My Adventures

Goodness! My life has been one big adventure these past few weeks. I must say I am a bit tired from it, but in all, it's been a good adventure. I had a friend from Brazil staying with me for a couple of weeks and I really enjoyed having her around. I am still not used to living on my own and it was wonderful to come home and have someone to talk to again. It was so much fun to just sit around and laugh about things. The last week she was here was a rough week for me in school. I was up late almost every night working on homework and preparing for tests. To reward myself I agreed to accompany my friend on a stay at the biosphere research center that is about an hour outside Tucson. It was really different, but really cool. I was sad we only had one night to be there. It was sort of like living in a sci-fi movie for the night. Wacky but cool. We met some really great scientists and I reacquainted with someone I had met at an early event. We had a lot of fun talking, messing around on the piano and watching youtube videos of silly musicians. Who knew that a science gathering about rain forests could turn into a quasi musical gather?? It was really very enjoyable, though. The next morning we had to get up and eat breakfast and return to the city so I could attend my third educational conference of the year. I was running a bit late as I dropped my friend off at the house and continued on to the university, but I didn't really care. I was tired, so tired. When I arrived the conference attendees were on break, which gave me a great opportunity to find my lab mates and catch the last half of the presenters. The talks were great for the most part and I found myself forgetting how tired I was as I became engrossed in the lectures. The only downside was the man sitting next to me who smelled like he hadn't showered in days. I thought for sure my sense of smell was going to be ruined forever, but thankfully the olfactory nerves start to ignore a stimulus when it becomes overwhelming. I always knew there was a reason for that! Anyhoo, the rest of the conference was great and my lab partner and I had a good time eating lunch and presenting our poster. The rest of the day and Sunday I attempted to recover from my brutal schedule the week before, but that only partially worked. After helping my friend get ready to go and then driving her to the airport I was feeling pretty tired and ready to do nothing but sleep. I am happy to say I did just about that and it was wonderful. The next week started with a bang with the first of two tests that week being on Tuesday. The next one was on Friday and there was an online assignment that was due as well. I spent the whole week studying once again and trying to maintain my job as well as my work in the lab. It was crazy!!! I kept telling myself it would get better when Spring Break came. Spring Break is here and it has hardly gotten better. Although, I must say I have had some really good times this weeks. Another friend came to visit me and stayed a couple of days. We went out and had several girl get together with some mutual friends. It was a lot of fun. The absolute silliness that goes on when a group of girls gets together is not to be matched by much else. It had been a while since I had been on a girl's outing and I found myself really missing it. I am still working, in fact working more this week than usual, as well as working in the lab and still working on that online assignment. I was sad to see my friend leave yesterday, but a little relieved to not be entertaining anyone else for the next little bit. Now, I am home trying to get things done. Oh ya! I forgot to mention that in the middle of all this I was accepted to two graduate programs and have been trying to find out as much as I can about both. It's a lot of work and I have spent hours on the computer trying to find information and figure things out, but it is also very exciting. I will most likely be moving this summer and I am really excited about that adventure. Of course, if it proves to be anything close to what I've been experiencing I might die at a young age, but I would die happy. So, that's been my life for now. Crazy but good.

Perplexed!!

I'm up late, well past my bedtime, because I can't sleep. The thoughts keep swirling around and around in my head and the possibilities leave me feeling sick. I have so many decisions in front of me and I have absolutely no answers. I know how I want things to go but I have been most firmly assured that they will not happen that way. I have in front of me my dreams of the field I want to work in and on the opposite side is the one I want to be with. And yet, I wonder if this is really what I want. I know I want to go on to graduate studies and doctoral studies. I have been writing about it on here for the past two years. I finally got accepted to a couple of programs and now it seems the decision facing me is not what is best for me but what is best for "us". I feel like if I make the best decision for me then I will be betraying the person I have said I want to be with forever. Yet, he can't even seem to bring himself to make the arrangement permanent. It seems that if I choose what is best for me then I will be walking away from the only person I have ever really loved and all the dreams I have with him, but if I choose to stay with him I have no assurance that I will ever have fulfillment of my dreams. I feel like I can't really tell him this because then he would say that I am pressuring him into doing what he is not ready to do, but what about me? I need some assurance here! This not knowing is KILLING me! I absolutely hate it with everything in me. He tells me things and reassures me with words, but what are words? How are they reliable? I have known many a words that were spoken by many a trustworthy person that had no more substance to them than the air particles it took to breathe them out. What makes him any different? I'm not saying that he is not, just that I am not sure I know how to trust him like that. I want to trust him, I want to believe him, but I have nothing to back it up but words, and I have been burned so many times with words. I don't think I can keep going like this. It is literally tearing me up. What do I do? I don't even know how to begin to handle it. I guess that means it is back to my knees with a whole lot more praying to do. I want to make the right decision for me and I am hoping that it will help things work out with me and my love, but what if it doesn't? How do I choose? Why do I have to? I am very much perplexed!

An Observation

He quietly sits and listens while you tell your stories - stories of personal failures, stories of frustration and anger, stories of hopes and dreams that you hold near to your heart, stories of struggles that you have, stories of the past and the present. As you talk he simple sits and listens. He waits patiently for you to finish, to have your say. Then, when you are done, he looks at you and with gentleness he imparts wisdom. He gives you good advice and offers comfort - not comfort that is tangible, but so very real nonetheless. He assures you in the things you do that are right and encourages you to press on in making right decisions. He seems to never tire of telling you the truth and helping direct you in the right way. His voice is full of love and gentleness and his eyes are tenderly pleading with you to listen to him. There have been times when I have wondered if perhaps my voice was not a noisy gong or grating sound to his ears, if my complaints and annoyances were not like a house guest that has overstayed his welcome. If they are he does not let on that it is so. I have wondered if he ever notices that he gives the same advice over and over again when it often goes unheeded. Does it bother him that he offers the same answer to the same question each time it is asked? Does he ever get tired of his role? If he does, he does not show it. He has more patience that just about anyone else I have ever met. I have on occasion seen him loose his temper but it was only after it had been provoked numerous times without cessation. I must admit, when I step back and observe him I am in awe of the qualities I see but I know that those qualities did not come easily. They were worked at over years of hard trials and many testings. They are the refined products of a Master Refiner. I have my own trials and testings that seem to be almost nonstop, and many times I wonder what if anything they are accomplishing. I do hope, though, that one day I will be able to look back at where I have been and where I am and realize I have at least some of the same qualities I see in him. It would be a blessing indeed.

A Reflection

Sometimes life seems so hard. Sometimes it can even seem impossible to maintain a proper view of things. I have often wondered why it seems that some of the simplest things turn out to be the most difficult and many times impossible to grasp. The only conclusion of sorts that I have come to is that those things are, most of the time, connected to people and people are flawed. You cannot make someone see the truth of a situation, or the light that is so blatantly glaring at them, or even the giant cliff that they are edging towards. In your perspective it should be fairly easy to see or realize, but it isn't. In your mind's eye the simple rules of the universe and human kind are just that, simple. But for others they are not. I don't think that it is because the rules aren't really simple; rather, I think it is our perspective and point of view that makes them simple or even visible for that matter. Still, it is baffling to me that someone cannot grasp the simple themes of life such as family bonds and lasting relationships. There are some that claim it is society and the culture of our day that leaves people so clueless as to what is truly valuable and what is not. I would argue that is not the case. As I look over history and examine the Scriptures, it seems to me that there has always been this struggle between what is truth and what is not. There have been so many things presented as truth that were nothing more than deceit in its most malicious form. There have always been people or ideologies that have tried to corrupt the fundamental laws and truths that God set in place when He created this world. Throughout history there have been those who have carelessly discarded, and sometimes purposefully tried to stomp out, those things such as the family unit, an adherence to truth, and living by the code of putting others before yourself. The interesting thing is that life will never be pleasant or even fulfilling without these things. These are rules that God has made an inherent part of the universe and how it runs. If you try to ignore those rules, things don't run right. It doesn't matter if you are a person devoid of any relationship with God or you are a supposedly religious person who acknowledges God. The rules are the same for everyone and everyone is affected when we don't live by them. What is perhaps most sad, in my opinion, is that there are so many so called 'enlightened' people who are so unenlightened. Those who parade around as 'the voice of God' and yet cannot even live by the simplest of God's commands. They trump the value of the family, rely on deceit to further themselves, and live in a world of self-adoration while proclaiming that they are living the Bible to it's fullest extent. More ironically still, they cannot see that the path behind them is filled with the carcasses and decrepit bodies of those murdered and maimed by their actions and the stench of it is inescapable. Yet, they only see flowers and beautiful landscapes and smell perfume that is not there. They have lived in deceit for so long they have deceived themselves. It would seem that the truth was blatantly obvious and that it is so simple to realize what is really there, but for some reason it is not. Sadly, it is even more difficult to make those following on the path behind to realize that they are stepping over the bones of those who have fallen on the same path and that the ultimate end is a drop off, not eternal bliss. Still, they cannot see it, or will not see it. And one is left to wonder why the simple things, the most obvious things are sometimes the hardest to see.