Magical?

I took the SAT for the 3rd time today. Now, I don't like the test any more than anyone else, but my attitude has been "Well, I gotta take it. So I'd better 1) Do my best, and 2) Find something that's entertaining about it". Time will tell if I succeeded at the first. But at the second, I most definitely succeeded. The second time I took it, there was a guy that fell asleep in the middle of a section. It took all I had to keep from laughing outright. As sad and petty as it is, that made me feel better about how I was doing on the test. Also, some of the excerpts they use for the reading section are actually really interesting! I've learned a lot through them (such as: Did you know Helen Keller was a radical socialist? =P) One excerpt in today's test topped all. It was from the book 'Orlando', written by Virginia Woolf. I'm a bit sketchy on the details of the plot, but basically the protagonist decides to live forever; in this quote, she's comparing 18th century with the current time (which I think, at the time of the novel, is late 1920's).

"The very fabric of life now, she thought as she rose, is magic. In the 18th century, we knew how everything was done; but here I rise through the air; I listen to voices in America; I see men flying - but how it's done, I can't even begin to wonder. So my belief in magic returns."

I've always loved thinking about what it would be like for an individual from the 18th or 19th century to come to the 21st century. There are so many things in modern life that we take for granted: escalators, elevators, telephones, the internet, computers, airplanes, cars, electricity, speakers, microphones, and cameras, to name a few. For someone to jump from a world without any of that to a world where it is not just prevalent, but almost mundane, is unthinkable. Like Woolf's character said, a belief in magic would be necessary.

Yesterday I finished 'The Shack'. The rest of my family had read it before me, and I had recieved mixed messages from them about the book. The main idea of the book is to reveal theological truths about God through conversations between the Trinity and the protagonist. Honestly, the writing was a little above horrible, though right on that teetering edge. If it's possible, the dialog sounded like bad acting. This said, the content was really quite interesting. The author portrays God in some very untraditional ways. In order to get a full picture, you'd have to read the book yourself, and I encourage you to. I don't think I agree with all that is said by the "God" characters, but I can see what the author is getting at. If you have the time this semester, pick it up and read it! It's the kind of book that, in order to grasp it's full potential, must be discussed with other readers and critics.

Today I discovered an amazing new combination for lunch. ^^ Tomato soup and toast with cream cheese. Ahhh, so yummy. Perfect combination. I have a cold, so maybe the cream cheese and milk in the soup was not the best for sinuses, but it was way worth it.

Note for all above: When I say 'today', I mean the 24th. This isn't posted until 1 AM... we were watching a most amusing movie (The Sasquatch Gang). Same vibe as Napoleon Dynamite, but much more tasteful and worthwhile.

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Here's another top 20 photo! This was sometime last spring... California made a sudden decision to rain, and some of my friends and I made a sudden decision to take advantage of it by going to the beach. :) This is at El Matador, California, jumping down into the sand.