Exceptions to "Thou Shall Not Kill."

We were having a discussion in humanities, and by the title of this post... of course it sounds heavy and serious. haha. It really wasn't. At least, not too much. We were talking about how the fact that there are exceptions proves that there is a rule. In apologetics, its hard to get past the moral argument, because everyone in the world has exceptions to the same moral law.

For example, one of our exceptions is war. It isn't considered murder to go out and kill people in the heat of battle.
Another exception is self-defense. If someone is coming at you with a huge butcher knife intent on stabbing your brains out, no one will put you in jail for defending yourself and killing them.
Capital punishment is also a socially acceptable exception.

And then... one guy in the back raised his hand to add an exception to the list. You know what he said?
Trespassing in Texas.

Free at last!

Free at last, thank God Almighty, I'm free at last!

haha. It is the first Monday in May, and I do NOT have to go to class. (Especially accounting!) So I slept in, and I'm still sitting in my comfy, QUEEN-SIZED BED with memory foam. True, my room looks like a disaster area. I think a mini-tornado came through and one of my suitcases exploded. I don't think this whole "summer" thing has sunk in yet. Since I was such a home school slacker I never really had summer breaks because I always had some sort of school work to do. heh.

Ooh. I will never be a freshman again! My next huge accomplishment will be getting my dad on board with the study abroad thing. He's not ready for me to apply yet, since there's an application fee. :-/ I admit it is a pretty steep fee, but I do have to apply early to be eligible for scholarships....

Anyway. Happy blog post. ^________^ I'm blasting music and don't have to worry about who I'm accidentally waking up. Although going back to only child from living with 30 of some of the loudest girls I've ever met might get a bit boring now and then.....

Good News, Bad News

Warning: NerdAlert!

Do you want the good news first, or the bad news? I usually go for the bad news first to get it out of the way. Then the good news can cheer me up. So, lets go with bad news:
The best/most convenient Borders in Tulsa is closing! :-( I love to go there and buy a book and sit and drink one of the free coffees I've racked up over my many, many visits. Plus, I'm even closer to it now that I live at ORU! So, that is the bad/sad news. I know... I'm tearing up over Borders. But I have such fond memories of the place!

So, now that we're all depressed lets go with the good news:
BORDERS CLOSING SALE. I got two books for 25% off, and one for 30% off. Of course, all of the LotR trilogy books were already bought up, but I got a cheap copy of the Hobbit since I've been wanting to re-read it! And I paid a couple extra bucks to get the Jane Eyre with the cool, gothic water-color original cover art! haha. :P I also got Animal Farm, which I've been wanting to read for awhile. That wasn't on sale, but it was an impulse buy because they had the stack of Animal Farms in the check-out line. (Darn marketers! I'm learning marketing basics in class and yet I still fall for their tricks!)

Anyway, yes. I walked out of that store a happy, happy girl. Even though I'm really sad I will never get to call that Borders again asking them to hold a copy of the newest SNC CD back behind the register for me to pick up the day it comes out...

Beauty and the Beast

I'm taking advantage of my coffee induced urge to chatter. This blog post is going to be the rough draft of an extra credit assignment I'm turning in for humanities class. Of course, I'll probably make it a little more formal before I turn it in and I'll format it correctly, blah blah blah... Oh, and actually proof the grammar/spelling. Anyway.

BEAUTY AND THE BEAST!
Rating: 9.5/10

I went to see the Broadway production of Beauty and the Beast at the Tulsa Performing Arts Center on Wednesday, March 2nd. I was excited for months in advance because I love the Broadway season at the PAC, and Beauty and the Beast is one of the ones that really gets hyped up. The musical follows the Disney version of the story, so I knew most of the songs they sang. I loved the live instrumental versions of the music I've enjoyed since I was little watching the movie. My favorite songs were, “Belle,” “Gaston,” “Be Our Guest,” “The Mob Song,” and “Beauty and the Beast.” It was probably because these were the ones I already knew from the movie. I wasn’t as impressed with the new songs, although they did add something to the performance.

Belle's voice was really great. She reminded me of Bell from the movie, which is always a good thing when they're re-creating such a well-loved movie. The one voice I wasn't sure I liked was the beast's. He had this amazing, deep and booming speaking voice. However, I didn't think he sounded as great while he was singing. I did like the very last song he sang, but other than that I could have gone without hearing his solos. They completely created a song for Beast, which is probably to be expected for making a Broadway musical out of a movie.

My absolute favorite character was Lumiere, and Lefou was my runner-up favorite. Lumiere was energetic, wild, and perfect. His accent was over the top and it really made his character pop. I felt like he really carried most of the castle scenes. Lumiere got the most laughs out of the audience and out of me for sure. He also got the loudest applause at the end of the performance. Lefou was the source of the physical comedy. He was one of the most flexible men I've ever seen. He was always tripping and somersaulting across the stage, landing in awkward heaps of arms and legs. I also enjoyed the fact that his speaking voice and singing voice were both spot on from the movie character's voice. It really enhanced his character.

I really enjoyed all of the brightly colored costumes. The castle cast members were all wearing some very creative things. Cogsworth the clock was very obviously a clock. And Mrs. Pots had a great tea pot costume as well. Belle had a beautiful gold ball gown for the end scenes. I thought the beast’s costume was really well done. It stood out from the stage to me, and I was all the way up in the balcony. All of the villagers and other supporting cast had on vibrant, interesting outfits as well. I couldn’t find anything bad to say about this area of the production at all.

Overall, I gave the production of Beauty and the Beast a 9.5 out of 10. It was entertaining all the way through and only one of the newer songs made me feel like it was dragging on. Whenever intermission came I was disappointed that we had to wait for the second act. I know the audience, which included a lot of little girls in cute little sparkly dresses, loved it just as much as I did.

Thinking about joining Procrastinators' Anonymous...

...sometime later next week. Probably.
Seriously, this is bad. I won't have time to write this paper tomorrow or Tuesday, and it is due Wednesday. My New Testament paper over the portraits of Jesus in the four different gospels. Really, it is an easy paper. And I have my broadest, most general outline done, but that's it. I think the problem is that this paper is so easy it's just tedious. I mean, it is moderately interesting, and I'm glad I won't have to spend too much time on it considering I have a bunch of other stuff to do with my other classes, but yeah. Just annoying. Like one of the girls down the hall said, this paper needs to write itself.

Oh, and a disclaimer for the post below... I was feeling snarky, and that was the only thing remotely interesting that happened to me that day... So that is what I decided to snark about. I am seriously not hiding under my bunk bed in the fetal position wondering when my dorm is going to get blown up. I promise. :) It is still a sobering, scary thought but I am not paranoid.

I'm wanting After Dark Live to start soon (I got THREE twitter updates about ADL to my phone. Thanks, Jason. I don't think I'll forget it now) so that I have further opportunities to procrastinate until later this evening. Although my goal is to get to bed early so I won't be wanting to chuck my cell phone (read: alarm clock) at the farthest wall and hear it break into a million pieces before rolling back over and falling back asleep. I so miss being a morning person.

Anyway.. slightly pointless post. No real reason. Except procrastination. ^_______^

Romantic & Modern Humanities Was Invented to Terrorize College Students

(WARNING. THIS POST MIGHT INDUCE LARGE SCALE PARANOIA FOR YOUR OWN PERSONAL SAFETY.)
...Seriously.
Yes. I need to somehow inject sunshine and rainbows into my bloodstream after that class. This is the third time we've watched a video (or a "film" as Mrs. Buckles calls it) about extreme Muslim groups. If the first couple times weren't bad enough (it was so long Buckles split it up into two class periods)... This time today was worse. And the first time included the knowledge that 98% of all peaceful Muslim organizations in America are just fronts for extremist Islamic organizations that want to kill all Americans.

Today, we watched a video that was creepily relevant to the turmoil in Egypt right now. Since the whole thing started, I've been reserving judgment on what I think about the situation. A lot of people are celebrating with Egypt since Mubarak stepped down, but just because a dictator leaves doesn't make the country automatically a democratic nation. Now, we have to worry about the Muslim Brotherhood taking over. This video made clear that while Mubarak was in charge, he made a fertile environment (not my words) for the Brotherhood to grow. And now, they probably see this as their chance to wipe out the copts, or Egyptian Christians. And even though Mubarak was a not-so-nice dictator, he kept the peace between Egypt and America, and my dad told me that he kept certain people from invading Jerusalem.

But anyway... Radical Muslims, I've learned, are a real and immediate threat. At the start of class today, Buckles said that she hoped this video would, "open your eyes to the real horrors that are out there in the world today." Gee, thanks. Now I'm going to be hiding under the bottom bunk in my room for a month wondering why ORU didn't make bomb shelters in the basements of all their dorms.

Anyway... I almost cried in class. And I don't cry. I literally had to blink back tears as this woman broke down on camera telling the story of this little four year old boy in Egypt. The parents were Christians (copts), and the doctors were Muslim. They used this little four year old for medical experiments, and then they wouldn't give him any blood infusions while he bled out from a head wound. The parents kept yelling for help, and they finally told the father they would give the boy the infusion he needed if the father would step into the next room to sign paperwork. When he left, they ripped the boy out of his mothers arms and restrained her while he spent his last minutes reaching for his mother and crying for her. All because the mother and father were Christians. (Isn't that uplifting? And today she didn't even read a Psalm before we started class!)

There were more stories about mothers forced to behead their own sons, or watch their own daughters be raped repeatedly. Every time a woman broke down and cried on camera I had to blink back more tears. I even sniffed once. If you don't know me that well... it takes a lot to make me cry... Unless I see someone crying right in front of me.

Those were the heartbreaking stories. The disturbing, terrorizing, traumatizing part of the video, was all of the footage of Islamic leaders and Muslim rallies with subtitles. They showed a massive crowd chanting "Death to America!" over and over, for what felt like an hour. I felt chills go down my spine. I might take a comforting blanket to class next time. An Islamic leader said, "whoever says 'I don't hate' is not a Muslim." He said that Muslims must hate the infidels. And when Muslims "hate" people, they usually go attack them. (With bombs, guns, or.. I don't know... airplanes.)

The saying "First comes Saturday, then Sunday" kept repeating throughout the video. It means, "first we kill the Jews (Saturday is their sabbath), then we go after the Christians (Sunday is our sabbath.)" America is now in the sights of the Muslim world, and they want to bring us down. I think a lot of people are either mislead about Muslim intentions, or they just want to ignore the problem. Right now, in countries where Islam is the official religion they rule by the sharia, which is basically the laws in the Quran. (And they are scary, scary laws. Islamic countries have dress code police for women, and those guys are WAAAY more scary than the dress code police at ORU. At least you don't get shoved into the back of an unmarked car to go who knows where at ORU.)

So now, everyone in the class is dead silent, watching women break down telling these horrific stories, and watching mobs of Muslim men wish death and destruction on us. And as we leave the room, my mind goes into worst case scenario mode, and all the way back to the dorms I'm envisioning the second 9/11, with extreme Muslim terrorists taking over the country (though they'll probably try to take over Egypt first, then attack Jerusalem, then come after us) and forcing sharia law on us all.

Can you imagine the field day Muslims would have with Tulsa? With ORU? I live not only in the BIBLE BELT, I live in the BUCKLE of the BIBLE BELT. And ORU is like a nice sparkly rhinestone in that buckle. This class is feeding a paranoia I never knew I even had! I sit next to one of my brother wingers in that class, and even he was a bit disturbed. His words were, "Its a sobering thought." I thought that was a slight understatement.
My mother refuses to let me tell her what I learn in humanities class now. Half of a conversation about the first video I saw was enough for her.
And did you know that Muslim schools even in the US are indoctrinating our young children with these ideals? And that American Muslims who say that Islam is a peaceful religion are either lying to us or are being lied to by whoever their religious leader is? We saw AMERICAN Muslims telling cameras that America is corrupt and needs to be brought down. AMERICAN Muslims that wanted the country to be run by sharia law. That law strips women of all rights and privileges. That law gives Muslim men the right to go on murdering sprees if those killed are infidels.



I think I might need some anti-anxiety pills by the time I take the final for this class. Much more of this and I'm going to turn into one of those little old cat ladies (but with dogs, not cats. Sorry cats.) that dresses like Umbridge from The Order of the Phoenix and passes out cookies with pink M&Ms in them to all the neighborhood kids to try and block out the horrible worst-case-scenarios that hound my every waking (and sleeping!) moment. Oh, and I'll have a bomb shelter. That's hidden. Because there were lots of stories about Muslims raiding bomb shelters that Christians were hiding in and making parents do horrible things to their children...

I'm just going to stop now..
I think it might be time for my daily devotional. Though I found myself doing a lot of praying in that humanities class. I don't think I've ever been so happy to remind myself about the love of God. At least its Valentine's Day... I'm getting lots of candy with pink, frilly wrappers. Eating on that while reading some Psalms might make me feel better.

Oh, and I apologize for any paranoia I may have just caused.

Big, Fun, Scary List!

So, since I failed NaNo this year even more horribly than last.. haha. I decided I would still try to participate in the Big, Fun, Scary goals that lots of Wrimos are doing for 2011. The idea is to do somethig big, fun, and scary... obviously. I've heard of people getting new jobs they actually liked, or learning to dance, or traveling to China... wow. I don't think I'll do anything expensive.. haha. But, I do have some ideas rattling around in this college-kid brain of mine that I'd like to write down and see how far I get.

BFS List

1. Take swing-dancing lessons. (Found a place 15 min away where the first lesson is FREE and every lesson after that is $7! Talk about cheap! :P)
2. Finish reading ALL of Jane Austen's books as well as Gulliver's Travels & Alice in Wonderland. (Well, they ARE all laying around my house. I'm halfway through Travels and have 1.5 of Austen's down..)
3. Run 3 times a week, every week, no exceptions. Unless I have a fever.
4. Finish at least all the scrapbook blank pages/refills I have this (2011) year.
5. Write on my NaNoNovel a little bit each week. Even if its crap. And even if its just 50 words.
6. Be more disciplined about writing in my prayer journal.

Aaaaand, there you have it. I don't know if any of these things by themselves are scary, or big. But altogether, at the same time, that is a HUGE, scary list to tackle. But I suppose once it becomes habit, it will be very, very fun. :-) Especially to look back and see how far I've come..

Anyone wanna do a BFS list with me?