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Terrible Twos Tag June 27, 2008

Posted by Anya in : spontaneous degeneration , 7comments

There shall now be a lull in posts requiring thought. :)

Christine tagged me.

Two names you go by :

1. Anya :)

2. Brane (That’s mostly just Abby, though.)

Two things you are wearing right now:

1. Pajamas…

2. A hair doodle.

Two of your favorite things to do:

1. Read.

2. Discuss theology.

Two things you want very badly at this moment:

1. Um… a teleporter!

2. A throat which is not irrationally sore from cheering at a ball game tonight. :P

Two pets you had/have:

1. Thunder

2. Lightning (they were gerbils)
Two things you did yesterday (only 2?)

1. Went to Bible study.

2. Worked on a story which I had neglected for quite a while.

Two things you ate yesterday:

1. Steak salad

2. Um… hmm… oatmeal.

Two people you last talked to:

1. Hmm. I lost track of who in my family. Just count them all.

2. Anika.

Two things you’re doing tomorrow:

1. Going to a picnic.

2. Getting ready for church.
Two longest car rides:

1. Hm. As far as I remember… to Florida.

2. Back from Florida? *grins* Oh, okay. Probably Williamsburg.

Two favorite holidays:

1. I don’t know. Talk Like a Pirate Day is fun.

2. Christmas.

Two favorite beverages:

1. Lemonade

2. Chocolate milk

And there ya go. Nothing too fascinating, at least I don’t think so.

Transparency June 24, 2008

Posted by Anya in : I won't keep things purposely vague , 2comments

This is definitely an issue of online-dom.  In real life, we can hide some things — and hide them quite effectively and for years.  But online, we can hide things forever, especially from the people who only know us online.  It’s possible that when I’m IMing someone, they’ll pick up that I’m not in a great mood or whatever… but the people who pick up on those things are generally the ones who know me and see me all the time anyway, and have a very good idea of how I ought to sound.

It’s not necessarily a bad thing.  Edith Schaeffer wrote about how our lives (especially in families) should be like doors — having hinges so that they can be open to others, but also having locks so that, at times, we can be alone.

But it’s not necessarily a good thing, either.  In Ephesians 5, Paul talks about wicked deeds which the world does.  Then he goes on to say, “…now you are light in the Lord. Walk as children of light (for the fruit of light is found in all that is good and right and true), and try to discern what is pleasing to the Lord.  Take no part in the unfruitful works of darkness, but instead expose them.”  We are not going to be doing a very good job exposing the “unfruitful works of darkness” if we are trying to keep parts of our own life out of the light!

 Then our task, as Christians, is to fulfill what Paul then tells us to do in verses 15 and 16:  “Look carefully then how you walk, not as unwise but as wise,  making the best use of the time, because the days are evil.”  What is “the best use of time”?  What should we spend our time on?  If we put no restraints on what we are sharing, is that really what is most helpful?  Or are we going to the opposite extreme of the “Stained Glass Masquerade” which Casting Crowns sings about?

…So I tuck it all away, like everything’s okay
If I make them all believe it, maybe I’ll believe it too
So with a painted grin, I play the part again
So everyone will see me the way that I see themAre we happy plastic people
Under shiny plastic steeples
With walls around our weakness
And smiles to hide our pain?
But if the invitation’s open
To every heart that has been broken
Maybe then we close the curtain
On our stained glass masquerade… …But would it set me free
If I dared to let you see
The truth behind the person
That you imagine me to beWould your arms be open?
Or would you walk away?
Would the love of Jesus
Be enough to make you stay?…I think I’ve been blessed with friends — both in real life and online — who hold me accountable to be real.  And a benefit of being homeschooled (*grins*) is that it’s awfully hard to be someone around your family and someone else at school. Antion wrote about this.  (He is so helpful in doing this sort of thing; I’m editing it slightly for clarity.)  “You know, sometimes I wonder how much I should actually write in here. I mean, like I said, my life should be open for everyone to see, critique, attack, etc? But is this the way to do it? I don’t know. There are just some things, I wonder what will happen once I put them on here. What will people think? But then again should I worry about that?”  He has been enabled to be transparent — at least with those who are close to him — about his life because of the very thing that he used as a header on an old blog.  “My life… for Him.” 

Ultimately, that’s what ought to be enabling all of us to have lives in the light.  Knowing, as the Heidelberg Catechism put it, “That I with body and soul, both in life and death, am not my own, but belong unto my faithful Saviour Jesus Christ; who, with his precious blood, has fully satisfied for all my sins, and delivered me from all the power of the devil; and so preserves me that without the will of my heavenly Father, not a hair can fall from my head; yea, that all things must be subservient to my salvation, and therefore, by his Holy Spirit, He also assures me of eternal life, and makes me sincerely willing and ready, henceforth, to live unto him.”

Wow.  I… am not my own… all things must be subservient to my salvation… sincerely willing and ready… to live unto him.

James Ward sings about it beautifully.  Unfortunately, his music is really hard to find.  Fortunately, I found it online.  Listen to it.  :) Go to: http://www.newcityfellowship.com/music.html

and then, in the little music box, click on “I Belong to You.”  Enjoy.

So I’ll be striving to keep my life in Him, something that can be transparent without me wincing.  And, of course, looking forward to the day when the end result will be brought about… something like what Tolkien wrote about.

But to the wizard’s eye there was a faint change, just a hint as it were of transparency, about him…

“Still that must be expected,” said Gandalf to himself. “He is not half through yet, and to what he will come in the end not even Elrond can foretell. Not to evil, I think. He may become like a glass filled with a clear light for eyes to see that can.”

Random Lonya Bit June 22, 2008

Posted by Anya in : spontaneous degeneration , 3comments

I found a single page with this part of story written on it.  I’m not sure if it was supposed to fit in chronologically with anything else that I had written, or what, but it was sort of interesting.  :)  At least, I thought so.  And as this is my blog, you can have the fun of being subjected to it too.

For anyone unfamiliar with the story line, Tio is Anya’s older half-brother and has been missing in action for some years.  Also, her name being Anya is really not related to my name being Anya.

Anyway… the story.

Aze Silme Orestel Sovereign of Aynoli

Elanna Mur’l'nian Ruler of Murnia

Anya Jleta Princess of Lonya

Silia G’Way Star of Gazigway

Eleanor White Sunshine of Riscon-Morg

Anya stared gloomily at the creamy sheet of parchment in her hand. The titles flowed across the page and looked magnificent, but she couldn’t see only the titles.

Ruler of Murnia. Ruler was a good, solid, honest word. It sounded like Murnia itself — a solid land, productive with labor and peopled with sturdy inhabitants. Murnia was an oasis of green farmland. But there was more behind the title than the land. There were the people.

They were people who were fiercely independent, but whom Monrag was trying to brutally crush. Like Declan’s family.

Anya rubbed her eyes with the tips of her fingers. Why?

Star of Gazigway. She resumed her thoughts after a moment, rolling a goblet around between her fingers. The delicate layering of silver filigree which held glio was a Gazigwayn marvel — and a carefully guarded secret, of course. It sparkled like stars in the light. That thought brought her back to the title Star of Gazigway. Anya frowned. It had to be changed. Far too many of the ‘gwayns still reverenced and worshiped the stars, and she didn’t want any of that; Lady of Gazigway would sound just was well. Lady — ah, yes, there was her trouble. She wanted the title of the one ruling Gazigway to begin with “Lord”, not “Lady”.

And Sovereign of Aynoli… that was the worst of all. Anya dropped the rock paperwight which she was holding onto the table. Sovereign of Aynoli.

Tio, where are you?

She had never expected him to go away, but to go away and not even mind-bridge — what had happened? It was agony.

Sovereign of Aynoli.

The words could not have drawn her attention more if they had been written in flaming letters.

And all she wanted was the title which was hers only informally: Princess of Lonya. Lonya, with all its green woods and icy creeks and starry sky in the middle of tree groves — that was hers, where she belonged. And the people in it — she belonged to them too. With them.

Anya sighed again and stood up. All of it was still her responsibility until Tio returned or Ay’hn saw fit to take it away, whether she desired it or not.

J’Sûl walked into the kitchen, careful not to interrupt the sunshine spilling in through the windows. “Hey, Aze.”

“Hey, J’Sûl,” she responded. He looked like he was ready to go somewhere; sturdy shoes, jeans… “Where are you going?”

“The falls at Crytona,” said J’Sûl quite solemnly.

“Cray Falls?” said Anya. “Who’re you going with?” She assumed that if he really wanted to be alone, he wouldn’t have come in for no other apparent purpose than to talk for a minute.

“Santiago’s coming.”

“Oh.” Anya didn’t dare say anything else for a moment, knowing that she’d burst into laughter. She pushed in the chair which she had been sitting in.

“What’s so funny?” asked J’Sûl, unable to restrain a smile of his own.

“It’s a philosopical trip to Cray Falls,” Anya answered, managing a fairly straight face.

J’Sûl slung his backpack down onto the floor and opened some cupboards. “Yes and –” BANG “–that’s why–” THUD “–we decided to see if you wanted — OW! — to come too.”

“Are you alright?” He had turned around and crashed his head against the cabinet door, which was swinging ajar.

J’Sûl looked sheepish.  “Yeah.”  He stowed the peanut butter in his backpack and looked expectantly at her.

“I’ll pack.  Just wait a few minutes,” responded Anya.

She was running away.  The thought hit her as she dashed up the stairs.  Running away from responsibility, just as she had accused Lee of doing.

Maybe This World is a Barren Place June 17, 2008

Posted by Anya in : I won't keep things purposely vague , 5comments

Watch this to get started: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LfeXxkbgCVE

It is rather mind-boggling how many people we walk past every day with problems. That we have no idea… and barely even notice that they’re there.

That bothers me.

On the other hand, it’s a good thing that we don’t have those glasses. It would be far too easy to become overwhelmed at the needs and despair, or become overwhelmed and grow cold to them.

Still.

Relient K was onto something with their song Give Until There’s Nothing Left. And Pastor M is big on the same point. Are we planning to rust and fall apart in God’s service — being unused? Or are we going to fall apart because we wear out?

What scares me rather more than all the people in Wal*Mart I walk past, not knowing nor really caring, what their problems are, is when I wonder what’s going on with the people I think I do know.

It comes back to Steve Garber’s line that I remember a lot: “Only connect.” I can’t connect with everyone… that makes me sad. But I love connections (in pretty much all areas of life!) and when I have them, I want to figure out what is making people tick; what we have in common, what we have that we disagree on but can talk about without killing each other. (Always a desirable thing, I think!)

The song Real by Plumb made me think about one of the times where I’ve seen how miserably connections failed.

…Well be pleased world
If this is what you wanted
This young girl is everything that you made
What will she say

Aren’t I lovely?
And do you want me? cause
I am hungry for something that will make me real
Can you see me? and
Do you love me? cause
I am desperately searching for something
Real…

Some people I know have accused me of reacting too violently and with too much shock to sinful behaviors. It does tend to shock me when people sin. That is kind of surprising in itself, since I do believe in total depravity. Still. When I find out that a girl who came to a VBS where I was working has been pregnant, it jolts me. It makes me wonder where the connections broke down, between what we taught at VBS and how it’s been lived out. I remember talking and laughing with her, hearing about her escapades in cooking chicken on their grill… perfectly ordinary things. And now I see her looking for love in so many wrong places, and that hurts.

It is part of living in a fallen world; things hurt. But growing accustomed to them being that way cannot be a good thing. Jesus had compassion on the people whom He saw when they were being led astray. Compassion doesn’t make life easy, but who said that life is supposed to be easy? The Princess Bride is hardly an oft-quoted theological source, but Westley does have a point. “Life is pain… anyone who says differently is selling something.”

Jesus, it should be noted, did not promise that life wouldn’t be painful. Instead, He said, “I have said these things to you, that in me you may have peace. In the world you will have tribulation. But take heart; I have overcome the world.”

In Romans 12, Paul tells us how we are about to be overcoming. He wrote, “Do not be overcome by evil, but overcome evil with good.”

The very imagery of “overcoming” suggests something hard, that we have to wrestle for, fight for, and possibly die for.

thumbs out on a desert road I am told
leads to nowhere
any shade is as good as the next
if your shadow doesn’t go thereweek seven: Did you really assume
I’d find some solace from the letter in your room?
next life, could you kindly refrain
from throwing yourself at the mercy of a train?

silence all, nobody breathe
how in the world could you just leave?
you promised you would
silence that evil with good

hear me out, I have the floor
I’ll give you my tears, I’ll listen more
you promised you would
overcome evil with good

maybe this world is a barren place for a soul
prone to get lost
but heaven still hounds from the smallest sounds
to the cries of the storm-tossed

week nine: I am writing in the sand
any little clue that could help me understand
every whispered secret, every muffled sigh
every half-truth that was added to a lie

silence all, nobody move
I’ve got to know now what you hoped to prove
you promised you would
silence that evil with good

shame feeds guilt, guilt needs release
you took it to God
you made your peace
and swore that you would
overcome evil with good

every old demon playing back the crime
if they needed blood, I’d have gladly given mine
a Child of the Kingdom; still an invalid
forgive her, please Father
she don’t know what she did

silence all, now go to sleep
the water’s free, the well is deep
how can we return
that which we never could earn?

God, I long to see her face
we haven’t a hope
beyond Your grace
I know that You will
overcome evil
for good

[Newboys, Elle G]

They nailed it. Our only hope for overcoming the evil and the pain which we see in the world all around us is the grace of God. But it is a sure hope. And we are called to be ambassadors of that hope as God works through us to bring it to the world.

To do that, we need to know people.

God calls us to a very messy life, but the reward is great.

So keep your eyes open for what is going on in other people. I know this was sort of long, and disconnected, for which I apologize. If you have ideas on ways to make this post flow better, let me know. And if there is something that I ought to be doing to connect, but am not, let me know.

God promises a love that makes us real and overcomes the barrenness of this world, offering hope to “souls prone to get lost”.

Isaiah 54 

1 “Sing, O barren one, who did not bear;
break forth into singing and cry aloud,
you who have not been in labor!
For the children of the desolate one will be more
than the children of her who is married,” says the Lord.
2 “Enlarge the place of your tent,
and let the curtains of your habitations be stretched out;
do not hold back; lengthen your cords
and strengthen your stakes.
3 For you will spread abroad to the right and to the left,
and your offspring will possess the nations
and will people the desolate cities.

4 “Fear not, for you will not be ashamed;
be not confounded, for you will not be disgraced;
for you will forget the shame of your youth,
and the reproach of your widowhood you will remember no more.
5 For your Maker is your husband,
the Lord of hosts is his name;
and the Holy One of Israel is your Redeemer,
the God of the whole earth he is called.
6 For the Lord has called you
like a wife deserted and grieved in spirit,
like a wife of youth when she is cast off,
says your God.
7 For a brief moment I deserted you,
but with great compassion I will gather you.
8 In overflowing anger for a moment
I hid my face from you,
but with everlasting love I will have compassion on you,”
says the Lord, your Redeemer.

9 “This is like the days of Noah to me:
as I swore that the waters of Noah
should no more go over the earth,
so I have sworn that I will not be angry with you,
and will not rebuke you.
10 For the mountains may depart
and the hills be removed,
but my steadfast love shall not depart from you,
and my covenant of peace shall not be removed,”
says the Lord, who has compassion on you.

11 “O afflicted one, storm-tossed and not comforted,
behold, I will set your stones in antimony,
and lay your foundations with sapphires.
12 I will make your pinnacles of agate,
your gates of carbuncles,
and all your wall of precious stones.
13 All your children shall be taught by the Lord,
and great shall be the peace of your children.
14 In righteousness you shall be established;
you shall be far from oppression, for you shall not fear;
and from terror, for it shall not come near you.
15 If anyone stirs up strife,
it is not from me;
whoever stirs up strife with you
shall fall because of you.
16 Behold, I have created the smith
who blows the fire of coals
and produces a weapon for its purpose.
I have also created the ravager to destroy;
17 no weapon that is fashioned against you shall succeed,
and you shall confute every tongue that rises against you in judgment.
This is the heritage of the servants of the Lord
and their vindication from me, declares the Lord.”

Bit about the weekend… June 14, 2008

Posted by Anya in : spontaneous degeneration , 2comments

Let’s see.

College looks great.

There was a lot of information this weekend. A LOT. The good news is I now know where buildings are, more of the faculty, a bunch of the other kids (kids? incoming freshmen?) and my basic class schedule.

David K tells me that 17 is a nice number of credits. It seemed that his opinion is sort of related to the fact that he also had 17 credits his first semester.

Freshmen Course (required thing)
Honors Old Testament
Greek 201
Intro to Philosophy
Hebrew 101
English 101
Freshmen Honors Course

The thing on that list which I find really amusing is this… I’m in Greek 201 and English 101. *clears throat* Right.

There were a lot of amusing things…

~Playing Scrabble very unaccording to the rules. (Words like si and Judea were accepted. Samwise did agree to take uh off the board.)

~Walking with Mora and Aisha. This was funny for the reason that Aisha kept saying things like, “AAAAH! Look! Those are going to be our mailboxes!!!!” Also, Aisha identifies the student building by the blue banner. Hopefully they won’t be changing that banner any time soon… :)

~The reasons Danielle and I wondered just how ready for college we are:

  1. We had quite a bit of trouble getting in line in the one building. It shouldn’t have been as complicated as it was.
  2. We had some difficulty finding a room in another building. *grins*
  3. (This made us wonder about me) I could not get the water turned off in the one sink. Danielle finally took mercy on me and shut it off.

Come to think of it, it’s a good thing she wasn’t with us right after lunch the first day…

me: “So I’m going to the Science building. See you later.”
Samwise: “You’re… where do you think you’re going???”
me: “…the Science building…”
Sam: “No, you aren’t. We’re going to the gym. That’s later.”

Oh. Yeah. Well.  He then reminded me of what the date was, and I told him that I had known what year it is. This was thrown into some doubt later yesterday, but… you get the idea.

It inspires confidence, doesn’t it?  :D

Actually blogging, I guess, about what’s been happening. June 12, 2008

Posted by Anya in : spontaneous degeneration , 4comments

Hello there. I would greet you more personally, but I’m not actually quite sure who’s reading this. If you leave a comment, though, I will know. I like comments. *grins*

I’m off to college tomorrow; staying for one night. This makes me happy.

Also, I’m taller than I thought. I’m short enough that this also makes me happy. Anyway, I’m apparently 5′4″. And a half. That leaves me tied with Anika. Not a bad place to be.

I’m still reading The Silmarillion, and I keep staying up somewhat later than I meant to. It’s Beren and Luthian… a rather captivating story… and… yes. Worth staying up late about. I’m also working on catching up in Systematic Theology. Hopefully in a week or two… And of course I’m still reading The Divine Conspiracy with notes going. (Griffin, be warned.)
Also keeping up with Greek. I think I like the subjunctive tense, but I think I like it for the same reason I did not like participles — namely, extreme flexibility in translating. I’m so weird. But it’s nice to look at an unedited passage (even if it better be from one of John’s epistles and not Hebrews — Hebrews has lots of unusual vocabulary, it seems) and know pretty exactly what it says.

And Mom found me the livemocha site. I recommend checking it out, so far it’s been good.

I probably ought to pack for tomorrow. It seems like it might be a prudent idea, and I am… prudent… right? Well, sort of. Hopefully I am when it matters. :)

Anyway. Have a lovely day, or two, or whatever until I talk to you.

Random… Thoughts (if I may so dignify them) June 9, 2008

Posted by Anya in : spontaneous degeneration , 3comments

Getting ready for college is reminding me of getting ready for camp.

Yes, I think that I have the two very much in the same category in my mind. Except, of course, college is longer and the classes are more varied. But at both places I expect to spend a lot of time in classes with good theology.

*grins*

Saturday was Samwise’s graduation party. It was a lot of fun. There was much throwing-of-water at other people, largely kept going by Peter and me. (We’re pretty evil.) But I have pictures of Sam filling water balloons, too, so you needn’t feel so badly for him. And we splashed him in the back; thus he still looked fine for pictures. :)

David: “Quit wasting water! The price of gasoline keeps going up!”
Even he failed to explain the relationship.

Samwise, Peter and I were talking, and he was waving a flyswatter around absentmindedly to make his points. Then he stuck in back in his pocket.
Arika: O_o “What is that???”
Sam: *hurriedly snatches it out of pocket and holds it behind his back*
me: “What is what? It wasn’t there, you didn’t see it.”
I have no clue why he had it in his pocket.

Emily came up to Peter and gave him her typical greeting. It goes like this. “Hiiiiiiiii Peeeeeeeter, wanna play Maaaafia?“
He ran the other way.

It’s scary to see my friends growing up. It’s scary to see myself growing up. But, on the other hand, it’s a good thing. It’s a REALLY good thing. Trust me. We’ve been watching home videos and I was way. too. serious. as a kid. It’s goofy. That is, it’s goofy how serious I was.

Good thing I got some goofy friends who do things like carry flyswatters in their pockets. :D

Many Links June 6, 2008

Posted by Anya in : spontaneous degeneration , 3comments

I’m looking through my favorites. Some of the poor things get left on that list simply because I forgot to take them off, so I’m trying to clean it up.

But in the meantime, among other things, there’re still…

There are some other websites which aren’t on my favorites list for the simple reason that they are such favorites that I don’t even bother to put them there.

These include…

TBNN, which recently made me laugh really hard with this article.

The Rebelution.  (What else do I have to say??  *grins*  Oh, okay.  I especially like that link when it looks like this:  www.therebelution.com/forum)

Various blogs.  Look at the ones on my xanga and reformedblogs sidebars, and that gives you a pretty good idea of what blogs I read.  I do have a few which I need to add yet.

There ya go.

Edited to add:  I can’t believe that I forgot Librivox.

Watch out, college. June 4, 2008

Posted by Anya in : spontaneous degeneration , 2comments

*grins*  I graduated.  We were all razzing each other about flunking, much to the disturbance of Jimmy McC, who had been practicing baseball with Ibey.  (As an irrelevant sidenote, Jimmy can pitch 93 mph.  I’m glad that he was practicing with Ib and not me.)  We assured him that we were joking. 

Dr. S:  “Yes, she graduated.”
Miss Dog Lover:  “Now she’s gonna get married and leave us.”

Is there really something going on that I don’t know about here?

It’s a tradition in our youth group that you write something on the wall after you graduate.  So now I’m trying to think of what a good thing to write would be… hmm… difficult decision to make, when you’re using Sharpies.  Especially as Antion has declared it a crime to paint over Sharpie.  Mhmm.

We’ve been talking about different sorts of temptations in youth group, and tonight it was about desires (see James 4:1-3).  Pastor B started the conversation off with, “What is a character trait which helps you to control yourself?” 

Samwise and I looked at each other with some confusion and whispered, “Self-control?”  We then both started laughing (it does tend to make us laugh when we say things simultaneously… I know, I know, we are really easily amused.)  Pastor B looked over at us.

“Yes?”

“Uh, self-control?” we said, louder, but still nicely synchronized.  *grins*

Andrew suggested self-disciple. 

We’ll see if Samwise has the courage and fortitude to follow orders in the face of almost certain death  to sit next to me again, seeing as how I decided to pull the lever and spring the footrest up.  (In my defense, he had been looking for the lever and was going to trigger it himself, but I beat him to the punch.  This comes of sitting next to Peter, because it’s pretty vital to be able to do things like that which will startle Peter into a second or two of silence.)

In a week and a half I get to go (up?  down?  *has no sense of direction*) to campus for one night.  That makes me happy. 

I’m trying to think of my reading assignments for the next few weeks.  Short stories by Checkov, The Divine Conspiracy (and yes, I really have to read that one under a sort of blackmail arrangement…) by Dallas Willard, The Silmarillion by Tolkien, quite a few chapters of Systematic Theology by Wayne Grudem, more Greek by William Mounce (who reminds me a lot of our quizmaster Mr. K… I don’t know what it is… but if I was messing with my book during a lecture, I wouldn’t really be that surprised if he told me to quit crinkling it… *grins*), a book of commencement speeches (it’s okay, Samwise gave me a speech.)  And… um… various other things… possibly The God Delusion by Richard Dawkins, for which purpose I must have note-taking supplies on hand and be far away from all walls so that I cannot bash my head.  (Picture the “There was a bee” scene in Ever After.  ^_^) 

And… various other things to read, which are not coming to mind at the moment.

Goodnight, world.

Dream Time! June 2, 2008

Posted by Anya in : spontaneous degeneration , 2comments

I had a weird dream the other night. Man, was it weird. I’ll just tell it as much like a coherent story as possible.

Please remember, this was a dream.

We were on a cruise ship. It was also a recruiting ship — recruiting for Patrick Henry College. I think that Alex and Brett were somewhere around, I seem to remember them hovering around the edges of the dream. Jesse F had apparently become interested in going to PHC, so he went to one of their seminar things about why it’s such an excellent school, etc, etc. I tagged along.

Toward the end of the meeting, they asked if anyone who was coming to PHC had not been given the flu shot. This was an imperative for attending PHC, and if they had not done this, they needed to. I was pretty sure that Jesse hadn’t gotten the flu shot, so I asked him about it. Of course, this proved to be one of those irritating situations where as soon as you try to discreetly whisper something to someone, everyone else drops what they were doing and turns to watch you. Naturally, the presenter, noticing the commotion, kindly asked Jesse if he had been vaccinated. Jesse glared at me and said well actually no.

This incident probably explains how I came to find myself wandering the ship in search of someone else to hang out with. I was also trying to avoid Mr. A, who was pacing the decks and ready to tell everyone at the least provocation not to stack plates with the forks in between.

Fortunately, I stumbled across a meeting which Dr. and Mrs. 8kidlets were in. Their son Ethan wanted to be liberated from this meeting, so I snagged him to go roaming about with me. We went about and then Ethan decided to look over the edge. However, the railing was really, really wobbly so I banned the activity, assuming that the 8kidlets would be Most Put Out if their youngest son was washed overboard. We went in search of something else to do and ended up watching a tennis match. Somewhere in that process I lost my rings. I did return Ethan to his family and saw Abigail, Emma, and Eliza sitting in a row on a pew. I’m pretty sure there was a fourth girl who was about Sophia’s age, but it wasn’t her. I don’t know why they hadn’t gone adventuring with Ethan and me, but, it was a dream.

The next big thing happening on board was a crime. Who knows how we knew that there was going to be a crime, but we all did, so we were eagerly looking out for clues. My rings’ vanishing act seemed to be tied into the coming crime in some way. I think that there was a husband and wife who hated each other and we were waiting for one of them to murder the other…

Suddenly, the dream changed scenes. We (my family) was driving in a city. Suddenly a blind guy came running out in front of our minivan and we almost hit him. (Duh.) We drove on and then heard police sirens screaming behind us, so we turned around to see if we had hit him after all. As it turned out, we hadn’t, but the car behind us had. It was unclear if they had actually hit hit him, or just sort of gently bumped him. Either way, he was lying in their trunk sure that he was dying, and the police were interrogating everyone about what had happened. Things became even more confusing when it began to look like the guy wasn’t dead or, for that matter, blind at all, but this was instead part of a grand scheme involving a bank robbery.

The scene changed again.

We were driving into an apple picking orchard, where cats and chickens came running out to greet us as soon as the gate was opened. We had to get out of the car and try to scoop them up and shoo them back inside. There was a little kid playing in the dirt who looked suspiciously like Dakota. It seems for some reason that I reclaimed my rings from him. *sighs* Given Dakota, it wouldn’t be too surprising if he did manage to pick up something which I had lost.

And then the scene changed again.

I was talking to Andúnë. I think we were IMing, but it was hard to be sure. But I can’t remember what we were talking about… and then…

Dad woke me up.

Oh well.