To the unfortunate person who staggared through the frustration expressed in the post that used to be here, I apologize.

To continue the "how to get along with your friends" lesson, I will comment more on the first point - tea...

Who says opposites attract? The only sense that works in is with genders. becca and I are friends not because of the sameness of our personalities (they are really quite different) nor the differencess in our personalities, but because we have things in common separate from our personalities.

becca mentioned tea. She forgot to mention that you should only drink tea with your friend if you both like tea. We (that is, becca and I) consider ourselves somethings like amateur tea connoisseurs; we don't have the money to be pros, but we both like tea and have virtually the same favorites.

If you are male, it does not follow that you should dislike tea, but it does follow that you should dislike holding "tea parties" with your male buddies in order to "bond." If you are male, you may enjoy playing rugby together or watching the baseball game together or seeing who can concoct the most disgusting mixture from kitchen ingredients and drink eight oz of it the fastest. You are male, and you are opposites (but don't forget - opposites attract when it comes to gender!). Substitute nearly anything for tea and it will work.

You may be female and you may dislike tea greatly. The same principle applies here. If you don't like tea, for heaven's sake don't force yourself to drink it and complain later that all your tea-hating friends now hate you. Go; turn tea-hating into an art. Be creative. Spend time with your friends making anti-tea posters and holding rallies. Discuss how much you hate tea. Hold board meetings. We (becca and I) don't care (more tea for us!) - it's your friendships that are at stake.

My public thanks to Tyrone and becca for sending me tea whilst I was away at college. My "college friends" will testify that I was very excited and happy indeed, for days. The poor college student would like to spend her Christmas money on more important things than tea (and make the money last all semester) so any further donations will be most welcome. becca knows my favorite kinds (because they are her favorite kinds as well!)

Ah, the joys of a perfect friendship. Sometimes I think the glue that sticks us together is simply the common love of tea (and the GREAT lattes her mother makes...)

On a different note...

I'm reading again! Now that I'm not on drugs and Christmas is over, I have time to read! I borrowed several books from my aunt last night and I'm reading the stuff I got in the "free book sale" that was at school a while ago where I just grabbed about ten in between the mass of a hundred other students swarming around the shelves and haven't had a chance to read them yet. Today, in fact, is my official reading day. Last night late I finished "Meeting God at Every Turn" by Catherine Marshall (I didn't know till now that she was the author of Christy, which used to be one of my favorite books.) It's basically her autobiography and I didn't think I'd like it very much but I figured I'd just read it and then either throw it away or give it away, since I hate to deliberately not finish any book.

Near the beginning of the book she mentioned something like "my readers often meet me and say 'I feel like I know you through your writing; I feel like you're already my friend.'" I read that and I was like "pfft, sentimental mush. You won't find me doing that - no, I can read with an objective eye. I am going to dislike this book immensely. Bo-ring." I actually thought it was like a "spiritual life self-help" book by the title. Then I read it, and found that it was interesting in parts. Eventually I was nearly laughing at loud at the little anecdotes she'd placed in this book, and at her particular writing style. I ended the book feeling very satisfied. I loved it. Just before I went to sleep I thought "if I ever get a chance to meet her, I will. We have so much in common, and she's been through so much, and she writes..." and then I thought "NO! I resolved to have no feelings of kindness toward the author at the beginning of the book!" But it's true, I feel like I know her after reading her autobiography! Wow!

One huge thing that made me like the book - the love stories. Ha! You're hearing this from me? Me, the official inventer of hating the sight of kissing?

The truth is, I think a great deal about marriage and how I want to be married. Of course, like nearly anyone else, I want to find "the right guy" which means right now I'm resigned to be an old maid forever because there seem to be none in the world. I won't bore you with my own thoughts though - I just want to tell of my interest in the fact of marriage, and how a sheltered Christian 17-year old who has barely been around men of her age in her life goes thinking about "eligible young men" and stuff. Anyway, I usually don't like love stories because they are super romanticized: "We met. He took me out to dinner. He took me home. He held open the door for me (such a gentleman) then he kissed me (good teeth) and then he said he'd call me later (commitment.) I'll say yes when he asks."

Catherine Marshall's two love stories (she remarried seven years after her first husband died) are really beautiful because she expresses all of her own thoughts - she thinks the guy is interested in her but she doesn't really want to think that because how could he be? Then she starts liking the guy back but he seems not to like her anymore so she thinks it was all in her head and decides to just forget it all, like she should have in the first place, then she finds she is still in love with him (but is it only infatuation? This can't be godly! God, take away the feelings!) then it turns out he's really in love with her, and they get married. Basically, the tale she told was with all the human doubts and silly thoughts and ridiculousness and "I'm-too-mature-for-crushes-so-is-this-true-love-and-this-couldn't-possibly-be-God's-will-for-me-so-I-should-just-give-him-up-now" silliness. And yet, God prevailed - and she makes it very clear that it was God who prevailed, not the guy she married or herself. It wasn't "Peter and Catherine winning over incredible odds" - it was "Catherine (possibly Peter) creating doubt and 'odds' and God winning over them both."

Anyway, I know this is an odd way for me to speak (odd as in, not the way I normally do) but the fact is, I do think about marriage, I want to get married and have a whole lot of kids and live in a big house somewhere and homeschool and have the smartest kids on the planet. I want to have the "perfect guy" who will enjoy turning out the lights and drinking tea and talking in the dark. (obviously that's not the only thing I want from a guy, but I'm just saying that I have dreams. Doesn't everyone?) I guess I'm just saying, this was a very human love story. Sometimes Christians tell their love stories like this: "God brought us together. The end." And it sounds all super-spiritual and you go "Okay, there go the two Saints." This is how two humans fell in love because God willed it. I don't know how to explain it.

The other thing I liked about the book was how she wrote about her love to write and how she got into the whole publishing thing. I think any autobiography about a writer will interest me, though, just because I like to write. The writing thing was a small part of the book - she wasn't writing this book to tell the story of her writing career, that's for sure. In fact, it seemed more about Peter Marshall (her first husband) than her. Anyway.

I liked the book.

Now I'm reading Taliesin. I asked Aunt Debbie to lend me some good books that I hadn't read and she lent me three. So I'm reading it now. I've never been much for fantasy style books but I've decided to finish this one just to see if I can "get into" it. I can't see it happening so far. I'm about fifty pages into it and there are almost 500 in the book, so maybe a real plot will develop soon instead of seemingly unrelated things happening one after the other.

My list of things to do:

Read some more
Eat lunch
Shower

Haha! I love the life on break! And no one cares what I do - I'm exempt because I spent the semester getting up earlier than the rest of my family.

Josh says becca's at work. I am definitely going to try to hang out with her later today. Maybe I'll go to worship practice tonight or something. Last I saw her was Sunday morning and I haven't so much as talked to her online or on the phone or seen her or ANYTHING since then! All I've done was read the post below! I MISS HER!

-Amber