My Calling

Tonight I finally got around to trimming one of my suitemate’s hair, and I guess I’ve gotten the reputation among my friends as the beautician. Let’s see…I’ve cut Carter’s hair and now Christina’s. I recently instructed Brittany on how to cut hair and supervised her while she gave Carter a cut. Maybe someday her boyfriend will let her cut his hair. I’ve hot-rolled and styled the hair of two of my friends this year before they went on fancy-schmancy dates.

And I’m not saying this to toot my own horn or anything of the sort. I really don’t think my skills are extraordinary. I tell my friends every single time, “Hey, if you don’t like it and decide that you need to run to a real stylist/barber ASAP, it won’t hurt my feelings at all.” 

Tonight my roommate told me that I missed my calling and should’ve enrolled in beauty school. Thanks Chels.  Christina just now came in my room, a couple hours after the cut, exclaiming that she loves it. “It’s given my hair so much more curl and body!”

Perhaps this is my little altruistic contribution to society. Or maybe I will go to beauty school if I get tired of the rigors of academia.

My New Itty-Bitty, Sleek Bible

I’m super excited about the new Bible that I bought yesterday, although the font is so little! I was having trouble reading my big Bibles in bed before I turned out the light because I sleep on a loft and would have to climb down to put my Bible on my my desk and then back up again. This tiny Bible rests perfectly on the little nightstand that I have hooked near the bottom of my mattress. Plus, the style is very cute.

Today in my daily Bible reading I read about David and Bathsheba. I hesitate to reveal this, but I would have to say that it is probably my third favorite Bible story. It’s just interesting and says a lot about human nature, sin, and morality.  

Persecution of Protestants in Russia

I don’t read The NY Times for nothin’. The vocab word in this article was “capricious”, although I think that I already have a notecard made for it.

This article that caught my attention was on the front page today: At Expense of All Others, Putin Picks a Church by Clifford J. Levy. Today as I crossed the street with my brother, I told him about the story and asked him what he thought about the situation. He suggested that they try to find a Mayflower and come on over to America. After explaining that that idea was not too realistic (and thinking to myself that America isn’t free of Christian persecution itself these days, albeit the fact that the persecution over here is not nearly as severe), he said something like, “Well, that’s why a democracy is best.” Well, yeah.

I guess that this article was another wake-up call for me, another reminder that we (I) should be exceedingly thankful to be living in a country whose government does not make us register our churches nor kick us out of our meeting places and force us into the secrecy of worship in our homes.

I have no excuse not to be in the worship service every time the doors are open because who knows how long the doors will be open in America?

The Joy (For Real) of Research Papers

Wow, I know that it’s late, but I just now finished a sixteen-page research paper and simply have to share the most cathartic experience of my life to date. And to think that it happened in the form of my research paper. I’m telling you, more people would definitely choose human development, family sciences, and rural sociology as a major if the name wasn’t so darn intimidating. I absolutely love my major because no matter the current situation of my life, I seem to always be able to apply it to a research paper. While you may be tempted to call me narcissistic, I want to assure you that I not only want to glean further knowledge about my life experiences for my own purposes, I also want to use that which I have learned to help others.

For instance, in Spring 2007 I took a class called The Hospitalized Child, and one of the assignments was to write a research paper about a medical condition and apply it to child development. A woman in my home church had recently given birth to a son with spinal muscular atrophy, so I took advantage of the chance to better my understanding of what that family was facing on a medical level, and I chose that subject for my paper.

Through my volunteer work at the elderly retirement center this semester, I met an 85-year-old woman who has been diagnosed with bilateral macular degeneration. Despite the fact that her vision is increasingly declining, she continues to attempt to play bingo and beanbag baseball with the other residents of the facility. Needless to say, my gerontology paper covered psychosocial aspects of and adaption to age-related macular degeneration.

As for my cathartic experience, I sat in Starbucks for three hours today writing one section of my research paper. When I got there, before settling down and unpacking my laptop, I ordered a tall mocha frappuccino. Three hours later one of the employees comes to me with a large chocolate chip cookie on a glass plate and says, “I’ve noticed that you’ve been here a long time. Do you want a cookie?” He assured me that it was safe, only broken in the package. Apparently they can’t sell broken cookies, so I took it and decided that I was probably starting to overstay my welcome at Starbucks for the day.

The title of my paper: “Parting Ways on the Holy Day and Fighting About It: Interfaith Relationships and Communication”. I felt compelled to write on this topic because it has summed up nearly the last year of my life. The section I wrote in Starbucks was the integration piece, where I combined “the academic material, research articles, and [my] applied experience” (taken directly from the syllabus). I haven’t finished editing it yet, so it might not even make sense, but I wrote like I’ve never written (typed, actually) before. The words just flowed onto the Microsoft 2003 edition of my Word document, and I can’t even describe how great I felt afterward. It was incredibly therapeutic.

However, I may not feel so great at 9 o’clock tomorrow when my Motorola starts singing its super annoying “Ascension” alarm tone to me, so I’m out like the similarly annoying Ryan Seacrest.
Goodnight!

Hall-o-wud…Be…Thy…Name

I would rather be more original with my posts instead of taking media from other sources, but for those of you who haven’t seen this, you must watch! I just love it. She’s precious, and I would love to adopt one of these little Asian girls one day.

Don’t Look Back

On January 11, 2007, I started writing in a simple three-ring, college-ruled, 70 sheet notebook that I call my prayer journal. I haven’t been faithful in journaling my prayers this year. I can’t really even say that I’ve been faithful in prayer thus far this year. I’ve been keeping up with the daily Bible reading schedule, but my prayer life–true, heartfelt conversation with God–seems to have almost disappeared.

One of my favorite parables is definitely the parable of the sower, so I paid extra special attention to this topic when it came up this morning in Brother Carl’s sermon. In the New Testament I am around Luke 10, so I’ve just finished reading this parable (in Luke it’s found in Chapter 8). Side note: Reading the Bible throughout the week is beneficial come Sunday morning, and the preacher devotes a portion of his sermon to the text that you have read earlier in the week; I find that my interest and understanding are both enhanced tremendously. Anyway, Brother Carl talked about the seed falling by the wayside, on stony ground, on thorns, and on good ground. He cautioned against religion and legalism, but he encouraged us to engage in personal Bible study and prayer throughout the week for preparation of that “good ground”.

Bible study. Check.
Prayer. Not so much right now.

Saturday night… (all of a sudden that old country song came to mind…Saturday night, and the moon is out, gonna head on over to the twist and shout.)
…after I finished Luke 9 I rummaged through my armoire drawer and pulled out that blue notebook, my prayer journal.

Tonight, as I read the end of Luke 9, I felt like it was speaking directly to me in regards to [a recent event in my life]. In v. 59 Jesus tells a man to follow Him, but the man says that he needs to first go and bury his deceased father. “Let the dead bury their dead: but go thou and preach the kingdom of God,” was Jesus’s reply.
In v. 61 another man says that he will follow Jesus after he tells his family/parents/siblings/children/household goodbye, but Jesus’s blunt reply is, “No man, having put his hand to the plough, and looking back, is fit for the kingdom of God.”
The theme for tonight is “Don’t Look Back”. I am reminded of Lot’s wife, who looked back at Sodom and Gomorrah and was turned into a pillar of salt.
If we are not to look back, I think that Hebrews 12:1-3 is telling us what we are to do, especially “Let us lay aside every weight, and the sin which doth so easily beset us, and let us run with patience the race that is set before us, looking unto Jesus the author and finisher of our faith.” This is a very active assignment.

Saving Souls on Mission Trips

Not only was I curious about Richard Florida’s Who’s Your City the other day when I was watching Good Morning America (or The Early Show. I don’t know. I get ‘em all confused.), I also marked it in my planner to watch a CBS 48 Hours special entitled, “The Lord’s Boot Camp”. Two women were on there promoting the documentary/reality television-type show, and I thought, ‘Hm…no Saturday night plans (oh the joys of being single again)…I might as well watch this in between homework sessions.’ So I watched it. And I wrote. To be fair, I did see some good in it. I thought the foot washing scenes and the overall aid in Africa was wonderful, and I was inspired to strive to be more servant-minded and give of myself (my time, my money, my knowledge) locally. On the other hand, of course I squirmed a little.

Taylor, a thirteen-year-old, was one of the three female narrators whom the cameras followed. At one part of the show her mission team had to practice evangelizing to people at a nearby senior center. Taylor was doing the whole “Do you believe that Jesus died on the cross to pay for your sins? Do you want to go to Heaven? Do you want to be saved?” bit with an elderly woman in a wheelchair. “Yes, yes, yes,” the woman continued to answer as tears rolled down her cheeks. Taylor prayed with her, and the scene closed with Taylor saying, “I’ll be right back. I’m gonna go get a form.” My brother Weston knows about these forms really well. haha.

I could probably write for a while about various quotes or ideas that I recorded from the show:

• The mission of one team to save 300 souls and the corresponding “Got another one” mentality.
• One girl’s disgust with Christian aspects of the boot camp experience, with the exception of the dancing and singing during the evening worship rallies.
• Taylor’s enthusiastic, “I need to be out there saving people. Because everyone is going to die. And some are gonna go to Heaven, and some are gonna go to Hell.”
• “They’re throwing their lives away in their hands, and they have a chance to save it. All they have to do is say yes.”

People think it’s crazy that although I’m a Christian, I believe that self-proclaimed Christians aren’t the only ones who will be eternally saved. Similarly, my belief that nothing that we, as humans, can or will do is enough to merit eternal salvation seems like such a heretical concept in the eyes of some fellow Christians.

It’s natural for individuals to want power over their destinies, but at the same time I don’t like to see my Father robbed of His glory in this.

Who’s Your City?

I’m not a TV watcher, but my roommate already went home for the weekend, and I, for once, didn’t want peace and quiet. So I turned on her TV and flipped to one of those early shows. Without fail, I always find something interesting on them. This morning a man named Richard Florida was promoting his best-seller Who’s Your City?. I was particularly attentive to his comments about the best cities for single young adults as well as to the accompanying United States map that shows where the most single men and women live by region. Just now I browsed the website, which, by the way, is creative, and I highly recommend it. The maps are neat, and from the Best Cities page, I discovered that I live in one of the top best cities for two groups: mid-career professionals (ages 30-44) and gays and lesbians. Sounds like just the perfect fit for me, huh?

21st Birthday!

Not mine. Been there, done that. But since I have parted ways with facebook for who knows how long (probably just a few days or so…I am realizing how much I need it for networking!), I thought that I’d post the pics from Olive Garden here. The picture quality isn’t great because, whaddya know, my preferred imaging editor is through facebook. Oh well.

The birthday girl and her beau

 The birthday girl and her drink. Yummy! It was called Strawberry Fresca, I believe. She didn’t really like it, but the sip I had was tasty!

 Me and the birthday girl

 Two pretty ladies

 Sweet new couple

 Me and my date. haha

Conflictual Feelings about Blogging

Wow, I just now checked my blog stats for the day, and today I had a record number of hits. Ninety-one so far. I have no idea why today is the special day for viewing “to follow Him”. I mean, I know that my most recent post about my decision to deactivate facebook was among the most interesting articles on the web and all, but man… 

Every now and then I get these really conflicting feelings about having a blog. I did it with Xanga, and I’m doing it again now. I love having a place to write and to receive feedback and to connect with others, but several personal concerns do present themselves with blogging:

• I’m a nonconfrontational person with really radical and opinionated ideas at times. Not a good combination. I like to write and rant and offer new ideas and this and that, but the problem comes with my sensitivity and my lack of courage in engaging in debates–amicable or hostile–to back up my views. Maybe my fears are a way of being accountable when I might be more likely alienate or offend certain groups by what I have to say. IDK.
• This struggle leads to questions such as whether I might have written something that a future employer or graduate school admissions officer could come across in my blog and that contributes to a decision to reject me.
• Similarly, I constantly think about identity theft issues and wonder if I am revealing too much of the real me. As a woman I feel a special need to be concerned about my vulnerability.

Okay, okay. I know what my readers may be thinking at this point: keep your posts private, or delete the blog altogether and go back to the old paper and pen method. Or keep a personal journal on Word, right? Many of my friends do this. Somehow I can’t though. Above, I have presented a list of concerns against blogging.

The big reason that I can’t quit, however, is that I want to keep writing. I guess I have this existential desire or something to be heard. Why would I spend an hour typing away about an issue, only to hit the save button (or Ctrl-S) and then be done with it, supposing that someone doesn’t get into my Word documents at the end of my life and makes me the next Anne Frank. I’m kidding.

I know that I have an average college student life, blah blah. White girl at a major university with plans to go to grad school and with an on-again, off-again relationship. But inside so many of us is what social scientists refer to as ”personal fable”, or the idea that no one else has the same life experiences as we do, that no one else goes through the same joys, pains, events. ’My story is unique,’ we (and I speak in a generality) think to ourselves. I know that I do. ‘No one else can truly understand what I’m going through because I’m the only one who has had to deal with these XYZ particular events.’ I can’t deny that this is a “self” way of thinking, but nonetheless, we often fall victim to it.

So I guess I’ll continue to tell my story. Maybe someone can relate. Maybe it’ll touch the heart of a future employer instead of make a mark against me. Or maybe none of this really matters at all.

“And I gave my heart to seek and search out by wisdom concerning all things that are done under heaven: this sore travail hath God given to the sons of man to be exercised therewith. I have seen all the works that are done under the sun; and behold, all is vanity and vexation of spirit.” (Ecc. 1:13-14)