Wish I Had Something Beautiful to Say

You Can't Get To Heaven On Rollerskates (and other things we worry about too much)

2011-05-03T14:45:00.005-12:00

The last few days I have had a case of swirley-head. It has given me focus-issues. My head started swirling and when that happens my mouth does not work. And today I got the overwhelming need to sit -here, at my laptop --thanks Ross ;) -- and type some stuff out.

Last night at club we had Doubt night and ended up having a huge conversation about heaven and hell. At one point the kids were talking and feeding off one another, and I couldn't even remember what we'd started talking about initially. And there were some good points, some great questions, and we didn't even scratch the surface of an answer to most of them. And I didn't have a lot to say and I didn't feel like I could contribute very much to conversation.

I'm going to be honest. I don't spend much of my time thinking about Heaven and Hell. Okay, I spend none of my time thinking about Heaven and Hell. With the exception, I guess, of right now.

I've been a follower of Christ since I was nine years old. And I have run away from God and tried to do my own thing once or twice or 100 times, but I never doubted my salvation. The power of the Cross is that there is no question in it. The Cross is perfect, infallible... choosing the Cross is the only decision on this Earth that is fail-safe. God's promise that he made to His people is everlasting and true. He will never quit you. Nothing can separate me from the love of God through Christ. Nothing.

For I am convinced that neither death nor life, neither angels nor demons, neither the present nor the future, nor any powers, neither height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord. Romans 8:38-39

The thing I'm most concerned about with my faith, with regard to other's salvation, is that I'm making the best of the new life Christ's death and resurrection has given me. Its not just about the life I'm going to live when I'm no longer on this Earth. In Paul's letter to the Corinthians, he says that any one who is in Christ is a new creation. Christ came to revolutionize the way we love God, the way we love ourselves and the way we love one another. Matt touched on that last night at club when he said Jesus' life, death and resurrection was about reconciling the entire world with God.

All this is from God, who reconciled us to himself through Christ and gave us the ministry of reconciliation: that God was reconciling the world to himself in Christ, not counting men’s sins against them. And he has committed to us the message of reconciliation --2 Corinthians 5:18-19

Jesus had a plan to reconcile this world with God, and to bring his Kingdom to Earth. I think our main question, as Christ-followers, should be this--am I doing my part to see that His will is done? Jesus' gift of life to you is about heaven, but it is also, MOST EMPHATICALLY about how you are given a chance to live a new, better life in the here and now. And to me, that is what the Christian life is about. Figuring out how to live our lives for him right now. In every moment. Learning to love God more and more with every part of ourselves. I don't follow Christ because I'm afraid of Hell. I follow Christ because he loves me, and he has a better way for me.

He has showed you, O man, what is good. And what does the LORD require of you? To act justly and to love mercy and to walk humbly with your God. -- Micah 6:8

One thing I ask of the LORD, this is what I seek: that I may dwell in the house of the LORD all the days of my life, to gaze upon the beauty of the LORD and to seek him in his temple - Psalm 27:4

I think that a lot of us wish there was something that we could do to deserve the love of God. If we ask him to forgive us enough, if we got to church enough times in one week, if we do kind things for enough people, we can become somewhat deserving of our salvation. God's followers in the Old Testament lived their entire lives doing things in order to be able to come to the Lord. They had to wear certain clothes, they had to hang scripture from their doorways, they had to sacrifice animals, rub oil on their heads, and a lot of other weird stuff. And they had to keep continually coming to God for forgiveness. There was no resolution, no absolution, no freedom in it.

But Jesus came to make a better way for us. God showed that his love for his people was so great that he sacrificed his only son so that we get a chance to live our lives free from sin--the thing that separated us from God. The great thing about God's resolution is that now we have time to live our lives in response to his love.

I could keep going and going forever. That's just how much my CL students inspired me last night. You all are beautiful, and so smart and I see so much goodness in you. And all goodness comes from God. And I'm thankful He's given me the opportunity to have been a part of last night, and all the other great nights we've had with Campus Life.

To any CL students, if you ever need to talk, I'm here. :)

Thoughts on Easter

2011-04-24T02:27:00.003-12:00

Early Sunday morning, while it was still dark, Mary Magdalene came to the tomb and found that the stone was rolled aside from the entrance.
She ran and found Simon Peter and me (John) and said, "They have taken the Lord's body out of the tomb, and I don't know where thy have put him!"
We ran to the tomb to see; I outran Peter and got there first, and stooped and looked in and saw the linen cloth lying there, but I didn't go in. Then Simon Peter arrived and went on inside. He also noticed the cloth lying there, while the swath that had covered Jesus' head was rolled up in a bundle and was lying at the side. The I went in too, and saw, and believed [that he had risen]--for until then we hadn't realized that the Scriptures said he would come to life again! (John 20:1-9)

.....................

That evening the disciples were meeting behind locked doors, in fear of the Jewish leaders, when suddenly Jesus was standing there among them! After greeting them, he showed them his hands and side। And how wonderful was their joy as they saw their Lord!

He spoke to them again and said "As the Father has sent me, even so I am sending you." Then he breathed on them and told them, "Receive the Holy Spirit. If you forgive anyone's sins, they are forgiven. If you refuse to forgive them, they are unforgiven." (John 20:19-23)

.....................

This was the third time Jesus had appeared to us since his return from the dead.
After breakfast Jesus said to Simon Peter, "Simon, son of John, do you love me more than these others?"
"Yes," Peter replied, "You know I am your friend."
"Then feed my lambs," Jesus told him.
Jesus repeated the question: "Simon, son of John, do you really love me?"
"Yes, Lord," Peter said, "you know I am your friend."
"Then take care of my sheep," Jesus said.
Once more he asked him, "Simon, son of John, are you even my friend?"
Peter was grieved at the way Jesus asked the question this third time. "Lord, you know my heart; you know I am," he said.
Jesus said, "Then feed my little sheep. When you were young, you were able to do as you liked and go wherever you wanted to; but when you are old, you will stretch out your hands and others will direct you and take you where you don't want to go."
Jesus said this to let him know what kind of death he would die to glorify God. Then Jesus told him, "Follow me." (John 21:14-19)

I actually went to Easter service last night at my parents church. It was a really nice evening to connect with God, thank Him for the incredible gift, and think the about the inevitable question that comes to when I think of the resurrection. What does this really mean to me as a follower of Christ?

To quote my favorite movie Almost Famous, "To begin with, everything." Last night, Bill did talk about what the Resurrection meant to us. 1) No more fear of hell, or isolation from God. 2)Getting to see our loved ones for eternity. 3)That the messiah will return again, alive and well.

And I believe those three, basic truths--the cornerstones of my faith. Jesus' life, death and resurrection will forever the be the reason that my Christianity, my personal relationship with God exists and thrives. Without Christ, I would not have a reason to breathe, or love, or live a moment of my life. Without Christ I have nothing and I am nothing.

I have been a follower of Christ since I was nine years old. In our 16-year relationship, this been strained, of course, but he's never left me. I believe that once you ask Christ to dwell in your heart, there is no way of pushing him out completely. And believe me, I've done a decent job trying to do this. Because I would rather think that I had control over my own destiny then let God make my decisions for me.

It's lucky for me, I guess, that Jesus the man was the sort guy that I admire. Yes, reading his words inspire me because he's the Son of God, but I'm pretty sure that his life would have inspired me even if he were just like all the other inhabitants of this planet. Even if he were just a man born into this world, who would end up succumbing to the grave--just as we all will. Jesus' words were always backed by action, and he had this completely open heart and open mind for all of humanity--but especially for the oppressed and undervalued people in this world. And what just got to me last night, and what I think really comes to light the scripture I typed out from the end of the Gospel of John, were his priorities immediately after his Resurrection.

Jesus came to bring the Kingdom of God. And for a very long time, I have come to believe that this Kingdom is meant to be in the here and now. A King's people do his work. They represent him to the best of their ability and they intercede for him when he can't physically be there to carry out his plan and mission.

Christianity is not just about seeking lost souls and winning them for Heaven. Though it most definitely is a beautiful part of it. But I think what Christ focused on when he spoke with the disciples before his ascension was his concern that we would be here to carry on the amazing work he had been doing in his short time on Earth. Jesus came to restore our hearts, heal brokenness, teach us to love one another free from conditions. He taught us to be peacemakers, to worship God with our entire selves. To show a kind of devotion to God that makes any other kind of love look like hatred in comparison. Jesus came to start a revolution. He said, if you love me, you will share my passions for the poor, needy, sinful, dirty, hungry, thirsty people in this world. Jesus' philosophy of life was that it doesn't matter what you have, it only matters how you used it to help others and advance the Kingdom.

In my life, I have seen that the most effective way to spread Christ's hope, his story of life, resurrection and restoration, is through one-on-one personal relationships and people's stories. There is a reason that all Christ followers have a "testimonial," or story to tell. There is a reason the Bible is a bunch stories put together. We are built, has humans, to connect with each other and to relate with one another. When Jesus came back to his disciples, that what's he told them to do. He said, Your forgiveness can hold real power over people's lives, so forgive and love liberally. Make sure you are taking care of the people I'm leaving behind. Feed them- their bodies and their souls- so that when I come back I can take ALL of you, and the rest of humanity, with me.

I think that's what he meant when he said he was going to prepare a place for us. It was both a promise and a challenge.

Butler and the Goddard Way

2011-04-01T14:52:00.004-12:00

I've seen a lot of basketball in my life. Started attending varsity boy's games in my mom's womb. My dad's passion for basketball has bled over into our family life, as anyone who has come in contact with us knows already.

And being from Indiana is a special thing. Basketball is a part of our communities, part of the fabric of our state. Its what we are known for--what a fun thing to be known for.

One of the things I love about Butler is that they've given families something that I have had my entire life. Something to bring us all together that has nothing to do with a holiday or birthday. My sisters and I are grown up, one married and one in nursing school. But at least once a season, we all meet at Hinkle field house for an old fashioned family fun day. We got to go twice this year, to watch the Dawgs beat Stanford and for Senior day.

I had to take a pause in this post because my dad was having one of his coaching moments. For some reason, we were watching part of the Kansas/VCU game.

"Watch this... this is what Butler is going to do tomorrow." And he proceeded to show me how Butler will adjust and shift to guard VCU's offensive set. Actually standing in front of the TV, just as he has stood in front of his own players the last 30 years.

A typical Friday night in the Goddard living room. And I love it. Basketball is the sixth member of our family. In the last decade, Butler has been a part of that craziness. I'm so proud of the team. And happy that my family has one more weekend to come together this year and enjoy something special.

A truly gleeful Tuesday

2011-02-15T14:04:00.007-12:00

So I'm not sure if you know this, but Tuesdays are terrible days. I've been saying this for years and it holds true in my life week after week. Bad stuff happens on Tuesdays.

But today I broke the curse. I had an exceptional day. I woke up and for the first time in a week I didn't have a terrible, sharp pain in between my shoulder blades ( a gift from last Tuesday, thank you very much). And I was in this good mood that I couldn't pinpoint. Like I had something to look forward to.

The day was well-paced. I was on top of my work stuff. I even got to help out a co-worker, which always puts me in a good mood. I got TWO nice emails from authors, thanking me for my help on their book. I had some good conversations with friends. The music on Pandora was great. I sent an email to my congressman and senator to let them now how much I appreciate Public Broadcasting, and they shouldn't cut the federal funding for something that is so important to so many Americans. And I didn't feel like I needed to run away from the office as soon as the clock struck 5, which is a feeling I know pretty well.

I went to the store, and for once I picked the fast check out line. I made some tremendous guacamole and enchiladas. Watched Big Bang Theory episodes from season 1. Worked out a little. Cuddled with Kota on the couch and watched Glee. And now I'm writing, listening to the classics station on my Pandora ("Sitting on the Dock of the Bay"), and it feels good. It was a good day. The best Tuesday in recent memory.

It almost feels like a Wednesday :)

It was a great day.

The comeback kid

2011-02-05T03:23:00.004-12:00

So I haven't been writing. Not even a little. No words on paper or typed into a keyboard unless I was paid to do it. And I'm sitting here and I am not even sure if I'm going to be able to finish this blog. Who is reading this? What do they want to hear? What do I have to say that is worth taking the time to transcribe into this completely public yet muffled forum that will get drowned out by anyone who has a clearer, sharper, better voice than mine...

I'm only sitting here struggling through this today because I started doing yoga again. And it has been painful and awkward, and lets face it, I'm just a fat girl rolling around on the floor. There are moves that I am no longer able to do, like the tree pose... But it is okay because I'm doing it by myself, in my apartment, where it is safe to look stupid.

It has been so nice just to stand and focus on my breath. At work, sometimes I get so stressed/frustrated... I will read a particularly nasty email and I clench my jaw, start in on my overly-polite reply and get through half of it before I realize that I have forgotten to breathe. How do you forget and involuntary action? I guess I'm just special.

So my two weeks of practicing yoga again--as well as some other exercise--has made me remember how good it feels to do things that are good for me. And I really think that this thing, writing, is probably the most valuable habit I've ever had. Because I've worked out a lot of nasty stuff this way.

I wrote a column in college about how yoga is like blogging. The medium that I've chosen to help myself become a better writer. Healthier. It was the place where I really think that I found my voice when I was in college. I look back through some of the posts, and sure, it brings back a lot of memories. But I don't actually remember writing them. How I came up with the ideas--the words--where I got me motivated to pick up my computer and let loose... I don't remember what it is like to be good at this. To feel fulfilled by it. I think that's the reason that this one blog post has been one of the hardest things to get down. It has been painful.

But I finished it. And there will be more. There has to be more. Because I'm a writer. It is my favorite thing about myself. And you cannot be defined by something without doing it. Pen to paper, keystrokes clicking and clacking away.

So I'm writing again. Let's see what we find out.

The values and the valuable

2010-07-19T12:04:00.008-12:00

The world is composed of two distinct groups of people--those who have it together and those who don't.

They are categories that are easy to distinguish, and easy to identify yourself with. Right now, you've placed yourself in one, or the other. And if you aren't sure, you might be in denial. Or maybe, just out of touch. So I'm going to help you a little bit. Answer these questions, and if you get mostly yes'... then you get to join those of us who missed that part of the public education system that actually teaches you how to lead a productive life.

Just kidding... any questions would be a little too autobiographical for comfort. And I just don't know you that well, oh few readers of this "blog." I like to keep my secrets to myself. But I will tell you which group I belong to. As you might have guessed, I most definitely do not have my crap together. Because those who do would not be writing about it. They have much more important things to be taking care of. Like, they probably have exercising to do. They might be watching an enriching documentary on PBS where they won't just be made to feel guilty for 20 minutes before they move on to less stimulating television, they will be moved to action. Nope, I'm just your average member of mediocrity, looking over at those people who make it seem easy. Wondering how they manage to get up in the morning, find meaning in what they do, and contribute to this world in more than a banal, rat-race sense.

To me, the poster child for a life well put together is my big sister. She's successful in all the important ways, and the not-so important ones. And she's a good wife and sister and pharmacist and friend and person. And even if she's not perfect, she has the air of perfection swimming around her. I could never begrudge her any of this, because she works hard.

But I do have one question. Why does her life look like it was ripped from a page in the Crate and Barrel catalog, and mine look like I threw it together with the stuff I found in the dumpster behind my house? And I'm not talking about money... I don't care about having stuff. But I mean, my sister and I are very, very similar people, as much as we'd probably like to deny it. So why then, does she have it together and I don't? Why is living not something we are born capable of? It should be more natural, more involuntary, like breathing.

I just realized that it looks like I'm picking on my sister, but I'm not. I love her and I'm glad that she's dwelling happily in the together category. I am judging her, but to be fair, we all do that every day. I look at my neighbors, co-workers, family members, celebrities, etc. And I place them in one category or the other. And then I break it down into subgroups. "Well I know I don't have it together, but at least I'm not sinking as low as so-and-so." It makes us feel better, to know that there is someone out there who sucks at life a little more than we do. Or even better, we try to denigrate those who have figured out how to live a good life. You know, the whole "Well, he's successful but I'm sure he has a miserable home life. Or he's secretly a pedophile. Or he cheats on his taxes."

It all seems a little hopeless, doesn't it? This way of categorizing the human race. What would it look like if instead dividing people into these groups, we just started placing value in people? In our neighbors, co-workers, family members, celebrities... What if that value assigned to us is the catalyst that drives us to live above the normal, the sucky, the failure?

What if the most important person to place value in is yourself? If we could figure that out, then maybe we could stop the comparing, the wishful glances at other people who have learned the secret.

"I know what it is to be in need, and I know what it is to have plenty. I have learned the secret of being content in any and every situation, whether well fed or hungry, whether living in plenty or in want. I can do everything through him who gives me strength(value)" -Philippians 4:12-13 (my word in parentheses)

Searching, writing and sun-bathing

2010-04-11T07:44:00.003-12:00

Can I just say that church today was amazing, in a way that completely knocked the wind out of me, and scared me to death. Because I like the comfortable rut I'm living in. And to have a woman challenge me out of that is just not something I'm looking for right now.

The speaker came to talk about the defining moment that led her and her husband to move to Mexico and work with orphans. I really liked what she said about defining moments in her book...

"It is a shift

- in what we are capable of.

- in where we want to see our life heading.

- in how we are willing to spend our time, talents and resources."

Good stuff, right?

On our way home from church/lunch/shopping today, Kelli was full of words about what she was feeling/desiring after Exodus this morning. And I just felt like I couldn't tell her what I was thinking about. Like I didn't even know how I was feeling. But I had bought some little notebooks atTarget, and as soon as we got home I sunscreened up and went out to read and journal. Here's what came out of that...

I want a broken heart, contrite spirit, eager hands, ability, resources--not to waste but to enable and equip. I want 'a little less conversation, a little more action.'

I want to pray for the impossible, hope for the improbable and partner in someone's miracle. I want to wake thinking about the problem in the world that just completely floors me--something that breaks my spirit. Let it consume me every moment of my life until I partner with God to become an agent to change it.

Let it begin with me God, let's start this thing.

I pray for openness every day. Openness to seize every opportunity you have ordained for me. I am a writer who appreciates story. But today, I'm asking to become the character in someone else's story of recovery. I want to be the hope, the love, the food, the knowledge-bearer, the rescuer of someone.

Bring me that someone. Break my heart, God. Break it well.

Thanks, guys. I hope you were blessed today. :)

(Not so much) Sex and the Single Girl...

2010-02-28T12:59:00.004-12:00

This past month at church we've been talking about sex and marriage. And, to be honest, its been a lot of me sitting there taking the message in, but feeling awkward because I know the things Matt had to say were meant for other people. And most of it made me thankful that I was, indeed, very, very single. :)

But Sunday the message was meant directly for me. It was about being single in the sexually free world we live in. And you know what Matt had to say... it wasn't groundbreaking stuff. But it was uplifting, and the encouragement I think I have been missing the last few years in this stage in my life.

You see, when you are a girl who has been single for over five years, and most of your friends are either married or on the marriage track, you start to feel like you are doing something wrong. Like maybe I'm not living the life that I'm supposed to be living because I'm not pursuing marriage, or even a dating relationship at this point. And today I realized that this feeling, that maybe I'm unnatural or close-minded or just scared of relationships... well, that feeling comes from other people's insecurities with people who choose to be single. In I Corinthians, the same letter where Paul tells men how to respect their wives, and women how to meet their husbands needs... Paul tells us that:

"An unmarried woman or virgin is concerned about the Lord's affairs: Her aim is to be devoted to the Lord in both body and spirit. But a married woman is concerned about the affairs of this world—how she can please her husband. I am saying this for your own good, not to restrict you, but that you may live in a right way in undivided devotion to the Lord."

You see, just because a marriage can be blessed by God, that doesn't mean a life of singleness can't be. I know that I've been called to be living my life this way... at least for now. And Matt, who has never met me and doesn't know a thing about my life, really encouraged me in this. There was something he said that I really liked about why intentional singleness can be so hard for married folks to relate to. He said that in many marriages, one spouse feels completed by the other. Why wouldn't everyone want to find someone to fill that void? But if my devotion is to the Lord... well then that's what completes me.

And believe me, I don't say that cavalierly. Singleness is a lonely state. I have amazing sisters and friends and parents and coworkers and roommates who occupy almost all my time. But I am alone a lot. It has me leading a life full of bad habits, like falling asleep with my laptop playing a movie off Netflix. And to be fair, I don't know if I feel more alone in my thoughts and decisions than the average married person... I just know that sometimes I'm envious of women who have a man in their lives. To help them move, go to the recycling center, pick out furniture or a cell phone or a car, to go to traffic court with them and hold their hand, to get the oil changed in their car, to take them to the doctor when they don't feel up to driving. Sometimes I wish that I had someone to take care of me, or at least to live life alongside me in a deeper way (note: my parents and friends do more than their share of taking care of me... so much so that I feel like I take advantage... note #2: I'm aware that this is a weakness in my feminist ideology). That's the thing about deciding to let God be the center of your devotion, you have to keep making that decision every day. He's not there in the same tangible way a life partner is. The burden is on you to keep that connection going. Its not an easier life, or a harder one. Its just different. Different can be scary.

Somewhere along the line, I let myself forget how this singleness thing got started in my life. It was a calling, for sure. I was in this relationship with a nice guy who loved me, but after almost a year into it I hit a metaphorical wall. It was like I was living life distracted. Every one of my plans had him in mind.... and they just were not the plans God had for me, for either of us. I spent a month the summer before college in some intense prayer, and God more than showed me a way out, it was like he released that need in me to be connected to someone in that way. God's plan is always a better one for me. I'm still trying to figure out what that plan is, but I have very little doubt that it involves me living like this, single, with undivided devotion, for the foreseeable future. And in my state of total disaster and uncertainty... it is nice to feel a semblance of surety.

Lent and Homesickness

2010-02-26T09:17:00.003-12:00

Why has it taken me until know to really hear Greg Laswell's stuff? "Comes and Goes" (some of the song posted below) is so great.

This one's for the lonely
The ones that seek and find
Only to be let down
Time after time
This one's for the torn down
The experts at the fall
Come on friends get up now
You're not alone at all

This one's for the faithless
The ones that are surprised
They are only where they are now
Regardless of their fight
This one's for believing
If only for it's sake
Come on friends get up now
Love is to be made

Between the ages of 11 and 18, I was really big into writing verse. Isn't that something every adolescent girl does though? Lay around on her bed, filling notebooks with deep, heartfelt dribble that rhymed... okay, probably not all girls... but I'm sure this wasn't a unique practice to me. Looking back, I guess its kind of sweet that I spent so many nights writing my thoughts, hopes and prayers like they meant so much, just because they meant a lot to me. And man, I thought that crap was so good that I even subjected people to it on occasion. But like I said, I don't think I've written anything resembling a poem since I started college.

And lately I wish that I had more of that poetry writer inside of me. She was silly to be sure, and on the superficial side. But I was a kid who felt deeply. I hadn't built up very many barriers when it came to my emotions. And most importantly, I felt the freedom to express myself. I've turned into a self-critic, especially when it comes to writing. When I start a blog post, or a story, I just think the piece to death. Learning more about writing has kind of imprisoned me. I don't want to write something unless it is smart, or funny--even if its for myself. And when you are concerned with sounding smart, you lose the honesty in the whole thing.

And so I haven't been writing like I should be, or reading much of anything. Because when I read, or hear a really good song... I feel homesick for the self-expression the I love. I have sat down at this computer several times, with every intention of writing something, and I just feel like I have forgotten how to do it. It's like I can't get back home... I desperately want to go back and erase that statement... but I have got to stop editing myself.

So its the season of Lent. And I haven't had any sugar in my system since Fat Tuesday (I've only had one day at work when I was sitting in the cafeteria, convince that a candy bar would solve all of my problems). But I think that I am going to use these fourty days leading up to Easter to focus on my writing, and see if I can gain back a little bit of what I've lost...

Old friends, new friends...

2010-01-10T11:18:00.002-12:00

So the past two mornings I have woken up from very vivid dreams. This doesn't happen to me very often, and I wish that it did because dreams really fascinate me. I love it when you dream about people in your life doing completely uncharacteristic things. For instance, my friend Miranda from work once had a dream that I was having an affair with some old guy who was an exec or something in the company. It was absolutely bizarre, but we laughed about it for a long time.

But Saturday morning I dreamt I was on a boat and Ellen DeGeneres was my cruise director. It was fantastic, and I wrote it down so that I wouldn't forget about it. But last night my dream was a little bit more bittersweet. It was a lot more boring really, I was just hanging out with an old guy friend from high school. We were really close but have fallen out of touch. But in the dream we were still best friends, and we laughed and watched movies and played Yahtzee and made really good drinks. I was mixing them like I was some kind of bartender, which I totally am not.

But I woke up smiling, just after I had made my friend some concoction that included Cherry 7-Up. And then I remembered that we aren't friends anymore. I have no idea what is going on in his life. I used to know everything.... every class and every crush.

You and I probably need both hands, and maybe all of our toes, to keep track of people who used to be really important in our lives. And even though these people are just friends, it is kind of like you broke up. And with every break-up, someone has to be the dumper. My sister talked to me the other day about how she heard through a mutual friend that her best friend from elementary said that they had just "both drifted apart." That's the perfect dumper's excuse, though. In reality, we a) outgrew the person, b) got tired of trying to stay in touch, c) got overloaded with close friends, and had to let one fall by the wayside.... and there are a lot more reasons why friendships fade. But its clear that in most relationships, they fail because we don't put in the effort. And in most cases, like my sister and like me with my dream friend, someone feels like they have gotten dumped.

I went to a seminar-type thing in my dorm one year in college given by the professors who teach a class on personal relationships. And they put relationships into two categories: friends of the road and friends of the heart. Friends of the road are characterized well by my dream friend. We were friends because of proximity and convenience and common interests, and when we lost those things, we lost that friendship. We will have very few friends of the heart in our lives. And you know it when you have a relationship like this.

But that is not to say that friends of the road are bad friends. For example, when I did my short stint in grad school, there were two girls I met there that were really, really there to share their lives with me. I needed them, and they were there for me.

I don't really know how to finish this thought... except thanks, you people in my life. Or people who have been a big part of my life. Life happens to you, and we all grow and change and get an education and figure out what we want our lives to look like. But you can most simply be defined by the company you keep... and I'm pretty pleased with my definition.

Its beginning to look a lot like (fill in the blank)

2009-12-18T02:26:00.003-12:00

My Christmas Wishlist

- I wish that I could wish for snow without worrying that someone will get hurt on the road. I want the prettiness without scary road conditions.

- I wish that I could have realistic expectations for the holiday season.

- I wish that I could listen to "Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas" without crying a little.

- I wish that my life was really like an episode of "Friends" and all of my people lived in the same place. Like Chandler and Joey living across the hall from Monica and Rachel. That close.

- I wish that ABC Family would show the whole version of "Twas the Night Before Christmas" because they cut my favorite song out of it and its been so long I can't remember how it goes anymore.

- I wish that I could be as excited and happy at the end of making Christmas cookies as I am when I start making them.

- I wish that Budda and I would get along the whole time we're home together.

- I wish that I could live with Skeyse forever and ever. Ross can be there too, I guess. :)

- I wish that I could want the things I want, free from guilt.

- I wish I had the natural ability to be compassionate... like Nelson Mandela, or Jesus... I wish I wasn't quick to anger and slow to forgiveness...

- I wish Christmas gifts would wrap themselves, in 100% recyclable and reusable material.

- I wish that being happy and healthy were simple things. It only gets more complicated with age.

Some perspective would be splendid right now

2009-11-09T09:18:00.012-12:00

The last few days I've felt pretty overwhelmed. I don't mean that I'm too busy... I work as just as much as the next guy with a full-time job... and even if I work earlier than most, my sleep schedule is working for me. And I had a good weekend. Relaxing. I watched all six hours of Angels in America... then I caught up on the classic films I missed out on in 2008-09... I watched Slumdog Millionaire, Milk and The Rocker....

When I say overwhelmed, I think I mean weary. Weary of learning how someone you cherish is living a life less than what he/she deserves. Weary of not being able to fix it, in your own life or in others.

My world is minuscule right now. So, so small. And I can't get it. That perspective I need. I try to channel some, I really do. Last week I ate lunch at a table with a woman from my old church who has managed to beat a serious case of ovarian cancer. She battled... hard. And won, and does nothing but say that God did it all. And man, she is one hilarious lady. I was laughing so hard about her losing her hair... my stomach started to hurt and I had tears in my eyes before I realized that I was laughing. About someone losing their hair in chemo. This woman is not just a fighter... she's a miracle. She's magical.

Her problems were big. Mine are so much smaller... I can handle my mess. I own my mess, and it can be taken care of. I'm still in control of it, you know. Even when the weight of it all, the sadness and the joy, and the sheer absurdity of life feels like it might crush me. I can feel it pressing down on my rib cage and my sternum... kind of like someone is laying on top of me sometimes. And it sucks and I can't breathe, and you begin to wish for numbness so that you can breathe again. Then, when I'm smart, I pray. I remember that I'm alone in my car, or at work, and that there is no one, nothing on top of me. And its just me and my mess and I can manage it. My problems are small, manageable.

At work they've devised a contraption to capture lady beetles. I got to use it today. Its a five-foot long piece of plastic tubing with a plastic bag adhered to the bottom of it. I found the dreaded bug that did not belong in our clean room environment, placed the tube to the ceiling, and the bug went down, down into the darkness and joined his little friends in the plastic baggie. Where he will surely suffocate and die. Now, that lady beetle has a huge problem. Mine are small, manageable. It's my mess. I own it... I can fix it. Thank God.

I will leave you with a photo of my new favorite babysitting charge, Carl. I watched him over the weekend, then I dropped him off at daycare, where he's going to stay while his mom and dad enjoy their vacation in Miami.

I'll admit, it is pretty hard to say no to this face.... :)

The waiting place

2009-10-22T09:16:00.007-12:00

Monday night we had our small group at Brad and Mandy's house... I guess it won't be their house for much longer... and I found myself playing with the boys in Ezra's room. They like to do this thing where we turn the lights out and "fall asleep" and then Ezra turns the lights on and tells us to wake up. And we do it over again. And again. And its funny, because I'm usually so tired in the evenings because I work so early, that I let myself relax and get sleepy when the lights are out and I really am jolted when Ezra screams, "Its time to get up!"

Bless him, Ezra got tired of that game. He handed me a book to read them, and we sat on his bed and read "Oh, the Places you will Go." Do you remember that book? I know you've probably heard someone drone on, page-after-page during a commencement ceremony... but its a really good book. Ezra and Elijah especially liked the line, "And when you’re alone, there’s a very good chance you’ll meet things that scare you right out of your pants." Basically because they love the word pants... they thinks it's hilarious.

When I remember my life. My past days, weeks, months and years.... I mark time with profound moments. I have a hard time remembering names and faces from high school, just five years ago, but I remember small moments in great detail. And not to be weird or anything, but I almost feel like these moments speak to me... like they are saying 'remember this, right here, right now.' And sometimes I write about these things. And sometimes I just daydream about them at work, while I'm making small wire baskets that might someday retrieve a stone from your kidney. Today I guess I will write.

I had one of these moments reading this children's book to two boys, ages seven and three. It is just verse-after-verse of nonsense to children. But to me, a 23 year-old who grew up knowing the potential she had and was given every tool in the world to help her meet that potential, to me it meant a whole lot. The book is full of these encouraging sayings that are so over the top, about moving mountains and stuff... but then he hits you with the reality... the reality that life is this hard thing, and no matter how many amazing people are there for you... there is so much that you have to figure out on your own. Alone... all by yourself.

I'm just going to put some of the book down here...

You’ll be on your way up!
You’ll be seeing great sights!
You’ll join the high fliers who soar to high heights.

You won’t lag behind, because you’ll have the speed. You’ll pass the whole gang and you’ll soon take the lead. Wherever you fly, you’ll be best of the best. Wherever you go, you will top all the rest.

Except when you don’t.
Because, sometimes, you won’t.

I’m sorry to say so but, sadly, it’s true that Bang-ups and Hang-ups can happen to you.

You can get all hung up in a prickle-ly perch. And your gang will fly on. You’ll be left in a Lurch.

You’ll come down from the Lurch with an unpleasant bump. And the chances are, then, that you’ll be in a Slump.

And when you’re in a Slump, you’re not in for much fun. Un-slumping yourself is not easily done.

You will come to a place where the streets are not marked. Some windows are lighted. But mostly they’re darked. A place you could sprain both your elbow and chin! Do you dare to stay out? Do you dare to go in? How much can you lose? How much can you win?

And if you go in, should you turn left or right…or right-and-three-quarters? Or, maybe, not quite? Or go around back and sneak in from behind? Simple it’s not, I’m afraid you will find, for a mind-maker-upper to make up his mind.

You can get so confused that you’ll start in to race down long wiggled roads at a break-necking pace and grind on for miles across weirdish wild space, headed, I fear, toward a most useless place.

The Waiting Place…for people just waiting.

I know that's where I am right now. Its like my life, the last year, has been an endless series of waiting. Waiting to feel anything again, waiting to feel useful, waiting to find purpose, waiting to feel settled, waiting to figure out my next step, waiting for affirmation...

The waiting place... it's where I find myself right now, in a most useless space. How about you?

A Perpetual Worrier

2009-10-07T06:59:00.005-12:00

- My life.... am I doing a good job living it? Probably not.... Need to work on this.

- My Papaw... he's having bypass surgery on Friday. If you pray... please lift one up for Dick Goddard. He's the best grandpa... a real patriarch in every sense of the word. I'm pretty scared for him... but hopeful that this procedure is going to improve his quality of life in a huge way. The timing of this... a week after we auctioned off what remained of my maternal grandparents' things and finally emptied the farmhouse... is just kind of a lot to handle. And so I worry... and worry... and stress eat... I cannot tell you how hungry I've been this week. All of the time. So hungry. Will you still love me when I'm 350 pounds? Will you, really?

-I reconnected with a friend from college last week in a kind of awkward way. I'm thankful for this awkwardness because catching up with her has been so good. It is weird how you can feel so much like a screw-up... like you don't have a clue in the world... and then you realize that you are just 23 and normal... and this new life experience is just another thing you have to take and learn from... and with that you can connect with people.

I like people. I don't like being worried... so I'm going to head to see what looks like the greatest movie ever made about a roller derby. Going to the movies... in the rain... by myself. Ahhh... I feel better already.

Can't Tell A lie

2009-10-02T02:08:00.002-12:00

From now on, you can’t tell lies, are you ready? Let's do this thing

Think back eight months ago, were you single? Yep

What do you carry with you at all times? My work badge... and my phone (ideally)

Who was the last person of the opposite sex you text messaged? my Dad (aww)

How are you feeling? Excited to be free from work... tired of cleaning my house.

Is something wrong right now? Isn't there always something? But its just a small things... I can handle the small things.

Are you mad at someone? Just world leaders... as always

Do you plan on sleeping in tomorrow? It doesn't matter if I plan on it... it won't happen.

Are you jealous of someone right now? My sister Katie's fantastic life... :) But seriously, I don't think so.

Do you have a piggy bank that’s actually shaped like a pig? Nope... a teddy bear

What’s the last thing you put in your mouth? Coffee...coffee...coffee

What are you suppose to be doing right now? Cleaning... and getting dressed

Have you ever changed clothes in a vehicle? Sure

Could you handle a long distance relationship? I have no idea if I could handle any relationship...

Could you cry right now? if I thought about something sad, or happy, or a Sylvan learning Commercial... I think the answer is yes.

Do you ever think about stuff and start crying? Yep

Are you okay with the life you live? I'm okay... but not fantastically thrilled. I want to be fantastically thrilled with the life I live.

Did you enjoy your day today? Its just beginning... but so far... I'd give it a B

Do you have a Tattoo? no

Would you ever get any piercings on your body, other than your ear? no

Did your last kiss take place on a bed? no

What was the last thing you spent money for? yesterday's breakfast at work

Who was the last person you talked to on the phone? my mom... I'm talking to her right now

Do you call it fall or autumn? fall

Drink wine...and be a tree

2009-09-26T09:17:00.007-12:00

Saturdays, the ones where I get to stay at home and dictate how I spend my time, are when I try to catch up on my reading. And today I was reading The green lantern column on Slate, and there was an article about Beer vs. Wine. Which is actually better for the planet? The columnist was having a dinner party, and wanted to make the least negative impact on the environment.

The differences in use of green house gases were minimal, but ultimately it is better for the environment to drink wine, because it doesn't use as much refrigeration (unless you are my parents, who drink red wine out of the fridge...yuck). But the thing I found interesting about this entire column is that the author is obsessively dedicated to causing the least amount of personal damage to the planet. Its an honorable endeavor, to be sure, but almost absurd to think that one person can do so much to ruin things. But individually, we do a lot of damage to the earth... in the US they calculated that a person accumulates 1600 pounds of trash a year. That sucks.

One person can screw a lot of things up. But can one person, like this columnist, really do that much to fix things? I've been thinking about this a lot since my Skeyse told me she has decided what tattoo she wants to get. Personally, I'm not a big tattoo fan--I probably just can't shake my dad's influence on this point-- I don't think that I would ever get one. But Skeyse says she thinks she wants to get one of the Lorax, with the word "unless." I had forgotten this book, except for its famed "truffula trees"-- I always LOVED that word as a kid... truffula. But I went back and read it, and her tattoo idea comes from a quote at the end of the book:

"And all that the Lorax left with me in this mess, was one single word, UNLESS.
UNLESS someone like you cares a whole awful lot,
nothing is going to get better. It's not."

That Theo Geisel was a smart dude.. And the Green Lantern columnist probably really loved The Lorax. --If I could be allowed one tangent thought here: one of my co-workers told me that I looked like a tree-hugger once. Images of "Superstar" instantly came to mind. But I asked him what he meant by that, and he said that I just looked like one. I informed him that I was not, in whole or in a part, nor have I ever been, one to hug trees. But I have planted them. And I recycle.--

But this column as a whole, and Skeyse' idea for her sweet new tatt got me thinking. How much are we supposed to care? And could this lesson about caring for our environment apply to other areas in my life?

And then I remembered... one of the best lessons I ever heard Brad teach. It was also probably one of the first he ever taught me. God wants us to be like a tree. Quick biology lesson for you (my dad would be so proud right now) trees take in carbon dioxide, which is poisonous to humans, and turn it into life-giving oxygen. They are essentially on this earth to give us life. So beautiful. I used to have a favorite tree. It was a sycamore that I planted in our yard in Vevay. Each third-grader was sent home with a sapling, and I was so proud that mine was thriving. My best friend Trisha Allen's dad accidentally ran over hers with the lawn mower. I really did love my tree. It's gone now... the family that moved into our old house took it down a few years ago. Over the years I really haven't gone back to our old town much... but last summer I made it down there...and the yard looked kind of sad without my tree.

If I did my part... and cared enough... if I were not a tree-hugger but the tree itself... what would that look like? If I had to use one word to describe the journey that I'm on right now... it would be searching. I think I'm searching for something to do with my life... for a way to give my life away... in a sense. And I think I am just looking for my way to be a tree... maybe one like my sycamore, which brought so much joy into my small, 8 year-old life.

What would that even look like...?

Plans

2009-09-14T07:58:00.003-12:00

I had a really busy summer. Too many weddings, too many wedding showers, too many plans. And it was a lot of fun, my summer. But it was too much stuff piled into too short a time period. And then August ended, and I breathed a sigh of relief. Because at the end of Sarah and Ross' wedding weekend, I had no plans set until the holidays. It was freeing...I daydreamed at work about the Saturday mornings I would wake up at ten and read a book on the back porch while I ate breakfast. Maybe I'd go to the movies, or go on a walk, or take a nap. My weekends would be free for all of these things. With no plans, I wouldn't have to miss a Sunday at Exodus, and I haven't been this excited about going to church in a long time.

But as it happens with best laid plans, my plan to make no plans is no more. This weekend, Indy Irish Fest with the Blakely's. The next weekend, Joanna is coming down to stay for her nephew's football game. Then we're into October, and Ross and Sarah are finally coming down to stay with me. And before I know it, I'm going to be gearing up for the vacation time I'm taking from work, which will culminate into the Swell Season concert I'm going to see with Tab the first week of November. And then comes the whirlwind of the holidays.

I just want to slow down. Slow things down. Campus Life starts this week, and having that commitment on Wednesday nights always seems to make my week go faster. Which, with my semi-monotonous job, would seem like a blessing. And it is... but if my week goes fast... then all the weeks are going to go fast, and the months and before you know it... it will be freaking New Year's and I will be wondering where '09 went.

I just want it all to slow down. Pause. Stop, even. I just want to sit here for awhile. Just like Hanson sang and I'll paraphrase... let the minutes seem like hours and the hours seem like days.

Just let me slow the eff down for awhile and let me catch my breath.

So yeah, somebody stop me the next time I say "I can't wait," or I try to hurry the day away. Just tell me to shut up and breathe.

Good vs. Evil

2009-09-08T13:05:00.002-12:00

Things that make me happy right now:

- Our new puppy, Daisy. I think I could play frisbee with her forever. She's pretty fantastic.

- Reading the classifieds. Maybe, just maybe, my new job is out there somewhere. I'm hopeful.

- Eating dinner with my roommates.

- Laughing at people who take themselves too seriously, or have completely lost touch with reality, on "reality" tv.

- Wolf Blitzer... Oh, Wolfie, I think we could be best friends... If it weren't for the 38-year age difference and the fact that you are a television personality and I am, well... not.

- Three-day weekends... They are just like college but without the homework. Sleep, read, watch a movie.... stay up late, go to bed... wake up late.... read, watch a movie, nap, stay up late, eat a snack, fall asleep, wake up late... (you get the point)

- Seeing my most favorite and beloved journalism teacher at Marsh on Monday.

- Living in B-town, where there are actually things to do all the time... like watching Katharine Hepburn movies in the park :)

- My little sister living in B-town :) :)

- Pia visiting us from Germany... because she's the most fantastic person on the planet. And she's Amy's drinking twin. I didn't even know drinking twins existed.

- President Obama and his belief that WE ALL DESERVE a better health care system.

- The one tree on West 46 on my way to Spencer that has decided its time to change colors. Fall is coming, folks.

- Football season is starting.

Things that make me want to scream right now:

- People who think a presidential address to America's schoolchildren must be about propaganda and indoctrination.

- After hundreds of dollars, my car makes the most irritating screeching noise when I set off for work at 3 a.m.

- The fact that I have to leave for work at 3 a.m. :(

- Remember what the dentist's needle looked like going toward my mouth this afternoon. EEK.

- Seeing my most favorite and beloved journalism teacher at Marsh on Monday, and having to explain to her how much I've screwed my life up... She didn't agree, of course.

- My three-day weekend has screwed up my very delicate sleep schedule.

Overall, though, I'd say the good things outweigh the bad. Victory for the good.

the ramblings of a Wednesday night when i should be sleeping

2009-09-02T11:25:00.002-12:00

Had our Campus Life core meeting this afternoon. I am soooo excited to hang out with these teenagers. They make me wish that I was a better student leader when I was in high school, and that I was as fun as they are when I was in that life stage. Seriously... they are interesting, and INTERESTED in things that I never concerned myself with when I was their age, i.e. fasting, politics, social justice... I think it is going to be one great year for Campus Life in the OC.

Finally got home from Spencer this evening... and we had BLT's for dinner on the back porch (aka my favorite place in the world). Jimmy brought home the bacon.... Get it? haha I'm so funny. But he really did go to the store and get some. And now I've officially beaten this into the ground.

Do I really want to go to work at 3:30 tomorrow morning? Yeah, I didn't think so either. But I should go... I could use the money to pay for the freaking fillings I have to get next week at the dentist. Is it sad that I thought, just for a moment, that I might just leave the cavities there. But I wouldn't dare skip it, or another cleaning ever again. My hygienist has me completely freaked out about getting gum disease. I've been flossing in the car during one of my breaks from work. Eeek. I should throw that old floss away at some point... Just kidding. Now, my car is dirty, but I promise I'm not that disgusting.

By the way... my parents might be getting another dog... And I have always named our pets. Because I'm the best at it. Lauren and Wes got to name the kitten that found us last summer, and they named him Gandolf the Grey... which would be a good name if we didn't always call him Gandy... I hate that. Mostly though, I call him devil kitty. But Mom's going to look at this dog, and I told her she should name her Veronica Mars, and we could call her V. But she says no way. It broke my heart. The dog already has a name... Daisy. I told her we couldn't keep it as it is because that is the name of my car, it has a theme song and everything. Yes, I know I'm being ridiculous and a control freak, and Kelli reminded me that I don't technically live with my parents anymore... so my opinion really doesn't matter anyway...

But I want to name our new dog Veronica Mars... She would be the best dog ever.

And we all shine on...

2009-08-29T08:39:00.004-12:00

I love my back porch. I'm going to move out here and sleep on my grandma's glider and never leave. Do you think Kelli will bring me my meals, magazines and books to read and go to work as me so that I don't lose my job? No? Oh well, I will just have to enjoy the time that I do have out here. I'm trying to listen to a Quickmix on Pandora, and I will just say that today, its a little disappointing. But wait... The Kinks just came on... I take back what I said about you, Pandora.

Last night I drove practically to Frankfort (home of the hotdogs and my newspaper friend Austan Kas) to pick up Michelle. And on the way up there I finally finished listening to all of the songs on my ipod. Is it sad that I felt pretty accomplished about this. Also, I have a lot of crap on there, like "Love Lifts Us Up Where We Belong," that I don't ever remember downloading. I think that my red ipod has a mind of its own, and a tendency toward sappy 80's songs.

But I picked Shelle up at a gas station and got to see Sam for five seconds (I heart Sam) before we drove back to Spencer. Fun, fun. Actually, it was a pretty good night because I got to meet Barb's GIGANTIC pumpkins. And she made Robbie and I some hummus that was amazing. It was my lunch today. And probably tomorrow, and the next day. And now, I can make my own hummus.

Plus, Barb, who said she wants to be referred to as "the quirky Dentist," gave me a beautiful gourd and I am going to try to learn how to make it into a birdhouse. We'll see. Robbie has one too and we are going to have a craft time I guess, even though my craft year is well over.

Ooh, John Lennon is on. I will finish out with his genius....

Instant karma's gonna get you
Gonna knock you off your feet
Better recognize your brothers
Everyone you meet
Why in the world are we here
Surely not to live in pain and fear
Why on earth are you there
When you're everywhere
Come and get your share

And we all shine on... :)

Sick and tired

2009-08-25T06:59:00.002-12:00

So lately I'm starting to become dissatisfied with my life. I promise that this is a healthy thing. Because my life right now is not how I ever thought it would turn out. It is not even a proper reflection of me, or at least who I want to be.

I'm not really talking about my job. Although, yes, I would love to find something to do with my life that I care about... if anyone would like to hire me to work for them... I'm ready and willing to get out of Boston... And I'm not talking about relationships really, either. I have good people--fantastic people-- in my life. They have sort of surrounded me in a protective bubble while I've found my way out the mess I made for myself the past year. They cover me with prayer and give me healthy doses of advice and reassurance that if I am a screw-up, it is a completely normal thing.

What worries me about my life right now is how little I'm giving. There are people in my life who end up getting neglected because I'm sooo needy right now. And I'm not used to being the needy one, I usually have the bare essential crap together in my life. And maybe they don't feel that way, like I don't care anymore, but they probably do. I have a contact list on my phone full of people I need to be catching up with, but I call the same 4-5 people when I have a few moments to chat. I used to call my mamaw at least once every few weeks, and I haven't spoken to her in months. I suck. I used to think that that is just how it goes. You move away... get a new job... make a life-transition and just sort of transition friends at the same time. But that just seems like laziness to me, and carelessness.

I'm sick of my day revolving around me. My life, my needs, my interests, my stomach, my aches and pains, my anxiety, my sadness, my sense of humor... Its all about me and I have a hard time stomaching myself because of it.

I need to revolve around life, not the other way around.

Goodbye, Maddie

2009-08-23T13:02:00.003-12:00

Dear Maddie

We had to put you to sleep yesterday. You had stomach cancer, which is really sad. But I just wanted to take a few minutes to tell you how great of a dog you were. You were the best dog.

We got you at the fair. I was riding the ferris wheel with Amy, and I looked down and Mom and Lauren were at the bottom, and they told me we were going to take home a puppy. I named you, you know. Madeline, after the Hanson song. Now that sounds kind of lame, but I was twelve at the time so that is okay. And you were so tiny and the first night we laid on the floor with you watching a movie, and you let us pet you forever. We got you a collar with a black and white polka dot bow on it. And we tried to walk you down our hilly sidewalk but you never really liked being on a leash.

You loved to play with your ball, and you loved to try to fit two of your toys in your mouth at the same time. You were so smart too, Maddie. I don't care what people say about dogs, I know that you always understood everything that I said to you. Which made it even more annoying when you disobeyed. But you always apologized when you were bad... you'd come in the house and slink away with your ears down. It was kind of hard to stay mad at you.

I missed you so much when I went away to college, but I tried to scratch your belly a lot to make up for the days I wasn't at home. Thanks for always getting so excited when I came in the front door. It really made me feel special.

We buried you next to your best friend Luke. I hope you like it there. When I sit in the armchair of Mom's living room, I can look out the back door and see where Dad put you. And it is going to make me sad for a long time. But mostly thankful that we had you for eleven great years. Thanks for being such a huge part of our family.

You were a really great dog. The best. I love you, Maddie.

Goodbye.

Don't You Forget About Me

2009-08-10T09:11:00.004-12:00

Dear Mr. Vernon, we accept the fact that we had to sacrifice a whole Saturday in detention for whatever it was we did wrong. But we think you're crazy to make an essay telling you who we think we are. You see us as you want to see us... In the simplest terms, in the most convenient definitions. But what we found out is that each one of us is a brain...and an athlete ...and a basket case...a princess... and a criminal...

Does that answer your question?...

Sincerely yours,
the Breakfast Club.

John Hughes... this meant so much to me in high school.

My Brothers&Sisters Life

2009-08-09T12:34:00.001-12:00

Have you ever seen the show Brothers&Sisters? Well, is amazing. Its about a family that has three brothers and two sisters, and none of them can keep their mouths shut. They always say that they will keep a secret but they never do. And someone gets drunk and tells the person with the secret that everyone knows their secret and a big fight happens.

I love that show. But also, my friends are kind of like that family. :)

The Book ListShare

2009-08-05T11:58:00.002-12:00

The BBC believes most people will have read only 6 of the 100 books here. How do your reading habits stack up?

Instructions: Copy this into your NOTES. Look at the list and put an 'x' after those you have read. Tag other book nerds.

1 Pride and Prejudice - X
2 The Lord of the Rings -
3 Jane Eyre - Charlotte Bronte - X
4 Harry Potter series - JK Rowling - X
5 To Kill a Mockingbird - Harper Lee - X
6 The Bible -- X
7 Wuthering Heights - Emily Bronte - X
8 Nineteen Eighty Four - George Orwell -
9 His Dark Materials - Philip Pullman -
10 Great Expectations - Charles Dickens -
11 Little Women - Louisa M Alcott - X
12 Tess of the D’Urbervilles - Thomas Hardy
13 Catch 22 - Joseph Heller-
14 Complete Works of Shakespeare-
15 Rebecca - Daphne Du Maurier -
16 The Hobbit - JRR Tolkien -
17 Birdsong - Sebastian Faulk
18 Catcher in the Rye - JD Salinger -
19 The Time Traveler’s Wife - Audrey Niffenegger- X (disclaimer: I'm halfway through it, reading it now)
20 Middlemarch - George Eliot
21 Gone With The Wind - Margaret Mitchell-
22 The Great Gatsby - F Scott Fitzgerald - X
23 Bleak House - Charles Dickens
24 War and Peace - Leo Tolstoy -
25 The Hitch Hiker’s Guide to the Galaxy - Douglas Adams-
27 Crime and Punishment - Fyodor Dostoyevsky -
28 Grapes of Wrath - John Steinbeck -
29 Alice in Wonderland - Lewis Carroll -X
30 The Wind in the Willows - Kenneth Grahame -X
32 David Copperfield - Charles Dickens -
33 Chronicles of Narnia - CS Lewis - X
34 Emma - Jane Austen -X
35 Persuasion - Jane Austen -X
36 The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe - CS Lewis - X
37 The Kite Runner - Khaled Hosseini-X
38 Captain Corelli’s Mandolin - Louis De Bernieres-
39 Memoirs of a Geisha - Arthur Golden-
40 Winnie the Pooh - AA Milne -X
41 Animal Farm - George Orwell - X
42 The Da Vinci Code - Dan Brown-
43 One Hundred Years of Solitude - Gabriel Garcia Marquez -
44 A Prayer for Owen Meaney - John Irving-
45 The Woman in White - Wilkie Collins -
46 Anne of Green Gables - LM Montgomery - X
47 Far From The Madding Crowd - Thomas Hardy -
48 The Handmaid’s Tale - Margaret Atwood-
49 Lord of the Flies - William Golding -
50 Atonement - Ian McEwan- X
51 Life of Pi - Yann Martel -
52 Dune - Frank Herbert -
53 Cold Comfort Farm - Stella Gibbons
54 Sense and Sensibility - Jane Austen - X
55 A Suitable Boy - Vikram Seth-
56 The Shadow of the Wind - Carlos Ruiz Zafon-
57 A Tale Of Two Cities - Charles Dickens -
58 Brave New World - Aldous Huxley -
59 The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night - Mark Haddon-
60 Love In The Time Of Cholera - Gabriel Garcia Marquez-
61 Of Mice and Men - John Steinbeck- X
62 Lolita - Vladimir Nabokov -
63 The Secret History - Donna Tartt-
64 The Lovely Bones - Alice Sebold -
65 Count of Monte Cristo - Alexandre Dumas-
66 On The Road - Jack Kerouac-
67 Jude the Obscure - Thomas Hardy -
68 Bridget Jones’s Diary - Helen Fielding- X
69 Midnight’s Children - Salman Rushdie
70 Moby Dick - Herman Melville -
71 Oliver Twist - Charles Dickens -
72 Dracula - Bram Stoker -
73 The Secret Garden - Frances Hodgson Burnett-
74 Notes From A Small Island - Bill Bryson
75 Ulysses - James Joyce -
76 The Inferno – Dante -
77 Swallows and Amazons - Arthur Ransome -
78 Germinal - Emile Zola
79 Vanity Fair - William Makepeace Thackeray
80 Possession - AS Byatt -
81 A Christmas Carol - Charles Dickens - X
82 Cloud Atlas - David Mitchell-
83 The Color Purple - Alice Walker-
84 The Remains of the Day - Kazuo Ishiguro -
85 Madame Bovary - Gustave Flaubert -
86 A Fine Balance - Rohinton Mistry-
87 Charlotte’s Web - EB White - X
88 The Five People You Meet In Heaven - Mitch Albom- X
89 Adventures of Sherlock Holmes - Sir Arthur Conan Doyle -
90 The Faraway Tree Collection - Enid Blyton
91 Heart of Darkness - Joseph Conrad -
92 The Little Prince - Antoine De Saint-Exupery-
93 The Wasp Factory - Iain Bank
94 Watership Down - Richard Adams -
95 A Confederacy of Dunces - John Kennedy Toole-
96 A Town Like Alice - Nevil Shute
97 The Three Musketeers - Alexandre Dumas-
98 Hamlet - William Shakespeare -
99 Charlie and the Chocolate Factory - X
100 Les Miserables — Victor Hugo - X

My score is... 28

Is it possible to be this pathetic?

2009-07-28T08:17:00.003-12:00

What happens when you are the only single (woman? girl? lady? can't figure out the appropriate noun) in a department full of bored women? Death by embarrassment, that's what. Yeah today... my colleagues picked out my new boyfriend for me (a man can only walk in front of them so many times before they can't help themselves, they pounce) ... gave him the third degree ("what size SHOE do you wear?") and forced him to write down his phone number for me... then gave him mine. I'm an idiot, an IDIOT for giving any one of them my phone number.

I don't think I have stopped blushing all day. I haven't been this mortified ever... unless you count the time I earned the nickname Peabody at church camp.

But the thing is, these women (sort of) have good intentions. They really do love me, and want to see me happy. I am just not sure that they know me well enough to understand the kind of things that make me happy.

But I guess it was a good, and very bold shot.

Saturdays nights...

2009-07-18T11:24:00.002-12:00

Today was a good day. I got up and had breakfast and got to talk Kelli for awhile. She and Jimmy are leaving for a week. The house is so very quiet when they are gone. Its kind of like living alone again.

I cannot believe the weather. I got to wear one of my scarves today. My mom calls them my security blanket because in the fall and winter I barely went without one. But I just love them, they are warm and cuddly and perfect. I decided I didn't want to sit around the house all day. I went to Chipotle, got a burrito and headed to the movies. Saw 'Away We Go' and loved it. Dave Eggers is amazing, really. And it just made me feel... so many things really. It was a laugh-through-your-tears film, at least for me it was. I went to Ezra's third birthday party, and he was sooooo excited. He got a tricycle, a new twin bed and an Elmo cake. For my third birthday, my cake was shaped like a panda bear. It was beautiful and the best I ever had. I came home from the party a little while ago, and now I am waiting to go out with some friends. I love Bloomington in the summer, because there are so many places to go hang out but you don't have to worry about all of the students.

So if you think about it... I had a pretty spectacular Saturday, and its not even over yet. But all day I have just been feeling kind of off. When I was driving to Gosport, I just started thinking about all the things in my life that are just lacking. But I don't have the motivation to do anything about these things, and if I did, I'm not even sure how I could fix it.

I kind of opened up to one of my co-workers the other day about the scary/dark part of my life. I've been not feeling great lately... I've had a lot of down days, and my parents have noticed. And that makes me feel so guilty because they worry about me so much and I know that they are trying so hard to be there for me and be patient and let me find my own way out of this. Well, my co-worker said that he's not surprised at all that I deal with this stuff. Which surprised me, because I feel like the only people who should be able to notice are those who can see that I'm not really myself.

"Sarah," he said, "It is not uncommon for brilliant, creative people such as yourself to deal with depression and other demons. The smarter you are, the more you feel how shitty this world really is."

I don't even know what to think about that.

Am I a loner?

2009-07-12T08:06:00.002-12:00

I think I had an anxiety attack yesterday.Who am I kidding? I definitely had one. My heart started racing and I couldn't breathe. I was sitting at my grandparents' house... there were six of us there in a confined space and everyone was talking and talking, and asking stupid questions and it got to be too much. Too much for me to handle. I couldn't find an empty room so I went into the garage and calmed myself down. Afterward though, it was like I was on edge. I love my family, and I love visiting my grandparents and going to my cousin's wedding that evening was sort of fun. I just feel like sometimes I cannot handle being around other people... at least people I care about... I don't want them to think I am annoyed with them or don't like them. I think that is why I'm always fine at work, because ultimately I feel free to be myself there. When I'm annoyed with someone or I don't want to talk anymore, I just do what I want, which is retreat back into my own little world.

Lately I just want to be by myself. I have stopped making phone calls and talking to friends I usually speak with every day. I have been turning my phone of more and more, too. i just feel like i need space or something. I don't really know why.

Sorry if you feel like I haven't been there for you... I can't help it right now. Maybe I am a loner.

Holiday in the sun

2009-06-19T07:31:00.003-12:00

Woke up kinda early this morning. Well, early is relative I guess. It was 8:30, but yesterday I got up at 3:30... so I guess you could say I got to sleep in today. Off for the fourth of July holiday. I have to admit I'm not the most patriotic of persons, but I do like this weekend. Just because it gives people the chance to slow down and enjoy summer for a little bit. When we were kids, everyday got to be about this. The sun, the water, the bicycles, the playgrounds, the beach... the friendships. Now we just work and squeeze the fun in somehow. Fun usually replaces sleep for me. Not healthy.

Tuesday night I saw Mat Kearney at the Bluebird. So many people crammed into that very tiny venue. He was magical, though. He played all of my favorites from his new album, which I has been in a constant rotation in my car on my way to work and back. Can't get enough of it or the new Snow Patrol cd. The new Mrs. Morgan came to the show with me and we had so much fun enjoying the music and laughing at the stupid people who kept getting in our way.

This morning I woke up and turned on Pollyanna, which is an old movie starring Haylie Mills. And I have this problem when I watch these dramatic movies, because I always want it to stay happy. Pollyanna is climbing that tree to sneak back into her bedroom, and I know she's going to fall. But at the same time, all I'm thinking is... "I don't want her to fall." Like I don't already know that everything is going to turn out okay. I want the happiness without the uphill battle, I want it all to be alright all of the time.

You know the movie is just a metaphor for my life... right?

Feel like screaming

2009-05-21T11:38:00.001-12:00

The middle

2009-05-07T09:00:00.006-12:00

I have started to feel like young adulthood is not unlike adolescence... let's think about this for a second. It is still just a series of stepping stones. College graduation... first full-time job...Wedding...kids...first credit card bill...first trip abroad... all these firsts and the changes they bring to our lives. Is life really a checklist of things I need to? If that were true, mine would look like everyone else', wouldn't it?

What if my life right now... living in this house, not doing anything related to journalism, working in a factory... is just a stopgap... something I hastily put together so that I could survive. Everything did fall into place so quickly once I figured out all the things I lined up for myself were things that were terrible for me, i.e. living alone, grad school, trying to become some accomplished reporter. Looking back on the entire year of 2008, it was like months of slowly sliding into a place where I didn't recognize myself anymore... the thoughts and emotions I had weren't like me, and they were dark and irrational and really scared me sometimes. But the end of the year came when I could not stand myself anymore, and I got desperate, so much so that I literally had to remove myself out of the life I thought I wanted and had worked hard to create. And I feel better and completely blessed where I am now, to be making money doing something useful where I am appreciated and I feel like I am doing something that helps others in an immediate way.

And, day-to-day, I'm a very happy person. I think that is all that I can really be asking for, isn't it? A lot of my good days come from getting to work with kids and doing ministry in the only way that ever made sense to me... and I'm so incredibly grateful that these amazing students have let me get to know them.

My biggest struggles lately have been feelings of inadequacy... which isn't something that I've ever shaken really, even at times where I accomplished great things. I know that there are people in my life who love me, they truly care, but they think that right now I'm wasting my life. I'm not living up to my potential, and I could be doing more. And I know that I have felt that way about my friends and family so many times... especially girls I knew from high school and college. And I had some grandiose dreams when I was younger, and I have no doubt that I could have reached a little higher to get actually get to some of them.

Today was Mother's Day... and i got up early and made pancakes for my family before my parents went to church. It was gorgeous outside and I had so much energy that after I cleaned the kitchen I went for a walk. I ended up all the way across town, at the cemetery. I don't know about you, but cemeteries really used to freak me out, but this one was really pretty and hilly and I ended up sitting for awhile on a cement bench that was on a hill overlooking all of it. And I don't say this often, and I really haven't been able to say it in a while, but while I was there I had a pretty profound meeting with God. I was just looking at all of the headstones below me and they all looked the same. They all sat in a line and created this windy, circular pattern in the grass. And they were all the same. But they weren't really, because each one of them represented a valuable life that was lived. For each grave, someone was born, lived a life--no matter how short--and then died.

And I felt like God was there in this. Like he was telling me that we can't do much to deviate from the beginning or ending of our lives. He knew exactly what i was going to be born into, and he knows how I'm going to leave this world and there is not much control I get over any of that. And I think we do get angry with God about death. A lot of times for us it comes like a thief in the night, and turns our comfort levels and our sense of security as the rulers of our world completely upside down. And it really hurts to live without the people we love. There is a part of me that aches for my grandma sometimes, because when she died it felt like my entire childhood was buried with her. And God, who both creates and destroys, who births and lays to rest, is in charge of our beginning and end. But I think what he was trying to tell me today in the cemetery was that he gives us license to do with the middle what we will. It is my life, and my responsibility when I do great things that honor him just as much as I'm responsible when i screw everything up. Our life is really his gift to us, the freedom to figure things out for ourselves.

There were hundreds of lives laid to rest in this cemetery, but not one was lived exactly like any of the others. We are all the same, but unique in our thoughts, emotions and decisions. So life is not a checklist...we are not on a conveyor belt. I'm free to take or leave any rite of passage I come to. The middle... our lives... are for trial and error, and freedom to love and live as we choose. How i'm living my life now, even if it is in error, could never be a waste.

ABC's...

2009-05-01T08:03:00.003-12:00

You've been tagged. You are supposed to write a note with the ABC's of YOU. At the end, choose 26 people to be tagged. You have to tag me so really you just need 25 more people. If I tagged you, it's because I want to know more about you - but not in a creepy stalker kind of way.(To do this, go to “notes” under tabs on your profile page, paste these instructions in the body of the note, type your ABC's of Me, tag 26 people (in the right hand corner of the app) then click publish.)

A - Age: 23 in a week and a half
B - Bed size: twin, I'm still a kid
C - Chore you hate: Cleaning the top of the stove
D - Dog's name: Maddie
E - Essential start-your-day item: caffeine in any form
F - Favorite color: green
G - Gold or silver: silver
H - Height: 5' 7 1/2"
I - Instruments you play: the kazoo.... the recorder?
J - Job title: Product Builder
K - Kids - None
L - Living arrangements: Three-bedroom condo with three roommates
M - Mom's name: Barbara
N - Nicknames: Goody, Sgoddard
O - Overnight hospital stay: When I was born?
P - Pet Peeve: Condescension
Q - Quote from a movie: "When we go to Morroco, I think we should take completely different names and be completely different people." - Almost Famous
R – Right- or left-handed: Right
S - Siblings: 2 Sisters, Katie, 25 and Lauren, 19
T - Time you wake up: Most days, 3 a.m.
U- Underwear: Yes... the boring kind.
V - Vegetable you dislike: I don't really like Fennel
W - Ways you run late: Getting caught up watching something on tv
X - X-rays you've had: teeth, left index finger
Y - Yummy food you make: cheesy chicken crescents
Z - Zoo favorite: Dolphins, polar bears

Clearing the air

2009-04-18T07:27:00.005-12:00

I love the fall, the crispness in the air and the colors. But right now, laying outside and smelling this spring afternoon, the grass and flowers and warmth, it seems like nothing could top this.

Since I started my 40-50 Hour job that has me waking and sleeping at funny hours, I haven't had a lot of down time. Last Friday we had a paid holdiay for Good Friday, and I will tell you one thing, I had no idea what to do with myself. I slept in... but then I cleaned, and baked and dyed Easter Eggs. That is how lost I was, I was an adult dying easter eggs by myself. i don't know how to sit on the couch all day. movie and television marathons... i haven't watch seasons 1-3 of veronica mars since I was depressed and only left my apartment when I hated myself so much I wanted to eat double cheeseburgers (the entire months of October and November, I lived off Steak N' Shake, Wendy's and Rally's... YUCK

But the question is this... what do you do with your life if you don't want to be a lazy, depressed sack? I started to read a book, but that feels like something foreign to me right now, I just can't focus on anything. I have been reading a lot of magazines and online articles, but I haven't read a book since I stopped going to school. That, to me, is a very sad fact. I'll get there though.

You know the phrase, "You just need to get this off of your chest." Well, words have never rang truer for me lately. I have sort of started to regret my last post, and i appreciate all the kind words that I have gotten about it, but I'm glad I did it because it might have been the kick I needed to get over my issue (which isn't a guy, I promise, it's about something a little bigger and dearer to my heart). It's not fixed, but I think I'm at a place where I don't need to be. The air is clear, I'm not feeling constantly stifled anymore like I have something to hide... Breathing in deeply the air of openness and a clear conscience.

I hope, if anyone is still listening, that you are blessed today.

Disappointment and harsh words that need to be said without an audience

2009-04-14T07:10:00.005-12:00

I'm sick of being sad because I don't feel like writing. If I stopped doing everything I didn't feel like doing, I would lay in bed all day, for all the days. It's been that bad, really.

Right now, I'm going to take some space to vent to someone I can't speak to personally. Well, I could speak with them, but I'm not going to...

I know that I set a higher standard for you, and that I have a habit of being more forgiving to total strangers than to the people in my life. But you let me down. All of us really. People who are a part of it, who don't really know what has gone on in the last month, you've let them down the most. Because these people trust you, all of you, to be honorable...men of your word. Your attitudes in secret should be your attitudes in public. And you got caught being crappy people, which is your right, but you have placed yourself in a postition of responsibility. You are responsible for something I cared a lot about. You forfeited your right to act as you wish, to treat people with disregard and unkindess. You have no right.

What is going to take me the longest to get over is how much I got duped into thinking this was all going to be something different. We talk about being different. And we talk. And we talk. And we talk. You know, I can say I have purple hair, I could even go and buy bottle of hair dye. But until I actually do the deed, my hair is still brown, its just a bunch of meaningless and USELESS words. You are all talk and no follow-through. I'm exhausted from thinking about this, and I'm not going to be a part of it anymore. In short, I think we are breaking up, for good.

This doesn't mean that I don't think that you can come out of this mess, if you can see what has been wrong and let God show you how to do things better. Not so that people will stop leaving you, but because that's how we honor God, by doing the right thing in the right way. With courage and honesty and integrity. But I am saying that I'm not going to be there to help us get through it. It's my weakness this time, not yours. I'm not strong enough right now, not patient enough to wait for you to see that I might be right, and I know in the deepest part of me that I cannot be a part of something when I don't believe in the way its being handled, I can't be with you when there's no trust.

That is where i'm having a hard time. Reconciling my call to have unconditional love for you with these feelings of disappointment and resentment. I guess, in truth, I can't stay with you, because I didn't love the real you. I have turned you into something you aren't, I always thought you were something better.

So goodbye, you know who you are. I love you and wish you well, but my life will be better without you in it.

2008-11-22T18:16:00.003-12:00

I wonder what it feels like to write again. What it feels like to WANT to write again.

Life is hard. And I don't mean the tragedies of life. Death, crime, violence, sickness, suffering and hunger. But the everyday. The mundane. The waking and the sleeping. The ruckus and the stillness. It is the day-to-day living that makes me feel like I'm just not going to make it. Make it to what, I'm not sure.

I'm glad I'm not sure anymore. Surety was certainly my downfall.

Life's going on...

2008-05-03T05:47:00.003-12:00

"Our youth is fleeting, old age is just around the bend, and I can't wait to go gray...." -Death Cab For Cute

So, I graduate in two weeks, as long as I can get all of my shit done. And there is A LOT of it. I have procrastinated like no other. But there are some things to look forward to. I'll list a few of them.

-I got into the IU School of Journalism Master's program. I'm starting in the fall and I got an assistantship to help pay for tuition, that's all I know. I'm completely pumped, and really intimidated at the same time.

-My sister is getting MARRIED in August and I'm her maid of honor, which I am completely excited about. She is so happy that I no longer feel like Jo March from Little Women. I guess it's okay that my sisters and I are growing up. Sometimes it is kind of fun.

-I am moving into my own apartment in less than a month. Yesterday, I bought a futon, and felt like a grown-up. But if I had really wanted to be an adult, I would have bought a full-blown couch. A futon is like the teenager of furniture.

-Reading, reading and more reading. I'm totally going to get a Bloomington library card. I love libraries... FREE BOOKS and FREE INTERNET. I have a running list in my head of books I need/want to check out. The first one I'm going to tackle is Les Miserables. I'm studying the French Revolution in my Early Modern Europe class.

Impressions and Loss

2008-04-14T23:40:00.001-12:00

I was the freak, the alien at the table full of pretty faces. Plates of chicken were garnished with things I’d never thought I’d see paired with chicken. Like strawberries. And I was just sitting there, the quiet one for once in my life. Among news editors and other female interns who, amidst these unending minutes of small talk, were chomping at the bit to talk themselves up. Sarah, another intern, was always my ally at events like this. She was the one person in the roomful of strangers who knew me, and just knowing that she cared as little as I did made the afternoon bearable. With Sarah there, sitting at my right-hand side, I didn’t feel like I was selling just myself but this special duo of sorts. “The Sarahs from Huntington,” is what the head of internship program called us.

The pretty girls at my table could all speak Spanish, including Sarah. “The Hispanic population, especially in this state, is really taking off,” said Mayer Maloney, the friendly, yet ever-intimidating publisher of the newspaper where I had spent the last ten weeks trying to prove myself. “What language did you take in school?”

“Well, actually, I took two semesters of Hebrew,” I said, “like the kind in the Bible.”

My tendencies toward a well-rounded, liberal arts education had failed me in this moment. Mr. Maloney nodded like he was unsure of something; the glint I had seen in his eyes as he spoke to the other girls disappeared. Why had no one warned me that someday very important people would ask me which language I studied in college and if it wasn’t Spanish, points would be deducted from my score? What I was actually being scored for, I couldn’t be sure. Probably just the vague hope that one of these men would recognize the name at the top my resume in a year or two when it hit their desk. My future was in their hands, and I‘ve never been comfortable in a situation where I had to sell myself. I just wanted to jump out of my skin, like my own body was poisoned or on fire or both.

I sat stiffly at the table, conscious that any movement I made meant a wrinkle in my brand-new black cotton button-up and gray, knee-length skirt. I had this irrational notion that if I could just make it out of that restaurant without any wrinkles, I could chalk the day up as a success. I had lost all this weight during the summer, almost twenty pounds and I didn’t have any nice clothes that fit me. I’d gone to the mall the night before, and I stood looking at myself in the dressing room mirror. The blouse had two purposes. It worked for my luncheon, but I also knew that I would be wearing it to my grandmother’s funeral, and soon.

I couldn’t get the scene from a few days earlier out of my mind, at least the one I had put together for myself from the fragments of real information I was given. She was on the bed in her tatty sweatshirt and soiled underwear. Her thin, 80-pound frame sprawled across the faded pink comforter trimmed in worn lace. The stroke had left her there for dead. I had never thought about my grandmother changing her clothes before. There really isn‘t anything to think about, I guess. It is an automatic in life, something any capable person can do for themselves. And my grandma, who grew up during the depression and married just after the war, was nothing if not capable. She fed us homemade food even when it was a dying art, and gift-wrapped every present with care, signing each card and tag with “Love, Grandmother”--though not once have we called her anything but “Grandma.” She was old-fashioned, yes, but the most competent woman in existence. Yet, just two days before, she could not manage to clothe herself without having a stroke. My aunt and cousin walked in on her in the early afternoon, half-naked.

Her mind died first. She became a little actress to cover up the memory loss. She pretended, badly, I‘ll admit, to recognize me when I would make a visit. Still, she stayed alone in the farmhouse those seven years after Pop died, which I can only attribute to stubbornness. Grandma’s body began to diminish months before the infamous morning she stroked out.

The day of my internship luncheon, she had been in the hospital for less than a handful of days. My Mom had been several times to visit her. Though Grandma couldn’t speak, her eyes said everything as she laid there. She was ready to be done.

We were finished eating, and it was time for show and tell. It was perhaps more uninteresting than that, like a shortened “What I did over my summer vacation” presentation. It was my turn to stand and tell the room I told the fellow interns and publishers about Grant, the autistic boy-wonder I’d done a feature on. He drew beautiful cartoon animals that his mom printed on greeting cards and baby onesies. For the first time all afternoon--all week, really--I didn’t have to force a smile. It was my last genuine smile for days. I sat down and tried to keep my hands from shaking. As soon as the last intern was finished sharing their story, I excused myself to the bathroom, sneaking my purse under my arm, so that I could check the voicemail I had gotten during lunch. It was my dad. He wanted me to call him back right away. Shit. She was dead and I knew it.

The dessert had come while I was gone, and tried my best to engage in the social ritual. I was smiling and trying my best to be charming, as if it is something one can achieve by sheer concentration. It felt like someone had seared two pieces of string to my face, one on each corner of my mouth, and yanked them as far apart as they could. I couldn’t help but feel like a stage actress-- maybe like my grandmother had felt when I made visits--as I was trying to convince these professionals how happy I was to be at that restaurant with them instead of at the hospital with my mom and frail, dying grandma. How could I be thankful for the me opportunities that had kept me from visiting her the entire summer.

Now I just had to make it through the group picture; then I could head to the parking lot. My suspicion that my grandmother was gone had yet to be confirmed--but there is really only one thing Dad could be calling about, interrupting the most important lunch of my semi-adult life. “I just know he is calling to say she’s dead,” I said to Sarah as we got to my car. My hands are clammy and shaking more than when I had made my presentation back in the banquet room. It was August, but I was so cold. I got my phone out again. My dad answered on the home line right away.

“Well, Grandma died at about 11 this morning,” he said softly, skipping the traditional scripted phone-pleasantries.

“Uh-huh.” The only syllables that I could manage. One tear escaped and made its way to my tight lips, and I felt like the wind had been knocked out of my lungs.

“Take some time before you get in your car,” Dad said. “ Don’t drive until you’re ready, okay?” Sure, Dad. Like I would ever be ready to drive home and face the realities awaiting me there. I said goodbye and hung up.

Sarah stood there with me for a few minutes. She gave a look that attempted sympathy but looked more like awkwardness. I went ahead and got in my car. After she pulled away in hers, I finally let myself go. My Grandma was dead. I cried there in my car, my face in my hands. My blouse and skirt were a wrinkled mess by this point. When I finally looked up, most of the cars in the lot were gone. The members of the press association had probably seen me there, wailing into the steering wheel of my Hyundai Sonata. There was finally a moment of honesty that afternoon, and I didn‘t feel embarrassed. I could only feel sad, and drive.

In my Hebrew courses we learned about something called “Shiva,” the Jewish tradition of intense mourning. For a week, the family of the deceased won’t change their clothes, read scripture, or perform any “normal” activities. They refuse to even sit in chairs, but use special stools so that they will be closer to the ground. And everyday for a year, they say a sacred, scripted prayer for the one they lost. At the time, I had a hard time seeing Shiva as a good thing; I had always respected the idea of putting on a brave face and moving past the sadness in life. Dwelling in loss and mourning felt like a contradiction to that. But now moving forward was the last thing on my mind; I wanted to take up residence in the sadness of my situation.

I got out on the interstate and started the hour and a half drive home. I refused to try to make myself feel better by thinking of the good moments I’d had with Grandma. There would be time later, probably sitting in the funeral parlor with my sisters, to take turns telling Grandma Alice stories. Mine was how she always ordered her favorite sandwich, a BLT, whenever we would play restaurant with a set of small, plastic dishes filled with empty thread spools we used for food. I knew when I got home I would have a lot to do, especially since my mother and big sister wouldn‘t be there. The funeral was two hours from home, and our pets would need to be fed while we were away. My sister Lauren would need help putting clothes together for the funeral services, then they’d undoubtedly need to be ironed. I couldn’t believe it, but I even had a newspaper article to finish and send to my editor for Sunday’s edition.

I needed my own sort of Shiva, just some time to myself so I could reflect on all that I had lost that afternoon. But I didn‘t have seven days, let alone two hours. The only thing I had was my drive home. I turned my cell phone off, and I got lost on purpose.

How did I get here?

2007-12-10T08:23:00.001-12:00

As of Wednesday afternoon, when my last final is over, I will officially be one semester away from graduation...

That thought makes me want to freak out right now...but I still have to study for my two exams, there is not time for a freak out.

It's just... how did I get here? Really..

When did life get so good?

2007-10-30T09:12:00.000-12:00

The last week here at school has exceeded all of my expectations as far as being at Huntington goes. I mean, exceptionally good things have been happening to me.

Two weeks ago we had a chapel speaker worth listening to. First of all, he was a journalist, so I was pretty much interested right off the bat. But he came to talk about racial reconciliation and it was so, so good. At first, I was almost resentful of him coming. Whenever someone comes to my predominantly white, upper-middle-class college to talk about racism, I suspect the school invited him/her out of obligation. And even then, it is to puff us up about how far our actions and attitudes have come. "Look at me, my great-great whatever used to own slaves, and now we let minorities come to our school, sit in our churches, become fully integrated into our society..." But this particular speaker didn't come to make us feel good about our non-racist habits, but he shed some major light on how in our minds, integration really means assimilation. I loved how uncomfortable some his statements made me. I was second-guessing my own attitudes about minorities... It was so refreshing to be challenged in such a tangible way.

And then, that same week, we got word that last year's Huntingtonian placed first in its division in the best overall newspaper competition at the Baptist Press student journalism conference. I love affirmation... I'm pretty sure that it is my love language. Kind, encouraging words stick with me for a long time. And when they are accompanied by a trophy, I feel pretty good about myself, and my capabilities as an editor, and a journalist. Yay... the number of sleepless nights and members of administration that I alienated myself from were not in vain. So exciting.

And then this weekend, I got together with an amazing friend. I hadn't seen him in five years, but we've talked off and on throughout that time. It was just so good to get to talk for an extended period, and to get rid of all the awkwardness. We had such a good time walking down Massachusetts Ave. and getting pizza, then Starbucks. He's had a pretty rough year, and it's nice to see him doing so well finally. And I forgot how much we had in common, esp. when it comes to music... we walked into this store that had a lot of vinyl and it was fun thumbing through them and throwing band names back and forth, and just kind of remembering why we became friends in the first place. We've kind of been through a lot and it is just... refreshing to feel like I really have a friend again in my life.

That got a little mushy up there... I'm done now and must return to studying communication theory...

Some Tidbits...

2007-10-21T10:02:00.000-12:00

There have been no monumental happenings in my life, but quite a few small, insignificant ones. Here's what I can think of.

Made it to and through midterms, and got to enjoy fall break with the family. Also watched every episode of The Office, I was pretty ambitious.

My friend Kristi is a new mom, and her son is beautiful. Christopher Raymond Sluka was born October 6. I can't believe how much faster she is growing up than I am...

I have really stupid neighbors. Big, tall, dumb jocks that cycle through the girls on this campus. I'd hate it if they weren't so fun to laugh at.

Saw "Across the Universe" and loved it. There are also about eight movies coming out before Christmas that I can't wait to see. And the Huntington 7 only charges $3 for students now, which is amazing, and means I can see all of them.

I'm reading "Atonement" right now, and its amazing.

My new goal is to finish all of my grad school applications, including getting my letters of recommendation turned in, before New Year's.

I think that's about it for my small, small life. I like it though. Big, life-changing events may come later. But for now I'll just breathe, and rest and enjoy. Later.

a quickie

2007-09-27T11:55:00.001-12:00

Just a quick update... I'm taking a break from writing a speech. I go tomorrow, I hate public speaking...

I passed the GRE... that is, I got a high enough score on my verbal that I won't have to retake it, it should be a good enough score to get me in to grad school SOMEWHERE.

Where?, you ask. Hell if I know.

GRE madness

2007-09-20T03:47:00.000-12:00

Okay, so I am locked out of my apartment right now. It was a rushed morning, so now I'm stuck in the computer lab ABSOLUTELY STARVING to death and have nothing to do... so I thought I'd blog. Not that there's much to talk about. The first issue of the newspaper came out today and I think it looks horrendous. I did my best... but I am not a graphic designer. I'm not fit to shine the shoes of a graphic designer... I'm not exaggerating on how bad I really am. Someone, please take that miserable job away from me.

I take the GRE on Saturday... and I am regretting this whole "take it early and get it over with" attitude I had this summer which led me to sign up for the test in FREAKING Sept... when I don't have to have my scores until January at the latest. I'm stupid. So stupid that I'm sure I will FAIL this test and be forced to pay another $140 for ETS to tell me how dumb I am and how much I do not deserve to go to grad school. Though that is all I can think about really, going to grad school... and maybe even moving to Denver to do it.

So I'm a little cranky. I blame the starvation thing. I really had my heart on the leftovers in the fridge. I made these bitchin' cheese and spinach enchiladas last night. It was the first time I'd ever made them and they were fantastic... the recipe, not necessarily my culinary skills. Who am I kidding?... men should be lining up for a chance to date me and eat my cooking. I'm that great.

So now, I'm going to rant a little bit more about the totalitarian system that is standardized testing in America. I am not a standardized person. I believe I'm pretty competent with the English language... but I cannot be expected to know the meaning of jocund or pulchritude or circumlocutory... which, as it happens, I do now. My entire academic career has been centered around learning to write for a 7th grade reading level - its what journalists do. Get the message across in a the simplest way possible. If something is beautiful... I would never say it had pulchritude, and if a person is beating around the bush, I wouldn't call it circumlocutory. Those words are stupid... STUPID. And I hate that I have spent countless hours studying useless words so I can get a high score on a STANDARDIZED test... the root of all that is evil in this world.

I'm going to study some more though, because as much as I want to blow all of this off, I really want to keep studying communication... if that means I have to turn myself into an awesome standardized test taker, then well, just call me STANDARD, devoid of any creativity and uniqueness... run-of-the-mill, the same as everyone else.. I'm making these definitions up, which by the way... has its OWN FREAKING vocab word... Neologism.

I'm sick, and a sell-out. Sorry this post has been a little frantic, but I'm riding high on caffeine and ranting usually makes me feel better.

Songs that say goodbye

2007-09-11T16:14:00.000-12:00

Lately I've been dealing a lot with loss. We lost my grandma in early August. Her funeral was August 6, the exact date her husband, my Pop, died seven years before.It's also the date I was baptized when I was nine. I don't know why that means so much to me, it just all seems like it fits together somehow. When Pop left us, I felt at peace about it. I just kind of mulled through it. His body just went out on him, and I was okay with that. And we still had Grandma, with her dog and huge, ancient farmhouse and property we used to explore. When she died it felt like my entire childhood was gone, too. I ache for it, still. She was absolutely, 100 percent ready to leave this world, but I wasn't ready to let go of mine with her in it.

I did cry a lot at the funeral, but I think it was mostly for my family. We were all a little bit wrecked, and I was crying a lot in response to their emotion. I didn't really feel the sorrow for myself. But the next Sunday I was back at church, I completely lost it, in the middle of worship. The song was "Blessed Be Your Name" - which was a song that meant a lot to me when my cousin Ben died freshman year - and I lost control of myself. They were full-blown sobs. My parents just held me for awhile, and I know I made my mom cry. And she's a lot of the reason I think its been so hard... my mom is an orphan now. Both of her parents are gone.

But I had a ton of distraction, and the grief got swallowed up for a month while I went to Denver and moved back to school. Not a lot of my friends at school knew it had happened so it wasn't brought up. Then, last Tuesday, September 6, the first song of our chapel session was "Amazing Grace." It played at her funeral, and like a revelation, I realized how long she'd been gone. I sat down in the dark auditorium and sobbed, uncontrollably. I was so loud, and I couldn't help it. Breathing became a secondary action. I can't imagine what the people around me were thinking... but Sarah sat next to me and when I could breathe again, I told her what made me react.

Death sucks. Cruel, needless death is even worse. And on Sept. 11, you can think of almost nothing else. I tried to stay away from the news at first. But tonight in my film studies class we watched United 93. I never wanted to watch this movie, because I know how I react to things like this. My head hurt so bad by the end of it, I was trying so hard not to cry out loud. But I'm not sorry that I watched it. Because you cannot hide from the stuff that sucks, even when it is six years old, especially because it feels as fresh as if it had occurred yesterday.

My great-uncle died on Thursday, my mamaw's brother. My great-aunt, my grandma's youngest sister who is really close to our family because she doesn't have any immediate relatives, is dying of pancreatic cancer, doctors say she has mere months to live. And it sucks. I feel like everyone in my family who is over 60 is going to leave me. But I don't have to feel like this, this heavy, uncontrollable feeling crushing my lungs. Jesus is here. In good and bad, to deal with this crap right along with me. He's here to bear the burdens so I don't have to be sad forever. He beat all of this... the sickness and the death and the sorrow and the hatred and the violence, all things that lead to loss and misery.

It's not un-Christian to be sad. But Jesus is about hope, and I have hope that God's going to bring the good into my life, right alongside the bad. Its why I can smile though there are tears welling up in my eyes. Hope.

These words are heavy on my mind
like songs that say goodbye
like songs that say goodbye - Schuyler Fisk

Let's pack our things and head out west...

2007-09-05T08:09:00.000-12:00

If you had no obligations, no one tying you down, where would you go and what would you do? Me,I'd move to Colorado and study journalism and mass communication, which incidentally has become my new dream. Why Colorado, you ask? Oh, there are plenty of reasons that I could write about here, but I think I'll just illustrate them for you...let the pictures explain for me.

Getting settled in a new (yet familiar) place

2007-08-25T14:50:00.000-12:00

I'm back at school. This time, I'm in an on-campus apartment. The beauty about these apartments is that I don't have to commute, and at the same time I no longer have to participate, or am even be solicited to participate in so-called "residence life." Like floor activities, I.E. pumpkin carving, scavenger hunts, Oscar parties, and open dorm hours.

And we have our own cable television. With free On Demand movies. You might think this is superficial, but when I spend 4-5 hours in classes a day, then 4-5 hours doing schoolwork, as well as studying for the GRE I'm taking in a month... mindless, really bad television is necessary for my sanity. Last night I watched The N and the Disney channel. Today, I watched three episodes of Inferno 3 and the Hills. I'm preparing myself for what's to come. And I also get to watch as much CNN and MSNBC as I want. Which is amazing in itself.

Right now I'm sitting at my new desk with a cup of tea. I really like this feeling. And I thought I had a lot more to write about but I don't right now. When my roommate gets her pictures downloaded, I'll do a post explaining why I'm considering a move to Denver next year. Well, it may be more like dreaming right now, but hopefully soon it will be a consideration.

And now, its time for more mindless television. Everybody's got love a Saturday night.

What you may never have known...and probably never wanted to

2007-08-10T01:21:00.000-12:00

Okay, so I've been tagged, and I'm going to follow through for two reasons: It's my last day of work and I don't have any assignments to work on, I'm just waiting for obits to come in AND Greg tagged me. I like Greg, I owe Greg a lot actually. He had to read the worst screenplay ever (written by me, about HANSON) and he still gave me a good grade. So I will now proceed... here are the rules:

You must write a blog post with ten weird, random things, little-known facts or habits about yourself. At the end, choose at least 5 people to be tagged, list their names and why you picked them. Don’t forget to leave a comment that says “you’ve been tagged” and tell them to read your latest blog.

1. Sometimes, I hope I'll be single the rest of my life.

I think it has to do more with selfishness more than anything else. And a need for personal space and alone-time. I cannot imagine being married, I never even dreamed about my wedding as a little girl. And I'm starting to develop this independent, strong-willed part of myself that doesn't feel like it needs anyone. And when I do need someone, I have my mom, or my friends. Also, as a part of this hope, I think, I have started to forget how to interact with members of the opposite sex. Not, like, in a work environment or anything. But a social one, with guys my own age. Being alone, in the romantic sense of the word, doesn't scare me...and sometimes I think this makes me a freak. But I kind of like being a freak.

2. When I'm alone, in the car or at my house, I sing... really loud and all the time.

When I was younger, I just sang all the time. I was way more outgoing and apparently lived like the world was my stage. Mariah Carey and Amy Grant were my faves to sing back then. At the playground, I made up this game for me and my friends that involved a four corners-like game at the huge sandbox, and it involved singing Boys II Men and All 4 One songs...But then I found that sense of self-consciousness and self-awareness that most do when they grow up, and now I hide my singing, mostly because I can hear myself and wouldn't want anyone else to have to.

3. I have friends that feel more like an obligation than a blessing. They're work.

Who likes to walk on egg shells when they hang out? Or have a running list in your head of things you cannot talk about around a friend? Apparently, I do. These friends are needy, clingy and super-sensitive. All things I am not, really. And we never argue because I work so hard at making it so they never get mad at me. I'll drive home from hanging out with said person(s) and I feel worn out. And these are the same friends who aren't happy until they see that you are happy in the same way they are. Which leads to endless talks about who they want to set me up with. If you don't see a problem with being set up on countless blind dates, see no. 1 above.

4. I have tons of notebooks in my bedroom at home, full of short stories and poetry that I will never read again.

I'll never read them because I know they are complete garbage. They date back to 1995, I think. I made the mistake of opening one once, and it was all rhyme-y and full of bad imagery and very, very naive. But I won't throw them out, either. Because I had to get through the really bad, "I have to say something profound when I write" phase before I could get to this place where I'm comfortable saying the first thing that comes to mind. I don't have to over think it or worry that I don't sound witty or hip. I can just write, and those notebooks remind me of how far I've come.

5. I'm a compulsive sign-reader.

Now, I don't read them aloud, or anything. My little sister does this on road trips. But I cannot drive by, or even walk by, a sign without reading it. And most signs are just crap, really. Elections posters and sign-up sheets and even the odd petition once in a while. But I do catch a gem sometimes, like... ELECT HAROLD "BUD" WEISER FOR TOWN COUNCIL... classic.

6. I can only clean the bathroom when I'm listening to really crappy music.

It has to be Kanye West, Ashlee Simpson, or maybe even a little Avril. It puts me into this euphoric, out-of-body state that makes cleaning a toilet seem a little less repulsive. It might be a mixture of the music with the cleaning chemicals... but when I'm listening to Ashlee screech "I didn't steal your boyfriend," life seems a lot better than it normally does... and it makes me want to scrub tile.

7. I'm not an artsy or a person who is good at crafts. Not creative at all, actually. But I did have a craft year.

It was 2005-06, the year I turned 20. I learned how to crochet, knit and cross-stich. I even made a purse as a birthday present for a friend on my mom's sewing machine. That Christmas I wrapped all the presents for my mom, and did this over-the-top, beautiful bows for them. I had never been able to curl ribbon before. Everyone laughed when I told them it was my craft year... but it really was. I have the scarves at home to prove it.

8. I want to write a memoir.

I'm thinking it will have to wait until my father is dead, but I'd love to write about being a basketball coach's daughter. There are a lot of stories to tell, and I've kind of started getting some of them down so I won't forget details. But I hate memoirs, really. They are just so trendy right now. But If someone were to chain me to a desk and tell me to write one, this is what it would be about. Living in Indiana, moving from county to county where everyone knows, and openly criticizes your dad.. all in the name of a leather ball and two baskets.

9. I think I want to go to grad school to avoid growing up.

I love studying communication, I really do. But honestly, the biggest appeal to going to grad school right after graduation is that I don't want be have a full-time job yet. I have loved this internship, but there are a lot of things I want to experience before I'm tied to a desk 40 hours a week at a local paper writing about small-town events for small-town audiences. It just isn't what I want for my life right now. I want to be a student a little longer.

10. I really don't think any of the above facts are worth reading, or that interesting.

I think I'm a slave to this attitude that anyone and everyone has a better story than I do. I think that's why I like reporting so much. I get to write and tell people stories, but I never once have to talk about myself. Talking about myself is restricted to this blog, that a total of two (I think) people read. And I'm just fine with that. So, sorry if you read this list, because I wouldn't if I were you.

Now comes this time where I'm supposed to tag people. Here goes...

Anna Pashley - because she's in Switzerland, and I'm unabashedly jealous of her life right now.
Brad Polley - Just because I wanted to annoy him with a blogging game.
Leslie Newton - because she is the first one on my xanga subscriptions...
Beth Hale - the second on my xanga subscription list...
Kristi Sluka - because I miss her...

I've neither the energy nor the motivation to title this post

2007-08-01T04:39:00.000-12:00

I've had a really good summer. Good friends. A lot of really good nights out, and some good ones staying in with my family. I've made leaps and bounds in the pursuit of furthering my career...my clippings notebook is huge, and has some quality articles in it. And today I'm just trying to dwell on that kind of stuff.

Because the alternative is living in the here and now, which, at the moment sucks, for lack of better phraseology.

My 85 year-old grandma had a small stroke yesterday and she's in the hospital. She was also really dehydrated and is in the early stages of pneumonia. She's the tiniest woman in the world anyway. And she lives in this amazing, but really old, farmhouse with no central air. Last week, she refused to go to the doctor to get all of her prescriptions renewed. Its not that she doesn't want to take her medicine, she just hasn't left the house in a really long time and her perspective is all messed up. My mom's there right now, and I can't be. I have too much to wrap up here at the paper...its my last week here and I have to be at the county fair all day tomorrow and out of the office on Friday.

I just want to go home and cry. But I obviously have to get this stuff done today.

Is this what being a grown up is? Coping with a family crisis from behind a computer screen, and in between phone calls to school officials trying to get information for an article due in just a few hours?

I am so completely ready to be back in school.

Peace in a sea of confusion

2007-07-24T06:22:00.001-12:00

I have no idea where I'm going. In my personal life, in my spiritual life, in my professional life... I just don't have a clue. I graduate in May, then who knows?

I have not real attachments or obligations. No loans, no boundaries, really. And that use to excite me. Its one of the biggest reasons I love being single, and my situation in life. But it is also starting to put a lot of pressure on me.

Deadlines for grad school applications are mere months away. Journalism fellowships are the same way (this is a lot of work, I have to make a million photocopies of my articles to make and like 20 portfolios to put together.) Cover letters, application essays, transcripts to request. Not to mention, a scary-hard test called the GRE to study for and take in September. Oh yeah, and CLASSES to take.

Every day like clockwork, outside the window of my office, a tornado siren sounds from the fire department across the street. Why? I have no idea. Why would it ever be necessary to set it off every day... Once a week, still a little excessive... once a month I'd understand. Its just my little annoyance for the day.

Also, I cannot believe how much I've been on the phone lately. Phone interview after phone interview... I kind of hate them because I'm a slow writer... but I can't function as a journalist without them. Being on the phone is wearing on me. I hate leaving voicemail messages. I know, deep down its because I sound like an idiot when I leave a message.

wrote a post last February, and it was somewhat of a confession:

And then I got it. In a way that made me want to lock myself away for fear of all the other hidden agendas I probably have under my belt, hidden so well I'm not even aware of them. I want to be right. I want to win. Not only do I want to be right about God, but I want my opponents--anyone who DARES feel a different kind of certainty about God, anyone with another point of view--to be WRONG. When its time for this world to go by the wayside, I want God to split everyone up into three categories. A wrong group, a right group, and an "I was too busy to care" group. And I want to be in that right group. Right, right, right... I want to be the one who has it all figured out.

Well... I didn't just write a blog, I wrote an entire 4-page essay about it for my senior seminar course. And I think that realizing how I felt had a huge impact on my thoughts and beliefs. But they were still just "My" beliefs. I got some nods, and some "I understands" in my seminar when I read my essay... but not really true affirmation. And I felt a littel weird about the way I felt, frankly...

And then I bought "The Ringing Bell," Derek Webb's new album. It's great, by the way... but in particular, I heard this song...

I Don't Want to Fight

I don't want to be right anymore
I don't want to be good
I don't want to change your mind
Feeling like I do
I don't want to sell graves
Peddle them door to door
A little something to ease your mind
Prepare you for what's in store

Oh I don't want to fight
Brother I'm not joking about peace
We can have it here tonight
It all comes down to you and me

You never asked me to save anyone
not in whole or in part
Like I was some kind of holy ghost
come to change their hearts

Oh I don't want to fight
Brother I'm not joking about peace
We can have it here tonight
It all comes down to you and me

So I'm walking away from this
before I hurt someone
cause I'm facing enemies
from both sides of the gun

Derek Webb is pretty great.

We're not in the movies

I like movies. A lot. Not as much as some...my friend Tabitha has seen and can quote more films than I care to see in my lifetime. She watches a lot of good ones, but she also subjects herself to a lot of crap. I do not object to watching crap, but it has to be the right kind. "Snakes on a Plane" ... good, fun-to-watch crap... "Sleepover" might very well be the best crap film ever made. But she watches crap like "Brave New World."

I'm rambling now... I want to get to my point.

So I hang out with a lot of girls. I have, like two or three guy friends. One is Robbie (gay), Mike (his boyfriend) and Derek (Amy's bf)... so I pretty much don't even think of them as guys. Anyway... not the point...again...

But I am around girls all the time. And I keep running into the same conclusions.

Girls think that real life is like the movies. I know we say this kind of thing a lot. But I truly believe that some girls have completely lost touch of reality.

My friend Jo is the most severe case. I cannot seem to get it across to her that it is lame when a guy says something to her that "sounds like it came from a movie, it was so good," and typically, they probably just ripped it off of a movie, or a handful of movies, you've just never seen. And, to further my point, it is not the great movie one-liners or super-huge gestures that make a relationship work. In fact, I think that if girls are waiting for these things, or a guy is waiting on a girl to give these things to, then there is something just a little off.

Of course movies have these one-liners and huge romantic gestures in them. There is only like 2 hours for the couple to get to their "happily-ever-after." And when you throw in that they have to meet, get together, be torn apart, and get back together again... it is necessary for movie makers to resort to these things to make their movies work.

But its not real, and does a lot of damage when girls think they can live in the movies. I'm just tired of being around that mindset right now. Its kind of a selfish one.

Who even knew...

2007-07-12T16:45:00.000-12:00

Who knew the people you met at 18 would be the greatest ever...

These are my Hardy 3rd friends from freshman year. Two of us are married now, and two others are graduated. I can't believe it.

I love these girls.

Marriage, friendship and Harry Potter

2007-07-10T04:41:00.000-12:00

There's something about drinking a Coke (no diet, it's gross) that makes you feel like your intestines are going to get eaten away. Kind of like when your car battery is all rusted out, and you pour some Coke on it and viola... no more rust. But I can't stop drinking it. It's not about excess. I'll have, maybe, one can every other day. I just love coke... more than chocolate or potato chips or any of those other things I haven't eaten in a little over a month. I know I might lose weight faster if I stopped drinking my coke... but its not really worth it to me right now. I don't need it, but I love it...

So a little over a week ago I trekked up to southern Michigan for my friend Nichole's wedding. She was the prettiest bride I've ever seen close up. I know people say stuff like this all the time, but Nichole looked prettier than bridal Barbie. And for a slightly grown-up version of a little girl who grew up idolizing Barbie... that is saying a lot.

So...apparently everyone else in the world who is my age (21) is ready for marriage. Yes, I'm just being dramatic. And yes, some of these people are not truly ready for marriage, but I do have a lot of friends who really are. And it got me wondering when my life, and the major growing-up stages of everyone else my age started happening at different times. We all grow up at the exact same rate until that point when POP, the highlights of life start happening at different times for different people. We're all born and learn to eat solid food at the same time, learn to poop on the toilet instead of in our pants, learn to talk... all at relatively the same rate. We start school at the same time... go through puberty at the same time...and graduate together. And this is where it feels like it has ended. Its not that my friends are growing up faster than I am, they're just ready for some things, (marriage, babies) that make me cringe.

So... Tuesday at Midnight I was one of the freaks who went to see Harry Potter and the Order of the Pheonix. Although, I didn't wait in any line (fandago is amazing, isn't it) and I didn't sit in the theatre for hours leading up to the show. But I did love, love, LOVE the movie. It was almost perfect. There were entire scenes that played out exactly as they did in my mind when I read the book. And most of the changes the film made did make sense (except, I really missed Fred and George's bog). The end was totally intense and Helena Bonham-Carter was scary, but not as much so as Umbridge. She was the pure, unadulterated kind of evil that makes you hate all government.

I'm a sleepy, sleepy girl, due to the HP late night movie and getting up early for work. I tried to catch up late last night, but it was all just a futile attempt (I'm trying not to harbor any hatred for my sister and a certain boy whose music was so loud last night after 10:30 that the wall to my bedroom was shaking) even though he's been over every night this week and knows (as does she) how early I go to bed.

What a Full Moon can do to a news room

2007-06-29T03:25:00.000-12:00

I'm still learning about this whole small-town, local newspaper thing.

But apparently, full moon = big news day. And not necessarily the good kind of news. Before 11, we've already had a fire and a motorcycle crash. I'm just kind of sitting here waiting for the plagues to hit.

And, generally speaking, I kind of feel like the office is in a slight state of chaos today. Its the last day for one of our reporters, and its a Friday, which I'm sure had fed into the mess.

People in Morgan County are mean to each other. Not necessarily violent mean, but mean-spirited mean. Its just an observation from my first 5 weeks (halfway point, YAY). You would not even believe the horrible things people say to each other on message boards. Here is my favorite one. We had to take this comment down from the website...we take all the ones with profanity, violent threats or lewd comments down--

"I wouldn't piss in your ear if your brain were on fire."

Now, I'm not going to give any names or even info about the situation its about... but its quite possibly the best, most creative stupid, hateful thing anyone has ever said.

I now use it daily.

Last night I slept in Lauren's room and we played "truth or dare" while we were falling asleep --(after we watched the best movie with the most horrible ending..."the Painted Veil"-- and I dared her to say it to Dad sometime today. And it has to be a time where he's not necessarily in a joking mood...maybe even when they are arguing about something. On second thought, she should wait until the Reds are on tonight, they always put him in the worst mood. A mood so bad, that even when I tell him I'm making a phone call, my friend Joanna still got to listen to my dad's rendition of Geaorge Carlin's "seven words you can never say on television" on her voicemail.

I'm not bitter, or anything. I'm also not bitter about the fact that 10 p.m., my weeknight bedtime, is apparently the time of night he must do all things that make a lot of noise. Honk the horn in the driveway...Run the mini-steam cleaner...Yell at the reds for blowing a two-run lead...those are just a few examples.

My dear friend Nichole is getting married tomorrow in souther michigan...I get to handle the wedding registry, which I'm actually kind of pumped about. Not the actual task itself (who wants to meet 200 strangers in an hour) but the fact that I don't have to be a bridesmaid. She kept it small. After tomorrow, she's going to be Mr. Edward Burl Sponseller. Not a great name, but he's a really great guy... I like him a lot.

My mommy's coming to take me out to lunch in a few minutes... exciting stuff.

It's a day for Quotes

2007-06-28T03:38:00.000-12:00

I'm in a mood to not have anything to say. I just want to surround myself with what other people have to say, stuff that moves me but lets me remain where I am at the same time. Here is some of what I've been reading...

"I arise in the morning torn between a desire to improve the world and a desire to enjoy the world. This makes it hard to plan the day." - E. B. White

"I love the rain the most when it stops." - Joe Purdy

"It is the mark of an educated mind to be able to entertain a thought without accepting it." - Aristotle

"So scared of getting older, I'm only good at being young." - John Mayer

"I have decided to stick with love. Hate is too great a burden to bear." - Martin Luther King, Jr

"You can safely assume that you've created God in your own image when it turns out that God hates all the same people you do." - Anne Lamott

"God cannot give us a happiness and peace apart from Himself, because it is not there. There is no such thing." - C. S. Lewis

"Goodbye is the best way that I know to forgive, and still be letting go." - Dave Barnes

"I can accept anything, except what seems to be the easiest for most people: the halfway, the almost, the in-between." Dominique, The Fountainhead by Ayn Rand

"I think writer means you show people some beauty, you engage them in a story, you let them know that their life is much bigger and better than they thought it was, and to some degree you help people know that as a human being we really have a lot to identify with each other. And that's kind of it. I don't see my calling as being too much bigger than that." - Donald Miller

"There is only one success: to be able to spend your life in your own way, and not to give others absurd maddening claims upon it." - Christopher Darlington Morley

"If a million people say a foolish thing, it is still a foolish thing." - Anatole France

"The illiterate of the 21st century will not be those who cannot read and write, but those who cannot learn, unlearn, and relearn." - Alvin Toffler

"I have found the paradox that if I love until it hurts, then there is no hurt, but only more love." - Mother Teresa

"Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate. Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure. It is our light that most frightens us. We ask ourselves, “Who am I to be brilliant, gorgeous, talented, fabulous?” Actually, who are you not to be? You are a child of God. Your playing small does not serve the world. There's nothing enlightened about shrinking so that other people won't feel insecure around you. We are all meant to shine as children do. We were born to make manifest the glory of God that is within us. It's not just in some of us; it's in everyone. And as we let our own light shine, we unconsciously give other people permission to do the same. As we're liberated from our own fear, our presence automatically liberates others." - Marianne Williamson

"Amos could think about Jesus for hours, how he inverted the status quo and begged us to lay down our weapons, how (and his is a stunner, as far as Amos was concerned) one of the tests scholars apply to the Gospels, in trying to determine what might be legitimately ascribed to Jesus, is this: what speech, what gesture, is the most unlikely in first-century Palestine? Find those, and ecce homo, you've found the Man." -- The Solace of Leaving Early, Haven Kimmel

"Goody, I love you."- Derek Morgan

My ever-so-quiet life

2007-06-12T03:30:00.000-12:00

My summer life is a quiet one. I know that I'm working on a newspaper, a daily. And there's a lot of hustle and bustle associated with interviews, deadlines, many phone calls, readers and sources calling to yell (I mean, complain) at you.

But at 4:00 I leave the office. And I'm alone for a half hour. Sometimes I'm on the phone, but not often. I get to listen to "All Things Considered," and just... think. About people and current events. My thoughts do not have to carry over into anything. I'm not going to be graded on them, and I won't be forced into some classroom discussion. They belong to me and only me.

A little while ago I was home alone for 10 days. My little sister went on a mission trip and my parent's went on their 25th anniversary trip. That house is so quiet when I'm the only one there. Sometimes I kept the TV or the radio on so there'd be noise, and I wouldn't have to resort to talking to myself. But a lot of the time, it was just me. And the quiet. I spent a few nights with friends but they all have real lives. There was one Friday night when everyone had plans, and I thought about going to see "Knocked up" by myself, then changed my mind and rented "Running with Scissors," "Little Children" and "Because I Said So" (I promise I can justify why I rented this movie). I also picked up a bottle of Oliver's while I was out. I came home and opened the bottle, cleaned the kitchen and made dinner. Sat down with dinner and watched all 1.5 movies before falling asleep BEFORE 10 p.m. It was a very slow, quiet night.

And I kind of feel like that is defining my whole summer. Yes, I'm learning a lot and getting my byline in the paper 2-3 times a week. It is a significant time in my life, but a quiet one. No drama to speak of, even with my little sister in my life. I haven't been really angry about anything in so long. 10 p.m. is my bedtime. Last night, it was 9. I was exhausted from, I don't know what. Sitting at this desk all day putting out copy for the county fair articles? Making 59,000 unreturned phone calls? Maybe its just the knowledge that I'm putting in 40 hours a week. A full-time job is a beast to me. I'm learning how to do my best, and still have a life.

I at the midway point in this internship, and I do like it. I like the people in the office and the work I've done so far. But I am so, SO ready to go back to school. Its going to be a piece of cake, and I think I'll get my life back.

Have I ever told you how much I love Joe Purdy? I, of course, have to give my friend Tabitha all the credit for the discovery, but he's fantastic. He has like, seven albums that he's independently put out and you can buy them all on itunes. He's folky without being annoying, and his voice just makes me long for something when I hear it. I'm not sure what, but something...

My first week in a newsroom

2007-06-04T04:14:00.000-12:00

There has been so much happening, but not very much time to sit and process it all. I'm at work right now, with a few minutes before I've got to go into my editor's office for a staff meeting. This reporter thing is serious business. I only worked four days last week because of the holiday weekend, but I've written like 6-7 stories. A lot of them are briefs, but its seriously probably more than what I wrote all of last semester. I have had two top-of-the-fold, front page stories written... and Brian (my editor) made me write a column introducing myself to the Morgan County community. I hate columns, but this one went okay for me. I think it turned out pretty well, I've gotten a few compliments. Brian told me to connect myself to the county in some way. And I really have only one story that can do that for me... and the main character is Sarah the cow. It was fun to write.

You can check out all the Martinsville, Ind. happenings at www.reporter-times.com. If you're bored you can read about my bovine counterpart in the columns section.

I really didn't think that I was a very tense person before last week. But I've realized that I tense up when I'm writing. Even more so when I'm writing on deadline. My shoulders are aching right now. And my neck keeps cracking. I miss my dorm bed... the beautifully dirty but oh-so-soft mattress on a metal spring frame. I'll never sleep as well as I did those nights in Roush Hall. I've resorted a few nights to taking a half dose of Nyquil to help me sleep. I might as well just booze up before I hit the sack. Its the same effect. Five-six hours a night is just not going to cut it this summer.... I need my eight. Which means giving myself a 10:30 curfew on weeknights.

I'm not trying to complain. Actually, things are going amazingly well for me. Aside from the fact that I haven't seen my friends in over a week. I just have to figure out how my schedule is going to work out, and when Amy's done with classes, we'll have more time to hang out. I've spent a lot of mom time lately, though, and I'm loving it. She's a really great pal. We're bonding over weight watchers, my new summer project. My mom's really good at the whole points things...finding out how to eat the most for the least points possible. I told her that and she asked me if its because she's cheap, something my little sister usually calls her when she doesn't want to spend $50 on a worn-out tee shirt from Hollister bares too much midriff. But I told her she's just economically-savvy. I'm so the better daughter.

So that's the update.... its meeting time.

This is home...

2007-05-19T13:57:00.000-12:00

Got home late in the afternoon on Thurs. Crying ensued when I realized that I was living at home for the entire summer. It was something I was supressing... didn't want't to believe that I am doing it again. Its not that I don't love my house, or my family, or my church or great home-friends...its just... there's a lot of drama that comes with living in this house. And I'm a little bit weary of drama. But my beautiful, newly English roommate came and stayed with us yesterday and I went to my first bar with my friends for my belated birthday bash. Nick's English Hut on Kirkwood, we had a lot of fun. Sat next to a table full of men and women in their 60's. I bet they thought we were babies. I kind of felt like one.

That's all for now...would write more if there were more to say. I have a 9 days until I go to work. 7 days until I must attend my friend Rach's baby shower. So weird that she's having a baby. Even weirder that she's naming her son Chandler.... Lord, help me not to laugh uncontrollably at this baby shower.

Finals, please be over soon

2007-05-15T02:49:00.000-12:00

Three finals left, one magazine article to finish and a reflection essay to write. All happening tomorrow. Life sucks right now, but it will be better if I make it to tomorrow night.

Gilmore Girls is ending tonight. Definitely have mixed feelings about it...feel like this season has been disgusting. Full hour episodes that can be summarized in 35 seconds over the phone to my best friend in England... because nothing happens in this show anymore. But I am excited for the finale, and I can't even watch it live. Must beg my mother to tape it for me, then watch it Thur. when I get home. Damn you, responsibility. Why must you make me sacrifice my girls for studying?!

there is no way to cleverly title this post

2007-04-12T06:54:00.000-12:00

Okay, so I haven't updated in awhile. But I don't feel like I've anything to write. Except for the fact that I got four dvd's at Movie Gallery for $18 on Tuesday--Stage Beauty, Rent, The Village and Friends with Money. I'd never seen Stage Beauty or Friends With Money before, but I really liked them, so apparently it was a good gamble.

Even if I'd have hated them, Tab would have bought them from me. She loves to own really bad movies. She also likes to own really good movies. So I guess she just likes movies. Gee, that was kind of a repetitive paragraph.

Stage beauty is about the drastic change of theatre in the 1700's, when the King of England proclaimed that women could perform on the stage. Billy Crudup's character, at the time, was the most famous leading lady, and his dresser, Claire Danes replaces him when the it becomes illegal for men to play women on stage. The whole film deals with gender identity. What did it do to men who were so good at being feminine that it started to change their sexuality? It is really sexual, but not really graphic. For a movie that is all about whether or not you have a particular appendage, I thought it was really tasteful. And I love Billy Crudup. He's beautiful and he plays these amazing roles. It was a little weird for me to see him dressed as a women, and gay, but he was so real about it all. His mannerisms were terrific. This film is kind of like Shakespeare in love, but I think I like it better because it is so much more realistic, and there wasn't really any adultery--I cannot stomach watching adultery, it just ruins a movie for me.

Friends with Money was good but not great. It was kind of like a slice of life film, rather than a story that begins, reaches some kind of climax then ends. I like these kind of movies, I really do. I get caught up in scenes individually, I think. And the dialogue and conversations they have. It was almost like a play more than a movie. Lots of talk, talk, talk, and very little action of any kind. Jennifer Aniston bugged me though. She played the exact same character as she did in The Good Girl, which I really hated. So creepy, yuck. Joan Cusack was amazing in it though. I can't explain it, but it was like she finally discovered a way to not play so freaking quarky and weird. She's funny that way, but it was nice to see her in a different kind of role.

So, these movies were good. It feels good to process them like this on here. I don't know anyone else who's see them yet, so I can't really talk about them with anybody.

So the Huntingtonian came out today, and I was finally satisfied with how my column turned out. I think it's because I knew exactly what and who I wanted to target. The trick was getting my point across without anyone reading it and feeling attacked. I hate confrontation, and I don't feel like I have the right to attack people in that capacity. Its not really fair, they don't have 350 words a month to bitch about the world or the institution or whatever injustice that is the most trendy righ now. So I try to slip my agenda in there. Here it is, if you're curious.

Integrity Wins, no contest

A single lie destroys a whole reputation of integrity. - Baltasar Gracian

I distinctly remember sitting on the floor of the locker room. It was all a vicious rumor, he said. Staring up at him and his tear-stained cheeks, I felt sorry and guilty for the accusations and gossip that came out of my mouth in that very room. He said he was innocent, and I believed him.

Oh, to be young and naïve again. Appearances aren’t always what they seem. You might add, especially when it comes to those in roles of leadership.

I learned this the hard way. We all do. I’d be naïve to think that you had never been let down by someone you trusted—a teacher, a parent, a sports hero, an administrator or friend.

My first lesson of integrity—or lack thereof—came from my coach in high school. His affair with one of his assistants destroyed any relationship we had. Even if it meant having to break in a new coach my senior basketball season, I couldn’t wait until we lost in the sectional so he could be out of my life.

The more it happens to me—the more the people I admire let me down—the more this theory I have starts to ring true. It is not the indiscretion, but the cover-up that is so unbearable.
If you mess up, I’ll get over it. It happens. People disappoint, foul up and even commit crimes. But you lie to me, and you’re a double offender.

It might not be fair, the fact that we hold our leaders to a higher standard. But that’s not important, really. What matters is that we do our part to keep integrity thriving in our community.

The rumor is out that integrity is a dying concept. That the end is far greater than the means you take to get there.

But success means nothing if we are going about it in the wrong way. I’m scared that our love of prestige—awards, championships and accolades—has begun to trump honesty and hard work.

On the grand scale of things that really matter, we know right will always beat wrong. The truth can always defeat a lie, and integrity will live on.

Wouldn’t it be great to come out on the winning side?

The burden's gone now

2007-03-28T14:28:00.000-12:00

For the past three weeks, since the bloody day I mailed in my Pulliam internship application, I haven't been sleeping well. I have these sores on the inside of my cheeks, because I've been biting my mouth in my sleep, and I'm lucky if I sleep four consecutive hours. This is not me. I am a unabashed heavy, sometimes to the point of snoring, sleeper. But this is a huge thing.... where am I going to intern? Where am I going to live this summer...? I like the unknown as long as it is not imminently upon me.

So I'm not sure that its a coincidence that mere hours after I got the call, telling me I'd won a Pulliam internship for the summer, that I fell asleep for three hours, from 6-9 p.m. No more unknown. Nothing more to worry about. What am I going to do with myself. Sleep, and sleep some more.

I'm so excited. I'll be working at the Martinsville Reporter-Times and living at home. I'll still get to do stuff with OVCF, and my bestest friend Shelle is going to be finally spending a summer at home. So we'll get to see loads of each other.

The actual newspaper part, though, leaves me a little nervous. But there is no point in getting nervous about that now. It will be hard work but, its kind of my dream, so I guess I'm going to love it.

2007-03-26T17:48:00.000-12:00

Spring Break was really good, and coming back to school was kind of harsh. Prob and Stat Exam, huge feature story due, anxiously awaiting my rejection letter from the Pulliam Foundation. I don't know if I'm ever going to be able to get a full nights sleep again. I blame my stupid worrying, but I also blame my new habit. I've started to go to bed early, then set my alarm early in the morning so that I can study/finish my assignment for my 9:00 so that I can get more sleep. This does not tur S out very well, sadly. And I've started to get these sores on the inside of my cheeks, and Slang told me that her dentist said that its a stress thing--she's been doing the same thing. And I've been dreaming a whole lot more, lately. Disturbing dreams, where I'm the bad guy. I don't like being the bad guy.

I figured out my schedule for next semester and filled out my graduation application. A handful of required classes and I'm done with school. So scary. I don't even know what I want to do with myself tomorrow afternoon, let alone after school. I am thinking that I really want to go to graduate school, but this is going to mean taking out loans and thats scary on a whole other level. IUPUI has this masters in media studies program that looks really fun, but who knows what I'll want to do next year.

Just venting until I got tired enough to close my eyes. I think I'm there.

To the friend that I miss

2007-03-07T09:05:00.000-12:00

Dear friend,

I'm angry with you. And I know it isn't all your fault--I am prepared to shoulder some of the blame. But seriously, where have you been? Weekly phone calls have ceased and you aren't even responding to my emails anymore. I'm starting to feel like a desperate, needy friend. Kind of like a role-reversal, no offense. But when you contacted me this fall I knew it was because you didn't feel like you had anyone else. And I was there. It was awkward as hell to be there for you, listening to the really adult problems you were going through and not telling you my opinion when you were backsliding a little. But you got stronger, and you got happier. Which made me so happy, you have no idea how good it feels to know that you are moving forward from this, that you're going to be okay. But really friend, I'm starting to feel like since you don't need me anymore, you're not going to make the effort to keep our friendship alive. You've done this before, and I feel like we are reverting back to our old habits.

If I've done anything, or said anything, to make you want to stay away, I'd like to know so that I can understand why this is happening. And even if it is something going on completely on your end, I'd still like to know why this relationship doesn't seem to be in existence anymore. I have plenty of spare time this semester, you don't have to feel weird about calling me, promise. I don't have to make time for you anymore, I have the time to be your friend. I didn't have that time last semester, but I made sure I was available. And now that Sarah isn't here, you are the person who I'm the closest to emotionally, and you aren't returning my calls/emails. Why, friend? I'm the one who needs you now, can't you pick up on that? I don't want a huge commitment. I just want to stay caught up in your life so I know how I can be praying for you, how you are doing. And it would be nice to have someone I can be vulnerable with... because I just don't have that without you and Sarah.

I'm sure that this letter isn't fair, I'm just venting my frustrations. I'll be okay if this thing dies again, I know I will. But I was so sure we were going to be okay this time. That this was the journey we were supposed to take, that God was a part of you coming back into my life, in a new, completely friends, no-awkwardness way. I'll be okay, but it doesn't mean it hurts less right now.

Sincerely,
Sarah

Absolute? God only knows, I'm tired of thinking about it.

2007-02-21T18:06:00.000-12:00

Rob Bell got to me again. In this random moment of complete boredom and self-loathing, I picked up "Velvet Elvis" again last night and read this:

Once again, the springs [doctrines] aren't God. They have emerged over time as
people have discussed and studied and experieinced and reflected on their
growing understanding of who God is. Our words aren't
absolutes. Only God is absolute, and God has no intention of sharing
this absoluteness with anything, especially words people have come up with to
talk about him. This is something people have struggled with since the
beginning: how to talk about God when God is bigger than our words, our brains, our worldviews, and our imaginations.

I've mentioned before that I'm in capstone seminar--this class set up for seniors to process their Huntington experience and the faith-based learning they've paid nearly $100,000 for. Well right now we are reading this book called "The Myth of Certainty" and it is all about what it looks like to be a reflective Christian, or at least, the dilemma one runs into when trying to be reflective. This has occupied a lot of my free thought time, especially one sentence the author wrote. He said, in effect, that there is no absolute truth, no certainty, that we can attain about anything.

This statement made me want to throw the book against a wall, then I realized that it is just a book and that this is only one man's idea. No absolute truth? That flies in the face of most of what I've learned as I've come into my faith. Most of what I've been taught in HU ministry classes, for sure. If certainty is really a myth, how can I be certain I'm right? And to echo that statement--although I would never say it out loud, but I caught myself thinking it--how can I know that everyone else is wrong?

Then I realized what my issue was. Me. I want to be right. Self-assurance is my goal in becoming a "reflective" Christian. Why is it so important to keep convincing myself when I've already bought into it all? "Bought in" might be a harsh phrase to describe what I mean, which is that I've surrendured my life to Christ because I believe he's more than just a moral man that belongs in the history books. He is my Savior, my King who has a better way for me.

And then I got it. In a way that made me want to lock myself away for fear of all the other hidden agendas I probably have under my belt, hidden so well I'm not even aware of them. I want to be right. I want to win. Not only do I want to be right about God, but I want my opponents--anyone who DARES feel a different kind of certainty about God, anyone with another point of view--to be WRONG. When its time for this world to go by the wayside, I want God to split everyone up into three categories. A wrong group, a right group, and an "I was too busy to care" group. And I want to be in that right group. Right, right, right... I want to be the one who has it all figured out.

I'm sorry for being that girl.

Now I know that I've got it all wrong. My words, my politics, my worldviews, my feeble knowledge, my bloated ego could never wrap my mind around the nature of God. That doesn't mean that He isn't worth pursuing, because, what an amazing life that would be... But I am not right about him. I'm just as wrong as the self-proclaimed atheist who whole-heartedly believes that we're on our own in this vast place in the universe. Because if I can't be right about it all, I'm wrong. And I believe that God has revealed fragmented, molecule-sized parts of his absoluteness with me, but it's broken knowledge without the whole picture.

There is a myth out there called certainty. God is bigger than my words and ideas about him. I'm not right and you're not wrong... but we get to pursue the truth together at least. That's a little comforting. Ben Lee says it in his own amazingly corny way in the song that I love right now:

Woke up this morning
i suddenly realized
we're all in this together
i started smiling
cause you were smiling
and we're all in this together
I'm made of atoms
you're made of atoms
and we're all in this together
and long division
just doesnt matter
cause we're all in this together

Are you kidding me... attractive?

2007-02-20T07:35:00.000-12:00

I'm a communication major, and I just want to say that I love the First Amendment almost as much as I love my mother. Not quite, but still. I love that I can come up with whatever I want, off the top of my head, and I can say it out loud. Better yet, I can write it down. And in today's world, I can write it down on a medium like this nifty blog and it can be accessed by whoever, whenever. And no one can control it, no one has a say in what I want to say. Which is why, right now, I hate the First Amendment. Because anyone in the world can say whatever they want to and anyone can read it. I know, I know. I'm a contradiction, which is nothing new for me. Here's the story.

So there's this guy on campus. And he's discovered the array of opportunities that Facebook has for him to post his thoughts. In particular, his thoughts on the women of this campus. The ratio at good 'ol HU is a beautiful 2 to 1, something I tend to enjoy because I'm in a period of my life where I revel in a day where I don't have to interact with a male. His thoughts, which didn't offend me until he turned it into a written manifesto, are that even though there are more girls than guys here, guys are having to "settle" if they want to be in a relationship here. I'll quote his exact words:

Since the campus has very little outside exposure most of the guys look on
campus for a lady friend. Now since there are few extremely attractive girls the
guys are left with what they can find. So why is this good news for the ladies
in the middle range? Simple, the guys settle. So take heart ladies, for at HU
you can get the guy who is out of your league! It is a beautiful thing!

Needless to say, he recieved over 60 comments on his little note. From some very angry ladies who felt like they were being judged like USDA grades of meat, and even from some guys who thought that this note was just not cool. And there were supporters of his statements, too. I can't for the life of me relate to a woman's mentality that a statement like this is funny, let alone appropriate for a guy who is a paid leader on campus. This note brought out the worst in people, to be sure, either through their anger or their approval of the comments.

But I could really care less. Until he wrote another note clarifying what he meant by the word "attractive":

To be more clear, my observation is simply this, there are less quality
attractive guys(meaning more than just looks) than quality attractive
girls(again more than just looks). I have noticed that a lot of the girls who
look good have had less than good personalities, and I have met some really
unattractive girls who have amazing personalities, very few that I have met had
both. That is where the settling comes in.

Now I'm just pissed off. I can handle people who are ready to judge appearance because frankly, there is a standard aesthetic in this world that we all try to live up to. Its this huge, ugly monster who stands next to every girl (or guy, I guess) looking into a mirror and says "that's just not quite good enough." I've battled that monster every day. Some days I win, and others I don't. But there is a standard that is commonly accepted to judge the outside of a person.

But when someone has the nerve to begin judging the complex insides of a person the same way they would a beauty contest, I'm offended beyond words. I cannot change, at least to a strong degree, how I look. But my heart, my personality, the stuff going on in my mind--that is something God and I have been creating together for a long time. Its been hard and some days I think it would be easier to let someone else... (maybe a guy like the note writer) to tell me what he's looking for in a friend/romantic partner so I can begin to adapt myself to meet his expectations. But I'm me and I love it. I'll be honest, most days I'm astounded that any one person could find worth in me at all, but I really have found that for myself. And I don't fit into this creative/artsy/out-of-the-box/"look at me, I'm so original" standard that this guy is probably looking for when he's talking about "attractive" girls. But the thing about people who are into originality, is that it becomes this standard thing... which defeats the entire purpose. My best friend told me she really thinks it is all about appearance with people like that, and I tend to agree.

If this is the way I feel from a note like this, someone who is at least midly self assured and comfortable with herself, how are other girls handling crap like this? This is a case where I feel like I want to protect people from it somehow... because I know they are going to take something like this the wrong way and it will do damage.

I really wish he had just been talking about the lack of "hot girls" on campus, and how the poor men have to settle if they want a girlfriend. I can't talk about it anymore, it just makes me so sad.

A little self reflection

2007-01-31T07:36:00.000-12:00

So in my Capstone Seminar we had to write essays about ourselves. I really don't like writing about myself at all. But its nice that our prof. wants to get to know us I guess. This class is all about sorting through everything you've gotten out of life at Huntington, and I'm excited about it. Anyway... below is my essay. The whole time I was writing it I felt like I was blogging. So I guess posting it makes sense.

Self Reflection Essay

I’ve never been very sure of how to start essays like this without sounding trite, or like I’m describing myself in some sort of singles advertisement. But I guess I’ll just start with the basics. I’m twenty years old and in my third year at HU. I started out as a double major, studying youth ministry and journalism but I recently dropped down to a youth ministry minor. My routine 18-credit hour semesters are behind me and I actually have time to read for my classes now. And I get to read for fun, and breath. Breathing is good. This year I have also been serving as the editor in chief of The Huntingtonian, which has occupied a lot of hours and thought in my life this year, but I absolutely love being a part of it.

I am the second of three daughters born to two people who grew up in the same little Indiana town, became teachers and got married. My dad is a basketball coach and therefore has moved us from one tiny Indiana town to another—he even spent two years coaching at a tiny college in Ohio—essentially in pursuit of winning a few games. Both of my parents came from a Christian background, but their personal faith was kind of shallow for most of my childhood. It has been just the last few years, as my faith was radically changing, that my parents’ did as well. But church was always important for them, and their background helped to build a few foundational truths in my life that I really believe have driven me to where I am—the existence of an almighty and loving God and the importance of being a part of a church family. Children’s church, Sunday school, Vacation Bible School and church camps helped to fill in all of the gaps for me and when I was nine I began to understand who Jesus was and what a monumental thing he did for me. I was baptized the summer before I started fourth grade.

My faith for about three years was much like my parents, shallow and without any real responsibility of action or service to God. Through junior high though, with youth group, some really great conferences I got to attend and summer camp, I started to realize what it looked like not to simply accept what Jesus did for me, but to live like Christ’s sacrifice meant something to me. When I was sixteen I attended a Christ in Youth conference in South Carolina with my youth group, and felt God calling me to prepare myself for a life of ministry. At the time I felt like if you were called to minister, it meant that it was to be a full-time vocation. I began teaching children’s church and my youth pastor Brad became a great mentor and brother-like presence in my life. I started my freshman year at Huntington double majoring in youth ministry and journalism, as I said before. It was always an internal struggle for me—I felt like I had to choose between youth ministry and journalism, something that I have a natural talent and passion for.

The past two and a half years at HU have taught me that every call from God is perfectly tailored to each individual. Working with youth will always be a priority in my life, but taking a leadership role in a church or ministry organization is not where God is calling me right now, it seems. But when God spoke to me at 16, I was limiting the possibilities he had for my life. I always thought that my persistence to study journalism was me being selfish, but I am almost sure that is where he wants me to be. But what am I going to do when this college stage of my life is over? I really couldn’t tell you. I’d love to be writing for a news outlet somewhere, and working with junior high students in some capacity as well, probably as a volunteer in an organization. But I’ve also played with the idea of graduate school; there is a media studies program in Indianapolis that I’ve been looking into. I love the fact that I don’t have to know right now, and that the possibilities for my life are almost completely wide open. Life plans and goals scare me. There is a sophomore on the newspaper staff that has this four-year plan written out for her life. The day she told me about it, I was so scared for her, and for me. But allowing God the room to maneuver in my life and to send me wherever, whenever—while it too seems scary—has given me the freedom to live each day as I would love to continue throughout the rest of my life. It has enabled me to continue being the student of my life, not the teacher. I’ve become the participant, not the planner. Giving up the control and taking God out of the box I kept him in for so many years has been liberating for me.

There are a few things that I believe define me as an individual but I am still far from being able to define who I am. Its fun to think of myself as a work in progress, someone who’s chasing after God’s heart who’s finding my own in the process of it all.

I'm ready for something, anything.

2007-01-14T19:13:00.000-12:00

"So, where do you go to school?" asked the friendly acquaintance.

"Huntington University," I said. "Its close to Ft. Wayne. "

"What is your major?"

"Journalism."

"Oh, so you're gonna change the world, huh?"

End of conversation.

I cannot even convey to you the number of times I have had this conversation since I started school. The next time someone asks me what I'm studying, I think I'll say I'm just here for my Mrs. degree. They'd probably be happier with that than to hear that I plan to be a part of the evil liberal media.

I just thought that this was a humorous pattern of conversation for me. I've begun to laugh a little when people ask me the question because I know how they are going to react to my answer. I don't know how aspiring to be a reporter became this joke to people. And at the opposite of that, a lot of people view it as this noble profession that's "going to change the world," as my acquaintances have often said to me tongue-in-cheek. Why can't it just be a career choice?Like studying business or English or biology. People assume that I have all of these convictions and that I'm a journalist because I need a means to carry out some kind of agenda. But there's no agenda. I'm just in love. With real, objective journalism. I love telling other people's stories. They are far more interesting than most anything that has ever happened to me.

And most times--in my very amateur experience writing thus far--the reward has not been the story with my byline at the top, but the interview process. When you ask just the right question, and the subject starts to open up to you like a friend and you can't scribble fast enough because everything they say is fantastic.

But this kind of (not really) leads me into something I've been struggling with. Lately, I don't feel like life is happening to me. Its like I'm a reporter in this capacity as well, and everyone else's stories fill my time and thoughts and life to a point where I don't even notice anything happening to me. And maybe that's it. Life just isn't happening to me right now, and the drama that comes with it has been missing for quite sometime (no complaints about this though). I'm in some sort of strange limbo. Let's look at a few examples.

One of my friends has been calling me with a life full of drama and indecision. And it all stemmed from a simple question her boss asked her--"What makes you the happiest?"She didn't have an answer for him. Warning signals started to sound as she realized that her answer probably should have been something like this--"When I'm spending time with my boyfriend." But she admits that she doesn't enjoy being with him anymore, but she doesn't want to deal with breaking up with him because they will probably split up when he heads off to grad school next year anyway. Tonight she told me that she is happy with him, but she knows she could be happier. Happy is happy, isn't that enough? I listened for awhile and we discussed and I played my famous role of devil's advocate until she got frustrated with the complexity of it all. But the conversation left me with one question...

When is life going to happen to me?

My old roommate is studying abroad in Oxford. She's overwhelmed most days but loving every minute of it. She doesn't get the chance to email very often, but when she does it is all about the people she's met and the places she's getting to see in both London and Oxford. Her classes start this week which are going to be so hard and she knows it, but I think she's excited to see if she's going to be able to cut it. To see how she'll fare among some of the brightest students in the world. I'm so happy for her through all of this, but it left me asking...

When is life going to happen to me?

My new roommate is in the middle of a budding relationship with a guy she's been friends with for 2 years. She gets giggly when she talks about him and anxious waiting for her cell phone to ring. His name pops up into almost every conversation we have and it has been really fun witnessing all of the "pre-lab" steps to their potential relationship. But seriously...

When is life going to happen to me?

I promise that I'm not just sitting in my room, waiting for something good to hit me over the head. I've felt so numb and in the middle of everyone's life lately that I feel like I'd take anything at the moment. Which leads me to one more story...

One of my closest friends is going through a divorce. He's 23. I know it sounds awful, especially when you know that his wife was cheating on him. With another woman. It has all of the stigma and religious complexity thrown into it to make it more hurtful than simply a broken relationship. And through all of it, he maintains that he still loves her. After nearly 6 months of her being emotionally absent in their marriage. After forcing him to live at his grandma's but still make payments on their home, a house that she's most likely sharing with her girlfriend most nights.

But three months later, my friend is picking up the fragments of his ideal life and starting to build something for himself that will hopefully exceed every dream and expectation he ever had for himself. He's going back to finish college and playing in his church's worship band, just trying to recover. I talk to him a lot about all the things he's learning and how much his life's changed so fast...

But when is life going to happen to me?

Maybe I'm a journalist because telling other people's stories is all I have right now. Maybe. And just maybe, I'll start to feel like I have my own stories to tell. Maybe. When life starts happening to me.

My Dearest J-term,

2007-01-13T13:04:00.000-12:00

Thank you so much. Because you exist I get 2 1/2 weeks of vacation without actually having to be at my parent's house. And I love my parents but the craziness they bring into my life can only be tolerated for so long. If I had to wake up, walk out into the kitchen for a bagel only to be met by my fully caffeinated mother talking to me so fast I wasn't sure if it was a real language one more time, I'm not sure if I could have survived.

But thanks to you, J-term. I get to be in my dorm room with my comfy bed and dark curtains. My head has begun to hate natural lighting and my curtains and light bright lamp really accommodate this. Only during J-term do I have time to think about such things.

Also, J-term, I am thankful for you because it has given me uninterrupted hours to bond with my new roommate. Since you give us all the time in the world to waste away, we can spend hours watching amazingly good movies (and sometimes bad, because sometimes you are only in the mood to watch a really bad movie) or talking about nothing. Normally, as students we would feel guilty about these activities. During the regular semester the only comfort time we allow ourselves is a run to Coffee D'Vine, and even with that we are justifying that the caffeine fix will help us complete our unfathomable amounts of reading and other assignments. But now, you have given us all the time we could want to enjoy ourselves on campus.

Now my friend, I do not want to sound like I'm complaining about the regular semester, but getting to know you has made me realize how unique and special you are. You are not be be taken for granted, J-term. You are a bright, shining couple of weeks in my college career, and I should be treating you as the gift from God you are.

I'm so glad that I've gotten to know you. I wish we could be together always.

Love,
SG

Avoiding the Second-hand

2007-01-11T17:17:00.000-12:00

Finally finished "The Fountainhead" last night and the themes and characters have been swimming in my head all day. Its just this amazing book--everything reminds me of something I read in "The Fountainhead."

So the book revolves around two architects, Howard Roark--a genius who has the capability to revolutionize the field--and Peter Keating--mediocrity in the form of a man, who becomes rich and popular doing what mediocre people do best...copying other peoples work. Roark is harboring a ton of genius underneath his unabashed self conceit and Keating only has the appearance of genius and self respect. The theme of NYC at the time is to serve others, to rid yourself of all selfishness. Rand contends that this is how mediocrity is bread. You deny yourself self-respect and you start creating for the sake of others--for notoriety, to please fill the needs of anyone but yourself. You start to depend on people and their good opinion of you that if you lose it your life is essentially over. According to Rand, real creative genius comes out of complete selfishness. And in the context of the story, this made complete sense. She took this idea of living life for others, and the beaty of self sacrifice and turned it on its head. It became the root of evil in the world... not selfishness.

This just one of the ideas she weaved into this book. If you ever feel like you have the time to dive into a 700-page novel... grab this one. It's changed me. Because although I don't agree with a lot of the ideas in the book, including the one I probably failed in trying to describe to you, I wanted to agree with her. I really wanted to believe that by becoming so independent that I could live without relationships, completely secure in my own abilities and strength, I would actually be making the world a better place.

But throughout the book I was constantly, if not grudgingly reminded that there was a presence missing in this book. God wasn't there. Not as the sourse of genius bestowed upon Roark or the reason for the self-sacrifice and service constantly preached by power-hungry Toohey. And I know that he's the source of all my abilities, and the only critic that should be worth anything to me.

But it was an experience, living in this author's world for awhile, where masochism was the route to happiness and power killed everything it touched.

Now I'm starting "Daisy Miller." I love J-term... where I simply get to enjoy musicals, movies, books and my new roommate. She's great and fun and lighthearted and I think its going to be a fun semester. We'll see how we fare I guess. Its nice to be living someone from the comm. department, who understands when I start off on an "I hate Miller" rant, then want to cry I love him so much the very next day. It's not just me...these are the extreme emotions this man pulls out of you.

I miss my Sarah in Oxford. She's going to come back worldy and cultured and smarter than me (she already was, but its going to be worse). But I'm proud of her... I miss her.

And all this through self-reflection

2006-12-16T19:03:00.000-12:00

I'm 20 years old, and I'm set in my ways.

I never meet anyone new anymore. Freshman year I did it out of survival. If I was going to make it so that I had at least one person to converse with in a day, I had to make a friend.

And I did meet some amazing people who have become my world. But that's it, it's my world. And when that delicate balance is threatened I go nuts. I do not step out of my comfort zone. Ever. Public speaking? No, thanks. And writing my column for the newspaper, where my thoughts and character and person are laid out there over two columns and 300 words? It is like pulling teeth to get that thing finished. Just the thought that someone could get to know me through that horrible column makes me sick. So I try to make it as poignant as possible without ever actually letting anyone in.

I haven't been on a date in over 2 years. And the number one reason, excluding the fact that I am a known feminist and man-hater--not to mention the scales underneath my clothes, is that I have refused to meet anyone. I don't make eye contact, actively listen or share myself in anyway with a person I meet. I shut them out. I don't have the time for anyone new in my life.

It has recently come to my attention that by shutting people out, even the evil male population, I could be limiting the opportunities God has out there for me. And while I do genuinely love my life right now and the direction it is leading, I'm not by any means comfortable in saying that this is all he has for me. But by not letting people in, that is exactly what I'm doing.

So tonight I did the unthinkable. One of many unthinkables I will probably allow in my life.
I let a friend set me up.

And it was hell. Utter torture at times...Completely awkward. He was shy and wouldn't talk and I leaned on my other friends there as this crutch and I hardly interacted with the poor guy at all. But at the same time, during all the awkwardness I could feel myself thriving underneath all the possibilities that meeting someone new brings into your life. And now, at the very least, I have a new facebook friend. Not so bad, really.

So I might be set in my ways, but I'm working on it. Promise.

It's been forever

2006-12-12T13:44:00.000-12:00

I have tried to log on here and post countless times...but it wouldn't let me. I was beginning to curse blogger beta, but we can be friends again. Let me tell you, when this is your outlet for stress and frustration, not loading was just not going to cut it the past week and a half. I had to actually call a friend and complain about life for awhile, because that is what blogging is for me... kind of. anyway. Now that I am FINISHED with finals and heading home for break I have nothing to write about. Go figure. So instead I'm going to post my "From the Editor" column from this month. Hope you enjoy it.

So help me, I’ve become a blogger

“Spend the hour blogging, and you will discover many more free hours during the
day.”-Mickey Kaus

Sometimes your professor is right.

At least, mine was last fall. An adjunct professor assigned each of us to start a blog and write in it daily. It was a class that really relied on creative writing, and he said blogging would turn us into better writers.

Being the egotistical journalist that I am and believing I had reached my creative peak at 19, I took the assignment merely at face value. When I had time, I would blog.

Most of the time I would watch “The Gilmore Girls” instead.

I got through the class, the blogging assignment over. But I still found myself at my computer everyday, logging in to share a little bit of myself.

I started blogging about anything and everything. A class I was enjoying. A Bible passage I was wrestling with. A story about one of the amazingly quirky girls I live with on Roush 3rd.
It has become this great part of my day, where I can be my most creative and most honest self at the same time.

And the best part is there are no expectations. I can spell horribly and use the wrong punctuation. Leads don’t exist in blogs, and I never have to worry over whether or not an entry is flowing.

It is a writer’s dream.

Because let’s face it, no one reads your blog. The potential is out there for anyone in the world to log on and see what you have to say, but they don’t. I’m pretty confidant that two people in the world read mine consistently. And that’s okay. It’s not for you anyway.

Blogging has become my yoga. I can write whatever I want, whenever I want and it’s like a yoga class when the instructor turns the lights out. No one can see me wallowing around on the floor, trying to catch my balance.

So Greg Francis was right. Blogging has made me a better writer, and that’s great. But it has also started to define me in a way.

I am a blogger.

Anyway, that's my column for December... which contained a little shout out to Greg, the reason I have this blog.

A life less like the one I'm living

2006-11-19T20:02:00.000-12:00

Last night I was helping my sister make a blanket for a church auction, and we both got sucked into Dateline. Usually, I hate these faux news shows because well, I'm a media snob. I can't help it, I'm a product of the HU communications education I'm receiving. Anyway... I didn't watch any of the sex offender part of the show, but I did watch a segment about a gunman who walked into a college building in Ohio and killed one man, injured a few others and basically took 93 others hostage for more than 7 hours. It was really interesting because the man was 62 years old, and obviously mentally unstable.

But that is not the really why I'm writing. They showed some courtroom footage from the case and one of the hostages took the stand. He said that as soon as he saw the gunman he thought he was going to die. He said: "I just started thinking to myself, have I lived the best life I know how?"

I thought about that question for awhile but I was scared to ask it of myself. Because I obviously haven't lived as well as I know how. Sometimes it feels like I'm giving life my all, doing everything I can, but it's a lie really. My years since I graduated from high school have been this strange sort of half-life, where the focal point of my existence has been myself--my education, my feelings, my wants, my needs.

But he's already made it plain how to live, what to do, what
God is looking for in men and women.It's quite simple: Do what is fair and just
to your neighbor, be compassionate and loyal in your love, And
don't take yourself too seriously—take God seriously. —Micah 6:8 (The
Message)

It hurts to read such beautiful words when who you are falls so short from who
He's called you to be.

Every people-group has a local idiot...

2006-11-13T09:37:00.000-12:00

So this afternoon I happened to catch a really great episode of SNL w/ Scarlett Johansson and Death Cab for Cutie, which in itself makes it a great episode. But the weekend update made it great. Tina Fey and Amy Poehler played this game called the Nutbird News Quiz, where Fey read a quote and Poehler had to decide if it came from the mouth of Roberston or a crazy homeless man who lived down the street. It was hilarious, and prompted me to research some of the most asinine and classic Robertson quotes. Here are my favorites--Dumb things Pat Robertson said:

"Just like what Nazi Germany did to the Jews, so liberal America is now doing to the evangelical Christians. It's no different. It is the same thing. It is happening all over again. It is the Democratic Congress, the liberal-based media and the homosexuals who want to destroy the Christians. Wholesale abuse and discrimination and the worst bigotry directed toward any group in America today. More terrible than anything suffered by any minority in history." --Pat Robertson

"(T)he feminist agenda is not about equal rights for women. It is about a socialist, anti-family political movement that encourages women to leave their husbands, kill their children, practice witchcraft, destroy capitalism and become lesbians." --Pat Robertson

"I'd like to say to the good citizens of Dover: If there is a disaster in your area, don't turn to God, you just rejected him from your city. And don't wonder why he hasn't helped you when problems begin, if they begin. I'm not saying they will, but if they do, just remember, you just voted God out of your city. And if that's the case, don't ask for his help because he might not be there." --Pat Robertson, after the city of Dover, Pennsylvania voted to boot the current school board, which instituted an intelligent design policy that led to a federal trial.

"You know, I don't know about this doctrine of assassination, but if he thinks we're trying to assassinate him, I think that we really ought to go ahead and do it. It's a whole lot cheaper than starting a war ... We have the ability to take him out, and I think the time has come that we exercise that ability. We don't need another $200 billion war to get rid of one, you know, strong-arm dictator. It's a whole lot easier to have some of the covert operatives do the job and then get it over with." --Pat Robertson, calling for the assassination of Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez

This one is related to it:"Wait a minute, I didn't say 'assassination.' I said our special forces should 'take him out,' and 'take him out' can be a number of things, including kidnapping." --Pat Robertson, clarifying his call to assassinate Hugo Chavez

"Many of those people involved with Adolph Hitler were Satanists, many of them were homosexuals -- the two things seem to go together."--Pat Robertson

"It's one thing to say, 'We have rights to jobs ... we have rights to be left alone in out little corner of the world to do our thing.' It's an entirely different thing to say, well, 'We're not only going to go into the schools and we're going to take your children and your grandchildren and turn them into homosexuals.' Now that's wrong. -- Pat Robertson, 1992

And here it is... possibly the most insane thing uttered by a person, ever:

"When I hit 570 pounds, it was a big deal. I called everybody in the gym to come look at what I'd done. Then one Saturday we went up to 800 pounds. Then later my doctor who was working with me got me up to 1,500. I went up 1,400, 1,500, 1,600, 1,700 ... in one day. The last time, it was one lift, I went 2,000 pounds." --Pat Robertson, on his ability to leg-press a ton.

Can it end now?

2006-11-09T16:14:00.000-12:00

The problem with leadership is...

-Everyone cannot see your intentions when you make a decision

-Everyone is not on the same page as you, you have to stop and wait for them to catch up

-When someone else screws up, or even if things were out of everyone's control...the leader always, ALWAYS gets blamed

-When its your turn to hate the world, you still have to be the leader...giving up or slacking off is never an option

-You have to get your hands dirty... You have to set an example that probably no one is going to notice anyway.

-You're the first one there and last to go, and there's no time to catch up on sleep because you have to do it all over the next day.

-You have to take responsibility for everyone's work...even when it sucks. But you can't just change or redo the sucky work, because that is insulting to the worker. You are never allowed to insult, just be insulted. Same goes for criticism.

-Judgement and criticism never end. Even when it makes you want to cry.

Today I wish it was all over.

Self-Reflections from a semester...

2006-10-31T13:41:00.002-12:00

The time has come... to make a list. I love lists. They are practically the only thing I read out of a textbook anymore. So here it is.

What I've learned about myself this fall

-1- I am political. Apparently, trying to be unpolitical makes me very much so. And I'm a liberal. A dirty, dirty liberal who believes that at our country's foundation, we believe in basic rights for every citizen. This includes rights like marriage, free expression and religious orientation.

-2- I'm anti-social. Meaning, I don't enjoy being around large groups of people. Or most people on a one-on-one basis, really. I'm not sure if this makes me a negative or mean person...but I'm not all that concerned. I like who I like and I avoid everyone else for the most part.

-3- I'm really dependent on my roommate. I've kind of always known this, but it is becoming blaringly obvious to me as of late. Seriously, she's leaving me to go to England and I'm not going to have anything do. She's the one constant in my life at school, and I have no clue what I'll do without her.

-4- I'm a good journalist because God has called me there. I always kind of thought that my talent in newspapers was kind of a fluke. But that view has changed. There is a lot of good to be done in the field. And it's my passion (I'm aware that this makes me a dork). Using my talent for God makes a lot more sense than fruitlessly trying to become good at something I suck at, just because it is a more "Christian" profession.

-5- My life is simple. And simple equals great. A lot of my friends are dealing with so much right now. And I have absolutely all of my needs met. Things are great, God is great. And sometimes it takes the hardships of others to make you realize how good and easy your life really is. And another thing, homework isn't a hardship. It's not even close.

So there's the list. It is not everything I've discovered, but a good chunk of it.

busyness is the devil

2006-10-26T08:49:00.000-12:00

Today was a day from my old life. At least, it feels that way. I've been on the go since 8 this morning. Aerobics, make-up quiz w/ Dr. Brautigam, Chapel, Teaching for Char. Trans., Lunch with communications perspectives, Interview for a story at Coffe D, H-tonian staff meeting...all of these events directly succeeded the other, give or take a few minutes for travel.

This is a huge day for me right now. Usually, I have full hours in the afternoon to sit on my bed, watch a movie, take a nap, do homework, or dig into God's word for enjoyment--whatever I feel like, I do. But last semester, this would have been a normal day in my life. Which got me thinking, especially after chapel this morning...

I have successfully cut out the unnecessary from my life. The extra work that I did to get that extra degree that had started to isolate me from others, and my real self. I got rid of it, and its all behind me. I will not have another day like this one this semester. It was a fluke day that drove me crazy. It used to be that my whole life was this busy, and every day drove me crazy.

But now life is simple, and God is good.

By the way, my little sister is here, making everyone laugh as usual.

You really don't have to say anything, it'll be better that way

2006-10-23T16:26:00.000-12:00

I have a friend who is 23 and in the earliest stage of divorce. So early that his side of the bed is still warm, he had to move out just weeks ago. Divorce is ugly, but this one is particularly awful and embarrassing for him and heartbreaking.

And people aren't helping him. Oh, don't get me wrong. Friends and family think they are but they really suck. Here are some examples of the "encouragement" he's been getting, and I'll share his reaction to it with you too.

"You'll be okay. I know it's hard now, but you'll look back and see that this is what is best."

"Don't worry, there is someone out there for you. It'll just take time."

Okay, so I know that these are seemingly nice things to say, but it made him feel crappy. Venting to me today, this is what he said he felt like saying to them:

"I just want to be like......you are all morons and missing the mark. As if I don't know this? I'm not a babbling lost fool."

Sometimes people say things to a person who is hurting just so they can feel better. They think its sympathy, but its lacking a serious amount of empathy that is necessary in being a real friend to that hurting person.

He's been pouring his heart out to me and I just listen. I don't know what else to do, really. It never ocurred to me to do anything at all.

I just needed to vent. People make me angry, and at the same time I wish I knew the perfect thing to say to make him feel better, and to make me feel better.

Updating for the sake of it...

2006-10-20T16:13:00.000-12:00

This is an update of my life... Nothing is happening and everything is happening. There's no need for specifics here though. Well, maybe some vague ones. Are there such things as vague specifics?

When I was 14 I met a boy and we started dating. He was 17 and lived far away, so we had a relationship over the phone. We broke up, because long distance relationships are usually pointless, and when you're 14 they are definitely pointless. But we really did remain friends. He's one of the best friends I've ever had.

When I went away to college and got busy meeting people and making friends, our calls got less frequent and eventually stopped, partially due to his new fiance. We didn't talk for two years, and I never knew how his wedding turned out, or if he even got married at all. Every once in awhile I would think of him, but I never really thought we'd reconnect.

Last week, he found me on myspace. We emailed back and forth a few times. We got to talk on the phone Wednesday, and he recounted the story of his failed marriage. It was absolutely one of the saddest things I've ever heard from one of my close friends.

But he's so hopeful and he was so apolegetic to me, when that was completely unecessary. And all through this sadness of listening to him, I couldn't help but be glad. I'm glad he found me, and that we could pick back up from where we left off in our friendship. I'm glad I have him back again... I just hate the circumstances.

Don't be alarmed--I still love Jesus

2006-10-09T20:37:00.000-12:00

So today I walked into the Registrar's office and dropped my educational ministries major. Yes. This might seem like a strange thing to you, since the ministry program was my initial reason for coming to Huntington. And there's that small fact that I'm going to be a minister when I grow up. There are a lot of reasons why I made the change--from a youth ministry major to a minor--but the primary one is that I felt convicted. To make a life change. To de-clutter my life. This might sound strange, but I feel like God has called me out of this major, and I feel really free.

The only reason I haven't done this sooner is that I was afraid of disappointing...everyone, but mostly myself. I thought I could do it. Two majors, but I really can't. Not and be the person I want to be in college. Someone who is open and available for her friends. And now, I can probably start that small group with Campus Life.

I've been exhausted this semester. And unhappy. And distant. I want to be real with people again, have time to have vulnerable conversations again.

Who knew, you drop a youth ministry major and suddenly you have time to actually do ministry.

Though I'm writing this at 4:42 a.m. in the news room, because I don't get to go to sleep until we put the Huntingtonian to bed, I feel very good. And free, did I mention that already?

Love is not against the Law

2006-10-03T05:05:00.001-12:00

Derek Webb says this about love--

it's learning to admit
when you've had a hand in setting them up
in
knocking them down

love is not against the law
love is not against
the law

are we defending life
when we just pick and choose
lives
acceptable to lose
and which ones to defend

'cause you cannot choose
your friends
but you choose your enemies
and what if they were one
one and the same

Love is hard. I think that love in friendship is harder, because friendships can potentially be over. Most don't last forever. I've had to learn that in the last year with my best friend of six years, and even more recently as I've come back to school. People grow apart. Once you hit high school graduation, people start living live at all different speeds. Some leave the house, mature and never look back. Some get married young, and some look for ways to become independent without having to do anything more adult than put gas in our cars.

With family we know that we have to love each other no matter what. And I think that the danger of friendship is that, when people hurt us, or we feel slighted, the exit sign in the relationship comes into view. We think things like, "I don't need this," and "He/She is just not worth this."

These are ugly thoughts. I hate them. It makes me so sad that we invest ourselves in all the wrong things--jobs, possessions, people. Because people let us down. If, and when this happens, I think that it is the best priority check. So-and-So hurt my feelings and now I feel like my life is over... are my priorities in check, no. Friends, even the best, most selfless ones, do not hold the responsibility of making you feel good all of the time. And if that is how you view someone, as your source of entertainment, comfort or strength, you will always be left wanting.

And yes, blogging is a way to share your thoughts and feelings, but not at the expense of someone else's. Love is confrontational...let's deal with our emotions and stop veiling them behind our need to express ourselves on an irrelevant blog. It's really just cheapening the way we feel. And friends mean more than that, don't they? They just have to, or what's the point? I'll just sit here in my room and seek out companionship on the Internet. I'll join blogrings and facebook groups and I'll rack up names on my buddy list and stop having real conversations with anyone. If I'm not ready to be real with people, I might as well not bother interacting with anyone on a personal level. Because as my beautiful friend Kandace once said and I'll paraphrase, forced social interaction makes me uneasy.

I believe that blogs can be a great medium for self expression. But right now I hate what its becoming. A gossip ring and a safety net, where I can let someone else know how I feel without actually having to face them. Which is why I hope that no one feels targeted in this post.Believe me, I'm dealing with my issues on a more personal level than this post. This post is just me sorting out feelings. And when the situation warrants it, I'll be real with you. Promise.

Why does friendship feel so heavy?

2006-09-29T17:23:00.000-12:00

I'm just going to start writing... I'm not quite sure what I want to say yet. Usually I have a particular thought I want to get down, but tonight I'm not sure what I want to say. This week I'm a little dissatisfied with myself. I don't feel like a good enough student, a good enough daughter, a good enough friend. But I'm not sure why I can't get there. Why I can't be the person I know I can be, the person I've successfully been before. My roommate Skeyse and I were talking about this "blah" feeling we've both had this fall, and she thinks it might just be a junior thing. But I think that its something more with me.

I'm going to be honest and say that I haven't been feeling too great lately. All I want to do is sleep, and on Saturdays I've done just that. I'll sleep a little more than 30 hours in a weekend. I get eight hours on weeknights and on the weekends I feel like I have to catch up. My energy just isn't there, and it frustrates me. I've been distancing myself from everyone around me but Skeyse. And she's going to Oxford next semester, so if I don't remedy this its going to be one lonely spring. But that doesn't even scare me, Sarah leaving, which, to me, is a sign that something is wrong. And I want to deal with it, if I could pinpoint why I feel the way I do. I'm afraid that if I have this room to myself all I will do is keep to myself. I'm becoming this hardcore loner and I don't know where it is coming from.

I've also been hit with the realization that all of my friends have monumental problems in their lives, and I'm so frustrated about it. Why does so much hurt exist? Why would someone's father do/say that to her? Why would this beautiful girl be anorexic, and why couldn't I see her struggling with it? Everyone is so broken, I'm broken, and who is there to fix it? I know the answer but right now it seems far from my reality.

When I was younger I prayed for God to give me compassion. Right now I wish my heart were harder, because it really aches inside, to feel this much sorrow for someone else. Her situation has completely thrown me off my axis and I don't feel like I can get oriented again. My heart is so heavy, and her problem seems so huge. And somehow, though I've ignored her issue for almost five years, she still feels like I've been there for her. I wasn't a friend to her at all, not in the way she really needed me. It was so superficial, and even when it was deep, those conversations were superficial, or about me. I used to pour my soul out to her, and I never stopped to see that she might need to bare her soul to me. I don't think it was becuase she didn't want to tell me, I honestly think I never gave her the opportunity.

Now, my friend, your heartache has moved me to tears. I can't stop crying for what you've been through, for how much you still have to deal with, and for the beauty I can see in your story--God moving in your life. I wish you would call so we could have a real conversation. I just want to listen to what your feeling so that I can be praying for you. I have do something, to try and get rid of this heaviness.

I want to get off

2006-09-25T10:43:00.000-12:00

Driving back to school last night, I felt really old. I know 20 isn't old, but I felt it. It was a culmination of a lot of things I think, my feeling old. I was talking to Lauren about Katie's third anniversary with her boyfriend, and we were wondering if they might get engaged soon. ENGAGED. I felt like Jo March, and Lauren did too. For anyone who hasn't read Little Women, Jo has three sisters and she's the last to get married. Her whole outlook on life was basically that why should they all get married, when they were so happy being together, just being sisters. And I feel like this all the time, who needs boys, really?

Lauren started crying saying that she didn't want to be this old, that one of the Goddard girls was well on her way to being married. And I felt like crying too but I held it in, because it was ridiculous really, us crying over something that hasn't happened yet.

So that was one thing, and the other thing which made me feel old was John. Good old John, this song really spoke to me, and probably every college junior who is stuck in transition...

No i'm not color blind I know the world is black and white
Try to keep an opened mind i just can't sleep on this tonight
Stop this train i want to get out and go home again
I can't take the speed it's moving in I know i can
But honestly will someone stop
this train
Don't know how else to say it,
don't want to see my parents go
One generation's length away From fighting life out on my own
Come on stop this train I want to get off and go home again
I can't takethe speed it's moving in
I know i can but honestly won't someone stop this train
So afraid of getting older I'm only good at being young
So i play the numbers game to find a way to say that
life has just begun
Had a talk with my old man
Said help me understand You sit
down 68 you'll renegotiate Don't stop this train
Don't follow it moves
the
place you're in I don't think i could ever understand
I tried my
hand John,
honestly we'll never stop this train
See once in a while
when it's good
It'll feel like it should When you're all still around And you're
still safe
and sound And you don't miss a thing so you cry when you're
driving
away in
the dark. Singing stop this train i want to get out and
go home again I
can't take this speed it's moving in I know i can Cause now
i see i'll never
stop this train

Issue one--check

2006-09-22T06:44:00.000-12:00

The first issue of the paper is done. Page seven freaks me out. The worst part of being the editor is having to write an editor's note, and that picture is just too huge. I'm not that kind of reporter, the one who eventually just wants to write opinion columns. No, I'm sure that writing down what other people say is a way better use of my time. I'm not a columnist... my opinion is not that important to me and it changes daily.

Thought the best way to share with you what I've been doing this week is to just give you the link to the web version of what has become my life. Here's the link.

http://www.huntington.edu/newspaper/2006-2007/Issue%201-2006%20for%20Web.pdf

29

2006-09-19T13:13:00.000-12:00

29... the number of consecutive hours I was awake from Monday, 7:45 a.m. 'til today, 12:45 p.m.

But the Huntingtonian got finished, and I'm personally proud of all the work that was put into it.

I've only been awake for an hour and now I'm ready to go back to bed. I just needed to get dinner. All-nighters do not agree with my body... I kind of feel like my head is detaching itself from my body, or maybe I have whiplash.

Turning into my busy self

2006-09-12T09:05:00.000-12:00

This is my third week of school. The time when you really get to start digging into the courses you are taking. So I thought I would talk about my courses for a little bit. Overall, I really like everything I'm taking and the teachers (some of the students in them are already starting to drive me insane). We'll see how long all of this lasts. Here we go:

Mass Communication: I always love my communication classes because I know everyone in them by now and a lot of times we have fun discussions. Talking about media on a global scale is different for me, as a journalist I've mainly focused on affecting a more local audience. But its been kind of fascinating learning how the big news outlets do it... the biases they have and how the way they present certain issues really affects viewer/reader opinion. This class has birthed in me a hatred for the Fox News Channel (fair and balanced?) that has affected how I watch the news. Propoganda is out there in all the media outlets, and you have critically evaluate everything you are taking in, from either a liberal or conservative bent. Plus, we get to engage in media in the class by watching documentaries, news casts, and listening to speakers. Its been pretty great so far.

Journalism Practicum: This is the third time I've taken this class, but so far its been my favorite time. I am one of three upperclassmen in it, and I kind of feel like I'm there to help out the freshmen who are just starting out with their portfolios and their journalism majors. Plus, as editor of the Huntingtonian this year, they all know me and think I can answer all of their questions. Whether that is a fair assumption or not, this class is like an affirmation session for me. Plus there is a lot of positive relationship-building going on between me and Slang and our new reporting staff. They are all taking everything so seriously, it makes me happy, and its a little pathetic at the same time.

Public Policy: This is the class that might turn into my favorite this semester, because its just freakin' fascinating. Plus, my favorite gen. ed. prof is teaching it, which was a total surprise when I got my schedule this summer. So far we've discussed a ton of stuff that I learned in media law (my FAVORITE class from last year, besides Hebrew) and it is fun to discuss things like the 1st Amendment from a different point of view, and to listen to how non-communication students feel about their freedom of speech and other civil liberties. The only bad thing is the narrow-mindess that comes into play when we discuss issues like legalized prostitution and abortion. People cannot seem to grasp the idea that everyone does not have "Christian" mores, and that every young girl who gets knocked up does not have it coming to her. When I get in an enclosed room with fourty students who know that their opinion is the only right one, I get really uncomfortable. It actually makes me physically sick. So, this class is going to be a challenge for me. I'm excited.

Biblical Interpretation: This class is my heaviest work load, but so far I'm really liking it. Dr. Fairchild is amazing, and even though his class is at 8 a.m. and is 75 minutes long, I'm excited to go in the morning because this stuff is really revolutionary to me. I mean, the Bible is kind of turning into this amazing puzzle to me, where I get to search for key words and themes and the purpose behind some of the things Paul writes in I Timothy. It's hard, and I have a million questions all of the time. Right now I'm in the middle of making observations on the book as a whole, and I cannot wait until I'm done so I can look to commentaries to answer some of my questions. The Bible is so amazing... that to fully understand it the way God intends us to, scholars have developed a system that can take hours just to delve into 12 verses. And it is thousands of years old and it is living, and God communicates to us in it. I sound like a dork but this is just so awesome to me.

Teaching for Character Transformation:
I really like that I'm taking this class after my internship this summer, and I hate it at the same time. Because when we are talking about approaches and principles of how students learn, I can picture myself teaching certain things and using the techniques we talk about to the students from home, but I get frustrated when I think about how much better I could have been when I was teaching, just from what I've learned in the past three weeks of class, and also using concepts from Bib Interp. My professor is crazy, but you can tell she loves what she's doing. I wish that we could have better discussion in there though, no one will talk.

So, this is what I'm learning right now. On top of everything I'm learning as the editor, which has been so much. I'm confident that at the end of this semester, I will be both older and wiser... hehe :)

Leave poor Disney out of this

2006-09-07T15:11:00.000-12:00

After reading the latest posts by both Michelle Malkin and Juan Cole, it became apparent what issues are hot on the minds of both conservative and liberal political thinkers. For the Democrats of this nation, like Cole, Bush’s address this week is of high priority. Basically, Cole called our President a liar when he talked about what Cole is calling the “Abu Zubayda myth”—a story Bush is telling about the capture of a terrorist just months after September 11 who Bush labeled as a close ally to Osama Bin Laden. He said that this man helped us capture another Al-Qaeda leader, but Cole is saying that the government had the information they used to capture this man an entire month before 9/11. So, is our President throwing out lies to distract the public from something? Cole says yes.

For Republicans like Michelle Malkin, there was a clear target this week—Walt Disney. ABC’s decision to cut an allegedly anti-Clinton, anti-Democrat sequence out of its made-for-tv special, “Path to 9/11” was the topic of her blog. Malkin called the left-wing supporters “bullies and thugs” who have been emboldened by their victory over ABC in this case. Apparently, our right to protest and petition for something we believe in automatically creates bullies. But anyhow, I’m not sure that Malkin’s blog of the week speaks of the most relevant news today. Okay, so we know that Disney is evil, and now they are giving into the conniving left-wing protestors…blah-blah. We’ve heard all of this before, it’s getting a little old. And I’m still going to watch Beauty and the Beast because it is my favorite movie of all time and that will never change.

And yes, I know that targeting Bush is getting quite as old as the way conservatives berate the most magical corporation on earth, but at least democrats seem to have some weight and value behind their arguments.

My double life

2006-09-06T16:19:00.001-12:00

Sometimes I feel like I'm becoming two very different people. Specifically, a minister and a journalist. Fitting, I know, since I'm an ed. ministries/journalism double major. The only reason I came to Huntington was because God gave me the means to be here, and I have always believed that God is blessing me by letting me pursue journalism. Anywhere else, I would be a ministry major, just a ministry major.

But here I am, living two lives. One is like home to me. Working on the Huntingtonian and writing and copy editing... all of these things feel like an extension of myself. I'm the most comfortable and pleased with myself when I'm working on a newspaper. And I'm good at it, not just competent. I know that I'm good at it. I've never felt more confident about anything. And since I was 12 this is what I saw myself doing with my life.

My minstry self is at most times completely void of any self confidence. Working at a church this summer was so hard, giving so much of myself to students drained me everyday. And I just don't feel like any of my large group teachings went very well. Even when I would have to stand up in front of the church, just to give a 30 second announcement, my body and voice would shake. God gave me encouragement everywhere though, but especially in the junior high girls small group I had at my house. I miss those girls so much.

When I turned 16, I realized that my plans are not always what God has for me. Now I know that I'm called to work with students fulltime. And I've always looked at journalism like something I have to give up when the time comes to go into vocational ministry. In high school my thoughts about my future were rigid like that... God was calling me to give up my dreams of being a journalist and become a youth minister. Now I know that I'm not two people. I know that all of gifts and talents, as well as my deficiencies, are all a part of my calling from God. Its just frustrating because how it all is going to fit together is completely beyond my understanding. And I think that, even though I love journalism and the fact that I'm so good at it is appealing, that it is not always something that is beneficial to me because so much of it comes from me... my talents, my writing, my knowledge. My ministry is always going to come from God, because let's face it, I kind of suck at it right now. The only time things are good is when I don't feel like I'm doing any of the work, but the spirit is taking what I've prepared and speaking through it.

So this is something I've been struggling with for awhile. Why would God create me to be so good at one thing, and call me into a totally different vocation? I think that His biggest answer is dependence. He doesn't want me to lean on my own talents and understanding, but to cling to him to get me through. I have no idea why he thinks I'm a worthy enough spokesperson, but I think that in my ministry the message is always going to end up being more appealing than the messenger, which does give me comfort in all this uncertainty.

Get me out of this drama-filled O.C.

2006-08-23T07:05:00.000-12:00

In case you didn't know, nothing ever happens in my life. Drama happens all around me, and I just get the reflected glow off of everyone else's excitement. But I'm no complaining, I love my drama-free life. But the more crap I help people deal with, or listen to people vent as they deal with it, the more I realize that I live through people a lot. And I live through characters I read about and watch in movies. Its a very safe life, and I'm very happy by my standards. But last night I watched Shadowlands, this movie about how C.S. Lewis got married to this loud mouthed yankee poet. And I think when Lewis met Joy he realized that he had been living life really safe because he didn't let too many people into it that challenged him. He was always the best in his social circles. The most intelligent, the best writer, the best debator... he didn't have a single challenging relationship until he met Joy.

And it got me thinking... I don't want to live safe anymore. Lord, I think I'm ready to have my own experiences again. I want to allow the people in my life to not only support me, but challenge me to become who you've called me to be. I know I'm falling short right now, and it feels like I'm not really living. I know if I come to you willing to change, you'll work with me. We'll see how it goes.

You are what you write

2006-08-09T05:17:00.001-12:00

Dear Blogspot,

I read the article "Words of Caution: Bloggers who use Web to grouse about the workplace face employers' wrath as companies put limits on employees' speech" in the Indianapolis Star on Sunday. And I want to confess about something right now. I am fully aware that my identity is revealed on this blog. My real name and picture are used to personalize it. I also know that because I post my thoughts and feelings and stories on blogspot, anyone in the world can access it. Therefore, if I ever write anything to hurt my reputation or the reputation of a friend, family member or employer, it will be my own fault if I am punished in some way. So blogspot, I'm sorry that people are blaming you for their stupidity. If they wouldn't ride down street with a bullhorn reading their posts, maybe they shouldn't be posting it in the firstplace. Journals are for the things you need to write but are afraid to offend with... blogs are for writing for others to share in your life. And when I say others, you know I mean anyone in the entire world who is smart enough to use the Internet, right? The only reason underground newspapers are worth anything is that no one can figure out who is trashing them. I think we can learn a lot from this, blogspot.

And also, my dear friend, I want to apologize for your other users out there who think they are being mysterious when they talk about a friend who stabbed them in the back or hurt their feelings, but think its okay to talk hatefully about someone because they omit a name. And yes, we ALL know who they are talking about. No one is as mysterious as they think they are. So sorry, blogspot, that we misuse you and blame you when someone gets hurt... or we get fired.

A father to the fatherless

2006-08-06T16:14:00.000-12:00

My dad hit me once. I couldn't tell you why or how old I was...I know it was in the morning before school and that I probably smarted off, but I can still picture the back of his hand coming toward me. And the way I felt as I fell into the corner of the hallway, so small and helpless. That feeling will probably never leave me. But I wasn't hurt physically--my daddy would never injure me. He's a great dad, really. I've never, ever told anyone other than my mother about that fateful morning. Not my sisters, not my closest friends. But I feel like I have to get that out before I can sort through everything that I'm feeling right now--I'm not saying it for any kind of sympathy, I haven't thought about the incident in years because it is so insignificant. But I do have to say it because that 3 seconds of my life, when I made contact with his hand and started to fall away from him toward the ground, is the closest I'm ever going to feel to being fatherless.

One of my closest friends has always been, and will always be without a dad. Her mom and grandparents and aunt and uncle, and even her most loving boyfriend have more than filled any void he could have left, but she's been without just the same. And something happened recently that has mucked up all this crap that she's not felt in awhile, and she's feeling pretty fatherless right now. It has to do with letters and money and her coming to grips with the kind of man he really is. There seems to be no integrity in him at all, just the appearance of it. Growing up my friend's dad was always a touchy subject... I just knew that he stayed away and that's exactly what she wanted. He supported her as impersonally as he could... a simply check in the mail at the appropriate time. But once in sixth grade he mailed her a letter. She never read it. Today, after the past few weeks he's put her and her mom through, she told me that she feels justified in keeping him away from her heart the way she always has. And her saying that completely broke my heart. Because, why do I get a dad when she doesn't?

Sometimes I think God established a father/child relationship because there is nothing more natural and beautiful than a dad loving his daughter or son with all that he has. Playing with her, praying for her, providing for her. And it has always helped me understand God better, to think of him as a dad similar to mine. One who is constantly frustrated with his ungrateful, sometimes unloving child, but would do anything for her at the same time. But I also think God is our father because some people simply don't have one, or they have such an awful dad that they would be better off without. The Lord allows us to call him Dad because sometimes we just need one.

"Sing to God, sing praise to his name, extol him who rides on the clouds--his
name is the LORD--and rejoice before him. A father to the fatherless, a defender
of widows, is God in his holy dwelling. God sets the lonely in families, he
leads forth the prisoners with singing..." Psalm 68 5-6

Finally, a piece of redemptive fiction

2006-07-24T20:09:00.000-12:00

"It was a cult of death: in the end there was no symbol in human history more disconcerting to Amos than Jesus on the cross. Amos was drunk, okay, he would admit it, but he loved Jesus, he loved the doomed baby and the serious little boy in the temple addressing his elders, and he adored the man Jesus became, the crafty magician sneaking into villages and healing the least of his brethren and whispering Tell no one I was here. Amos could think about Jesus for hours, how he inverted the status quo and begged us to lay down our weapons, how (and his is a stunner, as far as Amos was concerned) one of the tests scholars apply to the Gospels, in trying to determine what might be legitimately ascribed to Jesus, is this: what speech, what gesture, is the most unlikely in first-century Palestine? Find those, and ecce homo, you've found the Man. -- The Solace of Leaving Early, Haven Kimmel

Its three in the morning and I just finished this book. Shame on me for staying up so late when our youth group has a service project in the morning. But I just sunk my teeth into this book and I couldn't stop until I had found out how it was all to be resolved. And while I know that this book has everything to do with questioning huge, impersonal theological and religious ideas in the context of a broken relationship, I couldn't help but see God moving in every page, through these fictional characters. And it got me thinking about something Jesus said to his disciples about prayer, something like if dads on earth know what kind of gifts to give their children, how much more perfectly does our Heavenly Father know how to give to us. Because if this work of fiction, created by one simple, imperfect person, can portray God's relationship with humanity in such a beautiful language, how much more perfect is the real thing--God's story written about how he longs for me to forget about my past and my insecurities and just wrap my entire self around his leg like a three year old who wants her dad to take her for a ride. I was laying in bed for awhile, but I wanted to get my thoughts down so I could look back on this post someday and remember the awe I'm feeling right now. I think that I'm in a season of my life where I can't figure out why anyone takes the time or effort to invest in me... so to be hit with the unmistakeable truth that the King of Eternity longs for me to dwell in Him, to find my comfort in Him, to find my acceptance in Him is a kind of revolutionary thought for me right now. A concept that has been bred and instilled in me all my life, but until now hasn't been translated as pure, unadulterated love.

2006-07-13T01:50:00.000-12:00

Yoga was my best friend last night... It saved me from imploding, I think. After the day I had, I needed that hour to focus on my breathing and movement, but I mostly needed to NOT be focusing on the day because it was so horrible.

I'll give some credit to my friends, I really think they thought they were being supportive. But if I had to hear one more, "Why is she getting married again?" I don't know what I would have done. Wait, I do know. I would have screamed at one of them, like I did to my mother. Because you can show horrible sides of yourself to your mom that you hide from your friends because, let's face it, your mom is obligated to love you anyway. And why I'm sure my friends would still love me if I had a nervous breakdown in front of them, but I would scare them for sure.

But I did find a dress that I don't totally hate. But now I have to come up with bridal shower games, yuck.

Vacation without rest

2006-07-01T16:38:00.000-12:00

It's weird how during the school year when I have so much work to do I find the time to update this every day, and now that its summer I never seem to update. Probably because there is nothing going on in my life that is of any significance.

It kind of feels like everything is happening to people all around me, and nothing at all to me. I'm pretty restless at the moment...

Heading to the Smokies for a week of family time. Its going to be a test of my patience, mostly because I have none when it comes to my sisters. My goal is to not be the cause of any argument this week, and even though I see about a million problems brewing up in my family I'm not going to bring light to any of them because frankly, that is not supposed to be my role. I'm going to let my parents be parents and my sisters be the adults they are becoming. This is a huge step for me. I might tell you if I have success with my new attitude, and if I don't you'll know I failed miserably.

My preschool moments...

2006-06-19T06:51:00.000-12:00

Obedience... its not a word that I like very much, probably because I suck at it. Ask my parents. But yesterday in church I had an epiphany of sorts. It was like a huge amount of old truth hit me in a new and real way. We were singing a song called "Unfailing Love" and we came to these lyrics-- "And everything you hold in your hand, Still you make time for me, I can't understand." And at that moment I really couldn't understand. Why would God put up with all of my crap, my disobedience?

During our communion meditation I started thinking about the things I fill my time with, the thoughts that I have all the time that are just starting to eat away at my relationship with God. And I thought about how much God has given me, what He gives me everyday and I do absolutely nothing for him that is free from an alterior motive. And I really have nothing of worth to give God but my love and obedience. I kind of feel like I'm in the preschool years of my faith, I rebel just enough to see what God is going to do about it, but I know that He has what is best for me. And I'm not four, obedience should not be a dirty word. It shouldn't be hard for me to love people and give God what he deserves--my heart, my talents and my time. But I'm having a lot difficulties giving that to hime without feeling like I would be happier if I were living for me. I am just so incredibly frustrated with my attitude--its like I know in my head that I'm acting ridiculous but I can't stop feeling that way.

When I was a little girl I went to this Baptist youth camp every summer that I absolutely loved. Every year we sang this song, its probably the only one I remember, because this was like 10 years ago. But the lyrics went like this: "I'll obey to serve you, I'll obey to show I love you. I'll obey, my life is in your hands. It's the way to prove my love when feelings go away. If it costs me everything, I'll obey." I've just been thinking about those words. And this summer I really have not been getting any of the feel-good stuff from him. Those feelings are not always going to be there. True spiritual growth happens in the rock-bottom valleys of faith, not the times when God picks you up and mercifully does all of the work for you. It should be really simple to obey God because it is just the outflow of my love for him. But I'm crap, I really am.

Pedro the Lion says it best:
You know I want to be like Jesus
But it seems so far away
When will I learn to obey
Obey

Weddings, Cheesecake and a Sinus Infection

2006-06-14T01:36:00.000-12:00

Kristi Cochran is now Mrs. Sluka and that is so beautiful. I think that the whole wedding/marriage thing makes sense to me in a new way after this weekend, my first bridesmaid experience. It was so cool that they were willing to go through that entire weekend, all the money and stress related to it, just so that they could stand up as examples of what love is supposed to look like between two of God's children. They were both so happy, and the wedding was gorgeous.

Weddings have been on my mind the last month as I was preparing myself to lose Kristi in the relational context I'm used to, since she is obviously not going to be living with us on R3 next year. And I kept thinking how many times the New Testament talks about our relationship with Christ as one between a bride and a groom. I guess it is the closest earthly picture we have of that beautiful union, and I think that Kristi and Phil's wedding was such a cool celebration of what we have to look forward to one day with Jesus.

And Kristi was so beautiful she made me cry...Seriously. And I got to eat sweets for the first time in weeks. Chocolate Rasberry Truffle from Cheesecake factory, an embarrassing bachelorette cake make by Skeyse's mom, and Kristi's dad's famous cake at the wedding. Now that it is okay to eat sweets again, that seems to be the only thing I want to do. I think I'll give myself this week and abstain from them for at least another month. I was feeling pretty healthy before I started eating all of that crap again.

The beautful Nichole came home with me after the wedding and got to sleep a few nights in the OC, and that is basically all we did, being as tired as we were from the decorating, the sleeping in strange beds, and the walking around all day in riduculously uncomfortable shoes. But it was really good to have that little bit of goodbye time together. Because yes, two of my friends are leaving me in the fall. I think Nichole driving away from my house was even sadder to me than Kristi getting herself tied to a man forever (just joking, my lovely friend) because I'll still see Kristi practically every day and Nichole is going to be practically gone from my Huntington life. It is really sad, but beautiful at the same time because this whole thing is such a good fit for her. And she's getting married next summer and I'm really excited for that.

I am rambling so much that I almost forgot to talk about the third point in my title. I'm sick. My allergies have been pretty mad at me the last few days and it has been hard to breathe. But I think its been a blessing, because I took Monday afternoon off to got to the Dr. and rest, and that enabled me to go serve at the Community Kitchen in Bloomington with two girls in the youth group. They called and needed a third, so I took an advil for my headache and went to clean and serve meals to people for a few hours. Everyone there is so amazingly nice and it felt good to be giving people a good meal. And it was amazing because I didn't cough or sneeze the entire time I was there, which I was kind of afraid was all I was going to be doing. Yay, God is good.

Saturday in my pajamas

2006-06-02T12:40:00.000-12:00

Okay, so I haven't changed out of my tank top in shorts I slept in, but its my day off and being a bum is what I love to do. Though my appearance does not warrant it, I did get a lot done today.

My mommy turned 47 today and my sisters and I decided to get her framed portraits of us taken... well at least I took them. What good is a $200 camera anyway, if I can't use on for someone I love. We framed four pictures, one 5x7 of each of us girls and an 8x10 of the three of us together. We took them at Butler on Monday when we visited Katie. And today while my parents went out on a date Lauren and I mounted them in their bedroom. This, unfortunately required some spackling and touch-up painted when Lauren made some unecessary holes in the wall. She was adorable, she kept calling herselp Bob Villa.

Lauren also made her a cookie cake as a surprise. I'm excited, birthdays are my favorite thing, except my own of course. We also tried to finish mulching the huge new flower garden in our backyard, but we ran out of landscaping fabric and a trip to Wal-Mart is apparently required to get the job finished. Does a day ever go by where I don't have to go to Wal-Mart, I've hardly been free of that place for a day since I've been home.

Lauren went and got us dinner, baked spaghetti from Pizza Hut, and we watched In her Shoes, which came this week from Netflix. I like my day off, its good to me.

2006-05-31T05:41:00.000-12:00

Last week was busy, but a reallly good one. I forgot how nice it was to get a paycheck that was more than $87 every month, which is what I tried to live on during the year. Yay for money. Strike that, yay for not having to worry about money.

Lots of stuff is going on, but none of it interesting enough to put in this post. I'm just working, which means going to the office to plan and study all day, which I'm really enjoying, and hanging out with students in the evening. When I'm not with students, I'm hanging out with my lil' sis, who is in fact a junior in my youth group, or I'm sleeping. I'm not completely unpacked and settled in my room yet, so I have been floating from sleeping on the futon in my sis' room to the coach about every other night.

For Memorial day Lauren and I went up to Indy to hang out with our big sis Katie, who is living up there and going to Butler pharmacy school. We went to Circle Center and shopped, which turned out to be fun but pretty fruitless, and we had dinner at the Old Spaghetti Factory which was amazing. It was nice to have some uninterrupted time with her. I think it was the first time in 2.5 years that her boyfriend didn't call when I was with her. That made my day.

Todays agenda= going to the office, playing ultimate frisbee w/ students at 2:00, coming home and hosing the sweat of my exhausted body (it is going to be so hot outside), and driving to B-town to tan and buy the frames for my mom's b-day present. We are going to frame some portraits that I took of me and my sisters on Saturday when we were at Butler. It's going to be fun.

By the way, I'm now addicted to the show you see listed below this post. Katie bought and brought the first season home for me to watch a few weeks ago, and since then I have downloaded the entire second season to watch. I fell in love w/ Veronica's character. I'm sad that I have to wait until September before I can watch a new episode.

You might be a feminist if...

2006-05-27T08:52:00.000-12:00

(*disclaimer: I read this on someone's blog... I only mostly agree with it)

A funny thing happens to girls in junior high schools across America. It doesn't happen to every girl, and it doesn't happen all at once. But it is widespread and well-documented. Girls change. They change from passionate, playful, competitive and intelligent girls into uncertain, self-loathing, depressed adolescents.

To put it another way: Girls start acting dumb. They trade their math books for "Seventeen," starve themselves, and quit the basketball team to become cheerleaders. Some of them do it enthusiastically, but others enter adolescence reluctantly, longing for the days when they could be... well, themselves.

And while almost everyone accepts this as just a way of life, some people see it as a tragedy.

This phenomenon is discussed in several articles and books, the most prominent of which is probably Reviving Ophelia by Mary Pipher, PhD. It has no single cause, it is a byproduct of patriarchal culture, just like unequal pay, double standards, stereotypes, sexist assumptions, and contradictory rules for females.

A young woman once told me that she'd never be a feminist because she'd never experienced sexism. But sexism is still present in America - in fact, it's everywhere. If anything, it's just become more subtle.

My bet is that every woman (and probably every man) has experienced at least a few, and probably hundreds, of patriarchal injustices.

And anyone who opposes an injustice based on gender - whether they're male or female - is a feminist, or at least, they can be said to hold some feminist views. Despite what backlash has claimed, feminism is nothing more than the powerful notion that women and men deserve to be treated equally.

If you're tired of being defined by who you date and having your accomplishments marginalized or ignored, if you're sick of being "the woman behind the man," you might be a feminist.

If you got angry because your health teacher told you, "A guy who has sex has nothing to lose, but a girl has her reputation", you might be a feminist. (I didn't make that up, a teacher really told my 8th grade class that. It was 1998.)

If you've ever been legitimately angry and been accused of "just PMSing," you might be a feminist.

If you think it's unfair for a rape victim to be asked if she's a virgin at her rapist's trial, you might be a feminist.

If you got mad when you realized your guidance counselor was discouraging all the girls in your school from taking upper level science courses, regardless of their skill levels, you might be a feminist.

If the female members of your Homecoming and Prom Court were all cheerleaders, while you were on the volleyball team. If you've noticed a female sports star has to be an Anna-Kournikova-sex-symbol to get on a Wheaties box, while plenty of famous male athletes are about as appealing as John Kruk... you might be a feminist.

If you want to be paid the same wage as a man who does the same work as you... Who are you kidding? You're a feminist.

If you want to be offered an opportunity for career advancement, instead of having your boss assume that you'll be leaving in three years to have a baby, then face it - you're a feminist.

If you are pro-contraception, wake up - you're a feminist. If you don't think it's fair you have to pay $50 a month for your birth control while your insurance provider covers prescriptions for Viagra, you're a feminist.

If you would like to see the wealthy nations of the world fight against global female genocide and female genital mutilation, honor killings, bride burnings, and other atrocities against women - you might as well be a card-carrying feminist.

If you are not a feminist, at least in this most broad definition of the word, you're either a chauvinist, a misogynist or a doormat.

If you think I'm misrepresenting feminism, you can look it up in any dictionary or encyclopedia. You can do research on sites such as National Organization for Women or Feminist Majority Foundation. Or, check out these great feminist books: The Feminine Mystique by Betty Friedan, A Room of One's Own by Virginia Woolf, The Second Sex by Simone De Beauvoir, The Women's Room by Marilyn French, and Feminism is for Everybody by Bell Hooks.

It's important to note that not all feminists are activists. Feminism is both a frame of mind and a movement.

But if you are a member of America's Silent Majority... whenever you're ready to start acting up, the rest of us could really use your help.

I feel so out of context...

2006-05-22T05:07:00.001-12:00

Today I realized something when I was visiting students at the high school for lunch. I have talked to my parents less this past week than when I am at school, which is three hours away. I live at home, that is just pathetic. So I decided to run down the hall and see my dad really fast before he left for lunch, and he invited me to come back in a half hour to watch his kids dissect rats. Seriously. That. Is. Disgusting. I told him I'd pass, then I made a mental note to sit with him on the couch sometime this week so we could cuss at the Reds. Now, that is quality father-daughter time.

Lauren and I have been together A LOT though. She's actually turning into someone I like to hang out with, and I'm pretty sure that I never thought that would happen. We got Netflix for the summer and we've got about a thousand we plan to see together. Plus, anytime I'm "working" at a youth event, I get to hang out with her. Such fun, I'm in a pretty good situation.

It is a beautiful day outside. I think I'll help my dad in the yard. Get some free tanning in. Right now, my arms resemble a farmer's (Darn you, tennis class). This is not good. I have to look cute in a shiny blue dress in 18 days. Need to work on the tan a little bit more. Blah Blah Blah. My life is Boring. Blah Blah Blah. I'm out, talk to ya soon.

My half-life...

2006-05-18T06:09:00.000-12:00

Home has been so strange. Strangely wonderful, actually. A lot of good things have happened, and some completely odd things too. Like I lost our trash bags at home. They are in my room somewhere, but I've yet to find them after searching for four days. I have also become addicted to yet another show... I'm sue it is slowly killing me. But I'm really into Veronica Mars, my big sis bought the first season on dvd and I fell in love with the character not because she is necessarily real, but because she is fearless. She kicks butt on a daily basis, and sometimes that is just fun to watch.

But my last week here hasn't really felt like my life. I haven't seen any of my home friends, not counting my church peeps. I haven't been on any deadlines, which I always am at school with the paper and journalism classes. I've sepent a lot of time with my lil sis and my mom, both of whom I have begun to build real, non-familial relationships with. I don't feel the obligation to spend time with them anymore, when I'm at school I find myself longing for it. So I'm not going to label this last week as my summer self yet... I kind of feel like Hugh Grant in "Notting Hill," like I "live a strange sort of half-life." But its been very enjoyable, I do admit... and God and I have been spending some much-needed, uninterrupted time together.

I re-reading Donald Miller's Searching For God Knows What, and a passage resonated with me that I hadn't thought about before--

My friend Penny's dad says he thinks God was angry for a while after the Fall, then got over it, sent His Son, and now is pretty well adjusted and forgiving. And of course I don't think that is exactly how it is, but I can understand why Penny's dad would read the Bible this way. But my other friend John MacMurray says that every time he gives the Bible to a person to read for the first time, even if they don't agree with it, they see God as a Person who is incredibly patient with humanity. John pointed out that it takes God hundreds of years to finally get angry enough to lay any sort of punishment on His enemies. He's like France in this way.

When I read that yesterday I thought about Michael and my junior year in Spanish class. Michael, out of the blue one day turned to me and said that the he can't stand the Bible because it contradicts itself. Now, my sixteen year-old self was utterly offended that Michael would bash my God's very own word right in front of me. I told him that I absolutely believed everything the Bible said, but thinking back I'm not sure how much of the Bible I actually had studied. But I can relate to him now. On the surface, Yahweh has two polar sides, there is no consistency at all. He is completely just in how he writes off his people-- "If you do not carefully follow all the words of this law, which are written in this book, and do not revere this glorious and awesome name--the Lord your God--the Lord will send fearful plagues on you and your descendants, harsh and prolonged disasters, and severe and lingering illnesses" (Deut. 28:58-59). He warned us, and we broke his trust. But then comes the beautiful injustice of God, which is embodied in Christ's birth, death and resurrection. We disobey, and God's takes on our punishment for us.

So yes Michael, the Bible is pretty inconsistent, but I'm personally thankful that I'm not held accountable for the payment of my sins. I used to get peeved when my parents grounded me from the television... what would it be like to get punished for every crappy thing I did, and the things I just can't seem to stop doing?

"The Intern"

2006-05-16T11:41:00.000-12:00

As soon as I wrote my title I thought it sounded like a competitor to "the Apprentice." How stupid would that show be, probably vh1's version with Flava Flave or Danny Bonaduce as the host. Amazing. Anyway... I promise I haven't got sucked into the illusion that is reality telelvision, but the intern is my new identitiy for the summer. I'm the student ministries intern at my home church this summer.

So far, I've eaten lunch with students, wrote a letter to a few of 'em, and played ultimate frisbee...Which I should probably look into as a profession, I'm pretty good (and a total liar, apparently.) And I have slept A LOT since I have been home. It feels amazing. Plus, I'm reading for fun. I guess all of the life wasn't sucked out of me last semester, like I originally thought.

Being home has been an experience so far. Not saying if it's been a good or bad one, because I'm not even sure yet. My b-day was Saturday and absolutely NO ONE made a fuss over me, which I hate, so it was pretty much the perfect day. Plus, my sister's bought me Sephora and a yoga mat. They love me, its true. My mom and I are heading on a shopping trip to some of my favorite stores soon... well maybe not soon, just when we both have the time. But it will be fun. And Friday I am going to go hang out with my former best friend who is newly brainwashed and engaged. Our interaction is always so surface-level anymore and I'm at the point where it doesn't seem worth it to even bother. But alas, she's my Heidi... bring on the awkward silences.

Hmm... the best thing about being at home. Dinner is fixed every night for just four people... not 1000, so it has flavor and food group variation. Home sweet home.

Since the craziness is winding down... maybe I'll post

2006-05-09T15:18:00.001-12:00

One more exam and I'll be halfway done with my undergrad. Its a sigh of relief right now, because the past two weeks have been crazy, and really beautiful. And two of my favorite people are living their last week in the dorm, I'll miss my Kristi and my Nichole, but I'm super excited for both of you.

This year I've learned that most days, I don't want to be here. That sounds really bad, because Huntington truly is a beautiful place for me, with amazing friends. But as I sit in classes teaching me how to write and teaching me how to minister, I get this incredible, most anxious urge to actually write and to actually minister.

Which leads me to the only reason I'm excited to leave my comfortable dorm room on my safe campus for the summer. I get to do what I've been anxious for, I get to hang out with students all summer and I cannot describe to you how excited I am to actually be working in the church. Something that really has been four years in the making, I've felt God pulling me in that direction since I was 16. I'm scared and excited. And scared, and so blessed to be weening myself into it by working at my home church with students I already, for the most part, have some sort of a relationship with. People have been encouraging me in every possible way this spring. And I have to say that Dr. Bergler is going to be the best internship mentor ever. I wish he was my real advisor... because then at least I would have one who wasn't trying to fail me in practicum. *Sigh* I promise, I'm over it.... starting May 15, I've got a real, go to the office, love on kids internship. Words cannot describe my delight--God is just so good.

Oh, and I'm currently mad at the Gilmore Girls. We're feuding right now, and I'm not sure if we are going to make amends. My one comfort in life, though it sounds pathetic, is that on Tuesday nights, after I get home from Emmaus (my young adult small group at church), Rory and Lorelai are in my vcr, ready to make me happy. And now Lorelai is a whore and I am mad at her. But next September, all will be better, and hopefully the show will get funny again. Depressed Lorelai isn't that quick-witted. I miss it.

What I Learned Watching Laguna Beach

2006-05-06T12:55:00.000-12:00

-Its okay to hook up with all of your friends.. "Hook up" means having sex. But if you say hook up it doesn't sound that bad.
-A four year old car is an antique.
-When your dad is the pastor at a mega church, you are rich enough to pay for an audtion on broadway, even if you are a horrible singer.
-What happens in Cabo, stays in Cabo.
-When your dad is a businessman, you get a new car for graduation. When your dad is a minister, you get a leather bound NIV study Bible.
-You can graduate from high school and not understand how a cable car works.
-Its cool to buy a vespa, because they come in lots of colors and you get a matching helmet.
And now, a little vocabulary lesson:
"That was a trip, it was a trip and a half."
"I'm amped."
"That is so rad."
"We are so dunzo."