Happy Birthday to me

Yesterday was a first for me. It was my first fall birthday. It was a pretty good day. I had class from 8:30am to 6:00pm, but even that was ok. Actually, it was an intersting day of class-- we spent all morning and afternoon learning about organic and free trade certification and then in the next class I got the opportunity to really share about my faith. We each had to share our reactions and analysis to the "Philosophy of Unity" and its ideas of "intra-interculturality." I decided I could not repond without really showing people who I am and what I believed. It was a little intimidating in front of a class of people who are definately un-Christian and a professor who is openly hostile towards Christians. Even just admitting I believed in the existence of good and evil was a big deal. It was the first time I had done anything like that, but it went over really well. I think it was because my classmates have known me now for 6 months and they have seen me and who I am and they respect that. The professor also didn't have much to say, although she got a little defensive, because according to her philosophy whatever works for you is best and we can't make any judgement calls, so there wasn't much to argue about. The most interesting part was afterwards we were all discussing the class after the prof left and the other students admitted that they were not too impressed with the prof. She spoke pretty about all that stuff, but in reality she was a selfish, egotistical person whose actions did not match up with her words and they admitted that at least I lived the way I talked. Some even admitted they believed a lot of the same things I did but were not open about in the classroom. I guess when you are in a group of people who claim not to make value judgements the best way to be a witness to them is not with words but with actions.
The fun started after class. I invited all my classmates over for birthday dinner and cake. Ann is on spring break this week so she stayed home to make me my favorite food. I just want to tell everyone how much she loves me and how hard she worked, but how little she knows about buffalo wings. I told her I wanted wings. We've had them here before but I made them and I guess Ann isn't as big as a fan as I am. So for 10 people I told her about 6o wings would be great. When I got home with my classmates in tow I walked into a kitchen with 60 whole chicken wings, uncut, ready to be fried. Everyone was like, whoa that's a lot of food. Ann did not know that a whole chicken wing gets cut in two and makes two buffalo wings. She didn't even know that you cut the wingtips off! So we learned last night why buffalo wings are cut in two, because they are a heck of alot messier to eat when they are still together. So instead of 60 wings we had 120, a lot of full bellies, and we will be eating wings a few times in the next week I am guessing, which is ok with me! We also had baked beans, which were amazing, potato salad, and she even made ranch dressing to dip the wings in. The best part was the hummingbird cake, which is pretty much the best cake in the world, and now everyone from school thinks Ann is the best cook in the world (they also have had her oatmeal cookies and always are asking for more). Which I might have to agree with, after my mother of course. Then we got to teach everyone around the world ping-pong and after everyone left we got to spend an hour washing dishes. So it was a pretty cool day.