Story game?

Who wants to go on a story adventure with me???

So here's the idea:  We do a "play by post" sort of story-telling adventure.  Any one of us can post.  In your posts, write a little piece of a story!  Describe the world around you, describe what happens to us, and describe your own actions.  Describe other Franciscans' actions sparingly, however.

I'm not sure yet what world it is.  It could be our own world.  It could be an alternate world.  It could be Narnia.  :)  Nor am I sure yet what the first conflict is.  Whoever decides first wins.  :)

As for our characters... we are all, roughly, ourselves; but we don't have to always act exactly like we would in real life.  Furthermore, we have... special powers!  ^__^  Specifically, we're all shapeshifters!  Remember the clay animals Megan gave us first year?  At will, you can change into your animal (except life-size and real) and back!  So Sarah and I are black cats; etc.

Rachael, did Megan ever give you an animal?  If not, either Megan or you can pick an animal and go from there.  :)

Megan, there are two options.  Pick what you want.  A)  You can pick an animal for yourself and stick with it.  OR... B)  I think it might be fun to make you our master shapeshifter... in which case you can shift into the form of any clay animal you've ever made (except real).  I would enjoy seeing what you did with your superpower.  ^__^

So who's with me???

A Good Day

I already posted some status updates on Facebook about my wonderful day; but I'm going to tell the story here.  God blessed me today.  :)

So it was just last Sunday that the crippling part of my grief for all of you passed and I realized that I was excited about, well, doing things again.  This has been carrying over, and I started reflecting vaguely on how I was going to spend my time... this semester's pretty light for me, 13 units... I wondered about getting a job... I've pretty much depleted my spending money... so I was pondering whether I should do some looking, but I didn't want to grab anything with crazy hours.

Well, when I woke up this morning, I got online and went to my USC inbox.  The first thing I saw was an e-mail from a professor.  He said that he is teaching EE 357, Basic Organization of Computer Systems, this semester.  I took that class last semester from my favorite professor, Professor Redekopp, and loved it.  This professor said that he was looking for a grader and had my name recommended to him by Prof. Redekopp.  There are 23 students in the class, so it's not some intense 100-student GE - if I were to have chosen a number, I would have probably said low 20's.  I think most of you know I graded for Circuits two years ago, and I loved it.  Ever since I've been interested in a grading job, but I didn't know where to look at USC.  Since USC has a large graduate program, normally graduate students wind up doing the grading.  So this was a totally unexpected, unsolicited, but much appreciated job offer out of the blue.  I sent an excited reply immediately, and almost immediately I got a reply back.  Just like that, it looks like I have a job.  I just need to e-mail a secretarial-type person and meet with the professor on Monday to find out the details.

Well, then I looked at my next e-mail.  Professor Redekopp had sent out an e-mail about a week ago telling all the former 357 students that he was looking for an undergraduate student to help him do research on system architecture and how it affects energy usage.  So far it sounded very exciting to me... I had been thinking about wanting to take advantage of the research at USC but didn't know where to look to join in... and the topic is interesting to me, and as aforementioned, Prof. Redekopp is far and away my favorite professor at USC, someone I would love working with.  But his e-mail said he needed the student to know Linux and Apache, skills I do not possess, so I regretfully did not answer the e-mail.

But this morning, I got a personal e-mail from Prof. Redekopp, asking if I had gotten his earlier e-mail and if I was interested - and if I would be interested in learning Linux and Apache.  *cue excited squeals and floating on a cloud all day!*  So in other words... even though I don't already have the skills, he's willing to take me on to help him with his research while I learn Linux and Apache... which are very useful skills for an EE major anyway, things I was thinking it would be good to learn!  And so I have a chance to do research this semester!

So even though it might be pushing crazy... I think I will be accepting both of the joyous proposals I woke up to.  It'll be work, but I do have more time than normal, and, well, they're just so perfect!  Such gifts!

Then I, you know, got up and went about my day.  Did some homework.  Went to class.  All that good stuff.  In between classes, I had to work on a partner project for one of my classes.  Different sections are due at different times, but it's all this weekend or Monday, so if I didn't finish, I was going to have to drive back tomorrow to work on it.  But my schedule is such that I don't have to go to school tomorrow otherwise - I have a couple optional discussion sections on Friday, but I'm comfortable in those classes so far.  Well, I finished the project just ten minutes before class - another gift.

In the hallway just after working on that project, on my way to class, I ran into Prof. Redekopp!  This was the first time I have seen him this semester; it's not like it's an everyday thing.  Big campus, you know.  He said he got my e-mail and asked me what I thought about it; I told him I expected I would do both.  (I had thanked him for the recommendation for grader along with telling him I was interested in the research.)  He asked if I really thought I could do that and I said I thought so because my schedule was light this semester.  He asked, "Really?  I heard you were taking both 454 and 457 this semester," which showed more knowledge of my affairs than I had expected.  :)  At which point I rapidly explained that I only had 13 units and my other two classes were easy, and he nodded, smiling, and we hurried off in our separate directions.  :)  But that was yet another nice thing, a gift from God.

Finally, this evening was the first day of choir practice for the season at church.  I drove over straight from school and got to sing.  Of course I know I love choral singing; but sometimes I forget just how much.  And we're singing some amazing songs.  If the rest of my day had been a bust, that could have picked me up a long way.  As it happens, it wasn't a bust.

So that was my exciting day.  And now it is quite late and I should get some sleep.  Tomorrow I will try to get ahead on homework and chores - so that I can have lots of time to do my JOB! and my RESEARCH! and sing in CHOIR! next week.  ^__^

-Melanie

Reflections on Resurrection

In early July, my family read a book aloud together. I was the only one who had not read it before and after finishing it once through with them I immediately read it two more times on my own and once aloud with Brett. If you have not read The Great Divorce by C.S. Lewis, go read it now before you even finish this post because it is that good.

In his book, Lewis writes in first person as a character living inside a story of the eternal choices people make between life and death. Some choose death over life because they do not wish to give up something or someone they hold more precious than God himself. As Traherne commented in his Centuries of Meditations, It is not that they love other things too much, but that they do not love the things they desire enough and they do not love God. A weak and decrepit passion can only become wholesome and true when it is first killed and resurrected in submission to Love.

I had the opportunity in early August to be a camp counselor for my sister's high school youth group. As the youth pastor had difficulty finding willing volunteers, I was the only leader of eleven high school girls. I was definitely intimidated. My sister was with me, of course, and she reassured me that this particular group was going to be more interested in me braiding their hair than in serious conversation. The topic for the week was "Growing up in your faith" as in 1 Peter Chapter 2. These girls took to a moderate Torrey style discussion with ease. And what should they talk about with me but the idea that every choice you make between sin and good is a matter of life and death and that the Christian life is not merely a part of life on earth, but is life itself. I was blessed beyond possible description by their openness and their serious thoughts and at how God had used parts of The Great Divorce to help me minister to them, half of whom were strangers to me before that week.

Everything that has been circulating in my head about this book climaxed beautifully, when God gave me an opportunity to be baptized just a few days ago. When I was growing up, I attended a church that held the attitude that physical symbols like water baptism and the Eucharist were not only completely unnecessary but tended to distract from the things they point to. Though we left this church right before I graduated from high school, I came to adopt this perspective myself. But, when I came to Torrey and read Calvin in our On Knowing God semester, my opinion on the subject promptly changed. I have been waiting for the past two years for an opportunity to be baptized and the church my family is now going to is, ironically a church plant from the church we used to attend, holds a very different view of baptism. The pastor who baptized me and my siblings this past Saturday, along with my dad, ended up being my sister's youth pastor, who had asked me to come and be a counselor for the high school girls at camp.

As I reflect on the unity of the events of this summer, there is a theme that emerges. Death coming to life. I accepted Christ when I was four years old and can truthfully say that I was given such grace that I never questioned my faith, at least not until we read Nietzsche. God has used this summer to re-teach me the gospel and I am glad for it, because I believe it is a story I will need to hear over and over again for the rest of my life.