i wish...

Aside from it being the start of many a Sondheim tune (umm, Into the Woods, anyone?), "I wish" is also what I say today. I wish...that it was Spring.

I love Spring. Spring, Summer, and Fall are definitely my favorite season. Mostly Spring, followed shortly by Fall. I especially love my campus in the Spring because we have cherry trees with their little white blossoms, and lots of flowering bushes and giant flower beds. AND everyone sits outside to study and read, or we all get together and play games. Before finals in May, we all bring out our blankets and snacks and study for hours. I studied for ten hours outside one day last Spring and it was FANTASTIC (except for the studying part).

I wish it was Spring, but I know that my wishing and the mounting tension I feel between my desire to walk around barefoot and the reality of the frigid cold and snow will eventually vanish, and that when it does I will be the happiest gal around!

That said, I'm going sledding again tomorrow.

Peace

sledding extravaganza!

As soon as I have pictures, they're totally going up. I went sledding tonight (last night? I dunno, four hours ago) with one of my seminary friends and a bunch of her friends that I hadn't met before. IT WAS AWESOME!

We went to this huge hill in a nearby town known as Mount Trashmore and went down it on normal sleds...and pool floating devices, Tupperware lids, Tupperware bins, those roll-up sleds...and it was crazy fun. The pool thing was the best because it was so incredibly smooth and you couldn't help but fly down the hill. Plus, it was so slippery that you almost fell off of it yourself and there was nothing to hold on to. A few of us went down on that lying down, or with two people---so great. There were also some very creative moments, like the trio of saucers or the two smallest girls trying to go down the hill in one of those bins that you keep craft supplies in...good times.

We were sledding for about an hour before three people we didn't know showed up (there were seven of us--now ten) and we started yelling with them and admiring each other's great sledding ideas. After about an hour of this, we went with these two guys and this girl (I think their names were Dave, Mike, and Maria, but I'm not sure) to IHOP. Turns out they're from a nearby school. It was super-fun hanging out with them, and the best part of the whole night is that it was just totally random. I got this surprise email from Sarah, then I tried to invite some friends and it didn't work out. Then I showed up and recognized one girl and met everyone else. After all of this fun randomness, we me these other people--then we all ended up at IHOP. Eating pancakes.

SO GREAT. I will remember this evening forever. I obviously could not detail everything here because it would take forever and I have class at 8:50 this morning, but you get the gist. Good time.

Peace

supeVrdupeOrmardigTrastuesEday

Mmm'kay. What that says is "Super Duper Mardi Gras Tuesday" with VOTE mixed in. Because.....



I VOTED TODAY!



Yep, that's right. I voted. In the primaries. Today.

It was so great. It took about two minutes and I've been on this fantastic high all day. It's liberating! It's fun! I am absolutely amazed by how cool that was. And I REALLY want to hug all of the wonderful women (and men) who came before me and made it possible for me to vote today. I felt like I was a part of this huge and wondrous legacy!!! YAY!

So, basically, Y'ALL SHOULD VOTE IF YOU HAVEN'T ALREADY AND IF YOU DON'T THE OVER-SEVENTY GENERATION WILL CONTINUE TO DECIDE OUR POLITICS.

Okay, vote rant's over. Lata, peeps.

Peace

pre-Lenten babblings

I didn't really used to understand Lent. We didn't participate in Lent at my first church (way way back in the day), and the church at which I spent the majority of my formative years didn't really celebrate it appropriately. I don't remember much about it except that I always gave up chocolate, and my birthday was always during Lent, so my mom would let me "cheat" and have a chocolate cake on my birthday. It was a time of irritation for me more than anything else, and not much changed until last year.

Last year was my first year truly observing Lent. It was finally explained to me, and now that it has been made perfectly clear that Lent is preparation for Easter, it all makes sense. We fast and pray to prepare ourselves for the joy that comes from Christ's resurrection. It's amazing that I wasn't aware of this for so many years growing up in the church. I honestly don't believe that many of the people from my church knew what was happening!

Anyway, this year I am giving up Facebook...sigh...because I spend far too much time on it doing nothing important. I should be spending that time with the real people I have right next to me all day long! So don't look for me there!

I may post some updates on my Facebook fast. We'll see.

Peace

i'm totally trying too hard

That's what I realized this weekend. I spent last weekend practically wallowing in all of my sins and personal faults (that lead to more sins, more often than not) to the extent that I actually WANTED to go home. I don't usually have a particular desire to visit my parents, not that I don't love my family, I am just incredibly happy at school and have a fantastic time living life with my friends. We laugh, we cry, we eat, we do homework, we sleep....mmm'kay, listing is over. But the last weekend of January was just so icky that I felt like I would never snap out of it, like I was in this pit and nothing could drag me out. So I prayed and cried and prayed and stared at the wall and prayed and called my mom. I tried to explain without crying (which, thankfully, is much easier over the phone) but she was worried enough to say, "You should come home this weekend" in that grave, I-am-your-mother-and-you-will-obey-me tone.

So I did. It was quite pleasant because I got to take the train(s). Two hours split between the El and Union Station doesn't sound to most like a pleasant way to spend the afternoon, but I always find public transportation to be a most fantastic place for "me time." Public transportation is designed in such a way as to make everyone participating in it suffiently awkward to the point where no one speaks to anyone else and occasionally I enjoy taking advantage of the uncomfortable silence. I know, it's not very Christ-like loving of me, but let's not dwell on that for the moment. I just got over the crappiest weekend that I've had at school for cryin' out loud!

Actually, I was feeling much better before I left for my parents' house on Friday, but that's not really all that important to the story. So there I was, at home, doing wonderful things like sledding--watching my father go down the hill on that tiny purple sled from when I was five was just about the greatest thing EVER--shopping, and just lazin' around watching movies, and I got to thinking about why I started on that nasty self-disdain kick.

To make a long story short, I was feeling immensly stressed because I looked ahead to the rest of my semester and saw a whirling mass of obligations and responsibilities that I wasn't sure I could or even had the desire to handle (I was so tempted to write "handel"). Then I began to wonder if I was happy with the way things are going for me, and that led to "Am I happy with myself?" which when one is in such a mood is always a terrible question to ask. If you are ever feeling horrible about your life, by all means do not ask yourself if you're happy with yourself. If it does not send you into a nasty bout of self-loathing, I commend you for either your ignorance or your nonchalance. But I digress...

I discovered something through all of this that is actually not as profound as I've led you to believe--I'm actually not that busy this semester. Yeah. I mean, sure, I'm taking ten classes (again) and I have my degree approval jury, a recital, four term papers, a composition, my job, etc., but I really don't have much to do. It sounds crazy to you but that's because did not experience my last semester. Oh......my.......gosh. Now that was crazy. And I thought this would be worse, but my workload truly is lighter because my Dialogue class (that crazy writing thing I was talking about) is a piece of cake and my music classes really don't require that much homework. So all I need to worry about is keeping my performance-related business together and I'll be fine. *sigh*

The point is, I got all worked up over nothing as usual, and I'm all better now. I really should just RELAX. If you remember to pray for me, pray for peace. As always...

Peace

hee-hee, number 45

I just think it's funny that this post marks the fourty-fifth post of this blog--that's how many I got through on my old (very lame, don't check it out) blog before it died. I don't think that'll happen this time.

Peace

surprised by...C.S. Lewis!

It's odd that I'm writing this now since I finished the book about two weeks ago, but I guess "better late than never" applies here! Two weeks ago I read C. S. Lewis's Surprised by Joy and I must say that it was the most beautiful work of his that I've read thus far. And I've read a lot of Lewis.



The concept is so simple--here is my life leading up to my conversion and the specific events which led to it--but his story is so interesting and well-written that I was having trouble putting it down! I've been reading Lewis's work since middle school so I was always aware that he was a great Christian writer. I read his essays and lectures and learned that he was a great thinker. Then, I read his autobiography and discovered that not only is he a great writer and thinker, but a very candid, honest man. He shared surprising details of his young life and revealed an unhappy relationship with his father and early death of his mother. Very beautifully written.

I have to say that while I have always enjoyed Lewis, and that while it pains my anti-conformist streak, I am now and forever a faithful fan of his work.

Peace