bekahcubed

Categories Everyday Life

Housekeeping

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I haven’t been around much lately. I’ve taken a break from my normal blog-reading/blog-writing ways to do some housekeeping.

First order of business, finish portfolio. (And I’m done. Now I can breathe again!)

Second order of business, figure out my thesis (Yep, I decided to switch to the thesis option. Now I need to get my thesis topic finalized, select my committee, and turn in my MOC. Joy!)

Third order of business, figure out this assistantship thing. (Cleaned the labs today, had a quick meeting. Will be teaching my first lab on Monday!)

And then there’s the “extra-curricular” cleaning.

I decided one day that my computer was getting frustrating and it might be time for an upgrade. So I chatted with my dad about what I might need, and got some input from my brothers (which I decided to ignore ;-)). Then, motherboard manual in hand, I went window shopping at NewEgg. Thanks to a decent insurance settlement for the accident in February, I finally had a bit of money–and so I put in my order for a new hard drive, two new memory chips, a new keyboard, and an optical mouse.

Meanwhile, I’ve been “cleaning” my website–trying to get all my various and sundry web stuff into the same format. It’ll be nice when it’s done. The final format is set up to allow for easy changes via CSS (cascading style sheets.) Once I’ve got everything in the same format, I’ll be able to make changes to my whole website by just making changes to a single file (instead of having to open every file and tweak each file’s code individually.) I’ve decreased my sidebar links down to just the updated ones–and I’ll be re-adding the other links as they are updated. So that’s kept me pretty busy.

But then, my computer parts arrived. I opened them up to discover—I’d bought the wrong hard drive. Instead of purchasing an IDE drive like I knew I had intended, I purchased a SATA drive. GAH! So I repackaged the hard drive, printed a return label, and dropped it off at the UPS store this afternoon. And then I went back to NewEgg and ordered the right hard drive.

I was done with cleaning (the labs) earlier than I’d expected today–so I figured I’d go ahead and install my new memory. After all, hard drives aren’t everything.

But when I opened my computer case, I discovered that I had quite a task ahead of me. The entire thing, inside and out was CAKED with dust. I ended up taking out my CD drive, my DVD drive, my floppy disk drive (I know, ridiculous that I have one of those, right?), and my hard drive and wiped the dust off the exterior portions. I inverted the computer and shook (gently) to leave my carpet flaked with dark grey dust. I removed the case fan and wiped the dust from its blades. I removed the CPU fan–and discovered a MAT of dust. Imagine dryer lint, only composed entirely of dust. That’s what the top of my CPU looked like. I picked the stuff up and it was almost a half a centimeter thick! Disgusting!

So pretty much, I ended up removing every component of my computer, blowing or shaking or wiping it off (depending on whether it was an exposed or enclosed component) and reinserting it after cleaning the case space surrounding it. I use old nylon stockings as dust rags–and I went through three pair on my computer today.

But once I was done cleaning, I installed my two brand new 1 GB (gigabyte) memory cards and my new keyboard and mouse.

I started the computer, and boy does she hum. It’s like she let out a big exhale. “I can breathe again–or maybe even RUN!” And run she does. It takes less than a quarter the “normal” time to load web pages. How did I ever live without all this memory (and a clean computer)?

Categories Everyday Life

A Bit Skittish

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We had a good time last night, if not exactly according to plan. The dairy store turned out to be closed. (Who closes their store for an all staff meeting at six on a Monday evening? I mean, really!) So we picked up ice cream from Super Saver and brought it home. Watched Sweet Home Alabama at Mom and Dad’s–then it was late, so Grace went to bed. Bekah and I stayed up and tried on clothes–and Bekah did my makeup. (I think she wants to nominate me for What Not to Wear. I’m pretty sure I’m not that fashion-hopeless–but in the eyes of a fifteen year old girl who thinks it’s travesty to not wear eyeliner…)

Bekah and I dressing up

Anywho, today we ate, watched more movies, played the piano… Grace and Bekah swam a bit. And Caroline called to say that their van had broken down so they wouldn’t be able to pick Bekah up. At first we planned to just have her stay an extra night, but Bekah changed her mind half-way through the afternoon. So, after we watched an after dinner movie, I took her out to where her parents are staying tonight.

We were driving down the road, the CD player tuned a bit (read: WAY) too high for my ears’ comfort level, singing along with Chris Tomlin to “How Great is our God.” I hadn’t seen a speed limit posted for the road we were on so I was playing it safe at 45. (On the return trip, I saw that the limit was 55). It was dark, as it usually is at 10 pm in the country–even in August. As we crested a hill, I saw him, 5 feet in front of me. I think I tried to swerve, but it was futile. I hit the dog.

So perhaps you can understand why I was a bit skittish for the rest of the drive?

Categories Everyday Life

On tenterhooks

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Waiting anxiously for a very special guest to arrive.

I spent a month tutoring Rebekah in Mexico last summer. Now her family is in the States on furlough–and she’s coming to spend the night tonight!

Ahhhhh! Eeeee! Ooooo!

I’m pretty excited.

So far the plans look like dinner, ice cream at the Dairy Store, watch a movie, and then hang for the rest of the evening and through tomorrow. Grace is going to come over for this evening’s festivities (Grace and Rebekah are the same age), but can’t stay the night since she has her last day(?) of detasseling tomorrow.

Anyway, it should be tons of fun. Maybe I’ll have pictures for you tomorrow. (Or maybe not, we’ll just have to wait and see!)

Categories Simple Sunday

Simple Sunday: Food

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~Thankful for food. After 15 months of unemployment for Anna (12 of which were clinical rotations) and 7 months of unemployment for me (7 of which were clinical rotations), both of us are out of money. But even though we might not have money for things like milk or store-bought bread, we still have plenty of food left in our pantry or provided by my mother’s garden.

Pantry full of food

(Okay, I’m also thankful that my insurance settlement from the accident is February is coming this month and I’ll be employed starting next Monday. And I’m thankful that Anna has a job interview that sounds hopeful in a couple of weeks. God always provides!)

Visit Davene at Life on Sylvan Drive for more Simple Sunday posts.

Categories Everyday Life, Reflections

Traveling a Trail of Fears

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Today, I rode a trail where less than a month ago an attempted rape had occurred in broad daylight.

I rode it mostly as a manifesto against fear.

Having spoken my silent piece, I took a shorter path back: the road.

There I discovered a different danger. Instead of a nameless, faceless man intending to perpetrate a great crime against womanhood in general and me in particular, I happened upon a harried mother, intending no evil but capable of inflicting great harm.

No doubt she had other things on her mind as she came up to the intersection I was riding across. Perhaps she looked both ways, perhaps she didn’t. If she did, she looked right through me. Because she turned her SUV directly in front of me, cutting me off. And then she stopped, nearly forcing me to run into her.

Two different trails–one traveled with trepidation, one with confidence. On one trail, nothing occurred. On the other, I could easily have been killed. On one trail, I feared intentional harm. On the other, I was almost the victim of unintentional harm.

Try as I might like, I can never escape the dangers of this world. I cannot escape the fears that might overcome me–there are things to fear everywhere. So I have choice. I can travel the trails of fear, forever in bondage to potential harm; or I can entrust my life into God’s hands and travel the trail of faith.

“Who of you by worrying can add a single hour to his life?” Luke 12:25

In looking for a link to said attempted rape, I discovered that police later issued a recall of the statement, saying that the woman who claimed to be attacked had lied.

Categories Books, Reflections

Exclamation Mark

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I’m reading Ravi Zacharias’s Cries of the Heart (Good book, by the way). Ravi quotes Lewis Thomas from Medusa and the Snail:

The mere existence of that cell should be one of the greatest astonishments of the earth. People ought to be walking around all day, all through their waking hours, calling to each other in endless wonderment, talking of nothing except that cell….If anyone does succeed in explaining it within my lifetime I will charter a skywriting airplane, maybe a fleet of them, and send them aloft to write one great exclamation point after another around the whole sky, until all my money runs out.

The quote impressed me with the author’s sense of wonderment–and my own lack of such wonderment. The cell is but the least of the wonderful things that I could spend my whole life astonished at. What of the new life being wrought in my friends Jolene and Jennifer as they reach the last trimesters of their pregnancies? What of the orderliness of the universe and the fine-tuning of every law to permit human life? What of the intricacies of weather systems that bring life and death, beauty and destruction? What of the miracle of regeneration?

Yet I rarely stop to wonder, much less spend my every day wondering. And I believe I have lost much in my blase grown-upness that thinks it knows the answers and therefore fails to ask the questions.

Oh, to embrace wonder once again. To return to the child-like astonishment, that on hearing why the sky is blue, asks yet again, “But why?” For indeed, the first explanation is rarely the end, it is only a springboard for a deeper sense of wonder.

May I look at life today through different eyes, through the eyes of wonder. May I take the time to wonder, to be astonished, to gasp in awe at the greatness of my Father displayed through all His creation. May my life be a grand exclamation mark, repeated with every breath–an exclamation mark punctuating the grandness of my God.

Categories Following Christ

Litany for Life

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Every finished venture, and every new adventure begun, calls for a time of reflection, of preparation, of prioritization. As I have just completed my internship and am returning to graduate school, this time for my first semester as a teaching assistant, I have been reflecting, preparing, setting things in order.

I have set a few SMART (Specific, Measurable, Achieveable, Relevant, Timely) goals for myself–some more frivolous than others. But beyond that, I have spent some time reflecting and praying over my next step, using a little tool the Navigators sent me at the beginning of the year. The tool is called “PREP for a New Year” and is intended as a sort of New Year’s reflection. The “PREP” stands for Praise, Reflect, Evaluate, and Pray and Plan.

When I got to the “Pray and Plan” segment, I found myself crying out to God that this year would be different than the last. My internship experience was great, but I felt like it was one of the few things that was great about the past 7 months. I experienced great professional and educational growth–but my growth in other areas has been stunted or non-existant.

When I look at what I REALLY want in life, apart from my professional goals, very little has been accomplished in 2009. I have not grown in my relationship with God like I would have liked. I have not grown in relationship with the body as I would have liked. I have not lived with the lost as I would have liked.

My life vision is to glorify God by growing in daily relationship with Him, being conformed to the image of Christ; by growing in relationship with others, taking time to live life together; and by growing personally, always learning and practicing what I’ve learned. Yet little I’ve done in the past seven months has moved me towards that vision.

So I was crying out, asking God for priorities for this upcoming semester, begging that it be more than the previous semester–and God directed me to three simple words. Listen. Love. Learn.

With a hundred things jockeying for my time, my attention, my heart. Listen. Love. Learn. Listen for the voice of God; Love Him with all that is within me; Learn to do His will.

Faced with a deep discontent with the status of my friendships. Listen. Love. Learn. Listen to what others are saying; Love them as Christ loved me; Learn how to serve them.

It goes against my instincts, against my fallen nature. I prefer to talk, to be proud, to teach. But God would have me Listen, Love, Learn.

It would have been easier if God had given me good SMART objectives (or at least something I could DO). You know, thing like:

  • Read a chapter of the Bible every day at least six days a week
  • Spend at least 15 minutes in prayer daily
  • Limit blog-reading to one half an hour per day
  • Don’t listen to secular music
  • No “R” rated movies
  • Memorize a verse a day

Those are all nice, good, EXTERNAL things. Things that only change what I do, but not who I am. They are the easy changes to make, the legalistic changes that can let me feel good about what a great Christian I am.

But God did not give me rules to follow. He did not tell me to do these five steps daily and everything will be just fine. He did not tell me to give up these five items and I’ll be a better Christian.

Instead, He gave me a litany to live each moment of my life by. Listen. Love. Learn.

Lord, may I keep Your word ever before me as I begin the next small chapter in this adventure You are taking me on. Help me to ever be mindful to listen, to love, and to learn.

Categories Simple Sunday

Simple Sunday: A Clean Room

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~Thankful for a clean room. I haven’t had one in ages, partly due to the always expanding stack of papers I was bringing home from my internship. But now, with my internship done, I can make a clean sweep–and I did. There are now about 8 reams worth of paper in my garage awaiting recycling. (The rest is carefully filed for future reference.)

A Clean Bedroom

Visit Davene at Life on Sylvan Drive for more Simple Sunday posts.

Categories Books

My Inner Geek

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Because I clearly do not have enough to do at work, and because I spend much too little time in front of the computer, and because today is almost a landmark for my read every book project, I have spent several hours today analyzing my reading data.

Below, you can see the results of my analysis.

Line Graph of Reading over time

In the above chart you can see my cumulative and non-cumulative daily statistics. The dark green line indicates the cumulative items completed per day. The lime green line indicates the the items completed per day over the reporting period (based on my irregularly scheduled self-reports). The dark blue and light blue lines exclude DVDs, videos, CDs, and tapes from the report–thus reporting only cumulative books per day and books per day over the reporting period. The red and pink lines further exclude all childrens and young adult materials from the report and only report adult fiction and nonfiction.

I can see some interesting trends in my results. While my cumulative total items has remained relatively stable around 1.3, my individual total items has bounced up and down–getting as high as 3.8 items per day and as low as .72 items per day. However, the total books per day and total adult books per day have remained much more steady–both cummulatively and from reporting period to reporting period. This indicates to me that much of the variance in my library consumption from reporting period to reporting period is related to variance in multimedia consumption. (Of course, this inference is not foolproof, as I do not have individual breakdowns by media at each reporting period through the second year–thus it is equally likely that I just had up and down reading periods on a regular basis throughout year 2.)

Pie Chart of Library Consumption by Type

The above pie chart breaks down my library consumption a little more clearly. As you can see, in the past 1050 days, about 76% of my library consumption has been of print media. 61% of total consumption is composed of books of decent size. (I am considering the following categories to include books of “decent size” adult fiction and non-fiction, young adult fiction, and juvenile fiction. Since most of the youth non-fiction, chapter books, first readers, and picture books fall under 40 pages, I am not considering them to be “decently sized” books.)

I did a quick calculation and came up with 868 books of decent size read since September 5, 2006–which comes out to about .83 per day. So my standard statement (that I read 1.25 books per day) is not technically true. Since September 5, 2006, I have consumed 1.25 library items per day. However, it would be most accurate for me to state that I read around .8 books per day–which is still nothing to sneeze at.

So, having done this analysis, I can rest easy tonight. I did not induce Dr. K to lie about how much I read at our internship graduation. I still qualify for groundhog status (digga, digga, digga). ;-)

Categories Everyday Life

Top 10 Reasons to Work at Home (Single Woman Edition)

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Why I’m more efficient when I’m working from home:

  1. I don’t count potty breaks as work time.
  2. I can take breaks when my brain takes breaks–and pick up the task again when I’m fresh
  3. Don’t have to worry about leaving my water bottle at home and getting dehydrated
  4. Access to much needed snacks to boost my brain glucose mid-day
  5. Access to my personal reference works (tons nicer than relying on the internet alone)
  6. No default home page set to company intranet (how many minutes have I wasted typing in www.google.com?)
  7. No phone with an annoying jingle in the cubicle nearby
  8. No interruptions by coworkers wanting me to “look through these files”
  9. No cubicle-mates who type their letters out loud, including long hisses on every “s”
  10. Don’t have to listen as a woman in a nearby cubicle micro-manages her adult children’s lives

Which is why I’m taking every opportunity this week to bring my work home. I log my minutes and make sure I get my time in–but I don’t have to deal with the minor (or major?) disruptions that add stress to my already massively stressful last week.