Sunday, December 25, 2005

Happy Christmas!!!

Thursday, December 22, 2005

With apologies to the chartreuse buzzards:

Three. Semi. Narians.*
Three. Semi. Narians.
Three seminarians sitting in a Toyota.

Oh, look! One has returned!
Let us rejoice! Alleluia!

Two. Semi. Narians.*
Two. Semi. Narians.
Two seminarians sitting in a Toyota.

Oh, look! One has returned!
Let us rejoice! Alleluia!

One. Semi. Narian.
One. Semi. Narian.
One seminarian sitting in a Toyota.

Oh, look! One has returned!
Let us rejoice! Alleluia!

*Sort of, except Jane's graduated. But I couldn't think of a more accurate version that worked in the song.


(In other words, Jennifer, Jane, and I all made it safely to and from Hope's ordination.)

Tuesday, December 20, 2005

hurray for Christmas traditions!

You Are a Traditional Christmas Tree

For a good Christmas, you don't have to re-invent the wheel.
You already have traditions, foods, and special things you bring out every year.

Monday, December 19, 2005

Busy, busy, busy

Friday, the internet was down at Book and Bean. Today, there is a brand-new network. Hurray!

This weekend has been busy: the little brother came home for tree decorating, and our family went out for dinner Friday, all four of us. It's the most relaxed time we've had since I got home. The rest of the weekend was busy again, with trees to be decorated, Christmas parties to go to, grandmothers to be cared for, and presents to be bought and wrapped.

Tomorrow I head up to Jane's, so that we can head down to Hope's ordination Wednesday, and back to Jane's Thursday. So I'll be offline for a few days more, probably - hmm. Actually that seems unnecessary. Internet is more readily available at Jane's than it is here. Well, we'll see.

Today is most definitely Monday, and to prove it I met with my rector for lunch and will interview with my vestry for candidacy endorsement at dinner. (I've been told that I am to feel free to eat, not to allow speaking to interfere with eating, etc., but my father tells me he's yet to see a vegetarian meal at vestry. So we'll see about that too.)

Anyway, despite today being Monday, here's last Friday's Friday Five, since I didn't have internet on Friday:

1) Have you ever gotten a really good kiss under the mistletoe? I don't think so, although my high school boyfriend and I did so many Christmas shows with our show choir that it's possible I just don't remember.


2) Do you know anyone who makes real eggnog, not the stuff from the carton? And if so, do you actually like it?


Yes, and yes! My great-grandmother always made her own cranberry eggnog at Christmas, and my mother and I make it now. It's delicious.

3) What's your favorite Christmas party album/CD ever?

Oh, there are so many... probably my long-term favorite is Nat King Cole's The Christmas Song. But I also loved my Rainbow Brite Christmas album (yes, I mean album, not cassette/CD), and I love the Julie Andrews CD my parents have, and then there's Bing Crosby, and the Robert Shaw Chorale, and....

4) Does your office/workplace have a party? Do the people there ever behave the way people in movies behave at office parties, which is to say, badly?


I have no office. Although, maybe I'll turn my new extra room into an office. But it's unlikely to hold parties. That's the common room's job. It's bigger, better decorated, and has more and better seating. Also it's closer to the "kitchenette" room. Since I currently have no office, though, there's nobody in it to behave badly. Sorry.

5) If you have to bring something to a party, what is it likely to be? Do people like it?

Wine. Or maybe napkins or soda, if it's not a wine kind of party. My kitchen is in the same dimension of potential reality as my office, which makes it terribly difficult to cook or bake things in it.

Thursday, December 15, 2005

A lengthy, rambling, discourse on piano fiddling

Hunh. That title makes it sound as though I've been doing something with a fiddle and a piano simultaneously. That title is misleading, I guess. I have no facility with the fiddle.

What I've really been doing is fiddling around on the piano. I prefer "fiddling around on" to "playing" because the latter implies that I can, in fact, play. Which is false. What I can do is read music and learn simple tunes, and fool around with things. I really like coming to my parents' and having a piano around (that I don't have to sneak into Seabury Lounge at unsettlingly late hours to use, and that Seymour doesn't have to hear me fiddle with). Yesterday, I decided it might be useful if I learned to play the "Lute Lullaby" that the Ladies of the Court sing for Ohio's Boar's Head, since my mother needs to learn the 2nd soprano part by Saturday for unit rehearsal. One of the things that makes it work for our volunteer, once-a-year, group is that it's fairly simple, so it wasn't too tough to learn - and it was really fun.

I keep forgetting how much I really like playing the piano when I actually sit down and do it. I'm still a little regretful that I didn't switch piano teachers earlier in life - instead, I quit after three years of lessons and got a new teacher after about six years off. I really loved my piano lessons with that second teacher, and I wonder if I would have stuck with them had I started with her. Piano lessons might have been the thing I missed most about going off to college, actually. I'm pretty sure I have more natural talent for piano than I do for singing or guitar, but I've never gotten to a level where I have any kind of useful skills in terms of playing for anyone but myself. Certainly piano is the only instrument I've ever tried where more effort and discipline produce remarkably improved effects, and it draws me in in a different way than either of the others.

At any rate, I've decided that piano lessons are near the top of the list of non-churchy things I'd like to do when I get a full-time church job, assuming I have access to a piano somehow. Don't worry - it's really a very short list, and I'm well aware that most of it just won't happen. Pretty much the list is dance classes, a second modern language (probably French), and piano lessons. Oh, and Girl Scouting. Ok, so not a terribly short list in terms of time consumption. But, like I said, I know most of it won't happen. Assuming I don't have to buy a piano to make lessons work, picking up piano lessons is more affordable than taking French (though a second modern language is certainly the most necessary of the three). Certainly starting piano lessons, which are generally not a group affair, is far less intimidating than getting back into dancing.

Anyway, enough rambling for now. I've spent almost all of the last 48 hours alone, and have just had a mocha - can you tell? I think I'd better go do something else with my caffeinated brain - maybe get ahead on some class reading or something equally, um, calming. Or I could always just go home and fiddle around on the piano some more.

Wednesday, December 14, 2005

Back to the grindstone, sort of

Well, in so far as my hometown's... thing.... is the grindstone, because it started life as a quarry town.* So I'm back to the land of the grindstone, but otherwise very much on break. Today my accomplishments have included going to Book and Bean to use the wireless (much, much faster and more satisfying than trying to read blogs and such on my parents' computer), returning a couple of library books for my mother, and looking at the questions I'm supposed to answer for my Seabury candidacy evaluation. Not answering any of them, mind you, just rereading them and sort of noting their existence. Now I'm off to the grocery store to pick up a few things - my parents have been home little enough recently that most of the food in the house is leftover sweets from their party this weekend, or frozen meat.


*What does one call that sort of a thing? It's not a mascot, quite, or a symbol or sign or anything like that. And it's more than just a nickname (The Grindstone City) because there are actual grindstones around and such. It's a... thing.

Sunday, December 11, 2005

hey, look!

Micah just pointed me to this very exciting article.

STOP DOING THAT!!!

Roger, Gill, JD, and Caroline seem to think that they needed to leave Seabury just now. (Ok, to be fair, I don't think JD was really in the loop on this.) I disagree.

People should stop leaving.

Another one

Androgynous
You scored 60 masculinity and 53 femininity!
You scored high on both masculinity and femininity. You have a strong personality exhibiting characteristics of both traditional sex roles.



My test tracked 2 variables How you compared to other people your age and gender:
free online datingfree online dating
You scored higher than 39% on masculinity
free online datingfree online dating
You scored higher than 33% on femininity
Link: The Bem Sex Role Inventory Test written by weirdscience on Ok Cupid, home of the 32-Type Dating Test


More and more evidence that my ex was right about me (eek!)

Saturday, December 10, 2005

A solution!

Brooke, in his comment on my last library post, has kindly demonstrated for us all why I refuse to use the Library of Congress system. I hope never to use a library system for my own books - Nielsen Library ruined me on that forever.

Susie, however, reminded me that my other thought had been to have ethics near cultural studies. So my new system will run:

~Reference
~OT, Bible, NT, Biblical Theology
~Theology
~Ethics
~Cultural Studies
~Missiology
~Leadership
~Pastoral Care
~Spiritual Biography
~Funky interfaith/generally spiritual stuff
~Books of prayers and liturgies that aren't officially licensed by ECUSA
~Liturgy/liturgical theology
~Various and sundry other, beginning with ancient languages of the sort used by the early Christian liturgists.

Methinks this will also make it easier to work in preaching - I imagine it will eventually go somewhere between ethics and spiritual biography.

Wednesday, December 07, 2005

That is so true.

bamboo
You are bamboo.
Warm, cozy, and thoughtful, you take your time and
enjoy how things feel, smell, and taste. You
love the craft and beauty of traditional
things, and you value the comfort and
experience of knitting as much as the results.
But while you are reveling in your warm cozies,
don't get stuck. Warm is wonderful, but so is
the whole wide world!


What kind of knitting needles are you?
brought to you by Quizilla

Booklovers! Librarians!

Currently, my bookshelf looks as follows:
Top shelf: reference - Bibles, dictionaries, concordance, official prayer books, etc.

After that: OT, general Bible, NT, biblical theology, church history (chronologically), historical theology, theology, liturgical theology, liturgics, prayers, interfaith prayers, biography/autobiographical theological stuffs, Jung's autobiography, religion as academic curiosity, religion/sociology, women's studies, sexuality, race studies, Gospel Mission, pastoral care, other nonfiction.

In the bedroom: fiction, personal devotional stuff, periodicals, journals.

There is no ethics section in that schema, nor is there leadership (though I think I had leadership after pastoral care at one point, which I could live with). I now have ethics books (and leadership books). Oh, and preaching, but that stays on the "current quarter" shelf for a while because we're using those books all year.

The question: where should ethics go? It doesn't make sense to put it with my one other ethics book between pastoral care and other. Do I put it between theology and liturgy, because it really flows best from theology? Then there's a disconnect between ethics and liturgy. Do I move theology, and run "biblical theology, theology, ethics, history, liturgy"? Then I lose the great chronological flow from New Testament into early church history, and the great connection of "theology, liturgical theology, liturgy." Does ethics belong between personal testimony/biography and cultural studies? Then where does "religion as academic curiosity/sociology" go?

I know this is a subject dear to the hearts of many readers. (Ok, a large percentage of readers - I'm not sure I really have "many" readers to begin with.) What would you do? I value greatly having my subjects flow into one another, and would be sad to have to adopt strict library-style separations. On the other hand, the more books I get and the more specific they become, the harder the flow becomes in some places.

Tuesday, December 06, 2005

five books meme

Take the first 5 novels from your bookshelf... then do the following:

1. Book 1 - take first sentence
2. Book 2 - the fifth sentence on page 57 (see note on 5)
3. Book 3 - second sentence on page 100
4. Book 4 - next to last sentence on page 150
5. Book 5 - Final sentence of the book. (how is this different from what I did with book 2? I'm changing number 2.)

Make the five sentences into a paragraph. Feel free to cheat and make it a better paragraph. Name the sources and then post.

There is a lovely road that runs from Ixopo into the hills. There is something to be learned here, and we have to find out what. Worauf der Hund sich hinlegte und sich willig von Sofie streicheln liess. Meg had a quiet rapture, and then brooded over the letter, while Jo set the sick-room in order, and Hannah "knocked up a couple of pies in case of company unexpected." Es sah ganz danach aus, als sollte dieser Sommer viel besser werden als der letzte.

1. Cry the Beloved Country
2. A Swiftly Tilting Planet
3. Sofies Welt
4. Little Women
5. Harry Potter und der Gefangene von Askaban

As penance for the fact that half my novels here aren't in English, and because I like books, here's the nonfiction version:

Geb the earth commanded the Ennead to assemble. He made many promises, which are repeated in the following chapters. And yet, ultimately, our underwater, intuitive selves are never really incompatible with the above-water, intellectual part of our wholeness. The Bible, I say, the Bible only, is the religion of Protestants. I knew the dust would stay.

1. Old Testament Parallels (ed. Matthews and Benjamin)
2. Paul (E.P. Sanders)
3. Walking on Water (L'Engle)
4. Reformation Thought (McGrath)
5. The Shared Heart (ed. Mastoon)

Monday, December 05, 2005

Public Service Announcement

In case any of you have the memory problems of, well, a Campus Cook, may I remind you all:

SQUASH IS NOT AN ENTREE.

Also, chicken is not vegetarian. Neither is fish. And instant mashed potatoes plus mixed sauteed (boiled?) squash with a little tomato does not equal a balanced, satisfying, tasty, or otherwise positive dining experience. Nor does putting black beans in the salad bar to go with my macaroni and cheese at lunch count as feeding me for the day. Be less creative with the veggie alternatives at lunch (I don't really need macaroni and cheese with navy beans and asparagus in it as a lunch alternative to macaroni and cheese and salad bar) and feed me balanced dinners instead. It would be great if dinner didn't leave me hungry again three hours later, for instance. I can eat rice and beans every other day if I need to. Pasta dishes every Thursday will do. Rotate through your other ten real vegetarian meals on Tuesday nights and we've got a menu. But stop feeding me vegetable of the day with starch and calling it a meal.

Brought to you by the letter D and the number 5.

Sunday, December 04, 2005

Saturday, December 03, 2005

and I thought the GOEs were scary

I just caught that Katherine Watson's first exam in Mona Lisa Smile requires a 1500 word essay, on the fly, in 40 minutes.

Yeah... I'll take 6 pages in 3.5 hours, thanks.

erm, help?

There's something I'm missing here.

The Montreal talks follow on from the Kyoto Protocol, which was signed in 1997 and called for 30% cuts by 2020.

Mr Meacher earlier told BBC Radio 4's Today programme further reductions in greenhouse gas emissions - widely thought to contribute to rising temperatures - are vital.

"We need now to aim for more. That is what climate change is telling us. We need to say minus 25% by 2025."


Does he mean minus 25% again, after the 30%? Or is there some reason that in this particular calculation, the numbers run the opposite direction of what I expect? Mr Meacher seems a capable enough man to know that 25 is less than 30, so I don't honestly think he's got it wrong - I just don't understand how that works.

Ye great numbers of environmental statisticians among my readership, what does this mean?

Gospel Birthday Meme

Via Cheesehead:

Matthew 10:6: "but go rather to the lost sheep of the house of Israel."

Mark 10:6: "But from the beginning of creation, “God made them male and female.”"

Luke 10:6: "And if anyone is there who shares in peace, your peace will rest on that person; but if not, it will return to you."

John 10:6: "Jesus used this figure of speech with them, but they did not understand what he was saying to them."


Well, the first three were fairly comfortable, anyway....

Thursday, December 01, 2005

holy...

I so was not expecting RENT to be that good (even with my aunt's recomendation). I'm amazed.

And I haven't cried that hard in a long time. (Also hadn't realized it had been that long since I'd seen the stage version.)

Shower and bed now... but WOW.

from Cecily

A. Put your music playlist on random.
B. Post the first line of the first 20 songs that start to play (along with these instructions).
C. Have your friends try to guess the title & artist for each lyric in the comments
D. No googling!

1. Si got this. It's Hammer and a Nail, Indigo Girls.
2. Scapulis suis obumbrabit tibi Dominus et sub pennis ejus sperabis
3. Si got this, too. Power of Two, Indigo Girls.
4. Si more or less got this. The actual title is Jacob in Egypt, from Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat.
5. There they gathered, in the meadow, in the meadow two by two (Close, Rory, but try again.)
6. Some folks are born made to wave the flag
7. Slappin' leather was devised during a wild streak in her life
[skipping Jesu, Joy of Man's Desiring, since it's hard to post the first line of an orchestral piece]
8. We get to be a ripple in the water
9. Rory got this (eventually ;) .) It's Champagne Supernova, by Oasis.
10. It was in the March of the winter I turned 17
11. Rory got this. The Flood, from Children of Eden
12. Rory got this, which is only right. It's What You Wish For, by Guster.
[skipping Come, Risen Lord, because it's no fun if the title is de facto the first line]
13. Am I the kind of brother who would leave you standing on this lonesome railroad track?
14. All the corners filled with sorrow, all the streets are filled with pain
[skipping When I Survey the Wondrous Cross, for the same reason as Come, Risen Lord]
15. Living under June, living under her
16. At last, my love has come along
17. Let the phone ring, let's go back to sleep
18. Rory got this. It's Father of Mine, by Everclear.
19. I'm blazing a trail that leads to vice
20. The boy, he thinks I'm damaged goods