Kamikaze Cockroach

Today I am a believer in signs.

I do not do well with roaches. They completely creep me out. I get the heebie jeebies just thinking about them. This morning as I was getting in the shower, I saw a big, ugly, obviously mean-spirited roach crawl across the wall of the bathroom. I was already partly in the shower, and therefore wet at this point, so there wasn't really a whole lot I could do about it without dripping all over the bathroom, so I just decided to go ahead and finish my shower, and then deal with the problem later. The silly roach completely ruined my shower experience though because naturally I was worried that it was going to crawl into the shower and eat me the whole time.

Thankfully, I finished my shower uneaten, so I got out and began to look around for the roach so I could kill it, but I didn't see it anywhere. If there's anything worse than seeing a roach, it's knowing a roach is there, but not seeing it. Completely ill at ease at this point, I decided the best thing to do would be just finish getting ready, so I leaned over the toilet to get something out of the cabinet above it and just happened to look down. Low and behold, the pesky roach was floating belly up in the toilet bowl. All I had to do was flush.

Since today is the day of my worst final this semester and I've been worrying about it all week, I've decided that the roach is a sign, and maybe today won't be so terrible after all.

Home

I started this post the other day and never finished it. However, I just spent all afternoon working on a project that involves manually putting 20 years of daily soil temperature data into a spreadsheet, and I'm pretty sure if I spend one more second working on it today I'll explode. Seemed like a good time to take a break and finish my post.

I'm in this weird stage of life where I have a house with parents and sisters, but I'm not there most of the time, so it's not exactly "home" anymore, or at least not in the same sense of the word as before. I also have a place to stay at school with my school "family", where I do spend most of my time, but it's not really "home" either because I know I won't be here for much longer. So when I think of the word home, I don't automatically see images of a particular place or particular people. Instead when I think "home" I think of feeling completely relaxed, of being absolutely comfortable, of being at absolute peace with myself and the world around me.

I recently came across this verse in John 15: "I've loved you the way my Father has loved me. Make yourselves at home in my love." Other versions say to remain or abide in my love, and while it means the same thing, something about putting the word "home" in it makes me see it in a whole new light. It brings all those feelings of comfort and peace with who I am and where I am to mind, and it speaks volumes to me of who my Savior is. While He is all powerful and has every right to do anything He wants with us, He's not some ruthless, hard hearted slave driver, constantly ordering us around with no regard for our well being. Instead, He wants us to make a home in His love. To be so comfortable there that we'd rather be there than anywhere else.

Some friends of mine lost almost everything in an apartment fire yesterday, and that got me to thinking about home again. If what we consider home is where we keep all of our stuff, that can all be taken away in an instant. However, if we consider Jesus's love for us our home, then it can never been taken away. His love is constant, never changing, never ending. It can't be stopped by a fire or a flood or anything else that can so easily destroy our worldly dwellings. If that isn't comfort and peace, or my definition of home, then I don't know what is.

I'm Twitchy

Earlier tonight, while sitting in Priority, my eye decided it would be fun to start twitching. I do not agree with its decision. It was most annoying, and it made me look rather silly. Now the twitch has decided to move to my left thumb. While this does not make me look quite as silly, it is quite possibly even more annoying. Thumb twitches are more prolonged than eye twitches. Also more violent. I wonder if the twitch will get tired of my thumb soon or if it likes it there and is planning on camping out for a while. I certainly hope it moves, but only if i get to pick where it goes. A nose twitch might be fun. I'd kind of look like the girl on Bewitched.

Insidiousness

In an attempt to feel productive without actually having to do homework tonight, I decided to go through all of my old blog posts and fix grammatical errors. I think it takes skill to come up with a procrastination like that. I'm kind of glad I did it though. I used to have some pretty humorous things to say. Now I feel like I don't have anything to say. However, looking through my old posts, I realize I didn't really have a whole lot to say then either. They're all about the silly things that go through my head or about not-that-interesting-but-cleverly-narrated things that happen to me. Silly things still go through my head and not-that-interesting things still happen to me quite frequently. I enjoy writing and need a creative outlet for it or I'll lose it, so in the future I promise I will try to remember all the silly things I think and experience so you, my dear reader, might have a little bit of entertainment.

We'll start off the silliness with a description of my Applied Climatology class this morning. We are talking about how climate affects agriculture, and one of the topics was drought. There is a type of drought called an invisible drought. It's like what happens in July when you get a little bit of rain every day, so you think you're doing fine, but actually the amount of rain you're getting is less than the amount of evaporation taking place so the drought is "insidious." The professor went on to define the word insidious for us. He said that to a lot of people it has big, destructive, evil connotations, but in actuality it just means it creeps up on you, "like too big underwear on a 20 mile hike."

Generous Living

I was reading in Matthew today and came across a passage that I've probably read a hundred times before, but somehow it struck me differently today. Here it is: "Go to the lost, confused people right here in the neighborhood. Tell them that the kingdom is here...You have been treated generously, so live generously."

In my head I know that I am supposed to share Christ with the lost world around me, but sometimes, actually a lot of the time, that knowledge stops right there, as a thought, and never actually carries over into an action. However, Jesus didn't have to come to Earth to die for me or even do a lot of the smaller things he's blessed me with. How ridiculous is it for me to take an incredibly selfless act performed for me and hide it away instead of sharing it with people that need it? Especially when I've been specifically asked to by the creator of the universe? It's like a slap in the face, and I don't know about you, but I certainly don't want to be the one slapping Jesus Christ, Son of God, in the face.

Hmmm...

This morning as I was getting ready, I noticed a freckle on my side that I don't remember ever seeing before. I wonder if it recently graced me with its presence or if it has always been there and I am just that unobservant...

Check it Out!!

The studio here at State where the broadcast meteorology department does all of their weathercasting recently got a major overhaul and is now amazingly cool (not that it wasn't cool before, but now it's just that much cooler). We've (I say we like I'm actually involved. Not until next year.) started a new webcast called Campus Connect that gets updated twice a day during the week on this website. You should check it out. The technology that the new equipment uses is the same technology as was used in the new Star Wars movies. Pretty neato, huh?

Also, when I signed in, I couldn't for the life of me remember what my password was, so I had to do the whole "forgot your password?" deal to reset it. I guess this means I don't update enough.