tennessee, january...

everything is ordinary....

I'm officially moved into my apartment in Nashville. I start work in a couple weeks, and I've had Baja Burrito, so things are definitely going back to normal.

Now that I'm actually getting settled and working on reestablishing a life here, it's finally started to sink in that I'm really back- my time at home wasn't just a break, I'm really not going back to Lily, and I'm starting a new season. I've already seen how quickly I can fall back into old habits and ways of thinking, and how hard it is to carry over some of the things that I learned while I was gone. It's going to take some serious discipline and prayer to not waste the things God let me see and experience in Africa.

On a random side note, I just finished reading a book called The Ridiculous Race. I would recommend this book to anyone who is interested in a) the world, and b) laughter. It was written by two friends, Steve Hely and Vali Chandrasekaran, who raced each other around the world in opposite directions without using airplanes. Some of my favorite chapter titles included, "My Parents Prefer Safety Over Awesomeness" and "Susie, the First of Many People I Encountered Who Thought I Had a Learning Disability". It made me laugh out loud, a lot, and also had a lot of interesting stuff about the different places they both traveled. I would let you borrow my copy, but it's in a box on its way to Ben (who I promised I would mention in this blog, and who I'm going to see again in 5 months), so you'll have to get your own copy!

you're unlike anything I see...