Rewind, Reflect, and Move Ahead

Before I realized it, this year came and went.  Now I feel compelled to rewind the tape and play back some of what I've experienced. 

It's hard to recall, especially because I get stuck in the here-and-now.  I will dig into the dusty jacketed remains of my unsystematic archives.  Let's see...

{As an aside, I won't be giving a detailed play-by-play of everything that happened to me this year.
Don't worry!}

The three biggest highlights that stick out in my mind:
~Winter Retreat with my college group FUSION
~ Finding the right major, Speech Pathology and attending Sac State this fall
~Turning 21 on Halloween!  (The initial excitement has worn off, but this was a momentous occasion regardless)

I didn't travel much this year, but the little trips I took were great. I went and experienced the redwoods and Pacific Ocean multiple times because it is my favorite weekend getaway.  Kayaked through some sea caves while on my family's annual camping trip (Photo on right taken by Rebekah Long).  Hiked a bit here and there.  Made it to Santa Cruz a couple of times.  It's always fun people-watching there!

 I can't measure my experiences by what I actually did.  I wouldn't trade life's enjoyable times for the world, but what I gathered from them seems to be the most rewarding part.                                              

Spiritually speaking, I have had mountain-top highs, everyday valleys, and drought-like doubts.  After Winter Retreat with my college group, I was in the Word on a daily basis and communicating with my Father as much as I could.  It was more than just that.  I felt close enough to Him that I was confident in doing His biding.  I found something that worked well for my devotional life.  I would sit in my Ford Exploder during school/work breaks and read my Bible.

Summer hit and nothing seemed to change at first.  Free from the reins of school, I slipped into a spiritual slump for a month or so.  Eventually, I realized I was in the wrong, and soon came back to the open arms of my Heavenly Dad.

Fall '11 will stay ingrained in my mind for what is was eternally worth- absolutely nothing!  Like any drought, the negative side-effects are difficult to pinpoint and are as slow-moving as a sloth.  It is not until you are in recovery mode seeing some end in sight that you recognize what you are being saved from.  "Real college" has its perks, and it wouldn't take me long at all to articulate why I love being there.  That's not what this blog entry is for.

The ugly truth is that school, although a noble pursuit, became my idol this semester.  I buried my faith and, the meantime, put my sense of contentment in grave danger.  Immersed in my coursework, the stress got to me and I came up empty.  I tried to fill God's place in my heart with studying harder.  Leave it up to me, as a messy, imperfect person, to spend my time on something lacking eternal value, and I shoved what's most important (my spiritual life) to the wayside.

Thankfully, my God is always forgiving and will never leave or forsake me, a prideful sinner.  I am willingly running away from my past regret and sprinting towards the promise of tomorrow.  I've been told this spiritually-dry pandemic often afflicts those that claim to be followers of Christ.  In this journey, enlightening beginnings of new-found faith are soon replaced by a necessary struggle for living out faith in all aspects of life.

Where am I at, today, right now, as I am sitting and reflecting at a coffeeshop?  That seems to be the question of the hour.   Like any other believer, I have to make a daily choice to follow Him.  My heart is softened like a freshly baked batch of snickerdoodles and I am hungering again after my God.  I could always use prayer.  And I want to be there for people that need it in return. I am finally back to where I should have been all along.

Signs Facebook Is Taking Over Your Life

1.     Generally, it is the first website you type in while surfing the net.
2.     You have specifically taken photos with the intention of uploading them to  facebook.
3.    You communicate with someone either in the same room or in the same house you currently reside in.
4.    You sit on there, even when there isn’t any new news showing up.
5.    You accept friend requests even from people you haven’t met in real life
6.    You’ve been hooked on Farmville, Mafia Wars, Mousehunt, etc… or any other game on there for that matter.
7.    You update your status more than once a day
8.    You are guilty of facebooking stalking (not as uncommon as you may think).
9.    You have more than say 500 friends.
10.  You create events frequently on there without inviting at least some of the people in person
11.    Your facebook messaging has all but replaced your regular email
12.    You hold multiple poking wars at once.
13.    You have albums and albums of photos from everything from your new haircut to your second cousin’s first birthday party.
14.   You have filled out most of the info categories for your profile such as favorite books, movies, and your personal hobbies. 
15.   You have more than 75 listed profile pictures.
16.  Your entire extended family and your goldfish are listed on your profile information.
17.    You are always on facebook chat (or what might seem like it).
18.   You have a daily fortune cookie.
19.    If you ‘check-in’ for all the snazzy places you go around town and on vacation. 
20. You shamelessly  link your blog for each new entry in hopes of getting more page viewers. *cough* me *cough* 
21.  You have liked 100+ pages (such as for celebrities, bands, or foods).
22.  You are logged in between the hours of 3 A.M. to 6 A.M.
23.  You have a facebook mobile app on your smartphone. 
24.  You have listed ALL the jobs you have ever held including babysitting and mowing lawns as a pre-teen.
25. You provide commentary and feedback for your favorite sports team on a regular basis.
26. You like individual comments for almost every status update you either write or comment on.
27. You have listed out your phone number, address, bank account number, and social security number (hopefully no one would do this with the last two).
28.  You update your about me more than two or three times a year.
29. You’ve filled out surveys about yourself and posted them as notes. 
30. You’ve been spammed more than your fair share and you never learn your lesson to never click on something that looks questionable or too good to be true.
31. You log on multiple times a day hoping you will have a new message or notication.

My intention for doing this was not to step on people’s toes.  I wanted to poke fun at the wide-spread popularity of Facebook.   I am a self-admitted Facebook addict so you are in good company if you can answer yes to more than ten of these. 

The numbers I have underlined, I am guilty myself of doing.

The Bond of a Common Language

Recently, I watched a movie called the Grass Is Greener with Cary Grant and Deborah Kerr.  I am horrible at memorizing movie quotes, but one line stated by the oil millionaire, Charles, went something like this, "The one thing that seems to separate us Americans and you British is the bond of a common language." 

I find this both humorous and true.  Another term from this movie was Anglophile.  This probably applies to me because I really to have a deep-rooted fascination for the British as a whole. 


Evidence:


1.  I took a British Lit. class last semester for Fun.  I am not even an English major...


2.  Even though I'm not very good with accents, I particularly try to imitate British accents.


3.  On a Europe trip to England, France, and Spain, my all-time favorite place was Salisbury, England (like the steak).  There was an awesome cathedral that I fell in love with due to its understated simplicity.

 












4.  Reading books by British authors... One of my favorites genres of literature

5.  I love tea... yes, I am a coffeeholic, but I would love to establish a daily tea time for myself {scones and all :)}


6.  I always wish my last name had something added on to the end of it such as Longsworth or Longsmith... essentially, a surname that was undeniably British in nature.


~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Some would say we speak the exact same language just with a 'funny accent.'  I will list below some words used in Britain that would never be used here in America, unless by a British transplant to the States.

I perused through a lengthy list of British slang.  Here are my absolute favorites:

Diddle:  to cheat someone out of money- to short change them

Full of beans:  have WAY too much energy; usually applies to young kids with 'ants in their pants'

Gormless:  someone who is clueless

Wonky:  something that is unstable or shaky


I obtained the words from and paraphrased the definitions a bit: 
http://www.effingpot.com/slang.shtml

An Uncharacteristic Word to the Wise

Since I claim to be a 'word nerd', I figured I would have some fun with the English language.  To briefly describe what I mean, I will be:  looking up obscure, unheard of words and try to guess what they mean.  Then I will look up the actual meanings, list them out, and see how close I came to guessing them. 

1. cloakatively: 

This should be interesting... 

My Guess:  Someone wearing a cloak that talks way too much.

The Dictionary's Response:  superficially

Example used in a sentence:  These reforms have only cloakatively made the situation better for the poor. 

2. exipotic

First thing that came to mind was Harry Potter... 

My Guess:  A smell from the outside.

The Dictionary's Response:  purgative; cleansing the body of illness

    
Example used in a sentence:  While the medicine was                                              exipotic  to his body, it made a mess of his bathroom. 

3. kexy

Besides the obvious replacement of the letter k with s...

My Guess:  An unorderly personality?!

The Dictionary's Response:   dry, brittle, withered

Example used in a sentence:  The rustling of the kexy leaves alerted the campers to the bear's presence. 

(FYI- This sentence makes me laugh.)

4.   macellarious

My Guess:  A hilarious, masterminding sort of celery. 

The Dictionary's Response: pertaining to butchers or meat markets 

Example used in a sentence:  Some practitioners of the macellarious arts are more humane to animals than vegans.

(I might have been 'slightly' off-base.)

5. mowburnt

This sounds made up...

My Guess:  scorched grass that shouldn't have been mowed in advance.

The Dictionary's Response: of crops, spoiled by becoming overheated 

Example used in a sentence:   The heat wave last August left us with heaps of mowburnt and useless crops.

(I was surprisingly close with my guessing game.)

6. obstrigillate 

My guess:  An overbearing presence or obstacle to be overcomed.

The Dictionary's Response: to oppose; to resist 

Example used in a sentence: I will not obstrigillate the efforts of my opponent to besmirch my good name. 

(Besmirch?  that's another word that I don't know.. oh well)

7. paterophobia 

Yay, I have a chance to guess part of it!

My Guess:  A fear of patterns?

The Dictionary's Response:  fear of the early Church fathers 

Example used in a sentence:  The Romans' paterophobia mellowed over time, until Christianity was fully accepted.

(Interesting... I might have to google this one and find out more about it.)

 

8. weequashing

My Guess:  Quieting down a toddler yelling, "Wee..." in public.

The Dictionary's Response:  spearing of fish or eels by torchlight from canoes

Example Used in a Sentence:  The Scouts went out weequashing, but they forgot to obtain the proper permit.

(I can sincerely say that I would have never guessed this one in a million years.  Talk     
about a random word.)

I figure you have read enough for now.  I need to give thanks where it is due.  I got the words and the example sentences from the website:  http://phrontistery.info/clw4.html

Summer Reading List

~Hundred Years of Solitude

~Lovely Bones

~Atlas Shrugged

~Fried Green Tomatoes at the Whistle Stop Café

~A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man

~Anna Karenina

~Catch 22

~Doctor Zhivago

~1984

~Mrs. Dalloway

~Heart of Darkness

~The Brothers Karamazov

~Tom Jones

~Madame Bovary

~A Room With a View

~A Farewell to Arms

I think that might be good for now.  I have the habit of reading multiple books at once.  I hope to read all of these by the end of summer, but if that doesn’t happen at least I will be able to have down a list to refer back to. 

The books that are written in bold lettering are those that I have either started or am in the middle of reading.

Preoccupied Free-Time?!

For the first time since summer of 08', NO SUMMER SCHOOL!!! It's funny how while school is in session, I can't wait to be freed from studying and textbooks. Now that summer is finally here, I am having a difficult time adjusting to not having a schedule set in stone. Yes, I still have work and church to keep me busy, but I still feel like I need something to occupy my time. As I have been thinking this through a bit, I realize something-maybe not life-changing or earth-shattering—is wrong with my mentality. 


As an American, I have been programmed to desire productivity and busyness. We complain so much about not having enough time in the day, but once schedules are removed, we don't know what to do with ourselves. On one hand, I can't let myself spend the next three months sitting around twiddling my thumbs together and watching movies. On the flip side, I need to remember to breathe in what God is teaching me and not allow His guiding presence to pass me by. I know there is nothing new under the sun (Ecclesiastes). So my dilemma is neither unique or all that important. 


Still, I will work myself through it. Wait a minute, I need to rewind my cassette tape once again. The phrase, "I will work..." is first, completely centered on myself, and about what I can do to fix this. I am leaving Christ out of the picture when I have this sort of mindset. It is a constant battle to remove my selfishness out of the equation and to allow Him to work in and through me (a prayer I am hearing more and more that I have yet to take hold of).

Before I babble on some more, I suppose I should get back to the topic at hand. While re-framing my perspective on things, I do have a few things I plan on being a part of this summer. FUSION for one. I want to take some day trips, either flying solo or with a small group of people. I have a summer reading list in the works. Volunteer work possibly. And most importantly, I pray that I will devote my heart and passion to the Lord so HE can use me for His glory and not my own.

I have an inkling that I will be pleasantly surprised by what is going to take place during my time free from school. I look forward to it, in fact, since this is the very beginning of the next three months of life here on Earth. Blogging apparently is a free therapy session in which I can process through what I am struggling with. Hurray for that!

Time to Share

I haven't visited my blog in the last couple months.  Here I am, at long last. :)

I just got back from a missions trip to Mexicali last week, Easter weekend.  It has taken me about a week to process at least some of what God has taught me through this experience.

A short list for your reading pleasure:

-In some capacity, God has shown me that He is preparing me to speak in front of people.  This scares me and excites me at the same time.  I am not sure if this has to do with my career or something entirely different.  He has given me just a small sampling of what He has planned for me. 

-I foolishly thought I could give God this one week and then my heart for missions would be fulfilled.  WRONG!  It is almost laughable to look back on that mindset I had before serving down in Mexicali.  Quite the opposite happened...  Now more than ever, God has a mission field in store for me.  The only things I feel confident of:  a heart for the Romanian people, serving orphans and widows, and that's all.  I am not certain if this is for short-term or long-term but obviously He does.  I will continue to be patient and wait on God's timing.

-What joy comes out of giving my all for the glory of God.  During our VBS time.. I often lacked the energy/excitement on the bus rides over to our church.  Simply seeing the smiling, excited faces of the ninos put my heart in the right place.  Presenting our Bible lessons about Jesus as the vine and we as the branches made sense even more from a child-like faith/perspective. 

-Sometimes, I over-analyze the gospel message.  I think too hard on perfecting my testimony or personal statement of faith.  When people ask me about my faith, I am thwarted by my own fears instead of letting the Holy Spirit guide my conversations with people.  Down in Mexicali, I had the chance to give my testimony in front of our team and the church, Xochimilcho.  I had not prepared to give it, but as usual, God's plans prevailed over those of my own.  I had the bus ride over there to jot down some thoughts in preparation.  I cannot even recall much of what I said.  I gave it right after someone else's testimony which was filled to the brim with a past history of heartache, pain, and suffering.  In my head, I was feeling like my story was inadequate in comparison.  God gave me the quiet assurance that is not about what I have done but about what He has done for me in my life.  The pressure to impress was thus removed from the equation.  In hindsight, I realize that I have to be ready, willing, and vunerable enough to be used by God despite my own shortcomings. 

-In times of conflict and frustration:  Giving my troubles to God rather than holding things inside that are bothering me.  It is always better to get it out and voice what is internally bubbling up inside me.  Otherwise, anger has the growing room for turning into bitterness.  There is no place for that in a community of believers. 

-My natural inclination for working/playing with kids.  I had previously avoided them like the black plague for reasons I am not exactly sure of.  Their excitement to see our group filled in the gaps of my tired, weary state. 

-Enjoying the company of other people without needing to over-spiritualize everyday interactions.  I talked this out with my friend Shelli on the ride back up to Sacramento.  Instead of constantly seeking to get my two cents in about spiritual matters, God has shown me to relax and listen.  And have fun with sillyness associated with week-long trips.  I almost have to take a chill-pill sometimes and remember that I am not locked up in a nunnery somewhere where persistent solemnness is my only form of recreation.  Perhaps I just stereotyped the poor nuns, but I think you get my point here.  In other words, God created laughter as well as serious conversations.  You can't have one without the other.  If I can apply my dorky sense of humor to environments centered around Christ, then I will far better be representing Him.  I feel He did not design me to be serious all the time.  Yes, some level of spiritual maturity is necessary in my daily pursuit of Christ, but I will now enjoy the time I have here on earth to associate with others without over-complicating things. 

There you have it. 

Nighttime Poetry

When Night Grinds Into Mourning

Midnight beckons upon this hour.  

The sweetness of night has finally gone sour 

due to my tired, overexerted state of being.  
Sleep can truly feel this freeing.

Working late results in staying up

until my next morning's coffee cup 

bids me 'good morning' and begins my day.

I try my best to meet it half-way

by pretending to be awake. 

With at least one eye open, for heaven's sake.

Work in Progress, Literally and Figuratively

 Not my favorite one thus far but it's still in the revision stage of its construction.

Dissatisfaction

I know what it means

To obtain temporary glimpses of bliss.

I think of the euphoric togetherness of a masterful chorus

And the virtual aloneness amongst the esoteric redwoods.

These brief instances blossom into nostalgic recollections.

But when I come up for air, emptiness awaits me.

Disjointed like a side-by-side refrigerator, 

I am dissatisfied with my befuddling, complicated existence.

I am frustrated by my limited understanding 

of the world around me and how much I have yet to learn.

I am on a path much treaded but rarely fulfilled.

Yet Another Poem

Kindred Spirits

Before he begins another,

The pianist adjusts his tired frame.                               

He smiles in her direction.

She cannot find the words

To tell him how he

Has brightened her otherwise sunless day.

So she simply smiles in return.

Preliminary Attempts with Poetry

Solitary Confinement

 I look around me.

 In my home I am a guest.

                                 So distraught and without rest.                               

 I am better than this?

 In an alley way of uncertainty,

 I am cornered from within.

Am I any different than

The next solitary soul?

With the words I choose,

I am able to express

The wailing dirge of my duress.

There is hope after all?