strength for today and bright hope for tomorrow

Great is Thy Faithfulness - Fernando Ortega

Give Me Jesus

It was one of those Sunday School days where if I didn't have this nagging testimony I might go looking for a different church.

I delegated my ward council responsibilities and came home and listened to Fernando Ortega for most of the afternoon. I especially love the way he sings this song.

unadmirable truth

A happy Thursday evening to all of you. I'm glad to see this week approach completion.

We have cleaning checks tomorrow. Don't tell my RA, but I do virtually all of my cleaning with Windex wipes. Yes, the floors too.

My apartment never really gets very dirty since there are just the two of us, but the parts of it I use sure get cluttered. My roommate and I recently struck a deal: she gets the table and up to three chairs, I get the couch and at least one chair at all times. The chair acts as an extension of the couch (read: leg rest) and a home for my computer when I am not typing on it. I present the couch:

I spy a laptop, a blanket, a planner, a notebook, scriptures, two Daily Universes, a mostly empty bag of chocolate chips, many housing pamphlets, the MMM book, and a cellphone.

Considering that I spent much of yesterday with my doctor and a crisis counselor (complications from fluoxetine; nothing to worry about) I feel remarkably well today. I am lagging behind somewhat in schoolwork, but I'm not really concerned. I will catch up or make up and eventually get good grades. I picked up a sheet of scriptures about stress management the other day which had this reassurance:

Q: How important is the setting of deadlines to the Lord?

A: Alma 40:8--"Now whether there is more than one time appointed for men to rise it mattereth not; for all do not die at once, and this mattereth not; all is as one day with God, and time only is measured unto men."

See? No need to worry.

I missed ASL today. So did Jacob (he was lightening the burden of skipping class by sharing it. That is the kind of friend to have.) We sat outside the ASL classrooms for two hours with our Civ group and discussed A Tale of Two Cities. Our scribe suggested that morality is conditional, but then feared the reaction of Keele and the TAs and wrote "Catherine concludes that morality is conditional" instead. I'm a pretty willing scapegoat for things like that.

Keelisms

Alan Keele is my Pen and the Sword professor. I like everything about his class except the homework. Instead of doing it, I thought I'd share some funny things he's said in class.

"I’ve been a student since 1960, and you think you’re bored."

"The only thing [the TA] said that I disagree with is that the papers look pretty good."

"There’s an infinite number of things you can do wrong in this class."

"Actually put your head into the computer screen."

"Here the logic slides sideways off the page."

"Mormons gut feel that they are always on the right side."

"Can you see the problem with damning people to hell for old times?"

"It’s actually a real accident of history that we aren’t all speaking Turkish right now."

"My brother who is a retired religion professor and is suspicious of me gave me his usual lecture…"

"Mormons need to be inoculated against believing the wrong things."

"One time this actually made sense; forget about it now."

"My son and I spent two weeks in Spain randomly riding trains from one mosque to another and also admiring the beautiful women."

"I specialize in pedagogical chloroform—I put my students to sleep."

And a wise one:

"No human command or law exceeds God’s law to love our neighbor."

I <3 Keele.

beloveds of mine

It turns out that there's really no better company than siblings (and siblings-in-law) to have on valentine's day. The five of us went out for Thai food and shared some eight or ten dishes. Delicious! A masterful marriage of sugar and spice of the curry variety, with veggies and chicken and coconut milk adding flavor. Then we hung out at Becca's nearby apartment, where we rolled jollily about on the carpet and snacked on Swedish candy three months past its expiration date and debated whether or not I can appropriately call my brother-in-law "honey-in-law" and "sweetie-in-law" and similar things and discussed favorite books and praised our wonderful mother.

Tomorrow I am going on a road trip with Elisabeth to visit my favorite aunt. I want to discuss the Massacre at Mountain Meadows book with her and have only read half of it so far (excellent book, I highly recommend it) so I am going to see how much more I can read before sleep hits. The rest will have to happen in the car on the way up.

on the mend

I generally let illnesses pass on their own without consulting doctors, but a week of severe fatigue (I was sleeping 16 hour nights, which is very much out of character for me and interfered with schoolwork) scared me into not only going to a doctor, but letting them take ten tubes of blood and run tests for mono and thyroid function and anemia and things. The good news is, all tests came back looking good and I am on the mend. Apparently I had a mono-like virus and should be back to my normal chipper self within 2 weeks.

Isn't this bruise from the blood-letting awesome? This arm stopped giving blood halfway through and they had to poke the other one twice and eventually use a baby needle to finish up. Too much info, I know. I thought it was cool. Some half-vampire baby is feasting now.