Clocks and REM cycles

Some people have a rather nice REM cycle...for me though, its seems that every time I get to the "light sleep stage," my sleep gets so light that I actually wake up. I get my sleep but my cycles extend between actually sleeping and waking...making sleeping a bit of an annoyance. The scary thing is, is that I can time my cycles...they take about an hour and 50 minutes generally...I know this because I tend to look at the clock every time I wake up...night can go so slow

Speaking of time going slowly, this morning at class I thought I would die from boredom! Their were a lot of repetitious and just plain boring questions today that took up most of the class. On top of that the clock was just moving so slow! It felt like the clock was moving slower than usual...when in fact it was...it stopped at 9:30 and just stayed there...I thought something was up! Ugh...well that is over and now I have to do some laundry. Days get rather boring when all you do is go to class and study and never go outside or get much social interaction (seminarians are such a prayerful/studious lot that its hard to find some fodder for procrastination...good thing Thom comes around every so often!).

Concerning Hobbits

Yesterday's post reminded me of something that I had a lot of fun with about four years ago. I am not sure if any of you know that there is a website where you enter in your name and it will generate for you your Hobbit name. Just so you all know, my Hobbit name is Todo Sandybanks of Frogmorton (even in the Hobbit world I end up in swampy farm country...).

This is the Link to the site...have fun (http://www.chriswetherell.com/hobbit/)!

P.S. From this site you can also generate your elf name...mine is Maeglin Telemnar.

Hobbits and Hermits

While doing a little bit of surfing today, I came across this interesting picture of an old hermitage on the slopes of Torc Mountain in the Ring of Kerry, Ireland. While struck with the beauty of the place (struck me as looking like a perfect Hobbit-hole of the Shire, ex the round windows and doors) and the grotesque beauty of the twisting branches and brambles that frame the dwelling, I began to think how cool it would be to live there...but the reality hit. That place looks really cold and damp, not to mention small and very, very remote. It's amazing the dedication that drove the old hermits to places like this, to serve God whole-heatedly without any distractions of the world. What a sacrifice!

However...with some running water, central heat, a door and some windows...doesn't look like a bad place to live...could even be called cozy.

Lá Breithe Shona An Bolgán

It is the first birthday of The Bubble folks! Thank you to all my dear readers (basically my friends) who have continued to come and read whatever I chance to have decided to put up for the day. My posts have not always lived up to my own expectations of them...in fact they rarely do. I seem to have the problem of being my own worst critic, but at least I post...and I think that I may be making some improvement...at least I have seen it in my academic work if not in the writing that I do for fun.

So here I am...still blogging about whatever...and still going, 56 posts later! Thanks to all of you who come and read (and drop comments every now and then)...I would offer you a drink, but you are not here...but have one anyway (good for the heart). Oh!...and UPDATE SOME OF YOU!!!

P.S. Also, just so you know, the title is Happy Birthday to THe Bubble in Irish Gaelic and is pronounced; law bre-heh hunn-ah ahn bowl-gawn.

St. Ita

St. Ita was born of Christian parents towards the end of the fifth century. She belonged to the noble tribe of the Decii in County Waterford. All her early biographers favor the pleasant metaphor describing her as the 'Brigid of Munster'. Actually the differences were more striking than the resemblances between those two foremost women saints of the Celtic church (see St. Brigid). Brigid's effective life as a nun was spent in continual movement. When she had made a success of one convent settlement, she moved off to found another. Organization was her bent. Ita did just the opposite. Instead of entering one of Brigid's convents, she founded another in a district where there was none, at Killeedy, County Limerick. There she remained all her life, courting retirement. Again, there is an emphasis on austerity in Ita's life not found in Brigid's. Ita's mortifications were on a par with those of the greatest contemporary missionaries.

A strongly individualistic character is glimpsed in the legends of Ita. When she decided to settle in Killeedy (cil=church/monastery+Ide=Ita), a chieftain offered her a large grant of land to support the convent. But Ita would accept only four acres, which she cultivated intensively. The convent became known as a training school for little boys, many of whom later became famous churchmen. One of these was St. Brendan, whom Ita accepted in fosterage when he was a year old and kept until he was six. The great Navigator revisited her between his voyages and always deferred to her counsel. He once asked her what were the three clings which God most detested, and she replied: 'A scowling face, obstinacy in wrong-doing, and too great a confidence in the power of money'. St. Mochoemoc, whom because of his beauty she called 'Pulcherius', was another great personage of the Celtic church she fostered in infancy.

Ita died on January 15th, which is now kept as her feast, about the year 570. There is a strong local cult of her in Munster, particularly in Waterford and Limerick, and her name is a popular one for Irish girls. In the middle of the nineteenth century a new move was made in Ireland for the development of her cult, when Bishop Butler of Limerick obtained from Pope Pius IX a special office and mass for her feast.

"I have a dream"

Today, as some of you may have guessed from the lack of mail in your mailboxes, is Martin Luther King Junior day. I never paid much attention to this day as I never paid attention to it coming around until I went to check the mailbox and found it empty, then went to check the calendar to found what the deuce had held up the mail today. But in Detroit it is a different matter. MLK is HUGE out here...well at least there was a big mass at the Cathedral today...you know...the mass for the Solemnity of St. MLK.

Now I honor MLK for all the good work that he did, and the dream that he worked so hard to acheive...but he was basically canonized at the Cathedral this morning. Hymns dedicated to him, red vestments (for a weekday in ordinary time???) denoting "martyrdom," and a full blown solemn liturgy (yea...two readings and a gospel...not just the weekday one...and I don't think it was the reading for the day either...or at least one of them was not), not to mention all the applause after every song the choir sang (they were very good btw...objectively speaking) like it was some kind of show (I think it was) and the Aztec dancers (where that came from I don't know...the African style Gospel music made sense...but the Aztec dancers???...random???).

Like I said, I have no problem with honoring MLK. I have a problem with shaping an entire mass around him as though he was canonized...not to mention the liturgical "additions." I also don't understand why this huge celebration was planned in a liturgical context when legitimate saints like Kateri Tekawitha, Juan Diego, Elizabeth Seton, the North American Martyrs or blessed Junipero Serra get barely a mention at many masses on their feast days throughout the U.S. At least the Mexicans have it right with the honor that they pay the Virgin of Guadalupe on her feast...somebody has their head on straight.

And speaking of Feasts...I just want to mention the Irish Saint of the day is St. Ita...the teacher of St. Brendan (who discovered America...but I will not go into a tirade about Columbus day...so you don't have to hold your breath). And yes Thom I can go for more than a few sentences without mentioning something Irish...but why would I want to?

The Word

This, my friends, is the Word from Seminary and Grand Rapids...or the news from the past month of my life as well as a few interesting (or otherwise) things that I found to say for no apparent reason.

I had a wonderful Christmas break and the first week back at Seminary has seen some interesting developments...of I am not sure what kind (maybe regressements...if that is a word?) So this is what I have been doing in a nutshell (and that is not a reference to my head).

• Has a great time getting back together with (the Awesome) friends in Ann Arbor and having a good ol' "ave" time...it was great seeing you and I treasure every moment with you all
• The ride home was uneventful and as always...slightly boring (until I started trying to amuse myself by talking...to myself...and that sort of morphed into a conversation with Candy [my car] about her not liking the parking lot at the Seminary...apparently she can't sleep well either)
• New Year's Eve found me with my family in the early evening and on into the night until 2007 came in. The only problem was that the last two hours of New Years Eve I had to enjoy being with my sleeping family while I issued in the New Year by watching The Incredibles in bed nursing a mug of Hot Chocolate and Baileys and going to sleep around 12:06am
• New Years Day I woke up sick...and am now just getting over that cold
• Tuesday after New Years I had a party at the Chancery of Bishop Walter Hurley and my fellow Grand Rapids seminarians (all of whom are doing great btw) which was uplifting and some good fellowship time
• Chris (the other guy from GR who studies at Sacred Heart with me) was not there though...which was weird, but then so is he...so what the heck. After the party the Director of Vocations asked me where he was, I had no clue and said that I thought he must have been sick or something, to which I received the response "no...I think something is up"
• Friday found me back at Sacred Heart greeted with a friendly, but terse, note that said that Chris has left the Seminary...Great I thought, he is the one that got me here in the first place, now I am alone, and I got this announcement from a note!
• So here I am the lone Grand Rapids guy in Detroit, the last city in the world I wanted to live in (besides any city in the Middle East, most of Africa, parts of South America bits of Asia and Europe, and most of the countries in North America) and no person to complain about it too except Thom...and I don't want to chew his ear off all the time.

Wow...that ended up way more boring that I anticipated...just in case you got to this point...lol...Some better stuff in the works though friends...Promise!