Alberto. The poor guy with a forbidden crush and a doomed stalker name. He will live in infamy in our circle forever... so Shannon, Jen, and I had dinner together last night so that I could try to make up for ditching out on them Friday after inviting them to have dinner with me...and then an hour later telling them nevermind, I'm flying to Minneapolis. Woops. After dinner though, we discussed boys, the lack of boys, and how we could help Shannon meet Pete Peterson. Which inevitably led to Jen and I albertoing him on the internet. It's crazy the things you can find on google nowadays... after some rather creepy sleuthing, we found his home church and his dad, who is the pastor (and does a surprising number of funerals!). We also found out he has an Aunt Una, only because we found his grandpa's obituary (who died in 2002) and it had a listing of surviving relatives. So really, we found nothing useful and basically just walked away being creepier than we were before. So is life.
Being in Shannon's house made me want to buy that house all over again. She has done a beautiful job decorating it, it looks amazing now.... and although I know I am the worst decorator and cannot visualize those things, I want a canvas that I can play with too rather than the lame apartment that I can't do anything with. (I say lame, but I must say that free heat in subzero winters is definitely not lame. That's the only part of that I take back.) I need to pray more about it.
On another note, news is really depressing. I check it regularly now, and it's either someone died/was killed, someone got mauled by a white tiger, someone is hated by everyone because they're different, controversy death controversy. It's very tiring.
I also just read that a zoo in New Zealand that houses endangered animals is getting in trouble for having crowded and unsanitary conditions for the animals, so their solution is to put down 40 large cats. Yes, we'll save the endangered animals, but only until it becomes an inconvenience for us and would require us to spend more money to change something. Then we'll just put them down....
Wednesday, May 27, 2009
Tuesday, May 26, 2009
47 States
As a sidenote, I believe I am now down to 3 states left to visit in the US! Minnesota had been on my list of states I had not yet visited (actually done something in besides drive through or pass through the airport). I am now down to New York, Pennsylvania, and Hawaii.
Continents are still at 3 visited with N. America, Europe, and Asia. Australia is next year!
Continents are still at 3 visited with N. America, Europe, and Asia. Australia is next year!
Hospitality
hos-pi-tal-i-ty [hos-pi-tal-i-tee]
–noun, plural -ties.
1. the friendly reception and treatment of guests or strangers.
2. the quality or disposition of receiving and treating guests and strangers in a warm, friendly, generous way.
There's a lot of talk about hospitality, what it is, how to do it, how America sucks at it compared to the rest of the world. Personally, it is definitely something I struggle with, though I think I fake it well sometimes. Just because I'm faking it doesn't mean I'm necessarily being sincere though. Example. When I fly, I prefer window seats partly because I have a habit of falling asleep on planes, and when I fall asleep, I can't sit up straight, I fall over and lean on something, so it's nice to have the window to lean on rather than making the person next to me feel very awkward; but also partly because I like the feeling of the window cubbie where I have my own world and can lean away from the person next to me and feel like I have my own space, where you definitely can't do that in the middle seat, and in the aisle seat, you end up getting plowed into by the drink cart. I go out of my way to check on window seats, I book my flights online and pick the seats myself, then check in online to ensure that I have a window seat. It's not a huge deal, but when I can get it, I take it. Flying to Minneapolis this weekend was no exception.
While flying back from Minneapolis, I had set my seats so that I was in the back of the plane where it was likely I'd have my own row and had window seats on both flights through Chicago. However, when I boarded the flight from Chicago home, there was a lady sitting in my seat. I pulled out my ticket stub to prove that she had to move and asked her if she was in the right seat. She explained that she and her daugher had been split and told me that I could sit in her seat, an aisle seat next to another lady. I stood and stared at her for a minute because she didn't really give me a choice or try to find another way around it, she had decided for me, which I don't handle well. I then smiled politely and agreed and took the other seat. But I was screaming at her with my thoughts, I was very angry because now I had to give up MY window seat without being given the choice to sit next to a lady that kept brushing against me and didn't wear her seatbelt. It really bothered me much more than it should have, but I had a little storm spinning in my head because of this discourtesy brought upon me. I had to force myself to focus on Jesus and realize that this was just an opportunity to serve others and stop letting myself be #1. I was surprised at how difficult it was to do this in my head. I think it's one thing to do hospitable acts for people and play the game, but it's a completely different thing to really mean it, which is where I'm lacking and need to work on. It was an insightful 5 minutes into my soul on that plane.
The trip was a lot of fun, I enjoyed spending time with my grandpa, dad, and brother, especially since I had nothing to do in Midland (well, except the dinner I had asked Shannon and Jen if they wanted to do, which I then ditched out on). The problem is, although I like Midland, everytime I leave I never want to come back. I started considering all of the other places I could live that I'd probably enjoy better at the current moment. However, as far as my career goes, my best option is to stay with Dow through at least 3 years because in order to be considered an "experienced" engineer, you have to have 2-3 years under your belt, which is what I'd need for almost any other job currently; plus, my retirement plan doesn't vest until I've been with the company for 3 years. So it looks like I'll be here at least another year.
I'm also pretty sure at this point that I'm signing a lease for another 6 months at my apartment. After weighing pros and cons about a million times, it ends up being pretty even at the end and I'm not gaining that much more by having a house. Plus, I prayed for almost a week that if God didn't want me to have the house, that my loan would be declined. It ended up being declined on a technicality; Michigan is a "declining market" state and you have to put 10% down, which I didn't initially plan to put, so they told me that if I upped that, I was approved. So I could get around it if I so chose... but I kinda wonder if I'm not supposed to take that as an answer to my prayer and just be obedient, despite the fact that I completely fell in love with the house. But I'm feeling some peace about it after the weekend of letting it settle in. There will be other houses, and God has bigger plans than my little house that I want as my own so badly.
This just means I need to work harder on showing hospitality from my little apartment that has no room for more than a few guests... maybe it's time that I invest in better furniture to accomodate people.....Na, I'll just wait for Kelsey's grandma's table to be moved in =)
–noun, plural -ties.
1. the friendly reception and treatment of guests or strangers.
2. the quality or disposition of receiving and treating guests and strangers in a warm, friendly, generous way.
There's a lot of talk about hospitality, what it is, how to do it, how America sucks at it compared to the rest of the world. Personally, it is definitely something I struggle with, though I think I fake it well sometimes. Just because I'm faking it doesn't mean I'm necessarily being sincere though. Example. When I fly, I prefer window seats partly because I have a habit of falling asleep on planes, and when I fall asleep, I can't sit up straight, I fall over and lean on something, so it's nice to have the window to lean on rather than making the person next to me feel very awkward; but also partly because I like the feeling of the window cubbie where I have my own world and can lean away from the person next to me and feel like I have my own space, where you definitely can't do that in the middle seat, and in the aisle seat, you end up getting plowed into by the drink cart. I go out of my way to check on window seats, I book my flights online and pick the seats myself, then check in online to ensure that I have a window seat. It's not a huge deal, but when I can get it, I take it. Flying to Minneapolis this weekend was no exception.
While flying back from Minneapolis, I had set my seats so that I was in the back of the plane where it was likely I'd have my own row and had window seats on both flights through Chicago. However, when I boarded the flight from Chicago home, there was a lady sitting in my seat. I pulled out my ticket stub to prove that she had to move and asked her if she was in the right seat. She explained that she and her daugher had been split and told me that I could sit in her seat, an aisle seat next to another lady. I stood and stared at her for a minute because she didn't really give me a choice or try to find another way around it, she had decided for me, which I don't handle well. I then smiled politely and agreed and took the other seat. But I was screaming at her with my thoughts, I was very angry because now I had to give up MY window seat without being given the choice to sit next to a lady that kept brushing against me and didn't wear her seatbelt. It really bothered me much more than it should have, but I had a little storm spinning in my head because of this discourtesy brought upon me. I had to force myself to focus on Jesus and realize that this was just an opportunity to serve others and stop letting myself be #1. I was surprised at how difficult it was to do this in my head. I think it's one thing to do hospitable acts for people and play the game, but it's a completely different thing to really mean it, which is where I'm lacking and need to work on. It was an insightful 5 minutes into my soul on that plane.
The trip was a lot of fun, I enjoyed spending time with my grandpa, dad, and brother, especially since I had nothing to do in Midland (well, except the dinner I had asked Shannon and Jen if they wanted to do, which I then ditched out on). The problem is, although I like Midland, everytime I leave I never want to come back. I started considering all of the other places I could live that I'd probably enjoy better at the current moment. However, as far as my career goes, my best option is to stay with Dow through at least 3 years because in order to be considered an "experienced" engineer, you have to have 2-3 years under your belt, which is what I'd need for almost any other job currently; plus, my retirement plan doesn't vest until I've been with the company for 3 years. So it looks like I'll be here at least another year.
I'm also pretty sure at this point that I'm signing a lease for another 6 months at my apartment. After weighing pros and cons about a million times, it ends up being pretty even at the end and I'm not gaining that much more by having a house. Plus, I prayed for almost a week that if God didn't want me to have the house, that my loan would be declined. It ended up being declined on a technicality; Michigan is a "declining market" state and you have to put 10% down, which I didn't initially plan to put, so they told me that if I upped that, I was approved. So I could get around it if I so chose... but I kinda wonder if I'm not supposed to take that as an answer to my prayer and just be obedient, despite the fact that I completely fell in love with the house. But I'm feeling some peace about it after the weekend of letting it settle in. There will be other houses, and God has bigger plans than my little house that I want as my own so badly.
This just means I need to work harder on showing hospitality from my little apartment that has no room for more than a few guests... maybe it's time that I invest in better furniture to accomodate people.....Na, I'll just wait for Kelsey's grandma's table to be moved in =)
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