Dear Diary,

I just had the most wonderful evening I've had in some time. This time he called like he said he would, and he bought me dinner. We were going to see a movie, but there wasn't anything good out, so we decided to drive to the beach instead.

So it was lovely. The beach was calm, cool, and tranquil. I learned some things about him that I never would have guessed. I wish we could do this more often, but he's planning on moving across the country in about a month. *sigh* I lose some of the best friends that way.

Either way, it was a blissful time, and I feel extremely blessed and at peace.

~Luna

Dear Diary,

When I'm at work, it's all about the students. Seriously. It's not about policies and regulations, standards, tests, making parents, bosses, and politicians happy. It's all about the kids.

So yesterday I was teaching one of my classes some of the many words and symbols used in music, which almost always happen to be in Italian. When we got to morendo [dying away] we somehow managed to get onto a lively discussion about the various ways that people can die. Of course, the first thing that popped into my head was a tree falling on someone. That, logically, led one child to start talking about church, and how there's this one kid who always tells lies and he came in one day with a story about how he was headed to church when a tree fell on the car next to him, but he survived. That's when I realized we were way off topic, and I reeled us back into semi-sanity.

Well, today, the kid came back and told me that he had gone to church last night and found out that somebody in his church had just died because a tree fell on them. Creepy. I'm never talking about that in class ever again.

My favorite thing of all time has to be grading tests. Seriously. I let my kids doodle on them, which is quite entertaining, in itself. But then you get bits of gold like this:

A flute player is called a: flutish flutant.

Flutant??? That sounds like something you should use to clear your nose. [BTW, the correct answer is flautist.]

Lastly, but not least....ly, I found this hyper cool site about an inspiring Lego artist. Sweet!


~ichabod crane

Dear Diary,

I was reading an article [gasp!] on state unemployment while I was at work. Rather ironic, no? So was this statement they made when they were trying to describe how serious the problem was at unemployment agencies: "Agencies have been scrambling to hire hundreds more workers to handle the calls." It sent my mind into a strange circle. They could totally solve the unemployment problem by having the unemployment agencies hire all the unemployed people, but then there wouldn't be any unemployed people calling, hence no need for those jobs.

My head hurts now.

~meh

Dear Diary,

I don't think I've posted in a while. Maybe I have. I don't have a great internal sense of time anyway, so it doesn't really matter.

There's this friend of mine that I'm really worried about because he used to be really close to the Lord, and now he's gotten to this point where he's pulled himself away. He's wedged this great divide between himself and Christ, and all of his Christian friends. I feel partly responsible because I let myself get upset about him not calling me back when he said that he would, and I just pushed him away. Not with forceful, angry, direct words, but just by not pursuing him, checking up on him like I normally would. Well he's in sad shape. He's picked up smoking, he seems dejected, confused, hurt, upset, bitter, and frustrated. If there is a single Christian out there who's actually read this far, please stop for a moment and say a prayer for this nameless friend of mine.

If you just prayed for him, thank you so much. I know that God will bless you for this small, unseen act of kindness.

My own walk has been shaky because I've allowed myself to buy into several lies Satan continually feeds me about my identity, self-worth, and lovability. I'm in the midst of some of the hardest temptations I've ever had, but God continually proves that He is in control. When I asked my music pastor to pray for my friend, he wrote me back and said God kept telling him to pray for me, too! And I didn't even tell him what was going on! THAT is the awesomeness of my God. My temptation actually involves a certain relationship I have [friendshipwise] with a man who is not walking with the Lord, and who has both implicitly and semi-directly attempted to seduce me into the thinking of the world. He is not an evil person, just a lost person with a good, confused heart. That is what makes it tempting because it all started with me wanting to help. Now, God is showing me I can't do things on my own- only He can change hearts and I need my strong Christian friends to hold me accountable, to pray for me, and to throw a bucket of cold water on my face when I get red and hot all over.

If this offended you in the least:

1. It's my diary, remember?
2. You don't have to read this.
3. I probably don't even know you, so this isn't a personal attack.
4. I love you. Love can be offensive sometimes. That's where we grow

Sincerely,
The Child Behind the Ferrets

Dear Diary,

He called me and we hung out.

When we were at Subways, one of the workers went out on his smoke break to play his ukulele.

Then we went to a cemetery. We are so...

Dear Diary,

Today I did something rather odd. I noticed that one of my neighbors was throwing away a bunch of perfectly good cds, so I nabbed them and added them to my collection. Who would throw away Mancini and Midler??? Ugh.