The Intuitive Reasonings of Jessica

PSNAEA (the Purdue Student National Art Education Association) decorated cookies like famous paintings in one of our recent club meetings. These are two that I made:

As seasoned runners (we all ran the Zoo Run Run in July, and already having a race under our belts makes us quite experienced runners), we all knew that wearing something new on race day was unwise. However, Charity and I held out as long as we could, hoping the weather would be warm enough for us to wear the same things we'd been running in for weeks. Unfortunately, the forecasted temperature for race day was 41 degrees, so the night before, all four of us went to Target so Charity and I could buy some warm running clothes. She got a long-sleeve shirt, and I got leggings.

As we were leaving Target and heading to the YMCA to pick up our packets, Nina suddenly remembered that she'd forgotten her postcard with her registration number on it, which prompted me to remember that I'd forgotten Charity's and my postcards, and Zachary to remember that he'd forgotten his postcard along with some things he'd planned to drop off at his grandpa's house that evening.

The GPS told us that we could make it back to my parents' house (where we were spending the night) and get our things and still make it to the Y in time, so we rushed off, only to be deterred by multiple traffic lights acting against us.

We made it to the YMCA two minutes past 9:00, but by the grace of God they stayed open a little late, and we were all able to get our packets!

On our way to the YMCA, Charity had called her grandpa to see if he could meet us somewhere since we were running late in delivering the things from Zachary. He kindly agreed, so we headed to a gas station where we had planned to make the rendezvous.

Then, Charity realized that she was no longer wearing the jacket that she had been wearing when we went to Target. She apparently had left it in the fitting room when she and I had tried on the running clothes that we had bought.

After meeting Grandpa Blackwood and giving him the things we were supposed to, we made it back to Target before they closed at 10:00, and Charity was reunited with her jacket.

Then we returned to my parents' house where we all slept peacefully.

On race day morning, we left the house a few minutes early (just in case) to arrive at the park by 8:00 since the race started at 8:30. Unfortunately, hundreds of other people were also on their way to the race, and we spent nearly an hour in slow and stopped traffic. At about 8:25, I finally had to jump out of the car and jog to the starting point, and thankfully I made it in time, and even found the Sturms (who ran the half marathon) and Esther (who was doing the relay with her roommates).

I ran faster than I'd ever ran before (keeping below a 10 minute mile for most of it), and then Nina did a great job (as always) and passed the "4:00 or bust" group. Charity kept a good pace after Nina, and then Zachary finished strong and crossed the finish line 4 hours and 3 seconds after I had crossed the start line.

As at most races, the people-watching was quite entertaining. My favorite unique sight to see was a man who ran the full marathon barefoot. His shirt said something like "Feel the run...run barefoot!" I heard him tell some of the other runners that he'd done it before in other marathons.

After our team and all of our friends had finished, we had a lunch of hamburgers, brats, pizza, coleslaw and baked beans. It was very cold outside once we had quit running, but we enjoyed sitting in the grass eating our lunch anyway. Then we took lots of pictures of us wearing our medals, and then we headed back to West Lafayette. And so ended a wonderful race day, which just might happen again next year.

Our next race is the Sleigh Bell 5K on December 5th.

This week in WIT, Jenny asked all of us how we had been doing in having a daily time alone with God. Some of us had been more faithful than others, but we were all making Christ the priority in our lives. Jenny told us that reading Scripture and praying every day is important, but that being a Christian is not a checklist. We don't check off going to church, praying, evangelizing, and all the other actions that set Christians apart each day. If we miss reading God's Word one day, we are not going to hell!

Instead, we are living in union with Christ. If we run off to class one morning without first spending time with God, it doesn't mean that the rest of our day is going to go wrong. That's superstition! Jenny said that because we are living in union with Christ, we filter everything we do, say, see or hear through the Bible all day long.

After WIT, I went to my first class of the day, Anthropology 205. It's an enjoyable class, partly fiction and partly fact. My professor has an animated way of telling stories, so I rather enjoy hearing his tall tales about prehistoric men millions of years ago. He weaves fictional tidbits into truthful stories, and throws facts into some of his tall tales. Because he doesn't really make any distinction between what is true and what isn't, I have to decipher things myself (I only put true things in my notes--I think the tall tales are just to embellish the facts).

Thus, on Wednesday morning right after WIT, I was listening to my professor describe the evolution of humans. I knew that that part was fiction, so I didn't write anything down. Then, he went on to mention that through natural selection, humans with larger teeth had developed in areas where food was hard to eat. For example, some areas have corn with small, hard kernels instead of large, soft kernels. He mentioned that even today, people in some areas of the world have larger teeth, and that really benefits them because of the foods available to them. I put that last part in my notes, prefaced with the phrase, "in God's providence...."

As I was writing that in my notes, I remembered what Jenny had said about living in union with Christ. Christianity isn't just a few things I do each day, it's how I live my whole life! Filtering what my professor said through the Bible is just one small example of how Christ is at the very center of my life.

It's been raining all day, so I decided to pass the time by going through my things in my parents' attic. I found this tiny puzzle that I had gotten years ago at the State Fair. My sister and I had gone to the pioneer village, and had been fascinated by a wood carver. He asked me what my name was, and then handed me this little puzzle on which he had written "puzzle for blondes, ISF 2005, Jessica". At the time I was rather insulted (as I was sure that my blonde locks covered a highly intelligent head), but I now find it rather amusing :-). I mean, people really only pick on blondes because they're jealous. Everyone knows that we have above average intelligence.