Further Up and Further In ...: December 2008

Wednesday, December 17, 2008

I Found the Rain down in Southern California ... like Toto only different ...

You know how sometimes when you go shopping, and you somehow end up looking at the TV's and you have about a 5 min standstill because you can't believe how big they are and you just have to take a moment to take it all in ... my Sis and bro-in-law have one of those. And right now I cannot think of a better way to really kick off my Christmas break than watch movies on this giant, and I am quickly realizing everyone and their mother is in the movie Galaxy Quest.

I'm in San Diego, enjoying the rain? This weather is wacky - 50 degrees in Jersey, snow in Seattle, rain in San Diego, what is going on. Either way, finals are over and I've finished my first semester in Seminary! I came home Sunday, and it was fabulous. I was able to catch up with some friends Monday and left Tuesday for San Diego!

Coming from a life elsewhere and returning home brings with it many contemplations.
#1. Not only do I get asked how seminary is, but I have to say I feel some pressure to qualify my school. At home the stigma it has of purely academic and lacking ministerial qualities runs rampant. Or at least at times it feels that way, but it could very well be one of those things you always feel you need to justify when really people are just curious. Either way, I really love my school. It isn't perfect, but then again what is perfect? It has it's problems, as we all do, which in some ways makes me think it's healthy. I don't know exactly what people are looking for in a seminary as a whole, because just like everything else you're going to find a problem with it, and then the question is really - what are you going to do when the problem arises? If you want to know more, let's meet for coffee. But bottom line, I am truly enjoying my seminary experience.

#2. Sexism. I've always realized it as an issue, but not until now have I really seen it as my issue. In academia I feel like it's almost healthy competition - to show equal aptitude (if not superior :) ...), or not even take genders into account but function simply student to student. But I don't see how that can really happen in the real world. Gender always plays a role. I realize race as well, but we'll leave that for another time. Earlier this semester we had moderators from PCUSA's General Assembly come for a Q & A, and one lady raised a point about how sexism is still an issue - as men and women graduate with their MDivs, and start looking/waiting for a call, male candidates find placements quickly while women who are equally capable and in some cases more so, are still waiting. I don't really need to start worrying about this for a couple years, but the fact that this is still an issue is surprising. Perhaps a more fitting complaint would center around dress code. Just think about it. For working in a church, or any profession really, the expected appropriate attire always seems a few steps up for the female. Skirts, heels, fitted shirts/blouses. And this in relation to a man's polo shirt and trousers? hmmmm ... All this to say I don't have a solution. I know this country is making changes, and I know that in individual cases it isn't that big of a problem, but it's still a problem. Just another one of those hurtles in life, I guess. I just know that some day I want to write a book - a book so good people can't ignore how good it is, and therefore won't really even care who wrote it but will just be thankful it has been written.

#3 How do you make sure to be yourself wherever you are? I can never be completely sure. There are always those small things you forget about yourself until you're around those people who bring it out in you. Hooray for sisters!

Monday, December 01, 2008

Bostacular

Thanksgiving - Boston style. I really like Boston. I think I could move there and be happy. Granted, I could probably move a lot of places and be happy, but it's such a nice size for a city, and nearly surrounded by water which is fabulous. I miss seeing a lot of water around. OH Seattle - only two more weeks before home-time!

Anyway, I went with my suite-mate Margaret to visit her Uncle and cousins, which was really fun, and it was fun to simply be in a family atmosphere. We didn't get to see as much of Boston as I would have like (like Cambridge for instance ...) but that just means I'll have to go back! It's amazing how much history can be in one place. I mean I've been to Europe, but this is like birth-place-of-our-country history. In a sense all of this only existed in my 7th-12th grade US history memory. Now it's alive again! And just like it looks like in National Treasure ...

So now back to work ... I actually am quite busy this week. I joined a group on campus called Seminarians for Peace and Justice, and as today is/was World AIDS Day, we organized a Taize service in the Chapel. Along with that, I organized the Alternative Christmas Market, where we are selling fair trade products and alternative gifts (like $10 donated to the Trenton Area Soup Kitchen), which is awesome but needless to say, a little time consuming. Here are some of my products, if you're interested ...

The bottlecap earrings I've made to support my friend who's living in Bosnia (thus 'Bottlecaps for Bosnia'). I love making stuff. And the card on lower right I designed to go with donations to local organizations. I love making stuff. Did I mention that? Hmm ...

I also took a fabulous walk today with my friend Rachel Daley. She is fabulous, and all around very much fun. I like seminary a lot. I love learning what I'm learning, engaging in heavy theological and ethical discussions, and generally this community. Also challenging a community like this to be aware of the world around them (locally and globally) through things like the Alt Christmas Market or the Taize service. We need to be agents of change. And that goes for each member of the body of Christ, not just those destined to be the workers in the church, but definitley them for sure.

Oh and please pray for me, I'm suffering from a severe case of camera lust. I love love LOVE photography, and would LOVE a new camera. But if I had one I probably wouldn't get ANYTHING done.

I dreamed a dream ...

A place for documenting the strangeness that radiates my imagination while I slumber. Oddly enough it is not due to any medication, go figure ...

18Oct2010
It happened. I've reached a new ... low? I am currently taking a class about the Doctrine of God. We've recently been reading Thomas Aquinas, and discussing the simplicity of God. My dream the other night involved me going for a jog (which I never, ever, do ...) and during said jog I recall a conversation with my jogging buddy, in which I say, "Ah, so the fact that God is good supersedes my ability to comprehend His goodness." That is right. My subconscious is actively processing theology while I sleep.

11March10
In real life, my friend got married in January, but I was unable to attend. HOWEVER, in my subconscious, I dreamed that she redid the entire wedding for us on campus - it was half so we could be there, and half so it would be documented (photography and video) because they didn't do it the first time. WHAT a party.

11/04

Weirdest dream - we are in an alternate universe exactly the same as this one only different. You following? I feel like all the people from seminary here are with me, and we're in some sort of lodge that's out in the woods. It's huge, because it houses like, 400 people comfortably, but this isn't the weird part. We have to be very careful about venturing outside, because there are these evil people out there waiting for us - they want to trick us, manipulate us, and make us one of them. How do we tell who they are? They always come as sets of identical twins. The thing is we somehow all ended up here, and we're trying to get back to our world, so we need to get outside the lodge and search for the path back. But every encounter with these 'people' is SUPER risky, because they are very persuasive - like sirens (the mermaids, not the ambulance noises). It was scary/awesome/crazy.

10/10
IT HAPPENED. I dreamed I was a part of High School Musical live. Along with a couple of my friends here at PTS, we were some sort of dance ensemble extras, but I'll take what I can get. But what I do remember is something more along the lines of not actually being hired to do it, but they felt like they'd let me prance around pretending I'd be in it. In other words, I had no idea what I was doing, but while doing that no one kicked me out ...

22/10
My mom is always paranoid that I'm gonna get that flesh eating bacteria and my whole face will disintegrate. Well, I dreamed that I was checking out a scab that was on my leg, and realized that it had become quite a dent. THEN I saw that I had a scab on my ankle that was really quite deep (although healed, nothing gross, it was all just regular skin) that when I tried to see how deep it was I found out it went ALL THE WAY THROUGH MY FOOT and I could see out the other side. Straight through my ankle. I even caught a glimpse of bone. WEIRD.
I also had a brief dream about this show we were filming that was kind of a contest between nuns and cops - the cops had to run through this kind of supermarket area grabbing the things they would need on doing their rounds or whatever you call it. Since nuns don't really bring a lot of stuff with them on their ... rounds? more like they don't have those ... they had to run around grabbing beads and things for putting together necklaces and rosarys, only they had to attach them together using blue masking tape. The nuns were getting all mad because the cop's task was much easier, and much less tacky.

8/10 (that's october...)
I can't remember all the details, just that it was happening Indiana Jones/National Treasure style. We were doing some sort of ancient biblical treasure hunt (thank you seminary?) and I was traveling alongside this main guy (no idea who) who was dragging along with him two young boys. They had a special title, because they were like, kid geniuses. Innate sense of direction and ridiculously good memory for every kind of fact. The kind of person you want at trivia night. The guy was yelling at them, "Come on! you've got to remember the stuff from Leviticus!" ... ??? I have no clue. We're on some beach somewhere and I'm more or less tagging along for the ride because I think I was initially kidnapped, but now I'm like that girl in National Treasure who's just too curious to leave. I'm sitting on the bank, looking up at this sort of stone wall that runs parallel to the water (not into it) and I end up picking out one of the stones and when I turn it over ... hark a clue! It has a swastika sign on it (hello Indiana influence) with a halo above it ... I don't know how I feel about that, but in any case, I yelled, "I found something!" and then promptly proceeded to wake up ... boooooo.

16/6
Apparently we are family friends with Nelson Mandela. He came to stay at my house, which is a lot larger on the inside than I remember, and the backyard is absolutely enormous. I was also hosting a student group of African American students for a meeting at my house, who were delighted to have Nelson Mandela visit for a little while, and then he went to the kitchen to do some dishes ... I was also called racist by one of the students there because I had used the phrase 'What kind of people' when saying something like 'what kind of people would do such a thing?' which doesn't really sound racist but does ask the question do I categorize people by their actions more than
I should ... anyway, I wish I really did know Nelson Mandela, I'm pretty sure I wouldn't let him do the dishes ...

7/6
So I'm working at the INN in Seattle apparently, and Ryan Church asks me to make some sort of interactive deal as a part of his talk. He's preaching about prostitution and the dangers of selling sex or us buying into the current trends that just promote sex, so I decide to make a type of quiz that makes people aware of the way humans function in relation to the reality that 'sex sells' (in case you haven't read it, the book For Women Only has some eye opening facts and figures). He hands me a tape with parts of his talk already prepared, and we're talking VHS, but that doesn't even phase me I just go looking for a VCR. I find on in a common room somewhere, a TV/VCR set hanging from the ceiling and there are people socializing and eating in the room, but I just grab the closest thing to stand on (a miniature trampoline?) and move to put my tape in. I put it in and push play, and realize it isn't rewound as it's playing something taped off the TV, all in German. I rewind some more, and it is a clip from Oliver Twist (I don't think I've ever actually seen Oliver Twist) where Oliver is encouraging another orphan in the orphanage that they aren't stuck here for life, they can be whoever they want to be. This is communicated by the song my subconscious created, which I will entitle, 'You Can Be A Man'. This is what I woke up to - with it stuck in my head ... You can be a man, if you want make a plan, you can be a man ... I can sing it to you sometime if you want. I love that my subconscious is capable of writing songs, it gives me hope for my conscious ...

29/5 (I'm in Europe so I have to write it like that)
There was an ambulence running by outside our hostel this morning, and I think I dreamed that there was an airplane flying overhead that was losing pieces of itself all around us - but in my dream is more frustrating that scary. Like "really? it's losing chunks of airplane over MY street? can't it move one block over?" I am SO proud of my thoughtfulness of other people that may have been on the plane in my subconcious.

27/5
I was climbing a mountain with Bill and Claire and some other WSU students, only the mountain was pretty much a vertical pile of sand for most of the top, and you had to stick your arm in it and twist a little to get a good 'grip' in order to pull yourself up more and more. IT was CRAZy. But I got to the top with the rest of the.