life...

with time you learn that life comes and life goes, fairness can be a rarity, dreaming is the safest and most effective way of forgetting reality, what one wants is usually never easy to get and in general, living isn't easy.

i'm in my second week of the semester and i already feel like a burned out college student. doesn't help much that i'm heading home this weekend for the funeral of my grandmother, who i cared for most of my christmas break. this was expected, i had my time with her and my opportunity to say goodbye... but for nearly 18 years my grandparents lived 1/2 mile from my house. in 2003 my grandpa died suddenly. a shocker to be sure, but at least i still had gramma in that house. i still had family there for all 20 of my years. now... now i have a house. a house filled by her, but empty of her. i have memories, i have pictures and i had time. and i am happy about that, tempted almost to say satisfied by that, but in my mind, time stops at home when i'm away. things are not suppose to change and i'm not suppose to have to make weekend trips home in both semesters of one year for funerals of my loved ones. last week gramma was in that period of transition in death and told aunt barb that she had seen grandpa and he was waiting for her. when asked if she saw jesus, she said yes. i can't think of anything cooler than that. and ya know what? at this moment... my jesus is waiting for me. there are times that that's all i want. sure this life has it's perks and i have no intentions of prematurely giving up, but really... what does this life have that i should cling desperately to? this is my temporary time of imperfection and mistakes. life was designed by the ultimate creator who had a purpose and a plan, but in my humanity, i more than often wish for an easier road. sometimes i just can't help but long for artificial happiness just to get me by. true joy in everything can be a hard thing to seek and even harder to learn how to find. *sigh* the lessons of life are so vitally important, but the ways of learning most of them are oftentimes painful and hard. i've had a plentiful handful of those painful life lessons piled on me this school year. i feel exceedingly weak, but i guess i'm still standing, so that's a good sign... god keeps his promises. "But he said to me, My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness. Therefore I will boast all the more gladly about my weaknesses, so that Christ's power may rest on me." 2 Corinthians 12:9

today was a beautiful day in Schmeekle reserve. i walked to remember and i walked to forget, but the important part is that i walked with eyes open to see god's artwork.

shawano...

well... after hearing endlessly about the lovely town of shawano from ashley and lisa... i finally had a chance to visit this weekend. not only had i heard all about shawano... but i felt like i'd heard so much about kira, emily and joe that i should have known them already, though last night was our first meeting. ash and i were talking in the car about how weird it was that this was the first time of my meeting them since we both agreed that i knew so much about them that it felt like i'd known them for a long time. anyway, i did indeed meet them last night. we went to the shawano high school musical, fiddler on the roof, last night. it was pretty decent. there were definitely some people who should not have been singing, but that just made it amusing. with my cold though i just felt tired out, so sitting in the dark for however many hours it lasted made staying conscious difficult. after the play, the 'emlikias tribe' (emily, lisa, kira & ashley), joe and myself smashed into lisa's car and went to perkins for pie. a good time was had by all... though iwas mostly the silent observer because i clearly didn't understand the inside jokes that are their way of communicating. then we went to lisa's and hung out in her basement. all but i were smashed onto one couch.. looked quite cozy. again... i was the silent one. anything ash and lisa's friends had been told about me (such as maybe i'm fun...) was probably dashed because i was sick and quiet, but oh well. when lisa went to take everyone home she successfully backed out of her garage and took off a side mirror on both of her family's cars. lets just say that everyone feared for her life and she came home to me looking a little less than comfortable with what had happened. today we watched movies, i did some poli sci and we headed back here... in the rain.

in the past 24 hours, i have offically become jealous of lisa and ash and their circle of friends. i have an overwhelming desire to just 'become' part of their group. obviously that doesn't work, but it made me wish i had something like that growing up at home. i have friends yes, but the friendships that i observed are just different. i don't know... i guess i just live an entirely different lifestyle at home, and always have, so such things just aren't meant to be. makes me appreciate college though and the friendships i've developed. well... my poli sci quiz in the morning is hanging over my head, so i better dig into that book because my incredibly loathing of that class makes studying 100x more difficult. ta ta for now.

ahhhhh...

my new roommate ashley is such a good influence on me. we got up this morning at 6:15, met alissa at the pool and went swimming. now... ash is a swimmer so she's like a machine; alissa and i had fun with our shorter bursts of energy. at one point ash said 'if you guys want to go, that's fine, i'm sticking around for a while because i've only done 1600 yards so far.' well... needless to say i did not do 1600 yards, i'm not one of those endurance swimmers, but we stuck around and kept swimming till she was done. i wish i had not given up on swim team all those years ago. but, in keeping with my 'semester of change' i think i'm going to try to move around my schedule a bit so that i can keep swimming on friday mornings. it just felt good to get the day moving and to do something good for me. i'm sure things would have been easier if i were not battling the cold that has taken up residence in my head and chest, but whatever... that just leaves hope for the future. just you wait... by the end of the semester i'm not only going to be an amazing ice skater, but i'll be equally skilled in the pool. the swimming is at least an already established skill, i just need to build up endurance. all these resolutions and statements... hmm... i hope they all pan out!

semester #2 has started and a large part of me wishes it would end. it's not going to be an easy one, that's for sure. i do have 2 fun classes, ice skating and choir, but my other 5 are going to be a lot of work and just plain tiresome. can't say that i'm overly thrilled with my poli sci class. i have no intrest in the subject matter, therefore i don't want to put the time in that will be required. the average for prof. orr's class is a B-... i don't want a B-, but what do i know or care about political science??? we've already had a quiz, in which the questions were worded rather tricky, leaving lots of grey area where your mind can wander and get all confused. *rolling eyes* why oh why do professors enjoy torturing students? and we have 2 research papers to do. granted they're just 4-6 pages, but still... 2 in one semester? and lets see.. what else. phonetics requires the purchase of an $85 book... which is NOT cheaper on amazon. anatomy is just plain going to be massive amounts of reading and memorization... which both require massive amounts of time... which i do not possess. language development should be manageable, but the lab class that works along with that requires that i observe and take language samples at the day care 2 hours a week (2 more hours that i don't have) and then compile what will end up being like a 30+ page language sample and analysis. then, outside of class there's hall government stuff and working desk and at the school and working with awanas at church, which may have to be let go, and cru, which i refuse to give up because i need that time in worship and fellowship. so... basically i have little or no time for pretty much anything. my tuesdays and thursdays start at 8am and go till roughly 11pm and all other evenings will be spent with homework. oh, and i just had to write out by far the largest check ever to pay my tuition. i successfully avoided having to to write another $1000 check... this time it was that times 2, plus a little more. jolly times in melanie's checking account to be sure.

isn't it wonderful that i'm sitting her like a spoiled brat complaining about my pitiful problems while my grandmother is lying at home on her death bed? sometimes i astound myself. with the mention of this however... gramma is fading fast from what little i've heard. i'm struggling with being so out of the loop. for 3 weeks i was the person who knew everything... but now i pretty much know nothing at all. i guess gramma is strictly in bed now... pretty much just waiting for the day she gets to leave this earth. for some reason it's hard for me to accept that time doesn't stop at home when i'm not there. in my mind... gramma should still be just as i left her, so what i hear is hard to comprehend. but that's all for now... i know nothing else, so i'll end here. fare well

"we're soaring, flying...."

i've been here since thursday, i should in theory be ready for school to begin, but no, far from it. training and hall prep was boring and long. it somehow makes days feel 3x as long as normal, but our mandatory fun time was highly enjoyable. ice skating friday night was a pleasant experience. falling was limited to when lisa was pushing me- i knew i should never have trusted her, 'helping' me turn was not her strong suit. saturday night we went to the hockey game. very active game, lots of random outbursts of mild insults at the opposing team by jeremy and company. however, river falls got 4 super easy goals and our 1 was an outright fight which resulted in jubilation from us stevens pointers like we'd just won a major game. those hockey games are a guarunteed great time- the more violent the better. anyway, after that we (me, ash and lisa) watched the sing along version of the truly horrendous disney channel movie, High School Musical, while highlighting lisa's hair and drinking tea. i swear the writers had to have been like jr high students, some of the lines in that thing were so off the wall that all we could do was stare blankly wondering who in their right mind would say something that stupid in real life, let alone make it into a movie. ahh the disney channel... amusment abounds in that realm. so after singing along to the songs we decided that we must learn some of the dance moves since they made it look so cool (in all honesty, troy really was quite a talented dancer...). never fear, we have a large portion down and ash and i are perfecting the part where she flips over my back. oh yes indeed we are really doing that. we first employed the hallway as our practice spot, but when my dear head came within a half inch of viciously smashing into the wall as ashley lauched herself onto and over my back, we decided a move to the kitchen was needed. much safer practice time followed. this could indeed be an interesting semester. today was lots of nothing. i'm actually suffering some severe memory loss right now and am unable to account for about 4-5 hours this afternoon. i can not for the life of me think of what we did. hmm... bad way to start off the semester, eh? in any case, i know i worked a very quiet and boring 2 hours of desk tonite doing check-ins. oh the life of a front desk worker.

well well... i'm going to go cuddle up in bed. classes start for me in less than 12 hours... oh joy! guess what time my tuesdays and thursdays are going to start? (yes i know tomorrow is monday) like 6:30. uh huh... yeah that's just a wee bit earlier than i prefer to be alive on a regular basis. this is gonna be good people... great times ahead. watch out katie... i may not be conscious when i stumble to your door for breakfast those mornings. adios folks.

la di da and so on

so i'm back at school now. since lauren up and left me to go live lavishly in london, ashley has now moved her stuff in and the room has a different flare. for lauren's sake and lauren's sake only, i'll describe it: the loft is by the window with her desk, the fridge and tv, and the garbage underneath it, her dresser is at the end of her loft and some of her smaller storage things are under the mirror. anyway, this will be a new venture. new roommate, a declared major and gdr classes limited to choir and ice skating, all the rest is for my major. hopefully this is a good semester, though it's hard to tell. the rapid approach of the death of my grandmother is not a pleasant situation, but i had my time to say goodbye and the rest is up to god. she's in good hands. i have no desire what-so-ever to start up classes again. ash and i were talking about getting our books in the morning to avoid the 'rush' on sunday. do you have any idea how much i do NOT want to get books? it hasn't even been a month since i turned in last semesters books. and get this: including this semester and my masters program, i have 9 more semesters to go before i will be done with college. isn't that depressing? i've been forbidden to ever repeat that though, because ash is in the same boat as me and doesn't want to hear such things. well that's all for now. the next few days with be used for in hall training and set up and decoration and la di da. much unfunness. ok, ta ta

hmm..

i could have sworn that i had written something in here in that last two weeks, but i guess not. as of sunday night i finished out my 15th day taking care of my dying grandmother. it was a blessing to be able to serve her in that fashion. it grew me as a person and though i could go on and on because i can be a very wordy person, i'm stopping here. suffice it to say that my time with her was good, needed and beneficial to all involved.

i have very mixed feelings about this week. since i spent over half of my break on and off caring for my gramma, i feel like break has just now begun, but wait... i go back to school on thursday. in a way i'm glad because this break was so sedate that i could use some excitment, but it hardly feels like i had a whole break. the extent of my fun with friends was about 3 hours of melissa keeping me company at gramma's. that's really all there was, but that's ok, what i was doing was way more important than my fun time with friends. i really don't want to get back into classes now. aghh... every part of me is disgusted by that idea.

well i'm off sometime soon to have a belated birthday lunch with my other grandma- always a nice time. bubye

babies...

today was a lovely day. i spent it in nearly its entirety with my cousin nikki and her two week old twin girls, emma and alaina. i’ve now witnessed my first baby check-up at the dr’s… what good that does me i’m not quite sure, but i’ve experienced it nonetheless. after that we pretty much did nothing other than sit around watching movies with usually one quiet or sleeping child and one squirming or malcontented one. every time i turned around they were hungry; with two that seems to be an inescapable thing. they are quite adorable though. alaina is without a doubt the quieter and calmer one that completely melts my heart (emma does too, but alaina has more ‘perfect baby’ moments). she makes the cutest sounds when she’s sleeping. emma on the other hand is the wide eyed, squirming baby. she’s a hard one to figure and i spent a sizable amount of time with her screaming at me for no apparent reason. she’s a pro at interrupting movie watching because she’ll be calm and wonderful one moment and then she’ll erupt in anger. of course just when i finally got her calmed down tonight her 'nana' (my aunt) comes and she turns into a perfect angel. emma usually hates her pacifier, she gets mad that it tricks her, and so she had no intrest in it with me when she was so upset. but nana shows up when she's calm and has to prove that emma likes it when she gives it to her, which in turn makes me look like i'm incapable, but whatever. nikki knows i’m good and that’s all that matters. i did thoroughly enjoy my time though. i love that nikki and i are close and can do things like this.

starting up again friday morning i will be taking care of gramma through the evening of the 15^th. again, not what i was expecting to be spending my break doing, but this cancer isn’t going to allow her to be here with us all that much longer, so i need to savor this time because i’m lucky to have it. and besides... i've got down time to finally do some pleasure reading and i'm learning how to crochet, i have a new stitch to learn next week.

well that's all that's happening in my world... bubye