Clearest Night

What a busy night! My brain tells me I should dive right into the meat of my day, the evening portion, but my chronologically-inclined tin heart demands chronological adherence for this post. From the top!

I woke up this morning to the delightful melody of the old children's ditty "Ladybug, Ladybug." Now, I don't know if you've ever heard the song, but it goes a bit like this:

   Ladybug, ladybug, fly away home.
   Your house is on fire and the children are gone.
   All except one, and that's little Anne,
   And she hid under the frying pan.

The particular version I wake up to every morning is this one:
    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UyinuvmTboc

Now, I'm not sure exactly why we used to sing this charming little piece to our little children right before bed, but I'm guessing it wasn't motivated by love.

What happens is that I set my clock alarm, but I don't trust it all the way and so I make sure I always have a series of alarms set on my iPhone as a failsafe to make sure I never oversleep. Every morning, however, I wake up to the alarm clock, get out of bed, and forget about the iPhone. That is, until I hear this song suddenly start playing loudly out of nowhere while I'm alone in my bedroom early in the morning!

You may wonder why I have this song set as my ringtone. Fair question. Truth is, I'm not exactly sure how to change it. Nor do I care enough to find out, because, quite frankly, I'm starting to find it really catchy. I've caught myself humming it in the hallways of Oxford.

Anyhow, after I woke up this morning and had breakfast, I went on the library induction. I got my books for this trimester for the "Mathematics" part of "Mathematics and Computer Science."

Yes. These are my mathematics books. More will come for Computer Science.

Sadly, my books turned out to be the only ones that wouldn't let themselves be checked out by the Oriel library's checking-out system. I waited half an hour for the assistant librarian to fix the problem, but I was disappointed to learn that even though they should've been approved by the system, the system rejected them for no reason, and I had waited in line all that time for nothing. So I was strongly reminded of my first driving test at the DMV. I've just received an email, though, that they've finally convinced the system to let me take my books in peace, so I'll go get them with my Computer Science books.

Mid-afternoon, we played some games as a class. We played a game of Ninja (which I got to help teach to a group of unindoctrinated Brits), played several games of Twister outside on the Third Quad lawn (three of us were still going an hour later, even when it started to rain), and discovered that the JCR has a Wii and the game Super Mario Bros Brawl (which a few comrades and I played for two hours, then decided, probably for the best, that we can never, ever play that game on a weekday again owing to its addictive qualities).

The highlight of my first three days at Oriel, though, would probably have to be the first meeting of the Oriel Christian Union (OCU). About ten people attended the first FISH (Fellowship In Someone's H_______, I'm allowed to guess again next week), and it was fantastic. Finally, I've found a group of people with whom I can talk without fear, without nervousness. If I wasn't afraid of this very blog gaining the reputation of just being another blog about Harry Potter, of which I imagine there are probably quite a lot, I would call the experience "magical." Some of us who attended talked more, some were shier; some were taller, while some were more like me; but all of that broke down because we all came there for the same reason: God. The rest is only details.

We're going to read through the book of John this year, look deeper. In this meeting, we learned about Jesus, and how his identity is given in four different ways in the first few verses of John. Michael, one of the leaders, apologized to me about the forth one, but it's there in the Bible at the beginning of John.

After the meeting, we played an interesting game about a lion ("rawr!"), a giraffe ("nibble, nibble!"), a humming bird ("zzz!"), and an amoeba ("wwuummwuwuoo!"). I learned how to play a game called "Signs" and we played a bit of (Bible-themed) Charades, which turns out to not be so popular in Britain.

I left the FISH feeling refreshed and revitalized by the spirit of the community of fellow believers. I kind of wanted to go to my room early, but for some reason, I have this thing where I can't go to bed until I go on a walk all the way over to Tescos and buy something. So I prayed to God that if there was anything else He wanted me to do, anyone else He wanted me to talk to, I wanted Him to send them, because I was prepared.

I ended up buying some fresh Scottish strawberries at Tescos. I bought them to share with the late-night porters and anyone else God sent my way. I shared some with some second-year students and talked about life. I had some really excellent conversations. Strawberries are great ice breakers.

Then a friend of mine, drunk, fell and hit her head, hard, near me. I helped carry her to her room. I held her to make sure she wouldn't hit her head again and asked her questions about her family to make sure she wouldn't fall asleep in case she had a concussion. I'm told now that she'll be alright.

It seems that drinking is a huge problem for a lot of people in the UK. There's nothing we can do about it, though, except stay sober and help those who need help, acting responsibly so that we can show Christ's love in our everyday actions.

Later on, JCR reps were making toast, so I spread Nutella on one piece and butter on another, and ate them together like a sandwich. I think the combination must have killed me, because I was in heaven.

Good night. Keep safe.

From,

    John Khouri, Nonalcoholic and occasional Self-Appointed Designated Driver