Yay, the Christmas lights are up on the Space Needle!!!

Another exciting thing -- I got an email from my prof that said that our class this Wed night is going to be different than as planned. My Wed night class is a Community Bible Study on Philemon and this quarter we have really been focusing on issues of modern day slavery, as well as other awesome things. A few weeks ago Prof Levison read in the Seattle P-I (one of our newspapers) that a Microsoft employee from Seattle went to American Samoa to free twelve Vietnamese women who had been forced into slavery there. There was a five part article on it in the P-I (Post Intelligener) that explained it all. So Prof Levison got on the phone and called the journalist, who called the Microsoft employee...and now both of them are coming to our class this Wednesday evening! I am really looking forward to the questions that will be raised and to hear about the entire venture first hand. If anyone wants to check out the articles online, click here: Made in Misery
Time to figure out what homework to do and when so as not to die this week...yay for the last week of classes!

I can't believe that Thanksgiving is over! It's been a good weekend, though, and praise God there are still two more days of it. I slept in yesterday, which was much needed. Emily picked me up a little after one and we ran some errands. She told her roomate, Sonya, that she would take care of her fish for her this weekend, so guess who got stuck holding the fish bowl in her lap all the way to West Seattle?! We went twenty all the way up Queen Anne, and by the time we got to I-5 my lap was soaked and it looked like I had peed my pants. Eeew. We stopped at the retirement center/nursing home where Emily worked for a few years and said hello to lots of people I had never met before. This one cute old guy, Wilard, asked me to dance, so we danced around the dining room to Nat King Cole. Talking with the residents there was awesome and I remember thinking at the time that there was no other place that I would have rather been than at that moment, wet pants and all. :) We went to Emily's Aunt and Uncle's house for dinner. There were eight of us total, plus three dogs and a cat. It was great to be in a house and have home cooked food! One little lady named Maria came. She's the 88 yr old Polish neighbor who is seriously only 4'9" or less. She was really cute and sweet, and told us a little about her life and the time she spent in a German concentration camp during the war. It was a pretty fulfilling day.
Emi and I ran errands today, then she, her mom, and I went to the Melting Pot for a fondue dinner and then downtown to see The Missing with Kate Blanchet and Tommy Lee Jones. It was a really good movie. Downtown is all decorated now and looks wonderful. The old fashioned carousel is up again, and so are the huge tree and the Bon Marche star. All of downtown just seems to twinkle and glitter, especially when the rain is falling :) Now it is going on 2am and I need to get some sleep. Lots of reading and homework to do these next two days. But yay, our huge Christmas concert is this Tuesday, at Benaroya Hall, where the Seattle Symphony plays! The concert sold out in a matter of days. It's gonna be pretty sweet.
My cowboy pj's and bed are callin' my name...

MICHIGAN IS GOING TO THE ROSE BOWL
Yep, Michigan beat Ohio State this afternoon! The game was even aired out here - I couldn't believe it! I was talking to my uncle and his girlfriend who live in Pontiac and could hear the game on in the background. Then Lael yelled for me to get into the living room, and lo and behold, she found the game on channel 4. I'm wearing my favorite Michigan sweatshirt today, too. What a fabulous day!
So now it's going on 1pm and I need to get my butt in gear and get some stuff done. Emily, Sonya, and I are going to the University District soon. I need to get my tattoo looked at. There's a thin white line on part of it, but I think that it is just dry skin on top of the tattoo. Nevertheless, I want to know that it is ok. Emi is getting her eyebrow ring changed, and Sonya is thinking about getting a tattoo. Afterwards we are going to go study somewhere...most likely the Starbucks on Alki Beach or the Tully's on Queen Anne. It's actually clear out today, so the mountains should be spectacular...I'll take my camera. I need to read lots of the Brothers Karamazov this afternoon, and I am also knitting some mittens. Not to mention the detailed outline I am supposed to be working on for NT Letters...praise God only a week and a half left of classes!

Monsoon season has returned
Yeah, so it has been raining hard and nonstop for the past 52 hours, but who's counting?! And it is supposed to keep raining through Friday evening, with a sunny Saturday, and more rain from Sunday through late next week. I actually don't mind it too much. Last month we got five inches of rain on one day. That was impressive. I like the sound it makes on our roof and it helps put me to sleep. I also like the sound of the water rushing out of our downspout. Watching birds bathe in mud puddles is cute, too. There are some down sides to the rain, too...like having your pants soaked up to your knees when you get to class, your hair curling beyond control (at least we have 0 humidity), and the water running off your umbrella and onto your backpack, making all your folders and notebooks run and dry all bumpy. Blah. But they don't call Seattle the Emerald City for no reason...everything is green year 'round!
I'm praising God that an umbrella arrived in my mailstop a few weeks ago ;)

So I am starting a Blog. I think this could end up being pretty handy, especially since people at home can read this rather than me sending out a large quantity of mass emails, which I have neglected to do during the past two months anyhow. Yep, I think this will be more beneficial.