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.

I love cookies.

I love bottled water.

what about bottled cookies?

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.
:-)

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)

33% of you prefer Dasani water.

hmm.

25% prefer Evian, 16% each for Deja Blu and Poland Spring. only 8% for Crystal Geyser.

I have to say, I drink store brand, because I buy bottled water at Costco and their brand is 35 bottles for like $6. there you go.

New poll....and you can tell by the ordering of choices where I live, can't you? how distressing...

microwaving in plastic can kill you

While talking with my mother yesterday I mentioned that I had microwaved my lunch (mashed potatoes, thanks to Karen!) in a plastic container. Mom proceeded to freak out and inform me that toxic chemicals migrate from the plastic into your food during microwaving. I was like (as any skeptical-not-that-much-older-than-teen-daughter would be...) "whatever."
So today I looked into it.
here is what I found out.

See for yourself.
you won't die, i promise. at least, not because of that.

In other news, I read today that the Lyric Opera of Chicago has had to make some changes to the schedule for 2003-2004 (for budget reasons--they want to maintain their beautifully balanced budget (now in its 15th year) through their 50th anniversary year). Instead of a wonderful, under-played Bizet opera, they are going to do....
...
...
...
...
...
(hold your breath)
...
...
...
(so you don't gasp and choke yourself)
...
...
...
...
Pirates of Penzance.

I know, I know...the Lyric!!! I'm shocked as well.
at least it will be good, even if it is a sellout.
oy.

I like small children.
particularly when i don't have to keep them.
:-)

I remember now why I don't have a tv.
because there is never anything on. At the house where I am staying, they have at&t broadband cable. hundreds of channels. is there anything on, ever? no. it was quite distressing, though, how i sat mindlessly watching for a couple of hours, thinking how there was nothing on and yet i was watching it. that, ladies and gentlemen, is why i do NOT have a television. because there's never anything on, but i'd watch it anyway. bad news.

anyway, that's all on that. i watched a bit of the macy's parade this morning, and was kind of sad i wasn't standing on broadway watching it myself. Then I saw the weather there--27 degrees! and was happy that I was sitting in a 70 degree house in a town where the outside temperature was high enough that I went out without a coat this morning (sweatshirt, yes, fleece, no...) to walk the dog. ha! take that, chicagoans! it's cold up there, and you've had snow, and you haven't seen the sun in ages...and here it's "cold" and it's in the upper 40's and it's sunny. yay! :-)

happy thanksgiving to all...remember why you are thankful (and not just because of all the stuff you have...because that makes this into yet another materialist holiday!) and remember those who are thankful with so much less....and eat some mashed potatoes. but leave some for me! yum yum yum....

Dogs.
I don't like them.
Housesitting.
I like it.
However, people who need housesitters generally have pets.
This holiday time, I am housesitting for a classmate.
She and her fam have a dog.
BUT: I love this dog. It is a husky, and I have never seen such a beautiful dog in my entire life. and so sweet!

no one is left at school: there are literally 6 upper campus (ie dorm) dwellers left. maybe 7--but the seventh is leaving soon. crazy!

I am trying to decide whether I should answer the phone here or not. I think probably not. I'm only here a couple of days, and no one has the number here so it clearly won't be for me...unless it was the people who live here, of course. hmm. the phone just rang and i ignored it. oh well!

harry potter--i am going to see it again right now. is that lame? crazy, probably. it is one LONG movie.

i think that's all for now. happy thanksgiving, everyone! I can't wait until some people come back to school...
lol.

ta

Bowling for Columbine. Very Good movie. I don't have anything to say about it right now because I'm still processing (I only just got back).
It's thanksgiving week, and down here everyone goes home for this holiday. Very odd, I think. There are only about 5 students left on campus for the holiday, and every few hours the numbers dwindle. We had 30-ish on campus this morning, and by tomorrow noon it will be 10...by thursday morning only the last 5. It's dead out there--everyone is gone, there's no class, the refectory is strangely quiet....

It's too much work to go all the way to my parent's house for thanksgiving. whatever.

I broke down and bought Cosmo, because mine was not forthcoming. Though technically, I didn't buy it. I asked a friend (who was going out to run errands anyway, supposedly) to pick it up for me. The funny part of the story is that the person asked was a guy...and I did in fact preface the request with "this is the biggest favor you'll ever be asked by a girl, and you can say no if you want..." It was very amusing. He had to buy beer to prove that he was manly while buying Cosmo--but it was so sweet of him to get it for me while I was in class! :-) thank you! you rock!

i guess that's all for now. I urge you all to see Bowling for Columbine if you get a chance. it's thoroughly thought-provoking.
I also suggest the James Bond movie. heheheheh!

I swear my archives disappear every other day. so annoying! ugh.

monday morning sing-along
monday, monday....i don't know the other words to this song....(if you do, continue singing)

Thula, thula ulalele (thula ulalele)

...

God of grace, and God of glory, on thy people pour thy power...

(it must be time for me to go to chapel now...)

Bond. good movie. it was a little long, and very action packed, and had some bad blue-screen moments, and the "double" entendre was less double than usual, but it was very worth the $6 spent on it. i was amused, i saw it with friends, which made it even more amusing. Overall it was actually quite good. I recommend it.

I went to a birthday party for our organist today, and it was good fun. I actually had a good time hanging out with crazy church music types. hehehehehehe! :-) And to top off the evening with Bond and some of the boyz was good fun. now, though, i've watched three movies in two days (HP yesterday, Trains Planes and Automobiles last night (which was very funny--i was definitely amused, which is the goal of a saturday evening really), and Bond today) so my back is sore. sadly.

I hope my Cosmo arrives tomorrow. I need that magazine before the holidays! :-)

I'm going to bed now. I have to be up in just over 6 hours. ugh. goodnight.

Harry Potter was quite good, but there were some noticeable changes from the book. Now, granted, I re-read the book this morning before going to the movie this afternoon, but still. It's rather important that Harry turn up at the Malfoy's in the floo powder incident, and that Riddle see the phoenix healing Harry's wound...but anyway, it was good fun. Afterwards we ate ice cream and chatted.
My evening was thoroughly enjoyable (perhaps one of the best parts of the day...), spent with Matt watching a movie in his room and chatting about everything and nothing. it was good fun, nice to relax, etc.

I realized today that Hebrew must be crowding English out of my brain. I couldn't come up with really normal words in mid-sentence, at least three or four times in the last two days. that's not good, not good at all. I learned all that GRE vocab for a reason! (oh wait, that was to take the gre...never mind then...) in any case, it's frustrating not to have the words you want at the moment you want them. oy.

i think i will not be in church tomorrow. i should really clean my room. ugh. tomorrow night is both a birthday party AND i'm going to the new Bond movie! woohoo! :-) Bond...James Bond...
yay!

the hebrew quiz today wasn't bad--it was almost all from the homework. big thanks to chris who did the homework with me! :-)
the ASO tonight was quite good--but with some issues that I can hardly believe other people didn't notice. i'm sure they did, and probably had conversations in cars very similar to ours.
i can't even recreate it for you, but basically it was about the soloist/conductor being together (or not...), the violin section, the tuning in some sections--each piece was carefully reviewed, movement by movement.

It was almost like I was back in musician-land, debriefing after a concert i'd just played.

i'm glad i don't do that anymore.

I love the assistant principal clarinet player. he's a good Eb player, and a Very Good principal player. There was only one thing that occasionally annoyed me about his playing, compared to his principal chair colleague, who does something new every time i hear her.

all in all, the concert was quite good. the people sitting behind us annoyed the crap out of all of us, but other than that...

i am going to see harry potter tomorrow after lunch. i must go now to finish re-reading the book. i'm halfway through.
goodbye!

yay for friday.

today is the last hebrew quiz. ever. only one vocab quiz, one "extra credit" project, and the final. and then it's over--until exegesis begins in february.

tonight i am going to the ASO...they are doing the Tchaikovsky DMajor violin concerto, Prokofieff fifth symphony, and a contemporary piece called "Blitz" by a very young composer. it premiered in fall of 1999 when the composer was 23 years old. i am currently 22 years old. hmm. however, i am reserving judgment on the piece until i hear it (though from reading the program notes about it on the web, it sounds shady...), so you may hear from me later tonight saying how fabulous he is even so young, or how he needs to spend some more time on his next work. lol.

my cosmo has still not arrived. this is very distressing to me. if it doesn't come today (which doesn't look promising, frankly), i am going to buy one. of course, that will result in the magazine immediately arriving monday morning. oy.

i am going to go memorize Isaiah 40.1-11 for Scripture Reading now. today is the last scripture reading class. the semester is nearly over! After Thanksgiving we only have one week of class, then finals! wow. so fast, yet so long.
anyway...ta.

It is three years ago today that Hillary went missing (and was most likely killed today as well...though she was found 14 days later). Nancy and Charlie and Charlie..I'm thinking of you.
peace.

Ok...so last week's hebrew quiz was less successful than i would have liked. however, it was (excessively) generously graded....but i still need to be better this week. to that end, i am doing homework prior to thursday night this week.
however, i am also supposed to be reading some Very Long thing for Reformed...and i do mean Very Long. I am at the library reading, actually, because i have re-learned something about myself:

I cannot do homework at home.

I get distracted. i clean, i play on the internet, i do other things, i talk on the phone, i read, i re-organize, i do nothing, i take naps, etc. In Chicago i used to go to restaurants, bars, bookstores, church, etc, to do homework--because i knew I didn't get work done at home. here, though, can't do that. nothing is close by, the public transportation is terrible, i don't have a car, and there aren't really many of those things around anyway. so i am trying, for the first time in my life, to study at the library. in undergrad i only went INSIDE the library about 10 times in four years, and 7 of those times were to make tapes for listening exams. the other three...umm..twice for my historical jesus research and once for my thesis research. of course, i return books in the bookdrop in the hallway (because that was on my way to class! LOL). so here i am trying to learn to study in the library. the thing is, it's very quiet, and i can't study in the part of the library where people can talk because i know those people. i need a degree of noise, but i need it to be coming from people i don't know and conversations i don't have even the slightest interest in. that's why restaurants, starbucks, bookstores, bars, etc are good places. but i'm trying--because i won't get any studying done at all if i don't learn to study here i don't think. i've been trying to do homework at home for the last 10 weeks, but i've realized that my time-management skills aren't so good. oy. too many naps. so there you go: me, at the library. I've spent more time in the library in the last two days than the first 10 weeks of school combined. heheheheh!

anyway, i'm done now. i should be reading about the sin of human pride. for 40 more pages. ugh.
ta.