Post-midnight random thoughts while trying to stay awake on the overnight shift...

While explaining to my mom what exactly a blog is, I decided that I like this blogging thing... it saves me the trouble of writing lots of emails, the discomfort of sending mass emails, and the guilt of never actually sending any emails, while giving me a way to keep in touch with people I care about. I hate to think that after a few years, my college friends will be strangers. I hope this blogging thing we've all got going on continues for years. It's good.
Home, to me, is a very relative term. I've never really had one in particular. Home happens when I have people who care about me, who I can feel safe and comfortable with, and who I look forward to spending lazy evenings with discussing anything that comes to mind. As I helped my parents move out of their home of the past four years, (a house that never felt like home to me and always like I was just a visitor when seeing my parents), I realized that Sioux Center, IA has become my home. Not because I love the town (if it weren't for Dordt and the people in it, I'da left long ago...), but because of you all. So, to finish off this cheezy moment... Thank you to all of you who have helped make this my home for the past few years. I think I will miss this home as much as much as I have missed my Mexico home.

On a completely different note, my aversion to spiders has become a phobia, with good reason. I was putting gas in my car, on the way to MI this weekend, and I felt something on my neck. Assuming it was just a wayward strand of hair, I took no notice of it...until the light tickle turned into a sharp prick. I grabbed at whatever was on my neck and threw it onto my car. It was a huge spider! I was bit by a spider that came out of nowhere! The next few hours consisted of me checking my forhead every five minutes to make sure I wasn't getting a fever, consciously taking note of any heart rate changes, and waiting for my neck to swell up until I couldn't breath any more and died, sending the car careening off the road and taking Matt with me to his untimely death. Of course, that didn't happen, and I didn't even get a bite mark to show for it... The emotional scars, however, are permanent. For the past few days, any time I feel even a slight tickle or brush of something anywhere on my body, I freak out and start flailing arms, jumping around, and brushing away every imaginary eight-legged creature on me.

There is a fly buzzing around my head at this moment, and it's driving me insane...

I went today with my family to the church that my dad has been working in for the past 6 months. They heard him preach once and invited him to work there for a little while. The church is small - today I think there were 25-30 people there, including my family, which consisted of about a third of the congregation. Today was potluck-worship, or something like that, where they don't really have a particular schedule to follow...just kinda "go with the flow" idea. Some people gave testimonies, others asked for prayer, others chose a song for everyone to sing, (which everyone sang enthusiastically and totally off-key most of the time...great stuff). It also happened to be the last service my dad would be there for, so alot of people had something to say to the family. It was nice. I had a feeling of nostalgia the whole time, even though I've never been there before.
Chairs were placed in the middle of the room, around a microphone. On one side, a huge sofa sat in place of the chairs, with handwritten sign pinned on it, reading "Reserved for Ruth". She and her husband sat there...he's on chemo, so he gets sofa-privileges for a while. Kids sat on the floor playing with little toys from home or drawing, occasionally making enough noise to merit a squeeze on the shoulder from a nearby adult. The guy leading the service wore shorts with white socks almost up to his knees and dad-style sneakers - super geeky, but very at ease. One couple walked in late - he had a long beard and a mohawk style cut, though he hadn't spiked it this morning. They were all open with each other, chatting ocassionally, joking and laughing sometimes, really seeming to enjoy being there together.
The church felt alot like my church back home - a small handful of societies scraggly, unordinary, interesting people, with alot of love for each other. That's what struck me the most, I think, the love I mean. I wasn't there long before I sensed that this congregation knew each other, good, bad. Had been through alot together. Would stick their necks out for each other if it ever came to it. It felt like I was sitting in a family get-together. Or as my brother put it, a support group meeting. That's how it should be, don't you think?
Throughout the entire service, I held in the urge to cry. I'd forgotten how good it is to have that.

I'm going to bed.

Ay, ay, ay, ay! Canta, no llores...!

Today was a sad day for Mexico... I'm so bummed they didn't make it to the next round... but I am proud they made it this far, at least. And today's game was pretty good! A vast improvement from the last.
I went canoeing today. I should do that more often. I also caught fireflies with my little sisters. I should also do that more often.
I realized today (again...) that this is the last time I will be seeing my family for a while. I don't see them much anyway, but somehow, being on the other side of the world makes the time seem that much longer. I think we always assumed that when we all grew up, my sisters, brother, and I would move to different parts of the world and see each other only at Christmas. But now that we are actually growing up and getting closer to that assumption, it's sorta sad. I'm used to it, but when I'm with them, I feel like I'm missing out. No one knows me like my family (well...granted, there are things you guys know that they don't...but those are minor things)... We had the same history, we think similarly, we see things most often alike... I don't have that much with many people, and here I could have it all the time with my family, but instead I choose to move to the other side of the world where no one knows where I'm coming from or what I'm talking about, and half the time they can't even understand what I am saying! What a crazy life...

$%^#&*...!!!

I have no kind words going through my head after the Mexico-Angola game today. Mexico played horribly. Carmela, Matt, Cal, and I painted our faces and were ready to make a ride down Main St. with out flags and everything... What a downer.
I'm too bummed to write anything else.
Ugh.

Most used phrase of Vanderploeg family: "Well, it coulda been worse..."

So, my dad is in the hospital today. (For those of you not keeping track, my family, mostly my dad, has had some sort of accident or catastrophe pretty much every month of this year...) He smashed his finger somehow while mowing a lawn and doing yardwork. My sister took him to the hospital and said it looks like an overcooked hotdog that split open.
Nice.
The bone is fine, but he lost some skin so will need some grafting.
Best part of the whole deal: It's his middle finger. Once it's wrapped, his hand will be in permanent "birdie" position for a couple weeks.
(To really understand the humor of this you have to picture him, a pastor, giving a sermon at some conservative reformed church in this condition... Yes. It's funny.)
Mom joked that she should tie him to a rocking chair and stick him in a corner to avoid further accidents... However, she figures he'd probably manage to tip the chair over and smash his head.
What a family.

VIVA MEXICO!!!

Mexico beat Iran, 3-1, in it's first World Cup game of 2006!!! The first half was soooo exciting, then super frustrating, then disappointing. The second half was amazing!!! 2 goals within five minutes of each other! Woohoo!
Carmela and I just drove down Main St. honking the horn, me waving a Mexican flag out the window, and both of us singing "ole-ole-ole-oleeeeee! oleeee! oleeee!" We ran into a few Mexican looking people, and yelled "Viva Mexico!" as we passed. You shoulda seen the looks we got from most people...a few Mexicans waved back at us, a few smiled and shook there heads, and most other people raised a couple of eyebrows... BUT I DON'T CARE! CAUSE MEXICO WON!
Chiquitibum-ala-bim-bom-bao! Chiquitibum-a-la-bim-bom-bao! A-la-bio, A-la-bao, A-la-bim-bom-bao! Mexico, Mexico! Ra-ra-ra!!!!

Cheers to life...

So, today I woke up to the joys of being a woman, followed by the realization that I wasn't prepared, and the further recollection that I had nothing in my bankaccount... Yeah! for post-dating checks... Nothing like running to Walmart at 7am to pick up the necessary products and then to be greeted by the way-too-chipper cashier's "Oh! One of those days huh? Find everything you need?!" Of course I found what I needed... Otherwise I wouldn't be standing in the register line, I'd be wandering around looking for what I needed or trying to find someone who could tell me where to find it.
I also realized that I had cracked the nail on my pinky toe when I stubbed it last night while walking around in the dark, and had bled all over my room. It hurts like a mother poodle, too.
As I was poking at my toe (you know how when you get a bruise you just have to poke at it? poke - ow - poke - ow...etc., as if you want to make sure it's still there or something?), I caught in my peripheral vision this long, feathery shadow with a hundred legs right on the wall next to my head. It fell into my purse, which I dragged quickly and calmly into the kitchen where it fell out of my purse and started crawling straight toward me at which point I lost all sense of calm and started jumping and screaming much to Dane's amusement. He saved me. So brave. The mystery bug is dead. I found out it was a centipede. I thought they were skinnier than that...
Then, I developed this incredibly annoying twitch in my eye that still hasn't gone away as I write this. Every time my eye twitches, half of my vision turns bouncy. Not to mention, it just feels weird.
On the upside, I got a 100$ check from Dordt in the mail today! (No more worrying about that check I wrote this morning!) And even though it was just my housing deposit and the money was technically my own already anyway, it felt like a gift. "It's my birthday present to me! I'm so happy!" (quote).
Another upper moment was when I was sitting outside with Kevin and Matt and suddenly Matt looked down at his shorts and said calmly "Oh shit. I just got pooped on."
Finally, driving to work was pretty sweet. The sky in front of me was super dark, broken only by various shades and shapes of lightning. Some of it was even red. Crazy. Yesterday when I drove to work, the sky was orange, the clouds were purple, and the sun was deep red. Days like those make getting up at 5:30 for the 6am shift at work worth it. Now, I have to stay up for another seven hours, keeping myself busy with a few chores and maybe a movie or two, before I can go home at 6am. And my eye is still twitching. Ugh.