bedtime at the sauna

manys a time i've been mistaken
and many times confused
yes and i've often felt forsaken
and certainly misused
oh but i'm all right
i'm all right
i'm just weary to my bones
still you don't expect to be bright and bon vivant
so far away from home
so far away from home

i don't know a soul who's not been battered
i don't have a friend feels who at ease
i don't know a dream that's not been shattered
or driven to it's knees
oh but it's all right
it's all right
we've lived so well so long
still when i think of the road we're traveling on
i wonder what's gone wrong
i can't help it i wonder
what's gone wrong

and i dreamed i was dying
i dreamed that my soul
rose unexpectedly
and looking back down at me
smiled reassuringly
and i dreamed i was flying
high up above
my eyes could clearly see
the statue of liberty
sailing away to sea
and i dreamed i was dying

oh we come on a ship they call the mayflower
we come on a ship that sailed the moon
we come in the ages most uncertain hour
and sing an american tune
oh but it's all right
it's all right
you can't be forever blessed
still tomorrow's going to be another working day
and i'm trying to get some rest
that's all i'm trying
to get some rest

american tune
words and music paul simon

subjunctive question

Which of the following is more accurate?

A) It didn't seem as though that were still the case.
B) It didn't seem as though that was still the case.

It seems to me that "as though" indicates condition contrary to fact, which wants the subjunctive, which would be "were." But it looks a little odd to me. Both look a little odd to me.

Fellow grammar guardians, what is the mind of the house on this?

got it. thanks.

So I just started a new verbatim, on a recent and moving conversation, and when I went to change the patient's name, the first male name that came to mind was Murray. Which is of course my friend Emily's last name. I started to type it in and then realized what was happening and deleted it, and then glanced upward and thought "ok, yes, I know this situation is pushing my buttons. Thanks. I got that."

The patient's name is Daniel now. Daniel doesn't really push my buttons so much.

in other news

It's hot. Extraordinarily hot.

Just thought I'd mention that.

I think this is why my mother doubts that I could ever, ever move to anything resembling the South.

because i can

Because I can, because I now have internet again. Wireless, even, though I haven't hooked that back up yet. Will soon though.

nomads and saints

So when I put "nomad extraordinaire" in my orientation committee bio, this wasn't really what I meant.

As you've probably noted, I've been house-sitting all week. Yesterday, my house-sitting gig ended, so I packed my gear back up and moved it back over to my room.

While I've been house-sitting, however, a boys and girls choir from Bryn Mawr has taken over the dorm rooms while they're in town for some concerts, finishing Sunday night. I suspected, from a couple of brief glances in the open door, that the kids staying across the hall in the other half of my suite were boys. I suspected also that this might make it awkward when I moved back in.

Last night, I opened my bathroom door, and any doubts I had disappeared. There were towels on the floor, dirt all over the sink, my q-tips scattered about.... These were definitely boys, teenage boys from the looks of it. I tried for a moment to imagine taking a shower the next morning in a bathroom which 2-4 teenage boys were likely to access at will. Then I stopped trying to imagine anything so horrible and started imagining other solutions, ones that didn't involve flagrant boundary issues.

So now my backpack and I are camping out at Susie and Luke's apartment, watching them pack up their belongings. Monday, all of us will head out of here, and I will go back home and give my bathroom a good and thorough cleaning.

In the meantime, Susie and Luke are very generous friends, to take on a houseguest the weekend before they, um, banana.

mirror, mirror...

I am supposed to be writing a weekly reflection - about two-thirds of a page, on something to do with CPE - preferably dealing with my relationships to myself, my peers, my patients/families, or my supervisor. I have no idea what to write about. I seem to have three weeks full of things to think and talk about and nothing that seems appropos to write two paragraphs about. Argh.

I am tempted to leave it for later and write it tomorrow between group and my one-on-one, but I know if I do that, I will have three or four traumas to deal with between 1:30 and 4:00.

So I must invent something on which to reflect. Quickly.

internet! happiness!

The Adams have graciously allowed me to use their wireless, which is conveniently accessible from both the living room and the backyard here.

To celebrate this, I present the following quiz, taken from Emily's blog:

You're Watership Down!

by Richard Adams

Though many think of you as a bit young, even childish, you're
actually incredibly deep and complex. You show people the need to rethink their
assumptions, and confront them on everything from how they think to where they
build their houses. You might be one of the greatest people of all time. You'd
be recognized as such if you weren't always talking about talking rabbits.


Take the Book Quiz
at the Blue Pyramid.

I realized after I got my results that I've taken this one before, with the same result (which in this quiz means I answered each of the six questions exactly the same). I think this answer is both accurate and ironic, since I couldn't ever get into Watership Down because of the rabbits. Maybe I should try the book again.

Please note:

I am currently house-sitting in an internet-free zone. If you want to find me, call me.

Also, I am currently very frustrated with my moving schedule and several corollary adjustments.

Thirdly, I am still accepting invitations to the grocery store, if anyone's handing them out. But as noted above, I don't have my regular internet access, so call me, don't IM or email me.

btw

If anyone's going to the grocery store soon and wants company, let me know. Anyone around here, that is - I'm not overly concerned about when Marisa's next going to the store.

ta!

boo!

I want my camp back.

That is all.

After much ado*...

I finally have a unit assignment. Another summer student and I were both rather attached to the neonatal ICU/labor and delivery assignment, with strong second preference for critical care. After a week of talking back and forth, our supervisor finally told us today "Draw lots. It's biblical, at least." So I'll be spending the rest of my summer on trauma team - working in the ER and following trauma patients who move to surgical ICU. It's a good team - both Tripp and Ryan have had excellent experiences working on trauma team. It should also prepare me well for my on-call shifts, since they'll basically be more of the same.

Speaking of on-call shifts, however, I had one last night, which means I'm going on hour 37 with only a couple of short naps. So I'm going to give my full attention to the rest of Bedknobs and Broomsticks, and then head off to bed very, very early.

*edited to say: yeah, that used to say "adieu," but i realized that the only people who would get that don't usually read here. so i changed it.

speaking of collars...

got this from everyday-ryan:

You scored as Roman Catholic. You are Roman Catholic. Church tradition and ecclesial authority are hugely important, and the most important part of worship for you is mass. As the Mother of God, Mary is important in your theology, and as the communion of saints includes the living and the dead, you can also ask the saints to intercede for you. Roman Catholic 82% Evangelical Holiness/Wesleyan 79% Neo orthodox 68% Emergent/Postmodern 50% Classical Liberal 46% Reformed Evangelical 39% Modern Liberal 39% Charismatic/Pentecostal 36% Fundamentalist 25% What's your theological worldview? created with QuizFarm.com

Not the first time I've come up some kind of Catholic...

stranger and stranger...

I'm posting from the CPE computers at Lutheran. This means I'm posting in Internet Explorer, in windows that have their "close" buttons in the upper right corner. It keeps throwing me off.

The other thing that's weird today is that I ordered my first clergy shirt and collars. Up to last week, I've insisted that I don't really like the seminarian collar and therefore didn't plan on wearing one for CPE. In general, I still don't prefer it. Most people don't understand the black stripe, so it ends up signifying things I'm not really ready or permitted to signify yet, and often encourages clericalism. Last week, though, they handed us our dark blue lab coats (which is the chaplain's uniform here) and I realized that I really didn't like what that signified to me. Again, I don't object to what it's supposed to signify - that I'm a chaplain - but most people don't know the color system for lab coats. If someone walks into my hospital room wearing a lab coat, that signifies to me that they have power and I don't, and that they're there to make me do something and/or do something to me. As a chaplain, that's not what I'm aiming for. I realized when I got my coat that I'd much rather be wearing a collar to indicate that I'm a chaplain. At the hospital, nearly anything the collar signifies is actually true for me - while I'm not ordained and therefore cannot consecrate the Eucharist, I am the official pastoral presence and I am licensed to do emergency baptisms, anoint with pre-consecrated oils, and administer pre-consecrated Eucharist. Nine times out of ten here, it won't matter if people don't realize that I'm not ordained - and if it does matter, I can explain it. And when a family wants me to baptize their baby or help them call their son, I'm not going to be interested in lecturing about clericalism.

This is all by way of explaining to my readers and reminding myself why I'll soon be putting on my first clericals, and why that seems to be the right thing to do now. It's weird, and I'm not entirely comfortable with it yet, and there will still be times when I need to wear the lab coat (for instance, for easy recognition in the ER), but I'm going to try the collar sometimes. I've only ordered one clergy shirt - if the collar thing still seems right after I start trying it, maybe I'll look into getting a couple adjusted so I have more than one work shirt. If it doesn't, I'll take the electrical tape off the collar and put it all in a drawer for another couple of years.

I'll let you know what happens.

couple days late, but...

Raisin has just joined the world of blogging! She's our latest nut. Welcome, Raisin!

(Hmm... raisin... nut... we've got ourselves some gorp! Add in some M&Ms and Cheerios and we're all set!)

Just for Davies...

I'd like to take this moment to point out that I said I was too tired to tag people, not too tired to change my mind. (Cf. sentence 2 of the previous post.) Being tired increases my chances of changing my mind, in fact.

just wanted to be clear on that... ;)

more tag

Susie tagged me for this - like Susie and Jane, I reserve the right to change my mind at will. I'm too tired today to bother tagging others - tag yourselves.

Six favorite songs - I'm limiting this to one per artist:
The Wood Song - Indigo Girls
Radical - Catie Curtis
February - Dar Williams
In the Beginning - Children of Eden
For the Love of It All - Peter, Paul, & Mary
Lord of all hopefulness - Hymnal #482

Heather's Book List

Heather tagged me for this, and I have absolutely nothing more pressing to do tonight (which is lovely!), so here we go:

How Many Books Do You Own?* There are about 200 on my bookshelf here; there are about 40 more wandering this suite. At my parents' house, I'd guess there are another 150 on my childhood bookshelf, with another 30-40 on the floor near it; about 30 on the shelves by my desk in that room, with another 10-20 on the floor near them; about 10 more near or under my bed in that room; and several boxes in the attic, including about 50 Baby-Sitters' Club books, which probably adds another 100-150. So we total out here at... somewhere in the neighboorhood of 570-640 books. Oops, plus another box or two in the basement from college, which probably adds another 50 books... bringing us to 620-690 books, after just one year of seminary. Don't tell my mother.

What is the Last Book You Bought? Ummm... was probably Bede's Ecclesiastical History of the English People. I don't think I bought any non-school books this quarter.

What is the Last Book You Read? I just finished rereading Harry Potter und der Stein der Weisen. I'm also almost done with A Song to Sing, A Life to Live by Don and Emily Saliers.

Name five books that mean a lot to you.
I'm going to assume that the Bible and Book of Common Prayer don't count for an Episcopal seminarian.

Little Women - Louisa May Alcott
A Swiftly Tilting Planet - Madeleine L'Engle
Certain Women - Madeleine L'Engle
Iconostasis - Fr. Pavel Florensky
A Woman's Book of Life - Joan Borysenko


Now "tag" five individuals to provide their own lists. Umm... let's tag Debra, Ryan, Ryan, Mike, and Marisa.

*Extended footnote: Tripp has a list of books scholars thinks college students should read on his blog.** Trevor points out that this list is automatically flawed, in that it has no women authors listed on it. I looked at my shelf and realized that I couldn't see any books I felt were college student must-reads by women either, which made me sad. (The closest I come is A Wrinkle in Time, which I think all college students should already have read long before college actually comes around.) Then in counting, I realized that of my primary collection - the 200ish books on my shelf - 32 are by women. And that's counting six by Madeleine L'Engle and four or five others that are specifically about women. And Hope and I agreed that that's probably more than most seminarians have.
**Footnote to the extended footnote: I have read two of the top ten (the Bible and the Divine Comedy). I have read five of the twenty runners-up (Mere Christianity, the Iliad, Aeneid, Oedipus, Animal Farm).

First things first...

I'm wanting to talk about books right now, a la Heather and Tripp, but for inquiring minds: CPE is going well so far, I'm enjoying it much more so far than I expected, I have an interesting and I think pretty good small group, and I do not have a unit assignment or on-call schedule yet, though I do have a lab coat and name badge.

First day

Tonight, I laid out a freshly ironed blouse and slacks, along with the necessary accessories. Then I made myself a sandwich, washed myself some grapes, and tossed them in a paper bag with a granola bar. I packed a book, my calendar, a notebook, and my purse, and they're waiting on the futon. It's like the first day of school, except I haven't gotten this prepared for the first day of school in at least ten years, maybe fifteen. I feel like I should stand in front of the door of Hibbard tomorrow morning so my mother can take my picture.

Yes, tomorrow I start CPE. I'm a little nervous, a little resentful, and a little hopeful all at the same time. It should be an interesting first day - and hopefully an interesting and beneficial summer as well.

Summer!

Today, I went to the farmers' market, watched Saved! and Garden State with Andrew and Hope, cooked lunch, wrote my (very late) Ember Day letter, chatted online, and went to the store. Soon Andrew and I will make a lentil dish for dinner. I'm re-discovering how pleasant it is to be productive without doing any work. Monday I start a job of sorts, with regular adult hours and all that, which I haven't had to do in years. But today, I'm enjoying my summer vacation.

graduation? what graduation?

Today, Susie and Jane and Andrew and Dave and a bunch of other cool people did not graduate. Today, Jane also did not move out. It was lovely to see the rest of her clan, especially since she's only gone home for the weekend. It was also really really fun to hang out in AKMA and Frank's backyard coopting Frank's grill with some of the above seniors and some alums and spouses and children for a looong time, especially since it had nothing to do with half that crowd leaving in the next month.

Fiction? Perhaps, but it's the best I can do right now.

oh look! Mary!

The Archer notes that the Roman Catholic-Anglican document "Mary: Grace and Hope in Christ" is now available online here. I haven't read it yet, but now that my New Testament exam is done,* I plan to do so in short order. I like Mary much. I am excited to see what this commission has agreed about her. (For those who don't spend their time following the latest developments in mariology - this document is authoritative in neither the RC nor the Anglican churches. It's just for study and discussion.) Should I develop strong feelings about the document, you'll likely find out about it here.

*Which means that all my work is done for the term - all that's left to do is go sit in systematics class this afternoon. This also makes me happy.