powerful pancakes...

Yesterday morning, at approximately 5:13 AM my phone rang. In my foggy, confused state I leaped out of bed, turned on the light, made my bed and answered the phone. I was probably reaching for my jeans when I realized that it was my dad calling from Dubai. I had that terrible feeling that I had woken up hours late for something and someone was calling to ask me where I was. I was so relieved to realize it was my dad's voice on the other end. I miss him so much but it is good to know he arrived safe and sound. I don't remember anything from our conversation except that he remembered that it was super early here... we said I love you and I collapsed back into bed and fell into a much more restful slumber than before. I love my Daddy.

Yesterday was my second class in my creative writing course. We had to bring in enough copies of our first writing assignment for everyone. I had it finished and printed out and when we began reading a couple of the others out loud I began to realize I had hit the mark of telling a humiliating story about my life but I had absolutely no humor to balance it out. The 4 essays that were read out loud, all of them included some kind of humor... and they were more like embarrassing moments, not humiliation... I was relieved that I wouldn't have to read mine out loud in front of the class, but they do have a copy of it to read on their own. I am nervous for my teacher to return mine to me next week all marked up and with a frowny face sticker.

After class I came back to the apartment and while Peri was getting ready to go I read the other papers that I brought home. To my amazement I hadn't crashed and burned as horribly as I thought. I might even have fallen in the middle ground somewhere... how did that happen? My brain already hurts... I clearly need this mental exercise. And it is quite shocking to me that I might not be the last one to cross the finish line.

When Peri and I were ready, we walked down to Mark's flat for Sam's (one of mark's flatmates) Pancake Party. I never say no to pancakes, if I can help it, and these were really good pancakes. When we arrived in front of the little apartment building I realized that because I keep forgetting to top up my cell phone, we were unable to call anyone inside to alert them to the fact that we needed letting in. I found a little rock on the street and backed up until I could see people in the window. Mark was standing right next to one. Perfect. I brought my arm back and totally chickened out before I tossed it. Instead I opted for jumping up and down and whisper yelling Mark's name. It worked. I was impressed by how many people they managed to fit in their living area and the compactness of it all made for some great conversation with some new faces, all of which were enjoying delicious pancakes with all sorts of new and mysterious toppings. They had run out of maple syrup before Peri and I arrived but they had nutella, jams, and golden sugary stuff... I chose lemon juice and sugar, crepe style, and I was not disappointed.

Sam had this as a fundraiser for the Tearfund. Mark explained that it is a charity/ organization that works with local churches around the world to help local communities. (something like that) And lemme tell you, it was a great idea.

So, after an exhausting but fun day Peri, Katy (who showed up for pancakes) and I came home for some sweet deep sleep. Have I mentioned on here how much I love sleeping? It is such a wonderful way to spend the night... with your pillows all in the perfect spot and your body totally relaxed after a long day full of tension. mmmmmm yeah...

Dad- Dublin to Dubai...

I just got back from dropping my dad off at Dublin Airport... I hate goodbyes.
This terrible lump in my throat and this sadness is not something that I want to never feel again. It shows me just how blessed I am to have so much love in my family... it hurts us so much to be far away and across oceans from each other and in some kind of backwards way I am terribly thankful for it. I am realizing that I will forever be my parents child... their baby, and I never want that to change.

I cried the whole bus ride back to the city center and then more on my way to my apartment. People stared. I didn't care. I have just said goodbye to my Daddy and I don't know when I will get to see him again. I have every right to cry. I miss him so much already. I have felt homesick before but I didn't realize just how much more it was possible to miss my family or how much I already did. Seeing my Dad has stirred some of this up in my heart and mind... It is so backward the way that works sometimes. And here I am using up all of the tissues I bought to last over the next month. I'm a messy crier. I use a lot of tissues.

I love my Dad.

I love my Dad.

Friday morning my dad arrived in Dublin for a long weekend visit. It is so great that we get these few days to hang out before he goes to Dubai. I have really and truly missed hanging out with my Dad. He is one of the few people on this earth that can really understand me without some sort of explanation... sometimes it seems he knows me better than I do myself. He understands my jokes and laughs, in a way that only he can. He has his "dad laugh" with smiling eyes that are so much like a safety blanket from my childhood that I will never give up. I love my dad and it seems that I have been missing him much more than I thought.

>=/

Right now I hate facebook. With a fiery burning passion. the end.

Creative Writing...

Last night I began a creative writing class in the Irish Writers Center, which happens to be only a few doors down from my apartment. Very convenient. I am going to be honest. I am super nervous. I like knowing, now, what I am getting myself into, but it is still very intimidating. The teacher is an American and there are several other Americans in my class of 18ish. Not what I had expected or really wished for but it is what it is and the class is already paid for. No turning back. I am very excited for this chance to exercise the squishy gray stuff inside my skull, and believe you me, it is going to quite the workout. I have several reading assignments as well as a writing assignment already and it involves a memory of our own (simple, right? wrong.)... I have a terrible memory and so, unavoidably, I am already going nuts.

So if you will excuse this super short post, I am going to go sift through my brain for a legit memory... I wish I could plug my external hard drive into my head... just kidding... I don't, really. But that doesn't mean I don't need to.

Grape Nuts and Chickin Scarpariello

It seems that I may be recovering/past the worst of this illness, whatever it might have been from this weekend. I sure hope so...

But I still have this nagging homesickness that I will never get used to. In all of my time at L'Abri in Switzerland I felt, maybe, a total of 25 minutes in feeling homesick. I'm serious! And that was kinda spread out, 5 minutes here, 10 there... but the life I am living here in Dublin is so drastically different from L'Abri that I shouldn't be taken by surprise with this overwhelming longing for home. In the past few days I have been craving foods that you can only get in the US or recipes that ONLY my mom makes right. Grape Nuts and Chicken Scarpariello... yeah. There is also the FEEL of home. It's like that warm safety blanket while watching a scary movie. At the super creepy parts you get your feet off the floor and you pull your knees up close to yourself underneath the blanket. It doesn't matter what is playing, you are wrapped in your blanket, nothing can touch you. But sooner or later you are gonna have to stick your legs out again and walk up to bed. And sometimes it's going to be dark...

I wish I wasn't so gloomy right now. The sun is actually shining right through my curtians and I have the window cracked, it feels so nice outside... It may even feel like spring... but it is too soon for that. But the air feels so wonderful that I am willing to deal with the obnoxious city ruckus to have the breeze in my room.

Anyway... I am now getting super distracted by a million little things floating around in my brain as well as a million little things I have to do today...

Goodbye forever.

So. I am out of commission again... I hate how I keep getting sick. This time is the worst of all... my nose, my throat, a bit of my stomach, even my eyes... and headaches too. Sorry to whine on here but I am just plain miserable... I came here to be a help and to be of service to these people here at Abbey Church. Since I continue to get sick I am anything but that. I cannot be a help to anyone when I could very well get them super sick. I hate this illness, whatever it is. I am really hoping it is a 48 hour fluey thing... I don't know. A girl can hope, right?

But see, I have a predicament. Someone close to me here says that I really should go to the doctor tomorrow... I cannot tell you how much I don't want to go to the doctor. I want to get better so badly but can't I do that without going to a doctor? If I broke my leg, sure I would go. If I suddenly went blind, sure I would go. But this? I don't think I have ever gone to a doctor for a sore throat, fever, headache, or nose... and I keep getting this stupid thought that going to a doctor in Ireland will somehow be different than going to the doctor in the States.

I suppose I am kinda scared... not about being ill but about this particular new experience... I wasn't really scared at all when I got on the plane to fly over here (but now that I have been watching Lost that might be a bit different next time) and I haven't really felt fear since I came here (besides the creepy feelings when walking up to my apartment all by myself at night)... But I am afraid of doing something so simple as going to see a medical professional. Silly I know, but that doesn't change how I feel.

LOST

Last night Peri and I sat ourselves down and started the first season of LOST. Needless to say, I have succumbed to being just one of the masses who cannot tear their eyes away from that show. I had been told countless times that I would love it... but who has time to let themselves become addicted to yet another TV show? Not me. And especially not now... but alas! Me thinks it is now too late. Four episodes in and there is no turning back.

Last night I dreamed, quite vividly too, that I was stranded on an island with a random selection of folks. Ah! I have often wondered how I would do in such an unlikely although very real sort of situation... my morbid curiosity with the show prevents me from stopping. If I am terribly honest I think that I would be pretty level headed. Those of you that know me may not agree at first but if I were to really bunker down and remember that my God is in control, no matter how out of control things might seem, I think I would be an asset instead of that unbearable girl who just stood there in the middle of the wreckage screaming her head off. I can't stand it when people scream. It is absolutely no help whatsoever to yourself or those around you. It exacerbates the tense and dangerous atmosphere. It is that strange middle child between Fight and Flight: Fright and it makes no sense.

I have had a couple emergency situations as a babysitter and in one case the mom was actually home... it is a very long story but in a nutshell: she froze up and my 15 year old self was left to do the thinking. I called 911... I kept the kids together and all the while this mother was in a dazed panic. Of course, I will never forget the adrenalin that took over my veins and the feeling of my heart crashing against my chest. The prayers that began pouring out of me, mentally, while I held the little girls close to me until the police arrived... but despite the fear and overwhelming desire for self-preservation I stood my ground and braced for the worst. I went through every scrap of self-defense I had ever retained and made my peace with God. So I suppose I am a fighter after all. Translate that to a plane crash on a strange and mysterious island and I believe that I would be able to help...

Oh boy... I really enjoy movies and TV shows that get you thinking about stuff.

Again.

I was sick again.
I recovered again.
I didn't get the sleep my body so craved, again.
And guess what?
I think I am sick... AGAIN.
Sometimes it just isn't fair that while you are recovering you are vulnerable for more sickness... I have spent most of my life dealing with allergies and colds... I really don't know what it is truly like to not have some sort of issue going on with my nose... but head colds and body colds... I suppose I should count it as a blessing that it can get worse than my usual sniffling and sneezing. If I didn't get miserably sick every now and again (ha! again...) then most of the time I would just feel plain miserable.

It is cold outside. It is icy and snowy and sleety... and all sorts of unnatural chills are just running amuck here in Dublin, preying on the unsuspecting residents and citizens. As I was leaving church I made a joke about starting some fires up here in my apartment, you know, for warmth... we don't exactly have any fireplaces... but where there is a will...

Thermal socks? check.
Big fluffy fleece blanket? check.
Flannel PJs? check.
Hot water bottles? check.
True Story: things could be worse. Thank you Jesus, for a cozy apartment and hot water bottles and tea... and flannel... and fleece...
hmmm tea, soup and Vitamin C. That's all good stuff right? oh, and a book... I need a good read. Any suggestions??

High Definition

I want and NEED new glasses very very soon. My current pair of spectacles are just riddled with issues...
1- they are old
2- they are covered with scratches and never look clean no matter how hard I try to clean them.
3- one of the arms is about to reach it's breaking point after three repairs that required bending the metal.
4- I am super bored with them... and that is the death blow.

I am thinking about getting another plastic pair. I broke my favorite glasses in 2007 while I was visiting a friend in Germany... they were plastic and beautiful.

I love getting a new prescription... when you put a new set of lenses in front of your eyes you realize that you have only been seeing half of everything. Colors come to life. Trees, instead of having green around the top, actually have leaves! and those big patches of green in front of houses and in parks, hundreds of thousands of individual blades of grass! candles are no longer blurry little splotches of yellow that flick back and forth, the flame holds a vast spectrum of yellows, oranges, reds, and even blue... To see the world in "High-Def". It is always an exciting thing for me.

Bats, Dolphins, and Submarines...

So, I just decided that it makes me terribly sad when people have an aversion to cheese. How on Earth can you NOT love cheese, in all it's glorious forms? Brie, cheddar, Gouda, Blue, Feta... Wensleydale??
Also, I love food. Just in general. Have you heard about the two types of people: those who eat to live and those who live to eat? I am wholeheartedly and irrevocably the later.
I love the movie Ratatouille... it inspires me. If you haven't seen it you need to. right now.

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I am amazed by how much freakin time you can waste on the internet... namely on facebook. Good Gravy, it is crazy. 3 hours can go by and I will have absolutely NOTHING to show for it. And I get to see the god-forsaken hours of the morning much more often than they were meant to be seen... except by bats. Oh Good Lord! I am turning into a flying rodent! Without the wings... and the sonar... although the sonar and the wings might be kinda cool. Since I am already going blind maybe I could begin to develope sonar! Bats, Dolphins and submarines! I am going to join that club of awesomeness... soon enough.

hmmm guess what super power I wish I had... telekinesis. because if I was telekinetic I could also make myself FLY... and then I wouldn't need to turn into a bat in order to touch the sky... *sigh*

John

So, John Schuchman just told me to blog about him... he is a bit crazy about this blog business...
I must add that the instantaneous of this internet stuff is incredible at times... at others it can be just plain crazy.

right or left?

Lately I have been having incredibly frightening dreams in which I am driving on the roads in South Florida and the roads around my parent's house in Eastern Pennsylvania. Everything is normal except one very important detail. The side of the road I am supposed to be driving on is constantly being switched back and forth from the right to the Left. sometimes I am on the Left side of the car and sometimes I am on the Right, but I am always driving... today I was on the bus again, on my way to and from Dun Laoghaire (pronounced Dun Leary... I know.) and I realized that I will have to refrain from getting behind the wheel of a car for at least a couple months after returning to he states. I am so mixed up and backwards and upside-down when trying to remember how the roads are back home.

You couldn't pay me to drive here in Dublin. No way. good grief.

A Snowy Death in Dublin

So I kinda feel like death at the moment... and I just got back from running a couple errands out in town. It is snowing and sleeting and just pain terrible outside. Freezing temperatures that I was told only happen in a blue moon... well, somebody please check to see if there is a very large blueberry in the sky tonight because all the snowy cloud cover is going to prevent me from checking myself.
I got back up to my apartment and I feel much too warm to have just come inside from the nastiness out there... perhaps soup might do me some good... except I don't have anymore soup. sad. I might have to just settle for a Vitamin C effervescent thingy instead... vitamin c is super good for you when you're coming down with something, right? mmmm and Hot Chocolate... yeah... that is always a good idea.

In the Candy Cafe

Right now I am sitting in the corner cafe that sits only a few doors down from my apartment, here in center city, Dublin. For the past 4ish months since I came here to work with Abbey Church I have become quite the regular. I usually get the same bagel sandwich and a coke. I am trying to branch out (today I am eating a BLT) but the bagel is just so yummy! I am getting to know the small staff of employees, made up mainly of immigrants from eastern Europe and Asia. I make a point to smile and ask how they are doing before I order my food or drink. I think they have begun to notice. That is one of the things that bothers me about cities. The anonymity and fast pace give people the opportunity to be more rude and less caring with each other in simple, everyday activities, without being that odd Jerk who happens to stand out of the crowd. The fact that common courtesy and kindness are the unusual qualities in city life makes me sad.
Even though I grew up on the fringes of Ft Lauderdale, Florida, a very large city, I have never really experienced "The City" the way I am here. Dublin really isn't that big, by world city standards I suppose, but living in the very heart of it you wouldn't be able to notice. There may not be skyscrapers and New York accents but what it lacks in Big Appleness it makes up for in the hustle and bustle of daily life.

Even though I am really enjoying my time here in the heart of this incredible city I have already determined that City Life isn't for me... I also know that I couldn't live out in the middle of nowhere either... I am not a huge fan of suburbs, but the convenience of suburban life is really appealing. You can get fresh air when you need it and you're not smacked in the face with the smog and car exhaust of the city every time you step out your front door. People tend to be nicer and there is a stronger sense of community. I like that.
I guess I have all the time in the world to figure out where I will be living someday. Quite frankly, I don't want to settle in any one place for very long. I am well on my way to being a sort of nomad and it thrills me to think of all the places I will see and go. The people I will meet along the way and the stories I will hear. I can only hope that I can share at least a little of the incredible love that I have been given with each of them.

The Beginning...

In this blog I will be recording the random and very honest thoughts that happen to bounce around inside my brain from time to time as I live, laugh, learn, and love my way through this life.

I am a silly girl and it is only by the phenomenal Grace of God that I am capable of any thoughts at all. So I figure that while I can, I will share these thoughts with y'all. I am far from a finished product, constantly learning and being refined and honed into the creature I am meant to someday be. I know that I will probably change my mind about many things throughout my blogging experience...

I have no idea what my future holds but what I do know is that my future was molded by the very hand of God and that He will guide me and carry me on my way. My current location is Dublin, Ireland. Wherever I end up in the coming days, weeks, months, and years of my life I hope to share a little piece of each with whoever you are. I want to see every corner of this World that we have been given. I want to smell, taste, hear, see, and touch all of the magnificent things there are in this life. I want to cry with you, laugh with you. Sing with you, dance with you. Stand rapt in awe with you, scratch my head in confusion with you.

I am a student of Life.
Welcome to my journey.
I hope you enjoy and learn something new...