Ballerina

Boring update

So basically I have been distracted lately. If you've kept up on reading my many other blogs, you'll know why, otherwise, meh. lol. For short, I saw the new harry potter and I thought it was very good. [minus the many things they left out from the book] it was extremely good in intself. Something still bothers me about the most recent book; and that is Snape. He was never a bad guy up until the major event in the 6th book! He let guy go and sent him back to Azkaban! If he was really sooo bad, he would have found a way to keep him out and serve voldemort. But whatever. Besides that, I have just been writing a lot, and reading the "Hobbit" for Creative Comp. Ah, Creative Comp, such a controversial class. Half of the things my teachers reads to the class are extremely offensive - either to me on the religious stance or to others on a racial stance. I hate it but I'm trying to deal with it and kind of get used to things like that because I know its only going to get worse and its going to happen a lot more. Also, as I said, I have been writing. I've written abuot 6-8 poems this month - and that's good for me compared to how many I've written in the last year! You can go to http://acidictear.blogspot.com for some of the poems. Then, I've been leading H2O club at school. The website for H2O is http://h2oclub.blogspot.com . And uhm, yeah, that's pretty much all I feel like updating right now. All I have left to say is: "God is love." Amen to that!

"How-To Pray Correctly" (Creative Comp. class)

There is many times where people feel the need to pray. When someone dies, when they don’t know what to do, or even when they want to grow closer to God. But I have found many times where I, or someone I was with, wasn’t comfortable praying aloud. There is an unacknowledged fear that follows the mere thought of praying out loud – and I am here to acknowledge it. I acknowledge the fact that everyone prays differently and I want to embrace it.

If its your first time it is key that you close your eyes and breathe deeply for a few moments. This is necessary because your heart is racing and you’re already beginning to plan out the exact words you are going to say. Don’t. Don’t worry about using “deep” words and, for whatever reason, trying to prove yourself worthy to the rest of the group that you’re praying with. You don’t have to justify yourself to them or anyone else. And if, at the end, they do judge you by how you prayed – then just brush it off because their opinion means nothing to you.

Now that you’ve taken your deep, cleansing breath you can prepare for the praying. BUT that does not mean you can begin planning words because the point of prayer is to have it come from the heart; not to sound like a monotone recording. Wait for a moment of silence where your prayer will be much welcomed through the pause but do not wait too long because soon enough, someone will decide to close the prayer. “Christians” are impatient like that.

Okay, so now is the time to shut up. I know, this is also where you want to begin to talk but this is when you need to make your mind shut-up – Stop thinking about what to say. When you’re ready to start, don’t worry about how to address God. Say whatever your comfortable with: “Father God,” “Heavenly Father,” “Dear God,” or even “Yo Lord.” Just say it in a way that you are comfortable. I find a lot of times when I start to pray I forget everything I was going to say. When that happens, and it will, you can say “Please bless us all, and “thank you for allowing us to be here.” Basically you can say anything generic that you’ve heard a hundred times before because all your doing is filling the gap so you can regain your composure. Once your composure is regained, you can begin to pray for the things you initially wanted to.

Most times people pray for current world issues loved ones health problems, or money issues. Those are all really great things to pray about but I can tell you what will be the real kicker. Pray about something you’re going through. Make a confession. Confessions within a prayer group will make everyone look up to you as you humble yourself and what not. (Because as we all know “all Christians just want to be praised.”) But really now, confessions are a great thing to do because a lot of times it gives others the courage to admit things they otherwise wouldn’t have mentioned. It can strengthen accountability, fellowship, and a bunch of other Christian-ese terms that probably mean nothing to you.

DO NOT take that last tip the wrong way. I am, by no means, telling you to confess your sins to a person because that is clearly a ridiculous concept. For how can another human being, equally sinful as you, help in any way but by giving you advice that they think will help – even though they also did not take the time to pray about it.

Another way you can get people to look up to you through how you pray is by praying while quoting the bible. Please though, steer clear of John 3:16 and Proverbs 3:5-6 because every Christian knows both verses by heart and will not be impressed by your bible biceps; cute Christian-ese term for Scripture Memory.) Otherwise, choose a verse that really fits what you’re praying for. If you’re praying about money, don’t throw in some genesis 1-let there by light stuff. Rather, throw in a verse that’s relevant to what you’re praying about. For example, if you’re praying about a hard situation – like a loved one died- maybe mix in a little James 1:12 and see where that gets you. If you never regained your composure from the very beginning, you’re a helpless case. All you can do is end the prayer. If you’re so stuck that you cant even think of a way to end it, say: “Thank you Lord, Amen.”

- - - Keep in mind, How-To papers are supposed to be stereotypical.

Retreat in the morning 

Retreat 

Partners Field Trip  

Partners PE 

Gulu Walk Day - October 22, 2005

Around the world, we're rising to our feet,so Ugandan children can put down their arms.Every night, as many as 40,000 children in northern Uganda "commute" for several miles, to the nearest town, in search of safety. To stay home means risking abduction and life as a child soldier, sex slave or even death.
For 19 years, the Lord's Resistance Army (LRA) has been fighting to overthrow the government of Uganda. LRA rebels based in southern Sudan capture and use children as frontline soldiers. More than 20,000 children have been kidnapped — and the conflict continues

On October 22, in 32 cities around the world, men, women, teens, and families will walk in a show of solidarity with these 'night commuters', the true victims of this all but forgotten 19-year civil war. What started out as an attempt by two young men to better understand the ordeal of these courageous children has grown into an urgent, impassioned worldwide movement for peace.Participating cities include:

USA: Austin, TX

Boston, MA

Chapel Hill, NC

Chicago, IL

Denver, CO

Lawrence, KS

Los Angeles, CA

New York, NY

Pittsburgh, PA

Rochester, NY

Seattle, WA

South Bend, IN

Syracuse, NY

San Diego, CA

Washington, DC

http://guluwalk.com/participate/

http://guluwalk.com/chicago/

Wi-Fi at Hyatt!

Hey yall. It's October, THE BEST MONTH OF THE YEAR! (as we found so many to agree) Cool noodles. H2O is set to start October 11, 2005 -oka: next Tuesday- I'm pretty excited and a but nervous but it will all work out I'm sure. The main purpose of this update was to get my first October post, but I guess I can talk a little more about what's going on: Every week I am going to rent a few "classic" monster flicks and watch them. This week I rented "Bram Stokers Dracula," "The Bride of Dracula," "I was a Teenage Warewolf," and "Wolfman." Also recently I have been practicing my REM sleeping (Rapid Eye Movement) I drove on the expressway for the first time this weekend. I met my friend's new boyfriend whom is now known as my brother. And uhm, yeah, that's about it.

Amuse-bouche (noun): a small complimentary appetizer offered at some restaurants.
Battle dress uniform (noun): a military uniform for field service.
DHS (abbreviation) : Department of Homeland Security'
Hazmat (noun): a material (as flammable or poisonous material) that would be a danger to life or to the environment if released without precautions.
Metadata (noun): data that provide information about other data.
Otology (noun): a science that deals with the ear and its diseases.
Retronym (noun): a term consisting of a noun and a modifier which specifies the original meaning of the noun. ("Film camera," for instance).
Tide pool (noun): a pool of salt water left (as in a rock basin) by an ebbing tide, called also tidal pool.
Wi-Fi (certification mark): used to certify the interoperability of wireless computer networking devices.
Zaibatsu (noun): a powerful financial and industrial conglomerate of Japan.

H20 Club

Yesterday I went to a book signing for Tamora Pierce at Borders with my sister. I read eight of Tamoras books around seventh grade, but none recently. I really enjoyed her books [reccomended by none other than my close friend Melody -Tiffanys older sister-] and I really enjoyed seeing her speak. She was surpringsly blunt, but extremely funny. Cool lady, I like her. Other than that, not too much has been going on. "Christian" club is set to start up next Tuesday, with me as the general leader, but as of yet Im not too sure if that is going to happen. I havent been able to get ahold of the sponsor for the club and that means there are no posters around the school, no designated room number, etc.. Im thinking this may just be a minor set back from the enemy but I'm just trying to let it play out. I'm a little nervous going into all this because Im not much for public speaking. I know, whoever is reading this should know, we all know it.. And not to mention the fact that I was only able to pray about it for a few weeks (taking into account my problem with slacking off in my prayer life lately) so Im just, hesitant... about going into this without a very blunt "YES" from God. lol. Perhaps that "YES" is still coming, or maybe it never will, but Im going to go ahead with it and see how it plays out because my backing out could just be my own fears and apprehensions and not God telling me I shouldn't. Anyway, so much for my over analytical self taking the better of all situations. But something else that has been bugging me a bit is how it's called "Christian" Club. I dont necessarily like that. I want it to be a sort of outreach to everyone in the school and I want everyone to feel welcome, Christians, Catholics, and Mormans alike. Whether or not there's a difference is for the people to decide, but apparantly the title implies only "Christians" are welcome and I dont want to be the case. Hopefully >cross my fingers<>

See you at the Pole

Today was a half day at school so afterward I saw "Broken Flowers" with my mom. It was really good. One bad scene, but for once -in a long time- I feel like it was almost necessary to get the point across. So I would definitely reccommend it to yall. Really good movie... Bill Murray and Julie Delpy, how can you go wrong? And in other news, I made a Xanga because Crystal told me to and I figured "why not?" The link is www.xanga.com/gnome_star And in even more other news, See you at the pole was Wednesday and it was a rather good turnout. About 10 people showed up but the best part was that a teacher, Mrs. Jackson, told us that the offer for H2O [Christian Club] is still out there. I have been trying to find her for a few days now but she's always in a class when I'm free.. But once I get ahold of her I'm going to try and get that started up and hopefully [cross my fingers] I will get a "Uganda Awareness" thing started up, to let people know what is going on in the world - specifically Africa. I want to get them to agree to play 'Invisible Children' in the History classes but I dont know what the legistics are and if that is even a possibility. We'll see. Pray about it. But that is the only basic new thing right now. Peace out.

I'm middle brained

It's been awhile, since I could.. Um, nothing much has really happened. Jase asked me to do some things for Ro0ts but that's still up in the air, still on the ping pong table in my head. Partners PE is going great- I love those kids so much. One of the boys stands in awe as the freshman girls gym class do their coordinated jumping jacks.

Psychology is going pretty good but Im not good at tests so it's bringing my grade down. I think my teacher for that class has some sense of spirituality in his life but it's hard to tell these days. I was just talking to my mom about when people say they go to church.. Im referring to people who were completely anti-religion for as long as you've known them and then they tell you theyre going to church. Naturally, you want to get excited and what not but the fact of the matter is, we cant because their are so many misleading churches out there and we dont know what they're really be told, etc. So there's that.. and, nothing has been resolved with the friendship issues going around as of yet but I'm praying about it so hopefully it will just work itself out.

And I made a huge accomplishment this week. I finished the Left Behind kids series for good! Number 40 .-]check[-. I started/continued from last year, reading "Case for the Creator" and Im looking forward to gaining knowledge from that book.

Random updates... I went to the Blomers (soon to be) wedding shower this weekend and Mercy's 16th birthday party. All fun times, minus the cold I "suffered" through all night. Today I took my 'potentially' "NEW" car for a spin. It dates back to 1991, but hey man, whatever gets me from A to B [which would most likely be home to church/youth group.] If Im lucky, that will also be home to my job, and home to school. But that depends on getting hired and getting a parking permit. This leaves me with one last thing to say. It has been the center of almost all of my thoughts lately, "Come Jesus, come." I think the time of Jesus' second coming in nearing and that is just my ultimate prayer right now. AMEN? Amen.

Echo Boomers: Making a difference

In Psychology, we have been talking about the Echo Boomer generation and what scientists have found our distiguishing traits to be. Our generation has already been noted as one of the most over achieving generations ever. Here is what studies have reported:

"They have been heavily programmed. The kids who have had soccer Monday, Kung Fu Tuesday, religious classes Wednesday, clarinet lessons Thursday. Whose whole lives have really been based on what some adult tells them to do," says Levine. "This is a generation that has long aimed to please. They've wanted to please their parents, their friends, their teachers, their college admissions officers." It's a generation in which rules seem to have replaced rebellion, convention is winning out over individualism, and values are very traditional. They are also the most diverse generation ever: 35 percent are non-white, and the most tolerant, believing everyone should be part of the community"

The rest of the article is here, and I honestly thought it was very accurate.
http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2004/10/01/60minutes/main646890.shtml

For example, think of all the songs out there about pleasing our parents. Simple Plans song, "Perfect" is a perfect example. (no pun intended). The songs starts off with:

"Hey dad look at me, Think back and talk to me, Did I grow up according to plan?, And do you think I'm wasting my time doing things I wanna do? But it hurts when you disapprove all along, And now I try hard to make it, I just want to make you proud."

"It's all these people talking about how great technology is, and how it saves all this time. But, what good is saved time, if nobody uses it? If it just turns into more busy work. I mean, you never hear somebody say, "Well, you know, with, uh, the time I've saved by using my word processor, I'm gonna go to a Zen monastery and hang out." I mean, you never hear that."

That is a quote from the movie "Before Sunrise" - which was made in 1995 - and I think it hit exactly what our generation has become. Looking back at the article, it says that our generation is over achieving, multi tasking, technology driven nuts! And that is precisely what the quote above is referring to. And where does it get us? Nowhere.

And furthermore, that is why were called the "NOW" generation - because everything has to be fast for us. Seriously, if I'm at a grocery store and the check-out person is ringing my items up too slow, I get really frusterated. I just want to scream at them to hurry up!

But, there is another quote from "Before Sunrise" that I feel it is necessary to quote because it leads me right into my next rant.

"I hate, I hate that 300 kms from here there's a war going on, y'know, people are dying, and nobody knows what to do about it, or they don't give a crap, I don't know. I hate that the medias, you know, they are trying to control our minds.You know its very subtle, but you know, its a new form of fascism."

And that is what's going on in Uganda right now. There is basically a war going on and nobody knows or they dont care! So, for anyone reading this who doesn't know the situation, this is it in a nutshell.. There are a group of people called the LRA [Lords Resistence Army] who want to overthrow the Ugandan government. And I can't fill in all the between details because I dont know them, but I know that for the last 20-or-so years they have been kidnapping innocent children between the ages of 8-16 [I think] from the town of Gulu to train them to be Geurillas. The kids [also known as 'Night Commuters'] have been commuting two miles every night to a safe town. In the morning they have to commute back to make it to school. They live in constant fear for their lives. Like I said before, I dont know all the details but this is a serious situation going on right now and almost nobody knows about it! It was rated number ONE in the top 10 least talked about stories last year! The lead actor of Hotel Rwanda, Don Cheadle, has become an activist for Afica because after filming the movie, he has taken notice to how bad things are getting over there. Well, make of this what you will but I strongly encourage people to find out what's going on and try to help, in whatever way possible. Dont forget to pray, and maybe donate to some organizations helping the cause if its an option. Search "Invisible Children" and your sure to find some stuff about the situation. Dont ignore this any longer. This is our generation, let's DO something to make a difference....

Tonight was a night of revelations

I recently heard that Deja Vu is just when your brain is a second ahead of what is about to happen. So that feeling of having already done or been somewhere is because your brain is a second ahead of you; your brain HAS already done it, but you havent.

Tonight, something clicked in my brain. If that is true, if deja vu is just that our brain is a second ahead of what is about to happen, then creastionism is almost irrefutable! BECAUSE how can our brain be a second ahead of something that hasnt happened, UNLESS there is a plan! God has a plan for us, and knows what is going to happen. I dont know if anyone is following this, but it makes total sense to me...

First day of Junior Year

So, today was my first day of school... I woke up at 5:30 (after having gone to bed at about 12:30) and got ready then left. Nothing exciting happened before school. First block was Partners PE where I work with the Special Ed students at Hoffman. Um, that was cool - intimidating though. Half of the girls already knew most of the partners because they had taken the class last year so it was weird not knowing who any of them were. Um, then one of the partners kinda hit on me and I didn't really know what to do so that was weird... I still dont know how Im supposed to react to that. Second block was drivers Ed. That was alright - nothing special. Just that I was supposed to have my permit by the first day so now I HAVE to have it by the 29th of august or I may get dropped so I have to study the rules of the road book (which I got today) and take the test before Monday. No pressure... >_> Third block was Psychology. That was probably my favorite class of the day just because my friend Sancha is in that class with me and it wasnt so uptight and it was more layed back. Then seminar, which was blah. Overall, it was a fine first day, but not great, and not bad. People looked different, which was no doubt a surprise because who actually changes over the summer?! But they did, so that was weird. And the hallways are a lot more crowded. Besides those few minor details, nothing exciting. Maybe it felt blah because I was tired, but who really knows. I think tomorrow I will be going for a Monster. AND, if anyone is wondering, I was up until 12:30 watching "Dead Poets Society" because I thought Crystal had seen it and said it was amazing, but it turned out she hadnt. All the same though, it was amazing and anyone who is reading this should see it! Oh, and I just thought of something else. God answered prayer today- and I saw it! In the morning I was praying that God would give me confidence, boldness, comfort, patience, etc... Right when I walked into school, one of my former teachers told me I looked "soo good. your eyes look great!" and yadda yadda. As awkward as it was to occur in the middle of the hallway, it was a slight confidence booster so AMEN to that. I was bold in first block in talking to the partners, and felt comforted all day, like who cares what they think of me? Patience was eh, going as how crowded it was but I can work on that. SO YEAH, Eccelsiastes is a great book [I read some before first block] and it totally got me through the day. Praise God, but pray for the rest of my year.. For though Im not starting college or anything, it is still a new school year for me and another year for God to do a major work. Most of the bold christians in the former years were seniors last year, so that leaves me (as far as I know) and a few others to start up christian club and get things going again. And wow, I just typed way more than I intended so Im done. Out.