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.

Ron, Ron, Ron Weasley, Dumbledore!

I seriously, really cannot believe that the first half of the last Harry Potter movie is coming out next week. In 9 days, I will be sitting at a movie theatre and in 9.5 days, it will be over. I'll probably have just as big a crisis for the second one, but...it's...weird. Harry Potter was a huge part of my childhood, in some ways. I remember my teacher reading the book to us in fourth grade. She would read a chapter from a book every day after lunch, but I had PI most days of the week during that time, so I would usually try to find the book after she'd finished and read it myself. I remember most specifically the first chapter of the first book because I was so confused. I could not figure out what in the world was going on and then I had PI for most of the rest of the book. I remember begging my mom to get my the first book in 5th grade so I could do a group book project (ah...remember book reports? I hated those.). She got it for me and then I got the second and third for Christmas that year. I have pictures from that Christmas. My mom made me and Allyson matching dresses and we're all dorky and cute. The fourth book came out that summer and I borrowed it from Kylie to read on a road trip to South Dakota with my family. The 5th book came out when I was 14, the 5th when I was 16, and the 7th when I was 18.

I remember walking to a midnight release party for the 7th book with Kylie. We wanted to see Hairspray and neither of us had cars so my mom dropped us off at the movie theatre for the movie and then we walked to the book store and hung out for a while. It was really hot out and we had to walk a long way. Then after we got our books, we sat outside the store reading them and waited for Charlotte to come pick us up. There was something really exciting about 8 or 10 pages in and when I got to it, I sat and waited for Kylie to get to the same point. We read all night at the house Charlotte was house sitting at and in the morning she made me get up and fish an Easy-Up out of the pool, because it had stormed and gotten blown in. It was way too complicated for my sleepy, Harry Potter-filled mind.

I've heard some college freshmen say that the Toy Story series was written for them; they've been the same age as Andy and graduated high school right before Toy Story 3 came out. Well, Harry Potter was written for me. The books ended right after I graduated high school and the movies will end right after college. Of all the books I have, I've probably read these ones the most. Going to the Harry Potter theme park this summer was beyond awesome. Thinking about the last movie, about the events and moments that have to make it on-screen makes me feel weirdly emotional. By that point, it'll have been 13 years since I first heard the first chapter. I could recount so many other memories, of the books and the going to the midnight movies and...a lot of other things. Harry Potter hasn't been the 'defining force' in my life, but it has been a big part. I will be sad when it's finally, actually over.

Currently, I'm so hoped up and excited for next week that I can barely stand to do homework and waste time watching Potter Puppet Pals and the theatrical trailer on YouTube. or those of you out there who are as excited as I am...it's only 9 days, 3 hours, 44 minutes, and 57, 56, 55 seconds away now!

Vaya con Dios.

You, have knocked me off my feet again, got me feeling like I’m nothing

I'm breakable.

That's what I've been thinking about for the past little while today. Earlier, I was in a really great mood. Not sure why, but I was happy and peppy and bouncy. But then I got a reply to an email I'd sent earlier and felt attacked and got defensive and it's like my whole day's gone down. From what? One three or four sentence email that I probably ms interpreted? That's really enough to ruin my whole day? It's enough to make me question myself, to make me doubt my motivations and then my value. It's enough to make me realize that I'm not so far from all the insecurities I like to pretend are gone.

What does being a new creation even mean if I'm still struggling with the same insecurities, the same questions as I was 10 years ago?

I know that I'm not invincible, that I'm not unbeatable but I'm currently feeling very breakable, very fragile. Like a tiny rock that hits a windshield and makes a giant circle of cracks until the whole windshield shatters. I know I won't shatter, but it's hard to...live sometimes. It's hard to keep from pitying myself and drowning in my failures, my sins, all the ways I don't and never will measure up but it's also hard to keep from building the wall around me taller and thinker and stronger. I don't know how to keep the balance, to be vulnerable and open and be okay with emotions but not be overly emotional and driven solely by my feelings. I usually don't know what to do about the cracks in my heart so I just ignore them, live and function as if they're not there. I don't like talking about things that have hurt. I know there's hurt and there's a crack but if I look the other way, maybe no one else will see it either. I can't get out of this cycle alone. It's probably the thing that makes me the most aware that I need Jesus. I know that I can't do it alone, that if I try I'll be weird and emotiona and super clingy and...someone  wouldn't want to be friends with. But if my identity is really rooted in being God's creation, being made in the image of God...that's where my confidence comes from. That's the solid rock I can stand on.

The person who knocks me down, who breaks me and makes me feel like I'm nothing isn't the person who sent the email. It's not any of the people that have wounded me throughout my life, intentionally or unintentionally. satan's the one who does the wounding and the breaking. My issue is with him. The real battle is against him. It's in changing my thinking and my processing of events, or, actually, in God working to change my thinking and processing.

Vaya con Dios.

Wishful thinking, mindless dreaming

So I haven't posted a log in a while and I thought I probably should. I have no idea what I'm going to say, so this will probably ramble on and around a little more than usual. But anyways, life has really been good. Not like super, spectacularly exciting and amazing every second, but good. I like my classes and as much I do not want to write a 25-page paper, the research is really interesting and awesome...and time consuming. Ugh. I'm also in a 'lull' in my semester. All 5 of my classes have final papers, from my giant 25-page one to a couple 8-10 page research papers and whatever in between - it's going to be a lot of papers. So if I'm smart and prepared, I should start writing them now. I should actually be doing that right now, but I don't want to.

I've also been working on my schedule for next semester and that's really strange too. It's my last semester of school, maybe ever. (Hopefully not ever, because I'm pretty set on this social work grad school thing, but whatever). But at least for the next couple of years after this one, I will not be in school. I won't have a summer break. I won't be living my life split in half. I'll be living in one place and that is really exciting. I'm not sure how life is going to be like when I'm not in school, because basically all of memories have been in school, or summer vacation when I haven't had a job or anything. I know I use the word weird a lot, but a lot of things are weird to me. Life is generally weird, not what I expect or would predict, definitely not what I would plan on sometimes.

Oh, something else that's maybe important...I have been obsessed with Taylor Swift lately. I was obsessed with JJ Heller for the past few weeks, so it's a nice change. My roommate bought her new CD last week and I paid her for part of it so I could 'borrow' it. But I've spent way too much time looking up who/what people think her songs are about, because it's really interesting to me at least. But reading about her, Taylor Lautner comes up a lot because one of her songs is about him. And he is still very attractive. I've thought that Rupert Grint, who plays Ron in the Harry Potter movies, is attractive for a long time. I seriously love red hair; I've wanted it since I was 12 and I love it on girls and on guys. And he has nice red hair and a good smile. However, the character of Ron annoys me sometimes. Quite a bit, actually. He is not even close to being my favorite character in that series (his sister, Ginny, is close because she's awesome and also has the red hair). But I like Taylor Lautner even more, because I like Jacob's character. I've said before that if I had the choice, I would choose Jacob over Edward. Not just because Robert Pattinson is gross looking, but because he's also controlling and stupid. I did not think I was going to be talking about Twilight today. I like Taylor Swift better than Twilight; I just got distracted. The Harry Potter tangent I could expect. I'm almost as obsessed with that as I am with Taylor Swift.

As I keep going through school this last year, I'm more confirmed and more...terrified...of doing social work. I love kids and teaching and hanging out with kids comes almost completely naturally. I get along really well with 6-year olds and I love preschoolers. But kids in social work is depressing. Working with teenagers scares me more. I do not naturally have the social skills to talk to them. I usually think I'm weird and awkward and...ugh. But adolescence is also the most 'formative' and important time in someone's life, supposedly. Which actually just is more frightening, thinking that I could 'screw someone up' if I was a social worker with teens. But having the chance to write a 25-page paper on social work with teen girls for my ICS class is amazing. I love it. I love research, so it's pretty awesome. Life is great. I like my classes, my apartment, my friends.

I think I've written enough now. Life is good. I like Taylor Swift. I would be friends with her. I'm even more excited for Harry Potter which is in..15.5 days (!!). I should do my homework now.

Vaya con Dios.

It's funny how things change...and funny how they don't

Things that have not changed:
1. I am awesome
2. Gilmore Girls is hilarious and my favorite show.
3. Jess is cute.

Things that have changed:
1. I do not like cold weather. I used to say I preferred cold weather to hot. That was false. My circulation does not work properly and thus, cold weather is miserable.
2. I want to to work with teenagers. Ever since I was little, I've wanted to work with kids. I'm not always great at communicating with peers and adults, but I can talk to kids. Kids are awesome. They're easy; talking to or playing with kids is one of the things that comes most naturally. I can teach a kindergarten/first grade Sunday school class with no preparation and I do it well. But my...passion, I guess, for the past few months in teen girls. I love them; they are awesome...they are also more complex and more difficult.

Thus semester both of my opportunities for working with young kids (preschool-1st grade) went away or different reasons. However, in my one Intercultural Studies class, I am writing my big capstone paper, basically what my major has been working towards for the past 4 years, on teenage girls. Yep. My one last big ICS thing isn't about culture unless you think teens are aliens from another world, which some do. Anyways, I have to go to class now. My youth ministry class. I just wanted to write really quickly and tell you all how my life has changed, because I think it's funny.

So...thanks Horizons girls, for sucking me in. For making my life plans far different than what I thought they'd be 3 years ago. Thank you Rusty or making me a junior high leader. Thank you lady from the missions fair last year who told me that I should think about social work. Ach...I actually need to leave now

Vaya con Dios!

Ruby Slippers

I love Jonalyn Fincher. I've never really met her, although she did speak at a chapel at Biola last year with her husband. But she is really smart and really good at articulating her thoughts into a really amazing book called Ruby Slippers. It's about women, the soul of women and a lot of other things. Men should read it too because it is..fantastic.
I've been reading it slowly over the past couple weeks and I still have one chapter left, but I'm so distracted by her ideas ad I want other people to know what she says because she talks about a lot of things that I think are important.

I tried to start writing to talk about the book, about what she says. But I was 1 giant paragraph in and had barely started talking about what's important in he first chapter. But the book is seriously seriously awesome. her chapters can be long, but they're all so so good. She's talking about femininity, how it's been used to force women into a specific 'gender role' and used to constrain who we think we 'ought' to be. She talks about what femininity should be, how God designed it and how God designed women to bear His image. As a woman, I bear God's image just as much as a man does. I bear God's image in my soul, in the attributes and characteristics that I share with Him, attributes and characteristics that are different that the attributes and characteristics of men.
She talks about six broad, general traits of being a woman, six things that most women have. They're not things that are necessary to e feminine or to be a woman, but they're general 'family characteristics,' is what I think she calls them. She says that no women is ever ore or less feminine. Whether I'm sitting on my couch in a tank to and basketball shorts (as I am now) or dressed up for prom - I am always a woman and I am always feminine.
The chapter I read today talked about some of the weaknesses of women, things we tend to do. She frames them as our strengths and our attributes gone bad and says that men's weaknesses are often the same thing. She talks about a tendency to be passive aggressive, to send silent, subtle barbs at other women to hurt them. She talks about her own tendency to end over backward to please someone, about women's emotional sensitivity to others and how we need to be needed, and why that's a bad thing. She talked about the tendency of women to not like other women, which is something that always bugs me so much. I always hear from girls that "I just don't like other girls" and I understand what they mean but it's so...awful to perpetuate a 'girl-hating culture.' (Another book I read Reviving Ophelia talked about our girl-hating culture). She talked about our tendency to classify things as feminine or girly and dismiss them, to think that more masculine things are better and cooler and thus to degrade women.
I feel like I could read this book over and over and continue learning from it. I read the first couple chapters last year and loved it, but when I started it over this year, they were just as good. I want other women, other girls, to read this book. I want them to know and understand what she talks about.

I love Ruby Slippers.  You should read it. I will seriously buy it for you. Email me, Facebook message me. It is the best ever.

Vaya con Dios.

You know what, I would save the receptionist. Just wanted to clear that up.

I love the Office. It is my favorite show, maybe close to rivaling Gilmore Girls in sheer awesomeness. Not quite, but definitely close. A lot of the reason I like it is because of Jim. John Krasinski is definitely not bad looking and the character of Jim is so awesome.

For the Women's Care Ministry I'm a part of this year, we're leading a book study on Captivating. The primary thing the author talks about is the three deep, soul level desires of all women, which are to be romanced, to be an irreplaceable part of a great adventure, and to unveil beauty. I've only read the first chapter so far and I don't remember the rest of what she says, but these things definitely fit me. I think my love of the Office and of Jim relates to these desires. I want to be Pam, to have a guy totally in love with me, who doesn't give up for years, who proposes in a gas station in the middle of pouring rain. Maybe not those exact things...but I love Pam and Jim's story. Jim's super funny and awesome and funny and...I'm not good with adjectives.

In Captivating, Stasi Elderedge talks about a woman's desire to be romanced, to be pursued by a man and to be his priority. She talks about getting flowers and love letters from the guy she ended up marrying and I'm like...that's so cute. I want that too. But at the same time, I feel like I shouldn't talk about wanting this. I'm almost embarrassed to be writing this right now, like it's too personal. There's a song by Bethany Dillon called Beautiful and in it she says that she wants to be beautiful, to make someone to stand in awe, to be amazed by her inner and outer beauty. I posted the lyrics on my MySpace once, a couple years ago and felt almost embarrassed that I agreed with her then. They're...too deep, too close to my heart.

To admit that I want to, I yearn to, be romanced and pursued is...it feels girly and weak and desperate. I can and do live and get along without a man in my life; I'm a whole, complete person by myself. I don't live and wait for the time when there is someone pursuing me...but it's still something I want. It's why I wish Jim was real.

Vaya con Dios.

Bittersweet

I hate my youth ministry class. Hate it hate it hate it. Also, I really love it. The content is awesome, the reading is really interesting, and the professor is great. However...it makes me sad every week after class. I miss my Horizons students so much after talking about ministry and about teenagers for 2 hours. I spent my whole walk back to my apartment tonight trying not to cry. We talked about mentoring today in class, what a mentor is and isn't, how to set-up a mentoring relationship, and other stuff. I wanted to have a youth group to use the stuff I'm learning. I want to be a volunteer with a youth group. Well, actually, I want to be a volunteer with Horizon's youth group. When my professor was talking about how to choose students to mentor, I had a good list of girls in jr high and high school that I'd love to mentor, that I think are 'ready,' that would benefit from it. But it's all focused on personal contact and meeting regularly and...stuff I can't do from 300 miles away. I miss the junior highers. I miss the high schoolers too.
Sometimes I hate even being at Biola. I know it's where I'm supposed to be and I love my friends and I'm learning so much in and out of my classes...but I want to be home. If last semester was my hardest semester (which it definitely was), this is the semester I want to be here the least. I've wanted to be home so much, to be able to talk to students (not kids) and to be a real part of Horizons, not just some random girl who shows up every month or so. I want to build deeper relationships with students and it's harder over email. People forget to reply or just don't reply and continually trying to talk feels like I'm harassing them.
I miss Becky and Tiffany and my sister. I feel like I'm having a little pity party for myself here. I guess I basically am. I wish I could be two people. Or that my life and my heart weren't split in half, between here and there. I wish I wasn't stuck in a place I don't want to be. But...then it's not about me, is it? As selfish as I am and as much as I would love to just quit school and do what I want, I know God wants me here. I know that I'm going to do social work. Missions was always my idea; social work appeared out of the blue when I was looking for a missions-related job. I hope I get to stay in Peoria; I hope I get to be more involved with Horizons when I graduate (which is only 8 months away!). But God's plans aren't the same as mine; my life is going to be different than how I imagine. I'm working on being open to God's will, to seeking that even when I'm depressed and just wanting to be home. If you pray for me, pray for that. If you want me to pray for you, let me know and I will. Every day. I'm not even lying. If you're from Horizons and you read this, I miss you.

Vaya con Dios.