Calls to seminary are not RED, they are very CLEAR

The day was magical. Mostly in that it started out as a terrifying battle within myself and ended with a very confirming and reassuring voice in my head telling me this was exactly where I needed to be. The conversation in my head this morning generally went like this:

“Go talk to that person over there!!”
“NO!”
“Come on, they look nice!”
“NO! They look scary.”
“No they don't. Go say hello!”
“NO! Yay, they left the area.”
“Okay, how about that guy??!?”
“NO!”

Sometimes I would say yes and go say hi. Some of that introduction stuff was forced on me. Which is good. In a terrifying, please can we get this over with, kind of way.

I tagged along on Niveen's heels for the first part of the day and gradually made my way into new circles. Yay for the blanket acceptance of first day awkwardness. There was definitely a good share of, “Oh hi, I haven't met you yet!” Which made it easy to then start the classic questions of where everyone was from and how they made it here (which includes call stories and chicago stories).

I really, really felt okay after dinner when we broke into smaller groups (thank GOD) and began to share the real stories. Not the little 60 seconds blurbs that are supposed to sum up who we are, but the ones where the fear comes out and the miracle of the call comes across. Incredible to hear how alike we are in certain ways and how different we are in others. But these differences amongst us are also blessings. One person has a “deficiency” in singing... but another person is blessed with that very gift. One person believes he will struggle with his spirituality even though the intellectual side of theological study is tucked securely beneath his belt. This, of course, perfectly balances out the guy that says he has been walking a strongly spiritual journey and is a little afraid that the theology will stump him. Or take my fear of the big city and pair it with a girl who says she's so happy to be BACK in the city and loves every inch of it. It is beautiful to see how each of our weaknesses and fears are met so completely by another person's gift or joy in something.

I am home.

And to top it all? After church tonight, as we were all considering heading toward home, a group decided to gather at the bar for drinks. Yup. A group (and a large one at that – at least 20) of us took to the streets destined for the bar that Paul Tillich spent a good bit of time in. It's a famous place. It's also less than a block from the front door of our seminary. So we order a round (I got a Fat Tire on tap) and go into the next room to fill it with conversation and laughter. Here I was wondering if anyone else in seminary would even drink. Ha. Lutherans are essentially German. Why did I doubt?

Ok, you know me. I was afraid I would be all alone here. Not physically. Not in a city filled to the brim with people. But alone in the scary sense that wants to say no one will ever understand who you are. So of course I was curious if this new place would “get me” or if it would continue to be a place of confusion and turmoil. Blu, you were right. Satan likes to talk smack.

Lesson learned tonight: God won.

Lesson I keep having to relearn (over and over and over...): God always will.

Snow is not RED, but I'm looking forward to it all the same

Okay. Maybe I'm just a complete idiot. But I did NOT expect it to be in the 80's here. Not on my move in day on Wednesday nor in the few days that I've been here. I also did not expect to be living in a third floor apartment without air conditioning. IT IS SO HOT!!!!

Perhaps this is God saying that I need to soak up all the heat I can now?? Who knows. What I DO know is that it is really disgustingly hot in my apartment.

Which is exactly why I'm in the nice air conditioned computer lab of my school. Thanks be to God for air conditioning and for my roommate who showed me where this place was.

And while we're on the blessings part of the post, thanks be to God for my mother. She was incredibly patient with me as I have been adjusting to my surroundings. She let me vent about the walls and doors that have been painted 80 times in that scary bright white color of most campus living spaces, about the stairs going up to the apartment that are crooked, creak, and are stained, and about the apartment that just doesn't feel like home yet. All the while trying to deal with the fact that her baby was now an 11 hour drive away from her in the big city.

It has been hard. I can't lie and say it has been fabulous so far. I'm not sure what I expected. ''Hey God, I'm here. Now why isn't it all perfect?''

Maybe I really am an idiot. I think, in some ways, I was mentally and emotionally prepared for the transition. But I wasn't physically prepared. I wasn't prepared for the heat, the hard bed, the constant walking (though I'm really excited about that), the dirt on the streets when you do walk in flip flops (ahh!!!), and the frustration with trying to set up a home and being limited by funding, your roommate with allergies (carpets aren't good for people with dust allergies - I've got slight allergies to it, too, though), and the setup of your tiny bedroom. There's space. There is. I just can't make the most of it.

So I'm foiled by my frustration. And the heat.

But there have been those moments of joy that cause me to continue to believe.

*My incredibly gracious roommate who is eager to welcome me to a place she hardly knows herself. She's from Palestine and is living in the US for the first time. She's here to get her PHD in Old Testament. We are trying to make our little apartment and this big city our home.
*Welcome wagon - Okay, there wasn't a wagon. But there were 6 people ringing my doorbell and handing me an IKEA blue bag with maps and things inside. We chatted. Josh, John, Meagan, Ingrid, Issac, Manda. At least I think. I've got to work on this memorizing names thing...
*Karen, my godmother. She lives 45 minutes away. In the burbs. With shopping I'm familiar with. And comfy beds. And home cooked meals. Mom and I spent the night there seeing as I only have one bed and it is hotter than Satan's armpit in my apartment. I was also experiencing sensory overload and had to get out of the city.
*Henry, my wonderful fabulous little car.
*S and W, two friends from college who live three blocks away. And speaking of, I've got to get going. I'm heading over there to watch Harry Potter and have dinner.

Thanks for your prayers and phone calls. You are all muchly muchly missed.

Corn and Soy Bean Fields are not RED, right now they are GREEN

(picture is of my grandmother and my aunt's cat back in November 2007)

May 23rd, 2008: My grandma goes in for surgery to help her spinal stenosis. Surgery was a success but she was fed too many drugs and stopped breathing. She coded.

May 24th, 2008: Grandma is stable. Not out of danger yet as she has tubes coming and going and the threat of pneumonia looming. I go into the coffee shop @ 7AM after closing the night before and sleeping little. My best friend calls and says her water broke! Baby is on the way. We are short staffed at work and leaving early is an impossibility. So I've got a long stress-filled shift at work, a grandma in the hospital that I can't gather enough information on, and a best friend beginning labor without me.

I began thinking about the Lord giveth and the Lord taketh away. Was I to celebrate new life while grieving the loss of a beloved grandma?

Today, August 20th, 2008: Grandma is sitting up in a wheelchair moving herself about the room and chatting with her roommate about the birds that live at the nursing home. She squeezes my hand and asks when we are headed back to TN. :)

Okay, so she's not 100% on the memory recall and she's still in a wheelchair and not able to stand up for more than 5 minutes. But she's alive... and in the words of State Radio, "Every now and then she'll squeeze my hand."

Baby Abigail is also using her hands to reach out for things and hold on. Alive and alert and sending me beautiful smiles through the wonderful miracle of picture phones (okay, L helps considerably in taking pictures and sending them to my phone...).

What's even better? I think Abi has grandma's mouth. I thought it the first hour I saw her little face. Perhaps it was the fact that grandma was on my mind when I first met Abi. Regardless... it seems that at this point in my life, the Lord giveth....

websites are not RED, they are generally WHITE

On a side note, I'm trying this new program that Ren's friend is studying for a psych project. It is quite fascinating so far. This is one of the things they say about me (it gives a personality profile):
"To always be responsible and dependable gets too heavy at times and you just have to shirk it all sometimes of and do something that is wild and crazy, like going to sleep WITHOUT brushing your teeth. Come and do your worst, dental bacteria! No one is arguing that you are not reliable; it's just that you differ from your very high conscientious peers in that you also have some streaks of impulsivity and can make some spontaneous decisions, rather than lumbering through all of the alternative scenarios. Maybe you're disorganized (God forbid), or perhaps you like to leave your dirty socks all over the house (the horror), or you're a procrastinator (that's the worst one of all). Whatever is the case, you are not conscientious to the extent that you bore people with your stodgy ways."

Did you catch that part about not brushing the teeth? Yeah. Totally me sometimes. I love the attitude this site has. Love it!

Link to the website: http://www.youjustgetme.com

Link to me: http://www.youjustgetme.com/Alison1L

cardboard boxes are not RED, but that'd be pretty sweet

I've been in "moving" mode all day. And yesterday. And the day before. It wears on a girl; it does. Chattanooga to Nashville was a move... but it wasn't the BIG MOVE. This is the big move. Thankfully I get to keep my mother until Friday. Makes it a little easier. She and I are driving up in Henry (packed to the roof and then some) and she will fly back to Nashville at the end of the week.

This is the best way. I went through all the options (including my mother renting a car and driving that up, renting a UHAUL and towing Henry, Henry attempting to tow a baby UHAUL, and leaving Henry behind...). These were all unacceptable for various reasons. Mostly I'm stubborn. Lol.

So I'm going to go spend the money that would have been used to pay for a UHAUL truck and the gas to go in it... in favor of shipping two large boxes of clothes, shoes, blankets, towels, etc. It will save me the grief of driving a strange vehicle or towing something/strapping something to the roof. In Henry goes the TV, the laundry basket filled with the rest of the clothes and blankets and shoes, a 208 capacity cd wallet holding my DVD collection, my DVD player, the laptop, and then small boxes with electronics, toiletries, office supplies, coffee shop paperwork/gear, a first aid kit/med. box, and journals and papers. Then of course Mom and I will get in Henry. Oh the joy packing will be tomorrow!

That's what I know. I'll post again when I'm unpacked Wednesday or Thursday.

Love,
your TN girl

p.s. If you are the praying sort, one of my coworkers needs your prayers for her family. Just some scary transitions and loses coming around the bend - one of them being a new grandbaby that's sick in the hospital. So, direct your prayers her way, please.

Red Traffic Lights are indeed RED, but I pretended it was GREEN

So I got pulled over this morning. At 5:28am. On my way to the coffee shop. For running a red light.

And by "running a red light," I mean sitting at a stoplight for 3 minutes, waiting for anything to happen. I love Henry, but sometimes I feel like he just can't set off the sensors at stoplights so we can turn. So anyway, there was no sign of us setting off any sensors so the light would ever turn green for us. So no one's coming and I am gradually getting nearer to the time when the store opens and I need to be there. So I watch for traffic (none left, none right, none left) and turn left. Two cars are a ways off. Guess who was in the second car? Yeah....

So he was as nice as he could be and I apologized and said I was going to work. He said not to run any red lights but admitted that he knew what that felt like (and perhaps was confessing that he himself has run some reds??). Anyway. I was actually quite glad looking back that he wasn't a complete jerk about it. He understood. I understood. I got my warning. We went on about our day.

It wasn't an altogether terrible experience. Generally I freak out. Guess I'm getting older? EEK!

Asheville is not RED, but the Hippies sure are

So I'm not sure what it is about Asheville Hippies (one shirt boasted the saying, "Altitude Affects Attitude") but they have a beef with the world and they are going to take it out on every outsider who crosses their path. Heavens!!

I made the grievous mistake of asking some hippie sweeping in front of her shop front (organic clothing) if there was a Starbucks anywhere. I needed some soy chocolate milk desperately and wasn't sure if the 80 coffee shops we passed on the way in would have soy milk or not. So I asked if there was a Starbucks around. *Hiss* "Um, no. There aren't any Starbucks around here... but Ziggy's coffee shop down the street has a great cup of coffee." I inquire about soy milk and that being the key factor in deciding my coffee shop of choice for the day. She says that it's Asheville and of course they do. Well okay then. As we are feeding the parking meter by her shop, she adds as a friendly suggestion:

"You know that soy milk contributes to the deforestation of Africa, right?"

"No, I didn't. I'll have to read up on that."

And dad and I proceed to QUICKLY walk towards Ziggys. Here I thought I was being a good girl drinking my soy milk and now this chick has a beef with that. We were talking to the wonderful girl at Bath Junkie later and recounting the story. I joked about saying "So what do YOU drink?" to the scary hippie. But the bath girl simply said that would have been even scarier as she might have gone into a story about how she captures rainwater off her roof and sends it through a special purifier which then is used to make her ice, run her toilet, and give her delicious organic water. Lol. I feared bath girl was only too correct.

So we find the Starbucks later. I go in to get my chocolate soy milk, 4 pumps mocha, 1 pump vanilla, light ice cup of perfection and ask the guy up front about it. He confirms that there are really scary hippies downtown and that the Starbucks on Charlotte street has had a brick thrown through its window a few times. CAN YOU IMAGINE?! So much hatred towards a freaking coffee shop that you'd throw a brick through its window?

Asheville is obviously not the place for me. I'd have to fight too many hippies to survive.

Otherwise, I like it. The antic junk shops, the funny one way streets, the one of kind eateries (including, sadly, some awesome coffee shops - hippies and all), and interesting people.

I adore Bath Junkie (click for website). She has the bases for shower gels, body lotions, bath salts, bath bubbles, etc. You merely decide what scent and color you want it to be!! That way, she said, they never run out of a scent that you enjoy like B and B works does. She says she often times has people bring in their B&BW scents and she matches them and makes them better. Of course, being in Asheville, all of her stuff is organic and good for you and doesn't have alcohol. I got some shave gel that has the scent of Green Tea and Aloe Vera. HEAVENLY!! I want to shave my legs all the time now.

What else? Um.. Dad and I had a delicious meal at the Grove Park Inn last night. I had crab cakes, a baby spinach salad with out of this world dressing, half of some Chilean sea bass delight that dad ordered, Gouda mac and cheese (as a side), and then some creme brulee. YUM! Best dinner we've had while being here. Even beat the Biltmore. Anywho, dad and I did a little hike (wish I had pictures of the top of one of the blue ridge mtns) and a lot of walking in the past few days so hopefully all that deliciousness hasn't gone straight to my hips (ha!). Alas, I'll be walking enough in the next four years to loose any excess gained in the last non-walking year of my life. ;)

Till next time, I remain your red head.

Biltmore is not RED, Vanderbilt isn't either!

I haven't formed the words to describe Biltmore in my head yet... because I don't believe there are words. It is just me looking around, saying "wow" on repeat, and looking at dad with eyes that say "really?!?!!"

At the same time, it is incredibly peaceful. George Vanderbilt did a phenomenal job with the help of his architect, Richard Morris Hunt, and his landscape architect, Frederick Law Olmsted. It is simply breathtaking. What is sad is that it was not a family house for very long (opened Christmas eve 1895 and then was opened to the public in 1930). I love that Cornelia (George and Edith's only child) and her husband (John Francis Amherst Cecil) opened it up to the public, but at the same time, I mourn the loss of it being a family residence. Apparently, they did so at the request of Asheville's city leaders to boost tourism after the depression. Their son now owns the home and his son is the President and CEO of Biltmore. The gal that did our tour today said William, Sr. still comes by the estate. So funny to have been in the room that he and his brother and also his mother in 1900 were born (and sad to know that the tradition couldn't continue)!

Actually, I really like the Vanderbilts. I was expecting to be a little disgusted at the lavishness of the house and grounds... but am quite pleasantly happy to be here and hear the stories. They constantly had company. Their friends were coming and going all the time. They wanted this to be a place of respite from the chaos of the city. One of the comments on the tour was about the absolute quiet that would have been here. Imagine rocking on the back porch, with that view filling up your eyes, and a peaceful stillness in your ears. Incredible.

One of the best parts was the Halloween room and the nonsense book. You can tell these people had fun. Cornelia took guests one night down to the basement when it was too cold to go outside. They painted the walls! No one really knows the stories behind the pictures but it is certainly evident that they had a good time. I wish I could find a picture of it for you.

By the way... really odd to not have a camera at my side though in a way it is freeing to not have to snap up pictures of places to share later. Would have been nice when we were on the highest balcony of the biltmore though. Ah, perhaps the people we took the tour with will send me some. I'll certainly post what he e-mails my way. ;)

Gotta get ready for dinner. More tomorrow...

Lutheran School of Theology at Chicago is not RED, it is Brown

Lutheran School of Theology at Chicago

A link to my school should you feel so inclined to check it out. ;)

My school is not RED, but it ROCKS

So I called my school on Friday. Just to ask a few questions about parking, books, laundry, mailing boxes there, my class, etc. No one answered. I left a message and forgot about it. Today I get a call from "UNAVAILABLE" on my phone. I rarely answer these but felt like it would be a good idea. Low and behold: the fabulous co-director of the Financial Aid and Admissions office as LSTC. Hurrah!

I got all of my little questions in. All of them. Could I park there? (Yes, on the street for free at my own risk or in the parking garage for $30 a month.) How many are in the incoming class? (50.) From my synod? (3, including myself.) Could I receive mail there/mail myself boxes? (Yes, all mail can be addressed to me at the school's address - LSTC, 1100 East 55th Street, Chicago, IL 60615 - we are small enough that my name is all one will need!) Laundry facilities at the apartment complex or off campus? (In each courtyard, with my access card.) When is everyone else moving in? (Next week, just like me. Though some are already there. Yay!) International kids? (5 in my incoming class.) How can I bank there? (This is yet to be fully addressed though I am sure making my coffee shop paycheck automatic deposit will be a huge help.)

I feel SO much better. Don't you?