God and I got a jump start on surprises today: I woke up at 8:30 and actually felt rested. Wow! I can't express how much I love not having to get up at 7:15 for an 8:00 class. Even better, I made a productive use of the morning, sorting papers, taking care of house stuff, setting my Scooba loose on the basement floor, that kind of thing.
In case I've never mentioned before, I own two robotic floor cleaners: a Roomba to vacuum the carpet upstairs, and a Scooba that I've been using to scrub the basement floor. The scrubbing needs to be done as a prerequisite to sealing the tiles (which needs to happen because the carpet was removed a while back after a very heavy rainstorm and water damage). Scooba is pretty high maintenance, though, and I'm not entirely happy with it for just that reason. Changing the water every 45 minutes, that I can handle. But dealing with all it's stupid complaining is tiresome. By this I mean it has come to frequently complain about its front wheel being stuck, even though when I take it out and try to clean it, there's nothing to clean, and it works fine. Then of course, you can't tell the robot to resume, no, you need to power off and restart the cleaning cycle, which means then it will complain that there's not enough water in the tank (since some of it was already used before the wheel malfunction). After a few rounds of this, then the battery will die, and the poor thing never actually finishes a complete cleaning cycle (and thus hasn't run it's self-cleaning in a while).
On a completely new but still moisture related note, when I went outside this mornig to go shopping I discovered it's really quite foggy. As in, I can't even see a full block ahead while I'm driving. Fortunately I saw well enough to make it to the bank to deposit the reimbursement check I finally received from Madrigal Dinner, and then to Sam's Club to of course spend a significant portion of that money. I'm trying not to feel too badly about that, though, because most of the expenses were for things like a huge massive block of toilet paper, and a giant container of honey, neither of which will need replacing for probably the rest of my life. Okay, fine, by next year, but still, not a weekly expense, thank goodness.
I also made some healthier decisions (I think) about what I bought in terms of food. The aforementioned massive vessel of honey aside, I made a point to pick out some fresh items from the bakery rather than the preservative laced plastic wrapped tasties that were, ironically, only slightly less expensive. This is not to say I made the healthiest choices ever, but still, better than normal, which is a good start for me.
After unloading all my wonderful groceries into the house I spent the afternoon and early evening over at MA, first to meet with Rich, my fellow webmaster, and then afterward to continue working on what we'd talked about. For any web geeks out there, if you ever need to dynamically position, say, a magically appearing/disappearing flyout menu, and you don't know at the start exactly where on the page it will need to be displayed (because you're displaying it relative to other elements that may be in varying locations), this site might be helpful for you: http://www.quirksmode.org/js/findpos.html.
Sometime today, while driving, I heard something on KTIS that I need to share: another Hebrews verse, this one is 13:15: "Through Jesus, therefore, let us continually offer to God a sacrifice of praise—the fruit of lips that confess his name." I'll have to wait until the end of the month, but I will need to go back and piece all of these Hebrews references together to see what I can make out of them.
My evening was far less adventuresome or exciting than my day. I cooked dinner (and by "cook" I mean "microwaved a container of fettucini alfredo with chicken from Sams"), did some floor scrubbing (and by "did" I mean "pressed a button and let the robot do the work"), rearranged some of my kitchen cabinets (now the dishes are above the dishwasher, and the food is right next to the microwave), entered my ideal schedule for next semester into the St Olaf Student Information System, and watched an episode or two from the first season DVDs of Joan of Arcadia. I love that show. The characters are so real... and the lead is cute. But star-crushes aside, I fell in love with the series because it's exactly the kind of filmmaking (or TV-making) that I want to do some day. A story with a moral, with a message, that's fun to watch, yet real to life. Some day, God willing, maybe my name can show up in the ending credits of something so great.
Tuesday, March 27, 2007
Day 24
Spring Break. It's almost here. One last day of Individual Fitness and I'm home free. I go early, work out, have class, work out a few minutes more, and leave early. Class is over for the week, but unfortunately homework still abounds in the form of much reading, a take home midterm, and planning for two papers that I'll be writing in the second part of the semester.
But that could wait. In order for me to even think about focusing on homework, I needed to pack so I'd be ready to leave campus tonight. This was productive in and of itself, too, as I ended up with an extra box full of stuff that I can bring home and leave home, which is a good feeling, even if it's an extra trip to and from the car.
Early afternoon I finally decided to be hungry, so lunchward I went to seek food, and, happy-surprisingly, I found a group of friends to sit with. When I go to meals alone, I always hope to find people to sit with, but it doesn't always happen. In fact, it rarely happens, which makes a day like today even more special because not only did I find one person to sit with, I found three. The food was good, too, but I more enjoyed the company.
The afternoon wasn't too exciting; I sent back some comments to my editor about the Putter trailer, and then finally got some ideas sent to the publicist for the next press release. There was some homework time in there, too, just to try to get ahead for after break.
Later in the afternoon I got together with Ash to offer some small help with her footnoting and citations in her Jesus in Scripture and Tradition paper (the one I turned in earlier this week), and then she, her roommate, and I went to have a very calm and relaxed dinner. This was the first time in a long while we could remember not feeling some sense of rush as we ate; it was very freeing knowing there was nothing that needed to be done for a long while. It was also great to have my second meal of the day with Dalay (Ash's roommate; she was one of the friends I found at lunch)
Loading the car went quickly; I brought all my stuff up, and then, because I also gave Ashley a ride home, went to wait for her, and in the process had a completely random conversation with Dalay about why Macs are better than PCs. Well, that was my position, at least :)
The last bit of greatness for the day came when we got to Ashley's house, and she and her mom and I had a chance to talk for a while, something we haven't all done for probably a year. That was a perfect way to end the day, just spending time with good people talking about anything.
But that could wait. In order for me to even think about focusing on homework, I needed to pack so I'd be ready to leave campus tonight. This was productive in and of itself, too, as I ended up with an extra box full of stuff that I can bring home and leave home, which is a good feeling, even if it's an extra trip to and from the car.
Early afternoon I finally decided to be hungry, so lunchward I went to seek food, and, happy-surprisingly, I found a group of friends to sit with. When I go to meals alone, I always hope to find people to sit with, but it doesn't always happen. In fact, it rarely happens, which makes a day like today even more special because not only did I find one person to sit with, I found three. The food was good, too, but I more enjoyed the company.
The afternoon wasn't too exciting; I sent back some comments to my editor about the Putter trailer, and then finally got some ideas sent to the publicist for the next press release. There was some homework time in there, too, just to try to get ahead for after break.
Later in the afternoon I got together with Ash to offer some small help with her footnoting and citations in her Jesus in Scripture and Tradition paper (the one I turned in earlier this week), and then she, her roommate, and I went to have a very calm and relaxed dinner. This was the first time in a long while we could remember not feeling some sense of rush as we ate; it was very freeing knowing there was nothing that needed to be done for a long while. It was also great to have my second meal of the day with Dalay (Ash's roommate; she was one of the friends I found at lunch)
Loading the car went quickly; I brought all my stuff up, and then, because I also gave Ashley a ride home, went to wait for her, and in the process had a completely random conversation with Dalay about why Macs are better than PCs. Well, that was my position, at least :)
The last bit of greatness for the day came when we got to Ashley's house, and she and her mom and I had a chance to talk for a while, something we haven't all done for probably a year. That was a perfect way to end the day, just spending time with good people talking about anything.
Day 23
Spring is here! It's warm, it's sunshiny, and it was the perfect day to go driving with the windows down and moonroof open. Driving where? It's a school day.
After morning classes, and after chapel (the pastoral intern from last year was back today to speak!), I took a ride down to Emmaus to learn about their sound system from Kurt, an Ole grad from two years ago and the current director of Worship at the church. The task at hand: "practice", or in a sense, "prove myself", on the sound board by mixing a vocal and piano, then later a guitar. That sounded harsh; it was more so that I felt a need to prove myself to myself before I could feel ready to jump in as one of the rotating sound technicians for Sunday morning worship. And I suppose showing someone else that I know how to use a sound board didn't hurt at all. My conclusion, I have the sheer knowledge of what the knobs and buttons do, I just need to develop my art of mixing, which will only come with time and practice.
My Photoshop skills are also in need of refinement and practice. Why? Because I talked to my graphic designer for Putter today, and it turns out he won't be able to do it after all. Surprise. This means I'll have to take it on, in the midst of homework, papers, and everything. At least there's break next week, maybe I can get it all done then. Panic.
Tonight, though, the panic can wait. It's a night of celebration for me: I'm done with classes and homework for the week, and tonight is a fancy ice cream social for the students on the Dean's List, which I made for last semester (only the second time in my college career).
There was a special event in Ytterboe tonight put on by CAN (the Christian Activities Network) in place of Thursday Night. I only made it for the last 10 minutes or so, and that time was spent in quiet prayer and meditation. Walking out of Ytterboe turned out to be somewhat opposite of the serenity I'd left: I watched as a car drove up onto the sidewalk toward me (as they are apt to do, it's actually not that unusual on this particular stretch), but what was "surprising" was to discover the people in the car were none other than Ashley and Kyle, just stopping by to pick something up from someone. We talked for a while before I went on my way to deliver chocolate and visit with a couple good friends in Mellby, one of whom has a huge paper to write for tomorrow (I gave her the chocolates to help her stay awake through the night), and the other has a Norwegian midterm. Naturally we ended up talking for a long time about the class and test instead of her actually studying for it. Like I've mentioned before, I love the random long talks with friends.
The most powerful story of today I've deliberately saved for last. Let's go back in time some number of hours, to about 4:00 in the afternoon.
Some number of weeks ago I'd agreed to drive one of my CS friends to the airport today. There's nothing surprising about that (other than coming back: the 35E exit from Cedar always sneaks up on me). But sadly, there was a surprise lurking as I waited in my car outside Ytterboe. Remembering that I'd not yet received a confirmation from another friend about dinner tonight, I decided to make good use of my waiting time and call him to find out for sure if we were on or not. It's generally not a good sign when someone answers the typical "how are you today?" with a not-so-typical "I've had better". As I found out, his fiancé's father had just died this morning after a two month battle with cancer. How does one respond to that? Prayers, as well as my "if you need to talk, I'm here" offer, just didn't seem like enough, not for this.
Suffering is my favorite topic of study in theology. But it's a much different situation when the question of theodicy comes into full swing in your real life, or the life of a friend. One thing I've concluded, though, is that suffering gives the person not suffering an opportunity, not only to pray, but to reach out, to be a small light in that tragic darkness. Grieving and recovery take time. Period. There is no getting around that. Still, in the midst of grief, observers are given a unique chance to step into the ring, stop observing, and do something to lift that person up, even something as simple as a smile or a hug. It may not seem like much, and let's be honest, to some people it won't be much. For some people, though, that smile or hug, that sign of affection, that reminder that someone else cares, can make a difference. I don't live under false pretenses of thinking it will take the pain away; it won't. But it may lessen the pain, ever so slightly, and that makes the smile, or the card, or the hug, or whatever, worth it.
I waiting outside Ytterboe to bring someone to the airport, but I'm sure God put me there for another purpose: so that I could go inside and give my friend a hug.
After morning classes, and after chapel (the pastoral intern from last year was back today to speak!), I took a ride down to Emmaus to learn about their sound system from Kurt, an Ole grad from two years ago and the current director of Worship at the church. The task at hand: "practice", or in a sense, "prove myself", on the sound board by mixing a vocal and piano, then later a guitar. That sounded harsh; it was more so that I felt a need to prove myself to myself before I could feel ready to jump in as one of the rotating sound technicians for Sunday morning worship. And I suppose showing someone else that I know how to use a sound board didn't hurt at all. My conclusion, I have the sheer knowledge of what the knobs and buttons do, I just need to develop my art of mixing, which will only come with time and practice.
My Photoshop skills are also in need of refinement and practice. Why? Because I talked to my graphic designer for Putter today, and it turns out he won't be able to do it after all. Surprise. This means I'll have to take it on, in the midst of homework, papers, and everything. At least there's break next week, maybe I can get it all done then. Panic.
Tonight, though, the panic can wait. It's a night of celebration for me: I'm done with classes and homework for the week, and tonight is a fancy ice cream social for the students on the Dean's List, which I made for last semester (only the second time in my college career).
There was a special event in Ytterboe tonight put on by CAN (the Christian Activities Network) in place of Thursday Night. I only made it for the last 10 minutes or so, and that time was spent in quiet prayer and meditation. Walking out of Ytterboe turned out to be somewhat opposite of the serenity I'd left: I watched as a car drove up onto the sidewalk toward me (as they are apt to do, it's actually not that unusual on this particular stretch), but what was "surprising" was to discover the people in the car were none other than Ashley and Kyle, just stopping by to pick something up from someone. We talked for a while before I went on my way to deliver chocolate and visit with a couple good friends in Mellby, one of whom has a huge paper to write for tomorrow (I gave her the chocolates to help her stay awake through the night), and the other has a Norwegian midterm. Naturally we ended up talking for a long time about the class and test instead of her actually studying for it. Like I've mentioned before, I love the random long talks with friends.
The most powerful story of today I've deliberately saved for last. Let's go back in time some number of hours, to about 4:00 in the afternoon.
Some number of weeks ago I'd agreed to drive one of my CS friends to the airport today. There's nothing surprising about that (other than coming back: the 35E exit from Cedar always sneaks up on me). But sadly, there was a surprise lurking as I waited in my car outside Ytterboe. Remembering that I'd not yet received a confirmation from another friend about dinner tonight, I decided to make good use of my waiting time and call him to find out for sure if we were on or not. It's generally not a good sign when someone answers the typical "how are you today?" with a not-so-typical "I've had better". As I found out, his fiancé's father had just died this morning after a two month battle with cancer. How does one respond to that? Prayers, as well as my "if you need to talk, I'm here" offer, just didn't seem like enough, not for this.
Suffering is my favorite topic of study in theology. But it's a much different situation when the question of theodicy comes into full swing in your real life, or the life of a friend. One thing I've concluded, though, is that suffering gives the person not suffering an opportunity, not only to pray, but to reach out, to be a small light in that tragic darkness. Grieving and recovery take time. Period. There is no getting around that. Still, in the midst of grief, observers are given a unique chance to step into the ring, stop observing, and do something to lift that person up, even something as simple as a smile or a hug. It may not seem like much, and let's be honest, to some people it won't be much. For some people, though, that smile or hug, that sign of affection, that reminder that someone else cares, can make a difference. I don't live under false pretenses of thinking it will take the pain away; it won't. But it may lessen the pain, ever so slightly, and that makes the smile, or the card, or the hug, or whatever, worth it.
I waiting outside Ytterboe to bring someone to the airport, but I'm sure God put me there for another purpose: so that I could go inside and give my friend a hug.
Saturday, March 24, 2007
Day 22
They had chocolate muffins at breakfast today! This is always a sign of a good day to come. Yes, of course I took one for a snack later; why should I not try to prolong the goodness that is chocolate-y muffin deliciousness?
Today's selection of homework-reading brought to my eyes the Infancy Gospel of Thomas, a non-canonical collection of stories about Jesus when He was a child. For years I've known the stories existed, but until now I'd never known where to find them, so it was neat to finally read this book, all the while thinking about the question of why it wasn't included in the Bible. It didn't take long before that answer became very apparent: Jesus is a brat! A downright angry, mean, vengeful little child who almost derives a holy pleasure from killing people all over the place. Again, it's no wonder it didn't make it into the canon.
With Thomas done, I finally got to play guitar again after a few days of nothingness in the midst of paper, test, and homework, and surprisingly I was no worse for wear after the time away. The surprises kept coming when I called the Putter composer: first of all, he answered, which was a miracle in and of itself (I always get voicemail), and secondly, he's almost done with the music (this after just starting when he got a disc from me in the mail yesterday). Wow. Now he's working on alternative arrangements so we have choices when we go to put the music into the scenes.
On my way into Buntrock, I passed Nicole on the stairs and we ended up talking for almost half an hour. I love those long, random conversations with good friends; it's so refreshing to just stop, take a time out and talk to people!
Later, while I was waiting by Fireside to go to dinner with Ash, one of my friends who I thought was rather upset at me tapped my shoulder, waved, and said "hi" as she walked by. Happiness, I'm not hated after all.
After dinner I sequestered myself in the library to do my last little bit of reading, but, not vert surprisingly, there's nothing quite like a textbook and a comfortable chair to put you to sleep, so I decided to come back to my room, where at least I could lay down for a nap if I needed. Oh, but wait, surprise! It's raining outside! (As I found out tomorrow, the rain gave my car a much needed shower, bringing it back to a state of beautiful cleanliness).
What a day. I want more surprises like these!
Today's selection of homework-reading brought to my eyes the Infancy Gospel of Thomas, a non-canonical collection of stories about Jesus when He was a child. For years I've known the stories existed, but until now I'd never known where to find them, so it was neat to finally read this book, all the while thinking about the question of why it wasn't included in the Bible. It didn't take long before that answer became very apparent: Jesus is a brat! A downright angry, mean, vengeful little child who almost derives a holy pleasure from killing people all over the place. Again, it's no wonder it didn't make it into the canon.
With Thomas done, I finally got to play guitar again after a few days of nothingness in the midst of paper, test, and homework, and surprisingly I was no worse for wear after the time away. The surprises kept coming when I called the Putter composer: first of all, he answered, which was a miracle in and of itself (I always get voicemail), and secondly, he's almost done with the music (this after just starting when he got a disc from me in the mail yesterday). Wow. Now he's working on alternative arrangements so we have choices when we go to put the music into the scenes.
On my way into Buntrock, I passed Nicole on the stairs and we ended up talking for almost half an hour. I love those long, random conversations with good friends; it's so refreshing to just stop, take a time out and talk to people!
Later, while I was waiting by Fireside to go to dinner with Ash, one of my friends who I thought was rather upset at me tapped my shoulder, waved, and said "hi" as she walked by. Happiness, I'm not hated after all.
After dinner I sequestered myself in the library to do my last little bit of reading, but, not vert surprisingly, there's nothing quite like a textbook and a comfortable chair to put you to sleep, so I decided to come back to my room, where at least I could lay down for a nap if I needed. Oh, but wait, surprise! It's raining outside! (As I found out tomorrow, the rain gave my car a much needed shower, bringing it back to a state of beautiful cleanliness).
What a day. I want more surprises like these!
Day 21
Today was not a bad day; in fact, far from it. As is always the pressing question when I wake up on a Tuesday morning, I made it to breakfast, and today, going in, I bumped into a friend who I'd remembered last night is going through some trying times in her family. The point: it's odd, or perfect, coincidence that I just happened to remember to be praying for them last night and thinking to myself, "I should send an email and see how things are", and then I see her the next morning in person.
Classes came and went. We turned in our papers in my first class (I'm happy with how mine turned out; and I can even say I had fun writing it), and then took a midterm test in my second class. Ah yes, the test. This is a test that I really should have studied for, well, a lot. I studied slightly less than a lot. It's in fact quite possible I studied a lot less than a lot. In other words, I didn't study nearly enough, and because I also hadn't done the reading in this particular class for the first several weeks of the semester, the test went... less well than it otherwise might have. But that was out of choice, it was my decision making all the way that produced this outcome, and I don't feel bad about it. I hadn't done the reading those several weeks because I was still playing catchup after Madrigals, and I just never was able to catch up in this course (I did in all my others, and then, scared of the shear mass of reading that had piled up here, I just picked up where we were instead of backtracking). And I didn't study as much this weekend because, well, frankly, there are more important things in life, like friends... and maybe Lost.
The test is over now, and that means I have normal homework for Thursday, but otherwise, Spring Break is here! To top that, I got a phone call from someone this afternoon to whom I'd offered the position of graphics designer for Harry Putter, and he wants to do it! I thought I'd have to do all the graphics myself, but now it's looking like I'll be able to pass that off to someone else, which is absolutely awesome.
Evening brought our group back to the George's home after a week away while John and Karen visited Israel. It was fun to be back and to hear a few stories from their trip, as well as just be together with that group of friends again.
After watching a friend's stand up comedy routine in the Pause (he had a really good crowd there), it was off to get ready for FCA. No huge surprises here, other than a fun time being allowed to mix the audio for them. Pastor Will spoke tonight (he's the pastor at Emmaus, where I normally attend on Sundays), and he was intentionally very funny, as usual.
To follow up with the laughter from Pastor Will's talk, my last act tonight was to come back to the room and watch Top Secret!, which was absolutely hysterical. It's by the same people who did Airplane, so it makes sense that there isn't much in the way of plot, other than to cram as many absurd silly little jokes into 90 minutes as possible. Like I said, hysterical. A good way to end a long day.
Classes came and went. We turned in our papers in my first class (I'm happy with how mine turned out; and I can even say I had fun writing it), and then took a midterm test in my second class. Ah yes, the test. This is a test that I really should have studied for, well, a lot. I studied slightly less than a lot. It's in fact quite possible I studied a lot less than a lot. In other words, I didn't study nearly enough, and because I also hadn't done the reading in this particular class for the first several weeks of the semester, the test went... less well than it otherwise might have. But that was out of choice, it was my decision making all the way that produced this outcome, and I don't feel bad about it. I hadn't done the reading those several weeks because I was still playing catchup after Madrigals, and I just never was able to catch up in this course (I did in all my others, and then, scared of the shear mass of reading that had piled up here, I just picked up where we were instead of backtracking). And I didn't study as much this weekend because, well, frankly, there are more important things in life, like friends... and maybe Lost.
The test is over now, and that means I have normal homework for Thursday, but otherwise, Spring Break is here! To top that, I got a phone call from someone this afternoon to whom I'd offered the position of graphics designer for Harry Putter, and he wants to do it! I thought I'd have to do all the graphics myself, but now it's looking like I'll be able to pass that off to someone else, which is absolutely awesome.
Evening brought our group back to the George's home after a week away while John and Karen visited Israel. It was fun to be back and to hear a few stories from their trip, as well as just be together with that group of friends again.
After watching a friend's stand up comedy routine in the Pause (he had a really good crowd there), it was off to get ready for FCA. No huge surprises here, other than a fun time being allowed to mix the audio for them. Pastor Will spoke tonight (he's the pastor at Emmaus, where I normally attend on Sundays), and he was intentionally very funny, as usual.
To follow up with the laughter from Pastor Will's talk, my last act tonight was to come back to the room and watch Top Secret!, which was absolutely hysterical. It's by the same people who did Airplane, so it makes sense that there isn't much in the way of plot, other than to cram as many absurd silly little jokes into 90 minutes as possible. Like I said, hysterical. A good way to end a long day.
Friday, March 23, 2007
Day 20
Today was the day. After months, if not quite possibly over a year, of the zippers on my briefcase showing signs of wear (by coming detached from the fabric they're supposed to hold closed), one of the slidy things finally came undone. Sure, I could spend a lot of time trying to get it back together, but I was ready to be on my way out the door, I've been considering buying a new bag for a while now, and I just took this as the sign that that time had finally arrived: I needed to go bag shopping (by the way, it's pronounced "baig", with the long "a", none of this "bahg" business here in Minnesota).
Dave and I cancelled our normal Monday talking time since we both had a lot on our plates to do; he's leading the Thursday Night missions trip to Costa Rica next week, so he's in those final days of preparation; me, I just have a lot of homework and studying that I should be doing. Before homework, though, a trip to Best Buy must be made.
Staying awake on that oh-so-familiar stretch of I35 can sometimes be a challenge, especially today, given that I didn't get much sleep last night. Actually, I'm really not sure at all how much (or how little) I got; I was awake some number of hours or minutes with a pain in my neck and head, such that I just couldn't fall asleep. The pain was mostly gone when I got in the car and started driving, and clearly, based on the fact I'm writing this now, I stayed awake on the way to and from Best Buy.
Finding a good briefcase can be an adventure, and of course there are a certain number of key requirements that must be met by the bag. First, it needs to be able to hold my laptop. Most bag manufacturers nowadays make their products friendly to 17" machines, but it's still something to be aware of, that not all bags will necessarily be large enough. And of course, when I have my laptop, there needs to be another pocket that holds the power adapter and any other accessories I need to bring along. This bag also has to double as a school bag, meaning there needs to be a separate pocket to hold folders and papers and notepads, oh my!
I found a bag that met these requirements and so much more (meaning several extra pockets/areas than my minimum needs), and the price, well, it was the same as my previous briefcase: expensive. Drat. But it's the perfect one, I'm very happy with it, and so, well, I just had to swallow that price and hope for the best.
Best Buy has a large collection of DVDs, and I normally take a gander just to see if there are any movies on the shelves that I'd forgotten I need. Today I told myself going in that I would limit myself to one and only one, and I also specified that, if there was going to be a "one", it had to be "Top Secret!", a 1984 movie that I haven't seen in years but just recently found the name in a somewhat non-related Google searching endeavor the other day. I didn't remember plot, or many details from it, just enough to recognize the description and recall it being absolutely hilarious.
Coming up with creative transitions between stories is not my strongest point. Later in the day, as I was leaving the library to go find food in Buntrock, I was randomly approached by an acquaintance passing in the hallway, and he complimented me on how great the slideshows at Selah and FCA have been when I do them, and how glad he is that someone has finally stepped up to the plate with something better looking than PowerPoint. It meant a lot to hear that random compliment. He didn't have to say anything, didn't have to go out of his way to stop and talk to me, but I'm really glad he did. It's another voice telling me I've made good choices in my efforts to keep the motion backgrounds subtle and non-distracting during worship. But furthermore, and more importantly, it's validation; it's reassurance that I'm doing something that's actually appreciated, that's actually noticed. Thanks for that random act of surprising compliment-ness, God.
Dave and I cancelled our normal Monday talking time since we both had a lot on our plates to do; he's leading the Thursday Night missions trip to Costa Rica next week, so he's in those final days of preparation; me, I just have a lot of homework and studying that I should be doing. Before homework, though, a trip to Best Buy must be made.
Staying awake on that oh-so-familiar stretch of I35 can sometimes be a challenge, especially today, given that I didn't get much sleep last night. Actually, I'm really not sure at all how much (or how little) I got; I was awake some number of hours or minutes with a pain in my neck and head, such that I just couldn't fall asleep. The pain was mostly gone when I got in the car and started driving, and clearly, based on the fact I'm writing this now, I stayed awake on the way to and from Best Buy.
Finding a good briefcase can be an adventure, and of course there are a certain number of key requirements that must be met by the bag. First, it needs to be able to hold my laptop. Most bag manufacturers nowadays make their products friendly to 17" machines, but it's still something to be aware of, that not all bags will necessarily be large enough. And of course, when I have my laptop, there needs to be another pocket that holds the power adapter and any other accessories I need to bring along. This bag also has to double as a school bag, meaning there needs to be a separate pocket to hold folders and papers and notepads, oh my!
I found a bag that met these requirements and so much more (meaning several extra pockets/areas than my minimum needs), and the price, well, it was the same as my previous briefcase: expensive. Drat. But it's the perfect one, I'm very happy with it, and so, well, I just had to swallow that price and hope for the best.
Best Buy has a large collection of DVDs, and I normally take a gander just to see if there are any movies on the shelves that I'd forgotten I need. Today I told myself going in that I would limit myself to one and only one, and I also specified that, if there was going to be a "one", it had to be "Top Secret!", a 1984 movie that I haven't seen in years but just recently found the name in a somewhat non-related Google searching endeavor the other day. I didn't remember plot, or many details from it, just enough to recognize the description and recall it being absolutely hilarious.
Coming up with creative transitions between stories is not my strongest point. Later in the day, as I was leaving the library to go find food in Buntrock, I was randomly approached by an acquaintance passing in the hallway, and he complimented me on how great the slideshows at Selah and FCA have been when I do them, and how glad he is that someone has finally stepped up to the plate with something better looking than PowerPoint. It meant a lot to hear that random compliment. He didn't have to say anything, didn't have to go out of his way to stop and talk to me, but I'm really glad he did. It's another voice telling me I've made good choices in my efforts to keep the motion backgrounds subtle and non-distracting during worship. But furthermore, and more importantly, it's validation; it's reassurance that I'm doing something that's actually appreciated, that's actually noticed. Thanks for that random act of surprising compliment-ness, God.
Wednesday, March 21, 2007
Day 19
On my way to breakfast and church this morning, just outside Rand, I found a dollar bill, just lying around, waiting to be given a new home. That's a good way to start the day, isn't it?
But aside from that, there weren't a whole lot of surprises during the morning and afternoon. Church was a mixed bag: the sermon was inspirational, but the technical side of things saw the worst performance they've had in a long time, and, me being me, I too easily get distracted by those sound and media glitches. At least I had friends to sit with, that was a definite plus.
It's quite possible that I spent the majority of the afternoon watching more Lost. Actually, I'm sure I did. After all, I need to catch up if I'm going to start watching the new episodes again on Wednesdays (almost there; of 12 episodes this season, I'm through about 8 so far this weekend - oh yes, I'm hard at work). Wait, no, I did make a run to Target to pick up water today, so I didn't spend the entire time watching TV.
The night was more adventuresome than the day, starting with Selah group dinner at 6:00. I was late (busy on the phone–that's a whole other story, but suffice it to say it was all Putter related), so no one was left in Fireside when I got there, but then, oddly, no one was upstairs, either. I spotted one other group member who had also just come up the stairs, so we started our own table and eventually half a dozen or so people joined us, but it was still weird because none of the very recognizable leaders were there.
From dinner we went down to the Pause for rehearsal, and I got my computer all set up. This was the first time I'd run slides for Selah in the Pause (last time we were in the ballroom upstairs), so it was a new experience, but fortunately there weren't any major technological surprises (you know about my fear of Windows), except for when I had completely the wrong lyrics for one of the songs. Good thing that got ironed out during rehearsal, otherwise that would have been very embarrassing. The performance itself went great, very few errors on my part, and then several good conversation with friends during and after cleanup. Great day.
But aside from that, there weren't a whole lot of surprises during the morning and afternoon. Church was a mixed bag: the sermon was inspirational, but the technical side of things saw the worst performance they've had in a long time, and, me being me, I too easily get distracted by those sound and media glitches. At least I had friends to sit with, that was a definite plus.
It's quite possible that I spent the majority of the afternoon watching more Lost. Actually, I'm sure I did. After all, I need to catch up if I'm going to start watching the new episodes again on Wednesdays (almost there; of 12 episodes this season, I'm through about 8 so far this weekend - oh yes, I'm hard at work). Wait, no, I did make a run to Target to pick up water today, so I didn't spend the entire time watching TV.
The night was more adventuresome than the day, starting with Selah group dinner at 6:00. I was late (busy on the phone–that's a whole other story, but suffice it to say it was all Putter related), so no one was left in Fireside when I got there, but then, oddly, no one was upstairs, either. I spotted one other group member who had also just come up the stairs, so we started our own table and eventually half a dozen or so people joined us, but it was still weird because none of the very recognizable leaders were there.
From dinner we went down to the Pause for rehearsal, and I got my computer all set up. This was the first time I'd run slides for Selah in the Pause (last time we were in the ballroom upstairs), so it was a new experience, but fortunately there weren't any major technological surprises (you know about my fear of Windows), except for when I had completely the wrong lyrics for one of the songs. Good thing that got ironed out during rehearsal, otherwise that would have been very embarrassing. The performance itself went great, very few errors on my part, and then several good conversation with friends during and after cleanup. Great day.
Day 18
God didn't get too many chances to surprise me today, because I spent almost the entire day in the library writing my paper for Jesus in Scripture and Tradition. And perhaps watching a few episodes from this season of Lost, I'm not sure I can admit to that publicly, though.
I planted myself in various parts of the library throughout the day: fifth floor right by the shelf of religion books about John's Gospel, later on 3rd floor by a window, and later on first floor in a small little cubbie with comfortable chairs. The change of scenery helps keep the brain active. Sure.
And throughout my writing, God did end up having a few little surprises to throw at me: namely, Microsoft Word kept having fits. Now, of course, that should be of no surprise, given that it is a product of the Evil Empire of Gates, but today was worse than normal because, apparently, it thought it found another copy of MSWord on the St Olaf wireless network in the library with the same product id as mine, and thus it decided that it just had to quit. I found this to be incredibly aggravating, because I purchased my copy of MS Office fair and square, so for it to have the nerve to suggest to me that I'm using pirated software is beyond insulting, especially considering how much that horrendously buggy piece of something software cost! Thankfully I'm a habitual saver, because otherwise this awful misfeature would have caused doom and lost work. As it was my productivity sunk because I could not be simultaneously working on my paper in Word and also be connected to the network (read: "internet and email"). I guess I did volunteer to take the bad with the good, though. Surprise.
In the midst of cursing Microsoft, some research did actually happen, and I found a couple books that were wonderful resources. Who would have suspected that entire sections of books had been written on just the exact subject I wanted to write about?! Certainly not I, because until today I had no idea. (My topic, by the way, concerns the applicability of the title "king" for Jesus in John's Gospel; it's something I've wanted to look into since first-year religion two years ago, but not exactly something I would have expected to have much written about it–Surprise!).
Somewhere in the middle of the day I left the library to meet Nicole for lunch (I think that was my transition between fifth and third floor), and then came back to hammer out my introductory paragraph. It actually came pretty quickly: based on what I'd read and my own opinions, I knew where I was headed, so laying it out wasn't hard. Making the rest of the words appear on the page, on the other hand, was slightly more difficult, and I didn't finish until about 9:30 (after being exiled from the closing library).
This paper is the first time I've ever had to use footnotes instead of inline citations, but, to my very pleasant surprise, the professor had given us an example online of how these footnotes should be formatted, saving me from the guesswork of trying to decipher the cryptic "style guide" that he also so kindly provided.
My day was not completely consumed by my paper, though it feels like it. Dinner I ate alone for the first time in 17 days (sad surprise), but perhaps that was for the best, since I needed to finish quickly and get back to work. Then later, while, um, "taking a break", I happened upon a friend's FaceBook profile (clearly FaceBook was actually part of my Gospel of John research... yes), and saw another Scripture passage from Hebrews (I think I mentioned some number of days ago that I'm now keeping track of all the Hebrews references I find, or that find me): "Faith is being sure of what you hope for and certain of what you do not see" - Hebrews 11:1. I'm too tired to think about the deep meaning much right now, but perhaps some day when I look back and read this, it will make complete sense. Or maybe there's someone else who will read this that needed to hear that, who knows?
The rest of my evening was lost to Lost, as well as discovering some of the episodes hadn't downloaded properly, so I needed to restart those. Good to find out now, though, before I'm ready to watch that particular episode only to discover it's not ready.
Hmm. In retrospect, I guess God did have a number of surprises lined up for me today after all.
I planted myself in various parts of the library throughout the day: fifth floor right by the shelf of religion books about John's Gospel, later on 3rd floor by a window, and later on first floor in a small little cubbie with comfortable chairs. The change of scenery helps keep the brain active. Sure.
And throughout my writing, God did end up having a few little surprises to throw at me: namely, Microsoft Word kept having fits. Now, of course, that should be of no surprise, given that it is a product of the Evil Empire of Gates, but today was worse than normal because, apparently, it thought it found another copy of MSWord on the St Olaf wireless network in the library with the same product id as mine, and thus it decided that it just had to quit. I found this to be incredibly aggravating, because I purchased my copy of MS Office fair and square, so for it to have the nerve to suggest to me that I'm using pirated software is beyond insulting, especially considering how much that horrendously buggy piece of something software cost! Thankfully I'm a habitual saver, because otherwise this awful misfeature would have caused doom and lost work. As it was my productivity sunk because I could not be simultaneously working on my paper in Word and also be connected to the network (read: "internet and email"). I guess I did volunteer to take the bad with the good, though. Surprise.
In the midst of cursing Microsoft, some research did actually happen, and I found a couple books that were wonderful resources. Who would have suspected that entire sections of books had been written on just the exact subject I wanted to write about?! Certainly not I, because until today I had no idea. (My topic, by the way, concerns the applicability of the title "king" for Jesus in John's Gospel; it's something I've wanted to look into since first-year religion two years ago, but not exactly something I would have expected to have much written about it–Surprise!).
Somewhere in the middle of the day I left the library to meet Nicole for lunch (I think that was my transition between fifth and third floor), and then came back to hammer out my introductory paragraph. It actually came pretty quickly: based on what I'd read and my own opinions, I knew where I was headed, so laying it out wasn't hard. Making the rest of the words appear on the page, on the other hand, was slightly more difficult, and I didn't finish until about 9:30 (after being exiled from the closing library).
This paper is the first time I've ever had to use footnotes instead of inline citations, but, to my very pleasant surprise, the professor had given us an example online of how these footnotes should be formatted, saving me from the guesswork of trying to decipher the cryptic "style guide" that he also so kindly provided.
My day was not completely consumed by my paper, though it feels like it. Dinner I ate alone for the first time in 17 days (sad surprise), but perhaps that was for the best, since I needed to finish quickly and get back to work. Then later, while, um, "taking a break", I happened upon a friend's FaceBook profile (clearly FaceBook was actually part of my Gospel of John research... yes), and saw another Scripture passage from Hebrews (I think I mentioned some number of days ago that I'm now keeping track of all the Hebrews references I find, or that find me): "Faith is being sure of what you hope for and certain of what you do not see" - Hebrews 11:1. I'm too tired to think about the deep meaning much right now, but perhaps some day when I look back and read this, it will make complete sense. Or maybe there's someone else who will read this that needed to hear that, who knows?
The rest of my evening was lost to Lost, as well as discovering some of the episodes hadn't downloaded properly, so I needed to restart those. Good to find out now, though, before I'm ready to watch that particular episode only to discover it's not ready.
Hmm. In retrospect, I guess God did have a number of surprises lined up for me today after all.
Day 17
The first surprise this morning came bright and early when my phone rang at 8:50. My cell phone is always set to vibrate... except when it's plugged in, then it sets itself to loud. That's a good thing, normally, in case it's in a different room from me, I can still hear it. Unfortunately, when it rang this morning, I wasn't awake yet–my alarm was set for 9:05–and it was right next to my pillow. I became confused: why is my alarm playing David Crowder, and why isn't the snooze button making it stop? Oh, right, cell phone, plugged in, ringing.
I made it to breakfast just in time before they closed, sat with Sarah for two minutes until she had to leave, and then eventually made my way over to the Pastors' Office in Boe to get ready for chapel (I read the scripture passage today). On my way I was delayed in trying to drop off a card in someone's PO, because right as I got there a tour group of middle schoolers happened to step in the way... and then their guide talked for a couple minutes. There was no way through them, either, I just needed to have patience.
Nancy, the pastors' secretary, had a surprise waiting for me today: she had neglected to mention I needed to lead an additional prayer reading later in the 20-minute service. Not a huge deal, I just start the congregation and then they turn the microphone down, but unexpected nonetheless.
We had a test today in individual fitness. It wasn't really a test, moreso a quiz, and it wasn't particularly difficult (I say this now, before seeing the graded results), except for the extra credit question. Our teacher warned us about extra credit question, that it would either be something about his family that he's mentioned in class or something in the news that everyone would know. I was ready to answer anything about his family, or at least come up with an amusing answer if I didn't know the real one, but the question (surprisingly) was where Anna Nicole Smith is buried right now. I don't know, that's not anything in the news I care about. What kind of stupid extra credit question is this, discriminating against those of us who don't really care about pop culture? I guessed the answer correctly from what I thought I'd heard at some point. Still, that was close.
I ate dinner with Kyle at the Cage; just a short time to get to know him a little better. For as close a friend as Ashley is, I've never really talked with Kyle for more than a few minutes at a time, so it was nice to have that time to actually meet part of the real person behind the name.
After dinner I spent the rest of my evening working on Putter stuff. Nothing too surprising, just updated the website a little bit, and started working on some invites and the DVD cover. Kind of a very blah evening. Worse, I was forced to stay awake much later than I'd planned or wanted: one of my roommates had a group of noisy "friends" over, and that made it rather impossible to go to bed until they left. I was not happy.
I made it to breakfast just in time before they closed, sat with Sarah for two minutes until she had to leave, and then eventually made my way over to the Pastors' Office in Boe to get ready for chapel (I read the scripture passage today). On my way I was delayed in trying to drop off a card in someone's PO, because right as I got there a tour group of middle schoolers happened to step in the way... and then their guide talked for a couple minutes. There was no way through them, either, I just needed to have patience.
Nancy, the pastors' secretary, had a surprise waiting for me today: she had neglected to mention I needed to lead an additional prayer reading later in the 20-minute service. Not a huge deal, I just start the congregation and then they turn the microphone down, but unexpected nonetheless.
We had a test today in individual fitness. It wasn't really a test, moreso a quiz, and it wasn't particularly difficult (I say this now, before seeing the graded results), except for the extra credit question. Our teacher warned us about extra credit question, that it would either be something about his family that he's mentioned in class or something in the news that everyone would know. I was ready to answer anything about his family, or at least come up with an amusing answer if I didn't know the real one, but the question (surprisingly) was where Anna Nicole Smith is buried right now. I don't know, that's not anything in the news I care about. What kind of stupid extra credit question is this, discriminating against those of us who don't really care about pop culture? I guessed the answer correctly from what I thought I'd heard at some point. Still, that was close.
I ate dinner with Kyle at the Cage; just a short time to get to know him a little better. For as close a friend as Ashley is, I've never really talked with Kyle for more than a few minutes at a time, so it was nice to have that time to actually meet part of the real person behind the name.
After dinner I spent the rest of my evening working on Putter stuff. Nothing too surprising, just updated the website a little bit, and started working on some invites and the DVD cover. Kind of a very blah evening. Worse, I was forced to stay awake much later than I'd planned or wanted: one of my roommates had a group of noisy "friends" over, and that made it rather impossible to go to bed until they left. I was not happy.
Friday, March 16, 2007
Day 16
Today started as a "late" kind of day; I woke up later than I'd planned (the snooze button is deceptively good at calling my name... and I obeyed), made it to breakfast just in time before they closed, and then made it to class just as the teacher was preparing to close the door (someone else was just as almost-late, though, so I didn't feel as horrible about it).
We watched an awesomely hilarious fake movie trailer in Jesus in Scripture and Tradition. It was a parody of what the next Terminator movie could have been: Arnold with his shotgun protecting Jesus. Words won't do it justice. Here's the link: http://youtube.com/watch?v=cvfU6FIzA0o.
I finally fixed my mighty mouse this afternoon; for months the scroll ball hasn't scrolled down (physically it does, but it doesn't register on the computer). The problem is that dirt and grime collects inside the mouse casing under the scroll ball, preventing the little movement detector thingies (that's their technical name) from detecting some of the motion, specifically, the downward scrolling motion. I had brought the mouse into an Apple store some number of months ago, they cleaned it, and it worked for about a week. Now I finally got fed up and decided to do something about it again.
Option #1 - follow Apple's directions: rub vigorously with cloth. Nope, no luck at all.
Option #2 - disassemble the mouse following directions I found via Google. I started to, then discovered part of the disassembling required a thin sharp knife to cut loose a glued piece. I didn't have a knife that would work. Convenient excuse.
Option #3 - Using a twist-tie, insert the metal tip into the scroll ball receptacle and poke around a lot, followed up by vigorous rubbing on my little mouse carpet (it's seriously a little mouse rug, not a mouse pad). Success!
Joyful, I spent some time finally making a few updates to the Harry Putter website, then briefly skimmed over my phy ed readings to "study" for the test/quiz tomorrow (the teacher told us very clearly not to worry about it: it's going to be super easy such that even his 1st grader could probably score a 50% without studying).
Today the math and science people gathered in the Science Center for the "Pi After-day Party" (yesterday was Pi day, but the speaker couldn't make it then). I went, indulged myself in some delicious French Silk, then went back to the dorm to keep working before meeting Nick for dinner.
I ran slides again for Thursday Night tonight, and I think the only surprise was that there weren't any computer surprises. Thank goodness. I even got the set list of songs a full hour and a half in advance; that's a new record.
My only real "surprise" surprise of the day ironically came at the very end of it, a couple minutes past midnight, right before I went to bed. Ash has a test tomorrow, and I know she's been studying a lot for it, so, assuming she'd already be asleep, I walked to the other side of Rand to slip a good luck card under her door, but before I got there I bumped into her in person! I never imagined she knew what it was to be up past midnight, so that was a bit of a shocker. It was much nicer to deliver the card in person.
We watched an awesomely hilarious fake movie trailer in Jesus in Scripture and Tradition. It was a parody of what the next Terminator movie could have been: Arnold with his shotgun protecting Jesus. Words won't do it justice. Here's the link: http://youtube.com/watch?v=cvfU6FIzA0o.
I finally fixed my mighty mouse this afternoon; for months the scroll ball hasn't scrolled down (physically it does, but it doesn't register on the computer). The problem is that dirt and grime collects inside the mouse casing under the scroll ball, preventing the little movement detector thingies (that's their technical name) from detecting some of the motion, specifically, the downward scrolling motion. I had brought the mouse into an Apple store some number of months ago, they cleaned it, and it worked for about a week. Now I finally got fed up and decided to do something about it again.
Option #1 - follow Apple's directions: rub vigorously with cloth. Nope, no luck at all.
Option #2 - disassemble the mouse following directions I found via Google. I started to, then discovered part of the disassembling required a thin sharp knife to cut loose a glued piece. I didn't have a knife that would work. Convenient excuse.
Option #3 - Using a twist-tie, insert the metal tip into the scroll ball receptacle and poke around a lot, followed up by vigorous rubbing on my little mouse carpet (it's seriously a little mouse rug, not a mouse pad). Success!
Joyful, I spent some time finally making a few updates to the Harry Putter website, then briefly skimmed over my phy ed readings to "study" for the test/quiz tomorrow (the teacher told us very clearly not to worry about it: it's going to be super easy such that even his 1st grader could probably score a 50% without studying).
Today the math and science people gathered in the Science Center for the "Pi After-day Party" (yesterday was Pi day, but the speaker couldn't make it then). I went, indulged myself in some delicious French Silk, then went back to the dorm to keep working before meeting Nick for dinner.
I ran slides again for Thursday Night tonight, and I think the only surprise was that there weren't any computer surprises. Thank goodness. I even got the set list of songs a full hour and a half in advance; that's a new record.
My only real "surprise" surprise of the day ironically came at the very end of it, a couple minutes past midnight, right before I went to bed. Ash has a test tomorrow, and I know she's been studying a lot for it, so, assuming she'd already be asleep, I walked to the other side of Rand to slip a good luck card under her door, but before I got there I bumped into her in person! I never imagined she knew what it was to be up past midnight, so that was a bit of a shocker. It was much nicer to deliver the card in person.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)