Please take note

Taking a break from wedding preparations to remind you that this next Sunday is the Argentina election.

Look down [edited]

Umm, sorry for the inconvenience, but if you want to read the post for this date, you'll have to skip down to Friday, 11 May 2007. Apparently Blogger uses the first save date for a draft as the official publishing date for a post.

[Edit: Never mind, just look down below this post.]

A little story of four unorthodox years

In honor of the long weekend, here are some college career memories of a recent graduate.

It was great, although it didn't go quite she like planned.

She went into the Fall 2003 semester knowing her roommate... she had met her at a VIP day event, another homeschooler with a similar background. So that was a pleasant start. Within the first two weeks she had a job of 20-some hours weekly in the cafeteria. It was a normal year, except for the spring '04 blip where her father went on the transplant list in February.

The second year started out normally with an upgrade in jobs - working in the library and the Language Department. By the time she went home for fall break, her Daddy was in the hospital with his heart failing. Before going back to school, she offered to come home, and so she withdrew from Grace for the spring '05 semester to relieve her Grandpa and Grandma from Iowa homestead duty.

The semester home and summer were absolutely wonderful. One month was just herself and eight of her siblings taking care of themselves. The rest was being all together, finishing up the year-long Spanish and German textbooks and working on the house. She was particularly proud of the hundreds of nails and screws that finally secured the garage roof beams. Her older sister graduated and landed a posh job, which made her even prouder.

Fall '05 was back to school and back to both jobs. Spring '05 was off to the great study abroad adventure which she'd never actually believed would happen. She had started the triple language major knowing that she wanted to study languages, not study abroad. Those semesters abroad proved one thing - if a home schooled country girl homebody could go study in France and Argentina, anyone could do almost anything. (After most of the year abroad, she contemplated finding a way to require every U.S. college student to spend a minimum of three months overseas in order to graduate.)

In 2007 she returned for one more semester at school, ending up with three nice positions - the sole assistant at the Language Department, an ESL instructional assistant at the high school, and a babysitter. She was especially proud of that last one. However, the number of lines filled in her day planner convinced her that humans were not meant to live on full schedules.

There were several exciting times in that memorable last semester, such as when they declared her four credits short of graduating, or informed her after graduation that her loan repayment grace period had been used up during the semester off. But a little help quickly cleared these details away.

So there it went. A B.A. in seven semesters, five of them on campus. Only 2 Bs in her entire college career.

Now there are a couple of ways to list college career accomplishments. Some people would write up all the honors, awards, and participations.

But, when asked, she provided the following two:

-The semester home - an opportunity to help her family and get her student mothering/household-running experience
-The two semesters abroad - opportunities to study in France and Argentina, meet new people, and add more dimensions to life

She did say that if she could do it over again in an ideal world, she would concentrate solely on studies, thinking, and discussions, with absolutely no work or participations of any kind.

[The author, somewhat tired of talking about herself, begs you to excuse her for writing this up in the third person.]

What does it mean?

Congratulations to Hannah, who just graduated from high school! (the younger sister of the family I live with)

She was very excited, which reminded me of my own excitement two weeks ago. Looking back and thinking about both ceremonies, I'm not really sure what's so exciting... about dressing up and walking around in solemn lines and hugging people. You could almost laugh at it all. But then, what fun or accomplishment would it be if they handed us our diplomas as we walked out the door on the last day of class?

One week later

This is just to say that although there are many important and interesting things to discuss, unfortunately, it's already bedtime. And I'll hereafter try to avoid resorting to either silence or this kind of post.

Speaking of today's rapid lifestyle -

One week after graduating, I received an email with the following subject line:

"Children in college? Apply for a Federal PLUS Loan now!"

Monday's bulletin

The author never rants. This is an informational blog post announcing the author's astonishment over how her primary email program rendered her account inaccessible for two days and then brought it back, all tidily cleaned out.

It was about enough to make her cry, till she realized three lovely things:

1) It was one more exciting event in the great adventure of life!

2) She wouldn't want to get too attached to anything temporal anyway.

3) Now she wouldn't have to go through and organize all that stuff.

Happy Birthday, extra late

Oh goodness, how did I miss May 3rd?

Happy 16th birthday to Derek!

Derek, that extraordinary brother whose interests and undertakings include everything from studying Mongols to designing mini rocketships to learning Greek to taking computer programming lessons to growing jalapeño peppers to composing music. One of these days you are going to be hearing his name from someone who doesn't know him. If you don't believe me, just go look at the meaning of his name.

But apart from all that, he's a great brother, even if he is a little uppity sometimes and says things like "Be polite and let me go first."

(This is a dangerous family. A mother who takes pictures, a sister who wins arguments and a sister who writes down quotes... to name a few.)

This is the good life

Ah, it's so nice to be done with school. This evening I could do whatever I wanted. So I started studying my next language.

Done!

That's it! Graduated and done with school.

It's funny how having graduated came make one feel like a whole new person, and much more an adult than any of those milestone birthdays (such as 18 or 20 or even 22). Did anyone else have that experience? From here, life seems like a calm clear river on out into the ocean of eternity (I can see the ocean but I can't see where the river joins it yet). Not to make too big a deal of it - it just seems that way!

(Hopefully nobody noticed those three succeeding prepositions.)

I thank God for His love and care during these four years. In the next day or two there may some reminiscing over specific examples of His presence in this college endeavor.

Closer [updated]

Today was my last final and last time in class ever.

2 days till graduation!

I hope that last professor remembers to submit senior grades by Saturday. Till then I am a 123-credit-hour senior. Maybe the Vice President of Academic Affairs won't notice.

The loveliest time of all will be Friday afternoon and evening, when a-l-l-l my wonderful family arrives!


[Update: that last credit has been safely awarded]

The Great April 28

Happy 24th birthday to my sister Ardith!

Let's see, what nice thing should I say about her?

Sometime back there... before we had even started thinking about college... despite the fact that she had already read through Lord of the Rings at least twice, she agreed to read it out loud to me, just because I preferred to experience it by having it read to me rather than reading it. I don't know that we finished, but I do remember hearing about the Company approaching the mountains. The point is her generosity.

And that is just one small example of how great she is.

What makes an adult

Yesterday I reached a real milestone. I finally locked my keys in the car!

The police officer had a great time trying to get into the car. First he tried the right front door with a rubber pad to allow his metal hooker in to try to grab the lock. Then he tried the long rubber-tipped rod. Then I suggested he try the right front door, which usually isn't quite as persnickety. When that didn't work, he tried the right rear door. Then he came back to the right front door, which suddenly popped open -- of course, at the exact moment I had turned away to talk to his colleague. Bummer.

Oh well, I guess we know the little blue Toyota will make it through another six weeks of this crime-ridden town, as long as the police are still more adept than thieves!

What's wrong with this picture?

Look -- how can it be that a younger sister, who works full-time and even overtime hours, and goes to school part-time, and organizes a friend's bridal shower, and researches post-graduation job possibilities, not to mention just lives -- how can this girl have more time to post than her older sister who merely works 8 hours a day? Someone must be busy reconfiguring her L. Kernel.

By the way, family influence can have serious consequences. Outsiders have almost mistaken this same younger sister for a computer geek just because she was the first to mention Linux by name in a conversation.

That was fast

Night class done in under 45 minutes! How can you beat that? Apart from the extra time and the beautiful evening, it's kind of sad. Education is getting so casual these days.

Graduation can't possibly be here in two weeks. Where did college life go? Apart from no more homework and real living, it's kind of sad. People are getting so spread out these days.

But that's not quite enough kind-of-sadness to get me enrolled in graduate school!!

If walking down the commencement aisle is anything like walking down the Buenos Aires street Villanueva away from the university for the last time, I'm afraid I may positively burst from sheer, sheer delight!

But it's still kind of sad.

And so the adventure continues!

Driving home

While we were cheerfully working in the Language Department this afternoon, Profesor N. let out a whistle and informed us that there were "veintidos matados". Prof. B. suddenly was surprised - the last she had heard was 2 dead. I hadn't heard anything, probably due to work and class. It was a shock. But not so much as driving home and having the music station interrupted by a Fox special news report informing that 33 were now dead on the southern college campus.

I just don't understand how anyone could do that.

A few minutes later, on the last road to home, a commercial came on.

Music: "Raindrops keep falling on my head..."
Announcer: "Do you need to replace your wiper belts?"

That was hilarious! Just imagine what a pathetic car would let you know you need your wiper belts replaced by the raindrops hitting you. What kind of reasoning process did that script writer have? Sorry for laughing at him, but it was really funny.

Frankly, I don't understand that either - how sadness and joy in life get so curiously juxtaposed. It must be the goodness of God to keep us sane.

A very Good Friday

Grandpa Hoyt died on April 6th. Today was the funeral. I found this obituary to share.

I thank God for my wonderful Grandpa - for his good and faithful life, for the heritage he leaves in his family, and most of all for his presence with our Lord right at this moment.

I miss you, Grandpa, but I know it won't be for long.

Even downhill can be funny

Grading quizzes is amusing, especially when one comes across spelling such as "technoligy" and "boardered" -- and I cite mild examples.

22

Okay, I have to admit that I did have a birthday, but this is more to celebrate wonderful people than the birthday.

Saturday before last, some friends surprised me - along with the other friend I thought we were surprising - and Sue Ann gave us roses (my first flowers ever!). Monday was the day, and I came home to find that Aunt Vici was making homemade pizza and Rachel had frosted that cake -- that cake that she was baking the night before and she said that no, it wasn't exactly for work; what was it for? it was for some devotional -- a dark chocolate cake with cut-up dark Dove's and even dark frosting. What a good liar she is! We all devotedly devoured it. They even had presents, many of them to stock up my chocolate stash. Two friends left cards in the mailbox, another friend mailed a package, and then I finally got to open what that Mommy sent out - an Irish Tenors CD and all of Milton's poetry! How lovely!

This afternoon at work in the Language Department, they told me they needed me to take notes for their departmental meeting. When I came in the meeting room, they had a cake and started singing. My four language and culture profs are just wonderful!

The best part of these 22 years has been sharing them with you all.

At the end of the week

Did you know that if you don't put away your pajamas in the morning, you don't have to pull them out of the drawer at night?
Here's the one I really like: coming home to find the bed unmade and all ready to crawl into.

See, the secret of efficiency is doing less by doing less. It's great to find out how working hard and being a lazy slob just melt together.

Next week is spring break at the highschool. YIPPEE!! What luxury to sleep in till 6:30!

This is Friday night. I got home and enjoyed several good and amusing articles from the school newspaper over supper, then found Independence Day playing. I was hoping to see it all through, but somehow, watching TV became too boring after an hour. So maybe it's time for an unorthodox Friday night of going to bed before midnight.