I had a bizarre dream that Muammar Gaddafi spent the night at my house. He slept on the futon, so my eldest had to sleep on the couch. He wasn’t there by my invitation, and I didn’t appear to have a choice in the matter, either. I wasn’t afraid of him (after all, I tend to be quite the bad@ss in my dreams), but I was not able to sleep because of concerns that our house would get bombed by people coming after him. Weird.
Prayer prompt for Thursday, Sept. 15
Pray for island countries in and around the Indian Ocean. Ask our loving Creator God to make himself known to the people there.
Note-taking
I’m not inebriated; I just have my own style of shorthand when it comes to note-taking.
My mom used to tease that I was bound to become a doctor or journalist. Well, I did kinda fit into one of those roles, at one point. 😉
I tend to take notes by hand as I read, then I transcribe (translate? LOL) them by typing them up in outline form in Word. That makes it easier to search for key terms later, when I’m working on essay questions, etc. Even though some of my exams are open-book/open-note, they are timed (ie, you log on to take the test, and the countdown begins), so you don’t have leeway to pause and thumb through the chapters to jog your memory; you have to have the answers at your fingertips and know the material well enough to find it in a jiffy. The write/type review works well for me as a study tool.
Aww, shucks – thanks for the Versatile Blogger Award!
Thanks 1,000,000 to SueBE at One Writer’s Journey, who just awarded me a Versatile Blogger Award. I’m humbled and honored to know that someone besides my mom and BFF read my posts. 😉 Be sure to visit SueBE’s site for writing tips, tricks & reviews!
The rules for accepting the award are as follows:
- Thank the person who gave you the award and link back to them in your post (did that above).
- Share 7 things about yourself.
- Pass this Award along to 15 recently discovered blogs and let them know about it (will get to that asap).
Now for 7 things about myself (that you may not already know from reading my blog):
- I can leg press 735 lbs.
- I once killed a cactus but have since learned to enjoy gardening (now that the boys are interested in growing things).
- I’ve lived on three continents.
- I have yet to finish The Lord of the Rings trilogy (but it’s on my must-read list).
- I once met author John Grisham at a literacy fundraising event. He signed my book – squee!
- When I have nightmares of being chased, I always end up flying away by swimming through the air … if I have to go really fast, then I roll over and do the backstroke.
- I held (still hold? idk) the community swim team record for backstroke. 🙂
Well, that’s a bit about me. I’ll work on the recommendations and include them in another post later. Thanks again, SueBE!
Writing Wednesday: Food scarcity
I loathe group projects. I’ve never liked them. I cried in the 6th grade when my English teacher made us self-select into groups, and my friends excluded me from their pairings, so I had to work with a BOY. (Oh, the drama.)
If I ever do become a professor one of these days, I will not assign group projects outside of the classroom unless absolutely necessary. I do think collaboration is a useful teaching tool, but when it comes to putting pen to paper (or fingers to keyboard), I think individual work is better.
All that is to say, my graduate professors are keen on group work. It would be different, perhaps, if we were all on-site and had the opportunity to meet at the library, etc., but we are scattered all around the country in different time zones, with different work schedules and home lives. It’s quite frustrating to try to coordinate who does what, when, how, etc. I am thankful that I’m not the team leader this go-round, but still — everyone’s input is necessary, and when I’m away from my laptop for a few hours, then I’m behind on the discussion and feel like I haven’t pulled my weight.
We did manage to finish a group policy paper on food scarcity in the U.S. this week, complete with proposed solutions and a timetable. The ironic piece of this problematic puzzle is that there is actually enough food produced in the world to feed everyone! There are so many interlocking factors that muddy the waters on how to actually get food to people who need it. Delving into this issue makes me appreciate my first-world problems like the grocery mega-store not having enough sugar-free bottled drinks for my kids’ school lunches. Don’t they know I need to buy at least 6 packages at a time?! 😉
Prayer prompt for Wednesday, Sept. 14
Ask God to intervene in the Persian Gulf, where Shariah law rules and conversion to Christianity could mean death.
Prayer prompt for Tuesday, Sept. 13
Pray for people in danger due to riots in Libya and elsewhere in northern Africa. Pray specifically for believers who cannot worship openly.
Air conditioner irony
The high today is still in the triple digits, but I’m wearing a sweater, because it is Freaking. Cold. in my office. There is a thermostat on the wall, but it serves no purpose except to taunt me–the actual temperature control is located in a neighboring office (which is, oddly enough, not nearly as frigid as mine). I have to pause from typing and blow on my fingers now & then.
You might wonder why I don’t call in a maintenance request. I used to, but I gave up. They’ve come to check on it numerous times over the past, oh, seven years that I’ve been in this office suite, but it seldom changes longer than a day or so. Then, it’s back to being cold again.
I am fully aware of what a whiny first-world problem this is. I should be thankful to have air conditioning. As I was grumbling to myself earlier (I’m the only one in the office today, so it’s ok to talk to myself), I was humbly reminded of a prayer request that I offered up last night. I came home from the grocery store and thought maybe I was just flushed from unloading the car, because it felt warm. 😦 We’ve had problems with our a/c again this year; if memory serves, the HVAC folks have been out three times. I stood in the hallway with my hand on the thermostat and prayed: “Lord, I know that it isn’t a huge thing in the grand scheme of the universe and there are bigger problems right now, but it would mean a lot to me if you would fix this a/c and spare me the expense, time and stress of having to deal with it again.”
I woke up in the middle of the night CHILLY! It was blissful. I said a thank-you prayer and then got to my office and complained about how cold it was. Sheesh – I think God must be shaking his head at me. He graciously answers my prayer at home, and then I am a total ingrate at work.
So, I hereby end my mumbling and grumbling about my frigid office and choose to be thankful. And, tomorrow, I’ll try to remember to bring gloves. 😉
Wedding cake
A dear friend from work got married on Saturday evening. As we were driving to the site, it dawned on me that only two of the boys have been to a wedding (& can remember it … No. 5 went to one as a baby, but I don’t suppose that really counts.) 😉
The boys were excited about going, but what really got me tickled was when No. 3 piped up: “I’m SO excited to have wedding cake! And not just a snowcone!” If that makes no sense to you, then you haven’t had the tasty treat of a wedding cake-flavored snowcone from Bahama Buck’s. It is one of the boys’ favorite flavors.
The wedding was outdoors, and we were blessed with a nice breeze and shade. The boys enjoyed playing with grasshoppers and running wild on the playground with a couple dozen other kids.
And, needless to say, the cake (red velvet with cream cheese frosting) was a BIG hit. 🙂
Monday Musings: Not feeling poetic
I don’t feel very
poetic at the moment.
‘Wrote one anyway.
I wish I had copies of some of the poems I wrote back in high school and college. I tended to write during emotional highs and lows, so my poems were either sappy and optimistic or full of brokenhearted teen angst. I guess the same still holds true; I tend to write when I need an outlet for stress or when I’m feeling particularly grateful. I started Monday Musings to make myself write, whether I felt like it or not. I guess today is a “not” day. 😉
faith, sweat & tears 