My quarterly update (more like biyearly...)

A year ago I was embarking on my second year of graduate school and anxiously anticipating Michael's return. Today I am enjoying a lazy morning getting ready to go celebrate my goddaughter's first birthday at her daycare and reflecting on the year that has passed. Being out of school and not teaching anymore should hypothetically leave me oodles of free time to organize my life and find a fab job, but the past week is really the farthest I've gotten on that! I got back a week ago from a month-long trip home to Washington, and it was only getting back from that that I really felt like I'd had "vacation", thus making me feel at liberty to seek out my new occupation. I say "occupation", because at this time I am really mainly seeking something to do just that (albeit in a more-than-mundane way!) - "occupy" my time. I also have become accutely aware that, despite my ambitions of being a wildly independent woman who has no trouble moving from place to place and being constantly uprooted (read = leaving amazing friends behind at every turn...)...I am, in fact, very much in dire need of human contact. Michael's and my latest additions, two cats, have been very entertaining and do help me feel a bit less alone in the apartment until he gets home, but even his company doesn't satisfy my desire for "girl talk" sometimes. He does do his very best to indulge that, but let's face it, it shouldn't be a requirement of his "job description" as a husband, though many wives do still expect that of theirs. So, I digress back to my "occupation" quest. I've put a couple irons in that fire and will hopefully hear back sooner than later. In the meantime, I am going to focus on getting a firm budget in place and keeping in touch with those I count dearest.

My first few months back in Columbus were fraught with realizations that shook me up, despite the fact that I had expected that such a thing might very well happen! It's a bit irritating when you do know your tendencies but then realize that you don't actually know yourself as you would like. That being said, I don't think it's God's will for us to ever get to a point where we fully "know" ourselves, because that is one of His everyday miracles: revealing us to ourselves through Himself. (He is always about sentences that you have to read and reread because of the presence of so many darned similar pronouns/nouns, I have found.) And so I blundered through various daily struggles, many of which left me wondering why my friends didn't call or write or email. Out of these many moments, I had a bit of an epiphany: was I calling, writing, or emailing THEM? Well, yes AND no, but for the most part I spend most of the time that I could have been doing that wishing my friends were getting in touch with me. Oh, humans. Such little minds we have, and so SO slow to learn and even slower to change! Friendship will never be a one-way street. At times, there are stretches of one-way, but never should it continue. We all have moments of need that prevent us from meeting in the middle at the yellow line, but the fact of the matter is, keep in touch with someone if you'd like them to keep in touch with you. This isn't a sermon to make anyone feel bad, it's just what I believe and was not living out! One goal that I came up with while in Washington the past weeks was to do my part in keeping in touch, because even if you can't fit all the visits in, a little note or a call can literally make someone's day. If someone calls me and only has the time to say "Hi, I'm thinking of you", that means the world to me. They could have just as easily said to themselves, "I don't have time to have a 30-minute conversation, so I'll just Facebook her to say hi." Hearing someone's voice or seeing their handwriting and knowing they took the time to get out or choose a card and mail it seem to be luxuries today. So I'm going to try to be better, because it's the least I can do!

For now, I must go, but more of my recent musings will be forthcoming, maybe even later this afternoon! (I can dream, right?)

2011 has arrived

Johnson family on Christmas Day.

Burgess family on Christmas Eve.

Burgess family jr. the week before Christmas.

Bonjour à tous!

Unfortunately, my blogging is only getting less frequent, so I'm sure what few readers I had have since found another, more interesting and more updated individual's live-journal. However, I am currently enjoying a glass of wine when I should be reading (not a minute goes by when I can't say to myself "I should be reading"...even if I already AM reading!) and so I have decided to finally update this thing!

In just three and a half months, Lord willing and my brain withstanding, I will have a Master's in French from the University of Illinois at Chicago. I will be living WITH my husband in Georgia, where we will have just shy of two years to finally settle into a more domesticated life, before... Who knows what! During that interval, I hope to recharge a bit after over 20 years of schooling. How that will happen exactly, I am not completely certain, but one of my ideas recently has been to write a book about Michael's and my last 4.5-5 year journey. Collectively, we have been to war twice, [will have] graduated twice, studied abroad once, moved three times in various capacities, and been married! I don't know if I'll be successful, but I'm hoping, with perhaps a bit of dramatization (we were blessed to have a less tumultuous relationship than Noah and Allie), so give James Patterson a run for his "The Notebook" money. Maybe an indie film crew will even pick up our story for a film. If I don't write a book for cathartic emotional relief, I will certainly be spending lots of time with my goddaughter, Jasmine, and look for translation and/or short-term teaching work for French. In Georgia, I think I will be a bit less "common" as a language commodity, and while French isn't necessarily the #1 second language down there, there are several large companies who call it their home, so we'll see what happens.

In the meantime, I have to annotate approximately 12 primary texts (i.e. novels from various periods of French literature) and finish annotating about 35 secondary texts (these are articles, chapters, books that are mainly literary criticism focusing on a single work or theme which pertains to one of my three exam topics), write two exams, and sit one oral exam. Oh, did I mention the two regular classes and teaching one section of French 104? Not to be too overdramatic, but it is quite a bit to chew on this semester. The annotating has started off well, though, and I have just shy of five weeks to complete those. After submitting that information, I have about a month to review and reread before the first exam on March 28th. Spring Break is the week directly before the first exam, so I will spend it in GA reading and studying during the day, and resting and enjoying time with Michael in the evening when he gets home from work. Until May, we will see each other just about once a month, which will be a nice consistency considering the amount of work I have in the next 14 weeks (not that I'm counting!). He's also studying to go to the promotion board sometime in February or March, so luckily I'm not the only one who is busy.

For most of the summer and through the fall, I had stopped attending Willow Creek church here in Chicago. A couple of weeks ago, I resumed going and am so thankful for the weekly fellowship. I only know a few people there (and the Chicago campus alone is about 1,000 attendees!), but the consistency and short time of escape from "real world life" each week restores me to face another 7 days. I've also been committing a time to God each Saturday, either in the morning or after lunch, so spend time in prayer, writing, and reading the Bible. I find that, while I have little energy during the week to pray a full list of individual peoples' needs without drifting off to sleep, it is very important to have a specific time devoted to that, no matter if it is structured or not.

The winter is holding fast here in the Windy City. Last Friday we had a low of -1, which "felt like" -18. I've never been in cold like that before, and I truly hope that I never will be again. Unfortunately, anything under 40 seems to feel relative here, where the wind really is brutal and unrelenting. I'm blessed to live so close to the lake when it is 60 degrees and sunny and I have nothing to do but to go for a walk or a run, but right now I'm wishing I lived in a forest somewhere! However, that being said, I am blessed to have a roof over my head, warm clothes to wear and the funds to pay for heat and food.

It's time that I go get ready for bed and some reading before heading to sleep. May this find you and yours safe, sound, and thankful to be together.

Que Dieu vous bénisse!

Summer, Fall...Homecoming!

It has been a LONG time since I've updated anything on here! Unfortunately, I don't even have time to do it now, but thought I would at least post a picture from Michael's arrival home from Iraq on September 30th. We had an amazing 5 days together getting our car, apartment, and life back together in Georgia before I jetted back up to Chi-town to get back to work and school. It's hard to believe that in just 7 months I will have my Master's degree in French! In retrospect, it has gone really quickly. In the day-to-day, not so much, but we are thankful for the lessons we have learned and the obstacles that are making us stronger individually and in our marriage. That being said, I am certainly looking forward to just bumming around the house for at least a couple of weeks when I get home to Georgia in May!

Hopefully, I'll be able to give a more in-depth update sometime soon. Until then, here's our most recent milestone...

Summertime = readingtime

Tomorrow I will leave Chicago (again) for a 7-week trip to Washington. While I am looking forward very much to having so much time to be with family, friends, and my French books, the constant movement of Michael's and my life is certainly wearing on me lately. Having just been gone for almost a month in Europe after a whirlwind year at UIC, this week has felt like it has happened in slow motion and also like there was never enough time. The proximity of Michael's arrival back to the States in just a few days over 3 months, paired with the amount of work that lies ahead to prepare for Master's exams next April, combined with the stresses of packing and getting all of my ducks in a row for almost 2 months away has been tiring. The variety of emotions that I am feeling is quite like the rainbow, and each one comes and goes just as quickly. This is a good year for us - for our marriage, for ourselves, and for our future - but it is a hard, and sometimes desert-like, year. Of course, we are not lacking in anything we need - love, food, and resources are abounding compared to many 20-something married couples' realities. However, emotionally and spiritually it has often been desert-like. Strangely enough, the desert usually ends up yielding abundant and beautiful life - whether through lessons or literal things that could only come with time. Well, let me correct myself = most good things come over time. But some things that for some come quickly and easily (and that are often, as a result, taken just as quickly for granted) have come slowly, but surely, for us. Time together, for example. Obviously this has been something that neither one of us has any control over, and that God has painstakingly planned out day by day. Also, independence and self-confidence for each of us has been built up and fortified this year as we have been apart. Being on either side of the ocean has forced us to become more expressive with our words, and we have both gone through very challenging and despairing moments in our own ways. So, as we near the end of this period, I am grateful for it.

Last month, we were blessed to have put away enough money this year to finally take our honeymoon - just in time for the one holiday we celebrated together so far in 2009-2010, our 1st anniversary! A fabulous trip throughout England and France was filled with rich conversations, wonderful friends, and even a wedding at a royal palace (not ours!). We met up in London, not surprisingly at the airport, and proceeded to spend our first 3 days there. During that time, we met up with (or I should say they came to US, thank you N & D!) my dear friend, Niamh, and her boyfriend, Damien, who are currently living and working in Stafford, England:
Next we headed to Lille, France, where I lived for my sophomore year of college. While we were there we visited a few of the sites and spent two great evenings with my former roommate, Claire-lise, and her boyfriend, Samuel. Wonderful food and wonderful conversation - regardless of a slight language barrier for the boys!

After a time that was much too short in Lille, we headed back to the UK to meet up with Robert & Heather Pasman, who kindly stuffed us and all of our luggage alongside theirs in their rental car out to Oxford.

The of our 1-year anniversary, we hopped back on the Eurostar and back to France - this time to Paris, where we stayed in a wonderful hotel on the Ile St. Louis. My parents met us for 3 of the 6 days we spent there, and we were blessed to only have about one and a half days of rain!
It was an amazing time together and we hope to be able to get back there sooner than later...

After Michael headed back to Iraq, I continue up north to Scotland to meet my parents and to take in some of the breathtaking scenery up there. We visited Murray Watts and Monique Sliedricht at Freswick Castle outside of Wick, and also took a few days up in the Orkney Islands. The Viking history remains evident in many of the corners of Orkney, but so does life from 5,000 years ago! It is hard to get one's head around standing in a village that is older than the Egyptian Pyramids.

What a fabulous way to spend the better part of May and the beginning of June! Now I look forward to spending the better part of the next two months doing preliminary reading for my Master's exams. A Kindle has been purchased in hopes to minimize cumbersome carry-ons in what will certainly be many back & forth journeys from Atlanta to Chicago, and I am set with two lists of French classics to choose my primary sources from over the next several weeks. I am so lucky to be able to be studying the language that I love so much, and will also look forward to another two semesters of teaching at UIC as a TA. God is good! Blessings to you during this summer season.

Spring Break, Easter, 10k, Food & Water Challenge

I hadn't realized how long it had been since I'd updated the blog! Things have been crazy since the beginning of March...then came Spring Break...then came Easter...now comes FINALS!!! It's so hard to believe that we only have 2 more weeks of regular class before finals week. What a crazy, wonderful, exhausting year it has been. Today is also ONE MONTH away from when Michael and I will see each other for the first time in 7 months. I cannot wait.

During Spring Break, I'm not sure I ever got a night's sleep longer than 7 hours...which I know is still considered "enough"...but when you're goingoingoing it is not really enough! I flew out to San Ramon, California, to visit Jes for 5 days in the sunshine. We had a great time catching up, running, and having some great meals together. My mom touched down in Chicago one hour after I did for a 5 day visit of her own to me, during which we shopped, sight-saw, and just had a great time hanging out together. It was COLD, though! Definitely didn't feel too much like the first week of spring. One highlight of our week was seeing the baby mammoth that they recently uncovered in Serbia (or Russia? I should know this...) that is the most complete specimen found to-date. Amazing - scientists were able to determine her age at death, the approximate date of her death, what she'd been eating, how she died, etc. from her internal organs, which were just as well-preserved as her outsides. The Field Museum is always a fun visit, but this was pretty astonishing.

The weekend after Spring Break was Easter. I headed out to Wheaton to visit Tony & Marianne Payne, dear friends who I met last summer at an arts conference on Orcas Island and with whom Michael and I shared a wonderful dinner when we first moved up this summer. It was a chaotic yet fun couple of days, and it was good to be with a family for the holiday.

Over the past month and a half, I have been training for my first 10 kilometer race, which took place last Saturday in Grant Park here in Chicago. It was so fun to train running in California and then along the lake which is so close to my apartment, and it definitely was rewarding to cross that finish line without having stopped! I won't say I was feeling at my best, but my friend Sarah ran it with me and kept me going through the sweat and sideaches. We ran it in about 1 hour 3 mins, so approximately 10 min/mile. We aren't speed-demons, but I was happy to have kept a consistent pace no matter what it was.

This week, I am participating in the "Food and Water Challenge" with my church, Willow Creek. It is in conjunction with their "Celebration of Hope", an annual 3-week period following Easter during which they raise money and awareness about the 50% of the world who isn't fortunate enough to have daily access to clean water and regular, nutritional meals. A week from Saturday I will be packing seed-packets for families in Africa (each one will eventually yield approximately 1,000 POUNDS of fruit & vegetables!) with hundreds of other volunteers. The packets will be going to villages close to where Willow bored wells last year, so that irrigation is possible with viable water. The "Food and Water" part of this started on Monday and will continue through Friday - those participating agree to eat and drink as that 50% of the world does. We are limited to plain oatmeal or Cream of Wheat in the morning, and throughout the day a cup each of rice, beans, and vegetables, as well as a couple ounces of meat...and all throughout only tap water for drink. It hasn't felt impossibly hard like I thought, but hunger isn't a very friendly companion, that is for sure. I find it fascinating how the mind can overcome the body for very long periods of time - I find myself forgetting the fact that I haven't eaten much at all for several days...until the night when I am lying in bed and wishing I could have something as substantial as a yogurt! (It doesn't help that I have about 10 of them in my fridge.) But in those moments of hunger and of grumpiness from it, I am doing all that I can to channel my thoughts and prayers towards those who don't choose to live this way, and who are forced to live in uncertainty each day as to whether or not they will even get this amount of food. I urge you to pray for that half of the world's population - and if you are able, look into donating to an organisation like World Vision or Compassion International whose goal is to seek out and help those people, especially the children. There is 2 times the amount of food necessary to feed the ENTIRE world's population - why isn't it happening? If you think about it, we are really the sole solution. So whether you are a believer or not, it is up to you - and me, and our friends, family and acquaintances - to make that difference. Even $5 can be the last money needed to bore a well or pay for a shipment of seeds.

I'll get off my soapbox now to post up a few pictures from the events I've talked about.

Jes & I heading out to celebrate one of her friend's birthdays.

Jes & her man Jon when we met up with him in Santa Cruz - amazing day and he's pretty cool, too :-)

Holding Eliana, the baby that Jes nannies for.

With Mom at the Field Museum.

Out to dinner at the Creperie.

All ready for the race, dorky hat and oversized-shirt and all!

Afterwards - we didn't really care about overexposure, we were too sweaty to! Whew, a job well done.

All my love to all of you - I hope that this finds you well. God bless.