Psalm 127

This is a most excellent psalm for me when I get caught up in a book and do not go to bed at a decent hour. Also, it is especially good for me when I begin this new semester with its eight o'clock classes and long homework assignments.

It is a psalm of ascents and of Solomon.

Unless the LORD builds the house,
They labor in vain who build it;
Unless the LORD guards the city,
The watchman stays awake in vain.

That is for me as I work to "build my house" with education and work. It is a good reminder to my pride that I cannot do it myself.

It is vain for you to rise up early,
To sit up late,
To eat the bread of sorrows;
For so He gives His beloved sleep.

I think that is most beautiful: "For so He gives His beloved sleep". That is for when I cannot sleep and thoughts of various kinds run through my head, or when I am so strung up because of a book I just read or a movie I watched I cannot compose myself to sleep, or when I am worrying about a particular bit of homework due the next day that I was unable to finish that evening. He gives me sleep.

Behold, children are a heritage from the LORD,
The fruit of the womb is a reward.

Well, this one seems slightly harder to apply to myself at first glance, seeing as how I have no children. But I am one myself, so I can say I am a heritage and a fruit to my parents. Which is a good reason to keep in contact with them and to strengthen my relationship with them even when I am not around, because who ever heard of a heritage that wouldn't associate with you? It's not a proper heritage then.

Like arrows in the hand of a warrior,
So are the children of one's youth.

And of course, you shall be older when they grow up, so you will throw them better too. But only with the help of the Lord, as the first verse of this psalm implies. This is a verse my parents are fond of quoting to us older ones. They tell us that we are arrows who will go where God sends us. So I guess this is for me when I feel God leading my steps, or when I'm not sure where I am going. He is always leading my steps.

Happy is the man who has his quiver full of them;
They shall not be ashamed,
But shall speak with their enemies in the gate.

I think my dad is happy with having six of us. There is certainly no lack of amusement going on. But I suppose what it means is that he will be glad that he has so many arrows that will be shot at the enemy. But is it he or the children who will not be ashamed? Oh, well, I do not understand this piece as well. But perhaps it will be made more clear through the rest of this year.

The semester has ended

There is nothing left. I am done with the courses I have been working on for the past sixteen weeks.

And I am at home having fun!!!!!

Yes, I am. I made cookies yesterday and finished them today. I have watched some funny movies, danced with two sisters, wrestled with my brother (and beat him twice), ordered books online, changed baby's diaper, practiced juggling, folded laundry, and made a lot of noise.
It will be a good vacation. But I am getting excited about next semester's classes.

Pumpkin and Cheese

I forgot something else I wanted to post before going back to studying.

I had a most delicious dinner tonight: cheese and pumpkin filling sandwich.

Doesn't that sound just wonderful?

It was this way: Two of my roommates went out for dinner with family, one was busy else where, and the other was on a weird eating schedule caused by sleeping in too late. So I was left to my own devices.

I hunted around in the pantry and the refrigerator and spied a bowl of pumpkin custard (I'm calling it that because that is what it most resembles. It was really that the roommate who made it ran out of crust when making pie, and just poured the leftover filling in a bowl and cooked it). So I seized it and took my cheddar cheese along too. I had already pulled out my bread. I sliced the cheese and laid it on one half of my sandwich. Then I put the two slices of bread into our toaster oven. When the cheese was melting, I pulled the bread out, slapped some pumpkin stuff onto the side with the cheese and closed the sandwich with the other piece of bread. It was really good even though our toaster oven toast bread in a most unusual uneven pattern.

My blog

I am supposed to be looking over my first physics exam in preparation for my upcoming final, but instead I am procrastinating. I have been indulging in that rare but interesting pastime called "blog-hopping".
After seeing many pages written by many people I did not know about the many things going on in their lives, I began to wonder about my own blog. If some stranger decided to go blog-hopping and accidentally landed on my blog, would the afore-mentioned stranger find my posts interesting or part of another long line of blogs that talked about things and events and people unknown to those outside of a limited reading circle.
I am afraid the last couple posts at least would not attract any hopping stranger. Too bad.
Perhaps I can do better by posting more things about physics or strengths of materials or other things like that. Those would be different. They would not be apologies to friends and family for not writing in a long time, or brief paragraphs about how busy the writer is, or long paragraphs describing every detail of their lives and pictures to illustrate as well. For indeed, this is mostly what I ran into in my little excursion.

Ah well, now I must leave and be good. Keep tryst for the finals!

The third floor

This is rather random, but funny.

One of my roommates and I are going to be looking for a new apartment for next year. So we've been discussing the things we need to look for. My roommate has sensitive sinuses, so it is important that the house is mold free (or at least as close as possible to being so). That is really the biggest concern, but we have smaller issues that can be compromised if necessary.

But one thing is decided. We cannot live on the third floor apartment of any house. The second floor is possibly pushing it, but can be worked with. The reason is that neither of us are quite strong enough to carry the TUBA up and down all those stairs every week for band. My roommate has been going to band since she was a freshman and her tuba is quite respected and loved. But it is rather heavy.
Fortunately, her sister's fiance lives downstairs at the moment, so he has been carrying it down and back for her these past several years. But since her sister is getting married in the summer, they will be living in their own house and not under us.

Our solutions to this are as follows:
We can only live on the third floor of a house if: We find some very nice guys to live in the downstairs apartments who are willing to carry the tuba for us,
or
we find some guy so dedicated to band, that he will even come to specifically bring the tuba up and down the stairs (but we're doubtful of finding someone of this sort or of quite trusting his intentions if we did),
or
my roommate finds a boyfriend who also goes to band (so I don't have to hang out with him while waiting for her to come back),
or
I get a boyfriend (so he will still be around when my roommate comes back from band - presumably doing homework with me).

So those are our conditions to living in a third floor apartment. If we hope to fulfill any of these, we're going to have to work hard these next couple weeks before our actual housing hunting begins. Or we could just not live in any third floor apartments.

Nothing yet

I have not yet posted any reviews or anything. I have had too many exams.
But I shall work on them after my last two exams before finals.

Also, I wanted to share the good news with you all. The trailer for Prince Caspian is released online!!!! You can watch it at NarniaWeb.
I have restrained myself, and shall not watch it until after my physics exam this evening. It shall thus be a little treat for afterwards and insure that it does not interfere with my study time.

HURRAY FOR PRINCE CASPIAN!!

Wednesday again!

It is that day when I have on my to-do list "blog something interesting". I always hope to have something interesting when I do go to post. Sometimes I do and sometimes I don't.

But today, I do have something interesting. I want you all to go read Annie Fellows Johnston's books, at least as many as you can. They are most excellent. I am in the middle of one about Mary Ware.

I must now leave for work (that work which I do on Wednesday afternoons in a professor's lab). But perhaps I shall expound more later on why I believe these books to be so wonderful. Or maybe, better yet, I shall write a book review.