Easter recap/A sad day
I've been meaning to write about Tridiuum at ND since Easter, but I haven't gotten a chance to yet, so here goes:
Holy ThursdayMass was at 5 pm so it was still light outside when we started. It was kind of cool because Thursday was a beautiful day, but when Mass was over the sun was setting and it got cloudy and windy and dark, just kind of a general feeling of "it has begun." Tenebrae at night was cool. It consisted of several "readings" only they were pretty much all sung. Sometimes the congregation joined in with responses, sometimes it was all soloists. It was a little long and "artsy" for my personal taste, but still pretty cool. Plus it started out in candlelight, and they extinguished one candle per reading, until there was one candle left. That candle they carried out into the foyer, and then we all got to bang really loudly on the pews (to simulate the earthquake at Christ's resurrection) until they brought the candle back. Definitely the funnest part of Holy Thursday.
Hmm, I'm noticing the time and realizing maybe I should continue my recaps later. Onto the next topic:
Wow, what a tough day for Catholics. May the soul of Terri Schiavo rest in greater peace than she had here on earth - and may God have mercy on our nation.
Pray for Pope John Paul II. The world will miss the presence of this truely holy man when God calls him home. I've never known another pope!
"This is why I don't go to South Dining Hall...
...my poor ego can't take the flip-flopping;" or "Jessica's story of the night:"
So I went to dinner tonight at South Dining Hall with Emily and Andrea, and two of Andrea's friends from back home (one who goes to ND and one who was visiting).
1. Andrea and Emily were trying to give me directions to our table, and I was getting confused by the complexities of "right, right" and "right, left" and Andrea asked me if this confusion over left/right was why I lost so badly at Twister. Ouch.
After finding my food amidst the controlled chaos that is SDH (fruit: front of cafeteria; salad: middle, veggies: back; butter: front; ketchup: side; dressing: middle; stop me when this starts making sense) I joined up with the other girls only to discover:
2. Andrea's friend Amy goes to U of St. Thomas in MN and even tho she's only lived in MN for seven months or so, she's firmly on the MN love train. She says she likes cold weather now and MN is awesome. Yay!
3. But then Andrea commented that only ice queens come from MN. Ouch.
4. And I ran into a friend who always goes to South who told me I needed to leave because I was on the wrong side of campus. Ouch. (but a joking ouch)
In the weirdest developement of the night, when Emily and I were walking out,
4. Some guy walking past told me, "This is my friend Andy, and he thinks you're cute, [something something mumble] jacket." I have no idea exactly what was going on, but we're going to give it a Yay! anyway. Especially because shortly thereafter, Emily and I were talking about how didn't know quite what this guy was talking about with my jacket, but she said to just run with the cute part of it. So I did, run with it that is. Only kind of in place. And evidentally
5. I looked so funny running in place that Emily couldn't help but laugh. Ouch.
So there you have it folks, my story of the night.
Also, some links:
- A good article on womanhood
- News about the shooting in Red Lake, MN (about 6 hours from my house, and a pretty tough area as far as I know. Still, the deaths of students is always tragic. Please pray for the families and survivors.
- And the latest updates on Terri Schiavo. Again, a situation where much prayer is needed.
Liberal Bias
The New York Times has a few articles today about the Terri Schiavo case, both of which are very biased against her. One is an
editorial about how the government should interfere in this case (in which Terri is described as "the 41-year-old woman who has been in a persistent vegetative state for the last 15 years, with her parents contesting that sad diagnosis"), although since it's an editorial I suppose it's ok that its biased. However, the other article made me mad, because its a perfect example of how underhanded this bias can be. The article
itself actually isn't
all that bad; it discusses the politics of the case more than the case itself. However, the headline was "The Medical Becomes Political for Congress." I have a real problem with the use of the word "becomes" in that phrase. It implies that this was an issue that was perfectly fine being left alone out of the political arena, but that Terri's parents and pro-life activists just keep dragging back into the spotlight. In this way, it kind of sounds similar to the abortion argument, just keep it between a woman and her doctor. The problem is that we accept that certain things are so wrong that the government has to deal with them. For example, anyone killing someone in the street should expect government "interference;" if there wasn't any, everyone would be very upset about it. We already have laws against euthanasia in this country - should we argue that that also should be an issue just for the patient and doctor?
Anyway, I have to get going and doing some schoolwork, so I'll cut my rant short. Please however continue to pray for Terri and that whole situation.
BTW, you might have to create an account with the New York Times in order to access the articles. Sorry.
Back at ND
Well, the two and a half hours I spent on two math problems today (!!!) just reinforced what I already knew: no more lazing around at home, I'm back at school! Break was nice, although not as eventful as fall break or Christmas break. I went skiing on Friday which was fun; Dad and Jake came too so it really felt like old times. We figured out that I've been going to the same ski place at least once a year since I was about 11. Not that that necessarily makes me any good at it... ;)
I also went to the Dayton's/Marshall Fields/Federated Department Stores
flower show. They should seriously go back to calling it Dayton's, because I fail to see the value of changing the name of the store every time they sell it. Anyway...the flower show was gorgeous as usual. The link only has one picture but maybe I can figure out how to post the ones that we took, after I get them from my mom.
The bus ride was rather slow this time. We left at 9:45 central time and got to campus at 8:30 eastern time. We picked up Emily (who lives down the hall from me) in Madison and then Chris and Andrea met us at the bus to help us get our stuff back to the dorm, which was really nice. (For the record tho, I
could have carried it all back. I wouldn't say I always travel light, but I consolidate things well ;) Then we just hung out until Mass, and continued our Sundays-in-Lent tradition of getting something sweet at Lafortune. A nice day, except for the whole 10 hours on a bus part.
Then came Monday morning...sigh. No, it wasn't all that bad getting back into things, but one of my classes was canceled so it wasn't a full day. But I am already looking forward to the weekend. :)
I so need to try this!
Does anyone out there have "Achoo syndrome?" From weatherbug.com's annoying little pop up forecast:
Question:“Why do you sometimes sneeze when looking at sun rays?”Submitted by:James and Elizabeth West (Newark, DE)
Answer:
I thought that this question was a joke until two colleagues in the WeatherBug Weather Center, Mark Hoekzema and Alan Petko, both told me that it’s real. Alan, who has the syndrome, directed me to the MedicineNet.com web site for the official definition of “Achoo Syndrome” (I’m not kidding, that’s the name of it):
“Achoo Syndrome is a disorder characterized by uncontrollable paroxysms of sneezing provoked in a reflex fashion by the sudden exposure of a dark-adapted subject to intensely bright light (like brilliant sunlight). The number of sneezes is usually 2 or 3, but can be up to 40.”
In 1964, H.C. Everette studied medical students at Johns Hopkins University and found that 23% of them had the syndrome. He also found that the inherited genetic trait that causes Achoo Syndrome is more slightly more prevalent in Caucasian men. Those that carry the gene have a 50% chance of passing it on to their children.
To test to see if you have the gene, wait until the next sunny day. Sit in a dark room for about 5 minutes, and then go outside into the sun. If you sneeze, you’ve got it!
Home again!
I'm back home in the superior state of the union (tm Matt) again, yay! I got in at about 1:45 central time, after a rather long bus ride. I guess technically it was the standard 9 hours but it seemed to drag this time. I haven't done a whole lot so far, especially seeing that not many of my friends are around, sigh. I went to
Net Mass again, which was awesome as usual. Although it was kind of strange too, because everyone was younger than me. And we knelt on the bleachers during Mass, so the argument that it's too difficult to kneel on the floor of my dorm's chapel...kind of bogus. Supposedly Bishop D'Arcy of Ft. Wayne (ND's diocese) recommended that for the sake of unity none of the dorms should kneel during Mass, because not all of them had kneelers. But we're all college students who can sleep on futons and stand up for four hours at football games - do we really need little cushions for when we kneel?
Wow, that was a random liturgical tangent.
Anyway, for your time-killing pleasure, here's an amusing
game involving penguins, courtesy of the IT guys on the sixth floor of Middlebrook Hall at the University of Minnesota.
Penguins make me think of Minnesota weather, which I'm pleased to report is a balmy 72 degrees. I'm going to change into my bikini now.
Aw, you all knew I was joking because, right, like I own a bikini. It is however 60 degrees outside, so I'm definitely heading out and enjoying it while I can.
Missing Bush
Well, the big news on campus (besides that whole minor spring break thing) is that Pres. Bush is coming to speak on Friday afternoon. He's actually really visiting South Bend more the ND, and he's talking about Social Security, but ND was the only open location big enough to support an event like this, so he's coming here. Unfortunately only 200 tickets were available for students, and I didn't get a winning lottery ticket for that drawing (over 1500 students entered). Turns out I wouldn't have been able to go anyway, because he's speaking at 4:45 and that's the same time my bus is leaving for MN (yay!). I thought maybe roads and things would be closed but I guess the bus will still be able to get onto campus, so we'll leave at our planned time, arriving back home at the lovely hour of two in the morning. Which actually, is no longer so late for a Friday night.
I've had very little homework these past few days, it's been a welcome break as compared to last week, although I feel a little guilty being so relaxed around all these stressed out people. Tonight we're pretending it's Friday night. There's a concert of all the a capella groups on campus and then the ISI (Iron Sharpens Iron) prayer group. I'm always told I should go to that, quite a few of my friends usually go, but I never quite make it. After that...who knows?
But in...umm...about 38 hours I'll be back in Minnesota!!
