I know, I know... :P

We made it official.

(I can hear you smirking smugly from here, Brandon. :P)

I guess I just figure, if everyone was concerned about the chance of breaking up, no one would ever get together and truly and fully enjoy another person!

Also, I told my mom about us, and she was surprisingly okay with the whole thing, even encouraging!

My roommates are going to Rome this weekend, so I get the whole house to myself! :D However, this DOES mean I'm spending Valentine's Day mostly alone, but Emma will still be here, and both of our boys are in the States, so maybe we can just have a Chick Flick night. Or watch Lord of the Rings. :P

I'm also auditioning for Godspell on Saturday! Yay! I met two boys, Calvin and Tom, who are my age and doing the show! It's exciting to meet new people who I can talk with about faith and theater!--not that I don't LOVE talking to Mel, as she's really helped me to look deeper into the basics of faith: patience, prayer, LETTING GO OF CONTROL. As most of you know, this is very hard for me--I want all the info and all the access all the time. With God, it's like I hand Him a broken toy to fix, and I watch and micro-manage, and when I think I've figured out EXACTLY what He's doing and how, I take the toy back to finish fixing it myself, and more quickly. But obviously, I am not God, and I usually eff it up. :P But I'm working to be more peaceful and willing to give up control to the being that ACTUALLY has the knowledge and power.

What a novel idea. :P

But for today, I'm going to go home and have lunch, then etching at one--I'm working on a soft ground, copper plate etching of a halved and eaten grapefruit I sketched at the beginning of the semester. Then at 4:30, a painting conservation lecture with my teacher, Roberta Lapucci, AKA the Goddess of Conservation. I just found out that she helped conserve Botticelli's Primavera! And she took us to this amazing exhibition about the 10-year-long conservation of Raphael's Madonna del Cardellino. It was SO gorgeous--the painting was practically glowing and the reassemblage (it was shattered in an earthquake/rockslide in the 1400s) was practically invisible!

Then dinner and some reading/sketching. I just started this book called The Origin of Satan, which basically calls into question that Satan ever existed as the New Testament portrays him, and suggests (AKA, leans heavily) that "Satan" is actually a metaphor demonizing the Jews during the wars in 60-70 CE, when the gospels were written. So far it's interesting, but I'm not convinced. This woman spins her language so heavily, it's like being smacked with the Bias-Stick. But it's important to examine all sides of the "faith debate" (haha, what a paradox!). I want to be educated. :)

Okay, I love you guys and I'll update soon!

-A.