My Blog Roll

I finally got around to adding a blog roll to this site. I put it off for so long because it's really long, and I figured you would all think less of me when you found out how many blogs I read. But, then I posted about my American Idol crush, and I figured I couldn't possibly hurt my reputation any more than I already had.

A few words about my blog roll:

• If you read a lot of blogs, I recommend getting an RSS reader, or something like it. I use Bloglines to keep track of all my blogs in one place, so that I don't have to check each one individually. Bloglines also keeps track of thousands of other feeds like BoingBoing and Slashdot, so that all my news is in one place, too.


• Not all of these blogs are updated every day, so it's not as bad as it looks. Really.


• I left out some blogs that I theoretically read, because bloglines checks them for updates, but they are rarely or never updated, and I think they might be defunct.


• In an attempt to be politically correct and refer to people by the names they want to be called, the names I used for the blogs in my blog roll are whatever titles appeared on the main page of people's blogs. This was especially confusing for livejournal blogs, which have titles, subtitles, and names, so if I chose the wrong name for your blog, please tell me and I will change it to whatever you want it to be. You can leave a comment here, or email me at: juleannwakeman at either hotmail or gmail dot com.


• If I have your blog listed and you want it not to be, please tell me and I will remove it.


• If your blog is not listed, and you think I should read it, then please tell me your address and I will check it out. I will add it to my Bloglines first, and if I like it, then I will add it here. That could take a few days, so please bear with me. I want my blog roll to consist of sites I actually read.


• Some people break their blog rolls down into people they know in real life, and people they only know online. I decided not to do that, simply because I couldn't figure out where to put some of the blogs I read. The more time I spend online, the less I feel like knowing someone in real life actually means something more than knowing someone online. I guess I could break them down by "people who actually know me" and "people whose blogs I read who wouldn't know me from Adam", but even then, there were one or two blogs that I wasn't entirely sure where to put them. So, I'm sorry, but you just get a really long unsorted list. For what it's worth, Rick Mercer and Neil Gaiman would both go in the latter category.


• When I added my blog roll, I played around with some code that I don't fully understand in an attempt to make it only show up on the main page but not individual pages. If I screwed it up, please let me know.

Sunny Days

It's an unbelievably gorgeous day today. At least one weather site told me that it was 74 degrees. I have every window in the house open and it's below freezing in Ottawa. Maybe moving down here wasn't such a bad idea after all.

Wait a minute. If it's so nice outside, what am I doing in here blogging? Forget you, internet, I'm going outside to play.

Fun at a conservative seminary

The lunchroom at my seminary is a great place for lively theological discussion. Today, we had a fascinating conversation about the nature of the Trinity. That I killed.

"I wish we didn't use the name "God" for the Father. Technically, all three persons of the Trinity are God."

"I really just wish that there was a personal name for the Holy Spirit. You can call the Son Jesus, but what else can you call the Holy Spirit?"

"I just call her Jill."

But isn't all ice made from water?

My lack of disposable income becomes a more present reality when Rita's opens for the season.

(If you've never had a water ice before, think slurpee made with real fruit instead of syrup and shaved ice. I want one now.)

In which you all lose respect for me

I have a crush on Ace Young.
He may not have the best voice on the show, but I am such a sucker for nice eyes.

For the biscuit lover in you...

Saturday, we went to Red Lobster to celebrate my father-in-law's and brother-in-law-in-law's birthdays. They both like seafood. I do not.

But Red Lobster makes a decent chicken breast, and a bottomless basket of really, really tasty cheese biscuits. So I never complain when someone wants to go to Red Lobster, because it means I can fill up on bread, just like my father taught me not to do.

I have learned an important lesson about restaurants: they let you take your leftovers home with you! So when they bring me two pieces of chicken, I don't have to eat them both right away. I can eat one now, and save the other for later, thus making more room in my tummy for a second cheese biscuit. And a third. And, um, a fourth. I really like those cheese biscuits, okay?

And while I'm on the subject of tasty carbohydrate-laden biscuits that I'm pretty sure are so tasty because they are deep-fried rather than baked... I wore a skirt today that I remembered being too small for me, but it actually fit! Which I am going to take as a good sign regarding the state of my body, although it could just as easily be a bad sign regarding the state of my memory.

P.S. Tip for the day: If you're ever going to Red Lobster for someone's birthday, you can get a whole cake that easily serves 10-12 people for $6. A pretty good deal considering most of the desserts on the menu are $5 per serving.

The Tragedy of Education

While driving home from class today, it suddenly occurred to me: Next year I will be taking Greek, and after I learn Greek, I will never again be able to use the phrase, "It's all Greek to me," to indicate incomprehension.

Lent

I have been fruitlessly trying to lose about 15 pounds for several months. I keep starting various regimes, but I never stick with them. I guess I just decided there was enough stress in my life without dieting, and it's not like I'm really fat, right?

So, I'll confess to having selfish thoughts when I realized that the Lenten season was coming up. I could give up desserts, and between meal snacks, or maybe even go the more strict "only one meal a day" fast. 40 days of dieting, complete with religiously imposed guilt if I cheat! It's the perfect combination for someone like me with little to no personal discipline.

In the end, though, I decided not to twist a religious holiday for personal ends (although it would not be the first time in history that someone did such a thing, I know). The whole point of Lent is to focus on Christ, and I'm pretty sure that turning it into a diet would do exactly the opposite of that. So, I'm not doing anything dramatic for Lent this year.

But I didn't want to overlook the season entirely, either. I know it's not a very concrete lenten goal, but I'm making a conscious effort to waste less time. So, when I'm done going through my blogroll in the morning, I try to find something else to do for a while, rather than go through my blogroll again two minutes later just in case someone has updated since then. When the TV is on, I get out my crochet and work on it while I'm watching TV. (Although I finished my one pound ball of yarn only about 8/9 of the way through my shawl, so I'm gonna need some more yarn before I can return to that project, unfortunately.) When I'm driving to class, I sometimes turn my radio off and allow my mind a few minutes of uninterrupted thought or prayer.

I honestly don't know what this goal has to do with Lent. It doesn't really fit the Catholic model of grieving during Lent, nor does it fit the Protestant model of prayer and preparation during Lent. (Okay, I know that neither denomination's practice is that simple, but those are the basic underpinnings.) I guess I'm doing it because, once I started thinking about what I could give up for the holiday that wasn't a backhanded diet, I came across so many things in my life that could go. And rather than doing the typical Jule Ann thing and starting a huge life-renovation project in which I tell myself I won't go on the internet at all any more and instead of watching TV I will spend 8 hours a day in prayer and I will take a vow of silence except for when I am asked a direct question in class, and then lasting somewhere between an hour and two days before giving up and going back to normal, I decided to do something more reasonable. Well, it made sense to me. Happy Lent, everyone.

The Friday Fly

The Friday Fie is on hiatus this week, because I'm not feeling especially derisive at the moment. In the spirit of propagating positivity, I bring you instead five positive things I have done for myself and my family today.

1. I powerwalked a mile and a half.

2. I cut my fingernails (all of them, not just the ones that were chipped!).

3. I made the almost-too-ripe avocados into guacamole.

4. I loaded and ran the dishwasher and handwashed the non-machine-washable dishes.

5. I made my bed.

Nothing huge, I know, but five good things are better than none!

Google Me!

I just googled myself, and it brought me here. This blog is now officially being publicly traded. Or something like that. So, welcome old classmates, potential employers, extended family members and blind dates who wanted to know a little more about me by asking the internet. This is what you get - I'm sure you will be disappointed. Especially if you are a blind date. What kind of friend tries to set you up with a married woman?

I'm sorry I haven't been posting much lately. It's been an extremely hectic week. I'm really enjoying my classes, but I'm still not sure it has entirely sunk in that I AM A STUDENT AGAIN. I have been a student for over twenty years of my life. Surely there is more to life, but I don't know what it might be. Ever since high school, I have been counting down to the day when I would be called to the bar as a lawyer, and I feel a little bit like someone who is running a race, and just as she rounds the last corner before the finish line, she realizes that there's actually several miles, a mountain, and a complicated obstacle course before her, rather than the expected straightaway. (Wow, I just looked that up, and not only is that actually a word, but it even means what I thought it did!)

I'm enjoying the ride, though, and learning not to try too hard to figure out what on earth my future might bring. What fun is a roller coaster if you get on it with charts and calculations about what effect each turn is supposed to do to your equilibrium? You just gotta close your eyes and take each turn as it comes, and throw your arms up in the air as you pass the camera. I know you won't buy the picture, $7.00 is highway robbery, but it's still fun to stop by the booth and point and laugh with your friends.