Update

"This... is Berk. It snows 9 months of the year and sleets the other 3. The food is hardy, tough, and tasteless; the people more so."

This is one of the closing lines of "How to Train your Dragon," and pretty much all of the descriptions - minus dragon slaying - you can apply to the area my parents are currently located in. To many southerners chagrine, we haven't settled in any one place long enough for me to say with confidence that I'm 'from' there.

But be that as it may, my most formative years were in California and New Mexico, so apparently I have the driving skills of a maniac and the social skills of one who is scary yet endearing at the same time.

I've been home since November, and its been fun reconnecting with family, reading what I want, when I want with no assignments or quizzes following, cooking up a storm (my mom keeps asking why and how I've gotten so 'domestic.' I think it comes of having a myriad of friends from various cultures who all have exotic spices and fun mixtures, and wanting to combine them and see how they turn out. The plus is that, since they are from developing countries, they require healthy foods. A little more pricey than the usual menu my family has been keeping, but not so much that they discourage me when I start banging pots and pans around), having small people to tickle whenever the occaision calls for it, and observations to swap with mom and dad.

We went rock climbing as a family and then toured "Falls Park' and their annual Christmas-light display on the 23, went to a candle light service then did advent on the 24, Christmas morning as a family and then a friend from Dad's bible stuy who is also from the Ivory Coast for lunch/dinner.

The 26th we celebrated my birthday, and the fun thing was ont he 27th mom found more presents stashed away somewhere so I had a second birthday :-)

It snowed and snowed and snowed, which has been fun, but it got warm, which was nice. HOwever I didn't realize it was nice and warm outside yesterday. "Ah, no worries. I'll just go play in the snow tomorrow." HOwever today is tomorrow and I am looking outside to PUDDLES as the darn RAIN clouds assist in melting away the playing material. The forecast for the next 3 days is sleet and rain. I am not happy.

Ethan has a whooping-ish cough so he and I are home today while Mom and the others go grocery shopping. When we have several-day-storm-forecasts, we stock up and burrow. Rather fitting, as Ethan is reading "Redwall" and all about mice and moles and rabbits stocking up and feasting. *sigh*

Speaking of which, I should go refill his tea and drag him out of the world of talking animals and into the land of human interaction of some sort. He likes it when I read Redwall outloud, as I like to do funny voices and accents for the various characters. The trouble is I have to START the books so I know which voice to assign which character, and he hands me a half-devoured tomb of Jaques'. When I tell him this dilemma, he grins endearingly and says, "Oh I'll just TELL you what voices to give them!" Great. I am now your own, personal, 'do it at home' radio theatre. I think not! I choose my own voices, sir!!

Just over one more week of break before I head back to the 'Ville for Jterms and a new semester. I'm excited about all my classes, just not about diving back into the grind of working 15 hours a week and taking 5 classes. But it must be done to graduate on time and pay the bills. So I grind away.

New Years resolution is to be ORGANIZED this semseter, and have a healthy balance between homework and socializing. Thats it. Its a big one though, so waggle your fingers at me not. I made last years resolution which was to start working out. Again, no schedule, but I do it regularly, special thanks to my friend Emmanuela, who is from Cameroon, and a work-out-addict. :-)

The boy has roused. I'm listening to "The Last Samurai" soundtrack, and he is bouncing around making battle noises and taking Samurai pozes and stances, waving an imaginary saber. *sigh* Must off to smack him back down into resting towards healthiness (not literally!!)

Reminiscenses, Rabbits, and Rickshaw essays

I always mentally refer to them as 'the Tornado kids."
Thats because whatever room they've been in, it looks like a tornado went through there.
The last time I walked into a room they had subjected to their energy, we found soda spilled on the table and the floor, its carton woefully crunched in the middle of the table; cereal that I had bought for the morning scattered everywhere with the wrappers tossed about, bread crumbs sprinkled around, and various clothes articles dropped here and there. And that was just the kitchen.
Ramona and I took turns snarling while we cleaned up the carnage and tried to figure out what we were going to eat, because our plans for dinner had been scarfed down amidst the sprinkling and spilling and scattering.
However, the three Caba kids did have redeeming qualities. When I saw them next and almost boxed their ears, they all pulled the Compassion Poster Child look and Smiles International grins and cooed their apologies along with offering the small peace offering tokens, promising to be good children. I think there might have even been some flowers involved.
None of them were biologically related yet they all somehow ended up with similar eyes and their voices sounded the same. It was funny because none of them were even from the same ethnicity let alone family. But they all referred to Corina as 'Mami" and all were slightly afraid of the oldest, Ramona (one of my best friends in Romania) and all were high energy, loud, bossy, funny, and had a talent for causing chaos wherever they went but were so sincerely charming and remorseful when caught.
One time when I was there, Sarah was quite put out that I was only staying for a few days. The last time she had seen me I had stayed six months. Corina and Ramona were dissapointed but understood that Mission trips have to be scheduled around the Mission, not the trip, and there weren't any kids at the orphanage or really anything that I could help with other than drinking coffee with Corina and talking and laughing. (Sometimes just reminding people in Ministry that there are level-headed people who don't hate you or aren't out to kill you or swindle you can be very ministering)
Anyway Sarah kept interuppting to ask why I was only staying a few days. My Romanian grammer is awful and my vocabulary comes and goes and often is confused with Hungarian that I also speak when in Transylvania. But the Caba kids were always very patient and, for the most part, pursued understanding with me and didn't manipulate the language barrier to their own ends.
I tried to explain that I was going to college in the fall and needed to go home after working with the Gypsy church plants so I could spend a little more time with my family and make money. The big take away for Sarah was that I needed money. So she scampered off, emptied her piggy bank, and returned with two fistfulls of coinage.
"Is this enough?" She asked, her brown eyes doe-like and pitiful.
Corina explained that I needed DOLLARS, not Romanian coins, and that certainly wasn't enough, please stop interrupting. Sarah sighed and left Corina and I to finish our conversation.
Today I got on Yahoo chat and saw Corina's ID online. I haven't talked with her for a while and hoped it was her online, but it turned out to be her youngest, David.
He wanted me to go Skiing with them after Christmas.
Now skiing in Transylvania sounds like something I would L-O-V-E to do, however not something financially possible at this point in life.
David REALLY really wanted me to come. He even offered to dip into his savings for a new bike and help pay for the ticket.
I thanked him for the generous offer, however the bike fund amounted to about a twentieth of the ticket cost, or simply the fees the airlines charge for checked baggage these days.
He was VERY dissapointed I couldn't use his bike money.
I've been really missing Romania the last few months. The magenta landscapes, the friendly villagers, the curious traditions and mindsets, the beautiful language, the good food, the quaint coffee shops and stores, my friends scattered throughout the countryside.
The trouble has been the last year my family and I have been put through the wringer on several leves. I'm sensing the season of pain is coming to a close, and its left us sort of gasping for a breath. I'm just tired. A couple of people have asked me where I want to go and what I want to do and my answer has been mentally, "Move successfully from survival mode to thrive mode!!!"
Its just been a long season of rearranging priorities and mindsets and worldviews and misunderstandings and clearing up arguments and realizing stuff about myself and trying to repent and mature and apologize and make up and justify or figure out etc.
It would be so nice to go back to the village; the place where Time moves in a circle instead of a line and certain things don't change no matter what. Where I can just wander and observe.
My grades have been slipping the last two semesters and a couple of people have told me I need to slow down. The trouble is my scholarship ends at the end of spring 2012, so I've been trying to decide between continuing the pattern of blasting through or taking it a little more slowly, adding another year, and doing things WELL. Both options have about the same amount of pro's and con's. Its been bugging me for a couple of months now, and there's no clear answer in sight.
All that to say, I'd really like to pack my family up and escape to the land of the Tornado Kids.

Barring that, I'd like my exhaustion towards books to go away so I could get focused on reading for my J-term (the Theology has been a painful blend of infatuation and apathy for me the last week). Or at least finish Elisabeth Elliot's biography on Amy Carmichael - which I've been working on since summer. So far my response to books has been to blithely ignore it and watch DVD episodes of "NCIS" with mom three-at-a-time. ;-)

Anyhoo. It was fun chatting in Romanian with David. Now I need to go find my brother so he can show me which trees on the property need 'wrapped'. Not with Christmas paper, with this guaze-type-stuff designed to keep away rabbits and deer.

Apologies to those who have wanted me to post more regularly on here. However, my attitude towards the written word in general has been one of classic burn-out. The 25-page paper I had to write the last week of school kinda took it out of me for a while. :-)
Will try to do better, however the computer is in high demand as my 16-year-old brother is also trying to finish chemistry homework, and the 10 year old has had multiple research papers to write on Vikings, Copper, and Rickshaws. He's writing 1-page essays and I am highly envious. I have mostly upper-level classes next semester; I'm looking forward to all of them, but I'm also expecting plenty of papers due for them all. And they won't be little piddle-ee-dink one pagers either.

~Princess Ouch~