Life, Work, Music (AKA LOVE!)

Sorry that it’s been a while; I’ve been focusing on my other blog and my tumblog lately. =]

So, since I’ve last been including you in my life, I became employed! I now work as a server at Steak N Shake!  Good stuff.

Yesterday, I opened a new checking account and as a reward for just winning at life lately, I bought myself some fantastic music that I have wanted forever. Are you ready for this?

Fun.
Stereo Skyline
HeyHiHello!
NeverShoutNever!
Stephen Jerzak
Finn Wallace
Love Is A Story
Plug In Stereo
Tim Myers
Train

Yes.  Just…. Yes.

TFLN Book Giveaway

You love TFLN, right?

Right.

 JamieLovely is giving one of their new books away! Just comment to enter! 

http://tinyurl.com/ylsc5bj

Faith Like Potatoes

My parents and I just watched the movie Faith Like Potatoes. It’s a very good film; it’s independant. It’s a true story.

The premis is that there is this Scotch farmer in South Africa, Angus Buchan, with his wife and children who just is angry, desperate, always works, and he just feels hopeless. His wife convinces him gto go to church and he decides to give his life, farm, family, all to God. His faith is so pure and so vibrant. When a fire gets out of control, he prays for rain and God provides it. When a local woman gets struck by lightning and dies, God uses him to bring her back to life.

So when there’s this drought in the land for months and all the scientists are saying it won’t rain all year, Buchan gathers all the farmers, their families, their workers, and anyone else in a stadium and they pray for the violence and murders in the land, and for rain.  Because of his faith that God will provide, he plants potatoes – a crop that needs an exceptional amount of water to prosper. When it’s time to harvest them, it hadn’t rained and all seemed hopeless. But God provided again and gave him a huge crop of huge potatoes.

—I really don’t mean to sound preachy. That’s the story. But it brings up a conflict for me.

I am a Christian, but I do know that there’s a lot of us who’s faith has fizzled out. It’s there, but we don’t feel on any similar degree as Angus Buchan. I know I’m not.

Here’s the paradox: When God’s performed such tangible miracles in your life as bringing a girl back to life and providing rain within minutes of you praying for it, how can you not have faith like potatoes? It seems like once those kinds of instances occur, you’re set. It seems like it would just be easy then. 

But, say I was in the same situation. I’m a farmer, in a land that’s dust from drought, and I trust God to help grow a crop of potatoes.  It doesn’t rain, and when I harvest them, I find nothing beneath the soil. This would give me no choice but to feel as if it were my fault. I didn’t have enough faith.

The bible verse that says if you have faith the size of a mustard seed, you can cast a mountain into the ocean. But I feel like that’s condemning me to never be able to have that faith. I feel like that’s God saying, “You can turn a mountain into a potato if you only have a little smidgen of faith. Try it. Are you able to turn that mountain into a potato? No? Has anyone? Have you ever? Then I guess you don’t have enough faith.”

This makes me feel like, even though God has the power, I have the control. If I have enough faith, God will do what I need him to. Massive, impossible miracles. If I do the right thing and believe enough, God will do what I need. So when that doesn’t happen, it feels like, “Sorry, Haley, you should have had more faith” or something.

This has been a paradox I haven’t ever been able to explain or understand. I haven’t been able to verbalize this confusion until this film, either. But here it is.

Rossetti: Finding an Oasis in the Midst of a Harsh Reality

Finally, this paper doesn’t seem so hard anymore. I feel like I’ve got a good start.

AWESOME!!

Newspaper headlines announce catastrophes, whole countries living in fear, social stress and tension, crime rates, political corruption, the agonizing state if the economy, international bomb threats, and the death of soldiers and civilians on a daily basis. The media goes to all lengths to make sure that everyone knows all about the terrible things that happen in the world and the state of chaos that plagues society. Surrounded with this kind of reality, one finds the task of obtaining peace and contentment understandably difficult. Many people search for relief by pursuing material objects and indulging impulsive desires. However, the most lasting and fulfilling releases from a cruel reality are those found in things that are not material, things that are intrinsic anchors of the heart. Dante Gabriel Rossetti understood this and tries to offer this truth to others in his poem, “Silent Noon.”

 

The world needs more of this:  http://tinyurl.com/yg3a6lh  http://tinyurl.com/kvav4l

PS
 Mr. Hosler:  I know this source came up as a 4% plagarism on turnitin.com when I submitted my paper. Don’tworry about it. This is my own blog. So… don’t let that effect my grade! :]

Ignorance and Obnoxiosity.

I hate my Brit Lit class.

Not because of my teacher – I actually really like him.

Not because of the assignments – I’ll admit, there’s a lot of homework, but it’s managable.

Because of the other students.

They all take everything personally- differentiating interpretations of poetry, when you use a word they don’t know, when you answer a question when they knew the answer, too, but the teacher picked your hand first. It’s terrible.

And here’s the thing. I’m normally in AP English. But this year, there was a scheduling conflict with AP Englsih 12 and Advanced Music Concepts. My major is music, not English, so I took the music course (And thanks to Music Concepts, my first theory class in college will be mostly review).

But being in Brit Lit sucks.  I have a couple people who are also in choir around me in that class, so I tried venting to a friend I which thought would understand my frustration. Here’s how that conversation went:

           “Oh, my word. Everyone in this class takes everything personally! Everything. It’s so frustrating, you know?”
          ”….Oh, gee thanks.“

….Followed promptly by pouting and acting insulted. He took it personally! Irony – At one of its most irritating scenarios.

And I was all, “…Really, Nathan??” And he started to emo-ly mumble his argument about why his feelings are hurt and he’s insulted and his ego can’t handle my not-geared-towards-people-I-like irritation.

I glazed over, gave up, and put my head on the desk for the rest of class.

Overly-sensitive, ignorant people with low self esteems amd false senses of superiority who make mountains out of mole hills. That is what my Brit Lit class seems to be full of.

If you’re still reading this, I’m impressed.

Also, it’s our last week before Christmas Break. So all the teachers are assigning packets of homework and projects to do on our break and trying to get tests in before we’re ready for them before break. So the students are antsy and angsty and moody and lathargic and hormonal and hard to deal with and all any of anyone wants is more time, less stress, and for break to come ASAAAPPPP.

rrrrrrrrrrrr.

What would I do with a new computer?

Save money because I won’t have to buy my own laptop so I can actually eat at college next year!!!

http://tinyurl.com/ylp6lp9

“You could say that”

It’s always interesting to dig through old documents saved on your computer that you only vaguely remember writing. Personally, I always find these little, as Peter would say, Word doodles that came during these spurts of desperately wanting to write as well as Deanna  inspiration and I just had to get everything in my head out somewhere fast while it was there. 

I’ve been getting into writing a lot more so far this school year. Unfortunately for you few readers (you’re out there, right? ….*crickets*), most of that ends up beign in a personal journal of my own – a notebook that I write in during the school day.  I try to keep in mind that I need to just type up some of the most thinky snippits I write, I just never get around to doing so.

Anyway, that being said, I thought I’d share with you a word doodle that I just found. I actually love it and am thinking about reviving it and turning it into something more (like I probably originally planned to). Here goes.(I remember that, when I wrote it, I left gaps between the paragraphs where I wanted to add something, but I couldn’t think of the perfect something at that time. So there are parts where you know there’s something missing. That’s okay. Bear with me.)

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

The last thing he said to her was “Don’t think you’re so special.”

He said this after he told her that she only ever thought of herself and that she was too high maintenance for him, that he didn’t want to take care of her. After he told her that he resented her family.  After he told her she had become boring to him, after he told her that she wasn’t worth his time.

He told her this after she had told him “I love you.”

 

 ———

 

Two years they had been together.  And now, the only thing Tilly was able to feel was a boiling, melting mixture of rage, hurt, brokenness, disbelief, fear, pain.  Here, she thought that she found someone who she could give her whole self to, someone she could hand her heart to and be sure that he would take care of it, someone she thought she could be a better Tilly with than without.

 

 

 

Guess she was wrong.

 

———–

                Tilly was feeling uncomfortable with the noises her straw made, sucking up the last bit of a chocolate and peanut butter milkshake from the bottom of her glass when she heard her phone chirp. Flipping it open, she saw a text from her roommate asking her to bring home fries while she was out.

 

Before her stood a tall man of about twenty-five with shaggy blonde hair and curious, green eyes. His name tag said “Jenson.”

 

 

                “Um, yes, you could say that.”  Tilly had seen this man around her favorite diner, The Encore, before but an occasion to talk to him had never arisen.

 

 

                “I see you around here pretty often.”

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

[thoughts?]

Little website findings that have made me smile.

www.iamawesome.com

www.imaninja.com

www.gewgul.com

Beginnings of senior year.

This year, lately, has consisted primarily of choir. I have choir obligations after school everyday but Tuesdays, and I’m a choir officer so I’m heavily involved in other ways. 

What’s been really, really, weird this year, is that no one’s acknowledged me. I haven’t gotten any encouragement or support or anything. When auditioning for solos, everyone gets cheered for. Not me.  Upon recieving solos and rehearsing them in class, everyone gets cheered for. Except me.

I’m not meaning for this to sound like a pity party, not at all.  It’s an observation of teenager social habits.  Now, I know that I’m not a terrible singer. I wouldn’t have gotten the solos or made it into Mpulse if I weren’t. But I don’t understand how I’m different than anyone else that other people should get compliments or encouragement or cheered on. I’m not ignored, just simply not given positive anythings.

Also, and I know this isn’t news to anybody, but the whole “frienemy” thing is really confusing. And it’s really starting to play into my social life this year. The last thing I’ll ever understadn is why teenagers think it’s appropriate or the smart move to pretend to be some one’s friend but actually hate them. There are three ways that disliking/hating some one should be handled:
 One: You don’t like this person. You’re smart and mature, though, and want to keep drama at bay. So you dislike this person and let it just be. You don’t broadcast it, you keep things civil, you keep calm and deal with it. Or maybe, at the very least, you just ignore them.
 Two:  You don’t like this person. They know it. Directly from you. Now, I’m not saying you b*tch them out or you start fights or insult them or spread rumors or do things to hurt them or anything (although, that’s how it usually goes).  But at least they know it and it’s an all-around fact.
But instead, it seems that the “cool” thing to do is to act as if you like some one when you’re around them and then badmouth them awfully behind their backs. That way, the only incriminating evidence they have is vibes, gossip, and implications. Nothing solid. This is definitely to your advantage (which must be why it’s such a popular happening) because if they catch wind of your disdain, then all you have to do is say that it’s just in their head. And they have no proof.
 Three: You actually confront them about it. At an appropriate time. And heaven forbid you have the balls to actually discuss it with them and explain things honestly.

This is not okay.
And I can’t do anything to change this trend except set an example.
And it’s frustrating.

My date checklist

So I added a couple, but this brilliant list is reposted from Ginger!

~

Wake up at 4am & watch the sunrise together
Maybe not first date material, but perhaps third or fourth. What could be better than sitting close on a rooftop somewhere, talking & laughing & watching the sun come up? Take a flask of hot coffee for extra points.

Have an extravagant brunch at 8am
Get dressed up & do breakfast properly. Fabulous pancakes, decadent waffles, poached eggs & the best hollandaise. Boutique hotels often do a brilliant brunch, but a bit of surreptitious googling should set you on the right track. Thick white linen napkins first thing in the morning are a magnificent way to start the day — & then you can either go your separate ways, or take a walk.

Go to an art gallery on a Saturday afternoon
You’ll learn a lot about the person you’re standing next to if you go & check out art together. Plus it gives you something so much more stimulating to talk about than the last episode of Lost. (Sorry, Lost fans…)

Bring half an evening
Like a movie (or movie tickets), some food or a drink. You get the opportunity to impress your crush with your superior taste while also finding out more about them. You don’t have to meet at someone’s house, either — a park bench, good picnic spot or even town square could work too.

The double-Netflix date
For those of you not in America, Netflix is an on-demand DVD rental service that the entire country seems to have a subscription to. Sorry to be so geographically-specific, but “double-Netflix” rolls off the tongue a little better than, “Let’s just each bring a movie & subject one another to our extremely questionable taste”!

The Case Of The Mystery Band
Grab a copy of your local newspaper or magazine, close your eyes, run your finger over the “live music” section & choose a band neither of you have ever heard of to go & see. It could be amazing; it could be completely hellish — you won’t know until you go! But even if it’s shocking, it’s definitely a bonding experience, & maybe even something to tell the children, eh?

Make a fort
Enough said.

Bring your favourite book & read the first chapter aloud
Again, this says a lot about a person. Will they bring The Witches? Lolita? The 120 Days Of Sodom? I can barely stand the suspense…

Mix CD trade
Are mix CDs antiquated? Maybe you could just make one another a playlist on your iPod or something… Either way, sharing & discussing music is one of the world’s great, little-known aphrodisiacs. Truth. (Unless all they listen to is Richard Marx. Damn.)

Do something neither of you have done before
Pottery class? Swing dancing lessons? Hire a moped & drive out into the country? Who knows, but it’s nice to share an experience that is new to both of you!

Random restaurant date
Flip open the yellow pages to ‘R’ for ‘Restaurants’, close your eyes & pick a place to eat at. Just like the mystery band date, you never know how it’ll go — it could be a hidden treasure or a total health hazard, but that’s part of the fun, isn’t it?!

Hot air ballooning
Not the cheapest date idea, I’ll admit, but certain to score you points & to impress your lover-to-be. Maybe if you’re dating an heiress?

Decorate a Christmas tree together
Yes, this one is seasonal, but think how fun it would be! It’ll cheer up your (or their) apartment, give you a visual reminder of them (assuming the date goes well), & maybe you could even go ice-skating afterwards. Cute ++.