Drop/Add

I'm psyching myself up right now to stroll over to the registrar's office and drop a class for the first time in my academic career. I'm feeling slightly defeated that I couldn't hack it, but early this morning, as I waited for the enlarger in the typography room, I had a revelation. I was taking 4 upper-division psych classes with one of the most demanding art classes offered at TU in addition to working 13 hours a week and editing the campus newspaper. What was I doing to myself?

I like to do my very best in my all classes and in my work, but how can give my best if I'm spread too thin? Yesterday, I spent about three hours on this honkin' paper for Ethics in Psychology. Those hours will forever be lost, but maybe I can save future hours with a simple drop/add form. Yes, I'm dropping Ethics and taking on Digital Tools. I'll still have a 17 hour course load, but the work I'll be doing in Digital Tools will be useful to me immediately with The Echo, whereas I'll probably never use the APA Code of Conduct. Ethics could have been interesting, but compared to my other classes, it held the least value to me (especially since I've already taken ethics courses at Taylor).

So here goes.

Ski Hi Drive-In and the Taylor Tradition

Last night, after slight coersion from Margaret, I blew off my homework to go to the Drive-In with her, Jenny and Janell. See, it's a tradition each Labor Day Weekend for TU students to go to the Drive In. People bring dorm furniture and huge speakers and we all sit out on the lawn. Although I'd seen the movies we watched already (The Village and Collateral), I enjoyed cuddling up in blankets and pillows with three of my favorite Taylor people.

Some of the other Taylor people present were a completely different matter. I've become more and more disenchanted with the ideal of the Taylor man. Somehow I got this idea freshman year that TU guys are gentlemen (I guess because a large percentage of them hold doors open for women). I'd been deluding myself. Chivalry really is dead.

In spite of being annoyed by everyone else from Taylor who attended the drive-in, I had an amazing time. Since I'd seen both movies, I got a chance to sit back and look at the stars for a while. I know I've said it before, but I love the sky here. Even when it's cloudy, it's still beautiful. I'd forgotten just how special it can be to enjoy a movie outside (the somewhat thick woods behind the screen also had an interesting effect on The Village).

Frisbee golf

I'm sitting in my office as a group of roughly nine Sammy II boys pound the outside wall with frisbees. Wes told me to watch out for this. Apparently, the wall outside my plush, editor's office is a frisbee golf "hole." Ok, they've stopped now.

Who needs sleep?

I am so awake right now. I had only two hours of sleep last night, but it hasn't phased me. I stayed awake in BOTH of my classes this morning! I even participated. Also, I had no coffee until lunch because Vecino's wasn't open (the fascists), but I guess I did have a cherry Pepsi in Physiological, so I wasn't caffeine-less. Still, two hours!

The incredible thing is I usually don't function without at least five solid hours of sleep, yet these last two weeks I've been perfectly fine on two. I honestly believe it's God sustaining me and I'm beyond floored at his providence.

In Matthew 11, Jesus says, "Come to me, all who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest." I claim this promise. I'm beginning to see just how strong God is in my weakness. Even though I toil away toward some abstract goal, I will only reach my true potential if I trust him to support me.

#200859

I just got back from The Echo. We're gonna have to go over some stuff with the staff, but it was a pretty good effort by all involved.

Parking is pathetic at Taylor. Not because there isn't any. People are just STUPID. There was this honkin truck actually pulled through two spaces in the Wengatz lot. I had to park all the way in Olson and walk to English and get jumped and raped because of that stupid truck. Nah, I really didn't get raped, but it can be pretty scary walking by those big trees so early in the morning.

The truck had an Illinois license plate #200859. I think it was black, but everything looks black at this hour. If you see it around campus, throw rocks at it. I mean, seriously. How rude.

Oops.

So here's the deal. Someone stuck my refrigerator on the top shelf in the storage room so I can't get it down by myself (I tried last night), but I need to get it out by Friday so Hall Council won't take it and ransom it. Problem: I don't have any time to get it out.

Actually, I had twenty minutes today, but when I went down with Amy and Katherine, the key broke off in the door (hmmm... reminds me of Anna our freshman year), so now no one can get to our stuff. Muahahaha!

I guess I don't care about it because I'm not using my refrigerator, but I also paid a good $40 and I don't want to have to pay again to get it back. It's a funny situation, tho. I must admit.

Like a drill bit to the head

A few years ago, building contractor Donald Wright, 54, of Toronto fell from a step ladder, skewering his brain with a 3-inch drill bit. After he regained consciousness, Wright calmly walked to the bathroom where he saw the drill buried to the hilt in his right lobe. He plugged the drill into the socket, said goodbye to his reflection and put the drill in reverse. Incredibly, he survived without any major health issues. His story has become psychology folklore.

Today I heard this story for the second time. It still amazes me to think how lucky this guy was. But was it luck? Lots of people die from brain injuries, yet lots of people survive. Crowbars, bullets, nails... When I think about the things people stick in their brains, I'm find myself in awe of God's creation. How resilient. How miraculous.

Dr. Mark Cosgrove, perhaps Taylor's most respected professor, knows plenty about the brain and its ability to bounce back. He's been studying the brain and its intricacies for as long as I've been alive. My freshman year, he suffered a brain aneurysm. Most people straight up die from those and the ones who survive have immediate surgery. Cosgrove had to wait two weeks before he found himself in an Indianapolis OR.

His eventual surgeon, one of the top neurosurgeons in the country, said Cosgrove should have died three times during those two weeks. Yet here he is, standing in the Student Union meeting room, teaching my Physiological Psychology class. What a blessing! What a testament to the power of prayer and to the wonder of God's creation!

I remember when Dr. Cosgrove got sick freshman year. The whole Taylor community lifted the beloved professor up in prayer. Meanwhile, Dr. Cosgrove said he barely thought beyond simple constructions, as John Eldredge puts it, "alert and oriented times zero."

I'm excited about this year and what I'm going to learn from my professors, my friends and mostly from God. It's definitely going to be a challenge, but it'll also be a blast. I'll be sticking a lot in my brain this year. Hopefully nothing sharp, though. :)