Tellin my stories...

growth

2011-08-05T23:41:00.000-07:00

I speak in to the easiness of your last kiss

found wanting as the tide begins to drift

it stills me knowing that someday i’ll see

the beauty of love in certainty

in foundations that blossom into gardens of peace

we find growth in the little things, even the weeds.

and i find myself sitting, pondering your love;

resting amidst the restlessness of infidelity,

teasing out the sprouting filth that weighs on me

and deadens me.

as the flowers stretch up to reach your light

and the ocean is pulled to you each night

so i bow and confess your faithfulness

your glory and peace which help me rest

knowing that in you is life alone

and that by your grace you’ll pull me home.

amen.

Moments of Grace

2011-05-19T19:47:00.001-07:00

Moments of grace spilled out in front of my eyes this week and last:

1. A wearisome poet coming home after 10 years of being on tour. In this final show, the aches of being ready to stop and rest reverberated into our hearts. He didn’t deny his restlessness, but let it be, and let us witness the honesty of saying ‘goodnight’ rather than pushing through to doing one more poem.

2. A state trooper steering a frightened mother duck and her three ducklings down a busy interstate onramp.

3. This Song: Middle of June – by Noah Gunderson

4. Being gently and faithfully awoken early each day by God.

5. A beautiful spring night

6. “Put your ear to the sky
and listen my darling,
everything whispers I love you.”

7. A beautiful spring day.

8. Community to share both the good and difficult aspects of life with.

Taking a Stand For Poor Kids -- Geoffry Canada

2011-04-28T23:01:00.000-07:00

As some of you know, I work in a high school. More specifically, I work with special education students in traditional classrooms providing extra support for them. Some need more help (focusing mostly) than others - but what I've found to be needed across the board for these students is a belief in themselves. Granted, all high school students need this, but especially those who have fallen behind the rest for one reason or another.

I know what it's like to feel like the stupidest kid in class, moving my finger quickly across pages during silent reading so that no one would see how slowly I really read. Of course, pretending to understand never helped me gain the skills to actually understand; pretending like I could read never helped me learn to read any faster.

One reason that I particularly enjoy working with these students is because I can approach them from a place of relatedness. I see their struggles and know them intimately - and so, I want to free them from the shame that comes with struggling in school - and perhaps give them hope that it does get better. This guy, Geoffrey Canada, has been working to give all under-privileged kids in Harlem an equal opportunity for education, tackling problems by intervening as early as pregnancy, and carrying them straight into college. This guy is on it - so much to learn from him...

Geoffrey Canada: Taking A Stand For Poor Kids

By the way, this is one of those programs that leaves you looking like an idiot because you're sitting in your driveway for 20 minutes after you get home so that you can finish it. Yeah. It's that good.

Free the Creativity!

2011-04-22T00:22:00.000-07:00

"People trying to be original always arrive at the same boring old answers. Ask people to give you and original idea and see the chaos it throws them into. If they said the first thing that came into their head, there'd be no problem.

An artist who is inspired is being obvious. He's not making any decisions, he's not weighing up one idea against another... How else could Dostoyevsky have dictated one novel in the morning and one in the afternoon for three weeks in order to fulfill his contracts?"

Keith Johnstone, Impro: Improvisation and the Theater

Social Currency

2011-03-20T23:11:00.000-07:00

I have never gone hungry. Not once in my life have I starved for food and not known where the next meal would come from. Not once have I been so poor as to seriously have I truly wanted. And I know without a doubt that if I even risked hunger, I would have more than a handful of people in my life that would not let me come even close to going without food. Or shelter. Or clothing. I live in abundance amidst friends and family who also live in abundance.

I have an education, a bank account, a line of credit, job experience and references, clothes for any social situation. I know social etiquette across a variety or groups and situations. I have lived as much of the American dream as can be expected of a 25 year old female in my culture.

In high school I played varsity sports, got good grades without much effort, had a car, went to every high school dance, got some work experience as a barista, and had great friends. I went to a prominent university where I lived in the dorms and then a house off campus with friends, I played club college soccer for four years, I backpacked through Europe and studied abroad, and I finished in four years successfully while working throughout. I took time off before applying to graduate school, worked hard, made money, indulged in clothes and accessories, moved around the country for a while, learned to cook, and settled back home among my friends, family, and familiar city when the time was right.

I've done it all right. I've had all of the experience that my culture has told me will lead to success, wisdom, and respect. I can sit among the high school students that I work with with confidence in my life experience and diverse knowledge. I've done it all right. A+ performance. My social and cultural pockets are deep and heavy - I have stored up what the world has given me and invested it for more profit.

The problem now comes in my desire to use that social currency; to depend on that in social situations as my security. I am depending on my investments to carry me through. But 'where your treasure is, there your heart is also', says Jesus. And he also tells us, "it is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for someone who is rich to enter the kingdom of God.”

I am the rich young ruler being asked to give up all of my possessions for the sake of following Christ. And here the anxiety sets in. Will I be like St. Francis of Assisi and risk all by setting aside the wisdom of this world, my social status, and financial security? Will you?

The wisdom books of the Bible (Proverbs, Ecclesiastes, and Job to name a few) tell us that the wisdom of this world is meaningless without the fear of God. We can learn cultural and social survival until the cows come home, but for what? Perhaps I need to be more diligently focusing my everyday education on how to lift others up with words and actions rather than defending my honor. Or listening more patiently to another's story without trying to interject my own. Or maybe even speaking the truth into a friends life that will cut in some way - but needs to be said for the sake of growth. Any other thoughts?

Lent Day 3: Come As You Are

2011-03-11T17:12:00.001-08:00

Sometimes I forget how awesome walking is. I forget that it allows you to be more in touch with your surroundings. The noises of a neighborhood, the rhythm of the people, the details of the buildings. As I walked through Capitol Hill today I noticed a building I've never seen before. It looked like an old Seattle homestead or law building, rich with history and character (as much as Seattle's short history allows), which intrigued me.

The sign on the window read 'Gilda's Club Seattle. Living with cancer? Come as you are'.

Come as you are. Come broken, hurting, sick. Come in the clothes your wearing, in the feelings your feeling. Come imperfect. It's ok.

These are God's words. This is ministry. Come as you are and we will be with you, listen to you, hold you. We will rejoice with you in your rejoicing and cry with you in your mourning. Come as you are.

I think we have an unfortunate tendency to forget that message, particularly in the church. I mean, how incredible would it be if that were the mission of the church? To proclaim boldly day in and day out, 'come as you are'. There are no prerequisites to God's love. No right thing to wear, no right thing to say, no right way to feel.

It saddens me that the church is an intimidating place to so many people. That there is hesitation for fear that they won't fit in - that they will stand out as an awkward outsider. What is striking is that the church, the body of Christ, is meant to be the one place where all fit in. Where all are outsiders welcomed with open arms. This is the place where the divisions of our world are being mended and transformed into peaceful differences. Where we find ourselves under the common authority and love of Christ alone.

So my question today is this: Do you feel comfortable coming to church exactly as you are? Or do you feel that you have to maintain a certain image at church in order to be accepted?

If so, I encourage you to stand out. I encourage you to come just as you are. Because I promise you that doing just this frees others to do the same: to feel comfortable in their skin, in their feelings, in their clothes, in their doubts, in their fears. My hope is that we can begin to embrace the true diversity and beauty of the body of Christ - beginning with ourselves.

Rescue Me

2011-03-10T23:55:00.000-08:00

'Adonai'
breathes my spirit

'Rescue me and know my shame'
for I am low and teeming evermore
to know the power of your resurrection.

Find me in my depths,
crying, for I just received my prize.
I found my glory in the
faces of the others,
who held me in contempt of fraud.

'That's not who you are!'
they kept telling me,
pulling me, pushing me
into disaster.

Tender refuge is found in the
plentitude of peace.

In my weakness I am made strong
and turbulence finds a resting place.

No longer does the storm brew-
it serves to only disrupt the
parchments of gladness.
And not even they can bear to rip
me of tenderness and providence.

I know the hearts of youth.
How they seek first love
and then laughter.
I know the ways in which they
strive for more -
for meaning and wantedness.

In the ocean we wait calmly,
knowing that soon
our savior will come.

Amen.

Lent Day 2: Sight

2011-03-10T22:02:00.000-08:00

I just came home from my first day of giving up my car for Lent. As I walked through the lawn to my front door, I had a surprising sense of relief. “Now I can go anywhere I want”, I told myself. Now I am in control again. Now I can do whatever I want. But I was reminded that this is the very nature of what it means to sacrifice; that I can’t do anything I want whenever I want.

It was a very clear reminder that I am so accustomed to my lifestyle that I am blind to my unspoken narratives of control, which whisper their way into my everyday reality. In my fasting I am made aware of my typical self-gratification. I am made aware that I unconsciously feed the beast day in and day out whenever it is hungry.

I think fasting is holy because it allows us to see ourselves more clearly. And by seeing ourselves, we are also given eyes to not only see others, but to recognize the blindness of others. Why is this important? Not for reasons of self-righteousness or pride that we have done right while others are still messing up. In fact, it is not even us doing the good in the first place. We do not heal our own blindness – we can’t! Rather, it is Christ healing us from the inside.

So what is our response to our newfound sight? What do we do with our new ability to see the blindness of others? When we can begin to see more clearly the blindness of our brothers and sisters, we must remember that we have so freshly been given sight. That we, just yesterday, were blind among them, pawing out our pathway in hope that we find our way home – or to the market – or to our regular begging place. And from this place of compassion we can walk alongside them, knowing their pain, knowing their frustration, knowing their anxieties and fears.

Christ transforms us into seeing beings. In fact, Christ is the very light by which we are given the ability see. He is the light that exposes the nature of humanity’s sin and the structures of this world in which that sin has found a comfortable home: racism, sexism, slavery, consumerism, piety. These are only a few of the structures that we so blindly have participated in our whole lives, rooted in the basic desire for control. These are the structures that Christ came to not only shed light on, but also to transform. He has given us eyes to see that we may participate with him in this transformation of these destructive patterns of our lives and those around us.

Perhaps, then, we may look at this invitation to participate in this Lenten time of fasting is an invitation to see more clearly. To have eyes to see the brokenness in our own lives and those around us. And to move with a heart full of compassion to those we see in need, to those blindly stumbling because we have been in their shoes. And because we want them to experience the brilliant gift of sight as we have ourselves experienced.

Lent Day 1: Marked for Death

2011-03-09T22:11:00.000-08:00

Today is Ash Wednesday, the beginning of Lent. This is the season representing Jesus’ life after his baptism and before his crucifixion. It represents the 40 days in the wilderness in which he fasted and was tempted by the devil.

Many know Lent to be a time of sacrifice – of giving something up or taking something on. Some fast, some give up sweets, some exercise more diligently. Many attend Ash Wednesday services in which they acknowledge the entering of this holy time. Marked with an ashen cross on the forehead while the words, ‘from dust you have come, and to dust you shall return’ mark the ears and hearts of the vulnerable receiver.

I have learned in my studies that gospel of Matthew paints Jesus as a ‘marked man’ from the beginning. From birth his life is being threatened by king Herod. And the threat of death continues until he is raised again.

In this rite, we have also been marked. Marked for death. It is a sign of our mortality, of our limitedness, or our fragility. It is a sign of the threat of death – temptation in all of our days in the ‘wilderness’ - the place throughout scripture representing a land of anxiety, fear, and conflict – a foreign land from which we have been promised deliverance.

We see throughout the Old Testament, that the wilderness is the place where we are most tempted to lose hope. Where we doubt the promise that says ‘I will be your God and you will be my people’. Where we forget God’s presence, providence, and power despite being led by God himself in a cloud during the day and pillar of fire by night, day in and day out; despite being provided miraculous daily bread and gushing springs of water in the desert; despite battles being won without the lifting of a single Israelite finger. Where we doubt God’s grace – somehow – despite the countless times we have done wrong to ourselves, others, and God, and the many more countless times God has forgiven us.

Thus, the scriptures, time and time again, tell us to “REMEMBER”. Remember what I have done for you. Remember my grace. Teach your children and your children’s children. Never forget.

And so we study the scriptures to remember our humanity. To be remember our tendency to sin – against God and each other. And to be reminded of God’s unconditional love and unbounded grace. That we are still here because of God’s mercy. That our creator who breathed life into us, and who has the ability to take that breath away just as easily, bound himself to us, his creatures, whom he loved so well, and emptied himself out to the point of a humiliating death on a cross. All so that we may know his face again, and know what it is to truly have Life.

So what does it mean to be marked this Lent? What does it mean to follow Christ through the wilderness? I think it means to be reminded that to follow Christ means to die to ourselves; to lay our lives down for the sake of our brothers and sisters, putting their needs before our own, considering them better than ourselves (Phil 2:3). That when we are tempted with to figure out our own way of survival, we respond, “It is written, ‘One does not live by bread alone, but by every word that comes from the mouth of God.’ ” And when we are tempted to test the power of God and save ourselves, we respond, “Again it is written, ‘Do not put the Lord your God to the test.’ ” And when we are tempted to worship anything but god in order to glorify ourselves, we respond “Away with you, Satan! for it is written, ‘Worship the Lord your God, and serve only him.’ ” (Matt 4:1-11)

As St. Francis of Assisi prayed,

O Divine Master, grant that I may not
so much seek to be consoled as to console,
to be understood as to understand,
to be loved as to love.
For it is in giving that we receive,
it is in pardoning that we are pardoned,
and it is in dying that we are born to eternal life.

How will your mark burn into your everyday life? How will that mark of death stain your relationships? Will you surrender your pride that others may feel love? Will you give up meals that others may eat? Will you stop shopping that other may be clothed?

Who is my Neighbor? (And what does that say about me?)

2011-02-08T20:57:00.000-08:00

RSA Animate – Empathic Civilisation from The RSA on Vimeo.

Jeremy Rifkin delves into how empathy is directly tied to self-hood. And as the ability to communicate has improved throughout human history (from verbal to written to modern technology), we have continued to redraw and redefine the boundaries of identity. From tribal blood ties to religious ties to national identity. Rifkin suggests that with the technology available today, we have an opportunity to extent our empathy/ties to the whole world.

My question is, is technology enough? Granted we have the opportunity to connect with more people than ever before, but is there a deeper issue at the heart of all of this that he is neglecting? Will we, who are by nature ‘soft-wired for empathy’, learn to embrace such an identity?

I don’t think it’s quite that easy. Technology can enable us to extend our empathy and broaden our sense of identity, but in actuality we could really just start next door, face to face. My immediate community is filled with tensions of identity, culture, race, socioeconomic imbalance, and sexuality.

I think Rifkin has incredible ideas and has seamlessly integrated about 400 years of research into a ten-and-a-half minute speech - not easy. But I also think it’s easy to get into the ideals of world change before facing the reality that is literally outside our front door. (Note: Rifkin does begin to touch on this at the very end - that repression of empathy by parents, government, educational system, etc. leads to aggression, narcissism, materialism, and greed)

I’m challenging myself to start opening my eyes more to whats right in front of my face. To wrestle with what it means to be human. I’m challenging myself to more intentionally step into the tensions I face (or rather that face me) intellectually, emotionally, spiritually, and theologically. To start putting words - giving names - to these tensions. Because

“To name something is to be somehow transcendent to it, not fully imprisoned by it, free of it in some way, even if, like Stalin, it has you under its yoke. To name something properly can be prophetic, a defiant act, an act of freedom. Indeed that is what prophets do. They don’t foretell the future, they name the present properly - often times in a way that exposes its faithlessness and injustice.” (Ronald Rolheiser)

(Blog post transferred from my other blog)

Beautiful

2011-02-02T00:46:00.000-08:00

In the mystery of breath
we find life.
And I am turned
one cell to the next
into another being;
An entirely new structure
which, somehow,
looks miraculously the same.

Yet when such an image
stares itself too long in the mirror
new blemishes appear-
new finite wrinkles
that tell of
a distant past;
That tell of nothing
but the present.

When we glimpse at ourselves -
that is, when we have the blessing
to glimpse at our image
with new eyes
-
we begin to realize how
foolish we have been to count
ourselves as 'plain'
and are freed
from the vain attempts to
turn aside our vanity.

Instead
we catch
out the corner of our eye
Beauty.

Tell yourself that story.
Tell yourself daily.
And continue to hold on dearly
to that image,
seared so vividly and delicately in
your brain

When you first called
yourself, "beautiful".

Rat Race

2011-02-02T00:36:00.001-08:00

Effort fails as the rate race
lingers on into the struggle
for freedom, for glory,
for the torrent gaze of immanence.

I fit the patters of which they speak
Torn by the wrecking ball of
destruction, climbing the
steeple steps for respite.

'Maybe they will not find me here,'
I whisper to myself with
a quivering, half-hearted reassurance.

But the other half of my heart
screams in voiceless desperation
to hold onto faith
for the belief that it does get
better than this - and that it WILL.

This other half of my heart
rips apart the half-filled glass,
shards of glass flying,
so that my face- nay, my head -
can plunge fully into the
solace of life-giving water.

It pants for such stillness,
for such escape.

The Power of Vulnerablility

2011-01-07T19:15:00.000-08:00

"This is what I have found: to let ourselves be seen. Deeply seen; vulnerably seen. To love with our whole hearts, even though there’s no guarantee. To practice gratitude and joy in those moments of terror, when we’re wondering ‘Can I love you this much? Can I believe in this this passionately? Can I be this fierce about this?’ Just to be able to stop and instead of catastrophizing what might happen, just to say, “I’m just so grateful, because to feel this vulnerable means I’m alive”?

And the last, which is probably the most important, is to believe that we’re enough. Because when we work from a place that says, “I’m enough”, then we stop screaming and start listening. We’re kinder and gentler to the people around us, and we’re kinder and gentler to ourselves."

-Bréne Brown

http://www.ted.com/talks/view/id/1042

Spiritual Puberty

2010-12-08T22:56:00.000-08:00

I'm going through a growth spurt. And I didn't see it coming. I feel like an awkward, gangly, overly aware teenager who's trying to figure out how to manage all of these new changes. I'm going to call this phase of my life - bear with me now - 'spiritual puberty'. In the same way that the body decides to go through this process whenever it's ready, I think that God decided that I was ready. And as it goes, I've gone through more spiritual changes in the last 3 months than I thought possible in that amount of time. And while I'm more than thankful to be in this transition period, I'm also exhausted from all the change. The world looks different. I look different. I feel different.

I am well aware of the fact that growth and change are life-long processes. We grow in different ways at different points in our lives, and many times we don't even notice the change until it's already happened. Yet I'm just now beginning to realize that at some point, successful growth requires some pruning; cutting away dead areas so that new life can flourish. And proper pruning requires discernment, which means listening to the gardener who has the better perspective on what's really going on in this intricate, interwoven bush we call a life. Often we are being instructed on how to prune - sometimes in small ways (little branches here and there), but sometimes in scary ways that don't always make sense at first (usually these are the big dead branches that you've become so accustomed to that you don't know what life will look like without them there and are often reluctant to get rid of).

Pruning requires a willingness to let go; to trust that what we've been strongly suggested to cut off is really for our benefit - in order that we may do what we were originally created to do: bear fruit.

“I am the true vine, and my Father is the gardener. He cuts off every branch in me that bears no fruit, while every branch that does bear fruit he prunes so that it will be even more fruitful. You are already clean because of the word I have spoken to you. Remain in me, as I also remain in you. No branch can bear fruit by itself; it must remain in the vine. Neither can you bear fruit unless you remain in me." John 15:1-4

Sidenote: I've also started a new blog. Not abandoning this one, but definitely enjoying the creative options that Tumblr has to offer.

"Anything that's not growing is dead"
-Lauryn Hill

November 1, 2010

2010-11-01T23:23:00.000-07:00

Today is November 1, 2010. On this day, the San Francisco Giants won the world series for the first time in 56 years. I know this because I received a phone call from my godfather after class tonight informing me of this most blessed of events. It's been his team since, well, forever. I think he called me thinking that I knew Tim Lincecum as a friend- I don't really - I just happened to work in the training room at UW while he played there and would pop in every once in a while. To be honest, I probably couldn't pick him out on a busy street. But it was from this phone call that I was also reminded that today (All Saints Day) is special for another reason: 25 years ago this same godfather witnessed (and participated in) my baptism. (See above picture: from Left to Right, Mike (aforementioned godfather), Mom, me, Carol (godmother), Dad)

Some might not consider infant baptism to be a true marker of one's Christian faith. Whether it is or it isn't, I don't believe that God only works within the bounds of Christian confession. And one thing I know for sure is that God has been patient. Loving and patient, beckoning me closer, into deeper intimacy with 'Him'. Sometimes I catch glimpses of how truly remarkable His love is and am completely overwhelmed with awe and thankfulness. Writing seems to be the only way to keep up with the emotions that spill over and onto paper. Perhaps this prayer will resonate within you also.

Give me fresh eyes, God
and soften my heart
For I am so often blind
to what I do.
Teach me to rejoice in you
with everything I do.
Let all of my actions be
testimony to your loving kindness.

You, oh God, are good.
Help me to see
the needs of others.
Help me to love
as you have loved me.

Mold me into the shape of an arrow,
pointing directly to you.
Pointing to your love, mercy, justice, and peace.
God, you are so good.
Teach me to do your will
and to trust you with every step.

Be clear, Lord.
I ask that you speak clearly.
Open my eyes to everything.
Transform me from every
fiber of my being.
Every cell, every molecule;
May it sing your praises.

Overflowing with Thankfulness

2010-07-23T07:36:00.000-07:00

So then, just as you received Christ Jesus as Lord, continue to live in him, rooted and built up in him, strengthened in the faith as you were taught, and overflowing with thankfulness. (Colossians 2:6-7)

It has come to my awareness recently that I don't give thanks for the blessings in my life nearly enough, be them small or large, mundane or obscure. As Dietrich Bonhoeffer so eloquently put it in his book 'Life Together',

"We prevent God from giving us the great spiritual gifts He has in store for us, because we do not give thanks for daily gifts. We think we dare not be satisfied with the small measure of spiritual knowledge, experience, and love that has been given to us, and that we must constantly be looking forward eagerly for the highest good. Then we deplore the fact that we lack the deep certainty, the strong faith, and the rich experience that God has given to others, and we consider this lament to be pious. We pray for the big things and forget to give thanks for the ordinary, small (and yet really not small) gifts.

How can God entrust great things to one who will not thankfully receive from Him the little things?"

Let us remember that we are perfectly provided and cared for by a good and perfect provider. I'll at least be working on it...

Movie Recommendation

2010-06-15T21:12:00.000-07:00

"Lord, Save us from Your Followers"

A well balanced look at the clash of Christianity and Culture today, which encourages us to stop arguing and start conversing. To stop judging and start loving for no other reason than because we are all in the same boat.

Netflix has it on instant watch at the moment, so get it while it's hot!

March 30, 2009

2010-06-14T22:02:00.001-07:00

I wrote this poem over a year ago and just found it in the back of an old journal.

I'm still waiting, God
for your clarity
For your life-giving source to
lay bare to me
For time and time again I try and fail
to see the depths of your strength prevail
It's not you I seem to see,
It's me, disillusioned
thinking it's all about me.

But try I do, and fail I will
yet you will stand, a chief to hail,
To bow, to sigh, to curl up nigh
You are there to listen to me
as I sit and wait in agony.
"I'm here, Lord! Fill me full!" say I in truth-
and truth be told,
"Fill me, fill me, evermore!"
I sing, I cry, I longingly implore

But try I do and fail I will
And you will be there to raise me up,
To lift me in my weakness still
To bringing justice, a foolishness it seems.
Yet you, the God of mercy.
the God of glory.
the God of weakness.
and the God of Love.
Sitting there on throne, smiling from Above.

Running Thoughts

2010-06-08T21:51:00.001-07:00

Just as soon as one moment can occur, another moment can occur.

Just as soon as one moment can occur, it can die.

We have choices in each moment. To choose one thing over the other. Most of the time we're tied to the illusion that we are obliged to someone or something- or really just tied to an illusion in itself. But in reality, each moment is an opportunity for something bigger than a person's obligation to anyone or anything or any illusion of what is, was, or could be.

Each of us has more opportunities than we often like to think we're responsible for to create. And it IS scary when we look at our power in the face. When we see it's potential for anything under the sun. But I also recognize that in each moment I/we have the opportunity to create something bigger than our selfish desires. We have the opportunity to Love. Unconditionally.

This has been something on my mind for a while. Something I've given great heed to. Something I've put a lot of pressure on-- perhaps too much pressure. Because I am increasingly aware of the power of my choices. How they affect me, how they affect others. And there is no way skirting around this. My choices- IN EACH AND EVERY MOMENT- have consequences. It's hard to let go of the instinct, the urge to make a selfish choice, simply because it's familiar, or because it serves the ego that I've fed for so long. I wonder if I get out of my head so much- and stop judging myself for every choice I make- if I'll be able to sit at peace with my broken self and allow myself to listen to the voice that I know to be true and life-giving. If I'll finally allow myself to move forward. Step by tiny step. Out of fear of the great unknown and into trust that all will be well- including the creation I was made so beautifully to be.

Whoever you are, I ask for your prayers as I journey. Out of the illusions and images I have created for myself and others and into peace in letting go. Letting go. I ask for prayers that I might be increasingly aware that my breath is my reminder that I am here NOW. Not yesterday, not tomorrow, not 2 minutes from now. Because my heart can only beat with the pulse that God has provided in the moment that I am living.

2010-06-05T13:53:00.000-07:00

A few things I love:

1. Indiana license plates (not joking; of all 50, its by far my fave)
2. Sarah Silverman's humor
3. Trashy electronic pop songs (i.e. Tik Tok, Party in the USA) and legitimately dancing to them in my car... alone or with company
4. Sunny days
5. The fact that you (yes, YOU!) have complete control over what picture comes up on my phone when you call me. Just change your gmail profile picture and Voa-la!

Boundaries

2010-04-10T18:15:00.000-07:00

Boundaries are hard, especially in the midst of healing. I'm trying to learn them and stick to them, but I have to get past trying to take care of people's feelings all the time. It's SO hard. "No" and "Stop" without explaining myself might be the biggest challenge ever, but from now on it is on my list of things to work on. 2010 is going to be a challenging year. Scratch that. Life is going to be challenging, but I wouldn't have it any other way: growth and life are synonymous. And just like a tree, growth means that roots get deeper, branches get larger, and seeds spread more abundantly and further. Here we go...

The Holden Prayer

2010-04-07T23:07:00.001-07:00

O God, you have called your servants to ventures of which we cannon see the ending, by paths as yet untrodden, through perils unknown. Give us faith to go out with good courage, not knowing where we go, but only that your hand is leading us and your love supporting us; through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.

POETRY SLAMALICIOUS

2010-04-06T23:05:00.000-07:00

I just performed my first act of spoken word. Spoken poetry. Life... or so it feels right now. It was AWESOME. Granted, I did attempt to break the ice (more for myself than the crowd) with a Laffy Taffy joke straight from the wrapper. Wanna hear it? OK. (it'll be like I'm taking you through the whole experience!) "What street does a ghost live on?" Anyone? Anyone? "A dead END!"--- "an 8 year old probably wrote that" (I actually said that).

But yeah! It was awesome! And I got some good feedback from my friend Nathan and had some other randoms offer praise and/or shots of Jägermeister! Wooo! (can you tell I'm pumped?). But it really did feel so good- especially that it was well received by at least 2 people. And get this: I was told I was a "strong reader" for probably-- no, scratch that-- DEFINITELY the first time in my life. Awesome! Perhaps the difference lays in reading my own words, or perhaps simply the fact that I knew these words were performable while I was writing them.

What are they, you ask? You'll have to come and see! As a result of a positive experience on stage (with much thanks to the love and support of my friend Lindsey) I declare that I WILL-- I repeat -- I WILL be pursuing spoken word open mic nights opportunities more often. Plus, I don't know if they're nearly as good when not performed.

ALSO tonight I got to experience the glitz and glamour-- oh wait. Make that raw and honest talent of two incredible slam poets, Amy Everhart and 'Lucky' Sevan Boult. OMG. So awesome. Neither local; both influential. Both ROCKING MY LITERARILY LINGUISTIC WORLD. "SAY WHAT!?!!"

Next week Karen Finneyfrock will be at The Round at the Fremont Abbey. Be there. She will set your brain loose in ways you never imagined possible, such that you will be spitting rhymes in your sleep and wake up with words in your vocabulary that you didn't realize you knew. She also sells socks with "Finneyfrock" racing down the sides. You want them.

I should go into promotions. Or PR? But I am honestly so impressed with these people and hope to learn so much more from them in time.

That's all I've got. "Good night, Seattle!" (ahem- good night, world!)

Easter Vigil

2010-04-04T22:49:00.001-07:00

Easter was a party. And perhaps the best party I've been to in a long, long while.

This picture sums the night up pretty well. If you missed it, better luck next year. And I can guarentee that you won't find Jesus' resurrection celebrated any better than dinner with live music, a DJ and a VJ (Video Jockey) rocking the dance party all night long, and lots and lots of incredibly fun people. Like I said. Next year, its on... AGAIN. (Don't miss it)

Trifecta

2010-03-31T13:36:00.000-07:00

The Trifecta of my being
is turbulent and tumultuous.
Riddled with the gurneys
of Heartcraft and War,
Glorified tenure, and
Ratified consciousness of bliss until
Finally I trespass into
a fortified sense of self.

Aim and redirect the
Fountains of glory
until only fantasy exists
and pleasure remains.

It's here that evasiveness
tricks the Impressionable and
Innocent heart.

It's not fair, this sinister smile,
This amicable naivety.
But tell me more...
I'm listening.

Fantastical

2010-03-25T22:59:00.000-07:00

I want to be where astronauts can fly and fairy's can't get me.
Where trees frolic in the deserts of Katan
And oceans float amongst the seas.

Tell me in that deep, brazen voice of yours where I might find such a place.
Tell me where such things exist, and I will show you some secrets of my own.

Allow me to take you into the deepest pits
And the shallowest of hearts
And there you will see me fighting for survival.

I want unicorns. And Captain Planet.

Poison

2010-03-24T00:07:00.000-07:00

In the feathers of my sleep
I wait for you to awaken me.
To draw my eyes open
And long to breathe the breath I breathe.
Because the breath I breathe is like a drug.
The breath I breathe, though, is poison.

I breathe to allow the sick in
To rot my aching bones.
I breathe to blow chaos across the room
While you sit there,
Patiently waiting for me to be though.

In the tandemness of life and death
You ply with me.
But your cry for me has become mute.
You're yell become muddled
Because in my free will
I choose death over life.

Time. After. Fucking. Time.

But it feels so good.
(Why does it feel so good?)
Don't give up on me. I'll try harder.
In the least, I'll try to try harder.

Ha.

Asking for forgiveness this time
seems like a slap in the face.
But please,
Forgive me.

Confident Woman

2010-03-20T12:00:00.000-07:00

"Confident Woman" is a part I play-
a character at her best.

"Confident Woman" is the one
who struts so that everybody knows
not to mess with this one.

So that everybody knows
that she's not worth their time

So that everybody thinks
that she's got it together.

But Really---
most of the time,

"confident woman" is just as scared
as the rest.

2 Questions from the Shower

2010-03-17T22:43:00.000-07:00

To questions that I'm currently asking myself:

1. What purpose does God serve in my life? Do I use God as a crutch or as a my compass?

2. Do I Use God or do I Love God?

Neither questions at this point have exclusive one-or-the-other answers. Just a pondering. Any thoughts? Insights? Additions?

Beautiful Tension

2010-03-14T22:38:00.001-07:00

In death there is life.
In brokenness there is beauty.
In doubt there is faith.

In this moment there is Grace
And we are freed, once again, to live.
Praise be to the Lord, our God.

Amen.

untitled

2010-03-13T18:36:00.000-08:00

I wonder why sometimes I keep going back to the things that are clearly unhealthy for me, in hope that, each time, the fresh interaction will produce a more positive result than the last time. Is masochism inherent in all of us, or is it just me??

Side-profile-Note

2010-02-17T22:04:00.000-08:00

P.S. I was just looking at my Blogspot profile and noticed that I had put my occupation down as "In transition". Not sure when exactly I wrote that, but I think after I graduated from college 3 years ago... and it's still true. I wonder if I'll always be in transition, or if someday settling down a bit will be in the cards for me. Or whether I would go crazy in the same place for a long time. Oh, and did I mention that I've moved 5 times in the past year? Yeah. 'In Transition" does, indeed, continue to be appropriate.

Ash Wednesday. Lent. Holy Lent.

2010-02-17T20:50:00.000-08:00

Church of the Apostles rocks my face off- and I always seem to forget that until the next time that I actually go back.

Tonight was a wonderful Ash Wednesday service, complete with a calling to reflection, forehead markings of ash crosses reminding us that we come from dust-- and it is to dust that we shall return, and communion; which seemed to bring it all together for me mysteriously. I say mysterious because communion doesn't often do much for me. I reflect; I pray; I try to grasp the meaning in what I'm doing. But more times than not, I don't understand at all what it all actually means. Tonight was different. I'm not sure what it was about the service- perhaps the additional promotion for reflection; perhaps the somber mood; perhaps the music and choice of readings. Whatever it was, I began to understand Lent and Humility and Jesus' sacrifice unlike before.

Psalm 51 was read and soaked into my being. Perhaps a good way to start a repentant Lent (I highlighted the parts that stood out to me):

Psalm 51:

Have mercy on me, O God,
according to your steadfast love;
according to your abundant mercy
blot out my transgressions.
Wash me thoroughly from my iniquity,
and cleanse me from my sin!

For I know my transgressions,
and my sin is ever before me.
Against you, you only, have I sinned
and done what is evil in your sight,
so that you may be justified in your words
and blameless in your judgment.
Behold, I was brought forth in iniquity,
and in sin did my mother conceive me.
Behold, you delight in truth in the inward being,
and you teach me wisdom in the secret heart.

Purge me with hyssop, and I shall be clean;
wash me, and I shall be whiter than snow.
Let me hear joy and gladness;
let the bones that you have broken rejoice.
Hide your face from my sins,
and blot out all my iniquities.
Create in me a clean heart, O God,
and renew a right spirit within me.
Cast me not away from your presence,
and take not your Holy Spirit from me.
Restore to me the joy of your salvation,
and uphold me with a willing spirit.

Then I will teach transgressors your ways,
and sinners will return to you.
Deliver me from bloodguiltiness, O God,
O God of my salvation,
and my tongue will sing aloud of your righteousness.
O Lord, open my lips,
and my mouth will declare your praise.
For you will not delight in sacrifice, or I would give it;
you will not be pleased with a burnt offering.
The sacrifices of God are a broken spirit;
a broken and contrite heart, O God, you will not despise.

Do good to Zion in your good pleasure;
build up the walls of Jerusalem;
then will you delight in right sacrifices,
in burnt offerings and whole burnt offerings;
then bulls will be offered on your altar.

I was brought to reflection. And in reflection came about pride and stubbornness. And from that a simple prayer spilled onto my journal pages:

"Continue to teach me, God, that I don't know everything. That I don't know best- but you do. Humble me."

Humility, all of the sudden, took on a whole new meaning for me. Perhaps something I've understood in the past, but easily forgot without constant reminder. Humility is simply acknowledging that God's way is best. And somehow, I imagine it becomes quite a bit easier to follow the will and way of God when we can accept that that way is best.

This understanding, in turn began answering a question-- or perhaps more of a curiosity-- that I've had for weeks. In a liturgical church (i.e. Catholic, Episcopal, Lutheran), it is customary for the celebrant (pastor/priest doing communion) to explain the last supper. It's usually read from a script which seems to be common among most churches, and one that I've been reciting in my head along with the celebrant since I was a kid (corny, I know- but it kept me entertained).

It goes something like this:

"On the night he was betrayed he took bread; and when he had given thanks, he broke it, and gave it to his disciples, and said, 'Take, eat; This is my Body, which is given for you. Do this for the remembrance of me.'

After supper, he took the cup of wine, gave thanks, and said. 'Drink this, all of you: This is my Blood of the new Covenant, which is shed for you and for many for the forgiveness of sins. Whenever you drink it, do this for the remembrance of me.'"

What has stood out to me for the past few weeks was that highlighted phrase: "Do this for the remembrance of me." He says it both times, and I thought, if those are the only things Jesus actually says while he's canniballistically offering himself to his friends, they must be important. Now what does that mean? Remember me. When you eat my body and drink my blood, remember me. Seems simple enough. But why?

Perhaps it means this:

Remember how I lived; not for myself, but for God's will. And how I obeyed His will unto death.

Remember how I love(d) you.

Remember that I struggled as a human- just as you do. Don't think that listening to and following the Father's will is impossible... Because I did it. I overcame the grip Satan has over humanity- on death giving choices- because I always chose life, in order to give you life. Day by day, moment by moment, thought by thought, I chose life- with God's help.

Remember my sacrifice in my body and blood. Remember my choice for life in my bodily death. Remember that you are faced with the same choices that I was- because you are still in the body.

Life is a choice. Choose death of your own advancement, you're own bodily desires, that you may truly live.

There's a lot here, but it's given me hope that this Lenten season CAN be holy. In choice. In sacrifice. In effort. In looking for strength outside of myself to do what is seemingly impossible on my own.

May your Lent, too, be Holy.

My Response to Modern Technology

2010-01-13T20:45:00.000-08:00

Written November 23, 2009
Nelson Creamery, Nelson, WI

I've fallen into a deep pit.
Where the self in me can't get out.
Where the free-flowing thoughts are held captive
And movement weighed down by the encumbrance
Of modern devices for distraction.
They're so easy to use and so immediately gratifying.
I get hooked on pictures. Hooked on
The illusions in the media.
Hooked on the pathways that afford little to no
Consciousness to arise.
It's so easy. A click here, a click there
And a few "click, click, clicks" to go back to that
Picture that momentarily sparked my curiosity.
But why was it so interesting in the first place again?
I don't even remember. Something vain,
I imagine.
An easy way to judge without them noticing.
But day after day it's there and changing
And I dive into the shallow, mirky pool,
Wondering when I finally free myself, what
Just happened and why I feel so heavy.

Finally, I can breath again.

Triple Threat

2010-01-13T20:36:00.000-08:00

Written December 30th, 2009
Cafe Vita, Fremont, Seattle

Into the dust I look for you
I find a hearth and knight so true.
Trickling down my face I see
A robe of certain decency.
'Amen' I say and say it loud
But unsure of that thought so proud.
Tinted, tainted, triple threat
Find my face in the safest bet.

Rewind, Replay, Review this day
Forgive my waste of time.

My pride is challenged
My ego fought
Into this place I am-- but I am not.
Around the corner- it's just right there
Plant the seed, that seed so fair.
It's fragile and frail so treat it with care
Arrive at the beginning
That place where you're from
And wait.
Wait.
Wait.
It will come.

End of NYC, Beginning of Lent

2009-02-26T17:46:00.000-08:00

I leave New York City in a week. It's been a fantastic experience so far- I've honestly fallen in love with this city. I caught myself sighing the other day to the sight of a beautiful green, modestly sized apartment building. Stained with the remnants of a sloppy, vandalistic graffiti job - half scrubbed off - and littered with attempts at urban gardens placed in the only available space on the block: between the building and the sidewalk. The advertisements draping either side of the bilateral building blend in to the business of taxis, buses, and pedestrians coming off the subway on the corner of 2nd Ave and E. Houston St. This sight is honestly a treat to those romanced by the by the business of the city. I get it now. I get why people are drawn to New York, like flies to the bright, enchanting light of a bug zapper.

I was skeptical at first and didn't think I would like it at all. But once I got over the compulsive worries of where I was, what train to catch (and in which direction), and the hundreds and hundreds of neighborhood and important street names to remember, I finally could look around. I could finally watch the people around me BEING as they are. I could sit with the rest of the crowd, worn out and ready to be in the comfort of a place to call home, tolerating the blaring headphone music of the (soon to be deaf) person 15 feet away.

I found a temp job at Teach for America where I met some really great people, and recently found a fantastic church that I, unfortunately, will only have gotten to go that one time. I leave in a week and am going to Boston this weekend, but when I come back to this dear, now familiar city, I will return to All Angel's Church. I was reading the blog on their website after church on Sunday, and the priest was posing options for thought about what to give up for Lent. I'd been half-assedly toying with different ideas ("facebook? no, did that last year. sweets? no, I don't like being restricted legalistically like that- it would just be another rule) until his "urge to consider fasting this Lent". Not really something I've considered to be in my spectrum of capabilities previously. But that urge kept on ringing in my ear until Tuesday night I decided to heed the call.

to be continued...

A Mixed Bag if You Will

2009-01-04T21:47:00.000-08:00

This is a weird time in my life. I leave for New York City in T-3.5 days, not knowing what I'm going to be doing, where exactly I'm going to be staying, or how long exactly I'll even be there. I guess this is where trust comes in. It's so easy to assume that just because it was my spontaneous plan to move to NY for a few months, that God can't use it. And in that, I lose faith in myself and my ability to rise above temptations, struggles, insecurities. Really, this is a place to start over though. I need to remember that the Lord, in both this opportunity and every other, is allowing me room to see Him more clearly (or conversely allowing me to lose sight completely if I so choose). I NEED to choose the former. Everyday. I need to learn to be disciplined... but that's for another story.

It has definitely been weird saying goodbye to people who I'm not sure that I'll ever see again. But I was reminded by a friends that sometimes purging relationships can be more healthy than holding onto them. And I'm the first to tell you that I fear letting go of relationships. This will be good. I have to keep telling myself that.

"LET GO of your insecurities, LET GO of your fears. LET ME take the burden" says the Lord. But letting go is the hardest part. Because, after all, who will catch me when I fall? In reality, though, were any of those superficial relationships willing to or even there for me to catch me in the first place? Probably not.

"Stop WORRYING about what other people think!" says the Lord. But if I stop caring, who will I have to impress? Who will want to be around me? Won't I OFFEND everyone with my RELIGION? The last thing I want to do is OFFEND someone! How will that ever bring them closer to the TRUTH? Ha. Can't you just count the lies I tell myself?

I end with a morsel of truth: There is no moment that you can change except for the one you are in right now. The past is over with, and the future nothing but an illusion we label as "inevitable". But inevitability can be changed in this moment. This moment. So take the reigns and steer as you so choose.

Timelessness

2008-07-30T01:01:00.000-07:00

“And this thing they call our time
I heard a brilliant woman say
She said you know it's crazy
How I want to capture mine
I think I love this woman's way”
-Shawn Mullins, Shine

Time. Time time time time time. It keeps on popping up- everywhere. Somehow its evidence and properties become clearer to me with everything I hear about it – or rather, lack thereof. I say this, because I speak more of timelessness than time itself. Living outside of time. It sounds weird at first, I know, but hear me out.

All of this came up again to me via a podcast I heard about “play”. This retired medical doctor/psychiatrist, Dr. Stuart Brown, defines play as “purposeless, spontaneous, and timeless”. More specifically than simply playing, he talks about pleasurable activities that you lose track of time while participating in. Examples of this can range from playing a sport (we’ve all probably seen or experienced ‘being in the ‘zone’), watching/listening to music, or even reading. To me, being completely caught up in a moment and forgetting all about how much time has passed or how much time is left until the next activity. One of my favorite activities is just people watching- enjoying their movements, how they interact with others, with myself, etc. Key word: enjoy. Not criticizing or judging, but simply taking a step back and enjoying and/or appreciating them. It doesn’t happen spontaneously as often as I would like, but it has happened and has been one of the most euphoric experiences of my life. In moments like that I feel absolutely and completely connected with God. Everything I read in the bible makes absolute sense, as I feel like I’m 100% in line with what it says; when I’m no longer reading it and trying to learn something new from it, but rather agreeing with EVERY SINGLE thing I read because I’m experiencing it at that moment.

Anyway, back to timelessness. How incredible would it be to live a life completely in the present? To forget about the past and future and simply live and enjoy life as it is right at that true moment. I’m reminded of the book of Ecclesiastes (part of the wisdom literature in the old testament – good book, you should read it if you haven’t already):

“A man can do nothing better than to eat and drink and find satisfaction in his work. This too, I see, is from the hand of God, for without him, who can eat or find enjoyment?”
Ecclesiastes 2:24-25

This all makes me just want to live watch-less. To live schedule-less, out in the middle of nowhere, with hunger to guide my eating and the sun to guide my sleeping. To, for once, allow my body to be in tune with its natural state and with nature itself… maybe something more similar to days before electricity (to keep us up ‘til all hours of the night), before fast food or 24-hour grocery stores (ready at our cravings’ convenience), and before life was based on calendars and alarm clocks.

Would it even be possible live completely outside of time? Unlikely, considering we’re surrounded by it’s consequences and anxiety of some sort seems to relentlessly plague us all… We are human- can’t forget that. But how incredible would it be to be able to completely live in every moment without a concern for the next; no future, no past. Simply the present. I was recommended a book by my old roommate, Rachael. She wouldn’t lend me hers, as it was very personalized (what with notes and ideas in the margins and indents – as any good book should), so I found myself a copy and have been quite pleased with it – even if I have only gotten halfway thru thus far. Four Quartets by T.S. Eliot. It’s the first poem that grabs my attention… the first page, in fact, that cradles the words that resonate in me. Here’s a snippet:

“Time present and time past
Are both perhaps present in time future,
And time future contained in time past.
If all time is eternally present
All time is unredeemable.
What might have been and what has been
Point to one end, which is always present.”

A bit more…

“Time past and time future
Allow but a little consciousness.
To be conscious is not to be in time…”

So maybe another day, some wonderful day in the future, will I be able to live in this way, at least for a while. Maybe some day I will be able to allow the simple joys in life soak in a bit deeper so that losing track of time is what I know how to do best. So that “worrying about tomorrow” is no longer a part of my daily living. Maybe then will I fully be able to trust that everything I need, the Lord will provide.

To Be Continued... in life...

2008-07-15T13:34:00.000-07:00

I'm tired. Tired of being tired. Tired of not having much of anything new to say about life when people ask. "You know, the usual" I tend to respond. Sooo interesting, right? I guess that's what comes with life and a full time gig at the same spot. Yes, I happen to quit and start back at the Ram about once every 2 months, but other than that life is the same. This really isn't fair of me to say at all, I just feel exhausted right now. I actually love my life. I love that I have increadible friends - something I feel so blessed about. I also feel blessed to have an entire family that's happy (this is a first). Even though everyone is doing different things in different parts of the country, they're all seeking after happiness- their callings, their personal journeys if you will. I am... well, I'm happy, just not on my journey quite yet. There's something out there for me that is tugging at my soul, saying "come find me!" And I have no idea what it is. Maybe its a husband for me, but then again, it could be a deeper peace that I can't find anywhere but there. This is to be my pilgrimage: this place may not be labeled as "sacred" or "religious", but I have a feeling that it will, for me, serve that purpose; a place to find God. To know God in a new and deeper way. A place in which God can transform me. Where I will begin to live a life even less my own than before. I keep on writing about this in new ways with different words. Everywhere.

I look forward to days of pure uncertainty. That I will be able to trust the Lord enough to literally lead me via his voice- and that I will have the ears to listen and the heart to follow that without a doubt. To truly obey 100%. Oh man, that sounds increadible, yet the hardest thing that I will ever attempt to do. I guess all I can do is pray and ask for your prayers in this journey. That I will trust that the strength that the Lord gives me will be enough for His will, whatever that may be.

I can't even imagine what I will be like upon my return; whether people will even notice a difference in me. I should hope so, but then again, who's to say HOW the Lord will work in me. In a free write last night in my journal (i.e. writing without restriction), a seemingly whimsical God spoke to me. Take a look:

"SURPRISE" Says the Lord,
"See what I've made you-
see how I've blessed you.
You had no idea - no escape.
It's me in control.
Just wait and see - Nothing
you could have ever imagined.

PURE BLISS - that's what it is:
incredible, beyond your imagination.

Just keep following me.

Be patient. Wait and see-
it's good, I promise.
Oh, it's going to be good.

YES! You're going to be so surprised.
I can't wait to see the look on your face,
Ooh. This is going to be good.

I AM the clever mastermind-
The clever being without a being.
I am your weaver, your master wit.
You haven't seen anything like me -
except everywhere. I'm in all. I AM IN IT ALL.
Don't doubt me. EVER.
Whahahahaha."

Take from it what you will, I thought it was kind of fun.

Bikes

2008-01-21T22:05:00.000-08:00

I rode bikes today. And by 'rode bikes' I don't simply mean that I went on a bike ride. No, no, no. I did not take my bike on a long, winding trail, aiming for speed and the satisfaction of passing people on the left. My legs didn't burn so much that I needed to stop and stretch. Quite the opposite in fact. I didn't go on a bike ride, I RODE BIKES. With my friends. Around the block. Instead of opting for my long, slender, light weight, clipless-pedalled road bike, I turned to the cob-webbed, flat-tired mountain bike (probably a 12th birthday present of one of my room mates) hidden under the piles of unused debris in our garage. Amen. And do you know what I did with this bike? If you think back to age 8, you'll probably be able to recall far better than this lame story. That's right, I rode off the curb. I tried to do a wheely (but the frame was way too heavy), and I tried to race my friend who cruised up the hill on my road bike yelling "no fair!". Sooo fun. No rules, no limitations (except for "CAAAAR!"s), the road was once again reclaimed my playground. Best lunch break ever.

Forward Looking

2007-08-07T03:40:00.000-07:00

Life is so freaking exciting. I cannot WAIT to get older. And older. And older. It may sound crazy, but I look forward to turning 40, 65, 82. I know, I say this now and sound young and ignorant and carefree, but seriously. Can you even imagine what will happen within the next 2o years? I mean sure, there will be pain, and hurt, and plenty of hard times, but there will also be so much joy and pleasure in loving and learning and being. I look forward to learning more about existentialism. About God. And myself. I look forward to watching people grow and change. To losing bets about how long it will be before people start having kids (I seem to give people the benefit of the doubt). And man, oh MAN do those house boats on East Lake Union keep on looking more and more awesome. I really look forward to being shaped more and more by God with time, and finding the joy in that every day. To the surprise that hits me every time I see the youngest sibling of old family friends, and proclaiming each time how impossible it must be for them to be so old already (14, really??!! Hight school?!), while at the same time wondering why they've stayed young longer than anyone I know. I look forward to adding more and different types of foreign currency to my change jar (especially in bill form). To new and changed faces in cherished photos. And lastly, to more random nights that keep me up until 4am writing blogs that will make me sorry that I didn't go to bed earlier instead. Meh, what are you gonna do?

Theological Detours

2007-04-11T15:28:00.000-07:00

I was just reading over some of my older blog posts and, as always, am greatful that I posted them. Because they are in a place that I will go back and read (unlike my paper journals), I can get an idea of my thoughts, beliefs, views, etc. over the past couple of years, scarce as they are, and see how I've changed.

For example: I read my "theology en route" post, and found that while I'm still struggling with a lot of the same things I was then, I think I have a better understanding of them. I really think/hope that I am making progress in this persuit of God. It may not be apparent right away, but year by year come new developments of my faith. One thing that's recently been made more clear to me (during Holy week infact) is the Power of God. I think up until this past week I have been having trouble with the story of Jesus' death and resurrection- whether it really happened or not, etc. What became strikingly clear to me one night at church was, what I believe to be, the underlying point of the whole thing. Through faith that God has really the power to do anything- and I mean anything- why wouldn't that be possible? I think it's an awesome demonstration of God's unconditional love and power. I can't really explain it much further-- it's just this encompasing, exciting feeling of 'knowing' in those forces that I get that can make me believe such a thing. And with that, comes the rest of the bible together; it ties things together in a whole new way... but I know that that is bound to change with new convicitons and beliefs. Maybe these things and new ideas will just keep piling up, building upon eachother, into a mount of faith and meaning; or maybe I'll just keep having to cut the top of this mountain off, over and over again, in order to be able to build further up and in the right direction- to the place where I should be going. Does any of that make sense? Probably not, but whatev- I don't know how else to explain it right now.

This is kinda funny- I think I can track this construction of my faith through how many times I've wanted to get confirmed, but a week later decide I'm not ready yet. For background, I grew up in the Episcopal church, baptised November 1st, 1985 (at about one and a half moths old). This baptism is usually confirmed by people in another ceremony when they are an adolescent or early adult. All of my church friends got confirmed together at age 14 when they went on a trip to Maui, but since I didnt go, I wansn't, and still have yet to be confirmed. Over the past few years I have been really thankful that I wansn't because at that age I had pretty much NO idea of who/what God was. So back to the story: every time I get a new glimpse of God, I get super excited and want to take action and prove to myself that I am ready for the commitment that is being asked of me. Then I realize that there's still way more to it that I am clueless about and back off. But now I'm like, "I'm almost there- almost at a point where it makes enough sense to be really firm in all of this".

Ok now my story is boring me. Sorry that you had to go through that. Oh, and I forgot to say that I just found this AMAZING church in freemont- church of the apostles ( http://www.apostleschurch.org/ ). Its a lutheran/episcopal church that's not so traditonal as regular episcopal churches, and is aimed a younger people (average age is about 26). So it's awesome and I'm planning on going whenever I dont have to work. Haha. If you want to come with me let me know- I'm serious. Its sweet. The priest plays guitar in the band.

Anyway, I'm out of boring stuff. So I'll just go and do my homework now.

Fun Stories of My Life

2006-12-06T04:53:00.000-08:00

I realize that its been a while that Ive sent a fun story or two from Austria, but now I think that I've had sufficient time to build up some good material for my loyal (maybe even anxious? readers back home... right.

Seeing as how I'm coming home in only a mere 3 weeks, you can imagine how excited I am. Of course, that also means that I've had to pack in some last-minute Euro-traveling before hopping the planes back to the States, at which point it will be a bit late to regret never having not going to places like Prague, which are only so far away as the equivalent of driving across WA state (5 hours away by bus). And, of course, I would so dreadfully regret not going back to Zurich and seeing friends from age 5 before leaving here (one of the main purposes of coming to Europe in the first place). So I'm leaving for Zurich tomorrow morning for a 5-day weekend. Not bad, eh? I have a feeling that will turn out similar to how it did last time.. if not worse ( i.e. watching the beautiful Swiss sun rise over the Zurisee (lake Zurich) from my bar stool).

As you may have seen (if you have taken a look at my recent pictures), I did make it to Prague 2 weekends ago, and to our satisfaction, it was just as beautiful as everyone ranted ("Prague is sooo beautiful!") I had never experienced so many gorgeous castles clustered in one 'down town' area, as if they just popped up behind you to taunt you. I'm pretty sure at least one of them whispered behind me, "sucks that you don't get to live here, doesn't it?" Very beautiful it was, indeed, but at this point in my excursion abroad, I'm ready to see the Cascades and Olympics in the distance saying "welcome home". After all, I can give you an exact account of what we had to eat while staying there:

(Arrival) Night 1: Buffalo Bills Tex Mex (Burrito)
Day 2, Lunch: KFC
Dinner: Buffalo Bills Tex Mex (Spicy Stir Fry)
Day 3, Lunch: KFC
(Departure) Dinner: Subway (Turkey club)

Very cultural, eh? Yeah, whateve. We were craving burritos, and KFC was cheap and everywhere in sight... oh, and subway was convenient for the bus ride home.

OK, so I have to tell you about a few of my most memorable/funny/annoying things about Vienna:

#1. Have you ever heard a group of German speakers sing happy birthday? I think this one falls into all 3 of the for-mentioned categories. It a goes a little something like this: "Happy Buersday du you, Happy Buersday du you. Happy Buerday lieber Hans. Happy Buersday du you". Now sing that with 50 other people in your best Arnold accents, and maybe you can see why you want to scream, "BirTHHHHday!!!! Its BirTHHHHday!". I asked why they do this, and apparently, while almost all of these 50 can say "BirTHday" in regular speech, it is considered frowned upon to sing it the correct way, as your thought to think yourself better than others if you do so. So that's a fun Austrian fact for you.

#2. This one's just annoying: Due to the lack of grass in the city, many people find it unnecessary to purposefully go in search of it while taking their dogs out for a walk. As a result, you may just find a fun surprise on the bottom of your shoe if your not staring at the sidewalk all the time... last night I got 2 fun surprises!!

#3. And to even the bad out with the good, I have to give 'major props' to the Viennese public transportation system. You can get anywhere in the city without a car in a matter of 20 minutes max, using the U-Bahns (underground trains), S-Bahns (trams), Buses, or Night buses. And all of that only costs €45 per month! What a deal, eh? I think I will probably miss that most out anything here. I am certainly not looking forward to metro when I get back.

In other exciting news, that package that has been traveling across the world for 2 months finally made it safe and sound back to my dads house in Bellevue!! So while I didn't get the pleasure of wearing those clothes here, at least they're not gone forever! YAY! And my mommy comes to visit me in 2 weeks! Double YAY! Man this is exciting.

Well, I will leave you with all of my life updates, with hopes of hearing some of your own. Only 3 weeks to go! Tripple YAY!

Vienna: 0°C

2006-11-06T04:20:00.000-08:00

Hello Hello!

I know that its been over a month since I've written, but the motivation and material has finally come. Yesterday we received our first day of snow here in Vienna. I was pleasantly surprised to find it blowing with the wind outside of our classroom window, that the rest of my German exercises in classes included snow or snowmen in one way or another-- it helped that we were doing grammar that related to things that make us happy... or what we want to do in the future ( i.e. make snowmen). Because I have yet to receive my box of winter goodies (gloves, jacket, etc) from home, I went next door and bought a pair of fleece gloves. It was very exciting to see everyone so bundled up in the beginning of November. I think the snow caught everyone by surprise (based on the warm, fall weather we have been having recently), as hinted to me by the sudden influx of winter shoppers. They seemed to have the same idea as me, because the stores were absolutely packed all day. To accomodate this fun new twist on things, I had to buy spandex pants and a headband to keep me warm during rugby practice last night... now if only I could wear gloves in this sport. But it honestly wasn't too bad when running around (and not standing still, holding tackling pads for 10 min. at a time). Speaking of rugby, I am going to Hungary on for the day on Sunday for a game... funny how it is so convenient to play a game in another country instead of at our home field because its cheaper, but that's Europe!

I was so excited about the snow yesterday, that I wrote a little journal entry about it in German (basically what I already told you):

11/2/06
Heute haben wir der erste Schneefall des Winters gehabt. Der 2. November. Nie hab ich so bald in dem Jahr Schnee gesehen. Ich hab Handschuhe gekauft, gleich nach meiner Deutschklasse: Grüne, vliese Handschuhe, zu passen mit meinem Herbst-farbigen Kleidern. Ich kann nicht auf den ersten großen Schneefall warten, wenn die ganze Stadt weiß wäre; Wenn die Leute eilige haben, zu sofort drinnen gehen. Jedoch ich auf der Wind warten (der schlectest Teil Winters). Ohen Wind wäre der Winter perfekt.

Translation:
Today we had the first snowfall of the winter. The second of November. Never have I seen snow so early in the year. I bought gloves right after German class: green, fleece gloves, to match my fall-colored clothes. I can't wait for the first big snowfall, when all of the streets are covered in white, when everybody is in such a hurry to get inside. I can, however, wait for the wind (the worst part of winter). Without wind, winter would be perfect.

I bought my first German novel about a week ago, Schiffbruch mit Tiger, or in Life of Pi as called in English. I figured it would be a good challenge, but not too much of one, since I've read the English version a couple of times already, and have it here with me to refer to. Writing in German, for me, can be frustrating, because the structures of the languages are so different. My problem is that I write or speak in German as I would in English, which makes my study of German much more difficult than it needs to be... but I know that that's only natural, and will change with time and practice.

As far as work goes, I think that I'm learning the most about myself as I teach English. It is no doubt true that 'patience is a virtue', and I think that applies to effective teaching more than anything. I do think that I've improved in my ability to explain or give understandable definitions for foreign words, though. The kid that I mainly tutor (who's 17), just had an English test on Monday, so I think he finds out soon how he did on it-- I gave him lessons both Saturday and Sunday to prep him, and really hope he did well.

My job at the bar is going well too. I worked last on Halloween, and was the only one of the staff to dress up. I raided my friend Mo's closet, and found a goldmine of Halloween costumes, including a Formula 1 race car driver outfit, a sailor costume, baseball and football uniforms, and my favorite, his army clothes. I chose the latter, not thinking about the crap that I was bound to get from my boss: "Oh, so we have the American here to invade another country...". I should have seen it coming, but was obviously blinded by my fond liking of camo-gear and face paint when choosing my costume.

The other day I decided to take tourist pictures of Vienna. As you may know, this year is Mozart year here, are you can pretty much find anything you want relating to Mozart. Around every major tourist attraction, you will find at least 5 guys (sometimes girls too) dressed up in their finest Mozart outfits, being the best Mozarts they can be... they're actually there to sell opera and symphony tickets, but we'll just ignore that. Im sorry that I didnt take pictures of them earlier (before the fridged temperatures hit), because now they cover a lot of their outfits with Mozart jackets. On a good day you can even see them wearing the wigs too-- Im just hoping that those will become replacements for modern day hats. My friend Gwen from Vancouver has been collecting newspaper clippings, random mozart stuff, etc. that are typical of Vienna, and sending them home to friends. In light of that idea, I decided to go around and take pictures of all things Vienna as I walked around, to give you all an idea of what I see everyday. I posted the new pictures at http://washington.facebook.com/photos.php?id=10700857&l=560be so hopefully you'll get a chance to see what my life here is like (briefly). I definitely still need to make a point to take more pictures.

You are all amazing and I miss you now more than ever. If you get a chance, please write me an update (about the weather or your life.. whatever you feel appropriate). In the meantime, I'll be brainstorming up new material...

Ireland: The Craziest Place on Earth

2006-09-20T16:17:00.000-07:00

I said that I would elaborate further on the splendor of our favorite non-UK country, Ireland. How to start, how to start?

And now, for the tailes of Ireland:

The people of Dublin, while some of the nicest I have ever met, are also the most entertaining. They made the city come alive with culture and pschotic affairs.

My hostel, serving as a cheaper, and often last resort option for backpackers and foreign workers alike, actually kept me in the city longer than I originally planned on staying. Each day (or night) convinced me to stay another day longer, until my intended one-night visit turned into five.

Surprisingly it was not the broken water heater (fixed 3-4 times per day), the seamingly unchanged douvet and pillow covers, nor the toilets in full view of the cornering bedroom and courtyard that kept me re-checking in every day at 11am. It wasnt even the reception guy who began talking to me in a baby voice while tickling my stomach once taking a liking to me.

The people I hung around with from the hostel were the entertainment I seaked and watched for 5 days. I think I was the odd man out as the lone backpacker, as the rest were all there on work visas, in search of a job and a less sketchy place to rest their heads.

We didnt even bother with formalities and the inevitable fate of forgotten first names and inquiries of origin, and thus mixed the two together to form extremely ideal hostel nicknames: Melbi, Aussie, Swedie, Rhodie, and Seattle we became. These four were not the main sources of entertainment, but rather the people I could interact sanely with and enjoy the insanity of other hostel dwellers and locals alike. They were, of course, lots of fun, but by no means like the others we encountered, who I could just put in a box and watch for hours on end.

Characters like the Swedish horse jockey who woke up with a beer in-hand at 9am and ready for his breakfast pint at 10. I was introduced to him by Rhodie (from Rhode Island) and Swedie (the other Swedish guy from Malmö) while watching Spongebob in galic on the TV in the hostel common room. They invited me to tag along in search of a place that served both coffee and beer for breakfast. I had 2 euros left, so I figured I would get a coffee if cheap enough. Three hours later, we were propperly fed thanks to the Jockeys generosity and never-ending cash wad. We listened to his rediculous stories, one after the other and got our kicks. For example: "I once fell asleep in Sweden and woke up in Madrid". How thats possible, I have no idea, but in no way surprising for this guy. I responded with "Thats like a 3 day train ride, and you dont remember how you got there?" He nodded, shrugged, smiled, and then seemed somewhat entertained by the story himself, as if he had never really though about why that would be out of the ordinary. I think my brother would have loved this guy.

Following a couple nights wandering in the Temple Bar area, watching a street performing band rock and crazy 15-16 year old girls drinking and dancing to them at midnight on a school night (and wondering where their parents were), I finally hopped the train to Galway to see the familiar face of my friend Vanessa, aka "Boots".

It was in Galway that the meaning of "walking" and "rain" and "walking in the rain for 30 minutes everywhere" became known. Vanessa wasnt lying when she said "word to the wise: bring an umbrella". Being a proud Seattlite, I ignored her wise words and wound up with wet shoes, wet clothes, and wet coats to go along with those fun walks in the rain.

Vanessa brought me the her apartment in Corrib Village, student housing for first year and study abroad students. Surrounding her appartment (complete with one girl from Italy, one from the Netherlands, one from Germany, a complete dish set (minus the collander), and a couch-filled TV lounge) were mostly other foreign student, including one from Bellevue! Like this trip has revealed to me before: Small, small world.

Once again I scored in the "awesome host/hostess" department, because not once was Vanessa anything but that. And being the social butterfly that she is, even had a birthday party lined up for us for the night! We walked there (30 min), sang happy birthday, played cards, and gave the birthday boy our fabulous gag gift of storebrand, generic label (Tesco), cheap as cheap can get, Whisky with matching Cola. I didnt go near it.

The next day we took a bus tour to Callamara, and while it was long, it was filled with gorgeous lakes, fields, castles, and a sleezy old bus driver that had crushes on us. hehehe... he even gave Vanessa his number incase she ever "needed a ride anywhere". Afterall, he did win the only prize for "best tourbus driver in 2003, 2004, AND 2005"! Or so we heard 3 times in a row like everything else on the trip... including his singalongs to his favorite Irish songs over the intercom. No doubt we were entertained on that trip!

Oh, and I got my first day of class out of the was at Vanessas "Service Management" class. I was so excited because I missed school so much, that I took noted and everything! I know... Im a nerd. Now I just wait for my school to start on the 2nd of October, and then Ill be set!

New Friends and Camping Kitchens

2006-09-20T15:40:00.000-07:00

Howdy all!

Life on the road has definitely picked up since I last wrote. I am somewhat back-dated on all of my emails, so I think I'll skim over the last few weeks (excluding this week) briefly.

From Germany Patrick and I headed east in search of cheap prices and (hopefully) sun. We only ended up spending about 6 hours in Budapest, 3 hours in a Hungarian bath house (i.e. lots of fun, different temp. pools and saunas) and 3 hours walking around and waiting for our train out of there. Although Patrick had a whole trip around Romania planned out, complete with about a week of seeing castle after castle and camping for free everywhere (sounds fun, huh?), he finally got with it and bailed that plan for Croatia. We arrived in Split to be welcomed by about 15-20 ladies holding up signs advertising their available room(s) for rent and you guessed it: rain. We were so bummed out that we simply booked a bus ticket down to Dubrovnik (in the very southern tip of Croatia), one of the sunniest places on earth. Turns out that patience was a virtue that neither of us had, and we got slapped in the face by that fact when the sun broke through the clouds the moment we hopped on the bus.

The same bunch of women (well, not literally the same women, but the same kind) greeted us once again in Dubrovnik, and we turned down one after another due to sheer poverty... and wanting to camp. Our timing was absolutely amazing, because the moment we got off the metro bus by the campsite, we found 2 other couples our age going there as well. It so turned out that situations like this are the perfect opportunities to make insta-friends ("Fresh out of the packet!"), and the six of us saw quite a bit of each other over the next five days... especially around dinner time when we were all pooling our resources to make dinner... over our coal 'stove'. The first night's dinner was a bit rocky (frozen fish sticks and sliced potatoes) but soon got better over the next few nights. One night we even finished dinner off with an apple strudel! Now that’s what I call camping.

Anyway, we left Dubrovnik with one of the couples, Nick and Pip, ending up in Venice the next day with LOTS of passport stamps (we asked at each border control stop... and made the whole bus wait. hehehe). The first night in venice will probably be one of the most memorable from the trip. You see, after taking out pizza to go and we sat around the corner with a water-front view (if you've ever been to venice, you'll know that every corner has a water-front view) and became scenery for the passing-bye gondolas, personal speed boats, and water taxis. Then we proceeded to pull an ultimate poor backpackers move, in the most ideal place for doing it. We slept on the street. It turned out that the alleyway perpendicular to the pizza place that we ate at was perfect for it. It was a dead end alley with an narrow passage way that blocked us from view of people on the other street. Only one group of people walked by us after parking their boat at the end of the alley, and we simply pretended to be asleep already to avoid confrontation. The rest of our 3 day stay in Venice was spectacular as well, and we even got to see the annual gondola races!

After Venice we popped back up to Berlin to visit the family we stayed with before. It was then that Patrick and I split ways; he went up to Stockholm again before flying home, and I went west to Brussels. Or at least with the intention of going to Brussels... after I slept through my stop and wound up in Paris... again. Never again do I want to go there. I have seen the likes of Paris' train stations WAY too much for comfort.

Long, boring story short, I am now in Dublin for the one-night-turned-five-nights stay. I have to say. If you are at all into people watching, this is the place for you. I’ll elaborate later.

Never-ending Sun

2006-09-05T02:32:00.000-07:00

Written June 29th, 2006

I briefly wanted to let you know of my current status and location. Firstly, the more I see, the more I want to see, and the longer I want to see it. I can't wait for the rest of our journey, and am considering traveling the US or south america after I graduate... more of a challenge than Europe. We're in stockholm right now and it is absolutely GORGEOUS! It's like the beauty of seattle times 30! We're going up to the Fjords in Norway tomorrow to see the 24 hours of light, and I suspect it will be quite spectacular. Right now stockholm has 20 hours of light. Last night we stayed up until about 1:30 AM after going for a long walk. It's pretty amazing being able to watch the sun set and rise in the same sitting. "darkness" hits between 10pm and 2am.

I also wanted to say that I'm sorry I havent been able to call or write, the internet has been quite a problem recently... Patrick usually bums wireless internet off of his neighbors up here, and it seems that the regular victim has left for the summer. We're heading to germany after Norway, and I suspect that there will be more accessable internet there. I'll post some blogs once I get more consistent access.

Torro!

2006-09-05T02:31:00.001-07:00

Written July 16th, 2006

Hola mi amigos! I am in San Sebastian, Spain right now, ready to depart for Nice and Italy in about 4 hours. I would say this is one of the most beautiful and lively places we´ve visited yet. Of course, it is spain, so liveliness is to be expected. The beaches here are amazing, and the surfing just a bit too difficult to catch a wave. We did try, though. And failed. And got kicked around by some pretty narly waves. And then traded our surf boards in for body boards. It was fun, though, and if my lip didnt still hurt and my knee werent all scraped up, I´d probably do it again if we had time. Nights so far have consisted of following a drum group down the street and dancing along side with the funny old men, and looking for seemingly non-existant salsa clubs that the guys wouldnt have to pay for. Oh yes, and a game of truth or dare (aka dare) on the boardwalk with strangers. Example dare: run up to a strange man and sing "I will always love you". Fortunately the girl on that guys arm didnt pummle anybody.

We have been traveling with a girl named Kristen (from Florida) for the past few days, who we met at the subway station in Barcelona (while lost and looking for the train station). She was on her way to San Sebastian, but was easily persuaded to hop of the train early for Pamplona and running of the bulls. Even though I told you, Dad, that I wasnt going to run - and wasnt planning on running - having two other girls to run with made it a quick decision. I didnt prepare for it, seeing as how I wasnt planning on running, so I didnt quite have the propper attire for the running (white pants, white shirt, and a red scarf and saché). Surprise, surprise! I improvised in quite a novel way according to tradition. My outfit consisted of a white skirt (practically unheard of for this run), a white tank top, and running shoes. If your wondering about the actual run, the closest we got to the bulls was about 3 feet, and we were probably the safest you could be for actually being within the fence with the bulls. But thats all Im telling you unless you ask. Oh- and nobody we knew got hurt, so you can relax and exhale now (not that you were holding your breath to start with). I would say that it was one of the most amazing experiences of my life thus far. Experience of a lifetime, hands down.

Thats all I have for you right now, but please email me if you want to know more! I would love to hear about what youve been doing!

Life is random and familiar

2006-09-05T02:31:00.000-07:00

Written July 26th

I am, indeed alive and doing well here in Italy! The past few days of entertainment have made me laugh. They consisted of seeing my friend Brandon from high school randomly in Cinque terre at the train station- I only spotted him by the Sammamish duffle bag he was toting around, which, of course, caught me by total surprise. We went to the beach for 7 hours in Monterossa (one of the 5 towns in Cinque Terre), at dinner at the hostel, and then slept in the basement of an elderly Italian couple. We then took a train to Milan at which point Patrick and I decided to takea little break from eachother to avoid murdering eachother. He headed off to greece early, and Brandon and I went into the suburbs of Milan to watch my friends softball game. 30 minutes of being lost in Milan, 3 cheesburgers, one small fry, 3 poppers at McDonalds, and 2.5 km of walking with all of our stuff on later, we arrived at the fiield for the last 20 minutes of the game. We got a free place to stay on their floor and I took an actual BATH for the first time this trip! I am now just outside the train station in Milan about to go to Ancona to catch a 21 hour ferry ride to Greece. Oh and the ferry has a pool, which I am very excited about.These days a 21 hour ferry ride sounds like cake. Much has changed in that department since I left home.

Greece: Oy veh!

2006-09-05T02:29:00.000-07:00

Written July 29th

Wow has it been an exciting turn of events. Last night was the first in 5 that I had actually slept in a bed, and it was glorious. After sleeping in the train station in Ancona, Italy and getting kicked off the floor, we made our way to the ferry docks to buy tickets to Patras, Greece. The 21 hour ferry wasnt so bad, even though we only had deck tickets and had to sleep on benches. I got a nice 5 minute swim in at the pool on the ferry before feeling uncomfortable enough to get out and continue to be gawked at by the creepy Greek men. The ferry ride was beautiful and I finished the book A Movable feast by Hemingway in almost a day. Traveling with someone who likes to read has gotten in me in the mood to do the same, and I have already finished two books now and started on a third, On the Road. It also helps that he has about 4 english books in his bag, so I can just swap one out when Im done with the last.

After ariving in Patras, we hopped a train to Corinth (on the way to Athens)- or so we thought. And so the train said. Only it was not going to Corinth. It was headed towards Kalamata, the opposite way that we needed to go. We only found this out until we were just about at Kalamata, and the Train conductor told us to get off of the train and catch a bus before even reaching Kalamata. Stuck in the middle of nowhere, Greece with another couple that was lost on the way to Athens, and all we could seem to do was get more lost. The other couple from Romania somehow caught all of us a ride to an even smaller town to catch a different bus straight to Athens. The man who drove us was increadibly nice and happened to live in Chicago for a little while, so his english was good enough to get by. Get by with tourists that is-- in the middle of Greece. We arrived at a corner in the middle of a greek highway, holding a store with wine and cooked pig. They also sold bus tickets. Brandon and I were told that our Eurail passes would work on the buses too, so we didnt buy tickets. It turns out that our Eurail passes didnt work, and we had to spent 15 euros each on bus tickets- about 6 euros cheaper than what the couple payed at the store. It seems that the market enjoyed giving the "special price for travelers who dont speak greek" quite often, as we also got ripped off on a slab of meat.

It was 9:30pm by the time we arrived in athens, and we had no other choice to stay the night. The Romanian couple was also quite nice, and just as lost as us, so we decided to look for a cheap room together and split the cost. Anything to avoid getting ripped off again, we ignored the taxis and caught the bus to the train station. We were all on a budget, so we searched for the sketchy looking hotels, with no fancy lights and no fancy signs, and succeeded with a hostel room for 50 euros. It even incuded breakfast (if you can call it that for an egg and a few pieces of bread).

After finding out that the ferry tickets to crete are about 35 euros each way, i think that Im just going to stay on the mainland until I have to be in Zurich by the 8th, and then head to Crete after that. Who knows what will happen, though. Clearly the unpredictablility is unpredictable.

Zurich Recap

2006-09-05T02:24:00.000-07:00

Written August 25, 2006

So... I left off in Munich. Next stop was Zurich (or more specifically,> Stäfa), my former home of 5 years, and one of the most beautiful cities in the world. There we thoroughly enjoyed all of the things that had been missing on our trip: fine food, fine wine, fine parties, fine sleep. And more fine sleep. After being warmly welcomed into the home of our old neighbor and family friends, Bruno and Ruth, all we could do was stare off of their balcony at what must have been one of the best views in Stäfa, overlooking the Zeurisee (lake Zurich) and Luzern-- or what Bruno called "the sink" of the area (behind the "cold coast"), as they apparently take all the rain away from the "gold coast", when we were staying. I cant help to wonder whether the US referrs to Seattle as "the sink" as well. Regarless, we still experienced rain, and still went swimming in it... and then sprinted back to our unsheltered clothes in time enough that they were not completely soaked yet.

Of course, a trip to Switzerland is not a trip to Switzerland if you havn't seen the Alps. After seeing those babies I was almost convinced that I was> not living anywhere else in the world ever again. Only problem is that one I am not a farmer, and two I am not a billionaire. So, unless I learn how to speak flawless swiss german and somehow manage to get a job up there, I dont see that happenning anywhere in the near future.

We were also fortunate enough to arrive just in time for the Zurich street parade, a once a year event drawing millions of partiers from around Europe in their most outrageous clothing to dance for hours in the street, fore and behind semi trucks towing trailers full of more dancing people, including a trailer for the local strip club. It would be a lye to say that people weren't excited about that one... One of Bruno's coleagues from Florida invited us to come along to their annual street parade party, hosted in their 4 or 5 star hotel, and catered by their personal waiter, who flawlessly made a point to keep our champaign glasses full and to keep food on our plates at all times. Of course, parties lasted until all hours of the night, even including one at the train station (which, of course, I went to as well). The night I spent with my old childhood friend, Daniella, and her friends. I even met a swiss guy who was attending UW in the fall! Imagine the odds of that, will ya? And so, I went about my duty as a husky and informed him of cheers, rules, etc. Can't leave a guy hanging around Seattle with an umbrella and looking like a foreigner... Once again, I must continue later. Need to go eat lunch at the student caffeteria here in Karlsruh, Germany! Bet you've never heard of it, have you? Thats what I thought. Me neither before we came here. Maybe Ill continue this later today, maybe when we get to Romania (tomorrow or the next day) where internet (and the cost of living) is DIRT cheap. Yay for being poor and stinky!

Memoirs from 10 weeks in...

2006-09-05T02:23:00.000-07:00

Written Sept 4th, 2006

Zurich was the last of luxury that we have seen, and probably will see for a long, long time. Let me explain. We departed Zurich on August 13th in search of the sun that we had been sadly missing for over 2 weeks. Because we are, of course, the smartest two travelers around, we darted off to the south, Barcelona more specifically, in a wild goose chase to reunite with the tans that we had lost along with the sun. Our vanity seemed to overpower our wits, however, as we failed to even check a weather report before leaving. So, of course, we wound up in Barcelona around 15 or so hours later to find nothing else but the same bad weather we left the day before. Unmotivated to even walk around the town again without so much as the reward of a warm, sunny beach with crystal blue waters, I failed to step outside the train station before departing again, this time north to France to avoid the expensive Spanish reservartion fees.

About 3 days later we finally settled in Paris for two nights (one of which being in the train station), after spending one night camped out in a random field near the French-Spanish border, and stopping briefly (and I mean very briefly) in Bordeaux before realizing our lack of a city map and after realizing our laziness to find one or ask directions to the hostel. Trains at least kept us warm and out of the rain. Plus they helped us break our record of longest period traveling straight.

Paris was expensive this time around, and this fact was made very, very apparent to us once we realized that neither of us has any money to our name. We walked around Paris for a day and sat outside the Louvre for 3 hours while deciding that we hated being tourists and hitting the road again. The only reason we had any direction was because we finally got in contact with one of Patrick's friends from Stockholm, Benny, who invited us to come stay with him on his family's farm in the Black Forest area of Germany. Hope was restored in us as we moved east toward free accomodation and a friendly face.

I was forced to practice my German while there, as Benny's family spoke no English. His mom showered us with kindness, as she cooked us authentic German meals (as it seems all Germans do so well) and baked 2 cakes a day. She spoke German slowly enough for me to understand, and at times spoke to Patrick before turning around and realizing that it was Patrick, the only non-German speaker in the house, and laughing it away.

Welt Meisterschaft 2006

2006-07-10T02:13:00.000-07:00

I doubt there is anything like being in Berlin during the World Cup Finals, or "Welt Meisterschaft" as the Germans call it. We opted to stay at the house during the Germany game against Portugal on Saturday, and it was probably a good thing- seeing as how the streets were probably completely immobile and beers cost 3 euros per small glass. Not to mention that the whole city is covered in red, black, and gold... no matter if Germany is playing or not.

Back to the finals... we went to Alexanderplatz to watch the game on a large screen with about 2,000 other people, and quite a match it was. Although I insisted earlier that I don't usually take sides at these games and watch them for their beauty, my usual position was altered once I decided that Italy would win. After all, the Italian fans were outranked 5:1 where we were. So, I whistled and yelled and cheered for Italy, and was correct in my prediction of the World Cup champion. Also correct were my predictions that France would score first and that nobody would score in the 30 minutes of penalty time. Of course, I made incorrect predicitions too, of which I will leave out for the sake of my pride.

Prior to our trip downtown, we were given a historical tour of Potsdam, a city just outside of Berlin where the great leaders of WWII and the anti-Hitler coallition met. I must say, History feels a lot more tangible, and in turn interesting, when you're standing in the meeting room of Roosevelt (and eventually Truman), Churchill, Stahlen, and other big names.

We also visited the summer house of Albert Einstein and the building in which he formed the Theory of Relativity. Although the tour of the house was in German, we had supplementary books and Claudia's translations to keep us occupied and interested. Better than the 4 Euro nap- I mean boat tour- that we took the previous day, consisting of monotone German narration and expensive ice cream (which of course I bought anyway).

And so, we had a day with the greats of both today and yeterday. Not bad if you ask me.

At This Rate, You'de Better Pray That I'm Ever Coming Home!

2006-07-07T15:49:00.000-07:00

I know that I am far from keeping my friends and family informed of my travels thus far, so I will do my best at attempting to catch everyone up, while I sit in a beautiful suburban home of Berlin. I will start at the most recent part of our trip, 12:48 am on Saturday, July 8th. My mother's birthday.

7/6- present. Berlin, Germany.
I dodge misquitos to avoid tacking another point for them on the board, seeing as how I'm already losing 10-0. Berlin is amazing. I think the best parts so far have been the beer, the Fußball (soccer), the wursts, and the Gelatto Cafe at Potzdamer Platz. In that order. Oh yes. And the confidence boost I have received from the family that we are staying with regarding my primitive German speaking abilities. Unfortunately I feel like giving up each time a store clerk does not understand me. However, neither Patrick nor Daniel speak, nor are willing to learn or speak, and German, so "making a fool of one's self in foreign german-speaking countries" is on my list of chores for the trip.

We went to the "Fan Mile" for the World Cup, where mega-sized Toshiba screens hang and supposidly a million Germans gather for their home teams games. So it will be in about 20 hours when Germany plays England for 3rd and 4th place. We stumbled upon it today while wandering Berlin, looking for the Brandenburg Gate and found that it was blocked off. So we entered from the actual entrance and learned that Wycleff Jean, Sean Paul, and others would be performing there at 6pm for free. It was 2pm at this point, and we were more than willing to wait in the 95 degree plus weather, humidity included. So, we wandered some more, ate, and bought t-shirts as witness to our existence in this football-inspired mayhem.

And then it rained. The thunderstorm we caught wind of earlier (no pun intended) reared its dark and warm wet head as we stood 2 rows back from the front of the stage. Soon enough our clothes were litterally dripping in harmony with the rest of the crowd... and the stage. The concert was cancelled after an hour once we were all well and wet, despite the German's statements that Germans don't care about the rain and thunder, and that the show would indeed go on. And so, we ran to the U-bahn as dry people gasped at us from undercover. The only thing that we worried about were our passports and Eurail passes in the money belt... under patricks soaking shorts... of which I still do not know the status. I'm curious, but busy. On with the story.

7/5. Zürich, Switzerland.
You may be wondering why only one day appears on the aforementioned date in our travels to Switzerland. This is where the joys of a Eurail pass come in. After we had just about enough of Hamburg (which I will mention next), we decided to find a train which would take long enough for a good sleep and a good day trip. After all, we had to be in Berlin the next day to meet Claudia (our host there).

We decided upon Zürich after very little debate, which you may know got me quite excited. After almost 15 years I would get to see the town that I vaguely remember, yet have fond memories of from the 5 years my family spent there. We arrived, dropped our bags off in lockers, and immediately hit the local train for Stäfa. Of course, I had no idea how to get from the train station in Stäfa to Geimoss Straße (the street we live on), so I used my broken mixture of swiss german and hochdeutch (regular german) to find our way, and I knew that I was in the right place from the moment I saw kindergarteners walking home for lunch with their fluorescent orange crossing vests on (just as I had in years past).

The street and surrounding areas was just as I remembered, but smaller (naturally). I saw the same garden, the same appartment, the same playground, with only slight adjustments down the street. They added a high school.

I then found my way to my Kindergarten from the appartment by memory, even to my old classroom. Wow was that a trip. It was as if nothing had changed besides the teachers (mine wasnt there any longer). Little backpacks still hung from the same racks with shoes below, and my imagined images of the classroom behind the door was confirmed by another teacher nearby.

It was, however, just a day trip and a place that we would revisit for longer periods in a month, so we parted the most beautiful view any of us had ever seen and continued on our way back to Zürich for an unexpected, but well needed, swim in the Zürichsee... in my underwear. It was wonderful.

7/1-7/4. Hamburg, Germany.
This lag of the trip was split into two locations of Hamburg. The first, 'Instant Sleep' hostel in the center of town, which came with high recommendations by the Lets Go Europe travel book, a relatively rude staff, and mildly cheap internet... when you dont pay for half of it. The first day went something like this: Check in, shower, go to the market, make the best damn Minestrone Soup know to man (surprisingly), go to the beach bar across the street and attempt to watch the Germany game throught the glare on the TV, go back to the hostel, take a 14 hour nap. Yes, you heard right. A sleep intended only for a brief period consisting of all of us in all of our clothes above our sheets which turned into a hearty sleep and groggy awakening.

The next morning was a Sunday, and I had hoped to find an anglican church to go to in Hamburg. With no success at finding one anywhere nearby, I settled for one only two S-bahn stops away, which turned out to be the most well- know historical church in Hamburg: Michaeliskirche. While the service was completely in german, I enjoyed it as it was quite similar to the episcopal services I'm used to. In fact, I have no idea what denomination this church is. All I know is that the pastor/priest wore one of those giant white collars around his neck. But seriously the most surprising thing about the the church, this collar was one of those that you have only seen in baroquean paintings. The ones that look like a big, circular white fan. I have no idea what it's called, but it was crazy!

On saturday we traveled to a campground that we found in a travel book called Campingplaty Blankenese. It took about an hour and a half to get to with train, bus and foot, but it was well worth it... at least at first.

We stumbled upon this absolutely gorgeous beach along the Elbe River, and then proceeded to trip into our swimsuits and the water. Sunscreen was mistakenly not on my list of things to do, evidenced by a nice pink chest later that night. We talked about how nice it would be to sleep on the beach, wake up with the sun, and spend yet another full day laxidazically lounging, tanning, and swimming. Sounds good right? What we didn't talk about, however, nor did we predict, was that flocks of bugs that also seemed to enjoy the beach at night.

coming soon:
-Stockholm
-Copenhagen
-Amsterdam
-London
-Paris
-London (again)

Theology en Route

2006-03-02T23:35:00.000-08:00

I find it hard to establish my opinion and beliefs on the bible, and thus Christianity. In one sense, I want to take the entire bible as truth, as the word of god, but at the same time I feel that I have to be skeptical about my interpretations of the bible and how I read it. It really bothers me to think that my opinions are based strictly on convincing arguments of others, because usually good arguments are one-sided and ignorant to a second or even third side of the issue. I want all of this knowledge about the characters of the bible, the history, and the context so that I may make my own decisions about controversial topics. The problem, I think, is that no matter how much knowledge I have, I will really never know for sure. And thus lies the most mystical and at the same time torturous characteristic about Christianity arises- the mystery of God. What little we actually know about God, and what little we can conclude about God. Maybe I just need to get out of the mindset of details (i.e. sins to avoid, etc), but those guide the bigger picture. They exemplify how to love, etc. So instead of taking the bible word-for-word, maybe I should take it concept-for-concept. Things I do know about God’s will for us: 1. The golden rule: Love your neighbor as yourself and love god with all your heart, mind and soul. 2. Don’t judge others 3. Forgive 4. Pray 5. Have faith and hope 6. Repent. The details follow along with rules in Paul’s letters.

My problem lies with the concept of Jesus’ death and resurrection. I believe that Jesus was sent by God and that he was the fulfillment of God’s prophesy. I have faith that there is a God, and that God will forgive me my sins, and that he will guide me. However, I am not convinced about a heaven, or more, and afterlife. What is the point of my faith without the goal of an afterlife? I think that my strong faith that God exists along with the belief that the bible is a book of wisdom for how to live life to the fullest (as god intended) drives me to do the will of God. It gives me a purpose in life (or more of a hypothetical purpose at this point) and general means for fulfilling that purpose. I believe that I am here for a reason; I influence the world in a unique way. Sure, there may be many other people with the same personality and goals as me, but each of us influences our direct world differently, and thus our indirect world as a whole. As the bible says, we all serve as different parts of the body- the body as a whole wouldn’t function as well if any of the parts were missing.

I think that any person (in any religion) that believes in God and believes in and acts on the main concepts of what Jesus preached (i.e. Faith, hope, love, etc) is just as admirable and OK by God as Christians. Often, however, Christianity gives people a means for self-reflection and self-betterment.

Anyway, just a few thoughts for the second day of lent. Let me know what you think. I would love to hear thoughts, opinions, beliefs, whatever!

My Life According to Books and Stereotyping

2006-01-27T15:47:00.000-08:00

Today was just funny. I haven't had a funny day that I wanted to write about for a while (obviously).

So on the way home from bio office hours (AKA life resuscitation hours) I saw a kid on the bus, who is obviously in high school. I saw him yesterday, and he drew my attention then too. You see, this kid is the epitome of Seattle. He could probably-- actually definitely go anywhere in the world and provide and accurate depiction of what a 'Satellite' looks like. This kid looked so Seattle, I could probably make an accurate guess as to what his political views are, how much organic food he consumes, and that he can, indeed, read (considering we are the most literate city in the country). You may be wondering what he was wearing that was so telling of his seattleness. The first thing that struck me was his Timbuk2 messenger bag- not that this is extraordinarily defining of Seattle, but riding the bus 2-4 times a day definitely has an impact on how much I see them- not to mention that they are all at least 3 different colors so they naturally stand out more than normal backpacks.** I was also keyed in by the really nice rainjacket he was wearing- you know the ones with the water-proof zippers.** I mean really- it wasn't even raining today. Give him another point for wearing a rain jacket as a normal part of his wardrobe. Finally, he was carrying a big 3-ring binder. The significance of this? Well, he had a pretty big bag, so he was most likely making room something else. My guess: his Nalgene bottle, recycling bag (for the papers he didn't want to throw away), lunch sack filled with decomposable remnants of his lunch, ipod, trailmix, and traveler coffee mug (note that there wasn't an or at the end of that sentece). That sounds about right. Now all this kid needs to do is officially get into UW- that shouldn't be a problem though, considering his high school is probably a direct filter in. mmm. stereotyping is fun... especially when half of what I've said pertains to me too.

**Note: Any Northface items will also suffice for these categorizations as well

Preceding these fun thoughts, came a defining moment for me. After class I went to go eat at 'The Rotunda' (the caffeteria in the Health Sciences building) basically because it is right next to Hitchcock (the Biology building) and I needed to eat before Bio office hours. Coincidentally, my friend Kelsea was doing just about the same thing. To cut to the point, her friend Ben (who works in the health sciences library) came up to us while we were eating, and told us about the 'free books' shelf in the library which had recently been filled. When we got to it, we did nothing but dig through a good-sized collection of anatomy, histology, and neurobiology textbooks from approximately 1986 (with a few from the 90's) and giggle about excited we were about landing on this gold mine... and then giggling some more about how big of dorks we were for being so excited about something like this in the first place... time elapsed: 10 min, 36 sec... so clearly these textbooks are far too awesome to not get distracted by, so I'm going to end this post in disss... oh-- sorry. disstrac......

Free Entertainment

2005-06-03T16:12:00.000-07:00

So I learned today that I need nothing more to keep myself thoroughly entertained than my mind...

I love it when old men wear UW hats
I called a man beautiful today on the bus (in my mind of course)
I probably broke the record for how many times I check my email per day. And for how many different computers I logged onto on campus today.
I am sooo ready for school to be done
Chem professors shouldn't ask for suggestions unless they are prepared to get them.
I am sad/envious that everyone is leaving to study abroad.
Growing up is stressful
My to-do list is never-ending. At least it gets more organized and neat every time I re-write it. By the third copy it's usually colored.
I am so exhausted. So is my brain.

Hope vs. Expectations

2005-04-21T13:40:00.000-07:00

I postponed this a in April of 2005 with the intention of finishing, but I'm too lazy. Sorry it took so long, Patrick.

It dawned on me today that there lies a fine line between having hope and having expectations. While the two seem to go hand in hand, they are definitely not interchangable terms. Hope is gracefuland leaniant, while expectations are much more strict.

When going into a situation or relationship with high expectations for how it will turn out, the focus seems to be too much on fulfilling those expectations rather than just "going with the flow" of things. With expectations you set yourself up for a harder fall.

There is such freedom in the word "hope". A graciousness that seems like it will never let us down. In hope, we never know how something will turn out, but long for the best the entire time. It is not in vain or pride.

Hope strengthens, expectations are a result of confidence. This relationship reminds me of a passage from 1 Corinthians 8:1 which says, "knowledge puffs up, but love builds up." Knowledge produces expected outcomes. We think we know someone or something and we expect cirtain things out of them. But when these people or things don't deliver as expected, we are dissapointed. Our knowledge is shattered, because it turns out that we don't know it/them like the back of our hand. And for many, thats an unwanted reality check. God is saying, "you don't know everything. Stop pretending like you do." and when we can accept that, we can respond with "So help me. Teach me. Show me how to approach this or deal with this."

It's All Relative

2005-04-12T16:57:00.000-07:00

In the midst of my overwhelmingly busy schedule last quarter, I went to the law library where I planned to get about two hours of studying in before I had to go to work. I figured the law library a good choice because I don't usually get too distracted there. I however made the mistake of convincing myself that I might have a new email waiting for me in my inbox, regardless of the fact that I had only checked it a little over an hour ago. I'm sure my subconscious was on a one-track path to procrastination.

To my dismay, I received nothing new in my inbox that could keep me away from my usual "cubby". So, of course, I had to make sure I was not overlooking anything of importance in my yahoo/junk mail account. You know... the one you give out to websites that you know will send you tons of mail unworthy of sorting through everyday (or at least days you don't feel like procrastinating on).Well, that day I sorted… very well. In my inbox, I came across an email telling me that they were "confused" as to why I hadn't "claimed the three million dollars [I] won." So I clicked the link with both hope and skepticism. I searched all over their website to find my 3 mil with no more success than finding more links that linked to links. And pop-ups. Before I knew it I was signing up my yahoo account yet again to sort through and dispose of more junk mail, with the possibility of getting my "Free I pod!" Those advertisers are soooo clever. Regardless of how many times I told myself that it's "a scam" or "too good to be true", something inside me kept on fighting those instincts away.

After an hour and a half of the 'precious' time I planned on using to study had so tediously come and gone, my instincts started to retaliate. As much as I wanted that free, easy three million dollars, I knew that it was more about taking the easy way out. Having all of my problems and stresses with money, so miraculously disappear. Money has a very interesting power. It can cause what seems to be the majority of problems in the world, while at the same time seduce people into thinking that it can fix all of those problems as well. Money brings stress, anxiety, jealousy, and greed when you are short on it (as most of the world is) and an interesting breed of 'pseudo comfort' to those who have it- at least for a little while.

It seems as though everybody always needs more money, but that need is always relative. It is related to what one believes to be reality. For example, reality to a sixteen-year-old girl who lives in Bellevue might be that you are "poor" if you don't have your own car, a big house, and nice clothes. When compared to the rest of her friends who have all of these things and more, one might understand where she is coming from. But when compared to the rest of the world, where "poor" is literally having no food to eat, she is living in luxury. Most would say "at least she has a house," or "at least she doesn't have to worry about being clothed or fed."

We, as Americans, live in our own little desensitized world; desensitized from the reality of what is "need" and what is "want". Unfortunately most Americans are never sensitized to the needs of the world, nor do many want to be. We are sheltered in our capitalistic and money-oriented society. The unordinary luxurious lives we lead takes us away from the ordinary; reality.

A man on the bus once told me that we are exposed to over 3,000 labels a day. I don't know about you, but I'm going to venture that most of us don't take notice to this in the least. If that's not desensitization, I don't know what is.

Mind and Heart; Reality and Faith

2005-02-22T23:42:00.000-08:00

Coming back from my weekend vacation in San Diego tonight I was reading "Fahrenheit 451" (which is a very good book I might add). It sparked thought of the relationship between imagination, hope, reality, and dreams and reminded of a previous experience on the plane about a year ago. Flying south to Palm Springs a little over a year ago I gazed out my window, absorbing the beauty this earth so modestly yet brilliantly boasts of. As we glided above the clouds with a clear view of the sunset rising in the east, I swore to myself that straight ahead, mounted among clouds, was heaven. In fact, I was somewhat dumbfounded and excited that I was witnessing the physical entity of God's Kingdom. Lost in my spiritual beliefs at that time, I felt my faith soar as I simply learned that I believed. I had such confidence in this physical being outside my window, and regardless of the fact that about two minutes later my imagination was brought into reality when, "to your left you will see the top of Mt. Baker" came over the intercom, I still felt the power of God's message and presence. The message became a bit clearer tonight when God showed me that faith and reality don't necessarily have to be separate beings. They correspond to make faith even stronger, and reality more real.

Weekend Jibberish

2005-02-11T12:25:00.000-08:00

Wow. I've been on a roll recently. Actually I'm just wasting the next few minutes before I ride my bike to work and start my day (sad, I know considering its about 12:30 already). Oh, I'm so excited, because I am going to get my eyebrows waxed, which is WAY overdue. Not to mention that UW liked my application to become a summer peer advisor and has asked me back for an interview. I am completely unmotivated to go to class right now, considering I'm not going to get to take my next two midterms anyway. I'm going to San Diego with my Dad next friday, and both classes that I have midterms in let you drop your lowest score. Unfortunate that that has to be a big "0", but I guess its nice not having to have stress come out of my butt for the 2 weeks preceding them.

Canada tonight with Adam, Kayla, and Ian. Good times. This wil be the second time I have gone up since I've turned 19. Don't worry, I'm keeping in tide with my lent promise. I'm gonna be a nerd and pack food for myself so that I don't have to spend any money. Loser? Yes. Awesome? Yes. Hahaha. Anyway, the weekend is upon us and my bike awaits. Adios for now! Ayayayayay!

Taking Action

2005-02-10T22:28:00.000-08:00

In response to my last post in addition to the fact that Lent has just dawned upon us, I thought that it would be a great time to start taking action against my self-distain. Many of you know that it is a common practice to give something up for lent (sometimes take something on) to better ones self. I have decided this lent to give up anything excess. This includes eating out, buying unnecessary items for myself (such as clothes), and so on. I am taking the money that would have gone to my thoughtlessly self-indulgence and giving it to some one who needs it. I havn't thus far decided who or what cause I would be giving it to, but that decision doesn't necisarrily have to be made just yet. If your wondering how I would go about determining how much money I theoretically would have spent, I am comparing my budget/bills from last month and taking the difference as money saved.

I post this for you all to read in hope that you will challenge yourself this Lent to better yourself and maybe even better society for a mere 40 days (February 9 - March 27 not including Sundays). I urge you to take this challenge even if you don't celebrate this christian tradition as a self test and sacrifice. After all... you never know what you will get out of it and learn about yourself.

Oh yeah. And tomorrow Billy turns the big 2-0, so if you know him be sure to wish him a happy birthday!!!

Materialistic Selfishness

2005-02-06T22:44:00.000-08:00

God am I lucky to have such an amazingly compassionate and grounded boyfriend. I wish I could see the world as he does every day, and I feel so selfish not doing so. I feel caught in the middle. Between wanting to give money to the needy and worrying about not having enough for my own expenses, between volunteering my time and renting it out for pay. It’s so easy to say that I want to get out of this materialistic culture and country, but the truth is that I desperately need a break from my materialistic mindset. It’s so easy to make excuses as to why I think this way, to psychologically dig in to my state of mind. I claim that it stems from the feeling of being ‘poor’ all of my life, regardless of how relatively untrue that is. I’m in the mindset of “I want to, but can’t afford to.” I know that that will soon turn into a careless and selfish “I don’t feel like it right now.” I don’t want to be like that. I don’t want to be another hypocritical Christian, a title that Adam disallows himself to be under. He doesn’t want to sit back and take the glory of the title; he wants to take action and do, as he believes Jesus did and wants us to do.

Adam inspires me, but I feel like it won’t be long until I fall back into the sad mindset of “When can I afford to take time out? What can I afford to give?” My pitiful thoughts remind me that all that I have, I have been blessed with by God. God has given me everything, and I am so lucky to have what I have. I am not in poverty. I am not starving. I am not homeless. I have an education. I have a family that loves me so much and has been so amazing to me. I have absolutely amazing friends.

Life is such a big test of “What will you chose to do with what God has given you?” And now I feel like the Bible screams to us, aching for us to get it! It screams it in the Parable of the Talents (Matthew 25:12-30), in the story about the poor widow’s offering (Mark 12: 41-44), and the countless times that Jesus says, “Many who are first will be last, and many who are last will be first” (Matthew 19:30). So the question remains: what will I choose to do with what God has given me? Will I “Invest or squander” my time as Chris Rice sings? How will I repent from this selfishness? Lord, help me!

Sybil = Happy Psycho Girl

2005-01-16T13:29:00.000-08:00

Ok, so I know that it's been over a month since my last post. Actually now that I think about it, this is my first post this year... Please excuse the shameless use of the ulitmate corny new years joke. Speaking of the new year, It has been absolutely wonderful. I had a great time over winter break just maxin and relaxin; going up to Everett to hang out with Adam and his fam, and sadly getting my only excercise of the break cross-country skiing at Steven's Pass. I also got to hang out with Billy a lot (though never enough), and run into every one of the 365,518 people I know at Bellevue square-- not that I have any complaints with that.

I went to church this morning with Abby (my old YL leader) which was very much welcomed and needed. She came in and toured my amazing house... regardless of the fact that amazing is used for both good and bad: amazingly messy, and amazingly large and awesome! My closets are half empty at this point. Where did the other half of my stuff go? If you know me well enough, you may have guessed its sprawling accross my floor. Regardless of how big of a room I have, it always seems to be covered in clothes after about 2 weeks. I do infact have more floor space now, therefor an emptier closet, but thats ok. My room is great and I love it!

As I was telling my friend, Helen, I am officially such a nerd... even more so when I'm by myself. This morning I got up to get a snackpack from the fridge, and when I saw it, I yell to myself in extreme excitement, "Oooh! Snackpack!!" Of course I laughed at myself right away for yelling to myself in excitement, in addition to the fact that if anyone saw how I acted by myself, they would think me to be absolutely crazy. Oh yeah... and I did this last night when I opened the freezer and saw potstickers too.

Hunger arrives at the thought of potstickers, so I must get off my Glutious Maximus and put my other, extremely usefull muscles to work as I get ready for my SOCCER SLEEPOVER tonight! Oh, I'm so excited! It's going to be just like Oregon again- only more comfortable and more hygenic. Yipee! I'm off...

Nerds and Turkey Day

2004-12-01T19:50:00.000-08:00

Thanksgiving was great... I got to see my brother, Adam, who came up from San diego, my mom who came up from Kansas, and my grandma who came down from Canada. The feast was delicious, especially the mashed potatoes (about 75% of which I ate). We all congregated at my mom's friend, Dana's, house along with Dana's two kids and their other halfs, as well as Dana's sister and niece. Overall it was quite a delightful experience (or as my grandma would say, "marvelous!") with good food, good wine, and good company.

Saturday was fully reserved for a wedding, which my whole family attended. Well, the first half of the day was reserved for the time-honored ceremony of getting ready, while the second half was for the actual wedding and reception. The ceremony began with the lovely, "ridding of the stink" excercise, in which hair was washed and the comforting feeling of hot water absorbed. Following shortly after was the "shaping of the eyebrows", of which my mother got plenty of emberrasing pictures. Finally I was instructed, for about the fiftieth time on how to put on make up. Sad? That a 19 year-old girl knows not how to put on her own makeup? Yeah... kinda. I tell you what I can do... I can put on eyeliner by myself. But whenever I do, I end up thinking that it looks too dark, so I slowly rub it away. I think by the time I'm satisfied with how it looks, there really isn't any makeup left on my face. Oh yeah. I got dressed too and on the way to the wedding my mom and I stopped at a nail shop to spoil ourselves. It was so nice... the seat they have you sit in to get a pedicure is also a massage chair, so while I was waiting to have my feet so marvelously attended to I got a nice, relaxing back massage. I highly reccomend it.

So I officially passed the "geek test" in math today. My prof was talking about pi briefly, and wrote on the overhead, "3.14159...". Of course she followed with, "does anybody know any more of pi?" Being the nerd that I am, I audatiously spoke up and my hidden nerdiness with, "...265358979". I think that everybody in the classroom was just thinking, "I mean really... who knows that much of Pi?". I do indeed suspect there to be a few others out there keeping what they really learned in high school math inside: the strip of about 400 numbers of Pi lining their math classrooms. Regardless of how dorky I was, it still would have been a lot cooler to have known about 30 more digits. Then again I'm not Kiersten.

If you want to be a "Pathetic Sea Captain who loves to flick lizards", a "punctual fish stick who loves to eat lanterns", or something like it, check this site out: http://www.auburn.edu/~shephcd/whatyouare.html

Hicksville, USA

2004-11-17T02:41:00.000-08:00

In my attempt to obviously do anything but sleep tonight, I came across some interesting facts about my super-hickish state of Washington. I lay these before you... laugh as you will:

Washington State Symbols:

flower: coast rhododendron (1892)
tree: western hemlock (1947)
bird: willow goldfinch (1951)
fish: steelhead trout (1969)
gem: petrified wood (1975)
colors: green and gold (1925)
song: “Washington, My Home” (1959)
folk song: “Roll On Columbia, Roll On” (1987)
dance: square dance (1979)
grass: bluebunch wheatgrass (1989)
insect: blue darner dragonfly (1997)
fossil: Columbian mammoth (1998)
fruit: apple (1989)

The sight of this makes me want to move onto a farm and start pickin' at the banjo, but I guess that really wouldn't be too far of a stretch... considering that you pretty much have to drive south with your windows rolled up and internal air blasting to avoid the smells of rural Washington any further south of Fife. Shew-ee am I sure as heck glad that I's live in the city with all them internal plumbin' and such. But seriously. Don't these attributed state symbols seem a bit out-dated? Not according to the evidence, it's not! I mean really- was square dancing really that popular in 1979?

I guess I did feel a bit better after seeing that Washington isn't completely alone in giving the fine art of square dancing such high honor, and that contrary to popular belief, California's state dance is not the C-walk. I also got a nice chuckle out of the fact that Oregon's state drink is milk and Conneticut's state animal is the spirm whale. Immature? Some may say so.

In other news...

I am most likely moving out of the dorms and into a house with a couple friends next quarter. Freedom sounds so so sweet... and not to mention the extreme reduction in the cost of food- my bank accound is glows at the thought already.

Adam comes home tomorrow!!! (And by tomorrow I mean Thursday)

Patrick and I took a road trip up to Western on Saturday and I got to visit all of my super-awesome friends that I havn't seen FOR-E-VER! It was super sweet, and I even got to go up to Canada for a few hours and have my first legal drinks! Yay for Canada and Friends!

1.
2.
(1. A giant IHOP pancake in Bellingham. 2. Billy being awesome as always!)

I am now tired and in need of sleep.

Super Duper Soccer Weekend

2004-11-08T18:45:00.000-08:00

I guess I'll procrastinate from studying a little more. I wanted to tell everyone about my awesome weekend anyway. I went to OSU (Oregon State University) to play in a soccer tourniment with my club soccer team and we kicked BUTT! I'm serious.. we were soooo good! If you came to any of our games last year (which you probably didn't unless you are a parent of someone on the team) and compared it to our play this year, you wouldn't even guess that it's the same team! We ended up beating OSU 2-0 and U of O 3-1, tying U of Portland 1-1 (but dominating the whole game) , and losing to UC Berkley 0-1 on a fluke goal. I think we for sure dominated the tourniment.

It was especially great because we were the only team without matching uniforms. Granted we did have matching t-shirt uniforms and purple socks, but nothing compared to the University of Oregon team who was given everything by their school including warmups. The reason it was so great is because is always sucks to lose to the ghetto team... and we were the ghetto team! Just because we had to share jerseys during the game due to the fact that we didn't have enough for everyone didn't mean that we weren't organized or that we couldn't play well. Oh well... we were ghetto and it was great.

Of course it wasn't just the soccer that made the weekend great. The girls I got to hang out with are awesome too! We had such a blast just hanging out and being goofy. On the way down I rode with Amber, Sherri and Erin in Erin's car, while most of the rest of the team was in the 12 person UW van. Even though the van left a little bit before us, we got ahead of the van by quite a bit. This was noticed when we called them to find out where they were while plotting to moon them upon passing them. We pretty much spent the next hour pulling situating ourselves to perfectly exute out attack. Unfortunately only about 5 people in the van were awake to see the glorious unvailing of our buttox's, but it was still great.

We arrived at our destination that night to find that our sleeping quarters consisted of a cold field house with 1/16" thick turf, which subbed as our bedding for the night. Though extremely uncomfortable, it was still fun to hang out with everyone and cuddle for body heat. We also went out to thai food and played a bit of Balderdash saturday night, which was fun as well. I think I've made this blog long enough. So I'll leave you with a few fun pictures from the weekend.

1. 2. 3.

(1. Bellevue, Amberlance, and Kristi. 2. Crazy Hippie. 3. Adrian caught off guard.)

Evil World

2004-11-08T18:20:00.000-08:00

The world is out to get me... or at least to keep me on track. In my attempt to take a nap today (or tonight- 6pm) so that I could just be refreshed to study for my physics midterm tomorrow, Dani tried her best to keep me from achieving this simple task. She first started by being really loud and telling James on the phone that she was "just being really loud so that Sybil can't take a nap", followed by a "present" which I refused and received anyway (the song, "wake me up"), and the ever-so-dredded sound of her chair rolling toward my bed, only knowing that she was coming for a last attempt to keep me awake. In the end, I was either successful in making her believe my giggling yells of "I hate you!" or else she just gave up, because I ended up drowning out the sounds of strongbad and homestar and falling asleep. That is, until my alarm clock went off. As usual, I figured that another ten minutes of sleep wouldn't hurt. Unfortunately this time it did... literally. After I hit the snooze button and started laying back down, I started to slide off the side of my bed, frantically looking and reaching for something to grab on to, only to find myself hopelessly on the ground while Dani laughed hysterically at me. If you need a better visualization, Dani took a picture of it, so here you go:

Sad, I know. But I figure that there must have been a reason I fell off, because I woke up more awake after my nap than before.

A Change for the Day

2004-11-04T19:27:00.000-08:00

Today was a bit out of the ordinary, but definitely in a good way. I signed up to do a fast-a-thon about a week ago, in which I signed up to fast for a day (today) and the Muslim Student Organization had companies give money to Northwest Harvest for every person who fasted. In essence, I went hungry for a day so that someone else wouldn't have to. They made about $1200 which was said to feed about 2000 small families. It was a great experience- I got to learn a lot about Islam and what Ramadan is about. It was also really fun to see all the students (muslims and non-muslims alike) to come together to break the fast for a common purpose. I wish I could do something like this more often in order remember how lucky and blessed I am to have all that I have. During one of the speeches I also thought about how I wish Christianity had something like this, until the speeker (who must have been reading my mind) reminded me about lent. So I now plan on actually fasting this lent as opposed to giving up something that doesn't help me to recognize the needs of this world, like TV.

I also had a really good time in classes today (especially religion section). We had a worksheet to do comparing and contrasting a passage in Matthew, Mark, and Luke, and since I thought a lot about it and really took my time doing the reading last night I had a lot to say and contribute to the class. It's always nice when a prof or TA says "Wow, that's a great point- I didn't even think about it that way" in regard to a less-common point of view. I felt very articulate and able to spit out exactly what I thought (which isn't normal).

Tomorrow I leave for OSU for my soccer tourniment. I can't wait to get to hang out with my team, because my teammates are sooo awesome! It's funny though, because I seem to think that about every soccer team I play on. I think it's just a soccer bond. For instance, pretty much the only thing I miss about high school is my soccer team. Is that normal? Oh well... If I'm crazy and wierd, so be it- somebody's gotta be, right? I also get to hang out with KEITH when I go down to Oregon, so I'm really excited about that too. I havn't been able to go down and see him due mainly to a lack of a car and time. We decided that we are going to eat thai food and see "Ray" which should be great. Oh, how I love my friends!

Election Craziness

2004-11-03T01:36:00.000-08:00

Although I claim it to be a waste of time to follow the election predictions and updates as they progress, I can't say much more for myself than the fact that it's 1:39 am and I'm not sleeping, but rather playing facebook and checking up on the elections. So... I guess my opinions on the matter don't count now. Why is it that I become so addicted to things so easily? i.e. Election polls on TV, Facebook, AIM (more last year than this), Anything BUT homework. At least I've stumbled across the amazing "William H. Gates Law Building" containing the most amazing and addicting library EVER. I mean just going in there makes you want to study. However I don't think that is any coincidence- I'm pretty sure it was in the $88 million plan for the building. Whatever. So now you have to come witness the bookshelves that move by pressing a button if you havn't already.

I mean just look at this building... Its amazing!

After learning in my math section today that I need to start going to class again, I rode the 271 home in order to cast my Go Kerry/Boo Bush vote at Sammamish High School. Consider Sammamish is my alma matter, I decided to look at the remodeling and say hi to a few teachers. It was AMAZING. Sammamish High School is absolutely gorgeous! I was fortunate to get to go into the state-of-the-art, multi-million dollar theater while it was still under construction and it was awesome! I probably would have even gone to a play while in high school if that theater was there! After bumming a ride home off of my friend's little brother so that I wouldn't have to walk the extra mile, I grubbed on mini oreos and many other unhealthy goodies and packed my self up to catch the bus back in time for my 6:30 physics lab.

I honestly felt like the biggest hobo ever coming back to school. So picture this: I was wearing my backpack, carrying a soccer bag full of more stuff, carrying a sleeping bag in this nasty sleeping bag sack over my shoulder, and wearing my new Hobo gloves. The only thing that would have made me more of a hobo would have been if I were carrying all of my bags in black plastic bags. I pretty much could have picked a place on campus and slept there for the night- not that this would have been a new thing for UW (hobo's sleeping/walking around campus).

Well its been a long night and CNN still reports that it's all too close to call. So far Bush is ahead 254 to 252 in the electoral votes. Hopefully the remaining states will pull though. WE NEED A REVOLUTION!

Too Long

2004-10-21T16:09:00.000-07:00

I know. It's been a while since I've kept my slim audience informed of what's going on in my life. I would sum this past month down to a whole lot of repetition. School, work, soccer, eating, sleeping, and the occational hang out time with the homies. In addition to these day-to-day recurrances, I have thus far successfully made the club soccer team I was on last year again, watched a whole lot of Sex and the City, and spent WAY too much time thinking about boys.

I met with an academic counselor today to make sure I was on the right track and also to figure out some lingering questions. Supposedly I have thus far done a great job planning out my four, possibly five year schedule so that I can complete the following during my undergraduate carreer: major in psychology, possibly double-major or minor in comparitive religion, and fulfill all of my physical therapy prerequisites. Not only that, but if I want to throw in at least a quarter of study abroad, I definitely have some more planning to do. Regarding studying abroad, I spent a few hours the other night looking at programs while I should have been studying for my physics midterm the next day. I went in to my research hoping to find an awesome program in either Chille or Italy, but came out getting my hopes up while planning the end of my next summer in Spain with Dani. Financially it wouldn't be the wisest move, considering it would probably be about twice as expensive to go there for a quarter as it would be to stay here, but for the experience, I think it would be worth it.

Last night The Starting Line and Yellowcard played at the Premier and it was awesome! I must say that punk concerts become less exhilerating with each one I go to, but the music was still great. I only went into the hub of the croud for The Starting Line and made it up to about 4 people back... which isn't bad considering I only started moving my way through the crowd right before they started. It's all about strategy I tell you. I refrained from buying a t-shirt this concert, mainly credited to the fact that I had no money. All in all, it was a good concert, and I am quite impressed that the violinist from Yellowcard can jump and play violin at the same time.

Glagadoo

2004-09-24T07:38:00.000-07:00

I have officially declared myself to work too much. bahhh. The night I got back from Kansas City I got a call from Chrissy and found out the I was working at 6:30 the next morning. Not only that, but I worked until 6pm and did that all week. I moved some of my stuff into the dorms last night after watching Sammamish soccer get killed by MI and I almost lost my voice. Tis a little raspy which is good. Ok. I'm sorry that this is the most boring thing you have ever read in your life. I'm about to fall asleep at work, but fortunately I get to walk down to the softball field in t-2 minutes. I'm outie, but come visit in 722 Mcmahon. Peace.

Oh Baby, Oh Baby!

2004-09-17T09:47:00.000-07:00

Last couple hours of work for the summer... and then I go back and do more work in Seattle. But thats OK. The point is that I am almost done. Of course, I will miss all of these cool chicks I work with here; Cathi, Debbie, Deb, Susan... I bid thee adeu. I definitely had a good time hanging out and getting to know all of them. I have never really spent this much time with people my parents' age before, but nevertheless it was fun.

At 1AM this morning I was out of breath from getting all of my stuff together and packing most of it up. I know, I know. I am eager to go home, but three days isn't too bad, is it? Oh well. It's a good thing that my mom gave me one of her large suitcases for a small one of mine, because I definitely don't think I would have been able to fit all of my clothes in what I came with. Leaving Seattle I had the intention of barely packing one of the suitcases so for this reason exactly, but stuff kept on piling in and before I knew it all three were almost full. This time I am trying the "roll everything instead of folding it" approach, and I think it's working pretty well. I won't be back on telling you my life stories for at least another 6 days, so bear with me. I'M LEAVING! And I can't wait to see everybody when I get back! Wahoo!

The Pains of Office Work

2004-09-16T08:40:00.000-07:00

My ear aches from hearing myself repeat the same message on random customer's answering machines about 50 times too many. I have been attempting to keep myself occupied by reading fellow bloggers' daily accounts. It's actually been pretty entertaining. I have thus far read a great book review on "Life of Pi", which I was supposed to go out and buy by his second paragraph, and read one wedding-happy girl's entire blog about moving to Canada for law school and how she like poofy dresses. I found myself laughing out loud at the familiar description of drooling to food. The recipricants of that cheerful message better be greatful....

Come to think of it, my skills on the phone professionaly have probably decreased dramatically since I've been here. Before Hayley and Deborah left me to go to their fancy schools, we would have to hang up the phone or appologize on answering machines for filling their personal messaging systems with barely-comprehendable reminders for their "pest control service tomorrow". In a state of boredom about a month and a half back, I typed up 'word of encouragement' for all of the people in the office. Posted above this screen now lays Hayley's reminder that "If for any reason you begin to laugh on the phone, remember: hang up, call back and tell them that you had technical difficulties." Ahh, good times.

Only 4 more dreaded phone calls and then I will be free to sit and stare at my buddy list until somebody decides to mosy over to their computer and take their away-message off. Only 4... more!!

New Watch (incase you couldn't tell)

2004-09-15T14:38:00.000-07:00

Holla back youngin!

611 - 619

2004-09-14T13:41:00.000-07:00

Talking to my future cluster-mate today, I began to realize how lucky I am to have gotten to live with everybody from my cluster last year. A little light went off in my mind revealing to me how great of an opportunity it was to live with such a diverse group of girls. Everybody was in many ways very different but we learned to get over those differences and really focus on the similarities between us, allowing us to have a great time together.

We all spent a decent amount of time together in the cluster, and at times a little too much. In the case of Angie and Shine, I suspect that you came home late and woke up late for a reason- so that you wouldn't have to deal with us. I'm just kidding, but I'm sure you got enough of us (or shall I say me) during the wee hours of 2 and 3AM.

I would think that if we all met on the street randomly, we would all go our seperate ways without even thinking about the possibility of getting along beautifully someday. Fortunately that was not the case. I have learned to appreciate everybody's talents and quirks and I think I have also learned to have more respect for other people's space when they are tired and cranky (Anne). I hope for anyone who reads this that they get the opportunity to live people who have different viewpoints, aspirations, mindsets, and states of mind.

Good Deal

2004-09-14T13:35:00.000-07:00

I was looking up watches on Fossil.com and found this one. The stars flash which make it extra awesome, but it was $65. No doubt I was gonna check it out at the fossil store at Bellevue Square when I got back, but Debbie, a woman I work with in the office, told me about Watch Station. They also sell Fossil watches around here, so I checked it out on the website, and not only do they have it, it's on sale! YAYAH! $39 definitely got my attention, so I'm going over there after work to check it out.

Beautiful Sunsets

2004-09-13T11:50:00.000-07:00

This is the beautiful sunset I witnessed last night.. I went to my mom's house over the weekend- well, kind of. After driving 400 miles on friday to Topeka, then Wichita and back to Topeka, my mom and I went to KC on Saturday for Hayley's surprise birthday party. It was a lot of fun watching a bunch of 16-year-olds get together and giggle. We held a big car scavanger hunt which I ended up going on. I didn't win, but I did win a big hold in the crotch of my pants from doing a cheer kick.

I come home in 6 days! If anybody feels like sayin hi at the airport, here's the info (I really don't expect to see anyone that night, but I thought I'd post it just incase- my dad is picking me up anyway):
Sunday, Sep 19
Frontier Airlines # 811
7:20 PM

I made a new Webshots site for my pics because my first one was full. If you want to check it out heres the site: http://community.webshots.com/user/sbesheer2. (the first site is the same minust the 2 at the end)

Final word: I HATE MISQUITOS!

2nd Grade Poems

2004-09-11T08:29:00.000-07:00

I was driving back from watching UW's Vollyball team kill Arkansas in Wichita yesterday and my mom was telling me about a poem she came across in her studio that I had written in second grade. After reading it today I'm quite impressed with myself and wonder if it was me who it came out of. Here it is.. my art that you can judge for yourself:

The Mystery of the Wonder

God made the world and
God made the sea,
A woman mad a man
Together they made me.

The whole world's a family
Other countries too,
Roses and trees,
People and the marabou.

Houses who are alive
Made green of tree,
Plump feather pillows
Alone just for me.

Pictures hanging on the walls
A meal of teast and jam,
In the forests, waterfalls
Splash! How soaked I am!

11/27/92

Mmmmm... Da Vinci

2004-09-09T07:54:00.000-07:00

Ok... So the Da Vinci Code is officially the best book I have ever read. For those of you who know me, I don't read for fun- I barely muster up enough will to read/ skim my text books! This book is sooo awesome that I just sit for 3 hours at a time and turn page after page anticipating what will come next. My butt is usually painfully numb after 2 hours, so I sometimes massage it for about 20 seconds until I have to know what happens next. So you get the point.. its an awesome book and you should read it.

In other news, while I was sitting outside the evil empire (Starbucks) last night reading my super cool book, I got a call from Chrisy, the UW trainer who oversees me for softball. She told me she was it Witchita, KS so I assumed she knew I was only a short 3 hour drive away, but surprisingly enough she didn't until I told her to come visit me in KC. So that was wierd because it's not too often that your school's vollyball team is a few hours away while you are in the middle of the country. I think they're having a tournament there at Wichita State, so I might go and watch on saturday... Gotta represent! You know!

Online Stalkers and Illiterate Go-Fishers

2004-09-03T14:19:00.000-07:00

Ok so funny story... so I was playing go fish with Nate on yahoo the other day with this other random illiterate person who persisted to hit on me while we were playing. His english was clearly horrible so I asked him if english was his first language. Confused, he said, "yes, y?" and I then asked him if he was American. Again he responded with a "yes". As hard as it was to believe, he told us that he was 18 and that these "two hot blond chicks forced [him] to have a 3 way with him"- I must remind you that this info was completely voluntary... all we wanted to do is play a simple game of go fish... is that so hard??

I was telling this story to my office manager, Cathi, and she asked me if I was afraid of crazy people stalking me online. Thinking back I probably could be stalked because I gave out too much info while in middle school, but I figure that I'm pretty safe now. So I decided to show Cathi how to use AIM and confirmed with her that people could not stalk her when she used it and that "no, random psycho people [could] not talk to her" if she didn't want them to. After setting up an account for her, I got back to my computer and told Nate to IM her, only to hear her freak out and say, "somebody just talked to me!!". Of course I burst out laughing and told her that I told my friend to IM her. Ahhh, good times...

Right Ear

2004-09-01T12:32:00.000-07:00

This is my right ear... the rook is the little one, and the industrial is the bar.

Left Ear

2004-09-01T12:13:00.000-07:00

So I finally got all the pieces together to put of this picture of my ear. The earing closest to my head is called a daith, and the one on the side of my ear is called an orbital. Whew!

Gorgeous!

2004-08-30T13:53:00.000-07:00

Ok.. So these are officially some of the pretties pictures of Seattle that I've seen. Amazing Seattle, how do I miss thee!

Craziness

2004-08-30T09:19:00.000-07:00

Friday night my family and I went to this Italian restaraunt in KC for my Uncle's birthday. Lucky for us we parked and made it inside the restaraunt before the HUGE storm started (about 5 minutes later). Leaving my Uncle had to take off his shoes and socks to get to the car because the street was about 6 inches deep in rain. After finally sprinting to the pulled-up car 8 yards away we took off to see a car turned over on the freeway, and Brush Creek (by the Plaza) turned into a river. We pulled over to the side of the road closest to the 'river' and rolled down the windows so that we could see and hear it better, but when we pulled into the middle lane because the water was getting a little too deep underneath us, a car zoomed by us and sprayed us, soaking the interior of my Uncle's Lexus. That was by far the funniest thing that happened all week.

Hayley's friends came over and we all went outside and played in the rain for about 20 minutes. I hadn't played tunnell tag for about 10 years before then, so that was a lot of fun... not to mention that we had a sliding contest to see how far we could slide head first on her front yard. I must tell you- I felt quite young playing tunnel tag in the rain with a bunch of 16 year olds.

Since I've been here I have seen a tornado, been in a lot of thunder and lightning storms, and been in a flood. I guess this will do if I can't have my washington lakes and oceans.

Delusional

2004-08-27T07:53:00.000-07:00

Alex came and visited me last night along with her friend Becky. Amazingly enough they made it from seattle to KC in one and a half days. I don't quite know how they did that, but as much as I insisted they sleep a while before they leave again, they some how mustered up enough crazyness to drive through the night. I am however glad that they decided to take showers and clean themselves-- even though I still found green pen in the wrinkles of Alex's feet. I find that whenever I hang out with Alex and we're both tired, delusion invades my mind. I no longer speak in complete sentences, but rather in an incoherent jumble of words.

Today I am starting the word of the day. I had never heard this word until I came to KC. Here its actually used quite often.. so I am informing all of you non-midwesterners of its meaning so you won't be deprived of this oddly-spelled word.

Word of the Day:
Ornery- (awnry) Mean-spirited, disagreeable, and contrary in disposition; cantankerous.

Good Morning, Gunter!

2004-08-26T14:09:00.000-07:00

So today has been extremely long and boring. I work in the office of an exterminating company, and since the weather has been so spontanious and crazy, there hasn't been a whole lot of business lately. That means that all I do is say, "Good morning" and "Good afternoon Gunter" about 25 times/day, and ramble on with my day-before speech the other half. In case you were wondering how that sounds, here you go:

"Hi this is Gunter Pest Management. I'm just giving you a call to remind you of your pest control appointment/termite contract renewal tomarrow between _ and _. If you have any questions, give us a call at _____."

I bet that that was just the most intriguing and interesting thing you have ever heard in your life. I probably kept you on the edge of your seat. Well you can thank me later for the entertainment.

I'm considering coming home to Bellevue about 3 or 4 days early so that I will be able to hang out with friend before they leave for school (all those Western kids). Plus it will give me a little bit more time to relax and do nothing before school starts. I have a tendency to go straight from one thing to the next... like when school ended. I finished my english portfolio the day before I left for KC. That was for sure stressful.

I might get to hang out with Alex tonight- if she makes it in tonight. Shes driving through town to see me on her way to Virginia (where she goes to school) so I am really excited about that. She will most likely be drained from the day's drive, but thats ok... getting to see her will be awesome enough.

Holy Ears

2004-08-25T07:21:00.000-07:00

So last night I decided to finally finish my orbital piercing on the outer rim of my left ear, so I went to the piercing place to find out how large the hoop would be that would go through both holes-- It is definitely NOT small. I think it will grow on me soon enough, but if not, I'll just paifully take it out and put two in its place again. Shortly after returning home from this trip I decided to see if I could get earings through my ear lobes, so like usual, I shoved the post through my ear to clear the hole. In a moment of bright ideas, I decided that I should finally just get a couple of small posts to leave in for a few months until my ears heal with holes in them... as they have been trying to do since I was 8.

While searching the second Kansas City piercing place of the night for possible victims to my ears, I suddenly got another bright idea- 'I should just get the other piercing I've been wanting now so that I don't have to go through two seperate healing processes.' Great idea, right? So I wait 40 minutes for the earing I want to be sterilized and then go on to receive the second most painful piercing I have.

These are a couple of pictures I found on the internet to give you a slight idea as to what my left ear looks like. When I get my USB coord back from my mom for my camera (saturday) I'll put some pictures of my ear up... holla.

Summary

2004-08-24T13:20:00.000-07:00

It's really quite amazing how I've had this blog site for about 9 months now and havn't put any posts on at all until today... carazay. I was inspired once reading Brad's blog and being absolutely fascinated by his image-sparking story. I figured that I might as well try to start this considering that I have been posting my daily events on my AIM profile for the past few days.

This morning was the start of yet another horribly ugly day here in Kansas City. Again, I woke up to the sound of pouring rain. As of right now (2:44) its 77 and supposed to get hotter- the sun even broke out.

Last night I went to the KC Chiefs game and had a great time watching them kill the St. Louis Rams. While we were at the stadium there were tornado warning so that was kinda exciting. The whole way back from the game I stuck my head out the window in awe of the amazing lightning storm- I must have watched it for about 2 hours. This weather is awesome!

Xanga transfer

2004-05-04T23:57:00.000-07:00

Just transfering my initial Xanga post from May over...

What's up, y'all? Just thought I'd make this blog for all of you who I don't exactly talk to on a regular basis and who might want to get caught up in my life. To tell you the truth... I just wanted to be as cool as all the other kids... Someone once told me, "Your not COOL unless you have a BLOG!" and I guess I just had to trust their word.

Now that you know what's up and my train of thought, I'll tell you a little about myself: I am 5'7", love long walks on the beach, and sitting around watching people play video games. Ahhh... the sweet sound of romance.
For those of you who I havn't talked to in a while, let me get you all caught up... As of sunday afternoon, Dani helped me re-dye my hair to Clairol's #48 "Sable Cove Dark Brown". I did it before (about a month ago), but it unfortunately faded to an ugly brown which I could't tolerate much longer. I figure it will last a lot longer this time since my hair is a lot more damaged. When I get them from Dani, I'll post the before, during and after pics. Good times.

On June 10th I'm flying to Kansas City for the summer to work for my uncle in the family business. I will actually be a fourth-generation employee of Gunter Exterminating. I'm actually pretty excited... I'll have steady hours, get paid descently, get to know my family better, and be closer to my mom. The downside is that I don't get to hang out with my friends this summer. I definitely will miss that. Well, hopefully this will be a growing experience.
Next year I will hopefully be living with my friends Dani and Kate in an appartment, which will be a super good time! Considering we all might just be a little crazy, the three of us together is a good image.