Leave Me Alone and Let Me Eat Lunch in Peace

My Goodness...

Well, it has been a busy few weeks, hasn't it? The week before Spring Break is always filled with midterms and the stresses of last-minute assignments, and of course the week of is never quite long enough to be really relaxing (it feels like I've been away from Millersville forever, but it all seems a little hazy in-between), and now my first week back is filled with "welcome to reality" assignments approaching and homework as usual.

*sigh*

Jason!

This took me a while to make, but it's totally worth it! Isn't he cute? ...Well, of course, "menacing" and similar adjectives also come to mind ;)

Yay for Snarky Horoscopes!

Scorpio

October 24 - November 21

There's a time and a place for everything, as you'll soon discover after falling into the rhinoceros pit during mating season.

A Few Words

anthropology
atmosphere
bureaucracy
coffee
definitely
occurrence
strength
squirrel
yogurt

OMG SNOW!!!

pop culture reference

The Creation Narrative of a Cat Lover

In the beginning there was only the First Cat, and an Earth that was cold and bare. But the First Cat brought forth a hairball, and it rose into the sky, and as it rose it gathered fire, and the Earth was warmed.
And once the Earth was warmed, the First Cat licked the ground with Her rough tongue, and the land changed shape, becoming hills and valleys. With Her paws, the First Cat scratched holes in the ground, and with Her claws she pierced the sky and rain fell, filling the oceans, and plants began to grow.
Then the First Cat sniffed the ground, and She sneezed. And from the dust that arose emerged the animals of the land, and they fled from Her. And the First Cat twitched Her tail, and the dust that was flung into the air became a great flock of birds; and they also flew from Her. And when the First Cat then sharpened her claws upon the rocks, chips of stone fell into the ocean and these became the fish and the creatures of the sea; and they swiftly swam away.
And the First Cat was pleased, and She began to groom herself, and some of Her fur fell onto the ground. And the First Cat began to purr, and as she purred the fur mixed with the dirt and took form, and the forms took two shapes: cats of all sizes in the likeness of the First Cat, although because they came from different strands of fur their markings varied, and humans, who were mostly bare because there was less of the First Cat's fur in their forms. And these did not flee from Her, but looked upon Her in awe, and to the humans the First Cat said,
"You shall be my responsibility, and you shall live on the Earth that I have made, for you have not fled before me." And to the small cats the First Cat said, "You shall stay with these humans, and care for them, for they have less fur than you; and you shall hunt the mice that eat the grain and the birds that disturb their crops; and you shall remind them of your worth by showing them what you have caught." And to the large cats the First Cat said, "You shall hunt the large animals that came from the ground, and fled from me; and they shall ever flee before you; and you shall teach these humans humility and remind them that they have been made with less fur."
And it was so, and the First Cat was pleased.

My Boyfriend is Totally Cheating On Me!

...I caught him in bed with another woman! :O

Happy Valentine's Day!
<3

Mrow?

We *Are* Quite the Dirty-Minded Pair...

Gu tìr nan ciar-bheann àrda says:

I get to do a section on medieval witchcraft and sexual deviance :D :D

Gu tìr nan ciar-bheann àrda says:

...erm.. not that I care... ahem. (A)

Mirime says:

that gives a whole new meaning to burning at the stake ;)

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Mirime says:

scrabble with three people is much more fun

Mirime says:

more options for where to put things

Gu tìr nan ciar-bheann àrda says:

snigger

Photos Are Up!

My brethren, this is truly a great day... I have, indeed, finally gotten organised and uploaded all of the photos I've been sitting on for ages (and some new ones too). Hooray for photobucket, mass-uploads, and avoidance of reading stuff for Uni! Not many of them have any explanation attached, and the ones on page 1 are newer than the ones on page 5 (which seems a little backward to me if you're looking at them for the first time and not just looking for updates...) so if any particular photo is just extremely puzzling, feel free to ask for an explanation!

Link <3

The War Prayer

By Mark Twain

It was a time of great and exalting excitement. The country was up in arms, the war was on, in every breast burned the holy fire of patriotism; the drums were beating, the bands playing, the toy pistols popping, the bunched firecrackers hissing and spluttering; on every hand and far down the receding and fading spread of roofs and balconies a fluttering wilderness of flags flashed in the sun; daily the young volunteers marched down the wide avenue gay and fine in their new uniforms, the proud fathers and mothers and sisters and sweethearts cheering them with voices choked with happy emotion as they swung by; nightly the packed mass meetings listened, panting, to patriot oratory which stirred the deepest deeps of their hearts, and which they interrupted at briefest intervals with cyclones of applause, the tears running down their cheeks the while; in the churches the pastors preached devotion to flag and country, and invoked the God of Battles beseeching His aid in our good cause in outpourings of fervid eloquence which moved every listener. It was indeed a glad and gracious time, and the half dozen rash spirits that ventured to disapprove of the war and cast a doubt upon its righteousness straightway got such a stern and angry warning that for their personal safety's sake they quickly shrank out of sight and offended no more in that way.

Sunday morning came -- next day the battalions would leave for the front; the church was filled; the volunteers were there, their young faces alight with martial dreams -- visions of the stern advance, the gathering momentum, the rushing charge, the flashing sabers, the flight of the foe, the tumult, the enveloping smoke, the fierce pursuit, the surrender! Then home from the war, bronzed heroes, welcomed, adored, submerged in golden seas of glory! With the volunteers sat their dear ones, proud, happy, and envied by the neighbors and friends who had no sons and brothers to send forth to the field of honor, there to win for the flag, or, failing, die the noblest of noble deaths. The service proceeded; a war chapter from the Old Testament was read; the first prayer was said; it was followed by an organ burst that shook the building, and with one impulse the house rose, with glowing eyes and beating hearts, and poured out that tremendous invocation

God the all-terrible! Thou who ordainest! Thunder thy clarion and lightning thy sword!

Then came the "long" prayer. None could remember the like of it for passionate pleading and moving and beautiful language. The burden of its supplication was, that an ever-merciful and benignant Father of us all would watch over our noble young soldiers, and aid, comfort, and encourage them in their patriotic work; bless them, shield them in the day of battle and the hour of peril, bear them in His mighty hand, make them strong and confident, invincible in the bloody onset; help them to crush the foe, grant to them and to their flag and country imperishable honor and glory --

An aged stranger entered and moved with slow and noiseless step up the main aisle, his eyes fixed upon the minister, his long body clothed in a robe that reached to his feet, his head bare, his white hair descending in a frothy cataract to his shoulders, his seamy face unnaturally pale, pale even to ghastliness. With all eyes following him and wondering, he made his silent way; without pausing, he ascended to the preacher's side and stood there waiting. With shut lids the preacher, unconscious of his presence, continued with his moving prayer, and at last finished it with the words, uttered in fervent appeal, "Bless our arms, grant us the victory, O Lord our God, Father and Protector of our land and flag!"

The stranger touched his arm, motioned him to step aside -- which the startled minister did -- and took his place. During some moments he surveyed the spellbound audience with solemn eyes, in which burned an uncanny light; then in a deep voice he said:

"I come from the Throne -- bearing a message from Almighty God!" The words smote the house with a shock; if the stranger perceived it he gave no attention. "He has heard the prayer of His servant your shepherd, and will grant it if such shall be your desire after I, His messenger, shall have explained to you its import -- that is to say, its full import. For it is like unto many of the prayers of men, in that it asks for more than he who utters it is aware of -- except he pause and think.

"God's servant and yours has prayed his prayer. Has he paused and taken thought? Is it one prayer? No, it is two -- one uttered, the other not. Both have reached the ear of Him Who heareth all supplications, the spoken and the unspoken. Ponder this -- keep it in mind. If you would beseech a blessing upon yourself, beware! lest without intent you invoke a curse upon a neighbor at the same time. If you pray for the blessing of rain upon your crop which needs it, by that act you are possibly praying for a curse upon some neighbor's crop which may not need rain and can be injured by it.

"You have heard your servant's prayer -- the uttered part of it. I am commissioned of God to put into words the other part of it -- that part which the pastor -- and also you in your hearts -- fervently prayed silently. And ignorantly and unthinkingly? God grant that it was so! You heard these words: 'Grant us the victory, O Lord our God!' That is sufficient. the *whole* of the uttered prayer is compact into those pregnant words. Elaborations were not necessary. When you have prayed for victory you have prayed for many unmentioned results which follow victory--*must* follow it, cannot help but follow it. Upon the listening spirit of God fell also the unspoken part of the prayer. He commandeth me to put it into words. Listen!

"O Lord our Father, our young patriots, idols of our hearts, go forth to battle -- be Thou near them! With them -- in spirit -- we also go forth from the sweet peace of our beloved firesides to smite the foe. O Lord our God, help us to tear their soldiers to bloody shreds with our shells; help us to cover their smiling fields with the pale forms of their patriot dead; help us to drown the thunder of the guns with the shrieks of their wounded, writhing in pain; help us to lay waste their humble homes with a hurricane of fire; help us to wring the hearts of their unoffending widows with unavailing grief; help us to turn them out roofless with little children to wander unfriended the wastes of their desolated land in rags and hunger and thirst, sports of the sun flames of summer and the icy winds of winter, broken in spirit, worn with travail, imploring Thee for the refuge of the grave and denied it -- for our sakes who adore Thee, Lord, blast their hopes, blight their lives, protract their bitter pilgrimage, make heavy their steps, water their way with their tears, stain the white snow with the blood of their wounded feet! We ask it, in the spirit of love, of Him Who is the Source of Love, and Who is the ever-faithful refuge and friend of all that are sore beset and seek His aid with humble and contrite hearts. Amen.

(After a pause.) "Ye have prayed it; if ye still desire it, speak! The messenger of the Most High waits!"

It was believed afterward that the man was a lunatic, because there was no sense in what he said.

--written in 1904-1905, but not published until after Twain's death in 1923

Got My Computer Back

...yep. Now I have no excuse for not putting up photos, right? Well actually, I think I need to set up an account on some site where I can upload, organise, and nicely present huge amounts of photos, 'cause that's what I have.

Two Things

Ok, firstly I'm not sure why the images for my blog suddenly don't show up when I open the page, because when I right-click them and say "view image" and then go back to my blog page they appear just fine. *sigh*

Also, I'm taking my computer down to the Help Desk to deal with hopefully printer issues as well as a CD-reading issue, so I probably won't be online until maybe Tuesday. I'll check my email from other computers when I can until I get mine back :)

Back

Well folks, I'm back at Uni again... somehow I'm not quite as excited as I usually am to start a new semester, and I'm a little homesick, but it'll get better. I should be a *little* less busy but I definitely won't have enough free time to be mopey for long.

Coconuts xD

An explanation about why I find this so funny will be forthcoming as soon as I take some time to upload all the photos I've been taking...

Final Grades Are In!!!

*looks smug*

Undergraduate Course work Fall 2006

	Subject	Course	Section	Course Title		Final Grade
	ENGL	239H	01	Hnrs:Westrn Literary Traditn 2		A
	ENGL	402	01	Middle Eng Lang and Literature		A
	ENGL	415	01	Sem:Joyce and Woolf		A
	FREN	101	0	Elementary French 1		A
	HIST	106	02	Contours of US History		A
	MATH	155H	01	Hnrs:Applied Calculus 1		B

Back Home

Well, I'm back home and settling in pretty well, considering that my mind and body were completely exhausted by the final exams, papers, and projects that have filled the last week of the semester.

I love my nice new mattress though :D

It turns out that my dad's coming home for Christmas after all, so on Tuesday night we'll pick him up at the airport... I was actually feeling kind of down that he wasn't going to be able to make it out here, so I am surprised and glad that he will be after all :)

Not much more in the way of news; I brought a lovely digital camera back with me from the Snapper (Nikon D70, baby!) so I will try to put some photos up. I've been catching up on my reading, and am already roughly halfway through The Poisonwood Bible. Cheers!

'Cause I am Teh Awesome

This is what my desk looked like while I was writing the paper that goes with my ballad...

My Awesome Ballad

The Ballad of Mount Badon

"Dark days are falling on Britain!"
Her people cried aloud.
The Saxon scourge spread o'er the land,
A darkly growing cloud.

The Saxons marched on Badon Hill,
And threatened the fortress there.
King Arthur swore to punish them,
And warned them to beware.

He gathered his host of noble men,
Brave knights so strong and true;
They readied horses, took up swords
And cheered as pennants flew.

The knights rode out with God's blessing
Their ladies waved farewell.
They trusted in Arthur their lord
To fight the Saxon rebel.

In the shadow of Mount Badon
The British army camped.
The horses caught their riders' moods,
And impatiently they stamped.

Arthur stood and gave a speech:
"The Saxons broke my peace,
And God shall surely aid our cause.
Their power will decrease.

Victorious we will be this day,
We have a greater troop.
The Saxons will before us fall
Upon them we will swoop."

He raised Excalibur up high;
The battle cries began.
The ranks of Saxons waited there
Across the valley's span.

The pagans were a fearsome sight
All clad in gilded mail;
The spears were glinting in the sun;
They thought they could not fail.

King Arthur and his bold knights charged,
Their noble horses reared.
The Dragon banner proudly waved.
The King's great host was feared.

The two great armies shortly met,
With a violent clash of swords.
Of all the knights who fought that day,
None were ever cowards.

The Britons won at Mount Badon,
In glory they were shod.
The tale of Arthur's victory
Will echo in our blood.

And though this happened long ago,
The legend still lives on;
Of knights who fought and won the day
For glory and Mount Badon.