The reason the Advent Lutheran kids take down the jankey laminated "Allelujah" posters today

With Lent upon us (sadly), I have decided to try a slightly less severe discipline than usual. One year, see, I went vegan, which was nearly impossible and rather awful, another year I went kosher, which was easier (thank you Allison dining hall!!!), and I've tried to do the rules of ramadan (that's hard when your dining hall at NU closes before the sun goes down...REALLY HARD).

Allison: The Cause of and Solution To all of South Campus' Problems
PARC Dining Area REPRESENT!

These have all been a bit of a trial, but it has always been my impression that our disciplines for Lent are supposed to

-teach self control
-mimic Christs' sufferings
-be some kind of contrition for our sins

So with that in mind I'm not going to give up facebook for Lent (I would go crazy), but I'll give up something else awesome:

CHOCOLATE

Yup--the very same

You heard me right, ladies and gents. I am giving up chocolate for Lent, which means that the next 48 hours will be all about the cocoa, chocolate milk, chocolate cookies, etc, because for 40 days I am having none of it. I am not saying that I'm that into chocolate as it is right now, but twice a week I have been known to sit at home with a dark cup of coffee, my letters home, and a bar of chocolate. I think it's a suitable discipline because
I enjoy it,
it is all over the place here (some people I know won't drink coffee at a cafe without a little chocolate to go with it),
and it's done right in this corner of the planet, so it's giving up something good.
In addition every Wednesday I am going to try to find a new Bible verse, not the cliche ones but like really meaty, good ones, and do some thinking on it. It's not exactly the "taking something on" that Pastor Tietjen was into, but I'm in another country, and I have a zillion things to do as it is.
So here are the ground rules for my discipline(s):
NO cocoa-based products, meaning no dark, milk, or white chocolate
No chocolate-based pastries or frosted thingies
No molee (not that that's a worry here, because they can't make a molee to save their lives)
No hot chocolate (I'll have to settle for tea when I'm freezing my hiney off)
Wednesday bible verses will be picked on Tuesday nights and pondered throughout the day on Wednesday (because I have a nice couple of hours free in the middle of the day)
I'll have to be rather insistent that my cappuccinos don't have cocoa on top (I hate that anyway...who does that?!? Who tells people that's ok?!!?)

...Not even if the chocolate looks like or intentionally sculpted to look like Jesus