Thoughts.

First off, a small tangent of yesterday:

1. We (group of 11) went to Fargo simply to eat at Olive Garden. 

2. I have officially defiled my nice piece of equipment (aka: camera). It's been used as a camera phone would be used. I don't even know why I bring it along anymore... someday I'm going to take a picture with it and say, "Hey, I'm so glad I had this Nikon with me to document such a fine moment". Someday...

Here's onee of two pictures that were taken of this adventure:

OckSun and Marisa. Marisa was excited to see the unicorns (little did she know the unicorn pretense was completely false. It's how we get her to do things...)

I learned some things on the ride back from Fargo yesterday about Korean culture. This came about when Delissa called me and when I answered the phone she was singing  and wouldn't stop... I told her to stop, but no, she called me to sing. OckSun overheard this and started laughing and mentioned how she wish she could  be like that with her brother. She then told me how back home (South Korea) they went to school 8am-10pm and basically only thought of her home as a place to sleep. She had no memories made in that home with her family, or really with her family in general. Of course for someone like me (6 kid family), this is hard to comprehend. I really have no other thoughts on the subject. Just thought I would share that...

On a DIFFERENT note: I'm taking a New Testament/Christian Scripture class by an atheistic, liberal professor. I was excited at the knowledge that I would be able to speak up and disagree numerous times (I LOVE to debate), but as the class has progressed, I've become a little confused. The professor had us all write a "Letter to the Professor" telling him our religious background, as much as we wanted to say about what he believe, and how we think that will affect the way we will interpret the bible. He entered the classroom and asked us to pass these letters to the front of the class. I looked behind and watched the pile grow bigger and bigger as it moved toward the front, and I began to think about how weird it was that here we were, handing up our beliefs on pieces of paper. I desperately wanted to read them all. After a few discussions in class, I discovered there was more to biblical skepticism than I had thought... My professor has a fantastic view about the Christianity conspiracy, and yet many of the things he said convicted me to the core. He wrote a list of different beliefs in Paulian/Christian faith on the chalkboard and discussed them. He then circled them for emphasis and said "So if all this were true, then you had better go and start telling everyone about it. Why on earth you would you not want to immediately go out and share all this knowledge? According to this faith, God could be coming at any moment, you could die at any moment, time is of the essence". OF course I, believing everything in that circle, was instantly convicted. Why would I not want to go out and tell everyone? 

All in all, this class has played with my mind. I've been forced to examine the New Testament not from a confessional, but from a historical-critical point of view. It's different. I'm understanding Paul better, and many things in my faith are being/will be slowly strengthened, but I'm also being challenged in many ways. I have to admit, I absolutely thrive off of challenge. 

That's it for now Grand Forks, thank you and goodnight.

-Donica


P.S., someone is looking at my apartment tomorrow! This is too great! Yay!