Anna and Jennifer

The following is an excerpt from the journal I kept when I was seven. For your enjoyment, I have not altered or corrected any spelling, but some punctuation has been added for clarity. This type of thing is lost in translation, but I also want you to know that it was written in fairly decent cursive.

Anna & Jennifer

PROLOGUE
(Had I known what a Prologue was in 2nd grade, this would have been it.)

I wish my name could be Jennifer because it is a pretty name and because it is a populer. This story about two little girls.

CHAPTER 1
Once upon a time their were two girls named Anna and Jennifer. They were both populer, but Anna was nice to people that looked diffrent and ugley but Jennifer onley liked the populer girls. They were in 3rd grade. Jennifer had a friend that was a boy. She called him her boyfriend, but Anna didn’t have a boyfriend. Then one Saterday Anna and Jennifer went to the store and Jennifer wanted to see if Anna would steal, but Anna would not steal. Then on Monday, the two of them sol a new girl. Her name was Sensila.

Jennifer came up to Sensila and said, “Hey, Sillya, you don’t have make up? If you don’t have make up, you arn’t cool, plus there are to many scares on your face.”

“S-so,” she said fritendly.

Anna said, “Hi Sensila, I’m Anna. Where are you from?”

“Nashville, Tennisea.”

“Welcome to Michigan. You will like it in Allegan. North Ward is a nice place to go to school.”

“Thank you Anna. Is that girl over there your friend?”

“You mean Jennifer?”

“Yeah.”

“Yes, but she is mean sometimes. I get use to it. You will, too.”

“I sure hope so.”

“Do you have any firends?”

“No.”

“I will be your friend.”

Jennifer: “I hread that, Anna! You aren’t cool, you are hanging out with a geck.”

Anna: “She is not a geck! Just because she is uglie don’t mean she is a geck! You don’t even know what she looks like on the inside!”

Jennifer: “Whatever Anna!”

THE END

we've come so far

The semester is officially over. Although I was home, I managed to make it through my fair share of finals — a total of six papers. I enjoyed researching and writing papers on my view of the end times, the Mormon view of the afterlife, and my philosophy of education. I think I did a particularly killer job of writing a worldview integration lesson, featuring Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein.

And now I’m done.

Well… now the wedding orchestration heats up, I guess you could say. Yesterday, we had the lady who is doing our decorations come to the Lakeview Lodge to do some brainstorming and dreaming about what will be arranged. My dad began setting up our chuppah - the canopy under which Kevin and I will be married. It’s already so beautiful! My mom bought all the card stock and linen paper we need for our programs, and we’ve begun putting them together! It’s all going to be so beautiful!

This coming week, I will be a bridesmaid in one of my best friend’s weddings… exactly a week before my big day. What a way to get a person in the mood for weddings! I’m certainly excited to see the two of them - both great friends of mine - joined together.

Only eleven days till it’s my turn, though! And praise God for His faithfulness in getting us to this point!

Although it’s Christmas break now, and I’m going to be bustling around getting stuff ready for Cindy’s wedding, and then Christmas and my wedding after that… and the honeymoon… I’ll be sure to update at some point soon!

Happy Holidays! God bless us, everyone!

this is where i am

Written: Nov. 31, 2010.

All right. I’ve got to square with you guys. Mostly, because I wanted to use that phrase. But also because you deserve to know where I am in life… right now….

**********Although now I’d like to go into a semi-authoritative rant on the improper grammar of the phrase, “Where I’m at.” However. There seems to be a better understanding (in our generation, anyway) of the difference between where I’m at and where I am. The former can denote a certain (not necessarily physical location or position) whereas the latter typically (if not always) seems to refer to particular location.

Take this for instance: Suzy sits down with Rob and says, “…Rob, where are we at?” Everyone understands they’re about to launch into what is known as a DTR or DRT (depending on the region of the country from which you happen to hail) — a Defining The Relationship talk, or a Determining Relationship Talk. Whichever term you capitalize, what is being defined and discussed is not a physical location or position. Now, had Suzy sat down with Rob and said, “…Rob, where are we?”, her question is significantly more ambiguous to even the most attentive of eavesdroppers. Rob might respond anywhere from, “Ummm we’re in Dunkin Donuts?” to “Well, where are any of us, really? What does it mean to beanywhere?” Man, Rob is super philosophical. Regardless, my point is made. “Where are we at” = more clear. “Where are we” = less clear.**********

And now: This Is Where I Am. Ambiguous title, with ambiguous phrasing to reflect the disequilibrium that I currently feel. Don’t you love my little grammatical interlude and the way I used it to set up my next point? Cha-ching! That noise was more of a sound of victory than a sound of money coming in… as if my words would ever bring in the big bucks.

Let me break it down:

I’m feeling sentimental. Yes, I’m a girl and yes, emotions fluctuate irregularly fairly regularly, but I’ve been feeling consistently sentimental lately.

I happen to be one of those annoying people who has decided that the acceptable start of the Christmas season is November 1, and the acceptable end is somewhere around February. This is a season, people, not a mere holiday. This particular, up-and-coming Christmas is especially exciting and important and… sentimental.

I’m getting married in 29 days. Do the math and that’s 4 days after Christmas, but squarely in the middle of the Christmas season. This is, then, my last semester not only of undergrad classes at PBU, but my last semester as a single woman. Yikes. I’m overwhelmingly excited for my life with Kevin, though my childhood is officially over (haha). We graduate in May. We move out to Denver, CO in June. We have triplets in September. …Just seeing if you’re awake… We follow God wherever He leads. We are excited for life! But everything changes!

We leave behind PBU and all that entails: our best friends, the professors who have spoken into our lives, our jobs, the life we have known. We start over. We start afresh.

Beginning to get the picture of my life right now? Beginning to get the picture of Where I Am? It’s a physical location, yes — still at PBU — but mentally, emotionally, spiritually, my location is much more ambiguous. I’m at this tenuous little in-between area of my life. Kevin and I are together, but not yet. We have a joint bank account, but we don’t live together yet - we don’t share everything as man and wife yet. I have a month left of undergrad classes, but after that, I’m hardly a “real student” anymore, as I become the student teacher in the spring. I cherish my life here: my job, my friends, classes, but I’m beginning to ease out of all of that. I’m beginning to let go. Let go of my singleness; let go of my dorm room; let go of my education in the sense that classes are preparation for life, but I have a foot in classes and a foot in “life”. Getting it yet?

This picture I took, driving through Washington Crossing (one of my favorite and most beautiful places near here), expresses all this better than I have, I’m sure. What I see and what I experience is here, and it is tangible, but I’m beginning to pass it by. And that’s why Where I Am is so… sentimental.