Crazy

My campus ministry goes on a mission trip every year during Spring Break.  I've never been able to go, both because of work situations and financial ones.  I was thinking about going this year now that I'm in a much more flexible work situation, however decided not to in light of my trip to Austin, Texas (for which I'm leaving in a week and a few hours!).  This trip is also a pricey one, and I had to take several days off for it.

But then I received a text on my lunch break last week from one of my campus ministers: a financial supporter wanted to pay for me to go to Seattle.

After processing the initial shock and wondering if it was even possible, I went back into the building and stepped into my boss's office: "So, something crazy just happened..."

I had the go-ahead from my boss the very next morning.  That day on my lunch break, I was texting people my date of birth, middle name, etc. so they could add another plane ticket.

And just like that, God has sent me on my very first mission trip!

~  *  ~

It is February 17th, and in the back of my planner I already have a bullet-ed list started of all the things I'll talk about when I write my New Year's blog post at the end of 2015: a birth, two family surgeries, and two trips.  Maybe April will be calm?  Maybe?

But they're good things!  Both surgeries went perfectly, and both of those patients are much better off now.  Baby Corbin already has his Crazy Aunt Kaycee's heart.  And both of the trips are super exciting in and of themselves, and both come with incredible stories of God's provision.  They also both come with their challenges: both trips are going to take me about 5,000 leagues out of my comfort zone.  In different directions.  I'll be rubbing elbows with publishers in Austin and then doing an Urban Plunge in Seattle.  If you need me in April, I plan to be in an introvert coma... like, alone in my closet!

But I know they'll be worth it.  I know that God has so much to teach me in both places, and I'm praying that maybe He can use me in both places, too.

I think I'm quite ready for another adventure!

~  *  ~

God's been teaching me a lot this year about joy in the midst of trials.  He's been showing me that the joy part comes from the way that trials test us, stretch us, equip us with the perseverance that we need to walk the path on which He's placed our feet.  As we grow, we become Christians of stronger character, and (most important of all) we get to know Him better.

And the better we know Christ, the sweeter our meeting with Him will be the day that He comes back for us!  Many will tremble in terror on that day, but I know my Lord, and He knows me.  I'll be allowed to take His hand and walk into the presence of God on that day, and all these silly trials won't mean anything but the way in which I got to know my Savior so intimately.

A nontraditional education, health problems in the family, sorting through trunks of childhood baggage and trying to reconcile it all with my adult life, finding the courage to step into worlds I've never experienced before, just having the faith to take those steps in the first place--none of these things have taken God by surprise.  Each of them is a step closer to my Lord.  Maybe it feels like my life is out of control, maybe it all feels too crazy for me to handle, and maybe those feelings are dead on in some ways.

But God's driving this rig, and I guess this year I'm in for a wild ride!

Of Money, Ted Dekker, and God's Provision

There is a writer’s conference in February in Austin, Texas, co-hosted by Ted Dekker.  That’s right, Ted Dekker.  (In case you don’t know, he’s extremely awesome!)  I knew when I first saw the link to this conference’s web page on Ted Dekker’s Facebook that I had to go.  Then I crunched the numbers, and with the Early Bird Registration, I decided that I not only had to go, but I COULD go!  It would be tight, and I’d have to start hitting up my friendly neighborhood bulimic vampires at Biolife regularly to make it work, but it was going to work!

***Bulimic Vampires: I donate plasma.  It sucks out your blood, separates the plasma, and spews your red blood cells back into you.  More importantly, if I keep my weight where it should be, I get paid $20+ to go sit and read for an hour.  It’s a pretty sweet deal!***

The Early Bird Registration deadline was September first.  But when I logged on on September first, I found that it had expired  at the beginning midnight of September first, not the ending midnight of September first.

I was devastated.  It would be $150 more than I had originally planned.

Then tuition payments hit, and they hit hard.  Two classes cost a lot more money than one.  Then my fur-ever baby got sick and had to go to the vet.  And then the dentist decided that they needed an extra $700.  I pay for parking on campus three times a week and go through twice as much gas now with commutes between work and school.  So, the past few weeks, I’ve been slowly resigning myself to the fact that this career-altering, maybe even life-changing trip wasn’t going to happen, accepting it as just one more thing that I can’t do as a nontraditional student putting myself through school.

I got an email from Ted Dekker today.  Obviously, not actually Ted Dekker, but whoever it is who puts together his mass-emails.  They reinstated the Early Bird rate for a couple of days.

Guys, I bought my ticket.  I'm going to Austin in February!!!

I am literally crying right now.

I've been wound so tight and been so tired ever since classes started up again, but it hasn't been like the Semester from the Underworld.  Yes, balancing school with a full time job is hard work, and yes I lose a lot of sleep to do this, and yes I have plenty of moments of discouragement.  But during the Semester from the Underworld, every time I had to drag my exhausted, over-caffeinated corpse out the door in the mornings to spend 14+ solid hours working and going to class, I was overwhelmed with the idea that I didn’t belong here, doing what I’m doing.  I couldn’t do this.  This was impossible.

But everything is possible.  I can endure what God has placed in front of me, because I have His strength in me.  I made it through that semester, with straight A’s, I might add.  And I’ll do it again this semester.  I can do this because this is where God put me, and this is what He’s given me to do.

And into that moment of defeat when I thought that my cross to bear was this monotonous life of school and work, school and work, school and work with the actual quest for publication on the back burner until a break in the school year only to be moved back just as it starts to boil, into that moment of discouragement and resignation, God had Ted Dekker email me so He could tell me: “Here, Kaycee.  Trust Me.  This is what you’re here for.”

Ted Dekker knows why I’m here.  “It’s not so much about what kind of story should I write, or what kind of story is the publishing industry looking for,” he said on the video in his email.  “It’s about how to be a writer.  It’s about how to unlock that space that’s already inside of you.  That’s why you’re drawn to this, that’s why you’re drawn to being a writer.  There is something inside of you that wants to get out, it wants to explode, it wants to discover, and it also wants to communicate this beauty that’s deep inside of you, or this struggle that’s deep inside of you, with the world.”

I attend the University of Iowa where writers sit in a circle and talk about how writing is just an elaborate deception about engaging the lies that we tell ourselves, or that writing is a way to explore the darkness within, and in order to be successful at it you have to have this gritty edge, that it can’t be too bright or no one will believe it.  I don’t know if any of my university professors or peers will ever get my writing, but Ted Dekker does.

That’s why I’m here in Iowa City, pursuing writing.  And every time the impossibility of it all crashes over me and I start to panic, that’s the moment when God reaches His hand out to me and provides what I need, and I’m reminded of what I’m really doing here, and why I’m really doing it.

I don’t know what God has in store for me in Austin, I just know that by His provision, I get to go!

Just Keep Swimming

I must begin this blog post with this image, because a) it's fitting, and b) Dory is awesome!

Now, back to the blog post!

I recently (okay, it's been a little over a month ago) went on a camping trip with my family and church family back home.  We were swimming in the lake and there was this buoy waaaaaay out in the lake.  I have no idea how far it was, but it was pretty far!  Not to mention I'm totally not a very good swimmer anyway.  I mean, I can tread water 'til the cows come home, but stuff like special strokes and swimming fast and that kind of thing?  Beyond me!

My little brother spent some time on a swim team, and he decided that he was going to see if he could swim all the way out to the buoy and back.  When he started this endeavor, he passed my mom and I.  She kind of did this little half-hearted following thing, torn between letting him explore his abilities and not wanting him to go that far and drown because he was too tired to swim back, and I stayed with her because, hey, I wanted to hang out with my mommy!  Well, at some undisclosed point in time, we ended up following him.  All the way to the buoy.

On the way back, both of them had to stop once or twice and just float for a minute, but I just kept going--not because I was trying to beat them or anything, but because I was afraid of not making progress.  Being that far away from where your feet can touch the ground, especially as an inexperienced swimmer, is kinda risky, so I wanted to keep moving and get back as soon as I could.

But when I made it back, I was almost sad it was over!  I had proven to myself that I could do something I doubted my abilities in, and that intense swim was actually strangely mentally relaxing.  Besides, getting out of the water was stinkin' cold!  So when my sister-in-law and a church friend decided they wanted to try, I decided to go with them too!  So ultimately, I made this crazy swim that I wasn't positive I was capable of twice!

When I got back and after I'd gotten out and relaxed a little, I was seriously considering doing it a third time, but my Dad and the other friend talked me out of it.  When it was time to climb on the motorcycle later, I was glad they did!  But even though I was pretty sore and really tired, I honestly think I could have made it a third time if I had to, because there was a point in that swim where you understand that if you give up, if you decide you're just too tired and stop swimming, you drown and you die.  Sure, you can float for a while if you need to, but roll with me for a second:

That swim is a lot like how this semester is going over.

This week is a pretty good week (as demonstrated by the fact that I can stop long enough to write this blog post), but there are two or three nights most weeks where sleep doesn't really happen in excess of three hours.  I'm always doing homework (ALWAYS!), every moment of my life is ear-marked for something.  When I was in high school, a friend and I used to laugh at how crazy our lives were during finals week because we had our lives planned out down to what we were going to study every hour of every day, but it's not so funny now that that's seriously how my life works all the time at the moment!  I got off work 45 minutes early the other day by surprise, and I almost didn't know what to do with myself!  I could have found somewhere to get some extra studying done, but instead I decided to go ahead and stop my my apartment (in the middle of the day?!?!?!) and actually be a girl and do stuff like doing my hair and *gasp* putting on make-up!  Craziness!

But it's do or die, and without having done this semester, I would never know whether or not I can do this.

And there's that crazy part of my mind that's saying, "Let's do it again next semester!"

I'll probably be able to talk myself out of this one.  This is the first time since moving that I've actually looked forward to a break in the school year!  But at the same time, this degree is taking me a very long time, and dropping back down to one class in the bigger picture almost reminds me of stopping to float in the lake.

I guess I'll cross that bridge when I come to it though.  Right now, I have homework to do!

Just keep swimming!

The Semester from the Underworld

I have a confession to make: I am petrified of this semester!

I "took" a course over the summer.  The theory was that it would give me something to do to make the dark abyss of summer break a little easier to deal with, since I really struggle during breaks.  In doing so, the thought was that I could knock out the one Gen Ed requirement that my Metro degree lacked.  A win-win situation, right?

The only option I had to meet both of these goals was an online class (strike 1) entitled "Women in Islam in the Middle East" (strike 2), consisting of a slew of reading that, whenever I eventually motivated myself to do it, made me ridiculously angry at the injustice towards Islamic women and I'm not even a feminist! (Strike 3.  I'm out.)  The course was so packed and intensive that it came with the option of taking a grade of incomplete and using another semester to finish it.  After my laptop finally died from an injury sustained in my October car crash and I was without computer access for a week and lost all hope of ever catching up to make the summer deadline, I went ahead and gave up and took the alternative route.

This was after I made the decision to go ahead and see if I could handle 2 classes at the same time while working full time.

Meaning I suddenly find myself juggling three classes while working full time.

With this week having been the first week of class, I have already started off on the wrong foot.  There was some hard-core crazy drama that went down this week that is now resolved, but was incredibly stressful, and me being "assertive" really feels more like being a jerk.  Then there was meeting half a jazillion new people which happens at the beginning of any new school year.  I had to talk in front of both of my new classes.  I'm still dealing with the bank to replace my debit card from when my wallet was stolen two weeks ago.  I got a call from Biolife saying that my protein test came back low and I have to go in to be retested and can't donate for at least two weeks.  There are some changes going down at my campus ministry that are great and wonderful and awesome changes, but are also kind of scary for this introvert whose comfort zone has already been obliterated in every other aspect of her life this week.

And then I have come to the conclusion that undergraduate creative writing students apparently don't actually write, they talk about writing.  Seriously, I've been waiting to take writing classes so I can write and get feedback on my writing and let my writing speak for me and all that jazz.  I've been waiting to experience workshops for literally years!  Now that I'm finally here though, both of my professors are being super gentle about it.  "I know it can be really scary, but I promise this will be a safe and respectful place to share your work.  You won't be graded on the quality of your writing, so long as you put forth good effort."  So I'm in college for creative writing, and my writing won't be taken any more seriously than it did in high school.  Sweet.  Then it turns out, I'm only going to be workshopped a total of three times this semester...

But will be up to my ears in class discussions.

This is not what I had in mind.

It's Labor Day weekend now, and I am currently taking 24 hours to stay home and recover from the beating my poor, introverted self has taken the last two weeks.  This also includes organizing my life and trying to remember how to juggle more than one class at a time... I haven't done that in two years!  When these 24 hours are up and my life is organized, I will go to the grocery store... And then probably return for some more recovery time.  Basically, I am going to have a lot of respect for my poor, battered comfort zone for a couple of days.

Because on Tuesday, I'll go back to work, I'll have class again on Wednesday, and my comfort zone will once again mean absolutely nothing.  Which, you know, I suppose doesn't have to be a bad thing.  You don't learn and grow as a person in your comfort zone.  God doesn't show up in as huge and amazing ways within the confines of your comfort zone.  You can break free of false limits and find your real ones when you leave your comfort zone.  It's just that my comfort zone is... You know, comfy!

I know I have lots of prayer warriors who read this blog, and I really don't thank you guys enough for how much you pray for me!  I don't directly ask for prayer very often, in part because I know you guys always have me covered anyway :)  But this semester, please pray for some rockin' time management skills, that I can juggle everything this semester.  Pray for courage as I face all of these challenges that lie outside of the parameters of my typical personality.  My original goal for this semester was to get better at connecting with people and making friendships that can bring other people closer to God, and while at the moment that's the last thing I really want to focus on, I know that it's still something God can teach me to do even in the midst of a chaotic semester.  And please pray that God shows up in huge and amazing ways this semester, that all of this craziness glorifies Him and brings me closer to Him.  The Lord is my refuge and my strength, an ever present help in trouble.  Even if I walk through the valley of the shadow of Death, I will fear no evil.  I can do all things through Christ who gives me strength.

Welcome to the Semester from the Underworld.

"It's so... Level!"

So it's been a couple of weeks now, but I wanted to report to the Internet community that I am no longer living in what we have so fondly come to know less as "The Coralville Cottage" and more as "The Dump!"  Not gonna lie, I really did love the place for most of the two years I lived there.  Let's take a trip down memory lane, shall we?

My bedroom on my first night in Iowa

The other side of my room that first night

Pre-moving in kitchen

Still not totally sure what was holding the place together!

Don't you love the concept of straight lines?!

One of my bat friends!  This was the first one... not the one that tried to assassinate me!  It should also be noted that, while packing up to leave the apartment, I found a dead bat in the mud room.  So happy to be living in a bat-free environment!!!

And an adorable picture of Gracie, for good measure!

This was the last straw!  I was cooking chicken, and I went to go check on it to suddenly find the handle only half attached to the oven.  This image was the moment where the Coralville Cottage lost its charm!

This guy is my "little" brother, and he was my hero!  I went home a week before the move, and he came back to Coralville with me to help me pack up before moving day!  I don't know what I would've done without him!

The plan was to pack both my library and my bags in one fell swoop... however I underestimated the volume of my library.  It worked for half of it!

Here's the other half!

One last picture of the outside of the place... Again, notice the awesome lines!

It echoed like crazy in there when it was empty!

The move was only a few blocks, but I'm living in an actual apartment complex now rather than the triplex type situation, and that part has its ups and downs.  The parking lot is nice as opposed to the gravel alley-way between two buildings (or rather, the parking lot will be nice as soon as the contractors quit tearing up the concrete and changing where we can park!).  They also spray for bugs once a month!  After two years of living with cockroaches, I'm pretty stoked about that part!  The noise is a down-side, Gracie and I keep hearing our neighbors which is a new phenomenon for us, and we also live between the railroad tracks and the police and fire stations.  There are also contractors on the roof outside our window yelling at each other in Spanish.

We also live on the third floor.  I'm not going to lie, living without stairs for two years probably spoiled me a bit!  However, I also live next door to a *drum roll, please* Laundry Facility!  Seriously, we are right next door to the laundry room!  Granted, it costs quarters, but no more scrambling to hand-wash work shirts on the weekends!

In addition to the laundry room, we also have a dishwasher!  Not to mention flat floors and right angles!  The new bathtub is smaller than my old one, but it's actually sealed into the wall, everything is level, and I can take a bubble bath without an audience of ants!

Gracie and I have also been enjoying the companionship of our new roommates!  My new roomie is super sweet, and I love just hanging out and chatting with her!  We have already eaten together a couple of times and enjoyed a chick-flick with another girl friend of ours, and I'm looking forward to at least two years with her!  The more we get to know each other, the more convinced I am that this was a match made in Heaven!

Gracie's adjustment has been slightly less seamless.  She also has to get used to a new roomie--a gray and white one with stunning green eyes named Kitty.  Both Gracie and Kitty have been only-cats for a while, so they're still working out what to think of each other.  My roomie and I joke that they are probably besties while we're gone during the day, even though there is a little hissing involved when we're home.  But Kitty has been rubbing off on Gracie a bit, Gracie now plays with toys (which she refused to do before, in favor of pony-tail holders and plastic bags tied in knots), and she's slowly starting to warm up to the idea of kitty treats (the ones that my roomie refers to as "glorified cat food").  She loves exploring, especially late at night of course.  I woke up this morning to find my roomie's Wii controller in the middle of my bedroom floor.  There have also been some surprises with Gracie's transition, ranging from the very first hiss I've ever heard out of her to her new discovery of drinking out of the toilet.  She's a crazy kitty, but that's why I love her!  And I think over all, both of us are much happier in our new home!

I'm still in the process of unpacking, so we've still got some boxes going on all over the place.  I would show you pictures, but most of them are up-and-down, and alas, I don't know how to make Blogger rotate them :(  But rest assured, it's a pretty awesome place!  God has provided yet again, and I'm ready to tackle this new chapter of my adventures here in Iowa City!

Adventures in Chicago: a Summary in Pictures

Disclaimer: This blog post contains no material of deep, lasting consequence.

You see, a friend of mine and I took this past weekend to go on an adventure, and I want to tell you all about it!  We decided to road trip to Chicago!  Before we begin, I do recommend taking a mega bus or something to go to Chicago.  I was incredibly blessed that my friend was willing to drive--being a passenger was quite traumatizing enough, thank you!  Had I been the one driving, I probably would've needed several therapy sessions upon my return home, where I am suddenly less likely to complain about the Iowegians!

We stayed in the Acme Hotel, which is apparently relatively new to the area, but it was a pretty cool hotel!  They brought us breakfast for free (a perk of making reservations online), their coffee was delicious, and the hotel itself had a LOT of personality!  Let me show you what I mean:

This was in the corner of the mirror in the bathroom!  And they glowed!

 There was also a ginormous hand above the bed, a chalk board on the door (upon which we wrote Philippians 4:13 :) ), and the shower head was on the ceiling so the water fell straight down!  This detail didn't turn out to be entirely practical for hair washing purposes, but when I changed my mind on the shower, the bath tub was pretty comfy too!

Our first afternoon/evening in Chicago consisted of deep dish pizza (I will never look at Godfathers the same again!) and the Magnificent Mile, being a mile-long stretch of road full of shopping!  Granted, most everything was out of this starving college student's budget, but it was fun anyway!

I also must say, I've never been in buildings that tall!  Our hotel room was on the 15th floor!  I've never even been in a building that had 15 floors!  One of the malls that we went into on the Magnificent Mile had seven levels (and a crazy fast elevator!).  This picture is from the top floor, and I really don't think the picture does it justice!

Water Tower Place, from the 7th floor

Of course, most of us have seen pictures of city skylines from places like Chicago or New York City, but being there is entirely different!  It's like when I first saw the ocean, it was crazy because it was so huge, and I knew that it was so deep, and I knew that the point where all I could see of the ocean ran into all I could see of the sky was only the beginning, that there was Europe and the rest of the world and so many different people and cultures beyond that horizon.  My mind was so blown that I took dozens of pictures--and then when I came home, they were just pictures of light blue on top of dark blue, and they totally didn't capture the magic of standing at the edge of land and water, staring at the edge of water and sky, and being so close to the rest of the whole entire world.

The Chicago skyline is kind of the same thing.  There are these massive buildings everywhere that loom up above you.  If you're standing too close, you can't even see the top.  For us, sometimes we couldn't see the top anyway because it was kind of rainy and cloudy, so the buildings just vanished into the clouds.  And as we drove by, the closer buildings passed faster than the further buildings and it made it look like the city was doing one of those royal ball dances with lines of people rotating and switching.  I think the skyline is what kept me from feeling claustrophobic the whole time we were there.  The skyline drew my attention up--that's where all of Chicago's space is!  Most of what we did was within walking distance, and we didn't have to drive much to get to a new radius of walking distance, so where as I used to think that Chicago was big, now I know that it isn't so much "big" as it is "tall"!

Oh yeah, and they don't waste space on trivial things like parking lots.  Instead, they charge your left arm to use their parking garages: one of which in particular that I wondered several times if I shouldn't be demanding someone to be paying me to be there!

The entrance to the Millennium Park parking garage is between two opposing lanes of traffic.  It then takes you down underground, so it feels like you're being eaten alive.  Then, you know how usually there are things like lanes, arrows, directions, things like that to guide you into a normal parking garage?  Nope, this one (after it ate you) left you in this concrete chamber the size of about half a football field with gates to get your ticket and find parking off to your left.  No lanes, options, nothing, just a big concrete space!  The first time we parked here, we parked on level 3.  We had to go on foot DOWN to level (I kid you not) 2.5 (Seriously, even the button in the elevator had it labeled as 2.5!), and then take the elevator UP to level 7.  Aside from the 2.5, makes sense, right?  Well the second time (the fact that we parked here twice is evidence of the scarcity of parking in Chicago), we parked on level 1, went up one flight of stairs, and found daylight.  Somehow.  Not to mention that this vast parking garage was full of disorganized caverns of cars connected by creepy concrete hallways, random doors, and stairs and escalators that we never did figure out where they led to.

But hey, we got PLENTY of laughs out of that parking garage!  And we also learned to never trust maps under ground, only the ones above ground tell the truth!

One of the creepy hallways in the Millennium Park Parking Garage

We also went to the Navy Pier.  The up-side to the weather during our stay was that there weren't very many people at the Pier, so we didn't have to deal with crowds too much.  The down-side was that it was freezing, and thus we didn't spend much time actually on the pier.  We ran out, snapped some cool pics, and then ran back inside.

Me: I can see the top of the building!
My friend: It's too short!

Inside however was a completely free museum of stained glass!  Unfortunately, all of my pictures from this adventure are up-and-down, and I have not yet figured out how to make Blogger rotate them :(  Alas, I am not as social-media-savvy as I pretend to be.  Just rest assured, the works in there were gorgeous!  I doubt the pictures really did them justice anyway.

We also went to the Shedd Aquarium, which involved waiting in line for an hour, about forty five minutes of which was outside in the cold (though they did put up a tent type hallway on the stairs to block the wind, and that helped a lot!), but it was worth it!

They had more than just fishies in the Shedd Aquarium, and this guy was cute!

I meant to get a picture of the frog, the creepy dude on the other side of the display was totally an accident!

Judging from Facebook with my many Iowa City friends and acquaintances who have been to Chicago, going to "the bean" and taking pictures is kind of a must.  So we did!

This is up underneath the middle of the bean.  It was trippy!!!

And last, but a terribly far cry from least, was the Art Institute, which I shall return to some day so that I can spend an ENTIRE day in there!  Kind of like the magic of standing on the ocean or actually looking up at and driving around the tall buildings of Chicago, I was walking around the Art Institute seeing the actual pictures and sculptures of things that I studied while working on my associates degree, and standing there looking at the piece that the artist's hands actually touched was totally different!  I also definitely fell in love with Monet this weekend!

My dad thinks I'm nuts, but I STILL love Jackson Pollock!!!

So there you have a very brief rundown of a few highlights of my trip to Chicago!  I have now been in a 15 story building, eaten Chicago deep-dish pizza, and been eaten by a parking garage.  I have been the most hard-core window shopping of my entire life, and I have seen Monet's "Water Lilies" in person.  I have also experienced being in a big city rather than the suburbs of Nebraska and Iowa.  I've learned that I like the elbow-room of the Midwest, and I don't think I could ever live in Chicago (beyond the simple fact that I'm a sheltered Blondie who could probably easily take a wrong turn and end up getting kidnapped by the mafia or something!), but I will be going again some day!

Balancing Act

I'm pretty sure weekends are the key to my life right now.

With working full time, a great deal of one's time, energy, and focus are automatically dedicated to work.  However with going to college, one must dedicate a substantial amount of time, energy, and focus to studying and attending class as well.  It is for this reason that a promotion opportunity at work has recently passed me by, and though it is a bit of a bummer, I know it's probably a positive thing.  After pulling at least one all-nighter for school each week for the past three weeks, I'm not so sure as I could handle more work responsibility on my plate.

At the same time however, I can't go to school full time because I have to work full time.  Due to the reality of adults having to pay bills, buy groceries, etc., I can't really cut back on work hours and jump into school as deeply as I'd like.  So my weeks are full of a constant tension between work and school, and not being able to invest as fully as I'd like in either endeavor, which is highly irritating.

Meanwhile, I have zero writing time during the week.  I have this budding novel that whispers to me almost every single day with its big, puppy-dog eyes, "Please come edit me?  I promise I'll behave!"  Which any writer knows isn't exactly a trustworthy statement, but the poor thing just sits around all the time!  The War of Nostras (tentative title, I know it isn't terribly exciting) has lots of potential, and much of its progress is sitting in my head instead of on its pages, but staying up all night studying for quizzes and writing papers and running back and forth between school and work and using my no-class days to actually sleep, my novel writing just doesn't happen.

So in essence, my life is being pulled in three different directions, and that's without this strange phenomenon of the human species called "sleeping" that's apparently necessary for optimal functioning level as well as simple survival.

Thus, we have "The Weekend," a glorious two days where work does not exist, I get to turn off my alarms, and aside from church on Sunday morning and any plans with friends (Social life?  WHAT?!  That's right, ladies and gentlemen, kids of all ages, I have one of those!  Not as substantial as before this semester, but I do have one!), I have time that doesn't need to be fueled by caffeine to be spent.  I have spent most of today editing my manuscript and running diagnostics on its pacing issues, and it's gotten me past a particularly difficult chunk of it.  I am now a quarter of the way through this editing pass!  (Though I fear that with the volume of completely rewritten scenes that it will require additional editing passes before being sent off to a few Beta readers!)  Tomorrow, I intend to spend some quality time with some poetry homework, in an attempt to complete my homework for the week and actually sleep like normal people do!

Next weekend, I shall be going on an adventure to Chicago with one of my best friends from back home, for which I am extremely excited!  This will be my first time to Chicago as well as my first time to just go on a road trip for mere kicks and giggles, and I think breaking the monotony of what my life has become (and threatens to be for a very long time) will be amazing!  And after this magical, exciting trip, it shall be Spring Break.  Most of the time, I struggle with breaks, as they mean less social time and more time alone in the apartment slowly losing my mind, but I think this time around it's going to be okay.  I also intend on editing every day through Spring Break, and who knows?  Maybe I'll be through an editing pass when it's all said and done!

So this is me: balancing my life in three different directions.  Sure, it's driving me a little crazy... er than usual... but I can do all things through Christ! ... And Coffee!

The Insanity of a Non Traditional Student

Today is the dawn of a new semester!  Personally, I am avidly celebrating the end of the solitary confinement that comes with breaks in the school year and getting excited for a steady routine,  consistent social life, and yes, also homework!  I don't have to endure another break until... Well, summer pretty much!  I'm looking forward to an entire semester of uninterrupted structure, growth, confidence, and limited alone-time with which to drive myself to complete and unenjoyable insanity.  Now I get to enjoy the fun kind of insanity!  You know, the kind where you watch The Hobbit in theaters five times and can quote large chunks of it before it's even out on DVD?  The kind where you come home from work covered in mashed potatoes and toddler snot and declare it evidence of a successful day?  The kind where you pass the time in your car by reciting the Lord of the Rings to yourself?  The kind where you have conversations with your cat as though she was your child, including telling her that "we do not bite our friends"?  The kind where you sit on the floor and then try to get up only to fall over because you're standing on your own hair?

Okay, maybe you can't relate to THAT kind of insanity... Ahem.

The class this semester is Intro to Poetry, including but not limited to Beat Poetry, being early Slam Poetry, for which I am incredibly pumped!  My professor is a soft-speaking Frenchman with a mustache whose demeanor and participation policy suggest him to be a fellow introvert.  He's careful to address and acknowledge the thoughts of every student expressed in discussion, and he has a passion for words.  As an unnecessary however additional perk, there are also some guys in my class with potential to be cute, pending a preliminary ruling on their character/personality.  I'm already in love with this class!

Having been finally granted residency by the University of Iowa earlier this month, I am one step closer to the day that I can take more than one class at a time, which would be wonderful as the rate at which I am currently taking classes will not let me graduate any sooner than a decade from when I started.  Returning to life as a full time student isn't quite a visible future for me yet as working full time and studying full time does not a sane person make, and I am trying to avoid college debt as much as possible.  But I'm a resident at least.  It's a step in the right direction, and the journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step.

Another "possibility" with which to speed the acquisition of my Bachelor's degree would be spending a summer studying abroad in Ireland.  The more I think about it, the more I want to do it, but yet the more tricky it sounds.  The program itself is about $6k (covers the program, a living situation, and a bus pass), then there's air fare, then there's text books, then there's food and spending money, then there's not working for three months, then there's bills back home, and all of this after the hassle of finding a sub-leaser or something for wherever I might be living if this ever happens (and don't talk to me about living situations, that line of thinking still scares me after last year!).  The financial end of things alone makes the study-abroad idea for me impossible until 2014 at the soonest, and that's if I take out loans to do it.  Not to mention the fact that if you stick me in the middle of Ireland by myself, I might take a wrong turn somewhere and never come back.  Literally, I might get lost in the air port and die before I ever make it back to the states!  I mean, when Bilbo went on his adventure, he got to follow thirteen dwarves who already knew where they were going.  The people affiliated with the Irish Writing Program meet you at the airport in Dublin... I have to make it at least that far by myself!  And then there's figuratively of course.  (Bilbo: "Can you promise that I will come back?" Gandalf: "No, and if you do, you'll never be the same."  Yay, fun kind of insanity!)  Besides, I start getting homesick after two or three weekends in a row in Iowa City... A different continent for three months?!

But I really want to do it!

In addition to school and the probably unnecessary worrying over it, I shall be continuing the editing process of my painfully rough draft of my still untitled WIP.  This is one of the less-mutilated pages:

Nothing says "progress" like several pages in a row covered in bright X's with the words: "This Entire Page is Obsolete!"

My novel kind of fell by the wayside in the aftermath of my car accident that kind of consumed my life there for a lil' bit, but about half-way through break it came back to serve as a safety line for me.  I got caught up and frustrated in the dark, non-enjoyable insanity of winter break until I came to the realization that I was sitting around waiting for my life to happen.  I want to be married, have kids, and write books.  It's all I've ever wanted.  It's STILL all I want.  But that doesn't mean that I have to sit here right now going through the motions and letting life become a desert that leaves me parched of passion and excitement.  I am Kaycee Lynn Pancake, I'm the ONLY Kaycee Pancake that there ever has been or ever will be!  God made me who I am and put me where I am for a purpose, and that purpose wasn't to become someone else before I can start living.  So, I started editing my WIP.  And maybe, just maybe, this is the novel that I can send out into the world when it's done!

Regardless of the small victory over the dark insanity I experienced over break, I've been terribly torn as of late between looking at the mountain and looking at the ground at my feet.  The mountain is taking forever to climb, and the ground at my feet has been looking the same lately with no evidence or promise of forward progress.  I know that reaching the peak will be worth it, even if it is just to find the next mountain, but I'm trying to learn how to live the life I have right now.  I've spent most of my life thus far existing and surviving  just trying to make it to this or that, but what about right now?  There's got to be something special, something worth while about who and where I am in this moment, and it always gets lost in the anticipation and fear concerning whatever peak I'm pursuing.  What about the present?  God gave me this special moment for a reason, and this semester, I'm going to try to find out what it is.

Carpe Diem.

God is SOOOOOO good!

 I'm trying to come up with some witty and entertaining way to start this off, but alas, I've got nothin'! I was going to post this story on Facebook, but decided that it was too long to fit in a status! For any of my readers who aren't on Facebook, I was coming home for the weekend last night and got into a car wreck. Gracie Lynn and I walked away... The car didn't.

God loves Him some Pancakes!!!

Traffic in the right lane of I-80 in Council Bluffs was backed up.  I got stopped... That Ryder truck in the top picture didn't.  He hit me, it looks like I spun and caught the back of his truck with my passenger door, and slammed into the gaurd rail, which pushed my trunk into my back seat.  The first woman (I think) who came to my car helped me get Gracie out, we had a tough time though because the passenger door was folded in over her kennel.  The kennel as well as the cat in it, miraculously, were totally fine.  A couple of guys at the scene had to pull me out of the passenger window.  When the police showed up, one of them asked me if my registration and such was in my glove box.  My answer: "Yes... Wherever the glove box is."  It was on the floor in the passenger compartment.  I had glass in my teeth.

My new friends at the scene called my Dad (for a while I couldn't find my phone... or my glasses, which were on my face at impact.  Still don't know where that police officer found them, but they're in one piece!), and he pretty much broke the sound barrier getting to me.  Hi, Daddy!  I haven't seen you in over a month, and now you get to come and get me 'cuz my car is a tin can.  I love my Daddy!

I whacked my head on something or other, still not sure what, so an EMT checked me out and gave me the choice on whether or not I wanted to go to the hospital.  This was before Dad got there and long before I was certain of which way was up, but I figured I was good, just uber shaky.  I may have been slightly concussed, but my brain still seems to be in one functional piece!  Well, it's no worse than it was before the accident anyway!

I've got lots of bruises on my legs that I'm not totally sure what exactly from, and a lump on my shin that I'm still waiting for it to turn lots of fascinating colors.  I've got some cuts on my right hand, after some thought I finally realized that they're probably because I threw out my arm to catch Gracie and keep her safe in the seat when the truck hit me.  And I've got a purple lip.  And I'm pretty sore pretty much everywhere.  But God is SOOOOO good!  God is so powerfully, lovingly, mercifully good!  It was crazy looking at the car after I started to chill out, it's still crazy seeing the pictures.  And I walked away from that in one piece!  And just because He could: even my guitar walked away in one piece!  It was painfully out of tune, but totally unscathed!

Impact was around 9:30, we got home around 11:30.  I calmed down enough to start hurting around 12:30, and finally got comfortable enough to fall asleep around 2.  And my darned internal clock woke me up at 6:45.  I am forseeing a nap in today's future!  Today also holds a visit to my mom's doctor/chiropracter friend and then a trip to the impound lot so they can cut my car open and get the rest of my stuff out... like my month's worth of laundry trapped in the trunk.  After that, we have to figure out what in the world I'm gonna drive back to Iowa City.  And do some hard-core talking-up of the Blondie because I don't particularly want to drive ANYWHERE right now!  (Of course that'll be fine, I probably just need to hurry up and get behind the wheel at some point today and I'll be okay there.)

All of this to say, thank you to everybody for your concerns and especially your prayers!  I am alive and in tact and okay and praising God!  Please keep praying, I'm still really sore and a little shook up.  Pray for our sudden car-hunt as we scramble for transportation back to Iowa City on Sunday (unless I'm still this sore, then I might go ahead and call into work sick and go back Monday).  Gracie was pretty scared too, but she spent some quality time with my dad while I was in the jet bath last night and appears to be just fine :) .  Everyone else walked away from the accident too... a couple of younger guys were cut up a little and I never saw the truck driver, but I'm told that he walked away too.  So please pray that God is glorified in what happened last night for as many people involved as possible.

God is SOOOOOOOO good!

Best "Back to School" EVER!

I went to my very first class since May 2011 on Monday.  I was half an hour early and I donated SEVERAL quarters to Iowa City because I hadn't quite figured out parking and decided I'd rather be safe than sorry on my very first day of school.

I went to the Campus Christian Fellowship office after class for a kick-off-the-year pizza party (also pretty early).  I walked into the room, dropped my backpack, and announced to the five or six people there: "I HAVE HOMEWORK!!!"

To which the popular reply has been: "Kaycee, you're sick!"

I've spent the past year trying to read and research things just to keep my brain working, to keep learning things.  I've been creating my own studies to keep my mind engaged and remember how to be a student.  It's been like a stray dog digging through the garbage for food--and hey, to the dog, half of a week-old cheeseburger is delicious!

But then I walked into lecture on Wednesday afternoon, and this woman (albeit a tad eccentric, and by all appearances not necessarily in tune with the real world outside of academia) stood at the podium, clicking through slide after slide of a power point, setting plate after plate of knowledge before this starving student.  I was handed three pages of notes in less than an hour!  College students have this nasty habit of packing up their bags before the professor is done talking so they can skedaddle just as fast as they can once class is over, but I was sad when the intellectual meal was over!

I walked into CCF after that class, and one of my dear friends there said, "Oh, she has that after-lecture glow!"  I did.  It was almost like being in love again!

It's been a pretty crazy and slightly overwhelming week, though.  I spent all summer long getting barely 30 hours a week at work and wondering what in the world to do with my life, and now that school has started I'm suddenly getting 40 hours a week, we transitioned several kiddos into our room for the first time (which is always a bit of a challenge!), and now I have homework, CCF and Salt Company are kicking up for the year, I'm still working on how to fit two plasma donations into my week (keeping in mind that I can't have caffeine on plasma days!), and poor lil' miss Gracie Lynn is wondering where in the world her mommy disappears to all day every day.  She wasn't speaking to me the last couple of days until I finally snuggled in for a nap with her after a CCF camping trip this morning.

People do crazy things to pursue their dreams.

During the discussion section of the class I am taking, we did introductions: what's your interest in English, what year are you, and one interesting thing about you.  How in the world do I answer those questions in under five minutes?  I stumbled through my answer, trying to quickly summarize my explanation of how I'm a junior but yet this is my first class in Iowa while still maintaining my dignity as a 21 year old who should be a senior now.  I told my class that this was the only class I was taking this semester because I'm working full-time while I was at it, and there were a couple of muffled "wow"s around the room.  I almost laughed.  You don't know the half of it!

Meanwhile, as I'm acquiring a taste for cheap coffee and cramming study sessions at a short table in the school age room during lunch breaks, I'm still working on resident status.  I had a tough time getting a hold of my tax returns for some reason, but finally succeeded!  Now I just need to get my parents' tax returns.  And a notarized statement saying that I intend to claim myself as an independent in the years to come.  And a notarized statement from my parents saying they do not intend to claim me in the years to come.  And "proof of employment," whatever in the world THAT'S supposed to mean.  My boss suggested a pay stub, I sure hope that does it!

I'm in this for the long haul.  I don't really know how long this is going to take me.  I'd like to try for two classes next semester, but I'm not sure how feasible it will be both finantically-speaking as well as time-wise.  Until then though, I shall enjoy with all my heart my long-awaited return to academia!

Writing, Reading, and Cleaning

This is what I do with my summer!  Of course, it took me all summer long to be okay with that.

You see, Iowa City kind of has its way of shutting down in the summer.  All of the campus ministries slow down (when they aren't stopped completely), lots of people leave to spend summer at home, on mission trips, studying abroad, etc.; some people leave for good because they've graduated or it's just time to transfer.  And besides, I've only been here for a year (almost).  That's not quite long enough to make friends you can call up in the middle of the night and say, "Hey, let's go wander around WalMart!  It'll be AWESOME!!!"

Parents pull their kids out of daycare for the summer in Iowa City because half of them work for the University, so during the summer they can stay home with their kiddos.  Which means there are less hours needed from the employees.  Which means I only work 30 hours a week.  And then clock out and hang out with the babies and all my kids who turned 2 and moved out of my room, because they're all cute and I have nothing better to do.

So I hang out at work after I get off.  I donate plasma to make some extra bank (I'm gonna need it!).  I read all the YA stuff that's fun to get sucked into for days at a time.  I read poetry that I didn't really have time to sit down and bask in during the year.  I read Shakespeare because I want something that will take up a LOT of this empty time that I have.

And I write my painfully rough draft of my WIP.  I love the story, I love the world, and I love the characters; the problem is that I've been working on it for several years, and over the course of various life events, I have been several completely different people over the course of the past several years.  My main characters always have a tendency to take after all of my issues, so poor Princess Inirae has run the gamut of all of my emotional distress and faced all of my problems with me and has thus sufficiently destroyed the arc of my story.  Needless to say, Nostras is in a state of chaos that must be cleaned up.  My goal is to pound through a rough draft by the time I go home for Labor Day so I can go to Kinkos and print it out so I can start my editing process.

When I need to get off my butt and do something, I've been cleaning.  Because this chicka is going to be starting school a week from Monday!  So let's set off on the right foot and have an organized office and a clean apartment to come home to!  After all, I am incredibly blessed to be able to stay here another year, bats and cockroaches and all!

I have every intention of my last week of summer being productive, and I'm looking forward to putting this summer behind me!

~  *  ~

Quick Update: As most of you know, I applied to the University for resident status.  They sent me a letter that said something to the effect of: "We got your application.  Now go on another scavenger hunt and spend more hours of your life on this process, send us an even thicker envelope than you did last time, and we'll look it over and let you know what we think."  Moral of the story: One step closer, but it kinda feels like two steps back.  At least they didn't just say "No,"... I think...