sales tax

I am not usually vocal about political opinions but I happen to feel very strongly about sales taxes (I am against them) and about private property rights (although that is a whole different story).
So this morning in our sacred space meeting I mentioned that I was against sales taxes and no one agreed with me, which I was expecting. However when they asked me why and I responded "because implementing a sales tax hurts me," nobody seemed to think that was a valid reason for voting against them. Paul said I needed to think more holistically than that and Ashby said something along the lines of, "Whatever, she's 19." As if that somehow invalidates my opinion, I guess because 19 year olds are selfish? Or ignorant?
Anyway, since we live in a land of democracy it is my right to vote in my own best interests and I am always going to vote for what I honestly believe is the best option. Which I feel is the case with a sales tax. I don't have a very high income and right now I don't own property, so I am paying relatively low taxes. As it should be. People with large incomes who own property (like my parents) should pay higher taxes than I do. That is the way it works now, and that makes sense.
Low-income wage earners spend a larger percentage of their income than do high-income wage earners, and by implementing a sales tax, they are the ones would be most affected. (Many of these people are low-income families trying to raise children, and this would affect their ability to pay for groceries and other necessities. There are promises that only non-necessities will be taxed, but who determines what those are? The government?) So essentially it would work the opposite way our taxation system is working right now, and the rich would get richer while the poor get poorer. How does that make sense?
I think property taxes are fair. Land is not free, and people who are wealthy enough to own their own land should pay for it. It is an issue of social responsibility in my opinion. We are each held accountable in spending the wealth we are blessed with. Some are blessed with more than others. Those who are more blessed have a greater social responsibility.
I do not deny that there would be some benefits from implementing sales tax, such as tourist revenue. Also all the other states have sales taxes. I know this; but I still don't think it is the best method of taxation. Just because everyone else does it doesn't mean it is good. I still think the people it hurts most are the people who need the most help and have the lowest incomes to begin with.
So while I realize that people may disagree with my opinion, I see nothing wrong with voting in my best interests. I represent low-income wage-earners who would be negatively affected by sales tax, and there are plenty of us and some more at risk than others. If I am not going to vote for what is best for that group of people, then who will? And why shouldn't I vote my opinion? Isn't that the purpose of democracy?

artistic license

It's something artists are allowed to take only when specified or in the absence of adequate information while completing a commission (and then only after repeated requests for clarification). However, what most employers don't realize is that artistic license is often more effective than the original commission. Think about it: designers are TRAINED to create effective designs, how much sense does it really make to tell them *exactly* how to create an advertisement/art piece/whatever?
Just some food for thought. And, speaking of commissions, here is the video I just (just, early this morning) made for Brad's Passion 4 People event tonight:

there was a triple homicide this morning across the street from where we live... and i have to admit, even though the police are claiming it was not a random act of violence (and therefore the rest of the neighborhood is safe), it is still pretty freaky. we didn't know these neighbors even though one of the kids, stephen, went to my high school. the whole event is just surreal. so far no suspects but the police keep saying not to worry. i don't know, maybe you have all seen this on the news... crazy. we live in a crazy world when our neighbors are found shot to death for absolutely no reason...

yeah, i don't really have anything to say.

The Prestige

Here's an idea for all the feature filmmakers out there: stop trying to make epics. You are not the next Peter Jackson or David Lean. 130 minutes is a lot to demand even for a great movie, let alone one as predictable and ridiculous as The Prestige.


P.S. Sometimes Hugh Jackman is really hot:



And sometimes he is really not:



Funny how one bad hairstyle changes everything.

I think I am slowly outgrowing my shyness. It's nice. Today I went out for coffee with Alissa (who is totally rad by the way), and I didn't feel shy or anxious at all. It was a notably pleasant experience.
Also, I am exhausted today. Seriously. Soooooo tired.

The Cult of Artistic Genius

In the last few weeks I have become increasingly aware of the shift in thinking about art over the last 500 years. Did you know that during the High Renaissance artists were considered to be the most valued members of society? It was thought that the skill set that enabled people to be talented painters also enabled them to be excellent scientists and mathematicians. Artists were among the most highly educated and well-traveled individuals in society. Talented artists were considered to be geniuses. Literally. And in some cases, this was true (take Leonardo da Vinci for example, or Raphael, who painted murals so complex that it took the assistance of theological and philosophical scholars to decipher their meanings).
I don't know if I believe that being an artist automatically makes you a genius, although creative thinking is a higher level brain function, so a TRULY talented artist would have to be incredibly intelligent. However, it is interesting to me that we no longer treat artists as though they have so much to offer to the world. Think about it-- kids who exhibit artistic tendencies early on are often encouraged to pursue other, more practical fields. Art programs are among the first things cut from education budgets in times of crisis. Art students are not offered a higher-level education equivalent to that of their peers (in terms of academics) the way they once were.
I don't know why I am posting about this, I just find it a fascinating shift in thinking. It's not that I feel personally devalued in any way. I should clarify that lest people think I am either complaining or bragging. I am not. I am discussing society in general terms.

Most ridiculous drink order I saw yesterday: (this was the Starbucks code on the side of the cup)
DECAF
4.5 P V
NON
NF
XW
PSL
WR

Which, if you're wondering, is a grande decaf, 4 and a half pump vanilla nonfat no foam, extra whip pumkin spice latte, with room for condiments.
Dallas let me call out the order but when I put it out on the bar it took two of them to coach me through it because it was so complicated. Not sure if I remember it all the way (I'm surprised the customer even knows this stuff. Holy crap) but if it wasn't this it was something equally crazy.

I got to make a Frappucino yesterday. It was fun. And easy. So far that is the only thing I really know how to do, because I don't even know how to make regular coffee. I think they let me do it because it's almost impossible to screw it up. The only thing you can do wrong is not put the lid on tightly enough, and make a mess. (Which I did, once.)

some funny little blessings

So Jeremy got me a job working at the Starbucks branch he manages. It is perfect since it's within walking distance of our house and it will be something I can continue after I go back to school. It's only part time though, and I wanted full time, so I was praying for some other money making opportunities, and hoping for something more within my skill set (like a design job).
Now here is a cool thing that happened today at church. Justin mentioned the VisGrace video I made, and Brad said to me, "Oh Ciara, I didn't know you did videos!" I looked at him like, duh Brad. I'm in film school. Apparently he didn't know this. So we talked for a while and he said he wanted help doing videos for Luis Palau. I said, sorry, I can't volunteer my time unless I'm going to get paid for my work. He said, of course we will pay you. Probably around $500-$800. He asked for some samples of my work, and I said I would get him some, so he could show the board and they could decide whether or not they want to hire me. Then he mentioned he needs videos for something he's doing next Saturday. I offered to do the video for Saturday for free, and he can hire me based on the quality of work I do for that.
Then he said that if I do a good job and it works out for me at the Palau association, he has tons of evangelist friends that are looking for cheap video editing services. Since I have free access to amazing equipment through school, and I'm working on my own, this is basically straight profit for me, and he could get my name out to his friends.
Why this is cool, is because starting something like that and building up a client base right now puts me well on my way to being able to start my own business if I wanted to. Stuff like this spreads by word of mouth through networking with people. And it would be a pretty cool opportunity, especially doing something that I am actually trained to do.
So hopefully I don't blow that opportunity.
Also, my first day at Starbucks is tomorrow. It's just paperwork and training and stuff. But... I'm excited!

Shameless advertising

Here is a video about Visible Grace. I uploaded it for everyone so you can link it and share it with whoever you want. I think you should do it 1) because it's easy and 2) because Ashby works hard and deserves as much support as we can possibly offer...


Woody, I miss you! Thank you for reading my blog. How are things in Colorado?

pneumonia? how sweet!

Let's take a moment to discuss individual responsibility for contagious illnesses:

Last night, after school, I drove out to BCC to pick up my sister from youth group. I had been in class for three hours and I was pretty tired and wanted to get home, so when she asked if I could give her boyfriend a ride home I was already a little annoyed (never mind the fact that he didn't know how to get to his own house). I asked her why he didn't have his own ride home and she said, "Please just give him a ride! He's sick and he doesn't have a jacket."
So of course I said yes. Well, this guy gets in the car and I said something along the lines of, "So, Daniel, you're not feeling well?"
He responds with, "Yeah, I've got pneumonia."
(First thought entering my mind: OH DEAR GOD! ROLL DOWN THE WINDOWS AND THROW HIM OUT OF THE CAR!) (Second thought entering my mind: Why is a little boy with pneumonia out IN PUBLIC IN LATE OCTOBER WITHOUT A JACKET?)
So I very calmly rolled down my window, pulled my jacket around my mouth and nose and said, "Pneumonia, huh? So why are you out of the house?"
My sister then turned to him with these giant puppy eyes and in her sickly-sweetest flirtatious voice ever, said, "Isn't it so sweet? He still wanted to hang out with me."
(Thought going through my head: That isn't going to be so sweet when everyone in the car gets pneumonia.)
"Ummm, don't you think that's a little irresponsible to be out with such a contagious illness?"
He shrugged (he is not a very expressive young man), and told me he had already had pneumonia seven times before. I told him I had asthma and I have had pneumonia before and did not want it again. He said he had asthma too (again: WHY ARE YOU NOT WEARING A JACKET? WHY ARE YOU LEAVING YOUR HOUSE? WHY DO YOU NOT HAVE YOUR INHALOR STRAPPED TO YOUR FACE LIKE AN OXYGEN MASK???!).

My personal feeling is that people who are sick with dangerous illnesses should not leave their houses until they are through the contagious period of their illness. My sister was very mad at me later for voicing this opinion in front of Daniel, but I stand by it... plus she does not have asthma and has never had pneumonia, so she could not possibly know the full repercussions of his actions.

I really hope I don't get pneumonia this winter. Or the flu. I would die.

married...?!

To be quite honest I don't know if marriage is for me.
You know how in movies, girls get proposed to after knowing their boyfriend like 90 minutes? And when the guy pulls out the ring they're all, "Oh my god...(long emotional pause)... yes... YES!! I THOUGHT YOU WOULD NEVER ASK!!!" (after which they burst into tears and make out to the tune of the closing credits)?

I am not at all that girl. I am more likely the type of girl to go, "WHAT? YOU WANT TO GET WHAT? BUT DON'T YOU KNOW IF WE DO THAT WE WILL HAVE TO SEE EACH OTHER EVERY DAY FOR THE REST OF OUR LIVES?!"

I can't sleep

Uuuugggggghhh. It is so late/early and I am so bored and so, so tired... last night I took the Rameys home from Ethnos, which means I had to load all the SS stuff I brought into their van instead of into my car like I normally do. Well, it didn't work so well because my painting got kind of trashed. So... yeah, that's fun. :(

Speaking of things that are fun... you guys will enjoy this. Here are some exact quotes from the note Mer left me for taking care of the boys:
"...Noah seems to be suffering from 4th grade attitude. He needs gentle but stern reminders to be respectful. Please don't hesitate to put him in his room for a cooldown if necessary..."
"...Evan can get upset easily. If it looks like he's close to meltdown- WATCH OUT. The best thing for him is to have some alone time in a seperate room..."
"Jonah seems to have respect issues right now. He tries to get away with whining, screaming etc. and doesn't want to listen... he usually responds to time out (even if you physically have to carry him there)..."

That made me laugh... although so far they have been behaving perfectly. No time outs necessary. :)

P.S.

...oops.

a bunch of random thoughts

First of all, I talked to my best friend and he is coming home next weekend from Corvallis (YAY! I HAVEN'T SEEN HIM SINCE HE LEFT IN SEPTEMBER). So we are going to get to spend some time together. It's going to be a busy weekend, but I am really excited to see him since it's been so long. So, I will make time.

Next, I am really excited about what I am studying right now, and I have been thinking about asking Renata (my history professor) if I can do an independent study on the history of art and the church. I was just talking to the hermeneutics group last night about how I haven't written a paper in almost a year (writing used to be one of my passions, before I discovered all this other stuff). But this stuff I am studying actually motivates me to research these topics and even attempt to bring them up in normal conversation (this doesn't go over very well because most people find this stuff really boring).

Here is what this has made me think. The position that I am in right now at Ethnos is that I am serving on a team that comes up with ways to creatively respond to teaching. This is, essentially, a position leading worship, not unlike what Paul does with music. I think this type of creative response is intertwined with postmodernism and I think it will expand in the coming years to become a significant part of worship gatherings in the Christian Church.
Now, one thing Paul has always said to everyone is that a strong Biblical knowledge is essential for leading worship. I think that is so true, because in order to worship, it requires we understand (at least a little, obviously not completely) the God we are worshipping and why he deserves it.
Now, if you think of creative reponse as an aspect of worship, it only makes sense that any leader participating in creative response should also be well-educated for the same reasons the musical worship pastor would need to be.
I think it's possible that in some churches this could create a third pastoral position (not that there are always two, but I'm going with the model of what we are doing at Ethnos). So, if we didn't have the team, it would make sense to hire someone to fill this "creative response" leadership role.
The reason why I bring this up and why I've been thinknig about it is that I believe this is important and I also think it is something I could do, down the line. Obviously there is a team to fill this role at Ethnos, and that is the main way I serve there. But, honestly, there are a ton of things under the umbrella of creative response that could use more structured and detailed leadership. For example, one of the things we have really wanted to develop is an appreciation for fine arts and their meaning in worship (paintings, drawing, sculpture, etc). In my opinion this hasn't really taken off yet, because there haven't been a lot of artists interested in sharing their skills with the community. I am working on how to encourage people in that respect. There is also a film and photography team that hasn't happened because of much the same reason. Getting these things off the ground is supposed to be a piece of my role in the church. But sometimes this seems like a bigger job, one that could easily be a full-time worship position.
I guess what I am saying is, I see this as a new area for ministry and through Ethnos my eyes are being opened to it. It is something I have really developed a passion for. Through that I am slowly learning the complexity of how we worship and respond to God, and why that response needs to be based on Biblical truths and not human emotion.

I feel like none of this has made sense at all, and I can't really pick out the right words to describe what I think or how I feel (this is one of the downsides to being me... ugh). I am working on putting together some material on the value of art/creativity in worship that Paul and I are (hopefully) going to talk about when he gets back. That is my first step in involving more people in art and film in the church. But yeah... hopefully when I write that stuff down it comes out more articulately (?) than all of this has.

Why does it seem like things always make more sense in my head?

Dear Ethnos family,
I am linking your blogs and myspaces from my myspace to get people interested. If this bothers you let me know and I will take you off. Go look.

frustrated...

Ugh.
So I have been trying to help Brad get the Stations of the Cross together for his conference next week. And I am SO CLOSE, I just need one or two more things and I can pass it off to him compeletely. But the problem is, no one knows where these things are. I have asked every person I can think of, including (and not limited to): Justin, Paul, Mer, my mom, Ashby, and various other people involved in the initial planning. Paul, Ash and I waded through piles of crap perched precariously on top of one another in the storage room. Paul got so excited I thought he was going to fall off a stack of boxes and hurt himself. But, no luck. Still missing.
My only hope now is Todd, but I haven't been able to get a hold of him yet. And if I don't then I am stuck trying to figure out some way to recreate this stuff (which I might have to do anyway even if I do talk to him because, let's face it, with our luck, the files were probably all on Justin's crashed laptop).
Anyway. It is just frustrating. I hope I hear back from him soon so I can stop worrying about following through on this.

#1 Most Played

According to itunes, I have listened to the song "Everything Zen" over 40 times. It's not so great of a song that it deserves that much play time (especially considering that this doesn't include the times I listened to it on cd/in my car). The only other things that even come close are albums that I accidentally left on repeat overnight.

What is your #1 played song? Anyone?

this man is a HORRIBLE person

(not borat)

frog attack

Last night as I was walking out of my door, seven or eight frogs hopped right across my path (one even on my shoes). They were literally only inches from my front door, and I am convinced they wait there for someone to open the door so that they can hop inside. I know people don't believe this so I took a picture to prove it. Four or five of them hopped away, but three stayed right next to the door for later attacks. They are the ones in this picture.
This is part of the reason I hate fall: there are more frogs in fall than any other season. They are hopping around everywhere all the time. I hate it!
I promise you guys, this "frog infestation" I joke about is actually real!

what the... ?

Right now I am studying the use of symbolism in Early Rennaissance art in Northern Europe. This piece is Robert Campin's Merode Altarpiece and it is a depiction of the Annunciation. That means the Angel Gabriel is here telling the virgin Mary that she is going to bear the Christ child. (Ironically, Mary doesn't seem to care too much, but that is another story...)
Let me just say, before I make fun, that this is an amazing piece of art with some unique symbolism and incredible depth (note the hyper-realism: it actually shows more details that the human eye is capable of perceiving all at once, making it more impressive than a photograph... although, admittedly, Campin's perspective could use a bit of work).
However. My favorite part of the painting (and something that I can't help but laugh at) is the teeny tiny, cross-toting naked baby Jesus flying through the air in a ray of sunshine. Can't see him? Click on the picture and look at the figure above Gabriel's wing.

PLEASE someone do this with me!

The Bodies Exhibition is on display right now in Seattle up until the end of December. For those of you who don't know, they basically took a bunch of human bodies, dissected them, preserved them, and positioned them in a bunch of different positions. You can see all the organs and all kinds of cool stuff.
Anyway, I really want to go drive up there one day and check it out, is anyone interested in making the trip up there with me to see this? (please?)

...It won't come back to the northwest for a long, long time!

I WILL END YOU

So my little sister hangs out with this guy I don't really like (Brent). Don't get me wrong, he is a cool kid, but he treats my precious little sister like crap-- and I am not cool with that. His recent thing has been juggling a relationship with two seperate girls (one of whom is my sister). He leads her on and pretends like he likes her until the other girl is interested in him, then he drops her. Not cool.
Anyway, a month or so ago he invited my sister to homecoming at his school. Apparently he had also invited this other girl (who, I should mention, my sister doesn't really like, for obvious reasons). The dance is this saturday and my sister designed and sewed her own dress for it.
Little did we all know that he not ONLY invited my sister, he invited morgan (the other girl) as well. Somehow he thought it would be ok, the three of them going together. Well, clearly it didn't work. Morgan threw a hissy fit and Brent, being the dumb guy he is, called my sister and un-invited her to the dance so that he could go with morgan.
Anyway, I am done being tolerant of this kid. My sister has been moping around the last few days, depressed. And I swear that if I see Brent again, he is going to get quite an earful from me (if not a swift kick in the ass).

In other news, my brother announced today that after a night of sleeplessness and prayer, he has finally decided to stop smoking pot. Forgive my skepticism, as I know this is a good first step, but I have heard this announcement several times in the past few years. It's hard to get excited about something I don't really believe.
Also, he is postponing moving out indefinitely.

weird al/seattle/how NOT to flirt:

Okay. I will post something.
I spent the weekend in Seattle visiting Kess and Kristin at SPU. It was a very college-y weekend. It was a little surreal being in an actual college environment since Ai is anything but. There were people my age! In fact, pretty much everyone in that part of town was my age. Crazy. Except for Jade, I have not seen another 19-year-old in months.

Um. This term I am taking art history from gothic to neoclassism. So far it is amazing. Yet another subject I could easily major in, if I had a million lifetimes in which I could major in every possible field. I love it. So far we have studied a lot of Christian art and architecture (due to the Crusades which coincided with the Gothic period, most surviving artwork was Christian). It is sad that we are missing similar pieces from other faiths. How dumb.

Also. There is a ridiculously hot guy in this class. I noticed him the first day of class, which happened to be the day I was sick and decided not to wear makeup or brush my hair. I was wearing jeans and this giant Red Sox jacket I got from Kristin, and I looked like poo... anyway, I ALWAYS get comments about this jacket and I am not a fan at all. I don't really know anything about baseball. I didn't even know it was a red sox jacket until the red sox were in the world series my senior year, and someone pointed it out to me.
Anyway. I was wearing this jacket and was walking by the hot guy in the hallway during our break. He smiled at me (gorgeous smile by the way) and said, "So, are you from Mass?"
I was feeling a mixture of excitement at the fact that he was talking to me and confusion because I had no idea what he was saying. I smiled back my cutest possible I-don't-know-what-you're-talking-about smile, and asked, "What?"
He repeated the question. I was frantically trying to think of what this sentence could possibly mean. For some reason it occured to me he must have been thinking he knew me from somewhere else. So what did I say?
"Oh... no. I'm not even Catholic."
...Boy did I feel retarded when he started laughing at me. "No, I meant, are you from Massachusetts? I'm from Boston."
I managed to shake my head and blush all the way to my ears before hurrying away in embarrassment. Man, I am so smooth.

(Later that same day, my friend Louis asked me what I wanted to do when I graduated, and I said "become an independent doctormentarian.")

I guess people will have to take my word for it that I'm smart, because I certainly have a hard time showing it.





P.S. Angie, you are probably right about the frogs orchestrating the jar incident. I would not be surprised in the slighest. I will have you know I had two very close (and very horrifying) encounters with large frogs this afternoon. The rainy seasons are the worst for frogs because them jump out of their little holes when they flood, and come up on the sidewalk (and into your houses). Watch out for them!

I am too busy to blog.
It sucks.

9 things that can make you dumber:

Some of these you may know; others you may not. This is a list of 9 things that can lower your IQ, either temporarily or permanently:

1) You weighed less than 5.5 lbs at birth (3 points)
2) Expose to secondhand smoke (4 points)
3) Smoking pot (4 points)
4) Sleep deprivation (5 points)
5) You left high school before your junior year (6 points)
6) You cried constantly as a baby (9 points)
7) Your pregnant mother took aspirin several times a week (10 points)
8) You constantly use IM or your BlackBerry (10 points)
9) You were born into poverty (14 points)

I am guilty of 4,6, and 8, which adds up to... a lot of points. If I had all those points, maybe I could be a genius (I don't know that for sure; the IQ points I lost were the ones that would have enabled me to do basic addition). Oh, the things that could have been.
And how ironic that text messaging actually makes you just as dumb as smoking pot AND dropping out of high school COMBINED. Terry, I'm sure you will get a kick out of that.

I am going to add as #10 blows to the head, because I am now significantly dumber than I was yesterday.

**The information in this post was collected by WIRED magazine, which is almost as true as the Bible, with exception to the article they recently published entitled "10 Reasons Keanu Rules".

ouch

I just had a glass jar break over my head. It fell off a shelf and onto my head. It hurt really bad. I am tired now but my mom told me not to go to sleep, so I am blogging to keep myself awake.

I don't really have anything to write about. Lately I have not been that excited about blogging. even if i write i don't read other peoples' very much, which makes me feel bad.

Ouch! my head hurts. I wish i had made cookies earlier because i want one right now.

Quake: the recap

So, I was planning on writing about this before now and since I didn't I don't remember what all I would have said. I'm not going to repeat anything because matt already said a lot about the conference on his blog.

So what I will say is this: I really enjoyed helping out at the Quake conference this past weekend, and I felt God moving through everything. It was a unique experience for me, I think, because I kind of fell within the target age group (it was supposed to be for junior high--college kids). So even though I was helping out, I still felt like I had a bit of a different perspective in terms of the way everything went, and it did have some kind of impact on me spiritually, although many of the themes didn't apply personally.
What I kept thinking all day on Saturday as I watched these kids respond with stories about painful family relationships was I am so thankful for my parents. As I was putting the prayer stations together, one verse really stuck in my mind: "Though my father and mother forsake me, the Lord will receive me."
The whole day I could not get that verse out of my head. I thought about the heartbreaking reality that some of these kids have lived through. I was so aware that this was not the case for me, and the gratefulness for that incredible blessing just shook me. During the last session, they asked for teenagers with christian parents to gather and lay hands on kids without christian parents and pray for them. I had th eopportunity to pray with an amazing girl whose father and stepmother don't know Christ. My heart broke for her, and it reminded me of my friend Caitie, whose atheist father died this last summer.
I don't know how to describe the reality that settled in me at that moment. But it was one of thankfulness coupled with painful conviction, and the understanding that I have not been blessed for my own benefit, but I have been blessed so that I may bless others. It definitely shook me. I feel foolish for not having grasped that concept before, but I am so glad that it sunk in the way it did.

On the other side of things, it was awesome to feel involved and to see the level of work that goes into these things. I was very impressed by the entire band, but especially by Joel. I sat with him in the sound booth for the better part of the sessions. Honestly, I don't know how he does all that he does. Between the two of us we managed to complete all the crazy tasks Mike threw at him last minute. But it was still hectic back there, and yet Joel was calm throughout everything.
I was so glad to be able to serve with Joel because he has such an amazing attitude and such a servant's heart. I hope for his sake that he has some help lined up for the next conferences, because it was WAY more than a one-man job. The only time he showed even a hint of how difficult his work was, was when Paul dismissed the students. Joel leaned his head back on the pew behind him and happily said, "It's over," closed his eyes for like two seconds, sighed, and then got up and started tearing down the equipment. I was amazed.
As for relationships, I feel like the sacred space team really bonded over this whole conference. Paul and I had some pretty good talks about the team and at one point, as he was thanking us for coming, he said, "It feels like my family is here." I was really touched by that because it felt so true. It made me realize how much we have grown together in that we look out for each other and truly care about each other. Even Jeremy, who just joined the team a couple weeks ago, has already become part of the family. It was a good realization.
We also had to opportunity to meet and train some amazing (AMAZING) women in the Tri-Cities. They were helpful, joyful, efficient and some of the nicest people I have ever met. They are going to do a great job with the creative planning for the rest of the conferences, and I was blessed by spending time with them.

I guess that is all I can say about it for now. I would say so much more but it would be hard to explain the rest anyway. Overall I came away with an appreciation for the ways God has blessed me in my family, both at home and with ethnos.

I got frustrated almost immediately after sitting down to type this because so many ideas came into my head that seemed so unrelated. However, the more I thought about these things, the more they became tied together.
If I were to sum up what is going on, I would say that I am finally being convicted about my lack of humility and my frequently self-righteous way of thinking. The conviction has led me to finally realize how much this wrong way of thinking has permeated my life.
I have many thoughts to share on this topic, and will probably do so later this week... right now I am still too frazzled to begin to explain.

Also, the plaster is coming off of my faith painting because I haven't yet had a chance to varnish it, and it doesn't like traveling back and forth to Ethnos every week. So that is high on my list of priorities tomorrow, because today when I picked it up to bring it to church the thumb fell off on one hand.
Now that is quality artwork. About as fragile as a wet paper towel.

P.S. Kristin, I am coming to visit you on Thursday, and we are going to see the Paul Allan art exhibit on display at the EMP because I heard you can see original gaugins and monets and the cost is only $8/person. Also... I hear the Dead Sea Scrolls are on display somewhere up there?

Quake--Teamwork--My little sister

Okay, so the last few days have been a crazy whirlwind of activity trying to get everything together for Quake. I think there was a lot more work there than I had initially realized. Maybe if I could go back in time I would change things so it didn't require that magnitude of work.
The thing is, we are supposed to be going up and training another sacred space team. I want to show them the best that the Ethnos Sacred Space team can do. I take pride in our work and am passionnate about the way we serve in the church. I also love every member of our team. If we can relate that sense of team and worship to another group of people, and share that with them, that will be awesome. I am excited for that opportunity.
Still, even for that, this was a TON of work. What makes it harder is that everyone was so busy around this time. With your friends (with a true team) you are more willing to pick up where other people leave off, to cut people slack, to take on more than your share here and there because you care about the people you are working with. And you don't want them to be overstressed. If I didn't care about the team at Ethnos I don't think I would have put so much work into this conference.
Guys, if you're reading this, consider it a labor of love.

I wasn't last night, but when I woke up this morning I was excited. I feel like we have a great opportunity here. My sister is riding up with me to attend this conference, and I am stoked for that. I am looking forward to spending some quality time with her, and getting her better introduced to the team. She is going to help us set up and everything. I think this is important for her because I feel like she could really be serving and getting involved if responsibility was given to her. She is a lot like me, and could take on most of the ministry responsibilities I have at Ethnos. I think it would be awesome if she could get more involved there. She would really love helping out with something like sacred space. She is a VERY talented artist (MUCH more so than I was at her age). But shy. Like me.
Also, I know how conferences like this can impact middle school and high school kids. I am praying for something like that with my sister.

Okay. I should go take a shower and pack up the car... that's all I have to say right now. Pray for everyone this weekend!

Yikes.

I got so much done!

Today was such a productive day!
It feels good to bump a few things off my to-do list.

Also-- School starts on Wednesday.
I got a letter in the mail today from the Dean, and it informed me I am in fact working toward a BS and NOT a BFA. I am pleased; I never wanted a BFA. I think for my particular field of interest a BS will get me much further.
Ahhh... I love science.

P.S.
(I know everyone is going to laugh at me or roll their eyes and go "This girl has problems." But I have to write about this.)
Today as I was working in the office I noticed there was some gross ball of fuzz on the floor. Although there was absolutely no reason to think it, I had the fleeting worry, "what if that's a dried frog?" (I have thoughts like this because I am crazy. I cannot prevent them, but I try to ignore them when they come up.)
So, instead of indulging my fears, I continued on with what I was doing at that particular moment, and when I was finished, leaned over to throw away the fuzz.
But in that moment my worst fears were realized, as it was in fact a dried-up frog lying on its back. Don't worry, I didn't touch it. I gasped and ran out of the room, went and found my brother, and asked him to take care of it for me. I couldn't go back into the office until I knew it was gone.
Even after that I was grossed out, and as I sit here I can't help but wonder if there are other frogs in this room.
Perhaps this was the frog that tormented me last week when I was trying to do my Bible study? If so, I am pleased that nature got its sweet revenge.

...I think I need therapy.

Let me be the first to personally welcome you into the month of Auctiontober. I would have done so yesterday, but I was not feeling up to the challenge.
This is how Auctiontober goes: everyone is stressed. When I say "everyone" I primarily mean my friends on the Sacred Space Team, all of whom are to the point of pulling out their hair and having spontaneous meltdowns. However, I assume this trend will prove itself for the rest of the church and our friends outside the church as well.
Why is October such a busy month? I don't know. All I know is, day #2 and I'm already wishing it were over. I don't even have an auction like Ashby does, a GIANT presentation like Doug does, two conferences to lead like the Paul Ramey Band does, etc.
I'm a little frustrated with myself because I expected to have found a job right now, and I'm so busy with other things that I haven't even gotten myself together enough to really start looking.
(Okay... Mike Thibedeaux just called me TWICE in the time it took me to type that last paragraph. And right after that he paged me his number. And he left two messages. I don't really have anything to say to him and I know if I answer my phone I will be caught up in a conversation that lasts, like, 45 minutes (at the least). I told him to wait until Tuesday for the video stuff he asked me for and I'm betting he wants to "check in" on that again...)
Ugh.
The point is, welcome to October. Everyone is really stressed, so please pray for us all. Pray that October will end really really soon.
Thanks.

today, my asthma has decided, is a good day to try and strangle me.

ashbyduck (9:40:24 PM): (jenn is buying tickets to a michael w smith concert. what should i do?)
audioangel2 (9:40:31 PM): OH NO
audioangel2 (9:40:36 PM): INTERVENE.
ashbyduck (9:40:44 PM): HOW?!
audioangel2 (9:40:54 PM): is she doing it on the computer?
audioangel2 (9:41:00 PM): THROW THE COMPUTER OUT THE WINDOW

rough draft

Haha. Thank you all for your photoshop advice/sympathy! When I tried it again this morning it worked perfectly (I think in my sleepiness I may have been forgetting to hold down the control key to trim my path). Jenn, good advice though on the magic wand tool. I didn't think of that, and it would have been REALLY easy to do it that way.
Anyway:



This is the first draft of the layout for our new (ETHNOS-ized) Basic Discipleship studies. We are starting each section off with a story from someone in the community, thus the photo and parchment graphic. The rest is pretty basic and just filler for right now until I build more graphics. I want to create some sort of watermark for the pages, but I haven't gotten to doing that yet... (I threw in a celtic knot graphic in the basic idea of what I want to do, but hopefully it's a lot cooler than that).
When it's printed we'll probably print it on recycled paper so it will have a creamy-looking background instead of white.
Oh, and don't bother trying to read the text... it's just filler and it's all in latin anyway.

I found this Napolean Dynamite review on the rotten tomatoes website:
"In a way, I find this movie similar to Lost in Translation. It's totally boring with zero purpose, zero message and yet, a segment of those who did like it point at those of us who didn't and say, "oh you're just to shallow to get it." Well yeah, you're right. I DON'T get boring movies. Maybe only dull people can relate to dull movies."

Haha... I actually don't mean to offend anyone who liked these movies, but they were both the epitome of boringness to me, so I find this review very amusing...

School for Scoundrels has gotten really bad reviews. I am disappointed; I wanted it to be funny.

I HATE PHOTOSHOP.

Seriously. I am trying to build graphics for our Basic Discipleship studies and my pen tool WON'T WORK, so when I go to load elements from Photoshop into InDesign all of the scratch area shows up. It is a problem because I want this parchment to be the background and then I'm going to build elements on top of it... but when I have all the white space showing up they won't work together.
I want to cut out the scratch area but my pen tool is MAKING ME CRAZY.
ALSO. This is supposed to be done in Duotone but for whatever reason I can't change the color mode??? AHHHHH. PHOTOSHOP, YOU MAKE ME WANT TO KICK SOMEONE.
I KNOW that I know how to solve this problem, and at the very least I have it written somewhere or in my textbook, but I'm probably past the point of productivity tonight, so I quit...

I need a new Bible. My old Bible is falling apart (I've used it since I was 12). Literally, it is duct-taped together and even with that the maps are still falling out of the back.
I've been saving up for a new one, but I'm still $10 from the goal, and it's one of those things that gets shoved to the back burner when a more immediate need comes up (such as buying gas or groceries or whatnot). It feels like I will never get all the way to having enough money all at the same time.
Anyway... that is what I am thinking of right now.

Deputy Mikhail Gerba

After a columnist in the Oregonian posted a story about Deputy Gerba and the Lukus Glenn shooting (remember... he is the deputy who helped my family this summer), my mom wrote a letter to the editor explaining our family's story. The thing is, it was a similar situation, and events like this can destroy a police officer's career because of bad publicity and self-doubt.
The editor called my mom to ask if she could publish the story, and I think it is going to run in tomorrow's paper, so look for it.
My dad also wrote a letter to Mikhail Gerba, thanking him for the help he gave my family, and offering to do whatever he could to help him (be it releasing a public statement, testifying in a trial, whatever). He also mentioned he was praying for him. Gerba routed the letter to the rest of the Washington County Police Department for encouragement, and the sheriff called my dad yesterday to thank him for his prayers and for offering to help.
What I just realized today (this information brought me to tears) was that this man was supposed to go on vacation the next day after the night they found my brother. Because of an error on the part of the Tillamook PD, my brother was checked into the hospital in Tillamook voluntarily (which means he could check himself out at any time). The deputy offered to postpone his vacation to drive to Tillamook himself to pick up my brother and safely transport him to a hospital in Portland, where he could be checked in by the officer so that he would be incapable of checking himself out until he was declared healthy by trial. This turned out not to be necessary, but it was such a selfless offer that I can't help but be touched.

I don't know why I am sharing all of this. It is kind of emotional to talk about. But I feel like since he did so much for us, my family should really return the favor by doing as much as possible to help him.

it's addictive

I love the new version of itunes! I love the jukebox-esque slider that shows all the album covers.
I am missing a lot of the album info though, so I had to go back and fill in a bunch of it. It's one of those things that is pointless and a waste of time but still addictive and somehow gratifying. I love it when the black box goes away and turns into pretty album art.

Hmmm.

Today was my dad's birthday, and next wednesday is my mom's birthday. They are both turning 47 this year. Don't tell them I told you how old they are, but do say happy birthday when you see them next.

my brother is moving out, and i am happy

At the moment I don't really feel like being mature about this, so I'm just gonna say it like it is and people can draw whatever conclusion they deem appropriate.
My brother is a big effing jerk and I don't like living with him at all. This entire summer has been one shit storm after another, and the majority of it has been entirely his fault because of his immaturity and inability to put ANYTHING AT ALL before his own personal happiness. I have watched my entire family suffer through his mood swings, his substance abuse, his irresponsible behavior, etc this summer to try and support him. Not only does he not accept our support he actually treats us poorly in response to all of our love and sacrifice.
Tonight at the dinner table, he yelled at me, cussed me out, and told me to shut up because he didn't like the topic of conversation we had brought up. Basically my mom asked him to let us know when he was going to be coming home on nights he goes out partying. This seems like a fair request on our part because of the way this summer has gone and the level of anxiety that accompanies any of his extended trips out of the house. If he isn't where he says he is going to be when he says he will be there, we all panic a little. It is inescapable.
His response to my mom (which was said in a really disrespectful tone) was, "You can always call me." I pointed out that nobody wants to call him at 2 or 3 in the morning, and it really would just be easier if he told us where he was going/when he'd be back before he left.
Then, he yelled at me to shut up, said, "What the fuck do you think you are, my mom? You're not my mom!" My parents both immediately told him to simmer down but he kept just yelling at me and cussing me out so finally I said, "I think you are a jerk," and got up and walked away.
As I was walking away, my mom pointed out that he really has been a jerk lately (let me remind everyone here of the facts, they are as follows:
1. in the past week, my brother has ditched me (with absolutely no warning) more than three times. when confronted he makes no response or apology.
2. my brother is an alocoholic/stoner, and as such literally incapable of carrying on an interesting conversation. i avoid speaking to him whenever possible because he has a tendency to fly off the handle for no reason and insult/demean the people he is talking to.
3. his behavior is disrespectful to everyone else in the house and can even be dangerous. for example, when i came home from church tonight he had left a pizza in the oven and gone out. he had left the house with the oven on and something inside of it. how stupid do you have to be to do something like that?
4. let us not forget that after having attempted suicide earlier this summer, he now goes out at all times of day and night without informing anyone of his whereabouts. he does not answer his cell phone or respond to messages until he feels like it. this worries everyone in our family. again, when confronted he makes no apology.
5. lastly, his response to this conversation is not out of character because it is pretty much how he responds to anything he doesn't want to hear. cuss the person out and tell them to shut up. they won't fight him back because he's sick and has low self esteem).
He made no response after that, and we finished our meal without talking to him. When he excused himself from the table my mom apologized to me.
I am so tired of him, though. I just don't want him around anymore. After all the things I have done for him, for my brother to treat me the way he does is just disrespectful and wrong.
I don't believe moving out will be good for him. He is incapable of caring for himself in even the most basic way. I worry that he will hurt someone else with his irresponsible behavior.
But I am glad he is moving out so I don't have to deal with his bullshit anymore. And neither does the rest of my family. If he doesn't want my support, fine. I am more than happy not to offer it to him.

It is sad; this is my brother and I'm supposed to love him no matter what. But I have honestly never known someone to disappoint me and dismiss me more than he has, and I'm tired of it. I'm so freaking tired of him.

I knwo this is probably not the response God wants me to have but right now I just don't care.

ACSS, for your enjoyment

Since no one responded in the positive (except for you, Terry) I can only assume you don't know what I'm talking about (or that you don't read my blog, or that you don't like them and don't want to crush me... two possibilities that I will ignore).
So here are a couple Afro Celt videos. They mix African and Celtic sounds (thus the name). WHICH in my opinion is genius, because I love both, and they make a really cool sounding mix.
So here are two videos... the first is featuring Peter Gabriel, the second Sinead O'Connor (who I love!!!!!!)





My favorite part of all Irish music is the bodhran. It is a traditional Irish drum that I think has the coolest sound ever. We have one and when I went through my drum phase I used to play it a lot... the end result being that it is now broken and unplayable.
Maybe I should just buy a new one. Bodhrans are way cool in my opinion. There is a guy playing one in the second video and he is a total BAMF. Like how I could be, if only I had a sweet bodhran....
If only...

Afro Celt Sound System

Does anyone else like them? Because I think they're genius.

the light at the end of the tunnel

This is my favorite painting ever.
For a while after my Buddhist phase (and before I came to Ethnos) I was shopping around for churches, and I went to the Bridge pretty regularly for about 6 months or so. I really liked the worship there because it was so honest and raw. One of the things was that they let everyone do art during the services.
It was very different than what we do at Ethnos. They had tables covered in butcher paper, and tempera paint, and sometimes I couldn't even find brushes.
Anyway, the day I painted this was a particularly bad day in my world. I remember feeling really hopeless and lost, and praying that God would somehow help me find a way out of the darkness (thus the subject matter... and caption).
They had laid out pieces of foamcore all over the floor and told people to paint if they wanted to. However it was so dark in the club that I couldn't see what I was doing at all, and since I couldn't find a paintbrush, I used my hands and what I thought was black, red and white paint. It wasn't until I got outside that I realized it was purple.
Anyway, the reason I like it so much is that it pretty much sums up the way my head worked during that time of my life. And I remember the passionniate worship that day and having my hands in paint up to my elbows...

Another funny thing is that I was so shy, I pretty much ran out of the service afterward, and wouldn't show the painting to anyone (even my dad when he came to pick me up), so it sat in the drum room for a year and a half, until just now when I fished it out.

for you, Lindgren:

This isn't the one I was talking about, but it is almost as bad.

You make me wanna.... flip.

He is kinda cute though.

blessings for the church

There are different ways of looking at situations life throws your way. You can learn from them or you can be frustrated by them. Usually it's a little of both. Lately God has been teaching me some pretty cool stuff through the church, though.
I know the budget crisis for Ethnos is not a good thing. But I do think it has had some positive effects on our community. Justin shared how he has been in prayer more lately than ever before. I have been learning a lot about conserving money through sacred space stuff.
It is not that I spent a lot of church money before, or anything. I've always tried to be cautious about buying stuff for the church. But lately I have been more cautious than ever because there is literally no money at all to spend.
What it takes is a lot of creative thinking about how we are going to make things happen. Which, in my opinion, is a good thing that we miss out on when we have a budget and things come easily. I know from experience in art and film that usually the best things happen when you are forced to do something creative to make up for materials you don't have. This looks like using a wheelchair for tracking shots in El Mariachi or reusing old canvases for paintings. Things like that.
Now... a couple of pretty sweet things have happened in the past couple days that prove this point. The studio team has been helping put together some sacred space stuff for the upcoming Quake conference that the PRB is serving at. We have no budget for this either, but a lot of work to do, so we've been trying to find ways to get everything done on time and for cheap/free.
One of the things I had to do was get together a bunch of verses on parchment paper and matboard. We have no more parchment paper, so I went to the store where we got the first batch (for cheap). The store was closed, so I had to get creative. I ended up finding a whole ream of paper for under $7, which is more than enough for the conference. But I was still worried about finding so much matboard. Matboard is really expensive. I figured I would just have to look for some really cheap somewhere and conserve it as best I could.
Well, I went to craft warehouse to see if there was something I could use (they have low prices), and I found a whole stack of like 30 or 40 pieces of recycled cardboard sitting on the floor in the aisle. It was perfect-- exactly the sizes I needed and plenty of it, because they were the cardboard inserts that come in the back of a ream of cardstock. I took them to the front counter and explained where I had found them and asked if I could buy them for cheap (the store usually just recycles them). After some haggling the clerk decided to give them to me for free!
It was so much better than my original plan because it took so much less work to put everything together, and the whole thing ended up costing only $7. Plus, I know for the future how and where to get those materials for much, much cheaper than we've gotten them in the past.
The next blessing was that we were looking for a whole bunch of cardboard to put together some stuff for the stations. I had called around to find somewhere I could pick up free refrigerator boxes, but the closest place was in SE Portland, so I had decided not to do it today. I went instead to pick up my sister from school. She goes to school in downtown Beaverton, and I sat waiting for her in the parking lot, I thought to myself "You know, the recycling center is right down the street, maybe there is some cardboard there?".
She and I went by the center, and I was planning on basically dumpster diving, seeing if there was anything usable I could salvage. As we pulled into the parking lot it started raining, and I thought, "great, all the cardboard will be soggy now". Then we saw a truck pulling in and a man unloading huge cardboard crates.
I went over and asked him if I could take the crates (he was lifting them on a forklift). He goes, "Lady, these boxes are the size of your car, there is no way you can take them home with you. Plus, they're full of cardboard."
I asked him if I could look around inside them, and he agreed. What was in there was HUGE pieces of cardboard EXACTLY THE SIZE I NEEDED. My sister and I completely loaded our car with as much as we could, and just in time. We managed to get all of the cardboard into the car while it was still dry (it was protected from the rain by being stacked inside the box).
So, my point in writing all of this, is that God is good in the small things. These two things, even though they are not all that important in the grand scheme of life, saved me a lot of time and money this week. And I am really thankful for that, because if we had had a huge budget, I probably would not have tried these options. I would probably have bought cardboard and matboard and expensive parchment somewhere else, thinking I was saving myself time, and actually just making more work for the team.
So I hope these lessons stick with me even if our budget troubles change (and I really hope they do). Because it is good to know that what I think is the easiest way actually may not be, and God blesses us when we are faithful and good stewards of the what he has already given us....

This is sad. I was watching the news about the kid who died in the police shooting this past Saturday, and it turns out one of the officers being investigated is the officer who helped find my brother on the night he was missing. He is a good guy, and the media just eats up stuff like this.
So I hope everything goes well for him, even though the situation totally sucks.

wait. there's more...

Actually, Murdock just posted the grades for Storyboarding and it looks like I must've gotten an A on my final project because I ended up getting an A- in the class!
I really didn't think that was possible, I was pushing it even hoping for a B+, but ohmygoshi'msoexcited because that puts me on the honor roll again this quarter!
YAY! I'm so proud... =)

GRADES...

I just realized something I had never previously taken the time to notice. Here is what happened:
I logged in to the student network to check up on my grades for this quarter, my CGPA, etc. Last quarter I got two A's and two B+'s, and it never really occured to me that a B+ is weighted differently than just a B. So even though, technically, I did better than a 3.50, I assumed that was my GPA for last session.
I was wrong, though. My GPA last session was actually a 3.70. Which was a nice surprise... even though I probably should have known that several months ago. Ha. Silly me.
Okay, now on to other good news...

I GOT AN "A" IN MY ART HISTORY CLASS!!!

And not an A-, but an A. I don't know how I pulled that one off... but I did, so, hooray for me!
And B+'s in both Audio and Computer Graphics. I am just waiting on my final Storyboarding grade. I know for a fact I didn't get worse than a B, though, so I can pretty much assume my grades are somewhere in the 3.4-ish area.
Which is not too bad in my opinion, and better than I was expecting (I didn't think I made the B+ range in audio).

Anyway. That's all I have to say right now. Hooray for my hard work paying off. =)

Thurn & Taxis

This game is money. I convinced my family to buy it the other day because it won the Spiel des Jahres this year. For anyone else out there who likes board games, the Spiel des Jahres is among the most prestigious game award. It is also the award won by Settlers of Catan and Puerto Rico, which are made by the same company that made Thurn and Taxis.
The point of the game is to build postal routes in Germany, which doesn't sound interesting but: trust me, it is. Also, I like this a lot better than the other Rio Grande games.

I'M DONE!!

I just got home from turning in my last project of the term and I don't think it's really sunk in yet that I'm done. You know the "residual stress" feeling that lingers for a couple days after a deadline? I'm having that in a major way. I keep feeling like there's something I need to be doing, even though... I'm free.
On the way home I thought about my classes and tried to guess what my grades will look like for this term. I was really hoping for another term on the honor roll, but that might not happen. In order to accomplish that I'd need two A's and two B's, and I have a couple classes on the A/B borderline. This is what will most likely happen:
Intro to Graphics- B (maybe B+, POSSIBLY an A if I'm REALLY LUCKY)
Intro to Audio- B or B-
Art History- A- or B+ (I've got my fingers crossed for the A)
Storyboarding- B

I think, overall, I'm ok with my grades, even though they probably aren't as high as last term. This term was a lot harder for me in a lot of ways. Subject matter, stress, schedule, etc. So I'm proud of the work I did and the grades I earned.


(My sister is making herself breakfast right now and whatever it is, it smells like CRAP and is making me nauseous.)
Tonight, my mom, sister and I are going to see Wicked the musical. I'm so excited... not just to see the play, but to hang out with them, and get all cute for a night on the town (we're going out for dessert afterward). We don't get to do that much, and I think it will be fun for all of us...

my friend terry

The way I know that Terry is my friend is that today I texted him and he texted me back. (If you know Terry, you know that is a big deal, because he hates texting.)
So my question now is, if I text him every once in a while, can I expect a response, or is it strictly a one time thing?
Hmm.

Also, we went to hear Jim Wallis speak tonight. It was interesting but a little disappointing. I was expecting it to be more of a "mobilizing on social issues" kind of talk and it was more advertising than anything else. They are hosting some training day on Saturday and I think the mobilizing will go on then, but it is a bummer to me that we didn't talk more about the important issues tonight.
I actually haven't read God's Politics, so I think that was part of the problem, because there was really no explanation in his speech. It was made along with the assumption that people knew what he was talking about. I wish I had, because that probably would have made it easier to listen.
I do, however, feel convicted about not yet being registered to vote. I know that I need to do that, and have been putting it off for over a year now. I will probably register libertarian when I get around to it.
I'm putting that on my list of things to do this next week.

FINALS!

Well, I am pretty much done. Today I turned in my animatic and took my art history final, which leaves me with only one more project due this Saturday. It is my final comic book for my boarding class. I am not too stressed about getting this done, because I have already laid out the frames (they were in my animatic). All I really have to do is color them and get together the script, shot list, character descriptions, etc.
What I actually wanted to do was post my animatic. It turned out not so bad, except Kess had trouble with his lines and blew into the microphone when he spoke. I tried to edit it out but it still sounds a little funny.
I hope I got an A on my art history final. If I did, I will get an A in the class. I have gotten A's on every test but they are low A's, and high B's on every quiz... so my grade right now is totally up in the air.
These finals were really not so bad. The work load was intense, and I was of course really busy and stressed. But stressed to the point of motivation and organization, not to the point of panic. It also helped having projects instead of exams. I have been working on a lot of this stuff for three or four weeks now, instead of having to study all in a couple weeks to try and remember everything.
So, it is nice to feel almost done. I am looking forward to really being done on Saturday. And to celebrate, Saturday night, we are going to see Wicked!!!
I am in a really good mood.
I'm also really, really tired.

CHI RHO IOTA (XPI)

Check it out. This is a page from the Book of Matthew in the Book of Kells (it lives in Ireland and I have seen it with my own eyes!! It is freaking amazing). The characters XPI are the symbol of Christ in the early church because they are the first three letters of the name Christos (yeah, you guessed it, that means Christ). This symbol was used all over the early church... on shields, in cathedrals, illuminated manuscripts, etc, etc. It was meant to bring the favor of God on those who bore it, to worship and to honor Christ.
I think this would be some pretty cool imagery to use in the modern church. For one, illuminated manuscripts stand on their own as an astounding expression of love and worship. Pages took weeks or months to complete, and monks worked all day, every day by candlelight, devoting their lives to recording the gospel message. The complexity of design was meant to honor God, but also to convey the glory and the message to a general population that was largely illiterate.
When I look at something like this I am overwhelmed by the beauty of God's love for us. When you think of God as the ultimate creator, any type of creativity becomes an expression of worship. That he loves us enough to share the enjoyment of creativity with us is a beautiful thing. Every time I sit down with my paintbrush I am aware that everything I create is inspired by God's creation around me. He allows me to share in the joy of who he is by what he has made. How amazing is that?
For myself, there is no better way to worship God than to pick up a paintbrush, because it makes me aware of how small I am in comparison to how great and glorious he is.
The art of these early christians and the complexity and detail with which they glorified God is amazing to me. I am rambling now, and I recognize that, but that's because words don't really explain the feeling I get from this image, or others like it, or the creative process in general.
Anyway, my point in bringing all of this up is that I feel like this imagery is exactly the heart of worship for me. And I want to use it in the church. And I want to create it. And I want to worship God like this.

Self-promotional brochure that I turned in tonight. I am too tired to explain it. Hopefully it speaks for itself (is that not the purpose of advertising)?


This is the first of three projects and one massive exam. I will probably post the other project if I can because it makes me laugh. It is a two minute animatic combining my audio and storyboarding finals. I am too lazy to explain that right now, too... but you will see it when it's done (if it turns out okay).

OH, ps. A lot of that information is made up because this isn't a for-real resume. So the phone numbers and emails aren't real. Well... most of them aren't real. And I'm not sure what my GPA in high school was, except that it was a point off from 3.5. It could have been a 3.6, but knowing me... it probably wasn't.

MAN I have a headache right now.
Today was emotional. More problems with my brother, plus Oprah made me cry. Damn that Oprah. She is always doing that.

I have been thinking about Ethnos and our new series because we are starting the book of James this week. James is my favorite book and I know it well, so I'm pretty stoked about this one. (Bear with me as I express my thoughts, cause they might be a bit choppy. My head is literally killing me, so I'm having trouble being coherent)
The reason I find this passage interesting is because one of the first verses is: "Count it all joy, my brothers, when you meet trials of various kinds, for you know that the testing of your faith produces steadfastness." The version that I have, which is NIV, says, "Consider it PURE JOY." I have meditated on these words so many times through the hard circumstances in life, and there have been many. And I don't at all mean to belittle the things I have been through, because they have been intense and significant. But when I consider this passage in the context of church history I am blown away by these verses.
Not two weeks ago I sat in my art history class staring at a slide of the Colosseum, and recalling everything I'd learned in Western Civ about Nero and the persecution of the early church. These circumstances go far beyond anything I have ever experienced. I can't imagine living in fear of persecution and torture. And James doesn't just say, "Don't worry, this seems bad, but what doesn't kill you makes you stronger." He says, consider it JOY. PURE JOY.
Joy is hard enough for me to reach in happy circumstances, but nearly impossible in the midst of pain (or such has been the case until recently... I will get to that in a moment though). Considering this verse in its actual context, I can't wrap my mind around that concept. Persecution is joy. Torture is joy. God was growing the early church in ways they never could have fathomed through circumstances that seemed completely evil (and were completely evil).
Why I say this, though, is that I finally feel I have reach this point in my own life. It isn't that bad things don't happen or that I don't get upset when they do. I remember sitting in Justin's office last December, bursting into tears and telling him "I am tired of all the bad stuff happening to me, and if it doesn't stop soon, I just feel like giving up."
I laugh about that now, because what was happening in December that could even begin to compare to this summer? Losing Mike Osborne and Doug, the dissolution of Bethany Baptist, my brother, my sister, Todd, losing weight and feeling really sick, frustration about my own issues... just to name a few? None of these things have been easy, and none have been fun. But I can feel a physical and emotional difference in the way I have responded to them. For the first time, ever. I can't explain it except that these things have been character building for me. They have produced perseverance, and steadfastness. Even the things that have been most difficult (and continue to be difficult... I am not pretending they are easy now) I am deeply thankful for.
It is funny, because back when I first complained to Justin, he said he saw God preparing me for something. I didn't totally disagree with him then, but I did question, how is this preparation? I'm not maturing, I'm just discouraged and depressed? But now I see the purpose in that process. I am thankful for all of it.
Sitting down every night and writing about the good in each day, I have realized and found the joy in living the life I am living and being a servant of God.

There is so much more I want to say here, things that have been incubating for days and weeks and months, but a lot of it relates to the hermeneutics study. I want to save all my thoughts on that to discuss with the group tomorrow night in person...

BLAH. Okay. Done for now. I need some freaking excedrin.

What's so great about Milla Jovovich?

Dave told me to update my blogger to beta, and I did, and it deleted my links to all of your blogs... =(

In other news, I am working on all my crazy art projects this week which means I can "listen" to a lot of movies while I work. Today I listened to Far and Away and The Fifth Element. Both were mediocre and neither had very good acting. I think The Fifth Element was better overall, but in some places the sound editing was horrible, plus Milla Jovovich was in it. (I have never liked her much because my ex boyfriend was crazy about her and I was always a little jealous. She is cute, and I never blamed him for thinking so, but not at all like me, and therefore cause for insecurity/jealousy.)

Anyway... I don't really have anything of substance to say today, my brain is tired from finals projects, and I'm probably going to go to bed as soon as I finish loading these scrubs episodes...

Why I Love Being 19:

In case you haven't noticed, I have been making a conscious effort to focus on the positive aspects of life. I am a thinker, and controlling my thoughts is a big part of controlling my moods. So rather than think about the negative (my brother, friends who are away, school stress, etc etc) I am focusing on the things I like and feel good about. The more I think positively the more I realize how many things there are to think positively about.
This morning as I sat having my quiet time I was suddenly struck by how far I have come in the past year, and how many amazing things/people I have around me, supporting me and helping me move forward. I have more of a reason to be happy right now than I have ever had before, and just that realization is awesome in and of itself.
Now here is an example of what I mean:
-I am 19 years old and a third of the way finished with my BFA. In the past year my value in the workplace has increased dramatically. I am worth (at least) twice as much as I was before Ai and that is after only a year of school. By the time I am done (just a little after my 21st birthday- that is young for such a huge accomplishment) I will be worth much more than that. I am freaking proud of myself for being in school and the payoff is so great for the work I've been putting in. The last year has FLOWN by.
-I am still at the point where I have freedom in the decisions that I make because I don't have a family to support or even a serious relationship I need to maintain. This means I can travel, continue school, move, etc. without too much trouble. It is only myself that I am responsible for at this point.
-Speaking of serious relationships though, I am getting serious with my relationship with God, which is exciting for me. For the first time in my life I feel intelligent enough and confident enough to study and understand the bible. I believe this is God preparing my heart and mind for his work. I can see and feel the way he is working in me and when I am obedient he puts a lot on my plate in terms of training. He has surrounded me with these amazing resources, people that care about me and can speak into my life, and the confidence and faith to obey him and follow where he leads me. This is by far the best thing on the list and I am so thankful I am starting this process right now, so I can have his guidance and approval on the ministries I work in from here on out.
-Also in terms of intelligence and confidence, I have a greater understanding of myself than I have ever had before. I am beginning to realize that I do have the potential for the things I have wanted in my life. For example, if I want it, and if it is in God's will, I fully believe I am capable of medical school. I have not thought I was smart enough for that in the past, but I now realize I am quite a bit smarter than I have given myself credit for.
-In that same vein, knowing myself means I have a good idea of my strengths and weaknesses. There are a lot of things I like about myself, and the things I don't like, I am still young enough to change.
-This is by no means the end of the list of things I am thankful for, but I have to get ready for school, so this is where I'll stop, with my more shallow observation. People say your twenties are the peak of physical attractiveness. I am thankful to be on my way out of the awkward teenage phase and all the physical self-confidence that transition entails. I remember being insecure in high school about my appearance and that is gone now.

OKAY. I have a full day of school ahead of me so I have to get going!

I took on quite a lot of work this week and I'm struggling to make things fit, which means I have to budget my time very carefully... so for my loyal and adoring fans, I apologize, this will be short and sweet:

GOOD THINGS:
-I finished the final character/environment art for my comic book (hooray!)
-Helping my little sister with her first high school homework assignment (today was her first day. It was really cute)
-I am doing this painting thing for ethnos this sunday (Justin came up with the idea... I'm just the semiskilled laborer) and it is coming out really cool so far
-First day in a while I have not had any social outings... it felt good to take a break from people.
-ONLY TWO WEEKS LEFT OF SCHOOL.

OK... that's it. I have to get back to work.

How I Became Interested In Film:

As a child I desperately wanted to be a writer. I read obsessively and wrote many short stories, and my teachers sent me to all kinds of camps, conferences, and TAG (Talented and Gifted) programs to develop my skills.
My sophmore year of high school I decided writing wasn't for me and started to develop my film skills instead. Junior and senior year I was completely devoted to the film program at my high school. For three months we were without a media department teacher when our old teacher went crazy and left his position. This particular term I was signed up to take the advanced media class.
Advanced media was the kind of class all the troublemakers took, because it was usually pretty easy to get an A. Plus, film is not about following rules, it is usually about breaking them. Needless to say, without a teacher, our class got a little out of control. Essentially they had put 20 or 30 of these kids into a room, handed them some expensive equipment, and let them do whatever they wanted.
Off our media lab was a room full of junk. In the months between teachers, I spent every class period alone in this room, sorting through the piles of crap and clearing it out slowly, day by day. Nobody really paid much attention to me or knew what I was doing, so no one ever questioned this process, even when I was carting huge boxes of wigs and torn up newspapers around the school. I found new homes for all of these things in the room, or I threw them away.
I spent every free period in this room working on it. I covered over the three windows, organized a sound booth in one corner, and laid a green floor. I divided the two sections of the room with a wooden backdrop and I fixed and replaced the lighting that ran along the ceiling so we wouldn't have to use flourescent lightbulbs.
(The thing that surprises me about this process is that no one ever questioned me the entire time I was doing it. This is the Beaverton School District and here I am sectioning off an entire room for my own personal use, and no one stopped me. If you've ever seen the movie Speak, there is this part where she creates a little study inside a closet in her school. Well, that is essentially what I did. Most of the kids in the media department knew this was my studio and not to mess with it.)
When I was all finished, I used the room to green-screen movies. I taught myself this process in my free time playing around in Final Cut. Now, I believe they still use the studio for the same purpose. Our new instructor was totally down with the studio and let me spend entire class periods in there on my own, working on the "senior project" (which was really just whatever thing I felt like doing that day).
That year was the year I decided I definitely wanted to be in the film industry, and when I applied to the Art Institute. Since then I have often wondered what would have been different had I spent my time investing in other fields. Take biology for example. Because of the fact that the media teachers basically let me do whatever I wanted, I was in the lab every chance I got, which meant I dropped a few classes I didn't think I needed to get more free time to spend working on movies. My senior year I signed up for AP Biology, and I dropped it.
That leads me to my next point, but it is a whole different train of thought, so I will write about it tomorrow.

In the meantime... the good parts of today:
-working on my comic book (yikes! the deadlines are fast-approaching)
-hanging out with ethnos at (happy birthday troy!!) the sanders' party
-helping my sister get ready for her first day of high school (which is tomorrow)

WORST NIGHTMARE EVER.

Last night I had a nightmare. In this nightmare, hundreds (possibly thousands) of frogs invaded my room. They lived under my bed and crawled up the walls next to me so when I woke up they were right by my face. One even jumped into my mouth to choke me when I tried to scream. I was afraid he would crawl down my throat and make tadpoles in my stomach.


When I escaped from the room, I decided to move to Iowa, where (I was convinced) no frogs lived, and I would be safe with Kevin Costner and his family living next to the Field of Dreams. Unfortunately for me, once I got to Iowa, everyone there was 30 years old except for one boy who was 27.


He and I started dating because we were so close in age (it seemed very natural at the time). However, not too long after we had begun dating I discovered him holding hands with another woman (yes, she was 30). He told me that I was too young for him. I was so heartbroken that I decided to move back to Portland, but when I got back here, it had turned into Iowa, too.
Then I woke up.

-Storyboarding this morning was fun. Terry, I showed your blog to some people in that class. So if you suddenly get like a million hits a day it's probably because of me.
-I met with Ashby again and we finished the galatians thing we are doing. I am nervous but proud. All of my studying and stuff lately has been really affirming in terms of my gifting. I really feel like I am a teacher. Or I could be if I am trained. The more I am in the word the more I feel that, which is a cool process.
-We went to a party where we all had fun and got to hang out with some sweet german people.
-I hung out with Matt. We drove out to Ava Rosteria and there was live music and it was fun. And not weird like I thought it would be (we hadn't spoken in a couple months).
-When we got home from that Jon and Stacy were at my house, so we played a long game of Princes of Florence (it is like Catan, kind of) and I won! For the first time ever! Plus it was just fun to hang out with them. They are fun people.

All in all, it was a very enjoyable day. I feel much better than I did yesterday. Also after I wrote whatever I wrote in here (too lazy to go back and check), I went back to my friend and explained some things. I feel good because I can still say I have been completely open and honest, and done everything in my power to communicate well with this person.

(I love this exercise. I feel much happier already. I have only done it three days now. But it makes a huge difference.)

the happy game

Well today is going to be a bit more of a challenge to pick out good things. It was not really a good day. I'm going to start with some of the bad things because i need to vent a little.
I woke up at 5:30 to a text message (text messages at 5:30 are bad news), and was immediately nauseous and unable to go back to sleep. I probably laid there for about an hour and a half just feeling miserable. When I did finally get back to sleep I had nightmares that woke me back up again, still nauseous.
i had an awful fight with someone today. by the time it was over i felt completely ripped into. I was speechless. i cannot stand conflict, and i don't really like to hurl insults, or use sarcasm, or anything like that. i try to be honest about how i feel, which is really hard for me. and if it doesn't work then i just let them hit me where it hurts. I don't fight back. I just take it, with tears.
So I cried a lot today. Not just about that either. That fight started in the morning, but ended in the evening (it didn't take all day it was just... spaced out...). My family and I had gone out to dinner again (without my brother) because my dad is going away this week to europe. We ended up having some very heavy conversation about our family situation, what to do about my brother's drug habits, etc. It was a good conversation, but hard to have. For Becca and I, our patience with Daniel is really expiring very rapidly, and we don't get a whole bunch of chances to express our feelings about it. I was a basket case because of all the conflict that day and broke down at the dinner table (this is my 2nd public meltdown this week... I think I am going for a record).

Anyway. Enough about that. It was upsetting, but didn't rule my day. And there are some very good things that also came today, in all of this:
1) I got to spend some time with Kristin. She is leaving next week for school in Seattle. It was really fun to be around her.
2) I dyed my hair (my roots were driving me nuts)
3) The dinner conversation was really, really good and long overdue. I feel more at peace in terms of what I can and can't share with my brother. It is good not to have to tiptoe around him anymore.
4) I realized that despite all of the emotional overload today and sunday I have not even once been tempted to hurt myself. That was a huge realization for me and it made me very happy. That used to be something I struggled a lot with, so not having that thought anymore is freeing.
5) Despite the painfulness of my argument today, I am really proud of myself for making the decision to protect myself and do what is best for me right now. I have had trouble doing that in the past and it always ends up messy. I wish I could balance both but right now I can't do that. So the first is a big step for me. Which leads me to number
6) I have been so thankful for people like my mom, Jade, Ash, and Sarah, who have helped me out by listening and affirming and encouraging me. I will say it again: I have the most amazing friends (and mom). And I think that is a good realization to end the day with.

(this really did make me feel better)

I LOVE NATHAN. AND LIFE.

It's true.
But I will come back to that in a second.

The other day while I was sitting in the doctor's office waiting to get stabbed with a needle (I had to get a blood test... ugh) I read an interesting article in a medical journal. It said that people basically have a constant level of happiness. Some people are generally happy people, and some people are generally sad people. This can be affected by life circumstances like death of a loved one, birth of a child, etc. But the effects are only temporary. Generally people adjust to really good/bad circumstances to return to their emotional status quo.
Your level of happiness is based on personality or character traits, of which there are 24, including things like creativity, courage, loyalty etc. At the top of the list (the thing that provides the most enjoyment from life) is the ability to love and be loved.
The article went on to state that you can increase happiness by nurturing these traits. You can also do a variety of other activities that can help increase your level of happiness. Unfortunately, in the middle of reading about the activities, I got called in to the nurse's station. So I only read one. But the one I read was to spend time writing every day about the things that went well that day. Over time this helps you to become happier and more fulfilled w/life. I think that is probably true. It sounds true.
So I'm going to do it, not because I'm particularly sad at the moment (stressed might be a better word), but because WHO DOESN'T WANT TO BE HAPPIER?

So here is what went well today:
-I cleaned my room and got started on my final project(s). Also when I washed my bedding I found five waterbottles tangled up in my bedsheets and blankets, which is nice because I was wondering where they all went. I fall asleep holding them and in the morning when I wake up they're lost. It is a sad thing.
-I had coffee with Ashby and we talked about the Bible and it was GREAT.
-I went out to dinner with my family (-the brother), which was both fun and relaxing
-I met with Sarah (my mentor, who I haven't hung out with in a couple weeks) and Justin and Rachel (who I also haven't hung out with much lately).
-I went to Nathan's house to visit with him and Ashby and I realized he had the third season of Arrested Development (which JUST came out). So I commented on how amazing that show was and how I'd never seen the third season and he said, "Oh, please borrow it!" So I did. (Which is why I love him.)

(As a side note, if you did not know this, Nathan started school @ Multnomah Bible College this week. I mention it because no one knows it because he didn't tell anyone. But I think it's really cool, and if you see him, ask him how classes are going, because people who are in school like to talk about school, and it's nice to encourage students. They appreciate it a lot.)

And with that I shall end this post and return to Arrested Development. =)