Malakalekemaka...or however you spell that

That song is kind of weird but that word has been sing-song stuck in my head throughout the Christmas season. That, plus the choruses to Love the Way You Lie, Let Your Rain Flow, and all of the songs from White Christmas. I thought about writing a deep reflection - and wrote a few drafts - on this particular Christmas and on Christmases in general, but I think I'll just comment on a few random silly somethings.

I realized that my favorite part of Christmas is the lights. I really love them, love them, love them! I'm not sure why. They are the same general concept as street lights, lamp lights, head lights - and I don't necessarily love those things. But I love Christmas lights! They are white and yellow-white and red and blue and green and orange and all strung together in a pretty little line of magical goodness. I slept on the couch this Christmas (having spent it in CT with the immediate familia) and on Christmas Eve I left the Christmas tree lights on all night just because I could.

I only have flashes of Christmas memories: go-carting one year with my cousins, GG Nor getting the grab-bag gag gift one year (have you ever had to explain edible underwear to your great-grandmother?), my first GPS (because I got lost on my way to T-giving that year), an Etch-A-Sketch. Most of my memories, though, are one hazy, soft-focus lensed amalgamation of Christmas Eves. I can easily say it is in the soft place in my heart, a bright light joyful feeling I can always rely on to be there. It's not that my family is any more special or amazing than anyone else's, it's just that, well, I love my extended Knippel family for better and for worse. And Christmas Eve is when we have all traditionally gathered for a night of eating, playing, dancing, joking, catching up, and drinking Rosemary's toxically spiked egg nog.

One year in the not-too-distant past, Christmas day fell on a Sunday. I boycotted Christmas that year because the day we celebrate Christ's birth had the audacity to fall on a day in which I had to get up and go to church, instead of on a day when it should have fallen: any other day in which I did not have to get up and go to church. Priorities, anyone?

An Egg? Buddy, you just laid a Vermont volleyball

Christmas tree angel. From this angle, she looks pissed!

Obviously our true calling. Arrr matey.

Mystical. Literally, it's from Mystic (Julia Roberts was here)

And Kenni was here

Can you call it a massacre if it only killed 5 people?

Oh yeah, and Jill and I went to Italy!

bad nose jobs

the Colosseum. glad that's over.

freezing our butts off in Venice

Leonard of Vinci was here

That, plus cheese and gelato, was pretty much the diet :)

Blah blah blah, I'm a dirty tramp

I cut a lot of wood the other day (I know, it sounds bad, but I really did cut actual fibrous tree particles - for Habitat for Humanity, nonetheless). I used a 10” table saw to cut 4x4s (which are really 3.5x3.5) and 1x6s (which are really less-than 1 x less-than 6…yeah, wrap your head around that). I helped shoot nails into concrete with the construction equivalent of a pump action, pistol-grip shotgun. I laughed at nails that had been machine-gunned into baseboards.

And then I went and watched The Town with Ben Affleck (hey, there), some girl (the one in Please Give, the brown-haired sister), some other people (the guy from Mad Men, two other guys I recognized but have no idea of their names). I saw people get shot with shotguns and with machine (well, semi- and just-plain-regular automatic) guns. Over money. Sooo cliché. I mean really, money? Because that ever works out. Haven’t they ever seen a movie??

I really loved the movie, but I realized that I’m getting to the point where emotional movies make me really emotional! I mean, really. I apparently can’t watch people get fake shot in fake life or handle fake heartache in fake life. I watch two hours of fake problems and then spend the rest of the night trying to solve them. When did I stop being able to watch a simple movie? Or, more accurately, when did I stop being able to watch a movie simply??

I just did my capstone paper on reality television, particularly The Bachelorette. I looked at how television has been, and reality television is becoming (and/or has become…let’s just get in all the verb tenses. It will become and then it became) major myth builders for our society. How what we see is who we are or at least who we think we should be. You’re afraid you’re going to get sucked out? Well, I’m afraid I’m going to get sucked in!

Life is pain, your Highness, and anyone who tells you differently is trying to sell you something. I think that’s true a lot of the time. And it’s probably because the more I see and understand about real life, the less able I am to dismiss fake life as much as I once could. Real people get shot in real life every day. Maybe not in epic police battles in the middle of a street after 10 minutes of dangerous car chasing, but it happens. Real people lose real people they really love. Maybe not with 100 FBI agents standing over their shoulder, but it happens. Real parents really suck at raising real kids, and real people with power really oppress people without it. Maybe not with wide angle lenses and cut-away shots, but it happens. You gotta chase the bunny if you want to get its tail. My mom told me that. A gem, really.

Whew! It’s been daylight savings time for a while now. Hope you set your clock back and are enjoying the extra hour :)

Oops, I said it again...

The first time I tried to stop cursing, I was in eighth grade – well, just going into it – and I said “damn” in front of my youth minister. She responded well – not calling me out on it and relating a similar story of how she once said that word, too. I figured I should quit because it “wasn’t Christian.” Wholesome words and all that.

The second time I tried to quit (well, that I can remember) was in college. All of my roommates and friends laced expletives through most every sentence, and motherf-er was (maybe is) my favorite choice for multiple parts of a sentence. But my last year of school brought the Baptist Campus Ministry into my life, and I decided I “should” try to give it up. I woke up one Saturday morning and said God, I’m going to stop cursing. I got in my car, picked up pictures from Walgreens, and on the way home was cut off in an intersection. Unpleasantries came out before I even had a chance to hit the breaks. Oops.

I've tried to hide it, change, it, accept it, fight it. Now, I just try to be aware of it. I don’t swear at church, in front of children or old folks, and I try to keep it to “light” cussing - a few of these, some of that, an "oh " here and there. But sometimes I get on a roll and then I probably say the “f” word more times than the Boondock Saints (certainly illustrating the diversity of the word). There is just something sweet and satisfying in the way it rolls off your tongue, something cathartic about its expression of your emotion in that very second.

I’m not sure if it’s wrong or right, but oh well. F- it.
(haha, just kidding)

Yassa!

My first attempt at making poulet yassa! It turned out okay, actually. Not as good as NDeye's, of course, but not bad :) And my parents were champs and ate it off one plate!

Makes me miss the real thing :)

Smells like teen spirit, actually...

I found these this weekend - I must have written them down at some point! Some are serious, most are funny; some are from people you don't know, most are from people you do. All of them make me smile in some way :)

"George W. Bush is a Muggle" - bumper sticker

"I rather feel like expressing myself now...and I could certainly use the release!" - Audrey Hepburn, Funny Face

"I've had people tell me I'm too emotional, and I'm like, thanks, I'm going to go cry now..."

"And just as I was about to kill him in the name of God, Brother Woody said, 'let's pray'" - Dr. Watterson

"Where's my Bible? I think every preacher oughta have a Bible" - Dr. Watterson

“Honest engagement with difficult texts validates the questions of sincere disciples” – Dock, Proper 15 homily

"I don’t know if I really see you two together" - Pam
"Really? Well, maybe you should look in the smart part of your brain" - Andy
"She’s very religious" - Pam
"Ok, well, I come from a line of WASPs so long it leads back to Moses" - Andy
"She takes her convictions really seriously – she can be kind of severe" -Pam
"Yea, and I punched a hole in a wall" - Andy
"That’s right, you did" - Pam

"Enjoy when you can; endure when you must."- Johann Wolfgang

"I have loved the stars too fondly to be fearful of the night." - Galileo Galilei

Poulet Yassa

Ceebu jen (Wolof, pronounced chebodjin; ceeb means rice and jen means fish) is really good, but poulet yassa is my favorite! I've been a vegetarian for about 3 years, but I ate anything NDeye served. Even if you could avoid being flicked some meat - which is impossible - everything is cooked together at some point, so there's no being a strict anything there. And it's just so darn good!

Carrots, onions, yiambe (I have no idea how to spell that - it's some sort of root vegetable of potato-like consistency), cabbage, chicken, rice (malo in Serer), peppers...NDeye definitely has a gift for cooking, part of her gift of hospitality.

This poulet yassa doesn't look as good as NDeye's, but the comment section say it tastes like the real thing. I can't wait to try it out!! And whoever eats it will eat it African style - off a large platter, sharing spoons and cups, and standing around the table :)

y mas

sitting in the sand by the Mediterranean

looking back out over part of Roquetas

John and Fatou

NDeye making poulet yassa- my favorite!

NDeye and me a few days before I left

the campos at night

my first English class

Rachel and I with some guys at Mojonera

A few of the women at the weekly Friday Women's Class

Es que...

I'm back. I'm processing. Give me a few and I'll fill you in :)

My Angry Semester

Ok, I don't really mean angry, but it's a short word and more provocative than "The Semester Where I Was Upset, Defensive, Sad, and (In General) Crazy for No Particular Reason."

I blame it on the winter. It was COLD. For a long time. The sun didn't shine, the birds didn't chirp, and I couldn't go outside without bundling up and running from heated building to heated building. I was MISERABLE. Usually when I'm miserable, I cry about it and hug it out. And go outside where the hot and shining sun warms and hugs my soul. This winter, though, created a monstrous beast inside me! I was angry at the cold weather! Pissed off for being cold ALL the time! And, as there was no one with whom to snuggle it out, my only resort was punching it out. But there was nothing with which to punch it out, either, so I just sat (inside) and stewed. I would dream of the warm beach and curse the cold weather. Impulse control was the only thing that stopped me from shoving my fists through the tiles in the shower as, morning after morning, I was literally shaking from being so cold - even though the water was on full hot.

Now it's warm. It's sunny. My soul rejoices!! And yet...sometimes I still want to wield a baseball bat and smash tiny delicate glass objects. Instead, I skipped class this morning.

Now I know why Northerners have such a reputation for rudeness. Poor folks are just cold.

Giddy :)

Say say oh playmate won't you play with me and bring your dollies three into my cellar door and we'll be friends forever more. one two three four.

(fake trumpet solo)

:D

If all the rain drops were lemon drops and gum drops

Yesterday I tripped and fell while running. Well, let me be honest. I tripped and FLEW forward, landing squarely on my chest with my legs flying up over my head...yep, I felt my legs FLY up into the air. I had lept out of the way as a car came closely down my side of the road. There was plenty of room - if he/she had hugged the center line all would have been fine, but he/she didn't and I tried to give him/her a wide berth and consequently tripped over something in the gutter. I've fallen before while running (tripping over my own feet), but then I just fell straight down and stayed there. This time, I kind of skidded forward when I hit the ground. I cut up my finger and hand, and really bruised my left knee. It's all big and blue and purple and swollen. My right knee has a bruise on top with a lovely raspberry in the middle. And I have some scratches on my upper leg. I limped back to campus and a friend drove me home :)

THEN! Today I slammed my middle finger in the bathroom stall door at school. SLAMMED. I almost fell down it hurt so much! Instead, I tried not to scream (the bathrooms are very echo-y) or throw up. I went back to class and told my friend and shook it off. I now have a little bruise under my nail and I couldn' t type with my middle finger for the rest of the class :)

Maybe I should pay more attention and pick up my feet more...nah. I think the solution is to run on marshmallows and have doors made of clouds...