Oh, life.

It's so odd. There's so much going on that keeps me so busy yet doesn't seem to merit blog discussion. It makes me wonder, what makes something worth telling?
Well, for anyone who cares, my life recently has been as follows.

• My history teacher is driving me insane. (For example, Bethlehem is not part of Nazareth and never was.)
  
• I have been given advice on when and how to practice crying so that I don't worry anyone. (One popular tip is to practice in the shower so the sound will be drowned out.) It's really hard, I found yesterday, to manage to be brokenheartedly dramatic while saying things that are incredibly corny. (Especially when the "dead guy" who is neither dead nor a guy is lying there laughing.)
  
• My F&D corps is marching in an enormous televised parade this Saturday. (And I'm filling in for our fife sergeant who won't be there.) So I'm putting together two lists of tunes - one street song list and one list to play during free time at theater - some of the actresses enjoy dancing to the fife. I'm also learning new music, such as "Harem Scarem" and "H-l on the Wabash," for the purpose of playing them outside of the corps, like at theater.
  
• I'm enrolled in three classes for next semester - a traditional Biology course, a traditional Biology Lab course and an online Philosophy 101 course, which I am looking forward to. Having never taken an online course OR a philosophy course, it's the philosophy I look forward to most.
  
• I have been observing in Special Education classrooms at the school where I volunteer at kindergarten, for my SpEd class. It has been very educational.
• I'm trying to figure out how long I can get away with having my hair while playing a Renaissance boy, and working with my wonderful role triplets to figure out exactly the best way to fall off a chair and die in hoopskirts. (Not as the boy, obviously.)
• I took the SAT. It wasn't bad. Quite relaxing, actually.
  
• And I can't wait for my big brother to come home for Christmas. He's gonna be back for multiple days around that time. He plans to wear his dress uniform to the Christmas Eve service at church. When I think about how many moments lately and upcoming feel "just like a movie" it's quite staggering.

It's pretty tiring at this point, juggling everything. Really, I am quite excited to graduate high school. (I'd be more so if it wasn't an automatic ejection from youth group. And theater, but mostly youth group, which has been an incredibly important lifeline for the past seven years.)

One peculiarity of human nature that has been suggesting itself most lately is the ease with which we as human beings slip out of one role and into another. We all do it - we are relatives, friends, students, employees, coworkers, and many other things besides. It is brought to mind every time I get offstage as one of my characters and go right back on as another. It isn't that unrealistic a situation. The point is that we know what's expected of us everywhere. We are consistently, unconsciously changing hats. I change characters every Monday, when I leave the SpEd classrooms or the Christian Club, where I am either a college student or a casual friend, and go to fife and drum, where I am a senior marching musician AND a casual friend. Wednesdays are crazy this way. Yesterday morning I was an actor (I'm not even going to include the roles) and a fight choreographer and someone who works with children. Yesterday night I was a good student who went to school and talked about childhood obesity.

Bottom line? That's the thing. Every role we put on has a bottom line, the thing that's really inside. Integrity is making sure none of our roles are contradictory, and it can be difficult. But overall, each of our costumes are the same fabric, each of our definitions is ultimately influenced by the soul.

I figured I had to say something profound. About time.

Take a tip

I just went to my Facebook account settings and changed the language to "English (Pirate)." It is truly epic. I am keeping it. Forever.

Ouch.

Statements made by my Western Civilizations professor at this point include:

• 
  
  "Christianity is hostile to the spread of knowledge."


• 
  
  "Hagar was black, that's why Christians and Jews are so racist and Muslims are not."


• 
  
  "Christians love to hate."


• 
  
  "You can't trust the book of Genesis. It's like legends, it's mythology."

Okeydoke. Tip of the iceburg. Starting from the top. "Christianity is hostile to the spread of knowledge." That's why we build schools overseas. That's why there's so much great Christian academia out there. That's why we focus on The Truth (because it's not knowledge?). Okay. Gotcha.

"Hagar was black." Nope. Hagar was Egyptian. "That's why Christians and Jews are so racist!" Jews racist? I'm sorry? There are, I am certain, racist people out there who call themselves Christians. And Jews. And Muslims. And people out there who fight for racial equality, abolition, etc. because they are Christian. And Jewish. And Muslim. That statement was so stupid it's almost unbelievable.

"Christians love to hate." If they love to hate they aren't Christian.

"You can't trust the book of Genesis...it's like legends, mythology." Fine. You believe that. But teaching it in a college class...really?

I have a genuine desire to just skive off the rest of the semester, have a "truant disposition" and not go. One more paper, one more test pertaining to information that she posted for us on the internet. There's nothing I'm going to learn for the rest of the semester about Christianity or Islam that I will not know, or that I can trust to be true.

Old Guard Workshop

This past weekend, my family (minus the big boy) traveled to Fort Myer in Virginia to attend the Army Old Guard Fife and Drum Corps's Junior Workshop. It was a great event. The drive was pretty long, but we stopped at some historical sites, slept, studied, slept, memorized, slept, and generally had a good ride. The plus sides of these activities were that we didn't lose too much sleep from getting up at four and at five to drive and that I now know all of my 363 lines (give or take a few).
We stopped at Antietam National Battlefield on the way. The size of the place is incredible. And how is it supposed to feel to stand in a beautiful space of land and know that thousands of men killed each other there? My older brother, who is fascinated by the Civil War (and can probably tell you the name of any private in the war, where he came from, who he fought with and who his mother-in-law was), was the one who couldn't be there. There was a funny moment, however, when my freckle-faced red-headed little brother found and tried on a mock Abraham Lincoln beard in the Visitor Center gift shop.
The workshop itself was two days long and was seriously great. The fife section covered everything from fife maintenance to sight-reading to rhythm. Jointly we all did marching. I have no idea what the drummer sectionals were like... I was with a group of seven (four of us were from my corps) and we worked with a couple of hilarious sergeants. (The Old Guard musicians receive the rank of sergeant immediately upon graduation from Basic.) They were really great and fun to work with, and it was funny watching one of them, in an on-duty Army uniform, blowing into a fife that had a balloon on the end while the other exclaimed, "Why hadn't we thought of this before?" (It was my foresaid little brother's idea.)
We also visited Arlington National Cemetery (again, the scope of it was enormous), went to chapel on base on Sunday (the first time we've ever had the vehicle searched on the way to church), visited the Lincoln Memorial, and spent time with some good friends of ours who currently live in DC and who were extremely gracious in letting us stay with them instead of at a hotel.
Overall, it was an excellent weekend. I was reminded why I love being a fifer so much and equipped better to deal with my promotion. Now, moving on with my life.

Western Civ gems

My professor of Western Civilizations I is sort of like the one I had for English Composition II a while back. She's extremely bouncy, says and thinks some pretty weird stuff, stands opposite me in many cases and isn't bothered when I show it.

"Yes, the 'Art of Love' by Ovid is about...how do you say...how to get the girl. And then how to cheat on her later, without her knowing. It is very good. You will like it."

"We women, we know how to influence men, and make the men think that it was their idea. We have that power, we have that influence."

"I think we should have one, a dictator, in Puerto Rico. It would be good because there's a lot of...how do you say it? Chaos? There's a lot of chaos in Puerto Rico, and a dictator could make the decisions."

It's going to be an interesting rest of the semester.

What a week!

Last week was extremely interesting for me. Honestly, most of it was average, but there were a couple incidents that simply blew my mind. (In a good way.)
Monday at fife and drum, the director pulled me out of rehearsal and explained to me the requirements for promotion to the Senior Corps. The best players of the group. And then he said to me, "I want you in the group. You play extremely well, you know the music, you know the drill. You don't need to audition, you just need to say yes." I was extremely surprised. Most people in it, albeit not all, have done this for much more than three years. And our fife sergeant seems to never miss an opportunity to criticize me. There isn't much that's more irritating than hearing my name randomly shrieked during a rehearsal and having to stop playing to figure out what I'm doing wrong. (I'm not trying to criticize her. I voted for her as sergeant a few years back and she does an excellent job, and she is trying to make sure we look and sound our best.)
Tuesday. Class. Great.
Wednesday was auditions. Everyone has/had parts that they really wanted - there are SO many good parts in The Tragical Historie of Hamlet, Prince of Denmark. We did our best to make sure the only one who took a line fall when we cut two and a half hours from the play was Hamlet himself, who went from over fourteen hundred lines to just over eight hundred. Still absurd.
The parts I had my eyes on were Horatio, the fourth-largest part and Hamlet's good friend, and Gertrude, either the fifth- or sixth-largest role and Hamlet's mother. Both are really excellent parts and I hoped that if I didn't get my first choice (Horatio) I'd get my second (Gertrude).
If you had joined us for auditions that day, you would have seen ghosts, furious young men, insane young women, jabbering fools, the Knights Who Say Ni, and gravediggers with a bad sense of humor. They were originally scheduled to be three hours long, but went an hour over.
Thursday. Class. Great.
Friday was kindergartenish. How do you explain to a six-year-old who speaks no English how to do an activity that requires you to do things that can need to be explained, not just mimed? Yes, I do in fact rely on the bilingual children in the classroom to translate for me.
Friday was also the day we learned what parts we got. I was understandably thrilled upon discovering that I received Horatio AND Gertrude. The acting opportunities are excellent. I get to be terrified of a ghost and oblivious of a ghost, to be a married woman and a teenage boy, to die and to hold someone else as he dies, et cetera, et cetera. Splendid to say the least.
So it was an interesting, good week. Now, moving on to my first Computers for Beginners test, my first rehearsal as Horatio and/or Gertrude and/or a non-speaking gentlemen (the third cast), a drive to learn from the Old Guard at Fort Myers, and...uh...homework.

Catharsis in theater

My Western Civ professor finally took a break from the endless sex talk today as we began our discussion of Greek tragedy. She discussed a topic I had never really thought about before - that of catharsis and the getting out of feelings through watching a drama. She said that men need to watch violent movies and get out their aggression and girls need to watch tragically romantic "chick fliks" and cry to be emotionally stable.
I thought, if that's the case, I'm not a properly formed human being at all. I watched Titanic a few years back with a girl scout troop really late at night, and they were all sobbing and I was thinking "Climb on the plank with her, you moron!" There's enough drama in my own life - if it doesn't make me cry, a stupid fictional movie isn't going to.
I raised my hand and asked if acting would also do it. She nodded and said that it would do it more. Finally, the realm of personal experience. Last year, I recalled hearing from his mom, our Shylock would go home after Production Week rehearsals, arriving at about six, and would go to bed. It was such an emotional part that it did take something out, leaving him completely drained.
Next I thought of this summer's short-term missions project, during which I had put together, directed and ended up performing with an Everything Skit team. Not only was the directing of it, just the watching, listening, etc. very draining in that it filled me with adrenaline and had me pacing, jumping, and calling from sheer energy after a day of manual labor (I slept well that week!) but it was very interesting to feel that, conditioned as I was to belong in a very active role in that skit (the musical cues still cue physical reactions in me, such as increased heart rate, etc.), in that kind of a situation I really, really wanted to get something out in the doing. I was what you might call an overenthusiastic director. (Under certain circumstances I did end up being in my least favorite most experienced role during the performance, but more on that later.)
One member of my skit team, the young man who played Satan, was the first person to actually volunteer. That is, rather than me asking him, he heard from someone and came to tell me he was in. (The casting, getting people involved, was very difficult.) He evoked comments from an extremely empathetic leader that it looked like theater/acting/drama is very good for him, and I could see it. It does let something out that it would not be appropriate to release at other times.
So. Movies? Not seeing it. However, acting does do it. And "Hamlet" is a rather emotional play. It's going to be an interesting year for all of us, I think.

And another

I've been following this story over the past couple of weeks. An Iranian pastor, married with two children, was arrested while trying to register his church, and his charges were shortly changed from "protesting" to "apostasy" (converting from Islam) and "evangelizing Muslims." Both of those charges carry the death penalty.
The verdict has been appealed, and most recently the court, while investigating if he was a Muslim after the "age of accountability" which in Sharia is fifteen, commanded him to "repent" and return to Islam. It was discovered that he was never a practicing Muslim adult, but his condemnation was upheld on the grounds that he had "Muslim ancestry."
Section 6 – 225 of Iran's controversial legislation says “when a person's parents were Muslims at the moment they were trying to have a baby, and he or she converts to another religious without claiming to be Muslim, he or she is a national apostate,” [advocacy group director Jason DeMars] added.
Pastor Nadarkhani has refused to convert to Islam, and says he is happy in that his faith is strong. If nothing changes at the moment, he could be hanged as early as this Thursday.
Read more here.

Why does no one hear these things?

As mainstream American media usually doesn't share the news of what happens in the Middle East unless it has an impact on the USA, and almost never talks about the situation of those suffering from religious persecution or clashes due to that sort of prejudice, I use other sources. It's amazing just how much persecution of Christians goes on abroad, seriously putting into perspective the coldness and scorn that is usually as far as it can go in America.

LAHORE, Pakistan, September 21 (CDN) — A Christian mother of five was allegedly raped by two Muslim men last week, and area Islamists are threatening to harm her family if charges against the suspects are not dropped, the woman and her husband told Compass... Muslim criminals in Pakistan, where the population is more than 95 percent Muslim according to Operation World, tend to assume they will not be prosecuted if their victims are Christians. The accuser said Muslim men in the area have been harassing Christian women for some time.
[The woman] said that as they reached the police station, Muslims warned the family against pointing out [one of the rapists].
“They told us that they will kill my children and husband if I identify [him],” she said. “They said that we should not forget that we are chooras [sweepers, a derogatory word for Christians] and can bring no harm to them. They also warned that our daughters would face a similar fate if we did not listen to them.”

You can read the whole article here.

Love (Shouldn't) Come by Seeing

Ahhhh, gotta love Wednesday - theater day.
Having embarked on Sunday on the Intensive Discipleship Program (YWAM Publishing), I figured it was a good time to think about new ways of doing...what I need to live instead of do. I also figured the book would be good for focus. First topic: Love. As in, "for everyone." (And I don't mean that "Love has no gender" stuff.)
So. Back to Wednesday. There are a few people in my troupe that I have trouble loving. Because, y'know, I'm a regular sinful not-so-awesome human being. But hey, that's why we work on stuff. So this morning I thought about one particular girl I'm not so fond of. I thought, I'm going to try to love her today. Dear God, please give me a hand...because I'm probably going to screw this up royally.
I then proceeded to screw up royally by completely forgetting about it.
"Hamlet" is a fascinating play. Some of the more well-known material are the scenes in which Lord Hamlet's would-be girlfriend Ophelia is mad. Not just feigning insanity, like Hamlet himself, but actually bonkers. I have a friend who isn't much for acting in front of people. She is a wonderful person who gets her kicks in the costuming room because she loves sewing and who will go out in public wearing an ancient Greek chiton, and yet is very nervous performing in front of people. She does want the role of Ophelia this year however, and enjoys doing the mad scene, and is actually really good at it.
As a troupe we are going through the play, and we did the first of these "mad" scenes today. Our wonderful director had my friend do Ophelia. She did a magnificent job, until the fact that she was on a lit stage in front of a bunch of people got to her, at which point she tentatively requested a replacement and departed for the costuming room. I waited until I could get offstage (I was there too, as the young noble Horatio) and then went and found her to let her know how she was and that she did excellent and that I was proud of her for trying despite the difficulty.
After rehearsal ended, not long after, the girl I had resolved to look at differently came up and asked how she was doing. "She's doing fine. Just got nervous."
"She did a great job." she said. "Just making sure."
"She did, didn't she? I love her. She's awesome."
"Yeah," she agreed, "she really is."
I discovered to myself later that my feelings about this person had completely changed, now that I had seen something about her like that, concern for someone she didn't know particularly well (my friend is not the most social of people either).

Then I remembered my resolution from earlier. I had not done my best to love this person or even to like her. I had been tricked into it, as it were.
Lesson here? Undoubtedly. Just slightly too complicated to put into a handy little aphorism or moral.

College: The Weirdness of It All

So, five classes: Intro to Special Education, Child Psychology, Computer for Beginners (satisfying a requirement for high school, not college), Mathematical Ideas II, and Western Civilizations I.

Intro to Special Education is pretty much about legislature. I'm really hoping that, at some point, we start talking about teaching the students...
Child Psychology is a class with a male professor and one male student...plus about eighteen of us female students. The professor loves to talk and is pretty funny, and he also likes watching videos in class.
Computer for Beginners is essentially the most boring class I have ever taken. It's a three-hour class. Class 1: Left-clicking, right-clicking, resizing windows, finding the Start button and accessing Microsoft Word. This is not an exaggeration.
Mathematical Ideas II is education based. Meaning cute little worksheets and games like learning base four by pretending we went to the planet Fouria. Again, no joke.
Western Civilization has no textbook, no homework assigned yet, and all the class material is on summaries posted on the internet (the professor stated the intention of not having us need to take many notes). It's taught by someone who is teaching for only the second time in English and who believes in magic and the power of the human mind.

This 0ught to be another interesting semester.

Missing Women

Abortion and gendercide are issues that have been issues very near to my heart lately. As I believe that unborn children are still human beings, it therefore seems to me the murder of children for the mother's convenience and for the clinics' earning money. Furthermore, there is social stigma attached to daughters as opposed to sons in communities in Asia, such as China and India. China's One Child Policy appears similar to India's laws that prohibit families from having more than one child.
Live Action is producing a movie on this topic intended to come out next year.



There is almost nothing I can think of to say that isn't "horrible," "heartbreaking," or "inhuman." (Although the last one is horribly ironic for this

Summer comin, summer goin

Oh hi. It would seem that I managed to avoid blogging all summer long. Oops.
My summer was pretty great. Spent a week working with a short-term missions project with my youth group. Then I went and worked at a camp for autistic kids. I'll probably give each of these projects a separate post (each of them deserved it).
In the meanwhile, I am facing the new school year: Senior year. Thus far there are:

• TRIPLE-casting this year at theater. Shakespeare's Hamlet.
• FIVE college classes...plus only two high school ones this semester, so not bad.
• Preparation for my fife and drum corps's international performance next summer. New standpiece, probably a new drill, and a bunch of mercenary performances to get cash.
  
• The beginning of my participation in the activity commonly known as "dating..."
• A brand new kindergarten class :)
• New undertakings of the the college Christian Club (we're experimenting in actually organizing a schedule this year).
  

...and the SATs too, but who counts them?

It's adventurous already! For instance, earlier today I spent three straight hours sitting in a chair on campus cutting out little paper circles for my math teacher. I would love to say that I composed an existential poem or something from going snip, snip, snip. However, my only epiphany was "It's hot in here."
And a heightened appreciation for Easy Mac. Thank you college.

Funny sign

Stole this from Facebook where my mom posted it. Still hilarious, though there's no way it can challenge the widespread institution of solving disputes with Rock-Paper-Scissors.

Horrifying.

Strange behavior in a country that seems to worship enlightened "anything goes" tolerance. Which is not generally good either, but this may easily be worse. Delta Airlines may partner with Saudi Arabian Airlines beginning in 2012, a partnership which involves many restrictions to and on passengers on Delta flights to Saudi Arabia.

Saudi Arabia, which is governed by strict Islamic law, requires citizens of almost every country to obtain a visa. People who wish to enter the country must have a sponsor; women, who must be dressed according to Saudi standards of modesty, must be met at the Saudi airport by a man who will act as a chaperone.

Saudi Arabia bans anyone with an Israeli stamp in their passport from entering the country, even in transit. Many Jews believe the kingdom has also withheld visas from travelers with Jewish-sounding names.

Religious items such as Bibles that are not related to Islam may be confiscated at the airport.

Colby M. May, senior counsel of the American Center for Law and Justice, a conservative legal group founded by religious broadcaster Pat Robertson, said his office is trying to determine if the agreement runs afoul of U.S. law.

-------

In a statement to Religion News Service on Thursday (June 23), Delta said it "does not discriminate, nor do we condone discrimination against any protected class of passenger in regards to age, race, nationality, religion, or gender."

The airline, which did not deny the new policy, insisted that it has no control over who may fly to Saudi Arabia.

"Delta must also comply with all applicable laws in every country it serves," adding that passengers are responsible for obtaining the necessary travel documents required for entry.

"If a passenger travels without proper documents, the passenger may be denied entry into that country and our airline may be fined," the statement said.

The Jan. 10 agreement allows Saudi Arabian Airlines to become a member of SkyTeam in 2012 after "fulfilling all membership requirements," according to a SkyTeam statement. The Saudi airline is SkyTeam's first member from the Middle East.

The policy has deeply angered U.S. Jewish groups, especially since Delta is an American carrier.

"An Israeli stamp in their passport." Not even just someone who has Israeli citizenship - someone who has been to Israel in the past and has the stamp to prove it. And not just staying in the country, either - someone entering the airport to get on another plane to leave. Hasn't the world given the Jews enough garbage? Seriously?
Oh yes, and I wear a cross, and I take my Bible most places I go. Guess I can't go either. Even ignoring the fact that crew-cut T-shirts and loose hair are immodest on women...

This is despicable. So naturally, Delta Airlines goes with it for the sake of business. Well, if given a choice, I will never fly Delta. So, that business it lost.

Funny list

A friend posted this on facebook. It's hilarious.
http://www.cs.earlham.edu/~jimg/reading/bored.html

Breaking news

A tornado warning was just issued for several parts of New England. If anyone from other parts of the USA reads this, please be praying for the people who are already losing roofs and such in this region and for minimal damage.

Moving on for real

The school year in terms of youth group is over.
The class of 2011 is about 25% of the group, including the entire band and most of the most-involved people. These are some of the awesomest people I've ever known, with some of the most real, loving and sincere Christians I have ever known. Also, some of our youth leaders who have been heavily involved for a long time are also retiring (including our British rocket scientist, who my older brother pelted with questions about anything Star Trek, and my wonderful Compass mentor, who will be leaving with her husband in October). Finally, our crazy awesome youth pastor, who has been with the group exactly as long as I have, is leaving to be a senior pastor in another part of the country.
This past weekend was our last youth retreat of the year (hopefully we shall continue having them despite the fact there's going to be someone new in charge next year) and the last time that the group included those many, many people who are departing this summer. Friday night the seniors put their handprints on the Youth Room wall, immortalized in paint with the graduates of the past (sounds so dramatic, doesn't it?). We hung out and skipped rocks and waded at the beach, played nighttime Frisbee with a glow-in-the-dark disk, and sang and discussed testimonies in the group meetings. We made s'mores around a campfire, buried one of the middle-school guys in the sand up to his neck, told jokes (like the monk joke) and riddles, and some people had a mud war (started by one of the leaders, naturally). (And one of the guys had one of his flip-flops stolen by a fox.)
For me, though, it was also a reminder of one of the things that's going to be happening next year. Over the weekend, I had the opportunities to thank friends and leaders for who they have been and what they have done in the group, share with the group a song I had written for the people who are leaving (with two wonderful friends of mine singing with me because I can't sing - they totally saved me on that one), share my testimony also with the big group, etc. I also found myself as the listening ear, offering hugs, advice and love to a friend of mine. When someone I had never really talked to called me by name, it was just kind of an eye-opener in that I realized this.
I'm entering senior year. I remember from being a middle-schooler and a freshman that everyone knew those seniors (and most of the juniors) that actively participated. Those were the older kids, the leaders, and everyone kind of took for granted. And now there are about six of us tops in the class of 2012. And it's our turn to be leaders there. I heard things over the weekend that made me realize there are a bunch of people who are already seeing us as leaders (it's an upperclassmen thing). I guess it's really time to just, you know, do that thing.

Government: Prepare for the Apocalypse!

Not just any apocalypse, either.

Go to the Center for Disease Control and Prevention website: http://www.cdc.gov/
Click the search bar and type "zombies."
Hit Enter.
Click the first link that comes up.

From your government to you.

Ten Ways You Know You're a Fifer

1. When you hear a song you know how to play, your fingers start twitching.
2. You have a drummer joke for any occasion. Usually the occasion is responding to a fifer joke from a drummer.
3. You are used to situations where people in colonial clothing look normal and people in 21st-century clothes look weird.
4. You are justified in considering yourself an authority on good marching.
5. You know that the title of any song can be shortened to just the first word, unless it's one of multiple songs sharing a first word.
6. You can tell whether another fifer is actually playing or just faking it.
7. You look with pity upon the members of the local high school marching band.
8. You don't really know much about the views of your fife-and-drum friends - when you get together, you play, not talk.
9. You automatically gasp "OOOoooooh" when someone drops his or her fife. It's completely taboo.
10. You see one of your friends wandering around in colonial clothing listening to an iPod and drinking from a plastic water bottle...and you don't think twice.
    

Welcome to "normal."

Something that makes me wonder

As Christians we believe in one God in three persons, who is undivided still as the One.
Muslims believe in a single undivided Allah, who is one person only, and sometimes even believe that Christians are polytheists due to the doctrine of the Trinity.

In the Bible God calls Himself "I."
In the Quran Allah calls himself "We."

Look, call me confused, but...

Ten Signs That You've Been Working at a Kindergarten Too Long

1. You hear "Head, shoulders, knees and toes" and think "Head, thorax, abdomen."
2. You don't think it's weird to stand at the sink trying to blow bubbles with your hand.
3. You see your dog going in circles, pick her up and start twirling, saying, "Let's go in circles together."
4. You don't think that "Put a marshmallow in it" is a weird way to tell a child to be quiet.
5. You understand that anything can become a toy gun. And that really bothers you.
6. You understand mob psychology because the kids gang up on you at recess.
7. You are used to showing up for college with glue and glitter all over your hands.
   
8. You know how devastating it is to have three minutes taken away from recess or gym time.
9. You realize that the word "What" should be spelled "w-u-t," and that it's just as easy to write backwards when you're just learning.
10. You have no scruples about rewarding the children for good work with one Smartie. They love it.

UPDATE:

11. You can hug a child and then next minute yell at another who's misbehaving.
12. You appreciate a crayon-colored paper bunny that resembles a dump truck with eyes and big ears as a truly thoughtful gift.

Some comments on world news

England

The media and news stations (before the Geronimo operation that took down bin Laden) were buzzing about the wedding in England between Prince William and Kate Middleton. This provoked from people I know, the campus paper, the news, etc., ranging from "Can't wait till they get it off the news" to "It's just like a fairy tale!" to "This is an argument for the monarchy."

I was babysitting four girls ages 9 to 12, and of course they just had to get up to see it live at four in the morning. It was a lovely service, but all they were worried about is "When are they going to kiss?" and "What will her wedding dress look like?" We watched it on Fox News, and the reporter stated, "The first ray of sunshine came out the moment she entered the church. This is just like a fairy tale."

Honestly, all I can say is, I hope the world gets its fill of royal romance now so that some of us don't have to deal with it any time soon. I feel kind of sorry for the couple - I wouldn't want 1/3 of the world (an estimate we saw on TV, so very iffy) watching my wedding and going "When's he gonna kiss her?" But it means that the English figurehead monarchy, which must be excellent for national identity, is being strengthened. So, good news.

U.S./Pakistan

And then the news came in that Navy SEALS, with information from military intelligence, killed Osama bin Laden in a military compound in Pakistan. Americans have been rejoicing and celebrating in the streets. Again, this has prompted a wide spectrum of opinions that I have heard, from the common jubilation to "We're asking for the war to get worse" to, finally, someone who shares my response.

Proverbs 24: "Do not rejoice when your enemy falls, and do not let your heart be glad when he stumbles...For there will be no prospect for the evil man; the lamp of the wicked will be put out."

It doesn't make us any safer.

It isn't good that we took vengeance into our own hands instead of leaving it to God.

But there's this: The people who lost loved ones on 9/11, and in other bin Laden-engineered Al-Qaeda attacks, know that the man who masterminded those events is dead. For that, I am glad.

Good Friday

Luke 23:44-49

⁴⁴ It was now about noon, and darkness came over the whole land until three in the afternoon, ⁴⁵ for the sun stopped shining. And the curtain of the temple was torn in two. ⁴⁶ Jesus called out with a loud voice, “Father, into your hands I commit my spirit.”^[e] When he had said this, he breathed his last.

⁴⁷ The centurion, seeing what had happened, praised God and said, “Surely this was a righteous man.” ⁴⁸ When all the people who had gathered to witness this sight saw what took place, they beat their breasts and went away. ⁴⁹ But all those who knew him, including the women who had followed him from Galilee, stood at a distance, watching these things.

Holy Thursday

Luke 22:7-20

[14] When the hour came, Jesus and his apostles reclined at the table. [15] And he said to them, "I have eagerly desired to eat this Passover with you before I suffer. [16] For I tell you, I will not eat it again until it finds fulfillment in the kingdom of God."

[17] After taking the cup, he gave thanks and said, "Take this and divide it among you. [18] For I tell you I will not drink again of the fruit of the vine until the kingdom of God comes."

[19] And he took bread, gave thanks and broke it, and gave it to them, saying, "This is my body given for you; do this in remembrance of me."

[20] In the same way, after the supper he took the cup, saying, "This cup is the new covenant in my blood, which is poured out for you.

Happy Patriots Day...

3:30 AM. Wake up, get in uniform with fleece on top, depart for reenactment.
4:20 AM. Meet up with friends, wind up with an eight-year-old sitting on me (keeping me warm and her happy, it's a win-win situation).
5:30 AM. Watch reenactment (including watching my awesome first fife instructor die at his wife's feet from a Regular musket ball).
7:00 AM. Meet up with rest of corps, make sure our teensy little newest fifer gets to play songs he knows at warm-up.
7:30 AM. Step off for parade #1, about 0.75 miles. Really short. Then ceremonies.
8:15 AM. Go eat pancakes at a Patriots Day Pancake Breakfast at a nearby Baptist church.
9:30 AM. Naptime.(Hallelujah!)
10:30 AM. Stroll through historic cemetery then through downtown.
12:30 PM. REALLY quick lunch, catch bus to parade start.
(1:45 PM. Secret Performance, senior corps and alternates. Very short.)
2:00 PM. Step off for parade #2, just more than 2 miles. (It's been almost twelve hours...)
3:00 PM. SURVIVED PARADE #2!!! Hot dogs with Minute Men and corps, congratulate new corps members.
4:00 PM. Set out for home.
4:45 PM. Take care of all the stuff we had to bring.
6:24 PM. Blog about a long day that's not quite over but is no longer quite as strenuous. (We did a lot of walking in between parades, so yeah. Long day.)

Happy Patriots Day everyone...

Isn't it a bit early for this kind of drama?

I posted a few days ago about a the little exchange at kindergarten in which a particular little girl was especially adorable. Well, this is typical behavior on her part, so here's another.
Yesterday shortly after class started, I spotted another little girl stalking away from her, leaving her looking miserable. She turned and looked at me, and said, "She just won't let go. It was a few days ago and she still won't let go!"
O-kay. "What happened?"
"I told her that whatever it was I said to hurt her, I wish I could take it back. But she still won't let go!"
Any of the others would have said, "I said I'm sorry, but she's still being mean to me!" The way she talks is still far different than any of the others (including the other two classes I've worked with).
I tried to slightly upgrade the usual kindergartener comprehension response for her benefit, completely thrown off by a response I would expect from a high schooler - like, a really mature high schooler - and NOT from a six-year-old, and told her that other girl would certainly come around. She nodded wisely and said, still sounding sad but still wisely, "I know that deep down, she really wants to be my friend."
Six years old. And the way she says it...
This one will go far, if the drama doesn't drag her down along the way.

Irrelevancy at one of its peaks

This article about Paul Ryan's fiscal plan was advertised on the America On Line email site. It's all about statistics, giving a financial description of what would happen if the plan passed, etc.

Paul Ryan's Budget Proposal: Analysis of the Numbers

Why do I bring it up under irrelevance? Because of the descriptor that America On Line gave the article.
"Budget Takes Aim at Elderly, Poor"

The things I get from weird friends...

"From the lips of children and infants"

Yesterday morning at kindergarten I was sitting at a table where four children were playing with Play-Doh and there happened to be an extra mat on the table. This became a topic of conversation when others came who also wanted to play and were turned away with the reminder that the rule was four children to a table.
Little Boy #1: But there are five mats...
Little Boy #2: One of them is for parents here.
Little Boy #3: Yeah, like Miss Lisa.
Little Girl: Miss Lisa isn't a parent.
Little Boy #2: Oh yeah?
Me: No, I'm not.
Little Girl: Yep, because she's young.
Me: Not compared to you I'm not.
Little Girl (Sounding knowing, like sharing a romantic in-joke, and yet matter-of-fact like that's-the-way-it-works): When you find the love of your life, then you'll be a parent.

It was one of the funniest things I'd ever heard.
Once in a while I wonder why I still get up in the morning and slog through the slush to go work with six-year-olds who scream, fight, and occasionally swear.
Then one of them reminds me.

Stressed? Trust and Priorities

The topic last night at youth group was stress. Simple, right? It doesn't sound like such a big deal to many people. Nobody gets "stress leave" from work or school. Even when homeschooled, if I went to my mom and said "Hey Mom, I need a day off. I'm stressed" she would laugh and say "Me too. Get used to it" or "Welcome to the world, that's the way things are." And obviously it would be silly to even try, because things need to be done no matter how we are feeling at certain times. So maybe we could expect the discussion to err on the side of "Get lots of sleep and eat extra chocolate."
Oh wait. Not that simple.
The evening opened as a young woman I have known for many, many years shared about how trusting herself instead of God to cope with the stress of her senior year of high school sent her into a horrible downward spiral. She was being self-destructive to an extreme degree, and hit rock bottom before finally deciding to trust God instead of herself.
Trust was the lesson they emphasized, but the one that hit me was about prioritizing. She placed school above her relationship with God, focusing on how her grades were instead of how Jesus had redeemed her. It seems that it is an extremely common mistake to make, putting grades or work or that sort of thing above faith in God. It's really important, though, for Christians to view that with a God-centered perspective: grades are all well and good, but they are ultimately not the most important thing to be focused on. In the end, ultimately, it isn't going to matter whether we're getting As or B+s or even C-s (though that might be a factor in where God sends us on earth). It's not going to change eternity.

Spring

It's spring! We've had a bit of snow but it's gone now.
The play went off wonderfully, as every audience member I've talked to said. People worked hard, the transitions went well, et cetera.
Now, we're getting ready to perform Hamlet next year. This means working hard to know the play really well. The family my younger brothers and I are staying with while Mom and Dad are at my older brother's boot camp graduation is a family that goes to our church, our youth group, and also do theater, and whenever we want to get together in between. (It's a running joke between us that we might as well move in with each other.) We read/performed a couple of scenes from Hamlet last night and started trying to learn the characters we want to audition for.
My older brother graduated from boot camp yesterday! My younger brothers and I got to Skype him, and he looked very snappy in his dress uniform. He still doesn't get his computer yet, but he has his cell phone and can call us more often now. We're really excited about this!
Now that the extremely eventful past few weeks are over, the letdown is starting to kick in. However, it's going to be gone soon, because performance season for fife and drum is incoming at frightening speed. The beginning of the performance season is possibly the busiest time. Parades, musters, and random events that are neither parades or musters. It's getting stressful learning the drill and the music and everything well enough to perform as a flawless unit in front of a bunch of other units that know what a performance should look like.
And summer is already on its way!

Life, the universe, and everything

So I'm really sorry for having been so inactive lately. So much has been going on, yet there feels like there's been so little to actually talk about. So here's a brief synopsis of life.
My older brother is almost finished with bootcamp - he graduates later this month. From there, it's off to intelligence training.
Our dog had surgery on her leg because she tore he ACL. She's limping around the house with one bald leg where they had to make incision.
We're in the midst of Production Week at theater, and it is really hitting home to me how difficult Merchant of Venice is to perform, not because the acting and lines are difficult to do or learn, but because for me at least it is tough emotionally. The hard scene is the one in which Shylock the Jew, who has lost his daughter and most of his wealth, comes up and blames my character (Salerino) and his friend Solanio. Salerino and Solanio actually helped steal Shylock's daughter, and what do we do? We taunt him, we mock him, and while Solanio tries to get Salerino to leave, Salerino as played by me actually shoves Shylock and yells in his face. I've known "Shylock" for many, many years. He's been my "little" brother's best friend for pretty much forever.
And I put the fact that I'm a Christian in my bio, sent it in, and THEN remembered that we're performing Merchant and who I am in the play. Oh well, it's just a play. People will understand that.
On the other hand, we have a lot of fun together. When not acting, we dance to each others' music - recorder, fife, violin, viola, etc - or do random cartwheels and stuff. Or we play zombie tag inside or outside if possible. We swish our costumes and use each others' names and each others' characters' names interchangeably. Hey, we've spent a ton of hours around each other, especially this week with seven-hour rehearsals every day. We're tight by now, even those of us who are new, like me.
My college Children's Literature course is also going swimmingly. We read kids' books to our classmates, research authors and illustrators like Robert McCloskey and Eric Carle, and study the history of kiddie lit.
Youth group is also excellent. We just had a short retreat in which we wandered around the city wherein the church is contained being filmed by our youth pastor while wearing ridiculous costumes. I wore a cheese hat, which led to many people assuming I was a Packers fan. We went to a restaurant where they cook what you want right in front of you, and I asked the chef guy to cook my hat. He took it, gave me his hat, put mine on and invited me in to cook. I cooked my lunch and that of this random other customer. And yes, this was caught on video. We also played trampoline dodgeball, soccer in the springtime mud, and went ice skating. I spent all evening clinging to friends' hands (and feeling the love - they were extremely helpful and compassionate) and to stacked milk crates. This because I can't skate.
Also, I stole an idea from Compass and instituted the youth group Smile Card. When someone makes you smile, if you are the holder of the Smile Card, you write in their name with an arrow pointing from yours to theirs, and give it to them. It began in the morning, and by the evening it had changed hands more than twenty times. The magic thing about this card that Sweet n' Spazzy, who started the Compass Smile Card, probably intended, is that receiving the Smile Card makes you smile. It makes you happy, knowing that you made someone else happy. The Smile Card brings still more smiles to the group.
So, looking forward to first performances this weekend (although NOT looking forward to missing youth group for the next two weeks) and to my big brother regaining access to Skype, that's where I am right now.

What a scrape

Last night at prayer meeting before youth group, a friend of mine shared about something that happened to him during the past week.
He was jumped by three guys, one of whom had a gun. He handed everything over, and then they said they couldn't have him telling anyone about this. It didn't look good.
That was when a van with four undercover cops suddenly pulled up and arrested the muggers. My friend got away unhurt and safe.
Now, he's concerned about what he has to do next: even though he forgave them and told them so, he's got to testify against them in court.

This was really tough to hear. I could have lost my friend, a bunch of my friends could have lost their friend, and yet another friend could have lost her boyfriend. Anything can happen at any time, no matter how safe we feel in any situation. And I have been thanking God a ton for protecting this guy.
It also shows something else. He forgave them for what they did, even though they could have killed him. My friend is about seventeen, eighteen. But he's got an incredible faith in the hardest moments that I can't help but really admire.

So maybe TheOnion is being bipartisan.

Maybe they want to show both sides of the issue in the same absurdly overstated way. Is this how Democrats in the government are viewing the healthcare bill?

Random fact

A friend of mine from church and theater found in her script that in Shakepeare's day the word "teen" meant "suffer" or "suffering."

There is no other word for this but "epic." None that I can come up with anyway.

Tim Hawkins spoofs

Speaking as someone who loves each and every one of the spoofed songs:
Epic. Legit. Totally awesome.
And, in a less teen-like way of putting it:
Extremely clever and highly entertaining.

The Importance of Community

Last night I was in a meeting with my mentor (one of the things required by the Compass program was a mentoring agreement) and the thing that she started out talking about was bringing up the importance of community, which we then discovered to be something that was a theme in the section we were on of a book we were looking at. So after the meeting, I went down to youth group and discovered that the theme of the night was...community.
Community is something that is extremely important in Christianity. In fact, C.S. Lewis once remarked that there were two things a person cannot be alone: married and a Christian. And having a community is vital to discovering your identity. It's when your personality, skills, abilities, etc. come out the most. Furthermore, the support of a community is immensely important in dealing with life, especially the stressful parts. And any part of life is automatically more stressful if you don't have community, if there isn't anyone to share it with, if there's the added strain of loneliness.
A friend of mine recently wrote that she is remembering that to have friends one must be a friend, and that it is important to love those who don't love you back, and to be warm and welcoming to those who turn away from you. The best way to be a part of community is to do what you can for the community. And if you care for others, they will also care for you.

Goodbye

My older brother left yesterday morning for bootcamp. As of last night, he's at the fort that was his destination. This means nine weeks of boot camp, then seventeen weeks of intelligence training, then sixty-four weeks of language immersion.
At the moment, we're coming up with schemes to entertain him and stuff, funny or normal things to mail to him, etc.
I hope everything goes OK...