You wanna know the funny thing about addiction? It's hard to quit.
But I did. Rather cold turkey, I might add. I talked to a friend who was addicted with me and we've quit together. It's been the hardest thing I've ever done, to let go of something in my life that felt soooo good, but I know it's right, and somewhere, deep down, even in the most tempting moments, I'm proud of us. The temptation is sill there in a HUGE way, and while I know the easiest thing would be to get rid of temptation, isn't there something to be said for resisting it? It somehow makes me feel stronger to not give in, not even a little. Sometimes the temptation is so strong it makes me feel weak, but somewhere in the back of my mind, I know that I'm being strong. Something reassures me, and I think it's Jesus. He reminds me I'm being courageous, because life is hard to face, and it's even harder when you give up something that made you feel amazing and that let you forget.
So here's what I don't like about college: There are no little kids! I didn't realize how much I missed their energy and sweetness till I got to see my cousins over thanksgiving. I enjoy being the older one, the one they look up to, and I miss the cuddles for sure. I'm remembering that as much as my siblings stress me out, I miss them and I miss being there to watch them grow up. However, the parallel came to mind that as much as I miss them, it doesn't hurt like it used to. It kinda pangs at the moment, but on a daily basis I don't feel unfulfilled. I've learned to live without them, and it gives me hope that I'll learn to live without drugs too, and that someday, this dull frusturated feeling will go away.
~C
Friday, November 28, 2008
Tuesday, November 18, 2008
I wonder why God lets me walk through this place?
Something like relief floods my soul.
I've been reading a friends blog and it strikes me as a horrible, horrible thing that we hide what's going on in our lives. It's almost like we think we have to bear things alone. Like people will judge us and try and tell us what to do. What would happen if my entire soul were laid bare for the world to see? Surely pain, right? I think that's what Satan wants us to think. To borrow/paraphrase a line from Harry Potter : He probably wants you to think that you're all alone, because if you're alone, then you're less of a threat. I know from past experience that letting people know what's going on in your life is one of the most powerful, liberating things you can do. To stand up in front of the world and say "Look, here's my sin, here's my shame, take it or leave it, God is still working on me." This is what my friend has done through his blog, and it has struck a place in my heart. I thought this morning that I was the only one struggling with all this doubt and fear. I thought I was the only one. I now know how wrong I was. And it feels so amazing to know that I'm not alone after all. And although God knew, I didn't know how desperately I needed the encouragement.
So here's what's going on in my life:
My parents may or may not be getting a divorce. My mom tells me to be sneaky and slyly tell my dad that I need that tution money for next semester now, even though I don't really need it for a month or so, but he's spent it, and I want it in my account where I can see it. There's a sneakyness and dishonesty there that I strongly dislike. I don't think there's any harm in a white lie, but these lies are meant to decieve. I guess my mom figures that if he's being deceptive than she can too. I've just decided that I won't be a part of it. I won't tell him everything that I know, because honestly most of it is speculation on my moms part anyway, but I'm done being conniving. I realize that's easy to say now that I've got the money... My dad and I are going out to dinner on Wednesday, and I plan on telling him exactly what's going on in my life. Not because I think he can help, not because I want to hurt him, but because I want him to know. "Confessions of a Broken Heart" by Lindsey Lohan is what I feel right now. I don't know him, but I still want to. I want to give him one last chance to love me. He doesn't even have to get it right, he just has to try. But if he doesn't try....I think my heart is in serious danger of cutting him out completely. I'll still pray for him and talk to him and love him (mostly because I can't stop loving him), but I can't keep depending on a person who keeps letting me down. At least I don't think. I'm seeking God's guidance on this, and something deep down tells me that maybe, just maybe, I'm on the right track. Something in me feels....brave. Courageous. Terrified, but like I'm going into battle, fighting like a girl. Fighting for his heart and my own.
In other news, I think I'm addicted. I got to a place in my life where I was desperate for something, anything, to make me feel better. A "friend", who seemed well meaning, offered me a drug and I took it wholeheartedly. He told me that it was medicine, just the tonic I needed. And boy did it help. When I'm high, I can forget that it's wrong to be high because I'm so happy, finally, that everything seems to make sense. I rationalize, I try and make it seem right, but it's really just because I want it so badly. I want it more than almost anything. I'm addicted. I'm hooked, dependent. I'll give up almost anything, even my morals and my body to get this because it makes me feel better. It makes me forget. The "friend" was Satan, and the drug was a poision apple. Satan saw my bleeding heart, stuck in another knife and twisted it. But it was such a pretty knife that I let him. I don't understand how any being could cause so much pain. I'd like to direct all my rage at Satan, but I know I took the pill of my own free will. It feels like bondage, but it's the only thing that I can count on in life. It's the only thing that I can always lay my hands on when I need to just smile. It makes me feel better immediately. this drug. Wow, I really am addicted aren't I? I mean, I know it's bad for me. I know it won't fix anything in the long run. I know it would be better to fall on my own than be lifted up by something that's not real. But deep down I'm terrified of letting go because it feels like this is all I have left. And the worst thing of all is that I'm not the only one I'm hurting...
Today is my 21st birthday and that scares me, because, even though I've never been drunk, the temptation is there to go out and get so messed up that I forget everything. Not because it will help, but because I want to forget that I'm an addict. Switching from one addiction to another is never a good thing, however. And I realize that. But at least this way I'd only be hurting myself...
It feels so good to admit. I feel better having let it out. But now what? Addicts go to rehab, right. They get away from the situation to grow strong enough to resist on their own.
There's a very real battle here. A fight is going on that I've been unaware of. And I am a prisoner of war.
~C
I've been reading a friends blog and it strikes me as a horrible, horrible thing that we hide what's going on in our lives. It's almost like we think we have to bear things alone. Like people will judge us and try and tell us what to do. What would happen if my entire soul were laid bare for the world to see? Surely pain, right? I think that's what Satan wants us to think. To borrow/paraphrase a line from Harry Potter : He probably wants you to think that you're all alone, because if you're alone, then you're less of a threat. I know from past experience that letting people know what's going on in your life is one of the most powerful, liberating things you can do. To stand up in front of the world and say "Look, here's my sin, here's my shame, take it or leave it, God is still working on me." This is what my friend has done through his blog, and it has struck a place in my heart. I thought this morning that I was the only one struggling with all this doubt and fear. I thought I was the only one. I now know how wrong I was. And it feels so amazing to know that I'm not alone after all. And although God knew, I didn't know how desperately I needed the encouragement.
So here's what's going on in my life:
My parents may or may not be getting a divorce. My mom tells me to be sneaky and slyly tell my dad that I need that tution money for next semester now, even though I don't really need it for a month or so, but he's spent it, and I want it in my account where I can see it. There's a sneakyness and dishonesty there that I strongly dislike. I don't think there's any harm in a white lie, but these lies are meant to decieve. I guess my mom figures that if he's being deceptive than she can too. I've just decided that I won't be a part of it. I won't tell him everything that I know, because honestly most of it is speculation on my moms part anyway, but I'm done being conniving. I realize that's easy to say now that I've got the money... My dad and I are going out to dinner on Wednesday, and I plan on telling him exactly what's going on in my life. Not because I think he can help, not because I want to hurt him, but because I want him to know. "Confessions of a Broken Heart" by Lindsey Lohan is what I feel right now. I don't know him, but I still want to. I want to give him one last chance to love me. He doesn't even have to get it right, he just has to try. But if he doesn't try....I think my heart is in serious danger of cutting him out completely. I'll still pray for him and talk to him and love him (mostly because I can't stop loving him), but I can't keep depending on a person who keeps letting me down. At least I don't think. I'm seeking God's guidance on this, and something deep down tells me that maybe, just maybe, I'm on the right track. Something in me feels....brave. Courageous. Terrified, but like I'm going into battle, fighting like a girl. Fighting for his heart and my own.
In other news, I think I'm addicted. I got to a place in my life where I was desperate for something, anything, to make me feel better. A "friend", who seemed well meaning, offered me a drug and I took it wholeheartedly. He told me that it was medicine, just the tonic I needed. And boy did it help. When I'm high, I can forget that it's wrong to be high because I'm so happy, finally, that everything seems to make sense. I rationalize, I try and make it seem right, but it's really just because I want it so badly. I want it more than almost anything. I'm addicted. I'm hooked, dependent. I'll give up almost anything, even my morals and my body to get this because it makes me feel better. It makes me forget. The "friend" was Satan, and the drug was a poision apple. Satan saw my bleeding heart, stuck in another knife and twisted it. But it was such a pretty knife that I let him. I don't understand how any being could cause so much pain. I'd like to direct all my rage at Satan, but I know I took the pill of my own free will. It feels like bondage, but it's the only thing that I can count on in life. It's the only thing that I can always lay my hands on when I need to just smile. It makes me feel better immediately. this drug. Wow, I really am addicted aren't I? I mean, I know it's bad for me. I know it won't fix anything in the long run. I know it would be better to fall on my own than be lifted up by something that's not real. But deep down I'm terrified of letting go because it feels like this is all I have left. And the worst thing of all is that I'm not the only one I'm hurting...
Today is my 21st birthday and that scares me, because, even though I've never been drunk, the temptation is there to go out and get so messed up that I forget everything. Not because it will help, but because I want to forget that I'm an addict. Switching from one addiction to another is never a good thing, however. And I realize that. But at least this way I'd only be hurting myself...
It feels so good to admit. I feel better having let it out. But now what? Addicts go to rehab, right. They get away from the situation to grow strong enough to resist on their own.
There's a very real battle here. A fight is going on that I've been unaware of. And I am a prisoner of war.
~C
Thursday, November 13, 2008
Every mountain has two valleys
It must, for this is what makes it a mountain.
I've noticed that I live for the mountains and spend so much time and energy trying to climb them. When I'm not on top of one I'm frustrated, confused, worried that I'm being punished for not doing something right. After all, if I were a good Christian I would always have joy. Not happiness, really, but joy. I would always find a reason to dance, laugh, love. I would look at the terrible things in my life and go "It's ok! God is in control! Halelujah!"
But life isn't like that. I despair. And I wonder if that's ok? Most times my cry sounds a lot more like this: "God, I know you're in control, but just so You know, this sucks and I hate it!"
I'm beginning to wonder if being a Christian is not about being happy in the sad times. What if you don't have to be content always. What if life is about learning to deal with the brokenness?
But I don't want to go there. In some ways, well lets face it, in many ways I'm afraid of brokenness. If I don't feel then no one can hurt me, right? Wrong, I'm afraid. I still hurt I just bury the wound so it never heals. That can't be good.
So what do I do? I don't want to start this journey because I'm afraid of what I'll find. Pain, brokenness, hurt I've caused to other people. But something in me wants it so much. Because something in me knows, though tentatively, that I will also find a love deeper than any I've ever known.
Love. People try their whole lives to understand it. But what if love really can change everything? What if love really does bring life? What if all I need really is love? What if God made me for beauty? What if he made me to live as something better? Is it right to be afraid of yourself? I don't think it is. After all, all this is inside me anyway, what's the point in being afraid of it? What if my walls aren't made of brick after all? I know now that I can keep them strong enough so that no one can get inside, but surely God won't hurt me, right?
I'm not sure yet, but I know I have to try. I'm terrified. Terrified but determined. Tentative, shaky. I know I don't have to jump into this all at once, but I know that somethings going on here that I desperately want to be a part of. I need it. I need to believe that I can help others. I need to believe I can be worthy of something greater. I can't live without it. I can't love without it.
I've noticed that I live for the mountains and spend so much time and energy trying to climb them. When I'm not on top of one I'm frustrated, confused, worried that I'm being punished for not doing something right. After all, if I were a good Christian I would always have joy. Not happiness, really, but joy. I would always find a reason to dance, laugh, love. I would look at the terrible things in my life and go "It's ok! God is in control! Halelujah!"
But life isn't like that. I despair. And I wonder if that's ok? Most times my cry sounds a lot more like this: "God, I know you're in control, but just so You know, this sucks and I hate it!"
I'm beginning to wonder if being a Christian is not about being happy in the sad times. What if you don't have to be content always. What if life is about learning to deal with the brokenness?
But I don't want to go there. In some ways, well lets face it, in many ways I'm afraid of brokenness. If I don't feel then no one can hurt me, right? Wrong, I'm afraid. I still hurt I just bury the wound so it never heals. That can't be good.
So what do I do? I don't want to start this journey because I'm afraid of what I'll find. Pain, brokenness, hurt I've caused to other people. But something in me wants it so much. Because something in me knows, though tentatively, that I will also find a love deeper than any I've ever known.
Love. People try their whole lives to understand it. But what if love really can change everything? What if love really does bring life? What if all I need really is love? What if God made me for beauty? What if he made me to live as something better? Is it right to be afraid of yourself? I don't think it is. After all, all this is inside me anyway, what's the point in being afraid of it? What if my walls aren't made of brick after all? I know now that I can keep them strong enough so that no one can get inside, but surely God won't hurt me, right?
I'm not sure yet, but I know I have to try. I'm terrified. Terrified but determined. Tentative, shaky. I know I don't have to jump into this all at once, but I know that somethings going on here that I desperately want to be a part of. I need it. I need to believe that I can help others. I need to believe I can be worthy of something greater. I can't live without it. I can't love without it.
We are only asked to love, to offer hope to the many hopeless. We don't get to choose all the endings, but we are asked to play the rescuers. We won't solve all mysteries and our hearts will certainly break in such a vulnerable life, but it is the best way. We were made to be lovers bold in broken places, pouring ourselves out again and again until we're called home.
I can't run away from what I've been called to. As much as I want to I can't hide it. So I think I'll start this journey. I know I won't get there in a day. I just want to start. I want to see what will happen, and whether it will really be worth it in the end or not.
~C
~C
Monday, November 3, 2008
Beauty from Pain
The lights go out all around me
One last candle to keep out the night
And then the darkness surrounds me
I know I'm alive but I feel like I've died
And all that's left is to accept that it's over
My dreams ran like sand through the fists that I made
I try to keep warm but I just grow colder
I feel like I'm slipping away
After all this has passed, I still will remain
After I've cried my last, there'll be beauty from pain
Though it won't be today,
Someday I'll hope again
And there'll be beauty from pain
You will bring beauty from my pain
My whole world is the pain inside me
The best I can do is just get through the day
When life before is only a memory
I'll wonder why God lets me walk through this place
And though I can't understand why this happened
I know that I will when I look back someday
And see how you've brought beauty from ashes
And made me as gold purified through these flames
After all this has passed, I still will remain
After I've cried my last, there'll be beauty from pain
Though it won't be today,
Someday I'll hope again
And there'll be beauty from pain
You will bring beauty from my pain
Here I am, at the end of me
Trying to hold to what I can't see
I forgot how to hope
This night's been so long
I cling to Your promise
There will be a dawn
After all this has passed, I still will remain
After I've cried my last, there'll be beauty from pain
Though it won't be today,
Someday I'll hope again
And there'll be beauty from pain
You will bring beauty from my pain
One last candle to keep out the night
And then the darkness surrounds me
I know I'm alive but I feel like I've died
And all that's left is to accept that it's over
My dreams ran like sand through the fists that I made
I try to keep warm but I just grow colder
I feel like I'm slipping away
After all this has passed, I still will remain
After I've cried my last, there'll be beauty from pain
Though it won't be today,
Someday I'll hope again
And there'll be beauty from pain
You will bring beauty from my pain
My whole world is the pain inside me
The best I can do is just get through the day
When life before is only a memory
I'll wonder why God lets me walk through this place
And though I can't understand why this happened
I know that I will when I look back someday
And see how you've brought beauty from ashes
And made me as gold purified through these flames
After all this has passed, I still will remain
After I've cried my last, there'll be beauty from pain
Though it won't be today,
Someday I'll hope again
And there'll be beauty from pain
You will bring beauty from my pain
Here I am, at the end of me
Trying to hold to what I can't see
I forgot how to hope
This night's been so long
I cling to Your promise
There will be a dawn
After all this has passed, I still will remain
After I've cried my last, there'll be beauty from pain
Though it won't be today,
Someday I'll hope again
And there'll be beauty from pain
You will bring beauty from my pain
Tuesday, September 9, 2008
The rain that brings you here is heaven sent
I wish I could go back to being a kid, where everything was black and white.
We've got the ten commandments: Don't kill, don't steal, don't covet, don't commit adultery, have no other gods before God, don't bear false witness against your neighbor, etc.
Then it gets complicated: Like, Love the Lord your God with all your heart, mind, soul and strength, and love your neighbor as yourself.
What does that mean? And how do you get to a place where you love God with all your heart, mind, soul and strength? How do you start? How do you know when you're there? Is that a place where people are even capable of going? And if not, what then? Will I always be stuck asking these questions about right and wrong? Does God give credit for trying really hard? Or what if you're trying as hard as you can and you still make the completely wrong choice? What then? Which is more important? Wanting to do the right thing or actually doing the right thing? If it's the first, then how are you certain of your own desires? My heart is so torn that I'm not sure which I want anymore. And even if most of me wanted to do the right thing, what about that part of me that wants the wrong thing? Which one will win out? How do I get to that place where I know I'm making the right choice? And how do I know what the right choice is to begin with? How do I draw the line between being helpful and being an enabler? How do I remain vulnerable and distant? How do I show him who God is and who I am without falling for him? Is this even my job or should I turn it over to someone else? Would he even listen to anyone else?
I trust God, I do, but I know that I have a choice to make here. I know that I have to decide who I am and what I want. And maybe things will sort themselves out after that. I know I am a child of God, and after a week or so of trying to deny it, I know it's not worth it to try and walk away from Him. So how do I show someone that part of me? Do I tell him or show him? Or some combination of both? And in the meantime, how to I keep myself from doing something I'll regret? Thank God that I don't regret anything yet. I can feel myself getting close to that line that I drew 20 miles away from the actual line, but I haven't crossed it yet, and for that I'm a little proud and oh so grateful.
I want so much for him to know the love that I know in Christ. And I'd lost sight of that for a while. But I know that I can't fix him any more than he can be everything I need. God is amazing because He reminds me of this. Satan whispers lies into my ear and I almost believe them, but God in his glorious grace has brought me too far, and breathed truth into me for too long to let me fully believe the lies. So here I am. Deciding again that transparent is the way that I want to live my life. Because when I'm transparent I show who I am in Christ. Helpless and hurting, still making mistakes; but deeply loved, forgiven, and alive like I have never been before. This is the place that God is drawing me to. I was afraid for a minute that He would let me go. But I guess He loves me more than that. And that's all I needed to know.
Savoring this heart that's healing,
C
We've got the ten commandments: Don't kill, don't steal, don't covet, don't commit adultery, have no other gods before God, don't bear false witness against your neighbor, etc.
Then it gets complicated: Like, Love the Lord your God with all your heart, mind, soul and strength, and love your neighbor as yourself.
What does that mean? And how do you get to a place where you love God with all your heart, mind, soul and strength? How do you start? How do you know when you're there? Is that a place where people are even capable of going? And if not, what then? Will I always be stuck asking these questions about right and wrong? Does God give credit for trying really hard? Or what if you're trying as hard as you can and you still make the completely wrong choice? What then? Which is more important? Wanting to do the right thing or actually doing the right thing? If it's the first, then how are you certain of your own desires? My heart is so torn that I'm not sure which I want anymore. And even if most of me wanted to do the right thing, what about that part of me that wants the wrong thing? Which one will win out? How do I get to that place where I know I'm making the right choice? And how do I know what the right choice is to begin with? How do I draw the line between being helpful and being an enabler? How do I remain vulnerable and distant? How do I show him who God is and who I am without falling for him? Is this even my job or should I turn it over to someone else? Would he even listen to anyone else?
I trust God, I do, but I know that I have a choice to make here. I know that I have to decide who I am and what I want. And maybe things will sort themselves out after that. I know I am a child of God, and after a week or so of trying to deny it, I know it's not worth it to try and walk away from Him. So how do I show someone that part of me? Do I tell him or show him? Or some combination of both? And in the meantime, how to I keep myself from doing something I'll regret? Thank God that I don't regret anything yet. I can feel myself getting close to that line that I drew 20 miles away from the actual line, but I haven't crossed it yet, and for that I'm a little proud and oh so grateful.
I want so much for him to know the love that I know in Christ. And I'd lost sight of that for a while. But I know that I can't fix him any more than he can be everything I need. God is amazing because He reminds me of this. Satan whispers lies into my ear and I almost believe them, but God in his glorious grace has brought me too far, and breathed truth into me for too long to let me fully believe the lies. So here I am. Deciding again that transparent is the way that I want to live my life. Because when I'm transparent I show who I am in Christ. Helpless and hurting, still making mistakes; but deeply loved, forgiven, and alive like I have never been before. This is the place that God is drawing me to. I was afraid for a minute that He would let me go. But I guess He loves me more than that. And that's all I needed to know.
Savoring this heart that's healing,
C
Friday, September 5, 2008
The smell of your skin lingers on me now...
So, I realize it's pretty lame of me to post a song as a blog. But what can I say? Fergie said it just as well as I can in my present state.
Personal
The smell of your skin lingers on me now
You're probably on your flight back to your home town
I need some shelter of my own protection baby
To be with myself and center, clarity
Peace, Serenity
I hope you know, I hope you know
That this has nothing to do with you
It's personal, myself and I
We've got some straightening out to do
And I'm gonna miss you like a child misses their blanket
But I've got to get a move on with my life
It's time to be a big girl now
And big girls don't cry.
The path that I'm walking,
I must go alone
I must take the baby steps 'til I'm full grown, full grown.
Fairy tales don't always have a happy ending, do they?
And I foresee the dark ahead if I stay...
Like the little school mate in the school yard
We'll play jacks and uno cards
I'll be your best friend and you'll be my Valentine
Yes you can hold my hand if you want to
'Cause I want to hold yours too
We'll be playmates and lovers and share our secret worlds
But it's time for me to go home
It's getting late, dark outside
I need to be with myself and center, clarity
Peace, Serenity
The smell of your skin lingers on me now
You're probably on your flight back to your home town
I need some shelter of my own protection baby
To be with myself and center, clarity
Peace, Serenity
I hope you know, I hope you know
That this has nothing to do with you
It's personal, myself and I
We've got some straightening out to do
And I'm gonna miss you like a child misses their blanket
But I've got to get a move on with my life
It's time to be a big girl now
And big girls don't cry.
The path that I'm walking,
I must go alone
I must take the baby steps 'til I'm full grown, full grown.
Fairy tales don't always have a happy ending, do they?
And I foresee the dark ahead if I stay...
Like the little school mate in the school yard
We'll play jacks and uno cards
I'll be your best friend and you'll be my Valentine
Yes you can hold my hand if you want to
'Cause I want to hold yours too
We'll be playmates and lovers and share our secret worlds
But it's time for me to go home
It's getting late, dark outside
I need to be with myself and center, clarity
Peace, Serenity
Monday, July 28, 2008
The beginning of the end...
I am entering my last week in Cambodia. I suppose I should take this time to pause and reflect on all I've learned. My life has changed in so many ways that I couldn't see at the beginning. I guess God did know what He was doing after all.
So I'm leaving, and because of some things that happened (that are teaching me how to forgive), my dad is selling the house and moving to Cambodia. Which essentially means that I'll be completely on my own. Well, perhaps not completely, but I'll have to hold down a job and school and pay for food, gas, insurance, etc. At first I was terrified. And in some ways I'm still scared that I won't be able to handle it on my own. But in other ways I'm looking forward to the challenge.
So here's to handling life with only Jesus and I.
Cheers!
C
So I'm leaving, and because of some things that happened (that are teaching me how to forgive), my dad is selling the house and moving to Cambodia. Which essentially means that I'll be completely on my own. Well, perhaps not completely, but I'll have to hold down a job and school and pay for food, gas, insurance, etc. At first I was terrified. And in some ways I'm still scared that I won't be able to handle it on my own. But in other ways I'm looking forward to the challenge.
So here's to handling life with only Jesus and I.
Cheers!
C
Wednesday, July 9, 2008
Do you, don't you want me to love you?
Here is a mis-mash of some of my favorite quotes of the moment:
Part of one of my favorite songs because it's mellow and soulful and beautiful and beautifully utilizes the violin. Song by Goo Goo Dolls. Acoustic #3
"Your voice is small and fading/as you hide in here unknown/and your mother loves your father/cuz she's got nowhere to go/ and she wonders where these dreams go/cuz the world got in her way/ what's the point in ever trying/no one's listening anyway."
A big chunk from Juno:
"I never realize how much I like being home till I've been somewhere really different for a while."
Juno: "I just need to know that it's possible that two people can stay happy together forever."
Juno's dad: "Well it's not easy, that's for sure, and I know I don't have the best track record in the world, but I've been with your stepmother for 10 years now and I'm proud to say we're very happy. Look, in my opinion, the best thing you can do is find a person who loves you for exactly who you are. Good mood, bad mood. Ugly, pretty. Handsome, what have you. The right person's still gonna think the sun shines out your ass. That's the kind of person worth sticking with."
"Belief is a wise wager. Granted that faith cannot be proved, what harm will come to you if you gamble on its truth and it proves false? If you gain, you gain all; if you lose, you lose nothing. Wager, then, without hesitation, that He exists."
Blaise Pascal
In searching for the above Pascal quote, I stumbled upon an absolutely fabulous article, which I will post here in it's entirety. I know it's long, but tis worth the read!
So what started out rather melancholy ended rather well.
I know this post is ridiculously random. A lot of things are going on in my life right now and I'm not quite sure how to organize my thoughts in a way that makes sense and is readable. The quotes were an attempt, the long one an accident. Welcome to my Helter Skelter life.
C
Part of one of my favorite songs because it's mellow and soulful and beautiful and beautifully utilizes the violin. Song by Goo Goo Dolls. Acoustic #3
"Your voice is small and fading/as you hide in here unknown/and your mother loves your father/cuz she's got nowhere to go/ and she wonders where these dreams go/cuz the world got in her way/ what's the point in ever trying/no one's listening anyway."
A big chunk from Juno:
"I never realize how much I like being home till I've been somewhere really different for a while."
Juno: "I just need to know that it's possible that two people can stay happy together forever."
Juno's dad: "Well it's not easy, that's for sure, and I know I don't have the best track record in the world, but I've been with your stepmother for 10 years now and I'm proud to say we're very happy. Look, in my opinion, the best thing you can do is find a person who loves you for exactly who you are. Good mood, bad mood. Ugly, pretty. Handsome, what have you. The right person's still gonna think the sun shines out your ass. That's the kind of person worth sticking with."
"Belief is a wise wager. Granted that faith cannot be proved, what harm will come to you if you gamble on its truth and it proves false? If you gain, you gain all; if you lose, you lose nothing. Wager, then, without hesitation, that He exists."
Blaise Pascal
In searching for the above Pascal quote, I stumbled upon an absolutely fabulous article, which I will post here in it's entirety. I know it's long, but tis worth the read!
Christianity for Pragmatists
"I'm not interested in the theory - just show me how its works!" The dictionary defines pragmatism as "a philosophic method that makes practical consequences the test of truth."
At the end of the 1990s, pragmatism is the prevailing spirit among people. We have had enough of tradition and dogmatic ideas. We are just interested in being practical and getting things fixed. So away with "ideological baggage" in politics and education and everything. "Just make life work."
Being purely practical about life is not a bad platform from which Christians can lead people to consider the claims of the Lord Jesus Christ.
God is a bore
Pragmatic people want life to be good but the Christian faith is derided in our secular society. We can think of some of the cutting comments earlier in the century of someone like the US essayist H. L. Mencken, 'the sage of Baltimore.' "A church is a place in which gentlemen who have never been to heaven brag about it to people who will never get there." Or again, "The chief contribution of Protestantism to human thought is its massive proof that God is a bore." Christianity is looked upon by our friends as some kind of life in a straight-jacket, totally lacking in pezaz.
Mental health
One of the major influences in leading our peers down this road was Sigmund Freud and his ideas about mental health and psychoanalysis. His thrust was explicitly atheistic, attacking religious belief relentlessly. In his 1927 book The Future of an Illusion he described faith as a form of mental disorder, a "universal obsessional neurosis" rooted in "infantile" patterns of thought. It was an aberration which we needed to grow out of. It is not the way to make life good.
We see this thought is popularized on our TV screens almost weekly. More or less every Christian is portrayed as either crazy, hypocritical or a "silly vicar."
Not all psychoanalysts were as militantly against God as Freud, but much of "folk psychology" followed his path. "Religion" and "morality" were the enemy, especially as the century reached the freedom ethos of the 1960s. And psychoanalysis did not just oppose faith but at that time sought to be almost a substitute for it. It captured public imagination with its talk of childhood sexuality and the need to overcome repression. It saw itself as scientific and by the 1970s had almost achieved the status of the 5th estate, alongside things like the media and the judiciary. It was seen to be chic and complexly interesting to be going "for therapy." But one of its great messages was "stay away from religion if you don't want to get screwed up."
U - turn
But the last 30 years have not been so kind to the psychoanalytic vision. Many of Freud's ideas have been found to be fallacious and a lot of people were coming to the conclusion that they were spending a great deal of money on therapists and not getting any better. "A psychiatrist is called a shrink because that's what he does to your wallet."
It would be unfair to tar all psychiatry with the same brush. Some is good and necessary. But the interesting point is that popular psychology has moved on and it has taken an unexpectedly new direction. An important sign of change came in 1978 with the publication of a significant book, M. Scott Peck's The Road Less Travelled: A New Psychology of Love, Traditional Values and Spiritual Growth. Whether or not we can go along with everything in that book is not the point. The point is that in the book Peck openly criticized his psychiatric colleagues for rubbishing religion. The book must have struck a chord with ordinary people because it remained on the best-seller list for 10 years. Later Peck wrote another book, People of the Lie, which attacked the amoral approach to life so beloved by earlier psychiatrists. It argued powerfully that there is such a thing a evil which has to be taken seriously.
The benefits of faith
Recent years have seen the emergence of research findings which appear to show far from "screwing people up," and being a "neurosis," religious belief is one of the most consistent correlates to mental health and happiness.
That is not to say that Christians never suffer from depression, nor that there is no such thing as a religious mania, but it is to say that on average mental problems occur less frequently in those with faith, and when problems do occur there is a much greater chance of full recovery.
"Several studies (from the US) have found that high levels of religious commitment correlate to lower levels of depression, lower levels of stress and a greater ability to cope with stress." Last September the newspapers in Britain gave quite a lot of space to the research of Professor Michael Argyle of Oxford, which showed that "going to church each week induces feelings of calmness, social cohesion, joy and transcendence, while decreasing feelings of bloody-mindedness." The Professor himself was quoted as saying, "Those who attend church regularly are much happier than non-believers."
At the same time evidence has been growing from researchers of a powerful relationship between immoral conduct and unhappiness. Here is a quote from The New Harvard Guide to Psychiatry 1988: "Many who have worked closely with adolescents over the past decade have realized that the new sexual freedom has by no means led to greater pleasures, freedom and openess. Clinical experience has shown that the new permissiveness has often led to empty relationships, feelings of self-contempt and worthlessness."
So when our TV and film dramas so often seem to portray Christians as cranks and fools, just don't be taken in so easily.
Pascal's thought experiment
All this leads to a new twist in the age old debate between believers and non-believers at the pragmatic level.
Back in the 17th century the mathematician and philosopher Blaize Pascal was responding to a new generation of secular ideas and atheists. He offered an interesting argument concerning religious belief. He conceived the issue as a bet or a wager. His reasoning went something like this: The Bible teaches that God gives eternal life, forgiveness and heaven to believers in Christ, while those who reject Christ are choosing to go to hell. Pascal conceded that there it is difficult for reason alone to be sure whether the Bible's claim is true or not. But we may consider our life as a gamble (one that by the very nature of things you can't avoid). If we bet against God and the Bible proves to be true we will be lost in hell forever. If we bet for God and follow Christ, and the Bible turns out to be wrong, we lose nothing, for we cease to exist at death like everyone else - we have lost nothing. So said Pascal, it makes more sense to believe.
The crowning irony
Of course, the touchy issue here concerns what those who opt for faith must sacrifice in this life in order to follow Christ. The Bible speaks of struggling against sin and pursuing self-control. The atheist and agnostic have always said that this is too big a price to pay. That would say it excludes us from so much fun - "the pleasures of sin." But the point is this. The recent research in psychology makes it clear that in the long run this is not true. The morally unrestrained life turns out to be a miserable life. Far from making life work, at the pragmatic level, immorality wrecks lives.
The crowning irony seems to be that even if the atheist were right and there was only our existence on earth then the committed Christian is still better off for (apart from religious persecution, which we as yet do not suffer in the West) the Christian leads a happier, more stable and fulfilled life.
There is obviously much more that needs to be said but the statistics appear to show that we can turn to our generation of pragmatists and say, "Do you want your life to work ? Then come to Christ."
So what started out rather melancholy ended rather well.
I know this post is ridiculously random. A lot of things are going on in my life right now and I'm not quite sure how to organize my thoughts in a way that makes sense and is readable. The quotes were an attempt, the long one an accident. Welcome to my Helter Skelter life.
C
Sunday, July 6, 2008
Heebie Jeebies
Well, see, it happened like this:
I'm making brownies because my family is having lunch with another family tomorrow, and we're bringing brownies. And fruit. Well our tiny stuffy kitchen is not a happy place to be with the stove on, so I got the brownies in the oven and got my sweaty self in the shower. Towards the end of my shower, I was rinsing out my poufy body wash thing under the faucet when I noticed something dark and long wiggling about 3 centimeters from my hand. It was a centipede. He and I battled it out with the hose/shower head for a couple of minutes. I think he drowned, if indeed centipedes can drown. The point is I won. So I got out of the shower and was going for my towel when a cockroach decided to make his appearance from behind the toilet. This was not one of those small, cute cockroaches that occasionally infest homes in America. Those are less than an inch long. This one was about 3 inches long. At least 2 and a half. Fortunately, I keep a can of Raid outside my bathroom door, just for such occasions. Stop laughing. You think I'm kidding, don't you? I'm not. I scored a direct hit and saw the beginnings of his slow decent into death before I shut the bathroom door. Then, safely wrapped in my towel, I ventured out to check the brownies. I left the can of Raid in my room. Stupid. There was another cockroach on the hat tree next to my head as I came out of my bedroom. I darted back into my room to get the raid. Cockroach 2: Down for the count.
I then proceeded to douse the rest of my room, just in case. In the process I noticed a gecko hiding in wait for a line of ants to venture close enough for his next meal. I like geckos. They don't have antennae and are therefore somehow less creepy than the other three things I killed in the general vicinity of my bedroom in the last 5 minutes. I left him to his feast.
I am currently suffering from a severe case of the heebie jeebies, and it may be a while before I actually fall asleep.
In closing, here are two things I never thought I'd say:
Neurological poison ROCKS!
and
I'm with Mr. Monk, it's a jungle out there!
Surviving like Richard Hatch,
C
I'm making brownies because my family is having lunch with another family tomorrow, and we're bringing brownies. And fruit. Well our tiny stuffy kitchen is not a happy place to be with the stove on, so I got the brownies in the oven and got my sweaty self in the shower. Towards the end of my shower, I was rinsing out my poufy body wash thing under the faucet when I noticed something dark and long wiggling about 3 centimeters from my hand. It was a centipede. He and I battled it out with the hose/shower head for a couple of minutes. I think he drowned, if indeed centipedes can drown. The point is I won. So I got out of the shower and was going for my towel when a cockroach decided to make his appearance from behind the toilet. This was not one of those small, cute cockroaches that occasionally infest homes in America. Those are less than an inch long. This one was about 3 inches long. At least 2 and a half. Fortunately, I keep a can of Raid outside my bathroom door, just for such occasions. Stop laughing. You think I'm kidding, don't you? I'm not. I scored a direct hit and saw the beginnings of his slow decent into death before I shut the bathroom door. Then, safely wrapped in my towel, I ventured out to check the brownies. I left the can of Raid in my room. Stupid. There was another cockroach on the hat tree next to my head as I came out of my bedroom. I darted back into my room to get the raid. Cockroach 2: Down for the count.
I then proceeded to douse the rest of my room, just in case. In the process I noticed a gecko hiding in wait for a line of ants to venture close enough for his next meal. I like geckos. They don't have antennae and are therefore somehow less creepy than the other three things I killed in the general vicinity of my bedroom in the last 5 minutes. I left him to his feast.
I am currently suffering from a severe case of the heebie jeebies, and it may be a while before I actually fall asleep.
In closing, here are two things I never thought I'd say:
Neurological poison ROCKS!
and
I'm with Mr. Monk, it's a jungle out there!
Surviving like Richard Hatch,
C
Saturday, June 14, 2008
Who me? SIngle?......No?
Two random conversations I've had this month. Enjoy!
The first was in Khmi with a man I've never met. It went like this.
Moto driver: You speak Khmi a lot. And you're pretty.
Me: Thanks.
Driver: Are you married yet?
Me: No, not yet.
Driver: Do you have a boyfriend?
Me: No.
Driver: Do you want a Cambodian husband?
Me: awkward laughter
(we had reached my house at this point and I got off the moto)
Driver: Can I have your phone number?
Me: No.
The second was in English with an African guy I met in the elevator whilst riding down after church with my two little sisters.
Dude: Are these your babies?
Me: No, they're my sisters.
Dude: are you single?
Me: Yeah.
Dude: Are you living in Cambodia?
Me: Um, only for a few more weeks.
Dude: Where are you from?
Me: America, where are you from?
Dude: Africa
At this point we get off the elevator. I thought I'd escaped. Silly me.
Dude: I want to know you well.
Me: awkward laughter
Dude: I want to know you well
Me: Noni, what's wrong? (hopeless attempt to ignore the guy)
Dude: I like you, you're nice.
Me: (under breath) That's great. (thinking) Really? I was kind of hoping I had been rude... (out loud) Well I have to take the kids home and get them some lunch it was nice to meet you bye! Come on kids!
There are very few occasions where I'm grateful for American guy's lack of...forwardness. These are two of those occasions.
My mom's comment: If anyone asks you if you're single in the first 5 seconds of meeting you, LIE!!!
Good advice mom.
Love and peace or else!
C.
The first was in Khmi with a man I've never met. It went like this.
Moto driver: You speak Khmi a lot. And you're pretty.
Me: Thanks.
Driver: Are you married yet?
Me: No, not yet.
Driver: Do you have a boyfriend?
Me: No.
Driver: Do you want a Cambodian husband?
Me: awkward laughter
(we had reached my house at this point and I got off the moto)
Driver: Can I have your phone number?
Me: No.
The second was in English with an African guy I met in the elevator whilst riding down after church with my two little sisters.
Dude: Are these your babies?
Me: No, they're my sisters.
Dude: are you single?
Me: Yeah.
Dude: Are you living in Cambodia?
Me: Um, only for a few more weeks.
Dude: Where are you from?
Me: America, where are you from?
Dude: Africa
At this point we get off the elevator. I thought I'd escaped. Silly me.
Dude: I want to know you well.
Me: awkward laughter
Dude: I want to know you well
Me: Noni, what's wrong? (hopeless attempt to ignore the guy)
Dude: I like you, you're nice.
Me: (under breath) That's great. (thinking) Really? I was kind of hoping I had been rude... (out loud) Well I have to take the kids home and get them some lunch it was nice to meet you bye! Come on kids!
There are very few occasions where I'm grateful for American guy's lack of...forwardness. These are two of those occasions.
My mom's comment: If anyone asks you if you're single in the first 5 seconds of meeting you, LIE!!!
Good advice mom.
Love and peace or else!
C.
Wednesday, June 4, 2008
Who told the ocean "You can only come this far"?
Ooh! pick me! I know!
This weekend I got a chance to go to the beach with a couple of Aussies and a puppy named Anzac. It was absolutely wonderful.
We stayed in a bunglao on top of a mountain with woods all around looking out over the ocean. There was no air conditioner, or hot shower, or mosquito net, but the breeze from the ocean and the view made it all worth it. We trekked around the beaches and found the most secluded spots to swim. It was great just to get away from prying eyes and swim without shorts over my swimsuit! Plus, the water was more clear and beautiful. He found a place called Hawwaii beach where the water was like crystal and you could see straight through to the bottom. It was beautiful, unspoiled nature. And it was lovely.
Of course, we did the non-hippie girly things too. Like going to dinner on the beachand checking out cute boys. But mostly we just relaxed. It's amazing how you sometimes don't realize how much you needed to get away until you do it.
And then you come back...
Things have been tumultous during the past 24 hours...
My mom went to Bangkok with 2 of the kids leaving 3 for me. Normally this would not be a problem, but the mentally handicapped one is having trouble sleeping which means my developmentally-stuck-in-the-terrible-twos ten-year-old little sister was not really in good form today. Tonight, I gave her a shot of medicine and she's sleeping like a log. : D
The 9 year old brother also decided to display his not-so-handsome side today. Altho we've got him sorted out at the moment I keep being afraid he's gonna loose it again when I have to enforce his punishment (which, by the way, is being grounded from tv and game boy for quite a while).
I was reminded last night ofhow desperate Satan is. When all other attempts fail he hits below the belt. On the one hand it's tragic. On the other hand, it's actually kind of funny, because you realize how desperate he must be to pull a stunt like this. And though it may not always seem like it, I'll take a line from Lucy and say "Aslan must know what He's doing."
I'll leave you with this:
We complain about the cross we bear but don't realize it is preparing us for the dip in the road that God can see and we cannot.
Whatever your cross, whatever your pain, there will always be sunshine, after the rain.... Perhaps you may stumble, perhaps even fall; But God's always ready, to answer your call....
He knows every heartache, sees every tear, a word from His lips, can calm every fear...
Your sorrows may linger, throughout the night, But suddenly vanish, with dawn's early light... The Savior is waiting, somewhere above, to give you His grace, and send you His love...
Everlasting Love,
Redeemed
This weekend I got a chance to go to the beach with a couple of Aussies and a puppy named Anzac. It was absolutely wonderful.
We stayed in a bunglao on top of a mountain with woods all around looking out over the ocean. There was no air conditioner, or hot shower, or mosquito net, but the breeze from the ocean and the view made it all worth it. We trekked around the beaches and found the most secluded spots to swim. It was great just to get away from prying eyes and swim without shorts over my swimsuit! Plus, the water was more clear and beautiful. He found a place called Hawwaii beach where the water was like crystal and you could see straight through to the bottom. It was beautiful, unspoiled nature. And it was lovely.
Of course, we did the non-hippie girly things too. Like going to dinner on the beachand checking out cute boys. But mostly we just relaxed. It's amazing how you sometimes don't realize how much you needed to get away until you do it.
And then you come back...
Things have been tumultous during the past 24 hours...
My mom went to Bangkok with 2 of the kids leaving 3 for me. Normally this would not be a problem, but the mentally handicapped one is having trouble sleeping which means my developmentally-stuck-in-the-terrible-twos ten-year-old little sister was not really in good form today. Tonight, I gave her a shot of medicine and she's sleeping like a log. : D
The 9 year old brother also decided to display his not-so-handsome side today. Altho we've got him sorted out at the moment I keep being afraid he's gonna loose it again when I have to enforce his punishment (which, by the way, is being grounded from tv and game boy for quite a while).
I was reminded last night ofhow desperate Satan is. When all other attempts fail he hits below the belt. On the one hand it's tragic. On the other hand, it's actually kind of funny, because you realize how desperate he must be to pull a stunt like this. And though it may not always seem like it, I'll take a line from Lucy and say "Aslan must know what He's doing."
I'll leave you with this:
We complain about the cross we bear but don't realize it is preparing us for the dip in the road that God can see and we cannot.
Whatever your cross, whatever your pain, there will always be sunshine, after the rain.... Perhaps you may stumble, perhaps even fall; But God's always ready, to answer your call....
He knows every heartache, sees every tear, a word from His lips, can calm every fear...
Your sorrows may linger, throughout the night, But suddenly vanish, with dawn's early light... The Savior is waiting, somewhere above, to give you His grace, and send you His love...
Everlasting Love,
Redeemed
Thursday, May 1, 2008
Apple for the Teacher
Unfortunately, none of my students bring me apples. That seems to be strictly an American concept. But USA donuts is right next door, and that makes up for it somehow...
Two of the three students in my first class are transferring to morning classes, as Cambodians are apt to do. I have no idea why they do this, but I think it has to do with being able to teach more students in one day if you have two school sessions. Anyway, I'll be left with just one girl. I think we'll do a lot of movie watching and..."field trips" as the mall is three blocks away. We'll write it off as educational somehow.
It poured down rain on Tuesday. It's April, meaning that it's not supposed to rain at all. But it did, so I drove my little mo-ped home in the monsoon. I was lucky in that I had a poncho in the storage compartment of my bike that I bought about a week ago on a cloudy day, so while my schoolbooks didn't get soaked, I still arrived home looking rather a lot like a drowned rat. (And trust me, drowned rats are not attractive.)
We're talking about AIDS and HIV in my first class. There's a whole unit on it in our book, which I think is awesome. It's been...enlightening to say the least. The people here feel no sympathy for AIDS patients. One of my students said that if he got AIDS he would go sleep with all the prostitutes in Cambodia before he died, so that he would infect them too and kill them all. I was rather appalled by this attitude, and hopefully will be able to change it a bit.
I think I had thought up something rather witty to say, but now can't remember what it was...oh well.
My online class is coming to a close. I'm not just real upset about it, altho I wish my grade were better. Hopefully I'll be able to take a Psychology class online this summer and then all my gen-eds will be out of the way.
I have a day off from school today, so I went shopping and had a piece of apple pie and some coffee at a local shop. And let me tell ya, their apple pie is to die for. And it was fresh from the oven today.
Thank you Abba for vacation days.
We've got another 3-day break in March and we're hoping to get to go to the beach, which I'm REALLY excited about. A whole week without dress pants! Whoot! I'll let you know how that goes.
Love and peace or else,
~C
Two of the three students in my first class are transferring to morning classes, as Cambodians are apt to do. I have no idea why they do this, but I think it has to do with being able to teach more students in one day if you have two school sessions. Anyway, I'll be left with just one girl. I think we'll do a lot of movie watching and..."field trips" as the mall is three blocks away. We'll write it off as educational somehow.
It poured down rain on Tuesday. It's April, meaning that it's not supposed to rain at all. But it did, so I drove my little mo-ped home in the monsoon. I was lucky in that I had a poncho in the storage compartment of my bike that I bought about a week ago on a cloudy day, so while my schoolbooks didn't get soaked, I still arrived home looking rather a lot like a drowned rat. (And trust me, drowned rats are not attractive.)
We're talking about AIDS and HIV in my first class. There's a whole unit on it in our book, which I think is awesome. It's been...enlightening to say the least. The people here feel no sympathy for AIDS patients. One of my students said that if he got AIDS he would go sleep with all the prostitutes in Cambodia before he died, so that he would infect them too and kill them all. I was rather appalled by this attitude, and hopefully will be able to change it a bit.
I think I had thought up something rather witty to say, but now can't remember what it was...oh well.
My online class is coming to a close. I'm not just real upset about it, altho I wish my grade were better. Hopefully I'll be able to take a Psychology class online this summer and then all my gen-eds will be out of the way.
I have a day off from school today, so I went shopping and had a piece of apple pie and some coffee at a local shop. And let me tell ya, their apple pie is to die for. And it was fresh from the oven today.
Thank you Abba for vacation days.
We've got another 3-day break in March and we're hoping to get to go to the beach, which I'm REALLY excited about. A whole week without dress pants! Whoot! I'll let you know how that goes.
Love and peace or else,
~C
Thursday, April 24, 2008
So I only had one student in my first class today, the female one, so we gt to talk abut shoes and shopping and music and movies to our hearts content.
There's a little kid trying to read this over my shoulder right now. I wonder if he understands enough English for me to be able to tell him that this is very rude.
I'm between classes at the moment and I just tried to get online in the placement test room. The lady in charge was not very happy with me. She took one look at my jeans and said "You're not a teacher here are you?"
Yes, I'm being a rebel today and wearing jeans. Yes, I know this is fully against the rules, but I'm sorry, it's just too hot to wear those hellish sweat factories otherwise known as polyester dress pants today. I'll get back on the straight and narrow tomorrow. Maybe.
Love and peace or else,
~C
P.S.
I'm having some issues with Abba recently. I feel like I haven't been spending enough time with him recently but everytime I try it's really awkward. And I'm not sure exactly what's wrong or what to do abut it. Anyway, if you guys could be thinking of me I'd be greatful.
There's a little kid trying to read this over my shoulder right now. I wonder if he understands enough English for me to be able to tell him that this is very rude.
I'm between classes at the moment and I just tried to get online in the placement test room. The lady in charge was not very happy with me. She took one look at my jeans and said "You're not a teacher here are you?"
Yes, I'm being a rebel today and wearing jeans. Yes, I know this is fully against the rules, but I'm sorry, it's just too hot to wear those hellish sweat factories otherwise known as polyester dress pants today. I'll get back on the straight and narrow tomorrow. Maybe.
Love and peace or else,
~C
P.S.
I'm having some issues with Abba recently. I feel like I haven't been spending enough time with him recently but everytime I try it's really awkward. And I'm not sure exactly what's wrong or what to do abut it. Anyway, if you guys could be thinking of me I'd be greatful.
Saturday, April 19, 2008
The game:
1. Grab the nearest book to you.
2. Open the book to page 123.
3. Find the fifth sentence.
4. Post the text of the next 4 sentences on your blog along with these instructions.
5. Don't you dare dig for that "cool" or "intellectual" book in your closet! I know you were thinking about it! Just pick up whatever is closest.
From "The Cat Who Ate Danish Modern" by Lilian Jackson Braun
He frowned with displeasure as she went on talking about cats and grinding nutmeg into their cocktails. "Now tell me all about your moustache" Cokey said. "I suppose you said it's terrible glamorous."
"I raised this crop in Britian during the war," said Qwilleran, "as a camoflage."
"I like it."
1. Grab the nearest book to you.
2. Open the book to page 123.
3. Find the fifth sentence.
4. Post the text of the next 4 sentences on your blog along with these instructions.
5. Don't you dare dig for that "cool" or "intellectual" book in your closet! I know you were thinking about it! Just pick up whatever is closest.
From "The Cat Who Ate Danish Modern" by Lilian Jackson Braun
He frowned with displeasure as she went on talking about cats and grinding nutmeg into their cocktails. "Now tell me all about your moustache" Cokey said. "I suppose you said it's terrible glamorous."
"I raised this crop in Britian during the war," said Qwilleran, "as a camoflage."
"I like it."
Thursday, April 17, 2008
Harry Potter 5
That's what my students want to watch in class tomorrow.
Now half of me wishes I had been able to pick something overtly moral. But the other half of me is proud that my students enjoy this aspect of American culture (especially considering the last time we tried something like this all I got was, "U2 is nice, but I like hip-hop." *shudder*)
For some odd reason, my school only allows 3 days off for Khmer New Year which means, in effect, the teachers have to show up but precious few of the students will. 6 students showed up to my 5:30 class, which is how we arrived at the Harry Potter decision. None of my three students came to my 3:30 class so I went to get a new seat for my bike since my old one was broken and...uncomfortable. So I got directions from the moto guard and, after getting lost only thrice, I managed to find the right market, which was, of course still completely shut down. So I drove back to Sihanouk Blvd where I had seen tons of moto shops, thinking that surely someone would have a bike seat. The first shop said no, the second said to check next door and another shop about 500 metres down the road. The shop next door didn't have them. 500 metres later, shops one and two were fresh out. In shop three, someone was apparently having a seizure in the middle of the floor. I tried to ask if there was any way I could help but they didn't get it and didn't seem to want anyone outside the family to be involved (Cambodians are like that), so I asked Abba to help them and went to the next shop. They not only had a bike seat, they had a cushy one. It was $4. They tightened my brakes and readjusted my seat height too. And they spoke English and had a nice dog. It was an unexpectedly good day.
Incidentally, watching Scrubs right after the season finale of Grey's Anatomy is an interesting juxtaposition. I recommend it.
I Need a Hero,
Cleo
Now half of me wishes I had been able to pick something overtly moral. But the other half of me is proud that my students enjoy this aspect of American culture (especially considering the last time we tried something like this all I got was, "U2 is nice, but I like hip-hop." *shudder*)
For some odd reason, my school only allows 3 days off for Khmer New Year which means, in effect, the teachers have to show up but precious few of the students will. 6 students showed up to my 5:30 class, which is how we arrived at the Harry Potter decision. None of my three students came to my 3:30 class so I went to get a new seat for my bike since my old one was broken and...uncomfortable. So I got directions from the moto guard and, after getting lost only thrice, I managed to find the right market, which was, of course still completely shut down. So I drove back to Sihanouk Blvd where I had seen tons of moto shops, thinking that surely someone would have a bike seat. The first shop said no, the second said to check next door and another shop about 500 metres down the road. The shop next door didn't have them. 500 metres later, shops one and two were fresh out. In shop three, someone was apparently having a seizure in the middle of the floor. I tried to ask if there was any way I could help but they didn't get it and didn't seem to want anyone outside the family to be involved (Cambodians are like that), so I asked Abba to help them and went to the next shop. They not only had a bike seat, they had a cushy one. It was $4. They tightened my brakes and readjusted my seat height too. And they spoke English and had a nice dog. It was an unexpectedly good day.
Incidentally, watching Scrubs right after the season finale of Grey's Anatomy is an interesting juxtaposition. I recommend it.
I Need a Hero,
Cleo
Wednesday, April 16, 2008
A 3 inch long cockroach died in my bathtub this morning of neurological poisioning after a failed attempt to drown the little bugger.
But other that that completely unnerving incident, my break has gone fairly well.
I had the most relaxing weekend ever and have done a fat load of nothing for the past 5 days. Except for reading a wonderful book called "Damaged" by Cathy Glass (who writes under a penname to protect the innocent.) It's a true story about a little girl named Jodie who was taken into foster care after having been horribly sexually abused by her parents. It's a rather disturbing read, but seeing her behavior made me think about the kinds of things I might encounter one day while working with the sexually abused girls here. All in all, it's tough, but I definitely recommend it. Make sure you're caught up on homework though, because it's one of those you can't/don't want to put down.
Speaking of homework, we were planning on going to Thailand over the break but that ended up not working out...after I had told my teacher that my internet access might be a bit patchy. Which means that I have an "excuse" for not having done my homework yet. Unfortunately, it doesn't mean I get to skip it entirely, so that's what I'll be doing for the next hour and a half or so.
I start teaching again tomorrow, which I'm not quite sure I'm ready for, but we'll see. I don't really expect anyone to actually show up for class so I'm seriously considering having my speaking and listening class watch a movie because I can totally write that off as a lesson plan. And they'll like it. And we'll need some cushion after they get their midterms back...
On a completely unrelated note, about two months ago I had an ear infection and while the pain went away, my ear has been bothering me ever since. I went to the doctor today to have it checked on and apparently I had some unsightly wax buildup (for which I blame Cambodia and it's dustiness). Well, I say unsightly...I got to see it after they flushed it out of my ear with a syringe filled with warm water. It was gross. But hey, I can hear better now!
April is like August in Cambodia. It's the hottest time of the year so we're all sweating like pigs, but honestly, it's not as bad as I was expecting it to be. Albeit, we haven't gotten to the worst of it yet, but whatever.
Ok, enough stalling. I gotta go check my facebo--um, homework.
Love and peace or else!
Cleo
I had the most relaxing weekend ever and have done a fat load of nothing for the past 5 days. Except for reading a wonderful book called "Damaged" by Cathy Glass (who writes under a penname to protect the innocent.) It's a true story about a little girl named Jodie who was taken into foster care after having been horribly sexually abused by her parents. It's a rather disturbing read, but seeing her behavior made me think about the kinds of things I might encounter one day while working with the sexually abused girls here. All in all, it's tough, but I definitely recommend it. Make sure you're caught up on homework though, because it's one of those you can't/don't want to put down.
Speaking of homework, we were planning on going to Thailand over the break but that ended up not working out...after I had told my teacher that my internet access might be a bit patchy. Which means that I have an "excuse" for not having done my homework yet. Unfortunately, it doesn't mean I get to skip it entirely, so that's what I'll be doing for the next hour and a half or so.
I start teaching again tomorrow, which I'm not quite sure I'm ready for, but we'll see. I don't really expect anyone to actually show up for class so I'm seriously considering having my speaking and listening class watch a movie because I can totally write that off as a lesson plan. And they'll like it. And we'll need some cushion after they get their midterms back...
On a completely unrelated note, about two months ago I had an ear infection and while the pain went away, my ear has been bothering me ever since. I went to the doctor today to have it checked on and apparently I had some unsightly wax buildup (for which I blame Cambodia and it's dustiness). Well, I say unsightly...I got to see it after they flushed it out of my ear with a syringe filled with warm water. It was gross. But hey, I can hear better now!
April is like August in Cambodia. It's the hottest time of the year so we're all sweating like pigs, but honestly, it's not as bad as I was expecting it to be. Albeit, we haven't gotten to the worst of it yet, but whatever.
Ok, enough stalling. I gotta go check my facebo--um, homework.
Love and peace or else!
Cleo
Thursday, April 10, 2008
Really guys? I'm not that stupid
So I gave my midterms today. about 10 of my 15 students copied everyone else's answers and I'm rather upset. They didn't even try to hide it. I haven't decided quite what to do about it yet. My plan for tomorrow was to give everyone back their graded midterms and go over them with my students, but as I don't have to have my midterm grades turned in for 2 weeks, I think tomorrow will be sitting in class and letting everyone write me a 200 word essay in English about why cheating is a bad idea, and what happens in my class if you get caught. An F is what happens, by the way. As this as is everyone's first offense this time, I may let it slide with just the essay. Either way, I'm still pretty ticked. I was starting to enjoy teaching and then they have to go pull a stunt like this...
Sunday, April 6, 2008
When all else fails...
Resort to poetry!
We're doing poetry analysis in my Advanced class tomorrow. I'm rather excited! We're doing Richard Corey by E. A. Robinson because it has an easy-to-understand theme, manageable vocabulary, and it's by E. A. Robinson.
I still have no clue what I"m doing in my Almost Advanced class. We're supposed to be working on relative clauses, but the English major over here isn't sure what those are. I'll keep ya posted on how that goes.
Shopping went exceedingly well, meaning that I got 4 pairs of nice dress pants for $24 and found them in under an hour. I'm still on the hunt for a book bag to carry all my stuff in so I'll probably make a trip to Central Market sometime next weekend.
In other news, a friend recently reminded me that lukewarm is not a good temperature to be. I hadn't realized that I was there, or rather, I hadn't let myself see it. But I've gotten a good dose of humility recently and I'm tired of mediocrity. I'm tired of being lazy. It's getting me nowhere fast. I've been talking to Abba about it a lot and we both know that this isn't going to get better overnight. It's going to be a continual process of growing and changing and redefining the way that I think about a lot of things.
I used to be in love with Abba. I'm ashamed that I'm not anymore. Something in me wants to be stubborn and do this all myself, but another part knows full well that I can't. I know better than this. I know that he has everything that I need, and my flesh has been winning for way too long.
So this week isn't shaping up to be relaxing. Please be thinking of me and hoping that my stupid side looses.
Helter Skelter,
Me
We're doing poetry analysis in my Advanced class tomorrow. I'm rather excited! We're doing Richard Corey by E. A. Robinson because it has an easy-to-understand theme, manageable vocabulary, and it's by E. A. Robinson.
I still have no clue what I"m doing in my Almost Advanced class. We're supposed to be working on relative clauses, but the English major over here isn't sure what those are. I'll keep ya posted on how that goes.
Shopping went exceedingly well, meaning that I got 4 pairs of nice dress pants for $24 and found them in under an hour. I'm still on the hunt for a book bag to carry all my stuff in so I'll probably make a trip to Central Market sometime next weekend.
In other news, a friend recently reminded me that lukewarm is not a good temperature to be. I hadn't realized that I was there, or rather, I hadn't let myself see it. But I've gotten a good dose of humility recently and I'm tired of mediocrity. I'm tired of being lazy. It's getting me nowhere fast. I've been talking to Abba about it a lot and we both know that this isn't going to get better overnight. It's going to be a continual process of growing and changing and redefining the way that I think about a lot of things.
I used to be in love with Abba. I'm ashamed that I'm not anymore. Something in me wants to be stubborn and do this all myself, but another part knows full well that I can't. I know better than this. I know that he has everything that I need, and my flesh has been winning for way too long.
So this week isn't shaping up to be relaxing. Please be thinking of me and hoping that my stupid side looses.
Helter Skelter,
Me
Friday, April 4, 2008
Nope, no catchy title this time. It doesn't make enough sense yet.
So let's do a quick re-cap of the past 36 hours, shall we?
Yesterday I got home from Sign Language Class at about 6. Little did I know it would be my last. DU DU DUNH!!! My dad told me that Isaac, a friend of ours, knew of a job opening for an English teacher at the school he works at, and wanted to know if I was interested. I called him and told him I was interested and he said "Type up a resume and come for an interview at 10:30 tomorrow morning."
So, the next morning, resume in hand, a very nervous Callie dressed as professionally as is possible in this weather, went to an interview. I talked to the boss man for about 5 minutes before he started pulling out teaching materials and my white-board eraser. I decided to go for something a little more perceptive than "Am I hired?" and said "Should I start on Monday?". He said "You should start today." And I didn't think the interview was going all that well. Silly me.
Who hires people like that? Really??? I have no previous experience with teaching and I'm younger than most of my students. I guess speaking the language helps, but I'm still reeling at the fact that I was hired that fast.
I have two classes, an Advanced class with two students from 3:30-4:30 and an Almost Advanced class from 5:30-6:30.
So I had all of 3 hours to prepare for my first class...ever. And I don't have the teachers manual for that class yet. I did a lot of "um"ing and tried to get to know the students. Thank goodness it's the weekend and I'll have time to get my head back on straight by the time Monday rolls around.
One thing I have managed to work out in my befuddled state is that I desperately need to go shopping. I know, I know, what else is new, right? But hey, at least I have a legitimate reason this time! This isn't one of those schools where jeans are ok, so Saturday will be spent looking for some dress pants and sensible (read:blister-free) shoes.
Love and Peace or Else,
Teacher
Yesterday I got home from Sign Language Class at about 6. Little did I know it would be my last. DU DU DUNH!!! My dad told me that Isaac, a friend of ours, knew of a job opening for an English teacher at the school he works at, and wanted to know if I was interested. I called him and told him I was interested and he said "Type up a resume and come for an interview at 10:30 tomorrow morning."
So, the next morning, resume in hand, a very nervous Callie dressed as professionally as is possible in this weather, went to an interview. I talked to the boss man for about 5 minutes before he started pulling out teaching materials and my white-board eraser. I decided to go for something a little more perceptive than "Am I hired?" and said "Should I start on Monday?". He said "You should start today." And I didn't think the interview was going all that well. Silly me.
Who hires people like that? Really??? I have no previous experience with teaching and I'm younger than most of my students. I guess speaking the language helps, but I'm still reeling at the fact that I was hired that fast.
I have two classes, an Advanced class with two students from 3:30-4:30 and an Almost Advanced class from 5:30-6:30.
So I had all of 3 hours to prepare for my first class...ever. And I don't have the teachers manual for that class yet. I did a lot of "um"ing and tried to get to know the students. Thank goodness it's the weekend and I'll have time to get my head back on straight by the time Monday rolls around.
One thing I have managed to work out in my befuddled state is that I desperately need to go shopping. I know, I know, what else is new, right? But hey, at least I have a legitimate reason this time! This isn't one of those schools where jeans are ok, so Saturday will be spent looking for some dress pants and sensible (read:blister-free) shoes.
Love and Peace or Else,
Teacher
Tuesday, March 25, 2008
I went for a massage today and for the first time the ladies didn't suggest any acne creams. I'm taking this as a compliment.
This whole submission thing really sucks. It's so hard to strike a balance between keeping my mouth shut and emotionally shutting down completely. The right thing to do feels the absolute worst. I assume this is all happening to make me a better person, as I'm realizing that no matter what I do I will never be able to change my mother. Nor can I get away from her, apparently.
In other news, Cambodia doesn't exactly have enough power to supply Phnom Penh's demands, especially during hot season when the government employed Lexus owners crank up their air conditioning. Cue regularly scheduled power outages! We had our first one two days ago and it lasted for exactly three hours. The next day, it was two hours in the afternoon and one at night. Today we only had to suffer through two hours in the morning and 15 minutes tonight (where I assume they turned us off accidentally.) I really wish they'd get the schedule hammered out so that we can plan the laundry around it. It's really inconvenient to be in the middle of washing a load of clothes and have to leave standing water in the washing machine till the power comes back on to finish the cycle.
Love and Peace or else!
Cleo
In other news, Cambodia doesn't exactly have enough power to supply Phnom Penh's demands, especially during hot season when the government employed Lexus owners crank up their air conditioning. Cue regularly scheduled power outages! We had our first one two days ago and it lasted for exactly three hours. The next day, it was two hours in the afternoon and one at night. Today we only had to suffer through two hours in the morning and 15 minutes tonight (where I assume they turned us off accidentally.) I really wish they'd get the schedule hammered out so that we can plan the laundry around it. It's really inconvenient to be in the middle of washing a load of clothes and have to leave standing water in the washing machine till the power comes back on to finish the cycle.
Love and Peace or else!
Cleo
Sunday, March 23, 2008
Learning to breathe
learning to crawl, learning that You and You alone can break my fall. I'm living again, awake and alive. I'm learning to breathe in these abundant skies.
That pretty much sums up my life at the moment. I'm learning lots. My mom and I got into a fight this afternoon over whether or not I could put my dirty clothes in the hamper now or leave them in my room till tomorrow. I wanted them out of my room. Mature eh? We fight over the most petty things recently. I think I spent most of my life afraid of her and her temper, and now that I'm not afraid anymore I just make her more and more angry, but something in me says I have to fight back or I'm going to be walked all over. So after this fight, I was talking to Abba. Or rather, Abba was talking to me. I wanted to read a book and He wouldn't let me. He kept saying "Don't fight her Callie, don't do it." So finally we talked about it for a while. Abba showed me this letter where this guy had written to people who needed help. It said, "live as free men, but do not use your freedom as a cover-up for evil; live as servants...show proper respect to everyone...Slaves, submit yourselves to your masters with all respect, not only those who are good and considerate, but also those who are harsh. [This part got me. It's no fun to submit to someone you don't really like.] For it is commendable if a man bears up under the pain of unjust suffering...but how is it to your credit if you receive a beating for doing wrong and endure it? But if you suffer for doing good and you endure it, this is commendable...To this you were called."
Crazy as it sounds, I think this may be part of the reason why I'm here, or at least a good thing that can come of it. To quote someone else really smart, "Surrender don't come naturally to me, I'd rather fight you for something I don't really want than take what you give that I need."
And in the end, I realized that not fighting isn't surrender. It's not giving up on what I believe or admitting that she's right or taking the easy way out. Trust me, keeping my smart mouth shut is far from easy. And it's not letting her run me over either. It's a choice. A conscious choice, that I make, to submit because Abba asked me to. And I know he loves me, so how can this be a bad thing? I feel like something changed in me today. I feel like I grew up a little bit. And I figure that if I have to endure living here, some good may as well come of it.
The wedding was...interesting. More on that later. And hopefully pictures.
Love and peace or else.
Cleo
That pretty much sums up my life at the moment. I'm learning lots. My mom and I got into a fight this afternoon over whether or not I could put my dirty clothes in the hamper now or leave them in my room till tomorrow. I wanted them out of my room. Mature eh? We fight over the most petty things recently. I think I spent most of my life afraid of her and her temper, and now that I'm not afraid anymore I just make her more and more angry, but something in me says I have to fight back or I'm going to be walked all over. So after this fight, I was talking to Abba. Or rather, Abba was talking to me. I wanted to read a book and He wouldn't let me. He kept saying "Don't fight her Callie, don't do it." So finally we talked about it for a while. Abba showed me this letter where this guy had written to people who needed help. It said, "live as free men, but do not use your freedom as a cover-up for evil; live as servants...show proper respect to everyone...Slaves, submit yourselves to your masters with all respect, not only those who are good and considerate, but also those who are harsh. [This part got me. It's no fun to submit to someone you don't really like.] For it is commendable if a man bears up under the pain of unjust suffering...but how is it to your credit if you receive a beating for doing wrong and endure it? But if you suffer for doing good and you endure it, this is commendable...To this you were called."
Crazy as it sounds, I think this may be part of the reason why I'm here, or at least a good thing that can come of it. To quote someone else really smart, "Surrender don't come naturally to me, I'd rather fight you for something I don't really want than take what you give that I need."
And in the end, I realized that not fighting isn't surrender. It's not giving up on what I believe or admitting that she's right or taking the easy way out. Trust me, keeping my smart mouth shut is far from easy. And it's not letting her run me over either. It's a choice. A conscious choice, that I make, to submit because Abba asked me to. And I know he loves me, so how can this be a bad thing? I feel like something changed in me today. I feel like I grew up a little bit. And I figure that if I have to endure living here, some good may as well come of it.
The wedding was...interesting. More on that later. And hopefully pictures.
Love and peace or else.
Cleo
Thursday, March 20, 2008
Alas...
My mother neglected to bring my sanity. It was one of those things that just didn't get put in the bag. Oh well. I was never on good terms with my sanity anyway. What with him leaving me all the time, it wasn't a healthy relationship. Maybe it's best we're on a break.
My mind seems to have gone missing as well. My mind and I got along better than my sanity and I did. My body and soul are kicking and screaming for a vacation, although they'll have to consent to taking me with them or there won't be any me left to belong to.
When my mind left, he left me a little piece of him to use while he's gone. Guess he figured he didn't need that part. Either way, that little part is almost used up.
Tomorrow I'm going out to provinces for a wedding tomorrow. (Told you that little piece of mind was almost used up.) In between all the stress of trying to obey rules I don't know, I intend to do absolutely nothing of interest other than spend a day at the salon, and perhaps dye my hair. That should pacify my body and souls demands for a break. Who knows, maybe my sanity will get to missing me and come for a visit!
Love and peace or else.
Cleo
P.S.
It's a wonderful thing to be friends with the person you buy jewelry from. It means you get to borrow earrings and necklaces that you have no intent of ever buying for special occasions such as provincial weddings. Suck on that Wal-Mart.
My mind seems to have gone missing as well. My mind and I got along better than my sanity and I did. My body and soul are kicking and screaming for a vacation, although they'll have to consent to taking me with them or there won't be any me left to belong to.
When my mind left, he left me a little piece of him to use while he's gone. Guess he figured he didn't need that part. Either way, that little part is almost used up.
Tomorrow I'm going out to provinces for a wedding tomorrow. (Told you that little piece of mind was almost used up.) In between all the stress of trying to obey rules I don't know, I intend to do absolutely nothing of interest other than spend a day at the salon, and perhaps dye my hair. That should pacify my body and souls demands for a break. Who knows, maybe my sanity will get to missing me and come for a visit!
Love and peace or else.
Cleo
P.S.
It's a wonderful thing to be friends with the person you buy jewelry from. It means you get to borrow earrings and necklaces that you have no intent of ever buying for special occasions such as provincial weddings. Suck on that Wal-Mart.
Tuesday, March 18, 2008
Please speak slowly, my heart is learning.
So I'm learning a lot of things.
I was talking to Abba last night about how I often don't feel like I have anything to give. I am not the thinnest person here, to say the least, and every time I walk out of my house a thousand voices aussalt me and berate me for not being thinner. Recently I've felt like I have to try so hard to be a presentable person. My attitude has been all wrong. Now, I know in my head that beauty comes from within and spreads to the rest of you, but I keep going on this idea that if I could just get the outside to be better, the inside would fix itsself. Now I know this is rediculous. I know a tall, blonde girl with a model-perfect body and she is the most unhappy person I know, but somehow I believed the lie. It's hard to live every day having faith in the fact that you have a source within you that gives, even when you are empty. I feel as if every ounce of patience and kindness I have is completely gone at the end of the day, and yet there are still 5 little people who need more from me. It's then that Abba helps me the most, often in ways that I don't even recognise. As it says in Captivating "This is the part where we work out our salvation." You don't get to wait until all your wounds are healed to help other people. Because you have the Spirit, you can help people now, because it's not you doing the work. And honestly, that's a huge relief.
Still, I'll be glad when my mom gets back tomorrow. Hopefully, she'll bring my sanity with her.
Love and peace or else,
Cleo
I was talking to Abba last night about how I often don't feel like I have anything to give. I am not the thinnest person here, to say the least, and every time I walk out of my house a thousand voices aussalt me and berate me for not being thinner. Recently I've felt like I have to try so hard to be a presentable person. My attitude has been all wrong. Now, I know in my head that beauty comes from within and spreads to the rest of you, but I keep going on this idea that if I could just get the outside to be better, the inside would fix itsself. Now I know this is rediculous. I know a tall, blonde girl with a model-perfect body and she is the most unhappy person I know, but somehow I believed the lie. It's hard to live every day having faith in the fact that you have a source within you that gives, even when you are empty. I feel as if every ounce of patience and kindness I have is completely gone at the end of the day, and yet there are still 5 little people who need more from me. It's then that Abba helps me the most, often in ways that I don't even recognise. As it says in Captivating "This is the part where we work out our salvation." You don't get to wait until all your wounds are healed to help other people. Because you have the Spirit, you can help people now, because it's not you doing the work. And honestly, that's a huge relief.
Still, I'll be glad when my mom gets back tomorrow. Hopefully, she'll bring my sanity with her.
Love and peace or else,
Cleo
Wednesday, March 12, 2008
nothings gonna change my world
Ok, so Paul McCartney is a cool guy and everything, but "nothing's gonna change my world"??? Dang I wish life were really like that.
So about a month ago I had to go to Vietnam to get my visa renewed. The visa I came on is only renewable twice and I was past that, so I had to leave the country. Now I have a multiple-entry NGO visa, which is free. Whoot!
I went with Kati's dad because he needed to get a Visa too. That could have potentially been the most awkward thing ever, but it wasn't. So we got the cooler and filled it up with water and food and set off with one way tickets to the boarder. The bus company wouldn't sell us tickets for the way back, but more on that later. It was about 3 hours to the boarder (it used to be 4 but they've vastly improved the roads), we started at about 9 and got there at about noon, with only the minor snag that our bus didn't seem to want to get on the ferry. So we got to the boarder and the bus stopped at a little restaurant. Well Mr. Mark and I decided we'd better go ahead and get the visa stuff taken care of and eat later. We had both overstayed our visa's, Mark on accident, me because we didn't have the letter I needed for the NGO visa yet. So I ended up paying an extra $30 for overstaying my visa. Mr. Mark was supposed to have to pay...well a lot more. So we got to the window and each handled our passports. Mr. Mark had put money practically everywhere on his person, so while he had enough to pay, it didn't look like it when he opened his wallet. So he held out "all the money he had" to the guy and got away with it. (We would feel pretty bad about this, except that the money goes into the pockets of the passport control officers, and they mark you down as leaving on time. So we got our paperwork done on the Cambodian side and went to the Vietnamese side, where upon arrival, a guy grabbed each of us and took us to a table to fill out our entry/exit cards. They asked for our passports and a dollar each. I asked them what the dollar was for and my guy rolled his eyes at me, shoved the paper in my face and pointed me towards the line. I politely asked to borrow his pen and he gave me a death glare. I borrowed one from a lovely British tourist. Basically he was asking me to pay him a dollar to fill out my information and hand it to the processor, which I am perfectly capable of doing myself thank you very much. After that things went smoothly until we got back to the restaurant on the Cambodian side and found that our bus had gone to Ho Chi Minh city. Apparently they let them do that now. So Mr. Mark called their translator and had him talk to the restaurant owner and figure out what was going, as this was a conversation out of both of our ranges of total comprehension. We figured out that there were other taxis and buses that would take us back to Phnom Penh. We ended up meeting a guy who had been on our bus and was in the same predicament we were. He said he had found a guy who was willing to take us back for $5 each, which is an amazing deal. We started walking to the bus and a bunch of taxi drivers kept trying to get us to go with them, except they wanted $50 for one car to take all three of us, and they were mad that we wanted to go on the bus. I told them that if they would take all three of us for $15, $5 a head, we would be happy to get go with them. The taxi drivers said no. So they kept standing there and arguing and arguing and we finally just pushed past them and got on the bus. The bus, by the way, was completely empty, as it had just dropped a bunch of Vietnamese people at the boarder, so we had it all to ourselves. So in a couple of minutes our driver comes up and tells us that the taxi drivers are very mad at him and that they said that if he takes us the next time he comes back they will slash his tires. He asked us to get off the bus and start walking down the road and said that he would come pick us up, which he did and off we went. At the ferry crossing, which we were stopped at for over an hour, I realized that we hadn't ever gotten around to eating lunch. I also realized that about the only thing that they sell to eat at the ferry crossing, are crickets, various sea creatures with their eyeballs still attached, and sandwiches made out of very questionable meat. I decided to pass on all of the above. During our hour long wait, we picked up an entire bus load of people. Since we had the bus to ourselves at the beginning, I had a seat empty next to me, and ended up with a 21 year old guy who said he was a student in the university at Phnom Penh. He wants to be a doctor and make lots of money. After we exhausted the extend of his English and my Khmer, I got out my ipod and offered to share. I decided that if he was going to listen to western music I should at least give him a proper education, so I put on U2. He politely listened to one song then handed me the ear bud back and said (Jeremy, don't read this next part), "Thank you, this is nice. But I like Hip Hop."
So after that we listened to TobyMac. (If he's gonna listen to hip hop, it might as well be decent. That and it's the only hip hop I have.)
It was an interesting trip, altho I can safely say I'm pretty glad I don't have to make it ever again.
My dad got back today. Whoot! He's majorly jet-lagged, but he did manage to stay awake long enough for a friend and I to go hang out with Abba for a bit. It's been way too long since I've done that. I'm pretty sure we're hanging out again next week too.
That said, I'm gonna go skip my homework and watch Wentworth Miller...I mean Prison Break.
Love and peace or else!
Cleo
So about a month ago I had to go to Vietnam to get my visa renewed. The visa I came on is only renewable twice and I was past that, so I had to leave the country. Now I have a multiple-entry NGO visa, which is free. Whoot!
I went with Kati's dad because he needed to get a Visa too. That could have potentially been the most awkward thing ever, but it wasn't. So we got the cooler and filled it up with water and food and set off with one way tickets to the boarder. The bus company wouldn't sell us tickets for the way back, but more on that later. It was about 3 hours to the boarder (it used to be 4 but they've vastly improved the roads), we started at about 9 and got there at about noon, with only the minor snag that our bus didn't seem to want to get on the ferry. So we got to the boarder and the bus stopped at a little restaurant. Well Mr. Mark and I decided we'd better go ahead and get the visa stuff taken care of and eat later. We had both overstayed our visa's, Mark on accident, me because we didn't have the letter I needed for the NGO visa yet. So I ended up paying an extra $30 for overstaying my visa. Mr. Mark was supposed to have to pay...well a lot more. So we got to the window and each handled our passports. Mr. Mark had put money practically everywhere on his person, so while he had enough to pay, it didn't look like it when he opened his wallet. So he held out "all the money he had" to the guy and got away with it. (We would feel pretty bad about this, except that the money goes into the pockets of the passport control officers, and they mark you down as leaving on time. So we got our paperwork done on the Cambodian side and went to the Vietnamese side, where upon arrival, a guy grabbed each of us and took us to a table to fill out our entry/exit cards. They asked for our passports and a dollar each. I asked them what the dollar was for and my guy rolled his eyes at me, shoved the paper in my face and pointed me towards the line. I politely asked to borrow his pen and he gave me a death glare. I borrowed one from a lovely British tourist. Basically he was asking me to pay him a dollar to fill out my information and hand it to the processor, which I am perfectly capable of doing myself thank you very much. After that things went smoothly until we got back to the restaurant on the Cambodian side and found that our bus had gone to Ho Chi Minh city. Apparently they let them do that now. So Mr. Mark called their translator and had him talk to the restaurant owner and figure out what was going, as this was a conversation out of both of our ranges of total comprehension. We figured out that there were other taxis and buses that would take us back to Phnom Penh. We ended up meeting a guy who had been on our bus and was in the same predicament we were. He said he had found a guy who was willing to take us back for $5 each, which is an amazing deal. We started walking to the bus and a bunch of taxi drivers kept trying to get us to go with them, except they wanted $50 for one car to take all three of us, and they were mad that we wanted to go on the bus. I told them that if they would take all three of us for $15, $5 a head, we would be happy to get go with them. The taxi drivers said no. So they kept standing there and arguing and arguing and we finally just pushed past them and got on the bus. The bus, by the way, was completely empty, as it had just dropped a bunch of Vietnamese people at the boarder, so we had it all to ourselves. So in a couple of minutes our driver comes up and tells us that the taxi drivers are very mad at him and that they said that if he takes us the next time he comes back they will slash his tires. He asked us to get off the bus and start walking down the road and said that he would come pick us up, which he did and off we went. At the ferry crossing, which we were stopped at for over an hour, I realized that we hadn't ever gotten around to eating lunch. I also realized that about the only thing that they sell to eat at the ferry crossing, are crickets, various sea creatures with their eyeballs still attached, and sandwiches made out of very questionable meat. I decided to pass on all of the above. During our hour long wait, we picked up an entire bus load of people. Since we had the bus to ourselves at the beginning, I had a seat empty next to me, and ended up with a 21 year old guy who said he was a student in the university at Phnom Penh. He wants to be a doctor and make lots of money. After we exhausted the extend of his English and my Khmer, I got out my ipod and offered to share. I decided that if he was going to listen to western music I should at least give him a proper education, so I put on U2. He politely listened to one song then handed me the ear bud back and said (Jeremy, don't read this next part), "Thank you, this is nice. But I like Hip Hop."
So after that we listened to TobyMac. (If he's gonna listen to hip hop, it might as well be decent. That and it's the only hip hop I have.)
It was an interesting trip, altho I can safely say I'm pretty glad I don't have to make it ever again.
My dad got back today. Whoot! He's majorly jet-lagged, but he did manage to stay awake long enough for a friend and I to go hang out with Abba for a bit. It's been way too long since I've done that. I'm pretty sure we're hanging out again next week too.
That said, I'm gonna go skip my homework and watch Wentworth Miller...I mean Prison Break.
Love and peace or else!
Cleo
Tuesday, March 11, 2008
A Day in the Life
is an absulotely wonderful song that was written by the Beatles and recently covered by Mae. You can barely tell the difference.
Got up at 7:30, washed, dressed, got the kids up, got em dressed, went downstairs to do breakfast at 8, made eggs with this spice stuff. It's the best Noni's eaten in two weeks. Then school, lunch at noon, rest after lunch, Sweeny Todd (I started and had to quit about a third in because it was time for the kids to get up) then I went to class, then to Kati's to chat and say goodbye to the intern, then home, cuddles with Noni, and getting the kids in bed.
Í'm absolutely exausted. One day of this is no big, but every day? I'm fast running out of patience and sanity, and I've still got a chapters worth of notes to read and two posts due by last night for school.
Dad gets here tomorrow. Thank you God.
On the happy end of things, dad's bringing a bunch of stuff over for me! Now I like to think I'm a relatively un-materilistic person, but there are some things that are just nice to have. Like jeans that fit, and body spray to mask that nasty cambodian sweat smell that makes you feel more like a cow than a woman. And chocolate. My beloved Grandmother is sending me hersheys chocolate in honour of Easter. I love that woman. I'm also getting my heels. Now if heels seem vastly impractical for a third world country, that's because they are, normally. But we go to some places, especially on sundays, that just so happen to have hard floors and air conditioning, and in the midst of all the filth in this country, heels just make you feel pretty. And that's nice.
Ok, so I know this post is a messy jumble of ideas, but welcome to my brain at the moment. I am understanding my mother more and more every day. And as much as I try to be all gentle and caring all the time, it's just not happening.
I have decided that we're skipping school tomorrow in preparation for dad's homecoming. I've been sleeping in my parents room upstairs so I've gotta get all my stuff outta there, and several other things like that. If dad's not just exausted I'm gonna go to hang out with Abba and a friend that night too. It's gonna be a good day. : D
Love and peace or else!
Cleo
Got up at 7:30, washed, dressed, got the kids up, got em dressed, went downstairs to do breakfast at 8, made eggs with this spice stuff. It's the best Noni's eaten in two weeks. Then school, lunch at noon, rest after lunch, Sweeny Todd (I started and had to quit about a third in because it was time for the kids to get up) then I went to class, then to Kati's to chat and say goodbye to the intern, then home, cuddles with Noni, and getting the kids in bed.
Í'm absolutely exausted. One day of this is no big, but every day? I'm fast running out of patience and sanity, and I've still got a chapters worth of notes to read and two posts due by last night for school.
Dad gets here tomorrow. Thank you God.
On the happy end of things, dad's bringing a bunch of stuff over for me! Now I like to think I'm a relatively un-materilistic person, but there are some things that are just nice to have. Like jeans that fit, and body spray to mask that nasty cambodian sweat smell that makes you feel more like a cow than a woman. And chocolate. My beloved Grandmother is sending me hersheys chocolate in honour of Easter. I love that woman. I'm also getting my heels. Now if heels seem vastly impractical for a third world country, that's because they are, normally. But we go to some places, especially on sundays, that just so happen to have hard floors and air conditioning, and in the midst of all the filth in this country, heels just make you feel pretty. And that's nice.
Ok, so I know this post is a messy jumble of ideas, but welcome to my brain at the moment. I am understanding my mother more and more every day. And as much as I try to be all gentle and caring all the time, it's just not happening.
I have decided that we're skipping school tomorrow in preparation for dad's homecoming. I've been sleeping in my parents room upstairs so I've gotta get all my stuff outta there, and several other things like that. If dad's not just exausted I'm gonna go to hang out with Abba and a friend that night too. It's gonna be a good day. : D
Love and peace or else!
Cleo
Sunday, March 9, 2008
If You Could See Me Now...
I forgot how much I like to read. I don't get much time to do it at school and I had forgotten how much I love to read. A good book is like...stew. A good, chunky stew, warm, perfectly seasoned stew on a cold day where you can curl up in a large comfy chair next to a fireplace and eat it with a glass of wine. And coffee afterwards of course. they're just...comforting. They let you escape into a world better than your own. A world that has a definite beginning and end that you can figure out in a few pages. A world where everything may be terrible and out of control but you know that it's gonna be ok eventually because everything is always ok eventually in books.
One thing that I will have in every house that I ever live in, is a library. Now I'm not one to hoard books, I believe one of the most beautiful things about them is that they can be passed on and enjoyed by many people before they make their way back to you, so borrowing would definitely be allowed. As for now, my library exists in multiple places, and is always changing as I trade books with friends. Here are a few of my favorites that will be in my library someday. You should check them out.
"P.S. I love you", and "If You Could See Me Now" by Cecelia Ahearn. She's written several other really good books too.
"Inkheart", it's sequel "Inkspell", "The Thief Lord" and "Dragon Rider" All by Cornelia Funke
"A Dangerous Dress"
"Collected Poems" by E.A. Robinson
"Captivating" by John and Stacy Eldridge
"Do You Think I'm Beautiful?" by Angela Thomas
"The Five People You Meet in Heaven"
"Harry Potter" Years 1-7 by J.K. Rowling
"The Chronicles of Narnia"by C.S. Lewis
That's good for a start, I'm sure we'll come up with lots more over the years.
Love and Peace or Else!
~Cleo
P.S.
I love you...
One thing that I will have in every house that I ever live in, is a library. Now I'm not one to hoard books, I believe one of the most beautiful things about them is that they can be passed on and enjoyed by many people before they make their way back to you, so borrowing would definitely be allowed. As for now, my library exists in multiple places, and is always changing as I trade books with friends. Here are a few of my favorites that will be in my library someday. You should check them out.
"P.S. I love you", and "If You Could See Me Now" by Cecelia Ahearn. She's written several other really good books too.
"Inkheart", it's sequel "Inkspell", "The Thief Lord" and "Dragon Rider" All by Cornelia Funke
"A Dangerous Dress"
"Collected Poems" by E.A. Robinson
"Captivating" by John and Stacy Eldridge
"Do You Think I'm Beautiful?" by Angela Thomas
"The Five People You Meet in Heaven"
"Harry Potter" Years 1-7 by J.K. Rowling
"The Chronicles of Narnia"by C.S. Lewis
That's good for a start, I'm sure we'll come up with lots more over the years.
Love and Peace or Else!
~Cleo
P.S.
I love you...
Friday, March 7, 2008
Coffee
is currently keeping me alive. I think I'm addicted. I should probably do something about that.
My sister is obsessed with High School Musical and the nifty people at Disney decided to make a version with a pop up commentary. Now due to the whole english second language thing, my little sister can't really read as well as most kids her age, so guess how I spent my evening? Yup, reading the pop-ups. It actually made the movie more bearable, since I've only seen it fifty times.
In other news, American Idol was interesting. They got rid of one person I really liked and one person I didn't. I got all my homework done, altho I had to answer my own question, which was, by the way "What were the foreign policies of China and Japan in the 19th century and how did they influence the way we see these countries today?" The first part required direct quotation from the book, the second part didn't. Silly me for asking my classmates to think. So I've ended up writing two entries this week, one of which was 300 words, the other was 200. That should more than make up for the weeks that I only wrote about 75. But seriously, when the subject matter is covered by less than 100 words in the book, it's kinda hard to stretch it out.
And I'm rambling. I tend to do that when I'm tired or stressed, and I am currently both.
All in all, it's been a pretty good day. I got a lot accomplished that needed to be done. Tomorrow is gonna be clean the house day! Whoohoo! Cleaning the house mostly consists of me delegating to the children and following behind to make sure it gets done, which is far less tiring and overwhelming than doing the whole thing myself, not to mention that I feel a thousand times better when the house is clean, so tomorrow should be a good day.
I'm gonna go wash away the days dirt and settle down to a good book and a glass of tea.
Love and peace or else!
~Cleo
My sister is obsessed with High School Musical and the nifty people at Disney decided to make a version with a pop up commentary. Now due to the whole english second language thing, my little sister can't really read as well as most kids her age, so guess how I spent my evening? Yup, reading the pop-ups. It actually made the movie more bearable, since I've only seen it fifty times.
In other news, American Idol was interesting. They got rid of one person I really liked and one person I didn't. I got all my homework done, altho I had to answer my own question, which was, by the way "What were the foreign policies of China and Japan in the 19th century and how did they influence the way we see these countries today?" The first part required direct quotation from the book, the second part didn't. Silly me for asking my classmates to think. So I've ended up writing two entries this week, one of which was 300 words, the other was 200. That should more than make up for the weeks that I only wrote about 75. But seriously, when the subject matter is covered by less than 100 words in the book, it's kinda hard to stretch it out.
And I'm rambling. I tend to do that when I'm tired or stressed, and I am currently both.
All in all, it's been a pretty good day. I got a lot accomplished that needed to be done. Tomorrow is gonna be clean the house day! Whoohoo! Cleaning the house mostly consists of me delegating to the children and following behind to make sure it gets done, which is far less tiring and overwhelming than doing the whole thing myself, not to mention that I feel a thousand times better when the house is clean, so tomorrow should be a good day.
I'm gonna go wash away the days dirt and settle down to a good book and a glass of tea.
Love and peace or else!
~Cleo
Thursday, March 6, 2008
This is the Diary of a Mad White Woman...
I am, for one more week, a mother of 5, four of which I home school (with the help of my dear friend Kati, without whom I would have gone mad a whole lot sooner). If this seems like a tall order, that's because it is. My parents are currently in Puerto Rico sipping cocktails and enjoying their air conditioned hotel room. All I can say is that they better bring back chocolate. Lots of chocolate. Hopefully after this week, all will go back to the relative normalcy that is living in Cambodia with my mother, siblings, and sometimes dad.
I decided to make a blog because so many things happen to me every day that I want to tell you guys and sometimes I don't get to talk to you or I can't remember if I've told you or not. This way it's all in one place and I can just tell everyone at once. Except for the creepy people. They're not invited. And, sorry Mom, but you're not invited either. I mean, I love you and everything, but it's not really helpful to express my frustrations with you if you're just going to read them. And trust me guys, when you go back to living with your family at age 20 after having been out on your own, there are frustrations a plenty.
So today is the one week mark of my temporary mommy-hood. Suffice it to say I'm a tad bit stressed, so I left the kids watching TV with our helper and biked down to a little cafe called Coffee Korner (why they misspelled Corner and messed up the alliteration I will never understand) and had an iced coffee. And while I was sitting there, it started to rain. Well, rain doesn't really portray the full extend of the precipitation. Poured is more like it. For a good 20 minutes. Those of you who know me well know how I feel about rain. It was very good for my soul to just sit there and listen to it. I talked to Abba a bit and listened to my ipod.
Abba, by the way, is one of my best friends (which sounds bad, but it's honest). We've been closer, but he's one of those people who's absolutely always there for me. I know he'd do anything for me and I'd like to think I'd do anything for him. I've done a lot of things to tick him off, and quite frankly, I don't always like the things he does either, but somehow I know he always understands what I'm going through. Like tonight with the rain. He knows how I feel about rain, and he knows how stressed I am, and it was just nice to be able to sit and talk with him in the rain.
On some completely random notes, I have a massive ear infection, complete with intense sharp pain, throbbing, decreased ability to hear, and fever. Smack dab in the middle of my month of motherhood. Fortunately, Cambodia is a great place to get prescription drugs without a prescription, so we've got nifty little ear drops that are working wonders.
Also, after months of living as a pedestrian a friend of mine left me electric bike when she went back to the west. It's adorable, and I've been puttering all about the city on it, much to the dismay of our regular moto drivers. My adorable little bike goes up to about 20 kilometers per hour (that's a whopping 12.5mph folks) so I still want an actual motorcycle at some point, altho this one is great for learning how to handle myself in the crazy traffic.
I think I'm out of random side notes now, altho I'm sure I'll think of some more later.
Love and peace or else,
~Cleo
I decided to make a blog because so many things happen to me every day that I want to tell you guys and sometimes I don't get to talk to you or I can't remember if I've told you or not. This way it's all in one place and I can just tell everyone at once. Except for the creepy people. They're not invited. And, sorry Mom, but you're not invited either. I mean, I love you and everything, but it's not really helpful to express my frustrations with you if you're just going to read them. And trust me guys, when you go back to living with your family at age 20 after having been out on your own, there are frustrations a plenty.
So today is the one week mark of my temporary mommy-hood. Suffice it to say I'm a tad bit stressed, so I left the kids watching TV with our helper and biked down to a little cafe called Coffee Korner (why they misspelled Corner and messed up the alliteration I will never understand) and had an iced coffee. And while I was sitting there, it started to rain. Well, rain doesn't really portray the full extend of the precipitation. Poured is more like it. For a good 20 minutes. Those of you who know me well know how I feel about rain. It was very good for my soul to just sit there and listen to it. I talked to Abba a bit and listened to my ipod.
Abba, by the way, is one of my best friends (which sounds bad, but it's honest). We've been closer, but he's one of those people who's absolutely always there for me. I know he'd do anything for me and I'd like to think I'd do anything for him. I've done a lot of things to tick him off, and quite frankly, I don't always like the things he does either, but somehow I know he always understands what I'm going through. Like tonight with the rain. He knows how I feel about rain, and he knows how stressed I am, and it was just nice to be able to sit and talk with him in the rain.
On some completely random notes, I have a massive ear infection, complete with intense sharp pain, throbbing, decreased ability to hear, and fever. Smack dab in the middle of my month of motherhood. Fortunately, Cambodia is a great place to get prescription drugs without a prescription, so we've got nifty little ear drops that are working wonders.
Also, after months of living as a pedestrian a friend of mine left me electric bike when she went back to the west. It's adorable, and I've been puttering all about the city on it, much to the dismay of our regular moto drivers. My adorable little bike goes up to about 20 kilometers per hour (that's a whopping 12.5mph folks) so I still want an actual motorcycle at some point, altho this one is great for learning how to handle myself in the crazy traffic.
I think I'm out of random side notes now, altho I'm sure I'll think of some more later.
Love and peace or else,
~Cleo
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