Seven Quick Takes Friday (Vol. 1)
I’ve decided to start participating in this seven quick takes Friday blog where i post 7 little things from throughout the week. I really enjoy reading them and I hope others will too.
1. I don’t know how I’m going to survive winter break.
I have been bouncing between Topeka and Blue Springs for the last few days and having only been back a whopping 60 hours, I’m already in a bad mood. I feel like I have no space either physically or just personally at either place and it drives me crazy to not have a car that’s just mine. Plus, we’re trying to balance seeing my friends and seeing his friends and seeing our families and it’s just such a headache. I’m hoping that when we’re here for a long winter break that we’ll settle into a routine and I’ll feel less rushed to see everyone, but as for right now I just want to call the holidays off.
2. I finally got the last of the wedding thank yous done this week.
Now, I just have to gripe at Kyle to get his done and then we’ll all be good. I can’t believe that took so long. It was just impossible trying to juggle getting some sanity in between tests and projects in graduate school and having to find a time when I could really get organized enough to do it. In the end, i regret not getting more done before the wedding so at least i was sort of caught up as it went on. In the even that you get married, I would take this advice. I also don’t know how to get Kyle motivated to do them. I was basically in a panic over the ones that had yet to go out toward the end and I guess he just doesn’t feel the same sense of urgency about them. Luckily, his parents also don’t call and yell at us about them like mine do.
3. Why don’t I see movies anymore?
I realized while reading conversiondiary.com today (where I got inspired for these seven quick takes a week) that I feel like Kyle and I are starting to watch movies less and less. It may not actually be true, but we rent less than we did before and we go to theaters less than we did. Perhaps this will change when we’re not both in school, or maybe it’s just that I’d rather socialize with people when I’m with them and watch movies when I’m hanging out by myself. Also, I think movie quality is sorely lacking these days. Maybe I’d see more movies in Lubbock had a better indie movie selection. I should just renew netflix.
4. I’m excited to have some time to read more over break.
I’m finishing up the Historian hopefully before we return to Lubbock and I think I’ve decided that Year of Wonders by Geraldine Brooks is next. I’ve read her non-fiction Nine Parts of Desire before but I have yet to read any of her fiction. Carla recommends it, and I think she has good taste in books so I’m excited to start it.
5. I’m going to put together some sort of photo project over break.
Basically, I read itsnicethat.com regularly and found this photoproject called @600 where at 600 internet time on a certain day, ea bunch of photographers took photos. You can look at them at mus-mus.org/at600. Some were posed and others were more random than that. My idea is to set up a twitter account that is the name of the project and then use twittertools on wordpress to set up a way that anyone can post tweets to that account. then, throughout a 24-hour period, a group of us who were subscribed to the twitter feed of the account would take photos everytime we got a tweet to take a photo and then we could also send out tweet requests. I think it would be fun because everyone would have the chance to play with the photo and we could create a sort of schizophrenic photodiary that captures multiple peoples days in multiple cities at the same time. I’ll probably get it organized and try to do it sometime by the new year. I think it could be a pretty sweet project idea and maybe could eventually be pretty widespread.
6. I don’t know about you all, but I’m cheering for Oklahoma State tomorrow night.
Kyle’s parents announced that they have two tickets for us to the Big 12 championship. We expected them to do this, sort of, but it’s still a surprise and has me super excited for the game–presuming Tech gets in. So let’s keep our fingers crossed that there’s an upset in Stillwater tomorrow.
7. I’m no longer angry at mass anymore.
I realized sometime last week that I’d sort of been avoiding mass or at least not making it as much of a priority. Most of the reason for this is that I was angry about the time in October that the priest handed over the homily to the student center intern so instead of having a homily about the liturgy given by a priest we heard a homily about the second offering given by a lay person. This is in violation of canon law and made me angry. Kyle was with me at this particular mass and I think I felt like the Church was failing to provide its element of witness to potential new members that might be in attendance. Further, I’m supposed to attend mass on Sunday and Holy Days of Obligation. What kind of obligation is there if the mass turns into a pitch for money that the church needs? The homily, I realize, is not the most important part of the mass order… but how do I prepare to take communion when the homily is designed to only prepare me to hand over cash for the second offering? We did give money to the offerings that day, but I think I left feeling that it was slightly pointless. I know I’m a very conservative Catholic when it comes down to how I interpret canon law and how important I think it is that priests act in accordance with canon law, but I don’t think this is an issue on which I am too conservative.
Anyway, I have triumphantly returned to making mass a priority and I feel a lot better about it. Now, if I can only resucceed in getting Kyle to view it as important. I feel like my prioritizing it low was bad because it sets an example that actually you can set catholic obligations on the back burner, and I don’t believe that that’s true. I was just frustrated and angry and i think I lost a little view of the point of it all myself. It’s times like this that I know I would really benefit from having a spouse that has the same religious convictions that I do. I think he’s coming around and certainly we view things far more similarly than we used to.