Ridiculously happy

Kate (my sister) and I were talking about how this quarter (in general) we've been inexplicably glad. Things are going pretty well for both of us. But we can think of other times in our lives when things have been going pretty good, and we felt just so-so, or downright gloomy.
Still not a morning person, and I've had a couple of bad days and hours, but for some reason... weirdness. The rain is refreshing, rather than depressing. And that's something I can't control!

Today was Bus Hopping Day! Ten of us from UCU went downtown, and boarded random buses, partially determined by a flipped half-dollar, and partially by the will of the people. We sang, ran around, saw exotic fish, ate exotic food, rode bumper cars, and with our student passes, the buses were all free!

BTW: check out Ben's site: www.tibennet.net/BP for our one year anniversary pictures. All I can say is that Pellini's sounds a lot like that everyday pasta, but it has amazing food, and an amazing view. Posh, but with the entertainment book one dinner is free!

Big project is due Monday, and two midterms Wednesday. Thus the next week shall progress in labor and hopefully more gladness. Sometimes instead of cursing them, I thank God for the gift of emotions.

Lisa's Correspondence

Realizing to my horror that it's been months since I've written my old friend Matty-O, I started drafting an email (good way to take a break!). Halfway through I decided to exploit said email in place of a post. Cuz I would have said about the same thing anyway.

*Note: matt's in Israel. With people from Master's college, learning things, and probably causing rumpuses and ruckuses.

Hey yo, Matt!
I saw your picture on the Israel-type website, and if your expression represents how things are going, I'd say you're having a good time. Oh yeah.
I hear from everyone who's gone to Israel with people who know what's what that it is an awesome experience, not to be missed.:)
Life's good here... I"m finishing up my last quarter as VP at UCU, playing out the last things I wanted to do, and setting up "Java Night"-- a coffee n' performance night for all the Christian houses in the area.
At school we're doing artsy things like "Create a room within a room," and "What is a Room?" and "Use air and earth and water and The Void." And learning how to draw perspectives, and shadows, and shadows in perspectives, and about inertia in steel beams, and about Seattle architecture 100 years ago.
God is good, and is really humbling me by making me good enough in school to Get By and More than Pass classes, but grade and otherwise, the Lower 25% percentile. Which sometimes makes me feel like I spend all my time doing something I'm not even good at. But I know that he's called me here, to BA at UW, if not to the profession, ultimately. I would probably boast if I was stellar, but now I really can't. Which is good, right?
Another cool thing is that I've got to spend some quality time with Tara and Rae lately. Well, if you can call camping out all day at Rae's doing my project "quality time." It seems like I have friends again! Yeah!
So I hope that this is all you'd hoped it would be, and that God directs you to the next place he would have you go! Do come back with some thrilling/entertaining/cute stories, please.
Still your Sister in Him who grinds us towards holiness,
Lisa

I like Raeleen's apartment. It has many candles and is a messy place.

Crazy Blitz working

I started working on my design project at about 12 pm today. Then, drawing class, after which Raeleen picked me up to watch a foreign film for her class with her. I brought my project along just so that I wouldn't feel like I was wasting time. Around 5:30 she left for her night class, and I stayed, "to finish up."
8:30pm rolled around, Raeleen got back, and I was still there, rapidly making it through the first season of Friends, and not so rapidly through work! Finally around 12:30am, I was done with the model I'd been making.
It was great, cuz Raeleen fed me, entertained me, AND told me I could come back anytime I needed a quiet place to work! What a friend! And work goes so much quicker with Friends;)

Love skiing. Love it.

If I skiied all the time, I'd think it was a waste of time-- and it would be. But one perfect day a year is perfect. And with Tara, it was amazing. We had all of the fun I thought we'd have, and more. When you're skiing, you can see dazzlingly aweful beauty you'd never otherwise encounter-- the silent heights and extreme cold and of course the freeing falling which you can control, amazingly enough, with the sticks on your legs. Beautiful.

Now back to life.

BTW, we read all the way through Acts in one sitting (interspersed with standing). It only took 2 hours, 20 minutes-- about the length of a movie-- and had more than the epic proportions of the movies I've seen:) I totally recommend consuming the Bible like that:)

Huzzah! I'm going on a ski retreat this weekend! During which I will ski and retreat! And hopefully play a good round of the Lord of the Rings game, not lose my scarf, and exfoliate my feet with some apricot scrub! And lounge around in ski pants, and not get a headache during the long drive to Canada, and not get stopped by the border police, and also get a friendly text message from T-Mobile's Canadian counterparts who charge an arm and a big toe for their services.

Meanwhile, I'm preparing to miss 6 hours of invaluable class, not to mention all the possible work time I could have had this weekend, and also hook up my computer to the architecture network so that I can download software:) Ben's kindly coming to talk to the nice people in the department, so that they'll understand how the computer he built works, and because there's some other sort of issue that I don't understand. Like that the network isn't supposed to operate off-campus or something. But Ben can fix that!

I really haven't been doing nearly as much work this quarter. I wonder how I'm getting away with that. But I'm happy! Wheee!

A picture of me in High School-- I'm the one in the middle!

Just fun

Weird, but really not so weird

I got this forward from my sister:

'Sup guys?!
I was thinkin a little while ago (I know, I know. Shocking, isn't it?) and I
was thinking about how sitcoms based on Highschool/Jr. High seem to have a list
of required plots for episodes. Like, there are certain episode plots that
every sitcom (based on Highschool/Jr.High) has done. Check it out:

1. Someone runs for class president
2. There's a food fight in the cafeteria*
3. The "good kid" gets detention*
4. There's a school dance coming up
5. The m.c. (main character) gets their first job*
6. Halloween episode*
7. Christmas/Hanukah episode*
8. Thanksgiving episode
9. Valentines episode
10. Someone tries out for the school play
11. Talent show*
12. Someone becomes popular*
13. Someone becomes rebellious
14. Multiple flashbacks of previous episodes at the end of the season
15. An account of a story told anywhere between 3-5 different ways
16. School pictures
17. They go to a movie they're not allowed to see
18. They go to a party without chaperones*
19. They do something stupid with the house while their parents are on vacation*
20. First day of school
21. Someone gets a girlfriend/boyfriend*
22. The m.c. gets a credit card
23. Driver's ed*
24. They're home alone and something "bad" happens
25. A musical guest stars as himself/herself
26. The m.c. thinks that his/her parents are getting a divorce
27. Camping trip*
28. Field trip (usually with the parents as chaperones)*
29. The class has to "live like adults" (pretend to have a
house/family/job/etc.)
30. The m.c. has to spend quality time with his/her mom/dad*
31. The m.c. (and maybe another character) has to babysit*
32. Some big rumor spreads*
33. The m.c. has to get a huge paper done the next day*
34. Someone has to face a bully (usually for Jr. High shows)*
35. The m.c. gets to know a "not so cool" kid at school*
36. The m.c. and one or two other main characters get in a big argument*

So yeah. Kind of weird, isn't it? All those episodes that you never gave a
second thought to...See y'all later!

I started thinking "Yeah, that is so true! For almost all of these scenarios I can think of one or a few TV shows I've seen... even though I haven't watched all that much TV in the past few years."

But then my other "shoulder angel" of logic and reason, contradicting the input I got, said "But all TV shows need to be comprised of a Set-Up, Big-Problem, Climax and Resolution (in that particular order!). And when you think about Junior high/HS, those things are really the Main Events/Issues middle class Americans experience. Maybe running for class president isn't quite as typical, but at least it's not atypical. Almost everyone's been up for something or other in their life."

And TV shows are usually about things that would be considered important, to an average person. That's why TV shows like Seinfeld are so crazy.

Note: *'s mark the plots I have seen thus far on the Disney cartoon "Kim Possible". Didn't know I had watched that show so much. Kim Possible is funny, though, because there's always a double plot: something like the ones listed here, and a "Kim saves the world from an evil villain" plot. And usually Kim's more worried about whatever's happening at school.

The hidden treasures of Capitol Hill

This morning I did some sightseeing, and found out there's so much of Seattle I didn't even know about! I saw the two oldest churchs in Seattle, a watertower made in 1930, a bunch of awesome houses, the oldest tulip tree in Seattle, an exotic conservatory, a brand new library, Seattle Community College and Seattle University, Seattle Asian Art Museum, a bunch of hospitals, and most of Broadway. Whew! At the end of all that walking, I was exhausted!

Lisa ESCAPES!!!

So after 5 straight hours of sitting down, with almost 4 more hours of class to go, I needed bust out my pent-up energy. I started scrounging around the Architecture building, astutely looking at some of the drawing displays, but halfway to gaze longingly at the coffeestand upstairs, I knew that just wasn't enough. I left.

Sometime after going through the Physics building, I remembered that back in the day Bryan had told me to look at the staircase in the CSE building, and more recently Marissa had been talking about the lobby/coffee area there.

The CSE building is way cool! I love how at UW you can just saunter into any old building you want, and disturb all the grad students forming there theses, seeing people in majors you've never heard of before. Note: it was damp outside, so walking around the slick floors my tennis shoes made the most loud, obnoxious squeaking noises ever. I wiped them off every time I saw a mat, but I seriously think everyone in that building heard me coming. Anyway, this one vaulted study hall in there rocks, reminds me of a church or an art gallery.

Forty-five minutes later, I returned to class, my wanderlust satiated. How could I skip out of class like that?! You may well ask. The answer is, architecture classes are just cool like that:) Just kidding... actually, some of my classes it would be very bad manners to walk in and out of, but studio actually is a bit different in that sometimes we have desk crits. Which means the two profs walk around and talk to people, and if it's not your turn you either work on your project, or...whatever take your fancy! So having not much to do until I talked to a prof, and being far from first in line, I really didn't miss anything.

But it still felt like running away!! ;)

I miss the limo ride.

check out the free screensavers at

www.freeze.com,
especially the living fireplace and the living waterfall

www.badgerbadgerbadger.com

When it comes to healthy snacking,

my roommate Heather has got the goods. She cooks chicken with this spice called "Johnny's" to absolute chickeny perfection, and she makes (okay, with tea bags) excellent peach ice tea. I'm seriously taking notes on her eating habits....

okay, well, looking over into her corner of the room, I notice Campbell's soup, and pre-packaged Quaker Oats. Maybe not quite so gourmet, but good stuff, nonetheless. That chicken still rules. A few nights ago she made me a bowl of pasta with the chicken, and even though I wasn't really hungry, I ate the whole bowl (which is unusual-- I'm only motivated to stuff myself on the rare occasion.

She likes Michael Jackson, and wants to be a pirate, but she's a pretty awesome girl.

A note on top bunks:
In experiencing a topper for the first time, I'm noticing two distinct characteristics:

1) You ain't taking it with you
I'm a bed-stasher. Once, I was trying to figure out why my pillow was so hard, and lifted it up to reveal at least five books. I'm been known to sleep with my homework, my keys, my laptop computer, half a library, and an entire load of clean laundry (for an entire week). But things just don't stay on top bunks. My stuffed humpback whale and spare pillow keep tumbling off, not to mention the covers.

2) Aerobatics
The obvious: with no visible ladder, I brace myself between the two bunks in our room, trying not to kick sleeping Andrea or Alissa, and flop up like a beached whale. In the morning, sometimes I almost take a tumble. In the mornings, I've been known to trip over myself and bump into walls... repeatedly... so sometimes the airborn situation is a tad awkward.

That said, I'm going to go experience the bed again!

Joy is sometimes

solitary, but the joy then is in the freedom and in the wildness of standing alone before God. Walking along the street now I was mulling over possibilities for the future-- how many directions life could go in such a short time. Then all of a sudden I laughed and threw open my arms (on a dark and deserted street-- so I didn't hit anyone:)

What a joy it is to be standing on so many thresholds in this crazy adventure God has ordained, and what a joy is it is to have God as a friend! I smile at him, remembering so, so many times when I have been different, but this same God has smiled the same smile at me, and I call him my old friend, ancient before time. When everything is this world is shifting and freshly, yet sometimes starkly new, he remembers the nuance of that other time, he remembers the gist of my promises and my heart and yes, my darkness which he understands and uses to remind me of the greatness of his redemption. We can reminiscence over the variety of people in my life, lost friends and faraway relatives of such value, but who no one else remembers or knows. I remember the times he has spoken, more clearly in my eyes sometimes than others. God treasures our past relationship. He will not let its glory fade or dim, and he will guard our intimacy.

How delicious is this fellowship.

Yet corporal joy is a great thing, too. At Urbana we took communion, finishing two minutes before midnight, then going into the New Year. As I looked across the auditorium, I saw thousands and thousands of people throwing their hands in the air and cheering, praising God. I probably have told several of you this, but it reminded me of the very end of Star Wars, where every town is cheering for the end of the Empire's rule. This cheering was so similar, a foretaste of the end of the empire of evil oppressing the world now, when all the saints will sing and rejoice, thousands and millions and I believe billions of us.

I don't usually consider it a fun thing to spend my Saturday helping someone train monkeys,

and the wonderful thing is, I didn't. I cleaned toilets and scrubbed floors instead.
Good times with Cheryl, Beth, Kate, and various UCU girls last night. The shots of coffee Cheryl and I put in our ice cream scared Beth a bit, but fortunately our crazy singing didn't-- she joined right in!

Interesting:
I watched "Chicago" Saturday night, then Sunday morning the girl's lesson was on modesty. And all I could think about were those flapper dresses:)

Now out to coffee again.

*yawn*

Bed. For real now.

Honorable high school Days, and other non-college things

Love my classes. Oh yeah.

So this is my official "Hang out with High Schoolers" weekend. I should be in bed right now... but I'm not cuz I just got back from my 4- hour shift as chaperone for the Sammamish High School Band Lock-in. That's right, I'm old enough to chaperone high school events. Whew. I hung out with my mom for the first hour or so, but then Cheryl roped me into hanging out with her friends, and I even ended up playing games with them.

Call me crazy, but I still love the sort of games high school groups play. And I was the cool older sister. At one point there was a game that involved knowing everyone's name, so I was like "Hey Cheryl, I can't play this one." So Cheryl, who was in charge of the game, calls out "Everyone-- Lisa's going to be judging this-- okay?" and pushs me towards the center of the circle. Because of my rigorous camp counselor experience, I handled the situation like a pro, even maintaining my composure.

It's surprising how everyone listens to Cheryl. She says "Everybody bounce!" and they all bounce. I guess being the youngest she rarely had that experience at home:)

Then tomorrow, I'm going to Beth Morrell's (high school) play ("dessert theater"), accompanied by--who else?-- Cheryl. Cheryl is Beth's friend, and Beth is Ben's sister. Got the connections?:) I'm going because I like dessert, among other reasons. Hi-C and I are hoping to hang out with Beth later. Even though she's my boyfriend's sister, I don't feel like I know her very well. Then Cheryl's sleeping over.

Ben's leaving to drive across the country (north-southwise) and discover himself, San Francisco, Dan McCurley, and some puppets. Because he and Dan will be in the car and plan to stop in San Francisco, the first three shouldn't be too hard. Then Ben's taking a plane back from Berkley. I won't see him for *sob* a whole week! (which, frankly, is a little stretching-- I miss him if I don't see him for a couple days-- but really not that big a deal, and I get teased whenever I mention it to my roommates and such.)

It's weird how well I get along with high schoolers. Am I really that immature?

And I know what aparture and exposure are! woo-hoo!

New Adventures of 2004

The lovely, lovely snow cancelled school! Nevertheless, I have a project due tomorrow, so at 8pm I was off to meet my group in the architecture building. Um, I didn't know that I was supposed to get a key to the building-- how did I miss that?! So I stood out in the freezing rain, and called the only other group member's number I know. Yeah! She was inside.

The first part of the assignment had been to carve burrow-like caves into a small block of clay. The second part was to photograph the inside, using a macro-lens, and funky lighting. So Juli and I sat there looking at this camera with more dials and buttons then I've ever used before. The building was deserted; both of our other group members (including the one who actually knew how to use the camera) had taken their pictures and cut out long before. I called the knowledgable Emily's number, and Juli called her older sister.

Two hours later, with many pauses and fiddlings, we had gone through a roll. It was actually kinda fun, after awhile-- even though we had to call Emily at least four times, and Juli's sis (also named Lisa!) was truly the brainpower and such when it came to focusing. We started rewinding the film... only it wasn't rewinding. So, being the resourceful folk we architecture students are, Lisa got into a dark closet, and standing on only a grate, discovered that the film had come loose from the roll--meaning the last few pictures we had taken weren't, in fact, taken. She started rewinding it by hand. For some reason, it didn't all fit on, so a few more pictures were exposed. But not my pictures. Ah ha! (just kidding:)

So Juli started in on another roll, and I started in on phase three: pouring Plaster of Paris into my caverns. Which was easy. I bet you were expecting another dramatic tale! Nope, it was simple as taking a nap. And I got home by 11pm. So tomorrow I turn in the film after 8:00, break the clay mold off the plaster, make it to class by 9:00, get out at 12:30 to pick up the film and mount the best pictures, and turn it all in at 1:30. See! Easy!

I'm excited about hanging out more with Juli, and not only because she poured me coffee from her thermos and offered me a ride home. She's one of those that doesn't worry about being popular (some people in college still do-- you can tell!), but is kind and personable and fun, but also has a rebellious punkish streak.

It's hard to make real friends in school. In architecture, almost everyone's friendly, and can work together on a "business" level. We're more or less stuck together, so we play nice and try to make the time go pleasant. But any friendship by choice beyond that seems to be rare, at least in my experience. I do pray for more.

On the other hand, I'm still in touch with Kay and Clayton, my old comrades from the pre-Arch studio classes two years ago. We did all our projects together. Now we go out to lunch every few months... Kay's in her senior year of Civil Engineering, and Clayton's in his senior year of Architecture. It's cool that we all got into the competitive programs we were aiming for.

Goodbye! Areva delce! Adios muchachos!

And almost a month later...

My parent's dial-up connection, being out of town, and the intimidation of having to summerize everything that's happened are to blame.

Miraculously, I managed to get all my Christmas shopping done before Christmas! I even made my dad, Cheryl, and Ben calendars through Kinkos. For four days, I hung out in San Jose, Cali with, like, all the relatives I even knew I had and more. It was good to catch up with all my cousins, the new husbands, and the new baby! At one point at my grandparent's house, which is a normal, middle-class size, we had 34 people! A bit overwhelming, but definitely quality time-- I'm realizing that family is the guaranteed relationship in life; I'll always have family, so I should cherish it.

Urbana was amazing. There are so many little things I learned, or was inspired about, or reaffirmed, or challenged about. Like: one speaker was talking about poor people, and how when we minister to them we think of ourselves as condescending, giving them a great gift. And yet, he continued, the Bible always says "Blessed are the poor," and is extremely positive about the poor's position in God's eyes. We have a negative view of the poor; we think we can't benefit from them at all. But we can-- and the reason that we can't really reach them is that we have the wrong attitude. Honestly, that made me realize how I'm fairly negative about some people... and then I wonder why I'm not able to help them. Everyone has something to offer, and I need to really, truly like people (not just tolerate them well). Not that I hate everyone now... I just don't open up to new people all of the time.

Anyway, beyond psychoanalyzing my approach to the general populace, I came away with fresh resolve to keep up my strength in the faith, with priorities where they belong. I now have a few schemes for how the path of my life my life may wander, which will serve to direct my steps now... even if I do end up somewhere else, I have dreams which God can direct. :) Good stuff.

Also, I found out that one missions organization offers architecture internships!!! Possible summer job in another country, finding out about missions and serving God...!

My new computer is sweet. Of course, at the moment there are no speakers, or printer cables, or Microsoft Office. I'm rather shallow on this subject, at least at the moment; never mind that my computer has a killer videocard and an astounding amount of RAM... at the moment I'm concerned that I can't type up papers or print anything. But Ben did do an typically awesome job of finding all the right parts, convincing my dad that this was the machine to buy, and putting it together. And all for a song:)

By the way, to anyone who was at Ben's birthday party, I'm sorry if I was a bit reserved. I was in kinda a weird mood that night, and then started feeling out of the loop, which was probably more my fault that anything. But I enjoyed playing tele-pictionary!

Snowshoeing is awesome:)

Well, my room is full of talking people, so I'm going to go, and the other parts that are important will eventually be explained. This coming quarter will be rocking. Adios!