Mouse Trap

Last night I got to witness the marriage of two people who have shown me what true love can really be like. Of course, I get this example from all of my older siblings, but I had yet to watch it bloom in any of my friends from Redeemer. I am very cynical when it comes to romantic love due to the terrible influence of chick flicks and our hollywoodized culture, but when I watch my friends Tasha and Danny, it gives me hope that there is such a thing as true love and that young people of our generation can still find it. Their wedding (which took place last night) was beautiful and in just being there, you couldn't help but be filled with joy for these two people and for the love that they shared. I was so happy to see two people that I admire, respect, and love get married. I also spent the evening talking to people who I hadn't seen in quite some time (for some it'd been 2 years!) so it was really great to catch up with familar faces.
And now on the completely opposite side of things, I am the newly designated #1 Mouse Catcher of the dorm!!!! Gold star for Stephanie! Okay, I kind of designated that title to myself but I did in fact catch a mouse! For a couple weeks now, our house has had the joy of entertaining another dormate.. Sir Thomas the mouse. Myself and my roomate Amy were the only ones who didn't really care about the new addition to our family... everyone else in the dorm was freaked out. We had tried to catch it a number of times, but he was soo tiny that he could hide virtually anywhere, and, well, our rooms aren't very tidy. But then Sir Thomas made the mistake of entering our (mine and Amy's) room.. I guess he thought that since we didn't really care about the thing our room would be rather safe. But he didn't count on the fact that I would be in there with nothing better to do then to hunt this thing down until he was trapped and then catch him. Because while I didn't really care about him, I also wasn't scared of him.. and I didn't want him making himself too comfortable. So that's what I did... I closed off the exit from the room, shooed him into the closet, blocked off his exit from there and trapped him! Of course the whole operation was a bit more complicated and time consuming.... but I caught Sir Thomas! We made a video of him, and then we let him go outside.. a good block away from our house. We spent the whole evening in celebration until about 2 in the morning.... when I then saw Sir Richard. And the fun continues..... anybody know how to set mouse traps?

Procrastination in my fingers

My ears are having a wonderful time slowly losing their hearing capabilities due to the fact that my roomate and I both need music on when we do work. Since neither of us enjoy warring music (we try to employ a peace-love mentality in our humble room), one of us has to give in and wear headphones. And now my ears get to be blasted by the melodic voice of Aqualung in order to drown out her music (which I can still hear through my headphones). mucho fabuloso.
So while this is going on, I am struggling to put my thoughts on paper about the differences between the book and the movie of Fellowship of the Ring by J.R.R. Tolkien. Not only is this a hard enough task on it's own (oh you think it's easy until you actually sit down and try and do it), but to add to my trepedation, the prof of the class doesn't like my writing style. In fact I believe he ripped apart every paper I wrote for him last semester. Makes me very nervous to write anything for him. But he's a fabulous prof so that does make it better.
All of this leads to blogging -- my wonderful friend that always lends a helping hand when procrastination tugs at my brain and creeps into my fingers.
So my newest mission (when I have time to do them..... which is virtually never) is to learn the didgeridoo. I received a small Australian didgeridoo for Christmas from my sister (who recently just came back from Australia if you haven't been in the loop) and now it sits under my computer so that whenever I am sitting here typing at the compy it reminds me that I should keep plugging at how to play the darned thing. It's way harder than it looks. Or maybe it looks hard to begin with, I don't know. But learning how to play it is proving to be difficult, especially since I have very little time to do much of anything (except when I'm procrastinating!) except school. But one day, I will be a player of the didgeridoo. And I will hold concerts. Woot.
That's all for today.

Calvin and Hobbits

I truely have a love hate relationship with education. On the one hand, there is nothing better than learning. To be in an environment where there is such an emphasis on improving your intellect, stretching the mind, and delving into research and books etc. --- exploring the different facits of our world and our worldview. It's so exciting and it's an amazing place to be as a young adult trying to find your way in the world and where you fit in the equation. But while this is truely an exhilerating and stretching experience, it can take such a toll on your life. Let's take my current semester as an example. There are so many things about this semester that make me so excited to be in a learning environment. I'm taking three courses in my majors ... Playwriting, 20th Century British Literature, and the Literature of Lewis and Tolkien. I could not be happier! Each of these classes holds such interest for me that I yearn to eat up everything taught and just suck it all in. But with upper level classes come upper level workloads ---- reading galour, writing due every week, presentations up the ying yang. Since I hold such a high standard for myself and since I love each of these courses, I really want to do well... and so this means that I will be devoting myself to my studies. Okay, so far busy, but managable. But this semester I also have two other courses that I don't really care about ---- Reformational Theology and French. Oof. Okay, in defense of these classes, both of them are interesting, I'm glad for the opportunity to be taking them and in their own light, they are surely necessary, but they also eat up the time that I need for my upper classes that are in my majors -- what I'm here at Redeemer to study. Add on top of this that I am in the mainstage performance this semester -- which is called NZR.. it's a play that the performers (me included) are writing and acting based on the story of Nebuchadnezzar -- and that I am the TA for the English dept. as well as that I am the Editor-in-Chief of 'The Minstrel' -- Redeemer's Literary Magazine ....... and that, ladies and gents, is a deadly semester. This is why education and I have such a love hate relationship. I love to learn, so I lap up every opportunity I can.... but while I'm actually learning, I nearly kill myself trying to get everything done and my faith life suffers. I have some help this semester in that I'm helping write a play based on the Bible and I'm taking Ref. Theology... but education and the strain of deadlines and papers and presentations and the copius amounts of reading do not make for an easy faith life. I should push myself and put my priorities elsewhere... but that's extremely hard when in the environment.
Hmm... I wish I could expand on this more but I've spent too much time on this --- I should get back to my reading before people come back home and there's no silence in which to peacefully read. Oh how I love it when reading Lord of the Rings is homework....

new years.......

I guess it's time for me to come out from hiding and write a blog.
Well ---- here I am. It's a new year and no, this isn't one of my new year's resolutions. :) I'm home for the holidays and spending time with family is wonderful. I think it's one of the few places where I feel completely comfortable and at ease and that's a nice feeling. My sister is home which is absolutely fantabulous!! I missed her soooo much over the year --- but I think the year was really good experience for both of us because I think we grew tighter through emailing and calling. But it was a long year.. and it's really nice to have her back. She's probably my closest friend in the world -- I can tell her anything -- and even though we fight now that she's home (you need physical contact in order to fight.. it's hard to fight over the phone) I love knowing that's she's around and I can talk to her.
Yet being at home can also be frustrating. Really frustrating. I guess because I'm realizing that I never feel completely satisfied when I'm with friends. It's really frustrating when you never feel satisfied about yourself when you're with the people you care about. Like on New Years, I went to hang out with friends that I've had since grade 9/10 -- somewhere in there, a good 6 years anyways....... and yet whenever I see them, I still feel like I'm visiting. I'm never IN. The big thing is always that they're going to make a movie or start a theatre company........... I'm a theatre major and yet they haven't seriously asked me to be apart of this ... while many of their other friends get asked at random... Okay, I'm not upset about not being in a theatre company or anything like that because there's a good chance this thing will never get off the ground.... but for once I'd like to feel INCLUDED. I hate the fact that when I'm with them alot of the time I'm wanting to be someone else --- not ME. And this is a horrible thing. I love these people very dearly, and maybe that's why I haven't just given up. It's odd when through out whole evening one of the best conversation I had was with someone whom I haven't even known that long when I'm surrounded by people who I've known for a long time. It's just frustrating when you know that if you were a different personality or if you changed where you live, they would probably finally ACCEPT you and want to be around you --- and yet that SHOULDN'T matter. Grrr.. Lord help me deal with my insecurities.
Anyways, I'm looking forward to going back to Redeemer though school will be really busy..... but I love nothing better than delving myself into something that I'm so passionate about. I love theatre so much and I'm truely thankful to God that he's put that passion in my heart.