"the usual"

the other morning i was asked my plans for the day, and i responded with "the usual." my plans included reading for my classes, writing some e-mails, organizing and planning things for teaching, working on re-writing my thesis for Calvin Seminary, and we'd see what else came up during the day. as i've learned from living here, i can't exactly plan for all of the unexpected things of the day. and "the usual" usually includes a couple of surprises....

"the usual" this week has included some work on re-writing the thesis (yay!), reading some books in Dutch (a children's book called Jip en Janneke and half of the third Harry Potter), reading and making notes on the textbook for my class on community (The Irresistible Revolution by Shane Claiborne), talking to a lot of people (some related to the organization of daily life in a community and some personal and pastoral), having a party thrown in my room by a 7-year-old, a lot of shared meals, going for a walk (that included a run over an obstacle course) in the WesterPark, writing a lot of e-mails, drinking a lot of tea, organizing details for teaching and travelling in the spring, cooking this evening, crying and being cried on, some meetings, morning and evening prayers, strengthening relationships, helping take out the garbage this morning (which we needed to bring across the street (i.e. over the canal) because the garbage truck came way earlier than normal on our own side), and so on.

i'm expecting that life in Grand Rapids will have a much quieter version of "the usual." i think i'll miss the unexpected-ness of life here (a lot) but i think i'm also looking forward to a bit of quiet-ness and the hope that i can get some more academic stuff done (which i'm growing to long for more and more). i realize that i could probably do more academic stuff here (and that i want that to be more part of my "usual"), but then i'd miss some of the adventure of life here - and since i'm not going to be here for most of the spring, i want to store up on extra community-related time and memories.