Friday, May 16, 2014

7 Quick Takes Vol. 17: Study Breaks and Saint Dreams Edition


-- 1 --
I hope y'all enjoyed doing the St. Dymphna novena that was posted over the last couple of days. I failed to post the link to day 8 on the FB page but I know y'all knew the posts were still posted daily as I scheduled them ahead of time. ;) As I posted on the page, the Mary Undoer of Knots novena started yesterday via Pray More Novenas. If you haven't started it, there's still time. It's one of my all-time favorites and quite powerful.

-- 2 --
Speaking of the FB page, I've been more active on it because it's sometimes easier to get certain content seen than on Twitter. That and I'm trying to stay away from Twitter during the day. lol. I use Twitter for everything, not just Catholic content. I try to keep the content on the FB page purely Catholic so, in case you want more of that, please consider "liking" the page. ;)

-- 3 -- 
I can't believe my debut novel has been out for two weeks today... and it's still selling! That's still kind of crazy to me. Did you know that if you have Amazon Prime you can also "borrow" it? Seriously, I'm not about making money (and I would host a giveaway if it wasn't my contract with Amazon to not give it away); I just want young women (and fellas) to have something else to read that doesn't contain smut or any of the other problematic issues other novels have. The characters are flawed and they don't always make the best decisions but parents don't have to worry about their teenagers reading about "sexy times" or other questionable things. I personally like the sequel better but you need to read the debut to make sense of the second one. ;)

-- 4 --
As some of you might've seen on Twitter and the FB page, last week I had a very interesting saint dream. Basically, there were three saints: St. Catherine of Genoa, St. Catherine of Siena, and Bl. Pier Giorgio. Bl. PGF is a veteran (in terms of the number of appearances in my dreams) but it was the first appearance of both St. Catherine of Genoa and St. Catherine of Siena. I had actually never heard of St. Catherine of Genoa prior to the dream so the fact that she popped up was interesting. It's kind of how it happened with St. Teresa of Avila upon my reversion. Anyway, in the dream I had a sense of St. Catherine of Genoa wanting to help me, but I was unclear as to how. Then St. Catherine of Siena and Bl. PGF were there, by my side, because they were also going to help as well. I figured out what St. Catherine of Genoa is patroness of and it still amuses me because I'm currently trying to figure out a situation pertaining to my vocation. No clue what it means but I still laugh over the coincidence. lol.

-- 5 -- 
And while on the topic of the dream and coincidences, I figured out two very cool real life coincidences connected to the dream. First: Did you know that the female protagonist in my novel, Lina (Catalina), was named after St. Catherine of Alexandria... who appeared to St. Joan of Arc in real life? Yep. Guess who was born of St. Joan of Arc's feast day? This girl! I didn't even realize that until last week. Funny! Also, it just dawned on me that both St. Catherine of Siena and Bl. Pier Giorgio Frassati (who appeared in my dream) are both Dominican saints... and I'm looking into becoming a lay Dominican. Loving the connections. ;)

-- 6 --
Update from my studies: I am drowning in the amount of reading, assignments, and exams I have to do on a weekly basis. :( So far I have all possible points in most classes (I got a 9/10 in one assignment for one class) but it's hard to maintain near perfect grades. One of my professors is allowing us to do quizzes an unlimited number of times because of how dense the material is and how much of it we have to memorize. I have two big exams coming up (one tomorrow and the other -- harder! -- on Monday morning) so I'm taking tonight through Monday morning to step away from social networks to really immerse myself in the material. I knew the program was intense (as will the grad school program; I'm in the post-baccalaureate program) but, goodness, I didn't know it was going to be this bad. I have 5 courses, too! I'll just offer it up. This is something I really want to do so I will work hard in order to achieve it. A little (or a lot) of hard work never hurt anyone. No, shush, let me believe that. lol.

-- 7 --
There's really not much to report on. My days are filled with lectures, note taking, reading, etc. I have been keeping up my daily prayers (except last Sunday morning; oops!) and I'm trying hard to examine my conscience on a daily basis so that I'm aware of my actions. Hopefully the Undoer of Knots novena I'm doing will help with that. Oh! And, thanks to Thomas Pringle, I learned about the Chaplet of St. Michael the Archangel! I knew about the scapular (blue and black; looks like a shield) but had no idea the chaplet was so good! :D I'm going to incorporate that (along with the Chaplet of the Divine Mercy) when I take my study breaks. Need to do prayer in between study to keep myself sane. lol.

For more Quick Takes, visit Conversion Diary!

That's it for now. I need to go pick mom up from work and then turn in an assignment early (doing everything early this week) so I can focus on studying for my exams for the rest of the weekend. I hope y'all are doing well!

As always, thanks for reading and God bless! :D

No comments: