perhaps my post yesterday seemed overly depressing. i was just mulling things over that have concerned me lately. it's not that i'm giving up on old friendships. i do treasure the ones that i have, even people that i haven't seen in forever. you can't go through life alone, you know? in fact, i'd go so far as to say that friends are really what i am most excited about in my life. which sounds incredibly cheesy, and who would really disagree with me anyway on that statement?
it just gets messy and hard sometimes. and you sometimes wonder if you have to continue in friendship when it's like that. sometimes it's good to stay in it an work it out and sometimes it's better to bail (or more accurately, there isn't really anything left of the relationship). the horns of a dilemma. and sometimes, friendship is more beautiful and amazing and easy. i just gotta scratch my head over the great variety, nuance and complexity in human interactions. we are strange creatures.
my reading break is almost over. i seem to have lost the motivation i had before i went home. so much for staying on top of things. i am ridden with guilt. well, kind of ridden. maybe half-ridden. at least i've been having fun.
today i played ultimate frisbee. i'm on an intramural team. fun times. sometimes it's just good to get outside, run around and break a sweat.
Saturday, February 26, 2005
Friday, February 25, 2005
vacation lag
back in canada. strangely, it is sunnier here than it was in california. it rained half the time i was there, to my mild disappointment. somehow it is still brighter there when it's raining than when it is raining here. i don't get it.
after my late night writing the book review, i did very little school work. at first i felt guilty but then gave up on that and decided to just enjoy being home. enjoying myself at home involves hanging out with friends and a lot of eating. i just get so excited to eat at my old haunts and if the meal is with an old friend, so much the better. there's always the tension of wanting to have quality time with friends and overplanning and overextending myself. it's hard because there are a lot of people that i love dearly and it's just not humanly possible to see all of them. i'm lucky, in a way, to have so many friends.
another difficulty i have been considering lately is just how to maintain friendships over time. i have enough trouble keeping track of my friends here and i live in the same city as them and share the same small (1 building campus). we'll run into each other sooner or later, you know? not so with friends who are farther away.
when you take into account how we all are constantly changing and growing, relationships will be changing and growing. being with a friend that you feel comfortable around - it may not always be this way. my analogy right now is that we change, like computer software versions (i hate that i'm drawing this connection with computers but roll with it), 2.0, 3.0, and so on. and if we haven't talked in a while, we think we're still dealling with friend 2.0, when they're really version 8.0. weirdness ensues. i think this happens all the time, even to married people who see each other everyday. what the heck do you do with that? sometimes i think human interactions are amazingly simple and then amazingly complex at the same time. and it is where we experience grace and love and mercy.
after my late night writing the book review, i did very little school work. at first i felt guilty but then gave up on that and decided to just enjoy being home. enjoying myself at home involves hanging out with friends and a lot of eating. i just get so excited to eat at my old haunts and if the meal is with an old friend, so much the better. there's always the tension of wanting to have quality time with friends and overplanning and overextending myself. it's hard because there are a lot of people that i love dearly and it's just not humanly possible to see all of them. i'm lucky, in a way, to have so many friends.
another difficulty i have been considering lately is just how to maintain friendships over time. i have enough trouble keeping track of my friends here and i live in the same city as them and share the same small (1 building campus). we'll run into each other sooner or later, you know? not so with friends who are farther away.
when you take into account how we all are constantly changing and growing, relationships will be changing and growing. being with a friend that you feel comfortable around - it may not always be this way. my analogy right now is that we change, like computer software versions (i hate that i'm drawing this connection with computers but roll with it), 2.0, 3.0, and so on. and if we haven't talked in a while, we think we're still dealling with friend 2.0, when they're really version 8.0. weirdness ensues. i think this happens all the time, even to married people who see each other everyday. what the heck do you do with that? sometimes i think human interactions are amazingly simple and then amazingly complex at the same time. and it is where we experience grace and love and mercy.
Friday, February 18, 2005
efficiency - who needs it?
home in california. just finished a short book review for my historical roots of evangelical spirituality class. a bit delerious now, but i thought i'd let you in on my creative process...
7:30 sit down at computer
7:30-8:30 check email, surf web, chat with friends
8:30-9 begin to write paper, while watching "she's all that on the tv behind me (tricky, but it can be done)
9-9:15 celebrate writing 2 paragraphs by polishing off the last of the chocolate malted crunch ice cream i found in the fridge (the joy of being home and with a fully stocked fridge)
9:15-10 write while channel surfing
10-10:30 the simpsons
10:30-11 more channel surfing (i don't have a tv at school, this is quite exciting, it's like i'm amish and have come to the big city)
11-1 begin writing in earnest
1 brother comes home
1:15 brother and i eat a tombstone pizza
2:15 finish paper while listening to the garden state soundtrack, email paper to friend to turn in at school for me
3 wonder why i'm still up and feeling faintly gross at eating a pepperoni pizza now
good to be home. raining though. but much warmer than vancouver.
burrito count: 1, immediately after getting picked up from the airport. cactus taqueria in the SF castro district, bitchin' salsa
7:30 sit down at computer
7:30-8:30 check email, surf web, chat with friends
8:30-9 begin to write paper, while watching "she's all that on the tv behind me (tricky, but it can be done)
9-9:15 celebrate writing 2 paragraphs by polishing off the last of the chocolate malted crunch ice cream i found in the fridge (the joy of being home and with a fully stocked fridge)
9:15-10 write while channel surfing
10-10:30 the simpsons
10:30-11 more channel surfing (i don't have a tv at school, this is quite exciting, it's like i'm amish and have come to the big city)
11-1 begin writing in earnest
1 brother comes home
1:15 brother and i eat a tombstone pizza
2:15 finish paper while listening to the garden state soundtrack, email paper to friend to turn in at school for me
3 wonder why i'm still up and feeling faintly gross at eating a pepperoni pizza now
good to be home. raining though. but much warmer than vancouver.
burrito count: 1, immediately after getting picked up from the airport. cactus taqueria in the SF castro district, bitchin' salsa
Wednesday, February 16, 2005
procrastination
check this out:
http://gangstaname.com/pirate_name.php
i know there are lots more different name generators out there. but i just ran across this one and it has a few different genres. there's significant other pet names too, but what's the point of that if you don't have a significant other to do that for you in the first place? also there's taxi driver, but i decided that it was a bit racist and ignorant. the mafia one kind of bites.
anyway, here are my results:
pirate name - Ambiguous Joan Blythe
gangsta name - Secret Bitch Ass
this one made me and my friend sara laugh really hard. the hell? this is the worst gangsta name i have ever heard. i would be the one that would get beat up by all the other gangstas.
okay, i will now go write a book review concerning the rise of evangelicalism. i love the different facets of my life.
http://gangstaname.com/pirate_name.php
i know there are lots more different name generators out there. but i just ran across this one and it has a few different genres. there's significant other pet names too, but what's the point of that if you don't have a significant other to do that for you in the first place? also there's taxi driver, but i decided that it was a bit racist and ignorant. the mafia one kind of bites.
anyway, here are my results:
pirate name - Ambiguous Joan Blythe
gangsta name - Secret Bitch Ass
this one made me and my friend sara laugh really hard. the hell? this is the worst gangsta name i have ever heard. i would be the one that would get beat up by all the other gangstas.
okay, i will now go write a book review concerning the rise of evangelicalism. i love the different facets of my life.
Tuesday, February 15, 2005
sunshiney days
it's weird to be so emotionally ruled by the weather. it's been sunny for the past week and a half and i am happy to be alive. of course it's also frickin' cold, but i'll take that to be able to see that things are not shaded grey or shrouded in half-darkness. spring is coming, i can feel it.
have lots to do before i take off for home on thursday, but blogging just seemed like an appropriate way to be in denial of my workload. rough outline for a research paper - not a hard thing to do, but hard to get organize my thoughts. and also a book review - which will be easy enough when i get around to it. ugh.
on other levels... been considering the impassible/unchanging nature of God. we accept this to be true on some level i think, yet what to do with the fact that he became incarnate and also is eternally branded by the scars he suffered to save us? did he change? my profs say yes, knowing that this is somewhat heretical to say. i think i agree with them. fascinating.
have lots to do before i take off for home on thursday, but blogging just seemed like an appropriate way to be in denial of my workload. rough outline for a research paper - not a hard thing to do, but hard to get organize my thoughts. and also a book review - which will be easy enough when i get around to it. ugh.
on other levels... been considering the impassible/unchanging nature of God. we accept this to be true on some level i think, yet what to do with the fact that he became incarnate and also is eternally branded by the scars he suffered to save us? did he change? my profs say yes, knowing that this is somewhat heretical to say. i think i agree with them. fascinating.
Saturday, February 12, 2005
some witty title that i can't come up with right now because my brain is full
in less than a week i will be home for a friend's wedding and hanging out a little bit. and eating burritos. tacos. cuisine of the mexican variety.
the other night i went to a mexican food place for this same friend who is getting married because it was her birthday (she's having a big month). it was so so. they only gave the first round of chips and salsa for free. if you wanted more, they'd charge you. unbelievable.
in the library to do some research. reading lots of good stuff about the church (for my class called "re-evangelization of the first world church" or something like that - i prefer to call it em-powering the church for world domination"). we're examining how church is done these days, and the identity of the church (which is in crisis, but then again we're always in crisis. my prof said, "we're always living in the best of times and the worst of times.").
the other class i am doing tons of reading for is "historical roots of evangelical spirituality." that's a long name too, for which i have not come up with a witty nickname. the two classes are overlapping nicely with each other. been reading a lot of john wesley, george whitefield and this week it's jonathan edwards. they were really church fathers for the evangelical church in north america, in many good ways, and it appears in dysfunctional ways. just like biological parents.
i want my new ibook. this person i am dealing with now in apple customer relations is kind of an ass. not outrightly so, because then i could confront him and do an outraged customer thing, but more in a sly, i know more than you about this auto-mechanic kind of way. i realize now how attached i am to technology, and it somewhat disturbs me.
well... off to research stuff. i've been in grad school for 5 semesters now and still feel like i'm wandering around the library without really knowing what to do.
the other night i went to a mexican food place for this same friend who is getting married because it was her birthday (she's having a big month). it was so so. they only gave the first round of chips and salsa for free. if you wanted more, they'd charge you. unbelievable.
in the library to do some research. reading lots of good stuff about the church (for my class called "re-evangelization of the first world church" or something like that - i prefer to call it em-powering the church for world domination"). we're examining how church is done these days, and the identity of the church (which is in crisis, but then again we're always in crisis. my prof said, "we're always living in the best of times and the worst of times.").
the other class i am doing tons of reading for is "historical roots of evangelical spirituality." that's a long name too, for which i have not come up with a witty nickname. the two classes are overlapping nicely with each other. been reading a lot of john wesley, george whitefield and this week it's jonathan edwards. they were really church fathers for the evangelical church in north america, in many good ways, and it appears in dysfunctional ways. just like biological parents.
i want my new ibook. this person i am dealing with now in apple customer relations is kind of an ass. not outrightly so, because then i could confront him and do an outraged customer thing, but more in a sly, i know more than you about this auto-mechanic kind of way. i realize now how attached i am to technology, and it somewhat disturbs me.
well... off to research stuff. i've been in grad school for 5 semesters now and still feel like i'm wandering around the library without really knowing what to do.
Saturday, February 05, 2005
new ibook
haven't posted in a while because my old ibook has broken down again. i called apple and complained because this is the 4th time that my logic board has given me problems. they were very helpful and are replacing my ibook G3 with a new ibook G4 that baby on the right there. for free. nice.
it's a pretty sweet deal, i get a major upgrade in computer quality. hopefully, they'll get it to me soon. it puts a bit of a crimp in my studies, and my emailing and posting and general procrastination.
entering the fifth week of our twelve-week semester. time is flying by. so much good information to absorb and sift through. will post some of these thoughts soon.
it is sunny here today! i'd forgotten how blue the sky is.
it's a pretty sweet deal, i get a major upgrade in computer quality. hopefully, they'll get it to me soon. it puts a bit of a crimp in my studies, and my emailing and posting and general procrastination.
entering the fifth week of our twelve-week semester. time is flying by. so much good information to absorb and sift through. will post some of these thoughts soon.
it is sunny here today! i'd forgotten how blue the sky is.
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