happy 2009

happy new year blogosphere! i'm sorry for the dearth of posting in the past 10 days. i've been working at least one job each day since my last post, and i am at work right now, and will be here till 3pm new years day. i'm not usually one for big resolutions, but this year i do have some things i want to work on. i'm going to post more about it tomorrow. when i'm out of work, but i just wanted to throw out a 'happy new year' to all my friends. love you! r

happy birthday to me!

i'm 28 today!

there's no place like home for the holidays

wahoo! i am done with my first semester of seminary!! i just finished a 5 page self assesment (more on the joys of that later, i'm sure) and all i have to do is drop it in my teachers mailbox tomorrow and i'm home free! i'll stop at target on the way out tomorrow to refill a percription and then it's off to central pa! i'll be home till around the 9th of jan. when i head back to richmond and then on to north carolina for a conference. i know that i will have much more to post on the first semester of seminary, bur right now i'm going to finish packing and get to bed :O) i hope you are all having a lovely december! love and hugs, r

done with hebrew!

i still have to finish history and teaching ministry, but my hebrew final is out of the way! wahoo!!
this is my nice smiley face- rocking the union-psce tshirt! and then my super excited hebrew is over face :O)

this is me and my friend luke, taken at our fancy formal dance that we had last night. it was a blast and we got to dance and drink some wine and just have a good time before finals. i had my hair done which is kind of a silly thing, but i knew otherwise i would just hate it. so we're in the south and it was definatly a little high, but it was pretty and there were about 100 bobbypins in it so it didn't move :O) i'm 2/3 of the way done with my history exam which is due tuesday and i have my hebrew exam tomorrow afternoon and then a paper due by the end of this week. whew. i might take wednesday off and drive down to raleigh, nc because there is an exhibit of the dead sea scrolls down there and it leaves dec 28 and i'd like to see them. it's only about 3 hours away so i think it might be a fun day trip, and then should be headed home on friday! wahoo!
hope you're all having a a great december! happy 2nd week of advent! and happy 14 days till hanukkah! (which starts on my birthday!)

this picture is of an old tank at the military museum in boalsburg. i like the way it seems to just go on forever and if i didn't know what it was a picture of, i'd probably have to stare at it for a while before i figured it out.. also, it's quite metaphoric for my finals work, which seems to stretch into forever...
hope you're all having a lovely thursday!
hugs. r

ps i only got 4 hours of sleep last night due to hebrew studying, so my english grammar is a little rough this morning. i apologize if the words above sound awkward :O)

hey there blog readers, posting for the next week is going to be pretty pathetic, and probably mostly pictures. i have soooo much work to do the next week that it will a christmas miricle if i get it all done. three papers for one class, hebrew final, three essays for history and another paper and a 3 hour meeting for my january class. sigh. so if you need me i'll be writing or reading or memorizing. happy december!

world aids day!

There's only us, There's only this, Forget regret, Or life is your to miss, No other road, No other way, No day but today.

---

sometimes the world looks better in black and white

i did not take that picture, and there isn't that much snow here,but it has snowed every day since i got home! how fun! i hope you're all going to have a lovely thanksgiving! i am very thankful for each and every one of you. lots of love, rach

on the road again...i just can't wait to get on the road again...

it's vacation time here at uts-pcse, so as soon as my friends history section is over we are off! i'm going up to jersey tonight to drop her off and stay the night there then home to state college in the morning. i get a whole week off! that's pretty exciting. i'll be able to go to the pre advent soup supper at church and get to spend some quality time with all my friends. wahoo! i do have a lot of work i need to keep up with over break, some papers to work on, hebrew to stay on top of, and dad and i are planning thanksgiving :O) it should be a fun week! i hope you all are having a great fall! i'll post next week from a coffee shop in state college :O) hugs! r

holy break batman!

so i found out today that my christmas break is 5 weeks long !! that's some serious time back in PA! i'm going to have to read a bunch of books for my jan class and i'll have to do some work, and continue to study hebrew, but really 5 weeks! i think i'm going to try and work at the bookstore if they need help. i'm poor and money from anywhere would be fantastic. plus i'd be able to walk there and back and would be some good exercise since i'll be away from the gym. we'll see. if they don't need help maybe i can get a job in retail for that time, hopefully people will still be shopping! that gives me something to do during thanksgiving break--find a job for christmas break :O)

we went out to dinner tonight for my roommates birthday, went to a little mexican place that was cheap and pretty good. the most fun though was singing along with the soundtrack to 'rent' on they way home :O)

hope you're all doing well, hugs, r

Sunrise

There are drops of dew that show like sapphires in the grass as soon as the morning sun appears, and leaves stir behind the hushed flight of an escaping dove. Thomas Merton

what a difference a year makes...

this time last year (exactly one year) i wrote this on my blog:

tuesday sucks

we got to the hospital around 11:30 this morning and mom told us. dads liver was in place and the blood was flowing through it, but it wasn't doing anything. they did a third biopsy and compared them and found that the liver was dying. so dad is back on the transplant list. this time right at the top, and this time for a 3 state radius. if a liver becomes available from 'pittsburgh to delaware' the doc said, dad gets first dibs. i assume that since they're putting him on this list that they think he can live through the surgery. but i think i have to confront the reality that he might die. if they don't get a liver soon enough, i don't know how long he will live, even being in the hospital and hooked up to a million machines, i'm not sure how much they can do. i know that life isn't fair. and our family has had a pretty blessed existence, but it just feels like it's not fair. my siblings are young, i'm only 26, i don't feel like i'm old enough to be losing a parent. i just want to scream and cry and kick the floor, a good old fashioned temper tantrum. there's nothing i can do but pray for strength and peace.

It's been a long road from that place. On November 14th Dad had his second liver transplant in 6 days. The difference between the two was like night and day. While we waited around for 5 days to see if the first liver would start to work, the second started to work before they had even closed him up. The second surgery only took 5 hours, the first took over 12. A year ago I was staying at my parents house, watching my brother, trying to keep his life as normal as possible while still shuttling in between state college and danville as much as possible to visit dad. It was hard, both timewise and emotionally. About three days after the first transplant he became pretty non responsive. He was battling an infection as well as trying to make the liver work. He was on dialysis because his kidneys were failing because the liver wouldn't work, and he had developed diabetes because the organs weren't functioning and his eyes were totally bloodshot, his arms bruised anytime anyone touched him. He was in bad shape. I don't know what life would be like today if he hadn't been given the second transplant. It's really to hard to think about. I know I would have moved on, but would I be here at seminary? or would I be at home with my mom and brother. I don't know. I'll never know, because we were blessed with the second liver. I haven't been able to think about the donor. I know he was only 23 and in good health. Some sort of accident had to have ended his life. I will be forever greatful for his donation. He saved my fathers life. I know even less about the first donor, but that person also saved dad's life. The first liver kept him alive until he received his second. The doctors told us the night of the first transplant that if they hadn't done the operation that dad wouldn't have lived through the weekend. His second transplant was on a Wednesday. Without the first, he wouldn't have made it to Wednesday. It's still hard to sit here a year later and look back on that time. The reality of life and death so present in my every day life. It's something that you have to face, but that isn't a daily reality for most of us.
I want to thank each and every one of you for your support, love, prayers, happy thoughts, rainbows, butterflies, cards, meals, phone calls, text messages and hugs. I could not live this life without each of you, and most certainly couldn't have made it through last year without you. I love you all!
rach

"Nobody's free until everybody's free."

I find myself recently both elated and demoralized. I am thrilled at the election of Barack Obama for many reasons. He's smart, he cares about our country, he's articulate, he's a democrat, he cares about national service (and not just military service), he loves his family, he has inspired a nation, and last but not least he is an African American. For him to be elected to the highest office in the land, for the people, by the people, in a country that not 200 years ago was embracing slavery is a phenomenal leap forward. It is by no means and end to the discrimination and racism that still plauge our country, but it is an impressive victory. So why with all the positives that come from an Obama victory am I demoralized? It all goes back to the Fannie Lou Hamer quote above, "Nobody's free until everybody's free." I know I've written before about this quote, mostly when I returned from a conference on poverty this summer, but it is coming up and hitting me again this week. I think that for a lot of us there is the understanding that the different types of oppression are just that, different types of oppresion. They don't see connections between racism, sexism, homophobia, anti-semitism,or albeism. But they are connected. If "nobody's free until everybody's free" then it seems to reason that if one of us is oppressed then everyone is oppressed. I got in a discussion with someone today about states rights. He was tellingme that I should be happy with an Obama victory and not worry about the rights that gays and lesbians lost on Tuesday night. That since I didn't live in any of those states that I shouldn't worry about it. To me this is missing a fundamental part of what it is to be human. We are all connected in this great chain of being. If my brothers and sisters in California, Florida, Arizona and Arkansas have lost some of their rights, then I have also lost some of my rights. Jesus said that the greatest commandment was to love God and love your neighbor. In my opinion if you're doing these two things then you will find the way home. If you're oppressing your neighbor, taking their rights away, allowing them to be considered less than full citizens then you're not loving your neighbor. You're not even loving God. We are as a people of this planet connected, what affects one of us affects all of us. We need to fight for equality and justice for ALL. It is what our country was founded on, and I don't think it's unreasonable to hold our leadership to that standard. Indeed, "Nobody's free until everybody's free."

welcome back to the blog....

the election is over and i'm hoping to return to blogging as usual. life here has been pretty normal, just trucking along in classes and starting to think about what i'm going to do this coming summer. i have a few options for different internships and i need to figure out where i want to go. yesterday there were a few different things that really stuck out to me. the number of people who went out and voted for the first time was pretty awesome, and the fact that obama was elected in a landslide. it was so great to go to bed knowing who the president was and being happy with it. balancing out my joy for these two things is my sadness for the different amendments/propositions/bans that passed regarding gay marriage. from feminisiting:

"Proposition 8 in California: Passed. This is such a crushing loss. I went to bed last night before the final results were in, and woke up to the news that the people of California actually approved the gay marriage ban. So devastating.

Amendment 2 in Florida: Passed. Yet another gay marriage ban.

Proposition 102 in Arizona: Passed. As Dana noted previously, "Arizona became the first state in the nation to reject an anti-gay marriage amendment in 2006, but they're likely to pass the measure this year, now that it has been stripped of language that also denied domestic partnership benefits to hetero couples." Looks like that was the magic change to make bigotry palatable to Arizona voters.

Act 1 in Arkansas: Passed. Now gay couples are unable to adopt or foster-parent children. This from a state with 3700 children in the foster-care system, and only 1000 foster homes. Disgusting."


that we can be embracing change and at the same time adopting laws that relegate so many of our citizens to second class status is just heartbreaking for me. my thoughts and prayers go out to all of you directly affected by these decisions as well as a country that still needs to work on their legacy of hate and separation.

president elect obama

For that is the true genius of America – that America can change. Our union can be perfected. And what we have already achieved gives us hope for what we can and must achieve tomorrow.

This election had many firsts and many stories that will be told for generations. But one that’s on my mind tonight is about a woman who cast her ballot in Atlanta. She’s a lot like the millions of others who stood in line to make their voice heard in this election except for one thing – Ann Nixon Cooper is 106 years old.

She was born just a generation past slavery; a time when there were no cars on the road or planes in the sky; when someone like her couldn’t vote for two reasons – because she was a woman and because of the color of her skin.

And tonight, I think about all that she’s seen throughout her century in America – the heartache and the hope; the struggle and the progress; the times we were told that we can’t, and the people who pressed on with that American creed: Yes we can.

At a time when women’s voices were silenced and their hopes dismissed, she lived to see them stand up and speak out and reach for the ballot. Yes we can.

When there was despair in the dust bowl and depression across the land, she saw a nation conquer fear itself with a New Deal, new jobs and a new sense of common purpose. Yes we can.

When the bombs fell on our harbor and tyranny threatened the world, she was there to witness a generation rise to greatness and a democracy was saved. Yes we can.

She was there for the buses in Montgomery, the hoses in Birmingham, a bridge in Selma, and a preacher from Atlanta who told a people that “We Shall Overcome.” Yes we can.

A man touched down on the moon, a wall came down in Berlin, a world was connected by our own science and imagination. And this year, in this election, she touched her finger to a screen, and cast her vote, because after 106 years in America, through the best of times and the darkest of hours, she knows how America can change. Yes we can.

America, we have come so far. We have seen so much. But there is so much more to do. So tonight, let us ask ourselves – if our children should live to see the next century; if my daughters should be so lucky to live as long as Ann Nixon Cooper, what change will they see? What progress will we have made?

This is our chance to answer that call. This is our moment. This is our time – to put our people back to work and open doors of opportunity for our kids; to restore prosperity and promote the cause of peace; to reclaim the American Dream and reaffirm that fundamental truth – that out of many, we are one; that while we breathe, we hope, and where we are met with cynicism, and doubt, and those who tell us that we can’t, we will respond with that timeless creed that sums up the spirit of a people:

Yes We Can. Thank you, God bless you, and may God Bless the United States of America.
President Elect Barack Obama

don't forget...

it's election day here in the united states! get out and vote! be sure to prepare for lines at your local polling place, bring a book and something to drink, maybe a snack, just be sure you vote! this is your chance to let your voice be heard! happy election day everyone!

lets see how far we've come...

original article here

Obama Takes Gay Rights Stand Four Days Before the Election -- Can This Be Real?

Filed by: Nancy Polikoff

In a move drawing outrage from gay rights leaders and the San Francisco District Attorney, the campaign to eliminate marriage for same-sex couples in California mailed flyers to voters with a picture of Barack Obama -- and Michele -- and a quote: "I'm not in favor of gay marriage." The message "Vote Yes on Prop 8" appears under Obama's image.

But Obama had gone on record AGAINST Prop 8, and the flyer was a blatant attempt to mislead California voters into believing to the contrary.

When National Center for Lesbian Rights legal director Shannon Minter brought this to my attention, I said it was especially infuriating because four days before the election Obama could not afford to publicly disavow it. Well, I was selling short the man I hope will be our next President. In fact, late Friday evening his campaign put out a statement reaffirming his opposition to Prop 8. It gave me a pinch-me-I-must-be-dreaming moment.

In response to the mailer, the Obama campaign released the following statement:

Senators Obama and Biden have made clear their commitment to fighting for equal rights for all Americans whether it's by granting LGBT Americans all the civil rights and benefits available to heterosexual couples, or repealing 'Don't Ask, Don't Tell.' Senator Obama has already announced that the Obama-Biden ticket opposes Proposition 8 and similar discriminatory constitutional amendments that could roll back the civil rights he and Senator Biden strongly believe should be afforded to all Americans.

When Congress passed DOMA weeks before the 1996 election, President Clinton signed it. It was widely believed that a veto would torpedo his reelection. Obama's response to this one misleading flyer is nowhere near as consequential as vetoing a law passed by Congress, but, still, I expected caution on Obama's part, and therefore silence.

I'm writing tonight from Hampton, Virginia, where I've been working this week on Get Out The Vote. The volunteers range from young people to 92. We work tirelessly. We have fun. We have faith in the future. And tonight my faith just deepened.

happy halloween!

happy halloween everyone! i hope you have a great day full of spookyness and fun costumes. and candy. don't forget the candy :O)

hope.

more obama

ok, i'm sure you're sick of it, but the election will be over this time next week, and then i'll stop :O) here is a post with pictures from the obama rally in PA today (or yesterday? i forget) it was wicked disgusting out but obama supporters stood in the rain and obama gave his speech in the rain, some amazing pictures.

http://shakespearessister.blogspot.com/2008/10/meanwhile-on-campaign-trail-with-obama.html

little dude knows what's up

http://yeswecanholdbabies.wordpress.com/

The magic of language

Today in Hebrew we learned about 30 new words. Our Hebrew teacher has a way of telling us stories about the language that makes it come alive. I was terrified of Hebrew before I got to school, and while it's still difficult it's also beautiful. We spent about half of the class reading from Genesis in Hebrew. Now, we could give you the gist, but we don't know what individual words mean, at this point it's just reading and listening. Getting your ears used to hearing the Hebrew and your mouth used to saying it. A few weeks into the semester Carson had us sing a verse from the Psalms in Hebrew, it was probably the coolest moment I've had in seminary. Hearing the language, the language that thousands upon thousands of people have read and sung before me, the connection to the greater world of faith was tangible. Today's experience was just as beautiful but very different. We were going over our vocab words and got to the word "Torah". Now, I imagine we're all familiar with the word, it is what the Jewish faith has as their holy book, we Christians call the Torah the Old Testament. Literally Torah means"law or The Law", this is where Carson makes the language dance. He was talking about how it doesn't mean the law like what you break when you get in trouble, it means the law as in 'the way home'. The things you do to find your way home. Home, naturally, being the Kingdom of Heaven. I know I'm not relating it well, you really have to just be there to absorb his passion for the language and translation and his love for it is just palpable.
Fast forward to 7ish tonight. For one of my classes I have to attend a church and teach some sort of lesson there. I'm going to be attending a lectionary* bible study and then teaching it for my class. So tonight I went and it was the first night and here is the first half of the passage we read (the second half not so important)

34 Hearing that Jesus had silenced the Sadducees, the Pharisees got together. 35 One of them, an expert in the law, tested him with this question:

36 "Teacher, which is the greatest commandment in the Law?" 37Jesus replied: " 'Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.'38 This is the first and greatest commandment. 39 And the second is like it: 'Love your neighbor as yourself.' 40 All the Law and the Prophets hang on these two commandments."

And I read this passage and immediately thought of Hebrew. And thought of the translation of Torah, and of The Law being the way home, and of the greatest law, the greatest commandment to be loving God, loving yourself and loving your neighbor. It really just hit me how that is the way home. Love is the way home.

update...i emailed something like this to my hebrew prof and here is part of what he replied

"Bear ye one another's burdens, and so fulfill the law (Torah) of Christ." That is the way home or there is no way and there is no home.



*A lectionary is a book or listing that contains a collection of scripture readings appointed for worship on a given day or occasion. So we're studying the bible passages that will be used on Sunday for the sermon.

i heart david sedaris

“I look at these people and can't quite believe that they exist. Are they professional actors? I wonder. Or are they simply laymen who want a lot of attention? To put them in perspective, I think of being on an airplane. The flight attendant comes down the aisle with her food cart and, eventually, parks it beside my seat. "Can I interest you in the chicken?" she asks. "Or would you prefer the platter of shit with bits of broken glass in it? To be undecided in this election is to pause for a moment and then ask how the chicken is cooked."

- Author David Sedaris, on undecided voters in an article for the new yorker

ellen!

there are many, many, many reasons to love ellen degeneres. her talk show, the beautiful ring she gave portia, the fact that she dances on her show, she's funny, she wears fun shoes, and she makes lovely statements. recently sarah palin stated that she wanted to country to move towards a constitutional ban on gay marriage. and ellen had a little something to say about how she felt that people were all equal and should be equal and at the end she said this:

"people are gonna be who they're gonna be and we need to learn to love them for who they are and let them love who they're gonna love. there. that's that"

to which i say, amen ellen. that everyone could embrace this philosophy and see that the love between consenting adults isn't hurting our community, it's the hate that hurts the community.

new room setup

ok, i think i'm done moving furniture for a while. things are a way i think i like them. a chair might move a little bit, but for the most part, this is how it will stay...

saturday fun

so this morning elizabeth and i went and stood in the 50 degree cloudy weather (i thought it was lovely, she was freezing) for a couple of hours and got our FREE dave matthews and tim reynolds tickets!! i'm so excited! i've never seen dave and tim play before! and it's for free!!!!!! after that i went and got the next pieces for my halloween costume. i might need two more pieces, but i'm not sure. i'll post pictures when i get the whole thing together. now i'm organizing my room and going to hit up the gym during the second half of the psu game. it's on espn which i don't get up here in my room, but they usually have on at the gym. ok. back to the organizing. hope you're all having a lovely weekend!
r

oh here are the words to a lyle lovett song that dave and tim play sometimes that i LOVE

If I had a boat
I'd go out on the ocean
And if I had a pony
I'd ride him on my boat
And we could all together
Go out on the ocean
Me upon my pony on my boat

If I were Roy Rogers
I'd sure enough be single
I couldn't bring myself to marrying old Dale
It'd just be me and trigger
We'd go riding through them movies
Then we'd buy a boat and on the sea we'd sail

And if I had a boat
I'd go out on the ocean
And if I had a pony
I'd ride him on my boat
And we could all together
Go out on the ocean
Me upon my pony on my boat

The mystery masked man was smart
He got himself a Tonto
'Cause Tonto did the dirty work for free
But Tonto he was smarter
And one day said kemo sabe
Kiss my ass I bought a boat
I'm going out to sea

And if I had a boat
I'd go out on the ocean
And if I had a pony
I'd ride him on my boat
And we could all together
Go out on the ocean
Me upon my pony on my boat

And if I were like lightning
I wouldn't need no sneakers
I'd come and go wherever I would please
And I'd scare 'em by the shade tree
And I'd scare 'em by the light pole
But I would not scare my pony on my boat out on the sea

And if I had a boat
I'd go out on the ocean
And if I had a pony
I'd ride him on my boat
And we could all together
Go out on the ocean
Me upon my pony on my boat

Wapo endorses Obama

the washington post endorses obama!

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/10/16/AR2008101603436.html

Dave and Tim!

wahoo! so if you live in virginia and i just don't know it yet don't miss your chance to go to the FREE Dave and Tim concert for Obama/Biden! i'll be waiting for tickets tomorrow morning with my fingers crossed.

Dave Matthews and Tim Reynolds at
Virginia Commonwealth University

Last Chance for Change

A very special acoustic evening with Dave Matthews and Tim Reynolds

ALLTEL Pavilion at the Stuart C. Siegel Center
Virginia Commonwealth University
Richmond, VA

Sunday, October 26, 2008
Media access: 5:30 p.m.
Doors open: 6:00 p.m.
Show starts: 7:00 p.m.

The event is free and open to all Virginia residents and students. Two free tickets per person are available on a first-come, first-served basis at the locations listed below.

Ticket Locations

***Tickets are available starting at 10:00 a.m. on Saturday, October 18. Campaign for Change offices are open from 9:00am to 9:00pm daily.***

Richmond Campaign for Change Office
1208 West Marshall Street
Richmond, VA 23220

taking a break

hello my friends! it is fall break here at union-psce and my hebrew teacher told us that our assignment for fall break was "to rest" to take a break and rest up. so i have four days of resting :O) i'm going to update the blog with some actual content (!) and take some pictures around campus and put them up. oh and cleaning organiazing, maybe do some laundry, play my guitar, go to the gym, read my oprah magazine, take some naps. oh i'm so excited! also on saturday i'm going out to the church i'm writing a paper on for their celtic festival. should be a good break!
last night a bunch of us went to cafe gutenberg, they have 'wine away the wednesday' where you can get half price glasses of wine! so i had a glass of organic spanish rose and a warm chocolate croissant. (i'd just come from 50 minutes of intense cardio at the gym. i treated myself) it was super fun. it's a really cute place and it was a great beginning to our break. this is another picture from west virginia. i got a little obsessed with the spiderwebs and the dew. my friend lucy said that it was a very halloween type picture, so here ya go :O) happy thursday everyone!

hello!

i had a fantastic weekend in wv with some friends from my old job. we hung out, cooked together, watched the deer run across the yard, stared at pretty trees and just had a great time. i even managed to get 2 of my 3 history midterm questions done! oh AND my teaching ministry paper! wahoo! so i'm off to finish my last midterm question : "write an essay in which you discuss augustine's views on the interaction of divine grace and human agency in the accomplishment of human salvation as you find these views expressed in the reading." yeah. sigh. so here are my 3 of my pictures from this weekend. enjoy "The Nature" we called it :O)

hola

hello there friends! i hope you all had a lovely week. here it was ok, it's midterm time so i'm pretty stressed out. and i only have one midterm. i have to write three 600 word essays for history, and i have to turn in a rough draft of a huge paper for another class. oh and not forget any hebrew. i'm off to west virginia to hang out with some friends from my old job this weekend, sadly all the aforementioned work is coming with me, but i know we'll still have fun, even if i have to do some schoolwork. maybe i can teach them hebrew :O) so have a great weekend everyone! we have fall break at the end of next week so i'll finish rearranging my room and put up a few new pictures then. hope you're all doing well! hugs.r

the candidates on sacrifice

from the debate tuesday night, it's long, but i think a good representation of what each candidate stands for:

Brokaw: All right, gentlemen, I want to just remind you one more time about time. We're going to have a larger deficit than the federal government does if we don't get this under control here before too long. Sen. McCain, for you, we have our first question from the Internet tonight. A child of the Depression, 78-year-old Fiorra from Chicago: Since World War II, we have never been asked to sacrifice anything to help our country, except the blood of our heroic men and women. As president, what sacrifices -- sacrifices will you ask every American to make to help restore the American dream and to get out of the economic morass that we're now in?

McCain: Well, Fiorra, I'm going to ask the American people to understand that there are some programs that we may have to eliminate.

I first proposed a long time ago that we would have to examine every agency and every bureaucracy of government. And we're going to have to eliminate those that aren't working. I know a lot of them that aren't working. One of them is in defense spending, because I've taken on some of the defense contractors. I saved the taxpayers $6.8 billion in a deal for an Air Force tanker that was done in a corrupt fashion. I believe that we have to eliminate the earmarks. And sometimes those projects, not -- not the overhead projector that Sen. Obama asked for, but some of them that are really good projects, will have -- will have to be eliminated, as well. And they'll have to undergo the same scrutiny that all projects should in competition with others.

So we're going to have to tell the American people that spending is going to have to be cut in America. And I recommend a spending freeze that -- except for defense, Veterans Affairs, and some other vital programs, we'll just have to have across-the-board freeze.

And some of those programs may not grow as much as we would like for them to, but we can establish priorities with full transparency, with full knowledge of the American people, and full consultation, not done behind closed doors and shoving earmarks in the middle of the night into programs that we don't even -- sometimes we don't even know about until months later.

And, by the way, I want to go back a second. Look, we can attack health care and energy at the same time. We're not -- we're not -- we're not rifle shots here. We are Americans. We can, with the participation of all Americans, work together and solve these problems together. Frankly, I'm not going to tell that person without health insurance that, "I'm sorry, you'll have to wait." I'm going to tell you Americans we'll get to work right away, and we'll get to work together, and we can get them all done, because that's what America has been doing.

Brokaw: Sen. McCain, thank you very much. Sen. Obama?

Obama: You know, a lot of you remember the tragedy of 9/11 and where you were on that day and, you know, how all of the country was ready to come together and make enormous changes to make us not only safer, but to make us a better country and a more unified country.

And President Bush did some smart things at the outset, but one of the opportunities that was missed was, when he spoke to the American people, he said, "Go out and shop." That wasn't the kind of call to service that I think the American people were looking for. And so it's important to understand that the -- I think the American people are hungry for the kind of leadership that is going to tackle these problems not just in government, but outside of government.

And let's take the example of energy, which we already spoke about. There is going to be the need for each and every one of us to start thinking about how we use energy. I believe in the need for increased oil production. We're going to have to explore new ways to get more oil, and that includes offshore drilling. It includes telling the oil companies, that currently have 68 million acres that they're not using, that either you use them or you lose them. We're going to have to develop clean coal technology and safe ways to store nuclear energy.

But each and every one of us can start thinking about how can we save energy in our homes, in our buildings. And one of the things I want to do is make sure that we're providing incentives so that you can buy a fuel efficient car that's made right here in the United States of America, not in Japan or South Korea, making sure that you are able to weatherize your home or make your business more fuel efficient. And that's going to require effort from each and every one of us.

And the last point I just want to make. I think the young people of America are especially interested in how they can serve, and that's one of the reasons why I'm interested in doubling the Peace Corps, making sure that we are creating a volunteer corps all across this country that can be involved in their community, involved in military service, so that military families and our troops are not the only ones bearing the burden of renewing America.

That's something that all of us have to be involved with and that requires some leadership from Washington.

debate anyone?

so did you watch? what did you think? is there anyone who reads the blog who is honestly undecided? i (duh) am not undecided.i really really really want obama to win. there are certain issues that i cannot compromise on, it makes it really easy for me to pick a candidate. you don't support roe v wade? you won't agree to get our troops home soon? you want to drill baby drill even though we won't see a drop of it for 10 years? you vote against alternative energy? you want to change our constitution to discriminate against our citizens? i will not vote for you. it's really as easy as about one or two of those things, but they're things that are all important to me. now i'm sure if i looked more carefully at some things i'd probably not vote democratic, i'd probably be more likely to vote libertarian or green party, but for me the only two viable options for a presidentail election are democrat or republican. i have friends and family who are "socially liberal but fiscally conservative". i understand that thought, but i do not EVER find a point where my fiscal conservativeness outweighs my social liberalism. so thoughts? i found my self irritated with mccain (just fyi john, WE are not friends, no matter how many times you say 'my friends') and with obama at times, but for the most part i was irritated by the usual crap, not answering questions with a straight answer, attacking each other for half truths, pulling out records that may or may not really show their opinions. i always am annoyed that mccain (to me) seems to have a snobbish attitude toward obama, seems to see him as uppity and presumptuous. as a recipient of age discrimination (being too young to do my job) i identify with that.sigh. the debate exhausts me. time for bed so that i can be uber productive tomorrow. hope you're all having a lovely week!
r

call me al.

don't forget, second presidential debate tomorrow evening!

Al Gore, August 28, 2008:

Eight years ago, some said there was not much difference between the nominees of the two major parties and it didn’t really matter who became president. Our nation was enjoying peace and prosperity, and some assumed we would continue with both, no matter the outcome. But here we all are in 2008, and I doubt anyone would argue now that election didn’t matter.

Take it from me, if it had ended differently, we would not be bogged down in Iraq, we would have pursued bin Laden until we captured him. We wouldn’t be facing a self-inflicted economic crisis; we’d be fighting for middle-income families. We would not be showing contempt for the Constitution; we’d be protecting the rights of every American regardless of race, religion, disability, gender or sexual orientation. And we would not be denying the climate crisis; we’d be solving the climate crisis.

Today, we face essentially the same choice we faced in 2000, though it may be even more obvious now, because John McCain, a man who has earned our respect on many levels, is now openly endorsing the policies of the Bush-Cheney White House and promising to actually continue them. The same policies, those policies? All over again?

Hey, I believe in recycling, but that’s ridiculous.

i can read this!

yeah yeah, it says his name underneath, and really who couldn't figure it out even without the english, but but i know what all the characters are! yay! OBAMA 2008!! don't forget to watch the train wreck, i mean vice presidential debate, thursday night!
r

dear republicans,

thank you for reinforcing what we need. to elect candidates for change. and who would that be again? riiiight it would be OBAMA/BIDEN. thanks sarah palin!

Katie Couric: You made a funny comment, you've said you have been listening to Joe Biden's speeches since you were in second grade.

Gov. Palin: It's been since like '72, yah.

Katie Couric: You have a 72-year-old running mate, is that kind of a risky thing to say, insinuating that Joe Biden's been around awhile?

Gov. Palin: Oh no, it's nothing negative at all. He's got a lot of experience and just stating the fact there, that we've been hearing his speeches for all these years. So he's got a tremendous amount of experience and, you know, I'm the new energy, the new face, the new ideas and he's got the experience based on many many years in the Senate and voters are gonna have a choice there of what it is that they want in these next four years.

travel seminars

so one of the cool things about seminary is that we have some international travel seminars available. there are scholarships available to us so that each student can make sure to go on at least one trip. i think if you've got the money you can go on more, but at the very least they want you to be able to go on one of them. the seminars are as follows: middle east, asia, latin america and ghana. now as i have been to the middle east and asia, i'm hoping for ghana. my plan is to take a may course 'history of christianity in africa' and then in jan. of 2010 go on a trip to ghana. i'd be happy to go on the other trips too, i'd love to go back to the middle east, the seminar includes some trips to egypt! any thoughts? it's been a fun day of planning out the next year and a half of classes, the only real question mark is what to do this summer. any thoughts? ideally i need to either do somehting for credit or make as much money as possible, or some combination of the two. ok, i'm off to lunch and history! have a great day everyone!
rach

ready to go home for a few

hello faithful blog readers! i've been a horribly terrible blog writer thus far, i apologize. i guess life is settling into a routine and isn't anything too exciting. i still have an 'a' in hebrew! pretty exciting! i'm absolutely loving learning the language. we only know a letters and a few nouns and adjectives and adverbs at this point. we're increasing our vocabulary quickly and it's pretty exciting! the other day we sang some hebrew in class and that was pretty amazing. it's just such a great experience. i've joined a gym and have been going 5 or 6 days a week. it's a great facility and it's only a few miles from school. i don't have a real job yet so it's nice to be able to go whenever i want. i'm heading home this weekend for a wedding and i can't wait! this past weekend all sorts of exciting things happened that i missed out on and so it's been a tough weekend. i'm excited to be able to see my friends and family. sigh. ok. i need to get back to hebrew flashcards and try and read some of a book.



The pictures are of the 'bedroom' portion of my dorm room on the bottom and the 'living room' i like to call it on the top :O) have a great week everyone!

debate tonight

i know this is last minute, but the debates start tonight! 9pm!!

i can't believe anyone is still looking at my blog. i haven't posted all week! i'll put something up this weekend, i promise!

happy weekend everyone!

check in

Hello faithful blog readers! I hope that this entry finds you well. Things here are going really well. Classes are interesting and challenging, people are nice, I'm learning my way around (at least well enough to get things like groceries and laundry detergent and such). Three of us have joined a gym together and that's been great, it has a pool and lots and lots of cardio equipment and weight machines. So I've gone almost every day (I took Friday off) since we joined. I feel like I have a greater sense of balance in my life since I've moved. So things are good. I miss home and I miss everyone there, but things are good in Richmond. And little signs from home crop up and make me feel comforted. Last week in chapel we sang "How Can I Keep From Singing" and "Come All You People" and the student did a sermon talking about taking kids up and getting them lost in the woods. I've found the church I'll be going to this semester for my paper, and I'm making friends and getting along well with everyone. I hope you're all having a great day!! I will be coming home for a wedding the first weekend in October, so if you're in State College maybe I'll get to see you then! hugs, r

ok

i won't turn this into a crazy political blog, but i am starting to get scared that people are going to vote for mccain/palin, so i have to do my part to support obama/biden.

here's an article about white privilege and 13 ways that mccain/palin have benefited from it. it's a good article. oh i guess if you're inclined to dismiss white privilege before you read it you won't like it, but if you acknowledge that it exists, it's a great article that points out some of the insane double standards that have been going on thus far in the election cycle. here you go

wahoo!

i got 100% on my first hebrew quiz!!! so i have an a+ in hebrew right now :O)

i got a hot tip about a starbucks inside of a target that is hiring, so i might check it out and see what's up. apparently since it's in a target you get the target discount. so that's very very nice. discount laundry detergent is always a good thing! perhaps tomorrow morning before class i'll go check it out. today i'm planning to read some history and then hit up the gym. there's a dinner thing happening tonight, pizza and hanging out with the people we live with (dorms, apartments, off campus). tomorrow i think i'll hit up target then i have class, lunch, probably the gym, another dinner thing(more pizza! and finding out about providing child care) and then a party to celebrate national talk like a pirate day. yes yes. we are super hip and cool here at seminary :O)

hope you're all having a great day!
hugs, r

gym fun!.

so. three of us joined a gym here in richmond and i think i love it. i've always felt intimidated by the gym, but i love this gym. tonight we went and i swam laps and then we hung out in the hot tub. the three of us are going to go together a few times a week and check in about going on the other days. we figure we can keep each other accountable. when we were there tonight we saw a flyer for a countdown to the holidays weight loss challenge where you keep track of your weight and there's a trainer running the program so the three of us are going to sign up for that if we can and then we'll have a good run up to the holidays. i'm super jazzed. i already asked b2, but if anyone else out there has any recomendations for music to put onto my ipod i'm taking any and all suggestions. my ipod is pretty sparse and i want some good workout music to keep me energized. i'd rather listen to the ipod that watch tv when i'm at the gym. ok, i'm off to read some church history before bed. hope you're all having a great week!
hugs, r

so, what would you say you do here at seminary?

hello friends! some of you may be wondering what exactly i do here. i can't blame you, before i showed up i didn't really know either. so here is a quick rundown of seminary life...

i am taking three classes: intro to biblical hebrew (called 'baby hebrew'), history of christianity and teaching ministry of the church. we'll start with the most obvious...

shockingly, i am learning hebrew in biblical hebrew class! we've learned all the consonants, vowels and sounds and will be quizzed on them monday. i was most intimidated by hebrew, and i'm finding that it's not been quite as hard as i thought it would be. one week down 11 more to go!

history of christianity, also fairly self explanatory. for each class we have two meetings a week, for history and teaching ministry the first 2 hour meeitng is a lecture and the second 2 hour meeting is a discussion. in hebrew we just have two 2 hour meetings. we don't know a syllable yet, let alone enough hebrew to have a discussion. soooo we have lecture for history then discussion a few days later. we're reading a backround type history book as well as a bunch of primary sourse stuff. last week was martyrs accounts this week is other stuff that i can't spell without my book and that's all the way on the other side of the room. needless to say it's about christianity :O) we're about mid second century right now. so we'll do readings and discussions and have two take home essay exams in that class. it's really interesting even if it is mucho mucho reading.

teaching ministry of the church. this is the most interactive type class. there is a TON of reading that seems questionably useful and takes forever to slog through, but it's the class that has the most potential to be pretty cool. we have to become participant-observers in a local church. we do some research on the church, talk to people in the congregation, go to as many services and meetings as we can and have to do some sort of presentation that we write up with a lesson plan. at the end of the semester we will turn in a congregation profile as our final paper. i think its like 4-7 pages and we need to write up our congregation and include the lesson plan and self evaluation from when we teach. there's a current student that i'm probably going to hook up with whose church has some different kinds of services and has a youth group. so hopefully i can tag along with her a lot to get myself into their community and i'm hoping to just do some sort of participation with the youth group for my lesson.

this morning i went to a church that reminded me of my home church a lot, it's one that already has a bunch of union-psce people who attend and students who work there so i don't think i'll use it for my class, but i may go back there for services next semester. this morning we worshiped with the govenor of virginia!

everything is going ok. i joined a gym with a few other students this weekend and we're going to try and coordinate our schedules so we go together 3 times a week for hour long classes and then make sure we're going to do cardio type stuff the other days. oh and that we take a day off. i'm really trying hard to incorporate the gym into my life, it's something i want to be doing and that i know i need to do. i think with others to help keep me accountable and to go with me that it will be easier to get into the habit. the gym is only about 2 miles from campus and has great facilities, lots of classes (all included in the monthy fee), a pool and nice employees.

so that's the update. i need to get back to reading about paul and his letters. wahoo! oh and i said my first ya'll's this weekend. didn't even think about it, they just slipped out. guess if you're born in the south it just comes back. it's about 91 out right now, weather.com says it feels about 97. i can't wait for fall!! so i'm staying inside and reading in the air conditioning :O)

have a great week everyone!
hugs, r

back in school

i'd forgotten how much you live in a bubble when you're in school. i had started writing a post about the first week of classes (only one more left!) when i turned the tv on and heard people talking about september 11th. i had to check my computer calendar to be like. oh. that's today. people have said that this is our generations jfk moment. that we will all remember exactly where we were and what we were doing when the trade centers were hit. and i do. i was at school, sleeping and my brother called me and told me to turn the news on. i remember being like e, i'm in shippensburg you're in minneapolis, the same thing is not going to be on the news. and he was like rachel just turn it on. so i was on the phone with him when the second tower got hit and when the pentagon got hit. i remember seeing the cameras shake when the pentagon was hit, they had been doing some sort of press conference about nyc and then the building started to shake. and watching the second plane go into the tower was just unreal. i sat in my room with my door open and called students in as they walked by. those who had been at 8am classes hadn't heard and so they stopped in and watched tv with me. i had one resident whose brother and sister in law both worked at the pentagon and who spent quite a few hours waiting for a phone call. i went to classes that day and my racism prof said he was teaching, because if he didn't then the terrorists won. my english prof had her cell on the table and kind of taught but was anxiously waiting to hear from friends in nyc the whole time. we ended class early. i've never watched so much television in my life. eventually i found some reruns of law and order on. i needed something that wasn't news. i just couldn't see that video again. i didn't know anyone who died on september 11, 2001. for me what is hard about this day is remembering the enormity of death that occured. people were clammoring to give blood because surely with that number of victims we would need tons of blood. there were ambulances ready to take survivors to hospitals. emt's volunteering their time and going to nyc to help out. and then we discovered that most of the victims were dead. it changed from a search and rescue type operation to a body recovery and identification operation. so many people dead, so many people personally affected.

i'll write about classes tomorrow. for today i leave you with this :

A Prayer for Peace
Almighty God, we pray for peace in the world. Help the leaders of all the countries to make good decisions. Help us all to learn to live together and to try to understand each other even though we may seem very different from each other. Remind us when we forget, that we are all your children who share this earthly home. Help us to live in peace and harmony. Amen.

--Prayer written by Rev. Patricia Mitchell

amen

my fantastic friend got me a card that said the following...

"Is willing to accept that she creates her own reality except for some of the parts where she can't help but wonder what the hell she was thinking"

it's a storypeople card and i LOVE storypeople, and i think i might have to buy this print for myself for christmas.

yesterday was the first day of classes and i'm already wondering what the hell i was thinking. i have to read 200 pages by tomorrow for one class, and memorize the hebrew aleph bet for a quiz thursday morning. thankfully i don't have to be able to pronounce the characters, my pronunciation is a little rough. sigh. i'd also like to ride my bike but i need to pump up my tires and apparently that is something i'm incapable of doing. sigh sigh sigh. i can't get discouraged on my second day! it's going to be a long 4 years!!! ok, well i'm going to go back to writing hebrew and reading. i hope you're all having more spectacular days than i am!
miss you all
love and hugs
r

New beginnings

"One day you finally knew what you had to do, and began, though the voices around you kept shouting their bad advice-though the whole house began to tremble and you felt the old tug at your ankles. 'Mend my life!' each voice cried. But you didn't stop. You knew what you had to do, though the wind pried with its stiff fingers at the very foundations, though their melancholy was terrible. It was already late enough and a wild night, and the road full of fallen branches and stones. But little by little as you left their voices behind, the stars began to burn through the sheets of clouds, and there was a new voice which you slowly recognized as your own, that kept you company as you strode deeper and deeper into the world, determined to do the only thing you could do- determined to save the only life you could save". Mary Oliver

I've referenced this Mary Oliver quote before, it's something that I read and reread as I was discerning which seminary to go to, when to go, and if it truly was what I wanted to do. Now that I'm here and getting ready to start classes (8:30am tomorrow!!) I found it again. As I was getting ready to leave I said that I was ok with leaving because I knew that Richmond was where I was supposed to be. The night before I left and the morning I left were so difficult. As I said goodbye to my family and to my best friends and took off for a city I didn't know the reality really struck me. I was leaving everything familiar, leaving my home town, my loving community, and it was hard. It would have been easy to stay. To find something to do, to keep the momentum going as it was. But I know that if I had done that I would never truly find my voice. My identity at home is so enmeshed with certain things- family, job, church, friends. And while all those things are spectacularly wonderful, I think I depended on them too much. I'm ready to find my own voice, to have a city of my own, to live more independantly, to learn new things and to continue on this journey in the direction God is calling me. Tomorrow we start classes and this journey really begins. New friends, new languages, new theories, new grocery stores and traffic patterns. I want to say thank you to everyone for making this new journey possible. I wouldn't be where I am without each and every one of you. Know that I love you and miss you all a lot, and I look forward to sharing this new adventure with you. I'll try to make this the last super sappy entry for a while :O) I'll finish cleaning and put a few pic's of the room up and I'll let you know how difficult biblical hebrew is tomorrow :O)
Have a great day!
love you all!!! rach

eddie!!

whew

so i'm unloaded from my car! the only things still in it are my bicycle (which is coming into the basement tonight), my pictures and my little shelf thing (which will come in just as soon as i figure out where i want to put them). i ventured out again today and got a tv and antenna, a few other things and then stopped to buy my books. whew. history has 10 books! hebrew 3 and teaching ministry 4. the other class i'm signed up for but i think i'm going to drop has 5 books. the tv is so not a necessity, but i was going crazy with the silence. i'll bring my dvd/vcr back with me then i'll be able to watch movies. right no i'm just excited about the weather alerts that i'm seeing. oh and tennis. jankovic and dementieva is on. so here are the books for the semester...

hebrew- the brown-driver-briggs hebre and english lexicon, introduction to biblical hebrew, and a hebrew bible.

teaching ministry class- mapping christian education, the teaching ministry of congregations, teaching the bible in the church and teaching today's teachers to teach

aaaaaand for history:
the story of christianity volume 1; passion for the truth, compassion for humanity-catherine of siena;christology of the later fathers; bonaventure, the soul's journey into god, the tree of life, the life of st. francis; chronicles of the crusades; early christian fathers; three treatises on the divine images; the rule of saint benedict; theological anthropology and three treatises.

maybe i should start reading tonight :O)

so those are the books! i'm going to spend some more time getting everything unpacked and set up. i'm not sure if it's really sunk in that i'm at school yet. it still seems like i'm on some sort of vacation or something and that i'll have to go home and work at the center again. everyone i've met has been really nice. there are some really neat people here and there are a few of us who are in the same program so we'll be together for the next 4 years. enough rambling, time to finish putting things away!
r

quick update

hey there. i just wanted to say that i put pictures of my room up on facebook. so if you're my friend on facebook you can see them there. i'll try and put some up on the blog, but i'm going to wait until i've fully unpacked for that. i'm going to finish unpacking and getting settled tomorrow and buy my books and then have the weekend to relax before classes start monday! i'll put something of substance up here this weekend, i'm sure you've all gotten bored of reading how tired i am and how much orientation stuff there is :O) happy thursday!
r

you're getting sleepy....

i am exhausted! we had a full day of orientation stuff today and i unpacked some more and ventured out to find a grocery store and met lots of people. i think i'm just introverted enough that it exhausts me when i have to be 'on' for such a long period of time. i'm shooting to be all unpacked by saturday night. i want to be able to put pictures up and stuff like that. be all settled before classes start on monday. i've confirmed that there is no cable access in our rooms (!) which is distressing considering it's football season! however i did meet another student who is a psu fan (and i think an alumni, but i'm not sure) who lives off campus and he's said that he will be watching the big ten games at his place so i'm invited to come over and watch if i want. yawn! i'm so tired. ok. it's only 8:30 and i think i will put a few more things away and then head off to bed. tomorrow is library, student life and chapel orientation in the morning then a theological reading/study skills workshop in the afternoon. as you can see i've not been good with the capital letters. sigh. i promise that soon you will see appropriate capitalization! have a great night! r

hello!!

hello everyone! how are you all doing? i am posting from the desk in my new room in richmond!! my room is much bigger than i thought it would be, it has great potential! right now it's a big mess because i'm trying to figure out where things will go. the only drawback is that it appears there is no outlet for cable. and it's football season! i will find out today if i'm just dumb and can't find the outlet thingy. in the meantime i'm streaming the npr live feed so that i get some sort of news. i got in around 5:15ish last night and have moved in a decent amount of stuff. i want to get all the things i brought up put away before i bring the other things up. we have orientation stuff all day today ending with dinner at the presidents house. should be a long day, but a good day. i'll post pictures once i get my clothes all situated. there are currently some piles of things on the floor, so once i've figured out how to organize a bit i'll take pictures and put them up. oh kim! my carpet is striped, but the most predominant color is orange. you'd love it :O)

ok...time to get dressed and head over to our orientation session! hope you all have a fantastic wednesday!!
love and hugs. r

peace out.

I am certain that I won't have time to blog tomorrow. I shouldn't be taking time to do it right now, but I'm at a good pausing point. Packing is going slowly, but it is going. I am going to leave some stuff here and pick it up when I come home for Julie's wedding. I know that most of all I will miss all of my friends here. It's been quite a time to be home and I wouldn't have made it without all of you. I am part of a group called the framily, we have dinner about once a month and hang out and they are some of my most favorite people in the world. We usually eat at one friends house and she has fiesta ware so for my going away present the framily got me my own fiesta ware. I'll have to make a Richmond framily :O) They also gave me a card that has the definition of framily, I thought I'd post it here because it's just so beautiful. Goodbye from State College, I'll post something Tuesday when I get to Richmond. It's going to be 85 there! Thank goodness for air conditioning!! love you all, hugs. r

framily- 1. group of friends who have developed such an intimacy that the term friend no longer is able to capture the intensity of their relationship 2. a relationship guided by unconditional love and embracement of broken humanness 3. a unit whose members care for and serve each other 4. a way of living that welcomes an overlapping and intertwining of lives 5. an interconnection that transforms its members because they challenge one another 6. a bond that is never broken, not over time or distance.

"Giants are just like us...only bigger...much muuuuuch bigger"

So I'm packing today. I had lunch with some friends and then went and got a new wallet and picked up a printer (that works, yay!) from some other friends. Now I'm in my room surrounded with a mess. It is, as my sister in law says, a "functional" mess, but it's still a mess. I've done lots of packing today, gotten clothes out of my dressers, organized the closet into clothes that are going Tuesday and clothes I'll wait to take and I'm doing laundry. feels pretty productive. I'm going out with a friend late tonight so I have lots of time to stay awake and get things done. So, while i'm cleaning and packing I need something slightly distracting on my TV, so I'm watching the Stephen Sondheim musical "Into The Woods". This musical is hilarious, I first found it in high school when I was in a musical theatre class. It's witty, smart, creative, the music is fantastic, and the lyrics are just genius. The story includes a lot of familiar fairy tale characters- Little Red Riding Hood, Rapunzel, Cinderella, and my favorite, Prince Charming. There are two prince charming characters and they are hilarious. I'm telling you that if you have any tolerance (or love!) for musicals and haven't seen it, the princes are worth it. I discovered that someone has uploaded the entire show onto youtube, so you can check it out there. ok...back to the packing! happy thursday!!!!
r
oh the title is a line from the show :O)

hey there

hello everyone! sorry for the lack of posting, i've been busy trying to pack and clean and get ready to move. it's an overwhelming task that i'm not so good at tackling right now. i think as long as i'm not packing i guess i can pretend i'm not leaving. but the reality is that a week from now i'll be in my dorm room, just completed my first day of orientation, i'm sure i'll be tired and probably a bit overwhelmed. i think it's just hard to up and leave. i have a community here that is loving and supportive and filled with amazing people that i am going to miss very much. i'm just not in a hurry to peace out, you know? sigh. but it will happen. my sister needs my dresser this weekend, so i suppose tomorrow i'll clean it out and move it upstairs so that she can pick it up. and i'll do laundry. and pack stuff up. i suppose i don't need all my clothes for the next week. oh my. it will be ok, right? right. i hope you're all having a great week, i'll attempt to post again, but most likely it will be more rambling about leaving. love and hugs. r

Welcome to the new blog!

Hello everyone! I've decided to acknowledge the new part of my life that I would start a new blog. It just is another way to honor the changes to come. The title comes from an interview with Elizabeth Gilbert, who was asked what God was and she replied "Gee, that's an easy question. What is God? [Laughter.] But, actually, I sort of do have an easy answer for it. It's something from the Gnostics who said that God is the perfection which absorbs. I think that's the loveliest and simplest and least politically controversial possible definition of divinity—that we are not perfect, as humans, and yet, we have access to a perfection that's beyond us that we can become absorbed in, sometimes just for five minutes, sometimes for a whole year, sometimes, if you're really a blessed saint, forever."

So I'm off to seminary, to seek God and find new ways to connect with God, and new ways to serve other people. And of course, to blog about the whole thing :O) The old site will eventually go away I think, it will become my own diary of the last year of my life. I won't update it anymore, so you should all replace that bookmark with this new address (Yes. I'm sure you all have it bookmarked :O) I'm also going to attempt to use correct capitalization! Wahoo! English dorks rejoice! Since I'll have to be writing papers and whatnot, I figure I should get back in the swing of capitalizing things, makes it easier to remember to do it when writing the papers.

So happy reading! I hope you enjoy the new blog, I'm looking forward to writing it. Have a great day everyone!
love and hugs, r