cadbury's bars

all i've had to eat all day is a dairy milk. DELICIOUS! and finals are over and me and sergio aren't fighting anymore because of a dramatic piggyback apology. And i'm STOKED for summertime!

done with classes!

wahoo! i'm done with classes for the quarter!

my mottos

So I have three mottos for life. So far.

1. The first I adopted while in high school, prompted by classic rock. Stick it to the man. It's not very deep, but it is fun.

2. This next motto I took directly from Alex and Brett over at the Rebelution. Do hard things. They have a great description of the philosophy, but my take on it is this. We have the ability to do anything in the world; God has created us for amazing purposes. He sees our lives in entirety; sees the accomplishments of which we are capable.

Diatribe time. Ok. So I've heard it millions of times. "Everything just came together, so I knew it was God's will." And, "Nothing was working out, so I knew it wasn't God's will." My response is: Why would the Almighty use easiness to reveal his will? This makes no sense. When has he ever done this? I hear mature Christians using this rhetoric, but I reject it.

3. My third motto comes from an unlikely source. I usually don't like Steve Martin, not because I object to his comedy, but because his face looks like he's perpetually sucking on limes. Yet because of his mastery of different types of art, and his rocky road to stardom, others respect him. And their respect is good enough for me. Be so good they can't ignore you. This one is the material of commencement speeches. It's simple, so people can tell others later what you said. And it's concise, so the relatives don't doze. I mean, if someone asked you to define success, could you come up with something this good?


My post-resolutions goal is to focus on these things now. Much more important than tracking spending.

another stephanie's coffee

When i was at starbucks this morning, i ordered a zebra hot chocolate. Yes, it's a special insider-knowledge drink that i learned from an employee one night. But she called 'stephanie' and laid a drink on the bar. Turns out it was some kind of latte. It is good, though.

Don't be like me and steal people's drinks. What you should do, and i got this from someone else, is find out how much the next order costs. In the drive through, ask how much the person behind you owes, and pay it for them.

Have I done any guerrilla art? no. Have i gone to the gym? technically yes, but not to work out. But those weren't my resolutions, so who cares.

LIST OF MY NEW YEAR'S RESOLUTIONS

FIRSTLY, to read the Holy Scriptures upon waking each morning. Or more accurately, to make it through the Bible in a year.

SECONDLY, to record what i buy. Track my expenses. For that, i am indebted to this linked to this.

THIRDLY, to try to become healthy. Namely, try to eat right, and go to the gym. But because this is such a flexible resolution, i don't feel guilty about only doing half of it.

Vale.

christmas creativity

So Sergio bought this book called "Guerrilla Art Kit" which is an instruction manual for producing art in public places.

I think it's a great idea. Even more so because we live at a university, where we would be able to see our own creations all the time.

Last night I was lying in bed, and I remembered that I had thrown away a pair of pants in the morning. They had a hole in them, which made them perfect for guerrilla artwork. By the time I fished them out of the garbage can, they had a huge hot sauce stain on the left leg.

Maybe I could write on them something like: "think about other people for a change". Or maybe that's too agressive. The book advises using one word exhortations, like "dream", "live", "question everything". But I think those are so cliched.

This reminds me of the time I posted an open letter on the wall in my hall last year. We had just experienced the fires, and everyone was a little on edge. I thought the best thing to do would be to write a letter to them, telling them what was going on, and post it to the wall. I considered that maybe people wouldn't read it because it was too long, but I saw several people stopping in their tracks and reading the whole thing. Kind of like the President's State of the Union Address. Except much less important. But the same idea.

I totally agree that it's cool to post thoughts and bits of yourself around. I think it's interesting; I would read it if someone else posted it.

I think it will be fun.

to become a woman of prayer

Last night I couldn't sleep. It wasn't that I didn't give it a shot; I tried and failed.

I have this book, A Young Woman's Call to Prayer, that I bought in the summertime. And lately--as in, since then--I've been feeling that I should respond.

There was this one girl in KCCC that everyone knew. Her name started with 'n' and she played tennis, but she was known for being a prayer warrior. She prayed all the time--out loud and exuberantly. I thought, I want to be like that. My mom has a friend whom she praises as a prayer warriors. And it's so doable. It doesn't take a lot of money, or skills. But it's so effective.

And so I bought the book. This is embarassing, but when I read Step 1, I was actually surprised. "Pray right now," it said. And, it had to be for at least five minutes. So I prayed, and last night I picked up at Step 2: "What Keeps Me from Praying?".

There was the requisite Top Ten Reasons list, and the one that I'm most guilty of is probably #4, Distance. Whenever you feel too distant to pray, that's when you need it the most.

So I prayed for quite a while last night (ok just for the five minutes) and it was still awesome. Why is it that i just have to put in five minutes, but God fills me with joy spilling even to now?

"Make a prayer notebook," it tells me. Now, I already have a journal for journaling prayers, but i don't for prayer requests. And this journal you see here I've been holding onto for a year and a half. It was too beautiful for any of my conjectured reasons, but i think last night it found its destiny.

sufjan stevens

sufjan stevens makes beautiful music. each song is so well crafted.

he doesn't even own a guitar, saying that playing in the different churches, halls, and villages gives each song a distinctive sound.

but why in most of his songs does he include the phrase "the great I AM" even when the song is seemingly secular?

who's to blame for 9/11

There are only three parties to blame for just about everything. Aside from the biblical three (mammon, the devil, and the world), in modern America you can be sure that the blame belongs to either bureaucracy, media, or liberalism.

In The War at Home, Dinesh D'Souza blames the last two.

Believing Americans infidelic, terrorist Muslims constantly threaten the U.S., because we're infidels who abort babies, marry homosexuals, and completely disregard religion.

D'Souza argues that they are completely justified in believing these things; we have been telling them to believe this about us ever since the sixties.

An overwhelming majority of Americans, namely citizens of the sensible 48 states, do not conduct themselves in a way Muslims would typify as "infidels".

Movies are not really America. Dinesh says that real Americans have families, aren't gay, and believe in God, which is true. But it's Hollywood-land that's angering Muslims, who assume that it is Everywhere, USA.

Nothing could be further from the truth, of course, but suicide bombers don't know that.

hey