Zero in Hindi?

Tonight I gave my family the curry experience. A little taste of Vancouver. Or… India. I guess. Same thing. I guess I kind of cheated, because I used a curry paste; I didn’t make it from scratch. Still, I think Danice would have been proud. I even made papadan. Or is it papadas? Something that starts with “papa” and tastes like a big chip. The curry was really spicy. As we ate it, our faces started turning red, and soon someone brought a Kleenex box to the table. I took off my sweater, just like old times with Danice, who never flinches even under the influence of the spiciest of curries. But it was good. When you finish something spicy, you feel like you’ve conquered it. Beth - 1, Curry - nada. (That would be more effective if I knew that word for "zero" in Hindi instead of Spanish... Sarah? Help?) The fun didn't stop there: the ice cream tasted SO good afterward…and, in my books, ice cream is already pretty good to begin with.

Let’s see… since I last wrote… I held a snake. A rat snake. At my church. We had a church-wideparty after our celebration service, and someone invited the snake. It was exhilarating – you could feel his muscles tightening and releasing in sequence down the length of his body. The rest of the party was good – there was face painting, food, those huge inflated jumpy things for kids, a dunk tank to dunk the pastors, and the firemen brought a truck over from their station next door (which my prof would love – bridging the community and the church…). But the snake… that was something else.
Snakes don’t have a lot to do with graduations, so I don’t know how to make this transition, but… my sister Rachel’s graduation was last weekend. Her dress was gorgeous, and her hair was crazy but very Rachel. A faux-hawk such as I’ve never seen. She got an activities award. Which is cool, because I got an academic award, and Sarah got an athletic award, and the way Daniel’s headed with band and choir, he should be able to score a fine arts award in two years. Which means we cleaned out Walter Murray Collegiate Institute in all four awards categories. Malena power. Check out our groovyness in the picture.
Rachel also had a birthday, and I bought her the cake pictured below. She decided to take full advantage of her age of majority and get her lip pierced, which I think looks very becoming on her (pictures to come). There’s some things that are just “Rachel”, and to Rachel’s credit, she has discovered what they are. Sometimes I feel like I have yet to discover many things that are just “Beth”, even though I’ve been Beth for twenty-three years. For example, I’ve been constantly stealing stuff from Rachel’s closet since I’ve been home. Stealing her steez. Although I guess some things can be both Rachel and Beth…
Finally, I would like to share that I tackled next year’s budget the other day, with surprising results. I had been putting it off, because I knew I couldn’t apply for student loans until June anyway, so why bother worrying about how much I’d need to apply for? I added up the expenses side. Then I added up my present savings, summer income, the $2000 I invested in a gold mine and got back out again, and various donations to the Beth fund, and incredibly: it added up to $500 more than my expenses! Hallelujah! God does provide. I don’t know how that happened. The only thing I forgot to include was expenses over the summer (which includes gas to drive to and from camp…) and tithing. But still, the margin is pretty small. It’s looking do-able. Of course, I’ll be completely broke heading into my last year of study… but God and I will cross that bridge when we come to it.