Sometimes people ask what are your influences. That is a difficult question to answer because we are influenced in many ways.  We know certain influences that we like to put up front, but then there are influences we know that maybe we arent so proud to admit or that we think are influences others wont understand or wont know about. Then there is the wider aspect that we are influenced by all around us whether it be natural environment. location, culture and people or maybe something more insidious such as propaganda from a variety of sources known or not known. Then there is how the influences affect us at any time. Nobody is in exactly the same mood, level of conciousness or level of awareness, whatever that is, all the time and how the things that have influenced us manifest themselves through our actions, productions and speech vary accordingly.

For confusionists influences exist, with some tangible and some not, but it would be false to identify them as more than just part of a list and certainly with no ranking, if they should be listed at all, for we are influenced by many things we do not know or see and some that maybe more popular than others.

In many ways the idea of influences distracts from the message as it helps to categorize the person or movement whose influences are being looked at thereby not only distracting and categorizing as part of what already exists, and is conveniently labelled and therefore known by the “global” population, but also attempts to diminish what is said, produced or done. For confusionists the future, the product, the art, the expression, the action etc remain the important part and more relevant to motivation with influences at best just an interesting distraction or a genuine but maybe futile attempt to understand, which maybe unfortunately can never be known in totality, or at worst an attempt to subordinate, damage or destroy. To the question what are your influences the confusionist answer is pretty much all and everything we have experienced, or known as a person or community, which is admittedly not a satisfying answer for the question asker but as has been said before we cannot expect answer to all the questions we ask.

Many people have asked me, “So you’re like a midwife then, right?” or “So if I have you then I will not need to have a doctor or midwife?”

The answer is NO to both of those questions. I am not a midwife, doula’s are not medical professionals. We do not perform vaginal exams, check blood pressure, listen to baby’s heart rate on a Doppler or stethoscope, put in IV’s, anything medical of that nature. We are there purely for the emotional support of the mother in labour. As a doula, I do not give medical advice, I simple point the mother in the right direction to ask her medical questions, whether it be her doctor, midwife, the nurses on the L&D floor at the hospital. I give information for the mother to make informed decisions about her care and about the care of her baby.

To quote a good doula friend of mine; “The difference is, midwives are clinically trained to provide medical care to healthy expectant mothers and their babies. Doulas are non-clinical professionals who provide emotional, physical and informational support to expectant mothers and their families.”

Thanks Michelle for putting that so simple and clear.

Here is a great video found on You Tube, that features a midwife and she clearly explains what the difference between what she does and what a doula does; and how both can work in harmony to help the mother through labour and birth.

This week’s decent site of the week is called DouchebagAlert.com. If you’re familiar with the site “Hot or Not,” it’s pretty much the same deal. You get a picture of a douchebag and rate how big of a douchebag the bastard is. Seems like most of the people featured on the site are douchebags — and calling them out makes you feel pretty decent!

And while we’re on the subject of douchebags, Tubesteak is currently working on a project for school (and hopefully The Community) called the Douchebag Museum. It’s gonna be bad to the bone, and I’d love to hear suggestions from Community members regarding who and what belong in that museum. Leave a comment below!

WHAT DO YOU LOVE STARING AT FOR HOURS AT A TIME?

Why is that when a woman of child bearing age feels icky, she gets asked, “You’re not pregnant are you?”’

I’m not over analyzing my body, so why should they?

*For the record, I’m not pregnant. I’m 100% sure of that.

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Since we talked about this yesterday, I thought I’d ask you this. How much of your holiday shopping do you do online?

Just a note to say I got some very strong negative comments on my blog post about my visit to Do’s and Tattoos in my hometown. I’m sensitive to reactions about “reviews” such as they are, because I really am not out to piss people off.  I want to be fair, but I also want to advocate for better piercing practices and better educated piercees.

I’m so glad that there are loyal fans making the effort to support their favorite studio.  This is the first time anyone has really cared enough to write, so it speaks well for them.  It wasn’t even a particularly bad review, imo, and I want to stress that I was treated very nicely by the owner.  I stand by my statements, as far as they went, but I didn’t get a chance to really do a full review on their piercing services (since no piercer was in evidence during business hours, which was one of my comments), but they might deserve a second look. Maybe they were simply having an off day. We’ll see.

I did get some comments in the vein of “where do you get off writing such things” and “you don’t even have any piercings.”  Well, I’m just a person with a blog and an opinion, albeit a person with multiple piercings (which is why we have an About page). My advice is to take any review or blog post with a grain of salt, make up your own mind, and if  you don’t like it, start your own blog!

Do’s and Tattoos should be glad to have fans!  But the apostrophe still bugs me.

Edited a bunch of times, ’cause I’m a bit upset.

I miss being pregnant.

Every day, I wake up and think the same thing: I wish I was still pregnant. Then it usually goes away, and I get out of bed and go to the bathroom to get ready and my mind is filled with other mundane thoughts. Still, at all sorts of times during the day, but mostly when I am alone, my mind drifts back to the baby I no longer have growing inside of me and I’m overcome with feelings of sadness and loss. I feel robbed, like something was taken away from me that I was meant to have. It makes me angry and frustrated, but at the same time sad and lost. Why didn’t I get to meet you? I already loved you and I’ll always miss you. 

During my pregnancy, I would often wonder if it was really real. I wasn’t showing yet, and I was not experiencing any morning sickness, so I would question if I was really pregnant or not. I would wish that I could just get an ultrasound so I could see it and know that there was really something there. It drove me nuts that I would not get that first prenatal visit until December 4th. It was a day that couldn’t come soon enough. I find it extremely sad and ironic that the ultrasound I so badly wanted ended up being the most devastating news of my life.

I did the strangest thing when my bleeding was becoming heavy when my miscarriage was starting to happen. When I looked sadly into the toilet and saw the clumps of blood, I cried and said “I love you.” I know that is weird and crazy and sick and embarrassing, but I did.  Am I disturbed for thinking this way? To say “I love you” to nothing but tissue and blood?

An phone conversation with my best friend is the spark of this blog entry.  Since I am trying to get back into blogging again, I decided to tackle this lovely issue.  It really isn’t a issue for many, but it is something she has caused me to consider.

I have been in and out of our church’s ministry for awhile now.  I started helping in our youth group in 2004 and rose the ranks of leader. I have always loved music and when we began our youth church, I went into the worship team.  It had always been an awesome place and time for me.  It was the thing that brought me and my fiance together.  Thursday nights was practice and was always the highlight of my week.  I transitioned from youth church band to young adult church band.  I even became the assistant vocal director.  This was my favorite position in ministry and a position I took very seriously.  Eventually, I had to step down due to my increased school work load.  I was seeing that it was impossible to do it all and needed to scale back.

I must admit, that I have always been headstrong and very outspoken in our group.  It had caused me to butt heads with the vocal and band director a couple of times.  I know there is a entry or two that has been about these times.  After stepping down, it was very hard to get into the rhythm of things.  I felt very excluded and hurt by actions of those in the group.  I eventually stopped going and have been embittered by things that have happened.  It took some time to cope and get back to level ground, but there is somethings that will never be the same.

So, to back track slightly, my best friend was telling me about how the young adult band has begun to audition people who are interested in joining. She makes a point of saying, “Just in case you wanted to go back.” My response is automatically, “No.” It’s said in the flattest of tones. She asks, “why?” I feel that this avenue is closed to me at this point in my life.  Not only this ministry, but ministry in general.  Technically, I can’t go into ministry if I wanted to, but the point is I don’t want to.

People have said that I am needed back, but I don’t think so.  I am not needed like I once was.  I don’t feel the pull like I once had either.  Some may call this pull God’s calling on my life, but I don’t feel that. It’s very tough to explain and understand because as I say this, I know one thing. I know that when I sit in the young adult service and look up at the stage, something in my heart hurts. So as I say that I don’t feel the need/ the call/ the pull, I also can say that my heart breaks while I am not on that stage singing until my lungs are gasping for air. So the big question is, what am I feeling?

Every person has some great plan for their life.  I have always known this fact.  I have always known that God calls people into his service and uses their gifts.  I don’t know how I fit into that.  I don’t know really what else to say. If I am to go back to this thing called ministry, I must then get over myself and just do it.  Yet, I know I can’t physically and emotionally do that.  ARG, I am just further frustrating myself with this mindset.  I am ending this now.

I should be talking about the Atonement…and yes, I realize I’m a day late. It hasn’t exactly been the greatest weekend.

I should be talking about chapter twelve from the Gospel Principles book as that is what this blog is about, but I just don’t have it in me right now. I’m sitting here staring at my study materials wondering what the heck I’m doing.

At prayer I listened to the lecture about studying the Quran and studying Islam and not having any further need to study other religions. The question was posed: Why study other religious books when you have the truth? Well besides that fact that I made a promise I don’t know why I’m studying the Book of Mormon and the Gospel Principles any more. Repeatedly I’ve stated I won’t join the LDS Church so why am I studying?

I’m a creature that believes education leads to understanding and understanding leads to peace. That’s why I started studying religions in the first place over ten years ago. It seems to me that there is a lot of religious tension, no matter what people might think. Over the past decade I’ve ran into many people who think their Jesus is better than mine. I’ve come to realize that if I can understand a religion I can usually find a common ground with people and have found that because of this, I have friends all over the religious spectrum.

But here I am looking at Mormonism. There’s something about it that I can’t quite put my finger on. It’s one of these things that you start looking at it and it becomes the Rorschach test of religions. You look at it’s found and question his character only to find that you’re questioning your own. I don’t quite know what to do with it.

Part of me looks at Mormonism and questions how any person with any sort of sense of intelligence could buy into its claims, but there’s part of me that questions quietly in the back of my mind, “What if?” The “what if” is so quiet that it rings the through the loudest.

The “what if” can go so many ways:

• What if I’m sinning by studying Mormonism?
• What if my questions are leading me to hell?
• What if I’m wrong about everything?
• What if…God forbid.

So here I am.

I don’t quite know what to do.

Sequence of Analysis

Feedback is appreciated.

by James, Emily, and CJ (with inspiration from Ben)

Last night, I stumbled on a wonderful collection of poems. Do bookmark this link and keep it for a moment when you want to relax.

For this morning, at a time when the economies of the UK and the US are about to become very turbulent, it is good to read a poem from German poet, Rainer Rilke.

…I would like to beg you dear Sir, as well as I can, to have patience with everything unresolved in your heart and to try to love the questions themselves as if they were locked rooms or books written in a very foreign language. Don’t search for the answers, which could not be given to you now, because you would not be able to live them. And the point is to live everything. Live the questions now. Perhaps then, someday far in the future, you will gradually, without even noticing it, live your way into the answer.

Rainer Maria Rilke, 1903

in Letters to a Young Poet

It is so hard to think about living without a clear goal.  We’ve been taught to be wilful rather than curious.

Maybe the first question is what it would feel like to turn all my goals today into questions?

What would it be like to get up?  What will it like to have a shower?

Just to ask a series of questions?

I had a great time preparing for this sermon.  A controversial and intriguing topic most certainly, and one (like nearly all our Burning Questions) that cannot be adequately engaged with: while I gave a clear answer about where the Bible stands on this particular topic, there are a great many underlining concerns and ideas that could not be dealt with fully in the sermon context.

One of these ideas is how we know that what the Bible claims about the supremacy of Christ is true.  I briefly mentioned in my sermon that we know that Jesus is supreme because we have sensed the working of his Spirit in our lives.  Because he is supreme he is able to accomplish his redemption of our hearts, to make us into the sons and daughters of God who also become heirs to the eternal things of which Christ himself is heir.  And he changes our hearts, that we might love the things that he loves and do the works that he has planned in advance for us to do.  If Jesus had not defeated the universe’s inimical forces at his death and resurrection, then we would yet be bound in slavery to sin.  But millions of people throughout the world testify to the might and supremacy of the Christ, who has the power to set the captives free and give them new lives.

Admittedly, some may say that other people from other faith traditions would have the same stories of renewal and transformation.  Certainly an irreligious person who decides to adopt the Muslim faith and submit himself or herself to Allah may experience a renovation of their inner life similar to what a Christian person may.  To be honest, I am not sure how to dispute that; it appears to me a major hole in my argument.  But I cling to what I have known and experienced, which is that Jesus has worked for many where empty forms of religion have not. I personally tried many paths before I understood that what I was seeking was Christ himself.  Remember that Jesus does not simply want us to act better, but to be better, in our very heart of hearts, and he enables that.

Thoughts?

The question of the week is (remember, one original response and one reply to someone else’s response):

What do you find to be the most peculiar aspect of Islam, and what about Islam do you find to have the most in common with your own religious experience?

I love watching football. Most of the time. It seems to me that defenses are getting better. Lately I have become increasingly frustrated with teams (especially the Packers) finding themselves staring at third and long. Progress is being stopped. How does this happen. Penalties, dropped passes, missed blocking assignments. There is a greater sweetness to a converted third and long over a second and two, but the emotional distress can takes it’s toll.

Two things to ponder:
1. What situation do you consistently find yourself facing that makes you feel like you have a long way to go?
2. How can you create consistent momentum that will move you more quickly to your goal?

…Should Never Throw Stones.

Todays little slice of college life, begins with the story of one of my closest friends, who has recently fallen head over heels in love with a bright intelligent girl in his french class. We all couldnt be happier for them both.

However unbeknownst to us a shark was circling, admiring the fresh love that hung in the air like a haze of blood….waiting for the moment, the opportunity to sink its teeth and tear at their hearts. The beast is what we once called a friend, a companion….but who through her own actions doomed herself to a life of exile within the college.

The initial separation i could liken to a glass being dropped in a room full of people without any shoes on….bits of our lives soon began to be trod into the carpet, secrets exposed and truths told….a brick was thrown and a fight ensued. Then came the week of silence and the glares from the dearly departed who set her family upon us….trying to save face when she had already lost.

We cast her adrift into the cesspool and she became a free agent, stalking the undergrowth looking for a new group of people to latch onto…..and she picked the girl from french and her friends, sinking her teeth into the young love spreading poison and lies…polluting the un-tainted waters.

So, a question…..do we once again force her away and risk a repeat of these past few weeks….there are still a few big secrets lurking out there….or …do we let her continue and hope that A is resistant to anything J might have to say.

Well even though i would like to keep all my glasses safety in the cupboard, out of harms way….to protect a friend, maybe a few smashed glasses and cut feet would be a small price to pay for their resulting happiness.

Thought Of The Day: (really surprised there could be so many)

“The innocent and beautiful have no enemy but time”

W.B Yeats

Today I had what you’d probably call my “proper” booking in appointment with the midwife at the hospital.

I actually was expecting a consultant appointment, and a midwife appointment (cos that’s what it said on the letter) but actually it was only with the midwife.

It was all pretty routine, updating my details and taking a few notes about Lilly’s birth. We talked very briefly about me wanting a VBAC but she said the consultant is the person who’ll really talk about that with me. She had a quick scan over my labour notes and said the reason had been put down as “fetal distress” and “failture to progress”, and she said that those reasons meant it shouldn’t be a problem if I want to “try again”.

I agreed to all the blood tests, but I’m not having the triple test / quad test which screens for likelihood of Down’s Syndrome. I did have it last time, and it all came back fine, but last year my friend had a really horrible experience after coming back high risk. She had to agonise over whether or not to have the amniocentisis procedure (which carries a risk of miscarriage but will tell you 100% if your baby has Down’s). While my poor friend was making up her mind I spent a lot of time thinking about it and what I would do if I were in her position.

In my first pregnancy, I just said yes to every test going and never worried about anything. But since then, I’ve learnt that those triple tests are pretty inaccurate, and can give you a worryingly high risk factor when, in fact, your baby is just fine. It’s really a matter of personal choice but I really don’t think I could risk an amnio and the possibility of miscarrying a healthy baby, or the even worse option of getting rid of a baby just because it had Down’s. So the test really isn’t of any interest to me. I hope and pray that my baby will be fine, of course, but I could never get rid of it if it wasn’t. So, that’s why I’ve made my decision. Hubby was a bit unsure at first but I think he now understands my reasons and is supportive of them.

Incidentally, my friend did have her amnio, her baby was unaffected and the test results were clear.

Anyway, I had my other blood tests and got my bounty pack, and that was it. Roll on two weeks and the 12 week scan!

I keep playing around with this in my head and I can’t come to anything but the conclusion that the unit of analysis for a sequence in interaction design is always dependent on the interaction and that dependency is because something is inherently important about each artifact and their functions differ.  Or maybe it’s based on function?  Can two artifacts that do the same thing have the same unit of measure in a sequence analysis?  Or is it based on the sequence chosen that the unit of analysis?  Would it be better to set the units of measure before even considering an artifact or would that miss the point?

he once said to me, “i am a multi-personalities man”… seems like such a long long time ago now, yet still so vividly clear and resonant in my head… i dont kw whether to laugh out loud or shake with sorrow at such irony and farce… indeed, he is a multi-personalities man… mr. multi… richly talented, achingly beautiful, earnest and sincere in his caring for his profession and furthering the cause of good artistry… yet at the same time profoundly foolish, twisted, deceitful with such ingenuous flourish… but i wonder, for all his multi-personalities that he lays claim to, where is the one that is able to separate personal differences from relating on a purely professional platform?…

how sad… but i do not regret speaking the truth… i hv to be true to myself… in the end, he gave me no support no good reason not even a loyal friendship for the kind of support that he demanded from me – lying in the face of one whom i respect is for me a monumental feat… i was quashing my innate and intrinsic nature of bald honesty in my words and simple truthfulness… each time she raised the issue, i mumbled lies and my soul felt sick, disgusted at myself and anxious… why do this for someone who doesnt care a hoot for me anyway? his final words to me spoke volumes – the truth at last from his twisted lips of deceit… what he truly thought of me… and tho it hurt deep, it also released me from the shackles of spiraling fear, confusion and despair…

dear mr. multi – it wasnt me who said all those nasty things, it was u who called me names and condemned my heart to hell with those searing damning words… it wasnt me who kicked u away, it was u who used me and then accused me of causing my own grief… ur cruel words jangle in my head still, each time i see u… but truth, the truth that those terrible words revealed to me, has set me free to walk away from ur web of deceit and subjugation of the mind…

thank u mr. multi… i feel so sorry for that girl waiting around dead bored playing with her fingernails all night – why do u always prefer the mindless cheap bimbos?… perhaps because u r too afraid of truth… and true multi-faceted beauty… it’s easier isnt it, to hold a floosy, she wont ever give ur dulled conscience any nightmares, unlike me…

good night my dear… i m still praying for u… as i kw veronica too is, for she loves u deep too… perhaps far more than even i do…