Umbrellas

There was a day a couple of weeks back when I was completely taken with raindrops. So with rain on the brain, I sat down to doodle and soon two umbrellas, three people, and a whole lot of raindrops appeared.

When I was done I was left with several questions, which you may also be asking.

1. Who the heck are these people?

2. Why are they sitting on the curb during a rainstorm?

3. And how are raindrops supposed to look when they hit the ground? (Because obviously none of these have made it yet).

Good luck. If you figure out any of the answers, let me know. Later I realized that the picture is perhaps a fictionalized composite account of true events. I was duped into drawing it by my subconscious. Sneaky little blighter. And I must say that Umbrellas by Sleeping at Last (from their album Keep No Score) may have also had subconscious influence. I wasn't thinking of it at the time, but it is one of my favorite songs.

And with that, I bid you all adieu. May the sun soon shine on your umbrella.

Sirens

There is nothing that can ruin the experience of an awesome thunderstorm like a tornado siren. That is, having the tornado sirens go off and the guy on the intercom telling you to tune your radios to the weather channel. (Personally I think it sounds like something out of a concentration camp...and who uses a radio on a college campus?). It suddenly goes from "Feeling-the-Raw-Power-of-the-Universe" to "Maybe-We-Should-Head-to-the-Basement."

I enjoy a good thunderstorm, but a tornado siren can really ruin the effect. I suppose I should be grateful that we're so lucky as to have the system on campus, but last night I was far from grateful when it went off whining and screaming at 1:37 am and I was snugly tucked beneath my covers. False alarms have been rather abundant lately and I was beginning to resent the whole system.

I wouldn't have bothered to get up if it had been raining; the trouble was that it was so warm and quiet, and that kind of got me. So I went to the window and looked out. Nothing. Brittany, my room mate, is used to these disturbances, and she slumbered on, as did the rest of the suite, I assume. Except for one suite mate, who was checking the weather on her computer in the suite. Naturally it was the two girls from Texas and Kansas City, MO who were concerned about tornadoes. Both of us peered out the double doors trying to ascertain whether the sky was yellow or not.

Yes, we are on tornado watch, Cecelia confirmed. Suddenly overcome with sleepiness again, curiosity satisfied, I went back to bed. The wind was picking up, but the wind always picks up here because of the hill that Kettering sits on. When it began to rain normally, I felt better.

So I lay there, listening for abnormal noises above the racket of the
air conditioning unit that wasn't even on and wondering why it
was making that Noise and thinking about how Kettering
Hall was like a Fortress it was such a sturdy building
with bricks All Around Us and how hopefully if
there Happened To Be a Tornado the window
wouldn't shatter like they do In Movies and
sever any Major Arteries and maybe I
should put the quilt over my head
Just In Case and how nobody
ever thinks things like
tornados could Ever
Really Happen
to them but
Sometimes
they do

just ask dorothy.

Quit Whining, Start Working

"You cannot live with the heart of a rabbit."

That is an Albanian proverb that I read once, and it always comes back to haunt me. There are lots of things I'm not afraid of, like flying, but there are plenty of things I'm afraid of down inside, like painting.

I have a tiny adorable watercolor set that some very dear people sent me in a magical package on my birthday. There are 12 chunks of watercolor, each perfectly wrapped in plastic and a label that I couldn't bring myself to open. But the real reason wasn't the darling packaging. It was my rabbit heart.

Tonight in Dr. Porter's Behavioral Science class we had presentations on Malcolm Gladwell's book Outliers. One presentation was on the 10,000 hour rule, which is simply this:

"Researchers have settled on what they believe is the magic number for true expertise: ten thousand hours....Ten thousand hours is required to achieve the level of mastery associated with being a world-class expert--in anything." Outliers, pg. 40

It's a little disheartening to think that it takes ten thousand hours to get really good at just about anything, and that's only if your ducks were in a row to begin with, the stars were aligned, and your mom's great uncle's half-sister-once-removed left you a substantial inheritance. I'm taking it all with a grain of salt, because I realize that there are a lot more factors involved in being good at something than just practice.

But the main thing that hit me was that, well, I can't stand there forever staring at the clouds, waiting for the storm to come. God gave work as a gift to humankind. Two hands, a mind, a will. Sanctified in Him. If I want to get good at something, I need to stop comparing and start creating. I need to quite whining and get to work.