thanksgiving weekend

There has been much to be thankful for, as of late (as in, this year).

My Thanksgiving didn't seem destined to be that great, but it turned out to be so good.

Enjoyed time relaxing and enjoying time with friends, talking to family on the phone, and being thankful.

On Wednesday night we went ice skating at Riverfront. Here's Angela, Jamilla and I... Carson went too but there wasn't a group picture of all four of us.

Thursday was, of course, Thanksgiving. Angela spent the weekend with me so we turned on the Macy's Parade when we got up and began to cook - she made lasagna and I made a pumpkin pie. Both were delicious!

We took our creations to Scott and Wendy's for dinner, where they joined other yummy foods:
Scott and Wendy were so kind to open their home to some of us family-less Moody students. It was so good to fellowship with our brothers and sisters in Christ and share some of what God has been doing this year, to share what we're thankful for, and just enjoy time with these people.

After we ate, we played Balderdash for awhile, then retired to the den to watch "Up" (very cute movie) and eat all the desserts.
It was definitely bittersweet not to be with family this year, especially since my dad's side of the family was all over there, but it was a wonderful time of relaxing and fellowshipping with one another over here.

Hope your Thanksgiving was a blessing to you as well!

And yet, the end is near.

We were overwhelmed.
Scared for our lives.
Afraid of getting buried under a pile of books.
Stretched to brain capacity.

And now?

The feeling of accomplishment is undeniably... delicious.

Philosophy paper done, only one more to go.
Last week of classes is next week (we're still wondering how it went by so fast), then finals.
Then... break. NO papers. Christmas. Sleep. And no more tests.

A Little Road Trip

Lion King

We saw the Broadway performance of The Lion King last night! It was great!

Here are some tips for seeing The Lion King:

#1 - verify the time to arrive for "student rush" tickets. If you arrive at 11am for the 1pm showing, only to find out that there are no matinee student tickets, you'll have to make use of the time until 4:30 when the actual tickets come out for the 6:30pm show.

Needless to say, we visited most of the shops downtown, ate out twice in one afternoon, and were pretty frustrated. The mall was all pretty for Christmas though!

#2 - You will have to wait in line for student tickets. They become available at 4:30 on the dot, so bring some form of entertainment (it was convenient that our previous stop was a bookstore)

#3 - Get excited!

#4 - Mimic the Lion King promo posters

#5 - Definitely take nice pictures with the person you're going to marry in six months too :)
#6 - Don't take pictures during the show because it's not allowed. Let your friend take one with your camera though if she wants. She'll get yelled at by the usher but you'll have a nice shot of the "Circle of Life" scene.

first real snow

We've been waiting all week, seeing 80% chances, 90% chances,
and finally today, 100% chance of snow!
It's out there! Soft (wet) white flakes making their way to the ground.

At 2:30pm there was not much to be seen:

But by 5pm, it was covering the ground:

Nice, crunchy, icy, very wet stuff:

After my time outside tonight, I went inside and folded the blanket I'd been napping under. Perfect weather for that!

The Target Sweater

Something interesting happened to me today.

This evening, I went into Target to buy a couple things. I left with 2 sweaters, the makeup I came for, and some pens. Every time I go to Target, I seem to remember something else that I was going to get and so I end up with a few more items… and tonight was no different.

I’m not a receipt-checker normally, but I remembered the total for the purchase being a lot less than I thought it would be so when I was at the light before my complex, I checked the receipt. Only one sweater was listed on the receipt with the other things I’d bought.

A debate began in my head:

Should I keep going home? Should I just come back tomorrow? (I was two minutes away from my cozy apartment and hadn’t been home for 12 hours) Should I turn around and return it? Maybe they were having a buy one get one free on the sweaters and it would be a waste of my time?

I decided to do what I didn’t really want to do and turned around. Target was a few minutes from closing so they weren’t super happy to see me walk through the doors as I made my way to customer service.

Sure enough, no “buy one get one free” on the sweater. The Target people thanked me for coming back and then asked whether it would be debit or credit. I had to turn around, be inconvenienced and spend more money.

I share this story because:

1. I have heard of these things happening before but they’ve never happened to me – so I’m glad I checked my receipt!

2. I realized how stinking selfish I was in the moment of debate in this situation. My FIRST thought should have been to go back, not think about how much I wanted to go home, or to reason myself out of paying for the sweater.

3. When I was checking out the first time, I had a little conversation with the cashier. We discussed the slowness of the night customer-wise, the rain outside, and the South. She asked why I was here and I told her about Moody and answered her questions about the school. I didn’t share the gospel with her, but I know that she was interested in the school and such, and I know that she saw me come back to pay for the sweater. That was pretty neat. I just waved goodbye and left (they were closing, remember?) but I hope that really small thing made an impact for Christ. Who knows?

I left praising Him for the Target sweater.

Failure and Learning

This semester, it was so nice to be signing up for Intercultural Communication over College Writing and gen ed classes. So I was excited for the prospect of more classes dealing with my major and more classes that I was interested in. And the class I was least excited about (Philosophy) is now my favorite, so it's all good.

Except that I'm failing Linguistics.

I just don't get it. My mind comprehends the lecture. I get what the book is saying. I could tell you about it. I know random facts about linguistics. I think it's neat. I'd like to know more.
Yet I'm super frustrated with the fact that even though I study 800 hours per week (give or take), my average grade is, at best, a C.

We had a big exam in class today. I studied so late for it last night [note: this was a bad idea] that I got only 4 hours of sleep and fell asleep on my textbook while studying before class this afternoon.
How discouraging it was to flip over the test and realize that virtually nothing looked familiar. I ended up filling in the answers I knew (there weren't many), guessing on a couple of questions, and leaving the rest blank. I dread the result of the exam because I fear that it will be my lowest score yet.

The reason I don't like doing sports in front of people, speaking in front of people, opening up in front of people, and failing exams is because I'm a big comparer. "What do YOU think about that?" is a common response to any kind of question. Failure is not my friend.

However, it seems to be my shadow. The quickest way to make me humble is for God to knock the wind out of me and touch my pride.

I was reading John 17 this morning in my quiet time. It's Jesus' prayer to the Father before His crucifixion, for those that don't have a Bible open in front of them. I was looking at it and was a little astounded by the humility expressed in Jesus.

Of course He's humble - He's GOD! We say.
Yes, but think about it. The humility He expressed was nothing like the way we would express humility. That's because we are humble before God because He is over us, He knows more than we do, and He's, um, God.

Jesus humbled Himself before God as a human. He was God but also human and gave His humanness over to God for Him to do whatever He liked through the life of Christ. And then Jesus asked that in whatever God chose to do, that He would glorify Himself.

It's hard, but I guess I can learn a thing or two from failure.

Update on this class: I didn't end up failing, which truly surprised me. I got a C, and it's the only C I've ever been happy about because I worked SO HARD, thought I was going to be stuck re-taking and re-taking this class forever and, well, it wasn't as bad as it should have been. I now hate linguistics though, which I'm pretty sure was not an intention of my professor. Maybe it will make sense when I take part two in a year or so?