Observations of the day

Today is the beginning of a new sememster, and I'm already feeling kind of like I'm being pushed. I'd rather move along at a comfortable pace, and there are all these students, professors, lab instructors, etc. running around like they've got fire at their heels! Thankfully my own schedule is pretty slow, at least for the moment, but it's hard not to feel pushed when they're all racing around you!

Anyway, I wanted to write a thoughtful little note here today, but I simply don't have any ideas. Perhaps I've gotten too used to not using my brain this summer! But, whatever the reason, I regret to inform you all, that I have no thought provoking words to write. Just some random observations about the day. :)

Speaking of which, I met someone named "Mostafa" today....and I imediately thought of star wars, The Mostafar system, where anakin turned into darth vader. Quite funny, but I imediately felt bad. I didn't want to make fun of his name, it was just the first thing that came to my mind when he introduced himself!

I will be back to write more later today, or this week. But for now, I'm going to have to sign off. :) Take care and God bless!

~Mae

Lamenting Potato

I think most people have certain foods that they know they shouldn't eat. Most people, by the time they're old enough to pay attention to how their body reacts, learn that some things produce...unpleasant side effects. For me, one of these such foods, is potato. It's tragic really, potato is soo tasty! Especially home fries. I'm a sucker for home fries.

But sadly, no matter how little I eat of it...the unpleasant side effects attack. Perhaps it's made worse by EXPECTING it (remember that post on perception?), but it doesn't take long for them to start. And, even more unfortunate, the side effects are obvious to everyone else too. It's not just a slight stomach ache, or headache or something...it's that dreaded, most embarassing, most uncontrollable (except by not eating it!), side effect; gas. Potent gas.

I really should know better, but I suppose it wouldn't be a weakness then. Plus, hope springs eternal. I'm always hoping this time, I'll be able to eat some and it will be ok. Sometimes, yes, it works. But I'm not sure it really does, I'm just not paying attention to it. Because those times...I don't really know that It didn't bother me, I just don't remember if it did or not.

I've been spending the weekend with friends whose diet consists of things that I really shouldn't eat. Usually when I visit friends I don't tell them this, because, well, it's just so much easier not to make a problem out of it. It's not going to KILL me or jeapordize my health severely, but when it all adds up... I'm still not going to say anything, not now when there's only a meal or two left. I just find it most unfortunate that potato's are so tasty...

Oh potato
Why must you be
So tasty I just can't ignore it

O potato
Why can't you be
Disgusting, revolting, and repelling

O potato
I wish I could be
Indifferent to your starchy goodness

O potato
You're so mean to me
But at least I get to share it! :-p

The Cat Whisperer Meets Jasmine

My family calls me the "Cat whisperer", because no matter how anal, crazy, skiddish, or wild a cat may be, I can usually entice it to let me hold it. I guess I just have a special bond with cats. They say that animals can sense fear, and cats KNOW when you don't like them...well apparently they also know when you do!

I have grown up with cats all my life. We've also had dogs, rabbits, gerbils, guinea pigs, and chickens, and I've loved them all, but cats have always been my favorite. Some people say they are too independant, and not loyal, but I think they're just harder to convince. You have to EARN a cats love, loyalty and faithfulness, and for that reason, I think it's almost more valuble than that of a pet that simply accepts you. All through my life, however, we've always had more than one cat. I am familiar with cats of all ages, and there have been many that have chosen me, out of all my family members, to be "Their" person. (That's what cat's do you see, THEY choose a person and that's who they're loyal to.) The cat's that have chosen me will even come to my voice, which most people assume is imposible from a cat. But it wasn't untill recently that I've had the pleasure of loving a cat who bonded with me as her own family member.

Cat's are social animals, belive it or not, and they like to play with other cats, be loved, nuzzled, groomed,etc. Usually, if there is another cat available, they will always choose to bond with the cat. Makes sense i suppose, that they should choose their own species first! However, when no other cat is available, they will bond first with another animal, and then last of all, with their people. In this case, Jasmine is our only pet. The only animal in the house. And, she has chosen to bond with me. It is the first time in my life that I have had such a pleasure. It is one thing to be chosen by a cat as their "person", but to have a cat bond with you is a whole other matter. She always wants to see what I'm doing, she always wants her share of my food, she drinks out of a cup on my night stand, she follows me around the appartment and acts like a petulant teenager when I scold her. It is one of the funniest things I think I have ever experienced! She is still very young, 3 months or so, so she still chews on things and climbs things, and I usually recieve this "blessing" more than my husband. But, she's really just asking me to play with her, and if I do, if I get her litte squeaky toy, or a scrunched up ball of paper and play with her for just 15 minutes a day, she is so much better behaved!

When I am wearing pants, she will often climb up my body to sit on my shoulders. This isn't painful most of the time, so I don't mind it, and it satisfies her need to climb. She has only tried to climb the curtains once, and she didn't get very far. lol. I guess jean material is better for climbing! When I'm washing dishes she asks to be on my shoulder, when I'm sitting at the computer, she'll get up on my lap to either sleep there, or move on up to my shoulders. It's really quite funny that she does these things, because it's not exactly typical cat behavior. I've only had one other cat in my life who liked to sit on shoulders, and he was a siamese and usually only sat on my dad's shoulders because they were broad. Jasmine is a mutt of a cat, kitten to a barn cat that bred with a stray, and she chooses MY shoulders. She is still beautiful, despite her mixed heritage, and her fur is silky soft. (see attached photo of Jasmine on my husbands' shoulders.)

Jasmine is also unusual in that she plays fetch. That's right, fetch. Of all the toys we've bought her, she absolutely loves these scrunched up balls of paper that I randomly threw for her one day. I was working at my computer, and she started to chew on me and pester me for attention. I didn't have any of her toys nearby, so I took a piece of paper off the table, scrunched it up, and threw it into the living room. She dashed after it, attacked it by doing a summersault over it, grabbing it between her paws and alternately chewing and kicking on it, then carried it back in her mouth. That was the beginning, and it has since become her favorite game. She especially likes it when I chase after her for it to throw it again. She gets all excited, her tail bushes out to resemble a bottle brush, her back arches and she makes these rediculously funny "Purr-ow" noises. Sometimes, she will chase the paper ball, bat it around some, and then dash back to hide between my legs and watch it.

Of course, she has some typical cat behaviors too, most notably that she likes to sleep in sun patches and doesn't particularly like water. Course, she's not terribly afraid of water either, but it really annoys her when her fur is wet. Her back end fell into the toilet once, when she was watching the water swirl after a flush, and her peeved look said it all. It was as if she was saying "Ugh, how embarassing, and what an unpleasant feeling!"

There are many more ways that her bond with me shows, and I have a feeling it is only going to grow stronger with time. I'm sure her behaviors will change, once she gets bigger I doubt she will try to climb me as much, or sit on my shoulders as much, and she'll probably spend more of her days sleeping or occupying herself rather than demanding attention. But, no matter how it changes, I will always feel honored and privaleged to have the love and bond of such a wonderful feline. :)

The Power of Perception

Life is what you make of it, and perception has a great deal to do with that. How you view a situation will nearly always determine how you react to it, even tho most of us will agree there are usually many sides to one coin.


Anyway, I recently realized that I had somehow been bitten by a negabug! I'm sorry to offend your english senses, that is my word for negitivity. Some made up words work, others, fail miserably...I think this one fails. So, I realized that I was viewing nearly everything through a negative light, including my new husband, and I couldn't figure out why life seemed so crappy! So many negative thoughts ran through my head such as "why doesn't he love me like he used to?". It wasn't that he didn't love me, or even that he'd changed at all, I was just viewing everything through this negative fog. It tainted everything! My job seemed dull, borring, and pointless. My kitten, which is the cutest cat I have ever had the privalege to love, seemed annoying and even vicious! And I was sitting in the midst of all of this negativity thinking..."wait, what happened!? My life was so great just a few months ago...where'd all that go!?"


Fortunately for me, God doesn't let me commiserate with myself for very long and my husband is in the Marine reserves, so occasionally, he's gone for a few days or a few weeks. Recently, he was gone for 2 weeks, and God used the opportunity to push a few buttons and pull a few strings! lol. I discovered, that I had unknowingly been reacting to expectations I wasn't aware of, in a manner I had seen modeled for me but never really identified. To be simple, I was projecting my perception of my parents relationship on my own...and being damn selfish in the process! My poor husband! He is so sweet, so kind, so thoughtfull, but I wasn't seeing hardly any of that...it didn't seem like enough! When I finally realized I'd been a completely selfish dolt, I cried and wondered if I'd already done too much damage. Thankfully, I hadn't, but I am a dramatic person and I am keenly responsive to domestic problems. Probably my biggest fear is that our hearts will be hardened to each other. People can be so mean to each other, without much provocation. But that is another post.

Long story short, after crying, repenting, and fretting about it all for a while...I woke up the next day with a new feeling of motivation. It was time to stop reacting, time to stop thinking about how life can satisfy ME, and time to START acting, to start stepping out towards those things I always dreamed of, to start serving others with my life while allowing them to enrich my own. That's what this blog came out of. I also took the motivation to write some more songs, and post them on youtube. If you go there please be kind...I'm still kind of warry of unkind remarks. The name is MaggieMaeH. But, the point of all of this, is that life looks so exciting now, exciting and new and surprising. I was challanged to dwell on only my husbands possotive qualities, and pretty soon I was forgetting what was such a problem, or seeing them as silly and unneccessary. Your whole opinion and outlook can change just by a slight change of perception! That's not to say you should try to make evil things appear good...actually the bible warns against that, but there is very often SOMETHING in life that is better than we make it out to be, and even just one thing, one possotive thing in your life, can make all the other bad stuff seem, less important, or at the very least, less discouraging.

Don't believe me? Try it! Try, for the entire day, to only think about possotive things. Can't do that? Then write a list of as many possotive things in your life as you can think of, about yourself, your spouse, your friends, your family, and read over it every day for a week. Just watch what happends! Even though life hasn't changed much, you'll feel so much lighter and happier! It's truly freeing, I only wish we humans weren't so prone to walk away...

Graduate school picnics

Grad school is alot different than undergrad. It's more like a job, and the professors are also your peers. They make great efforts to get these widely diversified groups together, for picnics, meetings, group work...any excuse will do.

This evening, my department had one of these get togethers. I don't know that I will ever get used to it, it seems so strange to me to invite so many random people to your home, 40 minutes away from anyone, and expect them all to show up and have a good time. And yet, they do. Or at least they show up, whether or not they have a good time is up for debate. It's hard to tell who's with who, and why they are somehow associated with the department. The "students" range from fresh college grads, straight off the High School -> College track, to young adults who've been in the workforce a few years, to middle aged parents and teachers looking to go back to school. There are young children running around, copious amounts of random food that people brought, oh look, and there's some beer. Alchoholic beverages seem to come with college get togethers...whether you're a student or a professor!

It's like a clash of worlds and generations! It's amusing to see the "clicks" emerge from the group as people arrive. The new parents, with babies bouncing on their hips or strapped to their chests, flock to each other to discuss babies first words, or how well they sleep at night, or whether glass bottles are better than plastic ones, and do YOU use cloth diapers? What do you think of them? Then the young adults, fresh out of college or the carrear track somehow emerge as a group discussing recreational sports and restaurants, returning students who recognize each other nod heads and perhaps exchange a few words, and professors spend their time chasing and chastising their children, and mingling from one group to another talking about thesis commitee's, research, and travels. It's like they're one loosely tied group moving amongst the others like an amoebe, but if it weren't for this, the intent of bringing all these widely divergent people together would be lost. And lets not forget the family members and friends, dragged to these events, without even the slightest idea who they're going to meet or encounter! I felt a pang of compassionate pity for my own husband, when we arrived and he said, "the two people I know at all aren't even here." The posthumus "reason", or excuse, for this current event, was to welcome new students and staff in, and congratulate those who've recently moved on, but the only way you'd know this is from the writting on a cake on the desert table.

I find myself going to these things, probably for the same reasons many of my peers do, because they feel obligated when they are invited by the head of the department, to her HOUSE, for a picnic...hard to say no in a situation like that. But some of my peers actually LIKE hanging out with these professors, and, I have to admit it seems oddly strange to me. Professors are teachers, teachers hold a position of authority over you, the last thing you want to do is budy up to them, let down your gaurd, and make a fool of yourself in front of them! Of course, I can't say I've seen any of my peers make fools of themselves in front of these professors, but the potential is there whenever you let your gaurd down, and being "friends" with your teacher's leads to a whole other mess of things. Friends understand when you can't show up for an event, teachers still expect you to do the work. Friends will cover for you if you have an appointment or are sick, teachers expect you to make it up or make prior arrangements. It's a weird quasi sort of relationship and i have to say, I'm not comfortable with it at all! Something about it doesn't even seem professional to me, because as students we're NOT their co-workers. We're their hands and feet who get paid less than we're worth to number crunch, organize, file, edit, verify, call and answer phones...I suppose in my department we're lucky to be PAID to do these sorts of things, but still...

It's been an adventure to say the least, and I don't know about you, but it gets tiring to smile at strangers and continually be alert and aware to whomever might approach you with awkward questions and long embarassed silences and looks. Glad to be home for the night, especially since our kitten shut herself in the spare room! Thankfully, no presents. There'll be more on her later. :)

Have a great night everyone
Take care and God bless!
~Mae

Namesake

Hello internet community! :)

I've always thought it would be a cool idea to have a collumn titled, "A Fish out of Water", but I never took the initiative to look into it. lately, I've discovered this new motivation to TAKE that initiative and DO something about all those dreams...even if they're baby steps in the right direction! The internet community has proven it's self an effective way to build popularity and get yourself out there and noticed, and all from the comfortable convenience of your home! (If you happen to have an internet connection at your home that is...) Not to mention, where ever you can find an internet connection, you can log on, which makes it a highly portable profession/hobby. Either way, there's no requirement to actually stand face to face with people, so the embarassment and awkwardness can be spared, and you can blissfully block, delete, and ignore all those pesky critical remarks.

So, the idea for the title "A Fish out of Water", comes from the fact that I am a christian living in 21st century America, and more and more, I feel like I don't belong. This doesn't really bother me, considering we're called to "be in the world but not of it" and "this world is not our home." So I suppose it's a sort of accomplishment, who knows. I don't really care if this world accepts me as their own, because the only one who's opinon matters is God's, and he'll take me just as I am, no strings attached. Sure his standards are high, but his forgiveness is endless and unconditional, and he promises he'll help me. It's a motivator like no other to be a better person!

This blog will consist entirely of thoughts, opinions, and stories, based on my life and my beliefes, so yes, I will talk about God. If that's something that bothers you, I would sugest you find another blog to read, because I'm not going to stop telling the world about my God, and I'm likely to ignore, block, or delete comments that are discriminatory to my faith. That being said, I will try my best not to offend other people's beliefs, and I will stay away from politics as much as possible because I find it depressing and pointless to argue it, hense I'm really quite ignorant on the subject. I'm here to talk, philosophize (that's my word for higher order thinking on a topic. :-p ), share faith, joy, love, sorrow, frustration, etc, and otherwise offer my bits of wisdom and opinions to whom ever wants to read it. :) And if I develop a pretty good readership...well then...maybe I'll go the next step for that collumn.

Untill we meet again,
~Mae