Paul- he's my home-boy!

About a year and a half ago, I was hospitalized due to some stomach complications. As many of you know, I have an autoimmune disease in which the immune system in my stomach decided to go hyper-active and destroy my stomach lining. (See! Even in my disorders I'm an over-achiever!)

After the hospitalization and a serious round of some nasty steroids, everything appeared to be fine.

However, the medicine that is currently being used to "control" my over-achieving immune system is not working as it should. This results in two negative outcomes. One- I get sick at the drop of a hat (or at the hint of a cough) because the medicine is an immune system suppressant. For that reason I've been sick since school started. Two- my ulcerative colitis is completely uncontrolled and I'm severely anemic.

This, combined with the stress, work, and hours of graduate school are making me very **ahem** unwell. (I hate admitting that!)

I have a doctor's appointment on Tuesday. Would you please pray?

Pray that miraculously, I would get suddenly, and instantaneously better. "You have not, because you ask not."

And pray that the reason why I have this autoimmune disease would become crystal clear- that I would use this "opportunity" to its fullest. I don't know why God has decided this would be a good thing for me, but I do know:

"To keep me from becoming conceited... there was given me a thorn in my flesh... to torment me. Three times I pleaded with the Lord to take it away from me. But he said to me, "My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness." Therefore I will boast all the more gladly about my weaknesses, so that Christ's power may rest on me. That is why, for Christ's sake, I delight in weaknesses, in insults, in hardships, in persecutions, in difficulties. For when I am weak, then I am strong." (II Corinthians 12:7-10)

**I like to think that Paul's thorn in his flesh was in his stomach, just like me... Paul and I- we're autoimmune disease home-boys. Fo' sho'.**

Only in my major...

After saying "Good morning," and exchanging a few pleasantries, the girl behind me asks:

"Courtney, is your cold gone?" I smile, nod, and say, "Yes, almost, but not quite. Thanks for asking." She replies,

"Well, I thought that might be the case. Your fundamental frequency is still lower than normal."



Other people would just say that my voice sounded like a smoker's...

I need counseling. And a life.

What on earth is happening to me!?!

You would think that an "A" would be an acceptable grade.

But NO. It's NOT.

I need to graduate SOON.

I'm off to lead a review session for a class in which I know perhaps as much as the students. If we're lucky.

Hence I shall cling to the wisdom of my dear friend Socrates, who stated:

"I know that I am intelligent, because I know that I know nothing.”

So there, students!

Scotch tape those facts to my brain, baby!

I feel like everything I've learned in the past 48 hours could just tumble out of my brain and be lost forever.

And I think I'm okay with that, provided it doesn't happen before (or during) the 2:30-3:20 time slot.

When you start asking for espresso shots in your already very black coffee, you need to evaluate your career decision-making paradigm.

I'll be honest.

Today I hate grad school.

Hate it so much that I would love to do many other, seemingly less-desirable things instead of become a speech pathologist:

Semi-driver, toll booth worker, french fry maker, bathroom cleaner, clown, manicurist, sweat-sock tester, brussel-sprout grower, migrant cranberry-picker, fishing-bait gatherer, salesman, chemical-vat cleaner...

You get the idea.

Quote of the week(end)

Someday... Hmmm...

Parasitic Compliment

Purdue believes in orienting their new graduate students. That's why we have to go through a 40 hour week of "show diversity!" and "show diversity!" and "show diversity!" presented in 17 different work-shops.

The very last day of orientation (Friday), we were all crowded into Loeb Playhouse, and I looked around.

I was, for the first time in my life, noticeably a minority. My graduate program is (has and will always be) composed of upper-middle class, white females. I would venture to guess the average demographic of the rest of the room's individuals (excepting the twenty-two females mentioned above) was a split between asian and mid-eastern males. My IQ was probably half of the average.

We got a spiel from the mayor about how great it was to live in West Lafayette. (Note: if the mayor has to give a spiel to convince you how great it is.... doesn't that make you suspicious?) Then the dean of graduate admissions stood up and told us how amazing we all were and how lucky Purdue was to have us, etc., etc. It was almost like high school graduation...

And then came the chair of the graduate admissions council.

"You, now, students, are contributing to the fount of knowledge. You will increase the breadth of mankind's understanding. You will give back to the system that you, for so long abused. No longer are you undergraduate parasites sucking on the body of knowledge."

I sat there in stunned silence. My new friend (also white, female, upper-middle class- we minorities have to stick together) was stunned as well. We gazed at the speaker in shock. We glanced and each other with a "Did I hear that right?" look. Did the man forget that 87% of the room had been said "parasites" a few short weeks before? At the end of the speech, the MC said,

"Thank you, Dr. --------. Dr. ----- is a professor in our entomology department."

Then it made sense.

If he is an entomologist, I'm sure he finds parasites fascinating...

Two months and counting...

A friend is a person with whom I may be sincere. Before him I may think aloud. 

(Ralph Waldo Emerson)

While grading...

Question: what are the three most common phonetic features?

Student's answer: stops, fricatives, and laxatives. 

While discussing C.S. Lewis' "Mere Christianity" at 7 a.m.

Meg: Do you think that Jesus won games when he was growing up? He's God. He knew what was going to happen...

Laura: I bet he won Monopoly.

Meg: Probably won everything.

Laura: I never win at Monopoly. Stupid Monopoly.

Emily: I don't think that they had Monopoly...

Meg: Did he let other people win?

Courtney: He could have cheated really easily. I always cheated at Monopoly.

Meg: And then there's the question of his belly-button. Was it an innie, or an outie?

Emily: Did he even have a belly button?

Laura: Of course he had a belly button, he was born. Duh.

Kelli: Can you imagine having other children after having the perfect one?

Laura: Now there's a complex for you- 'Why can't you be perfect like your big brother, Jesus!'

**Back to the perfection of Christ...**

Why I study, why I don't sleep, why I'm living for life after graduation...

I expect to pass through life but once. If therefore, there be any kindness I can show, or any good thing I can do to any fellow being, let me do it now, and not defer or neglect it, as I shall not pass this way again. 

(William Penn)

Feelings...

It is my belief, as an (amateur) writer, that feelings cannot be portrayed in words: happy, sad, angry, etc. Their very nature prohibits such descriptors. Feelings are complex mental pictures complete with sensory input from all five senses that we create and associate with a variety of stimuli. One doesn't feel "happy" in the two-dimensional sense of the word- one has a certain sensation that one associates with happiness, a location, a color, a smell, a scene- real or imagined. Sometimes this sensation is clearly apparent, other times it is buried, and all that one can grasp is that saying "happy" isn't sufficient.

But sometimes one has to try to write it. So pardon my feeble efforts...