Sunday Festivities.

This morning, as promised, Doug, our seminar leader this semester brought a bagful of bagels for us to eat for breakfast, before we headed off to church together as a house. I personally had half a bagel, an egg, and a cup of hot chocolate that I made with the only Splenda in the house. (... I know, now I have to start the entire thing over again. But there's no more temptation now, so I helped myself be consuming it, right? Not. I'm still addicted.) We attended the Plymouth United Church of Christ, for the 11:00 service (college students stay up until 1:00 in the morning even if they are tired by nine. I am a perfect example of this). The church was not very full for the service, although the building looked to hold five to six hundred people, there looked to be about one hundred there. It was a two hour service, and I enjoyed it immensely. The choir was in red robes with black specific streaks, and when they sang together, their voices carried very far. There were some high sopranos in that choir, dang, singin' the descant like my mom, but with Marie's opera lungs... :D
The sermon was about an hour long. I only knew that because Jasmine checked her phone right before the sermon began. It was 12:10 at that point. It was a two hour service, and with several special musics, which I loved, and an invitation to accept Jesus into one's heart.  The youth of the church came in, as part of the service, carrying signs that said things like "End Racism now" and "End the war now" and then each of them read a little monologue pertaining to their signs. It was a great example of ways that the church needs to make itself known in some aspects of politics. There were some very good speakers in their youth group. They're going to go far in life.
They had a greeting time, in which everyone could greet everyone. That made me really happy. At West Clinton, they don't give very much time to greet people, neither did they at Aurora (although I felt like there was more when I was at AMC).
We got back from church around one, and then proceeded to make lunch, and because no one thought of fixing and forgetting anything, we did a grilled cheese thing, with lots of random leftovers.  I personally mixed up a quart-sized salad that got some raised eyebrows. I keep forgetting that my portion size for vegetables that is normal is twice the size that most people would even think about eating... I ate four stalks of celery as a snack this afternoon... When you cut it up it looks like less. Really.
Half the house went grocery shopping, Christa and Corrie went to do their neighborhood mapping, though the rain kept falling, and I stayed home, snacked, watched Jess make bread, and "worked on some stuff". Which is also known as getting a new high score on the Facebook Tetris. I'm almost #16!! :P. Nowhere near Ryan at #1 though. He's such a beast. And Janelle, I have no idea how on earth she got that high of a score... I also wrote a journal for this Wednesday. It's rather unfinished, because I have to actually go to something this Monday that I wanted to write about in my journal entry.
The assignment load for this semester is NOT bad. We have class once a week, Wednesdays from 1:00 to 4:30. We have to email Doug two journal entries before that point every week, and then there are two or three big projects in the two sections of the seminar--which are Urban Anthropology (which is what the Neighborhood mapping came in), and Faith and Urban Community (which is one of the reasons we went to the church today). I'm excited about visiting different churches, and deciding what to do my research projects on.
When the shoppers got back, Lindsay told me what happened to the box of lids and cutting boards that had previously resided in the house car. They needed space for the groceries, so they took it out. We were going to give it away anyway, but we forgot and then forgot that it was in there. So when they got to the grocery store, they sent Fets, who was in a yellow shirt and a yellow jacket, to put the box by the dumpster behind Giant. Lindsay quickly made Fets turn his jacket inside out so that he wouldn't be obvious in the security cameras. But the point of the story is, put the box of trash beside the dumpster after you go into the grocery store, not after. Because when wearing a yellow jacket, you stand out like a banana. (Don't know where I was going with that.) And you don't want to stand out like a banana.
We had Peanut Butter Spaghetti and Garlic Bread for Supper. Which sounds gross, unless you look at it from a Pad Thai perspective, It was a great meal and it was delicious. It's the cheap version of that, for when you can't afford rice noodles. I was legitimately working on my write up for the neighborhood earlier while they were chopping up things, and they were listening to Pandora. All of a sudden, "See You Again" came on, and I must have tensed up, because Corrie, sitting next to me on the couch, laughed when I asked Fets in a slightly urgent way to go to the next song. When it was taking too long, because Fets' hands were covered in water, I ran over there and pressed fast forward before the chorus started. All I can say is Miley Cyrus music makes me kinda nauseous, almost like the feeling you get in your stomach when you know you're in trouble, and your parents are about to punish you, but you aren't sure what they are going to punish you with. Yeah. Not a good feeling.
Corrie declared the Peanut Butter Spaghetti a comfort food, and Bryan said it was the best meal we'd had so far, although I did really enjoy the Vegetarian Chili a lot, and the Beef (Bean for me) Enchiladas last night were also pretty pristine. I think the recipes will get a lot better because we are making what we want, and what we know how to make, and that makes a big difference. It's really fun living in such an open environment.
So something I've noticed is the political and religious differentiation within the house. There are some definite republicans and some definite democrats. There are some definite conservatives, and some definite liberals. This is very noticeable. I am surprised how much it comes up, but I guess as we all live together it finally comes up in conversation. With each interaction, when something like politics come up in church, it gets discussed at home, although I don't mind the subject, because it makes it relevant and the church has politics in itself, other people find that politics and church shouldn't be mixed. Which makes sense in a lot of ways as well. This is because in the Scriptures, some people think that we should let God rule. I think this is a great idea and option, but there isn't any option that is obvious to give the government back to God. Humans love power too much to be able to embrace the idea of letting God take over the power which was His to begin with. So my present statement is that because we don't let God be a part of the politics, we have to mix church and politics, at least to the point of interaction, and action.
Right now, I'm reclined on a couch in the living area. Sanj is working on his Mac, which probably has something that has to do with Facebook. Bryan, Jess, Fets, and Christa are playing Yuker (which I am still confused about how to play... so I decided not to play this time). Yay for loud laughing friends. Andrew is working on his computer as well, however, at the table right next to the Yukerites, and is offering the music choice for the night. Corrie is over on the corner couch with some serious typing spasms going on. :)