food of the heavens.

So a friend of mine had me try these at her house a couple of months ago and I loved them but she said the only place she could find them was Whole Foods, so the thought to get them went out of my head.  Until Sunday, when the church I am going to now is so close to a Whole Foods, so I went in and bought 3 bags, the third of which I am finishing off now, granted these aren't super huge bags but still I'll admit I ate a bag for dinner Tuesday.  Yes that was just 5 days ago. Check out the info here.

long time no blog...

I have the day off from school today (and tomorrow...), yay for small town schools where the fair is such a big deal it merits 2 whole days off from school!  We never got a day off from school just because the fair was going on, really all the fair meant for most of Tyler was going to ride tons of rides, play games, eat a lot of cotton candy and sausage on a stick, and a funnel cake...the American way.  Ill have to ask my kids on Monday after the fair is over what they did over these two days.  

So anyway I'm blogging from the couch.  I honestly couldn't have asked for better timing with these days off though because I have laryngitis/some kind infection and I have no voice, or rather what I do have is horrid to listen to.  Tuesday was the first day it was bad and my kids made fun of me all day, but I think they felt a little sorry for me because they were offering to read and explain things where normally they are quite reluctant.  My kids are great though I really love them a lot.

I guess I haven't really updated since I moved here.  I'm living in Katy which is...interesting.   It is the epitome of suburbia.  I'm living with a friend of a friend from college and that is going well.  She owns a house in Katy, (she's already been teaching for 7 years) and so it's nice being able to pull into the garage every day and not climb 3 flights of stairs with loaded arms.  The house is in a newer subdivision and there are kids everywhere and tons of inflated pumpkins and ghosts and witches and whatnot adorning most of the yards.  The kids around here are nuts, or I should say their parents are for not teaching them not to play in the street.  Just last week these 4 kids had set up their soccer field in the street, as in they had to move their "goals" everytime a car came because they were taking up the whole street, and countless times every week when I'm coming home there are kids literally skateboarding, bike riding, ball playing in the middle of the road in a high traffic subdivision.  Yesterday I was going along and to my right up ahead was an empty lot (a rarity) and the grass/weeds are tall, right as i'm about to pass it a kids comes bounding out of the lot right in front of my car with his skateboard in hand and proceeds to spend the next 30 seconds mounting the thing and doing whatever else RIGHT IN FRONT OF MY CAR as if I wasn't even there.  I had to hit the brakes to begin with but then I eventually honked at the kid to get out of the way.  Then he looked at me like, oh hi, didn't see you there.  I have yet to really meet any people my age, I'm slightly convinced I'm the only person under 25 here. 

I'm going to a church in Sugarland right now with a friend of mine who lives in Houston.  This weekend will be my 3rd time to go but I think I'm going to stay there for awhile.  Finding a church has been so hard.  I looked around Katy for the first couple months and I found some great churches there it's just no one close to me in age on walk of life everyone is either 30 or older already married with kids.  And not that I don't value intergenerational relationships, I do, I'm pretty sure after being at LH for 4 years I value them more than anybody but there is just no one my age anywhere around here and it's hard not have that kind of community because I only have 2 good friends in the Houston area anyway, so I am looking forward to meeting new people and making some new friends.  It has definitely been a difficult 2 months getting adjusted to living here and starting school all with only a couple of people who I am really close to who don't even live in the same town.  But I have just been clinging to the truth that the Lord is good and he provides in perfect timing.

Work has been going really well, I seriously love my kids.   Somedays I want to knock them into next week...with my vicious rhetoric of course, but their moments of brilliance and sheer hilarity are priceless.  I love my co-workers too, they're always looking out for me and helping out and they're so supportive.  I really love my school.  Open house was this past Monday and oh man most of the parents just walked right by me as they turned into my room and then I would hear their kid say, "mom, mom that's my teacher out there.." followed by, "where?" and then they would look out and see me and go "Oh! I thought you were a student!"  But most of the parents seemed to be really supportive once I started talking with them. 

So Courtney tagged me to list 7 things about myself, so here goes...

1. I think secretly I could be a fashion designer or a designer for pier 1.  When I go shopping I spend just as much time trying to find some article of clothing or piece of furniture that I invented in my head as I do looking at what is already in the stores.

2. I drink entirely too much diet dr. pepper.  Like I think one day they are going to find out that my insides have been permanently altered because of it.  

3. I am adopted.  This is not a big deal or a sensitive subject to me at all but whenever people find out about it they are curious so feel free to ask.

4. I LOVE the Cosby Show.

5.  I took piano lessons from Vanilla Ice's mom.  I have his autograph.

6. I rode horses and showed competitively for 10 years and even went to the national championships.

7. I trim my own hair.  In between haircuts I shape up the layers myself.  I don't trim the longest layers because I need those as a guide and so it doesn't look like I cut my own hair, but I trim it every 3-4 weeks.  The last time I paid someone to cut my hair was the first of july.

yeah, but...

Amen.

if you only had a few days left...

...in college station, where would you go eat?  I've already had Koppe Bridge now I'm trying to decide where to go with some dear friends for a going away dinner, current and former College Stationites (?) vote now.

update!

So I have a job!  I go tomorrow to sign a contract with a high school just outside of Katy to teach U.S. History and Government (I don't think I will post on here exactly where I am teaching for several reasons so if you want to know please feel free to ask I'm happy to share!)  

I'm going to Houston today after church to hang out with Brittany and then tomorrow I'm going apartment shopping in Katy.  If you have any apartment tips, or questions you think I should ask when looking, please let me know I've never lived in one...also if you know of any great churches in the Houston area!

I plan to get totally moved in the weekend of the 8-9th of august, but Ill probably be making a few trips back and forth between now and then.

I'm headed to LH now for probably the next to last time...i'm okay.

fondant, the devil's play-doh.

 

oh how innocent and pretty you look.

don't be deceived.

I've been wanting to try a fondant recipe for awhile so if I ever wanted to make a fun cake for a party or birthday or just because, I would be able to.  I wanted to just make a plain cake and make plain white fondant as a simple layer over it so that way I would know how to make it, not for any specific reason or for it to be pretty and colorful. So I looked up a recipe this afternoon and went to the store and came home and got to work.  

When looking at the recipe and procedures I knew it would take awhile but that was no problem, I had the rest of the day to play in the kitchen.  I found the recipe here.  What was alluring about this recipe was that this fondant was actually supposed to be remotely edible compared to most fondant that is while pretty quite tasteless, and making the icing this way was more economical that buying it pre-rolled.    

The reality:  this was by far the messiest project I think I have ever participated in in my life, including things I did as a child that I got in trouble for.  My kitchen at three different times looked as if a powdered sugar/corn starch bomb blew up in there.  At one point the island, surrounding floor, rug, everything I was wearing were all completely covered in white dust. The recipe and procedures had you spreading powdered sugar and corn starch and crisco over the counter and kneading the "dough" (read: and by dough I mean until you get the consistency just right, homemade glue).  There is absolutely no need to have an ever expanding mess all over everything by doing this on the counter or any other place that is not contained, it is much easier and lots cleaner to just knead the mixture in a large bowl.  I say this because it takes awhile to get the consistency just right and you are constantly adding water and powdered sugar and more powdered sugar and/or crisco to the counter itself to keep it from sticking (a huge problem) and by the time I had it sort of close to the ideal consistency the island in my kitchen was completely covered with powdered sugar and dough and mess.  You only need to bring it to the counter when you are ready to roll it out (hence monstrous messes #2 & #3), which is an activity I think is probably a punishment in purgatory, seriously, it's awful and pretty close to impossible to roll it our big enough without it tearing or sticking to the counter. 

Oh and my hands are a little sore from all the kneading.  And it took 4.5 hours.

 

I think this is one of those things you just have to go ahead and try so you can get it behind you and say I will never do that again.  A project such as cupcakes or making fondant decorations for a cake with the first layer of fondant on, sure.  I think they sell special non-stick mats made for rolling out fondant and I would try again with that but not with anything less I think.  Here's my cake with just a plain white layer over a layer cake:

doing church differently.

Why We're Not Emergent (By Two Guys Who Should Be) by: Kevin DeYoung & Ted Kluck

This is a witty and smart work written by a pastor and a member of his congregation and they are out to set the rather crooked record straight about what so-called and not so so-called emergent authors, pastors, leaders, bloggers, and others which reject conventional labels are presenting as the rationale and basis for the emergent/emerging (DeYoung & Kluck use these words interchangeably - although some view them as markedly different) movement and how embracing social issues doesn't mean you need to forsake a life founded upon orthodox beliefs, propositional truths about Jesus, and the authority of Scripture. 

As a disclaimer to anyone who may stumble across this blog I feel I should report the same disclaimer DeYoung and Kluck put wholeheartedly in their book,

"We fully understand that emergent means a hundred different things to a hundred different people, so if what you read in these pages is not what you mean by emergent then so be it...We do not think of our emergent sparring partners as the "bad guys", no doubt many people reading this book have been helped by these [emergent leaders]...when we talk about the emergent church we are not simply referring to what is new, postmodern, culturally with-it, or generationally up and coming, the official Emergent organization, or the Emergent village; we are talking about a movement led and inspired by a cadre of authors and pastors who express many of the same concerns with the evangelical church, hit on many of the same themes, and often speak as the most influential voices in the emergent conversation...We don't want to get hung up on labels let alone poison anything that has been called emergent."

To begin DeYoung addresses the question he is asked most frequently, "So what is the emergent church anyway?" and he says defining the emergent church is like nailing Jell-O to the wall.  This is, he says because of several reasons, first because it is new and all new movements are usually amorphous and hard to define, but the blurry nature is also very intentional as emergents view themselves as just participants in a "conversation"; emergent authors and bloggers do not view themselves as authoritarians or theologians but as talkers.

DeYoung counters this position of being just "talkers" and the general lack of accountability within the movement with the fact that thousands of books have been sold, podcasts are downloaded everyday, speakers tour the country, and once this happens you cannot deny that you are indeed a leader and teacher whether you want to be or not and this is serious because as James says, "Not many of you should become teachers, my brothers, for you know that we who teach will be judged with greater strictness" (3:1) 

The things emergents are addressing generally involve the importance of relationships and inclusivity, addressing the social needs of people; their mantras include, "doing church differently" and "all we need is Jesus"; and the leaders include, Tony Jones, Doug Pagitt, Spencer Burke, Brian McLaren, Dan Kimball, Rob Bell, and Peter Rollins.  They rally around postmodernism which really means anything that is deconstructed, embraces uncertainty, lacking central ideas or hierarchy, anything that departs from tradition or the way that things have been done in the past, and so on.

In this book DeYoung and Kluck address several issues and interpretations where the evangelical church and the emergent movement seem to be at odds and why it is important to not just dismiss these differences as unimportant because they come back to the foundations upon which the church was built and in some circumstances the very fundamentals of Christianity, such as: the importance of the journey verses the destination, the knowability of God, uncertainty verses humility, homosexuality, the encouragement of doubt as a part of our faith, the acceptance of rebellion and the legitimacy of authority in the church, the Bible as inerrant, etc.

I would highly recommend this book even if you are not interested in the emergent movement solely as a work that will get you thinking about what you view as foundational and how important it is to hold fast to the truths of the word.  I was eager to read this book as I know someday I will be searching for a new church home and I wanted to use this as a resource to help me be as discerning as possible when examining the doctrines and fundamentals of a new church and not let things not found in scripture effect my decision about where I should be and I am really glad I read this book.  

the emergent church. (?)

what is the emergent church?  

in all honesty no one knows exactly because the main feature of "emergent/emerging" is elusivity. 

I am almost finished with the book, "Why We're Not Emergent: From 2 Guys Who Should Be" and I will expand on their findings soon hopefully.  Before reading this book I had heard of the term "emergent church" (read: also postmodernism - I knew about this term but I didn't realize they were two peas in a  really hip pod) but had no clue what it was about and now after delving into this mess of a topic I can honestly say there is no way anyone can neatly cover the basis/understanding/foundations/differences of this topic very well because it is so vast and nothing is nailed down but Mark Driscoll of Mars Hill Church (NOT the openly emergent Mars Hill of Grand Rapids Michigan) gives a little breakdown here that is a really good intro to this topic.

food for thought.

So I found a great new website: www.conversantlife.com and they are tracking curious project, check it out here.

I can barely recall but it's all coming back to me now.

Time to own up.  

What is that song that old school song that you hear once a year on the radio or on your ipod when it's on shuffle that you just belt it out like nobody's business.  

You know what I'm talking about.  You're alone in the car or with a good friend and it's american idol finale go time.

I'll start: Celine Dion - It's All Coming Back To Me Now (Who can resist an 8 minute long power ballad?)

happy birthday to me.

My parents got me this wonderful invention I have been coveting for awhile. I first saw it at the house where I was a disciple now leader back in february. It is a Keurig Brewer! What does it do? What doesn't it do is more appropriate. It makes a wonderful cup of coffee or gives me a perfectly hot cup of water for my tea in less than 60 seconds. What's better is there is no measuring or cleanup with this holy machine (pretty much the sole selling point for me over a conventional coffee pot)! You just buy these single serve "k-cups" (you can buy them pretty much anywhere, target, bed bath & beyond, etc.) in over 150 different coffee and tea flavors and put it in the machine, let it do its rapid magic and then throw it away! It's great!

grad school is like...

...regular school on crack.

So I'm actually in class for 6 hours a day and on campus for around 10 hours a day if not more for work and then doing things that only people in grad school do, such as walk around surveying people about their high school curriculum preferences and finding books in the library and then making endless copies for some unknown reason, just because your professor told you to.

However, there is a silver lining. Two actually; one: it is for only 5 weeks and i'm almost 2 weeks in!, and two: 80% of what i'm learning is practical knowledge and immediately applicable once I start teaching. In fact I'm not sure how I would have started teaching without all the things I'm learning, I'm pretty sure I would have been awful because no one except teachers realize how much detail and organization is really necessary to have effective classroom.

So now I just need a job. But since all of us in my program will begin teaching in the fall we're all in the same boat, the jobless boat that is. There are a few that have jobs and those that do have them already are a result of some connection with a school district back home or from a family member, etc. But it is a little encouraging in a weird way that i'm not the only one without a job still. I had a screening interview with KatyISD on tuesday morning, it was more substantial than I was thinking it would be but it went really well, except there are no job openings yet.

I will post pictures from the cruise Brittany and I went on when I get the rest of the pictures, we usually only took one camera with us everywhere so I only have about half.

Back to work on more assignments...

a little update.

I'm a college grad!

And I'm still looking for a job!

I went to Austin ISD's career fair this past saturday (the day after graduation) and was told the same thing over and over, 'it's still early and we don't know what positions we will have open, but we'll take your resume'. Oh and 'So do you coach?'. Pshh. So at least all of the Austin ISD high schools have my resume now so, there's that. I left Austin saturday and drove to Dallas (McKinney), and stayed the nite with one of my aunt and uncles because my whole family was getting together there on sunday for Mother's Day. Always good food and a lot of laughs when my family gets together.

I leave for my cruise on saturday! Brittany and I fly to Orlando saturday morning really early and then leave that afternoon on our ship to go to Cozumel, Belize, Honduras, and the Bahamas. I'm so excited!!

Oh and 3 more things:

1. The new McDonalds chicken biscuit breakfast thing is disgusting. I never go to mcdonalds but I wanted to get a drink on my way to my subbing job the other day and so I pulled in there and saw the sign and thought I would try their new copycat of Chik-fil-a's morning deliciousness and it was really gross. The chicken part anyway, it's pretty hard to screw up a biscuit, but the chicken tasted funky.

2. Chocolate skittles are also gross. Take my word for it. They are so artificially flavored its revolting. There are like 6 flavors in the bag, s'mores, chocolate pudding, brownie batter, caramel chocolate, some other gross chocolate flavor, and vanilla. I tried each skittle twice to make sure it wasn't a fluke and the only one I liked was...the vanilla. It tasted like the vanilla tootsie rolls, you know the ones in the blue wrappers.

3. Texas avenue construction is complete! Yes you read right, it is finished! Just in time for a significant decrease in overall trafiic due to the summer so I should be able to get to Target and HEB in less than 10 minutes now instead of 20 or 30 (in cases where I was a dummy and didn't take back roads).

Well, thats all for now.

it's over. sort of.

Today was the near-dreaded official last normal sunday of the year at Living Hope. The one I blogged about back in October and January. I knew this was coming and so I mentally prepared myself this morning telling myself things like, "this is not your last sunday so it's not a big deal", "you've already written letters to people and gotten tears out then", and "It's ok I sit upstairs anyway so it will be less intense and emotional". When the time came to take your little prayer request card up to the altar at first I didn't do anything because I didn't know what we were supposed to do upstairs. So I just contently started singing the first song and then people started going up to the front of the room so I was like, dang it. I filled out the card and walked to the front.

The tears were falling before I was even kneeling.

I started to pray and then a second song started which was when people could come pray over you and my hope group leaders/second parents came and each prayed with me and it was useless trying to wipe away the tears. Then the Moss', two of the most sincere people I have ever met and were on the spring break trip, each came and prayed. Then Barbara who I teach sunday school with came and was already crying so much she couldn't even talk which was fine with me because her long bear hug said more than enough and provoked at least as many tears as any prayer would have. Then Lynn, her husband came and prayed for me and I could feel his tears hitting my hands and then the time was up so I just spent the last few minutes trying to wipe away all the mascara off my face. The only thing that could have made me possibly cry more was if Jean, another lady in my hope group had been sitting upstairs, just being around her is such a blessing and I will miss her terribly, it will be a wound to my heart that will take a long time to heal.

It really hit me last week how grateful I am to have such amazing people in my life that I am so broken about leaving. That fills me with joy when I think about how blessed I am. I really feel sorry for college students who are not only not involved in their churches but have no relationships with people other than college students. I wish I could tell everyone who is not how much they are missing, but unfortunately I think it is one of those things that can only seem beneficial once you're involved and sadly too many college students only see benefits in terms of labels and facebook friends.

Anyway, I started crying again the second I left the parking lot and started crying again as I typed this post. I wonder how I will make it through my real last sunday at lh.

Now I'm off to go run for 20 minutes straight. Maybe I'll update about that later, it might have the same tearful result.

Expelled: No Intelligence Allowed

I blogged about this movie a while back and it is finally out in theaters. I wasn't expecting it to come to college station but after seeing it I understand why it was probably a prime target audience . Expelled was witty, grave, and very enlightening. I have already seen it once and plan to see it again, I would encourage anyone to go see this film. So go see it!

rebel without a cause.

When I was in New Orleans over Spring Break we had devotionals a few of the mornings from a student at the seminary where we were staying and he talked out of Matthew 9 & 10 every time. The primary realization/conviction I took away from the messages was from 9:37, a verse I'm sure most have heard a few times,

Then he said to his disciples, "The harvest is plentiful but the workers are few."

Whenever I read this verse before I always applied it to my life as, okay you need to be telling people about Christ, period. It was always convicting and now even more so. I was completely ignoring the first part of the verse and only looking at the part that applied to me. Jesus is not saying in this verse, "Not enough people are proclaiming me so get over yourself and just do it." as I had always thought. This verse is saying that not only are you called to tell people about Christ (we should all desire that anyway if we really love people the way that we say we do, do we really care about where people are spending eternity? I would hope so.) but that there are plenty (an entire ready harvest) of people who are completely ready to receive Christ all you have to do is share! It's not just about me not doing what I'm supposed to, it's saying that Christ has already prepared the way! He's not sending us out into a fallow field and telling us to pick a bounty of wheat, He's showing us the abundant bounty and saying, "Just go get it!" Meanwhile I'm just standing at the edge of the field equipped with my wheat-picking sack, just staring at all the wheat.

I really wish I would get over myself and just start sharing. Writing this makes me feel disgusting.

However I am glad that I am still being convicted of this all the time, maybe one day I will finally quit being rebellious in this area and I can allow the Lord to refine me in others. blah.

coincidentally..

an article came out from Relevant today that communicates exactly and more clearly and with a much better analogy what I was trying to explain in my post from yesterday. good stuff.

and then I remembered I had a blog...

I feel like I've been moving at breakneck speed over the last few weeks and this week has been a welcomed slow down. Kind of like shifting the riding lawnmower from rabbit to turtle. We never had a riding lawnmower but my sister and I would always play on them in the stores when my parents were looking at something else. I wonder if riding lawnmower manufacturer's thought people with yards big enough to need a riding lawnmower could only comprehend pictures? Always the rabbit and the turtle.

Anyway. The past few weeks I've been steadily filling out and submitting application after application to school districts in Austin, Houston, & Dallas in hopes of one day in the near future becoming employed. The education career fair was monday and it went well, I wasn't sure what to expect because my advisor had prepared us all for the best of all possible worlds scenario and that being actually getting an interview and a job. Well in reality, not so much. No one was interviewing, at least not at the high school level, but I did get to find out valuable information about each districts hiring process, etc. Unfortunately my position is one of the latter ones districts usually hire for so it looks like its going to be a long waiting process. oh patience, please let me embrace you.

Its hard to believe I only have 2 more weeks of regular classes left. 2 weeks! A little hard for me to grasp right now.

I will finish my observation hours next week and I'm starting to substitute tomorrow, I'll get to do this twice a week from now on in my attempt to save up some extra money.

Last nite we concluded our semester long study of 1 & 2 Peter in hope group. The last two verses are these:

Therefore, dear friends, since you already know this, be on your guard so that you may not be carried away by the error of lawless men and fall from your secure position. But grow in the grace and knowledge of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. To him be glory both now and forever! Amen.

The theme of what Peter writes about in his two letters is living your life according to the Word and to the standard which Christ has called us. Mr. Hutton asked us last nite why we are called to live like this, why do we not for instance live like the man from Romans asked about and sin more abundantly so that grace may ever more abound? It is easy to answer, well Christ has called us to live that way so we should. period. I am okay with that answer because I desire to submit and obey the Lord that is all I need. But to someone who doesn't understand submission to the Lord why else should they change their life for the sake of Christ?

I think its like this: Imagine an adult who cannot read. It would be a safe assumption to say that they would have a hard time in life. I think that would probably be an understatement but nevertheless, life would not be easy not knowing how to read. Then one day someone taught that person how to read and all of a sudden the world became so much more friendly and open and that person's life was instantly enriched. Granted knowing how to read would also instantly make your life more complex and you would immediately become aware of consequences you did not know about before but it is definitely in that person's best interest to be literate, the cost is worth it.

Living your life for Christ is the same way. You follow Christ and live according to his word because it enriches your life, you attain life to the fullest, despite the seemingly legalistic "commands". I want to be commanded because it is better than my own free thinking. Light years better by infinity. I think being God requires God to be looking out for himself, for his own interest, for #1, but his own interest is in looking out for #4,936,295,371! for me! What is there to lose? Nothing! Sometimes I forget how good I've got it.

Then I read an article like this at work and start to cry. Then I remember.

slideshow tool?

So I want to post about my mission trip to new orleans and post pictures, but I don't want to post them one by one because I have so many, does anyone know of a slideshow tool I can use on blogger?

tomorrow is primary day!

I don't watch the daily show, but on a political scientist's blog I read he recently posted a blurb about how he hates public opinion polls too and how incredibly worthless they are and cited this clip from Jon Stewart's interview with John Zogby, the head of Zogby polling. Apparently John Stewart realizes the truth too.

if engineers were mostly girls...

I would work in a therapy office disguised as a computer lab. These engineers spend HOURS in here every week. There have been so many times work has been lost or destroyed because of a computer malfunction or something and hours and days worth of work is simply gone. And I can't do anything about it. And it KILLS me. If this happened with girls mostly I would watch the tears well up in their eyes and I would try to somehow uselessly [because really, how do you see the good in a ton of work gone down the drain] comfort them and let them tell me all about what was just lost [because we're girls and we need to talk it out] and how hard they worked on it. Maybe I would carry a bag of cookies with me to work just for circumstances like this.

Maybe I'm just thinking what it would be like if I was an engineer. Well if I was I wouldn't have to be concerned with not passing my test on saturday and living in a dark alley pushing a shopping cart and living in a cardboard box.

I hate tests [that determine the rest of your career].

I have my content exam this saturday. Its basically a test over all the material you could be required to teach, in my case: world & u.s. history, geography, government, economics, & some sociology. If I don't do well on this I can't teach. I'm not THAT worried about it, but I'm not taking it lightly, kind of the same feeling I had before I took the GRE and knew if I didn't do well on that I wouldn't get into grad school. Anyway so I'm reading through a prep manual and I come across this little tidbit of "inspiration":

If a sensation of panic begins, work with the fear and imagine the very worst! Work through the entire scenario of not passing the test, failing the entire course, and dropping out of school, followed by not getting a job, and pushing a shopping cart through the dark alley where you’ll live. This will place things into perspective!

Oh, thanks, that's much better.

high school laugh out loud moment of the day.

teacher:...right so the students in the court case were suspended from school for wearing the black armbands in protest of the Vietnam war, have you ever seen any students here protesting anything?

kid: those pro-life people.

teacher: what about them, what did they do?

kid: ...they're..pro-life, they have those shirts that say, "Pro-life" on them...

teacher: ...okay...anyone else, do you remember anytime students have protested something?

same kid: anti-gang people, people against violence.

teacher: okay, what about them?

same kid: they're anti-gang, they wear those shirts that say, "My leader walks on water".

more food for thought.

An article from Relevant came out today about our generation's epidemic of identity crises. Here's a bit from it that rang true for me personally, and here's the link:

I once considered myself an idealist. I have come to realize that my license for optimism has since expired. The more seasoned I become, the more I understand the realist I have ripened into. I have been weathered down by this world. I am jaded, as you are jaded. I am not who I say I am, just as you are not. I am a liar, a beggar, a thief, a fake, just as you are. An idealist might say that it is better for us to all be weathered pieces that have now formed to fit the abstruse shape of the next. As a realist, I will tell you that the Maker has cultivated far too much beauty in each individual heart for us to toss aside to blend in.

Another Relevant writer posits the following adaptation of the words of Allen Ginsberb in a piece hilighting the self-destruction that inevitably comes from following Hollywood's example for "cultural living",

The best minds of my generation. Destroyed by madness. Madness we have created in our cultural insistence on (groupthink) individualism and (false) freedom.

How blessed am I that my identity & worth is found in the creator of the heavens and the earth?

Watch what God does, and then you do it, like children who learn proper behavior from their parents. Mostly what God does is love you. Keep company with him and learn a life of love. Observe how Christ loved us. His love was not cautious but extravagant. He didn't love in order to get something from us but to give everything of himself to us. Love like that.

You can be sure that using people or religion or things just for what you can get out of them—the usual variations on idolatry—will get you nowhere, and certainly nowhere near the kingdom of Christ, the kingdom of God. Ephesians 5:1-2, 5 [The Message]

read me.

So practically everyone is calling for Huckabee to pull out and let McCain officially enter the RNC as the only choice for nominee and get a head start on unifying the Republican and quite frankly his biggest thorn, the (big C) Conservatives. Well my man Mike is still in it against McCain as I foolheartedly predicted a couple of months ago, however I am a realist and realize McCain will get the nomination as long as nothing like a silly PR spectacle (i.e. Howard Dean circa 2004) gets in the way. Since my wishful thinking panned out for Huckabee's campaign I've been keeping an eye out for any pundits who are expressing why Huckabee should positively stay in the race (for now) and my faithful Economist came through with such news.

Also I've been equally curious as to who McCain will pick for his veep, and I read an article this past week from the Washington Post about how McCain has a tough choice to make. The buzz around the watercooler has been that he will choose Mike Huckabee or Lindsey Graham or the like, which is a good pick because they would compensate for his outings with Conservatives. However also has the option to go with Texas Senator Kay Bailey Hutchison. From the article,

The first and only female Texan to serve in the U.S. Senate, Hutchison brings the kind of conservative credentials on taxes, defense and foreign policy that McCain's Republican critics ought to love. Gun lovers adore her -- as much as we District residents resent her attempts to kill our sensible gun-control laws. She votes consistently pro-life and has earned a 0 percent rating from NARAL Pro-Choice America, though she has said Roe v. Wade was correctly decided.

As chairman of the Senate GOP policy committee, Hutchison is the fourth-highest-ranking Republican senator. She's plugged in with the party faithful, good on the stump and as savvy as they come.

It should be interesting who he picks.

Just a question to the void, would you vote for a Presidential candidate who is pro-choice?

money, money, money...

I am a pretty strong anti-debt person, pretty much generally meaning no charging credit cards more than you can pay, etc. Apparently Americans are starting to come around as well since their houses are getting foreclosed on left and right, here's a good article about current debt crises from the NY Times.

heaven in a box.

I don't eat cereal because I don't care for milk. However occaisionally (1-2x a year) I'll buy a box of cereal to put it into small ziplock bags to grab on the way out the door in the mornings. Well I hit the jackpot with this box of Kashi granola. I love granola and this has got to be some of the best I've had, it's not too sweet and its not sticky AT ALL. However I probably won't make this a regular purchase because of a) calories and b) price ($4.50 a box).

severely unmotivated.

I have a paper to write, albeit a short one, that I am in no way wanting to write, so I'll blog instead.

I was a leader at a junior high disciple now in katy this past weekend, my partner and I had 7th grade girls and they were so great and so loud and so exhausting, but in a good way. The dnow was at a megachurch, you know the ones on major highways with the big digital signs, so it was quite different than any church I've ever been to but it was good to experience somewhere different. My girls were pretty solid for 7th grade girls and they have an excellent youth pastor who is providing a great foundation for them. Oh and I had the best pizza & breadsticks I've ever had, Fuzzy's in Katy, they might have more locations, if you're ever in Houston look them up.

I visited Brittany in Houston after lunch on Sunday and we shopped and did non-college station things for a few hours before I headed back. She lives in a really neat part of Houston now, close to the Galleria area. Her company is in a big skyscraper and I got to see her cubicle; it was fun I felt like adult for 5 minutes, and I look forward to visiting and taking shopping trips many more times. :)

I never really caught up on sleep from this past weekend and as usual on tuesday and thursday afternoons all I can think about is what I want for dinner. Any suggestions?

gratitude.

Today during worship, Butch's words wrapped themselves around me like a giant bear hug, the kind that you just need, and they don't let go. With every sentence the tears were inching upward, my chest was getting tighter, I gave my best low key sniffle, and I did everything not to think about the inevitable, the last Sunday I come to Living Hope, the last hope group I have with my essentially second family. And THEN, Butch closed with a video interview with a church member that turned my inconspicuous corner eye rub into crocodile tears. I hope Heather puts it on her blog soon, or it becomes available on the website, because this man's words were so true and sincere you could feel the holy spirit breaking hearts and melting fears. So lets see how many more times I cry during church when I think about leaving before August. I highly recommend downloading the podcast of today's sermon, or you can find it here.

in the words of relient k...

...opinions are immunity to being told you're wrong.

I thoroughly enjoy studying politics and world affairs.

With that said there is an integral aspect that I absolutely loathe even thinking about. And by loathe I mean I hate it more than the texture of mushrooms and velour track suits combined. What is it?

PUBLIC OPINION.

barf.

Some love keeping up with the latest polls and survey results and analyzing what that could mean for such and such policy or candidate or the president. But I think, polls, questionnaires, etc. and intrinsically and severely flawed, (In my opinion, mainly by the subjects themselves - the public. Yes, I'm debbie downer about my faith in the American public to give an educated answer.) and even more than that are the way results are presented. I'll just stop there. Anyway, I saw this ad a couple of minutes ago on washingtonpost.com and thought this was a prime example of my frustration. I think it speaks for itself.

how gorgeous is this?

So, I love decorating. Even though most of the time it's only in my head because, well, lets be honest I'm a little short on rooms and money. But with the knowledge that I will be living somewhere new next fall comes the opportunity to create at least a new bedroom sort of from scratch, which excites me to no end. Anyway, I read a few interior design blogs and this picture was featured in one today and I think it is absolutely adorable (you can click on the picture to see more from the company). So, I've decided I want one for my new bedroom, but I know I'm probably going to have to buy a plain form and either paint or drape the design I want on it, because they don't even list the price of this one, its only listed as being sold at some ritzy store in London, so I'm not even inquiring. So, I'm on the lookout for a really cheap form, but hopefully one with a semi pretty stand. Rachel, you're such an avid seamstress, any ideas where to look? I'm thinking maybe ebay...

just a few of my favorite things.

I'm really hungry right now and I don't get off work until 7, so here's what's on my mind:

1. Cool Whip (Free). I could seriously eat a whole tub if I had no self control. But I usually just put it on top of frozen raspberries.

2. The Laughing Cow cheeses, especially french onion, which I discovered thanks to Courtney.

3. Sonic's new double berry smoothies - very delish.

4. Bread.

5. Cheese enchilada's from Mercados.

One man's humble quest to follow the Bible as literally as possible.

I read this book over Christmas break and it was enlightening and entertaining to say the least. As some of you may know, I'm a sucker for memoirs and this story of one Agnostic man's year of "Biblical" living in New York City is a great read. It is very frustrating much of the time but not because of his own doing but because I so wanted to track down this guy's phone number and tell him, "You're missing the point and you can't help yourself and I feel bad for you!" But then again, he is very clear that he is not spending a year living for Christ, so inevitably his legalistic end result is not going to satisfy. But I recommend this book, it gives a look into how Christians are perceived and a generous amount of Biblical history.

remembering Jerusalem.

I meant to blog about this organization a few months ago when I found it but I just forgot. I heard about Rosa Loves through Relevant magazine. Part of their mission statement is this:

We hope to encourage individual people to get involved in the community around them on a somewhat tangible scale. We will accomplish this by providing financial support to those in need by infiltrating the t-shirt industry with a
new perspective of how clothing can serve a purpose other than outfitting. Everyone has a story. Everyone has a need. By using art and creativity, we hope to foster hope and encouragement through the aid of apparel. Each story will be told through stimulating graphics and actual text that will appear on the inverse of the shirt directly in line with the heart, where the Rosa Loves movement stems from.

Basically they see individuals with tangible needs in their area, i.e. a new walker, a new home, a meal, and create these shirts with graphics unique to that person's/family's story and sell them to meet that specific need. When they raise enough, that shirt is no longer available.

I was talking with a couple of good friends the other nite, one of whom is apart of a very active Christian organization on campus and he talked about how busy he was last semester with a large service project they were doing and how the spring project usually "tops" the fall one and he was having doubts about the effectiveness of the large project and all the resources it took compared to doing several smaller, local projects. When considering, Acts 1:8,

But you will receive power when the Holy Spirit comes on you; and you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem, and in all Judea and Samaria, and to the ends of the earth.

I think it is easy to only think of the "end of the earth" part, especially as a college student when speaker after speaker presents amazing opportunities to go serve Christ in far off places. I can definitely say I am guilty of not reaching out enough to the people I come in contact with on a daily basis.

food for thought.

As someone who tries to moderately keep informed of current affairs on a global perspective, I find myself often times as the "Debbie Downer" in groups of friends when hot topics come up such as any one of the African states in crisis, the war on terror, global warming, immigration, etc. I find myself in this position because most argue a) without knowing the complete story, only what has been fed from usually a single source and b) without taking into consideration circumstances beyond the seemingly "narrow" topic of interest.

The truth is that our world is ever more inter-connected than ever before and it increases exponentially everyday. Just for example, the conflict in Darfur is largely managed by the President of China, Hu Jintao whose country is largely choking on its own twofold growth, its extreme pollution and skyrocketing economy. The United States borrows billions of dollars from China largely to finance the war on terror, and therefore takes no action against them on either front, Darfur or global warming, other than mild lipservice. This is just a minuscule example of how nothing is "single-issue" anymore. But getting to point of this post, there was an interesting article titled, "5 Myths About Breaking Our Foreign Oil Habit" from the Washington Post this morning that I feel illustrates this point very clearly. And just a disclaimer, while I realize that solutions are very complex and encompass much more than meets the eye, I do not subscribe to the school of thought that we should just be apathetic, quite the opposite actually. I hope you find this enlightening.

mysteries of the world, vol. 1

Why do businesses sometimes keep only one of their two doors unlocked? Does the manager find it humorous to watch people essentially smack into the other door? As good as I am at creating explanations in my head for things, for this one I'm only drawing a blank.

One time in Wehner, not the main entrance, but another one, there are two sets of double doors you have to walk through. I went to one, it was locked but the one beside it was not and then for the second set I automatically went for the door right in front of the one I just entered but it was locked and its opposing one was open. Its a dumb thing to make you peeved, even if only for a moment, but maybe one day I will find out why this exists, or maybe you know.

Oh, and p.s. there is no promise that this "mysteries of the world" series will ever make it past vol. 1.

back to the grind.

I've been back in College Station for a couple of days now and I already have 3 post-its with scrawled and crossed out to-do's on my desk. In addition to the normal, back in town chores, I'm working on researching Austin area high schools, as well as skimming possible price points for apartments, reworking my resume, and as of today possibly finding a new job.

I have a meeting tomorrrow to discuss grad school this summer, career fairs this spring, and everything I need to do to be ready to be a legitimate teacher come August. I'm not stressing about any of the things its just placed a lot on the back burners of my mind. Oh and I suppose on the front burner is a pseudo fight with Alltel, but never mind that.

I kind of wish I was just in the "real world" already.

receding urgency, redux.

It's always a little depressing to me how quickly the holidays end, for something so grand you would think there would be a little more of an emotional hangover, but alas it doesn't seem so, only a rush to look ahead to the next thing.

If you don't know what that is for you, stores are already jumping to help remind you with promotions for the corporate holiday of all corporate holidays, valentine's day. Just fyi.

I've been a little absent from the blogging scene for the past few weeks. Once I hit the pineywoods of east texas, napping on the couch became an activity I looked forward to more than writing about the happenings of christmastime in tyler, texas. Yes, the chronic laziness set in, my rush mode evaporated, and all was well with the world.

Christmas was wonderful and I enjoyed the time with my family. We always do what I call, "big family Christmas" all day Christmas Eve at my Grandparents' house, and then just the four of us usually on Christmas Day. My dad came to wake me up at 7 on Christmas Eve morning and told me to hurry and get up because a main water line had burst at my Grandparents' house and now the 32 people would be coming to our house in mere hours. I helped my parents tidy up and start prepping. Two of my cousins have 3 kids combined under the age of 4 and they are all adorable, one I got to see for the first time, I really love spending time with kids, they're so refreshing. Around 8:30ish people started to either leave or follow us out to our property in the country to shoot off fireworks, which some of my boy cousins and my sister along with my uncles and dad did with vigor while the rest of the females watched and reprimanded. Christmas day was good as well, very relaxing with the 4 of us, my Grandparents from the day before, and one aunt and cousin who were still staying with them. I love my big loud family.

I also went to the Alamo Bowl with a few friends and overall it was a fun trip, the game a little disappointing but, eh, I'd say we're all used to it by now. However I did have the best hot sauce I've ever had at a restaurant on the Riverwalk, Courtney, you and Josh need to go to Rio Rio, our food was good, but the hot sauce was amazing! I wished I could have bought jars of it.

I'll blog more later about some other things, including a book I read over the break that was insightful and generally misdirected but a worthy read.