HORRIBLE, horrible stressful dream!

I was so glad to wake up.

It started out with a showing of Peter Pan, with Peter Keuhl and some girl, and they were flying around between these buildings, and I actually had a seat out there too, which was held up like a swing by fishing line (and I couldn't get it to stop swinging at one point but Mark Koh helped me).

Then I left the show and I was at the airport and dad was supposed to pick me up by the baggage claim. Then I met up with this stylish, spoiled girl (my age) and her mom who were unable to find their flight and they started to stress me out. The gate attendant, who didn't speak English very well, indicated that I need to go back the way I came to find the baggage claim.

As I ran back, I noticed that all the airport workers had Home Depot aprons on. I also noticed that I needed to go to the bathroom. When I emerged from the bathroom, I realized that I had somehow gotten outside of the airport ... to go back in to get to the baggage claim, I would have to go through security.

I then realized that I had no ticket and no form of identification, including my passport. I couldn't get through security to get to the baggage claim to get to dad. I realized I had been all over the airport and couldn't possibly find my passport. I began to wish they had already found it and I would hear "Passenger Hannah Chupp, please report to ..." and then I opened my eyes and realized it was all a dream...

LIVE THIS.

Acts 4:32-35

Now the full number of those who believed were of one heart and soul, and no one said that any of the things that belonged to him was his own, but they had everything in common. And with great power the apostles were giving their testimony to the resurrection of the Lord Jesus, and great grace was upon them all. There was not a needy person among them, for as many as were owners of lands or houses sold them and brought the proceeds of what was sold and laid it at the apostles’ feet, and it was distributed to each as any had need.

jpusa.org

God talked to me in church today...

(surprising, eh?)

The passage was 2 Timothy 1:7-14, and Darren was talking about the calling of God on our lives. Darren kept mentioning how following God's call is not an easy thing to do, but once God has called you, it's like there is absolutely nothing else you can do. He compared it to being in love with someone and saying not "I can live with them" but "I can't live without them".

I started thanking God for the call he's given me, for how excited I am to do something, go someplace, to Ireland, to Rwanda, to Russia, to Guatemala, to India. But then God asked me, "Are you willing to serve me when it's boring? Are you willing to not go somewhere exotic? What if I tell you to live in the States?"

And my heart sank.

And I didn't know what to say.

Yesterday, the day of craziness

I feel like I'm always sharing dreams with you. Oh well. This one is great. It began early in the wee morning hours of Wednesday.

I was in the Taylor chorale, and we were on an underground train, going past the Indianapolis airport. Then we all got off, and we were at Amber's house. I was hanging out with Laura and Alyssa in Amber's room, and then Tracy Manning (who is really the theatre director, but who in my dream directed chorale) burst into the room.

"We are singing in 5 minutes! Get dressed!"

We were supposed to bring all black to wear to our concert - a combination of shirt/pants/skirt, whatever. However, I looked in my suitcase and all I had brought was a bright blue dress I had worn in the 90s. I put it on and looked at myself in the mirror. Even though it fit, I said to myself, "This is definitely not black."

Then I realized that we were supposed to sing in 2 minutes, and began running around looking for black clothes. Even though Amber had a ton in her closet, they wouldn't fit me. Alyssa and Laura didn't have any extras, and even though Valerie did, she shut the door and frowned at me.

In all of this stress and mayhem, my alarm went off and I woke up with a headache.

I then got up, took a shower, got ready, and went to my advisor's office for a meeting and my RAC sheet. (This is no longer the dream, by the way, this is reality.) She said my schedule looked good, we talked about Ireland and Astronomy, and she said I should take Life Span next semester.

I went to my next class, where we were watching a PBS special on an American lady who had moved to Afghanistan. Rather interesting. Then someone's cell phone started going off. Except it didn't stop making that loud buzzing. And then lights started flashing. What? We all kind of looked at each other, confused, saw people rushing by in the hall outside the door, and stood up and slowly began to gather our stuff.

After standing up and slowly filing out, we realized that the supposed cell phone was actually the fire alarm, and were quite confused. We made it out of Rupp, were told to go to the Chapel, and then to the Student Union. We then found out that there had been a gas leak outside Smith-Hermanson, and so we had chapel in the Union. Quite awesome actually.

They then said that classes were cancelled until further notice, but then until about 12:30 kept un-cancelling and re-cancelling classes and opening and closing buildings on a whim. We were all frustrated and confused.

Then I gave a horrible speech, enjoyed Hebrew, and endured Astronomy, ending the day on a pleasant note by creating a scary schedule for next semester, 17 credits, 4 of which are Life Span.

'Twas an interesting day.

and I'm back from the dead

... hopefully.

I keep coming to my blog, hoping to think of some ingenious remarks to share with the general public, but then I read everyone else's blogs and am saddened that I really don't have much to say.

Those who read my blog are quite few, and don't really need my blog to keep up with me. So I figure, why write? Oh well. I'll come up with something. For example, this hilarious dream I had Thursday night.

---

A big movie producer honcho man, who was apparently quite unpopular, was currently living in a hotel. One movie star he had rejected was now bent on assassinating him. This person (who was first a girl in my dream, and then a guy) was hanging out with me and telling me of her woes. She had tried to assassinate him many times by impersonating room service and bringing up poisoned food. But he hadn't died yet.

So then I got in on it. S/he and I and several other people were hanging out in the movie honcho's hotel room, and he and his wife were sitting in bed, chatting it up with us. Our first move was to saw off a part of the bedpost and replace it with a poisoned peanut. But that didn't work.

So then we wrote up about ten letters, giving him directions to places that were going to be blown up. We must have thought this guy was really stupid.

But he wasn't stupid. He caught our drift, and started blowing things up! Oh, and we were in the woods now. And it was a battle. So, the leader of our forces said that if we had burning books it would ward off the evil forces.

So we dipped the books into oil and they burst into flame and we waited for the enemy to spring out of the forest. When they did, we waved our flaming books at them. Except I almost killed Jessica Heil with mine.

"Sorry!" I said.

"What are you trying to do??" asked Jessica.

"Well, it's your fault anyway."

"Whatever. No it's not." This statement was really quite thought-provoking in my dream.

Then the flames off of our books turned into melted cheese and everyone's legs and arms were covered in oil. So we got in the car and drove into a valley, surrounded on all sides by mountains. And in the middle was LeTourneau University.

It was snowing and it was either prospectives weekend or homecoming, so the admissions/alumni department had given everyone brightly colored winter jackets. I found James and said, "LeTourneau, is this ... I mean, James, is this LeTourneau?" Because all the signs were really small and just said, "The School in Fort Wayne."

And he said it was, and then I said, "Oh, YES! That means I can find James and Josh! I haven't seen them in forever." Then I realized I was talking to James, so I said, "Oh wow, so this means you're back from Korea?" And he said yes, and I woke up.

dreams

PREPARE TO BE MYSTICIZED AS HANNAH THE FANTASTIC HEARS YOUR DREAMS AND READS YOUR FUTURE!

(Just kidding. While that may have been your first thought upon reading this post's title (it sure was my first thought), that's not the kind of dream I'm talking about.)


I hate these dreams that take over my world.

And, like I said, I'm not talking about the at-night dream. I'm talking about the thought-hope-plan-wish type of dream. In my case, the all-consuming kind. This one's been raging around in my head since Friday, and it won't stop.

You see, after visiting the most amazing bookstore ever (Well, most amazing used bookstore. Most amazing bookstore overall goes to Hodges Figgis - 4 storeys of ultimate bliss in Dublin.) and --according to Rachael Cox-- an "ambience-laden" coffee shop, I was inspired to open my own coffee/smoothie and used book shop. With local music and art. In a college town.

But then this stupid idea wouldn't leave my head. I even told this stupid idea how stupid it was. How I knew nothing about business, or coffee for that matter, how it would be quite fiscally irresponsible (etc., etc., ad nauseam). But still it lingered.

Yesterday mom and I went to The Colony Resale, where a good portion of my time was spent looking at furniture. I dragged mom away from her bargain-finding and exclaimed to her, "For my coffee shop, I mean, that is, if that ever were to happen, I would get this wooden & forest green table and chairs set. 4 chairs and a table for $59.99, and they look so cool! Oh and then these bar stools are only $2.49, and look at this ridiculous table ... er ... desk thing! That would have to be in my coffee shop, just because it's so eclectic." (that table really was ridiculous. It was painted ........ like some of these kind of colors (see ridiculous color inset) and ... it was just quite unusual.)

And then on the way home I kept talking about this stupid coffee shop, and how I would need a business partner who actually knew something about coffee and money ... and I would take care of the smoothies and books. It didn't help that when I got home and was talking to Sarah on IM and (half-jokingly, half in serious) asked her if she wanted to open up a coffee/used book shop, she said sure, and that her roommate was a business major and loved coffee. GRR!

Last night I had finally gotten in bed, put my computer to bed, and then promptly could not fall asleep. So I started thinking of names for my non-existent coffee shop. I then had the brilliant idea of looking up coffee shop names on the internet. I sat up, put on my glasses, and then stared at my compy. He was sitting there on my nightstand. Turned off. I seriously stared at my computer in the dark for a full minute or so.

I decided not to turn on the poor compy, so I tried to fall asleep again. It was really late, so I don't know why I was having problems. I ended up in the living room leafing through our huge dictionary, brainstorming by myself at 2:30 in the morning.

I came up with a few interesting names, by the way. Or at least, interesting trains of thought. For some reason, they were all on a musical kind of theme. Sonata (imagine "Books and Coffee" or "Coffee and Books" appended to each of these) and Sonatina both sounded too frilly. Mazurka sounds cool, but the dictionary told me it was a Polish dance. MezzoForte was a nice thought, but it doesn't have the best initials. The best was Fermata, the musical element that causes a note to be sustained longer than usual, with the idea of lingering at a coffee shop involved. [Looking through the dictionary also caused me to think of several other cool names, but they sounded like nightclubs or raves or something. Oh well. Let me know if you're opening one of those and you need name ideas.]

But ... why is this currently on my mind? All the time? I really don't know what to do with it. Dismiss it completely? Jump in headfirst? Or just think about it and how amazing it would be, which is what I am currently doing.

of coffee shops and used books and air-headed teenagers

Well, today was lovely. Mom and I were planning on taking public transportation to the Kimbell Art Museum in Fort Worth, but we realized that north Texas is not Europe, and public transport has a ways to go. A long ways, in fact, for us - 3 hours one way, to be precise. Time for Plan B. We figured out expenses, gave ourselves a budget, and drove out to Denton.

We first hit up Recycled Books, Records, and CD's on the square in Denton. Wow. I hadn't been there before, and now I'm wondering why not. Three storeys of used books, and lots of them smell good. How did I stay away?

I went there with a bit of an idea in my head. I had just remembered a book from my childhood and wondered if I could find it. (Let's see if it rings a bell with any of you...) This is how my vague memory recalls snatches of it: A princess in disguise gets a job as a cook in a castle, puts random gold trinkets in the prince's soup, she wears a cloak of many different furs, and has silvery dresses in walnut shells, and eventually marries the prince. Yeah, not much to go on. Well, it turns out that I read the children-ized version of what is an incestuous Grimm's fairy tale. The prince was actually the princess's father, a king whose wife had died and needed to marry someone as beautiful as she, and the only one is their daughter ...... Yeah. It's known by various names - "The Princess in Disguise", "All-Kinds-of-Fur", "Allerleirauh", and "Many Furs". I'd like to find that childrenized storybook version; it was one of my favourite books as a kid. (not to mention, not as creepy)

While perusing the fiction section, I couldn't help overhearing and partially recording this quite amusing conversation. (Yes, I actually got out my notebook and jotted some notes down. While laughing at these people. Don't worry, they were a completely different row so they didn't even see me or acknowledge my existence.)

A trendy, cuter than me, and unfortunately airheaded high schooler walked past me with her boyfriend/brother/cousin/I don't know. Man friend. His name was Brad.
Airhead Girl: You know, I'm one of those people who actually reads books, and gets A's in school, not like some of my other friends.
Brad: (mumbling)
Airhead (looking for a particular book): You know, I keep taking these pregnancy tests, even though they always come back negative, because I'm so scared that I'm actually pregnant!
Brad: How long have you been taking the tests?
Airhead: I don't know, I've taken like, three, in, like, the past couple months or something?
Brad: You would know by now.
Airhead: Whatever! I'm just scared.
Brad: No, seriously, you would know by now.
Airhead (giggling emptily): Oh my gosh that totally reminds me of my friend So and So and me! We were both scared we were pregnant, so we went and got pregnancy tests from CVS, and then went to Taco Bell and took the tests in the bathroom!
Brad: Do you realize how ghetto that is?
Airhead: Shut up!! That's not ghetto!
Brad: Yes it is! Taking pregnancy tests in the bathroom of Taco Bell?! That's ghetto.
Airhead: Okay, whatever ... well, maybe it is, but we're not ghetto! See, we couldn't take it at home 'cause then our parents would find out and get mad at us! (starts looking for the book again) Oh ... wait ... S comes before T, right? (sigh) Oh, forget it Brad, I'm never gonna find this book. I'll just get it at the library.

As they walked away, I laughed, or in honor of Airhead Girl, giggled.

I then went and found mom, which was surprisingly easy to do so, considering the size of the place. After browsing some more, we checked out, mom with some Brennan Manning and Bach, I with the following:

• Four Great Plays by Chekhov (including The Cherry Orchard and Uncle Vanya!), 1958 edition
• When We Were Very Young by A.A. Milne, 1951 edition
• C.S. Lewis' Silver Chair, my all-time favourite edition (on the right), 1970 edition
• bookmarks
• bumper sticker for my guitar case
• entering into a drawing for a $75 gift certificate (oh man...the damage I could do...)

After this, we moved the car (rot about 2 hour parking and all that) and then dropped in a lovely coffee shop. Jupiter House = Awesomeness. I got an Electric Orange Cranberry smoothie, mom a Mango Green Tea, and we split a scrumptiously fantastic cinnamon roll.

Then I got to thinking ... how awesome would it be to own a coffee/smoothie shop, coupled with a used book store? Mom and I started dreaming ... that would be amazing. Then, as I sipped my amazing smoothie, and as mom got a brain freeze from hers, I (as I am wont to do) thought of all the pesky details that would be involved - capital, how I don't know anything about coffee, how I would never make any money ... so then I thought to myself ... Oh Nevermind. (I'm great at shooting down my own dreams.)

But I mean ... wouldn't that be so much fun? And then doing more like displaying local artists' work, having live music ... a community hub. I think it would thrive in a college town. Probably not Upland, though. (and why would I want to compete with Payne's??)

Anyway ... it was a lovely day.


Also, on a completely different note, all women everywhere should always be required to wear a bra at all times. The end.