Month: March 2009

  • muuuuuusic

    happy discovery:

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WdBF_mdSnGE

    Guilty pleasure:

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l06M-dsQf3Q

    Old memories:

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8wbxAg_t2sg

    only my favorite song ever:

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6rtNcaQvFvI

    Fun car with the window song:

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p8Z-DIAthbM

    this simply makes me smile:

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6-KQ1tp_qOQ

    favorite song with bad words. which makes me sad. but makes me want to work at Disneyland…where i applied and was accepted. two years ago:

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n0hNDaY78lA

  • Carsons

    At work…

    i like watching people come down the escalator.

    firs their feet. then pants. then shirt and face. sometimes i laugh to myself.

    because sometimes they just don’t go together. by the time i see their bottom half, i have figured out what their face should look like.

    many prove me wrong.

    i like to be proven wrong.

    i like things that pop out at you as different. sometimes i think different is better than beautiful. it is those that manage both that get noticed.

    *

    at work…continued.

    we got all the prom dresses in at Carsons.

    a great majority of people–girls–go straight there and twitter and titter and try on a couple.

    i should know. i have to put them all away.

    you can’t tell me there is no princess complex that girls get. i see it every day.

    i can barely walk past them myself without stopping to admire, touch the glitter and poof, and wonder how i’d look in them…

    i wonder if i would suddenly change into something more than i am.

    that something that i always feel, that i always want to be…but cannot grasp. that something that makes me look in the mirror and say “well, this is as good as it gets” and sigh.

    i almost DON’T want to try them on. because once i do, they will lose their magic. i will realize it is still just me looking back in the dressing room mirror.

     

  • WINDOWS

    I’ve missed driving with the window down. driving is an incomplete experience without the wind. while i am the first to appriciate the heater–there is something unnatural (although cozy) about sitting in a warm car all snug while snow falls pass the windows. I’d almost forgotten what it is like to walk around without a coat. Feel the wind around me. SPRING!

    pause. for a silent prayer of thankfulness for the amazing weather this weekend.

    i am constantly fiddling around with my keys. before i just stuck them in the buldging coat pocket. but without a coat, i don’t have big pockets. and i refuse to have that huge “bump on my rump” look.

    *

    Wind

    flowing through me

    pushing past me

    rushing against me

    running with me

    brush my face

    with your power and grace

    wind

    paint me blue

    with cool strokes

    and whispers that i’m free

    no one can hold me

    down

  • Fiction

    I have found i need a good dose of fiction reading about every other week. just to rest. relax. and enjoy. it helps me “stop and smell the roses.” everyone has their own way of this. Fiction is one of mine. most of the rest involve sunshine, wind, and water.

    In Ethics class, my teacher said that many of the more recent philosophers wrote fiction. because it helps people understand their ideas better. it also spreads the idea better. ze power of books. bwahahahaha (evil laugh.).

    “Storyteller” by Edward Myers

    The bird falls in love with the fish, but where will they live?

    “What are we to do?” I (the bird) asked.

    “We must see each other as we are,” she (the fish) replied, “not as we wish to be. Although we share one spirit, we come from two different worlds and must remain apart.”

    “But somehow–”

    “Let us love each other but accept that we shall never live together.”

    I (the bird) couldn’t bear these words.

    “I will always love you.” at once she swam away.

    i never saw her again.

    *

    “At that moment Jack reached an insight, one he never forgot: a bee in a story could tickle worse than a real bee. he realized, too, that a story peach could be sweeter than a real peach, a story flower more fragrant than a real flower, a story song more melodious than a real song. what existed in a story could be more real than what existed in the world. And by reaching this insight, Jack understood the true power of his art.”

    *

    i also read non-fiction, which also does good things for the soul, if it is good non-fiction.

    “Culture Making” by Andy Crouch

    “The essence of childhood is innocence. The essence of youth is awareness. The essence of adulthood is responsibility.”  “Culture is what we make of the world. Culture is, first of all, the name for our relentless, restless human effort to take the world as it’s given to us and make something else.”

    “Some people choose a set of cultural ripples that was not originally their own. When they do so in pursuit of economic or political opportunities, we’ve traditionally called them “immigrants”; when they do so out of pursuit of evangelistic or religious opportunities, we’ve called them “missionaries.” But as the wheels within wheels overlap more and more in a mobile world, most of us have some choice about which cultures we will call our own. We are almost all immigrants now, and more of us than we may realize are missionaries too.”

    “A worldview, Middleton and Walsh say, comprises a culture’s answer to four crucial questions: “who are we? where are we? what’s wrong? What’s the remedy?” “Cultural power can be defined very simply as the ability to successfully propose a new cultural good.”

    “The only way to change culture is to create more of it.”

    *

    hence, my goal to write a good children’s book. someday.

  • Lament

    I really wanted to go to Greece.

    I really really wanted to.

     

    I could imagine that amazing view from “The Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants.” I could see all those textbook pages I’ve been studying coming to life. I could even imagine singing the Greek alphabet. Because I know it.

     

    Last Thursday there suddenly opened a ray of light in my life—two scholarships to Greece for three weeks in May. I wrote the essay—it was good. I got a letter from my teacher, and I filled in the application. And I didn’t get accepted. And all the “oh, it was really close…you were in the top ten…” kind of words don’t make a difference. You are either going, or you aren’t. and I aren’t.

     

    I wish I was better at keeping my mouth shut. I had the common sense NOT to write on xanga that I was going to Greece…but even just telling my family “I didn’t get the scholarship to Greece.” Is just depressing. Like stamping yourself over and over “I wasn’t chosen, I wasn’t chosen.”

     

    If I weren’t so deep gray at the moment I would tell you it was probably an equal trade off—the sharp intake of surprise at the opportunity, the anxious re-wording of my essay, and most all, the pulsing “Greece, Greece, Greece” in my brain as I worked at Carson’s and dreamed of Aristotle…and then the blank stare and nod of the man saying “I am sorry, you were not chosen.”

     

    Maybe I just wanted to be able to say I did it. I won a scholarship. I was one of the priviledged two. I went to the places most people only studied about. I did the college experience, but I did it with class. Or something like that. It would have been so bada-bing, bada-bang—May in Greece, June on a family vacation, and July head back to Brasil. There is no better time to squeeze in a little more culture.

     

    Which is probably why I wasn’t chosen. It was a theater trip and I’ve never taken a theater class in my life. I haven’t even taken the right public speaking class. Or I could give you other reasons…I’da missed a month of work, which is a substantial amount of money, while spending (I am sure) a bit on side expenses in Greece. But it never really was about the money, was it? I wanted to be validated. I wanted them to say “yes, you are special, you are recognized…and here is Greece to boot.”

     

    And then there is always the comforting (and true) thought that God must have May plans for me here. In Indy. But I still glare at that one and say it isn’t fair to remove that azure sea on the count of some plain, flat, naptown. With no ocean (probably the biggest thing I hold against Indianapolis).

     

    It drug up all the old dirt…the whispers of “you can do things well, just not the best. You may be close, but you can’t cut it. You just aren’t good ENOUGH.”

     

    And it struck another chord. One that started vibrating when Anna quoted “You can’t visit one place twice without visiting every other place once.” Horrible logic, I thought. What a depressing and tiring way to live, I surmised. And yet, with the words “you are not chosen” I felt locked into a closet. With no windows. Like I am stuck. Was that my one chance out? My one shot at going somewhere besides Brasil? What about the rest of the world? What about the rest of the good causes? Will they never be known? Never be tasted? Never be enjoyed? Will the unknown nag at me forever or will it be silent?

     

    I want to go to Greece one day. Europe. And I want to go for free. Because how could my conscience rest to spend the money needed to do that otherwise? It is hard to be normal when more than normal is set before you and then taken away.

  • Lent.

    For some reason, Lent makes me think of fish and chocolate.

    when i was younger, i thought it was just a Catholic thing. and i also knew they ate fish on Fridays. so Lent and fish were connected. Then i heard my cousin say she gave up chocolate for Lent. This meant nothing to me–i don’t like chocolate, but for her, it was a sacrifice.

    then i went to Brasil and they had Carnival. the basic idea for the general population is to squeeze all the carnality into a couple of days, culminating with Fat Tuesday, and then kneeling before a priest and recieving ash on your forheard Ash Wednesday–thus absolving anything that happened the previous couple of days.

    I read a book where the girl gave up books for Lent. the whole giving up something for a time is appealing. i always feel like God gives me all these things and i never know what to give Him. What do you give Someone who really does have everything?

    David gave up Coca-cola. i thought that was rather amazing of him. Not that i like Coca-cola, but it represented what he really enjoyed. so what could i give up for Lent? (Lent is the 40 days from Ash Wednesday until Easter.) i figured i should write it on here. then it is harder to talk around myself and say “weeeeeell, you still could do it…” so i am giving up movies. PG-13 and R rated ones. stuff John couldn’t see. those movies where i close the door and say “no John, these movies aren’t good for you “…but they are fine for me since i am more mature…..yep, those movies for Lent.

  • my Spring newsletter

     offical Brasil update:

    My Christmas letter really had nothing about my future plans in it. The obvious reason being—I didn’t know. My dad had multiple blood clots in his lungs around Thanksgiving, which resulted in a week’s hospital stay as well as many more trips to the doctor to have his blood tested and medication balanced. This, as well as Anna’s wedding celebration on April 4th brought me back to the USA at Christmas time.

    I came back with the idea that I was going to “save dad” and make everything better, but things were back to normal by the time I got back. I was also confused about my place in Brasil. I had finally gotten my student visa, able to stay in Brasil for four years, and then we had a marriage, a health crisis, and my own wonderings.

    I have been teaching English at the school since it opened in 2006, and it is a wonderful program. I don’t regret a moment I was there, and never once left for Brasil without knowing that it was God’s will for my life. But something happened last semester. Something that scared me and I really didn’t know what to do with. I realized that while I loved teaching at the school, for the past couple of years I have been living off of the dream and vision of others—but it wasn’t my dream. I felt ashamed to say it wasn’t.

    The last Sunday in Brasil I felt God saying “It is okay to let go of a good thing,” I wasn’t sure what the good thing was, I let go, not knowing what would come in the future. It wasn’t until I returned to America that I realized how much the Living Stones program meant to me. Until now, I’ve only been on the outside, taking pictures, giving hugs, and trying to remember names. Maybe this was my calling—my Calcutta, so to speak.

    So I began praying about having a time where I could simply follow the workers of Living Stones around. Where I could be there and ask questions and learn—I have so much to learn. This is really the first time my Portuguese and experience in Brasil are ready enough to be able to do this. I can see every step I have taken up until now—and this is where it seems to be leading.

    I spoke with Tele, and we agreed on a pivotal six months—time where I could spend 4 days at the program, one day teaching English at the school. For the first three months, I will just be watching and learning—an apprenticeship. Then for the second three months, I will either continue, or help re-start another Living Stones project in Guadalajara, which had to be shut down for a while due to lack of personnel and finances.

    I have also been accepted into the General Studies program at IUPUI. They are taking 90 transfer credits from Ivy Tech Community College, and are requiring a mere 30 upper level credits (one year of study) to graduate. I am hoping that during the six months in Brasil I will find more direction for the future, and then return and finish my bachelor’s degree in 2010. During that year of study, to either raise money for becoming a missionary in Brasil with the Living Stone’s program, or become the Living Stone’s representative in the USA.

    I am being sent by my church, Horizon Central. Any money can go directly to the Living Stone’s program through World Renewal International. Thank you for all of your support and interest this adventure of following God.

     

  • my lil brother is 9!

    last brasil 007

    we had a sleepover. and survived.

    last brasil 040

    iz got skills. they keep telling me not to smile when i box. it is durn difficult.

    last brasil 043

    boxing classes. Thursday nights at 6:30pm if you wanna come.

  • lost pictures

    my classroom. Christmas was fun. i love stockings. we all decorated a sock. some made sure to have the biggest socks they coul find. these are my 5th graders.

    Thanksgiving and Christmas 012

    On Fridays we read “Christmas Carol” and drank hot chocolate. i got this amazing thick recipe…these are my 6th graders. Gabriel–on the right, does not normally look like that.

    Thanksgiving and Christmas 006

    we made all the decorations for the room, like snowflakes hanging from the ceiling. we covered up the windows and turned on the air conditioner full blast, trying to get the cold feelng. here are my 4th graders. and yes, they really are that cute.

    Thanksgiving and Christmas 003

    9th graders

    Thanksgiving and Christmas 112

    3rd graders. they were having too much fun with the santa clause beard.

    Thanksgiving and Christmas 114

    this was at Maninho’s formatura…graduation from the conservatory. he is an amazing musician.

    Thanksgiving and Christmas 040

    this is my dear little friend…a ceringuela. i don’t know what that translates into in English. anyways, i would sit down and watch Junior and Aninha cook lunch and the ceringuela would sit next to me while i petted it. i think it was a dog in a past life.

    Thanksgiving and Christmas 045

    The band was asked to sing at a wedding, and they had me come along to sing in English or something…

    Oi Macho! Que meninhos esses?

    Thanksgiving and Christmas 067 Thanksgiving and Christmas 087 Thanksgiving and Christmas 075

    this is my lion. he guards my wall in my room in Brasil. Maybe one day i will paint him.

    Thanksgiving and Christmas 101