Mind Expansion

This has certainly been the weekend of new and fascinating information!  Beginning Thursday and going through tonight, I have been to more readings, talks, and informational sessions than I have in 3 weeks.  There were some purely fun things, too. :D  So, I present my weekend:

Thursday I attended a Poetry reading that was extra credit for my Poetry class.  The poems that were read were quite interesting..... they "broadened our horizons", and not in an expected way.  They're the kinds of works that you need to re-read a couple times before you can even start to understand.  Nevertheless, I'm glad I went, if only for the experience.

Friday I had another opportunity for Poetry extra credit.  In all honesty, I have to admit that I wasn't all that excited to go to another reading the second night in a row.  This time, the speaker was Mark Adderley, a professor at Wyoming Catholic who writes Arthurian fiction.  He read 2 chapters from his newest book, The Hawk and the Huntress, and it was extremely interesting!  So interesting, in fact, that had I had money with me, I would have bought the entire trilogy!  He's an expert on all aspects of the Arthurian legend and loves English history..... part of that probably comes from the fact that he was born, raised, and went to college in England.  Anywho, it was definitely worth my time.

After the reading, I came back to the dorm just in time to begin a game of Apples to Apples with my friends.  Apparently I'm very good at persuading people that my card is the best, because in the first 7 rounds I accumulated 5 cards.  Somehow I got outwitted, and ended up losing by one.  It was still quite hilarious as we tried to convince each other that the ocean was "ingenious" and that some actor we hadn't heard of was "great".  When we finished the game, we read through all the cards and laughed at the funny comments on the bottom.  AND THEN we went and watched a movie in one of the common rooms.  Fun night!

Saturday morning I got up and went to a Myers-Briggs Personality workshop.  I had taken the test on Friday morning, so we went through the different letters to figure out what we were and then were given our results from the test.  Turns out that I share a personality with only 1.5% of the population!  It was interesting to not only learn about my own personality, but also recognize characteristics of my family members.  I was hit over the head with things about my sister and dad specifically, but could definitely see things about my mom and brother as well.

That evening my friends and I went to see the student performance of A Midsummer Night's Dream.  The costumes were from the 80s and the music was courtesy of the Beatles.  One of my friends had made some costumes and another friend played music, so it was neat to see the work they had put into it.  The production itself was very funny; we were all so glad we went!!

As if that wasn't enough for Saturday, it was also Midnight Madness night.  I was expecting a scrimmage of some sort, but after a mini-concert from Righteous B, a game of knockout, half-court shooting contest, performance from the Baronettes (our "dance team), the men's and women's teams came out, did a shooting contest, three guys did a dunking contest, and that was that.  Somewhat disappointing, but oh well.  It was still fun.

This morning I was able to EM at mass, which is always a neat experience.  There was a talk entitled "Redefining Vocations" that I attended this afternoon.  Woah-oh.  It was really good!  Sister gave a really good intro talk and then there were three testimonials.  I'm really glad I got to go to that.  I returned to the dorm and did some studying, then left again to have a hall council meeting with our brother dorm in preparation for the brother-sister Ugly Christmas Sweater party. :D  It's going to be a really fun event!

Dinner was a delicious wrap not from the caf (hehe) and the evening was in the student center for a really, really, really interesting talk by Adam Blai, who is an expert on exorcism.  He is one of a very few lay persons who have a certain title on exorcism.  He gave a 1 1/2 hour long talk about obsession, oppression, and possession, and the way the Church goes about handling all of those circumstances.

So, that's what happened this weekend.  Think I did enough?!?!
Oh, and I should mention that on Tuesday, a friend and I made cookies.... it was the first time that I had done any real cooking/baking since August, and it was really fun.  Especially since we had to have a scavenger hunt for bowls, and pans, and measuring cups, and pretty much all other baking items. :P

I'm currently working on a more serious post..... it should be up in a day or two. :)

xoxo,