Our Five Minutes

“One belongs to New York instantly, one belongs to it as much in five minutes as in five years.” -Thomas Wolfe

We got off the bus in the afternoon and walked through the rain, luggage in tow, about 15 blocks to Ellen’s apartment on the upper East Side. On the way NYPD, seeing our pillows, thought it was funny to make references to “sleepovers” (helpful). Ellen lives a true New York city 20-something existence. Her apartment is built above businesses, and she walks up 5 stories of narrow dingy stairs to arrive at her 800 square feet apartment. I loved it except for the stairs which Hannah pronounced would give Ellen “good butt muscles”. Once we dropped our bags, we decided to get the tourist-y part of our trip done with and went to Times Square, saw Chicago and subwayed it to NYU to take a walk around Greenwich Village. Our goals for this trip would be different from previous trips to New York and included:

1) Find the best New York City pizza (where the locals chow)

2) Go to a show

3) Go to Redeemer church (since we just spent $20 to see Tim Keller speak at the National Cathedral, how about going to see him for free?)

4) Find a local Irish Pub

5) Picnic at Central Park

6) Find great local coffee shop

7) Walk. And walk and walk and keep walking- the best way to explore anywhere.

After the Village we made our way to Paddy Reilly’s on Second Ave. and 29^th. I don’t know what it is about Irish pubs that fascinates me, especially because I’m not big on the bar scene in general and Guinness specifically, but I adore pubs. There is something so warm about them; their dark mahogany stools and brass bars offset the slightly less sophisticated group of adult men in the corner belting out their best rendition of the Pogues’ Fairytale of New York. But I love the belters too, with all their drunken gusto and the fact that this is the only place adults can have sing-alongs. It never takes long to make friends in a pub. Tonight we met an interesting cast of characters: Private Catholic all boy’s school graduates who had all grown up in New York, gone on to Ivy League schools and graduated top 5%  of their classes and were now back to reunite and catch-up over drinks at their local pub (no worries, plenty of self-deprecating Dead Poets Society jokes were made). All of them had jobs (and the business  cards and sweater vests to prove it) that sufficiently impressed Hannah and I- a banker in Dubai, an architect in New York, and one black sheep who graduated top 5% from Harvard and decided to teach for Teach for America in New Orleans. He claims to love it despite the girl fights and occasional instance of finding bloody weave left on his classroom floor. The teacher happened to be the nephew of the lead singer of the band that night. Luckily this meant that Hannah and I could convince the band to re-play Galway Girl (which we had missed) so we could all sing (read: shout) along. This group was fun and surprised us with their asking us to dance pre-third Guinness. So we did. We all looked like idiots, doing something resembling western barn dancing, swinging each other until we were dizzy and doing our best River Dance impressions. One of them shouted out “Not bad for a guy who didn’t even take cotillion!” Not bad at all. A couple of hours later the two of us left, got back to our apartment and recovered for the next day.

(continued in next post).

 

Go forth…and change that.

Sometimes ads are stupid. I saw these two just this week:

Descript-o: Excellent cinamatography, excellent poetry (Walt Whitman) about an excellent subject (escaping tyrrany, espousing freedom and democracy, freeing yourself enough to genuinly love life and nature).

So clearly we can apply that to today’s 20-somethings in order to sell them…jeans? When Whitman thought rebellion, did he really think a bunch of beautiful, symmetrically faced youths romping through forrests and rebelling against, what, wearing shirts? Or sensitive types gazing through waterfall vapors and pondering the various isms of their lives while refusing to wear any jeans but Levis? Doubtful. Go forth, Levi, and make yourself a less obnoxious add.

Stupid add numero two: I was listening to a USAA auto insurance add on the radio where they gave a testimonial from an 80 year old grandfather on his death bed. He was a former member of the Air Force, and as he lay dying he informed his kids that his life’s “greatest gift” to them was… their access to USAA auto insurance. Forget the fact that he raised them. Or that he served in the US military, likely saw combat or worked his way up to Lt. Colonel. None of that matters; but his membership to USAA insurance DID ensure that his adult children could have access to those accident forgiveness discounts. Yesssssss.

 

Scramble10.0

I’m about to share with you my most absurd teaching trick. You’ve got to keep it on the dl, however, because if this gets out, it will mean the end of my teaching career and I might have to get a job that pays me and only works me a standard 40-50 hours per week.

I call this one the “Scramble10.0.”

Step 1: I give the class a set of directions where they get out of their seats (typically partner work, group work, something that forces those awkward teens into the realm of sociability).

Step 2: I need them to return to their assigned seats for me to proceed with the lesson because if they are allowed to remain sitting by their friends, by the time I am done with my 7 minute lecture, they will probably have plotted 9 ways to burn down the school, had 2.5 sexual encounters and eaten their textbooks (I’ve seen it done).

Step 3: Yell over the collective conversational tones of a group of 25 18-year olds (roughly equivalent to the conversational tones of 100 Wall Street Stock Exchange employees) to quiet down and return to their seats.

Step 4: Repeate several times if necessary…it will be necessary.

Step 5: Now, here comes the trick. It is phenomenal the number of times in a day my requests for compliance in simple matters go completely unheeded. “Do you homework” I say to them. To which they reply, “No.” Same goes for “get out a paper and pencil,” “take out your textbooks,” “don’t say ‘co**-tease’ and ‘blue-balling wh*re’ while giving a class presentation,” “don’t sleep in class,” “don’t hit/pinch/kick the kid next to you, you’re 18 years old for goodness’ sake.” All ignored. Same goes for asking them to return to their seats. They sit there for another several minutes, look around lazily at their friends doing the same, look up at me, sit there still. Until…

“10.” That’s right, I said it. The single most powerful monosylable I have ever used. Immediatly they spring to their feet and begin the mad dash toward their seats, pulling and fighting their way before I reach the next dreaded syllable.

“9.” Ka-pow. “Hurry” they whisper to each other in rushed hushed tones. They know what’s coming next.

“8.” It’s like a silver bullet. By this time they are getting desperate. Chairs and desks screech across the floor as they desperatly manuever their way through the backbacks, jackets and weaker students littering the ground.

Here’s the amazing part: there is absolutely no consequence for them not reaching their seats by the time I reach “0.” I have never actually reached “0″ before, come to think of it. What, I ask, do they think is going to happen? Do they think the world is going to cave in on itself? They don’t do the tasks that do provide consequences for noncompliance: not doing hw earns them an “F,” other infractions result in the dreaded ISS or even real suspension. But when Miss Moore starts that countdown, man, it isn’t a game. You move like your mom’s life depended on it.

I don’t know what to make of all of this except to say I wonder what my real life “Scramble10.0″ might be-aka the unpleasant thing I always complete because I fear a consequence-when really there is none.

 

Pencils and brownies.

Reason number 28 I’ll probably be sued before my first year of teaching is over:

A kid asked me for a pencil he could borrow, to which I answered “No, I’m not your mom. Bring your own.” (This pencil/pen request denial helps them learn responsibility…it’s also saving me $1.5 million in pencil costs each year). The class followed this with the obligatory “Oooooooooh”- per usual.

Several minutes later the same kid had brownies delivered to him during class. I, as his teacher and one whose fingers bleed whilst grading his papers, whose eyes go numb after reading his short paragraph answers in the dark in the early morning hours and whose voice goes raspy after talking and teaching him the basics of how to write a sentence before going off to college, felt entitled to one of his brownies. I said, “Hey JD, give me a brownie.” I have found the direct approach works best with 18 year old minds.

His response:

“Miss Moore, I would give you a brownie. Except, you’re not my mom. I would give my mom a brownie.” Punk. Class response: “Ooooooooooh! He got you!”

Yes. Yes he did.

 

Oh yeah, I got a job. And a house.

I’m not proofreading this. I am one hypocritical English teach.

So…I obviously fell off the blog wave for quite a bit, and while I won’t make any promises to myself about how often I plan on updating in the upcoming months, I think the internet could always use a little more nonsense. So here’s my contribution:

I haven’t written lately because I got a job! A real adult, 9-5 (no, more like 7-3 plus after schools work) 40 hour a week (no, more like 60 hour a week) gorwn-up job (no, I may have cried once but I hear that’s less than average for a first year so I am pretty proud of that!) I am working in a high school teaching 12th grade English. It has been wild and tumultuous and glorious and I’ve thought seriously about quitting about 6 times and counting. I also come home and rave about my hilarious kids, the odd new high school trends (watch out America- soon we’ll all be wearing skinny jeans, 80’s neon and hopping around on 1 leg doing the dance known as “the jerk” in order to fit in with the cool crowds. I was first introduced to this when my students asked me if I was going to the “jerk-off” after school. You can probably imagine my intial reaction). I was pretty nervous about teaching 12th grade since they are practically my age… but it’s gone pretty well so far. Too many stories to write here, but here’s a brief version: I got practically no sleep my first month, I have the most supportive and helpful mentor and English department I could ask for and have been handed entire unit plans (very rare and appreciated!), been extremely challenged by a couple of girls with some BAD-ittudes (I forgot how mean high school girls can be!), been called an “immature b*****” by a 17 year old in front of class, kicked a student out of my class (I STILL can’t believe I did that! gutsy!) been asked out by a student (talk about awkward), turned him down, had students ask for my little sister’s number (turned them down too), helped my ESL students get a 100% on a test that most of my English speaking students averaged a C+ on by tutoring them after school, learned some Chinese and German from my ESL students, learned a ton about my kids high school lives and worries, helped my kids with their college essays, wrote my first letters of recommendation (I can’t believe I am on this side of things now!) and have gotten practive holding my tongue when I have gotten angry and wanted to act like a 23 year old instead of a teacher. I have also learned a ton about Medieval and Anglo-Saxon history and literature along with my students, since I am pretty unfamiliar with this stuff also! Luckily the next couple of units (Shakespeare and Romantic) I am a bit more familiar with. Anyway, I have watched myself become a complete workaholic, been called out on it and have stepped back. I honestly forgot about life for a couple of months there. I worked and that was it. I walked into a coffee shop once to keep myself awake, saw people reading papers and drinking coffee and talking to each other and thought “I forgot about this life thing!” So I stepped way back and have tried to chill some. I call my attempts to be less of a work perfectionist my “mission mediocrity.” My lessons don’t all have to be perfect and entertaining, I tell myself, and my English class soes not make up a huge part of my student’s lives, so it shouldn’t take over all of mine either. Whew. Tough lesson.

Besides that big change, another exciting change was my move into the big city of DC with Hannah. We absolutely love our apartment, spent weeks making it perfect (craiglist.com is the best the internet has to offer, seriously- it got us our apt and all of its furnishings down to our blender and toaster oven). We moved into the U street corridor which is the best part of town I think, situated right in next to Adam’s Morgan and Dupont Circle. We have loved discovering everything about this city. We moved in in October so now we are about 2 months in with 10 more to go. I cannot wait…more posts on what we’ve done so far will (hopefully, with any luck) be posted soon.

 

 

36/100- I’ve got some Reading to do

I got this as a facebook note- I beat the challenge but was a little disappointed in myself as someone who will be reading books for a living…

The notes in the parentheticals are mine so if you use this as a note you probably want to delete them

………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………

BBC believes most people will have only read 6 of the 100 books here. How do your reading habits stack up?

Instructions: Copy this into your NOTES. Look at the list and put an ‘x’ after those you have read. {edited to add: put a * next to those you’ve listened to on cd.} Tag other ‘Book Nerds’..

1 Pride and Prejudice – Jane Austen X    (Don’t put an X if you’ve only seen the movie…ladies…and Miguel.)
2 The Lord of the Rings – JRR Tolkien (can’t believe I haven’t yet…)
3 Jane Eyre – Charlotte Bronte X
4 Harry Potter series – JK Rowling X
5 To Kill a Mockingbird – Harper Lee X
6 The Bible X  (yeah this one is pretty good…)
7 Wuthering Heights – Emily Bronte X
8 Nineteen Eighty Four – George Orwell X    (YES!)
9 His Dark Materials – Philip Pullman *
10 Great Expectations – Charles Dickens (only 1/2)

Total: 8.5

11 Little Women – Louisa M Alcott X    (oh man, SO good- and the sequels are too and her other series Rose is great also)
12 Tess of the D’Urbervilles – Thomas Hardy (my Dad says this is the most depressing book he’s ever read, so no.)
13 Catch 22 – Joseph Heller  (been on my list since 6th grade, never got around to it)
14 Complete Works of Shakespeare (about 3/4 of them)
15 Rebecca – Daphne Du Maurier   (I have never heard of this??)
16 The Hobbit – JRR Tolkien
17 Birdsong – Sebastian Faulk (whaaaa??)
18 Catcher in the Rye – JD Salinger X    (ugh, if I could get those hours back I would. except now I refer to dreary self-important guys I don’t like as Holden Caulfield so it might have been worth the trade off)
19 The Time Traveler’s Wife – Audrey Niffenegger (this movie is coming out soon, I want to see it!)
20 Middlemarch – George Eliot

Total: 2.5

21 Gone With The Wind – Margaret Mitchell  (been on the list…)
22 The Great Gatsby – F Scott Fitzgerald X
23 Bleak House – Charles Dickens   (sounds…cheery. why so much Dickens on this list? We’re in a recession BBC! People are depressed enough already without Dickens).
24 War and Peace – Leo Tolstoy   (ok who has actually read this? I bet even the people who came up with this list haven’t!)
25 The Hitch Hiker’s Guide to the Galaxy – Douglas Adams
26 Brideshead Revisited – Evelyn Waugh   (I read another Waugh and wasn’t crazy about it, but my friend Ian recommended another book by him once, something about flags, so I’ll get to him again at some point).
27 Crime and Punishment – Fyodor Dostoyevsky
28 Grapes of Wrath – John Steinbeck X
29 Alice in Wonderland – Lewis Carroll (no X, I suck)
30 The Wind in the Willows – Kenneth Grahame  (does the Disney cartoon count?)

Total: 2

31 Anna Karenina – Leo Tolstoy X   (It was good but I’ve heard that some people think of this book as having so much merit that people should read it once per year. I won’t b/c 1) It is about 500+ pages and 2) It wasn’t that good- but maybe I’m missing something?)
32 David Copperfield – Charles Dickens   (Dickens…Dickens…)
33 Chronicles of Narnia – CS Lewis X
34 Emma-Jane Austen X
35 Persuasion – Jane Austen X
36 The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe – CS Lewis X
37 The Kite Runner – Khaled Hossein  (I’m guessing this is one of everyone else’s 6- but not mine)
38 Captain Corelli’s Mandolin – Louis De Bernieres
39 Memoirs of a Geisha – Arthur Golden
40 Winnie the Pooh – AA Milne   (hahaha, sorry BBC, I was too busy reading The Three Musketeers as a toddler to bother with Winnie the Pooh…)

Total: 5

41 Animal Farm – George Orwell X
42 The Da Vinci Code – Dan Brown X
43 One Hundred Years of Solitude – Gabriel Garcia Marquez X
44 A Prayer for Owen Meaney – John Irving
45 The Woman in White – Wilkie Collins
46 Anne of Green Gables – LM Montgomery    (ooooh man, these movies are great girl flicks. I should really read these. I haven’t even read them and I’m in love with Gilbert (not grape))
47 Far From The Madding Crowd – Thomas Hardy
48 The Handmaid’s Tale – Margaret Atwood
49 Lord of the Flies – William Golding X
50 Atonement – Ian McEwan  (I hate this story).

Total: 4

51 Life of Pi – Yann Martel X   (I’m reading this right now!)
52 Dune – Frank Herbert
53 Cold Comfort Farm – Stella Gibbons
54 Sense and Sensibility – Jane Austen X
55 A Suitable Boy – Vikram Seth
56 The Shadow of the Wind – Carlos Ruiz Zafon
57 A Tale Of Two Cities – Charles Dickens  (no more Dickens already! Ok, does seeing the Wishbone episode for this book count? I have very vivid memories of that one.)
58 Brave New World – Aldous Huxley X
59 The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night – Mark Haddon X
60 Love In The Time Of Cholera – Gabriel Garcia Marquez X  (I can’t remember if I’ve read this one of his or if I’m thinking of another, Marquez and his magical realism all runs together)

Total: 5

61 Of Mice and Men – John Steinbeck   (book list, the premise freaks me out though)
62 Lolita – Vladimir Nabokov 1/2   (BEAUTIFUL prose, but it’s basically pedophile porn so I felt too ick to finish it)
63 The Secret History – Donna Tartt
64 The Lovely Bones – Alice Sebold   (I hate this cover. The blue and the bracelet makes it look like a book you’d order out of Good Housekeeping so I probably won’t read it.)
65 Count of Monte Cristo – Alexandre Dumas  (best movie ever, I really want to read this)
66 On The Road – Jack Kerouac X   (I have a famous line memorized from this book…read it and you’ll know which one I’m talking about. *hint: roman candles)
67 Jude the Obscure – Thomas Hardy
68 Bridget Jones’s Diary – Helen Fielding  (haha this is a book???)
69 Midnight’s Children – Salman Rushdie (no but his other books are better I think. Except Fury which isn’t better except it’s about Padma from Top Chef so that’s cool).
70 Moby Dick – Herman Melville (argh! only Melville I haven’t read…weird-yes).

Total: 1.5

71 Oliver Twist – Charles Dickens  (this insistence on Dickens is bothering the dickens out of me)
72 Dracula – Bram Stoker (oh Stoker is out, Twilight is in (joking…))
73 The Secret Garden – Frances Hodgson Burnett X
74 Notes From A Small Island – Bill Bryson X   (see previous blog post. boo ya BBC!)
75 Ulysses – James Joyce    (yeah I’ll never read this or Finnegans Wake. Dubliners and Portrait are both good though. You just have to break him into sizable chunks to get through him).
76 The Inferno – Dante 1/2   (I just ordered another book from Sayers two days ago! I must be psychic. If by psychic I mean I can predict that this list will come out with the name of a book with an author whose other book was translated from Latin to English by an translator/author whose book I just bought. yes.)
77 Swallows and Amazons – Arthur Ransome   (I’ve never heard of this one or its author…But did CS Lewis name his character from his Space Trilogy after this guy?)
78 Germinal – Emile Zola
79 Vanity Fair – William Makepeace Thackeray

Total: 2.5

80 Possession – AS Byatt
81 A Christmas Carol – Charles Dickens     (AAAAAH! Ok I go see this one at Ford’s Theater every year and it’s awesome so I’ll forgive them this. But I’m beginning to suspect that someone at BBC is having an affair with Dickens…scratch that).
82 Cloud Atlas – David Mitchell   (never heard of this)
83 The Color Purple – Alice Walker X
84 The Remains of the Day – Kazuo Ishiguro   (?? and how do you say that name??)
85 Madame Bovary – Gustave Flaubert
86 A Fine Balance – Rohinton Mistry
87 Charlotte’s Web – EB White X   (EB White rocks)
88 The Five People You Meet In Heaven – Mitch Albom  (ok, it’s been on my list but have you ever read Tuesdays with Morrie?? Yuck. Sentimental B.S. And my saying that means it really is because I’m a movie crier and love sentimentality and sunsets- so scratch Albom if you’re heart is any harder than a wet washcloth b/c you’ll hate it).
89 Adventures of Sherlock Holmes – Sir Arthur Conan Doyle   (I saw this on Wishbone too…)
90 The Faraway Tree Collection – Enid Blyton

Total: 2

91 Heart of Darkness – Joseph Conrad
92 The Little Prince – Antoine De Saint-Exupery
93 The Wasp Factory – Iain Banks
94 Watership Down – Richard Adams
95 A Confederacy of Dunces – John Kennedy Toole
96 A Town Like Alice – Nevil Shute
97 The Three Musketeers – Alexandre Dumas X (when I was 10- I believe that earns me 10 pts)
98 Hamlet – William Shakespeare X
99 Charlie and the Chocolate Factory – Roald Dahl X
100 Les Miserables – Victor Hugo

Total: 3

Grand Total : 36

Only about 1/3?? Oh boy, I have some reading to do… I think the fact that I don’t like Dickens cost me here.  I do really like this list overall, though. Many of my favorite books are on here and I love that they included Louisa May Alcott (she’s overlooked way too often).  Here’s another list from Time that includes some good authors this list forgot- Faulkner, Didian, Updike…

 

4th of July

We sat so close to the works that "firework shrapnel" aka cardboard was falling all over us. Yeah front row seats!

My 4th was awesome! I got to visit Leah in Norfolk and see Harborfest, where all the ships come in to dock in VA Beach. It’s a big festival where they have fireworks and such. Leah and her sister Anna had a party at the place Leah was house/dog-sitting (for the dog who was too old to bark but showed her disdain for me by pathetically woofing at me all weekend) and then we all went out to watch the fireworks. We saw Mike too!

The next day it rained, but we braved it and headed out to see Dave Barnes play a really small show under a tent. We sat about 3 feet away from stage on these little couches that were the most bizarrely designed pieces of furniture I’ve ever seen. They were shaped like fish that sat on the ground and even though they were about 8 feet long only one person could sit comfortably in each-anyway that was weird but the show was tres cool.

Play Dave

Play.

 

CS Lewis= great.

Anyone who has talked to me for more than a few minutes knows that CS Lewis is my favorite author. Not very original, I suppose- ask any Christian for a short list of their favorites and he would be on it. Sometimes I take pride in liking things other people don’t like or that they overlook (it’s silly-it’s just a thing I have). So the fact that I am so pro Lewis while everyone else is also very pro Lewis means that, simply, he’s just that good.

So Lewis- I got to take a great class in college from my favorite professor that examined the supernatural beliefs of Lewis and the natural beliefs of Freud through their writings. (side note: I was in my professor’s office hours at the end of the semester and told him that part of the reason I wanted to take the class was to find something that I disagreed with Lewis about. I had read tons of his books and thought he was spot on about everything, and since he was human, he must be wrong about something. The class hadn’t helped me this way, I told my professor, I just agreed with Lewis more than ever! My professor laughed and told me a couple of things that he disagreed with Lewis on (my professor was also a Christian) but these didn’t help me; I sided with Lewis and against the professor on all of them.) I quote him constantly, which probably gets pretty annoying to the friends I have around me the most. I read his books and I weep. My copy of Screwtape Letters is falling apart, and I can turn to the pages I love the most because the binding is creased and the pages are a little dirtier.

These are the things that I love about his books:

1) When I read them I see things that I have felt to be true but never been able to articulate or express. I just watched this movie (it was bad so I won’t tell you the title lest you are tempted to watch it) but a literature teacher is telling his student about how the greatest thing about literature is this idea. That someone who you’ve never met can express an idea that you yourself have had, but have never expressed or heard expressed anywhere else. He said it feels like a hand is reaching out from the page and grasping yours. Putting aside for the moment how creepy that would actually be, I watched that and thought, “Yes. This is what I’ve always known about why books are so wonderful.” Lewis is one of the authors that makes it true.

2) I read them, and I want to know God as well as Lewis knows Him. I actually get jealous that Lewis knew my God that intimately and that I don’t yet! I think that we are/were most fascinated by some of the same attributes of God, like His mystery and the element of the fantastic that there is in Christianity. Sometimes you meet people who spur you on in faith, people who motivate you to be better and to love Him more, simply by doing it themselves. Lewis is like that. And he’s humble about it to boot.

3) Reading Lewis gives you that feeling of drawing up with someone in a cozy little room, warm drink in hand and fire lighted in the fireplace, and conversing about the shared most important topic in both of your lives. What’s best about it is that he’s teaching you, and he’s far superior intellectually and in talent, but he never makes you feel that way. Although he was capable of tremendous thought and could have gone esoteric on us, condescending or “intellectual” in the annoying sense, he brought his lofty thoughts down to our level and put them into language we could all understand. This is one of the reasons his works are so popular and enduring.

So tonight I was revisiting  part of Mere Christianity, and these are a few of the things that I found just in this short chapter called “Faith.” Enjoy.

Definition of faith: “Now Faith, in the sense in which I am here using the word, is the art of holding on to things your reason has once accepted, in spite of your changing moods.”

“The first step is to recognize the fact that your moods change. The next is to make sure that, if you have once accepted Christianity, then some of its doctrines shall be deliberately held before your mind for some time every day. That is why daily prayers and religios readings and churchgoing are necessary parts of the Christian life. We have to be constantly reminded of what we believe. Neither this belief nor any other will automatically remain alive in the mind. It must be fed. And as a matter of fact, if you examined a hundred people who had lost their faith in Christianity, I wonder how many of them would turn out to have been reasoned out of it by honest argument? Do not most people simply drift away?”

“No man knows how bad he is until he has tried very hard to be good. A silly idea is current that good people do not know what temptation means. This is an obvious lie. Only those who try to resist temptation know how strong it is. After all, you find out the strength of the German army by fighting against it, not by giving in. You find out the strength of a wind by trying to talk against it, not by lying down. A man who gives in to temptation after five minutes simply does not know what it would have been like an hour later. That is why bad people, in one sense, know very little about badness. They have lived a sheltered life by always giving in. We never find out the strength of an evil impulse inside us until we try to fight it: and Christ, because He was the only man who never yielded to temptation, is also the only man who knows to the full what temptation means- the only complete realist. Very well, then. The only thing we learn from a serious attempt to practice the Christian virtues is that we fail.”

“To trust Him, means, of course, trying to do all He says. There would be no sense in saying you trusted a person if you would not take his advice. Thus if you have really handed yourself over to Him, it must follow that you are trying to obey Him. But trying in a new way, a less worried way. Not doing these things in order to be saved, but because He has begun to save you already. Not hoping to get to Heaven as a reward for your actions, but inevitably wanting to act in a certain way because a first faint gleam of Heaven is already inside you.”

 

The Joys of Living at Home

Typical dinner conversation at the Moore household:

Elizabeth: Ok, I just have to say this. Seriously the only thing I remember from Ruthie K***** was that time she told me about how her parents didn’t wear underwear to bed. I used to go over to their house all the time, but the only thing I remember was her telling me that. Seriously, that kid was weird. I just couldn’t believe it. I was like 5 and I was like, “what?!?! None?” And I came home and told Sarah.”

Rachel: Ew! None?

Sarah (exiting the table and shouting back): Yeah I remember when you told me. We were totally shocked. Like, “what? That is so inconceivable. Wearing underwear to bed is what separates men from beasts!”

Dad: Where do you come up with this stuff? Underwear separates us from beasts? I thought it was our cutlery.

Mom: No, it’s our thumbs.

Rachel: Monkeys have thumbs.

Mom and Dad proceed to get into a serious discussion about how the ability to grab things is what separates us from the animal world.

Gotta love them.

 

JMU secret society-so good.

http://www.myonlykidding.com/2009/03/how-to-get-into-secret-society-at-jmu.html

BAH-HAHAHAHAHAHA!

Oooooooh JMU. So I never got really into the JMU school pride thing- I think I have a grand total of 1 JMU sweatshirt and 1 t-shirt (which actually belongs to my roommate, sorry Kate! You’ll get it when you get back from Africa!) I absolutely ADORED everything about college but for me it wasn’t really about the location so much (JMU)- it was the people.  If you had substituted fuchsia and silver as our school colors instead of purple and gold, changed the Duke Dog into a chicken and gotten rid of the Wilson bell tower completely, I probably wouldn’t have noticed until somebody pointed it out. I was, however, aware that for a few of my fellow students these changes would have elicited picketing, crying and weeks of mourning in sack-cloths and ashes. I’ll not make fun of them here because I think the above post I just read says it all.  Be sure to read the comments