Wow. I've been looking at that picture (at the top of the page) and only saw the four of us. Just now I noticed that guy by the microwave. I am, literally, laughing out loud, because I'm remembering how crazy that guy must have thought we were. We are of course, more awesome than crazy, but I really like how that guy is just bumming around in the background of so many of the pictures from that night.

Sorry about the e-mail you all received from Blogger Support. I logged on and it said I wasn't a member of any blog, and I got confused. But it's all worked out now. One of the problems with having two Oberlin e-mail addresses is that I sometimes forget which one I'm using for different things.

I preached in church today, and I talked about how God loves bodies and all that. I even talked about Jesus' sexuality. I quoted you anonymously, Linden, as one response I had received when I talked about Jesus' sexuality (I quoted you as saying AAAAAAHHHH!).

I got a lot of comments like "That gave me a lot to think about" and "It's nice that you shook things up a little." I don't know whether or not they agreed with me, but they were at least proud and supportive. One person commented to my dad that "I guess Oberlin has really radicalized Kathryn." I took that as a compliment. I only had one person tell me that she disagreed with my proposition that Jesus was a sexual being (of course, more people might have thought it).

This was a very important step for me, because I really wrote this theology for my home church communities like First Baptist Madison and PCC. At the end of the day, they didn't even throw me out of church like Jesus' home church members did. I guess I'll have to try harder next time. :)

I went to see Sweeney Todd yesterday. Since the movie was so hyped, I expected to really love it or really hate it. As it turns out, neither was the case. I liked the acting, though it was a little odd how much Alan Rickman's character and the guy who played the Beadle resembled their respective roles in Harry Potter (Snape and Wormtail). Helena Bonham Carter was more able to separate Mrs. Lovett from Bellatrix Lestrange. I was a little sad that they cut the chorus numbers from the show. No "attend the tale of Sweeney Todd/he served a dark and a vengeful god" to be had here. But I thought the boy who played Toby was stellar.

That had absolutely nothing to do with cupcakes. Neither does this: I went to Half-Price Books (20% off everything sale!) and got Teenagers from Outer Space for $4, which I then watched and enjoyed with a friend. As it turns out, they watched TfOS on Mystery Science Theater 3000. It may be necessary to find that episode (404).

While I was poking around H-PB, I looked at this book called 'Picture Knitting' and read some of their instructions for colorwork. When I went home and worked on that thing I'm making for Danielle, I did the color changes correctly, so there are no little nubs of color in the wrong places! I have always been really terrible at knitting when it comes to colorwork. So it's really cool that I sort of understand it at little bit better now.

Also, I got an iPod for Christmas! Any ideas on the coolest knit case I could make for it? I made a friend one that looked like a squid...

Speaking of cupcakes... I went to the doctor to see if we could figure out why I had so many episodes of diarrhea and vomiting last semester. She had me collect a stool sample, which I at last was able to successfully complete tonight. It's rather fascinating to dig out pieces of my poop to put into little containers. In a, you know, disgusting kind of way. And then I got to seal the containers in plastic Ziploc bags that had orange warning signs and BIOHAZARD written on them. It tickles me that I regularly emit biohazards into the world.

i got got 'vegan cupcakes take over the world!' for christmas. be prepared. there will be cupcakes. it will be joyous. stay tuned for pictures.

Also, website = amazing.

So... Merry Christmas!!!!!!

How is everyone doing?

Also, I have been sick(ish) and do not have to go to an onerous family party where I am made very conscious of the fact that I am not, actually, a blood relative and should go hide my face in shame. However, my brothers will bring me cookies. So everything is perfect.

I heard "Last Christmas" by WHAM! in the doctor's office yesterday, and thought of you guys.

Hey all - the blog's lookin' shiny!

Things are going well in Minnesota. There's a sufficient amount of snow to justify it being the end of December. Two of the three services I played in this weekend went well. The third (the Christmas Eve service last night) would have been great...if I'd been miked on either of the two songs my dad and I played. Oh well.

My dad's new 12-string guitar is really neat. Everything played on it sounds really Beatle-y. (The recognizable jangly sound in the Beatles songs is due to the 12-string guitars they played.) Since that's the new guitar, I no longer feel quite as scared to play my dad's other really nice 6-string (normal) guitar. So I've been playing that a lot. And, of course, practicing 'Girls Just Want To Have Fun' on his mandolin.

I hope you are all having a merry Christmas!

I like what you've done to the site, Linden.

Okay, team, so I've sent you all my Capstone project. I have to turn it into a 12-minute sermon by Sunday. I would appreciate any ideas you might have.

Merry Christmas!

also, i started knitting my mom's christmas present. which is this:

http://knitty.com/ISSUEfall07/PATTneiman.html
bethany, i know you've already seen it.

so yeah, hopefully i will have it done before february. also, if you guys want anything special for february presents, let me know! especially with post holiday sales and all that.

my friend allie is flying in from texas tomorrow and i am super excited to see her. she's going to be here for like two weeks. it will be intense. sadly, though, esther is going to france on january 2. lame face. i mean, actually, it's pretty awesome that she's going to france, just lame that i won't see her for a long time.

it was also cool to be at church today and it's really great to be able to walk around outside without a jacket on.

sweet.

i'm going to go watch christmas movies or go to goodwill now. or both. hmmmm.

So... As you all may have noticed, I missed our breakfast on Thursday, reason being that I slept until 11:30. Yeah. So... thanks to Cassie I didn't miss my actual flight, but I did miss you guys. :(

I'm currently in Missouri, listening to my brother (Sam, the older one) and Elly play catch with a Nerf football, which I told them was wimpy, but apparently Sam actually broke a lamp with it, he threw it so hard. Seriously, how hard do you have to throw a *nerf* football to break a fixture reinforced with metal?

Also, am trying to study for Orgo. It's easier here than it ever was at school, which makes me wonder how condusive to anything productive that whole atmosphere is. Like... here, everything is much clearer and easier to focus on. That might just be because my mom is here or I'm home, but for whatever reason, everything academic simply makes more sense. Arg. So, yeah, really glad I took an incomplete.

Um... that's basically all I have to say right now. Everyone should post, and then we would all, you know, kit. And such. So... yeah, merry christmas!

well, friends. i have again successfully traversed the vast wilderness that is our dear country to return to my humble point of origin. within the first few hours of being home, i met friends from church i haven't seen in ages and went on a slurpee run, my parents made vegan chocolate chip bread, my uncle flew in from portland (oregon, thank goodness) and my brother left his scythe, his phone and his computer in my room after trying to chop me up and showing me clips from episodes of scrubs. (the scythe was actually plastic). and then i slept for a long time. and now i am having a difficult time spelling words correctly, but due to the miracles of modern technology, it is probably difficult for you to tell. also, listening to regina spektor a lot.

so i'm psyched to be home, but also miss you guys already. so, keep in touch already! also, if you send me your addresses, i promise i will send you weird postcards. :D

sincerely, l. face, esq.

Huzzah! I have joined. Now I am one of the elite.

If you've had access to news coverage, then you probably heard about the collapse of the 35W bridge in Minneapolis at around 6:05 last night, where Intersate 35W crosses the Mississippi River. 35W is one of the main freeways in the Twin Cities; about 50% of the time when I drive, I'm on the chunk of that road that's in the northern suburbs.

I'm okay, as is my family. To the best of my knowledge, everyone I know is safe. I was working at the Metrodome (base/football stadium) during the collapse, and my carpool to work drove over the bridge about 2 hours before it went down. The Metrodome was really close to the site of the collapse, and it sounds like the only reason the game was played at all was to keep the 20-25,000 people off the roads for a few hours.

Fortunately, my parents both work in the suburbs, so they won't have to deal with the extra traffic (there's tons of road construction going on everywhere), but getting to the Metrodome to work at the games in the next few weeks is going to be interesting.

I hope it doesn't take too long to find and identify the people who are still missing. I can't imagine how it would feel to not be able to contact someone who's often on that stretch of road. Also, it appears that this might be drawing the needed attention to older and weaker infrastructure across the country that needs repair. Despite the inconvenience of huge construction projects, this is definitely worse.

It's kind of scary. My dad, brother and I went to the Twins game on Monday night, and we crossed that bridge at around 6:05. If it had been two days earlier, it might have happened to us.

I've been back in Oberlin for about two weeks now, working at the admissions office. I've met some pretty neat prospective students. Whoever thought "fearless" would totally change the demographic of students applying to Oberlin was off their nut.

The National Council of Churches Faith and Order Conference in Oberlin went down last week. I was fully expecting to be reminded just how much of a
low church/congregational polity fan I am, but I was not expecting the
number of people on panels reading papers full of high churchy and academic jargon. In short, it was a lot of creed and a lot of tweed. It concerned me how disconnected the
papers were from the practical realities of living ecumenically. A lot
of the discussion centered on theories of ecumenism, which I often found
somewhat behind my own experience of relating to people of both
different denominations and different faiths. It made it difficult for
me to wrap my mind around questions like, for example, does pursuing
interfaith dialogue interfere with Faith and Order's ability to work for
"visible Christian unity?" Since to some degree both tasks are simply
unavoidable parts of my everyday life experience, I don't understand how
they could be at odds. I also found I was much more comfortable with the idea of there being no overarching Truth that applies to everyone than many of the older (50+) members of
the conference.

I also felt like the ecumenical and interfaith dialogue that I am
currently defining myself within was rarely present in the dialogues
they were talking about. I'm defining myself within the crossroads of
racial, faith, and sexual identity. My denominational identity, if
anything, is subordinate to these.

I was actually surprised how many white men were presenting. Out of
about twenty-five presenters, there were only three women and perhaps
five people who weren't white. There would have been four, but
Jacquelyn Grant couldn't make it at the last minute. I was more than a
little disappointed, since I was looking forward to her presentation
more than anyone else's.

We were told in orientation that we were not there to represent
ourselves, but our denominations. Luckily, I avoided the complex
ethical question that presents because my denomination has no beliefs of
its own. Later on, though, a National Baptist minister in my discussion
group pointed out how we were being asked to separate our denominational
identities from our personal identities. As an African-American woman,
she could not separate the history of her people from her theology, and
her cultural identity and religious identity were similarly inseparable.

I had a delightful conversation with an Australian scholar named Jione
Havea. He gave a presentation about viewing the Bible as storytelling,
a la Kwok Pui-lan and Musa Dube. He affirmed my suspicion that a Watson
Fellowship might not best suit my goals for going abroad.

I learned that the proper term for denominations that don't play well
with others, like Assembly of God, Southern Baptist Convention, and
Lutheran Church Missouri Synod, is "ecumenically cautious." I also
learned that Hebrew is easier to learn than Greek because Hebrew
translates directly into ebonics: "God be in this place."

I agree with Kathryn about Daniel Radcliffe, though I must say, I'm quite partial to Rupert Grint myself. In fact, I recently watched Driving Lessons, which is a very Harold and Maude-like movie from 2006 that Rupert is in with Julie Walters (who also plays Molly Weasley). It was pretty good.

I've (sort of) found a job! I've been working at the Metrodome, the stadium where the Minnesota Twins (and Vikings) play. It's been okay. For some reason they scheduled me to work Friday night, but I've expressed that I'm not available. There will be no Bethany Draeger in existence Friday evening, only Charlie Weasley. Needless to say, I'm psyched.

Speaking of awesome Harry Potter-related events, on Monday my dad, brother and I went down to Minneapolis and saw Harry and the Potters live! WOO! It was awesome. They're really funny guys, and they were really happy to see so many wizards and Muggles rocking together. We decided that Voldemort never went to rock concerts. Apparently, 7th year Harry inherited his guitar from James via Dumbledore, who used to go and see James' band play in the basement of Hogwarts every weekend, back in James' school days. 4th year Harry inherited Lily's tenor saxophone (she played in the school band). I was worried that they didn't have music classes at Hogwarts. Now I feel better.

I've still got to reread Half-Blood Prince, and knit a few various things before Friday. And make some Chocolate Frogs. Perhaps I'll bring the frog molds to school with me this fall, and we can get some chocolate from Gibsons, melt it down, and pretend to have visited Honeydukes.

My mother is coming home today from Maine. She's been visiting her mum and two of her brothers. They went on a puffin watching trip a couple of days ago! Too bad she forgot the camera.

If you want to watch the Harry Potter movie completely without bias, don't read this....

I declare that Daniel Radcliffe is now officially old enough to be eye candy. I sympathize with the decision to cut out most of the Harry and Cho relationship, but unfortunately it precludes the possibility of creating a decent "Human Hosepipe" fan video for youtube. I was a little disappointed by Harry's general lack of Emo-ness. I was hoping for some truly inspiring angst.