7 Quick takes: Lessons in Trust

--- 1 ---

This semester, I am taking three philosophy classes, one honors humanities class, and the capstone honors class, which is basically a seminar about memory. Needless to say, I have a lot of reading to do. This takes up most of my time.

--- 2 ---

When I'm not doing my homework (or, let's face it, playing on the internet) I am doing one of either two things. One is participating in study sessions for comprehensive exams, which are at the beginning of March and can cover anything and everything we've learned.

--- 3 ---

The other is job hunting. Kevin and I are probably both going to get jobs for next year, although he may get an MA in theology first, depending on funding. We are very much hoping to stay in the area, and I have a good solid lead on a job. (Prayers or fingers crossed or well wishes or whatever your expression of choice would be greatly appreciated.)

--- 4 ---

I can't find it in my heart to stress out about any of these things. For a long time now, I've been an untrusting person. When I started to pray for trust, I was handed all these opportunities to develop my trust: about to enter the workaday world without a job, engaged to someone else without a job, preparing for comps without the greatest foundation due to having taken some courses out of order, and so on. In any previous semester, I would be a basket case.

--- 5 ---

A few months ago, though, I was talking to a friend, and I said, "Well, I guess this is God teaching me to trust Him." It was out of my mouth before I even knew I was going to say it. As my friend said, "Wow, that's a good way to look at it," I was thinking Wow, yeah, that is a good way to look at it!

--- 6 ---

So far, this seems to be working. When I am calm, I am better able to study for comps. I have a good lead on a job that works very well with my long-term plans, which basically fell into my lap. (I'm not announcing it publicly in case things fall through last minute.) Many people were concerned that being so trusting would mean nothing got done, but so far this hasn't happened. A priest I know said in his homily on Wednesday that there's a fine line between Pelagianism and quietism, and I think this is equally true here.

--- 7 ---

I have found where I want to be on that continuum. Much as Descartes embarked on a project of radical doubt, I'm embarking on a semester of radical trust. We'll see where the road takes me this year, but I have no doubt that it's in God's hands and that He will provide.

For more Quick Takes, visit Conversion Diary!

Most Posts of 2013

Amongst Lovely Things is having a link up! There are five categories:

• Post with the most clicks
• Post with the most comments
• Post with the best picture
• Post that was hardest to write
• Post that was your personal favorite (not your readers' favorite- your favorite)

Here are my answers:

• Post with the most clicks

My post of seagull pictures got over 500 views. I am not really sure why or how that happened, but there you go. It all happened in the last week, so either someone is sharing that post like crazy, or it's one of those spammer hacks that jack up your page views in the hopes that you will click on your link.

• Post with the most comments

That would definitely be μετὰ λόγου. Nine whole comments, you guys!

• Post with the best picture

Um, by whose standard? This is probably the best picture on the blog. It's also the tree I got engaged under, although I did not know at the time that it was going to be that special. But the eighth photo in this post, of the seagull eating the dead bird, is my favorite picture.

Hey, I should take a poll. Which photo should be my header? The tree or the bird?

• Post that was hardest to write
• Post that was your personal favorite (not your readers' favorite- your favorite)

These are the same post: my farewell post to Maggie. I struggle to put my thoughts into words if what I am trying to write about can't be put into a syllogism. That post took me a long time to write, but I think it turned out well.

Head over to Amongst Lovely Things to join the link-up!

Seagulls

I have been having a good few weeks. Life has slowed down enough that I am no longer going insane. Although I am not budgeting scrupulously, I am managing to save while having enough spending money to enable me to buy coffee and the occasional milkshake.

However, there's not much that's very interesting to blog about! So instead, you will get some pictures I took at the beach a few months ago. There were other pictures, mostly of people, but I hesitate to post pictures of people on the open internet.

 I love photographing birds. The beach is a really good place to do it, because there are a lot of birds, and not too many places for them to hide. The lighting can be a little tricky since the sun is so bright, though. Given that I tend towards the underexposed rather than the overexposed, I did not run into a lot of trouble!

 You can see straight through this guy's beak.

 Yes, sadly, that is our food. Or was.

 Did you know seagulls scratched themselves like dogs?

 A seagull feeding another seagull. I didn't realize they did this, and I wouldn't have expected to see it in September either.

Perhaps I'll do something more interesting one of these days.Perhaps I won't. We shall have to wait and see. Right now I'm pretty happy with the status quo of school, more school, work, and sleeping.

7 quick takes, volume 10

1. Thank you all for the prayers! The final diagnosis was an infection/inflammation of the intestines which my body was fighting off on its own. Therefore, no medical interventions were needed (except a pain drug which is illegal in the US. Ha.)

2. I am now on a temporary diet of easy to digest food. On a lactose and gluten-free diet, that basically means rice, applesauce, and carrots. Yay. However, I think it also includes Fanta, because soda is the easiest thing to keep down if you're sick to your stomach, so it must be easy to digest. And also the doctor left it up to my discretion how long I should follow this diet for.

3. A little over half the people in my program are going home this weekend, which is sad, especially since a lot of the ones I got along best with are leaving. But I suppose this is life, and I will make the best of it. I now have offers of free places to stay all over the US. Road trip, anyone?

4. We had a goodbye party yesterday. I was voted "most likely to have a dozen children" and Kevin and I were voted "most likely to get married."

5. We held our party at the Seepark, where there are so many waterfowl. Since it's summer, there were oodles of baby waterfowl. I saw baby coots, grebes, mallards, and one cygnet. Possibly also a nest of baby moorhens--they were red on top like moorhens, but it looked like a coot was taking care of them.

6. and 7. Pictures of baby birds!

 Not all baby birds are cute. Some look like space aliens.

 A baby coot watching while its parent dives.

 A mama mallard sitting on her babies.

 Coots have strange, strange feet.

 This poor cygnet. He is so clearly going through puberty.

 Baby mallard!

 I threw in this random sparrow for good measure.

 A grebe. They are hard to photograph because they don't stay on the water for very long.

 Two baby coots fighting over an apple.

A baby grebe. They're striped!

Head over to Conversion Diary for the rest of the takes!

Pretty, happy, funny, real

I've never done this before! I almost never have enough photos that would work. However, today I do, so here we go! The idea, which was created by the lovely ladies at Like Mother, Like Daughter, is to post four (or more) photos, one each for each of the words pretty, happy, funny, and real.

{pretty}

It's finally getting warmer here. These flowering bushes are on the way to the streetcar, and they are so pretty! Anyone know what kind of flower this is?

 {happy}

I do know what this is--it's a gray heron. I took advantage of a few rain-less hours to do some birdwatching, and this is the first bird that Kevin and I saw! It stood there forever, so I could photograph it as well as identify it.

{funny}

I mean, really, if you're going to graffiti a dorm, it *should* be in Latin. The highlighter wasn't a good choice, though. It's hard to read, and the transmission of your message is hindered.

{real}

This week, I have two reals:

I missed my brother's Confirmation because I was in Germany. So I made him a cake and celebrated anyway. Flourless chocolate cake, with strawberries to look like tongues of fire. It didn't occur to me until after it had already been decorated that a chocolate cake with white icing is maybe a bit more Lutheran of a metaphor than I was going for. Oh well.

My desk has the dubious honor of being my other {real}. Can you tell I'm trying to write a research paper? I did clean it up, but it already looks this bad again!