Tissues, Thermometers, Deadlines and more...

Oh dear. I hate being sick.

I really rebel against it. After all, my body is supposed to know that I am magical, and therefore of course impervious to sickness and capable of ignoring every sort of medical issue. Sigh.

I have been sick since Friday. It's dumb. It annoys me. Plus, it exasperates me to be sick right now when I am in the middle of some absolutely-insane-ultra-last-minute law school decisions! No good can come of lying in fever-induced deliriums whilst one is supposed to be e-mailing back and forth with various and sundry law school deans over various and sundry last minute admissions decisions and newfound (heretofore nonexistant) deadlines! Erg!

Besides, there's the little issue of health insurance.

You see, I don't have any.

I will have some in about a month, when I am officially enrolled in a law school! :-) But for now...well...I'm kind of like a car at 55,000 miles. I'm starting to make all sorts of odd noises, but I just keep ignoring them because I really don't have the money to get them fixed.

Oddly enough, my real car is also beginning to make odd noises! And again...don't so much have the money for new brakes. :-P I think at this juncture a ridiculously wealthy, semi-eccentric, and very childless relative would come in handy. One who likes strange girls with curly hair. Yes.

In other news, (not that anything would be more important than my health of course!), apparently various and sundry people who would like to be our Commander in Chief (among other things) are being interviewed tonight via YouTube questions. Of course they are all democratic candidates, and it is CNN, so I think there will be an ever so slight liberal bias. Still, might be interesting to watch. Always good to know what the enemy is up to. ;-) I believe Andersoon Cooper is the gentleman conducting the interview and it should be at 7 pm eastern.

The Republicans face a similar ordeal on September 17, (why so far apart? Who knows?) so for heavens' sake go to YouTube and post some terribly brilliant questions!

And now I'm going to drag myself back to my post, crawl under lots of blankets, and try to return to that lovely unconscious state where nothing hurts. Take your Vitamin C and Echinacea!

Numbers

Number of moths saved from imminent death: 2
Number of stores visited in desperate quest for "law school clothes": 11
Number of suits tried on: 26
Number of suits bought: 4
Number of suits quickly returned: 1

Number of relatives made comatose by ordeal: 1
Number of coffee-beverages consumbed throughout day: ??

Well, we didn't really drink that much coffee...

So, I am going to law school. In about 31 days, to be exact.
I can't wait. I want to defend the defenseless, seek truth, uphold morality, etc. It's going to be truly fantastic.
But, unfortunately, I have no good clothes....
You see I have always been the T-shirt and jeans kind of girl. Or I had my occasional all-black-like-a-cool-spy garb, the punk-rocker moments, even a pair of parachute pants, motorcycle boots, and some truly nifty shoes I bought just for skydiving. (you want shoes that won't fall off when you land, don't really have heels, and in my experience at least, shoelaces were unhelpful.)
None of that, apparently, cuts it for moot courts.
So yesterday I braved the outlet mall in quest of the perfect suit.

The good thing is, I found three! And I mean, whoa, these are awesome suits. I'm pretty sure I can accomplish anything just by wearing them. Sleek, sophisticated, way too cool... The bad thing is, I discovered I hate shopping.
I hate, hate, hate shopping.
I hate trying on clothes.
I hate the interminable guesswork with sizes. (I mean honestly, all you designers out there, why can't a 4 with you be the same as a 4 with the guy next door!? grrr.)

And...I hate that I seem to have expanded since the last time I bought suits....
So, I am on a diet! :-) I guess maybe at 23 I'm finally too old to just eat whatever the heck I want (like I have for the last 23 years...)

Number of diets started since yesterday: 1
Number of cookies eaten since diet started: 9
They were good cookies.

My little sister looked at me in horror sometime after breakfast this morning and said, "Apparently, for you, diet means eating everything in sight."

Sigh.

Number of suits I will no longer fit in on August Eighteenth: 3

;-)

Something worth dying for

Slightly morbid, eh?

I suppose this one will be a bit on the more serious side. Then again, maybe life is serious half the time and ridiculous the rest. And the wisest people always seem to be able to take anything funny seriously if necessary, or to turn anything serious on its side and laugh at it.

But back to my original train of thought... it's been sort of hanging out in the back of my mind for a few days now. It was started by a conversation I had with my Uncle John, while he was replacing the supports on a deck he built 12 or so years ago. I, of course, was sitting on the deck during the replacing-thereof (don't ask, just chalk it up to another one of the ways my Uncle John is so cool.) I'm not quite sure what we were talking about, maybe movies, but it touched on the concept of being willing to die for something...for a belief, a person, ...fill in the blank.

Now I have to say, that I think actually that's not such a hard concept. In fact, I think most of us would be willing to die for someone...a family member, someone we love, God...but what has always fascinated me is this concept of being willing to actually give up my life for someone/something. I don't mean by dying, I mean by giving up everything I've ever wanted, everything I've ever fought for, worked for, lived for -- for someone, something, else.

For me, at least, it would be infinitely more difficult.

You see, I really don't struggle with the idea of dying for God, country, my family. But gosh...to work at Wal-mart for the rest of my life for God...that's a hard one. (yeah, yeah, I know, why would God want me to work at Wal-mart? Work with me here, I had to come up with something I really didn't want to do!) Anyway, the reason I was thinking about this, and have considered it before, is that in my opinion that is exactly what God asks of me, of everyone, and I think that is exactly what is difficult about Christianity. I think God wants a total, overwhelmingly complete, losing oneself-in-Him love, well honestly the sort of love that I'd laugh at if another human asked it of me.

I think I struggle most with pride and with desiring control of my own destiny...maybe that's why this is on my mind. That and the fact that recently I've been wrestling more and more with what it means to be a Christian. I don't want to be lukewarm...I do want my faith to be something very vibrant and alive, something woven through everything I do...and I do think that kind of faith requires a much deeper commitment than the one I've given Him so far.

The thing about God, though, is that He is worth it. He's worth everything. And more than that, because He is the definition of grace and mercy, because He is not selfish; if we do actually manage to sacrifice trying to control our own lives and give everything to Him--He will bless us beyond anything we could imagine, whether in this life, or in the next.

I'm sitting here once again wishing to goodness I had started this blog seven months ago. Then I would have been describing the dinner where the geishas sang for us and entertained us, or the night I spent in a temple on the top of a mountain, in a tiny room all to myself decorated simply with watercolor pictures of animals and birds. It was at the top of a little staircase, with a window looking out over a Japanese garden. A Japanese garden is one of the most beautiful man-made things I've ever seen. Across the garden I could see the room that Otohsan, Okahsan, and Akki stayed in. I met them at 6:00 the next morning so we could watch the monks say prayers.

But now I'm in limbo. Limbo is always a slightly unpleasant place to be. I've left hanging out with Cassie in Iowa, and yet I have to wait a month before I can go on to law school. Part of me wishes desperately I could start school tomorrow -- I am so incredibly eager to get on with this next big adventure, and so excited about studying law for the next three years. I can't wait.

Of course, on the other hand, that does mean I get to hang out with my fantastic family for the next four weeks...and that's a very good thing. Even when "the short ones" are whining about their schoolwork (because you know, adding improper fractions is clearly the cruelest punishment imaginable) I still love them like crazy. And I know missing them is going to be one of the hardest things about law school.

Although it is occasionally weird being ELEVEN years older than my brother, and THIRTEEN years older than my sister. Especially because when I'm visiting the family, I really don't feel quite like an adult who has been out of college for a year...I feel like...like...their big sister.
(It's kind of weird!)
Yesterday, when Bridey and I were swimming, she was quite upset when I attempted to wriggle out of playing a lots-of-swimming-and-splashing-involved game. I informed her, "23-year-olds don't usually play." She responded, "But YOU do because you're cool." Well, how can I refuse? I have to be cool...now don't I? And they are both awfully cute. And sweet. Ahh..I don't deserve them. :-)

Never mind, scratch that. I am now annoyed with Short One #1 (the little brother). I will not miss him at all. In fact, he's mean to me. He has just been very, very rude. In fact, I am leaving the family tomorrow.

Are there any families out there with openings available? I bring an unusual range of expertise: I make excellent coffee, I can train dogs, I have good table manners, and I don't listen to music too loudly anymore.

Hmmm...said family seems to be leaving without me to go run errands. That's sad. Maybe I should hurry out and join them, in spite of Short One #1's meanness...

Change of heart, I will stay with current family. I love them. :-)

I seem to have surrendered at last...

Well, after succesfully avoiding this business of blogging for...five years now? I have officially given in. To be perfectly honest, I can't quite remember exactly why I avoided it for so long, but my (I'm sure very good) reasons have sort of got themselves lost back there in the haze along with pretty much anything negative from LeTourneau and, of course, any French I may have ever known. Memories are funny, aren't they?

Lately though, I discovered I wanted a blog. It was sort of a weird discovery like when you finally realize that fishing is boring or that broccoli tastes kind of good... well maybe not quite that weird.

Anyway, as I came to the close of my year as a gypsy and began my very first baby steps toward the almost overwhelming adventure of law school, I decided it would be a good idea to start a blog. After all, over the past year when I was doing crazy things I never dreamed of in places like Japan and South Korea, or putting up with the ever-dreaded-hungry-tired-soccer-mom in my stint as a waitress, (oops, excuse me, "server") there were LOTS of times I just wanted the delicious freedom of putting into words EXACTLY what I thought of said soccer mom, or describing that mysteriously beautiful world in the East before I forgot all the details...

But then again, I'm Amy, so I had to have terrible timing and start my blog after all the adventures were over. ;-) Ah well, guess it's an excuse to have more adventures, right?

I have also discovered that I'm an even worse correspondent than I once thought, so maybe, just maybe, this coupled with facebook will finally force me to keep in touch with all of you amazingly wonderful people I keep having the joy of getting to know!

Well, here's to starting something new! And now I'm going to go back to unpacking my car for the five-hundredth-time this year, that is, if I can dislodge my mom's chihuahua who seems to have installed herself rather permamently on my lap.

(packing, unpacking and repacking is the one HUGE negative to gypsy life, if you ever decide to be a gypsy. Everything else is awesome).

I'm hungry.