Recurring Dreams

- having to use dirty public restrooms

- someone breaking into the house (always my parents' house in Dallas... I've never had a dream where the setting is my own house)

- piling lots of yummy food onto my plate at a buffet but never getting to eat it before I wake up

- realizing at school that I was supposed to be going to this class that I didn't know about or not being able to find my locker or forgetting the locker combination or not being able to find a class (the rest of my family has this recurring dream, too)

Except for the food dream, they're all anxiety-related, eh?  What are your recurring dreams?

29 and Feeling Fine!

So I’ve finally reached the last year of my 20’s!  Growth is good for sure, and I definitely see the Lord at work in my life. 

In terms of relationships with people, most of what I’m learning and working on can be summed up in the theme verse for my character development, Ephesians 4:2, which says “Be completely humble and gentle; be patient, bearing with one another in love.”  I guess I’ll go ahead and dissect each point.

Humble.  I find that’s it really hard for me to respect certain people, and I have a really crappy attitude when they tell me what to do or give me advice about something.  I also tend to look down on people who do things differently than I do and who I think are dumb, and I get offended easily when people think I’m dumb.  I guess it’s all related to me being insecure and prideful and having a sense of entitlement and superiority.  And so I need to learn humility.  Not being so self-centered, not comparing myself to other people, seeing other people in a new light, and loving them no matter what.  On another note, I struggle with finding the right balance between being confident and being humble.  I’ve grown a lot in becoming more confident (knowing my strengths, etc.), but now I often cross the line and become prideful.  How do you be confident and humble at the same time?

Gentle.  I tend to be pretty direct and serious when I interact with most people, but I think that it’s very un-gentle of me.  I want to have a softer and warmer heart that makes people feel comfortable, and I think the key is to give up some of myself and to put other people first.

Patient.  I don’t lose my temper very often, but I always get frustrated and angry when I can’t find something and when I can’t figure something out (taxes, programming the remote control, filling out the UH online application form, etc.).  It gets so bad that I say cuss words in my head.  Sometimes I think it’s funny when I cuss in my head, but then I was convicted about it because sometimes I judge other Christians for cussing and realized that either 1) I need to stop cussing in my head, or 2) I need to stop judging other people for cussing.  And then I realized that I really need to do both.  And since cussing is only a symptom of being angry, the real issue is asking God for patience and not getting angry so easily.  It’s gotten a little better already.  I also get impatient about bigger things that I expect to come quickly or easily, like figuring out what will come next for me career-wise, and I forget that it’s a process and will take time and there are many lessons to be learned as the process plays out. 

Love.  I know I’ve shared about this before, but I still see how I tend to keep friends at arm’s length because entering into close relationships with people takes time and vulnerability.  I’m slowly starting to see myself be more real with people, even if it means saying dorky things, and not caring about what people think.  The next step is probably to let my guard down further by being a little less serious all the time.  I miss feeling comfortable enough to goof off with my friends.  Another thing I want to work on is loving people without an agenda.  I should just love people for who they are and not try to change them.  And in loving people and deepening my relationships, I need to be less critical, more gracious, more forgiving, and less self-centered.

I’m still working at TI, but I’ve been thinking about taking classes at UH so I can do something more education-related, and I finally figured out what I want to study.  Educational Psychology!  I missed the deadline to apply for the Fall so my plan is to take my GRE in August, take one class in the Fall while I’m still working at TI, and then take classes full-time in the Spring.  It should take three years to get a Master’s.  We’ll see what happens.  I hope it works out!

Another thing I think God is working on in me is “unleashing my potential”.  That’s a phrase my pastor uses a lot.  I see how God has done a lot of work in me, but I think I keep much of it internal and I don’t let it out very often.  Haha, that’s something my dad has been telling me for years, and I’m just starting to get it now.  Perception is an interesting thing to think about.  I’m pretty sure people see me differently than how I see myself, but in being more open and transparent and vulnerable, which I think are good qualities to have, the way other people see me should line up more closely with how I see myself.  [Disclaimer:  These thoughts are still relatively new and not fully processed, which may explain the vagueness and semi-coherency of this paragraph.]

You know how a lot of times you don’t realize how good something is until you don’t have it anymore?  Like in college, you don’t realize how special it is until you graduate and enter the real world.  So now I’m trying to anticipate the things I won’t have later on so I can enjoy them and take full advantage of them now, and I think those things are time, health, and freedom.

I will end with a quick note on singleness.  I tend to crush for a really long time on a guy, but I’m seeing that holding on to a crush is not trusting in God or surrendering this part of my life to Him.  It’s been difficult giving up control, but I know that it’s good and it’s freeing.  Singleness has also felt a little bit difficult recently because so many of my college friends are having babies now.  I’m praying that God will remind me that even though His plan for me may be different, it is still good, and I need to trust Him wholly.

More signs of aging: 

My second visible white hair

Drier skin

Less energy

Things I’m looking forward to for the rest of the year:

Birthday party tomorrow

First jury duty summons on Tuesday

Possibly a family trip to Boston (one of the top 4 U.S. cities I want to visit) in July

Co-coordinating another wedding reception in July

Missions trip to Honduras in August

Hopefully starting to take education classes in the Fall

Costa Rica

It was the perfect blend of adventure and R&R!  More photos are up on my Picasa site, and I'm sure some will eventually make it to Facebook.

Arenal

Horseback Riding in Monteverde

Zip-lining

Beach in Manuel Antonio

Kayaking in Manuel Antonio

Wildlife

Flowers

Food

Group Shots

And the one that took forever...

Celebrating Small Victories

My friends had a Karaoke Potluck party yesterday, and I was praying about it for the past two weeks because I’ve never sung Karaoke before.  I really wanted to at this party, though, so that I could get over my fears and insecurities about doing things that I’m not very good at.  And I did!  Not only once, but three times!  Not by myself, though.  I’m so thankful for the friends who sang with me.  And it wasn’t that scary.  :)

I sent in my application to be a volunteer online tutor with a non-profit education company called Reasoning Mind.  I also talked to another tutoring center in Sugar Land about tutoring opportunities there.  This is exciting because I’ve talked for a while about wanting to do something education-related, but I hadn’t really done anything about it til now.  I still don’t know exactly what I want to do with education, but I just needed to start somewhere and see where it leads.  My church’s current sermon series is called “The Choices We Make”, and we’ve talked about how life is a series of choices, and in order to get from Point A to Point B, we have to take all the steps in between.  So I’m finally starting to venture out from Point A in hopes of someday reaching Point B.

I went to the library last week and checked out three books!  That probably sounds like nothing, but it’s big for two reasons.  First, I’ve been really scared about going to the library because I went a couple years ago to apply for a library card, but I didn’t understand how the computer system worked so I couldn’t find any of the books I wanted.  It was also a small library geared more for kids so I felt a little out of place.  But last week, I found a bigger library that is more suitable for adults, and I found the books I was looking for without any trouble.  Second, the three books I checked out are all about education reform so I’m hoping they’ll get me further in my journey toward Point B.

Okay, so at the library when I was checking out, I was shocked that they still use these stickers to put the due date on the back of each book.  I see how it’s a good method, but it’s one of the few things in life that hasn’t changed after 20+ years, eh?

Random Thoughts

The speaker at my church said a few weeks ago that change happens when you know yourself and when you know God, and I completely agree.  Being introspective and self-aware and praying a lot has helped bring change in my life these past few years.  With that said, though, being self-aware also means spending a lot of time thinking about myself, and that makes me pretty self-centered.  I read somewhere that humility is not thinking badly of yourself; rather, it is not thinking of yourself at all.  I think that’s a pretty good definition.  It makes me wonder, then, how you balance the time you spend in introspection and the time when you focus on other people.  Let me know what you think.

I’ve always wondered what happens when your gas tank goes completely empty.  I’ve only taken it down to 0.1 or 0.2 gallons, and I don’t plan on pushing it any further.  Do any of you know?  Does your car slowly sputter to a stop?  Are there any more warnings besides the empty light when you hit 0.01 gallons or something?

Can someone recommend some good worship CDs?  I want to keep one in my car.  Thanks!

One of my roommates and I were in the car together over the weekend, and she commented on how she always hears me say that I’m bad at doing particular things.  It struck me because I didn’t realize I tend to do that.  I do know the things that I’m good at, but I also know the things I’m bad at, and it’s healthy to know that, right?  And I think it’s even good to be able to admit the things I’m bad at and to be able to joke about them because it helps me not take myself too seriously.  On the flip side, though, constantly reminding myself of the things I’m bad at can affect my attitude about them and about myself.  It might even make me worse at something I’m only mildly bad at because I already have a preconceived notion in my head that I’m bad at it.  One of my friends was telling me that she made herself stop thinking she was bad at something, and now she’s able to have more fun when she’s doing that thing.  I guess it is all about balance.  So many things in life are about balance, eh?  It’s okay to know what your weaknesses are, but it’s not helpful to beat yourself up about them.  I was also reminded when I read “Blue Like Jazz” that when I criticize myself, I am also criticizing the One who made me.

I recently went to something with one of my friends, and she introduced me to two of her friends.  I’d met both of them a while ago, but neither one remembered so then my friend asked them if they knew Marilyn and said that Marilyn is my sister, and of course, they both knew her.  It’s fail-proof!  What’s funny is that I don’t even think my friend has met my sister in person before, and yet she still knew how to play the Marilyn card.

I’ve always wondered about merit-based pay for teachers and why so many policy makers seem to support it while so many teachers don’t.  The general concept of it seems necessary to me.  In any job, your pay depends on how well you perform so I think it should be the same for teachers.  The challenging part is finding the metrics that accurately show how well a teacher performs.  The criticism with using standardized test scores is that teachers might only teach the material covered by the tests, neglecting to teach other information that is still important for kids to know.  Teachers also can’t be judged simply by their students’ grades because each class starts out at a different level.  It wouldn’t be fair to judge a teacher who teaches Regulars classes against a teacher who teaches Honors classes, etc.  Supervisor reviews might provide a good assessment of each teacher, but those could be somewhat subjective.  My guess is that a teacher’s merit must be based on a combination of all these factors and more.  Someone needs to find a statistician who can come up with a multivariate formula to calculate each teacher’s merit and determine his/her pay.  Or maybe the way they do BCS rankings will work for teachers, too.  Here are a couple of interesting things I read in an article about education in the December 8, 2008, issue of TIME magazine.

“The U.S. spends more per pupil on elementary and high school education than most developed nations.  Yet it is behind most of them in the math and science abilities of its children.  Young Americans today are less likely than their parents were to finish high school.”

“If two average 8-year-olds are assigned to different teachers, one who is strong and one who is weak, the children’s lives can diverge in just a few years, according to research pioneered by Eric Hanushek at Stanford.  The child with the effective teacher, the kind who ranks among the top 15% of all teachers, will be scoring well above grade level on standardized tests by the time she is 11.  The other child will be a year and a half below grade level – and by then it will take a teacher who works with the child after school and on weekends to undo the compounded damage.  In other words, the child will probably never catch up.”