The Saga of my Air Conditioner

Two weeks and three maintenance requests later, the air conditioner in my apartment finally works. After the first request, they did something, but it didn't work. After the second request, they replaced both the indoor and outdoor units, but that didn't work either. After the third request, they realized there was a freon leak and a line needed to be replaced. They replaced it Friday. Now my air conditioner works very well. And all it took was cutting a giant hole in my ceiling.

When I got home on Friday, it was covered with black trash bags duct taped in place. Very classy. And everything in my living room was covered with a layer of chalky sheetrock dust. My lungs are probably coated with a layer of dust as well. By Saturday morning, the trash bags had fallen off and were in a tangled heap on my floor. I didn't bother to try to put it back up, and I stopped trying to clean. They're supposed to come back "Monday or Tuesday" (as the note they left said) to fix the hole. I imagine they'll make just as big a mess in repairing it as they made making the hole. I spent tonight moving my stuff out of the way and covering my furniture with sheets. I don't want to see dusty fingerprints on my dark blue couch again.

Fun times at Sherrah's home....I'm glad I live in an apartment because it means I don't have to pay for any of this.

A Seth Story

I haven't told a Seth story in a while and this one is too good to pass up. (Almost as good as when he was dating a 21 year old Baylor student and hadn't told Mom and expected me to keep it a secret from her--which I did...Mom still doesn't know that I knew before she did--and then finally told her on the 4th of July after she'd had a few margaritas..... This story is about as good as that, but in a very different way.)

So...Seth was on the debate team at school a couple years ago, and was pretty good at it. He did not do debate last year, but rejoined this year. It's a zero-hour class, which Seth is not actually enrolled in...he's not getting credit or a grade for it, it's just extracurricular. So, when the teacher told them that she needed them all in class the day of See You at the Pole, Seth skipped and went to See You at the Pole. When the teacher asked him why he did that when she had specifically said she needed them in class, I don't know what exactly Seth's reply was, but I think it involved him calling her a heathen. (At open house/parents' night, she told Mom & Dad she didn't really appreciate that.)
From what everyone says, this teacher likes to joke around and argue with the students, but one day recently she took it too far. She was telling one of Seth's cheerleader friends that she's stupid and all the teachers get together and talk about how stupid this girl is. (Horrible thing for a teacher to say, huh?!) The girl cried and left the room. Seth got mad and told the teacher she couldn't talk to them like that. She argued. He argued back. She told him to leave. He quit debate. Since then, she's asked him to come back, but he refuses to. She should really just save her breath. Seth is by far the stubbornest of all the Holobaughs.
I have to say...I'm proud of Seth for standing up for himself and for his friends. I think he's a little derranged sometimes, but I'm really very proud of the person he's growing up to be. It just makes me laugh to remember Seth as a kid and to see him now. The personality is still the same; it's expression is just a little more mature.
I also have to say that I think he should go back to debate. There comes a time when just the act of trying to prove a point overshadows the point you're trying to prove. The point itself should be the focus, not the proving of it, if that makes any sense.

I'm a Survivor!

I have just survived what I expected to be the busiest, craziest week of the semester. I was in St. Louis over the weekend (which was so much fun...catching up with old friends, Oktoberfest at the seminary where the desperation is so thick you can taste it, playing with my favorite almost-two-year-old girl who exclaims "oooh, wow" over everything...I could have stayed another few days). I got home Monday evening, went to 2 college fairs on Tuesday, gave a presentation that night (a feminist interpretation of Hemingway's "The Short Happy Life of Francis Macomber"), went to 2 college fairs on Wednesday, gave a presentation that night (a biographical report of Mary Shelley), worked all day Thursday, then drove to LaGrange for a college fair (where everyone asked me when Concordia was moving to Giddings), went to work this morning, left at noon, and wrote a paper (over the presentation I gave Tuesday), and emailed it to the professor about thirty minutes ago. On top of all of that, I had a flat tire Tuesday morning because I ran over a nail left in the parking lot by the roofers reshingling the apartment complex. Also on Tuesday was a broken air conditioner, which was fixed by the time I got home Tuesday night but broke again on Wednesday. It still hasn't been fixed...found out today that they're going to have to replace the whole unit but they won't have the part until Monday. But, "a cold front has come in so it's supposed to be cooler this weekend."
Considering all that, it really hasn't been that bad of a week. I lost my mind Monday night when I got home from the airport. I was exhausted, my apartment was a mess, and I still had the whole week ahead of me. I completely gave in to stress and panic, which is so weird, because I NEVER get stressed out about school. Before this semester, I only got stressed out about school once that I can remember...finals week senior year at Concordia...I think I wrote about 200 pages worth of papers that week. But after Monday, I relaxed and did what I had to do. My panic-stricken prayers of Monday night were answered with a pervasive peace. God is good like that. He is faithful.

Maya

I heard Maya Angelou speak this week....beautiful.
You can read my thoughts about it on my new grad school blog.

I'm on another trip...this time in Chicago. Beyond my work obligations (college fairs & high school visits) I have no plans other than cloistering myself in my hotel room to write a paper over Mary Shelley that's due Wednesday. I'm finding that grad school has an amazing way of taking over every spare minute of my time.

Beyond

Driving home from work today, I heard a song on the radio that really made me pause and listen. I've heard it before, and have even sung along with it, but today I really listened to it. I don't know the name of it, or who sings it, but the chorus is: "Word of God speak, won't you pour down like rain, washing my eyes to see your majesty. So be still and know that you're in this place, please let me stay and rest in your holiness." (I was at a stoplight for a while, so I had time to write down the words.)
There's another line in the song that says something like, "The last thing I need is to be heard, but to hear your voice." That one brought me up short, because so often in my prayer life, I find myself saying: Listen to me, God.... Hear what I'm saying.... Do you hear me talking to you? I fill up my prayer time with words. With noise. And I don't stop to listen, to hear what God is saying to me. Sometimes I'm afraid to listen to God. If I listen, I'll have to do what he's calling me to do. He has such a compelling voice...how could I not do what he asks? But what if he asks me to do something scary?
So my prayers consist of me talking, talking, talking. (Which is kind of funny, because, as many people can attest to, I'm not a very talkative person.) But, "The last thing I need is to be heard..." The last thing I need.... In Sunday School we hear that prayer is how we talk to God, in Bible studies we learn the power that prayer has...and yet, talking to God is the least of it. Hearing him speak to us is what prayer is about. "Beyond the music, beyond the noise" is his voice. And that's really what's most important, isn't it? God's Word to us. Those are the words that have power.
"Word of God speak, won't you pour down like rain, washing my eyes to see your majesty. So be still and know that you're in this place. Please let me stay and rest in your holiness."
And finally, the last line of the song: "I'm finding myself at a loss for words, and the funny thing is, it's okay."