from the land of no air conditioning and 40 degree temperature differences!

well hello my fellow blog followers.

i join you today from a land far far away. a place where the mornings are chilly and foggy and 50. and the days are sunny and 95 and non air conditioned. a mysterious land called...Palo Alto, California.

as i write you, i am stealing Internet from someone named "eeo". To eeo I am eternally grateful, for at this ivy league institution, the Internet connection process is equivalent to rocket science. and, speaking of rocket science, I know my first rocket scientist. He is relatively...well...ordinary. anyhow. my computer failed the "safety test" to access the internet. Stanford tells me there is no virus protection software, which is peculiar because as i stare at the screen, it is actually running a virus scan. very odd. anyhow, so i failed the computer test and cannot access the very VERY expensive ivy league wireless. I guess it's like way better than, say, McDonald's wireless, which is why it is so expensive. I'm glad I have found eeo. I hope we will be long time friends (at least 6 weeks).

also, as i write you, i have a fan blowing air on my face. it's rather annoying because my eyes are getting all dried out...but, if it wasn't, it would be stiflingly hot. today it was 94. they tell us that once a year there is a "hot spell" tomorrow it will also be 94 degrees. I hope that ends the hot spell. because there is not one air conditioning on this campus. like...none. well i take that back. the construction modulars have it. i am considering getting an evening job with them just so that i can have access to the air conditioner. only, the hilarious thing is...in the morning, i will freeze when i get out of bed. it will be 50 degrees outside. and that fan that is now annoying me will be pumping 50 degree air into my ear. the weather channel promises me 80 degrees this week. if they let me down, ill be writing a letter to the governor. basically because the governor is Arnold swarzenegger and i just think it would be cool to write him a letter as a resident of his fine state.

right, so, there are some advantages to my rather obscure new life. first of all, i have listened to a ton of really great music in lieu of the television I would usually watch, and I have read some really great chapters out of some really great books. i have also not had to be tortured with every last detail of Michael Jackson's life. I know my friends in the "real world" (a.k.a. the non-CTY world) are getting rather sick of hearing about it. See, we didn't even know he was dead here until a good...5 hours after he was dead. And our lack of contact with the outside world has left us filling our hours with things such as conversations as to what things we would put inside fortune cookies if it was our job to write the fortunes.

to that note, someone shared with me a profound thought. it was from a Buddhist. that very wise man said that we should treasure our lives like an empty bowl. If a bowl is filled, the bowl is useless..it can't be used for anything else, because it is too full of "things". However, if the bowl is empty, it is open and receptive to all possibilities. I was profoundly struck by this statement, convicted by how often we confuse having a life full of "things" as a "full life". ahhh, how well i now know this is not true. my life in absence of the things I am used to filling my life with has enabled me to have a "full" life in the last several days. i am so excited to empty my bowl and allow myself to be open to all the possibilities that this summer brings.

so, from my room, which has cooled to ... well ... maybe 70 degrees now....to your nicely air-conditioned homes where you read this from (well most of you at least) i will sign off by encouraging you to empty your bowls and open your life to the possibility of the day.

aformerblonde.

awesome teaching, awesome people, awesome farmers tan

This weekend, I spent some time at Ichthus. For those of you who don't know, it is the Christian Music Festival out in Wilmore. I have been the last three years, and this year, the line up was weak, but I was very excited about the Afters, who are actually mainstream, and brilliant. Check them out (http://www.theafters.com). Anyhow, en route to listen to The Afters, first, we met some really great people, listened to some really great teaching...and I got a wicked farmers tan on my legs.

The woman we met, she sent her husband to get us homemade peanut butter fudge. I mean...really? And she chats with us and shares with us....she is from Ashland, and was incredible.

Then, there were two girls behind us, Anna and Annie...from Louisville. They were camping at the Ichthus Farm and were so filled with Joy. It turns out they had been following the blog of Tom Davis and had all sorts of great things to say about him. Not only that but they were super sweet, and we got to chat with them again at the Artists Tent while waiting to have our books signed by Tom. They are doing big things for God, and I think they are incredible.

Then...Tom Davis. This guy is a rock star. He is doing some amazing work in Africa for the orphans...We ran across him at his table...first we were talking to his sales people, but then he came over to talk to us about some of his experiences in Africa with the orphans...I'm not going to say I rarely think about this, but, it doesn't get the "mind time" it should. He shared with us how many people are dying due to Malaria, which is a completely preventable disease. $5 a day is enough to provide mosquito netting and malaria shots to the orphans he works with...Later, as he was talking in front of the large group, we watched a video....profiling two girls in Uganda. One was an orphan and raising her 4 other brothers and sisters. They live in a disease ridden shack...one that wouldn't be suitable for any life...they eat rotten food that people give them, because they have no other choice...the other girl it followed had lost her mother to AIDS and her father is dying of AIDS...he is also an alcoholic and does not work. During the day she is left to raise her brothers and sisters, and then their father comes home and forces the youngest daughter to sleep with him...she is now infected with HIV....

As we sat and processed this...it came back to me, this line from a documentary I watched earlier in the week. There was a Catholic priest who was being questioned about how he could let trans-gendered people participate in church activities. His answer has stuck with me: "It is not our position to judge. Sometimes we, as Christians, get so caught up in who is right and who is wrong that we forget our most important job as a Christian--to Love. To love regardless, in spite of, even though." If this is true, how can we just turn "a blind eye" at what is happening in Africa? How could we not do something? And that doesn't just go for the orphans, malaria, AIDS/HIV...it goes for things that happen right here...children are sold into child slavery and prostitution right here in the United States...(by the way, they are the same orphans that we were just talking about a minute ago). It's haunting...what is happening...but, I don't feel saddened by it...rather, I wonder...how can I help? Where can I help? Who can I help? How can WE help? Where can WE help? Who can WE help?

I bought Tom Davis' book "Red Letters". It talks about what would happen if we all lived in the "red letters". You know...like from those bibles that have the words straight from Christ highlighted in red? I am reading this and I am inspired...to live more in the red and less in the black...to DO something where I can...for orphans, for the hungry, to end senseless malaria deaths...

But for now...if you want some extra information:
Children's Hope Chest
5 for Fifty
Tom Davis Blog
Red Letters Campaign

I hope you will take a look at these sites...I don't pretend to live in a utopia where this can all easily be wrapped up and all these wrongs eradicated. But I do live in a world with incredible people who can make a difference...and I'm going to start being one of them. And to think, the only cost was a farmers tan.

aformerblonde.

Sweet Summertime, or, For the Love of cheese.

Today is the first unofficially official day of summer. Schools out, though I still have one more day of PD. So, in honor of summer, i sit on my deck, with Pandora (http://www.pandora.com) blaring on the computer, the pond waterfall trickling in the yard and a clear view of the pool. I would get in the pool, however, I have a feeling my computer would not appreciate the splashing of water. (Are there waterproof laptops?)

This summer, I'm going on an adventure. And I just realized about 5 seconds ago that I'm terrified. I'm heading out to Palo Alto, CA to teach some super smart kids for 6 weeks. It sounds exciting...and I AM excited, but even as I write this, I'm scared. Which leads me to have a therapeutic conversation with myself about my fear:

ME: What are you afraid of?
MYSELF: It's a long way from home, I don't know anyone, the kids are really smart, and the bed might not be comfortable.
ME: You have to be kidding?! You lived in the middle of the ocean for a year. And then you lived on the ocean for 3 more years. Why in the world would you be scared to go to California for 6 weeks? And, get a mattress pad.
MYSELF: Yeah, I know that. I'm not really a homebody, but what if it sucks? And what if my dogs forget about me? And my friends? Is it possible that I'll leave for 6 weeks and when I come back, everything, and everyone will have changed and moved on and I won't have moved on with them?
ME: It's 6 weeks Nicole, get a grip.
MYSELF: Right, its not that long.
ME: Exactly.
MYSELF: Then why am I freaking out?
ME: It's like that book, who moved my cheese, the mouse was really aggravated when his cheese was gone. Maybe there would be no more cheese for him. Maybe he would never find the placement of the new cheese. This are all ridiculous concerns. There is more cheese. And if you keep looking for it and pay attention to where you have looked and not found cheese, you will find the cheese finally.
MYSELF: You lost me with cheese.
ME: I figured I had. Change can be scary, but the things we worry about are usually things that never happen.
MYSELF: I know you are right.
ME: I always am.
MYSELF: Cocky.

I guess the moral of the story is, we can't live without cheese. Wait, no it isn't. The moral is something new can be scary, but should not be feared. Instead, put the fear on the shelf and move forward. When the plane takes me away, it will bring me back. (I mean as long as I didn't accidentally plan a one-way trip, but I'm not talking about that in this case, so we won't really discuss the logistics of that.) I leave on June 25th, the plane will bring me back August 8th. Of that I can be certain. The six weeks in between are up to me to fill with all the experiences I can wrap my arms around.

As I take a sniff of the mulch my mom just spread around my trees, I am thankful that it doesn't smell like manure, and I'm thankful that I have a place to come back to you at the end of the 6 weeks So I take a deep breath and settle my soul, and my nerves. God has brought me here and He will provide for me from here.

I'll be looking forward to finding my cheese when I get to California. And it better be some good cheese. I'm counting on it.

aformerblonde.