Argh!

My French class makes me want to cry and yell and throw things.  I think they're doing something wrong to make me this frustrated with everything about the class.  The bright spot?  It'll be over in two and a half weeks.  And then I'm not taking another French class for at least another four months.  Because if I did, I probably would cry and yell and throw things.  And I don't want to do those things.  So I'm going to give myself some time to chill out and teach myself the things that the book and teacher seem incapable to teaching me in a way that doesn't make me furious with them.

I'm listening to John Coltrane and Johnny Hartman right now, and it's making me want to cry.  Oh my word.  It's so hauntingly beautiful.

Reflections from the internet this week

Sometimes I am reminded  that Jesus calmed the raging sea

and I remember that my heart is a lake

a sea that has been raging for months

with storm clouds and sea monsters

and the rare days when it is calmer, the gray clouds still dapple the surface.

Sometimes I remind myself that those I love and do not know

are people with feelings and fears and loves of their own

that they can touch my life in deep and unexpected ways

and I have a welling desire to reach out and touch theirs back.

Sometimes I remember that the words I say,

I give to others, an offering of myself

a way of saying thanks for living my life with me

for sharing the same air,

for smiling at me in the morning when I'm not ready to say hello to you yet.

I remember that life doesn't have to feel like I'm struggling to stay on top of a wild animal,

like I am barely in control of a living, bucking thing.

I am reminded of peace.

Thank you for your words.

Joy on a Monday

I found out earlier in the evening that my favorite author of all time, Robin McKinley, became a Christian two months ago.  Like, for real crazy conversion experience.  And the amount of joy that this news gives me is incredible.  Like I have no words, and all the words that I have tried to use to explain it to people all fall short.  I've been reading her daily blog for about a year now, and it's like I know her.  I know all about her hobbies and her dogs and the things that annoy her and the things that make her happy, and I know how she thinks, how her brain works, how she strings words together to create stories and tales.  And the way her brain works is so similar to mine sometimes.  Because of the weird world of the internet, I love this stranger who lives thousands of miles away and is forty years older than I am.  And now she has a for real personal relationship with the God that I know personally as well.  And I'm so happy about this.  :D

Hello November

So I've given in, and I'm kind of doing NaNoWriMo this year.  But not completely, because I'm working on the story I started last year, and only got about 25% through.  So yeah.  That's happening.  And I'm actually enjoying it quite a bit.  I went back and read what I had written, and yeah there are rough spots, and words that I need to change.  But overall, I like it.  Which, has only happened once or twice to me.  That is, liking something I had written a year after I had written it.  It's like, not horrible writing.  But yeah, I'm kind of insane for doing it.  I'll probably fizzle out, but even if I do, I'll still have gotten farther than I was a couple days ago.