So, we had a really big rain last week. I was glad, because that meant it would wash all the bird droppings off my car. Well, the next morning I went out, and what did I find? Dirty little kitty prints starting on my trunk lid, going up my rear windshield, across the roof, down the front windshield, and down the hood. Since they were on the passenger's side, and since kittens are cute, and since I'm lazy, I let the pawprints stay.

I've watched some movies recently:


Worth Multiple Viewings:

Born Into Brothels: This is a heartwrenching documentary about children in India that are the children of prostitutes. Zana Briski (who largely produced the film) tries to help them improve their position in life by teaching them photography and getting them into boarding schools.

Munich: A film based on an (offically disputed) account of Israel's response to the assassination of their Olympic athletes in the 1972 Olympic Games in Munich. The protagonist, a Mossad agent, is tasked with hunting down and assassinating those who organized the attack. It raises tough questions, not only about the nature of terrorism, but about what the eye-for-an-eye response costs us in our moral character.

Worth Watching Once:

Final Fantasy VII: Advent Children: Well, only if you have played the video game this is the sequel to. Otherwise, you won't understand what's going on or why it's important. In short: completely incomprehensible to anyone but a Final Fantasy VII video-gamer. It does have some wicked-cool fight scenes, though.

Steamboy: A retro-sci-fi film set in Victorian England. A boy tries to keep his grandfather's invention from being used for Evil by the Evil American Warmongers. Too preachy for its own good, but beautifully animated.

I had a birthday this past week -- my 29th, in fact. We celebrated it Tuesday by going out to Ruen Thai, an excellent Thai restaurant about 20 minutes away. (Roast duck stir fry, mmmm! We also had shrimp spring rolls and purple rice ice cream. I love Thai food.) My church small group made a cake for me and gave me some Napoleon Dynamite magnets.

My birthday wasn't on Tuesday, but on my actual birthday, I was at a conference in Atlanta. The International House of Prayer in Atlanta had their annual Passionate Pursuit conference, and my friends Corey Russell and Allen Hood were preaching. There was some great preaching, but the best part was that Allen gave me an hour with him one-on-one. Now, I've known Allen for 10 years, but he's an important guy, and especially as a conference speaker, everybody wants a piece of his time. On top of that, some family of his came from Birmingham to visit, so it was really cool for me that he gave me a full hour undisturbed.

Whew! I'm finally finished! I actually finished grading all the papers on Friday, but now I'm done tallying up final grades and entering them into the computer. Now, I get to wait with bated breath for the whiney emails from "D" and "F" students over their grades!

The last couple of nights, I've been having nightmares from the stress. I hope now I can sleep peacefully without any stress.

Now it's time to de-stress, unwind, relax, and read all the books that have been accumulating on my coffee table.

Hooray for summer!

(And I officially changed my desktop wallpaper to "azul," the scene with the sailboat and island.)

A couple of days ago, a student/friend of mine was hospitalized with a 4 mm kidney stone. (Ouch!) She picked a really bad day for it, this being final exam week and all, but (fortunately), she only had one final left. I went in to the hospital and prayed with her before her surgery, since her family lives way up North and wasn't there to be with her.

I'm glad my schedule is flexible during final exam week.

"Me fail English? That's unpossible!" -- Ralph Wiggam, The Simpsons

I'm about halfway through grading this semester's papers. Some of them are just atrocious.

I was grading papers yesterday when I suddenly realized I was missing something. Something that really ought to be there. Something I always used to have, this time of year, and that went along with final exam week. Something that relieves the intense stress: an exam treat bag.

(Look at me, using sentence fragments! I need to get away from these papers.)

So, I went to the grocery store this morning and stocked up on popcorn, pork rinds, Little Debbie snacks, and candy. This has helped fortify me during my long hours of grading, as well as keeping me in a better mood (which, I'm sure, my students appreciate).

Saturday I took a break and volunteered to help pick up trash along a road in conjunction with a county-wide community service project. I got a free pizza lunch, which was a blast, and worked with a family from our church. (They have 7 preteen sons, all of whom were out picking up trash!) After that I saw Mission: Impossible III, which was okay, but seemed a little light on plot.

Last Wednesday, a woman in our church was healed of a torn ACL when we prayed for her. She went running around the church and jumped up and down! She just recently started coming to our church, and this was a big boost to her faith. I discovered she only had a King James bible, so I got my small group together and we got her a new NIV Quest Study Bible and gave it to her in church on Sunday. She was really excited and gave big hugs to everyone in the group!

Tonight I had to take a break from papers to do postplanning: a semester-recap faculty meeting. It was two-and-a-half hours long, but they made up for it by providing lots of food (cold cuts and rolls, cheese and grapes, etc.). It's just one more thing marked off my list before I can be free for the summer.

I just finished my last class of the semester. I feel tremendous relief; I'm almost ready to party! Not quite, though; I still have 85 papers to grade. Nearly a dozen students failed (through excessive absences) or withdrew during the course of the semester; over half of those during this past week.

On top of that, I'm kind of between books right now, so there's really nothing to distract me during my paper-grading. ("Kind of" because there are always unfinished books on my shelf, with bookmarks sticking out like hands, waving, "Come read me!")

Last night my friend and former martial arts instructor, Rory Singer, won his first nationally televised fight on Spike TV, knocking out his opponent at the beginning of the second round with a kick to the head. He won $5000 and advanced to the next round in the Ultimate Fighter reality show.

Congrats, Rory!