My Heart and the Life Verse Phenomenon, Part II

I have a confession:

Africa was never the desire of my heart.

Which, in a 20/20 hindsight kind of way, is how I know I'm exactly where God wants me to be.

Let's examine the reasons I never wanted to move to Africa:
1. I speak Spanish. I love Spanish. Why would I move to a continent entirely incompatible with 8 years of linguistic training?
2. I generally enjoy living in a nation with a stable infrastructure & an organized government, and without an international reputation for scams.
3. I bargained with God at the age of 9: I would go wherever He wanted me, except Africa.

Oh, sorry, you thought bargaining was only something adults do in the 4th stage of grief? Nope, kids do it, too. Here's how it went down for me:

I have a distinct memory of reading a collection of missionary stories which told about some place in Africa that had these killer ants that sting and bite their way into your ears and wreck your brain. Or something like that.

I sat on the floor of my basement reading about these ants and saying to God, "Okay, buddy, look. You can send me anywhere you want. But I am not going there. Got it?" We learn to bargain with God at such a very young age.

I toyed with the idea of mission work for the better half of my young life, and by my last semester at Wheaton College, my perception of mission work had changed drastically. I'm more in tune with the Humanitarian Work + Jesus model.

As in, "Yes, I'll build a well for your village, supplying you with safe drinking water that will potentially extend your life expectancy. When I'm finished with the well, can I tell you about some Living Water? It extends life expectancy, too." I'm all about that approach.

By May 2009, the "Reasons Maggie Never Wants to Live in Africa" list had grown:

4. I have a bunch of student loans, and few missions organizations will sign on full-time missionaries with debt.
5. I spent all 4 years of college answering the question, "What are you going to do with an English degree? Teach?" with an emphatic "NO WAY, NOT ME."
6. I need a salary. I'm not comfortable taking a job that requires me to itinerate support.
7. My brother Jake moved to Wheaton, and frankly, I want to be in the same state after a 4-year separation.

The list was getting longer, you see. But as I added bullet points to that list, another list was forming: The "Reasons Maggie Will End Up Moving to Africa" list:

1. The economy tanked. Any job is a good job.
2. My English degree does allow me to teach in private schools. Talk about keeping options open.
3. 6-month and 9-month grace periods on federal student loans have this tendency to creep up on you.
4. As much as I love my parents and appreciate their hospitality, the whole being a jobless bum thing was really unflattering. It was the first time I'd been unemployed since the 8th grade, and I hated it. I wanted out.

I have a feeling God knew I would flake out on the living overseas thing. I spent 13 years second-guessing, doubting, questioning, evading, avoiding, ignoring, making excuses, and running in the opposite direction. I imagine God was shaking his head, because I played the part of Israel perfectly.

In Hosea 2, Israel was unfaithful to God like a wife returning to a life of prostitution. God's response?
6 Therefore I will block her path with thornbushes;
I will wall her in so that she cannot find her way
7 She will chase after her lovers but not catch them;
she will look for them but not find them.
Then she will say,
'I will go back to my husband as at first,
for then I was better off than now.'

I was so content in my mud that God had to frustrate me relationally, economically, professionally, physically, financially, and emotionally just to get my attention.

All the while, Africa waited.

God was blocking my path with thorns, backing me into a corner with job loss and breakups, making sure that when I tried to get out of my corner, the open path was Nigeria.

Honestly, I feel that all the events of the past 15 months of my life occurred if solely for the purpose of getting me to Africa, which is both terrifying and relieving. It's terrifying because that means that "such a time as this" is really important. It's relieving because for all my wandering and wrong turns, God still brought me to this place. I didn't screw it up. God is bigger than my ignorance.

For 13 years, Africa was not my desire, but it is now.

That's how I know I'm not in the mud anymore.

My Heart and the Life Verse Phenomenon

I don't remember exactly when, in my churched childhood, I first came across the idea of "The Life Verse." I must have been young, because I can't recall ever hearing the phrase and not immediately comprehending it.

In my opinion, The Life Verse exists at the place where the church meets consumerist culture. Which is not to say that the concept of The Life Verse is heretical or blasphemous. It's one way that we make Scripture pertain specifically to ourselves as individuals (i.e. "How can Scripture meet my needs?") and another way that Christians succeed in marketing religion back to ourselves. If that statement made you angry, I would be happy to forward you my senior-year thesis on the purchasing of Brand Jesus, which will help you understand where I'm coming from. You could also read Tyler Wigg Stevenson's book of the same name.

The timeline goes as follows: somewhere in my early childhood, I learned that I could claim a Scripture verse to be the theme of my as-yet-unlived life. I could claim it and it could be a guidepost, a veritable memorial stone--just like in Joshua 4--representing the times when God showed up: a testament to enduring faithfulness. Some time after this, I came to see Psalm 37:4 as my Life Verse:

"Delight yourself in the Lord, and he will give you the desires of your heart."

Fast-forward ten years. In the fall of my senior year, during a quarter-life crisis (in which the soon-to-be college graduate freaks out about the impending doom of her aimless life), my very wise roommate Sarah shared with me that my life verse can be understood in two ways. Yes, she said, most people interpret it in the way I had, believing that delighting oneself in the Lord will result in assured happiness, indeed, in the things you most want in life: the deepest desires of your heart. But, she informed me, some read it this way: when you are so deep in the will of God, when His will is the only thing you care to pursue and when His face is the only thing filling your line of vision, you will find that the things your heart wants most are--in an ironic twist--the things HE most wants. Those, she said, are the desires of your heart when you delight yourself in Him: His desires.

Can I get an amen?

It took a few days to sink in, but I cannot be more convinced that this second, newer (new, at least, to me) interpretation is more accurate. The first seems too consumerist to be true: that God would give me what I want as long as I am delighting in Him (whatever that unidentified term delight means). It seems much more probable that in my love affair with a God who knows me better than I know myself, He would exchange what I think I want for what is actually better for me to have. We recognize this today as a mother's love.

This is how I picture it. I was sitting, happily mucking about, in puddle of mud, completely oblivious to my own filth. In comes Jesus Christ, who takes me by the hand and leads pulls yanks me out of the mud. I protest; I kick and I scream. "But I like it here," I say. "I want to stay; I want this - it's fun!"
As He washes the mud from body, he quiets me in a whisper: "My child, you don't know what you want. That is, what you say you want, you don't actually know it. It's mud. You're dirty. I want to give you what I want for you."
It's then that I realize the mud is washed away, pooled on the floor at my feet. I'm standing, shivering, wet, cold, and naked. I can see that the mud is dirty, filthy, wretched and has been drowning me in its filth and making me dirty and wretched. And I want nothing more than to have what He wants to give me: a garment of praise and a crown of righteousness.

That's what Psalm 37:4 means to me. It means that all the things I want in this world, all the dreams I can dream up for myself, all the places I want to go, all the plans I make for my future- they are all mud. I think I know what it is I want, I think I understand what I'm asking for, but what He wants to give me is so. much. better. than what I desire. And as I busy myself in my mud, perfectly content with the nearsighted visions that placate me, Psalm 37:4 reminds me that when I delight myself in Him, the things I want fall away and are replaced by the grandiose treasures He desires on my behalf.

Please understand that this new reading of my so-called Life Verse does not, in fact, make my life easier. It's more complicated now. It involves deep internal questions: These things I want, are they what He wants? This situation I'm sitting in, is it mud? That goal I've set, is it too narrow in scope?

In the midst of my questions, though, comes the reassurance that as long as I'm delighting myself in Him--seeking His will instead of living for myself--my desires will align with His until mine don't even exist anymore.

That is worth climbing out of the mud for.

Heat and other Adventures

Today's post is brought to you by my dear friend Amanda, who pointed out that for more than a week, you all have had to read about dead bodies each time you check for updates. And that's just not pleasant. Thanks to Amanda, you will read something new today! It's not much, but at least it's not dead bodies, right?

Hot Season is here. Soooooo-oh-oh-oh here. Here, and awful. Those of you in the Midwest or even just slightly above the equator may have trouble conceptualizing what 108 degrees Fahrenheit feels like. Let me try to paint you a picture: As I passed the threshold from my classroom to the outdoor courtyard, a wall of the hottest, stickiest humid heat knocked me in my chest, in a way that first sucked all the air out of my lungs and then made it impossible to inhale. It felt like drowning--the only logical way to get oxygen is to breathe, but you really don't want to inhale because you only have the option to breathe water. Okay, so like that, only with thick, filmy, hot air instead of water.

Better yet, just preheat the oven to 114 degrees (that's the forecast for tomorrow) and then stick your head in and take a breath or two. Or don't. Because isn't that how Sylvia Plath died or something?

Oh. One last picture-painting attempt: today during my 8th grade class, a drop of sweat rolled down the back of my knee. The. Back. Of. My. Knee. I have never sweated from there in my entire life. Good to know Africa is bringing out a new side of me.


Highlight of the Week: I held Parent-Teacher Conferences last night. One Mom told me in Serbian that I'm her kid's favorite teacher. The interpreter goes, "She says you are Vladimir's...how you say?...fohvreet?" I love international schools.

Tough Stuff

I saw a dead body today.

Yes, I really did. We were driving home from school and we came upon this little accident between two cars (seriously, that's nothing out of the ordinary around here; we didn't even slow down). Then as we crested the next hill, we saw a throng of people trying to cross the highway and all these cars stopped on the sides--and even in the middle--of the road. There was tons of dust in the air, and as we neared what we all assumed was a collision, the driver started clicking with his mouth (a cultural habit that would translate to nonverbal "uh-oh" or "oh my gosh").

And then I looked just to my left and saw a piece of burlap covering a woman's body, but her head tie and her feet still showed from either end. Before I could even reach out to shield my young friend (the Alvin and the Chipmunks one) from seeing, she gasped, turned her face into my shoulder and burst into tears. I put my arm around her and felt my face twist into shock - I honestly couldn't believe what I was seeing.

You guys, it was surreal. The woman must have been hit while crossing the road, because we didn't see any cars for her to have been pulled from. And I know that nothing about this tragic accident has anything to do with me, but these were my immediate thoughts, and they're ugly at best:
1. I've seen worse on CSI.
2. I was expecting more blood.
3. Too bad I didn't see it happen.

It wasn't until after I thought all these perverse and disgusting things that I silently prayed, "God, have mercy on her soul" and got around to wondering if the woman had any children. You can't tell me desensitization doesn't exist.

This all happened about 20 minutes ago, so while I'm still processing it, this is the temporary conclusion I've reached: I think God has been protecting me from seeing things like this until He knew I could handle it. Which is why I was able to comfort my friend (although we instantly assumed our teacher-and-student roles in that moment) while staying glued to the side of the road.

Kýrie, eléison; Christé, eléison

Today, I am frustrated.

There's a sad sort of complacency that has crept in these past few days. I'd like to ignore it and say it's just the result of finding a routine, or to blame it on the fact that I'm finally feeling comfortable here in Abuja. But although there is a chair in my living room that has been contoured to fit my bum and my slouchy back, and although I have a weekend routine of laundry and lesson plans, and although getting ready for bed is so familiar I did it in the dark last night (even a loss of power does little faze me these days), there is still this foreign ache in my heart, this feeling that something is amiss.

I feel the ache most when I bristle at my flatmate, when my students bicker, when I check out from the sermon in church, when I grow frustrated with colleagues. I ache when I talk to my best friend on the phone and the delay frustrates me more than the fact that I miss doing life side-by-side with her. I ache when my heart is so full with love for this place and simultaneously emptied by the despair of everyone I left behind.

I think the ache is just me. As in, I think the ache is my Eve nature surfacing again. I have two faces, two Maggies I pull out and put on. Sometimes the switch is so imperceptible I surprise myself. Some days I can ascertain which Maggie will reign based on the number of times I hit the snooze button. That frustrates me - do I honestly lack so much self-control that I can resign myself to being an impatient woman the moment my feet hit the tile floor? It's like self-fulfilling prophecy: I am tired, therefore today's going to be a long, bad day...therefore I'm going to deal with today being a long, bad day by putting on my angry Maggie face in protest.

I read this week that the word essay comes from the French word essai, which translates to an attempt, or a try. The essay itself used to be a collection of thoughts with no apparent conclusion. It was just an attempt at some cogitation and conclusion, and didn't require the latter. It has since morphed into a higher art form, in which the author has an objective and establishes the main points with solid supporting evidence (two words: lit. teacher.), but today, this blog post falls under the category of essai.

Just questions. No answers. Not today.

Follow-up and Chipmunks

I don't suppose that was very wise of me--posting about sketchy security-related events without providing any further news. Allow me to rectify the situation.

I'm fine. Abuja is fine. Everything is secure. In fact, roads were clear and safe by the time I left school yesterday. Nothing to see here; move along. I apologize that I gave any cause for concern.

I went to the movies today. Silverbird is a brand-new complex in the heart of Abuja, and it boasts movie theaters on the top floor, restaurants, shops, even a little bowling alley (which looks more like skee-ball at an arcade, if you ask me). Most of the store spaces are still empty, that's how new it is. Construction is still ongoing; there are cranes in the parking lot, and the access roads are not yet paved. Nigerians are impatient when it comes to these things (and this is the closest thing we have to a mall), so it's been in operation for the past few months.

Anyways, I went to the movies with a Nigerian friend. Said friend fits multiple categories: friend, little sister, neighbor, boss's daughter, 10th grade student, etc. Today, going to the movies, she was my friend. She chose Alvin and the Chipmunks. As a testament to my otherwise finite patience, I went anyways. (The last time I went to a kids' movie was 5 years ago and I was nannying 4 children under the age of 12.) Needless to say, it wasn't what I would have chosen, but that's okay.

So we're 2 of 4 people in the whole theater. Which was cool, until a massive group of youngsters came streaming screaming in. I rolled my eyes and hoped none of them would sit behind me and kick my seat. As they chose seats all around us, I thought I recognized a face or two. Don't be stupid, Maggie, I thought, and don't assume you'll recognize every black kid that lives in Abuja.

Then I realized I did know them. All of them. Even their names. Turns out my entire 6th grade class decided to meet up at the cinema today. And what's more, they all thought it was really cool that Miss Thomas was there, too. Score one for Miss Thomas. Hugs all around.

I wonder how fast this is going to spread through school: that Miss Maggie was at Alvin and the Chipmunks (which is pretty cute for a kids' movie, I guess) or that she was in jeans and a T-shirt, or that she was with a student. I'll tally how many comments I get on Monday and let you know.

Snapshots from Today

"Miss Maggie, you a fresh-lookin' girl. [About 5 minutes later:] You know you're my favorite teacher, right?"
That's from one of my 6th-grade students. A male. Obviously.

"Miss Thomas, today is the last time you will see me. I'm moving back to South Africa tomorrow. Thank you, Miss Thomas."
A different 6th grade student. Energetic and full of life, his absence will definitely send shockwaves through our classroom.

"Everybody shout big hawewuyah."
This is from the 2-year-old son of a colleague, whose father, not surprisingly, is a pastor.

And finally, this memo, received just minutes before our early release (11am):

"To: All Staff
From: Mrs. O
Re: Security Alert

Don't read this loud of leave it where students will see. Also don't show signs of panic.

Today is Armed Forces Remembrance Day and there is a big gathering at Eagle Square. Roads to that venue blocked from all directions. Also some unrest over the political situation. Also avoid going near the central Mosque, mosque at Maitama & the one near Banex. Some protesters are there.

Lastly, be extra alert in case we need to do lock down or safe haven, and be sure all students are picked from their classrooms at 11:00 a.m. None are to be found in the hallways. Thanks."

It should be noted that I am safe here in the school, working on lesson plans. All my students have left securely with their drivers, and the one who takes a taxi to and from school has a safe route to her house. Nothing out of the ordinary has happened here, and yet it's the first time the Nigerian-ness of Nigeria has intruded on my everyday life. It's a weird feeling, but I'm thankful for my continued safety.

These things make me LOVE being a teacher

I got a love letter today. Tiny Asmau, a grade 5 girl, dropped it on my desk while I was out teaching. Letter like this makes everything else about living in Nigeria worthwhile.

Dear Mrs. Thomas
How are you? Hope you are fine. I just wanted to tell you that You are the best teacher that i ever seen in my whole life.

You are so kind and you are so beautiful.

And 1 more thing, Thank you for teaching me kindness.

And, I love you, I love you, I love you.

I wish you a nice day.

Yours faithfully
Asmau M...

My heart just melts.

I have a social life!

Ladies and gentlemen, please welcome back my social life! After an extended absence, featuring several instances of lesson planning on Friday nights and various weeks of going only to work and straight home, I'm pleased to announce that my extroversion has made a long-awaited appearance!

All joking aside, I spent Friday afternoon at the home of a lovely American coworker. She's been inviting me over since August, and we finally got around to it! Mrs. C is married to a Nigerian and has two delightful young boys. It was so wonderful to spend the afternoon and evening in the midst of a family. We had lunch - some delicious Nigerian rice and plantain and chicken - and the boys kept bringing me balloons to blow up for them. It brought me so much rest to talk about adapting to culture and staying in touch with family and making long-term decisions that affect everything.

Saturday morning Jan and I made our way to another friend's home. Their daughter is currently at Wheaton (my alma mater) but spent Christmas visiting her parents, who work for the U.S. Embassy. They made us brunch (Waffles and fruit? Sign me up!) and then we spent a delightful afternoon at their pool, chatting and catching up on everything Wheaton.

It was so refreshing to speak with someone who feels such a deep love for all that Wheaton is, as opposed to some of the disillusioned, jaded Wheaton "survivors" I spent the last year talking with. I share this young woman's appreciation for the ways Wheaton has shaped us as individuals and helped us grow, and it felt something like closure for me to reminisce on my Wheaton experience, reflecting on the positive, instead of the negative. The sunshine and 92 degree weather only sweetened the conversation. (Don't worry, Mom, I wore sunscreen!)

This morning was church, and though Sunday mornings look a lot different than it did in August, what with the absence of an official pastor, I know that God is still present in our continually-changing community.
I give thanks today for the blessing of a church family: people who noted my absence and welcomed me back, people who nodded with understanding when I said that leaving home this time was infinitely more difficult than in August, people who asked eagerly if I will return next fall because they want me to come back. People want me to come back. I am wanted here.
As difficult as it is to leave behind the familiar and come back for another 6 months in this place that is not home, it is easier knowing that my presence is desired, and that people will miss me when I leave (and come June 18, I will leave).

On that note, I have not decided yet if I will return for a second year. Some days I lean one way and some days I lean another. Making an objective decision is impossible--emotions are implicitly involved--so prayer is my method. I am praying that God will reveal His plan to me. You may agree with me in that prayer, but I will ask that you do not pray that I will come home (or, conversely, that I will stay).
I'm serving a holy God in a place that makes me uncomfortable, and I'm finding joy and fulfillment in that obedience. Obedience, then, is my primary objective. If obedience means Nigeria, America, or the Galapagos Islands, I will follow where He leads. Pray, please, that I will be obedient, whatever that means for my future trajectory. Thank you for praying. It is sustaining me in this Hot Season.

Give me an antonym for subtle... 'cause that's what this shout-out is

Someone asked me today who my heroes are. I didn't even have to voice a pensive "hmm..." I knew so quickly and with so much certainty. (One who speaks in cliches might add 'beyond a shadow of a doubt' but I'm no longer such a one.)

These folks are my heroes. They are my 3 best friends, my kindred spirits, my might-as-well-be-blood-they-know-me-so-well sisters.
And their husbands, on New Year's Eve (best night of 2009).
Meet L, T&C, A&K. When we were silly high school girls, we gave ourselves the acronym CALM. (I voted for CLAM, personally...) Now we're [mostly] grown-up, some with husbands, one with a baby, all with careers. The Constant, of course, throughout the last 5 years has been our God, who has kept us knitted together against time, distance, and change.

I could go on an on about how crazy successful these women are. I could tell you about graduating college in 2 years, graduating cum laude, graduating Ivy League, weddings, nursing school, medical school, first apartments, first houses, India, Haiti, Switzerland, Maine, Minnesota, and the 16-month-old heart-stealer named J. I could tell you all that. Or I could simply tell you how lucky I am to call them my friends. Yeah, let's stick to that. It's less obvious.

I just want you to know that I have the best friends in the world. Underscore on the "God has blessed me richly" part.

As if it wasn't obvious already, I really love and miss these women.

Let's talk about terrorism

As an American currently living in Nigeria, I feel particularly caught in regards to the 25 December attempted terrorist attack by the Nigerian Umar Farouk Abdul Mutallab.

Furthermore, I am deeply disturbed by this morning's reports that Nigeria has been added to the United States' "countries of interest" list, a poorly veiled euphemism for "Countries that Pose a Threat to National Security." Let's call a spade a spade, shall we?

My students and I had several fruitful discussions on the topic this morning, and hearing their reactions (as most of them are Nigerians) has opened my eyes to the singularity of this Nigerian man.

From what I can gather, Nigerians here are ashamed of this man. He is not being claimed as an apostle of truth by Nigerian Muslims; he is not being lauded as brave for his religious conviction-based behavior; he is not even being acknowledged as an average Nigerian. My students loathe this man. They cannot believe someone would dare disrespect the name of their country in this way. In their eyes, it is a serious offense he has committed against all Nigerians, regardless of whether or not his terrorist attack succeeded against America.

In the wake of today's "blacklisting," as my students are calling it, the Nigerian Senate has threatened to sever ties with America if they are not removed from the list by week's end.

Not that anyone's asking, but because I'm just that self-centered: How does that make me feel? Grieved. Deeply saddened. Like the two countries that are most important to me are fighting. (oh, wait...)

I cannot say it any better or clearer than Ayogu Eze, the Nigerian Senate's spokesman; so I let him speak for himself:

"For them [America] to embarrass the entire country with this type of classification without justification is totally unacceptable. The American president himself clearly admitted that this was a failure of system and the manpower of Americans...This is just one instance of a Nigerian who, it is clearly established, had no links with any fundamentalist group or any interest group within Nigeria, not even with his own parents....This was a boy whose disappearance was reported to the security agencies, the American authorities and all the relevant authorities; and America did nothing. For them to turn round and punish Nigerians for the sin of an isolated case like this is very unacceptable to the Nigerian government and unacceptable to the Nigerian Senate." (emphasis mine)

A final note: Mutallab's education (both academic and religious) came from outside Nigeria. It wasn't until he left Nigeria that he began to cultivate his extremist views. Surely this must count for something. For the love of diplomacy, America! Please remove Nigeria from the List!

Diving Back Into Life

I've been back in Abuja for all of 40 hours now, and I'm diving right back into life. Routine feels good. So did the clobbering hug I got from my 6th graders when I walked into class. It feels good to be missed, too.

The New Year is a really really big deal here, much more than I expected. Christians go to church on New Year's Day, people set big resolutions, and "Happy New Year" has totally replaced the standard Nigerian greetings. Now I understand why people were so shocked that I left America on the first day of the year!

My 8th graders asked me about my New Year's Resolutions. (I think they were just trying to delay starting class, sneaky little things.) Their query gave me pause because I rarely set New Year's Resolutions; I generally shy away from imminent failure. Now that I've had a few hours to think it over, I've come up with a few small resolutions (lowercase r because I'm still hesitant to declare it with as much finality).

1. Stop using cliches. I've noticed that my blog post are disgustingly and shockingly overrun with the most trite phrases in my vocabulary. If I want to be serious about my writing and be taken seriously, I need to learn how to state things in an original way!

2. Practice more self-control in the classroom. I'm sure this will shock you, but one can lose one's temper patience quite easily in a room full of middle-school children. I don't want to be a teacher that gets red-faced when students won't settle down. I want to be the teacher who makes Literature so alive that my students don't have time to be distracted. I've seen a few "enraptured" moments happen this year, and it leaves me feeling quite triumphant. For their sake, if not for my own selfish pride, I want to see more of those moments!

3. Figure out my passion in life. I feel like, at 22, there is no overarching or uniting theme to my life. I feel very much like an anthology of loosely connected snippets and scraps; the only connective tissue is the grace of God. My life is full of people who know their life passion, and I want the same direction. Being blindly obedient has brought me many blessings, but this whole "I have no idea where I'm going be in 9 months" thing is more than a little frustrating. That being said, I will continue to follow God wherever he leads me, regardless of whether or not I know where we're going. It worked for Abraham...

Little things: It's hot here. KLM lost my bags; I don't have deodorant or a hairbrush. Our whole house is a hot dusty mess from Harmattan.

Big things: God is still faithful. I'm where I need to be. Amen and amen.

2009, you were good to me.

Can I just tell you how awesome it is to spend 4 months away from home, learning a new profession, a new culture, and a new dairy-free lifestyle, and then to return home to the waiting arms of my family and best friends?

On a similarly related note, can I start a blog post with a rhetorical question? I can? Oh, good.

It's 5 am and I've been awake since 3:30 because Jet Lag and I are good pals. But it's giving me some time to reflect on my Christmas "vacation" (in quotes because honestly, who vacations in the land of negative degrees Fahrenheit?) and I've decided that the past 3 weeks have been some of the best of 2009. Furthermore, I've decided that 2009 was the best year of my young life, despite the fact that it was also The Year of "Wow, My Life Is Different." (Can you say transition?)

Let's review, shall we?

~ I spent January 1st, 2009 at a bridal shower for my best friend.
~ I successfully trained and ran my 2nd triathlon (my first indoors)
~ I swam in the ocean for the first time on Spring Break in Clearwater, Fla.
~ I watched my roommate get engaged.
~ I graduated from Wheaton College.
~ I took a job as a live-in nanny for infant triplets.
~ I lost said nannying job and moved home.
~ I attended 4 weddings in 5 weeks.
~ I watched my best friend wed her best friend in Maine. Tears all around.
~ I took a job teaching Literature in Nigeria. (duh.)
~ I got wrapped around the little finger of my nephew J.
~ I moved to Africa and learned how to be a productive member of society.
~ I became Miss Maggie and fell in love with my 59 students.
~ I went home for Christmas, saw TONS of family, ate all my favorite foods from childhood, spent good bonding time with my brother, and picked up where I left off with my best friends.
~ I woke up January 1st 2010 and heard little man J say my name.

Wow, what a year.