They didn't pack this computer yet.
Alfriends and especially IVers, you have a face to put on the CNY/Southern Tier flood story. Some of Joe's family lives right in Binghamton, which got pounded hardcore; Andrea's family lives in the Tier (though she's been with Joe, in Syracuse). Copied from Joe's away message, which he means for the public to read anyway:
we need some prayers tonight...
For Andrea:
-her grandma has lost her entire basement and first floor of her house
-her aunt and uncle are trapped on an island
-her sister is sick (strep throat and high-level fever) and they are unable to get her medicine until tomorrow morning/afternoon
For Me (Joe):
My dad and Cindy almost died last night, praise God they are still alive (the dogs and bird are still well, the cats had to be left behind- the cats are living on the second floor, we're hoping they'll make the night)
-My dad's property is completely damaged and the entire first floor of the house might be destroyed
-my grandma has lost her entire home
For Binghamton/Owego
-the flood walls might collapse tonight, and it's supposed to rain tomorrow night
-most of the city is underwater
Things went well today. Things're packed; I got daycare centers and church to take our old toys and stuffed animals, so nothing there was wasted, which was good (saw Mr. Reeverts again, haha, still looking for RTB supporters; today the church had some kind of missions/outreach type convention). Saw some people at Great Northern. Saw a bit of a free Spanish-language music concert. Staying in a hotel tomorrow in town with the family and will probably see more people then.
More from Syracuse, or from the hotel, or whatever. But don't wait for me; look back at Joe's list.
-Laurel
6.29.2006
6.27.2006
Chapter 27: In Which We Find Both Ends of the Knot-Lock
It's all working out, so thanks to anyone who lent an ear or a prayer.
We found movers. They're packing us tomorrow, loading us Thursday; we'll be out of the house by Thursday night. As of tomorrow, I may well disappear from AIM, e-mail, etc., since likely all the computers will be packed, and I honestly don't know when we'll be in the new house 'cause we haven't closed on it yet (my parents haven't given us a firm move-in date, so I assume there isn't one), so we'll be at my aunt's for the duration.
So it's a good thing that I had much of my cleaning-out done, as today was the rest of it. That took a long time, plus I stretched it out a bit by taking an extended reading break.
Two interesting things happened today.
For one, we dropped our cat off at Angie's house; she's the lady from my parents' work who's taking Misty (for any who missed it, my dad decided that the new house was not about to be sprinkled with cat hair...and we treated her well and liked her, but we're not really cat people per se, unfortunately). She and her husband were intensely interested in everything we could tell them about her (the kitty), and appear to be excited to have her; we can tell they're all going to get along. Misty, for her part, after mewing rather torturedly for the entire drive (about three minutes long), took to the new house like she knew she'd be comfortable there. She went exploring right away, instead of huddling in a corner, scared to death, as she did when we first got her (we, in turn, had gotten her from someone who couldn't keep her anymore, but Misty was only three then, and is eleven now).
It was a rough half-hour for my brother, in that just before we left, he got stung by a wasp that had somehow gotten into our house, and then it was his job to hold Misty on the way over, as we haven't a cat carrier. She's declawed in front (we got her that way), but her back ones went for his legs.
She was a very good kitty, healthy and well-behaved; I don't imagine I'll miss her as I would a friend, but I will miss her being there.
The second interesting--and very nice--thing came a couple of hours before that. I took some clothes up to church, and ran into Mr. Reeverts, who taught my sixth-grade science class, not to mention my church's youth program when I was in junior high (so he's seen a lot of me over the years). He was there setting up for a Reasons to Believe event; he and Mr. Prouty, who goes to my church and teaches high school science in my district, are trying to start a chapter at this end of New York. Mr. Reeverts had a nametag on which said, under his name, "Volunteer Apologist," which I understood, but which is an amusing phrase somehow.
We'd traded a couple of e-mail messages this winter, but he hadn't gotten my last one, 'cause his computer conked out, so he didn't know about the move; it was really good to see him, and he in turn was glad to see me. He sat me down and we talked for maybe ten minutes, though I had to get home in case people were calling the house, since I'd left it empty when I went up to church (our phone's been ringing off the hook for a long time now, and it's considered best when I can answer the phone and give people Dad's cell number when applicable). So that was a very nice thing to have happen at what I assume was my last visit to church. I wish I could've said goodbye to more of the youth staff, but that didn't work out, and I will have to send them a letter or card or e-mail or something.
So if you'd still like to pray, it'd be simply amazing if you could ask that the movers do a good job with us, as our lawyers don't like them for some reason. They were literally the only ones we could get for this soon.
Other than that, I'll report again from wherever I can, whenever I can.
-Laurel
We found movers. They're packing us tomorrow, loading us Thursday; we'll be out of the house by Thursday night. As of tomorrow, I may well disappear from AIM, e-mail, etc., since likely all the computers will be packed, and I honestly don't know when we'll be in the new house 'cause we haven't closed on it yet (my parents haven't given us a firm move-in date, so I assume there isn't one), so we'll be at my aunt's for the duration.
So it's a good thing that I had much of my cleaning-out done, as today was the rest of it. That took a long time, plus I stretched it out a bit by taking an extended reading break.
Two interesting things happened today.
For one, we dropped our cat off at Angie's house; she's the lady from my parents' work who's taking Misty (for any who missed it, my dad decided that the new house was not about to be sprinkled with cat hair...and we treated her well and liked her, but we're not really cat people per se, unfortunately). She and her husband were intensely interested in everything we could tell them about her (the kitty), and appear to be excited to have her; we can tell they're all going to get along. Misty, for her part, after mewing rather torturedly for the entire drive (about three minutes long), took to the new house like she knew she'd be comfortable there. She went exploring right away, instead of huddling in a corner, scared to death, as she did when we first got her (we, in turn, had gotten her from someone who couldn't keep her anymore, but Misty was only three then, and is eleven now).
It was a rough half-hour for my brother, in that just before we left, he got stung by a wasp that had somehow gotten into our house, and then it was his job to hold Misty on the way over, as we haven't a cat carrier. She's declawed in front (we got her that way), but her back ones went for his legs.
She was a very good kitty, healthy and well-behaved; I don't imagine I'll miss her as I would a friend, but I will miss her being there.
The second interesting--and very nice--thing came a couple of hours before that. I took some clothes up to church, and ran into Mr. Reeverts, who taught my sixth-grade science class, not to mention my church's youth program when I was in junior high (so he's seen a lot of me over the years). He was there setting up for a Reasons to Believe event; he and Mr. Prouty, who goes to my church and teaches high school science in my district, are trying to start a chapter at this end of New York. Mr. Reeverts had a nametag on which said, under his name, "Volunteer Apologist," which I understood, but which is an amusing phrase somehow.
We'd traded a couple of e-mail messages this winter, but he hadn't gotten my last one, 'cause his computer conked out, so he didn't know about the move; it was really good to see him, and he in turn was glad to see me. He sat me down and we talked for maybe ten minutes, though I had to get home in case people were calling the house, since I'd left it empty when I went up to church (our phone's been ringing off the hook for a long time now, and it's considered best when I can answer the phone and give people Dad's cell number when applicable). So that was a very nice thing to have happen at what I assume was my last visit to church. I wish I could've said goodbye to more of the youth staff, but that didn't work out, and I will have to send them a letter or card or e-mail or something.
So if you'd still like to pray, it'd be simply amazing if you could ask that the movers do a good job with us, as our lawyers don't like them for some reason. They were literally the only ones we could get for this soon.
Other than that, I'll report again from wherever I can, whenever I can.
-Laurel
6.26.2006
The Move, Chapter 26: In Which Laurel's Family Attempts to Do the Improbable
Oh my gosh.
So I should bring you up to date on the Move Saga before I explain what happened today. The short version, thus: as of this Saturday, the plan to be out by Wednesday had become impossible because the lawyers (who, it turns out, have been waiting on the banks) STILL do not have everything together, so we couldn't say for sure when we were moving exactly, so the moving company (companies, plural?) we were looking into went ahead and filled up their schedules for this week with people who did know when they were moving, i.e. not us. Which is totally fair.
This meant that the movers did not have any spots open for moving us any earlier than July 5th. There was really nothing we could do about that, and therefore we could not be out any earlier.
On Saturday, therefore, my dad called the new family, particularly the lady of the house, whom I will name Irene for purposes of this blog; she and Dad have been the family members in charge on each side (being the clear Type A people, this came naturally). Dad explained to her that we were very sorry, but we could not be out until at least the 5th, even though we were supposed to close on the 28th and be out by the 1st (she has carpet-people scheduled to come in that day, or painters, or something). The movers could not move us, and we haven't been planning for moving ourselves out (we have no rental trucks, no boxes, nothing--let alone the time; we would take longer than the movers), so we could not be out. Irene was not at all happy about this, but our logic was pretty much indisputable, and she agreed to let us do something called "rent-back," which I don't really understand, but which meant that when we closed she wouldn't kick us out right away.
So peace and low-stress reigned in our household yesterday, for the first time in at least a week, with us secure in the knowledge that we had until late the first weekend in July to tie up loose ends, and Mom could finish her job (she doesn't get let out until the 30th) without having to stay in a hotel or anything while the rest of us moved on, like, Wednesday or something.
Well.
This morning Irene apparently decided that we just weren't trying hard enough, and her lawyers called my mom this morning at work (Dad's in Syracuse at the new job today, but he'll be back tonight) to tell her that Irene has decided not to give us the rent-back after all (she cited her work schedule and vacation time; she's in something medical, but not something so inflexible time-wise as she makes it sound). As it stands, we did convince her and all important people involved to push the closing date back 'til Friday, but as of then (or probably Saturday) we have to be out, period. Despite the movers not having space for us.
The deal is this: I have learned that a deal on a house is only complete after the "closing," when everyone gets together to sign the paperwork. At this point, Irene and her family do not, technically, have to buy our house; they're living with their parents right now and could (though it wouldn't help her time-constraint problem) walk out on us, which would cause, obviously, a lot of trouble for us; Dad's first week full-time at the new job begins about July 3rd. So we've known from the beginning that Irene calls most of the shots. The original date we'd given her to be out was July 1st, but that got complicated; apparently, before it got complicated, she scheduled her vacation time, her carpet people, her painters, whoever the crap, and apparently she's decided that we're to be punished, instead of her (as I guess it would sort of be), for the lawyers' complications.
Put that way, it must sound reasonable to her, but the fact remains that she and her family can live with her husband's parents, as they're doing now, indefinitely, whereas we have no such luxury. We could live in a hotel and stuff, but we also have to get our stuff out, remember? What is she going to do, just chuck it all to the curb?
But the fact of the matter is that, legally, she doesn't have to have a good answer to that question. So we're calling our movers and telling them what a bind we're in, and if that doesn't work, we find other movers, whoever they are, whenever they can pack us (ready or not), whatever the cost (at least Dad's new workplace is paying that anyway).
So away we go.
...Joe just found out this weekend that he and his mother are moving out of Syracuse. Relatively soon, I guess.
-Laurel
So I should bring you up to date on the Move Saga before I explain what happened today. The short version, thus: as of this Saturday, the plan to be out by Wednesday had become impossible because the lawyers (who, it turns out, have been waiting on the banks) STILL do not have everything together, so we couldn't say for sure when we were moving exactly, so the moving company (companies, plural?) we were looking into went ahead and filled up their schedules for this week with people who did know when they were moving, i.e. not us. Which is totally fair.
This meant that the movers did not have any spots open for moving us any earlier than July 5th. There was really nothing we could do about that, and therefore we could not be out any earlier.
On Saturday, therefore, my dad called the new family, particularly the lady of the house, whom I will name Irene for purposes of this blog; she and Dad have been the family members in charge on each side (being the clear Type A people, this came naturally). Dad explained to her that we were very sorry, but we could not be out until at least the 5th, even though we were supposed to close on the 28th and be out by the 1st (she has carpet-people scheduled to come in that day, or painters, or something). The movers could not move us, and we haven't been planning for moving ourselves out (we have no rental trucks, no boxes, nothing--let alone the time; we would take longer than the movers), so we could not be out. Irene was not at all happy about this, but our logic was pretty much indisputable, and she agreed to let us do something called "rent-back," which I don't really understand, but which meant that when we closed she wouldn't kick us out right away.
So peace and low-stress reigned in our household yesterday, for the first time in at least a week, with us secure in the knowledge that we had until late the first weekend in July to tie up loose ends, and Mom could finish her job (she doesn't get let out until the 30th) without having to stay in a hotel or anything while the rest of us moved on, like, Wednesday or something.
Well.
This morning Irene apparently decided that we just weren't trying hard enough, and her lawyers called my mom this morning at work (Dad's in Syracuse at the new job today, but he'll be back tonight) to tell her that Irene has decided not to give us the rent-back after all (she cited her work schedule and vacation time; she's in something medical, but not something so inflexible time-wise as she makes it sound). As it stands, we did convince her and all important people involved to push the closing date back 'til Friday, but as of then (or probably Saturday) we have to be out, period. Despite the movers not having space for us.
The deal is this: I have learned that a deal on a house is only complete after the "closing," when everyone gets together to sign the paperwork. At this point, Irene and her family do not, technically, have to buy our house; they're living with their parents right now and could (though it wouldn't help her time-constraint problem) walk out on us, which would cause, obviously, a lot of trouble for us; Dad's first week full-time at the new job begins about July 3rd. So we've known from the beginning that Irene calls most of the shots. The original date we'd given her to be out was July 1st, but that got complicated; apparently, before it got complicated, she scheduled her vacation time, her carpet people, her painters, whoever the crap, and apparently she's decided that we're to be punished, instead of her (as I guess it would sort of be), for the lawyers' complications.
Put that way, it must sound reasonable to her, but the fact remains that she and her family can live with her husband's parents, as they're doing now, indefinitely, whereas we have no such luxury. We could live in a hotel and stuff, but we also have to get our stuff out, remember? What is she going to do, just chuck it all to the curb?
But the fact of the matter is that, legally, she doesn't have to have a good answer to that question. So we're calling our movers and telling them what a bind we're in, and if that doesn't work, we find other movers, whoever they are, whenever they can pack us (ready or not), whatever the cost (at least Dad's new workplace is paying that anyway).
So away we go.
...Joe just found out this weekend that he and his mother are moving out of Syracuse. Relatively soon, I guess.
-Laurel
Prediction
Tomorrow I will probably be sorry for staying up 'til two-whatever reading (mostly C.S. Lewis, no less), for the sun will come through my eastern-facing windows to wake me, and a bathroom trip will ruin all possibility of my simply turning over and going back to sleep, and I will probably be even more sleep-indebted than I am now. In short, tomorrow I shall probably have a book hangover.
In the meantime, of course, I'm having far too much fun to care.
-Laurel
In the meantime, of course, I'm having far too much fun to care.
-Laurel
6.24.2006
Ladies and gentlemen, the product of one of New York State's "high-performing high schools."
My brother's graduation went pretty well. The announcement ladies mangled so many names' pronunciations that I wasn't entirely sure that his would escape unscathed, though it's simple enough, but it did. We met up with him soon after the whole thing, and we managed to beat the rush home.
And then, at home, he shattered my senior prom favor, a very pretty gel candle in a champagne flute that said Senior Ball 2003, which I had burning outside on the deck so that my aunts and mom could have some light as they talked.
Apparently, his Regents education did not cover the idea that one should not, no matter how much one wants to be funny, pick up a burning candle with one's toes.
Clearly, he's fine, as I wouldn't harrass him if he'd gotten more than a light wax burn (the one that caused him to drop and break the candle), but, like, duh, dude. That was my favorite candle, for what little that's worth.
On the other hand, he actually hugged me when he got out of graduation. Which is about as rare as the candle. So maybe that counts for something.
-Laurel
And then, at home, he shattered my senior prom favor, a very pretty gel candle in a champagne flute that said Senior Ball 2003, which I had burning outside on the deck so that my aunts and mom could have some light as they talked.
Apparently, his Regents education did not cover the idea that one should not, no matter how much one wants to be funny, pick up a burning candle with one's toes.
Clearly, he's fine, as I wouldn't harrass him if he'd gotten more than a light wax burn (the one that caused him to drop and break the candle), but, like, duh, dude. That was my favorite candle, for what little that's worth.
On the other hand, he actually hugged me when he got out of graduation. Which is about as rare as the candle. So maybe that counts for something.
-Laurel
6.23.2006
"Happy is a yuppie word..."
Okay, due to circumstances too complex to get into, we may be moving out this coming week. Or maybe not. We might be gone in five days, and we still have no idea, because apparently the lawyers use the time when they're supposed to be doing stuff with our house, and setting a closing date, to nap. Or something.
So if I disappear from AIM, e-mail, and everything for a couple of days next week, I'm at my aunt's, with my brother, and without my parents, and I'll be in the new house when I resurface.
-Laurel
So if I disappear from AIM, e-mail, and everything for a couple of days next week, I'm at my aunt's, with my brother, and without my parents, and I'll be in the new house when I resurface.
-Laurel
6.21.2006
::cricket, cricket::
So I can check off--though it means more to me than just a checkmark--the friend-group minigolf and Abbott's outings, since both happened tonight.
Let me just say, it takes some skills to follow the wrong vehicle to the right place, as I did when we went from minigolf to Abbott's. I mean, granted that I pretty much knew where it was anyway (Derek's reminder helped), but that was something. Whoever that anonymous minivan driver was, I owe him (her?) my gratitude.
I've decided, upon several listens today, that I do in fact like Nothing is Sound. "The Setting Sun" may well be this summer's "Speed of Sound"; and they share a track number, heh, each being the seventh song on its disc.
I'm really itchy, because Abbott's is apparently Mosquito Central, and it probably didn't help that I was wearing all blue except for my sandals. It probably didn't help that I was wearing sandals.
'night.
-Laurel
Let me just say, it takes some skills to follow the wrong vehicle to the right place, as I did when we went from minigolf to Abbott's. I mean, granted that I pretty much knew where it was anyway (Derek's reminder helped), but that was something. Whoever that anonymous minivan driver was, I owe him (her?) my gratitude.
I've decided, upon several listens today, that I do in fact like Nothing is Sound. "The Setting Sun" may well be this summer's "Speed of Sound"; and they share a track number, heh, each being the seventh song on its disc.
I'm really itchy, because Abbott's is apparently Mosquito Central, and it probably didn't help that I was wearing all blue except for my sandals. It probably didn't help that I was wearing sandals.
'night.
-Laurel
"Knock it off, Napoleon; make yourself a dang quesadil-la!"
So when my family went to see Cars a while back, we got, with the purchase of our popcorn and drink, a scratch-off contest entry for free. We actually were one of the first-prize winners, as it turned out, and got a "free movie night" from Blockbuster Video, good for two rentals, a tub of microwave popcorn, and two drinks, all for free. Pretty cool, huh?
This means that I have now seen two movies that I hadn't before, Napoleon Dynamite (my choice) and Pirates of the Caribbean (my brother's, though he'll tell you that, by my not having seen it yet, that forced him to make sure I did see it, because it was too good to miss). I liked them both, though neither inspired true movie love. I actually think I liked Napoleon Dynamite better, even though it only had about a fraction of the plot. It really is endearing, in a weird way. The total lack of profanity (well, unless you count "freaking," but whatever), which is nice in itself, also adds to the humor, because some of the characters had to say such odd things to get around it.
This morning I went out with my dad on an errand or two and ended up buying (okay, so my dad bought it for me, because he does that) Switchfoot's CD Nothing is Sound, which, for anybody who doesn't know, is sort of a Christian/secular crossover group, not quite neatly either genre, which's gotten a lot of positive attention on both sides.
...What I actually wanted was New Way to Be Human, their first one, because I liked the title track and "Something More" so well--their sound was just so much more interesting, and I really loved "Something More"'s lyrics. But K-Mart's music section is, shall we say, a little limited, so I ended up with NiS, on the theory that I didn't actually like the song "Dare You to Move" that well, and so it might be a bad idea to get their middle album.
Like many alternative-type albums, I know I will like it well eventually, but it'll have to grow on me over a few listens. This one's guitar is a little too heavy for me (I just can't get into the Creed-type sound, even as muted as it is here). I also feel like maybe, within twelve tracks, one of their songs' themes could have been a little more upbeat (though "Golden" is pretty close, and I caught the lyric that Joe had quoted in his AIM profile for so long...and one song does have a harmonica part, which's good for a few bonus points right there, haha). It's kind of rainy-day music. But again, I know I'll like it better eventually.
My dad's really excited for his new job; I mean, besides him actually saying so conversationally this morning, I can also tell because he cannot wait to get out of the house. He tried to estimate the move date at around June 28th, despite knowing very well that my mom isn't even out of work until June 30th; July 1st is the earliest we're ever gonna get there.
So I'm doing a liiiittle cleaning-out of my room, but really have to get moving on that, because the new job-people have kindly offered to pay for movers, if I didn't mention, and the packing phase is probably going to start happening around Monday. Lily Jo and her mother will be here Friday night, and teh br0's graduation is on the 24th, so I basically have until Friday afternoon to have everything picked through, which means that I am pretty much doomed, and will really do much of this on Sunday night. Great. But that's my own fault; I knew it was going to be just like every essay I've ever been assigned, put off pretty much until the last minute.
Okay, enough for now.
-Laurel
This means that I have now seen two movies that I hadn't before, Napoleon Dynamite (my choice) and Pirates of the Caribbean (my brother's, though he'll tell you that, by my not having seen it yet, that forced him to make sure I did see it, because it was too good to miss). I liked them both, though neither inspired true movie love. I actually think I liked Napoleon Dynamite better, even though it only had about a fraction of the plot. It really is endearing, in a weird way. The total lack of profanity (well, unless you count "freaking," but whatever), which is nice in itself, also adds to the humor, because some of the characters had to say such odd things to get around it.
This morning I went out with my dad on an errand or two and ended up buying (okay, so my dad bought it for me, because he does that) Switchfoot's CD Nothing is Sound, which, for anybody who doesn't know, is sort of a Christian/secular crossover group, not quite neatly either genre, which's gotten a lot of positive attention on both sides.
...What I actually wanted was New Way to Be Human, their first one, because I liked the title track and "Something More" so well--their sound was just so much more interesting, and I really loved "Something More"'s lyrics. But K-Mart's music section is, shall we say, a little limited, so I ended up with NiS, on the theory that I didn't actually like the song "Dare You to Move" that well, and so it might be a bad idea to get their middle album.
Like many alternative-type albums, I know I will like it well eventually, but it'll have to grow on me over a few listens. This one's guitar is a little too heavy for me (I just can't get into the Creed-type sound, even as muted as it is here). I also feel like maybe, within twelve tracks, one of their songs' themes could have been a little more upbeat (though "Golden" is pretty close, and I caught the lyric that Joe had quoted in his AIM profile for so long...and one song does have a harmonica part, which's good for a few bonus points right there, haha). It's kind of rainy-day music. But again, I know I'll like it better eventually.
My dad's really excited for his new job; I mean, besides him actually saying so conversationally this morning, I can also tell because he cannot wait to get out of the house. He tried to estimate the move date at around June 28th, despite knowing very well that my mom isn't even out of work until June 30th; July 1st is the earliest we're ever gonna get there.
So I'm doing a liiiittle cleaning-out of my room, but really have to get moving on that, because the new job-people have kindly offered to pay for movers, if I didn't mention, and the packing phase is probably going to start happening around Monday. Lily Jo and her mother will be here Friday night, and teh br0's graduation is on the 24th, so I basically have until Friday afternoon to have everything picked through, which means that I am pretty much doomed, and will really do much of this on Sunday night. Great. But that's my own fault; I knew it was going to be just like every essay I've ever been assigned, put off pretty much until the last minute.
Okay, enough for now.
-Laurel
6.18.2006
Explanation
I have just spent some time trying to explain why I, who have what looks like the ideal life, have been wailing so much about being away from that which I consider most truly home. It doesn't work; there's too much that's too personal to put up here, and the rest looks whiny onscreen. It probably is, given world hunger and other things far more important than me getting a little lonely.
So, the important things: no, there's nothing traumatic going on in my family, or at least nothing more traumatic than a move and now being stuck at home by day with my dad and my brother (we really do drive each other crazy really quickly). So forget it.
Anyway, I've made much of the home-building passage from Jeremiah, but I've been talking, all this time, like I would be more truly at home this summer if there were committedly-Christian people here with me, people who understand how big the world is, what high and amazing things we've been called to in it, how adventurous even normality, if given to God, always is. But I've been mistaking the spring for the source.
Contrary to what I even want to believe, home isn't where Joe and Andrea, Tom and Albert, Laura and Josh, Lisa and Amy and Jessica are. Home is where God is. Anywhere, instant home, if only I'll see it. With friends, with family, or by myself.
("Home," that is, as I'm using the term: not a capital-letter Home, as in heaven, but a lower-case, practical one.)
That's behind my nervousness that IV will be so enthusiastic this coming year about students taking charge that it'll degenerate into APO-style chaos at times. I'm afraid we'll lose our focus. I'm able to be nervous about that because people, in themselves, do not create a Basileia. Acoustic guitar sessions, sharing food, car rides--even our quiet times side by side, Bible pages rustling softly, did not make Basileia. Not that I would have told you, if you'd asked me, that they did. I would have said, and I believe rightly, that God made it as we tried to love and serve and better know Him, by desires that we even got from Him in the first place.
The application for me, then, is obvious.
So I am hoping not to be so roller-coastery here in future; it's a journal, and I can write what I want, but what I decide to put here does make a practical difference, especially since I tend to better understand things as I write them.
This place is where I am supposed to be. There's no point in complaining about that.
-Laurel
So, the important things: no, there's nothing traumatic going on in my family, or at least nothing more traumatic than a move and now being stuck at home by day with my dad and my brother (we really do drive each other crazy really quickly). So forget it.
Anyway, I've made much of the home-building passage from Jeremiah, but I've been talking, all this time, like I would be more truly at home this summer if there were committedly-Christian people here with me, people who understand how big the world is, what high and amazing things we've been called to in it, how adventurous even normality, if given to God, always is. But I've been mistaking the spring for the source.
Contrary to what I even want to believe, home isn't where Joe and Andrea, Tom and Albert, Laura and Josh, Lisa and Amy and Jessica are. Home is where God is. Anywhere, instant home, if only I'll see it. With friends, with family, or by myself.
("Home," that is, as I'm using the term: not a capital-letter Home, as in heaven, but a lower-case, practical one.)
That's behind my nervousness that IV will be so enthusiastic this coming year about students taking charge that it'll degenerate into APO-style chaos at times. I'm afraid we'll lose our focus. I'm able to be nervous about that because people, in themselves, do not create a Basileia. Acoustic guitar sessions, sharing food, car rides--even our quiet times side by side, Bible pages rustling softly, did not make Basileia. Not that I would have told you, if you'd asked me, that they did. I would have said, and I believe rightly, that God made it as we tried to love and serve and better know Him, by desires that we even got from Him in the first place.
The application for me, then, is obvious.
So I am hoping not to be so roller-coastery here in future; it's a journal, and I can write what I want, but what I decide to put here does make a practical difference, especially since I tend to better understand things as I write them.
This place is where I am supposed to be. There's no point in complaining about that.
-Laurel
6.17.2006
::paraphrasing SubLife:: And now, a word from our sponsor, Gerard Manley Hopkins
Peace
When will you ever, Peace, wild wooddove, shy wings shut,
Your round me roaming end, and under be my boughs?
When, when, Peace, will you, Peace? I’ll not play hypocrite
To own my heart: I yield you do come sometimes; but
That piecemeal peace is poor peace. What pure peace allows
Alarms of wars, the daunting wars, the death of it?
O surely, reaving Peace, my Lord should leave in lieu
Some good! And so he does leave Patience exquisite,
That plumes to Peace thereafter. And when Peace here does house
He comes with work to do, he does not come to coo,
He comes to brood and sit.
...Must be nice to be patient.
I'm going to Becky and Danielle's wedding ceremony in an hour; thereafter I'm coming home and then we're all going to Lily Jo's. So I'll be offline for most of tonight. Ya'll have a good'n, y'hear?
-Laurel
When will you ever, Peace, wild wooddove, shy wings shut,
Your round me roaming end, and under be my boughs?
When, when, Peace, will you, Peace? I’ll not play hypocrite
To own my heart: I yield you do come sometimes; but
That piecemeal peace is poor peace. What pure peace allows
Alarms of wars, the daunting wars, the death of it?
O surely, reaving Peace, my Lord should leave in lieu
Some good! And so he does leave Patience exquisite,
That plumes to Peace thereafter. And when Peace here does house
He comes with work to do, he does not come to coo,
He comes to brood and sit.
...Must be nice to be patient.
I'm going to Becky and Danielle's wedding ceremony in an hour; thereafter I'm coming home and then we're all going to Lily Jo's. So I'll be offline for most of tonight. Ya'll have a good'n, y'hear?
-Laurel
6.16.2006
Though I do complain about something here, I promise this isn't another melodramatic rant. Really.
So I learned the term "tickle file" just now from my dad, though Dictionary.com only recognizes it as "tickler file," thus.
But that's not actually what I meant to say. What I meant to say goes like this:
In Alfred, where I go to college, the village puts out a newspaper once every week called the Alfred Sun. It's local-type news only; they don't report on world events or run syndicated comics (except Rubes sometimes); they do have comics, but they're lesser-knowns, Mama's Boyz and the like. If you want a more complete newspaper, you go buy the Wellsville Daily Reporter.
The Sun does have, and here comes the beginning of my point, a letters-to-the-editor page. As far as I can tell, for at least as long as I've been in college, and probably even longer, there've been these two guys who write in and argue with each other, pretty much every week. One of them, Mel McGinnis, is a hardcore conservative, and the other, Ed McCamy, is an equally-hardcore liberal, and they just continually go at it, each rebutting the other's most recent letter and trying their hardest to make the other guy look ridiculous. I mean, they never truly get nasty, but it goes on and on, world without end.
But the thing is, I kind of have more respect for that than for some of the letters that the Democrat and Chronicle publishes (not that that's the newspaper's fault; that's what letters pages are for). Not on the opinion page, where the people are paid to write editorials, but on the letters-to-the-editor page.
'Cause think about it here. Alfred is not a large place, and its paper is not exactly widely-known. The odds are excellent that McGinnis and McCamy have met each other, and are pretty good that they see each other face-to-face every so often. Despite their perpetual argument, there's a side of me that can totally see them exchanging handshakes and pleasantries at Wegmans: "You get outside lately? It's gorgeous." "Isn't it? I just love this county in the fall."
Whereas, in Rochester, you get these people just shooting vitriol, half the time, at people they'll most likely never see, not even bothering to carry on a conversation. It's like talk radio over here sometimes. Like, when McGinnis and McCamy get their dander up, it's over things like the place of religion in public. You get people over here who feel that they have to be sarcastic about everything, even when they're talking about completely normal things, such as their opinion that (actual example here) our recyclers should have lids so that things don't blow down the street in the wind.
No question, that is a genuinely good idea. But why drip bitterness because the city hasn't thought of it yet? Why not just write to them and suggest it? I mean, either way you're spending the energy to write the letter. Or submit it to the letters page for the general populace to see, but just be polite.
I mean, people can be forceful and still be courteous, right?
-Laurel
But that's not actually what I meant to say. What I meant to say goes like this:
In Alfred, where I go to college, the village puts out a newspaper once every week called the Alfred Sun. It's local-type news only; they don't report on world events or run syndicated comics (except Rubes sometimes); they do have comics, but they're lesser-knowns, Mama's Boyz and the like. If you want a more complete newspaper, you go buy the Wellsville Daily Reporter.
The Sun does have, and here comes the beginning of my point, a letters-to-the-editor page. As far as I can tell, for at least as long as I've been in college, and probably even longer, there've been these two guys who write in and argue with each other, pretty much every week. One of them, Mel McGinnis, is a hardcore conservative, and the other, Ed McCamy, is an equally-hardcore liberal, and they just continually go at it, each rebutting the other's most recent letter and trying their hardest to make the other guy look ridiculous. I mean, they never truly get nasty, but it goes on and on, world without end.
But the thing is, I kind of have more respect for that than for some of the letters that the Democrat and Chronicle publishes (not that that's the newspaper's fault; that's what letters pages are for). Not on the opinion page, where the people are paid to write editorials, but on the letters-to-the-editor page.
'Cause think about it here. Alfred is not a large place, and its paper is not exactly widely-known. The odds are excellent that McGinnis and McCamy have met each other, and are pretty good that they see each other face-to-face every so often. Despite their perpetual argument, there's a side of me that can totally see them exchanging handshakes and pleasantries at Wegmans: "You get outside lately? It's gorgeous." "Isn't it? I just love this county in the fall."
Whereas, in Rochester, you get these people just shooting vitriol, half the time, at people they'll most likely never see, not even bothering to carry on a conversation. It's like talk radio over here sometimes. Like, when McGinnis and McCamy get their dander up, it's over things like the place of religion in public. You get people over here who feel that they have to be sarcastic about everything, even when they're talking about completely normal things, such as their opinion that (actual example here) our recyclers should have lids so that things don't blow down the street in the wind.
No question, that is a genuinely good idea. But why drip bitterness because the city hasn't thought of it yet? Why not just write to them and suggest it? I mean, either way you're spending the energy to write the letter. Or submit it to the letters page for the general populace to see, but just be polite.
I mean, people can be forceful and still be courteous, right?
-Laurel
6.15.2006
So I can see why guys leave most of this crud up to my half-or-so of the population...
Had a Shopping Mini-Adventure tonight: having made the mistake of choosing wedding gifts for Becky and Danielle that are funny shapes, and therefore can't just be wrapped, tonight, on my way back from the library, I therefore had to go into K-Mart to get wedding cards and gift bags.
To back the truck up for a minute, for those of you who aren't from home or haven't heard, two of my high-school-and-church friends, sisters named Becky and Danielle, are getting married this Saturday in a double wedding. My whole church was invited en masse to the ceremony, and though I'm not sure that this means I'm invited to the reception (it's not a small wedding, like 'Nanda's dad's open-invitation one was), bringing a small gift for each of them seems like the thing to do. Besides, they're so sweet, and have always been friendly.
We didn't already have at home any gift bags that were the right shapes or sizes, so, after taking rough measurements of the gifts with my arms (the bag for Becky's "cirrus glass" bowl had to be at least as long as my arm was from the tip of my middle finger to an inch or two past my watch; the bag for Danielle's windchimes had to be at least as tall as my arm was from the elbow to the wrist), I...well, I went to the library, like I said. But after I went to the library, I set about trying to find the gift bags.
NOTE TO K-MART: While joining up with Sears has made you slightly more modern, please note that many, many couples getting married are in their twenties. They are therefore quite savvy and can spot schlock a mile away. Please avoid, therefore, vending schlocky cards, including, but not limited to, those with the following: way too much shiny gold lettering; large, swoopy cursive letters that take up half the card; excessive gushiness (you know what I'm talking about). Thank you.
Also, religious cards: I'm starting to think that that whole genre is flat-out a bad idea. For one thing, to market them as "religious," most companies have to be so generic that you're not really touching any one faith in particular anyway. At least Hallmark's e-card website has overtly Christian, overtly Jewish, etc. cards; this may also be true in stores, but K-Mart doesn't sell their cards, so I have no idea. Though that brings me to my second thought on the point: you can't make a good religious card just by splashing a Bible verse on it or drawing a menorah anyway. I mean, nice though it is to see some of those things in print on something you can publicly buy, the best messages of faith come from the heart. Get a regular card and write your own testimony on how they've blessed you. Pick your own verse. That'll be more meaningful, and you don't run the risk of just throwing these symbols around; you don't have to be a good writer to do a better job than the companies often do, with their gold swoopy-script things grandly entitled, "A Wedding Prayer for a Special Couple."
But anyway, I did manage to find two half-decent cards that weren't moneyholders (why, why are all the good cards moneyholders? There is no logic there) and two gift bags that were pretty much the right sizes that weren't a) too expensive or b) too mawkish.
Though they weren't exactly cheap, either, considering that it was just two cards and two bags, both of which are rather disposable. But that's how wedding-prettiness goes, I guess. So that was the adventure, and I hope it ends up lovely when I put the gifts together, write the cards, etc.
-Laurel
To back the truck up for a minute, for those of you who aren't from home or haven't heard, two of my high-school-and-church friends, sisters named Becky and Danielle, are getting married this Saturday in a double wedding. My whole church was invited en masse to the ceremony, and though I'm not sure that this means I'm invited to the reception (it's not a small wedding, like 'Nanda's dad's open-invitation one was), bringing a small gift for each of them seems like the thing to do. Besides, they're so sweet, and have always been friendly.
We didn't already have at home any gift bags that were the right shapes or sizes, so, after taking rough measurements of the gifts with my arms (the bag for Becky's "cirrus glass" bowl had to be at least as long as my arm was from the tip of my middle finger to an inch or two past my watch; the bag for Danielle's windchimes had to be at least as tall as my arm was from the elbow to the wrist), I...well, I went to the library, like I said. But after I went to the library, I set about trying to find the gift bags.
NOTE TO K-MART: While joining up with Sears has made you slightly more modern, please note that many, many couples getting married are in their twenties. They are therefore quite savvy and can spot schlock a mile away. Please avoid, therefore, vending schlocky cards, including, but not limited to, those with the following: way too much shiny gold lettering; large, swoopy cursive letters that take up half the card; excessive gushiness (you know what I'm talking about). Thank you.
Also, religious cards: I'm starting to think that that whole genre is flat-out a bad idea. For one thing, to market them as "religious," most companies have to be so generic that you're not really touching any one faith in particular anyway. At least Hallmark's e-card website has overtly Christian, overtly Jewish, etc. cards; this may also be true in stores, but K-Mart doesn't sell their cards, so I have no idea. Though that brings me to my second thought on the point: you can't make a good religious card just by splashing a Bible verse on it or drawing a menorah anyway. I mean, nice though it is to see some of those things in print on something you can publicly buy, the best messages of faith come from the heart. Get a regular card and write your own testimony on how they've blessed you. Pick your own verse. That'll be more meaningful, and you don't run the risk of just throwing these symbols around; you don't have to be a good writer to do a better job than the companies often do, with their gold swoopy-script things grandly entitled, "A Wedding Prayer for a Special Couple."
But anyway, I did manage to find two half-decent cards that weren't moneyholders (why, why are all the good cards moneyholders? There is no logic there) and two gift bags that were pretty much the right sizes that weren't a) too expensive or b) too mawkish.
Though they weren't exactly cheap, either, considering that it was just two cards and two bags, both of which are rather disposable. But that's how wedding-prettiness goes, I guess. So that was the adventure, and I hope it ends up lovely when I put the gifts together, write the cards, etc.
-Laurel
6.14.2006
Hey, all right!
Chris Rice is actually coming to play at Kingdom Bound this year! I may just have to come from Syracuse to see the show.
The side-column, as you can see, is partially overhauled; ultimately there'll probably be more people listed, but shorter descriptions. In the meantime, it stands as it is.
-Laurel
The side-column, as you can see, is partially overhauled; ultimately there'll probably be more people listed, but shorter descriptions. In the meantime, it stands as it is.
-Laurel
6.13.2006
-quick note-
I think the geekiness-level test now linked on my side-column is better than the one I took in the past, which I believe also made this blog. I scored 20-point-something percent, "geek" without being "total geek," and feel both vindicated (my dad insists I'm not a geek) and fairly assessed (I don't claim to be really geeky, just solidly geeky).
I heartily encourage people to attempt to beat my score; most of my friends could do it quite easily.
-Laurel
I heartily encourage people to attempt to beat my score; most of my friends could do it quite easily.
-Laurel
Insanity Rising
So maybe on my pre-move goal list, I should have crossed out one of the more frivolous items (perhaps the bread- and lemon-soup-making one) and put, instead, "gain procedural knowledge of basic housekeeping tasks." Since, basically, I suck at them all, whether or not I know in theory how to do them. I will be better at them by graduation, honest.
(Another possible goal would be, "learn not to whine.")
But while we're reviewing progress on said goals, I have:
-made Erik's birthday present
-made bread (and fine bread it was, too)
-gotten the required amount of exercise for last week (this week is doomed)
-got through the Prydain Chronicles (which turned out to be good; I'm still trying to figure out why they weren't ridiculous, but they certainly weren't)
-convinced my parents to donate the books we're not bringing with us to the library
-got in the pool once (I am hoping for better, more sunny weather)
-one part of my secret task ended up changing, but I guess I did complete Part One of Three
...Why do I pay attention to this, if it drives me so crazy when other people measure their lives by their accomplishements? Well, I guess I'm not measuring my life by this. And it does give me something to do by day.
-Laurel
(Another possible goal would be, "learn not to whine.")
But while we're reviewing progress on said goals, I have:
-made Erik's birthday present
-made bread (and fine bread it was, too)
-gotten the required amount of exercise for last week (this week is doomed)
-got through the Prydain Chronicles (which turned out to be good; I'm still trying to figure out why they weren't ridiculous, but they certainly weren't)
-convinced my parents to donate the books we're not bringing with us to the library
-got in the pool once (I am hoping for better, more sunny weather)
-one part of my secret task ended up changing, but I guess I did complete Part One of Three
...Why do I pay attention to this, if it drives me so crazy when other people measure their lives by their accomplishements? Well, I guess I'm not measuring my life by this. And it does give me something to do by day.
-Laurel
6.11.2006
Road Tunes
It's almost as though we only ever played two albums in my mom's vehicles between 1990 and about 1994, because I only remember two.
One was the Spin Doctors' Pocket Full of Kryptonite, some of which was really kind of mediocre, now that I hear it again in 30-second snippets on the FYE.com page. But, to me, of course, it was all quality.
Mainly in terms of the music, instead of the lyrics. For most songs, I understood the concepts only in snippets. Certainly I had no chance to pick out the theme in "What Time is It?", which's basically a song about foreign affairs and governmental public-relations ("Ayatollah, he's hopping mad..."), but if I couldn't get the nuance, I know I loved, in my elementary-school way, the beginning guitar and the opening lines, which my mom and I would chant even when the song wasn't playing. What time is it? Four-thirty. ...It's not late--naw, naw, it's just early, ear-lay, ear-lay... Now there's a logical twist a six-year-old can love, though I believe it still took me some time to realize that they were talking about four-thirty in the morning.
I liked (though largely didn't understand) the song "Jimmy Olsen's Blues"; I liked singing the repetitive and creatively-rhythmed chorus to "Little Miss Can't Be Wrong" (though part of it I didn't know then, and still don't, and therefore had to wait for the part I did know to come around); I liked the guitar parts to the others even when I could only pick out a word here and there.
But I and my brother loved "Two Princes." Again, you'd think this theme would even have been simple enough for me, and in part it was--I knew it dealt with love--but I didn't know enough of the non-chorus lyrics, let alone have any real idea of social-class barriers, to understand that it was a poor guy trying to beat out a rich guy for said love. Not that it mattered; we were in it for the chorus.
If you want to call me "baby," just go ahead now
And if you like to tell me "maybe," just go ahead now
And if you wanna buy me flowers, just go ahead now
And if you like to talk for hours, just go ahead now
They played that song over the internet-cafe PA system when I was in Spain. Talk about your travel songs.
Bonnie Raitt became my official soundtrack, over the summer, for drives to Robin and Kathy's. They were somehow related, I believe--ladies my mom knew from the bowling team she was on. They lived...oh gosh, I don't even know where they lived. Both were "out in the country," as far as I was concerned, and that was back when half an hour of driving constituted a significant journey (even though we went to my aunt and uncle's, some 90 minutes' drive, about every alternate weekend). Robin and Kathy lived in separate places, but I don't know if those places were even near each other. (Anyway, they couldn't have been too far away, if they could drive to the bowling alley nearest us. Especially in those days, there were sooo many alleys to choose from in the Rochester area.)
I remember more of the words in Bonnie Raitt songs, partly because she sang more slowly and clearly. I had two favorites. The first was "Something to Talk About." I remember connecting it directly to the only experience I had of crushes, thinking of Ricky Case and Sarah Craig from my first-grade class, and Ricky's affection for Sarah rather outmeasuring hers for him. Later in life it became more self-centered; I thought of Steve.
The other was "Jody and Chico," which is about a girl who runs off with a guy and how her family's going to track them down and basically give Chico what-for. I liked it partly for the name Jody and partly because it was fun and easy to sing, though I did have to pause for the swear words (always pretty mild back then).
It'd be an interesting study in child development, seeing what parts of adult-targeted songs kids understand and when. In the meantime, I get to remember summer mornings in the passenger-side seat, windows down, the wind whipping my hair as I looked at the trees zipping by, or at my reflection in the passenger-side mirror (and the phenomenon where, if I covertly stuck the tip of my finger out of the window, in the mirror it somehow made a bird-shape).
Cassette tapes like that gave way to, oh gosh, who else? In terms of family music, nothing comes through my memories clearly until our big Beatles phase (which I never quite grew out of; see below), back when my brother picked them up. I had a Walkman around the time I was in fifth grade, and he had his own little tape player that he'd turn down low and hold right up to his ear, so we'd listen to stuff on our own, too--I was pasted to musicals and soundtracks at first, which in middle school largely gave way to Jars of Clay. I was the first person in my family to buy a CD: at the end of--it was probably ninth grade, though I want to say eighth--I bought WoW 1999 and played it in the CD player built into the computer as I played Chip's Challenge. My parents were slow to convert, keeping cassette tape players in their vehicles until around '01 or '02.
That was when we got a new minivan. Driving it home, my mom borrowed my copy of U2's All That You Can't Leave Behind and stuck it in; our first family road tune in the "new car" was "Beautiful Day."
Some of the best music is the kind you play when you're alone in your car. Freshman year, going home, once I scribbled on my whiteboard, as I left, a scrap of the Beatles' "Wait," which I'd learned to sing with Simon and John, and played many times in my car: it's been a long time; now I'm coming back home...
Some is the kind you make with others, like singing with Zinni, 'Nanda, and Daf (though that was mostly in Zinni's family's van), with John, with Lisa.
Some is group music, like with Quiz Bowl. Not just "Du Hast," but also "Born in the USA" and "Takin' Care of Business," both of which were largely absent this year as I rode to Montreal with Jeff and Todd, though that ride was nice in its own way. And, of course, SFE-trip music, especially the Canada trip. "Elevation," oh wow.
In the end, there's just something about cars and music that go together wonderfully.
I see you tappin' the wheel, I see you bobbin' your head with the radio...
-Laurel
One was the Spin Doctors' Pocket Full of Kryptonite, some of which was really kind of mediocre, now that I hear it again in 30-second snippets on the FYE.com page. But, to me, of course, it was all quality.
Mainly in terms of the music, instead of the lyrics. For most songs, I understood the concepts only in snippets. Certainly I had no chance to pick out the theme in "What Time is It?", which's basically a song about foreign affairs and governmental public-relations ("Ayatollah, he's hopping mad..."), but if I couldn't get the nuance, I know I loved, in my elementary-school way, the beginning guitar and the opening lines, which my mom and I would chant even when the song wasn't playing. What time is it? Four-thirty. ...It's not late--naw, naw, it's just early, ear-lay, ear-lay... Now there's a logical twist a six-year-old can love, though I believe it still took me some time to realize that they were talking about four-thirty in the morning.
I liked (though largely didn't understand) the song "Jimmy Olsen's Blues"; I liked singing the repetitive and creatively-rhythmed chorus to "Little Miss Can't Be Wrong" (though part of it I didn't know then, and still don't, and therefore had to wait for the part I did know to come around); I liked the guitar parts to the others even when I could only pick out a word here and there.
But I and my brother loved "Two Princes." Again, you'd think this theme would even have been simple enough for me, and in part it was--I knew it dealt with love--but I didn't know enough of the non-chorus lyrics, let alone have any real idea of social-class barriers, to understand that it was a poor guy trying to beat out a rich guy for said love. Not that it mattered; we were in it for the chorus.
If you want to call me "baby," just go ahead now
And if you like to tell me "maybe," just go ahead now
And if you wanna buy me flowers, just go ahead now
And if you like to talk for hours, just go ahead now
They played that song over the internet-cafe PA system when I was in Spain. Talk about your travel songs.
Bonnie Raitt became my official soundtrack, over the summer, for drives to Robin and Kathy's. They were somehow related, I believe--ladies my mom knew from the bowling team she was on. They lived...oh gosh, I don't even know where they lived. Both were "out in the country," as far as I was concerned, and that was back when half an hour of driving constituted a significant journey (even though we went to my aunt and uncle's, some 90 minutes' drive, about every alternate weekend). Robin and Kathy lived in separate places, but I don't know if those places were even near each other. (Anyway, they couldn't have been too far away, if they could drive to the bowling alley nearest us. Especially in those days, there were sooo many alleys to choose from in the Rochester area.)
I remember more of the words in Bonnie Raitt songs, partly because she sang more slowly and clearly. I had two favorites. The first was "Something to Talk About." I remember connecting it directly to the only experience I had of crushes, thinking of Ricky Case and Sarah Craig from my first-grade class, and Ricky's affection for Sarah rather outmeasuring hers for him. Later in life it became more self-centered; I thought of Steve.
The other was "Jody and Chico," which is about a girl who runs off with a guy and how her family's going to track them down and basically give Chico what-for. I liked it partly for the name Jody and partly because it was fun and easy to sing, though I did have to pause for the swear words (always pretty mild back then).
It'd be an interesting study in child development, seeing what parts of adult-targeted songs kids understand and when. In the meantime, I get to remember summer mornings in the passenger-side seat, windows down, the wind whipping my hair as I looked at the trees zipping by, or at my reflection in the passenger-side mirror (and the phenomenon where, if I covertly stuck the tip of my finger out of the window, in the mirror it somehow made a bird-shape).
Cassette tapes like that gave way to, oh gosh, who else? In terms of family music, nothing comes through my memories clearly until our big Beatles phase (which I never quite grew out of; see below), back when my brother picked them up. I had a Walkman around the time I was in fifth grade, and he had his own little tape player that he'd turn down low and hold right up to his ear, so we'd listen to stuff on our own, too--I was pasted to musicals and soundtracks at first, which in middle school largely gave way to Jars of Clay. I was the first person in my family to buy a CD: at the end of--it was probably ninth grade, though I want to say eighth--I bought WoW 1999 and played it in the CD player built into the computer as I played Chip's Challenge. My parents were slow to convert, keeping cassette tape players in their vehicles until around '01 or '02.
That was when we got a new minivan. Driving it home, my mom borrowed my copy of U2's All That You Can't Leave Behind and stuck it in; our first family road tune in the "new car" was "Beautiful Day."
Some of the best music is the kind you play when you're alone in your car. Freshman year, going home, once I scribbled on my whiteboard, as I left, a scrap of the Beatles' "Wait," which I'd learned to sing with Simon and John, and played many times in my car: it's been a long time; now I'm coming back home...
Some is the kind you make with others, like singing with Zinni, 'Nanda, and Daf (though that was mostly in Zinni's family's van), with John, with Lisa.
Some is group music, like with Quiz Bowl. Not just "Du Hast," but also "Born in the USA" and "Takin' Care of Business," both of which were largely absent this year as I rode to Montreal with Jeff and Todd, though that ride was nice in its own way. And, of course, SFE-trip music, especially the Canada trip. "Elevation," oh wow.
In the end, there's just something about cars and music that go together wonderfully.
I see you tappin' the wheel, I see you bobbin' your head with the radio...
-Laurel
6.08.2006
Half a World Away
Jeremiah 29:4-11 (NLT)
The LORD Almighty, the God of Israel, sends this message to all the captives he has exiled to Babylon from Jerusalem: "Build homes, and plan to stay. Plant gardens, and eat the food you produce. Marry, and have children. Then find spouses for them, and have many grandchildren. Multiply! Do not dwindle away! And work for the peace and prosperity of Babylon. Pray to the LORD for that city where you are held captive, for if Babylon has peace, so will you."
The LORD Almighty, the God of Israel, says, "Do not let the prophets and mediums who are there in Babylon trick you. Do not listen to their dreams because they prophesy lies in my name. I have not sent them," says the LORD. "The truth is that you will be in Babylon for seventy years. But then I will come and do for you all the good things I have promised, and I will bring you home again. For I know the plans I have for you," says the LORD. "They are plans for good and not for disaster, to give you a future and a hope."
We looked at this passage (and some of the verses preceding and following it) at Basileia; if it wasn't clear from what I quoted, it's a letter from the prophet Jeremiah to various Hebrews who'd been forced to leave Jerusalem, delivering God's message: bloom where you're planted.
We looked at it in terms of the Hebrews, and also ourselves: we don't find ourselves in places like Basileia often, where everyone shares our faith, where everyone agrees on what life should be. Rather than just retreat into little Christian bubbles, or into ourselves, we should make ourselves comfortable, hunker in for the duration: live in the good places we've found ourselves, or the bad ones, trying to make them better for the love we show.
It works for Christian groups on campus (don't just enjoy each other's company; see what help's to be given or what work's to be done), but also for where we find ourselves in summer. Some of us go back to churches and Christian families, like Jess does. Some of us go back to places where our parents are openly hostile to faith, like Laura's dad. We have to make a life at home instead of trying to disappear into AIM conversations with church friends. We have to serve as He would.
I know that sounds a bit patronizing if you're not Christian, but I don't mean it to.
I am trying to understand, trying to do the same. But I am failing. I'm so homesick here, so miserable.
-Laurel
The LORD Almighty, the God of Israel, sends this message to all the captives he has exiled to Babylon from Jerusalem: "Build homes, and plan to stay. Plant gardens, and eat the food you produce. Marry, and have children. Then find spouses for them, and have many grandchildren. Multiply! Do not dwindle away! And work for the peace and prosperity of Babylon. Pray to the LORD for that city where you are held captive, for if Babylon has peace, so will you."
The LORD Almighty, the God of Israel, says, "Do not let the prophets and mediums who are there in Babylon trick you. Do not listen to their dreams because they prophesy lies in my name. I have not sent them," says the LORD. "The truth is that you will be in Babylon for seventy years. But then I will come and do for you all the good things I have promised, and I will bring you home again. For I know the plans I have for you," says the LORD. "They are plans for good and not for disaster, to give you a future and a hope."
We looked at this passage (and some of the verses preceding and following it) at Basileia; if it wasn't clear from what I quoted, it's a letter from the prophet Jeremiah to various Hebrews who'd been forced to leave Jerusalem, delivering God's message: bloom where you're planted.
We looked at it in terms of the Hebrews, and also ourselves: we don't find ourselves in places like Basileia often, where everyone shares our faith, where everyone agrees on what life should be. Rather than just retreat into little Christian bubbles, or into ourselves, we should make ourselves comfortable, hunker in for the duration: live in the good places we've found ourselves, or the bad ones, trying to make them better for the love we show.
It works for Christian groups on campus (don't just enjoy each other's company; see what help's to be given or what work's to be done), but also for where we find ourselves in summer. Some of us go back to churches and Christian families, like Jess does. Some of us go back to places where our parents are openly hostile to faith, like Laura's dad. We have to make a life at home instead of trying to disappear into AIM conversations with church friends. We have to serve as He would.
I know that sounds a bit patronizing if you're not Christian, but I don't mean it to.
I am trying to understand, trying to do the same. But I am failing. I'm so homesick here, so miserable.
-Laurel
6.05.2006
::facepalm::
See, this is why I should not be allowed to go home over the summer: because after several weeks I am sick of death of how said summer is going, and tend to have, like, zero patience and negative-number self-restraint.
Which is to say, will somebody please never again let me take a survey for the people who run the school webportal? I despise webportals. They have no practical use whatsoever. The problem was that I used the "what would you like to see us improve" comment box basically to tell them that they should just publicize the direct links to e-mail, Banner, etc., which everyone eventually learns anyway, instead of trying to feed us through their little school-spirit ploy (I did not, thankfully, use those words, though my actual words were not that much better).
The next time I am ever tempted to use the phrase "inconvenient at best and mindless at worst," somebody please smack me and remind me that actual living breathing feeling people read these things? Especially since I can be as nasty as I want and they'll still tell me it's a better idea than mine.
I think it's quiet-the-body-and-the-mind-and-the-soul time.
-Laurel
Which is to say, will somebody please never again let me take a survey for the people who run the school webportal? I despise webportals. They have no practical use whatsoever. The problem was that I used the "what would you like to see us improve" comment box basically to tell them that they should just publicize the direct links to e-mail, Banner, etc., which everyone eventually learns anyway, instead of trying to feed us through their little school-spirit ploy (I did not, thankfully, use those words, though my actual words were not that much better).
The next time I am ever tempted to use the phrase "inconvenient at best and mindless at worst," somebody please smack me and remind me that actual living breathing feeling people read these things? Especially since I can be as nasty as I want and they'll still tell me it's a better idea than mine.
I think it's quiet-the-body-and-the-mind-and-the-soul time.
-Laurel
6.04.2006
::laughs:: Wow. And I thought vocal music teachers got violent. :-D
If you'd like to hear the full story of the Community Music Festival/Chicken BBQ up at the high school, which I went to today, let me know and I'll e-mail you; there're too many specific names involved in all the BBQ happenings to mention here.
What I will share with everyone is the following link to a picture of a coffee mug that I saw at said festival. You need to see this mug.
Seriously.
On a completely different note, has even Tic-Tacs outsourced? The thing of fruit-flavored(!) Tic-Tacs in my possession actually says "made in Ecuador." Like, that's really overdoing it, dudes. Is there really that great a cost difference?
Okay, done for now.
-Laurel
What I will share with everyone is the following link to a picture of a coffee mug that I saw at said festival. You need to see this mug.
Seriously.
On a completely different note, has even Tic-Tacs outsourced? The thing of fruit-flavored(!) Tic-Tacs in my possession actually says "made in Ecuador." Like, that's really overdoing it, dudes. Is there really that great a cost difference?
Okay, done for now.
-Laurel
...but until kything gets perfected, AIM will have to do.
Sometimes it's worth it to go to the later service on Sunday morning if it means a warm friend-glow on Saturday night. God bless Joe. (And John and Kristin, who had nice side-conversations going as well.)
Also, for those people who've read all the Wrinkle in Time books, or at least as far as A Wind in the Door, go look up the word kythe. It's pretty cool.
-Laurel
Also, for those people who've read all the Wrinkle in Time books, or at least as far as A Wind in the Door, go look up the word kythe. It's pretty cool.
-Laurel
6.03.2006
would that I could kythe
I think I would walk to school if I knew everyone would be there when I got there.
-Laurel
-Laurel
6.02.2006
Report from the field
Andrea, believe it or not, has this week pretty much led 75% of her family to come back to churchgoing and all of the things about Christianity that in her house had kind of fallen by the wayside.
...Ruddy wow, does somebody ever make better use of her time than I do.
And I mean it, I really think that's spectacular. Mostly for all of the reasons you'd expect, but also because it proves to me that such things really do happen.
It's been a pretty lazy week over here. Restful, too, I guess, but very fast, and largely forgettable.
I want fall to come, but outside of the fun we've planned in the honors house, I can't imagine what the semester will be like.
-Laurel
...Ruddy wow, does somebody ever make better use of her time than I do.
And I mean it, I really think that's spectacular. Mostly for all of the reasons you'd expect, but also because it proves to me that such things really do happen.
It's been a pretty lazy week over here. Restful, too, I guess, but very fast, and largely forgettable.
I want fall to come, but outside of the fun we've planned in the honors house, I can't imagine what the semester will be like.
-Laurel
::bursts out laughing:: Oh, my gosh, the ridiculous precision!
My mom, who is home from work with wrenched leg muscles (oddly enough, she doesn't know how it happened), cleaned out the shelf where my brother's and my schoolwork has been collecting for prety much our entire academic careers.
Guess what I found: a collection of stories I had started on my very first word processor, which I got when I was about six or seven. ...I started reading pretty early, and was writing so many stories by that time that my dad decided to get me a computer program for it. Which is why, yes, I was writing such things at age six-or-seven. I forget what the program was called, but I spent hours on it (and, heck, on every other word processor I ever had between that time and about the eleventh grade). Sometime around junior high, I managed to get the fragments to come up in WordPerfect, I guess, since that seems to be where they were printed from, and I saved what I could. And now I've found them again.
On a completely technical note, I'm really impressed by my knowledge of comma usage at such a young age (across the stories, I consistently punctuated my interruptives correctly!), and the fact that I knew to hyphenate "bright-eyed." ...I remember now how long it took me to get dialogue-writing right.
Anyway, there are only four of them, each is only a beginning (since I almost never finished anything that wasn't for school), and what I have is only about a paragraph long in each case. Nevertheless, for everyone's vast amusement, I will share one of them with you, exactly as written, nothing corrected, as follows:
One fine spring day, (It was 69 degrees outside that day, But that does'nt matter.) Mario and Luigi were having breakfast. Mario was having Corn Flakes with 2/3 of a tablespoon of sugar, while Luigi was having product 19. Luigi had gotten up at 7:09. Mario got up at a slightly different time-7:15. Both were wide awake now, both bright-eyed as possible. But, just as Mario and Luigi were about to do the dishes, there came a loud: KNOCK! KNOCK! KNOCK! Luigi dropped and broke a glass cup, he was so startled. I'll clean up the glass. You answer the door. Said Luigi to Mario.
Now that's comedy. Believe me, such precision was not unique to that story; across the four of them, I specified pretty much everything that could be quantified, and most things that could be qualified. Also, Mario and Luigi show up in another one, and I have to say, they seem to do a lot of dishes on fair-weathered mornings.
Av--, from last summer, had that same kind of painful precision, but was still learning to follow a logical sequence of events, so he ended up having to work on that a lot, or at least try. ...Sometimes that didn't happen: I remember him sitting once for, like, five or ten minutes, staring at his jumbled story, which I believe he was supposed to fix, only to finally ask me whether I thought he should change the phone number he'd put down for Bob (many of his characters ended up being named Bob).
So here's to every writing teacher I ever had, and to whatever fine people put on the Mario and Luigi cartoon show that I watched on TV. My apologies to the latter.
-Laurel
Guess what I found: a collection of stories I had started on my very first word processor, which I got when I was about six or seven. ...I started reading pretty early, and was writing so many stories by that time that my dad decided to get me a computer program for it. Which is why, yes, I was writing such things at age six-or-seven. I forget what the program was called, but I spent hours on it (and, heck, on every other word processor I ever had between that time and about the eleventh grade). Sometime around junior high, I managed to get the fragments to come up in WordPerfect, I guess, since that seems to be where they were printed from, and I saved what I could. And now I've found them again.
On a completely technical note, I'm really impressed by my knowledge of comma usage at such a young age (across the stories, I consistently punctuated my interruptives correctly!), and the fact that I knew to hyphenate "bright-eyed." ...I remember now how long it took me to get dialogue-writing right.
Anyway, there are only four of them, each is only a beginning (since I almost never finished anything that wasn't for school), and what I have is only about a paragraph long in each case. Nevertheless, for everyone's vast amusement, I will share one of them with you, exactly as written, nothing corrected, as follows:
One fine spring day, (It was 69 degrees outside that day, But that does'nt matter.) Mario and Luigi were having breakfast. Mario was having Corn Flakes with 2/3 of a tablespoon of sugar, while Luigi was having product 19. Luigi had gotten up at 7:09. Mario got up at a slightly different time-7:15. Both were wide awake now, both bright-eyed as possible. But, just as Mario and Luigi were about to do the dishes, there came a loud: KNOCK! KNOCK! KNOCK! Luigi dropped and broke a glass cup, he was so startled. I'll clean up the glass. You answer the door. Said Luigi to Mario.
Now that's comedy. Believe me, such precision was not unique to that story; across the four of them, I specified pretty much everything that could be quantified, and most things that could be qualified. Also, Mario and Luigi show up in another one, and I have to say, they seem to do a lot of dishes on fair-weathered mornings.
Av--, from last summer, had that same kind of painful precision, but was still learning to follow a logical sequence of events, so he ended up having to work on that a lot, or at least try. ...Sometimes that didn't happen: I remember him sitting once for, like, five or ten minutes, staring at his jumbled story, which I believe he was supposed to fix, only to finally ask me whether I thought he should change the phone number he'd put down for Bob (many of his characters ended up being named Bob).
So here's to every writing teacher I ever had, and to whatever fine people put on the Mario and Luigi cartoon show that I watched on TV. My apologies to the latter.
-Laurel