Wondering about not being ticked off.

This is the method of writing: You have already done the work, you just need to convince someone to pay you for it, and to continue doing more work. Right now I've been writing a whole lot. To be totally honest, I was hoping, ideally, to at least reach the publishing stage for either a novel or a collection of shorts before I leave the country again. Hope springs eternal.

Seriously, a random thought about the lists.

Here we go. This is going to be fun. I think it's fairly common to make lists of people. For some women there seems to be a list of "if he eventually proposes, I will eventually say yes." As far as I know, beyond the list, the individuals on the list all have side notes, like, "This is my favorite, number one choice," or, "As long as it's one of these three, that's great." and there's an A-list and a B-list. There's even some that aren't serious contenders, but, "Just in case. I would definitely consider this one, especially if the pickings get too slim."
I thought about it, and I was sad and convicted, wondering, "My goodness, what if I were asked to confess who was on my list, along with rank and side notes?" so in my quiet time I admitted that there is a list and it was probably not helpful. I had to actually think of it as a whole, because normally, I only think individually, "He's on the list. He's not on the list. He's second tier. He was disqualified..." Next I wondered, "How many of them know they're on the list? Does it bother them? Do any of them think, 'Better avoid her, she put me on the list?'" And I started to think, "Am I on anyone's list? I wonder. Am I only on the B-list? Am I on the just-in-case-the-first-thirty-girls-die list?" And I wondered, "Oh, what if it's the creepy guy? What if it's someone I didn't know existed?" Actually, I don't think the list from the male perspective would be organized like my list, if there even is a list. In my doctrine of life, men do the pursuing, so logically, there would be one primary target and a short list of back-ups, to be handled one at a time, whereas in my list there's a parallel group of acceptable candidates and whichever one gets here first wins.
But, more to the point. So why not get rid of the list entirely? It seems to heart-harming and impersonal. When I was confessing about the list, part of it was, "I don't care about the list. It's OK if in the end it's nobody on the list," and that seemed best. The real difficulty will be in maintaining that conviction in the face of well-established thought patterns.

Those lists.

I was going to talk about the lists, but maybe I will wait on that. I do want to emphasize again how encouraging it is to hear from the other workers. A lot of times I feel like an island in a sea of lava. Or rather I feel like a candle in a field on a night with no stars. Day to day, when I'm not leaning on my teammates or other people from training and service I've done before, there's no support.

More for me

Now that virtually everyone who ever reads my blog is on internet near-silence, I'm going to be the first, most recent, and only updated blog on everyone's blog list.
1) the cat's body seems to have been disposed of
2) Elizabeth spent the day repeatedly drinking too much and throwing up on herself and everyone and everything around her. I topped it off by accidentally drawing on her head with a purple pen that was in my mouth while I was trying to move her. I washed her hair and only the blue washed out, so now she has what looks like a long red scar on her head. By the way, Elizabeth is seven weeks old and drinks milk.
3) I'm going to keep writing my little novels and Joelle can't read them until ATC at the earliest. Ha. I'll hopefully have it done by then.

The cat didn't come back

I think my day was thrown off by encountering the body of a kitten in the middle of the road during my morning walk.
After I pushed it off to the side of the road with my foot, I decided I should wash my shoes and pants in case the animal was diseased.
So I didn't go outside for the rest of the day, and it probably would have been better if I had.
I came really close to a genuine and much-needed carefrontation but was afraid I was too angry to be fair.
Things have been really off since then because I now feel that it needs to happen soon.

An astounding level of self-awareness.

Introvert? Introspect? Egocentric? I think about myself a lot, and I understand why I do things.
I know I hate feeling that other people a concluding that I'm immature, privileged or selfish.

What I've learned about integrity is that intentions are nowhere near enough. No one is going to know what you felt guilty about or what was really important to you. They're only going to know what you did. Since we're called to be an important mineral in the world, we have to look like it. I think a lot about how my life looks to people who don't believe in what I did and don't see it as a sacrifice, let alone appreciate it. It takes faith to a different place.

Life didn't slow down. It's more like a bunch of hurdles got thrown in.
In addition, reentry is going through another really unpleasant stage. I'm lifting up tomorrow to be a day of change.
I can't honestly say anything has been easy in the past 8 weeks.
Some things have been good. I've seen once again how all of my previous job experience never ceases to be useful in every day life.

It really does help

That quiet time I've been feeling so guilty about getting around to, I finally did it. It didn't seem like much. I've been expecting myself to pull one of those four hour retreats I did in 2006, so when I sat there for 5 minutes, I didn't expect a dramatic encounter. Yet it was. what it did was center my day and my thinking.
I was able to go back to what I've been trying to teach myself for a long time. "What kind of person do you want to be? Decide what you want." Once again, it's an old lesson, and it's another learning experience that breaks from the others.

For a long time I've been focusing on the sentence, "What is the cost of your disobedience?" and reading Jonah and in some ways it has helped.
In some ways it doesn't help. It makes it easy to focus on failure and guilt.
I also realized I have never gotten around to that quiet time. I have a lot of disciplines I keep doing, but I haven't done that time of silence. And maybe that's why I keep telling people I don't know for sure yet whether I'm going back.

The Journey of those left behind

Since I've been thinking in terms of the six months I have until (theoretically) I can possible return to China, it's alarming to find that the CTFers are in practicum already.
I can only continue to say that I assume I'm going back. I don't have it openhanded. And I don't feel bad that I'm holding onto it.

I'm on a boat?

Another thing to add to my "Good Morning, Lucy" video I want to make, or at least think about making.
The boat video. I first saw it yesterday.
Here's what I have to say
1) Swearing, eh.
2) it was a pretty well done parody, except it wasn't a parody. If was supposed to be a serious original song, it lacks a few things, but done as a comedy and making no pretense of having substance in its own right, it's a talented work. I hesitate to call it "good."
3) Does anyone else immediately think of Tom Green's "the bum bum song (lonely swedish)" when they hear the first three lines of the refrain?
4) finally, it's another aspect of living in the world. There are a lot of funny things in the world and it's a huge tightrope walk (or a knife edge watch) having and exemplary life without excluding people and what matters to them.