When I was little spending time with my grandmother (Memere) was the times I looked forward to more than anything. I would beg my mother to let me spend weeks at a time with Memere and her second husband either in their home in NH or at their camp in ME. I didn't have a good relationship with my father's mother. She never liked my mother, still doesn't. Considering that I am my mother's clone, those feelings of ill regard that she held for my mom were automatically passed on to me. My Memere however, was wonderful. My mom and her didn't always get alone, what mom and daughter do? But my Memere and I were best friends when together. We would go shopping, out to dinner, cook meals, anything we could think of to have fun. She bought me dolls then let me decorate their clothes with her special paints and sequins she'd find in her sewing and craft room. She was the grandmother that I loved dearly and who I couldn't wait to see again.

But when I went and spent time with my grandmother, I didn't have the counter part. My mother's father (Pepere) died before I was born, I was never able to meet him. However, while my dad's mother didn't particularly warm to me, my grandfather and I got along famously. Him and i could be helling at each other one moment and the next moment laughing again. Out of the three grandparents I had, I was blessed to have two who I loved dearly and who were great friends to me.

Unfortunately both my Memere and my Grandpa died when I was young, within a year of each other. Within that year both of those friends were taken from me. This past weekend my dad dragged me with him to visit my grandmother, something that is not exactly my favorite thing to do.  However, towards the end of our visit, my grandmother pulled out a bag of pictures that she was giving to my father. The majority of them were pictures of her during WWII while she was in the Navy. Buried deep in them however, were a few pictures of my grandfather, smiling. It was exactly how I remembered him, smiling, laughing and holding a camera. The pictures were perfect. I asked my dad if I could grab some of them, put them in frames, take them to school with me. It'll be the perfect addition to my growing collection of pictures. Now all I need is a picture of my Memere exactly how I remember her, walking on the beach, her feet in the sand, smiling.

Lately I've been craving books about my own faith. I grew up Roman Catholic and for the most part didn't question it. I went to church every Sunday, I listed to the readings, mostly not understanding what was being said but still taking it in. As I grew older I became more interested in my faith. When I started going to college I found that my knowledge of my own religion was an advantage, rather than a disadvantage, as I feared it would be, especially considering the time we were living in. Catholics were being frowned upon. I was being asked, jokingly, if my priest ever took advantage of anyone. I felt utterly insulted by every Catholic joke. I loved my faith, I had loved my childhood priest, a man who was loving, could always make me laugh and who had tragically died when I was 13. However when I was in the classroom, I found that knowing the intimate details of each story in the Bible was a good thing. I was the student in Art History who knew what each painting in the 14th and 15th centuries meant simply because I had grown up listening to the stories and somehow taking them all in. In my women's studies class I knew why Catholicism held women n their place, I knew which stories the Catholics destroyed women in the most, and more so I knew every prominent female character in the New Testiment. When I began living with a Jewish girl, however, my interest in my religion changed slightly. I began looking at Jesus and the people around Him differently. He wasn't just Jesus Christ to me anymore. He was Jesus, a man who grew up in a Jewish house hold and had Shabbat dinner on Friday nights. He observed the Sabbath on Saturdays. He celebrated Hannukah with his mother, father and cousin John. As an older man Jesus knew and touched the lives of many people. But he was also simply a man. I also came to realize that the Bible didn't just appear one day, that it indeed was put together by a man, centuries later. And there very much could have been things that had been left out. When the idea of hidden Gospels came about, I wanted to read them. I wanted to know what else could have happened in the time of this great man. I especially wanted to read a Gospel that could have been written my Mary Magdalene. She was an amazing woman who was the first to see Jesus after his death, I can only imagine what else this woman saw, what other wonderful things she did during her life. I want to desperately know all about them. I was browsing Barnes and Noble one day for the Gnostic Bibles when I instead came across a book entitled "God is NOT Great". Intrigued, I clicked on it to see whether or not it was a novel. Instead this was a non-fiction book. It was a book written by a man to tell the faith believing world why they were wrong, and why God did not exist. This shocked me. Yes, there have been many times, both in my personal life and in the course of world events that I have often wondered why God didn't step in and make things easier, stop things from happening or create a perfect solution. When I was little I once asked my mom, if God created humans, why did He create the bad ones as well? Given that I was barely out of the first grade, my mom had to fight for an answer that would be easy enough for a 6 year old to understand. Wondefully enough, it still fits today. God creates all human beings in the same mold. Whether they are black, white, tan or bright green. Whether they speak English, Spanish, German, Italian or French. Each and every person is created from the same mold. It is their actions on Earth that makes them good or bad. God does not step in for the difference that He made in creating man from himself is that he gave man free will. Without it, man is simply another God and there is no point to being here. When I see books like "God is NOT Great" on the shelves, it makes me sad. I am a firm believer in having one's own opinion, but I also believe greatly on never forcing your opinion on others. My roommate sophomore year was Jewish. She loved being Jewish. She went home every weekend for Shabbat dinner, she observed Yom Kippur and the other High Holy Days. And I would never in a million years have tried to convert her to Catholicism. On many occasions we had conversations on the differences between our religions, often joking around by calling each other solely "Jew" or "Catholic". But in the end of those discussions we stayed who we were, a Jewish girl from Beverly Hills and a Catholic girl from New Hampshire. I love my religion. I know that it has many faults, as do all the other religions out there. But it is still my religion. I can always count on it being there when I am going through a tough time. When I need someone to talk to, God is always there, simply listening. When I need a quiet place to think and pray, the Catholic Church is not only quiet but beautiful and serene. Inside those walls I can find a guardian angel, a therapist, a friend and faith. My faith, like many others, has at times faultered. When I have gone through tough times and often feel like God is not there on my side. But in the end He has always been there for me. No matter how hard things got, in the end He was there. And for many others He will always be there. No matter what name He is called, in no matter what language, in no matter what country, by no matter what person. Faith is simply faith. And no one should ever try and steal that from you.

I just just just finished "Harry Potter and the Deathly Hollows", it was fantastic. I plan on reading it again over my Christmas Holiday break when I don't have school to worry about. I had started reading "The Iliad" but am taking a brief break to read "Atlas Shrugged" for a scholarship. Though this one I was drawn to simply because I adored "The Fountainhead" and have always wanted to read other works by Ayn Rand and this just gave me an excuse to be constantly reading.

Lately I'll be watching something on TV, more often than not it will be the history channel, and I'll be tempted to go and look up more about it on Wikipedia. I know that the Wiki (as I like to call it) isn't extremely reliable, but on most things, it's usually pretty good. I just love sitting there reading the giant entry on something I found so fascinating. The last thing I looked up was the Egyptian Pharoh Nefretiti. My mom was watching a show on the History Channel about a mummy they found that may possibly have been her. As I scrolled through the little information on her, I ended up on a list of all the Pharohs they had record of. The one that caught my eye was Cleopatra VII, who is the one we know mainly as just Cleopatra. I've always loved the movies depicting her (especially Cleopatra and Antony) but never knew tons about her. I ended up reading for hours aboutn her and her really strange but interesting life.

It's not just historical figures either. HBO has been playing the Star Wars sagas nonstop lately. Despite knowing every word to most of the original Trilogy, I love these movies. I love watching them. One day I started looking up the characters on Wiki. They not only had info from the movies, but from the millions of books written after. Such as how apparently Luke Skywalker had a son named Ben. And Leia and Han got married and had children. It was all strangly bizarre but really interesting.

I think Wikipedia is a great tool. The other day I wikipedia'ed my first name (rather unusal and not often heard) to find that Queen Elizabeth I was often refered to as my name as an abreviation of another nickname. It was pretty awesome. It's not always 100% reliable and so I take it with a grain of salt. But I love looking up stuff on the crazy website. I'm sure by the end of the night I'll have looked something up.

It's odd. I often see the people I work with as just my coworkers. Especially last year. At my summer job, there aren't the most high end of people. Last year I just saw them as the people I worked with were simply "at work people". I didn't converse with them about anything outside of work, or barely while I was at work, for that matter. This year however, things are different. There are very few people who returned and those of us who did feel as though we have to band together to take on the newbies.

One particular other employee and I have gotten very close. We talk everytime we are on a shift together, we immediately enter into a conversation, most often it's not about work, but instead about something completely different that we care about. Our families, our lives, anything. This morning we had the greatest conversation about simply nothing. It's lovely to have a conversation with someone and actually be able to know that the conversation is not only fun but really truly worthy. It's nice to go to work and have a meaningful conversation, especially where my job can be so crappy at times and extremely boring.

Having the ability to have a conversation at work with someone is beautiful. I adore it.