19 Ways You Know You Are a Graduate Student

This may not be true of ALL Grad Students, but since we are BOTH in Grad School, we have found these things to be true during this period of our lives. Some of them we have found ourselves to be silly, but others we have only discovered odd because of the reactions we have gotten from others. At the least, we have come to appreciate the little things in life in a period of time where little things come to mean a lot!

You know you are BOTH in full-time Graduate School when:

1. You run out of toilet paper often and revert to a kleenex box. 
When that runs out, you borrow a few handfuls from church before you finally make it to the store.

2. You save twist-ties off of bread or bagged goods just in case you can use them for something else.
Yeah, I don't think we ever used them for something else yet...

3. Date nights to the grocery store or the car wash are extremely exciting!
Oh, the little things...

4. You rejoice over a bottle of soap found deep underneath the sink because you've been without good soap for a few weeks.
He was really stoked.

5. All your conversations revolve around the books you are reading, the people you are investing in, and how to put what you are learning into practice.
Fun and exhausting.

6. You take turns checking out library books in order to save money on buying books for a semester.
Desperate times...

7. Paper towels are a great luxury. 
The gift of paper towels feels like a real present.  

8. You debate between buying groceries or paying to do laundry.
Thank goodness for frozen foods and old camp shirts.

9. You walk a lot more to save gas.
Good thing we live close to most places.

10. You realize loving each other means giving into bouts of "IASI"
Irrational acts of spontaneous irresponsibility 

11. Time to clean the house or make a meal seems like it would be a dream come true.
I literally daydream of these things while doing my homework.

12. The books you are reading are actually of interest, rather than simply work for a degree.
This is a great blessing of getting your Masters.

13. You realize you haven't spent much time with friends in…..a long time.
Ahhhhhhh!!

14. You use candlelight for 1 month to save on electricity the month of December. 
It really was for a better reason, but hey, it sure helped!

15. Your brain-work becomes balanced by watching tame TV.
Like watching the entire series of the Wonder Years & Dick Van Dyke show on Netflix.

16. You compensate intellectualism with extreme goofiness during down times.
Music videos, crazy dances, made-up songs, silly voices, spontaneous adventures...just to name a few. 

Party At My House from david and keri lippman on Vimeo.

17. You begin to see how much you really DON'T know and enjoy learning more and more.
Church History, Theology, Listening to others well, Philosophy, Psychology, oh my!!

18. Your excuse for everything is, "I have a paper to write." 
And it is legitimate.

19. All your best plans have the tag line, "And we can do THAT after Grad school too!"
And the list continues to grow, provided that we have means to follow-thru.

Finals--Pizza--The Desert Map--Hibernation Day

Finals

Keri and I just finished finals, and I wanted to share with you a story I wrote for our Hermeneutics (Greek for 'Interpretation') Final. It's called The Desert Map! (Keri made up a Memory Game!! But that you would have to see in person). Click the link below if you'd like to read it.

The Desert Map

Engaged! 2 years ago today!!

Dave proposed 2 years ago today!! As we have been reflecting on it this morning, we thought we'd share our engagement story again. It was such a special day!!!

Our Engagement Story

*written in Dec, 2010 after proposing

Proposing was a very visceral and exciting experience for the two of us.  Some would have you believe that proposing is laced with romance, rays of sunshine and melodies from fluttery classical tunes—but for us, it was a bit more concrete.  

God had been working in our friendship for over 5 years. God placed marriage more certainly on my (David’s) heart the week after thanksgiving, opportunity’s doors began to open.

Our First Year Married

Here is our video of our year!

Republica Dominicana

Thanksgiving is going to be a bit different for this couple. We're leaving today at 3AM to fly 5 hours to Miami, and 2 hours to the Dominican Republic. We are both excited and nervous about the trip. Our family (Debra, Mike and Jono) have gone a couple of times, and now we're going together. We're staying in a team house. We'll be helping with projects around the orphanage and school. Thanksgiving day we are giving the Dominican teachers the day off (the only day they get off all year, outside of weekends). In the evening we will cook a huge Thanksgiving feast for them and their families. Friday we get to celebrate Thanksgiving with all the Kids Alive missionaries from around the country. If you would like the ministry we are working with click here. We'll post some pictures when we return!

Someone once compared newlyweds to infancy. As we anticipate yet another new dynamic together on a team in a foreign country, we do feel like babies! There are a lot of new emotions that go into marriage, and remaining a unit while being around others is a learned thing. Pray for us as we venture off!

Found Passport! Off to the Dominican

We've been in panic mode the last few hours. Surprisingly, things don't always stay where you place them...or so it seems. Keri and I have torn apart our home looking desperately for my passport. Ironically we've spent the last two months working hard on getting her passport renewed, renamed and back in time for our travels this thanksgiving. Assuming, all the while, that my passport was safely tucked away in "its place." Well, that place didn't exist. We ripped apart our laundry, pulled boxes out from storage, looked through our books, emptied our drawers, undid our bedding, and basically, well, we should be long gone trotting down the yellow brick road by now.

As all the ruckus took place, God brought to mind the parable of the women who had 10 coins and lost one. She looked frantically for the one missing coin--and it blew our minds, as we were looking for my passport, that God describes Himself looking for us in the same way. He has the same desire to to seek us out (and infinitely more), as we do for our lost things.

Keri and I were both encouraged that as we searched, we really searched together. We looked, lifted, asked and helped in the effort to find the passport. And more so, stress didn't get the best of us! We held our own until we heard that a 24 hour replacement is above $300! (Which we don't have as you will see, refer to upcoming entry). As the stress of the government appointment mounted, we made one last desperate attempt to search our camping gear. Both our parents we're praying at the moment we found it. It was in the passport holder. Apparently it was hiding behind the other passport holder we had already looked through. So things do stay where you place them...hmmm.