Proud Mama Moment

Em wrote a choral piece.  Some of her college friends performed it in concert.  Here's the text by Dietrich Bonhoeffer, then a link to the audio.

God of the day, and of the night

In me there is darkness but with you there is light.

I am alone but you will not leave me.

I am weak, but you will come to my help.

I am restless, but you are my peace.

I am in haste, but you are the God of infinite patience.

I am confused and lost, but you are eternal wisdom.

You direct my path, now and forever.

Amen.

https://soundcloud.com/user210700361/09-god-of-the-day-and-of-the

The Christmas Tightrope

Earlier this fall I got it into my head that I was going to pen a Christmas carol. Whenever I try to write music, I don't like to think of it as a big masterpiece just waiting to be brought to life. Of course, I'm human, so that's usually where my mind goes, but usually I end up humbling myself through the time consuming process of pairing words with melodies and harmonies, something that takes just as much quiet contemplation and reflection as it does writing and erasing and plunking out notes. I like to write things I can share with friends and family, something for us to sing together. Masterpiece doesn't matter.

Now it's December 22nd, and the carol is nowhere near being finished--but that's ok.
Lately I've been thinking about the text I'm using. It's a poem by Madeleine L'engle called "The Glory."

Without any rhyme
without any reason
my heart lifts to light
in this bleak season

Believer and wanderer
caught by salvation
stumbler and blunderer
into Creation

In this cold blight
where marrow is frozen
it is God’s time
my heart has chosen

In paradox and story
parable and laughter
find I the glory
here in hereafter.


What strikes me most is the second line of the second stanza. As I read it, I can hear the voice of my Intro to Writing professor last spring saying, "Use strong language! Use those verbs!" Caught by salvation. Not given, not granted, but caught. I'm a wordy person who enjoys these little particulars. It makes me think of a nervous tightrope walker losing balance, then falling into the net below. These words sound joyous without being sugary. Just plain, straight clarity. I know we still have one more Sunday of Advent--of waiting in the darkness--and with the horrible killings in Newtown last week the dark feeling won't automatically be lifted from us come Christmas. But, there is goodness. Dark times can be remedied, Professor Dumbledore said, "if one only remembers to turn on the light." The net catches us tightrope walkers. We can at least give thanks for that.

Vote vote vote.

I'm a news junkie. I love to know what's going on in the world, and learn about interesting people and places.
What I don't like is being surrounded by the college campus bubble, where somehow you become isolated from the outside world, being consumed by your homework and not having the time to be aware of things outside of your student life.
This Thursday night, I couldn't take it anymore. I just needed to listen to some news. I needed to feel aware again. It's election season, and being away working at a summer camp in the woods, then coming straight back to the college bubble made me feel completely ignorant, especially of the 2012 presidential race.

So, I got out my homework, hunkered down, and watched the Democratic National Convention on C-Span.
I cannot describe to you the level of giddiness I felt. I love C-Span so much! It's news ALL THE TIME, and unbiased, because most of the time, no one's there commentating! Just the straight-up live programming. You get to watch sessions in Congress, mass protests, official ceremonies, great interviews, and even the British House of Commons when they have Q & As with the prime minister. And during election season, C-Span is just plain addicting.
My roommates walked in as I was watching, and looked at me. I couldn't contain my excitement. "It's the DNC! It's Joe Biden! It's Bill Clinton! Gaaaaah!" They just shook their heads and laughed. But I don't care! Like Jimi Hendrix said, I'll wave my freak flag high!
What surprised me though is how productive I was while listening in on the convention; perhaps I should do my homework with C-Span in my head phones more often.

After months of being deprived of decent news coverage, I was happier than a hippie in a drum circle. But I realized the actual reason for my excitement is that this is my first year that I can actually vote! It gives me a warm and fuzzy, yet powerful, feeling that my one vote can join with others to bring about change in the world. Of course, it's not as simple as that, and neither is actually solving the problems of the world and sustaining the things that work. I just hope that whatever happens this November that voices will be heard, and that those voices will do amazing things.
In closing, I don't want to sound like a PSA or anything, but it would make me oh-so-happy if you could do these two things for me:

1. Vote, please and thank you.
2. Watch C-Span. You'll feel better about life, I promise.

The other day I was reading an interview in the "Smithsonian" with the great singer/songwriter Rosanne Cash. She talked a lot about her music...and theoretical physics. Little did I know that's a subject that absolutely fascinates her.

I don't know about you, but I would never call myself a science nerd. However over the years I've been searching for a way to dig deeper into science. I love the history of it, and I think it's eye opening stuff, I just rarely find books or essays that describe the wonders of it all in language that I understand.

It all just made me think: In the last few years I have been captured by these mind-boggling concepts brought up in physics and quantum mechanics. And this was only because of "Nova, C-Span, TED, "Bill Nye the Science Guy," and historical and personal journeys through science like "Parallel Universes, Parallel Lives." This was just me hearing people who were passionate about their life's work speak about it in a natural, engaging, and even humorous way. Why don't you see that very often any more? Why so many dry, dense books and scientists? Granted, I fully acknowledge that something as complicated as astrophysicss or quantum mechanics is not the easiest thing to explain to me, a nonlinear-thinking musician who Waaaaaay back during the baby years of science, there was a different approach to learning about it. There was a conscious link in everyone's minds between the fantastic unknown world and a certain spiritual reverence towards that unknown, and the beauty of it. It seemed you couldn't explain scientific ideas without the use of poetry. Speaking about this very subject, in a column in "The Guardian," Ruth Padel says, "Both [science and poetry] depend on metaphor, which is as crucial to scientific discovery as it is to lyric."

Parallel universes, time travel, aliens, black holes and wormholes: These are things that inspire science fiction,"A Wrinkle in Time," "Star Trek" and "Lost." They grab our attention and make us not-so-scientifically-inclined people to see beyond ourselves in a new context, and ponder how incredibly huge and mysterious our world is.

I will never become a scientist. But I like finding things that remind me that I am one piece of the jigsaw puzzle of the world. God does that for me, music, and I increasingly find that science also does that for me. It is humbling. I only hope that since more schools these days are focusing on math and science, that they are teaching it in a way that can inspire that same sense of awe, because I am lucky enough to have found a way for science to connect to me.

In this interview, Cash talked about a BBC documentary called "Parallel Universes, Parallel Lives." It follows the journey of Mark Everett, frontman of one of my favorite bands, Eels. In the film, he strives to understand more about his father, Hugh Everett, a Princeton professor and the scientist who is known for introducing the theory of parallel universes. Imagine being the kid of the guy who came up with the biggest scientific idea since Einstein and relativity--and not really caring about science at all. Needless to say there was tension between the two.

Freshman year of college: check.

Now I'm home to enjoy a few relaxing weeks with my family until I start work as a counselor at a Lutheran camp.After unpacking all my crap and realizing I have the potential to become an exceptional hoarder, I made a trip to the library. For fun. For the first time in a year.
Because what's summer without books? My plan is to have my nose in a book at all times, so as to make up for the many months of un-fun reading at college. I keep an obsessive list of all the books I've read, and it used to be that I could find the time to finish four or five a month. When I looked at what I had put under the year 2012, it read one lonely title, "Great House," by Allison Krauss. One book for the entire year so far.

This is truly a tragedy.

So, I started my atonement by picking up three books the other day: "Sacre Bleu," by Christopher Moore,

"Einstein's God," by the wonderful Krista Tippett,and "The Essential Writings of Ralph Waldo Emerson." Since I don't have much time to totally immerse myself in Emerson's Trancendental philosophy, I'm going to narrow down "the essential writings" to the "absolute essential three essays," and save the rest for another summer.

I'm really enjoying the books I started, butI'm at the point where I get to the library and feel like I've read everything already, so new authors and story suggestions are welcome.

Along with the reading, I'm keeping up the piano stuff as well (because it's kind of why I'm in school). A Bach Partita, Mozart sonata, and a few Debussy preludes are on my rep list this summer and fall, which should be fun, and while I'm here I'm going to finish up some pieces I've been trying to write. Already my sister has commissioned me to write "a hymn to Isaac Newton and gravity," after being inspired by this video.



So we'll see how that goes.

Interfaith Leadership Institute: Day 2

What a great experience we're all having! Even after just the first full day, I can already tell that I will miss the relationships that have been made through this conference, the diversity and openness that everyone has contributed, come Monday morning when we're back in Moorhead. Sigh...

Today, the big theme was brainstorming specific projects our delegations could focus on. These could be events to promote awareness of an issue, or just the local Better Together group itself, it could be a service project, field trip kinds of experiences. Also, we discussed what were the best ways to advertise and get the word out to the community. We deduced that the crazier the stunt, or the catchier the poster/flyer ad, the better response you would get. So, dress all campus statues in Better Together t-shirts and apparel to gain attention-- t-shirts that you stenciled yourself at your hands-on/crafty interfaith event! Always provide pizza! Make a silly video about your campaign! Put flyers of useful information in the bathrooms! And most importantly, use social media. Facebook and Tweet it up big time with quotes from interfaith leaders in history, or statistics about the issue that you're focusing on, like homelessness, hunger, immigration/refugees, or environmental stewardship. This was a really great time for our group, because our creative juices were really flowing. And also, we did something called asset mapping. This was basically a flow chart of all of the support we have on campus, be it from faculty and administration, student groups, outside community, and even who let's us rent a room for events. We realized that we have tons of people at Concordia who've got our backs!
Other things that happened today was that we could attend a service to celebrate the Jewish tradition of Shabbat, and a Muslim call to prayer. I went to both, and it was one of those goose-bump inducing experiences.
Our Dorothy Day group is pretty awesome, I'd say. Yesterday, our delegations were all at different tables, but today, we tried to see how many people could fit around one table, and when we realized, "Oh, awkward, there's 8 people who won't fit," we jumped to action and brought our tables together, to the surprise of the IFYC staff who were leading our session. I'd have to say, our enthusiasm and humor has been making this such an awesome group to be in. (And thanks to one delegation, the phrase of the day has been, "Dorothy Day FTW!")

What I'm loving about this conference is that I have always been interested in diversity but because of where I live, I was always reading about those things instead of experiencing it first-hand. Most of the people that I encounter in my life are white Christian Lutherans--it's a kind of sad fact. Here, I'm meeting people who are Sikh, Buddhist, Jewish, Muslim, Agnostic and Athiest, and not only are we bonding over deep stuff like our beliefs, but also through the goofy random flow of conversation that tends to happen between 9pm and Midnight when a lot of candy has been consumed and someone has a deck of Uno cards.

It's a goal of ours to make our school a more welcoming place for that type of relationship-building. And I think our school's ready for it.

Interfaith Leadership Institute: Day 1

I know it's midnight,and I'm tired, and it's been a day of information overload, but I'm going to try and make this blog post make sense. Please bear with me.
~
Our group of 4 students and 1 professor arrived safely in Atlanta yesterday afternoon. The conference started off this afternoon at Emory University's conference center, with an overview of what Interfaith Youth Core (IFYC) is all about, then afterwards we had our first break-out session. This meant out of us 150-some people, we broke into groups made up of 5 or six college delegations. Since it's the first day, we all got up and introduced ourselves, and intentionally talked about the differences of our faith. Some of us were Christian, some were Muslim, some were Hindu, some didn't identify with a religion or believe in a higher power at all. And that's what's so great. What I love about IFYC is that it's not an organization that wants to dumb things down, ignore our differences and sing Kumbayaa together. It wants people to know that we are different, and that we can learn from our differences. I myself strongly believe that learning from these different faith traditions helps me reassess what I really believe, and therefore strengthens my own faith. What's also very cool about this Leadership Institute that they put on is that everybody who's here actually wants to be here. Everybody's eager to know how they can build bridges through interfaith dialogue and service instead of maintaining walls.
We talked about how our college communities have responded to our interfaith-ing, both positively and negatively. For our group from Concordia College, while we love the positive response we're getting from students and faculty, we're also glad that we have encountered opposition from others--that means that our mission and message is being heard, and that the dialogue has been sparked, and the diversity of our community is being reflected.


I want to summarize a few of the things I've picked up here from various speakers. As members of an interfaith movement, IFYC believes that we should

~Voice our values. This means not being shy about our diversity.

~Engage with others! I shouldn't have to explain why: nothing gets done, no understanding is made, if we do not communicate with and learn from one another.

~Take action. So, with the knowledge and understanding that we now possess, we then should go out in the world and start making some positive changes.

And just like that, you change the world :)

~~~

These break-out sessions with other colleges that I talked about: each of them are named after an interfaith activist from throughout history, such as the Ghandi Group, The MLK Group, the Rabbi Abraham Joshua Heschel Group. Us? We're in the Dorothy Day group, which made me a bit too excited. I did a pretty emphatic arm-pumping motion,a la Napolean Dynamite.

Then of course, the highlight of the day was hearing IFYC founder Eboo Patel speak at dinner. He knew that in a way he was preaching to the choir by talking about how important interfaith dialogue and service is. I wish I could tell you more about the content of the speech, but I was so enamored that I didn't really take notes at all. And geez, I always take notes. And there was an overarching music metaphor, which was awesome! So, I'm hoping someone recorded it, 'cause I'd love for y'all to be able to Google or Youtube it. He did say that our job is not to ask, "Eboo, what are you going to do about this? When are you going to get something started in my community?" It's our job. We start it. We should mobilize ourselves and other people, we should be teaching people, and serving together.
Our delegation got to meet Eboo Patel and talk with him--we're really excited, because he'll be speaking at our school next year! "I'm not coming in the winter, though," he said, right up front. He doesn't know what he's missing. So, we got our picture with him, I got my copy of his book "Acts of Faith" signed, and it was very cool. All I can say is that he's the real deal.
Later in the evening we did more mingling activities, and I started hanging out with a few new people, and hey, there's a piano in the lobby, we said, so we started playing it. Me and someone else were just improvising tunes for a good 45 minutes. It's amazing how that always seems to happen to me. Music follows me everywhere; I can't seem to shake it. It brings me together with people that I never thought I'd encounter, ever. I feel so blessed by this.

Ok, that's all I can manage tonight. Stay tuned for more tomorrow!

Back in Moorhead...for now

Winter break has ended and I've been back at school since Saturday. Then, I'm leaving again on Wednesday for Atlanta! I've been alternating between long periods of packing for the trip, organizing everything for the school year, taking walks in the freakishly warm weather, sleeping, and watching "Throw Down Your Heart" on Hulu.
And hasn't it been loverly! Being back that early means that campus is rather quiet, and the time by myself is helping me start the semester off all confident and organized.


I really didn't want to come back at first, but now that I am back, I'm feeling optimistic about the semester. Last fall I had a huge learning curve, and now I've pretty much got my bearings. There are little things I'm doing to keep myself sane this semester: growing a pot of marigolds, keeping my desk clean enough to actually use, drawing (I specialize in hedgehogs and Hobbes-like tigers) and jotting down little thoughts on index cards, going to bed earlier, and doing pseudo-yoga stretches (because I'm not disciplined enough for real yoga). If I keep up with these things, I will be alright.

Interfaithy Things and Christmas Break

Hello, Christmas break. Hello, home. It's been quite the first semester of college, with lots of ups and downs, but I'm proud to say that I'm still alive, I don't feel like dropping out, and that even with all the stress, I've had some really good experiences. Victory! Now I'm just focusing on relaxing(though I still have to practice),until my next great adventure to Atlanta in January. What brings me there, exactly? Well... At Concordia, I got involved with a student group called Better Together. It's objective is to promote interfaith dialogue on campus and in the Fargo-Moorhead community. Now, you might think that both these places are heavily populated by white, Christian Lutherans, but they are actually more diverse than you might think. So we try to figure out ways to reach out to people of different backgrounds and beliefs and do service projects. Like this, for example. One of the things that binds us together in the midst of differences is our faith calling us to serve our neighbors. I wish that more people acknowledged this! Hundreds of Better Together groups are being started at colleges all across the country, and they are all part of the outreach campaign started by Interfaith Youth Core, which seeks to create a international and interfaith movement to bring about social justice. Every year, IFYC hosts a conference for us college-age youth, where we get trained on how to organize interfaith dialogue and action at our schools and in the world. This year it's in Atlanta. GUESS WHO"S GOING TO IT. Yeah, I'm pretty excited. I feel honored and fortunate to be able to go. Not only will it be an extraordinary learning opportunity, but I'll be going with a super great bunch of fellow Better Together-ers as well. I'm hoping to learn from them and their life and faith (or no faith) experiences just as much as from the conference.

Thanksgiving

I'm so excited for Thanksgiving Break--just three more days and I'll be home! But, just like Mid-Sem break in October, it's probably going to be over before I know it (how's that for pessimistic? WHAT HAS COLLEGE DONE TO ME?). This semester has had its peaks and valleys, and I'm still trying to figure out how to operate within this new world. That sounds like an exaggeration, but that's really what it feels like. And not the happy Aladdin kind, either. It's been rough, dealing with the stress of classes and not having the luxury of free/dreaming/guitar-playing/journal-and-blog-writing time. It's freakin' hard interesting being a college student, when I'm coming from a very different philosophy of learning and living. A lot of times I feel like a square peg being forced into a round hole. But along with that, there have been good things as well, like being in choir, playing on the Quidditch team, learning to speak German, and meeting lots of cool friends and mentors. I'll get used to things eventually...

Coming home

I've been enjoying a weekend home from school, and man it feels good. The reason I came down after only a month away is because the music director at my church needed an accordion player. Of all things. Naturally I jumped at the chance, and had a fun time playing with a polka band in church as part of an Oktoberfest worship celebration. Yes, my life is awesome.
It was really fun today seeing all my friends at church. I love it at school, and I'm weathering the challenges well, but there's no place like home. Actually, I spent so much of my time in high school at church, that a lot of people were not surprised at all to see me around this morning. Aside from jamming out on the accordion, I've spent my time finishing a research paper, which I'm glad to be done with, and practicing piano with my snazzy new metronome (which looks like a miniature beige coffin, which is why I associate metronomes with DEATH).

Today I've just been hanging out, knitting, and watching football. I miss this idea of free time!

My home-schooled background has helped me in a lot of ways; I get stuff done promptly, and I'm not burned out from years of being in school already, so I'm curious as to how things all work. Doesn't mean I like all the deadlines and creating annotated bibliographies, the late nights, and general fast pace of everything, but I roll with the punches. Even though I'm in college, I still identify myself as a home-schooler-–four years of college won't change that.

I'm blogging right now from my new Mac, and it makes me oh-so-happy. I've never owned one before, so it'll be interesting trying to figure everything out before I leave for school--yikes-- in a few weeks. The Apple Store in Mall of America was crazy busy and slightly intimidating, but we emerged triumphant with a MacBook Pro awhile later.

In the afternoon, my brother and I zipped up to Fort Snelling, where they were hosting a shape note singing get-together. If you want to know more about shape note music (also called Sacred Harp), you'll find me explaining it in this post.

I'd never been to a singing before, and was a bit nervous. I walked into a small schoolroom where singers had gathered.

"Would you like to sing with us?" one of them asked. When I said yes, he said, "There's songbooks over there, fans right there, and water over here. Get those and you can take a seat." I filled up my water bottle, passed on the paper fan, got the songbook, which said The Sacred Harp on the cover, and sat in the alto section. My brother had gone off on his own to explore the rest of the Fort, hang out at the blacksmith's, and watch the cannon presentation, of course.

It was hot and muggy outside, and inside the schoolroom it wasn't much better. Behind me I heard a few mutterings that it wouldn't be a Sacred Harp singing without a lack of air conditioning. The singing got started after about 20 people had gathered. Most of them had been singing Sacred Harp music for a number of years, meeting weekly in the Twin Cities to sing and attending conventions throughout the state and country. I made sure to sit next to one of those people, and luckily, my neighbor could really belt it out. Whenever I lost my place in the music (which happened a lot), I'd just do whatever she did.

Shape note singers sit in a hollow square formation. Anybody can suggest a song, and anybody can get up to lead it from the middle of the hollow square. Leading a song means you give the pitches for Soprano, Alto, Tenor and Bass, and keep the tempo by waving your arm up and down, pretty much. The huge amount of sound we were able to produce was startling. People visiting the Fort would pop their heads in wondering what all the ruckus was, and sometimes they'd even join us.

After an hour we stopped to take a break, because the leader of the cannon presentation had to start presenting outside our door. Certain singers had brought food for a potluck, so we ate and chatted for 20 minutes or so. My observation is that fellowship is as much a part of the Sacred Harp tradition as singing is--and it made things even more fun! Because firstly, the fact that any of us were there meant that we were a very unique, unusual set of people: I met some like me who had first heard of Sacred Harp through the Internet, documentaries, and the movie Cold Mountain. Most of them were my parent's age or older, except for me and a few college-age girls. The resurgence of Sacred Harp has definitely been an intergenerational kind of movement across the country, though. I don't want to say "popularity," because it's still such a fringy thing, like being a Civil War reenactor or speaking Esperanto.

I got talking with one guy who, on finding out it was my first time at a singing, convinced me to lead a song with his help. That was exciting! Of course, as a newcomer, it wasn't always easy to keep up, but it was still by far the funnest and unabashedly nerdiest thing I could have done with my day. The people were welcoming, and the music and energy were exhilarating.

It was weird, though: I went from the Apple Store in the morning, to singing 18th century church music all afternoon. It was a time warp of a day!

Graduating?! What?!

Life is feeling pretty surreal right now. I know it is for a lot of graduating high schoolers like me, but my case is a bit different. The last time I was in your typical classroom environment was in pre-school, and now in a mere two months I'll be in college. Yowza!
My peers and I are at this weird stage where everything in the future is new, exciting, and scary. For me as a home schooler, you can multiply that by a million. I don't want to think about my future, but that's all I end up thinking about. I know I already have certain skills I can use to survive and do well in the world, so I try to stop worrying. (Let's see how that goes, shall we?) I know I have comforting and supportive people around me, though, and I'm definitely not alone in my anxious thoughts.

Some people ask me if I'm going to be part of the local high school commencement ceremony, but the answer is no. I suppose I could process through my livingroom and my mom could hand me a diploma, but I'd rather not. Fanfare and funny hats aren't my thing. I'll just take the party, please.

~~

This last week I've made progress with a few compositions, which is always an exhilerating feeling. What's strange is that I could sit at the piano and play you a multitude of tunes that frequently roll around my brain, but to this day my complete collection of finished works--though they're not as epic as the title may suggest-- comes only to a total of three. I'm kind of new at this whole composing thing, so that's probably why I underestimated the insane amount of time it can take to perfect one measure, let alone an entire piece of music. But I'll keep on truckin'. It's a fun mind-bending type of challenge for me. Some people do Sudoku, I write music. What I'm working on now is a piece for choir, because I'm a choir geek raised by more choir geeks who hang out with other choir geeks, and then another piano thing. That's kind of my big summer priority--to finish something--along with catching up with people before I leave for school.

Exciting times are ahead, without a doubt.

Bob Dylan turns 70

Happy birthday, Bob Dylan!

Because I'm sure you're reading this.

***

I discovered Bob Dylan when I was twelve, after watching Martin Scorsese's documentary, No Direction Home. My mind was kind of blown.

I started to sing and play his songs, and I memorized 17 out of 20 verses of his "It's Alright, Ma, I'm Only Bleedin'" before I thought "When am I ever going to perform this?" and quit. Now I regret it just a bit. I remember on a road trip to Upper Michigan, we picked up on a radio station from an American Indian reservation, and it was playing "Desolation Row."
After about two verses Dad--who dislikes Bob Dylan's music--gave a groan and said, "Is it done yet?"

"There's about 10 more minutes left, Dad."
Then he rolled his eyes and groaned again.

So, whether you love him or hate him, there's no denying the impact he had on music and a whole generation. I don't want to get too maudlin, but I think I would be a very different musician had it not been for the work of Bob Dylan.

If you've got an hour, listen to MPR's documentary on his early days in Minnesota, from Hibbing to the Twin Cities.

Quality and Quantity

Most of the time I feel like I appreciate quality over quantity. Despite this, my brain likes to combine two or more awesome things to see if they can become even more awesome, most of the time in a blinding flurry of excitement. These things include:

Jimi Hendrix on the accordion

M&Ms and pizza

Muppet's version of "Monty Python and the Holy Grail"

My favorite computer games from my younger days, SimGolf and Yukon Trail, which is like Oregon Trail, but more snow and frostbite.
This is where the blinding flurry of excitement comes in, clouding the need for an actual objective. Complete 18 holes of golf without being bit by a rabid sled dog or contracting cholera? It forever stays in the planning stages.

Needless to say, none of these things worked out the way I'd hoped.
I have to keep reminding myself that one All-Powerful Marvel of Awesomeness can look good on paper, but not so much in reality.
So, I'll watch the first Pirates of the Caribbean and pretend the others don't exist. Maybe you'll hear Jimi Hendrix on the accordion again, but for sure I'll keep my M&Ms and pizza separate. Quality, not quantity.

My Way vs. Bob Marley's Way

Things don't go my way sometimes.

Yesterday--a beautiful, warm day-- I went to a place and asked about a summer job, and they said, "We're hiring, but not for the summer." My confidence deflated a bit.

Then this morning I wake up, and am greeted by my brother with, "The dog threw up." Which translates as, "Clean it up." He quickly exits the scene to take the dog for a walk, so I do what I gotta do and find the carpet stain spray stuff in the red bottle.

But then--and I know how cliche this must sound--Three Little Birds came on the radio, and my attitude changed. Every little thing is going to be alright. Doesn't mean that it'll go my way, but that it will be alright.

This is my dad, and this is my dog.
Almost eight years ago, my dad was not at all excited about getting a dog.
But then they became the fastest friends.
I just think it's funny how that happens.
I guess it's a small reminder to stay open to things--you never know who could walk through the door.

Hey, did you hear about this?
Last week a congresswoman named Donna Edwards (D-Maryland) was testifying before Congress against the proposal for a government shutdown. Instead of uninterestingly going on and on about her views, she quoted the band the White Stripes! When I heard this I burst out laughing, because...well, Congress is kind of old. Exactly how many representatives would even know the reference? Even I as a fan didn't recognize the song she chose to quote, "Effect and Cause," which came off of their 2007 album, and didn't get much air play. But I'm all for shaking people up to get their attention, ya know?

This is "Effect and Cause," from which Congresswoman Edwards quoted.



What's even funnier is that we avoided the government shutdown. Does that mean rock and roll saved the day? Maybe, maybe not, but it makes me smile to think they at least had a small hand in it all :)

Paper Sunflowers

About five years ago someone in my family got a paint-by-number kit for Christmas. Despite all his best intentions, thr recipient never actually used it, and it's been sitting in the basement in its box all these years.
It's a really cool image, too. You'd probably recognize it:



Yeah, Van Gogh's sunflowers! I thought it was too cool to ignore any longer, so I decided to start the painting this morning. I opened the containers of paint all excited...and they were rock solid. Dried up completely. So I was bummed, because then the blank canvas would be wasted. I thought about coloring it with markers, adding some sort of Andy Warhol twist to the image, since I only had blue, red, yellow, black, and red in my color arsenal. I decided against it, though. Crayons? No. Colored pencils? Don't have any. Then I got it: collage.

Let me make this clear: When it comes to the visual arts, I'm all vision, and hardly any implementation. Plus, I'm just not that gifted with it in the first place. I'm going to make a collage of the sunflowers, cut up almost all our magazines and spend a lot of time on it, but the finished product will still look like a 1st grader's. (not dissing you, 1st graders, it's just truth!)
Nevertheless, I can't wait to see how it turns out!

Smiling Sting Ray, I choose YOU!

My sister said, "You should write about sting rays!" Ok, I said. Then I told her how they smile, but she didn't believe me. Google Images proved her wrong!

I don't care what anybody says, I think sting rays are cute when they smile. I was in elementary school during the Pokemon craze, and looking at this picture I think Ash Ketchum would have definitely chosen this little guy if Pikachu hadn't gotten in the way. Sigh. You couldn't pay me to watch the last few versions of Pokemon, but golly, the original storyline with Ash, Misty, and Brock was gold. I remember watching the series premier, playing the card game, playing the video game. Correction, catch me on a relapse day and I still play the video game. (FYI, I always started out with Bulbasaur. Best decision ever.)

So, little Sting up there is cute, but you wouldn't want to get stung by one. According to that never-ending well of information, Wikipedia, sting rays don't actively attack humans, but they will if you provoke/tease/step on them them. If you get stung, the bite swells up, you get crampy from the venom, and then it might get infected. So go to the zoo or Google Images instead. : )