There's A Theme to Vacation

For those who don't know the story of how my brother came to our family, here is the abridged version: My senior year, there was a Chinese foreign exchange student who had multiple host homes fall through and nowhere to live. I'd never met him, but felt bad for the kid, so I went home after rehearsal one night and asked if we could give the kid a place to stay for a couple of nights. In a matter of an hour, we had decided not only to let him stay, but to let him stay for the entire year. We knew nothing about him, other than the fact that he was a junior and played the violin. It was a Thursday night. We didn't have a bedroom for him. That weekend, we made a bedroom. Sunday night the exchange coordinator brought him to meet us and Monday they literally dropped him off on our doorstep. Most kids bring home dogs and ask to keep them. I brought home a Chinese kid.

By the end of the year, Kevin was part of our family. He had a sister and American parents and we had a Chinese brother & son. I'm not too macho to admit that I started crying when we pulled out of the driveway the day he flew home. Fast forward two years and we flew out to Sate College, PA to get him set up for college at Penn State. He came home for Christmas or Thanksgiving every year. And two years ago, his mom came home with him for Christmas.

This weekend (time flies), Kevin graduated from Penn State. It seemed only appropriate that we were there for graduation - after all, he's the brother/son. So we came. His Chinese parents were there, too. It was great to see mom again and great to finally meet dad.

When we got here Thursday, Kevin took us around campus and showed us some of his favorite places, then took us to the Nittany Lion Inn for dinner. The Nittany Lion Inn is a beautiful, historic hotel & restaurant on the oldest part of campus. The architecture of the building has been well-preserved and is absolutely beautiful. The menu is full of classics - all with a modern twist. Dinner was absolutely divine.

Yesterday was a very busy day. We started with breakfast at The Waffle Shop, a family-owned place with a great breakfast r. I'm told I missed out on the best omlettes, but it's called The Waffle Shop! I ordered waffles! After, we walked around campus and took family photos of Kevin in his "robe and crown." That's where Kevin's mom, Ling, really cracked me up. She insisted on lots of photos with her and I and nobody else. Yep. I have a Chinese mom.

Lunch reservations were at a little modern cafe called Zola. The burger dad ordered was bigger than his head. My crab cake was incredible and both moms had a chicken panini that had carmelized onion and Gouda cheese. Delish. After a short nap, we went to graduation! There were 1100+ students graduating from the engineering school, but I was impressed with how efficiently and quickly the ceremony ran. Never have I been more proud of anyone than I was of my brother as he walked across that stage last night.

After, we went out to a traditional Chinese dinner (at midnight, mind you). Are you starting to see a theme to this vacation? Yeah. Me too. Good thing we did so much walking and calorie burning yesterday.

We said goodbye to our boy last night, knowing that he will likely be home this summer. But we probably won't see long and Yi (the Chinese parents) for a long time again. And that makes me sad. Because, you know, family isn't always blood. Sometimes, family are the people you trust and love and help through anything, no matter what. Kevin is my family. And because Kevin is my family, Ling and Yi are also my family. I'm proud to say that I have parents in two different continents, two different cultures and two different families. Because you can never have enough family.

It's Been A While

It's been a while since I last posted... There's been plenty to write about, but no time to write! Between all of my travel for work, a couple of falls and injuries and the mountains and mountains of homework I've had, I just haven't had a chance. So since I'm at lunch alone today, I decided it was a great day to write a post from my phone.

I am so excited and proud to be a Coloradoan this morning. Just a short while ago, the House had a final vote on A civil unions bill that the Senate passed last week. After a quick signature from the governor, Colorado will join the ranks of the great states who continue to pave the path to equality. There's still work to do, but this is huge.

In other news, I've been working on a series of three essays for my English class about abuse in the Church. So far, I've explored the impact of sexual abuse, spiritual abuse and abuse through non-disclosure and what can be done to prevent each. It's been really interesting! What may be more interesting though, is how much the way I physically write my papers affects them. When I type my papers, the seem jumbled, disorganized and choppy. If I sit down and write them pen to paper, they are smooth and follow logical thought patterns. It's so bizarre.

I'm almost done with lunch, so it's time to sign off for today, but hopefully ill be able to do round two later this week! It feels so good to write for fun again!

Answer The Stupid Question

For anyone in an academic setting who reads passages (or watches videos) and then responds to a question having to do with the passage, there is a simple process that I highly recommend.

1. Read the question.
2. Read the passage (or watch the video).
3. Re-read the question.
4. Respond to the question.
5. Read the question again. 
6. Ask yourself "Does what I've written answer the question?"
7. If so, congratulations. You're ready to move on. If not, go back to step 3 and repeat.

I just spent an hour of my life reading all the posts of my classmates. The following was the question: 

"Discuss whether or not the "experiment" conducted by What Would You Do? is valid.  What similarities does the set-up have to an experiment?  What differences does the set-up have to an experiment?  What conclusions can we draw from the set-up?  What is the hypothesis in this set-up?  What are the independent and dependent variables?"

These are the types of responses I read (which I have paraphrased for you):

This is definitely a valid experiment. They found that when a white man was stealing the bike from the park, nobody would call the cops. But when the black man stole it, everyone called. People are so racist. Also, the black guy had baggier pants and wore his hat different than the black guy.

Thank you for telling me what I already watched. But that wasn't the point. You've missed the mark. Go back to bed and try again. And tomorrow, for the love of all things Holy, ANSWER THE STUPID QUESTION!

Week 1: Done

I survived my first week of school! And yes... I passed my math quiz. =] Thanks to my lovely, wonderful, math-inclined (nerdy-but-I-love-her) friend Suzi. In my psychology class, we're discussing nature vs. nurture and which is more powerful. This afternoon, I got into a discussion about how most major world religions weigh in on the debate. While most of the class got really into talking about feral children (based on a video we had to watch), he and I were talking religion, spirituality and the basis of values... It's pretty interesting!

In Comp this week, we've talked about open and closed writing, as well as the importance of a good question and the balance of creative writing and critical thinking. Not much too interesting to report there, except that one of my classmates posed the example of a blog being one of the best balances. I'm still not sure that I necessarily agree with that, but I'm exploring the idea.

And oh, that dreaded math quiz... I passed it last night with a 90%. I understand it now! I got 2 questions half wrong, both on graphing. I'll have to go back and try to figure those out before the first test, but from here on out, I'm done with that part of it. I got all of the solving linear equations by substitution and addition right, and that looks like all we use from this point forward, so I really don't care. Seriously... when is a hospice chaplain going to have to solve a linear equation by graphing? I think never.

For as worried as I really was about being able to get back into the swing of things, this week has been fairly smooth. I only had one freak-out and panic moment with the whole first math quiz fiasco and I got through it just fine and relatively stress-free. And I even got to go out last night and spend some time in downtown Loveland - which has some great nightlife, if you haven't checked it out. Tomorrow starts another week... Here's to a second as good as the first!

Math Sucks!

Haha... I will never forget my first day of AP math in high school... We body graphed to this Jimmy Buffet song. MATH SUCKS! And tonight, it's my anthem.

Really, though. It's killing me! I'm at least ten hours into this assignment and I just can't figure it out... We're supposed to be solving systems of linear equations by graphing, addition and substitution. There are the examples in the textbook, which relate to about half the problems. Our assignment is actually on a web-based program called MML+, which is incredibly sporadic and in-concise. This afternoon, I was solving and the problem was written in decimal form, to the tenths. The instructions said to answer in decimal form or an integer. So I answered in decimal form to the tenths. Nope. Says it's wrong. So I changed my answer to a fraction and resubmitted. Nope. Still wrong. After  you try twice, it won't let you try anymore, but it gives you the answer it's looking for. It rounded. It never told me to round anything! And on the next step of the same problem? Yep... It wanted a decimal! Make up your mind, stupid program!

I finally got the homework portion done and was feeling really good about it... I'd done some book work, since it was all I had to practice that wasn't crazy and I'd gotten all the book problems right. So I decided while I was still in the swing of it and feeling good, I'd take the quiz. In which I got a 40%. So frustrating! At least you get two attempts on the quiz and I have until tomorrow at midnight to get it done. So I'm headed to the learning lab in the morning for some help.

At least Comp and Psych haven't been so difficult and frustrating. Read a little, respond a little... Last night I actually watched a really interesting video on Feral Children for Psych... About a girl who's parents neglected her, so she basically grew up with her dogs and how much her lack of human interaction damaged her psychologically. We're having the nature vs. nurture debate... It's pretty interesting. And our composition class gave us permission to be bad writers for now, which is always nice. Lol! However, my high school Comp teacher invaded my textbook. I opened up the page and it said:

So what?

Just like that. Just like Luce used to write it on the top of my papers. I'm traumatized. I wanted to cry. But instead, I texted her a picture and laughed. Because I knew she would too. =] Not much else left to do for the week, so I'm hoping that I can finish everything tomorrow night and take the weekend off. The other day I created this nifty little organizer, where I can list what's due each day for each class and highlight everything once it's completed... I'm rather enjoying loking at it and seeing only a few things left, but I'll be much happier when the stupid math quiz is crossed off! 

Day One? Check!

It finally arrived! I made it to (and through) my first day of school! Yesterday morning, after getting up, I hopped online and checked out my classes. In the thirty or so minutes I spent looking through things, I came to the conclusion that I have three very different professors. I also ran over to the bookstore to pick up my ENG 121 STUPID CUSTOM textbook. Never, never again will I go to campus on the first day of classes. That was insane.

My ENG 121 professor and I are going to do very well. She has posted the syllabus, schedule, a couple of resources that we need and told us to expect postings due Wednesday, peer review due Thursday and assignments due Sunday. She posted extra information for the first two weeks, but nothing else. There it was... All the information, laid out perfectly, neatly and understandably, so that I might refer to it very easily.

My MAT 099 professor, on the other hand, threw everything at me. She has already posted the ENTIRE semester of assignments and work, but in no resemblance of an order that I have figured out. It took me until this morning to find what is due this week. She's created this pseudo-checklist, but it's so confusing that I'm really not sure how to use it. So frustrating!

I will say that my PSY 101 professor is right down the middle. She's given us the first four weeks, decently organized, but everything is posted twice. I'd get about a quarter of the way through a document and wonder if I'd read it before. Then I finally figured out everything was posted twice. Her "checklist" is a two-page outline that I had to remake into a checklist - but I could at least figure out what was going on.

Oh. And my math book? Yeah. I had it shipped to my ex-mother-in-law's house. *facepalm* I swear that I changed the shipping address to the store, but I either didn't hit submit or it glitched or something... This can of worms should be interesting. Lesson 1: Always, always, always double check your shipping address. Always.

Tomorrow

Tonight is my official last night of non-student- (-ness, -dom?). Tomorrow I officially start classes and the seven-year educational journey that's in front of me. I probably should have done something epic to commemorate the occasion, but I didn't. I was on Pintrest for quite a while, Facebooked, talked to a bunch of friends... And here I am. Truth be told, I tried to log in to my classes, but it tells me there's a hold until midnight. Oh, and laundry. I did laundry.

Today, I had to make an incredibly difficult decision. With so much time being taken by work (and associated travel), church (and associated travel and responsibilities), and school, there just aren't enough hours in my day. Coupled with a lot of Monday night rehearsals I'd be missing, I had to accept the fact that I won't be able to compete with my chorus in April. It absolutely breaks my heart... If you've known me for long, you know that Greeley Harmonix is the highlight of my week. I love those girls and that music with all that I am. But it isn't fair for me to go on stage and be a weak link... I just won't do it. And making that decision was rough, even knowing that I'll go back after contest is over.

I can honestly say that I've never been so excited to start a day of school in my life. I can also honestly say that I'm having a really rough time focusing right now, so I shall sign off here and now for the night. Full report tomorrow! 

Books. Books. Books.

Textbooks. Woah. Didn't see that expense coming. I mean, I knew that I would have to buy textbooks and I knew that textbooks aren't cheap. But when I first looked....over $700! I about fell over dead! I'm taking THREE classes for ONE semester! That's just crazy!

So... I turned to my wonderful friends on Facebook. They pointed me to Chegg, where I found my PSY101 book for rent - less than $50 for the whole semester. They also sent me to Amazon, which was actually much more pricey than some other places. Many friends recommended Half.com, which I've purchased regular books from before. That's where I found my math book for $48 after shipping. But I'm still a little irritated about my ENG 121 book... Who makes custom textbooks?! What kind of crap is that?! You guessed it... Only available at the school bookstore! (And on Craigslist, which I wasn't fast enough to get.) Irritating. Half of me knows that I should drive over to the bookstore tomorrow and buy the stupid book. The other half of me wonders whether or not I'll really need it... If I don't need it, I really don't want to buy the stupid thing.

Oye.... BUT! My brother got me a Kindle for Christmas... I'm LOVING it! I've discovered just how many free books there are out there for Kindle. I'm also learning just how much less regular books cost on it! I've missed reading! I will say, though, that it could be a recipe for a lot of late nights... I'm one of those who just can't put down a good book! Oh, well... I've always enjoyed books and I'm not going to stop anytime soon.

Go For The Gold

It used to be that I was super organized about my schedule and the tasks I had to complete. You know that Type-A friend who makes you crazy because there has to be a plan for every second of the day? Yeah. That was me. When I went to RYLA in high school, the personality test system we used had me categorized about as gold as they come. But the older I've gotten, the less gold I am. I have just let go of the need to plan every second, keep a full year's calendar and have a hundred lists a day.

But since I'm starting school later this month and working as a DSC and traveling so much this year on top of the other things I do, I decided that this year, I need to go for the gold. I can't miss deadlines, forget meetings or function without lists. Or I WILL forget.

So yesterday afternoon, after falling on the ice (could I resolve to be less accident prone this year?), I went out and bought myself a new planner. It's a pretty simple planner. Just a page per day with a pre-labeled 8am-8pm schedule, a to do list, expense column and note section on each page. So I thought to myself: Hey! I'll write in my travel! And my church meetings! And... And... And...

SIX HOURS LATER, I was still writing in my planner! Oye! I needed to get it all in there and I'm glad I did, but holy Moses. It's been a few years since I've been so structured about schedules, tasks and commitments. I was feeling a little bit overwhelmed.

One thing I hope will serve me well, though, is that I've already scheduled out twelve hours every week for school. And my promise to myself and my educational journey is that if I have another event that comes up during a scheduled school time slot, I have to move that school time slot to another day or find a place to make up those hours. And if I don't have any more assignments to work on and still have time left, I will go back and review. I think it's the only way I'll be sure I stay focused.

So it's time to bury my inner orange that comes out more and more with age and go for the gold! I need to do it to be successful - I just hope I can re-connect with the discipline I used to have!

We're Facebook Official

I suppose it's time to make it "Facebook Official." You know that time in a relationship where you're committed enough that you're willing to let all of cyberspace in on it? Yeah. It's where I'm at. I haven't really hidden it. But I haven't shouted it to the world yet. So here it goes:

I want to be a hospice chaplain.

Whew... That was so.... Not scary to write. The quick version of the story that led me here goes like this: after spending two years working in the funeral industry, I realized how much I love being with hospice patients and families as they're making their last precious memories together and reflecting on all that they've done. I've seen what a burden death and the dying process can be to families and what solace some find in it. I've seen the incredible strength and total brokenness in families on the worst days of their lives. And every single time, I am reminded how blessed I am to be able to support them in those times.

For several years, I have felt a strong calling to ministry, but it wasn't until this fall that all of the pieces "fell" together and made me have a pretty gigantic DUH moment. I didn't know what area of ministry I was being called to, but it was suddenly pretty obvious. I was being called to hospice and end-of-life ministry.

So, with the help, support and encouragement of a few close friends, wonderful clergy and a whole host of others, I'm setting out on this journey. Hospice Chaplaincy is no joke - seven years of school are ahead of me, but I'm looking forward to enjoying the path. And since I want to cherish this time and share my story as encouragement for others who might be on similar journeys, I am committing to writing my journey down. I might not make it every day - or even every week - but it's important to me. Some day, I want to look back and remember where I have been, where I am going and where I will be.

And this is just too funny to keep to myself: