ms. crankypants

i find myself inexplicably hostile.
there are a variety of reasons for this. 1) haven't gone to church in the last 2 weeks, and it'll probably be another 3 before i get to go again. i was camping, then i had soccer, then my friends are in a triathlon so i'm going to support them, then there's the school retreat, then probably soccer again, and THEN i get to go to church again. not to merely assign some kind of homeopathic purpose to church, but it does calm me, and ground me each sunday. i grow increasingly more on edge when i don't get to go. at this rate, i'll be a nervous wreck soon. 2) the new semester has started, and it's always a frenzy of activity, getting used the the new schedule. semesters just seem long enough to get comfortable in a routine, only for it to end abruptly and you have to start all over again. most people i know are keyed up to be back here and raring to go to class. i on the other hand have been here all summer taking classes, so this is old hat to me. 3) there are too many people around, who i don't know yet and i'm still not ready for small talk. give me a few weeks, once everyone else calms down and i can have a proper conversation. 4) the people i've been used to hanging out with all summer are not around school so much, and i miss them.

thus, i am cranky.

once i settle in though, things will be okay. i'm taking two classes for credit and auditing another one. i think they're going to be pretty good. there's biblical exegesis & interpretation - which sounds heavy, it's one of the required classes here. i'll be learning how to properly exegete scripture - to understand what the text said at the time it was written, and how it was intended. good foundational skills to learn. then there's chrisitianity & literature: modern fiction - stories of doubt and faith. lots of reading, about a novel a week. the books all look really good though. the class i'm auditing is a book study of Psalms - i decided not to take it for credit so i could relax, and enjoy myself and have the space to soak in what is talked about. it's a bit of a lighter academic load, but then i'll have time to do some creative writing. getting more comfortable with pursuing this arts concentration and accepting the fact that i am a writer.

on other fronts, i've started playing soccer. i'm the goalie. i'm part of the odd breed of person that happens to really enjoy playing this position. i didn't so much when i was in high school, so i don't really know what has changed since then. i suppose i just have more of an attitude. my team is out of shape though, so i was far too busy in our first game, which we lost in the neighborhood of 9-2. i stopped counting after a while, so i'm not sure of the actual total. this other team kept getting breakaways and all i could do was charge them. i do recall the number of times i made a save in this situation, which was 3. the silver lining to this abysmal game is that i am more familiar with charging people. i'll probably have to make use of this skill more in the future if the season continues this way.

less than a month until the victoria half-marathon! i'm excited for this weekend to hang with my friends and to run. never thought i'd say that i enjoy running. 2 reasons that i would ever run in the past 1) chasing an ice cream truck, 2) being chased by bears. or are you supposed to lie on the ground and play dead if you run into a bear? hmm... regardless, this will be a cool athletic achievement for me, should i survive. i've been running with rochelle, she's training for the marathon. it's good because i can't complain about being tired because she usually runs for a hour or so longer than i do. will i ever do a marathon? we'll see. i just want to finish this 13 miles first. since i'm in canada, that's 21km.

good point of the day... why is the phrase for deliberately ignoring something "turning a blind eye" to it? my prof said that today and my friend mike pointed out, "if you were blind, you wouldn't have to turn away." what's the deal?