Moving day

Blogspot, you have been good to me.

But it's time to graduate to a more professional platform.

If you follow me and care to continue, check out my brand spanking new Wordpress blog.

It's a bit like saying goodbye to an old friend.

This song

is perfect.

I disagree with anyone who says Coldplay is cliche.

Sleepless nights are good for something

An except from a conversation I had tonight (er, this morning):

"Being wrong is actually a good place for me to be. I learn more working my way back from wrongness than from starting at rightness and remaining there."

That was a definite lightbulb-over-the-head moment.

I just want to be able to sleep...

Someone, please... fix me...

St(res)[s](t)

My summer so far:

Leave Biola at 6:30am on Tuesday, fly home, go straight to the hospital to get scoped, and spend the rest of the day sleeping off the drugs.

Spend all day on Wednesday at the Air Force Academy graduation and hosting a party at our house afterwards for one of the cadets we sponsor and all his family and friends who came into town, and then all evening unpacking and spending a couple hours talking to one of my best friends.

Thursday, sleep in attempting to recover from the stress of the last few weeks of school and the pain I've been constantly dealing with (the cause for the scope). In the afternoon, my manager at Texas Roadhouse called to ask if I knew I was supposed to be working tonight.

Why no, I didn't. The last time we spoke you told me you were fully staffed and didn't know if there was room for me on the schedule, and that I should call back. I called back three times, leaving messages for you each time, and you never returned my calls. But apparently I am on the schedule tonight and every night until Tuesday, including a double shift on Sunday, and a Friday shift that I'll have to scramble to get covered because I can't miss my sister's graduation.

An unexpected four-and-a-half hour shift without the usual retraining period despite not having worked for 10 months. Limping away on a still-recovering, very unhappy sprained ankle with only $30 in tips.

Today, reading a 17-page article and writing a 900-word response, then Allie's graduation.

Constantly, plagued with pain that frustrates me throughout the day and prevents me from sleeping at night. The pills that are supposed to be helping... aren't. (They are attempt number five.)

Thus far, totally unrestful. I was hoping, after the most physically, emotionally, mentally, and spiritually exhausting and pain-filled semester I could have imagined, that summer would be a time of rest.

I was hoping that it would be a time to spend with longtime good friends, after another year of struggling to connect deeply with anyone at Biola.

As it is, I still have a 40-hours-per-week internship forthcoming, and now, on top of that, an additional 30-or-so hours per week at Texas Roadhouse.

It's likely that stress was a contributing catalyst to the condition that's causing my physical pain.

I keep running, and running, and running, and I'm feeling more and more stretched thin and less like... well, a real, whole, healthy person. More like just some kind of perpetual motion thing. I don't know how I've made it this far, in all honesty. For the first time, my grades took a hit this last semester. Proof that I am not as invincible as I like to believe. Or maybe as I force myself to believe, because it's about the only thing that keeps me pushing through 18 units and three (sometimes four) jobs.

I don't know when it will end.

("It" could just as equally refer to my sanity as to the stress at this point.)

I don't know how to keep handling it all, not without some kind of break for restoration and recuperation. But I don't have much of a choice.

Really, it's all because of money. I'm carrying a full unit load every semester so I can graduate early to save money. I work year-round to earn money. Working during the school year takes up time I could be spending building new relationships, and working during breaks takes up the time I could be spending revisiting old ones.

I'm beginning to wonder if I really love Biola enough for the stress of paying for it to be worth it. To be honest, I'm not really sure what I love about it that's kept me there this long. I've been struggling for four semesters to develop the kinds of friendships I had in high school, and with only three semesters left, I'm nowhere close to accomplishing that.

The doubts I had about Torrey at the beginning of the semester, the questioning whether I really belonged in the program or whether it was really the best place for me to grow, were reinforced by my near-failure at the end of it. I don't regret things often, but right now, I regret that I didn't drop out then. I was so very, very close to doing so, and I didn't, and I think I should have. What did I accomplish by staying? More stress. And I have nothing but a lower GPA to show for it.

So what's left? The journalism department? I love the professors, but there are more competitive journalism schools that would probably cost me less money.

I don't know where I ought to place my priorities anymore. I've always been caught in the middle of the struggle between reason and emotion, and right now, it seems both sides are losing.

I'm exhausted. I'm at the mercy of the causes of my exhaustion. I don't know how much more I can bend before I'll break.

I feel helpless.

You know you're in college when

...sweaters are no longer for warmth, but for protecting your fishbowl as you pack it away.

Not my semester

In order, since March 31st:

1. The mildly sprained ankle that turned out to be severely sprained, and the jury is still out pending MRI results as to whether it's even more than a sprain.

2. The painful, complicated breakup.

3. The unrelenting stomach pain that, after a year, finally became severe enough to warrant an emergency visit to a gastoenterologist, who, perplexed by incongruous test results and the lack of response to pain medication, ordered at least one procedure within the week.

4. The death of my beloved fish.

I suppose this is one way to end it with a bang...

Dead

He lies motionless

On his side

At the bottom of the new bowl

On the new rocks

By the new plant

All of which I bought for him 

Just four days ago

He seemed happy then

Tonight, he was suffering

Obviously

And greatly

I'm thankful he's free

But I'll miss him

He was just a fish

But to me

Not "just"

RIP, Alyosha

10.18.09-5.18.10

Sometimes

I question whether I'm really a writer.

If not, I'm not sure what I am.

More ill

Pain.

Very real. Very physical. Very much.

I've never felt anything like this. And I'm scared it won't leave.

Ill

Tossing and turning
and
coughing and burning
and
sleepless and aching
and
lots-of-pill-taking.

Initiatives

Yesterday was filled with amazing people--sophomores and freshmen, familiar and new faces. It was filled with strings and washers and tennis balls and pens and paper and trash cans and pizza and sunburns. 


There was laughing and game playing and tree climbing and roof running and general rumpus and knocking cans off of people's heads and getting engaged in exchange for a homemade truffle.


There were hours, many, many hours, in Sutherland in the dark, freshmen scattered throughout several classrooms. There were trips to Walmart, Panda Express, In-N-Out, CVS, and Del Taco (twice) at ungodly hours of the night. There was arguing over song lyrics, racing down the halls on a wheeled coat rack, playing piano in an empty auditorium, and watching The O.C. and a bizarre German movie about Nazi zombies.


There were four of us left keeping watch at 6:30am, nearly 20 hours from when we began, when the sun was rising and the longevity of the freshmen had officially surprised us.


There was memory reliving and memory making.


It was an excellent day.

31 days and counting

My ankle still hurts and still resembles a flesh-colored grapefruit. Or grapefruit-sized flesh.

I used to be some kind of impressed with myself.

Now it's just old.

Aside from that, however, I'm at a good place in life. Good, but very transitional. I have several things I could complain about, but also several things to be very happy about. This is the first time I can remember feeling happy about being in transition, although happiness isn't quite the right word.

Peace, maybe.

Thank you, God.

Truths I learned from a sleep talking professor

Glory looks like a waffle.

Tables are for redemption.

You cannot make this stuff up.

Please read on. It will be 20 minutes of your life excellently spent.

Sleep Talkin' Theologian #1
Sleep Talkin' Theologian #2
Sleep Talkin' Theologian #3
Sleep Talkin' Theologian #4

My fish is ill

He's just a fish, I know that.

But silly though it may be, I do love him quite a lot. There's something about caring for another life, however small, that fills a place in my heart that I didn't realize existed before.

The thing about loving something is that if you lose it, that place becomes unfilled again. Only now, you feel the emptiness.

It's silly.

He's just a fish.

But I'll be sad.

2 years down, 1.5 to go

I feel like I have not experienced nearly enough California things in my time here. And by "not nearly enough," I mean hardly anything. The following is my to-do list.

To do again/more often
The Getty at least once a semester (thus far: twice)
Disneyland at least once a month (thus far: three times)
The beach... any beach... (thus far: five times)
BJ's (thus far: once.)
San Francisco (thus far: once)

To do. Period.
Downtown Fullerton
San Diego
Monterrey
See a play at the Pantages
Disney Music Hall
House of Blues
Hike to the Hollywood sign
Griffith Observatory
Go clubbing
Huntington Library gardens
Volunteer at Union Rescue Mission in Skid Row
Visit Biola's original location at 6th and Hope
Balboa Island

I need a car. I need fellow adventurers.

Crutches

Not broken; a sprain.

I thought that translated to no biggie, fast recuperation.

3 weeks later, however, it turns out it's a nasty enough sprain to remain as painful and swollen as the day I oh-so-gracefully afflicted myself. [The degree of both, I must honestly add, rates at "pretty darn," and even extra-strength Tylenol is of little help.]

Being chauffeured all over campus in golf carts isn't bad, but I would trade it to be rid of the crutch-burns on my ribs, the soreness that comes from using muscles I normally don't, and the pain that keeps me up most of the night.

I complain while laughing, however. While I think it's pretty absurd that all this was the result of a moment's lack of common sense, I'm the first to admit that I was practically asking for it.

Pieces

of various things.
Scattered.
Time to collect them, slowly, gingerly.
And hand them to Someone
who can fix them better than I.

Resolutions [by which I probably mean wishful thinking]

I want to sell all my clothes to a consignment shop and start my wardrobe from scratch.

I want red hair. Maybe permed again.

Maybe.

I want to pierce my nose. [This, however, will not happen until December 2011 after graduation, lest the full burden of paying my tuition fall to me.]

I want to be the person who says, "Oh yes, I have good music, let me introduce you," instead of being introduced. Not that being introduced is bad, of course, but I aspire to greater things.

I want, oh so badly, to become a morning person. Every attempt thus far has failed.

Hesitantly, I say that I want to learn to enjoy coffee. I enjoy everything about it, thanks to the heart of a barista in me [a good one, not the Starbucks variety] inspired by my first boss, except the taste.

I want to learn to cook.

I want to develop the self-discipline to eat healthier. And to exercise.

I want to make more trips to the beach.

I want to remember how to write stories.

I want to resume piano lessons, both as a student and as a teacher.

I want to break free from minimum-wage employment.

I want to have an original idea. If such a thing is possible.

I hate complaining, but...

I did not get to go to Urban Plunge.
I did not get to go to the Seer Retreat.
I did not get to go to Spring Banquet.
Because I have a busted [very much in pain] ankle.
And the still-fresh sting of a breakup does little to improve things.
I thought I might enjoy this day of aloneness.
But instead I feel isolated and helpless.

Quote of the night

Me: I don't have class all this week because my professor's in Haiti.
Roomie: Wait... Your professor's an idiot?!?

Letting go

also hurts. And I don't have the time to cry.

Sacrifice

hurts.

I love flowers

The headboard of my sister's bed is adorned with five bouquets. She's a theater person.

"But you have such good grades and you're such a nice person!" everyone says when I remark that I wish I were as talented as the younger sister who outshines me.

Good grades and nice personage, however, do not merit flowers.

iPad

I played with one today.

Like The Dark Knight, it deserved the hype.

Piano

Somebody should have warned me that high school theater would be a lost cause. Had I known, I wouldn't have quit piano to pursue it.

On more than one occasion over break, I've found myself in front of pages of music, pages which once inspired my fingers to dance effortlessly over the keys. While I would hardly use the word "effortless" to describe my playing now, I am surprised at how quickly I recall those accidentals, melodies, harmonies, pedal movements, accents, dynamics, chords and runs (oh how I loved those runs).

Tchaikovsky, Beethoven, Fibich, Chopin, Mozart, Kabelevsky, Schumann, Khatchaturian... Like old friends you lose touch with, and upon reuniting years later, stumble through awkward, stilted conversation at first, but gradually forget that you'd ever been apart.

If only these reunions weren't so few and far between.

O For a Thousand...

O for a thousand words to say
Support that which I write
The blankness to which I succumb
It keeps me up all night

With a deep sigh

I have never felt so defeated. Not even by algebra.

I'm a writer. This is supposed to come naturally.

What gives?

Survival...

...the theme of the two weeks leading up to Spring Break. Seven days down, three to go. Just three more sleepless nights ahead.

Focus. Breathe. Both are harder to do than I would like right now.

It all gets done. Somehow.

I often wonder if the powers that be conspire to front-load the semester with work. I do hope the misery that entailed will result in a little more sanity in the final stretch until summer.

Changing. And God.

A year ago, I liked safe. Trendy. Blonde. Pop/rock. Sarcasm. Complexity. Noticeable. Jeans. Movies. Predictable. L.A. Pretending/trying to be deep. Answers.

Now, I like unconventional. Vintage. Red. Indie (though I admit I still have a "sweet tooth" for Top 100 hits). British wit. Simplicity. Subtlety. Dresses. Stories. Change. NorCal. Admitting I'm not deep. Questions.

College has been good for me. I hate the phrase "finding myself," because who I was before was who I was then. I haven't found something I'd ever lost, or become something I ever wasn't. It's just growth, change, maturing, living.

There will never come a day that I cross some metaphorical line and say, "Oh, now I know who I am, now I know who I am supposed to be, now I have become." God works in every moment. I was who He had planned for me to be before, I am who He planned for me to be now, I will be who He plans for me to be in the future.

I hear people say that they are "becoming who God wants them to be," which in a sense is true, but I don't believe that God is ever dissatisfied with His constant process of creating us. Not to say that we should ever content ourselves with immobility or imperfection or passivity, but that we should embrace that each moment, and who we are in it, matters. Is significant. Is, in its own way, beautiful.

Not because of us. We are often ugly. But God's work in our ugliness is so great that it is often painful, and always beautiful.

3/26/10

The longest week of my life capped by the longest day of my life.


Exhaustion.


Blank.

Wishing on 7:11

I wish for 3,000.

I wish not for success at this point, but to be saved from failure.

Insanity: Day Two

I spent a good ten hours in Sutherland today spending quality time with Hobbes and Descartes.

[Praise God from whom all luxurious sofas flow.]

Two submissions for Evangelical Outpost remain before I can start my paper -- one of them before I can sleep. On top of everything else, sickness has been lingering in my lungs most of the day and threatens to invade full-force any moment.

I did, however, spend a few minutes talking to Torrey freshmen and chased some ducks on my way back to my room after the lights went off in Sutherland, which gave me a bit of joy and a second wind.

Endurance

Standing between me and Spring Break:

Three books totaling roughly 444 pages    
One 600-800 word blog/essay rewrite                
Two new 600-800 word blogs/essays                
One 3,000-3,600 word paper                              
Four chapters of journalism                                
One 150-200 essay on a current event
One large group project                
Three responses to other essays.                          
Five shifts at three jobs totaling roughly 18 hours
Twenty-four hours of class time                               +
________________________________________________
Next to no sleep or meals until then.

The majority of these things have to be accomplished by 5pm on Friday. It's going to be a fairly miserable few days. After becoming overwhelmed enough to have a good breakdown this afternoon, I think I've shifted into forcing myself to only really be aware of what I'm working on in the moment, not everything that still needs to be done. Hopefully I can stay there.

And hopefully this will not be the time I finally have enough to pull me over the precipice of failure upon which I can't seem to stop teetering.

Lord, give me grace...

Jimboys

Last October when I came to visit, Chris introduced me to a place that instantly became my newest edible love affair.


It might even have edged out Chipotle, and THAT is saying something.


Steak so greasy it leaves a pool on the plate, melted cheese, lettuce, and a generous heaping of pico de gallo all bundled into a piping hot, deep fried (crispy, but still soft) corn tortilla coated in parmesan cheese... If the most beautiful music you've ever heard had a taste, it would taste like this. Right now, it's only been 13 hours since I last had a Jimboys taco, and my mouth is watering. The yearning is great, dare I even say, quite overwhelming.


The tragedy in all this is that I have only ever, in my life, had 4 of those wonderful, exquisite tacos -- two on two separate occasions.


Jimboys, as it turns out, exists only in the Sacramento area of California and a few locations in Nevada, meaning I am almost always between 400 and 1,600 miles out of reach. And I have yet to discover another taco joint that even distantly compares.


I wither in agony.

Thursday morning confessions

I have a deep love for string cheese.

I think cows are adorable and would love to adopt one.

The palms of my hands are ticklish.

I'll use any highlighter color except yellow.

The earth it was a-quaking

In commemoration of the passing of 2,054 years...

I must have this

4-foot lava lamp? I'd say that's about 14 kinds of amazing.

Oversimplification

Ever notice how things will be "instant" or "one-click" or "3 simple easy steps?"

It's all lies, really.

Example: my Campbell's Soup on the Go says "Just Heat and Sip," but really, you have to go find a microwave, take off the plastic cap, remove the pesky tin covering underneath that, clean up the inevitable drops that fly out during the previous step, put it in the microwave, heat it up, stir, wait for it to cool enough that it won't scald your tongue, and only then can you sip.

Kinda makes me want to throw it on the ground to prove that I ain't a part of the system.

Happy Sunday

Blue sky, sunshine kind of day.

Church with mom.

Groceries with mom.

Chipotle with mom... extra for later!

Hair dyeing.

Dress-wearing.

Ice cream-enjoying.

Paper-planning.

Yes, please.

Annnd still blocked

This is not good. Bah.

Writer's block

I have it.

With an essay about storytelling, ironically enough.

So, so good

Andrew Lloyd Webber apparently decided to write a sequel to Phantom of the Opera. As far as the plotline of the show, entitled "Love Never Dies," my opinion is that it's a pretty bad idea.

1. The man can't write a decent story (the original was adapted from a book by French author Gaston Leroux written in the early 1900's).

2. Phantom has one of those endings that is better left untouched. It destroys the mystique that's so pivotal throughout the entire plot to actually answer the lingering questions left by the ending of the original play.

3. The "air" of the story of Phantom just seems so much more fitting to an opera house in France than to Coney Island, where the sequel is set.

However, despite my quibbles with the sequel, Webber is a fantastic composer, and my first impression of the the music from the show is, in a word, goosebumps.

I can't stop listening to this:

March 7, 2010

Let the day be remembered as the day that Dr. John Mark Reynolds "liked" one of my statuses.

By the way

This is post #103.

Over 100 posts? I'm calling that a personal accomplishment.

Deciphering

There are some people who I'll never be able to understand. Mainly the ones who make their own lives worse and tell me they're okay. Or who admit that they're hurting, but water down how badly.

I'd be there for you if you'd let me.

Not to try to fix your problems, because only He is capable of that.

But I don't want you to feel that you have to be alone.

Bad mood

Little things get to me.

I'm in a weird place of hating how frustrated I am with people but at the same time I honestly want to wallow in it for a bit.

Real mature, I know...

Sigh.

Photos of the day, and a short anecdote

At the bottom of "Caf Hill," the curb in front of the baseball dugout is crumbling so that it forms a small ramp.

It's a not-so-well-known, but well-loved Biola student pastime to roll apples down the hill so that they launch off the "ramp" into the ditch between the curb and the dugout.

(The idea is really to land the apples on the dugout roof, but that rarely happens.)

Vanessa had two apples that have been sitting on her desk for three weeks.

She absently asked what she should do with them.

I suggested, since we've been intending and forgetting for months to do so, that we join the ranks of the apple-rollers.

Much to our dismay, however, there was a Campus Safety patrol car parked at the top of the hill, and we suspected they might not look kindly on our intended form of amusement.

We realized, however, that the apples still smelled good, and thus the afternoon was redeemed.

The following pictures ensued.

(This is me trying to scan my ID card to get into our dorm... with it still in my back pocket. I was unsuccessful.)

It's heeeeere

I just received back the first copyedited version of the book I cowrote over interterm.

Yeah, ya know, no big.

Good morning, Monday

I greet you in pain and sleeplessly.

From my other blog

First post -- technically it's a blog for class, but I found myself becoming thoroughly engrossed in my topic and spending entirely too much time working on it, so I might actually keep it around... Let's call it my "professional" blog, perhaps?

http://jrn.biola.edu/~miller_b/wordpress/

- - -

Giving "real beauty" a makeover

As much as I can't stand Heidi Montag, following her recent 10-procedure makeover, she made a statement on Good Morning America that exemplifies the problem I have with the importance of image in mainstream media. When faced with the question as to whether her choice to go under the knife for such a drastic transformation might negatively influence any young women who (for some reason) might look up to her, Montag replied that she's in a special situation because she's "in the limelight."

Only a few years ago, before she rose to celebrity status via MTV's reality show "The Hills," Montag was a fresh-faced girl from the small town of Crested Butte, Colorado. Personally, I think she was fairly cute back then, but according to Montag, she felt pressured by the attractiveness of her costars and by being in the public eye to the point that she claims she hated her appearance. Even before her latest and most dramatic round of procedures, she had undergone a nose job and breast augmentation in 2006. Montag also claims that she underwent the plastic surgeries for the sake of her career.

In a blog on usnews.com, Scripps Memorial Hospital chief of surgery Richard Chaffoo considers women who feel they need plastic surgery for purely superficial reasons (particularly to such an extent as Montag) to be in need of counseling, not surgery. He points out the very real mental health issue of body dysmorphic disorder, which is comparable to other such self-image disillusionment problems as anorexia or OCD that are often exacerbated by images of beauty portrayed in the media.

Montag, of course, is hardly alone in her pursuit of her own idea of beauty; the pages of magazines and the internet are teeming with celebrity "before-and-after" galleries.

For every young starlet who goes under the knife for an image update, however, there are far more who are grounded enough to abstain. Really, though, with the miracle of Photoshop, there's no reason why they should feel the need in the first place. I was amazed by the abundance of Youtube videos that demonstrated Photoshop's capacities, and found this one particularly engrossing. (Probably the most famous video depicting the magic of makeup and digital enhancements is the "Evolution" video from Dove's Campaign for Real Beauty.) Additionally, Newsweek featured a gallery of "the decade's most egregious retouching scandals," and the blog thestylebitches.com regularly posts eye-opening comparisons between celebrities as they appear in real life and on billboards and magazine covers.

With the ubiquitousness of such shameless retouching, enhancing, and otherwise nipping-and-tucking whether digitally or surgically, what kind of message must women of all ages be receiving about what it means to be attractive? And what kind of unrealistic expectations must these contrived paragons of beauty be affecting in men? The latter concern is addressed in an article on psychologytoday.com, which, in short, condemns the subjective ideas of beauty put forth in modern media; the former in a study by the psychology department at Vanderbilt University, which concluded that the general effect of media on the average woman's body image is both strong and harmful, causing discrimination.

So what's to be done? An article on nydailynews.com suggests that when an image used in mass media has been Photoshopped, that it be marked with a cautionary sticker akin to those used on explicit CD's. Other groups such as Dove® have launched campaigns and workshops intended to boost self-esteem in young girls by reinforcing the idea that inner beauty is what is most important.

These measures are laudable, to be sure, but for them to rival the effects of what mass media wants us to think of as "beauty" seems, to be perfectly frank, like a fairly insurmountable task. I'm a big believer in "every little bit helps," but if we really want to change our culture's idea of beauty, it seems we should make an effort to confront the problem as much as invent countermeasures. For example, there has been plenty of outrage over the size zero standard generally imposed for runway models, and the Council of Fashion Designers of America has made at least some form of an effort to respond by creating its Health Initiative to encourage diversity in the sizes and ages of models. Also, this year's New York Fashion Week reportedly saw an "eclectic array" of models walking the runway, according to an article on washingtonpost.com.

Between both approaches, it's a start. Given the odds, can the ideals of beauty imposed on us by mass media ever truly be, themselves, made-over? What are your thoughts?


Other related articles:
Fashion industry insiders say not to expect any real change in model standards

We'll call it a new month's resolution

I don't make New Year's resolutions, simply because I don't usually think to. I do, however, get antsy for change on a fairly regular basis, and generally act on that by rearranging my room or buying a new pair of shoes or something else superficial.

I'm in the mood to make changes again, and this time I'm resolving to make a few healthy changes. Not big ones, but good ones. Therefore....

I will not procrastinate on homework.


I will either jog or do some kind of exercises for half an hour a day.


In addition to my regular reading before I go to bed, I'll read a chapter of Psalms every morning.


I will minimize my junk food consumption.


I will eat healthier in general.


I will continue my one-hour-per-week-weekends-only rule on Facebook.


I will go to bed by 12:30am during the week.


I will read at least one chapter from C.S. Lewis per week.


I will, at least, scan the headlines of 3 major news sources every day.

* * *

And a few superficial changes just for good measure...

I will listen to more music.


I will dye my hair a more adventurous shade of red.

* * *

In the past, I've made similar resolutions and only ever managed to follow through with them for a month or two. I'm going to make sticky notes for these and strategically place them around my room so that they're constantly guilt-tripping me into remembering.

Meet Harold

He lives on Skype. Chris and I adopted him.

Powerless

We had a campus-wide power outage today.


ALL. DAY. 


As the saying goes, "you never know what you've got until it's gone," and to be perfectly honest, I spent most of the day making a big stink about my technological deprivation. 


When the power was finally restored and I started catching myself up on the day's news, however, I found out about the 8.8 magnitude earthquake that struck Chile early this morning. 


It was an abrupt reminder of the foolish pettiness of my own complaints. 


And I am thankful that our world doesn't rest in the hands of a powerless God.

Ideas

Having them is a beautiful feeling.


I never realized I could be so excited about working on something. I do have a pretty significant amount of work ahead of me, but I can't wait to take it on.


This, I think, is how learning is truly supposed to be.

Beautiful nights like these

There's a very light mist in the air, the kind that glimmers when it catches light, makes the softest hushing sound against the trees if you listen closely for it, touches your skin just enough that you know it's there, and wraps everything in an ethereal haze.


It's a perfect night for Hamlet, microfiber blankets, and warm chocolate cake.

Pictures of the day

Flower-juggling.

Miss her!

New things

New: I'm finished with the weekend's homework by 11:15pm on Saturday.
New: I will, for the first time since I've been in college, be ahead on my Torrey reading.
New: Lots of music. College is a good time for mooching off of friends with broader tastes.

iTweet, iBlog, iAm

I was actually the first of anybody I know to get a Twitter account. However, I only got it because I wanted to use it to update my Facebook status, then quickly decided it was silly and deleted it. I swore never to start again.


My Intro to Convergence class, however, required me to get one so I can started tweeting newsworthy bits of information daily as a weeklong assignment. Upon discovering quite a few of my friends who now use Twitter, I've been entertaining the idea of keeping it even after the assignment is done.


I'm pretty sure that'll be a short-lived train of thought, though. In the past few months, I've been limiting the number of statuses I post on Facebook because, quite frankly, most of what I had been posting was just attention-seeking and not much of anything that anybody but myself cared about. I maintain that as a reason why I don't need or want a Twitter, but also, I have this thought...


In constantly updating about our lives, aren't we a bit distracted from actually living?


I suppose you could argue that the same reasoning could apply to my blogging. But I blog for an entirely different purpose than I might have for Tweeting or Facebook updating. 


For one thing, I blog primarily for myself. I blog for the sake of keeping myself in the habit of writing. And I blog because it's a much better outlet than status updates. I feel I'm more honest in my blogs than I ever was in updates, because I'm not really thinking about who's reading it. I'm not writing with the expectation that anyone will read it, or with the intention of someone reading it.


Somewhat contradictorily, however, because I know that someone might be reading, I feel a bit of accountability when I write, and that's a very good thing for me. When I first started blogging, I had a tendency to only write when I was venting about something. But then I realized that should anyone actually read this, I don't want to portray myself as constantly depressed, because really, I'm a fairly happy person most of the time. By pushing myself to write no matter what mood I'm in, I add to the honesty of my blog. 


It also compels me to practice writing well. I am, by nature, a fairly good writer, but writing by hand in a journal, I've had the tendency to be sloppy. I also get to practice writing with my own voice (more honesty?) while still being mindful of an audience, which is something I've always struggled with. A few of my early entries were failed attempts to mimic someone else's voice, but I've since abandoned that.


So here I am. I don't plan to Tweet. I'm trying not to even Facebook anymore. To me, it seems that those things condense complex, beautiful, God-created human beings into an avatar and a brief profile. 


I want to be more than that. I am more than that.

And with a lemon lollipop

Class attended.
Nap taken.
Friends laughed with.
Free Chick-Fil-A eaten.
Laundry done.
Boyfriend talked to.
Homework started.
Week ended!

Only two and a half weeks in...

I'm in this really weird place right now of alternating between feeling like I'm on top of things and struggling to stay caught up. That's partly because of Torrey; instead of the notes and pull questions that always kept me in a constant state of stress, I'm supposed to be writing for Evangelical Outpost in a way that integrates ideas from my Torrey texts, but is still good journalistic experience. 


However, while I like to think and have been told that I'm a pretty strong writer, I'm an extremely inexperienced journalist. I haven't written for a school paper since my sophomore year of high school, I blog primarily for myself instead of geared towards an audience (I'm not sure how to write for an audience in any context other than an academic paper), and I feel that I don't know enough about a broad enough variety of subjects to relate things to each other in the way that bloggers tend to do.


Also, I've never been too great at coming up with original ideas.


I am relieved and looking forward to doing this kind of work, because I think it will be much more productive in helping me develop my thoughts more than what I was doing before. But it's going to take a LOT of God's grace for me, as unqualified and inexperienced as I am, to pull it off.


My lack of ideas has been really the bane of my homework thus far this semester. My two journalism classes are not that homework-heavy, but they both require my weekly commentary on blogs or news articles that I follow, and I'm having trouble coming up with thoughtful things to say. I can do that when it's thoughts on something I sought out on my own, but as an assignment, I feel like it's almost forced creativity, which I struggle with.


That's also why the idea of joining the staff of regular writers for a widely-read and well-known online publication intimidates me.


The theme of my sophomore (slash junior?) year seems to be humility. Not just in the broad sense that I usually think of it, but I'm realizing how much these days I need to really depend on God for even the smallest day-to-day things.


That kind of dependence is scary to me, because I like being in control of things.


Yet at the same time, it's also such a comfort knowing that even though I'm so very incapable, I have strength through the God of the universe.


I'm pretty sure I've posted this verse already, but it's just so fitting for where I am right now that I have to post it again:


But he said to me, "My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness." Therefore I will boast all the more gladly about my weaknesses, so that Christ's power may rest on me. -2 Corinthians 12:9

Day one

Convergence. Homework. LAX. Chris! Friday rush hour L.A. traffic. Random 7-Eleven grand opening. Free Slurpees. Shopping. Free Chick-fil-A. Not-free Chipotle. Driving confusedly. Blockbuster. Parking confusedly. Stash Chick-fil-A. Enjoy Chipotle. Friends. Movie. Laughter. Common Grounds. More friends. No Scrabble. Movie #2. More laughter. Sleep.


The weekend is shaping up to be a fun one!

58 units

Today while signing in for Intro to Convergence, I realized the class designation next to my name read "JR" instead of "SO." I thought at first that somebody had made a mistake, but then I did the math. I am indeed 2 units into my junior year, apparently.


1. I like the sound of that.


2. I get to register for classes earlier.


3. Thank goodness I discovered this because otherwise I would have tried to register at the wrong time slot, not been able to, and been stuck waiting until after everybody else registered and probably would have had trouble getting the classes I need.


57 units to go. Let's do this.

I love my job

The actual work I do is fairly monotonous, but I love the moments that happen during those four hours. I need to start documenting them.


Example from tonight.


Boss: It's better to be feared than to be loved.
Heddwyn: Who said that?
Me: Machiavelli.
Heddwyn: Oh, Machiavelli would say that.
Me: Machiavelli did say that.


Hopefully, there will be many more coming henceforth.

Simple things

Today I am thankful for...
one year
sleeping in
last night
getting homework done without being stressed
blue sky
eating lunch outside
long-distance Scrabble
toast
going to bed early

One year...

About 45 minutes from now will mark one year since my best friend nervously asked me, in the middle of our usual end-of-the-week TV show catch-up, if I wanted to be more than friends.


And what a wonderful, crazy, beautiful, difficult, amazing, challenging, precious year it has been.

Dilemma

I want to leave.
I want to stay.


I want it to be easier.
I don't want to settle for too easy.


I want to be normal.
I want to be special.


I want change.
I want routine.


I want to be done.
I want to persevere.


I have no idea what I'm doing.

Lately

I've had more than a few people say to me, "You're exhausted, aren't you?" or "You're carrying so much."


I don't usually think about or really even notice that, and I'm not sure whether it means something good or something bad. Is it that I'm numb to it or that God gives me the strength I need. Probably both, depending on the day.


I'm at a loss as to what to do about that. Or if I really need to do anything at all.

Decisions

I hate having to decide between two things that are both good things, but in very different ways. Whichever way I choose, I feel like I'll regret not having chosen the other.

Super glue

I literally fix everything with it.

Day one, semester four

I've only had one 50-minute class thus far, so I don't have much to say. But since it is the first day of a new semester, I felt I should commemorate it.

Fun fact of the day: around the end of March, I'll be halfway done with college.

How did that happen already??

Where's a stenographer when you need one?

I hang out with some funny people. It disappoints me that I can't record everything they say.

A confession...

There's a handful of people whose Facebook pages I occasionally browse (or whose blogs I faithfully read), but to whom I would never send a friend request.


(Yeah, I'm a creeper.)


I don't just creep for the sake of creeping, though. They're just people who I find intriguing, people who I wish were my friends, but probably never will be, either because they're not aware of my existence or because I don't consider myself intriguing enough to be their friend.


I am not, by the way, trying to be self-deprecating by saying so; I just realize that I lack the witty/creative/funny/profound/outgoing/quirky/and-so-on qualities that those who intrigue me possess. 


I aspire to be intriguing.

Briefly blunt

A pet peeve of mine: adults who can't spell. Or who use text-speak.

Unred (Or, Crisis Averted)

Unred.


You'd think that alone would have clued me in to the fact that this quarter-ounce bottle of liquid was the wrong thing to spend $3 on. 


I meant well. I'm about to dye my hair red (light golden red brown, according to the bottle). I'd bought that tiny little bottle of hair dye additive thinking it would help keep my color from fading, since I've heard red fades easily. 


Somehow, I only saw the words "prevents fading" and not the line above that, which read "removes unwanted red hues."


Somehow, it wasn't until I added the required 15 drops to my already-mixed concoction of dye and developer and said mixture turned purple that I realized my mistake.


Not only, now, do I have a $3 bottle of additive I don't need and can't return, but I also ruined a perfectly good batch of dye.


On the plus side, I had an extra bottle of the dye anyway that I was going to use for touch-ups later, and I realized my mistake BEFORE I applied any of the mix to my hair.


I can't even imagine how bad that would have been.


You'd think the cashier at the beauty supply store would have noticed that "one of these things is not like the other, one of these just doesn't belong" while she was ringing me up and given me the heads-up.


Of course, you'd also think I would have noticed the name of the product in the first place.