Checkin' in

I didn't do much today. I decided to take the day off... I could have done some writing or worked on my magazine list but I somehow ended up playing Sims 2 all day. I'm creating a new neighborhood, which I named Hogsmeade after the wizarding village in Harry Potter (the one that older students are allowed to visit on certain weekends). I'm creating families named after some of the Harry Potter characters... of course, there are limits because there are no wizards in Sims 2 (yet... maybe an expansion pack will come out one of these days) and so the characters just do everyday things. I made an extravagant mansion for the Malfoys, which appears to be sinking into the grass... it was built on a not-so-stable hill apparently. Serves them right for being Dark wizards, and greedy to boot. I played them for a minute so that i could furnish their house... there was so much space that I didn't know what to put. It's weird because usually I don't have enough room for everything I want or need. The Malfoys have too much room and half of it is empty because I ran out of objects. I used the familyfunds cheat to give them 600,000 Simeoleons to start with, so they can buy anything they want, but I don't know what that is yet...

Anyway, after that I made a house with Dumbledore and his younger brother, Aberforth, although it wouldn't allow me to make them brothers because Dumbledore is an Elder and his brother is not. So I had to say that Aberforth was his son. I also made the Dursleys and Harry. The game wouldn't allow me to create Harry without a parent so I had to put his mother in as well. And of course I made Elsie and her mother. I put her father in a separate house on the other side of town. Unfortunately there's no way to tell the game that they're related. I still want to make Snape (I surrounded his house with steam and blackened grass... he'll live in one of the other mansions in the rich section--I put a few mansions on one side of the neighborhood and affordable houses on the other), and Ginger and her parents, and perhaps the Weasleys. And Sirius Black. Then I need to build all the stores and stuff downtown. Then I can play!

I want to get the other expansion packs in this order: University, Open For Business, and Pets (when it comes out). I can also get the Glamour and Family Fun Stuff Paks eventually. Then maybe I'll have enough objects for the Malfoys!

In other news, it looks like I'm going to be employed soon. The HR director said she faxed my application to a high school principal who is looking for both a teacher and a teacher's assistant, as well as to someone else who is looking for a teacher's assistant. I'm nervous about teaching in a high school... I had wanted to teach elementary kids... but at this point I don't want to be too picky. I'll have to take whatever position comes along and trust God to help me do it.

Yesterday was Toastmasters again. I really really like that club. I was Table Topics Master this week, which meant that I had to come up with topics and pick people to talk on them. For one of my topics, I asked for someone to talk about a relationship that changed their life. I was thinking of Dave when I said that. This guy came up, this big Army guy, and he started talking about how his dad passed away a few months ago and it made him realize that you can't take life for granted. It was so weird how I had been inspired by my memory of Dave and this guy was talking about such a similar thing. Needless to say he won Best Table Topics. I had hoped to talk to him afterwards but he left before I could.

Afterwards I went to the library book club. It was kind of an uncomfortable experience, because we were discussing the story of Samson. The cllub is made up of mainly elderly people, so I always feel a little out of place there anyway. Yesterday was worse because without exception, every single one of them was focused on how this Biblical story was "a bunch of nonsense" that "no one intelligent could believe." I sat there fingering the cross charm on my necklace and wishing the meeting would end. I was afraid to say much of anything. I contributed one comment--when everyone was talking about how wrong it was for Samson to kill people in the name of God I said that it points out that war twists things out of shape so that right and wrong don't have their usual meanings. I was hoping to get people to realize that this was a war situation and not a simple matter of "It's OK to kill if you think God's behind it" (which ignores the Ten Commandments anyway), but all that happened was this old man looked at me and said, "And we've been doing it ever since," in a very sneering way. When the librarian in charge asked whether there was anything in the story that could apply to modern life, I was the only one who had anything to say. I talked about not being so caught up in love for another person that you ignore signs that they aren't good for you--Samson ignored Delilah's repeated attempts to find out how to destroy his power, as well as her manipulativeness because he loved her.

Gee, I guess my "wrong-headed" belief in God allowed me to actually get something out of the story, as opposed to trying to prove to everyone how stupid a story it was.

I'm surprised at my depth of anger about this. After Dave died for a while I didn't really want anything to do with God because I was so angry and confused about losing Dave. I still haven't fully reconciled that... the best I can do is to know that Dave's in heaven and that someday we will be together again. And yet somehow faith took root in me during the time I was with Dave. Sometimes I associate my belief in God with him because he was the first person to teach me who God really was and how all this works.

Anyway, leaving all that aside for the moment, my other news is that I've lost 4 pounds as of today. I was hoping to get my 5-pound bookmark, but I guess I will next week. At this rate I'm probably going to have lost 20 pounds or so by Thanksgiving. I've decided that once a month I'm going to take a picture of myself so that I can have a digital diary of my progress in this department.

My mom sent me a videotape of last week's Criminal Minds. I tried to watch it, but something's wrong with my new DVD/VCR. :( Even when I change over to VCR mode it stays in DVD mode. I know because I put a DVD in to test it, and the DVD was playing even when the machine was set for VCR. Pressing play on the VCR tape did nothing... the counter showed it was playing but the TV stayed stubbornly on the Zenith screen showing that there was no disc in the DVD player. Everything's plugged in right and the DVD player works fine. After an hour of fooling around with it, I gave up and flipped through channels instead. I ended up watching the end of Boston Legal, which to my surprise was actually good! I watched that show some with Dave last year, but more often than not it was silly, so I wasn't going to bother with this season.

Last but not least (I seem to be lacking in the transitions department tonight... I guess I'm a little tired), Chapter 4 of Elsie Worthing is now up. I'm going to try to work on Chapter 5 tomorrow... my original plan has now fallen by the wayside so I'm a little lost. Maybe I'd better write a new plan before I do anything else.