Holidailies Day 15: My Heart

Well, first off, I feel sorta bad because I finally missed a day. And it was totally a procrastination + last minute plans happening thing, so I can't even complain. I went to my friend's place after church and ate awesome food, had awesome conversation at a level that I don't get very often outside of an academic setting and it was wonderful. Plus we read some poetry, and I revisited that time my senior year in college when I wrote that one thing that I was told to never change, just submit to get published. Which was pretty much the highlight of all four years at school. It was an awesome night, even if I got home so late I that got minimal amounts of sleep before church this morning.

Anyways, between yesterday hanging out with friends from Jessup and today hanging out with friends from church, I feel like I came back to life a little bit after falling apart last week and isolating as I'm wont to do. I was thinking that a huge part of my struggle is losing sight of what it really is that motivates me. What my heart is, and really has always been, those convictions that push me forward. I can talk about them all day long, but if I'm still not connected to them, I lose myself. And it's a really unhappy place to be.

So this is more of an exercise as I feel out what my heart is for certain situations, a way to get me back on track. I felt like I should blog about it, because that way it's all in one place and I can have a place to refer people when they ask. Here goes:

My heart is to love, first and foremost. And as a part of that, to not control. In my experience people trying to control others around them never ends well. I'm trying to break myself of that tendency as a result.

My heart is to help people discover who they are. And help them be the best they can be.

My heart is to empower people, by not being afraid to tell them the hard truths that you need to hear to have a full picture of the world. And by encouraging them to think for themselves, to discover what it is they need to know to be fully present in the world.

My heart is to bring light to darkness. It's why I love words so much. There's so much power in them, to bring light to dark corners of our life. It's a heady sword to wield, and it can be used for so much ill in the wrong hands. But...

My heart is to develop my craft so that I become the right hands.

My heart is to be courageous about what I write and say.

My heart is to teach, not just English or writing, but anything I can wrap my mind around. Even if I just learned it the day before and I'm learning more as I go along.

My heart is to be able to bless people everyday, financially or otherwise.

My heart is to be the best version of myself, the version that I know Jesus sees when He looks at me.


I think that's all for now. There are other things, but I'm drawing blanks and I still have many chores that have been pushed aside for the sake of having a social life. Tomorrow sets off a week of holiday insanity and trying to pick up everything that got dropped last week. Lord willing, I'll be able to convince my brain to shut itself down BEFORE midnight to prepare for such things. Here's hoping.

Holidailies Day 13: Yikes!

Well, I almost missed today. Almost. Hazards of evening activities coming up last minute when one has been putting off doing things. But it was fun! And tomorrow, there will be a real post, almost certainly!

In the meantime, for your viewing pleasure, David Tennant and Catherine Tate. Because I was reminded of this sketch tonight.

This has got to be my favorite of this pair outside of Doctor Who. One, because Catherine Tate is stunning. Two because David Tennant's Scottish accent. OH MY GOSH HIS ACCENT.

Anyways, I'm going to sleep or some such thing now. Tomorrow, a post. That's longer than this. I promise.

Holidailies Day 12: ?

Today is one of those blank days. When motivation is missing, and inspiration for blogging is fairly non-existent. So I'm more doing this because I don't want to let a day go by without putting in my daily words. Because I'm trying to keep up some semblance of discipline, even in the midst of blah days (I even did the dishes, the most hated of household chores, AND got dressed before 3 pm). And also, I told myself that I couldn't play any games of any sort or watch a movie or whatever I choose to do for the rest of the night until such a time as I blogged. So here I am! Yay! Talking about a number of things that are interesting to me currently.

I decided in my job search that I would try to go back to Craigslist. And then, I realized why I had stayed away from Craigslist for so long. Because it sucks. And the format is so un-inspiring, it actually sucks inspiration away that you had before you started looking on there. It's an inspiration vacuum. Maybe that's why it took me so long to get around to this blog... because Craigslist... Plus I run into the "entry-level position" that wants 3 years of experience everywhere there. I just stare at the pages and say, "you keep using those words. I do not think they mean what you think they mean." Or using job titles that make you think that they could be something pretty ground level... like "in training" and then they want you to have significant amounts of training before training. Or my favorite, childcare positions that require you to have 6 units of ECE classes. Because 15 years of working with kids, plus a Developmental Psych course (doesn't count as ECE), and you know, common sense doesn't qualify me enough. Argh.

Okay, job search rant over. It's just frustrating when there are "so many jobs" but it seems like I only qualify for 1 out of 20, and then half of those I'm "overqualified" for. And all the time the deadline for being employed or else drifts closer and closer. Not so fun. Very not fun in fact.

And... I don't even know what else to write about. That's been the main thing on my mind all day. Which is probably why I'm already mentally exhausted and ready to do anything but think about life. This is when those obsessive tendencies that lead me to getting so into fandoms work against me... Hopefully tomorrow will be a more hopeful day. Until then, have a better day than I did!

Holidailies Day 11: Ten Books

Well, I mean to do this yesterday, but my plans got hijacked by the Facebook post I ended up writing about. It's okay though. I'm not complaining. It was fun. And this will also be fun.

Over at the blog of the guy who invented Holidailies, Richard AKA Underpope (also one of the fabulous Municipal Liaisons for the Sacramento NaNo region) I found this post with one of those wonderful internet surveys that I used to eat up when I was in Jr. High/High School. It used to be passed by email, and then Facebook became a thing, and so it came to this. This one is thankfully less banal than the ones of yesteryear, otherwise I wouldn't subject people to it.

So here it is. The challenge is to list ten books that changed your life. The challenging part, at least for most people who are avid readers, is narrowing it down to only ten. Technically, I'm supposed to tag a bunch of people but I'm going to forgo that for this: If you want to have fun and be a cool person, you should do this. If not, you're still cool you just probably won't have fun with this. And now, without further adieu, I proudly present, in no particular order of importance... My Ten Books That Changed My Life:

1. Animorphes #1: The Invasion - K.A. Applegate wrote this amazing series of urban sci-fi books that really opened my eyes to a whole other genre when I started reading them at age 10, after years of Babysitter's Club and other more mainstream kid's lit. For the first time it wasn't just normal kids doing fairly normal things and dramatizing them. It was normal kids in a normal world (unlike the fantastical worlds of fairy tales or Narnia) being thrust into extraordinary circumstances and becoming extraordinary to match them. It gave me a whole new area of reading to explore, one where anything fantastical could happen.
2. The Lord of the Rings - J.R.R. Tolkien is a master. My friend used to call him an insane genius, because he had to be both to create an entire world with histories and languages and every detail you could ever hope. I tend to agree, because WOW. Now, I do have a confession to make: I saw the Fellowship of the Ring movie before I read these books. However, I did read all three of the books, multiple times before Two Towers came out, so I feel that makes up for it. I don't even know what to say about these books other than they enchanted me, and continue to enchant me. I recently listened to all three of them in full on my iPod while driving for about two months straight. I would occasionally get so giddy over how brilliant they were that I would giggle and then be very glad that I was alone in my car. They're just that good.
3. The Chronicles of Narnia - C.S. Lewis became a part of my childhood when my father read the Chronicles to me slowly, but surely, before bed each night that he was home. Since then I've read all of them myself countless times, but those first readings still stick with me.
4. Alanna: The First Adventure - Tamora Pierce drew me in with one simple fact: Her heroine had my name, and more importantly SHE SPELLED IT CORRECTLY. When I was 14 and had rarely come across someone who could spell my name right on the first go, I was quite impressed and determined to read such a book. Add to that the fact that she was a ginger (something I've always longed to be), had purple eyes (one of my favorite colors), and was not content to be shoved into a girl's rightful place in a Medieval society, and I was hooked. I have a tendency to read through books that I get into in days, and to this day 10 years later, I can still blast through a Tamora Pierce quartet in a day or two. And still be astounded by how much I love them after so long. I DEVOURED her books when I first discovered they existed, and then made it a point to own all of them so that I wouldn't have to depend on the library whenever the fancy struck me. In fact, I just finished re-reading Bloodhound, the second of the Beka Cooper trilogy, which is definitely high on the list of my favorites though I still cannot find any heroine that I love more than Alianne, Alanna's daughter.
5. The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy - Douglas Adams sparked in me a massive love for off the wall, extremely dry humor. Or maybe more helped me figure out that this was really where my sense of humor was meant to be. This book (and the rest of the 5 book trilogy) had me laughing so hard I cried 99% of the time. And it was my inspiration for my first NaNo novel, and one of my favorite short stories that I've ever written, which definitely guarantees it a spot on this list.
6. Many Waters - Madeline L'Engle wrote many books that sat me flat on my butt in absolute awe. A Ring of Endless Light and A Swiftly Tilting Planet were in hot competition with this one, but Many Waters won out because of it's focus on something slightly less metaphysical, at least for me. The metaphysical is more mind-boggling. The retake on the story of Noah, on the other hand, took something that I knew from the cradle practically, and reshaped it into a story that seemed like it could have actually happened. Not that the original Bible story was unrealistic, but it did leave out a lot of details. Details that L'Engle filled in with such incredible skill that it became one of my favorite of all of her books.
7. Dreamland - Let me just preface this by saying I wrote my senior paper for my BA in English on Sarah Dessen, so I could (literally) go on for pages about any one of her books. They've been constant companions since I was 13, and like Tamora Pierce, I can re-read any of them at any time and find solace. But Dreamland is different from all the others. Dreamland actually really annoyed me the first time I read it. Actually, scratch that: it pissed me off. I wasn't expecting the emotional wrench that it threw into the works, and I swore never to read it again until I did my paper. It was then that I reread it, dreading it, and ended up falling in love. Because at the core, even with all the horrible scenes (especially the scene at the very end that makes me cry EVERY TIME), it's a book about identity and what to do when your identity is caught up in so many other people that you don't even know who you are anymore. And then how you deal with it when you finally see yourself and realize that you hate what you see. The end of the book, where Caitlin is finally herself and is okay with herself is the best redemptive ending of any of Dessen's stories, even if it is more subtle than the others. 
8. Virgins - The effect that this Caryl Rivers book had on my life when I first read it in high school is a little difficult to quantify. Despite never getting up to any of the hijinks that they did, I identified with the characters and their stories and their experiences growing up in a hyper-conservative religious culture. I recently re-read both this book, and the sequel Girls Forever Brave and True, and I think more than anything what it fostered in me was the idea that writing could be my out. My way of making my voice heard. And that as a woman, I could be a powerful person, changing the face of the world.
9. Harry Potter - I got the first book of this series when I was 11. My grandmother bought it for me while I was staying at their house in Lake Almanor that summer, and in the week that we both had it there, we both read it at least 3 times, trading it back and forth. It was that enchanting. It wasn't until I got home and my mother freaked out that I found out that there was a huge fuss happening over the books in the Church. Which didn't stop me from going to the library over the next few years and reading the rest of the books on the sly until I was 16 and finally convinced my parents that I wasn't going to become a witch as a result of reading the books. I could write a whole post about why I read them (and might at some point this month). But aside from that, I was of the generation of kids who more or less grew up with these characters. The way they were released, I was the same age as the characters all the way up until the seventh book when I was just a year older than them. It's one of those things that becomes part of your life. Funny story, I'm currently wearing a Gryffindor shirt that my dad picked up from a thrift store. 
10. The Bible - I would be remiss if I didn't include this on a list, because as cliche as it might sound, for me The Bible has been both the most constant and the single most life-changing book I've ever read. So much of my personal history is caught up in it, not just because I was raised with the desire and goal to know it better than I know myself. But I can tell you, having read through it cover to cover multiple times, that there is never a lack of new information, new revelations to be found. Or old revelations that needed to be re-found. It's a remarkable piece of literature, aside from it's sacred nature, and then because of it. 

Phew. That was a little longer than I expected. Though I don't know why I expected I could be concise about BOOKS and my favorite books no less. Oh well. Now I'm going to go... well, eat lunch and probably read. Because again, books. My favorites.

Holidailies Day 10: Living In A Fantasy World

I was derping about the interwebs today, just scrolling through my Facebook feed and I came across a post that caught my attention. It was a post from one of the admins of a page that I've been following for months now, that posts some great material on Fantasy/Sci-Fi fandoms. The post was as follows:

"'I just read yet another article about how games, especially fantasy MMORPGs and RPGs are making kids worship Satan and fake gods, as well as become latent homosexuals. 
Oh yeah, I had forgotten I was a lesbian as a result of playing such games. Lol, silly me.'

I posted this on my personal account just moments ago and: 

a) I'm not actually gay. That was sarcasm, huehuehue.
b) This is completely and utterly wrong.

Sexuality is not a choice and yes, games may influence some aspects of a person's life, but it sure isn't forcing kids into worshipping a certain deities.
It was a religious man who wrote this. A religious man who says that fantasy is the seed of evil that should not be allowed to grow.

I just can't even breathe right now. I am so mad."

Now let's just let that take a minute to let that sink in. Fantasy games, like World of Warcraft and Skyrim (MMORPG and RPG respectively), are making (MAKING) kids worship Satan. Oh, and become latent homosexuals. Which actually doesn't make sense to me. Wouldn't it be making kids act homosexual? As in an active participation in homosexual practices? That's not what latent means. It could be stirring up latent tendencies, and transferring them to active practices. Sorry, that's my English nerd coming out. Back to the point. These Fantasy games are obviously, in this guy's mind, the cause of all evils in the world. Including Satan worship (which if you research it doesn't actually include a lot of worshiping Satan. It's a kinda humanistic tradition, in fact). 

I didn't even ask to find out who it was that said this, who wrote the article so I could go look it up, or anything. I don't even need to, because these are not new sentiments, and they're definitely not only held by a small group of narrow-minded people. There are widespread beliefs, maybe not spoken about, but certainly held by a LOT of Christians and, frankly, it annoys the crap out of me. Why? There are two reasons: One, because I think (after years of careful study on the subject) that they're completely off base. Two, because with this so called culture war, they're effectively alienated a huge group of people, including every person of my generation who has ever played a video game. Which is a solid majority. Or everyone who has ever read books like Lord of the Rings or the Chronicles of Narnia (which were both written by Christians, or had you forgotten?). It's like this huge outcry that Christians have made into broad sweep denouncing books and movies that people put their lives into. And then they wonder why they all hate Christians.

Meanwhile, you have people like me who are on both sides, so to speak. What do we do when we love to play Skyrim but really hate to be accused of worshiping Thalos (the god of the Nords, for those who haven't played) or the Nine Divines? Or, worse yet the Daedra. Not pleasant creatures, overall. I definitely wouldn't want to worship them, especially since, you know, I love Jesus. 

The people who get into these things are often people who are highly creative, highly imaginative, and just by reading these books, playing these games, or watching these movies, can create their own worlds for themselves to exist in when life gets tough as it is wont to do. Great people, amazing people. I know so many of them. And I know so many of them that can't stand religion, and frankly, who can blame them? As much as I love Jesus, I'm definitely not a fan of most religion as it is currently practiced. And if they're connecting religion with Jesus, no wonder they're not likely to ever step foot in a church. Especially when there's a good chance that when they do they're going to get told that as soon as they get Jesus they're going to have to give up all those things in their life that are a part of how they grew to view the world. 

Fandoms... Fandoms become a part of you. I can't even imagine what high school would have been like if I hadn't had Lord of the Rings or Pirates of the Caribbean. Or any of the Tamora Pierce books that I devoured repeatedly (I'm actually re-reading one of her books now). Or if I'd never read Harry Potter, one of the most hotly contested Fantasy series of my lifetime. If you're in this world, chances are you're not accepted in most other areas of your life, and the acceptance you find is heady. And actually, being completely honest, after being in the Church my whole life, I found greater acceptance in fandoms in high school than I ever had before. Now, part of it was connected, as I finally found Christian friends who had the same interests as me. But I also found websites where I could chat on forums, role play in chat rooms, with complete strangers who were made familiar by the fact that they identified with me on one major area. As the internet grew, that place of acceptance did too, and if people wonder why I spend so much time on the internet, I tell them the truth. It's where I find my people, more often than not. I can go on Facebook and scattered between the real life updates of my friends are the fan pages that I follow, some of which I'm active enough commenting on that I've developed acquaintances with some of the admins. 

If the Church can't offer the same level of the acceptance to people like me, there are some things that are seriously wrong with how we're dealing with people. I finally found a church that did, and it was like "oh yeah, this is how it was supposed to be my whole life!" It's amazing! But so many other churches don't function like that, so there's still an issue. I'm not going to go into a whole dissertation on why Fantasy is a perfectly acceptable thing, and an amazing thing in fact. This post is already really long. I'll attack it later this week, possibly. I'm just going to say this:

If you're a Christian, your first and greatest commandment is to LOVE. Love God, then love others. For the record, others includes everyone who thinks that ComiCon must be a pretty good representation of heaven. Because you know what? Jesus made them, just like He made you. He also loves them, just like He loves you. And just in case you hadn't guessed, viciously attacking the very things that a person builds their life around is not a very loving thing. It doesn't matter if you agree with them. I don't agree with a lot of people, including you. I still love you. I still listen to what you have to say, and I do my best to reply in a way that is not derisive. If I fail, I'm human. I try to do better next time, instead of pretending I meant to fail and doing it over and over again to prove it was intentional. When you attack them, I'm the one who goes in and prays that my example can assure them that not all Christians are like that, and that Jesus certainly isn't like that. If you could help me out every once in awhile by being the example yourself, I'd be much obliged. Thank you, and have a blessed day.

Holidailies Day 9: My Thoughts On...?

I don't actually know what to write about today, which is why I've put it off until later. This is usually the time of night when my mind unblocks itself after running around in circles all day, but alas, such a thing has not yet happened. Mostly what I can think of are things about today that just... weren't ideal. It was too cold (I know, I'm a Californian wimp to the core, but at least I own it). I got up super early to go to a job interview which made me go out in the super cold, actually scrape my windshield of the fairly thick layer of ice that had accumulated on the entire car (I would have been impressed, except for my hands were freezing), and then get stuck in traffic on the way down to interview for a job that ended up being exactly what I wasn't looking for, in just about every way possible other than the fact that it would make me money (albeit not much). The feeling was mutual. So my day got off to a great start! Then I got to go home and apply for more jobs! You know the job search is getting desperate when I'm going back to Craigslist, which I swore never to use again after I found some way more promising looking sites, just to widen my pool of opportunities.

I'm attempting to trust God in this. Attempting, I say, because I'm not sure how well it's going. Some days I'm good, I can rest well and be peaceful. Days like today, I'm just overwhelmed and trying to just keep going until it's time to go into the blessed release of sleep. I know that it's these times of life when the rubber really hits the road, so to speak. Problem is, I feel like I can't even find the road, at least not the one that leads to being able to support myself financially.

I don't really know what else to say. It's entirely possible that I'll wake up tomorrow, with a totally new perspective and a way to figure things out. I'm really kinda counting on that, because more of what I got today just would not be a good plan. It would lead to bad places that I don't want to go back to. That I won't go back to. I'm declaring that right now. I'm not going back to the darkest of places that I spent too long in before I moved to Rocklin. It's not going to happen, because I've got my Jesus, and the knowledge of His love is too great for me to go back now. Thus it is said, thus it shall be done.

Holidailies Day 8: Of Creativity

There have been two things on my mind lately about my creative pursuits. One is writing, and not just because of the obvious NaNo happenings. There are other aspects of it as well. The other is music, and why I've pulled back from actively participating in music. And more recently, why I've been feeling the lack of active participation.

We'll start with writing I suppose. It's weird to me to go from writing every day, being so consumed by one story that all the rest of life fades away to a mere blip on the radar of my mind. I got so absentminded during NaNo, it was kinda sad. When I went down to the Bay for the Doctor Who 50th, I was eating with a friend in a restaurant and the girl serving us didn't even place I was so preoccupied. Then, when I paid, our server was like, "I thought I recognized you!" Turns out she was a girl who had gone to not one, not two, but three of the churches I'd previous attended with my parents. I've known her since I was 8, and as soon as she pointed it out to me it clicked, but I'd gone through the whole meal not recognizing her at all... My only comment to my friend afterwards was, "see, I told you, this is my brain on NaNo."

But that's not the only aspect of my writing. I mean, NaNo is amazing, but it's still only one month out of the year. There are a whole other 11 months in which I have to reign in/utilize my writing all on my own, which is a much scarier prospect actually. That's part of the reason I decided to do Holidailies, so that I could have an outlet directly after NaNo that wasn't connected to my novel. But currently the project that's weighing the heaviest on my mind isn't actually my NaNo novel (though I certainly haven't forgotten it...). It's this children's book that I'm supposed to be writing for my Nikao art class. I'm actually really stoked, because writing a children's book has always seemed like a fun and somewhat challenging thing to undertake. Because it is difficult, taking concepts and tailoring the language to a certain age group. I'm not usually good at doing it, which is why I decided after a few telling experiences that I should never teach elementary or younger for a living. But I figured for one book, how hard can it be? The answer is: extremely. So difficult. Like, it will be fun, I know, after I get the basic details sorted out in my head and start actually writing. But even the task of creating a plot that is simple enough for kids, but still complex enough to get the point across is daunting. Even more so when I'm already dealing with some form of creative hangover from NaNo. One thing is for certain: it will be very interesting to see where this book ends up. Because at some point (probably tonight) I'm just going to have to bite the bullet and start writing no matter how much planning I have (or haven't) done, and hope it turns out decent enough to edit without a full re-write.

As for music, it's been a mess of mixed feelings for the last few years. On the one hand, I love it. I love it so much. I don't think I've ever gone a day without listening to music, or humming with whatever happens to be stuck in my head. Singing is one of those things that comes naturally to me, playing piano not so much, but still fun in it's own way. Music has always been a direct line to my soul, and when you combine it with my other love, words and get deep poetic lyrics it's basically my favorite thing ever. And why, most of the time, I can't stand pop stuff that talks about nothing. Even if I disagree with an interesting lyric, I'll still listen to it because it's interesting and I want to decipher it (like the Lorde song Royals which I'm vaguely certain is not something that I really should enjoy but the lyrics are mysterious enough to keep me listening, especially with the good music accompanying it).

On the other hand, after nearly 8 years of being heavily involved in choirs, ensembles, and music ministry (either as the performer or the tech), I've taken an almost complete hiatus from it. There have been reasons for that, some of them good, most of them not. So aside from filling in the gaps at camp when needed, or the occasional foray back into caroling with my mom's group (which I'm not even doing actively this season, which is weird after 10 years of singing with them), I've not done any sort of performing in 2 1/2 years. I realized this month how much I miss it. Not just the social aspect. But I miss training as a soloist, as well as a part of an ensemble. The amount of personal growth training my voice inspired was I think overshadowed at the time that I was taking lessons in school, because of all the other things going on. I forgot that the one thing that I have ever written that I turned in and was told to not edit, because it was as close to perfect as possible, was about singing. The creative pursuit that really was my first love, because I've only really been seriously writing in the last 14 years or so, and I've been singing my whole life. I forgot in the midst of finding my writing voice (which is exciting, don't get me wrong) that I found my singing voice too. It didn't help that the whole last semester of school was tainted with drama over music, but it wasn't something that I needed to let get to me so much.

Granted, I went into a period of being lost in both of these pursuits after college. But while writing became an outlet, even though I was writing absolute trash, singing fell by the wayside. I'm not sure why, but now I'm ready to bring it back. Even if it means facing the fact that I have let my voice go and training it back up is going to be a super huge pain in the butt. My hope is that with job will come enough money to buy at least a cheap keyboard (though I wish I could move the piano that I inherited into my apartment... I'm not sure that would be allowed though, and I am sure it wouldn't fit). And with the keyboard, I will again be able to take lessons and get my voice back into shape. In the meantime, I'm trying to be intentional about how I sing even when I'm just singing along to something. It's just frustrating when something that was once as easy as breathing (which is a stupid saying actually... as a singer, breathing is hard) is now a stretch, or unattainable. But that's what I get for not singing at the level I was used to for so long. Time to suck it up and move on.

And in the meantime, I'm going to go write a children's book...