Think the thoughts, feel the feels...write it down

"Date a girl who reads. Date a girl who spends her money on books instead of clothes. She has problems with closet space because she has too many books. Date a girl who has a list of books she wants to read, who has had a library card since she was twelve. Find a girl who reads. You’ll know that she does because she will always have an unread book in her bag.She’s the one lovingly looking over the shelves in the bookstore, the one who quietly cries out when she finds the book she wants. You see the weird chick sniffing the pages of an old book in a second hand book shop? That’s the reader. They can never resist smelling the pages, especially when they are yellow. She’s the girl reading while waiting in that coffee shop down the street. If you take a peek at her mug, the non-dairy creamer is floating on top because she’s kind of engrossed already. Lost in a world of the author’s making. Sit down. She might give you a glare, as most girls who read do not like to be interrupted. As

A couple summers back I read The Five Love Languages: Singles Edition,  by Gary Chapman. Although I had been hearing of these for a while and already knew what mine are, I wanted to read the book for myself. The book was very enlightening and I often think of it when interacting with people.  In it, Chapman talks of five primary love languages: words of affirmation, physical touch, acts of service, quality time, and gifts.  It is through these that we recieve love and give it.  Having read the book, I see people, their words and actions, with more understanding of their motive.  I am also better at expressing my needs as well as trying to meet theirs. Something that quite fastinates me is that God did this.  God made it so that we all love and feel loved in different capacities, yet He loves each of us perfectly.  When people give me gifts, I have a hard time knowing what to do/how to respond; but when people who feel most loved through gifts get them, they feel appreciated and lov

Have you ever met/known someone that you wondered "how have they made it this far in life being that way?"  I have classrooms full of them, kids who: can't spell their middle/last name, don't know where they live (address/city), can't read an analog clock, can't tie their shoe, don't know their parents' full name, don't know their phone number, have never heard of allergy medicine, can't read/write in cursive, pick their noses in class, pass gas in class, can't color in the lines.  I mean come on !  When I interact with these children, I am first worried, then I'm offended.  I'm offended that they would even be able to progress any further in life and end up in my classroom not being able to do these basics in life.  How am I supposed to trust them with a school instrument when they can't recite their address to even bring the instrument home?  How can they read music well when they can't spell, and capitalize, their name pr

Well, as you've likely noticed, we're all still here...no rapture.  Harold Camping, and his followers, were eagerly awaiting the return of Christ yesterday.  He, Camping, had believed he had calculated the exact day and time of the return of Christ.  But, alas, tis the day after and there is a great deal of disappointment coming from Camping's followers; Camping, in fact, is missing.  I was certain that Jesus wasn't going to return yesterday because I believe the Bible when it says that none shall know the hour of His return.  But I empathize with their disappointment and their dejection. We are created to feel homesick, our home being Heaven with the Father.  So that sense of longing they have for the return of the Messiah is more than okay, it's to be expected from any and all believers.  Unfortunately, they took it a step further and tried to predict and possibly expedite His return.  I know what it feels like to be down to the moment of truth only to be disapp

As I'm sure you may have heard, the world is ending tomorrow; and I'm positive that you wanna know my deepest feelings about it.  Well here it goes:  I don't care about eschatology (the study of the end of the world). Growing up, I was almost too aware of the end times, I was quite frightened of what all was going to go down.  I heard/read/learned snippets of what the Bible says about the end times and people's interpretations; and, as most children do, I took the scraps I had learned and fabricated what it all would look and be like for me.  Unfortunately what I heard/read/learned wasn't very delightful sounding so my imagination expounded upon that and I essentially ended up with a plot-less horror movie in my head.  A lot of the scenes I pictured were directly drawn from infamous Left Behind books and movies.  My mom was really into them and she tried to get me into the children's versions but I was at the everything-she-wanted-from-me-was-super-lame-becaus

I'm in a very transitory state right now.  Temporary job, temporary residence...it's cool.  There's something very distinct about this age I'm in:  everyone is doing their own thing. Up until adulthood (we'll say 18 years), everyone's doing the same thing, after 9th grade we go to 10 grade.  Getting one's license, going to the prom, playing school sports, going through puberty.  Really the life and times of school age kids isn't that unpredictable. But now, now everything's different.  Today I was on Facebook checking out a friend's, from Daytona Beach Summer Project '08, profile and noticed that she had her baby.  It didn't surprise me, but did concern me that the boy appeared to be born unhealthy.  It was another reminder that everything is different now.  I have friends overseas, in Charlotte, in Greensboro, and in all other places.  Some friends are single like me, some friends are still in college, some are in the workforce, some

Do you ever feel yourself becoming/acting like a snob?  Lately I have in regards to the school/county I work for. Demografically, I am very different from the people in this place, we'll call it Pettyville.  I grew up in the suburbs of the biggest city of North Carolina, I am a minority, I did not go to a Title One school (a school which 50% or more of the students are on the free/reduced lunch program), I never hunted or lived on a farm.  I'm from a whole different type of life.  Well, it'd be an understatement to say that I often feel baffled by the ways of Pettyville. I'm new in town and am only here for a short time, so it's not like I'm trying to change it, but there are often times that I think "there's a better, more efficient way" or something along the lines of disapproving how something is being done. The other night I was at he high school band concert, I know most of the kids because I interned there a few years ago and helped wit

I just finished watching a documentary by Chris Rock called Good Hair.   It was a sincere look into the world of 'black hair'; it looked into relaxers (sodium hydroxide used to straighten hair) and weave (hair sewn/glued in), primarily, but also talked about other types of hair treatment and sources.  The film was very informative for me as I have never gotten a lot of that stuff figured out, there's a lot of stuff out there.  The documentary's sole purpose wasn't to inform the public of the extents black women go to to have their hair look good, it was more about the thought, heart, behind it. The term 'good hair' is something I've heard my whole life, it essentially means that the hair looks healthy straightened and is 'easy' to style like a white person's hair. Not "nappy".   Growing up I had 'bad' hair because it wasn't relaxed/straitened.  I wore braids and cornrows (see below) from the time I was 3 until I was 15

"His timing is always perfect, though it seldom seems so to me, for my temperament longs for previews of coming attractions."   Elisabeth Elliot in Discipline: The Glad Surrender In said book, I read the chapter on "The Discipline of Time" right in the midst of being uber broke and living from generosity to generosity.  The above quote perfectly describes me: I always wanna know 'when' and 'if'.  A little before this quote she pointed out that "It is wonderfully stabalizing and quieting to recall some of the ways in which God's timing is seen in the great Bible stories. Events the world would dismiss as mere coincedence turn out to have been syncronized with utmost precision by the Ruler of time ."  She procedes to expose instances of perfect timing throughout the Bible, it's no coincedence: that Ruth went to glean in Boaz's (her kinsman-redeemer) field, or that David arrived as Goliath was challenging the troops, or that Phil

For some odd reason, on my way to work this morning, I was thinking about how airports make me feel.  They make me wanna cry and panic.  I think it's a sensory overload, so many: signs, people, smells, sounds, lines, entrances/exits, escalators, those moving sidewalk things, you name it.  And I don't like going through security, because I'm always nervous that: a bottle will be too big, or my bra underwire will set off an alarm, or they'll just randomly decide to physically search my person (which feels like a complete violation), or they'll open up a bag and all my underwear will fall out, or they'll make me unpack everything in front of everyone.  Since every airport is different, I'm always scared that I'm at the wrong gate, or that I miss my flight because of some amend to flight plans that I didn't know about (that's happened).  Since the terrorist attacks, they've upped the anty for security which makes everyone feel like there's a

There's a show I enjoy called Bones ; it's about a forensic anthropoligist, her FBI partner, and her team of various scientist that solve murders.  She looks at the bones of a victim and can deduce what they did with their lives (dancer, farmer, athlete in younger years, etc), what was their cause of death, and who killed them (weight and height of a person).  There are several reasons that I enjoy this show, one of them being that it's based off of a real forensic anthropoligist that solves murders in this manner.  When she says what the person did with their lives, is one of my favorite parts of the show. It always gets me thinking:  what would my bones say about me?  Would they say that I was a musician, non-athletic with an athletic build, stood a lot, vegetarian, mostly wore flat shoes, conducted a lot?  What would my bones say about me?  On the show, she comes to these concluscions of what this person did, but she can never deduce who this person was.  Did they hav

Last night President Obama spoke to the USA telling, I guess, of bin Laden's death.  I didn't watch/listen, I was in bed, but I did hear the reporters share that info beforehand.  I, surprisingly, don't know how I feel about his death.  There are some that're rejoicing, there are some that feel justified, and there are my students who are taking their cues from the adults and others around them.  This morning, some of my students asked me how I felt about his death, I didn't answer.  I had/have no answer.  I've never felt threatened by him and just under ten years ago, I still didn't feel threatened by his orchestrated attack on the World Trade Center. Initially, when I heard the news I felt shocked, in the same way I feel when anyone dies unexpectantly.  Then I felt disbelief, 'how do we know this isn't a fraud?'  Then I wondered what that would look like for those more directly effected by his life.  Then I asked myself, 'how do you feel