Wow.

I saw this in a news article and clicked on the link to the video.  Lacey (his mom) is right.  I fell in love with Christian just watching her hold him and tell their story.

Countdown/Thoughts on "Still"

The semester is nearly over and I'm working on keeping a tight grip on my sanity while I finish up the remaining projects :).  

I gave my Public HR presentation last night and we got our take home final.  It's pretty much what I thought it would be - stuff like building a compensation plan, creating performance reviews, etc.  It won't be especially difficult; more time-consuming than anything else.  It's due May 9.

My Research Methods presentation is May 8.  That involves a pre-ordained layout and order of slides handed down by the professor.  I have those nearly finished except for some final tweaks here and there.

My papers are due May 14 for HR and May 15 for RM.  Our RM professor will, if you turn it in to him, redline your paper and give it back to you so you can make revisions before turning in the final product.  I chose to avail myself of that option and, holy cow, is he...thorough.  It's really a good thing because it's helpful critique that makes me become a better writer and student but as with anything you write, there is always that "My baby!  Dingos ate my baby!" when you first get something back and see red all through it.

After May 15th, I will be done until June when I take two classes in summer school.  The title of one of my books is "Governing by Network:  The New Shape of the Public Sector".  Doesn't that sound exciting?

I'm still (hah!) working my way through "Still" by Lauren Winner, interspersing it with a Bonhoeffer book.  I was reading a section today where Winner talks about how she is fine with being alone which she regards as peaceful, but hates being lonely, feeling she must somehow fill up the moments so she doesn't experience loneliness.  A friend of hers suggested she should try "staying in" the loneliness even for a short period of time - five or ten minutes - to see what it  might bring her.  As she writes, "Sit with the loneliness and ask what the loneliness has for you."

I read that and thought "huh".  I think sometimes we (generic we, y'all) get so caught up in what we think we should be doing for God or what we think should be the outcome of something God has asked us to do, that the unexpected outcome or the not-so-great end takes us by surprise.  We then spend time and energy trying to right what we feel has come out wrong or trying to find/move on to the next thing so we don't have to investigate the unexpected and what that might mean.  Perhaps that's one of the times God has something in particular He wants to teach us or show us.  If we move away from it because it's uncomfortable or unfamilar, seeking something familiar or expected instead, we might be missing out on something we need, that God wants to share with us.

There are things in my life that I am fine on "being alone" with.  I've made peace with them and better understand that this is how God made me.  Yet there are still things in my life that I would put under the "loneliness" column, where I rush around or try to affect an outcome...or just do anything to avoid sitting down with that thing (whatever it may be) and being alone with it.  I think part of me is so used to trying to stay busy when those thoughts or issues come up that it's almost a habit.  The idea of sitting down with the things I'm still struggling with and giving over my (illusion of) control over them, replacing it with trust and learning to be okay with the idea that these things, ideas, beliefs...whatever need to be what God wants them to be rather than what I want them to be is scary.  But if I keep holding on to what I want, what I think should be, am I missing opportunities to move forward and become more of what God wants me to be?

Even with all its doubt and angst, have I somehow made being lonely a more desirable state than being alone?

Yay :)

I was notified late yesterday that I had been nominated for and awarded an alumni scholarship for my program.  It's for $1,000 and will pay for both Summer and Fall semesters' tuition.  *And* I managed to find my Summer textbooks online for a total of $16!

Thanks, God :)

A New Taste of an Old Distraction

I've touched on my body issues and battling my weight before in previous posts.  I have a metabolic issue wherein my body thinks its diabetic, my pancreas has decided it doesn't want to play, and it is very, very difficult for me to lose any weight (gaining weigh ton the other hand seems to happen no matter what I do).  Even when I was training muay thai/MMA two-three hours a day, teaching class, eating clean and drinking almost a gallon of water a day, I could never drop below 200.

I have been taking Victoza for several months (before Paula Deen got her mitts on it) and had a great amount of success with it, losing 40 pounds.  My goal has never been to be a size six or whatever; it's just been to be as healthy as possible and the Victoza seemed to be helping me accomplish that.  At my last doctor's visit, we decided to go off the Victoza as (a) the returns were starting to diminish and (b) we wanted to see if my body had gotten the message now that weight had been dropped.  These last two months were my first months with no medication whatsoever.

I went back to the doctor today and, according to the scale, I have gained 13 pounds.  I was still dieting and exercising.  The only thing thing that changed was the Victoza.

To say I was disheartened would be correct; a mild characterization, but correct.  I have come to terms with a lot of what God used MMA to teach me about taking my focus off how I look/how I think I should look (long story short: it's about your character, stupid, not your looks).  So while I'm not happy, I am not wrapped around the axle about *that* aspect of it all.  I mean, my clothes are even still fitting just fine which is kinda weird to me but...okay.

I don't know really how to explain it except I keep going back to that old, familiar phrase "it's not fair".  I work hard, I take care of myself, yet my body refuses to show off the rewards.  It's hard not to feel defective which can lead to the "God made me wrong" mental path and that's a totally incorrect statement.  God made me exactly the way he planned to make me for His reasons.  This is just the type of moment where I wish I could get an explanation as to why :P.

Adding degrees of difficulty to the task is our office diva.  She's been ill and has had to take steroids.  Steroids increase your appetite and can make you gain weight, and she's maybe a size six now.  Office Diva walks around bemoaning about how she's so fat and how a friend of hers called her a "butterball" and so on and so forth.  I have nearly had to bite my tongue to not say things like, "Hey, when someone comes up to you and takes the food out of your hand and tells you that you shouldn't eat it because you're fat?  Talk to me." or "When someone asks you when the baby is due?  Talk to me." or "When people make comments about you in your presence because when you're overweight, it also means you're deaf?  Talk to me."  I get that she's a former fitness person and this is hard on her and her self-image also but, seriously, once she stops taking the steroids, she should be able to get the weight off.  I don't really have that option and I will freely admit my supply of grace in this instance is running a little short..

On the flip side of that equation is the Spousal Unit.  He is consistently wonderful about telling me I look good and that I'm attractive both in general and especially to him (hey, really only catering to an audience of one anyway :)).  I know he not only means it but he believes it and that helps a lot but there is still that small part of me that whispers "it's not fair" and I don't now how much credence to give that voice any more.  Do I just stop any attempts and let the 40 pounds find their way back?  'Cause they will no matter what I do.  Do I keep trying meds or think about going back on the Victoza at the price tag of $350/month?  Or do I look at a particular diet my doctor and I talked about and try that?  We even discussed lap bands and I know from going through the SU's gastric bypass with him that there is no way I qualify for that since I am too healthy, can work out and have no co-morbidity factors.  It would be an absolute last resort for me anyway and one I would have to seriously consider risks versus benefits before I made a decision of that magnitude.

What we did today was talk about the new competitor to Victoza, called Bydureon (made from Gila monster saliva!  Really!).  It's a once a week injectible versus the Victoza once-a-day deal.  The cost is comparable.  But he gave me some samples to try and then come back in a month.  Drawbacks besides the price are that it comes in an injectible suspension form, which means you have to mix it yourself before taking it, and the needle is QUITE a bit bigger than the one used in the Victoza pen. The first show I gave myself in the doctor's office was a serious ouch.

But right now this is just stopgap while I try to figure out what I should do.  I don't know if I didn't learn the complete lesson from God or if He has something more to teach me on this topic.  Are the available medicines the answer that I should take (never discount the fact that physicians and medicine can work for God)?  He's provided the money before for my prescription and there is no reason to think He will not do so again.

So, hello quandry.  Right now my brain is turning stuff over so much that I'm not sure I would hear God if He was standing next to me with a megaphone so if anyone wants to pray that I and whatever external noise shut up long enough to hear Him, that would always be appreciated.  In the meantime, I need to shut my brain off and get some sleep so I can work out in the morning and then get back to finishing my papers for this semester.  Ergo, good night.

(and thank you Shinedown for the post title)

Wandering

"Some days I am not sure if my faith is riddled with doubt or whether, graciously, my doubt is riddled with faith.  And yet I continue to live in a world the way a religious person lives in the world; I keep living in a world that I know to be enchanted, and not left alone.  I doubt; I am uncertain; I am restless, prone to wander.  And yet glimmers of holy keep interrupting my gaze."

- Lauren Winner "Still:  Notes on a Mid-Faith Crisis"

Why is it...

that people say "I don't mean to be pushy" when, yeah, that is *exactly* what they are doing.

And the winner is...

Our professor was back in town so we met last night and finally got our midterms back.  Of course, when he starts out the evening by saying over half of us - out of a class of 16 - failed the miderm, that's...not encouraging.

I passed with a B and I'm working on being happy with that (*waves to legacy of performance orientation gifted by parents*).  What I found interesting were the attitudes of people who had admittedly never read the book and failed the midterm.  One girl was saying how she'd never failed anything and the Evil TCH Munchkin in my head wanted to say, "You're young yet.  Give it time." but I refrained.  Still, if you're not reading the book or trying to familiarize yourself with the material, how can you be surprised that you didn't do well?

The other thing that boggles my brain is how many people haven't even started their papers yet.  This is just anathema to me because I like to spend the last few weeks of a semester polishing up my prose, looking for any errors, etc.  I know I've got some breaks in that I don't have kids at home but, still, the majority of my weekends each semester include at least a three hour stint in the coffee shop working on homework.

So I have one more case study due that I'm going to try and complete this week, the HR paper to polish up and then finish running my data, and write my discussion and conclusion for the other paper.  Fingers crossed.