200th POST: THE LENTEN SEASON BEGINS

It is now officially 18 minutes into Ash Wednesday. What this means is that Lent is here, as are my Lenten Sacrifices. This year:

- No making "That's what she said" jokes. Expanded, this rule means: No making new "that's what she said" jokes or quoting Office iterations, no matter how tempting. No quoting other "that's what she said" jokes unless repeating a story. No intentionally setting up other people for a good "that's what she said" quip. Special situation: If I'm halfway through a phrase and then realize that it's a "that's what she said"-worthy phrase, I am allowed to finish the phrase as planned. In other words, it's about the intent at the moment the phrase leaves my mouth.
- No fries. No French fries, period. Not at the Cove or anywhere off-campus. I thought about giving up cheese but that's going to have to be a Lenten project all its own.

Additionally, I'll be giving up desert at the Commons / Cove only (so family gatherings and Burgerville shakes are allowed.) That last one's more of a health thing that I'm using Lent as impetus for, so I'm not counting it.

Other things you may want to know about, as far as goals for the year:

- I'm attempting again to memorize the book of James, which currently means reading it cyclically throughout the Spring semester.
- I'm going to try and learn to Waltz sometime before the year of 2008 is over and preferably before the start of the 08-09 year.
- I'm going to start learning to savor food, preferably before the end of the 07-08 school year. This will probably involve bugging Stephanie to see if she'll take me out someplace that serves good food in small portions.
- I'm going to try and work on my lindy-hop "game" (which means the swingout and building on that) and get the swingout down more solidly. Not sure how to do this, aside from going to swing on Mondays and maybe finding one or two times this semester I could go out for Lindy social dancing.

Lastly I went to the Mardis Gras celebration at the Commons tonight and the Jazz band played some swing-worthy stuff--on the last song a bunch of swing people got up and did some lindy hop and that was fun--at least for a few minutes I was back on my game, but I definitely felt dried out and wanting water afterwards.

Peace out and God bless!