"There was solidarity."

Spring Quarter is shaping up to be interesting. Interesting, well, that's vague, but nothing else really sums it up quite like that. It seems I have one professor every quarter who is terribly intimidating, and they turn out to be incredibly dear to me. Monday I walked into my World Lit class to encounter a tall skinny woman with a German accent. I couldn't say exactly why she was intimidating, but today I realized it is because she never looks at anything. Moreover, she inspects things. Instead of looking at me when I'm blabbering about how revealing the bottom of page 16 is, she is inspecting me.

She's no less intimidating than Monday, but I think I like her already. She loves African lit particularly, I think that helps. Her face morphs into a brilliant excitement when a good discussion unravels, and I'm starting to like the fact that her eyes have never just glazed over something for the roughly four hours I've been in her presence.

Seems as though everything I was reading before the quarter started must be put on hold until summer. We're going to be racing through books in World Lit, and I have a good deal of work before me in Philosophy. I'm taking another Geology course because, as it turns out, I enjoy Geology, in addition to a needed sequence requirement.

One book I cannot put down regardless of my class work is The New Friars by Scott Bessenecker. I would recommend it to anyone whose heart the Lord tugs at for impoverished brothers and sisters. If you were moved by Claiborne's The Irresistible Revolution, I can't imagine not being moved by this as well. It contains more detailed insight into the problem of poverty, and overviews some different organizations and people whom our Savior has used for His work among the poor.

Nervous Conditions by Tsitsi Dangarembga, a novel I'm reading for World Literature, is a compelling read as well. Delves into the effects of Colonialism in Africa, gender roles in traditional African society, and women in education.

"These were complex, dangerous thoughts that I was stirring up, not the kind that you can ponder safely but the kind that become autonomous and malignant if you let them." p.39

"It was almost like a wedding with music and movement pulsing through the night to make your skin crawl and tingle, your armpits prickle, your body impatient to be up and concerned with the beat." p.42

"First you took his tongue so that he could not speak to me and now you have taken everything, taken everything for good." p.54

Yesterday at work I had to stop doing things for a second to write down this stream of images and thoughts that pounced into my mind as soon as the song, It's Beginning To Get To Me by Snow Patrol came on. Reminded me of:
Green. Of rushing water and holding on to a branch and freedom. Of adventuring and of so fast. Then of the sun beginning its journey downward and bare feet and now the Westerville lights are on. Don't step on gravel.

My favorite part is the last bit. If you think that is an oddity, you should see the rest of what my brain produces...

Apparently the Eyes Open album came out when it was warm outside.

Lately during my forays into the beautiful streets of surrounding areas, destination target heart rate, my mind is a boggle of confusion about the future. It is such a blessing that my future is in the Lord's hands. I control nothing. I just want to continually let Him have it all, because my immense confusion about my desire to call the slums my abode and what in the world is going to come of me once I graduate with a major in the college of Humanities...is overwhelming when I think of it in terms of self-control. I love taking things over and not sharing control. I love making plans.

But most, I love it when my foolish plans are thrown into the nearest garbage can [or recycled if best] to make room for His Divine blueprints.


He always saves us from ourselves.