Thursday, November 21, 2013

We welcome December with tireless hope

It's a balmy 50 degrees fahrenheit and I'm still so cold. Serious winter wimp right here. Anyway, I've held out long enough, so our first Christmas song of the season is Sleeping At Last again because right now I am just all about poetic lyrics. Please listen to the gorgeous song: Snow by Sleeping At Last.

Fall is known for being a sensitive time for people over here, but I think for me personally, the end of Fall and beginning of Winter is when I start thinking more deeply and feel more introverted (if that is possible). Cue time for poetry reading and listening to Sleeping At Last like an addict. 

Along with thinking more comes worrying more...and usually about things that don't need worrying about. Case in point: my most recent cry was because I couldn't translate a poem from Korean to English. At the time it felt like evidence that I wasn't getting any better at Korean and that literature, one of the things most dear to me, was forever inaccessible to me in another language. A.K.A. Major Drama Queen Moment...but actually one that kind of still worries me just the tiniest bit.

Winter in many ways is a time for patience, a time for "waiting-and-seeing." The truth is that most things in life take time, more time than we imagined: learning languages, relationships, buying more yarn to finish that scarf (still haven't gone yet...). The question isn't whether we'll have to wait or not, because we will. The question is what will we do with the waiting? Will it only be that squiggly line between times and dates (November 23~June 2014) or will it be something of substance?

I also don't think "being of substance" is about doing doing doing either. Maybe getting too deep here, but a metaphor I've been thinking about lately is that of the flower bulb. It doesn't do a whole lot actively, but it's the result of a plant slowing storing up strength for itself. It's a kind of rest, but an active rest that prepares the plant to flower when Spring comes again. So that's what I want to use my Winter for. For waiting-and-seeing and storing up strength. 

Community News:

* Prayer for Sunny appreciated! Her baby was looking like he was going to make a rather early arrival, so now she has to be on bed rest...tough to do with two other little people in the house.

* Projector bit the dust, but there is a new one on its way! Of course, there is a donation box, if you would like contribute to our movie watching.

* The Great Season of Cookies is on our doorstep. In order to give two cookies to every attendee of our Connexus Christmas party, we calculated that we will need to make around 800 cookies. That's right. 800. It's going to a factory up in this joint for the next couple weeks. 

Recently Watched

* Home Alone 2. Those robber should have been dead. It's like Looney Tunes. Also, I miss having a TalkBoy.

* Human Planet: Artic. I guess I should be thankful it's not that cold here. Next up a little more steamy with the Jungles episode!

Quotes from the community

"Michael, you are a really good friend. Your being, your laughter, your smell." --Yoonseo

"Sybil is a serious babe." --Heather speaks the truth


Quotes from the Classroom

"How many kilos does your mom weigh?" ---Sarah's students grill each other on the nitty gritty stuff.


1 comment:

  1. Abby this is the first time I've read your blog and I will be reading the rest soon. I love how you write. And Harry and Marv definitely shouldn't have survived through the first Home Alone let alone the second haha.

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