Unfortunately I have to remind myself of this every time I go to a gallery

on the first day of lazermas, scone gave to me, dr. octogomapus in a pear tree. BLAH*

on the second day of lazermas, scone gave to me…….I forgot the rest. (go look up the lazer collection on youtube)

Even if no one reads this blog, I am determined not to fall in despair like my good but poor friend bellaswan66. I’ve decided that blogging is good for me, and the fact that I reflect my life in the form of a cyberdiary tells me that I still have hope in the writing part of my brain. Who cares if watching “Julie and Julia” influenced my blogging thoughts? What I’m trying to say is that I will not just forget about my blog like a lot of people just because no one reads this. No one needs an audience when they sing in the shower. I don’t need readers when I type my thoughts down in a computer, rather than a pink fuzzy diary with the words “DO NOT TOUCH” written on the inside cover.

I’m writing for myself. And I love it.

~Blue Skies

Happy Christmahanakwanza , Muharram or Solstice or whatever else you might celebrate.

I hope that you’ve had most of what you deserve this year, and little of what you don’t and that anything still lacking comes to you soon.

“YOU, the one who keeps on running for your dreams, ARE THE ONE WHO TRULY GOT A WARM HEART“

-anonymous-

Kara Miller, who teaches history and rhetoric at Babson College, recently wrote an op-ed in The Boston Globe called “My Lazy American Students.” The piece is attracting considerable online debate as she compares her American and foreign students.

“My ‘C,’ ‘D,’ and ‘F’ students this semester are almost exclusively American, while my students from India, China, and Latin America have — despite language barriers — generally written solid papers, excelled on exams, and become valuable class participants,” wrote Miller.

She compares the way her foreign students listen to everything she says, while “Too many 18-year-old Americans, meanwhile, text one another under their desks (certain they are sly enough to go unnoticed), check e-mail, decline to take notes, and appear tired and disengaged.”

Reader reactions (nearly 400 of them) are split, with some crediting Miller with drawing attention to a real problem, while others say she doesn’t understand higher education.

The full op-ed can be found HERE.

Which come first? Chicken or the egg?

This question has been raised for the longest period of time and yet this question has not been solved.  As a result of this question, many have started a quest on finding out how the world/universe began.

Gen 1:26
And God made the beast of the earth after his kind, and cattle after their kind, and every thing that creepeth upon the earth after his kind: and God saw that it was good

I was actually reading the bible preparing my DG and this struck me. Hasn’t this verse already told us which came first? This may only be from my point of view but it has already been stated. Life has always been revolving around God but yet so many of us still insist on the point of evolution.

Man actually evolve from apes or to be exact chimpanzee? Studies have shown that we have 95%~>98.5% similarities to a chimpanzee but if i so ask, if man were to really evolve from apes, where does ape comes from? and if so, why do we still able to tame certain animals? Do you see any ape/chimps riding on an elephant? You may argue on the difference in intelligence but is that really true??

Is there really such a thing as evolution or is it a theory that came out of my mind in a means to justify why we exist? Like in the same way, the big bang theory of how the universe came to be.

Allow me to end with this other verse from the bible

Gen 1:9
And God said, Let the waters under the heaven be gathered together unto one place, and let the dry land appear: and it was so.

You may be wondering why I’m ending with this, but it has been proven by scientist that if all the land of the earth(excluding those that have been reclaimed) is pieced together, they will form one continent. I got this picture from Wikipedia.

My question to you today will be, Is there really a God out there?

You decide for yourself. I have not edited anything from the bible(and it’s one of the(if not the) oldest book ever)

Ten years ago the Matrix changed the way movies were made. This weekend James Cameron’s Avatar has done the same. I’m writing this at two o’clock in the morning. I can’t sleep without at least trying to write down my impressions of what I just saw.

I really feel like I watched a turning point in pop culture. Just as there was a time before the Matrix introduced wire fu to the Western World and a time after it, so too will there be a time before Cameron’s vision became reality, and a time after it. Everyone is going to have to see this movie to participate in the zeitgeist. Every filmmaker is going to study the craft of it. There will be dozens of imitators of varying degrees of success, just as Star Wars inspired everything from Battlestar Galactica to Silent Running to the Black Hole. Most importantly, though, the magic is about to be injected back into a genre that has spent a decade and more back on its heels, rehashing, recycling, rebooting and reimaging the same material in an effort to stay safe in a volatile marketplace. Writers and directors are going to be able to dream again, and they’ll have Cameron to thank for that.

Better reviewers than I have already covered this movie at great length, so I’m not really going to bother talking much about the plot. Imagine if there had never been Native Americans or the Great Plains and someone had just dreamed up the movie Dances With Wolves out of the blue, cut whole cloth out of sheer imagination. That’s what James Cameron did with Avatar. Oh, I’m willing to admit there’s a healthy dose of Disney’s Pocahontas in it: The love of Nature; the love affair between people from two different worlds; the greed of the foreigners to rape and plunder a new world at the expense of the original inhabitants. I don’t care about that.

It’s also been argued by better reviewers than I that the movie is riddled with cliches: Corporations are evil; the military will serve heartless masters to pursue to the chance for action; scientists are enlightened forces for good; natives are people with justice on their side, connected to the natural world in a way outsiders can’t understand. I don’t care about that either.

What I care about is that James Cameron took all these things that, as single pieces, sound trite in and of themselves, and brought them together into something that is so much more than the sum of their parts. It’s like taking a collection of instruments and making an orchestra. Words can only give a pale impression of what I’ve seen. They can convey the spirit of it, but you have to experience it to see its true scope.

He literally made a whole new world, with its own rules and interconnected moving parts, and then he made it in three dimensions. I’ve seen 3D movies before. I was quite impressed with Beowulf, but Beowulf’s 3D –like all 3D before it– is a gimmick. The first 3D you see in Beowulf is a spear poking you in the eye. The first 3D you see in Avatar is out of focus: Sam Worthington is looking up at something between you and him, and when he looks directly at it you learn that it’s a drop of perspiration floating weightless above his face. Then you forget about it. The 3D in Avatar is not intrusive and it’s not a gimmick. It’s just something that happens, adding texture and detail with such subtlety that, at times, you tip your glasses forward to be sure what your seeing really is three dimensional. All movies are going to try and do this from now on. The good ones will succeed.

It has been said that James Cameron’s gift is that he makes movies women like that men want to see. I believe that whole-heartedly. This is a movie about real people, be they human or Na’vi, the native inhabitants of the planet Pandora. If each character can be fit neatly into a stereotype, so be it. They are well-rounded stereotypes, believably typecast and well-suited for their roles. They interact as you would expect them to. This movie is not out to surprise you so much as to involve you. It does that. Oh my, but does it do that.

Mankind has come to Pandora just as Europe came to the New World. The gold rush here is substituted by the placeholder element unobtanium, a tongue-in-check reference that has popped up before throughout science fiction. That’s fine by me. I don’t need to know what unobtanium does to accept it as a premise for corporate greed backed by superior firepower. The viewers who want to see action and violence know they will not be left unrewarded for their patience. The viewers who want adventure and romance and a struggle between right and wrong won’t be disappointed either.

Pandora is a moon around a gas giant, and it is a place of wonders. There are floating mountains that I fancy to be captured asteroids held in the sky through the complicated gravitational interactions of the moons and the gas giant. That doesn’t matter either. Pandora’s flora and fauna are all connected together through a kind of biological internet. That’s important to the plot, but it doesn’t really matter to me either.

What matters is that James Cameron conveyed his dream exactly as he saw it, without compromising based on what was ‘possible.’ Where there were obstacles in his way, he overcame them. He invented his way around the shortcomings of his medium. This movie couldn’t have been made ten years ago. He invented the technology to bring his story to life. You’re watching aliens, computer-rendered aliens, who have all the nuances of the actors portraying them. In the case of Sam Worthington and Sigourney Weaver, you actually see the actors and their avatars, and their facial expressions work in both settings. Other actors, like Zoë Saldaña, are shown only as Na’vi, but you feel like you’re watching a human actor. They aren’t expressionless dolls like Toy Story. They aren’t facsimiles of humans that fall into the uncanny valley of computer simulation. James Cameron found a way to give his creations a recognizable soul.

I believed it. I believed I was watching something real, even though I know that’s impossible. That’s magic. That’s the kind of movie magic that hasn’t existed since the days when cinema was new and panicky audiences got out of the way of the trains speeding towards them in silent black and white. We’re going to have to relearn how to watch movies. We’re going to raise the bar of our expectations, and no substitutions will be foisted upon us moving forward. Avatar is the future of the medium. I have no doubt about it. Cameron has changed what I believed to be possible.

That inspires me. I think it’s going to inspire a lot of people. Movie making just took a huge leap forward. Barriers to good and original storytelling have crumbled away to ashes and dust. This might be the most expensive movie of all time, but those that follow in its footsteps don’t need to reinvent the wheel to achieve what it has done. Cameron has opened the door, and the fact that he holds the patents on the technologies he invented to make it possible will see him amply rewarded for his service to the arts.

It might take five or ten years for the landscape of Hollywood, Bollywood and other studios to adjust itself, but Avatar is the seismic event that will reshape the face of cinema. We’re about to enter a new and golden age where if you can dream it, it can be a shared vision. Tangible, nuanced, detailed. The only limits now are our imaginations, and the true artists are going to show us things that will open our eyes in a way we never expected.

See this movie. See it soon, see it often, and then tell you friends. You won’t regret it. The experience of movie-making is going to change, and this is your first taste of it. I’m sure I could say more, but my thoughts are starting to scatter. Three in the morning is, perhaps, not the best time to blog. I felt compelled to write this, though. The experience of seeing this movie was that powerful.

I’ve just seen the future. You should too.

I very rarely Christmas shop anymore. At least, not in the traditional sense. I don’t like crowds, I hate trying to find a parking space, and sifting through thousands of items trying to find just the right one holds no appeal to me whatsoever. There’s a reason that the week after Thanksgiving’s Black Friday now begins with a day called Cyber Monday. Shopping online is far more convenient, far less frustrating, and quite often, much cheaper.

A few years ago, my buddy Mike called me up and asked if I would be willing to brave Black Friday with him. He needed a new receiver for his home theater set up, and he was hoping to get a good deal. Being a good friend, I agreed. We wound up in Best Buy, where we found that the entire store had been laid out in a labyrinth of sorts, and just like a classical labyrinth, one would have to walk the entire length of every aisle in the store in order to escape with your purchases. There was a swarm of people there, a mob in fact, and Mike and I had to charge through, pushing and shoving far more than polite young men such as ourselves are wont to do, before we finally found the electronics section… and didn’t find the component Mike wanted. We wound up driving an hour out of our way to a smaller electronics store that was also having a sale. Mike found exactly what he wanted with almost no fight at all. That store is out of business now. Go figure.

Since then, it’s all been online shopping for me. And sites like Things I Want have made it even simpler since one of my relatives found it last year. My entire family, and most importantly, my girlfriend are all on it now. Some people would argue this takes the fun out of Christmas shopping. I say these people are clinically insane. The shopping is the one part of Christmas that I’ve never enjoyed.

This is not to say I never buy anything in a store around Christmas. Far from it. But I never venture into a store with a list, desperate to find just the right thing for just the right person, because chances are I already got it online. When I’m in a store, I typically buy things that are Christmas-related. DVDs, books, CDs or trinkets to review here on the site, or things that I just think are cool. The other day, for example, I found a small Whitman Sampler tin with Charlie Brown and Snoopy, two of the greatest comic strip characters ever, featured both in their original incarnation from 1950 and their final incarnation in 2000, just before the death of creator Charles Schulz. You don’t often see the two depictions next to each other, but with next year marking the 60th anniversary of the comic strip, we’re seeing more and more cool Peanuts stuff hit the stores.

But I digress. I had hoped to take care of all my shopping this year the week after Thanksgiving, but as you may have heard, I suffered a series of catastrophic computer failures throughout the autumn months that pretty much ensured I would instead be spending the bulk of my November paycheck on a new laptop computer. This is the part that sucks about getting paid only once a month. The good news is that our usual payday, the 20th, happened to fall on a Sunday in December, which meant we’d get it on the preceding Friday. I’d have another paycheck and two whole extra days before Christmas. I managed to get a few things during the month, but yesterday when I got home I hopped online and ordered the lion’s share of what I was planning to give this year, and all but one item is guaranteed to be delivered by the 24th. Of course, it’s entirely possible that on Christmas Eve I’ll be posting a rant about not getting my packages on time, but that’s a risk I’m willing to take.

This morning, old Mike called me again and asked if I’d be willing to take a run with him to pick up his weekly comic books. I said I’d be happy to, if he didn’t mind stopping at a Best Buy. (That’s right, our previous experience did not sour us on Best Buy. Quite the contrary, I take personal credit for the fact that Circuit City shut down, because after a few nasty experiences there I boycotted it in favor of Best Buy entirely). We got in the car and headed out, and as we drove, Mike commented that “at least it’s not Black Friday.”

And, because God has a sense of humor, this is exactly the moment that we ran headlong into the bumper-to-bumper traffic.

“Yeah, you know that Black Friday isn’t actually the busiest shopping day of the year anymore, right?” I said. “The Saturday before Christmas is.”

We got home after several hours and a few unexpected adventures, and I now officially only have one item left to purchase. I know exactly where I have to go for it, but there was no way I was going to subject Mike — or myself — to the mob we’d have to fight. I’ll take my chances going Monday, when most of those loons are back at work.

And then when I got home…

I got back from our little excursion to find something really great in the mail — a large package from Thom Zahler of one of my favorite comics, Love and Capes. As you may have heard, early this year Zahler made an irresistible offer to fans: a chance to be drawn onto the cover of issue #12 of the comic. This was the big wedding issue of Mark Spencer, alias the Crusader, and Abby Tennyson. I’ve spoken at length before of just how much I love this comic book, so I’m not going to get into it again, but I am gonna talk about just how damn cool it is that Erin and I got to attend the wedding. We’re both huge fans of this comic, and to see ourselves not only on the cover, but also in the crowd in the interior of the comic (not part of the original package at all) made me absolutely giddy.

For the price of our admission, Erin and I got drawn onto the cover with such notables as Felicia Day and Dwayne McDuffie, and we also got two autographed copies of the comic and two autographed prints of the artwork, suitable for framing. I bought this around Valentine’s Day, but getting it in the mail was like an early Christmas present. Thanks again, Thom, not just for making such an incredible comic book, but for allowing us to be a small part of it. If you haven’t read it yet, the wedding issue is available in finer comic shops right now, or you can order back issues, the collected edition of issues #1-6, and assorted clothes, pins, and goodies from the Love and Capes online store. Seriously, people, I cannot recommend this comic book enough. Go out and get it now.

In fact, one could say it would make a perfect Christmas present for the comic geek on your list, couldn’t one?

I was watching a romantic comedy the other day and one of the main characters in the movie proclaimed that in a relationship, you always want to be the one that cares less, because it is the person that cares less, that has the power in the relationship. He went on to explain that the person who cares less, has less to lose in the relationship, because they haven’t invested as much. This “caring less” acts as an insurance policy, so to speak, so that if something goes wrong, or the relationship ends badly, the person who cares less will come out relatively unscathed.

If you really think about this theory concerning the power dynamic within a relationship, it is a defense mechanism developed out of the fear of loving someone and losing them one way or another. Even beyond that, it is the fear of pain, which in this situation, is the pain that comes from loss. But why does pain have to be a bad thing? Why are we so afraid to feel pain?

From a biological standpoint, pain is amazing. Pain is our body’s way of letting us know that there is something wrong. Without pain, lots of minor problems would go unchecked, and become much more serious, and in some cases fatal. So, why should we be afraid of feeling pain?

Now, emotional pain may seem like a different set of circumstances, but it really isn’t when you think about it. When you lose someone, and you feel pain, it’s your body’s way of letting you know that you need to heal from their absence. Healing from emotional pain is just as necessary and sometimes takes even longer than healing from physical pain. But, healing is necessary, because emotional pain, much like physical pain, left unchecked can be just as destructive. Emotional pain can eat away at you to the point where it manifests into physical pain if the negative energy is left to fester.

Some would say that if you don’t risk loving someone, or caring about someone too much, then you can bypass that whole scenario, and never have to entertain the concept of pain, but I would say that that is not living. You could stay in your house for most of you life and avoid everything that could possibly cause you any physical pain. You could never play sports, stay away from sharp objects, avoid all forms of transportation by never traveling anywhere outside of walking distance and steer clear of neighborhoods that are thought to be dangerous, but what kind of life would that be?

Similarly you could play by the rules of the “caring less” power dynamic. You could pull back before you ever cared too much about anyone. You could shut yourself off from people, and never even give anyone else the opportunity to really love you. But, what kind of life is that? Love, is not about power dynamics, or who has more to lose. Part of loving is putting yourself out there, and if you happen to end up feeling pain, it is just a testament to your capacity to love.

Life is made by the experiences we have and the people we encounter, so what is a life cut off from that? That is being alive without living.

Playing for Change is a multimedia movement created to inspire, connect, and bring peace to the world through music. The idea for this project arose from a common belief that music has the power to break down boundaries and overcome distances between people. No matter whether people come from different geographic, political, economic, spiritual or ideological backgrounds, music has the universal power to transcend and unite us as one human race. And with this truth firmly fixed in our minds, we set out to share it with the world.

Over the course of this project, we decided it was not enough for our crew just to record and share this music with the world; we wanted to create a way to give back to the musicians and their communities that had shared so much with us. And so in 2007 we created the Playing for Change Foundation, a separate 501(c)3 nonprofit corporation whose mission is to do just that. In early 2008, we established Timeless Media, a for-profit entity that funds and extends the work of Playing for Change. Later that year, Timeless Media entered into a joint venture with the Concord Music Group through the support of label co-owner and entertainment legend Norman Lear and Concord Music Group executive vice president of A&R John Burk. Our goal is to bring PFC’s music, videos and message to the widest possible audience.

Now, musicians from all over the world are brought together to perform benefit concerts that build music and art schools in communities that are in need of inspiration and hope. In addition to benefit concerts, the Playing for Change band also performs shows around the world. When audiences see and hear musicians who have traveled thousands of miles from their homes, united in purpose and chorus on one stage, everyone is touched by music’s unifying power.

And now, everyone can participate in this transformative experience by joining the Playing for Change Movement. People are hosting screenings, musicians are holding benefit concerts of every size, fans are spreading the message of Playing for Change through our media, and this is only the beginning. Together, we will connect the world through music!

This is really a great cause.  Please give them a look, and if you like what you see, your support.

http://www.playingforchange.com/

I was having a conversation with a friend of mine the other day, and as singles tend to do, we inevitably came to talk about where single people can meet potential spouses. She asked me, “Why does it seem like every man that goes to [our church] is going outside of [our church] to find themselves a girlfriend?” (While we were talking specifically about the church we attended, the same conversation could have been had about any church across America.)

Good question. Why does it seem that so many men go outside of their local church when there may be plenty of “options” inside their church?

First, I wonder if it just seems that way because we tend to more easily notice “outsiders” who come in with a person we know in our church? For example, if I’m dating a new girl, who I met outside of my church, to a Sunday service, people would be more likely to recognize that than if I came to a service with someone who is a member of my church, wouldn’t you think? Perhaps it’s just our perception that there are more people that do it and not actual fact.

But for the sake of the argument we’ll pretend it’s a little of both.

Let me ask this (because I love to ask a question): when did one of the qualifications for dating someone become which church they attend? “Oh, you go to such and such church? I’m no longer attracted to you.” Who would say such a thing? That’s akin to getting mad when a non-believers decides to date someone who doesn’t live in the same neighborhood or work in the same place that they do. It’s ludicrous.

While I think that it can be helpful to have the same teachings and have the opportunity to participate in volunteering at the same place, who’s to say that one person might want to switch churches? At some point, you’ll probably want to be attending the same church, anyhow, why make that such a barrier while you’re dating.

People say it’s hard enough to find a significant other already, so I wonder why they feel the need to put one more stipulation or qualification on their potential mate. It’s not enough that they need to have a decent job, good credit, nice style, a house, a car, a deep spiritual walk, and a commitment to loving their family and friends, but now you’ve also got to go to the same church? Whoa. Do you know how small your number of potential mates just got? You chopped out all the potentials in your area down to the few hundred (if that) who attend your church. That’s the way to play the odds and open your options (rolling eyes).

Who are we to place a limit on who God can bring into our lives in the first place? We pray for this kind of man or woman but then we give God all kinds of limitations and boxes that the person must fit into. Don’t you think He’s well aware of what it is you need in a mate?

Is it possible that your limitations and qualifications may cause God to slow down his timetable for giving you the mate that you desire (or more accurately, the one He desires for you)?

Follow me for a second (and stop looking at me in that tone of voice). If you were going to give someone a gift, one you knew was perfect for them, but then they start telling you that they don’t want this kind of gift with that kind of paper, you’d probably be prone to withhold your gift from them for a little while until they cooled their jets, wouldn’t you? Especially if you know full well that the gift that you have for them is in fact more perfect for them than the gift they think they want. It might be a case where you give them what they need, but because it’s not what they think they need, it gets easily overlooked and cast aside. Then they’re stuck there still looking for the gift that they think they need. Do you think that God might do that to us? I think it’s entirely possible.

I’ve seen this work both ways within my own family. My parents divorced when I was eight, and both remarried within the next ten years, but the ways in which they met their spouses couldn’t have been different.

My mother met my stepfather in the choir at the church they both attended — just what all the choir girls want. They dated and married about a year and a half later. My father, on the other hand, met my stepmother on a blind date, set up by a mutual friend. They dated for about 6 months before he proposed. They didn’t go to the same church initially, but were still on similar levels spiritually, and after growing close decided to attend my father’s church.

At then end of the day, it can (and does) happen both ways. People meet within the same church, get married and live happily ever after. But people also meet at the supermarket, on a blind date, or a friend’s birthday party, get married and live happily ever after. You just never know when and where God is going to bring that person into your life. Don’t get so caught up in thinking they’ll come through one door, when in fact, they could’ve come through another, and are already be standing in the same room. Don’t put limits on God and what he can do. He knows you and always has your best interests at heart.

Today on my commute, I saw a licence plate: “DIV NAKD.”  My initial thoughts were, “I wonder if the driver might be a SCUBA diver.  Sure enough two feet above the licence plate the sticker with the SCUBA DAN Flag, read “Discover Diving.”

NAUI certified me as a SCUBA diver a few years ago.  I don’t like SCUBA diving.  The actual diving, with Go-Go-Gadget lungs!, is fun.  But for the most part, I didn’t like all the preparation, clean up, and the general energy demands that the “sport” requires, like compressing air, transporting compressed air, sometimes getting a boat ride, and the need for all the gear that goes along with the sport.

I still value the experience.  It was a great way to actively learn about partial pressures and molecular diffusion that bores the average chemistry student, yet becomes suddenly more exciting when “death by nitrogen asphyxiation” is thrown into the mix.  And what better way to determine if you like a sport then to try it out!

Discover Diving.

It made me think: why?  Does DIV NAKD think my life will be fulfilled if I discover diving?  Is it the missing link to nirvana?  Will chicks finally dig me?

Then, I took inventory on my self-applied advertisements.

• Bee Friendly (with a smiling cartoon bee on it).  Yeah, I’m ok with that one.* My main goal with this is for me to smile, when I see it.
• Pass Gas (with a picture of a gas pump and a bicycle).  This is probably breaking my above rule to spread the message why have more foreign dependency than we need, if you can help it.  But, I like the implied fart humor, so I’m keeping it.
• Yes, my bicycle has issues. If you don’t understand this sticker, then show up to any roadie group ride.  You will learn why I like this sticker.

Before this commute, I saw a message of camaraderie, #whyweride.  I decided that I liked this message.  It wasn’t so much, if you don’t ride a bicycle your life will suck.  It was a more: this is why I like to ride a bike.  The difference I see as evangelizing versus leading by examples.

*Although maybe “Bee an Ass” with an evil grin and a big stinger on its backside may bring out more emotions or entertainment, if that’s the end goal.

My next upcoming trip has two goals: alone time for my own reasons and POCAR training.  I’m going to areas people consider remote or rugged terrain.  So far, I’ve heard:

• Sweet!
• Huh, sounds like something you would do.
• That is dumb; you are going to die.

I understand the first two.  I don’t understand the third.  Of the people that make this death statement, ALL of them have less outdoors experience than I do.  I think they might be extrapolating that with his experience, I would die.  (I don’t think he would.)

I’ve heard these statements before.  On one occasion, I learned the most culturally when I did NOT follow the nay-sayers’ advice.  So, I have experience tuning these pressures out.  I seek my own adventures and failures.

Just because you’ve gone down one path doesn’t mean that others should, too.  And, just because you seek to not go down one path doesn’t mean that it isn’t right for others.

So in general: unless you agree with me, I don’t want to hear your opinions.

the best shoes EVER! (til the next pair...)

the weather has not let up.  it’s cold and depressing outside and that shit drives me crazy.  i can’t take the babies from job #2 outside bc it’s freezing and wet…and knowing how curious they are, i know a small one will come up to me and slap me on the leg with a cold hand like, “wet!  wet!”.  nahhhh, i think i’ll stay in today.

i have a paper on the differences between Hellenistic, Classical and Archaic Greek Art.  also a paper on changes in Christian Art and another on comparisons between different “art movements”.  i’m really interested in photography as an artform…think about it, a picture can display something that’s true to life, yet abstract, that occurs naturally or staged.  and it only takes a snap to capture a picture…paintings and (ohmygawdd) freakn sculptures can take forever.  maybe i think like that because i don’t paint or sculpt.  i don’t have patience for much besides children.  i don’t know WHY that is.  oh, and i can wait on fashion, too…i had been searching for the perfect pair of Adidas Top Ten basketball shoes until the Saturday after Thanksgiving (thanks, Tanger Outlets of Charleston!).

my latest wait has been for the Perfect Sequined Sneakers.  holy shit, i found them on Forever 21 Online…hot damn, and they were only 10 bucks so i got two pair, a black and a silver.  i think the Silver Shoe Obsession is fueled by my intense and sumtimes scary love for all things related to/that remind me of The Wizard of Oz.  Dorothy had silver shoes in the book (instead of ruby slippers) so i kinda wanted the shoes as a Nostalgic Piece of Fashion.  I’d probably had keeled over at the computer if i’d found a pair of ruby red sequined sneakers…that’s a crazy thought bc i don’t even wear/like red.  except the occasional Jungle Red nail and toe polish.

blahze, blah blah…this day is moving much too slowly for my tastes.  part of me wants to go to the grocery store for soup, then to my house to lie on the chair with Baybay, dozing off in front of the tv.  this weather makes me long for a warmer place of residence.  it’s so cold at night, dammit!  but with Christmas coming, that wouldn’t be so smart…it’s been cold every year at Christmas here in NC and i fear that if i were suddenly in a place minus that cold, it wouldn’t “feel” like the Holiday Season.  truthfully, i’m really lookn 4ward to that Holiday Food!

well i feel as i’ve sufficiently bored this blog to tears.  that’s what happens on Tuesdays, i guess (damn, it ain’t even Hump Day, so what’s THAT gonna b like??!!).

Later, Taters!

WKRO.

“Free time…I’ve heard of it”, says Gary of Naxen from Alanna: The First Adventure by Tamora Pierce.

I agree with Gary. Free time seems to be just a myth to most of us, as our busy schedules keep us from flopping on our beds and snuggling with Mr. Teddy for five lovely minutes. Fortunately, I am lucky enough to have a few moments where I can do whatever. You might ask, where does all the time go? Well, if you use me as an example, most of my time is eaten up with reading time, drawing time, dancing time, choreographing time, photography time, and piano time. Yes, I am very busy.

But right now, I had the gall to cancel all of my “times” and just sit down and type at my computer for all of those lovely readers of mine. They seem to be a myth too most of the time.

BTW, I finished all my Choco Srawberries. Now I’m on to “Choco Baby” from meiji.

~FlutterShy

Today, a rather grand spectacle took place at my home when the civil defence force and the police worked together to apprehend a woman who is suspected to have thrown many dangerous items down from her house on the topmost floor. You might be wondering what sort of actions warranted such a huge and grand response since there was only 1 suspect; I won’t go into the details, but suffice to say, she had locked herself in and was vigorously defending herself from arrest.

Of course, this woman was hardly innocent of her crime, having tossed a variety of objects from foodstuff to glass bottles from her apartment over the past few years. This not only dirtied her neighbours’ laundry, but apparently also caused a young boy to become hospitalised when he was hit in the head by a descending vase. Still,  she remained unrepentant of her crime, insisting that she had done nothing wrong even after being arrested. There are a variety of reasons for her behaviour, which I shan’t speculate on, but her actions had definitely caused a great deal of pain for some, and unhappiness for others.

All this raw, pent-up emotion erupted in a deluge of expletive-ridden abuses and insults hurled at her as she left in a police car. This outburst is completely understandable, but I seriously doubt if it helped change her for the better. It made me wonder: Aren’t we sinners all just like this woman? We have committed such atrocities in the sight of God and yet we are unrepentant and persist in sinning. God has every right to curse us and pass judgments on our horrendous conduct and behaviour, just like those people who were hurt by the woman’s actions. Yet, He chose to love us with a love that is higher than all other loves, and sent His Son to take the penalty of sin upon Himself, just so that we can have His righteousness.

I can scarcely imagine anyone at the trial of this woman standing up at the end of the hearing when she is pronounced guilty and saying that he/she will take the punishment in this woman’s place. Imagine instead the judge doing this. Inconceivable? Still, that’s what He did for us when He went on that cross. In the face of such love, I can’t help but praise the Lord for salvation. What about you? How would you respond?