Sunday, February 8, 2009

Behind in classes

I have to play some serious catch up in my classes today and tomorrow. I have one paper in my Early Modern European class that was due on Friday and I have at least 3 pages of book notes to write on a book I haven't even started yet. The book notes are due tomorrow afternoon. So I'd better get to reading. But first I just wanted to write a quick update. A pipe or something broke in the apartment above ours so our ceiling, wall, and carpet got all wet and mildewy. Thankfully we found the leak before it ruined too much of our stuff. We had to move everything away from the area so now we have all our luggage and boxes of stuff being stored in our living room. :/ It makes for a very cluttered room, especially after Avery's toys get scattered too. Maintenance fixed the pipe for now but all they did for us was give us fans to dry the mildewy carpet. It's dry, but it smells disgusting still and I'm worried it's going to get us sick. I'm going to complain on Monday. Avery is doing so well with potty training. She wears Sesame Street panties during the day and only wears a diaper when she takes a nap and overnight. She's so good.
Last night was foodfest. We didn't want to spend a ton of money there so I made chicken enchiladas. We ate those for dinner then went to foodfest and had dessert. It was fun. Avery really liked jumping in the Elmo's World bouncy room. Erik and the TESOL Society did really well selling cotton candy. They used up and sold 30 lbs of sugar in one night. Crazy. :)
Oh, Avery can open our front door now. And she loves her friends. She talks about Corban, Lilia, and Breea all the time. Yesterday she was pretending to talk on my cell phone and I asked her who she was talking to. She the phone away from her mouth long enough to tell me, "I talking Nana." (Nana is my mom). She's such a sweet, smart, wonderful girl. If she feels that she's suffered an injustice she will tell me and Erik, "Mommy, Daddy, timeout." She did that on Friday because we accidentally forgot her shoes at home so we wouldn't let her walk around Ala Moana Mall barefoot. She wasn't too upset about us carrying her, but when we got into the car she pointed her little finger at us and said, "Mommy, Daddy, timeout. No Avery walking. Timeout." She's so smart. Well, I'd better get to reading. :)

Monday, February 2, 2009

Happy

I was walking home from class this afternoon when I saw Avery bolt across the sidewalk with Erik playfully chasing her. When he caught her he lifted her up and she reached up and touched the leaves in the trees above them. I made a mental recording of it and commanded my brain, "Remember this." They were so cute.
So in one of my classes we're studying the Vietnam War and we've been watching this documentary from National Geographic - emphasis on the graphic. Parts of it are really disturbing. I've noticed more and more this semester that a huge portion of history is made up of horrible events of cruelty and carnage. I learned about a city, Munster, Germany, that was taken over by a group called Anabaptists (a group that believed that babies and children should not be baptized, but wait until they are adults when they can understand the importance of their decision) during the Reformation. The Holy Roman Emperor deployed forces and the 20 leaders that took over the town were forced into a cage that was hung from the town cathedral, where they slowly starved to death in front of the townspeople. It is believed that the cage and their bones hung from the cathedral until the time of the French Revolution, as a lesson to everyone else. Messed. Up.
It's times like these when I am so grateful that I and my loved ones do not have to live in constant fear of things like war or persecution. In terms of historical probability - living where we do in this time is like winning the lottery. We are very fortunate.