A Seth Story

I haven't told a Seth story in a while and this one is too good to pass up. (Almost as good as when he was dating a 21 year old Baylor student and hadn't told Mom and expected me to keep it a secret from her--which I did...Mom still doesn't know that I knew before she did--and then finally told her on the 4th of July after she'd had a few margaritas..... This story is about as good as that, but in a very different way.)

So...Seth was on the debate team at school a couple years ago, and was pretty good at it. He did not do debate last year, but rejoined this year. It's a zero-hour class, which Seth is not actually enrolled in...he's not getting credit or a grade for it, it's just extracurricular. So, when the teacher told them that she needed them all in class the day of See You at the Pole, Seth skipped and went to See You at the Pole. When the teacher asked him why he did that when she had specifically said she needed them in class, I don't know what exactly Seth's reply was, but I think it involved him calling her a heathen. (At open house/parents' night, she told Mom & Dad she didn't really appreciate that.)
From what everyone says, this teacher likes to joke around and argue with the students, but one day recently she took it too far. She was telling one of Seth's cheerleader friends that she's stupid and all the teachers get together and talk about how stupid this girl is. (Horrible thing for a teacher to say, huh?!) The girl cried and left the room. Seth got mad and told the teacher she couldn't talk to them like that. She argued. He argued back. She told him to leave. He quit debate. Since then, she's asked him to come back, but he refuses to. She should really just save her breath. Seth is by far the stubbornest of all the Holobaughs.
I have to say...I'm proud of Seth for standing up for himself and for his friends. I think he's a little derranged sometimes, but I'm really very proud of the person he's growing up to be. It just makes me laugh to remember Seth as a kid and to see him now. The personality is still the same; it's expression is just a little more mature.
I also have to say that I think he should go back to debate. There comes a time when just the act of trying to prove a point overshadows the point you're trying to prove. The point itself should be the focus, not the proving of it, if that makes any sense.

I'm a Survivor!

I have just survived what I expected to be the busiest, craziest week of the semester. I was in St. Louis over the weekend (which was so much fun...catching up with old friends, Oktoberfest at the seminary where the desperation is so thick you can taste it, playing with my favorite almost-two-year-old girl who exclaims "oooh, wow" over everything...I could have stayed another few days). I got home Monday evening, went to 2 college fairs on Tuesday, gave a presentation that night (a feminist interpretation of Hemingway's "The Short Happy Life of Francis Macomber"), went to 2 college fairs on Wednesday, gave a presentation that night (a biographical report of Mary Shelley), worked all day Thursday, then drove to LaGrange for a college fair (where everyone asked me when Concordia was moving to Giddings), went to work this morning, left at noon, and wrote a paper (over the presentation I gave Tuesday), and emailed it to the professor about thirty minutes ago. On top of all of that, I had a flat tire Tuesday morning because I ran over a nail left in the parking lot by the roofers reshingling the apartment complex. Also on Tuesday was a broken air conditioner, which was fixed by the time I got home Tuesday night but broke again on Wednesday. It still hasn't been fixed...found out today that they're going to have to replace the whole unit but they won't have the part until Monday. But, "a cold front has come in so it's supposed to be cooler this weekend."
Considering all that, it really hasn't been that bad of a week. I lost my mind Monday night when I got home from the airport. I was exhausted, my apartment was a mess, and I still had the whole week ahead of me. I completely gave in to stress and panic, which is so weird, because I NEVER get stressed out about school. Before this semester, I only got stressed out about school once that I can remember...finals week senior year at Concordia...I think I wrote about 200 pages worth of papers that week. But after Monday, I relaxed and did what I had to do. My panic-stricken prayers of Monday night were answered with a pervasive peace. God is good like that. He is faithful.