I haven't posted, because I haven't done much of anything that would interest anyone. I'm pretty much at an equilibrium point in my home life. I still alternate between a dull ache of missing my friends and just plain happiness at being home. I am still terrified at the thought of actually beginning to write my history project. I still read and think a lot, but still mostly inside my own head.

One thing is different. I'm starting to feel restless. Before, I was just missing my friends. Now I'm missing my classes. I had doubted at the end of last summer that I would ever get the excitement for "school" work back. Now I feel it. There are so many things that I want to learn. I can teach many of them to myself, but I don't know where to start on the rest. I want classes and papers and new thought.

But my body still isn't ready. After my stress last week coming into the deadline for my annotated bibliography (which was "superb," says Dr. Snyder!), coupled with raising the intensity on my workouts, I guess my immune system was a bit lowered. I caught another slight cold. With the help of echinacea, however, it is already gone. It just goes to show how fragile I still am. I guess it's good that I have five and a half more months at home.

We had an extra choir practice this morning, for two hours. It wasn't like a Mr. Johnson Chorale practice, because our choir director does not expect too much out of us. So long as we have our parts, we're good. Usually, I get the alto part the first time through. Then we sing it over and over and over and over again to make sure everyone has it. I was pleased to see that at least we are now learning a piece by Handel; our choir music is usually very simple.

Thought: Is it a good thing to find oneself subconsciously editing another fiction writer's published work? Why does something feel more sacrosanct just because it is published?  ¶ 2:03 PM (0) comments

  When I finally turned in my annotated bibliography at 5:50pm yesterday evening, just before getting ready for TKD class, it contained 55 sources. That's a lot. I've been sitting down here in my chilly basement chair, working on this thing from Wednesday to Saturday, and then again on Monday. On some of those days, I'd be so deeply into plodding through some particular problem that I'd keep going until 8pm without stop. 11 hours of largely sitting in one spot can be more tiring than one would think. But God has been with me, and He is good.

This experience has given me a few observations on life. First, miracles have not stopped. Example: I'm almost late for an appointment, and my contact just won't go into my eye. At last, I pray: God, help me! And it goes in. Example: I am terrified about an activity, and so I pray for courage and joy. I don't think about it again until I'm driving home, at which point I realize that I had a wonderful evening. Example: I start praying for my family, and I watch them become more patient and loving every day. Example: I pray for God to guide me in my research, because I am terrified of this project. Now I feel like I could fudge this thing at this very moment if I was forced to do so.
These are all miracles. If I'd continued on as the natural me without praying, my fears would have kept me from my best. God answers prayer. I see that every day around me, now I'm looking for it. Do you know what that means? If He answers prayer, that means that He is here, right now, listening to me when I pray! He is here, watching me type this. I'm beginning to perceive His presence - not as some weird, spiritual thing, but as a deep knowledge.

Second, and far less deep, is my realization that I would never, ever want to be on a reality TV show. Those producers twist Christians into caricatures whenever they have them in their clutches. It's so easy to do, because all they have to do is edit the footage in a certain way. Arrgh! I am still frustrated about some of the shows I have seen since I began my research.

Third, I would rather be home right now than anywhere else. I've gone through stages. At first, it was blind obedience, misery, and whining (I know this is right, but it feels like my life is elsewhere). Then life became tolerable (Thank you, Lord, for helping me get through this). Now, I'm learning so much, and I couldn't do it anywhere else (Oh, God, you knew what was best all along, and you wanted me to be happy, to grow, to learn how to love you, my family, others, and ultimately, myself!). Isn't that just like anything new? It is painful and terrifying at first, but then it gives you joy that you can store away for life. I'm quite sure that I won't be the same person who left PHC when I return in August for my final year.  ¶ 8:38 AM (0) comments

  My annotated bibliography is up to 43 items, and it is on its 8th page. I'm almost starting to be happy with it. I've spent the last three days solid on research, and I can almost "see" the homeschool movement as a whole with others' eyes. It's not too hard, because I never formed much of a picture on my own. I never really thought about what was happening around me on a macro scale when I was growing up.

At the same time, I'm beginning to "see" the public schools as a whole, since the start of the great education experiment of the 1800s. The course of the experiment fascinates me, because it explains a lot of the problems around us in the larger society. Right now, though, I only have a fuzzy, big-picture view. I am purposefully not trying to cultivate much more right now, even though my interest is piqued, because I don't need to travel much deeper than the surface level on the overall history of education for the purposes of my current project. I definitely want to learn more at some point.

My mom and I were discussing a few evenings ago what I can do with my project when it is completed. She suggested that I turn it into an eBook and sell it. Sounds good to me! I'm sure it will be highly useful to other researchers and interested persons - perhaps for this extensive annotated bibliography alone! This discussion led off into a conversation about grad school and about writing in general. I told her that I would like to write a nonfiction book for an audience at large, about what it is like to grow up homeschooled. It would be partially serious, partially humorous - I don't think I could write such a thing without it being funny. That, and I want desperately to work on Erthe. We together came up with a scenario that greatly appeals to me. Instead of departing for grad school the year after I graduate from PHC, I will probably take a year off in order to write and publish my first book(s). YAY!!! I've been longing to write for so long! If I had to go away to grad school immediately, I think I would just starve. Or whatever the mental equivalent is.

This could work out quite well. I was talking to Maggie, my roomie, on the phone some weeks ago, and we mentioned writing the homeschooling book at least partially together for practicum. That would be ideal, and so much fun! If we wrote the outline and a few chapters during the school year, we'd be ready to go during the summer. This is one book I know I could write. Further, few other people could, and, the way I'm envisioning it, nobody else has. I'm excited just thinking about it. :) :)  ¶ 11:31 AM (4) comments

  PINKY: "What are we going to do tonight, Brain?"
BRAIN: "Well, I don't know, Pinky. We could take over the world, but we do that every night. It's Friday. We deserve an evening off. Let's go to a movie."
PINKY: *spork*

The sane me laughs internally at the strange me. The strange me is too happy to care. It is sunny outside. I think I'm going to go see Eight Below this evening. Meanwhile, I am reading Teach Your Own, by John Holt. This is the book in which he encourages people to homeschool instead of continuing to try to find a school that will fit their children. It is an extremely essential early book of the movement, which is how I justify reading almost the whole thing. So much of it is true that it rouses long-held indignation in my heart against public schooling and against the whole experience of being a child in America in these days. No doubt it is different out West, where there aren't enough people to eavesdrop constantly on what you're doing. But here in suburbia, who knows what child abusers are living among us? Kids can't play outdoors any more without supervision. They can't walk to the convenience store five minutes down the sidewalk without police officers stopping them to find out if they're all right (I know this from experience), and taking them back home. In my family, my older brothers and I played pirates and adventurers all over our jungle gym, without adult supervision. Such supervision would, I am quite sure, have spoiled our fun. We had a huge sandbox, in which we could pile all the sand together and create a small mountain. In this mountain, we could dig caves and tunnels. Our clothespin characters could live in these caves and tunnels. It was a secret island, and they were searching for treasure. We planted our own gardens, let them grow unweeded, and happily plucked whatever vegetables survived. We nailed together a contraption made from the seat and back of an old chair and a few boards, added wheels, and rolled ourselves on it down the sidewalk on the hill in front of our house. My brother took it down a really steep hill in another part of the neighborhood and skinned his entire forearm, but that was just part of the interest of the thing. We set up tents in the backyard and stayed out overnight, waking up to the indescribable loveliness of an early summer morning at 6am with damp, cool air and nobody else awake.

Then our jungle gym became too rickety. A couple years ago, while I was away at college, my parents finally took it down. Now there's nothing to do in our backyard. There's trees and grass, and that's all. Even the gardens are gone. Our backyard is just the same as everyone else's, only minus the swimming pool - boring. This makes me sad. Even back when we used to run and play, the neighborhood kids thought we were weird. I sure didn't care. They were missing out.

They still are. Oh, it makes me sad!

Really, though, I am happy. The book fascinates me. When I have kids, anyway, I guarantee that they will spend a lot of time outdoors!  ¶ 10:47 AM (5) comments

  Ho-hum. The tornado siren's going off. I suppose that means everyone's going to be pounding down here to the basement in a few minutes. I'm already down here, so I'll just wait for them. *checks outside* The sky is smooth, anyway.

We have weird weather here. Today it is about 70 degrees. Tomorrow, it is supposed to have a low of 16 and a high of 32. I guess that probably explains the thunderstorms that are right now traveling through the St. Louis area.

I think I'll run on laptop battery for a little while, because I don't have a surge protector.

Addendum: Nothing exciting happened. I kept researching. My annotated bibliography contains 38 sources and counting. It's time to go to TKD class, thank goodness.  ¶ 1:40 PM (0) comments

  I am inspired by the randomness of posts that Brooks has been making lately to his blog. In a similar fashion, I am going to list some random people observations I have made this evening, in no particular order.

• A mom, daughter around age 12, toddler, and baby all crossed a pedestrian walkway in front of me this morning. The 12-year-old was carrying the baby quite competently. My first thought was, "Homeschoolers!" because of the responsibility given to a 12-year-old. Then I remembered that these kids were not in school during school hours, and that just about confirmed it. I watched them for a few seconds longer than I needed to before I drove away. What would it be like to teach my own kids someday?



• The lady with the wizened face behind the counter at the Post Office remembered me and knew the number of our mailbox. I didn't know her. Has she been working there since I was six years old and came in hand-in-hand with my dad, begging him to buy me pretty stamps? What will I think years from now when I see grownups who used to be kids I knew?



• The girl with the short black hair at the Borders cafe remembered the sort of cup I like for my tea. She has a nice smile. I think I like her. I wish I could make friends with her.



• There was a creepy guy in Borders. I glanced over the whole cafe as I walked in, and I caught his eye. He had a peculiar stare. While I was ordering my tea, he got up and was walking up and down behind me for no particular reason. Then he seemed to leave. When I sat down at a table next to the side window of the cafe, I noticed that he walked up by the side of the building on the outside and peered in at me. I glared at him, and he gave an odd smile and turned around quickly. There is absolutely nothing at the side of the building for him to be doing. Then he came back in one more time, leering at two girls in tank tops at another table on the way past. Finally, he left for good.



• At the gym, a male personal trainer was loudly giving advice to another guy. He said, "For abs, don't go for numbers. Just work 'em until it hurts like heck!" This is wrong. If you do your reps very carefully, exhaling hard each time, you can finish them off in 12 reps or less. Otherwise, you'll be crunching forever. I had to stretch in the same corner. He got even louder when I walked by. I pretended I didn't notice him at all.



• Why do guys come and hang out by the free weights section to talk? Women who use free weights never talk to anyone. In fact, women don't seem to talk to each other much at the gym at all.



• There were more women than usual in the free weights area this evening. I lifted heavier weights than all of them. Only one other woman was lifting for real, but she was tiny. I'm not. One very big woman was there, lifting tiny weights with much effort. I highly approved of her attempts, and I shot her what were meant to be looks of encouragement. I think she was scared, however, because she did maybe two sets and then left. That was too bad.



• I asked a strong-looking, square-jawed man if anyone was using a particular weights bench. He immediately insisted on moving all the benches around for my personal comfort. :P He was extremely personable, and he made me smile. But I didn't trust him. I never trust gym guys. He was very personable, though. And he was watching me later. Why? I was just wearing a t-shirt and loose exercise pants, with my hair in a ponytail, and I had on glasses. I pretended I didn't see him.



• I walked into the house very hungry, and I ate some dinner. My two youngest sisters were in the living room. Maddy was working on a French test. I wondered out loud what I would do with the next hour. I decided I would go down to my cave. Lillie, on the other couch, was watching me with a loving look. She gave me a pretty smile as I headed downstairs, one older than her 12-year-old face. I saw from her smile that she wanted me to read to her and Maddy the same way I had the night before. But she knew that it couldn't happen, because of Maddy's test, and she was ready to wait. All that was in her smile. Don't ask me how. It was.

  ¶ 6:14 PM (0) comments

  My first history project deadline is Feb. 20. My annotated bibliography is due. Somehow, though, I find it hard to worry. I have a ton of sources. My main problem is that I don't have nearly enough in some areas. So I have to fill in a bit, and find out enough about the items I don't have time to read in order to enable me to write annotations. Still, not a huge deal, because this first draft bibliography is not even graded. I suspect that I have kept up quite well with my research to the present point - much better than someone could who was also taking classes. Work ends at 5pm. Studying for classes can continue as long as one desires. Therefore, classes at college always remain a buzzing pressure in the back of one's mind. I'm glad I don't have to deal with that right now.

After this, my outline and thesis are due March 29. Then deadlines come thicker and faster... Intro is April 5, final bibliography is April 10, and the whole thing is due April 24. This draft is graded, and Dr. Snyder gives me suggestions; then I have until May 8 to implement them.

Interpreted as an action plan, this means I should probably start writing sections around the middle of March. If I only start after I turn in the outline, I will need to write about 4 pages every single day. If I start in the middle of March, I only need an average of 2-2.5 pages a day. And if I manage 4 pages a day then, it will only make my life that much less stressful in April.

So, after this bibliography is turned in, I have another month to do heavy-duty background research. That's not so very long, but I think it will probably suffice.

Meanwhile, today is a research day. I'd better get back to it.  ¶ 9:02 AM (0) comments

  Well, what do you know? It's Valentine's Day. I stopped in at Walgreens, and there were hordes of people carrying objects of various shades of pink to the checkout. But who am I to talk? I stopped in for poster board, construction paper, silver tissue paper, pink ribbon, and chocolates. Sunday, my sisters and I decorated a family "Valentine's Day Box." Into this box and its previous cousins, my family deposits valentines for each other every year. The past few years, the tradition has gone out of vogue. I suspect this is because I was not home to carry it on. This year, everyone was delighted for me to bring it back. :) They spent the rest of Sunday littering the floor with pieces of construction paper.

It is also my parents' 30th wedding anniversary! Unfortunately, my dad is in graduate classes all day, and they are going to be working to finish the next issue of Practical Homeschooling magazine all evening. Many important occasions slip by this way in my family. This used to distress me, but I've grown accustomed to the fact over time. I really have no idea what I can do for them, anyway, because they do have their deadline. About the only thing I could think of was to give them chocolate. I sure hope my dad remembers to do something! *shudder*

Outdoors, it is 67 degrees! This is only 3 degrees under the record high for this day of 70 degrees in 1990. Not that I really care; all I know is that it feels wonderful outside in short sleeves. I get to play Frisbee this evening. It is absolutely perfect weather for it.

Yes, V-Day is twinging on my heartstrings. I am doing my best to ignore it, however. So far, all is well.  ¶ 2:19 PM (0) comments

  Is it wrong to want to do something huge with one's life? I suspect it can easily be wrong, if only because of the feelings such desires create in my heart. They stretch my mind outside myself. Time dilates, and I feel myself looking through history, both forward and back, with deep sorrow. I greatly admire C.S. Lewis as a writer, and some day I want to finish my Erthe trilogy and have people think, when they are done reading, "That's as good as Narnia!" But I'm not there yet, nor do I know for sure if I will ever be. When I start thinking about being that good, I pull myself farther ahead in my life than I should be thinking. I suspect that many people who have done great things didn't realize, even when they'd accomplished them, that they were great. These people were merely completing their daily tasks. For example, I was just reading about a lady who has published 600+ articles and numerous books. I seriously doubt she was tallying them up as she went. They were the assignments that she completed every day. Lewis, when he was a kid and a young adult, probably never suspected how many assignments God would lay on his heart to write. He hoped, dreamed, and prepared his skills, so that he was ready when the time came. That's all I can do as well.

I'm not sure why I was thinking about that. Probably because I'm listening to the Narnia soundtrack again. It always calls to my heart.

In other news, tomorrow I begin my "fat-loss challenge" at the gym. It's an 8-week competition, in which everyone who signs up tries to lose more fat than everyone else. Pretty straightforward. I want to win. I have about 15 #s I theoretically could lose, but that's a little much for 8 weeks. That would mean a deficit of around 1000 calories a day. So I'm aiming for 10 #s of scale weight. That's only a deficit of 625 calories per day. Supposedly, according to FitDay.com, my basal + lifestyle calorie use before exercise is around 2600. I think it's lying, though, because I would definitely be losing weight then. I've lost maybe 3-4 pounds in the last 7 weeks. This is half a pound a week, or 1750 calories. That's a deficit of 300 calories a day, not counting Sundays ('cause I eat more then). That can be attributed solely to exercise. So the amount I've been eating is approximately equal to my calorie use pre-exercise. This is about 2000 calories per day, which makes more sense.

So, in short, if I cut my intake to 1800 calories per day and exercise twice more in the week, that should just about do it. Not too terribly hard, and I certainly won't be deprived. :) We'll see how it goes.  ¶ 10:20 AM (1) comments

  One of my friends, Will Glaser, was rhapsodizing about food on his blog yesterday. His tongue was poking almost through his cheek as he did so, but still, I sensed an undercurrent of truth. My hypothesis is this: Men enjoy their food more than women do. Well, no, that's not quite right. I greatly enjoy my big, juicy salad with Romaine lettuce, carrot, sugar snap peas, mushrooms, tomato, Mozzerella cheese, and olive-oil-and-vinegar dressing mixed by myself. I know few guys who revel in salad. When it comes to pizza, however, it smells delightful, and I will eat two pieces. When it comes to the third, I must restrain myself. Guys just dive right in. When they come to the third pizza, maybe they will restrain themselves.

Also, I very much enjoy dark chocolate, the darker the better, completely unpolluted by nuts, creams, or anything else. I just asked my brother, "Frank, do you like chocolate?" He is used to me asking him odd questions without any apparent context. He thought for a second and replied, "Yes, in small quantities. And I don't like chocolate ice cream." I followed up by asking, "Could you live perfectly happily in the world if there was no chocolate?" He answered, "Yes, easily."

I found this incomprehensible. My last question was: "What about steak? Could you be happy without steak?" He turned to me and said earnestly, "No, because that would mean that one of God's greatest gifts did not exist!"

Hm. Are some foods essentially feminine and some masculine? Or is my brother just weird?

In support of the latter thesis, Frank arrived from a Post Office run earlier today, exclaiming that he, "now knew where Kentucky Fried Chicken was!" To him, this was an event of some importance. The thing is, KFC is just across and maybe 100' down the street from the Post Office. Frank has had to drive past it every one of the times he has gone downtown since he got his license a year ago. This is the same brother who didn't know how to find downtown Fenton at all when he first got his license, even though it is a 2-minute drive down the same highway my family has driven on every day since he was a baby. *sigh* Don't worry, I told him I was putting this story on here, and he didn't care.

In other news, my sister Magda and I are going contra dancing tonight! Whee! Boy am I glad I don't have classes to study for!  ¶ 12:04 PM (2) comments

  Well, I'm a bit frustrated. I spent a good bit of last Saturday doing searches for movies and TV episodes with homeschool characters. Quite a few things turned up. But we don't have a TV, and I just spent the last hour and a half fruitlessly searching for a way to obtain some of these shows legally. I'm not sure it's possible. *frown* Bother it! Oh well.

In happier news, I finished writing a story earlier today. That's always fun. :) :)

Otherwise, I am a little disoriented, because I am used to researching on Saturdays. I keep thinking that I will be going to church tomorrow. Nope; my mom needs me to work on Saturday this week, so I am researching on Friday.

I think I need to get out. I've been sitting in this same chair in the basement all day.  ¶ 4:28 PM (1) comments

  I did a lot of reading last night. Wednesday is a study night, so I camped out in the Borders cafe for three hours with a backpack full of books and my laptop. I love my research. Really, I do. In searching for the roots of the homeschool movement, I am looking for my own roots as well. I'm exploring for a river, but not just any river. I'm locating the fountain that gave me life. In the process, I have to go deeper and deeper yet. I'm diving into the clear, age-old streams that birthed the entire United States of America. I catch glimpses into the very heart of God. Homeschooling in the 70s and 80s was an act desperately reckless, and at the same time it was a return to something far older and deeper than its opponents' method of schooling. It was old, but it was also new and laughing.

Here in the homeschooling movement, we find the heart of America. Our country as a whole has forgotten how to be young and a bit reckless in its pursuit of truth, but the homeschoolers remember. Our parents were colonists. Pioneers. They lived on the frontier. Makes me wonder what my own generation will become. Will we settle, or will be push the frontier further? There's so much yet to accomplish. My college, PHC, offers very difficult academics. But it occurs to me that earlier generations learned by the time they were 15 much of the Latin, philosophy, and history that our core classes offer. Homeschooling right now is academically better than the public schools, but it is not all it should be. Few of us alive in the world today will ever be truly educated.

I do thank God that I have the opportunity to learn all I choose. Generations ago, I would never have been able to exercise my mind. I don't think I would have been happy, not being able to learn what others have discovered about the world. But of course, God knew that, which is why I am here and now. What an awesome fact to think about!

All right, philosophical notions aside, I mostly just wanted to share some interesting quotes from A Mother's Book of Traditional Household Skills, written by an L.G. Abell in 1852. I was checking this book for home-teaching advice, but apparently schools were already pretty much in vogue by 1852. Anyway, it had advice on just about everything else under the sun, so I skimmed the whole thing. Here are some snippets:

On time:
“God, who is liberal in all other gifts, shows us, by his own wise economy, how circumspect we should be in the management of our time, for he never gives us two moments together. He only gives us the second when he takes away the first, and keeps the third in his own hands, leaving us in absolute uncertainty whether it shall ever become ours or not!” (14)

On clothes:
“[T]he slave of fashion is perhaps one of the most pitiable objects in creation; and nothing can be more absurd than the adoption of every new style of dress the moment it makes its appearance” (34).

In case of hydrophobia (rabies):
“Wash and cleanse the wound, and apply to every part of it the nitrate of silver, commonly called lunar caustic. This destroys the poison, and the surface of the wound, which will come away. If the wound be deep, the caustic should be pointed to reach every part. If faithfully applied, a celebrated physician declares the patient perfectly safe” (44).

How to make white spruce beer:
“Three pounds of loaf sugar, five gallons of water, with enough of essence of spruce to give it a flavor, a cup of good yeast, a little lemon-peel if you choose, and, when fermented, bottle it up close. It is a delightful beverage in warm weather” (116).

As you can see, when I say that this book talks about everything, I mean it! :) Pretty interesting.

Probably the best part of last night is that I started reading Captivating: Unveiling the Mystery of a Woman's Soul, by John and Stasi Eldredge. They had to order it for me at Borders, because it is one of their "most-stolen books." Hm. But it came in yesterday, so I picked it up after my study session, and I began reading it as soon as I arrived home. I was entranced. When next I looked at my watch, it was 1:00am. In all those hours, I had only read 88 pages, because I kept bursting into tears and praying. At one point, I stopped and sobbed for five minutes. Literally, I sobbed, from my heart. I haven't let myself cry that hard for, well, a long time. Let's just say that this book has a lot of truth in it. It helps me answer the question that I've begged God to know: "Lord, why am I a woman?" Femininity is not just submitting or obeying. It is the heart of love and adoration from which these things arise. It is being loved, allowing others to love us. It is being beautiful, as beautiful as we can be, both inside and out, because beauty is a wonderful thing, and the world needs more of it. I am very, very thankful to Carrie B. for posting about this book on her blog and thereby inspiring me to read it. :) I have many more thoughts, and I may post them later, unless the Muse strikes me with something else in the meanwhile. I'm sure I'll be thinking about all of this for some time, however.  ¶ 10:37 AM (1) comments

  "Hush!" whispers the snow, without a sound,
And we hear.
We throw the windows wide to see
Whiteness fall easily from the heavens.
We would watch for hours
Were we yet again children,
But work demands attention.
Snowplows scrape past in the street.  ¶ 7:54 AM (2) comments

  Apparently, when I post things that are semi-intelligent, people will comment. :) That is encouraging. It prompts me to write out some of what I have personally learned about time. For quite a few years now, my life has been all about Achievement with a capital A. In high school, especially the last couple of years before I went to PHC, I was taking multiple Advanced Placement classes through distance learning and working for my parents. The year I was 16, I was competing as a team with my friends Nate M. and Jon B. in the year-long ThinkQuest website competition. I was also taking AP Computer Science AB, AP Macroeconomics, Latin III, and various other miscellaneous distance-learning classes - and working for my parents. On top of this, my mom was always asking me why I didn't work more. The next year, I took AP Calculus, AP US Gov't, AP Physics B, and AP Latin, along with finishing another year of science with the University of Nebraska-Lincoln, earning my TKD black belt, and helping my mom produce the next version of her curriculum guide.

Since I was used to working from morning to night, I moved seamlessly from home to PHC life. I knew how to study and how to look after my own interests. What I didn't know was where to stop with time commitment - or how to pray, or the value of true friendship, since I was quite sure I could handle all things on my own. I still remember how awkward I felt in my first wing chapel when everyone was praying out loud and I had to do it too. I didn't know - was I supposed to just sound pious, or what? But nobody could have known from looking at me what was going on in my heart.

So it's been a learning process, and God has been good. He took me, a damaged commodity, and turned me into an adult. This has required pain and disorientation, like setting a broken bone back into its proper place. I had thought I wanted to serve God before, but I had intended to control the process. I had tried to "help" Him with all my talents, on the theory that I would do something really famous and therefore "good" with my life. I had a 15-year plan, from PHC to grad. school to life as a well-known linguist.
But of course, God doesn't need help. All He wants from us is simple obedience. And the only way I could discover what this meant for me in particular was through prayer to Him and through reading the answers He had written in the Bible to answer my questions long before I asked them.

For all those previous years, I had always lived with a glooming sense of guilt. Whatever I did, there was always more I could have done. I think my posts from the summer of 2004 reveal some of this attitude. What I didn't "get" was that, if I could truly always do more, it made no sense to worry about it. I would be in the same spot every day, whether or not I worried. Why not just stop and take a look around me?

Now I'm starting to see that this guilt was related to my problem with authority. It made me miserable that I couldn't do everything, because I didn't trust God to use other people. I thought I had to be God myself. In reality, our time limitations are an incredible blessing. So long as we use our days wisely, it does not matter at the end if we do not complete everything we think we need to do. God gives us just as much time as He wishes.

The question then becomes, How do we find out how to spend time wisely?
God delights to pour out wisdom on those who ask for it... If we have not, it is because we ask not... Greatly blessed is the man who standeth not in the counsel of the ungodly ... But his delight is in the law of the Lord, and on this law doth he meditate, day and night. He shall be like a tree, planted by the rivers of water, that bringeth forth his fruit in its season

Augustine says that indecision is sin, because it is a fragmentation of wills. We have all heard that nothing can be turned unless it is moving. So I, in short, have learned to pray for wisdom, and then to move forward in activities that I can rationally determine are good. Occasionally - and these are the exciting periods - I am struck with the impulse to do something wonderfully frightening, something that I know I must do. Most of the time, I feel my way like everyone else.

How do I express this? I could sum up this whole, long post, just by saying that I am learning to be human. I will never know everything, nor can I make God tell me. So once I strive to understand, I can be content with the results of that day's striving, instead of wishing at the end for complete knowledge. I can just stop, give it all to God, and rest.

"There is a time for every purpose under Heaven."

You know, I wanted to write more about passing vs. spending time. But I didn't. So I shall have to save that post.  ¶ 11:34 AM (5) comments

  Not too long ago, people passed time. Now we spend time. One of my friends posted a link in his blog to an interesting article that talks about this. The topic interests me, because I've been reading Chesterton's Orthodoxy. One of Chesterton's major themes, in this book and in others such as Notting Hill, is that there are values in this world much higher than efficiency. We people, after all, are supposedly this world's rulers. Since we are the highest point of creation, our own personal growth and that of others should be our primary earthly concern. The human soul is what sets us apart from the beasts. Those things that grow the soul - contemplation, peacefulness, beauty - must therefore be more valuable than the mere accomplishment of many things.

Or to put it another way, if we run so fast that we don't have time to look at the world, how will we have time to discern the direction of the finish line?

This leads me to another thought, which is about the value of technology. As a history major, my personal philosophy of history is that every era as a whole has both good and bad elements. Humans always strive higher, but we have always been limited by our natures, so there is an upper range of what we can achieve. From this standpoint, then, I always look for the trade-offs in any culture. Anything especially good will probably have been gained at the expense of something else. And then the formerly good thing degrades, and a new experiment takes its place.
Right now, our be-all end-all is technology. Cars and planes take us everywhere faster than ever before. We can talk to anyone anywhere at any time, via cell phones or the Internet. In most instances, this is grand for convenience. But what does it do for us as people? Maybe God knew what He was doing when He limited Adam and Eve. Maybe He didn't want to make life convenient for us, because He knew that we wouldn't push ourselves to be our best if we didn't have to. Maybe, as Boethius says in his Consolation of Philosophy, there are two types of good, one of which is always in operation. Perhaps we are always at some sort of balance between having recognizably good things happen to us and being able to stretch beyond ourselves to become more human, more noble, patient, etc.

So would I give up my technology? No. I don't think it works quite the same way if you deprive yourself. That's sort of like committing suicide in order to learn how to be a martyr. So I'll appreciate technology while I have it, relegated to its place as a good thing. But if I ever lost my car and computer, that would be good, too. Perhaps I would be able to pass time, instead of doling it out in small, measured doses for various purposes.  ¶ 8:14 AM (6) comments

  First, I do not apologize for that bit of nonsense verse I wrote yesterday. It was the product of two whole minutes' dedicated thought, and it made me happy. I'm typing this, of course, because I feel for some reason as if I should apologize. But I refuse to give in.

Yesterday was excellent. I finished a fair amount of work for my parents and a fair amount of research for myself. Then I talked to my friends Nate M. and Christy S. on the phone for a while, had family Bible-reading time, and wrote four handwritten double-sided pages of a snail-mail letter to another friend, Jessica M. I discovered at the Borders cafe that the Republic of Tea's blackberry-sage hot tea is another new favorite.

Basically, I've given up on trying to research 3 hrs/day. That was a bad way to put my goal, because I do activities on many evenings. Since my project itself is only 8 credit hours, I only need 16 hours of research a week, not 18. I get two hours on Monday mornings after I drive my partially-handicapped brother to his college class, while I am waiting for it to let out. Wednesday evenings give me three hours or so. If I work in three more miscellaneous hours during the week and have another work day for myself on Saturdays, there's 16 hours right there. Plus, I have time for family, reading, exercise, and relaxation. Not bad.

Whoa. My annotated bibliography is due Feb. 20, and I have about 25 leads to trace at this point. Hehehe. We'll see. Good thing I chose not to go to the Frisbee tourney in AL.

Utterly randomly, do you know how cool this verse of Proverbs is: "To understand a proverb, and the interpretation; the words of the wise, and their dark sayings" (1:5, or somewhere around there). This verse strikes me a certain way - it sounds mysterious and a little sinister. I like it, with a particular shiver down my spine.  ¶ 8:53 AM (1) comments

  One little faerie once touched her nose
With her hinkledy pinkledy wrinkledy toes.
This made her a very undignified she.
T'was perfect behavior for a faerie.
For faeries, you see, have never been taught
To give up all that which as children they sought;
And children have all (almost all), far and wide,
Touched their nose to their toes -
Or at least, they have tried.  ¶ 12:28 PM (1) comments

  I'm beginning to doubt that anyone is reading my blog. Not that anyone needs to, since I don't publish anything of especially great value. Besides, I'm beginning to grow accustomed to my home life. It takes six weeks to build a habit, so they say. I arrived home 12/17. Since it is now - goodness! - the first of February, it has been 46 days since I was last at PHC. Therefore, I have broken the 6-week mark.

As Carolyn commented on Christy's blog, it is not really possible to keep up with everything at school and at home both. It's a little easier for me, since I'm just here. I don't have to fragment myself like Christy is doing. Still, when Lisa told me in a wonderful, wonderful personal email that she was impressed by my "living in the moment," I had to smile. It was for a long time a survival tactic, so that I did not drown in nostalgia.

But now I am starting to enjoy my opportunities wholeheartedly. Monday night, for example, I felt just fine after a classful of running, kicking, and 300 reps of jump rope. After last night's hour and a half of Frisbee, however, my calves are seizing up as I step. It is a lovely, lovely feeling. :) And choir on Sunday was delightful. They let me sing in the morning, though I had only run through the song with them once. It was a very simple unison - duck soup after Mr. Johnson and Chorale. Then we had an hour and a half of practice in the afternoon, before which I had taken the sibs to the park for frisbee tossing in glorious, 60-degree weather.

Last evening before Ultimate, I read some more of Chesterton's Orthodoxy in the Borders cafe and drank hot, vanilla-almond tea. After Ultimate and a shower, I memorized a bit more of the first chapter of Proverbs (I decided to memorize the whole book, with no definite time goal), and we had family Bible reading. Then I went to bed.

When I finally received my grades from last semester yesterday and opened them to find what I expected - my lowest semester GPA ever, by far, and two B-minuses - my mom patiently and lovingly talked with me for an hour and a half. My joys from last semester are my long quiet times, the dear little 2- and 3-year-olds I took care of Sunday mornings at church, the essay I wrote for the Herald about the honor code - and learning to accept my decision to come home. Further, I learned a lot, and I wrote three stories. Thinking back, by God's grace, I cannot imagine anything I should have done differently. Therefore, my grades are perfect. And I love my mom.

This evening is a study evening, because it is one of the few days of the week I do not need to exercise. At 5:00, I will again betake myself to the Borders cafe and sip vanilla-almond (or ginger-peach) hot tea, while I finish a fascinating collection of intellectual essays on homeschooling from 1991. For now, my heart is at peace.  ¶ 8:25 AM (3) comments