Behind Infinity

I’m back in school. But we can talk about that later. First, I have some photos.

Stephenie. Don’t you want to come over and play at my house right this minute? You should. Hop in your car and come over, NOW.
Dad brought home 5 kittenz one day last week. They belonged to a guy he worked with, and were likely to be disposed of in an inhumane manner if he didn’t take them ASAP. So now we have five black kittenz with blue eyes, in a box in our garage. They are tiny and adorable.

Anyway, about school. This is my fourth, yes, my FOURTH, and LAST, year at Grand Valley. That makes me a senior, which is kind of a crazy thought, and (unlike many fourth-year students) I’m actually graduating in less than 9 months, too. I’m still having trouble processing that one. I feel like it’s kind of unfair. I’ve finally got everything all figured out–I know all of the best shortcuts on campus, which study spaces have the comfiest chairs, how to use the online student records program, which professors to get and which professors to avoid, which lady is most helpful at the student services desk, and all manner of other important little details–and just now, when I’ve finally got all of this stuff figured out, I’m going to be moving on in life. Isn’t that just the way it goes?

I am really psyched up about this semester. Reasons why:

1. BALLROOM DANCING. Seriously. I get to dance for two hours a week, and get college credit for it. This is reportedly the most sought-after class on campus. There is one section of it, limited to 50 lucky students (25 guys and 25 girls, so everyone has a partner). I’ve been trying to get in for the past 4 semesters, and this year I got the very last spot. It was worth the wait–I have never had so much fun in a class in my entire life. During our first two meetings, we have been working on swing dancing. As of today, I know 7 different swing dance moves. I can’t wait to go out to the swing dance parties at Rosa Parks Circle. Today I wore 4″ heels to class (intended to wear flats but forgot to change) and before we started dancing I was pretty worried about it, but once we began, I found that it was even more fun in heels.

I’m thinking that besides being the most fun I’ve ever had in school, this class will really be good for me because I’m being forced to address my issues with “personal space”–that is, the fact that I NEED PLENTY OF IT. You may hug me, but if you stay within my 24″ radius personal space bubble for longer than that, I start to get twitchy. So at first, even holding hands with my dance partner took some gumption. I was just getting comfortable with that when the instructors upped the ante by introducing a paddle-turn, and I had to take a deep breath and steel myself again. Today’s moves involved even more physical contact, but I was having so much fun I didn’t notice as much.

I could babble on and on about dancing, but likely, nobody cares. so we’ll move on to reason #2: I’M ONLY TAKING 14 CREDITS THIS SEMESTER! It’s such a luxury…I honestly don’t know what to do with myself. 4 of those credits are independent study credits, so I actually spend only 10 hours in class each week. That’s about half of what I spent last semester. So really, it doesn’t feel like I’m actually in school. It feels like summer break, except with minimal amounts of homework. And of those 14 credits, 10 of them are with my favorite professor. Oh, the joys of having a small department…

REASON #3: I’M ONLY WORKING 2 JOBS THIS YEAR! I’m teaching (17 violin/viola students and latin tutorees) and designing wedding albums, in addition to small amounts of freelance work.

REASON #4: Seneca and the Stoics class. 3 hours long on Tuesday nights, it’s a whole class on Stoic philosophy and “the art of living well”. Also, we’re required to practice meditation. It’s definitely going to be a different sort of class.

REASON #5: We’re studying New Testament in Greek class. Koine Greek is sooooo easy….yay.

REASON #6: Dr. Levitan for Latin. ‘Nuff said.

Anyway….we have kittenz.

Today after morning church Rachael, Micah & I loaded up the aminals (with a minimum of fuss, no less) and headed out to Silver Creek (a state forest with a horse campground and hundreds of miles of horse trails) to meet up with some people from their church and do some real trail riding. We have some pretty good trails at home but it gets boring doing the same ones over and over again. Getting off the farm and out into the wilderness was crazyamazing lots of fun. We must have done 20 or 25 miles today, we spent about 6 hours in the saddle. It was an absolutely gorgeous day, about 75 and sunny. Trail riding is great…it’s like hiking, without the whole death-march feeling to it. (when I was a kid my dad and the other dads in our bible study small group would get all 25 or so of the kids together and take us for a hike…marching us all around in the forest until we were crazy tired. That’s my experience with hiking.) On horseback you cover more ground, so you get to see more. You can canter fast, which is thrilling. And it’s still a really good workout.

Hey look, it’s JEZEBELLE! But that’s strange…she’s ditched her fancy-schmancy english gear and has a big goofy ol’ saddle with one of them horn-things on it! My 4-year-old greenie Ay-rab didn’t offer to spook or buck even once. She was better behaved than one of the 7-year-old Quarter Horses on the ride. I was so proud of her!

Here’s a view from the horseback-cam as we set out into the woods. The trails were nicely groomed but still windy, hilly, and branchy enough to make the ride interesting. It was fun to hop over the fallen logs every now and again.

HOW GORGEOUS IS THIS??? We came out of the woods and into this beautiful meadow with all kinds of grass and flowers and clouds overhead. Living in our modern-day world, you kind of forget that this sort of place exists outside of digitally-enhanced stock photography.

WEEEEEE! Racing is such a rush.

Horseback-cam again: we could go around the flooded trail but that would be no fun. Instead we had to go in it. And then trot and canter through it, getting totally wet and muddy.

Our shadow. Neat.

Takin’ a drink from the stream. At first Jez wouldn’t even approach the water but her thirst got the better of her and soon we were splashing around in it.

Me an’ Rachel and our doofy-looking horses. I love that lady. Don’t know what I’d do without her.

“Mom, I’m so totally pooped. Can we pleeeeease go home?”

So this week in West Michigan, we’ve been getting all of the rain which we should have had last month, and along with it, some pretty nifty thunderstorms. Yesterday afternoon I got home from work and turned out the horses, only to turn around and bring them in again about 30 minutes later when a huge storm blew in. It poured for maybe a minute, a couple bolts of lightning, and then it was gone–taking our electricity with it and thereby jeopardizing our half-cooked dinner in the oven.

We were dumbfounded there in the darkening house, hoping that the lights would come back on momentarily, as they have in the past. But they didn’t. We had to accept the reality of the situation and began digging out unscented candles and called for Chinese takeout.

Seeing as our well pump is electric and we have not lived out here long enough to have wised up and installed a generator, we were deprived of water for the duration of the outage, as well. When it came time to water the livestock, I had to carry buckets back from the neighbor’s house. Thanks to their generator which hummed loudly in the garage, they not only had running water but every light in the house and garage shone brightly and the TV flickered in the front room.

While I was outside I found this guy:

Probably the biggest indigenous toad I have ever seen. Here’s a shot of him by my feet, just to show perspective:

Deprived of technological devices and diversions, we were forced to spend the evening reading and writing and interacting with one another. My typewriter came in handy.

All in all it was somewhat inconvenient and surreal but also a pretty fun way to spend the evening. I was glad, however, when I woke up in the morning and power had been restored.

The temple court in Jerusalem in Jesus’ day was 1,500 feet long and 1,000 feet wide. I read this just now. You look at those numbers and say, “Ok, that’s big.” right? But then the author put it into perspective by clarifying: that’s five times as long as a football field, 6 times as wide, that’s 35 acres.

I’m not much of a football fan so even the size of a football field is a fuzzy concept for me. I’ve never experienced a football field, never run down one from end to end. So that image, it really doesn’t do much for me when people reference it as a means of illustration. I have, however, experienced an acre. We own about 12 of them. Our next-door neighbors have about 9 more. This means the temple court would cover our entire property, and our neighbor’s entire property, and our neighbor’s neighbor’s entire property, too. It would cover all the land you see in this picture (as well as the pond):

Seriously? That’s superhuge. And they built all that by hand. And the ground was paved with polished marble. And the Romans destroyed it in 70 AD.