annie's musings

on historic west michigan {a photoessay sneak peek}

2012-02-15T09:00:00.000-05:00

v-day in the trenches.

2012-02-13T12:33:00.000-05:00

i don't know how i feel about valentine's day.

it has nothing to do with the fact that i'm single. i'm just not really a sentimental person.

also, red and pink are my least favorite colors.

so due to all that, i had avoided thinking about valentine's day. to me, it was just another day in february, another tuesday.

but then a friend asked me to guest post on v-day and so whatever thoughts had been lurking in my subconscious, unconnected to any firing neurons, got loaded into gun barrels with typing fingers as firing pins.

& it was slow going, because i hadn't formulated all of these thoughts previously. it was like the trenches: sloshing through mud and water in too big boots torn off an enemy soldier and stuffed with newspaper in the toe.

& all that resulted in a post that's messily honest, one that tells you v-day to me is still another day in february, still another tuesday - but more than that too.

so i urge to head over to cara's, where you can read my v-day post. cara is an absolute sweetheart who just got married to her love this past new year's eve and she's one of my closest blog friends, so i know after you read my post there you'll stay and check out the rest of her blog.

yes?

i knew i could count on y'all.

personhood.

2012-02-11T09:00:00.002-05:00

i feel so strongly about the holocaust that i broke out of my blogging silence last year during lent just to write a post about it.

& this? this could be another holocaust. dare i say, this is another holocaust.

it is only a few short steps from dehumanization to genocide, to infanticide.

let us not build another auschwitz with our silence.

the joker returns.

2012-02-09T09:00:00.000-05:00

remember the joker?!

no, he is not vlogging again. he has lost all vlogging privileges on this blog until i can trust him to behave himself.

maybe i should revoke all appearances the joker makes on this blog, especially after this:

no, my brother is not putting his own spin on the tebow.

he's convulsing with laughter because he thinks he's hilarious.

he was talking in a really good indian accent {if you saw the vlogs from last week, you know he's far better at voices than at accents} last night and i made the mistake of telling him so. and then he started thinking he was so hilarious that he was laughing at himself and basically convulsing on the floor because he thought he was so funny.

that's what i live with. i would say who but i'm still not entirely convinced he isn't actually martian. i'll let you know when the dna tests come back.

also, after that whole indian accent/laughter debacle happened, i was trying to finish up listen to vlogs last night, and patrick decided to add commentary. i asked him if i should watch the next one with headphones or if i could trust him to be silent. he said he'd shut up.

so i press play.

the next thing i hear?

his voice & these words: "flocka on the mic."

i can't trust this kid to do anything, can i?

have i mentioned i LOVE orange?!

2012-02-07T09:00:00.036-05:00

i have important news.

this may be the last time you ever see a recipe on annie's musings.

those of you who have been following for a while are probably thinking, annie, this is the first time we've seen a recipe on annie's musings.

to which i have to say: exactly.

remember these delicious orange cupcakes with orange frosting?

my mouth is watering just thinking about them. seriously.

well, i thought i would post the recipe, because a lot of you told me that they looked delicious and they are.

i also just want y'all to know i was very involved in this whole cupcake process {if by involved you mean i ate quite a few of them, because that's definitely what i mean. we don't roll kitcheny over here at annie's musings, ya know?}.

anyway, without further ado, the recipe: grandmamma's orange cake & hot orange sauce. to my knowledge, my mom didn't alter this recipe at all. and i will warn you that the cupcake gets drippy because of the rind, so you're going to make sure you have plates and napkins handy when you eat them.

or you could pull an annie and just eat it over the sink while standing up. it's up to you.

the girl behind the blog.

2012-02-06T08:21:00.000-05:00

linking up with erin & ashley today!

52/52

2012-02-05T09:00:00.005-05:00

an artist's brush drips red upon brown crooked lines; vibrant life amidst a canvas of quiet winter.

51/52

2012-02-04T09:00:00.002-05:00

"you aren't done?!" {nope.}

2012-02-03T09:00:00.078-05:00

rissi's blog is called scribbles, scripts, & such.

with the end of the vlogs, i also wrap up the meme.

the rules are to:
post the rules
post eleven facts about yourself
answer the eleven questions asked by the person who tagged you
create eleven questions of your own
tag eleven people

here are my questions:

one. what's your favorite song & why?
two. what's your favorite thing to do with friends?
three. if you could travel anywhere, where would you go?
four. who was one of your first blogging friends?
five. can you whistle?
six. if you were on miss america, what would your talent be? {do not say you don't have a talent. you do.}
seven. what's one goal you'd like to accomplish in the next year?
eight. what do you order at starbucks?
nine. what's your favorite movie?
ten. what's one word you always have trouble spelling?
eleven. if you could have any author write your biography, who would you choose and why?

i tag:
tiffany @ absolute surrender
cara @ the marvelous flight of cara
elizabeth @ ducks and decisive engagement
lauren @ not your everyday cinderella
sarah @ oh, restless bird
caitlin @ anomaly
erin @ captivated by grace
erin @ sweetness itself
mg @ take to the sky
megan @ overlapped
faith @ ya gotta have faith
candice @ teatime thoughts

{yes, i realize that's really twelve people. also, just so you all are clear, i expect you to vlog, too.

okay, not really.

but really.}

intruder alert! {but don't be scared.}

2012-02-02T09:00:00.000-05:00

joshua 1:9 - "Have I commanded you? Be strong and courageous. Do not be afraid; do not be discouraged, for the Lord your God will be with you wherever you go."

"before you get too old {have a little fun}" performed by a-dubs {feat. the joker}

2012-02-01T09:00:00.003-05:00

happy february!

my brother is crazy.

but does he not sound just like heath ledger's joker?!

i don't like the country. or telephones. or being called mexican.

2012-01-31T09:00:00.001-05:00

*~*edited: apparently the sound isn't working past about four minutes. i will look into that as soon as i can. sorry!*~*

clarification the first: when i say central americans have a problem with mexicans, it's because mexico has tried to take them over approximately 2572039841 million {and one} times. i personally do not have problems with mexicans. i just don't like being called mexican.

clarification the second: the whole thing about betraying one's ignorance and reinforcing the stereotype that americans don't know anything {outside of america} is true of me as well. i need to do a better job of educating myself about international affairs and i am not trying to point fingers at americans as if i weren't one of them. i am.

i say {& sing} "um" a lot.

2012-01-30T09:00:00.008-05:00

clarification: i got my ears pierced when i was a year old. i got my second holes pierced when i was 19.

also, if you're wondering how to drive like you're from detroit, wonder no more.

an a-dubs event.

2012-01-29T09:00:00.007-05:00

i got tagged four times in that meme going around right now, and i thought, what better way to give you random facts and answer questions that in vlog form?

i filmed them all yesterday, but split it up into five separate videos. look forward to eleven facts tomorrow, and questions from four different bloggers each day after that.

enjoy!

remember the days when i procrastinated homework by blogging? {me neither}

2012-01-26T01:12:00.001-05:00

i realize that i haven't posted in fifteen days, except to analyze literature {the hunger games} and language {the religion < Jesus poem/video/thing} and to get myself out of blogging by making you to talk to me instead of the other way around.

i would love to blame this situation on homework except i don't have a ton this semester {THANKFULLY} and have thus not done much, either.

{i suspect a repeat of the generally unproductive freshman year is ensuing. SEND HELP.}

i have slept in, gone to class, gone to work, come home, eaten, watched tv, and gotten ridiculously behind in reading blogs, responding to email & comments, sending out snail mail, and - oh: doing homework.

i mean, i'm doing my homework on time. doing it at 1am the morning it's due is still on time!

i don't really justify these things in my head like this. i tend to just not think about them at all. i'll look at the clock and think, i should do homework now, and then think, but i really don't want to.

y'all, i am worn out. working as much as i did over the summer and winter breaks taught me what just working would be like. and y'all, work is not always my favorite, but i am addicted to the idea of leaving work and not having to come home and do more work. {except housework, but we're not going to discuss that. mkay?}

i will be back soon. in a put-together, cute, crazy annie kind of way. you know, like when i blogged regularly. {when was that again?}

i'd offer you candy to come back, but i can't hand you candy through a computer. and chances are, when you read this, i'll be sleepily off in class or scolding children, or most likely, driving. so i'll offer you the promise of a vlog instead.

are there any other teachers that feel their job consists of 90% discipline, 7% sipping on your beverage of choice as a small way to keep your sanity, 2% bathroom breaks & sighing, and only 1% actually attempting to teach children?*

*i cannot stress enough the word attempt. mostly because 2 seconds of explanation surround five minutes of telling said child{ren} to pay attention, focus, hurry up, "i am not giving you the answer," and other assorted behavior-, focus-, and academically related lectures.

where roses yield "war eagle!" {pt.2}

2012-01-18T09:00:00.002-05:00

please read part one if you haven't already.

maybe Jesus and religion don't have to be at odds.

i realize that i spent the first part of this mini-series telling you why it's futile to have a discussion on Jesus in relation to religion, because religion is generally connotatively defined. however, i am going to set forth the denotative definition, for the sole sake of establishing some sort of mutually agreed upon foundation upon which to set forth my argument.

dictionary.com defines religion primarily as:

a set of beliefs concerning the cause, nature, and purpose of the universe, especially when considered as the creation of a superhuman agency or agencies, usually involving devotional and ritual observances, and often containing a moral code governing the conduct of human affairs

we are going to take this one part of the definition at a time.

"a set of beliefs concerning the cause, nature, and purpose of the universe"
we have that, don't we? we have creeds, doctrine, theology. we have the bible, which we as christians claim is the linguistic manifestation of God and which He divinely inspired. if you are southern baptist, you have The Bible In One Verse, more commonly referred to as john 3:16.

that fulfills the first part of the definition in the literal standpoint, but i'm less interested in that and a lot more interested in some verses i've pulled out from john {all emphases mine}:

very truly i tell you, whoever hears my word and believes him who sent me has eternal life and will not be judged but has crossed over from death to life. // john 5:24

Jesus answered, "the work of God is this: to believe in the one he has sent." // john 6:29

for my Father's will is that everyone who looks to the Son and believes on him shall have eternal life, and I will raise them up at the last day. // john 6:40

"we have come to believe and to know that you are the Holy One of God." // john 6:69

by this he meant the Spirit, whom those who believed in him were later to receive. up to that time the Spirit had not been given, since Jesus had not been glorified. // john 7:39

to the jews who had believed him, Jesus said, "if you hold to my teaching, you are really my disciples." // john 8:31

i could quote more, and this doesn't cover everything i believe to be true as a christian, but this tells us some very important things about we profess: that God the Father sent God the Son {or Jesus, the Christ}; that Jesus, as God the Son, is fully divine, with the powers and characteristics thereof; that those who believe are Jesus's disciples, who follow Him with the sole intention of soaking up His learning, implementing it into their lives, and passing it on to those whom they disciple; that those who believe are not only disciples but recipients of eternal life, which will be made complete on a day of resurrection; that those who believe receive the Spirit, the third part of that holy trinity, to guide and direct us as we make disciples in Jesus's stead here on earth. while i have not quoted verses that point to the cause and nature of the universe {focusing rather on the purpose, which is salvation and redemption of the lost and broken, and glory to Him who makes both possible}, we believe as christians that He is Creator-God, of the universe, of the earth, of animals, and of us, and that we alone of His creations are made in His likeness.

this is a set of beliefs, no? perhaps not complete, but sufficient enough to propel the argument to the second part of the definition of religion.

"usually involving devotional or ritual observances"
this is vague language, and we wouldn't consider it as applying to ourselves, except, perhaps, in some highly ritualized form.

but isn't prayer one of them? out of our love, our devotion, our desire to speak to God, don't we indeed speak? prayer is first and foremost communication, something absolutely critical to the inception and maintenance of a relationship. {and how many of you have seen that now-worn phrase, "it's not a religion, it's a relationship"?} it is a customary practice, as dictionary.com partially defines it, just the way it's a customary practice for me to send or receive texts or emails or phone calls to maintain the other relationships i have. it's a devotional observance. it sounds, honestly, a little ridiculous to classify it that way, but i think it is.

as for ritual observances, we observe christmas every year on december 25. we take communion a set amount of times per year or per month or every time we set foot in our preferred place of worship. we observe easter every spring. we do this not because it's tradition, not because we have to - but to remember.

we seek to recall the Kingdom come as a tiny babe, God lain on straw in a rough-hewn feeding trough.

we seek to recollect the bread that is His body and the wine that is His blood, the place where, even facing a death He did not deserve, prayed to avoid, knew would be so inexplicably painful that language birthed a new word, excruciating, to describe it, He ate and gave thanks.

we seek to remember the day of deicide, when roman centurions whipped Jesus nearly to death and then pounded nails through His feet and His wrists, when the innocent became guilty and God turned away.

we seek to relive that day of glorious resurrection, that day of beautiful victory, when the grave was left empty, hell defeated, and Jesus alive again.

the observances are how we remember, how we remind ourselves what this is and what it means. His death means we die. His life means we live. His birth as a human illustrates the paradox His Kingdom is, how we must reorient our entire way of thinking to even hope to inherit any part of it.

"often containing a moral code governing the conduct of human affairs"
now this is where it may get tricky.

we have the ten commandments. we have the words of the prophets. we have Jesus's words. and we have the words of the apostles, particularly paul, exhorting us to live in certain ways and do certain things.

and they're right.

but, before we lose ourselves in the words, before some of you tell me that christianity is not a series of rules, let me remind you of something: our moral code is not a code. it's a Code - and by that i mean the code is personified, because our code is God Himself.

our code comprises nothing less than the characteristics of Jesus, whom, as disciples, we are called to follow and emulate in every aspect of our lives.

after all, is He not the fulfillment of the law?

did He not die that the law might be subverted, so that His grace might carry the victory?

does He not, who first loved us, just want, first and foremost, our hearts?

our hearts, that once His, will choose obedience of their own accord? not because we have to, not because we should, but because we love Him?

He is the Code that does more than just govern our affairs - He does nothing less than change our hearts and make us new. He gives us His heart, His own Spirit, that we might be called His children.

religion, the video says, is man searching for God. christianity is God searching for man.

but He says if we seek, we will find. we're still searching for God - but doesn't His death and resurrection mean that He, in searching for us, makes it possible for Him to be found? He is the initiator in all facets, certainly, but doesn't He, in drawing our hearts to Himself, make it possible for our longings to be fully satisfied?

God, if You've found me, doesn't that mean i've found You, too?

*~*

so, yes, i suppose, denotatively speaking, at least, we have ourselves a religion.

and despite my initial reservations, i am not so sure i have a problem with that realization.

after all, it is when we lose ourselves in all of this that religion becomes dangerous. it is when the profession of and adherence to the beliefs, the devotional and ritual observances, and unquestioning, rigid obedience of the moral code become the focal points that religion becomes the death trap some of us associate with it.

Jesus set forth to change the religion that was in practice already, to add a new dimension of one salvation for all who believed, to supplant the religion of law with a religion of grace. and so i don't think He's in opposition to religion.

no, i think He's the fulfillment and the focus thereof.

where roses yield "war eagle!"

2012-01-16T09:00:00.000-05:00

have you seen this video?

it's causing not quite a firestorm, but certainly some disagreement.

thus far, i have not found anyone commenting who has come from the perspectives of translator or linguist. i'm not saying that these perspectives are better or necessary to have a full, informed opinion, but i do think they're valuable opinions. {and i believe this would be true whether or not i was about to give opinions colored by those perspectives, which i am.}

essentially, if you haven't seen the video, the debate is whether Jesus is better than religion, if He came to abolish it.

my first issue is this:
assuming that anyone anywhere is taking religion to be the literal mentions Jesus makes of it in the bible, and is basing their argument thusly, i have to automatically question your entire argument. this is because the english bible of any version is first and foremost a

translation.

that means that the greek words translated into english as religion may not be best translated that way.

for the record, i don't know if they are or not. i don't know greek. but i do know a little bit of what goes into translation, and how difficult it is.

translation is difficult - and pardon the nerdy, it just happens - because you have to deconstruct the word, which means you have to break down all the aspects of what that word does mean or could mean in that language {and in translation, this means you have to do it for two languages}.

formerly, linguists used to believe that language boiled down to this equation:

sign = signifier {sound, image, gesture, etc.} + signified {concept to which the signifier refers}*

but linguists began to realize that this doesn't fit, exactly, and we did a fun exercise in my lit theory class to illustrate how that doesn't work.

in fact, let me make y'all do it. pull out a piece of paper or pull up a word document and get ready for your neurons to fire in a way you didn't expect.

we will start with the word rose. without thinking about it, write the first four words that come to your mind when you hear that word.

mine:
rose: red, bouquet, pink, friendship

pick one of those four words, and write the first four words that come to mind from that word.

mine:
red: car, corvette, sports, ketchup

do it again.

mine:
sports: football, tigers, soccer, spain

and a last time.

mine:
tigers: auburn, college, battle cry, war eagle

what's your last word?
{i'm choosing this time to make a note that despite the - albeit few - guys in the class, i was the only one to come up with a football-related term.}

some of the words people ended up with in our class were machiavelli, butter, and latrece {the name of one student's daughter}.

what we learned from this: language is extremely subjective. so the equation changed from its original form to this:

sign = signifier + signified... + signified

the equation doesn't just stop, but has an infinite chain of signifieds that represent our infinitely moving {particularly if you're a woman} train of thought. that's how i get from roses to war eagle, which takes me to thinking about how the university of alabama is in the the same state, and how they won this year's national championship against lsu, which is in louisiana, which i've never been to, next to texas, which i have been to if you count the inside of an airport, which is what i say, too, about miami, london, and frankfurt, which i went through as i flew to destinations in honduras and europe, and since i'm thinking about flying can i ask you if you've seen emily's videos about learning to fly?!

because you should.

my point with all that linguistic jargon: it is, in a sense, futile for us to discuss whether Jesus is better than religion, because what does religion even mean?

language is subjective.

the word religion has a different connotation to all of us.

to me it brings up the image of shackles. it brings to mind rules i can't hope to follow all the time, everywhere, in every way. i was raised southern baptist; the word religion brings to mind that death trap of legalism, that system of quicksand i never fit into from either a legalistic or a popular standpoint. it brings to mind the clichés we spout because we either don't really believe or because we've never thought or cared to truly explore what that belief means, entails, or looks like.

so if you ask me if i hate religion? i will tell you yes, because i hate everything about the picture i just painted for you.

i realize religion does not bring that picture to everyone's mind.

maybe there is a middle ground. maybe Jesus and religion don't have to be at odds.

join me for part two on wednesday? & in the meantime, what do you think of this dichotomy of Jesus and religion?

*what is this, the third time i've referenced lois tyson's critical theory today on my blog? it is fabulous if you're interested in the ideologies referenced and reinforced in our language and in our literature. and i do have to say, after having had her for two classes, she is a fabulous professor.

panem et circenses: a post on the hunger games

2012-01-12T09:00:00.267-05:00

so, i think we've all figured out by now that i love the hunger games.

yes? good.

well, ashley posted a list of questions last week related to the first of this oh-so-riveting series and i thought i would share my answers with you.

**if you have not read the hunger games, this would be a good post to skip**

you'll forgive me if i get super english nerdy, right? please?

thanks.

one // Who was your favorite character in The Hunger Games? Why?

katniss. {that may be cliché, but for once, i don't care.} she's a fiery, independent character, and i love that. but more importantly, she's passionate. she goes to lengths - hunting illegally in the woods - to sustain herself and her family, and i think it's her determination and her passion that ultimately mean her survival.

two // What did you feel was the most emotional moment in the book? Which part was the hardest to read?
rue's death. we see katniss there are her rawest, at her most vulnerable there. in the hardest of times, people do what they have to to dispose of their dead. but katniss sings to rue, and as rue dies, katniss, knowing she should go, chooses instead to stay, to memorialize rue by making her a floral shroud and honor her by making the signature gesture of her district, the three-fingered salute that means love and admiration.

as for the hardest part to read, i don't know that i necessarily found any particular part more difficult to read than the others, except the parts where katniss is in fear of her life.

three // How does Katniss feel about the country of Panem? Why does she need to make her face "an indifferent mask" and be careful what she says in public?

i think she's learned to make the best of it, because she doesn't know anything, because for her, that's just the way life works. but i think she's also angry, because of the yearly celebration of senseless violence, and she has to guard herself because if she lets her emotions lead her behavior, she'll burst out against the capitol. we see, too, at the end of the book, that she worries her actions at the end of the games, which don't make any explicitly or angry statement against the capitol, might get her into trouble. and we see at the beginning of catching fire that they, in fact, do.

four // Why do you think fire is an appropriate symbol for Katniss?

katniss is the kind of person i'd call a spitfire.

i wouldn't say she has a temper, per se, but i imagine there's some flaming irish in her blood.
i mean, she basically straight-up shoots an arrow at the gamemakers, for goodness's sake.

five // How does Katniss’ early encounter with Peeta affect their relationship after they are chosen as tributes?

well, i think the narration clearly indicates katniss really doesn't know what to do. she says herself she doesn't like owing people, and she owes peeta, if not her life, at the very least her hope and determination to survive.

six // Did your perception of Peeta change over the course of The Hunger Games? How and why?

yes. first i didn't know what to think, beyond that he was probably one of those fairly spineless people. later i got the impression that he kind of just went with whatever, especially since he was hanging out with the careers. and i just could not figure him out, even though i was pretty sure, from the moment he says it before the games, that he's in love with katniss. & then as katniss joins up with him and they traverse the rest of the games together, i got to like him more and more.

seven // How does the fact that the tributes are always on camera affect their behavior from the time they are chosen? Does it make it easier or harder for them to accept their fate?

i think they have to present certain faces. katniss always seems to present a strong and somewhat lighthearted face. i think it's maybe harder, since the tributes aren't able to process their emotions normally because they're depressive, and they wouldn't want to give off the idea that they're weak. like katniss says when she volunteers as tribute, she can't cry, because she'll give off the vibe that she's a weakling, and that's the last thing she wants to do.

eight // Before the Games start, Peeta tells Katniss, " . . . I want to die as myself . . . I don't want them to change me in there. Turn me into some kind of monster that I'm not." What does this tell you about Peeta? What does he fear more than death? Is he able to stay true to himself during the Games?

he fears becoming a pawn, fears losing his identity, who he knows himself to be. i think he does stay true to that. i think he joins with the careers to watch out for katniss - with the high score she's given before the games, she's certainly a target. everything he does in the games is to protect her, insofar as he can, and in that way, he's able to maintain his identity and integrity. it's not about him in the games. it never is. it's about katniss.

nine // When Peeta declares his love for Katniss in the interview, does he really mean it or did Haymitch create the "star-crossed lovers" story? What does Haymitch mean when he says, "It's all a big show. It's all how you're perceived." Why do they need to impress sponsors and what are those sponsors looking for when they are watching the Games?

he means it, but i think haymitch knows he has to take that and run with it. he definitely parlays it into a selling feature, so to speak. since the sponsors are instrumental in giving assistance throughout the games - as we see to be particularly true for katniss - they have to draw their attention. and peeta and katniss don't just draw but steal everyone's attention from the minute peeta says, "because...because...she came here with me."

ten // Why does Katniss ignore Haymitch’s advice to head directly away from the Cornucopia? Did she do the right thing to fight for equipment?

well, katniss certainly wants to survive, and in the games that requires weapons, food, and protection. the cornucopia is the one place where all those requirements can be fulfilled. i think of it this way: if any of us were facing several weeks in which starvation and/or death were almost more than guaranteed, we'd be heading for the one source that might change that, too. i think if peeta hadn't distracted her, katniss's choice would have been a poor one. but because he does, she isn't able to go very far, and she's forced to run away the melee before she can run into it.

does this make anyone else wonder just how many times peeta has saved katniss's life, just in this one book?

eleven // What makes Katniss and Rue trust each other to become partners? What does Katniss gain from this friendship besides companionship? Is Katniss and Rue's partnership formed for different reasons than the other group's?

rue is so like prim that i think katniss takes to her like no one else before the games. katniss has been hardened by her determination to survival; she doesn't trust easily. and rue, so like the little sister katniss so fiercely protects and provides for, sneaks under katniss's guard. rue also tells katniss about the tracker jacker nest she's sleeping under, and i think that, more than anything, cements katniss's kindness, if not yet friendliness, toward rue. i think katniss is humanized by running into rue - we obviously see that she takes the time, immediately prior and after rue's death, to just be in that moment and grieve her friend. she gives the three-fingered salute - that, i think, shows us how deeply katniss truly respects rue. it is respect and friendship that bring these two together - as opposed to the others, who make and break alliances for the sole purpose of their own survival.

twelve // Why does Peeta join with the Career Tributes in the beginning of the Games? What does he hope to gain? Why do they accept him when they start hunting as a group? Why do groups form in the beginning when they know only one of them will be able to survive?

honestly, at first, i didn't know.

but i think it's to keep guard over katniss, by spying on the enemy {if i may use that phrase}; katniss even says, at the end, when she and peeta are watching the recap of the game, that she sees how he "misled the careers about me, stayed awake the entire night under the tracker jacker tree, fought cato to let me escape and even while he lay in that mud bank, whispered my name in his sleep."
i think the careers accept peeta at first because it's one less person to worry about attacking them during the outset. peeta doesn't strike me as a particularly threatening person; it's not like thresh, who you would inch warily past and never trust not to harm you in your sleep. they probably regard peeta as someone who's looking to them for protection, as someone they need not fear - after all, he is from district 12.

thirteen // What did you think of the fact that they changed the rules partway through the games to allow two winners from the same district?
i was silly enough to believe them.
i think they did it to amp up the star-crossed lovers story, to keep the games interesting.
like they announce once katniss and peeta are the only two alive, they weren't going to let two people win. the capitol runs the hunger games, not the other way around.

fourteen // Do you think the glamorization of the Games and the treatments of its stars before they are sent off to die is a reflection of anything in our modern society?
yes.
we look at all the pampering that goes on before the games and we think, "what's it for? they're going to die."
and i look at our society now and the some of the ways we primp ourselves and i think, "what's it for? we're going to die." what matters is eternity. what matters is the living well in the time we have.
i see that in peeta a lot, which is why i like him so much. he loves fearlessly. he knows the hunger games will likely be the death of him, katniss, or both, but he loves her fearlessly anyway. he dies to his instincts, dies to saving himself, because he wants to save katniss, wants to see her live even if it means he doesn't, and in so doing, he finds life. he thinks, throughout the games, that katniss has fallen in love with him, and he lives that, fully.
& i think that, right there, is why the capitol will never own peeta, because his heart is fully katniss's, because everything he does is motivated by what best protects her. if you've read the next two books you know the capitol attempts to exploit this, and it works, to an extent, but not fully.
the world attempts to own us the way the capitol attempts to own the people in panem. but if our hearts are set on Jesus, the world can do what it may, but it will never control us.
we just have to love, and in the loving die, and strangely, strangely, in the dying, live.

fifteen // Reality TV has been a part of the entertainment world since the early days of television (with shows such as Candid Camera and the Miss America Pageant), but in the 21st century there has been a tremendous growth of competitive shows and survival shows. Discuss this phenomenon with respect to The Hunger Games. What other aspects of our popular culture do you see reflected in this story?

i think it's ultimately a reflection of capitalism, which is a system built upon and perpetuated by a permanent classing of winners and losers. obviously, panem is a capitalistic society. the capitol and a few districts own all the wealth, and the rest of the districts hobble along in abject poverty. i think the shows of our society are a reflection of this capitalistic system.

there's also the american ideology called rugged individualism, which "romanticizes the individual who strikes out alone in pursuit of a goal not easily achieved, a goal that often involves risk and one that most people would not readily undertake."* basically, you aim for the unattainable, grapple with the overwhelmingly impossible odds, and come home with unimaginable glory. but instead of fighting odds, we now fight people for these fleeting moments of glory. and because there are now so many competitive reality shows, it's not like anyone remembers who the winners are anyway. the hunger games are different - they're built on the basis of heaping praise and honor and glory to the person who wins, and the sites are memorialized and turned into tour sites, and money is made on the backs of children who fought like roman gladiators.
you know what i think suzanne collins has done, whether she means it or not?
she wrote a dystopia, but maybe she wrote america's story, right now, too. the satirists of a few hundred years ago always embedded their messages in their texts subliminally, and i think that's what collins does, informs us without actually telling us that the lifestyles and successes of the people running the show are built on the katnisses and peetas and gales in this country, in the katnisses and peetas and gales around the world.
in the katnisses and peetas and gales slaving under a hot sun to pick as many coffee berries as they can, so we can buy our favorite drink at starbucks tomorrow morning.
in the katnisses and peetas and gales growing coca instead of corn because the former sells better.
in the katnisses and peetas and gales selling their daughters as slaves because they don't see any other method of survival for their families.
*definition from Lois Tyson's Critical Theory Today. i don't know the page number.

sixteen // What other books do you feel are comparable to The Hunger Games?

(Because who doesn’t want more great reads like this?!)
i've heard divergent is, and i like dystopias, so i'm hoping to get it from the library soon!
matched, while not like the hunger games, is another dystopia, so if that genre intrigues you as much as it does me, i would recommend you look it up.

what are your opinions on these questions?post about it, link up with ashley, and leave me your linkortalk to me in the comments!

introduce yourselves!

2012-01-11T12:35:00.000-05:00

i was going to write up a post about how my first two days of classes went, but i didn't have the time, so you'll get that tomorrow.

in lieu of that, since there are so many new people following me, why don't you introduce yourselves? tell me who you are, some interesting things about you, and leave your blog link so i can check it out.

if i already know you, think up a few interesting things i don't know about you and leave them for me to read.

happy wednesday!

a photo a day in janua-ray

2012-01-10T10:14:00.000-05:00

there's a largely popular meme on instagram for the month of january and i thought i'd share my photos with you.

you know, since instagram is basically the only way my life is picturably recorded. and i know y'all love pictures.

{also, picturably is a word. dictionary.com said so.}

so here's the list of pictures to take:

photo credit: ashley

& here are my first nine!

day 1: a picture of you

day 2: breakfast
or in my case, the remnants thereof: french toast & chocolate milk

day 3: something you adore
everybody else posted pictures of their kids or pets.
i have neither.
so until i have a kid, i'll just keep adoring my brand-new paperback version of the hunger games.

day 4: a letterbox

day 5: something you wore

day 6: something that made you smile
the unseasonably warm weather & a vanilla bean latte on my way to work that morning

also, these make me smile, but they weren't tagged as official photos of the day.

day 7: favorite
top: color & shirt
bottom: books {minus the swan house} & album

day 8: the sky

day 9: routine
"fifteen more minutes," straightening my hair, allergy meds
please ignore the face; i'm not left-handed & that was the hand i was trying to take the picture with

also, when january is over, i may need a recommendation on things like project 52 or january's photo a day to keep me recording my life picturably at least somewhat frequently. got any suggestions?

i don't run.

2012-01-09T09:00:00.005-05:00

before i begin, good news! i'm giving away a free blog design at ashley's! i know you know you want one, so go here to enter!

so last week i started running.

there are a few things inherent with annie trying to be a little runner person:

i hate running.
{at least, i thought i did prior to last week.} seriously. i considered joining the track team at my high school after i stopped playing soccer. i decided not to because they practiced right next to each other every afternoon and it would have killed me to see the soccer team, knowing the difference between hate and love in my dictionary is a soccer ball.

i am hispanic.
this is a problem because hispanics dance. this will make more sense as you keep reading.

i listen to upbeat music when i run.
you know, music you can dance to. so the hispanic in me is like, "let's have a dance party!" the practical part of me is like, "you're on a treadmill."

so i'm like, "oh.

"okay, i guess i'll just keep running."

so i do.

*~*

here's a story about what happened after i went running on saturday:

i decided to stop at subway after running because i didn't feel like making food. {thanks for dinner, dad! :] } so i go inside, place my order, walk outside, and THERE ARE PEOPLE IN MY CAR.

i about have a panic attack at the same time that my flight instinct is amping up to full gear because i am about to punch some people in the face.

turns out, just because a car is black and a pontiac doesn't mean it's your black pontiac. nobody was in my car. people were in the car that was next to my car that i thought was my car, but nobody was in my car.

so i get in my car {where there are no, i repeat, no people}.

and then mr. creeper-sir in the car that's next to mine decides he's going to look creepily over at me.

my thoughts on this:
mr. creeper-sir, if you plan on keeping your nose the shape it is, you will look AWAY.

i have a zero creeper tolerance. ZERO. and i have a negative infinity tolerance for hispanic creepers. just because we are of the same ethnicity does not mean you can lose all ability to function socially. i may be catracha, but i have a healthy dose of irish temper. HEALTHY. {i think this may be why my first instinct when feeling endangered is to hit people.}

incidentally, people ask me why i don't date. um, if 99% of the people asking you were creepers, you wouldn't be dating either.

just sayin'.

& since we're talking about my dating life, which is essentially nonexistent and therefore almost never a topic of this blog, can i tell you what happened on my first date last fall?

i spilled ranch on my pants.

ranch.

on my pants.

this kind of lends itself well to a reggae/rap lyric {& i'm imagining kristen wiig from saturday night live as the person rapping it}:

ranch on my pants
ranch on my pants
on my first date i spilled
ranch on my pants

too much?

48-50 / 52

2012-01-08T09:00:00.011-05:00

48/52
this is typical in our house. me: "let's take a picture!" patrick: "get out my face."

49/52
my mom made orange cupcakes with orange frosting and they were the most delicious things EVER.

50/52
my brother bought me the hunger games trilogy for christmas!
&
THEY'RE ALL PAPERBACK!
*happy sigh*

can you believe project 52 is almost over?!

roaring {like a lion}

2012-01-06T02:17:00.001-05:00

i've never done this before & i had no ideas for what to post today, so i thought it'd be worth a shot.

the rules: write for five minutes straight, without editing.

this week's word:
roar

*~*

roaring is loud. it reminds me of erin's post, and i commented about how maybe joyful noise isn't always musical. and i certainly wouldn't call a lion's roar musical, but maybe it is. maybe a roar is a lion's way of worship, a lion's way of praise. a roar is necessary - it's a lion's form of communication, but isn't worship supposed to be ingrained in the way we live? isn't writing, to me, as a writer, supposed to be worship?

so isn't it this right here, just writing, working with words, five minutes of writing and giving myself grace for the inevitable imperfections?

will you give me grace if i tell you i did edit the last part of the previous sentence? ;]

{i am an editor, too, after all.}

i look over this and laugh because all i'm thinking to myself right now is, hello, stream of consciousness.

we were talking about roaring. and worship. never thought those two would come in the same paragraph.

but who would? isn't this faith we claim all about paradoxes? we claim a kingdom that makes the first last and the last first. we claim a kingdom that makes us slaves and freedmen at the same time. and we serve the God who makes those paradoxes possible, so shouldn't we start expecting, perhaps, that worship, that Jesus, is going to found in places we don't necessarily expect?

ready, set, stop?

2012-01-03T09:00:00.005-05:00

before i begin, i would like to formally dedicate this post to erin.

i have a confession.

i can ice skate.

pretty well, actually.

i can skate backward.

you don't need to tell me; i know that face is super attractive.

& i can make crossover turns {which may look easy but aren't}.

here's where the confession comes in: i can't stop. i either slow down until my momentum peters out or i half-crash myself into the boards.

this is tantamount to knowing how to drive your car forward, backward, and parallel park like a nascar driver, but not actually knowing how to use the brake.

clearly, i had a problem. and i decided that at twenty-one, enough was enough and i had to learn.

so today, i dragged my brother out to the ice arena, and he started teaching me how to stop.

first we started by the boards. i held onto them while, alternating feet, i pushed my heels down into the ice and away from me.

i was a lot better at doing it with my left foot than my right, strangely enough.

see the tiny pile of ice shavings^^^?!

we did that for a while. it was hard.

once i'd gotten better at that, we skated around the rink, and at every line, i had to try stopping, doing the same thing as at the boards: pushing my heels down and out.

i still can't stop properly, but i can do more than decelerate and crash.

there's something to be said for that, right?

if a word equals three hundred sixty-five days...

2012-01-02T09:00:00.003-05:00

^{or, as in this year, three hundred sixty-six.}

i'm not really the whole word-for-the-year kind of person. i'm not really a theme person in general, not even when analyzing literature. if you asked me to analyze the themes of, say, john steinbeck's of mice and men, i would need a long time. in fact, i've been mulling it over for a few moments and i really cannot think of any overarching theme. {perhaps we ought also to bear in mind that i haven't read that book since i was a freshman in high school and i am a senior in college now.}

anyway, last year, i chose a word: fearless. and i chose a verse to go with it, too: joshua 1:9. and i didn't really think of it all year, so i didn't think i would choose a word for this year. like i said, i'm not a theme person. trying to sum up each year in one word or one verse isn't really my style.

and then i read lauren's post on her goals for the new year, and honestly, one paragraph there made me completely change my mind. one sentence sums it up well: "i want to be intentional about being present in my relationships."

present

we are the gift, no? and if we are the gift, we ought to be present - and instead, we're not. we're off daydreaming about graduation or checking our phones or social media for the millionth time or just discontent with this season of our lives, desperately wanting something else.

and then, so often we find that what we thought we wanted, we ought not to have wanted after all. that we should have been present, in that season, in that day, in that moment, with that person, broken down, just needing us to be there.

to be, as nicole writes, with. because Jesus was with; because God was with. because He sees the messy and He doesn't leave, He stays. because we just finished celebrating a season that proclaims the birth of Immanuel, God with us, and if He weren't present with us, if He weren't the present that makes significant of the small, victory of defeat, sweet life over blackest death, where would we be?

i pray He "teach[es] us to number our days aright, that we may gain a heart of wisdom" {psalm 90:12}, that we may remember why we're on this broken, groaning earth. that we remember He is a God of people, and to do that, He had to be present with and among them, with and among us.

that we are present here as His hands and His feet, those very parts of Him that took nails on a rough hewn cross on a faraway mountain, which laid down the path to victory.

and that He is present here, His holy heart in broken us, making the hands and feet humbly move.

hello,

2012-01-01T14:02:00.000-05:00

goodbye, 2011.

2011-12-31T14:12:00.002-05:00

{via}

i saw this questionnaire on dana's blog and thought it would be the least fussy way to wrap up the year.

what did you do in 2011 that you've never done before?
i lived outside my parents' house the entire year & i have a car.

did you keep your new year's resolution? will you make one for this year?
i didn't make resolutions and i won't be making any this year.

did anyone close to you give birth?
my cousin b and his wife k had their third child & second son early in the year.

did anyone close to you die?
no.

did anyone close to you get hitched?
cara is, today!

what countries did you visit?
sad face, because for the first time in years, i actually didn't leave the country.

what date{s} from 2011 will remain etched upon your memory?
probably all of april and the august day i moved to the apartment i share with my brother.

what would you like to have in 2012 that you lacked in 2011?
i have to steal dana's answer: "have a legit answer to 'what countries did you visit?'"

what's your biggest achievement this year?
getting all As this past semester!

biggest failure?
losing focus.

did you suffer illness or injury?
other than the biannual colds, no.

what was the last thing you bought?
music on itunes, with christmas money. eep!

whose behavior merited celebration?
my brother's, because he studied hard and got all As this semester!

where did most of your money go?
rent & bills. suchislife.

what did you really get excited about?
moving {twice; i hate staying in one place all the time}
this semester & its subject material
thanksgiving

what song will remind you of 2011?
"what i thought i wanted" by sara groves, for multiple reasons

compared to this time last year, are you happier or sadder?
i don't like those words, because neither describes my state of mind better than the other. i would say i feel less encumbered. last school year was a hard year.

what do you wish you'd done more of?
asserting myself & prioritizing.

what do you wish you'd done less of?
tamping myself down for the sake of keeping peace.

what was your favorite tv show?
ncis {obviously} & once upon a time

what were the best books you read?
the historian by elizabeth kostova {admittedly, this was a reread}
the swan house by elizabeth musser
i'll have to post soon about my favorite reads of 2011; there are too many to post here. see this post for a few of them.

what was your best musical discovery?
royal tailor and anthem lights

what did you want and got?
a place{s} off-campus, a job i love {plus a few others}, and a semester closer to graduation. plus time with family, between my cousin getting married and the holidays.

what movies did you see in cinema?
harry potter 7pt.2
the help
sherlock holmes: a game of shadows

what did you do on your birthday? how old did you turn?
i turned 21! we went to see sherlock holmes 2 and then went to olive garden for dinner.

what one thing would have made this year more satisfying?
better self-discipline over the summer.

how would you describe your personal fashion?
all over the place. i spend most of my time at home in comfort clothes and leave it it anything from sweats and t-shirts to professional clothes to skinny jeans, black tank tops, and five inch bright blue heels.
& when i say five inch bright blue heels, i mean exactly that.

what kept you sane?
strangely, in the first half of the year, homework. and all year, blogging and reading.

who was the best new person you met?
my summer roommate A!

what was a valuable lesson you've learned?
people are messy, and that includes me.

2011 was harder than i thought, but matched up pretty well with what i predicted. the close of 2011 reads a lot the way the close of 2010 did. so moving on to 2012 constitutes the close of a difficult chapter and, thankfully, the beginning of a new, fresh one.

& i am ready for that. goodbye, 2011.

a birthday questionnaire.

2011-12-28T13:04:00.000-05:00

you asked.

i've answered.

from candice:

what are your 3 top life goals?

one: to serve Jesus well.
two: to work abroad at some point.
three: to write something for publication.

favorite color, stores, and movies?

color: orange and black. but not together, because those are halloween colors and that's just weird.
stores: charlotte russe.
movies: the help and 27 dresses

what would you say is your greatest accomplishment to this point?

this question is tough! i would say it's two things: writing a paper on the gettysburg address two years ago and one of the workshops i taught on writing papers well, because the students did so well when i called for them to actually write, and it had taken me a few tries to figure out how to best teach that workshop. there is no better feeling for a teacher than seeing your students succeed and knowing you contributed in small part to that success.
on gettysburg: the address, pt.1, pt.2, pt.3, pt.4, pt.5

if you had the opportunity to travel anywhere, where would you go?

um, everywhere. but right now i'm really stuck on ireland & luxembourg.

from lauren:

why is your car named pluto? don't you know that pluto isn't a planet anymore? or are you scientifically challenged?

i would like to think i'm not scientifically challenged {which my ability at chemistry and biology support, but at which my ability at physics just laughs}. & yes, i do know pluto has been demoted from planethood. my car is named after this small planet because of these events: my brother's girlfriend drives a saturn, so she calls it jupiter {i'm still trying to work out the logic there}. my brother then named my parents' silverado mars {i'm fully convinced he's an adopted martian, & this supports my theory}. so, in keeping with the planet theme, i named my car pluto because it's the smallest of all the cars in my family {but just so we're clear, it's also the cutest}.

why do you have to live so far away in michigan? it's cold there and you are approximately 13 hours from me. since i feel like we are friends this is problematic. really this question is do you plan on living in the lands of the north {aka michigan} forever or do you dream of growing up and moving somewhere like japan or california or alabama?

well, the simplest answer is that i was born here. the historical answer is that in the early to mid-1800s my ancestors moved from new york to michigan and our family's been here since. right now i'm looking at jobs both in and out of state, & eventually i'll move out of michigan {and it just might be to alabama!}, although i'm sure i'll also return here at some point. after all, home is where the hand is.

what is your favorite kind of cake? since it is your birthday, i feel like we must discuss cake.

i like yellow cake with vanilla frosting and sprinkles. our birthday cake tradition used to be ice cream cakes from baskin robbins, and i would get cookies & cream ice cream. this year, though, i don't really want cake, so i asked for an apple pie. {YUM.}

thank you for your questions! i hope to post again in the next few days, but if not, have a happy new year!

a chronicle of christmas.

2011-12-26T09:00:00.000-05:00

i hope you all had a wonderful christmas yesterday! mine was lovely. it's so nice to be at my parents' for a little and see them and my extended family. holidays are my favorite, if only for just that reason.

my christmas celebration started with no less than a typical annie moment. i made plans to hang out with a friend on friday {her house, on the east side of the city we live in, is on my way home}. so we went to the mall, and as we were about to pull in the parking lot, i realized that the one thing i forgot at home is christmas presents for my family.

and i thought to myself, ANNIE ARE YOU STINKING SERIOUS?

forgetful annie: "why, yes, actually; i am."

after i dropped my friend back off at her house, i drove back across the city to my apartment to get them, which was a half hour detour in and of itself. i drove home and ran into two blocks of slow traffic; one for an accident, one because of the sheer amount of people on the road. i told my parents seventy-five percent of metro detroit was on the highway as i was driving home {and my father, in his typical fashion, inquired into the veracity of my statistics}.

anyway, i got home, wrapped presents, and was the first person to put any under the tree.

the next day - christmas eve - we got up early and got ready to head to my aunt's house. when we woke up, there was a light dusting of snow.

this is my car in the picture - meet pluto!

when we left, only two or three hours later, it had completely disappeared.

i do not understand this state this year. we had a snowless christmas day too, but there were plenty of leaves in the yard. should that count for something?

also, i think my parents have a christmas tradition they don't tell us about. it's called How Long Can We Procrastinate {Buying &} Wrapping the Kids' Presents?! at noon on christmas day, my brother's and my presents were still the only ones under the tree. it's an all-time low for the family.*

we went to church yesterday morning, so after we arrived back, mock reamed my parents out for the thirty millionth time about not having presents under the tree, they wrapped them, and we opened presents. we always start with my brother, because he's the youngest, and then take turns in ascending age order.

after we opened presents, we skyped with family in honduras.

& then my brother's girlfriend came over.

isn't she cute? p says the only reason i think she looks cute when she poses this way is because it's my signature pose. *rolls eyes* i wasn't aware i had a signature pose.

& then my dad watched football, my mom played mahjong on his ipad, and i read.

& it was a merry, merry christmas.

*i do have to note that although i mention this as a defining moment of our christmas this year, presents really aren't a huge deal in our family and my parents' timeliness with presents has always been something we joke about.

have a question for annie? ask here!
{especially if you are one of the new faces around here!}
i'm taking questions like:
why is your car named pluto?
what did you get for christmas?
or
honduras?! tell me about honduras!
questions will be answered wednesday

christmastime is here.

2011-12-24T09:00:00.000-05:00

when i think of christmas, i always think of christmas eve. this is the day we get together with family, whether we're in the states or in honduras. in the us, we get together and eat and talk and laugh. in honduras, we dance as well as everything else.

i thought since this is the day that embodies christmas to me, i would tell you a little about our family traditions.

eggnog or hot chocolate?

both

does santa wrap your presents or just sit them under the tree?

santa does not wrap my presents. my parents do.

colored lights or white lights?

colored.

do you hang mistletoe?

...

um, no.

when do you hang up your holiday decorations?

the day after thanksgiving. or, in recent years, the day after that.

what is your favorite holiday dish?

ham. in my opinion, it's christmas's version of thanksgiving's turkey.

what is your favorite holiday memory from childhood?

probably the year my dad opened a giant box to find twenty-some assorted containers of nuts {to which he is allergic}

this isn't a memory, exactly, because i don't remember it, but there's this picture of me years ago one of my cousins a defiant look {i was probably four and he was probably eleven}. that year i got a tea set for christmas. i do remember the tea set.

what is on your christmas wish list?

gift cards to itunes & starbucks and these mittens

do you open gifts on christmas eve?

not really. i think one year we opened one on christmas eve though.

how do you decorate your tree?

colored lights and assorted ornaments: the plain, colored kind; some my brother and i made as kids; some my parents received as gifts {they're both educators}; some my mom has bought as souvenirs of trips we've taken

snow: love it or dread it?

i like snow on christmas and my birthday. besides that, i don't like it. {although i'm finding that when the west side is barren of snow a month past normal, i get very anxious.}

real tree or fake tree?

fake, because our allergy ridden family believes in being able to breathe

do you remember your favorite gift?

probably the year i turned sixteen. my parents gave me two hundred dollars to put in a newly opened checking account. it was less the money and more the fact that i actually felt like i was growing up.

what's the most important thing about christmas to you?

family. family family family.

what is your favorite holiday dessert?
i don't really know that we have any desserts particular to christmas. i do know, however, that i will never turn down a piece of pumpkin pie, at any time of year.

{should i for any reason refuse pumpkin pie, please take my temperature as soon as possible}

what is your favorite holiday tradition?

getting together with the family on christmas eve

what do you put on top of your tree?

in the four-year-old sunday school class at my old church {which my mom taught for a number of years, and yes, she was our teacher}, we made angels with pictures of our faces and luke 2:11 written across the body of the angel. my brother and i both have those angels at the top of the christmas tree.

do you prefer giving or receiving?

this is a hard one for me because gifts are really not my love language. i rarely think to give them and i feel really awkward when i receive them. i think it's because with presents it's easy to quantify relationships, and i absolutely hate that. quality time is my love language. i am much more giving of my time and appreciating of someone's time than of material items {but i'm working on it!}. i would say giving. i like to know i've put a smile on someone's face.

what is your favorite christmas song?

carol of the bells. i love barlowgirl's arrangement. i also love their song "hallelujah {light has come}" and point of grace's "when love came down." i am really not much for christmas music, though.

candy canes: yucky or yummy?

yum. i like peppermint. i got an orange-flavored one from work yesterday {some of y'all may not know about my obsession with all things colored and flavored orange} and haven't tried it yet, but will let you know if i like it or not!

favorite christmas movie{s}:

i'm not much for christmas movies either, nor have i seen very many. but i do like the grinch who stole christmas, elf, and white christmas.

what do you leave for santa?

nothing. we don't do santa in my house. not because my parents didn't want to, but because my brother and i didn't take to it. i told my mom at age six or seven that i knew she was the one writing "from santa" on the gift labels. and even before i blew the santa myth wide open, i told my parents i wanted santa to leave our presents on the front porch because i didn't want him in our house.

do you have a christmas morning tradition?

my dad reads luke 2 and then we open presents.

do you prefer to shop online or at the mall?

well, this year i shopped at meijer.

my dad asked for socks and my mom asked for an ornament and a gift card.

my brother didn't ask for anything, so i bought him a gift card, too.

having a low-fuss family is awful because nobody knows what they want for christmas.

having a low-fuss family is awesome because christmas shopping took me twenty minutes.

christmas letter or christmas card?

christmas card

what are your christmas traditions?

this week at work.

2011-12-23T09:00:00.000-05:00

{ s t o r y n u m b e r o n e }

it is extremely unprofessional to yell across the parking lot at work.

it is extremely embarrassing to come back inside and realize, because you were holding the door open, that everyone inside heard you yelling across the parking lot.

it is even more unprofessional and embarrassing to know that this employee, who shall remain unnamed {ANNIE}, was yelling across the parking lot to ask a student if she wanted a candy cane.

{the things i do for those children. seriously.}

{ s t o r y n u m b e r t w o }

i had a student write that the inuit tribe was trying to preserve its traditions and torture.

three thoughts:
1. they're what?!?!
2. i didn't know the inuit practiced torture.
3. doesn't that somehow violate the geneva convention or some other international law?

{ s t o r y n u m b e r t h r e e }

i was telling my boss's daughter a story and she told me to get back to work.

the apple does not fall from the tree.

in fact, the apple didn't fall at all. it's still connected to the branch.

{ s t o r y n u m b e r f o u r }

one of the jr. kumon students rushed through the main room over to my desk, and while his father was helping him get his coat on, said nothing but, "papa" and "candy" about ten times.

i love my job, but i am ready and thankful for a break.

also: if you have a question for me, ask here! i'll be posting the answers on my birthday, which is wednesday.

also, pt.2: i'm giving away a custom blog design at a classy southern wife. you should go enter!

Jesus love{s}

2011-12-21T09:00:00.000-05:00

i posted the micro version of this on twitter, so if you saw that tweet, here are some expanded thoughts. and if you didn't see that tweet, here are some thoughts.

it started when i saw an anonymous message on a tumblr site.

tumblr is an interesting place. i regard it mostly as a place to blog, so to speak, pretty pictures. i don't write much on it myself. i consider this blog to be my online writing place; i don't really need another. some regard it differently. i can't quite tell you how they regard it, except that what i see of their viewpoint manifests itself in messages, anonymous or not, that plead for prayer.

and the response of the girl whose site this was something i didn't read through, because i was only taking a cursory glance at the site, but i did catch an oft used phrase at the end of it.

you are loved.

i have a grammatical issue with this statement.

and you're like, "but annie, it has a subject and a verb. it's totally a sentence."

and that's certainly true, but that's not the grammatical issue i take with that sentence.

first of all: it's a passive verb.

secondly: passive verbs throw tantrums over their want for an agent.

thirdly: who's the agent?

fourthly: syntactically, who's the focus? in this sentence, you are. you're the recipient. you're what
matters.

and maybe what gets on my nerves most: it's cliché.

is anybody else beginning having an issue with this sentence?

i hate to use cliché to disprove cliché, but: love is a verb. it's inherently active. it's deliberate. it's intentional. it's a mighty force that forces your knees to buckle as we realize we don't deserve the mighty wash of grace with which it comes.

and if love is active, it must come from somewhere. there must be a source. an active verb requires a corresponding subject, someone or something by which the action is executed and perpetuated. here, that is Jesus. He is the One who loves us with the fierceness that brings us to our knees in worship. He is Love with a capital L, love personified, love who dies and shows us how to do the same. He loves us, actively, passionately, intentionally, deliberately. and in phrasing His love for as actively, as it should, we must place Him first in the sentence, symbolic of the way we ought to seek putting Him first in our lives.

"you are loved" is truth. i will not deny that. but we were called to bold, fearless, Jesus love. and if He did not for a minute shy away from clearly articulating His purpose and His position as Lord, we shouldn't either. let us be unafraid to speak His holy, blessed name. let us speak His truth with absolute clarity. let us say boldly:

JESUS. LOVES. YOU.

sometimes, theology makes my head hurt.

2011-12-19T09:00:00.002-05:00

i just spent a number of hours reading a load of different articles on various controversial theological topics. i don't really follow any strictly theological blogs, so it's interesting to delve in every now and then and see what ideas are being put forth. it also gives me an opportunity to think critically on my own about issues i don't encounter in either the church or school, which i appreciate.

as i read, though, i often find myself getting frustrated. despite knowing my bible pretty well {having been raised on a pretty solidly biblical foundation}, i don't know a lot of theological speak and i don't read books on theology either {mostly because i just don't and also because i believe that God spoke well enough for Himself in the bible, although i do find books on theology to be an interesting and meaningful contribution to the discussions at hand}. so, while theological discussions do not quite go over my head, they generally cause my neurons to do somersaults or, occasionally, to misfire.

and also? i think some of the discussions out there are just kind of dumb. i'm not going to cite examples, because i'm not trying to stir those discussions here.

i believe that "God chose the foolish things of the world to shame the wise; [and]...the weak things of the world to shame the strong" (1 corinthians 1:27). and in the same way, i think simple, humble theology trumps complex, grandiose theology.

so how's this theology?

"but because of his great love for us, God, who is rich in mercy, made us alive with Christ even when we were dead in transgressions - it is by grace you are saved" (ephesians 2:4-5).

translation: God loves us.

faith like a child, no? and wouldn't that, in some sense, necessarily transform itself into a childlike theology?

i'm tired of intense theological discussions about whether God approves of this or condemning that because it's biblical or unholy or unchristian or do we spank children or should women preach, etc., etc., etc.

what, after all, do those debates accomplish? i understand there's a need for honest, open, critical discussion of theological ideas, and i am not saying that's wrong. {after all, my b.a. is going to be in english and history, which sort of necessitates being at least proficient and hopefully excellent in critical analysis}. but i think we miss the point.

actually, i think we forget to point.

i think we forget to point to love, to deeply rooted, incomprehensibly sacrificial love. i think we forget to point to love that dies. and i've been thinking a lot lately about dying and what that means, and i think we understate what the crucifixion is: it's deicide. it's God dying. it's He who is above death succumbing to it for our sakes.

and our job? our job is only to follow in those footsteps, those Jesus footsteps we can't possibly hope to fill, with Him, only Him, giving us the strength to walk in the richness of what it means to carry our own crosses; dying, over and over, until He calls us to a home so beyond our comprehension we cannot possibly fathom any inch of its depths, and in the following, in the walking, to bring Him all glory.

He is love and He died, and if we're to do the same, what does that mean for us?

because Love was spat upon, mocked, and whipped to the point of near death. and if that were not enough, Love took nails in His wrists and one through His feet. Love was forsaken by God Himself. Love died.

and so i've started to ask myself a series of questions when dealing with anything that lands even remotely close to a potentially gray area:

what does love look like?
love looks like dying.

what is dying?
it is abandoning the gratification of "the cravings of our flesh and following its desires and thoughts" (ephesians 2:3).

what do i crave?
X, Y, etc., by which i mean: fleeing to tarshish.

if i don't flee to tarshish, what am i doing?
going to nineveh.

i have an idea of how the world should work, politically, economically, socially, religiously, etc. but this world is fallen, and trying to mandate how it runs is only legalizing it. Jesus fulfills the law so we don't have to bound to it any more, so why would i try to bind it again? love means letting go of my idea of what the world looks like, letting go of my idea of what people should look like, and just accepting it all the way it is, so that He can work.

that doesn't mean i compromise what i believe. accepting that most people do not agree with me on anything is not a compromise on what i believe to be absolutely true. one of my friends and i had a discussion on a controversial issue, about which i have a strong stance, and it had taken her a long time to open up to me about it because she feared i would judge her for her position.

i didn't, and don't, agree with her position, and i told her that. but love means saying it in a way that doesn't make her feel like i condemning her as a person for thinking differently. love means remembering it's not about an issue, it's about a person. i could debate the theology of my friend's stance, and i have before. but then i learned she was there, right in the heart of the issue. and i didn't change what i believe about it, but i remembered the discussion isn't about an issue, it's about people. or at least, it's supposed to be about people. and to forget them, well, frankly, is to dehumanize them.

and dehumanization lends itself, oh, so well to further steps, not the least of which is genocide.

i firmly believe, as i told my friend, that if she had an authentic relationship with God, He would show her His way. and i believe the same on these theological issues with which i was growing so frustrated. if we just step back, take a deep breath {or two, or fifty}, and pray, seeking His answer, and His alone, i believe we will know what to do. and i believe that we'll find that Jesus dealt a lot less with issues than He did people.

after all, i don't see Him challenging the roman position on polytheism. i see Him tackling the idols of individual people instead.

and maybe that's all we've needed to remember, all this time: that our God is a God of people, not a God of issues.

47/52

2011-12-18T09:00:00.001-05:00

anyone wanna guess what i'm going to be up to for the next three weeks?

have a question for annie? ask here!

the low side.

2011-12-15T09:00:00.000-05:00

{via}

i hadn't had to remind her she didn't work at my table anymore when it happened.

i walked past, ostensibly on some errand, and must have stopped at her math table to talk to her teacher for a minute when she turned around with mournful eyes and asked, "when do i get to work with you again?"

my heart broke, harder than it ever had on the days when i had to remind her she didn't work at my table anymore, when she would bounce over eagerly, hope simmering underneath her smile that this time, i would forget to say anything.

she reminded me of another little girl, hopeful in the ideal, mournful in the real.

i was reminded that this job, this teaching job, is not for the weak.

and i'm reminded of kayla's post, where she talks about the attachment you inevitably develop with kids. and how, even if you try not to, they eventually draw you in.

a little child shall lead us, no? and they lead us to acceptance and open minds and love and vulnerability. to tears and cries of joy, to courage, to honesty, to battle.

there's another girl at kumon, a sweet girl who has severe emotional issues. and i see bravery in the way she asks me my name, in the way she tells me hers, and the way she rushed to give me a hug a few weeks ago.

i can't steal kayla's phenomenal post ending but i wish i could. because i remember telling another student when i was substituting that the best teachers are good students. he said he'd never heard it. and i was just astounded, because if i have ceased to learn from my students, then what on earth am i ever going to teach them?

i can teach cynicism, doubt, fear, skepticism, and a whole host of other negative characteristics.

but they teach me joy, courage, fearlessness, honesty, simplicity, and whole host of other positive characteristics.

it is a strange place, this Kingdom that makes instructors of students and learners of teachers. may i always be kept on the low side in that place. may we all be kept on the low side. only there do we remember there is always something to learn from everyone.

we're gonna party like it's 2011.

2011-12-14T09:00:00.000-05:00

i have to give abby wambach the credit for this post title.

maybe you're asking who abby wambach is.

fear not! i have the answer.

abby wambach plays forward for the u.s. national women's soccer team. in one of her interviews from the past summer, she was talking about how she was tired of the comparisons being made between the team from 1999, which was the last year the u.s. won the world cup, and the 2011 team. and you know that phrase, "we're gonna party like it's 1999?" well, soccer announcers had been saying it, because it had a double meaning for women's soccer fans.

in 1999, the u.s. played china at basically a standstill the entire game. their best player - the best female player in the world, michelle akers {NOT mia hamm}, had to leave the game early due to a medical condition. they ended up having to settle it with penalty kicks.

i still remember watching in our little living room as brandi chastain put the fifth pk in the net. i've always loved that moment, not only for the victory it secured, but because brandi was a defender, like me.

but as great as the 1999 team was, the 2011 team was great in their own way. so, wambach said, they weren't going to party like it was 1999. they were going to party like it was 2011.

well, in two weeks it's my twenty-first birthday.

and we're gonna party like it's 2011.

with questions, that is.

last year i opened this post up for any questions y'all might have for me, and this year i'm going to do the same thing.

so if you've ever wondered things like how i got awesome defending skills like brandi chastain, now is the time to ask.

i'll even answer that question for you: maybe it's me.

maybe it's maybelline.

actually, i don't wear makeup when i play soccer, so that doesn't make sense. and i don't play anywhere near as good as brandi chastain, so you might not want to ask that question.

probably the only question that's appropriate to ask after this post is:

why is annie so dang obsessed with soccer?!

i wish i knew, friends. i only wish i knew.

and seriously, ask away. i'll answer on my birthday!

this christmas.

2011-12-13T09:00:00.000-05:00

i was thinking about presents friday.

i was thinking about presents and christmas and what people have said they're getting me and what i am going to do about gifts because i am flat broke and not crafty. {ideas are welcome.}

as my father has said before, he and my mom didn't raise my brother and i to focus on presents at christmas.

he failed with his daughter, who has a healthy self-awareness concerning her birthday, which is three days after christmas. "you want presents? from me? foo, i am the gift."

now, i don't actually think that way and have never actually said that, but it lends itself interestingly to what i was thinking about when i was thinking about presents friday.

first i have to go on a semantic vendetta. can we PLEASE stop comparing Jesus to a present under the tree? can we PLEASE stop saying things like "remember the reason for the season" and "the real gift"? & i think the phrase "put Christ back in christmas" is a stupid one,* but if we are going to put Christ back in christmas then can we please. just. say.

JESUS.

and what is this about putting him back there? i wasn't aware He had left. i'm more aware that we've forgotten Him. again.

i don't think we understand what we have in christmas. it's as simple as a baby lying in a pile of straw and as theologically incomprehensible as God, creator God, savior God, in flesh.

Jesus is the gift.

but Jesus is the head of a body, a body of people who claim His name, who speak His love.

and i daresay on your birthday, your head wasn't the only thing that was born.

christmas is the physical birth. christmas is the baby in a manger. and that's incredibly important. but it is not until the spiritual birth of the church, in Christ's death and resurrection, that it is fully born, fully able to work, fully able to break down the barriers that keep a broken, groaning people from a good, holy creator God.

in the moment God saved you, He blasted away what kept you chained to sin and set you free to do what He called you to do. and in the moment that Jesus left that grave empty, He blasted away what kept the church tied to the law and set us free to love the way He does.

but it is on christmas that He delivers the gift.

we, the church, this body of Christ-redeemed people, are that gift. we are the gift that speaks love, casts out demons, sings praise, and give thanks. we are the gift that loses everything, that lays down, that dies, figuratively, over and over until He calls us to do it physically. we are the gift made low, the gift raised high, the gift made dim that He might shine. we are that gift because He leads us and lives inside of us, because we claim and bear His name.

i am tired of phrases like "the reason for the season" because they are overused, uncreative, and not true. there is not, strictly speaking, a reason for this season. instead, it is a depiction of what our everyday should look like. because what Jesus Himself, and what Jesus makes possible for us as individuals and us as the church, is supposed to change not our perception on christmas, but our perception on everything.

we, through Him and only Him, are the gift made alive at christmas, redeemed on the cross, and set free from the grave. and instead of thinking about what i'm going to get on christmas, i want to begin living with that profound realization that christmas lives in me not only on december 25, but all the days of my life.

*X is the first letter in the Greek rendering of the word Christos. when i write a's musings, you wouldn't say put the annie back in annie's musings. a is symbolic of annie, and you know that. similarly, the x in xmas is the representation of Christ, even through the rest of it isn't written out.

annie, attorney at law.

2011-12-12T09:00:00.058-05:00

one. while neither of my parents have tried to push me into a future career, my father has always said one of the things he sees me doing in the future is going to law school and being a lawyer.

two. my brother and i were watching a christmas episode of scooby-doo on saturday. it's about a professor who uses a snowman costume to cover his search of everyone's chimneys to find gold that was robbed from his ancestor years ago {is that storyline bringing stanley yelnats to anyone else's mind right now?}. at the end of it, he says he'll probably have to go to jail, and a kid asks if they can just forgive the professor.

so they do.

and the professor hands out gold to everybody and revives christmas cheer and goodwill and peace on earth to all men, amen.

three. while the revival of christmas cheer and goodwill and peace on earth to all men, amen, is happening, i'm asking what happens to all the charges of breaking and entering, destruction of private property, and disturbance of the peace.

four. i guess i should start looking into taking my lsats.

five. has anybody else been watching once upon a time? i have only one question: why is this show fantastic?! although yesterday's episode made me reeeeaaaally sad. i won't post spoilers, because i don't believe in spoilature, but i was really disappointed. storybrooke is about to be ROCKED next week.

six. it snowed. and the snow actually stuck. and now i feel like it's properly winter, because there's snow on the ground and everybody else is driving like nothing happened.

i actually had someone tell me to my face that east michiganders don't know how to drive in snow. i would have loved to ask why so many west michiganders run off the road when snow arrives, because i have seen more west michigan drivers in accidents in a week than i have east michiganders probably my entire life.

i mean, i'm just sayin.

i actually just realizing west michiganders tend to get in more accidents than east michiganders in general. probably because those of us on the east side are actually used to traffic. the kind that has wheels, i mean. not the kind with four legs.

seven. finals are this week. YAY. & i really am celebrating finals. not because it means the semester is over, but because it means the last month is over. I AM SO TIRED OF RESEARCH.

eight. i gathered up all the books i borrowed from the public and university libraries for research this semester.

that is eighteen books, friends.

eighteen!*

also, this does not include the three books i had to keep for research for my honors senior project, or two that i borrowed for pleasure reading, or the four i took out of the library yesterday, also for pleasure reading.

nine. speaking of books, i saw this sign in the english department last thursday:

after running into the office and asking the receptionist if the sign was for real, i took an entire norton anthology.

no big deal.

ten. not only am i returning all my library books today, but i'm selling back my school books. that leaves more room for books i actually want to read, like this one, which i stuck on the coffee table in front of me saturday as motivation to finish my bicycle paper.

twenty pages, ninety-two footnotes, and 5448 words later, it was.*

*i erroneously said on twitter that this pile of books comprised twenty-one. it didn't. i just can't count. also, i said my paper was twenty-one pages, but i didn't take into account that when i changed all the footnotes to ten point font, it would actually be twenty.

43-46 / 52

2011-12-11T09:00:00.000-05:00

43/52

44/52

45/52

46/52

the rescue

2011-12-09T09:00:00.004-05:00

writing has been hard lately.

i know 31 days was over a month ago, but it's still taking the words out of me. november has been ridiculously busy, so i didn't really have time to write unless it was about something academic.

and i have done plenty of academic writing.

i have written about linguistic exchange along the silk roads. i have written about the enlightenment and gothic novels and jane austen. i have written about apostrophes. i have written about bicycles.

i've found two rather profound statements about writing that probably sum up the season i'm in right now. the first:

I don't know if others do this too, but sometimes when I am most intensely gripped by emotion, I stop writing. I can predict how difficult a time in my life was by the month long gaps in the dates that appear in my journal. - Dana

i didn't stop writing entirely - my type a tendencies toward my gpa dictated otherwise - but i think i stopped writing about what mattered. i've actually brought this up in a few classes: rousseau writes that you can talk about arts and sciences and study them and know them inside out, backwards, in three foreign languages and every shade of color, but if that doesn't teach you some type of civic virtue, who cares?

i prioritized writing about grammar and words and ideas and bikes over writing about faith and life and a love that changes everything. my gpa will thank me. my memory will not.

but this is why i'm still here:

"Writing totally beats me up, but I always go back to it because ... I just love it. I love it recklessly and irrationally in a way that makes my coexistent hate for it all the greater." - Kate

remember the boxing analogy?

writing has come out fighting a lot this semester, but i haven't been quite so beleaguered that i haven't managed to get a few swings out myself. my gpa will really thank me.

and so will my memory.

i believe everything has its purpose, and i know there's one to this semester. i'm still trying to figure it out, but maybe one of the lessons i've learned is perseverance. to hold on, even when it's easier to let go. to hope, even when i feel defeated. to trust, even when all i have are doubts.

to know, beyond the shadow and actuality of all and any doubt, that Rescue is on its way, that Rescue comes for me.

the mitten state.

2011-12-08T15:36:00.000-05:00

i really feel like i should add this week's posts to the ones that officially consisted michigan week way back in june, because i feel almost all i've talked about here since monday is, well, michigan.

i've decided to write this entire post around the t-shirts from michigan awesome. mainly because they're about michigan and they're awesome. at least one might be making an appearance on my currently nonexistent christmas list. {n.b.: let it be known that if jenn had never tweeted about this company, i wouldn't know about it.}

representing the family stomping grounds, past and present:

the one on the right says "saginawesome"

also:

but i think this one is my favorite {and when my father sees this, he'll be planning a move out of state for sure}:

also, will you please just look at these mittens?!

and if you meet a cheesehead {read: wisconsinite} and they try to tell you they are from the mitten state, PLEASE SET THEM STRAIGHT.* i retweeted this from amy yesterday, and then my professor brought it up in michigan history this morning. LOVE IT.

my professor also brought up the fact that there are coal mines all down the length of the thumb. {if that phraseology makes no sense to you, think north of detroit, all up the east coast.} and based on this interesting tidbit of information which was previously unknown to me, i came to a conclusion:

MICHIGAN IS THE FUTURE DISTRICT TWELVE.

see this post for other assertions {read: one assertion} i make about the hunger games

right? right?!

{actually, if you asked me what state i think district 12 is approximately located in, i would say west virginia.}

besides michigan paraphernalia, i've decided what i really want for christmas is my posture back. my backpack has been the bane of my existence since high school at least. i swear i'm two to three inches shorter when i wear it.

i understand it's a tall order to ask for proper posture, but in a rare suspension of disbelief, i hope santa makes short work of my request.** see what i did there?

i promise the next post i write will actually have more sleep and less attempts at witticism behind it. thank goodness the semester is almost over; amen?!

*potential rap lyric: "if they say they're from the mitten state, set 'em straight." too much?
**when i say rare, i mean i could probably count on one hand the number of times i have treated santa as a real person. since infancy.

michigan > that other school

2011-12-07T09:00:00.001-05:00

i think we all know who THAT OTHER SCHOOL is.

you know, that other school. {i can't bear to post anything else scarlet and grey on my blog, so you'll have to look back if you're not sure which school i'm talking about.}

can we just have a belated moment here? 2926 days.

2926 DAYS.

that's how long michigan went without a win against oh- i mean, THAT OTHER SCHOOL.

note the verb. not michigan has gone, but michigan went.

i had to blog about the michigan victory over THAT OTHER SCHOOL and i know this is late {they played november 26}, but really, no time is the wrong time to celebrate wolverine dominance over buckeye subservience.

amen?

amen.

meg sent me an email appropriately titled {for her} "michigan sucks." and in the email she sent me a link to a video that i just have to show you, because it captures, more than i even understood, what the michigan/ohio state rivalry is like.

n.b.: there is profane language that appears on the screen at the end of the video. PLEASE ignore it. meg does not feel that way about michigan and i don't feel that way about ohio state.

and can i just say one last thing?

HAIL TO THE VICTORS!

from a procrastinating irish wolverine fan.

2011-12-05T23:28:00.001-05:00

yesterday i read this fantastic post by arielle. before you do anything else on this blog, GO READ THIS FANTASTIC POST BY ARIELLE.

now that you've done that:
i'm supposed to be writing a paper on rousseau, kant, and austen {with montesquieu, shelley, and wollstonecraft intertwined}, which was far more typical of blog posts written in past years than it has been of posts written in this year. but that's just another slice of random you get served up on this blog.

don't say i don't feed you well.

in lieu of writing my paper, i decided to expand my knowledge base of football trivia - you can never know too much football trivia, amen? {my dad is saying, "that's my daughter!" and my mother is wondering what happened to the little girl that used to dance and wear pretty dresses, but that's another blog post, or maybe a therapy session}. this came about mostly because i needed to sort out the random facts i knew about the bcs bowl games RIGHT THEN AND THERE. so my brother and i sat down and started looking at past bcs national champions.

then we started looking at past rose bowl winners.

then we started looking at past rose bowl players of the game from the university of michigan.

we get to 1979, i read the name, and i'm all, "HOLD UP A HOT SECOND BECAUSE I THINK I KNOW THAT NAME." and i explain to my brother that i think the 1979 winner is married to one of the faculty at our high school. after some google searching and facebook creeping {isn't that the way to find answers to everything?} we figure out our little impressionable minds were indeed shaped by the wife of the 1979 rose bowl player of the game.*

*this is partially false. first, neither of us had her as a teacher. second, there were two players of the game in 1979. but i think you take my point.

i'm listening to the chronicles of narnia soundtrack. i don't usually listen to soundtracks - and what i mean by that is i almost never listen to soundtracks - but this one is just fantastic and so nice to listen to to set a quiet, studious mood. and yet it has energy and crescendo and life. it's really the perfect music to listen to in the middle of writing a paper.

that is, it's really the perfect music to listen to in the middle of writing a blog post. because i think we have established that i am not actually writing a paper right now.

this is a really funny article on the bcs bowl games that my brother emailed me with the message, "fresh off the drizzle yo."

my reaction to the article: THIS IS HILARIOUS.

my reaction to his message: ...................................

also, you know how your name shows up when you email someone something? like, if i email you something, in your inbox it'll show up as "annie."

well, my brother changed his name to "patty o' pat pat."

it doesn't get more irish than that.

& that's a wrap.

in which i ramble.

2011-12-02T09:00:00.000-05:00

hello december!

since i haven't posted in over a week, i've been collecting a lot of random things to say in one post and i've forgotten about half. ah, well. such is annie's memory when she doesn't write things down.

also, i have seventeen comments so far on my abc's of thanks post from last week. first of all, that's a record. second of all, i felt like every time i checked my inbox there was a new comment. and it was a great outpouring of friendship in a super crazy week. also, a lot of them were from new people which was also fun!

speaking of new people, i have gotten a few new followers lately {hello, y'all! make yourselves at home and introduce yourselves!} and have started following a lot of blogs lately. and the kindest way i can put this is that google reader has missed A LOT OF MEMOS and is about a month and half out of date on my blog subscriptions.

CAN ANYONE RECOMMEND A SUBSTITUTE?!

{those of you who have been here for a while know that capital letters do not appear often on this blog. i think my use here is a sign of complete and utter desperation.}

and of course, blog crises always happen in the middle of days when i have no possible time to deal with that crisis. like tonight, when i was going to be in bed by midnight, except that's it's 140am right now. that's fun. NOT.

let's move on to other news. i don't know how many of you have klout - i don't - but i do check my page every now and then just to see what it says. i don't put much if any store into this number. it's actually a source of hilarity for me; about a month ago i checked it to see my score had gone from 39 to 10. my first two instincts were to be confused and then to laugh. in any case, today, klout thinks i'm influential on michigan, homework, and parenting.

apparently the secret of my being a parent is so confidential, even i don't know about it.

this also follows about six weeks of me reportedly being influential about grey's anatomy. y'all, i had ONE conversation of grey's anatomy on twitter, EVER.

& that's why it's impossible for me to take klout seriously.

in news related to the beginning of this post, it's my birthday month! yay, birthday month!

the bicycle research is reaching its end. did y'all hear that? ITS END.

it's going to be closely followed by the end of enlightenment research, apostrophe research, and the end of the semester. insert happy dance here.

well, except for the fact that i'm not actually dancing. {incidentally, does anyone ever actually dance when they say they're doing their happy dance? it's like saying lol. are you ever actually laughing?}

i'm going to go to sleep now, because i have to work tomorrow {by which i mean today, friday}. i'm giving my first seminar on paper writing, so i actually have to be coherent and look like i'm awake and actually know what i'm talking about.

have a lovely friday! tell me what your plans are in the comments, and what you're most looking forward to about christmas {or december in general}. they'll make me smile while my mind is bicycling itself to death this weekend.

je peux dire mon abc

2011-11-23T17:24:00.002-05:00

some of what i'm thankful for this year, in alphabetical order:

a - apple cider. i've had it twice so far this year and it is deelish. somebody remind me to get some when i go to meijer next.

b - bible study. i've mentioned this before, and i'm so thankful for the time we all sit down at our computers, spread across the country, and just have community.

c - college. even when it drives me mad. like yesterday. and the next few weeks.

d - dancing. even when it means i spend the next days limpin' like a fool.

e - egg nog. IT'S SO YUM.

f - friends. friends made in person and friends made through the blog world. y'all are the best.

g - grace for the good girl and breaking free. the books by emily freeman and beth moore, respectively, that are bringing me to a new understanding of what it means to be free in Christ.

h - html. and knowing how to use it. i love blog designing and will be unveiling two new designs soon!

i - instagram. because without it, i don't think i would have any pictures.

j - justification. because we would be nowhere if God had not made a way to do this for us.

k - korekt gramer & speling. because having a standard means we can more easily facilitate communication, even between the vastly different dialects of a language.

l - liberty. and a flag that stands for it.

m - mocha frappuccinos. i tried these just last week and i'm already addicted.

n - ncis marathons. don't be surprised; you know you are, too.

o - options. like the one of choosing when i go into work when i go in on the weekends.

p - parents. and brother. and other family. they are a blessing.

q - quotables. by which i mean, the funny, witty, and wise things people say. i have a whole document on my computer dedicated to keeping all the words i want to be able to remember. and i write down all the funny things my professors say in class, which means when i look back through notes, i randomly start laughing because i'm rereading a funny quip i'd otherwise forgotten.

r - reading. as in, for pleasure. as in, what's going to happen this weekend.

s - sunsets.

t - twilight.

NOT THAT TWILIGHT.

this twilight:

u - unique. totally stealing my word from last year {and actually, when i looked, my choice for e was the same too}. and also because this list is itself unique, particularly in its drawing from my academic reading material. {you can't you were never warned that i'm an english & history nerd.}

v - vision. even if it needs to be supplemented by glasses or contacts.

w - west side of the state. where, if only for three years, i have made, make, and will make my home.

x - xylophone. and the breakdown of its etymology: xylo means "wood" and phone means "sound." wood that makes a sound. and isn't that exactly what a xylophone is?

y - the yuezhi. their conquest of greco-bactria is considered the first event in world history. and i love history, so i'm thankful to them for starting it. {also, i really needed something for the letter y. ;] }

z - zest. for life, for love, for Christ. for forging friendships and community, for sharing our lives and our hearts.

i hope you all have a fabulous thanksgiving. i will be at my aunt's house and then with my parents for the weekend, and will be spending that time relaxing, reading, a little homework, and catching up on your blog posts from the last week and a half.

annie: ENLIGHTENED.

2011-11-17T12:03:00.000-05:00

i have to be honest: between 31 days and classes, life is taking words out of me and i don't really know what to write about here.

we've been talking about the enlightenment in my early modern europe class, and i'm knee-deep in rousseau and kant, voltaire and well, voltaire, and montesquieu. and it's been well, enlightening.

so fear not for the sake of annie's musings: its author is now Enlightened.

i'm even thinking of debuting a new header:

the funny thing about that font is that it looks quite similar to my handwriting and is actually called pea annie.

in any case, here are a few thoughts i had while being Enlightened regarding the enlightenment:

in the spirit of the laws, montesquieu writes, "it is natural for a republic to have only a small territory; otherwise it cannot long subsist." when i read that, i thought, "OH MY GOSH MONTESQUIEU IS PREDICTING THE END OF AMERICA."

this conclusion, reached by reason, leads me to reasonably conclude that the hunger games is real, but just hasn't happened yet. suzanne collins, if i show up on your doorstep, will you show me your time machine? i wanna tell locke where his ideas end up taking this country.

then i was reading a part of rousseau's social contract, in which he writes, "finally, each man, in giving himself to all, gives himself to nobody; and as there is no associate over which he does acquire the same right as he yields others over himself, he gains an equivalent for everything he loses..." but in copying this down, i initially wrote "he does acquire the same thing," only to look back and find i had done so incorrectly. and you'd think i would know that enlightenment thinkers have a vocabulary that extends far past the point of simply saying "thing."

you know, because they're smart and stuff.

suzanne collins [opening door of time machine]:

i warn you, y'all, you are not gonna like this.

rousseau [reads this post & does double-take. thinks for a LONG time. then writes:]

it is this author's reasonable conclusion that the enlightenment is a sham and annie is a fraud and in need of serious psychiatric treatment.

voltaire:

if the enlightenment were a sham, your ideas would have been a product and a contributor thereof. wait...

montesquieu:

THIS is why people under popular governments need virtue. otherwise, at best, we end up with situations that are an EMBARRASSMENT TO SOCIETY.

annie:

i didn't know there were two r's in embarrassment. if this is what Enlightenment looks like, TAKE IT BACK.

that's quotable.

2011-11-15T09:00:00.000-05:00

this post is going to serve two purposes {and it is the english nerd and former latin student in me that wonders what language "purpose" comes from and if we should therefore question the current nature of its plural formation. the online etymological dictionary says old french, so fear not: this post will not serve two purposi}.

first, to share with all some of the quotes i have stored away on virtual stickies {see exhibit a, below}:

& second, to get rid of some of those stickies by putting those quotes elsewhere, namely: here. enjoy!

me: FOR THE LOVE.
tiffany: of what?
me: of all that's good and holy.
tiffany: and our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ.

“And when at last you find someone to whom you feel you can pour out your soul, you stop in shock at the words you utter— they are so rusty, so ugly, so meaningless and feeble from being kept in the small cramped dark inside you so long.” - Sylvia Plath

“Education ought to be a searchlight given to a man to explore everything, but very specially the things most distant from himself. Education tends to be a spotlight; which is centered entirely on himself. . . . But the only final cure is to turn off the limelight and let him realize the stars.” - G. K. Chesterton

"He thought the world's heart beat at some terrible cost and that the world's pain and its beauty moved in a relationship of diverging equity and that in this headlong deficit the blood of multitudes might ultimately be exacted for the vision of a single flower." - Cormac McCarthy, All the Pretty Horses

"She was truest to them in the season of trial, as all the quietly loyal and good will always be."
- Charles Dickens

"I closed my eyes tight, blink it all back… Sara knew: That biblical scholars realize that the name of God, the letters YHWH, sounds like the sound of our breathing – aspirated consonants. God Himself names himself — and He names himself that which is the sound of our own breathing."
- Ann Voskamp, "When Longing to Choose Joy"

"Ordinary moments force us to come to terms with who we are and grapple with who we should be." - a beautiful ordinary

"Let us be as quick to kneel in prayer as we are to text." - Kylee

a very miscellany monday

2011-11-14T12:07:00.002-05:00

one | little one!

it's your birthday! i can't believe you're old enough to be eighteen, but you are.

two | cara posted this video last week and i just watched in awe.

three | also last week, i got my replacement pair of shoes in the mail!

i actually thought they would be the same material as my original pair, but they aren't. that's okay, though. i still love them!

four | i live in a concrete savannah. i can't even tell you how much i wish this picture were a joke:

five | i like to climb on tables. in school.

what can i say? my parents raised me right.

six | as my brother would say, à la joker: "now let me tell you a story."

this is a story about snow.

once upon a time, snow was forecasted.

then, snow flurried.

after that, snow was all over the place.

including my head. MY HEAD.

and if not for the fact that the snow melted so quickly after i walked inside, i would be covered in white flakes.

anyway, it stopped snowing, the snow didn't stick, and most importantly, my hair didn't frizz. which means this fairy tale clearly had a happy ending.

have a happy monday!

42/52

2011-11-13T09:00:00.002-05:00

the pond on campus, at autumn twilight

the update on life, con'd.

2011-11-09T09:00:00.055-05:00

i told you that whole story about my injuries yesterday to tell you that after i ripped the first fingernail, i spent two weeks splinting it, because the way i'd torn the nail, it was too far in to clip off. also, putting band-aids on it was highly impractical.

i then decided The Splinted Finger should become the name of a medical supply shop.

in other news, i started my internship a few weeks ago. i'm interning at a museum that's dedicated to the history of the city in which it resides, and i love it. i'm working with the two historical houses they own and maintain, collecting and organizing information and photos on the second floors of both houses so that people who are unable to access them can still get a thorough feel of what they look like. i'm super excited about it. here's one of the houses:

isn't it gorgeous?

not so gorgeous: me giving the phrase dressy casual a whole new meaning.

also very gorgeous: the inside {and outside, but i have no pictures of that} of this building.

what do you think it is?

IT'S A BANK. yes, a bank. a bank. i have a couple questions regarding the existence of this bank.

first, why would you build such a pretty building and stick it in the middle of a cornfield?
two, exactly how many people patronize this lovely establishment? one?
three, why is this building not closer to actual civilization {aka, me} so that i could use it all the time?!

i just don't understand.

another thing i don't understand is spending five thousand dollars a semester to go to a university where soap dispensers break at the beginning of october and remain broken at the beginning of november. i don't suppose a seventy-five million dollar endowment fund would help with that AT ALL.

a third thing i don't understand - this list i'm generating is causing me to question the value of the university education i'm supposed to getting - is my addiction to sugar. this has been a lifelong problem. my mom actually joked one easter after our neighbors had given us giant chocolate bunnies that she was going to feed me the entirety of hers so that i would throw up from the sugar and thus dislike it. {this happened to her one halloween when she was a kid and she has had an aversion to sugar since.} this may well have worked in my case, except that she forgot several things: a) to feed me the chocolate bunny {which, let's be real, i wouldn't have eaten because it's white chocolate, and the only real chocolate is milk chocolate}, and b) that i inherited my father's genetic predisposition to having a sweet tooth and thus to keeping the family dentist in business.

my sugar consumption, however, has reached its peak. i know this for several reasons: a) there are more pictures than necessary of our m&m dispenser, taken with instagram; b) there are quite a few empty pop cans waiting to be recycled; c) i had one of each of these last week:

and d) i got a nosebleed last monday from dehydration. i haven't had such a nosebleed since before college {read: in two and a half years}.

(incidentally, the last time i had a nosebleed that wasn't from dehydration was when i got hit in the face with a soccer ball at michigan state's soccer camp. this reminds me of one of Life's Greatest Questions: why did i go to michigan state's soccer camp again?)

anyway, i gave up pop. last sunday i drank my last sunkist, went five days without pop, then drank my last root beer this past friday night. {it stood to reason - well, my reason, at least - that favorite drinks should be drunk on favorite days. even when the occasion of drinking the favorite drink is not so, well, favorite-y.}*

also, i ate three pieces of candy on halloween, during the day. by the time the Hours of Official Candy Eating had arrived, the thought of candy was making me sick to my stomach. my mother would be proud.

in fact, i don't think my parents have had occasion to be this proud of me since the day they became parents. {december 28, if you were wondering.} giving up pop and becoming ill at the thought of candy, all in the same day? unheard of.

well, i did have a donut later that week, in belated celebration of halloween.

so maybe they don't have quite such a grand occasion for which to be proud of me.

although i did get a 98 on my critical literary theory midterm. that's something, isn't it?

and on that note, have a happy wednesday.

*i have to admit i have had pop twice since that weekend but i ate out both times, which i normally don't do.

church in my laptop.

2011-11-08T09:00:00.001-05:00

bible study last night - just missing bethany!

yesterday i tweeted, "i just got hit with a lot of freedom. #breakingfree #graceforthegoodgirl"

yesterday i also mentioned that i don't really understand why blogging friendships seem as strong as real life friendships,* even when you sit down to talk for the first time.

i decided over the weekend that it comes down to authenticity.

i try to be as honest as i can on this blog. and those i seek out as friends in the blogging world are those who are equally honest, are equally real, are equally vulnerable.

i think this bypasses about thirty hundred steps required to get a real life friendship to this point. after all, how long does it take one to trust? and when your trust has been betrayed, how much harder is it, how much longer does it take?

it is a beautiful thing we have in friendships borne out of blogging.

last night i sat down with seven other sweet girls for our first bible study session. and it was beautiful, how God just folded up america like an origami crane. michigan and florida and alabama and california and ohio all sat next to each other, and we, their inhabitants, talked about freedom and sin and Jesus. and it was one of the sweetest instances of community i've ever experienced.

the message at church on sunday was about church, and one of the ramifications of church being an inherent part of the saving grace God so desperately wishes to bestow upon us is community. and i believe that in forging community, we forge church.

last night, i scooped pasta into a bowl, dumped a load of parmesan cheese on top, and poured a glass of chocolate milk. i sat down at a desk my mom bought from a garage sale, with a detroit red wings bumper sticker on the inside wall of the top drawer, in my bedroom, lit by a single lamp. and right there, surrounded by books and homework, sitting on my feet, on a monday night, i had church.

For where two or three gather in my name, there am I with them. | matthew 18:20

*i use this term with some trepidation, as i think my blogging friends are equally as real as those i have with people i know in person.

the update on life.

2011-11-07T09:00:00.103-05:00

i am all caught up on project 52, for which i am certainly grateful, and for which i am equally certain that you are grateful.

but i have plenty more pictures to show you, because i am, as you have probably figured out already, addicted to instagram.

besides, the picture is worth the proverbial thousand words, right? and i have worn myself out of words, thanks to 31 days, so instagram is basically taking over this blog for the next - well, until whenever i recover the use of language. which, thinking about it, actually seems to be quite intact.

i feel as though all i've done during october is go to work and class, do homework, blog, tweet, read, and sleep. but, as instagram reminds me, i have actually done more than that. it's actually sort of encouraging to know that.

(aside: i was just searching twitter to find a tweet that describes the beginning of my month when i ran into a tweet from my dear friend megan, in which she offers to make me her twin by getting me this cup:

megan, i would love to be twins with you. that's why you're going to become a michigan fan.)

the u of m/osu rivalry has been going on strong between us, and we actually spent the other day arguing over what football team sydney and katie should support. katie decided to side with mary and become a florida fan.

i'm still failing to come to terms with my apparent lack of persuasive skills.

in any case, the tweet i was looking for was the one where i inform the twitter of all the injuries i incurred in the space of two weeks. well, not only did i rip a fingernail trying to shut my car door with one finger {not advised, particularly when you have long nails}, burn my palm and finger {when your straightener slips through your hand, LET IT FALL, because the split second you think you're cool by catching it will leave the memory on your skin}, and slice open another finger on my laptop {when trying to hit flat surfaces, hit the flat surfaces and not the corners thereof}, but i also ripped another fingernail a few days later trying to flip my laptop case over, with laptop inside, so i could put it down properly. and i don't know what life lesson to give you out of that, because laptops are far less easily replaceable than straighteners, even when you have a chi.

actually, a life lesson has occurred to me: use nail strengthener, even when you have broken nail clippers over your nails before. because nail clippers are far more replaceable than the straightener that is more replaceable than the laptop.

here's what's not replaceable: the friendship that exploded after i put up that tweet. because megan tweeted back asking if there was anything i needed to talk about, and i tweeted back saying that there was, actually, a lot, and in all seriousness, we should skype sometime. {yes, this is the same megan who is trying to turn me into an ohio state fan. i do my best to forget that part.}

we talked for an hour the next week and it literally felt like we'd been friends for years. and i started wondering - why is it that friendships over the blogosphere click like that? i don't talk well with strangers - they make me too nervous, and i don't know why - but megan and i talked like old friends. and then we skyped with some of the girls who are participating in the bible study megan has been putting together, and it was the same thing. we talked and laughed and joked, and instead of five friends hearing each other's voices for the first time, it was like five friends who'd been to college together or grown up together skyping to catch up on each other's lives.

i'll bring you more thoughts on that later. i have deeper thoughts than will come out of the rambly mood i'm in. in the meantime, enjoy your monday!

*i am a proud michigan fan and i cannot believe i posted a picture of anything ohio state-related on my blog.

41/52

2011-11-06T09:00:00.000-05:00

hey, we know. let's rip up the courtyard in the middle of the university without telling anyone. that's fun.

40/52

2011-11-05T09:00:00.006-04:00

i wore the heels out of this pair of shoes a few months ago and finally contacted the company, because they wore out pretty quickly. i had to take pictures to show them the damage. and yes, i have still been wearing these shoes - besides another such damaged pair of black heels, they're the only ones i have!

39/52

2011-11-04T09:00:00.003-04:00

i only just tried a pumpkin spice latte this fall and i am addicted.

38/52

2011-11-03T09:00:00.003-04:00

37/52

2011-11-02T09:00:00.002-04:00

36/52

2011-11-01T09:00:00.013-04:00

view of the apartment complex parking lot through the dining room window, while it was raining

{day thirty-one} five for the rule books

2011-10-31T09:00:00.064-04:00

break the rules.

yes.

once you know them, break them.

break them with purpose,

with gusto,

with vision.

rules take you to the mountaintop.

breaking them takes you past the sky.

{day thirty} recapitulation

2011-10-30T09:00:00.063-04:00

we've come thirty days in this thirty-one day journey, and i am amazed.

in two days, we will go on from here, to our regular patterns of posting, whether that be often or not, routine or not, etc. and before the end of the year, we will forget where october took us.

let us not forget where we've been. let us recapitulate.

prologue
week of story
i am a writer {by annie}
the power of a story {by megan}
dear diary {by jessica}
5 ways to stay creative in college {by elizabeth}
words with grace {by a}

31 days of writing
the introduction
day 1: are you a writer?
day 2: what's your purpose?

the rule book
day 3: one for the rule books

the inspiration
day 4: look past the fear
day 5: don't squander the gift
day 6: to change the world
day 7: an everyday miracle
day 8: the rest
day 9: the real

the rule book, continued
day 10: two for the rule books

the revelation
day 11: a secret

before we go on
day 12: teach me?!
day 13: more logistics

in their own words
day 14: reinforcement
day 15: why we write
day 16: a way of living

the rule book, continued
day 17: three for the rule books

annie stylistics
day 18: pt.1 - tricolon
day 19: pt.2 - extended metaphor
day 20: pt.3 - personification

a different medium
day 21: a thousand words

your story
day 22: write your story
day 23: the stories you tell

the rule book, continued
day 24: four for the rule books

writing as worship
day 25: the christian rhetorician
day 26: use your gift

finding joy
day 27: pt.1 - the question
day 28: pt.2 - your responses
day 29: pt.3 - my thoughts

the wrap-up
day 30: recapitulation

the rule book, continued
day 31: you'll have to stay tuned ;]

{day twenty-nine} how do you find joy? pt.3

2011-10-29T21:37:00.002-04:00

last week i sat on a comfy couch, with a blanket around my shoulders, listening to sara groves at four in the morning. earlier that night i was tweeting with caitlin, elizabeth, and sydney, as the former two crammed their own paper writing into the night and sydney laughed about how we were on twitter instead of getting work done. and i took possession of my brother's penguin pillow pet {probably few of you know that i am obsessed with penguins} and entertained him by whining like a small child.

i just finished a proposal for my honors senior project next semester. it irritated me that i had to do it, but it's due tuesday. {let it be known that this is the ONLY academic work i have completed before the night before it's due.} and i was exhausted from the week and would have much preferred taking a nap like my brother. but i kept going, because i knew at some point, i would be done.

there is a promise for the saints, hidden among the thousands of holy words God has provided us. and it is the promise to be made perfect. there is another promise: that God holds us securely in His hands, that He lavishes us freely with His love therein, that He fills us with unspeakable joy and incomprehensible peace.

i believe that in doing God's work, we will experience frustration. we will come to our wits' end. but God in our weakness is made oh, so strong. it is then we reach a crossroads: to trust, like a child, completely? or to run to tarshish, for whatever reason we might conjure?

if we lean on Him, if we choose to trust, i believe we will find moments of joy along the way. i believe we will laugh and cry and laugh so hard we cry some more. and i believe that at the end of the journey, when He has made us perfect, we will be able to look back with great thankfulness and joy that He gave us the faith to let Him bring us through.

that's how i find joy in frustration.

{day twenty-eight} how do you find joy? pt.2

2011-10-28T17:56:00.000-04:00

i asked.

and you answered:

mikelle jade:

i remember to step back and be grateful for [my job & my major]. i am so lucky to have such a great job that pays well and will let me advance after graduation. i am so lucky to have the opportunity to go to school and major in what i want to, and what i picked. i'm grateful for the knowledge and drive i have to do something hard! it's not a lot of joy - but when i remember these things it makes me happy.

amy:

assigned anything is typically hard for me to trudge through. i find if i either make it a game or find someone to chat with while i work on it, it makes it somewhat easier to concentrate and get the task done without getting overly frustrated.

{aside: i can speak to this, as i used to rap t. s. eliot when i was at my wits' end with modernist poetry}

annie:

here's what i try to remember when i'm muddling through, or when i'm facing obstacles in using my gifts: i remember it's holy. i try to smile anyway. i take a deep breath and press on. i turn on some music.
sometimes, too, i have to recognize being at my wits' end as a time to reevaluate. do i want to keep doing this? at what cost? is this my real calling? do i need a break or a retreat? do i need to be still for a bit?
self-evaluation, i think, is important, and often when i'm at my wits' end is when i recognize it's time to do that.

i'll bring you my thoughts on this tomorrow!

{day twenty-seven} how do you find joy? pt.1

2011-10-27T09:00:00.007-04:00

constitutionalism.

golden rice.

alexander the great.

i've written about all three of those topics, all under academic duress. and it so happens that when you are, under the academic standard, constrained to write about something, your resultant irritation will extend not only to the object about which you write, but the writing itself.

a beautiful ordinary commented yesterday with an important question regarding my post on following the calling set before you. she asked, "how do you find joy in your work when you're at your wits' end?"

but before i give you my thoughts, what do you think? how do we find joy in the areas that can and do bring us great frustration?

i'll be thinking about my own response to this question, and bring it to you in a couple days. in the meantime, i look forward to hearing yours.

{day twenty-six} use your gift

2011-10-26T20:21:00.002-04:00

it was built around the turn of the century as a post office, but when i walked inside for the first time last week, it was a museum dedicated to the history of the city.

i sat in her office, with every intention of asking and hopefully securing the internship that took place down in the archives. i wanted to learn what you could do with history outside traditional education, and i thought this would be my opportunity.

instead she steered me toward another internship, one that had also been recommended by the university liaison for me. the museum owns two houses illustrating the socioeconomic divide in the city around the 1870s, and persons with disabilities are unable to climb the stairs to see the second floor. in the case of the smaller house, the stairs are so steep, few are allowed up at all.

"we want a binder, or something," she said, "so that people who are unable to see the second floor for themselves are still able to get a really good feel for it."

and with that, i, the experienced teacher and writer, took the internship that was based on, um, teaching and writing.

i've since come to the realization that God does not give you a gift He does not intend you to use.

what's your gift?

if your gift is prophesying, then prophesy in accordance with your faith; if it is serving, then serve; if it is teaching, then teach; if it is to encourage, then give encouragement; if it is giving, then give generously; if it is to lead, do it diligently; if it is to show mercy, do it cheerfully.
romans 12:6b-8

are you using your gift in the way you should?

are you using it at all?

one of my gifts is writing - or really, anything to do with words. the minute i start running from that, the minute i start trying to shirk that responsibility, if only in small ways, is not the minute i start taking a break from writing.

it's the minute i start sinning.

if nineveh is the work we do, tarshish is where we flee. maybe fear drives you there. maybe, like jonah, dislike for what you're being called to do, or among whom you're called to do it. maybe, like me, you just want to do something different.

it doesn't matter why we go to tarshish. what matters is that when God shows up along the way and strongly urges us to change direction, we go to nineveh. what matters is that we let the excuses of inability or fear or boredom drop from our hands onto the ground we ought not to have walked.

what matters is that when God calls us, we listen. that when God calls me, I listen.

because we weren't meant to squander the gift.

we were meant to change the world.

{day twenty-five} reposted: the christian rhetorician

2011-10-25T11:31:00.002-04:00

reposted from here:

--

there's something about writing.

there's something about it that gets into my blood, to the point where i start crafting sentences in my mind, working relentlessly on perfecting my art of rhetoric even though i'm supposed to be doing something else. as you won't get bread without kneading the dough, neither will you get a well-written essay, letter, etc. without kneading the words and sentences that make it up.

there are quite a few people i've met through blogging that are writers, and they, along with other writers i know, can attest to the fact that sometimes writers get into the mood where they have to write, how their fingers begin to itch because the need is so demanding, and they start writing and the words just pour out, and if words were literally water i'd be calling for the eastern seaboard to evacuate and move inland because this hurricane is moving and it's moving fast.

and yet they could also tell you that there are some times where there is no hurricane, where the kneading is annoying and the last thing you want to do is think about words and putting them together into sentences. this generally occurs - for me at least - when the subject isn't particularly interesting, or when it's for school. i often say i've perfected the art of procrastination. no, really. i have. i can write five page papers in two, three hours. i know because i have. i regularly leave essays until the night before, staying up late to write them. my friends think i'm crazy, and tell me so, then qualify their statements by saying, "but you can do that." well, yes, i know i can; that's why i do.

a beautiful ordinary convicted me on that tuesday.

she was talking about her journalism professor, who informed her class that the difference between undergraduate academic writing and professional writing was the difference in aim. for school, you write to the standards of the professor; for your profession, you write to the standards of perfection {or as closely to perfect as you can get it}. her reaction was:

I thought about the idea he had articulated for a moment. My first reaction was one of sadness and self-righteous condemnation of our grades-driven scholastic culture. My second reaction was the sheepish realization that I, too, had been guilty of writing just well enough to meet up to the standards of a professor, a boss, or an editor. His words made me wonder: Should a "paradigm shift" between the calling of the Christian student and the calling of the Christian writer even be necessary?

imma go out on a limb here and say no.

and that's a beautiful ordinary's conclusion, which she prefaces with colossians 3:17 - "and whatever you do, whether in word or deed, do it all in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks to God the Father through him."

whatever you do. the phrase is basically a neon sign that reads, "dear annie, that would include all the essays you write at 2 am the night before they're due, in the name of 'i write well under pressure,' but just basically means you are too lazy to do them beforehand."

um.

i remember the paper i wrote on abraham lincoln's "gettysburg address." i slaved over that paper. when i think of the two days preceding four o'clock on december 17, 2009, i cannot remember anything except sitting in front of my computer writing it.

it was, undoubtably, the best paper i have ever written. that is a fact.

as i thought about what a beautiful ordinary had said, i realized some things about that paper:

one. that was a lot of time.
two. that was a lot of effort.
three. it was totally worth it.
four. it's the best paper i've written to date.
five. it's my favorite of the papers i've written.

to understand why these revelations were important, you have to understand something about this paper.

i esteem lincoln highly. i believe his legacy outstrips even george washington's, because washington may have been one of the single strongest forces behind the birth of our nation, but lincoln was the single strongest force for keeping it together. i find history in general and lincoln in particular fascinating. i love rhetoric; i love language; i own a book all about lincoln and his language.

essentially, i loved what i was writing about, so i think it's clear that this paper was a labor of love.

emphasis on labor. i will not fool you. there is no way in the world i had to spend the vast majority of two days on this paper. there's just not. i could have whipped it out in about four hours - after all, that's how i approach every other paper i write.

and if you are not a writer, and maybe even if you are, you might be wondering why i put myself through two days of what appears to be agony when i could have wrapped it all up, and still produced a fairly decent essay, in less than an eighth of the time.

my mother used to say to my brother and i, sure, we could do enough to get us by. but that was average. were we going to settle for average? for mediocrity?

does God settle for mediocrity when it comes to you?

does He just stop, at some point, and say, "annie just will not step outside her comfort zone. I have worked on her, convicted her, given her opportunity after opportunity, and she will not step out as a matter of habit. she refuses to cultivate a lifestyle of boldness for My sake. she has done it once or twice though, so I think I've gotten about as far as I can with annie. I'm done."

no. "...he which hath begun a good work in you will perform it until the day of Jesus Christ" {phil. 1:6} and "make you perfect in every good work to do his will, working in you that which is wellpleasing in his sight, through Jesus Christ; to whom be glory for ever and ever. amen" {heb. 13:21}. God doesn't just stop perfecting us. He keeps working, even when we mess up for the 38534852458th time.

"christian" means "little Christ," and was given to the 2nd, 3rd century believers as a way of identifying them by whom they followed. a christian, then, is held up to no less than God's own standards when it comes to life, and the writer is held up to those same standards when it comes to writing. as God painstakingly, with astonishing and unprecedented details, scripts out our lives, those of us who would term ourselves writers and christians both must do the same.

whatever you do, do in the name of Christ. whatever you do, do for the glory of God. whatever you do, do with as much passion, as much aim for perfection, as God works on us. will you match Him? of course not. He is perfect, and we are not. but in the perfecting of our craft of writing, with every word we write, we imitate Him, worship Him, bring Him glory.

i believe "on gettysburg" was no less than some of my best-crafted rhetoric, a labor of love, and most importantly, an act of worship. as i wrote in a comment to a beautiful ordinary's post on writing, "all of our activity, regardless of its more immediately, earthly purpose, should be as much a work of praise and worship as writing the literal words, 'praise be unto God.'" because it should.

i have no magic formula for how that happens, no list of characteristics, no guiding philosophy with which to leave you, mostly because not every reader of my blog is a writer. but what i can tell you is that, to determine how your lifework will be characterized by worship and bring glory to Him, you must examine how He carries out His, and carry yours out similarly. It'll be a journey, but that's what loving Jesus is - a journey, from sin, to redemption, characterized by His work of perfecting that happens in between.

if you're interested, you can read "on gettysburg," which i split into five parts. if you do choose to read it, please first read the gettysburg address, which i've posted here. 1, 2, 3, 4, 5.

{day twenty-four} four for the rule books

2011-10-24T09:00:00.053-04:00

it is my firm conviction that if you believe something, you will be able to express said belief without resorting to clichés.

so get rid of them, now.

the frequency with which we default to clichés is something i first noticed in the christian community. have y'all ever noticed it? the frequency with which we resort to platitudes, as if they are the giver of comfort? or in testimonies, as if everyone is supposed to write their stories from a well-worn litany of phrases we could all recite with them. "i grew up in a christian home and was saved at age ___" or "i wandered away from God" or other stock phrases you may know that come to mind.

it's not that these phrases aren't true - they are, that's why they're clichés - but they're clichés because we've heard them time and time again. and nobody should be able to recite your testimony with you simply because you're using the same, overworn phrase stock.

i am not going to tell you how to write your story. it is your story. only you can write it. but i will tell you that you ought not to draw from clichés, for when they were regarded as original phrases, they were part of someone else's story. and theirs is not yours, so why would would you use theirs to tell yours? if you have been inspired by someone's story, by their testimony, credit them. but don't say something we've heard before.

after all, we've heard it before. and you were created by a God who intends you to be a unique manifestation of His love, of His grace.

is it easy to write your story? no. we've said that; we know it. but He is the God of all-strength. and if you ask, you will receive the strength and the inspiration to write your stories.

but are they yours? for we could say the Bible is a collection of stories of the men who wrote them, but are they really? or is it the inspired, God-breathed story of Himself, of who He is, of who we are in relation to Him.

would we really cheapen His story by simply using the first phrase that comes to mind? one that is not original? and why? because we are too lazy to channel the creativity, or because we don't have any to channel?

if we don't have any to channel, it's because we haven't asked in His name. and do you really think He would deny us the privilege of writing His story, for His glory?

we will be discussing writing as worship a little more this week. and it is my firm hope that you and i learn more about writing as a source of glory to the Father, that we learn evermore how to step away from the cliché, from the monotony, and write something that, regardless of how many see it, is an amazing testimony of love and grace and goodness.

and i think that comes from writing our stories, in the way only we can, in words and phrases of our own originality and creativity.

{day twenty-three} the stories you tell

2011-10-23T09:00:00.000-04:00

tell the stories you want to be known for a hundred years from now.

{day twenty-two} write your story

2011-10-22T09:00:00.000-04:00

last week i asked you to teach me about writing.

and amy had something to say about it:

I write because I have discovered that it is the best way for me to sort through things. I always write my heart, the things I'm being convicted of and the things I'm learning. Most of all, I write because I feel God is calling me to share these things with others around me.

i write for many of the reasons, and i believe it's integral to write what you believe in. to write what you know. to what what you've seen, heard, felt.

i believe you should write your story, whether you write about events that actually happened to you or you write about characters that only exist in your mind yet. because your story is one of salvation, of redemption, of light crushing the darkness.

i have written two novels. in the second, particularly, i wrote about the aftermath of something of which i was acutely aware at the time, processing what i didn't understand, learning things about who i was, writing because i was and still am compelled to write about a love i can't comprehend. and in doing so, i learned a lot about myself, about God, about everything, really, and i mean that quite literally.

none of those characters exist but in my mind. and yet, without that behind me, i would not be here today. i would not be writing these words - these literal words your eyes are reading this very moment - if i had not written those many words first. because neither story is about me - they're both about Him, about the way His love is made manifest to us.

in that novel, i wrote a story that bears no resemblance to my own.

in that novel, i wrote a story that bears all resemblance to my own.

{day twenty-one} a thousand words

2011-10-21T09:00:00.028-04:00

they say a picture is worth a thousand words.

i don't know who they are, and i don't care for the cliché this phrase has become, but it does bring up an interesting discussion.

there are times when the words run dry in the well of writing and my ability to produce anything worth reading turns into a barren, desert wasteland. and i wonder when it'll end, when i'll be able to write again.

i've written two novels, and this feeling has come after both of them, stolen over me like darkness claiming the land for its own for the duration of a night. i can't write fiction. i suppose it might best be termed literary paralysis. ideas may come, but the words won't. and persuading them is useless, because you can't persuade something you can't find.

i've already recommended that instead of forcing the writing, you do something else, and i suppose that's what i'm advocating here also. that sometimes, you admit that whatever strategy you're using now isn't working, take a step back, reevaluate, and formulate and implement a new one.

i usually post my pictures for project 52 on sundays, and they're usually wordless. words aren't needed. what could i possibly add to the thousand that are there? perhaps there are less if it's visually simplistic; more if it's visually complex. but why force words that are unnecessary?

there are times when you might try to describe the beauty of a flower and come up short. the words won't come. in that moment, take the picture. let the words be read in the contours of the petals, in the slender elegance of the stem, in the vividness of its color. let it soak over you, drowning you, resurrecting you, as a baptism in beauty, and when you arise from the water, look at it again with the new eyes beauty gives you.

i imagine then you'll know how to read the words the flower writes, and they will come of themselves, so quickly your mind will spin and rattle and flip like space mountain, mission 2.

it is there, in that moment, that you will learn to write your own thousand words.

{day twenty} annie stylistics, pt.3

2011-10-20T23:36:00.001-04:00

this is really late, for which i apologize - my week has been crazy and i was so tired when i came home from classes this afternoon that i napped instead of writing my post. so this is annie uncut at 11.

today i walked home in cold wind, a wind that blew so fierce at one point it seized my breath.

i like personification because of they spin the experiences we have, making us think about it in a different way. to try to tell you how the wind blew so fiercely cold that it felt like my lungs froze up, that i could hardly put one foot ahead of the other, doesn't work quite so well.

no, the wind seized my breath, time transformed into jell-o and i tried to put my foot through that to touch the concrete, and it didn't work so well.

as for the rain, well, it was just rainy. i have no personifying aspects for the rain. it was more than a drizzle but less than what seems like actual rain, so i felt pretentious carrying my umbrella like a shield but there was too much rain for me to just deal with the raindrops. and besides, they felt like thousands of mosquitoes biting you, almost. and if there's one thing i don't deal with, it's mosquitoes.

but we were talking about personification, not mosquitoes. {welcome to annie uncut. don't say you weren't warned.}

words are playing hide and seek with me right now, and i'm not really succeeding at finding them. i think i've struggled recently with trying to find something profound to say every day of this series, and i think particularly today, where it's taken me the first twenty-three hours of the day to even sit down and start writing this post, i'm just realizing that it's not the profundity that i need to aim for, but just the exercise of writing itself. to discipline myself to do it, even when the words dance just of reach, smirking, mocking, jeering.

and i think that's the important part: the perseverance. because at some point, the words gush out of a faucet whose valve you can't turn off, and take on a life of their own. you had the courage to breathe into them, to give them life, and they themselves become the personification.

{day nineteen} annie stylistics, pt.2

2011-10-19T09:00:00.002-04:00

using a metaphor is the blooming of a tightly closed rosebud, weaving cohesion in a tapestry of words.

it's not the easiest thing to do. it requires a great deal of creativity. sometimes, to achieve it in academic writing, it requires taking what you find in a work you're analyzing and expanding on it, like i did with the egypt of newspaper example i shared with you a few weeks ago. and it certainly takes a great deal of creativity to weave it throughout a complete work, regardless of its length.

but of course, when we see the rose in full bloom, when the connecting thread is woven seamlessly throughout the tapestry of our writing, it is worth the work it took to coax it to life, to beauty.

"that's great, annie," you say, "but what is an extended metaphor?"

good question. it is:

a comparison or analogy stated in such a way as to imply that one object is another one, figuratively speaking. it is called extended because it is present throughout the entire work {whether that be a paragraph, paper, novel, etc.}
partial definition found here; supplemented by me.

one sentence mentioning an egypt of newspaper is not an extended metaphor. it's a metaphor, but not an extended one. if i continually referred to a physical newspaper as egypt in a post {we'll say that, since, after all, this is being blogged}, then it would be. or if i continually referred to the actual country of egypt as a newspaper throughout a post, it would also be an extended metaphor?

does that make sense?

like i said, it's not easy to do this, because you have to make sure the parallels are right, that you stay within the context of the goal of your work, and that the metaphor doesn't spill over into being ostentatious. but i would encourage you to try your hand at it, to see what you can come up with.

so water the rosebush. untangle the threads. patience is everything. your rose, your tapestry, will be all the more beautiful for your patient, steady work.

there were two extended metaphors in this post. did you notice them?

{day eighteen} annie stylistics, pt.1

2011-10-18T09:00:00.000-04:00

i mentioned when i introduced my 31 days topic that i would talk a little about my writing and its style.

well, friends, it is that time. for the rest of the week, i'll be telling you what techniques i use to create my individual writing style. {this mini-series could alternately be titled: why annie's writing is annie's writing. because that's basically what it's about.}

introducing:

i love the tricolon. love, love, love it.

and you're like, "please tell me what a tricolon is because the only things my mind is conjuring up are three colons, of either the grammatical or anatomical variety."

all i have to say to that is, welcome to the semantic variety of a colon. or, well, three of them.

a tricolon is this:

the repetition of a parallel grammatical construction three times for rhetorical effect. see also parallelism.
definition found here.

it's found in the gettysburg address: "but, in a larger sense, we cannot dedicate - we cannot consecrate - we cannot hallow - this ground."

&

"...that government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth."*

i used it in my about page: "i believe singleness is a gift even when it isn't easy, that faith is a journey, and that it isn't until i lose my life that i find it."

i used it in day fifteen: "keep writing. keep sharing your story. keep painting the portrait of your heart."

i used it in day eight: "and you'll have to rework and rearrange and reevaluate..."

i don't know why, but i like threes. they're more than a pair but not as cluttery as a group of four. so if you see any writing with tricolons sprinkled all over the place, you might want to ask if i wrote it! {kidding. but not entirely. haha.}

*a part of me is seriously considering if this is why i love lincoln's writing so much, haha. or perhaps his rhetorical style is that from which i began drawing elements of my own literary style? we'll have to see!

{day seventeen} three for the rule books

2011-10-17T09:00:00.056-04:00

this might seem a little obvious, but i've seen papers and blogs and other written material whose authors don't do it, and it sounds weird.

do you know why kathryn stockett's novel is so appealing? she gets the ebonics right. in other words, the way aibileen and minnie's words in the book are phrased and pronounced sound the way they would if an african-american woman from that era was speaking. and if you've ever read any part of irvine welsh's trainspotting {i don't recommend it for too many reasons to discuss here}, you'll know that to have any hope of understanding what welsh wrote, you have to read it in a scottish accent. {i will admit, that part was fun.}

i'm having this war with myself over how to present this rule to the students i work. on the one hand, i find their colloquialisms everywhere in their papers, and that simply doesn't meet the academic standard. however, there's something important about the way you speak, because it helps those who hear you speak or who read you work understand something about where you're from.

for instance, i grew up in a very diverse part of metro detroit. my school, when i went there three years ago, was about forty percent african-american. the part of the city we lived in was well-off itself, but it was also the bridge between the very well-off north of us and not so well-off south of us. so if you take a look at my pursuit page, you're going to see those dichotomies. when i say i'm perpetuating my own individuality by combining the act of classy and the act of gangster, to an extent, i'm not joking. later in the page, i drop rap and latin in the same paragraph. and if you hear me speak {which sounds pretty much the way i write}, y'all know imma drop whatever words work best, and sometimes, those ain't standard.

{yes, i said ain't. my soul is warring between making a stand in the word's defense or crawling under a rock in shame.}

now would i drop any of those more unique elements of my dialect in a paper? no. but is it the way i talk? yes. do i write that way here? if it's the way i would say it, yeah, pretty much.

i don't know if you're struggling with this issue in academia or on your own blog. but if you are, please be reassured that the reason people are coming to your blog is to hear about you. and it's hard to do that when you don't write like yourself, when you try to meet some invisible, impossible standard. is good writing a part of what makes a good paper or blog? yes, but so is authenticity. and i would argue that authenticity is as important as good writing when it comes to blogging. nobody cares how well you write if all you talk about is how perfect your life is.

be you, in what you write about as well as how you write it.

{day sixteen} a way of living

2011-10-16T14:11:00.001-04:00

now where would we be if i spent an entire month writing about writing and didn't quote rainer maria rilke? the ones i provide here are excerpted from letters to a young poet.

on being an artist:

To let each impression and each germ of a feeling come to completion wholly in itself, in the dark, in the inexpressible, the unconscious, beyond the reach of one's own intelligence, and await with deep humility and patience the birth-hour of a new clarity: that alone is living the artist's life: in understanding as in creating.
There is here no measuring with time, no year matters, and ten years are nothing. Being an artist means, not reckoning and counting, but ripening like the tree which does not force its sap and stands confident in the storms of spring without the fear that after them may come no summer. It does come. But it comes only to the patient, who are there as though eternity lay before them, so unconcernedly still and wide. I learn it daily, learn it with pain to which I am grateful: patience is everything!

on words:

Do not believe that he who seeks to comfort you lives untroubled among the simple and quiet words that sometimes do you good. His life has much difficulty and sadness and remains far behind yours. Were it otherwise he would never have been able to find those words.

on life:

Art too is only a way of living.

if you believe you're a writer, and i believe you are, then keep writing. hone your craft. perfect your art. maintain your way of living.

{day fifteen} why we write

2011-10-15T13:40:00.000-04:00

i'm sharing words from friends again today: annie, a fantastic writer whom you've seen here before, and mia, another fantastic writer who found me about a month or so ago and who is already becoming a friend.

annie's words are in response to a two-part post i wrote on a quote from sue monk kidd in traveling with pomegranates {which is a must-read if you haven't already!}, which you can read here and here. mia's are taken from this post she wrote on her blog last week.

annie, on stories:

Traveling with Pomegranates was such a beautiful thought-provoking read, and I've loved your take on what was, for me, a really powerful story. That quote you mentioned stuck out a lot to me, too, mostly because I felt really sorry for the mother/grandmother figure, the "keeper of home." Even though I'm not the world's biggest fan of cooking or cleaning or sewing or any of those "homemaker" duties, I think there is something so special, so sacred, about being the keeper of a home. and, in its own way, I actually think "keeper of the home" could be "keeper of the journey." The keeper of the home maintains, cares, loves. Her journey may be closer to home, but it is still there. Our journeys, I think, are our stories. And all of us - whether homemaker or writer, teacher or student, world traveler or world's biggest homebody - are doing our best to keep and to write stories that will do our lives justice. A journey, to me, is personal, almost spiritual. It may require literal travel (a la Elizabeth Gilbert), or it may be experienced while journaling from our desks at home. I loved that even though Sue Monk Kidd experienced so much in her times of travel, she also was able to think through it all while writing in her little study at home. I think that's what journey does/is. It's able to be experienced everywhere.

mia, on writing:

Writing in its purest form is the cultivation of our minds. It's learning how to paint the portrait of our hearts; to utter the echoing of our souls.

keep writing.

keep sharing your story.

keep painting the portrait of your heart.

{day fourteen} reinforcement

2011-10-14T11:48:00.002-04:00

once upon a time, l. m. montgomery {writer of the anne of green gables novels, among others} used to write blank verse. and she showed it to her father, who said it was "very blank indeed." she was crushed, and thereafter wrote only in rhyme.

maybe you've had a situation like that recently, in which somebody told you, in regards to your writing, or something else you've done, that you were, essentially, wrong. but really, how does one determine right or wrong in poetry? and even if you could, remember, you can be wrong and change the world.

let that be the first piece of encouragement i give you today.

let the second be this: a poem my friend amy wrote for me when i thought parts of my own life were falling apart.

reinforcement
by amy

take some time dear, to let the sparks settle down
and thread a healing stitch through the broken pieces
of your heart
because at this moment
you are the only one who can mend it

pick your expectations up from the ground
before they are trampled again
because they cannot withstand the whole world
walking upon them

bite your tongue a little harder
and swallow your fierce tears
because disappointment cannot make this any better

forgiveness is expensive and often times impractical
but if you are willing to take a chance
i would recommend it

stand behind yourself, even when you are empty
and become your own reinforcement

and when you are ready to let your guards down
know you will not be lonely

in the future, our past looks tedious
and our hardest trials are the ones that define us
it hurts now, but value is more significant
when we have let it slip past us

i urge you to follow this link and read through amy's poetry. it's beautiful. and remember, because you are writing for your own reasons and no one else's, you determine how you write. let this be your reinforcement.

{day thirteen} more logistics

2011-10-13T09:00:00.004-04:00

so now i know what you know.

but now my question is: what do you want to know? are there particular strategies, tips, questions, etc. you have that you'd like me to clear up? is the advice of two teachers in conflict and you're not sure which to go with? or i have shared something that perhaps you're not clear on or that conflicts with someone else's advice?

if you have those, or any questions on writing, my writing, or me as a writer in general, please leave them in the comments. like with yesterday, i'll compile the responses to post for sometime next week.

{day twelve} teach me?!

2011-10-12T09:00:00.000-04:00

first of all, i'm encouraged by the number of you who informed me that you also harbor a strong dislike toward twilight.

secondly, this blog post title is taken from a moment a couple friends and i had last year after listening to the song "teach me how to dougie." S looked at us and just said, "teach me?!" i canonized it and we've said it ever since.

a couple of weeks ago i was substituting at a middle school in the city i live in. one student said something {i can't remember what}, and i responded, "you haven't probably heard this before, but the best teachers are good students."

he said, "no, i've never heard that before."

my heart turned into a lead anchor. these are inner city kids. they've likely been viewing their teachers as people who just tell them to be quiet and hand out worksheets and expect them to get some of said worksheet done. and nobody's ever told them an education is more than just being told what to do.

one of my professors wrote one of the foremost books on critical theory, and her dedication is to her students and teachers. she writes, "may i always have difficulty telling you apart."*

this is the long-winded preface to my request that you, today, share what you've learned about writing. it can be from a class, a teacher, a peer, an author, a book, your experience, whatever. feel free to share quotes, but if you do that, i do ask that you talk a little about why it impacts you and your outlook on writing.

i want this series to be an exploration of writing, not just for you, but for me, too. and i don't know everything about writing, or teaching writing, or anything related to it, or anything at all, really {and if you want proof of this, you can read the post in which i tell you not to use passive tense, but use it myself - great thanks to A for keeping me on my grammatical toes!}. so i want to learn from you, too, before we go further.

i'm not much for incentives, but i figure one won't hurt: i'll compile your writing lessons into a post to share next week sometime. so, please, share!

*i did not take the time to actually look this up, so i can't say it's verbatim, but i can tell you it's from lois tyson's critical theory today: a user-friendly guide.

{day eleven} a secret

2011-10-11T09:00:00.000-04:00

pretend it's kindergarten. the short, bossy girl with crazily curly dark brown hair has just announced that she has a secret. so, of course, you gather round, because there is nothing a five-year-old girl likes more than secrets. {well, except maybe being a princess and the color pink, but you won't find any of that around here.}

so, the secret:

the best writers are even better readers.

what does that mean for you as a writer?

well, it means you need to read, a lot. you need to read within your preferred genre because you need to know what's accepted, what's traditional, and what's been done before. you need to read outside your preferred genre because you need to be a well-rounded reader, and besides, if all you ever do is channel those before you in your genre, you will not be a good writer, you'll be a good imitator. {and just so we're clear, this is not 31 days of imitation.}

but, you tell me, i don't know what to read. i've read all my favorite authors over and over and i need some recommendations.

well, here's recommendation one: reread those favorite authors, with a stylistic eye. what parts of their style do you like? what parts of their style don't you like? why? what's the effect of these stylistic features on the reader? do they draw you into the story or put you off of it?

i HATE twilight. {i mean no offense to those of you who like it. just know there will be no twilight or stephenie meyer love on this blog, ever.} i read it before it got really popular, so when my friends and peers were discussing how fabulous it was, it was too far away in my mind to remember. so i read it again, this time paying attention to meyer's stylistics. let me tell you: it was torture to reread that story again, but i gained a much more concrete knowledge of how i don't want to write. and that kind of knowledge is as important as the knowledge of what you do want to write.

second recommendation: ask other bloggers what they're reading. i keep a booklist, which i update periodically. {check it out!} i'm currently in the middle of the hunger games trilogy by suzanne collins {fabulous; read it}, walking on water by madeleine l'engle {thought-provoking, read it}, and hostage in havana by noel hynd {another author whose style leaves much to be desired, but i suck it up because i love almost anything having to do with law enforcement and international affairs}.

not everything i read, i recommend, and not everything i recommend, i've read this year, so if you're interested in what i consider must-reads, please email me. i will say that my top three recommendations are the help by kathryn stockett, the historian by elizabeth kostova, and the swan house by elizabeth musser. and those are hands-down my three favorite books in the entire universe, of all time.

here are some other bloggers whose posts will point you to good reads {and from whence i derived much of what comprises my own to-read list}: annie, jessica, elizabeth {do know that she now blogs here}, megan, and sarah. aside from being good writers themselves, they have a wide array of well-placed tastes in reading material.

--

you must go read this facebook edition of romeo and juliet. it. is. hilarious.

--

also, i wrote a guest post for elizabeth, which went up yesterday. it's called "dear daughter{s}, my hopes for you." please head over to read it!

{day ten} two for the rule books

2011-10-10T09:00:00.075-04:00

this 31 days series is being written by annie. it can be found at annie's musings. very kind comments have been left by those who are reading.

do you know what that is?

that's passive tense.

does it sound annoying?

good, because it is.

i'm sure you've heard and seen it often, maybe even used it yourself. "bottled water sold here." "credit cards accepted." "the book was written last year." {aside: spanish has this funny verb, olvidar, which means 'to forget,' or perhaps more accurately, 'to be forgotten by.' my teacher used to translate the sentence me olvidó la tarea as 'the homework forgot itself on me,' which is honestly how the syntax works.}

i have a theory, and it's this: our frequent use of the passive tense is directly tied to our abstinence from responsibility.

bottled water sold here.

who's doing the selling?

credit cards accepted.

who's doing the accepting?

the book was written last year.

who wrote it?

i told one of my upward bound high schoolers the other day that things don't be, they do. so if you write a sentence, the subject thereof had better be doing something. the window wasn't broken, the kid with the baseball bat broke it. the that situation wasn't heartbreaking, your heart broke. this post wasn't written, i wrote it.

connected to this, it doesn't make. first of all, we would need to determine what it is. second, whatever it is, it probably doesn't have the ability to make anything. so it doesn't make you cry, it doesn't make you mad, it doesn't make you want to throw your computer out the window. you cried, you got angry, you wanted to throw things. well, actually, i did, on wednesday and thursday nights, writing papers on words and alexander, but that's another story.

i've made it my small mission to battle against the inaction of our society by refusing to use the passive tense. i urge you to join me, to start your own small battle against the same, to take action. to take responsibility.

to use the active voice.

{day nine} the real

2011-10-09T09:00:00.113-04:00

i'm lying on the floor in my living room, hair thrown up, glasses on, hawk nelson coming out of my computer speakers.

it occurred to me yesterday that i hadn't written a post for today, and when i finally turned from reading blogs and responding to comments, i thought, i don't have a clue what to write about.

sometimes, that's how writing goes. you just don't have a clue.

i work as a writing coach with upward bound through a local community college. the students i work with are from the inner city, and i hear things like, "you're making me think a lot," and, "this is hard."

when i heard the latter, from a girl who has very good ideas but struggles with specificity thereof, i said, "i told you that."

"no, you didn't!"

"yes, i did! writing is hard for everyone. it's hard for me."

"you?!"

um, yes.

me.

i process information quickly, particularly when reading: i read approximately 150-200 pages an hour, depending on the material. i have a vocabulary that has often produced blank stares on the faces of my peers. the papers i submitted to the peer editing process often returned unedited, or less often, with a random comma inserted where it did not belong {so if at any point during this series you see an entire post dedicated to The Recognition and Repulsion of Comma Splices, you'll know why}. i won a scholarship from the english department at my university, i teach reading and writing, and i have heard from many people that i am a good writer.

if writing is easy for anyone, it should be easy for me. right?

wrong.

remember how you can be wrong and change the world? if you're a writer, this is where it starts: with realizing that you, regardless of your qualifications, are not the one person in the universe for whom writing is actually easy.

when i wrote this post, i didn't use the boxing metaphor because the inner-city kids i work with feel that way about it. i didn't use that metaphor because that's how my peers, for whom our english classes were a struggle, felt about it. i used it because that's how i feel about it, because even i want to throw up my boxing gloves and let writing settle back in its corner, gloating and victorious. and as much as it hurts to watch writing settle back that way, the battle is too much. i can't do it. i can't fight.

yet with those words, with the defeated, desperate i can't, ability bursts forth and flourishes. you can't, but God can. and He does. somehow, the abstract is realized. words come together as your soul pours out, and He is there.

i wrote a paper on alexander the great thursday night. i didn't mention God. but i see Him there. i see Him in the conquests: they paved the way for roman armies several hundreds of years later, the same romans whose roads would carry the good news out of judea. i see Him in the language: a gift allowing us to communicate, the miracle of english's syntactic variations and possibilities and i wonder if you knew that in english a sentence could go on forever and not even be a run-on and that's God, right there, in conjunctions and semicolons and, dare i say, even in comma splices.

this is the real. this blog post is evidence of the grace and mercy God so lovingly bestows. tonight, there's a girl in michigan, dressed in soccer shorts, who ate too much chocolate and has what she jocularly refers to as bellatrix lestrange hair. and as she lies on the living room floor, plays with her finger splint, and reaches for another handful of m&ms, she's reaching people in russia, singapore, and india.

it's a beautiful, paradoxical miracle. and beautiful, paradoxical miracles are oh. so. magically. real.

{day eight} the rest

2011-10-08T09:00:00.002-04:00

raise your hand if you've heard of writer's block.

i know you've probably raised not only one hand, but the other, and possibly both feet if you could manage it.

the seeming inability to write while in front of the tools used to do so is something we've all faced at one time or another, and i would be lying to you if i said i suffer from it less than you. i've wondered quite a few times these past few ~~weeks~~ minutes how on earth i'm going to write something about writing for 31 days straight.

and sometimes, the answer to overcoming writer's block when you need to write, is quite simply not to write.

sometimes, we need rest. we need a break from sitting for hours trying to think of something intelligent, witty, or poignant to say. so get up, vacuum the floor, empty the dishwasher, move the laundry, grab a snack. sit down in front of your television and watch an episode of ncis.

go back to the computer a couple hours later when you're feeling refreshed and ready to tackle the world of writing again. it'll come, then, naturally, without you having to fight as much. and you'll have to rework and rearrange and reevaluate, but if the ideas don't flow, nothing else will.

remember, nothing real can be forced. there's a fair amount of wrestling involved in writing, but you shouldn't be wrestling your brain to stop just short of making something up simply for the sake of having something on the page. when you force it, it won't be authentic, and that's not what we're looking for. i daresay, that's not what you're looking for.

so when it comes to deciding between a break or forcing the writing out of you, please, friend, take the rest.

{day seven} an everyday miracle

2011-10-07T09:00:00.000-04:00

you hit keys. letters appear on a screen. you click a button. it takes you to a different window.

a miracle?

maybe not, but it is the first link-up for 31 days of writing.

spend five to ten minutes writing about an everyday moment, turning it into an everyday miracle by showing us the moment rather than simply telling us about it.

when you've shared your link, visit two to three others and share some constructive criticism, using a's post as your guidelines. the linky will be open through monday morning, so if you're unable to link up today, don't worry about it.

here's to the courageous act of showing a moment in words.

{day six} to change the world

2011-10-06T09:00:00.000-04:00

i was sitting in class today when my professor said the discovery of the americas had changed the world.

and the funny thing, i thought to myself, as i thought about that, was columbus was wrong.

he said by sailing 5000 miles to the east, he'd reach asia. a tiny little island, inhabited by taino islands and later called hispaniola, got in the way. never mind the fact that right behind it stood the american continents. so not only did columbus not reach the americas, but he underestimated, by less than half the actual distance, how far away asia was.

i took this away from it: you don't have to be right to change the world.

you don't have to have all the answers.

you don't have to know how to phrase them just so.

you don't even have to know exactly what the questions are.

we talked about how writing takes courage, but i didn't tell you the courage undergirds a leap of faith. and i apologize in advance for not warning you that jumping off cliffs would be a requirement of this 31 days series, but it is.

nothing you write is going to be perfect. nothing. so instead of worrying about making sure you've written all your cursive capital Is and Qs properly, i challenge you to just write something real. and i can already tell you that's not going to fit the idea of correct in a lot of ways, but we weren't put here to be correct.

we were put here to change the world. and we're meant to do that by walking in authentic community, the kind Jesus modeled for us when he walked this earth.

i refuse to capitalize in blog posts, tweets, and nearly all personal and informal email correspondence because it's my way of cultivating authenticity in my writing and in myself. that's grammatically incorrect, but it's authentic, and it's the latter we're after.

so here's to being wrong.

and here's to changing the world.

want to read more about changing the world? Emily is writing a beautiful series on a grace that changes everything. i know you'll love it.

{day five} don't squander the gift

2011-10-05T09:00:00.000-04:00

you were here, and you're meant to do something to mark that. as a writer, it might not include mention in the literary canon, but does that mean you're supposed to stop writing?

no.

you have a gift. and that truth remains unchanged, whether the gift is appreciated by one or one billion. so use it. use it when you want to; use it when you don't want to. use it when it's easy; use it when it's hard. use it in the morning, afternoon, and evening. use it as a cry of desperation or an effusion of praise.

just be sure you use it.

just be sure you don't squander the gift.

{day four} look past the fear

2011-10-04T09:00:00.077-04:00

Courage is sublime and great, artfulness is little but beautiful.
-Immanuel Kant

i'm knee-deep in philosophy now, reading about kant and rousseau {speaking of whom, i should get back to that...}, and i found this in one of the texts i'm reading.

there's a lot of beauty to be found and executed in writing, but we must be sure we don't mistake it for substance, for something raw like courage. and we must be sure we don't mistake the pretty as just pretty if there is something courageous to be found within.

it takes courage to share any of your writing, particularly something that challenges a status quo. but where would we be without documents like the declaration of independence and the emancipation proclamation? if jefferson and lincoln had refused to pen these important documents, the course of american history as we know it would have proceeded completely differently.

and yet, they looked past the fear to a people who burned with the inclination for independence, ready to kindle flames to fight if necessary. so they made their declaration, stood their ground, and america was birthed.

maybe you don't have the weight of a newly nascent country on your shoulders. but if you're here, if you call yourself a writer, i am sure you have an equally weighty compulsion to write something that matters.

so look past the fear, screw up your courage, draw yourself together, and set upon your course to write not just prettily, but courageously.

--

this friday we'll take a first step in writing courageously: sharing that writing. take five to ten minutes to just write. in the vein of showing rather than telling, write about an everyday moment from a nontraditional perspective. i'll have a linky up on friday for you to share your link and read and critique others' writing.

{day three} one for the rule books

2011-10-03T09:00:00.112-04:00

yes, you tell a story.

but you're a writer. writers don't tell, they write.

so, as a writer, let's show.

this isn't a movie and it's not a photograph, you tell me. how on earth am i supposed to show anyone anything?

consider this:

the coffee was spilled on the newspaper.

versus this:

the coffee wound down like the mighty nile river on an egypt of newspaper.

think about that for a minute. how does it change the perception you have the simple act of spilling coffee?

here's what i think about it:

one. it transforms the ordinary. spilling coffee - or anything, for that matter - is something that happens on a regular basis. all of a sudden, it's not. instead, when compared to this life-sustaining river, so mysterious and majestic to the ancient egyptians for whom the nile's flooding was essential, that tiny little coffee drop begins to hold that same mystery and majesty for us.

two. the coffee acts rather than being acted upon. in the first sentence, the drop of coffee is just something acted upon by gravity. but in the second, it take action, carving its way through a continent. that changes the entire situation, because the coffee is now in control.

three. it allows for further metaphor & analysis. since the newspaper is egypt {a country}, or, say, africa {a continent}, what does that mean? if the culture of one continent is all you know, how are you limited? how does the newspaper parallel this limitation, if it's the way we obtain our news? and yet, the newspaper links us to different places, so how does this knowledge broaden us? likewise, how are we broadened by the knowledge of the continents in which we grew up, have visited, or have studied?

some interesting worlds open up to us when we choose to portray something in a way we wouldn't often consider. we appreciate those ordinary moments differently, because they're transformed into something magical and in a way, beyond our comprehension.

so here's to less telling and more showing. you in?

{i bet you never knew an irksome drop of coffee held such possibilities, huh?}

{day two} what's your purpose?

2011-10-02T09:00:00.001-04:00

four years ago today, i sat down at the family computer and typed out my very first blog post.

at that time i blogged under my middle name, wrote only short posts, and didn't read any blogs except for one. all i knew was that i wanted to write for girls my age, to share what i'd learned about faith and life in my own sixteen years.

four years later, i've made quite a few friends through blogging, blog under a nickname that isn't traditionally derived from my first name, and write lengthy posts {except when i don't}.

my purpose hasn't changed. it could have, but it hasn't. it only manifests itself differently than in those first blog posts of 2007, since i am not the same person i was then. i still want to write words for women my age, about what i've learned about faith, relationships, and life in general. i still want to write something that will move people.

the thing about being a writer, i think, is that there is no moment of arrival. whatever feeling of exhilaration you might obtain from writing something that is well-received disappears when you remember - or, perhaps, realize - there is a steep section of mountain yet to climb.

for instance, for those of us who journal, we don't finish one journal and consider ourselves to have succeeded in journal-keeping. instead, we find another one, and start again.

as a teacher, my success is not made by watching one student pass from one kumon level to the next, or watching a student put together in their mind what i'm teaching them. i might succeed with student x in those ways, but that doesn't mean i leave students y, z, and successors wanting for a teacher.

and so, as a writer, wanting to inspire and speak to those who walk beside or behind me in growing up to and growing through womanhood, i didn't consider my purpose fulfilled when i got the first comment telling me praising my writing and declaring herself encouraged by my words.

you know why i write now, but why do you? the reason doesn't have to be grandiose. maybe you write to keep a record of who you are as you grow and mature. maybe you write to inform. maybe you write to inspire. maybe you write to explore. they're all ongoing, a continuous development of your being through your thoughts, whether academic or personal, factual or opinionated.

it doesn't matter why you write, but you at least need to know the answer.

so, what's your purpose?

{day one} are you a writer?

2011-10-01T00:21:00.001-04:00

one person is the author of thirty published novels and has another four coming out in the next twelve months.

another blogs a couple times a week.

a third faithfully keeps a journal.

which one's the writer?

because surely, you tell me, only one of these is a writer.

one woman guards jealously the newfound secret of life within her.

another woman raises well-behaved children whom she serves breakfast every morning, promptly at seven, packs their lunches, and keeps an immaculate house.

a third is enjoying her fifth year as an empty nester, after raising four children.

which one's the mother?

all of them, you tell me indignantly; how could you dare to say only one could be called mother?

i assume you're telling me the hours spent in happy anticipation of a new baby, the incessant cleaning up while children are at school, or the learning to live without children again does not make someone not a mother even if, at the time, the woman in question is not actively mothering.

so, are you a writer?

or does the lack of a publishing deal, the occasional comma splice, and time spent playing solitaire determine differently?

maybe you're afraid that if you aren't published, you can't call yourself a writer, that you're faking at being one until you make it.

but the only way you can fake being a writer is to call yourself one and not write.

so, are you a writer?

Words with Grace

2011-09-30T09:00:00.014-04:00

Writing is hard. Taking criticism is harder.

Writers create words as a livelihood, a means of expression to the soul. “Writing is survival,” wrote Ray Bradbury. “Not to write, for many of us, is to die.” For the rest of the non-writing world, writing is simply a task. (Psst: don’t tell, but sometimes writers feel this way, too.) We’re forced to write by the boss or, worse, the Big Angry White Syllabus. We hedge and procrastinate, sometimes, but we do it. Our term paper or progress report might not reveal our soul, but we feel an almost familial affection for the product of our labor: “It may be ugly, but it’s mine.”

We send our piece off into the world, like a child on his first day of kindergarten. We’re shocked when he comes home torn and bleeding with a professor’s red-pen marks or an editor’s rejection letter. Something inside us protests, and we think, “What have you done to my baby?!”

Contrary to those self-help therapy writing books, writing is not an act of ego. For the Christian, writing must be an act of deepest humility. “Whoever loves instruction loves knowledge, but he who hates correction is stupid,” writes Solomon in Proverbs 12:1. Ego-centric writing-- and an ego-centric writer-- never make a pleasant encounter.

At the same time, the sign of a mature writing critic is found in Ephesians 4:14-15 (emphasis added): “That we should no longer be children... but, speaking the truth in love, may grow up in all things into Him who is the head—Christ.” I’ve witnessed few writing reviewers who were unafraid to be honest—brutally honest at times. I’ve heard a number of negative critiques, some of them amusing (“You could hook Strunk up to a generator because he’s rolling over in his grave so fast.”) and others simply demeaning (“You let me down.” “It was horrible.” “Did this piece even have an author?”). According to Paul, we are called to move beyond the childish, to grow up. And a sign of maturity is speaking the truth in love.

Balancing between grace and truth is a difficult gymnastic feat, one that I admittedly haven’t mastered yet. But I believe as Christian writers, we can do better. How, you ask?

Practice being a good editor. When you return a paper to someone, ask them if all your comments were clear, and even ask what you could have done better. Don’t just point out areas where you think the writing is terrible; come up with suggestions for improvement. And, when you make corrections, know your stuff. If you’re not sure about a grammar or usage issue, look it up.

Don’t shirk from telling the truth. As a writer, I know the more comments I get, the better I can spot and fix the weaknesses in my piece. I can’t count the times when I’ve asked someone to edit my papers and they gloss over my mistakes-- either because they’re unobservant or because they’re afraid of hurting my feelings. Your goal is to make the piece the best it can be.

At the same time, pick your battles. When a work is in draft stage and the structure is choppy, don’t spend your time scratching out misplaced commas. Address first things first, second things second.

Paper editing isn’t combat. You’re on the same side as the writer, and you’re both fighting for the same goal: a better final product. Don’t engage in friendly fire. Instead of saying, “I can’t believe you wrote this really confusing part,” de-personalize your criticism. Say, “The piece confused me a little bit at this point.” And be encouraging. Sandwich suggestions for improvement between positive comments about the piece.

If you can dish it, take it graciously. You can learn something from everyone. Even when someone makes ungenerous remarks about your writing, try to take something away (even if you learn how not to give a critique!).

Emotionally separate yourself from your work. Nothing comes out perfect the first try. Criticism is there to help you make your writing better. The person who edits your paper is part of the target audience you’re trying to reach. So if your reviewer points out a part of your writing that confused her, don’t automatically assume it’s just because she’s dumb. Take her comments seriously, re-examine your writing and strive for maximum clarity.

While taking criticism is hard, you have to clean up your baby and move on. Bite your lip and apply the rubbing alcohol, even when it stings. Band-aid the scrapes and send him back into the world, tougher for the encounter. And you might even get an A on that next paper.

--

Find A here: blog

5 Ways to Stay Creative in College

2011-09-29T09:00:00.017-04:00

Staying in touch with your creative side while keeping it separate from the hard news side can be challenging for journalism majors, who spend their college careers writing articles for classes or the college newspaper or outside gigs. Your assignments (which you thought were lovely little stories) are handed back to you practically bleeding from all of the red lines that cross out “unnecessary” words or suggest that you simplify your wording. And then there’s the inverted pyramid, which requires you to rank the information from most important to least important, usually giving away all of the good information in the first sentence (and you had such a good idea for a lead-in!).

And yes, if you were wondering, the inverted pyramid never goes away (and neither does AP Style, so go invest in a copy and update it every other year, at least), so use it ~~because you will frustrate your college newspaper editor beyond belief if you turn in a submission that looks like an essay~~. Basically, what you learn in class ~~will~~ carry over to the real world, so study it. Pick up a copy of a newspaper. Unless the story is a feature story, chances are it begins with something to the effect of: “On Sunday, Sept. 11, thousands gathered at Freedom Memorial Park in Pleasantville, Pa., to remember those who died 10 years ago.” One sentence. Who (was there?). What (happened?). Where (was the event?). When (did the event take place?). Why (I have no idea what the “why” is, but I thought I’d include it, anyway).

As I was saying.

For journalism majors, the simplicity of news stories can drain creativity. For creatives in other majors, the lack of focus on writing in general (except for essays or lab reports or what not) can be an imagination killer, too. In general, college can really take its toll on your creative side, unless you make time to write.

+ Check out DeviantART (or Flickr, or Tumblr), if you haven’t already. Find a submission and write a random story about it. One of my friends suggested this last semester. If you're a journalism major, write a news story and pretend the image is the feature image for the story. Practice both writing styles.

+ Respond to writing prompts. Plinky and Mama Kat focus on writing prompts.

+ Keep a personal journal (or blog). Write in it (or post) every day. I keep sheets of paper in my planner, so I can always write (this is especially helpful if I know I won’t have time later in the day). Especially because my blogging has lately fallen by the wayside.

+ Buy a notebook and use it specifically for jotting down story ideas, characters, poetry and anything else creative. ~~Write in it during class if you sit in the back, because you can pretend you’re taking notes.~~ Find somewhere comfortable between classes and people watch. Use them as inspiration.

+ When writing an assignment, write the creative story, first. Then, pare it down to the essentials needed for a journalism story. It will take you longer, but may save you time in the long run, since you’ve already eliminated most of the “fluff” (because your professor will always find more).

--

Find Elizabeth here: blog

Dear Diary

2011-09-28T09:00:00.032-04:00

Hello new friends! I was delighted when Annie asked me to guest blog on the topic of writing. Next to chocolate, it's my favorite thing. My name is Jessica, and you can usually find me blogging at Monster Cakes, my personal life and style blog.

Long before blogs. Or facebook. Or texting. Or computers. I wrote. I still remember my first poem (it was about how much I loved new socks) and my first journal (it had a lock on it). I remember telling my dad that I wanted to be a writer when I grew up.

Well I have grown up. And I even got myself an English and Writing degree. Though I would love to publish a successful novel and do nothing but sit in coffee shops writing freelance all day, my life and goals have changed. And that's ok. I do get to work around books all day, and I do get to do some writing, but the writing I've most grown to cherish and appreciate is my personal journaling.

Even if I never get to publish that novel, I will always have a special place in my heart for my journals. I still have every journal I ever wrote in, and though I rarely go back and read them, they sit on my shelf as a friendly reminder that I have grown. Each new page signifies a new day to conquer. I have my best conversations with God in them. I solve problems and make goals and record my secrets in them. There is something irreplaceable about writing in a journal. Something my blog, my facebook, and a word document can't replace.

I don't leave the house without a Moleskine journal in my bag, and I can't imagine life any other way. Do you guys journal? What do you use it for? What's your favorite brand?

Thanks for having me Annie! I'd love to stay in touch with you all, so don't be strangers.

xoxo

--

Find Jessica here: blog

The Power of a Story

2011-09-27T09:00:00.021-04:00

“We tell ourselves stories in order to live.” – Joan Didion

Stories are powerful. We read and write stories in order to make sense of our lives, to understand
others, to make a point and evoke change. We watch TV shows and movies because they tell stories, and in every story something is revealed about ourselves and our world.

We need stories to escape this world for a little while, to show us how to live (or not to live), to point us to something higher, draw us into another life. Even blogging is storytelling – telling your story, reading another’s. It’s sharing life together – and life itself is a grand story, written by the greatest Author.

When Annie invited me to write about writing, I knew I had to start with stories. Stories make up our lives, and as Didion points out, we need them in order to live.

I know most of us aren’t fiction writers, but that’s beside the point. You tell a story in everything you do and everything you say. And, quite simply, stories are made up of words. And words are powerful. They can bring blessings and curses, change and grace. God created this world by speaking. Words.

“Words are things,” writes Lord Byron, “And the smallest drop of ink, falling like dew, upon a thought, produces that which makes thousands, perhaps millions of people think.”

We have the power to invoke change, bring smiles and create places of blessing with our words. And as writers, writing is our gift, it is the art we create because we are made in the image of a Creator. All of our work, our creation, echoes His and reminds the world that we are made in His image. And this act of creating is really an act of worship, using the gifts He’s given us and doing what we were meant to do.

And the funny thing is that I find most writing to be absolutely brutal. I love it and I hate it and you
should have seen me two weeks ago when I was agonizing over my first story for my advanced fiction class. I was a mess, and the story was really pretty bad.

But I love writing because it is a gift, and one that is indeed powerful. I love the process of birthing
a story, bringing forth words and life and thoughts and stories from scattered letters. All writing is
valuable; writing emails to my far-away friends allows us to stay in touch and involved in each other’s lives; it fosters communication and deepens our friendship. Writing (more like scrawling) in my journal allows me to untangle my thoughts and emotions at the end of my pen, to understand what is going on, remind myself of God’s promises, and find peace. Even blogging gives me the chance to share life with my readers and other bloggers, and joining in the spaces of mutual encouragement, life lessons and fun moments shared on the internet.

The ability to write is a gift. And the words you write are a gift back to God, and to the world.

--

Find Megan here: blog

I am a Writer

2011-09-26T09:00:00.020-04:00

{image from work is not a job}

I've been writing for almost as long as I've been able to talk.

First in broken, misspelled words, then in pushed-together sentences. Later came paragraphs, then chapters, then pages.

But always, despite syntax and grammar, whether in poetry or prose, there was story.

Always story.

--

I am not yet the writer I thought I would be.

I have not published any books nor won many prizes.

But I cling to this truth: I am a storyteller.

In my life and in my words, there is story.

--

There's this scene in -- of all things -- Sister Act II, when Sister Mary Clarence corners a struggling student, played by Lauryn Hill, in an alleyway outside the school where she's teaching. She quotes a passage from Rainer Maria Rilke's Letters to a Young Poet. In the book, Rilke offers counsel to a young man trying to choose between a literary career and a life in the Austro-Hungarian army. He writes: "Don't ask me about being a writer. If when you wake up in the morning, you can think of nothing but writing, then you're a writer."

I don't know if I'll publish a book one day. My blog may never be read by more than handful of the people I love. My poems and long-forgotten scraps of story ideas may never see the full light of day.

But I know that when I wake up in the morning, I think about writing. I speak words in my head that I ache to put on paper. I stay up late, finishing blog posts and typing out scattered thoughts. I read everything I can get my hands on, eager to accumulate words upon words, desperate to, I think, by osmosis or some type of mental digestion even become half of the artist the authors I love have become.

--

For a while, there was this quote by Jessica Hische floating around the Internet: "The work you do while you procrastinate is probably the work you should be doing for the rest of your life."

It took some time for me to decide if that was true.

Because, honestly, I spend a lot of time procrastinating by pinning things to Pinterest, shopping online, and coming up with clever things to say on Twitter. These things are fun, sure, but are they career-worthy? No. Those aren't the activities I want to fill up my days with, those aren't the moments I want to get lost in.

I wonder, though, if maybe deep down, her point is true. When I am writing, I lose all sense of time. The clock, the minutes, the seconds: They do not exist. I am alone with my words, and when I am interrupted, I am grouchy. Annoyed. Frustrated. My words and I have been interrupted. A point lost, a sentence broken. I breathe deep and begin again, and when I find the words I thought were lost, I rejoice because they have been found.

--

For me, writing is like breathing. I feel like that's been said before, so I'm scared to say it. Instead, I'll say: Writing makes me me. It makes me one with the creator I worship, brings me in tune to what He has made and what He has done. It brings me comfort in times of trouble, relief in times of storm, peace when there is chaos. It offers a relief, a haven. It is a prison when the clock keeps ticking. It is the cause for my restless nights, the dream that makes me want to pick up the pen and the keyboard again and again and again and again.

Writing is work. But it is the best work I have ever done.

And regardless of what I do or do not publish, whether my name becomes known to the thousands or to the dozens, I will keep writing.

Because I know what I knew way back when I was a little girl, sketching out story ideas on borrowed legal pads: I am a storyteller.

My life and my words are story.

Writing, for me, just makes it real, just puts a soul to the skin of the thoughts that reside inside my head.

I am a writer. Nothing could be more freeing, or more terrifying.

I am a writer.

--

Find Annie here: blog | twitter

week of story

2011-09-25T15:34:00.000-04:00

this week, we're doing something new.

this week, you'll hear from some of the friends i've met through the blog world, who have or are aiming for careers in writing, whose writing i love.

the funny thing is, when i asked them to guest post, i told them to write about whatever they wanted, within the context of writing. i expected five very different posts, but instead, i got five posts that revolved neatly around stories.

so this week?

this week, we're talking about story.

35/52

2011-09-25T09:00:00.001-04:00

34/52

2011-09-24T20:22:00.003-04:00

a week in the life.

2011-09-23T09:00:00.000-04:00

i've been thinking for a while about doing a week in the life, just to keep a record for myself of what my college days look like {after all, april is only a couple hops away}. i had planned to do it this week, but i forgot, so i just figured i'd cram it all today. it's not long, i promise.

sunday: i got up and went to church. i came home and had lunch with my friend bri, and then we met liz to go see the help. it was a fabulous movie. i dropped bri off at her apartment, came home, and got a lot of my homework done for tuesday {unexpected, but fabulous}. in fact, i was so far ahead that i started reading gone with the wind.

monday: i got up sometime between nine and ten and read more of gone with the wind until 11:30. at this point i jumped in the shower and got ready for work. at 1:20 i started working at one of the high schools with whose students the program that employs me works. i spent a little over two hours working with one particular student about writing personal narratives and then drove to kumon. i worked at kumon for three hours and drove home, where i ate dinner and did homework.

tuesday: i was up by 7, i think. my brother and i both have class at 8:30 so we spent from 7 to 8 getting ready. patrick probably hollered about being late, which he always does on tuesdays and thursdays. then, after yelling at me for running a couple minutes later than usual, he wanted to stop and check our mailbox. and admittedly, i am incredibly slow at getting ready in the morning, but if i get on a roll, i don't stop for anything that could be done later - like, for instance, checking a mailbox.

i went to two morning classes, did a little homework, met my brother and a friend for lunch, went to my afternoon classes, ran into a friend from the honors college, talked to her for a little, and took the bus home. i got started on homework and somehow managed to watch the season premieres of ncis and ncis:la and the series premiere of unforgettable while still getting homework done during commercials.

it was a very productive night.

wednesday: i got up at ten and thought about reading more of gone with the wind versus starting work on a rough draft i was supposed to have to show my professor thursday {although it was optional}. i decided to read blogs instead. then i got ready for work. at 2 i got to the community college where the tutoring program i work with is based out of, and i worked there for an hour and a half before going to kumon. i worked three hours, talked to my boss a little about work, bought gas, drove home. i did linguistics and read blogs for about three hours before i called it quits on the linguistics {i didn't end up finishing this. i really don't understand where these answers were supposed to be found and no three-page packet should take anybody upwards of six hours to complete}. that was around eleven. i read blogs for about another hour before i got my michigan history reading and did that. it's almost 2:30am and i'm writing this blog post while in the middle of my last reading assignment. i would've written this tomorrow, except that it's going to be insane:

thursday: see tuesday regarding class schedule. at some point i'll talk to my professor about the aforementioned paper anyway, because i'm having a little trouble with clear direction. my last class of the day was cancelled, so i'll be out at 3:45 and leave immediately from campus to go to my cousin's bridal shower across the state. i'm spending the night at my grandparents'; there's no way i'll be awake enough to drive home tomorrow after the shower.

friday: i'm not sure when i'll get up, but it'll probably be around mid-morning. i work with the tutoring program at two-thirty, but other than that i'm planning to take it really easy. i have a rule against doing homework on fridays, for my own personal sanity.

saturday: i plan to spend a fair amount of time at the main branch of the public library, because i have lots of research to do for my paper on bicycles {as mentioned last week}. also, there's free parking on the weekends.

have a fabulous weekend, friends! feel free to send lots of emails and tweets on saturday. surely bicycles can only be so interesting for so long.

it's 2am... again.

2011-09-22T09:00:00.000-04:00

once upon a time, i actually had regular sleeping patterns.

that was about half a decade ago, though.

it feels weird that five years is half a decade. the latter makes it seem so much longer.

i don't have much to blog about right now - and no time to do so even if i did - so i'll just refer you back to this post.

you know, the one where you de-lurk and talk to me!

honestly, i really am interested in learning a little more about y'all. i am so amazed and blessed by the little community that has gathered here. so if you haven't already answered the questions i put forth, please head over here and do that.

that was surprisingly coherent for 2am.