I still haven't lost my summer tan. I know that because I am wearing a Gap demin skirt I bought last fall. It comes to just above my knees, which are bare. Yes, bare. Yes, it is January and it is 70 degrees outside. Any takers for the jealousy corner?

In other news, our apartment is clean. I just marrooned my way through it with a washcloth and a vacuum.

I met with my advisor today. 19 credit hours, an RA job, homework, and working at the stables is too much for this person to undertake with joy. I'll be dropping American Literature on Monday and picking it back up this summer. That will knock me down to 16 hours and a more doable schedule, it will also mean that graduation has been pushed from Spring 2007 to Summer 2007, a few mere months and summer classes. S'ok.

When I first started this weblog I would post all the thoughts running through my head on one post a day, beginning each new thought with bolded print. I stopped doing that when my posts began to be more essay style. But I think in light of the infrequency of my posts recently, I'll begin doing that again. That way you only need to read the bold print of each paragraph to determine whether you really care that much about what's going on in my life.

In World Literature we are reading Voltaire's satirical Candide. Thus far it has been brutal rapings, murders, jolting resurrections, true love, and the cutting off of a princess's posterier; yes, all the good stuff of literature, I would agree. But then I came across this passage, which, surprisingly was void of any violence and/or vulger foolishness:

"You are making a foolish mistake [to want to leave Eldorado], the king told them. I know very well that my kingdom is nothing much; but when you are pretty comfortable somewhere, you had better stay there. Of course I have no right to keep strangers against their will, that sort of tyranny is not in keeping with our laws or our customs; all men are free; depart when you will, but the way out is very difficult. You cannot possibly go up the river by which you miraculously came; it runs too swiftly through its underground caves. The mountains which surround my land are ten thousand feet high, and steep as walls; each one is more than ten leagues across; the only way down is over precipices. But since you really must go, I shall order my engineers to make a machine which can carry your conveniently. When we take you over the mountains, nobody will be able to go with you, for my subjects have sworn never to leave the refuge, and they are too sensible to break their vows..."

Of course Voltaire knew the irony of the last statment, but we readers are not always so keen. It took me a time or two to reread it to discern that it was not the insensibility of leaving which kept the subjects in Eldorado, but the foolishness of their vow.

And so it goes with us. Or me, at least. I make vows, foolish ones, smartish ones, seemingly wiseish ones, and ones I never think twice about. I swear to never do, always do, be called, not be called, leave, stay, go, forever and never, and almost every single time I find myself in bondage to that vow, that promise, those words I spoke without any real thought. I regress further into Eldorado, not because I don't want to leave, but because I spoke of never going too rashly.

I'm challenged by that, to hold my tongue and still my head. To hear the voice of the Lord and calm myself by His presence, instead of my certainty.

A man plans his way, but his steps are ordered by the Lord.
Proverbs 16.9

I can look far ahead of me and know where I want to be, but my constant goal needs to be the letting of Him order each step to get there.