Wedding Plans

As everybody knows, Eric and I are getting married in August of '07. We have yet to pick the actual weekend, and we haven't started any wedding plans. This was partially my choice since I didn't want to start getting bogged down with wedding stuff this semester while I have a million other things to worry about and since we have a year and a half to figure everything out anyway. However, lately I've really been wanting to start something wedding related. I can't really go dress shopping quite yet since I want to go with my bridesmaids and everyone is in school and extremely busy, plus I don't actually have enough money for a dress quite yet, so I'll probably wait on that until I move back home in May and can actually spend some time with multiple bridesmaids at once. Eric and I did start talking about starting planning some wedding things at least. In fact, we even made a list of all of the things that we'll have to plan sooner or later, some things sooner than later, and some things not until closer to the day itself. I'm getting really excited to start figuring things out, but Eric and I decided we need to sit down with Gina and Josh (Matt, I'd say you guys too but you live too far away) and discuss certain things with them, as well as looking at things such as Gina's guest list, since most of those people will be the same for me. Even though the wedding itself is not for a year and a half, we'll probably start figuring some things out, so sometime in the next couple of months I'll probably start posting a lot more about wedding plans. Very exciting. And slightly nerve-racking.

wow

There is nothing wow worthy about this post, it was more my reaction to the fact that I haven't written since Thursday. I have been extremely busy though, homework and work and work and homework and I went home tonight to help out with the confirmands and such which was pretty cool. Gave JJ his b-day gift which he of course liked since it was a car and he's turning 4. How can you not like a remote control car as a 4-year old? seriously, there is not better gift. That's my life right now, homework and work and busy-ness. On the bright side, I may get to hang out with my friends from my Ukraine trip next week, which would be excellent.

Jesus was a utilitarian

The basic principle behind utilitarianism is utility, or the greatest good for the greatest number of people. Basically, to be moral, one should do whatever benefits the greatest number of people, or I suppose whatever does the least harm as well. Even if it means sacrificing one really sick person who stands a very slim chance of survival in order that 5 people can benefit from the organs that are donated. But that's not what this is about. My point is, Jesus died willingly to save the entire world from sin. Therefore, by doing harm only to himself (and doing it willingly) he did the greatest good that was possible, and in fact the greatest good that has ever been done. Therefore, Jesus was a utilitarian.

I know people are going to comment on this blog and say that he wasn't in other ways, his life wasn't lived by the utilitarian morality, but that also is not the point of my blog. The point is, in this one decision, Jesus chose to be a utilitarian and sacrifice himself so that the greatest good could come about for the greatest number of people.

I just had a baby...

Tonight at the telefund was a very memorable experience. First, I got one of my few $500 donations, which rocked. I also made almost 1/2 of all the money that was brought in. But the best part was when I called an alumna who said she was in the hospital. She asked why I was calling and I told her. She then said she received some stuff in the mail and would send something in but that she "just had a baby a couple of hours ago." Priceless.

Night-O-Norris

Last night was our party, theme: Chuck Norris. My roommates had promised me that there would be no alcohol in the room, because I really did not want the RA's coming around checking if things got to loud and then finding alcohol and getting in huge trouble. The first 2 1/2 hours went great, it was really fun, Gina and Josh came, as well as a bunch of other people, among them some of my friends. Then some of Rachel's friends showed up and brought alcohol with them-I thought they just had it out in their car, because Megan and Rachel had both left the room and that's apparantly where they went. It turns out they brought it back with them, and put it under my bed and just had the couple of people who knew about it and wanted it pour it into their pop periodically. Unfortunately I found out about it (by seeing a guy take it out and pour it) and this made me a little unhappy because of what they had told me, so Eric and I decided to go hang out at his dorm for a couple of hours instead. About 1/2 an hour after getting there, I get a call from Megan. Apparantly the party got busted up because it was loud (however, we never were asked to be quiet, so that was lame) and then they searced the room. Even though Megan told the guys to take the bottle with them, for some reason they were stupid and left it here, somewhat out in the open but somehow the RA on duty missed it when she did her search. Completely lucky. Well, apparantly they had called security and they came up a little bit later, and they searched the room again. At this point the bottle was in Rachel's drawer because they wanted to hide it, except security and the RA on duty asked to see inside the drawers. Again, somehow my roommates got incredibly lucky and they didn't find the bottle. However, they now have 2 noise violations ( I don't think that affects me at all) which is actually stupid because for one thing, we were never asked to be quiet, and for another thing, they did not even find out about the noise violations until after they searched the room, even though the violations came before 12, way before the party got broken up, so we are highly unhappy with our RA and the RA on duty. At least I wasn't there, so I didn't have to deal with it, and my roommates are incredibly lucky people. I don't think we'll be throwing another party again, but it was actually a really good time and people were saying very good things about it, so I guess all's well that ends well!

V-day and B-day

Two holidays are coming up. One is Valentine's Day, which Matt and Maria both really dislike(can you tell I'm using my new hyperlink skill that Matt told me how to use?). I personally think it is a bit stupid but whatever, it's just another excuse for Eric to shower me with love. Seriously, Eric likes it a lot and I don't really care for it, but it's ok because he is romantic throughout the rest of the year anyway so it isn't a big deal, and besides, I've had to work on Valentine's Day last year and I'm going to again this year, so we don't really even celebrate it on the 14th. This year we're not even doing gifts, we're just going out to dinner so that will be really nice actually. The other holiday that is coming up is my birthday, which I really think should be a national holiday. Just kidding. That wouldn't even be that fun. Seriously though, my birthday is only 3 days after Valentine's Day, and I have nothing planned. Well, I'm probably hanging out with Eric (my birthday is on a Friday this year, the 17th for those of you who don't know), which will entail spending some time at his school watching movies. How very exciting for a Friday night birthday. Oh well, I'm only turning 20, so all that means is that I'm not going to be a teenager anymore. And I'm going to act boring and adultlike and stay in and watch movies. Or something. Yay. At least my roommates rock and are taking me out for dinner on the 12th, which is 5 days before my birthday but it's one of the few nights that works for all of us, plus I'm really excited to do this with them since we haven't really done much together since I've been home except watch tv. And not even all of us together. It will be nice just to hang out with them, whether or not it's for my birthday or not. I don't even know what I want for my birthday, so I'll probably end up getting nothing. Except from Gina who apparantly already has my gift. Which rocks. Also, this has nothing to do with my birthday but we're having a party in my dorm room this Saturday, at 8, and you can all come.

back in action

I haven't been blogging very diligently since I've been back, but I promise (or hope anyway) to get back to it again, and to write stuff that people will actually respond to. I don't understand how Gina has 9 comments on a blog that's 2 sentences long and about loupes. That's right, loupes. What the heck kind of a name for glasses is that? Really now. If I write about something stupid like that, no one would comment on this blog, but somehow she gets away with it. It's like Matt and his stupid blogs about Prince. What the heck? Although he hasn't gotten any comments on it yet, so I guess that's saying something. Basically I realize that although I have some intelligent stuff to write about (liberty versus security, for example, and how willing people are to give up their liberties for a sense of security-I say sense instead of actualy security for a reason) but I really don't have to then energy or time to do that, seeing as I have hours of homework to do. And not even really interesting stuff. Well, somewhat interesting-principles used in Biomedical Ethics, which is sweet, but it sucks because I know I'm reading it for the quiz tomorrow. Which also sucks. Ok, this is a really dumb blog but in the future they will get better. I hope.

First week of Classes

My first week back at St. Kate's is almost over. Not quite I guess, since it's still only Thursday and I haven't even had my night class yet, but it feels like it's almost over, which is kindof nice, even though this weekend is going to be pretty full and busy. Eric and I are going to Gina and Josh's new apartment on Friday (right Gina?) and then to a concert of a band of my friend's that I met in Ukraine, hopefully it will be good since I haven't actually heard their music yet. Saturday I'm just going to hang out with Eric the whole day which will be fun and nice, and then on Sunday we might go home to show pictures of Ukraine to my parents as well as getting my prescription. I'm also going to be pretty busy the next couple of weeks trying to fit everybody into my schedule. Between classes, Eric, and my multitude of friends (slight exaggeration on the last one) I'm pretty busy a lot. It's hard sometimes to fit everybody into my schedule, and this week I've felt quite neglectful of some of my friends since I've been spending so much time catching up with Eric and such. The next couple of weeks I really want to make sure I spend some quality time with my roommates, some other friends from school who I sadly no longer have classes with since we're completely different majors, and of course my wonderful new friends from my trip to Ukraine! It's really hard though to get everybody's schedules to match up so that we can all spend time together. It's really sad, because I want to make sure I maintain the friendships that are most important to me, and it's really hard to see people a lot of the time. Plus I am engaged, which means I eventually have to start planning a wedding, and for some odd reason I already feel a lot of pressure to get started...possibly it's my very eager yet extremely helpful older sister who is very excited to help me do all of what needs to be done. I'm just not quite ready to start planning a lot of it. I have a somewhat difficult semester and I know that since I have a lot of time to plan the wedding, I can take it easy for a little while and just do a bit at a time. Although the dress shopping idea is probably a good one, because the dress is one of the most important things to do-everything else is supposed to compliment that and yada yada, plus that's my biggest individual expense so once it's taken care of I can focus on other things. I just don't really feel like I need to do a lot of planning right now since I have so much time. I don't want it to be something I get stressed out about at all. So, this wasn't quite about my first week of classes, but I don't care. It evolved into wedding stuff. Mostly because of the comments I got on my previous post. To which I want to re-emphasize: I'm not forgetting that I'm getting married until summer, I'm just not worrying about planning until summer. And even then I probably won't really worry too much, I'll just have fun doing it!