Here we are again...late at night after a day of homework and socializing, sleepy and lacking in blog material, and cognizant of the fact that I have to get up for church in the morning.
Best part of the day: tomato-basil pasta with andouille sausage and peach cobbler at my friend Rachel's apartment with a bounty of other friends, watching Tangled and Chocolat. I was wooed there against my homework instinct by the prospect of the cobbler and Tangled, and I'm super glad that I was....it was a fabulous evening of laughter, good food, and movies with friends. I'm trying to be proactive about decreasing procrastination and maintaining deliberate social times to balance out the studying and give myself better breaks than cartoons and Facebook. It's been working well so far...I'm about 15 pages away from finishing the book I have to read before writing my education paper, then I can start actually WRITING that one and tackling the stack of research material for my other paper. Still feels pretty manageable, it'll just take dedication!
Go dedicate yourself to something, blog readers! GO!
"The only way of catching a train I have ever discovered is to miss the train before." - Gilbert K. Chesterton
Saturday, April 30, 2011
Friday, April 29, 2011
Why I Love the Royal Wedding (And Why You Should Love It Too)
In case you weren't one of the estimated 2 billion people watching, or in case you've been living under a rock for the past few months and have just now crawled out and chosen my blog as your news source, I'm here to tell you that today Prince William married Kate Middleton in Westminster Abbey, in London. It's kind of a big deal.
I wasn't one of those die-hard people who woke up at 3am to watch the ceremony unfold, but I DID record Good Morning America's entire 6 hour broadcast and watched almost the entire thing when I finally did wake up around 9:00 this morning, and I watched about 2 more hours of news coverage/documentaries after an afternoon shopping adventure. Actually, that shopping adventure included buying wedding gifts for my three friend-couples who will be getting married this summer and included happening upon an imitation of Princess Diana's (now Kate's) engagement ring at Charlotte Russe. You might say it was a wedding-tastic day...except that instead of eating canapes and bacon butties I had a bowl of cereal and Five Guys Burgers and Fries. Classy.
Back to the royal wedding, I can give you several reasons why I loved it. Here are five specific, concrete details that I thought were absolutely fantastic:
1) Kate's dress: OMG. Beautiful, right? Classy and timeless and fabulous in every way.
2) William's red uniform: Like a fairy tale prince popped out of a Disney movie into real life (except less naive than James Mardsden in Enchanted).
3) Maple Trees as Decoration: Sounds weird, but it was a fabulous idea. They looked beautiful juxtaposed with the gray pillars of Westminster Abbey. Whoever thought that one up should get a high five. I had a fleeting thought that I'd like to do such a thing for my hypothetical wedding, until I remembered that one maple tree probably costs more than the entire budget of my hypothetical wedding. Ah well.
4) London Flashbacks: I've been to both Westminster Abbey and the general area outside Buckingham Palace, which were the two principal locations of the day, so it was fun to see them being all royally fabulous and whatnot.
5) Carriage Procession: Can you GET any more fairy tale-ish than to have the royal newlyweds travel off in a horse-drawn carriage complete with footmen? I don't think so. Maybe if that thing had turned into a pumpkin or something...otherwise, no.
But the thing that made me truly love the royal wedding, the thing that made me actually start to get a bit choked up sitting on my couch in my pajamas...it was all just so happy.
I've heard a lot of comments lately from people saying they're "over" the whole royal wedding news thing. Whether people were sick of hearing speculation of what color hat the queen would wear or rumors about Kate's dress, whether people were tired of seeing William and Kate's faces plastered on magazines, or whether people were annoyed at primacy that the story was getting over other world issues, people were ready for it to be over. I can understand the first two reasons; if you're not into the whole royal wedding thing, I'm sure that the constant blabbing about fashion and cutlery and guest lists gets boring and redundant after awhile. But, honestly, I just don't understand the last reason.
I can understand the general thought process of people who were annoyed with the royal wedding for this reason; they think that with everything else going on in the world, with wars and monstrous storm damage and economic downturn and what not, news reports would be better spent by focusing on these "more important" things. The social justice-minded people feel like so much money shouldn't be spent on a wedding, or that the amount of news coverage for the royal wedding should match the amount of news coverage about the plight of those living in poverty. I totally agree that these are all hugely important things. Extremely important. But do we always have to focus on the tragedy of the world? Every time I turn on the news, I'm bombarded with story after story of chaos and sadness and destruction. Why can't we take the time to celebrate the joyful moments that make headlines?
When it comes down to it, I believe this is why 2 billion people around the world tuned into the royal wedding, and why people camped out overnight outside Westminster Abbey. This is why the people of London lined the streets and filled Green Park, waving the British flag in the air and raising cheers that shook the walls of Westminster Abbey when William and Kate took their vows. It's because the royal wedding was a sign of hope and happiness in the middle of a world in constant struggle.
Weddings are, by their very nature, forward-looking events. They may always pop up at the end of fairy tales, but in real life they're just the beginning for the newly wedded couple. The royal wedding, bursting with the joy of two people who sincerely love each other, marks a hopeful future for William and Kate that is tied to a hopeful future for their country, and by extension the entire world. The very Cinderella-esque quality of the wedding makes it seem like anything is possible, like any circumstance can be turned around. If a middle-class girl can marry a prince and become a duchess, who's to say you and I can't have our own happy endings?
One of my favorite moments of the wedding was the processional out of Westminster Abbey. William and Kate headed up the line, followed by Prince Harry and Kate's sister, Pippa, followed by Kate's mother, Carole, escorted by Prince Charles. Watching them walk down the aisle, I thought to myself, "What in the world must Carole Middleton be thinking?" I wondered if she'd ever in her wildest dreams imagined the scene that she suddenly found herself in...looking ahead of her to see her two daughters on the arms of the two princes of England (knowing one of those daughters would henceforth be referred to as "her royal highness"), and herself on the arm of the man next in line for the throne. A daughter's wedding day is a monumental occasion for any mother; how could Carole Middleton have possibly imagined during her flight attendant days that this moment lay on the trajectory of her life?
Happiness. Love. Hope.
That's why I love the royal wedding...and why you, also, should love it.
Back to the royal wedding, I can give you several reasons why I loved it. Here are five specific, concrete details that I thought were absolutely fantastic:
1) Kate's dress: OMG. Beautiful, right? Classy and timeless and fabulous in every way.
2) William's red uniform: Like a fairy tale prince popped out of a Disney movie into real life (except less naive than James Mardsden in Enchanted).
3) Maple Trees as Decoration: Sounds weird, but it was a fabulous idea. They looked beautiful juxtaposed with the gray pillars of Westminster Abbey. Whoever thought that one up should get a high five. I had a fleeting thought that I'd like to do such a thing for my hypothetical wedding, until I remembered that one maple tree probably costs more than the entire budget of my hypothetical wedding. Ah well.
4) London Flashbacks: I've been to both Westminster Abbey and the general area outside Buckingham Palace, which were the two principal locations of the day, so it was fun to see them being all royally fabulous and whatnot.
But the thing that made me truly love the royal wedding, the thing that made me actually start to get a bit choked up sitting on my couch in my pajamas...it was all just so happy.
I've heard a lot of comments lately from people saying they're "over" the whole royal wedding news thing. Whether people were sick of hearing speculation of what color hat the queen would wear or rumors about Kate's dress, whether people were tired of seeing William and Kate's faces plastered on magazines, or whether people were annoyed at primacy that the story was getting over other world issues, people were ready for it to be over. I can understand the first two reasons; if you're not into the whole royal wedding thing, I'm sure that the constant blabbing about fashion and cutlery and guest lists gets boring and redundant after awhile. But, honestly, I just don't understand the last reason.
I can understand the general thought process of people who were annoyed with the royal wedding for this reason; they think that with everything else going on in the world, with wars and monstrous storm damage and economic downturn and what not, news reports would be better spent by focusing on these "more important" things. The social justice-minded people feel like so much money shouldn't be spent on a wedding, or that the amount of news coverage for the royal wedding should match the amount of news coverage about the plight of those living in poverty. I totally agree that these are all hugely important things. Extremely important. But do we always have to focus on the tragedy of the world? Every time I turn on the news, I'm bombarded with story after story of chaos and sadness and destruction. Why can't we take the time to celebrate the joyful moments that make headlines?
When it comes down to it, I believe this is why 2 billion people around the world tuned into the royal wedding, and why people camped out overnight outside Westminster Abbey. This is why the people of London lined the streets and filled Green Park, waving the British flag in the air and raising cheers that shook the walls of Westminster Abbey when William and Kate took their vows. It's because the royal wedding was a sign of hope and happiness in the middle of a world in constant struggle.
One of my favorite moments of the wedding was the processional out of Westminster Abbey. William and Kate headed up the line, followed by Prince Harry and Kate's sister, Pippa, followed by Kate's mother, Carole, escorted by Prince Charles. Watching them walk down the aisle, I thought to myself, "What in the world must Carole Middleton be thinking?" I wondered if she'd ever in her wildest dreams imagined the scene that she suddenly found herself in...looking ahead of her to see her two daughters on the arms of the two princes of England (knowing one of those daughters would henceforth be referred to as "her royal highness"), and herself on the arm of the man next in line for the throne. A daughter's wedding day is a monumental occasion for any mother; how could Carole Middleton have possibly imagined during her flight attendant days that this moment lay on the trajectory of her life?
Happiness. Love. Hope.
That's why I love the royal wedding...and why you, also, should love it.
Thursday, April 28, 2011
Last Day of Class!!
It's true! I've now survived an entire year's worth of seminary classes. It still feels rather unreal...probably because I still have two papers (and the associated reading/research) and two finals (and the associated studying) standing between me and 2.5 weeks of vacation at home before my summer Greek classes start up. I'm in the process of attempting to make up a study schedule, and it's quite a daunting task...but a good thing too, since I discovered that my 2 papers are due on THURSDAY and not Friday. That would have been bad. Looks like my next few days are going to be booked up...except for tomorrow afternoon, when I'm going to the Dallas Galleria (and the American Girl Store!) with my friend Miranda :)
I also just discovered that the Dalai Lama is coming to speak at SMU...probably ought to try and obtain tickets for that. Mental note.
These things being said, I'm shutting off the computer and going to bed, in hopes of waking up BEFORE 11:30am to be able to get some work done...my snooze alarm habits have gotten progressively worse as I've gotten closer to the end of the semester...besides, I have to go to bed soon, or else I'll be tempted to stay up and watch the royal wedding coverage at 3am, and then I won't sleep at all.
So goodnight world. See you all tomorrow...
I also just discovered that the Dalai Lama is coming to speak at SMU...probably ought to try and obtain tickets for that. Mental note.
These things being said, I'm shutting off the computer and going to bed, in hopes of waking up BEFORE 11:30am to be able to get some work done...my snooze alarm habits have gotten progressively worse as I've gotten closer to the end of the semester...besides, I have to go to bed soon, or else I'll be tempted to stay up and watch the royal wedding coverage at 3am, and then I won't sleep at all.
So goodnight world. See you all tomorrow...
Wednesday, April 27, 2011
Eye of the Storm
Today was a reprieve in the middle of intensity. After the paper-writing and class marathon and tornadoes, I needed a break. So today, I made it a point to do essentially NOTHING.
While doing nothing, I actually did the following things:
-ate Chick-fil-A with a friend
-took a 2 hour nap
-laid around
-went to the store and bought frozen food and tortillas
-laid around
-took a shower
-watched tv
-talked on the phone
-laid around
-did my final Blackboard post for church history (what what!)
-ate ramen noodles and watched Friends
As you can see...nothing on that list is exceedingly stressful. That was entirely intentional. Tomorrow I'll start working on the research/reading required for my final two papers, and hopefully revise the lesson plan I've been meaning to revise for weeks...my apartment is shutting my water off for some sort of repair from 9-5, so that gives me an excuse to get up early and go to the library. Last day of class tomorrow!!
Tuesday, April 26, 2011
Royal Cheese
There are two types of cheese in the world. There is the cheese that you put on food, and there is the cheese that manifests itself in the way of over-dramatic cinema. Today, I want to talk about the second type of cheese. More specifically, I want to talk about Lifetime's William and Kate.
Yes. I watched it.
This isn't the first cheesy Lifetime movie to weasel its way into my DVR. I'm ashamed to say that the October recording of The Thirteenth Wife (that destined-to-be-a-classic movie about polygamy, Mormons, and murder) is STILL saved in my recordings list. I'm more ashamed to say that I've watched it more than once.
I'm not a big fan of the Lifetime movie genre. Despite the aforementioned lingering of The Thirteenth Wife and getting sucked into a movie about a young single dad's struggle to make it through Harvard after the baby's mom takes off, I really don't watch Lifetime for any real purpose than to catch the occasional episode of Project Runway. I forget how I came across the commercial for William and Kate, but I thought it was probably the worst idea ever. For those of you who haven't managed to deduce from the title, the movie centers on the romance between Prince William and Kate Middleton. "Wait, did they already get married?" No, no, never fear blog readers. The royal wedding isn't scheduled until this Friday (that, rightly so, has also landed on my scheduled DVR list). I find the idea of having a movie about a royal couple's relationship to be extremely tacky when that couple hasn't even made it down the aisle yet. It's just a grab for media attention from the non-tabloid-reading crowd.
So why in the world did I end up watching it, then?
It was really a twofold process. First, somewhere in the last few weeks, around when it first aired, my friend Brandi started watching it and commented on how it was entertaining and often unintentionally funny. I was busy doing homework, but found the next air date and recorded it, figuring I'd watch it eventually when I needed a laugh.
Second, there were tornadoes. Yeah, as if we haven't had enough of those lately. Dallas was under a tornado watch all day, but remained relatively sunny except for some light rain in the early evening. Not much to see here; so you can imagine my surprise when I snuggled up on the couch with my black bean quesadillas and carrot sticks (don't judge my dinner) and discovered that the episode of Glee I had set to record had been usurped by news coverage of some nearby area that had actually had real tornadoes touch down from 7-8:00 tonight. Annoyed, I fast forwarded through about 20 minutes of weathermen and radar screens before I gave up hope for Glee making it onto the recording. Lame.
And then I saw it, floating on my DVR list: William and Kate.
You must understand that for the last 24 hours I have done nothing but write a paper, sleep, and sit through class after class after class. If there was ever a time for a mind-numbing docudrama about a prince and a commoner falling in love, this was it. And so I pressed play and settled in for 120 minutes of Kate and William's relationship in TV-movie form.
My friends. The movie did not disappoint.
I should clarify that statement. If you're looking for a well-developed, intelligent and realistic glimpse at William and Kate's relationship, you'll probably be disappointed. But if you're looking for a movie that is genuinely enjoyable in its cheesiness and entirely one-dimensional in nature, a movie that causes you to laugh out loud at several circumstances because it's so contrived, a movie that will force you to involuntarily exclaim "Oh yes, EVERYBODY loves Prince William!!" several times, then this is the movie for you. Also, no offense to the Prince of Wales, but I find the guy who plays William to be more attractive than the real version. So that gives the movie bonus points. It also has all the romantic cliches of any chick-flick (boy sings karaoke to win girl's heart) while taking a fairly predictable stand against the craziness of paparazzi people. How's that for a social agenda? Anyway, by the time the movie is over we've seen Prince William be generally all boyish and charming, we've seen Kate Middleton be generally girl-power-y and fashionable, and we've seen the two of them get engaged against the hazy orange background of a Hollywood African sunrise to dramatic closing music. What else can you ask from the movie, really?
If you are utterly bored or need to de-stress and happen upon this film, I highly recommend you watch it, especially if there's someone else around for you to mock it with. Sometimes, you just need a good, cheesy, slightly based in reality movie to kick back and watch. If you want royal inspiration, go watch The King's Speech; but for royal fluff, you can't beat William and Kate.
Also, check out this article for entertaining descriptions of eight of the movie's most ridiculous scenes...I agree wholeheartedly with everything this writer has to say.
All this being said, I'll still admit it...I'm excited for the royal wedding. There, I said it.
Yes. I watched it.
This isn't the first cheesy Lifetime movie to weasel its way into my DVR. I'm ashamed to say that the October recording of The Thirteenth Wife (that destined-to-be-a-classic movie about polygamy, Mormons, and murder) is STILL saved in my recordings list. I'm more ashamed to say that I've watched it more than once.
I'm not a big fan of the Lifetime movie genre. Despite the aforementioned lingering of The Thirteenth Wife and getting sucked into a movie about a young single dad's struggle to make it through Harvard after the baby's mom takes off, I really don't watch Lifetime for any real purpose than to catch the occasional episode of Project Runway. I forget how I came across the commercial for William and Kate, but I thought it was probably the worst idea ever. For those of you who haven't managed to deduce from the title, the movie centers on the romance between Prince William and Kate Middleton. "Wait, did they already get married?" No, no, never fear blog readers. The royal wedding isn't scheduled until this Friday (that, rightly so, has also landed on my scheduled DVR list). I find the idea of having a movie about a royal couple's relationship to be extremely tacky when that couple hasn't even made it down the aisle yet. It's just a grab for media attention from the non-tabloid-reading crowd.
So why in the world did I end up watching it, then?
It was really a twofold process. First, somewhere in the last few weeks, around when it first aired, my friend Brandi started watching it and commented on how it was entertaining and often unintentionally funny. I was busy doing homework, but found the next air date and recorded it, figuring I'd watch it eventually when I needed a laugh.
Second, there were tornadoes. Yeah, as if we haven't had enough of those lately. Dallas was under a tornado watch all day, but remained relatively sunny except for some light rain in the early evening. Not much to see here; so you can imagine my surprise when I snuggled up on the couch with my black bean quesadillas and carrot sticks (don't judge my dinner) and discovered that the episode of Glee I had set to record had been usurped by news coverage of some nearby area that had actually had real tornadoes touch down from 7-8:00 tonight. Annoyed, I fast forwarded through about 20 minutes of weathermen and radar screens before I gave up hope for Glee making it onto the recording. Lame.
And then I saw it, floating on my DVR list: William and Kate.
You must understand that for the last 24 hours I have done nothing but write a paper, sleep, and sit through class after class after class. If there was ever a time for a mind-numbing docudrama about a prince and a commoner falling in love, this was it. And so I pressed play and settled in for 120 minutes of Kate and William's relationship in TV-movie form.
My friends. The movie did not disappoint.
 |
| That's not a cheesy background or anything... |
If you are utterly bored or need to de-stress and happen upon this film, I highly recommend you watch it, especially if there's someone else around for you to mock it with. Sometimes, you just need a good, cheesy, slightly based in reality movie to kick back and watch. If you want royal inspiration, go watch The King's Speech; but for royal fluff, you can't beat William and Kate.
Also, check out this article for entertaining descriptions of eight of the movie's most ridiculous scenes...I agree wholeheartedly with everything this writer has to say.
All this being said, I'll still admit it...I'm excited for the royal wedding. There, I said it.
Monday, April 25, 2011
Mandatory Post
I don't have time to think about this, I have to finish this stupid paper. Better luck next time, blog readers.
Sunday, April 24, 2011
Oy.
Well Jessica's successfully back in St. Louis after the tornadic flight chaos. We went to an Easter service in the morning before heading to the airport, which was quite beneficial to both of our general demeanors. Got back to my apartment, slept for two hours, drove 45 minutes out to Prosper, TX to celebrate Easter with a school friend and her family, got back around 6, ate dinner and mocked the more hippie-qualities "Jesus Christ Superstar" while simultaneously holding important and intelligent theological discussions on Skype chat with a friend, freaked out because Dallas went under a tornado watch (and after everything with St. Louis this weekend, I just couldn't take that emotionally...so I relocated to my friend Rachel's fortress-esque apartment on SMU's campus for a couple hours so I wouldn't be alone. Got back around midnight, took a shower, got all involved in a documentary about historical study of the Exodus, succumbed to complete exhaustion, and still managed to write this post. I promise they'll get interesting again soon...after my exegesis paper is done, of course.
Happy Easter, all.
-C
Happy Easter, all.
-C
Saturday, April 23, 2011
Life Updates
Not a lot of time to write; Jessica and I are waking up bright and early to go to the 8am Easter Service at the church I've been going to tomorrow, before her 11:00 flight. So yes, theoretically the St. Louis airport will be open for service tomorrow, and she'll fly back home.
Also, we went to a hippie festival today. Yeah. I'll write about that when I have more time...
Happy day before Easter, everyone (or Happy Easter, if you're reading this on Sunday...which most of you probably will be)
-C
Also, we went to a hippie festival today. Yeah. I'll write about that when I have more time...
Happy day before Easter, everyone (or Happy Easter, if you're reading this on Sunday...which most of you probably will be)
-C
Friday, April 22, 2011
Irony of Tornadic Proportions
So for those who are not yet aware, a tornado hit Lambert International Airport in St. Louis tonight. The airport is closed "indefinitely."
Yeah. Not good.
Even worse (from a personal standpoint), my friend who came to visit me this weekend is due to fly into this exact airport tomorrow.
Also, not good.
The irony of the whole situation is that my friend hasn't flown ANYWHERE in 5 years, and now that she does, a (very isolated) tornado smacks down on her airport. Happily, we called the parking garage who said they haven't had any damage, so her car (which was parked on the roof of a garage across the street) is most likely fine. Thumbs up for frugality and shuttled parking.
Anyway we'll be off to the Dallas airport bright and early tomorrow, to see what we can find out about her flights, and figure out what to do...
Stay tuned.
In the meantime, check out the story with video, etc. at this link:
http://www.cnn.com/2011/US/04/22/missouri.severe.weather/index.html?hpt=T1
Yeah. Not good.
Even worse (from a personal standpoint), my friend who came to visit me this weekend is due to fly into this exact airport tomorrow.
Also, not good.
The irony of the whole situation is that my friend hasn't flown ANYWHERE in 5 years, and now that she does, a (very isolated) tornado smacks down on her airport. Happily, we called the parking garage who said they haven't had any damage, so her car (which was parked on the roof of a garage across the street) is most likely fine. Thumbs up for frugality and shuttled parking.
Anyway we'll be off to the Dallas airport bright and early tomorrow, to see what we can find out about her flights, and figure out what to do...
In the meantime, check out the story with video, etc. at this link:
http://www.cnn.com/2011/US/04/22/missouri.severe.weather/index.html?hpt=T1
Thursday, April 21, 2011
High School Best Friend Visit YAY!
Similarly to when my sister visited a few weeks ago, my best friend of 11 years, Jessica, is now gracing Dallas with her presence; so, in the spirit of being a good hostess, I'm going to just quickly list the day's festivities (as a memory note more than anything), and elaborate on them later...
-Cheesesteaks at Texadelphia
-Buying eggs at Tom Thumb (not exciting, but necessary)
-Peering at Illuminated Manuscripts from the Sistine Chapel's collection
-Frolicking about SMU's campus
-Making introductions to various friends we encountered in the two aforementioned endeavors
-Wandering the fancy mall, including frolicking about in Tiffany & Co., a Betsy Johnson boutique, and a Vera Bradley Boutique, and resisting expensive purchases from these places in favor of buying a $4 necklace from Forever 21
-Stalking down Chuck Norris's house
-Eating the best Tex-Mex ever at Chuy's for dinner (and randomly running into a Bible Study friend)
-Eating ice cream cookie sandwiches at Pokey-O's
-Regretting the juxtaposition of the two aforementioned activities
-Watching The King's Speech
-Watching Friends (The One with the Blackout)
-Passing out from exhaustion (on Jessica's part, anyway...at this point, she'd been awake nearly 24 hours straight. I, on the other hand, wrote this blog post).
And that was our day! And NOW, I too will go pass out from exhaustion. Goodnight, world.
-Cheesesteaks at Texadelphia
-Buying eggs at Tom Thumb (not exciting, but necessary)
-Peering at Illuminated Manuscripts from the Sistine Chapel's collection
-Frolicking about SMU's campus
-Making introductions to various friends we encountered in the two aforementioned endeavors
-Wandering the fancy mall, including frolicking about in Tiffany & Co., a Betsy Johnson boutique, and a Vera Bradley Boutique, and resisting expensive purchases from these places in favor of buying a $4 necklace from Forever 21
-Stalking down Chuck Norris's house
-Eating the best Tex-Mex ever at Chuy's for dinner (and randomly running into a Bible Study friend)
-Eating ice cream cookie sandwiches at Pokey-O's
-Regretting the juxtaposition of the two aforementioned activities
-Watching The King's Speech
-Watching Friends (The One with the Blackout)
-Passing out from exhaustion (on Jessica's part, anyway...at this point, she'd been awake nearly 24 hours straight. I, on the other hand, wrote this blog post).
And that was our day! And NOW, I too will go pass out from exhaustion. Goodnight, world.
Wednesday, April 20, 2011
A Day of Doing Things Inadequately
Today, nothing quite went right...nothing was quite completely horrible, but it was generally an inadequate day made up of several inadequate actions on my part.
Inadequate Action #1: Oversleeping and arriving 50 minutes late to my 80 minute morning class. (In this class, even making a short appearance as a frazzled/poorly-dressed oversleeper is better than not going at all, which would make it look like I skipped intentionally).
Inadequate Action #2: Taking a 2 hour nap upon returning home after I already overslept (in my defense, I couldn't fall asleep until about 3:30am, and had to get up by 7:30...)
Inadequate Action #3: Spending an unnecessary amount of time bumming around on the internet when I have better things to do.
Inadequate Action #4: Replying in a misleading way to an email for work, and having my boss point out the error of my ways.
Inadequate Action #5: Taking an excruciating amount of time to turn left out of my parking lot because the various cars and runners were perfectly spaced in such a way that prevented me from exiting.
Inadequate Action #6: Almost killing an innocent Asian girl in the parking garage (as opposed to NOT causing the poor student's life to flash before her eyes).
Inadequate Action #7: Sitting awkwardly on the end of the table at sushi with friends and effectively isolating myself from conversation.
Inadequate Action #8: Never exercising today, but eating more ice cream than usual.
Etc.
By the end of the day, I did manage to get the most important things done, namely creating an outline for my exegesis paper and cleaning the entire apartment in preparation of my friend Jessica's arrival tomorrow (yay!).
So yeah, that was my life today. SO interesting, I know. In any case, I'm excited to see my best friend of 11 years tomorrow!!
Inadequate Action #1: Oversleeping and arriving 50 minutes late to my 80 minute morning class. (In this class, even making a short appearance as a frazzled/poorly-dressed oversleeper is better than not going at all, which would make it look like I skipped intentionally).
Inadequate Action #2: Taking a 2 hour nap upon returning home after I already overslept (in my defense, I couldn't fall asleep until about 3:30am, and had to get up by 7:30...)
Inadequate Action #3: Spending an unnecessary amount of time bumming around on the internet when I have better things to do.
Inadequate Action #4: Replying in a misleading way to an email for work, and having my boss point out the error of my ways.
Inadequate Action #5: Taking an excruciating amount of time to turn left out of my parking lot because the various cars and runners were perfectly spaced in such a way that prevented me from exiting.
Inadequate Action #6: Almost killing an innocent Asian girl in the parking garage (as opposed to NOT causing the poor student's life to flash before her eyes).
Inadequate Action #7: Sitting awkwardly on the end of the table at sushi with friends and effectively isolating myself from conversation.
Inadequate Action #8: Never exercising today, but eating more ice cream than usual.
Etc.
By the end of the day, I did manage to get the most important things done, namely creating an outline for my exegesis paper and cleaning the entire apartment in preparation of my friend Jessica's arrival tomorrow (yay!).
So yeah, that was my life today. SO interesting, I know. In any case, I'm excited to see my best friend of 11 years tomorrow!!
Tuesday, April 19, 2011
Let's Talk About Men.
So last night I had a dream that Nick Jonas and I were in love.
Yeah.
OK, before everyone gets creeped out at me for being a cradle-robber, I should point out that Nick Jonas was somewhere in the neighborhood of 24 years old in my dream (he's apparently 18 in real life). It was one of those dreams that is really, really realistic and elaborate, so that you're surprised to find out that it didn't really happen when you wake up. A good example of this detail is that, in my dream, I wished my friend Amy happy birthday, and today is her birthday - little weird details like that crept in from my actual reality to make the dream seem ultra-realistic.
To summarize the scene, I'm at the wedding of my friends Emily and Jin (another realistic detail, as they will be getting married this July, and I'm planning on attending). Apparently, they have invited Nick Jonas, because he walks in as a (quite attractive) 24 year old (Nick Jonas ages well in my dream world). Everyone gets all excited and starts taking pictures and stuff, but I don't because I recognize him as a real person and not just a celebrity (aww). So anyway, he comes and sits by me for the wedding, and we basically fall instantly in love and generally spend the rest of the dream talking and holding hands and other cutesy little things.
And then my alarm starts going off, and I wake up all blissfully happy to have such a fantastic guy as Nick Jonas in my life, until slowly the realization sinks in that it was a dream and of course I'm not dating Nick Jonas, and instead I'm just as single as I was when I went to bed last night. In my still-groggy state I find this to be very depressing, and hit snooze and sleep for another 2.5 hours or so to drown out my Jonas-less sorrows.
Unsurprisingly, by the time I actually got up around 11:30, I was over losing Nick Jonas, and instead thought that the dream was REALLY weird, if for no other reason than that I really have no interest in the Jonas brothers whatsoever and rarely give them any thought. I actually didn't even know the name of the dreamland Jonas brother; I did know his face, though (remember, realistic dream here), and so I googled them and determined that it was Nick Jonas that won my heart. The other weird thing I discovered was that Nick Jonas actually LOOKED older in my dream...because he was definitely older than that 18 year old kid looking at me out of the computer screen. If 24 year old Nick Jonas showed up at my door declaring his undying love with me (or at my friends' wedding, for that matter), I'd give him a chance or two or ten thousand. Eighteen-year-old Nick Jonas...not so much. He's kind of 18-ish, and his rendition of "Empty Chairs at Empty Tables" (one of my favorite pieces in all musical theater for its raw emotional quality) at the 25th Anniversary Les Miserables performance flopped in comparison to less glitzy YouTube performers; I invite curious readers to compare the two clips at the end of this post if they desire evidence of this fact.
I do think that I have identified the source of my dream, though. Last night I spent a considerable amount of time watching some documentary about Prince William and Kate Middleton's wedding. The documentary mentioned how a lot of famous people will be attending the wedding, and one of the interviewees said something about how they hoped that William and Kate actually KNEW the celebrities, because otherwise that would be pretty weird and potentially distracting. I guess that concept really stuck in my mind...and was transformed into dreamland in the form of my meeting Nick Jonas at a wedding. Weird, but explainable.
Concurrent with the watching of that documentary was a lengthy Skype conversation with my best friend Brandi centering around eligible princes of the world that we could snag for our own royal weddings. Our primary source for our research was an online photo gallery aptly titled "World's Hunkiest Eligible Princes" (seen here), which I found through some simple Google searching. In case anyone is wondering, I've decided that my best option is to marry Prince Amedeo of Belgium. Why? Because before he even showed up in the photo gallery, I declared to Brandi that I should marry the heir to the Belgian throne, as I LOOK Belgian myself. I base this assertion on the fact that when I visited Belgium for 2 days in 2009 I was consistently asked for directions to various landmarks, presumably because I looked like a native Belgian; the inquirers always seemed a bit disappointed to find out that I'd been in Belgium for less than 48 hours and could no more point them toward the Mannekin Pis than to Zimbabwe. Anyway, when Prince Amedeo showed up all eligible-like on my computer screen, he seemed like the natural choice. You're all invited to the wedding.
Here's a problem I've discovered though: the term "eligible" is horribly misused in this circumstance. "Eligible", to me, not only implies desirable and sought-after (read "wealthy royal prince in line for the throne"), but also indicates said gentleman's availability and attainability. Let's face it, I have no more of a chance of marrying Prince Amedo of Belgium than I do of marrying Nick Jonas (though interestingly, Prince Amedo actually IS 24, unlike real-life Nick Jonas). Yet, all these princes are listed all over the web as "eligible." I'm sure they are super eligible for royal women or the ladies of the nouveau riche, but that doesn't mean that I'm about to run into any of them at the neighborhood grocery store. But then there's Kate Middleton, a commoner who somehow manages to prove us all wrong and snag a royal for herself and become a princess. Darn you, Kate Middleton.
Musing on all of this today, I acknowledged that I probably need to set my sights a bit lower than an heir apparent or a pop icon. As I'm thinking about these things, I hear a knock on the door, and open it to reveal a very, very attractive UPS delivery guy. Ironically, he's delivering my pre-ordered copy of The King's Speech. A sign, perhaps, that he's my metaphorical prince charming? Probably not, considering he hastened off to his UPS duties after I signed for the package, disappearing from sight. Nonetheless, this isn't the first time this particular delivery guy has shown up at my door. My apartment must be in his specified delivery zone. The logical thing to do, therefore, is simply to keep ordering things from Amazon every day. My friend Rachel suggested I order something with a title like "How to Date the UPS Guy"...that ought to get the message across nicely. Or, perhaps in the "special instructions" section of the delivery form, I can say something like "After delivering the package, please invite the recipient to coffee at the coffee house of your preference." Planning. That's all these things take is planning, right? Unfortunately my part-time salary doesn't quite include a budget for daily Amazon spending, and good ol' Uncle Sam didn't give me those student loans to help force attractive delivery men to my doorstep all the time. Shucks. Perhaps I should have offered him a cold beverage, or dropped something on the floor that I needed to pick up (Legally Blonde, anyone?)
So those were the three men that crossed my path within the last 24 hours: Nick Jonas, Prince Amedeo of Belgium, and the UPS guy. I expect one of these gentlemen will ask for my hand in marriage any day now. Expect a Save the Date card in the mail soon.
For those of you who were curious, please refer to these two videos for the Nick Jonas vs Better Random YouTube Guy musical comparison...
Yeah.
OK, before everyone gets creeped out at me for being a cradle-robber, I should point out that Nick Jonas was somewhere in the neighborhood of 24 years old in my dream (he's apparently 18 in real life). It was one of those dreams that is really, really realistic and elaborate, so that you're surprised to find out that it didn't really happen when you wake up. A good example of this detail is that, in my dream, I wished my friend Amy happy birthday, and today is her birthday - little weird details like that crept in from my actual reality to make the dream seem ultra-realistic.
 |
| He's like, so dreamy, like. |
And then my alarm starts going off, and I wake up all blissfully happy to have such a fantastic guy as Nick Jonas in my life, until slowly the realization sinks in that it was a dream and of course I'm not dating Nick Jonas, and instead I'm just as single as I was when I went to bed last night. In my still-groggy state I find this to be very depressing, and hit snooze and sleep for another 2.5 hours or so to drown out my Jonas-less sorrows.
Unsurprisingly, by the time I actually got up around 11:30, I was over losing Nick Jonas, and instead thought that the dream was REALLY weird, if for no other reason than that I really have no interest in the Jonas brothers whatsoever and rarely give them any thought. I actually didn't even know the name of the dreamland Jonas brother; I did know his face, though (remember, realistic dream here), and so I googled them and determined that it was Nick Jonas that won my heart. The other weird thing I discovered was that Nick Jonas actually LOOKED older in my dream...because he was definitely older than that 18 year old kid looking at me out of the computer screen. If 24 year old Nick Jonas showed up at my door declaring his undying love with me (or at my friends' wedding, for that matter), I'd give him a chance or two or ten thousand. Eighteen-year-old Nick Jonas...not so much. He's kind of 18-ish, and his rendition of "Empty Chairs at Empty Tables" (one of my favorite pieces in all musical theater for its raw emotional quality) at the 25th Anniversary Les Miserables performance flopped in comparison to less glitzy YouTube performers; I invite curious readers to compare the two clips at the end of this post if they desire evidence of this fact.
I do think that I have identified the source of my dream, though. Last night I spent a considerable amount of time watching some documentary about Prince William and Kate Middleton's wedding. The documentary mentioned how a lot of famous people will be attending the wedding, and one of the interviewees said something about how they hoped that William and Kate actually KNEW the celebrities, because otherwise that would be pretty weird and potentially distracting. I guess that concept really stuck in my mind...and was transformed into dreamland in the form of my meeting Nick Jonas at a wedding. Weird, but explainable.
 |
| The Prince of Belgium, aka my best royal shot. |
Here's a problem I've discovered though: the term "eligible" is horribly misused in this circumstance. "Eligible", to me, not only implies desirable and sought-after (read "wealthy royal prince in line for the throne"), but also indicates said gentleman's availability and attainability. Let's face it, I have no more of a chance of marrying Prince Amedo of Belgium than I do of marrying Nick Jonas (though interestingly, Prince Amedo actually IS 24, unlike real-life Nick Jonas). Yet, all these princes are listed all over the web as "eligible." I'm sure they are super eligible for royal women or the ladies of the nouveau riche, but that doesn't mean that I'm about to run into any of them at the neighborhood grocery store. But then there's Kate Middleton, a commoner who somehow manages to prove us all wrong and snag a royal for herself and become a princess. Darn you, Kate Middleton.
Musing on all of this today, I acknowledged that I probably need to set my sights a bit lower than an heir apparent or a pop icon. As I'm thinking about these things, I hear a knock on the door, and open it to reveal a very, very attractive UPS delivery guy. Ironically, he's delivering my pre-ordered copy of The King's Speech. A sign, perhaps, that he's my metaphorical prince charming? Probably not, considering he hastened off to his UPS duties after I signed for the package, disappearing from sight. Nonetheless, this isn't the first time this particular delivery guy has shown up at my door. My apartment must be in his specified delivery zone. The logical thing to do, therefore, is simply to keep ordering things from Amazon every day. My friend Rachel suggested I order something with a title like "How to Date the UPS Guy"...that ought to get the message across nicely. Or, perhaps in the "special instructions" section of the delivery form, I can say something like "After delivering the package, please invite the recipient to coffee at the coffee house of your preference." Planning. That's all these things take is planning, right? Unfortunately my part-time salary doesn't quite include a budget for daily Amazon spending, and good ol' Uncle Sam didn't give me those student loans to help force attractive delivery men to my doorstep all the time. Shucks. Perhaps I should have offered him a cold beverage, or dropped something on the floor that I needed to pick up (Legally Blonde, anyone?)So those were the three men that crossed my path within the last 24 hours: Nick Jonas, Prince Amedeo of Belgium, and the UPS guy. I expect one of these gentlemen will ask for my hand in marriage any day now. Expect a Save the Date card in the mail soon.
For those of you who were curious, please refer to these two videos for the Nick Jonas vs Better Random YouTube Guy musical comparison...
Monday, April 18, 2011
I'm full, yo.
So I'm all full of burrito and it's inhibiting my ability to write a coherent and witty post.
I picked my friend Rachel up from the airport at like 8:45pm, and we immediately went to Fuzzy's Tacos where we gorged ourselves on chips and queso and our respected dinners. It was one of those meals where you don't really realize how full you are until you stand up and then you're like "Oh...dang." We've both just been laying around since we got back to our respective residences (I know this through the wonders of Skype chat). Plus I'm all sleepy, so that's just compounding everything.
To quickly recap the day, I worked out, went to the library to work on homework before class, went to class, worked on homework on a bench outside the library, and then picked up Rachel and ate the aforementioned Mexican food. Exciting, right?
So yeah, that's it for post tonight. Have a fantastic day/evening!
I picked my friend Rachel up from the airport at like 8:45pm, and we immediately went to Fuzzy's Tacos where we gorged ourselves on chips and queso and our respected dinners. It was one of those meals where you don't really realize how full you are until you stand up and then you're like "Oh...dang." We've both just been laying around since we got back to our respective residences (I know this through the wonders of Skype chat). Plus I'm all sleepy, so that's just compounding everything.
To quickly recap the day, I worked out, went to the library to work on homework before class, went to class, worked on homework on a bench outside the library, and then picked up Rachel and ate the aforementioned Mexican food. Exciting, right?
So yeah, that's it for post tonight. Have a fantastic day/evening!
Sunday, April 17, 2011
Little Joys
Remaining quite burnt out on schoolwork from yesterday's library excursion, I did absolutely nothing school-related all day. That's right. I'm sure I'll regret this tomorrow, but there it is. Instead, I went to church, laid around the house, took a nap, talked to my parents on skype, went to the store and bought ice cream, marshmallow peeps, and Reeses eggs, ate leftover honey mustard chicken and potatoes (quite tasty, if I do say so), and went to Bible study. Not a bit of homework crossed my path, aside from the few pages of a textbook I read while waiting for the church service to start this morning.
Here are three other, small moments of my day that brought me joy:
1) This T-shirt, which I bought in Santa Cruz 3 years ago and which was always a bit too snug to wear comfortably, now fits perfectly. BAM.
2) Easter-tastic hot chocolate beverage.
3) I caught the final dance scene of Slumdog Millionaire on TV after Bible study. That scene always makes me happy. If you haven't seen the movie, go watch it. And, if you live in Dallas, invite me over, I haven't seen it since I saw it in theaters in Paris (yeah I'm internationally awesome), and I would like to see it again. Unfortunately, it won't let me embed the video, but you may watch it here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vRC4QrUwo9o
Saturday, April 16, 2011
My Life at the Library
Yesterday I gave you a sneak peek into my life at the gym. Today, I give you the sequel: my life at the library.
You know how some days you're super productive and get things done and feel awesome about it, and how some days you just aren't feeling it and even the smallest tasks become more difficult than necessary? Today was definitely the latter of these two alternatives.
Welcome to the library. Step one, return a stack of books about Christian education in the African American church. Walk up to the desk, no one's there. Oh wait, here comes David. David is one of my classmates, and he's from Korea. He's quite nice, and always greets me with an enthusiastic smile, but occasionally I have a bit of trouble understanding what he's saying because of his accent (and he, in turn, occasionally has a bit of trouble understanding what I'm saying). I put my books up on the counter.
"Hi David! I'm just returning these..."
"Ah okay. May I see your ID?"
I dig out my ID and hand it to him. I always forget if that's necessary for turning in books or not...guess it is.
"Celia, you choose your classes for next semester?"
*insert random chit chat about class schedules, the fact that I'm a CMM student and not an MDiv student, and the general state of my friendships, with confusion on the part of both parties*
David reaches for the roll of stickers. "Yes, okay. August 24th."
"Oh, no, I'm sorry, I'm returning these books, not checking them out."
Blank stare. "You...don't want them?"
"No, I'm finished with them. I'm returning them."
"You don't take them?"
"No." I pick up a book off the top of the stack, and put it back down, "I'm done with these books. I had them, and now I need to turn them back in. Give them back."
Understanding dawns on David's face. "AH, okay, I'm sorry." He starts scanning the books back in.
"That's okay, I'm sorry, I should have stopped you earlier."
And, scene.
Books "successfully" checked back in, I wander off to the Biblical commentary section, wondering if it's possible to check a book out twice, and if I would therefore need to check the book back in twice, and if I'm going to wind up with some obscure fine for an "overdue" book that was actually turned back in. Oh well. Scanning the commentary shelves, I locate the commentaries on 1 Corinthians, choose four that look promising, and continue into the room to find a study table (the commentaries are along an entry hallway to the Green room). Two steps later, I stop abruptly. All the tables are full. I'm now one of those awkward people who stands looking about the completely occupied room and is then forced to do a 180 degree turnaround. It's not an unusual occurrence given that the library study rooms don't connect, but it's still a relatively awkward moment for all those involved. Defeated, I turn around, and walk back to the foyer. My other options are the Red room or the Blue room. The color red seems particularly stressful today for some reason, so I continue on to the calming chalky tones of the blue room.
The undergrad students who flock unbidden to the theology school library glance at me quizzically as I walk in with my stack of books. I realize that this library is close to several undergraduate dorms, and I realize that it's worlds prettier than the main SMU library with its aforementioned colorful rooms and colonial crown molding and window shutters...it's still a bit of a pain to have a bunch of giggly undergrads in gym attire or flouncy sundresses taking up library tables when you've got a 10 page exegesis to write. But, all the tables aren't taken, so I choose one, switch on the lamps, and set up research camp.
The paper I'm working on is for my New Testament class, and is an exegesis of 1 Corinthians 7:17-24. An exegesis, for you non-seminary kids, is a critical interpretation of a religious text that pulls from the text itself and scholarly commentary thereupon, and not from things that crop up in your head or ideas you want to prove (that's eisegesis, and the mortal sin of seminary studies). 1 Corinthians 7:17-24 is a passage in Paul's letter to the church at Corinth, telling them not to get their undies in a bunch over their social position because it doesn't stop you from being a Christian or from serving God. He specifically mentions gender, ethnicity, and slavery issues. I've already consulted four books on this passage, including one in French that ended up being the most useful of the bunch.
The book on top of the stack is "Ancient Christian Commentary", so I pick that one up first, flip to the appropriate section, and immediately have flashbacks to last semester when I got all frustrated with this set of commentaries. The term "ancient" in the title should give this away, but this is commentary from the ANCIENT church writers...people like Origen and Pelagius and several other people who wrote important things but were deemed heretical by the Church. Considering we're supposed to consult sources from the 1990s onwards, and considering that I don't want to get into a squabble about who was heretical and who wasn't in the 2nd century, and considering that I don't want to get labeled as a Pelagian, I shut the book and push it off to the side.
As non-helpful as the first book was, the second one, the "Sacra Pagina" commentary, is brilliant. It has a TON of information not just on the structure/meaning of the passage, but of the historical context, specific word studies of important terms, and tells you more about 1 Cor 7:17-24 than you ever wanted to know. Ten minutes into typing direct quotes into my research document, I know that this book DEFINITELY is telling me more about the passage than I wanted to know...but that's probably exactly the amount that my professor wants, so I keep typing.
I see movement across the room...there's an enormous black cricket walking across the floor. Gross.
Back to typing. I shift the book, and my headphones pop out of my computer, playing my French pop music of choice to the entire room, albeit rather softly. I quickly find the cord and shove it back into the headphone jack. Glancing around, no one seemed to notice the dulcet tones of Emmanuel Moire pervading the otherwise silent atmosphere. Anyway, most of the other students are plugged in to their own music...except the woman next to me. I try to furtively glance her way without being too obvious. She has a Perkins water bottle. She, like me, and unlike the undergrads, belongs here.
Back to typing again. "...7:17-24 constitutes a distinct literary unit set off by the literary device of inclusio or ring construction..." The woman next to me is looking at me. Am I typing too loudly? My college roommate always made fun of me for typing too loudly. I carefully glance over at her...no, she's just looking at her computer. Okay, back to typing.
"...the pericope, a digression embedded as element B within the A-B-A' structure of chapter seven is itself chiastically structured..."
Holy crap, the cricket is right beside me.
I start wiggling my chair legs around, hoping to frighten it away. The cricket just moves closer. I wiggle the chair more forcefully. Undergraduate #3 looks at me in confusion. I stop rocking. The cricket is sitting still, still facing my direction, probably just waiting for me to look away so it can crawl under my table and hop across my bare feet. Not okay. I have a flashback to the Zen center last week...they had a plastic cup sitting by the fireplace, with a sticker on it that said "to catch bugs." No plastic cup available at the moment, unfortunately. Carefully, eyes on the enormous cricket, I remove my flip-flop. I'll just knock it away, I think. Lightly, not to kill it or anything, just to scare it off. I swing the shoe lightly in the cricket's direction, and it sees it and immediately leaps about 4 feet away. Good. Just...stay there.
Back to typing. My hands hurt. This book is boring. I feel like all these commentaries are telling me the same thing, and even though I have 10 pages of direct source quotes, I feel like I have nothing. Stop lamenting your situation, Celia. God has called you to this, right? Has 1 Corinthians taught you nothing while you've been reading about it for the last 3 hours? I press on, typing line after line until I think my head is going to explode. I finally finish that commentary, and push my way through the other two. Victory.
My brain is completely fried, and my eyes hurt from staring alternately at small print and the bright computer screen. I let my brain cool off with some YouTube videos for about 15 minutes, decide that I've had enough research for one day, and pack up my things.
I walk out the library doors, and am immediately greeted by lots of nicely dressed people hovering about the entrance to the chapel. There must be a wedding going on today. Sure enough, there's a white limo parked on the street, waiting to whisk the happy couple off to their new life together. I shrug my backpack over my shoulders, and walk down the stairs in my jeans and striped t-shirt, my combination flip-flops/cricket shields making unglamorous slapping noises with each step. I'm a bit underdressed for a wedding party; what WILL the bride think of my ill manners? My head still hurts from hours of research, and the whole world seems slightly out of focus. An attractive groomsman comes into focus out of the corner of my eye. He's looking in my direction, smiling. Could this be my soul mate, right here on my campus, tuxedo-clad and waiting to whisk me off in that white limo, causing scandal to the bride and groom but not caring a bit because it was love at first sight and he's Mr. Willoughby and I'm Marianne Dashwood and we don't care what the world thinks of our naive and unspoiled love?
Sorry, attractive groomsman. 1 Corinthians 7:17-24 just told me over and over again to stay in the situation in which I was called, not getting all upset that I'm single and not trying to change my social position by marrying the first good-looking guy in a tux that I pass upon exiting the library. Besides, Willoughby had a scandalous past and gave up on Marianne in favor of a woman with a good fortune. So much for naive and unspoiled love. No, attractive groomsman, I'm better off without you.
And anyway, I have an exegesis paper to write.
You know how some days you're super productive and get things done and feel awesome about it, and how some days you just aren't feeling it and even the smallest tasks become more difficult than necessary? Today was definitely the latter of these two alternatives.
Welcome to the library. Step one, return a stack of books about Christian education in the African American church. Walk up to the desk, no one's there. Oh wait, here comes David. David is one of my classmates, and he's from Korea. He's quite nice, and always greets me with an enthusiastic smile, but occasionally I have a bit of trouble understanding what he's saying because of his accent (and he, in turn, occasionally has a bit of trouble understanding what I'm saying). I put my books up on the counter.
"Hi David! I'm just returning these..."
"Ah okay. May I see your ID?"
I dig out my ID and hand it to him. I always forget if that's necessary for turning in books or not...guess it is.
"Celia, you choose your classes for next semester?"
*insert random chit chat about class schedules, the fact that I'm a CMM student and not an MDiv student, and the general state of my friendships, with confusion on the part of both parties*
David reaches for the roll of stickers. "Yes, okay. August 24th."
"Oh, no, I'm sorry, I'm returning these books, not checking them out."
Blank stare. "You...don't want them?"
"No, I'm finished with them. I'm returning them."
"You don't take them?"
"No." I pick up a book off the top of the stack, and put it back down, "I'm done with these books. I had them, and now I need to turn them back in. Give them back."
Understanding dawns on David's face. "AH, okay, I'm sorry." He starts scanning the books back in.
"That's okay, I'm sorry, I should have stopped you earlier."
And, scene.
Books "successfully" checked back in, I wander off to the Biblical commentary section, wondering if it's possible to check a book out twice, and if I would therefore need to check the book back in twice, and if I'm going to wind up with some obscure fine for an "overdue" book that was actually turned back in. Oh well. Scanning the commentary shelves, I locate the commentaries on 1 Corinthians, choose four that look promising, and continue into the room to find a study table (the commentaries are along an entry hallway to the Green room). Two steps later, I stop abruptly. All the tables are full. I'm now one of those awkward people who stands looking about the completely occupied room and is then forced to do a 180 degree turnaround. It's not an unusual occurrence given that the library study rooms don't connect, but it's still a relatively awkward moment for all those involved. Defeated, I turn around, and walk back to the foyer. My other options are the Red room or the Blue room. The color red seems particularly stressful today for some reason, so I continue on to the calming chalky tones of the blue room.
The undergrad students who flock unbidden to the theology school library glance at me quizzically as I walk in with my stack of books. I realize that this library is close to several undergraduate dorms, and I realize that it's worlds prettier than the main SMU library with its aforementioned colorful rooms and colonial crown molding and window shutters...it's still a bit of a pain to have a bunch of giggly undergrads in gym attire or flouncy sundresses taking up library tables when you've got a 10 page exegesis to write. But, all the tables aren't taken, so I choose one, switch on the lamps, and set up research camp.
The paper I'm working on is for my New Testament class, and is an exegesis of 1 Corinthians 7:17-24. An exegesis, for you non-seminary kids, is a critical interpretation of a religious text that pulls from the text itself and scholarly commentary thereupon, and not from things that crop up in your head or ideas you want to prove (that's eisegesis, and the mortal sin of seminary studies). 1 Corinthians 7:17-24 is a passage in Paul's letter to the church at Corinth, telling them not to get their undies in a bunch over their social position because it doesn't stop you from being a Christian or from serving God. He specifically mentions gender, ethnicity, and slavery issues. I've already consulted four books on this passage, including one in French that ended up being the most useful of the bunch.
The book on top of the stack is "Ancient Christian Commentary", so I pick that one up first, flip to the appropriate section, and immediately have flashbacks to last semester when I got all frustrated with this set of commentaries. The term "ancient" in the title should give this away, but this is commentary from the ANCIENT church writers...people like Origen and Pelagius and several other people who wrote important things but were deemed heretical by the Church. Considering we're supposed to consult sources from the 1990s onwards, and considering that I don't want to get into a squabble about who was heretical and who wasn't in the 2nd century, and considering that I don't want to get labeled as a Pelagian, I shut the book and push it off to the side.
As non-helpful as the first book was, the second one, the "Sacra Pagina" commentary, is brilliant. It has a TON of information not just on the structure/meaning of the passage, but of the historical context, specific word studies of important terms, and tells you more about 1 Cor 7:17-24 than you ever wanted to know. Ten minutes into typing direct quotes into my research document, I know that this book DEFINITELY is telling me more about the passage than I wanted to know...but that's probably exactly the amount that my professor wants, so I keep typing.
I see movement across the room...there's an enormous black cricket walking across the floor. Gross.
Back to typing. I shift the book, and my headphones pop out of my computer, playing my French pop music of choice to the entire room, albeit rather softly. I quickly find the cord and shove it back into the headphone jack. Glancing around, no one seemed to notice the dulcet tones of Emmanuel Moire pervading the otherwise silent atmosphere. Anyway, most of the other students are plugged in to their own music...except the woman next to me. I try to furtively glance her way without being too obvious. She has a Perkins water bottle. She, like me, and unlike the undergrads, belongs here.
Back to typing again. "...7:17-24 constitutes a distinct literary unit set off by the literary device of inclusio or ring construction..." The woman next to me is looking at me. Am I typing too loudly? My college roommate always made fun of me for typing too loudly. I carefully glance over at her...no, she's just looking at her computer. Okay, back to typing.
"...the pericope, a digression embedded as element B within the A-B-A' structure of chapter seven is itself chiastically structured..."
Holy crap, the cricket is right beside me.
I start wiggling my chair legs around, hoping to frighten it away. The cricket just moves closer. I wiggle the chair more forcefully. Undergraduate #3 looks at me in confusion. I stop rocking. The cricket is sitting still, still facing my direction, probably just waiting for me to look away so it can crawl under my table and hop across my bare feet. Not okay. I have a flashback to the Zen center last week...they had a plastic cup sitting by the fireplace, with a sticker on it that said "to catch bugs." No plastic cup available at the moment, unfortunately. Carefully, eyes on the enormous cricket, I remove my flip-flop. I'll just knock it away, I think. Lightly, not to kill it or anything, just to scare it off. I swing the shoe lightly in the cricket's direction, and it sees it and immediately leaps about 4 feet away. Good. Just...stay there.
Back to typing. My hands hurt. This book is boring. I feel like all these commentaries are telling me the same thing, and even though I have 10 pages of direct source quotes, I feel like I have nothing. Stop lamenting your situation, Celia. God has called you to this, right? Has 1 Corinthians taught you nothing while you've been reading about it for the last 3 hours? I press on, typing line after line until I think my head is going to explode. I finally finish that commentary, and push my way through the other two. Victory.
My brain is completely fried, and my eyes hurt from staring alternately at small print and the bright computer screen. I let my brain cool off with some YouTube videos for about 15 minutes, decide that I've had enough research for one day, and pack up my things.
I walk out the library doors, and am immediately greeted by lots of nicely dressed people hovering about the entrance to the chapel. There must be a wedding going on today. Sure enough, there's a white limo parked on the street, waiting to whisk the happy couple off to their new life together. I shrug my backpack over my shoulders, and walk down the stairs in my jeans and striped t-shirt, my combination flip-flops/cricket shields making unglamorous slapping noises with each step. I'm a bit underdressed for a wedding party; what WILL the bride think of my ill manners? My head still hurts from hours of research, and the whole world seems slightly out of focus. An attractive groomsman comes into focus out of the corner of my eye. He's looking in my direction, smiling. Could this be my soul mate, right here on my campus, tuxedo-clad and waiting to whisk me off in that white limo, causing scandal to the bride and groom but not caring a bit because it was love at first sight and he's Mr. Willoughby and I'm Marianne Dashwood and we don't care what the world thinks of our naive and unspoiled love?
Sorry, attractive groomsman. 1 Corinthians 7:17-24 just told me over and over again to stay in the situation in which I was called, not getting all upset that I'm single and not trying to change my social position by marrying the first good-looking guy in a tux that I pass upon exiting the library. Besides, Willoughby had a scandalous past and gave up on Marianne in favor of a woman with a good fortune. So much for naive and unspoiled love. No, attractive groomsman, I'm better off without you.
And anyway, I have an exegesis paper to write.
Friday, April 15, 2011
My Life at the Gym
Today I decided to take an independent venture to the SMU fitness center.
I've been to the gym at SMU several times this year, but I've never gone alone; I've always had some number of girlfriends with me, and it's always been at 10:00 in the morning. But around 5:00 today, after a day of laying around all day and piling my cart with frozen dinners and chicken dinner fixin's at the grocery store, I decided I might as well go and get my fitness on for awhile. I've been 0.7 pounds away from my current weight goal for like a week, and seem to not be able to lose it, and a fitness center excursion is more helpful to that end than laying on the couch watching TV reruns.
Getting to the gym was quite the effort. I planned to quickly swing by Walgreens and then proceed to campus; a 15-20 minute journey, tops. But, thanks to traffic from a broken stoplight, getting lost on a shortcut to avoid the highway, and general Dallas evening traffic, it took me a full 40 minutes to get to the campus that I live less than 3 miles away from. Fabulous.
Happy to be at my destination, I plop myself down on an exercise bike, set the timer to 20 minutes, and start pedaling with Owl City playing through my headphones (they've been my workout music of choice lately...all peppy and upbeat). I glance at the guy two bikes down and notice that he has a laptop strapped precariously to the front of his machine. Trust those rich SMU kids to bring their expensive electronic devices to the gym with them. I keep pedaling, staring at my laptop-free exercise machine, and think that I could have at least brought a book or something to look at. The TV above my head is showing semi-intriguing news stories without captions. No luck there.
As I'm usually at the gym with friends, I have someone to chat with while pedaling my life away. Without a conversation partner, I suddenly realized the awkward set-up of the fitness center. Three of the four lines of cardio equipment face the weight-lifting area and weight machines, and my recent machine of choice (the aforementioned exercise bike) is in the front of these three lines. This means that when I'm working out on the bike, I'm staring straight at all the people lifting weights...including an abundance of young gentlemen who are far from unattractive.
Unlike the guy with the laptop, I don't have a convenient, interesting media-object to stare at unceasingly, and so my eyes naturally go to whatever movement is happening in front of me, which is all these muscular guys lifting various assortments of weights. My scientific and well-researched observation is that big university guys are much more muscled-up (and more attractive) than small liberal arts college guys...and there I was, making awkward eye contact with practically all of them, because I have nothing else to look at.
Flirting is not my strong suit in any situation, and my flirting abilities drop approximately 10 points at the gym. Unlike the skinny undergrad girls with their cute little jogging tanks and booty shorts, I rolled into the fitness center today in my teal French club t-shirt and brown stretchy cotton capris, with my hair pulled up into a non-elaborate ponytail. But, if I had any modicum of flirting skills, I think I could have had some good results; maybe it was the French quote on the back of my t-shirt that made me seem all mysterious and bilingually interesting, or the fact that my straight hair generally has better double-take results with men than my curly hair, but I got my share of gym glances too. Of course, being my non-flirting self, I generally responded to most of these by feigning sudden intrigue in the timer on my machine or the still uncaptioned TV set above my head. Kind of counterproductive, but it's always my gut reaction when I see a cute guy looking in my direction. Perhaps this is the root of my current singleness.
They say the gym is a good place to meet men, and perhaps it is. There's certainly an abundance of men bopping about the various fitness machines. But today, after completing my 20 minutes of exercise bike and 10 minutes of elliptical, I left the gym still guy-less. Oh well. Better luck next time, perhaps.
I've been to the gym at SMU several times this year, but I've never gone alone; I've always had some number of girlfriends with me, and it's always been at 10:00 in the morning. But around 5:00 today, after a day of laying around all day and piling my cart with frozen dinners and chicken dinner fixin's at the grocery store, I decided I might as well go and get my fitness on for awhile. I've been 0.7 pounds away from my current weight goal for like a week, and seem to not be able to lose it, and a fitness center excursion is more helpful to that end than laying on the couch watching TV reruns.
Getting to the gym was quite the effort. I planned to quickly swing by Walgreens and then proceed to campus; a 15-20 minute journey, tops. But, thanks to traffic from a broken stoplight, getting lost on a shortcut to avoid the highway, and general Dallas evening traffic, it took me a full 40 minutes to get to the campus that I live less than 3 miles away from. Fabulous.
Happy to be at my destination, I plop myself down on an exercise bike, set the timer to 20 minutes, and start pedaling with Owl City playing through my headphones (they've been my workout music of choice lately...all peppy and upbeat). I glance at the guy two bikes down and notice that he has a laptop strapped precariously to the front of his machine. Trust those rich SMU kids to bring their expensive electronic devices to the gym with them. I keep pedaling, staring at my laptop-free exercise machine, and think that I could have at least brought a book or something to look at. The TV above my head is showing semi-intriguing news stories without captions. No luck there.
As I'm usually at the gym with friends, I have someone to chat with while pedaling my life away. Without a conversation partner, I suddenly realized the awkward set-up of the fitness center. Three of the four lines of cardio equipment face the weight-lifting area and weight machines, and my recent machine of choice (the aforementioned exercise bike) is in the front of these three lines. This means that when I'm working out on the bike, I'm staring straight at all the people lifting weights...including an abundance of young gentlemen who are far from unattractive.
Unlike the guy with the laptop, I don't have a convenient, interesting media-object to stare at unceasingly, and so my eyes naturally go to whatever movement is happening in front of me, which is all these muscular guys lifting various assortments of weights. My scientific and well-researched observation is that big university guys are much more muscled-up (and more attractive) than small liberal arts college guys...and there I was, making awkward eye contact with practically all of them, because I have nothing else to look at.
Flirting is not my strong suit in any situation, and my flirting abilities drop approximately 10 points at the gym. Unlike the skinny undergrad girls with their cute little jogging tanks and booty shorts, I rolled into the fitness center today in my teal French club t-shirt and brown stretchy cotton capris, with my hair pulled up into a non-elaborate ponytail. But, if I had any modicum of flirting skills, I think I could have had some good results; maybe it was the French quote on the back of my t-shirt that made me seem all mysterious and bilingually interesting, or the fact that my straight hair generally has better double-take results with men than my curly hair, but I got my share of gym glances too. Of course, being my non-flirting self, I generally responded to most of these by feigning sudden intrigue in the timer on my machine or the still uncaptioned TV set above my head. Kind of counterproductive, but it's always my gut reaction when I see a cute guy looking in my direction. Perhaps this is the root of my current singleness.
They say the gym is a good place to meet men, and perhaps it is. There's certainly an abundance of men bopping about the various fitness machines. But today, after completing my 20 minutes of exercise bike and 10 minutes of elliptical, I left the gym still guy-less. Oh well. Better luck next time, perhaps.
Thursday, April 14, 2011
"I Mentally Shake Your Hand."
That, my friends, is one of the more memorable quotes from the movie version of Jane Eyre, which my friend Miranda and I went and saw tonight. I plan on using it as often as possible.
Besides the occasional laugh-inducing line ("Ladies, I pray you return to your nests like the dove that you are" was another favorite), I actually thought it was quite the good movie. It had much more of a suspense/thriller movie vibe about it than I expected; at one point, I made an unmerited and (louder than necessary) squeaky-squealy noise because Jane touched a bit of tapestry and I thought something horrible was about to leap from behind it (much to the amusement of my friend). That kind of movie. Unfortunately, although I've never read Jane Eyre, it turns out the one plot point that I was aware of is the big gigantic climactic secret that is supposed to come as a huge shock and give you all this emotional chagrin and such. Oh well. I saw it coming all along. I won't reveal it here in case any of you readers are planning on seeing the movie, but chances are if you've read Jane Eyre (or only know one thing about Jane Eyre), you most likely know what I'm talking about.
I came to three important conclusions watching this movie:
1) I'm glad that I live in the days of electricity, and don't have to wander giant 19th century castle-esque English homes in the dead of night with only a flickering candle to light up the space around me.
2) I think that if you were treated well, being a governess would be kind of a sweet gig; paid room and board, and spending the day teaching a kid about stuff and playing badminton and such. Of course, you could be treated horribly and have really bratty kids to deal with, so I guess it goes both ways.
3) The Bronte sisters must have had some kind of weird childhood to get Cathy's ghost scratching at the window in Wuthering Heights on Emily's end and the creep-tastic moments of Jane Eyre from Charlotte. It was probably wandering those giant houses at night and eerie stories that some dissatisfied governess told them that did it.
It was a good movie. If you like movies that make you jump, classic literature, or the 19th century, you should go see it.
When we came out of the theater, the weather was all Bronte-tastic with foreboding winds. It turns out these were the precursor to severe thunderstorms that never actually hit Dallas proper, but were strong enough in neighboring areas to give us a few giant thunderclaps and set the tornado sirens going off for a bit from the heavy winds (though not from tornadoes). I therefore spent much of the remainder of the evening alternately watching TV weather anxiously and looking out the window anxiously. Thankfully, the storms never did much in Dallas, and now they've completely moved to the east. I'm not a fan of storms, particularly when they involve tornado sirens and I live alone and don't have a basement in which to take shelter.
Although, this weather is probably the perfect setting for writing a Bronte-esque novel. I'll keep that in mind next time a storm comes my way.
I came to three important conclusions watching this movie:
1) I'm glad that I live in the days of electricity, and don't have to wander giant 19th century castle-esque English homes in the dead of night with only a flickering candle to light up the space around me.
2) I think that if you were treated well, being a governess would be kind of a sweet gig; paid room and board, and spending the day teaching a kid about stuff and playing badminton and such. Of course, you could be treated horribly and have really bratty kids to deal with, so I guess it goes both ways.
3) The Bronte sisters must have had some kind of weird childhood to get Cathy's ghost scratching at the window in Wuthering Heights on Emily's end and the creep-tastic moments of Jane Eyre from Charlotte. It was probably wandering those giant houses at night and eerie stories that some dissatisfied governess told them that did it.
It was a good movie. If you like movies that make you jump, classic literature, or the 19th century, you should go see it.
When we came out of the theater, the weather was all Bronte-tastic with foreboding winds. It turns out these were the precursor to severe thunderstorms that never actually hit Dallas proper, but were strong enough in neighboring areas to give us a few giant thunderclaps and set the tornado sirens going off for a bit from the heavy winds (though not from tornadoes). I therefore spent much of the remainder of the evening alternately watching TV weather anxiously and looking out the window anxiously. Thankfully, the storms never did much in Dallas, and now they've completely moved to the east. I'm not a fan of storms, particularly when they involve tornado sirens and I live alone and don't have a basement in which to take shelter.
Although, this weather is probably the perfect setting for writing a Bronte-esque novel. I'll keep that in mind next time a storm comes my way.
Wednesday, April 13, 2011
Glimmers of Light
Lately, in intangible ways, I've started noticing fleeting moments of loving my life.
Basically since I moved here in August, I've been in a dark night of the soul - "a phase in a person's spiritual life, marked by a sense of loneliness and desolation" (thank you, Wikipedia). Seriously though, even though I may have just quoted a Wikipedia article (it's late, cut me some slack), I actually know quite a bit about dark nights of the soul...besides being personally in one for nine months, I also just read a 320 page book about dark nights of the soul, and subsequently wrote a 10 page paper on said book. Dark nights of the soul go deeper than just depression, to the very core of a person's being. They tend to appear around major life changes...like graduating from college and losing an identity nearly inextricably tied to one's life at that college, and moving 10 hours away from family and living alone for the first time and changing graduate school plans at the last minute. Any of this sound familiar?
But, I'm starting to think that I may be emerging from the dark night again...over the past couple of days (basically, ever since my car got literally picked up out of that ditch by a bunch of people who are my slight acquaintances at best), I've kind of been able to step out of myself and look at my life objectively, from the outside, without the lens of darkness and underlying loneliness tainting my view of my world. And, when I look at my life from outside, I realize that there ARE aspects of it that I legitimately love.
It's little moments that have been giving me these fleeting glimmers of light lately...
...laughing harder than I've laughed in months with friends over tacos tonight
...doing homework on campus on a blanket under the evening sky, with the chapel looming overhead
...watching a video I took of the Anberlin concert I saw last fall
...finding new things to do in Dallas
...singing worship songs in my spiritual formation class this morning
....watering the community garden
...eating ice cream cookie sandwiches on patio seating
...getting the opportunity to try my hand at Zen meditation as a suburban-raised American white girl
...shopping for new clothes with a friend and laughing ourselves silly over a fish t-shirt
...saying hello to multiple people in succession on campus, and feeling known by people
...exercising in a state-of-the-art fitness center while chatting with a friend who's on the next exercise bike over
...feeling the young-people vibe in my neighborhood, and somehow feeling connected to the entire world of young-adulthood
...connecting with the women in my Bible study, and knowing that I'm being prayed for...and sensing those prayers working (particularly in the area of lowering school stress)
...liking the way I look, and feeling in control of my weight and general appearance
...forming multiple ideas of possibilities for post-graduation, and feeling like I'll have several choices to pursue that I could enjoy and be good at doing
They're all little things, and I know there's others that haven't made the list. I can't really describe how these moments make me feel except to say that they stand out against the loneliness and desolation as glimmers of light...hopeful moments that make me think that I can be happy and confident again, and even as much as I used to be.
Tuesday, April 12, 2011
New Clothes, Presentation, and Pokey-O's
I pulled a middle school-ish mirror picture to illustrate part of the new smaller-sized clothes phenomenon of last weekend. Top and capris both courtesy of Old Navy; earrings courtesy of the city of Montreal (even though I'm pretty sure you can't see them in this picture. But international accessories should always be noted.
I wore this fabulous new outfit to conquer the dreaded 1.5 hour group presentation on Christian Education in an African American context (props to Janelle and Brandi, if you're reading this, for your interview insights!). The presentation was perfectly timed, and although my voice could have been less shaky and there could have been considerably less "umms" and "i means" and "so basically's" on my part, it wasn't so bad. A small comment I made about the disadvantages of using the lectionary in a specific cultural context made me the shooting target of a bunch of die-hard lectionary fans in the Q&A session...that was less than desirable. But, it's over now, and our teacher seemed impressed. At the very least, we covered a TON of information, so we looked intelligent despite our nerves.
After class, which let out at 9:00 (remember, Tuesdays are my marathon-class days), I was fairly hungry. The options of a cheese omelet or a Lean Cuisine meal (the two choices hovering about my apartment) were rather unappealing, and as I was in a mood to celebrate removing the burdens of a 10-page paper AND a giant presentation from my life, I decided that the better option was to call my friend Rachel and get Pokey-O's for "dinner". Yeah. Nothing like a freshly prepared ice cream cookie sandwich after a long day (today's choice was chocolate chip cookies with peanut butter and chocolate ice cream...so good). And Rachel is always a lovely dinner companion. Good times.Now I'm having a nightcap of granola cereal out of the box, watching Degrassi reruns on TV (yeah, it's a problem), and generally preparing to go to bed so I can be bright-eyed and bushy-tailed for my 8:30 class an subsequent workout session tomorrow morning. And so it continues...
Monday, April 11, 2011
Zen, and the Art of Lifting a Car Out of a Ditch
So a funny thing happened on the way to the Zen center today...
(I get to say things like that because I'm in seminary.)
The reason I was driving to the Zen center was because my Prayer and Spirituality professor (an ex-Jesuit monk turned Zen master) thought it would be a good experience for all of us to get our meditation on together for a few hours. I had my GPS giving me directions, but still flew right by the entrance to the Zen center, as it was hidden by trees and surrounded by a shady fence. The road looked like it was about to meet up with a highway, so I decided the smart thing to do was to back up into a driveway I'd just passed, and use that as my means of turning around to drive into the Zen center parking area.
Smart. In theory.
What I did not realize was that the tall grass to the side of the driveway was actually coming up from a giant ditch that ran the length of the road. So, because my reverse-driving ability has been rapidly deteriorating (see dented fender), I naturally wound up halfway in the ditch, with the front of my car resting on the road, my back right tire sitting on the bottom of the ditch, and my back left tire floating stupidly in midair.
I may have uttered a profanity.
After slamming the car door in anger, I ran back the 70 feet or so to the Zen center, where I found several of my classmates gathered. On the verge of tears and with panic shaking in my voice, I cried out "I GOT MY CAR STUCK IN A DITCH!" My friend Kristi tried to comfort me in her lovely motherly way, while another classmate pulled up in his pickup truck; his face lit up when the group informed him that the time of glory had come to him and his truck in an opportunity to tow something. Meanwhile, I saw movement by my car off in the distance, so Kristi and I hastened over to the house to explain to the inhabitants why a seemingly abandoned Chrysler was teetering on the edge of their driveway, while Grant (the guy with the truck) and Mike (another classmate) looked at the car to assess the situation. Kristi and I knocked on the door, and it opened to reveal a lovely Hispanic family. I immediately began lamenting the day I decided to pursue bilingualism with a French degree, while Kristi explained the situation to the children, who translated our plight into Spanish. The mother nodded in a mix of concern and confusion, and Kristi and I walked back to Mike and Grant at the car.
"We can't tow this out."
"What do you mean we can't tow this out?"
"We're afraid that if I pull you forward, we'll scrape the bottom of the car too much and knock off the oil pan or the engine. And that's expensive to fix."
Crap.
"You'd be better off calling a wrecker to come get you. Do you have Triple A?"
"I don't know..."
Fun fact: I DO have Triple A. My parents mailed me the card months ago. In my hazy, panicked mind, I could only think of my State Farm card. Like a good neighbor, State Farm is there. I should have just sung the jingle, maybe Fran my agent would have teleported from his St. Louis office to help me out. Didn't think about it at the time.
"There's a body shop up the street. We could walk up there and see what they have..."
Exit Grant and Mike, to the body shop.
Meanwhile, the Hispanic family has emerged from the house to see how the progress is going. Kristi tries to explain in Spanish why the guys were walking away, while I watch in alarm as one of the kids almost runs into the side of my car with his bike. Just what I need, a dent from a wayward bicycling fourth grader.
Soon enough, Grant and Mike return saying that the body shop doesn't have anything to help us. One of the Hispanic guys drives off to get a car jack from somewhere, and somehow Kristi, Mike, Grant and I start walking back to the Zen center. I forget what happened in-between.
As we reached the gate, a crazy thought popped into my mind:
"What if we just got the whole class to come out and lift up the front end of my car, and push it back? Do you think that would work?"
Grant and Mike blinked at me.
"That might work," says Grant.
"Could be dangerous though...if you hit the gas too hard you might accidentally run someone over," says Mike.
"We could put it in neutral."
"Yeah, neutral would work," agrees Grant.
"We could try it," says Mike, "as long as we don't run over somebody...that'd be even more expensive! Haha!"
Haha.
So Kristi goes inside to rally the troops, Mike and Grant walk back toward the car, and I hover in the entrance momentarily before following Mike and Grant, like a puppy walking with its tail between its legs. About the time we reach the car, the rest of our class emerges from the gate. Let me give you a quick demographic of my class: 10% men, 90% small, skinny women. Seeing them walk up the street, I didn't have much hope. But here they all were, enthusiastic and making silly arm-flexing gestures. Worth a shot, right?
After explaining why the car can't just get towed out, and figuring out how to get the car into neutral (that whole push-your-foot-on-the-brake-to-change-gears thing kind of eluded me under the present circumstance), I climbed into the car to steer while my 16 classmates gathered around the front and right side of the car.
"1! 2! 3!"
Seeing all those faces pressed up against the windows of my car isn't a scene I'm likely to forget anytime soon. But somehow, the combined strength of 16 seminarians was working - the car was moving! And then the car was stopping, dropped back down on the ground amidst many sighs of exhaustion. Maybe this wasn't working after all...
"1! 2! 3!"
The car starts sliding backwards again, feeling ever more horizontal, until it stops once more. This time, I see lots of cheering, clapping people through my windows. Nothing like lifting a 1.5-ton car by hand to boost group morale. Unfortunately, I was still too much in shock to fully celebrate. But everyone said the car looked fine, and I cautiously drove back to the Zen center, thanked people weakly, and located a cushion to plop down on. It was one of those moments where the amount of gratitude I was feeling was enough to move me to tears, besides the tears that were threatening to come flowing forth at any moment as a result of the stressful circumstances. I'm worried I may not have appeared thankful enough...in reality, I didn't think I could express my thankfulness without giving way to an all-out breakdown that would have been counterproductive to the Zen meditation we were all about to engage in. So I just sat on my cushion and stared blankly at the floor.
For the next two hours, we all got our Zen meditation on, balancing on cushions in variations of the lotus position, walking slowly and mindfully in circles around the creaky room, chanting Buddhist sutras, and participating in a tea ceremony. Because that's what everyone does after extracting their vehicle from a ditch, right?
Zen is all about clearing your mind and just BEING. Unsurprisingly, I wasn't too good at that given the circumstances. Plus, my feet kept falling asleep, and my perpetually-slouched back kept aching to sit straight and still for prolonged periods of time. Halfway through the first meditation session, I slowly began to uncross my legs, bending my right leg vertically in front of me and wiggling my toes around to try to get some feeling back into them...
"BE STILL!"
Crap. The Zen master saw me moving.
"AND KNOW...THAT...I AM."
Oh. Okay then. I'll keep wiggling my toes around and sitting unorthodoxly.
"BE STILL...AND KNOW."
That's a nice sentiment. Be still and know. It has a certain calm certainty about it. Squeezing my foot now, trying to urge some of the blood back into it.
"BE STILL."
Stillness is not my forte. Teetering back and forth on my little cushion, worrying that my car was damaged in some unidentifiable way and planning on breaking down on the interstate on the way home, and thinking about what my parents' reactions were going to be when I told them I backed the car into something AGAIN, I was really anything but still.
Regardless, I was surprised at how quickly the time went by as I sat there staring at the wall, and at how much more calm I felt about everything after the two hours of meditation were over. Even though my mind wasn't the clearest of things, I was able to make some sense out of the situation, and be amazed at the power of community in action.
In ancient and operatic theatre, there is a plot device called deus ex machina; literally, "god out of machine." When things in the plot get too twisted up and there seems to be no solution, the gods come down out of the sky, fix everything with their godly powers, and the unresolvable plot is resolved. Looking back at my car, hearing Grant and Mike tell me that they couldn't tow it out, all I thought about was how much I wished God would just reach a giant hand down from the sky, pick up my car, and set it back on the road. That would be nothing for God; it'd be like me picking up a Hot Wheels car that flew off its track. But in the end, that's what happened: 16 pairs of God's hands were sufficient to lift me and my car up, and set us straight and back on our path. Stressful as it was, it was truly a remarkable experience of the power of community in overcoming what seems impossible.
Meditate on that!
(I get to say things like that because I'm in seminary.)
The reason I was driving to the Zen center was because my Prayer and Spirituality professor (an ex-Jesuit monk turned Zen master) thought it would be a good experience for all of us to get our meditation on together for a few hours. I had my GPS giving me directions, but still flew right by the entrance to the Zen center, as it was hidden by trees and surrounded by a shady fence. The road looked like it was about to meet up with a highway, so I decided the smart thing to do was to back up into a driveway I'd just passed, and use that as my means of turning around to drive into the Zen center parking area.
Smart. In theory.
What I did not realize was that the tall grass to the side of the driveway was actually coming up from a giant ditch that ran the length of the road. So, because my reverse-driving ability has been rapidly deteriorating (see dented fender), I naturally wound up halfway in the ditch, with the front of my car resting on the road, my back right tire sitting on the bottom of the ditch, and my back left tire floating stupidly in midair.
I may have uttered a profanity.
After slamming the car door in anger, I ran back the 70 feet or so to the Zen center, where I found several of my classmates gathered. On the verge of tears and with panic shaking in my voice, I cried out "I GOT MY CAR STUCK IN A DITCH!" My friend Kristi tried to comfort me in her lovely motherly way, while another classmate pulled up in his pickup truck; his face lit up when the group informed him that the time of glory had come to him and his truck in an opportunity to tow something. Meanwhile, I saw movement by my car off in the distance, so Kristi and I hastened over to the house to explain to the inhabitants why a seemingly abandoned Chrysler was teetering on the edge of their driveway, while Grant (the guy with the truck) and Mike (another classmate) looked at the car to assess the situation. Kristi and I knocked on the door, and it opened to reveal a lovely Hispanic family. I immediately began lamenting the day I decided to pursue bilingualism with a French degree, while Kristi explained the situation to the children, who translated our plight into Spanish. The mother nodded in a mix of concern and confusion, and Kristi and I walked back to Mike and Grant at the car.
"We can't tow this out."
"What do you mean we can't tow this out?"
"We're afraid that if I pull you forward, we'll scrape the bottom of the car too much and knock off the oil pan or the engine. And that's expensive to fix."
Crap.
"You'd be better off calling a wrecker to come get you. Do you have Triple A?"
"I don't know..."
Fun fact: I DO have Triple A. My parents mailed me the card months ago. In my hazy, panicked mind, I could only think of my State Farm card. Like a good neighbor, State Farm is there. I should have just sung the jingle, maybe Fran my agent would have teleported from his St. Louis office to help me out. Didn't think about it at the time.
"There's a body shop up the street. We could walk up there and see what they have..."
Exit Grant and Mike, to the body shop.
Meanwhile, the Hispanic family has emerged from the house to see how the progress is going. Kristi tries to explain in Spanish why the guys were walking away, while I watch in alarm as one of the kids almost runs into the side of my car with his bike. Just what I need, a dent from a wayward bicycling fourth grader.
Soon enough, Grant and Mike return saying that the body shop doesn't have anything to help us. One of the Hispanic guys drives off to get a car jack from somewhere, and somehow Kristi, Mike, Grant and I start walking back to the Zen center. I forget what happened in-between.
As we reached the gate, a crazy thought popped into my mind:
"What if we just got the whole class to come out and lift up the front end of my car, and push it back? Do you think that would work?"
Grant and Mike blinked at me.
"That might work," says Grant.
"Could be dangerous though...if you hit the gas too hard you might accidentally run someone over," says Mike.
"We could put it in neutral."
"Yeah, neutral would work," agrees Grant.
"We could try it," says Mike, "as long as we don't run over somebody...that'd be even more expensive! Haha!"
Haha.
So Kristi goes inside to rally the troops, Mike and Grant walk back toward the car, and I hover in the entrance momentarily before following Mike and Grant, like a puppy walking with its tail between its legs. About the time we reach the car, the rest of our class emerges from the gate. Let me give you a quick demographic of my class: 10% men, 90% small, skinny women. Seeing them walk up the street, I didn't have much hope. But here they all were, enthusiastic and making silly arm-flexing gestures. Worth a shot, right?
After explaining why the car can't just get towed out, and figuring out how to get the car into neutral (that whole push-your-foot-on-the-brake-to-change-gears thing kind of eluded me under the present circumstance), I climbed into the car to steer while my 16 classmates gathered around the front and right side of the car.
"1! 2! 3!"
Seeing all those faces pressed up against the windows of my car isn't a scene I'm likely to forget anytime soon. But somehow, the combined strength of 16 seminarians was working - the car was moving! And then the car was stopping, dropped back down on the ground amidst many sighs of exhaustion. Maybe this wasn't working after all...
"1! 2! 3!"
The car starts sliding backwards again, feeling ever more horizontal, until it stops once more. This time, I see lots of cheering, clapping people through my windows. Nothing like lifting a 1.5-ton car by hand to boost group morale. Unfortunately, I was still too much in shock to fully celebrate. But everyone said the car looked fine, and I cautiously drove back to the Zen center, thanked people weakly, and located a cushion to plop down on. It was one of those moments where the amount of gratitude I was feeling was enough to move me to tears, besides the tears that were threatening to come flowing forth at any moment as a result of the stressful circumstances. I'm worried I may not have appeared thankful enough...in reality, I didn't think I could express my thankfulness without giving way to an all-out breakdown that would have been counterproductive to the Zen meditation we were all about to engage in. So I just sat on my cushion and stared blankly at the floor.
For the next two hours, we all got our Zen meditation on, balancing on cushions in variations of the lotus position, walking slowly and mindfully in circles around the creaky room, chanting Buddhist sutras, and participating in a tea ceremony. Because that's what everyone does after extracting their vehicle from a ditch, right?
Zen is all about clearing your mind and just BEING. Unsurprisingly, I wasn't too good at that given the circumstances. Plus, my feet kept falling asleep, and my perpetually-slouched back kept aching to sit straight and still for prolonged periods of time. Halfway through the first meditation session, I slowly began to uncross my legs, bending my right leg vertically in front of me and wiggling my toes around to try to get some feeling back into them...
"BE STILL!"
Crap. The Zen master saw me moving.
"AND KNOW...THAT...I AM."
Oh. Okay then. I'll keep wiggling my toes around and sitting unorthodoxly.
"BE STILL...AND KNOW."
That's a nice sentiment. Be still and know. It has a certain calm certainty about it. Squeezing my foot now, trying to urge some of the blood back into it.
"BE STILL."
Stillness is not my forte. Teetering back and forth on my little cushion, worrying that my car was damaged in some unidentifiable way and planning on breaking down on the interstate on the way home, and thinking about what my parents' reactions were going to be when I told them I backed the car into something AGAIN, I was really anything but still.
Regardless, I was surprised at how quickly the time went by as I sat there staring at the wall, and at how much more calm I felt about everything after the two hours of meditation were over. Even though my mind wasn't the clearest of things, I was able to make some sense out of the situation, and be amazed at the power of community in action.
In ancient and operatic theatre, there is a plot device called deus ex machina; literally, "god out of machine." When things in the plot get too twisted up and there seems to be no solution, the gods come down out of the sky, fix everything with their godly powers, and the unresolvable plot is resolved. Looking back at my car, hearing Grant and Mike tell me that they couldn't tow it out, all I thought about was how much I wished God would just reach a giant hand down from the sky, pick up my car, and set it back on the road. That would be nothing for God; it'd be like me picking up a Hot Wheels car that flew off its track. But in the end, that's what happened: 16 pairs of God's hands were sufficient to lift me and my car up, and set us straight and back on our path. Stressful as it was, it was truly a remarkable experience of the power of community in overcoming what seems impossible.
Meditate on that!
Sunday, April 10, 2011
Sleepy, Life Group, and Homework...
Well kids, I don't know what to tell you...the creativity runs dry once again. I blame this on any combination of the following factors:
1) It's midnight, and I'm sleepy.
2) I woke up early for church this morning, so I'm extra sleepy.
3) I spent a good amount of time today writing a paper for class.
4) I spent a good deal of time staring at the computer screen procrastinating writing said paper, waiting for inspiration to strike.
5) Homework-filled days do not yield interesting blog topics.
Hopefully I'll get back into the swing of intrigue soon. I will drop a quick note here about how fantastic my life group is (that's the women's small group I go to on Sunday nights through the church I've been attending. It's all hip church lingo, you know)! Now that I've been going on and off for 3 months, I finally feel like I'm starting to connect with the other women, and therefore feel much more relaxed and much more free to act like myself. I'm super thankful for this group, and I'm glad that I've forced myself to keep going. This is a VERY good thing...I need me some Christian community outside of theology school. I need to talk about the Bible with people who don't purport to know everything, who don't talk in hugely theological terms, and who don't expect me to know everything. It's a nice break. And the other women are awesome, and I feel like we mesh well as a group. So yay!
In the world of homework, I've written nearly seven pages of the first ten-page paper I must conquer, and I'm hoping to finish it in the morning (my professor said the due date is "by the middle of this week"...I'm hoping to turn it in Tuesday morning at the latest). The group presentation which has been hanging over my head like a piano from a crane since January there's a mental image for you) will take place on Tuesday, and I've done all the work I can possibly do on that, except print things off. I'm all kinds of ready for that to be over. Then, I'll take a breather on Wednesday, and start my ten-page exegesis of 1 Corinthians 7:17-24 (and accompanying) research on Thursday. I'm REALLY pleased with how easy this current paper has been going though...it's hard to get started, but once I'm writing it's been coming rather easily. It gives me hope for the others. Believe it or not, I've only written one other extended paper all semester! Just gotta get back in the groove, I suppose. I can't believe there's only 3 weeks of classes left in the semester!!
PS, I'm going to meditate at a Zen center for class tomorrow...check back for details, it could yield some interesting results...
Saturday, April 9, 2011
Soundtrack
So...I've been staring at the screen for like half an hour trying to think of something to write, and I'm coming up with nothing. But, for your amusement, here's a collection of the YouTube videos that have crossed my screen while trying to think of something to write...it might give you some insight into my present mood (except the last one, that just sort of happened...)
Friday, April 8, 2011
Ladies and Gentlemen: I'm Large.
Why is this a blog title, you ask? Because, until today, I was EXTRA large. At least, I was according to the world of Old Navy sizing. But today, when I headed off to the dressing room laden with size XL tops, every single one of them was too big. That's quite a nice change from everything being too small, I'll tell you. Today's shopping adventure proved that I've really been losing weight in a really practical way: I've dropped a shirt size AND a pants size since January! Guess the "Get Fit" and "Eat Healthy" goals are working out (haha, bad pun unintended)! I left with 2 pairs of capris, 3 tops, and 2 pairs of flip flops: a nice boost to my mostly non-existent spring wardrobe. And my friend Rachel and I had quite the laugh-filled shopping spree (particularly when she accidentally brought me a shirt covered in pictures of fish instead of artistic flowers, like the one I asked her to trade in. It was funny if you were there, I promise).
In other news, today was a GREAT day. Besides the extremely victorious shopping trip, I also ate tacos on a restaurant patio in the gloriously summer-like Texas weather with friends, made enormous progress on my class presentation, and ate pizza and cake balls with the girls while having a quintessential movie night (this night's picks included Grown Ups and Secretariat: both good movies in very different ways). I also managed to get a 98% on the church history midterm I was certain I failed, thanks to my professor's lenient grading (everyone did horribly, I think they just cut us all a break).
Yeah...everything about today was good. Actually, except the part where I ran the dishwasher without putting soap in it. That wasn't so good. There was also a part of the day where I was certain that I saw my car getting a parking ticket, and spent a suspenseful 30 minutes in anxious anticipation of what I would find upon my return. But it turns out I was just paranoid, and quite legally (if poorly) parked. Both of those things are insignificant in comparison to the rest of the day's goodness :)
In other news, today was a GREAT day. Besides the extremely victorious shopping trip, I also ate tacos on a restaurant patio in the gloriously summer-like Texas weather with friends, made enormous progress on my class presentation, and ate pizza and cake balls with the girls while having a quintessential movie night (this night's picks included Grown Ups and Secretariat: both good movies in very different ways). I also managed to get a 98% on the church history midterm I was certain I failed, thanks to my professor's lenient grading (everyone did horribly, I think they just cut us all a break).
Yeah...everything about today was good. Actually, except the part where I ran the dishwasher without putting soap in it. That wasn't so good. There was also a part of the day where I was certain that I saw my car getting a parking ticket, and spent a suspenseful 30 minutes in anxious anticipation of what I would find upon my return. But it turns out I was just paranoid, and quite legally (if poorly) parked. Both of those things are insignificant in comparison to the rest of the day's goodness :)
Thursday, April 7, 2011
A Thursday in Celia's World
It's Thursday.
Today I...
Today I...
-Woke up and made myself pretty
-Had a Starbucks date with my friend Rachel
-Walked through SMU's campus in glorious weather
-Held a door open for a guy coming out of the student center. Guy seemed flabbergasted at my consideration of his door-holding needs.
-Watered the community garden without killing any of the plants
-Nearly yelled at a worker to turn the hose water back on so I could finish watering the plants, then realized that the water stopped because the hose was bent and not because said worker had turned it off.
-Walked back through SMU's campus in glorious weather, a bit more muddy than previously
-Watched TV while working on my presentation outline
-Fell asleep for an hour and a half
-Woke up again
-Ate an orange chicken frozen meal for lunch
-Watched "Friends" and kept working on the presentation
-Drove back to campus
-Learned about the French Revolution, Christianity in Latin America, Hebrews, and James
-Went to Roly Poly for dinner with my friends Erin and Miranda
-Went to a Taize worship service at a fancy schmancy cathedral-esque church
-Watched TV and skyped with my friend Brandi while working on my presentation outline
-Ate a bowl of raisin granola cereal
-Debated getting a Netflix subscription
-Wrote this blog post
-Took a shower
-Went to bed.
The end.
Wednesday, April 6, 2011
April Goal Setting
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| I made buttermilk biscuits from scratch today. |
Let's set some goals, shall we?
I admit, I'm rather hesitant to set more goals...not because I haven't accomplished the preexisting goals of yester-month, but because I'm moving back into that stressed-out mode that makes me think I have time for nothing but schoolwork, even though I frequently avoid homework. It's a weird phenomenon, but a familiar one. BUT, I think that by setting out some self-care oriented goals, I'll be able to avoid falling completely into the pits of despair that come with having to write 40+ pages (and doing the associated research). Avoiding pits of despair is always preferable.
So, here are some goals for this month. This time around, I'm narrowing the broad goals down into more concrete things that still fall under the broader categories. I don't want goal-setting to add MORE stress. That would be counterproductive, no?
Goal #1: Go to church/life group every Sunday. (Relationship with God)
Goal #2: Wii Fit every other day (Get Fit)
Goal #3: Read a chapter of a non-school related book before bed every night. (Read for Fun)
Goal #4: Update budget with actual spending numbers, then track spending for the month (Create a Budget)
Goal #5: Don't procrastinate just because "you don't feel like working"; take deliberate, designated breaks to avoid getting burnt out (Improve Study Skills)
So there you have it. That's the plan for the rest of the month...and, believe it or not, for the rest of the semester!! I had a weird realization this morning that I'll be getting ready to graduate (again)...I'm feeling pretty okay about that, to be honest. As hard as it was to leave Transy last year, I'm counting down the days until I'm out of here with a Master's degree in hand, and can just go have a job instead of studying late into the night all the time. Too bad no one told me that senioritis doesn't go away just because you go to graduate school...
But enough about that. Onward with the April goals!!
Tuesday, April 5, 2011
Book Review!
You may not know this, but you're lucky you have this post to read. I'd opened up my computer to write something, sat for a bit with no inspiration, fiddled about with Facebook...the usual process. But then I started to feel sick (most likely a result of eating alfalfa sprouts of questionable quality in my dinner), and felt a great need to go lay down and never move again, and shut off the computer in favor of going to bed. As it turns out, I wasn't actually tired, and instead read roughly 80 pages of Jennifer Donnelly's book Revolution, finished it, felt somewhat better, and hauled myself out of bed to write my mandated daily blog post.
My friend Miranda lent me Revolution after she read it over spring break and realized that the book had my name written all over it. The general plot is that this girl goes to Paris (not under happy circumstances), and finds a diary written during the French revolution revealing the horrifying truth behind the death of Louis-Charles, "The Lost King of France", who was Louis XVI and Marie Antoinette's son and who (obviously, if you know your history at all), never became king, but was imprisoned and died at the age of 10. Anyway, this book is full of French history, musical references, and general scheming intrigue. As a young adult novel, it has its share of melodrama, but most of that gets rolled out by chapter 6, and by the time Andi (the lead character) gets to Paris and finds the diary, it becomes insanely difficult to put the book down. It's one of those stories that sucks you in completely. The fact that I read this 400+ page book in under 2 weeks, when I have enormous qualities of school reading as well, testifies to the fact that it's a page-turner.
Another thing I liked about the book is that it immersed me in an era of French history that, comparatively, I don't know all that much about. You would think that I would know a ton about the French Revolution, but in reality my bank of French history knowledge is hugely tilted in favor of Louis XIV's court - about 100 years earlier (thanks, senior seminar). And, of course Napoleon came after the French Revolution...and while rioting citizens and overthrowing the monarchy and the Reign of Terror are a big deal, the Revolution manages to be overshadowed by the colossal figures of Louis XIV and Napoleon which bookend it. Odd, but true. And even though it's historical fiction, Revolution is quite accurate in its portrayal of the time period. It makes me want to go and read more about the French Revolution. It's amazing to me how the world that Louis XIV built dissolved into complete chaos within 100 years. It makes you think about how unstable things really can be, you know?
If you're at all into French history, you should definitely give this book a go...or, even if you're not and you just want a good story to escape into, this is a good one. It's really fantastic. And, it helped me continue in that "Read for Fun" goal :)
Another thing I liked about the book is that it immersed me in an era of French history that, comparatively, I don't know all that much about. You would think that I would know a ton about the French Revolution, but in reality my bank of French history knowledge is hugely tilted in favor of Louis XIV's court - about 100 years earlier (thanks, senior seminar). And, of course Napoleon came after the French Revolution...and while rioting citizens and overthrowing the monarchy and the Reign of Terror are a big deal, the Revolution manages to be overshadowed by the colossal figures of Louis XIV and Napoleon which bookend it. Odd, but true. And even though it's historical fiction, Revolution is quite accurate in its portrayal of the time period. It makes me want to go and read more about the French Revolution. It's amazing to me how the world that Louis XIV built dissolved into complete chaos within 100 years. It makes you think about how unstable things really can be, you know?
If you're at all into French history, you should definitely give this book a go...or, even if you're not and you just want a good story to escape into, this is a good one. It's really fantastic. And, it helped me continue in that "Read for Fun" goal :)
Monday, April 4, 2011
Oy...Headache.
Sorry kids, we're falling back on a short posting-because-I-committed-myself-to-do-so-every-day-of-2011-and-not-because-I-particularly-want-to-write-something-awesome night. I spent most of the day staring at the computer doing homework related things, and just opening the screen is bringing back the headache that hit about 20 minutes into my 3 hour class tonight (which followed 3 hours of library work, which followed 2.5 hours of working at my apartment). I'm going to read something non-school-related, and go to bed.
But I feel bad that you all came here to read some witty elaboration of the events of my days or creative musings on life in general. So, instead of leaving you with nothing, I'll leave you with this video that gives you a clue both into what I'm currently studying in my church history class, and the setting of the book that I'm about to go read. Hint: Lady Gaga is not the answer...
But I feel bad that you all came here to read some witty elaboration of the events of my days or creative musings on life in general. So, instead of leaving you with nothing, I'll leave you with this video that gives you a clue both into what I'm currently studying in my church history class, and the setting of the book that I'm about to go read. Hint: Lady Gaga is not the answer...
Sunday, April 3, 2011
3 Month Goal Check-Up
Happy April 3rd. Can you believe it's already April?? I can't. These three months have FLOWN by...I'm down to a month left in this semester, I have an internship set up for next year, and I'm registering for classes on Tuesday. I'm simultaneously almost done my first year, and about to be a senior. I like the way that sounds.
So, let's do a goal check-up, shall we?
I've actually made progress on almost all of them!
1) Rejuvenate Relationship With God - I've started doing a daily online devotional in a pact with a friend, and even though I'm not in the habit of doing it everyday, I'm at least thinking of God non-academically. Baby steps.
2) Get Involved in a Church - Not only have I chosen a church to go to, but I've gotten involved with a women's small group that I really like! I've also started to go to the traditional service instead of the contemporary service, and that's been a nice change; I'm starting to get a bit burnt out on contemporary worship.
3) Create a Budget - It's made. I've never actually checked up on if I'm living by it, but mentally I'm pretty sure that I am. I ought to sit down and do a legitimate check of whether or not I'm keeping to the budget. In fact, I just did a quick check, and I'm pretty well on track...my balance is a bit lower than I expected it to be at the end of March, but I also wasn't anticipating a $532 bill to the tax bureau (the joys of self-employment).
4) Make Work a Priority - I've been sticking to the work schedule that I set for myself at the beginning of the semester, and I've been doing better about making up work time that I've missed.
5) Get Fit - I've been exercising regularly (semi-regularly lately, I admit), lost roughly 10 pounds, and I've started to notice a change in my physical appearance...and so have other people!
6) Eat Healthy - My portion-sizing skills have gotten WORLD'S better. And, I've been cooking healthy recipes too, and only eating when I'm hungry (except lately...need to get back on that train).
7) Improve Study Skills - So yes, this slacked at the beginning of the year. But, I've been staying way more on top of things post-midterms.
8) Build Self-Confidence - In non-concrete ways, this is going well. I've been paying more attention to my appearance, which is an automatic ego-boost, and I've been being more outgoing and friendly with people, which has also helped.
9) Read for Fun - My friend Miranda lent me a young adult fiction book called Revolution, which is about a girl who goes to Paris and finds a diary from the French Revolution. It's somewhat dark, and sometimes I want to smack the main character, but it has a really good story going, and it's been a good way to unwind every night. I'm hoping to stay in this habit.
10) Have Productive Hobbies - Well, I've been trying to cut back on TV and internet lately, does that count? I say yes.
11) Explore Dallas - Thanks to Hannah's visit, I finally ventured downtown last week. I guess on the whole, I've been getting out more since last semester, but there's still more to discover!
12) Get Involved in Community - Yeah, this one hasn't been accomplished at all...I get so caught up in schoolwork that it kind of consumes things. I'm more involved in a church, that can count here too.
13) Be More Open - This is improving too; I've tried to loosen up a bit, and be more accepting of other people as they are, without taking their personalities/actions as an affront to my own happiness and worth...if that makes sense? It does in my head.
14) Be More Positive - This one was going well, but definitely hasn't been being accomplished lately.
15) Cultivate Strong Relationships - I'm a bit torn about this one...friendships have been something of a struggle for me this semester, but at the same time, I think that I'm starting to come to terms with the fact that I don't have to be everyone's best friend to be a worthwhile person. It's a good realization to come to.
So yes, things seem to be going well! I think I'll set out some goals for April tomorrow...this post got longer than I expected!!
So, let's do a goal check-up, shall we?
I've actually made progress on almost all of them!
1) Rejuvenate Relationship With God - I've started doing a daily online devotional in a pact with a friend, and even though I'm not in the habit of doing it everyday, I'm at least thinking of God non-academically. Baby steps.
2) Get Involved in a Church - Not only have I chosen a church to go to, but I've gotten involved with a women's small group that I really like! I've also started to go to the traditional service instead of the contemporary service, and that's been a nice change; I'm starting to get a bit burnt out on contemporary worship.
3) Create a Budget - It's made. I've never actually checked up on if I'm living by it, but mentally I'm pretty sure that I am. I ought to sit down and do a legitimate check of whether or not I'm keeping to the budget. In fact, I just did a quick check, and I'm pretty well on track...my balance is a bit lower than I expected it to be at the end of March, but I also wasn't anticipating a $532 bill to the tax bureau (the joys of self-employment).
4) Make Work a Priority - I've been sticking to the work schedule that I set for myself at the beginning of the semester, and I've been doing better about making up work time that I've missed.
5) Get Fit - I've been exercising regularly (semi-regularly lately, I admit), lost roughly 10 pounds, and I've started to notice a change in my physical appearance...and so have other people!
6) Eat Healthy - My portion-sizing skills have gotten WORLD'S better. And, I've been cooking healthy recipes too, and only eating when I'm hungry (except lately...need to get back on that train).
7) Improve Study Skills - So yes, this slacked at the beginning of the year. But, I've been staying way more on top of things post-midterms.
8) Build Self-Confidence - In non-concrete ways, this is going well. I've been paying more attention to my appearance, which is an automatic ego-boost, and I've been being more outgoing and friendly with people, which has also helped.
9) Read for Fun - My friend Miranda lent me a young adult fiction book called Revolution, which is about a girl who goes to Paris and finds a diary from the French Revolution. It's somewhat dark, and sometimes I want to smack the main character, but it has a really good story going, and it's been a good way to unwind every night. I'm hoping to stay in this habit.
10) Have Productive Hobbies - Well, I've been trying to cut back on TV and internet lately, does that count? I say yes.
11) Explore Dallas - Thanks to Hannah's visit, I finally ventured downtown last week. I guess on the whole, I've been getting out more since last semester, but there's still more to discover!
12) Get Involved in Community - Yeah, this one hasn't been accomplished at all...I get so caught up in schoolwork that it kind of consumes things. I'm more involved in a church, that can count here too.
13) Be More Open - This is improving too; I've tried to loosen up a bit, and be more accepting of other people as they are, without taking their personalities/actions as an affront to my own happiness and worth...if that makes sense? It does in my head.
14) Be More Positive - This one was going well, but definitely hasn't been being accomplished lately.
15) Cultivate Strong Relationships - I'm a bit torn about this one...friendships have been something of a struggle for me this semester, but at the same time, I think that I'm starting to come to terms with the fact that I don't have to be everyone's best friend to be a worthwhile person. It's a good realization to come to.
So yes, things seem to be going well! I think I'll set out some goals for April tomorrow...this post got longer than I expected!!
Saturday, April 2, 2011
NOOOOOOOOOO!
So UK lost its Final Four game to the UConn (which was pronounced as "Yukon," and rather confused me for the first half of the game). Most of you probably know this, since most of you are affiliated with Kentucky yourselves. Since I spent the last four years of my life living just down the street from the University of Kentucky, I'm a UK fan by association when the proper moment arises. Moments like tonight. I'm generally not that into sports, but this game managed to make me into one of those people sitting on the edge of the couch yelling at the TV and waving my arms in the air. The neighbors were probably alarmed and confused. It was an INTENSE game...UK came back from being 10 points down at the start of the second half to take the lead, then lose the lead, then take the lead, then lose the lead, then take the lead, then lose the lead, and so forth...until they ultimately lost to UConn by ONE point. It was crazy. My Facebook wall is now flooded with status updates of similar frustrated sentiment tinged with sadness.
Other news of the day includes library researching adventures, homework adventures, and (surprisingly successful) homemade fried chicken adventures, and work adventures. I also made friends with two random black people at Cafe Brazil who were (understandably) intrigued by the books with "African American ____" in the title that my suburban white girl self kept pulling out of my backpack and placing in an ever-growing stack on my table. To update you readers, I have a 1.5 hour group presentation next Tuesday on Christian Education in an African American cultural context, and had raided the library for all relevant materials before heading to the cafe to meet one of my project partners. The girl next to me was really nice, and talked to me about her perspective and gave me her email and phone number to contact her if I have any other questions. Yay for friendliness!
Tomorrow I WILL go to church AND my small group (I've been slacking on both of those things lately). Also, can you believe that it's April??? Time for another goal check-up and goal setting for the month...that will be a post (hopefully) for tomorrow :)
Friday, April 1, 2011
Sister Adventures: A Photographic Journey of Awesomeness
Well, the sisterly adventures of Hannah's visit to Dallas have drawn to a close; I took her to the airport tonight, said goodbye with much weeping (yeah, we were THOSE people in the airport), and just received a text saying that she's landed back in St. Louis. And, I'm back to the world of homework and general graduate school realities.
Fun fact: I've been officially offered the internship at the Filipino church for next year! Two thumbs up for plans coming together! I'm going to sign the official paperwork on Monday, and register for classes on Tuesday; between those two events, my life will be scheduled for the rest of 2011 (and partially, through May of 2012).
But more about all that later. This post is devoted to elaborating on the events of the last few days, via the photographic documentation of our adventures.
Adventure #1: Wandering the lake by my apartment
My apartment complex has quite the lovely walking trail around a couple of lakes, and I took Hannah down to show her around, and also to witness the various wildlife, including normal suburban wildlife like overeager squirrels...
Scary waterfowl are scary. That one started chasing us shortly after we took this picture.
Adventure #2: Tex-Mex Dinner at Chuys
Yes please. Enchiladas with tomatillo sauce and a free nacho bar because it was still happy hour. Mexican food doesn't get much better than that. If you visit me in Dallas, we're going. If you're in Dallas and you're not visiting me, you're still going. No choice.
Adventure #3: Baking Muffins and Cupcakes
To facilitate breakfasts for Hannah's visit, I bought a couple packs of chocolate chip muffin mix, which Hannah happily volunteered to mix and distribute into paper muffin cups...unfortunately, neatness doesn't appear to be her strong suit:
As you can see, we'd already eaten a few by the time we took this picture...proving that you shouldn't judge a book by its cover (or a cupcake by its haphazard frosting job).
Adventure #4: Celebrity Home Stalking
Following in the footsteps of my friend Brandi and I on our quest to discover Nelly's house last March, Hannah and I found a list of celebrity homes in Dallas (complete with GPS coordinates), and decided to track them down.
We set off enthusiastically to our first destination: the home of ex-President George W. Bush. We entered the neighborhood with a few trepidations of secret-service people chasing us away, but excited about the prospects which lay before us...
We turned the corner onto the street, and all of a sudden, spied an older couple strolling down the sidewalk with a dog...and started flipping out, because George W. Bush and Barbara Bush were walking towards us! Hannah managed this paparazzi shot out the back window...
Yeah okay, so that's not really them. BUT we legitimately thought that it was them, until we were right up upon them and realized that their faces were wrong (not to mention the woman's blonde, non-Barbara Bush-esque hair). Still, it was absolutely hilarious, and we both agree that they REALLY looked like them from a distance! In any case, it turns out that we were on the wrong street...we went out to the real place this morning, and were unsurprisingly met by this sight:
Okay, so it's not much to look at (especially with this poor photo that was taken while I was driving, and shows more of the fence than the house). From the road it looks rather small, and the front is in the middle of a lot of construction work. BUT, when we turned the corner, we realized that the house went a lot deeper back than you might think. Just check out this sky view from the website we used to find the house...
Tricky, Chuck Norris. Very tricky...
Adventure #5: Seeing Where John F. Kennedy was Assassinated
Yes, unfortunately, besides the football, the thing that Dallas is famous for is that it is the sight where John F. Kennedy was assassinated. Hannah and I drove down to Dealey Plaza this morning, and to be honest, it was quite a surreal experience to stand on the grassy knoll, in the spot where the Zapruder film was taken, and look out over the scene. It was like stepping into one of the most iconic photographs in American history...
And then, on the way back, we swung by SMU to take Hannah's picture by the giant mesh head in front of the art museum...because you just don't pass something like that up.
And that, my friends, concludes the highlights of Hannah's visit. Of course, there were several things that weren't documented in photographic form, but I think that this post is sufficiently lengthy, don't you?
And now, back to the reality of the daily grind. Homework all day tomorrow...hopefully, with the renewed energy that a family visit can create :)
Fun fact: I've been officially offered the internship at the Filipino church for next year! Two thumbs up for plans coming together! I'm going to sign the official paperwork on Monday, and register for classes on Tuesday; between those two events, my life will be scheduled for the rest of 2011 (and partially, through May of 2012).
But more about all that later. This post is devoted to elaborating on the events of the last few days, via the photographic documentation of our adventures.
Adventure #1: Wandering the lake by my apartment
My apartment complex has quite the lovely walking trail around a couple of lakes, and I took Hannah down to show her around, and also to witness the various wildlife, including normal suburban wildlife like overeager squirrels...
And the terrifying live Turduckens-that-must-not-be-named...
Adventure #2: Tex-Mex Dinner at Chuys
Adventure #3: Baking Muffins and Cupcakes
To facilitate breakfasts for Hannah's visit, I bought a couple packs of chocolate chip muffin mix, which Hannah happily volunteered to mix and distribute into paper muffin cups...unfortunately, neatness doesn't appear to be her strong suit:
We also made the world's best Pina Colada cupcakes, which involve a batter of yellow cake mix, undrained crushed pineapple, and coconut extract, with a frosting of cream cheese, vanilla pudding, and more pineapple. They are SO SO SO delicious...but very ugly, as you can see...
Adventure #4: Celebrity Home Stalking
Following in the footsteps of my friend Brandi and I on our quest to discover Nelly's house last March, Hannah and I found a list of celebrity homes in Dallas (complete with GPS coordinates), and decided to track them down.
We set off enthusiastically to our first destination: the home of ex-President George W. Bush. We entered the neighborhood with a few trepidations of secret-service people chasing us away, but excited about the prospects which lay before us...
We turned the corner onto the street, and all of a sudden, spied an older couple strolling down the sidewalk with a dog...and started flipping out, because George W. Bush and Barbara Bush were walking towards us! Hannah managed this paparazzi shot out the back window...
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| Click the picture to make it bigger |
Yeah okay, so that's not really them. BUT we legitimately thought that it was them, until we were right up upon them and realized that their faces were wrong (not to mention the woman's blonde, non-Barbara Bush-esque hair). Still, it was absolutely hilarious, and we both agree that they REALLY looked like them from a distance! In any case, it turns out that we were on the wrong street...we went out to the real place this morning, and were unsurprisingly met by this sight:
A gate, with lots of signs about security and restricted access, blocking our path down the street of expensive homes, including the Bush's house. I guess we should have known that we wouldn't be able to just wander up to the door of a past president's house. Incidentally, Hannah and I were thwarted in our ambition to track down the Jonas brothers' house, because we looked it up online beforehand and discovered that it, too, was blocked off by a gated neighborhood. Shucks.
Luckily, Chuck Norris was more obliging, and only had a gate blocking his driveway, not the whole neighborhood. Here's his house as we saw it...
Tricky, Chuck Norris. Very tricky...
Adventure #5: Seeing Where John F. Kennedy was Assassinated
Yes, unfortunately, besides the football, the thing that Dallas is famous for is that it is the sight where John F. Kennedy was assassinated. Hannah and I drove down to Dealey Plaza this morning, and to be honest, it was quite a surreal experience to stand on the grassy knoll, in the spot where the Zapruder film was taken, and look out over the scene. It was like stepping into one of the most iconic photographs in American history...
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| The painted "X" marks where JFK was shot |
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| The Grassy Knoll |
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| The Texas School Book Depository |
The sixth floor of the building, where Lee Harvey Oswald shot the bullets from, is now a museum, but we didn't want to pay the steep admission charge and contented ourselves to walk around the scene.
On a less serious note, we also walked around the adjacent West End of Dallas, and saw silly things like this dinosaur on stilts:
And then, on the way back, we swung by SMU to take Hannah's picture by the giant mesh head in front of the art museum...because you just don't pass something like that up.
And that, my friends, concludes the highlights of Hannah's visit. Of course, there were several things that weren't documented in photographic form, but I think that this post is sufficiently lengthy, don't you?
And now, back to the reality of the daily grind. Homework all day tomorrow...hopefully, with the renewed energy that a family visit can create :)
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