That last entry was supposed to be finished that same day. You all know how organized I am, but I won't be posting for days if I wait to get it all sorted out, so just allow me this one eclectic phase.
I finally finished my Keystone Project last night—two weeks after it was due. Tanya submitted "a good faith A" last week, so my GPA actually went up a bit from the low point I hit last fall. I'm so proud; it's the closest thing to a book I've ever done. Six stories in two years may not sound like a lot, but considering my lifetime volume, that is
huge. You want to read it? I'll get back to that soon.
I've been listening to a Christian radio station since I've been home, WGTS 91.9. They have very few commercials, and the music is good, so I like it. Just the other day, when I was rinsing my hand-wash-only clothes, I had the radio turned up so I could hear it across the hall in the bathroom. I thought I heard something that sounded like Switchfoot—and it was! I never thought I'd hear "This Is Your Life" on the radio, since it's from
The Beautiful Letdown, but I totally did. That was a great radio moment. It was even better than the moments when I heard songs I know from
WOW 2006, so I could immediately sing along.
Every now and then, we get other people's mail. I don't know why. If you had a magazine subscription you paid for, wouldn't you change the address so you could keep getting it? Anyway, my dad finally just gave up and offered me the copy of
Blender that came last week. I finally decided to flip through it. After being quickly put off by the cigarette ads, I stumbled across an article on Aly and AJ. For those of you that are not Disney Channel aficionados like yours truly, Aly and AJ are a sibling singing duo. They're blond, they're Christian, they're homeschooled, they're on the Disney Channel. The article was actually pretty good. I'd wondered if they'd manage to get through it without cursing, and they did. You can tell the editors aren't big on the girls' particular style, but it was only a little biased.
We finished Shakespeare class by reading "Coriolanus." Never heard of it? Neither had I, until I saw it on the syllabus. And then it turned up as a
Jeopardy! clue. Go figure.
I had to give up blog-hopping when school got rough, so when I went back to read some archives, I found a gem of a post about
Bible translation and the Catholic lectionary. The gist of it is that well-known apologist Jimmy Akin heard a horrible translation in one of the readings during Advent. I happened to lector that week; I read it for the tv Mass with Fr. Bill last semester. I had the good version, apparently. This reminds me of two things. First: I have read Psalm 23 at Mass several times. I've noticed that, although the lectionary is based on the NAB, the responsorial setting for Psalm 23 is not. The key is that the lectionary version is so much more beautiful. So why are we using the substandard translation in
Mass, the main prayer of the Church? Why, when it gets as embarrassing as Abraham calling out "Ready!" to the angel in that reading from Genesis? Second: I heard that they were developing a lectionary based on the RSV:CE (think KJV, only Catholic, and without most of the -th's). Last I heard, it wasn't approved for use at Mass, but the USCCB is meeting this month. They're discussing a new translation of the responses for Mass (e.g. "The Lord be with you." "And with your spirit" instead of "And also with you"). Who knows what will happen?
The Holy Father was recently in Poland. I read a little about it in some blogs and the
Catholic Standard. In the article from
About Catholicism, the end stuck out:
Polish ice cream and alcohol will be banned during the Pope's visit. Poland is concerned that ice cream that spoils will cause a health risk to visitors. Pope John Paul II used to enjoy the flavor marron glacé. He would have tubs of it delivered to his summer home.
In addition to ice cream and alcohol being banned, certain commercials are banned as well. Commercials for alcohol, contraceptives, tampons, and lingerie will not be aired during his stay. Bans like this were in place when Pope John Paul II was in town.
I didn't know they could do that. The ice cream thing doesn't make sense at all. Apparently, visitors during all other times of the year can eat all the ice cream they can find, but not while the pope is there. Granted, many people wouldn't visit Poland except to see the pope. The ban on commercials is a little odd. They can still sell all those things, they just can't flash them on the tv. Maybe it's to keep footage of the pope from appearing with those commercials . . . but again, what's to stop them from that juxtaposition every other time they show him on tv?
I came across an article on black marriage from the
Washington Post—oddly enough, in a Catholic apologetics blog. Anyway, it was fascinating. The title alone drew me. To read it, Google "Marriage Is For White People" and hit the I'm Feeling Lucky button to read it. That is a quote from the article, spoken by a boy who believes being a good father is important, but a good father? Not so much. It reminded me how much my worldview has been changing since I've gone back to church. The article didn't mention whether any of the people quoted are Christians, but, as you very well know, I am. That makes a big difference. Part of my response comes from where my faith has been built: the CSC. There are very few black people at the CSC. Maryland is a diverse enough campus for me (though not for my wonderful
desi friend Rajni), but I notice when I'm with CSC people and I'm the only black person in the room. Sometimes I'm the only nonwhite person. Truthfully, I don't let it faze me most of the time. The rest of the time, it does feel weird. At this point, I do not see myself marrying a non-Christian, maybe not even a non-Catholic, though I do love converts. (
Whether I get married is another issue entirely, as I've discussed before.) And then there's my thing for white guys. For me, either I get married and have children—in that order—or I don't marry. There are no other options. Ugh. I want the contentment of last fall to come back again. It's Pentecost today; Holy Spirit, help a girl out.
