LIFE!!!

Wow, life is good. Thank you God for the roses.

Why is life good? DUH!!! I had corrupted myself so badly that my Creator could no longer bear to look at me. "How could I be separated from my creator forever?" I didn't have the sense to ask myself this, but God certainly answered for me. Lavish love and amazing grace! Sweet mercy! God didn't just clean me off. He completely remade me.

Not only has God done this, but he has promised me life in his eternal museum (of sorts), and there I will never tarnish or fade or become worn. Forever will I declare the glories and mysteries of the One.

Not only has God done that, but he has blessed me with so many amazing things in this temporal life of mine. Yes, the new house is spacious and (soon-to-be-more) beautiful, but he has provided me with a wonderful family and scores of friends to fill it. As well as food and furniture :-) Thanksgiving, HERE WE COME!! BRING 'EM ALL ON!!!

Not only has God shown me his love this way, but he gives me amazing things with which to entertain myself and drive my soul to even deeper worship and love. Yes, I am talking about Audio Adrenaline. Say what you may about the vocalist's voice, but that band really speaks God's words to me. "Good Life" is one of their best songs, and when I die, I want that song to be played at my funeral. "This is the good life! I've lost everything I could ever want and ever dream of. This is the good life! I've found everything I could ever want in your arms!"

Computer speakers are really not good for listening to music through.

As you might be able to tell, my mind has fractured like light through crystal into the amazing rainbow of God's goodness.

PUMPKINS!!!

Yes, I live a sheltered life.

A friend bought my siblings and me pumpkins for carving tonight. 'Twas ridiculous fun! We don't celebrate (or whatever verb is appropriate here) Hallowed Eve, nor dress up or give out candy for trick or treatin'. But the pumkins were still a riot. My sister is so squeamish!! And raw pumpkin doesn't taste that bad. Rather starchy. We found some REALLY sweet pumkin carvings online!

Here's mine (I like the jazzy spotlight effect):



here's mine and Ryan's (the HomeStarRunner theme-the Cheat and StrongBad):



here's my sister's and my brother's (the big mouthed face will eventually have pumpkin guts spewing out):



Thanks, Ryan! I plan to get another pumpkin or carve the other side of this one and put a cat in silhouette. Smashing fun! (did I say that? Perhaps I'll do that someday :-P)

Ohioans

...and by no means did I intend to bash homeschoolers or belittle their system at all. It was simply the only other system that I had to compare. Besides, Ohio pays high schoolers' tuition while taking college classes. How awesome is that?

Home Schooling...Yes, I like it as TWO WORDS!!!

OK, so I got an e-mail asking me to call my PA Senator & ask him to support some bill that would relax the legislation for keeping home schooling accountable.

I give a resounding NO.

The problem in PA with home schooling is NOT the amount of work we, as home schoolers, do to show ourselves worthy to be separate from the public schools. It is the amount of hostility shown toward home schoolers by the leaders and authorities in the public school system. Granted, our act of home schooling may hurt their pride, since we are, in essence, rejecting their system. However, we cannot reject their authority.

After moving from Ohio (which has minimal requirements of home schoolers) to PA (which has much more requirements for home schoolers than most states), I grumbled about the list of requirements that home schoolers had to complete. However, as I grew older and more experienced, I realized that these requirements, though annoying and burdensome, provide home schoolers with a lot of security in their accreditation. I, as a graduate of home schooling in PA, have a high school diploma that shows my hard work and is accredited by the state of PA. It will take me anywhere I need a high school diploma. However, my friends in Ohio often resorted to taking the GED at the end of their home school education because Ohio does not have such a rigorous system in place.

What kind of legislation would I like to see in the Congress of PA? (Besides, of course, an annulment of that ridiculous legislation allowing lawmakers to raise their own pay.) I would like to see PA require of school districts to not discriminate home schoolers in sports teams or field trips or the occasional class on a public school campus. My own school district was amazingly friendly toward home schoolers, and as a result I could combine the best of their high school and the best of home schooling, thus making them look good and giving me the education I wanted. They also granted me a high school diploma from that district, since I had fulfilled all their requirements for graduation. Though I had a diploma, this was a nice acknowledgement from them. Some home schoolers have abused this treatment from districts like mine, it is true, but if the state regulated what districts could do about home schooling and what home schoolers could do in the public school, then we would have much less abuse of the system on either side of education.

And then there are the home schoolers who have done fantastically without the aid of their school districts. Congratulations!

Age

Does anyone else my age feel old, and worn-out, and visionless? I had a vision, it seemed, but it fades and I can hardly see through the present to the future dream. I had energy, it seemed, but daily cares and worries have sapped my best strength and most worthy efforts from me, until it seems that my efforts are frittered away. I had youth, once, but how am I to regain it again? Oh, God, WHY AM I HERE?

Where is my passion? My life? My calling? My hopes? Dreams? My purpose? My fire, my yearning for a higher good and a better ending?

Why am I obsessed with my wants and needs? All I ever needed is right here with me. Oh, God, be thou my vision. You are Lord of my heart. Let nothing be to me as you are. You have always been my best thought, no matter when I thought it. Your presence is like light to me. Oh, God, be my wisdom, and let me speak your truth! Let me be with you always, as you are always with me. Let me be as true a daugher to you as you have been a great Father to me. You live within me, and I am one with you. I do not care about riches or praise from men. You, God, are and always have been my inheritance. You and you alone are my first priority. You, O King of heaven, have been my treasure. O High King, you have won my victories! May I reach heaven's joys and heaven's bright Son! Your heart is of my own heart. Whatever may happen, O God, be my vision still, O Ruler of All.

*sigh*...long post--only read the caps if it's too long

SO...if you haven't noticed (check the time of posting), I have a problem with falling asleep. I think it has to do with my elvish genes, but it so happens that I am not completely elvish. Ergo I need more sleep than an elf. In any case, I figured I'd outline my different philosophies of sleep just for fun & to make myself laugh at the futility of my plans when God is in control anyway. To quote the fantastic poet Robert Burns, "The best-laid schemes o' mice an' men /Gang aft agley, /An' lea'e us nought but grief an' pain, /For promis'd joy! (The best-laid schemes of mice and men/go often astray/And leave us nothing but grief and pain/For promised joy)

PHILOSOPHY #1:
SLEEP IS OVERRATED. Who wants to sleep when there's so much interesting stuff going on? --This philosophy usually results in me staying awake bumming around the 'net (LIKE THIS BLOG) or talking to friends or organizing old memories or searching for a favorite passage in a book.

PHILOSOPHY #2:
I SHOULD JUST SLEEP WHEN I'M TIRED. --I've never been able to follow this philosophy fully. Falling asleep in lecture or on the job is simply not an option. Staying awake all night because of low serotonin levels, though frequently occuring, should not happen either. Trust me on this one.

PHILOSOPHY #3:
I MUST ONLY NEED CHUNKS OF SLEEP, not a whole 8 hours like most people. --This usually results in an extended afternoon nap, and late-night studying after school. Which is nice, but it's hard to study late at night 'cos I seem to waste more time. LIKE THIS BLOG.

PHILOSOPHY #4:
I SHOULD JUST LAY DOWN FOR 8 HOURS, whether I'm tired or not. --Laying down, while resting and helpful, is NOT sleeping.

PHILOSOPHY #5:
NO DRUGS!!! --This philosophy I follow all the time. No melatonin, serotonin, or any other addictive supplements, even if they're natural. I don't want to get addicted to pills just so I can fall asleep! I've survived for 20 years like this, I can keep going & avoid addiction. I do drink tea & sugary stuff :-D if I'm REALLY not falling asleep. No, turkey doesn't help. Trolley rides REALLY help, but unfortunately they kick me off at the end of the ride (seriously...that happened one time).

PHILOSOPHY #6:
LISTEN TO MUSIC/READ BOOKS/distract myself in general from my purpose. --While this has allowed me to read wonderful books and listen to fantastic music, for many, many undistracted hours, it really doesn't help me fall asleep. I get too wrapped up in whatever media I'm pursuing, and can't stop until the book is over or I've finished analyzing the musical quality or lyrical content in a song. Still, if I'm going to stay awake, I'd rather do this than homework :-P

PHILOSOPHY #7:
THINK ABOUT NOTHING BUT SLEEP. --After a while, this gets extremely monotonous. Especially since I think about sleep a lot during the day anyway.

PHILOSOPHY #8:
SLEEP FOR 2 WHOLE DAYS AND BE AWAKE FOR 2 WHOLE DAYS. --This one I'd love to try, and next semester I'll organize my schedule so I can try it out for a while. I heard about a lady in China who lived to be very old, and that was her sleep schedule. I'm not sure how Sunday would fit into that schedule. Sunday's a day of rest, I suppose, but would that mean 4 days of sleep and 3 days of activity? I'm not sure.

PHILOSOPHY #9:
THINK ABOUT NOTHING. --I can only do this for so long. When I do succeed in calming my mind down for long periods of time, I usually feel pretty refreshed mentally, but it does somewhat disturb me that I'm thinking about nothing. It requires an intense amount of discipline to accomplish this, but I need to remember to fill that empty brain with God when I "come back." I can also get the same refreshing effect if I think about one specific aspect of God's character. When my thoughts wander toward the hugeness that is God that is apparent in all of his aspects, I don't cower in fear because of my smallness. I try to "un-embrace" the bigness, that is, to open my mind & allow my smallness to become so small that it's nonexistent. Then I feel like I have no mind and I'm just IN God. That's a really cool feeling, and I much prefer that than just emptying my mind.

AS you might be able to tell, this issue is like the elephant in the room for me, but others don't often notice or find out. For example, how many of you who saw me this Sunday figured out that I had only gotten 2 hours of sleep the night before? And I still can't fall asleep tonight! Anyway, during my long times alone at night I can think of some pretty weird stuff (like philo. #8--I seriously suggest trying that sometime, though. It's amazing).

I could make another list just as long. Every night brings a new Philosophy of Endeavors for Somnolency. In this case, I ascribe to Thomas A. Edison's philosophy: "Results! Why, man, I have gotten a lot of results. I know several thousand things that won't work. I found five thousand ways how not to make a light bulb [sleep]."

Someday I will also be able to draw a connection between this and the gospel.

Yummmm....

Sunny-side-up eggs, strawberry jam, toast, white tea with sugar.....

All I need is a wood fire.

And some Longbottom Leaf.

Excuse me while I go dig up a pipe somewhere...

I think the hair on my feet is growing. Are my toes bigger than they were?

ATTACK Theater Part II

MMMmmmmMMMMMmmm! It's amazing how dance can arouse such visceral emotions...I'm still trying to sort through the meaning/message/purpose of "Games of Steel," but I ADORED the performance and the duet at the end between Michele de la Reza and Peter Kope was simply fantastic. No wonder they got married. She loves to dance, and he loves to watch her. But that wasn't the point of the performance, anyway :-P. Their lead singer was also phenomenal, both in her singing and her actings skills. That dance made me yearn to dance as lightly as feathers but as strongly as a bull. Jill Stifel captured this amazingly.

Men should NOT wear tight pants. At all.

I really can't describe how cool that show was... actions speak louder than words, anyway.

turning 21

So, I've decided that, when I turn 21, I'm going to go celebrate at an Irish pub in Mt. Lebanon called "Molly Brannigan's." Noooo, not to get wasted, but I figure I can celebrate my heritage while having my first legal alcoholic beverage. (The first alcohol I tasted was in some tube of German chocolate when I was about 10 or 11...we didn't know what was in it until later :-P) According to the Pittsburgh Tribune-Review, Molly Brannigan's is a REAL Irish pub, and not just a "watering hole" for the alcoholics and occasional binge drinker.


Isn't it scary to think that I'll be 50 in 30 years? And, yet, the math makes sense somehow...

life is like a pile of mucus and dust...

Never has this house seemed so small until my family is on the verge of buying one that is twice as large.

Never has this house seemed so large as when I see the refugees down South surviving in distraught conditions.

Never have I hated PCs as much as when the program fails 40 hours before it's due. *kicks pack of useless CDs*


Oh, take me away!
Away
to a world of snowflakes
and stars
and frosty branches that snap sharply under my feet
Let's dance
in moonlight
on water
frozen water
toes twirling in snowflake dust
hands clasped, warming each other
breath
floats on gentle wind
catching the moonlight
reflecting again
You play
I sing
our melody will wake the cold world
Our twain hearts
warmed within
Away
in Winter


The Life that I claim in Christ has revived my soul to a point beyond reason or belief. It seems that I do not trust God, it is God who trusts that my human nature will turn to him again and again and beg for relief and mercy and forgiveness. Thank you, God, for this trust. May I never betray it and deceive myself into thinking that I no longer need you or that you can no longer provide. Thank you for the snowflakes in my mind.

ATTACK Theater :-D

Yessss! I won two free tickets to the newest performance by Attack Theater. It's called "Games of Steel," and like almost every Attack Theater dance, no one really knows how to describe it, so I'm expecting to be very pleasantly suprised. I went to their performance of Igor Stravinsky's "A Soldier's Tale," and it was SUPERB. But, anyway, GoS has been described to me as somewhat like "Survivor" only not, if that's helpful. Here's a website (sorry for the lack of linkage) http://www.attacktheatre.com/hot/houston.html

BUT ANYWAY. The point of this post. I dunno if any of you out there are dance aficionados in disguise, but I'm looking for someone to come with me and use up that extra ticket. If anyone knows of someone else who would love to go hear live music and watch amazing dancing, LET ME KNOW!! And if I find someone to use the extra ticket, then other tix are only $10.

Guys, if you'd like to come, great, but be forewarned that most dances I've seen in Pittsburgh involve quite a bit of immodesty. I don't know about this company (nothing remarkable was in "A Soldier's Tale"), and it depends on what you can handle, but just a warning.