The Halloween Dance (and other stuff)

Wow, my life has been really crazy here lately. Classes and homework tend to keep one quite busy sophomore year, so I have found. We've already written and turned in our first paper, which was for theology class. Our question was: "What is Christian Doctrine according to St. Augustine?" I ended up saying something like the following: Christian Doctrine is the truths that are extracted from Scripture through correct interpretation, which depends on charity inasmuch as the interpretation of Scripture should always produce greater charity in the one interpreting. I also included a few paragraphs about the teaching of Christian Doctrine to others, as that seemed to be important as well.

I guess school in general has been more interesting this year than last; most of the other sophomores seem to think so as well. I really, really enjoy math this year. My tutor is Mr. Dragoo, and he is such a blast. Two of his favorite things to bring up are the Egyptian intercalendary days (the ancient Egyptians apparently used to insert these into their year to correct the problem for which we have leap year as a solution, and did a lot of partying during them), and Ptolemy's team of calculating slaves, which Mr. Dragoo thinks he must have had so that he could get his geometrical calculations done more quickly. Whenever I'm faced with the interpolation process necessary for finding the chord of an arc, or vice versa, I suddenly start feeling sorry for those guys...

In theology class this year, the most commonly asked question is "Why?!??" and the most commonly used statement (sometimes it slips into an angry declaration) is "That's not fair!!" This is understandable, considering that our topic is predestination. We are reading St. Augustine's view on the matter currently, but I won't go into details because it's a very hard topic, and I'm pretty sure we haven't gotten all the answers yet. Speaking of theology class, the only reason I'm writing this post right now is because Mr. Kelly (my tutor) isn't here today so we don't have class this afternoon. I do, however, have 2 and a half hours of workstudy that have to get done sometime soon. Bleh...

Well, I guess I'll stop beating around the bush and get to the title of this post. Our class hosted the Halloween Dance on Saturday evening, and it was a blast! Our theme was (don't automatically think we're stupid) Dr. Seuss. It actually turned out really well. We had all these zany murals all over the place, with lots of cardboard cut-outs of the various characters, including the Grinch by a fireplace, the kids from Hop on Pop, and One Fish, Two Fish, Red Fish, Blue Fish. We also made these crazy upside down wooden staircases and painted them all different colors, as well as making two "trees" out of plastic piping and putting arrows on them pointing all different directions, like signposts. And also lots of Christmas lights and golden stars hanging everywhere. The food was really fun, too. We had cookies frosted to look like green eggs, and then the obligatory ham (along with crackers and cheese) next to them. There was a multi-layered cake frosted to look like the Cat in the Hat's hat, a jello concoction that said 'Sam I Am' in it, and multi-colored goldfish. All-in-all, it turned out really well. The entertainment was highly amusing, including two home-made movies, a couple of really funny skits, and the highlight of the evening, an 8 minute juggling routine featuring someone from my class and a freshman. They were amazing. Great times. The dance itself was awesome, not the least reason being that I danced I don't know how many times with most all of my guy friends and also some guys that I didn't know that well. Oh! And I suppose since this was a costume party, I should tell about the costumes too. I dressed up as Lizzy Bennet from Pride and Prejudice, having stumbled on a Jane Austen type dress over the summer at a discount prom dress store. It was really cool. We also had Jack in the Box, the entire cast from the Princess Bride, Jack and Jill, Gus-Gus the mouse from Cinderella, and a boy wearing a large cardboard box with wrapping paper and a label which read "To: Women, From: God." Heh...I had to laugh at that one. Oh! And there were also the two guys who dressed up in white dress shirts and black pants, put backpacks on, and came in on bikes (the Mormons). It was highly amusing. :) So yeah, it was a fun night. I have to say that I think it was my favorite formal dance since I've been here, freshman year included.

So now this week it's back to the grindstone. I am looking forward to Thursday - since it's the feast of all Saints, we get the day off. Yessss.... Right now, I think I might go do my workstudy shift so I can get it done sooner than I usually do. God Bless!