Things you may not know...

I was inspired by a Hume Lake colleague and fellow blogger to post a list of random things people may not know about me. It's not really one of those surveys you find posted in the bulletin section of your myspace homepage (what am I even talking about, I deleted my myspace months ago). Some things you may already know, some things you might not. Recently I've been challenged by my husband to exercize my memory, to sit down and actively take rabbit trails in my mind to remember certain things, because that's how the Miller brothers have such amazing memories. They exercize their minds, quite literally. They make a point to remember things. I feel as if I shouldn't just step aside and forget peoples' birthdays, favorite things and memories... even my own beliefs and memories.

So treat this as an exercize for my own mind's sake. Beginner's level. We'll start at 5-6 things.

1. This one's easy: I love food. I love it. I think food is one of God's most amazing creations, along with our own taste buds. I love finding something great to eat and going back to it with friends to make it even more enjoyable. I love that the Bible uses a feast as a symbol, a lesson, and a parable. I just love food. I don't love gluttony and stuffing yourself for the sake of eating, but I enjoy amazing tastes. I don't think I could ever starve myself for the sake of becoming a size 0, because food is just too great to skip out on. I don't know how this makes me sound, but I just think food is awesome.

2. I'm constantly in worry about something. It can be big or small, but there's always something in the back of my mind that I'm worrying about. At this point I wouldn't be surprised if I lived a shorter life because of it. It could be anyting: "Am I living like Jesus, or am I totally failing? What if I'm not being selfless enough in my relationships? What if I'm not being a good wife? What if I never find a job? What if everyone around me finds me annoying?" ... or there's the lesser: "I'm never going to lose this weight. What if there's a spider in that dark corner? What if I accidentally cut my finger off when I'm chopping vegetables? Won't we get in trouble for this?" It's ridiculous. It shows a deeper weakness: lack of trust that God is in control and that he loves me and wants my best. But of course, I know that He is and he does, I just forget so easily. I work on it every day... trust and laying it down, worrying, asking forgiveness, trust and laying it down again...

3. I don't like most modern movies. I only see about 2 a year in theatres. Is that shocking? I stick mostly to old movies and a few recent timeless ones. I feels like there's a serious lack of substance going into theatres these days. They may have good plots or are funny sometimes, but I don't think it's worth sitting through 3 sex scenes, 10 violent deaths, and 50 million potty jokes that involve degrading women somehow. Call me old fashioned, but I just don't think it's worth it. It may be depicting real life and reflecting our culture somehow... it doesn't mean I want to see every last detail of it all layed out. I prefer mystery and subtlety. I just don't think they make movies like they used to.

4. Babies make me feel awkward. It's gotten better as the years pass, but every time I see a tiny baby, I'm not quite sure what to do. It's not that I don't love babies, because I really do think they're adorable and amazing, but when someone else is holding their baby, I feel like I'm not allowed to interact much with them. As if the parents will think, "What are you doing, seriously. This is my baby. Why are you making oogly faces at him. It's weird." I think it's because I have a cautious nature of respect for parents and their babies... I don't want to encroach on territory that they feel is completely theirs. Does that make sense? I guess it also doesn't help when you smile at a baby and they stare at you like you're an idiot. Maybe I have a secret belief that the babies are probably thinking the same thing: "Who are you? You're not my mom. Stop making faces, it's weird."

5. I remember almost every strange and embarrassing thing I do. If you ever ask me what my most embarrassing moment is, and I say, "oh I don't remember" ...I'm lying. I have this selective memory where the normal memories may get a little fuzzy over time, but every time I embarrass myself, mess up, do something awkward or socially inept, or just generally do something strange, I remember it for years and years afterward. It's like a constant reminder or what not to do. I can't tell whether it's a blessing or a curse, but it feels like both. If I'm ever sitting with a group of people and I suddenly start staring into the distance with a worried look on my face, I'm probably recalling something dreadfully embarrassing that I did when I was 12.

6. It takes an average of 4-6 months for me to completely be myself around someone that I have met. Some people have this amazing gift of opening their hearts and lives and personalities immediately upon meeting someone, but for me those occasions are pretty rare. I don't think that's necessarily a bad thing, actually. I think it goes along with the whole "mystery" aspect that I appreciate so much about life and people. And God, actually. In a society where nothing is off limits, I firmly believe some things were meant to be mysterious.


Feel as if you know me a little bit better? Me too. Sometimes I don't really know how my mind wraps around something until I write it all down, pen to paper (or keyboard to internet, as it were).

Until next,
Kate

steps.

Here's a thought... what would our college systems look like if high schools better prepared their students for higher education? It turns out that a lot of college students have no idea what they want to do with their life, thereby changing their major more than a few times, thereby taking 6 years to graduate college and still not knowing what on earth they just learned. When they finally graduate they've realized that what they studied isn't what they wanted to do at all, and aren't qualified to do anything in the job market except lick stamps.

It's a big discovery as I've moved to Wheaton and searched the job market. I am just discovering what I really want to contribute to the world, what I really want to do with my life, and I seem unqualified. I have some great internship experience, but I learned more about how to care for people while working at Hume Lake for 3 summers that I did while taking major classes at school. That's what I want to do... help people. Love them. Care for them and put their well being above my own. And now that I have graduated, most of the jobs I have found require a couple of years of experience... experience that I don't have because I just graduated. It's seems like a giant catch-22.

I am at a loss because I go between two ways of thinking... first, I realize I never should have wasted so much money on University and should have taken a year off from high school to figure out what I want to do, and then go to some sort of career or trade school to become qualified/certified for a real-life job. But then I realize that I made some great friends and met my husband there, so I can't really say that I regret it. It's such a strange place to be in. My desire to be a journalist has faded since I realized how unfair and unbalanced the field of journalism has become, and my photography skills have become for my own enjoyment. My desire to help others has a different package.

So I guess I've decided that high schools need to better prepare their students and encourage them to find out what they really love to do in life, instead of settling on something that sounds okay at the time. I think the job market would look all the better for it.

(And a shout out to everyone who has Hume Lake set up as a google alert. I miss you guys!)

Finally,

After months of wedding insanity, working long hours at a summer camp, moving across the country, and setting up home here in Wheaton, I've finally settled on a new blog. My old blogs (pre-name change and school-related) have finally gone by the wayside, and I'm left with a new sort of "blank book". It is both exciting and daunting to start a new blog because you want to write anything and everything all at once, to have more posts for people to reference and plenty of information to give insight, but I've decided not to get ahead of myself... there's plenty to write, but not all of it is worthy of spilling here.

I'll be writing some topical posts sometime soon, when I've organized my thoughts. The last post from my old blog sums it up fairly well:

"... one of these days when I have the time, I'm going to write several blogs... one about how frustrating it is when Christians debate the insignificant, one about how much we as followers of Christ complicate love (something so very simple, so much simpler than we make it out to be, and we also take on the world's view of love when our relationships should stand so obviously apart from the rest, but that's another topic completely), and one about our society as a whole: the loss of modesty and etiquette and the importance of self.

It may sound like bitterness, but it's truly not. I'm just realizing that Christians have all the cheesecake in the world at their fingertips, and are choosing mud pies instead."

So these are some hefty topics I've been exploring... along with the way American Journalism has gone and how much it has strayed from the pursuit of journalistic truth. That's another story.

At times I feel that there is so much circling in my head, so many opinions forming and truths being discovered, that perhaps I will only write about these things as they come up in everyday life, as opposed to playing catch-up from the last few months. In the meantime I'll leave you with this... life has been beautiful. I am learning so much, loving spending time with my wonderful husband Joel, and grateful to have been brought to the midwest as I look out of my balcony onto a completely white landscape.

Happy December.