Wednesday, September 21, 2005

back to the future - part I

Grapevine

Unlike my friends who have digital cameras or cell phones with cameras, I have to wait a bit to get my photos onto my blog - wait for them to get developed, then posted online, then i have to transfer them to a disk and find a copmputer that will work with flickr and blogger and me! :) A few weeks ago I sent a few rolls to be develpopled and now they are online. hooray. I'd love to share them all but instead i'll share a few here now, spacing them out over a few posts, and encourage you, my fair reader, to check out flickr. so this first episode of the trilogy will be a look back at the last weeks and days before i moved out here to Boise. Click on the pictures to see the descriptions and more exciting pics on flickr.com. and enjoy!

Poetry on the first floor fridge at 22 Drayton
poetry

Holly, Kate and I after a night at WaterFire.
a Kate gesture Cheese!  Kate, Holly and I

Hot sticky wednesday night, sayin goodbye to some dear friends over an outdoor dinner at 18 Yuill Circle.
Sue. me and Kate Jack and I

Jack's Party
Jack's dance party

Tuesday, September 20, 2005

glory vessel

"i get so clumsy
i get so foolish
i get so stupid
and then i feel so useless
but You're sayin' you love me
and You're still gonna hold me
And that you wanna be near me
cause You're makin' me holy
still makin' me holy"

yesterday was one of those days when nothing seemed to be going eaxctly right. i got a whopping 3.5 hours of sleep sunday night/monday morning, trying to get this killer theory homework in on time. that didn't work, so i was a zombie all day and for almost nothing. after scraping through a Violin Litereature class for which i was semi-prepared, i found a spot on the old couch in the music student's lounge and slept like a dead thing for about an hour, revived by the sounds of kids and parents coming out of after-school private music lessons. after chowing down on a couple nuked burritoes for supper, i headed to orchestra where i had a not-so-succesful rehearsal, making a glaring mistake on this same spot i have yet to get right (it's one of the soli spots, so yes, everyone hears it!). as orchestra ended, and my day at school came to a close, i was looking forward to jumping on my bike and riding home. i love the biking and, tired as i was, i was looking forward to sleeping in my bed. that's when i discovered that my bike light had been stolen. arggh! i mentally kicked myself for not storing it in my locker during the day, and then had to admit, "oh well, it's all God's money", a phrase that i am relying on big time these days! so yeah, i was feeling pretty clumsy.
this morning, i was praying and remembered that yesterday - or was it sunday - i had had a revelation: i realized that in settling into a new place i had forgetten that God could use me to share His grace and truth with my new "neighbors", Boiseans. remebering again made me think how awesome God is, so patient and faithful, even when, especially when, i am niether of those things. i mean, not only did it take me 4 weeks look up from my own little life, but then when i did remember the God perspective, i promptly forgot about it a few hours later! then this song came back to me, about God still making me holy...
so here i go on another day. my efforts to please God are, in of themselves, useless, but somehow God is growing me into a vessel for His glory. my hope is that i can remember to keep my eyes open enough to see it.

Saturday, September 10, 2005

good to be here

Last night I did something kinda crazy. Today I led a rather solitary existence, but my day was a full of exploring and music. Crazy, exploring and music. Good things. Where to begin?
Well, this morning I checked out the weekly Capital City Public Market I've heard so much about. Described as a European-style open market in downtown Boise, it boasts locally grown and crafted food, art and music. Unlike Boston's Haymarket, which is the cheapest place to buy fruits and veggies from April to October, the Market here is more upscale, more about quality food at decent prices. And it is definitely an Event. Boise is funny that way, very conciously building its city-ness. It's kinda cute, really, like a nine-year-old glaring up at his 6-foot-2 cousin and insisting, "but I AM big!... or, well... I WILL be!"
Anyway, I liked it, the morning downtown. For the first time since landing in this little piece of desert, I had the thought, "it's good to be here." Another thing I am enjoying is riding around the city on my bike Joe - he's basic transportion, a working bike, an average Joe; gotta love him. Then there is food gathering. I do most of my grocery shopping at this awesome store called WinCo that's near campus. It's set up semi-warehouse style, and they don't accept debit or credit cards beacuse the fees assocaiated with those would "cause a Price Increase", as the sign ouside the front door says. I go at least once a week and get a couple bags, just enought to carry on my bike, then store the food in my instrument locker at school til I go home. It's great to open my locker at the end of the day and get a whiff of blueberry/apple granola and ranch salad dressing mix! :)
Anyway, last night. Basically, it rained. This was the first time I'd seen precipitation since I got here, so it was a new thing for me. My first or second day here I found that I loved the smell in the air in the morning. I realized that it was the smell of dew on the dry ground and grass - a wet hay smell, I guess. Yesterday, it was a lovely evening, cool and windy, and some pretty clouds. Then it started raining and I decided I just had to be out in it. By the time I got out on my bike after supper, it was around sunset and the raining as hard as ever. I was soaked after just a few minutes and thought, "Sylvia, what are you doing? you're gonna get sick or run over because it is dusk and raining and the people here do not know how to drive in the rain..." Then I saw the rainbow, so clear and close it looked like solid thing, a beautiful sight with one end of it touching the yellow-brown foothills and the other melting into a tree straight ahead of me. At one point I looked up and realized that could see the whole rainbow, then looking back to the road I saw a deer just to my right. Frightened by my presence, she scampered off, and I was like, "Thanks God; this so great. I'm wet and freezing and tired and sore, but it is definitley worth it!"
So I made it back home all right, took a hot shower and slept like a baby. Today, after experiencing downtown Boise, I got a dose of Boise State community when I went into the Student Union to make a couple photocopies and the Food Court was set up as Bronco football central. The weekly game, this one against Oregon State, was being watched by a roomful of blue and orange clad fans. Already being a football fan, I found the atmosphere infectious and I took a moment to watch a play - two minutes left in the 1st half. 4th and goal. good guys, up only by three, on offense. could they get it??? "Ohhh." great defense by OSU. Palpable dissapointment, but not yet worried, still up by three points, right?
So, I headed back to practicing my violin - 3 and a half hours today; not bad. Then later, I attended the recital of a young Russian pianist brought into town for the Student Union's Classic Performances series. His name is Vasilly Primakov. He gradauted with his BM and MM from Julliard, and now at 26 he is an up-and-coming performer touring the globe, even including Boise, Idaho. A real handsome dude in the head shot on his bio, he is also wonderfully dorky in person as only artsy folks can be, pianists in particular, I think. He wore these great pointy shoes and made faces while he played and he performed Chopin and Beethoven like nobody's business. I laughed, I cried, I sighed - not out loud of course, but I did do a "woo, hoo!" whem he finished the last piece, a stellar rendition of Beethoven's "Appassionata" Sonata. And we all gave him a much deserved standing ovation.
So that was my day and a half. I'm not sure what I'm doing for church tomorrow. I think there's a little church near by that I can bike to, so more exploring first thing in the morning. Better get some sleep then, eh? So thinks for reading and Guten Nacht.

Thursday, September 01, 2005

Good blog day

So, it's September 1.
September 1 is a day that seems to require recognition. It's not up there with December 25, or January 1, or July 4, but still, it has a certain weight to it, like - dun-dun-dun - "the End of Summer is Here!" or "Here comes autumn", if your glass is half full. Either way, the day is significant in my brain for some reason, so though I have nothing particularly exciting to say, "Here Is A Post".
Some good news: I have allergies, so a dose of Alavert a day has made me feel mucho better!
The bad news: I have allergies, which I have never had to worry about before. Blech. The worst thing is that I seem to be at least slightly allergic to the cats that I live with. When she first advertised the room in her house, my housemate - henceforth "Chica" - said that a renter would have to be ok with cats and kids, cause she has three cats and a kid - henceforth "Zeek". I told her I was cool with both and, no, I was not allergic. So here I am... with itchy eyes and ears and the occasional sneeze. Other folks have told me about similar experiences when first moving here. It's a drastic change in environment, from a humid, coastal one to the desert, so I guess it's not surprising that I developed allergies all of a sudden. My reactions are mild now that I'm taking the Alavert, so I am planning on staying with Chica and Zeek, but I am running my new Holmes Air Purifier 24/7.
So, as warned, this really wasn't exciting at all, but... oh! It's my mother's birthday! That's what it is! So this is why writing is important, boys and girls: it develops the Mind, it stretches Creativity, and it helps you Remember Stuff You Forgot. Anyway, gotta run and make a phone call.