Why did I get up this morning?

It started out a pretty normal morning... I woke up to Dido, playing on the alarm clock radio, went through my regular routine of standing before my closet, dripping wet (having just gotten out of the shower) and freezing cold (because the heat in my apartment still isn't on), rummaging through my clothes, trying to decide which outfit will make me look least fat today. I proceded to the cabinet and fridge in search of breakfast, only to decide for the fifth time this week that there is nothing for breakfast in my apartment. So, I brushed my teeth, put on my make-up, poured some iced coffee in a travel mug, and ran out the door, locking it behind myself. I had to leave a few minutes early to stop by the library (I realized last night that the Arabic tapes were overdue - hate when that happens!). There was nothing good on the radio, so I put in an old cassette of songs I loved 10 years ago and sang at the top of my lungs, which wasn't actually all that loud thanks to the miserable cold I currently have. I got to the gate at work and flashed my ID... That was when my seemingly normal morning changed. The police at the gate grabbed my ID and told me to pull over to the side. I had NO idea what was going on as they circled my car, looking at the front and rear license plates. Finally, the woman who took my ID came to the window and informed me that my registration was expired and that I would not be allowed to park on base. Of course, she gave me the whole lecture first about how dangerous it is to allow that to expire and on and on... Then she tried to switch to good cop: "I could give you a $100 fine, but I am going to let you go with a verbal warning." A lot of good THAT does!!! My car is parked out on the street where there are TONS of police patrolling all the time. I am quite sure that I will have that fine by the end of the day. I was very tempted to just go back to my apartment and call it a day, but I didn't. Well, I guess the day has to get better from here on in. I really hope it can't get much worse... but then again I have to the DMV today, so maybe it will get worse. =/

Back in my flat

Two weeks away it feels like the whole world should've changed
But I'm home now
And things still look the same
I think I'll leave it till tomorrow to unpack
Try to forget for one more night
That I'm back in my flat on the road
Where the cars never stop going through the night


Try to remind myself that I was happy here
Before I knew that I could get on the plane and fly away
From the road where the cars never stop going through the night
To a life where I can't watch sunset

 

Ever wonder why?

As a child, I used to question why I was born in America and not Africa or Asia (where I was told children starve - my friend's parents told me that one; my own parents never used that line on me), or why, out of 50 states, I was born in the best one, or did I just think it was the best because I lived there, or why my parents were my parents, and why I wasn't born into some other family. Of course I concluded that I wouldn't have been me if things had happened any differently... so then I wondered why I existed in the first place. You may think I am kidding, or at the very least, exaggerating, but I actually remember a day at about 5 or 6 years old, sitting on the steps in front of my family's house, thinking up these very questions. So why am I thinking about these questions now? Well, it's just that while everything around me changes constantly, the questions never do. I still question why. Why am I where I am? What if I were somewhere else? Why am I doing what I am doing? Should I be doing something else? Of course, being the college-educated person that I am, I think about these things through a teleological perspective and ask what is my purpose in it all? Then I answer that with my reformed theological response: "to glorify God and enjoy Him forever." Since there are many paths leading to that end, I still lack the solid answers I seek. Will I always continue to wonder? I wonder... 

My favorite picture from this past week

Ok, so it's my favorite two-pictures-in-one. I actually only took one of them; R took the other. By the way, that is a moonrise, not a sunrise. Pretty cool, don't ya think?