Be not Afraid

Be not afraid. Nolite timere. Christianity is fairly the religion of fearlessness, the religion of hope. (Don't take that to any heretical simplicity.) The injunction peppers the Gospels, and its theme is sung throughout the Psalms. "...Since He is at my right hand, I shall stand firm. And so, my heart rejoices; my soul is glad; even my body shall rest in safety, for He will not leave my soul among the dead, nor let His beloved to know decay." This, of course, is prefiguring the suffering servant Jesus Christ, but I think that one of the benefits of reciting the Psalms is that they resound in the soul of the Christian, which then may be led in the same direction as the psalmists. Reading the Psalms is like reading the diary of someone you love very much.

An hour ago, I was sitting on the floor (in a leotard and gauzy skirt, no less), with ten girls and one overbearing teacher confusedly cross-examining me, attempting to find something of which I was despairingly fearful. But I am not afraid- not in the way they mean, the wailing and screaming sort of terror. I get worried (often- as you probably know); I get very sad; I am relieved to say that I have no dearth of the more positive and joyful emotions at times- and I am, more often than not, something of an emotional wreck. But I have no hopeless fear. This examination culminated in a discussion of how I was going to be a horrible, insensitive, and unfeeling doctor someday, because I must be [stoically] passionless. If my respect for the group still extended beyond what is due to any men, I might be more bothered.

Gaude et laetare, Virgo Maria, Alleluia, quia surrexit Dominus vere, Alleluia.

The Fall of English Grammar

"Where's that at?" I'll tell you- it's at the wrong end of the wrong kind of sentence.
"I'm good," is a somewhat existential statement. It does not mean, "no thank you."
Where may a young immigrant with limited reading skills learn to speak properly? Common speech is deplorable; the television is worse; even most new children's books are written carelessly.

Physics is still my Life

Once upon a time there was a student. Through a series of occurances, she found herself in the position of studying physics on her own, in order to take a departmental exam and "challenge" the second-semester course. The day approached, and it was all she could do to strengthen her nerve and prepare for this all-or-nothing test. The whole of the 24 hours prior to the exam were spent reviewing, summarizing, reviewing again. She felt that there was much more at stake here than in a TAC final- since on this the whole of her grade depended. She felt well-prepared as she went in- calm, recollected and recollecting much of what she would need.

But the professor had not left the exam in the testing center as promised.

And so, our protagonist- who was quite sure of being carefree by 12:30 this afternoon, in order to pour herself into her neglected other studies- finds herself not only still burdened, but also unnerved and without the benefit of the entire morning spent driving to and from the school. Ad Jesum per Mariam, and may its spending have been more useful spiritually than it was materially.

She thinks, however, that it is quite interesting to see her own reaction to disappointment on a transient matter, since she is only accustomed to seeing it on most serious and lasting ones. The divorce of the unpleasant suprise from any personal matter makes for a marvelous experimental observation.

Snow and Tests

Hello from a well-rested Adeoamata.
I got up this morning to the sound of howling wind, gushing water (think of the fountain-like sounds of the Flood of 2005), and sleet pounding against the window pane.
Dutifully rolling out of bed to say my prayers, I hoped beyond all hopes that school would be cancelled. There was little chance of that, though, because they hadn't cancelled it the last time I went slip-sliding down the highway for almost 3 hours to get to class.
The school website had no sign of cancellation, and as I waited for weather.com to load, my Dad called my cell phone. "Don't drive if you don't have to"= don't go to a crack-of-dawn Mass, especially before you know whether you have school.
Meanwhile, each of my siblings' schools closed, and after some thought and conference with Mom, I decided to stay home as well. I wrote a note to each of my teachers, and crawled back into bed at a quarter to 7. I slept until 11:30 and could still use more. :)

Other stuff on the plate for this week: studying and taking an online test about vitamins and minerals, preparing for a debate on mothers' nursing their children (I get to argue in favor, Deo gratias!), taking the the exam with is my ONLY shot this semester at getting credit for my independant study Physics II, and a biology test. I also am getting my second dental filling- neither the hygenist nor the dentist could find the little cavity until I pointed it out, but they said there was one there, and they'd fill it for me if I twisted their arms.

The Mouse

(Sorry for my absence... Facebook has recently been claiming both my attention and my on-line wastable time. )

I share my room with a mouse. More exactly, I share my walk-in closet with a mouse, and that closet is all the personal space I really have. I knew it was there: I heard it rustling around and found little toothprints in my Christmas-stocking dried apricots. An entire tray of mouse poisen disappeared overnight, but I knew it was still alive and well somewhere.

Another half-tray of poisen pellets later, it started getting a little more impetuous. One morning I slept in until 7 or so, and went upstairs, as usual, to my closet to get ready for the day. I always turn on the closet light a second in advance to let my furry little roommate scurry back to wherever it holes up. Apparently it was not going to be frightened away by a little light this morning. As I stood there picking out a skirt, it walked nonchalantly out from behind my suitcase, stopped, and stared up in bored recognition. I snapped my fingers. No response. I shooed it away with my hands and. No response. I meowed and hissed like a cat. It just looked up as if to say, "Yo. Aren't you supposed to be gone by now? You're on my time."

On Good Friday, I decided to give my closet a spring cleaning... down to mopping the linoleum floor. That's when I discovered that the mouse was a chocolaholic. She (obviously a girl...) had stashes everywhere. She found M&M's in my purse, painstakingly pulled out the ziplock baggie, opened the bag, and carried the pieces to her pantries. I found about 30 pieces on the other side of the closet, inside a cardboard box of mementos which is inside a big plastic storage bin. Another handful of them were hidden between the folds of my extra winter pj's, along with two pieces of mouse poisen, a dried apricot, and some tufts of fur. One of these M&M's was the empty candy shell-she had licked out every bit of the chocolate. She also ate some of two packages of hot chocolate; she did not, of course, touch my cough drops or lollipops. I found the poisen, too- a large amount had been deposited in my hiking boot, and another large store in my hat. Oh well. Maybe now that I've thrown out her stuff and violated all the rules of roommateship, she'll get mad and find a new apartment. I haven't seen her all week.