I FEEL INVINCIBLE!!!

Oh what sweet relief I am feeling! 5:00am Sunday morning I had a panic attack. At 1:30pm on Monday afternoon I presented the results of my research over the past 3 years to an wonderful crowd of professors, fellow graduate students and friends. At 2:15 I proceeded to a board room where I answered questions about my work from a panel of 5 people for an hour and a half. At 3:45 I was officially congratulated for (finally) being done!

Since then activities have included having beer with the committee that drilled me, a great night out with some friends, a very lazy day and now getting caught up on responding to messages and updating my blog. I am starting to feel like a normal person after a couple of stressful week (thankfully), but have this sweet sense of contentment and confidence I have long been missing.

The first two weeks of May will be spent with my family and friends (and of course the moos) at home -- a much delayed trip. Thank-you so much to everyone that supported me through their prayer and friendship through this process. Apparently I am the only graduate student that came out of my defense saying "that was kinda fun!"

I am off to work now, I can no longer avoid the inevitable.

Christian Effectiveness

What is more influential, a "peaceful walk of protest" or the argument of this article? What is more likely to impact our governing officials? What is more respectful to this particular interest group (ie. the gay community)? What is better received by the secular public? WWJD?

Defend yourself Ontario! (Please)

OntarianGeography
Originally uploaded by Vailgirl.

This letter travelled the world looking for a place called Saskatchewan. Apparently the name of the province I reside in sounds Slovakian to some (hopefully not) outstanding Ontarian.

Geizers and Grass

I had a 88-year-old man tell me he would like to marry me when his wife dies last night. It is bad enough thinking "I am only 3 years older than your daughter" and even worse thinking "you are older than my dad", but I don't even know how to describe "you are older than my grandpa".

On the brighter side, I saw the grass on our lawn for the first time this weekend. It is really green! Everybody else on the street has brown lawns, but for some reason ours is bright green. It must have been freeze-dried. Good Ol' Saskatchewan weather!

For better or for worse?

Consider this is the hypothetical situation: a couple has been married for 25 + years and one of the partners is terminally ill in the hospital. If the other partner enters into a romantic relationship with another partner, yet is still fully dedicated to the physical and emotional needs of their spouse, would God consider the "adulterous" relationship sinful? Does it dishonor the ill spouse or children from that marriage?

But is this at all possible. Could one person be wholly dedicated to two relationships at once I mean both relationships would serve different functions in this situation. Consider the Terri Schiav case. I am not that familiar with the whole story, but in the case where a spouse is mentally unable to fulfill any needs of the other spouse, and the healthy spouse is committed to the others emotional needs, should they continue to be bound in legal or religious marriage?

I am really struggling with this. I am trying to think outside the interpretation of the gospel I have been brought up with while still considering what God's perspective on this situation would be. I am sick of quick biblical chiche answers to ethical questions that just are not that simple!