counting to ten - in svenska

A long, full, unusual Tuesday. Started early, tried to slog through the work before me, and kept having to backtrack. Got frustrated to the point of saying out loud, "This isn't my job!" But, I guess because it was up to me to do, it really was my job. I'm a bit of a complainer.

Tonight was my first night of a course I am taking at the University of Calgary; since I hadn't been in a class setting for a couple years I was a bit nervous. Refreshingly, delightfully, the instructor is cheerful, oddly humorous, quirky person, and I am looking forward to the next few months. The class (very stimulating title: Management Communications: Interpersonal Relations) has a light course load, but makes for a long Tuesday - work: 8 - 5 and class 6 -9. I am stoked to be doing it: I almost forgot how much I love learning.

Everywhere I drove today, I practiced counting in Swedish. I am still very poor at it, but I think I can count to 12 quite lucidly now. I am going to test it on the next Swede I see.

Got home, and being mentally jazzed up and generally energized, I cranked open the door to the winter night air, turned the stereo up just a little too loud, and danced myself into a lather in the living room. A perfect way to end a very adult day: Flailing in the dark living room with a smile on my face, lost in Muse's Black Holes and Revelations. I love being a crazy person. It's so liberating.

I am yet going to attempt to ingest another chapter of That Hideous Strength. Fantastic title, but I am only a couple chapters in. I very much enjoyed elements of the first two books. If anyone was interested I would elaborate but I won't kid myself.

In less than two weeks I will be heading to Missions Fest Vancouver: I have helped organize my work's "presence" there and will be fulfilling my role there as well. Definitely the best part about it is that Martin is flying out as well; he booked some holiday time, and is going to tap into the already-paid-hotel-in-downtown-Vancouver situation, and hang out for the weekend. Which means my weekend just got a heck of a lot lovelier.

Finally...my brain is tiring and I think I can attempt sleep. I am going to go give in a try, anyways.

bluster

A blustery Saturday afternoon, and I am trying to be as quiet as an over-large church mouse as Martin sleeps off his last night shift of a set of four. Poor guy - comes home tired out from a demanding night and gets pounced on by an eager, and somewhat insistent wife.


Hopefully he gets enough rest and we will be able to enjoy seeing our friends off tonight as they leave next week for a year. Sigh. This easy access to the world may have had a hand in me meeting Martin, however it certainly takes friends and family away from you very easily.















But next week will be a bittersweet week of goodbyes and hellos. My sister returns from Australia after a year. I am both anticipating and bit anxious - I am looking forward to hanging out and getting to know how we've changed over the last year, and not wanting to step on her toes or assume too much about our friendship. The elder sibling always has to watch that "bossy" tendency. Apparently I was quite bossy and possibly a bit mean-spirited as a child, so I must try to remedy this.














I am also trying to remedy this crappy weather with a few photos of El Salvador. It's not really working...

nostalgia

Well. Christmas is over, the new year upon us, and that brief break from madness is only a memory. I definitely was struck this holiday season by the, well, monotony of it all. And yet, it's not monotonous. We humans are blessed and cursed with short attention spans and even shorter memories. So it will be with gusto next year that I will participate in a similar routine to this year's. Gusto, I say, and possibly a bit of relish in there.

Yes, I love Christmas. And 2006 was a good one. I was able to spend more time with Martin than expected: He got Christmas Eve off, half of Christmas night off, and we were able to help out at the Mustard Seed on Christmas morning. It was relaxed, although getting up at 5:30 a.m. left something to be desired. I handed out Christmas presents, and hung out with the guests. I was impressed with the politeness, thankfulness, and honesty I encountered there. There are a lot of people out there who could learn a thing or two from people who are living on the streets, myself included. It was also very cool to see how Martin is loved and respected by the people he serves there, and how he is exactly where God wants him. I'd be lying if I said I didn't feel blessed to be his wife.

So I got to hang out with my husband, which definitely made the holiday. Our friend Rob visited for Christmas, which rocked. He is a funny, outgoing, honest guy, and from every conversation we have I learn something. I had a blast with him, and I don't think I've ever had a better house guest. He cooked a New Year's Eve dinner for seven that was divine.

I was spoiled with books and music, and have been indulging in both over the past couple weeks. Music: Radiohead, Jill Paquette, Muse, Demon Hunter. Books: The Gift of Fear, and Lewis' Cosmic Trilogy. (I am truly not a huge science fiction reader, but I have gotten into this series, because of course, he is a gifted descriptor and tale-weaver.) Receiving books is a reliable, and lovely part of Christmas. As are socks. Both, especially if the are funky socks, are part of my "holiday". As silly as it is, it's true. And I could not lie on my blog. Because we all know that blogs are entirely honest.

Did I mention Martin is taking me to Costa Rica in February? Oh, yes. And now that it's blogged, we all know it's true.

I think the fact that I am tired and sitting here hooded in a duvet blanket is making me ridiculous. And isn't all the more fun to be ridiculous when you can publish it for the world to see if they so choose. Although I am pretty certain a large majority will opt out.

And for anyone who actually made it this far into this nonsense, guess what? Now, you too can have a piece of Martin's mind. It is quite a sexy mind, if I do say so m'self. Your Piece

Friends, I hope you start the new year off on a good foot, and that it's not asleep from sitting too long in an awkward position.

P.S. Drew: Do you recognize the fireplace?

quechevo

I'm amazed that it's already Christmas Eve and this is the first moment's respite I've found to sit down at the computer. Between making mexican dip and dessert for Christmas day, I thought I could find a bit of time to write about my recent little adventure in Central America.

"Quechevo" is a Salvadoran Spanish equivalent of "cool". Having learned it from a friend who lived in El Salvador, it was put to good use while playing soccer with kids in a makeshift shantytown of people displaced by last year's earthquakes. I learned how to properly head a soccer ball from a 11-year old boy named Seryio. The ball many times ended up in the sewage filled ruts that ran along side the dusty road - we all made disgusted faces, but I didn't want to embarress them by not touching the ball. I scrubbed myself quite hard in my cold shower that night.

That is a brief picture of how I spent my time in El Salvador. Playing with kids, giving out soccer balls, toys, treats, and Christmas presents in shantytowns, impoverished enclaves, orphanages. We helped set up medical clinics and eyeglass clinics in these same communities, and part of our group helped with temporary housing construction.

The last night was spent on the coast, in a beautiful spot overlooking the ocean, volcanic rock and sand. I got up at 5 a.m. to sit on the cliff and watch the sun rise over the Pacific: The moment that molten ball of fire peeked over the horizon I shall never forget.

There are so many things to say,and I have such little time. Indeed, I have had very little time to even mentally digest all that I saw and experience. Arriving back to the North American Christmas has been interesting.

One thing I should not fail to mention is how wretchedly ill I became on this trip. Humbled to the point of vomiting into a filthy grate, kneeling on warm pavement as people pass by... That was indeed an experience I could have foregone, however, and experience it was. Poo talk at mealtimes became commonplace as we suffered stomach cramps and diarrhea, and for some of us, something I coined a term for: "The Double Exodus". I can't even imagine how aweful it would be to suffer and die from dysentry or cholerathat way.

That being said, El Salvador is a country struggling to stand and move forward. It's highways are surprisingly decent, cities bustling, a struggling tourism business along it's shores despite the caution issued to gringos. We were cautioned alot by the locals, but despite heavily fortified homes, armed guards everywhere, and alot of guns, it was a completely uneventful 10 days. Only one bag was stolen.

It's a country lush, hilly, with over 2,000 extinct volcanoes, dominating coffee and sugar exports, with tantelizing limes and pomegranets, kind, helpful people, and delicious 30-degree weather. I loved the change in humidity and the riot of roosters and wild birds as the sun rose at 6 a.m.

Sigh. Winter doesn't have it's same appeal at the moment, although spending time skating yesterday with Martin, Rob and Jordan was certianly lovely. I must rush off to find a decent outfit and finish the dip now.


Merry Christmas all. Those of you in Sweden we miss you very much, and I wish we were all together. Thank-you for the presents and cards and drawings.

May everyone find this Christmas quiet enough to hear His voice.

un dressed

Someone, whom I love and respect, once said that sometimes people know us better than we know ourselves. I often think about this. We are far more predictable, transparent, obtuse, and fragile than I think we think we are. But is someone "knowing" us only their knowledge, and consequently, their opinion, of our behaviour and speech? Then do they know us, or just see us differently than we see ourselves?

Like most people, I am sure, it is a pleasing, uncomfortable sensation when someone starts talking about how they see you, particularly when people are complimentary. Why is it so hard to accept a compliment sometimes? I don't mean flattery, but a genuine, thoughtful compliment? Why is it almost instinctual to cringe, brush it off with self-effacing remark?

Beyond the compliments or encouragements, though, I always find it so weird to hear how people perceive me. I met with the director of my department today to talk about where I was at and where I should go in terms of professional development, and it was a very strange thing to hear how he knew me. It's just so different than how I see myself, and one has to wonder what is the most accurate perception.

There have been people I have known who have so brilliantly deceived themselves about their own persona it's terrifying. Or maybe it was just that I thought they deceived themselves into believing they were many things that they in fact were not, but the reality was that they led people to believe the act they put on to cover gaping insecurities.

We live in a world of medicated reality, where the true and basest parts of "us" are couched in a manner swallowable. We find the politically correct ways of saying things, talk in circles, edit our photos, wear a lot of makeup, and pray in a different kind of language. I have heard Martin say that some of the most beautiful prayers he has ever heard were raw, first prayers, complete with expletives.

Which leads me to this reality: My God knows me better than I know myself, better than any other knows me, better than I will be ever known by human or by self. And what does he see? He sees me falling asleep when I should be praying, knows those moments where explosive anger is simmering and spitting on those around me, how I don't like some parts of the Bible, how sometimes fear of what happens after death paralyzes me. And he knows my heart's desires. Do I even know my own heart's desires?

Ah, well, much rambling thought with never any conclusion. How do we come to know ourselves? A good question for which to find an answer.