thoughts: on water

Shivers! step, step, into the cold, cold lake.
After swimming, swimming, stroke after stroke we each tip a toe into the hot tub.
swirling, swirling, drop follows drop.
ripple follows rock
breath follows air.
every inch covered and wet
seeping into my pores
into my thoughts
and into my dreams i wish to fall.
but only water catches me.

What if Rob Bowman....

drove a ferrari?
had a powerpuff backpack?
cut class short?
stuck a jumbo marshamllow in his mouth?
didn't wear a sweatervest?
couldn't stop giggling in class?
was an old bag lady?
or a cat lady?
wore his hair differently?
was afraid of spiders?
fell asleep in class?
and snored?
encoureaged his students?
was a ginger?
did something about the fact that no one listens?
ran over a moose?
was a heartbreaker?
read my blog?
brought cupcakes to class for his birthday?
had a bedazzled sweatervest?
wore bling?
had a high squeaky voice?
wore jeans?
went surfing?
wore a christmas sweatervest with candy canes and bells and rudolph with a blinking red nose!?
was mute?
walked out of class?
starred in a music video for ke$ha?
dressed up in lady gaga's meat costume for halloween?
walked around all day holding his hands up?
had pit stains?
invented sponge technology to absorb pit leakage?
was abducted by batman through the vent?

dear fear.

Dear Fear,

Please go away. I know that's not the nicest way to start a letter, but scaring someone out of their pants is not the nicest way to start a relationship. You always make me jump or be really tense. i don't like it.
I wouldn't mind you so much if you could just tame down your personality! I think you have some great qualities! You are great at helping me sense danger and be prepared to defend myself. But you just need to be sensitive to my jumpiness. Please don't give off false alarms. That is not very nice.
In all honesty, I want to have a healthy friendship with you, but we can't do that if you are always lying to me and if we don't agree to work together!

Sincerely,
Audrey

..Wasting Time..

Yesterday, I had two hours set aside to go into the student union before class to study for my World Civilization exam. I ended up having to spend one of those hours tryinig to print an outline for a whole other class. so I had one hour to fill out a study guide for the biggest exam I have this semester. I spent the duration of my writing class studying, so that was helpful. and the quiz went well.

But then, last night, I sat in my bed with my computer (which is not a routine), because i wanted to start watching modern family. i had heard wonderful things about it, and it was the perfect time. I figured to best place to start would be the pilot. then i spent an hour surfing the net to try to find the pilot. it was nowhere. two hours of my day wasted.

How disappointing when something that should have taken five minutes takes an hour. How dissappointing when that hour could have been spent doing something productive or enjoyable. sometimes, "wasted" is a word overused, but not here. Those two hours were wasted. perhaps I learned patience or that I should give up after fifteen minutes instead of an hour, but it was wasted.

Jay-Walking

Yes, about bib herm again. sorry.

my prof said, "if we were to go out and ask people on the street, jay leno style."

an effort to be hip and relevant.

i love jay leno, but i almost took a vow never to watch his show again.

we've got to save ginny weasley from the basilisk!

i've just discovered a band called harry and the potters. they are the greatest ever. they make me smile. please listen to them.

you know you haven't had enough sleep when... you run your hand against the wall to keep from falling, then when you take it away, your arm tingles

True story. my nerve endings are going bonkers.

Yesterday was the last performance of Tuck Everlasting at school. It went well. It is good to be done. Auditions for Proof, the next show, are tommorrow. Yesterday evening, we had a group reading session. It was actuallly reallly cool because all of us who are sortof competing against eachother were reading, sharing ideas, helping eachother out. It was really nice.

It was exhausting. Reading for so many different characters... (ok there were 2, but they're radically different, and it's an emotionally charged play.) was exhilerating, but it takes something out of you. It takes alot of things out of you!

After reading, some friends went to Arby's. Jamocha. Shake. Yum.

When we got back to the dorm around 11, it was coffee time. homework time. I'm usually really good about not doing homework at night and just getting work done during the day so i don't have to worry about it after 5/6. But with Tuck, everything kindof got put on the back-burner. So, heremeneutics, White Christmas work, Terra Firma, plus getting constantly distracted by Paige and Lydia's conversation about acting. Ok, it was Paige, Lydia and Audrey's conversation. It wasn't a distraction, it was a backstreet. or the highway.

So now i've made myself another pot of coffee. I got up to go to chapel, actually, but i have not been told where today's chapel is -- it's a smaller, broken-up chapel today. and now i'm blogging.

Three classes for today. Then, research for my writing assignment, more White Christmas, then White Christmas rehearsal. And more Proof. Paige and Lydia wanted to give it a day off. I will not.

I plan to do everything that I need to between the end of class -- 4 -- and White Christmas -- 7 -- so that after White Christmas -- 10 -- I can crash.

NOT biblical hermeneutics!

I might just start another blog just about bib herm because i have so many complaints!! so i've decided to dedicate this blog post specifically to topics other than biblical hermeneutics considering that the past ... many posts have been on that loathsome topic.

I wrote a paper called "Social Justice and Consumerism." the thesis was that non-profits feed off of American consumerism, which only deepens the problem. by manipulating it and stroking it, it becomes more engrained into our heads AND into our hearts. by making us believe that our money is the end-all, we want to spend more! and the product that they are selling is not someone else's health or meal or clothes or cow. it's your own sense of self-satisfaction.

I am a victim. I would give all my money to non-profits if someone didn't stop me. i think that some of the work of non-profits is fantastic, and it changes and saves lives. many even change the courses of spiritual lives, which is even better.

my college will be putting on a play called PROOF. it's marvelous. it's about a girl, Catherine who has helped care for her infirm father for years instead of going to school or having relationships or anything. her sister, Claire finished school and helped pay off bills on the house since their father needed someone with him at all times, so Catherine couldn't get a job. i'd like to share an excerpt:

Claire: It was my house too.
Catherine: You haven't lived here for years.
CL: I know that. You were on your own. I really regret that, Katie.
CA: Don't.
CL: I know i let you down. I fell awful about it. Now i'm trying to help.
CA: You want to help now?
CL: yes.
CA: Dad is dead.
CL: I know.
CA: He's dead. How that he's dead you fly in for the weekend and decide you want to help? YOU'RE LATE. Where have you been?
CL: I --
CA: Where were you five years ago? You weren't helping then.
CL: I was working.
CA: I was HERE. I lived with him ALONE.
CL: I was working fourteen-hour days. I paid every bill here. I paid off the mortgage on this three-bedroom house while I was living in a studio in Brooklyn.
CA: You had your life. You got to finish school.
CL: You could have stayed in school!
CA: How?
CL I would have done anything -- i told you that. I told you a million times to do anything you wanted.
CA: What about Dad? SOmeone had to take care of him.
CL: He was ill. He should have been in a full-time professional care situation.
CA: He didn't belong in the nuthouse.

It's an issue of individual vs. community. probably my favorite discussion. when the individual is placed first, it almost always places money on a pedestal over human life and value. when rights are claimed verses received, money is more powerful than compassion.I don't know what i would have done. I love school. what if one of my parents died, and the other went crazy? i realized it's a unique situation, but think about it. what would you do? pay to have them well cared for? they would be well cared for, but is that what we OUGHT to do? or should we take care of them ourselves? yes, i'm only 18. taking care of a mentally unstable parent, and in my case two little brothers who would be seriously emotionally damaged, and having to cope with my own emotions as well. If i went to care for them, and my older sister stayed in school and funneled us money, what would i think? i would not be ungrateful for the money. i would not be able to work. but what is right? what is good? is one better than the other? are both necessary? just some thoughts.

Do, a Deer

Do, the stuff they put in twinkies
Re, the guy who buys me twinkies
Me, the guy ray buys them for
Fa, a long, long way to the twinkie store!
So, i think i'll have a twinkie
La, la la la la la TWINKIE!
Ti, um, no thanks. i'd rather have a twinkie
that will bring us back to DO!

"It's not about singing. It's about twinkies."
-Emily Steadman

Ego-booster

I think my bib-herm adjuct professor uses our class to make him feel better about himself. He does all the same work as us, which is cool that he's working with us, excpet he just says things that are self-glorifying. he hands out his work for us to look at, which theoretically could be helpful, but he pointed out, "i have 44 observations, and that's not even exhaustive. Although I was exhausted by the end of it." and then, he chuckled at his own little joke.

when someone teaches, it ought to be directed at the student and towards their learning. not about impressing anyone with knowledge. when someone has the courage to stick their hand up and their neck out to answer a question to try to contribute to a discussion in class, and especially if their answer is close, their answer ought not be shut down. it is dehumanizing to be told, "not exactly. what i would say...." it turns us students into weak, incabable sponges that have not way to output, but only to soak in the prof's wisdom.

that's all.

a poem of biblical hermeneutics

my brain
a pulse
a throb
an orange
when you talk i struggle to hear
outside may be lovely
outside may be cold
outside may be stormy
i wouldn't know.
without the color
my life becomes more meaningless.
i think on him
then on him
but no thanks to you.
my sources are now
exhausted
i cannot take it further

purpose.

i am trying to remind myself why i am sitting up at 1:48 am typing on a laptop with warm sweatpands and blankets and so many possessions around me as well as photos and cards on the wall reminding me that i am loved. there are those who have not and who are not told that they are loved. there are those who are deceived into thinking that they are loved. i am not upset that i am loved. i am humbled and grateful to be loved. but i wish i could go NOW and change that some are not loved. i want to love the unloveable. but that means i need to begin now.

who do i think it's hard to love?

i think it is hard to love people who don't give back. i don't mean like gifts. i could do without. i love to share mutually, though i like to give more than i like to receive from sharing. but i find it hard to love people who don't return in conversation. i ask questions. they answer. that's it. there is just what they say and nothing more. they ask no questions and they don't add to their answers. conversation must consist of adding to your answers to show the person inside, and then giving others opportunity to show their person. there is one such girl i know who simply isn't very good at converstaion. she is shy. i have known her for a month, and she is still shy. i have asked her so many questions. she has maybe asked 2. i try to just interject with my answers to my own questions because she doesn't even end in "what about you?" not that i just like to talk about myself. i don't mind it, but i like to feel engaging. when there is minimal response, i fell the need to entertain, which i hate in conversation.

but the point of all this is that i want to love those who don't feel loved. and often times that means the people who i don't naturally feel an inclination towards. i don't know that love is ALL actions, but it is so much a deliberate choice. one says to themself, "i am going to love this girl. i am going to serve her in practical ways. i am going to talk to her even though i never really want to." i'm very bad at this. i don't really like to talk to this girl who doesn't talk back. but she will come and sit by me sometimes. i don't really know how to include her in a group conversation because she doesn't talk unless it's one on one.

i think that the reason i am so hung up on this girl is because it's a struggle for me to love her, least of all like her. but i know that i need to love where i am. i cannot bottle up all my love for the rest of the world. all my charity for those starving in Africa is useless unless i have charity for the people i don't like. world-focused charity can too easily be an excuse to ignore need -- both physical and emotional -- right in front of you. "no, i can't be nice to you because i care too much about the indian girls who are slaves in prostitution." no good.

i know that i want to be God's fingers out in the world, but fingers don't just come into being. they are always fingers. God, let me be your finger in Grand Rapids. keep me content here.

Various Thoughts.

II Corinthians 12:9; Philipians 3:1-11.
Boasting in our weakness

“I will boast all the more gladly about my weaknesses, so that Christ’s power may rest on me.”
“I consider [my profit] rubbish, that I may gain Christ and be found in him.”

We ought to boast in others strengths because then when God triumphs, it makes him greater. Also, I think our weaknesses that Paul speaks of are what might be seen as our strengths in the worlds eyes (though not always). It does not mean the talents we have not been gifted with, but rather the things we struggle with – our secret desires and wicked passions. We ought to boast in them because those are the things God overcomes in us!

The Canaanites were a strong people. Israel was not a very strong people. So not only should the Israelites boast in their weakness, but in the strength of their enemy, which they have overcome. Jesus was tempted as we are, and not just to eat and jump and rule, as the famous temptations passage records. He lived as a man in a body and he was offended and ridiculed and rejected. He must have been tempted to lust and fight and self-depricate. The stronger the enemy or the temptation, which are synonymous, the stronger God is.

Politics.

Sorry for the tackiness of having two posts in one night, but I'll occasionally have a brilliant insight against Christian conservatives. so here's my inspiration of the night:

the only time the bible addresses people in authority, it is talking to slave-owners and parents. He never gives rules or thoughts to kings. he would communicate to the kings through the prophets. So it just kind of seems like he never intended His People to be kings and rulers. If he expected Christian kings, he would not have always had to tell his people to obey oppressive authority.

God's People are not a country anymore!

In Dorothy's Slippers.

I watched The Wizard of OZ with the fam yesterday. it came to the part where she is locked in the tower with the hourglass counting down the hour she has left to live. not only did i realize how silly it was for the witch to wait an hour to kill dorothy (when my brother graciously pointed this out), but i realized that dorothy's way of coping is rather interesting. she screams and cries and sees auntie em in the crystal ball, and cries some more, and waits for her friends who come to help her escape. So i got to thinking, what would you do if you were locked in a tower and had one hour to live? the obvious answer would be "try to escape!" me too. but let's just assume you can't there is literally no way, and you have no one who knows you're there. i suppose it would be similar to being on death row. i suppose i might cry too. i might scream too, just because i could, and there would be no worse consequences than what was already going to happen. just to make noise, to loose my voice and not worry that i might need it soon. what would you think about? it's pretty useless to remember, though i would. would i remember the sad things or the good things? it doesn't matter. it doesn't matter. it doesn't matter. i think this is what ecclesiastes is about. at that point, there is literally nothing that matters. there is so much to despair about! but even despair is useless, and even regret is meaningless. so in the tower, nothing matters. does it??

housewife.

i don't know if i can handle this. i have been trying all summer to land a job. and still, i have no regular employment. I sporradically do cleaning for some older women at my church, and i help out at church with organizing the library, but the only actual employment is with state fair, for which I will be gone the first week anyways.

first fall out- camp vertical
last year, i volunteered at the elmbrook summer camp for a few weeks. One of the ladies in charge, Shelbi, said that if i applied next year, i would pretty for-surely have a job. unfortuantely, she wasn't involved in the hiring this year, so that didn't work out.

next fall out- family video
i had an initial intervew which went really well, and they wanted me to come back for a scholastic test (just to make sure i could do numbers and i knew my alphabet). then, after that, i had to interview with the district manager, and after all this, we're into june, and i don't get the job. everything went well, except that i'm going to school in the fall, and i won't work on sundays.

third fall out- maurices
this is a fabulous clothing store. i really really wanted to work here. i applied. they called soon. this was an encouraging sign. i came in to take this 100 question "get-to-know-you" survey. i waited to get a call back. then i waited to get a call back. then I called back. they said they would be calling back the next week. two weeks later, i went in to the store. they said their hiring manager was on vacation. now it's early july, and i KNOW no clothing place would hire someone for a month and a half, with one week off in august...

most recent fall out- journal sentinal.
this would be a night-job (like 2-6 in the morning night job) delivering a paper route. early-morning delivery is the only type of paper route in waukesha now because the waukesha freeman decided it was a really good idea to deliver their paper by mail now. boo. but anyways. the first frustration is trying to get ahold of the guy, eric, because he has to be up at 2 in the morning, and goes home by like 10. well, those are basically the hours i sleep, so that made things interesting. so after we finally worked out emailing each other, there were two things i needed to find/do. i needed to 1. find my name on the declarations page of our car insurance, and 2. get a new drivers' liscence because mine still said "probationary", even though my restrictions were off. well, i found the declarations page, but my name was no where on the page. so this morning, my mom emailed the insurance place and asked if we could fix that. they sent us a copy of the exact same page. thanks for the help. then, while my mom is still figuring this out, i went off to the dmv. the line wasn't too long, but i was just worried something would go bad. i remembered i would have to have my picture taken, which gave me anxiety because i've been braking out from the pressure of not having a job and not sleeping well or at all. so i go up to the counter, only to discover that probationary means something besides restrictions.some stupid, petty distinction that is keeping me from getting a job.

i don't know how you could fail at getting so many jobs!! oh, and one more thing. at school, i guess they have student bloggers. our admissions counselor suggested my friend andy, who has never kept a blog ever. ever. the good news is that my friend jacob already got a job in the kitchen and is trying to get me one too. so we'll see. i would love to work at the library, but i doubt i will, because i want to.

i hate the feeling of not having a job. i feel rather useless, like a lifeless limb of the family, or a parasite. always taking, never giving. i know that's not what housewives are, but i don't think i could be one.

a Love Affair

So my cousin Ana realized she's been having a love affair. A serious love affair. It's been going on for about three years. She thought it was ok for three years. But as she got deeper and deeper in, she started to think, "Maybe it's not ok to turn against my traditional commitments and beliefs. Maybe, just maybe, when you love something, it's forever, and it's not fair or right to forsake it for what's immediately put in front of you. Maybe there are somethings worth waiting for, worth fighting for."

The forsaken: Soccer.

The lover: Running.

While in high school, Ana's school didn't have a soccer team. So Ana - as so many women do who think that what's in front of them is as good as it can get - settled. At first she thought, "This will better prepare me for when I do have a soccer team that I can join. It will give me stamina and endurance that are helpful on the soccer field. And I just don't have the opportunity to play soccer. This is as good as it can get while I'm in high school."

So when it came time for college, Ana got numerous full-ride offers to schools for running. She was so good. She loved to run because she was good, better than the others.

At school, she began to doubt if this was what she wanted. Yes, she was good, but the pressure was at a whole other level than it had been in high school. In order to keep her scholarship, she had to be the best. She began to question, "Is being the best really all there is to love?" She started to realize that love is not always what you're good at, but what you want most to be good at and must work hardest to be good at.

It came time for a decision to be made. Does she stick with running and please those around her and keep her full-ride scholarship? Or does she play soccer? Playing soccer would involve so much sacrifice - she would end up in debt, and probably not even be able to play on the school team for at least the first year of switching. She could probably only play intramural for the first year, and then maybe, if she worked hard enough, be able to make a team, but hardly be able to get a significant scholarship for soccer. Is the sacrifice worth love?

gotta DANCE.

All I can say is: How has it taken me eighteen and a half years to see Singin' in the Rain!!! It is so so good. Anyone who has not seen it needs to strap themselves to a couch with something yummy to eat and watch it right now. Literally, don't finish the post until you have seen it!

I have always wished I could dance. Every time I see someone dance, the wish grows fonder and stronger.

The Dances I love:
Tap
Ballet
Hip-Hop
Interpretive
Waltz
Slow
Polka
Jig
Irish
Musical
Jazz
Lyrical
Ballroom
Contemporary.

the list goes on...

Every summer there was a catalog that came in the mail from the park and rec for dance classes. I took ballet and tap every summer when I was four through about nine. I hated it every year. It was miserable. We stood in these weird positions and occasionally clicked our heels to make jingling sounds. I know plie, releve. that's about it. How I regret hating dance classes!!

I wish regret was something you could teach a seven year-old. A mother may say, "You'll regret quitting!" This means nothing. What then could keep them motivated to want to stick with something? I don't know. If anyone has suggestions, comment before I'm a mother!!

Anyway, dance is wonderful to watch and to do. It's beautiful to see. The act of dancing, I feel, is releasing because you have to let go of inhibition. It opens you up, if just for a moment.

WARNING: Don't drink coffee on an empty stomach.

The title is pretty self explanatory, but let me give you an empirical story as to why not.

I had two cups of coffee today. Nothing to eat.

Much later. I'm tidying up my newly-cleaned room and packing for a trip. I have some music on and I'm singing along. My vibrato sounds more like a petrified adolescent male sound wave going through puberty. In other words, it was rather more shaky that it ought to be and usually is. Then I realized my hands were shaking. I was so confused. I had a lot of pent up energy. Then I realized and had two cups of coffee today and nothing to eat.

Second food observation of the day. Strawberries are deceitful. They taste so good that it doesn't really seem like they could be healthful, but somehow they are...

Advanced Placement

This week is AP week. Today I had the government exam. It went much better than I expected it to go! That's good news. Thursday I have English. My teacher is so frustrating that if I fail, I will accept it as a testimony to her poor teaching skills, and not to my ability. This may be an exaggeration, but a small one.

Here's the story about government - a much more interesting one than the english one. My dad has taught at school for thirty years now, and for the past fifteen or so, he has coached the We the People team. What this means is the AP Government class uses the We the People curriculum and studies intensely various parts of the system of government. There are six units:

Unit I - philosophies influencing the Framers.

Unit II - making and ratifying of the Constitution

Unit III - I can't even remember...

Unit IV - Congress :(

Unit V - I just know they know a lot of court cases

Unit VI - CITIZENSHIP! [and for Dan, a lot of denizenship as well]



I was in Unit VI. (Can you tell?) We learned so much about citizenship and civil rights and immigration and communitarianism and grassroots. Most of that was useless on the exam. The AP exam was more structural, so the majority of what we learned first semester was totally irrelevant to it. I don't regret it for a minute though!

There was a preliminary survey thing. One of the questions was "How much did this course of study influence your choice of major in college?" [more or less...]. I said strongly. I plan to major in photojournalism, which doesn't seem related to government, and I guess it's not, but since my unit also had little to do with the structure of it, I guess it makes sense! I learned a lot about people and awareness. Just this past Saturday, I was talking with a new-found friend from the band Leo, and he read this book called "5 Things White People Like." One of them was awareness. He was saying that people like to be aware, and then they think that justifies the lack of any following action. I said to him, "Does that mean we should become unaware?" I agree that people like to think they're doing something by knowing, but that shows a problem with their hearts, and perhaps there is not the right kind of awareness. Perhaps people know what is going on, but they don't know what they can do about it. News should explain problems and suggest some solutions without being too partisan. It's perfectly possible - it's called grassroots!!

But anyways. On to the point of why I'm writing. One year, my dad's We the People team made third in the country. One of the guys on the team - he was in Unit II - died four years later just before his college graduation from Taylor University. His name was Brad Larson. His parents found all his journals - personal and prayer - and compiled most of them into a book which they sent to my dad. I saw it yesterday and picked it up for a read. I saw the sections where he faithfully recounted their trips to Madison for the state competition and to Washington D.C., for nationals.

"1/18/10
"I headed down to Mr. Moore's room for our final dry run. But before we started, he praised us ridiculously. 'I am truly humbled by you guys in Unit II This is the reason teachers teach, for times like this when your students amaze you.' He told me specifically how good my writing is and how precise I am. I know from Jeff that the last day he would praise you to boost your confidence but I didn't expect that. Before all the other stuff, he says, 'I don't usually talk from my heart...' Dang."

At State:
"1/20/02
"...Unit II starts us off. Of course our worst question (about the Electoral College) was first. We we didn't let that stop us. We were money.... Time saw Mr. Moore bust a cigar when I was talking. After, Mr. Moore said it was a good thing that Unit II started because we set the bar high.... In his comments, Kaminski goes, 'Brad, I've been doing this 15 years and I am positive that no one has ever cited Caleb Strong.' .... After it was over, Kaminski gave us the E word [excellent]. On of the other judges compared Heritage's legacy to the New York Yankees in baseball. I think that is what moved Mr. Moore to tears."

When the team was announced in the top 10 at Nationals:
"Sunday 5/9/02
"....Everyone is screaming and hugging and no one hears the next 6 or 7 teams. 'You know how sweet this is that we did this for Mr. Moore,' says Kludt."

About the last competition:
"Monday 5/10/02
"We got up at 8:30 AM and leave for the Senator Dirksen Building. When it was our turn the other units did well, some better than others... and then 2 hours after our group started, Unit II is up at 11:30 AM. We all did great. #2 deliberation question. I got in my Patrick Henry quote, Liz her 'had every Athenian been a Socrates' and Tim's quote about 'is a saw a good tool?' comment. Mr. Moore gave us a nice speech: 'Take a look around...' He said that we had a really tough judge and a really bad lady disguised as a grandma, but we did a great job... after walking around that afternoon we went back to change for the formal awards dinner that night. After dinner there were some regional awards and the greatest 15-20 minutes of my life. First the announcement of seven 4th place teams. We all hold hands and liz tells me that if we get in the top 3, she's gonna kiss our cheeks. 'In no particular order, the first 4th place team is ... Virginia!' Then another state and another state with the excitement building each time. The fourth 4th place team is their first time in the top 10 ...oh, man ... well it had to come to an end some time... 'New Mexico!' We're still alive. Fifth - Colorado. Again a popular top 3 pick. 'And sixth, 4th place team is ..... California!' I stand up and inadvertently blurt out an expletive. 'Oh, shit!' but only loud enough for Liz to hear, thankfully. That was Liz's and my favorite moment, I think. 'You just swore in front of your mom,' she whispered. I was amazed. Mr. Moore predicted California to win it. 'And seventh 4th place team is ................Texas!' Oh, my goodness! We couldn't believe it. We did it. They announced 3rd next ... 'WISCONSIN!' Hugs all around. I looked and Liz and she almost cried. I looked back at Mom and went to hug her. We got a sweet plaque after a long walk thru the tables that sat 1500 people. They announced the top two winners and then Liz dragged me out on the dance floor and everyone got their groove on. We went back to the hotel and I called Jeff, he was so pumped for us! .. Mr. Moore told Liz that Unit II was 'the heart and soul of this team.'

"Tuesday 5/7/02
" ... we flew home and were pleasantly greeted by a lot of people. Parents, friends, teachers ... more pics ... more hugs ... then home. Mom said it 'was the coolest thing any of my kids has ever done.' But I knew you wouldn't know how cool it was unless you were there. Then bed. What a weekend.
"P.S. I love Liz and Tim.

"Wednesday 5/8/02
"Mr. Moore's speech last night stressed 2 things: "A mind, once stretched, never returns to its original shape. And, how he loves that we take risks."

More Photo Journals

Good news. First the story.

I have a camera. It only likes to work when it is eating the juice of these rechargable kodak batteries. Not any other batteries. The charger is really cool because instead of just having the electrical plug things stuck on it, they're removable and it has a bunch of other plug things so that when you travel to different countries with different kinds of plugs, you can still charge your batteries without getting an electric shock. However, I lost the plug for America. Hm. Howe convenient. I couldn't find it for about two weeks. It's been a long time of not taking pictures.

But yesterday I found it! I was overjoyed. My little brother Jeff was talking to my boyfriend Ian on the phone and I was screaming and dancing around as I plugged in the charger for the first time in weeks. I'm excited to start taking pictures again!

My piano teacher lives out in the country, and each week as I drive out there in the light, I think, "I should really come out sometime with my camera." It's gorgeous. There are horses everywhere, and there is this rock that is split in two. Then on the way home, since the dark is eeking further into the night, the sky was in transition from medium blue to dark blue, with streaky clouds in the sky. Mmmmm. I wish the whole world could sit for a moment and enjoy. Unfortunately, I didn't have my camera with me. It's at school.

I find that I am always thinking of things in terms of photos. Once again, I draw an example from my drive to piano lessons today. I could hardly stay on the road because there were so many people going about the streets and parks I drove by in the neighborhood part of my drive, and as I said, there were horses out for the first time since fall and there is a little pond with the cutest wooden fence. I wanted to slow down, take pictures. There was a baseball game going on; Couples walking down the street holding hands; families at DQ.

I've learned something from all this. Two things actually.

First - Always have your camera with you. Always. Just don't leave it places. You miss out. The bit of extra weight and thought is worth it.

Second - If you think you should take a picture, you should. For instance, you drive by a beautiful scene. You have your camera with you because you've learned your first lesson, but you say, "I might be late. I don't really think stopping would really be a good idea. Plus, it's cold out." Then by the time you almost have it in you to stop, the sky has changed anyway. What's the point now? But, if you had stopped the first time, you can always stop again when it's changed and equally beautiful. I've said to myself a dozen times, "I'll never forget this sunset." I forget it the next day. Not to say that pixels are superior to man, because we all know they are not, but they definitely do have a better memory.

Photoshoot

I had my first job taking pictures this past week. I mean, I'm in yearbook, so I guess that's sort of an unpaid job, so I should say my first PAID job taking pictures. A teacher at my school runs a tutoring program after school. He wanted me to take photos for "promotional purposes." Yes, it really was not super-duper exciting, but I learned alot and it was a good experience. I've become pretty decent at taking photos of THINGS - trees, landscapes (sortof), buildings, objects. But not so much of people or actions. This was good to help me develop that skill.

For my spring break, I went to visit my sister in Georgia. One of her friends, Garrett, let me borrow this fantastic book called The Poetry of Photography. I didn't get to read the whole thing, but one part I came across said that when we take a photo, we often forget to look around the edges. We only look at the middle part and don't realize something significant is being cut out - or included - in the photo that we don't want. That book made me realize I take some crappy photos! people's heads or arms cut off, strange things happening/being there when you don't want them to be. And even with digital cameras, we sometimes still can't pick it up till we're looking at a computer.

I also learned about people. Some people are obnoxious. Let me rephrase that. All people are obnoxious. Some people are less so, and everybody is in different ways. The people who don't seem obnoxious to us probably are to someone else, or they've matured enough to disguise it to most people. I love us, but we're obnoxious. Anyway, middle school is the most obnoxious point in all of our lives. Taking pictures of middle schoolers is the worst. most of them avoid being caputred at all costs. They just make the job difficult.

There's this one boy, Kameron, who was the opposite. I love him, but I'm sure to others he is obnoxious. I just think he's cute :). anyway. He LOVES to be in pictures. Loves it. He told me. He said (talking about this kid who kept one eye on me the whole time to make sure I wasn't pointing at him), "Hunter hates being in pictures. I don't. I love it. Then I snapped this photo:




This is the book he was reading. He said "It's so sad. The girl is so sad because someone stole her horse, and it makes me so sad!" That's all. :)

Elevator Etiquette

I'm visiting my sister at college. Apparently only people in Wisconsin know how to behave about elevators. General etiquette is that, if you're outside, you wait for the person ON the elevator to get OFF before you get on yourself. I think the idea behind that has to do with the fact that there's more space outside of the elevator than inside of it. Generally speaking. However, without fail, every time that I have been on the elevator with someone outside hopping on, they have proceed to mount the elevator. I mumble, "Sorry," simply because there has been a psuedo collision, and they'll say, "It's ok." I'm thinking -- NO IT'S NOT!! It's not ok that I'm appologizing and you're 'forgiving.' I learned the hard way to give preference to people ON the elevator.

I suppose there may be some leeway with these instances because there is only one of me, and few of them at most, and when I learned my elevator etiquette, the context was the airport. My family and I would be on our way to Florida to see my grandparents or some other destination [although most other places we drove]. We'd be rushing, bogged down with bags to be checked, worrying about who would take which carry on. Do mom and dad have their ID and our tickets? Are the girls still with us? [Of course, my sister and I were just excited -- we didn't worry about these stressful questions. Perhaps this added to the stress of our parents.] When we finally made it to the elevator, there was then the necessary squabble over who was to press which buttons. And if there were strangers around, who was to push the buttons for them? When it was my turn to push the outside button, that meant I was closest to get on first, which was another important aspect of our power battle. So I'd stand directly in front of the doors waiting for them to open. They would open. There would be other families with children as excited about elevator rides as my sister and I. There would be hurried business men. There would be foreigners coming to see America. [Foreigners would be more common in Florida, coming home, than in Wisconsin...] Who ever it was, I would try to rush on to the elevator to beat my sister. Then I'd feel the reprimanding grab of my father's firm hand on my flimsy shoulder pulling me back, suitcase, carry-on and all.

This happened without fail for years until I became mature enough to realize on my own the reason why I had been pulled back all those years. Now I only wish a wise father would restrain these college students as they burst past me onto the elevator.

tea.

Good evening. I have, in the past few weeks, discovered a long lost love of tea. By lost, I mean previously non-existent. I never liked tea. Ever. In my whole life. I did always love the idea of tea, however. As a young child, I invited my girlfriends over for [juice] "tea" parties. My mom would bring out the china... for juice.

But finally, after years of longing to love tea, I do.

This is how it happened. Over Christmas, my family had a gift exchange, and I got a fantastic green mug with Ghirdeli's hot chocolate and... tea. So, I drank it. Did I like it? By no means. Did I drink it? Oh, yes. Did I grow to like it? Not really.

I was on tour with my singing group from school, when I began to loose my voice - oh dear. My friend Abby, bless her, in her motherly ways made me drink about four cups of tea daily, and she wouldn't let me have coffee, which I was accustomed to having at least once a day.

Now, no worries, I still drink coffee now, but I have finally acquired my sought-after taste for tea.


New topic:

I have been at my school since first grade, and I will be graduating in May - finally! My parents met as teachers there, and practically all our furniture is either from other teachers who were getting new furniture, or it came from the teacher's lounge when they remodeled.

So we have a long history, my school and I. It's kind of taking a dive into the pool of bankruptcy. It's not quite there, so I guess to go along with the metaphor, it's dabbling its toes in said pool. In an effort to keep it afloat, we've consolidated our two campuses [elementary with the middle/high] into one. It has taken quite an effort on everyone's part. The hallway upstairs to the library has been made off-limits to high schoolers, so we have to go down a staircase, down that hall, and up the stairs at the other end in order to get to classes there.

But here's the thing. Friday will be a huge assembly with everyone coming together. I don't really know the purpose of it, but it's happening, and it will be so... full. Today in eigth hour [Drama II :)], the superintedant came to me and asked if I'd like to speak as a representative of the student body... woh. Honored? Scared? I don't know which one is prominant in my mind.

But here's what I'm thinking of starting with.


Once upon a time, there was a boy named Timmy. He grew up in Indiana, graduated college, and moved to Wisconsin where he was offered a job as a history teacher at a Christian School. There he met a very pretty lady named Laura. They fell in love, and soon they were wed. Over time, they had four beautiful, talented, loving, outstanding, cool, honest children. They began to grow up, and they moved to a big house. Even though there was lots of space, it was very old and needed lots of fixing up and new furniture. At about the same time, the school was also doing some fixing up. They were getting new, plastic bleachers in stead of the old, wooden ones. Timmy took the wood from the bleachers, sanded, planed, and shaped them into stairs and cupboards, and the school got their new bleachers. The elementary campus was getting new furniture for the teachers' lounge, and Timmy needed furniture for his house, so he took the old chairs and sofa from the lounge.

Yes, "Timmy" is my dad, which none of you have permission to call him. To all of you he is "Mr. ____" And yes, we really have old bleachers to store our food and cups in. Yes, we really had Mr. ________'s old car, but we had to put it down recently. We have had furniture from the Elementary Teachers' lounge, as well as various teachers who were upgrading. I have been attending this school since first grade.

It is a really cool thing that we all get to be in the same building. For me, it's like seeing all the different stages, or grades of my life all smashed into one building. Wednesday, I came to lunch early when some of the elementary kids were still eating, and Mr. ______ came to me and said, "The kids are having 'red light' right now, so keep it down." I had barely remembered the lights at lunch, and flipping cards.



Well, that's all I got at this point. I don't really know how to end it, especially since I don't know the purpose of the assembly, but if you have comments, comment fast!

Peace!