Dear friends and family,
Well, fall has truly come to OSU campus, and the war is in full swing. What?….you don’t know about the war? It is an epic battle of mighty proportions that I see raging back and forth across the campus. The sides are not equally matched, and I fear that those who fight for good on campus shall be overpowered and ground to shreds. Haha, I hope I’m confusing you >;)>. I’m speaking of the heated battle between the groundskeepers and the falling leaves. The beautiful, many colored fall leaves are swirling and falling all over campus, making everything beautiful, as if covered with a weird colored snow (hmmm, maybe not). Anyway, it is the hight of my fall experience to swish through fallen, crackly leaves on the way to class.
However, it seems that the powers that be on campus are not an open minded and nature loving bunch. They’ve sent their lackeys (groundskeepers) out on a quest to gather and destroy all rebellious leaves who refuse to stay up in their trees. I see the evil work being done every day, and I long to pause in my hurried rushing from class to class in order to lend a hand to the poor leaves.
Despite the fact that I know the leaves will eventually be overcome, they are certainly putting up a good fight. It must be very frustrating for the powers of darkness to come out every morning to a fresh layer of leaves where before there had been clean lawn or sidewalk. It is absolutely beyond me to understand why they can’t just let the leaves have their few weeks of triumph and then when it is all over, gather them all up at once, in stead of spending all this time every day gathering up the last light sprinkling of leaves. Complete and total waste of time, but I suspect that if I said that to them, I might be thrown in with the leaves.
Now, while all this is going on, regular people are regularly going to regular classes, and most of them probably couldn’t care less. I care, but well, I’m just like that. So, the classes that I’m attending (instead of helping the leaves) are going well. We are over the hill in Arabic (past the midterm) and things are a bit easier. They won’t stay that way of course, but we get a little break right after midterms. Chinese is continuing to move along. It is weird to be almost at the end of books that I was using back in 102 and 103. I estimate that I know around 500 characters now, and I don’t like to think about the other 19,500 left that I have to learn. In Comp. Studies we have moved on to Judaism and Christianity, and last we’ll do Islam. It is very interesting to study one’s own religion from someone else’s view. But it is also kind of nice because I more or less know already everything the teacher is saying, since I grew up learning this stuff.
Rugby, in case you were wondering, is over until the second week of Jan. That’s when we’ll start winter practice, and then our games don’t start again until spring.
I got a new bike. More or less more of a pile of junk than the last one, but it moves while I’m on it, so I suppose that is the main thing. I feel like my dad, who has spent his whole life buying second hand cars, nursing them along until they fall into little pieces, then going and buying another second hand car. There is absolutely nothing wrong with this, and it actually saves money in the long run, but it can be rather tiring and annoying. Well, I suspect I’ll be doing just that all through college, but with bikes instead of cars. Don’t feel sorry for me though, this is a blessing from the Lord. 1) I get to exercise and strengthen my faith in him by trusting him to provide the money, and the right bike for me to use. 2) I get to learn a bunch about fixing bikes (just this weekend I’ve learned a lot), which potentially can be very useful in the future. There is actually a bike co-op near the campus where you can go and fix your own bike with the tools they have, plus they encourage you to hand around and help other people in exchange for being able to use the tools and stuff. I took my other bike there and got a lot of help from some very nice people, and I know a bunch more about fixing bikes now.
In other news, I watched a documentary on Friday night about the lives of rice farmers today in Taiwan. It was very interesting, rather sad (they’re not doing too well) and it was like watching my own family. We were and hopefully are, a bit more along and well off then the rice farmers. But putting that aside, farming is what my family has done for the past 200 years. I felt especially connected to them when they were talking about how they are all at the mercy of the heavens, and that their whole livelihood depends on getting, or not getting rain at the right time. That is something that I grew up with, and I was rather sad to think that I’ll never be a part of that again. Well, that’s it for now, I suppose I’ve been “talking” long enough. I hope you all have a great week.
In Christ,
Lydia Thomas
“Grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ.” I Corinthians 1:3
“Every tomorrow has two handles. We can take hold of it with the handle of anxiety or the handle of faith.” — Henry Ward Beecher