It’s good when it is good to say,
“Tomorrow will be like today.”

I should get back in the habit of blogging. It helps me to remember things. I just updated my list of places I’ve slept throughout college. Am I forgetting anyplace?

91. Somewhere south of GR at the house of an ACMNP board member.
92. The house on Kalamazoo.
93. Pella, on the way west.
94. Ft. Collins for Alissa’s illustrious graduation.
95. Coeur d’Alene for two nights at Josh and Kelsey’s.
96. Paradise.
97. Cougar Rock Campground with the ACMNP team.
98. Sunnyside. We saw Tobias when he was four days old, and then I saw him again at his baptism.
99. Yaak for the Vander Wilt family reunion.
100. Ft. Collins.
101. Pella, on the way east.
102. Alumni 109.
103. Michigan for October birthdays.
104. Amy Laib’s house, after our spontaneous trip to Natalie’s house.
105. Sioux Falls for a night.
106. Ft. Collins.
107. Sioux Falls again. Does that count?
108. Pella for Christmas.
109. Jamie’s house, so we could go straight to the airport.
110. The Moyer’s. We’ll move to Spanish-speaking homes soon.

I very much like Bogotá so far. It’s a huge city, but the school is on the edge of it and you can always see mountains on the east and the west, so that makes it feel less endless. We have been riding around and bussing around with the Moyers and the past three nights we have had supper with different families from the school, and it is so good to get to know them. I am looking forward to school starting. The school seems so empty during these days as we go about getting ready for the spring semester.

This semester I didn’t write poetry.
There weren’t any rhymes in my head–
just wishes to wander
and longings to linger
and dreams about going to bed.

I have been very frustrated with school this semester, mostly because I have a high concentration of education courses. I have a hard time motivating myself to do work that teaches me nothing except that I don’t like to do work. To make sure that we are ready for student teaching, all my education classes are designed to review previous education classes. This might be okay if the first education classes weren’t already a review of common sense. I’m sure you remember the pain of being told “show all your work” on simple algebra problems in middle school. Imagine the pain of being told to spell out your whole thought process behind every lesson plan so that a professor can tell you ten ways to make it more creative. I know I’m not quite ready to teach on my own, but I feel like my training is just turning me off to the profession. I just want to student teach, graduate, marry Ryan, and teach. Funny that it was in one of these wearisome education courses that I was exposed to this encouraging poem by Pierre Teilhard de Chardin:

Above all, trust in the slow work of God.
We are quite naturally impatient in everything
to reach the end without delay.
We should like to skip the intermediate stages.
We are impatient of being on the way
to something unknown,
something new.
Yet it is the law of all progress that it is made
by passing through some stages of instability–
and that it may take a very long time.

And so I think it is with you.
Your ideas mature gradually. Let them grow.
Let them shape themselves without undue haste.
Do not try to force them on
as though you could be today what time
(that is to say, grace
and circumstances
acting on your own good will)
will make of you tomorrow.

Only God could say what this new Spirit
gradually forming in you will be.
Give our Lord the benefit of believing
that his hand is leading you,
and accept the anxiety of feeling yourself
in suspense and incomplete.

I lost half of my tan today.
The melanin was washed away
with soap and water down the drain–
and summer’s gone and done the same.

I was walking home from work with Ryan when I saw Rachel walking up the hill. I let go of Ryan and dropped my bag and ran, embracing her with, “You’re here! You’re here!” I had hoped to see my best friend from Spain sometime this summer, but her arrival was a complete surprise. “How long can you stay?” I asked.

Rachel stayed long enough for us to hike to Alta Vista, Camp Muir, and Bench Lake. She met some of the people I’ve been meeting and shared the food I was eating. The weather turned from lovely to yucky while she was here, but walking through the cold fog between Rachel and Ryan, I coiuld not forget that I live in a wonderful place.

Today was our first church service, and I spoke on the springlike renewal of the Holy Spirit. The snow is melting fast, and gradually more guests are coming. This cloud won’t linger around Paradise forever, and while it does, I’ll relax with a good book.

Let me just say that my college is much more concerned about making first impressions than leaving a pleasant aftertaste. When we move in, they provide t-shirted helpers, shopping carts, and a few extra days just to settle in. I don’t always get there a few days early, but at least there’s the option. In the spring, they don’t even bring us shopping carts to use. As if we had less stuff to bring out than we brought in at the beginning of the year. It’s no wonder I never miss school when my most recent memories of school during breaks always include long nights, long papers, cramming, cramming stuff into boxes, hauling boxes, and cleaning the suite under ridiculous time constraints. Everyone out by five on the last day of finals. Naturally, I am often sick during this week. If this is what college is about, I’m for summer.

This summer, I am going to miss my school roommates.

I wonder who my roommates will be this summer. I wonder about a lot of things. I am excited about a lot of things. I am going to Paradise.

What would you rather have in the room with you?
An inkless printer?
A stained t-shirt?
An angry person?

What is more valuable?
A minute?
A year?
A person?

A lifetime or a life?

I can almost smell Mt. Rainier. All summer, it will smell like spring. The breeze will wind up the valleys and past the waterfalls and under the sun to melt the snowpack slowly. I can almost smell this when I listen to “Noticed” by MuteMath. Songs roll like snowballs through our lives, gathering memories that cool the breeze at our backs.