There's no such thing as a free lunch.

There's also no such thing as a cheap t-shirt. Last summer, I read a book called Everyday Justice, about the things that normal people can do or change in their everyday lives in order to pursue justice in the world. The author calls them 'tweaks' to the way we already do things. Most people can't or won't completely overhaul their lifestyle of habits, but by changing some things in how we live, we can pursue God's justice in the world.

One of the main things that sticks with me is the idea of thinking of 'hidden costs.' I was raised to look for bargains and good deals in everything, to buy cheap. My parents are both very...frugal, which isn't a negaitve thing at all. But a lot of things that we buy for cheap come at great cost to others. Thinking about the fact that the Biola t-shirt I'm wearing right now could have likely been made by a junior high girl, working 80 hours a week, and also possibly expected to have sex with her employer makes me a little disgusted with myself. But it's not always enough disgusted to keep me from buying a cheap shirt at Kohl's or Old Navy, two stores that I love. It's far enough removed that I can go without thinking about it for a long time. And buying clothes ethically does seen way too overwhelming, since I haven't found any actual stores and I'm not a huge fan of buying online.

After I read the book, I decided to go this school year without buying clothes, primarily to seek out places to ethically buy my clothing. I haven't quite made it, but I also haven't bought as much as I would have otherwise. I'm not totally sure what I'm going to do when the school year is over. Fairtrade clothes are a lot more expensive, because the workers that made it are paid legally (Labor cost is generally .04% of what we pay for an article of clothing). I don't have the money to spend, so hopefully it'll make me think more carefully about what I buy and I can buy more intentionally and whatnot. That's the goal at least and I've got a month and a half (!) until the end of the school year to figure it all out.

Vaya con Dios.


http://www.newdream.org/marketplace/clothing.php

 http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/programmes/documentary_archive/6564445.stm

A young girl was walking along a beach upon which thousands of starfish had been washed up during a terrible storm. When she came to each starfish, she would pick it up, and throw it back into the ocean. People watched her with amusement.

She had been doing this for some time when a man approached her and said, “Little girl, why are you doing this? Look at this beach! You can’t save all these starfish. You can’t begin to make a difference!”

The girl seemed crushed, suddenly deflated. But after a few moments, she bent down, picked up another starfish, and hurled it as far as she could into the ocean. Then she looked up at the man and replied,

“Well, I made a difference to that one!”

There are more important things in life than my no-longer-a-teenager angst, my love for The Office and Harry Potter, and my eagerness to graduate. That might be all for this month.

Til I see Your face, see it shining through

I want to graduate so badly. I'm having a hard time with this last semester and being...present, I guess. I think so much about the future, about living in AZ and finding a job and getting an apartment that I can't enjoy the time I have here and now. I feel like I no longer have any friends; I only really talk to my roommates and the people in my classes. It's like...well, I'm not going to be here in 4 months and you can't keep all your friends from college anyways, so why try? Sometimes, I am ridiculous.
I'm also basically incapable of doing homework. I'm typing and doing so well on a paper...and then suddenly I'm on Facebook and I don't even know how it happened. I tend to go for a reward system with myself and homework, like I get to get dinner after I finish this section or this assignment, I get to check Facebook, I get to watch The Office. It's pretty effective, except when the lazy part of my brain takes over and forcibly drags me away from doing homework without me realizing.
I really like Elisabeth Elliot. I wish we could have been friends. Except she would not approve of my laziness.
Um...I don't really have anything else to say. I'm bored. And sleepy. Too tired  for homework (obviously) but not tired enough for sleep.  I'll go read instead.

Vaya con Dios.

And so each step she’s taking is a step of faith toward who she’ll be

I don't want to only blog when I'm all melancholy and lame. This is about my life and my life has the valleys, but the mountains too and I've been doing pretty good lately. I got to go home this past weekend and it was super awesome. I got to see and hang out with my family a lot and also with my friends at home. My sister told me that I need to find a man RIGHT NOW and even wanted to pick up a guy off the street for me. My two best friends are both engaged now which is super exciting. Me and Becky talked about things for her bridal shower and bachelorette party, both of which are going to be so excellent since I'll probably be planning and such. On a side note, Firefox does not think that 'bachelorette' is a word. What's up with that?

Anyways, hmmm...life life life. Life right now is a lot of homework and interning. I'm at a group home about 20 minutes from my school and it's awesome and frustrating and challenging and great. I like going and I love the kids, but kids who've been neglected for the majority of their lives tend to act out more and act more immaturely than they should. I like most of the staff, but adjusting to three different staff groups with different opinions about me and what my role is can be confusing.

God is great too. I don't like the valley part of life and such, but learning the lesson is so great. I was reading part of The Screwtape Letters yesterday and it was talking about how God uses the hard time to come nearer to people. The book is written as a collection of letters from one demon, Screwtape, to his nephew Wormwood about how to lure a man away from God, whom he calls The Enemy. He talks about how God wants to preserve and give us free will, so oftentimes He'll in a sense "back off" and let us figure things out by ourselves, but that He may also speak to us more clearly in those times. Screwtape says that a man is truly lost to their cause when he can be in darkness, unable to see or hear or feel God, and still trust Him and put their confidence in Him. I've never really read a lot of the book so it was really interesting and so true. It made me think about my life a lot. I've never hit 'rock bottom' or whatnot and felt totally alone and depressed. This isn't an "I'm so awesome because I did what God said" either. It's...I don't know. I don't really have a plan as to what to write. I haven't totally learned the lesson yet, but I have and am learning to be confident with God's plans and God's timing, even when I have no idea what it is and even when I'm so frustrated. Like now. Ugh. Reading it was also interesting because I do feel like God is more distant now that I'm 'better' and definitely that I don't seek Him as much, which is definitely a problem. I'm working on it.

But back to my original point, life is great. It really is. Not like a fake great where really it sucks but I don't wan to announce that online or even a mediocre. There are things that aren't good and things/people that frustrate me, but there are a lot more that bring me joy, like hanging out and laughing with my sister and getting Taco Bell and sharing  testimonies with an awesome girl I just met. I'm really excited for life and what God has in store.

Vaya con Dios.

Tired of the eggshells we've been walking on

Sometimes...I am ridiculous. Sometimes I completely understand why men say that women are complicated. I don't think that all women are all the time...but I definitely have the moments where someone else would need a dotted line and an X to mark the spot to understand what I'm thinking. Just sometimes though. But that's not the point of what I'm trying to say.

Today at my internship, one of the girls in the group home did not want to do her homework at all. She was pretending to be a dead possum and running around in circles and eating chips and talking to the staff members there, anything to keep from doing the one last division problem on her worksheet. At one point, her house mom told her that her homework wasn't just going to go away; that it'd still be there when she was done doing what she was doing. It made me think, because I do that a lot. I hope that problems go away if I don't have to deal with them, don't have to talk about them. That how I feel about a situation or whatnot will change if I ignore it and act like everything's fine. Or even when I know that it's not a good way to handle anything, I still do it. It's ridiculous.

I've been listening to Taylor Swift today because it just feels like a Taylor Swift sort of day. Does that make sense? Anyways, so Taylor Swift mixed with some Hawk Nelson stuck in my head and coupled with thinking about my problems not going away made me all melancholy. Thinking about all the things I've left unsaid, the situations and relationships with so much that I don't want to talk about, so much I want to ignore and pretend like I'm doing just great. But sometimes, writing about it helps and brings me out of my funk, at least for the night.

Vaya con Dios. Happy Valentine's Day!


you're beautiful
every little piece, love, don't you know
you're really gonna be someone, ask anyone
when you find everything you've looked for
i hope your life leads you back to my door
oh but if it don't, stay beautiful

Tied together with a smile

I am passive-aggressive. I've probably known this for a while but didn't have the specific word or definition to apply until last semester. In my small group communication class, a group did a presentation on conflict management styles: assertive, passive, aggressive, and passive-aggressive. They said that passive-aggressive is the least healthy. I was like, 'hey...it's not the worst thing I could be.' In another class we were taking about conflict and how we respond to it, as a part of a whole personality test deal. Basically, my personality type will withdraw or give in when faced with conflict. In that class, she also gave us a list of responses to conflict, like attacking the other person, freezing them out, etc. The one that resonated the most with me was called something like 'Vengeance is Mine.' Basically, it means that I try to subtly 'punish' someone when I'm mad at them. The silent treatment is sometimes too obvious, so I still talk to and acknowledge someone I'm mad at, just in the least enthusiastic manner possible. They have really exciting news, I will reply with a 'that's great' and go back to what I was doing. I'm texting someone I'm upset with, they get short, curt answers with a period at the end. One word with a period...that is definitely the best way to communicate hurt feelings. Yes, I am so intelligent.

The thing is...I usually know I'm doing it too. It is a conscious decision to not be excited, to give curt answers over text or in person. Sometimes it's just if I've been hurt by someone and don't want to be again so I try to keep from investing in them, but sometimes I'm just mad and don't know how to handle conflict. Even when I'm being ridiculous, my head is yelling at me that I'm being stupid and I should apologize for being manipulative and we should talk about what's bothering me because it's obviously important. But the more scared part of me is usually more influential and it keeps me from saying anything. And even when I do realize my instincts and cut them off, I still don't say anything about whatever's bothering me. I just ignore it, pretend there's no problem, pretend I'm not still mad after 9. Nope, I'm doing just fine. My life is great, just busy with homework. It's so easy to hide everything and just say I'm doing good, my life is good, everything is good.

Communicating and conflict are not my greatest skills. Confronting someone involves mental planning, of what I'm going to say so that it comes out right and analyzing whether this really is important enough to say something and what the possible consequences. But then actually talking to someone and they immediately get defensive and I feel attacked and I am done with that conversation. I give in, you win, I am not talking about this any more. You keep thinking everything's fine and I'll just hold onto this bitterness that only comes out when I'm lonely. It's like my other post, satan knows what to use to get me. He knows my insecurities and fears as well as I do and he uses them against me in the worst way.

No matter how much better I like to think I'm doing, it's still the same old things over and over. I tell myself positive things, I try to handle things...but it's like it never really sinks in and I never really believe it. My head knows that I'm probably not always annoying, that I'm not ugly, that people do want to be friends with me...but the same messages keep coming back and hitting me in the face and they're impossible to get rid of. I know in my head that I've grown and changed a lot, especially in the past year, but then why do I still struggle with the exact same issues? Like the Relient K song, I struggle with forward motion. I struggle with really moving on, with being transformed, with relying on God and His strength. Ugh. Life just gets more complicated. I wish it didn't. I wish that one day I would have everything figured out, that I'd be at peace with who God made me to be, with how I look and act and think. I wish satan didn't have such a hold on me, that he didn't keep me so paralyzed with my own fears and insecurities. I wish that life would work how I wanted it to. That would definitely be awesome.

Vaya con Dios.

When every girl can see her beauty, we will be an army.

You may know that I'm in an Anthropology of Gender class this semester. I don't remember if I've written anything about it yet or not. Anyways, today I started reading our last book for the semester, called The Beauty Myth. It talks about how American society keeps women obsessed with their looks to keep them powerless...at least that's what I understand it to say. There are a lot of good things in it...a lot of really true things. It talks about work - that women, historically and statistically, work twice as hard as men. In a lot of tribal societies, women do 4/5 of the work. Here and now, women are often better and harder workers too. We also tend to have longer work weeks and more than half of married, working women are still fully responsible for any and all household chores and whatnot. Another chapter was talking about women's magazines and that it's advertisers that control what goes in them. Magazines are dependent on the revenue from ads so writing about how we don't need to diet, how we don't need to dye out gray hair or use make-up to hide everything we think is imperfect isn't going to happen. The advertisers marketing these products need women to be dependent on them. Thy need us to think that we need make-up, that we need unhealthy crash diets, and that we need to stay looking young at all costs.

Earlier today, the book was making me really angry. But now...I just feel completely and utterly powerless. A lot of gender related things are really deep rooted in our culture. So although someone may say they're not sexist, they probably are. I get upset sometimes at people tone of voice, nuances and implications in what they say, and throwaway comments, like" oh, that's just how boys are," because they reveal our true, deep cultural beliefs about men and women. The book was talking about something that we just can't quite put our finger on, it's too deep beneath the surface and influences so subtly that we don't really see it. Maybe I'm just depressed now because I'm tired. That's definitely a factor...but something this deeply rooted and this destructive feels like it can't be changed. Or change is too slow to help the junior high and high school girls that I know now. Girls I know who believe that they're ugly and that if they have sex with a boy then he'll love her, girls who have had had eating disorders, girls who say that they can't stand to hang around with other girls...so many things, so many problems.

I...don't have any solutions, any ideas. I know I should say something about how God is always working and God is sovereign, but I don't feel like He is. hy have women and the oppression of women seemed to be on His 'back burner' for all of human history? How is David a 'man after God's own heart' when he had multiple wives and stole another man's wife? How is Solomon the wisest man ever when he had multiple hundreds of concubines? The book Captivating talks about satan having a 'special hatred' for women, for targeting women specifically throughout history. But why, God? Why women? I'm still not sure of my views on women in ministry and whatnot, but why allow the church to be patriarchal and oppressive throughout its history? Why has the church been used as a force to keep women in their 'proper place,' teaching us that we're intrinsically less valuable, less intelligent, less able to lead? I could keep writing, but then it'd probably never end. I'm going to read Harry Potter instead. She writes excellent female characters.

Vaya con Dios.

The Girl Effect

Right now, I am painting my fingernails. Red, to be specific. I wanted them to be prettier for this weekend. Painting your fingernails and doing it well takes forever, as any girls reading this probably know. There's at least 3 coats of polish involved and the more coats you have, the loner they take to dry and your're supposed to wait for them to dry before you add the next coat. Basically, it takes an hour. Maybe more. An hour in which I cannot push my hair behind my ears, use the bathroom, touch food (because my finger tips have nail polish remover on them which is probably poison) or do much at all. Every time I paint my nails, I fail. I mess up at some point or, like now, I get impatient and start doing something.

I told you all that because I started thinking how ridiculous that is. There is no real benefit to painting my nails. People don't even ever comment and tell me 'hey, nice fingernails.' Wish they would, but fingernails are not all that important, even in my tiny bubble of a life. So now...if you haven't. Watch the video I posted. I am serious. It is fantastically awesome and not even very long. Go watch. I'll wait...


A lot of the time, I get so overwhelmed at the problems going on in the world. People are starving an women are forced into sex slavery and there's war and child soldiers and...so much pain. I'm just one person, what can I even do? I don't have enough money to give to everyone who needs it. I don't always have the wisdom to discern where to give and who to give to. What can anyone really do?

I heard about The Girl Effect at the beginning of this school year. I really like it. It really points out how something simple and overlooked could well be the force that turns all of these things around. People don't have a chance with poverty and government corruption and horrible living conditions holding them back. Not to bash the whole male gender, but men in third world countries tend to be the ones with the money and the power...and the corruption, greed, and lust. Women are more often and more intensely the victims. I think The Girl Effect would or could work because it empowers the victimized. Giving aid and money to the corrupt could help them poor a little, in some version of the 'trickle down' effect, but more likely it just provides houses and cars and planes for the corrupt men in power.

Look up The Girl Effect website. Do something small that has the potential to have a big impact.  http://www.girleffect.org

More blogs about The Girl Effect: wiselivingblog.com/the-girl-effect-blogging-campaign

Vaya con Dios.

Oxidation is fancy talk for rust

This weekend has been so great. I watched Season 6 of The Office on Netflix. All of season 6. I was very busy. But anyways...back further than that. Harry Potter was so fantastic, better than what I've come to expect out of the movies. I  like all the movies, but don't think that they're feats of moviemaking and I always compare to the books too much, so they pale in comparison. But the seventh movie (part 1) is hands down the best of the series. I think it's because it's only the first half of the book. All the things they have to leave out that leave the story or the characters underdeveloped, they got to keep. I'm so excited for the next movie, because it's going to be non stop action. There's a little bit for the beginning and such, but most of it is going to be the Battle and I am so excited. Beyond belief.
I'm also excited for the end of the semester. It's been great, but I always start hating homework and getting so lazy and unmmotivated. I have done so little homework in the past 4 days. I did a little 2-page thing for a class and edited my big ICS paper a little, but that's all. I've also only done 2 of the 13 hours of work I'm supposed to have done by the end of the week. Instead...I watched The Office. And then more of The Office. And it was so fantastic. I've been working on so much the last couple of weeks that I needed the break. And then the fact that I only have 2 days of class, and only 1 class on eac day this week just maes it harder. Charlotte and I are driving home Tuesday night, which reminds me...

My plans for Thanksgiving:
Wednesday: Harry Potter IMAX at 7:30 (Sorry college group...family plans come first.)
Thursday: Eat way way too much food
Friday: wake up unhumanly early, go shopping with my dad, Chris, and Allyson, take a nap, go to Randy's house to hang out with Becky and antagonize Randy (and celebrate that they're engaged now!). Friday is going to be a great day.
Saturday: write my social work term paper (8-10 pages). Blech. If anyone wants to hang out, I am definitely up for it.
Sunday: hang out, be lazy, finish my paper if needed.
Monday: leave to go home! then go to class.

I like going home. I sleep so much better in my bed. PLUS, my house is way warmer than my apartment. The heat in our apartment hasn't been working so my roommates have also been pretty cold. I think it's funny because I don't really notice a huge difference. I'm as cold as I've been all semester long, so I don't really notice a huge difference. Oh, I'm also registered for next semester (almost). I'm going to be taking Intrcultural Communication, Social Work Internship, Flexibility and Core Training, Theology of Mission, and Intro to Ethics. I finished my CE requirements this semester. I'll only have 12 units, which will be good since I have to have an internship. I'm planning on talking to my boss at the cafe to get more hours or work at one of the coffee shops on-campus. That'll be great. Well, my class is starting now, so that's all.

Vaya con Dios!

Looks a lot like a tragedy now

Which best explains the American decision to drop atomic bombs on Japan?
A. To frighten the Russians into (..something...)
B. The desire to end the war quickly and save American lives.
C. The inexperience of a new President
D. A thoughtless decision by a large bureaucracy

What would you answer to this question? It was one of the questions for my online World Civ 2 class test this week. Answering from the information in the book, the correct answer is B. I really wished that there was an 'E,' an option to combine the factors of A, B, and C. The information in the book on this topic is one of the very few places that I would say reveal a strong bias. Maybe it's just because I disagree with the decision or maybe whoever wrote this section was more biased. I won't ever know. And since it is a world history class, discussion of the United States is fairly limited since there's the whole rest of the (mostly Western) world to think about. I remember talking about this more in my US History class in high school and I remember thinking that my teacher didn't quite 'approve' of the US's decision either. The book gives one sentence to explain the American reasoning (to save American lives, which is reasonable), and then a short paragraph to give the dates of the bombing and Japan's refusal to surrender even afterwards.

But I also remember that the United States was asking for an unconditional surrender, that the Japanese are basically totally under US authority. Would we ever accept an unconditional surrender, to submit the governing of our country completely to another nation? No matter that we think the US's government is better somehow and that we may be more democratic and whatever else. But the book makes it sound like Japan was being ridiculous and unreasonable for refusing to give up and even moreso for insisting that they keep their emperor. Especially in Japan, in a culture based on honor and shame and losing face, being forced to surrender unconditionally, being humiliated by the US, who I don't think they ever liked or trusted, is a big thing. The author made me feel like he thought that Japan should just give up, like it's their fault they got bombed. I don't think they chose for the US's brand new President to drop atomic bombs on two cities primarily housing civilians, not military. The atomic bombs, dropped in two successive days, destroyed most of the cities and killed about half each of their residents, not to mention creating leukemia cells in survivors, which killed a lot more people. Maybe because I read Sadako and the Thousand Paper Cranes  when I was younger, but I empathize more with them than with us.

I know that I'm biased also. I'm pacifistic and idealistic. I know these things. I know that how I think the world should work isn't the way that it does. I have a hard time with the practicality of war and murder. I also know that I'm not very patriotic and think that nationalism is a weird concept. I wouldn't say that I'm proud to be an American. I'm glad sometimes that I am, that I've been blessed to live in a democratic nation where I don't have to worry where my next meal is coming from. I've had a pretty easy life, I admit that, and largely due to living in a suburb in America. But there's more than that in the world. Just like my heart breaks for starving children, for girls and women forced into sex slavery in the US and internationally...reading about the Holocaust and Hiroshima makes me want to cry. This human world is so fallen and so corrupt. I thought about this a lot in Uganda, since I was in a politics class and learning more about politics and such than I had before. The only redemption or salvation for this world is in God. That's really my only hope, the only thread left to cling to when I learn more about the injustice and depravity in the world, whether in Child Protective Services in the US or sex slavery in Cambodia. I don't know how to conclude all my thoughts. God is sovereign. God is faithful. God is good. That's all I've got.

Vaya con Dios.