Loneliness gets me to write

I'm officially alone. Just got a call from Scott saying he was driving through cornfields in Boise, Idaho, and the Reimers have not yet finished their vacation in Cancun. That makes me the only one left in town. Thank goodness I only have to endure this for less than a day, but boy is it hard having only Copper to talk to.

I took him for a walk just now. On my walk I realized something about Loneliness. It doesn't hit you until you're in between doing things. You can occupy yourself with as many tasks as you'd like, and it would be all fine. But it's not until you're finished with one task and on to the next that you realize you're used to telling someone what you've just accomplished, or what you're about to do next.

On my walk with Copper we passed a pile of neatly folded clothes along with some other miscellaneous things next to a shopping cart. Yes, even the homeless get bored and lonely enough to categorize their treasures and fold their laundry.

So, although no one will probably read this, I have to tell you that next I'm going to walk down the street to get something for dinner, and then I'm going to come back, work on the newsletter, and then watch Star Wars. I'm so glad I could tell someone.

p.s. How I managed to live in a studio apartment by myself for 2 years I do not know.

Choices

While I sit in the library I get a lot of time to do my homework. I also get a lot of time to muse about pointless topics.
Today I had one such musing. In life there are many choices to be made. Some are bigger than others, but we all make way more choices every day than we credit ourselves.

One of these choices is the name we use to call that little plastic device we stick into computers to save data.

Is it a:
Thumbdrive
a Flash drive
a USB drive, or a
Memory stick?

There are also different preferences to the way we staple documents.

We've got the:
Bangers- those who put their whole force into slapping that darn stapler to seal the deal.
Holders- the people who feel they have more control if they hold the stapler to their paper.
Pacifiers- the more tranquil population of this world who believe a gentle use of compressive force can attach two pieces of paper together.

We must all make choices. The words we use and the actions we take all make a statement about who we are. I know this isn't important stuff, but I had to get it out.

Thank you.

Uganda

Ok, I broke my promise. I didn't write about Uganda on the 17th of September. Instead, I let homework, or whatever got in the way to distract me. Do you see now why I don't make promises?

And this is the very thing I learned in Uganda. Putting the most important things first. We had very loose instructions for each day on our trip. We were told at 4am we would get on the bus to begin our journey to Kapchorwa, or something like that, which was usually a time we were required to keep, but then afterwards the time was ours. Yes, we were told to be on the bus by such and such time, but honestly... TIA (This is Africa) counted more than our watches or clocks did.

I think the point I'm trying to make is that time became a less important issue, because if it took us away from having fellowship with one another, or building a deeper relationship with a person, then we were to ignore the time. My argument is that I think 3 weeks into getting back and having to go back to school and such that I forgot how to put more important things first. Ok, writing in a blog might be less important than doing homework that's required for the next day, but fundamentally, it's more important for me to remember and share with others my trip to Uganda, rather than think only about a homework deadline. 5 minutes away from my homework time would have been a fine investment in my time. Because now, almost 2 months later, I find myself very blurry on the details of the trip and it's going to take me three times as long to update my blog.

Having said that, I wrote an e-mail to my friends and former coworkers about the trip, and I decided to include it in here, because it might better illustrate my feelings about this trip. Here it is:

Hello!
> I'm back from Uganda and I had a fantastic time.
>
> The trip was only 2 weeks, but when I stepped back in LA it felt like I'd been away for a month. We saw most of Uganda, except for the north where fighting is going on between the government and the Lord's Resistance Army. Along the way we visited many churches, and each time we stopped we were greeted by the Sunday School children of that congregation. They'd sing us songs, and the women in the church always had food for us to eat.
>
> The food was good, except it got mundane eating the same plate of matooke (boiled and smooshed plantains), chepat (deep fried tortilla), rice, and pineapple. In any case, they were always very generous, so we had to be grateful.
>
> In addition to seeing churches, we visited many widows and sang for them, bringing them a little happiness into their lives, and they in turn fed us and showed us around their homes. It's a high honor for a person to be visited by a "mzungu" (which means "white person"). The people in the refugee camp were also happy to see us, and it was really heartbreaking to see what kinds of conditions they live in. The kids who live there are usually orphans. When we visited, all the kids grabbed the hands of everyone in our team and walked with us while we looked around the camp. This little girl named Sheila held on to a deflated balloon we gave her with one hand, and held so tightly on to me with the other. She trusted me so much, and wouldn't let go of my hand even though she had no idea who I was.
>
> At the end of our trip, we took some time off to go on a safari, and concluded with a big meeting at the Lugazi University near Kampala where we had church with 700 youth from around Uganda. We taught them team-building games (which I think they didn't get the concept of) and ate more matooke. By the end of the trip everyone had been sick at least once from the food/water, and I was ready to have a good old-fashioned American meal.
>
> I couldn't possibly distill the trip and what it meant to me in one e-mail. I can tell you the things I did there, but what really touched me was what I learned from them. These people don't have much in the world, but they can still sing and dance and praise God. It was quite eye-opening. Since I got back, I've found I'm not complaining about things as much anymore.

Actually, I don't even know if that e-mail did the trip justice. Words are such a mystery. If you put them in the right order, they'll express your thoughts quite accurately, but if you don't...

Can a trip like this be described in words?

All I know is that I pray every day to keep Uganda living inside of me. I've started teaching the Sunday School the "Touch me Jesus" song (which Trent doesn't like), and I've been e-mailing four individuals from Uganda that I met. Also, I wear the wristband every day to be a constant reminder, and I actually found myself humming the choo choo choo choo song all the way to school on Tuesday. Anyway, the following is the first e-mail I received as I got back. This is from a girl named Babra. She wrote to me:

How is your life? How is your family? Ithank God that we are all fine,How is the pillar youth , just pray for me because am going to school okey greetings toall your friends God bless you.

And here's another one from a woman named Christine who has two young children and no husband to support her. We talked a lot while we were in Kampala:

Hallo friend,How r u doing, hope good.Howz everyone at home,mum,dad,ur 2 sisters and scott? pse send them ma best regards and tell them dat i luv en miss them in Jesus` name.Tell me how about da journey was, this way,Edith is now 3 en half momths with 7.4kgs but she's having flue and cough.For andrew, he's doing well en 2day he has made 2yrs en one month. I hope u still rem how am standing on ground,nothing has changed yet, but i still have the hope of getting someone 2 give me ahand either from u, scott en ur family as u had promised.Phiona, time is against me but i had much to write. I always praise u, miss u en luv u soooooooooo much.God bless u all

I promise

I promise I will write about Uganda tonight. I will update my blog with lots of andecdotes and high resolution pictures and I will make up for not writing in here about one of the most fantastic journeys of my life to date.

I don't usually make promises, but I find that when I do, I'm more likely to follow through.

Taste buds for processed food

It might just be the fact that I've been keeping food in my pantry/freezer an incredibly long time, but today I was disgusted at the taste of two very common staple foods in America: the PB & J sandwich, and the frozen Tyson breaded chicken nuggets. I thought freezing my bread would keep it, but at the first bite of contact, my mouth was appalled. Nothing tasted good. Then, when I bit into a chicky after dipping it in ketchup, the bubbly consistency of mystery meat was such an offense to my mouth that I had to eat the rest very quickly, as I had no other food in the cupboard. Sure, I could have gone out to eat, but now I'm afraid that anything I eat won't be able to hide it's processed origins. Also, I could have gone to buy something at Ralphs but I was too drained. Since getting home I've been taking it easy, but waiting until night time to get to sleep. I think I'll only last another half hour and then I'm out.
So, biggest culture shock so far is the food. I didn't think 2 weeks of matooke would do this to me. Unexpected.

Mamma Mia

I know all my movie review blog entries have been like short novels, but this entry is just a shortie. DON'T see Mamma Mia if you don't like having a silly smile slapped onto your face at any time. Also don't see it if you don't like the song "Mamma Mia". I have been consistently singing it every day since I saw it last Monday night. 

Dan in Real Life

Following the huge disappointment that was Wall-E (I know I'm going to be horribly unpopular because I didn't like it... that's a whole other blog entry), I was heartened when I got Dan In Real Life through Netflix. I wasn't biased because I'm a huge Office fan, and I think Steve Carrell is a talented actor. In this movie, he acted so much the opposite of Michael, almost to the point where you could feel what he was feeling. No, I didn't favor this movie because of the acting. I just really loved it for its sense of humanity. I don't know how the screenwriter did it, but they managed to make me feel like Dan was really meant to be with this girl who he had just met. They didn't make his brother (Dane Cook) an evil person, but you just felt like smooshing him anyway. You feel Dan's pain without a word coming out of his mouth. That's real writing-- when silence is bigger than words.
Not only is the movie funny, but all the characters have such real characteristics. His middle teenage daughter really thinks she's in love and she won't back down. His older daughter really wants to learn how to drive. His parents really want him to find a woman to get over the death of his wife. To write excellent characters, they almost have to be exaggerated versions of real people. If you want a character to be crazy, make them absolutely insane. If you want a person to be shy, make them like a tortoise. Somehow, it all comes out feeling so much more real and funny and emotional. This movie was funny without being stupid Steve Carrell funny. There's one point when he gets pulled over and says to the police officer "put it on my tab", and that's where I think a little of Michael from The Office comes out. I really wish the movie poster didn't look like this, because when I first saw it I was completely turned off by the movie. The poster makes it look like you're in for a 2 hour ride at the circus, but Dan In Real Life is such the opposite. In a way it's quite sad. You have to live through the pain that Dan lives with every day, and that makes the happy parts so much more happy. You're going through this dark tunnel and then something good happens very briefly. Then it's back down and Dan's depressed again, and you're right there with him.
Maybe what strikes me the most about this movie is how happy and united his family feels. It reminds me a lot of the Reimer's house in Arrowhead where all the family gets together and doesn't do anything work related. Everyone is there for the purpose of enjoying themselves and doing family things. Also, no one holds in what they really want to say. They lay everything out on the table. It's so nice to see a functional, happy, American family in the movies because it's so rare.
I loved this movie so much that I stayed up until midnight to watch the extra bonus features on the DVD. I saw the making of and the story behind the music. In "the making of", it talks about how the whole cast moved into this house off the coast of Maine where they filmed to just bond and get to know each other. They rehearsed, of course, but during that week they cooked and ate all their meals together, shared their rooms with one another, and became a real family. When it came time to shoot, Steve Carrell moved in and he immediately felt at home with the whole cast. The filming of this all looked so harmonious. They said that they had their long and tiring days, but that overall it was such a great experience to make.
In the story behind the music feature, they talk about the musician named Sondre Lerche who would come on set and play for the cast in between takes. The music will just blow you away with the simplicity. It's so spare and so real. This movie really is about real life without being boring at all. It's one of those stories about an instance that could have gone a completely different direction if the character had done just one thing differently. If Dan had come out with the fact that he was already in love with Juliette Binoche, the whole experience would have been different. No one would have gotten hurt and Dan wouldn't have had to go to court for all his speeding tickets. But then no characters would grow, and the movie wouldn't have been made would it?