Some Pages Turned

Goodbye singleness

2008-08-30T22:54:00.000-07:00

Newly married. New blog.

www.hotliketortillas.blogspot.com

19 Days

2008-07-13T23:50:00.000-07:00

Dan and I are trying to find an apartment in St. Louis. Is this even possible to do from out of town? It seems like every listing we can find wants us to call and make an appointment for a viewing, which seems natural, but we are unable to view from 650 miles away. Can we send a friend to look at the place? Should we trust pictures and take what we can get? Dan really doesn't want to wait to find a place until we get back from the honeymoon because he thinks we will stress about it in Costa Rica. I guess he may have to fly up there for a day or two to find a place, which is hard since we have 3 weeks until Wedding Day and he still needs to move out of his house in Norman.

My dress cleared customs, I'm told. So it is in America, hopefully. We were worried it wouldn't arrive in time since it was supposed to ship from Spain on the 15th of July. But they predicted it would get here early and therefore in time for the wedding. As a back up I have both of my mom's wedding dresses I could wear and they are dry cleaned and pressed ready to go. I fit into both of them without any alterations.

Dan and I had our couple's shower this past weekend. It was with all of his mother's side of the family. His mom has 5 sisters who all live in the Dallas area and who brought all their families too. There was 50+ people there. We got lots of wonderful gifts.

Nothing is Happening

2008-06-16T09:08:00.000-07:00

False.

I am getting married in 47 Days!!!!

I guess I have been using Facebook to update people more than this blog.

Pug Scream, From S. Schupack

2008-01-26T11:42:00.000-08:00

John 10

2008-01-19T15:36:00.000-08:00

1 “Truly, truly, I say to you, he who does not enter the sheepfold by the door but climbs in by another way, that man is a thief and a robber. 2 But he who enters by the door is the shepherd of the sheep. 3 To him the gatekeeper opens. The sheep hear his voice, and he calls his own sheep by name and leads them out. 4 When he has brought out all his own, he goes before them, and the sheep follow him, for they know his voice. 5 A stranger they will not follow, but they will flee from him, for they do not know the voice of strangers.” 6 This figure of speech Jesus used with them, but they did not understand what he was saying to them.

7 So Jesus again said to them, “Truly, truly, I say to you, I am the door of the sheep. 8 All who came before me are thieves and robbers, but the sheep did not listen to them.

From Calvin's commentary:

This passage should make us deeply ashamed. First, because we are so unused to the voice of our Shepherd that hardly anyone listens to it without indifference. And then because we are so slow and lazy to follow him. I am speaking of the good, or at least the passable, for most of those who claim to be Christ's disciples openly rebel against him. Lastly, as soon as we hear the voice of any stranger, we are carried unstably here and there, and this unsteadiness and levity shows just how little we have advanced in the faith so far. But although the number of believers is less than we would want, and many of this small number continually fall away, faithful teachers have the consolation of knowing that they are heard by God's elect, who are Christ's "sheep." It is our job to work hard and to strive in every way to bring, if possible, the whole world to agreement in the unity of the faith. Meanwhile, we must be content with our number.

Strawberry Park Hot Springs

2008-01-15T09:09:00.000-08:00

Guns

2007-12-29T20:03:00.000-08:00

O Heart Bereaved and Lonely

2007-12-05T12:12:00.000-08:00

O heart bereav'd and lonely,
Whose brightest dreams have fled
Whose hopes like summer roses
Are wither'd crushed and dead
Though link by link be broken
And tears unseen may fall,
Look up amid thy sorrow
To him who knows it all.

O cling to thy Redeemer
Thy Saviour, Brother, Friend;
Believe and trust His promise
To keep you till the end;
O watch and wait with patience
And question all you will;
His arms of love and mercy
Are round about thee still.

Look up, the clouds are breaking,
The storm will soon be o'er
And thou shall reach the haven
Where sorrows are no more.
Look up, be not discouraged;
Trust on, whate'er befall;
Remember, O remember,
Thy Savior knows it all.

Faces of the 80s

2007-12-02T21:19:00.000-08:00

The Pocta Sessions

2007-11-23T17:01:00.000-08:00

Some of you know about Red Mountain Music. Some of you need to know about them.

I have their first two Gadsby albums and I'm having to try really hard to follow my own rule and not buy myself the newest one before Christmas. Especially because my good friend Benj Pocta is the whole reason the new album exists.

Benj and his brothers grew up at the same church with me. I sang with him when he led worship for our youth group while I was in high school. His desire for Christian growth and maturity had a big effect on me. He helped me learn how to think about worship and why thinking about it is important, mostly from his leadership in picking and preparing music for our youth group. Benj always emphasized that we didn't want our worship to the God of all creation to be empty. We needed to know who we were singing to and what we were saying about him. I remember once we were practicing "Come Thou Fount of Every Blessing" one wednesday night. One of the verses starts "Here I raise my ebenezer, hither by thy help I'm come." I felt a little stupid, but I had no idea what an ebenezer is. So I asked him. I remember he thanked me for asking and told me it was a good question to ask. (Here is the answer).

The album is called This Breaks My Heart of Stone and is informally known as The Pocta Sessions because all of the songs were written or cowritten with Benj. His brother, Justin, did the album art (he is a great designer).

Anyway all this to say: you should check out Red Mountain Music. They are putting out good stuff.

2007-11-21T11:01:00.000-08:00

BRITTANY
Gender: Feminine
Usage: English
Pronounced: BRIT-nee [key]
From the name of the region in the northwest of France, called in French Bretagne. It was named for the Briton settlers who fled to that area after the Anglo-Saxon invasion of England.

Popularity of the female name Brittany
Year of birth Rank
2006 318
2005 279
2004 240
2003 210
2002 170
2001 115
2000 61
1999 35
1998 25
1997 20
1996 14
1995 8
1994 7
1993 6
1992 4
1991 3
1990 3
1989 3
1988 6
1987 7
1986 8
1985 17
1984 41
1983 64 -- This is the year I was born
1982 94

No one really named their daughters Brittany before the 70s (it wasn't ranked in the top 1000 names, at least). I started thinking about name etymology because my brother asked what we thought the etymology of the name Kym was. He is into japanese culture and thought it might be japanese, because the surname is. We came home and found this website. It seems most of the names of people I know are English. But looking at the name popularity is neat, too. You can also look up more popularity stats at the Social Security Administration's website.

PATRICIA
Feminine form of Patricius. From the Roman name Patricius, which meant "nobleman" in Latin. A 5th-century saint, the patron saint of Ireland, adopted this name (his birth name was Sucat). During his youth he was captured by Irish raiders and enslaved, but after six years of servitude he escaped to his home in Britain. Eventually he became a bishop and went back to Ireland as a missionary, where he succeeded in Christianizing the entire country.

JEFFERSON
From a surname meaning "son of JEFFREY".

DOUGLAS
Anglicized form of the Gaelic name Dubhghlas, which meant "dark river" or "blood river" from Gaelic dubh "dark" and glais "water, river". Douglas was originally a river name, the site of a particularly bloody battle, which then became a Scottish surname. The surname belonged to a powerful line of Scottish earls.

LUCY
English feminine form of LUCIUS. Roman praenomen, or given name, which was derived from Latin lux "light". Two Etruscan kings of early Rome had this name as well as several prominent later Romans, including Lucius Annaeus Seneca (known simply as Seneca), a famous statesman, philosopher, orator and tragedian. Also, three popes have borne this name.

SHIRLEY
From a surname which was originally derived from a place name meaning "bright clearing" in Old English.

4.5

2007-11-16T16:05:00.000-08:00

I'm really proud. I just completed the longest run of my life: 4.5 miles! I only started running about a year ago, once a week with Julie. And I wasn't all that excited about it. I had resigned myself to a life without running due to a lack of personal success or enjoyment in all my previous attempts. And I hated how exhausted I felt afterwards.

But Julie and I wanted to spend time together and somehow we agreed that running together might be helpful in disciplining ourselves into excercising regularly. So we ran, just short distances as first, and walked the rest of the time. In the spring we talked about running a 5k together, but were never able to finalize it. When summer came, I was starting to enjoy running a very little bit. While I was in Austin, I decided to try and keep up my endurance at least and try to run some of the pretty trails like Town Lake. One rainy afternoon, I showed up under the overpass to try again how far I could go around the lake. As I started hopping around the puddles, I decided to experiment with my breathing. Julie always said I needed to take slower breaths which confused me. Don't you need MORE oxygen when you run? Breathing slower seemed counter-intuitive. But I was bored. So I started breathing slower, which ended up forcing me to breathe deeper. The change was amazing. I felt so much less exhausted! I ran nearly 2 and a half miles. I was so excited!

When I came back to Norman I started running with Julie again, and then with Meghan Barnes, and now with Megan Carey also. Julie and I ran a 5k together, the Monster Dash, and had so much fun!

I really am delighted that I ran 4.5 miles just now. Even though I ran it by myself through my neighborhood, it really is something I never could have done on my own. It's so great to have running buddies who have help push you to keep running during the times you want to stop. And sometimes I'm the one who keeps pushing. It's a wonderful model of how you learn self-discipline. You can't fix you're lack of self-discipline by telling yourself to be more disciplined. It doesn't really make sense. You need help from the outside to learn and get discipline. Hmmm. I'm pretty sure I'm stealing this all from How People Grow. Read it, people.

Dear Friends and Family

2007-11-08T13:14:00.000-08:00

I recently received the following message from a student who serves on our leadership team at OURUF:

Being involved in RUF at OU has definitely been a life-changing experience for me. So far, I have made life-long friends, had a blast at RUF events like Summer Conference and a weekend leadership retreat, and most importantly I have seen God working in my life in way that I have never experienced before. I’m kind of going through a tough, transitioning time in my life right now, and I would be a mess without the support of RUF, Doug, and Brittany particularly. Lately, Brittany and I have been talking a lot about why people suffer, and how God using suffering for His glory. This semester God has been teaching me that it is okay to be sad and vulnerable, because that is the place where He can change my sinful heart. Brittany has also been reminding me that Jesus shows himself to us in our weakness. Besides all the good advice and encouragement, Brittany has also been a support to me simply by being around. We’ve been getting together to run and talk weekly, and she even “let” me help her clean out her garage one afternoon a few weeks ago when I was bored (which seemed like a pretty good deal for her too). Through her, Doug, and other friends at RUF, I’m starting to see what Jesus’ love looks like- and I’m being encouraged to extend that love and friendship to others, like the freshman girls in RUF, and the girls in my sorority. I’m so thankful that God has brought me to RUF at OU, it has been such a blessing to me this year and this semester especially.

Megan expresses here better than I could what God is doing in the lives of college students here at OU. There is a lot of sin and sadness, but through the gospel of Jesus Christ comes healing and hope.

Thank you for your prayers and support. God is providing for me through your generosity and sacrifice. Remember In order for gifts to be considered tax-deductible for the 2007 calendar year they must be postmarked by December 31, 2007. You can also donate online at www.ruf.org. Have a wonderful Christmas!

Love,
Brittany Leard

Long Time Coming

2007-11-02T15:28:00.001-07:00

1. Doug competed in a Chili Pepper Eating Contest at the Gamma Phi Beta Chili Cook-Off last night. He didn't win, but I taped it on my phone. It gave me an excuse to start posting something on YouTube though. Here it is:

2. Last weekend I ran in a 5k race. I was waiting for the photographers they hired to post their pictures, then I was going to link to it. But the pictures they took are kind of bad. Anyway, I ran with Julie Serven. We ran the whole 3.1 miles or whatever it is. I was proud of us; we didn't know the route or anything. I feel like an official runner-person. Funny that I only became a runner once I left Austin, but whatever.

3. Last weekend was also my 80s prom party which was totally gnarly. Almost everyone dressed up. We crowned the prom king and queen. We had a photographer take prom portraits. We also moved every piece of furniture out of our living area and into the garage so that there would be something of a dance floor. There were twinkle lights, baloons, and crepe paper. Annie made lots of yummy finger foods. Bebe and Laura brought yummy sherbert punch.

I didn't take any pictures, but Sam Beer took some great ones you can see here. I'm not sure if he would want me to post them. Well maybe I will post just one so you will see how good they are.

4. I love with The Darjeeling Limited. I'm going to go see it again tonight. If you don't know who Wes Anderson is, you need to go see this movie.

I Love Lucy

2007-09-13T18:44:00.000-07:00

I have a new puppy! Everyone please meet Lucy Bleard.

She is a CKC pug. I got her from a breeder who lived down the street from my parents in Garland, TX. She brings me lots of joy even though I no longer can ever sleep in. I'm sort of obsessed with her pooping schedule too. It's like a game. So far she is winning.

Blue eyes

Thoughts on Worship

2007-09-04T09:19:00.000-07:00

I wrote this a couple of weeks ago. It's not meant to be comprehensive, but just some things I was thinking about.

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A friend from college and I used to fight about worship music. We would basically agree that content was mostly non-negotiable. Content always matters. Content is cross-cultural, because the content has to do with actual truths of the gospel. It has to do with your theology and who you are saying God is and what you are praising Him for.
Style is another matter. How do we think about the style of music used for worship? What is appropriate? What is better? Is there a better? (Aside: I wonder what the psalms sounded like when sung in their cultural context. What did the music sound like?) My friend would always argue the point that it would be ridiculous to say that Western music styles are necessarily the best style for any music. There seemed something wrong about taking A Mighty Fortress is Our God as written and sung by Luther and telling a tribe in Africa or a rural town in Peru that this was the way they ought to worship at church. Once she said this, I didn't know what to say. I didn't think she was wrong. But somehow I don't think the point she is making means that we can sing whatever way we want when we worship (whoa lots of w's). If anything, she is essentially establishing the idea that there necessarily ARE categories for what should and should not be sung in worship. So here is what Annie and I (mostly Annie) came up with last night.

The style of worship music should be two things: appropriate and excellent.
Appropriateness is measured within the context of a given culture. It isn't appropriate in American culture to take the words to a psalm and put it to the music of Britney Spears, 50 Cent, or Linkin Park. This is because that style of music in our culture is not categorized as worshipful music. When I hear that style of music I am being entertained. I would say the same for tango music or something in Argentina or yodeling in Swiss music; neither of these are worshipful styles of music according to their respective cultures.
I want to read more of his book, but I was scanning Michael Horton's, A Better Way. In it, he talks about how all our worship should be weighty with the glory of God. God takes worship seriously, so we should also. So I would say worshipful music style would be music that is weighty with God's glory. So how does this play out? One way it plays out would be that our worship music should be always heading towards excellence.
Excellence in music is not the same thing as one's taste in music. I can like country music and you can like rock. Usually we are talking about what we enjoy being entertained by. But just like in art or literature, there is an objective standard of excellence. One way God's glory can be manifested, represented, or reflected in our worship music would be by picking music that is excellent.
There is a limit to excellence though. Annie brought up the important point that if the expense of excellency in corporate singing is a melody that is too difficult for the congregation to participate in, that music is inappropriate for corporate worship. The same would be said of an oversimplified style of music. This could also apply to content. Singing a song that has only one verse and one chorus repeated over and over again is too easy for most adult congregations, and will not lead them into further worship, but instead let their minds wander as they mindlessly chant. And a song with complex, intricate phrases and melodies will distract meditation and engagement with the praise they are rendering to God because the congregation is struggling to sing the correct notes. Often, this happens with me when I try to sing a harmony line to a hymn; I get caught up in making up in my head the harmony to the melody and pay no attention to the words I am singing. However, you can train a congregation to sing more difficult music over time. Example: Christ the King has a hymn of the month.

"One problem that we need to take more seriously is the extent to which style not only reflects but actually shapes content." -Horton

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What do you think?

80s Dance Moves

2007-08-24T14:28:00.000-07:00

The Axel Rose

Hold on to a fake microphone stand and, with head lowered, move one leg out to the side, only about a foot off of the ground. As soon as your foot hits the ground, immediately repeat move with other leg. Repeat at least 10 times. As seen on "Sweet Child Of Mine" and other Guns & Roses late-eighties videos.

The Belinda

The dance is done by bending your arms at the elbows and moving them side to side while kind of snapping your fingers. Your lower body should be twisting slightly.

The Chinese Typewriter

Jumping side-to-side reversing toes-in, toes out.

Churnin' Butter

With your arms slightly bent out in front of you, make one fist on top of the other and move them around in circles like you are churning butter...

The Hammer Dance

By M.C. Hammer, he wore those baggy genie pants, keep legs wide apart, slightly bents, shuffle quickly one way, then the other.

The New Kids Dance

You start out with feet at arms length apart kick out your right foot and bring it back to the center, same thing with the left foot and then have both feet in the center.

The Prep

Very big in 1984, where you're center then step to the right with both feet, pointing up with palms flat and fingers together. Then back to the center pointing both of your hands downwards. Then to the left pointing your hands (palms flat, fingers together) up towards the left, then back. There are many variations to this dance going opposite of your partner reaching out like your mixing dominoes on the table when your centered, and so on.

Roger Rabbit

The Roger Rabbit is like the running man but you are doing it backwards.. Your arms are by your sides (or doing some funky move) and you take your right leg and sorta skip backwards once, and then your left leg you do the same thing, and then your right leg does it again but this time when your right leg goes back you sorta rock back and forth (right left right) note that when your right leg goes back your left leg is in front and vice versa!! You have to do it sorta robotically.

The Running Man

Also known as The Vanilla Ice, you take a step forward, then slide that foot back, immediately placing the next foot forward. Repeat while moving your bent arms forward and back (together). When done quickly, you'll look as though you're "running". If you want to get really fancy, you can pivot on one foot so that you're facing in the other direction and do it all over again.

Skywalk

This is a Michael Jackson move just like the Moonwalk except it makes you look as if your floating sideways across the air. Someone listed this move as the SideSlide on here...but the name for it is the Skywalk. Man, Michael Jackson sure is a Master of the Dance, isn't he?

The Spin

this move is seen in many of the michael jackson videos in the eighties and the nighties. the best way to do it is to cross your right leg across you left leg and spin counter clockwise. but wait!!! heres the trick to spinning as fast and as many turns as michael: YOU SPIN ON THE BALL OF YOUR FOOT FOR 180 DEGREES OF THE SPIN THEN YOU ROTATE FROM THE BALL OF YOUR FOOR TO THE HEAL OF YOUR FOOT!!! the only way to acheive this is to have on dress shoes or tennis shoes. but if you are in a smooth surface it doesn't really matter.

The Truffle Shuffle

This is the dance that Mouth makes Chunk do in The Goonies, before he lets Chunk into the house. Basically Chunk lifts his shirt to show his stomach, and then wiggles around and ripples his stomach while making funny sounds with his mouth and tongue.

Taken from here.

High School Musical 2

2007-08-01T13:18:00.000-07:00

That's right. August 17. 8pm. I need to find someone in Norman who has the Disney channel but quick. Wal-Mart is releasing a 2-disc special edition of the soundtrack on August 14. Disney channel will rebroadcast the premier for the two days following, one of which will be a sing-along version. You know you're excited: who wants to see it with me??

Mis Viajes en Perú

2007-07-17T14:10:00.000-07:00

I am very tempted to write my blogpost en Español since my head is spinning with it right now.

We arrived in Trujillo on Saturday morning. We spent ~17 hours on 3 planes to get here, so we spent most of the day resting and eating. We were thankful to get here in one piece, the four people from Austin still have not received their luggage.

Yesterday we started working in Wichanzao yesterday. The men are doing construction-type work. The women are teaching some informal English classes and playing with the neighborhood children.

Some of our group playing "Duck Duck Cow" with the kids. Apparently the person who originally taught it couldn't remember the Spanish word for "goose".

The church in Wichanzao.

I don't know why they look so unhappy. I promise they were smiling the rest of the time.

There is lots to write about. Today, John Knorr and I went with John Ferguson to a small group Bible study he leads in Spanish with his conversation partner and some other Sociodad de San Augustin (RUF) students. They are reading The Holiness of God by Sproul. It was a joy to hear and understand them as they discussed the book. I love hearing the gospel in another language. It helps my unbelief. The gospel really does break through all cultures and speaks truth to all peoples. It is not just American or English. It feels silly to realize, because it ought to be obvious; the Bible was, after all, written by and to a culture completely different from my own.

We also got to tour two of the universities here. Walking around the campuses, I actually felt less like I was in a foreign country than the rest of Peru. There was chalking on the sidewalks to promote events. There were benches, libraries, and make-out spots. It was neat to see. The professors are actually on strike right now, so classes have been suspended. Apparently this happens often, so most of the students are continuing to study their course material like normal. I don't understand completely, but I think the teachers were supposed to get a higher percent pay raise, and when the newly elected officials came in, they didn't actually give it to them. Pablo, the man who was showing us around, said the teachers did probably deserve to be paid more (I think?), but it is apparently also true that not all of the teachers are qualified. Some of the SALI interns were telling me there are actually a lot of corrupt teachers in the universities as well.

Peruvians recycle too!

Where I Am

2007-07-13T11:45:00.001-07:00

1. Pray for us! There are 10 or so people going with us from Tulsa, and we will meet up with two other groups when we get there. Pray for the Peru Missionaries there (for more information, see the link on the sidebar). Pray for the Peruvian people we will meet. I hope that we have enough spanish language ability among our group to spend some significant time with the people we meet.

2. Last night I spent the night with the Knorrs here in Tulsa. John Knorr is the campus minister of RUF Tulsa. He and his wife Denise have 5 great kids. We played Puerto Rico and I lost by TWO DOUBLOONS. That's right. John and I tied for victory points, and he had more money.

3. Yesterday on my way from Norman to Tulsa, I somehow missed the exit and drove for an hour north on I-35 instead of east on 44. I was annoyed and late.

More YouTube

2007-07-06T10:12:00.000-07:00

1.

2. In one week, I'm going to Peru. I can't remember all the stuff I need to go. I have my passport and nalgene. Um... what else?

"You need a trip to nintendoland, for a crash course in knowledge!"

2007-06-29T16:09:00.001-07:00

The Lost Nintendo Sex Ed Tape

More Aerobics

2007-06-29T13:41:00.000-07:00

1. A company in Japan is opening the first ever nursing home for dogs called Soladi Care Home. It costs about $800 a month, but your pet has round-the-clock care by veterinarians. This actually isn't too steep compared to how much it costs to board your dog in a kennel. In dallas, it would cost between $600 and $1000 to have your dog taken care of for a month. And I doubt they would get the same high-class diet and medical care that Soladi Co. provides.

2. Emily and I went to a fun step aerobics class this morning at 24Hour. I could definitely see Emily's dance background come out. We both took a step class at Texas (not together), and it definitely came back pretty easily.

3. Right now, my favorite "So You Think You Can Dance" couple is Sabra and Dominic. (If anyone else in the world is actually watching this show...) Apparently they have two tickets on the hot tamale train (what does that even mean?).

Quote of the Day

2007-06-27T22:00:00.001-07:00

"Of course love is always chancy. But not loving is worse. Trusting is always risky. But not everyone will betray you."

This is from the book I am reading on Divorce.

And I'm Spent

2007-06-26T20:45:00.000-07:00

1. I had great sushi last night at a place called Uchi. It was totally swank and delish. The seaweed they used was different; it was white with what looked like seasame seeds in it, instead of green.

2. Today I went to Schlitterbahn with Smart Start kids. I got up at 6:30am to go to the church we were borrowing the vans from in West Austin. I drove the van through rush hour traffic to Brown Elementary, picked up about 9 kids and drove to New Braunfels for the day. We had plenty of helpers this year, which was great. Late in the morning I was looking after two little girls when one of them flipped over on the slide she was going down and busted her nose. She was fine at first until she figured out she was bleeding. The water dripping down her face diluted the blood and made it look a lot worse. She started screaming "Sangre! Sangre!" The only comforting thing I knew to say was esta bien, so I kept repeating that over and over again. The lifeguard gave me some gauze while we waited for the first aid people, so I held it up to the girls nose for her while we waited. This meant I got blood all over me. The first aid people got there and when they realized that this little hispanic girl was in fact not my daughter, totally freaked out. We all went to the first aid station to clean up. As we were leaving, they stopped us and said they needed to fill out an incident report. This meant they needed the little girls name. And I had no idea what it was. I was watching these girls for another chaperone. Whitney (she works for Smart Start) was there and crouched down to ask the girl, "Que es su nombre?" She answered, "Crystal." Crystal what? We don't know how to ask for a last name. We guess. "Crystal Garcia?" "Si si!" Ok then! Those first aid people probably think I am totally ridiculous.

3. After I drove the van back (again during rush hour) I went to sculpting aerobics class with Whitney. I haven't ever been to an aerobics class attended by a boy. Why is this context of exercise so dominated by women? Something about it even seems inappropriate for men. As Whitney said, "I can't really see men being motivated by me cheering, 'C'mon pump your arms!'"

4. Emily is so nice to me. We are currently watching Season 1 of House and the current season of So You Think You Can Dance together. ¡Qué divertido!

Living in Austin

2007-06-25T14:53:00.000-07:00

1. I redesigned the blog. I really shouldn't say "I" since I didn't do very much besides fill in the template. But I did pick the colors. What do you think?

2. I have to be honest and admit that S. Schupack is responsible for bringing me back to blogging, even though she doesn't know it. Sally, you... you're my star. Am I your lucky penny?

3. Living in Austin hasn't been as hard as I thought it would be. All these fun things to do, delicious places to eat, wonderful people to see... you'd think it would be awful... but it isn't.

4. Jonathon Deiss is the cutest baby ever. I've liked having a 13-month-old as a roomate. Maybe Annie and I could find a toddler to live in our third room with us...

5. Some friends and I went to see Gordy Quist play at Momo's on 6th last Friday night. It was a lot of fun. Bill Boyd, the pastor of All Saints, and my RUF intern, Meg, were both there supporting Gordy, which was sweet.

6. I think my camera is lost. The last place I had it was New Orleans, and I didn't diligently look for it when we got back. So right now I need an ipod and a new camera. Sheesh. This means there might not be too many pictures from me on the blog until I can afford a new one.

Home

2007-05-28T16:05:00.000-07:00

A Typical Day

2007-03-07T12:47:00.000-08:00

Lunch with a student. Yummy.

Be Mine

2007-02-13T09:33:00.000-08:00

1. Today there is a condom attached to my copy of The Oklahoma Daily -- they are doing a special issue on sex education, sexuality, and the HPV vaccine. It is pretty biased on promoting casual, recreational sex.

2. What is everyone giving up for Lent? I am trying to think of something that would be a sacrafice for myself personally.

Ho Ho Ho: Leard Christmas

2007-02-01T10:39:00.000-08:00

Romans 4

2007-01-30T13:16:00.000-08:00

Tonight the Gamma Phi Beta house bible study is starting back up. I was reviewing the lesson tonight, which is over Romans 4.

In Romans 4, Paul is tracing the evidence for justification by faith to the Old Testament in Abraham. Paul quotes Genesis 15:6 to show that Abraham was not justified by works: "And he believed the LORD, and he counted it to him as righteousness." According to Tim Keller (who writes this study we are going through), the Jews of the time thought that faith = obedience of the law, but Paul shows in the first four verses that really that means faith = righteousness, which can't be true because faith is not a "work" that merits anything. If faith = obedience = righteousness, then the actual object of our faith would be ourselves and our own abilities. But if, as Keller says, faith = trust God's promise to save, then the actual object of our faith is God and his ability.

This is an important distinction to make, since most churchgoers and religious people today think faith is something that it is not. Keller says that if you ask a random sample of churchgoers today "What are the general requirements for admission into heaven?" their answers often fall into three categories:

"Because I have tried my best to be a good Christian" (read: "salvation by works")
"Because I believe in God and try to do his will" (read: "salvation by faith plus works")
"Because I believe in him with all my heart" (read: "salvation by faith AS a work")

In all these cases, the religious people are still working to be saved and are not trusting in God to do the saving. God credits us righteousness while we are still wicked and unable to save ourselves. That is what we believe and have faith in. God doesn't only exist, He saves by transferring Christ's righteous standing, a righteousness of character, to us.

The last question of our study tonight is GREAT:

How does the case of Abraham (vv. 18-25) illustrate the difference between only believing in God, and believing God (v. 3)? How can his example help you strengthen your faith (v. 19)?

We must realize that there is a difference between believing IN God and believing God. We don't just simply believe that God exists and that he is good and holy. We also look at what God has said and let that define reality for us. This means we don't live our lives according to our feelings or appearances. In verse 19, "He [Abraham] did not weaken in faith when he considered his own body, which was as good as dead (since he was about a hundred years old), or when he considered the barrenness of Sarah's womb." Abraham looked at the appearance of his body and it looked hopeless that he would ever bear a child. Now, faith is not opposed to reason, but to self-trust. Faith is God-trust. It is going on something despite our weakness, feelings, or perceptions. (And it is not easy, but scary.)

And lastly, that is why Theology matters. If we are supposed to self-trust less and less, and God-trust more and more, we must find ways to know God and act on God's promises and word. This is hard to do, because it might mean giving away money generously, even if it appears economically risky, says Keller. (Malachi 3:9-10). It is also hard to do, because when we study God and His word, it is easy to impose our own perception and feelings onto what we take in. If I studied my Bible every day for two hours, yet I only ever studied it alone and without any other resources or interpretive helps, I could make any crazy assertion I wanted to about who God is and what He has said. I could misinterpret the Bible to say most anything. It's so important to study God's word corporately and to hear it preached by others who have studied and trained in theology.

It applies even to this passage. The NASB Bible quotes the Genesis 15:6 passage as "Then he believed in the LORD," which does not fit at all with how Paul's exegesis of the text.

Whew!

Pray for us as we study this passage tonight!

Seven

2007-01-29T19:29:00.000-08:00

1. School started again.

2. Julie Serven and I have started running together on Wednesdays. Of course both of us can't run very far right now, but I am excited to try running with another person regularly. Plus Julie is awesome.

3. We had an awesome girly sleepover last Friday night. We played fun games like Annie's obscure fact game and charades. We ate pizza and brownies and ice cream. The night was finished off with more girl talk and a screening of the classic chick flick Steel Magnolias.

4. I finished The Brothers K by David James Duncan. It was superb. (And I am not just saying that because it is Doug's favorite book and he gave it to me for my birthday) Duncan's wriiting is really good. The plot centers around a family of eight, especially the four older brothers and how they relate to each other and their parents. The youngest, Kincaid, usually is the perspective Duncan writes from. In my creative writing classes last year, I definitely found that writing in the first person was more difficult than the 3rd person (at least for me) so I noticed how well Duncan wrote, especially if he was completely absorbing me in events revolving around one of the older brothers though it was told by Kincaid. Duncan also uses some really creative ways of supplementing the story, such as a school assignment where one of the older brothers writes the biography of their father. This was not only a clever and hilarious story-within-the-story which added a lot of plot detail, but fleshed out the another of the characters by being in his perspective for a short time. Anyway, it's good. Here is an excerpt I loved:

"I could call it 'detachment,' or 'purity of effort,' or 'a refusal to judge by results.' But as I watched from the hedge I felt no need to squeeze it into a formula. I was learning not by words like these, but by the nonsensical songs and babblings and sound effects that accompanied Papa's destinationless pitches out into the night, that there are genuine alternatives to the black-and-white categories into which most of us dump our lives. I was learning not by thinking, but through a father/son osmosis, that winning and losing, success and failure, are like the chalk strike zones I'd watched Papa draw. There was no question that shedball wasn't aimed at the Bigs, or even at the bush. It was just an oddball backyard hobby built upon the shards of Papa's old baseball dreams and accomplishments. But while many ex-ballplayers hoard their shards, sucking on them and staining their lives with them the way Papa had done with his Lucky Strikes, Papa himself had finally crunched his shards underfoot, found a new and pure kind of effort to make, and commenced punching walls, swearing, joking, whistling and living his life as if the past had passed. And in the present he was surviving. Perhaps even thriving. He didn't know. It wasn't his business to know. His business was to simply keep making the effort."

4.

5. It is COLD in Oklahoma.

6. New episodes of LOST start this Wednesday. Yay for DVD Recorders.

7. I applied for membership at Christ the King today!

First Favorite Team

2007-01-06T19:17:00.000-08:00

One of the best matchups in the NBA right now. My favorite team (Dallas Mavericks) versus my favorite player (Steve Nash of the Pheonix Suns)

Pinpoint Patty

The flags are reversible

I heart Dirk

Mavs Domination

Josh Howard's head was this close

I am woman

2006-12-24T15:39:00.000-08:00

In the immediate family at least, I have started becoming famous for a few certain food items I can make well. They include spiced iced-tea (sweet and non-sweet), guacamole, and, making its debut this Christmas 2006, mashed sweet potatoes with marshmallow topping.

I know it's not much, but you have to start somewhere.

Awkward

2006-12-20T11:22:00.000-08:00

Five Points December

2006-12-16T13:06:00.000-08:00

1. I dressed up as a Christmas Tree for the RUF Christmas Party/Last Large Group of the Semester/Senior Night. Unexpectedly two of my students dressed up as presents (sort of -- they put bows on their heads). So of course we took a picture.

2. This past week was RUF training here in Dallas. It was really really good to see the other interns and talk with them about their semesters. Even though everyone has had different experiences, it was nice to empathize a little bit with people who have the same ideals and passion for campus ministry as I do. Unfortunately, I missed out on a lot of the week because...

3. I have a sinus infection. I started feeling bad in Norman last Sunday, and I was worried I was getting Annie's cough that she had the week before. But instead I was even sicker. I went to Dr. Ha, this friend of my mom's. I like it when the doctor knows I am a doctor's kid because they usually give me the benefit of the doubt and give the good stuff since they aren't worried about misdiagnosing or giving drugs to addicts or something.

4. At training, JStu and I were able to have lunch with John Ferguson, the RUF Campus Minister for the Universities in Trujillo, Peru and a missionary with the Peru Mission. It was probably the highlight of training for me, because John was able to catch me up so much on what is going on with the mission and even on some of the specific Peruvians I had met when I was there in March. It is so good and encouraging to hear that God is at work in other places in the world.

5. I have a goal that I will do all of my Christmas Shopping online. Since I signed up to be a member of Amazon Prime, which gives me free two-day shipping, I am attempting to buy everything for everyone from there to save money on shipping. If I acheive this, it will be oh so glorious. I hate Christmas shopping about as much as I love regular shopping during the rest of the year.

Flashback Glorieta

2006-11-26T00:27:00.000-08:00

Wreck Em Tech

2006-11-25T20:16:00.000-08:00

Two weeks ago, the 'rents came up for the Texas Tech v. OU game here in Norman. It was mighty cold, but Tech gave the Sooners a good fight.

At the tailgate before the game

Mom and Cary huddle against the cold and the Sooner fans.

My childhood chum Meredith, whom I have yet to call since I moved to Norman.

Chemistry in my Life

2006-11-23T12:19:00.000-08:00

I have a wart on my finger.

Since I downsized the quantity of necessary possesions to make my move to Norman easier, my wart remover did not make the cut. Thus, on Saturday I made a trip to Walgreens to get some wart remover.

After finding the right aisle, I start browsing brands. Of course, I want the most acidic stuff I can find so it will carve a crater in my finger and leave no trace of the wart behind. But none of the meds go above 17% salicylic acid, which is apparently the active ingredient in killing warts, so I grab the cheapest one and go.

Normally, this would not be a blogworthy event. But there is more.

Yesterday at Kroger, I bought an extra bottle of my favorite moisturizer (Clean & Clear) because it was in the original bottle with the nozzle I like (they are switching to a new nozzle that gets clogged all the time). Once I get home, I decide to check and see if Johnson & Johnson has changed the ingredients of my moisturizer along with the bottle design. I pull out my newly purchased original bottle and look at the ingredients.

"Active ingredient: 0.5% Salicylic Acid" it says. I check the other bottle and it says the same. This pricks my memory of my wart-medicine shopping from earlier this week. Is it the same ingredient? I check and sure enough it is.

From Wikipedia:

Salicylic acid is the chemical compound with the formula C6H4(OH)CO2H, where the OH group is adjacent to the carboxylic acid group. This colorless crystalline organic acid is widely used in organic synthesis.

Salicylic acid is the key additive in many skin-care products for the treatment of acne, psoriasis, callouses, corns, keratosis pilaris and warts. It treats acne by causing skin cells to slough off more readily, preventing pores from clogging up. This effect on skin cells also makes salicylic acid an active ingredient in several shampoos meant to treat dandruff.

Aspirin can be prepared by the esterification of the phenolic hydroxyl group of salicylic acid.

I probably studied and used this molecule a lot when I studied organic chemistry. It seems interesting now, looking back. Pfft.

So now I have to decide whether the idea that I am putting low-grade wart remover on my face everyday is disgusting or not.

Briefcase Found in Lobby

2006-11-12T21:56:00.000-08:00

Mr. Simmons,

Earlier this morning, security noticed a brown leather briefcase sitting unclaimed in the lobby. After thoroughly checking the bag for suspicious articles, they brought it to the front desk. I scanned the three items found inside the bag, as per our new policy and am forwarding them to you for filing. The three items were returned and the bag was put in storage locker B. I will notify you further if the owner claims the bag.

Marcy Frisk
Front Desk
The Waldorf=Astoria

Bee Careful

2006-11-07T17:57:00.000-08:00

Sometimes bugs - bee-kinds of bugs - make me nervous. I'm sitting quietly on a bench, minding my own business at a small airport on a humid afternoon right outside of Tamarindo Bay, Costa Rica. I notice a small waspish sort of insect buzzing around next to me annoyingly. Eventually it buzzes directly at me but - smack! - I'm too quick for the little jerk and I knock him away.

Now, after the first swat, I'm convinced I have instigated an emnity of sorts between myself and the bee. A gauntlet has been thrown, war flags are flown in the gentle, tropic breeze. From now on, when the bee approaches I am sure it is out to get me. It hovers, waiting to strike and I hop and flail to avoid giving it a stable place to land. If he gets the chance, gently alighting on my knee or shoulder, I'm caught, frozen. Well played, my little friend.

Slowly, time ticks by as I sweat it out, waiting for the the bee to make a move. He crawls about in circles, my eyes riveted to his wiry body until the wind scares the devil away once more. I grasp about for a book, a shoe, my brother's ipod, and strike with deadly precision. Scraping the slimy bug guts from the shiny face with "copyright apple computers" engraved on the back. My brother grumbles.

"Now you've just angered it's family."

My smile falls. I have only won the momentary battle. I discreetly cover the bug body with my purse to hide the evidence. They can't pin anything on me - It was self defense!

Now I'm really scared.

I Follow the Popular Arts

2006-11-06T13:33:00.000-08:00

Rap music starts eminating from Brittany's bedroom. Brittany walks out to the living room to retrieve something; Annie is sitting on the couch.

Annie: Rap music?
Brittany: Yep
(Brittany starts mouthing the lyrics to the song)
Annie: Who is this?
Brittany: I don't know. I think his name is Lunatic or something.
Annie: Ludacris?
Brittany: Oh yeah, maybe thats it.

Domesticity

2006-11-05T21:33:00.000-08:00

Friday night was Domestic Night at our house. (Upon hearing the title of our evening, Jonathan thought it was Domestic as in domestic beers' night at our house, which I think would be a great follow up party for next weekend.) Lisa brought over an excess of knitting supplies to get all of us going if we didn't already have our own stuff. The venerable Laura proved to be quite indespensable at teaching all the girls to knit and even corrected what I had been doing wrong in my own knitting (and by the way she looked KILLER in this hand embroidered purple sweater we found at a thrift store earlier in the day). I had asked Annie to plan something for us all to bake together, but she misunderstood and ended up baking all this yummy stuff beforehand, which was okay too. We ended up watching Newsies after a few of the girls lost interest in the knitting. I don't know how to tie in Newsies to domestic life since its about a bunch of newsboys living on the streets of New York City. It just boils down to the fact that Christian Bale is hot stuff.

Alas I have no pictures of Domestic Night. But here is one of me and Anne a couple of weekends ago when we were visiting Pam in Houston to go to John R's wedding.

Grace, Grace Alone Availeth

2006-11-01T10:01:00.000-08:00

In this day of multiple human "rights," most people wrongly assume that God owes us something - salvation, or at least a chance at salvation. He shows astonishing favor to many, but he does not have to (that is the essence of grace). If he were obliged to be gracious, grace would no longer be grace and salvation would be based on human merit rather than being sola gratia. That is why the doctrine of election is opposed by so many. It doesn't seem fair to them. But as soon as we introduce the doctrine of fairness, we introduce a standard of right by which God has to save all or at least give everyone an equal chance of being saved. And that is not grace! If God were motivated only by what is right, without any consideration of grace made possible by the work of Christ, all would be condemned, and all would spend eternity in hell. Humbled, we celebrate a "Declaration of Dependence," agreeing that we are endowed with alienable (transferred to us from our Creator) rights.

- Will Metzger, Tell the Truth

Here

2006-10-31T22:47:00.000-08:00

I was criticized for not posting lately.

It takes so long for the silly pictures to upload.

Here are some from the hoedown on Friday night with the Phi Lambs.

Mmmm... Rudy's!!

Thanks to Malisa (below) for this awesome thrift store find.
I call it "When A Texas Girl Tries to Dress Oklahoman"

Everybody Clap Yo Hands.

Twinsies.

More facebook

2006-10-18T08:28:00.000-07:00

A student just pointed out that on my facebook profile, I list my location as being Norman, TX. Apparently my subconscious can't imagine living in another state.

What are the implications

2006-10-17T21:52:00.000-07:00

Sometimes you don't get it

2006-10-16T20:52:00.000-07:00

"Pawluk (1989) asserted that although teasing may be mildly irritating, it nevertheless builds social bonds. The irritation at being teased stems from the target feeling put on the spot, or having a flaw uncovered; but the fact that the teasing is a playful act between friends signals that the irritating elements should not be taken seriously, and it thus neutralizes the negative component of teasing comments. In addition, teasing can actually strengthen the relationship by establishing roles, showing a certain level of familiarity between individuals, and defining the interaction as involving a "joking relationship" of a desire to have such a relationship (when the friendship is new). The teasing may also strengthen bonds by showing that the individuals are close enough that teasing would be tolerated (Baxter, 1992). So although it might be somewhat irritating at the time, teasing is essentially expected to have positive consequences for in-group relationships." -Teasing: for superiority or solidarity? Journal of General Psychology, July, 2005 by Sarah L. Tragesser, Louis G. Lippman

-----------------------------------

I've decided that my love language is definitely movie quotes.

Blue Man Group

2006-10-14T21:24:00.000-07:00

Tonight the fam went out to see The Blue Man Group here in Dallas:

Unfortunately, they wouldn't allow cameras inside the arena. So I have no cool pics from the show. But here is my delightful family.

First was dinner at The Cheesecake Factory. There might be no better meal on this earth. The house wine is my absolute favorite, Robert Mondavi Merlot, so of course we got a bottle since Jeff is even of age now :) Then Angel Hair with Shrimp and luscious cheesecake with strawberries.

BMG was at AA Center which was fun (NBA preseason this past week!!). The seats were decent. The concert was much different than the off-Broadway show we saw five years ago. It was more of a rock concert here as opposed to performance art slash improv comedy like in NYC. It was fun seeing and remembering their signature elements like marshmallow throwing and mouth paintball art. They tried doing this text message element to the show where they sent you text messages during the show as part of an enhanced experience. It ended up being annoying, but I think the idea has potential.

Overall a nice evening in Big D. Back to Norman tomorrow.

2006-10-09T17:53:00.000-07:00

A Nice Ride to Norman Tomorrow

2006-10-07T16:19:00.000-07:00

I've said it before, and I'll say it again.

Man do I love being a Longhorn.

Texas Fight

2006-10-04T00:48:00.000-07:00

Hot Texas

Look at all that lovely burnt orange.

Sweet Texas

Hit em hard.

Haven't we won already? Time for a victory nap!

Rile up the crowd.

Bye Oklahoma. Beat you again next year!

Fall Conference

2006-09-28T19:01:00.000-07:00

This weekend is our regional RUF Fall Conference. I am in charge of housing assignments.

My roomate, Annie, might be starting a catering business. I am fully supportive. She has catered a wedding, will cater another this December, and is going to cater lunch for our conference on Saturday. She is the next Martha Stewart.

My friend Caroline is coming to stay with me tomorrow night. She will be the first non-Normanite, non-family member to see my house and room..

One week until TX-OU weekend!!! That's right, I said TX-OU. Not OU-TX. Because I'm. From. Texas. It's 8:59 and OU still (this word deleted so I can keep my job).

D Webb

2006-09-19T22:36:00.000-07:00

From the September 19, 2006 Oklahoma Daily, by C J Macklin:

The OU chapter of Reformed University Fellowship along with the Baptist college ministry 9:10 will host a concert tonight at Oklahoma Memorial Union in the Molly Shi Boren Ballroom. Derek Webb, along with his wife Sandra McCracken, is set to take the stage at 8 p.m.

Doug Serven, campus minister for RUF, said Webb's music is prophetic and gospel-centered.

"He's good for getting people to talk about the church," Serven said. "We kind of resound with his message in our group."

Brittany Leard, intern for RUF, said she has known about Webb since he performed in the band Caedmon's Call, and she saw Webb perform once at a youth retreat. Leard said she is planning to see him again in the ballroom.

"He thinks a lot about the music he's writing," Leard said.

Webb has been on tour across the country in promotion of his new album "Mockingbird," and McCracken also has a new album, "Gravity Love."

Both Webb and McCracken are scheduled to play songs from their new albums, but they are also expected to sing songs together.

RUF is a college ministry run by the Presbyterian Church of America. Leard said college campuses have students in need of both gospel and friendship, and RUF is available for those students.

"I think college campuses are one of the loneliest places in the world sometimes," Leard said.

RUF meets every Wednesday at 9 p.m. for worship and throughout the week for small-group Bible study.
RUF also sets up weekend events for students such as movie nights and dinner.

Tickets for the show are $5 and can be purchased at the door. Derek Webb's new album can also be downloaded for free at the Web site www.freederekwebb.com.

Sorry for the sideways movie. If anyone can help me easily rotate it 90 degrees, that would be GREAT. I have no video editing software...

Here are some more pics from the evening:

House Names and Monsters

2006-09-11T20:24:00.000-07:00

1. Annie, Katie, and I have been trying to name our house. So far we have come up with

BAK Shack

My favorite is the last one. What do you think? Any suggestions?

2. This will only make sense to the select few people who enjoyed watching "Watcher in the Woods" with us last night at the panty shanty. This is an alternate ending that seriously took the movie to a whole new level.

This movie is seriously a Mystery Science Theater waiting to happen:

Mrs. Aylwood: Did you hurt yourself?
Jan Curtis: Oh, it's just a little cut. I thought... I thought I saw something out there in the woods.
Mrs. Aylwood: What sort of person are you?
Jan Curtis: That's hard to say. Just average, I guess.
Mrs. Aylwood: Are you adventurous? And kind? Are you kind?
Jan Curtis: I... try to be.
Mrs. Aylwood: And sensitive...? Do you sense things?

3. Two weekends ago I went to the OU game against UAB. Sadly I didn't get any pictures of this historic event, but I was there. I must admit, it wasn't the greatest time ever had, but the game was a good one. I didn't sing or cheer.

4. I am playing this great new game called Virtual Villagers.

Your villagers are always going. You have to check on them. They are like children. Or dogs. So far mine have made some great advances in technology. They built a hut, and learned how to use a medical cactus.

5. Today, Annie has been playing a game on my hacked xbox called Illusions of Gaia.

It is kind of like Zelda on SNES. I left her at 4:30pm this afternoon to go to freshman bible study. Annie: "I'll probably just play for like five more minutes and then I'm going to get on the elliptical." When I returned she was nearly hysterical because she was stuck in a maze in the game and couldn't figure out where to go next.

Not quite antiques

2006-08-28T21:05:00.000-07:00

With all the flurry of moving to Norman, I have had to put off posting about this. There is a dresser that has been sitting in our garage for about six years. It used to be the dresser in my brother's nursery and mine before that. It is sturdy and small enough to travel pretty easily, so I asked my mom about refurbishing it this past spring. She was excited about it, so we resolved to do it sometime this summer. I also found out that this dresser, along with the two end tables we ended up working on also, was made by my grandmother's brother as a project in his high school shop class. So they are family heirlooms! My mom had them in her bedroom growing up also; how cool is that?

The first obstacle was the FIVE layers of paint on the dresser, the youngest of which has been on for over twenty years.

We started out with some wussy acid remover, and had to move over to the gallon can of Tuff-Job in order to get the job done right. It burned our fingers something awful.

Then next step was sanding it all down. Not every scrap of paint was gone, but that was okay with me. I wanted it to have a rugged, worn look anyway. Cary bought a sander to do the big flat pieces, and the rest was hand sanded.

Midway through the project, Cary decided I was taking too long and he was tired of parking the porche in the driveway. He and mom pitched in and helped me get huge chunks of work done. We worked mostly in the evening so it wouldn't be as hot.

Here it is sitting in my room in Norman! Stained with something called Georgia Peach or something. It looks so great! The wood is actually a very nice color. The grains for each drawer don't match and it has a lot of character :)

Also notice the pretty pink painted walls. Thanks to all the lovely OURUF crew who came out and painted my room the day before I moved!

First Week!

2006-08-21T20:21:00.000-07:00

I've been working for several days now. It is great! I definitely love my job right now. It has been lots of work, and it isn't going to let up for awhile.

Last Thursday, the Serven family took Jonathan and I out to eat at On the Border. Estaba muy delicioso.

Friday my job officially started. RUF had a table at a business/organization fair on campus. We handed out fliers, RUF cups, and pop ice. Here is a picture, courtesy of J Stu:

After the table-ing, Jonathan took J Stu and I to a pancake party a girl was having in one of the dorms. There, I met a couple of girls and got a couple of phone numbers to invite them to RUF later.

Saturday night Doug had his second RUF information meeting at his house, for people outside of the OURUF community to come and find out how to serve and get involved with RUF. I met some new friends and Doug reviewed RUF's philosophy of ministry.

Sunday. First time at Christ the King Presbyterian; Annie and I picked up a transfer student named Amanda to come with. She seems really excited about coming to RUF this wednesday and we are having lunch this week! A couple from the church had us all three over for lunch (delicious!). After that was another organization fair, specifically for student organizations. I got to see many other student groups, and lots of other campus ministries. I talked with a guy from Cru and a girl from Phi Lam.

Monday (today) I started the study program. On Mondays Doug, the interns and all the faux interns meet at a coffee shop called Winans to study and then eat lunch afterwards. I am reading a book called Getting the Message. After that Doug signed me up for a membership to the Baptist Family Life Center, which has a fairly nice gym, indoor track, weight room, and cardio machines. They give an incredible discount for ministers of the church, which I officially am, even if you are not baptist. Then we went to campus to get our vendor parking passes. These will enable us to park virtually anywhere on campus. I think it is some kind of loophole Doug has found.

I've done a lot! The greatest this has been the number of contacts I've made. Virtually everywhere I turn I am meeting new girls, getting their phone numbers, and inviting them to RUF or to hang out. I guess the real hope is that people actually come to RUF on Wednesday. Tomorrow we are going to follow up and call all these kids.

Please pray for us here in Norman! Pray that students come to RUF Wednesday night. Pray that RUF logistically goes well this Wednesday. We are having it outside in an open area, because the university will not assign us a room for another two weeks. Pray that I continue to have strength and energy to pursue relationships with girls.

God is at work!

Oklahome

2006-08-18T09:37:00.000-07:00

I am moved in (mostly) to my house in Norman with Katie and Annie! I left a number of things in Dallas (including my camera) so no pictures of the new digs yet. Also my computer won't pick up the wireless signal for some reason; I am posting this from Annie's computer. Posting may be erratic until that is fixed. More to come!

Friends

2006-08-12T16:16:00.000-07:00

Time for some summer fun photos!

Anne and I at the Ranger game with my parents (her first official night living in the great city of Dallas!) ...those seats were awesome...

Rach and I on my last visit to Austin (tear). I don't know why we are leaning over, we are short enough as it is.

I did my mom's hair for game 6 of the NBA Finals; sadly it wasn't enough for a Mavs win.

Pamela, Me, Laura, and Springer on our way back from a night downtown in Austin.

Animals

2006-08-10T09:36:00.000-07:00

There was a gecko in my mailbox this morning. When I stuck the letters in he made a death-defying leap out onto the pavement then wobbled away unscathed. ¡Qué valor!

Watching "House" makes me so glad to not be going to med school. Too many diseases to learn.

Will anyone go see this movie with me. It's the best worst movie of 2006.

Who needs a gym

2006-08-08T21:12:00.000-07:00

The Ironman 420e Elliptical Machine

EKG Pulse Grip and Oversized Blue LCD Window with 11 constant feedback windows, 16 tension levels, 10 preset programs and one custom user program. 16" stride, no reading rack but it does come with a water bottle holder and complementary bottle...

Priced by the manufacturer at $999 but the store sticker said $599 for pick-up.

Will I buy it?

At Week's End

2006-08-04T20:19:00.000-07:00

I am all alone in the house this week - Mom and Cary are in Carmel, CA for vacation. This has enabled me to get a lot of good work done with support raising; I can make my schedule easily without distractions or opportunities to drop everything and go shopping with Mom.

Wednesday: Lunch with Dad at Ghengis Grill
Thursday: Lunch with Anne D. at Corner Bakery
Friday: Lunch with Aunt Jan at Chick-fil-a

I also had my last two personal training sessions at the DAC. Becca showed me how to do most of my workout with free weights and the big rubber ball. I may just buy myself the equipment and workout at home instead of finding a gym in Norman. I'm also looking into buying a cheap elliptical machine.

Thursday night Jerri and I went to see Brooklyn: The Musical. Diana Degarmo, who was the runner up on American Idol, starred. With a cast of only 5 and the creative use of just one set, it was cute and energized, but I wouldn't probably see it again. Only and hour and a half, with no intermission; the music was very over-the-top-diva-ish and actually became painful to listen to at some points when the singers are just oo-oooing way too much. To be honest, oo-whoa-aahing does not take a lot of talent, even when you are sustaining a long note. That kind of music has almost no dynamics in it (crescendo, etc) and is not all that compelling.

90% of my time is currently consumed with support raising, thus, this post is nonrepresentative of my actualy life right now.

Side Note

2006-07-15T00:36:00.000-07:00

Yeah right. Something amazing is happening. Check out the support bars to the right.

On Vocation

2006-07-14T23:20:00.000-07:00

I am so blessed to have the wonderful friends I have made throughout my life. Recently I have also found out how proud I also am to be their friend - so many of them are doing great and wonderful things with their lives.

Future Occupational Therapist
Future Doctors (most are girls!)
Event Planners for the University of Texas at Austin
Future Social Worker
Spanish Teacher
Graphic Designers
Musicians
Future Nurses
Missionaries
Computer Programmers
Microbiologists
Painter
Orphanage Organization Employee
Speech Pathologists
Community Coordinators
Theologians
Future International Journalist
Sports Radio Commentators
Moms

And this is just a sampling.

All these wonderful ways to work and live the lives God gave us. All these wonderful ways to glorify Him with our excellence and devotion to our callings and vocations. My how humbled am I to be witness to the way God has led all these people to the places they are now.

P.S. I think I like lists.

World Peace

2006-07-13T14:24:00.000-07:00

God keeps making this whole placement deal sweeter and sweeter. The 3rd season of Project Runway just debuted. The cast of 15 include designers from Santa Monica, New York, Miami Beach, San Francisco, Minneapolis, Atlanta, and --- that's right --- Norman, Oklahoma. Jonathan Kayne Gillaspie (see right) owns a store in Norman and apparently is a mogul in the pageant fashion industry. In December of 2005, he dressed the entire top five teens and the winner and first runner up in the Miss Oklahoma U.S.A. pageant. Will this mean my future town will soon be hopping with celebs? Probably not. But will I visit his store just to check? Of course.

This Can Only End in Tears

2006-07-10T07:47:00.000-07:00

Playa Tamarindo

2006-07-05T09:29:00.000-07:00

Did I ever post pictures from Costa Rica? Here is one.

Top Ten

2006-07-03T19:34:00.000-07:00

Top Ten Video Games

01. Final Fantasy VI - SNES: My favorite plotline of any game ever. I walked in on my brother playing and wanted to know what was going on. He was only at Narshe, so he offered to start over and we could play it together. I was blown away. The music also rocks.

02. Halo: Combat Evolved - XBOX: This needs no explanation. I had two guy friends in high school that constantly played and were short of friends, so they dragged along a sorry girl who could hardly hold the controller correctly. I loved the multi-player competition and ended up buying an XBOX (or, as I called it, a Halo-playing machine) in order to get good enough to beat them.

03. Zelda: A Link to the Past - SNES: Another fun storyline with plenty of side-plots and adventures. I loved full-health sword swish beam. And I love blowing the flute to take me across the world.

04. Lemmings - SNES: Awesome puzzle game with green-haired guys who died in delightful ways.

05. MarioKart - SNES: My brother claims that I bullied him so much that he would lose on purpose when we played. It makes sense, since I won almost every time and he has clearly always been my superior when it comes to gaming.

06. Super Mario World - SNES: Jumping on huge bullet baddies to knock them away.

07. Dr. Mario - NES: Tetris-like game that I played at my grandparents house. Kill the germs!

08. Yoshi's Island - SNES: Pooping out eggs and shooting them at the badguys.

09. Final Fantasy IV - SNES: I only played through this one in college. Enjoyed it thoroughly.

10. Contra - NES: The coveted Spreader gun turned my brother and I against each other.

Runners Up
Paperboy - NES
Joe and Mack - SNES

Top Ten Computer Games

01. The SIMS 2
02. Warcraft III
03. SimCity 2000
04. Total Annihilation
05. MYST
06. Oregon Trail
07. Starcraft
08. Lords of Magic
09. DOOM
10. Roller Coaster Tycoon

Runners Up
Indiana Jones and the Fate of Atlantis
SimTower

Banking

2006-06-26T21:54:00.000-07:00

I need some feedback on which bank to switch to. I currently use a credit union here in Mesquite, but I want to switch to have better access to ATMs and things in Norman. I have narrowed it down to three banks I know have locations in Norman, and from what I can tell they each have comprable savings and checking account options.

What I need is feedback if you have had experience with any of the following banks or for you Norman people, if you have anything to say about the branches or ATMs in your town.

My choices:

Citibank
Bank of America
Chase

For example, in college my roomates repeatedly had instances where Wells Fargo would send them letters saying: "We are writing to inform you that we have had a breach of our security that might include your personal information, some computers were stolen from our Atlanta offices. Oops. Have a nice day."

PLEASE give me advice.

What's a shopgirl to do

2006-06-26T16:24:00.000-07:00

I am no longer a student, coed, or young adult. I am a single adult female. Now will someone tell me where I'm supposed to shop for clothes???

Today I went with my mom to get a new pair of jeans. She agreed to buy me a pair in exchange for not wearing my favorite jeans which have a couple of holes in unfortunate areas that keep reappearing even if she sews them shut.

Our first mistake was going to Town East Mall. That place is the ghetto and has almost exclusively skank stores when it comes to women's or unisex clothing. After a few glances around the avaliable stores inside, we headed to Dilliards. This is where the main dilemma came. Where do I fall? I can't wear Juniors anymore and the Misses section seems too old still. And I couldn't even find a petite section.

Other stores I love like Banana Republic and J. Crew are going to be way too expensive for this cowgirl next year. I guess there is always the GAP, but who wants to be constantly running into people always wearing the same clothes as you. Of course, none of this would be a problem if next year I could easily wear what constitutes half my wardrobe: T-shirts of my alma mater. Sometimes I feel like God is laughing at me. Good one Jesus, good one.

A List

2006-06-22T22:22:00.000-07:00

Tuesday - Mavericks Lost
Wednesday - Rangers Lost
Thursday - USA Eliminated from World Cup

Not a good week for my sports allegiances.

My grandmas and I went to see Les Miserables tonight, which made m cry from almost beginning to end again. Such a great presentation. The story is so compelling. Dang.

I cut my hair. Short. With bangs. I look like Thelma from Scooby Doo. And I like it.

I'm thinking about maybe putting a status bar in the sidebar to indicate where I am with support raising... like a little bar graph percentage thing. Would anyone care to see something like that?

Don't Stutter

2006-06-19T10:49:00.000-07:00

Looks like I will be involved a little bit with the youth group again this summer. I am excited because I'll get to work with some of the girls I worked with 3 summers ago.... they have gotten so much older!! Anyway, I don't know exactly what I'll do... probably some discipling and encouragement and lots of hanging out.

Mavs lost in a heartbreaker of a game. I was so depressed when I woke up this morning (and not just because I actually woke up in the morning). They still have two games. I still have hope. We are now "15 strong" again like the Heat. Here is a great Avery clip from after the game:

Awwwwwwwwkward. I love you Avery!

A New Look

2006-06-18T08:43:00.000-07:00

I changed it again. I am getting a little obsessed with figuring out html, even though I am still really bad at it.

Costa Rica was great... I will post some pictures from our trip soon. If you are super anxious you can go to the Flikr link, some of them are already posted on there. I hurt my finger on the zipline canopy tour, but I was really brave I think.

We are late for church now.

Back in a week, suck-ahs

2006-06-08T22:45:00.000-07:00

Money Money Money

2006-06-07T16:45:00.000-07:00

I've been busy raising support this past week. I have been trying to be productive and make some calls/appointments, but I also feel this anxiety to want to wait until after I get back from Costa Rica. I guess I don't want the conversation to go something like this:

"Hi this is Brittany, I'm going to be an intern with OU RUF, would you be willing to meet with me sometime soon to talk about my plans?"
"Well, sure I would. How about sometime this next week?"
"Actually this week isn't good, I am going on an exotic vacation in Central America. Could we meet the week after next? Then I can simultaneously talk about how I am in desperate need of your financial support and flaunt my Caribbean sun-kissed skin and pedicured toes."

Go Mavs!

Yes I Love Steve Nash

2006-05-28T23:16:00.000-07:00

Let me just say that the NBA playoffs have been OFF THE HOOK these past weeks. Currently my favorite team (Mavs) are playing the team of my favorite player (Nash). Here is a great TNT commercial with my main man, the MVP:

But though I love him so, I still want the Mavs to win. As Cary said earlier this evening, "Squish him, Dirk! Squish Nash!" And... they did.

Seriously

2006-05-11T23:42:00.000-07:00

“We have been told over and over that singleness a gift. But it’s the kind of gift that makes us cringe and smile politely while we desperately search for a gift receipt so we can return it.” - Debbie Maken

I love this book. It echoes so many thoughts I have had when thinking about marriage and singleness. Last year, I read an article by Paige Benton Brown called “Singled Out For Good.” Writes Brown,

“Accepting singleness, whether temporary or permanent, does not hinge on speculation about answers God has not given to our list of whys, but rather on celebration of the life he has given. I am not single because I am too spiritually unstable to possibly deserve a husband, nor because I am too spiritually mature to possibly need one. I am single because God is so abundantly good to me, because this is his best for me. It is a cosmic impossibility that anything could be better for me right now than being single. The psalmists confirm that I should not want, I shall not want, because no good thing will God withhold from me.”

At the time, this seemed like a solid argument. However, after reading Maken’s book, I am not so sure that God grants us all good things no matter how we live our lives. I am not talking about a works-righteousness theology. But I need to nail down a better idea of what marriage is. Is marriage a blessing that I cannot affect? There are plenty of blessings I have rejected so far in life. It is completely possible for me to reject the blessings of God, and for God to sovereignly allow me to suffer from my sin of disobedience. God has good and perfect ways for us to live our lives, but I constantly choose not to follow His ways, whether it be sleeping in for church, ignoring my family, or resisting His call on my life to be an RUF intern. I struggle to follow and choose the holy and good things God has for me every day. If marriage, then, is a similar blessing of God, if it is a biblical mandate to be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth, if we are created male and female, intended for a union which reflects Christ’s glorious marriage to the church, are we not still capable as sinners to mess it all up like we do everything else?

Maken’s book says we are more than capable of messing up marriage the way God intends it – both our culture and the church have made it acceptable and sometimes even preferable to remain single. Maken provides ample biblical evidence to show that God actually intends the opposite, with few exceptions. Here are some of my favorite excerpts:

“Calvin believed that one of the ‘[tricks] of Satan [to] dishonor marriage’ was to advance ‘the pestilential law of celibacy.’ In plain English, the belief that remaining single is legitimate and godly is a work of the devil. Read that again: Satan dishonors marriage by fooling us into believing that singleness is okay.
That sounds extreme, I know. But it makes sense. Why break up a home through divorce or wayward children if it is easier for Satan to convince singles that they have no biblical duty to pair up in the first place and that other arrangements are suitable substitutes?”

“How hard we search for an object usually shows its value. A missing shirt button might merit a glance at the floor. But when a wedding ring is involved, the whole room will be turned upside down. The generally aimless, thoughtless, and disorganized practice of dating to find a wife is closer to looking for the cheap button than the invaluable wedding ring. Because we as a culture no longer value marriage, dating is treated as casually as we ultimately treat our marriages. People do not date seriously because they do not value marriage seriously.”

“Every status in life (whether temporarily single, married early, married later in life, perpetually single) can be made to look like God’s will and therefore above question or examination. ‘God’s will’ becomes the blanket answer to any legitimate questioning of the way things are… Thinking culturally endorses a seductive, outcome-based theology: Whatever your outcome is – whether you are married or single – it must be God’s will. But God is not a puppet, and we should not treat him as such. We must not turn his sovereignty and his will into carte blanche approval for the choices we make. Doing so turns the doctrine of God’s sovereignty (his control in exercising his will) into a rubber-stamping machine that validates every situation in life, no matter how unbiblical or personally devastating.”

“Often single women are told that God has allowed singleness and that his knowledge and control over the situation should still any troubled heart. In a sense, singles are chastised for pondering why they are not married. I am afraid the analysis of the situation is not that simple. While cancer is regularly allowed into people’s lives, researchers still ask what causes and cures it. We don’t tell those with cancer, “It’s just God’s will for you to be sick right now; so you need to be content…” We do not fully know what causes cancer; if we would just open our eyes, we would know what causes the modern phenomenon of protracted singleness…Of course, marriage is still under God’s control. But he demands our thoughtful and timely participation in his will. While the farmer praises God for a bountiful crop, he must still plant, water, weed, and harvest. While God feeds the birds of the air as Jesus said, he doesn’t drop the worms into their nests. They have to go out and search for them. We must cooperate with God’s will for our lives rather than sitting idly by and complaining because God didn’t magically provide.”

“There was a time when people married and started families in their late teens and early twenties. That sounds awfully young to us today, but there was a time when children were raised so that their emotional and physical development coincided. As their sexuality began to develop, marriage was just around the corner. But in today’s culture of protracted adolescence, children are raised to remain adolescent, stay in school indefinitely, and live at home as ‘adult children,’ delaying marriage and adulthood… We are lying to adolescents if we tell them to save themselves for marriage when at the same time we are telling their older siblings stuck in protracted singleness that singleness and celibacy are the same thing. Any fifteen-year-old looking at the average twenty-five-year-old single will hardly be inspired to wait for marriage.

Probably my favorite quote:

“Let me be totally honest with you. Though I got married at age thirty-one, I really could have used a husband at sixteen, seventeen, nineteen, twenty-one, twenty-three, twenty-five, twenty-seven, twenty-nine, thirty. Especially at twenty-five – a year of numerous cold showers. Let’s be honest, being single doesn’t make you not want sex. Whoever said that age thirty-four is a woman’s sexual peak needs to be shot.”

Maken first began to question the idea of singleness based on her own personal feelings towards being single. She was tired of it. She was suffering from a desire to be married. As my delightful friend Anne has pointed out recently, just because something is distasteful, doesn’t make it unholy or ungodly. Suffering is a part of the christian life. The fact that some of us desire to be married and yet suffer in singleness, is not basis for much. Just because we desire something does not make it good. Except, points out Maken, when that desire has been created and instilled in us by the God of our salvation.

Not just a town in Oklahoma

2006-05-08T22:25:00.000-07:00

I am in Norman for a couple of days, visiting and meeting all the Normanians surrounding RUF. I got into town around 6:30 today and got a little lost, finally making it to the place I was meeting Della soon after. We went for dinner and drinks at a place called The Library with a nice patio area near campus. After a change of clothes, we met some other people at Doug Serven's house. Most of them are graduates or soon-to-be graduates, which was fun becasue they will be my friend group when I move here in the fall. I also got to meet one of my roomates, Annie. By far one of my best faux paus yet happened midway through the evening. Now, awhile back this guy named Norman Maynard facebook friended me. I saw he was from OU so I accepted and wondered what his real name was. I assumed his real name wasn't Norman - he was probably just using the fake name of the guy who founded his college town or something. So tonight, this guy shows up and introduces himself as Norman Maynard. My response: "Oh! That's your real name?" Everyone cracks up, as there is obviously no context. I sort of explained, but it was funny enough and I think it was too honest to be sarcastic. So I just chalked it up to the wine.

Tomorrow is more Norman fun. Yay for new beginnings! What Spanish final on Friday? Pshhh.

I have to add my mother's quote of the day as we were driving through Hyde Park on Saturday.

Mom: I don't know if I could ever live in hippie town. I'm too prejudiced.
Brittany: Prejudiced against what?
Mom: Hippies.

el fin del mundo

2006-05-07T20:08:00.000-07:00

It is the end of the world.

A Plethora of Pictures

2006-05-03T21:21:00.000-07:00

This is cute Baby Jonathan Bradley Deiss. Did I say how cute he is???

RUF Senior Dinner

The Slatons and Me with My Egg Shaker

Sweet RUF Girls

Topopo... this weird chalupa dish Anne made me one day. It has peas and vinegar in it?!?!

Why I'll Miss School

2006-05-02T09:15:00.000-07:00

Yesterday in my Creative Writing class, my professor mentioned in passing "another disgusting piece of work called "The Lord of the Flies." After several protests from various students in our small class, the professor answered: "Ridiculous. That work is anthropologically pretentious." I laughed so loud.

I have finished my last big college paper. I will not miss this.

I had time to stop and get a Jamba Juice today before class. These smoothies are so incredibly delicious. I ought to invest in them, because their product is genius and awesome. There better be a Jamba in Norman. I already heard that I will be deprived of Chipotle and Freebirds. (Update: I just did a search and found that indeed, there is a Jamba Juice in Norman. Whew! That was a close one). Still, I will miss having a Jamba in such a convenient location.

Term Papers Can Wait

2006-05-01T20:16:00.000-07:00

Fear is very much like pain, in the sense that, in the intervals that one is free of it, one forgets how very disagreeable it is. I am not an authority on fear, avoiding the condition whenever possible, but I do know that its worst agony comes well beforehand, in the period of suspense; by the time the crucial moment arrives, a certain detachment - a fatalistic sense, a longing to finish the suspense, and finally a dull resignation - has replaced the quaking. Stupidly, one plods to meet one's fate. -Peter Matthiessen's The Cloud Forest: A Chronicle of the South American Wilderness

Details

2006-04-27T15:02:00.000-07:00

Tuesday night I had my UT ring Ceremony. We dress up nice, shake some hands, and put on our rings to the music of "The Eyes of Texas." My mom came to see me for it, so it wasn't as lame. :) My ring is pretty, though.
Monday night I got to talk to Anne on the phone from Peru! It was so nice to talk to her and catch up on our lives. I'm hoping she ends up at Southwestern so I can hang out with her all the time when I come home from Norman. She is so great.
I have roomates in Norman! Two sweet girls from OK have asked me to live with them in this house they found. It sounds like a really nice deal, and I am so excited to have a living situation figured out. Plus I love roomates.

Salud!

2006-04-25T01:43:00.000-07:00

I am up much to late for my own good again...

I have been up creating power points. Tomorrow I am giving an in-class presentation over my Term Paper for my Senior Seminar. It is over Peru. Well... it is over the travel books I read about Peru. But for fun I get to add in things about my trip at the end!

As I was browsing through everyone's pictures on Shutterfly, I came across one I had completely forgotten about. Gotta love that Peruvian cerveza!

Important facts for me to know

2006-04-24T08:50:00.000-07:00

"Oklahoma" is a combination of two Choctaw words: okla, meaning 'people' (as in the term Miliki okla, which means 'American people'), and homa (also spelled homma or humma) which means, among other things, 'red.'

Oklahoma has some of the strictest liquor laws in the country. This began with the state's constitution including total prohibition of alcoholic beverages. In 1959, voters repealed total prohibition and liquor-by-the-drink bars were not allowed until 1985. Since 1985, liquor-by-the-drink is decided on a county-by-county basis, with approximately half allowing it. Currently, liquor stores are required to close on Sundays, may not be open past 9:00 PM, and may not refrigerate alcohol. (Warehouses and shipping companies are also prohibited from using refrigeration.) Some bars are also restricted from selling beverages in excess of 3.2% alcohol. Persons under twenty-one years of age are prohibited from being in a bar area of a restaurant. Some breweries, such as New Belgium Brewing Company, will not ship to Oklahoma because these laws degrade the quality of beer by the time it reaches the consumer.

I think I would like to take a road trip.
Desitnation: Truth or Consequences

Saturday Night

2006-04-22T20:36:00.000-07:00

Tonight on the way to dinner:

Me: "I'm glad you're my brother,"
Jeff: "That... doesn't make any sense."
Me: "Does it have to make sense to be true or meaningful?"
Jeff: "I guess so..."
Me: "No. Shutup. It doesn't."

Saturday Afternoon

2006-04-22T14:37:00.000-07:00

My parents are coming into town and that means three things:

1) Delicious, expensive meals
2) Pedicures
3) I have to vacuum

Sometimes I forget to eat lunch and breakfast.

It annoys me when people take my laundry out of the machine before I can get to it. The clothes are clean and you shouldnt put them on the dirty counter, thank you! Can't you people wait five minutes for me to put them in the dryer?

What Rivalry?

2006-04-19T08:47:00.000-07:00

Well the wait is over. This fall I will be moving to Norman, OK and work as an RUF intern for OURUF. I know, I know, I must be crazy right? Why would I ever want to leave my beloved city of Austin let alone leave the great state of Texas? (We could revolt at any time!) Well, dear friends. The Lord calls us to His service and I must answer that call - not only

"to open their eyes and turn them from darkness to light" (acts 26:18)

but also

"to open their eyes and turn them from their foolish ways - i.e. thinking they'll win at the cotton bowl" (-brittany)

In all seriousness, I am truly very excited to soon be moving to OK. I have heard nothing less than extraordinary praise regarding Doug Serven and Jonathan Ramsay, the campus minister and intern that are already there. My mom is also happy that I'll be no further away than if I had stayed in Austin. Now the only question I have is, which obnoxious UT t-shirt should I wear to the first RUF? One that shows last year's RRS score, or my national championship/perfect season shirt? Decisions, decisions....

Texas Fight.

But OU here I come!

It's great to stay up late...

2006-04-18T03:21:00.000-07:00

It's 5:20 am.... and OU still sucks?

I can't sleep. I think I found out something I am not supposed to know and the uncertainty of it is keeping me wide awake. Also that four hour nap I took around 5:30 is probably contributing.

Today I gave my cultural presentation for spanish class. Our group covered the current presidential elections in Peru, which were held just last Monday. There was no majority, however, so they will have runoff in late May or early June. The great thing was, my Peruvian Daffodil decided to bloom today! It was as if she were cheering me on. At least I thought it could be good luck. But alas, luck doesn't actually exist, and my group members all went over their allotted time and I had to rush through my 3 minutes of material in about a minute. This is very hard to do in a foreign language. I had practiced enough to where I planned on not reading anything off my notes, but I needed the pause time to remember each topic and some hard vocabulary. And I had the most interesting part, too: the results. Ah well.

I had the crazy bus driver again on the way home from school. If this guy didn't nearly kill me every day, I would think his beard, sunglasses, and ear-extender thingy combo was awesome. But thanks to him I have had many an awkward moment where I find myself fallen into the lap of a some fellow passenger... each of us mumbling apologies, and smiling in understanding towards the oblivious driver.

I have started a new book. I do not reccomend it. And I won't put it on the sidebar either.

5:31 am... le sigh.

"You've Got Baby Fever!"

2006-04-16T00:55:00.000-07:00

3am and I just hit the 100 mark on number of supports I have entered into this ridiculous spreadsheet for my RUF Intern mail list. I say ridiculous because there is so much information to enter, and I have so little of it that I am constantly doing internet searches on people to find their phone numbers, etc. I am so proud that I had the will to work on this tonight, considering how... emotional... I have been about not finding out where I am placed this week. Grrrr....

While working on my list I watched North Country and a disk of season 5 FRIENDS. North Country was alright... I wouldn't pay to watch it but Netflix makes everything feel free!

I went to see baby Johnathon Deiss today. He is completely precious. I got to hold him a long time, even though he was squirmy. I love Emily and Ryan so much. Emily was telling me about the last couple of days (Johnathon came on Thursday) and she is just so real about everything. She admitted when they forgot to do something that I guess might be routine for seasoned parents, and she just shrugged, "We're learning." :) I think I admire this a lot about Emily, because she is always so pragmatic and real about things, but in a way that doesn't encourage me to make excuses. That may not make sense, but, all I mean is she's awesome. I will try to remember and bring my camera to take some pics of Johnathon tomorrow at church.

On the way home Amy (I hitched a ride cause my car is squeaking) was asking me questions about babies, like was I the kind of girl who wants to get married and have a kid right off, or did I want to wait a little while or what. I didn't have a concrete answer, becuase I figure I shouldn't be trying to plan those kinds of things too much (carts and horses have a prescribed order) however, I have been thinking for the last year or so that I will want to have kids sooner rather than later, if only because I want more than a couple. Ah well, for now I will cuddle Emily's baby and give him back whenever he starts crying ;)

Monica: Do you, um, you really think the best reason to get married is because you're sorry?
Chandler: No, the best reason to get married is pregnancy. Sorry is pretty much fourth. You know, behind being ready, and actually wanting to get married.

Another Avenue A Apartments Adventure

2006-04-12T23:02:00.000-07:00

Whoa.

Anne and I are sitting in Aimee's bedroom, watching Kate and Jack make googly-eyes at each other on LOST and enjoying Aimee's presence as she works on homework at her desk. Suddenly we hear a loud yell from outside our window followed by a loud bang and the sound of breaking glass. More yelling follows and we all jump up, Aimee looking out her window. More chaotic sounds continue, yelling and crashes, so Anne and I run towards the back kitchen door to see what is happening. It is dark outside (around 10pm or so) and we see a middle-aged man with thick glasses walking around right outside our door, in front of my car. He seems to be backing away from the apartments on our right. His long ponytail is covered by a red baseball cap. He sees us starting to open the door, and turns back towards us and tells us, "Someone needs to call 911."

Anne has already grabbed her phone and begins to dial while I try to ascertain what it is exactly we are calling emergency services for. Far to the right of the back parking lot, a car is parked in the alleyway. I see a younger man, in long pants, no shirt, and covered with tatoos around the front of the car carrying what looks to be a light fixture or a metal part of a lamp. He dissapears out of sight, but then my eyes look more carefully at the car and see that the entire front windshield is completely smashed up. Another girl with orange tanned legs to match her orange jacket and a round man with a white t-shirt appear a couple of minutes later out by the car. The man looks like he is on the phone with the police also. Anne is frantically trying to give what little information we have about the noises to the operator. Aimee and I decide we can't see enough, so we run upstairs and open my window from the second story to get a better look. From here we can see that all the windows of the car are smashed up. Police finally arrive and all three of us relocate to Anne's bedroom window, where we take out the screen and all lean out of the window watching the police take care of the situation. Several other neighbors congregate below us and we begin to talk furtively with them, exchanging stories. The ponytail man is back, and he knows most of the story.

Apparently, he came home to find the orange girl crying hysterically outside of the apartment she shares with now ex-boyfriend, because he had thrown all of her stuff out onto the street after a fight. She asks to borrow ponytail's phone to call a friend to pick her up. Enter white t-shirt, who pulls up in his car to presumably take the orange girl somewhere. Ponytail starts to help load stuff into the car, but white t-shirt is having none of this. He bangs on the front door of the apartment and starts yelling at ex-boyfriend inside. Ex-boyfriend eventually comes out and smashes the windows of the car. In a rage, white t-shirt opens his trunk and graps a golf club and goes after ex-boyfriend back in the apartment. Somehow things calmed down, and all three just waited for the police, orange girl and white t-shirt outside and ex-boyfriend out of site (presumably bleeding inside his apartment). Once the police arrived, we all went outside, trying to get a look at somebody in handcuffs so we would sleep better. We waiting 30 minutes or so, but got bored and so came back inside to finish LOST.

By the way, kate and jack at the end.... ::SWOON:: love it love it love it.

Now I get to write 8 more pages of my Peru term paper!

The Joys of a Ten Dollar Microphone

2006-04-11T22:55:00.000-07:00

Every now and again I have a strange desire to record myself. Sometimes singing, sometimes talking, I have an urge to hear the sound of my own voice from the outside, not the one that reverberates within my skull. Nowadays, I have a way to satisfy these desires: almost a year and a half ago I purchased a microphone for my computer from Best Buy. At the time, Jody and Kristin were both in town for the Austin City Limits festival and we had been playing some goofy songs we had written in Glorieta, New Mexico the previous month. We knew chances were slim that the three of us would again be together soon, so we wanted to have a rough recording of our songs to forever remember them (Plus my friend Sarah couldn't get enough of the knitting song).

But back to my current obsession with my voice. I had recorded myself once or twice before singing songs acappella, so this time I decided to take it a step further. Here is the result:

Verse 3

And for old times sake:

The Yarn Song

Chicken Madeira

2006-04-09T20:13:00.000-07:00

Tonight the girls went out to dinner to celebrate the missed birthdays of Amy and Laura. Laura's big day was December 23 and Amy's is always on Spring Break. So this was the time to make up for it. I got Amy Motorcycle Diares on DVD and Laura received some hot rollers for her hair. The food was delish, as was the company.

Before we left the Woodlawn Apartment to make our way to CF, I was hanging out with Amy and Rach and Drew watching golf and such. I had brought over one of the books I am currently reading, Getting Serious about Getting Married (see left). I hope to post a full review of my thoughts on it later, but I wanted to show it to Rach and Amy so I pulled it out. Rach immediately hid it within her planner and started to peruse, trying to hide it from Drew. The title would be kind of embarrassing for her, I suppose, but it only aggrevated him for the three of us to be reading it secretly right in front of him, especially when Rachel refused to tell him what the book was.

Emily still has not had her baby! What a stubborn child that is going to be.

I had lunch with a friend of mine from church named Hannah today. She is so sweet. I think she will be going to college in Scotland in the fall! How cool is that? We ate at La Madeline's, which means I have definitely had my quota of rich, fattening food for the week!

A Note on Commenting

2006-04-09T13:18:00.000-07:00

Some of you have indicated that you did not know how to leave a comment on my blog. I have tried to make it easier; at the bottom of each post it now says "To Post a comment CLICK HERE" so if you feel like leaving a comment, all you have to do is click on those words and the nifty pop-up window will show you the rest. I hope that helps!

Every Girl Loves a Makeover

2006-04-08T23:28:00.000-07:00

Introducing my first attempt at html! I am so very proud. Thanks to the help of my good friend Luke, who spent a good two hours giving me a crash course in writing code (and wrote some for me), I have a beautiful new blog to use! Thank you Luke! The header and banner image is new, as well as the nifty little "Books" section on the sidebar. Also, if you had any trouble commenting before because you didn't have a blogger account, I fixed my settings so anyone can leave comments now, so please do! I am very excited about having an attractive blog not only because I hope it encourages me to use it more often, but hopefully it will also make the updates more pleasant for readers. I hope to keep this blog as a tool for the next two years in updating my life for my friends and family while I am off interning somewhere with RUF.

Speaking of my upcoming internship, I am breaking down and admitting it: I simply am going nuts waiting to find out where I will be going. I have been told that they have a little meeting on April 10 where they decide our collective fates as interns, but we will find out sometime later in the week after the decisions have been finalized. Oh, the agony of uncertainty!

Today Laura and I went to the Swamp Romp, a "Cajun-style festival" downtown. I had crawfish for the first time, and they were fun to eat. Kind of gross when I thought about it, but fun. We also had corn on the cob, catfish, and chocolate dipped fruit (strawberries for me, frozen banana for Miss Laura). Then we listened to some Zydeco and watched some belly dancers on stage.

Shameless Nonsense

2006-04-05T09:01:00.000-07:00

Put your music library on shuffle and answer the questions with songs in the order they come up. Some answers you come up with will freak you out. Don't CHEAT!

What's my mood like right now?
Midnight Train to Georgia - Gladys Knight and the Pips - Would I rather be sleeping? Yes.

How's tomorrow going to be for me?
If She Knew What She Wants - Bangles - The Bangles are all knowing.

What kind of person am I?
Let There Be Love - Nat King Cole - I am not that wishy-washy... am I?

Am I loved?
Science Vs. Romance - Rilo Kiley - how about "What is my personality???"

How can I achieve my highest potential?
Come Back to Bed - John Mayer - hahahahahaha

What should I do with my life?
There's Your Trouble - Dixie Chicks

Is everything really going to be alright in the end?
My Ambulance Driver - The Flaming Lips - I don't think I even know this song.

What is my best quality?
Ice Ice Baby - Vanilla Ice - ouch.

What's the meaning of life?
You're The Top - Cole Porter

What do people think of me?
Fire - The Ohio Players - haha, is this like being belligerent?

Would I make a good catch?
The Damage in Your Heart - Weezer - mmm so true...

How crazy am I?
Some Day My Prince Will Come - Snow White - yeah, thats a little crazy.

Will I have a good life in general?
Magic - Ben Folds Five

Can anyone ever really love me?
Love is a Battlefield - Pat Benetar - Think 13 going on 30?

Can me and a mate ever be more than friends?
Let's Take a Walk Around the Block - Ella Fitzgerald

What's going to happen to me this week?
She's the One - Robbie Williams - who is?? the one for what?? This game sucks.

Where will I be a year from now?
Jump - Madonna - next year I will be jumping... if that means I'm working out, okay.

What is my biggest wish?
I Saw Three Ships - Christmas Songs - "Jesus is coming back!" -Pam yesterday during class.

What is the love of my life doing at this very moment?
Strawberry Fields - Ben Harper - Isn't this song about drugs? Is my future husband stoned out right now???

How will I die?
The Na-Na Song - Sheryl Crow - There is no more vague answer than this.

What will happen after I die?
Ringside Rodeo - Caroline Herring - nice.

How do my friends feel about me?
Just Might (Make Me Believe) - Sugarland - well, that sounds uplifting at least.

Another Day

2006-04-04T15:39:00.000-07:00

Today is Emily's due date!

I got to meet my roomate's boyfriend this weekend. They met on eHarmony. He was really nice and they looked cute together. I can't imagine the weekend he must have had. To meet her for the first time is stressful enough, but also her family and close friends all within 48 hours??? Weird.

I slept for like 15 hours last night (went to bed around 5:30). Why? Because I can.

I am thinking about quitting smart start sometime this month. I do love the kids (see Valente on the left) but I feel like so much stuff is coming up that I would rather not have a job anymore. I definitely need to quit at least a week early because the last week of school is going to be killer, plus the fact that I have to be moved out before I go to Summer Conference, because the one day I am back in Austin between Summer Conference and leaving for Orientation in Atlanta is the day I have both my graduation ceremonies and lots of people in from out of town. Crizazzzzy.

I hate group dynamics.

Climbing Every Mountain

2006-03-28T01:22:00.000-08:00

I just started reading Into Thin Air this evening. I have to write a response for class.

I like Krakauer's writing. Beginning with the actual acent of the summit in the first chapter, then backtracking to the beginning of the entire ordeal in the 2nd chapter is very effective. It created suspense; I am consistently hooked into reading through even the journalistic background he gives of each climber on the mountain with him. However, his writing isn't all reporting, there are many good stylistic phrases that stick out and appeal to the senses:

Retiring to my tent at night, I was serenaded by a madrigal of creaks andpercussive cracks, a reminder that I was lying on a moving river of ice. p 64.

Even though his inflexible new boots had chewed his feet into hamburger, p 140.

I also enjoyed how unromantic Krakauer was about the entire climb. Though I wonder if it is more a result of his own harrowing memories of the tragic outcome of the team's ascent, he is quite honest about the dangers of climbing Everest, his and his team's shortcomings, the slight insanity that accompanies any desire to climb Everest, and even his own fear:

Problem was, my inner voice resembled Chicken Little: it was screaming that I was about to die, but it did that almost every time I laced up my climbing boots. I therefore did my damnednest to ignore my histrionic imagination and grimly followed Rob into the eerie blue labyrinth. p81.

This story is unlike any we have read so far in this class not only because of the dangerous nature of the traveling Krakauer and his team are doing but also because of the outcome we know this journey has. I find myself laughing at some of Krakauer's teammates like Sandy Pittman and her People magazine subscription delivered to her at Base Camp, but it is subdued from a sense of dread that lingers throughout the book. Not only have people died attempting what Krakauer's team is doing, but we already know that some of them do die before the end of the book.

There is another moment I will comment on from the end of our reading for today. On page 143, Krakauer reaches Camp 3 where some of their team's Sherpas were still preparing camp by hewing out another platform to pitch the 4th tent. Krakauer decides to help but soon realizes that, "at 24,000 feet, I could manage only seven or eight blows of my ice ax before having t0 pause for more than a minute to catch my break. My contribution to the effort was negligible, needless to say." This struck me particularly, because it is exactly how I felt a week ago in Perú while we were trying to dig ditches and pits for the foundation of the medical clinic. Basically, there were only two jobs for us, shoveling dirt, often from low levels to high, and wheelbarrowing dirt to and from the site. Wanting very much to contribute, I tried doing both of these jobs, both of which are hard enough on anyone who doesn't normally do manual labor. My back however, would not let me lift more than one shovelfull after the first day withough excruciating pain from my injury last year. And most of the guys (and Eleanor) could haul twice as much dirt in a wheelbarrow as I could. I got so frustrated on Day 3 with my weakness. I went up to the secluded 3rd floor of the church and cried out my frustration and exhaustion. Benjie happened to be coming up there to work on his sermon for later that evening and talked with me a little about why I was upset. He helped me realize that though I might not be as effective in the mornings as we worked outside, I was helping more than I probably realized as I conversed with the neighborhood kids and helped with VBS in the afternoons. Working with kids comes so easily and naturally for me; I don't realize that it might be just as hard for some people to do that sort of ministry, and I don't give those sorts of jobs that much credit because to me they are so enjoyable. In the end, I only hope that God was glorified not only in my play with the kids at VBS, but also in the revelation of my weakness before Him.

And He has said to me, "My grace is sufficient for you, for power is perfected in weakness " Most gladly, therefore, I will rather boast about my weaknesses, so that the power of Christ may dwell in me. 2 Corinthians 12:9

True Trujillo

2006-03-26T01:28:00.000-08:00

Ok, a couple of people have been asking me about more commentary about Perú. Unfortunately all my energy has been spent on catching up on school stuff. You are all lucky readers though because now you get two posts, some Perú comments as well as a new short story to critique. The following post is my short story, and I must ask for forgiveness if it needs editing. I am finishing it now at 3am.

Perú! Was awesome, let me tell you. It is taking a lot of willpower not to go back. Just yesterday I was browsing airfair back to Lima for next week. After all, being a missionary doesnt require a degree! But seriously, I was being heavily recruited by Wes Baker and John Ferguson to come back down there after I graduate. They seemed to think it was very possible for me to do the RUF internship down their with John and la Sociedad de San Agustine (RUF in Perú). But now that I am back, we are rethinking its feasibility. I do not want to be down in a foreign country trying to do ministry unless I am a) getting some training on HOW to do ministry and b) being discipled well by a specific person (like and RUF minister). Those two things would not be guaranteed at this point, so it looks like I will probably get to do the internship here in the states. I still have a strong desire to return to work for the Perú Mission at some point, but doing the internship here is not dissapointing at all. I am excited to see where I will be placed (that comes in April).

Okay, I realized I haven't been talking much about Perú. Let's see. Yesterday on my way home to Dallas I had a Perú flashback. I was turning left at an intersection where their are actually two left turn lanes. The guy in the other lane did not see that I was also turning left and he started to cut me off. Without hesitating I leaned on the horn to let him know I existed. This happens all the time in Perú. In fact, it would be considered abnormal to not honk your horn every 2 or 3 minutes. There, it is more a common courtesy to let others know you are coming to pass them. There are no traffic laws (at least any that anyone goes by) in Perú. There aren't real lanes to drive in, everyone just goes wherever they want on the road. Stoplights are ignored. We, of course, did not do any driving around. We took cabs to and from the hotel and the missionary homes. Many of the cab drivers had good working relationships with the missionaries and their families. One of them I rode with quite a bit was named Ronald. He befriended Paul and me and from then on made us ride with him any time we were going somewhere. Paul spoke not a word of Spanish, but I did my best to communicate for the both of us. Overall I was very pleased with my ability to speak with the Peruvians. Though I am sure my language was horrible, it did the job and I was able to speak with pretty much whomever I wanted. I think this was a huge factor for how good this trip was. I had prayed a lot about being able to communicate with the Peruvians before the trip and God was faithful in answering my prayer! Even if I had trouble speaking at times, I was so encouraged by the success I was having that my face was lit up with smiles constantly. I think I found that a smile communicated more to the people I met than anything else. Oh I loved those people so much! The children in the neighborhood of Arrevalo (the community where we worked every day) were so precious. It was easiest and most enjoyable to talk with them. In the afternoons I helped with the youngest Vacation Bible Class (Escuela Biblia de Vacaciones or EBDV). I knew that even if I said something in broken Spanish, it wouldn't matter at all because the kids would be talking fairly simple Spanish themselves. And some of them were so young that I could just babble nonsense to them and it wouldn't matter as long as I was smiling.

Okay, I think that is all I can update for now. One last thing about Perú: even though I bought the t-shirt, Inca Cola is completely overrated. It's only a glorified Big Red. The CocaCola down there, however, was quite supurb with its unrefined sugar. Yum-my.

Team Player

2006-03-26T01:18:00.000-08:00

Jenny sat across a row of new, smooth dark green lockers, leaned her back against the wall behind her and closed her eyes. Down the row towards the other end of the small locker room, four girls stood talking as they finished dressing in their practice clothes.

“Whatchu talkin ‘bout Y’Eishia? I aint never heard nothin about Treyshawn Jackson askin anybody to dance with him, least of all a chickenhead ho like you!”

“Hey now, yall don’t have to believe me cause Treyshawn and I know and thas all that matters. Besides, least I got asked to dance at all, Audrey!”
“Yeah whatever, whatever, yall are only talkin cause you too jealous of me and Dontae,” At Nikki’s comment, Audrey and Y’Eishia rolled their eyes. Audrey turned back toward her locker and reached for a hair band to pull back her long braids into a bunch at her neck.

“Uh huh, uh huh, yeah, yeah, Nikki. I don’t even remember yall bein there except when you came in.” said Crystal.

“That’s cause Dontae has a curfew. His momma don’t let him stay out past nine,” cracked Y’Eishia as Audrey whooped in response.

“Yall trippin’ cause you know we did leave before nine, but it sure wasn’t to go see his momma.”

“Is that right? Then were you two run off to? The dairy queen to split a 99 cent ice cream?” Crystal asked, hand on her hips; Audrey and Y’Eishia laughed again.

“Wouldn’t you like to know, Crys.”

Jenny smiled inwardly at their banter as she felt someone sit beside her on the bench. She opened her eyes and saw her friend, Molly Hobbs pinning her hair wisps back with bobby pins. Molly was wearing her large white t-shirt with sleeves that hung off her shoulders to almost her elbows; she said it kept her cooler that way. Jenny preferred a more fitted t-shirt so she could roll the sleeves up into the straps of her sports bra more easily. Standard issue green shorts complemented both.

“Hey chica, how was your weekend? Didn’t see you at the dance on Friday.”

“Yeah. I was at my dad’s this weekend. He gets mad if we skip.” Jenny was more than glad to have a reason to miss the dance; she’d only end up making trips with Molly back and forth from the punch bowl to the wall.

Other girls began to drift into the locker room from the adjacent showers and changing rooms. The light smell of deodorant wafted through the air mixed with the fresh paint smell that still lingered from the walls.

“You know what I think?” began Audrey again.

“Girls!” Coach Bailey threw open the heavy metal door leading from the locker room to the gym. Without actually entering she yelled, “School let out ten minutes ago, yall better get your butts on the court pronto!” and continued to hold the door open expectantly until girls started towards the door.

Jenny stood up and waited for Molly to stick in her last pin. As they trailed into the gym with the rest of the team, she undid the white sweatband wrapped around her wrist and stretched it around her head to keep back her own brunette wisps.

Inside the gym, Coach Bailey stood underneath the basket, leather brown ball propped between her upper arm and torso. Around her neck was a whistle, reserved only for drills, as her voice carried easily throughout the tall gymnasium. The crowd of thirty girls circled around their coach . Audrey and her friends stood closest to the coach, while Jenny and Molly stood on the fringe, sometimes arching their feet off the ground to see the coach’s face over Audrey and Crystal’s shoulders.

“Allright, ladies. Congratulations on your first win of the season. I hope you all had a nice weekend rest, because it isn’t going to get any easier just because you won against Lake Meadows, who, if you’ll remember, had the worst record of the district last season.” As she spoke, the coach moved her head back and forth, meeting the eyes of each individual player. “You girls are going to have to step it up if you want to beat Northland this Thursday.” As she paused she let her eyes settle on Jenny, then shifted them directly to Audrey. “You guys have to work as a team.”

“Coach, its all good. We gonna run Northland outta this building before they see us comin’,” smiled Aurey as she knocked fists with Nikki.

Bailey smiled and said “Alright, I like that talk, yall just need to back it up and show me in practice today how yall are gonna play Thursday night. If I see any more hot-doggin like I did last night I will run your butts ragged. When I call the plays you’re gonna follow em, do you hear me?” She still stared at Audrey and the group gave a muffled murmur of assent.

“Alright, let’s go. Line up for lay-ups.” The girls formed two lines facing the basket, one for shooting the lay-up, the other for rebounding. This was followed by passing, defense, and rebounding drills. The team found their practice rhythm easily, talking lowly to each other as they waited their turn, snickering when Nikki did her drills while doing impressions of Michael Jackson.

During one of the passing drills, Jenny found herself paired with Audrey. They passed the ball back and forth as they ran down the court. Jenny sprinted to keep up with Audrey’s long strides. As they neared the basket, she shoved the ball from her chest with all her might out in front of Audrey. Audrey caught the ball easily and gently tipped the ball into the net with a graceful leap. She landed with a bounce and gave Jenny a pat on the back as she retrieved the ball. Jenny sighed with relief that she hadn’t messed up with the team’s best player. Audrey Parker wasn’t just the most outspoken of the girls basketball team, she was the tallest, quickest, and best ball handler they had. She was voted ‘Most Athletic’ in the class two years running and probably would again this year. Most of her teammates teased the guys’ team that Audrey could run circles around them, but for the most part it was true. Jenny did her best to stay out of her way lest she make Audrey look bad.

“Okay, circle up!” shouted Coach Bailey. As the girls circled up Nikki came up behind Audrey and popped the ball from her circled arms and ran past with her stolen treasure. Audrey reached out and slapped the air where Nikki’s quick body had been, and Nikki laughed.

“Settle down,” Coach Bailey brought her voice down to a lower level as the thudding of dribbling balls was silenced. “Okay, before we start going through some plays, I have a few changes to make for this week’s game. You girls remember that if your spot changes, it doesn’t mean you played badly last week. Sometimes it’s a matter of chemistry with your teammates.”

Jenny felt the crowd tense up a bit in anticipation. She wasn’t much worried herself. Last week she had been a second string forward, which suited her just fine. She and Molly were together that way. Deep down she knew she shouldn’t care, but it made her feel better not being the only white girl on the court.

“Alright, second-string now will be Hobbs, Roston, Lawrence, McCoy, Deming. Deming I want you at forward again and McCoy at point.” Jenny turned to Molly and they both frowned. Looks like she’d be riding the bench this week.

Bailey was still looking down at her clipboard from which she was reading, as the group began to murmer about the changes. “Now first string. Parker, Evens, Herndon, Green, and Haywood. Haywood you’re on point, Evans we need you at forward.” The group went silent.

Haywood. Jennifer Haywood. Jenny felt a wave go through her body and knew her face was flushing. First string? Starting point-guard? Was she kidding? Jenny knew Molly had turned to look at her but she stared straight ahead, focusing on a point in the folded up bleachers behind Coach Bailey’s head. The sweat on her temples and back clung to her in cold drops. She saw the heads in front of her darting glances behind them to look at her.

“Okay then, let’s get started. I want first string on offense, running our inbounds plays then we’ll switch. Subs on the sidelines, watching closely, I’ll switch you out too.”

The group broke up and moved towards the court. Jenny finally turned towards Molly, who slung the ball into her stomach. Oohmf! Molly winked at her and said, “Glad I’m not you right now, chica. Don’t throw up in front of the team, okay? Wait till later.” She bounded off towards the court to find her spot on defense.

“Haywood, let’s go!” Coach Bailey shouted. Jenny snapped around and jogged towards the baseline to throw in the ball.

Jenny gulped air into her lungs and bent over, her ponytail flopping down and tickling her nose. She felt her quick, hot breath on the sweaty skin just above her knees.

“Okay that was the last sprint today, good work girls.” Coach Bailey ended practice and headed towards her office.

Jenny straightened up and reached out to lean against the wall. Audrey and Y’Eishia had sprawled face up on the polished wood floor of the gym, eyes closed in exhaustion, like homicide victims. Coach had run them hard. Jenny turned towards the water-fountain and changed her mind after seeing the line of girls, each leaning on the back of the one in front of her. Instead she started walking towards the locker room. Inside the paint smell rushed over her and she quickly spun open her locker and the caged metal door creaked open. She started to pack up her bags to leave, hoping to get out before the rest of the team made it back.

“Whooooo!” shouted Nikki, running in from the gym. Crystal and Audrey followed. “Mmm mmm don’t yall just love coach? I just want to run those sprints all day!” Nikki said this with a wide smile and squinted eyes to indicate she was joking.

“Shutup Nikki,” muttered Crystal.

Y’Eishia banged the door open again, and sauntered into the locker room, with most of the team following in after her. Jenny slowed her motions, and focused on her brown imitation Tommy Hilfiger purse which still sat in her locker. She reached and pretended to search for something inside.

“Hey Tara, you say something to make Bailey mad at you last week?” Y’Eishia asked loudly.

Tara Deming was at her locker, two down from Jenny. “No I don’t think so.”

“Wonder why she bumped you then.” Y’Eishia walked slowly back towards her own locker down the aisle, turning once to give a significant look at Jenny.

Crystal shut her locker and shouldered her bag. In a much soft voice she leaned over to Y’Eishia, who was tying her shoe, one knee up on the bench, “Y don’t sweat it, you do your thang this week and coach’ll put you back on a point.” Y’Eishia didn’t answer but stood up and opened her own locker.

On their way out Crystal and Audrey paused by Jenny, “Hey Jen,” said Crystal. She glanced at Audrey whose gaze was turned away from either of them, then turned back, “Don’t let us down on Thursday.”

Audrey’s dark lips were set in a line. “Let’s bounce Crys.” They walked out together, followed by much of the team. Molly walked over to Jenny, who finally closed her locker and shouldered her bags. Molly reached out towards Jenny’s head, pulled and snapped her sweatband back onto her forehead. They walked out of the empty locker room smiling together.

The rest of the week’s practices flew by and suddenly it was Thursday. When Molly placed her PBJ sandwich in front of Jenny at lunch, Jenny shook her head and said she couldn’t. Molly thought about pushing the issue, but instead changed the subject to last night’s episode of One Tree Hill.

“Hey Jenny, how’s it going?” Jenny looked up to the tall form of Mark Hodges, starting guard for the boys team. His short, jet black hair was combed towards his tanned forehead and glistened gel. He held his books propped against his side and smiled down at her. “I hear you’re playin point tonight. Nervous?”

Jenny tried to smile back, “Yeah, I guess.”

“Well, I’ll be there to watch with my boys, so make us proud alright?”

Jenny nodded and mumbled, “yeah” but Hodges had already made his way back towards his buddies. Jenny looked back down at the plastic-sealed sandwich and let her forehead fall to the table, smashing jelly out of the bread.

After school the team had free time until the Northlan team arrived at 5:30. Jenny hadn’t seen Molly, so after changing into uniform she took her copy of The Hobbit and found a darkened spot on the unfurled bleachers to read. The slick jersey slipped against her forearms as she turned the pages to find her place.

She looked up when she heard the loud noise of talking girls come from the other side of the door to outside. Looking at the clock: 5:35! The other team must have arrived. She closed her book, carefully marking her page, and hopped down the bleachers back towards the locker room. Molly was inside.

“Hey, where’ve you been Jen? I wanted to go get a Fanta or something from the machines but I couldn’t find you.” She had her arms folded across her chest inside her jersey. Because it’s chilly in here or to stretch out the material? Jenny wondered.

“I was sitting on the bleachers, didn’t you look in the gym?”

“Oh well, I wasn’t hungry anyway.” Molly said. “You wanna go sit outside or something?”

“Nah, we have to be in here soon anyway, the other team just got here.” Jenny sighed and leaned over, her head between her knees.

Molly sat on the bench beside Jenny. “Hey…want me to do your hair?”

Jenny looked up, “Okay.”

The teams stretched and warmed up as the crowds began to arrive. A stray ball went towards the bleachers and Jenny walked quickly to pick it up. She scanned the crowd and located the faces of her parents. The student section was already packed and she could see Mark Hodges surrounded by the rest of his teammates as well as several pretty girls. She looked back down at the ball in her hands and ran her fingers over the bumpy surface, tracing the black lines. She turned back towards the basket, dribbled towards the bucket. Ten feet out she stopped short, bringing the ball snapping up into her arms. Without thinking her right elbow brought itself in, lining up horizontally, left hand on the side of the ball. Her knees bent and legs exploded off the balls of her feet as her right arm extended forward, all one motion straight up. The ball was gone, but her wrist flopped over in follow-through. She waited the split second as the ball arched towards the goal, hoping for a shot clear of other balls. Amazingly they all cleared and the ball dropped easily through the middle of the bucket, the net curling up nicely after the ball slipped through. I can do this, Jenny chanted to herself.

The buzzer sounded to end the warm-up period. Coach Bailey called the girls over for a quick huddle.

“Alright, let’s play some good basketball, ladies. Start with 2 or 3, look to Haywood for the call down the court. Team on three: one, two, three..”

“TEAM” hooted the girls. The circle broke and the starting five headed to midcourt. Nikki, thumbed around the elastic of her shorts and tucked in her shirt. Jenny saw Audrey take her place for tip-off. She had at least four inches on the girl next to her. Jenny saw her smile sideways at Y’Eishia.

Jenny turned back towards the bench and jogged towards her coach. Bailey looked up from her white-erase clipboard.

“Coach I gotta ask you – “

“What is it Jenny?” she asked sharply.

“Why am I starting?”

“Do you have a problem, Haywood? Plenty of these girls want to get off that bench and play.”

“No, that’s not it. I guess – well, never mind,” she started to turn back to the court.

“Hey,” the couch grabbed her arm and squeezed lightly. “All you gotta do is play ball.” Bailey’s wide eyes zeroed in on Jenny’s, raising her voice to be heard over the crowds. “Run the plays, listen to my calls, and play ball. Go!” She gave Jenny I final pat on the arm and turned towards her seat by the score table.

Jenny turned towards mid-court, both teams looking at her expectantly. A referee held the game ball in his hand, lifted between Audrey and another tall girl. His other arm raised in the air as if to start a race, his whistle held between his lips, his eyes followed Jenny as she found her spot on the other side of Audrey, ready to catch the tip.

The ref blew the whistle and lowered his arm. He bent his knees and slowly lobbed the ball into the air. It floated at the top of its arc and Audrey’s fingers reached skyward.

Jenny heard the loud buzzer signaling the game was through. She stopped dribbling and casually threw the ball towards the nearest ref. The crowd was clapping loudly for the winning team. Jenny was exhausted. She joined the line to brush hands with the opposing team and declare monotone “good game’s” to each player.

Molly came up behind her and squeezed her shoulders as they turned towards the locker room.

“Now that wasn’t so bad was it?” she asked, still squeezing her cold palm to Jenny’s slick shoulder. Jenny didn’t answer, just turned her mouth into a smile for her friend. “I gotta go quick, Mom needs to get home and feed my brothers. See you tomorrow?”

“Yeah, bye Molly.” Jenny waved her arm towards her friend as they parted at the door to the locker room. Inside, most of the girls were talking, but Jenny just tuned them out. Her whole body was sore; all she wanted was a hot shower and some peace and quiet to read. She emptied her locker with jolted movements, tipping items to fall over the edge into her bag sitting on the bench below.

The door to the locker room opened and Coach Bailey walked inside.

“Good game girls, we’ll talk more on Monday. Jenny, I want to see you in my office before you go.” The room got a little quieter, and Jenny slammed shut her locker and walked out of the locker room as quickly as she could, not meeting anyone’s eyes.

Jenny followed Bailey to her office. Inside, she fell into a grey folding chair opposite the coach’s grey desk. Bailey turned and leaned against the desk, looking at Jenny. Jenny didn’t look back. For awhile Bailey didn’t say anything. Finally, Bailey turned and settled herself into her brown desk chair.

“How did you play, Jenny?”

Jenny looked up at the coach and didn’t answer.

“Haywood, you asked me before the game why I put you as a starter. Point guard isn’t all about ball handling; it’s about smarts, seeing the whole court.” Jenny’s body jerked with an incredulous laugh.

“That doesn’t mean you gotta be tall. It means you can see the whole picture, and make good decisions about how to play the ball. You’re the playmaker, you make everyone else look good. And most importantly, the starting guard has to have an ego that lets her listen to the coach.” Bailey leaned forward and placed her arms on her desk.

“Jenny. You played good tonight.” Jenny let her chest rise with a deep breath. “Keep it up; you’re still starting next week. Now go home, see you Monday.”

Jenny stood up and left. Walking slowly back towards the gym she let her soles slide across the floor. She gripped the bag strap cutting into her and lifted it higher on her shoulder. From around the corner she heard a voice.

“Hey, we got these fools next time, right? Come March, we’ll get ‘em when it counts!” Audrey was turning around the corner towards the offices Jenny had just come from. Seeing Jenny, she stopped, letting her bag sway forwards and backwards, hitting her knees. Jenny stopped too, then moved to the side to let her go by so their bags wouldn’t hit.

“Good game, Rip,” said Audrey. Jenny winced.

“Yeah, you too.” Jenny started walking slowly again towards the gym.

“Hey,” Audrey called to her from behind; Jenny turned around. “Their guard was pretty good tonight, huh? And that one other girl, you know she ran me hard too.” Her eyes drifted and she shifted her weight. “You got some hustle, bring it out next game and we’ll see.” Not waiting for answer, Audrey turned and continued on towards Bailey’s office, her lanky legs moseying down the hall.

Jenny turned around again and wobbled with the weight of her bag.