12 of 12

9:33 AM: Fearless Freshman Peer Leaders took off to go to Divine Liturgy at the local Ukranian Byzantine Catholic Church. Kristin was the only one who would turn around for my picture, and she's not even a freshman- she's my small group leader and was in FPL last year. Our van was part of a three-vehicle convoy. Oh yes, be impressed.


9:53 AM: Arrival at said church.

11:37 AM: After the Liturgy, the priest blessed everyone personally with a relic of St. Josephat. Not only was the saint's name freaking awesome, I was blessed as, "May St. Josephat intercede for you, whoever you are." The church is so small that he recognizes everyone and knows them by name; I was the first one of the Notre Dame contingent to be blessed, so I got to explain what all these college kids were doing in his church. P.S. The sanctuary is beautiful too.


11:43 AM: Group picture! Where's Laura? Hint: I'm right in front, silly. After this the parishoners fed us huge amounts of sausage and potatoes and other awesomeness in honor of their patron saint's feast day, St. Michael the Archangel. Can you say early Thanksgiving? It was beautiful.


3:30 PM: Back from Divine Liturgy and trying to start homework. Yes, start; it's been a busy weekend. One of the books I'm reading for theology is in the foreground. The Creed was actually written by someone who goes to Sacred Heart Parish in Atlanta. I felt special. (My attempt at working failed; the radiator makes things far too cozy. I fell asleep).


5:29 PM: After waking up, I rushed across campus to make it to my first Urban Plunge class on time. This was South Quad on the way.

5:54 PM: The beautiful Kristin, again, this time showing off her V8. I've never had such a beverage. We sat together because we're both site leaders and had to be at the class early. Woot.


8:11 PM: Joey and Round 1 of fast food (we miss meal times at dining halls way too much. he hadn't eaten all day)


8:42 PM: Trash run! We tend to let it accumulate until someone finally says ENOUGH! I was holding a third bag, if that gives you any perspective.


9:00 PM: Joey and Round 2 of fast food, this time Sbarro.

11:38 PM: Late night grotto runs are a must for keeping peace of mind here. It's beautiful, although sometimes they're out of candles at this point. Oh well. I adopt a lit candle and pretend it's mine.


1:26 AM: Me happy that I'm going to bed soon. Long day (see the bags under my eyes?). I did get homework done, somewhat, but I didn't take pictures of that because really, who wants to watch me do homework? Tada, this was my Sunday. More exciting than most, actually.

Bah

Lest the people who don't really know me who read this think that I'm an awesome saint-like peaceful person, let me tell you what I did last night.

There are a couple lounges in the basement of my dorm, a big one and a small one. The attractiveness of these lounges comes from the fact that they're the only rooms boys are allowed in after midnight. A couple of my friends have pretty much taken over the smaller lounge during the evenings, because no one's in them until parietals. Last night Joey and I joined them for a bit. Eventually, parietals came, and they left to go get Starbucks. Joey and I stayed, working on homework.

Another couple came in the room holding snacks and a dvd case, popped in their movie (did I mention these rooms have TVs, too?) and settled down. Not exactly conducive to studying, and the room is small enough that we couldn't really escape the movie. I wouldn't have cared so much except Joey had an exam AND a paper due today.

We talked at normal conversation level; they turned up the volume to block us out. Joey brought up a concert we both would love to go to but can't make it to, and I looked it up online with the purpose of listening to music from the non-headlining bands, which we don't know that well. Joey's laptop has pretty powerful speakers, so even though the volume was only half of the way up, it was still about the same noise level as from the TV. Bwahahaha.

After about a minute of this, the guy of the annoying duo called over and asked if we wouldn't mind moving to the other room (normally much noiser and more busy) because they had to watch this movie for a project. It was Cinderella Man. They had been talking about how long they'd wanted to see this movie. We kind of looked at them, then conceeded defeat and left. Ugh.

The awesome wave of peace blogging at the same time as election day has had interesting effects on me, I think. Arguments with Friend 1 continue. I'm struggling the most with arguing for what I know is right peacefully and lovingly. It's so easy to resort to sarcasm or other such things just because "everyone else is doing it" and it's an easy way to drive home a point. But that doesn't make it right. If I can't exhibit peace, then there's no point in trying to argue for it in current affairs. Being peaceful can include being passionate, but not to the point that you focus so much on the issue at hand that you forget to love the person. Friend 1 is a very cool kid, otherwise she would not be Friend 1 but Person Whose Company I Don't Particularly Enjoy 1. But Friend 1 can get me very angry because Friend 1 challenges many beliefs that I hold that are central to my life. That doesn't mean I shouldn't love Friend 1, it just makes that love harder.

P.S. I've asked Friend 1, and Friend 1 doesn't mind me blogging about our conversations. Friend 1 has no problem with being quoted on Friend 1's beliefs.

In other news, other friends have been especially awesome to me recently, and I would like to publicly declare my love for them. One showed interest in what I want to do with my life, and everyone loves to be noticed. Another offered to make me soup, thinking I was ill, and even though I was actually just tired, it was very kind. You make me smile.

Also: I have survived swim class! Today was my last day. I can't say that I'm now skilled at swimming, per se, and should I find myself drowning, I would be far more likely to float on my back than try to swim for it, but I do a mean elementary back stroke. I'm just saying.

Now for some random pictures, because I cleared off my camera last night:


This is Zed looking out the window at the snow-covered cars with trepidation. Actually, I'm having issues with Zed. He sits on top of our window sill, which is above the radiator. The radiator apparently has two settings: off, and piping out insane amounts of heat. Whether the radiator is off or on is also apparently out of our control. Because it's not that cold out yet, our rooms don't need all of the heat put out by the radiator, and we have to open the windows to compensate. So one side of Zed is really cold, and the other is really hot. He must be feeling conflicted, or menopausal. But seriously, I have nowhere else to put him, and I'm not really sure what the temperature variance will do, but it can't be good.

I just wrote a whole paragraph about a plant. Moving on.


I went to my first ND basketball game Monday night. Good fun. I didn't get to stay till the end (yay Peace Fellowship meeting!) but it was still cool. I've decided that I like basketball the most when my brother's playing; otherwise, I have trouble concentrating.


They raced in huge plastic ball things. I think that was the most entertaining part of the night.

This was at the game last Saturday, which was a mite chilly. I don't know if I've mentioned it on here, but Joey's friend Liz came to visit us from Marian in Indianapolis last weekend (she's the 3rd person in the picture). It was cool to hang out with her and have an excuse to not think about homework. Come back any time, Liz :-)
Oh and let's just ignore how my hat makes me look like a member of the conehead family.

Are you still reading? Good grief, there has to be something better for you to do with your time. But I guess you're the smart ones because I saved the most interesting (I think) news for last- I got an email this afternoon saying that I will be the site leader for Urban Plunge in Mobile. I go to talk to the good people at the CSC later about what that entails, exactly. They had said that no one had volunteered for the position, and I emailed back and said I'd do it if they didn't mind a freshman with no mission trip experience being in charge. Apparently it was supposed to happen. Ok God, let's see where this one goes.

Finally- I switched to beta blogger and obviously messed with my template some. What do you guys think?

somewhat less peaceful, happiness, and good citizenship

Lunch today...
Friend 1: Haha! I love these political jokes in the newspaper today about Saddam's hanging.
Me: You don't have a problem with the idea of hanging Saddam Hussein?
Friend 1: Um, no- if he had killed my family, I'd want him to die too.
Me: Seriously?
Friend 1: Yeah! If it was happening here, I'd so go watch.
Me: So basically, you're saying that killing him is going to fix all of the killing he did.
Friend 1: Well, yeah.
Me: I'm going to class now.

*sigh* Yeah, that was sad. I love my friends, but they're a bit to crazy conservative for me sometimes.

On a MUCH BRIGTHER NOTE- I went to see my advisor today about scheduling classes next semester, and the conversation went something like this:
Me: So, I don't want to take any more intro classes than I have to, and I think I've satisfied the intro requirements. I've got AP credit.
Advisor: Yep! You've got everything for your first year out of the way, except for PE. Polisci/ peace studies major? Cool, let me put you in all these awesome classes because you don't have to take any more general intro classes. And here, would you be interested in these special lit classes? You'll have to take some lit class before you graduate- I think I'm supposed to reserve these spots for English intents, but you can pick one. You can have beginning Spanish too, just go talk to this person.
Me: I love you.

Yeah, life rocks, all of that AP stuff actually paid off, and guess what Mom and Dad, it was cheaper to pay the AP fees and get credit that way than paying for the class here! Of course, I still want to be here all four years... but it means I get to take more of the classes I like and less random general huge intro classes. Swoon.

In other news, I voted my absentee ballot! I mailed it before today, but as today is the actual election day, I thought it would be better to post the picture today (I've been too lazy to take it off my camera). Wasn't as fulfilling as I thought it would be, seeing as I wasn't overly thrilled about any one candidate, but at least I'm screwing with the statistics on college voters.

Happy Tuesday everyone! I'm going to go work on homework now.

Dona Nobis Pacem

Let there be peace on earth, and let it begin with me,
Let there be peace on earth, the peace that was meant to be.
With God as our Father, brothers all are we,
Let me walk with my brother, in perfect harmony.
Let peace begin with me, let this be the moment now,
With every step I take, let this be my solemn vow,
To take each moment and live each moment in peace eternally.
Let there be peace on earth, and let it begin with me!
by Jill Jackson and Sy Miller

This post is part of what seems to be a huge meme, started by one Queen Mimi here. If you have a blog, you should totally join in. The idea seems to be to get as many people as possible to post peace globes (see above) and talk about peace. So here we go.

I am at the beginning of my college career. I have told many people (in fact, anyone who's asked) that I intend to major in political science and peace studies. A minor part of this is that my political science classes in high school were the only ones that truly fascinated me. Of more importance is that I have been blessed to come to at least a limited understanding of the idea that the world as it currently exists is in many ways broken. I think that sometimes it seems so necessary to not love certain people. It appears that love, in the form of sharing resources or forgiveness, would mean the death of one's own community or way of life. How easy it is to come under the delusion that love causes bad things. I think that one of the few absolutes in life is that God is love, and so love is always, always good. No matter what.

I feel deeply and personally called to witness this truth, that love really is the answer. Yes, I am young and incredibly idealistic, but I went through a period of time in which I couldn't see how God could even exist when life can be so terrible. Thankfully, I have begun to realize the true implications of being a part of the body of Christ, really being His hands and feet. I believe that we are called now, at this moment, to "be the change we wish to see in the world" (Gandhi).

To be honest, it petrifies me, because I am admitting that I hold a lot more responsibility for peace in the world than I thought I had before. It's easy to look at major international issues and wish for peace; it's another thing entirely to understand that the way to peace on a large scale is establishing peace in my own life.

I have grand plans for what I want to do with my life, and hopefully, I'm right that I'm being called to them as well. I'll keep you posted. Before I started college, I told people that I wanted to take a couple of years off after school and go volunteer somewhere for a while because I'll still be young, capable, and family-less. Then I want to settle down and do non-profit work, maybe at an NGO headquartered in DC. Now, being at college and going to all of these fabulous lectures and club meetings, and more importantly seeing where other students have gone, I want to go even more. I want to be in the middle of the worst, and at the same time I'm absolutely terrified of it- I've never even been on a mission trip through church, like most people here.

Thankfully, Notre Dame has a fabulous Center for Social Concerns, and they offer all kinds of programs to help students experience service and learn through it. I'm participating this winter break in their Urban Plunge program; basically, they stick you in a charity for 48 hours and expose you to all the worst problems in American cities. I just found out that I've been placed in Mobile.

It feels wonderful to know that finally, finally, I can say that I'm doing more than just talking about peace. I have a feeling, though, that it will affect me much more than I will affect the community I'll be in, and I'll come to a greater understanding of the fact that working for peace can take place every day in my own life. We'll see how it goes.

"Aww" moment

One year.
:-)

Richard Brautigan

KARMA REPAIR KIT: ITEMS 1-4

1. Get enough food to eat,
And eat it.

2. Find a place to sleep where it is quiet,
and sleep there.

3. Reduce intellectual and emotional noise
until you arrive at the silence of yourself,
and listen to it.

4.




So no one I've showed it to so far has been quite as enamored by it as I... I think I'm in somewhat of a romantic and whimsical mood.

Meet Zed

Our room has a mascot now. His name is Zed. I have a long, cold winter ahead of me, so I'm trying very hard to keep Zed alive for some color.

My roommate Annie and I think that our last plant (potted purple daisies) died because we didn't take the time to name it. Now Zed can escape its fate. It also has a shamrock on it for good luck.

Hear You Me

Haha, the title sounds like something a grandfather should say.
At the moment, I am a huge fan of Jimmy Eat World, more particularly the song Hear You Me. It's so mellow and fits my mood so beautifully.

What would you think of me now,
so lucky, so strong, so proud?
I never said thank you for that,
now I'll never have a chance.
-Hear You Me


Ahh, so beautiful. Go find it now and listen. It's gorgeous.

Yes, there was more of a point to this post than to share my current music interests. Since starting my grown-up blog :-) I have become addicted to blog-surfing, that is, finding other interesting and exciting blogs to read on a daily basis. Mostly I surf through the sidebars of other blogs, but sometimes I'm wild and I just click on the titles of the newly updated blogs that sound interesting. I would put the blogs I read on my sidebar, but I don't know how to edit my template yet. So until then, here are some blogs that piqued my interest for one reason or another... go read!
Begoworld
Rmromero
Saakara
SmallButMighty
My Busy Farm Days
Waiter Rant
[An Aside]
Just Because
Pansy and Peony
Indigo Girl
Laugh, Lament, and Love
A Flying Leap
Sunday Scribblings
Stargazer
Imperishable Beauty
Crouching Mommy, Hidden Laundry
The Sober Sophomore

I'm a pretty wild college kid... not gonna lie...

Last night was a certifiably crazy set of events, and I wasn't even drunk.

After class ended, I headed over to Stepan to set up for relay for life. My favorite part was the NDSP guys driving around in their warm SUV calling out the window, "Hey, Georgia girl! You ok?" Yes, I'm fine, thank you, I just can't feel my fingers.

I went back to Farley for a little bit, mostly to check on Joey, who had been through health services for a foot issue (my phone was dead). The boy will live. He left to find a halloween costume.

A little while later, I convinced Nicole to come back to Relay with me, promising good food (it's true, good food was to be had there, but I also wanted someone to watch the opening ceremonies with). We realized, upon arrival, that opening ceremonies weren't at 6 like I thought they were. Oops. We walked around the booths and tents instead. We located good food in the form of charred half-chickens from a visiting "port-a-pit"- yes, a portable barbecue pit. I was excited. Thanks to some nice librarians, we had the means to eat said chicken, which was quite happy. Opening ceremonies showed no sign of starting, so we amused ourselves further by attaining for Nicole a monkey-in-tree balloon hat from a nice clown. Finally people gathered for opening ceremonies (they were at 7... oops) and we sat through half an hour of flag ceremony, pom squad, and cinderella. As we were heading out to walk the first lap, Annie and Michele showed up. We walked behind the survivors and caregivers and then headed back to Farley.

Nicole abandoned us, and after a brief chat with RA Nicole, in which I determined that she was not suffering from some weird African flu (with the help of my mom), Annie, Michele and I went out in search of food. This somehow became a trip to Recker's, across campus.

Joey returned from costume shopping at about that point, and the kind boy brought me Chickfila sweet tea. He left again to go "make" his costume... at one point this was supposed to invovle sewing with staples, and I was afraid. But I've learned not to fuss, so I sat and sipped sweet tea and mooched off of Annie's burnt cheese pizza.

Eventually we headed back to Farley, and I spent an hour or so getting ready for Farley's halloween dance. None of our "circle" of Farley girls were going, but I kinda like getting dressed up and such. Plus everyone kept talking about how much fun it is, and I like to dance, so why not? And I was quite proud of my costume, I must say:

<-- Costume in its final form... I never got a picture head to toe, which is sad, because the skirt is a really full and pretty, and I was wearing some killer cute sandals.

<--I'm such a bad pirate :-P I was trying to look intense here, I think. Heh, that didn't work so well. Joey showed up late, but we still got into the dance.






















As soon as we got inside, I realized that my carefully put together costume was rather lacking in the sexy department, comparatively speaking, and apparently the reason that the dance isn't until 10:30 is so that everyone has time to get drunk beforehand. We tried to have fun, gave up, tried again, and eventually gave up and left at midnight. It was sad. The people dancing in couples for the most part were too concerned with other things to actually dance, and everyone else "dancing" was dancing in little circles or close groups of friends. If we go to a dance again, we're going with a group. The music sucked too- not stuff one can actually dance to, mostly weird hiphop. I was pretty disappointed, because everyone had built it up to be so awesome... but life goes on.

We went back to Farley and hung out in the big lounge in the basement with our friends, who were watching the mockumentary Thank You For Smoking. Not exactly light and fluffy, but it was humorous.

At 3, I bundled up hard-core style (my 3-in-1 parka was in 1 piece for the first time this winter) and dragged Joey, Michele, and Annie out to Relay to walk with me. It was fun and peaceful. We walked and talked and sang along with the songs they were blaring. Michele and Annie bailed after half an hour, but Joey stuck it out with me in his mad ninja costume. He walked with the swords and numchucks. We even got free Krispie Kreme doughnuts out of the deal. Definitely the best part of the night. And it was nice to know that my hard-core winter stuff works; it wasn't below freezing outside, but it was in the 30s, and I was perfectly warm the whole time. Good stuff.









By 4:30, I was back in Farley. I took my parka, gloves, fleece hat, and wool socks off, and promptly collapsed on the futon. My back complained this morning, but my thighs were thankful. Dancing in heels + walking in the cold= sore Laura.

See? Crazy. But life is good.

This made me smile. We work so hard, no matter how hard we try to keep things simple.

"Tired" - by Shel Silverstein
I've been working so hard you just wouldn't believe
And I'm tired!
There's so little time and so much to achieve,
And I'm tired!
I've been lying here holding the grass in its place,
Pressing a leaf with the side of my face,
Tasting the apples to see if they're sweet,
Counting the toes on a centipede's feet.
I've been memorizing the shape of that cloud,
Warning the robins to not chirp so loud,
Shooing the butterflies off the tomatoes,
Keeping an eye out for floods and tornadoes.
I've been supervising the work of the ants,
And thinking of pruning the cantaloupe plants,
Timing the sun to see what time it sets,
Calling the fish to swim in my nets,
And I've taken twelve thousand and forty-one breaths...
And I'm tired!

REAL snow!!

There's seriously an inch of snow on the ground- real, packable, playable, snow! I just got back inside from frolicking/ romping, because I have my limits in the cold and wetness areas. It will be slush in the morning, but it's SO pretty and infinitely preferrable to the silly little flurries we've been having. Pictures will follow tomorrow! Yay!

(edit)
Ok, so I stole these pictures from my roomie Annie, but it's legit because half the time I was shouting "Annie, take a picture of that!" So they're my pictures, in a way.


Me jumping in the snow... it was exciting :-)


















Me catching snowflakes on my tongue (and whole face, for that matter).

















Annie catching snowflakes... I think she missed the memo about sticking out your tongue











Michele and her adorable snowman

















Lookit, I made a snowball!

















The dome was so pretty. Poor Mary had snow on her head.












That's me and Juliet hanging out under the streetlights- guess which one's me? Yes, of course, the one with her arms out.















Me being excited some more...













me wondering what Joey's doing there... seriously, he has me GPS tagged, he just happened to show up at the grotto when we were there.










Michele thought it would be a good idea to lay down on a bench. I'm not from Nevada, I don't know these things.











Joey, Annie, and Michele made snow angels. I was the offiicial photographer of this event.












Our frolicking also involved an intense snow ball fight, but Annie didn't take pictures of that as she was too busy lobbing chunks of frozen water at me. A good time was had by all.

(much thanks to bego, aka Maria, for sharing her blogging wisdom)

A day in the life of Laura

Life is good! It was a busy first day back in class, but a pretty good one.
7:50- alarm goes off

8:10- Laura actually gets up

8:30- Laura's in her Foundations of Theology class, which was (as per usual) rather uninteresting. Laura, being the nerd she is, takes tons of notes anyway.

9:20- Her first class behind her, Laura departs in search of breakfast and Joey, but not before taking note of a poster outside her classroom about an upcoming talk on Mother Teresa by Mother Teresa's physician. After getting outside, Laura grumpily notes that once again, it is snowing.

9:40- Laura settles in to a nice warm breakfast at SDH. Their hash browns just don't compare to her dear Waffle House's, but Laura makes do.

10:30- Laura walks to her second class. It's still snowing.

10:40- Laura learns about how to write out proofs in predicate logic! Turns out, it's much the same as propositional logic, but it looks a lot more complicated and thus cooler. Yay.

11:45- Laura arrives at the place of her third class, only to find the auditorium empty and "No class!" scrawled on the board. Score.

11:55- Laura arrives at Waddicks, a cool little coffee shop, and reads from her sociology book while sipping a fair trade coffee mocha.

12:30- Laura hikes out to the Rock (gym) for swim class. Laura is very grateful to her mother for providing her with a portable hair dryer, as today would be a really bad day to walk around with wet hair. Thankfully, the snow has stopped.

2:00- With Joey in tow, Laura heads out to the bookstore and searches around for a suitable birthday present for one Nicole Campo, who turned 19 today. She settles on a nice scarf, packaged in a wine bottle gift bag with lots of big plastic beads for weight. She also locates an incredibly perfect card. And there was much rejoicing.

2:45- Laura devotes a goodly amount of time to homework and the signing of Nicole's card. Laura congratulates herself on being almost totally done with her reading for the week.

4:30- Laura returns to Farley, where she vegs on the couch (you guessed it, with Joey). [Laura just realized that "veging" refers to being a couch "potato". Awesome!]

6:00- Laura's stomach rumbles, and fortunately Jean's and Joey's do as well. Laura makes a couple of calls and decides that it's time for dinner.

6:30- Laura digs into a bowl of pasta stir-fry at Nicole's official birthday dinner, along with Nicole herself, Joey, Jean, Annie, Michelle, Michele, and Nicole's roomie Steph.

7:10- Nicole opens her presents!!! Yay!

7:20- Annnd break. All dinner guests disperse. Laura returns to Farley.

7:55- Laura heads over to the Center for Social Concerns building (all the way across the street) for Amnesty International.

8:30- Laura returns to Farley after a rather uninspiring Amnesty meeting. She laments not being more involved. Laura kicks Joey out of Farley and sends him back to his own dorm to study for his calc exam and practice piano.

9:00- Laura goes back to CSC for her first-ever Peace Fellowship meeting. While the group was intimidating at first, Laura eventually relaxes and enjoys the somewhat random, but pleasant meeting.

10:00- Laura's back in Farley! She decides to go to Mass in the chapel, as Farley's only daily Mass is on Mondays at 10. At the end of Mass, Laura hears that 1-3 inches of snow is predicted to accumulate overnight. Laura's soul cries out for mercy. [It's only October, God]

10:35- Laura arrives back in her dorm room and decides to celebrate her momentary victory over homework by writing a hugely long blog post that no one will read except Joey. Laura feels accomplished.

11:00- Laura finishes said blog post and resolves to practice guitar. G'night!

old friends, good memories

Now that I’m in college, I can look back on “generations” of friends. First there were my childhood friends, mostly at my grade school, my beloved St. John Neumann, but also a few at church. Then I left the best of these behind when I went to high school and I (slowly) made a whole new group of friends. My group changed again when I came to Notre Dame, with the exception of my boyfriend. The point is, now I feel like I can call some people “old friends”. Some of these I’ve kept in touch with, and some I wish I had.

I tried to reestablish one such friendship over fall break. Mike and I met online. We both were extremely cool enough to join the same online Star Trek simulation group. Basically, you make up a character and meet with everyone else once a week to “sim”, or act out Star Trekky plots. In between times, you write logs detailing your character’s work and personal life. It’s a lot of fun, and you meet a lot of great people. I stumbled upon the USF and its “fleet” of sims when I was about to graduate middle school, and my Starbase Everest sim community supported my fragile ego as I made the transition. At least once a week, I could ignore the loneliness of high school and play the part of an outgoing, pretty girl in dangerous missions. It was great therapy.

I know, this was supposed to be about me and Mike. He was a veteran of the sim even when I joined, and our characters interacted a fair amount over the two or three years I belonged to Everest. In fact, in the last six months or so that I was there, our characters had quite the romantic relationship going. I’m sure you can fill in the blanks; the real Laura was lonely, and developed something of a crush on the real Mike. For a while, he was the forever-unobtainable bright spot in my life, someone who kept me going when I felt like no one cared. I have a few of our AIM conversations saved, and for some reason I came across them last week. On one hand, I blush as I read how stupidly obvious I was being, but on the other hand, it was comforting that he didn’t respond by ignoring me, but talked to me like I was his equal, even though he was several years my senior and had a steady girlfriend. Even though I was obviously rather enamored by him, we still had a great friendship. I told him a lot about what I was feeling, and he cheered me up when I needed it. I remember him talking about being afraid to graduate and go to college. We had a friendship that was stronger than my silly crush.

I dropped out of the sim, mostly because I didn’t need to pretend I had friends anymore. I was coming into my own in real life. Mike and I kept in touch for a while, but he was in college and I was busy too. I kept his screen name, though; it’s still on my buddy list. So last week, having no other way to contact him, I IM’d him. After re-introducing myself, I said something along the lines of I had been thinking about what a great friendship we had had, and I would love to hear how he’s doing. When half an hour later he hadn’t said anything, I sent him my email address and said I hoped to hear from him soon.

He hasn’t emailed me, and when he’s signed on to AIM, he hasn’t IM’d me. I suppose some things aren’t so easily recoverable. Still, he was a great friend when I really needed one, and I’m thankful to have had him in my life.

Update… ok, this post is kinda a moot point now, as he caved and IMd me. So he didn’t think I was a stalker; this is good. I still put a lotta work into this post though, so I’m keeping it up :-)

Home and back again

For those of you who didn't see me in my whirlwind tour through GA, I was back home from Saturday to Thursday. It was a great trip- short enough that when I left, my family was sad to see me go, but long enough that I saw almost everybody I wanted to, except Pius school people. I spent a lot of time with my family, too, which was good. I didn't even really do that when I lived with them. Mark and I went out to lunch at Frontera on Monday, and then we went out to Coldstone for ice cream on Wednesday. Good grief that boy can eat. We talked about his life, my life... he's not much of a phone talker, so I had to catch up on the last couple of months.

In many ways, Georgia is much the same as I left it. My parish is somewhat more in disarray, mostly from lack of a parochial vicar. I'm very proud of the great job the staff and pastor are doing, but it's not their fault that demand is exceeding supply. People there are still the same though. Still going to the same Masses, still singing the same songs, still the same visiting priests, still the same great community. It was nice to be back, if only for a Sunday. I wasn't as mobbed as I thought I'd be by people wanting to talk to me, which was kind of a blow to my ego, but also good because it reminded me how calm and steadfast this community is. Many of the people I love at my church have been going to Mass there every Sunday for decades. They were there when I was born, and they watched me grow up; that I'm coming back now from college is no big deal, it's just another Sunday.

My family is pretty much the same too. Still going to work and school, still the same routine- with one rather important exception. They replaced me with a kitten. I kind of expected them to get something warm-blooded for Mark after I left, but I assumed they would go through the long research and adoption agency process, like what happened when I came close to getting a dog. Oh no. This kitten was brought in from just hanging around the house. What inspired them to adopt this flea-bitten, 5-week-old, loud creature is beyond me, especially when Dad is allergic to cats. They've certainly made it a part of the family, though, installing new doors to keep the cat out of forbidden parts of the house, taking it to the vet, washing it to kill the fleas, altering their routines in order to properly care for the beast. They gave it my birthdate and Daddy calls it by my nickname. Sometimes it returns their love and will condescend to let them pet and hold it; most of the time it would rather bite you and pounce on your feet. Somehow, it's still cute despite its viciousness, and it fell asleep enough times in my lap that I started to give into its charm. It's still weird though.

Other fall break activities included running out to Athens to see Lauratwin, eating dinner with the Grones at our house, and seeing people from my ex-place of employment. All good fun. It was a good break.

Anyway, this has been a really long post. It's good to be back; my roommate and friends were waiting to welcome me back to Farley when I got back at like 2 AM Friday morning. Yesterday was mostly pep rally (in which a speaker dropped his pants... ick) and drummers' circle. Football game today, which should be fun. At some point I need to do homework. Pretty much back to college life, I guess. Life is good, God is good.

first post! and title explanation

To start off, I will explain the title:

My babysitter/ 3rd grandmother, who really helped to raise me when I was little, had a delightful collection of oddities in her trailer park home, such as a present that had never been unwrapped (REALLY got on my nerves), an endless supply of porcelain horses, and little colored glass vases. She also had, on one of her many knick-knack shelves, two baby shoes that had been bronzed, presumably having belonged to her two sons in the past. I don't think I've ever seen another bronzed shoe, although I hear that at some point it was a common practice. I would ask about each unique item, but especially the shoes, because she loved to tell me stories about her sons, one of whom died in the military, which was very exotic to me at the time. Anyway, the image of those two little bronze shoes stayed with me, and to me it represents preserved memories and good times with my beloved babysitter. It kind of represents what I want this blog to be: a record of memories and snippets of my life for others to look in on and for myself to look back on. We'll see how it goes.