a toast to toes

I am not much for drawing attention to feet, or at least not to my feet. Less-than-graceful finishes with stubby digits attached, my feet are usually kept well under wraps on formal occasions, and left under the flair ends of jeans on informal ones.

But not today! Today they shine forth with a beauty lavished upon them by my wonderful friend Nancy. Today we see.... toe art!


That's right, ladies and gentlemen, that is my toe you are looking at!! C'est fantastique!!

And to heighten your appreciation for Nancy's amazing toe-adorning skills I want you to know that that flower design was accomplished with the sole instruments of regular nail polish and a toothpick!! Try that Picasso!

So ok, you can tell I'm wowed by her pedicure job (there's one more pic below in case you missed it!), but honestly, if you'd been living with these work-a-day feet for as long as I have, you'd be dancin' too!!



Anyways, good things are happening above my feet as well. Subbing this week couldn't have gone better. I've gotten some great groups of students who were helpful and fun to be with, and even some of the subject matter was stuff I could get into. Yesterday was the high point as I had several periods of Spanish class and was able on multiple occasions to see light bulbs go off and teach students things they never knew before. That, as always, is a rush, and is why I love to teach!


In one sense, subbing is a job full of moments: rowdy moments, silent moments, moments you wish you could save forever. One of my favorite moments so far came a couple of weeks ago. The students were getting settled in class before the bell rang when one of the last students walked through the door. He was, very simply, a small small person and walked with a limp to his spot, which was surrounded by the desks of much larger and more energetic boys. Right away I was worried that they might pick on him and determined to prevent that if possible.

But before I had time to act, they all started to talk and chat about the day. At one point in the conversation the little guy feebly said, "Well, I'm... I'm stupid as mud." He laughed and tried to move on, but the effect was immediate. The faces of the other boys clouded and one of them said, "Hey now! Don't you go around saying things like that about yourself!" It was a priceless moment. They spent the next few minutes explaining how he was, without question, the smartest person in class and urged him to have better thoughts of himself.
I was really struck. When they had the opportunity to hear this guy cut himself down and join in, they did just the opposite - they tried to build him up.

So subbing is full of moments. And though most are times where I simply get to keep doing my job, others remind me of a simple truth. The truth that people, even the unpredictable adolescent ones, will always be people - fallen image bearers of God, but image bearers nonetheless, and in any small way that they reflect Him, unimaginably beautiful and priceless.

God is good
and I love my job
the end :)

God is a Sanctuary

Therefore say, Thus saith the Lord God; Although I have cast them far off among the heathen, and although I have scattered them among the countries, yet will I be to them as a little sanctuary in the countries where they shall come. (Ezekiel 11:16)


C.S. Spurgeon: Banished from the public means of grace, we are not removed from the grace of the means. The Lord who places His people where they feel as exiles will Himself be with them and be to them all that they could have had at home, in the place of their solemn assemblies. Take this to yourselves, O ye who are called to wander!

God is to His people a place of refuge. They find sanctuary with Him from every adversary, He is their place of worship, too. He is with them as with Jacob when he slept in the open field, and rising, said, "Surely God was in this place," To them also He will be a sanctuary of quite, like the Holy of Holies, which was the noiseless abode of the Eternal. They shall be quiet from fear of evil.

God Himself, in Christ Jesus, is the sanctuary of mercy. The Ark of the Covenant is the Lord Jesus, and Aaron's rod, the pot of manna, the tables of the law, all are in Christ our sanctuary. In God we find the shrine of holiness and of communion. What more do we need? O Lord, fulfill this promise and be ever to us as a little sanctuary!

the feeling

of 2:30 on a Friday

after a good week of subbing

when God has blessed

and driving home

in the sunshine...



is priceless

.

I wept

I really did.

If you never spend another moment on my blog spend your last here. Just the first few minutes or so. Let it play.







.

:D

Subbed today!

woo!!


and in other news, was filling out the fafsa this evening and being that I'm past the big veinte uno in age it said this:

"Student's number of family members in 2009-2010?... 1"
:(

Oh well, I know I'm not really a family of one. On top of having the whole body of Christ for siblings I get a flesh and blood family thrown in too! Yippee!! So there, Fafsa!!

who needs words when you have Beethoven and Beaker??

Ob-La-Di, Ob-La-Da...

Life goes on, brah!


Wow, thought sometimes bails after a good Beatles line (some sort of psychedelic residue inherent in the words??). I should probably take the hint and end the post right here, but... :P


January and February have jointly made some most fascinating months for moi... college was left beind, countries were crossed, conferences were had, and to cap all, it seems that two meteors who merrily orbited their own paths for a while have now collided... we'll see what comes of that.



Yet, inevitably it's Wednesday night, and I refuse to go to bed, and lo and behold... a blog.
The current conundrum seems to be how long Candace can hold out her sanity and decorum and still remain jobless... Today I received word that the Substitute teaching license which I hoped would be here soon is still probably two more weeks out (hopes of sanity and dignity were diminished, children). And the more I thought of it, the more that hatching a sort of Plan B seemed the thing to do. So, being the jobless wordy woman that I am right now... I made a whole list of plans - haha!

So:
Plan B - go get another job while I wait for my first job to become a job.

Plan C - give up on useful and productive life and successfully memorize every episode of Gilligan's Island ever made. hmmm

Plan D - scrape some money together giving plasma and use the rest of my time volunteering at different organizations around Kokomo.

Plan E - devote my life to learning 108 ways to cook turnips.

Plan F - renovate my bedroom into a lifelike section of The Pequod from Moby Dick and stump around the house with a harpoon yelling "Avast!!!" at unsuspecting moments.

Plan G - walk over to the library with a wheelbarrow and resolve to read the complete works of Dickens, Milton, Scott, and Joyce in a week.

Plan H - finish typing this blog, go to bed like a reasonable person, and pick the most reasonable of these to do in the morning (sorry Gilligan...).

Yup, I think I'll do that last one. Tomorrow there will be precious daylight in which to pursue some path.
Tonight, my friends, is simply for sleep and stars...

going off

the radar for a few days.

Has happened before...
will happen again.

'nuff said.

I wanna see miracles
To see the world change
I wrestled the angel for more than a name
For more than a feeling
For more than a cause
Singing 'Spirit, take me up in arms with You'
And you're raising the dead in me


And if I'm honest, what scares me is that I look in my heart and this is exactly what I don't see. Not this, but selfishness and bitterness, laziness and apathy... coupled with a crippling inability to see the Savior who came to change it all. How it would transform me if I could see Him clearly...

But then I remember what a much better suppliant once prayed:

Lord, I do believe, help my unbelief!


And how he was answered
the spirit rebuked, a son restored, life changed. God incarnate reached down, grabbed his hand, and pulled him up... alive.


Lord, you've been raising the dead in me all along, and tonight I get to worship you just like a father and son did 2000 years ago: afresh, alive, anew.

this rocks my world

and should rock yours too...


Jet, Bring It On Back

arg, I tried to embed the video... but it won't let me. Oh well, you can click the link and see it nontheless....

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u4XLleCHiU4


Double arg, apparently you can only see it if you have a youtube account. Anywho, for the record it was a video of the group Jet singing an acoustic version of this song in a London studio. I certainly cannot endorse all of their music (I certainly haven't heard it all). Buuuut this one particular video happened to rock, and I happened to try to share it with you.

Well, there's my succes story for the day.... I'm gonna leave this post up so that at least you can see that I'm still alive and attempting to enjoy artistic experiences. Ciao!

waiting

what are you waiting for???

a hug

for you
today.

abroad we go and ho ho ho...

TEA!!!

This shall be a post on tea! Or at least, the excessively good times Ben and I had at San Francisco's Japanese Tea Garden, itself an excessively beautiful place.

Note that in the space/time continuum of our trip, this comes nowhere near where I left off... But as Mr. Ben is busy slaying evil bunnies on his compi, and is not inclined to give me the rest of the pics, I had to sabotage my own camera myself and work with what I got.
And this is what I got...




Can we go in???
Turns out we could not, at least not this day, because it took $10 cash (that we didn't have) to get two bums in! But, we were happy to come back another day, and monetarily support this lovely sliver of San Fran. Because...







Skadoosh!!! Coolness was great when we got there!!







This was one of *the coolest* parts of this uber cool place... the Japanese moon bridge! Only the very surefooted, brave, or Japanese should attempt to climb it...







but it was no match for me and Ben!! Yatta!!









View from the top. Sooo pretty!







This was an uber cool little pool-inside-the-rock thing... Spiffy. (that, and I was finally learning some of my camera's focus settings - yeay!)








Fish! Japaneseish colorful fish! (and, er, not for eating either... hopefully...)








I liked the other bridges too, they were made stepping stones placed just far enough to let water through, but also easily crossable by little legs, if necessary.








Hiragana. And no, I can't tell you what it means, other than the fact that the first simbol is a "no" sound... hmmm.








Everywhere bamboo with wooden fences....










A grievous reminder that not everyone is a friend to the gospel in Japan.








Ben wisely suggested that we stop and have... what else? Green tea!! By this time we were hungry enough that the buiskets and snacks provided, though... culturally enlivening..., were devouered hungrilly








at least for the most part...










But it was, by all accounts, a beautiful time, and one of my very favorite on the whole trip.

more picthurs!

We have a site!

Ben poured his precious time into a loverly road trip site which will (more or less) bring you up to date for the past couple of days (with fewer technical errors than mine...)!   Not sure where you can comment, but you're welcome to effuse here on on facebook...

Here ye be!

www.gothink.info/Roadtrip

Ciao!

TaDa!!!

Ladies and Gentlemen...

We liiiiive!


That's right! Eight full days after we set out on our intrepid journey, we're still in the land of the living! Needless to say, it's been some trip! But rather than tantalize your imaginations we'll dive right into some photos to let you in on the fabulous adventures of Ben and Cabbage!


Sunday night

Welp, any good trip begins with packings... and this is ours: Can on left, Ben on right.



Meet me in St. Louie!

Since we left at 4 a.m. in the morning we don't have any pictures of the first five hours of travel which Ben manfully and single-handedly drove by himself. Yatta!






thusly



















Then, since we were by this big arch (silver, and not golden kids) we magically decided to stop.


thusly














in which photographic frivolities ensued...






and we basically got to rest our brains.
















But no rest for our wheels... California already???

Nope.
Kansas.
We had landed in Kansas.














But that's ok


Kansas has many memorable... memories.


Right?






But really, our first day was a good drive, through some truly lovely land.






















And we were glad when it came to an end...























(note: this was *not* actually the end of our journey. Believe us that it was dark when we finally pulled into Colorado Springs. However as we didn't bother taking pictures of the dark and this provides a serene ending to the web log, we will leave your imaginations here...)



Regrettably, in this post I cannot proceed beyond our first day... pictorially at least. But do not fear that more photographic wonders will follow! (ok, I'll admit this first day was no roller coaster ride, and I don't know what the weird spacing is tha blogger is doing... but trust me... it gets better!!)


Siyonara!

So

Once upon a time...

There was a cabbage. [what better way to begin a story??] This cabbage had waddled (rolled really) through four years of college. It had been great fun and the cabbage was all the greener and leafier because of it, but she had finally rolled out of college and that was that.

Now beyond all expectation certain kindly vegetables had granted the cabbage some funds for rolling out of college. These were unexpected, but very welcome. And now she had a choice, what to do with all this funding? Well some went where it needed to go (even a cabbage’s life has expenditures), others she traded to a potato for his ipod touch (he didn’t need it anymore), but when it was all done, she was still in possession of a sizeable fortune... at least for a cabbage, you know.

So the very simplest thing that a simple cabbage could think to do after she rolled out of college, was, quite naturally, to roll some place else.
California, for example.
Yes, there was a thought for you, she could roll to California for a few days vacation, then roll back to her home in Indiana. A perfect idea.

And so the very simple cabbage decided (after some not-so-simple deliberation) that she would in fact go to California at the next available date– Monday sounded good – and take the potato with her (he was her brother after all). They would roll over the Rockies in their cabbagemobile, see the sights of California, and roll back the same way. Simple really.

And... well... that is where the story must pause for the moment, because quite frankly the rest hasn’t happened yet. But don’t worry, we’re sure the cabbage will have some very fun and hopefully not-so-life-threatening adventures with her brother, the potato, and return to tell the tale some day.

Perhaps she will post pictures on the pea bowl during the trip. Perhaps not. But if you don’t hear from her for a while, never fear. Somewhere between you and the Pacific Ocean is a cabbage/potato combination sure to be having fun somewhere. And before they know it (at least hopefully before the potato’s school starts up again!) they will be back.

because...?

Because you are precious in my eyes,

and honored,

and

I love you

Isa 43:4



Merry Christmas all

congratulations

The temptation is great to slap up another post that attempts to quantify life in google images... but I must consign that certain moments require the effort of words from people... so here, with no particular forethought from a two-day college graduate, are some words...

I find it strange, at this supposedly auspicious junction, to actually be congratulated. Now naturally I'll accept any amount of random joy and felicitations from my friends & family, but the thought that I've accomplished something truly great is beyond me at this point. As far as I can tell, all I've done for four years is gone to a little state school three miles away, studied, worked some campus jobs, and accomplished what millions of other young adults could have done with probably less grousing. It was my job for 4 years. I was just doing it, and wonder now about all the buzz.

But that's just grousing again. For I forget easily. I forget how I got here. I forget the countless hours (amounting to *days* really, if you think about it) that they have put up with my endless babble about literature or chemistry, or French...
I forget about the dining room table that they let me take over, the cups of hot tea brought to my bedroom, the celebrations that were held each time I finished a semester.
I've forgotten that they supported, prayed, and cheered me to where I am today. They deserve to celebrate this milestone, for they helped bring me here.
And then I forget about the frantic prayers before tests, prayers that were answered... amazingly, wildly beyond my desert. About the agonizing periods of writers block into which came clarity. The moments of fatigue into which came either strength or rest. (How could I forget them??? And is the weakness so far behind me that the congratulations are now really for me?)

And I forget about the times (there were so, so few of them) that I was on the giving, rather than the recieving end, of important information. That someone who was munching their dinner or discussing their homework got a little stab of the gospel into their day. How many times, hundreds... maybe thousands? could I have said something that I didn't? I forget that the God who endures such cowardice still promises bright and beautiful things in the future. That is something to remember, when college is long gone.

Yet it's done. It's over. And in the blink of an eye I am standing with four years of unpayable mercies behind me, and the cheers and encouragements of all around me. Congratulations?? I'm just a little puddle into which He has come along and dumped a load of diamonds. And oh, if I were just worthy of the gift...

But these are all just post-graduation mumblings... a piece of clay with eyes wide at what the Potter has done. And to all the clay's startled misgivings, He simply says in Hosea 14:4, Oh yes

I will love them...
freely.

today's story...

.

thank you God

for stars
and everything between them

.

In this world of news, I've found nothing new
I've found nothing pure
Maybe I'm just idealistic to assume that truth
Could be fact and form
That love could be a verb
Maybe I'm just a little misinformed.

As the dead moon rises, and the freeways sigh
Let the trains watch over the tides and the mist
Spinning circles in our skies tonight
Let the trucks roll in from Los Angeles
Maybe our stars are unanimously tired

Let your love be strong, and I don't care what goes down
Let your love be strong enough to weather through the thunder cloud
Fury and thunder clap like stealing the fire from your eyes
All of my world hanging on your love

Let the wars begin, let my strength wear thin
Let my fingers crack, let my world fall apart
Train the monkeys on my back to fight
Let it start tonight
When my world explodes, when my stars touch the ground
Falling down like broken satellites

Let your love be strong, and I don't care what goes down
Let your love be strong enough to weather through the thunder cloud
Fury and thunder clap like stealing the fire from your skies
All that I am hanging on, all of my world resting on
Your love.

clandestinely waiting ‘til le auteur returns…

.


don't worry little blog, after the GRE we may just come back...

for the record...

for all of my computer friends who demanded that I use gmail, praised its benefits over other emails, and tirelessly haggled with me until I said I'd give it a try, here's looking at you, kids:

::gives gmail a big hug for spiriting her away from the school webmail and instantaneously making life easier::

ahh, that felt good.

And on the fourth draft she said...

How precious are your thoughts to me, O God!
How vast is the sum of them!
If I should count them, they would outnumber the sand...

When I awake, I am still with You.

well...

durst we???

Turning my head out, to see what I'm all about...

Another week, another.... week?

Today for the first time I put marshmallows in my coffee.
Yes, I did.

Actually, it started out as a desperate search for any sort of decent creamer (which sadly there was a void of) so I reached for the next white sweet thing I could could find, and poof! (as my French teacher says) there we were! Actually it wasn't half bad. Try that next time you're board...

Aaaaand, I'm already running out of things to say. Part of this is perhaps due to giving some plasma today (a profitable venture in more ways than one). The upside is that you get to help your community and get a bit o compensation. The down side is that your brain (or my brain) sometimes goes with it...

Aaaanywho.... perhaps I shouldn't have used those marshmallows after all...

Speaking of which... marshmallows?? Since when are they marshmallows and who ever says it like that anyway?!

(ok, note to self: no more marshmallows, and certainly not in coffee... adverse mood affects...)


Innnn other news.

Hm. News.

Oh yes, I can put up random pictures from my phone, that shall be diverting.

To preface them, in my various travels about this land, I've started just taking pictures with my cell phone (since it's always with me) so this could be considered a haphazard pictoral representation my life the last few months...*

*as you will note that the pictures came from a phone, you will in kindness excuse their poor quality...


First?? A Christmas picture of course! Three dazzling siblings of various shapes and sizes.
More importantly, what *are* Ben and Amy doing in this picture?? Interpretations??


















Next, a random love note/graffiti scribbled on a white board at school.
Of course, those of us who work in the library are gratified.
















Next, more sibling photography, only this one is showing off his drum skilzz... Rock band! :D

















What could be better than rock band? Fireworks! Our timeline moveth forward to the Fourth of July...
















This picture was my special phone background for many moons. Taken in the Creation Museum. (no, not in today's news you silly...)





















These next two go together. I say no more.









































I have many pictures from New York, but methinks I'll save them for *gasp* another post!
Suffice it to have these two shots from the Delaware County Fair and you can see one side of the... rustic beauty that I was enjoying...

#1: a tee shirt
















#2: a sign in the bunny barn
You probably can't tell, but the eyes of the Himalayan Bunny depicted here are red and for the first time I pondered the existence of red-eyed abominable mountain bunnies...
Be afraid. Be very afraid.
















the end.

:)

midnight mental aberations...

I've been thinking about connections, and have concluded that

There's a fine line between,

genius (or even 4.0s) & insanity
biscuts & cookies (it's a British thing)
purple & happiness
leather sandals & stinky feet
siblings & vivacity
siblings & snorts
couches & sleep

There.

your Spurgeon for the day

from Acts 8:38 goes something like this:
(Acts 8:38- If you believe with all your heart, you may.)

You think, poor seeker, that you are not allowed to rejoice with joy unspeakable and full of glory; [that] if you are permitted to get inside Christ’s door, or sit at the bottom of his table, you will be well content. Ah! but you shall not have less privileges than the very greatest... When Jesus comes into the heart, he issues a general license to be glad in the Lord.

...Perhaps our reader is saying, “I wish I could enjoy the promises, and walk at liberty in my Lord’s commands.” “If you believe with all your heart, you may.” Loose the chains of thy neck, O captive daughter, for Jesus makes thee free.





Amen, sir, amen.

conversación

little voice: You know… you really need to post on your blog. You’re officially back home now, and you told them that you wouldn’t leave it forever…

me: Yeah yeah. But I have business to do this morning! I’ve already been bumming around. And you know all those emails I said I’d do last night? Well they still need to be written! Big important emails. Shouldn’t wait on them.

You told them you would post.

Wellll.

You promised!

I know!! Clam up! I have to prioritize!

Well look at you now. All you’re doing is lurching around Microsoft Word and cleaning out a jar of peanut butter. Prioritizing, are we?

Hey, my sustenance is important. No food. No Cabbage. No blog. Besides, with you nagging me like this I won’t be happy enough to write something good anyways. I won’t be able to tell them about all the coolness from New York, seeing mountains, or the fawn, or watching Olympics, or getting to know the Lord Jesus Christ better… none of that will come out; no excitement or joy or peace like I’ve had. All it will be will be grousing because I want to post but don’t have the time to write a good post because school is starting in four days and I don’t even know where all my socks are. They’ll all just see that I’m in process and still trying to figure things out, and then where will we be?!

Right where we’ve always been all along…

gone

Welp, some of you are just getting home from Calvin, some of you are progressing through your anything-but-normal lives playing with toy dinosaurs on the navigation comm or going up stairs via umbrella (you know who you are), but I know that all of you have a two burning questions on your mind as you flutter through your day.

Where oh where has Candace gone? and Why isn't she responding to my incessant messages on blogger/facebook?

The answer to the question #1 - Walton, New York - may only produce further perturbation.

Where on the planet is Walton New York???

long answer: here
http://maps.google.com/maps?f=q&hl=en&geocode=&q=Walton+NY&ie=UTF8&ll=42.166203,-75.122108&spn=0.109677,0.211487&t=h&z=12&iwloc=addr


short answer:

Nowhere
---------------------------------------------
l
l
l here.
l
l
---------------------------------------------


Which is precisely why I came.

Basically, this has been a whirlwind summer for me. Really a whirlwind half a year. First a fun but busy semester. Then Mexico for 7 weeks, then some rapid catching up with friends, and lastly the conference at Calvin where sleep as a HS counselor was so little of a priority that we only managed 1.4 hours on the last night. Sooooo yeah. First on my list of things to do in the next 48 hrs is sleep, sleeep, sleeeeeeeep.

I guess the bigger issue, though, is that on top of it all, this has been a pretty brain-intensive time as well. The Lord has had a lot to teach me in the last 7 months and it was pointed out to me that my brain can't just have input time, it needs processing time as well. So I wanted a place to process.

And that is why I'm writing this note from upstate New York and not my home in Indiana (much as I love it there!). I first came to Walton on a trip this Spring Break, and the beauty, quietness, and hospitality of it all so impacted me, that when I started thinking of places to get away to this was the first one on my mind. It isn't that I can't think and pray in Kokomo, but a wittle voice inside of me warned that all of the legitimate claims, duties, and opportunities of home would distract from the task of resting, seeking, and praying. Middle of Nowhere, here I come.

And in case you're wondering why I didn't tell you about it sooner, quite honestly I didn't know about it any sooner. I've been wanting to get away for a while, but this specific plan didn't burst upon my cranium until... ah hem, very recently. A few Walton friends very graciously offered to give me a ride and a bed, so on Friday I packed my bag of tricks and here I am.


Now to the second question, Wherefore are thou on facebook or blogger, oh Candace?

answer:
I'm not.
>:D

The general plan while I'm out here to pray, read and memorize scripture, pray, get to know the local Walton RP congregation, pray, work and help out a couple of families as I can, pray, and lastly, get out into the woods and pray some more.

See anything about Facebook on there? Nope. Sorry, this girl needs a Facebook and blogger break.

So let me be abundantly clear:

I am not checking my Facebook while I'm out here.
if you poke me on Facebook - I will not see it.
if you invite me to an event on Facebook - I will not see it.
if you make me your friend on Facebook - I will not see it.
if you send me a comment or message on Blogger or on Facebook - I will not see it.
if you send me a flagwaving, green and purple superhug via superpoke - I will not see it.

So alas, what can you do?
Well, if you truly wish to contact in the next week(s) before I get back for any greeting, question, sanity checkup, or interpretive dance, do this:

email me!!!

That's right folks! In the dawn of time before Facebook there was email! I will check my email (which ironically is on my facebook wall) from time to time, so your salutations and concerns will eventually be seen there. And I won't be gone for ever anyways, methinks I'll get back to it all when school starts. If you could care less that I fall off the face of the earth, good for you; have a donut and enjoy the rest of your day.


And lastly, when will I be getting home?

Uh, sometime... before school starts. In August. sometime.

Honestly, I'm not too worried/specific on that end. I know that I'm here for at least a week, and maybe longer than that. I'll work out transportation when it becomes clear that I need to head west. NY has planes, buses, cars, and cows, one of those is bound to do when I get me back to Hoosier-land.

Are we cool now? On the same page? Clear as mud?

Good.

See ya

on the other side.

I'm just waiting till the firing starts...

Well, we're back to the US(SR)... and oh how lucky we are!

Mexico was real, and great, and really great (and it seems that my mind is only operating in quotes right now. oh well, here's looking at you, dolt). Coming back seems to ask for a change of skin, and aridness seems to suit my pallet for now, so enjoy.

Anywho, wouldn't it be nice if I could just put out a list of "99 Useful life lessons that I learned in Mexico that I won't have to learn any more..." Somehow the burrito just doesn't seem to roll that way.

It's not that I didn't learn things, lots of things; they just seem to go all gushy and gray when I try to quantify them into neat little platitudes. Perhaps I wasn't learning so much about México in the end - after all, wikipedia will tell you any number of facts you are looking for, this is not why your travel. At the risk of being sappy (a risk I'm always dangerously happy to take) I get the feeling that somehow the thing I learned the most about in the end... was my own wittle self. Dangerous faring indeed, seamates.

But enough about that, for today let us stay in more navigable waters. In fact, why not just go to the old list idea...

21 not-so-life-altering yet usefull things I learned in Mexico:

1. In any situation “Por Favor” and “Gracias” can do a world of good
2. Some countries are just a nation full of people waiting to be your friend. Then, there is America.
3. Don’t drink the water
4. water from the tap will make you sick
5. no bebe el agua
6. if you drink the water, you diiiie. X-P
7. A “gringo” is a white foreigner from a different culture
8. we were gringos
9. Mangos, though a delightful fruit, can leave certain acids on your skin when you bite their juicy rinds. We gringos called the resulting rash “Mango Chin” and it is not an attractive facial accessory.
10. You can put lime juice on *anything* and it will taste good.
11. You can also put chili sauce on *anything*, and it will sometimes taste… bizarre.
12. Chili sauce on papaya…. baaaaad idea.
13. Honking while in traffic is a perfectly acceptable way to vent frustration. Never mind that four cars in front of you have already poured their wrath on some random object – somehow adding your own blast will still help the situation along…
14. Beware of altitude. Just because the air is cool, doesn’t mean your skin won’t be crispy red at the end of the day.
15. Being the temporary teacher in a language school does not save you from any number of personal questions, but if you tell them how much you like Mexico, the outcome will be good.
16. McDonalds is everywhere.
17. The Simpsons is everywhere.
18. we grieve over this.
19. “Ahorita” meaning ‘a little moment’ is a time unit that spans anywhere from 2 minutes to several hours. Somehow no one thinks this ambiguity diminishes its usefulness.
20. Goth or emo kids are not to be taken at face value. Oftentimes if you make a crack, they get it first, if you ask them their opinion, they will eloquently express it, and if you shoot them a smile they are suddenly your friend.
21. When the day is done and you are abroad, you may be lonely. You may be exhausted. You may have frittered another precious 24 hours away on google or youtube or facebook, trying to fill a void. But behind it all is a God that is stretching your brain, viewing both successes and failures with mercy, and saying to you in your darkest moments “It is I; do not be afraid” (Jn 6:20).

a veces, ella habla

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