Tuesday, November 30, 2004

HOPIE!!!

Hurray! Hopie is here!

Hmm. That's about it right now. The last two days have been reasonably uneventful, if also packed and hard to get work done in.

But that's ok, because I'm excited to have Hopie visiting. It would be very exciting to have her here next year - so Seabury folk should be extra nice to her. :)

That is all.

Sunday, November 28, 2004

Once more, without feeling

Trinity College, Cambridge has a lovely choir. But someone needs to tell them that Christmas is a season of joy. Joy implies not singing things like "In dulci jubilo" like funeral marches. They make pretty sounds, but I'm glad "Joy to the World" is not on this cd.
On the topic of music gone wrong, I'd like to take this moment to assert that some songs should not be made into dance remixes. "Tubthumping" is one. "The First Nowell" is indubitably another.

I'm wondering where my roommate is. I know she got to the airport... and her bedroom door is open and the note is gone off of it, so I'm assuming she's been back... but it's 9:30 and she's not here. Hmm. I realized today that I've missed my roommate more than I suspected this week. This is unfortunate, since she leaves for good in two weeks. Boo.
However, I got an email today from my new roommate, who is exactly the person I was hoping for. We met during orientation week and got along really well, and she's an old friend of Jane's, which will be nice, even though most of next term Jane won't be around. I think she's going to be in for a bit of a shock at how small our common room is, however, based on her questions about furniture.

On a totally random note, I think my rubber bands are aging. I took one out today to bind up my Ambrose pages (since there's way too many of them for a big pinchy clip thing), and they seem to be losing their snap.

Saturday, November 27, 2004

Cleaning out my ears

The last couple of nights, as I've sat here wrestling with my 1000 word paper (which at 1097 has just been emailed to my peer editor), I've been moved to pray in ways that I haven't been able to very well since moving here. Usually my liturgical music reflection each week is a grind - boring to write and probably to read - but tonight, here's how it opened:

I went back to the chapel tonight to check last week’s ordo and get the appropriate hymnal for my reflection, and as I skimmed through the hymns from last week, I turned to 458, “My song is love unknown”. I’m fairly sure this is the one I had intended to write about anyway, but sitting in the freshly cleaned and greened, empty chapel that night, I knew that was the right hymn. I had helped earlier in the day to oil pews and fix candles to them, so I had seen the chapel decorated, but not like this, alone, at night, bathed in the soft chapel lighting, fragrant with evergreen. At that moment, my song was indeed love unknown, and that in a marvelous way.

This palpable sense of God's love has been absent from my life for awhile - I've been angry at God, confused by God, on good days even sensed God's love in people around me - but not directly like that for a few months at least. Last night as I was reading some treatise or another, being frustrated, something I came across - I wish I could remember what - influenced me just to close my eyes for a few minutes and listen. And I realized, in those few minutes, how much I've been trying to do it all on my own the last couple of months. I don't know whether it's because I've been angry and confused with God much of the time, or what - I haven't really been conscious of it. But I realized that it's not necessarily my job to know what's coming next all the time or why - it's my job to trust. To trust that just as God led me here in the first place, God will continue to lead me where I need to be - whether I understand that or not.

I don't know exactly why I was able to listen like that last night when I haven't been able to the last couple of months, but it was a relief, both to be able to hear God's voice as loving again, and to remember that God is trustworthy and isn't supposed to be comprehensible.

Friday, November 26, 2004

::baby dinosaur noises::

off Heather's blog:


 
 
 
 
VIOLET



You surround yourself with art and music and are constantly driven to express yourself. You often daydream. You prefer honesty in your relationships and belive strongly in your personal morals.




Find out your color at Quiz Me!




That looks like an awful lot of text for a pretty small image, but I'm certainly no expert. I will leave it alone. I'm impressed enough that the quiz got me pretty much right on, despite the fact that I'm not sure my actual answers lead to that result - for instance, I didn't pick any of the artsy options. But whatever.

Today's theme: frustration. Both my work and my potatoes decided to thwart me, despite my best efforts. I'm still working a little more tonight, but three days in a row with lots of people and food have left me pretty well exhausted... probably contributing to the frustration today.

Thursday, November 25, 2004

Guess what I'm wearing?

I think I've just discovered my superpower: fitting into old clothes. My parents indulged me by sending up the kilt and sash we bought me at Busch Gardens (VA) when I was ten, so I could see whether perchance I might still fit into either of them for the Kirkin o' the Tartans on Tuesday. As it turns out, I've been randomly selected to be the server on Tuesday (something I've never done, but that's a different story), so it's a moot point - which is too bad, because I'm sitting here right now in the very same kilt and sash. I was expecting that the sash might be ok still but the kilt was probably out of the question, considering that at age 10 I was only slightly shorter and at least 30 pounds lighter. But no - in fact, the kilt fits slightly better than the sash, which is, ahem, a little tighter than it was fourteen years ago. Regardless, the fact that I'm sitting here right now in a kilt which I bought at age ten - and after Thanksgiving dinner, at that - delights me incredibly.

In fact, I'm generally delighted right now. If I were an LJ user, somewhere on this page it would tell you "mood: delighted" - but I don't like LJ. In any case, I have had a delightful day, going over to watch the "Macy Day" parade, as Hope and Audrey call it, and cook stuffed pumpkins with Hope and Andrew and Audrey, and then going over to Charlie and Christina's, which was unexpectedly delightful. I'd never met Charlie and Christina and I discovered as we were arriving that there were to be about twice as many people there as I'd expected, something that generally unnerves me, at least with strangers. However, Charlie and Christina were great, things were very relaxed, the unexpected people turned out to include Tripp, who I had met, and Trish, who I hadn't but was happy to (as well as Laura and Chris, who I didn't know about but turned out to be fun folks too). Overall, I had a fantastic time, including getting to talk church history and other stuff with Tripp (even around here, there are few people with whom I can at a moment's notice discuss the ways in which Chrysostom is and is not a psycho).

I also came to the realization that I've been getting into a habit that should probably stop - namely, unplugging my heart monitor, albeit briefly, at various points. I've fallen into the habit, apparently, of unplugging it and putting it down when I'm changing clothes or doing other brief tasks that render the monitor unwieldy, and then plugging it back in and going on. Today I was doing this after dinner, and since I was feeling rather unsteady at the time, actually realized that perhaps this wasn't the brightest idea I'd ever had, and that if I were to pass out on my way back to the living room (something that felt entirely possible at the time), the recording would not in fact have a good three minute scan from before the button was pressed. So I will dutifully return to leaving it plugged in at all times (except when wearing it would cause electrical shock), even if it's inconvenient. And no, I did not actually pass out tonight. I gracefully paid no attention to the conversation for a good while and just sat, and then returned to normal conversation skills a bit later. Hurray for remaining conscious!

And to return to the delight, I have a package to continue opening, one that contains all my Christmas cards/decorations/etc. - including an Advent present from my parents, which I have not yet opened. I'm ignoring the fact that on November 25, I'm opening a present with Christmas paper - though actually, I guess it's just polar bears and snowflakes, so that's ok.

Here's hoping everyone reading this had as lovely a Thanksgiving as I did!

Tuesday, November 23, 2004

Grr.

I am finding it extremely difficult to be as productive as I'd like this week. It's much easier to do lots and lots of work while other people at least have work to do also. Getting lots and lots of work done when my neighbors are hanging out is harder. Case in point: Today I was supposed to get CPE applications sent out and go to the library before lunch. I got most of the applications out (all but the St Louis one) before lunch (only because I didn't go to lunch until I mailed them). After lunch I was heading into town to go to the bank and then the library and Debra and Laurel kidnapped me and took me with them to lunch. I finally got back from the library in the middle of the afternoon, which meant that the reading I was supposed to have done last night, when Hope and Andrew came over with a movie, and finished this morning, got finished this afternoon...

I'm actually still doing ok on my schedule so far -less than half a day behind - but I'm foreseeing a lot of cooking and socializing in the next three days, and getting my paper written in time to do any other work this week will be a challenge. Hrmph. If only I didn't so enjoy other people's company...

On the topic of other people's company - Marisa: I will not, as you may have surmised from the above, be home for Thanksgiving; however I will be home for a while over Christmas also, and we should defninitely get together.

now returning to my regularly scheduled programming...

Saturday, November 20, 2004

various and sundry

1. Emily: if you haven't already gathered from the picture on AKMA's blog, I was (happily) an Augustinian.

2. I am slowly getting used to my blog circles overlapping. The purple area is steadily getting bigger... today a St Louis friend was pointing out things to me on a Seabury blog; yesterday a Seabury friend asked me if I'd seen the rant on an Ohio blog... I appreciate that my various friends take a passing interest in each other, however, even if it puzzles me slightly.

3. We beat the school up north today. For those of you who are Seabury bloggers rather than good Ohio stock, that's the Ohio State-Michigan game, not the Lavabo Bowl. I really ought to be more excited than this, especially considering the odds of this happening this year, but I'm just kind of generally pleased with it. Oh well.

4. My iTunes apparently likes "Laramie" a lot. It plays it on random roughly twice as often as the average song. My theory is that my brother has put a spell on it (he's auditioning for, and will almost certainly soon be cast in, Laramie Project).

5. I've been pondering today how someone who insists as strongly as I do on the life value of her 24 years can find so very little to write about them in a "reasonably full account" of her life. Also why on earth anyone would create an application that asks for a reasonably full account of someone's life and not give a recommended length.

6. I've been a Girl Scout for a really long time now. I had a moment of panic that I was going to hit 20 years in less than a year, but no, it's only been about 18 1/2. This still feels like a really long time for me to be able to say I've been involved in some particular organization of my own accord.

I think that's it for now. Tomorrow I get to finish off my reasonably full account. Woot.

Thursday, November 18, 2004

victorrrrious!

Over this week, at least. While I still have plenty of work left, I actually have some time to do it in now. Enough that I just spent the last two plus hours watching a movie with a glass of wine. It was glorious. Admittedly, I still consider "it's hollywood" to be poor justification for the very end of Ocean's Eleven - but it was a fun movie, and better than I expected. And really, the beautiful people would have made it worthwhile even if it hadn't been. I'm happy.

Tuesday, November 16, 2004

No time-turners available this week...

However, I have been given a number of grace notes, such that I can do things like breathe and think again. That being the case, I realized today that I have not-quite-excusably forgotten several important birthdays in the last few days. So:

HAPPY (belated) BIRTHDAY, ANDREW, KRISTIAN, and MIKE!!!

Saturday, November 13, 2004

Still here

But if anyone's got a spare time-turner in their back pocket or on their mantel or whatnot, please, please let me know. Probably won't be blogging much this week... but (if I have any say in the matter) it won't be due to hospital visits, just to extreme levels of work (due partly to the recent hospital visits).

Wednesday, November 10, 2004

In other news:

The Very Most Exciting Thing To Happen In a Long, Long Time

Way too much excitement for a Wednesday morning... but it couldn't happen to two better people. I am beyond happy for them.

Ryan W, meet Ryan W.

In lieu of posting your last names on the big bad internet, and rather than calling you "girl-Ryan" and "boy-Ryan", which makes it sounds like you're baby sweaters or tulips or giraffes or something, you shall henceforth be galleried by your blogs. So Totoro-Ryan, meet Everyday-Ryan. Heck, for that matter, everyone meet Totoro-Ryan and Everyday-Ryan. They're swell.

Tuesday, November 09, 2004

Guilty as charged

Jane has expressed some dissatisfaction with the lack of Seabury blogs in my peanut gallery, and has most graciously added me to her blogroll, so I will now commence with an exciting new block of additions. For the record, those who have left me comments here at one point or another get to be listed first (well, Jane gets to be first, since this is her doing), then other Seabury blogs I read regularly. If you don't see yours (after giving me a few minutes to get them up), it's probably because I don't know about it, so leave me a comment and I'll add you in.
off to edit the peanut gallery now! huzzah!

Monday, November 08, 2004

Can I say this?

Hesitant as I am to tempt fate, today has been a reasonably average day. This in itself is almost exciting. But I'm ok with "discovered ichat" being at the top of my list of "things that happened today".

In fairness, there were other things that happened today. Good things, even, like finishing my worship review draft and having a good lunch with a potential spiritual director and a good chat with Jane. However, on pure fun, setting up ichat definitely wins. Though getting my post title color changed is up there too (thanks wes!)

I'm going to end this entry while I'm still on that note.

Sunday, November 07, 2004

Internet! Huzzah!

Yes, it's true... I'm actually blogging from my common room. How has this happened, you ask? Yesterday, I went ahead and bought an iBook. It's glorious. This should mark my return to AIM shortly as well.

I clicked through to the "What Religion Are You?" quiz on Nicole's blog. First of all, it should be called "What form of Christianity, Satanism, or atheism are you, from a very slanted basis?" Really, a quiz titled "What Religion Are You?" should have options like Judaism, Islam, Buddhism, Hinduism, etc. And the author needs to learn that whom is never used in the nominative. Options like "God whom created heaven and earth" just shouldn't exist.
That said, their other mistake was in giving the choice "something that hasn't been mentioned here" for nearly every question. Give me that option, and most of the time I'll take it rather than try to squeeze into the narrow options presented. As a result, the quiz couldn't classify me. I'm ok with that, especially on a quiz that fails to give any Trinitarian option for "who is God?" but is trying to tell you what kind of Christian you are. I'm curious to know what answer they considered the "true Christian" answer for any of those - whatever they were, I didn't pick any of them. I'm apparently 1 part fundamentalist, 2 parts holy roller, 1 part average Christian, and 6 parts WTF, mate? (no, that's not their category)

Friday, November 05, 2004

To this morning's mysterious caller

Thanks for your call - I'm sure I'm very excited to hear from you... but... who are you?

For the rest of the world: Yes, I'm still alive. Yes, I'm once more back at Seabury. No, they still couldn't tell me what's going on.

They have, however, ruled out major problems with my brain and heart. Actually, we've ruled out brain issues altogether, which I know will surprise anyone who's known me for any length of time. ;) In a few minutes, I'll go get a nifty pager-sized heart monitor, which I will wear for who knows how long. Not long after, I'll get to have more doctor's appts and a tilt test. (aren't I lucky?) I do not get to drive, swim, do heavy exercise, or do anything else during which passing out might result in harm to myself or others, at least until the doctors are smarter. Well, more conclusive. I'm sure they're very smart.

I'll probably write more later - but that's the big news from the last 48 hours. Now I have to go get that nifty monitor.

Tuesday, November 02, 2004

First things first...

Yes, I'm alive. Yes, I'm back at Seabury. No, they couldn't tell me what's going on.

Now: I started this Sunday and got a phone call in the middle of it, and I'm probably going to have to stop and use the edit function to come back to this, but I like these things and I want to do it, even if I'm not on LJ. Marisa's LJ has tempted me.

13 random things you like
1. not being in the hospital
2. visitors
3. phone calls, usually
4. pink
5. potatoes
6. well, the Indigo Girls, obviously
7. classes (don't hit me, please)
8. good children's movies
9. friends
10. red wine
11. books
12. sleep
13. dance

12 movies (just 12 random good ones, from what I gather)
1. Kissing Jessica Stein
2. Muppet Christmas Carol
3. Now & Then
4. Mary Poppins
5. Sleeping Beauty
6. Sound of Music
7. Dead Poet's Society
8. Hook
9. Lion King
10. Miracle on 34th Street
11. Boys on the Side
12. Backbeat

11 good bands or singers (first 11 that come to mind)
1. Indigo Girls (duh)
2. Catie Curtis
3. U2 (go ahead, Mike, be proud)
4. Dar Williams
5. Beatles
6. Sarah McLachlan
7. Simon & Garfunkel
8. Peter, Paul & Mary
9. Guster (ok, R&R, your turn)
10. Tracy Chapman
11. BNL

10 things about you... physically (odd, but ok)
1. short
2. superflexible ankles
3. long thumbnails (just for you, Ryan)
4. blue eyes
5. my hips pop a lot (another one for you, Ryan)
6. nose stud
7. three holes in my ears (not counting the ones I hear out of)
8. really tiny toenails
9. large rib cage
10. tight shoulders

9 great books
1. A Swiftly Tilting Planet (representing the entire corpus of Madeleine L'Engle's work)
2. Little Women - L.M. Alcott
3. Iconostasis - Pavel Florensky
4. Old Turtle - I have no idea who wrote this... I'm sure my mother knows
5. Lord of the Rings (i refuse to count this as more than one)
6. Narnia series (ditto Lord of the Rings)
7. To Kill a Mockingbird - Harper Lee
8. Cry, the Beloved Country - Alan Paton (did I get that right?)
9. Oranges Are Not the Only Fruit - Jeanette Winterson

8 favorite drinks
1. water
2. tea
3. champagne
4. red wine
5. beer
6. ginger ale
7. Dr. Pepper
8. starbucks' caramel macchiato

7 things you wear daily - except I think that's a dumb category, and I'm changing it... um... let's do... 7 places you love
1. my camp
2. New England
3. London
4. Isle of Skye
5. Scottish Highlands in general
6. St Louis (as long as I'm not driving)
7. St David's, Wales

6 things that annoy you (another useless category, but we'll go with it)
1. being in the hospital
2. people who don't use their turn signal but expect you to know they're turning
3. taking a party line on an issue without thinking it through
4. bad vegetarian food
5. no vegetarian food
6. stupidity (my own as well as others')

5 things you touch every day
1. a computer
2. the sink
3. the scarf on my dresser that keeps slipping into my top drawer
4. my baby blanket
5. my rings

4 shows you watch (assuming there's no rules about how often...only West Wing gets any regularity)
1. West Wing
2. What Not to Wear
3. Today Show
4. Trading Spaces

3 celebrities you have a crush on (wow, that's tough)
1. Keira Knightley
2. Julia Roberts
3. Viggo Mortenson, but only, only as Aragorn

2 people on LJ you have kissed
ok, I honestly can't think of a one, even peck-wise... neither can I think of any blogger users I've kissed. sorry. I'm utterly boring. If I've kissed you on the head or something and forgotten, please let me know.

1 letter you like (again, odd, but ok)
1. L

ok, now I really need to go attack that rust...