It's happening again...

The syllabus shock.  

It's fairly difficult to combat, ya know.  The time comes for the semester to start up again and you realize that tomorrow is the day, and you should probably read your syllabi.  So you do.  

And then it hits.  The semester is going to be more difficult than you had imagined.  You feel a sense of desperation; you should probably get started on that reading.  But then you realize it is 10:25pm and instead you should go to bed.  You worry that your motivation will die off after a night of sleep.  You especially worry about the motivation because you still haven't started one of the most important 9-10 page papers of your seminary career and it is due in 2 1/2 weeks.  You freak out just acknowledging that fact.

So you go to bed with all these thoughts looming above you, and pray that somehow you will still get a good night's sleep.

A little off

Every once in a while, Jake and I say "I'm so glad."  Whenever this little phrase is mentioned, I always follow with "I'm a part of the family of God," as I return to my good ol' Baptist upbringing.  

Except the problem is... I was too young to understand some of the lyrics, so I made up what I thought they were.  I always thought it went:

"I'm so glad I'm a part of the family of God.

I've been washed in the fountain, cleansed by his blood.

Join hands together as we travel along...."

As Jake and I were singing it, he started laughing at me, and I realized that I never learned the correct lyrics.  I had to look them up and when I did, I realized why a 7-year old might have to make up lyrics that make a little more sense.  The correct lyrics are:

"I'm so glad I'm a part of the family of God.

I've been washed in the fountain, cleansed by his blood.

Joint heirs with Jesus as we travel this sod..."

Nice, eh?

Insanity

Tomorrow morning I am starting my intercession class, which will be a New Testament class over the Epistles and Revelation.  Basically it's a semester-long class that's jammed into a two-week format, so it will be fairly intense.  I took the first New Testament class last year over intercession, and it worked well for my brain (aka I learned way better that way).  However, it's a lot of work.  We have quizzes over our reading for each day (which can be up to 80 pages of heavy stuff plus a few different books of the Bible), I will have my midterm exam after my first week, and my final exam the weekend after week two.  In addition to all of that, I will have an Inductive Bible Study paper of 13-18 pages in length due 4 weeks after my class.  That paper is going to be killer.

So pretty much all of this to say that I will likely be out of commission for the next couple of weeks.  Prayer would be much appreciated. :)

The Phantom in our Carpet

Last night Jake and I realized that a spot on our carpet near the kitchen was sopping wet.  Neither of us spilled anything on it, and there was no trace of water anywhere else.  I continued to try to dry it throughout the evening, but it didn't really seem to get much more dry.  As we live on the first floor, we looked to the ceiling to see if there were any water marks on the wall.  Nope.

We left it alone to see if it would dry overnight.  It was definitely more dry this morning, so we thought we were in the dry.  (hardy-har-har)  

Then tonight, it came back.  And it was even more huge than before.  Except we found a water puddle on the kitchen tile too, even though it wasn't next to the carpet.  We checked under the sink and everything.

I think it's a Phantom.  I suppose if we get any letters signed "PTC" (Phantom of the Carpet), we'll know we're in business.  I wonder if he wants money.

Examples of my extrovertedness

Jake was scheduled to work a full day at the bookstore today, which meant that I was at home alone today.  It was an ok day, but I was more than ready for Jake to come home.  We hung out for quite a while- browsing Target, playing Taboo (yes, it's possible to play with only 2 people... just a bit weird), and watching tv with our new DirecTV network (thanks Mom and Dad!).  

After all of that, I asked Jake what we were going to do next.  He listed blogging and applying for jobs, so I said "but those are individual activities," to which he said,

"We've got to get you out of this house."

Yep, I like people.  And I'm an extrovert.  Good thing my future career plans involve being around people... all the time. :)

Marley!

So I read Jake's blog review of the movie Marley and Me and found out he thought I was reviewing it too.  I wasn't, but now I will since I indicated that I probably would.

I like Jake's comments about the movie, but I also want to add that I cried more in that movie than I have in a while.  It's incredibly touching, and seriously, that dog... I want him.  I'm not sure I could handle the mess in the apartment, but I want a dog.  Marley was cute from beginning 'til end.  I think the movie was so good because it was so relevant to family life.  I could relate with the parts about marriage, and the parts about kids reminded me that I am more than happy not having any for a while. :)  

In the end, it was worth the running around to different theaters trying to find one that wasn't sold out.

Shout-Outs

I want to give a shout-out to Joel and Pam, off of whose websites I saw that I could come up with a new background to my blog.  I am not at all artsy, but I did find it fun changing colors and looking at different backgrounds.  So thanks!

I also want to wish everyone a wonderful Christmas.  Today is kind of a weird day for us because usually Christmas is a family-gathering day, but instead my family left today.  After being surrounded by great people for a couple of days, we are left alone on Christmas.  Weird, huh?  Jake and I are going to go see the movie "Marley and Me" in a couple minutes.  I think it looks amazing, mostly because I love dogs- but my dad said it got bad reviews.  We shall see; maybe I'll post my own review of the movie when we return.