christian that you know." (I like playing games like this. :) )
She glanced at my bookshelf and picked the first name she saw, "C.S.Lewis."
I opened my book and showed her his biography.
"Billy Graham is in here too." I said thinking that she would like that.
"Oh," she said, again smiling. "Is Ruth in there?"
"Ruth Graham?" I asked
"Yes."
"No, they only had two-thousand years to pick from so they had to be pretty selective." I said with a sly smile.
She started to laugh. She turned her back to leave my room as she was laughing and asked if Jesus was in there?
"No, he isn't."
Surprised, she turned back around.
"Jesus wasn't a Chrisitan," I told her.
Her smile left abrubtly. She looked at me, and then rolled her eyes back in her head as if to stare at her brain and think about what I had just uttered. As what seemed like blatant heresy began to settle into her thoughts, her smile began to return.
"I never thought about that before!!" She exclaimed. She left my room smiling again.

I'm Excited!!

Today I got my final paycheck from my summer internship. Yes, I said summer internship. Summer was about six weeks ago and my internship ended about seven weeks ago so that means that I should have been payed about five weeks ago. I'm not sure where the whole hang-up took place, but I know that the Cashier's Office was largely the problem. Argh!! The Cashier's Office is the bane of my existence this year. Well, my stresses regarding this paycheck are finally over. My budget is now not so tight and I'm now ahead on some of my bills like I like to be and I was finnally able to buy the rest of my school books for this semester instead of having to renew them from the library one more time. Can you tell that I'm excited? Well, in case you can't tell: I'M EXCITED!!

An Odd Love Story

This Friday I made a marathon trip down to Uvalde, TX, a small town an hour and a half west of San Antonio, where my parents grew up. I left Waco around 11:00 on Friday morning, stayed with my mom in San Antonio that night and then left SA at 7:30 the next morning so I could be at work on time.

I went to Uvalde to visit my Grandad (dad’s dad) who has been in the hospital for about two weeks. He had a stroke two weeks ago and this week he was going in and out of a coma. He would start to improve in his health every time one of the grandkids would call or come to visit. He didn’t know that I was coming and he lit up when I entered the room late Friday afternoon. He is starting to do better, but he also has diabetes so that is making his situation more complicated.

While I was in the hospital room Grandad fell asleep and Meemaw (dad’s mom) and I started reminiscing the past. I had never heard the story of how they met so I took the opportunity to hear the story from her.

Much to my surprise, they had known each other for two years before they ever met. How, you ask? I had the same question. My Grandad, (James) was 21 and serving in WWII. My Meemaw, (Catherine) was 17 and friends with James’s sister-in-law. His sister-in-law was writing letters to him to keep him company. She was getting pretty busy and writing letters started to become a hassle, so she asked Catherine if she would take over. Being the good little Nazarene and southern girl that she was, she obeyed the words of her mother and said she would only write him if he wrote first. A few weeks later, she received a letter from him.

That letter was the beginning of a correspondence that lasted for two years while James was overseas. They each wrote about a letter a day. The letters eventually turned into love letters and they also sent pictures to each others. Catherine once had an 8X10 portrait made for a steep ten dollar charge. (Keep in mind that this was about 60 years ago.) She wanted to send it to him, but her mom refused to let her out of concern that James was just lonely and not committed to this girl he’d only conversed with through letters. (The portrait hangs on the wall of their bedroom right nest to a portrait of James in his uniform.)

After about two years passed, James finally found his opportunity to come home to the states. Catherine knew he was coming and she anxiously awaited her opportunity to finally meet him. Days, and then weeks passed by and though James was home, he never called Catherine. After not hearing from him for over a month, Catherine began to date a young man who had been interested in her for quite some time. She had decided to settle for second best. They hadn’t dated long before he proposed and Catherine said “yes.”

Not even a full day later, James finally decided to call Catherine. Catherine told him her exciting news. She said that she would send him an invitation to the wedding and that they would get to meet there. A few weeks passed, and Catherine decided to break off her engagement. About a month later, she wanted to talk to James. She contacted his sister-in-law to find out where he was at so they could try to meet each other. She called him only to find out that he was engaged. He let her know that he would send her an invitation to his wedding and they could meet there.
A few weeks later, Catherine received a phone call from James. He wanted to let her know that he had broken off his engagement awhile back and he wanted to try to meet her. Excited about finally getting to meet the man of her letters who was no longer engaged, she agreed. He was going to be in her town and he agreed to pick her up when she got off of work at seven.

Catherine went to the local department store and picked out a ravishing twenty-four dollar dress to wear for the occasion. (Again, keep in mind that this was about 60 years ago.) She made it through the hours at work for what seemed like days until finally seven o’clock came around. She waited impatiently through her excitement for James to come. Minutes passed and more minutes passed, and James never came. Catherine had to call her dad to come pick her up from work.

The next day, Catherine had off of work and since her mother was out of town she decided to spend her day cleaning the house. In the middle of vacuuming, the phone rang. It was James. He apologized for the previous day and explained that he was having car trouble and that was why he was unable to make it. He had finally made it to her town and as it turned out, he was only about five minutes from Catherine’s house. She agreed to see him, but she was so upset because she wasn’t wearing her twenty-four dollar dress. Instead she was decked out in her cleaning attire which consisted of “old worn-out slacks and an ugly buttoned shirt.” She decided that he had missed his chance though and she was not going to change for him.

The long awaited day of meeting finally came. James showed up at Catherine’s house and after a few minutes of conversation, James asked Catherine out on their first date. The time for the date that evening was set for seven o’clock. James was right on time and Catherine was wearing her twenty-four dollar dress.

Though they lived in separate towns, James and Catherine saw each other nearly everyday for the next month. On a day that Catherine was not expecting to see him, he surprised her at her house. This was the day that he proposed to her and they were married a few hours later in a very untraditional wedding.

Though their relationship sounds like a slowly developing fling and a short-term infatuation, it turned into fifty-eight years of marriage. On their fiftieth anniversary, their five kids and spouses and seven grandchildren came together to plan an anniversary ceremony in which James and Catherine renewed their vows with the long-standing pastor of their Nazarene church.

“Though it hasn’t always been easy, it has been the biggest blessing and most prevalent act of God’s grace in my life,” said my Meemaw as she finished her story in the hospital room. My Grandad was lying in the hospital bed with a smile on his face, listening the whole time while pretending to be asleep.

The Long & Short of It

I cut my hair again this weekend. I like it a lot. Since January, I’ve gone from a little above shoulder length to it now being chin length. I cut ten inches off the first time and donated it to Locks for Love and since then, if you add up all the inches and factor in the re-growth, I’ve probably cut a total of fifteen inches. I’m starting to miss my long hair now, which is why I chopped it again this weekend. I know…that sounds illogical, but I promise it’s not. The way that I had the layers before would have made growing it out very complicated to deal with every morning. It’s a lot easier to work with now. I don’t regret ever having cut it in the first place. It’s been a lot of fun to have short because I’ve never had my hair this short. I had never even had it as short as it was when I originally cut it in January. But it’s time for it to be long again. Well, it actually won’t get past my shoulders again for about another six months, but I’m patient. I’ve chopped it and grown it out two other times in the past five years, so I’m gonna do it again.

I know this was a weird blog and I’m sure that you all wanted to know about all of my hair escapades. But, I wanted to blog something short and all of my other ideas to blog about would have been far too long. So…that’s the long and short of it. I know, bad pun…but I’m so good at bad puns so you should come to expect it from me. ;-)

Paranoia

A Story:

It was a dark and stormy June night. The rain was pounding outside my window and I was sleeping like a baby, only to wake-up to a nightmare. Ok, so it wasn’t really a nightmare, but it was a very unpleasant surprise. One of my co-workers during my summer internship came over to my apartment at 8:00 in the morning as was the normal routine so we could go to work together. However this particular morning, he came bearing bad news. My car, along with six other randomly selected cars had been broken into that night.

At first I was just mad but I was quickly able to find humor in the situation. I had two large cases of CD, some books, a small bag of clothes and a plethora of other items in my car that were all left untouched. (Except by the rain of the night which did the majority of damage to the few books I had in my car, much to my dismay.) The only thing the thieves decided to claim as thier own was my CD player which hadn't worked in about two years. The raido in it worked, but I didn't listen to it much anyway since my antennae was broken off awhile back and most stations don't come in very clear.

When the cop arrived he asked if I by some random chance had the serial number. MUCH to his surpise I had the original box with all of the warranty papers. He said he'd never even come across anyone with the serial number much less the box the radio came in. He probably wouldn't have been surprised if he'd known me and my OCD a little better.

Well, despite the fact that I had the serial number and they ran a search through local pawn shops, nothing came of it. The only loss I really had was my window. I drove home to SA the next day to retrieve a $451 front passenger piece of glass that I got for $51 dollars. (My dad's brother owns a glass/car shop.) My dad used to work at the same shop so I didn't have to pay anything for labor either. In fact, I got a free dinner with my dad.

Though it was a pain to deal with, there was no permanent damage, (except to my books, again, much to my dismay.) And the thieves only got away with a CD player that was usless to me. What did I get away with? A free lesson on how to install the original radio. Now I won't have to pay for installation if I ever decide to get a new CD player. Well, hopefully not.

Another Story:

It was a quiet and peaceful August night. The wind was blowing softly and I was trying to sleep to the sound of a crying baby only to wake up to another nightmare. This time however, it really did seem like a nightmare. I was babysitting for a lawyer that I used to work for. I've been on vacation with this family and I was baby-sitting overnight while the parents celebrated their aniversary out of town. I hadn't slept much because the baby was teething and not sleeping well so she did a great job of keeping me up. At 7:30 I woke up to what sounded like the doorbell ringing, but I wasn't sure until I heard strong pounding on the front door. This was already unusual because everyone uses the side door in this house. I looked out of the upstairs window to see a cop standing at the door. I raced down the stairs in my pajamas and open the door.

"Ma'am, are you the owner of a gold Pontiac Sunfire?"
"Yes, sir I am.
"Well, it was broken into last night. Will you please come out and take a look at the damage?"

So there are two things going on in my head at this point. The first is, "I'm am honestly not surprised." You know the whole, "when it rains it pours," thing. Well, this just seemed like another event in a long line of events that were all joined together to make my life difficult. The second thing was "What in the world did they take? Surely not my radio tape player that came with the car?!?!" I started looking around my car, and sure enough...that wasn't it. I looked all over my car and couldn't find anything. This time it was the driver's window that had been knocked out. I tried the open the door, but they did such a great job of busting the window out that they jammed the door shut and broke part of the frame which is what kept me from opening the door.

I walked over to the cop to tell him that they hadn't stolen anything. Everything was in dissaray in my car but nothiong was gone. Any then it hit me. The day before I had gone to a friend's birthday party in Cameron Park and as I usually do when I am going to speacial avents, I took my digital camera with me. I very seldom take my camera out of my apartment and when I do it usually stays in my purse. Since I was at Cameron Park, I didn't bring my purse. I also never went home after the birthday party becasue I headed straight to the house I was baby-stting at. And...I didn't think to bring my camera inside.

Fortunately, I didn't loose many pictures, but I'm still upset about my camera. It was a birthday gift that I had barely had for six months. ARGH!!

Moral of the Two Stories:

So why is this titled paranoia? Wow...that was a long story to get to this point. After my car was broken into the first time, it was not that big of a deal. It was fixed fairly easily without much cost. The second time it happened was somewhat unbelievable to me, seeing as how it happened only about a month and half after the first time. The cost was a little more because of the door frame damage, but the people I baby-sat for paid for it. I think that there was more damage done to me than my car though. In the past four weeks I have have had four dreams about my car being broken into. I always park my car right outside my apartment window and I jump at nearly every sound that I hear outside to see if my car is ok. I also try to park where I can see my car from the windows at work when I am there. This is quite a trick to accomplish if you know how Baylor has changed the parking up recently and if you know where I work and where the nearest parking lot/garage is. I feel a bit unsettled though if I can't see my car. I'm hoping this will die down soon though. It already is getting a little better, but the paranioa seems to rise when I have another dream about it.

I considered apologizing for writing such a long post, and then I realized that this is my blog and I am allowed to write as much or as little as I want to. Hope you enjoyed my long story and all it's details that I am known to not leave out.

Peace & Love

I sound like a hippie with that title, but this post has nothing to do with hippies. I discovered "Blessed Union of Souls" about a year ago, and I'm pretty fond of the one CD that I have heard. Kelli introduced me to them because of the song below. The lyrics of this song, Peace & Love, are in part applicable to many relationships in my life. I like this song because it has a possitive outlook on those relationships that I have seen either end, redevelop, or change significantly in some way. It's off of the self-titled album.

Blessed Union of Souls
Peace & Love

May every star you wish upon
And every hope you're hangin' on come true
Out of everybody in the world
There's no one who deserves it more than you
I hope you find
Everything you've been dreamin' of
Only good things
No in betweens just
Peace and love

These words did not come easily
Still you know I had to write them down
You must know what you mean to me
I wish that you could always be around
I hope you find
Everything you are worthy of
I'm gonna miss you
But I only wish you
Peace and love

Peace and love
Tears of joy
Kindness of strangers
All of your roads
Paved in gold
By guardian angels
Wherever you may be in this world
My salutation says it all
May you always have enough
Peace and love

I let you go unselfishly
Cause everyone needs time to be alone
Well maybe time will bring you back
And if it does you'll always have a home
I sign my name
No one to blame it on because
I'm on your side
No question of pride

Peace and love
Tears of joy
Kindness of strangers
All of your roads
Paved in gold
By guardian angels
Wherever you may be in this world
My salutation says it all
May you always have enough

Peace and love