I bought a novel the first Saturday of spring break to read in my spare moments and am now completely and unequivocally in love with it. It has enraptured me. It's call Winter's Tale by Mark Heplin. It's pretty long, 748 pages. At first, I bought and was intrigued by it despite it's length, but now the fact that it's so long makes me enjoy it even more because it means I get to keep reading it for a long time.

All this to say that I just read a cool/interesting part on p. 401 that I want to share:
If nothing is random, and everything is predetermined, how can there be free will? The answer to that is simple. Nothing is predetermined; it is determined, or was determined, or will be determined. No matter, it all happened at once, in less than an instant, and time was invented because we cannot comprehend in one glance the enormous and detailed canvas that we have been givien--so we track it, in linear fashion, piece by piece . . .The universe is still and complete. Everything that ever was, is; everything that ever will be, is--and so on, in all possible combinations. Though in percieving it we imagine that it is in motion, and unfinished, it is quite finished and quite astonishingly beautiful. In the end, or, rather, as things really are, any event, no matter how small, is intimately and sensibly tied to all others. All rivers run full to the sea; those who are apart are brought together; the lost ones are redeemed; the dead come back to life; the perfectly blue days that have begun and ended in golden dimness continue, immobile and accessible; and, when all is perceived in such a way as to obviate time, justice becomes apparent not as something that will be, but as something that is.

I think that is beautiful. The whole book is beautiful. The story is so intricate. And, as this above passage suggests, everything and everyone effects it all. You should give it a read.

I got a new watch yesterday, at Target. It's a pretty unexciting watch, but nevertheless, it's my new favorite thing. It has a big, easy to read face that can light up at the push of a button and it shows the day and date. Today is SUN 25. It took me forever to figure out how to set it, but that made the setting of it all the more fulfilling. Oh, and its water resistant up to 30 meters. No deep sea diving for me, I guess.

It's been a pretty good weekend overall. Kinda busy, but good. Yesterday I had a meeting about the trip I'm going to take in May to Kenya and it's gotten me pretty excited. They talked to us about the culture of Kenya and what to expect and how to pack and stuff. It still doesn't feel like I'm actually going, more like it's just some game I'm playing, pretending what it would be like to go. But no, I'm actually going. And also yesterday I put shingles on the roof of a shed with Habitat. It was pretty fun; I got to be on the roof.

I'm having a really hard time finding the motivation to study today.

This morning I've been up early studying for an Art History test(if you're just tuning in, yesterday was Religion). That's what I've been doing for the past hour and a half or so and right now I'm just overcome by how much I love this stuff. I love studying this, it's so interesting to me.

Well, that's all I have time to say. I have academic advising at nine. I just wanted to express that to someone and all my roommates are either asleep or showering.

P.S.
I got a 103 on the religion test! (of course, there a six point curve, but that still means I got a 97.)

I'm usually still sleeping right now, but since I have a Religion test at 9:30, I'm up . . .writing in my blog. Whatev. I think I'll be ok. There are just so many gosh durn popes! All with the same name. There's like five Leos, at least two Urbans, a couple of Gregorys . . .it's just a lot (I like ellipsis.)

And yes, I will eventually put my Breck pictures on facebook, I just haven't felt like it recently. For now I'll put some up here. Not all at once, but I'll put one or two up here and there. In no particular order.

Here's one . It's of Sandy and I at the bottom of a run, waiting for some people to catch up with us so we can catch a lift back up the mountain . . .



Ok, I'm going to go shower now.

So I'm really mad because I just wrote this whole big post with pictures from my ski trip and everything, but there was an error when I tried to publish it. So I lost it.

SO MAD.

I don't feel like doing it again. This is all you get: My spring break skiing in Breckenridge with UBC peeps was a lot of fun. TCBY is yummy. And if you wanna see pictures from this past week, just ask me.

ERG.

I'm at Buon Giorno Coffee right now in Grapevine, TX. It's funny because I just turned in an arguement paper this morning about why Starbucks shouldn't charge for their wireless internet, and here I am, utilizing Buon Giorno's free WiFi. If only Starbucks' was free, maybe I'd be there, giving them my business. But no, they charge flippin' six bucks an hour. Hmph. Buon Giorno is way cooler anyway.

But back to me being in Grapevine--it's my old stompin' grounds. I'm just here for the night to gather my cold weather gear for use this upcoming week when I will be skiing. I'm going back to Waco tomorrow and then leave on Sunday for Colorado. I'm just bouncing all over the place. It's kind of fun.

The weird thing is that my parents are in Hawaii and my brother has his own place, so I'm all by my lonesome. And I'm not even staying at my house, because it's being renovated, but at my parents' apartment. (Hey! Buon Giorno is playing the Crowder Band! That makes my heart happy.) But it's kind of nice being all by my lonesome. I can do whatever I want. Like bum off Buon Giorno's free WiFi while drinking a Mocho Bianca (which is better hot than cold, by the way, I got it cold today for the first time and am a little disapointed.). Tomorrow, in Waco, I'll be all by my lonesome too. All my roommates left today for their various Spring Break adventures, so tomorrow night I'm hanging out with me. I'm actually looking forward to it. It will probably be a little creepy though--being in that big loft by myself. We'll see how it goes.

It's fun to hanging out with myself every once in awhile. I wouldn't want to make a habit of it though, I think I'd get pretty lonely. It's like Jamie Cullum's song, All At Sea . . ."I’m all at sea, Where no-one can bother me, I sleep by myself, I drink on my own, I don’t speak to nobody, I gave away my phone . . . Like a warm drink it seeps into my soul, Please just leave me right here on my own, Later on you could spend some time with me, If you want to, all at sea. . . You don’t need it every day, But sometimes don’t you just crave, To disappear within your mind, You never know what you might find, So come and spend some time with me, And we will spend it all at sea . . ." It's a good song; you should give it a listen. I think you can if you go to his website.

We're learning about the Protestant Reformation right now in my religion class, and I never knew what an interesting person Martin Luther was. According to my book he was "a bright, earthy, energetic, sincerely religious, and bigoted person of enormous complexity." He was passionately anit-semetic and apparently "delight[ed] in making fun of his opponents," calling them things like "stupid ass," and even once referred to the pope as a "maggot bag." That's hilarious. I chuckled when I read that in my book, and I don't usually like to chuckle while I'm reading--I feel it makes me appear crazy. And in response to the threat of excommunication from the Catholic Church, Luther wrote a tract entitled Against the Execrable Bull of the Antichrist. So basically he was calling the pope the anti-christ. Pretty awesome. Except the whole anti-semetic thing. "Luther once wrote that synagogues should be burned, and that Christians were guilty for not killing Jews in response to their having killed Christ." That's pretty harsh, and yes, "bigoted." That goes to show that no matter how brilliant or wise we are, we're still human, we still get stuff wrong. But that doesn't mean we can't used in incredible, revolutionary ways. Like ol' Martin.

And I don't have English today, that's why I'm here in the SUB writing in my blog rather than . . .being in English.

edit:
I was just reading through some of my previous posts and noticed that last Tuesday I also mentioned a pope being referred to as the anti-Christ. I thought that was of note--so I'm noting it. Right now. Note done.

Oh, I would also like to note that niether times was I calling the pope the anti-Christ, both times I was quoting an outside source--my Religion textbook. I just thought it was funny, not to disrespect the pope, just because . . .well, I don't think I need to explain the funniness. And I don't really feel like explaining it, because then it becomes less funny. Ok. Second note done.

I started at Camille's yesterday. I'm a cashier. It's a pretty chill job; I haven't worked lunch yet but I hear that's when its the busiest. I have closed though, twice, and that's not exactly fun. But it's not bad and I'm looking forward to having a little extra change in my pocket.

What should I do with it? (this isn't a rhetorical question)

I really don't have anything else to say. I just felt like you, my adoring public, would like to know how my first days at work have been.

If you know me, and live in Waco, you should definitely come visit me at Camille's sometime. It will make my day. Today, a bunch of my friends showed up for dinner and it was very refreshing.

So I did something this week that I've never done before--I got a job. Well, unless you count Sky Ranch, which is different than your conventional part-time job, which is what I'm refering to. I am now an employee at Camille's Sidewalk Cafe. It was kind of a spontaneous decision. I suddenly have a lot a free time because Sing's over, and I want a job this summer, so I figured--why not start now? So I drove around Waco, looking for "Now Hiring" signs, and that brought me to Camille's. They have wraps and sandwiches and stuff, kinda girly, good eatin'. I applied Tuesday and they told to come in on Wednesday for an interview. So I get there on Wednesday for my interview and the guy says, "Actually, it's not really an interview. Is medium ok?" And he gives me a Camille's tshirt and visor. I start Saturday.

Hopefully I made a good decision with getting a job. When stuff happens this fast I get uneasy. I didn't have time to process what was going on or even decide if Camille's is really where I want to work, it just kind of happened. It'll be an adventure.

And I see Rent tonight. It's coming to Waco for just one night. I'm excited.

edit:
Oh, and it turns out that my Religion teachaer's mother-in-law was having health problems, so he went home to be with his wife. (If you don't know what I'm talking about, see previous post)

And also--Happy March!