Christmas Wishes Revisited

Perhaps this whole asking people not to buy anything for me thing is more complicated than I thought. It's extremely counter-cultural, and maybe even selfish. I know that people want to buy me things as a sign of our relationship; there's a joy in knowing someone well enough to find a gift that would be perfect for them, and the joy in giving that gift is really a celebration of the relationship. By asking that people donate to a charity instead, I'm depriving them of the opportunity to give to me, it seems.

On the other hand, if gift-giving is supposed to be about giving the other person whatever would bring them the most joy, then undoubtedly I should feel justified in asking for people to donate to a charity, because it is genuinely what makes me the happiest. Here are my reasons why:

• I don't need or want any more stuff except for a few little things that I'll tell my family about. I have more stuff than can fit in my dorm room now, and still another roomful of stuff back home. I appreciate that people go through the time to find things just for me, but I don't want or need any more things.
  
• I go to lectures a lot. A significant portion of my time at ND so far has been spent learning about what's wrong with the world. I even took the most depressing class ever, Introduction to Social Problems. I do what I can grassroots activism-wise, but I know that money is what makes the world go round. I'm a collge student. I don't have money, or an income. This seems like my chance to give to those who really, really need it. Really. Not in a it would be nice way, but in a it will feed a child way.
• The more I learn, the more I want to go help fix things, and the more impatient I get. I know I need to be here. So people giving money would relieve some of that tension for me and would make me feel better about my extreme affluence relative to the poverty of the world. I have been given so much; it would make me happiest if those who haven't had the privelages I've had were given something too.
  

If people absolutely have to get me something, then I want something that involves the gift of time, not money. I want long letters. Tell me anything- how you're doing, how your family is doing, what you want to do this year, a favorite Christmas story, a favorite recipe- anything. I never get letters any more, and I would love to get beautiful letters from those I care about.

This was written primarily in response to one person's objections to my campaign (which he has since decided were wrong). I don't know if this post is necessary, and if not, sorry for cluttering my blog with it.

Announcement

I finally decided on something tonight that I've been debating about for a while. For Christmas this year, I'm going to have a small wish list of things I actually need, and then ask for every other "present" to be a donation. I haven't entirely decided on the charity, I have many favorites. It won't work, of course, and I'll still end up with lots of stuff, but my parents will probably be respectful of my wishes, and hopefully my friends. I live in two closets joined together with two other people. It has become very evident to me that I don't need more stuff. I don't wear jewelry or makeup, I have plenty of clothes now, I'm set with pretty much everything. I have a to-read book pile that takes up my entire bookshelf here and more back home. I do want other things sometimes, but I don't have room for them anyway, and this is a much better use of the money. I feel a lot better having decided this.

Otherwise, I'm stressed and nearing burnout. But that's what happens when you're a week and a half from finals, I've decided. I just keep in mind that in 2.5 weeks, it will all be over. Regardless of how it turns out, it's a comfort to know that soon it won't matter.

Off to go force myself to relax and such. Peace and love and happiness :-)

Somewhat belated thanksgiving thoughts

I feel very content right now. I skipped my PE class (we get 3 legal skips a semester, I've never used one and I had no assignments due today, plus I was sick of sitting through boring lectures, so I skipped. such a rebel) and came back to my dorm, where I popped open a frappucino (my sweet tea stores from my parents having been extinguished yesterday) and proceeded to practice guitar. I LOVE that I'll actually be really prepared for my lesson on Friday. She gave us a lot to work on, which made me practice a lot more. Normally, I can not practice and get by, so even though I want to practice, other things get higher priority. It's nice to make myself make time. Now that I'm all satisfied with guitar and perked up, I feel like blogging. hurray! let the introspection begin.


I've never eaten Thanksgiving dinner in a hotel restaurant before. Cracker Barrel, yes. But that's different. It's hard for any one to look lonely in happy, bustling, noisy Cracker Barrel. (if you don't know what I'm talking about, Cracker Barrel is the epitome of homestyle comfort food). The hotel restaurant was quiet, even though it was dinner time. There were maybe twenty people spread around the fairly-sized place. The atmosphere was best described as sleek, plain, and simple. It made lonely people stick out somehow, because there was no noise or warm lighting or pleasant decorations to make everything seem ok.

Several tables were occupied by only one person, mostly women, and mostly sipping something alcoholic with their meal while staring off into space. Why were they there, alone, and not with families or loved ones? Some wore suits, and it seemed plausible that they had to be in Chicago on business. For others it was not so clear, and my mother suggested that maybe they just had no place to go.

Now, I blame a lot of my deep-seated childhood issues on my parents for being busy doctors. Maybe some of that's justified, but probably not all of it. They were around sometimes on holidays, other times not. Sometime during the day on Thanksgiving, they sprung on me that this Christmas will be particularly interesting. My dad will be working at the hospital on Christmas day and in the ensuing week and my mother is handling the phone calls from all of the patients of the office while they're closed. I think she takes over hospital rounds and admissions when my dad gets off. My first reaction was CRAP, I'm going to have to find all of these families that I can bus Mark around to on Xmas day so he still has a Christmas.

Then we went to eat our turkey dinner, and it was hard not to notice the people sitting alone. And it dawned on me... at least I have a family with which to celebrate. I always know that, but sometimes I don't understand it. So this Christmas will be hard to schedule. We might celebrate on Christmas Eve instead. I will still have a family to spend time with. Maybe for some people, it's not a question of how to spend time, but whether you get to. How blessed I am, despite my kooky parents. They're great people, and they promise they love me even more than their jobs. I debate that sometimes, but really, they do. And without their crazy jobs, I wouldn't be going to Notre Dame. So. Life is good.

So that's my epiphany for the month. In other news, Indiana has stubbornly been refusing to admit it's November recently. Chicago's weather was beautiful too, 50s and 60s. Perfect for walking in, not too hot or too cold. Sadly, the crusade against winter is supposed to fail Friday; Friday, Saturday, and Sunday all have predicted highs of 35 and possible snowfall at night. Parka time.


Wait no! I've had another epiphany this month. Last night I realized I don't like being flirted with. Maybe I would if it was done well, but it mostly seems to take the form of throwing as many sexual innuendos as possible into a conversation. It's awkward, I always think I'm going to say something wrong, and just generally uncomfortable. Talk to me about something intelligent and you're much more likely to win my favor. This realization didn't come from anything the Boy did, for those wondering, but from a facebook conversation going on between me and an old friend from a high school that I had a class with when I was a sophomore. Wanting to catch up is cool and all, but I'm disinclined to want to do so if you find a way to twist my every comment into being "sexy". That's not who I am, and I'm ok with that. Random guys I hardly know calling me sexy does not make me feel spicy, adultish, or beautiful... it makes me feel awkward. And I want to run the other way. It's how I am. Tell me about a book you're reading.
P.S. If the guy facebooking me actually ends up reading this- I think you're great, but dude. Stop. You're smart, I know it. Act like it.

Chicago Trip Reflection

First off, let me say that this trip was phenomenal. It was short enough that we could keep up a furious pace that would never have been sustainable over a week. It was enough to give us a taste of a great city, but not so much that we decided that we'd had enough of Chicago for a while. It was fast and fun and enticing. I loved it.

On Wednesday (before Thanksgiving), my parents picked me up from Notre Dame and we set off for Chicago. Lovely family bonding was somewhat cut short when I fell asleep thanks to my beautiful anti-nausea medicine. TMI, gotcha. We got to the hotel eventually, at which point I woke up and helped to move stuff into our room, which was surprisingly normal-sized, even though we were a block over from Michigan St, i.e. the Magnificent Mile. Once settled, we took the recommendation of the concierge and went to a pizza place called East Gino's for dinner, where we proceeded to stuff ourselves with absolutely fabulous food. The trend was to write one's name on some available surface in sharpie (booths, walls, chairs, etc were covered), so being a wildly independent college student, I went along with the trend. I signed my name and the date on the booth we sat in. I don't think I've ever done that before. It was fun. I don't remember much more of that night- I think we just came back to the hotel and crashed.

We woke up reasonably early on Thanksgiving in order to get a good sidewalk spot for watching the grand parade. Our progress was somewhat inhibited by my father's offer to buy me starbucks; even though there's one on campus at the end of the quad I live on, there's something special about my dad buying me coffee.. er, apple cider. Plus it was warm. We made our way down to the parade area eventually. We were next to Macy's, so while waiting I towed Mark around to look at the famous window displays, this year boasting a Mary Poppins theme. We also texted holiday greetings to important family members. The parade was a lot of fun- I have pictures up here.

After the parade, we headed for food and a bench at the nearby open-air German marketplace, curiously featuring many items from Ecuador and Peru. But they had brats and cocoa and potato pancakes, so we were a happy crew. After a bit of window shopping, we headed towards the Field Museum, where we had tickets to the fabulous King Tut exhibit. The walk was somewhat longer than anticipated, but I enjoyed it, as we got to see more of the city, such as the landmark sculpture known as the Bean. At the Field Museum, we spent the rest of the day slowly taking in the King Tut exhibit, then more quickly walking through other exhibits. It was all very interesting and well-represented. Being somewhat pooped, we also took advantage of over-priced drinks and cookies at the museum cafe. After closing down the museum, we caught a bus back to the hotel (we're so urban... that is, until I touristly took pictures of us in the bus). We ate a huge turkey dinner at the hotel, including splitting five slices of various cakes and pies among my mom, my dad, and I* . It was goood. I reached just the right level of happy fullness. Then we watched movies upstairs, I called the boy, and my family went to bed while I worked on homework (I know, I'm so dedicated...not really).

*blog entry about thanksgiving reflections themselves will hopefully be forthcoming

On Friday, we let ourselves sleep in a bit, because Thursday had been such a big, long, active day. We eventually headed out to Navy Pier, but sadly not much was open there, including the huge ferris wheel that Dad and I had looked forward to riding. We walked out to the end and took pictures, though. Then we went to the Hancock Tower. This was probably my least favorite part of the trip, as it involved long waits for a predictable view of the city that one could have seen on a postcard. (subject for another blog entry- why do I not appreciate the real? when in the king tut exhibit, I had to explain to myself that the artifacts were interesting because they're actually from ancient Egypt. I had to explain to myself that the view of Chicago was interesting because it was me actually looking at it, not through a picture. Hmm). Maybe I was just hungry and impatient. Anyway, after the tower, we decided to head to Lincoln Park Zoo and get late lunch/ early dinner on the way. As luck would have it, our route took us on a scenic beachside sidewalk and then through a large park, but never involved a restaurant. Such is life. It was cool to see Lake Michigan up close, and I have a thing for parks. We ended up getting food at the zoo, which was expensive, but there's no admission price to get into the zoo, so I justified it that way. The zoo was doing this nighttime Zoo Lights thing, featuring lots of Christmas lights, activities, and the animals at night. Some obviously went to bed at nightfall, but some were really active, which was cool to see. The penguin/puffin exhibit was naturally my favorite. After Mark just couldn't take anymore, we took a bus back to the hotel. Mom and I toyed with the idea of evening shopping on Michigan, but Dad wouldn't hear of his girls out on the town at night. Probably for the best. We picked up ice cream from a corner grocery store instead and played a board game back at the hotel. Good times.

Mom and I, determined to get our shopping done, got up Saturday morning, packed what we could, and set out together to hit Old Navy. I ended up going in the Gap first, but I only found a sweater there. We did much more damage at Old Navy. Basically, I need all of the warm clothes I can get, and my mom agrees. We shop well together. We were thrifty, too, because the sales were still going on. Yay us. On the way back to the hotel, we passed a Daughters of St. Paul bookstore. They were my favorite order back when I thought I wanted to be a nun. Of course, we had to go in and browse. I ended up with Christmas cards and a CD. Mom and I had already been running behind when we said we'd get back, so we hoofed it back to the hotel. Go us. It was nice to get to just talk to my mom for a while. Back at the hotel, Dad had thrown everything into the van and was awaiting our final approval of his packing job so we could check out. After a bit of rearranging, we all got in the van and headed back to Notre Dame.

All in all, a great trip. Maybe Mark didn't think so, yet, but at least three out of four of us were happy campers. We'll get him yet :-)

Harrumph.

I have all these awesome pictures from our trip to Chicago and all these awesome comments about them and stories to tell, but I can't find a good way of uploading said pictures. Blogger's uploading thing bothers me to no end. I decided heck with that, I'll start a flickr account and post them there. So I went through all the effort of making a new yahoo ID, making a flickr account to go with it, and uploading my first six photos. This took about an hour. Then I find out that I've already used 61% of my bandwith capacity for the month. If I want my other photos up, I either have to shell out $ for a pro account or size down my pictures before I upload them. I love my Mac, but I have no photo-editing software, and so no way of sizing down pictures.

That was an hour and a half well spent. I will get around to writing about the trip later, but it might be sadly without my beautiful photos. :-(



EDIT: HA! I beat the system! Actually, I just downloaded some shareware that makes the whole uploading & resizing process from a Mac about 10000x easier. It's called PictureSync, and it's awesome. It resizes my photos as I upload them, so a Flickr account can hold them. So go see my pictures, already. http://www.flickr.com/photos/gingercrinkle/

A chorus of little birdies

Earlier, large amounts of bird noise was coming through the window. It occurred to me that either they're calling out to each other in hopes of one last good night before the snow hits, or they're exclaiming their mutual distaste for the downturn in temperature. I can imagine husbands screaming at wives to pack faster, we have to get out of here NOW, dangit. Kind of lessens the beauty of their melodies.

Then I thought that maybe a similar chorus is going on in my house right now as my parents pile together enough stuff to last them through 24 hrs+ of road tripping over the rest of the week. It makes the birds sound tame.

I love my family, but I like getting to pack in peace.

Speaking of which, I'm off to go clean my nest and pack. Woot.



(photo by Kolleggerium)

They're coming!!!

The parents are coming! The parents are coming! (not the British. I don't think they'd care much about conquering Indiana)

Mark's coming too. They'll be here tomorrow afternoon. Then we will all set off happily together to DO CHICAGO in 2.5 days. Heck yes. My Thanksgiving break is so much cooler than yours. I'll be eating deep-dish pizza instead of turkey.

My mom has been fanatically planning this out, which is good, because the rest of us would just wander around and gawk. Now we're actually going to do things. My only request was that the time of the USC/ND game finds us in a loud sports grill with other ND fans and a big-screen TV. Not sure if that's going to happen, knowing my family and their tendencies towards calm activity, but a girl can ask.

So please say a prayer for a loaded minivan trekking from Georgia to Indiana today and tomorrow, and for everyone who's going out to see the USC game. Let's hope that everyone is safe and has fun!

I know what time of year it is...

...because of all the good food.

Let's recap:

• Friday night- dinner out with the Boy's family at Fiddler's Hearth, an adorable Irish pub in South Bend, where I consumed mass quantities of high-calorie food, namely, Irish stew and a side of cheddar&bacon mash. Yum. I also had a few bites of the Boy's bread pudding, but it was a bit too strong for me. I'm under 21, thank you.
• Saturday: Subway for lunch, cocoa at the game, and candlelight dinner afterwards. The candlelight dinners at the dining halls after games are awesome- basically, they spare no expense to impress the alumni. The best way to handle a candlelight dinner is to eat a little bit of everything, but I still ended up with a tray full of food, including two desserts, apple crisp and cheesecake. Oops.
• Sunday: Brunch out with the Boy's family. I had chocolate chip pancakes, but resisted ordering a side of toast. A step in the right direction? No, because then I ate the rest of the Boy's hashbrowns. I also bought myself Starbucks later in the day. Then at the dining hall last night they served churros and crinkle fries. Of course I had to go back for a second warm fried-dough-covered-in-cinnamon concoction!

This does not bode well for Thanksgiving. I like food too much.

Ack! A week without posting??

Bad Laura.
In my defense, I've been busy. Most of my exams/ paper deadlines tend to fall on Fridays, and when more than one of such events occur in one week, my entire week is consumed with getting ready for Friday. Last week I had two papers due on Friday and an exam. Ick. My weekend has been similarly exhausting, as Joey's whole family has been in town for the game, plus his brother's girlfriend, and we've largely been hanging out with them. Add the fact that on Friday, the only day since last Sunday that I had a breath of free time (in between the pep rally and his family arriving), I was in a terribly unhappy mood, and you get a week without posting.

Excuses, excuses. I will do better.

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!