Chem-Zombie Kate Has Style

This started out safely: I was wearing the pink nightgown while doing chem homework. Then my roommate's boyfriend came over, so I threw on some pajama pants to cover my legs. Then it got a little brisk, so I put on some slippers to warm my toesies and a sweatshirt for my upper-half. I didn't realize the insane fashion sense of chem-zombie Kate until just now when I stood up to stretch after many hours of wearing this ridiculous getup.

3am... only 8 hours until the test. The night before any upper-level college exam (or paper deadline) is unlike anything I've ever encountered elsewhere. It's not like I don't study ahead of time.. I definitely do. It's just that the amount of material I'm responsible for knowing is so huge that I couldn't possibly do a "quick review" of it all. So I spend a day or two before the exam neglecting other important things.

Examples:
1.) I cancelled the ECOS meeting at 6pm. What'd I do instead? Chem review. (okay, I technically cancelled the meeting because none of the other officers could make it... but still.)
2.) My radio show ("A Date With Kate") is on Wednesday nights at 10. I got a text from the station manager at 11:09 asking why I hadn't gone on air... My lame (but true!) excuse? I was so caught up in my schoolwork that I forgot it was Wednesday. Yes... I forgot.
3.) Instead of collecting my field data after my Conservation Bio class in 7 hours, I'm gonna run into the forest and check the game camera before class so I have time to study before the test.

But you know what? I'm finally getting all the homework problems right the first time, and that's kind of a big deal.

Blogables

Stargirl

Hello, blogosphere! Long time no see!

Yesterday was nice. I woke up late and found my mother downstairs, going about her business with a large babydoll attached to her hip. She informed me that it was my new sibling, whose gender still remains a mystery. It looks like a medieval cross-dressing infant.. I think we'll name it Taylor or Sam lol.

I spent the day wearing a floor-length silk nightgown, which made me feel simultaneously older and younger, and re-read one of my favorite childhood books, Stargirl. It's about this luminous teenaged girl who spends her time making gifts for strangers, cheering for both teams during football games, and playing "happy birthday" on her ukelele to people in the school cafeteria. I wanted to be just like her when I was a kid.

Later in the evening, I went to a WatersEdge-related gathering to hear Miles talk about spiritual leadership. It was exciting for me, and I can't wait to implement the things I learned. Afterward, the grace-full Annie Morgan and I spent some time outside a nearby coffee shop, talking about life and love and school and, of course, God. It was a much-needed breath of fresh air.

Night Court

Last night, my friend Ben had a poker night at his house. We wound up playing till about one, then throwing a frisbee and breaking into the neighborhood pool. I didn't know many people there, other than Ben and a few others, and I think my subconscious feeling of outcast-ness is the reason for the unusual dream I had last night:

I was with a group of strangers and, oddly, I was the only person who could speak. However, my companions could send me telepathic messages of what they were thinking. Sadly, all the things they were saying were very critical and negative. We were in some sort of worm-hole vacuum type of thing, and I was navigating the invisible vessel we were riding in (it had jelly-like walls that everyone would occasionally bump into). I knew where I was going, but everyone was sending me these mental signals of criticism and disapproval. Anyway, once I got us to our destination, all my shipmates had their vocal abilities restored and were praising me for my masterful navigational skills. It was a most unusual dream.

Then I woke up this morning and watched about 9 episodes from season 2 of Night Court.

Holy Moly

I can't believe it's already time to head back to school. I am fearful that the things I have nourished during my time away will quickly come undone. There is something about living at OU that robs me of my well-being. Perhaps its being separated from my friends/family... o... I don't know. Let's make it a good year.

I'm tired. I'll write more tomorrow.

Shine On

Truly, truly, I say to you

I woke up this morning at 7 o'clock and couldn't fall back asleep, so I decided to catch up on the most recent series of podcasts from Water's Edge. The series addresses some of the hard questions that Christians must face: how could a loving God send people to hell?; Why do bad things happen to good people?; and, the question that I have been desperately seeking answers to, Is the bible really God's word?

Ever since I became a Christian, I have had trouble believing in the credibility of the bible. My scientifically-trained mind just finds too many potential flaws in the circumstances which I perceive to have produced our current array of translations, (for instance: God is perfect, humans are flawed, and there is no way flawed humans could correctly portray God's intentions; when the manuscripts were canonized we lost a lot of material, material which should qualify as part of God's word, but may be lost forever; certain authority figures who, when deciding what was to be included and excluded from the canon, may have had some of their own interests in mind with the intent of controlling the masses, etc. the list is never-ending and ever-destructive.)

For the past eight months or so, my biblical criticisms have slowly peaked to a point where I knew that no amount of faith would satisfy my intense need for logic. I've prayed many times for God to send me someone who could give me answers. And then there was Miles. To put it briefly, Miles' talk addressed all of my questions and gave me unbelievable evidence for the credibility of the bible. The fact that over forty people, whose circumstances span the breadth of time, culture, class, age, and location, have reported the exact same stories... and that there are literally thousands of reliable documents detailing the origin and authenticity of these manuscripts... these are things that led me to deeply threaded tears of joy. I cannot believe it! The whole world seems new to me in light of all this. I can now read these stories knowing that they have not been created by some medieval priest planning to exercise control over the people by enforcing ignorance. To long-time Christians I may sound like a heretic... but for me this is hallelujah.

I read the second half of Luke and all of John today. I can't wait to keep going.

Shine bright,
Kate

the manliest tattoo ever

Tonight was fantastic. Allie and I attended a Masquerave hosted by some of her friends from work (she's the lighting director at Medieval Times and her co-workers are all badass). Afterwards, we went to Allie's house where we ate quesadillas and drank jasmine tea with Tyler, Crissy, Tanya, and Tommy. Yet another night of refreshing friends. I'm too tired to write down all of the fun things we talked about! Maybe tomorrow... I'm trying to convince Tyler to wake up early(ish) to go to the paper store with me.. he doesn't seem interested.

I'll leave you with the manliest tattoo on earth. It's a man punching through an alligator, stepping on an octopus, holding a bear in a headlock, getting attacked by a shark, and killing a man with his teeth:



Shine on,
Kate