things I have done

One thing about UD that I'm pretty sure I like is Christmas break. We don't just get the last half of December off; I'm still not back in school. I don't start until this coming Monday. The reason for this absurdly long break is that UD offers a 5-week winter session, much like a summer session at any other school. For graduate students, that adds up to either an opportunity to teach a short class or a 5 week break after Christmas. Let's just say I'm not teaching this winter.

So what does a(n almost) mathematician do with so much free time? I'm not going to lie to you, it's definitely a lot more free time than I would have during classes, but I am trying to be as productive as I can. I may have mentioned at some point some slightly important and possibly terrifying exams that I need to pass this spring to remain a candidate for a PhD in this program. I've been trying as hard as I can to spend as much time as possible studying for that. Since most of my classwork this semester will be in Combinatorics, I've been spending most of that time in this Algebra book, which is as useful as the book description on that page implies. However, it's a pretty dense book. I can't spend all my time there, or I'd go insane, probably. Thus I must fill the time with something else.

One of my favorite things this break has been playing the new Zelda game with Sharayah, but as she's mentioned she is now working full time, so this is mostly an evening activity (when we're not playing random old board games from the box my mom brought up from Texas). Still, we've spent a good amount of time on it, and it's been very enjoyable. It's a 1-player game, so we alternate. Sharayah plays the fun, care-free parts and I fight the scary bosses. It's a good arrangement for us. Sometimes the bosses can be pretty tough, though, especially since to defeat them you usually have to use some new weapon that you've recently acquired and have been practicing with briefly while fighting your way through the level, but since I wasn't the one fighting my way through, I have to defeat the boss having only watched someone else use the weapon. Sometimes it's not so bad; if the dungeon is difficult enough, Sharayah will let me play the parts leading up to the boss as well, so I get a little more practice. It sounds like I'm complaining but I'm only trying to give Sharayah a hard time (and hopefully elicit a giggle from her).

Since Sharayah is working during the day, that's when I try to do as much of my studying as possible. I can't study for as many hours as she can work, though, so I take breaks to read. My wonderful parents got me a Kindle Touch for Christmas, and I've read several free ebooks on it, from those in the Kindle store which are in public domain to some checked out from the library. I still think it's pretty cool to be able to check out an ebook from a library. So far I've been very pleased with the Kindle. It really does feel like I'm looking at ink on paper. The only difference is that I turn the page with a swipe or tap instead of physically turning the page. I've also been reading my way through the Lost Books, which Shawn got me for Christmas. I had already read the first few but never made it to the end, so I'm hoping to get most of the way done with that before school starts up. As with anything in the Dekker Circle universe, it's quite gripping.

Other than that I've had indoor soccer, being sick for about a week, helping around the house while Sharayah gets used to her work hours, and trying to thwart Puma's ever-growing curiosity to keep me busy. Speaking of Puma, his curiosity combined with his new fear of knocks at our door (which we believe he acquired from Panther, since he used to like knocks at the door) has led him to discover some previously unknown locations in our little apartment (one unknown to him, and one unknown to all of us). First, he has figured out how to open the cabinets and crawl inside. To top it off, he figured out that if he only opens it enough to squeeze in, then it will close again behind him making it a much more effective hiding place. Second, apparently if you somehow pull back that liner thing between the floor and the cabinets, you can crawl under said cabinets and find a whole world of hiding space. He disappeared under there for several minutes one day and we've been trying to keep it blocked since then. Now, Puma is not allowed in the kitchen, and he's gotten to dislike the consequences of entering (having us clap at him, stomp on the floor, or spray water at him), all of which serve to scare him away from there pretty well. Still, he's found the time to get in there and explore enough to find some pretty good places to hide. We probably will never cure him of going in there. We're thinking about baby-proofing our cabinets, but we don't want a situation like Joey had on Friends. We'll think of something.

Well, I'm sure I've been doing other things, but they escape me right now so you're in luck, you can finally stop reading. Until next time. Wait, no! You must stay and read one more sentence. I have been listening obsessively to three Owl City CDs which I received for Christmas from my parents (I liked Owl City and had heard a few songs, but had never owned or listened through an entire CD). If you are reading beyond the one additionally required sentence, then you must buy his CDs and listen to them until your ears fall off. That is all.

I was terribly lost

reason 17 and 10 outbursts

Welcome to Why My Job is Awesome: Reason #17: A couple of days ago I started having all of those annoying cold symptoms, stuffy nose, itchy throat, frustrating congestion, blah blah blah. Granted, my job doesn't have supernatural healing benefits or anything like that (if any such job exists [...for some reason I immediately thought of a doctor having that magical employment, but I'm pretty sure that's inaccurate..?], please let me know), but I think it does have the second best thing: I get to stay home. And still work. And accomplish however much or little I'm able. No one has to listen to me blow my nose all day, which is a plus for everyone potentially involved. I don't have to be embarrassed by how awful I look (having the nose of Rudolph the reindeer doesn't help anyone's self-image), and I don't have to go through any of those tiring efforts of making myself look presentable to the public. I can stay home, be doted on by Jason all day long, and be paid for whatever work I happen to get done (in between the constant eye tearing [sometimes my eyes would tear for so long that I was almost convinced I was crying, which is just not conducive to transcribing], sneezing, and 3.2 bathroom breaks per hour [the jury is still out on whether drinking gallons of water while sick is more helpful than it is annoying]). I lo... whoops. The L word almost slipped out there. I don't think this job and I are at that level yet. But apparently, we are getting closer. Let me rephrase: I really like this job. I so want this job (and, at the moment, more specifically, this company) to love me. But that's still left to be seen. Oy.

So, this marks week 5 (I think?) of working. And even though Edoc calculates their week Saturday through Friday (while I've been keeping track of my weeks Sunday through Saturday), I am still going to declare that this week I completed 5000+ lines, which is Edoc's desired rate for full-time employees. Success! Now, I did have a pretty incredible half day today (I absolutely love doing the 7+ minute dictations of my favorite dictators), but to balance that out, my production has been inhibited by the past 2 days of under the weatherness. So... I think  it all works out somehow. Anyway, once my overall quality has been reviewed, there is a monetary increase to my line rate at 5000 lines and 6500 lines. So, 6500 lines a week is the next goal to shoot for. No clue how long that will take. Oy.

To entertain me during my sniffling misery these past couple of days, Jason has played several a game of Outburst with me. (Brief Explanation of Said Game In Case You are Not Familiar [else you won't be able to fully appreciate/experience the indignation/pain/disbelief that I did tonight]: There are cards with a subject [such as "Household Chores"] with 10 answers [such as Vacuuming, Doing the Dishes, Washing the Windows, etc.]. The goal is for one person/team to guess as many of the 10 topic answers as possible within a certain amount of time. You get awarded points based on the number of answers correctly guessed from the card. Simple enough, eh?) This game is from 1994, and so the "Updated topics!" boasted about on the box top is not really much of a boast anymore. It's more of a subject of laughter. Yes. Anywho, the game is rather outdated, and there are also plenty of "What? Famous Red Heads From 1963? Overweight Comedians With a Toupee? Most Popular TV Shows From the 90s? Yeah... skip it...." cards about which we just have absolutely no clue. (And, speaking of that last card... How can you have a list of 10 of the "Most Popular TV Shows From the 90s" when the card was made in 1994? Oh, things to ponder...) But there are plenty of cards that we give a fair shot and even some that we do really well on ("Parts of the Body That Come in Pairs"? Heck yes).

Earlier today, the card I passed to Jason was "Famous Authors of Children's Books." The reason I passed the card to him instead of taking it for myself was because A) he always passes absolutely awful cards to me ("Bands Who Played at Woodstock"? What?), B) off the top of my head I could only think of 3 authors who might be listed, and C) I figured he probably wouldn't be able to come up with any more than 3. It turned out to be a good pass on my part because he ended up only guessing one of the answers, Dr. Seuss. The downfall of passing the card to him was the above-mentioned indignation/pain/disbelief that I experienced. The nine remaining answers on the card included well-known greats such as A. A. Milne, E. B. White, Beatrix Potter, Robert Louis Stevenson, Hans Christian Anderson, and Richard Scarry. (I believe the other three were Beverly Cleary, Judy Blume, and The Brothers Grimm.) Now, like I already said, I probably wouldn't have guessed nearly all of them, but I know for a fact that I would have loudly groaned the fact that I missed so many obvious famous children's authors. Jason on the other hand just looked at me with a completely blank face. He had no clue who most of them were. How can someone not know who wrote Treasure Island and Charlotte's Web and Winnie the Pooh? He thought Beatrix Potter was a character in a book or movie. I laughed at him for quite a while, partially because it just seemed so bizarre (my definition of "common knowledge" doesn't always line up with his) and partially to lessen the sharpness of my "Oh my word, are you illiterate?" reaction. (I realize illiteracy doesn't have a direct correlation to knowing the names of famous authors, but I think there's at least an indirect connection in there somewhere...)

I think his reason for why he'd never heard of these authors was the final straw: I brought up the fact that he knew, in general, most of the books that I mentioned were authored by these people. If he knew the book/story, why didn't he know the author? His response was that they were either read to him by someone else or he only ever watched the movie or TV show. Oh, so much laughter. I love him.

Anyway, so that's the short story long. I probably sound super mean in the above telling, but it's all in good fun. I love him. He knows it. And it's OK that he didn't read a fraction of what I read as a kid. He's still the best thing that has ever happened to me. I suppose one good thing did come of the whole thing: He said that we could institute a rule with our kids that, once they know how to read, they will read the book before watching the movie of a given story. Obviously, we realize this rule will undoubtedly be broken before it is ever even thought to be enforced, so it's a moot rule, but he definitely soothed my ruffled feathers by offering the solution. And I love him for it.

Anyway, moral of the story is that Jason gives me more reasons to laugh than I could ever imagine and everyone knows (or should come to realize) the written version is always way better than the viewing version.

It's late. I'm tired. Jason is home from his soccer game. (Since I didn't feel well, I had to miss one of his soccer games for the first time. Sad day.) I think I'll call it a day.

This dog's forehead is as wrinkled as my brain felt during Jason's Outburst Confessional.

perks and such

Going from having a completely open, do-whatever-I-want schedule to working M-F 9-5/Sat. 9-1 each week isn't a very fun transition. But despite that, I actually am really enjoying my job. It's so incredibly perfect for me. I am still well inside the "I'm new at this and so everything is still really nerve wracking and I hope they don't fire me" time period (which I predict will last for at least the first 6 months), so I haven't yet reached the point of saying "I love my job," but... I can honestly say I can see myself reaching that point (check back with me on... May 20th), and in the meantime, I am fine settling for "I really, really enjoy what I'm doing" and "This is the best job I've ever had." 

Here are the perks of being a medical transcriptionist:

• I get to make my own schedule. I can work whatever crazy (or normal) schedule I choose. This will no doubt be much handier once there are little half-asians running underfoot, but I'm still enjoying the freedom now. 
• I don't have to step foot out of the living room (or pajamas for that matter). Working from home is pretty much awesome. You should be jealous.
• My compensation is completely production-based. I realize some may not consider this a perk, but I definitely see it this way. The more efficient I am, the more I can earn. It's that simple. I'm only starting my fourth week, but already I can feel my competitive nature kicking in as I race to top my previous week's line count. The spreadsheet of my endeavors is quite magnificent, if a bit unwieldy at the moment. I will probably get Jason to organize it for me in the coming weeks. (...oh, by the way, Jason, do you mind organizing my spreadsheet?)
• Currently, since Jason is out of school until February, I get to sit next to my best friend the entire time I work (I guess this kinda falls under Perk #2). Every time I start getting frustrated at myself, he's there to make it all better. And he'll still be my desk buddy when his semester starts, just for not as many hours. 
• IM and email are the primary means of communication. I'm pretty awful interacting with new people, especially in new situations where I feel solidly inferior to everyone else. So never having to turn into a bumbling mess in front of people who are getting their first impression of you? Win. 
• There's a really neat balance between proficiency and opportunities to learn. One moment I feel like I've finally gotten it and the next I feel completely lost. There's so much variety to it (different dictators, different formatting, different accents, different speech patterns), but at the same time there's a lot of routine to it all. I love routine, but I dislike getting bored, so this job has the perfect mix.
• Time passes proportionately to the speed of my fingers. The faster I type, the faster time goes by. It's awesome. 

This job field is so ideal. I can't believe I'm actually doing it. 

After I've been out of training for a month, I'll have my first QA review. I'm not looking forward to that. I don't know what to expect, and that's the worst. However, I'm pretty confident my self-confidence is going to drop through the floor the week leading up to the review, so at least that's something I can safely expect. Foreboding thoughts aside, I am super psyched about this entire opportunity. I am really, really enjoying the entire experience.

I need to go soak some beans for tomorrow's dinner. While I've been adjusting to the job and all the past couple of weeks, Jason has been amazing. He's been so sweet and has pretty much been in charge of scrounging up meals for us. I'm starting to feel a bit more settled in now though, so I hope to be more help again. Fingers crossed! 

Unrelated to transcription: Here is an entertaining visual for Jason's next 2 years. For a more detailed elaboration, read this. 

Goodnight. :)

Some good pots.

Well, I made it through another semester of grad school. This was probably the toughest yet. I really had some difficult classes. During the last several days of the semester, trying to finish my last two assignments, I think I spent between 50 and 60 hours working in 5 days, including the 20 hours I worked out of the last 27 hours before the assignments were due. Still, I persevered, and I made it through. As long as I was making progress, it wasn't so bad. The only times I got really discouraged were when I went more than an hour or two without figuring out anything new. Sharayah was amazingly supporting, putting up with the 12+ hour days and taking care of everything else in the house so I could just focus, not to mention putting up with me during those frustrated times. Sometimes I'm not sure how I'm making it through, but other times I know it's her constant support and encouragement. I would have quit a long time ago without her.

So today we went ice skating at the rink at UD. I like skating, but I'm very bad. I can generally stay up (I only fell 2 or 3 times in the 2 hours we were there!) but I have terrible form and I know I look silly not falling. However, Sharayah holds my hand to serve as a point of balance and I do alright. I saw plenty of people who were worse than I was, which is always an encouraging thing. Oddly enough I skate better when I skate faster, although I'm not great at stopping (read: I don't know how to stop except by coasting until I slow down) so that's maybe not a good recipe for success. Either way it was fun as always. I'd never skated on a full-size rink before, since I've only skated on cruises and those are like 1/4 size (imagine a cruise ship big enough for a full hockey rink. cool.) Hopefully we'll go again sometime soon.

In an amazing feat of perfect timing, the new Zelda game came out just before the aforementioned week of absurd amounts of homework. Still, we found a little time to play it now and then, and a little more now that I've finished. If you've ever played a Zelda game in the past and enjoyed it, I'd definitely suggest you get it. We've had a lot of fun so far.

We are so on top of Christmas this year. We got our chop-your-own-tree tree the first weekend after getting back from Thanksgiving vacation, we got a real wreath on our door (by which I mean it's made of real branches and stuff) and we have totally finished Christmas shopping already. Normally we don't finish until... well normally we don't finish, and some people end up with nothing from us. Sometimes we correct it in time, and sometimes it's March and we think... hmm, by now it's just offensive to call this a Christmas gift, I guess we'll wait until next year. So the big deal here is that we actually got everyone in our immediate families a gift this year. And we were over a week early! (Though we are waiting for things to be shipped to us, after which we have to ship them, so... don't expect anything Christmas morning...)

We saw a tiny orange fluffy cat at Petsmart. If we didn't think we'd look crazy for having 3 cats in such a small space, we may have gotten him. He was an adorable ball of... orange fluff... and he would follow Sharayah's finger as she traced it around his little window. And I don't mean follow with his eyes. He chased her finger around his whole little cage. I think I would have named him Percival. Is Percival a good name for a cat? You could call it Perry. Or Percy if it was girly. I was thinking today that pets are a good outlet for names that you kinda like but obviously would never want to name a child (no offense to the 0.0008% of children born last year who were named Percival, or the 0.0003% the two years before that).

the first time that you opened your eyes

i am employed.

That's right, I have accepted a job offer. Quite an exciting and apprehensive time. I'm actually going to do it. Crazy.

There was about a week of feeling overwhelmed, which I did not like at all. I don't like to make seemingly super important decisions overnight, and when you have a couple companies wanting/needing a prompt response to their job offer... I did not like that at all, especially since each place had at least one aspect that I was uncomfortable committing to. I don't like to decide on a choice that I am not completely comfortable with. I realize, though, that that is sometimes inevitable. The hard part is determining if the reason I'm uncomfortable is a legitimate one (something that should definitely be given more time to consider) or just something that may not be as convenient or comfortable as I had imagined my ideal situation would be (in which case, I should just get over it and deal with it). It's annoying.

When I get overwhelmed, the idea of curling up under a pile of blankets goes from an appealing scale of 3 ("Hey, it's a pile of blankets! I bet it'd be awesome to crawl underneath them all and see how dark it is!") to an 8 ("Must. Hide. Must find. Pile of blankets. Safety!").  Being able to hide for a short period of time actually seems pretty therapeutic. It's dark. Warm. There are no visual reminders of what was stressing you out. You focus on your breathing (due to the fact that it gets stuffy really fast), which is supposed to help you calm down (I think?). I know it might sound weird, but I think it's a perfect way to handle feeling overwhelmed. The trick is to not let yourself stay under the blankets for too long. A way to make sure this doesn't happen is to not give yourself any air holes for fresh air to come in. That way, as soon as it starts getting stuffy and hot, you know your hiding time is over and it's time to be normal again. Fool proof way of dealing with feeling overwhelmed. Is there a way to patent it? I'm on it.

Anyway, I think for several days in a row I began and ended the day by asking Jason, "What am I supposed to do?" And after he pulled me out from under the blankets, he always knew. He's ridiculously good for me. He solves all my problems. Now if only I could help solve some of his... but he isn't a big fan of just writing down my willy-nilly solutions to his math problems. He has this thing about "proving"  it or something. Psh. Such an odd fellow...

So, Jason gave me the confidence to politely turn down the first couple job offers, which was rather a relief. They just didn't quite seem like the right opportunity, but I wasn't sure if I was just being unreasonably picky/just poorly reacting to the possibility that I was being pushed out of my comfort zone more than I had originally expected or if it just wasn't the "right" job . I guess I just had a slightly irrational (and also slightly rational) feeling of obligation to take the first job I was offered, to get my "foot in the door" so to speak, since I haven't really (and by that I mean not at all) pulled my weight job/money-wise. Self-inflicted guilt is quite the motivator. Luckily, I have an awesome husband who is quick to let me know I'm being silly and that he only wants the best for me. And within a week of turning down the not-quite-right positions, I had another job opportunity offered to me that, as far as I know (given the understanding that I have not yet actually started the job), is nearly ideal for what I currently need/want.

And like that, I am employed. Paperwork has been signed. I am awaiting a foot pedal in the mail from the company. And then training will begin. I am obviously still a lot apprehensive (what if, despite the entire Career Step course, I'm a horrible transcriptionist?), moderately excited (I'm going to make money without being in retail or in a call center!), and overall content (it's nice to make a decision that involves zero red flags inside your gut). God is a good God.

On another note, I can't believe it's Christmas already. And I can't believe it's been over a month since our last blog post. Here's a quick catch-up summary of the past month:

• We visited the Christmas tree farm and sawed down our classically-shaped Christmas tree. 

• Thanksgiving vacation was awesome, filled with tennis, swamp walks, large-scale chess, rotisserie turkeys, licorice, puzzling, tether ball, and a balcony camp-out (!). 

• Christmastown at Busch Gardens: singing/dancing shows, light displays, Clydesdales, a rather romantic sky-high ride, a fantastic coaster ride on the Alpengeist (on a cold, dark night? incredible), and 19th century carolers. Lovely.

• Longwood Garden's Christmas shindig.

• Zelda Skyward Sword. So psyched.
• We got two Angel Tree kids this year, a little girl and a baby boy, and I had a ton of fun shopping for them (Jason may or may not call it 'fun'). There are some adorable baby clothes out there... Seriously. It's ridiculous.
• I might have convinced Jason to purchase a goat and some chickens. 
• Puma now has a hand-crafted, bright pink yarn ball, courtesy of me and my fancy balling (yarning?) skills. I love watching him carry it around in his mouth, his jaws open so wide trying to get the biggest chunk of it possible.

So, there you go. Christmas is upon us, and I can feel my excitement rising. Jason's finals are due Thursday (you can do it, babe), and he is quite deserving of the break to come. I love this time of year. :)

He is not ready for Christmas.

Puma is kind of a dope.

The other day Sharayah and I were outside and the windows to our apartment were open. We saw Puma looking out at us through the screen, and he seemed a little bothered. So, of course, we came over and taunted him. It turns out, if you run the end of a stick along the screen he's just dumb enough to think he can grab it or eat it. This actually went on for several minutes without him ever understanding that even if he was fast enough to catch it, he couldn't get his mouth on it. We also found some berries and set them at the bottom of the window, and he couldn't figure out why he couldn't eat them. It was pretty great. At some point, though, he started getting upset that he couldn't get to us. We walked back and forth between windows from two different rooms, and he always ran to join us, whining as though we had him in a cage. See, to Puma, a cage is any place where he is and we are not. Perhaps more accurately, it's any place where he is and Sharayah is not. Sometimes in Tulsa he would think we had left the apartment (since we had an upstairs) and he'd start yowling the most sad, pathetic cries you've ever heard. He'll do the same thing here if we ever have a closed door between us and him. No matter the size of the room, if we're not in it, it's a cage. Apparently this doesn't just apply to rooms, but the entire apartment. Puma can curl up on a 1 square foot spot on the floor, and he lives in an 1100 square foot cage.

Sharayah made a tasty potato soup today. I helped peel the potatoes for her. It was pretty tough because they were those little red potatoes, so there isn't much room to grip them while you peel. On the other hand, the little ones are easier to wash. I told her that they were small potatoes compared to regular potatoes. It wasn't my idea, but I poured my soup over a Kaiser roll to get some sort of biscuits and gravy style effect. I don't know about all that, but it was pretty good so I'll probably do it again. I think the effect was more like bread and soup, but that's probably better anyway.

Thanksgiving is almost here. I'll be going with family (wife, parents, siblings) to Williamsburg, actually to the same place where Sharayah and I stayed this past summer. Hopefully the trees will still have some leaves, because seeing them in all their fall color glory has to be amazing, judging by what they looked like with green leaves. We'll have the place starting from the Saturday before Thanksgiving, so it's pretty tempting to skip the last two days of school before break and just take the whole week off down there. Maybe someone can bring a laptop and Skype the lectures to me. That would actually be pretty cool. Either way I'm expecting some fun and finally some time to relax for a couple days. Also food.

So it looks like next semester my TA assignment will be to teach math education for future k-8 teachers. I'm thinking that their method of randomly assigning TAs to different classes is a bad idea. I'm not saying it's not an important class, but I have no interest in math at that level. If I end up teaching, it'll be at a university. My only consolation is that it does seem to be a well planned and organized course. I don't agree that it's a good use of my abilities to teach it, but it's a good course for people who actually want to teach math to children. There's a lot of stress on trying to obtain a deeper understanding of numbers and operations, so that when they try to teach the problem solving techniques, it's not just a set of steps, it's based on an understanding of what the problem is really asking at a fundamental level. At any rate, hopefully it will only be for a semester and then I can teach something more interesting. I will probably teach some level of Calculus over the summer, which is a little uninteresting because I've TAed it so many times, but at least it's subject matter that I enjoy.

 the darkness around me

oh to be a child

Children's entertainment just got better.

• I thought Ratatouille was decent, but Ratatoing? That's pushing it. There's a blue mouse. I'm not sure what to do with that.
• I loved Charlotte's Web when I was a kid (all except for the millions of baby spiders released to roam the world at the end), but Spider's Web? Look, the pig's name is Walt instead of Wilbur. That's an instantaneous 2 point deduction right there.
• Chop.Kick.Panda. What a brilliant title to generalize Kung Fu Panda. Personally, I didn't think the actual Kung Fu Panda (the first one, I never saw the sequel) was that great (and I have a thing for pandas [and most things large and furry {and asian?}] so that's really saying something...), so I don't have super high expectations for the Chop Kick Panda. Unfortunately.
• House balloon to the rescue! I thought Up was a pretty good movie ("squirrel!!"), but I really thought the title was borderline unappealing. Making a rip-off "What's Up" is not an improvement. At all. 

These just look like potentially hilarious (but most likely awful) movies. Part of me wants to watch them while the more logical side of me is protesting fiercely. Since I don't think I could ever get Jason to participate in such a viewing, I think I will give in to my protesting side. Sigh.

I figure a kid (if they're young enough, at least) won't care if his/her movie is a lousy rip-off of a better-in-nearly-every-single-aspect movie. The fundamentals are there: You have the talking animals, the bright colors, the kung fu (or should I say chop kicks?). If I were a kid, I think it would be a  winning combination. Anyway.

I guess what I like about the good animated movies of today (which naturally excludes all of the above pictured) is that it is generally entertaining for an actual child as well as a child-like korean posing as a 25 year old. I don't believe these movies would fall into that category. I suppose I can't say that definitively since I haven't seen but bits and pieces of them, but I'm pretty confident. An 11 on a scale of 1 to 10, conservatively.

I suppose the primary point of this particular post has been accomplished, so I shall rein in all additional (but unrelated) rambling thoughts. Done.

I would bet every single feather in this picture that they are not going to see any of the above-pictured movies. For one, they are ducks. For two, I'm positive the movies went straight to DVD. Positive.

once upon a time

Four years ago today, we got engaged. It simultaneously feels like it was only a year or so ago and way more than four years ago. Time is odd like that.

"...i love jason, and i don't care if i'm a sap about it right now. do you know how weird (in a completely good way) it is to know, beyond a shadow of a doubt, that something is right? and this is right. he's so good for me, in so many ways. i second guess everything. everything. everything. but not this. why not? i know rarely is a thing perfect. and i know something that can span decades like a relationship leaves plenty of room and time for a flaw or imperfect moment. yet the thought of spending my life with him excites me. to no end. in all aspects. i know i'm supposed to marry him. and for once, i want more than anything to do what i know i'm supposed to do. God loves me. isn't it awesome?"

I wrote that four years ago and every single bit of it is still true (which is really saying something for me since usually when I look back at what I've written [three or more years in the past] it just makes me laugh at my own silliness/stupidity [which isn't always a bad thing]). Every single word is still true.

The absolute feeling of "this is right" rarely comes to me, frustratingly enough. And because of this, I tend to avoid the responsibility of as many life-altering "big" decisions as possible. That was always one of my worries, that I wouldn't know for sure when it came to big decisions. Because, likely as not, I would probably just decide not to decide and in doing that possibly make a huge mistake. Or take the 70/30 chance of choosing one of the options and, again, possibly make a huge mistake. God truly blessed me in that He not only gave me a best friend but He also let me know that he was to be my best friend for life, which I almost appreciate just as much.

The feeling of just knowing something with complete clarity and peace is exhilarating. I wish I had those moments more often, especially since knowing there is such a feeling makes all decisions that much more apprehensive if the feeling isn't there. But that's life. I suppose it might get boring if there wasn't some sense of unpredictability.

Anyway, that's all I wanted to write. Jason has a homework assignment due tomorrow so it may be a long night tonight. Oh, and speaking of Jason, his birthday is coming up. I had a perfect/funny/awesome gift for him, but it's not going to get here in time. This saddens me. Oh well, a late gift is kinda better than no gift, right?

This kitten doesn't think so. I am thoroughly reprimanded.

the day of celebration

Ah, the day of celebratory adventures in honor of the past 11 months dedicated to Careerstep's course. 

So, the much anticipated (and dreaded) MTE final was conquered unofficially on September 28th (as soon as I hit the little 'Submit Exam' button at 10:33 am, 7 minutes before the 48-hour testing period was over) and absolutely, positively officially owned in the face on October 5th (after returning to the apartment from a super long walk with Jason to find the scary email in my inbox). I graduated with High Honors on the first go. I had to read the email twice before I got up the nerve to tug on Jason's shirt sleeve, asking him to verify what it actually said. I hadn't really had any doubts that I'd graduate (even though only about 70% graduate on the first try, one only needs an overall score of at least 85% so... I wasn't worried), but I was pretty sure that if I got anything but High Honors (overall score of at least 95%) that I would be looking at a retake of the final, for my own sake. Ahh, but it was all unnecessary planning. No retakes for this korean. She did it. :)

On the 4 straight transcription files I got a 98%, but once it was averaged with the score from my 2 editing transcription files, my overall grade was a 97%. The highest grade that I know of personally is a 98% by another Careerstep student, so I am more than pleased. A couple other neat percentages:

• Currently, Careerstep's hire rate for High Honor graduates is 96%.
• Currently, Careerstep's hire rate for their MTE graduates (the specific course that I took) is 100%. 

 It's most definitely comforting.

So, after Jason read the amazingly exciting email, he picked me up and spun me around the apartment. There may or may not have been some drooling involved. (You try having someone sling you over his shoulder while you're laughing giddily and being spun in [seemingly super fast and tight] circles... Drooling happens. I've learned to live with it.) Puma even joined in the celebration by jumping on top of his perch and whining at us, wanting to know what all the excitement was about. We made the night an official celebration by breaking out one of our 'For Special Occasions Only' drinks, the Grapefruit (or was it the Clementine...?) Izze. It was a celebratory night. 

Obviously, one night is not enough of a celebration for such an occasion, so a weekend adventure was planned for the upcoming Saturday (though of course, now it's just this past Saturday so... yea) to be filled with Longwood Garden wanderings, a super cool corn maze "fun park" (I've always wanted to get lost in an all-out corn maze, so I was super stoked), and dinner at the Cheesecake Factory. Even though Jason has been stupid busy with homework the past few weeks (literally, nonstop), he told me he would take the whole day off for me. I still can't help but think that I don't deserve him.

It was a lovely day, a little bit on the warm side at times and ridiculously sunny at all times, and we exhausted ourselves with adventuring. The highlight for me at Longwood was their lily pad exhibit. It was ridiculous. They had so many kinds of lily pads, varying from really small pacman-like pads to super awesome, spike-lined lily pads that I'm pretty sure could support a small child. (*After further research about these lily pads, it turns out that if the weight distribution is done correctly, a medium-sized child may even be held. Definitely going to keep this in mind for the future...) Also, throughout our Longwood wanderings, I had Jason test the sharpness of all things prickly, and he definitively stated that the spikes on these lily pads were by far the sharpest of all the other test subjects.

We also discovered a really cool pepper plant (its edibility [that's a word, right?] was debatable) with yellow, red and purple peppers. I would love to put them in a salad just for the color (regardless of the taste [almost]). We wandered through a meadow and saw a groundhog-type animal eating lunch. We even got to see a pomegranate bonsai with 2 pomegranates ready for the picking. I really wanted to pick them... We took a small smattering of pictures, some of which can be seen in the haphazard collage below, and it was a pretty sweet afternoon. The only drawback was that we didn't get to watch the fountain show... but that'll save until our next visit.

Smattering. To see them enlarged, feel free.

After getting our fill of super cool plants, we headed to the corn maze, which was about an hour's drive away. I loved it. Since it is close to the end of corn maze season, the corn was the drab brown/yellow and not the lush green, but it didn't matter. The maze was still plenty intact with the corn stalks well above my head. The maze was rather daunting, but we only got turned around a few times and made pretty good time once we figured out where not to go. It was such a large maze that, even though there were a ton of people there, you only ran into other people every now and again. At the beginning of the maze, the park gave us these flags made of a felt square and long pole. The purpose of said flag?

If you got frustratingly lost, you could wave your flag above the corn stalks and someone would come lead you out (there was a lookout tower where an employee stood watching for any such panicky waving flags). Jason didn't want to carry the flag around the entire time though so we didn't bring it with us. I think we got a little lucky in that there were several paths that, when taken, would lead you all the way back to the beginning and we didn't take any of those paths (which was good, since it's one thing to realize you've gone in a small circle and it's a whole other thing to go from 60% complete to 5% complete).

Once we finished the corn maze, we went on to do some of the other mazes that were available. These included a rope maze, a bamboo maze (I love bamboo, but a maze constructed of it really makes your eyes go crazy. I highly suggest subjecting yourself to this.), and some other random mazes. Overall, it was a really cool time. Next year though, I think we'll go a little bit earlier in the year so as to see the corn maze in all of its greenness.

By the time we left the mazes, it was late-ish and we were pretty tuckered out from the hours of walking in the sun, so we called an audible and decided to save the Cheesecake Factory for later on this week and just go make dinner in bed at home. It was a perfect way to end the day.

So yes. Good weekend. Life is good. I'm as content as this kitty...

...well, maybe not this content.

Habits

I think I've heard that if you do something every day for 3 weeks, then you've made it a habit. Now, obviously you can still change that habit again, but it's harder to stop doing something (or easier to keep doing it, depending on what you're attempting) if it's a habit. That's good news for Sharayah and me (yes, "me" is the correct word there), because we've made it well past 21 days in our read-the-whole-Bible-in-one-year schedule. I believe we're on day 35 or so and we're still doing well. It's been really nice so far. I don't think I've read very much that I hadn't already, but most days things will hit me in a different way than they have before, or I'll catch a detail that I didn't remember. It's just a nice, peaceful 20-30 minutes we can spend together each night before bed. I'd really advise everyone to try it out. If a year or the whole Bible sounds like too long, there are shorter reading plans on the website (youversion.com, if you're too lazy to scroll down to find it again).

I've also been trying to start playing my guitar again lately. If I've ever had a habit in my life, it was playing guitar. People who knew me at ORU may have seen me with my guitar as much as without it, and may have a hard time believing it, but in the past couple years I've barely played it at all. It's strange to me how something can be such a passion for me for such a long time, and then it can just disappear. While I was at ORU, I think playing my guitar was one of the most important things in the world to me. I really miss feeling like the guitar is just an extension of my arms. Now it's a foreign object that I have to actually hold to play. I can no longer sit for hours and rattle off 30 or 40 songs in a row without checking the chord charts like I used to do on the honors and wing retreats. I can't even think of that many songs, much less play them without music. However, I'm making an effort to get it back. I think it's all still a part of who I am, it's just been asleep for a while. It's time to wake up.

it's Your mercy