October Wrap-Up (ft. Inklings, cow judging, and vampires)

Hello wonderful people! I come to you bearing sad tidings...October is almost over. *sadness* October is the one month that I really wanted to go slowly, to savored, and while I did do a lot of things that helped me savor October, it also felt like it just...sped past. Like every other month so far this year. I guess college will do that to you? Or something? (It's making me question my priorities.) (Incidentally, one of my friends quoted the "She has got to get her priorities straight" line from Harry Potter to me at one point this past month, and I felt very, very seen.) 

I know you guys got a bit of a peek at my month in my last post (the Jell-O incident, for instance), but I thought I'd share a couple of other things that happened, too. 

-I went to Madison for the national cow judging competition and was solidly mediocre at judging cows. I thought about that a little bit and decided that it's actually very good for me to have something that I'm mediocre at, but that I still enjoy doing. A lot of what I do in my life, I feel the need to be the Best, or at least In The Top Ten Percent, and I end up putting a lot of pressure on myself. I'm not saying it's bad to excel, but I think it's also good to have things that I do where I'm not putting pressure on myself, but merely enjoying the activity, getting gradually better, and enjoying the process. (This is also a reason why I enjoy knitting and quilting, because especially in quilting, I don't hold myself to a standard of perfection. If it looks sorta nice and doesn't come apart, that's good enough. XD)

-I have two group projects in two of my Landscape Architecture classes, and it is the WORST. Design by committee simply Doesn't Work. And trying to work on an AutoCAD document with 4+ people is torture, because it doesn't have a multi-user functionality. Which makes sense, because it's a high-tier rendering software, but also is the worst, because it means only one person can work on it at a time. And sometimes while they work on it, they have three people back-seat driving. About as fun as it sounds, either as the back-seat driver or the back-seat drive-ee.

-I got to go on a camping trip with three other people, one of whom I knew quite well, one of whom was an acquaintance, and one of whom was a stranger, and it ended up being a very beautiful (albeit rather chilly) trip. The forests of Illinois are BEAUTIFUL when they start turning all of their colors in the autumn, and we were camping (in tents!) on the edge of a bluff above a lake, so we had gorgeous views, as well. We cooked potatoes in the fire, ate s'moreos, prayed the Divine Office, and switched off between talking about deep things, and talking about absolutely ridiculous things. Oh, and we played an epic game of My Cow on the way back. 

-I made an apple crumb cake with the apples I picked on the orchard trip, and ended up feeding almost all of it to various friends and acquaintances while it was still warm. After that, I decided that Monday evenings would be baking evenings, and have subsequently made pumpkin bread, which also was mostly fed to friends while it was still warm. We'll see what happens next week... 

-I got to go to a meeting of a group of mostly upperclassmen and grad students that calls itself the Inklings, which was just about as wonderful as you'd expect from that name. We all gathered in the living room of a few of the members (it's called Brohan--because that's where the male grad students live. The female grad students live in The Shire) and ate pita chips and fudge-covered brownies, and drank tea, and talked about The Magician's Nephew, a conversation that ranged from actual discussion of the book to what the nature of joy is and how we should cultivate it to whether The Chosen is any good as a work of devotional art. It was a quiet but intellectually full evening, and if at the end, we'd veered absurdly far from our topic and were each talking in a different accent, that was all to the good. 

Fun Quotes

Mandy: "Stop being so judgy."
Gus: "That's literally what we're here for."
Mandy: "Animals, not people!"

Priest: "Why is Father wearing vestments that make him look like a turtle?"

GPS: "Turn left."
Judging Coach: "Yeah, I knew I shouldn't have listened to you." 

GPS: "Turn around."
Judging Coach: "No, yeah, I think you're intoxicated."

Kay: "I just feel like I should know what a pipkin is!"
Father M: "Gorg!"

Father M: "I want fingerless gloves so I can do grabby grabby things."

Kay: "At a dairy shrine, would you sacrifice a cow, or a chicken?"
Lewis: "Oh, definitely a chicken."

Father M: "I don't like where this conversation is going. Potscrubber!"

Ana: "Mozart was a real one-trick pony. I mean, don't get me wrong, he did that trick well, but..."

Jay: "What does violet taste like?"
Peter: "Penitence."

Chacos: "I knew you were serious because you called me by my first name."

Francis: "Press A to quack, Father."

Thomas: "Where do FOCUS missionaries go to train? A concentration camp."

Louis: "I have reason to LARP."

Father M: "You've been where I was conceived."

Gray: "I have a child! AAAAAAAAAAH!"

Overheard: "I haven't been hitting the gym enough. Seven hours a day was not enough."

Gray: "And you were planning to kill homeslice!"

Peter: "So, instead of drinking coffee when I do engineering, I should just...drink."

Ray: "Her heart was stolen by the infinite Sam's Club mayonnaise." 

Jake: "For when you need to call the KGB."
Ray: "When you need to call the KGB?"
Jake: "I dunno! Some people need to call the KGB."

Nikki: "The women yearn to be friars."

Lewis: "You said you weren't going to take another cookie until Lizzie packed them up to leave."
Louis: "I didn't make that statement ex cathedra. Doctrine evolves."

Louis: "I'm taking them home!"
Lizzie: "But they're my kids!"
Louis: "Well, I'm adopting them."

Louis: *in Russian accent* *about the Gather hymnal* "Throw in back. Is piece of crap."

Kay: "How to make vectors go brrrrrrrrrrrrr?"

Kay: "Are you saying my dad wasn't cool enough to get a cognomen?"F
Father M: "That's exactly what I'm saying."

Worth Reading If...

...you love a good biography

Bonhoeffer by Eric Metaxas
This one was recommended to me by my aunt, who generally has flawless taste (she's the one who introduced my dad to both of his and my favorite sci-fi series) (that sentence was very dubious grammatically, but we're going to let it slide). However, I'll admit that I was a little skeptical about this biography--I never found Bonhoeffer scintillating (I read his reflections on the Psalms in high school and retained absolutely zilch, and had read a couple of 'he tried to kill Hitler' kids' biographies that seemed to say nothing at all in a far too simplistic manner). And the fact that the book was 1400 pages long on my phone (which is probably double the pages it is in a paper copy, but still an intimidating number) made me a bit wary. 
However, I started reading it in small chunks when all I had was my phone and not a paper book, and little by little, I was hooked. 
Why had Bonhoeffer never before been presented to me as a well-rounded person? As someone who loved God, who was a brilliant young man who gradually found his place in real-life ministry? As someone who mis-stepped, sometimes, with his superiors and in life and occasionally caused scandal, much to his sorrow? Someone who was swimming hard against the current, yet carried backwards as fast as he could swim forwards? Someone who loved God, and His Word? 
That is exactly the Bonhoeffer that this biography introduced me to, and I love him. 
I love his intellectual pursuits and the way he wrote; I want to go back and read that Psalms book again. I love how much he loved God, and how he formed the young men he was entrusted with, and how he made bona-fide mistakes, like the time he went all the way to America, only to discern that he needed to go back to Germany immediately. I love his Christian courage and confidence in God, the way he prayed, and the way he encouraged everyone around him in all circumstances. 
Oh, and I love the love story between him and the woman who was his fiancée at the time of his death. It's a highly unconventional story but brimming with the true desire to lay down one's life for the other. (I also now want to read Love Letters from Cell 92.) 
Of the whole book, the plot to kill Hitler doesn't take up a ton of time, which I think is as it should be. It's an important part of the story, but it's not the whole of his story, and the other parts are as important or more so. I found Bonhoeffer's thoughts on morality, as put forth in this biography, fascinating. He talks about the importance of living in freedom as a child of God, without a niggling, scrupulous worry of doing wrong. Perhaps we will sometimes do wrong, and then we pick ourselves up, ask for forgiveness, and keep going. I'm not sure if I agree with that point of view, or to what point I agree with it, but it has been food for thought. 
Tl;dr: I loved this biography, and I'm hoping to meet Bonhoeffer in Heaven. 

...classics are more your thing

The Mayor of Casterbridge by Thomas Hardy
I randomly ran across this book while in the library looking for something else entirely, and because I had really enjoyed Far from the Madding Crowd (as chronicled in this post), I decided to pick it up. 
I don't think it quite lived up to Madding Crowd for me (there was no Gabriel Oak, for one thing), but it was enjoyable in its own right. 
It follows the story of a man who sells his wife to a sailor at the fair for five pounds when he's drunk, and the subsequent adventures and misadventures of the man, his wife, their little daughter, and the sailor. Like Madding Crowd, it's an exploration of human nature and the brokenness thereof, especially when it comes to romantic relationships, but it doesn't see the flaws of humanity without hope, and overall ends on a note of forgiveness. I enjoyed it, and would be open to reading more Thomas Hardy in the future! 

...you want something slightly spooky for Autumn

The Historian by Elizabeth Kostova 
My cousin Pippin recommended this book to me over the summer, and I actually accidentally listened to an abridged version of it in September. I loved it, and was very frustrated when I found out that it was abridged, so resolved to read the full paper copy during October. (The perfect time to read it, by the way.)
It follows three generations of historians, all of whom become caught up in--or are dragged into--the search for Dracula. Who is still alive. Or rather, undead. 
While the book is an exploration of a generational quest, and a vampire story, even more than that, it's a love letter to scholarship. 
The most important plot points all hinge on the discovery of an ancient document, and large swaths of the book are dedicated to the search--to cross-referencing, making inferences, visiting archives, and so on. And it is truly an adventure, and a beautiful (and terrible) one, at that. And it made me so happy, because of all of the adventure/horror/thriller-type books, how many of them feature a hapless master's student who would really rather be researching the Dutch merchant trade? 
It also treats the role of 'historian' as a calling, and an important one, at that. It highlights the importance of scholarship and of history, in being imminently relevant to the future, even while being focused on the past. (Usually, I suppose, the importance of history is not for   killing-a-very-real-and-extant-vampire, but y'know. One must exaggerate things in fiction in order for them to come across in real life, as Flannery O'Connor would point out.) There's this wonderful moment when one of the characters looks at the MC and says "I can see that you are a historian". And I love that, because it implies that being an academic--a historian--is as important and real of a role of anything else that is a deep calling within someone. And I like that. I'm not sure if I entirely agree with that, but I like it.  
Furthermore, I love the characters. There's a 'frame story' with the main MC's daughter, and I love her--her level-headed-ness, and her relationship with her father--and can't help but notice that we never learn her name. I liked that. :) The main story has to do with the MC, Paul, his academic advisor, Professor Rossi, and a mysterious lady named Helen, who ends up traveling with Paul in his research. 
I love Paul--his bravery and brashness, and the way that he cares about Professor Rossi, and the courteous and kind way he treats all of his fellow scholars. I love Professor Rossi--his absent-minded-professor-ish-ness, and his care for Paul, almost as a son. And I LOVE Helen--her sarcasm and self-sufficiency, the way she knows her own mind, but at the same time how she can let herself depend on people that she knows and trusts. I see myself in her, to some degree, and that made me both happy and sad. 
I was also intrigued by the way the vampire hunting was being conducted by agnostics, and how much it involved monasteries, holy items, and the protection granted by crucifixes and holy water. (And prayer beads, in the Muslim tradition, which I found fascinating, if perhaps quibble-worthy. I now want to know if there are folktales about vampires within the Islamic tradition, and if they use prayer beads to fend them off. Perhaps something to ask the professor I work for, who is an expert in Islamic studies.) It was a real tribute to the power of God, while also doubting that He exists--an interesting dichotomy to ponder.
All in all, I loved this book and would highly recommend it! 
(I will note that there were a few rather sensual scenes, although in one of them, one of the characters notes the value of waiting for marriage, which I appreciated. So, so, so.)

The Month in Music

Everyone Sang by Richard Burchard: everyone suddenly burst out singing/and I was filled with such delight/as prisoned birds must find in freedom

True Love Knows No Season by Matthew Byrne: the rifle ball came flyin', face down he lay dyin'/and Sarah ran to him, she was cursin' the lawman/the poor girl knew no reason/ except that he'd been slain

In The Blood by Home Free: could I change it if I wanted/can I rise above the flood/will it wash out in the water/or is it always in the blood

Inscription of Hope by Z. Randall Stroope: I believe in the sun/even when it is not shining/and I believe in love/even when there's no one there

No Time by Susan Brumfield: no time to tarry here/no time to wait for you/no time to tarry here/for I'm on my journey home

Restless by Alison Krauss & Union Station: I've been/put down, pushed around, apprehended and led downtown and I/can't help it if I'm out of sight, cause I'm restless tonight

Whisky Lullaby by Brad Paisley & Alison Krauss: when we buried him beneath the willow/the angels sang a whisky lullaby

Seasons of Love from Rent: how do you measure/measure a year?/in daylights?/in sunsets?/in midnights? in cups of coffee?/how about love?

Oak & Ash & Thorn by The Longest Johns: elm, she hates mankind and waits, 'til every gust be laid/to drop a limb on the head of him that anyway trusts her shade

Father's Lullaby by Lady Maisery: it's been one short year since the day that I married her/one short year since I made her my bride/and it's one short year since the bells they were ringing/with dancing and singing our bands were tied

The Rain Keeps Falling by Andrew Peterson: well I'm scared if I open myself to be known/I'll be seen and despied and be left all alone/so I'm stuck in this tomb and you won't move the stone/and the rain keeps falling

Dawson's Christian by Vixy & Tony: there are stories of the Dutchman, the Celeste and Barnham's Pride/there are stories of Horseman and the Lady at his side/but the tale that makes my blood run cold, the more because it's true/is the tale of Jayme Dawon and his crew

Lead, Kindly Light by Audrey Assad: I was not ever willing to be led/I could have stayed but I ran instead/in spite of fear, I followed my pride/my eyes could see, but my heart was blind

Omnia Sol by Z. Randall Stroope: o stay your soul and leave my heart its song/o stay your hand; the journey may be long/and when we part, and sorrow can't be sway'd/remember when, and let your heart me staid/omnia sol temperat/absens in remota/ama me fideliter/fidem meam noto

What's something you're mediocre at but enjoy doing? What's your favorite biography? How was your October, and what are you looking forward to in November?