New Semester of 2010

Back at Verity, and despite the fact that I'm exhausted, it's unbelievably and remarkably good to be back. I feel like I can breathe a bit more, somehow, just being around my people again. Technically still on break until late last night, a bunch of us from both classes went downtown yesterday and hit the Indy mall. It was really good, being in a normal environment and acting as a normal person with some of my Verity people. It was a real blessing, and I know I needed it.

First day of class, with Charity teaching World Religions. Should be pretty interesting. I missed Charity a lot. She's off now on one of her talks about the American Indian Religion, and she is currently donning a British accent in order to display the snobby attitudes of certain modern agnostics. Great teacher. I love her.

Please pray for our class, and the '10 class as well. It would be amazing if we could all pass this course. It's also a Dante, not a CLEP, and I've never taken a DSST before, so... that's going to be different. Hopefully in a good way. We all need prayer, and protection this semester.

A lot of things are going extremely well for some of my friends, and I feel so blessed to be able to witness it. I need to know that the people I love are okay, and happy.

This semester is going to be rigorous in more ways than one. In other words, not just academically. I can definitely feel it looming, but I also hope that God will teach me a lot through it and that I'll be willing and able to grow through the hardships.

I love you all.

Downtown, and in our field. Kyle and Rachel. Feels surprisingly good to take photos again.

We were murdered when Kyle wasn't looking. Or maybe it was Kyle. I don't remember. I died.
Horribe awkward expression.
Hat.












It was locked.


I got her.






Beautiful blue wall.
Mailing Rachel.
That one's for Peter.
I look dead. How fitting.

Kyle thinks he's gangster, but he wears his scarf under his coat.










This might be my favourite one.



Mustache?

I told them to do what Kronk did in the Emperor's New Groove when he was up against that wall... you know. And that's why their mouths were open.

I love how it looks like she's merging from the shadows.
Where they keep the monsters.












Definitely a favourite.





"?" Well, it was cool, anyway.









Tiles.




He's late.
Stalker from another dimension.

Whut?




Hehe... and they thought I was taking pics of their heads, because they were the same height for once. But I betrayed them and did their tell-tale feet.





I told them to look over there. Rachel's like, "OVER THERE!"

This is going down in my histories as "MOST AWKWARD PICTURE EEEEEVEEEEER!!!"







On the telephone, oh oh.

















That was when I told them there was a UFO.

A jaguar.
Look!

Makeovers! Or, as I like to call them... Do-overs.

So we dyed eachother's hair, and I cut Leah's, and plucked her eyebrows, and we put on makeup. Yeah. We were bored. Me, particularly. You have no idea.

Time for my annual Christmas rant!

Okay, well... I said most of it last year. (Last Year's Post) Christmas is an amazing cool remembrance and celebration of one thing, and that's the arrival of the long expected King of the Jews. He later went to Calvary, and down into the depths of Hell in order to be our rescuer and give us the most amazing, beautiful gift that ever was. Okay? Right? Yeah.

What has this remembrance become?

It's pretty clear what it's become on a global level. It's very sad, and it makes me angry, but I don't really need to address that part. What's more important to me right now is what it means on a personal level. What does Christmas mean to you? What do you think of? It's supposed to be a happy time, well why are you so happy?

Christmastime is the time of year with the most suicides. Why is that? Apparently it's because there are so many people out there who realize that Christmas is supposed to be a time with family and loved ones, and being home in more ways than one. These things have always been a huge part of Christmas to me as well. When any of this falls away from a person, and they're at the end of their proverbial rope, it seems the ideal time to end it all. And, certainly, if all Christmas is about is just these things, then yes, I would say that it would be a good time to commit suicide.
But here's a question. If Christmas is about Jesus Christ the Messiah, the returning and glorious king, who came to earth in order to live amongst us and die in our place so that we can have life, and life eternal, then there in all honesty is nothing to Christmas that this world can ever take from us. Nothing.

Suicide? What are we lacking?

I've always believed Easter to be much more important to remember than Christmas, but for Easter to occur, Christmas had to occur as well, and it is very, very important. I think it's vital for the lost world to see how believers not only celebrate this holiday, but how we think of it, and believe in what it symbolizes. If we celebrate the same way the rest of the world does, well... why do we celebrate at all?

I often ask myself: Why the tree? Why the ornaments? Why the red and green? Not that these things don't have significance, but if we don't know what the significance is, then what's the point? Symbolism only goes as far as memory.

Linus remembers what Christmas is all about, and he says it far better:

Merry Christmas, everyone. I love you all. And remember what it's about. Love. Jesus came, was born, lived, died, lived again, and will come again because of love. Love the Lord your God, and love the world as He does. Tell the story. Spread the word.

Uncle Warren and Dad in their natural Christmastime habitat

Every Christmas...


Watch on Youtube here

Cutting Kyle's Hair

I love this song.

As well as the movie it came from.

Ha! Lolcats make me lol out loud.

This is horrendous. I am appalled. Not surprised AT ALL, but appalled.

Portion sizes: then and now

I'm not big on rainbows, but...

That's cool.

My favourite exchange of the day:

Dad: "Oh, I left that stupid salt in the car."
Me: "Why is the salt stupid?"
Dad: "Sweetheart... It's stupid because it's an inanimate object. I thought going to college would have taught you at least that."
Mom: "Muffins are stupid."

When it comes to life, stick with things that are beautiful. There's no time for the ugly things.


.....Besides.... they're ugly.




This is my spark of beautiful for this day. Her name is Justine.

Hey look. My eyes are going in different directions.

Sigh.

You've Lost

They rolled her away in a flowery line,
Over gravestones, overcast, cold and grey,
I was so ashamed to let them see
The way that grief can take over me.

I watched the dark procession,
Empty box with an empty shell,
They put her body in the ground today,
But they can't take my tears away.

A mourning so bitter it racks me with pain,
Intermingled with memories,
Think... I know the destination this time,
Battle: fought, and won. She's in the divine.

Satan, you've lost,
You're a coward and a snake,
You can't touch the soul
That God locks away.

You've always fought to our death,
Can't you see? It does you no good,
Love is the victory, so misunderstood,
You'll never know, you just never will know.
I pity you, Satan. Love, you'll never know.

Strategize, scheme, lay down your plan,
Can't you see? It will destroy you,
"I'll make it consume her," I hear you say,
But you can't ever take my love away.

I just found out that my parents can snort on command.

Ekth. This is horrid. I can't even remember the last time I felt this terrible. I can barely even see the computer screen, and that's no joke. Well... it might be a joke. I suppose it is rather funny. But dude. Wow. I'm going to die in about five seconds.

Here's what goes on!

The visitation for the funeral was tonight. I'd like to give a shout out to the Stephens, Jeremy, and the rest of my absolutely disturbing and insane family, all of whom made me laugh a lot tonight. I was not expecting that. And Jerms... thank you for playing and singing with me. That was majorly therapeutic. Having the girls here has been so great, too.


And then we got back and watched the Little Mermaid, and that was freaky. It would have been freaky even if we HADN'T started talking about all of the obscene little things they added in the background and whatnot. (Shudders). Part of Your World, however, is always so beautiful, and that was nice. Anyways.

Tomorrow is the funeral itself. I haven't cried yet, and I'm hoping I won't just fall apart when everyone surrounding me is going to be a wreck. Tears are something I've always found considerably contagious. They were going to have me say things, or read that 25 stanza poem I wrote when I was thirteen in front of like a billion people. But I declined. I think I shall simply sit in the pew and pretend to be... invisible. I was originally going to read off some of her sayings from our book, but that was vetoed. Ah well. I am perfectly content to remain speechless, particularly when I'm not sure if I'll be at all emotionally stable. So, that's probably good.

I've been drinking a lot of peppermint tea hot chocolate, and that's lovely. I've also been eating an inabsorbitant amount of fried chicken, and that really makes me feel so gross. Yekth. Everyone and their mother brought us, like, a bucket of fried chicken. It's insane.

I think that's all. Except that I had a really lovely time today going through Grandmother's old photos of her, my parents, aunt, uncle, cousins, relatives and whatnot. I love old pictures. They make me smile.

Oh yeah. And Angela braided my hair (just like MAJORLY old times) and it was pretty awesome, and then it looked cool when I took out the braids, too. I always love the way it looks when I take them out, for some reason.

I Say Fever

Update

Grandmother died yesterday. I think my parents, especially, need a lot of prayer, as well as my aunt and uncle. Thank you all for your prayers up to this point, it's really meant a lot to me that we have so much prayer support in all of this, and I know I've felt it. Thank you.

Death is only the beginning.

Prayer please.

I'm at the hospital now, and would appreciate your prayers for my grandmother and our family. We're definitely going through a hard time.

Picking me up from the airport

Airport vid

Storm

Or watch it here, if you like. I know blogger cuts off a bit of the screen.
My Storm

Time for mindless, pointless confessions of a young adult experiencing mid-life boredom pains.

1. When I was a kid, I loved my knee-caps. So... much.
2. I always wanted hair that went at least to my hips. So, when I was a kid, I would wear nightgowns on my head to pretend it was my hair. Seriously, I wore those for years.
3. I love fireflies and roly-polies.
4. Green fireflies were always my favourite.
5. When I would get mad as a kid, I would try to pick up the refrigerator. I don't know why, it's just what I did.
6. I told myself an epic, like... three hour story once when I was about eight, and it was awesome. When I tried to write it down later, I couldn't remember it. Go figyah.
7. I've wanted to be a writer since before I could read. I made my parents take down stories for me that I personally illustrated and bound.
8. For about three months during a season of my life, I would faithfully sit down before bed and hand write an entire chapter of a book. I still have this book. It was about a kid who got sucked into a vortex and landed in an underworld type place in which she was the "chosen whatever" who had to be awesome under water and fulfill all kinds of jacked up prophecies and junk. Yeah. Never finished it.
9. Kyle and I used to pretend to be Indians. Yeah.
10. I used to spend hours sitting in a tree in our back yard with an orange I would drink out of.
11. I think raking the yard is awesome... at night... in the dark.
    
12. I swore I was a boy at one point. This was years ago, however, and my brothers got embarrassed and told me what was proper. I don't do that anymore.
13. My sister used to chase me around trying to get me to put a shirt on.
14. I used to wear ball caps. Yes, ball caps.
15. My hair was once stick straight. Why? Why not! I don't know!
16. I like some kinds of techno and disco. Wow, right?
17. I used to think that kissing someone was worse than swearing. I would cover my eyes, and cover my mouth when I saw someone on TV doing it. People talk about their first kiss being when they were a kid. Yeah right. No kid would come near me, I made certain of that. Maybe my claiming to be a boy made certain of that too.
    
18. I used to make random friends whenever I played at a park. I don't know why. I just normally seemed to.
19. I was always very dramatic, and making someone laugh made my whole life.
20. Sarcasm didn't set into my vocabulary until I was about seven or eight, but it was set deep in my soul from day one.
21. I like taking random pictures of myself. Sue me.
22. Photoshop is my old friend.
23. I remember finding my first scar, and how proud I was of it. I still am, come to think of it.
24. I used to spend a lot of time in my backyard looking for a four-leaf clover. I only wanted one, just ONE, and I seriously wanted one so badly. Just for the novelty. I'm still looking.
25. I never much liked the number 25.
26. These colors normally agitate me: red, pink, yellow, and puke green.
27. Jazz music REALLY depresses me, and I'm terribly apologetic if you have a problem with that.
28. I have terrible skin. I inherited it. My brother is the only one in my family with cool skin, and he doesn't appreciate it at all.
29. My mother used to make me stay inside during the noonish time of day because of sunburn, and I felt like such a mutant.
30. I hate confrontations. But I like to think I'm man enough to handle them when I have to.
31. I've been told I am a prophet, but I feel like I might have some exhortation tendencies. ?
32. Apart from migraines, which I have had in abundance since I was six, and that horrible dreaded Kawasaki Syndrome, I grew up a pretty healthy child. And then I became a teenager...
33. When I hear harmonicas or saxophones, my brain normally vibrates in a very dangerous way, and my heart tells me to stab it and/or dig it out with a dull plastic spoon. But no big deal. That's what people tell me, at least.
34. Once, a few years ago, I was walkin' along in a park with some friends and my fam, and I smelled something for a split second that reminded me of something from when I was REALLY little, and everyone wanted to know why I stopped DEAD in my tracks, but I couldn't tell them, and I couldn't find the smell again. Part of me is still looking for that smell, because it tickled a part of my brain I hadn't touched in years and may never touch again. It was pretty cool, but one of the most frustrating things I've ever experienced.
    
35. I have only just begun to listen to Owl City. And it's awesome.
36. Music. Ahhh... music. My favourite.
37. Brown mascara is interesting.
38. My first flight was super boring.
39. I can't decide whether to keep my bangs short or not.
40. I hate silly internet connections.
41. I actually wish I could stop using the words "hate" and "love" so loosely. It kind of takes meaning away from them. Sad, sad English.
42. I am going to stop here. Know why? Know why?!!! 'Cause look at what number the question is, that's why. I think it's a sign. Goodnight!

But wait! Hey................! If you guys want to ask me any questions about my childhoods or my teenagehoods or anything of the sort, go ahead. I'm sure I'll have fun answering those questions, freaky though they may be.

This is artistically intriguing.

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"I WANT ADVENTURE IN THE GREAT WIDE SOMEWHERE!!!"