Hail Queen of Heaven

Hail, Queen of heav'n, the ocean star.
Guide the wand'rer here below!
Thrown on life's surge we claim thy care.
Save us from peril and from woe.
Mother of Christ, Star of the sea,
Pray for the wanderer. Pray for me.

O gentle, chaste, and spotless Maid,
We sinners make our prayers thro' thee.
Remind thy Son that He has paid
The price of our iniquity.
Virgin most pure, Star of the sea,
Pray for the sinner. Oh, pray for me.

Sojourners in this vale of tears,
To thee, blest advocate, we cry.
Oh, pity our sorrows, calm our fears.
And soothe with hope our misery.
Refuge in grief, Star of the sea,
Pray for the mourner, Oh, pray for me.

And while to Him Who reigns above
In Godhead one, in Persons three,
The Source of life, of grace, of love,
Homage we pay on bended knee:
Do thou, bright Queen, O star of the sea,
Pray for thy children, pray for me.

We sang this hymn in Mass this morning; it remains one of my favorites because it is simple, yet so beautiful in its simplicity. The tune is also one of those lovely old tunes that is actually singable, as opposed to some of the hymns that made their way into church hymnbooks in the 1960s and 70s that are atonal and so difficult to follow that even people like me, who read music well, have a hard time following the tune, never mind the general congregation.

Today was the first day of Sunday School at our parish. Rather than be a helper in my mom's class occasionally as I've done for the last few years, I am "on my own" as a substitute teacher and I had the 3rd grade class, a class of 14 children. It was great to work with these children again, as I had worked with them when they were in the first grade in my mom's class. I did the introduction to the class for the teacher, who was getting her daughter moved into college for the first time, then read them a story about St. John Marie Vianney, since this is the Year of the Priest. We talked about what it meant to be a priest and why St. John was such a good role model for parish priests. After that, which was the end of her lesson plan, I looked at my watch and realized that there was almost 25 minutes left in the class and I had nothing for them to do. However, I've watched my mom improvise for years, so I knew that the best thing for me to do was think of something simple and quick--we played Catholic Hangman. That sounds pretty gruesome, but it was my own version of the spelling game where someone thinks of a word for the group to guess; as they guess letters, the correct ones are written down and the wrong ones earn the guessing team one more body part (head, torso, arms, legs, etc--I usually make it pretty complicated when I'm playing with small children--it gives them more of a chance to win :) ). If the word (or words) are completed before the man is completely drawn, the guessers win and if not, the thinker wins. Anyway, with my kids, I started out simple with "priest." They got it pretty quickly, so I challenged them (or so I thought) with "eucharist"--they got that one pretty quickly too, although the "u" near the beginning made them keep guessing "q," which made me laugh a little. We then moved on to "Saint John Vianney," which stumped them for a while, but eventually they got it. Finally, my trump card was with "Monsignor W-------" our pastor's name, which took them until half the class had been picked up to guess. It was a fun hour and I look forward to going back next month! Next week, I'll have a combined class of 6th, 7th, and 8th grade boys... stay tuned!

One sweet anecdote from this morning: there is a little girl in the class who has Downs Syndrome. I had worked with her before, so she was comfortable with me, but I know that she couldn't guess the letters like everyone else, so I had to come up with another way for her to participate. When it came to her turn, I would lean down and whisper a letter into her ear for her to repeat back to me. I wasn't sure how the other kids would react to this, but I thought it was important for her to be included. One of the boys, a child that I already knew was sweet, started cheering for her every time that she gave me a letter (of course I gave her letters that were in the puzzle--I didn't think it was fair to give her wrong letters): "Yay S---! She's really helping us win! Aw, man! She keeps getting the right letters!" It made me so happy to see her beaming at his praise; I didn't get a chance to tell his dad what a great kid he has, but I definitely will the next time I see that family at church.

In other news, this was an interesting weekend. I decided on Wednesday that I am definitely going to apply to graduate school for the fall; by Friday night, I had Carolina and Catholic on my list as definite places to apply, but the rest... it was all so overwhelming. It culminated in, after I got off work and came home to my roommates going out, sitting down at my computer screen and freaking out, sitting there, home alone (the only reason I mentioned them going out; that's not really my thing, so I was totally cool with that, until I had no one to cry to), sobbing because I was so overwhelmed. So I closed up my computer, packed a bag, and showed up on my back porch at 11:30 at night, tears rolling down my face (yes, I sobbed all the way home; I really probably shouldn't have driven, but I wasn't thinking straight), and sat down next to my poor confused father to cry it all out. Once I had composed myself, we talked and I decided that I'm only going to worry about those two schools because they are the ones with the programs that I like. It is wonderful to have family to go home to whenever I need them.

Speaking of graduate school, I need to go study for the GRE. Fun times :) But really, I wouldn't have it any other way

Officially here

Senior year started with a bang today (in a good sort of way). It was busy and crazy, but I think it will be fun. I am, however, exhausted, so I will wait until tomorrow to wax poetic about it :)

Bits and Pieces

Training/freshman move-in has taken over my life lately, but I'm happy to report that all the little angels of 2013 are safe in their rooms; it's a whole new generation of MCGs :)

My last roommate moved in today, so we went out to dinner tonight to celebrate Sarah's first day of student teaching. It was just meetings today (she doesn't start teaching full time until September 25th), but it was still fun to talk about our respective days. Living with these girls is going to be fun.

On the not-so-fun end, I went to the dentist this afternoon and found out that I have to have all of my wisdom teeth out, one of them sooner than the rest because it is both impacted and decaying. That's going to be a joyful procedure... not really. I'm just praying for strength to face this because the idea of surgery terrifies me. I've never even had a cavity filled, so being put under to have 4 teeth taken out kind of makes me want to run away. But then, it wouldn't ever get any better, so that's a silly idea.

I'm off to bed now because we have a breakfast with Monsignor at 7:30 tomorrow morning and I need to get up and wash my hair (My, I am quite the girly girl these days!). I'm officially a senior the day after tomorrow. Crazy times.

Take Thou Our Minds, Dear Lord

Every year on a Wednesday night in August, our pastor, Monsignor Williams gives a blessing at Wednesday Night Novena Mass to all of the students in college or graduate school who are headed back to school for the new academic year. After the homily, he calls us up and gives us a charge to remember our roots, our faith, as we go through the year and he reminds us to bring Christ to everyone we interact with through not only our words but also our deeds. This year, before we received our blessing, he handed out copies of a hymn that we all sang, with the congregation singing in the pews behind us.

Take Thou Our Minds, Dear Lord

Take Thou our minds, dear Lord, we humbly pray;

Give us the mind of Christ each passing day;

Teach us to know the truth that sets us free;

Grant us in all our thoughts to honor Thee.

Take Thou our hearts, O Christ, they are Thine own;

Come Thou within our souls and claim Thy throne;

Help us to shed abroad Thy deathless love;

Use us to make the earth like heaven above.

Take Thou our wills, Most High! Hold Thou full sway;

Have in our inmost souls Thy perfect way;

Guard Thou each sacred hour from selfish ease;

Guide Thou our ordered lives as Thou dost please.

Take Thou ourselves, O Lord, heart, mind, and will;

Through our surrendered souls Thy plans fulfill.

We yield ourselves to Thee--time, talents, all;

We hear, and henceforth heed, Thy sovereign call. Amen

This year, it was a bit bittersweet for me; as I walked up to the front of the church, I was thinking "This is the last year I will do this. This really is the beginning of the end," which made me tear up when Father was talking to and blessing us. But then I thought that really, the end isn't what I should be sad about. Instead, I should be excited that God has great plans for me after I finish here, even if I don't know what they are yet. God is good and loving and I need to be patient and grow in virtue so that I will be well equipped to handle whatever gift He gives to me next. As another hymn puts it, Trust and obey, for there's no other way to be happy in Jesus, but to trust and obey. That is where I am right now, entering senior year realizing the importance of those two words in my life. Life is good because God is good :)

Quick and easy lunch: chicken fried rice

Now, I am a fan of Chinese takeout as much as the next person, but lately, I've been preferring to make my own, as it is cheaper and healthier. Stir-fry is a good, quick meal for me for dinners, especially when I'm just cooking for me as I have been the past two weeks. But since it is just me, I end up with TONS of leftovers and I can only reheat the same dish so many times. Plus, rice tends to get rather dry and (in my opinion, gross) when it sits in the refrigerator for too long. So what's a girl to do? Well, in my case, I make fried rice, which is good for lunch when I've got a busy afternoon of classes or meetings, which is where I will be spending this afternoon.

I start with one egg, beating it with a teaspoon of soy sauce (you can use more or less, depending on your preference), then scrambling it in a saucepan that has been heated with just a few drops of oil (I don't really measure, but I'd guesstimate that it's about half a teaspoon):

When the egg is scrambled, remove all those lovely little bits onto a plate and keep warm (on a side note, aren't our dishes lovely?):

In that same saucepan, put half a cup of leftover vegetables (this particular batch of stir fry was from a kit, so the noodles were in the original. Also, I added chicken when I made the stir fry the first time--you can add it or leave it out because it's yummy either way) and saute them until they are hot:

Add half a cup of rice (more or less as you desire) on top of the vegetables:

And pour in about 3-4 more teaspoons of soy sauce. I like a lot of soy sauce, so I used 4 (and I use low-sodium, so it's not quite as bad for me!). Stir these ingredients until everything is nice and hot; it makes a great crackling sound once you add the soy sauce and the kitchen smells lovely!

Once it's all nice and hot, put the eggs back in and stir to mix:

Then dish it out onto a pretty serving dish and top with some Chinese noodles (at least, that's what I like to do).

The nice thing about this is that it can be customized to whatever I have on hand--no chicken? No problem! If you like beef or shrimp, that can be added instead of the chicken. Any particular vegetable you can't stand (mine would be mushrooms) can be left out. And since I make it myself, I know there's nothing yucky like MSG added.

Having a kitchen is bliss :)

Brunching with my grandparents :)

Tonight I called my grandpa to invite him and Grandma (who is flying home tomorrow from visiting her sister in CA) over for breakfast after church on Sunday. And I just think that it's pretty fantastic that I can invite them over to my new place; I'm glad that I have a place to invite them to and I'm glad we're close enough to do that.

Growing up, none of my cousins were fortunate enough to live as close to my grandparents as I do. I used to spend every afternoon over at their house after I finished my schoolwork--it was my grandpa that taught me to cook. We would sit in his big brown recliner, me on his lap, and watch cooking shows, after which we'd make dinner for the three of us. Between helping Grandpa and my mom, I was always in the kitchen, which I believe is what makes me love cooking today.

My grandma and I would go shopping together, which we still do; I'm sure she appreciates it much more now that I'm trying not to dress her like a disco drag queen (if it was hideous and sequined, I thought she'd be beautiful in it!). She taught me to hunt for a bargain and to never purchase something unless I loved it. She has also always thought I was beautiful and tried to get me to dress that way.

I'm so excited about them coming because during the last 3 years, they have been nothing but supportive of my academics. Not that my parents have not been, because they are wonderful, but there's something about my relationship with my grandparents that makes their support and encouragement extra special; perhaps it is the fact that I am not as close with my dad's parents as I am with my mom's, my Grandma and Grandpa. (By the way, one of my favorite recent memories was the time in April that they came to MC for a grandparent's luncheon and we took a tour of this apartment building before it was anywhere close to finished. Brittany, one of my fellow staff members took a picture of my grandpa in a pink hard hat--priceless! I think I'm the only person in the world that he would do that for, even if it was rather grudgingly :)) . So now I'm off to bed, but after work tomorrow, I'm going shopping for brunch! Yay!

Counting my blessings

This morning, I woke up with a swollen face because my wisdom teeth are (once again) working their way through my gums (it's been off and on since freshman year of college--every time I decide the pain is bad enough to get them taken out, it magically goes away). My shins are hurting because I ran a little on my walk this morning and I'm tired with a long day ahead of me tomorrow. I know from experience, though, that the best way to get myself out of this funk is to count my blessings. So here they are, in no particular order:

-My sweet brother is bringing me ice cream because cold makes the swelling go down (obviously!)

-Ice cream is delicious

-I have a rockin' apartment

-My first Netflix DVD finally came today

-I reconnected with another old friend over Facebook and I think we're going to try to have lunch next week

-I love my job

-I have great coworkers

-My dress was a little loose when I put it on this morning, which made me feel better about my weight despite the swollen face thing

-I will have at least 1 roommate by the end of the weekend

-My parents are buying me a new printer this weekend-yay for no sales tax!

-I will get paid next week, which means I can purchase my textbooks

-The semester starts really, really soon

-After 22 years of marriage, my parents are still deeply in love

-I am at peace with my life, even with its unknowns

-I am a beloved daughter of God, which should be more than enough for anyone

-I am relatively healthy

Learning patience

Me with Father Tony at his ordination 2 years ago

I am not, by nature, a patient person. I like to have answers quickly and I like to plan out my life. This has worked out pretty well for me so far: I always knew that after high school, I would go to college and, by my junior year of high school, I even had my college and major picked out. However, lately, it has been a different story. I start my senior year 2 weeks from today and I have no idea what the future has in store for me. This is turning into a time of serious discernment through prayer; do I go to graduate school or look for a teaching job? Do I start trying to write professionally (and about what???) or do I look for a temporary job that will allow me more time to figure things out? So many options...

And yet, I ought to be thankful that I have options. Some of my friends are Teaching Fellows for our state, which means that when they graduate in May, they owe the state 4 years of teaching for the scholarship that they received to help them pay for college. The public schools in this state are not the greatest; in fact, I live in one of the best counties for public schooling, but that doesn't guarantee that every school is good. Not to mention the fact that a lot of schools are going through a hiring freeze, so it may be difficult for some of these girls to find jobs once they have diplomas.

My family had dinner with a priest friend of ours, Father Tony, the other week and at some point, the conversation came around to jobs. Father made the comment that some jobs require you to be "cunning as a serpent, but gentle as a dove," and for some reason, this resonated with me. Does that mean that I am supposed to be cunning but gentle as a high school teacher in one of the private schools in my town (one diocesan and one independent), or does it mean that I need to be in a university setting doing graduate work? I have no clearer idea, but this is the thing that has become abundantly clearer: I. NEED. TO. TRUST.

Crazy, isn't it? Who would have thought that that would be the answer? I read a quote earlier today in which the person was talking about another topic, but I think it works well here too: "I said that [trusting] was simple. I didn't say that it was easy." Often, I believe, what I focus on is the easy answers, not the simple ones. And yet, at every other point in my life, when I felt like I was going to have to make a decision without having any idea which option was the better one, I was shown the way. It will be this way with this decision as well. I will know when I need to know and not before. Again, a simple answer, but not an easy one.

On a side note, this film from Grassroots Films is, I believe a great reminder in this Year of the Priest about why we need our priests (the title is Fishers of Men)

Part I: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t9a1DpmCDuc

Part II: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7_SXSpzx4hY

In love with Netflix!

Since I'm alone in my apartment until next week, I decided that it was time to sign up for Netflix, something I'd been wanting, but didn't want to sign up for until I was moved in. My first DVD has yet to arrive (something about mail service in these apartments not starting yet), but I've just finished the BBC miniseries "Wives and Daughters," which, in my opinion, was excellently done. I thought they took a bit of creative license with the end of the series; I can't ever imagine Molly Gibson in pants, but I suppose they had to do something since the novel is unfinished. All in all, I give it a 5/5 for staying true to the novel and for excellent casting. I read "Wives and Daughters" in my Victorian literature class last fall and this version was cast exactly as I had imagined the characters.

Right now, I'm waiting for "The Lion in Winter" (with Katharine Hepburn and Peter O'Toole), which I haven't seen since high school. I'm also thinking that tonight while I'm on duty, I'll start the BBC version of "Mansfield Park," since the 1999 version was such a disappointment in the liberties that it took with the story, characters, etc.

Musings on Victorian Literature

As I sit at the information desk in our apartment building, I am currently enjoying the BBC's excellent mini-series of Elizabeth Gaskell's Wives and Daughters via Netflix's Watch Instantly feature. I also found, saved on my desktop, a witty little story that some friends of mine wrote while studying for our Victorian Literature final exam last fall. Every person mentioned is an author we studied; their works are mentioned in the paragraphs as well. Being quite ill at the time with flu and pneumonia, I can take none of the credit for this--it all goes to Amber, Eryn, and Meredith.

A Day in the Musings on Victorian Literature

by Euphemia Gray Ruskin Millais

At dawn, Elizabeth Gaskell rose from her bed, and met with the Wives and Daughters of England Club at the Towers. She went with her best friends Ruth and Mary Barton.

At ten in the morning, Tennyson was “Crossing the Bar” and thinking about In Memoriam when he met “The Lady of Shalott” and “Mariana” in “The Palace of Art.”

Meanwhile, Robert Browning was sitting “By the Fireside” in his “House” having “Home-Thoughts from Abroad” while watching the “Development” of “My Star” when “My Last Duchess” walked in and brought him some “Memorablia” of “Porphyria’s Lover” aka strands of blond hair. His friends, “Andrea del Sarto” and “Fra Lippo Lippi” came in carrying their new paintings “Youth and Art” and talked dramatic monologues about the new sculpture “The Bishop Orders His Tomb at Saint Praxed’s Church” for a week. Then “Childe Roland to the Dark Tower came,” and Childe Roland and Browning talked about their immense “Prospice.”

E.B.B. came into the room with the men and screamed, “There’s a “Runaway Slave at Pilgrim’s Point”!” Hurry, read “Sonnets from the Portuguese” to hear about “The Cry of the Children”.”

On the other side of London, Thomas Carlyle was talking about the Past and Present of the famous author/actor Shakespeare, who was going to be featured in the new film On Heroes, Hero-Worship and the Heroic in History. Meanwhile, there was a crowd gathering outside in protest of Carlyle’s new film, so they were screaming “SARTOR RESARTUS, SARTOR RESARTUS!”

Helping his sister, Dante Gabriel Rossetti was visiting Highgate and talking to a prostitute, “Jenny,” “The Blessed Damozel.” At twelve, “My Sister’s Sleep” was interrupted by a wombat.

The wombat dragged my sister Christina Rossetti to the “Goblin Market” where they tried to sell her things in a Sing-Song voice.

In William Morris’ afternoon newspaper, there was news about a trial going on in “The Defence of Guenevere.” It was held in “The Haystack in the Floods.” The verdict was ambiguous.

As John Stuart Mill was reading the same newspaper, someone ran by his window and screamed, “WHAT IS POETRY?” Mill was so confused that he decided to write a disturbed Autobiography in which he argued On Liberty and On the Subjection of Women.

That afternoon, Matthew Arnold was at “Dover Beach,” visiting his father’s tomb at “Rugby Chapel.” “The Scholar-Gipsy” danced by singing “Stanzas from the Grande Chartruese.” Arnold ignored him and stared at his father’s grave, thinking about “The Buried Life.” Taking a break from his musings, he picked up the journal Literature and Science and read a critical article on The Study of Poetry and decided to write the “Preface to the First Edition of Poems” for his Swiss lover Marguerite.

At sunset, I was sitting with John Ruskin on The Stones of Venice, and he declared me imperfect. I stood up, kissed my illicit painter lover and yelled at Ruskin as we rode away into the fiery sunset, Unto This Last!

Thoughts about my mother

My mom several years ago during a trip to the beach, beautiful despite the wind :)

It is difficult to sit down and write about the person who most influences your life. It is even more difficult to do so without being clichéd. So much is said about mothers, and it can be a challenge to distinguish the sincerely meant words from those which just sound nice. So I begin to think about my ever-changing relationship with my mother, which, thankfully, has almost always (but sometimes not) been a good one.

We did not have a good relationship when I was in the 9^th grade. That was the year that, after being homeschooled since kindergarten, I patently refused to go to a traditional high school, deciding instead that, because I knew best about my education, as all 14 year olds do, I would be homeschooled all the way through high school. My mother agreed, on one condition: that we use a package curriculum, rather than do what we had always done and use a curriculum that she chose herself from different textbook companies. I consented and that year was a disaster from the very beginning. Mom chose a well-known company, but the rigidity of their requirements—things like using the few assignments they graded for 75% of my total grade—made it difficult for me to care. The volume of work was immense and after a month or so, it began to seem totally pointless. However, as neither one of us wanted to give in for our various reasons (Mom because the curriculum had been expensive and me because my pride was dearer), we stuck it through to the end. Both of us, I believe, were relieved when I went off to private school in the fall, a school which, although not perfect, allowed us the space we needed to enable our relationship to become more than it was at that point.

Our relationship suffered again five years later when I began dating a young man who, though not at all a bad person, was not right for me with regards to his ambition or his personality. Like all 19 year olds, though, I knew best once again, and caused both of my parents a lot of suffering because of my stubbornness in insisting, once again, that I was right and that my way was what was right for me. I couldn’t see any merits in her argument that being yoked with a partner who was unequal would make me miserable; in those terrible months of constant fighting, she revealed so much of the agony she had gone through in a similar relationship when she was my age, and yet I still spurned her counsel. Eventually, though, that relationship ended and thankfully my mother and I became close again.

Many of the young women I know run screaming at the idea of becoming their mother; I embrace it. Our voices are often mistaken on the telephone, and whenever a caller apologizes for thinking I am my mother, I thank them, catching them off guard. It is as if the expectation is still there for young women of my generation to be like the young women of hers and be offended at the thought of being their own mothers, horribly backwards and not enlightened. My mother is a fantastic, fascinating person and if I grow up to be anything like her, I will have achieved so much. While she has had many part time teaching and tutoring jobs during my lifetime, her heart has always been at home; she is a nurturing, caring individual, so it comes as no surprise to anyone that she is a teacher. She is smart, but chooses to use her mental faculties to educate and care for her family first and foremost, rather than just worrying about a paycheck. My college friends who live far away love coming home with me because she’s a wonderful cook; her meals may not be exotic, but they are made with talent and caring, which makes them even better.

I can remember as a child having friends whose mothers embarrassed them, not because of what they did, but because of who they were. I don’t ever remember having those feelings about my own mother. I cherished her then as a rarity among the mothers I knew and I cherish her now as a dear friend.

Look for another post in the near future about becoming my mother.