Can I just say that I love Phil Collins? And I know I'm not the only one. That man is amazing and his music is absolutely incredible. mmmm-hmm. I am a particular fan of this song, Son of Man, from Tarzan. I think I like Disney music so much because the majority of it applies to so many areas of life if you're willing to risk being cheezy sometimes. These lyrics are reminding me this morning that even though I'm an awful girlfriend who is abysmal at gift-giving and it's Tim's birthday today [happy birthday babe!] it's not necessarily a lost cause. Thank goodness for our ability to learn from our mistakes and blunders and come out the stronger for them the next day. Cupcakes, a heart-felt letter, and plans to go to the theatre are all I have for Tim today but, in the future, I hope to get closer and closer to giving him the real gifts he deserves.
When I found out that I had officially lost my ability to apply for my half tuition scholarship again this year I started looking for other scholarships that I could apply for to make up the difference. One of the ones I found is called the "three sentence essay" where the sponsors give you a topic and in roughly 3 sentences [no more than 280 characters] you give your response. The scholarship works as a contest and there's a new topic and winner every week. The topic this week is "What do you consider to be mankind’s greatest achievement?"I've been having a hard time thinking of a response because everything I've considered is really an ability and not an achievement. I feel that I'm too aware of how fleeting and often trivial the achievements of man often are to suggest any one thing that's been done as the "greatest achievement." I am more comfortable saying that our greatest achievement is our ability to learn from our own and others mistakes or our ability to love rather than pointing to something like the coliseum. And even with our abilities to learn and love what kind of achievements are they if we cannot seem to maintain kindness towards those around us and keep from making the same stupid mistakes over and over again. I suppose I'm being a bit pessimistic here, though these realities are part of being human. So, maybe man's greatest achievement includes everything anyone has ever done, is doing, or ever will do that contributes to the beautify of the world and the well-being of its inhabitants. Those who give of themselves to make the world a better place not because it makes them rich or gives them a position of power, but because they understand that life is not worth living if you're only living for yourself. [I literally just opened a request at work for a book called Life is Worth Living......freaky]
There was a small blizzard going by the time I left work yesterday causing more people than usually to take shelter in the Varsity Theatre of our student center. Everyone was nicely settled down and most were paying attention to the devotional currently being broadcast when a loud noise almost exactly like the one produced by those whistles with the sliding handle came from somewhere in the theatre. Come to find out, what I had just assumed to be some student messing around was actually the fire alarm, accompanied, helpfully, buy the flashing fire lights and a rather calm female voice alerting us to a fire that had apparently been detected in the building. Now, I've been through a lot of fire drills and I have to say that that noise is the cutest thing I've ever heard in association with fire and as odd as it was, I think I prefer it to the blaring nasty deafness-inducing noise that is generally produced by such alarms!
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