Modern dentistry, and other musings

After an embarrassingly long lapse, I went to the dentist today for a cleaning. I'm glad to report that my teeth are healthy. Just a couple of preventative measures to take. (And the suggestion that I visit the dentist more often, but then, dentists are always saying things like that.)

While I was in the chair, I had this fleeting--yet vivid--vision of visiting the dentist in the distant past, and how nasty and painful and bloody it must have been. I was very glad to be in this twenty-first century office with its sanitary rubber gloves and whirring little tools and polishers, as opposed to in a field or vermin-infested room with the sharp, rude instruments I've seen in historical medical displays. It's a good time to be alive. At least for dentistry.

But all of this led me down a path of musing about whether society as a whole was progressing or degenerating. Or both. Or neither. And--at the risk of sounding irresolute and/or vacillating--today my opinion was leaning towards neither. Or maybe both.

I mean, really, the world is and always has been made up of people, yes? People who are--as a result of Original Sin and all that jazz--desperately wicked by nature. But (fortunately) the world also is and always has been full of people who have been redeemed by God: people in and through whom He is at work. Not to mention Common Grace. His grace is evident throughout the world, fallen though it is, and His goodness is displayed through His people.

His goodness isn't getting any less or more (given that it's already infinite and perfect). And somehow I have a hard time believing that He is any less (or more) at work now than he was ten or fifty or five hundred years ago; that is, that people were any less wicked naturally or that He was any less able to work through them to His glory. I think maybe it's more like the pattern we can see in the microcosm of The Church: each generation seems to swing back and forth, bettering some areas which need improvement while themselves leaving plenty of areas for their children to criticize and change. Perhaps in society it is merely that wickedness and goodness manifest themselves in ever-changing ways, so to look at one issue--sexual impurity or stewardship, violence or compassion for the oppressed--gives the illusion of universal "degredation" or "progress." Maybe it depends on where you're looking.

Perhaps this is obvious, and I'd simply never aritculated it to myself before. Perhaps this is totally wrong. Perhaps it didn't come out in words quite the way it came together in my head, which was really more of an impression than anything else.

I do know, though, that you can get a lot of good thinking time in at the dentist.

Shrivels

My pumpkin is shriveling. Gotham's towers look like a demented parody of Dr. Suess buildings, all twisted in on themselves. Apparently Batman hasn't rescued them fast enough from some nefarious plot (by one of Gotham's many bad guys) to destroy the city by desiccation. (Holy shark-bait! Maybe they got hold of the superdehydrator again!) The poor people of Gotham are still waiting for their hero to reply to the signal. How irresponsible of him.

Pumpkins

It came out that my flatmate had never carved a pumpkin, and we decided this needed to be remedied. So yesterday we carefully selected our gourds at the farmers' market* (not quite as exciting as the patch, but better than the grocery store, at least), and today we worked our creative magic:Okay, actually that's a picture of just my pumpkin. I took a picture of both of ours, but it was blurry, and then my camera battery died. But hers is cool, too (even if it doesn't boast a superhero theme).

Oh, and we made cobbler, too. And walked through a few leaf-flurries. A glorious autumnal day.

*I never know where to put the apostrophe in this phrase, if anywhere. Do the farmers possess the market? Is it one conceptual representative every-farmer who possesses it? Is it simply a market at which you find farmers, but which they don't possess? Bah. Let the apostrophe fall where it will.

Colours (yep, I'm feeling Canadian today)

This is the view as you step outside the front door of my apartment building:

Or at least, it was yesterday. I suppose the view is never exactly the same twice.

I love fall.

-sigh-

What do I need to know about the world?

At this moment, my life is so-arranged that I frequently have copious amounts of free time. Given that, and given that the university students I see scurrying to and from class all day make me somewhat nostalgic for being in school, I would like to take advantage of this free time (while I still have it) and learn things about my world and how it works. However, there are so many things to read and see and internalize, I hardly know where to begin.

Thus, I am extending an invitation to all of you as my readers (hee hee...that makes it sound like there are so many of you) to recommend books you think would be profitable for me in this knowledge-quest (to help me to narrow down the options a bit). Lately I've found myself particularly drawn to the sciences--probably because I feel like I've had such a predominantly humanities-based education so far--but I'll take recommendations in anything. Especially things that you--as a fellow human being whose world I share yet whose experiences and interests differ from mine--find uniquely interesting, or that you know a lot about and think would be cool for other people (like me) to know, too. Especially non-pretentious, layman-friendly-yet-accurate-and-informative works.

(This is an ongoing invitation, by the way. But you might want to hurry, before I get sucked into the unfortunate and dreaded hectic-ness of "real life" which I'm told conquers everyone in the end, no matter how hard they resist. Bah to that.)

Rejection

Well, I didn't get that refugee program assistant job I applied for a while back. Oh well. I'm guessing they found someone who was actually fluent in Spanish or Burmese (you know, like the position required). At least they let me know, though, unlike Mercy Corps, who just left me wondering whether anyone even received my application.

Happy Birthday to Me

It's my birthday. I just thought I'd say. And yes, I did recently tell Facebook to display the my birth date on my profile in a shameless attempt to get extra birthday wishes. I admit it. And it's working (bwa ha ha).

I'm still trying to decide what to have for my birthday dinners (both today's and with the family next weekend). I'm open to suggestions.

Good news

Apparently the library waives replacement costs for lost books if you find and return the book within six months of their notification. Lovely.

Guilty as Charged

I feel like a criminal.

I just received a very official-looking notice in the mail, that I have in fact stolen--gasp--a library book.

It's from the library system at my old house. I thought I had returned it before I moved. Now I owe the library an embarrassingly large fine/replacement fee. Twenty years, and I've never owed the library any amount into double-digits, as far as I remember. Until now. I almost don't want to go pay it, because I'm ashamed to admit that I have joined the ranks of those people. People who lose library books. Of course, I will pay it, because it's the right thing to do (and I'll do it promptly, because they'll send a bill-collection agency after me if I don't).

Sigh.

Kudos

I just thought I'd throw out a congratulations to my brother, who became a doctor today. One of those research doctors who discovers things and solves the world's problems and wins Nobel prizes. Yeah, that's right. He's really smart.

Congratulations, Mike! I love you!

Happy Thanksgiving, eh?

Happy Canadian Thanksgiving! Ah, the advantages to having stake in two countries: twice as many excuses to make large amounts of tasty food.

A few of my friends from university who now live in Portland are coming over this afternoon for a Thanksgiving feast. We've all celebrated Thanksgiving in mid-October (and real Thanksgiving, of course) for the last four years, and now it feels like an essential part of fall. And this early Thanksgiving seems less prone, somehow, to being swallowed by Christmas (although, to my horror, some places in Canada did follow the Christmas-begins-once-Thanksgiving-is-over rule, and put up Christmas decorations the next day...in October).

Canadian Thanksgiving is--as with most things--smaller in scale than the American version: just one day off, and the next day is a work-day. I think our two-days-off-plus-the-weekend approach is much pleasanter. But, hey, I'll take any excuse to make/eat stuffing and green beans and sweet potatoes and pumpkiny desserts. (Okay, so I make those throughout fall anyway...but today gives me the excuse to eat them all on the same day. Mmm.)

And, since Canadian Thanksgiving happens to coincide with Columbus Day this year, I have a paid day off. So it's actually like a holiday. (Why I have Columbus Day as a paid day off, I don't know. But I'm not going to complain.)

And then there is of course the whole point to Thanksgiving (besides the food); the thankfulness part. Yet it seems a shame to devote only one (or two) days a year to being thankful. God has filled the world with a gazillion things and experiences and sensations and relationships and connections and lessons and whatnot, all of which can inspire bursts of thankfulness throughout every day, can/should/hopefully do lead to living life in a constant posture of thankfulness and praise to Him.

So, since thankfulness is a thing for everyday, on Thanksgiving I think on what sets it apart from all those other days: the amazingly delicious food. :)

Swan Lake

Last night my roommate and I had the chance to attend opening night of the ballet Swan Lake. It was lovely. And much more convenient to attend than past ventures from the suburbs: just a ten minute walk, and no traffic-hassles.
I must say, though, that some children should not be allowed to go to the ballet. Particularly paper-crumpling, walking, loudly-talking, restless, seat-kicking children. Actually, I don't think their parents should be allowed, either.
Fortunately, they left before the fourth act. And--even while they were there--the ballet itself was still beautiful. Some of the lifts were astounding. I don't know anything about the technique and nuance of ballet dancing, but from an uninitiated perspective, it was thoroughly impressive and entertaining.
I do always feel particularly klutzy for a few days after watching the gracefulness of the dancers, though. Oh well.

Catholic Charities

I met with Catholic Charities today, and it looks like I'll be able to start volunteering with them some time in the next couple weeks. If all goes as planned, I'll be "adopting" a newly-arrived refugee family, helping them with their English homework and general acclimation to North American life (e.g. going with them to the doctor or bank or grocery store to help them figure out how things work). I'm super excited. They're going to try to put me with a Karen family (that's a Burmese people group), since I've already had some exposure to their language and culture. I'll be sure to keep you updated as this next adventure unfolds...

Adventures of a plans-free Saturday

Yesterday was my first Saturday since moving to the city where I had no fixed plans.
I slept in (well, for me), puttered around my apartment, puttered around the farmers market (where I bought a very tasty-looking leek), came back and puttered around home some more.
I decided I wanted to make something delicious (perhaps with my freshly-purchased leek), then realized that we had no food, so I walked the ten-blocks-up-ten-blocks-over out to Freddie's (much cheaper than the nearby Safeway).
There I was asked out by the lonely middle-aged man behind me in line, who was buying dog food, English muffins and spaghetti sauce. ("You and me, the dog park, such-and-such afternoon." I had mentioned I had a dog. I had meant it as small-talk.)
It poured (intermittently) on the walk back, filling the air with the glorious smell of new rain, but also leaving me with uncomfortably damp jeans and the shivers. I must admit, though, that sometimes I like to get cold and damp on such a day, for the sheer contrastive pleasure of pulling on warm, dry clothes once I get inside.
I made some toffee-chocolate-chip cookies (always an adventure with our oven, which burns cookies black in five minutes if you set the dial to the "correct" temperature), and did the dishes.
Then I made a tasty chow mein for lunch, quick-soaked some dried beans, and did the dishes again.
More puttering.
Then I made some refried beans to add to our stock of tasty, ready-made things to eat. More dishes.
Then--I had been wondering how far the walk was to Washington Park from my apartment--so I walked it. It's about twenty-five minutes at a fairly good clip. Almost entirely uphill (my legs can feel that this morning). I puttered at the park. Smiled at the cute toddler in the cow-pattern hoody who was giggling on the swings with his mum. Swung for a while myself. Explored a few trails. Walked home.
On the way home I stopped at the library to peruse the movie section. They had the special-edition version of The Abyss. I decided to re-live my childhood a bit and picked it up.
When I got back to my apartment, I made curry pasties for dinner. I said, "To heck with the dishes." They're still in the sink.
I'd call yesterday a pretty darn good day.
I never did do anything with my leek, though. Maybe today.

Unwelcome awakening

I was awakened this morning by a dog barking. If you could call it a dog. It sounded more like someone was torturing a squeaky toy outside my window. They should have laws about the pitch-levels of animals determining whether you're allowed to take them into public.

Another job application

Once again today I applied for a job for which I am unqualified. This time it was to be a Refugee and Immigrant Services Program Assistant. I'm not bilingual. And technically I'm not familiar with the computer programs they asked for (e.g. Adobe PageMaker). But I explained all of that away in the cover letter, and told them they should hire me anyway.
Mercy Corps never got back to me; we'll see if these people do.
Job-applying is different now, even from when I first started looking for jobs out of high school. The postings don't include phone numbers, and then on top of that specifically state not to call them (in case you get all stealthy and look up the phone number by other means).
There's no one to harass.
Oh well.
God's taking care of all that part. At least I have a job to pay the bills in the meantime.
And I have an appointment to meet with Catholic Charities next week, so at least I'll be able to spend some time volunteering within my passion/skill-set, even if no one will pay me to do it.