More Penguins!

And more penguins compliments of the BBC. These festive fowl are from a zoo in South Korea.

This is keeping with the ridiculous amounts of snow we've been getting in Chi-town - first 6 inches Tuesday night which resulted in some fun times at the Pittsburgh airport and a frantic-ish rush down the terminal to catch the last plane out that night - I got bumped to a different flight because mine was first delayed from 8:25 to 11:55 and then to 1:45am - ew. Thankfully I landed, got my luggage, and was out of the airport by 10pm (central time)! And last night we got another four inches. Suffice it to say I've been shoveling a lot. Either way, it's so great to be home and seeing family and friends!

Penguins! Penguins! Penguins!

Following mad studying yesterday and before the candlelight service and before more mad studying, Manda, Bethany and I exchanged presents. Apparently I've been giving off a penguin-y vibe because I got things with penguins on them from both of them - not planned either. But penguins are cool so I'm not complaining (almost as cool as ducks, but not quite).

And now all I have left is my C&I final for which I wrote my essay this afternoon and looks to be pretty easy. Issues in Education went well this morning and didn't take nearly as long as I'd thought (I studied for way too long) and because of that I had some extra time before going to meet my co-op for the first time. She was great and I'm so excited about working with her. The school itself is really nice and the principal was very welcoming. Yay student teaching!

Merry Christmoose!

Okay, I thought I was original, but apparently not. Still, it tickles me to mild hysterics. Something about the phrase, "christmoose" just makes me feel inordinately silly. There is a very good chance, however, that that is because of finals.

Speaking of, four down and two to go! Yay! My most difficult run of finals is over - I had one last night, one this morning, and one tonight - yikes! And the symbolic logic exam took 3 hours and that's when he cut us off - I definitely could have spent longer on it. But I did see my French professor today and she'd already graded our exams for cinema from last night and apparently I (and everyone else) did very well!

And now it's off to bed and getting all set for my Monday morning final which is looking to be my most challenging.

The Homework Song

In reference to the Arthur post earlier, here's the homework song by Mr. Ratburn - sadly, only with the audio and a lovely picture of Mr. Ratburn.

To Root, To Toot, To Parachute

What a fun name for a book! Amanda came back to the suite this afternoon with this book, and as a languagey person, I thought it was really hilarious. The pictures are great and here's an excerpt: "To root, to toot, to parachute, to play the flutophone or flute, to dare, defend, descend, disturb - if it's an action, it's a verb! Sweep your sidewalk, paint your curb, and know each action is a verb! Have and has belong here too, like 'I have green eyes, she has blue.' Or 'Mindy has a mini mutt.' These verbs can tell us who's got what!" Haaa, what a great book. (Either that or my brain is fried from too much writing papers these past few days.)

And tonight, hopefully I will have my book read and my paper and outline written, so then I can go watch Prince Caspian for CSL, for which class it was green and red day. Yay for an auditorium full of people wearing Christmas colors!

Great are you, Lord!

Today's sermon in church, was unique to say the least - though very thought-provoking. The pastor spoke from Hebrews 1:1-2: "Long ago, at many times and in many ways, God spoke to our fathers by the prophets, but in these last days he has spoken to us by his Son, whom he appointed the heir of all things, through whom also he created the world." And in the theme of creating the world, pastor went on to show a video of the Hubble Space telescope looking into deep space, i.e. 78 billion light years across the universe (which is how big the universe is). It stared for days at an 'unremarkable, blank' patch of sky only to reveal tens of thousands of galaxies there! And within each galaxy are millions of stars! Psalm 147:4 says, "He determines the number of the stars; he gives to all of them their names." Every single star out of millions He calls by name! Amazing!

So in the end, the universe is too large for us to even fully grasp the idea, but however large it is and however small that makes us feel, we have a God that loves us, cherishes us, cares for our needs, and that is all we really do need at the end of the day or even a lifetime.

"So we do not lose heart. Though our outer self is wasting away, our inner self is being renewed day by day. For this light momentary affliction is preparing for us an eternal weight of glory beyond all comparison, as we look not to the things that are seen but to the things that are unseen. For the things that are seen are transient, but the things that are unseen are eternal." 2 Corinthians 4:16-18

Arthur's Almost Live Not Real Music Festival

Blast from the past! I just found this on YouTube and couldn't resist sharing a small, strange piece of my childhood. Yay Arthur!

The Dumbest Generation

Continuing our discussion in Issues on the book reviews, today Laryssa talked about the book she read called, The Dumbest Generation by Mark Bauerlein. It talks about how we as a group (under 30 years old) because of technology and loss of common goals and morality, are progressively leading the United States towards loss of its principles and leadership in intellect. The scary part is, when asked, this generation said, "Yes, I know I'm bowing to peer pressure and pop culture. Yeah, I can't read, but I don't care." How sad this is!

Now, I realize this Calvin and Hobbes block isn't exactly showing that, but it does show an attitude too prevelent in today's society and somewhat links back to the main point of the book: "Young Americans need someone somewhere in their lives to reveal to them bigger and better human stories than the sagas of summer parties and dormitory diversion and Facebook sites." (Bauerlein 199)

Craftiness

Craftiness in the way that I have been making a flurry of paper snowflakes (haha) and some fun collages this week. It's been great except for a few side effects - paper snowflake explosion in my room; it's a little overwhelming and slightly obnoxious how many there are. Also, I keep finding mod podge under my fingernails and my room smells kind of chemically.

On the plus side, I'm almost finished with the Narnian Chronicles - only The Last Battle remains. And, I got the book Planet Narnia for my birthday and have slowly started to work my way through it - my prof for CSL said it was an excellent read although somewhat theologically stunted. We shall see.

Official Report

And official reports of the fire alarm showed up on all the doors of MAP today - it wasn't an 'accidental,' 'purposeful,' or 'fake,' but a 'legitimate' alarm. (Those were the choices on the sheet.) And it wasn't Christmas lights like everyone thought - a water fountain caught on fire. Only at Grove City.

Also only at Grove City - a wedding photographer ad in our mailboxes today - wedding in your future?

Not a Fire Drill

Boo for fire alarms going off at unseemly hours. I was just about to hop into bed right about midnight when all of the sudden I could hear the alarms starting to go off and travelling down the hall towards my room (kind of a cool Doppler effect like the ice cream truck going by in the summer). This lovely sound was accompanied with even lovelier shouts of dismay from the residents and then our individual alarms in our rooms went off (soooo loud). So I grabbed my coat, scarf, blanket, book, shoes, and went to wake up Amanda (who is in the middle of student teaching and goes to bed much earlier than I do). We got outside - it was freezing and I was glad for my blanket - and then after about 10 minutes got shunted down to the chapel, where I just spent the last hour and 15 minutes.

The firemen unfortunately have to search every single room in the building and with this being the largest women's dorm on campus, there were about 400 of us in the chapel. The rest of the girls were probably in the SAC or library. And the chapel, being the lovely Gothic stone building it is, is not warm. Yay fleecy warm blanket! Thankfully I grabbed my book for Thursday so I got some work done. It turned out to be a freshman girl's Christmas lights that had sparked an electrical fire and her hall had to stay behind to get lectured by campus safety and the firemen on fire safety or something like that. Now it's 1:15 and I am back in my room soon to go to sleep with no interruptions....I hope....

A.B. - After Birthday

Post-birthday celebrations: making paper snowflakes and listening to Christmas music this afternoon! It will also be a break later on after I finish this stinking observation report I'm working on - I think it is the last one of my undergraduate career... and that makes me smile.

Today was quite good - I got a letter from a camper I had this summer, a birthday card filled with sparkly constellation confetti (which is now all over the floor of my room), a solid two hours of grading language labs for Madame, and finishing up my revisions for a case report due Wednesday (actually took about 10 minutes, but it means I got to cross something off my list and that makes me very accomplished-feeling).

Hopefully the rest of this week will be as balanced as this afternoon was and not like this morning where I spilled my cinnamon plum tea (better than it sounds) all over everything papery on my dresser on top of running late. Silly break made my morning all off-kilter.

Mid-Week Update!

Ahh! I know - crazy. Me. Updating from home. Whhaaat? Well, turns out this is probably not a reliable wireless and I'm 'piquer'-ing (can't remember the English word for it right now) off whatever network this is, so it'll be short. It's their fault for not making it secure...

Anyhoo, I'm home! Yays! It's been great so far - some student teacher-y things, lots of family time, lots of watching the news, reading LOTR , a visit with Jill and an unexpected one with Kristin, lots of tomato juice, and a delicious chocolate cake. Yum. (And I just re-read that and would like to clarify the tomato juice and chocolate cake do not go together.) So far a great break.

The rest should be equally brilliant (hee, I feel so British saying that): turkey day and the dog show tomorrow, Friday Jess is coming to visit and it's going to be a brounching awesome day, Saturday is family Christmas shopping, and Sunday Katie and I drive back to the Grove - hopefully with good weather.

And I just realized - isn't it ironic that turkeys say 'gobble' when that's all we do on Thanksgiving?

How to Create a Coward

During my devos last night, I read an excerpt from The Screwtape Letters by CS Lewis. It was especially poignant because I've been fretting quite a bit lately about what to do after graduation and such and only recently have really been surrendering it to God - silly, I know, I should have done it so much sooner! These lessons never fail to instill in me just how tiny we really are and how much we need to depend on Him!

The excerpt was titled, "How to Create a Coward," and here's just a bit of it (even though it is quite long) that I found to be powerful and kind of summing up the entire section:

Screwtape explains the techniques of temptation to cowardice:
"The point is that precautions have a tendency to increase fear. The precautions publicly enjoined on your patient, however, soon become a matter of routine and this effect disappears. What you must do is to keep running in his mind (side by side with the conscious intention of doing his duty) the vague idea of all sorts of things he can do or not do, inside the framework of the duty, which seem to make him a little safer. Get his mind off the simple rule ('I've got to stay here and do so-and-so) into a series of imaginary life lines ('If A happened - though I very much hope it won't - I could do B - and if the worst came to worst, I could always do C').... The point is to keep him feeling that he has something, other than the Enemy and courage the Enemy supplies to fall back on, so that what was intended to be a total commitment to duty becomes honeycombed all through with little unconscious reservations..."

I know my mind easily takes off on hypotheticals and it can be so distracting - 'if this happens, then this could happen and I would do this....' Because of this, it's important to give that all up to God and the knowledge and wonderful security (like being wrapped in a warm, fluffy blanket!) that all is under him.

"But seek first his kingdom and his righteousness, and all these things will be given to you as well. Therefore do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will worry about itself." -Matthew 6:33-34

Thursday Joy

Whew! Thursday is effectively over in my book even though it's only 8:15...

Run down of today:
CS Lewis (100% on my quiz!) and working on French paper during class
C&I and turning in my finished unit plan (!!!!)
Lunch with my compy finishing up my French paper
French class - turning in my paper

And in French we watched about an hour of the film, Le Corbeau, which I thought I would fall asleep during due to my um, lack thereof, but it was really creepy and riveting. I want to know who le corbeau is! Guess I have to wait until after break though...

And now tonight is full of fun things like packing for the drive tomorrow, watching Friends, and just putzing in general.

Busy as a Beeeeee

Alas! After a long and really fun stay at the Procrastination Station yesterday, I must buckle down and work today.

A concentrated effort this afternoon of 2 hours yielded 4 more lesson plans, a block plan, and some formatting for my French II unit plan due tomorrow. Then some esclaving for Madame, class, and language tables followed. Now I'm back in my room working on the last two lesson plans, my exam, the intro to the unit, and more fun formatting. Then I get to write a French essay on WWII - my thesis is awesome, but we'll see how the paper turns out. And by we, I mean me.

Hopefully I'll get about 3-4 pages done tonight and then I have an hour between classes tomorrow to dash back to my room, proofread it, and turn it in. Luckily, it's only a rough draft, so I have time to finish up the last few pages and really get the grammar and transitions smoothed out during break or the first few days back. Maybe if I hurry and stop writing here, I'll have time to watch an episode of Friends. (Amanda and I are currently working through season 9.)

And break starts FRIDAY!!! So I have less than 48 hours until the really long but fun (!) road trip home. Ohio is a lot wider than it looks...

Creature Comforts

The Pet Shop

The Importance of Having Technology

I was sent this link by a professor as the end part of a discussion on the importance (or non-importance) of technology in our lives today, especially pertaining to technology in the classroom.

And the question is posed: What would the Gettysburg Address have looked like with PowerPoint?
Please view this as it is sadly hilarious: http://www.norvig.com/Gettysburg/index.htm

Mary, Mary, not contrary

And drum roll please..... (dundundundudndudndudndudndudn)..... Mary came to visit this weekend! Well, actually only last night into today, but it was great - going to Orchesis, catching up, being with my 'roommate', talking about how amazing the Lord is - yay! It was so great to see her and have our funny times together making funnies. Oh, so fun. ("I've kind of been sinking down into your bed for a while, Abby...burrowing in, like a chigger. Except I don't cause inflammation." - this was said after I'd been telling her about camp.)

In a really fun flashback experience, when I walked into Hicks for dinner tonight, there was a table of people that broke into singing 'Flea', a wonderfully fun (and sometimes annoying) camp song. I miss camp.

This afternoon, once Amanda got back from taking her Praxis tests, we headed down to the Coffee Grove and sat and talked for a while - just reflecting on Mary's year abroad, Amanda's friends and family, our friendship with each other, and it all kept coming back and centering on how incredible God is! Our Lord has everything planned for us - down to the tiniest little occurrences, which is such a blessing!

"For you make me glad by your deeds, O LORD; I sing for joy at the works of your hands." - Psalm 92:4

Happy Thursday!

A pretty darn good Thursday, I warrant it to have been: 3 classes, 1 lunch, 1 dinner, 1 nap, 1 book read, 1 hour of tutoring, 1 hour of logic homework done, 1 paper proofread, and best of all - 1 friend coming to visit tomorrow! I'm so excited to see Mary! We haven't seen each other since Strasbourg last April! This is going to be great. Also, tomorrow night we're going to see Orchesis, which I heard was really good this year.

On the downside, I have a unit plan and a paper due next Thursday - both of which I need to get working on like, now. But the paper is only a rough draft so that takes some pressure off. And I need to get working on the calligraphy for the KDP certificates - that's for Monday evening. I cleaned my pens two days ago and they've been drying since, so hopefully I'll be set to do some of that tomorrow.

Abbatial?

Also, on a very different note (hence the double-post tonight), I've gotten a few questions about the title of my blog. It's supposed to be a pun, but you kind of have to either read the dictionary for fun or just be really, really freakishly knowledgeable to get it.

Here's the official definition of 'abbatial' (including pronunciation guides, Julie):

ab·ba·tial (ə-bā'shəl)
adj. Of or having to do with an abbey, abbot, or abbess.
[Middle English abbacyal, from Late Latin abbātiālis, from abbās, abbāt-, abbot; see abbot.]
(from the American Heritage Dictionary)

And there you have it. Get it? Get it? Having to do with an 'abby?' Oh, I'm so punny.

Weapons of the Spirit

Tonight was a pretty busy evening filled with language tables (sadly empty because Orchesis started this evening), a quick call home, a few episodes of a silly anime show (thank you Summer), and then mostly proctoring a film for National French Week (which ended today). Apparently I can't get enough of parentheses (as evidenced above). Goodness. What is happening to my proofreading sensibilities, you may (or may not) ask? I have no idea. They must already be on vacation.

Anyhoo, the film is called Weapons of the Spirit, and is a documentary about a tiny town in south-central France called Le Chambon-sur-Lignon, a town of around 5,000 Huguenot Protestant farmers, who, during WWII, sheltered about 5,000 Jews. Not only was this such an awesome outpouring of compassion and bravery, but also evidence of a strong community with one goal in mind. Le Chambon-sur-Lignon was only 40 miles away from the 'free' French capital of Vichy and Petain's government. Somehow, through God's providence and planning, they managed to escape a lot of scrutiny and trouble, even when Nazi troops set up offices right across the street from the main office of the Resistance. Watching this story and the interviews I couldn't help but keep repeating in my head, how awesome are God's plans for us!

Also, Mom, I finally got your pictures of Door County and they are loverly. Here's one of a road that looks like a postcard!

Heroes

"I long to accomplish a great and noble task, but it is my chief duty to accomplish humble tasks as though they were great and noble. The world is moved along not only by the mighty shoves of its heroes but also by the aggregate of the tiny pushes of each honest worker."- Helen Keller

Quite the statement, and all considerations of Helen Keller aside, we should do the same. It is the dedication proved daily by most of the world that shows us what we can accomplish by working together.

Now that my honest (home)work for the day is done, I'm going to watch DWTS and work on some super-secret spy stuff. Actually, it's not super-secret, it just makes me feel very sneaky and cool to say that. Literally, cool - it's freezing in my room. Time to break out the leg warmers and hot cocoa perhaps?

Francofollies

Francofollies, the yearly talent show for students of French at GCC, is finally over! It's kind of bittersweet for me - every year I've been in the play and this year I got to organize it along with some of the rest of stuff for National French Week (which is still going), so tonight was kind of a culmination of sorts of all the work I've been doing the past couple weeks and all the experiences I've had as a French student the past four years. I'm glad it's over - that means more than 5 hours of sleep a night this week (!) but at the same time, a chapter (albeit a very small chapter) of my life is closed. No more setting out the Boursin, brie, creme puffs, eclairs, cranberry punch, and crackers on a cold Monday night in November. No more listening to bagpipes, songs, piano etudes, and poems. No more being in the play. No more watching the can-can (I missed you terribly this year Erin!). Sigh.

On a brighter note, this was the best Monday I could ask for to start off my week! I knew that tonight I'd be pretty much tied up, so after class and lunch, I came back to the room, grabbed my stuff, and went down to South Rec to hunker down and get those pesky observation reports written while doing laundry. Look at me multitask! Then upon finding yet another spider (this one was quite big and kind of hairy), I vacuumed again.

So my clothes are clean, my room is clean, most of my observations are written, and my John Wayne poster is finally hung back up after a three-week hiatus leaning against the wall while I tried to figure out how to hang up the wooden back without nailing something into the wall. (Command strips were already used in abundance and couldn't do the job.) My solution ended up working out, or has so far... hopefully no late-night crashes will happen again.

The Information Age

Whoa. Long time, no post. Hmmm... that just doesn't work that well...

Anyways, it's been three ironic days since I posted about really liking autumn - November has officially arrived. This means rain and the "Weekend of the Falling Leaf" is upon western PA. Oh well, that means I get to wear my scarves! And woolly sweaters! Perks! Sort of... they're still not as nice as nature's fireworks - kaboosh! bam!

In my reading tonight for Issues dealing with the 'information age' and the 'necessity' of computers in every school (and sometimes classroom), I came upon this quote and thought it interesting to write a bit about:

"The equation of information and power is a corruption of Francis Bacon's comment in 1597: 'Knowledge is power.' Most likely he was referring to Proverbs 24:5: 'A wise man is strong; yea, a man of knowledge increaseth strength.'

"Wisdom and knowledge...they're linked to scholarship, ideas, experience, maturity, judgement, perspective, and reflections. But they have little to do with information. Nor do they have much to do with power."

(Clifford Stoll, High-Tech Heretic)

An interesting observation in this 'information-age' we live in. The wealth of information (and opinions, editorials, blogs, etc.) we have at our fingertips is often overwhelming and even more so when we do not possess the critical thinking and discretion to discern what is of importance and worthy of our attention and what is not. (Hopefully my blog is a tiny bit worthy.) But how do we expect the next generation to have skepticism, not criticism, in their box of tools if we do not equip them and simply assume that this information will make it to their brains and order itself through technological osmosis?

"It is said that knowledge is a power... What is most of our boasted so-called knowledge but a conceit that we know something, which robs us of the advantages of our actual ignorance."

(Henry David Thoreau)

Autumn

"When the trees their summer splendor
Change to raiment red and gold,
When the summer moon turns mellow,
And the nights are getting cold;
When the squirrels hide their acorns,
And the woodchucks disappear;
Then we know that it is autumn,
Loveliest season of the year."
-Carol L. Riser, Autumn

Yay for myGCC posting this on the log-in page. I heartily agree. Autumn is the best. All the fun colors, the brisk wind biting at your nose, thick woolen sweaters (and being able to say 'woolen'! what a great sort of word), hot tea, blankets, and the lovely autumn smell. Yay autumn!

And yet, I can't completely agree with the little poem because I have never (to my remembrance) seen a woodchuck. Nor have I seen one chucking wood. Are they particularly autumnal animals? Was there a woodchuck at the first Thanksgiving?

Speaking of, it was Thanksgiving tonight in the cafeterias on campus. The title was "Ethnic Adventures: 1621, The First Thanksgiving Meal". Hahahaha! Why, oh, why does Bon Appetit feel like it needs to hype it up? I think that may be my very favorite meal title thus far this year. There was another really good one in September, but I can't remember it exactly right now and I don't want to ruin the punniness. It was very punny.

National French Week

It started today! That means even more running around than normal because there was a banner crisis in the SAC - a few visits to Student Life & Learning office and the Office of International Education and lots of stairs later and we figured out what happened. Then I accidentally stabbed myself with a safety pin (hah! not very safe, are you?) putting up the new banner.

Language tables tonight was disappointing as well, although I did come up with an excellent pasta-salad hybrid thing to eat, there was no good French food. Well, there was some kind of chicken with Roquefort on it but, ew. No thank you. I guess I should have stopped expecting the cafeteria to make good food for National French Week by now; it has been four years... On the other hand, tomorrow is a celebration of Louis Pasteur by eating ice cream! I so hope they have pumpkin.

A very strange day it was - one of those days that feel like 3 or 4 days all squashed into one. And now it's time for bed. It's early, I know, but I'm exhausted.

Election Day

Woohoo! The first presidential election in which I have been able to vote. (Boo that I didn't get a fun sticker.)

Tonight was first spent watching the Disney version of The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe - such a good movie, such an amazing soundtrack. It was really nice to just escape real life for a bit and also take advantage of the great sound system and large screen in Sticht and bask in the wonderful imagination that is Narnia.

Then I came back to real life and attempted to do some reading whilst watching the election coverage from around 9pm-12:45am down the hall. Pretty crowded, but not nearly as crowded as the SAC, and it came with good food too. We also had US maps which we could color as the different states' polls closed and were declared. Then listening to McCain's speech and finally Obama's speech (with a ridiculous amount of close-ups on Jesse Jackson and Oprah crying; excuse me, but can we look at the president elect please?), and now I'm going to attempt to call it a night. We'll see if my brain cooperates on shutting down for a bit.

Good news: did well on my quiz for CSL this morning and got my French midterm back. Dr. Leon said my French has become much more sophisticated in the past few months. Yay!

La Marseillaise

National French Week is almost upon us! That means lots of running around campus delivering things, e-mailing people, and putting together official invitations, posters, flyers, table tents, scripts, and such. I have a blister on my pinky toe on my foot. It's all worth it though and so much fun! Hopefully next year, assuming I'm teaching somewhere, I'll be able to utilise these organizational skills and culture ideas to celebrate National French Week at my school!

I also have come to the realization that my room is suffering a thin-legged, green spider invasion. The first was Friday, then Saturday, and this morning there was one on the ceiling of my closet. So I did some major vacuuming and moved most of my furniture around to get under my desk and bed. Hopefully I got some of the little stinkers that way. Mwahaha.

It's always very strange when the time first changes and it's so dark out so early. I don't like it, especially when it's 68 degrees out like it was today. If it's all snowy and cold, alright, but not when the weather is good please.

Quality Entertainment

First of all, last night's Halloween party was a good time - lots of good, sugary food. Sadly, I woke up this afternoon with a splitting headache - perhaps because I was up absurdly late (or early?) Skyping or perhaps because I was having a major sugar high crash. Probably both.

On the other hand, today was fun. Went to play badminton with Jim and Ram, but got to the IM room and there was an IM league soccer game happening. Also, only Jim was there because Ram had some kind of something. So we watched the game for a while and avoided racquetball because of last year's um, tragedy (mostly on my part). Sadly, I missed a huge nantaise reunion Skype chat because of that, which I just realized about 5 minutes ago because I had thought it was tonight. Boo.

Then went to see HSM3 with Caleb. I thought it was going to be greatly cheese-filled (which it was) but it was also surprisingly angsty for a Disney movie. Oh well, we had a lovely time full of mocking the film and laughing at the row of middle school girls in front of us.

And the best part of the day (besides 'falling back' later) was seeing As You Like It. The Bard was a brilliant comic. Oh, and the actors were good too. In fact, they were extremely good. I'm so glad I got HSM out of the way to make way for quality entertainment.

Happy Reformation Day!

Oh sad day. The last Halloween at Grove City where there will be donuts and cider in the quad with people wishing each other Happy Reformation Day. Last Halloween at GCC where Ryan B. will dress up as Luther and post his 95 Theses on the large and formidable doors of HAL. Last Halloween for all this very small, Christian college tradition. Last Halloween for me to laugh at it all while experiencing it. Sometimes I can't believe the traditions we have here...

This also marks the beginning of a very busy but fun weekend! I have a Halloween party tonight, a teacher's portfolio workshop tomorrow morning, a badminton match and HSM3 tomorrow afternoon, and then As You Like It and the Goulish Gourd Festival (aka carving pumpkins) tomorrow evening. Well, actually, I guess basically tomorrow is busy. And this weekend is daylight savings time. I'm very ready to 'fall back'.

Midterm Mayhem

It's over! Finally over! I just got back from taking my last midterm of this year! Amazing to think of that; then I start thinking about student teaching and I get all excited and nervous at the same time. Kind of like getting really giddy and then smelling something really bad all at once.

I also got a notice for my polling station next Tuesday in the mail today. Since I'm registered for absentee voting and they already sent my ballot, why did I get this?

The weather is much warmer and less windy today - no snow. Tomorrow one of my classes is cancelled, so all I have is a 9am and then work in the afternoon. That gives me plenty of time to get my costume for the Halloween party figured out - the theme is supposed to be The Wizard of Oz, but I don't think I'm going to be able to dress up according to that.... Saturday, Amanda and I are going to see As You Like It - should be a superb evening of Shakespeare.

Let it snow!

Last night, I was so close to going to sleep and some guys walked by my room shouting (sort of singing) Good King Wenceslas. I had no idea why on earth they were thinking about Christmas music so early, unless of course, they were like me and are big fans of Christmas! Then I woke up this morning, looked out my little window, and saw this:

Snow! In October! Yay! It was so great walking to class and getting all that snow in my face. Well, not really. But it was exciting. I hadn't seen snow since last December when I left for France, so this was fun - the smell, the cold wind (didn't miss that so much), the soft sound of snow falling. Poetic.

Tomorrow is finally my last midterm. French Cinema. Not much studying will be happening tonight since our class was cancelled yesterday 10 mins after we were all there, so we decided to just stay and study instead. That ended up being around 25 mins of studying out of the hour and 15 mins class period. "They don't have Zambonis in France." I haven't laughed so hard in long while.

Road Sign Rage

In first place for this year's "Europe's Most Stupid Road Sign" is this lovely work of abstract art brought to you by the Italian government:

Runner up is this collection of signs in Austria:

And lastly: um, what?

Of Haircuts and Hurricanes

Today was another lazy day filled with lots of reading from the lovely, riveting (not so much) book, The War Against Boys: How Misguided Feminism is Harming Our Young Men. In light of such uplifting reading on society's failings, I got to talk to my dad and brother. Not so much about the book, but about haircuts. Apparently BJ's looks like my mom stuck a salad bowl on his head and cut the hair hanging out from under it. I told him that he should be flattered he has the same haircut the Beatles had but he scoffed at me. Over the phone, no less.

And, we got to talk about random hurricane-like winds at home. They had some of the windows open to equalize the pressure in the house; my dad assured me (despite my non-worry), that they had taken this precaution so the house would not explode. This is after he answered the phone, "Hurricane Central", and I was quite confused. Why on earth I would think the house would explode, I don't know. Especially at the end of October. Everyone knows houses only explode in the spring.

Also, I just had a late night visitor and Reba is engaged! Congratulations!

Sleepy Saturday

Yesterday: sleeping in until noon (great), doing some homework (industrious), and sleepover at the apartments with Sarah and Megan (pizza, Swedish fish, chips and salsa, movies, etc.).

Today: breakfast, walking back to my dorm in the dreary rain, putting away clean laundry, taking an afternoon nap, watching Friends, eating dinner, finishing my book for C.S. Lewis on Tuesday, watching a movie and talking with Amanda.

Lots of everyday, lazy, sleepy happenings happened, but I don't feel like talking in complete sentences. <--- Except that one. Goodnight. :)

Creation

Oh, also almost forgot this. I was reading The Magician's Nephew today during lunch and came upon a passage that (this is my first time reading it) made me feel, I can't exactly describe it in one word; but, C.S. Lewis captures the moment of creation so beautifully, I got goosebumps...

"In the darkness something was happening at last. A voice had begun to sing. It was very far away and Digory found it hard to decide from what direction it was coming. Sometimes it seemed to come from all directions at once. Sometimes he almost thought it was coming out of the earth beneath them. Its lower notes were deep enough to be the voice of the earth herself. There were no words. There was hardly even a tune. But it was, beyond comparison, the most beautiful noise he had ever heard. It was so beautiful he could hardly bear it....

"Then two wonders happened at the same moment. One was that the voice was suddenly joined by other voices; more voices than you could possibly count. They were in harmony with it, but far higher up on the scale: cold, tingling, silvery voices. The second wonder was that the blackness overhead, all at once, was blazing with stars. They didn't come out gently one by one, as they do on a summer evening. One moment there had been nothing but darkness; next moment a thousand, thousand points of light leaped out - single stars, constellations, and planets, brighter and bigger than any in our world. There were no clouds. The new stars and the new voices began at exactly the same time. If you had seen and heard it, as Digory did, you would have felt quite certain that it was the stars themselves who were singing, and that it was the First Voice, the deep one, which had made them appear and made them sing." (Lewis, 99-100)

What an amazing illustration of what just the very beginning of creation was like for Narnia! It was such a beautiful description and I couldn't help but be in awe of God. If Lewis, a creature born of creation, can come up with something so wonderful, how much more amazing must creation have been? I cannot even fathom!

School!

Today was a very long day - getting up at 5:45, going to school, sitting through lots of classes and then teaching 2 periods = tired Abby. But it was so worth it! Being in school and working with kids and actually teaching (not just observing in a corner or helping out) was such a high for me. I had one of those eureka moments when I was like, "I really, really like this and want to do this!" That was very exciting!

Then I got back, had dinner, and accidentally fell asleep while sitting on my bed reading. Watched an episode and a half of Friends with Amanda and had a really fun 3-way Skype chat with Alicia and Molly. Coordinating this across three time zones was not easy, but it was worth it. And now I'm suffering a small bout of missing France and the no homework I had there.

Hopefully I'll be going to bed soon (sooo tired) and sleeping in until I wake up on my own tomorrow is my plan! Yay fall break!

Not on vacation...yet

Tonight will be a very short post because I'm up quite early tomorrow morning for teaching! Yays! I'm so excited! I get to teach a 40 minute review lesson on counting from 0-31. Lots of bingo and prize stickers are involved. Thank goodness 'excellent' and 'bravo' are the same in English and French - it means I inadvertently had French stickers.

So today was great - my mind was mostly already on vacation. I understood completely the new lesson in Logic and then took a fun civic literacy test in Issues. I scored way above average at 76.67%. If you have 15-20 minutes to spare and want to take the test to see how you compare, here's the link: http://www.americancivicliteracy.org/resources/quiz.aspx

I then spent an hour in the Curriculum Library finding ideas for my lesson and typing it up. Fun times. The rest of the day was a little more hectic with everyone (except me and the student teachers) leaving for Fall Break, making the materials for my lesson, practicing it, and spending a while writing letters.

Now it's time to sleep and get psyched for tomorrow. Though not both at the same time please.

Yay Tuesday!

Quick update on yesterday since I'm a slacker (in this case, yes, I am...er, was?): The Logic test went as well as can be expected and I felt much more confident on it this time around. Then class, lunch, and a trip to Mercer. It was so fun to be in school again working with kids - even if I did get some attitude from a few. I had an adorable escort from class to class this time around - she was lots of fun had the biggest, brightest smile! Talked to the teacher who's letting me take over her French classes Thursday (now I really really need to get working on lesson plans!) and she was fantastic. I'm excited about working with her, even if it is only for a day. The meetings, etc. went well and I got back to my room, dinner eaten and meetings attended, at 6:15. I didn't know what to do with myself since I was already done with work for today. Alas, I did not choose to write my lessons, I chose (not the best choice, I might add) to watch a whole disc of Friends episodes. It was very relaxing and fun though! I also got to bed early - as in before midnight - a first in a while.

Today started out kind of dreary - cloudiness and random torrential hail downpours will do that. However, C.S. Lewis class = much fun (especially now that we're studying The Magician's Nephew) and Touring Choir was great in chapel. That started off my morning really well. Then class, lunch, class, and finally a mail check. Suffice it to say I am having an excellently wonderful day!!

Now it's trying to focus on homework: a lecture about patriotism in education, 2 evaluations of journal articles (in 3 sentences or less - uh, what?), and lesson plans (hopefully!) then maybe some positive reinforcement by watching the latest episode of Dancing with the Stars.

Eeek!

Ohdear ohdear. Homecoming is very distracting and time-consuming. Bad for my Symbolic Logic grade. I just got back from the study session and whoa, do I need to study. Badly. Why do I have to take another math credit? Whyyy??

In other news, I'm obnoxiously busy tomorrow afternoon - last observation at Mercer HS and getting prepped for teaching there Friday! Then my Wednesday afternoon class is moved to tomorrow because of Fall Break starting Wednesday, a KDP meeting, work, and homework - whew! Can I have time to breathe, please? No? Okay.

But Fall Break is coming up! Yays! And I'm in the middle of reading The Magician's Nephew - for a class. Go on, be jealous. Heehee.

Stayin' Alive and Stealin' Sand

BBC NEWS Health Bee Gees hit could save your life
Source: news.bbc.co.uk

US medics have found the Bee Gees' 1977 disco anthem, Stayin' Alive, provides an ideal beat to follow when performing CPR on a victim of a cardiac arrest.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/health/7678371.stm

I wonder which doctor had to get a Ph.D. to think up this study?


BBC NEWS Americas Jamaica puzzled by theft of beach
Source: news.bbc.co.uk

Questions are being asked in Jamaica about a police investigation into the theft of hundreds of tons of sand from a beach on the island's north coast.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/7678379.stm

How do you steal 500 truck-loads of sand with no one seeing you?

Kentucky, the 'foreign land'

I know, what am I thinking? An update in the middle of the day? Outrageous! Just as outrageously funny as this ad I just saw on facebook. Now I realize that the ads are specially targeted to you based on your interests, race, sex, etc. but seriously - this was too funny. It said, "Teach in a Foreign Land!" and underneath it was this picture of Kentucky on your right. I know that I'm a Yankee and don't have a southern bone in my body (except maybe on the Virginia relative side? y'all?), but Kentucky is a 'foreign land'? Haahahaa. I do know that it was probably advertising getting an education in Kentucky to teach in a foreign country, but the catch line plus the picture made for a very funny literal interpretation and a hearty guffaw.

Things have started to get really busy now that it's officially Friday afternoon and a lot of people are done with classes. This means lots of organizations are starting to set up their tents and play loud music for Homecoming. All this running around is making me stressed out and I'm not even doing anything! I am excited for this weekend though - it should be great!

Also, just checked my mailbox and got my C.S. Lewis midterm back and got a significantly better grade than a C! Finally, all that studying pays off! And a surprise box of honey crisp apples from Wisconsin from my mom arrived - mmm. Now it's really autumn.

Worth

Tonight, All-Campus worship was great. (Also great, but not-as-great, was me working on Logic for a solid hour!)

We had a speaker (I already forgot his name) but he graduated from GCC in '95, and is now a pastor near Pittsburgh. He spoke on how we are always of value to God no matter what. In a very, um, poignant (? not sure of the work I'm looking for here...) example, he said if he gave us $100, we would take it - even if he crumpled it up, stepped on it, chewed on it, etc. Because, no matter what he is doing to that $100 bill short of completely destroying it, it is still worth one hundred dollars. Just as we still hold worth in God's eyes - He sent Jesus Christ to die for us - we were and are worth it.

I would have liked him to elaborate a little more, but with the 20 mins he was given, he did a great job.

God is so good!

See? a C?

Sadly, last night, my glasses broke - snapped in half right in the middle. Now I'm looking for some superglue to see if I can put them back together or I may have to go the sweet taped glasses route until Thanksgiving rolls around and I'm home to get a new pair. Good thing is that the frames were quite old as was the prescription - 7 years, so getting a new pair is long due.

In other news, my midterm Monday was handed back today and despite my long hours of studying and getting together with others in my class, I came away with a high C. My only consolation is that the people around me scored around the same, so it was a difficult test; and now that I know what this prof's tests look like, I'll be better prepared for the final.

And the mad rush of the week is effectively over - I had no homework for tomorrow, so I had a long, leisurely dinner with some friends then worked on catching up on my reading for Issues and worked a little on Logic. Hopefully I'll get a lot more work in and finish memorizing the methods and the rules for the test Monday. (Unfortunately for my studying sensibilities this week/weekend is Homecoming.)

Completely unrelated - randomly, I miss singing in chamber choir a lot. Actually, I think it's because I started to listen to some of my favorite Christmas music today. Yes, already. No, it's never too early for Christmas music. (Except maybe in the middle of spring or summer - I figure, once it hits October, it's okay occasionally.)

Also, I'm working on writing out something continuing the C.S. Lewis quote I referenced yesterday.

A midterm that's a final?

And the count is: 2 midterms, 2 papers, 1 lecture, 1 movie down! Yays! Now all that's left is 2 lectures and misc. homework. It's so nice to have all that behind me.

The midterm this morning went well, except for the fact that it was like a final. Normally 8ams on TR run from 8-9:15 and then chapel is at 9:30. However, this morning, my test ran from 8-10am and I had a 10:05 class; and I was one of the first 10 or 15 people out of 110 to finish. That test was a winner - a final masquerading as a midterm.

In taking my C.S. Lewis exam this morning, I ran into quoting Lewis quite a bit in the necessity of a personal god. Kant, a deist, says about the common moral law, "If we ought, we can." Lewis refutes this by saying, "If we ought, we should; but, we can't." Because of our sinful nature, we cannot keep ourselves nor anyone else accountable to this moral law even if we do measure them against it, and they, us. A total tangent, but I thought it was a good argument and a somewhat obvious one too - but it had never occurred to me before then. A personal, involved, compassionate God is what we all need. (Hopefully I'll elaborate on this more tomorrow, but for now, it's late and my brain is tired.)

Speaking of, these past few days God has really helped me get through the stress and keeping all the information (somehow) in my brain for the exams. His faithfulness even through the small things like these is astounding and so encouraging!

Monday, Monday

Today went like this: wake up later than planned, class (with a small bit of studying), midterm, lunch, movie for French Cinema, work, dinner, study, lecture, study. What an exciting, jam-packed day.

Also, I wonder about the phrase "jam-packed". When taken literally, it conjures up an image of something packed to overflowing with jam. Now what kind of jam would you want that to be? Today, I'd say marmalade, because I like the word - it just rolls off the tongue so nicely.

As you can see by my deep contemplations, my brain is fried. Hopefully it will recover in time to take the midterm for C.S. Lewis tomorrow morning!

Count: 1 midterm, 1 paper, 1 movie, 1 lecture down. What a nice feeling that is.

Study Sunday

I regret this post cannot be longer, but a) I do not have the time to be writing lots and b) not much happened today beyond studying, hence the title of this post.

Today basically looked like this: church, brunch, study, paper, study, dinner, study, grade a few papers, study, study, and come back here to hopefully finish grading the papers, and study more.

This is what happens when I have 2 midterms, 2 papers, a movie to watch, a lecture to attend, and Homecoming week all rolled up into a lovely concoction known as, "Let's see Abby get through this week, hmmm?" Actually, I've known this week was coming up for a while and all I have to do is get through Tuesday night and the week is basically calm from there on out. Also, praying about it has helped immensely, so the stress levels are either down from that or I'm not caring about my schoolwork as much as I should be.... maybe a little of both?

Lazy Saturday

Today was an excellent day to have a lazy Saturday - not for my homework though. I got up at a reasonable time and made it to an early lunch, which had surprisingly good pizza. Then I came back to my room with the goal of doing my Exceptionalities project which is due next Wednesday, only to get really distracted by C.S. Lewis (not a bad distraction) and then falling asleep for a few hours. Then I got up, went to the halftime show (which was great), came back, went back to sleep, and finally got up around 3:30 to go for a run, take a shower, eat dinner, and come back to putz.

Around 7:30, I headed down to the apartments to do some free laundry, have some delicious pumpkin pie (yay Sarah! And Megan, yes it is delicious.), and time with friends.

Corny Maze Fun

Tonight night a group of us (12 people) went to a corn maze about 25 mins from GCC - see above. I'd never been to a corn maze before and had no idea what to expect, but it was great. Good ol' agrarian fun! Haaaa.

Once we got there, we split up into two teams of 6 and my team had a two minute head start. We also had clipboards with a crossword puzzle (the answers were posted on little stands around the maze) and for each answer we got, we got a minute taken off our overall time. At first we got completely lost in the horses and then somehow found out we'd wandered out to the middle of the carriage at which point we figured out where we were (actually, the guys were really into the navigation at this point) and ran out only to find out the other group had beaten us by 4 minutes! Once the answers were included, it was only a 2-minute difference! How sad.

There was also a HUGE tent-like thing filled with hay bales you could climb on, jump over, and crawl under. So, we started a massive game of tag with all the kiddies in there for a while and had some epic falls off the hay bales. Finally, the guys wanted a rematch, so they went in the exit and we were supposed to go in the entrance; however, we just waited for them to come back out and acted like we'd beaten them - that lasted all of around 5 seconds and then they figured it out.

Finally, a game of elbow tag and lots of epic collisions ensued (the grass was really, really, really slippery) and some more hay bale climbing/jumping. By then, it was getting pretty chilly out, so we headed back to the Grove and made popcorn balls, played some nertz, and watched the Red Sox-Tampa Bay game. A great end to a very fun night.

I speak Pirate!

Today, after a lovely morning of C.S. Lewis and seeing Sarah speak about her summer in Romania at chapel (yay Sarah! You were amazing!), a pretty normal day followed - class, lunch, class (in which I received my pop-midterm back, a very respectable A), then some putzing, a quick trip to the bank, dinner, tutoring, and homework (I just finished). (Yes, I know that was a horrid run-on, I just don't feel like fixing it.)

At dinner tonight, I learned the facebook comes in Pirate now! Arrrr!

At the bottom where there's a language option, you can change your language to Pirate! It's pretty amusing - I'm sure it will have my attention for at least the next 30 mins...or days... Instead of Home, it says "Home Port." It keeps going on with others, I just haven't figured out them all yet. Some are listed below for your amusement (regular English on the left):

Friends - Me Hearties/Mateys
Messages - Bottle o' Messages
Log out - Abandon Ship
Notifications - Ahoy There!
Requests - Naggins
Wrote on your wall - Scrawled on yer plank
Info -Swag
See all - Peer into the depths
See photos - Spy portraits o'(someone's name here)
Videos - Spy bewitched portraits o'(someone's name here)
Send message - Cast (name) a message
Poke - Skewer
Edit info - Mangle me litany

Basically, I could go on and on. It's hilarious. I'm actually sitting in HAL right now trying very hard not to laugh out loud. I wonder if facebook will be translated to Ninja next...

Fairy Tales Come to Life

Laugh/"shake head and groan" of-the-day provided by the Czech Republic via the BBC: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/7654513.stm

BBC NEWS Europe Czech court to rule on fairy-tale kingdom
Source: news.bbc.co.uk

A court in the Czech city of Olomouc is to deliver its verdict in one of the oddest legal disputes in the country's history.

Putzing

Today, my 10am got cancelled because of the Army helicopter landing on the upper quad for the career fair. Very cool. I took advantage of that and caught up on DWTS. Then lunch, and after lunch I had the idea to work on my symbolic logic homework. That excellent work ethic turned into a nap quicker than you can say 'Jiminy Cricket!' So nap taken, I went to work, then class (which was an excellent presentation on autism in the classroom), and language tables. After language tables, Mary and I heard the helicopter getting ready to take off, so we ran to watch it and had a Pocahontas moment with our hair everywhere and leaves flying around us.

Since then, I've done almost nothing - a bit of reading for Friday, some extra work for Mme Trammell on the compy, and lots of putzing - homestarrunner and DWTS clips on youtube. Quality entertainment. It's so nice to relax after the last two weeks; however, this slacking off is going to mean a jam-packed weekend.

Also, I got a French postcard from Texas today. What a conundrum.

Pop-Midterm?

Today: a pop-midterm in French Cinema. According to the syllabus, the midterm was (and still is) scheduled for October 28. However, today, we had a pop-midterm, like a pop-quiz, only longer. Like 45 mins longer. Sheesh. Luckily, it was all essay questions based upon personal opinion, so I think I did okay.

Also, tonight was the start of tutoring (finally got that all sorted out this afternoon) and we had one kid show up for Spanish - yay!

The rabies fiasco continues - Amanda started her rabies treatment shots today and I'm pretty sure Bethany will start hers soon too. Yay for me sleeping with the connecting suite door closed and not having to get the shots. Yay for Amanda and Bethany having an amazing story to tell.

Tomorrow is the Career Fair (which I did set up for this afternoon), but I'm not sure if I'm going to go; teaching jobs get posted in the spring. Maybe I will just to walk around and see the recruiters, get practice talking to them, and get free pens! And now the debate calls (got my absentee ballot yesterday!).

Rabies shots?

That is the question of the day - due to the bat incidents in our suite earlier this year, Amanda, Bethany, and I might have to get rabies shots. So says the PA Dept of Health per Zerbe to us. Yikes. I hope not. The bats never even made it to my side of the suite, so I shouldn't have to get the shots. However, since the bats could have been in the room while Manda and Bethany were sleeping, they potentially could have bitten them in their sleep and they could have rabies. All very hypothetical. A month after the bats were there. Sheesh. I think the plan right now is to get blood tests to even see if they need the shot series and then go from there.

Today was class, class, lunch, and then an observation at Mercer MS for my Exceptionalities class. For two hours I was able to help out in the learning support room (social studies and math) and then I had the opportunity to go to the autistic center and work with kids there. It was amazing - by far my favorite part of the day. Seeing these kids work with their teachers and the routine of the day was awesome. They all were working hard on their manners and kept coming by to introduce themselves, shake my hand, and ask me a question. My favorite was a boy who really really liked Garth Brooks and broke out into song for me when I said I didn't know his favorite song. So fun!

Then followed work for half an hour, dinner, the rabies fiasco, and lots of organizing, planning, and e-mailing for Spanish/French tutoring which is finally going to start up tomorrow. Hopefully the RE's will stop soon and the schedule will be somewhat set for the semester.

Tomorrow in C.S. Lewis, we start reading The Abolition of Man, which is the book I'm most excited about to read this semester for that class. And once we're done with that - Narnia!

Mashed Potatoes!

Mmm. Yays for a good, warm, fall-ish dinner at Hicks tonight: mashed potatoes, gravy, roast beef, and sweet corn. Yum.

This morning my church had Don Piper (author of 90 Minutes in Heaven) come to speak. He was very straightforward and honest, something I appreciated after my initial, gut-reaction skepticism of the story. I still want to read the book before I make up my mind about it though (which will probably be my project for over fall break).

Following a brunch which featured banana nut muffins(!) I went back to my room with the goal of completing my homework, only to read two chapters in my book and fall asleep for 3 hours. Oh dear. I guess I needed it though. Then lots of work and dinner followed plus some grading for Mme Trammell and here I am, watching Whose Line clips on youtube. Also, good conversations with my dad, Laura, and Summer were sprinkled throughout today. I have never been on the phone so much in one day! It was wonderful to talk to them and hear what's going on in their lives.

And recently I have been learning about how it's so important to not only give ourselves up fully to God (I posted about it I think a week ago or so? Not sure now...) but also to not put God in a box. So often we have expectations that limit what we believe God can do. How it should be is us giving up all to God and going out on that limb not knowing what is going to happen, trusting in him and his plans for us. "Trust in the Lord with all your heart and lean not on your own understanding; in all your ways acknowledge him, and he will make your paths straight." (Proverbs 3:5-6)

Sun-shining Day

I will have to make this post short and sweet - church and all my homework remain for tomorrow...(actually, later today).

So today was productive - an extended stop at the procrastination station (i.e. avoiding my homework) included first a great conversation with Sara and then a trip to the outlets with Manda . We had a good time talking and catching up outside of 'the bubble' (that's school in case you didn't get it). Then followed a mad dash down to the apartments for a couscous dinner that ended up not being exactly couscous, just tiny pasta (couldn't find real couscous at the grocery store in western PA - what a shocker, haha).

Then came back to the suite, and watched Sweet Home Alabama - I'd forgotten how funny it was. My favorite part is when the main character is looking for her dad on the reenactment battlefield and all the soldiers sit up to help her and then once they're done, "die" again. Tickles my funny bone. (It might be more of a thing you have to see. My explanation doesn't do it justice.)

In other news, I have been on a reggae funk lately and found the soundtrack to Cool Runnings on imeem, so I've been listening to it pretty much non-stop for two days. Makes me smile and miss home. I can't wait for New Year's Eve to watch it again! Oh family silliness!

Le week-end

Le week-end, c'est la! I am so grateful the weekend is finally here! It's going to be a great one! Like I said before - outlet shopping and then making a couscous dinner tomorrow night which was previewed tonight by watching the season premier of Pushing Daisies, add a dash of a random international dance party et voila! - a nice night of putzing.

Today also had a very interesting lunch conversation - more like a sort of intellectual debate about a non-intellectual subject: can girls and guys really just be friends? We all (almost) agreed, yes, up to a certain point; but can they be best/deepest/closest friends with no romance involved - no. Following this lunch, one of us decided to do some research, and here's an excerpt from the e-mail I got:

"Aristotle rightly tells us that friendship in the final sense includes conversation about the highest things, that is, about truth for its own sake. True friends not only want to exist in the same world, but in the world that is true. Friendship in this sense seeks reality--truth--as its binding force.

If we discover the highest things in our deepest friendships, you can’t do that with more than a handful of people. We are limited by the time and energy we can invest in other people. AND – this bond is something that can’t as easily be shared with the opposite sex. Perhaps you can to a degree, but certainly not on a “best friend” basis outside of romantic relationships. Pursuit of the highest things and synonymously the measure of one’s best friend demands far too much."

There is also that added something that we have as Christians - a spiritual bond and aspect to relationships we have with our brothers and sisters in Christ. Overall, an interesting topic and debate that, believe it or not, actually stemmed from a prep for the night of the purity talk at camp this summer. Funny how things from two different places in my life match up this often.

The weekend starts on Fridays now

Essentially, right now, it's Friday for me. I am so happy this weekend is here! I thought last week was crazy busy, but it's had nothin' on this week! I have happily realized the value of doing homework in the afternoons; however, that really only applies when doing said homework gets you finished by 7 or 8pm. This week, I've been taking around a half hour break for dinner and then back to homework, and I was still only finishing at 10ish. Yikes! Apparently, I had a lot of work to do.

Speaking of work - this morning's C&I midterm went splendidly - 4 hours of concentrated studying yesterday and help from God on the concentration/focus front really did the trick. I felt very confident about it when I handed it in. I also did decently well on my make-up quiz for my C.S. Lewis class this afternoon.

Tonight was spent putzing (really, what else?) and then a long, leisurely dinner followed during which I had a very enlightening conversation which ranged from everyone here getting engaged (and subsequently creeked) to camp culture and songs - a wide range of subjects indeed. And I successfully putzed my way until now, when I really need to get working on my reading for tomorrow's Issues class.

This weekend promises to be excellent with a trip to the outlets with Amanda for some girl time and hopefully I'll be cooking a couscous dinner for some friends Saturday evening!

Trust

And the theme of the day is... (drumroll please!): trust!

Trusting in God that I'll have studied enough for my midterm, for my quiz, and for life in general tomorrow. Then thanking God that Friday and the weekend are coming swiftly.

(Also, in other news, Pushing Daisies is back, which means one more distraction from homework I don't really need but enjoy very much.)

The last few days have been particularly productive; who knew you could get so much work done in the afternoons if you just didn't take a nap? Well, I do now! I'm hoping this fabulous work ethic and time management continues this semester. It's been so nice to have all my homework done by around 8 or 9 every night. Then I can guiltlessly watch Dancing with the Stars and now, Pushing Daisies. Oh whimsicality, I like you.

Oops

Haaa, so today, when waking up, I was very tired, thought it was Monday, and went back to sleep. Little did I know it is actually Tuesday and not only did I miss my C.S. Lewis class, but I also missed the quiz on Miracles. Thankfully, when I e-mailed Dr. Schaefer to explain this (non-senior) blunder, he was very understanding and I'll be able to retake it Thursday.

However, sadly . . . very sadly, I didn't realize it was Tuesday until I had gone up to HAL and to a class that doesn't exist on Tuesdays. Oh man, I need more sleep.

And in local news, the men's pants have been return shipped. Farewell random pair of pants.

All in Moderation

Too much of a good thing is too much of a good thing.

Too much studying = an A, which I did not get on my Logic exam. Methinks I need to go back, review the rules, and work on homework a lot this week. And figure out what went wrong on the test. The next one I will be prepared for!

In other news, nothing much happened this weekend and this week is looking somewhat normally dull as well. Mayhap I shall come up with some good conversation topics for Thursday evening dinner group!

Also, I have to get a job! I've known it's been coming for a while but gosh. One little hour-long conference about the Praxis and getting certified and suddenly my blood pressure is a little higher. Luckily, this week, besides the midterm Thursday, should be relatively non-eventful in terms of projects. Which after last week's fiasco on Thursday and Friday is wonderful. Like curling up with a warm book under a blanket that just came out of the dryer on a cold January day. With a mug of tea of course.

Also, apparently my new name is 'the Abbymeister', or so exclaimed Dr. Trammell today when I went in to work.

The beat goes on...

Sorry for skipping a day already! Maybe I'm not as dedicated as I felt on Wednesday when the blog was all exciting and new again... I am going to try though!

Thursday was busy, busy, busy. As I wrote before, the presentation in C&I went great, then I had a great nap followed by a great dinner with great friends; then things stopped being great. Right after dinner I had to run up to HAL for a Symbolic Logic review session, which I had to leave halfway through to go to a great lecture on Dante. Dr. Esolen (who is a renowned scholar on Dante) came to speak and was very entertaining. I had no idea of some of the symbloism in the Divine Comedy.

For instance, Satan, who is encased in ice from the waist down (and subsequently chewing on Brutus, Casius, and Judas with his three mouths) is constantly flapping his wings. In other words, he is denying the power of God by figuratively saying, "I will rise of my own power." However, this action, ironically, causes the gale that causes the ice to form that hold himself and the other traitors in the lowest level of hell. Dr. Esolen also quoted George Macdonald, "I am my own are the lonliest words ever uttered," which now that I have thought about it is so true. In today's society, especially American society, all we do is concentrate on the individual. How can we not when it is what is pushed into our minds by advertisers and others, "You deserve this, you are the one that is working hard, you, you you." It is important to look back on history and realize that we are not individuals so much as a part of a whole. In our post-cultural society, there is no common factor that binds us together any longer. It is a voluntary submission to God and acknowledgement that we are not in fact our own that can do this - freedom must unite us because we do not recieve our freedom from ourselves. It is this contingency and dependence on one another that can make us free in love, humility, and gratitude.

Enough 'preaching', that is just something that I thought was so amazing and wonderful of a revelation to me that I had to share.

Last night was One Acts, and it was very funny. I particularly liked one called, "English Made Simple," the little grammar freak in me enjoyed it lots and lots. Then followed dessert down at the apartments (mmm ice cream) and watching some of the extras to LOTR. I was very happy. Now mac & cheese calls as does some Dancing with the Stars!

Awesome Day!

So today is pretty much just a really great day!

First, I had a presentation in C&I which I have been really stressing over; I even had dreams about it this past weekend! Even during the presentation I was thinking in the back of my mind, "This isn't interesting. I'm doing a bad job on this lesson. Oh gosh, why did I just say that? Am I making sense at all??" It turns out I did a great job (so say my peer reviews from my classmates and my professor). I had a conference-feedback session with Dr. Stephens right after class and he was so enthusastic and encouraging. It's nice to know I won't be a bad student teacher. So the presentation is over and after a little studying I'm feeling a bit more confident about my Symbolic Logic test tomorrow. I will have a study session with my prof tonight which will hopefully help a LOT.

In funny news of the day, I was picked to be the reciever of an acting interpretation of a love poem from Cyrano de Bergerac, which we just finished watching/studying. I swooned at the end for effect since all I had to do was stand in front of the class and listen to the poem. Applause and laughter followed. Also because it was kind of awkward; but, Dr. Leon is just like that and after having her for 4 years of French, it takes a lot to really shock you in her class.

Finally

And we're back! And by we, I mean me... thanks to the 'support' aka persuasion of some people who still want to be updated on my (now) relatively boring life at GCC. Hopefully my posts will remain somewhat regular and interesting to read now that I'm back in the US.

Funniest thing to happen today: I recieved a pair of 38-28 men's khaki pants in the mail (which I did not order; I figured that would be obvious, but just in case there's any doubt...). I didn't even know they made pants for people that short and round! Now I have to hike on down to the post office and return them. Silly.

On a more serious note I've recently been learning how I need to give up every aspect of my life to Christ. It's a tough decision and definitely frightening, but my devotions and people God has been putting into my path are constantly re-emphasizing this message. Just last night I read from C.S. Lewis,

"Now we cannot. . . .discover our failure to keep
God's law except by trying our very hardest (and then failing). Unless we try,
whatever we say there will always be at the back of our minds the idea that if
we try harder next time we shall succeed in being completely good. Thus, in one
sense, the road back to God is a road of moral effort, of trying harder and
harder. But in another sense it is not trying that is ever going to bring us
home. All this trying leads up to the vital moment at which you turn to God as
say, 'You must do this. I can't.'" (Mere Christianity)

How important this lesson is, and how difficult to learn! I have been trying and trying to learn this consciously for the past year now, but it was just through this reading last night that I was finally able to acknowledge what I had known, but not known all along - I must surrender completely; no holding onto the tiny thoughts in the back of my mind any longer.

Le der des ders

Today is the last day here in Nantes, and fortunately it only rained for about an hour this afternoon.

It was in general a very good day - I was able to sleep in, do some last-minute shopping, and send a few postcards.

And see below, I updated my blog by one whole day! Considering the fact that I was running around quite a bit today going out for my last crepes, printing out boarding passes online, saying goodbye to my friends and the IES staff.

I'll be leaving in about 9 hours for the airport - a very early morning for me - then 5 hours at Charles DeGaulle, a two-hour transfer time in Heathrow and I'll be home! I'm so excited to see my family, but since I'll be observing this whole next week in school and my work starts in southern Indiana the 27th, I really don't have a lot of time to be at home. Boo. I know it will be a great summer though and hopefully the blog will keep going and be slowly brought up to date...

This is die Deutsche Bahn!

Today was a last hurrah in Strasbourg for us all starting out in the morning with a boat tour down the Ill River with Alicia and Molly (two girls from the program who were there with us overlapping 2 days). Then we walked over to the Contemporary Art Museum to see an exhibit called "Instants anonymes" aka anonomous instants which follows the art of amateur photography since the Brownie camera in the early 1900s. It was so fun to see all the silly pictures of people at the beach and the hilarious pictures of kids!

Then following a mad dash back to the hostel to pick up our bags and stopping by a boulangerie to get the most flour-encrusted bread ever, we made it to the train station and caught our TGV to Stuttgart. Julie and I had an hour layover there, so since trains are so lax, we were able to walk out and see the city for about 30 mins before we had to head back and get on our Deutsche Bahn-run train to Ansbach. Since our tickets had our whole trip on them, we had punched them like you're supposed to in France. Then we got lectured by the conductor on our way to Ansbach - hier ist die Deutsche Bahn! Eeep!

Once arriving in Ansbach, we had a little adventure with me buying us tickets for a bus to Rothenburg ob der Tauber (where we would be staying for the next 5 days) and then the bus never coming. Luckily, there was a train-tram combo that would get us there too, but unluckily, the ticket office was closed by the time we realized the bus was never coming! So, we ran up and caught a nice-looking man getting on the train and tried to explain the situation to him. However, my German was so rusty he couldn't really get what I was saying. Finally he asked if we spoke English! Yays! Apparently he thought I was French because of my accent in German! Even better was the fact that the German railway and bus system is the same, so we were able to use our ticket for the train-tram. Once we were in Rothenburg, we had to stop at a hotel to ask for directions, but eventually got to our hostel safely. This was followed by a lovely dinner of muesli, peach rings, trail mix, and petit ecoliers. Mmm.