happy saturday, dear ones! i'm sitting with my second and a half cup of coffee, listening to this american life, and just feeling happy in general that i have no huge responsibilities today, and can take the time to think about whatever crosses my mind... ... like the chronicles of narnia. when i was a child, my parents encouraged me to read, my mom read out loud to us, my dad always had a book in hand at night. i was one of those kids who always said "just let me finish this chapeter," before washing the dishes or going outside or whatever else i should have been doing. but we were never really encouraged to read the fantastical, allegorical stories that everyone else read - narnia, a wrinkle in time, etc. i still prefer realistic fiction and creative nonfiction, but harry potter has inspired me to catch up on the stories that i left behind. i just finished "the lion, the witch and the wardrobe" for the first time, and am working on "the silver chair". what can i say? i'm falling in love with aslan. ...a few days ago, ed fladung asked why i didn't go surfing in sayulita when we were in puerto vallarta. alice and megan went after i left (they were there a couple of days longer than me). i want to surf, but i'm not sure i trust my ability to swim enough. ...i promised more details on my first night of school. i'm taking two classes - theories and techniques of counseling, and heuman development. theories is first, with dr. hall. he's my advisor, and i think he may end up becoming one of my professional heros. his class was really motivating, and i just kept thinking about how glad i was to be there, and how this is really what i want to do with my life. quote of the class: "the client is the expert of their story. we are the experts of facilitating dialogue about the story." i can dig that. my second class is slightly less inspiring so far, but the professor is very sincere, and seems to be trying hard to get us to interact and discuss things. it's interesting to me that we have a lot more assignments in a 2 hour credit class than dr. hall's 3 hours, but that's ok. the highlight of class was watching "everyone rides the carousel," an animated 70s movie about eric erikson's eight stages of life. a little hippie-drippy, but it gets the point across... it's raining again, and i'm hungry.