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*¤*·.·´¯`·.·*S†ella's ♥ Space*·.·´¯`·.·*¤*~~ My Thoughts and Prayers ~~ Mis Pensamientos y Oraciones ~~
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where do y'all come from?
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September 02 Floridian Coldness Florida is freezing.
No, not the outside part. The inside part.
Every house and every office and every restaurant has central air conditioning, and they are all set to very Stella-chilling temperatures. While a t-shirt is fine for walking to campus, I'm finding I will get goosebumps if I don't bring a sweatshirt to don upon entering a building.
It's pretty sad when you have to put on your thermal blankets, thermal socks, and a sweatshirt to sleep at a comfortable temperature in Florida.
That's what I did every night for my first week at my house until my cousin helped me completely close my air conditioning vents. Then I could avoid becoming a Stella-cicle in at least one indoors location. But after getting back from Labor Day at my relatives', I strongly suspect my head resident turned our house's overall temperature a few degrees lower still.
Floridians say they're a hot bunch.
But at least in Michigan I could escape the overly cold by retreating to my house's un-air-conditioned second story. Here, there is no such mosquito-free option. (NOTE: "Mosquito-free" is the operating word in the previous sentence.)
Man, if only I'd packed my parka... Labor Day Weekend in Florida So Sunday after church I used up one of my last gift cards, one for Citgo gas (ten dollars only bought 2.67 gallons--*sniff, sniff*), and headed to my Grandma J's house for Labor Day weekend.
I arrived just as one pair of my aunts and uncles was leaving from a Sunday afternoon visit, and then Grandma and I had navy bean soup and skillet-fried cornbread. I asked her about the Southern-ness of the food, since I know she's from the North originally. She told me that when she married my Grandpa, a Tennessee country boy, she had never learned to cook. He told her not to worry--he'd teach her what he liked and what he didn't like. And he liked down-home country cookin'.
"Navy bean soup was one of his favorites," my Grandma sighed nostalgically.
After dinner, we watched some of my Grandma's favorite shows: America's Funniest Home Videos (all during which my Grandma told me how much she didn't like the physical comedy so prevalent in AFHV) and Extreme Makeover: Home Edition. In the latter show, Ty Pennington and his crew were rebuilding a house and a church in New Orleans after Hurricane Katrina. Grandma and I both were struck by the fact that Hurricane Gustav was right on New Orlean's back porch as we watched the episode.
It is strange watching TV after not watching it for so long. I'm sure other commuter-type students can relate...(though I'd probably be surprised by how many cannot).
This visit, I succeeded in making Thumbelina, Grandma's ornery cat, hiss at me twice for petting/brushing her when she asked me to. I guess a hiss is her version of "why can't you read my feline mind? I liked you petting me two seconds ago, but now I do not."
I napped on Sunday after church, and on Monday morning after breakfast, I couldn't help but fall back asleep, as well. It felt so strange--I hadn't been skimping too much on sleep, not this early in the semester, anyways. My mom told me it was probably my body's reaction to stress. Some reaction! I'd rather be up doing things. But it makes a lot of sense to me.
Finally, around noon Grandma and I headed over to my Aunt Barb's house. We brought homemade baked beans, homemade cole slaw, steaks, and a homemade apple dessert. To this my aunt's mother-in-law added a cooked cabbage dish, and Aunt Barb added salsa, guacamole (which I helped make! YAY!), chips, hot dogs, hamburgers, and probably something else I'm forgetting we had. The five of us had a Labor Day feast, and then we watched a movie that I saw when I was 9 and that I've been longing to see again ever since: The Russians Are Coming. I love it because, although it was made in the '60s, it depicts the Cold War very realistically: individuals on both sides were scared of the other side.
Plus it's really funny.
Sadly, finally, I had to leave my aunt's house and head homeward. I only made two wrong turns this time.
Oh yes, victory is mine. August 30 First week of graduate-level classes YAY! Here at my house we finally got the Internet (albeit three weeks after the company said they'd get it to us)!
For the past week, "Do you know if the Internet is working yet?" has been the standard greeting for my housemates and me.
EXAMPLE:
Stella's housemate enters the house and sees Stella's door open.
STELLA'S HOUSEMATE: Hey.
STELLA: Hey.
STELLA'S HOUSEMATE: Is the Internet working yet?
STELLA: No.
STELLA'S HOUSEMATE: Oh.
Leaves. Anyway....
I haven't posted since Monday. That's partially because of the lack of Internet, but mostly because of the busyness of getting settled into classes and work. For a VERY brief overview:
Monday and Tuesday I spent alternating between classes and the departmental computer lab (which you have to type a security code in on a panel to enter--neat high-tech-ness!!
 ). Monday I had my first class. It's one of the required classes, focused on Latin American history and issues. My other two classes are on research methods (also required) and inter-American relations (my elective). My inter-American relations prof assigned us over 470 pages of reading for this week.
 Yeah. So I'm diving right into the world of graduate studies...
Speaking of which, on Tuesday I got a tour of our departmental Latin American library. It was quite impressive--over 450 thousand volumes taking up space on maybe 4 different floors. And some of the shelves are pressed right together so you have to punch in an access code to make them move open so you can get out the books you want. !
Wednesday I began working as a graduate assistant for the departmental head Academic Affairs, Dr. B. I had the thrilling jobs of updating a contact list of all our department's affiliate departments.
But you know, after so much thinking about all sorts of Latin American issues and my thesis topic and budgeting and scheduling and getting around a ginormous, confusing campus--it's kind of nice to do something monotonous and non-thinking-oriented.
I have my very own carrel to do my non-thinking in, too. A "carrel" is basically the academic world's version of a cubicle. Which might not sound all that exciting, but believe me, carrels are highly-prized status symbols in the graduate studies world.
Which is humorous, if you think about it long enough...
Also on Wednesday, I got to see my Aunt Barb. She called me up in the midst of my updating contact list busyness and said she was in town and had some stuff to give me. So we made a lunch of it. We went to a Vietnamese restaurant and had Hanoi-style chicken and butter rice. It was very yummy-ful. I like Vietnamese.
I also like college towns where international foods are more readily available than they are in my little Michigan town...
Well, I like college towns when I don't have to drive in them. Let's put it that way.
(Complete and utter inserted side note: my Vietnamese fortune cookie read, "You like sports, horses, and gambling, but not too much." Could there even possibly be a fortune cookie further from the truth? If you know me, you will know I like neither gambling nor sports, and horses are OK as long as I don't have to ride them for too long.
Ouuuchh....) On another topic, I've been searching for a Christian group to take part in on campus. A lot of organizations have had barbecues or lunches this past week, which has greatly facilitated my search. By far the likeliest candidate is Graduate Christian Fellowship. The members are on more the same experiential level as I am. Don't get me wrong: I am very thankful for all the undergraduate ministries, too, but the lives of graduates and undergraduates are two totally different worlds, as I am quickly discovering.
No undergraduate prof would assign 470 pages of reading on the first day, for example.
The latter half of this week I spent most of my time in the library reading assigned books that said professor put on two-hour reserve. The two-hour reserve is both a convenience and an inconvenience, depending on how you look at it. Today (Saturday) I spent over six hours in the library and would have spent more time there if the library hadn't have closed early (Bah.).
Walking to the library today was definitely a new experience for me, though. Not that walking to campus has been out-of-the-ordinary--no, I've walked to and from campus every day for the past week and a half. It's about 3 miles roundtrip, and I have not minded much at all. It's a good time to think, pray, and talk on my cell phone to my mom. Also I can feel my legs getting strong like they were on my semester in Lima two years ago. Which makes me very
. No, the walking was not the new part for me. The amazing abundance of people around me was.
My university had a big football game today, and starting a full mile from the stadium, cars lined the road on both sides, bumper-to-bumper. There were tailgaters grilling underneath little tent things as far as my eyes could see, and they were a sea of my school colors. I knew it was going to happen, but my mind just couldn't fathom it when it did happen. My undergraduate institute didn't even have a football team. We had soccer. Rah rah. So that many "football fan" type people was overwhelming...
But the library was almost empty, which made it easier to read dense academic textbooks.
 Another new experience for me has been buying my own food with my own money and cooking it just for myself. It's been fun in a way (I love cooking), but it's also more difficult than I naively anticipated (cooking takes lots of time.). So today I got out a bunch of rice, half a cabbage, and a bunch of chicken thighs and cooked for the coming week, so I can just do the tupperware thing every day instead of having to scurry around making sandwiches and cutting up carrot sticks (which, as I mentioned before, takes surprisingly long).
I made a whole potful of Peruvian-style rice, a big pan of stir-fried cabbage, and some sauteed chicken. All garlicky a yummy.
 I can hardly believe this first week is done. With no exaggeration, it felt like two and a half weeks, it was so intense. Even the "breaks" were intense: hanging out with Graduate Christian Fellowship and our departmental student organization, going shopping.
All which goes to say, I have so much more to say and so much more to mull over "out loud" to you all, but, then, there's that "time" thing again.
 I have a load of laundry I need to sort now. And two book chapters and a scholarly journal article to read. So until the next opportunity~~ Thanks for all your prayers. I have not forgotten you all, and I thank you for not forgetting me. August 26 Monday musings Florida is very interesting. As I walk the broiling sidewalk from home to campus, I notice itty bitty lizards scrambling to cross it before my feet come pounding down dangerously close to where they were lolling a few seconds earlier. Some of the lizards are only an inch long and barely the width of a coffee stirrer, while others are noticeably larger, 6 or 7 inches long, and as fat as my thumb. I see one thrust out his bright pink chin flap and eye me warily, and I remember seeing him in a nature television show, years ago.
I notice the lizards are not the only reptiles sunning themselves. An alligator, maybe four feet long, is lying lazily by the edge of a small stream I must pass. I instinctively reach for my camera, only to find I left it at home today.
The sun is hot, and I can't help but sweat so that when I arrive to campus, my arms are shiny like plastic until I enter an air-conditioned building.
But the weather is fickle--as I leave class, it starts to rain, though nowhere near as hard as it did on Sunday.
I feel vindicated as I open my umbrella and settle in to wait for the bus.
Which comes and leaves, me shouting and running after it...! I did not see the number til it's already passed, and it does not stop for me.
It's the last bus of the day for my route, and the driver probably wants to get home to see children, make dinner, and turn on the TV to see something other than cars and students passing in front of his face for hours and hours and hours...
Jesus probably had to walk home when He didn't want to, too, I muse, feeling the blisters defining themselves on the inner grooves of my feet where the pretty sandals' woven bands slice into my flesh.
Sunday I had to walk home in a downpour with no umbrella. Sunday, by the time I reached my house, my t-shirt was plastered to my body, and I was just thankful that the brand-new, never-been-washed shirt didn't dye my skin blue.
Jesus had to walk home in the rain, I had told myself over and over as I trudged home then.
But now, as I shelter myself under the upside-down smile of my umbrella, I pay silent thanks to whoever first dreamed up that invention, and I muse about my new life here, and the kaleidoscope of cultures and viewpoints and utter collegiate chaos that all find their intersection here, in this steamy, sun-and-rain subtropical campus, which I will call home for the next two years. August 24 Rain, rain, go away... So I'm sitting just outside the locked Latin American Studies building listening to the rain pour down in the plaza a few feet away from me. The thunder is the loudest I have ever heard in my life. Yes, I am trapped by a thunderstorm! I am umbrella-less, and it's over half an hour's walk back to my house.
 Mmmm....
I will be happy when wireless makes its long-expected arrival at my house so I can avoid such...er, "interesting" coincidences in the future.
Friday was a really hard day. The tropical storm shut down campus, and the weather reporters (and my mom) all said, "Don't travel! Don't travel!" so I went just about batty sitting in my room all day.
I'd look at my watch, then stand up.
I'd walk around my room, looking at every book and box and organizing folder placed neatly on its respective shelf. Then I'd sit down.
Then I'd look at my watch again.
This went on for hours.
At the conclusion of the day, I gave my mom a long, tearful call, and she prayed with me, and God helped me feel better.
Saturday was much better. I found a Save-A-Lot and bought a cartload of groceries for the coming months, and then a Visa check card someone gave me as a gift ended up paying for almost all of it. I made real food (not just brownies and carrot sticks--bah), and then my aunt, uncle, and cousins met me at a Chinese restaurant, where we sat and talked for several hours, watching the other tables fill, empty, get wiped off by the cleaning lady, and fill again.
During all this, we heard a very interesting bilingual English-and-Chinese rendition of "Happy Birthday" as the waitress brought a plate full of sushi rolls with a candle stuck in the middle out to a little boy at a nearby table.
Anyway.
My cousin Katy told me she had about 20 friends call her Friday saying they were going stir-crazy because of Fay. Somehow it made me feel better knowing I was not the only one.
My aunt commented on the sad state of our world today, when 24 hours of confinement to one's house is enough to make everyone want to scream.
Yes, it is sad, but how can one survive with neither friends NOR the Internet?? (Said very tongue-in-cheek.)
ASIDE: I have just had to move my laptop to a seat even closer to the academic building, because the wind is blowing the rain horizontally into the building's covered patio.
After my relatives left and I began playing my 655th round of computer solitaire for the week, Katy called me and asked me if I'd like to hang out with her and a bunch of her friends from her Christian student organization.
Computer solitaire versus hanging out with real people. What a difficult decision.
Well, we had freshly-baked chocolate chip cookies and played several large party games. Even though it was a bit overwhelming (when is 45 strangers packed into a 10'x20' room not overwhelming?), it was very fun.
Today, Sunday, I went to church with the other two Christians in my house. It's a large Assemblies of God church with a focus on social justice, missions, and diversity in the local body. The pastor had just gotten back from a preaching trip to a central Asian nation that's officially closed to the Gospel, and he had story after story of how God showed up during his time there. His sermon was on the Kingdom and the role that prayer, suffering for being a follower of Christ, hospitality, and evangelizing play in the advancement of the Kingdom.
God's Kingdom was also the topic of a long series we've been going through at my home church, so I am wondering if this was God's way of showing me this church is where I am supposed to fellowship during my time in Florida. I am going to be praying about which local church and which student groups to get involved in; please pray with me about this over the next week as I visit various campus ministries. I want to be where He wants me to be, not just where is convenient or comfortable (though it was absolutely wonderful worshiping with a body that was truly diverse, with about equal percentages of African Americans and white Americans, and large Latino and international populations, as well. That non-homogeneity is what Heaven's gonna look like, anyhow.).
I am getting to know my housemates, too. We are a pretty diverse bunch, as well, with two international students and two Jewish students. I am enjoying it.
Well, I am not sure how I am going to escape this thunderstorm without getting drenched. At least it gave me an excuse to stay on campus longer and finish up this blog post.
Until the next Internet connection becomes available~~ (and please be praying for me as I begin classes tomorrow!) August 22 Meeting Ms. Fay... Well, our Internet is still not up...and Tropical Storm Fay is not impressing me in the slightest. I thought an almost-hurricane would definitely be a windier, rainier, and scarier than this.
Ah, well. My graduate assistant orientation for tomorrow is canceled because of her. :-/ Last night I got unexpected news that will make my bills this year a lot higher. So instead of freaking out, I spent the evening pounding pushpins into my walls to hold up my lovely collection of South American maps. It was a great stress reliever. In the morning things looked better. I talked to my aunt and my mom, and they both chipped in a good, "trust-in-God-and-put-a-stiff-upper-lip-on-it" perspective. The walk to my part of campus from my house isn't bad. It felt good to get out and move, even if fickle Fay's rain gusts turned my umbrella inside out once or twice. My graduate student orientation went really, really well and made up for the unhappy night before. We made a duct tape map of the Western Hempisphere on the floor of our conference room, and I made sure Michigan was the most well-defined region there. (See my picture once I put them up.) The first half of orientation was mainly getting-to-know-you activities and icebreakers, and they couldn't have picked the facilitator better. I was surprised he didn't have us do a big, group hug at the end of the day. After a lunch catered by Mi Apá, we met the faculty and met with our advisors (except for me and the other Andean studies guy, because our advisor is out-of-town). The rest of the afternoon was filled with building tours and intense, 15-minute-long advice and instruction sessions regarding procedures, paperwork, and theses. I won't bother detailing it all, as I'm sure everyone reading this has better things to do than to read about it. I registered for my courses and quickly checked my email before catching a ride back to my house. Even though Fay is disappointingly unintense, I was glad not to have to walk back in the windy rain there was. My room is so air-conditioned I would've been chilled to the bone. So I had my first official "college student" dinner today: leftover brownies and baby carrots. Yeah. Pretty pitiful, but I haven't made it to the store yet to buy my 25-pound bag of rice and my on-sale vegetables (see previous post). I've spent the rest of my afternoon and evening playing computer solitaire, listening to music, and making some prettiful posters for my room with crayons and scrap paper I found in my recycling. I just put them up over my bed. They say: PROBLEM-SOLUTION FLOW CHART ...IN THE FLESH? GET IN THE SPIRIT! TEMPTED TO LOVE THE WORLD? GO TO THE FATHER! SINNED OR HURT? GO TO THE CROSS! I would've spent my evening working on more "productive" things, like making sure my university web account is all set up, writing important correspondence, and reading my syllabi, but then I do not have Internet access at the house yet. I would just go over to my cousin's, but Fay is keeping us all in. Bah. But then again maybe it's God's way of slowing me down and letting me enjoy my "calm before the storm." ;-) All the other new students in my program seem really neat. I'm excited to get to work with them. And I found that I'm not the only one with an interest in Perú! It makes me :-) to meet other people passionate about what I'm passionate about, too. Well, that's all I'll write for now, Thursday night. We'll see how soon Fay lets me post it... August 21 Typed up last night...then copied &pasted today :) I am typing this blog entry up in Notepad in the hopes that I will somehow hitch a ride with somebody to a nearby Panera or Starbucks. Our house's wireless is out, and my car is in the shop. Monday morning my cousin Katy dropped me off at the graduate student orientation, where I found out my new university has a whopping 11 thousand grad students. I browsed the informational booths, collecting a vast assortment of pens, sticky note pads, and mascot-shaped erasers in blue and pink. :-) I also got to meet the Graduate Christian Fellowship directors, | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
