C'est La Vie
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What a beautiful piece of heartache this has all turned out to be. Lord knows we've learned the hard way all about healthy apathy. And I use these words pretty loosely. There's so much more to life than words..
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Monday, August 27, 2001
So much for geniuses
And learning from experiences you've gone and done it again so here I sit, alone perhaps you just like it there where the people think they're someone else and you can be in your own world leaving me here, alone why can't you see that you're throwing everything away for a feeling that doesn't last? that with every breathe you take you're killing me, forcing me to be without you. is it worth the pain to escape the pain in a way that only hurts you? so much for promises and believing it can be better you'd rather go and do it again and leave me here . . . alone (0) comments Thursday, August 23, 2001
Ok, so the really funny thing is that I was totally just gonna come and post the middle part of the post.. just the part about the actual reactions, with no explanation. And then I got into my blog editing field and I typed out the whole explanation.
Silley me. (0) comments If you've gotten to this site, you obviously have at least some knowledge of the internet. Whether you're a friend of mine or someone that just surfed on in (which just means a new friend) or any other possible situation, you have managed, somehow, to point your browser to this page and make it get here. Easier for some than others, I know. Chances are pretty good, as well, that you've sent more than one email in your life and possibly even participated in some online chatting of some sort. IRC, yahoo chat rooms *shudder*, AIM, ICQ, AOL chat rooms *bigfat shudder*, or any number of other areas provide all sorts of fun -- or not -- conversations. If you've emailed people that are good with internet life, if you yourself are good with internet life, or if you've been involved in almost any online conversation, you're probably familiar with how people express themselves online differently than they do (or did -- things have changed with the internet revolution) in writing. When I'm sending a letter to someone, for example, and I put something that's sort-of a joke in it, it's just there. Or perhaps you might say just kidding or j/k.. depending on the context. At least before the world of the internet. Now it's common to see lol or hehe written in a letter. So I have this friend that types heehee when he's laughing at something, and a mutual friend mentioned that she thought it was kinda weird at first that a guy types heehee as if he's giggling like a schoolgirl or the pillsbury doughboy. Then she met him in person and realized that he does, indeed, really laugh like that. It's not so feminine or little pudgy cartoonish when he laughs, but it does sound like "heehee" in a way. When I'm laughing at something that's not funny enough for a lol, I tend to type hehe. Some people use haha, some heehee. Other times, of course, I'll use *smirk* or *grin*. The latter two examples are usually pretty true-to-form.. I really am smirking or grinning. Likewise, when I type lol, I usually am laughing out loud. But when I type hehe or even heh, that's usually not anything like any sound I might have made in my enjoyment. If I were to really type out something to represent the sounds I make in response to things, it would look something like this: When I laugh a little: hhmmhh when I'm frustrated: hhmmph when I'm thinking: hmmm when I'm confused (as rare as that is, eh?): hmm?? when I'm making a point: hm.. that's rare, but I do sometimes use it in place of eh.. the way some people say huh rather than asking it.. We used to have a group of friends over to watch x-files (back before it went completely the way of the heathens and had too much gore per show and all) every Sunday night, and my roommates had this habit: every time they showed a close-up of Mulder's face, they would try to guess the expression he was not portraying. That is, he has the same face no matter what he's doing. (This isn't true of David himself .. we see MANY expressions in Return to Me, for example.) So at other times, when people would fail to respond to something, they'd say it was a Mulder.. and then, the person having usually actually responded to that with a questioning look, they'd do the examples of "Mulder when he's angry" "Sad Mulder" "Joyful Mulder" "Mulder right after kissing Scully".. each time just doing the same non-expressive face. That's about how it would be with me if I really typed out my responding sounds. (0) comments Wednesday, August 22, 2001
If you are a musician, a concert promoter, someone that wants to help indie musicians, or someone that's in good with a venue (perhaps the person that runs it, that books for it, or friends of one or the other), please visit:
IndieVenues.com If you're an artist or a venue, please register with our databases. Thank you and have a nice day. :) (0) comments There comes a moment in one's first college math class where she realizes that she didn't learn many of the things being reviewed from classes she had in high school. I figure I'll do ok in my pre-calculus class (though I'm only still taking it because the classes I wanted to transfer to were either too basic -- as in the case of the web site design class that would only cover things I've already done -- or full -- as in the case of the public speaking class and others that I thought about adding in place of the pre-calc class) but we did our review yesterday and, though I remembered most of what we were going over, from basic algebra lessons dating back to 6 years ago for me, I also realized that there were a few things that I simply hadn't learned. Just the way that I somehow managed to pass 5th grade math entirely without learning how to do long division, I also found myself staring blankly at the review screen as the prof was going over some algebra concepts that I had never so much as seen. It wasn't even that I hadn't ever picked it up or understood the idea, it was that I had simply never seen it. I wonder how much else I could have learned during my 11 and a quarter years of public schooling. But then, my math teachers in 8th grade (when I had algebra I) and high school (geometry and algebra II) were all good teachers, and I'm sure that I did learn everything I need to know and more. Also, in looking through career options, I found that not a single one of my careers will have the slightest need for any of the three main sciences, yet I have to take my choice of one of them in order to graduate college with a degree. I won't need chemistry, physics, or biology. Physics is the only one I didn't have in high school, but I don't think I'd be up to the challenge now, either. Chemistry I could tolerate, though I'd really prefer not to take it again -- I didn't do badly in that class in high school, but I sure didn't enjoy it. Biology, on the other hand, I despised. Despite having a good teacher, the only part of biology that I remember enjoying at all was that square thing that you use to determine genetic combinations for babies. I don't even remember the name of it now, but I enjoyed plotting out whether that baby was going to have green eyes, or what his chances were of carrying on the gene for a disease. That's it. I hated classifying animals, I hated dissection, I hated everything else in the biology course. So, since I already had them in high school and know that I neither want to use them in my potential careers, nor would I be interested in careers that do use them, isn't that enough to mean that I've explored that option and ought not need to take it in college? Of course, you know it's all a government conspiracy. The government doesn't REALLY care about educating America's children, they just want to find the bright and the brainwash-able, so that they can make this massive group of people to be used as weapons speacalists and that sorta thing. After all, someone not liking chemistry doesn't mean she won't do well in it, and that the government couldn't use her ability to their advantage. That last paragraph, by the way, contains a certain degree of sarcasm that should be fairly obvious. Yet, there's always the possability.. (0) comments Monday, August 20, 2001
About 30 minutes ago, I was sitting in the second of my 5-total college classes. I have 12 credit hours, and at least one class per weekday. I am a full-time (barely) college student.
Today, I left the place where I'm staying, got on the city bus with my backpack and jacket in-tow, and arrived at school just a wee bit late due to the city bus running a teensy bit behind. But that's ok, because I'd come to school early so that I could get my books at the bookstore before class. So I did that, met with one of the former students that was actively involved in one of the on-campus Christian organizations, and headed off for my first ever college class. My backpack probably weighs about 50 lbs by now -- which can't be good for my "don't lift over 20 lbs" hiatal hernia. This won't be a constant state, though, it's mostly just the massive set of pre-calc books, only one of which I'll have to keep with me this semester, and even then, it'll be the only book I'll have to bring to school that day. So, here I sit in the computer lab at my new college. I've handpicked my schedule (m, w, f classes start at 12, tues and thurs classes start at 11) and even managed to get into the ceramics class before it filled up. This excites me greatly. Artistic or Creative outlets are very good things, and very few Americans have enough of them. I haven't had very many since moving here, and didn't have a great deal for a good while before that, basically since dropping out of high school. In high school, I had art of some form every year, including ceramics AND "AP" (it wasn't really up to AP levels, but that's what my schedule said -- I transferred back to FL and wasn't accepted into the AP art class there, so I never did get to try for the credit) art my junior year in CA. Meanwhile, it feels really interesting being a student again. Everything that I left behind when I dropped out of high school (knowing that I would, eventually, go to college, but also knowing that it would be all the more difficult for my independency battles and the GED score on my record -- though the GED score WAS better than my GPA at the time that I left .. much better) is really not all that different so far in college. Teachers tend to introduce themselves with their first names, regardless of what you'd address them as when you say hi at the grocery store. I *did* get to pick out my own schedule, and I've got a bit more responsibility to get here on time, get myself fed, all that fun stuff. Other than that, though, it feels very much the same. Than again, I wasn't really a very traditional high school student anyway. (0) comments Thursday, August 16, 2001
Funny how a "come back tomorrow" can turn into a blog 5 days later.
Now that I've given back the car I was borrowing, I can't get to anywhere from where I can check my email, much less blog, nearly as often. I start school in 4 days .. I will be a full-time college student on Monday. This is monumental. It really doesn't look like it's gonna change my amount of time that I *could* spend online a great deal, but I guess it really depends on how much reading I have to do. I opted to drop western civ and take it next year, instead, so there's that much less reading I'll have to do. At any rate, I don't have much time right now, but hopefully I'll be able to get back into real blogging over the next couple of days. God bless you all. (0) comments My twin brother is a genius. If you have any interest in computers whatsoever, check out his site at http://www.25online.com/peter/ ... you'll probably, like me, be fascinated that these things are even possible, if you have a fairly basic knowledge of computers, right up through advanced usage and basic programming.. (that is, beginner type of basic, rather than the programming language.) If you're into programming, you'll probably enjoy his website as a great resource for XML tools and all sorts of other things. He's on the forefront of programming internet applications and a bazillion and a half other things, so by all means, go to his site and find out who REALLY got the brains in the family. (0) comments Saturday, August 11, 2001
There is absolutely nothing that I feel like blogging about tonite.
There are lots of things I want to tell you, lots of things I could share.. but there is nothing I'm in the mood to type about tonite. Come back tomorrow. :) (0) comments Friday, August 10, 2001
God is good, indeed. He is faithful to remind me, in so many different ways, about how much He loves me and about how powerful He is, more powerful than anything I could possibly face here on earth.
Just when I begin struggling with self-esteem issues, He sends someone to deny those. A perfect stranger, a little girl. Perhaps an angel? Certainly doing the work of the Lord. Just when I begin feeling discouraged and believing that I'm going to go through another time of not really having a home and not really having any way to contact me (in FL I was more-or-less homeless, staying at various people's homes when I could, and either way I didn't have a phone or address or really any way to contact me other than seeing me at church or emailing me, and even those were certainly less sure than they had been when I had a home) He sends someone to encourage me, to remind me that He knows my needs and hears my prayers. And yours. Why do I ever let myself get discouraged, let myself struggle with self-esteem at all, or any such thing? Because I'm a foolish human. Ah, how I look forward to the day when I'll need No More Faith. (0) comments If you're a business owner, and there's a sign on your door that says your business hours, being there during those business hours is a pretty good idea. (0) comments Thursday, August 09, 2001
Thanks very much to those of you that have been praying. (Perhaps some of you will read this afterwards, having not known before this moment in time that I was in particular need of prayer. And yet, God lives outside of time, and perhaps some of you that read this afterwards will pray for me, anyway. If so, thanks to you, too.)
Things are a lot better. One of the members of my church, upon hearing about my financial trouble, handed me a check for more than I needed. I was also able to talk to her for a very long while, which really helped remove a lot of my frustration and the bit of loneliness that comes from facing struggles without having live, real, flesh-and-blood people around you as much as you feel like you need them .. don't get me wrong, my online friends have been some of the best that I've ever had and many of you reading this are closer to me than anyone in my tangible life. But there's something about the tangible, the visible, that can't be caught by the internet. Talking with a real live human being about all sorts of aspects of this whole thing, especially knowing that she's willing to listen to me *and* willing and able to help me financially, despite some significant going-ons in her own life that don't make that any easier, really helped in ways that a hundred entries of blogging never would have been able to. Nor a thousand IM chats or emails. There's just something about the tangible .. that you CAN put your finger on it, if you'd be so kind as to pardon the 'orrible pun. Thank you, though, for your prayers, because I had a very close brush with depression within the past 36 or so hours, and it was only by your prayers that I did end up being able to go to jr. high Bible study tonite, at which that all happened. And it was only by your prayers that I decided to talk to her, rather than just leaving right after it was over to come here, as I thought of doing. And it was only by your prayers that I slept at all last nite (despite having a very 'orrible dream, but somehow my sleep after that was rather restful. And then the cat broke a glass that had been sitting on the coffee table, but by then it was about time for me to get up anyway). Thank you, friends, for your prayers. May God bless you all through the difficult and the "easy" times. May God make Himself clear and glorified in your life whether you feel like you can do it all yourself or whether you feel like you can't take another step. (0) comments Wednesday, August 08, 2001
Tonight, we're going to talk about one of the funnest topics known to mankind: Spiritual warfare.
Are you facing a lot of that right now? Count yourself among the majority of my friends. Do you not know what it is? Count yourself among the rest of them. As a Christian, I have been facing Spiritual Warfare all my life. This may sound like a politically correct term for "a whole lotta crap that can't always be explained and is stressful enough to give someone an ulcer", and really that's not a bad definition of it. But the important distinction is that it CAN be explained, for those of us that admit the existance of a Spiritual realm. Right now, pretty much everyone I know is facing a lot of Spiritual warfare, whether or not they know what it is. I'm facing a lot. It feels like more than I can handle, again, and my ulcer and hernia behaving particularly badly is proof positive that it's a bit more than I want. However, God truly never gives us more than we can handle, and really we wouldn't be able to handle much at all were it not for His strength, mercy, and love. Please pray for me, any believers reading this blog. This is nothing new in my life, and actually I guess it's coming about in a new way .. I actually have food this time, and perhaps more friends than I have during other difficult times. So, it's unusual how it's happening, including that there are a few new elements of "hardship" that I hadn't previously faced. (I learned to keep and balance a checkbook in elementary school, for example, and have had my very own bank account for a couple of years now, never having overdrawn it due to my own error.. this is new. This is not a good feeling, this is a very discouraging thing. There is no one for me to forgive this time, no one that wrote me a bad check. It is, indeed, my very own fault.) Meanwhile, this combined with the restlessness that comes every time I start getting settled in somewhere is really making the prospect of a more rigid schedule as a student less and less appealing. To rephrase and hopefully be less confusing: Next year, for the first time since high school, I will not be able to take breaks to go out of town whenever I feel the need .. I will not be able to stay home sick very often, no matter how badly my ulcer is acting up or how much my back hurts. I will not be able to do things on weeknights when I have a lot of homework, and will not be able to do things as early since I'm going to have classes every night that go past "normal" working hours. I am scheduled now. This makes me nervous.. this makes my free spirited self want to get away and not have to deal with that. I need to go home. My ulcer's been acting up all day since I found out about my bank account, and I need to just sit and read and focus entirely on things that are not stressful, and have some time with my Father. After all, He knows the plans He has for me, plans to propser me and not to harm. To give me a future and a hope. May God bless you, as I know, somewhere in my heart of hearts, that He is blessing me through things that seem difficult. (0) comments She's 5 years old, and she's got a boyfriend. "His name is Jack Valentine." She giggled. "That's his REAL last name!" Doubtful, thought I. I told her I'd never had a boyfriend. "Well then get married!" she said, as if that comes first. She continued to tell me all the important things about Jack. He has two sisters. He played on the soccer team. Apparently, that's all that's important. She didn't know anything more. Well, ok then. (0) comments This post is for that that use, would use, would consider using, have used, or ever might use Napster. This is from Andrew Peterson, who certainly knows what he's talking about in this respect. This is yet another (I posted Aaron Tate's similar thoughts in a previous post quite some time ago) post that sums up how I feel in a way much better than I could have ever said it. Whoever you are, chances are that I have LESS money than you. (I'm independant, pay all my living expenses myself -- or so goes the theory -- and yet make less than one third of what it takes to be at the minimum of poverty level in the United States.) Yet, if I want it enough, I find a way to pay for it or to earn it. Stealing Is Wrong. So following the colon is the post that Andrew Peterson put on his message board about Napster: Okay. I've held my tongue about Napster for a while now. Here's my opinion in a nutshell: About a year ago a college guy I was talking to after a show told me that he had just checked online and saw that 'Carried Along' was on Napster, and he was bummed that he'd just spent the 15 bucks on it. I was shocked. Since then I've had people tell me things like (and this is almost verbatim) "I just love your music. I don't have your cd but I've downloaded the songs from the internet." Napster doesn't have much effect on huge bands. I'm sure Britney Spears isn't hurting for cd sales. Napster can be great for indy bands that need their music heard, and just want to 'spread the love.' Napster hurts people like me who fall right in the middle, and there are a lot of us. Now I'm almost positive that if I were still in high school and hurting for money (or just greedy) I'd argue till I was blue in the face that I wasn't hurting anyone. I'm sympathetic to that mindset, but please consider what it's like for someone who makes their living off of music to read a message online saying that the album that they've poured themselves into for six months is now available for anyone with a modem to download, a month before its release. Britney doesn't care. Andrew and Jamie have two kids to feed. If someone downloads my cd and doesn't buy it, it is taking money directly out of my pocket. It is stealing. Say you download it with every intention of buying it later. Realistically, I doubt it. It certainly is less likely that you'll be there at the store during release week to buy a cd that you've listened to thirty times already. Let me break it down, just for fun. I buy my own cds at wholesale from the distributor for about six bucks. I sell them for 15 at concerts. So there's a nine dollar profit, minus about 30% for self-employment taxes. Six bucks. It may not sound like much, but merchandise sales comprise a huge portion of our income. When there's an opening act at a show? The only income they have most times is from cd sales at shows. So what I'm saying is, if even one person a night stole the music from Napster instead of buying it from (and supporting) the artist whose music they love enough to steal, its money that puts food on the table. If someone buys my cd at Best Buy I don't get anything directly, but with each cd there's a small royalty amount that I'll eventually make (I'm not even sure how much, but it's probably under a dollar per cd), but I don't make any of that money until that fragment of the cd sale royalty pays back the record label for every dime it cost to make my cd. So it takes a REALLY long time. Which is to say that every cd sale counts. The myth is that if you've got a cd out or a song on the radio that your money problems have been answered. Well, I know a lot of people who do this for a living, and in greater and lesser degrees, we all need your help in order to keep doing this. Music is often a business of nickels and dimes. There are months when people don't get paid. There are times when bands go deep into debt just to make it to the show in your hometown. There are bands that go belly up because they just can't make ends meet. And I'm talking about folks you hear on the radio and see in the record store. Ideally a guy like me wouldn't worry about money. I'd be like Rich Mullins and live in my truck, but he didn't have kids. He didn't have a wife. Things change drastically when your role on earth is not only to have child-like faith in a heavenly Father, but to have a child look to YOU for provision here on earth. Now you're probably thinking, "How did we get here from a discussion about Napster?" I just want to encourage you to not only obey the law, but to consider for a moment the situation of the guys like me who are neither independent musicians or mega stars, who need you to buy our records the old fashioned way. We need your help. Thoughts? (Heeeere we go...) Andy (0) comments Monday, August 06, 2001
Here's one of my favorite C. S. Lewis quotes of all time, which I just stumbled across again on Allen's site:
"It is a serious thing to live in a society of possible gods and goddesses, to remember that the dullest and most uninteresting person you can talk to may one day be a creature which, if you saw it now, you would be strongly tempted to worship, or else a horror and a corruption such as you now meet, if at all, only in a nightmare. All day long we are, in some degree, helping each other to one or other of these destination. … There are no ordinary people. You have never met a mere mortal. Nations, cultures, arts, civilizations – these are mortal, and their life is to ours as the life of a gnat. But it is immortals whom we joke with, work with, marry snub, and exploit – immortal horrors or everlasting splendors." (0) comments This weekend, I had the chance to meet Allen Levi and his dog, Tyler. I am so very, incredibly, excited about that. I am still reeling. Not that Allen is superior to any man, but it's still exciting. I once had a woman from one of my old churches mention something about the joy and priveledge of sitting at the feet of missionaries. I love that, too, and in my individual case tend to be particularly excited about "sitting at the feet of" the great musicians and artists of our day. Speaking poetry, telling stories, and playing instruments to boot, they have a power over my soul that few other professions have. Meeting greats, especially greats that have had significant impact on my thought processes before I met them, is incredibly exciting to me. I love meeting new people of any sort, for the most part .. once in a while, meeting a new person will bring me outside of my comfort zone and I have to fight the desire to run away in order to get to know them and in rememberance of the fact that God loves them. Meanwhile, though, there are plenty of musicians or other such greats that I have met and it's had little or no impact on me, because they were great in the eyes of society but had not greatly influenced me. Meeting a great musician that is great in my eyes is like meeting some distant relative that paid for your schooling and wrote you letters that completely altered your thoughts and feelings, and yet you had never met them 'till this moment. It's like meeting an author that totally changed the way you see the world. And, as many people confirm in their comments on the subject, meeting a great musician is like meeting a friend you've had all your life for the first time. That is, you feel like you know them through their music, and you know already that you relate to them greatly. And yet, they don't know you. Allen is one of the nicest people I've ever met, and a "Kindred Spirit." He gave a devotional at the little chapel service we went to, and he spoke about some amazing thoughts that I'm still processing and will have to post about later, when I've had time to remember and sort through them. Along with that, I got to see him do a few songs on Saturday night that blew me away -- none of them were on the two CD's that I've been borrowing from a roommate for a while, so they were completely new chances to be awed and amazed at how God has chosen to glorify Himself through a man. As you might have guessed, he comes from a Jewish family and was the first Christian in his family. I believe everyone in his family, or at least a significant portion of them, are now Christians, which means there's hope for my family. If you have a chance at all, if you have even one spare penny to your name, please be sure to check out one of Allen's many CD's and whether or not you have any money, be very sure to check out his website and get to know him a little bit better. In particular, from the main page, go to the section about the song of ..."The Land Where The People All Walk Around Backwards". This song is incredible and just really, really blew me away. Meanwhile, Andrew Peterson has announced the opener for his fall tour, which excites me greatly. (0) comments I was about to start my junior year of high school. I had moved to CA after finishing my sophomore year, where I was living with my father and his girlfriend. I'd be going to the local public high school not far away, to which I would be riding my bike and bringing my lunch (a change from previous years, when I had bought lunch there. I rather enjoyed bringing it, though.) I had my binder with pictures in the cover (one of the ones with the plastic sleeve on it so that you can do that kinda thing), my various folders, pens, pencils, notebooks, etc.. and my Dr. Suess lunchbox -- which I actually still have and greatly enjoy. I woke up early that morning so that I had plenty of time to get ready for school. I'd met a very few of my then-future classmates already, because my twin brother was in the band and I'd met some of the other band geeks, along with the few of my fellow church youth group members that went to my school. So basically I'd be entering a school across the continent from where I'd previously lived, with 2,000 people (half the size of previous high schools, but enough to be daunting when you know only about 10 of them and even those 10 you only just met a month or two before) that you don't know, with teachers you know nothing about, guidance counselors that hold your future in their hands and don't know you, and a whole new educational system right down to the credits needed to graduate and the standards of hiring teachers. Not that FL was all that great, but I'm growing to appriciate more and more how good my education was there rather than had I been here for high school. I didn't have breakfast, which was nothing unusual for me, though getting up early was a first in a while and there was actually time for breakfast, and perhaps more of a need -- I'd have a scheduled time for lunch, rather than whenever I got hungry, and with an ulcer, hunger can be a very bad thing. I started to feel a bit sick as I was getting ready, but I shook it off and determined to go to school. And then, suddenly, I had to run for the bathroom .. for the "other" bathroom, as my twin brother was in the one that he and I shared at the time. Apparently I was a bit nervous about school, and that came up (literally and figuratively) in the middle of my preperations. "You're just nervous, you probably won't get sick again today" said my father's girlfriend. She was right, though I couldn't figure out how in the world I was *feeling* so calm and not-nervous and yet was leaning over a potty prooving that I was. So I went to school, I felt just great, and I had a decent first day of my jr. year, especially considering that with the exception of my twin brother and myself and a girl that was starting public school after years of being homeschooled, my classmates in my jr. level (as opposed to elective) classes had all known eachother much of their lives. I start college (after a break that lasted a few years) two weeks from today. Along with the fact that I give back my car in one week, I need to find a place into which to move shortly, I end a wonderful summer of much traveling and chaos, and I currently have no phone or personal address, I spend a little bit of time thinking about college. I wonder if my classes (including pre-calc; western civ -- I've never liked history, but many tell me that college history is more reasonable such as not so much emphasis on names and dates; college composition; first aid/safety; and ceramics) for this first semester will be over my head and perhaps strain my brain after its three year absence from thought. I question if I will feel awkward being a student again -- perhaps feeling enough older than my classmates to stick out a bit (though I still look the same age, and doubt people will even know I'm at all older untill they get to know me fairly well) or perhaps feeling younger than I have in general when I was holding down jobs and driving my own car and that sort of thing, rather than spending time studying or writing papers. I hope that my work ethic, particularly in doing homework and that sort, will have improved enough and that my determination to do well (not to mention the motivation of having to do well in order to keep financial aid) will add to that so that I can actually get decent grades. I think that I will make some friends in my classmates, and even possibly in some professors, so that I will have more of a social life again. I pray that I will be able to show the love of Christ to those that come in and out of my life during my school career. And I am nervous. I have been very excited about starting college, finally. I still am, for the most part. But all of these thoughts going round make me a bit nervous. Hopefully, I won't get sick again. It always hurts so much more when my ulcer's acting up, which it has been a fair bit lately .. and my hiatal hernia getting worse probably won't make getting sick any more fun than it ever was. Apart from that, we ought to Be Anxious For Nothing .. God loves me, and He's the one calling the shots, and thus everything that happens (or so goes the theory.. this is where the free will vs. God's complete control debate comes into play .. either way, He does certainly work all things for His glory for they that love Him, and so even if humans can mess things up, He's always there and He sent the Spirit to comfort us, anyway..) is out of His love for us and in that way is for the best. It may seem to stink at the time, but it's for the best. So why should I be worried about school? I am to do my best to glorify Him in my actions and in my papers and in my schoolwork and in everything I do, and He's in charge of the rest. I need not worry. I need not get sick. Even just writing this out has helped me feel less nervous already. Please pray for me, friends, that I will not be nervous. And especially that I will not get sick. (0) comments Saturday, August 04, 2001
http://www.geocities.com/youngsparrow.geo/pictures7.html
Many people have been wondering how my hair is growing back and how I look now. This picture was taken during Cornerstone Festival and is a pretty good picture of how I actually look now and how I've been wearing my hair often lately. Get outta the shower, towel dry it, and stick a headband in. Right now, it's in a bunch of little braids. No picture. Sorry. (0) comments I'm all registered for my classes. With a simple 5 or 10 minute phone call (the community college to which I'll be going has a very nice automated registration system for touch-tone phones) I made known my choice of classes, found out the cost (just so I'd know how much will be going towards that when I go back in to my financial aid meeting on Monday) for this semester and secured my registration. I will be a full-time college student in just over two weeks. (0) comments So magnetic poetry makes for a fascinating experience in self-expression-of-sorts.. despite that you can make extra words on the extra magnets provided, you generally work with what you've got, and searching for a word to fit into the forming poem can be quite educational. Looking through the options, often very random, and deciding from them what path and tone your work will take teaches you a lot about how you think, what phrases can be made, etc. It's really quite interesting. If you've never used magnetic poetry, be sure to track some down as soon as you can and share the experience with friends. This seems to be a chapel hill tradition for me. Well, I'm actually in Durham now, but that's the same area, and it's Chapel Hill that I'm in love with. When I was in Chapel Hill before, I made a few different poems or phrases on the fridge there.. and this time I made several. It's also a great way to get very focused on one thing, though my mind is usually multi-tasking and working on sorting several problems or thinking several thoughts all at once. (0) comments Ok, so there're no multiple-spaces allowed in blog, apparently, despite the fact that when one presses "edit", it shows up with the formatting one used rather than in the formatting in which it posted.. So I'm going to post my masterpiece of fridge magnetic poetry even though it won't look in any way similar to how it looks on the fridge. Where there are new lines, there often should be spaces preceeding the line, so just imagine that the single-word-sections are cascading while the rest of it is all scattered across an area rather than all against the left margin. Oh, and of course there's no puncuation in magnetic poetry. picture they are sailing with the breeze as you explore every cloud the grass and trees speak poetry and smile I pick a wild flower delicious velvet laughing my hands embrace the universe as a child dancing in eternity your eyes brilliant translucent sacred breathe the peaceful morning rhythm kiss the joyful sky celebrate life sing an angel lingers above our voices blush no word said air unbroken we remember not time wake surrounded by liquid starry night blue a warm clean perfume growing over us seeping in I listen to my heart beat fiery piercing freshness a vast deep pool a porcelain ocean I could never desire more but for my home with God (0) comments This is my first time visiting the chapel hill area without bringing cookies of some sort down. I had entirely planned on making cookies, but with all the moving happening, I simply did not have the time (nor the energy, nor the ingredients .. gee, Patty, you could have gone to the store .. nor the money) to make anything this trip. I did, however, make a large banner for indievenues.com that we can use during the gathering that we'll be at this weekend. I made a magnetic poem tonight. Actually, I made a few. While some folks sat in the living room discussing various movies and literature, I stood in front of the fridge (occasionally throwing in comments about their conversation -- such as "well, that's because Harry Potter is a heathen book, so quit yer whinin'!" or "I walked out on American Beauty, and I don't plan on going back to watch the rest of it ever," or even "if I can't have her, no one will!" - to quote disney's version of hunchback of notre dame during a discussion about the g rated negative impression of priests in the movie..) and searched the various sets of magnets (many of which had been used to make a map of the united states in no particular word order, so there were some interesting phrases scattered throughout our great land) to find bizarre, humorous, or poetic combinations. So, one of my poems says: ferocious feline animals devour my baby toe I bellow it throbs dorky cats Of course, it loses something when not seeing the poery itself (with make-shift words and certain magnets covering parts of other magnets to make use of needed letters while hiding the nonsensical part) but that's the one.. I'll post another in my next entry, which you'll probably have read before this one because of the order in which they're posted, unless, like me, you read in chronological order rather than in order of appearance. I'm a geek like that. (0) comments Wednesday, August 01, 2001
Oh yes, and my car (George Charley something.. I always forget last names) has been going by his middle name for a while. I thought his name was George, but he's really very much a Charley.(0) comments Meanwhile, as an update to the story about the two boys I've been babysitting a lot lately, particularly the comment the one made about "who are you going to marry when you grow up?!" and me thinking I already was grown up .. I was babysitting them again last night and we were playing candy land. Well, one of the boys and a little girl that was also over were playing. She's 4, he's 6, and I'm .. older. So he decided that I go last because I'm oldest, and I insisted that that means that the little girl goes first. So he said "yah, because she's only 4 and I'm 6 (you can just picture his chest puffing up here like his 6 years have been hard-earned and lasted an eternity each) and you're.. how old are you?" I told him. "Oh! So you're a grown-up!" (Here you can picture all the surprise as if I had just told him I'm best friends with his favorite baseball hero, or he'd just found out that I had two heads AND 7 arms.) I laughed and agreed that I am. I then asked if he didn't think I was. "No, I didn't think you were a grown-up." Kids can be so blunt sometimes. This makes me wonder, though, what, to a child, defines the word "grown-up." I don't remember what I thought as a child -- perhaps anyone after high school .. but then, I remember admiring those in high school as almost the highest point of life .. after that, things were less cool or less something, but in high school you're old enough to drive and you're young enough to have fun and you use big words (well, it seems to me that those that were in high school when I was in elementary school did, but that's not oft the case these days or during my high school years) and you.. well, you're just exciting. Other than that, though, I think that there was a clear division to me between "my parents friends" and "other grown-ups". The parents of these boys are very outgoing and caring people, and I would consider them my friends (especially after last night when their father, around 11 pm, came over to my place with their van to fill it jam-full -- oh, and it was a van, not a mini-van -- and then drive to the place where I'm storing it and do the bulk of the unloading) but at the same time, I would consider Joseph and Micah my friends as well, in a very different way. I wonder how the little children in my life see me, as a grown-up or a parent's friend or who knows what. Society and children see grown-ups in very different ways. Perhaps children do see grown-ups as not having as much fun, or not playing with them as much, or something like that? These kids had a very clear age-boundary for the term. They already knew, though, that I've been out of school for a few years and have held down various jobs and whatnot .. if they cared about that end of things, they'd know that I pay my bills and can even cook a meal or two, as well. I can vote, I can drive, I can get my own apartment, car, or you-name-it. By society's standards, I've dun growed up. By their standards, though, I wasn't quite there yet. Ah, the minds of children. (0) comments Today is my half birthday. It has been 6 months since my birthday, it will be 6 months since my next. I'm not huge on half birthday or even really big on birthday things, but since this past year I let my birthday slide under the radar and go unnoticed, I decided that I would at lesat remind myself about my half birthday for the fun of it. I got a great half birthday present today. I am now, finally, officially, accepted into college! I also checked on the availability of desired classes so that I don't have to call in to register more than once. As long as there are still openings tomorrow. That's my hope. I had to revise my schedule a bit to reflect the change in class openings. My college schedule looks similar enough to my high school schedule to be amusing -- fortunately, I only have to take these classes (and most of these subjects) once instead of every year. I've got Pre-Calculus, College Composition, Western Civilization, Ceramics, and First Aid/Safety (a CPR and emergency response certification course -- will come in VERY handy for the duration of my jr. high leadership.. did I tell you about the gory injury at jr. high camp?) .. I put off chemistry 'till next year. I have to get up quite early for western civ, so it's entirely possible that if I don't feel comfortable with putting my brain through that much of a work-load after my three years of not using it much at all, I may well put that off 'till next year, too, and take something like economics or business administration or underwater basket weaving instead. Next chapter: will Patty get enough financial aid (no loans.. scholarships, grants, work-study, etc) to pay for school, books, and living expenses? The school and books will be no problem. Please pray for my living expenses to be covered, because I know that I simply won't be able to focus much at all if I have to get a part-time job as well at this point. Thank you, so very much! (0) comments "We're not afraid of not having enough, we're afraid of not having the too much we want." This is a quote from the Pastor at Christ Community Church in Ruston, LA, where I went for church service while I was at the massive weekend there including my grandmother's memorial/funeral service and a corresponding make-shift family reunion. I don't tend to be too subject to that quote .. it's not often that I really WANT a lot other than music or necessities. I like admiring houses, and once in a while I half dream of living in one of the beautiful old houses here, but not with any serious desire to actually DO that someday. In reality, I've had nothing enough times to know that what I've got is more than enough. But now, with enough *stuff* (that is, belongings that are not necessary to my welfare in any way, be it physical, emotional, spiritual) to fill the back of a pick-up truck twice (only one bed, two-seater sofa, cabinet, and coffee table in one load, the other was all boxes of *stuff*), a mini-van completely jam-packed, and my car -- trunk, backseat, front seat, floor space, everthing except for the little area in which I need to be to drive) at least one and a half times, I am realizing that I have too much. And the sad thing is that apparently I want it all, or I wouldn't still have it. So I'm getting rid of at least half of my stuff during this time of moving. Anyone that knows me in person, this is your time to jump on the chance for free junk! Seriously, though, I want to have a much more simplified lifestyle. Now that I'm gonna be starting college and will be i the area for a while yet, I'll be keeping a little bit more -- think of it as being similar to a nicotine patch for the smoker attempting to quit -- during my time of transition, which I hope to have convinced myself I don't really need by the time I get done with this community college education, so that I can get rid of it and hopefully only have to fill one pickup truck or mini-van (not both, just one) in future times of moving. That's the theory. For the shorter term, though, I'm going to be getting rid of a very lot of the junk that's accumulated throughout my life (and my many, many moves previous to this one) and particularly the past two years of living in one house. My roommates called my room The Vortex.. i'm not sure that the pickup, even if squished in weird ways or folded in half or something, could have fit into my room, and yet I managed to fill it twice and all the other vehicles, too. How in the world did that all fit in there?!? I'm a pack-rat. For me, throwing out anything that isn't absolutely unusable is a big thing. I had some empty plastic water and soda bottles (of the 12 to 36 ounce variety) that I'd planned on filling with water and keeping in my freezer 'just in case'.. Why, Patty? Because you're a pack-rat. So I threw them out while packing. This was a BIG step for me, and i'm very glad that I have made it that far. Simplified life, you are just on the horizen and I look forward to the day we meet. (0) comments |
Hippie: (after hearing Max wants to avoid the draft)You still have options man. "So how do i do normal "It's been known for a train to jump its track. It's ok, so you'll know, most times they come back. It's ok to lose your life, when you finally see your birth. It's ok to say, "I love you," and figure sometimes it's gonna hurt. "As a comedian, you have to start the show strong and you have end the show strong. Those are the two key elements. You can't be like pancakes, all exciting at first, but then by the end you're sick of 'em!" "Hey, this is weird! I ordered one frozen yogurt and they gave me two. You don't happen to like frozen yogurt, do you?" "I love it!" "You're kidding! What a crazy random happenstance!" "Only one more trip," said a gallant seaman, "It was Flannery O'Connor who said that 'grace must wound before it heals.' Her words help me to separate what is most true about life from the things we want to be true. We want life to be painless. True grace is a hard sell because in order for the human heart to understand forgiveness and love, it must first experience darkness and isolation. A life lived under the rule of grace is a life of need which allows us to receive an appreciate the gift of the giver of grace. This is why we will always have the poor with us; this is why God will not allow us to ignore injustice; this is why we are called to a life we cannot handle alone, which can and will break us in the effort to live it -- because grace must wound before it heals." Regarding 2007: Should auld acquaintance be forgot, I thought Christmas Day would never come. But it's here at last, so Mom and Dad, the waiting's finally done. And you gotta get up, you gotta get up, you gotta get up, it's Christmas morning. O little town of Bethlehem, Walk humbly, son Strings of lights above the bed "In a little while I'll feel better "Please tell me once again that You love me. That You love me. Please tell me once again that I matter to You and You really care. Please tell me once again that You're with me, forever. It's not that I could ever doubt you, I just love the way it sounds. I just love the way it sounds." "Every once in a while, a bannerzen posts." "7:30. What kind of people have to be at work at 7:30?" have you seen my love Traveling is significant because it takes so much effort. Either you're going to some place you love, or you're leaving some place you love. Usually it's both. I think I have Bond's ability to get into trouble but not his ability to get out of it. Someday I'll be in some foreign country with 5 thugs with automatic rifles pointed at me, and I'll just.... fart "You had no alternative .. We must work in the world. The world is thus." --- "No .. Thus have we made the world." The summer ends and we wonder where we are And there you go, my friends, with your boxes in your car And you both look so young And last night was hard, you said You packed up every room And then you cried and went to bed But today you closed the door and said "We have to get a move on. It's just that time of year when we push ourselves ahead, We push ourselves ahead." Looking out the bedroom at this snowy TV.. ever since commencement, no one's asking 'bout me. But I bet before the night falls, I could catch the late bus.. take small provisions and this Beethoven bust. I could find work in the outskirts of the city, eat some fish on the way.. befriend an old dog for a roadside pal, find a nice couch to stay -- a pull-out sofa, if you please!" Ooh! Get me away from here I'm dying "The trouble with folks like Brownie is they hold their life in like a bakebean fart at a Baptist cookout and only let it slip out sideways a little at a time when they think there's nobody noticing. Now that's the last thing on earth the Almighty intended. He intended all the life a man's got inside him, he should live it out just as free and strong and natural as a bird." "Life is a phantasmagoria .. It is a pell-mell of confused and tumultuous scenes. We try in vain to find a purpose - to bring an order, a unity to life. I suppose that is the appeal of art. Art is the blending of the real and the unreal, the conquering of nature. It is real enough for it to reflect life, but has the unity that life lacks." "in time memories fade. I've always had this feeling about Patty that she's complex and intriguing...I like Patty alot. She's got a good heart and tells terrible squirrel jokes. "Try to remember that world-weariness isn't necessarily a bad thing. In the book of Mark, I think its Mark, Jesus looks at a blind man and sighs. Jesus sighed before even telling the man he would be healed. He sighed, and I'm not sure that there's a much more human expression of frustration than this. Faced with the horrid picture of a cursed earth and looking into the white eyes of a man blind from the day he was born, He sighed. The Creator of the universe in human form was sad "of the evils of this world," the world He created. Your Creator sighed for you in the same way before He healed you and made you His." After the last secret's told After the last bullet tears through flesh and bone After the last child starves And the last girl walks the boulevard After the last year that's just too hard There is love -- Andrew Peterson, After the Last Tear Falls "when you most need people, you don't need perfection - just to know someone gives a damn" "A CALL TO ACTION: "My brother's always [telling me], 'You should be more mysterious--boys like that.' But I'm not good at that. It would just make me more uncomfortable." "Loners want to kill you, but not for any particular reason, and they'd probably like you if they weren't being guided by the violent voices in their head." "No one wants to oil a snake these days!"
-- Her mom: "We're all safe." -- Jamie Bevill and her mother during Christmas-Decorating dinner, December 20, 2002 i'd throw out all my shoes i'd set up cans for friends to dump their shoes senseless shoes a pioneer of callouses lordy-be and bless my soul i'd be a barefoot spaceman the first you'd ever know" "The best way to have God's will for your life is to have no will of your own!" "Generations circle and each one atones. The sins of the father are seperate from my own. In Pilgrim's Progress, it's forgiveness that makes whole, and as time levels and consoles, I place the daisies in your bowl." "For a moment he just stared at her. Then, with an urf-urf-urf of laughter, he turned back to the controls." "It's on the internet.. so, then, it must be true." "Be at least as interested in what people can become as you are in what they have been." Blessed be the rock stars!" Get up for the shower.. wash and scrub and scour every part as if a cleaner man could better bear the shame.. "She was eating gnarly amounts of calcium." Homeless man to girl trying to give him money: "No, thanks, ma'am. I never work on Sundays." "Wow! I never thought I'd need a radar-guided spatula!" "Isn't it great that I articulate? Isn't it grand that you can understand? ... I can talk, I can talk, I can talk!" I believe that people laugh at coincidence as a way of relegating it to the realm of the absurd and of therefore not having to take seriously the possibility that there is a lot more going on in our lives than we either know or care to know... I suspect that part of it, anyway, is that every once and so often we hear a whisper from the wings that goes something like this: "You've turned up in the right place at the right time. You're doing fine. Don't ever think that you've been forgotten. When I lay these questions before God I get no answer. But a rather special sort of "No answer." It is not the locked door. It is more like a silent, certainly not uncompassionate, gaze. As though He shook His head not in refusal but waiving the question. Like, "Peace, child; you don't understand." CCM: You've spoken a lot more about crying than I ever thought you would. "Youth is not a period of time. It is a state of mind, a result of the will, a quality of the imagination, a victory of courage over timidity, of the taste for adventure over the love of comfort. A man doesn't grow old because he has lived a certain number of years. A man grows old when he deserts his ideal. The years may wrinkle his skin, but deserting his ideal wrinkles his soul. Preoccuptaions, fears, doubts, and despair are the enemies which slowly bow us toward earth and turn us into dust before death. You will remain young as long as you are open to what is beautiful, good, and great; receptive to the messages of other men and women, of nature and of God. If one day you should become bitter, pessimistic, and gnawed by despair, may God have mercy on your old man's soul." ""Don't go matchmaking for me, Ilse," said Emily wit a faint smile... "I feel in my bones that I shall achieve old-maidenhood, which is an entirely different thing from having old-maidenhood thrust upon you." "I wish Aunt Elizabeth would let me go to Shrewsbury, but I fear she never will. She feels she can't trust me out of her sight because my mother eloped. But she need not be afraid I will ever elope. I have made up my mind that I will never marry. I shall be wedded to my art" "Tomorrow seems like a long ways away. But it will come, just like any other day... Deep inside, where the wounded creatures hide, I am afraid. Maybe I got lost somewhere along the way somehow. Please rescue me... Yea, though I walk through the valley of the dark shadow of death, I will fear no evil. For you are with me... Though I fear, though I am afraid, You are with me. Though I'm angry, tired, broken down and confused, You are with me. Though I sin like I've never sinned before, lose myself right out an open door, You are with me." "The invisible people agreed about everything. Indeed most of their remarks were the sort it would not be easy to disagree with: "What I always say is, when a chap's hungry, he likes some victuals," or "Getting dark now; always does at night," or even "Ah, you've come over the water. Powerful wet stuff, ain't it?"" -- C. S. Lewis, The Voyage of the Dawn Treader "When People object... that if Jesus was God as well as Man, then He had an unfair advantage which deprives Him for them of all value, it seems to me as if a man struggling in the water should refuse a rope thrown to him by another who had one foot on the bank, saying, "Oh but you had an unfair advantage." It is because of His advantage that He can help." "But, you know, as a Christian, one of the big questions you always ask yourself is, "So we believe in Jesus, we believe in the teachings of the church, but what does that look like when it's lived out?" Because surely, one of the things that Jesus said that I think we often overlook is, "The person who hears my words and does them is like the wise man who built his house on the rock." He didn't say "the person who hears my words and thinks about 'em" or "whoever hears my words and agrees with it." But he said, "Whoever hears it and does it." "find that which gives you breath and grants you more to give "I have packed all my belongings. I don't belong here anymore. This pair of sandles, one pack to carry, this old guitar and this tattered old Bible. And I know I won't be afraid. 'cause I know, I know Home is where You are." "Open up your weepy eyes, everyone is dancing. Angels peer through sweet disguise, through a fire of cleansing. "Long hair, no hair; Everybody, everywhere:
Breathe Deep, breathe deep the Breath of God!" "You may be bruised and torn and broken, but
you're Mine!" "I don't deserve to speak, and they don't deserve
to hear it. It's makin' me believe that it's not
about me." "Kickin' against these goads sure did cut up my
feet. Didn't your hands get bloody as you washed
them clean?" "They say God blessed us with plenty. I say
you?re blessed with poverty. ?Cause you never
stop to wonder whether earth is just a little
better than the Land of the Free" "Computers will know everything in the 21st
century. They'll be like me in the 20th
century." |
