In December I started to notice that in my quiet times I would open my Bible straight to the new testament and I sort of had been ignoring the old testament. Well, not all of it. Psalms, Proverbs and Isaiah had been thumbed through a lot, but I realized it was time to read through the Bible again. So, it started out great. Genesis is always exciting. And Exodus is pretty great too. And then it happens... I get to Leviticus and I either speed read and skim through it, or I pretend to forget I'm reading through the Bible and open up to Romans the next night. But, you know, that's really not giving Leviticus a chance. And I've discovered that there's really some pretty cool stuff in there. Granted, it's still not one of my favorite books or anything, but I guess when you think about the history it makes it a little more interesting. I mean, let's face it. The Israelites were one of a kind. All the nations around them were practicing all sorts of immorality and crazy religions and the Hebrews were set apart. They were a brand new nation and they needed lots of guidance and guidelines. So, God gave them an entire book full. And though some of them might seem a little strange to us, they were all specific things God knew needed to be said in order to make Israel the nation he wanted them to be. And they were great laws. A lot of them are things that we really wish people would do now a days, like "Show respect to the aged" and "Love your neighbor as yourself" and "Don't secretly hate your neighbor. If you have something against him, get it out into the open; otherwise you are an accomplice in his guilt" There's also stuff like, "Don't spread gossip and rumors" and "Don't show favoritism to either the poor or the great. Judge on the basis of what is right." I guess the whole book really just reinforces the concept that God is holy. When I read Leviticus it reminds me how holy God really is. Even if the Israelites had obeyed all these laws and done all the right things for atonement and forgiveness it still wouldn't have been enough. It took perfection. That's the standard. And Jesus was the only one who met that standard.
Anyway, I had a great time at the airport last night. Here's a shoutout to all my awesome dance partners! I love you. We were there for so long, we were dancing in the airport and me and Kyle perfected the cartwheel. Kyle, you rock. "Je t'aime comme le soleil aime la fleur"... :0) Lori bought me this really cool purse thing from Guatemala. It's all sorts of colors and I can put my textbooks in it, which is exciting. Good night everyone, I'm going to bed before midnight! Amazing! Arrivederci prinsapesas!

I love weekends

This was a great weekend. I mean, all weekends are great, but this one was particularly good. Me and Jenna made it safely to Auburn (We almost died a couple of times. but we made it.) We kinda bypassed the ice storm that hit Atlanta, which was good, because we probably really would have died if the roads would have been icy. I, for one, have never driven in ice, and there was a bunch of construction on the road anyway. Sarah was an awesome hostess, as she had gone to Walmart and bought us all of our favorite things, gummy worms, diet cherry vanilla doctor pepper, mello yellow, those awesome fluffy cookies with the frosting and cracklin' oat bran cereal. It's the best cereal in the whole world, but I only ever eat it at the Wirgau's house. So we stayed up late and watched Moulin Rouge and talked til like 4 in the morning. In the morning there was ice everywhere! it was so exciting! It was in trees and all over my car and some even fell on my head. We played in it and got pretty wet and then we went to this place called Momma G's and had sub sandwiches. After that we went to see Auburn play Tennessee in basketball and Auburn won by 3 points. It was really fun. They threw out a bunch of free stuff and Sarah's friend, Andy, caught this little basketball and he tried to throw it into one of the band member's tubas, but he missed. Oh well. Then we watched Remember the Titans and I learned how to play the game "Stratego" which is really fun. I beat Jennna! (I love you, Jenna!)
And the best part of this weekend is....................
Lori comes home tonight!!! So I'm going to the airport, and I don't wanna be late. I even made her a sign, but I accidently slammed it in the car door, so part of it's missing. I don't think she will mind though.
Arrivederci!

Well, tomorrow Jenna and I are off to Auburn, Alabama to visit our long, lost friend Sarah. Me and Jenna have never been on a road trip together, so this oughta be fun. :0) We're going to write the 2 last skits for our drama we're working on. (Well, Jenna's going to write, I'm going to drive. ) Other than that, we're just going to watch movies, eat Taco Bell, hang out and have a nice little 2 day vacation. Hey, guess what? Tomorrow we're officially 1/4 of the way done with this semester. Hooray! That's something to celebrate! I think I'm going to celebrate by going to bed early. Good night everybody!

It's a Conspiracy`

LaSue already touched a bit on this, but has anyone noticed that professors always divide their classes into four sections and make a test every four weeks? So all your tests come on the very same week. WHY???? This is a problem for me. You see, I always wait until the last minute to study for tests (like for the one I have tomorrow which I haven't exactly studied for yet) but when you have a bunch the same week, it doesn't really work. There's only so many hours in the night. So I have some choices:
A) I could stop procrastinating. This by far would be the smartest things to do. I would have such an easier time if I did my studying throughout the week instead of waiting 'til the night before. However, being that studying is #43 on my list of priorities, (#72 on Wednesdays) it becomes rather difficult for me to take time out to do studying that's not required.
B) Since the tests I have next week are not all on the same day, I could skip those classes which I don't have a test in to spend studying for the class that I do have a test that day. Then I'm spending the same amount of time doing school work. Hmmm, that could work. But then I'd miss all the review in the other classes. I don't know if that's such a good idea.
C) I could continue doing things the way I already do them. Wait until about, say, 11:30ish to start studying and then cram all night and hope for the best. You know, when I think about it, this is my third year of college and it hasn't failed me yet. If it ain't broke, don't fix it. Sleep's really not that important anyway, right?
Well, I've got about 28 more minutes, so I'm gonna check my mail. Then I've got a date with my sociology book. Arrivederci!

I feel special :0)

Oh my goodness. I just got off the phone with Lori! She called me all the way from Guatemala. I have news updates for you all. The team is building a house and Lori says it's a whole lot of fun. Especially making cement. She wanted me to know that Kenley caught a turkey. They were laying the foundation of the house and a turkey ran though it. So Kenley wrestled with it, cuz it got kind of stuck and then it pooped right in the cement. Darn turkey. But it made my day. Now whenever I feel sad I'll just think of Kenley wrestling a turkey in cement. I can't wait to see the pictures from that. :0) Lori says they make little "volcanoes" of cement and then pour water on them and so her and Mr. Scott sing the Volcano Song when they do it. (It's on the new Caedmon's Call CD, which you should all buy, because it's awesome. It's called Share the Well.) Anyway, Lauren and Deb, I told Lori you said hi. She was very excited.
On to other news. In Bible Study tonight we read Acts chapter 6, which is a pretty short chapter, for Acts anyways. It was so funny because lately we'd been talking about how great the Church was back then and how there was no fighting and arguing...at least until chapter six. That's where it ended. So, here's the story from the Message Bible:

During this time, as the disciples were increasing in numbers by leaps and bounds, hard feelings developed among the Greek-speaking believers--"Hellenists"-toward the Hebrew-speaking believers because their widows were being discriminated against in the daily food lines. So the Twelve called a meeting of the disciples. They said, "It wouldn't be right for us to abandon our responsibilities for preaching and teaching the Word of God to help with the care of the poor. So, friends, choose seven men from among you whom everyone trusts, men full of the Holy Spirit and good sense, and we'll assign them this task. Meanwhile, we'll stick to our assigned tasks of prayer and speaking God's Word."

I think it's kinda cool how even from the beginning God gave Christians different gifts. And in giving them different gifts, he gave them different opportunities. Think about it, if the disciples did have time to serve all the widows and fix all the problems, then the seven men that were chosen for those tasks would never have been able to use their gifts to glorify God. By the seven taking over caring for the poor, it gave the disciples more time to pray and preach God's word, and it gave the seven the opportunity to serve and use the gifts they were blessed with. I'm glad they stepped up to the plate.

Monday, Monday

For a Monday, today wasn't all that bad. After I get through my first class, Sociology, which I DESPISE, days are usually okay. In Russian class we learned about the weather, which is a good thing to know about. Especially with it being so cold recently, weather comes up a lot. I went jogging when I got home, so I was proud of myself. I think I might have frostbite on my fingers. And I almost got run over by some guy driving a postal vehicle...I think I was related to him... Tonight at Russian club, one of the girls who came talked about her internship with the State Department in Washington, D.C. It was cool to hear about her experience because I might like to do that someday. It's really expensive, though. (What else do you expect from the government? You go work for them, and they make you pay them. Go figure.) I watched the History Channel's documentary thing on the French Revolution the other night. I think the only thing our revolution had in common with the French Revolution is that people died. Talk about chaos. I went to bed fearing someone was going to come chop off my head. Fortunately it was still attached this morning. Anyway, I'm about to go get my heater and curl up with this awesome blanket that Lori made me last week (it has daisies on it. It's so cute) and watch CSI: Miami. I used to hate CSI and I really don't like the LA one or the New York one, but the Miami one's pretty good. I like the characters. And it's usually not quite as dark and menacing. Arrivederci!

My Hopes are Dashed...

My hopes of the Steelers making it to the Super Bowl were silenced tonight after a 41-27 defeat. Talk about depressing. They were 16 and 1, and one game before the superbowl they lost. Oh well. Maybe next year... But in better news, Viktor Yushchenko was sworn in as President of Ukraine! TAK!!! In his inauguration speech he said, "this is a victory of freedom over tyranny." Hmmm, sounds very similiar to another inauguration speech I heard recently... Anyway, another boring week of school starts tomorrow so I should go to bed. Actually, I really should do my homework, but I think sleep is going to take top priority. Homework's overrated anyway. Arrivederci prinsapesas!

Student Life Conference 2005

Hey y'all! I just got back from Birmingham, Alabama where I went to the very first student life conference of this year. It was AWESOME! The theme was "when love takes you in". The reason I went this weekend was because I met up with a bunch of people I spent the summer with in Ukraine. Birmingham was a kind of middle ground for us, so we met up there and stayed with our friend Deb. I had such a great time. I stayed up late and ate pizza and looked at pictures. We even got to call our friend Sveta all the way in Ukraine! Shane and Shane were the worship leaders, and they sound even better in person than on the CD. David Nasser was our speaker (he actually didn't tell his testimony this time. I was amazed. :0) We talked about Ephesians 2:1-10. I won't give it all away for those of you who haven't been yet, but it really opened my eyes to a lot of things. These are the verses if you want to read them:

1 As for you, you were dead in your transgressions and sins, 2 in which you used to live when you followed the ways of this world and of the ruler of the kingdom of the air, the spirit who is now at work in those who are disobedient. 3 All of us also lived among them at one time, gratifying the cravings of our sinful nature[a] and following its desires and thoughts. Like the rest, we were by nature objects of wrath. 4 But because of his great love for us, God, who is rich in mercy, 5 made us alive with Christ even when we were dead in transgressions–it is by grace you have been saved. 6 And God raised us up with Christ and seated us with him in the heavenly realms in Christ Jesus, 7 in order that in the coming ages he might show the incomparable riches of his grace, expressed in his kindness to us in Christ Jesus. 8 For it is by grace you have been saved, through faith–and this not from yourselves, it is the gift of God– 9 not by works, so that no one can boast. 10 For we are God's workmanship, created in Christ Jesus to do good works, which God prepared in advance for us to do.

There are two distinct pieces of this passage. There's the beginning, which talks of our previous life, or rather, our death, and the sins we commited when we were dead, and there's the second half, which talks of the grace of God and our new life. Both are equally great, and David Nasser talked about both, but it really touched me when he started talking about God's grace. He said something that really stuck out to me. "If you're a Christian, you are as righteous right now as you ever will be." He didn't mean that you can't become more Christ-like and give up more sins and habits, he just meant that God sees you as righteous. Christ covers us and there's nothing we can do to make God love us any more or any less. It's as simple as that. So many times I see my walk with Christ as conditional. I always think about my sin and feel guilt all the time and think that I can't have good fellowship with God because God's mad at me. Not that guilt is a bad thing. I mean, the Holy Spirit's there to convict you, but a lot of times I focus way too much on the bad things I've done and it keeps me from enjoying the joy that God wants to give. It's like I read the first three verses and miss the other seven. But God really showed me that when you repent of your sins, it doesn't latch onto you as baggage, it's gone. (as the song goes, like summer break is gone, like saturday is gone...) When we become alive in Christ, God wants us to leave our life of sin, not dwell in it. I'm so glad we worship a God like that. :0)

Yeah, so I'm not real sure about this picture thing

I realize that it's supposed to be easy to put pictures on a blog, but somehow I'm not able to understand. What the heck is this "hello" thing? I'll have to ask Todd. I'm technologically challenged. Anyway, as most people who know me well know, I'm a die hard Fox News fan. I realize that most people my age do not care about the news, but I always have it on. So I'm kind of sad that I'm going to be at school and miss President Bush's second inauguration tomorrow. But the fact that there's going to be a second inauguration is enough for me. I was reading an article about all the stuff going on in Washington, D.C. today and tomorrow and I read that the Bushes went and looked at the inaugural speech George Washington gave when he was elected president. I'd never read George Washington's inaugural address, so I thought I'd look it up. I've heard before that Washington was a terrible speaker, but even so, I don't think anyone could have said anything bad about his speech. It was awesome. These are just three of the paragraphs, but I thought I'd share it with you. It's encouraging to hear that this was the start of our country.

AMONG the vicissitudes incident to life no event could have filled me with greater anxieties than that of which the notification was transmitted by your order, and received on the 14th day of the present month. On the one hand, I was summoned by my country, whose voice I can never hear but with veneration and love, from a retreat which I had chosen with the fondest predilection, and, in my flattering hopes, with an immutable decision, as the asylum of my declining years—a retreat which was rendered every day more necessary as well as more dear to me by the addition of habit to inclination, and of frequent interruptions in my health to the gradual waste committed on it by time. On the other hand, the magnitude and difficulty of the trust to which the voice of my country called me, being sufficient to awaken in the wisest and most experienced of her citizens a distrustful scrutiny into his qualifications, could not but overwhelm with despondence one who (inheriting inferior endowments from nature and unpracticed in the duties of civil administration) ought to be peculiarly conscious of his own deficiencies. In this conflict of emotions all I dare aver is that it has been my faithful study to collect my duty from a just appreciation of every circumstance by which it might be affected. All I dare hope is that if, in executing this task, I have been too much swayed by a grateful remembrance of former instances, or by an affectionate sensibility to this transcendent proof of the confidence of my fellow-citizens, and have thence too little consulted my incapacity as well as disinclination for the weighty and untried cares before me, my error will be palliated by the motives which mislead me, and its consequences be judged by my country with some share of the partiality in which they originated.
Such being the impressions under which I have, in obedience to the public summons, repaired to the present station, it would be peculiarly improper to omit in this first official act my fervent supplications to that Almighty Being who rules over the universe, who presides in the councils of nations, and whose providential aids can supply every human defect, that His benediction may consecrate to the liberties and happiness of the people of the United States a Government instituted by themselves for these essential purposes, and may enable every instrument employed in its administration to execute with success the functions allotted to his charge. In tendering this homage to the Great Author of every public and private good, I assure myself that it expresses your sentiments not less than my own, nor those of my fellow-citizens at large less than either. No people can be bound to acknowledge and adore the Invisible Hand which conducts the affairs of men more than those of the United States. Every step by which they have advanced to the character of an independent nation seems to have been distinguished by some token of providential agency; and in the important revolution just accomplished in the system of their united government the tranquil deliberations and voluntary consent of so many distinct communities from which the event has resulted can not be compared with the means by which most governments have been established without some return of pious gratitude, along with an humble anticipation of the future blessings which the past seem to presage. These reflections, arising out of the present crisis, have forced themselves too strongly on my mind to be suppressed. You will join with me, I trust, in thinking that there are none under the influence of which the proceedings of a new and free government can more auspiciously commence.
Having thus imparted to you my sentiments as they have been awakened by the occasion which brings us together, I shall take my present leave; but not without resorting once more to the benign Parent of the Human Race in humble supplication that, since He has been pleased to favor the American people with opportunities for deliberating in perfect tranquillity, and dispositions for deciding with unparalleled unanimity on a form of government for the security of their union and the advancement of their happiness, so His divine blessing may be equally conspicuous in the enlarged views, the temperate consultations, and the wise measures on which the success of this Government must depend.

Okay, so I gave in...

Yeah, so I'm not so naive as to think blogging's going to change the world... (sorry, Mr. Don :0) but I had so much fun reading all of y'all's blogs that I that I figured I might as well try it. So, here it is- Calyn Reber's blog. However, I made a little deal with myself. I have a history with starting these kinds of things, so my deal is I'm not going to tell anybody about this blog until I have, let's say, 10 entries. Yeah, that sounds reasonable. Or as Homestar Runner would say, "reaZONable". See, that way I won't just have this one paragraph and then forget about it. I used to think Sarah Wirgau was so awesome for keeping a journal so consistently. That girl wrote every night in her journal. She must have had a hundred of them. She could pick any date and go back and see exactly what she did on that day. It was so cool. A couple years ago I decided I wanted to keep one. How hard could it be? It takes like five minutes a day. Well, after multiple tries, I think my record of consecutive journal entries was....2....maybe.... Anyway, maybe this will be different. Who knows. I don't think I can compete with all y'all veteran bloggers, but hopefully I can jot down a couple of my thoughts every once in a while. Let me warn you now, they're often hard to follow and you may have to get Lori to translate them for you, but I don't think she will mind. Well, here goes. Peace out y'all.