Stuff Going On, or should I say going ORRFFF!!!

Well trying to get this back up and running.

Currently Listening to: NoFX, Five Iron, Skankin Pickle, Asian Man Records

Movies Recently Seen:
2001: A Space Odyssey (1968) - Weird
The Great Escape (1963) - Good
Spirited Away (2002) - Already seen it, but still really good
Jackass Number Two (2006) - O.K. when they are hitting each other

Movies I've seen that I liked since I stopped Blogging...
Little Miss Sunshine (2006)
Children of Men (2006)
The Manchurian Candidate (1962)
Rebecca (1940)
Strangers on a Train (1951)
Rear Window (1954)
Munich (2005)

So despite what was a very weird start to the week things are going good. I am continuing to adjust to marriage. It is way harder then I ever thought it would be. I was single for so long that it is hard to kind of relearn, or learn, how to live this close to someone else. It is little things but they add up and it is almost like I need to be on full scale alert for someone else needs, wants, and feelings 100% of the time. But it is getting better...

So I love my Church!!! Seriously it rules!!! John Piper finished up Romans and then he has been doing a series on marriage, perfect timing... Anyway it has been awesome. No skits, no movie clips, no T.V. show clips, non of that crap just straight up, hard hitting marriage stuff. So if you don't go to Bethlehem you should listen to them, hey you can download them for free. Just go to DesiringGod.com and you can experience them.

Once again I just want to say thank you for all your prayers. The peace I feel about my up coming surgery is kind of overwhelming I was so worried for a couple days I just felt like I was going to throw up but God has instilled his peace on me and I am so thankful, thank God He is control and not worried about what will happen.
Godspeed,
Caleb M. Saarela

Life Update #2 Modified

A letter sent to my friends and family...

Well it has been almost 6 weeks since I got the pleasure of marring my beautiful wife. We have adjusted to living together, well almost, we are still learning but we are happy to be leaning. My stuff is moved in and I am trying not to mess things up.

"Where does this dish go? I can dry these pants but not these one's? Why!?!?"

First off we just want to say Thank You so much for being our friends and family and making our wedding so special.

Missy's got herself a regular job that will hopefully turn into a full time, real, teaching job before next school year. I am still a bum...

On a more serious note, as some of you have heard on Tuesday we found out that the mole on my left cheek is cancerous.

It was by far and away one the most surreal moments of my life. To hear a doctor say "you have skin cancer" on a Tuesday afternoon while sitting in the hall of the school was beyond strange. I think I was in shock for the first 24 hours.

I have Basal Cell Carcinoma Sclerosing. Basal Cell Carcinoma is the most common form of skin cancer and is not usually a major problem if treated quickly. Tumors can be removed and don't have any long-term effects. And Sclerosing just means scar like in nature.

But it was still a little scary and took a little time to settle into. There were also a lot of nagging questions that I didn't know the answers to. Some people can lose a nose or an ear if they have tumors on those parts of the body. Is mine too close to my ear or my eye? I have had this mole since high school will the length I have had it, the size it is, be a problem? Would my medical insurance cover this? How much would we have to pay? All that stuff just kept running through my mind. And I can't lie to you I did think about what if this was something worse, something life threatening...

Missy was great she kept me calm and thinking positively, we had some good conversations about how thankful we are that God is in control and although I was shocked, God wasn't. And in the grand scope the small spot on my face is just that, small...

Today we went to see the surgeon who will be performing my Mohs Surgery, and we were able to get all of our questions answered. He was doubtful that there would be any long-term problems and seemed optimistic that the only lasting affect will be a three to four inch scar on my face. Which is fine by me.

We both walked out relieved and feeling like a weight has been lifted. We are not totally out of the woods, but we are feeling like we have a little more light and or on the right path. I have basically felt like throwing up for the last two days, but started feeling better yesterday as I thought, prayed and learned about the characteristics of my cancer.

I will have surgery on March 6th, and because the surgery is done in three or four stages it could take almost all day, and then a day or two to recover.

Anyway I know this is brief but just wanted to let people know what was going on, and to say thank you for your prayers. I know they carried us through these last couple days. So again thank you, we love you, and we will keep you posted on how things go.

Godspeed,
Caleb and Missy

Life Update #2 Coming this week...

Really

Racial Prejudice

Written 9/2/06

I was waiting in line at the post office. I was second or third in line. There were two clerks helping out, one was helping a lady send something to an international destination. The other was helping a lady with her and her husbands P.O. Box. Apparently the two are separated and are trying to switch the name the P.O. Box was under so it is under her name and not his.

Because her husband was not there and she did not have matching ID's there was nothing the post office could do. The clerk attending to her was doing a great job explaining why it was a security issue that they could not switch the Box over without her husband present. She was doing her best to figure out a way to help her but it just didn't seem like it was going to work. The lady trying to get the box changed was getting more and more frustrated and starting to get a little rude with the clerk.

So this is the point were I guess I will relate my story to the Title of my blog. The lady trying to change the P.O. Box was a larger African American woman, with a number of piercings on her face. Everyone else in the place was white.

Written 2/13/07 as best as I could remember...
This is were things got really interesting, it seemed to me that all these racial stereotypes started to kick in. The manager took over at this point and was so rude with this woman. The people in line started to role their eyes and the mood became very uncomfortable. It was almost like they were thinking, "Well what do you expect." Then the woman started to act like there was a great offense being perpetrated against her like somehow the clerk was doing something wrong by not letting her switch the P.O Box.

In the end the lady left cursing and very upset. The manager made some comment about how unbelievable that was, and I sat there and thought... I would never assume I was being persecuted if a clerk couldn't help me. I have never had a manager yell at me. Both of these women and a couple of people in line just seemed to feed off each other’s disdain for each other. It was very sad...
Godspeed,
Caleb