" What shall I say? Everything that I could say would fade into insignificance compared with what my heart feels, and your hearts feel, at this moment."

Researching a paper I'm writing on humanism I ran across JPII's homily at his inauguration mass.

http://ewtn.com/library/PAPALDOC/JP2BEGIN.HTM

Oh how I aspire to have his openess and deep love of humanity!

Andy and I started dance lessons last week and are enjoying them so far. Last night we went to our second session. On our way there I found out that Andy's friend Mark offered him tickets to a really big Magic game here in down in the lower bowl but he decided to go to our dance lesson instead. How amazing is that?! He's so good!

School has started again.  The difference that having Friday's to work on homework makes is incredible. I'm enjoying all of my classes so far but am getting a little nervous about my stranger sessions near the end of the semester. I'm getting closer and closer to actually working with clients and it's more than a little disconcerting.

Christmas break is fabulous! I love the rest, I love the food, I love hanging out with the fam, and I love the Advent build-up to Christmas.

Andy and I did the dual family hang out time. Christmas Eve dinner was at Aunt Pam's and we spent Christmas day at Uncle Bobby's and Aunt Evette's. Christmas day dinner was at my family's house. What could be better than eating 3 meals within the space of 5 hours? Not much I tell you.

Andy did really well this year with his Christmas gift to me. He bit the bullet and got us private ballroom dance lessons!
From the fam lots of baking/cooking stuff:

• 2 vegetarian cookbooks (from Andy's momma, I'm looking forward to making the vegan lasagna and the Lemon Thyme biscuits)
• Cast Iron Skillets
• Baking stone
• Silicon cupcake sheets
• Prince Caspian
• Pajama pants

Now I'm excited to get back into yoga, sleeping 8 hours, and cooking healthy food on a more regular basis.

The first semester has been over for 2 weeks now! Life is decidedly calmer and I am much more normal now.
Quick list of fun things I had done in the empty space that I would have normally been doing homework:

• Twilight (Yes, Jennifer and I went to see Twilight...it was so horrible it was wonderful. Jennifer says that she's going to get the DVD but when she buys it she's going to get a gift receipt so the cashier doesn't think she's buying it for herself...brilliant idea I say...)
• Christmas in the Park (Winter Park has an Orchestra and a Choir come to the park and sing Christmas Carols. They also bring Tiffany glass windows from the next door Morse museum and light them in random areas in the park. It was beautiful! Larann, Liz, and I ran into Father Jeremiah and chatted it up for a while as well.)
• 
• Nutcracker ballet (and yes, Andy liked it!)
• Christmas at Grandma/Grandpa Sojourner's (including a day at the beach!)
• Lessons and Carols (the Orlando Deanery Boyschoir put on a beautiful concert with classic christmas music and a quick scriptural rundown of the coming of Emmanuel. Andy used to sing in this choir...little known fact...)

The majority of the stuff I've been doing is very Christmasy and the time off has been wonderful. I'm excited to start the new semester refreshed!

Who knew that four days off could make such a difference. I actually feel like a human being at the moment. What have I done with myself over the past four days?
1. Worked on a paper
2. Watched 2 seasons of the office
3. worked on a paper some more
4. slept
5. ate

It was amazing!
So now I'm sitting at panera enjoying watching the rain fall while I'm supposed to be working on my paper.
I'm writing about forgiveness in counseling and I'm finding it really interesting. The point I found the most suprising was that religiosity is not a strong predictor of forgiveness. It does predict an accepting attitude towards forgiveness but is not necessarily a 'factor' in the process. I would be interested to see these studies and see if they controled for amount of time spent practicing the said religion. I think that might change the results a smidge.

I have only 3 weeks of class left! Only one group therapy sessions left! What's going on?! Where did this semester go?! I can't believe it's already December!  Alongside of my amazement at the speed of the semester the pressure is definetly increasing at the moment. I have a paper I should be revising this morning and a bunch of Stats reading I should be doing. I have a presentation left for Group and a journal summary paper. I also have a paper I have not even begun to work on for Foundations.

On an interesting note, I went to an AA meeting this weekend for my Group Dynamics course. That was very intersting. I knew it was spiritually based but I didn't realize how much so. I had never read the 12 steps so I found it interesting that alcohol is only mentioned in the first one. The rest are not as materially solid as I thought they would be either.

1. We admitted we were powerless over alcohol—that our lives had become unmanageable.
2. Came to believe that a Power greater than ourselves could restore us to sanity.
3. Made a decision to turn our will and our lives over to the care of God as we understood Him.
4. Made a searching and fearless moral inventory of ourselves.
5. Admitted to God, to ourselves, and to another human being the exact nature of our wrongs.
6. Were entirely ready to have God remove all these defects of character.
7. Humbly asked Him to remove our shortcomings.
8. Made a list of all persons we had harmed, and became willing to make amends to them all.
9. Made direct amends to such people wherever possible, except when to do so would injure them or others.
10. Continued to take personal inventory and when we were wrong promptly admitted it.
11. Sought through prayer and meditation to improve our conscious contact with God as we understood Him, praying only for knowledge of His Will for us and the power to carry that out.
12. Having had a spiritual awakening as the result of these steps, we tried to carry this message to alcoholics, and to practice these principles in all our affairs.

The people there were so real and it was wonderful to see so many people who had fought and were victorious over so many different difficulties in their lives. It was empowering for me and I walked away with so much myself.

They have a text they call "The Big Book". It's basically the manual for AA. The group went around at random intervals and read excerpts from the book and I found the below reflected myself in an almost frightening way:

The first requirement is that we be convinced that any life run on self-will can hardly be a success. On that basis we are almost always in collision with something or somebody, even though our motives are good. Most people try to live by self-propulsion. Each person is like an actor who wants to run the whole show; is forever trying to arrange the lights, the ballet, the scenery and the rest of the players in his own way. If his arrangements would only stay put, if only people would do as he wished, the show would be great. Everybody, including himself, would be pleased. Life would be wonderful. In trying to make these arrangements our actor may sometimes be quite virtuous. He may be kind, considerate, patient, generous; even modest and self-sacrificing. On the other hand, he may be mean, egotistical, selfish and dishonest. But, as with most humans, he is more likely to have varied traits.

 

What usually happens? The show doesn't come off very well. He begins to think life doesn't treat him right. He decides to exert himself more. He becomes, on the next occasion, still more demanding or gracious, as the case may be. Still the play does not suit him

I don't know if anyone else sees themselves in this but it was shocking to me sitting there in that group how much I feel that way myself. It was a theme of the night that alcohol brings a person to AA but it's not what keeps them there. That's not what they have to work on for years in the same way that the fights with mom or the innability to get out of bed in the morning for some people is not the real reason they go to counseling.

Enough of my reflections on school.

I am so looking forward to Christmas break. I can't wait for the storm to calm so I can catch up on sleep and getting the rest of my life in order. Is anyone else starting to feel nervous about Christmas? I have no idea what I'm going to get people and I haven't even begun to think about it.

You want to hug the doctor for making you wait an hour and a half in the exam room because you can get some studying done.
I now have a viral inner ear infection that could get better over night or will be worse for the next 4 weeks. Whatever as long as I'm not sick during vacation!
So I am now watching I.Q. with Tim Robins and am listening to Grandma knocking on the wall yelling at the neighbors. On the whole it's been a fabulous day!

The end of the semester is drawing near and the pressure is on!
I feel like the second I get one assignment done I immediately move to the next and forget that I just wrote a monumental 15 page paper that took months of my life to research and construct. I've just got too many things to remember to do to ever be excited about the accomplishment.
I am so looking forward to the end of the semester and a month long break (which still includes working full time!).
I am loving the school work though. All of the papers I am working on I find fascinating. The biggies include:

1. Efficacy of prayer in counseling on outcomes.
2. Marital Group Therapy structure.
3. Adventure Therapy Trends.
4. TBA

I'm in group counseling for my Group Dynamics class and love it! There's a mode of therapy I never thought I would enjoy!

I am determinded to process the program and to really reflect on what I'm learning therefore I will become more active in my blog even if no one else is listening. Be prepared for crazy shrink talk. Here-and-now focus, unconditional positive regard, psycopathy... the whole kit and kabudle.

It's been such a long time since I've posted!

I'm starting grad school soon so I felt it was somewhat important to chronicle this experience. There is just so much insanity in my life right now I really want to focus on the things that are life giving, that have a positive future, and that bring hope and joy to my life.

I register on Wednesday. I'm really nervous not about classes themselves, but about time. How am I going to manage taking a full  load, working full time, managing my relationship with Andy, spending time with my family, as well as juggling my relationships with my friends. Oh yeah, plus I need to pray....

God is good and will provide the energy...or maybe I should just become a vampire like Edward Cullen and then I wouldn't have to sleep and I could get all this stuff done with some time left over!

These are the things I have learned since I have been here in France:

1. I am not stupid. I may not understand what is going on, but I am very far from being stupid. Even more important, if I was stupid, it wouldn't matter anyways, because God loves me all the time (even in my stupid moments).

2. Life is an amzingly fun adenture, and all you have to do is accept that the adventure will not always be easy and sometimes you will feel stupid even when you aren't. Life is exciting and fun...period.

3. God controls everything and all I have to do is trust in His infinite knowledge of my heart and in His complete desire for my good. I don't have to do anything else, just trust and pray.

4. Number 3 is easier said than done.

5. The best phrase to know in as many languages as you possibly can is "Where is the restroom?"

• Ou est les toilettes? (French)
  
• Dova si trova la gabinetto? (Italian)
  
• Donde est el lavabo? (Catalan)
• Where is the restroom (English)

6. Home is where your loved ones are, but it is also where your culture is. You never realize how much you miss understanding the conversation at the table next to you at a restaurant or the priest or the kid who is making fun of your French until you've been dealing with it for 6 months.

7. I love America.

8. I love Andy.

9. I love my family.

10. I love my friends more than I can even begin to say. One doesn't realize how much it means to have people who believe the same things and who will keep you accountable. It's really hard when the things one believes are wrong are simple trivialities to the rest of the people in ones life. For those of you have never been afraid of telling me the truth when I need to hear it or who have loved me in my crappiest moments, you don't even know how much I think of your example.

11. Europe really does need all the missionaries that are being sent here.

12. The priests are hardcore and have to be.

13. Most French men suck.

14. The dogs are still snobby.

15. I love Europe and America, but I realize even more that my heart will always be restless until I am in my heavenly home.