There was a carnival in the SAU today. There were clowns with cowbells walking around. And carnival instruments playing christmas songs. Weird. but also pretty cool!!
So, I've spent the last couple weeks getting into the swing of this quarter, and as a result have not gotten much of anything done on my thesis. Consequence? I am inking EVERYWHERE. Inking being the act of going over each of my drawings with a sharpie. It is a long process, but hopefully will only take half the time it took me to actually draw all these frames (there are over 2,000 of them). oh goodness.
Through a series of recent events, God has provided something that I have been needing (whether or not I've realized it). Isn't that just like Him? Basically, I'm gonna meet with an older girl from church regularly on Sundays :) It's really awesome and we're both really excited to do it!! I haven't gotten very involved in my Church, and don't know that many people there, but I met this girl, Jess, through a small group I did attend last year. Anyways, I'm super psyched about this, I think she'll definitely be an awesome source of wisdom and accountability!
Song of the day: Ten Dead Dogs ~ Wild Sweet Orange. look it up. listen. it's awesome.
There are too many books to read!!!!!!!!!!
Thursday, March 19, 2009
Monday, March 16, 2009
The Shack
I just finished The Shack, by William P. Young. I loved it, and have a very specific opinion about it. I think, however, that this is a read that needs to be undertaken without the preface of others' opinions. Many others had given me their opinion while I was reading it and I found that I had to struggle past my nitpicking nature in order to get anything out of the book. Even the comments on the cover and first few pages bothered me. It's good for a discussion after the fact, though!
So if you've read it, lemme know what you thought sometime.
So, on monday mornings I've taken a babysitting job in Pennfield for a ladies' Bible study. I think it's good for my heart. I'm not the best with little kids, but I adore them. The best feeling ever is when a little one runs to you and gives you a huge hug around the legs until you pick them up and hug 'em tight. There's a one-and-a-half year old named Jacob who LOVES to dance. Whenever he hears any kind of music, he's clammoring to be picked up and bounced around or he just spins in circles and just laughs and laughs... It's one of the highlights of my week.
That I could be the same with my own Heavenly Father!
So if you've read it, lemme know what you thought sometime.
So, on monday mornings I've taken a babysitting job in Pennfield for a ladies' Bible study. I think it's good for my heart. I'm not the best with little kids, but I adore them. The best feeling ever is when a little one runs to you and gives you a huge hug around the legs until you pick them up and hug 'em tight. There's a one-and-a-half year old named Jacob who LOVES to dance. Whenever he hears any kind of music, he's clammoring to be picked up and bounced around or he just spins in circles and just laughs and laughs... It's one of the highlights of my week.
That I could be the same with my own Heavenly Father!
Friday, March 13, 2009
Friday at work...
So, Friday was probably the busiest day at work this whole year, seeing as we're selling for playoff hockey plus about 16 million other events. I'm talkin lines out both windows and the phone ringing constantly on 4 lines at a time.
Our policy when it comes to hockey tickets is one per student. Or, more technically, one per student ID. For some reason, most people find this to be a surprise when we tell them, so we're used to appologizing and suggesting they get their friends' id and bring it to us. When approached by someone asking to buy more than one, I usually start by asking "do you have more than one ID?" just to get that out of the way right at the beginning. People usually don't.
So as one can imagine I was pretty frazzled having spent 5 hours in the box office already when this group of guys comes up and crowds the window outside. The guy in front says, "6 RIT students to tonight's hockey game, please." Expecting the usual exchange, I ask, "Do you have 6 ID's?" He turns to the guys behind him and goes "All right, boys, give her your ID's!" I am then flooded with a wave of IDs being dumped onto the counter for my viewing pleasure. It's all i can do to keep from busting out laughing as I tell them they can take their ID's back. "You can keep THIS one!" Says a guy who has muscled his way to the front, and all they guys laugh at the expense of the owner of the ID he's holding up to the window.
Best moment ever.
So as one can imagine I was pretty frazzled having spent 5 hours in the box office already when this group of guys comes up and crowds the window outside. The guy in front says, "6 RIT students to tonight's hockey game, please." Expecting the usual exchange, I ask, "Do you have 6 ID's?" He turns to the guys behind him and goes "All right, boys, give her your ID's!" I am then flooded with a wave of IDs being dumped onto the counter for my viewing pleasure. It's all i can do to keep from busting out laughing as I tell them they can take their ID's back. "You can keep THIS one!" Says a guy who has muscled his way to the front, and all they guys laugh at the expense of the owner of the ID he's holding up to the window.
Best moment ever.
Matthew 6: 24-25
No one can serve two masters. Either he will hate the one and love the other, or he will be devoted to the one and despise the other. You cannot serve both God and Money. Therefore I tell you, do not worry about your life, what you will eat or drink; or about your body, what you will wear. Is not life more important than food, and the body more important than clothes?
Thursday, March 12, 2009
Why I am "Pro-US Military"
allrighty. The facts are these: I have a brother in the U.S. Navy. I have been involved with in-depth discussions about the psychology of a U.S. soldier during wartime, although I am no psychologist myself. I'm not talking about war in general, just the U.S. armed forces in general.
Last quarter I took a class -- Visual Anthropology. Virtually everyone in the class was a photo or film/animation major, so we had a lot of liberal opinions, a few conservative ones, and a few wacky ones, as per any class populated by mostly art majors. When the topic of joining the army came up, (looking at advertisements for the various branches of the military), the class was mostly united in crying brainwash, entrapment, deciept, falsification, and pretty much everything else that usually accompanies American marketing strategies. This, of course, sparked a discussion about recruitment techniques, which led to a conversation about conscription, free will, and the questioning of whether there should be recruitment for the military at all. Frankly, those couple days that we talked about these things I left the class feeling really discouraged. I'll tell you why:
I looked around at the people in my class, and at myself, and wondered what any of us has really ever had to sacrifice. How many times have we placed ourselves completely and utterly at someone else's service? How many times have we griped and complained about the obedience and respect we owe to our teachers or parents, sometimes disregarding our duty in that sense alltogether? When was the last time we disciplined ourselves to the point of depriving our flesh of something it craves in order to better an aspect of our own life? When was the last time we fought for something with everything we had inside of us... something completely apart from our own ambitions and desires? And when was the last time we genuinely thanked those who provide for us to live in the country with one of the highest standards of living in the world? *note: we were number 12 in 2008!
Convicted: check.
The principles that I saw both in the ads for the military (like the ones that accompany most movies in the theatre these days) and in the recruitment of my brother to the Navy (although he did most of the searching and research himself) were obedience, humility, service, and basically living through what is admittedly a horrific experience for a purpose larger than yourself. This was backed up by my brother's experience with boot camp. First off, boot camp for any branch of the military is horrible. The recruits are dehumanized, screamed at, held accountable for the actions of almost complete strangers, and deprived of sleep. Very quickly, they learn to stick together and unite underneath their drill seargent and do EXACTLY as their told. They're forced into a state of being that almost no one in their right minds would place themselves. They trust their lives and their health to people they've never met, regardless of their reasons for enlisting. They hold each other up and accountable. My brother was in charge of making sure his division could meet their academic requirements. He quizzed them on protocol to prepare them for their tests. Just one example.
My point here is that military training does more than provide the manpower to run the United States' War effort. I'm not trying to belittle the horrors of war and the mental, physical, and emotional scarring that results from battle. But if anyone I knew were seriously considering joining up, I'd be all for it. I believe that the men and women in our military are some of the most self-sacrificing and admirable individuals in our country, and the principles that go into their training would serve most in our generation incredibly well.
Last quarter I took a class -- Visual Anthropology. Virtually everyone in the class was a photo or film/animation major, so we had a lot of liberal opinions, a few conservative ones, and a few wacky ones, as per any class populated by mostly art majors. When the topic of joining the army came up, (looking at advertisements for the various branches of the military), the class was mostly united in crying brainwash, entrapment, deciept, falsification, and pretty much everything else that usually accompanies American marketing strategies. This, of course, sparked a discussion about recruitment techniques, which led to a conversation about conscription, free will, and the questioning of whether there should be recruitment for the military at all. Frankly, those couple days that we talked about these things I left the class feeling really discouraged. I'll tell you why:
I looked around at the people in my class, and at myself, and wondered what any of us has really ever had to sacrifice. How many times have we placed ourselves completely and utterly at someone else's service? How many times have we griped and complained about the obedience and respect we owe to our teachers or parents, sometimes disregarding our duty in that sense alltogether? When was the last time we disciplined ourselves to the point of depriving our flesh of something it craves in order to better an aspect of our own life? When was the last time we fought for something with everything we had inside of us... something completely apart from our own ambitions and desires? And when was the last time we genuinely thanked those who provide for us to live in the country with one of the highest standards of living in the world? *note: we were number 12 in 2008!
Convicted: check.
The principles that I saw both in the ads for the military (like the ones that accompany most movies in the theatre these days) and in the recruitment of my brother to the Navy (although he did most of the searching and research himself) were obedience, humility, service, and basically living through what is admittedly a horrific experience for a purpose larger than yourself. This was backed up by my brother's experience with boot camp. First off, boot camp for any branch of the military is horrible. The recruits are dehumanized, screamed at, held accountable for the actions of almost complete strangers, and deprived of sleep. Very quickly, they learn to stick together and unite underneath their drill seargent and do EXACTLY as their told. They're forced into a state of being that almost no one in their right minds would place themselves. They trust their lives and their health to people they've never met, regardless of their reasons for enlisting. They hold each other up and accountable. My brother was in charge of making sure his division could meet their academic requirements. He quizzed them on protocol to prepare them for their tests. Just one example.
My point here is that military training does more than provide the manpower to run the United States' War effort. I'm not trying to belittle the horrors of war and the mental, physical, and emotional scarring that results from battle. But if anyone I knew were seriously considering joining up, I'd be all for it. I believe that the men and women in our military are some of the most self-sacrificing and admirable individuals in our country, and the principles that go into their training would serve most in our generation incredibly well.
Monday, March 9, 2009
"Debt" or "Job searching at home, part 1"
Ahh, the job search. I decided i'd be a good little college student and throw myself into it over spring break. I had a few prospects going in, not to mention what I thought was a pretty solid backup plan just in case. Well, truth be told, prospects meant places I had thought about once or twice right before falling asleep at night in a sort of "wouldn't it be cool..." sort of vein. I also thought that googling "Christian Animation Studios" would provide me with all sorts of options. It doesn't. Try it. And while I went into the process believing that the whole world was open for options, I hit mid-week feeling discouraged, hopeless, and resigned to living with my parents for a very long time. There was definitely a low point, where I just couldn't understand how so much debt could be so big of an obstacle to a future which I had committed wholly to the Lord. I couldn't understand why I couldn't just pick up and move on a whim to a prospective town where I'd be perfectly happy to wait tables or something if a studio job wasn't available. I mean, if that's what God is leading me to do, there's nothing that can stop me! I must be free to follow the Holy Spirit wherever he leads, living off of just what I need for the day, doing the Lord's work. I get so frustrated with the attitude that after college, you need to get a job doing work in your field of study, make enough money to secure your future, and focus on what you need for yourself. You know, the overly-pragmatic, "depend on YOU!" attitude. If I have a solid job offer in my field, living at home, and making tons of money, the world says I'm crazy if I want to wait tables in Colorado!
So, I did what any frustrated college girl does when faced with a tough road. I asked my Daddy.
I knew he had a colorful life after high school. He smuggled Bibles into communist European countries for a while, traveled back and forth between Europe and the states a few times, freeloaded off of friends' family, lived basically how I would like to live my years of "freedom" after graduating. Turns out he has a pretty amazing story when it comes to trusting in the Lord to provide. But as he was relating this to me, he made one thing clear throughout the whole thing. While he maybe didn't know how he was going to support himself day to day at times, he did not have any debt. I started to learn about the Lord's provision. My Dad had a Christian mentor who took him in like a son and sponsored him through work right after high school, the Bible smuggling, and even Bible College, to an extent.
I started to learn about the difference between worldly wisdom and common sense. Open up the Bible randomly to Proverbs and you will probably find the subjects folly and money talked about quite frequently. A lot of the times in the same verse. And God really started to show me how serving and following his will can really look. I was getting upset because I'm anxious to serve the Lord in a capacity that I cannot fulfill yet. Having tons of debt feels like a stone weighing down every move and hindering the freedom that I KNOW I have in Christ, when it should look like a tool God could be using to teach me a lot about responsibility, seeking Him, and waiting. Not to mention all that could change while I'm paying things off, and how much I can witness the Lord provide with all these gobs of cash that need provided for!
So, at the end of this, the firm back up plan isn't so firm, Christian animation studios are virtually nowhere to be found (I have one on my list of prospects. Not even Adventures in Odyssey is animated by a Christian studio.), and I have to actively tell myself each and every day that I'm not in control of my own destiny, as the world would tell me. That is one piece of worldly wisdom that absolutely MUST be discarded before moving forward with any of this. Seeking hard after the Lord is all I can do, and this mountain of debt is much better placed at His feet than on my mind in worry.
So, I did what any frustrated college girl does when faced with a tough road. I asked my Daddy.
I knew he had a colorful life after high school. He smuggled Bibles into communist European countries for a while, traveled back and forth between Europe and the states a few times, freeloaded off of friends' family, lived basically how I would like to live my years of "freedom" after graduating. Turns out he has a pretty amazing story when it comes to trusting in the Lord to provide. But as he was relating this to me, he made one thing clear throughout the whole thing. While he maybe didn't know how he was going to support himself day to day at times, he did not have any debt. I started to learn about the Lord's provision. My Dad had a Christian mentor who took him in like a son and sponsored him through work right after high school, the Bible smuggling, and even Bible College, to an extent.
I started to learn about the difference between worldly wisdom and common sense. Open up the Bible randomly to Proverbs and you will probably find the subjects folly and money talked about quite frequently. A lot of the times in the same verse. And God really started to show me how serving and following his will can really look. I was getting upset because I'm anxious to serve the Lord in a capacity that I cannot fulfill yet. Having tons of debt feels like a stone weighing down every move and hindering the freedom that I KNOW I have in Christ, when it should look like a tool God could be using to teach me a lot about responsibility, seeking Him, and waiting. Not to mention all that could change while I'm paying things off, and how much I can witness the Lord provide with all these gobs of cash that need provided for!
So, at the end of this, the firm back up plan isn't so firm, Christian animation studios are virtually nowhere to be found (I have one on my list of prospects. Not even Adventures in Odyssey is animated by a Christian studio.), and I have to actively tell myself each and every day that I'm not in control of my own destiny, as the world would tell me. That is one piece of worldly wisdom that absolutely MUST be discarded before moving forward with any of this. Seeking hard after the Lord is all I can do, and this mountain of debt is much better placed at His feet than on my mind in worry.
Sunday, March 8, 2009
So, I just got back from break and there's a few things I'm itching to write about. So later on this week I hope to find time to put bodies to these subjects:
I believe that Art is objective.
Why I'm "Pro-U.S. military"
Shucking off worldly wisdom and "the norm" (with regards to future plans) in the shadow of debt/God's will in the face of debt
What I've observed of Middle-class christian complacency (with regards to a bunch of issues)
Also, I hit a possum on the highway today. It was my first kill.
I believe that Art is objective.
Why I'm "Pro-U.S. military"
Shucking off worldly wisdom and "the norm" (with regards to future plans) in the shadow of debt/God's will in the face of debt
What I've observed of Middle-class christian complacency (with regards to a bunch of issues)
Also, I hit a possum on the highway today. It was my first kill.
Thursday, March 5, 2009
New Beginnings?
I love God. God made creativity. Creativity begets art. I love art. Art is a part of my life.
In essence, it's time to get a big-person's blog. Job searching and soul searching this week has been rough and eye opening, to say the least.
I'm so glad God's in charge and not me!
In essence, it's time to get a big-person's blog. Job searching and soul searching this week has been rough and eye opening, to say the least.
I'm so glad God's in charge and not me!
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