...and I will be gone tonight to the same family's house where we've spent the last several New Year's Eves. You know? This year was amazing... I can't believe how it turned out. I finished my second year of college, spent an entire semester in Central America, have developed some wonderful friendships... saw some amazing examples of God's creative genius... grew to love the little baby in my host family... turned 20... That's a lot, isn't it? And it isn't half what I did. Then again, most of the personal growth can't be quantified in an event, as if I could say "on this day I learned such-and-such, and at this location I became such-and-such a kind of person." That developed as I went to work in a warehouse all day over the summer, or walked a mile to class from my host home in Central America, or biked all over my college town instead of driving my (nonexistent) car. Or when I was hanging out with my friends at college, or talking to ...

My e-mail got hacked into last night, it looks like. My entire address book got some e-mail with only a link inside. Very odd. (Also annoying and inconvenient.)

So I just finished the book "Amusing Ourselves to Death" by Neil Postman today. It basically sets forth Postman's idea that television, as a visual, non-language-based medium, should be used only as a medium for entertainment, because (he says) the very nature of the medium inhibits rational/logical discourse and argument (not fighting kind of argument, premise and conclusion type of argument). A lot of what he says makes solid sense, but sometimes he goes a little overboard, in my opinion, and begins to sound like a paranoid monomaniac. Now, he is not a paranoid monomaniac, understand. Like I said, he makes a lot of good points, that ought to be seriously considered. He first makes his case, logically, with historical background information and reference to several studies. Then, he furthers his case by discussing how TV integrates with several areas of life... politics, education, and so forth. I do recommend reading it. Much of what he writes about in this book refers ...

I saw a rather amusing Dave Barnes video today. It was linked off of the Boundless blog simply as " utterly fluffy " and that just made me curious. I was... surprised by what I saw. However it was amusing, as I said. Funny thing is, I'm almost positive I've heard the name before, connected with YouTube. I have no idea how....

The Annunciation by Henry Tanner, my favorite Annunciation painting. It has fascinated me since I first saw it in a homeschooling magazine supplement... a long time ago. And now it's featured in a WORLDMagBlog post from this morning . What I find most intriguing about it is the way Tanner incorporated many of the iconic devices... the purple cloth for royalty, for one... while maintaining the realistic nature of the painting. At any rate. Merry Christmas to all, and to all a good night!

I've been passing the time tonight after wrapping my Christmas gifts, catching up on the Boundless podcasts since I've not been able to listen to them lately. Earlier today, I'd been reading "Amusing Ourselves to Death" by Neil Postman, a fascinating examination of the influence on U.S. culture of television and the printing press. (Intellectual and about media of communication.... right up my alley!!) As a result, I've had a lot of things running through my head, as I posted as my Facebook status: Sarah has a bunch of thoughts running through her head, related to Christmas and other things... is the goal of college a BA or an MRS degree? What is the role of a college student (NOT kid) in a church? Can the U.S. recover from irrelevant information overload? What would happen if I never watched another minute of syndicated TV? And other such things. Aside from the redundancy of "other things"/"other such things" (which at this moment grates ...

I visited my cousins this weekend, and with them I went to their church. The pastor preached on a Christmas theme, in keeping with the season (of course), and his particular sermon was about the wise men who came to visit Jesus. He noted that those magi from the east, whatever their number, were probably from the Persian area. Now, the interesting thing about that is that Daniel of the Old Testament spent his days as an adviser to the King... in Persia. Also, his prophecy of the coming of the Messiah was one that contained a specific timeline. ( Daniel 9:24-26 ) Since Daniel was one of the "wise men" of Persia, and a great one at that, it wouldn't be surprising if the wise men that followed him made sure to pay attention to his prophecies, especially as the time of the prophecy drew near. The connection is fascinating, isn't it?