I am out of practice waking up early. This semester I have to TA for a class that meets MWF 8:00am. I used to go to those classes all the time at Calvin (and even preferred the early ones), but as a grad student, I think I am on terminal jetlag or something...
My morning commute to school has been extended to roughly 20 minutes of extensive hilly biking, ever since we moved downtown to a duplex. The house has nice hardwood floors, which make the piano resonate very nicely (if it were only in tune we'd be set!), and we have a basement, our own laundry facilities, a porch, and a spare bedroom upstairs which, if no one comes to visit soon, will terminally become the 'den', otherwise known as the place to put everything that has not found its place in this world yet. The kitchen and bathroom are smaller than our previous apartment, and although all the doors don't quite shut right, and the light switches confuse the heck out of me, I am glad we moved and I am glad to say this is the last move we will attempt here in State College. So please, please, keep me accountable for that--that's what good friends are supposed to do, right? The move took approximately 2 1/2 days of chaos (as most moves do), and even with the help of dear Manujendra, from Dan's lab, we still pushed the midnight time limit for evacuation from our old apartment.
When you move, you can't but help realize (painfully so at times) how much CRAP you have accumulated, even in one year. It's so sad that it takes almost a whole week to pack up all the stuff you have--clothes, kitchen things, entertainment center, furniture, etc.--when there are so many people who live with so much less. Honestly, they are probably more carefree without all of it, and probably are able to focus on the important things in life a lot better than us North Americans. Sometimes I envy the Amish communities, whose lives are lived in simplicity. Without a cell phone, cable, satellite, video games, and minimal time (outside of work) spent on the computer, I generally consider myself to be non-materialistic, although maybe some would call me electronically-challenged (that may be true as well, but I really have no desire to become de-challenged). :) When Dan and I first moved to State College, we had no TV (we got our first and only TV from a garage sale for free, so there's still that element of simplicity there, right?), and what did we spend our time doing? Well, he finished reading Lord of the Rings (the 4-inch, hardcover version), I started a crossstich (which was dropped once the TV entered our lives), and we took a lot more walks at night, etc. Once we got the lightning-struck TV repaired, we spent more evenings sitting in front of the TV, where, as you know, not a whole lot of relationshipping (yes, that is a word) or talking or any kind of communication goes on whatsoever.
I think the Amish have it figured out. Maybe we should go join their village. The best part would be being able to park the horse and buggy outside of Beaver Stadium. ...yup, we will definitely have to consider that, even if it's just to get a horse and buggy. Of course, Dan would oppose that, since he's set on having a llama and a monkey, but that's a story for another day.