September Wrap-Up

Y'all. I'm exhausted. I'm literally so tired it's not even funny. It's been such a wild month, and I cannot even WAIT to get to October, because I will finally have a BREAK. (There is nothing happening in October. It's going to be glorious.)

But hey, a lot of the things that happened this month were super fun, so I'm not sorry it's been such a busy month...I just wish I could have gotten more sleeeeeeeeeeeep. (I need to be better about boundaries. I'm working on it.) Anyway, some highlights: 

-I got to hear Doug Tallamy talk about oak trees and then meet him, which was AWESOME. I would honestly listen to that man talk about anything for hours, but when he's talking about backyard conservation? Yes please. (Doug Tallamy is a pretty well-known naturalist/conservationist.)

-My landscape architecture class went to Chicago to tour some firms, which was a great experience in that I got to get a bit of a feel for what types of firms I might want to work for someday. (Hint: not one that has a corporate office in a skyscraper.) Also, we got to see the River Walk (which I'd never seen) with one of the landscape architects who designed it as our guide, and go to the Lurie Garden, which I am slightly obsessed with.  

-I did a LOT of swing dancing--both West and East Coast style--because we have Swing Dancing Night every Sunday evening. I've been working on learning some complicated spins and lifts with some of my guy friends, one of whom I will trust to do literally any of them because he is about 6' 9" and can pick up grown me, and the other of whom has dropped me on my butt three times. (I extorted him for it, though. He now owes me a favor that I can claim at any time.) (The whole thing is absurdly fun.)

-I have a new job! I'm sorting and digitizing files for one of my favorite professors, and enjoying it very much. 

-I started walking to the cemetery late at night (the Catholic cemetery, don't worry), which was An Absolute Mood, and something that I need to do more often. (I dragged friends along on one of the excursions and got them hooked on walking to the cemetery, so I count that as an absolute win.)

-I went on a dairy judging trip with the Dairy Judging Team to Harrisburg, PA (which, coincidentally, is very close to Hershey, PA, so guess who got to visit the Hershey Factory). When people say that Midwesterners are very big on road trips, it's all true. It's TEN HOURS to Harrisburg from here, and on the way back, we did it all in one shot. It was insane. (Also, car fatigue is real. Idk what's up with that.) The other thing about Midwesterners, though, is that they don't understand that one should not try to go 80 around the curves in the hills of the East Coast, and that is all I have to say about that. The actual competition was SUPER fun, even though it involved memorize five sets of oral reasons (for how we placed the cows) in twenty minutes each and then being scored on how well we delivered them. My team placed near the bottom, but two of the people on the team hadn't judged a single cow before that week, so our coach has high hopes for Nationals this weekend. (We're leaving for that on the day this post is posted.) 

-I got to see a few different people who had graduated last year and two years ago, which was really great, although it's crazy to me that I'm now the age they were when I met them. I feel so old... 

-There was a retreat this past weekend that I was helping with in an official capacity by coordinating Living Stations, which is something where the devil will very often attack, and that did happen in a couple of ways (an actor had to drop out at the last minute, we didn't have enough cars), but God came through in the end, and it was beautiful as always! (Although the part where I accidentally waxed part of one of my good friend's arms with fake blood was...something.)

Quotes

Me: "Let that hypoosmotic feta absorb your emotions." 

Kay: "That's not sports betting, that's persecution!"

TA: "We probably won't make it to a hundred years old anyway!"
Professor: "Speak for yourself."

GPS: "Keep right."
Judging coach: "Hmm. Maybe. You and I are not friends right now."

Savannah: "Welp, it's 2 o'clock. Time to fulfill the Old Testament."

Father M (to me): "Glad to see you're alive."

Father M: "Eucharistic Prayer Four For Various Needs: 'Jesus went about doing good.'"
Thomas: "No, 'doing well'."

Luna: "My son, your body is so broken. *yells* It's broken! You're dead!"

George: "Thomas, you have such concentrated and neat chest hair."

Lewis: "Luna, if you killed him, what would you do without your minion?"
Luna: "Lewis, you make a good point."

Paul: "Samantha knows everything. She was there when he showered."
Me: *dying*
Paula: "Sam is the most innocent person I know, there has to be another explanation."

Nikki: "Kissing your homies is in the Bible."
Kate: "Where?"
Nikki: "Judas."

Kate: *brings Mary a chair*
Mary: "Chivalry is not dead!"
The-person-who-Mary-has-been-on-three-dates-with-who-was-standing-right-there: "Heh."

Sarah: "I'll get apple pie, the pain will help me cry."

Thomas: "I'm going to see if I can get from philosophy to Hitler."

Me: *knocks tag bar off a freezer case at the store*
Thomas: "Samantha! We can't take you anywhere!"

Jake: "Where's the dish disposal?"

Nikki: "You can tell when someone has food allergies by looking at them."
Me: "Hey!"
Nikki & Katie: "You have food allergies?"

Thomas: *to me* "You tend not to get as scandalized as other women."
(You GUYS I'm officially Not Like Other Girls! *DIES*)

Breen: "You cannot serve both Newman Hall and Marriage Mammon."

Thomas: "Well, this is cozy, boy, girl, boy, boy."

Daniel: "Peter! Oh, wait, you're not an RA anymore. You can say whatever you want."

Jay: "Quizlet is the fountain of youth."

City employee: "You just keep going, and eventually they stop yelling at you."

Professor: "Use your Landscape Architecture jedi mind tricks."

Louis: "I don't know. I'm done being inspiring."

Louis: "It's Illinois. Whenever you're sorry, you're ISorry. Like an Apple Product. Ooookay."

Louis: "We're not going to worry about the hymn, because it's 'Joyful, Joyful', and if you don't know Beethoven Nine by now..."

Other choir member: "It's not that you don't want to live, you just eventually want to die."

Worth Reading If...
(I did read more books than this, but they were mostly rereads. Right now, I'm stuck in the middle of a history book about the English Dominican Province, and have been for like a week and a half. It's an interesting book, but oh my word it's taking me forever. XD)

...you want to be Shooketh

Till We Have Faces by C. S. Lewis
I reread this one this month and had my MIND BLOWN. I read it for the first time when I was a freshman in high school, and it was really impactful then, but it's only gotten better as I've gotten older. The first few times I read it, I related to Orual to an alarming degree, and I still do, but I've come far enough in my spiritual life also to relate to Psyche--especially when she talks about the longing she has at the best times for more, to do what amounts to going further up and further in. 
Also, there are so many levels of allegory. SO many, and different parts of different ones pop out at different times. Like, Psyche-as-soul but also Psyche-as-Christ-figure. 
And oh my WORD the thread of Orual-as-soul, and her bitter observation that she cannot become beautiful in the eyes of the gods unless they choose to make her so, and they cannot love her and make her beautiful unless she is already beautiful. That hit SO HARD. It's such a "pagan" mythology that is so Christian at the same time.
Too, the theme throughout of wrongly ordered love becoming a devouring thing, and how Orual's love for Psyche devours her, and how she can't see how Psyche's love for the god hasn't devoured her, and nor has it replaced Psyche's love for Orual--it's just different. 
I could go on and on, but I'm not going to because I have other things I need to get to, but it was SO GOOD. Reread is highly recommended, or read it if you haven't!

...older Catholic fiction is Your Thing

Green Dolphin Country by Elizabeth Goudge
I didn't take a huge love to this book until about halfway through. I enjoyed the first part, but the second part (or parts of the second part) are where it caught my fancy. So, I thought I wouldn't be sharing it with you, but now I am, because that second part was incredible. (Even though it's still not my favorite Elizabeth Goudge book.)
The first part takes place on an island, as these three children are growing up together--two sisters, and the son of the man that their mother had been in love with. It's a beautiful and whimsical and mysterious and holy island in the English Channel, and their life on it is beautiful. The one small kink in the hose is that both of the girls are in love with the boy, and the boy is only in love with one of them, but each of the girls thinks that it is herself that he is in love with. (The girls names are Marianne and Marguerite, and for the whole first half, there's a Thing about how easy they are to get mixed up.)
The second part (and this isn't a spoiler, because the author says it in the foreword) is when the boy (his name is William) makes a life for himself in New Zealand. This is the part that's why it's not my favorite Elizabeth Goudge book--something I realized about myself while reading it is that I really don't like pioneer books. I don't like books about pioneers. This is why I don't like Westerns. This is why I never wanted to read Little Britches. This is why I didn't like Brighty of the Grand Canyon as a kid. I don't know exactly why I don't like books about pioneers. I just don't. But despite the fact that there was a lot of Pioneering involved, I managed to look past it. Because the premise of the second part of the book is that William writes back to England for his love to come marry him, and he writes for the wrong sister by accident. And then he marries her. Even though their personalities don't really suit, even though she is far too ambitious for him, and doesn't see his happiness as a priority, really. (Or rather, she wants the things for him that would make her happy. It's kind of a twisted way of wanting his happiness.) And then, he makes the best of the marriage. Because he's married to her. And it is this absolutely beautiful thing. Talk about laying down your life for the other! Gah! Literally my favorite romance trope ever. 
And then the other sister, through that tragedy, discovers a deep love for God, and becomes a nun, which sounds like the weirdest and most cliche thing EVER, but it's NOT, and that's beautiful, too. 
I'm not going to spoil the ending, but it's gorgeous. And the whole book has the theme/thread woven through of the text of Psalm 42 "As the deer longs for flowing streams", aka Sicut Cervus. 

The Month In Music

Silverlake by Whim 'n Rhythm: what is the face you hide from me?/I will not let you go/until I know you friend or foe

Good to Me by Audrey Assad: and the fires burn all around me/I will praise You, my God/and the foxes in the vineyard will not steal my joy/because you are good to me, good to me

Song of the Candle by Stan Rogers: and I said "Father, can you tell me, is some happiness my right?"/he said "rather seek ye joy, the blessings of your God/and happiness from worship in His sight"

The Spell You're Under by Lowen & Navarro: you can carry your cross, bury the loss/walk a broken line/you can weather the pain alone in the rain/for a long, long time/you just can't live that way

Alone from A Year with Frog & Toad: sometimes the days, they can be very busy/so I like to stop and think now and then/I think of the reasons I have to be happy/and that makes me happy all over again

Sicut Cervus by Palestrina: sicut cervus desiderat ad fontes aquarum/ita desiderat anima mea ad te, Deus

Old Churchyard by The Wailin' Jennys: come, come with me to the old churchyard/I so well know those paths 'neath the soft green sward

I'll Set You Free by Lowen & Navarro: I remember words that fell/like coins into a wishing well/it was never meant to be/so I'll set you free

Sweet Baby James by James Taylor: goodnight, you moonlight ladies/rockabye, sweet baby James/deep greens and blues are the colors I choose/won't you let me go down in my dreams?

We Will Survive by Andrew Peterson: tell me the story I still need to hear/tell me we're gonna make it out alive again

Shasta's Complaint by Sarah Sparks: a man may find his eye deceiving/a fool holds on to trust his sight/a wise man knows that his own feeling may not with the truth align

Last Goodbye by The Wailin' Jennys: I know a place where you heard can be safe/and you've said your last goodbye

Breaking You by Audrey Assad: worries will never love you/they'll leave you all alone/but your God will not forsake you/o my soul

So, how was your September? What books did you read? Have you ever taken a ten-hour road trip?