sg envy

songs of the moment:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qfjX66JCgu0

every time i get a new computer, i lose songs in the backup. mp3's are like socks - you put them all in there, you pull them all out - and inevitably some just run off by themselves and disappear. and when they're korean - it's that much harder to figure out how to redownload them.

fail.

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pdny had a good sermon yesterday. this whole series has been good, matt 5.

bry told me the other day that it's ok to tell God he sucks. actually, he reminds me of that a lot. but it's true - essentially, that's what prayer is. it's not like God doesn't know what i think prior to my voicing it. that whole omniscient thing isn't something you can get around.

anyways, so i have sg envy. i realized this has been building up since the beginning of the plant, but it only adds to the "God, i thought you were supposed to provide" angst. first off, i didn't really like the prospect of leading alone. but there it was. no coleader, no champions, and as of last week, few signups and the ones that did were all new. no manpower. and part of me just takes the extra jab that young and ptr will continue tlc and somehow i got stuck flying solo. i enjoyed last year's core. i really hope God provides.

i dislike hoping these days. it makes me tired.

my hand hurts. i think it's gotten worse.

could've would've should've. didn't.

my new year's resolution is to be less of a grandma. ok fine, it's not even the end of october yet, but...i'm such an ahjumma and perfectly ok with it. i get tired at midnight. and i'm ok with staying at home on a friday night watching tv and playing games on fb.

danc called me at 10.30 tonight saying he and chin and charls were coming down from boston and to see if i could come out. by the time i called him back (after 11p) they were almost here...and after a long day of fball and outlet shopping (yes, christmas is upon us, and i unfortunately packed away half of the gifts i had already bought and put them into storage in the 'extreme thinning of material possessions' effort) - it took formidable effort to overcome activation energy.

but it's danc and chin and i missed the mit reunion weekend last week, and...well, why not? so i went out, and joined their cornell tkd reunion and...it was fun.

there's a part of me that wishes i partied more (or rather, partied at all) when i was younger. (to which chin interjected that i'm still young and i should go party now). though i really do feel too old.

but i wonder, in all my years of studying and training and more training and traveling and even more training - did i miss out?

at the end of the day, i always kept doing tkd and putting my head down and just pushing, pushing, pushing all the time - because i stood by the statement that i would rather regret the things i did do than the things i didn't do. but at the end of the day, all i regret are the things i didn't get to do. which i suppose i shouldn't feel so bad about because i did what i could do - but in the end i still didn't get what i wanted, and that was one heck of a lot of sacrifice to fall short.

i looked around the bar at all these people having a good time. it was good music, good company, and generally good tasting drinks that i probably drank too fast. (mental image of mikey shaking his head at me for my tendency to just drink whatever is put in front of me. what can i say? i get thirsty.) but i wondered...is this what normal people do? and do i wish i was normal? (while being well aware that i'm NOT normal).

i wish i hadn't turned down all the birthdays and such that i'd been invited to. that i'd learned how to dress appropriately, act appropriately (i'm still unsure as to what the protocol is for tipping a bartender), stay awake past midnight, and the like.

but...it requires so much effort. and i really do like watching reruns and playing games on fb.

for the love of the game

when people find out that i love football, their reactions are always one of these two:

a) assume i'm a giants fan

b) if not a, then they ask who my team is

after who knows how many years, and symbolically (at least in my mind) having relinquished my CA drivers license (with my 16-year-old-with-braces picture) - i have finally become a real new yorker. (i can feel my friendly factor and optimism diminishing as i type). however, when someone mentions the giants, i still think back to candlestick park (not that i'd ever watched a game there), to orange and black, to my favorite players i used to collect baseball cards for (nasty chewing gum and all)...

so when i say i'm not a giants fan, people ask if i'm a pats fan. having lived in boston for 6 years, during which i believe they won a superbowl if not 2, you would think so. but i never watched a pats game or knew who tbrady was until after i left boston. same with the sox.

so in high school i was definitely a giants and niners fan. but i'm not entirely sure what happened in college and beyond. i think it's because i don't want to jump on bandwagons - being in ny is an interesting way to follow sports. you can't really be a mets fan unless you grew up a mets fan. i mean, most of the time there isn't much to cheer about. jumping on the yankees bandwagon just seems wrong - it's kind of like how girls in LA who don't know anything about basketball are lakers fans just because they're good. the giants had that one miraculous season (though i must admit, that tyree catch and manning scramble were pretty awesome) but i really disliked plaxico. (this gets me going on another weird thing i have, where i can't separate an athlete's skills from his/her character. if an athlete is a douchebag, i don't care how good he is - i just can't admire him.) the jets? eh. same boat as the mets.

so here i am, in the middle of the best time of the year (football season) - and i don't have a team.

so when people ask me who i'm a fan of, i've found myself saying something of the following:

i'm a peyton fan. (seriously. i love watching peyton.) i'm a reggiebush fan. brandonjacobs. larryfitz. randymoss. LT.

in short - i'm a football fan. i just love the game. i don't really care who wins or loses - i just want to see good football. i like seeing plays develop. good routes, fakes, leadblocking, teamwork, and especially good playaction. (hence, peyton).

i think that being emotionally invested in a team takes away from really enjoying or appreciating the game itself. (well, unless your team is winning in which case your enjoyment factor is probably magnified).

or perhaps i'm just tired of being emotionally invested (and correspondingly disappoitned) in sports and this is my subconscious self-protective measure to enjoy football in a controlled fashion.

gift of prophecy

recall: my mom had this ridiculous notion (ie. wishful thinking) last year where she had a dream that i would be married by september. (2008, people). clearly that came and went. (note to self: mom not gifted in prophecy, don't believe any predictions she makes).

so last sunday, i was riding the elevator up to church with p dny, and he was all dressed up. (our church is casual - thank goodness - so p dny showing up in a suit and tie merited a comment). he said he was going to a wedding right after service, to which i commented something along the lines of "ah yes, i feel like i'm going to a wedding every other weekend these days."

p dny: "ha ha .. well, you're next"

me: "well, pd, i really hope you have the gift of prophecy"

he was really amused by my oh-so-witty-with-a-touch-of-jadedness comment.

office fail

i won tickets to a waterpark at my company raffle. today's weather "feels like" 36 degrees.

FAIL.

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Email from boss:

"This is the latest report on the plant failure, translated from Russian. The tentative conclusion has now gone to stud fatigue failure. This still has to be considered speculative. We still haven't received design dwgs to allow any calcs."

Reply from EVP:

"This would have been easier to read if it was still in Russian"

dealbreakers - part 1

gut reactions and dealbreakers are funny things. i think finding a spouse is strikingly similar to finding a home. obviously there are some key differences, seeing as how you rarely think of picking one house and being there forever. but regardless - the process, uncertainties, and reactions have been ... uncanny.

when i was out to purchase my current apt 4+ years ago, my broker told me that i just had to go to a lot of open houses. he told me to look in the paper and just go take a look, even if the apts didn't look at all interesting in the ads. most of the time, my gut reaction was right - if it didn't impress on paper, it didn't impress in person. but it was an educational exercise nonetheless, because as i saw apt after apt, i grew increasingly aware of what i was NOT willing to live with. in the reality of being on a tight budget for a starter apt and realizing that there were limitations as to what i could afford ... certain things popped out that i never expected.

for example, i saw this apt in a very nice neighborhood, twice the size of most of the apts that were being offered - but it was the top floor of a 5 story walk-up. after one visit, my broker was absolutely floored that i rejected this apt and didn't give it a second thought. and i explained to him "mrt, i work out 2-4 hours a day. people kick me every night and i'm usually limping and sore on the way home. there's no way i can walk up 5 flights of stairs after that, carrying all my gear and books, every night."

he thought i was crazy to turn this down.

since then, he has joined taekwondo. this time around, he didn't bother showing me any buildings without elevators.

some differences, you learn to live with. some, you just know you can't. there would be no compromise living in a walk-up - the only possible compromise would be on my part, either just getting used to it, or growing a resentment for the home i couldn't reach.

tulista!

i had a hilarious conversation with hki. i feel like my english becomes more proper around him - i suppose because europeans learn english properly, as opposed to the bastardization we use on a regular basis.

he was trying to explain (the incredibly complex) structure of finnish words and why you have two ä's when you respond "hyvää" instead of just "hyvä" which is the actual word "good".

hki: if somebody asks how your food is you can say"hyvää / pahaa / kuumaa / tulista"("good / bad / hot / spicy")it's like telling how something is - same thing goes with the question "mitä kuuluu?"

me: so ... if someone asks me "how are you?" it's ok to respond with "i'm spicy"???

i'm not sure where we concluded on that ... except that i want someone finnish to ask me how i'm doing, so i can respond "tulista!" and see what they say.

* * * * * * * * *

hki: when everything annoys you you can reply "pahaa"

so apparently that's the equivalent of how i say "rawr". (and then i had to explain that i made up "rawr" as a grunt of discontent, and that it's not a real word.) but yes. pahaa. i think i will be using you a lot.

you get what you get...

i recently decided to start blogging again - maybe because this is the fodder from which my books will draw...or maybe because blogging on facebook is too public. or maybe because i think out loud and i have a lot of thoughts i need to sort out. regardless,

in the recent discoveries and events surrounding the mysterious disappearance and behavior of d.c. ... i'm left with a dissatisfaction that i just don't understand. how a person can lie with a straight face, how none of my friends and family that met him picked up on this character flaw, and why all of this was at all necessary.

it takes me back to 2.003 (linear systems and dynamics) soph year, with the awful AWFUL professor who couldn't teach and didn't give us a book so we could teach ourselves. i remember being so frustrated in that class because it just didn't make sense. his derivations skipped steps, the assumptions came out of nowhere, he was just unable to communicate - we were all so confused, problem sets were exercises in shooting in the dark. halfway through the semester, the running joke became the motto of the class: "it's 2.003. just accept." whenever he'd throw us formulas or solutions and they made absolutely no sense - we'd just resign to the fact that the traditional modes of learning how to be an engineer (ie. understanding) would have to be thrown out the window, and the most efficient way to get through the class (and be rid of this prof forever) would be to just accept and regurgitate as best we could.

fast forward to now - i notice that i have trouble accepting what i don't understand, particularly when behavior is ... wrong. mean. not honorable. insert adjective here. i can't help but look back and put the pieces together, even if it kind of sucks and everyone says to just forget about it. but forgetting means accepting and accepting means acknowledging that it's ok.

and some things are just not ok.

it's strangely similar to when i had my knee kicked out earlier this year. or maybe i'm just thinking about that since worlds are this week and i'm acutely aware that i'm at home while d.a. is there. sitting around crippled for a month left me a lot of time to wrestle with the fact that it wasn't ok with me that at the end of the day she chose to go for my knee. and when sab said, if that's how they're going to play the game, and if the refs aren't calling it, to do it right back to her - i just couldn't.

but what was the result of trying to do the right thing? i left the arena on a stretcher, with a purple swollen knee and yet another 2nd place finish. what did she get? the very thing that i had wanted so badly and worked so hard for. yes, i did the right thing and my conscience is clear - but that doesn't make me feel one bit better about what happened.

of all the things i've been struggling with lately, the top of the list returns to elder brother syndrome.

²⁹But he answered his father, 'Look! All these years I've been slaving for you and never disobeyed your orders. Yet you never gave me even a young goat so I could celebrate with my friends. ³⁰But when this son of yours who has squandered your property with prostitutes comes home, you kill the fattened calf for him!'

i think what doesn't sit well with me is that in trying to be obedient, or trying to act in a way that God would want - it's particularly difficult to see those who don't do so ... get rewarded. rewarded with the very thing that you've wanted, strived for, asked for - and been denied.

i know grace is grace, neither merited nor earned. as my 3 year old nephew recites when he doesn't get chocolate milk and has to settle for vanilla: "you get what you get and you don't get upset"

well, God, that's a lot to ask. and i know that in the big scheme of the Jesus card - nothing is too much to ask. i know what the right answers are. and i know these are not everlasting rewards, and that treasures in heaven are far more valuable.

but it doesn't make it one bit better. in fact, it makes it pretty damn hard.

there are some things you have to accept. God's ways are higher than our ways - of course. but much like abraham pleaded for sodom and gomorrah - if not for fifty righteous would you save the city? forty? thirty? twenty? ten? he sought to understand the God he thought he knew - the God who would smite the righteous with the wicked in an act that didn't make sense to him. but at the end of the day, for whatever reason - he walked away satisfied from that conversation, somehow having reconciled the character of God to a point where he could accept it.

i know i can't know everything. but i want to understand at least so i can accept. even though the city was ultimately destroyed - to have met face to face, pleaded for understanding, and received something to walk away with that restores confidence and hope.

such is the state of the union.