February Wrap-Up

So! The shortest and darkest month is over! (I don't usually mind February, but this year I'm happy to move on to March.)

My February has been a little rocky, for several reasons that I'm not going into (including friendship drama, something I previously had no experience with), but here are some of the better things that happened in my February:
-I had to work on two group projects for the first time in college, one of which was amazing and one of which was...eh, but not terrible. 
-We had our first project presentation for my Landscape Architecture studio, which went really well (all of which I attribute to my partner, lol).
-My mom flew out for a few days to visit, a visit which included many ice cream trips, steak, and Telestrations.
-I watched several episodes of The Chosen with my roommate, who'd never seen it. I want to catch up, ultimately, because I haven't watched the last half of the second season or any of the third season...except the last two episodes. XD
-I went to a new coffee shop, and got a really delicious Italian Soda type thing, something I hadn't had in far too long.
-It was actually? sunny? and not feels-like-negative-six-degrees-fahrenheit? for a lot of the month? God is good, because January was HARD. It's not the snow that makes Illinois hard to live in, it's the cold.
-I got to dissect a pig uterus. That was awesome. 
-So far, 21 credit hours is not kicking my rear? (I have God to thank for that, I'm pretty sure) I did have two tests on one day, though, and that was a bit much. XD
-I've been listening to Jupiter from Holst's Planets Suite on a near-daily basis for no particular reason except that IT'S GORGEOUS and it makes me think of last year around this time when I eavesdropped on my friends' playing-repertoire-on-wind-instruments class. Most people know one of the tunes from "O God Beyond All Praising", but the whole piece is absolutely worth listening to, so please do.
-Lent started! *twirls* I love Lent, although it's also always challenging (as it should be), so the fact that we're now in the thick of that makes me happy. (Perhaps not the usual reaction to Lent? XD)
-There's a retreat this weekend that I'm helping with in a very small way, and I'm really looking forward to that. (I get to sing! Anything where I get to sing is a win in my book.)

Quotes of February

There were a lot of good quotes this month, and I thought about taking some of them out...and decided not to. So, I hope you enjoy. (Also, please tell me if this is too much. I have a lot of fun collecting quotes for y'all, but I need to hear that you like them, too, or else I'll be worried that I'm going over the top. XD)

LA prof: "That's why I teach. The free Adobe software."

Lane: "Jesus really did friendzone me."

Overheard in the cafeteria: "Did you know that it was drug money that kept the economy afloat in 2007, when the market crashed?"

Isa: "They sewed them closed, and then they sewed them open again..."

Professor, after turning off the lights so we could see the screen better: "Do you guys want me to bring pillows next time, too?"

Thomas: "No one should make discernment decisions in February."

One of the bases in choir, to the one-year-old daughter of our violinist, after Mass: "Chao, child."

Jay: "What do you think of Cardinal Richelieu?"
Father M: "He loved France too much."
Jay: "Well, what should he have loved more than France?"
Father M: "...God?"

LA prof: "So, if I image-trace this octopus..."

Overheard while leaving class: "I would survive the Hunger Games."

Dr. Digger: "Human muscle is the ideal protein! ...but we don't eat people."

George: "Everyone says the worst thing she can say is 'no'. Actually, the worst thing she can say is 'ew'."

Our music director: "Yep, there we go, get that third out of the chord, tenors."
Our best base, hiding behind his folder and turning red: "That wasn't the tenors."

Ray: "You come from a village in Illinois, right? What's it called?"
Thomas: "Um...Chicago?"

Lane's boyfriend, to Lane, on Mardi Gras, offering her his feve: "Do you want my baby?"
Everyone else: *horrified laughter*

Thomas: "Well, your leg has stayed attached the whole time."

Ana: "And now they're dating, and I hope the best for them, and I wish they weren't."

As a challenge for myself in February, I decided to try and read 28 books (basically one per day) just to see if I could still do it. This post was definitely written and will be posted before the end of the month, so I'm not sure if I will meet/have met that goal, but as of the 21st (when I'm writing this post), I've read 24! (I'm very proud of myself, actually, even though some of the books were quite short.) 

However, given that I'm writing this on the 21st, I don't have time to profile all the books I read, obviously, so you just get a smattering. ;)

Worth Reading...

...if you don't mind dreamy sequences

Glimmerglass by Marly Youmans
Marly Youmans is a contemporary Catholic author, and I've been wanting to read one of her books for quite a while. This one surprised me--it feels halfway between Howl's Moving Castle and something by Katherine Reay. It was a sort of magical realism that flits in and out of reality, but without ever resorting to the "it was just a dream" thing...quite the opposite. There's a house built into a hill, and a pair of brothers, and a bitter old woman. It's slightly magical, but also wholly real, and manages also to meditate on the role of the artist and art. It's strange, but I liked it. 

...if you've been waffling about finishing Jane Austen's works

Mansfield Park by Jane Austen
I finally have read all of Jane Austen's books! (And if you're guessing that eventually there will be a post about this...you bet there will be!) This was a really good studio companion audiobook, and I enjoyed it more than I was expecting. I do understand some of the critiques of the book (Edmund does not deserve Fanny, Fanny can be a bit of a 'boring' MC, it drags a little bit) BUT I actually really liked Fanny, and appreciated the way she stood up for herself, and the cousin relationships are very wholesome. Plus, Jane Austen's eye for satirical lampooning of ridiculous characters is On Point. I obviously didn't love it as much as Pride & Prejudice or Persuasion, but I would say it's worth reading!

...if you like poignant stories with many nose jokes

Cyrano de Bergerac by Edmond Rostand
This little book is actually a five-act play that's very hard to explain. I would say that it follows Cyrano as he tries to function as an excellent playwright with a Very Large Nose, but it also follows Christian as he tries to woo Cyrano's cousin Roxane despite the fact that Roxane values, above all, mental ability, and Christian just Does Not Have That. And it also follows their regiment as they fight under a commanding officer with a vendetta against both Cyrano and Christian (but especially Christian). The whole thing is hilarious (the number of nose jokes is truly impressive) but also poignant, as Cyrano is convinced that no one will ever be able to love him, because of his nose. I would highly recommend it (and also 10/10 recommend reading it aloud with a friend). 

...if you've ever struggled with perfectionism

The Heart of Perfection by Colleen Carroll Campbell
This is quite possibly the best spiritual book I've read in the last year, if not the last five years, if not my whole life.
Yes, I am that enthusiastic about it. It's by the author who wrote My Sisters The Saints, which I really enjoyed in high school, and reread over break. My mom kindly ordered this one for me when I said I was interested (no, it's not my birthday, but I needed a pick-me-up after the aforesaid drama), and I absolutely INHALED it. 
I am That Person who has been a perfectionist for as long as she can remember and doesn't see any problems with it. But it WAS affecting my spiritual life, in ways that I've just started to understand in late high school and college, and I'm just starting to figure out how to fix all of that. It was SO validating and challenging to read a book written by someone else who has recognized the same things in her own life and struggled with them and started to figure out how to confront them. Some of the things she talked about were things I've already started to understand how to deal with in my own spiritual life, and some of them were things where I was like "ooch, I've got to work on that", but the whole book was a massive Lewisian "YOU TOO? I THOUGHT I WAS THE ONLY ONE!" 
What a gift, as Fr. Mike Schmitz would say. 
Each chapter is centered around a saint (and there's one chapter about a heretic) and how they dealt with their perfectionism and managed to grow closer to God in overcoming it, and many of the saints were ones who I didn't know had struggled with perfectionism, so that was REALLY encouraging, too.
Overall IT WAS AMAZING GO READ IT.

...if you're interested in the built environment

Outside Lies Magic by John R. Stilgoe
This book begins with a manifesto on the value of getting away from technology and really looking at the environment around one--becoming explorers. It then continues with explorations and explanations of different aspects of the built environment that an explorer could observe and derive the history of (the concept of palimpsest), from power lines to interstate highways. (Did you know interstate highways are officially designated as weapons?) Fascinating. 

So, how was your February? What's the best spiritual book you've ever read (besides the Bible, of course)? Which is your favorite of this month's quotes?