Our Hearts Are Restless

Welcome to the New Year!  Hope your 2012 is blessed and grace-filled.  Remember to thank God for everything of the past year - all the blessings and sacrifices, hard times and good times.  All have shaped us into different men and women than we were a year ago.  Let us rejoice in the days that come ahead and thank God for granting us another year!  

Studying during finals is like trying to compete in a triathlon or however you spell it without water.  As soon as one test is over, since there are no classes one immediately has to begin studying for the next exam.  And woe to you if you have two back-to-back finals - those are the worst, since you have to study for both at the same time.  As for sleep, that is a valuable commodity.  As is food.  Half of my friends sequester themselves in the dorm and live off of Ramen and caffeine.  Since I have neither of those staples, I do go to the Commons for meals.  Every now and then, it helps to take a study break.  On Saturday, I spent an hour playing Christmas carols in a raquetball court at the gym with two friends, a violinist and a violist.  Today four of us went on a long walk.  This picture will demonstrate what Finals Week does to the mind!  This is Rosemary; as her mental powers decrease, her physical energy increases.  We have yet to understand the reason for this. At any rate, we ...

The state of one's mind in the final days of the semester somehow leads one to read, or perhaps write, such poems as the following.  I firmly believe that Lewis Carroll wrote this poem during the last days of a college term.  Therefore join me in my current mantal abberrations and read this. "Jabberwocky" by Lewis Carroll   `Twas brillig, and the slithy toves Did gyre and gimble in the wabe: All mimsy were the borogoves, And the mome raths outgrabe. "Beware the Jabberwock, my son! The jaws that bite, the claws that catch! Beware the Jubjub bird, and shun The frumious Bandersnatch!" He took his vorpal sword in hand: Long time the manxome foe he sought -- So rested he by the Tumtum tree, And stood awhile in thought. And, as in uffish thought he stood, The Jabberwock, with eyes of flame, Came whiffling through the tulgey wood, And burbled as it came! One, two! One, two! And through and through The vorpal blade went snicker-snack! He left it dead, and with its head ...

Yes, the month is almost over.  But still, a good piece of poetry is never wasted.  This is by J.R.R. Tolkien, and is in The Lord of the Rings.  Since I have been traveling a lot this semester, I find it appropriate.  The formatting is funky on here and I cannot for the life of me figure out why it goes wonky when I try to paste from somewhere else.  Argh.  Tech support!!! Roads go ever ever on,  Over rock and under tree,  By caves where never sun has shone,  By streams that never find the sea;  Over snow by winter sown,  And through the merry flowers of June,  Over grass and over stone,  And under mountains in the moon.   Roads go ever ever on,  Under cloud and under star.  Yet feet that wandering have gone  Turn at last to home afar.  Eyes that fire and sword have seen,  And horror in the halls of stone  Look at last on meadows green,  And trees and hills they long have known.   The Road goes ever on and on  Down from the door where it began.  Now far ahead the Road has gone,  And I ...

It has been rather a while since I posted.  To be honest, I have no excuse other than that I have been busy with school. Took a flight to Florida for the Intercollegiate Studies Institute's Collegiate Network Editor's Conference.  Since I'm the Arts & Culture editor for our newspaper, the Rambler, I was sent along with two other staff members.  It was quite a fascinating experience, spending a day and a half at an Orlando resort with over a hundred conservatively-minded, very intelligent students from colleges and universities across the country.  I learned a lot and was given many ideas by the other papers and magazines and by talking to a number of other writers and editors.  I'm very glad I went, as it was quite a valuable experience. Last week, I had an entirely different and very unique break from school.  I left college a few days early for Thanksgiving break in order to fly out to my elder sister's First Profession.  She's a Carmelite nun, and just to...

Yesterday morning, October 29, we were surprised here in Virginia by an unexpected snowfall.  Rumours had been bandied about that snow was coming, but all expected it to be just a flurry or, at most, a light dusting on the ground.  When I woke up that morning, though, there was a quarter-inch of snow on the ground.  By 8 a.m., there were four inches at least.  It was a wet snow, perfect for packing…and snowballs…and on a campus full of 450 young adults, what do you think will happen? Half of the campus woke up for 7:30 Mass and the trip of prayer to the abortion clinic that was planned afterwards.  However, the weather forced the Shield of Roses committee to cancel the trip.  So, after about a half-hour of prayer in Christ the King Chapel, we began a massive snowball fight! This was not just any snowball fight.  We had up to at least twenty people at one point!  It quickly turned into girls versus boys, of course.  I must commemorate the male army on their ability to organize, a skill ...

This month's poem is a suggestion by a good friend of mine here, rather a foreshadowing of All Hallow's Eve at the end of the month.  The poem rather reminds me of Aragorn's calling of the Dead Army in the Lord of the Rings! Since midterms are coming up this week, I won't be posting again until break, when I hope to post on Spirit Week and homecoming! THE LISTENERS by Walter de la Mare 'IS there anybody there?' said the Traveller, Knocking on the moonlit door; And his horse in the silence champ'd the grasses Of the forest's ferny floor: And a bird flew up out of the turret, Above the Traveller's head: And he smote upon the door again a second time; 'Is there anybody there?' he said. But no one descended to the Traveller; No head from the leaf-fringed sill Lean'd over and look'd into his grey eyes, Where he stood perplex'd and still. But only a host of phantom listeners That dwelt in the lone house then Stood listening in the quiet...