musings

ever wonder how a snot forms in your nose? we all know it forms pretty quickly...but how? do the fibers just start connecting and connecting until they form a hard net that traps the mucus? if there's a lot of mucus, does it overpower the fibrous net and then start forming large irregular shapes? and as soon as you fish one out, does the whole thing start over again? with the fibers joining together to form a net?

work ethic

rubadubdub
i'm boiling to death in this damn tub
of deadlines and mockups and updates and more
my ass is now permanently sore
it doesn't matter how fast i work i'm still too slow
by the end of the week i'll have grown a 'fro
and the bags under my eyes will hang down 'lo
and you won't recognize me no 'mo

runningonandon

all the days and nites are running into each other. last week i worked 6 days, and during the week i stayed til 8 or 9pm. my only break was thurs and fri when i had ice cream w/nick, and small group and then a girls' nite out at this fab korean restaurant. i hate when it gets like this at work. it's simply exhausting. i'm finding that i have less patience with ppl now too, coz i'm so tired. yesterday [well, tuesday] i came home around 9:30pm. isn't that like 12hrs? i didn't even take a lunch break...just ate at my desk. i'd like to be able to come home and have several hours to myself to get caught up on stuff...ppl, bills, chores, wedding planning...and i wanna blog about my 30th and my trip to ensenada...but those entries are likely to be long and thoughtful and i just don't have the energy to articulate all my thoughts and emotions right now. ugh. i'm so freaking tired. i'll be working like this for at least another week, maybe two. man...my coffee intake is about to triple...

good nite world.

backtrack

allow me to rewind a bit...i turned 30 a couple of weeks ago...more than a landmark or benchmark for me...it's the prize at the end of what seems like a very long journey. i had some friends join me for the weekend in la jolla...a perfect way to start off my thirties. it's the most extravagant thing i've ever done for a birthday of mine, and i relished every second. my last entry was a poem i had written a few months ago. it's what i feel about turning 30, being 30, living out my thirties. the main thing i feel i've learned and will discover even more of, is freedom. not the rebellious, immature, shaking-my-fist-at-God kind [been there, done that!] but the kind that comes from being honest with myself, and allowing God to love me fully, faults and all.

this is the first time in my life where i feel like i can accept myself because God accepts me. this is the first time in my life where i know both in my heart and my head that God is slowly working in me, the first time in my life where i don't feel that He's distant and weary of me, but rather, happy that i just want to be near Him. it's a trippy, heady sensation. i've never done drugs, but i imagine it's something like this. what a phenomenon. i've learned many lessons from my twenties, and someday i will write all of them down and read them over in my old age, chuckling to myself at my foolishness, wondering why i was such a stubborn ass.

then again, i might just die as stubborn an ass as i am now.

yah. that seems more realistic.

recap: labor day weekend in ensenada

the primary feeling i had throughout the weekend was helplessness. if hearts could bleed, i'm sure mine would. i wasn't surprised by the poverty, but i was surprised at my reaction. it's hard to come back to the states and resume normal living, when i know that normal living for those is mexico is so much harder. my world is very surreal and unimportant and extraneous. what we consider "hard circumstances" here seem like a joke in light of their day-to-day circumstances.

i'm sure i sound like everyone else who's returned from a missions trip, whether it's their first or twenty-first. what i found most frustrating was the language barrier...i so wanted to communicate with the children. but the best i could do was stroke a little girl's face in my hands...isabella...and ask her how old she was. isabella didn't have shoes. neither did any of her playmates. but they relished their playtime. i observed quietly as they came two by two, curious to see what we were painting, and tentatively starting to play with the paint themselves...painting the crystal geyser waterbottles we gave them [sometimes still full of water] and each other and dunking their hands in the bucket of paintwater...thoroughly relishing every bit of the experience. some of them were brave enough to come up to us and show us their bright pieces of "artbottles" and then ask for more bottles! =)

when i have children...IF i have children...i want to take them down there with me on a yearly basis. i want them to know how removed our lives can be from the realities of our neighbors. i want them to grow up grateful and compassionate. i want them to be more concerned with the giving instead of the getting. so often we complain about not having the finer things in life while others in the world find joy in the humblest.

i wholeheartedly expected to come back from ensenada spiritually uplifted and emotionally fulfilled. intead, i returned to the states spiritually dry and emotionally unsatisfied. one little weekend of labor by a handful of americans isn't much. i'm ashamed i once thought of the trip as a "good experience" for me, when it isn't about me at all.