"Les grandes personnes ne comprennent jamais rien toutes seules, et c'est fatigant, pour les enfants, de toujours et toujours leur donner des explications." --Le Petit Prince, Antoine de Saint-Exupery. 

(translation: "Grown-ups never understand anything by themselves, and it is tiresome for children to be always explaining things to them.")

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"Regardless of what else you do for other Christians, you will never enjoy true fellowship with them if you, and they, do not peel off the psychological armor. Truth and love are inseparable. If you want others to take off their armor, it is often a good idea to show them how, by shedding yours first." --Clinton McLemore.

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"I'll be honest about it. It is not atheists who get stuck in my craw, but agnostics. Doubt is useful for a while. We must all pass through the garden of Gethsemane. If Christ played with doubt, so must we. If Christ spent an anguished night in prayer, if He burst out from the Cross, "My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?" then surely we are also permitted doubt. But we must move on to choose doubt as a philosophy of life is akin to choosing immobility as a means of transportation." --Life of Pi, Yann Martel.


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"When we are young, we make gods and goddesses of one another; then we soon come to realize that we are all merely human and imperfect... yet as time goes on, we learn to tolerate the flaws and appreciate the good qualities in those we love." --Elizabeth Aston.

  


This is an iceberg in Newfoundland (or off the coast of Newfoundland I guess). I first saw this picture in Physics class, where we're talking about gases and liquids and densities, etc. When I saw it, the picture terrified me for some reason. I'm not sure why. I mean, it's an incredible picture. Maybe the size of it is intimidating... And there's something about the lighting. And the fact that 90% of the thing is below water seems daunting. This is the kind of iceberg that sunk the Titanic. Perhaps it's scary because it seems like it should sink because it's so big and so heavy, and yet it floats.

I don't know. I'm just trying to figure out why this picture scares me. I mean, it's just a giant ice cube. Anyways, go here to see a bigger picture (dovergrammar.co.uk/Gems/Iceberg.jpg). Does this scare anyone else?

 Woah. I just realized my birthday is in 5 days. Weird... 

As I was walking back to the B's from class this afternoon, lipsynching to "Ramalama," the sun burst through the rainy clouds and made the world an incredibly beautiful place to be at that moment. I smiled and threw my arms back, accepting the sun's hug--I've missed you, too, my friend. Two days is far too long to spend apart.

I had the urge to dance musical style, skipping and waving my arms as I walked down the street. But I really have no dancing skills whatsoever, and I wouldn't want to scare children passing by. I should take some dance classes so i can express myself whenever I want to without making a fool of myself. 

Completely changing the subject, I've been battling with itunes recently. We called a truce, but I definitely got the small end of the deal. It started when I tried to transfer my library onto a different desktop so Anna could make her own playlists, etc. without messing with my library. It worked the first time a few months ago, but when I tried to do it for a desktop for Rachel, almost the entire library got "lost" somewhere in my computer. I searched everywhere for them, but eventually just decided to delete everything I had on my computer and reload everything from my ipod, like I did when my hard drive died. That worked, and I spent a large portion of yesterday deleting the doubles and triples of songs, a side effect of the program I used. But today when I got on, most of my songs, the ones I acquired legally I might add, got lost again. I am not happy. 

Luckily Jack Johnson is still playing. I've been listening to him a lot recently.

 Tonight it hit me how bad I am at staying in touch with people. I talked to Chelsea (hi chelsea!) tonight for the first time in... well a week, but before that it had been... ok, just 2 weeks. But still. Last school year I lived with her, so I knew everything that was going on with her most of--if not all of--the time. Most of the time I was experiencing the same stuff with her. Now I have no idea what's going on. It's just not possible to maintain that level of... closeness? (whatever the word is...) when you're apart from someone that long unless you talk to them everyday. Whenever I do talk to her (chelsea, this is weird knowing that you're going to be reading this. i feel like i should be addressing you, but other people will read this too. hm...), we just get time to catch each other up on what's going on in our lives. There's no time to talk about insignificant everyday things that seem so important at the time. No lazing around the room throwing out random thoughts at each other. No crazy car rides singing along to favorite songs. 

Why do all of my relationships with people turn into long distance or cease to exist? Seriously though, all of my childhood friends have moved away, my high school and college friends are in a different state, and I'm now isolated from my family most of the week for school. Is the unnamed force that guides things out there trying to make me stronger? Make me more confident in myself? Cuz it's not working. I am plenty strong and confident and getting a bit depressed now. Give me people. I miss drama. I miss the emotional roller coasters I used to go through on a weekly basis. They meant I was living my life. Maybe things will improve when I go to a real college. 

this IS when i actually start doing stuff with people... or start working.

9. Which Brings Me to You- (I forget who wrote it...)
10. Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows- J.K. Rowling
11. The Wit and Wisdom of Jane Austen- compiled by Dominique Enright
12. Quirky Qwerty- Torbjorn Lundmark
13. Emma- Jane Austen
14. The Historian- Elizabeth Kostova

As much time as I have had to read, I only finished 8 books in June. I think my problem is that I start a book and then get bored with it and move on to another. So I'm reading about 5 books right now...

1-5. Harry Potter 1-5 -J.K. Rowling (getting ready for the 7th book)
6. Sorcery and Cecelia-Wrede & Stevermer. 
7. The Exploits and Adventures of Miss Alethea Darcy- Elizabeth Aston
8. About a Boy- Nick Hornby. An excellent book; It was funny and sad and awesome. Yay.

Happy 4th.

I'm FREE! yesterday I gave my big presentation and I've already turned in the final draft of my paper, so i'm FINISHED with thesis!!! halelujah!!

I'm never going to get finished.

So here I am, loathing the thought of working on thesis and dreading the ominous due date. I get online to distract myself from my junior woes. I open my mailbox. There's the usual colleges trying to get me to realize that they really are the tight place for me to be. Delete. Youth group reminders for the spring retreat, all that good stuff. Thesis is due wednesday, shouldn't there be an e-mail from...
there it is. "Joining the Army". Read. I do:
"Well, i have had it. Two days ago I decided to do 2 pages a night for 5
days and would have my thesis paper of the second section done. Alas it is
Sunday night and I have 1 sentence. I told myself today I needed to do 3
pages a day for the next 3 days. Sounds easy enough doesn't it? Well its
not and I don't feel like writing it now at 6:46 P.M.. I should be
watching the Olympics or making myself fat with candy and food. So if I do
not complete my thesis paper and i fail logic i believe i will quit school
become a bum or join the army. Oh and also i am trying to find an advisor,
right well that is not working so well right now so i emailed a graduate
person and hopefully he will email me something back otherwise i am
scrwed. Along with this problem, the stinking library website is down for
me( stinkin waste of good tax dollars if you ask me) so know i cant find my
books that i need to get. Well i hope you all are having as much fun as i
am with this fabulous thesis paper. If not then, well i dont know. I am
razzled and frazzled at this moment.

Ben, the hater of the Thesis, Davidson"

I crack the first smile since dad got home around 6 and laugh. It's so nice to know that there's someone out there who feels just as bad as I do.

I hate finals. We are having our history final tomorrow and it is going to be so hard. There are 36 multiple choice, 20 Identifications(she gave us a list of possibilities, but there are over 300 on the list!!), and a huge essay on the revolutions(1600's to 1800's). and we only have an hour and a half to do it in. adfkgjevn gvgverrgveiuiuhtguhifgcvnbpd9fughfbjvdfhgkjdfhkgl;aj;kgj;adfhfhjdfdfkfghdfuireuirifgdfg!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! (<----- scream of frustration)

After failing the test a month ago, I finally passed my drivers test 2 wednesdays ago!! yay!
I drove my everyone to Starbucks to celebrate. can life get better than this? I submit that it cannnot!

Have you ever had one of those days when you start out in a good mood, but by the end of the day, you aren't? I just had one of those days. Someone said something that made me mad(and it really shouldn't have).
I'm making spagetti for dinner, and I feel very housewife-ish. haha

monday night i stayed up until 3:30a working on my thesis paper that was due the next day, so i was inevidably worn out by the time i got home. Mom must have noticed, b/c she sent me to bed at nine thirty and didn't wake me up until ten this morning. sleep is wonderful.
I took my drivers test today and it was terrible. I did everything that I could possibly do wrong except get buckled and turn on my blinkers. I bit my tongue the entire time so I wouldn't cry, and when I got home I got on my bike and rode around for an hour listening To Kill a Mockingbird. At first all I thought about was that I was a complete failure and that I would never do anything right. But then I realized how stupid i was being and on the grand scale of things, passing a driving test is insignificant. I can just ride a bike the rest of my life if I have to, and it wouldn't make any difference. And failing isn't so bad either. Sometimes we need a hard knock to tell us that we aren't perfect and we will mess up, but we need to get over it and keep trying. it's like that song- 'I get knocked down, but i get up again, their never gonna keep me down...'
So yeah, I'm good. And the Biology test is moved to Friday!! halelujah!