SNOW
Huge, puffy flakes were falling when I got off the plane in Kalamazoo Thursday night. We got a few inches, which was awesome. It took three days and me skipping church to sleep to get rid of the jet lag. Blah. Saturday I went to my friend Sarah's wedding. It was strange. I was the only one there from high school, which makes sense considering we were best friends in high school. Krista and I were the only 21 yr olds there that weren't engaged and weren't already married. We stuck together. The entire time I kept thinking "If this were happening in Seattle, it would be considered absurd!" It was a really nice wedding, though, and I am so happy for Adam and Sarah. They are so perfect for one another and so ready to be married. It made me realize how not ready I am to be married, and brought me back again to the fact that I do desire to get married some day, but definatley not now and not within the next three years. Besides, why rush to get married when you have the rest of your life to spend with that person? So there's my soap box for the evening :)

I spent the day running around Zeeland and downtown Holland with Holly. We had a blast hanging out and helping her dad pick out a Christmas present for her mom. It was a hoot! Tuesday I am finishing the final I was going to turn in today but didn't get around to, organizing my room and packing some boxes, knitting more presents, etc. Wednesday I am hanging out with my dear friend Kristen Borst and then going line dancing in G.R. with Holly, Andrea, and other Ranch Rats. The best part is that Sondra is coming...yay! We only know one another from Seattle (she is from Grand Rapids) and have only seen one another in Michigan once, and it was really strange. So spending the evening together is going to be awesome. I'm also going to hang out with her Friday after she gets her wisdom teeth pulled...I figure I'll go over with knitting, a movie, and popsicles and wait on her hand a foot a bit. :)

Time for bed...I'm fading fast.

All Packed
I hate packing. This year I have decided to bring very little home. I honestly don't care if I wear the same four outfits over the next three weeks. I have some old comfy clothes at home that are too big so I can always use those as back up "lounging around" clothes :) Heck, laundry will be free for a change so I plan on taking advantage of that, too. So I packed a small load of dirty laundry, my knitting, one nice outfit to wear to a wedding this weekend, some Christmas presents, my camera, my flute, my toothbrush, plane tickets, and my koala. It took me all of fifteen minutes to throw into my suitcase. I also have The Secret Life of Bees to read on the plane. I still gotta clean my food out of the fridge, then I'll be all ready to go. Yay!

BREAK!
Finals are all done :)...with the exception of one take home theology final for Dr.Wall that I am going to fax from Kalamazoo Monday morning after I go to the dentist. I have a huge pile of books to return to the library and really can't wait to see them go. Also gotta pack, run downtown for last mintute gifts, etc. Aye. Lots to do today! My plane leaves tomorrow at 10:03am Pacific time. I have a three hour layover in O'Hare and then a twenty minute puddle jump over Lake Michigan to arrive in Kalamazoo at 8:29pm. Sondra is picking me up at 7:30 in the morning. We're going to Starbuck's before she takes me to the airport. I'm excited to get away from campus. I LOVE Seattle, but I am so sick of school right now it's unbelievable. My brain is so fried that Monday I tried to turn in my ten page paper on The Brothers Karamazov to my theology prof. He just looked at me funny and finally said "Val, this paper is for Dr. Thorpe. His office is across campus." Yeah, I had to laugh at myself for that one! Next quarter is looking so good. And I am thrilled to be going back to the good ol' Midwest for a change of pace, hopefully a little snow, and catching up with my dear friends and Ranch Rats. Yay for going to the Midwest! My World Lit prof described the Midwest as "suffocating" the other day, and after thinking about it, I'd have to agree that at times it is indeed suffocating. But I couldn't imagine having Christmas anywhere else and I look forward to traditions, church, etc.
Well, I best be getting to more errands. I haven't even begun to think about packing. I need to get everything done so I can go say goodbye to people at a party tonight..yay for parties and good friends :) (I'm in a really good mood right now)

The Great Reversal
From Vaux community, London

Walking with the crowds, carried along by the pressing forward. Each one eager to get ahead, but each one starting the same - born as a baby and from then on struggling towards meaning, power, and influence. Be someone, be remembered, make a big impression; leave some indelible mark in your three scores years and ten.

From birth, a struggle to find eternity, to burst through life with such dazzling intensity that everyone will remember forever. But walking the other way, picking out a route against the crowds, a solitary figure passes me, passes all of us, a quiet chaos in the crowd.

Christ, eternal, omniscient, creator, beyond time, source of wisdom, and beyond petty claims of influence...in very nature God, slips into reverse and walks back past us - away from kingship, away from power, away from influence, away from eternity, away from wisdom, toward infancy, calmly stepping into the body of a tiny child.

And even as this baby grows, figuring out how to control the body he himself designed, he still walks the other way, realizing that life cannot be found in the struggle for permanence, but in giving it up.

The great reversal subverts me. Tired of pressing forward, I realized I need to turn, for what I have been searching for has just walked past me the other way.

I was really moved as this was being read in chapel this week. I thought I would share it with y'all as we head into this Christmas season.

Back to writing my paper...

Experiencing God through Dosteovsky

He did not stop on the porch, either, but went quickly down the steps. Filled with rapture, his soul yearned for freedom, space, vastness. Over him the heavenly dome, full of quiet, shining stars, hung boundlessly. From the zenith to the horizon the still-dim Milky Way stretched its double strand. Night, fresh and quiet, almost unstirring, enveloped the earth. The white towers and the golden domes of the church gleamed in the sapphire sky. The luxuriant autumn flowers in the flowerbeds near the house had fallen asleep until morning. The silence of the earth seemed to merge with the silence of the heavens, the mystery of the earth touched the mystery of the stars...
It was as if threads from all those innumerable worlds of God came together in his soul, and it was trembling all over, touching "other worlds." He wanted to forgive everyone and for everything, and to ask forgiveness, oh not for himself! but for all and for everything, "as others are asking for me" rang in his soul. But with each moment he felt clearly and almost tangibly something as firm and immovable as this heavenly vault descend into his soul...He fell to the earth a weak youth and rose up a fighter, steadfast for the rest of his life, and he knew it and felt it suddenly in the very moment of his ecstacy. Never, never in all his life would Aloysha forget that moment. "Someone visited my soul in that hour", he would say afterwards, with firm belief in his words...

- The Brothers Karamazov

The End of the Quarter
I hate the end of the quarter, yet I love it at the same time.
Our group project for sociology is all done. It went well, with the exception of my skirt having some major static cling issues. I kept trying to yank it down as conspicuously and and gracefully as possible. We did get bonus points for Jared showing up in his tux, though. We just failed to mention that he is in Concert Choir and had a gig this morning...

Class last night was INCREDIBLE. We had the Seattle P-I reporter (Brad Wong) and Hei Tre Le (Microsoft employee) come in and share the story of freeing the slaves in American Samoa and closing down the sweatshop in which they worked. It was so amazing to hear Hei Tre speak and tell us exactly what was going through his mind when he walked past the guards and into the sweatshop, how the dormitories looked and smelled, and how he was treated by the workers. What is even more incredible is that Hei Tre Le knew that he had the power and the resources to fly down there for two weeks to help translate, take pictures of the conditions, and get the ball rolling on the trial. He even paid out of his own pocket to fly many of the freed workers to Seattle. I am moved and convicted whenever I think about this, but I am also a little saddened to think that I know many Christians (myself included) who would just read about circumstances similar to this one and not take action to do something to help. I can only imagine how awesome of a Christian Hei Tre Le would make.

It's a dreary, chilly, wet, rainy day. My body wants me to slow down a little and take a short nap. I may have to do that. Then I am going to head up Queen Anne to study at Tully's and work on my Brothers Karamazov paper- comparing Aloysha's journey in Book VII to Dmitri's journey in Books VIII-IX. It's a good novel. I highly recommend it. I am really sick of all my classes right now. Next quarter is looking so beautiful: Advanced Grammar, Young Adult Lit, Linguistics 2100, Theologians: Feminist Perspectives, and Wind Ensemble.

One week from right now I will be landing in O'Hare. What a happy thought :)

Week #9
Well, it's the last week of classes for this quarter. It's both a good and a bad thing - praise God I only have two more actual class sessions with Dr. Wall! Woo hoo for being almost done with The Brothers Karamazov! But boo on ten page papers, group projects, and cumulative finals. Blah blah blah.
Tomorrow we have our largest concert of the year, down at Benaroya. I have class from 10:30-12:50 then have to be dressed and ready to go at three to head downtown. We'll have about two hours of homework time tomorrow, after all of our rehearsing and sound checks are through. I'm excited though. It's a pretty big deal, and I even have my own cheering section coming and we're going out to The Cheesecake Factory afterwards to celebrate some birthdays. I am disappointed that one of my friends can't come. She bought a ticket a long time ago and was planning on coming with our other friends, but cancelled tonight. She didn't give me a reason, so I am giving her the benefit of the doubt. (or at least I am trying to) The thing is that this is kind of becoming a habit of hers - to plan on coming to a concert or something and then back out at the last minute. Hmm...if you don't want to go then don't get my hopes up by telling me that you're coming and then back out at the last minute. Sheesh. I have a feeling I may end up not inviting her to things in the future...
Time for bed. Chapel in the morning :)