December Wrap-Up

Merry Christmas! Happy Eve of the Feast of Mary, Mother of God (also known as New Years, but that's boring)! December has been quite the month (hard to believe it's the last month of 2021...) so let's jump right in!

1. First of all, I'm home! Finally! I'm back in my beloved PNW, where it smells amazing outside (I had no idea how much I'd missed the smell of outside in the PNW until I got home, stepped out of the car, and inhaled deeply), rains in the right way, and the Dominicans reside! (Ok, ok, they do reside other places, too. But most of my Dominicans reside here.) Also, there are mountains. Do you know how nice it is to see mountains after months of flat? It's very nice. 
I had a bit of an adventure getting home--I took a tiny plane out of a tiny four-gate regional airport in Champaign to Chicago, at which point I had a long layover, and then a flight from Chicago home. As it turns out, no planes fly from Champaign to the West side of the country. I managed to read 2.75 books during the saga, so it was not time wasted. ;)
I have also wasted no time getting back involved at my home parish--I'm now trained as a sacristan and have been helping my mom with her sacristan duties or sacristaning by myself nearly every day, which is SUCH a joy! I've also been trained to be the head of the volunteers at a Mass, which is a bit intimidating. Haven't actually done that, yet.
Christmas Mass back at home (which I helped sacristan!) was beautiful, peaceful, and joyful. I didn't realize how much I missed our Dominicans' (and specifically our pastor's) way of saying Mass until I got back, and remembered that yes, I am very, very spoiled in my parish. (That's not saying anything against the priests at Newman. They do an excellent job with Mass as well, it's just not the same.)
Right now (as I write this post), my family is up at Rivendell, where we came Christmas afternoon, and it has snowed approximately eight inches, which means that we can't really go anywhere, and we're very happy about it. I've gotten to make fires in the Russian Masonry Heater, tromp around in snowshoes, and sit quietly and read for lengths of time (I got some good books for Christmas!!), so I am, of course, delighted with the circumstance. 

(Image credit to owner, presumably Ascension Press)

2. I started listening to Fr. Mike Schmitz's Bible in a Year podcast at the beginning of Advent, the Catholic Church's New Years, as my Liturgical New Years's resolution (yes, I know that was at the end of November, but that, as Georgette Heyer would say, "don't signify"), and I've been really enjoying it! He pairs books of the Bible in a way so that they're of the same time period but about different things, so for instance, right now we're going through Exodus and Leviticus, a narrative book and a non-narrative book, so that things don't get too boring. (Granted, I do not find Leviticus boring. I may be unique in this. XD) Father Mike always has practical and insightful things to say about the readings for the day, and he's led me on to some scriptural insights that I would not have gotten otherwise. I would definitely recommend the podcast to everyone. Even if you're Christian but not Catholic, I think you could get a lot out of it. :)

Yes, I did that to spine. Hence the face. It was a library book.

3. Quotes of this Month:

"As I was saying, before I dropped my phone in the barbecue sauce..." --Thomas

"Can I be the best man at your funeral?" --Someone in the caf

George: *takes off his glasses* [to me] "I can't see the whites of your eyes!"
Me and Thomas simultaneously: "Then don't fire!"

Me: [to Father] "As long as you do the Solemn Tone for the Roman Canon, you can use whatever chalice veil and burse you want." [This will only be funny to a tiny subset of people, I think, but I find it amusing, so I thought I'd see if anyone else did.]

Me [to Legolas]: "Thanks, sweetheart."
Legolas: "You're welcome, my lovely lemon."

Thomas: "We're all country boys here."
Me: "Excuse me, I am neither from the country, nor a boy."
Thomas: "Okay, you're a country girl. You're wearing flannel, and you work at the meat lab."
Me: "Fine, I'll take it."

Image credit to owner

4. I watched Spider-Man: Into the Spider-verse this month, and while one might predict that since there is one thing involved that I'm very ambivalent about (Spider-man) and one that I downright dislike (the multiverse) I wouldn't have liked it.

Au contraire, I enjoyed it in the extreme! Part of it might have been quips like "hey kid, drop the body!" or "there's a kid in a Spider-man costume dragging a dead hobo behind a train", part of it might have been having siblings in the room to enjoy said quips with, but I think a large part of it was that the movie didn't take itself too seriously. It was a whimsical ode to everything Spiderman, which I obviously didn't appreciate to the max, since I haven't seen all of Spiderman, although I could see that through how the movie was presented. But it didn't try to be consistent with ALL the other movies, and it didn't try to explain the multiverse, and it didn't try to go through ALL the ramifications (in other words, it did not have the Dr. Strange approach to the multiverse, for which I was grateful), it simply enjoyed the plot device of having multiple Spider-mans (or Spider-other-things) in one space, in one movie. 

Also, Miles Morales is The Sweetest, and I love him as Spiderman. I love his growth and the way his family is worked in and important to him, and the way his racial heritage adds a certain amount of tension (especially between family/neighborhood/school) but in a subtle way, so as not to overwhelm a kid's movie!

I did think that there could have been more development of friendships within the Spider-people, especially Miles and Gwen, but that's a minor quibble for a movie that wasn't trying to be the most character-growth oriented movie ever, but rather trying to have fun with Spiderman and the multiverse.

Image credit to owner

5. I've just finished rereading the A Wrinkle In Time series (aka the Time Quintet), which made me think quite a bit about free will and freedom in general and uniqueness, which I hadn't realized was a theme in pretty much the entire series, one way or another. (Kudos to my friend Lewis, for putting up with my confused and muddled initial thoughts, helping me clarify my thinking, and talking with me about this on Skype for two hours. XD) 

Minor spoilers ahead--be warned. 

In the first book, A Wrinkle in Time, Meg, Charles Wallace, Calvin, and Meg's father meet IT, a brain which has dedicated ITself to bringing the entire planet under ITs control, to make all of the people on the planet's brains think in unison with IT's. Which spooked me quite a bit, because suddenly I was thinking about Heaven. And I was worried that was how it was going to be in Heaven--all of us losing our individuality (or uniqueness) in a unison of thought.

But then after quite a bit of conversation, I realized that what was spooking me was the idea of a unison of thought and being with something that is not perfect, that is in fact quite fallen. (IT is one of the most fallen characters I have ever had the horror of coming across. The fact that pride is what gets the characters involved with him should have tipped me off.) And also that we will not lose our uniqueness in Heaven. It's a gift from God, because we are made in His image, and He is unique, and when He gives a gift like that, He does not take it away! Additionally, IT is deplorable because IT tries to force ITs will on everyone on the planet, rather than allowing them to choose freely, as God does. We can choose freely to bring our free wills into unison with God, which then brings us happiness, because instead of wanting our conformity with Him (like IT does), God wants our happiness, and ultimately, our eternal life.

A later passage in the book, comparing free will to a sonnet--there are constraints, like the form of the poem, but within the form, the poet is completely free--brings in the idea of freedom for excellence, which is developed more completely in the next book.

A Wind in the Door focuses almost exclusively on freedom for excellence, with Meg learning to turn away from hatred to loving as a Namer, and with the trial of needing to convince Sporos to Deepen, which is the natural next step in his life. He needs to sing the ancient harmonies in order that they might not be broken, and he doesn't want to...he wants to do what he wants to do. And that is what so many people think freedom is. But it's not. Freedom is the ability to choose the good, and not simply the ability to choose. 

Lastly, the "ancient harmonies", which are referenced in every single book--the ancient harmonies are what the characters join in singing when they choose the good--reminded me both of my initial reaction to IT--that Heaven must be harmony, in some way or another, and perhaps more like modern music, where each note goes to the whole, and there are no gaps or breaks in the melody, rather than like Brahms (the specific music metaphors are all Lewis, the initial idea about modern music is mine) where there are breaks in the melody. (There was an entire side-conversation about how modern music might be more like Heaven and/or angels than classical music, in some aspect or another, earlier in the month.) But they also reminded me of Tolkien and the beginning of the Silmarillion, where God sings the world into existence, but allows the angels to help him in singing, and where the devil of that world brings dissonance into the melody, breaking it, in the same way that ancient harmonies are broken, in L'Engle, when one lacks or rejects the freedom for excellence. I'm still not entirely sure whether harmony or unison is the best metaphor for Heaven, specifically, but certainly harmony is a good metaphor for earth. 

There's even more about free will in the other books--A Wind in the Door, for instance, brings in how one person's choice can change history, and also how fallenness and the turning away from the freedom for excellence spreads through a family and "the sins of the fathers are visited upon the children, even unto the seventh generation". But I don't have space for a complete explication of that in this post. :)

6. Now that I've gabbed on for ages about Madeleine L'Engle, I'll try to keep the last two bullet points a little shorter.

I suppose you probably want to know how the end of my first semester went! (Or maybe not, but I'm going to tell you anyway.) I only had one final, and that went tolerably (in other words, I got an A), and my final project for another class, which was a recorded presentation, I nailed in the second take with no practice. I think I'm going to come out of my first semester with a very respectable GPA, which makes me happy, because I have a tad less confidence in next semester, when I'm taking 20 credits of classes. (For the record, that was my own stupid idea, so if I crash and burn, it's my own darn fault. To be quite honest, though, I don't think it'll be a problem.) 
I did end up staying up late A LOT the last couple of weeks at school, simply because I didn't have much to do, and I figured I was heading home soon, so I definitely developed a sleep deficit, which I'm still not quite done correcting, I don't think. Oops! Better sleep next semester, I hope. 
I also found out in the last couple of weeks that my roommate is transferring to another university for next semester, so, unless the housing advisor adds another person to my room, I'll have my room to myself for the rest of the year. I can't say I'm sad about that...

Image credit to Goodreads

7. After having used Goodreads for almost exactly a year, I've concluded that, as fun as it is to see my Goodreads Wrapped (apparently, I read 89,899 pages and 305 books? insane) I'm not sure that it's the right platform for me. 

I thrive on seeing to-do lists (or really any kind of list) all checked off nicely, to see what I've accomplished, and as much as the "read" shelf is nice, it really doesn't do that. I want something where I can look at my TBR and see what I've read, as well as what I haven't yet read, which is all Goodreads gives me. I feel like all I see is what I still need to do, and not what I've done. Now, this might be the way I'm using the platform. But overall, I think I'm not gaining a lot from the platform. I do enjoy keeping up with my fellow readers, but not so much that I need to spend Ages and Ages Of Time that I could be using for reading/homework/blogging/writing/whatever scrolling through and liking peoples' posts. I could use that time to become more engaged in the blogging community. Or something. 

In addition, since getting a smartphone at the beginning of the school year, I've become more attuned to the ways that I use technology, and the ways that I don't have to use technology. I want to make it a priority in some ways to go back to analogue ways of doing things. In the same vein, I think I'm going to get myself an actual clock for my room, a timer, and a watch. 

So, I'm going to try something new in January. Don't worry--for at least one month, I'm going to keep using Goodreads. But during January, I'm going to experiment with using my bullet journal as a "paper Goodreads", and if that works out for me, I'm going to switch over completely to my bullet journal. Which, on the plus side, should give me more time for blogging! *winning smile* 

So! How was your December? What's your favorite way to keep track of the books you've read? Have you read Madeleine L'Engle? What does home smell like, to you? What's your favorite podcast?