Coffee, anyone?

Do you ever know that there’s a good idea brewing in your head? I kinda have that feeling right now. There’s a ghost of an idea floating around in my head, and I feel like it will eventually turn into a living, breathing thought. But it’s just a spectre now. That’s a cool word, spectre. Anyway, I guess you’ll just have to stay tuned here until this great idea makes its way onto the screen.

In other news, have you seen Inception‽ (That’s an interrobang, by the way; it’s the combination of an exclamation point and question mark.) Inception was seriously the best movie I’ve seen in a long time. Today there are really only a few basic storyline options. It’s hard to come up with something original. Every chick flick basically has the same story, as do most action-adventure movies and horror movies. Inception was different. I can’t really describe it without giving away the ending, so I’ll just let you go see it yourself. Get ready for your mind to be blown.

Interrobang

So Dan really knows how to speak to my heart. A couple weeks ago, he sent me a text saying he’d found a new punctuation mark. Intrigued, I asked him what it was. He said it was the interrobang. How cool of a name is that‽ Yes, that’s the interrobang. It’s the mix between a question mark and an exclamation point, so instead of ending a sentence with ?! or !? (depending on if you’re asking an exasperated question or making an exaggerated statement, relatively), you end a sentence with this ‽

Needless to say, I think it’s the coolest thing ever. According to interrobang-mks.com, a site dedicated to bringing the interrobang out of obscurity and into the grammar books, the punctuation mark made its first appearance in an article by Martin K. Speckter for TYPEtalks Magazine in 1962. Apparently, Remmington Rand included an interrobang key on their 1968 typewriter, saying that it “expressed Modern Life’s Incredibility.” I couldn’t agree more.

Well, again, I’m here apologizing for not blogging for a month. But I have a reason. Life is like Groundhog Day stuck on repeat. I feel like I keep living the same day, the same week, the same month over and over again while the calendar keeps catapulting forward, flinging days over the horizon behind me.

Why do I feel stuck, you ask? First of all, thanks for asking. =) Second of all, it’s because of this whole trying to find a job thing. I’ve never had to go looking for a job — they’ve pretty much always come to me. So I don’t know what I’m doing, which means there is a lot of trial and error, which means a slow process, which means a test of patience is required.

I’ve applied to a few places, and I’ve learned a few things in the process:

1.) You have to stand out somehow, and many times you only have two pages (a cover letter and resume) to do it. And we’re not talking about glittery resumes that smell nice. There is an achievable balance between creative and professional, and it’s not covered in glitter.

2.) Employers often don’t call you back. Some get hundreds of applications, and that is just way too many people to respond to. Don’t take it personally.

3.) You can have several rejections, but remember it just takes one yes to get a job. Every open position has to be filled with someone; it might as well be you!

So that’s what I’ve been learning lately. What about you?

Do you ever wonder what the point of having street “cleaners” is? I mean, have you ever paid attention to the street before and after they’ve gone over it? Have you ever seen a street look cleaner after they’ve “cleaned” it? I haven’t.

Today while I was at work I heard a cleaner coming, and I watched it drive down the street. There is some construction going on a couple blocks down the street from us, and all the cleaning machine managed to do was spread the dirt from the construction site in front of our building.

So why do they have street cleaners, anyway? They don’t actually clean the street. They distribute dirt. Is it so the dirt is all spread out and not just in one place? I don’t know about you, but when I’m dusting, I don’t just spread the dirt around, I put some Endust on a rag and trap the dust on that rag. There’s no point in just spreading the dust all over the house.

You know how some people just have to keep busy doing something, even if that something is counterproductive or, at best, neutral? I think street cleaners are that task for the city. The city feels like it has to be doing something on the streets, so instead of doing something useful like fixing potholes, they have people drive around on these big machines that hold up traffic. It doesn’t make any sense to me.

A couple weeks ago, I had the opportunity to go up to Chicago with Dan and his senior project class. The professor had done some multimedia work for the Museum of Science and Industry and the Addler Planetarium, and he wanted to share it with us. We spent a day getting behind-the-scenes VIP treatment, which was pretty amazing.

We decided to break off from the group around 10 PM and do our own thing, which ended up being eating at the swankiest McDonald’s you’ve ever seen! It was two stories tall and was pretty much a gigantic McDonald’s museum in the heart of downtown Chicago. We had to be back at the train station by 12:30 to catch the train home, so we left with what we thought was plenty of time to make it back.

We started walking to the train station, then quickly realized we weren’t totally sure where it was. Long story short, we ended up going at least 20 minutes out of our way. We ran to the train station and reached the train right as the doors were closing and it started pulling away from the station. I can’t think of a worse feeling.

Thankfully, Dan’s parents were more than willing to come pick us up from a half hour away, and we finally made it home at 2 AM. Needless to say, from now on we either won’t plan on taking the last train home, or we’ll plan on being there at least a half hour early.

So I haven’t been on here for a while because life got pretty crazy. I’m a college graduate now! I officially have my BA in English from Bradley University. Graduation was super long (3 hours), but I was sitting between two of my closest friends. We were able to get even closer that day, since somehow we ended up with an extra person in our row and the three of us shared two seats.

Graduation was pretty uneventful, except for when one name reader mispronounced one girl’s name “Butterball,” and you could hear the whole arena say “Butterball” and snicker. I felt really bad for the poor girl. I spent the rest of that weekend in Chicago with my boyfriend and his family, then came back and got caught up on some reading. I’m currently reading Wicked by Gregory Maguire because I love the play. So far the book is excellent, as well!

The rest of the month has been filled with a couple more trips to Chicago, hanging out with friends, and job hunting. No luck yet, but I’ll keep you posted!

A couple wonderful old friends and an awesome new one on a retreat

In the few spare minutes I’ve had recently, I’ve been reflecting on who I was when I was a freshman at Bradley almost four years ago. I remember stepping on campus and feeling utterly overwhelmed. I’d had a very close group of friends in high school, and I was the only one who had chosen to go to Bradley. I was scared and alone.

And then I found this group of people in a an organization called Campus Crusade for Christ (Cru). In them, I saw what I’d left when I came to Bradley: a group of good, Christian friends who would challenge me in my walk with Christ and whom I could live life alongside. Little did I know how much my life changed the night I went to Cru’s welcome picnic.

In my classes, I encountered new and different views that I’d never heard of. And I hated it. I thought that my narrow-minded way of looking at the world was the only way and everything else was stupid. Thankfully, God did a work in my heart and showed me that it’s the different viewpoints that make literature what it is. I see this in a story, and you see that. Together they make up the complex, beautiful work that the story — and life itself — is.

When I first went to Cru, I thought that the gospel was for new believers. It was the most basic part of Christianity, and a mature Christian studied theological theories relating to predestination and free will. This is where my thinking was flawed the most. The gospel is Christianity. I am a sinner, separated from God; but He sent His Son, Jesus, as a man to live a sinless life and die on the cross in my place, and He rose again and is waiting for me to meet Him in Heaven. He did this so I could have a relationship with Him. I can’t reach Heaven on my own; I need Jesus. This is the crux of humanity. Everything hinges on this one event. And I used to think it was for beginners. Thank God He intervened.

It’s been four years since I was that lonely, quiet girl who came home and cried every day that first semester. I couldn’t be more glad that those days are far behind me. Now I’m getting ready to walk across the stage and receive my diploma. I’m prepared to enter the real world. God replaced what He took a hundred fold, as a day doesn’t go by when I don’t see a friend on campus. And not only do I have a great group of friends, but He saw fit to give me a wonderful, godly boyfriend, whom He’s used to make me more like Him. Even more than that, He’s shown me more of Himself. I couldn’t ask for more from my college experience.

Today marks the beginning of my last full week of classes. Ever. (Unless I decide to get my master’s or something, but that’s not happening for a few years, if at all.) There’s a very small part of me that is just a little bit sad. But that part looks like this: .

And the rest of me is absolutely thrilled beyond belief! It’s not that I hate school — truth be told, I really enjoy it. I get to learn a lot, read books I enjoy, study topics that interest me, and hang out with my friends. It’s a pretty great life! Except for one awful thing: homework. But that will be done in a matter of days.

So now begins the week of lasts: Tomorrow is our last Life Group Leader women’s Bible study, and tomorrow night I’ll lead my last campus Bible study. Wednesday is my last night class and my last Intersection. Thursday is my last discipleship time with Erin and Steph, and Friday is my last Friday coffee date with Dan.

So I guess the part of me that’s sad is a little bigger than just . but that’s ok. I guess it can be a little bittersweet. I’ve invested the four best years of my life here; of course I’m going to miss it. I’m just glad God knows what’s coming next. And if it’s anything like college has been, it’ll be the best years of my life.

What do you do with a B.A. in English,
What is my life going to be?
Four years of college and plenty of knowledge,
Have earned me this useless degree.

I can’t pay the bills yet,
‘Cause I have no skills yet,
The world is a big scary place.

But somehow I can’t shake,
The feeling I might make,
A difference,
To the human race.

-From “What Do you Do with a B.A. in English” from Avenue Q

Well, I heartily disagree with the idea that an English degree is useless. I think it’s one of the most useful degrees there is, and I found one small bit of proof of that the other day. I was reading BBC news, when a very interesting headline popped up. It was about a cookbook recall in Australia, because a proofreader had missed a rather embarrassing mistake: one recipe listed “ground black people” instead of “ground black pepper” as an ingredient. A good proofreader could have saved that company a lot of embarrassment.

Some people go to college to major in engineering. They become engineers. Philosophy majors become philosophers. Journalism majors (sometimes) become journalists.

But what do English majors become? No, not Englishmen.

We become the most exciting field: ___________. That’s right, we get to fill in the blank. The analytical and communication skills we learn in the classroom are transferable into any other field. We have the perfect combination of intelligence and empathy, communication and caring. That’s why somehow we can’t shake the feeling we might make a difference to the human race.

I was so proud of my grandma this week. She lives with us, and this past week she was having some car trouble.

My dad came home around the time Grandma would normally have been out running errands, but she was inside the house without her car. There weren’t any other cars in the driveway, so my dad thought he was home alone.

Grandma had spent the afternoon trying out various hiding spots, so she could jump out when he came home. She finally decided on the dining room. My dad came inside and started walking toward the family room when my grandma jumped out and scared him really badly.

I’ve taught her well.