In only
I will be Mrs. Daniel Tobin!
Immigration
Mike has a post about immigration and what our policy should be.
"I do think we need to have a liberal immigration policy (the free marketer in me) but a secure border (to protect against terrorist sneaking in)."
I agree that a liberal immigration policy is a good thing. There's a lot of truth to the fact that being a nation of immigrants is one of the things that makes this country great. I'm not sure, though, that our current policy isn't liberal enough. No one who really wants to come here for the right reasons can't make it - assuming you have no liabilities in your background, and you are willing to wait what can be a very long time for the INS (or whatever they are called now) to get around to you. (Case in point: my family applied to emigrate here in 1982; we were told in 1995 that our quota number had come up and the INS was considering our case; we came here for the first time in 1997. So it took a long time, but we made it eventually.) And people with important skills, like scientists and engineers, can get here a lot quicker.
The problem with the current debate though, is that the people being defended are
illegal immigrants. These are people who broke the law to come here, and are now in the country illegally. And because of their illegal status, they have certain characteristics that make them attractive to certain segments of our population. For example, they are willing to work for a pittance - because it's all they're going to get, but also because they keep everything they make. A worker making minimum wage pays taxes on his meager income. An illegal immigrant does not, and therefore can live on less. The other factor is that an illegal immigrant has no one to turn to if he's being mistreated - a fact that unscrupulous employers exploit.
If we legalize these millions of people, they lose both these qualities. Which means they are no longer a source of cheap, exploitable labor and they lose their value to employers. If they're going to have to pay them minimum wage, and contribute to their social security fund, they might as well hire American high school drop outs who can at least speak English. What we're most likely to end up with is millions more people who can't get jobs, and live on welfare at our expense.
What's more, the demand for cheap illegal labor isn't going to go away - which means they will simply be replaced with millions more who will come across the border to take their place. An amnesty for our current crop of illegal immigrants will leave us worse off than we were before.
The first step in any debate on immigration has got to be a commitment to securing our borders. We need to know who's coming in, and we need to make sure that it's limited to people who are supposed to be here. After that we can talk about dealing with the people here illegally as well as discuss options for letting more people in through the door.
The other thing that needs to be addressed is the rights of all those people that are waiting to be admitted to the country legally. It would be completely unfair to them for these people to be pushed in line ahead of them as a reward for breaking our laws. Yes, the INS has a tremendous backlog, and the wait times are atrocious. Yes, people are having to live worse lives while they wait to get here. But, we don't speed up that process any when we punish the people in line, and reward the people who break the rules. That undermines the process and makes people lose faith in the system. And that will create more illegal immigrants, not less.
Reversal
So, after yesterday's post when I was all set on a big wedding with all the extras, I got into a conversation with FMIL today. I think after the pricing discussion we had yesterday, she was thinking more about how to make
this more affordable. Discussing it we decided that what would really make us all happy is a little tiny intimate wedding. Immediate family, close friends, a few select extended family members on both sides.
We were offered use of the dining room at the Holiday Inn Meadowlands for 3 hours, which is doable but might be rushed. We might also try and put together something more formal, but still intimate.
I am so much more excited about this than I was about the big wedding. I will know most of the people there; it'll be small and fun and lovely. We'll have a great time.
Productive day
Today was a productive day - or at least it felt like it.
I started off with walking 2 miles on the treadmill, and praying the Rosary. I really like that combination of activities - something about it just starts my day off extremely well.
Other things I did today were: filled out the application for our new apartment in lynchburg, packed one suitcase full of warm clothes, called a couple of hotels about weddign packages, emailed a caterer about pricing and options, talked to a wedding planner about possibly engaging her services, and got emails from 2 DJs about their services.
I also spent a good deal of time talking to FMIL about wedding planning in general, what I want, and why I'd like it to be as worry free as possible. She's all about the saving money, and I'm all about the lowering stress - so there's some conflict there. There will be more phone calls tomorrow to caterers, florists, etc. to figure out pricing and timelines for putting the wedding together myself vs. getting the all-inclusive package from the hotel.
Conclusions reached today:
I want a wedding - not just a fancy dinner for the friends and family who show up. However, if the guest list were limited to the very select few, i.e. less than 30 people, then I would prefer the 'go out to a nice restaurant' option. If there are 50 or more guests, though, I want the special dances, the cake, the whole package.
I definitely want a day-of-wedding coordinator. If I decide to go the DIY route rather than opt for the all-inclusive, I will probably also hire a full-service planner to keep track of the details for me. I figure paying someone $1000 is worth it if she can save me over $1000 worth in money and avoided stress.
I definitely want red and gold as our colors as opposed to a more general fall theme. And I definitely don't want a country fall theme.
... I'll probably think of more stuff later, but that's what I know for sure right now.
That 'run off to Vegas' option still looks pretty tempting...
Moving
Moving is supposed to be one of the most stressful things people go through. Our move is not stressful as much as it is complicated, since Dan is in State College, I'm in Pittsburgh, and a lot of our stuff never got unpacked from when we moved here last summer. My FMIL and I packed a good dozen boxes this morning with dishes, pots, pans, etc. as well as several boxes of non-perishable food.
I spent the rest of the day pacing my room trying to decide what to do next. Something like a GTD nextaction list would come in very handy here...
I think my first step will be doing a couple of loads of laundry tomorrow, so i have all my clothes clean and can decide what i want to move immediately vs. what can wait until the real move. (Dan starts work the day after Memorial day, so we're thinking we'll just take the bare minimum down right now, and then organize a big move sometime in the summer.) I will probably start packing winter clothes up first, since I won't need them between now and moving day. Depending on what vehicles we use to move, the clothes I will need to wear now and soon after the move might even be able to be moved on hangers rather than in luggage, which will be much faster and easier.
After that I will probably start filling small boxes with books. Between the 2 of us, Dan and I probably have close to a thousand books, most of which we will want to move at some point. What I will probably do is pull out all the books that I've flagged to be on the top of my reading list, and put them in one box. That way, if we do have room for a box of books in the first move, they'll be the right ones. The rest can be moved a couple of boxes at a time if need be.
Besides clothes and books, there's not a whole lot else that will need to be packed - art supplies, toys, stuffed lovies, computer stuff, odds and ends. Again, nothing that absolutely must be moved immediately or that couldn't be broken down into multiple carloads if need arose.
Sigh... all those books....
Update: Life's purpose
I resumed the
exercise I mentioned below about finding your life's purpose. This time I broke through whatever unconscious resistance I had in just about 10 minutes. I was building on what I had done before, and I'm sure I did need that initial time, even though it seemed unproductive then. Thankfully, and not particularly surprisingly, it is a reaffirmation of the insights I have gained these past few weeks.
The purpose of my life is to surrender entirely to God, to
accept his unconditional love for me, to let his spirit set my soul on fire,
breaking the shackles on my heart, letting his love flow into my body, mind, heart and spirit and through me into the
lives of everyone I encounter, bringing them healing, joy, peace and love.
Apparently, the key insight here that I didn't have in my earlier iterations was the unconditional love of God, and the implied acceptance of my imperfect self as being worthy of that love. That's been a big issue for me for years and years, the feeling that I was not good enough to be loved by God. Even though, in my head, I knew that I would never be good enough and that God loved me anyway, in my heart there were still things that 'good girls don't do.' And if someone (especially me) did any of them, even God would not love them anymore.
But God does!! And every once in a while, he will beat me over the head with this message, since I don't quite seem to be able to get it and make it stick.
So to anyone who was wondering as to the efficacy of the exercise - it does work. It might just take a lot longer than you expect it to. It's very worth it though.
Quote to ponder
Here's something Fr. Jack quoted to us in today's homily - from the homily a friend of his gave at the first Mass he celebrated.
"Sometimes God breaks our hearts so we can love even more."
I'm still thinking this one over, and I'm not sure how to take it. It makes sense in the same way that 'what doesn't kill you only makes you stronger' makes sense. What I am not sure of is how much I believe that God tests/tries/toughens us up this way.
I will probably have more to say about this, but for now I'm just thinking it over.
God and our life purpose
An exercise from
Steve Pavlina's blog archives is titled '
Find your life's purpose in about 20 minutes.' It was an interesting idea and I wanted to try it. I closed the door to my room, maximized a Word window and started writing down possible purposes as he suggested. There were a couple of things that resonated, but nothing hit the jackpot. After over an hour, it was time for me to leave for Mass, and I hadn't yet gotten anywhere. I was a little discouraged but hopeful that Mass, prayer and reflection could only help in my getting an answer. I haven't yet continued the exercise, but intend to later tonight, and will post an update when I'm done.
Here's what I have thus far that is sparking emotions:
healing, sharing God's love, healing people's pain, trusting God's plan, learning the depths of God's love
I didn't expect to have this much trouble with the exercise. Steve does mention that if you are resistant to the idea it might take longer, but I didn't think I was resistant at all. I see two possibilities for why this might be happening. One is that I am on the right track but just missing some piece of the puzzle that is important. The other (and more disturbing) possibility is that I am still only just regurgitating conditioned responses - that my true life's purpose is something so completely alien to my upbringing/education/belief system that I am unable to imagine it, or unconsciously refusing to see it. Something that didn't involve God at all, or that involved a faith/belief system that was contrary to what I believe would fall into this category. I've tried throwing some weird outlandish stuff in there to get my mind off the entrenched patterns, but I keep coming back to the stuff I listed above.
Am I ready to consider a life in which God is not central to the purpose of my existence? I don't know, and considering I just got back into an active faith that strengthens me as opposed to a neglected faith that kept me bound, I don't know if it's even a good thing to attempt. Nonetheless I do want to finish this exercise, to see what I end up with.
I will update when I am done.
Thoughts On Goals, Discipline and Momentum
I'm still reading the archives on
Steve Pavlina's blog, and the article I read this morning was about
goals and values. Steve talks about how he sets goals first and then determines which values to focus on to get him there. This seems like a useful strategy, so I started the day with writing down a list of big goals - everything I want to do in my life. I also sorted them into the broad categories I like to think of things in - body, mind, heart, spirit. And I think my most important goal for the near future is still focused on health - to develop a habit of exercising every day, eating healthy (which for me means lowcarb), drinking 8 glasses of water daily. Other things I really want to do are journal daily and pray and read the Bible every day.
See a common thread in these goals? These are all habits I want to form and things I want to do everyday. So the values I need to focus on are discipline, persistence, and focus. And my main area of focus is health - both physical and mental health. There's other stuff I want to do, and a lot of it is short to medium term stuff. I want to develop a health-related website, and develop it into a source of income. I want to be married in November - even though I really do not want to think about the planning that will be involved in getting there. I do want to move to Lynchburg and find a job there. Nonetheless, the health related goals are the ones I want to be focusing on primarily.
These are all also habits I've unsuccessfully tried to develop in the past. And here's why I think this time it'll stick when in the past it hasn't. In the past, I'd go all out for a few days, and then, I would miss a day or two, and never go back. But the reason I never went back is because my attitude after I missed a day was that I had failed; that I might as well give up. This time, though, I'm focused on developing the habit, not on achieving some ideal weight, or fitting into some skinny clothes, although those would be good milestones. This time around, the important thing has been to develop the mindset that a healthy lifestyle is important to me. So, even if my exercising has been limited to sucking in my gut while sitting on the couch, that's a step in the right direction, and a way to get back into my habit of walking 3 miles on the treadmill everyday.
Building habits is all about momentum, and this time, even though I've lost the physical momentum, I've kept up the mental momentum. That makes it easier to get back into the physical routine when I get back to something resembling a normal schedule. At least, that's how I'm hoping it will work out. I'll keep you posted as to how it turns out.
Thoughts On Goals, Discipline and Momentum
I'm still reading the archives on
Steve Pavlina's blog, and the article I read this morning was about
goals and values. Steve talks about how he sets goals first and then determines which values to focus on to get him there. This seems like a useful strategy, so I started the day with writing down a list of big goals - everything I want to do in my life. I also sorted them into the broad categories I like to think of things in - body, mind, heart, spirit. And I think my most important goal for the near future is still focused on health - to develop a habit of exercising every day, eating healthy (which for me means lowcarb), drinking 8 glasses of water daily. Other things I really want to do are journal daily and pray and read the Bible every day.
See a common thread in these goals? These are all habits I want to form and things I want to do everyday. So the values I need to focus on are discipline, persistence, and focus. And my main area of focus is health - both physical and mental health. There's other stuff I want to do, and a lot of it is short to medium term stuff. I want to develop a health-related website, and develop it into a source of income. I want to be married in November - even though I really do not want to think about the planning that will be involved in getting there. I do want to move to Lynchburg and find a job there. Nonetheless, the health related goals are the ones I want to be focusing on primarily.
These are all also habits I've unsuccessfully tried to develop in the past. And here's why I think this time it'll stick when in the past it hasn't. In the past, I'd go all out for a few days, and then, I would miss a day or two, and never go back. But the reason I never went back is because my attitude after I missed a day was that I had failed; that I might as well give up. This time, though, I'm focused on developing the habit, not on achieving some ideal weight, or fitting into some skinny clothes, although those would be good milestones. This time around, the important thing has been to develop the mindset that a healthy lifestyle is important to me. So, even if my exercising has been limited to sucking in my gut while sitting on the couch, that's a step in the right direction, and a way to get back into my habit of walking 3 miles on the treadmill everyday.
Building habits is all about momentum, and this time, even though I've lost the physical momentum, I've kept up the mental momentum. That makes it easier to get back into the physical routine when I get back to something resembling a normal schedule. At least, that's how I'm hoping it will work out. I'll keep you posted as to how it turns out.
Happy Birthday to...
...me!!!
Yay!! It's my birthday! I'm uhh.... 24! (again)
In case you have not yet heard, my evil plan for immortality requires me to stay 24 forever, or as long as I am capable of pullig it off. (Thus far it's working pretty well...)
So have a happy my birthday, and go eat some cheesecake, drink some wine, shoot some guns, or do something else fun and exciting to celebrate the special day =]
