Cherith and I leave tomorrow afternoon for Israel. The funny thing is, it still hasn't hit me. Which is probably bad, seeing as I need to pack still...

Anyway, this past week was pretty good. I finished the pre-trip paper, finally. It's not great, but hey, it's done. Following that, Jason came up to visit before he leaves for Australia next week (I'm not sure if it's truly hit him yet). That's going to be a good time for him...6 months of great tutelage under Stan Baker, former National Superintendent of the Wesleyan-Methodist Church of Australia. Too bad he was on leave during the debacle that partly caused Cherith and I to leave Oz...

And tonight, bringing a grand finale to the last month or so, Cherith and I went to the Melting Pot for her 25th birthday! Holy cow was it good, too. Well worth the cost, though it's not something you'd want to do very often. Happy birthday hun!

Only an hour and a half to go on my last shift for the next month. Crazy!

Oh, by the way...if you're a Coldplay enthusiast and you haven't listened to Viva La Vida yet, point at yourself in the mirror and yell "Shame!!!" I've had it on repeat for the past, oh, week. And I'm not a single step closer to being tired of it yet. It's getting pretty good reviews, but it seems like most of the naysayers are more caught up in how much like other bands this one sounds, combined with a weird feeling of disappointment that the album wasn't even more experimental, I guess.

toothpastefordinner.com

I think the only creatures enjoying this plague of the 17-year secadas are the birds and bats that get to devour them. We could use a few more of these around here, though, let me tell you. I'm getting pretty sick of having to run an insect gauntlet on my walk home from the library!

It's been a while since I've been able to have a thought that didn't revolve around a paper or exam, but I'm starting to ease my brain back into its socket in my noggin for normal functions again.  That being said, I do have a paper (4-5 pages) and tons of reading to do before I head to Israel later this month...but for the time being - this brief space between last semester and getting my GRE prep books in the mail from Amazon - I am happy to think about not too much.  This is where the challenge comes, though: how do I keep everything in my brain from last semester that I'll still need for next semester (e.g., not forgetting the Greek I just spent two semesters re-hammering into my brain, or, more importantly, all the archaeology I just did in order to write a good paper for the summer dig?) without continuing to maintain a high stress level?

Answer: play a lot of Zelda and tell yourself you've got time to unwind.  Everyone's allowed a little time to unwind.  I have three and a half weeks to write my archaeology paper.  I can happily get started on reading next week after we return from Rochester.

The only hitch to my stress level, though, is all the junk slamming into us here in the library over the switch from a bunch of different sites for things (student information system, virtual campus, e-mail, etc.) to one big "portal".  Most of the junk comes from people not reading their e-mail, however, or staying generally connected to things such as GIANT MESSAGES THAT POP OUT AT YOU WHEN YOU OPEN YOUR E-MAIL PROGRAM discussing the switch and how to be ready for it.  After watching all this for a day, I think I have very low hopes for how the nation is going to switch over to digital TV in less than a year...low hopes indeed.

Anyway...I leave you with a few phone from Bellarmine University in Louisville, where Cherith just got back from a ridiculously long financial aid conference.

                             

Just making you aware. Not too much...some shots from my latest Jesus Golf outing, and some from Cherith/Kate/Aimee's adventures in Louisville trying out for Wheel of Fortune.

Exams are coming up in a week. One major paper to go, due the last day of exams. Shouldn't be too difficult, mostly just a lot of writing. We'll see how that goes. It's kind of hard to judge how I'm going to do in that class, since we've only had one test (which has yet to be returned), and the second test is due with the paper and our self-graded participation/notebook upkeep rubric on the last day...and those are our only grades. I don't think I've ever had a class before where I've had absolutely no idea of where I stood one week before finals. Unbelievable.

This summer is going to involve: a trip to Rochester, (hopefully) a trip to NC, playing a lot of catch with my wife, at least one Astros game, traveling to Israel for a month of digging up stuff, taking the GRE's, and working my butt off in the library. Throw in hopefully beating Zelda: Twilight Princess for the Wii, and it should be a good summer.

Let's see what God can throw into the mix to twist things up a bit .