Hold Me Like Holy Water

Hooray for St. Louis de Montfort and St. Catherine of Siena! I made this for the background of my computer, and thought I'd share it with you. Yes, that's me with St. Catherine at the bottom there. :) We had a sweet time hanging out together in Rome.

Anyway, as you may well know, feast days around this joint are a pretty big deal. When Holy Mother Church says "celebrate," we say "awww yeaaah!" (or...something like that).

Busy weekend in store. Tonight is the Taste of Loras (I'll be distributing donut holes at the "Duhawks for Life" booth - woot!), which means carnival food, live bands, and lots of fun (at least, that's the idea). Hooray for good times. Also, it will be Extreme Homework Time, as next week is our last week of classes (ay!). Crazy how fast time is flying by...I'm nearly a senior! Egads! And tomorrow an amazing vocal performance is in store by Loras's own David J. Summers, my personal favorite singer. :) If you are a Loras student, do not miss this! It's in the Vis at 7pm.

Also, my hair hasn't really looked good since Saturday. Yes, I keep track. My mood is kind of dependent on my hair. If my hair looks great, nothing can go wrong. But lately, it's been kind of flat and frizzy and just plain ick. I tried new shampoo, but I just ended up getting it in my eye. And I had bad hair. Nothing worse than frizzy hair and shampoo-sting in your eye. ;)
I think it might be time for another haircut...

I think I'm going to cut out of work a bit early - this place is a ghost town.

Adios!

Live passionately. Be holy!

"The right to be heard does not automatically include the right to be taken seriously."
-Hubert Humphrey

For those of you who know me personally, you know I've been cranky this week. Not for any particular reason in general, just a lot of little annoyances that have gotten under my skin.

Now, with this said, you can understand how my feelings toward certain people/groups may turn quite sour with little provocation.

Under this category goes all people who remind me to be "open-minded" about issues that are just plain ridiculous and stupid.

I take this quote by G.K. Chesterton as my defense: "Merely having an open mind is nothing. The object of opening the mind, as of opening the mouth, is to shut it again on something solid."

Happy National Pro-Life T-shirt Day!

I wore mine! :)


So last night Matthew Kelly was here on campus to speak! Hooray! It was quite fun. I met him, took my picture with him (to be posted upon reception...it wasn't my camera), and got his autograph in two books! :) Yay! I can't say I've ever read any of his books, although I feel like I have from browsing through them during spare time at work, hearing reviews of them at work, and recommending them at work. Basically, being at work has given me the opportunity to be exposed to some great Catholic literature that I've never read but feel like I have! Haha! :) Anyway, I'm really excited to start reading these books. I will soon after I finish Raymond Arroyo's book, Mother Angelica. Holy cats, I love this book. I can't get enough of it. If it was up to me, I would have finished it long ago (alas, homework gets in the way). It's brilliant, and I laugh nearly every time I read another section of it. Mother is really something else. I can't get enough of her wit and the way she says things...she's just entirely too much! :)

And yesterday was my last after-school Spanish class. We had a party to end the year. It got kind of crazy, with spilled fruit punch all over the place, and sugared-up kids hopping all around. But it was fun. :) They got kind of out of hand, so we played a little "20 Questions," which is a nice, quiet, brain-stimulating game that they found interesting enough to sit still for more than 5 minutes. Un milagro, I tell you!

Time to write up some lesson plans that I've been neglecting to do...

God bless!

Alleluia! He is Risen! Alleluia!

AAH! I love the Church!

Tonight, since we're a college and are not here for the Easter Vigil, we did the RCIA thing here at Loras.

It was wonderful.

We had two people who were baptized, confirmed, and received their First Communion (the whole bit! Woo!), and two others who were just confirmed. It was a beautiful Mass, and an amazing celebration! I cried during the Litany of the Saints, and during the full-immersion baptism! It was absolutely amazing!! Ah! I just can't explain it! What a blessed day! And Divine Mercy Sunday, to boot!

Hoooorah for the Church! :)

Happy National High Five Day Y'all!!!

::high five-ing everyone in the blogosphere::

Now go on out there and high five the first Bach you find.


Or, if you're a 10 year old with a spiky mullet, go ahead and high five a circus cowboy on stilts. That works too.


Hooray for High Five Day! :)

Did our hearts not burn as He spoke His word to us?
Did our hearts not yearn as we journeyed with the Word?

I love the Emmaus story!! Okay, I'll admit it really never meant much to me before last year. It was just another wonderful Gospel story.

Then I read Mane Nobiscum Domine, which for all you who have read this beautiful document can testify, is a-mazing.

It was one of those I couldn't put down, and highlighted and wrote all over. It's got arrows and smiley faces and all the goofy stuff I like to write all over something when I really, really like it. :o)


My first graders were adorable today. It was my last day, and I am going to miss them oodles! I had fun playing ball with them at recess (a little basketball here and there, of course), and all that jazz. They fought over who could hold my hand, too. :) Dear. And I got lots of biiiig hugs when I left today. Hoorah for that.
And the funniest quote today was from a cute little boy:
Me: Hey, how was recess? Did you have fun?
Him: Yeah.
Me: What did you play?
Him: Catch and kick. (a game where the kids stand in a huddle, kick the ball, catch it, then kick again. And repeat.
Me: Cool. Are you pretty good at that game?
Him: (raising his eyebrows and changing his voice a bit to sound cooler) Eh, I'm intermediate.

Intermediate? Haha. :) I love it!

Okay, time for Criminal Minds, my guilty pleasure. It's brilliant.

Happy Easter to everyone! I know I'm a bit late with my greeting...but considering it's the Octave of Easter...it's sort of right on time. :)

I hope everyone's Easter was tremendous. Mine was...interesting. Nothing like living Holy Week to the fullest. Holy moly.

Anyway...

I'm back at school, and the workload is getting pretty immense. I do not want to get too excited for the end of the year, because, let's face it...summer is pretty boring. I mean, I work, and my job is great...but there's nothing like roommates and crazy college times. So I am hoping that the workload does not overpower the ability to have a good time.

We lived that out well tonight. :) We went to a particular beverage establishment in East Dubuque entitled "Family Beer and Liquor" to get some German beer to celebrate the Holy Father's birthday (on Sunday...we're a bit late). We got Bavarian beer (perrrfect), and sang "Long Live the Pope" before shouting "Viva Il Papa!" and toasting to our beloved Pontiff.
Ad multos annos!!

That's all I've got for now...I need to work on my portfolio.

We are an Easter people! ALLELUIA!

Wow wow wow wow wow! This summer's camp is going to be a-mazing.
Check it out.
HERE. (go to the St. Therese camp, in particular...although I'm sure the boys camps are the bee's knees. Or perhaps the cat's pajamas. Having never been to either, I'm not quite sure. ;)

I cannot wait for it. I just did a little dance when I saw the communities that are scheduled to come so far.

Hoooooorah!

Okay, I'm all for getting the youth involved in Catholicism and the absolute sweetness of it all.

However, I think this might be teetering on extreme.

Holy mumps, Batman!

So many of you may have heard the news that the mumps is going around on college campuses. What you also may have heard is that mumps is going around Iowa.
Now, if you put the two together, you get the mumps, going around college campuses, in Iowa.
Which means...da da da daaa...Loras College!

Yes, we've had the mumps circulating for a while now. And it's a pretty fun routine, finding people checking their glands in their throats every so often and rejoicing in the fact that they are (presumably) mumps-free. However, we've also all turned into psycho-hypochondriacs, and the slightest headache or sore throat has become a sure sign of the mumps - which means an automatic "Get thee to quarantine!"

It's true. We have to be quarantined (for FIVE WHOLE DAYS). Quarantines are being handed out here like candy at a parade. If you think you might have the mumps - quarantine yourself. If you think your friend might have the mumps - both of you...quarantine! And if you're just not quite sure...it never hurts to go right on ahead and...quarantine.

Now, you always get the daredevils, who walk around with one of those pretend-surgical blue masks that's really only keeping out 98% of dust mites and mold spores. They're the ones that are either a) not willing to miss class for a little ol' thing like the mumps, or b) bitter that they caught it, and think everyone else might as well too.

The incubation period for said disease is something like 24 days (I'm probably wrong...but it's a lot...trust me), so we're thinking we all have it, and our bodies are acting like the incubators you see baby chicks in at the petting zoo, just waiting for the virus to manifest itself.

And just so you know I'm not making this up:
The Center for Disease Control was on campus today. From Atlanta, Georgia. To "monitor the situation."

Rumor has it they're quarantining the entire campus. Realistically, that's about as sensical and likely as the White Sox winning the World Series ever again. BUT, it does make you realize the severity of the problem we've got on our hands here in Iowa.

So, as a Public Service announcement (sans annoying beeping), I would like to inform anyone in the Midwest, or anyone thinking about visiting the Midwest, particularly the Iowa region, to get yourself one of those SARS masks, to not touch anything or anyone, and to remember...when you start to feel even the slightest signs of illness...

QUARANTINE!

And just as a little reading material:

The word mump comes from either lump or mumble. We're not sure.

I miss him.

Pope John Paul II
May 18, 1920 - April 2, 2005

O God,
from whom the just receive an unfailing reward,
grant that your servant John Paul II, our Pope,
whom you made vicar of Peter and
shepherd of your Church,
may rejoice forever in the vision of your glory,
for he was a faithful steward here on earth
of the mysteries of your forgiveness and grace.
We ask this through Christ our Lord.

Amen.