There are certain emotions I haven't felt in a long time. So long that when they appeared, I was surprised, taken aback, and thought, "I can still feel this way?" These feelings were a portal to my younger self, in the days when I thought those particular emotions were how I based my view on a slice of my world. Emotions, that took me by surprise and have got me thinking about how much I've grown in my walk with Him who has my heart.

But it was refreshing - it was like standing at a place near the open ocean, watching the sun slowly fall, and seconds later, watch it sink into the horizon while your breath is taken away by the magnificent array of colors blazing out before your eyes, all a while set within the frame of a passing breeze, the soft sound of water shifting against shore with the feeling of the sand against your skin - that's what it felt like.

And I embrace this entire emotional experience at this moment, in this time, and thank God that I remember that I can still feel this way and leave it at that. Something far Greater captivates me, and it will not last a moment, but an eternity.

I'm going a little wonkers at the moment. I have two upcoming projects due and getting them started and finished is similar to running a race barefoot with no water available. So, to inspire myself I've created a wish list for this summer, here it is!

• read the entire Terry Pratchett Collection
• read books, comics, and graphic novels
• start and complete some short stories
• volunteer at the public library
• finish my paintings
• study anatomy to improve my drawings
• get involved in community/church activities
• take a walk every day
• clean out my closet
• set up some cleaning projects

Yes, I like cleaning. I don't know what it is but it cleans my soul. 

Most call it Valentines Day, and some are beginning to call it Singles' Awareness Day but I call it God Love's You Day. We are so caught up in the self around this time of year. This day has become the alter unto self, and since love, the foundation of God's self, has been contorted and twisted so terribly, this day could be seen as a sacrilege. So, I chose this day to recommit, re-form, and to remember my relationship with the most wonderful Person during this time. I celebrate the day because He first loved me and today I honour that love.

This year's vow to strengthen my relationship with God:

• get out of my comfort zone
• to recognize any threat that will obscure my relationship with God and to remove, while asking Him for strength to do so
• to evaluate each day my time spent with God
• to realize and strengthen the aspects that show and tell the testimony of His love for me (that my life is a testimony and how does God work His love through me?)

"Sacrifice and offering You did not desire; My ears You have opened. Burnt offering and sin offering You did not require. Then I said, "Behold, I come; In the scroll of the book, it is written of me. I delight to do Your will, O my God, and Your law is written in my heart." Ps. 40:6-9

At the moment, I am going through this chapter, day by day and memorizing parts of it...well, actually all of it. I am finding my entire graduate experience embodied within this text in particular my relationship with God and life during my time at school and the parallels are uncanny, but so reflective of my walk with Him. This aspect of the text refers to David realizing what God is really saying to him, "that you don't have to work your into my heart, but look...you are already in the Book of Life" and David realizing this changes his interaction with God. He sees a different, even clearer picture of God.

Any daily involvement with God is like imprinting His DNA into my character. In class we talked about memory and how it decays. We also discussed how the reading experience is about one emotion based experience to the next and how in rereadings of a text we try to recapture that emotion. But we can't. When we we come back to the text we've changed; life is progressing through us and it is through that paradigm that we view the text upon our return to it. The text does not change, we do.

Ironically enough this "theory" (or whatever) is readily used in Christian circles. Actually our approach to the Bible is very much in this context, and it really makes me wonder about a whole slew of other heaven related topics. Bu reverting back, the only difference to reading the Bible and secular/spiritual texts is that the Bible always develops, defines and designs us in context to God. Interesting.

Incredible, a year has come and gone and now we stand on the threshold anew.

What can I say? I got that B+. By than I already knew the answer and here I am at the door of a new year, a new term but at the end of my graduate experience. The experience has been tough as hide, excruciating as nails on a board, tormenting as a racketeers delight. What is that quote they say? Oh right...no pain, no gain, and though it sounds weird, I can testify. Left me explain.

First Year Dialogue to Self: Part One

I'm in? Really? Yay!! ...well, that was easy. Okay, wherez the class, ah, there you are you sneaky classroom. He...he...okay, learning knowledge....lots of knowledge....too much knowledge. WARNING, WARNING, WARNING: INFORMATION OVERLOAD (drowning, catches a passing buoy). I know the solution, I won't read as much....ah....relief!

(unbelievably, she passes first term and thinks second term will be of like material, unfortunately our unexpected student is sorely misinformed by trailing-last-term assumptions and second year student's misplaced assurance)

First Year Dialogue to Self: Part Two

Wheee, that was fun, (clapping hands) again! again! ...okay, picking classes....um....(scrunched brow, finger on lip) let's pick that one.....annnnnddd, that one! ooooh, that looks like fun....yes that one! Okay one more...oh, I have to take this one...bummer, oh well. Tra la la la la, off to class I go. Oooh, I want to apply for scholarships! Let's do that, and let's work. Yay,  a fun job of pulling and pushing books. And to balance the growing stack of somethings let's add this, this, this, and of course, that....Hmmm, this is getting difficult. I vaguely remember 'difficult' last term...oh oh...difficult is getting more difficult. OH, Oh, burning, I'm starting to burn! Burning, BURNING, may day, may day, out of the way!!!!

And so my first year came to an end. With the two summer classes I took to make up for the two failed classes, I began to comprehend my stepping out of the horrible pit of burned carnage of my first year failings. Apparently I wasn't getting out fast enough, because I got a talking to from someone in the higher ups. A talking to that I would only appreciate later on.

So I've just yammered about my entire graduate experience, and I guess some people would be pretty peeved about their crashing and burning class experience, and say, why rehash the whole episode. Hey, I have my point. Let me get to it. Everybody has a reason for why they make choices, take on a job, move to a new area, apply for a program. There are reasons for everything. My reason for this entire program is God and as I've come to learn my reason for every movement, word and breath I take as well.

As I was saying, it's the beginning of the term...

This term was incredibly tense for me. I was placed on academic probation, and if I didn't bring my grades up, I would be dropped from the program. I admit I am not much of a study person. I don't like doing homework, and the only way it gets done is if I purposely choose a class that would interest me through out its duration. With that in mind, classes just fell into place.

The term was followed by much prayer, much stress, and much contemplation about the profession I had chosen, or I should say, God chose for me. When I entered the program, my heart wasn't into it. Sure the classes were interesting, tough, but I wasn't committed. Nothing like blood, sweat and tears to make one feel connected to the situation s/he has gone through. I was uncertain if I would make this term. In the beginning, that  uncertainty caused me to bring the whole matter to God, reexamine all the doors that opened for me to be in the program, and all the little and large miracles that happened along the way.

Even as I wrote papers, finished assignments and completed projects, I kept asking God for a miracle. One class I struggled through, you know the one. I previously wrote about one paper I was writing for that class. Anyways, each paper I did, I did poorly, or at least I felt I did poorly. Three papers, 15% a piece, and I was getting mediocre grades. I'd pray over those papers, prayed during those papers, prayed when I could. There were other areas of the class I was doing well in. The discussion section I was getting 100% on each discussion. In total, 7 discussions. The final project, the group and I received 94%, best in the class (we were told so). It was heartening to hear. I figured I'd get a B+ in the class. The other class I was sure would get an A.

I like it when God proves me wrong.

I got an A in the difficult class, and ironically, an -A in the other class. One more grade to go. I get the feeling I'll get a B+.

We'll see...