Family Love

So apparently people don't enjoy reading about writing papers for grad school. And that's ok. It's not really the most exciting part of my life anyways. I am in the most exciting part of my life right now, home at the Tierney's.
Let me explain:
Although I love my family, they are a little bit crazy. And to keep me from going crazy, God in his goodness and mercy gave me another family to love and depend on who love me back. This is where I stay when I come back to my hometown, and these people are the ones I call when I think I can't keep going. Somehow, they manage to help me make sense of life's craziness, even when I'm having a complete meltdown.
The Tierneys are a rare breed of family because they are the kind of people who are constantly opening their home to others, and continuously redefining and enlarging their own family unit. The core of the Tierney family consists of, well, the Tierneys: Jim, Rene, Cortney, Katie, Brittney, and Matthew. They have recently added Jason, Cortney's fiancee to the family. Trish and Stephanie, a mom and daughter pair, also live here, and every other weekend or so, I become part of the household. However, on any given day, the house can have any number of people added to it. The regulars are Heath (who I was in 4-H with), Dustin (another 4-H'er), Jennifer and Brian (a mom and son pair), and Evelyn (the leader of the 4-H group we all used to be in).
It's an exciting place to be with so many people, many who aren't related to each other, giving lots of love and encouragement to each other. We go on hikes, watch movies, make lots of food play, games, and all sorts of other fun things.
But I think the thing that makes this place so incredibly wonderful is that it's grounded in the love of Jesus. We all try to show His love to each other every chance we get, in helping each other out, encouraging each other, praying together, and finding little ways to make each other feel worthwhile. It's an amazing thing to feel like a real PART of a home that's full of love, laughter, and hijinks. It really makes me not want to go back to school, but at least I know that every time I go away, I have something wonderful to come back to.

Oklahoma, OK!

One of the things you must do as a grad student is write papers.  Now these aren't five-page, three-source papers.  These are intense, 20+ page, 50+ source papers.  For each course you take, you have to write at least one of these papers.

Last semester, I wrote three.  Well, two actually.  One of them was an in-depth training on managing power in the classroom for new grad assistants.  Anyways...

One of the papers I wrote was a narrative analysis of a God's Politics blog.  If you've never read the stuff put out by Jim Wallis and his colleagues, you definitely should.  It's good stuff. Really good stuff.  But I digress.

When Rudy Giuliani was still a candidate for the Republican presidential nomination, Pat Robertson got the brilliant idea that he should endorse Giuliani for president.  This despite the fact that nearly all of Giuliani's positions on social issues are the complete opposite of Robertson's.  When this epic event occurred, Wallis was a bit inflamed.  So, he decided to blog about it, in fine Jim Wallis fashion (that basically means that he completely and totally reamed Robertson in every way possible). 

Since I am a grad student and I had a paper to write for my religion and communication class, I decided that it would be fun to investigate the way Wallis talks about Robertson's endorsement of Giuliani, especially since Wallis and Robertson's ideas for how faith should be integrated into politics are COMPLETELY different (Wallis, by the way, seems to be an Obama fan). 

So I wrote the paper.  And I submitted it to a student conference.  And it got in. 

 

On March 6th, I will be boarding a plane and flying into Oklahoma to present my paper and (bonus!) visit with my beautiful and talented friend Emery, who is letting me sleep in her newly-redesigned guest room.  

I am so excited :)  I love Oklahoma for so many reasons: the friendly people, the sweet tea, the beautiful OU campus (which is reminiscent of Harvard with its red brick architecture ), the bbq, and, of course, the building full of fellow communication studies nerds who will be anxiously waiting to discuss my work.  Or rip it to pieces.  

Teach for America

Quite some time ago, I made a list of things I intended to do in order to take control of my life and make a difference in the world. Idealistic though it seems, I've finally followed through with one of the items on that list. I've just submitted my application to Teach for America, a national service program that sends out college graduates to teach in urban and rural underprivileged schools.
One part of the application process was choosing which areas I'd want to teach in. Since I've never been to the South, my top two picks were Eastern North Carolina and Atlanta, Georgia. My backup choice is the Bay Area.
I've always believed in the power of education, and it makes me feel all warm and tingly inside to think that I may very well have the opportunity to make a difference in the lives of some underprivileged kids through this program. I've always been teaching in some shape or form: leadership positions in 4-H, being a camp counselor, helping out fellow students, coaching debate, and actually teaching my own classes during grad school. So this program seems like it would be really good for me. I'd have the opportunity to help others, experience life in a new area, and grow as a teacher and a person.
Plus...if I complete my two years, I get a monetary bonus to put toward my student loans. Hooray!

Posting Challenge

So my lovely friend, Katie, has challenged me to a posting war. She has smugly stated that she can post more than me this month. That's right, she was smug. As I am never one to turn down a challenge, this post serves as my official notice that we are now engaged in a posting battle. Let the games begin!

She's a worthy opponent, but I will go toe-to-toe with her!

Updates

I've neglected to put down a REAL post for awhile, so here's a little update of what's happened since my last post:
- My pre-proposal for my thesis was approved, and I'm now enrolled in 6 units of thesis writing (ack!).
- I (barely) finished fall semester and completed all three 20+ page papers I had to write.
- I met with a guy I'd been talking to for the last few months over my birthday weekend, but things didn't really work out (that's ok, grad school isn't the time to start a new relationship anyway).
- I TURNED 26!!!!! I feel so old ;)
- I started another semester of school.
- I got a paper accepted to a conference in Oklahoma, so I'll be visiting my friend, Emery in okie-land the first week of March.
- I became an AUNT!!!
- I moved from Sacramento to Rancho Cordova. Further away from school, but cheaper and safer.

So that's the highlights of these last couple months while I've been blog-less. Here are some pictures you might enjoy:

I'm back!

I'm back, and ready to dust off this poor blog and get it running again! But before I do, I wanted to share this fun little tidbit from one of my favorite comics...

This is SO how I feel sometimes...especially during winter break while I was grading the take-home finals.