I realized today that I don't like watching TV that much anymore. I know this is a shocking statement, especially coming from someone who has adored many a TV show. I've always been a loyal TV watcher, even when the shows didn't really deserve my loyalty. But it's kind of who I am, I like to stick it out to the end. To be clear, I'm not saying I don't like TV anymore, or the shows, but I don't really enjoy watching them the way I used to. I've found that my viewing pleasure is enhanced far more if I have another reason for watching TV, like watching with friends, or watching a particular show because I know I will discuss it with a friend later. I find it kind of sad really. But if I truly think about the cause behind this recent discovery, I would venture to say it's because my life is prioritized differently than it once was. Mostly because of going back to school full time to pursue a nursing career, but also because I find myself more interested in doing other things besides parking myself in front of my giant TV. (Maybe this is why I can't seem to get more than 15% of free space on my DVR). I think I may have to give up on some of those shows I've been so loyal to for so long. Although, the simple fact that there is more and more reality shows taking over prime time really helps as I've vowed to never watch reality TV. But really, if I stop and think about it, are these shows making my life any better or improving me as a person. Probably not, though some of you may beg to differ. :) I'm not quite ready to throw in the towel yet, but I'm certainly getting close. Only time will tell.

So, a lot of things have happened in the last couple weeks. Things that I would be remiss not to mention. But you know what, I'm not going to mention most of them. At least not now anyway. Because I'd much rather rant about my Developmental Psychology teacher and his many, many faults. He has succeeded yet again, in causing me great amounts of anger and bitterness. Thus I shall share with you a few of his afore mentioned faults.

Let me start by saying that I'm taking 2 online classes at the moment in what happens to be the winter intercession at my school. This is only important b/c the intercession only lasts 6 weeks. SO the teachers must condense their courses down from 18 weeks. I understand that this is no easy task, but it's also a common occurrence at this particular JC, so it should be no big deal, right? Wrong. In the few classes that I've taken online the format has been the same for all of them. The professor gives you a certain amount of homework to accomplish for a given week and it is to be submitted by the due date. Seems fair to me. That's the thing I've always loved about taking online courses. The professor gives you the work, you do it when you have time and get it in by their due date.

So you can understand why I would be surprised when I began reading through this man's syllabus and his requirements that I might have been a little disappointed to find out that he intended to quiz us on every chapter, but also give us internet assignments, that correspond with each chapter we read. And as I continued to read through his syllabus several things became glaringly obvious.

1) He thinks everyone cheats, all the time. No exceptions.

2) For all the times he mentioned spelling and it's grave importance to doing well in the class, he had several spelling errors himself.

3) No late work. Ever. No exceptions. (not really a surprise considering everything else)

4) (my personal fav) He mentions that he welcomes questions from students, but cautions then to read his created FAQ list for the class, and warns that if someone asks him a question mentioned in his list he will deduct points from their grade.

That was the beginning. I find myself wondering often if he reads what he writes b/c he has so many typos and repeats himself 2 if not 3 times in his instructions. I'm not stupid sir, and I don't appreciate you assuming that I am. So for each quiz that always has 15 questions, he gives 15 minutes. 1 minute for each question. I don't fault him for that so much, but it does seem a little compressed for tests that we are supposed to be thinking critically about our answers..but I digress. After the quiz we can view our grade, but can no longer see the questions, or our answers. Because (and I quote) that would encourage cheating. In my humble opinion, it's extremely difficult to learn anything that way, b/c if you miss a question or 2 you don't even know which ones you missed. In part of his FAQ he states that we may ask him about any of the questions in the quizzes that we are unsure about. Umm...sir, how am I supposed to ask you about the questions I miss when I don't even know which one(s) they were!!!!!! The worst part though, is that he only allows you to take the quizzes during a small window of time. (unlike other online classes where you can take them at your leisure, and even get ahead if you want) So I'm taking a quiz a day, sometimes 2 just to keep up with his crazy schedule. Thus the frustration and bitterness towards this man who is making my life much harder than it needs to be. Not to mention the frequent spelling errors and several links for internet assignments that don't even work. Did you not check them before you assigned them?!!I say that will absolute certainty b/c as I previously mentioned, I'm taking 2 online classes now and my other class and professor are awesome. There is still tons of work b/c on the condensed time period, but it's certainly reasonable and I'm not constantly being berated about being a cheater.

So to add insult to injury today...We had to turn in an Essay a week and a half ago. Normally a teacher would return a paper to you the next week if you were in a class. Or at the very most take 2 weeks if it was a large class. I can understand both those instances and believe them to be reasonable. So I, of course, assumed that I wouldn't get my essay back for quite some time since this Prof has irritated me on so many other levels, why would he do something normal in this instance. But then, he post on the home page for the class last Thursday or Friday that he would have our Essays graded and given us feedback on them by the end of Monday 2/3. Ok. That's more than a week after we had to turn them in, but ok, I can work with that. So I'm very interested b/c of all his other crazy ideas to see what grade he's going to give me on this Essay, so I've been checking all day to see if my grade has been posted yet, because he said they would be done today. But 5pm came and went with no grade for me. Cue anger, and intense irritation. Then I read the home page and see that his message about the essays has been changed to read, "Some essay results are still outstanding. Those results to be posted through Wed. 2/5. Make sure to read the feedback!!!"

What the heck! So you're a crazy Nazi about us having to have everything turned in at very specific, inconvenient times, but you couldn't manage to finish grading all the essays by the deadline YOU SET FOR YOURSELF, so you just thought you'd extend it a couple days. No big deal. I cannot stand double standards. Especially when he is SO judgmental and condescending to his students. There really is no excuse for it.

It's really quite sad actually. I've made this ginormous life decision to go back to school and change my career, and I've had nothing but giant problems with the administration, bad teachers, and crazy students. I can't help but wonder if it's all worth it and if this is really what I should be doing right now. It's crazy. So I've decided to explore my options a little bit. Not so much in the end goal, but really in my plan of how to get there. I've probably never worked harder for anything in my life and I have every intention of seeing it through. But man, would I love to catch a break and have something be easy for once. Please!

End rant.

I had a crazy busy weekend. It was all fun stuff for the most part, but busy none the less. It did not involve much sleeping, which lucky for me, was not a problem. I don't sleep much anyway, and I'm always willing to sacrifice sleep for things I deem more important than sleep, and let's face it, that's pretty much anything, and certainly anyone. :) Most of my weekend involved being at church, and being that my church is in Yorba Linda, there is still a lot of talk and concern over the fires that have devastated several families that attend there. Not to mention that anywhere in north Orange County right now smells so ridiculously awful from all the fire damage that you cannot for one moment forget what happened there a little over a week ago. So Saturday night instead of having a regular church service they did a worship night instead, and focused on praising the Lord in the midst of tragedy. The pastor spoke for a short time and read through Philippians 4:4-7, which begins with Rejoice in the Lord always, and again I say rejoice.... Such powerful words to speak to some people who are feeling such intense loss. Just the thought of rejoicing in the Lord (or really the thought of rejoicing at all) in the midst of any and every circumstance is quite overwhelming, but having made it through my own tragic experience in the past, I can understand and attest to how it's possible to rejoice in the Lord because sometimes you feel like that is all you have left. The service ended with them explaining how the night of prayer they were hosting at the church was going to work. They had different people leading worship at the top of every hour, and someone giving some type of prayer prompt every half hour. So from 7pm to 7am there were people at my church praying. For everything. I love that! I love all night prayer things. There is something so simple and yet amazing powerful in people gathering to pray usually while sacrificing sleep in order to do it. I'm a big fan, always have been.

That being said, I had every intention of going to church around 2am to pray and just enjoy the corporate prayer experience. But alas, after my various evening activities I didn't think I'd make it til 2am if I went home so I just went to church at midnight and decided I'd stay for awhile. So as I walked into this amazingly large building, which was mostly dark, I couldn't help but be excited about the experience. I didn't have any kind of agenda walking in about what I should pray for so I walked in grabbed they prayer booklet they had made for the night and went and sat down in the dark and asked God to tell me what I needed to pray for. I started to look through the booklet and realized that every three hours through the night they had elders there available for prayer so if people wanted to come in and have someone specifically pray for them they could do that as well. So for about 10 minutes I watched people walk up to the front to be prayed for and just said some random prayers for them while I was looking through the rest of the booklet. It had several pages that listed different ways to pray and just talked about prayer itself, so basically anyone could walk in (whether a brand new christian or someone very familiar with praying) and know exactly how and what they should do. Towards the end it talked about praying through scripture and how to do that and after skimming through it I felt like that was what God wanted me to do. Just start praying through scripture. Unfortunately I had left my purse in the car, which also meant my bible was in the car...dang it...but I happened to be sitting on a chair with a bible under it, so it was ok! So I started by going to the passage the pastor had used earlier that evening and started praying through it. But then I felt like that wasn't what I was supposed to be doing so I moved on to another passage. Specifically Psalm 139. I chose this one simply b/c it's one I am very familiar with. I have always been drawn to the end of this passage where it states, "Search me, God, and know my heart; test me and know my anxious thoughts. See if there is any offensive way in me and lead me in the was everlasting." It's always been kind of a life prayer for me to make sure I'm where I need to be. So I found it very interesting that I found myself focusing on part of the middle of the chapter where it says,

"Where can I go from your Spirit? Where can I flee from your presence? If I go up to the heavens, you are there; if I make my bed in the depths, you are there. If I rise on the wings of the dawn, if I settle on the far side of the sea, even there your hand will guide me,...."

You get the idea. So basically I was completely overwhelmed by the thought that no matter what I do or where I go, whether I am physically, mentally, or otherwised engaged with the Lord at the time (or not engaged with Him at all)...He is with me. No matter where I go or what I do. He is ALWAYS  present with me. No matter what. So regardless of what circumstances I find myself in and how those circumstance may affect my life and my attitude at the time, God is always a part of it and walking through it with me. The funniest part about this revelation (to me, anyway.) is that I had absolutely no intention of praying for myself when I walked in there and God completely blessed me with this amazing truth.

And THEN....the "prompter" walked up to the front of the sanctuary and starting talking to everyone. At first I couldn't hear him b/c the mic wasn't on, but from what I could gather he had said that he had been praying about what to share to prompt people to pray and the Lord had led him to a specific passage that he began reading to everyone. It was PSALM 139!!!!!!!!!!!!! My mouth literally dropped open. I am not someone who is easily surprised or shocked by anything (as most of you already know) so it was amazing to me that this man would confirm, out loud, EXACTLY what the Lord had just laid on my heart. I really didn't need God to prove anything to me, but he certainly did. It was just SO cool. I love how God works in ways you don't expect.

All that to say, I was really encouraged by my experience and thought I would share it with any of you who choose to read this, in the hope that I'm sharing at least some of that encouragement with you. Blessings to you, my friends!