On Election Day...

I heard about this article listening to AM760 this morning, and thought I'd read it for myself. It's so great, I thought I'd post it for everyone. I added the bold formatting to statements that really resonated with me, but the whole thing is great and ties the majority of the Middle East conflicts together in a way I've never heard before.

The Only Issue This Election Day

By Orson Scott Card

There is only one issue in this election that will matter five or ten years from now, and that's the War on Terror.

And the success of the War on Terror now teeters on the fulcrum of this election.

If control of the House passes into Democratic hands, there are enough withdraw-on-a-timetable Democrats in positions of prominence that it will not only seem to be a victory for our enemies, it will be one.

Unfortunately, the opposite is not the case -- if the Republican Party remains in control of both houses of Congress there is no guarantee that the outcome of the present war will be favorable for us or anyone else.

But at least there will be a chance.

I say this as a Democrat, for whom the Republican domination of government threatens many values that I hold to be important to America's role as a light among nations.

But there are no values that matter to me that will not be gravely endangered if we lose this war. And since the Democratic Party seems hellbent on losing it -- and in the most damaging possible way -- I have no choice but to advocate that my party be kept from getting its hands on the reins of national power, until it proves itself once again to be capable of recognizing our core national interests instead of its own temporary partisan advantages.

To all intents and purposes, when the Democratic Party jettisoned Joseph Lieberman over the issue of his support of this war, they kicked me out as well. The party of Harry Truman and Daniel Patrick Moynihan -- the party I joined back in the 1970s -- is dead. Of suicide.

The "War on Terror"

I recently read an opinion piece in which the author ridiculed the very concept of a "war on terror," saying that it makes as much sense as if, after Pearl Harbor, FDR had declared a "war on aviation."

Without belaboring the obvious shortcomings of the analogy, I will agree with the central premise. The name "war on terror" clearly conceals the fact that we are really at war with specific groups and specific nations; we can no more make war on a methodology than we can make war on nitrogen.

However, there are several excellent reasons why "War on Terror" is the only possible name for this war.

1. This is not a war that can be named for any particular nation or region. To call it "The Iraq War" or the "Afghanistan War" would lead to the horrible mistake of thinking that victory would consist of toppling certain governments and then going home.

In fact, it is precisely the name "War in Iraq" that is leading to the deep misconceptions that drive the Democratic position on the war. If this were in fact a war on Iraq, then in one sense we won precisely when President Bush declared victory right after we occupied Baghdad. And in another sense, we might not see victory for another five years, or even a decade -- a decade in which Americans will be dying alongside Iraqis. For a "War in Iraq" to linger this way is almost too painful to contemplate.

But we are not waging a "War in Iraq." We are waging a world war, in which the campaigns to topple the governments of Iraq and Afghanistan were brilliantly successful, and the current "lukewarm" war demands great patience and determination from the American people as we ready ourselves for the next phase.

2. We cannot name this war for our actual enemies, either, because there is no way to name them accurately without including some form of the word "Islam" or "Muslim."

It is our enemies who want to identify this as a war between Islam and the West. If we allow this to happen, we run the risk of achieving the worst of all possible outcomes: The unification of one or both of the great factions of worldwide Islam under a single banner.

President Bush and his administration have shown their grasp of our present danger by stoutly resisting all attempts to rename this war. We call it a "War on Terror" because that allows us to cast it, not as a war against the Muslim people, with all their frustrations and hopes, but a war in which most Muslims are not our enemies at all.

That can be galling for many Americans. When, after the fall of the towers on 9/11, Palestinians and others poured into the streets, rejoicing, it was tempting to say, A plague on all of them!

But it is precisely those people -- the common people of the Muslim world, most of whom hate us (or claim to hate us, when asked by pollsters in police states) -- whom we must treat as if they were not our enemies. They are the ones we must win over for us to have any hope of victory without a bloodbath poured out on most of the nations of the world.

Nation Building

Another charge against the Bush administration's conduct of the war is that they are engaged in the hopeless task of "nation-building." And this is true -- except for the word "hopeless."

But what is the alternative? I've heard several, each more disastrous and impossible and even shameful than the one before.

In the New Testament, Jesus once used the analogy of a person who was possessed by a devil. When you cast out the devil, don't you leave an empty house, swept clean, to which seven devils will now come to live, making things worse than ever?

No matter which miserable dictatorship we moved against after the Taliban -- and we had no choice but to keep moving on if we were to eradicate the grave danger we faced (and face) -- we would have faced the same problem in Syria or Iraq or Sudan that we had in Afghanistan: We had to establish order in a nation that had never actually become a nation.

The boundaries on the ground in the Middle East were not formed in the traditional way -- by compromise or war. Instead, European powers drew lines that pleased their fancy. The lines did not create the hatreds that plague the region, but they guaranteed that traditional enemies would have to face each other within these boundaries.

It is in part because of the resulting chaos and oppression that groups like the Taliban and Al-Qaeda and the Shiite fundamentalists of Iran have been given an opportunity to offer the solution of returning to the core values of Islam -- as defined, of course, to their private advantage.

If we topple one government and then walk away, the result in any Middle Eastern nation would be civil war, and the probable winner would be the well-funded international terrorist groups that do not shrink from wholesale murder in pursuing their cause.

Just as Kerensky's attempt at a liberal government in revolutionary Russia was almost instantly snuffed out by Lenin's Bolshevik thugs in 1917, so also would any attempt at unified democratic government in Iraq, Iran, Syria, or Afghanistan be quickly converted into Islamo-fascism of one stripe or another.

And if that happened, Islamicist puritanism would be seen in every nation as the "wave of the future." Just as, when Nazi Germany was in the ascendant, the nations of southeastern Europe quickly made their accommodation with Hitler, since the alternative was to be swept away like Poland, France, or Yugoslavia, so also would nominally democratic nations adopt the trappings of Islamicism -- if they weren't already toppled by puritan revolutions from within.

Democracy -- the Other Hope

Wherever Islamicism has been tried, the result has been identical to Communism's miserable track record. The people are oppressed; the worst sort of vigilantes and thugs terrorize the population; the new power elite, regardless of their supposed piety and dedication to a holy cause, is quickly corrupted and comes to love the wealth and privileges of power.

When there is no hope of deliverance, the people have no choice but to bow under the tyrant's lash, pretending to be true believers while yearning for relief. In Russia it came ... after more than seventy years. China and Cuba are still waiting -- but then, they started later.

So it would be in the Muslim world -- if Islamicism were ever able to come to seem inevitable and irresistible.

You know: If America withdrew from Iraq and Afghanistan and exposed everyone who had cooperated with us to reprisals.

As happened in South Vietnam. The negotiated peace was more or less holding after American withdrawal. But then a Democratic Congress refused to authorize any further support for the South Vietnamese government. No more armaments. No more budget.

In other words, we forcibly disarmed our allies, while their enemies continued to be supplied by the great Communist powers. The message was clear: Those who rely on America are fools. We didn't even have the decency to arrange for the evacuation of the people who had trusted us and risked the most in supporting what they thought was our mutual cause.

We did it again, this time in the Muslim world, in 1991, when Bush Senior encouraged a revolt against Saddam. He meant for the senior military officers to get rid of him in a coup; instead, the common people in the Shiite south rose up against Saddam.

Bush Senior did nothing as Saddam moved in and slaughtered them. The tragedy is that all it would have taken is a show of force on our part in support of the rebels, and Saddam's officers would have toppled him. Only when it became clear that we would do nothing did it become impossible for any high-ranking officials to take action. For the price of the relatively easy military action that would have made Saddam turn his troops around and leave the Shiite south, we could have gotten rid of him then -- and had grateful friends, perhaps, in the Shiite south.

That is part of our track record: Two times we persuaded people to commit themselves to action against oppressive enemies, only to abandon them. Do you think that would-be rebels in Iran and Syria and North Korea don't remember those lessons?

Fortunately, there are other lessons as well: West Germany and Japan, Taiwan and South Korea, where liberated nations were protected. In the first two, we took on the task of nation building and transformed both political cultures into democracies. In the latter two, we tolerated strongman dictatorships for many years, but eventually we made it clear that it was time for democracy, and under our protective umbrella, the governments were transformed and oppression ended.

So ... which America is operating now in the Muslim world?

In Iraq and Afghanistan -- but especially Iraq -- President Bush is behaving according to America's best and most honorable tradition. We did not come to destroy, we came to liberate and rescue, he says -- by word and deed. We bring freedom and opportunity. Our money will help rebuild your devastated (or never built-up) economies; our expertise will help train your most talented people to be ready for prosperity and self-government; and our military will keep enemies from overwhelming you as you reinvent yourselves.

Instead of leaving an empty house, swept clean but unprotected, waiting for the devils of Islamic puritanism to come take over, President Bush has sworn that America will bring democracy, and that American soldiers will do their best to protect the decent, ordinary people until they are able to protect themselves.

The Competing Stories

Here's the story the Islamic puritans are telling: The West is full of terrible evils -- atheism, sexual filth of all kinds -- in defiance of God's will. So seductive are the wiles of Shaitan that many Muslims aspire to dress, act, and live like westerners. Only by turning to full enforcement of ancient Muslim law can Islam purify itself and resist the blandishments of the west. It's evil on one side, God on the other.

If all we had to answer them was Hollywood movies, politically correct anti-religious dogmas, and the other trappings of a West that is almost as decadent as the Islamicists claim, then we would only prove their point.

Instead, President Bush has offered something quite different. We don't want to turn you into mini-Americas, he says. We offer you, instead, democracy, in which you can choose for yourselves what parts of western culture to adopt. You will govern yourselves. It isn't a choice between wickedness and righteousness, it's a choice between freedom and oppression.

In other words, through nation-building, through the promise of democracy, Bush has created a rallying point with far stronger resonance than anything the Islamic puritans have to offer.

What is their program, after all? We'll take your sons and get them to blow themselves up in order to murder westerners! Forget the rhetoric -- Muslim parents are human beings, and there is nothing more devastating than to lose a child. The only consolation is when it seems to be in a noble cause. But because of President Bush's promise of democracy, the Muslim puritan cause does not seem noble to more and more Muslims.

Even if they live in countries (or neighborhoods) where they dare not speak up -- yet -- they do not want any of their children to die just so that the rest of them can live and suffer in slavery to a privileged, selfish class of elitist tyrants.

President Bush's story offers the common people hope of living decent lives and seeing their children live to adulthood, to grow old surrounded by grandchildren.

The Al-Qaeda, Ayatollah story promises them dead children and the lash.

There are, of course, fanatics who will embrace Islamic terrorism because they choose to blind themselves to the truth and embrace the noble-seeming lies of the tyrants. Al-Qaeda does not lack for recruits.

But it also does not lack for people who fear and hate them. There are few pro-Al-Qaeda demonstrations on the Arab street. The people remember the images of liberated Iraqis tearing down the images of Saddam. And they know -- because they have relatives and friends, they hear from merchants and travelers -- that in most of Iraq, there is freedom and prosperity like never before.

They're getting the story, at the level of gossip and personal anecdote, that the anti-American media -- you know, Al-Jazirah and the New York Times -- never report: The Americans really mean to give the Iraqis self-government.

You hear about the power outages in Iraq and it's always somehow Bush's fault. What nobody points out is that these outages come in places where Saddam barely offered electricity at all. The reason the new power systems can't cope is because the newly prosperous Iraqi people are buying -- and plugging in -- vast quantities of electrical appliances they could never afford to buy before! When a town that used to have two dozen refrigerators and washing machines now has two thousand of each, the old power supply is never going to do the job.

"Americans Won't Stay"

How do the Islamicist tyrants answer the obvious success and growing appeal of Bush's democracy program?

They kill people, of course.

But they also tell the story, over and over: "America will never stick it out. We'll keep killing Americans till they give up and go away, and then you will answer to us!"

Until they believe that the Islamofascists are never coming into power, many people will remain afraid to commit themselves to democracy.

Under those circumstances, the remarkable thing is how courageously the Shiites of the south have embraced democracy, and how many of them are beginning to trust that we mean what they say.

But against Bush's promises and the actions of our brave and decent soldiers, the tyrants can set the behavior of Bush's political opponents, who are doing their best to promote the propaganda of the tyrants. Every Congressman who says "We must set a timetable for departure" is providing ammunition to the tyrants in their campaign of terror.

Because even more than they fear terrorist bombs, the pro-democracy forces within Iraq and Afghanistan fear American withdrawal. Every speech threatening withdrawal is a bomb going off in Baghdad, killing, not people, but the will to resist the tyrants.

Bin Laden predicted it. The Democratic Party in America is following his script exactly.

Can We Win?

That is certainly not what most who call for withdrawal intend. They see Americans dying and they have no hope of victory. The Iraq War (as they call it) is costing lives and shows no sign of ending. Meanwhile, Iran is getting nuclear weapons, North Korea already has them, Syria and Iran are sponsoring continuing and escalating attacks on Israel -- how can we possibly "win" a war that threatens constantly to widen? Let's cut our losses, retire to our shores, and ...

And will you please stop and think for a moment?

There is no withdrawal to our shores. American prosperity requires free trade throughout most of the world. Free trade has depended for decades on American might. If we withdraw now, we announce to the world that if you just kill enough Americans, the big boys will go home and let you do whatever you want.

Every American in the world then becomes a target. And, because we have announced that we will do nothing to protect them, we will soon be trading only with nations that have enough strength to protect their own shores and borders.

Only ... what nations are those? Not Taiwan. If they saw us abandon Iraq, what conclusion could they reach except this one: They'd better accommodate with China now, when they can still get decent terms, than wait for America to walk away from them the way we walked away from Vietnam and Iraq.

We cannot win by going home. In a short time, "home" would become a very different place, as our own prosperity and safety steadily diminished. Isolationism is a dead end. If we lose our will to protect the things that support our own prosperity, then what can we expect but the end of that prosperity -- and of any vestige of safety, as well?

The frustrating thing is that if people would just look, honestly, at the readily available data from the Muslim world, they would realize that we are winning and that the course President Bush is pursuing is, in fact, the wisest one.

Mistakes

Critics of Bush love to cite the many "mistakes" his administration has made. Most of these "mistakes" are arguable -- are they mistakes at all? -- and when you sum up the others, with any kind of rational understanding of military history, the only possible conclusion is that this is the best-run war in history, with the fewest mistakes. And most of the mistakes we've made are the kind that become clear to morning-after quarterbacks but were difficult to avoid in the fog of war.

Worse yet, Bush's opponents invariably depict these mistakes as being the result of deliberately chosen policies -- a ludicrous charge, but one that is taken seriously by an astonishing number of people who should know better. The game, you see, is blame. It's not enough to say, Bush made a mistake. You have to say, Bush deliberately did it wrong for evil purposes and he must be punished.

But let's accept the fairy tale that this war has been badly run. That still does not change the fact that on all of the biggest points, Bush has made exactly the right choice -- and he has been the only one who has even seen the need to make those choices!

Take North Korea, for instance. Bush recognized instantly that North Korea, with China as its sponsor and protector, is simply beyond the reach of American power at this time. This will not always be true, but his administration is pursuing a careful, quiet, firm policy of diplomatic pressure on China to do what must be done to curb North Korean insanity.

What about Iran? The idea of a ground war in Iran -- especially when we're still fighting in Iraq -- seems impossible.

But it is also probably unnecessary. Because Iran's present government is not just hated, it is also losing its grip on power.

Not on the trappings of power -- they control the "elections" to such a point that nobody can be nominated without the approval of the ayatollahs.

But government power -- even in democracies -- depends absolutely on the will of the people to obey. And when you rule by tyranny and oppression, the obedience of the people comes from the credibility of the threat of violence from the government.

The obvious examples are Red Square in Moscow and Tiananmen Square in Beijing. In Moscow, when Yeltsin and the pro-democracy demonstrators defied the tanks, the Russian Army did not open fire. Why not? Either they refused to obey the order to shoot, or the order was not given -- but if it was not given, it was almost certainly because the tyrants knew that it would not be obeyed.

In other words, the government had lost the ability to inflict deadly force on its own population.

In Tiananmen Square, however, the government gave the order and the troops did fire. As a result, the tyranny continued -- and continues to this day.

Tyrannies only continue in power when they can give the order to kill their own people and be obeyed.

In Iran, there have been several incidents in the past months and years where troops refused to fire on demonstrators. This is huge news (virtually unreported in the West, of course), because of what it means: The ayatollahs' days are numbered.

If President Bush invaded Iran on the ground, bombing Iranian cities and killing Iranian soldiers, he would accomplish only what Hitler did by invading Russia -- uniting an oppressed people in support of a hated tyrant.

But, as was pointed out in a pair of excellent analytical pieces in the most recent Commentary magazine, we don't have to do anything of the kind.

Oil Is Our Weapon, Too

Iran's ace-in-the-hole is not its nuclear weapon -- in their rational moments, even the most rabid of the ayatollahs must understand that if they ever used (or allowed someone else to use) a nuclear weapon, we would destroy them, period. That nuke is meant only as a deterrent -- it can't be used any other way -- and while there's a remote chance that Iran might allow their nukes to be put into the hands of some terrorist group, it would have to be a group they control absolutely. In other words, it would not be Al-Qaeda. (Though Hezbollah would be bad enough.)

The real threat from Iran is their ability to shut down the Persian Gulf and cut off the world's supply of oil from Saudi Arabia, Iraq, Iran, and the Gulf nations.

That would not really bother the United States -- gas prices would shoot up on the open market, of course, but we can get by on oil provided by non-Gulf sources.

Not so for the rest of the world, though. And Iran is poised, with small boats and thousands of missiles, to shut down all oil production and transportation in the Persian Gulf.

What few seem to realize (according to the article in Commentary) is that Iran is far more dependent on oil revenues than we are on getting their oil. When President Bush determines that he has given the Iranians ample chance to demonstrate to the few rational statesmen left in Europe that there is no possibility of meaningful negotiations with the tyrants of Tehran, his obvious course of action is to shut down Iranian power in the gulf and seize their oil assets.

If we strike first, we can eliminate their ability to do mischief in the gulf quite readily. Their forces, however numerous, are pathetically vulnerable. Unlike their dispersed and shielded nuclear development capability, their military forces in the gulf are in obvious and accessible positions.

So are their own oil assets. They are as dependent on the Gulf to reach the world oil market as any of their neighbors. If we seize their oil platforms, destroy their shipping, and impose an absolute blockade on Iranian shipping in the Gulf -- while eliminating their ability to damage anybody else's shipping -- how long do you think the tyranny would remain in power?

Here's a hint: They'd run out of money very, very quickly.

Here's another hint: Their military is already refusing to obey their most outrageous orders. When the military finds themselves saddled with a government that has brought the destruction of most of their oil revenues, all because of their insane determination to take on the United States, how long before the ayatollahs are arrested and sent home? Or else made irrelevant by placing a "committee of public safety" above them, to veto their decisions and make peace with the West?

Maybe it wouldn't turn out that way. But it's our best chance -- and that's the chance that Bush is obviously preparing for. He has made no attempt to prepare the American people for an invasion of Iran. But he has made it crystal clear that Iranian misbehavior will not be tolerated -- and that regime change is the desired outcome.

If Iran's ayatollahs were toppled, how long would Syria continue to misbehave? Answer: About fifteen minutes. Syria is a poor country. They are only able to make trouble because they have Iran's support.

Shiites and Sunnis

Here's the other asset we have that no one seems to take into account when judging Bush's conduct of the War on Terror: We are really caught up in an ancient civil war between Shiites and Sunnis.

Al-Qaeda on the Sunni side and Iran's ayatollahs on the Shiite side have both been playing the same game all along. They don't seriously think that they can conquer the United States (yet) -- so why have they been provoking us?

Because they're belling the cat. Or poking the bull with sticks. Why? Because they are performing on the stage of world Islam, putting on rival plays. Both plays have the same message: Look, we're the heroes who have God on our side, because we're the ones who have provoked the great Shaitan and gotten away with it!

Iran's Shiites had the upper hand for quite a while, bringing down one U.S. President (Carter) and getting another -- tough-guy Reagan -- to withdraw the Marines from Lebanon and then come begging to Iran's door in his stupid, cowardly arms-for-hostages deal.

Then Al-Qaeda had the upper hand in their play, showing the Muslim world that it was the Sunnis who were blowing up American boats and embassies and, finally, the twin towers in New York City itself.

It's all theatre. It's all an effort by Bin Laden to restore the Caliphate with himself, of course, as Caliph -- spiritual dictator of the Muslim world. The goal? Not just to unite Sunni Islam under a Caliph again, but to then make war on and crush Shiite resistance. That is the prize. Only when it is won would a united Islam be ready to conquer the rest of the world, finishing the task that was left unfinished by previous waves of Muslim conquest.

Meanwhile, Iran's ayatollahs are trying to show the Muslim world that it is they, the Shiite leaders, who have God on their side. That was what the recent campaign in Lebanon was all about -- to steal the glory back from Al-Qaeda.

But wait. It's even more complicated than that. Because there are other divisions within the Muslim world. Iraqi Shiites have no love for, and do not accept the authority of, the Persian clerics. Arabic-speaking Shiites have no desire to have Farsi-speaking Shiites rule over them.

So we have an amazingly convoluted situation in the middle east. Iran and its puppet, Syria, are cooperating support of the Sunni resistance in Iraq. Why? It's not because Syria's rulers are nominally Baathist as Saddam was -- Baathism is dead. Instead, it's the ancient tribalism that is at the fore. Syria's rulers are members of a tiny religious minority that is an offshoot of Shia, and thus they help Iran maintain access to its Shiite allies in Lebanon partly in order to shore up their own position vis-a-vis their own mostly-Sunni population.

So why are these Shiites and crypto-Shiites supporting the Sunnis in Baghdad?

Because anything that keeps America distracted is good for them. And if the Americans do pack up and go home, then the Shiites can claim the victory -- even though it's mostly Sunnis who are blowing themselves up in Israel and Baghdad.

Besides, the Sunni insurgents in Iraq are keeping the Iraqi Shiites off balance. The last thing the Iranian ayatollahs want is for Iraq to become a democratic nation with a Shiite majority, because at that moment it will be the Iraqi Shiite leaders who will have the most credibility as leaders of the Shiite wing of Islam.

So the leadership of the Iraqi Shiites are perceived as rivals by the ayatollahs of Iran. Thus the Iranians support the Iraqi Shiites' enemies -- providing the weapons that are used to murder Shiites in Iraq.

It's an astonishingly twisted game -- and as long as we don't do anything really, really stupid, like withdrawing from Iraq, all these various treacheries will inevitably lead to the fall of the tyrants in Iran, and therefore in Syria, and therefore the taming of Hezbollah in Lebanon.

Bush's game is to keep from letting any of these faction unite, while preparing to deliver strategic blows that can bring down the ayatollahs at relatively little cost.

Every action has repercussions. Just as our withdrawal from Iraq would terrify and silence our allies everywhere, and embolden our enemies, so also would the fall of the ayatollahs -- particularly if it is as the result of an American intervention in the Gulf -- make waves everywhere. Democracy would be perceived as the wave of the future. Our friends in many countries would feel free to speak up for democracy and pro-American policies -- and their enemies would be afraid to silence them.

North Korea might go through a paroxysm of defiance -- but they would still understand the lesson. America will not be bullied by tyrants. We will stand for democracy, destroying our enemies at the "time and place of our choosing." Negotiations with North Korea would instantly take on a very different tone; and China's attitude, too, would become considerably more cooperative with us.

This is the victory that awaits us -- and it remains possible for two reasons only:

1. America's brilliant, brave, and well-trained military, which projects not just power but decency and compassion wherever our soldiers go, and

2. President George W. Bush, who, regardless of his critics and detractors, has steadfastly pursued the only course that holds the hope of victory without plunging us into a worldwide war with a united Islam or isolating America in a world torn by chaos.

Those are the scylla and charybdis that threaten us on either hand. If we do not win this containable war now, following the plan President Bush has set forth, we will surely end up fighting far bloodier wars for the next generation.

And the rhetoric of this election proves that we have precious few politicians in either party who have the brains, will, or courage to be taken seriously as alternatives to George W. Bush in the guidance of our nation through this dangerous, complicated world.

If we, the American people, are stupid enough to give control of either or both houses of Congress to the Democratic Party in this election, we will deserve the world we find ourselves in five years from now.

But Bush, being the wise and moderate politician that he is, may actually be able to continue his foreign policy despite the opposition of a Democratic Congress.

What really scares me is the 2008 election. The Democratic Party is hopeless -- only clowns seem to be able to rise to prominence there these days, while they boot out the only Democrats serious about keeping America's future safe. But the Republicans are almost equally foolish, trying to find somebody who is farther right than Bush -- somebody who will follow the conservative line far better than the moderate Bush has ever attempted -- and somebody who will "kick butt" in foreign policy.

So if we get one of the leading Democrats as our new President in 2009, we'll be on the road to pusillanimous withdrawal and the resulting chaos in the world.

While if we elect any of the Republicans who are extremist enough to please the Hannity wing of the party, our resulting belligerence will likely provoke Islam into unifying behind one of the tyrants, which is every bit as terrifying an outcome.

I hope somebody emerges in one of the parties, at least, who commits himself or herself to continuing Bush's careful, wise, moderate, and so-far-successful policies in the War on Terror.

Meanwhile, we have this election. You have your vote. For the sake of our children's future -- and for the sake of all good people in the world who don't get to vote in the only election that matters to their future, too -- vote for no Congressional candidate who even hints at withdrawing from Iraq or opposing Bush's leadership in the war. And vote for no candidate who will hand control of the House of Representatives to those who are sworn to undo Bush's restrained but steadfast foreign policy in this time of war.

Six Things You May Not Know About Me

(From Charlie)

1. My first boyfriend was in middle school and I was too shy to talk to him in person, even though we were "going out."

2. My mom put me in preschool at three and a half because I was bored at home. I still remember the name of the director at that school (it was a Montessori school).

3. I always mean to pray for certain things each night, but half the time I fall asleep before I finish.

4. I'm not sure how much I like "church people," even though I go to church.

5. I want to have babies someday relatively soon, but the thought of being pregnant does not sit well yet.

6. I played the flute in middle school band, and my friends and I used to get together and practice in my playhouse during the summer. (Poor neighbors!)

I suppose I can update.

It's been a couple of days, I guess, and it's not like I have anything better to do right now! So I'll back waaaaaay up and talk about my adventures leading up to Halloween, the best party we've ever thrown, and my week at home.

Adventures leading up to Halloween: I finished all my high school visits the Friday before Halloween and was on my way home when my car stopped being able to accelerate. Uh oh. Turns out my fuel pump went bad, but luckily the guys at the Ypsi Pontiac dealer got me all fixed up and back to Mt. Pleasant by 7 pm. Can I just say, though, that I HATE the traffic down here? Once my car was all good as new, I still had to crawl through rush hour traffic in order to get back home. I'm never moving back here.

The best party EVER: Every year for a long time, my parents threw Halloween parties, complete with all their friends in costume and a road rally. Well, Mitch and I have taken up the torch and threw our first one Halloween weekend. We had an awesome time, and you can see some of the photos on my Yahoo site. For me, the funniest part was seeing everyone in their costumes. My brother stole the show as a French maid, and joining him in the feminine (OK, flaming) crowd were Ray (he was supposed to be an exotic dancer fireman, but it didn't quite turn out that way) and Jon (all in spandex as a biker, while Mim was all in leather - "Bikers, oh!"). They insisted Mitch was "one of them" as well, because they said his cowboy costume made him look rather "Brokeback." I thought he was very sexy and manly, but apparently that movie has ruined the cowboy look forever! Anyway, for the road rally, we had seven different clues to get people to different locations around Mt. P, like the casino, B-Dubs, Intimate Ideas, a volleyball court, the Brass Cafe, etc. At each place, they had to bring back something specific. They also had a list of things to photograph while they were out and about, which was really, really funny! Mitch and I spent their road rally time at the Brass, watching for everyone and drinking wine. OK, I was drinking wine, Mitch was driving me home!

My week at home: Delightful, except that Mitch and I both got a wicked cold from Bobby (probably because he had us all playing this game at our party where everyone ended up drinking from the same bowl). I'm still getting over it, and I kind of feel like I didn't get to spend any quality time with Mitch because we were both so drugged up all week, but at least I was at home.

Now I'm back on the road, but only for this week and part of next week. Then I'm ALL DONE! Woo-hoo! This week, though, I brought Chip with me, so I have him at least.

Well, time to pack up and go back to my parents house so I can relax a bit before my college fair this evening. Have a wonderful afternoon!

Halfway there...

It's Wednesday, and I'm halfway to Friday and being home for a whole entire week! Home...I think that's my favorite word right now.

Mim and I didn't go biking on Monday because it started to snow. We're hoping to go tomorrow if the weather and her work schedule cooperate. I might hit the trail tonight when I get home, but it's kinda cold...

Yesterday I shook the hand of the man who will hopefully become our new governor in a few weeks. Yes, Ryan, conservatives unite!

I had a conversation with my dad last night about why I feel more comfortable and confident around people who are older than me vs. my peers. I think it's that, when I was younger, I had faith that adults would judge me on those things that are truly important, rather than the superficial characteristics on which your peers tend to focus. It's carried over into this early adulthood stage, even though the gap between me and "real adults" is quickly narrowing. Food for thought.

OK, time to pack up and blow this Panera Bread and its fabulous (free) wireless Internet. I'm meeting the boss over at one of my schools, so I should be on time and with my propensity for getting lost in the city, I better leave a lot of extra time. Onward!

Wild

Today's schedule:

Work from 9:00 am 'til...NOW!
Pilates with Mom: 5:15-6:15 pm
Mountain biking with Miriam*: 6:30 pm 'til we find our way out of the woods
Shower, change, drive to Ann Arbor, meet up with Becky around 8:30 pm
Go out to a late dinner, hang out with the girls, and crash on their futon for the night

*It's going to be dark, cold, and possibly wet - cross your fingers for our survival!

A Good Day

Today is a good day. It's not raining. I had one visit this morning and actually saw some kids. I went mountain biking and got all muddy. I took a gloriously hot shower, ate a sandwich, and am now sipping on a vanilla hazelnut Italian soda at South Lyon's newest coffee house, complete with a warm, cozy atmosphere and free wireless Internet.

Tonight is my second-to-last college fair, and then I'm having a sleepover at Becky and Miriam's. Tomorrow I'll hit three schools before heading for that precious place called home. Maybe I'll drop by the office in hopes of getting a bit done before Friday, when hopefully I can both climb at lunch and leave early. I have to work Saturday, but then I get a whole glorious day with Mitch. One more week of this (and only two more trips to "the city") and then I'm home for a whole week, before wrapping up travel season with a smattering of visits in November.

There are things to complain about, sure. But today they don't seem all that important. Life is good.

What's Wrong in Our Schools

There is an unfortunate trend occuring in high schools. I thought we had moved past it, learned from our mistakes. It's sobering to know I was wrong about stretch pants.

Revealing every unfortunate line, enhancing every unflattering jiggle, this fashion faux pas is not the newest hit, highlighted on fashionable websites and in magazines. Why oh why, all all things '80s, did these have to return to torture another generation, who will look back on high school yearbooks in shame?

Stretch pants have their place: on older women in the gym, perhaps, or in yoga class (though buy them with a bit of a flare, please), or as I'll admit to using them, on a climbing wall. But not, for the love of all things truly flattering, as a real part of one's wardrobe to be worn on a regular basis.

And no, wearing them under a skirt does not make them look any better. Sporting boots over them doesn't help, either, nor does a shirt that covers your hips, even if you wear a belt on the outside.

Let me make my position clear: the '80s gave us rockin' hair bands, some timeless toys and real Saturday morning cartoons. They did not, however, contribute anything positive to the fashion world. The only good thing to be said about this season is that short shirts are out, significantly reducing the number of disturbing muffin top sightings.

Scatterbrain

I can't keep my thoughts straight lately...probably because I'm caught in this alternate universe where I live two places and have fifteen offices and take wrong turns every time I get in my car because Yahoo maps can't tell you when to make a Michigan left...

I've been remiss in posting comments on everyone's blogs, so here's a note for all of you whose blogs I check on a somewhat regluar basis:

Charlotte: Call me anytime to catch up!

Dan and Vicky: Research sounds awesome and complicated. Hope you're enjoying life as newlyweds in yet another cornfield!

Robin: New entry? Bueller? Bueller?

Ryan: Sorry I didn't respond to your Bible question. I seriously don't have an answer and am too tired to try to form a coherent string of ideas. But I like that you asked it!

Tim: You know what I said to Robin? Goes for you, too! Please give me an update to brighten my travelin' days!

OK, check that off my to-do list. Travel is going well...today I actually saw a good number of kids at all my schools, and I do not have a college fair tonight so I can atually hang out with my parents and write postcards while watching House, etc.

Oh, and the weekend was a blast! Homecoming on Saturday was fun, though we really just hung out with everyone we see fairly regularly anyway. Sunday we came down to my parents' house to go mountain biking together and wow is my new bike awesome! Hills came easier, turns were smoother and faster...lovely, just lovely. Mitch stayed down through Monday (Columbus Day = bank holiday) and rode with one of Dad's friends while I worked, and then we went out to dinner together before my college fair.

Highlight of my week so far: I brought Chipper with me and he is super cuddly at night. Last night I woke up to find his head nuzzled against my shoulder. Awww.

Gotta go - work to be done, I suppose!

New Bike!

This will probably be of the most interest to Robin, but I'm posting it for all of you because I am soooo excited!

Tuesday night I'm on my way home from a college fair when Mitch calls to tell me about his day in Traverse City, where he was taking classes for work. He told me he had some time to kill, so he went to a bike shop there and started talking to a guy about bikes for me. See, my K2 is a good "starter bike," but I already had to replace the derailleur, the frame is heavy, etc. Since it's the end of the season, lots of places are having good sales, so Mitch has been all about doing a little (OK, a lot of) research.

Anyway, the bike he found was a Scott Contessa 20, which is a WSD (women specific design) bike with as good as or, in some cases, better components than his bike. He was certain I would like it, but I stuck to my practical guns and said I wanted to demo one before we bought one, even though the deal was incredible.

So Wednesday, as I only had one high school to visit, I spent the afternoon visiting the local bike shops in South Lyon and Brighton, talking about different kinds of bikes. One of the main things I was trying to determine was for what brands were the WSDs just smaller frames with different pait jobs, and for what brands were they actually geometrically different. If you're curious, Trek WSDs are essentially the same as the regular bikes, whereas Specialized bikes and Scotts are are pretty different.

One of the places I went was D&D in Brighton, where the salesguy was awesome and talked to me for about 30 minutes. He had great things to say about the Scotts and even said if I came back when their female salesperson was working, I oculd probably take her Scott out for a spin. He quoted me a couple of pretty good prices but said they would price match. He also told me the Scott Contessa 20 was not in stock there, but he could order me one.

At this point, I am not considering buying a bike. If I was, I would have taken the Scott they did have in the store out for a spin around the parking lot, even though it was raining. Anyway, I called Mitch and told him all about my adventures and the new knowledge I gained, and he said he went back to the Traverse bike shop to see about demos, but they had sold all of them. We also compared prices, and the Scott Contessa 20 in Traverse was over $100 cheaper than it was in Brighton. At this point, I am finally recongizing what an amazing deal this could be, but I'm still reluctant to spend $630 on a bike without test riding it. So I ask Mitch (I'm in the car driving to another college fair at this point) to call D&D and see if (1) they will in fact price-match and (2) I can ride the other Contessa they do have in stock the next day. So he does, and the good news was that they would match the price and let me test one, but the bad news was that the manuacturer doesn't have any more of these bikes! They are '06 models and they've stopped making them!

Decisions, decisions...in the end, I gave into the persuasive powers of my husband and my own desire for a better bike, so I am now the proud owner of this beauty. When you look at the picture, imagine it with a blue and silver paint job and no disc brakes. Then put clipless pedals on it and picture me on the seat! According to Mitch, he followed the golden rule of buying a bike for your wife and purchased me a better quality bike than he rides.

And now, it's time to wrap up my entry and take my old bike out for one last hurrah!

From my mobile office...

Another Monday....it was a great weekend though! Mitch and I spent tons of time together working around the apartment, climbing at Alma, shopping in Midland, cooking an amazing dinner on Saturday, going to our wonderful church, strolling around Dow Gardens (my first trip ever!) and watching the Lions almost beat St. Louis.

By the way, I want to go on record and say I am a lifetime Lions, Tigers, Wings, and Pistons supporter, no matter how good or bad those teams do. Everyone should stop being so hard on the Lions and just root for them to make a turnaround like the Tigers!

Charlotte - Jen from the previous entry is Jen Conkey, a 2006 Alma grad and a rock climbing buddy of mine. I don't remember whereabouts in Minnesota she lives, though.

This week is going to be pretty busy, as I have college fairs every single night. That means 2+ hours of smiling big and trying to convince everyone that Alma is the best place for them in two or so minutes, before brightly encouraging them to "fill out a card and I'll send you some more information!" Argh. Well, time to get some real work done before I have to head back out!

Tired of being...tired.

So begins another week of travel. This week I'm all over, from Bloomfield Hills to Ann Arbor to Rochester. I'm currently at the library (where else?) waiting 'til it's time to head back to the city for another visit. Tonight I might go to Jo-Ann's with my mom to look for a Halloween costume pattern, since I'll be dressing up for the first time in years! I guess that's what happens when you decide to host a party...

Speaking of parties, this weekend was Jon's housewarming bash in Lansing. I had a great time hanging out with lots of people, some of whom I haven't seen in awhile. Jen flew in from Minnesota, and I got to pick her up at the airport Saturday evening. Mim, Mel and I brought an obnoxious "Welcome Jen" sign, but she sais she loved it and would hang it up in her bedroom at home. Other than that, we all just hung around, played Catch Phrase and ping-pong, and generally had a good time. The downside of that was not getting much sleep, as well as having to say 'bye to Mitch for the next week. I miss him tons and hope this week goes really fast.

Oh argh, I had another question for everyone to ponder and I don't remember what it was. Oh well - I guess I should hop on trusty Yahoo Maps and get some directions to my next school. Take care, everyone, and I hope you're enjoying the beginning of what is sure to be a gorgeous fall!

A Real Update

Yes, I know it's been a long time. Work was really busy the past few weeks, getting ready for travel season and all that. Now I am officially a road warrior once again, visiting high schools in Oakland, Livingston, Washtenaw, Lenawee and Monroe counties. I've also sort of moved back in with my parents during the week, as South Lyon is not a bad "home base" for my adventures. So far everything has gone well, but I'm finding that Yahoo Maps is not really any more reliable than Mapquest.

Other than work, we've been having lots of fun, mostly with Ray and Kristy during the week. We do movie night (OK, movie, popcorn and Captain Morgan night) with them every Wednesday, and last Saturday we all went out to B-Dubs for drinks in the evening. Which turned into drinking games at our apartment. Which turned into a sleepover. "Never have I ever sat around drinking with three other people on a Saturday night because there's nothing else to do." Well, we all had to drink on that one!

I guess one of the things that's been on my mind lately is a sort of silent falling out I'm currently having with one of my best friends. I prefer not to rehash it over the Internet, but I would love some insight on the concept of "best friends." Why are girls, from a very young age, so obsessed with having a best friend? What does a best friend ideally mean, and what has it actually meant for you or people you know? At what point is it no longer important to have a best friend, or at what point in your life do you find the concept of a best friend irrelevant? What happens when you don't think you can name a best friend anymore? Do "grown-ups" really need best friends?

OK, that's all for now. I'm going to tear down the shop I set up daily in the Lyon Township Public Library, change out of my suit, and think about a mountain bike ride at Island Lake before taking my mom out to dinner. Today is a good day. :)

Mitch's Results

You are a Social Conservative (35% permissive) and an... Economic Conservative (63% permissive) You are best described as a: Republican Link: The Politics Test on Ok Cupid Also: The OkCupid Dating Persona Test

What happened to my friend?

I tossed the ball her way and waited for it to come sailing back. Instead, she looked at it for a moment, pondered what it could mean, and nonchalantly tossed it to the side of the court. Then, with a shrug of her shoulders, she walked away and left me there, still waiting.

What I Want to Be When I Grow Up

A caring, capable wife
A loving mother
A true Christian
A good friend.
A successful career-woman
An independant woman
A compassionate woman
A smart, confident woman.
An adventurous soul
A risk-taker
A boundary-pusher
A world-traveler.
A comfortable homemaker
A safety net
A motivating coach
A community volunteer.

Me.

Quiz I Stole from Ryan :)

You are a Social Conservative (36% permissive) and an... Economic Conservative (61% permissive) You are best described as a: Centrist Link: The Politics Test on OkCupid Free Online Dating Also: The OkCupid Dating Persona Test

"Good Monsters"

Jars of Clay's new album, "Good Monsters," is out! You can listen to the whole thing for FREE here and buy it on iTunes for $10. I highly recommend it - it's different from any other Jars record I've heard. Enjoy!

For Posterity

I might not have a great "green thumb," but here's proof that I can grow flowers on my balcony:

A gerber daisy - I haven't had many, but it's worth the wait when they bloom.

Some flower growing out of a can. It was a creative Christmas present that I never thought I'd be able to keep alive!



A variation of the morning glory. It has successfully climbed up the lattice-work and blooms like this every morning!

How did it used to be?

We grew up and grew apart.

I guess you could say it’s as simple as that.

I’ve been trying to put it into words, how this happened. It’s about who they’ve become and who I’ve become.

I want to be active, look for adventure, test my self-sufficiency and push some boundaries, whether it’s a rugby game on a chilly beach or a climbing trip down South. They want to hit up trendy clubs, sample vegetarian cuisine and go to foreign films. I’ll take a weekend at the Silver Lake Sand Dunes and take it for the good time it’s worth, but they’d ridicule it for its lack of sophistication. I’ll hop on the back of a motorcycle, and they’d tell me how dangerous it is. I’ll go to church to learn and worship and question, and they’d tell me just how simple everything is, which tells me they haven’t sat down and thought about anything.

They never come out and say it, but I feel their disapproval and judgment as acutely as I did during high school. Maybe I never got past being insecure. Maybe I just pretend.

I feel like an outsider with them. An afterthought. A low priority. “Getting together” when we’re all in town means spending half an hour sitting around someone’s parents’ kitchen table, or quickly exchanging obligatory Christmas presents in a living room where we used to spend hours goofing around.

I love them, though. I miss who we were but accept who we’ve become. I’d give anything for a weekend with my girls, just my girls, to reacquaint ourselves with each other, to discover the how we’ve changed and how we’ve stayed the same. I’d love to know, once and for all, that I don’t have to prove myself or justify my choices for them to love me, too.

Funny Story

At lunch today, I grabbed my climbing gear and went down to the wall to set a boulder route. As I was trying to negotiate a creative way across the crack, I remembered this funny story:

Senior year, Mitch and I went with a big group of Alma students to this job fair in Lansing. One company, Stryker, was doing short onsite interviews where they asked each candidate the same questions and decided who to call back for a more extensive interview. When the interviewer asked me to give an example of a time when I showed persistence in accomplishing a task, I told her about this one particular boulder route on our climbing wall (I believe it was set by Jon Naile and was called "Dr. Putz") and how I've been trying to master it for weeks now. Somehow, Mitch ends up with the same lady (there were about five different people interviewing students) and he gave the same example. He said she looked at him funny and told him he should meet this girl she just interviewed! He told her we were engaged. :)

Today's Thankfuls

I just got nailed for actually asking questions in a meeting. Apparently I should have gone to my coworker privately to ask questions about a new visit program that impacts the entire staff. So, because that sort of steams me, I'm rearranging my focus to those things for which I am thankful this week:

-Spending time at the lake with Kristy and Ray
-Attending our long-neglected church
-Taking a long, restful nap
-Eating dinner with my grandparents, aunt, and cousin
-Watching TV with my favorite quilt and, because he loves the quilt so much, my favorite cat
-Falling asleep as the "little spoon"
-Hearing a few or my favorite songs on the radio
-Knowing God is with me always

Brief Update

I have 500+ postcards awaiting my signature, but I haven't really updated in awhile, so here goes.

-The freshmen move in on Saturday and my OCs are sailing thorugh their training week. So far, no big drama. Hope it stays that way.

-Enrollment is low and now that everyone is back on campus, Admissions might as well wear a bulls-eye t-shirts so everyone knows where to aim. It hasn't been too bad, but everyone keeps asking, "How are you guys handling everything over there?" Um, we moved on from this class a month ago and are busy preparing strategies to make sure next year's class is better. Our job is more complicated than you think.

-Last weekend at the dunes was awesome. A truck flipped over and we watched a Hummer right it, but not before the DNR got there to issue tickets. No one's insurance is valid out there, either.

-I love all my friends dearly, but sometimes I want to smack some of them upside their heads and make them realize all they have to be thankful for. We all fall in the trap of wanting to throw the occasional pity party, or spend time questioning whether we are following the right path. But that's different than calling yourself a failure for all of cyberspace to read. Suck it up.

-Rum does not cure the common cold. I tried that last night and the experiment was not successful. Someone pass me a Kleenex before a sneeze all over my computer!

-I got this insane craving for a fall bonfire earlier this week. Crisp air, crunchy leaves, that autumn smell...I want it all, with some hot apple cider to top it off!

That's all - sorry it's so choppy.

My Chipper Cat

Vicky and Dan have posted a few photos of their terribly cute kitties, and even though Chip is not a kitten anymore, he still does some goofy stuff, like thinking he can go on our climbing trip with us just by sneaking into my pack...

Signs?

Someone is trying to tell us we should not ride our bikes anymore. Riding the Potowatami Trail on Sunday, Bobby and I broke our chains and Mintch broke the ziptie that held his brake cable in place. Yesterday, as Mitch began his ride to Alma after work, he broke a spoke on his wheel. Hmmmm...

In other news, though, the Alma climbing wall is pretty much ready to go. We busted our butts for four hours last night and got holds on most of the wall, plus hung all new ropes. It looks hot, and now we're just trying to set some routes. Finally!

My new friend

This weekend, Mitch and I had a great time playing with a little girl named Jenna. She's a cute, blonde pixie of a girl with a contagious laugh, and glowing smile, and the ability to charm everyone around her. She had Mitch chasing her, me swimming with her, and both of us playing hide and go seek until we ran out of places to hide.

You'd never know it, but Jenna's very sick. She has a genetic disease called PKD, which basically means her liver, kidneys and spleen are enlarged. In most cases like hers, infants don't live more than a few hours, but she'll be five in October and is doing very well. You can read her story here.

Waiting...

...for my group of families to get done with their tours so we can eat lunch. In the meantime, I might as well post, just for fun. It's been a relatively mellow week around here. I got a tetnus shot on Monday that prevented much physical activity for the first few days, but on Thursday I started working with our new rec center director to get the wall up and running. Joe, a climber who's been here all summer, took all the holds down and ran them through the Saga dishwashers. The new director ordered all new ropes, shoes, biners, ATCs and harnesses, so we have two weeks to get all the holds up, the new ropes hung, and all the new gear inventoried. I think she's going to keep a tighter leash on the wall, like Amy a few years ago, which will be really good.

After working on the wall on Thursday, Mitch and I played two-on-two volleyball with Ray and Kristy. Then they cam back to our place for a movie, homemade popcorn and drinks. I fell asleep, but I think it was a good movie. Last night we met Kristy and Ray for dinner at Ruby Tuesday's, then spent the evening doing laundry, cleaning up, and keeping Bruce's guitar from feeling neglected.

Today, obviously, I'm working, but when I get done we're going to my parents' for the weekend. The weather is just so nice that I need to ride my mountain bike. And (I can't remember if I posted this before) Bobby bought me clipless pedals and shoes! He actually went to the bike store and came home with four pairs so I could find the right style and size. Just because. He really is an amazing guy, and some girl is going to be crazy-lucky to get him someday.

All right, I've run out of mindless things to write, so I'll stop. Happy Weekend!

Honk honk!

There's a cheerleader outside my window, shaking her pom-pons to welcome the high schoolers participating in this week's cheer camp. Of course, every male driver that speeds by thinks she is there for him, so I've been listening to car horns all morning.

Back to the real world

I had a great four-day weekend, full of good times with friends and family. Bruce came up on Thursday morning and we didn't do much but catch up 'til Mitch got home from work. Then we met Kristy and Ray at B-Dubs to celebrate Kristy's successful final exams and Ray's equally successful attack on the DAT. Us girls wanted to go out to Ray's lake, but the boys said it was too far to drive (half an hour?!?!?) and we ended up just going back to our place and drinking the night away.

On Friday, Mitch, Bruce and I were supposed to go climbing at Grand Ledge, but when we got down there, we discovered we hadn't brought enough webbing for our anchor points. As no climbing gyms open until the evening, we just went mini-golfing and returned to Mt. Pleasant to watch movies and relax until everyone came over for Bruce's Belated Birthday Bash. It was the most random night: dinner at The Cabin, Ultimate Frisbee, swimming, bowling, Catch Phrase, Trivial Pursuit 'til 4 am, and of course, a good amount of alcohol thrown in there. Everyone seemed to have a great time, especially Bruce - and that's what counts.

By Saturday afternoon, the stay-over guests were gone, the apartment was straightened up, and Mitch and I were on the road, heading down to my parents' house for mountaing biking and general fun. Turns out we spent a good portion of our time with my old friend, Ryan, and his girlfriend, Ani. Ryan and I have stayed pretty close all throughout college, even after he stopped dating one of my best friends. He visited me at Alma more than anyone else and is always up for a good time. With the real world's claw in both of us, we haven't hung out in a long time, but we made up for it by getting together both Saturday and Sunday. His girlfriend, Ani, used to date another friend of ours and honestly, I never liked her all that much when she was with Dave. Turns out there was a pretty good reason why she never seemed very nice around him, but now that she's with Ryan, I'm seeing the "real" girl. She and I talked a lot, and I told her how glad I was that Ryan has found a nice, fun girl. They're well on their way to making this a pemanent thing, too, and based on my experiences with them this weekend, I'm very happy for them.

And of course, we went mountain biking. Actually, we rode paved trails on Saturday evening, but hit the real trails at Brighton on Sunday morning. I felt good and was not too far behind Ryan most of the time. I get to ride with Bobby tonight, too, because I have to go home for a doctor's appointment. Um, not all that fun, but biking again should make up for it.

I think that's all the new from here. Remember everyone, Bruce has seven more months to go in Iraq, so keep those prayers coming. He's also reconnected with his old fiancee, who seems to make him happier than anyone in the world, so prayers for their rekindled flame - with wishes for a happily ever after - might also be nice.

Can someone straighten me out?

I'm not super into politics and know very little about the U.N. and international affairs, but all this talk about the U.N. calling for a cease-fire between Israel and Hezbollah isn't connecting for me. So the U.N. says, "Cease-fire, guys!" and Israel says, "O.K." but...Hezbollah is a terrorist organization who couldn't give two cents about what the U.N. wants, so they'll just keep on attacking whoever they want. How does that solve anything? Maybe someone more knowledgeable on foreign affairs can shed some light on this for me. Seriously, I really wanna know.

Hope no one kicks my butt for agreeing with this...

What a day.

It's been one of those days around the office. Actually, it's been one of those weeks. I haven't taken a real lunch break yet and haven't left the office on time, other than yesterday. Right now I'm jsut sitting at my desk, listening to piano music and trying to unwind with a nice blog entry.

See, the thing is, I keep getting all the projects that no one else can seem to get ahold of. Sometimes it's because they don't have the right tools (i.e. the postcard one of our support staff members was trying to design on Microsoft Word. I whipped out the InDesign on that biatch and sent her to press yesterday, after two straight days of sweet-talking my Mac.) and sometimes it's because they're just too busy to get it done themselves.

The latter was my problem today. The boss and his next-in-charge are both out of town and put me in charge of following up with PR regarding our immediate publication needs. I thought the words "Prepare the final text" were self-explanatory, but the boss just cobbled together some notes and general preferences ("More bullets, not so much straight text.") and sent me over to the wolves. Guess who ended up editing and revamping 20 pages of text for our most major publication? This girl. Right here. In one day. AND I sent my VP home with all of it, practically begging for her approval by the end of tomorrow. I never thought Admissions would be this much work. I'm not complaining, really, just wishing I didn't have to keep picking up a ball that's been dropped. Throw it to me, that's fine, but don't drop it and walk away.

The flattering news: my wonderful VP (and I really do like her a ton) started talking to me about MBA progams today and admitted to "unabashedly trying to convince me to stay around." It feels good when someone at such a high level sees potential in you.

Real quick...

I have had zero time to post, and since I'm supposedly on a lunch break (ha!) I'll dash together a quick update. Since last time:

-Going to the Silver Lake Sand Dunes (aka my redneck weekend) was awesome. It was super hot, so we didn't really drive around the dunes much. Sitting on the beach, though, gave me one heck of a sunburn!

-FESTIVUS! Mitch got rugburn on his forehead from the Feats of Strength and most everyone agreed, in the Airing of Grievances, that his farts really stink.

-Work is kicking my butt every day. I have a ton of projects and more are added daily. The boss is out of town for a week so (this is horrible) more should get done since I don't have to wait for his approval on most everything. He's really a great boss, but he's so busy that he has a hard time getting everything done in a timely manner.

-Bruce is coming home! We're planning a belated birthdya aprty for him next weekend up here, so if anyone is reading this who a forgot to email, just ask me about it. Sorry Tim, Anna, Grant, Robin, and all other out-of-staters - I didn't write you because I didn't hear of any upcoming visits to Michigan in your plans. :)

OK, I'm cracking the whip on my own back and returning to work. I may complain, but I honestly like these busier days. It makes me feel like I'm in college again.

Mac Mac Mac

I just like typing on the Mac I get to use every once in awhile at work. I also like being the only one in my office that can do fun things like convert documents to PDF files, scour the network for photos, manipulate said photos and play with Adobe products.

There's no point to this entry - just the chance for me to caress the keyboard of this lovely machine!

Is this week over yet?

After the holiday last week, this week just won't end! Here are the high-(and low)-lights so far:

Dinner with Minda and Derek - Note to self: if shrimp has the shell on, it must be deveined before cooking. If not, you'll throw away the whole meal and go to The Cabin for pizza and Long Islands. Then you'll get tipsy with your family and tell funny stories all night long. Waking up the morning will be difficult.

Office Drama - Our new associate director quit after three weeks on the job. He had some family issues (who tries to commute from Detroit to Alma, really?) and, in my opinion, was disappointed to discover he wasn't the "magic man" who would come in and whip us into shape without encountering any resistance. We're back in a crappy situation because we (again) don't have a full staff going into fall planning, but the tension that's been plaguing us for the past few weeks has lessened substantially.

Volleyball - True Scots won against one team but lost to the other. Don't know what happened in the second game, but we haven't been playing much and probably just didn't have the stamina to keep up a high level of play.

PIRATES! - Tonight Mitch and I are going to see the new Pirates of the Caribbean with Kristy, Ray and probably Gabe. Good times will be had by all.

Redneck Weekend - It's time for the first of two Redneck Weekends at the Silver Lake Sand Dunes! We'll be tooling around the dunes in Dave's Blazer, watching people and their crazy machines, and hopefully swimming a bit since it's going to be hottttttt this weekend.

Remembering

"It is terrible how much has been forgotten, which is why, I suppose, remembering seems a holy thing."
-Anita Diamant, The Red Tent

Work on a Saturday?!?!

Yup, I'm at work. Just for another hour, which I plan to kill online and with a good book.

I just gave a presentation to a group of students. Great kids, great questions...honestly, I don't mind being here if I get to work with a good group. One question, though I knew it was coming, always throws me for a loop:

From the group's advisor (a white woman): "What kind of support services do you have for multicultural students?"

Part of me always wants to answer by telling her these kids are just like every other kid who leaves home for the first time and finds him or herself in a new place, meeting new people and encountering new challenges. Does a different skin tone really make leaving home any harder? So we don't discriminate by offering support systems to specific groups, but rather to our campus community as a whole.

Oh, and an African-American themed dorm, lady? Isn't segregation wrong, and wouldn't that completely conflict with the whole idea of a campus community?

At what point are you lending someone a helping hand, and at what point are you convincing them they can't overcome hurdles without your help?

Argh.

We lost at volleyball last night. It's so frustrating. Tim, when we come visit you, I hope we can get a game together...

Bruce wrote a great post on the concept of home, and that's something that's always in the back of my mind. Where is home, for me? Is it South Lyon, the place I grew up and still label "home" in conversations? It was Alma, for a wonderful period of time, but it sure wasn't Cadillac. (The first time I referred to returning to Alma as going home, I thought my mom was going to cry.) Is it Mt. Pleasant, where Mitch and I have friends and are putting down some roots, all the while knowing we will probably leave in a year?

For me, I guess I've come to the conlcusion that, like Bruce says, home is the people holding you up. I can have more than one physical home; being surrounded by friends and family, no matter where my feet are planted, feels like home.

Independence Day!

I feel like this holiday has stretched out a very long time, because we celebrated in two parts:

Part I: A weekend in Bayview with Grandpa, Uncle Jack (Grandpa's brother), my parents and (for a little bit) Aunt Linda. We biked along Little Traverse Bay, canoed down the Sturgeon River, enjoyed some tasty margaritas at Red Mesa, and just had a good time in general.

Part II: 24 hours in South Lyon. We both had to work on Monday, so after we got done we hopped in the car and sped down to SL to hang out with Bobby and complete Mitch's Fourth of July checklist:

-Mountain biking
-Drinking beer on the pontoon boat (and watching fireworks around the lake)
-Finding a new watch
-Going for a motorcycle ride
-Swimming

All accomplished!

A quick word about the mountain biking: I found out that a group of women rides together at 6:30 pm every Monday at Island Lake, so I went out with them this time. The first loop (6 miles) was fast because I led most of the way and let one of the women chase me. Then I fell. Oops. The second loop was bascially a chance for me to talk for nine miles, because I wasn't leading and we were going so slow. One of the ladies is a distance biker and will do 30 miles on a trail and not blink an eye, so she just kind of plods along. The other one doesn't have much experience (I don't think) and the third, the fast one who chased me, left after the first loop. Bottom line: it was a good experience but I think I like riding with the guys better because they push me harder.

Now I'm back at work, and while it feels like Monday, I'm so excited that it's Wednesday already! Woo-hoo!

Promotion :)

When I come to work on Monday, I will officially be an Assistant Director of Admissions instead of just a plain old rep. Yay!

Now if I could just get my Mac to turn on so I can finish my current project...hmmm....

Rocks, roots and ridiculous hills

That pretty much sums up my ride at the Pinckney State Recreation Area's Potowatami Trail this past weekend. It was brutal; fifteen miles felt like fifty and I was wrecked for the rest of the day. But I did it and I'll probably do it again, once I forget how much it sucked.

DeYoung Family Vacation

It's the first hour of my first day back to work after a nice long vacation, and I'm already wasting time on the Internet! Well, I just thought I should update before things get crazy around here, OK?

I took last Friday off to go down to SL and spend some time with my dad, since I would be missing Father's Day. We went mountain biking in the morning, then he spent the early afternoon working on his boat while I napped in the hammock, beneath the most beautiful maple tree ever. Eventually, we made it out to the lake, just in time for my dad to be a hero once again.

***Exciting story***

So there we are, floating in the middle of the lake, enjoying the sunshine and contemplating a swim, when we notice a SeaDoo boat with steam coming out of its stern. It wasn't getting any lighter, so we sped over to see what was going on. There are two women and one man in the boat, and two little girls and another man floating on a raft-type thing. The boat driver starts flagging us down (Mistake #1: He had done no signaling prior to seeing us heading his way) and tells us there is a fire on the boat. So Dad tells the two women, both of whom are wearing life jackets to get in the water and swim to the platform at the back of our boat. One women has no problem with this; the other starts panicking, saying she can't swim. "You've got a life jacket on. You'll be fine," says my dad, and one doesn't argue with that stern of a tone. So she bails into the water, doesn't even get her hair wet, and starts freaking out. "I can't breathe! I can't do this!" Then, once the other women has hauled her to the platform: "I can't get up! I'm not strong enough!" Having none of this, my dad unceremoniously hauls her up by one arm.

While all this was happening, Dad had given the man our fire extinguisher (Mistake #2: It's illegal, not to mention stupid, to not have a fire extinguisher on board) but he couldn't figure out how to use it. So with the women in the boat and the smoke getting thicker and blacker, we got the man in the boat as well. Then we picked up the little girls and the other man, and sped off across the lake. No one wanted to stick around long enough to find out whether this boat was going to blow up, because by this time, flames were coming out of the engine compartment.

I called 911 on the way to the family's house and got the fire department out there. Once everyone was safely ashore, we ran back over and picked up three firemen in our boat. They had Dad drive really close to the burning boat - which was totally engulfed in flames and thick, balck smoke - so they could attack in with their fire extinguishers. The boat drifted closer and closer to shore, until it rested against the bank and a fire truck could put out the flames from the road.

By the way, I said my dad was a hero once again. A number of years ago, he jumped from a moving ski boat onto a runaway JetSki to keep it from crashing into shore. He's going to become a legend out there.

***Back to the vacation update***

Saturday was Mitch's grandparents' 50th wedding anniversary bash up near Cadillac. We got there around 10:30 am to help with set-up, and then spent the rest of the day keeping the food stocked and getting introduced as "Carla's youngest son, Mitch, and his wife, Laurie." A ton of people attended and his grandparents really enjoyed it. The rest of the family kept saying, "This enver would've gone off without the DeYoung kids," because Mitch and his siblings (plus us married-ins) were the only grandkids busting their butts before, during and after.

We spent Saturday night camped out in the grands' front yard, trying to beat the heat with our well-ventilated tent. Oh, and we had to go to the bathroom in the trees because his grandma locked us all out at 11 pm. Haha. Hope none of the neighbors were driving by as I bared my bottom!

Sunday morning, we skipped out on "the big breakfast" (translation: a mishmash of leftovers from the part, plus eggs) in favor of Bob Evans and the chance to beat the rain to TC for some mountain biking. No luck there, but we did get to visit Adrienne in her new place and take a much-needed shower. Eventually we met Christa, Brian, Minda, Derek and the kiddos at the cottage we were renting for the week, but it was so rainy we couldn't do anything but sit around inside. We did go grocery shopping and make pizzas for dinner, and it dried up enough for a campfire in the evening. The three couples played Nertz well into the night (that night and every night) and I think, by the end of the trip, we had each won once.

On Monday we went to the beach in TC to kill some time before Jeff and Carla got up there. It was really hot but the water in the bay was too cold for swimming. In the afternoon, Mitch and I took Minda and Derek wine tasting on the Leelanau Peninsula. More campfire, more Nertz, more sleep.

Tuesday we went canoeing with Minda, Derek, Christa and Brian. This was the most fun canoe trip I've been on in a long time! It wasn't too long and the water was warm so splashing was actually fun! We laughed so much and I got some fun photos with my new digital camera. (Old camera got sand in it and it was going to cost just about as much to fix it as to replace it, so we upgraded.) After canoeing, we met Jeff, Carla and the kids at the beach, where we relaxed for a bit before heading to the Sleeping Bear Sand Dunes. We didn't walk all the way to Lake Michigan because the others would be waiting too long, but we did enough to make my thighs a bit sore.

Wednesday was our last day, and we didn't do much in the morning but ride about four miles of mountain biking trail reminscient of Cadillac. (Translation: Hilly) When we got sick of sitting around, we kidnapped Minda and Derek for more wine tasting - this time on Old Mission Point - and eventually met the rest of the gang back at the Dunes for the scenic drive. We got back home around 9 pm and spent the evening fighting the idea of going back to work.

Wow, it's taken me the whole day to get around to finishing this, but here you go. I'll post photos on my Yahoo site soon...though I'm not sure anyone is particularly interested in seeing family vacation photos! Look at that, time to pack up and go home!

What's eating me.

It makes me so terribly sad (and a little mad) when people don't take care of their bodies. I'm not saying everyone needs to be super-model thin or have six-pack abs, but people who are seriously overweight should think twice about loading their grocery cart up with Twinkies and Coke and pork rinds.

It's not an aesthetic thing: it's a health thing. If someone is eating healthy and being active, it doesn't matter what her body looks like. She is taking care of this amazing vessel God has given her for her time on Earth. If someone is just shoveling crap into his mouth and spending his days doing nothing, he's not respecting a gift from God and I think that's pretty wrong.

Helmet Law

This weekend, Bobby and I were discussing the Michigan motorcycle helmet law and whether or not we thought it should be removed. Then this morning, all the radio stations are talking about it, too, because the quarterback for the Pittsburg Steelers got in a bad motorcycle accident and was not wearing a helmet. I took all this as an indication that I should post about it.

First, let me say I think it's absolutely stupid not to wear a helmet on a motorcycle, just as I think it is ridiculous not to wear a seatbelt in a car. However, is it the government's place to make laws protecting us from ourselves? I understand protecting others by setting speed limits, etc., but when an action is not (a) morally wrong or (b) a danger to others, I believe I should have the personal freedom to make a choice.

Now, one could argue that not wearing a helmet on a motocycle is a danger to others because a rider's death or serious injury is probably going to be very harmful to his or her family - emotionally, financially, whatever. But one could make that same argument against pretty much anything we do; any risks we take, including walking across the street, could potentially have the same negative effects on those we love, should something unfortunate occur. So I'm going to throw that argument out, because it is easily taken too far to be reasonable.

I'm in favor of removing the Michigan helmet law, but I would strongly encourage riders to make the personal choice to continue to wear helmets. When Mitch gets his bike someday, I know he won't be going anywhere without one. Let's all take responsibility for our own choices and not let the government decide these things for us.

Rugby and rum

OK, so the whole weekend wasn't made up of smashing each other's faces into the sand, then getting smashed, but it was a big part of it. Anyone here ever played any pick-up rugby games? If you were at Jon's this weekend, you did. Man oh man, it was rough. Real tackles, confusion over the rules...what a great time!

Team Jager made another appearance, complete with a twelve-minute voicemail from Bobby and Ray to Liz, encouraging her to come up the second night. I believe they told her she could drink for free since she was a teacher and they didn't pay teachers that much. Everyone had a good time and though some people claim to have heard a big of heaving in the bathroom, no one will own up to getting sick.

Mitch, Bobby, Kristy and I went mountain biking, too. The Cadillac trails kick my bottom because of all the hills, but they are good for me. Bobby got lost and had to stop at some old lady's house and ask for directions. Mitch rode half the trail looking for him. Silly boys.

This entry feels very choppy. Oh well. Big plans coming up for us - I'm spending Friday with my dad for Father's Day, then there's Mitch's grandparents' 50th wedding anniversary bash on Saturday, followed by four days in the TC area with my in-laws. It should be a fun time, especially because Mitch and I will be breaking in his new two-person MSR tent. Monday through Wednesday we could probably snag some floor space in the cottage his parents rented in Lake Ann, but why would we do that if we could peacefully slumber under the stars?

And I found a couple of new places to mountain bike near TC. I don't know how good any of them will be compared to the VASA trail, but it'll be worth a shot. We are so easily amused.

On Wednesday we are hashing out recruiting territories in the office. I'm ambivalent about where I end up. Anywhere would be closer to home than the North, so I won't mind giving that up. I do like all the people I met up there, though. OK, we're having a meeting soon, so I should sign off.

Volleyball

Last night was our second set of volleyball games in the Mt. Pleasant summer beach league. I was too frustrated to post after our first one, but this one went much better. We split, beating one team and losing to the other, but I think we played better together than last week. We tried something new: with all eight players present, we split into two separate teams and each team played a whole game, without any substitutions. There was never a need for a third game, because we either won both or lost both, but had a third game been necessary as a rubber match, we agreed to field the best players that evening for the final game.

I like this format. We plan to mix it up and play different people together, while keeping our teams relatively even. When not on the court, we generally peppered around to stay warm, practiced hits, or even played a friendly game of twos. I think we can perform well in this league if we can shut down this one tall dude - a member of the team to whom we lost last night. He spikes often, but not hard, and he's pretty predictable. He is, however, only getting better so we need to stay on our toes.

By the way, our team name is True Scots and everyone on it has a connection to Alma. Mitch, Jon, Matt, Kristy, Gabe, Andrea and I are obviously alumns, and our fourth girl is one of my coworkers in Admissions. Root for us every Wednesday evening!

Eighteen minutes

I am so hungry. Why can't it be five o'clock, when I can go home and have a big glass of milk to tide me over 'til dinner?

OK, I won't complain anymore. It's my own fault: I always know I'll be hungry by the end of the day and I never pack more food.

The weekend was fun - spent some time with the in-laws and my grandparents, and I had my first ever casino experience. Mitch made me lose a dollar. And I saw the saddest sign ever in the parking lot:

"Do not leave children unattended in cars. There is childcare."

Having a sign means people have done that often! It about broke my heart. How could anyone leave their kid in a car while they go and gamble away their college fund? OK, that might be a bit extreme, but anyone who would leave their kids probably has a gambling problem, and they may very well be gambling away college money! Sad.

I wonder if we'll play volleyball tonight. Our team really needs the practice, but I've only heard from people who can't make it. Hmmm. Can't think. Still focused on my empty tummy! Callin' it a day a few minutes early, methinks.

24 miles of trail

Some people think long holiday weekends are for relaxing...apparently Mitch and I don't know the meaning of the word!

Friday: Work all day (which meant driving to Boyne Falls and back, then spending some time in the office), bachelorette party all night! Lindsay, a friend from high school, was getting married on Sunday so it was time to celebrate her last weekend of singledom. I met the group at this fun country bar way out in Shelby Township called Coyote Joe's, and though I had to drive home and couldn't join in some of the festivities, it was pretty cool. Actually, I'd love to take all my college friends there (we'd be on the mechanical bull all night!), but it's really far away. After that bar, we went to a place in Rochester called Main Street Billiards, which was also cool. My favorite thing was people-watching...especially this one group of guys who were staked out next to the entrance to the dance floor, overtly checking out every girl that walked by! The evening went 'til about 12:30 am, but then I had an hour drive home. So tired...

Saturday: At 8:30 am, my dad was in my room, waking me up like old times. He said he had a surprise for me and was really excited, so I pushed off the urge to drift back to sleep and dragged myself up. Turns out he bought me a whole new front sprocket for my mountain bike! Last time we were down there, we discovered that my front gears measure 28-38-48 instead of the standard 24-34-44. Smaller front gears would help me climb hills better (I'm horrible at climbing hills), but Mitch and I thought it would cost a lot to get new ones based on the prices we saw at REI. Turns out it wasn't that much at all, and Dad thought I should have them. What a guy!

Since we had to wait for Mitch to finish work and get down to SL before we could bike, I went out to the lake with Mom and Dad to clean up the cottage and get it ready for the annual family Memorial Day party. Mitch got there about 3:30 pm, we put my new sprocket on my bike, and headed out to Island Lake. We planned to ride the nine-mile blue trail, then break off and ride the six-mile yellow trail, but I rode blue a bit too hard to do the second leg. See, there were these guys, and we passed each other about three or four times before I got sick of it and decided to stay ahead of them for the rest of the trail. Turns out I didn't need to ride as hard as I did, because I was finished, packed up and on the road before they returned to the trailhead. Still, I was pretty beat.

Sunday: Mitch went to work with Bobby and Dad had to mow the lawn, so we didn't get out on the trails until 11:30 am, by which time it was over 80 degrees with a heck of a lot of humidity. This time we went out to Brighton Rec, where Bobby and Mitch tackled a tough five-miler called Torn Shirt while Dad and I opted for the longer but easier nine-mile Murray Lake Trail. My legs were pretty tired from the day before, and the heat didn't help, so I kind of felt like crap for most of the ride. Still, it's a fun trail and I look forward to going back in better conditions. Needless to say, I was dripping by the time we got done, and the dive off the dock in my biking clothes was amazingly refreshing.

Lindsay's wedding was late that afternoon, so Mitch and I hurried to grab some lunch at the lake before returning home to get ready. I am proud to say that even in the heat, I still blew my hair dry and straightened it. I had a sexy black dress to wear and didn't want to half-do anything! Anyway, the wedding was nice but we didn't stay long. Mitch didn't really know anyone and the atmosphere was really strained between me and a friend who's suppose to be my best friend but seems to forget I exist many times. We were happy to be home by 10:30 pm, watching Braveheart in the nice, cool basement.

Monday: When 7:30 am rolled around, the last thing I wanted to do was go out biking again! But we had promised ourselves three days on the trails, so up I rolled. Mitch and my dad's friend, Dan, wanted to ride the Potowatami in Pinckney, but that's a pretty long, hard ride, so Dad and I left them to punish themselves while we rode the yellow trail back at Island Lake. Even in the heat, I felt great! I passed more people (two guys and two girls) and, to borrow my dad's words, my tank was not empty after the ride.

For the rest of the day, we lounged around at the lake. I have a bit of a sunburn to show for it, but it was great. Adrienne and Kyle came out, somewhat surprisingly, and it made me feel a bit better about the state of our friendship. We swam, took my cousin and her friend tubing, swam some more, ate great food, swan some more, and just had a great time with family and friends.

And now I'm back at work, but only 'til about 3 pm, when I'll leave for Alpena to present some scholarships to a couple of students. This week promises to be fun, with our first official beach volleyball game tomorrow evening and a great Friday night with Ray and Kristy. They're coming over for dinner and then we're all going to see the new X-Men movie.

Well, I guess I better get something accomplished this morning. I hope everyone out there had as much fun over the holiday weekend as we did!

Dreams

I have three recurring dreams I would like to share with you:

The first is that I can run forever. Sometimes I'm running from danger, but most times I'm just running, all the while thinking I should be getting tired - but I never do.

The second is that I can breathe under water. Usually in this dream I am swimming for whatever reason, and I'm underwater and know I can't make it to the surface in time. I take an experimental breath, and WOW! I can breathe without any trouble at all! That makes for some fun adventures.

The third - and best - is that I can fly. Not like Superman flying...more like I take a few steps, jump, and I get to soar around for a little while before I glide gently back to the ground. Each time I have that dream, I seem to be able to stay airborn for longer and longer. Usually I'm alone in this dream (sometimes people are watching me) but the last time I had it, Mitch was flying with me. In my last flying dream, I also told people that I used to have dreams about flying and couldn't believe it was real this time.

I don't attach any special meaning to these dreams - they are just really fun to have. If I could pick a superpower, it would come out of one of these three dreams, depending on the situation. Does anyone else have recurring dreams and if so, what are they?

Bitterness

Around Easter I posted the lyrics to a song called "The Story" by Caedmon's Call. Part of the song goes:

And the bitter man is angry,
Angry man just thinks he's right,
Too right to see mercy
When he's standing in its light.

Those lyrics have stuck with me since the first time I heard that song. I interact with so many bitter people, like coworkers and even some dear friends and family members, and their bitterness truly saddens me. They think there is so much wrong with the world, with their lives, whatever, that they just exude this constant sense of cynicism. They see all that is bad with the world: all the dishonesty, the cruelty, the lack of compassion. They fail to see the generousity, the kindness, and the beauty of our world and of the human race. In their own lives, they experience hardship and decide there cannot possibly be a God because bad things are happening to them and those they love. They can't see the little everyday miracles that can't possibly be explained by chance or coincidence - what sad way to go through life.

We all have our ups and downs, our days when the bad seems to overwhelm the good, but I don't know what to do with these constantly bitter people. All I can do, I guess, is to be visibly hopeful and optimistic, to see the God's grace and show it to others when I can, and to never let negativity weigh me down. They may call me naive for this hope and faith in the inherent goodness of life, but I'd rather live like this than be miserably blinded by bitterness.

Finally, photos!

I'm boycotting work right now, and took advantage of it to put up some photos from Dan and Vicky's wedding, finally! Go to my Yahoo site to see them (hint: click the link on the right that says something like "My Photos on Yahoo").

So why am I boycotting work? Because I'm a hardass. Not to put too fine a point on it, but yesterday I really felt like my coworkers were being broke-dicks yesterday. That's Mitch's description, anyway. The situation would take a long time to explain, but suffice to say, I cover for a lot of people and no one was willing to step up and give me a hand, though they had no excuse not to except their own personal comfort. When I asked my boss to bring up this issue at our meeting this morning and described the situation, he agreed, then made a wishy-washy announcement about us all pitching in when our student staff is low.

Personally, I think there are definitely situations where a general announcement should make those to whom it applies feel guilty and uncomfortable. This was one such situation, because the issue has been ongoing. It makes for a stressful working environment and it just makes people bitter. If anything like what happened yesterday occurs again, there's going to be some honest confrontation, and not any more of this biting my tongue.

Onto more pleasant things, a good chunk of our beach volleyball team, the True Scots, got together last night and practiced at the rec center. We did drills and worked on areas of weakness, and I think everyone is more confident in themselves. Our first game is next week, and I have to miss it because of work, but I really look forward to hearing how it goes.

Meeting time in 10 minutes. I don't think it's going to be very fun. Is it Friday yet?

Michigan Weather

Not that I'm complaining, but I thought it was supposed to rain all week around here. Last night we had a nice enough evening for a bike ride, and this afternoon it's sunny! Glorious.

Last weekend was nice...we spent it at my parents and celebrated Mother's Day by taking my mom to the zoo. We dropped off some flowers for Grandma, too. I know it made my dad sad, but he concentrated mostly on telling us stories of his grandparents and an uncle who are all buried there. This weekend, I'm looking forward to wine tasting and general merriment with Jon and Miriam.

There's really not much to write, I guess. Work is work, and it's a bit depressing because our numbers aren't panning out as expected. Thankfully, no one's pointing fingers or putting an insane amount of pressure on the staff. We just keep chipping away with different strategies, hoping something will stick. So much for the predictability of yield and conversion rates. Obviously even with the strongest of efforts, X number of accepted students won't automatically convert to Y number of deposits, as our consultant would have us believe.

Meant for Two

My grandpa eats dinner alone now.
I can see him clearing half the kitchen table
and meticulously preparing his meal
as carefully as he used to pour our milk and cereal
that one spring.
(I imagine he sometimes forgets
and pulls two dinner plates from the cupboard.)
He's sorting through years of accumulated stuff,
unearthing old college papers
letters from his children
yellowed newspaper clippings,
but my grandma's toothbrush still stands by the sink.
Does he ever sit in her armchair
because he can't bear to look over
and see it empty?

New pet peeve

Wow, am I getting tired of hearing people say, "I heart this" and "I heart that." Heart is a noun, not a verb!

I'm going to start responding with other body parts from now on. "I pancreas you, too."

Photos

I forgot to mention that photos from the climbing trip are up on my Yahoo site (see the link over there --->) if you want to check them out.

In other news...there is no other news. I need some motivation to study for the GMAT so I can hopefulyl begin graduate school next fall, but that's hard when the weather is so gorgeous that I just want to hop on my bike every single day.

Oh yes, the trip to St. Louis is finalized - we bought plane tickets and everything. Tim and Anna, here we come!

West Virginia Trip

I'm finally getting around to posting about our awesome climbing trip!

Friday: Departure
Mitch, Gabe and I left Mt. Pleasant around 4 pm - two hours earlier than expected! The drive itself was uneventful, as I slept a good portion of the way. We arrived at our usual camping spot around 2 am and were excited to find that it wasn't raining, so we prepared to set our tent up down by the river. Unfortunately, someone was already camped there and I was reluctant to traipse through their site to find somewhere else, so we resigned ourselves to sleeping in the car. In order to make room for all of us, we stuck the camp stove, a camp chair and the boys' shoes underneath the car and settled in for the night. Within a few moments, Mitch decided it would be more comfortable - due to the incline - to turn the car around. Great idea...CRUNCH! We ran over the campstove! I grabbed my shoes and scampered out of the car to retrieve the sad piece of equipment when a car pulled up to me. This local started asking me all these questions: mainly, were we drinking? No, but the guy was insistent, telling us we'd be better off camping by the river because, "The law's out tonight." Eventually he left, but I was perturbed that Mitch and Gabe just let me talk to this stranger by myself. For the next half hour, laying there in the car, I was convinced every approaching set of headlights was another local coming to bother us. So, since it was humid and stuffy in the car, and since at least Mitch and I weren't going to be able to sleep, we got a hotel. Yay us.

Saturday: Setting up camp
It was raining when we woke up on Saturday morning, so we waited until about noon to go back to the campsite find somewhere to call home for the next week. Luckily, the previous inhabitants had left, so we promptly set up three tents and a nice, big tarp. The river was really low, so we spent lots of time playing on the rocks. Actually, Mitch and Gabe did most of the playing and I plopped myself down on a big, flat boulder to enjoy some peace.

Sunday: The group arrives
Last Saturday night, Brian and Katelyn rolled in and crashed in the tent we set up for them. When we returned from our morning visit to the Visitor's Center, the rest of the group was there. Some were sleeping but most were up and about, excited for a fun day. We took a good-sized group up river to the Hawk's Nest Dam for some bouldering, and after lunch most people went over to The Pinnacle, somewhat of a multi-pitch climb with a 90-foot rappell at the end. Mitch, Brian, Katelyn and I decided to head over to Junkyard and boulder a bit instead, but we all had a great time.

Monday: Summersville
In my opinion, Summersville Lake is the best place to climb in the whole entire New River Gorge area. In one section, there are numerous 5.7s, 8s, 9s and 10s - not to mention a huge, clean lake for swimming and bathing. While the climbing was awesome, the most memorable part of our day was the pirate ship. A few years before, Jon, Jeremy and Ben jumped in the lake and commandeered a floating log as their pirate ship. Determined to resurrect the tradition, they experimented with a few logs close to shore before spotting a huge one floating in the middle of the lake. With our encouragement from shore, they swam out to it, played a bit, and then became convinced the wouldn't be able to bring it back to shore. So a determined contigent, including me, stripped down, braved the chilly water, and brought the pirate ship ashore. Most of you reading this will never see them, but Gabe took some very hilarious photos of the voyage. Let's just say most of the people in the water will never be able to run for public office...

Tuesday: Bubba City (Beer Wall)
Bubba City is also a great place to climb, and we spent all day Tuesday out in the hot sun climbing routes like St. Pauli Girl, a 5.10c and arguably one of the best climbs in the Gorge. I led the same route I did last year, and reminded myself why I don't like ledgey climbs. Everyone had a great time...until we got back to camp and it was pouring rain! Five people were heading out for Spring Term and sports, but the rest of us decided to screw hanging out in the rain and went back into town for dinner at Pies and Pints. It was all-you-can-eat pizza night, and they didn't just have regular pizza; they made pies with gorgonzola, rosemary and grapes, or pesto, or figs, or jalepenos...you get the picture. Mitch, Gabe and Jerry decided an eating contest was in order, and promptly stuffed themselves. Mitch wolfed down 18 pieces and Jerry and Gabe each had 21. Boys.

Wednesday: Endless Wall and night bouldering
Wednesday was dreary, and we were afraid it would be nasty all day, but it dried up enough for us to head to Endless Wall for some slabby climbing. This is one of my favorite types: you don't really have any handholds, but the wall is slightly angled in and the rock is very grippy. So you just find a place for your feet and slowly stand up. Sounds like fun, huh? Anyway, I climbed one route and was lead-belaying for Brian on a second when it started to rain. We gave up on that in a hurry and hiked out, but the rest of the evening was dry enough for night bouldering at the dam. Once it got dark, a bunch of us grabbed our headlamps and tackled some really great problems. This was my crowning achievement for the trip: I topped out a 20-foot boulder on a not-super-easy route. In the dark. Yeah.

Thursday: Bubba City (Sandstonia)
This area was formerly known as Tattoo Wall and has just been recently developed. Actually, the guys went here last year while us girls were at Beer Wall. I'm not sure about this place, though. The guidebook made it look like there were a ton of climbs of all abilities, but I think the routes were rated low. Gabe led a 5.10 that took him 15 feet to the left of his bolt - not safe. Jerry attempted a 5.9 on lead but took a whipper and cracked his shin on a ledge. The only good climb was a 5.7 Brian led at the end of the day, and I was the only one who climbed it after him.

Friday: Bouldering (last day)
The Climbing Club bought a guidebook for bouldering the the Gorge, and while we could have taken a whole day clambering up big rocks, we decided to save it for the last day and spend the morning instead. We went to Bridge Area, which is mostly trad climbing, and found this huge bouldering with a ton of problems. From what we could see, I climbed a couple V-1s and the boys worked on a few V-2s and 3s. It was a ton of fun, and standing on top of the boulder, the last thing I wanted to do was put on a suit and come back to the office.

Once we got back to Michigan, it was a whirl-wind of showering, sleeping, cleaning gear, driving back to Mt. P, and attending Vicky and Dan's wedding on Saturday. What a glorious celebration! They got married in the Alma chapel, with Christine, our on chaplain, performing the ceremony. The reception was a blast and Van Dusen never looked more elegant. Tim and Anna came up for the event and stayed with us, then on Sunday morning we had brunch at the Embers with lots of good friends. Definitely a great end to our vacation week!

Sick Day

I stayed home from work today to try and recover. Last night was really bad, but I feel a bit better today. It's running its course, just like Mitch said: a day and a half of a super sore throat, followed by congestion and eventually a cough. Right now I'm in the congestion phase, with a spurt of coughing every once in awhile.

Maybe this is a blessing in disguise: I'm doing some work from home, but I also put the finishing touches on my packing for WV. I also discovered, to my delight, that I'm able to access one heck of a wireless connection from my living room. We may not be forking over the big bucks to Charter for cable modem if this thing stays consistent!

Did I mention earlier that Jerry is joining Mitch, Gabe and I on this trip? He's coming down with another group on Saturday while we are leaving tomorrow, but he'll only miss a day. Cool, huh?

I'm Sick

Mitch gave me his sore throat, cold-type bug. If anyone has any medical advice for me, I'd appreciate it. I'm currently self-medicating with a combination of gargled salt water, tea, Robitussen, ibuprofen, Slurpees, cough drops, ecinacea and grapefruit juice.

Three more days!

The days are seriously dragging - at least, until I get home from work and try to cram shopping, packing, spending time with soon-to-be-graduated friends, climbing and working out into the four or so hours until bedtime. Last night we bought all the food, tonight Pete is coming over for dinner, tomorrow we're hoping to climb, Thursday is hardcore packing night, and Friday is departure! I love vacation, and I love the anticipation of vacationing.

Switching topics, I have to say, I really hate condscension. I have an uncle who's very condescending and while I love him, I loathe conversations with him at more than the superficial level. He's a lawyer and he's always angling for ways to make you say what he thinks you should say, or ways he can twist your words to his advantage. At Easter, he was being condescending with regards to religion, and I really wish we hadn't been interrupted by dinner because I think I could have really held my own with him on the subject of whether or not going to church makes you a good person. He seems to hold the view that Christians think going to church is the main mark of being a good person, but I betcha I could show him he's wrong. Also, he seemed surprised that religion even played a role in my life. What does he think, that I wear a cross around my neck for fashion purposes?

Many of you know Mitch and I were struggling to find a church home, and we've definitely succeeded, though summer weekends are definitely going to put a kink in our regular attendance. Be that as it may, I've really come to see Sunday mornings as a time of renewal, of reminding myself about God's role in my life, of providing me with opportunities to learn and question and see things in a new light.

Easter

It was easier than I thought, remembering this as Grandma's first Easter with Jesus rather than our first Easter without her.

We had a busy weekend between spending Friday night and Saturday morning in Lake City with Jon, Saturday afternoon with Mitch's family in Carson City, and Sunday with my family in South Lyon. I wish I could say the highlight of it all was Easter morning service, but I just about fell asleep and I had to wake both Bobby and Mitch up. The old church downtown is just not particularly inspiring (though the pancake breakfast was amazing). Still, we go for family.

In actuality, one of the highlights was a great mountain bike ride in Cadillac. We went 12-14 miles and since I always ride by myself - the boys are just too fast - I usually have a lot of time to think and appreciate the act of just being outside and (in my opinion) very close to God. Of course, I can meditate on this better if my lungs aren't burning as they often were on the two-mile uphill stretch, but even then I manage to do a little focusing on God, as in, "OK God, I need a bit more strength here. Just a little nudge, come on." Usually I get songs like "I Need Thee Every Hour" stuck in my head at that point, because boy do I need something!

Now I just have to get through the week, because it's almost vacation time! I check the weather in WV every day and while there looks to be some rain, I'm also pleased to report a little sun and, most importantly, NO SNOW.

I have a to-do list a mile long, so I better get hoppin'.

The Story

With Good Friday tomorrow, I thought this was an appropriate set of lyrics to post:

The Story
Written by Andrew Osenga for Caedmon's Call's newest CD

In some sweet ways it's simple,
Sometimes that's all that I need,
To trust someone else so I can get some sleep.
And all our heroes have deserted,
Said we were nothing on our own,
And now that's all I am.

Oh, can you tell me the story,
Of all of your glory,
Of your rising again?
'Cause I, I'm in love with the mystery,
Of how our sad history,
Can turn out for good.

And the bitter man is angry,
Angry man just thinks he's right,
Too right to see mercy,
When he's standing in its light.
We can shed tears over dying,
We can rage and we can fight
But we cannot forget that
we were loved before we opened up our eyes,
Such foolish pride.

It's a shame to build our homes,
With bricks of fear and cynical stones.
There is nothing left to run from,
There is nothing left but love.

Can you tell me the story?
Can you tell me the story?
I need to hear it again,
I need to hear it again.

Wonder?

Does anyone else ever wonder if, "Just be yourself and everyone will like you for who you are?" is really just code for, "I don't particularly like the way you are, so change and I will like you?"

Just wondering. I've had friends drop the "just be yourself" bomb on me when I was pretty darn sure I was being extremely true to myself. Granted, that was quite awhile ago and I'm not quite sure why it popped into my head now. Maybe it's because I'm still acutely aware of not being "myself" (read: the self they want me to be) when I'm around them.

Quote of the Week

(for last week.)

So I'm sitting in my office around 5 pm, wrapping up my work, and I hear my coworker call my name from the bathroom. (My office shares a wall with the women's restroom.) I go in, and she's run out of toilet paper. I hand her some, bust out laughing and go back to work. A few moments later, she comes into my office and says:

"This is really symbolic of our working relationship. I drop a deuce and you help me clean it up."

Hehehe!

Apologies

In the past few months, I've attended dance concerts, a track meet and Honors Day presentations at Alma College, partly because I enjoy them and partly to recognize and support the efforts of my friends as they complete their time at Alma College. I realized, after sacrificing lunch to watch part of a home track meet, that I was ridiculously self-centered in college. I never attended choir concerts, dance shows, orchestra concerts, athletic events, Honors presentations, or anything else to support my friends, not because I wanted to be a jerk but because I was too busy and wrapped up in what I had to do. I lost sight of how good it made me feel to see my friends at dance recitals or sporting events in high school, and I would truly like to apologize for that.

Some of this preceded an insightful email sent by one of my friends to the entire campus community. If you're curious, go to http://www.xanga.com/marchon2884 to read it. Marc makes some good points and gives me a lot to think about, not only in the context of my experiences at Alma but also those in the "real world." I have found, since graduating, that time with friends is sometimes more important than a good night's sleep; that the world will not end if I press pause on my work; and that making an effort to really KNOW my family is more valuable than any academic accomplishment or accolade in the workplace. I feel like I've done a good job balancing work and home, and am able to resist the pressure to work insane hours and make my career my life. I know I still have a long way to go in discovering and accepting what is truly important in this world, but I'm working on it.

What a night!

It's 4:30 pm and I just woke up - for the second time since going to bed 12 hours ago. We had a bunch of people over kind of as a last hurrah before everyone graduating this year goes their separate ways. It was a blast...I made a ton of food as always and Mitch mixed up some pretty serious Long Islands, which got everyone out to a great start. It was so much fun just to hang out with my friends and not worry about anything except making sure Miriam didn't fall off the balcony while peeing. Like I said, it was about 4:30 am before we went to bed and I was up at 9:30 am making breakfast and straightening up. We hit the noon service at church and I crashed on the couch as soon as we got back. I'm still a bit tired, but I'll make it.