Wednesday, August 31, 2005

Speaker's Corner

Today was my first time to hear of this place. Our chapel speaker for this week often debates Muslims there. Sounds like a stimulating spot to visit!

Monday, August 29, 2005

Tonight's front page

Good news - Internet is back in my room!

Bad news - IM has not come back with it.

Discovery - There may be a big difference between 5 classes totaling 15 credit hours and 6 classes totaling 15 credit hours. It manages to hide somewhere between the 15 hours and 15 hours.

Saturday, August 27, 2005

Books!

I thought it would be fun to share my latest buys. No time to link everything... if you're really curious, you can track them down.

About a week ago...

The Adventures of Tom Sawyer, Mark Twain
The Call of the Wild, Jack London
The House of the Seven Gables, Nathaniel Hawthorne
Ragged Dick and Mark, the Match Boy: Two Novels by Horatio Alger
Silas Marner, George Eliot

Today, the library had a "massive book sale" (read: a few carts)...

Milton and the English Mind, F. E. Hutchinson
Prayer: Conversing with God, Rosalind Rinker
A History of Education in Antiquity, H. I. Marrou
A Short History of the Chinese People, L. Carrington Goodrich
The Hundred Years War, Edouard Perroy (no, I'm not missing an apostrophe)
The Encyclopedia: Selections, Denis Diderot, edited and translated by Stephen J. Gendzier
The Messiah, G. F. Händel, edited by T. Tertius Noble, revised according to Händel's orginial score by Max Spicker

That last set of 7 cost me $3.60.

Friday, August 26, 2005

Still breathing

Sorry to be so unconnected to the blogging world... either publishing or commenting. Internet connection seems to be down in the rooms. I don't really enjoy fighting it out for one of the three lobby computers. Thank goodness for a quiet language lab on a Friday evening.

Don't worry, I won't waste Friday night on a computer. The French Optimist Club of Winona Lake is meeting at 7 p.m. tonight. How lovely to be surrounded by French! Tonight's topic is "Islam en France, depuis l'an 732." That is, "Islam in France, since the year 732." Without breaking one of those essential college student rules -- Thou shalt not study-or-do-anything-remotely-academic-on-Friday-night -- and checking on the date, can I hasard a guess that 732 is about when the Moors were pushing into Europe?

Actually, I don't plan on following the Friday Night Rule. This will be a busy semester. I'll give you all the thrilling details once I've attended the first sessions of my last two classes next week. Anyway, it's been a short week. I should be allowed to study if I want to, right?

Today I found a package slip in my mailbox. 5 p.m. on a Friday. There's a reason to look forward to Monday.

Tuesday, August 23, 2005

Four days later. . .

Now that I've had my first class, do you think I should post?

I never wanted any night classes, until scheduling pushed me into two this fall. Suddenly, night classes became a wonderful thing.

-This is something like the macaroni and cheese epiphany I experienced several years back. Ardith always loved it, I tolerated it, till she went to college... then, somehow, it became delicious.-

Old Testament is going to be real suffering. We have to read assigned sections every week, take a five-question quiz, listen to a lecture... and then prove we've done some thinking, by participating in discussion. Then there are the exams. These consist of questions we'll be given ahead of time, study for, prepare for, bring notes and anything else we want except the answer itself - then write the answer in class.

Of course, there will be two papers. All in all, it should be a good class.

To kick off the real start of classes tomorrow, GSO sponsored an ice cream social. Now everyone can get revved up on sugar for a late night. Brilliant, right?

It's so much fun to get into classes and homework again, talk to professors and friends and acquaintance again. God is good.

Friday, August 19, 2005

Arrived

I'm here!

Actually, I was here yesterday. But we just now finished connecting my computer to the Grace network and thus to the Internet.

Daddy and I left around 9:30 Thursday morning. He even asked me whether I wanted to drive first or second! So I drove the first few hours, then we filled up the tank, then Daddy drove. About 2:00 P.M. we stopped to pull out Mommy's delicious lunch. Daddy thought it would be interesting to try taking 30 straight over to Warsaw, instead of the usual 80 south of Chicago. So we enjoyed the historic old Lincoln highway, driving through scenic towns, and watching the temperature gauge climb way up to "H". But we made it. Daddy has a fan running that will keep the engine from exploding till he gets home. Meanwhile, he has been able to visit some long-time friends and family in the area.

Today was very productive. I got my key, my box number - they didn't give mine away - my network and Internet connection, my new ID card. My German and Spanish finals were easy, for which I was thankful!

It was lovely to talk to my language professors and the library staff again, and spend time with friends. Daddy and I had supper with the Tysons tonight.

Daddy's driving home tomorrow. He has been a wonderful help in setting me up. I'm glad we had a little extra time together.

Rachel and I have an early-morning appointment with Goodwill tomorrow. So, good night!

Thursday, August 18, 2005

Leaving

Daddy and I are driving out to Grace College tomorrow. If you read this, you can pray for us.

Sunday, August 14, 2005

Out of Context, August Edition

This may be the last one for a while.


Mommy: "I think I'm getting too old to have all these kids."
Carolyn: "Don't worry, we'll be leaving soon."

Derek: "You must be exceedingly rich to be able to sponsor a graveyard for butterflies."

Ethan: "What can horses do? They could make you lose your lives, even!"

Trevor (helping poke the bread dough): "One, two, three, two, eleven!"

Jason: "That seems too slow to sing Hallelujah... It's like a dirge."

Carolyn: "I want progress, not downfall."

Carolyn: "I kind of hate to say it, Melinda, but when you snore... you sound kind of like a pig."
Melinda: "Well, you sound like a motor!"

Carolyn (watching the sunset with Melinda and me): "All I can hear are the crickets... and the wind blowing in the leaves and plants, and Melinda's bike squeaking."

Saturday, August 13, 2005

Saddish sweetness

This is turning out to be a nostalgic weekend...

Yesterday I worked for the last time and made bread for the last time. How sad. I'm really going to miss my utility knife and yeast.

Last night I watched Return to Me. I thought it would be fitting, and, of course, I just felt like watching it. First time I saw this movie was soon after Daddy went on the heart transplant list. Needless to say, Return to Me is not just a movie; it is a very particularly personal movie.

Speaking of Daddy, today was his birthday! 54 years... or 10 years... or 9 months.... or however you'd like to calculate it (for this link, disregard the picture and look for the numbers). What does the exact time matter? Life itself is enough. Praise the Lord for His goodness!

Give thanks to the Lord, for He is good;
For His lovingkindness is everlasting.

Psalm 118:1

Friday, August 12, 2005

"An Islamic Caliphate in Seven Easy Steps"

I found this on Spiegel this morning, hunted it up in English tonight, since you'd rather read the article than my attempts at translation and analysis.

Jordanian journalist Fouad Hussein, former prisonmate and near-confidante of Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, has done some interviewing in terrorist circles and come up with "al-Qaeda's potential strategy for the next two decades."

"What is interesting is that major attacks against the West are not even mentioned by Fouad Hussein. Terrorism here cannot be ignored -- but it seems these attacks simply supplement the larger aim of setting up an Islamic caliphate. Attacks such as those in New York, Madrid and London would in this case not be ends in themselves, but rather means to a [sic] achieve a larger purpose -- steps in a process of increasing security in the West."

Read the whole article, it's interesting.

Thursday, August 11, 2005

Shooting tonight

Want to catch some of the Perseid meteors? Contrary to popular opinion, you don't have to set that alarm for 3:00 A.M. This meteor shower is supposed to peak at 7:00 E.T., which means 6:00 A.M. for those of us on Central. . . high time everyone should be up, anyway. You just won't be able to see any then.

Wednesday, August 10, 2005

October's the month

Michael Reagan's coming to speak at Winona Lake's American Lyceum Lecture. How exciting!

But this lecture is scheduled for October 20th, 7:30 P.M., on a Thursday evening. My cousin Nathan is marrying Elizabeth the next day.

How will this work?

In case I can squeeze both in, this is one of the few good reasons not to participate in Festival Chorus this fall, as practice regularly falls on Thursday evening, 7:00-9:00 P.M.

Monday, August 08, 2005

Just life

Who could spend six hours driving and shopping and talking, and love it? Only three girls! That's what we did Sunday... Sarah has some pictures and Rebekah has some write-up.

Today Trevor and I had a nice little conversation, while I was working and he was watching. We established that: he likes ants and dislikes crickets; all planes are big; he would like to go to the moon someday and plans to get back down by means of our ladder; big dogs might not eat him; my work was hard, and we were both hot. Thankfully, lunchtime came and rescued us.

And I came across another wonderful German word!

Quadratisch

It's pronounced kvah-dra-tish.

What does it mean?

Guess!

Okay, I'll tell you. It means square (the adjectival form). How delightful to connect anything square with those truly beautiful quadratic equations (that is, truly beautiful when they come out nicely). I think we should take this even farther... why say "Shape up!" when you can say "Quadratish up!"

Saturday, August 06, 2005

This was a good one

Only Saturday night, and it's already been a super weekend!

Friday afternoon I drove down to Cedar Rapids to visit Ardith and spend the night. We had fun, naturally! We watched movies, ran errands, and Ardith fixed us delicious stir-fry.

Ardith wants to tell you about the Saturday shopping.

So I got to drive four hours, and spend time with Ardith, and then come back to find my calculus book waiting for me. The list price is $151.16, and I bought it for $25.00. That's 16.54% of the list price, which means I saved $126.16, or 83.46%. Not bad, right?

This semester I may spend less than $100 on textbooks!

Wednesday, August 03, 2005

Conversation

I despise "blog rants". So you will never hear me "rant" on this blog... or in person, hopefully. That said, if I were a ranter, and if I wanted to rant about anything, I'm sure my ranting would be over weblog comments.

There must be two philosophies of comment out there.

The first person says, "Oh, good, someone commented on my blog. Now I'll go to their blog and leave a comment in response to their comment on mine."

The second person says, "Oh, good, someone commented on my blog. So naturally I'll respond to their comment on my blog with a comment of my own on my blog."

Now, the question is how each person thinks...

The first person thinks, "Here we are: two people having a conversation, only it's online. Obviously I'm talking to this person and not just carrying on a thought, so I'll respond on this friend's own site."

The second person thinks, "Here someone is: a friend is commenting, and I want to carry on the conversation by responding. Naturally, we're both interested in what we're discussing, and we'll both keep returning to the same place to carry it on."

This first method (not the person) frustrates me slightly, since it results in very disjointed conversation. If I were ever to read over old posts and comments, who knows if I could dig up the relevant comments from others' blogs? But each to their own.

Correct me if I'm wrong, but the first method focuses on the people involved, while the second focuses on the topic of discussion. Naturally, we need both people and a topic for conversation. May I just say that the second method seems slightly more logical?

Tuesday, August 02, 2005

Derek's Knowledge Test

1. Gaius (Caligula) was the third Roman Emperor. True / False

2. A conjunction is a statement of equality. True / False

3. New Delhi is the capital of India. True / False

4. 54.9380 is the atomic weight of chromium (Cr). True / False

5. R. L. Dabney wrote The Mysterious Island. True / False

6. Matthew is the longest Gospel of the Bible. True / False

7. The Visigoths were the western Goths. True / False

8. Cambodia lies in Southwest Asia. True / False

9. Thunder comes from lightning's tremendous heat. True / False

10. 2(15 + 3) = 6(6) is a true equation. True / False


If you submit your answers, Derek will score them.

Heard

Two alarming events happened today!

Coming in from working, I stopped short, on hearing three measures from Mommy's Three Tenors CD that I didn't recognize.

A reporter mentioned "500 bucks" on a radio news program. Now I ask you... is that professional?

Monday, August 01, 2005

Till then

When a successful Internet connection and my online time actually coincide, I may be able to post!

Happy August.