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ucsb_madrigirl
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Name: SaraHHHHHHHH
Interests: Absolutely none
Expertise: Procrastination, denial, avoidance
Occupation: Motivational Speaker
Message: message me
Member Since:
10/11/2004
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| Nine months ago, Peggy gave her Shepherd Team hand-outs from a little workbook she has of drawing exercises that are meant to help patients/clients/guinea pigs/college students how to get in touch with their feelings. One of them I kept, and put it on the back of my bedroom door--probably just because I couldn't think of what else to do with it, and felt guilty throwing it away.
It's a drawing of a window. My job was to draw the view that I saw from inside, looking out: something that I wanted or needed but seemed to look at only through a glass barrier. Something that, for some reason, seemed unattainable on my own.
Tonight, after returning home from my high school choir reunion that I had been so dreading--and thinking about how great it had been--I caught a glimpse of the picture that I must have been catching glimpses of every day since I put it up.
But today was different.
I suddenly realized that three of the four "unattainables" or "someday attainables" were now--mine. God has healed, near to completion, three of the four areas that I had specifically said I desired for myself. And although I don't see such dramatic healing in the fourth area yet, I can see the evidence of God's active work this year in that area, as well.
It is completely amazing to me how swiftly God has brought about these changes in my life. I suppose the three "unattainables" were connected more than I realized they were; I suppose the fact that I could "see" them nine months ago meant they weren't very far off to begin with. I suppose that I could make excuses all day long as to how these changes happened so quickly, and so completely.
Instead, I will be amazed.
Praise God for new life.
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| Think less. Act more.
Happy 007.
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| Tuesday, 10:38 am.
A 40-something-year-old academic counselor is sitting behind her ecclectic desk, surveying an inch-thick file that includes paperwork from three schools and petitions of various sorts, including those for part-time status, planned educational leave, withdrawal, and readmission.
The student across from her wants to know if she can remove two classes from her total unit count. She also wants to know how to request that a grade be changed from F to NP. She hopes to graduate in June and would like to clean up her record as much as possible before then.
Obligingly, the counselor opens the file, looks through the papers there, looks something up on the computer, gets out a large catalog and compares it with the information on the computer screen, and highlights some part of the paperwork from the file.
After a few minutes, although the counselor has said nothing, the student begins reciting what sounds like a story that has been memorized word for word. She tells it almost flippantly--something about starting at one school, then having some sort of chronic fatigue something-or-other happen mysteriously, and then leaving that school to become a part-time student elsewhere.
The counselor stops her work to silently survey the student. She does not appear surprised at any of the information the student has just given her. The student, however, is looking, not at the counselor, but at the paperwork from the momentarily-abandoned file. The tops of two short, stapled-together stacks of paper are visible: one stack with a UC Santa Barbara letterhead; the other, UC Davis. The right-hand column of the UCSB transcript reads: B, A, A, A, A+, A, A-, A, A, A+, A. The Davis transcript reads: A-, A, B-, NP, NWS, C-, F, C, D, NP, F.
Counselor: "It looks like when you were part-time, that worked--at first. And then.... something didn't work."
Student: "It worked at first because all I did was go to class and come home. I was losing friendships... missing out on relationships. It came down to: relationships, or school. That was the choice I had to make."
The counselor surveys the student quietly for another moment. The student is avoiding eye contact. But the counselor thinks she sees tears in the student's eyes.
Counselor: "It's hard when something happens like an illness, and you can't do as well as you know you should be able to."
The student remains silent.
Counselor: "It's just not you."
The counselor hands the student a tissue. The room is silent for a few seconds.
Student: "Thank you."
The counselor surveys the student yet again. She knows that the student's thanks is not for the Kleenex. The counselor allows the silence to linger before wordlessly re-assembling the student's papers into an inch-thick file that includes paperwork from three schools and untold stories of various sorts, including those of broken relationships, spiritual battles, encounters with suffering, and true joy.
The student across from her hopes to graduate in June and would like to clean up her record as much as possible before then.
"Therefore, we fix our attention, not on things that are seen, but on things that are unseen. For what can be seen lasts only for a time, but what cannot be seen lasts forever." -2 Corinthians 4:18
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| Contrary to popular belief, Bailey (Xanga profile pic.) is not in fact an average monkey in a red suit, but is one of the rare red-furred monkey breed of the family Beanie Baby. Sightings of red-furred monkeys are few and far between, particularly since the monkey is so adept at “playing stuffed” –remaining perfectly quiet and motionless—when humans are present. However, some witnesses have reported seeing the monkey residing in packs in dark, dusty places such as corners of hospital gift shops and shelves of neighborhood stationery stores.
I first became acquainted with Bailey at the San Francisco airport the
day I was to depart with the IVCF team to China. Bailey’s human had always wanted to go to China, but had not yet had the chance—so, in her place, Bailey went with our teammate Michael. Michael solemnly vowed to treat Bailey as his own and to include the monkey in any team outings (such as riding the "ski lift" to the Great Wall, pictured, with Michael and Andy). Needless to say, this solemn vow was forgotten as soon as the team’s amusement at adding Bailey to every photograph wore off within the first week. Despite the suspicious circumstances surrounding Bailey’s five-week disappearance, Bailey was joyously re-united with his caretaker when our team returned to California, and his spirit lives on in the hearts of many as the 2005 China team mascot.
Also, I don’t have many pictures on my computer besides those from China, and didn’t feel like putting a picture of myself up in the profile just yet.
Tourists.
My team often wondered, while in China, what we must look like to the natives of the country. Loud, scruffy, enormously-nosed… okay, so we had a fairly good idea of how we appeared to the Chinese people. The part we didn’t understand was the people who would come up to us—and by “us,” I mean Michael, 98% of the time—asking if they could take photos with us. At any rate, we wondered: If a group of Chinese tourists came to America, how would they act? Where would we take them?
A couple months back a group of Chinese tourists walked into the Natomas Ross store while I was there. Of course, I have no proof that they were tourists, aside from my keen intuition acquired from being an International Orientation Counselor, as well as from the blatant awkwardness that fell over the store when the group walked in. Maybe it’s because, normally, a group of 10+ professional-looking people in their thirties and forties don’t close in on a department store—least of all Ross, for gosh sakes—as if they had just discovered a long-sought-after store of treasure they had to plunder as quickly as possible, before the next pirate ship rolled in to claim whatever was left. For a fraction of a second, I considered going up to some of them and asking if they would take a picture with me (note to self: ask Mandarin tutor how to say “take a picture”). Instead, I stood there in Juniors’ tops laughing to myself like a crazy woman.
The surprise about these foreign visitors? … they were LOUD!!! Shouting back and forth to each other from across the store! Hmm… is it possible… they weren’t tourists after all?
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Congratulations Bruce and Connie!!!!
