how to become popular

(At church that is.)

Option 1:

Become engaged. I am speaking personally by living vicariously through a friend.

Option 2:

Decide to move away for three and a half months.

a time for everything

A time for beards, and a time for shaving them (for Joel, that is; he came home with one as per request); a time for saying hello, and a time for saying goodbye; a time for quiet, and a time for visiting; a time to be home, and a time to start packing ...

Joel and I were able to spend almost all of the Christmas holidays together - minus the last minute shopping, and dentist appointments, and those exams and studying for them. I wrote my last exams at Redeemer until December 2011. School would be starting on Wednesday, but I will be cleaning up the chaos that is reigning in my room so as to stop living out of a suitcase :)

Handel's Messiah at Roy Thomson Hall, exciting announcements by friends (an engagement and a pregnancy), catching up with good friends, spending quality time with family and each other - yes, it's been a wonderful holiday.

It's been an incredible year with the next one already laid out with some of its plans and fears and anticipations.

it's beginning to look a lot like Christmas

Last week, our theory assignment was to create a Christmas song based on the words by Christina Rosetti. Little did I know that this idea is a part of the "been there, done that" category. So here is "Love Came Down at Christmas" by Jars of Clay. It's strange to hear it, after having drummed my own melody into my head.

Love came down at Christmas,

love all lovely, love divine;

love was born at Christmas:

star and angels gave the sign.

Worship we the Godhead,

love incarnate, love divine;

worship we our Jesus,

but wherewith the sacred sign?

Love shall be our token;

love be yours and love be mine,

Love to God and to all men,

love for plea and gift and sign.

racing towards the finish line

for the literary folks:

In modern linguistic terms, the story of the Incarnation is the story of how the Transcendental Signified became a lowly signifier while continuing to be a signified.

The project for this weekend is an essay on C. S. Lewis and how his sense of morality influenced his writing.

One of the strengths of Lewis’ writings is that he gives us such an exciting picture of what goodness looks like. His fiction is filled with characters who demonstrate that being virtuous is not a weak characteristic in a personality, but rather one of strength, courage, honour, and power. Lewis gives us pictures of good which fascinate and draw us, awakening within us the hope that we too can rise above our instincts and limitations and do the right thing. Virtue is the ability and power to choose good, which arises from a transformation of our hearts and minds.

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this world keeps spinning faster

It's amazing how much our lives are caught up in technology.

This evening I gave a presentation on different locations in England used in the Harry Potter films. I had hoped to connect my laptop to the projector system, so that all the work I had done to the PowerPoint presentation would work, but something didn't connect properly. Unfortunately, having embedded the videos into the slideshow meant that they did not transfer over to the other computer at our disposal.

Strike one.

I love having an internet connection - enables me to stay in contact with those who are able to keep me sane in moments of panic which seem to strike at any given moment without any due notice.

Strike two?

More and more, I am realizing how important transportation is in this day in age. Not having that method of getting from point A to point B is severely limiting.

Strike three.

The moral: either you have to learn to be completely independent and rely on your feet in order to get you anywhere or you have to learn humility and dependence upon others.

christmas in a cup

I have a confession.

I may be addicted to tea.

The first step is admitting you have a problem, right? Or is it simply good preparation for England (assuming that everyone there does drink tea, the archetypal Brit)?

Also, for your amusement, Victor Borge and Dean Martin: (although my family and I have differing opinions on the funniest clips)

who are you and what have you done with [name]?

A crazy week has drawn to a close. It began with the completion of an essay, the frantic rewriting of that same essay within two hours to make the midnight deadline, a power outage at school, a rescheduled midterm, and a movie review.

Welcome to November, folks.

It's hard to believe that this semester is more than half over. I realize I mentioned in my previous 'post' (apparently two sentences don't constitute as a proper post) that only a couple months remain until the holidays. My brother clearly announced this afternoon that there are only seven weeks left until Christmas (inevitably followed by his ever-growing list ;) ) which means that in ten weeks I will be distanced from home and loved ones by an ocean. It still seems all a little unreal.

But that's the future.

For now, I'm waiting to put the icing on the cake.

Also, I have been struggling with "Thy Will Be Done" so I would like to share this link. It is from the soundtrack of "Joseph King of Dreams" which speaks of letting go of our own dreams when doors appear to be closing and following the path He has set out for us.

to/two/too

In two months and a few days, the first semester will be over and we'll be into the holidays again.

In two months and a few weeks, I'll be in England for a few months.

thanksgiving