a peek inside my brain.

So, I've come to terms with the fact that my thoughts [the ones going on inside my brain all the time, not the ones I voice aloud] can be [read: are] pretty peculiar. Here's an example of a normal thought process,

[preface] I go to tidy up a classroom and close it down for work one night, the room is usually in an expected state after a day's worth of classes; some empty bottles, scrap paper, a few batts, etc. I walk in this time and the room is especially messy, primarily with battalions everywhere, I immediately think:

Man, there are a LOT of newspapers in here, I bet that there was a group of freshman that used this room today to register for classes. It seems it always a little messier on those days. As I'm picking them up I'm positive it went down like this,

Advisor man: "Okay kids, before we get started we're going to play a little game to get you all pumped up for starting your undergraduate careers!"

freshmen: "YAY!"

AM: "Okay here's what you do, I'm going to give you 2 minutes and you need to go run and find as many of these here campus newspapers, called The Battalion, as you possibly can and come right back here, okay GO!"

freshmen & parents scramble in a mad dash out of the room and return almost as quickly with armloads of papers, faces beaming in eager anticipation as they are so ready to take part in this wonderful game that truly welcomes them in to the Aggie family just like a big bear hug from Stephen McGee.

AM: "Alright when I say go, I want you to throw your Battalions as high and far as you can all over this room! Got it?"

freshmen: "We got it!"

AM: "Okay, GO!"

Papers flutter everywhere landing draped over unoccupied chairs, completely covering the floor, somehow defying the laws of physics and wedging themselves under laptops.

They have succeeded.

Parents have never been prouder when they leave ushering their new Aggie to the car, traces of "Aggieland really is the best place on earth!", and "When we get home I'm throwing away all those silly burnt orange clothes of your fathers, he has no idea what its like here!", can be heard along the way.

I'm mildly weirded out by typing that just now, but that usually how it is in my head. I'm quite frequently envisioning how something or someone got to the state it is currently in. Like with decorating choices that are clearly awry, While most people just ask themselves, "What were they thinking?", I actually answer that question in my head. Yes, I create a whole fictional environment and characters and they do a little one act play that leads to the logical answer as to why the trim is that horrid shade of blue, why the restaurant I'm in arranged their tables the way they did, or why an area of foreign policy failed so miserably.

I love reading memoirs, and I've gotten to read a few this summer. It really makes me wish I had a tape recorder for my brain, so I could transcribe my fleeting thoughts, comical renditions of conversations, and everything else that goes on up there onto paper for me to read and refine. I suppose that what a journal is for but I don't really journal conversationally and I think that's the way I think a lot of the time, there's more than one person providing the material for the story. The usual players, there's the heart, the brutally honest, the compassionate, the realist, the pride, the fearful one, and the holy spirit too, quiet, but clear and always heard, never abasing.

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idk, my bff jill?

I can't believe its already half way through JULY.

Only 3 1/2 more weeks until I'm basking in the warm jamaican sun. That seems so soon, but yet the end of my shift today at work seems sooo far away. Oh the paradox.

I've subscribed to the Relevant magazine podcast recently, and I've been listening to it while I work out. [www.relevantmagazine.com] Man, oh man, they are so funny! There have been a number of times I've been on the elliptical and had to cover my face with my towel with one hand to stifle the sound and grip firmly to the bar with the other to keep from falling off the thing in laughter.

I read an article a little earlier about this guy [20-something] in D.C. who recently bought a Hummer. We'll call him Eminem, [just because he kinda looked like him and my Russian prof [my prof who is Russian, not my Russian class prof] made an analogy today where we were to pretend we were Eminem, before being famous, living in Detroit, shopping for a car]. The story goes like this: Eminem has wanted a Hummer for a long time. Eminem gets his finances in order enough to finally buy said Hummer. He immediately sends it off to have it customized to his specifications, one being a 'lift kit' to be added to the Hummer. This lift kit on Eminem's new Hummer raises it 7 inches, making it impossible to fit in his complex's garage, so he parks it on the street. The typical cars on Eminem's street consist of a number of Prius', Volvos, & other generally non-environment-threatening vehicles. In the middle of the 5th night since having his Hummer, 2 vandals come and attack it with basesall bats, shred his newly purchased custom tires, and a number of other atrocities including, carving the message, 'for the environ' on the side of the car.

It's probably really wrong to laugh.

But I did for a few seconds.

Anyway every single day I read articles about some new study, or energy saving solution, or as a first for today vandalism in the name of all that is green. I have come to one conclusion about all this as far as how/if we should be responding to 'Global Climate Change'. And as far as I can tell science and the Bible coincide about how we should be living.

Consume less.

That's it. The goal is not to buy all eco-friendly products, in fact all this marketing for green everything kind of contradicts in a way the solution. However, buying flourescent light bulbs, using the dryer less, only running the diswasher when it's full, etc. are the kinds of things that we should be doing - not because of a trend or it being the IT thing to do but because it makes sense. Here's my logic - and it is lacking but for now this is what I've got - consuming less in general [clothes, food, electronics, electricity, etc.] is in line with the standard for Godly living. Nothing we have is our own anyway [psalm 24:1], so hoarding lots of things certainly is not good when we are called to be giving and pouring out into others and our different ministries [1 Corinthians 9:19-23,1 Corinthians 10:24] . Consuming less energy specifically is good because you're not wasting as much a money - a resource the Lord has given you - that could be going towards other things.

I think this passage in Haggai [1:1-11] I came across paints a good picture, these people were ignoring what God had been telling them [to build a house for Him] and instead focusing all their efforts on their own houses and only serving themselves,

This is what the LORD Almighty says:

"These people say, 'The time has not yet come for the LORD's house to be built.'"

Then the word of the LORD came through the prophet Haggai:

"Is it a time for you yourselves to be living in your paneled houses, while this house remains a ruin?"

Now this is what the LORD Almighty says:

"Give careful thought to your ways. You have planted much, but have harvested little. You eat, but never have enough. You drink, but never have your fill. You put on clothes, but are not warm. You earn wages, only to put them in a purse with holes in it."

This is what the LORD Almighty says:

"Give careful thought to your ways. Go up into the mountains and bring down timber and build the house, so that I may take pleasure in it and be honored," says the LORD. "You expected much, but see, it turned out to be little. What you brought home, I blew away. Why?" declares the LORD Almighty. "Because of My house, which remains a ruin, while each of you is busy with his own house. Therefore, because of you the heavens have withheld their dew and the earth its crops. I called for a drought on the fields and the mountains, on the grain, the new wine, the oil and whatever the ground produces, on men and cattle, and on the labor of your hands."

So pretty much just keep doing what the Lord tells you to do. Pretty groundbreaking huh?

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yum.

Triple Berry Crisp

INGREDIENTS

1 1/2 cups fresh blackberries
1 1/2 cups fresh raspberries
1 1/2 cups fresh blueberries
4 tablespoons white sugar
2 cups all-purpose flour
2 cups rolled oats
1 1/2 cups packed brown sugar
1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
1/2 teaspoon ground nutmeg
1 1/2 cups butter

DIRECTIONS

Preheat oven to 350 degrees.

In a large bowl, gently toss together blackberries, raspberries, blueberries, and white sugar; set aside. In a separate large bowl, combine flour, oats, brown sugar, cinnamon, and nutmeg. Cut in butter until crumbly. Press half of mixture in the bottom of a 9x13 inch pan. Cover with berries. Sprinkle remaining crumble mixture over the berries. Bake in the preheated oven for 30 to 40 minutes, or until fruit is bubbly and topping is golden brown.

In the picture it has whipped cream on top but I didn't do that, but it's still soo good!

attacking shower curtains exposed!

Maybe this doesn't happen to everybody, but apparently to enough people that someone decided to figure out why. What I'm talking about is when you're in the shower and all of a sudden your shower curtain starts blowing towards you. And if you're me I usually give it a punch thinking it will slink away in defeat, seldom does this actually happen. So, why does this happen you ask? It has something to do with the vortex of something else, it's all explained here. I didn't really care too much about the actual reason, I was just altogether satisfied in knowing my shower curtain wasn't possesed. Enjoy.

green and blonde.

My favorite color is now an annoyingly trendy catchphrase. green this and green that. I just read this article from the times, Buying Into the Green Movement, and it sparked so many thoughts in my mind that there's this roundtable discussion taking place in head right now with 20 different me's shouting out various viewpoints. So, I'm going to let this item simmer and come back and discuss it later.

"I have caused no small stir over the past few weeks with my comments about modesty...", Butch proceeded to bring a shopping bag on stage and pulled out items that he brought to "clarify what he means by girls wearing underwear as outerwear". He pulled out 2 camisoles and 2 tank tops (the ones that Old Navy sells in every color under the sun on a huge table in the front of their store every summer). His talk on parenting today was so real, (I feel like using adjectives to describe Butch's talks serve more as an evaluative tool and that completely misses the point I'm trying to convey, i.e. Butch's talk was so good. is it ever bad?), anyway I feel like the more and more I hear from Butch and families at Living Hope the more I am being prepared for 'real life'. I know I talked about this last time but it is so true, and I'm so thankful. I always walk away trusting God more and worrying less, in permanent sense, not just I don't worry about that one thing for the rest of the day. So good.

I occaisionally find a blonde hair, like every few months, and you're probably thinking its really grey and I'm in denial but thats not true they are always a really golden color. I found one last nite and I started thinking about if I was a blonde instead, with lighter eyebrows too of course, and then I just started laughing, but I do know that if I had thin hair instead of masses of hair my locks would be like corkscrew curly, funny to think about.

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