Book Review - Surprised By Laughter: The Comic World of C. S. Lewis

Surprised by Laughter: The Comic World of C.S. Lewis is written by Dr. Terry Lindvall and examines how C. S. Lewis incorporated humor into his writings. Dr. Lindvall covers four types of humor utilized by Lewis and gives examples of how these types of humor were manifested in Lewis’ writings and in his life.

Honestly, I didn’t love this book. I enjoyed parts of it (even laughed out loud at some of them!), but overall, it was difficult to read. The beginning was very slow for me, and definitely written at a PhD level. Dr. Lindvall is very well written and makes excellent points in his writing, but this is not “leisure” reading. It is also quite lengthy, so prepare to spend quite a bit of time in this book if you choose to read it. The good parts, though, really do offer the reader a look at who C. S. Lewis really was, on a level that feels almost private, intimate, and privileged. It is refreshing to learn that one of the great thinkers and writers of the 20^th century was really such a fun person, too!

I was provided a complimentary copy of this book to review from Book Sneeze.

Finish Year Week 6

Today marks the end of Week 6 of FinishYear! FinishYear is a term I'm using from Jon Acuff, a Christian blogger who I follow regularly because he is both wise and hilarious! He suggested that we all challenge ourselves to make 2012 a year of finishing things, as opposed to starting new resolutions because let's face it, dreams are great and all, but unfinished dreams accomplish nothing. FINISHING changes your life, if not the world!

So, six weeks in, here's how I'm doing on the goals I designated for FinishYear

-Finish Master's Degree: I got draft #3 back this week and I got the green light to schedule my oral defense! Paper is all formatted except for one table that needs special formatting. Awaiting instruction on that matter, then emails will go out to schedule defense! Whoa!

-Finish Health Psych Cert: This week was the fifth week of class. Ten more to go. Completed an online discussion forum and I think I did well.

-Finish Scripture Index Cards: I added two Scripture passages this week.

-Finish a letter to Karabo: I planned to write to Karabo this past week, but I dropped the ball on this one, because I was focusing on my thesis and Health Psych Cert goals. Glad this is a monthly goal, it definitely needs to happen this week. Or tonight, as soon as I post this.

-Finish a storage/classification system for clients' photographs: This week, I was not able to put any money in the envelope for the external hard drive, but I did research some options at Best Buy and Amazon.com. 

In the end, it was an alright week for FinishYear. Most of my work went toward my Master's Degree goal, and I feel excellent and very excited about that one. Once it's finished, I might add some goals to FinishYear.

How's it going for everyone else? Anything going particularly well or needing more attention for you guys?  

FinishYear Week #5

Finish Year is a term I copied from Jon Acuff, a Christian blogger who I follow regularly because he is both wise and hilarious! He suggested that we all challenge ourselves to make 2012 a year of finishing things, as opposed to starting new resolutions because let's face it, dreams are great and all, but unfinished dreams accomplish nothing. FINISHING changes your life, if not the world!

So, some friends and I sat down and made our Finish Lists for 2012 and I will share mine. In 2012, I will:
-FINISH my Master's Degree
-FINISH my Clinical Health Psychology Certification
-FINISH a book of index cards that I purchased two years ago for the purpose of filling it with Scripture verses that were meaningful to me. I started, and it's time I finish. But, in order to fill it with Scripture, guess what I have to read? That's right. Scripture. Double bonus on this one!
-FINISH at least one letter to my sponsored child, Karabo in Lesotho, each month.
-FINISH plans for a classification/storage system for my clients' photographs.

Today marks the end of Week 5, so it's time for an update! Here's how I did on each of my goals:

-Finish Master's Degree: Last night, I turned in draft #3 and I think it's really good! I know that it still needs some work, but I believe it will be mostly formatting. I learned how to make APA style tables this week and also attached all my tables, figures, and measures to the end of the document.



-Finish Health Psych Cert: This week was the fourth week of class. Eleven more to go. I learned I received a 25/25 on my presentation from last week. This coming week we won't be meeting in person but we'll do an online discussion forum.

-Finish Scripture Index Cards: I added one verse this week. Better than last week but I can do better.

-Finish a letter to Karabo: This is a monthly goal, which I plan to complete this week.

-Finish a storage/classification system for clients' photographs: This week, I saved  only a few dollars toward my external hard drive, but again, it's FinishYEAR, not finish month, so I have quite some time to save this money. I'm going on a missions trip to Jamaica in July, so most of the money I would have saved for external hard drive got allocated to a fundraising envelope for that trip. 

In the end, it was a so-so week for FinishYear. Most of my work went toward my Master's Degree goal, and I feel REALLY good about that one.

How's it going for everyone else? Anything going particularly well or needing more attention for you guys? 

    

Finish Year Week 4

Finish Year is a term I copied from Jon Acuff, a Christian blogger who I follow regularly because he is both wise and hilarious! He suggested that we all challenge ourselves to make 2012 a year of finishing things, as opposed to starting new resolutions because let's face it, dreams are great and all, but unfinished dreams accomplish nothing. FINISHING changes your life, if not the world!

So, some friends and I sat down and made our Finish Lists for 2012 and I will share mine. In 2012, I will:
-FINISH my Master's Degree
-FINISH my Clinical Health Psychology Certification
-FINISH a book of index cards that I purchased two years ago for the purpose of filling it with Scripture verses that were meaningful to me. I started, and it's time I finish. But, in order to fill it with Scripture, guess what I have to read? That's right. Scripture. Double bonus on this one!
-FINISH at least one letter to my sponsored child, Karabo in Lesotho, each month.
-FINISH plans for a classification/storage system for my clients' photographs.

Today marks the end of Week 4, so it's time for an update! Here's how I did on each of my goals:

-Finish Master's Degree: I wasn't able to do any work on my thesis this week because my professor has not yet returned it to me with her revisions. I hope to get my second draft back soon so I can make progress on this one because I'm nervous that if I don't get it back soon, I might run out of time to graduate in May. 

-Finish Health Psych Cert: Last week was the third week of class and I presented a training lesson to my class on using social stories as a teaching tool to help prevent sexual abuse to people with autism. One more thing off the list toward finishing this class. Feeling good about it, got lots of good feedback from classmates, and I'll get my grade this week.

-Finish Scripture Index Cards: I added one verse this week. Better than last week but I can do better.

-Finish a letter to Karabo: This is a monthly goal, which was completed last week. I am looking forward to writing him a Valentine's letter  and telling him about Valentine's Day in America.

-Finish a storage/classification system for clients' photographs: This week, I saved $15 towards the purchase of an  external hard drive for my clients' photos! Feeling good about this one! Hope to have the hard drive by May.

All in all, this was an OK week for my finish goals. .

How's it going for everyone else?

Finish Year Week 3

Finish Year is a term I copied from Jon Acuff, a Christian blogger who I follow regularly because he is both wise and hilarious! He suggested that we all challenge ourselves to make 2012 a year of finishing things, as opposed to starting new resolutions because let's face it, dreams are great and all, but unfinished dreams accomplish nothing. FINISHING changes your life, if not the world!

So, some friends and I sat down and made our Finish Lists for 2012 and I will share mine. In 2012, I will:
-FINISH my Master's Degree
-FINISH my Clinical Health Psychology Certification
-FINISH a book of index cards that I purchased two years ago for the purpose of filling it with Scripture verses that were meaningful to me. I started, and it's time I finish. But, in order to fill it with Scripture, guess what I have to read? That's right. Scripture. Double bonus on this one!
-FINISH paying off my student loan with the smallest balance
-FINISH at least one letter to my sponsored child, Karabo in Lesotho, each month.
-FINISH plans for a classification/storage system for my clients' photographs.

Today marks the end of Week 3, so it's time for an update! Here's how I did on each of my goals:

-Finish Master's Degree: This week, I began structuring the beginning pages of my thesis (i.e. title page, signatory page, table of contents, lists of figures, etc.) and restructured my Conclusions Section. I will be submitting a second draft to my advisor either tonight or tomorrow. I feel OK about this one. Like last week, i have more questions that I need my professor to answer, though, before I can say I feel better about it. Additionally, time keeps ticking and I feel nervous with each day that goes by that I won't get it done in time to graduate on May 5th. However, I know that the current draft is as good as I can make it given the knowledge that I have right now, so I suppose that is all I or anyone else can ask of me.

-Finish Health Psych Cert: I am two weeks into my second to last class. Because finishing this goal cannot be expedited by my own efforts (the semester is 15 weeks long no matter how hard I work), my progress on this one will be relatively steady. I spent all of Thursday night writing the lit review and references portions of my presentation to be given this week. I will make copies of my articles tomorrow. I plan to use this Tuesday to draft the presentation notes. I feel very good about this one, right on track.

-Finish Scripture Index Cards: I dropped the ball big time on this goal this week. I came across a verse I very much wanted to add, but when I turned to where it was in my Bible, it turns out I had the reference wrong. I was lazy and did not search very hard for it. I do not feel good about this.

-Finish paying off smallest loan: Honestly, this goal will probably go away, reason being I met with my dad and a family friend who is a loans attorney to look at my student loan repayment plan, and I realized that I was reading my statement wrong. My balance is actually higher than I thought it was (hooray!), making it impossible for me to finish this loan this year. So yeah, not feeling great about this one to say the least.

-Finish a letter to Karabo: This is a monthly goal, which was completed last week. I am looking forward to writing him a Valentine's letter  and telling him about Valentine's Day in America.

-Finish a storage/classification system for clients' photographs: One item on my To Do List for today (for when I get home) is to begin an envelope entitled "External Hard Drive" so that my extra cash at the end of each week can be accumulated to purchase an external hard drive for my clients' photos. I doubt I'll need a full terabyte at this point, which will make it a little less pricey, and easier to save the money for it.

All in all, this was a so-so week for my finish goals. .

How are you doing finishing what you want to finish?

Finish Year Week 2

I realize I did not write a Finish Year Week 1 post, but I figure it's better late than never.

Finish Year is a term I copied from Jon Acuff, a Christian blogger who I follow regularly because he is both wise and hilarious! He suggested at the end of the 2011 that we all challenge ourselves to make 2012 a year of finishing things, as opposed to starting new resolutions because let's face it, dreams are great and all, but unfinished dreams accomplish nothing. FINISHING changes your life, if not the world!

So, some friends and I sat down and made our Finish Lists for 2012 and I will share mine. In 2012, I will:
-FINISH my Master's Degree
-FINISH my Clinical Health Psychology Certification
-FINISH a book of index cards that I purchased two years ago for the purpose of filling it with Scripture verses that were meaningful to me. I started, and it's time I finish. But, in order to fill it with Scripture, guess what I have to read? That's right. Scripture. Double bonus on this one!
-FINISH paying off my student loan with the smallest balance
-FINISH at least one letter to my sponsored child, Karabo in Lesotho, each month.
-FINISH plans for a classification/storage system for my clients' photographs.

Now, all of that being said, it's time for an update! As I said before, I didn't update at the end of Week 1, so this will be the first update.

-Finish Master's Degree: I worked for 2 hours on my thesis tonight and added two pages and a few new ideas to my paper. I feel OK about this one. I have more questions that I need my professor to answer, though, before I can say I feel better about it.

-Finish Health Psych Cert: Classes started this past week. I am one week into my second to last class. Because finishing this goal cannot be expedited by my own efforts (the semester is 15 weeks long no matter how hard I work), my progress on this one will be relatively steady. But, I also spend time in the library yesterday morning researching for my first presentation and read through 6 articles in the afternoon. I feel quite good about this one.

-Finish Scripture Index Cards: I added two verses this week. I can do better on this one.

-Finish paying off smallest loan: I am about to send in this month's payment this week and as long as I can pay this amount each month, I will be good to go to pay it off in December. I feel OK about this one.

-Finish a letter to Karabo: I put a letter in the mail yesterday! This one was easy because WorldVision sent the card to me, so this one required less effort on my part. Other months will take a little more time, but I still feel very good, writing to him makes me happy!

-Finish a storage/classification system for clients' photographs: I looked into external hard drives this week and did some price comparisons. More expensive than I had hoped/expected. Will need to save up for this one, but it's Finish YEAR, not Finish MONTH. I have space left on my hard drive, so there is time for this one. In the meantime, I can use CDs if need be.

So, all in all, I'm pleased to say I did at least something for each goal this week.

What are you finishing?

A Review of "Your 100 Day Prayer"

     I just finished reading “Your 100 Day Prayer: The Transforming Power of Actively Waiting on God” by John Snyde, which I received as complimentary copy from BookSneeze.com The book is designed to help the reader pray specifically and consistently for 100 days regarding an issue of greater than average difficulty. The goal is to help the reader understand that God created us to pray, to help the reader see how God is present in prayer, and also help the reader grow closer to God during the waiting period.

  

   I can honestly say that this book transformed my prayer life. If you pray a great deal for others, but rarely for yourself, then I think you could really benefit from this book. Each day is numbered and contains a short, two page devotional with a relevant Scripture passage. This layout makes it easy to process information and get to the important part – prayer. Space is provided for you to journal your thoughts and progress.

     

Even while you use this book to pray for an issue in your life, Snyde consistently reminds you to pray for others and for God’s kingdom purposes. He also reminds you that God’s could answer “No” to your prayer, but that He is still good. Snyde offers Biblical advice related to accepting God’s will regardless of his answer to our prayer. The book helped me begin praying very specifically for exactly what I hope for, because God knows already, anyway. I highly recommend this book to anyone who wants to transform their personal prayer life, get serious about prayer for a specific issue, and/or see God at work in very specific ways.

You can see more about the book here:

<http://booksneeze.com/blogger/resources/9781400203406>

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