"I wanna have the same last dream again...

...the one where I wake up and I'm alive." The Adventure by Angels and Airwaves.

So it is New Year's eve, and I thought I'd put up a few thoughts about resolutions.

Prospective resolutions:

1. Read my Bible EVERY SINGLE DAY (which I didn't do last year).

2. Memorize a chunk of Romans or Proverbs or both.

3. Lose weight (which I always say, because I am an American).

4. Have an adventure (which I've already done, but I plan to do again).

5. Conquer a fear (of which I have too many).

6. Be more positive consistently (i.e., Trust God) and therefore more encouraging to others.

7. Witness to someone at least once a month, as the Lord provides.

8. Follow II Peter 1:5-11 (More on this later).

9. Bring my GPA up at least to a 3.0.

10. Revel in the adventure of every single day.

I may narrow it down or expand it, but that will do to get on with.

Happy New Year!

"There's something that I can't quite explain...

..I'm so in love with you." Calling You by Blue October

Here's the whole song:

theres something that i cant quite explain
i'm so in love with you
you'll never take that away

and if i said it a hundred times before
expect a thousand more
you never take that away

well expect me to be
calling you to see
if you're ok when i'm not around
asking if you love me
i love the way you make it sound
calling you to see
do i try too hard to make you smile
to make a smile

well i will keep calling you to see
if you're sleepin are you dreamin and
if you're dreamin are you dreamin of me
i cant believe
you actually picked...me

i thought that the world had lost its sway
(its so hard sometimes)
then i fell in love with you
(then came you)
and you took that away
(its not so difficult, the world is not so difficult)
you take away the old
show me the new
and i feel like i can fly
when i stand next to you
so what if I'm on this phone
a hundred miles from home
i take the words you gave
and send them back to you

i only want to see
if you're ok when i'm not around
asking if you love me
i love the way you make it sound
calling you to see
do i try too hard to make you smile
to make a smile

i will keep calling you to see
if you're sleepin are you dreamin
if you're dreamin are you dreamin of me
i cant believe
you actually picked...me

Apologies for the lack of punctuation and such--that's what you get when you type a song as they sing it. I guess love songs have been much on my mind since my sister just got engaged. :-)


So. We went and saw National Treasure 2: Book of Secrets today. Reilly is so awesome--he's totally my favorite. I completely identify with his living with brilliant people who always make him feel dumb--even though he's a super-awesome hacker with mad skills. I envy his mad skills.


I don't think there's that much to say about the movie. It was a cute, funny, smooth adventure using American (and a few other) settings to familiarize the audience with a little more history, and to fictionalize a little bit more. It's a classic legend series, which America lacks spectacularly, but, as we see by most critics' negative comments about the National Treasure movies, America does not seem to want it's own legends. The criticism hasn't changed the fact that the theater was packed.

Speaking of packed, I am getting ready to pack for my return to school (i.e., I realize I'm leaving in a week-and-a-half) and I'm absolutely boggled at how much stuff I acquired this year. I have not gained any space in my car, so that means I need to seriously plan and pack very carefully for this trip.

I can do that.

"Thank you...

...falletin me be mice elf again." Thank You by Sly and the Family Stone.

So here are pictures I've promised all fall. I appreciate everybody's patience as I forgot until ::gasp:: December 29th.

"When the moon hits your eye like a big pizza pie...

...that's amore." That's Amore Dean Martin

I am deeeeelighted to announce that my sister, Fred, is officially engaged to Joba. Oh, it's been a happy evening at our house, I can tell you!!!! It's simply oozing out the walls.

Fred drove Joba home from the airport, and I had a bunch of buds playing Poker and then Cranium, and Joba and Fred declined to join in the games, and they went to look at the stars. In 17 degrees.

"Aww," I thought, and we continued with our games.

Finally, when Fred and Joba returned, and we were winding up the evening, with card tricks, I saw a sparkly blue ring on Fred's hand, and thought, "Huh, I don't remember that ring." Big Bear began talking about work (grout and toilets) and Jesp and Hoity were adding their two bits, and, as usual, Monkey Smith said nothing and observed everything. Fred leaned over to me and whispered, "Should I show them my new jewelry?" pointing to her ring, which I now realized was on her LEFT HAND!?!?!?!?!?!!!

"O MY WORD YES!" I said back.

"If you guys are done talking about toilets," said Fred, "I think you may be interested to see this." She regally extended her hand, like a queen bestowing blessing on her humble subjects.

The room collectively exploded with congratulations and hugs for the couple.

The boys soon left after that--except Joba, of course, who is staying for a week--and we sat around the fireplace basking in Fred and Joba's happiness more than the heat from the fire.

My sister is engaged.

Isn't that delightful?

Stargazing indeed. Huh.

"I'm just a singer of simple songs...

...I'm not a real political man." Where Were You? Alan Jackson

In case anyone wanted to know my blog's readability, it is:

"I follow the night...

...can't stand the light." One Day I'll Fly Away, from Moulin Rouge, by Nicole Kidman

I suppose it's normal to have questions as a college student--questions about dogmas, and theories, and choices, and life, and authority, and religion, and people. Always, always about people.

I think it is less usual to have your questions written up in a book by someone who has decided to document your college because it is, as Hanna Rosin says, God's Harvard. I was surprised and slightly flattered--though in a sort of half-cocked way, at being called "America's young Christian elite." I never expected to be elite at anything, much less Christian elite.

I have always been middle of the road-ish. I mean, I take sides in arguments and put my foot down and have even been known to slap boys who were--what is the term?--"Fresh." But I am not a revolutionist, an activist, or a marvelous leader. I have always found there to be people better suited to lead than myself, and I generally am quite pleased to let them get on with it, and I will comfortably do what I do best in the background, or perhaps center state, but with very little real authority. I will be a voice or a mind, but never both. To quote Anne Hathaway, "I'm invisible. And I'm good at it."

I noticed this in the book, God's Harvard. I got it for Christmas, and just finished it--exactly 8 hours after I opened the box in which it was enclosed. I know, I know--nerd! But it was very well written, and I couldn't put it down. Especially since, as I read her words, I would remember being there, seeing these things happen, noticing her in the corner with her notebook or her bright, intelligent, interested eyes, watching us as we made our daily quota of stupid decisions. I am somewhat grateful that I WAS invisible, after reading it--for though she is not expressly malicious, she certainly does not pull her punches. But, of course, why should she? I no more desire that we "young Christian elite" be sheltered from her inquiring and blunt analysis than I desire Hillary Clinton to be treated with kid gloves in her debates. And in both cases, I don't want a chortle and a smirk and a "next question, please?" No. I want answers.

Yes, I sat on my bed--which was actually the couch in the library, since my room is currently the guest quarters to visiting relatives--piled high with spare blankets and my sleeping bag (sub-zero) with the cat (who is healing nicely from her surgery, by the way) nestled at my feet, making pilgrimages up to my face to make sure I didn't forget that she was here and was the center of the universe, not that book that I was reading and I read through the entire thing. In almost every chapter, she would describe a scene and I would think, with a slight jar, "I remember that. I was there. She sat in that corner and I sat in this. I remember wearing such-and-such that day. Whatever happened to that sweater, I wonder?"
She even included scripts of conversations in which I was involved--obviously very unimportant, as my words were never recorded. She changed some of the names (quite appropriately, as it happened), and I even would think, "Why, that must have been so-and-so. How interesting!

And it broke my heart.

Not all the drama and trauma that I already knew about--that is old news, and those scars are healing over. No, it was the bits I didn't know about, that mostly focused on individuals. I would think, "I had no idea that was going on! Oh, poor so-and-so!" And to think how blind I was when it was happening. And yet, looking back, I remember other things that were so clear, that I tried so hard to head off at the time, and either had not the experience, wisdom, or power to accomplish. And again, that intuition, or sixth sense, or people skills, or whatever you want to call it stood me in good stead. It is always a shock to read one's story from a third-party perspective.

But it does make me wonder. What in the world am I good for? I want to be a mover and a shaper, and yet, here I was in my own personal microcosm of the universe, and did I have a single, solitary effect on anything that happened? No, I did not. And I find that rather sad.

Anyways, that's the irony I found today...

and Merry Christmas!

"I can't believe it's Christmas...

...been waiting for a million hours!!!" --Can't Believe It's Christmas from The Toy that Saved Christmas, a Veggie Tales Christmas movie.


I'm such a bad blogger--I'm completely spastic and random and amb--not ambiguous, what's that word? It means you make decisions without having any real reason behind it? Am...al...ar...arbitrary! That's the word. On second thought, that doesn't really apply, but oh well.


Being a bad blogger is kin to being a bad friend. It's like, "Oh, hi, remember me? I'm the one who never responds to your emails, never answers your calls, and can't ever make it to any of our chill times, but yes, I'm still your friend!" That puts you immediately in the "user" category, the type of person who only hangs out when there is nothing better to do. Perhaps being a bad blogger isn't quite the same, but still! And of course, as friends make admissions for extra busy times and uncontrollable circumstances, so, hopefully, will the readers of this blog. (I still have trouble believing you exist, though I am assured by a Reliable Source that you do. I am glad. That does make it worse, though, when I forget to write for days on end...)


Let me see, so much has happened since I last wrote...when did I last write? Let me check. Aha, Mr. Magorium.

I watched Everything is Illuminated with Fred, TiFi, and Big Bear. (We watched it at Big Bear's house, and ate chips and dip and cookies that Fred made.) It's an interesting movie, with Elijah Wood, about a Jew who goes back to Russia to see someone who helped his family escape during persecution in WWII. There is language, suicide, and sexual references, so I wouldn't necessarily recommend it, but... it sort of makes you pause, and noticed your surroundings a bit. What I found incredibly tragic was how the people didn't seem to get to know each other at all. It was like they lived parallel, never intersecting, though they saw themselves ever day, and when they suffered, no one stepped up to help shoulder whatever burden was crushing the one, and no one had a kind word to say, or anything like that. Everyone was incredibly focused on themselves, which was part of the tragedy of the story.

I also saw Enchanted, which was cute--although I had trouble sitting through the first half because it was SO cliched. Of course, it was supposed to be, and the second half did make up for it. The two of us who went to see it walked out of the theater and a said, "Well, I'm glad I saw that, but we won't be buying it when it comes out!" and then my dad greets us with, "Oh, we saw Enchanted, and we HAVE to buy that as soon as it comes out!" It was cute, but none of this life-changing nonsense. It was precisely what it was supposed to be. A celebration of the tradition of princesses. But unfortunately, the reason I like fairy tales is because of how the original story--the original Cinderella, or the original Sleeping Beauty, (which the Disney version renders delightfully, but does leave out a few bits)--has a very untraditional story. That is why it became the tradition, because of those originals. Anything since then simply doesn't cut it. I adore the Dealing with Dragons book series for that reason. They have very untraditional stories, about nontraditional characters, and yet throughout the books they run into traditional characters and problems, and they laugh at them.

For example, Princess Cimorene finds out that her father is going to have her be kidnapped by a giant or something to make sure she gets married. She doesn't like that idea, so she runs off to find a dragon she can stay with so that she won't have to marry some boring prince. She finds a dragon, Kazul, who takes Cimorene to be her princess, and Cimorene spends most of the book trying to convince princes and knights who come to save her that she doesn't need saving and that she enjoys being a dragon's princess, thank-you-very-much. As you would imagine, the princes and knights have trouble getting their minds around this concept. Silly creatures, princes and knights.

Other than creating my own, personal philosophy of fairy tales (which I do have) I have been decorating for Christmas--our house was already done, but my room hadn't been touched, so I finally put my room decoration up yesterday--and making and sending Christmas cards (almost done!) and petting the cat, and baking cookies, and doing all the other homey things that I've missed out on the last few years at college. It's delicious. I even shoveled snow the other day! Oh yes--it snowed. I'll put up some pictures next post (if I remember.) In honor of that, I'm cutting out paper snowflakes right now. I have about 26 already done, but I'll need MUCH more than that, if I'm going to make a real, honest-to-goodness blizzard out of them.

Oh, and I bought a bunch of mistletoe. ;-)

So that's about what I've been up to.


I adore snow.