On Pouring Wine

In my daily browsing of The New York Times, I often find articles that make me think, cringe, or laugh. This one did a little bit of all three:

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/04/21/opinion/21cohen.html?em&ex=1209009600&en=822b6125ea4a032b&ei=5087%0A

Enjoy!

The Education Continues

It's one of those rare Friday nights here in our apartment where we are actually free for the night. Just Joy and me and the dog. Every once in a while, we do something exciting: we move the sofa and coffee table, take the mattress off our bed, carry it down the hall, and put it right in front of the TV. We spend the night making some popcorn while piled in pillows and pick some movie that Joy will end up falling asleep to anyway. It's great fun. We took the idea from Over the Rhine's "Let's Spend the Day in Bed," and it really is just glorious. Toss the dog a treat, rub each others feet...

I write all this because it's one of the many things Joy and I have enjoyed in our humble apartment. While this last semester has been a little bit of a roller coaster while considering our plans once I graduate from Trinity International University, we now know what the next step is going to be. I was accepted into the doctoral program in clinical psychology at Miami University in Oxford, Ohio.

I had really come to think the possibility of doctoral education was out of the picture for the immediate future, but after a few phone interviews and a visit to the campus last weekend, the door has opened and we're walking through. Yes, it will be many more years of school. (People always ask and I dread telling them just how long, but it's five or six years. Thankfully, they're paying all tuition and giving me a stipend as well). While Joy and I have really loved living here in Arlington Heights and have come to make Country Glen Apartments a home we enjoy, we're very excited for this next step and move. There are indeed many details to take care of, but there's energy in those details and excitement in the plans.

Since our lease is finished at the end of May, we'll be living with Joy's parents for the months of June and July and then moving to Ohio at the beginning of August. I'm a little intimidated by the school, and all of the graduate students I met in the program commented on how overwhelming it can be, particularly the first year. In fact, one of the students had gotten her J.D. before starting the Ph.D. program, and I had tremors go through my body when she told me that law school was a piece of cake compared to the program she was in at Miami. Yikes. (Drew and Blom, I told her you would not be happy with that assessment.) As I met with several of the professors, there were multiple times that I understood the actual words coming from their mouths regarding their research, but when I tried to put those individual words together into coherent sentences, my mind was a fog. Nonetheless, the excitement remains, and it's certainly one step closer to my long-term goal (okay, very long-term goal) of getting my Ph.D. We'll see if it actually happens.

So for now we are trying to enjoy looking to the future while relishing in the present. We have one and a half months left here, and by jove, we're going to enjoy it. After all, I need to enjoy these days before the misery sets in come fall and I'm surrounded by books and research I don't understand. Plus, we don't know where we'll be living, and it just might not be as easier to bring the mattress into the living room.

A Quote for Today

"All things of the universe are miracles, each as profound as any."
--Walt Whitman

Needless to say, I love this quote. There are miracles all around us, in each moment of each day. How many have you seen today?

Oh, and I must add: Happy Birthday, Drew! You are a miracle as profound as they come.

Lake Powell, Utah

Well, I just returned yesterday from a spring break pretty different from previous ones. While I was in a glorious setting in Lake Powell, Utah, I was there as part of the leadership team for a wilderness therapy expedition with high-risk adolescent females from my internship site. The agency I intern at is a leader in wilderness therapy, which is a modality which takes (usually) teens into the wilderness for therapeutic purposed. Not only are you able to connect with the kids in a different way than when you have a session in an office, but the clients are challenged physically and relationally as they work on their personal goals in the context of a team in a remote setting. Wilderness therapy has been an interest of mine since I began graduate school three years ago, and I was excited to be able to experience what I've read about and researched. And I loved it just like I thought I would.

Our 10-day trip was to Lake Powell, Utah, a gorgeous man-made lake in Glen Canyon. We were right near the border of Arizona and Utah (and went to Four Corners on the drive there!) as part of a kayaking expedition. In total, we were on the water for 6 days and kayaked about 30 miles. We spent our days kayaking, stopped for lunch, kayaked some more, set up camp on the beach, and then went about doing our camping tasks. The girls were divided into 4 teams: cooking team, camp team, boat team, and water team. I was in charge of the meals, so I was able to have some really good discussions while cooking with the clients. Food brings people together, right? In the evenings, we had group therapy sessions and throughout the day were able to work with the girls in large group, small group, and individually. What I liked so much is that the entire trip is very therapeutic in nature, but the therapy happens continually throughout the day, whether it's a more formal talk, or you're simply talking with the client while packing tents or boating next to them on the water. And the clients get feedback from not only staff (who resemble those power-hungry adults of the adolescent world), but also their own peers as they get to know each other throughout the week. Needless to say, it was an exhausting week, but also exhilerating, and something I'd do again in a heart-beat.

Here are a few pictures for your enjoyment.

My New Eyes

Something big happened last week, and I'm not just talking about the fact that I was rejected from two schools for doctoral education and several other schools are supposed to be having interviews in mid-February and must have lost my phone number as they were busy calling all of the other qualified applicants. Nope, that's now what I'm talking about. In my hopes of seeing the future (what one may call existential sight), I focused last week on seeing the present (or physical sight). That's right: I got contacts.

I'm 25 and have worn classes for just about as long as I can remember. My three older siblings all wore glasses. Well, my sister, determined as an adolescent to not let some wire rims take away from her good looks, chose to forego her glasses (and, at times, her grades) in order to stay both fashionable and foxy. Well, I could never be fashionable or foxy, so glasses it was. Until now.

There were times, of course, that I wanted to get contacts before, but when it comes to putting up one's money for eye-wear, it just seems that there are so many other options that bring much more immediate reward and pleasure (ever the hedonist, huh?). I began to talk about contacts a few years ago, and the momentum has been building to this moment. Needless to say, it's an adjustment, and for the first few days I was in a foggy, unfocused gaze. On top of that, I couldn't wake up. Having worn glasses for so long, it just makes sense that the only times I don't wear my glasses are when I'm either getting up from bed or getting ready for bed--times when I'm tired. So to be awake is to have glasses and to be tired is to have none. I got the contacts last Wednesday afternoon and my Wednesday evenings are spent doing family therapy. During my last session, not late by my normal standards, I simply could not stop yawning. I felt horrible, like a fool of a therapist, but what could I do? I thought about explaining to my clients that it was the contacts putting me to sleep, not their stories, but thought they wouldn't find that very empathetic or comforting. I simply ended the session a little early and told them they were beyond help. Okay, that's not completely true, but that's besides the point.

Since Wednesday, I'm getting used to my glasses and have stopped trying to adjust the glasses on my nose that aren't there. In fact, Joy and I spent our Presidents' Day yesterday skiing in Wisconsin, and it was glorious. Previously, I would do all hiking, skiing, and kayaking in glasses, which is simply obnoxious. I just can't wait for the first day where it's pouring rain outside and I don't have to worry about wiping my glasses off after I am inside. That will be the day. Now if only I could get some help with my existential sight, and we'd be all set.

Confession

I have a confession to make: I voted for a Democrat today.

I may be ostracized from some Christian communities for this decision, but it’s one I stand beside. I grew up thinking all Christians must certainly be Republicans: could it possibly be any other way? It was an odd feeling as I walked into the room and was asked: “Which ballot: Republican or Democrat?” I’d thought through my decision beforehand, but being asked directly made me pause. To say “Democrat” out loud sounded almost rebellious to my ears, a little naughty, and I wondered if the poll monitor could see through my hesitation and give me a Republican card anyway. Nonetheless, I took the little electronic card, and sure enough, the Democratic options came up.

I’m by no means a political analyst. Goodness, yesterday I spent an hour online researching this whole primary/caucus/delegates mess and couldn’t wrap my mind around it. Did you know there are such things as super-delegates? So needless to say, I’m not an expert, and the only political class I’ve had was Modern Political Ideologies at Ohio State University during my senior year of high school, and the only thing I remember about that class is that it marked the first time I heard a teacher (excuse me, professor) swear.

My transition from my Republican roots to my vote today took years of thinking, conversing, and, ultimately, wrestling with different frustrations, opinions, and attitudes. It took me a good two years into college to even believe you could be a real Christian and not vote for a Republican: those sacrilegious atheists; those ignorant liberals! So after I began to accept that, indeed, I could actually examine various issues and different candidates, my mind began to shift.

So today marked a moment for me. Not only did I vote for a Democrat (are you wondering which one?), but it also marked a moment where I voted after seriously considering what I was voting for. That was a good feeling, even if it did leave me feeling a little rebellious.

An Ode to My Wallet

A big thing happened this week: I got a new wallet. The walllet I had was the first one I ever had. I got it around 7th grade, and it's been with me through these last 12 years. It was where I put my first earnings as a paper-boy. It was where I put my first drivers license, and subsequently put my first speeding ticket on that first day I got my drivers license. It's also where I put that 2nd, 3rd, and 4th speeding ticket too. That wallet held my first debit and credit card, and later aided me in poor-decision making regarding credit cards and silly debt (which I've since corrected). The wallet was in my pocket every time I left the country: Europe, Asia, Bahamas, Mexico. The wallet remembers being most used in Italy, where it grew surprisingly thin as the Euro quickly vanished into leather goods and three-course dinners. I pulled out my wallet to pay for many-a-meal, including the dinner Joy and I shared the evening we were engaged. My hand was shaking, but the wallet was steady. And then, when I was married, it was that wallet I opened at the airport on the way to Mexico and realized that I had left my debit card in the ATM the day before and had no way to get the money I'd planned on for my honeymoon. Thankfully, the wallet also still stored a small piece of paper that had the pin numbers of my other credit cards written from years before (another poor decision, I acknowledge, but quite helpful in that moment).

As I aged and matured, the wallet did so as well. Sadly, it reached its time sooner than I, and in its final months was a pitiful sight compared to what it once was in those glory days. The leather was breaking off at the folds, the lining was ripped from years of reaching for money that was never there, and the real hit came this Christmas when my grandpa even commented on the sad state of the wallet I carried around with me. He told me that when he saw me next, I'd better have a new wallet, and if you know how wise my grandpa is, you know to listen when he speaks.

So I now have fresh new leather in my back-right pocket. I like my new wallet just fine, but I'm not yet used to it. It feels funny to pull out, looks odd sitting on my dresser at night, and doesn't know my pants pockets and feel of my hand like my other wallet did. I can't open it as fast and still don't know where all the cards and pockets are that I used to reach for so easily. Perhaps we'll get to know each other in these next few weeks, months, and years, and perhaps it too will become a steady companion in my daily rutine in getting ready each day. I get showered, dressed, and then I reach for my watch and wallet.

I threw out my old wallet. For a few days, I had it sitting on the dresser, but Joy thought that was odd, and I didn't quite know what else to do but throw it away. It served well. It was perhaps a little too willing to open up during my youth, but it was also there as I learned how to budget and even save. It is with sadness I leave that old wallet behind, but with eagerness I pick up that new rectangular piece of leather. Inded, there are new adventures ahead and new stories to tell.