Tired. Very tired. Lonely, but content. How's that for paradoxical? Just finished watching Karate Kid. I like that movie. It made me cry. I think I would like to secede from the world right now and go live in eternity. One scene - Mr. Miyagi, the happy old man, is drunk. We find out that his past has not been so happy. He had a wife whom he loved. When he went away to fight for the U.S. in WWII, she was moved to an internment camp for people of Japanese background. She died from childbirth complications. This reached down to the depths of my soul. I don't have the words to explain what I grasped, and that makes it worse. Loyalty and goodness rewarded by death. Where have we heard that story?

Wrote 4.5 pages tonight. Total written: 7.5 pages.  ¶ 11:41 PM (1) comments

  10-page outline is finished and turned in. Good.
Ecce newsletter to lay out tomorrow before work. Good, but tiring.
Right knee hurting and will probably continue to hurt for a while. Bad.
Will put research for project into categories tomorrow night, preparatory to writing. Good.
Can travel to PHC for Liberty Ball. Good.
Probably can't dance at Liberty Ball if there, because of knee. Bad.
Probably won't injure knee more over next week and a half while waiting to hear MRI results, so long as am careful and don't do anything too arduous. Like TKD or running or Frisbee. Good and bad.
Talked to good friend Jessica Mormon on phone tonight. Good.
Missed talking to Nate M. out of necessity. Bad.
Everyone is too busy to comment on blog. Bad.
Self is too busy to think about this much. In a way, good.
Missed Bible reading tonight. Bad.
God loves me anyway! Stupendously wonderful!  ¶ 9:44 PM (0) comments

  Wow. Heeheehee... I now see why Nate commented on my blog a while back that he would be impressed if I managed to win an essay contest from The Nation magazine. I actually read a few articles on their website just now. They are radically on the left. I picked the topic of education, and I think my essay is quite good. I don't think it is the sort of radical they are looking for, however. Whatever. I needed to write it. It's not up to me to control the results.

Tonight I have some research to do. Tomorrow I will have to write my outline, so that I can turn it in on Wednesday. Wednesday evening, I will reorganize all the research I've done into the official categories on my outline. Beginning Thursday, I will be writing every day for three weeks - an average of four pages per evening. Yeeks.

At least I'm not scared any more. I think I can do this. God is good.

I will close with a bit of Erthe that I wrote this past week. I haven't touched Erthe for a while, but I needed to. This is the start of the chapter in which Pharr the Phoenix is explaining the true origins of the faeries and the leprechauns...

“You’re right,” sighed Pharr. “It is best to start instruction at the beginning. Everything else makes more sense then.” He sat down and settled his feathers comfortably about him. “Now, I was not here at the start, so what I am about to tell you I did not witness. I heard it from the King, who has been here before the word ‘before’ meant anything at all. The King created Erthe, you see. He made it from nothing – land, Ocean, stars, plants, creatures, and fays. He made fays last of all, female and male, winged and…” He paused and examined Susan’s face – “…wingless.”
Susan frowned. “How can you make something from nothing?” she asked.
“You can’t,” answered Pharr quickly. “The King can. He spoke, and things existed from his words.”
“I don’t believe you,” Susan said. “Faeries would know about this. Nobody’s ever mentioned it.”
Pharr shrugged. “None of the faeries ever mentioned that anything of any sort existed outside of Faerieworld’s valley, did they? Now did you want to hear about fays or not?”
Susan frowned harder, but she sat cross-legged to listen, still eating her sandwich.
“You seem to have missed one important detail I have given you so far,” Pharr continued. “I said that fays were made winged and wingless. This is true. He made the wingless one first. His name was Fay. The winged one was female, and her name was Aerie. At that time, they and everything else were perfect, just the way the King wanted them. The entire world was theirs to rule. The King had given them everything he had made, all so that they would love him and follow him with all their hearts. Further, there was no evil in Erthe. Fays were never cold, tired, or angry; no creature killed another. Nothing even died. The King enjoyed his handiwork so much that sometimes he would come here to walk with Fay. Fay and Aerie could even visit the King in his own realm, an unimaginably beautiful place. They possessed the gift of all fays – the ability to see Corners. To them, with their second sight, the King’s home was just as obvious as their own.
“They could have lived like that forever. But Fay and Aerie made a terrible mistake. Besides the Corner to the King’s home, the King had also made another. They could visit the King whenever they wanted and learn from him forever, so long as they did not go through this other Corner. If they did, the King told Fay, they would surely die.
“The two passed an unknown amount of years in this way, cultivating their lands and visiting with the King. Both Fay and Aerie could fly; though only Aerie had wings visible to first sight, all fays were originally gifted with special second wings of light, similar in essence to their second sight. These wings allowed them to fly in the warm air, soaring on the wind with the birds.
“But Aerie was curious. What worlds lay through the other Corner? She made a point of going by every day with Fay so that she could look at it. There was nothing wrong with looking. She never, ever intended to disobey the King, whom she loved very much, but the Corner fascinated her.
“One day, though, Fay and Aerie were passing by the Corner – and they heard voices from inside! They stopped and stared at it. It looking like a faintly glowing blue cube, as normal. But definitely, something was talking.
“’What’s it saying?’ asked Aerie.
“’I don’t know,’ Fay replied, anxiously pulling on her arm. ‘We should not be listening, anyway. Come away, Aerie.’
“’Oh, Fay, surely there is no harm in listening.’ And she moved closer.
“Fay loved Aerie very much, but he knew, deep down, they should have nothing to do with the voices. ‘No,’ he said. And then stayed where he was, watching her walk up to the Corner.
“Aerie scarcely noticed that Fay had not followed her. She listened with fascination to the voices, which were talking in words that made no sense. It was two males talking, for the tones were much lower, like Fay’s. Where were they? Just there – on the other side of the Corner. She wanted to see. The King had told them not to go through the cube. Surely, if one put one’s head in, that wasn’t the same thing. No sooner had she thought it then she was peering around the edge of the Corner’s doorway. She gasped and, after a second, pulled her head back.
“’Fay, I don’t understand! Everything is big on the other side,’ she called. ‘Why didn’t the King tell us that things were big? Much larger than us. Why are they larger than us?’ She put her head back around to look. And then, slowly, she stepped through and disappeared.
“Fay’s hand flew to his mouth, and he stared around himself in dismay. The King was nowhere to be seen – but what had Aerie done? She should not have gone through! The King had said so. But whatever did she mean about things being big on the other side of the Corner? Bigger than on Erthe? The King had said that he had given them a perfect world to rule. It didn’t seem possible that things could be any more impressive anywhere else, and yet…
“Aerie popped back through. She was grinning, and she carried with her a huge piece of cloth. ‘Look what the giants have done!’ she announced. ‘It is fibers of plants, all woven together. I have never seen anything like it! You must come, Fay. You can see that I am not dead. The King must have been mistaken.
“’The King is never mistaken,’ said Fay, but he took the piece of cloth. It was heavy and soft. He could easily see where the fibers crossed each other. ‘How do they do this?’ he asked in wonder.
“’Come and see,’ said Aerie. She took him by the hand, and he let her draw him to the Corner. At the entrance, he stopped for a second. Then he stepped through.
TO BE CONTINUED  ¶ 3:53 PM (0) comments

  PHC folks are just now getting back to school from spring break. Good for them; I didn't have a break this week. I've been spending my evenings all week at Borders, studying busily and trying to organize my thoughts. My outline still isn't written, but I have faith that it will be completed by my deadline on the 29th. Then the real fun begins. Frankly, I am intimidated. I'm sure I can write this thing, but I have only so much time in which to do it. There's still so much I could research, besides. I don't want to stop data-gathering in order to write the project. Some parts will be more vague and less well-informed than I, a writing perfectionist, prefer. I suppose that is the way of it, however. I cannot expect perfection in my first time doing something.

To make life more special, the troubles in my right leg have not gone away. I can reliably expect a loud click of knee items rubbing past each other as I stand up from a sitting position. Something is very much not right in there. The chiropractor says that it may be loose bits of cartilage. I did a bit of online research (hey, I'm in practice!), and that seems the most likely prognosis. It was probably my running. Apparently, I have several counts against me:
- Wide hips (i.e., female)
- One leg a little longer than the other
- Running shoes that were already doing strange things to my arches
- Running on a small, indoor, circular track, which exacerbates the problem of leg length discrepancy
- Increasing running intensity all at once
- Allowing quadriceps to become weaker than hamstrings, because both TKD and running use hamstrings much more.
So tomorrow, I am making an appointment with sports health people. They can do an MRI of my knee and find out exactly what I have done to myself. Once they have told me, I will know what must be done to make me better. Then I will be much happier.

An interesting event of the past few days is that I have learned how to run a microfilm machine. My mom happened to have a large folder of homeschooling articles from the '90s, and I found a bunch more from online databases. For the '80s, however, the databases only contain abstracts. So I had to visit the STL library system yet again and explore the wilds of the periodicals area. It was quite fun, but I discovered that the whirring left-to-right motion gives me a headache. I don't think my brain knows what to do with visual information delivered in such a way.

April looks to be busy. My mom moved her book deadline to the end of April, because we haven't even started laying it out yet. She's been too busy with other stuff, and besides, I think she's just as frightened of it as I am of my own project. This means, of course, a frenzied last-minute rush at the end of the month. My own project deadline is April 24th, but I'll be in Indiana for my last ISI conference as an Honors Fellow that very same weekend. Therefore, my real deadline is April 20th, with touching up on the 24th. As of now, I am also planning to fly in to PHC for Liberty Ball, which is the weekend of the 28th. I have a hunch that April will be gone before I know it.

Only four and a half months, and I'll be back to learning someone else's program of study. Back to rules, Honor Code debates, faculty worries. In short, back to battle. Hopefully, by then I will be ready. Meanwhile, I am satisfied to pray.  ¶ 6:07 PM (0) comments

  ISI Books sent me a volume, The Superfluous Men: Conservative Critics of American Culture 1900-1945, for free. I love it when they do that. This book is the best one yet; it is full of fascinating stuff. It includes essays from George Santayana, Henry Louis Mencken, Irving Babbitt, and many more. One in particular caught my eye - because of my current research project, I suppose. It is entitled "American Education," by Albert Jay Nock. I quote it here, along with my own observations.

On its moral and social side, our educational system is indeed a noble experiment - none more so. In all the history of noble experiments I know of none to match it. . . . But unfortunately Nature recks little of the nobleness prompting any human enterprise.

This wording is very apropros. Horace Mann and the other founders of the common schools called universal, free public education an "experiment." American education of the last 150 years is unlike anything that ever came before. It was a noble attempt to remove original sin. As such, however, it was already doomed to failure when it met the realities of human life.

The whole trouble is that the American system from beginning to end is gauged to the run-of-mine American rather than to the picked American. . . . The root-idea, or ideal, of our system is the very fine one that educational opportunity should be open to all. The practical approach to this ideal, however, was not planned intelligently, but, on the contrary, very stupidly; it was planned on the official assumption that everybody is educable . . . our system says, let them all come, and we will scratch up some sort of brummagem opportunity for each of them. What they do not learn at school, the college will teach them; the university will go through some motions for them on what the college failed to get into their heads.

This is true. Instead of giving all smart kids, even poor ones, the ability to be educated, the American system insists that everyone must be educated somehow. Since there are lots more stupid than smart people, the standard sits at a level the average person can achieve. There is no push to excellence.

[An] immediate effect [of vocationalism] is the loss, in practice, of any functional distinction between formative knowledge and instrumental knowledge. Formerly a student gave up, in round numbers, the first twenty years of his life to formative knowledge; his pursuits during this time were directed exclusively toward the being and becoming. This was the stated business of the school and college, and they kept him so busy at it that he hardly knew there was such a thing as instrumental knowledge in the world. He got his introduction to that later, at the university or technical school, where first he began to concern himself with the doing and getting.

Indeed. Youth nowadays hardly have a moment's reflection to consider who they are. I think this is the fundamental reason why most homeschoolers, even if they didn't realize it, originally pulled their children from the public schools. They sensed that their children were being harmed as people. This gets wrapped up in the whole central idea of American "democracy," because many people consider public education an essential element of democracy. Officials think that education is needed to unify a pluralistic society. Then the question is if people are taught to love their country or to be dependent on it. Those are two different emotions. One inspires firy devotion and action, the other apathy. But to truly love a country, a person must know that his country loves him. He must know who he is himself, and he must feel that he is respected and enjoyed in his country the way he is. He must have room to move and act. In short, he has to discover himself before he can really be patriotic. That is, I think, why homeschoolers are so politically active compared to the general public.

I could go on. There's lots more. But I need to save it for another post.  ¶ 8:18 AM (4) comments

  My day:

1am-9am - Fall asleep in my chair in the basement. Sleep very poorly, but too tired to remove self to bed.

9am-11:30am - Choir practice at church office. Not the best. Everyone seems a little tired or on edge. Run over three bars of our Handel piece about ten times.

11:30am-2pm - Arrive home ready to attack research, which have been thinking about all week and have had no time to do. Mom says she needs self to finish the last bit of the job in progress during the week. Finish job.

2pm-3:30pm - Try to start research and fall asleep again in basement chair, this time for real. Wake up slightly more alert.

3:30pm-4pm - Check email for the umpteenth time this day, although realizing everyone is either traveling or already preoccupied with spring break. No email. Feel very, very alone. Listen to mournful music. Spirits drop to almost their lowest extent as combination of PHC mess and not having started research yet today at 4pm.

4pm-5pm - Actually begin looking through many pages and files of notes in order to dump out important dates and facts for project, preparatory to sorting and outlining. Feel small and incompetent when faced with this mountain of details to be organized.

5pm-5:40pm - Pray for PHC, friends, the country. Pour out despair.

5:40pm-6:00pm - Eat an entire whole-wheat bagel with peanut butter instead of half, because in need of energy this evening. While doing so, in between bites, pack up laptop in one backpack and exercise clothes in another. Load them into car.

6:00pm-6:15pm - In transit to Borders, still feeling completely incapable of handling my project. Talk to God some more, this time about self. Realize that self is belying all prayers over the past few months, in which self told God that she trusts Him. This is Satan talking, trying to mess me up and keep me from getting my good work and prayer done. Of course self can write this project. God does not avert all tough times, but He is here through them. He is with self now, in car. Pray for joy and peace, and, just like that, despair lifts.

6:15pm-8:00pm - Finish reading through all my current notes and adding items loosely into the framework of future outline. See it take shape as visualize how many pages each section will take to write. Am energized as work comes together, and realize self is going to make true conclusions that nobody else has yet formulated. Can almost see the whole project in my head, though it is still full of disturbing holes.

8:00pm-9:00pm - Put project out of mind as self heads to the gym. Planned to run 2/3 of a mile and then do leg workout. Irritating clicking in right leg, which the chiropractor adjusted away on Friday, returns. Feel slight tingling in right kneecap, reminiscent of chronic knee troubles between ages 18-20. Desist from running after 1/4 mile, which hardly raises a sweat. Stretch carefully; no unusual tightness anywhere. Decide it is time to change leg workout, as have been doing the same weights routine for legs for two months. Perhaps part of problem? In new routine, take care to exhaust both quadriceps and hamstrings, hitting both inner and outer portions of legs. Finish 5 mins before gym closes; right knee not clicking as much. Still very disturbing to self, because have no desire to undergo knee troubles again.

9:00pm-10:00pm - Drive home. Consume glutamine supplement, in hopes of reducing muscle pain over next few days. Consume glucosamine/chondroitin supplement, in hopes of increasing joint lubrication. Eat strawberries and chicken breast in hopes of feeding muscles. Rejoice over new groceries bought by Dad in order to fill empty fridge. Hug little sisters. Write blog post.

10:00pm-10:40pm - Still to be experienced, but expect it will be family Bible reading.

10:40pm-11:00pm - STBE, but expect that self will take a shower.

11:00pm - If self is smart, will go to bed.  ¶ 7:22 PM (3) comments

  My heart is crying as I sing.
My tired eyes smile.
Not yet do I see God’s hands
But I feel their comfort.

These passing months, my heart has learned
To sorrow in security.
It is right to cry,
Though wrong to despair.

The end of one chapter begins the next.
God is the Author.
We are the pen.  ¶ 12:15 PM (0) comments

  I am so sad. Or, I was so sad. I cried everything out to God, and now I feel much better. Apparently, Drs. Noe, Culberson, Stacey, and Root have all resigned their teaching positions at PHC, effective the end of the semester. This means that the PHC Government major, formerly the school cornerstone, will be without professors. Dr. Sanders, acting Dean of Academic Affairs, has assured the student VP that they are confident they will be able to fill these positions before August. They probably can. But even so, this will mean change. I loved each of the professors who are leaving, at least in an agape (ah-GAWP-ay - it's Greek, meaning brotherly/sisterly love) sort of way. I respected them very much. It's hard for me to imagine PHC without them.

As soon as I heard the news yesterday, my prayer has been that this will cause my college to grow more than ever before. I pray that we will come together. The Lit and History majors have experienced difficulties from the start, after all. The only thing that has changed is that the Government majors are now the ones mostly affected.

I trust that God will use this event in ways we can't imagine at this time. I trust that great good will come out of it. He will not ever abandon us.  ¶ 4:19 PM (0) comments

 
Upsetting things are happening at my college. Four professors have resigned, reasons unknown. This is on top of previous student drama. If you know God, pray for my college!  ¶ 9:53 PM (0) comments

  Things I like (in no particular order):

- Plain yogurt mixed with grapes (my breakfast of choice)
- Sunny, cool spring days
- Sunny, warm spring days
- Windy spring days
- Hot summer days
- Rainy summer days
- Crisp fall days
- Being indoors on snowy winter days
- Hiking, esp. in fall and spring
- Sunrises and sunsets
- Long, swishy skirts
- Chocolate, particularly dark chocolate
- Mint-chocolate-chip ice cream
- A finished story, written by me
- Watching a good movie
- Sunday afternoons
- New journals
- Tae Kwon Do
- Ultimate Frisbee
- Talking with friends on the phone
- The colors pink, light green, orange, and dark red
- Comfortable khakis
- Singing
- Blogging
- Swimming
- Juggling
- Road trips
- Seeing new places in general
- Helping little siblings learn history
- Planting things
- Philosophizing
- Sleeping
- Praying

Things I don't like:
- ASE wars  ¶ 8:39 AM (0) comments

  My words are back. When they're gone, I can feel it. Ideas build up in unformulated masses in my head, and I have nowhere to put them. It is a constant pressure, a feeling that something is not right. I haven't exercised my linguistic muscle as much as usual during the past several months. I wrote 2800 words of Erthe, 1700 words on a strange science fiction story, and 2500 words of another, complete story. Besides this, I make these blog posts all the time, and I also write in my hard copy journal. But, except for the completed story, I haven't felt the spark. The process was a necessity for my well-being, but it wasn't beautiful. More importantly, it wasn't hard. My hard and complicated thoughts have gone unspoken and unwritten. Last Thursday, the stress of this hit me. I felt that there was no way I could possibly write my history project. 80-100 pages? Who was I kidding?

Thursday evening God and I had a long talk. I begged Him to give me the words. I told Him I would trust Him to do so. I also asked for renewed joy and peace. These latter He gave so quickly that I knew the words would follow.

They have. All last week, I was writing reviews of homeschool products. I completed another 5500 words or so of these. At first, it was very slow. I would read a book and think about it, but the connection between my thoughts and their expression was clogged. I had to consciously push the barriers aside and ask myself, "What am I thinking, and why?" It was like searching for a pulse in my wrist.

Somewhere in the center of me, my soul sits. When I am writing well, I sense it and I know it is satisfied. It isn't a feeling, or at least not a feeling alone. It is a combination of all factors, from logical completion to unique artistic voice. I know it when I find it in others' writing, and my life's goal is to reproduce it in my own. So the last week, when I was working for my mom, God was thawing the passageways to my soul so that my words could flow through without freezing.

I felt this last night in Borders as I began to write an essay for The Nation's contest. The contest essay is supposed to be about the greatest issue my generation faces. I chose education, and I asked God for the words. Thoughts began to flow, and I started writing. I probably will not keep most of what I wrote last night, which is normal for me on the first draft of complex essays. But the important fact is that it was sheer joy even to try to write out some of what I've been thinking about education. I have to formulate these very same thoughts coherently for my history project!

So you see, God is working me up to being able to put my project into words, and He was doing so even before I begged Him for help on my stressful Thursday! I trust Him. Even more than that, I am looking forward to writing my project! It will be such a relief to me when the pages start filling.

Before I close...
Distance run last night: 1.1 mi.
Time for mile: Somewhere around 9:30? I didn't time, but it was much faster than last week all through, and I sprinted the last lap.
Could I have done more? Unlikely. After I sprinted the last lap of the mile, it was all I could do to jog one more lap before I had to walk.  ¶ 7:27 AM (1) comments

  This morning, as I sat in the nursery at church, holding a tiny girl in my lap and listening to the moms gossip, I reflected that I really know very little about being a woman. I am pretty much a master at childhood, having gone through it all from beginning to end, and remembering much of it. I feel incredibly mature and polished when I am with the teenagers. But everything turns around with the women, and I feel awkward, young, and a little foolish. There they are, some of them only a few years older than me, talking about their babies and their hubbies. Someone knows someone who has an attack of shingles. "Oh, my cousin had troubles with that. Here's what she did." My baby's right eye is runny. "Oh, my grandson had the same thing, and we..."

You get the idea. It's a different world. Where does a single, unattached college girl fit? I'm an anachronism. So what if I've read Plato? So what if I have been learning huge gobs of history in the past few years, things I never understood were important in the previous 20 years of my life? These ladies don't want to talk about ideas when there are real, live babies to feed and cuddle and chase. Since I have no baby of my own, I can do little but listen.

And that, I suppose, is all right. I truly am ignorant. It is good not to talk.

In other news, I might come back to PHC for Liberty Ball after all, since I hear it is being scheduled for the weekend after the graded draft of my history project is due. It just so happens that I have enough Frequent Flyer miles saved on American Airlines for a free ticket. Even my mom, amazingly enough, thinks it could be a good idea. So we'll see.  ¶ 8:53 PM (5) comments

  Missouri weather has been very strange today. It was over 80 degrees earlier, and now it is getting dark prematurely as clouds move in. This is thunderstorm weather, if I've ever felt it.

My entire day has been off kilter so far. I planned to research all day and finish up the two library books I still have out. They are central to the homeschool movement - one by David Guterson and one by Chris Klicka - so I need to finish them before I start piecing the whole project together next weekend. I had barely started research this morning before my mom called me upstairs and told me that I must review my younger brother's entire Latin course with him so that he could take his final test. Had he been memorizing his vocab? No. Did he know his conjugations? No. After a stormy bit of that, "we" determined that he would write himself some flashcards, and that we would review Latin together for 20 minutes every morning for the next two weeks before I begin work.

That settled, I happened to glance across the room and notice that my little sisters were wearing nondescript black shirts. Again. They assured me that these were different black shirts, but this led into an investigation of their entire clothing situation. They needed a clothing trip, as did the same younger brother. So for the last 3.5 hours, I have been wandering the reaches of Wal-Mart with two sisters and a brother in tow. We were all exhausted when we were done, so naturally we had to stop for ice cream on the way home. I think I need a nap.

It's interesting how God sometimes takes days in directions entirely different from the ones I have planned for myself. This Saturday has felt extremely rewarding, though none of it was for me. So far, it has been a good day.  ¶ 3:42 PM (1) comments

  Forget pithy posts. Forget intelligent comments. I would like to say, "Ow!" Thursday is sparring night at the dojang, which means that we do calisthenics half the class and then suit up in leg, arm, chest, and head pads so that we can whale on each other with varying amounts of skill. Normally, I love sparring, because I do well at it. Tonight, I came into class feeling unhappy and tired. TKD usually perks me right up, but not tonight. I was listless and dull, and I didn't really want to do anything. So naturally, I stuck my hand up whenever the instructor asked for volunteers. Why not? So long as I was there, I had nothing better to do.

So the first time, before he started asking for volunteers, I got this teenage boy who is full of aggression and has very little control. The top of his bony foot collided several times with the muscle on the outside of my left leg just above my knee. It made a lovely *crack* sound each time, because that is right where the padding stops.

Second time, I volunteered. The instructor asked me to pick someone to spar. I looked at them all, standing against the wall and watching, and I just plain didn't care. So I asked him to pick. He chose this one middle-aged (and very nice) dude who is almost a foot taller than me, and who must weigh 250 pounds! To hit him on his chest pad, I already was kicking almost at my head level. He has a tremendous reach, which meant that I had to stay inside it as much as possible, which meant constant aggression. Somewhere in that match I jammed my big toe very hard, though I didn't notice it until the match was over. Also, he side kicked me in the hip by accident.

Third time, I volunteered again, and again I got a big guy. At least he was a normal-sized big guy - only 6' 1" - so things were a little easier. But I must have done something to my ankle, because it was twinging when I walked back over to the wall.

So let's see... My hip is already purple. The side of my knee does not look bruised, but it is very tender when I poke it. The top of the same knee is still imprinted with the pattern from the inside of my knee pad, though I took it off more than two hours ago. My left ankle has a small swollen spot just under the anklebone, and it twinges when I step on it. My left big toe, and in fact the whole top of my foot, is stiff and sore when I bend my toes back. The top of my right foot is still bruised from Monday. In short, I am a mess, sore both outside and inside. And in some odd way, my outer pain makes me feel better.  ¶ 7:34 PM (1) comments

  Oh, goodness. YLCF.org stuck a comment I made on an earlier post into another post and linked my name to this blog. I hope nobody clicks on my name and comes here, because I have said nothing pithy for at least a week. I have thought pithy things, but they required such arduous effort even to compose in my mind, that I have refrained from putting them into words.

Just in case, I would like to say that I have been reading Horace Mann on education. He was an idealist who inspired Massachusetts to introduce this country's first set of compulsory school laws in 1852. In the context of modern schooling, his words are full of bitter irony. He was convinced that free public education for all was the harbinger of Progress, a tool able to do what nothing before had done: change human nature for the better. Here, in his words, is a great summary of the entire American experiment of public education:

"The unrestrained passions of men are not only homicidal, but suicidal . . . As for every new substance there may be a new shadow, so for every new law there may be a new transgression . . . The race has existed long enough to try many experiments for the solution of this greatest problem ever submitted to its hands . . . Mankind have tried despotisms, monarchies, and republican forms of government. They have tried the extremes of anarchy and of autocracy. . . . They have established theological standards, claiming for them the sanction of Divine authority . . . But to all doubters, disbelievers, or despairers in human progress, it may still be said, there is one experiment which has never yet been tried. . . . It is expressed in these few and simple words: 'Train up a child in the way he should go, and when he is old he will not depart from it.' . . . Education has never yet been brought to bear with one hundredth part of its potential force, upon the natures of children, and, through them, upon the character of men, and of the race."

This makes me sad in the very depths of my heart, the same way I feel whenever I think about the Fall. Most of America became possessed with the idea that education might be the panacea for which the entire human race has sought. It could clear away the darkness of ignorance, creating a new, enlightened people. That's us. We are the enlightened race - dumber than ever before.
Then Mr. Mann adds this, to defend himself against people who say his proposed common schools are non-Christian:

"In this age of the world, it seems to me that no student of history, or observer of mankind, can be hostile to the precepts and the doctrines of the Christian religion, or opposed to any institutions which expound and exemplify them; and no man who thinks, as I cannot but think, respecting the enduring elements of character, whether public or private, can be willing to have his name mentioned while he is living, or remembered when he is dead, as opposed to religious instruction and Bible instruction for the young."

Oh, how the times have changed! It is enough to make one very humble indeed. How could Mann have foreseen how his ideas would change the picture of America - into something horrific that he would never, ever have desired? It makes me think about homeschooling now. Back in the 19th century, Mann pushed public education specifically because of the evils caused by parents who did not care in the slightest whether their children ever learned anything. I guess the lesson we should learn is that, in this fallen world, every system has its upsides and its downsides. Anyone who insists that his or her ideas will solve every problem is lying.  ¶ 8:30 AM (4) comments

  I found this quiz on Nic Isley's xanga. It looked like fun.

1. Grab the book nearest to you, turn to page 18, find line 4. Write down what it says: Um, I am surrounded by books, in a semicircle around my chair. Here's one. It says, "ence is critical to their children's learning. More than half of" That was exciting.
2. Stretch your left arm out as far as you can. What do you touch first?: A little bitty beach ball about a foot in diameter and a pack of Dentyne Ice gum.
3. What is the last thing you watched on TV?: Oh goodness. We don't have a TV. I was watching some Smallville TV shows recently, though.
4. Without looking, guess what time it is: 10:04am
5. Now look at the clock. What is the actual time?: 10:04am! Gosh, I'm good. Of course, I last checked at 10:00am.
6. With the exception of the computer, what can you hear?: The furnace is humming in the right-hand corner of the basement. Someone is running water upstairs; I can hear it going through the pipes. Rain is falling.
7. When did you last step outside? What were you doing?: I was running through the rain to my car about an hour ago. I went to the gym to talk to the guy in charge of the weight-loss competition, and found I was out of the contest because I missed a weigh-in last week when I visited PHC.
8. Before you started this survey, what did you look at?: Nic Isley's xanga.
9. What are you wearing?: Black exercise pants and a pink, tye-dyed t-shirt with birds and flowers on the front. Ah, the joys of sitting in my basement at home.
10. Did you dream last night? If so, what did you dream?: I cannot remember dreaming, though I'm sure I must have.
11. When did you last laugh?: When I read Nic's xanga.
12. What is on the walls of the room you are in?: White paint, yellow paint, and bookcases.
13. Seen anything weird lately?: I've seen lots of human beings. I've seen the story I'm writing about alien tulips.
14. What do you think of this quiz?: Like most of its kind, I would never have written it, but I am happy to answer it.
15. What is the last film you saw?: I watched Serenity partway with my roomies this past week before I fell asleep. The last movie I watched all the way was Eight Below in the theatre.
16. If you became a multi-millionaire overnight, what would you buy first?: My parents' house, and give it to them. I can't really think of anything I need, except travel expenses for trips I would like to take.
17. Tell me something about you that I don't know: This is my blog speaking, I assume. Here is something most people don't know: A lot of life scares me.
18. If you could change one thing about the world, regardless of guilt or politics, what would you do?: There's too much, and who knows the repercussions? But I would outlaw abortion.
19. Do you like to dance?: Well, yes. But it's a lot more fun with a guy, and I presume it would be mountains more fun with the right guy.
20. George Bush.: Is this a question? I have few opinions on the man, because I am astoundingly ignorant of current events.
21. Imagine your first child is a girl. What do you call her?: How on Earth would I know until I saw her?
22. Imagine your first child is a boy. What do you call him?: My dad's name.
23. Would you ever consider living abroad?: I would if I had to, but I like America.
24. What do you want God to say to you when you reach the pearly gates?: "Welcome home."  ¶ 8:00 AM (0) comments

  This evening, I ran a mile. A whole, stinkin' mile. I was so happy! (Fine, laugh... I haven't run a whole mile since the end of last summer.) Of course, I did it in more than 10 minutes, but hey. There's room for improvement. I probably would have broken 10 minutes, were not my legs already so sore from yesterday's TKD class. My breathing was OK; I wasn't really coughing up a lung yet.

The main reason I am so happy about this is that I have been too cowardly to go for the mile up until today. I knew it would hurt. At my gym, 9.5 laps around the indoor track is a mile. Since I purchased my membership, I've been slowly working up, doing a little running as a warm-up before my weights sessions. It was difficult for me to complete two of these laps when I started. The last few times I did a 6-lap warmup. This session, I just went ahead and did the mile. It was hard, but definitely not impossible.

Of course, now I have no excuses. I will have to repeat the awesome feat later on this week. From now on, God willing, I will add a lap a week, until I reach two miles, and then two laps a week. If I can continue this, I will regularly be running two miles by mid-May, and then three miles by the end of June. I would love that. I have never run three miles without stopping. I am not formed especially well for distance running, although I can sprint very quickly for short distances.

God is good. He is how I finished the mile. After lap 7, I was praying all the way. :)  ¶ 8:18 PM (0) comments

  I want to post about Tae Kwon Do class. I absolutely, positively love my martial art. It is one of my true joys in life, something at which I hope to improve until all my joints become arthritic with age. It was in TKD class that I first learned one of life's important truths - I'm not, nor will I ever be, the best at everything. I'm not built to be a top athlete in TKD, but I do the utmost I can with what I have. And what I have is heart. Anyone from my dojang's competition team, the people who live and breathe Tae Kwon Do, could kick me around in circles until I was dizzy. They could probably knock me out. They would defeat my body, and I would bow at the end of the match and respect them for it. But they could never defeat my soul. I know this, because I have actually gone through such sparring matches. Therefore, I think, deep inside, that if we were fighting for something that really mattered and I had to win, I would find a way to do it. That's how life is - you pick your battles. And I have never been led to center my entire self around physical training and Tae Kwon Do.

Still, the martial art is beautiful, and it makes you very aware of what all your limbs are doing at any time, where each part of your body is. It also makes you conscious of the other people around you - where they are moving, and how. It helps you turn, in the middle of running full-tilt one way, and dash back in the other direction on a moment's notice. In short, Tae Kwon Do is awesome!

Tonight, we warmed up vigorously and then went straight to some running drills. After this, we started our real work - paddle drills. Kicks moving forward, jumping backwards, jumping and kicking in one movement across 10' of floor, kicking at head level or higher and balancing to do another kick in the same spot a second later... Ya. And then we had two 30-second kicking drills, which quite simply means that you do as many roundhouses as possible in 30 seconds. Since you are competing against yourself for that one, it is hard for everyone. The most I managed was 39 good kicks during one of those 30-second periods.

Ha. I glanced at myself in the big wall mirror afterwards, and quickly wished I hadn't. My face was lobster red, my hair in its ponytail fuzzy and messy, and my dobak disheveled. But goodness, it felt wonderful! All except the top of my right foot, where I'd kicked my brother's knuckles. That would be my badge of honor for the week.

I guess I am pretty good at TKD altogether, which also probably helps explain why I like it so much. And yet I am not very good, but I am constantly getting better. There is always more to learn. Perhaps that is the truly awesome part. There is always more to learn.  ¶ 6:30 PM (0) comments

  "Discombobulated but happy" describes my mental state nicely. I slept until 10:30 this morning, woke up and worked in a desultory fashion until 5:00, forced myself to go to the gym, enjoyed my workout and was glad I went, sat in Borders for a little while and read part of The Republic and the School (a collection of the writings of Horace Mann, a founder of public education), and then drove home.

Last night, my sisters and I watched the newer version of Pride and Prejudice with some of the youth group girls. Gosh, they were silly, but I joined right in. It was fun.

You know, I suspect that I am not as broadminded and open to different sorts of people as I had thought. Sure, I talk to everyone, but I realized this evening that there is a subtle difference in how I talk. It comes naturally to me to ask many people about themselves, but with some I sort of... forget to do that. If I feel uncomfortable with a person and am unsure that they want to talk to me, I don't reach out as much. I think that, if a person seems somewhat hostile to me, I am honestly not as interested in what he or she cares about - their motivations for living, if you will. I am shocked to notice this in myself. I want to love people more, but sometimes it is hard to know how to do it.  ¶ 6:12 PM (1) comments

  In addition to the previous post, I want to talk about something awesome that happened on Thursday, just before I headed west. I didn't check my email the entire time I was at PHC, until 11am, just before I intended to go to lunch. In the middle of the normal stuff was a nice note from Dr. Sanders, sent that morning, saying that hadn't heard from me in a while and that she was wondering if all was well. I was touched, and I debated whether I should go talk with her right then or just go eat lunch. I was planning to start driving as soon as I was done eating, so I couldn't decide whether to take the time for a conversation. But as I walked upstairs and was about to enter the dining hall, Dr. Sanders passed by.

"Hello, Dr. Sanders!" I said, making my decision quickly. She was surpised to see me, like everyone else, and she invited me to her office. We ended up talking for over an hour - about everything from PHC life to my project to language study to God. I cannot express how encouraging it was. I've been sporadically praying for her for over a year. Now I feel more than respect. I like Dr. Sanders very much. :) :)

Now, here's the really neat part. Dr. Sanders repeated several times in an amazed way that for some reason she had woken up that morning with the idea that she should email me. I don't think she's ever sent me a similar email before. She had no idea I was on campus. If I hadn't checked my email before I left, I would never have received the message. If she hadn't walked by just when she did, I would probably have chosen to eat lunch at 11:30 and depart earlier. So, although I have no idea exactly what God wanted that conversation to do, I am certain that He wanted it to happen. Unfortunately, it caused me to miss saying goodbye to some people, but God wanted that to happen as well. (If you are those people - goodbye! There.) ;)

Christy: We are both so blessed to be able to help our families.
Lisa: You are a great friend. God will take you through the play and out the other side. Thank you for the encouraging conversation.
Joanna and Deborah: Talking with you two is a haven of rest.
Roomies: Y'all are immensely patient, hardworking, and loving.
Will G.: I suspicion that you read my blog. If not, of course you cannot disabuse me of the notion, because you will never see this.  ¶ 2:41 PM (2) comments

  I rolled into the home driveway right on schedule. My brain was buzzing with PHC stuff all the way home. There are so many things I am dying to type that I just can't. Frankly, after sitting here and stewing for several minutes, I have decided that I can't write about 'most anything I did or thought while I was there. So I shall stick with the bare minimum. It would about sum it up to say that I talked with several dozens of people, visited several classes, spent an hour or so with each of my closest handful of friends, and generally enjoyed being the center of attention. I felt really bad about how busy everyone else was, but I was thankful for any time they could give me.

Arrgh! *frowns at nobody in particular* This post is proving harder to write than I had thought. I will close by saying that I was glad to visit, and I am also glad to be home now. I do believe I am learning "in whatsoever state I find myself, therewith to be content."

** Addendum: Hahaha at self! I hadn't realized that the last sentence could be taken both literally and figuratively.  ¶ 2:02 PM (1) comments

  Whoa. I didn't expect life to move so fast quite so suddenly. Sunday afternoon, I was preparing a double-strawberry pie for the potluck at church. 15 minutes before we drove over for the potluck, I had a discussion with my mom about my planned PHC visit in mid-March. 10 minutes later, she suggested that, because of her book deadline at the end of March, I make my visit right now. As in, literally, start driving. I went to the potluck, left early, and did my laundry. By 7:30pm I was on the road. By midnight, with the help of Mountain Dew, I had reached Louisville. At 6:30am, I was driving again, and by 5:15pm on Monday I was at college.

It was a lovely visit, though people were very tired and very busy, as normal. I'm not home yet; things haven't stopped moving. I'm in a little ghetto Kentucky town, enjoying the free wireless at my shabby Days Inn. (Isn't that a sign of the times - chipped paint in the lobby, and free wireless?) I'm tired, but about as happy as can reasonably be expected. God willing, I will park Thing in the driveway at home some time around 2pm tomorrow.

Heehee, people reacted wonderfully when I arrived on campus. I'm not sure whether I or they were more startled to find me there.

Anyway, my eyes are closing. I should sleep.  ¶ 8:09 PM (3) comments