When you pray, you are much more beautiful, like flowers, which, after the snow, show all their beauty and all their colors become indescribable.

-- Our Lady of Medjugorje

Adeste, Fideles

Because Latin is not offered at UNA, I will also go on a second small rant today and get a bit of Latin out of my system. Ahem.

Adeste, fideles
Laeti, triumphantes,
Venite, venite ad Bethlehem
Natum, videte, regem angelorum...

Cantet nunc Io
Chorus angelorum
Cantet nunc aula caelestium
Gloria, gloria in excelsis Deo...

Deum de Deo
Lumen de Lumine
Gestant puella viscera
Deum verum, genitum non factum...

Ergo, Qui natus
Die hodierna
Jesu, Tibi sit gloria
Patris Aeterni, verbum caro factum...

VENITE, ADOREMUS
VENITE, ADOREMUS
VENITE, ADOREMUS DOMINUM!

And, yes, I know what all of that means without having to look it up. I am insufferable, aren't I? Sigh... I wish UNA offered Latin. But would seem so awkward to bring it up with Dr. Christy in the middle of German. Doesn't ANYONE on the staff know it? Come on...

In Pace Christi,

Elyse

A Small Rant On Terry Bowden

When coaches say they're staying or that they have no intentions of leaving, THEY ALWAYS LEAVE. Especially this year. 'Tis the season to fire coaches, lalalalalalala. I mean, seriously, people.

Yes, I saw the article in the paper this morning about Terry Bowden leaving. Why? As far as I could tell, he was doing decently here. We made it to the playoffs yet again. He had just signed a one-year contract. Why is he leaving? I've never even HEARD of Akron before (though apparently they are the Zips, of all things. At least that shows some imagination. It's better than yet another team called the Tigers).

If you don't know, I also like Auburn, and I'm also frustrated that we just lost BOTH our offensive and defensive coordinators. At least we'll have Malzahn for the Chick-fil-A Bowl. That makes it slightly less insulting. Still... How can any football program have any sense of stability when the coaching staff gets changed so often?

I haven't heard that Saban is switching colleges yet, though... He'll probably just stay there. The Alabama-ites love him. They think he's the second coming of Saint Bear Bryant and don't you dare say a word against either of them. Instead you must decorate your Christmas tree with houndstooth print instead of tinsel and beads and instead of singing Christmas carols you must gather round and sing, "Rammer Jammer".

Yup, I'm a little annoyed.

This is almost certainly my last post before Christmas, so a huge MERRY CHRISTMAS to all of you out there, and a HAPPY NEW YEAR.

In Pace Christi,

Elyse

No, things that are true and things that are better are, by their nature, practically always easier to prove and easier to believe in.

--Aristotle, Rhetoric

In Pace Christi,

Elyse

Tiny Little Post

I don't know how much I'll be blogging over winter break and into the spring semester. I'd like to keep it up (gasp!) though I have no real idea why. I like posting random quotes, so maybe I'll keep up a string of random quotes to amuse myself and drive whatever readers I have to distraction. You are in no way obliged to read them. Half of the time I won't even know who said it. But I'm going to put it anyway. Here's today's little serving.

-- Courage is not the absence of fear, but rather the judgment that something else is more important than fear.

In Pace Christi,

Elyse

Sometimes I think the surest sign that intelligent life exists somewhere is that none of it has tried to contact us.

-- Unknown

Winter Break Is Great

I still can't get used to the fact that I can actually sleep in till, oh, I don't know, seven in the morning. It's great not having class and no homework to do. Not that I have exactly nothing to do... My dad has found things for me to do, shelling pecans and whatnot. We have a pecan tree that produces a LOT of pecans (one Saturday we when out there for about forty-five minutes or so and picked up 13 gallons of pecans, no joke). So, yay, we get to shell them now. And it kind of hurts your fingers to do that when you have to pull the shell off and it pokes your fingers. So my fingers hurt... And I only did 1 3/4 quarts of them today, and I had help. But people will pay good money for pecans, even unshelled, and I'm not real sure why. Perhaps they are a fad or something. Next thing you know, it'll be persimmons. We have those, too, and they are VERY messy, let me tell you...

I'm not real sure what my point was when I decided to randomly post on my blog, which should be obvious as I started rambling about pecans. Yes, the joys of life on a farm. I even rode my horse today, which I haven't done in a long time. I won't be saddlesore tomorrow, though. I'm never saddlesore, and never really have been. I can sit down just fine, thank you very much. I might be a little stiff and not wanting to move fast, but I will be able to sit down just fine. So I've never really understood it in stories and stuff where someone gets on a horse for the first time, gets off, and collapses to the groan moaning that they can't walk. Am I just weird this way, or what?

Today is my sister's birthday. She's 16, so she'll be getting her driver's license. This is kind of scary. I didn't get mine until I was 17 (yes, I am really weird), so it doesn't seem right that she should be already licensed. (I actually got my license on the day she got her permit, I think.) And the fact that my brother is 13... yikes, I feel old now. I should stop before I scare myself any further.

In Pace Christi,

Elyse

If you look at a thing 999 times, you are perfectly safe; if you look at it for the 1000th time, you are in danger of seeing it for the first time.

- G. K. Chesterton

FREEEEEEEEE!

Master gave Dobby a sock! Dobby is FREEEEEEEEEEE!

Yes, I was the one skipping out of Bibb Graves chanting that to myself under my breath. I'm sure all you Potterphiles out there are pleased and everything.

I had three finals today, but it wasn't as bad as I thought, and now I am FREEEEEEEEE for the rest of the year! Woo! Not even the fact that I had to wait 15 minutes on a shuttle or that some poor guy's car broke down at the intersection at Martin's right in front of me on the way home can dull my enthusiasm. It helped that I came home and ate chocolate chip cookies that I made the other night. Chocolate solves many problems.

When I came home, I saw that the lights in the tractor shed were on, the horses were standing at the gate waiting to be fed, one of our dogs had wrapped his chain around something again, and the other dog was gnawing on something that died, oh, a month or two ago. When I came inside, I saw that one of my brothers had taped a drawing of a skull and crossbones to the door and learned that my other brother was going to bed at 8:00 tonight for misbehaving, while my sister was groaning over a literature test.

So, yes, everything is well with my world. I am feeling very happy and content. I would like to put a big smiley face on this post, but the best I can do is this:

:)

In Pace Christi,

Elyse

Truth cannot change because it is a person, Jesus Christ, and He is the same yesterday, today, and tomorrow.

-- John Martignoni