Rain and Other Miracles

Each of my workmates wore their cute business casual footwear to day two of our preview day, except me. Though skies were rather clear, I wore rain boots. In my mind, it was just going to rain, despite what the forecast said.

And, upon leaving on my tour with my Texans, the storm began. Sometimes faith is rain boots. Even if that faith borders a bit on desperate hope.

Three of my seniors joined on this Preview Day, and all were undecided. In fact, one had already closed her application then reopened it in order to visit two months after. I call her my resurrection student. By the end of the visit weekend, I had three yesses, and they had one delighted counselor.

It is the very best when students visit. All students really but especially students that you're currently working with.

No matter how many texts, emails, or phone calls you make, the truth is, they are a file to you. A faceless, electronic file.

Then they visit.

And suddenly, all the random facts you know about them and their family have a face and a personality and a life to attach themselves to, and I am also no longer a voice and a texter and a mass emailer to them then either. Suddenly, I also become a person to them, and all the random facts and information I've told them for months have people and places and a me to attach themselves to.

It's a great feeling.

We really take these students home with us mentally, emotionally, spiritually. Say a student applies in early June. That means that by the time they end up coming to JBU the next August, we have worked with them for 13 months, contacting them in one way or another a minimum of once a month. That's a lot of time. Shoot, that's more often than I talk to some of my closest friends.

We hear about their family lives, know what's going on at school, are the confidant to a whole lot of things really. We learn to truly value our students not as numbers but as people and, more than that, people of vast potential in our university and to their lives beyond graduation.

Then March comes.
Financial aid award letters go out.
The conversations begin.
The nitty gritty comes out.
Decisions are made.

We know how hard making college decisions are, no matter how calm and collected we are on the phone.

When we hang up at the end of a long call, we are burdened with lives that we know so much about. Not a heavy burden (usually) but just the burden of caring so much about individuals we know so well. We want them to fit. We want them to make choices that will benefit them long term. We want them to love Jesus well and to learn how to deepen their understanding of what that looks like in every realm of their existence.

We pray for them.
We take their stories home in our hearts.

And when they close their files, especially when they close them for reasons we can't buy into, we are so sad.

Because we envisioned such a future for you here. And yeah, maybe that's a little selfish on our parts, it is your life after all, kid. But, in painting you a picture of what your life could be here for months and months on the phone and on visits, we saw it, too.

The death of an idea hurts. We know it hurts you, but know it hurts us, too. You are not a number. You are loved.

Each student is a miracle.
From how they learn about our university to how they are accepted (by committee or traditionally) to how they scrounge up tuition and housing deposit to interviews to paperwork to financial aid struggles to registering and move-in day, all while balancing home life and high school (during senior semesters). Every piece had to work exactly, like cogs in a clock, in order for their arrival to occur.

But then they're here. And wow. To see them on campus in the caf or playing frisbee on the quad or working in the library on a paper, thriving, learning, growing.
Miracles.

Love Is or Princess Pollen

I woke from a sinus induced nap yesterday to find that I had been cuddling a jar of Vick's Vaporub.

That pretty well sums up my life right now. 

"April is the cruelest month", and I find myself, once again, at her mercy, begging the skies for rain to wash away the oak pollen from my life. 

What a tease, Arkansas is. A forecast of week-long rain replaced by sunshine. And yet, campus tours remain in my personal forecast. 

Neither essential oils nor yoga nor Allegra D nor neti pots nor surgical masks can rescue me, and let me tell you what. These Kleenexes do not have lotion in them. 

Before the month began, I gave my office and my housemates and my boyfriend warnings of what was to come, and I'm pretty sure they all thought I was being overzealous and paranoid. Until they saw what a mere walk in from my car to my office was capable of doing to my system. 

Saturday was spent washing every piece of fabric on my bedding, vacuuming, and diffusing air purifying oils into the air to make my room my safe space. Not even clothes that have touched pollen are allowed in. After being chastised for driving with the windows down last week, the boyfriend, when offering to come over on Saturday, added that he promised to shower, change clothes, and drive with the windows up before he came. I didn't even have to ask.

 Now it's Monday morning after a very long and sleepless night of sniffles left over from last night's parent dorm tour, and I am with my box of tissues sniffling my way through our morning meeting, thinking of the two tours to come today and of what I'm going to do. 

The other admissions counselors are super kind and have offered to divvy my students, but I feel so ridiculous asking that of them that I can't bring myself to let them, despite the fact that I know my fate later today if I do the tour myself. Being pathetic is the least fun when you can't help it. 

Being practical and practically compassionate is important me, even if I'm not great at being on the receiving end. But that's what love is sometimes. 

Love is offering to take someone's tour when you see them under a pile of tissues. Love is driving with the windows up on a beautiful day. Love is going for your run and mowing back to back so you pollinate the house only once on your way back in, heading straight for the shower to get it off and protect your housemate when you do so. Love is texting your daughter allergy solutions, even if she is already doing all of them. Love is conscientious and kind and seeks to protect. 

I guess that's my happy thought in this time of praying for rain.  

Flower Power

Do you ever have one of those ideas that you think is really good at the time...and then stops being good the second you start in on it?

I'm having one of those moments.
However, I am having one of those moments while drinking a really delicious, nutritious smoothie involving greek yogurt, milk, vanilla, honey, and a frozen half banana/can of pineapple combo. So that part is encouraging.

No, I decided to write a paper for poetry class about Derek Mahon's excessive use of weather terms in his poetry. No big deal, I think. I'll just give a skim through the poems and jot down the references.

Five double-column single-spaced color-coded word document pages later and 9 hours later...I have made it through 152 pages of 387. I'm gonna need more smoothie.

Spring is officially here in Belfast! My allergies told me so this morning. But take a gander at these flowers. The sniffles are totally worth it. Keep in mind, there are no edits to these pictures.

Okay so these ones aren't from my yard, but double-bell daffodils? Come on. Gorgeous. 

From this enormous Rhododendron (pronounced road-ee-den-dron by David) out back.  

David made me a bouquet 

 Do not I live in the most magical place? Seriously, those blooms!!!

David I guess saw me outside from a window and walked behind me (trying to seem like he was minding his own business and just happened to be going the same direction as me) and casually asked if I had already noticed/photographed various flowers.

He told me how the squirrels last year had eaten all the bulbs and it had killed so many of the tulips but they were all back again. New bulbs, you see. I will mention, 300 new bulbs that he planted, though he would not tell you so. :)

He came back into the house a few minutes after I did and found me in the kitchen (my haunting [and hunting] grounds) with blossoms in hand and arranged them into a jar I pulled down.

I did a wee slideshow of "flowers in review" after taking a shot of the vase, and I think he was pleased. And that pleases me. David is kind. And has dang good taste in flowers.