Out of place is how I've always felt.

It's no different now that I'm feeling out of place based on the fact that I hav lived in India for the last year, as opposed to the fact that I've always felt out of place based on the clothes I've worn. I always have to be "different" and that is something that has always remained constant in my life. Now here I sit in the middle of suburban Starbucks in my just bought thrifty store clothes which cost me like $3 and there are people here using their thousand dollar laptops (which I am guilty of as well I suppose) wearing their designer clothes and talking on their smart-phones of which I could never hope to ever lay my little hands on ever in my lifetime. My phone doesn't even have internet accessing capabilities. No touch screen (gasp!). There's nothing exciting about my phone except that it's white and teal which is different than other people's phones and so I like it. However, I wouldn't mind if someone blessed me with an old iPhone or Droid something or other.

Speaking of old things, if you didn't know I have been collecting old polaroid cameras for awhile now. It used to be cool cause I could use them, but they've stopped making the polaroid 600 film that I need and so to look up on Amazon they're running about $50 for 10 pictures. Are you kidding me? I have found one website that is selling them for like $21 for 10 pictures so if I'm desperate I'll order from them. If anyone has any old polaroid 600 film lying around please donate it to my hipsterish cause. It's the instand photos you know, that come out and you "shake it like a polaroid picture!!!" as Outkast says. I got a really old awesome one today. I didn't take a picture of it, but found one that looks almost the same on the internet!

It is wonderful being home again. Last night we had the great "corn feed" as my mother likes to call it. All we eat for dinner is sweet corn. I enjoy this a lot. Although I fear my intake level is growing smaller. I think I used to eat three or four cobs of corn, but last night I ate only two, and one was pretty small. I am not sure what that was all about. 

There's my mom, chuckin' away! I helped after I took a few photos.

Awwww, look at them all, just waiting to be thrown into boiling water.

The State Fair begins this week and I am SO excited! I can't wait to walk around with my littlest brother and eat anything in sight! Although, I miss the days of going to the fair with my Aunt Mary and  cousin Megan. Those were fun days. Megan would always drag me to the KDWB booth because she was totally obsessed. I'm not sure if she still is though because I haven't gone to the fair with her in quite a few years. BUT I'm going to see her tomorrow for a manicure (which I have never received ever in my life as I am a nail-biter) and also a pedicure. I am quite embarrassed to get a pedicure because my feet are rather disgusting from walking around the dirty streets of India for the last six months. It'll be good practice for her.

The best thing ever I got today at the thrift store was a pair of shoes. I have always always ALWAYS wanted a pair of shoes like these but have never found them anywhere ever except maybe Urban Outfitters for $87 dollars and no thank you to that. I found a pair at the Elk River Salvation Army Family Store (yikes, what a name) and they are a tad too big for me, but I didn't care. I bought them anyway, so here's a picture of me wearing them with a new outfit also. I really wanted socks with frilly lace on them and the only place I could get them (aside from super expensive American Apparel) was the girl section at Target. Look at how thrifty I can be! Pardon the obnoxious America's Next Top Model pose. What else could I do to show off how ridiculous my shoes are? If you click on the picture you'll see it bigger.

And so now I feel like walking around the Shoppes in Maple Grove since I'm here and I should walk somewhere after drinking this giant iced coffee. I also have to figure out what to eat for dinner tonight. Any takers? I'm craving everything, but sad that Curry Up is out of business. I liked the people there, and some of the food.

In other news, if you haven't received my newsletter, you could! Send me your e-mail address if you haven't received my monthly newsletter yet and would like to. I am starting a Bible Study on Tuesday nights at 7 PM in Maple Grove (my parents' house) so please come if you're available. It'll be an hour long each week approximately. Starting September 6th and going through the end of October. Not a huge or long commitment! Come learn how we study the Bible in our School of Biblical Studies, yet not as intense as we do.

Visas and Servants

This is what I look like right now as I'm typing this, just so you know. You can't see it but I'm wearing a necklace from the tribe of my fiancée. A dear friend gave it to me. He is Angami (that's the tribe name!) and so I always tell people I'm also Angami, but I tell him I'm Penobscott, which is the Native American tribe my ancestors come from. Don't I look so Native American to you?

If you remember from a previous entry, I love the United States of America. But have you guys ever thought about how privileged you are to be American citizens? I have never even considered the blessing it was to have been born into a family in the United States. Life is so easy for me. Living in India has opened my eyes to how difficult it is to live in a different country, a "third world" country at that. So many Indians are trying to get visas to the US. I understand the need to be strict and nit-picky about who they let into the country, but when it comes to my best friend and the man I'm going to marry, I get so frustrated with my country. It is SO hard to get a visa to the US guys, seriously. For me to get my 10 year (TEN YEAR!!) tourist visa to India I just had to fill out an application and mail it to Chicago with my passport and they sent me back my passport with the visa in it a few days later. 

Over here it's a different story. Fill out the application in one city, go to another city (1.5 hours away) and pay the fee, come back to the first city to make the interview appointment, go back to another city (still 1.5 hours away) and turn in the application, go back to the first city and then wait a few days for your interview and go to Mumbai (three hours away) to have the interview where there's a 99% chance you will be denied your visa.

SO, my dearest fiancée is going in tomorrow morning which is Monday night for you Americans. He is going for his second visa interview this time with new letters and pictures and also a letter from our dear and beloved Senator who just so happens to be this guy:

Al Franken is awesome. My littlest brother and I shook his hand once in a parade in our hometown and we did not wash our hands for like an hour afterward.

Please pray for my fiancée: peace, calm, and wisdom of what to say to the interviewer, and also pray for the interviewer to have a soft heart and believe without a doubt that Romel's intention is not to immigrate to the United States.

I decided to dye the ends of my hair on a whim the other day. They're just a little blue, and I like it that way! You cannot even really tell now because it has washed out a little. You cannot find proper hair dye in India unless you want black or henna, which oddly enough turns your hair orange. So I had to use a permanent marker diluted in some water and just dipped my hair into that. It worked pretty nicely I'd say. Here's me with straight hair which lasted for one minute tops because of the moisture in the air from monsoon rains.

My favorite drink EVER!!!! It's called Thums Up and it tastes like magical fizzy masala madness! It could kick Coca-Cola's butt any day of the week, and the world knows it which is why it's only available in India. It must be contained. I will miss it so much when I'm home, but at least I won't drink any soda then. Thums Up or bust!

I have begun to get things organized and packed away to sit in my house and grow penicillin for three months while I'm gone. Here's a photo of some well-thought out organizing and a very old, very rusty trunk that we found in our storage room. The same room they found a cobra in before I moved in. Yikes. I am a bit terrified still to go in there sometimes because of that story, and a few months ago when I went in there I saw a GIANT SPIDER!!! I'm serious, it was huge and scary. It was black and had some white spots and yellow on it. With its legs sprawled out as usual. It was about the size of a compact disk with the legs spread out. The body was not so big, bigger than a quarter, maybe if you put two quarters next to each other, that's the body, then the legs. Spiders do not typically scare me, but this one was terrifying. Needless to say, I hate that back room, and won't go in there if I don't have to.

This is an outfit I wore the other day. I was just trying to think of other ways to wear kurtas. I love Indian tops, but they're so long and have slits up the side and so you pretty much can only wear them over jeans, leggings, or punjab pants. You cannot wear them with nylons or tights because of the side slits. They go up past your hip sometimes and then people would totally see your undies. One mistake I think Indian women make is they wear white leggings with them a lot. Or nude color leggings. You have to avert your eyes when that happens, especially if they're standing to the side.

And this is just a picture of the hair I used to have and adore. I long to cut it like this again, but my fiancée would have a cow. Literally. But a girl can dream, right?

I hope everyone had a great weekend! I sure did. On Saturday we had General Clean-Up which means all staff and students get together and clean the entire campus for four hours. It's much needed and only happens once a quarter. It's always dreaded, but then when the day comes and goes you always look back on it with fond memories and you totally had tons of fun cleaning mold off the walls and scrubbing toilets with others. The main topic of conversation this past clean up on Saturday however was, "Where are the leaders and staff who live off base?" because there were just a few staff who live off campus there to help. It is also quite ironic I think because it was just one day after a staff meeting where it was stressed that the leaders were here to serve the campus yet most of them did not come. It's a funny word, "serve." We throw it around so easily as Christians yet I don't think we fully understand the meaning of the word. When I hear "servant" I think of something completely different than when I hear "serve." You can serve the church. You can serve a term in office. You can serve dinner. You can serve a prison sentence. You can serve a subpoena. You can serve someone by beating them at something (a.k.a. "You got served!")

So in all actuality to serve someone or be a servant has many different meanings, but what does it mean to us as Christians today? How can we "wash the feet" of others? How can we be a servant in this world no one seems to want help anymore?

Caution: This post contains the F-bomb.

I love my country. My country being "America." I actually hate when people call it "America" because that could mean anywhere in North or South America if you want to get technical. Why should the United States of America absorb all of the Americas by being called "America?"

Anyway, I love the United States of America. I might disagree with some things about my country. I might even criticize some ways it is run or some people in government office or our entertainment and media empire, etc. BUT, I cannot stand when other people criticize my country who are not from my country. When someone criticizes "America" suddenly this overwhelming sense of pride and patriotism for my country wells up inside of me and it just about comes out as I hold myself back from punching this person in the neck for dissing my nation. I have never, ever experienced this happening in India until yesterday...

I was minding my own business; I was even wearing a culturally sensitive, traditional Indian outfit that most Indian women wear called a Salwaar Kameez (google it, you'll see). I was walking to a shop that I frequently go to at least twice a week. I know the shop owner, he knows what I want as he sees me approaching. SO, I was walking into this shop and a man was standing outside the shop swaying a little as he stood there and therefore was noticeably drunk. As I walked into the shop he yells out to me, "FUCK AMERICA!" I was actually quite surprised by the outburst because USUALLY Indian men yell at me, but it's more like, "Hello!!" "How are you??" "From which country are you???" "Welcome to India!" Things of that sort. This guy obviously did not like the United States of America. I simply ignored him, but the entire time I was in the shop he was shouting things like that at me. "I hate America!" "Nine Eleven something something..." "mumble mumble, America, Mumble."

I was upset because first of all, he actually has no idea that I am an American citizen. I could be British, Irish, Australian, Norwegian, Italian, Canadian even! I could be from any of those places. Heck, I could be from South Africa! Of all the places white people hail from, America does not have the majority. In that case I would not have cared at all that he was shouting these things and would have simply laughed at him for the misidentification of my home country. But the thing is I AM AMERICAN and it took every fiber in my being to not run up to him and punch him in his drunk face. I could have taken him. I bet he has never even been to "America" and I bet that he has some dumb reason for hating "America." All I wanted to do was go up to him and say, "Excuse me? I am living in YOUR country, and I am wearing YOUR traditional clothes, I am just buying milk, yogurt, and cereal, I am doing nothing to upset YOU. I did not come to YOUR country to say horrible things about how different it is, or that I'm so glad Mumbai was attacked in 2008 and I am glad it happened again just last week." Oh man, I was so upset. Only one other time in my life was I that upset about something someone said, only that time it was about Jesus, and this time it was about "America."

Usually Indians love America and love the people from America. I have never met an Indian-to-date that hated the United States. Just going to the US Embassy last week and seeing the line for US visa applicants winding around the building shows how much Indians love the US. Just going to the United States you will see Indian people EVERYWHERE!

I don't know where this guy came from or why he was saying those things, and as I walked away from his mumblings and laughing because I did not ever respond to him, I prayed for him. As difficult as it was, I prayed for him. I guess you could say I even loved him by not spazzing out on him and by not knocking him out as I left the store. I have found that it is so very easy to pray for my enemies and to say that I love my enemies when I never have to face them. Like right after the World Trade Center incident I prayed for those terrorists, I even felt compassion for them, but I never had to ever meet them. I never had to see or hear their personal hatred for my country. When it comes to actually meeting people face-to-face who are my enemy or my Jesus' enemy or my country's enemy, it is really hard to have compassion for them. It is really hard to pray for them. There is so much hate in our world, and I am so thankful that I don't have to see it very often right in my face, because I think I would live a very different life full of anger and hate, the very things I would be angry and hateful towards.

I don't know how God does it.