The Concrete Spider Web

If you've never been in Dallas, know that you are missing out on a serious civil engineering masterpiece/disaster center.

Roads on roads on roads.

In a ten mile drive, I can switch highways more than four times and have it take me over an hour to make the drive.

Other times, I can make a 30 mile trip in 30 minutes.

It's a death trap where I spend the majority of my time thinking, "THIS IS WHERE IT ENDS".

I am in Texas this time for a 3 week recruiting trip. Since last Sunday night, I've battled head on the pit of despair through the Dallas streets. Sometimes, it's nice. I have time to process the day and think.

Other times, my hands and heart sweat so badly that I can hardly think.

After a week of that, it was nice to have a break in the form of my husband.

Since I'm gone for so long, my university flew him out to me for the weekend.

Even though part of that was spent recruiting (what a champ!), it was also so nice to be able to chill, watch HGTG and FoodNetwork, and wander the DFW area.

Notable highlights in our shopping ventures were introducing Jay to World Market and Half Price Books.

He was just the cutest exploring all the different cultures and thinking up ways he could recreate all the different wood pieces.
Half Price Books was a perfect storm. Two nerds, together, and inexpensive books and nerd paraphernalia. We ended up with quite the haul.

Then, we grabbed a crepe together at a sweet little cafe called Frogg, and made our way to the airport.

It's not very nice to abandon your husband two months after you get married, but we are making it work. Texting is a beautiful thing.

When I get unstuck from the tangles of traffic, it'll be very nice to go home.

In the Office and Off the Road

My travel season (the main portion at least) has finally ended.

The odd thing about travelling is that while the months seem to go extraordinarily quickly, they finish leaving you feeling as though you have lived 8 months.

That's actually a pretty fair assessment since you're (willingly) dragged from city to city to hotel to hotel to school to college fair to random restaurants and crappy fast food joints and awesome holes in the wall. Thousands of people, thousands of stories.

Then home, you hope, to breathe, breathe, breathe, but in reality it's to attend meetings, answer emails, answer the phone, facilitate preview weekends and tours and visits, drop by local schools on your list, eat food you froze knowing you weren't going to be home long enough to buy more groceries, see your housemates and workmates and "special friend", and go home to crash every night.

My schedule this year was pretty nice because I was basically on a week, "off" a week. However, since I have local schools, my weeks off were spent out of the office as well. At least I got to sleep in my own bed, though.
Another counselor was out of the office for nearly 6 weeks straight.

Even then, though, we have it so good. At fairs--which we love because we get to meet other counselors who understand the job and don't say things to us like, "Oh, your students see you as professionals? I thought you were, like, student buddies"--we talk with one another, and it always makes me cling so tightly to my school when I hear them talk of how they are set out on the road for 9-12 weeks at a time.

When we're on the road, it's hard to remember our office and real lives are still existing without us. We miss announcements, jokes, fun local events, birthdays, etc. What we gain is time with our applicants, our soon to be applicants, family members of our applicants and soon to be applicants.

We love it. I think the time that we realize just how much we missed home is when we turn the car toward the barn or when we get that first hug and can't seem to let our loved one go.

On the homefront, it's a season of deserts and floods.
You try to cram in all the love and snuggles (and emails) you can before you leave and in those intermediary pieces between trips, then spend all the time on the road subsisting on text messages, crappy internet connections, and promises.

Now I'm home. Time to settle back into routine as well as I can, buy some groceries, re-learn how to spend appropriate amounts of time with my friends (reassuring myself that I can see them again the next day), do my chores, and sleep.

Irish Rainbows Unchained: The Marriage Equality Vote

Black and white views and legalism are things which come easily to me.

Maybe it's my education and maybe it's my travels, but I have become what I am sure my family and other conservative Christians would view to be more liberal in my thinking. 

 It's not necessarily that I condone certain thoughts or behaviors but more that I believe a religious order ought not have power to legally regulate behaviors. Following God is a personal choice, followed by all kinds of other (hopefully) spirit-led choices. 

When Jesus came, he abolished the Old Laws. Why, then, do we seem to have fallen deeply back in to law-based Christianity? 

Moreover, why would I believe that it is right to hold any particular country's people to a set of religious bi-laws when religion is both an option as well as an option not held by everyone in the country. It just doesn't sit right with me. There's a difference between legal morality and religious morality. One maintains the health of the nation and one the health of the soul. The latter cannot be regulated from a legal institution. 

When I lived abroad in Northern Ireland, I had to read a ton for my Master's degree. 

Because my coursemates were full-blooded (and hot-blooded) folk from The Republic, they knew the history, political and religious structures, and folklore of the land in which they lived. 

My learning curve was insane. 

I read everything I could get my hands on to make up for my obvious lack of foundation. 

In my studies, I came across layers on layers on religious persecution. Not people persecuted for their religion; people persecuted by their religion. 

My friends could tell me personal stories of the ways in which their practical and spiritual lives were negatively influenced by the Catholic Church. The oppression is excruciating, even in these modern times. 

Now, though, there's this incredible thing happening. 

The Republic of Ireland is undergoing a vote to alter their constitution: "The proposed amendment applies to Article 41 of the Irish Constitution. And it wants to insert the following line: “Marriage may be contracted in accordance with law by two persons without distinction as to their sex.”

If it passes, the Republic of Ireland will be the first country ever to democratically alter their constitution in favor of marital freedom. 

The Catholic religious order has, for centuries, controlled their people socially, sexually, politically, and educationally. 

Take a moment to see the forest, despite the trees. 

Rob Bell, in his book Sex God, would tell you "this is really about that". 

Yeah, this is about same-sex marriage. 

But it's more than that. 

If this were to pass, it would be a country-shattering stand of the underdog against the schoolyard bully. 

Maybe that underdog won't win every battle against the bully--the people may not immediately be able to shake off the saturation of the Catholic religions order--but this vote would be a symbol that the system which has suffocated them for centuries no longer holds all the power. 

Some fear that this vote is a vote against family and morality, and honestly I can't see it that way. Imposing faith through fear-tactics is soul-destructive. God can use whatever he wants to bring his people back to him. If they're driven his way like whipped slaves, they may follow but they will not love their master. 

It's time to end the rein of the Catholic Church in Ireland. 

It's time to give the people a choice, it's time to shake the foundations, it's time to vote. 

My Jet Don't Lag

The planes over?
Best ever.

From Tulsa to Chicago it was clear skies and sunshine.
Arrived in the dark windy city 30 minutes early actually.

A short 4 hour layover then it was off to Dublin. Had a whole row to myself on the largest aircraft I've ever been on.
Arrived in the dark windy city a full hour early.

Got through passport security with ease and walked straight up to my bag. The whole thing took 5 minutes start to finish. Unreal.

Then:

She drove all the way from Belfast to lift me, wee pet, on almost no sleep. Gem, that girl is.

When we got into Belfast, we had a super search for parking, then got lunch/killed time before 2

At the cafe, though, I heard my name screamed and Lauren appeared out of nowhere. YES!

Ames and I turned in the hard copy of my thesis (hallelujah chorus) then picked up our regalia (hallelujah chorus) and graduation tickets (which I will give to two strangers and ask them to pose as family).

Then home to the "new me" and old friend at Lakeside (where Matt and I had to break back into because he had accidentally locked himself out. oops)

I had brought him Christmas from his family in Texas, so we opened his presents and chatted until my church mate Megan got here.

 

She took us for ice cream which turned into bonding all together until 2:30am.
Very long first day. Very best first day.

Back to the Island

In three and a half hours, I'm hopping on a plane and heading to Northern Ireland.

Tuesday through Saturday morning, I get to battle jet lag whilst spending time with some of my favorite people.

It's a melt that Naomi has up and moved to Spain and Lynsey is on placement in Paris, but all the rest of my best friends and colleagues are in the planner.

I'm so excited I can hardly sit still--early apologies to my aisle mates on the plane--

Graduation itself is at 2:30pm on Thursday; that's 8:30am for my folks back home in the south.

And, Queen's does this very wonderful livestream, so friends and family who want to tune in for some hoods and beautiful accents can do so here when the time comes. Heresay claims that there's curtsying involved. I truly hope that isn't so.

It is a strange and wonderful feeling to be thrilled at the prospect of returning to Belfast.

The first time I went, in the summer of 2012, I was too unsure of what I had gotten myself into to be properly excited.
The second time, I was too in love and saddened by separation to fully appreciate my move.
The third time, I was determined that it would be a better experience than the second, but that isn't the same as elation.

Now, with a stable mind and body and heart, with friends like family waiting for me at baggage claim (literally), I am overwhelmed with thankfulness and joy.

I'm going home. :)

Courtesy of Lauren Esler. :)

The Driving Force

Driving in Texas is unlike any form of automotive interaction that I've ever experienced.
However, I had one main foundational fallacy. I once believed that all drivers in Texas were like Dallas drivers. Not so. Each city has its own personality.

Dallas drivers are deliberate. They're like smart bombs. They know  their trajectory and approach with precision. They may cut dead in front of you but believe you me, they were over there thinking, "I'm approaching at equal to above average pacing, with a half car distance between us. Lane change in 5, 4, 3, 2, NOW." It's incredible. I love driving with them, even if they do go an average of 14 over the speed limit.

The drivers of Austin are more cautious and are on the polite side of things. In my experience, the austin-ers just want to be friends. They most closely resembled the drivers of Tulsa, in my opinion.

San Antonio was the one that threw me off the most. Pretty consistently it was a solid five under the speed limit. They are both hesitant in lane changes as well as haphazard in all moves. Arkansan drivers would find much in common with them. I would never have guessed that I would feel more anxiety driving with them at a slow pace than I do with the "crazy" Dallas drivers.

Tyler, thus far, is much like Austin. They're not in a particular rush, but they seem very conscious of their driving, which I appreciate.

There's one more week in Dallas and one new city to add: Longview. 22 days in Texas is a really long time. This week I'm starting to feel it a little bit. Still fun! But feeling the separation from my friends back at the office. And starting to get concerned about the inches of work piling up on my desk...

But wow. When I get oober frustrated, I always seem to have one interaction that makes up for it, be that on the phone with one of my new applicants or with a student at a school or fair I visit.
It's surreal and so real and awesome to be at one of those events and think, "I wonder which ones of you will be the new SMLT director/worship leader/honors council member in just a few years". And I get to be a piece of getting them here, just like Ryan Terry was for me. How very cool.

That's my driving force: pre-visioning the future of my (hopefully) students.

One Last Hurrah

Last Friday, Naomi and I hopped a ferry in The Clio and got ourselves over to Scotland to spend the weekend with her brother.

Now, before I went, my mental image of the weekend was hanging with her bro in some sort of little apartment sleeping on the floor and wandering the middle of nowhere during the day.

That is just not what happened.

Naomi had neglected to mention (or I had neglected to remember) that her brother is an outdoor pursuits instructor. So, we spent the weekend in a house just a little smaller than mine in the middle of The Highlands with a bunch of other twenty somethings. It was an absolute blast.

Does this not remind you of "Heidi"? Just a little bit? 

Friday night we were just pooped so, after a cup of tea (Naomi has an addiction), we went to sleep.

In the morning, we and a group headed out with a bunch of kayaks, canoes, and gear to go white water canoeing. Our river ended up in Loch Ness.

Though we called for her sweetly, I'm sad to report that Nessie was feeling a bit of stage fright that afternoon, so we did not, in fact, catch a glimpse of that grand Scottish creature.

What we did do is get fried to a crisp, despite the lack of heat.

Sunday morning, sunburn and all, we went to this wee sweet Scottish church.
Actually, it was in every way just like the church I attended back in Siloam when I went to JBU. Except they all had Scottish accents and there were graves in the front yard. You know, the norm.

After church, Naomi and I, along with her brother and a couple of his friends, went on a "walk."

We had different definitions of walking. It was a scramble. A fun scramble, but a scramble nonetheless up and across large (and small and mid-sized) sharp rocks along the shoreline.

In so doing, we came across a pod (herd? pack?) of seals! Heresay had it that there were also otters about, but we saw none of them.

Monday morning it was time to leave.
Naomi and I had a very, very long day of travel ahead of us.

2 cars, 2 buses (including a layover in Glasgow), and 2 ferries in order to deposit me back at Lakeside Manor, but the journey was gorgeous.

Vienna Waits For You

 Maybe I expected too much out of Austria.
A girl at the hostel asked me if it had been everything I hoped it would be, and I didn't know how to answer.

What had I hoped?

I had hoped...that it would answer something.
Though, at the same time, I'm not entirely certain what question I was asking.

Was I disappointed with Vienna?
No. I can't say that I was.
Was I blown away by it?
No. Except by way of ice cream. Holy goodness. I very nearly proposed to the proprietor of the second ice cream shop we visited. Only refrained because, on the off chance that he answered, "Actually, yes. I am indeed in the market for a wife", I would seriously have considered going for it. My jokes are only ever partial jokes. I wasn't playing with the fire (or ice) of that one.

My favorite part of Austria (other than the ice cream), was the busride: Praha -->Wien and Wien --> Praha. Lots of quiet time to sit curled in sunshine, watching the quaint houses and countryside and fields on fields of yellow flowers and windmills.

We were a little late on our arrival to Vienna, due to the fact that we missed our first bus by about 45 seconds. Actually, looking back, it was pretty funny. At one point on our journey to the bus station, we ended up in this dusty, deserted construction site. ..What? How?

There was also a more than sketchy situation with an overly amorous British couple on the bus in the seats next to us. Did I mention we were the only 4 people on the bus?

Finally we made it to Vienna. Day 1 there consisted in walking to our hostel. It was a heft 6 mile dander, but gorgeous. Just gorgeous. Would have chosen it for a day's activity. Actually, it was one of my favorite activities we did there.

Through a park, along a river. Mm. Yes.

Bridge graffiti

We finally arrived at our hostel, entitled "Believe it or Not Hostel." And, actually, it lived up to that haughty title. To rooms with wee lofts to accommodate more people. You've gotta stay at least two nights. And it's away from the main hub of the city. So the people who end up there are calmer and, at least the ones I met, intelligent. 

Breakfast in the morning made by owner Lili, laundry, all sorts of random amenities, and a great price. It really does make you feel at home. Loved it. Had the opportunity for some great, constructive conversations with people from all across the globe. 

Did I take pictures? No. I did not. 

 Day two in Vienna, my buddy London joined us. We got coffee from a cafe with no prices (we are convinced that the prices were changed if you were or were not a tourist), visited a bookshop, wandered the city, went to another bookshop, and got POURED ON by rain. There were actually some pretty serious feet side effects from the rain and my chacos. Namely, so much blood. But you don't need to hear about that.

Doesn't that look just like Cinderella's castle back there? 

We also found a market. It consisted of people dressed in traditional austrian gear and wine. 

and this band. There's an old guy you can't see that's in the audience just playing along with a wooden kazoo. Made. My. Day. Ain't no party like a solo-kazoo party. 

The oldest running Viennese church. Fun fact, inside is an entire human skeleton.

It's guarded by this dude. 

With this sweet stained glass inside. 

One day, I hope to be posh enough to get away with pushing a pram full of small dogs and totally own it. 

 So day 2 in Vienna our poor feet needed a break, so we made it a day of sunning and snacks.
Appfel streudel, some weird ball of dough with honey and cinnamon, and the best ice cream of my existence. Match that with snuggling in the grass of various public arenas and getting made fun of by German youths. No shame. We don't get sunshine in Belfast.

I can't even go into detail about that ice cream. Just know that it was delicious.
That night and the next, we got delicious, inexpensive sushi. Nothing like raw fish, I tell ya.

The buns of human rights. Erected for a good cause. Currently, it was good enough cause for me to laugh uncontrollably. 

The next day was a little odd. I shall explain.

Started out normally, we went to an outdoor market, passed by a Russian memorial (of course) then over to the Belvedere (please tell me I'm spelling that right), then to the botanical gardens (where there was another garden market)...

I have multiple shots of this man. I just feel the need to admit that. 

In my defense, I refrained from shooting the people next to this guy. Started feeling a little creepy . 

The Austrians know their way around a garden. 

I don't  know what these are, but I want them. 

 ...THEN it felt like somebody shoved a knife into my eye, had to take my contact out, and was sent into spiraling blindness. My whole face swelled up, I couldn't open or shut my eye without pain, and it was spouting water. Truly pathetic. Please make fun of me.
Don't worry. Gets worse.
Sonya then had to lead me like a blind person all 4 miles back to our hostel. After lying for a few hours with no change (except maybe my face swelling up even more), I took some allergy pills and a pain killer. On an empty stomach, which resulted in nausea, which resulted in taking a motion sickness pill, which resulted in total delirium, which resulted in me collapsing on the community couch and talking at/to/with an australian guy I'd never met before (and never saw/saw again) for God knows how many hours while Sonya went back into the city to explore it at night. I have little to no memory of the entire night. But I hear from the British runner and the Croatian cross-fit instructor that I was hilarious.

So there was that.

Actually, funny memory, that was not my first "blind" experience. One year at JBU, my freshman year, my buddy Steve and I did it on purpose. On our way over to the annual Siloam Dogwood Festival in our friend Layden's car, we found a pair of blind people sunglasses. You know, the kind that visor you in from all sides.

Instantly a plan was formed.

I put on the glasses and took Steve's arm as he led me around the festival--a solid two or so hours--calling out (LOUDLY) walking instructions. One of my favorite memories. Absolutely so hilarious.

Sonya and I waved goodbye to Vienna early the next morning. Didn't even have a chance to meet/apologize to my Australian.

One last shot of Vienna as we headed to the subway. Or Metro. or Underground. Or whatever you do so wish to call it. 

I think on my next trip to Austria, I'd want to hit up Salzburg and mix it up with a couple days in Munich, Germany (cue Pink Panther references). It was good, very lovely. I'm very glad we did it, and I loved meeting the people from our hostel.

Who knows what I was looking for. Who knows what I found, really.
Vienna is Vienna, for all that she is and for all that she is not.