Hello from Wednesday! I usually post my blog on Thursdays, so it's Wednesday over in KY, but right now it's still Wednesday (9:45pm) and it just turned Wednesday over there (3:45am)! I beat the system!
But actually I'm posting this now because my Thursdays have become crazier than ever--have I told you about my tutorials?
They have classes called 'tutorials' over here which are an extension of your usual lectures. Basically it's a sneaky way of adding an extra hour of class that you don't get credit for. But they divide the class in half and it's a time meant for discussion, questions, and so students get a more one-on-one time with the "lecturer" (they only call department heads 'professor').  I have a tutorial for History of Witchcraft and one for Practical Ethics--an extra hour of each class I have to go to. But worst part I think is that there at a different time than your class, so you leave, and then you have to come back in an hour or two to a different place for your tutorial. My tutorial for Practical Ethics makes my Thursdays seem fuller than they are:
8-9 Physics
11-1 Practical Ethics
1-2 Bio of Animals
3-4 PE Tutorial
6-9 Physics Lab
meh.
At least I don't have to do a Physics lab report every week...even if the lab is 3 hours long. (I figured when I get back to WKU I'm going to love 2-hour labs because they'll seem short)

Enough about school. On St. Patrick's Day, Brenden took us girls to Himatangi Beach that's about 20 minutes away. It's so pretty! You can drive on the beach, and there's a lot of shallow water if you didn't want to actually swim. After we were done with the water, we drove a while done the beach side and Brenden did a couple of "burn outs" on the sand. Getting extreme!
Later I watched part of our school's rugby club's game and Tom made us corn beef, cabbage, and potatoes in honor of St. Patrick. That night, we went to one of our Irish pubs that we have here in Palmy.
It was my turn to cook for our Sunday Dinner and we had Taco night. They were delicious!!
The rest of my week was normal...classes, nap, and Body Balance and pancakes tonight (I feel a tradition forming).
But this Friday: Hunger Games!
May the odds be ever in your favor!

Hello from my Mommy’s birthday!!! Also the first day of spring, but let’s face it, winter kind of skipped us this year. Anyway, I’m pretty sure my Mom doesn’t read this blog, but happy birthday to her regardless!

So, hey! I actually have something to talk about this week! Saturday was Border Brawl with MTSU, the first fencing competition-ish thing I’ve ever been to, and it was tons of fun! I only did foil, and I completely lost, but we collectively beat the other team, which was pretty awesome :) After the competition was over, a bunch of us went to Cheddar’s (since it was close to 2:30 at this point, and no one had eaten since about 6 or 7 in the morning). There were 14 of us, so we had to divide up between 3 different booths. Jill, her mom, and I sat with three of the MTSU team- Nick, Alex, and Kristin- and it was a ton of fun- the guys were pretty crazy (in a good way) and pretty much entertained us the whole time. Plus, Saturday was St. Patty’s day, so I wore a green head band with shamrock antennae, and I have a picture of Cameron wearing it. Overall, I’d say it was a pretty successful day.

Where does human life begin/What would you define as human life?

My take on life relates to matter. An atom is the smallest piece of matter that can exist with all the same properties. Likewise, I feel like a zygote is the smallest form life takes- separately, an egg and sperm are just cells containing genetic material, but together they form the beginning of life. I don’t think I worded that very well, but you get the point- A person’s a person no matter how small!

If you were to slowly replace a human's body parts one by one (in this hypothetical situation all the surgeries are successful-even replacing parts of and the entire brain and uploading the memories from the individual) at what point does that person stop being human? Or do they?

…hmm. I feel like one would need to have pretty intimate knowledge of this process to give a direct answer, and even then it would still be all speculation. Like, would all these body part replacements function identically to the originals? What exactly are they being replaced with? Does the person still feel and think? I feel like as long as the soul is still there, the body is still human, but there’s no real way of knowing when/if the soul is gone. You were also talking about uploading the person’s memories/personality- into a computer chip or something, I would guess. But just because you get all the data right and fill in the exact bubbles for intelligence, sense of humor, whatever, does not mean that’s going to be the same person. I don’t think science could ever get exact enough to duplicate a person so exactly, and even then, it’s still just a duplicate and not the original. K, I think I’ve kind of gone off on a tangent here, and I’m not even sure I know what I’m saying anymore, so… on to the next question!

Is Louis Armstrong's "What a Wonderful World" a happy or sad song?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G4cX3oWJO-I

It’s a happy song. How could you say it was anything else? People, love, pretty scenery, all adding up to a wonderful world = happy.

If you had to be stranded on a deserted island with either David Tennant or Charlie, and they each had the exact same level of survival skills, who would you choose?

Charlie. It would be an extremely awkward situation either way, but Charlie’s pretty close to my age, so I feel like it would be at least a little less weird and strange. Also, I wouldn’t want to take David Tennant away from his wife and baby <3

1) If you found out your one-year old child was, because of a mistake at the hospital, not actually yours, what would you do? Exchange with the other parents? Do nothing?

… I have no idea. I think my husband and I would have to discuss it with the other parents. And it would be really tough, cause I would love both of them! Do you think I could just have both? I’m not sure the other parents would be very happy about that…

2) If you could domesticate any wild animal, what would you choose?

A squirrel! I want a pet squirrel!!!!

3) If you were given $1000 to spend at one store, what store would you choose?

Wal-mart. It just has such a special place in my heart. Plus they have, like, everything there.

What fictional character(s) do you relate to/identify with most?

Are we talking specific characters here, or general types of characters? Specifically, I’d say I identify a lot with Hermione and Ginny from Harry Potter. They’re written really realistically, and they seem to go through a lot of relatable life situations. Plus, I wish I could be in their shoes. Hogwarts is just so cool…

If you had a clone, what would you do with it?

I don’t especially desire a clone, but I guess I could use it to take my place in class sometimes. Like, the days when we’re not doing anything even remotely important, but I still have to be there if I don’t want to lose attendance points. I’d never send my clone if it were actually something important. I might also have my clone do research papers for me. Just because I hate them so much…

If you were to go anywhere in Canada, where would it be?

I don’t really know places in Canada, so I’m pretty sure I’m one of the worst people to ask ever. How about Niagara Falls? That’s partially in Canada, right?

What Question Tuesday question has been your favorite to answer so far?

It’s not time to reveal my favorite of the week yet. Patience, grasshopper.

How do you feel about Poland?

Umm… I’m sure it’s a very nice place. Other than that, though, I’m pretty neutral. Seeing as I know next to nothing about it. Except that the poor little Polish boy was severely mistreated by Lil Hitler.

If I were to bury something on the grounds of Harlaxton for a future student/adventurer to find, what should it be?

The start of a scavenger hunt! It would lead the student/adventurer around the castle and help him/her to discover all sorts of cool places!

What’s your favorite flower?

Lily of the Valley? That’s apparently my birth flower. I’m not really very discriminating when it comes to flowers, though. They’re pretty, but that’s about all I notice.

What’s your favorite poem?

The first one that comes to mind is Twas the Night before Christmas. It’s pretty cool. In general, though, I like poems that are cute or thought-provoking and have a good rhythm to them. Freestyle poems are cool and all, but they’re not nearly as fun to read/recite.

What’s your favorite spring break memory (of any spring break, not just this one)?

I can’t really think of any memories that are particular to spring break. We don’t usually go anywhere or do anything special, so they’re all pretty much the same. Not that I don’t enjoy my breaks- I love sleeping in and not doing homework! They just tend not to be especially memorable.

And my favorite this week is, I think, lovely Aunty Beth again. The fictional character question was pretty fun to think about :) And now I have a crazy day to get started on, so bye!

Love,

Sara

Hello from sudden realization of work. I was just about to go to sleep when I realized that while I was playing around I had a lot of work that I could of been doing instead. Now, i'm stressed. Why am I like this????? O' well i'll do it tomorrow. So, I caught up watching once upon a time today and was about to start watching sherlock, but it was too much of a hassle to find the video, so I didn't. I don't wan to grumble about how much I dislike Mondays, so i'll say that I had a very nice time last week when Sanaa and Kit came to visit. We went to gaddys and ate pasta, cuz that's what i have at gaddy's. We played BS afterwards, and I like to say although Sarah won, I was the real winner. You ask why? Because today is Monday and I get to write what I want. I ... am sleepy, so i'll leave you with some pictures of cute stuff.

            Hello from my dorm room! For once, it’s really nice for me to have a single room because I love having a place to retreat to after the business of my day. Honestly, I love always having something to do, but it gets tiring very quickly. So that means that my bed is wonderful, and I’m always sorry to leave it. (hugs pillow)

            So yeah. It’s been a while, hasn’t it? I’m sorry it has been forever, but not having access to my laptop / the internet over spring break was pretty hard for me too *cough* CS major *cough*. Still. It means I can tell you all about the wonderfulness that was my spring break in NEW ORLEANS!!!!!!!!!!!!! Which was awesome. XDXDXD I’m going to split up my New Orleans stories over several posts, simply because there are too many of them. I may start a separate New Orleans section in our random part of the website…  :)

            Honestly, though, I really loved being in New Orleans. I saw a lot of things that I wish I hadn’t, simply because I wish things were different there, but at the same time, the city has a lot of hope. I found that to be really beautiful, and that thought really kept me going throughout the week as we kept seeing more and more destruction and loss. Even 6 years after the storm, you will see a house that has been been restored next to a house that is still boarded up and graffitied. That juxtaposition is really strange to see, and yet that is the situation in just about every neighborhood we passed through in New Orleans. It’s actually kind of frightening, as parts of the city seem like ghost towns. There are whole blocks that don’t have people living in them. The city at times is simply lost and deserted.

            During the week, my group of 42 split up into smaller groups to go to different organizations and volunteer. I, of course, signed up for all of the manual labor groups because I love working outside or on more intensive projects, so the first day I went to an after-school type center named APEX to clean crown molding. The house it was at was phenomenal. The two founders of the group, a husband and wife team, started APEX a couple of years ago by literally giving up their home to give kids of all ages a place to come after school (if they even attend school) and receive tutoring if they need it or simply just hang out with friends. Really, APEX serves as a safe place for them to be off the streets and away from their oftentimes terrible home situations, and in a city where it is definitely not safe to be by yourself outside in the day or the night, I was so glad that I was able to contribute a little to this wonderful organization. Perhaps the most uplifting story I heard during my entire time in New Orleans was hearing from the husband at APEX that a group of about 40 high school students from APEX are starting a church there for their neighborhood- they’re opening on Easter Sunday, and the crown molding I was cleaning will go up in the new room being renovated for where they will hold services. I absolutely love that, and those 40 students are in my prayers. I wish there was something more I could do to encourage or help them. It’s just a wonderful story.

            As it is 11:49pm, and this must be posted before midnight for my deadline, I will leave you with Vandy’s most popular and most awesome a cappella group (besides Victory, of course XD ) whom I actually auditioned for this semester and saw compete tonight at the ICCA South semifinal competition… which they won 3rd place in the world for a cappella groups last year. Unfortunately, they didn’t win any place tonight (biased judging- this is not a biased opinion; this is truthful, just saying), but they’re still wonderful to hear and see perform. This is their set that won them the ICCA Wild Card competition and allowed them to compete in the finals… enjoy the Vanderbilt Melodores! =)

Hello from another normal Friday night.
        Since my last blog, I’ve returned to Bowling Green and school (blech), but not before going to service at the church I’d been helping out with over spring break. Sojourn Moorhead (the name of the church we were working with, which I think I failed to mention before) meets in a Warming House (which is just a building in parks where people can relax and warm up after skating or playing in the snow) down the street from John’s house (the church planter/current leader of Sojourn Moorhead). The church is still pretty small but we did get three visitors which was awesome. One was a guy we met while working the table at MSUM :)  That weekend started their spring break, so we didn’t figure we’d have very many students show up, but hopefully some will check the church out in later weeks. Several sounded very interested when we talked to them. After church we had a quick lunch, said good bye to everyone, and headed home. And I just have to say that night flights are so much prettier than day flights. Leaving from our layover in O’hare, the ground looked like it had veins of light and sparkles. I thought it was pretty neat.  
        I did want to mention one thing I found very frustrating about Saturday, but doesn’t really have much to do with the trip overall, lol. We were walking around one of the neighborhoods when all of a sudden I start hearing chickadees! (In case you don’t remember, they are the birds Amy and I are studying for our Ecology class). All I could think was, “NO! You aren’t supposed to be here! You’re supposed to be at the Bio-preserve so I can actually study you! Why do you show up now, but not when I have binoculars and data sheets!” lol.
        Speaking of chickadees, we failed to see any again today. Because it was storming this morning I didn’t even get to go out to the preserve, but I did go with Amy to her study site (a local park). After an hour of observing, we hadn’t seen any chickadees, but we did see an owl, several cardinals, and some bird I think might have been some kind of sparrow. Whatever, it was brown and speckled. I did have fun watching a cardinal up close for several minutes, though. It was cool actually getting to see it call and feed. And since it wasn’t actually my study site and I just drove Amy there, I was free to mostly do what I wanted anyway. Oh, and guess what? As soon as we started heading toward the car and were finished with the observation, we start hearing a chickadee call. It’s like they enjoy teasing us.
        There’s no transition here, but I got to see Sanaa yesterday! Amy, Sara, Nayab, Kit, Kit’s boyfriend, Sanaa, and I all went out to eat at Gatti’s and hang out for a bit. Woot friendship time! Oh spring break, how you bring friends together :)    Hey Sanaa, if you’re reading this you should consider doing blogs every now and then. Pretty please, maybe?
        Other than that, it’s basically just been a regular week with highs (getting to have class outside) and lows (having an ecology test last 3 ½ hours). And I kinda miss Fargo. Something kinda funny: I walked out of the dorm first thing Monday morning into a complete downpour of rain and my first thought was, *sigh*”I miss Fargo.”

Wish me luck in the Fencing Border Brawl tomorrow!

Love,
Jill

I literally just thought, "Hmm, strange. No one posted a blog yesterday, and no one has posted today either..." Yep, I forgot it was Thursday. I also slept through my seven billion alarms and missed class this morning, so it's been kind of an off day. On the bright side, I went for a lovely walk in the woods.
So anyway, on to the important stuff. Since no one except my mom attempted to guess what my day trip last Friday was, she automatically wins the still-undetermined prize! Yay Mommy! And she was partially correct: I did go to London for a day. And I was in a FLASH MOB! That's right. Checking that off the bucket list. Not only that, but I'm going to be on the telly! The flash mob was organized and filmed for the opening sequence of Britain's Got Talent, which airs later this month in England, and will be available on YouTube eventually, I'm sure. So keep on the lookout for me and my friends Nathan and Abby (another WKU student).
Also, during my London trip I climbed a lion in Trafalgar Square, twice, and found the most magical places on earth: Trocadero and M&Ms World!!! They were ridiculously awesome, and right next to each other in Picadilly Circus. Oh my goodness, TROCADERO! No wonder the Nerdfighters had a gathering there. It's everything a Nerdfighter--or anyone--could ever want. I'm talking about an internet cafe, a movie theater, numerous candy shops complete with PYRAMIDS of sweets, a bungee-flippy-bouncy trampoline thing, a mechanical bull, a manga toy store, and a store COMPLETELY DEVOTED TO PANDAS and other cute Asian pieces of cuteness! And then right next door, with music blaring, was a multi-story...place...thing...of M&Ms! There were even M&M statues crossing a replica of Abbey Road. Yes, it was almost too much awesome to handle.
So that was my Friday in magical, beautiful London! What did I do for the rest of the week? Well, I hung out with my host family, studied for a British Studies exam, freaked out and then calmed down over my non-existent term paper, and watched about a billion different clips from Hunger Games red carpet premieres. Unfortunately, I didn't make it to the premiere in London last night. I was thinking of trying to go stand outside and scream my head off in excitement, but I had an exam until 4, and then there were secret garden tours, and cuddly lambs, and a bonfire. 
So my week has been pretty cool. As for this weekend, I'll be sticking around the manor to work on my term paper (in which the research consists of watching movies--yay being a film major!), and then going to Belton House with my host family on Sunday after church. Then who knows what the next week will bring...oh wait, I do. PARIS and HUNGER GAMES next weekend!!! 
--Anna Beth

Hello from not Wednesday.
I posted by blog, I promise, and I hit "publish live" but I think I forgot to click the big "Publish" button at the top...it wasn't that good anyway. I had a very lazy week, but I'll do a quick summary of the highlights:
Saturday:
My first Relay for Life! Massey University entered in as one giant group, but each of the campus halls were given a time slot, so we competed with each other. I don't know the final score or how Kairanga Hall did, but when we left the Relay, Massey University was in first place overall with the most laps around track. :) When we left to catch one of the University vans back to campus, we saw a sign for free massages. Yeah, I got a free 15-minute back/shoulder massage. I also made a new friend! Her name is Christie and I learned that she also has History of Witchcraft!
Sunday:
My AustraLearn friends and I gathered for our Sunday Family Dinner: chicken vegetable stir fry with rice. Plus tim-tams and pineapple lumps for dessert. It's my turn to this coming Sunday!
Monday:
eh...I went to Body Balance again. I saw Christie there and Meg (another friend), and Jenna usually goes too.
Tuesday:
Jenna, Betsy, and I booked a bus ticket, hotel, and places for a wine and brewery tour in Napier, New Zealand for a girl's weekend next weekend (the 23th-25th)!
Wednesday: Body Balance, pancakes, and lots of Monopoly Deal.

That's about it. I tried to take more pictures with my phone, but 1) the past couple of days were overcast and I wanted a nice picture and 2) my phone's battery is dying. It can't hold a charge very well...
Happy St. Patrick's Day! Brendan's taking us (Jenna, Betsy, and I--Tom's got a rugby match) to the beach tomorrow and Tom's cooking corn beef.

Hello from actually Tuesday! Usually I write this, like, Monday night so I just have to post it before school in the morning, but the combination of school starting back and the time change is kind of killing me (side note, Jill was sad that my blog wasn’t up yet- she likes me, she really likes me! :P ). I’m having trouble getting out of the Spring Break mentality, so I didn’t start doing anything productive until around 8 or 9 last night, and everything took longer than it was supposed to, so I’m just now getting around to writing this! The rest of Spring Break was nice, if uneventful. It was full of Sherlock-related things, just like the first part. And now it’s time for school again, and I must reiterate that the time change on top of that has made me extremely unhappy. Add to that the fact that it was nearly 80 degrees outside today- that’s not just warm, it’s hot! It’s no fair- winter is over before it even started :/. Enough of my complaints, though, time for Question Tuesday (that part I did write ahead of time).

How much wood could a woodchuck chuck if a woodchuck could chuck wood?
A woodchuck could chuck lots of wood if a woodchuck could chuck wood! Wow, I think that’s even harder to type than it is to say… Not that it’s a very helpful answer, since it is 1) pointless, seeing as a woodchuck cannot chuck wood and therefore any attempt at answering the question is purely speculative, and 2) “lots of wood” is an extremely vague and meaningless answer. How much, exactly, is lots of wood? Could the hypothetical wood chucking woodchuck chuck a tree’s worth of wood in a day? A forest’s worth? Could he chuck all the wood on the planet? “Lots of wood” is completely unquantifiable and therefore utterly useless for any attempt at an analysis of hypothetical woodchucks and their ability to chuck wood.

If you had to relive one day over and over (like in the movie Groundhog Day), what would it be?
I would probably pick a fun day that we all spent hanging out and enjoying ourselves. Like graduation day, when a bunch of us hung out in the park and just goofed off and enjoyed our freedom from high school. Or Summer ROMP and our murder mystery! Then I could hang out with my friends AND know that Johnny was the perpetrator! Previous ROMPs would also work. Ideally, I’d want a day with as much variety as possible- I would get to see lots of different people I love and do different exciting things with said amazing people. That way, even though every day would be the same, it wouldn’t really be the same, and it would take me a long time to get tired of living it, and hopefully by that point it would be time to reenter the time stream as it normally exists.

Would you rather have a genie or a fairy godmother?
A fairy godmother. Because a fairy godmother looks out for me and has my best interests at heart: she already knows how my situation needs to be altered in order for me to get my fairytale happy ending. A genie, on the other hand, gives me the choice of making my own three wishes, and I have no way of knowing the outcomes of my wishes. It could turn out that what I thought would be the best choice is really going to lead to misery and suffering. Plus, sometimes genies are mean and will twist your wish into something dark and dangerous no matter how hard you try to make it a good one. This kind of makes me think about the issue of putting God versus yourself in charge of your life: God sees everything and knows how everything is going to turn out, so if you trust Him and let Him be in control, then you can rest assured knowing everything will work out as it should. If you try and put yourself in charge, though, you only have a limited perspective of life and the world, so even if you think you’re making the right decisions and following the right path, sooner or later you’ll take a wrong turn and suffer the consequences.

Who do you hope will win the 2012 election?
Noooooooooo, don’t ask me political questions! I don’t know things! I am so bad at being an informed citizen…

Who do you love more, Charlie or David Tennant?
Love more? You can’t quantify love, Anna Beth… I love both of them differently, but not more or less. And though I do love them both in the love everybody sense, I don’t know if love is the right word. It sounds kind of creepy-stalkerish to be saying I love a couple of guys I’ve never actually met. Even if they are British and made of awesome (David Tennant is probably not actually a nerdfighter, but I feel like he should get honorary membership just for starring in Doctor Who).

What’s that you say? Total cop-out? I don’t know what you’re talking about…

Why would I want to be your favorite? What are the perks?
Perks? Isn’t just having a special place in my heart good enough for you? Oh. It’s not? Wow, Jill, that hurts. :P Really, though, you get to be spoken of endearingly in my blog, and… I don’t really know what to say that would make you guys interested. Feel free to suggest perks that would make being my favorite more appealing and desirable, which I will implement at my discretion.

What’s your all-time favorite 90s cartoon?
Hmm, that’s a pretty tough category. The 90s was, like, the golden decade for awesome cartoons! I mean, we’ve got Rugrats, Pokemon, Digimon, Sailor Moon, Rocket Power, the list goes on! I guess Sailor Moon particularly sticks out in my mind. I remember it used to come on at the same time as Pokemon, and my sister and I would always argue with my brother and our neighbor about which one we would watch (this was back before the days of DVR :P). Although, I went back and watched it online a few years ago (not quite to the extent Jill went to with Pokemon), and noticed a lot of things that I completely missed when I was little. For one thing, since they were dubbing English over the original Japanese, they changed the voices about a million times. The series also features some adult themes that went completely over my head. Despite all of that, though, I still love the series. I had the hugest crush on Tuxedo Mask even back then, and I still own some of the Sailor Scout dolls and figurines.

Is what is good good because God commands it, or does He command it because it is good?
Ooh, I like this one J Can I say both? I mean, everything God does is good- bad comes from the absence of God. So in that sense, good is good because of God- He defines what is good. But also, God sees the whole picture. He created everything, so He is omnipotent and knows everything about His creation. So in that sense, He is able to look at the whole picture and make His commands because He knows what is good- He commands it because He sees the outcome and knows that it is good. Does that make sense? I think I’m even confusing myself…

So, to reword it, God defines good, so good is good because He commands it and makes it so. But He also sees the whole picture and commands what is good because He knows that it is good because He sees the ultimate outcome as opposed to the immediate effect. Does that sound any better? The word “good” is starting to look really funny…

Are we human because we gaze at the stars or do we gaze at the stars because we’re human?
I don’t think it has anything to do with humanity- other animals look at the stars too. And I should’ve known that was from Stardust…

And finally, I know you’re all on the edge of your computer chairs waiting to hear who my favorite is this week, right? So without further ado, the winner is… Rachael, lovely Rachael! Yay Rachael! So, be sure to congratulate her on this honorary honor, and submit questions for a chance at being my favorite next week! Adios!

Love,

Sara

Hello, from "insert something creative". Hi, everyone, i'm back. I want peanut butter. I decided to use Garfield as my mascot because we share a lot in common.  Sara also has something that she has in common with him too :).

In this situation I think both Garfield and I share a common hatred toward Mondays. 
It always brings so much stress and restless nights. On the bright side I learned to fold a butterfly with a single dollar bill. If anyone is interested here is a YouTube video.

my goal is to do a some more orimoney and move up to doing a koi fish.

and then this

just kidding, but seriously that would be so cooolllll!!!!