Patience.

Easter Sunday was very pleasant.  Daniel and I planned on going to church at 9am that morning before I had to work at 11am.  We worked together that night until 1am, so we didn't get much sleep.  When my alarm went off, I just didn't have enough motivation to get up.  Luckily, that same church has a service at 6pm so we went then.  It was a very unique experience.  We had heard about this church from quite a few friends on campus, so it shouldn't have been a surprise that almost the entire congregation was between 18-30 years old including the preacher and the band.  I have never been to a church like that.  I really enjoyed the songs, although there's nothing quite like singing hymns on Easter morning.  The "message" was also really good.  It made me see the entire biblical narrative in a whole new way.

The speaker talked about how Jesus rising from the dead would have been perceived back then by his disciples and others.  He basically told the entire old testament in 10 minutes.  God blesses the descendents of Abraham and they become the Hebrew people.  They go through an entire series of being enslaved and liberated, enslaved and liberated.  David became king and was told that his family would rule the Hebrews forever.  Hebrew children grew up being told that someday, someone would come from the House of David to liberate them for good.  And lo and behold, Jesus came (from the House of David) to liberate the Hebrews for all eternity.  I never saw the big picture like that.  It was very enlightening.  Of course he told it much better than me.  I think we might go back.  It's kind of hard because normally Daniel has chapter at 7 on Sunday nights.  So we'll have to decide if it's worth him being a little late, or maybe we'll go to their 11am service instead.  Then I'll just have to give up that shift at work.

Besides that, it was a day of more online househunting and Europe planning.  We have found 2-3  places to stay in each city.  Now it's just a matter of finding out about the grant so we can finalize our plans and start making reservations.  We determined that about 10 days - 2 weeks in we are going to have 2 days to just relax and enjoy the French countryside in Aix-en-Provence.  By that time I think we will be really tired so we left those days completely open.  There are some beautiful bed and breakfasts that are literally out in a field of wildflowers.  It looks like a little town from a fairytale.  Like Beauty and the Beast!  So those days we'll sleep in, take walks into the woods, have some coffee and just relax.  I found a website online that has audio files of common french words so I'm learning how to pronounce them.  Like Aix-en-Provence is more like ex-on-provance.  And Champs de Elysees is like shompdayleezay one word like that.  Champs de Elysees is the main street though Paris if you didn't know :-)  I'm learning all sorts of things!

Today Daniel was busy most of the afternoon and evening.  It's Greek Week so he will be busy all week long.  I am so used to seeing him throughout the day, it's going to be so hard someday when we have to go to work and we won't see each other until dinnertime.  In biology lab today, we began a project.  Our entire lab section will observe two different species of trees: dogwood, and quaking aspen.  We are each assigned a brand and we put a little tag on it with our initials.  We have to go three times a week and observe the branch.  We have to record the day that the buds appear, and once the leaves start growing measure the size of the leaf.  One of my branches is right in my backyard basically.  The other one is about three blocks past the end of campus.  So I am not very happy that I'm going to have to walk there three times a week.  The point is that global warming is causing plants to bloom earlier than they normally would, so we are entering our informaion into an international database that keeps track of these things.  It's kind of cool I guess.  A little inconvenient.

This quarter is going to go by quickly I think.  It's already week 4, so almost halfway done.  I am really looking forward to this summer.  Last quarter was so stressful, and this whole year in general has been pretty stressful.  I really need those weeks to recover.  And this summer brings a new house to live in, and a trip to Europe!  What an exciting time in my life.  

I was talking to my parents last night about how much I have learned patience this year in particular.  Patience when dealing with the house, waiting to become independent, waiting to get married and have kids, waiting for the trip to Europe, etc.  There are so many times when I feel so frustrated and like none of this is ever going to happen, but it will.  I remind myself (and Daniel loves to remind me) that it is all an exercise in patience.  It's good for me.  That is definitely an area I will have to continue to work on, probably for the rest of my life.  It just doesn't come naturally to me.  Like many things.