Poems and Chocolate

Let me not to the marriage of true minds
Admit impediments, love is not love
Which alters when it alteration finds,
Or bends with the remover to remove
O no! it is an ever-fixed mark,
That looks on tempests and is never shaken;
It is the star to every wand'ring bark,
Whose worth's unknown, although his height be taken.
Love's not Time's fool, though rosy lips and cheeks
Within his bending sickle's compass come,
Love laters not with his brief hours and weeks,
But bears it is out even to the edge of doom:
If this be error and upon me proved,
I never writ, nor no man ever loved.
~William Shakespeare

This is what awaited me yesterday when I opened up that chocolate bar. A poem. Written by the Bard himself. The brand is called Chocolove, and within each bar of chocolate is a love poem, much like the one you see above, but probably not nearly as wonderful, as this was writ by Shakespeare; you cannot really get any better than a love poem written by him.

This whole weekend I had been at a conference. All of Friday night and practically all day Saturday, from 8am til 6pm. It was titled Jesus in the Qur'an, and it was quite informative and most enjoyable, but also very tiring and I certainly wanted to just take a nap at points. My patience ran low with some of the speakers who merely wanted to tell stories of their life while they had the mic; they didn't impart wisdom, for I felt that they spoke to hear the sound of their voice. Alas, it was worth it to sit thru such speakers and have my patience stretched. The overall point and message was just an instruction on how to interact with people of the Muslim community in being respectful and honorable to their faith. To understand the cultural differences upon which things value is place. We talked about common misconceptions that both parties have on one another's faith, and then we dove into doctrinal stuff. That's what I always like. Analyzing the text and figuring out the differences, can they really co-exist in truth? or are they starkly different and contrast?

Sunday morning I was able to attend church again and Jamie, one of the speakers from the conference was our guest speaker for the morning. We talked about how people generally get commissioned or to have a calling from the Lord and the pattern that it follows and the ways we as humans tend to respond; we used 7 main figures in the Word and it followed a 5 step pattern.
1. Confrontation by God (there is a problem, crisis, distress, and God steps in to give direction)
2. Commission (Moving the individual to a point of action. Satan will try and deter you from such and feed you lies like in the following step.)
3. Objections (Reasons why the commission cannot happen.)
            Common Objections
a. "I'm not the right person." "I'm not capable."
b. "I don't know what to say or to do."
c. "What if it doesn't work?" (Fear of failure)
d. "I'm not a good speaker."
e. "Somebody else is more suited for this than me."
4. Assurance (The promise of God that He will be there, and He will help.) Joshua 1:5 "No one will be able to stand up against you all the days of your life. As I was with Moses, so I will be with you; I will never leave you or forsake you."
5. Sign (He gives or confirms His assurance)

The 7 examples were Moses, Gideon, Samuel, Isaiah, Jeremiah, Ezekiel, and Miciah.

A lot of the time, there is a 'problem' or 'crisis' to deal with, but before God can have us step out in faith and follow His leading, we fail to see who God sees us as; we don't know what our identity is in Him. This is why we have those objections, for we don't see that He is with us and therefore makes us capable of all that He asks of us.

We talked about and even asked God to show us our identity in Him. We did the listening prayer, where we sat in silence. It sounds a little odd and even I feel it a little weird, but it is awesome.

Okay, so after church I went over to my friend Karl's to do homework, but of course, that never happens. I worked for a little bit, and got some general descriptions put down. I realized I had forgot my charger cable for my laptop, so that meant I had little time to work anyways. So we decided to play cribbage. Which I've actually been quite awful at as of late sadly. I won our last game, but that was after losing the preceding three games. We went and bought snacks at Cascadia which is when I decided to buy the Chocolove bars. (Yes, I bought two because these poems are amazing.) I also bought some tea, which later when drinking it, I managed to spill it on the floor and on my laptop, but it was fine. I just realize that I am a horrible klutz. I also spilled it on myself too, but I didn't spill nearly as much as I did when I spilt it on the floor when it was still piping hot. I got to share some of the poems I've written with Karl as well as some of the other RAs and residents this weekend. We had an improv poetry night on Saturday which I went to after coming back from JIQ conference. This has kinda been my inspiration to start my other blog which will just have poems that I've written.

Well after having hung out with Karl and it was nearly time for me to go be on duty, I walked back to Sackett. Originally I had rode my bike, but I didn't want to ride it again. I'm not very nimble on my bike anymore and I definitely almost fell in front of one of my residents.. embarrassing much. So I decided to leave it there. I got some dinner and then headed behind the desk. I managed to get my paper done, which is due this morning, and also got to edit my friend's paper while he edited mine. I finally figured out how to do the comments and highlight/tracking changes thing. I'm so excited. I feel like I'm actually tech-savvy or something. Duty was quiet because Cassady let me work and residents could tell that I was focusing very hard. Writing and reading things are really hard for me. Well, writing a blog is pretty easy, granted I'm not turning this in for a grade. I probably misuse commas and semicolons all over the place. Oh well. Math and science stuffs are no brainers for me and I can pick up the problem where I left off, but if you interrupt me in the middle of a reading or sentence I'm writing, I have to start all over. I'm just not wired to read and write in incomplete thoughts. I need the whole concept before I can do anything with it. Math, piece 'o cake.

*sigh Oh well. I still have engineering homework to do as well as electrical fundamentals to do today. That plus a 1 on 1 with the President of Hall Council. Then room checks! 5 of my residents are moving out, for they're all getting a house together, but I'm going to miss them. My wing is going to be so empty. It'll be quieter that is for sure. I'll still miss 'em though. They're great ones.

One of my residents got me flowers yesterday. She put them in one of the glass Starbucks bottles and they smell absolutely lovely. They're on my desk so I can smell them all the time since this is where I'm at the most in my room. It reminds me of my mom and all of her flowers. I miss her and Lauren and Dad and Alex.. I'll get to see them in 2 weeks or so I think. I'm on duty this coming weekend, but the following weekend is my sister's birthday and then mine follows shortly, so I'm thinking we should have a sister trip to the beach if the weather is nice. We need some good bonding time.

Anyways, I need to get heading out for class to go print out and turn in my paper. That and pack up my homework for the day. Yay for homework! (not really.. yay for it being done? yes.)
Thanks for reading my weekend ramblings.
Hope you have a lovely start to your week!
-M.E.