A year

I’m in Reno for Thanksgiving. I was in Michigan for a bridal shower a month ago (I guess I mentioned that). I’m getting married in three and a half weeks. The term ends in a week and I have two major papers due. Wedding plans are going great. Have I ever mentioned that Kirk is incredible? He has done SO much for our wedding . . . more than me, I’m pretty sure. I picked up my dress the other day and it fits perfectly and I love it! I was talking to my mom and mentioning that I’m going to put on the straps and meant to say that otherwise it would be strapless (naturally). Instead, I actually said that without straps it would be topless. Considering that there’s a reason I don’t wear strapless things, I might be topless without straps. That would be an interesting wedding . . . Romania is more into topless things that the States, but still, weddings aren’t supposed to be.

I’m so excited for family and friends to arrive! People keep asking if I’m nervous, but I’m not . . . just excited!

I had one of my wisdom teeth filled a week ago and they had to give me a shot of novocaine to numb me. I’ve never had my face numbed before. And shots sometimes knock me out. I did okay except that I felt lousy and had no control over my face. Then it was over and I was paying when I realized that I was about to pass out. I sort of mumbled something along the lines of, “Uh . . . I’m feeling lousy . . . I’m gonna go sit down . . .” They were awfully worried about me, but I was okay after several minutes. My face stayed numb for hours and Kirk was sympathetic but also thought it was pretty funny that I was slurring everything I said. It was pretty funny except that I thought I might accidentally bite off my tongue.

That’s about all the recent news, besides the fact that I had two presentations in the same day about Romania. One was an undergraduate immigrations class that asked me to lead the discussion one day, and the other was in a global media and culture class, where I had to research and report the media history and current media situation there. These happened almost exactly one year after coming back from Romania. I can’t believe it’s been a year . . .

sleep…oh, how I love thee…

I’m getting really bad at this updating thing. My classes this term – Psychology of Religion and Global Media & Culture – are wonderful but a LOT of work. It’s great to know that I enjoy my classes, because I spent a good amount of time during the summer term wondering why I was back in school studying things that didn’t really interest me.

Tomorrow I have a paper due and a multimedia group presentation and I just got back today from a whirlwind four-day road trip to Michigan to pick up my stuff (you should have seen the grin on my mom’s face as I emptied the closet!) and have a bridal shower. It’s a little strange and not at all comfortable for me to be the center of attention and open piles of gifts with twenty-five people watching…especially when Kirk and I are asking for no gifts. There’s really nothing we need, and so we’re telling people to donate to a few favorite places (including CRWRC) if they feel so inclined. About half of the gifts from the shower are going to a safe-haven for women in Michigan. The other half of the gifts were things that people really wanted to give me and I understand that, but it is strange receiving all those things.

Kirk has a well-established house, and the nature of his life is such that there are sometimes up to thirty people staying for a night or two. He has plenty of all the necessary things. I was reading through a list of things that every bride apparently “needs” for her house and had to laugh at the “4-8 towels” (Kirk has at least 40), “4 pillows” (he has 22), “set of dishes” (he has 3 sets), etc. The ONLY thing that he might not have on the two lists that I looked at are the “napkin rings”…which I said very clearly that we don’t really need. Does anyone actually ever use napkin rings?!

The road trip was nice. We left at 6 am on Thursday and drove nineteen hours straight to arrive in Michigan just before 1 am Friday. Then we left to come back to New Hampshire at 4 pm Saturday and pulled into the driveway just after 11 am this morning. I slept for a few hours before meeting with my group to work on our presentation for tomorrow.

It was really fun getting to see my parents and brothers in Michigan (Kirk gets along great with them!), and the shower was a success. I really wonder where the tradition of odd shower games came from. Not only did we play the infamous “Toilet Paper Bride” game, but I also had the rare opportunity to play “Plant a lipstick kiss on Mr. Knightley.” Mr. Knightley, is the hero from Jane Austin’s “Emma,” of course. The game was obviously inspired by “Pin the Tail on the Donkey” but I have to say that Mr. Knightley is much better looking. I might be biased, but I think Mr. Kirk is even better looking than Mr. Knightley! He’s certainly a greater catch and more chivalrous. Jane Austin has nothing on Kirk! My kiss ended up on Mr. Knightley’s eyebrow, which won some votes for “most creative” placement.

Things are becoming less crazy as far as wedding planning goes, and more crazy as far as school goes. My books (besides the ones for homework) are already comingling with Kirk’s, much to the chagrin of some of my friends. I have broadened his collection quite a bit, as most of his are of the fishing, poetry, and mountain variety. He had virtually no fiction (besides the aforementioned categories), and no children’s books, so his shelves look much more well-rounded now.

I think I’m a gonna go home and read something that has nothing to do with homework or weddings and then go to bed. Te pup!

details?!

There’s a funny thing about facebook. Literally as soon as I announced that I was now engaged, I suddenly noticed that the sidebar ads had changed. No longer were they trying to sell me Romanian newspapers or trying to set me up with the “hottest” boy around. Suddenly I am inundated with ads for wedding photography and all the best planning ideas . . . all costing money, of course.

Weddings are kind of crazy. I’m thinking more and more that elopement is the way to go, except that Kirk and I promised that we wouldn’t do that. I was never one of those girls in college who bought bridal magazines before ever meeting the guy. I haven’t planned every detail of my wedding since I was old enough to talk. And reading the helpful wedding book of lists just made me depressed because it had a few hundreds pages of check-off lists . . . a few hundred pages of details that I didn’t want to think about in the first place.

But I’m looking forward to the wedding. I’m prepared to celebrate and dance and have a grand old time with a few hundred of my closest friends (and some people I’ve never met before)! I think it’ll be fabulous. But I’m looking forward to the marriage even more. Isn’t that the way it’s supposed to be?

A tale of a ring (or the absence thereof)

Speaking of twu wuv and mawadge . . . yup, it’s happening. To me. And Kirk.

Isn’t God crazy sometimes? Or maybe that’s just us. I am absolutely convinced that God has a sense of humor. Who woulda thunk less than a year ago when I arrived back, tired, protesting, and disheveled from Romania that I would be getting married?! Certainly not I. The one time in my life when I specifically was not encouraging any sort of relationship was of course when it popped up out of nowhere. It wasn’t what I was expecting and Kirk wasn’t the guy I expected. But that being said, it’s been even better than anything I ever imagined. Isn’t God amazing?!

A friend asked me about a month back how one could know if this was the person they were supposed to marry. “I don’t know,” I answered, “I just can’t imagine marrying anyone else . . . but is that a YES from God?” I might be slightly biased, but I know that Kirk is the best man I’ve ever met. I also know that I don’t want to marry anyone else in the world. I also know that I trust God and that whatever happens, that God is with me. Kirk and I have talked a lot about what it means to love someone unconditionally and we know that we both mess that up sometimes. But we’re working on it. I’m just so happy!

Now for the story part. So, way back at the beginning of our relationship (way back in May), I mentioned that I didn’t want an engagement ring. I don’t have anything against engagement rings, it’s just that I don’t really wear rings (or any jewelry, for that matter) and didn’t see the point in having two rings in the end. A wedding ring is ring enough for me. I always wanted something cool, like an engagement tandem kayak or something . . . or an engagement washing machine if I happened to still be in Romania – there was no way I was going to wash two peoples’ clothes in the bathtub. So Kirk asked me awhile back to marry him, “You’ll notice that I didn’t get you a ring.” “Thanks,” I replied. And then I told him neither yes nor no. I was going to pray. So I did. For awhile. Kirk is nothing, if not patient. Then, about two weeks ago, while on the way back from a weekend of fishing and hanging out on an island off of the coast of Cape Cod with friends, I told him that I wanted to marry him. He gave me an engagement fishing lure. It’s even rusty, adding to the charm. I don’t make a habit of wearing it on my ring finger, even though my tetanus shot is up to date.

His mom chewed him out for not getting me a ring. I’ve been chewed about by several others, including a rather dramatic twelve-year-old who memorably asked me, “WHY ELSE WOULD YOU GET ENGAGED IF YOU DIDN’T WANT THE RING ?!?!” Hmm . . . Why indeed?

We’re getting married December 19th in New Hampshire. Isn’t life grand?!

Tension

I haven’t had the ability or inclination to write a decent blog post in a long while.  Mostly I spend my time writing things that are the opposite of creative and trying to read piles of articles and chapters so dense that I think I might accidentally hurt myself.  The end of the term is in the next week and a half (already!) and I’m now trying to write papers.  This is difficult.  Apparently, I need to have a good tension to make my paper worthwhile.  My professor isn’t interested in mountain climbing and sees no tension.  I’m not interested in the sublime and don’t like tension.  Maybe there’s a tension here.

The only real tension right now is that I’ve seen Kirk for a total of one hour in the last week, he does crazy things like going to bed at midnight and waking up at five a.m. to take kids fishing (he works at a boys’ camp) and I haven’t left the library recently.  So he hasn’t slept and my brain is fried.  We’re both looking forward to next week when camp is over and the term is over and we can both sleep.  I don’t think this is the sort of tension that my professors are looking for.

There’s a funny thing about Cultural Studies.  This is the class for which I’m writing my mountain climbing paper.  Cultural Studies has no relevance to me.  It is in virtually no way connecte to real life, other than the fact that real people go to class and pay real money for it.  Mountain climbing is real life.

More notes from real life: the other day I was driving home from school and a bear ran across the road in front of my car.  Rachel was jealous because she still hasn’t seen a bear in New Hampshire, even though we have at least one living in our yard (Wes has seen it twice!).  Merrick is getting bigger and funnier.  He likes helicopters a lot and is talking less about tractors.  He really likes flying his toy planes through turbulence so that, “people sick!”  This is what happens to the son of a pilot.  He also likes talking about the “hostible” where Daddy is a doctor.  I’ve lost my ability to say “hospital” correctly and now also refer to it as a “hostible.”  He yells, “See ya!” when I leave now and just added, “Have fun!” to the end of that.  Now I’m working on him saying, “Be good!” at the very end so that he’ll start admonishing exiting guests just like I do, “See ya; have fun; be good!”  It’s good to have a shadow.

Kirk and I watched Princess Bride the other night.  It has such a brilliant message of wuv…twu wuv:

“Mawage. Mawage is wot bwings us togeder tooday. Mawage, that bwessed awangment, that dweam wifin a dweam…And wuv, twu wuv, will fowow you foweva…So tweasure your wuv.”

So don’t forget that: weal wife involves tweasuring your wuv.

Help me with my homework?

I’m writing one of my final papers this term on how people who climb mountains are resisting power structures. It should be fun! Right now, I need to know why you climb mountains (if you do). So, if you consider yourself any sort of mountaineer, why do you do it? What do you get out of it? What do you think in process or at the top? Tell me all!

Ain’t life grand?

There is perhaps nothing quite as pleasant as hanging out in a wood-powered hot tub with friends staring at the stars on a cool night.

Or sailing to a sand bar and catching frogs that are smaller than my fingernails.

Or hiking up a mountain on a sunny day.

Or seeing a deer leap across the road in front of me.

Just a few of my favorite things. What about you?

Plowing through

My brain hurts. I don’t know if I’m cut out for this sort of thing anymore. I sit in the library for hours (days, even) under the flourescent lights getting headaches. I even pay for this privilege. I dread going to a class on the off-chance that it might be my day to have my research paper ripped apart for the betterment of us all. I disagree with many of my professors and colleagues and the views (or Truth) that they hold. I feel that one class in particular isn’t relavent at all to real life and that makes it difficult to get much out of it.

And yet, I don’t always dislike it. I loved having my presentation/discussion go well. I received a paper back that my professor really liked. I’m slightly surprised that he was so gracious to me because while it followed the assignment perfectly and was well enough written, it was also extremely shallow. Apparently shallowness is okay sometimes. Classes are sometimes fascinating and sometimes hilarious and sometimes incredibly thought-provoking. I’m getting to know some of the other students in my program. One girl is actually from Romania and we are both thrilled to have the chance to speak Romanian.

Even though I sometimes wonder what I’m doing here, I also know that there is a purpose in it, and it’s probably not limited to eventually getting a master’s degree or writing a thesis about human trafficking.

And now it’s time to write a 5-6 page paper and read a multitude of articles. Ne vedem mai tarziu!

Wednesday is the new Friday

Kirk works at a summer camp and only has Wednesdays off.

Yesterday I climbed up a mountain again. I haven’t climbed up a mountain in awhile. Kirk and I have regularly been going up Mount Cardigan near home, but it only takes an hour to get up and it’s just a hike, not a climb. Yesterday we went up Mount Washington (the highest peak in New England – 6288 feet – and place of the highest recorded wind speed on earth – 231 mph). We went up the Huntington Trail which is full of scrambling and rock climbing (not needing technical equipment). I haven’t been that happy in quite awhile!

Afterwards we went to a river basin that Kirk knew. There was a rope swing and rocks for jumping off of. We went off the rope swing in the frigid river about eight feet below.

Today my muscles are pretty good, but my elbows and knees are bruised. Going from climbing a mountain one day to sitting in class the next doesn’t make sitting in class any more appealing, unfortunately. Class has gone remarkably well so far, including a discussion/presentation that I led on Tuesday! There’s nothing quite like wishing I could drop into a black hole rather than do a presentation and then finishing the presentation feeling like it couldn’t have gone better! My first Ivy League presentation is now done. Thank you, Thank you, no applause, please.

Expanding vocabulary

Lots of homework and not much time to do it. Kirk works at a summer camp and only has Wednesdays off and I have class Tuesday, Thursdays, and Fridays. This week Kirk had all week off, so I wasn’t so excited about class or homework. We went hiking and hacky-sacking and eating and strawberry-picking and homeworking. It was fun. I also went to class. I’m trying to avoid the tempting ivy league habit of using crazy words like “discursive,” “semiotic,” and “hagiographic” in everyday speech. These seem to be popular words among my professors and classmates.

I went to a dirt-track race on Friday night (Kirk didn’t race), and felt much more comfortable. Nobody used big words and we were all happily covered in dust. We forgot our ear plugs, though.