To kill a rat...

No, I haven't fallen off the edge of the world.

The other recent drama at my house (outside of my brother's marriage) has been our rat, Solu. Ok, technically she is my mom's rat...but still...She had this tumor on her stomach for a couple of months and this past week it reached the point where it doubled her size. The best thing for it is to put her (and my mom) out of her misery so it's been a lot like Throw Mama from the Train around here. My mom even tried to give her an overdose of codene (we just happened to have some lying around) but she wouldn't down any more than would give her a buzz. Somebody suggested sticking her in the freezer, but the idea was dismissed because it would take to long and was downright cold.

It's a sad, sad thing when you get to the point where you are hoping to find a pet dead...

My dad took care of things yesterday.

This is the second time we've wished for one of our pets to die (the other was a hamster that was a good 5 or 6 years old). I think there is something wrong with my family.

Casualties of War

It seems that my brother's wife has had some sort of a breakdown. They've been married for just over a year now and much of that time has been spent apart. Him being in Iraq has pushed her just a little too far. From what he tells us, she has told her father that she is moving to Richmond (from Louisiana) to go to school, that his whole life is a lie--he isn't really a pilot and he really isn't in Iraq and has been having an affair.

So now we are worried about her because she needs counseling. My brother is having to go through another crumbling marriage...the difference being now he knows that God is the only one who can hold the pieces together.

Anyway, my brother isn't scheduled to be back until July or October and chances are he can't get emergency leave for this. Needless to say, they can use all the prayer they can get.

Today's Quote

Edgar Hewett writing on archaeological finds in his book Ancient Andean Life:

Fragments of pottery, basketry, fabrics, wearing apparel, bits of modeling, faded touches of color, record the age-long striving after perfection. Shattered temples, shrines, sanctuaries, holy places, reveal the yearning of the human spirit to find, to unite with, the Divine. By way of ritual, rhythm, song, and symbol, man approaches the deific presence.

And from the beverage world...

So I've mentioned before that I like Cheerwine. I must have a thing for weird beverages because my favorite brand has to be Jones Soda. They have some really awesome flavors, and the best cream soda I've ever had...

One of the cool things about the brand is they use random pictures on their labels. And they have fun sayings under the cap. This weekend's Green Apple soda came with this advice:

Get excited over nothing.

Indeed I shall.

...

I think today was the first time I've ever had a problem with something my pastor has said in service.

I actually agree with what he said: that most people who claim to be anti-war are really just anti-Bush; that we are called to pray for our leaders whether we agree with them or not. I share the same opinion as he does on the war, the president, our armed forces...I'm proudly patriotic. I just feel he could have found a more appropriate forum for expression than from behind the pulpit.

Call me crazy, but when I go to church it's to hear the Word, not a patriotic pep talk.

Up to Something

Just what have I been up to the past week and a half? Nothing. Absolutely nothing. And it is wonderful. I've watched a few movies. Secondhand Lions was pretty good. Last night I watched the 1967 classic The X from Outer Space about a giant, radioactive space-chicken named Guilala that is feeding off Japan's power supplies and can only be stopped using Guilanium. This movie has got to be next in line for the Mystery Science Theater series; definitely a so-bad-it's-good movie that leaves you with aching abdominals. I think the best part about it is the thought that it wasn't made to be funny. (And in searching for a site on the movie, I found quite a bit of paraphernalia. I can't decide which is cooler: the spaceship or the poster.)

I've been helping my mom some with her work. Filed some papers for her, I'm getting better and better at deciphering her students' writing. I'm finally able to read on a 1st grade level, and darn proud of it. I've baked some for a couple of activities they've had at her school. I even helped her tie-dye shirts for all her students (for Field Day), which was a mess. That dye gets everywhere and -- while a good scrubbing managed to get it off my hands, arms, and ankles -- it has done a smashing job at staining my fingernails. It wouldn't be so bad if they were all the same color, right now they are an assortment of purple, green, blue, and red...

In other excitement, my order from NavPress finally came in. So now I have my Topical Memory System and have been working on that. 60 verses by September? I can do that. I think. I also ordered some studies by Fran Sciacca. I've started To Serve with all Your Strength and predict that more will be said on that when I've gone further in the study.

Yes, this post has been a rambling of what I have/haven't been doing, but I'm allowed to ramble...it's in my template. I do, surprisingly, have plans for today. Every time I come home I have to re-organize the pantry. So that's what I'll be doing. Cleaning. All.day.

Yip-ta-hootie.

Si tuviera un millon de dolares...

When we learned the conditional tense in Spanish, one of the things my teacher used to get us in the right mindset was this song called "If I had a Million Dollars," which we then proceeded to translate into Spanish. (Yes, I had an awesome teacher.)

It is funny that we think about what we would do if we suddenly had a good deal of money. Especially since few people consider the opposite, and think about what to do if we lost a good deal of money....

Ok, I'm done with my serious bit. What I'm really writing about is cars.

Everybody in my family has their eye on a certain vehicle. My dad has been in love with the Audi A6, my mom has been on a Harley kick for a while...I, however have been a little more "practical."

I've fallen in love with Subaru, particularly the Forester. I've noticed, however, that Newport News is not really a hotbed of Subaru activity. There are lots of them in Blacksburg...I think I'm going through withdrawl. I mean, I don't even know if there's a Subaru dealer around here, let alone where it may be. Not that I'd be getting one anytime soon.

Sometimes I feel like I haven't really learned anything, I've just been memorizing the right answers.

Filing things away

I've gotten a start on cleaning and organizing and was going through some old schoolwork when I happened upon my old English papers. I found this in one of my papers:

I believe that the works that I hold closest to me are those that frightened and disturbed me: those that snuck into the far corners of my mind and started to pick away until the whole of my thought caved in to a mountain of self study and assorted psychological ponderings. Each one, at least initially, scared me because of how much of myself I found in the pages.

At this time I was writing about Chekhov's The Cherry Orchard, Joyce's A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man, and Shakespeare's King Lear, but I've come to notice more and more how very true that is-- not only with literature, but movies and music as well. Maybe it's that they manage to put into words what I have been longing to, maybe it's that they can break through the layers that I can pile on, maybe I just like the challenge of facing them.

of cabbages and kings

And for more randomness: this site gives you a random poem each time you click.

My first try gave me "The Walrus and The Carpenter." Calloo-callay.

Link via TSO.

Quick update.

I came down with a bad case of finals the past couple of weeks.
I'm feeling much better now, so posting will resume once I'm fully recuperated.

In other news, I got accepted to the internship I applied for. I'll be working at Frederick Douglass Christian School in Chester, PA, the same place I was over break. Now the fundraising begins, I'm going to need at least $600.

Well lookee here:

You are a GRAMMAR GOD!


If your mission in life is not already to
preserve the English tongue, it should be.
Congratulations and thank you!


How grammatically sound are you?
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So how many Nav guys does it take to deconstruct a wooden loft?
Three, and considering they only had two wrenches and a hammer to work with, they did an amazing job. Of course, now the room looks completely different. I don't have my little alcove anymore and all of my posters are down...sigh.

It's ok, this is just the next step in moving out. I only have to live like this for nine more days and then home again, home again, jiggity-jig. Home to my kitchen, my puppy-dog, my library... I have big plans. (Although, hopefully, I'll only be home for a little over a month.) Gardening, organizing...and, of course, glorious nothingness...

ATTN: Listeners

The following program is not to be listened to.

It was a cattle ship so I disguised myself as a steer and rode in steerage.

I have a new favorite radio show.
Too bad they stopped recording in 1960. I'll just have to get along on reruns.

The Crave Factor(TM)

Woohoo! I had my final lab practical in Wildlife Field Biology today. Salamanders are evil. Cara is awesome (thanks so much for the last minute cram session). Anyway, I did way better than I expected (God is good like that) and managed to find myself some Cheerwine in celebration.

I even did well on the birdcalls. This is only because I actually got a chance to review them yesterday during APEX rehearsal. Why was I practicing birdcalls at praise band rehearsal? How much could they possibly have in common? A lot, actually. Or at least the way we play things. This weekend, instead of the night of worship (where we rock) that APEX is usually responsible for, we'll be leading Sunday services for a change. At nlcf there is usually a "special song" during offering time, this week we are doing Tom Petty's "Learning to Fly" mixed with some of SNL's "cowbell" skit and--you guessed it--birdcalls. This should be all sorts of fun.

I'm really going to miss being in the band next year. While I haven't decided for certain, I don't think I'll be rejoining them next semester. I think I'll be finding another church to attend and, therefore, will need to step down from the team.

nlcf is a good ministry, they are certainly passionate, compassionate, and eager to see campus reached for God's glory...Their ministry style is just not what I'm craving.

Sometimes, in striving to keep things fresh and new, we become so focused doing things differently that we avoid anything resembling tradition at all costs. We are terrified to do things the way they've been done before. Sometimes, in trying to be different and interesting, we push things so far that we push away from their meaning, we shuffle things around and rearrange so much that we forget what the original picture looked like and why we wanted to look at it in the first place.

Easter Sunday was an interesting experience. Instead of a sermon, there were various testimonies interspersed with "mini-talks" each on a different theme. In the midst of it all there was "theme communion." There were different communion tables set up, each one corresponding to a different theme: Old to New, Despair to Hope, Sorrow to Joy, Sin to Forgiveness, and the like. We were encouraged to go to whichever table most resembled what God's grace means to us.

When did we start using themes in worship? Isn't praising the Almighty focus enough?
Why does every sermon need a catchy title? Isn't the Word catchy enough?
We are called to be do-ers, not designers.

I don't mean that themes can't help to focus or unify. They can work wonderfully. It is, however, incredibly easy to go too far. My (future) roommate and I want to have rubber duckies in our bathroom, which is going to be fun. But go too far, with ducky shower curtain, ducky towels, ducky bathmat, ducky soap dispenser, ducky toothbrush holder, ducky toilet cover, ducky light switch--and all the other ducky stuff they sell--and I'm going to have to borrow somebody's shotgun and get to huntin' me some ducks.

What if we were to go back to some of those traditional things we've been running away from? Or what if we were to ditch the cutesy and get back to the heart of it all? What if we were to turn away from the fluff and finesse and seek instead plain, beautiful honesty? We demand nothing less than Truth, what if we refuse to accept anything more?

Grass can sure start a nice blaze, but it's the solid wood that is going to keep the fire burning.

Intermission

I know, I've been slacking all month. Final stretch of the semester is here so it's not going to be getting any better. Oh the guilt. Things may be on hold for a while. But I've at least provided some good music (not that mood stuff that my dentist plays).

Friends say the darndest things.

"Hangin' out with the puddle."

Just call me Erika's stalker.

He didn't say it would be easy, He just said it would be worth it.

There's the type that have something to say
and the type that have to say something.

Forbid I should forget.

It's the Bard's birthday. I can't believe I almost missed it (although, his exact birthday isn't known for certain so I probably could have gotten away with it). So the closing lines from my favorite of his plays:

The weight of this sad time we must obey,
Speak what we feel, not what we ought to say,
The oldest have borne most, We that are young
Shall never see so much, nor live so long.

-William Shakespeare; The History of King Lear

and the livin' is easy

Summer tastes like lemonade and strawberries;
smells like fresh-cut grass and the desert after a thunderstorm....

Only 2 more months until it's officially here.

For now, I've got a softball game to get to.

UPDATE: We won this game, too, 9-8. Go NAVs!

Since it's still April and Keats is my favorite:

Give me a golden pen, and let me lean
On heap'd-up flowers, in regions clear, and far;
Bring me a tablet whiter than a star,
Or hand of hymning angel, when 'tis seen
The silver strings of heavenly harp atween:
And let there glide by many a pearly car,
Pink robes, and wavy hair, and diamond jar,
And half-discover'd wings, and glances keen.
The while let music wander round my ears,
And as it reaches each delicious ending,
Let me write down a line of glorious tone,
And full of many wonders of the spheres:
For what a height my spirit is contending!
'Tis not content so soon to be alone.

-John Keats, On leaving some Friends at an Early Hour