this is what's up

Also there's another one with our mother and it is so hysterical you will pee. She looks like a cartoon that is about to explode. We're not sure how it happened but we've been banned from ever publishing it.

Anyway, hopefully I'll be able to get on here to write something before then, but if not: merry Christmas, y'all!

from my notebook

It seems appropriate somehow that it was a year ago that I first moved to Pitesti. Alicia put up a picture this morning of us in October 2006 dressed up for Halloween and to think about that, that it's been six years since that moment--what do I write in response? I think about the fullness of that friendship, what six years has held.

Sometime back in March I told someone that I was going home for a little bit in December and they responded by saying mai e ceva, still a ways to go. And I said then, no, I think it'll fly by and now here we are, two months away, all those years from a place I wouldn't have guessed one thing that's true right now.

I say it seems appropriate to write this first thing in a new notebook--it usually seems to happen this way. I filled up my first one and started the second right as I came to Romania. And it feels like something new these days, some new season. And as I look back on six years--not just as a whole, but even on each of them--there is abundance of abundance, my cup running over even out of the empty places.

It reminds me of the other day, of reading this in Ezra (and it's been in my head since then):

"And all the people gave a great shout of praise to the LORD, because the foundation of the house of the LORD was laid. But many of the older priests and Levites and family heads, who had seen the former temple, wept aloud when they saw the foundation of this temple being laid, while many others shouted for joy. No one could distinguish the sounds of joy from the sounds of weeping, because the people made so much noise. And the sound was heard far away."

And in response: "Something about this. It settles deeply in my heart, in a place already carved out for it, in a place shaped by the knowing of this thing. I don't know what it is. But I know this, my heart is pulled toward its truth."

That sounds much sadder than I mean for it to. I look back and rejoice, I really do. I look forward and rejoice. And wonder what even the next year will look like. 10,000 roads, indeed.

(pictured above, two babies otherwise known as sarawr the dinosaur and the colombiana. also, that's the girliest halloween costume i've ever worn--the following years i was a bag of jelly beans and then juno.)

typical romanian day

1. Trying on a pair of pants at the second hand store (to cut into shorts), the lady guarding the changing booth stuck her head in the curtain and struck up a conversation with me while I changing.

Romanca: "Are they good? Do they fit?"
Sarawr the Dinosaur: "Yeeees... I think so."

Pause. Assume the conversation is over. Kind of turn around and remove pants.

Romanca: "Oooooh I love your little stars!"

Pause. Wonder if there are stars on the pants. Turn and look at her and wonder if anyone else besides her can see me in my underwear. It suddenly occurs to me that she's talking about my sweaty heathen tattoo.

Sarawr the Dinosaur: "Oh, yeah. Thanks."
Romanca: "Did it hurt? I've never seen one like that! It's so great!"

Don't have the heart to tell her I usually wish I hadn't gotten it. Conversation continues. Dressing resumes.

Sarawr the Dinosaur, fully clothed: "Okay, well have a great day. I think I'll buy these."
Romanca, also fully clothed, to colleague: "Fraaaaate, did you see that girl's stars?"

I'm still wondering.

2. Waiting at the post office the other day, hoping I don't get yelled at again by scary post office window lady (I did, but everything worked out in the end), I look up and see this sign about what to do when an earthquake hits:



Keep yo calm down, people.

3. Just now on the way to the store, I hear a guy making hyena noises and a yappy little dog going crazy. Upon rounding the corner and further inspection, I see a tiny old lady (to whom the yappy dog belongs and is attached, via leash) beating a teenager with her cane. He is on a set of stairs with his legs up fending her off so from what I can tell she is beating the bottoms of his feet. The hyena sounds are coming from one of his several friends standing around laughing at him.

Epic grandma win.

Level: day in Romania: normal.

heyo! ski!

Just now realizing I never got around to posting about ski. Sorry about that. So instead, a pictures summary! The first week:





(moments before a most epic snow battle)


(moments after a most epic snow battle)


(what i'm told is our second real injury in about ten years. other than this she was okay.)


(rasnov, romania. wait till you see it when there's sunshine.)


This next one pretty much sums up the second week. I have no memory of this photo being taken. We can only assume I was too close to the edge of death at this point.




Unfortunately there aren't many pictures of actual skiing, at least not on my computer. If I get a hold of them, I'll be sure to post them.

a wild sloth appears!

The first time we came to Romania I learned something from one of the Americans on our team that is quite possibly the best and weirdest icebreaker you've ever seen. It's called slothing.

Participant one assumes sloth-role. Three fingers on each hand, a face of lazy bliss and really really slow movements. It works best if participant number two is both unwilling and has long hair/a hood, anything that participant one can attach himself to. The idea is to slowly grab the unsuspecting victim's hair (or whatever) and pretend to eat it (or something), get way too close and watch with glee as he or she reacts.

See exhibit A:



Sloth in his natural environment. The fingers aren't visible, but this is a most exceptional sloth-face. Note how oblivious the Englishman is to the fact that his English space bubble will soon be invaded. Perfect execution.

Nearly three years later, we discover, in the words of First Sloth, inception is real! I have no memory of this but I've been slothing. Photographic evidence:





Exhibit B is a poor example of sloth-face, but we see excellent sloth-hands. Later photographs reveal the distance between sloth and victim was in fact bridged.

So what about you guys? Do you sloth? Any good sloth stories/pictures?

how an entire hour disappeared from my life

It's been a weird week. Although it seems that's sort of the baseline, something fantastic generally happening about once a week, in this regard it's been a quiet last month.

Last Saturday I lost an hour of my life. I'm still not sure how it happened. Friday night we realized that it was the weekend we were to switch back the clocks, but after some searching on the internet, my roommate (the one who's my age) determined that they didn't change until Saturday night/Sunday morning. Saturday morning I was planning to catch a 7:15 train to Bucuresti so in order to pack, walk to the train station and buy a ticket with a little spare time, I set my alarm for 6:00. Now, that isn't entirely true, because I don't ever set it on an even number--I set it at 6:03, decided I didn't like the idea of it being after six, preferring to hit snooze at least once, and then set it again at 5:59.

Fact: I am a master at going back to sleep for two or three minutes at a time. Sometimes I'll set my alarm an hour earlier than I plan on getting up just to hit snooze for that hour. Crazy vivid dreams. But it's a really controlled sleep, meaning I never ever oversleep when I do this. Another fact: since usually my Friday nights are designated for movie-watching and writing once I get home--and I got home late this particular Friday--I ended up staying up till about 2:30 in the morning. But I knew I could get up in time. Double checked the alarm and then went to sleep.

So, 5:59 rolls around. I grabbed the phone, looked at it, read that it said 5:59, set it for 6:02 (which killed me but I wanted three minutes, not two) and proceeded to try to fall back asleep. But it just so happened that this particular morning it half-woke up my other roommate who started thrashing around noisily in the bed. What this means is that I sat there for three minutes thinking shut. up. (I know--I'm really not very nice first thing in the morning...) And what that means is that I did not fall back asleep, I am sure of it. So I grabbed my phone again to turn the alarm off before it actually went off and got up, but suddenly it read 7:02.

Jumped out of bed, thinking somehow that the clocks in fact changed a day earlier, then thought maybe my phone just changed, checked another clock and realized it had too. Rushed through everything (and didn't forget anything!) and made it out the door and booked to the train station. It didn't occur to me until an hour later than even if the clocks had changed, I wouldn't have lost an hour--fall back. Anyway, when I got to the train station the first thing I asked was what time it was, was further confused because I always mix up the numbers six and seven in Romanian, and finally discovered that it was in fact 7-something. The end of the story is that I basically sprinted to the nearest place you can catch a minibus and took my first ride on one of those since we flipped the last one over a guard rail (and hey, still alive!). (By the way if you click that, be warned that it's pretty much an hour of introspection but there are pictures.)

I've gone over it a million times but the only thing I'm not 100% sure about (and I am 95% sure of this) is that maybe--maybe--when I changed it back from 6:03 to 5:59, I accidentally changed just the minutes, so to 6:59. But I saw 5:59. There's really no way. So, I've resolved to chalking this one up to another of the great Romanian mysteries, the other being that time it felt/sounded like a truck hit the house we were in and we never discovered its cause (not an earthquake).

There's so much more, but this is long enough already. To end, I had a most wonderful conversation with my family a few nights ago that's been making me happy thinking about. Below is a screen shot plus one of me pasted in plus I-didn't-know-what-else-to-write to fill in the empty space.

multi ani inainte

I had a whole twenty three things I haven't done yet but would love to do one day post planned for my birthday last month, but never really got around to finishing it. There's a list with five things hanging out somewhere in my drafts here that I'm hoping to add to, with time.

Just about thirteen months ago now, someone wished me happy birthday and they said, just think, next birthday you'll be celebrating in Romania. And I hoped, I really hoped so, but I wasn't sure. This birthday I was in the Bucegi mountains with forty students from all over this country singing La Multi Ani, celebrating it with the other four people who had birthdays that week. And in that week we ate a fish somebody caught with their hands in a river, told jokes about people from Oltenia (okay, I just listened), watched Jupiter rise above the mountain, prayed together, laughed at one skinny white Romanian do a spot-on impression of Michael Jackson ("What kind of music do you like?" "Well, Christian music... and Michael Jackson! I do impressions in my spare time!") and wondered at a whole lot of really wonderful things going on in our cities, at our faculties.

(And then I got to do it again with one baller family in Bucuresti :))

Here's a post to say: look how God answers prayers and look at how it is different than I thought it would, look how good a thing it was. We have a God who is great, my friends.

Below: three of us with birthdays. And cake, really good cake.

adventure or the circus, your pick

Sorry for the radio silence as of late. It's been a busy last few weeks between Formacion and preparing to move to Pitesti. And as of Saturday, I'm here now, but as per usual, life is a circus.

Saturday morning I left my apartment in Bucuresti, went to the Yorks' to pack everything in the car and move. The plan was to move into a garsoniera (studio apartment) because it was pretty cheap (except I wasn't sure how I felt about living alone and turns out it was in a really sketch neighborhood--not normally a big deal being used to that, but without roommates it's more problematic). It's a long story, but about ten minutes before we packed the last of the things in the car, we got a phone call saying the apartment was no longer available. Meaning, hey, I'm moving to Pitesti today but we're not exactly sure where.

So I stayed a night with the general secretary and his family and last night I brought myself along with all my stuff to another girl's apartment. However, I'm sharing a room (and a pull-out couch) with a sixteen-year-old girl. Anyway, I don't want to say too much because it's the internet but it's interesting already how God is working things. I'll say that she and I have similar backgrounds. And that I really wanted a room to myself--fellow introverts, you understand.

There's so much about this place that's perfect. All of it, really, except for sharing a bed and room with someone. I don't say this to complain, and not because beggars can't be choosers, but because I wonder what my God is doing, at what he is doing. And I already I'm being stretched, but this is a good thing. Difficult, I'm expecting, but in addition to the good things I'm thinking will come out of it are all the other awesome things about living here.

So there's that. Pitesti is nice so far. Completely different from Bucuresti (much smaller, for one). And student work begins tomorrow. Today I met up with a girl here and we walked around a bit, something like the calm before the craziness. And this morning I was reading my Bible--I've been in 1 Kings--and came across this (17:2-6):

"Then the word of the LORD came to Elijah: 'Leave here, turn eastward and hide in the Kerith Ravine, east of the Jordan. You will drink from the brook, and I have directed the ravens to supply you with food there.' So he did what the LORD had told him. He went to the Kerith Ravine, east of the Jordan, and stayed there. The ravens brought him bread and meat in the morning and bread and meat in the evening, and he drank from the brook."

Pretty fitting, no? Our God surely provides. When we got the news Saturday morning, I don't know what it is but I felt really relieved. It's a good reminder that there are bigger things at work here than I can see.

And this is how these last stressful few days ended:

pictures de la munte (bucegi mountains)

Spent the last ten days at a student leadership conference called Formacion. Halfway through we took a day to go on a hike through the amazing Bugeci mountains. To be clear, by hike I mean something like thirty kilometers and thirteen hours, lots of really sweaty-stinky people and some of those beautiful things you can see in Romania. Don't believe me? Keep reading, captions below each picture. :)




About an hour into the hike!



The bear-dog who someone baptized Balu, like from the Jungle Book. That dog followed us all the way to the top and back.



Somewhere around hour four, I think. Starting to get tired.



It was really clear nearly half the hike (although once we got to the top lots of fog rolled in and it got really cold).



Such an incredible place. And hard (at least for me) to climb but completely completely worth it. If you look closely, you'll see that I'm already getting help up the mountain at this point. But I did make it to the top and all the way back down!



In the valley. If you look at the top middle, you'll see a narrow slash in the mountain that goes up to the top--we climbed up that (see below). Also, for more scale, zoom in and you'll see somebody wearing red and you'll also see that most of the boulders are bigger than the people around them.



I don't think it's in this picture, but to give you an idea of how enormous everything was, there were rock faces hundreds of meters tall and there were people climbing them that you could barely make out because of how small they looked against it.



In the valley sometime after Cabana Malaiesti.



I wish you could really get an idea of the size of this place. Just massive.



Hardest part, for sure.



Hardest part is done!



Me with some awesome OSCPi leaders. Note the altitude written behind us--that's 8,225 feet. Also, just for added fun, nothing that you can see that I'm wearing belongs to me and underneath it is another two layers (three shirts and two pairs of pants) because it was crazy cold at the peak.

Unfortunately there aren't any pictures from the hike down (for which my knees did not later thank me), but it was just as crazy looking. And we also saw a capra neagra--six of them actually, but as I do not know the plural--which are wild black mountain goats that are really more brown-colored and leap down the mountain like it's nothing at all.

Anyway, one more reason to love this place.

snickers: a confession

One of the campfire games the last night of our summer camp was called Judgment. They hide you away from the fire, bring you out and then the judge asks you some questions to decide whether you get to go to heaven or you're thrown into the flames. Yeah, sounds kind of terrifying, a little questionable, but it's actually a blast. Especially the ending, which I cannot tell you. You'll have to play for yourself. So the students and I had ourselves a bonding moment that night: when it was my turn I ended up being coerced into admitting that I stole a Snickers when I was seven.

Photographic evidence of a beautiful, hysterical night:

brother!

My mom sent me these pictures yesterday, and whoa, my little greenish-eyed brother is not so little. I realize how this sounds, but let's be honest, I have never shied away from being sentimental and why start now? And just look at that hair! It's all buzzed off now, but I actually kind of like it, it suits him. We haven't looked all that much alike since we were little, except for the face shape. But I can see that more than ever now.

Anyway, I'm just a gushy big sister who can't help herself. This is my beautiful brother. Who is gonna get me when he sees I put the second picture on my blog... oh well, you'll have to come to Romania if you want to do something about it! Teehee :)

o poza

Me, the girl we meet with and a coworker. Had our last meeting this Monday--going to miss this, for sure.

a curious behavior in bucuresti

And by that I am referring to a certain inclination toward different degrees of nakedness. So far it seems to be mostly limited to the parks. The first thing I noticed was guys who would go find somewhere to pee (sorry!) in broad daylight. In both cases of course their backs were to me, but they were definitely close enough to me to have called over their shoulder. The second guy was the craziest though. I was walking down one of the parts of Herastrau that's alongside the road, and there in the middle of the street on the median with the (really skinny still very young) trees, his back to me but his other side most definitely facing the other half of traffic was a guy who apparently either couldn't hold it or...

Anyway, no surprise that people here would be more comfortable/open with this sort of thing, if I can generalize far enough to associate Spain with Romania. Two years of Spanish professors and a semester with one especially crazy one taught me that. And no worries, I come from the great, wide south where everything is bootleg and out in the open and unpredictable. It would seem I have this to thank for the ability with which ma descurc, as the Romanians would say. To manage, or maybe more loosely, to roll with it, "I got this."

So the eight naked kids playing in the fountain at Tineretului was mostly just amusing. And it seems it must be perfectly normal as no one seemed in the least bit concerned as they chased each other up the sidewalk naked as they came.

However there is another curiosity in this park. He's an old man who has a couple of friends, all of whom like to lay out in nothing but their underwear, clothes hung in the tree nearby. I've walked past three times now in the last few weeks and every time he is there, and the most recent time, let me tell you, the man was dark. A little observation reveals that he doesn't like to sit still too long. Every so often he gets up and does what can only be described as calisthenics. I'm telling you, this sort of thing (all of it, not just the old man or the nakedness, mostly how strange and interesting people are) will keep me people-watching as long as I'm alive.

i'm blue (da ba dee..)

Well, then. After thirteen years of doing laundry (I can wash clothes like a boss, y'all), it has finally happened. Disaster has struck (stricken?). And now I am the proud owner of half a wardrobe full of once-white now-Willy-Wonka-blueberry-girl-blue clothes.



Suggestions about how to turn them white again are welcome.

walk in the park

Beautiful day, Friday.

urbana06

And look what I found parked outside my bloc after church this morning. Small world!

miscellany

Mostly just thoughts simmering, these days. There's so much to process, so much that's being observed and sifted through and it's hard to step into in a way that doesn't portray it as miscellany. But that's how things seem to be stringing together lately, and so I'm writing about puzzle pieces, praying about them, waiting for the picture to be completed.

I realized while writing that last sentence that there's probably no better way to describe this process of language learning. And it is one tremendous process. The Romanian language is beautiful and complicated, and every time I feel like I'm starting to get a good grip it manages to wriggle out of my hands. But it's exhilarating--if often frustrating and demanding of patience--to run after to it, to wrestle with it, to slowly begin to master bits and pieces. And to know people a little more in their language, to have a conversation with a student and hear straight from her heart and understand. The truth is that I don't expect this language to ever be anything other than wily and I think if I speak it the rest of my life it'll still be that way, but that part is fun, and I do hope that if I communicate anything it's how amazing it is to be doing all of this.

This Saturday I did indeed play volleyball with some people from OSCEB and I would like to say that currently both arms from the elbows down look like beat-up Russian butcher arms, like hams. No, that's gross, too explicit, too masculine. And I hope you made some kind of face when you read it. But they are black and blue and swollen--that's another constant since I've been here, covered in bruises, heh. We played for four hours, longer for the others as I got lost and meandered my way through two gigantic parks in the sunshine until I found them. There's something to physical activity when your brain is tired, though. I understand you when you tell me mai in spate or (ne??) schimbam and even your mischief about smecherie and I can respond in a language that isn't English or Romanian but the one going on in our heads. (With that I'm treading on some shifting ground--I've been reading _The Language Instinct_ and it's got some interesting things to say about all that.) Anyway, it's more manageable, it's a good balance to the intricacies of Romanian. And hey, it was awesome when our team won about five times in a row with nearly all the girls, holler.

The relational side of all this has been incredibly blessed as well. Getting to know my roommate and old friends here more, being a part of a small group. Something I've been thinking about the last few weeks is vulnerability. I ended up skyping for three hours with my lovely Colombian roommate in the States and talked about the sort of things that so easily pull my focus from God, that make me ''prone to wander,'' and here I find the inclination more than usual, as expected. I am foremost thankful for a friend that God is still using some 5,000 miles away.

The thought returns here, though, because my life is surely in this place. And these people that I'm beginning to know: is it too soon to be open? How open can I be? Normally, in the States anyway, I'd jump right in, always more likely to err on the over-share, and if you're reading this you probably already know that. Buuh. But there's a sense of the need to appear righteous, holy. While I've been told this was something to expect in the communities of which I am a part here, I realized while praying that maybe it's me as well. I'll just say now that I don't know enough about the culture to be making any sweeping generalizations, but even if it has some validity, and it seems to have some, it makes no difference if I'm holding back as well. If I am afraid of looking unqualified, of being 'too sinful' to do this job.

Let's save the suspense and cut straight to it: I am. As surely as anyone I know, even the most 'righteous.' "Here is a trustworthy saying that deserves full acceptance: Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners--of whom I am the worst. But for that very reason I was shown mercy so that in me, the worst of sinners, Christ Jesus might display his immense patience as an example for those who would believe in him and receive eternal life. Now to the King eternal, immortal, invisible, the only God, be honor and glory for ever and ever. Amen." (1 Tim. 1:15-17) So I will reach my hand toward yours (I will try!) and I hope you will take mine, and the good news is that it doesn't end here. The old has gone, the new has come! And we are daily being made new--so when I find myself looking backward, distracted, maybe instead of pretending, I can say, look! And we will call each other again and again to God in love. It's why I'm here. And fear has nothing to do with it.

I'm not sure where this falls within the realm of cultural adjustment, except that there are different pressures here than in Wilmington, but I am thankful to say that that process is on the whole going smoothly, going well. And for that I thank you for your prayers! Will soon be joining some evangelistic Bible studies with some of the other leaders and students, about which I am very excited. Can't wait to update. And if by some miracle you made it all the way this far, thanks for reading. :)

Also, look what opportunities await me--thank you, Google, ever astute:

tinerii romani

And look what I found in Piata Victoriei this morning:


(Romanian youth are /not/ superficial)

Interesting, indeed. Here's the Asta e Romania website I was talking about.

here comes the snow!

This never, never happens here. And it is beautiful!

the worst of earl

Actually it was rather pretty. Nice little breeze.
A