God is good.

I am a marveler.  I am constantly in awe of the world around me.  My friends can attest to this-- I frequently stop walking to admire a particularly beautiful daffodil, to acknowledge the silky feeling of the wind on a humid day, and I once spent ten minutes simply watching the water in War Memorial pool ripple and catch the light.  I live in this world where efficiency is critical and time is of the essence, but oh how I am enamored with the world around me.  I revel in the beauty, the complexity, the power of the natural world, and I attribute all its goodness to God.  I can't imagine a world as wonderful as this without thinking of the awesome power of its creator.  Power, that is the key word here.  Power, strength, might, majesty, He embodies it all.  And today, in the aftermath of Boston's tragedy and the remembrance of April 16, his power rings just as true.

I truly believe in the power of prayer.  My God is an awesome God, and he is omnipotent.  Awesome, add that to the list of words that keep reappearing.  He can grant whatever you ask for, so long as you ask for it. How can I doubt the power of the one that created this awe-inspiring world?  Every ant, stone, skyscraper, brilliant idea, and act of kindness stems from Him.  All I can do is sit here and rejoice that my God is so good, and that one day I'll join him in heaven.  It is so easy to doubt, to say that a loving God would never let terrible things happen, that the universe came together of its own accord, that the whole idea of God was created just to make sense of the chaos around us.  For some, this is their truth.  For me, I can't open my eyes without being blinded by God's grace.  I find that his presence is evident in everything around me, the good and the bad.  It is hard to trust that everything is happening for a reason, but I strive to do it.  When I pray for comfort and solace for the families of the 32, I believe that God will grant it.  When I pray for healing for the victims of the Boston Marathon explosions, I believe God will grant it.  When I pray that everyone around me will come to know God's grace and love, I believe that the seed of faith will be planted in their hearts and that, with nurturing, they will also know the joy that I do.

As I sit here on the floor of McBryde, awaiting the start of a class that will probably deal with something as clinical and scientific as wire extrusion or milling, I'm in a daze.  Do you ever wonder what people would leave on your memorial if you were to pass away today?  I'd hope for daffodils if it's spring or zinnias if it's summer, for band-aids, for a mason jar of blueberry jam, for a worn-in pair of running shoes, and a hand-drawn picture of a bicycle.  I'd hope that the life I've lived so far could inspire others to live their lives to the fullest.  I'd hope that I've let God's light shine through me and strengthened the faith of others.  I'd hope that you could find the joy in my passing rather than mourning the space I'd leave behind.

I realize that I'm rambling now, but I just want to impress upon you God's presence in the world around us.  Go outside.  Smile at a stranger.  Pick a flower.  Run, and feel the joy that comes with having your body race along as fast as your mind.  The world we live in is full of beauty, and God is good.

Word of the day: apricity

This semester has been even more insane than last semester, as evidenced by my super frequent posts.  I've gotten into a wicked habit of drowning in work during the week and doing absolutely nothing but playing on the weekends, and that lifestyle leaves very little free time. came back from break a week early to do triathlon training week, which was an absolute blast.  I imagine that's what it'd be like to be pro: wake up around 7, eat, run up a mountain, eat, watch a movie, got to swim practice, eat, shower, watch another movie, snack again, and be in bed by 10 at the latest.  We didn't do a lot of biking because it snowed about eight inches in one night, but it was still so fun to get to know my team and not worry about anything except working out.  You really form a special kind of bond when you're hanging out in all your early morning, sweat-soaked glory.

The view from the pulloff on the road up to Mountain Lake Resort.

So much bonding!

Later on in the semester I did the Blacksburg Classic 10 miler, and it went so well!  I had only been seriously training for a run of that distance for about two weeks, but I finished in 1:17 and I was really happy with my performance!  The first two miles were terrible, mile 9 was a serious mental battle, but the majority and the end of the race felt phenomenal!  It was snowing throughout most of the race, and I really should have packed a gel to keep my energy level up around mile 7.

Last weekend, I went to the Terrapin Mountain half and ultra marathons to support a bunch of friends on the tri and ultra teams!  This was an incredible experience, and I'm contemplating switching over to ultra running if I can just get and stay healthy.  There is just something incredibly appealing about running 30-50 miles in the woods.  The Mountain Masochist is officially added to my bucket list.  Next fall perhaps?  

The Sedalia Center in Big Island, VA was absolutely gorgeous with blue skies and mountains nearby.

After the 10 miler, I realized that I had really screwed up my ankle, so I haven't really been able to do anything since then.  It's from a combination of rolling it running in the snow, falling off of my bike, getting stomped on while playing Twister, and not giving myself adequate time to heal.  Going from about 15 mile weeks to two 30 mile weeks probably didn't help it either.  I've been seeing an athletic trainer turned chiropractor (getting my back, shoulder, neck, and ankle sorted out all at the same time!) and I realized that I've also got a wicked case of achilles tendinitis which explains why it feels like my ankle is on fire when I wear tennis shoes.  The good news:  I'm almost recovered!!!  I was cleared to run a mile today, and, though it felt like fire for the first quarter of a mile, the last three quarters were pain free!  I'm icing as I write this and praying for a smooth recovery.  

So I think that about sums up my semester so far!  I'm sure I'm leaving out something horribly important, but here is most of the active stuff.  I've also met some seriously interesting people ranging all ages and occupations.  It can be really  eye-opening to see how some people experience the same world I do in such a different way.

Ameliorate, enervate, and other fun words

When I came home for break, I expected to spend about three days on the couch recovering from the stress, lack of sleep, and a mysterious stomach bug that I picked up due to finals.  Then I expected to bounce back and paint my room and drive my sister nuts and work out twice a day and cook dinner and teach my dogs all kinds of new tricks and go fishing with my dad and put siding on the new garage.  Instead, I've succumbed to the temptation of remaining lethargic, with Gracie's snuggly company, and working my way through all the books I didn't get to read this semester.  My god-mother and grandmother are both librarians, and a love of good literature was instilled in me at a very young age.  I distinctly remember riding around in my booster seat with Grammy, eating blue jelly beans, and becoming horribly car-sick because I refused to put down my Junie B. Jones book.  My addiction hasn't abated as I've grown older, and I had to ban myself from reading for pleasure during the semester because I would never get any work done otherwise.  Typically I fly through books, chasing plot twists and turning pages til the story tells itself out.  I'm working on slowing down and appreciating an author's use of language and the deeper meaning to be pulled from between the pages, but it's really hard to keep from reading as fast as I can.

So far this break I've read:

• The Wake of the Lorelei Lee- one of L.A. Meyer's cute Jacky Faber stories that I didn't realize I'd already read until I was halfway through.  Majorly disappointing because the man tells a great story.
• Some Nora Roberts love story whose name I can't remember but it had something to do with mountain lions and a murderer, and the plot was dishearteningly similar to that of The Red Scarf Killer.  
• Beautiful Creatures- I was prompted to read this because of the movie trailer, and it was a decent piece of young adult fiction.  The plot held my attention, though the writing style did not.  This is a page turner, not a sit-and-think-about-it kind of book.
• Redeeming Love- For some reason I typically steer clear of Christian fiction, but this was recommended by a friend and I really enjoyed it.  It's a retelling of the story of Hosea, and it not only brought me to tears but also made me think about my relationship with God.  I'd recommend this book to anyone as the story is just as wonderful as Francine Rivers' writing style.
• Into the Wild- This was also recommended by the same friend, and it had been on my reading list for a while.  I'm not sure what message Jon Krakauer was trying to leave with the reader, but this book has made my wanderlust flare up terribly while instilling a healthy respect for the powers of nature and preparation.
• On the Road- One of my favorite quotes is from Jack Kerouac, "Live, travel, adventure, bless, and don't be sorry," but I'd never actually read any of his work until now.  I'm currently working my way through this one, and I'm really enjoying his style of writing.  It reminds me of Nick Carraway in Fitzgerald's The Great Gatsby and the way my own thoughts swirl around almost non-sensically when I try to catch them on paper.  For me at least, this book requires active reading in order to understand everything that is happening and to try to figure out what the author is trying to convey.  So far so good.

While I'm on the subject of books, here are my all time favorite reads:

• Trickster's Choice and Trickster's Queen- I've got a weak spot for Tamora Pierce, and these books are just great.  I can't even tell you how many times I've read them for fun, when I needed to lose myself in another world, or when I needed some inspiration from Ali.  Wonderful, wonderful, wonderful.
• Bel Canto- all time favorite book if you're looking for the beauty of written word.  This author has serious style, and her writing is like the most delicate, flavorful candy you can imagine.  This book will also make you think really hard and is just all-around powerful.
• Garden Spells- such a sweet love story that combines beautiful writing with just a dash of magic.  The Peach Keeper, also by Sarah Addison Allen, is also wonderful.
• East of Eden- If you've got time to read 600 pages and want a book that'll make you think, read Steinbeck's East of Eden.  I read this on a train through Italy and the flight back to America, so it also packs a sentimental punch.  Deals with everything from family, farming, foolish ideas, a father's love, to the Father's love in the developing Salinas Valley.  At some point in his or her life, everyone needs to read this book.

Obligatory complain-about-finals post

For the non-collegiate world, it's quickly becoming the most wonderful time of the year.  For college students, however, Christmas festivities are the furthest things from our minds as the weight of put-off papers, projects, and final exams comes crashing down.  The library is packed, everyone seems grumpy, and even professors get stressed about about teaching last minute material.  I've got a week and a half until the semester is over, but in that short time I've got a test, six finals, and a short paper to write.  Yay college!  In spite of what I'm about to go through, I'm surprisingly confident.  We'll see how long it takes for me to succumb the infectious pessimism out there.  

The town of Blacksburg isn't preoccupied with exams, though, and last Friday was the grand illumination!  The giant Christmas tree across from Moe's was lit up, Christmas market took place, and there was the cutest parade.  You can tell that this is a town populated by engineers because one of the floats was a Kollmorgen truck and another was a giant solar panel.  I'd be lying if I said I didn't love it.  

All in all, the last week or two has been great!  I've met some really interesting people, I've started getting back into yoga (if you count going twice as getting back into it), and the weather has been unseasonably warm. 

Random adventures/discoveries:

- "call me maybe" is an effective last-minute-date strategy 

- I've become a pro at negotiating roundabouts via bicycle because of my trips to East Coasters

- tried venison as a meal for the first time!

- your typical gallivanting around bburg and the surrounding apartment complexes

- donned my best attempt at a Christmas Story inspired bunny suit for the ISE ambassador Christmas party

  

Don't underestimate the power of a good run

It is so easy to become complacent in college. Over the last two or three weeks, I've lived my life problem set to problem set. I spend most of my time either in the library or at my desk, and I don't have time for friends until the weekend. The excitement has faded out of the work, the challenge has been and must be met each week, and school has transformed into something resembling a job. And so I've been floating along with my head down and my hopes hidden. Those violent dreams that kept me up in August have retreated to somewhere in the back of my mind, and my focus has been on the present, the here, the now, the next assignment, the next test. I even stopped running for a two week span. And so I've been trudging along, content but not on fire.

Then two days ago, I decided to go for a run. It was absolutely terrible for the first two miles. My ankles ached, muscles rebelled, and I couldn't find my stride. And then, when my body realized that I wasn't stopping, things started to click. My gait evened out, my protesting limbs silenced, and my pandora station even got its act together. It was wonderful, so naturally I decided to lunge the length of my hall. The following day, I was more sore than I expected, but also so much happier and relaxed. The weather was dreary by the average person's standpoint, but I was loving its threatening clouds, oppressing humidity, and warm breeze. Blacksburg weather seemed to mirror my feeling that things are changing and that I need some wildness back in my life. So of course, summer child that I am, I celebrated the wild, wonderful weather by donning a skirt and letting my hair do its crazy rain-loving thing. I swirled throughout my day yesterday in a haze of daydreams and Econ, and ended my day with a run in the unseasonably warm rain.

This morning, I woke up with something closer to the fire I knew this summer. My drive is coming back, and its source is something as simple as getting outside and moving. In statics, my professor wrote an equation on the board and followed it by saying, "Don't worry about this unless you're ESM or Aerospace. The rest of you won't need as sound of a theoretical background." Two days ago, I would have been relieved to have one less thing to know. This morning, however, his comment really made me angry. Why shouldn't I learn that too? I even, for a fleeting second, contemplated switching to aero just so I could meet the challenge. After those fleeting seconds, I realized something. The fire's back.

Closing quote of the month:
Walk with the dreamers, the believers, the courageous, the cheerful, the planners, to doers, the successful people with their heads in the clouds and their feet on the ground. Let their spirit ignite a fire within you to leave this world better than when you found it.
-Wilfred A. Peterson

A boire!

And I thought I'd be adjusted after two weeks of classes.  Instead of chilling and focusing on schoolwork, I have thrown myself whole-heartedly into the mix of things.  18 credits is a lot, and the coursework is very challenging but I'm still loving it!  My average homework assignment takes between 4-8 hours, so you can imagine all the free time I have on my hands.  I just don't even know what to do with it.

Okay all sarcasm aside, I've been using whatever time I can scrape out here and there to train for my TRIATHLON!  I only had about 2 and a half weeks to train, but I did the Rev 3 Half Full Olympic Distance tri in Maryland last Sunday and it was awesome!  The water temp was 67 (thank goodness for wetsuits), the air temp was 48, and it rained the whole time (thank goodness for raincoats).  This was by far the most challenging thing I've done.  About halfway through the 0.9 mile swim you're out there in the middle of a lake wondering what the heck you're doing.  About halfway though the 32 mile bike, you're grinding up a hill wondering why the heck you're doing this.  And about halfway through the 6.5 mile run, you're too busy dealing with the pain that comes with finally being able to feel the bottom halves of your legs again to be thinking anything.  But I finished and I loved it!  I can't wait to do another one.  Lance Armstrong competed in this race also.  He passed me on the bike, and then I paced with him for the last 50 meters of my run!  I also missed my turn because I didn't realize he had another loop to go, but whatever I ran with Lance!!!!

That was my big adventure of the last few weeks, and it really overshadows all the every day adventures that compose my life.  Til next time!  Oh I also did a 10 miler called the Mountaintop Trot the weekend before last.  That was a blast too, though the course was super technical.  We were basically hiking around Mountain Lake at a brisk jog.

Nothing like slamming into a wall!

Hello dear readers! If you thought I'd forgotten about you, you were probably right. Life as an engineering student leaves very little room for anything except homework, eating, and sleeping. If I'm lucky, I can squeeze in a lunch date, a power nap, laundry, or a run. Professors don't waste any time easing you into the workload sophomore year, and it's taking me a week or two to become used to it again. Since I last blogged, I've climbed another mountain, watched a sunset from bald knob, had a bonfire on wind rock, held a baby squirrel, sprinted across campus and through construction sites with my old calc professor, harassed/helped my mentees (they love me, really), raised $100 for relay for life, been thrown in the air at two football games, managed to lose my lovely purple raincoat, hosted a vlog for my living learning community, received my official ISE ambassador blueberry polo, and made the decision to join the triathlon club amongst other everyday adventures. I've also met so many fun new people! I just really love college, crazy classes and all.