Tuesday, December 31, 2002

happy new year's eve, all! safe partying and travelling, now...no drinking and driving, please.

i have to go to church now. then it's party time for me too! woohoo! :-)

"2003--bring it on!"
--i forgot who said this but it was one of my friends, about two days (or three? four?) ago.
what is our educational system coming to?

oops...letters to "satan" instead of "santa" = dire consequences.
hehehe. very amusing. highly recommended. :-)

i'm supposed to be writing prayers for the worship service i am helping to lead tomorrow night. i haven't done that yet. i probably should--but not right now. i'm sure i have email to write or something.

happy new year's eve eve. or whatever we would call that.

since we have Christmas Eve, and New Year's Eve, what about Valentine's Eve? no, I take it back, that's just more time for depression surrounding that particular Hallmark Holiday. Let's see....Labor Day Eve? Martin Luther King Jr. Day Eve? what about personal holidays...birthdays, anniversaries...we really should get the Eve of those days off as holiday, don't you think?

I think so. that would add up to roughly 10 extra days of holiday a year, I think! and if you're catholic, do you get holiday for saint's days? if so, what about the eve of important saints, like the patron saint of your parish or your profession or your nationality or your deadly disease or your favorite actor? I suppose, though, then you would have about 635 days of holiday a year, since some saint's days overlap. hmm. that could cause some economical problems i suppose. ah, well, that's what your community is for, right?

hmm. we should look into this.

on a total tangent: in chicago today it was 55 degrees. what is that? i loved it, of course, but am completely shocked! tomorrow, probably 12. yippee.

Monday, December 30, 2002

good morning.

afternoon, you say?

whatever.

good morning.
exciting news!

a young lady from the junior high youth group, whom i mentored last year and had a lot of discussion and fun times with, was baptized tonight at the evening service at church! We had talked a lot about it and she really wanted it, and one of my tasks last year was to teach her about it, etc. so imagine my excitement to be able to actually be here when it happened! yay! we went out for ice cream afterwards too. woohoo! it is so exciting to see this young disciple officially become part of the Christian family. :-) yay!

so anyway, i am now embarking on a week of doing "nothing". Except for writing prayers for the New Years Eve service, making new bulletins for Taize, visiting people, etc....reading ten books for my january term class....yes..."nothing". hehe!

need new year's resolution ideas?
I suggest volunteering at a homeless shelter, soup kitchen, or food bank. there are ever increasing numbers of needy people, especially with the economy being less than ideal...more people are finding themselves in hard times than they have in a very long time, and these places are in desperate need of volunteers! if you want an idea for giving something other than time, donate to these places. shelters usually need toiletries, particularly in travel or sample sizes--you know, soap, shampoo, men's razors, etc. food items are almost always welcomed at food banks and soup kitchens.
enjoy....you'll make someone's day.

Saturday, December 28, 2002

i love chicago.
but...it's cold.
i love it anyway.

Thursday, December 26, 2002

Christmas was good.
Much Trading Spaces was watched.
today we go to the other grandma's house for Christmas number 3. yippee.
tomorrow i go to chicago! yay!!!
happy .. umm ... boxing day! woohoo!
safe travelling all, and enjoy your presents and your leftovers!
ttfn

Wednesday, December 25, 2002

Happy Christmas, y'all!
i'm back at mom and dad's house. good times in the car, at grandma's house, at the Lord of the Rings (which was long--i had to go to the restroom, and i looked at my watch twice. the first time there were still nearly two hours to go. oy.) anyway, lots of sitting down. i have managed to learn some new hebrew vocab though. yippee!

so anyway, it's christmas eve. i hope you are all having a great celebration of the Incarnation. it's time to welcome the birth of a new world again! may it be a lovely christmas celebration, with true understanding of what has happened to us. peace be with you all.

Sunday, December 22, 2002

Over the river and through the woods, to grandmother's house we go...

literally.
tomorrow morning we are driving the five (+) hours to grandma's house. We are coming back on Tuesday. the route involves a river, a mountain, some woods...some very fun hills that my bro and i used to refer to as the "rollercoaster hills" because mom would go really fast down and then coast through the upturn, so you felt like you were on that first down-up of a roller coaster....there's even a covered bridge on the way to grandma's house. isn't this exciting?

I sense approximately 5 hours of hebrew vocabulary studying ahead........perhaps i am becoming a fortune teller instead of a minister?

see y'all later. perhaps not until after the grandmother's christmas (before christmas) adventure. perhaps in the middle of it. we'll see.

if you get stuck for christmas craft ideas, you obviously have too much time on your hands. if you are so inclined, go shopping, or start wrapping. otherwise, i recommend the first chapter of Matthew and the first two chapters of Luke (both found near the beginning of the New Testament section of your pew Bible, probably stolen from your local congregation when you were roughly age 10...now potentially located on a bottom shelf of your bookshelf....look harder....), if you wish to acquaint yourself with the purpose of this holiday. Failing all of that, just do a google search for "christmas craft ideas" and see what you find. have fun. happy weekend!
the nutcracker was very good. i am tired, and trading spaces is on now. i have to go watch it. after all, i am working on redecorating a room. ta.
christmas craft of the day
palm crosses.
oh wait, that's for palm sunday, a good three months (+) from now.
the real craft of the day is:
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
papier mache ornaments.
blow up balloons just a little. to roughly ornament size, basically.
papier mache the outside. let dry.
pop balloon (with a pin or something).
paint the outside.
poke a hole big enough for a paper clip in the top.
unfold a paper clip into a C shape.
stick one end into ball. seal hole with glue. let dry.
hang.

merry christmas!

useful latin phrase of the day
quantum materiae materietur marmota monax si marmota monax materiam possit materiari?

"how much wood would a woodchuck chuck if a woodchuck could chuck wood?"

Saturday, December 21, 2002

useful Latin phrase of the day:

catapultam habeo. nisi pecuniam omnem mihi dabis, ad caput tuum saxum immane mittam.

what does this mean, you ask? well, I just happen to be about to translate for you. ready?

"i have a catapult. give me all the money, or i will fling an enormous rock at your head."

right in the christmas spirit, eh? check back later (or tomorrow) for another useful latin phrase--perhaps something jolly or merry, suitable for framing...or for christmas decorations or gifts. hehehe!

Friday, December 20, 2002

clever christmas craft idea of the day:
photo cards.
take your fave pictures of someone.
make a collage, or just paste one or two photos on a card.
decorate the edges with holly, misteltoe, poinsettas...(drawn in markers, of course).
write a christmas message inside.
personalize with a lovely note just for the person.
decorate an envelope--especially with stars, greenery, candles, etc. (again with markers...duh)
send as a christmas card!

today i threw stuff away. lots of it.
i also dug out a box from deep in one of the closets in my parent's basement. it is full of pictures from when my mom was younger--in college, mostly. pics from when she travelled in europe, from her camp fire days, from all kinds of stuff. it is very cool--as it should be, given the sheer amount of work it took to get the dumb box out of the closet. it was in the very back corner, on the very bottom---thus necessitating the moving about approximately 10 boxes and one piece of furniture in order to dig it out. it was worth it. and when mom sees what i'm going to do with some of this stuff, it will be worth it to her too. granted, she doesn't think that now because my bro and i are engaged in making fun of fashion from the 70's. hehehe. it really was bad, wasn't it--oy.

so anyway, happy thursday night to all. i am going to sleep. :-)

Thursday, December 19, 2002

happy travelling, for all of you that are doing that this week/weekend.
happy shopping, for all of you who still have that to do.
happy nutcracker viewing, for those of you who, like me, will be seeing the Nutcracker this season.
Oh yeah, did I mention that I got Nutcracker tickets for Saturday at the Pacific Northwest Ballet?
i did.
very exciting.
ta.
hehehehehehehe!!!!!
just for matt

Whatever.

Wednesday, December 18, 2002

24 was really good today.
the world according to garp is a good book.
i'm going to bed.

Tuesday, December 17, 2002

i have successfully arrived at home-home. a nearly tearful goodbye, over 11 hours of travelling, 3/4 of a book, a stop at krispy kreme, a slightly snowy/slushy mountain pass, and some funtime later, i am here. i slept until noon today. yay!

i know i've been slacking a little on the christmas craft ideas--packing, travelling, etc--so today there will be two. are you ready for this?

first
bread ornaments.
make a non-yeast-bread dough.
shape it into christmas shapes.
decorate.
bake.
thread string or nylon thread.
hang.

can also be done with cookie dough i think, but don't expect that to last as long.

second
light catchers/window decorations.
things you need: plastic wrap, markers.
spread the plastic wrap on some white paper (you might need to tape it to the back of the paper or something so it is quite taut and won't move around).
draw/color holiday scenes or designs on the plastic wrap with markers. be careful not to touch after you've drawn, or you will have marker all over your skin.
when the picture is done, put another piece of plastic wrap on top. take off the white paper. secure the two pieces of plastic wrap together.
hang in a window or near other light source.
enjoy the pretty light design.

have fun, people! :-)

Saturday, December 14, 2002

Ok people, it is now only 11 days until christmas. so, from now until christmas (or until i run out of ideas) i'll be posting craft ideas. Christmas tree ornaments, decorations, food ideas, cards, gifts...you name it. One per day (unless I think of more...but then you can be sure that i'll run out!).

the first of many brilliant christmas craft ideas.
kid friendly!
Painted Lightbulb Christmas Tree Ornament:
get a lightbulb. (any shape will do)
get acrylic paint.
paint whatever you want on the bulb. let it dry. (a good way to do that is to get a box, cut a hole in it the size of the bottom of the bulb, and to stick the bulb in so it stands up and the paint won't rub off on anything!)
(this is the grown-up part): wrap wire around the bottom of the bulb (where it would go in the socket) and make a big loop (so you can hang it up on the tree!). secure somehow (twisting should work).
hang on your tree!

have fun, people! :-)
heheheheh

anatomically correct reindeer in Christmas displays. Who thinks this is a good idea?
especially when the anatomically correct parts look like shiny christmas ornaments?
can you imagine giving a child an anatomically correct stuffed reindeer?
would you give them an anatomically correct doll?
would you put an anatomically correct human in a christmas display at a shopping mall?
is that a double standard? to put anatomically correct animals but not humans? i mean, if we wouldn't put a human, why an animal? is it any less "indecent"? is it indecent at all, or are we just perpetuating prudery? where are the sociologists and psychologists on the subject of potential indecency as it relates to anatomically correct animals in mall displays?
remember in The Little Mermaid, the big controversy about the priest who is doing the wedding between prince-what's-his-name and the ursula-as-evil-woman, and how there's a frame where he has an erection? there was lots of uproar about all the subconscious sex references in disney movies (the lion king has the word sex in the dust in one scene, but only if you literally watch frame-by-frame...oy). first of all, who sits around and looks for that stuff? but besides that, is the priest with an erection in the presence of multiple beautiful women any different than an anatomically correct reindeer? Would it have been better if the anatomically correct priest had christmas ornaments for balls?
hmm. that would have been very funny, actually. :-)

read the story. :-)

Friday, December 13, 2002

it's all over. yay.
i went out last night, slept in this morning, am going dancing tonight, will probably sleep in tomorrow morning....tomorrow evening a friend of mine is proposing to his girlfriend and i am helping get the chapel all decorated and ready...it's going to be so pretty! :-) home home (yakima) on monday. good times.

happy friday, everyone.

Thursday, December 12, 2002

One more exam down, one more to go. One hour to prep.
bye.

Wednesday, December 11, 2002

Happy birthday to you,
happy birthday to you,
happy birthday dear Dad,
happy birthday to you.


i have a cold. i hate that. who knew that one nose could produce so much...something...? ugh. I have used an ENTIRE box of tissues today. that can't be good. especially since I don't have any more at home. I will have to borrow another box from Miranda in order to survive the night. can you believe i have to take two final exams tomorrow?

back to the books...

What do these people have in common? and where are they from? and why do we care?

Schleirmacher
Barth
Moltmann
Niebuhr
Westminster Divines
Edwards
Rogers
anyone else who's ever written a completely unintelligible theological work that they would care to infest seminaries with, frustrating students and ensuring that they will never be quoted in a sermon ever.

it's finals. can you tell?

Tuesday, December 10, 2002

yesterday was Miranda's birthday. happy birthday!
we had a great time, surprising her with all the places we went. We had dinner at a mexican restaurant (her fave type o' food). We came home and made ourselves all cute and then took her to the Sun Dial, which is essentially the Signature Room of Atlanta. It's at the top of the tallest building in the city, on the 73rd floor or so. It's very trendy, very cool, the outer edge of the lounge rotates around the inner portion--so in the just-over-three hours we were there we circled the entire place three times. :-) We had champagne and strawberries, and we generally hung out. It was great fun! :-) I recommend it.

what I don't recommend is getting colds. I feel on the verge of one and I hate that. My throat is a little icky and i spent much of last night sneezing/blowing my nose. where's my echinacea?

i love that stuff.

i have to study now. not much of that has been getting done. grr.

Monday, December 09, 2002

One exam down, about half of a take home done, and two in class exams to study for.

it's going to be a long week, people.

at least it isn't feezing outside. yesterday: high temperature in chicago was the low temperature here. that's why i moved here, after all! :-)

I assume you've all heard that united airlines filed for bankruptcy...that's bad. i fly united more than any other airline, and all my flights between now and february are on united. i need those frequent flier miles! oy.
maybe if they advertised less. or gave up the rhapsody in blue--that's some royalties right there, right? see! i saved them money! woohoo! (ha!)

time to get back to the hebrew. yay.

Sunday, December 08, 2002

ooh...exciting news from the DePaul music school.
The new clarinet teacher they hired for this year has been fired.
After one quarter.
He was apparently a really bad teacher....so the students ran a bit of a mutiny, and he's been fired.
nice work, guys! keep up the DePaul reputation so our degrees are worth something! many sincere thanks.
right...
so i still haven't written the exam. i haven't even opened it yet. yes, i'm still procrastinating.
I think I'll do my Reformed outline, and save OT for tomorrow.
yes, tomorrow....
i'm even going to church tomorrow. i'm such a good girl. yes, yes, good girl! :-) because you know, down here in the south that's what you do on sunday, and if you don't you might as well be a leper or something. especially if you are a seminarian.
so, as a good seminarian, i am going to outline my reformed theology reading so i can go to church tomorrow and write my OT exam and start on the hebrew translation. yay.

Saturday, December 07, 2002

good party.
bad headache.
good drugs (Orudis KT).
must write Old Testament exam.

I'm procrastinating--can you tell? i should not.
ta.

Friday, December 06, 2002

Tired brain.
Friday.
Classes all over.
Exams looming.
Tired brain.
Sunny day.
Party tonight.
Friday.
yay.
I should point out that it wasn't raining this afternoon.
I took a nap anyway.
It was, however, cold, cloudy, and generally ugh. And it did rain last night. just not today, while I was napping.
that's ok. I was up late last night while it was raining, so it follows that of course I would sleep while it wasn't.
right?

Thursday, December 05, 2002

I love naps.

I hate rain.

So, it would follow, that if it is raining (and one cannot, therefore, go outside) then one should take a nap.

I like this.
one class down, three to go. you would think it was the end of the semester or something around here.

nap time.

Wednesday, December 04, 2002

Do you think it's unfair to lure a person to a school located in a warmer climate than where the prospective student curretnly lives, knowing full well that there are things like ice storms?

I do.

There's a big ice storm coming. very soon. these things apparently make life hell, knock out power, cause many issues with transportation and everything else, not to mention the fact that the temperature must clearly be below freezing in order for there to be ice.

I moved here because it was supposed to be warmer.
everyone keeps telling me "just wait, in january and february when it's 70 degrees and the temperature in Chicago hasn't been above zero in 9 weeks and won't be above zero for at least another 9 weeks, you'll be glad."

well, it isn't then now, so i will complain.

it's cold outside.

Tuesday, December 03, 2002

I love cookies.

I love bottled water.

what about bottled cookies?

Monday, December 02, 2002

Monday, monday. I overslept, was a few minutes late to work, have done essentially nothing yet today...and have to go to class in an hour. oy. oh, for the class-free monday that many of my friends have. Thankfully, I am done with my paper though, so i can go to trivia night tonight! woohoo!

the chapel is all pretty, thanks to my and Sarah's handiwork with greens and candles yesterday. Nothing crashed to the floor last night, so that's good! I am sure that the greens in one window (in particular) are going to shift, sending the candle and its globe to the hardwood in a glorious crash. oh dear. four more days...
Who voted for Pepsi? you must not live near me at all....this is coke land down here. it's craziness.
:-)

Sunday, December 01, 2002

The Mozart Effect Really Does Work

One baptism paper, done. That's right, 7.5 pages (ie it's onto the 8th page!!) of nonsense about the four field trips of the semester and how they informed my understanding and (future) practice of baptism, completely done. In approximately 2 hours. It's all about Mozart, i tell you. I've had the double cd set of the last five symphonies playing all day long. (most of yesterday too, actually...) And now the paper is done and while it isn't good, it isn't terrible either.

Hopefully this smart thing will keep going while I parse the nearly 50 verbs in the hebrew translation. the actual translation is finished, thankfully...and it was fun! yay!

did i mention that i went for a run this morning and it was really cold outside and my lungs hate me? no? well...in addition to the early morning bike ride of Friday, from which my lungs have not recovered, i went for a run this morning (11:30 this morning, mind you, not like 6am or something) and it was cold outside and my lungs hate me. I don't quite know what to do about that right now. SO i think i'll go practice my choir music before tomorrow's rehearsal. Our Advent service of Lessons and Carols in the chapel is on Wednesday. woohoo!
heheheeheh! I nearly fell out of my chair laughing at this. Many thanks to anna for putting this on her blog, because it made my day...and my procrastinating on this paper a lot more interesting! hehehe!

i am the cutest girl ever.

I just thought I would share that with y'all.

In other news, there are 4.5 words in the Hebrew translation that I can't figure out. And I have a paper to write for tuesday morning, ideally this afternoon so i can go to trivia night at Twains tomorrow night! AND: we are decorating the chapel for advent this afternoon. woohoo! I love the smell of christmas tree pieces and the look of bowlfulls of candles in the windows. yay!

back to the BDB. (the hebrew dictionary)