MySpace blog: You let me down, journalist fiend woman

I was interviewed for the news today. I missed the first 10 minutes of the early evening news, but I saw the whole 11 o'clock newscast. Our story wasn't on there! Either we got the shaft or it was such an important story that it led the early one. Either way, I'm disappointed with the reporter for not letting me know when it was going to be on. Kind of. It's not too big a deal.

The test I have tomorrow morning is quite a bit more significant for me right now.

well, i suppose i may write about my trip to new orleans at some point, but then again, maybe not.

MySpace blog: My newspaper debut :)

Well, here it is, the big first writing assignment for the real world. http://blogs.redding.com/redding/cdyar/

Not all my posts will be on there, but they will be on the Simpson site, and I'll try to post links on here like I was with blogger before.

Redding Newspaper blog: Love

This is a blog I wrote on redding.com, which is the website for the Record Searchlight Newspaper--the newspaper for Redding, CA

It’s that time of year again—the time of year when pink is everywhere, when chocolates and cards tell us that “love” is the greatest human emotion.

In the midst of this focus on “love,” I’ve been swamped by the busyness of my daily life. The last 24 hours have been crazy for me. I’m in my last semester at Simpson, where I’m majoring in Bible and Theology, and in addition to that, I’m working two jobs, heavily involved in my church, and preparing to go to New Orleans next week with a team from Simpson, where we will help in Hurricane relief efforts.

Last night, I sat down and organized all the things that I have going on. I felt so overwhelmed. I spent about five hours straight in near solitude, which is unusual for me. I came to the realization that solitude simply magnifies any emotion we experience.

I had to write a paper for a class I’m in called Intro to Community Development (the class focuses on how we can work with the poor and oppressed in a way that really helps them in context of their community). My paper centered on the word “abandonment.” I realized that I had gotten a glimpse of what it feels like to be abandoned. When the problems of the world are bad enough, being alone just makes everything seem so much more daunting.

It hit me that true Love is the opposite of Abandonment. While we celebrate our Hallmark holiday and romance, there are thousands of people less fortunate than us who just feel as though the world, as though our society has abandoned them. True love is letting those people know that we will stand by their side, helping them process their loss, experiencing their pain with them, and letting them know that their story matters.

Next week, more than 35 people from Simpson University will head to New Orleans to work with a group of people that feels abandoned by the rest of the country. While we were all aware of what happened when Hurricane Katrina hit, we have neglected to remain informed about the gravity of the situation as it currently stands.

There are still thousands of people who remain homeless. Now, the hotels are starting to close their doors on the refugees, and the people have nowhere to go.

I am so thankful for the opportunity that I have to go and make a difference—not just in helping in New Orleans, but by telling the story of those whom we have forgotten.

MySpace blog: Downtown

Downtown is the cultural crossroads of society. It is located on the corner, at the intersection between rich and poor. But in Redding, downtown doesn't have much in the way of rich.

I sit here alone, wearing my Gap Jacket, Old Navy pants, and Birkenstocks, while I see people whose own clothing tells me something about their socioeconomic status. And their body language and eyes give me a picture of what their lives might be like. I attempt to speculate as to how they might live their lives.

An apparently lower-middle class family receives their food and leaves. While their manners and love are apparent, their faces show the signs of the weariness that is common to people of all backgrounds.

Next, a middle-aged man receives his food and leaves. When I first saw him, his shoes seemingly told me of his poverty—two old boots, one wrapped in duct tape. But, upon further inspection, I realized he was wearing full hunting camouflage and a fishing hat, complete with red and white floats. He probably is on his way home from a day in the great outdoors.

The cashier, in her late teens or early twenties fits the bill of the stereotypical young Asian, choosing to listen to R&B and hip hop while she works. The cooks, not much older than her, don't seem to mind.

A couple gets up to pay. They aren't very well-to-do either, but seem to be a little better off than others in this restaurant.

As they stand at the counter, I see someone leaving, out of the corner of my eye. It's the homeless lady who was eating in the corner. I could tell she was homeless from the smell that passed by when she did. And her clothes…an old beanie and worn-out gray coat are telling. But mostly, I can tell she is homeless because of her worn-out, tired face. She was so polite as she left, but now she stands outside the broken window, smoking and yelling at traffic or talking to herself.

Now, only one customer remains—the woman who ordered just before me, trying to figure out what to get for her 2 year old daughter. Her demeanor is pleasant, but indicates that she doesn't have much material wealth either.

As she leaves the restaurant, I catch a whiff of the homeless woman's cigarette.

I look down for a moment, trying to poke my broccoli with this flimsy plastic fork. It takes a minute, and when I look back up, the woman is gone.

I came downtown tonight looking to live my life in "their" context. Usually, I live my life in my world. Sometimes, I think of what it would be like to try living like them in their world. But I had never thought about living my own, every day, normal life in their midst.

Immediately, I was made aware of the differences when I pulled out my wallet to pay and saw 3 completely paid-off credit cards smiling back at me, along with a bank card connected to a nice, full checking account. I was reminded that I have so much money that I was able to give away $250 today to help my friend.

I thought it would feel weird to use plastic to pay when the majority of the people in the restaurant were in too much debt or were too poor to get a credit card of their own. I was relieved when the $7 in cash that I had was enough to cover the $5.90 that I owed for my food.

I wonder why they all got their food to-go? Why am I the only customer to eat here? I normally wouldn't eat at a restaurant alone, but I chose to be here tonight, alone on Valentine's, in order to understand love in a new way.

These people all left, though, so there isn't a whole lot of community or love to be seen. The only other people here are the three employees, and only two of them are within earshot. I think the other one doesn't speak English anyway.

Two more customers finally come in. A couple, probably in their late 30s, enters and peruses the menu. His mustache and work boots and her hair and jacket divulge their status as typical Redding-folk: perhaps he works construction, listen to country music, and drive a truck, while she might work in a diner or hotel, in the travel industry designed to capitalize on the truckers of Interstate 5. Her jacket says "JJs Bar & Grill." I don't know where that is, but maybe she works there.

They are so much different from me, but I can tell they really love each other when I see them holding hands and just talking about the mundane things from their day. I catch short phrases of their conversation. It sounds that he is talking about his day at work, when he says something about his struggle with a sofa. Maybe he is a painter or installs carpets, and there was a couch in the way. She starts to talk about an accident she saw on her way to the laundry mat. I saw the same crash—an SUV turned sideways on the median of Highway 299, right next to the I-5 Northbound entrance.

That makes me wonder, how many of these people have I crossed paths with before?

I bite down on my food and a hard piece of gristle hurts my tooth. I worry about damage to my teeth, which my dentist calls "the best in the practice." I realize just how fortunate I am to even have had orthodontic work and have dental coverage. I've never had a cavity

.

"How much does any of that really matter?" I ask myself, cynically.

Actually, it matters a lot. My confidence and my tendency to be "smiley" (according to friends) have to be somehow related to the appearance of my teeth. It seems insignificant, but what a difference it makes in the way I present myself. How many opportunities would be denied to me without that confidence?

You must have money to do "little things" like take care of your teeth, but you need those little things to be in order if you want to get the positions to make money. What a cruel world.

It just feels right sitting here. I haven't talked to anyone besides the cashier when I ordered. I've probably invaded peoples' privacy and stereotyped them incorrectly. But, understanding the differences between how we live is so intriguing. I don't even know these peoples' stories, but now I truly understand that each person has a story in the first place. By guessing what that story may be, I realize that I can't take them for granted. Just because I don't know them doesn't lessen their importance or change the fact that they are made in God's image just as much as I am.

How can I begin to make a difference unless I understand?

MySpace blog: I'm writing a lot...God must be doing something

God has been speaking to me so clearly over the last 24 hours. It's unbelievable. Everything in my life is connecting in ways I never could have expected. While I'm still swamped, all the busy things are overlapping so that there is less busyness.

And God is faithful.

He has shown me so much about how his love conquers my feelings of being abandoned.

That realization made it incredibly easy and enjoyable to write my paper that's due tomorrow. In fact, I stayed up from midnight until 2 AM this morning just because it was so real.

Then I had to wake up at 7:00 for a meeting, so I ended up taking a nap, and skipping my first class. Then I skipped my third class for another meeting about shooting video for the Katrina trip.

I ended up getting recruited to write blogs along with some other people for both Simpson's website and the Redding newspaper's site.

So, I guess I'm a real big-time writer now. Getting some newspaper recognition and everything. I already wrote my first one, and it should be up soon at http://blogs.redding.com/redding/.

You will also be able to see some blogs for our trip on the Simpson site www.simpsonuniversity.edu (assuming that we actually have an internet connection).

In the meantime, the best thing is that now if you google my name, you won't just come up with some crappy poetry I wrote during my senior year in HS for my English class!

But, also, I have some good resume stuff, should I ever choose to write more.
____________

I suppose I should expound my title for this blog. I realized in the car about an hour ago that when I write a lot, it's because God is doing great things in my life. I've been silent for the last 2 months, as I've been kind of vegging out, and then getting really busy. Now that my life is back to its normal adventuresome style, maybe I'll have more to say. I know I will for the next few weeks.

Of course, I can't guarantee tha I'll actually blog much, becuase I don't have an internet connection at home, but I definitely will be writing. Maybe the magazine thing is really going to happen. I don't know.

MySpace blog: O dreaded double blog....

I feel like crap.

Not physically, just emotionally. Well, kind of physically too..

There's the annual bout of valentine's melancholy, but it has little to do with the romantic situation of yours truly.

While there is the normal feeling of, "aw man, another valentines, another year of singleness," there is mostly the feeling of, "wow, I am ridiculously busy, and I have no time for people." I had planned on this being the semester where everything would be fun and I would have tons of time. But that just isn't the case. I have way too much on my plate, as usual, but this time, it really feels like too much. Last semester, it was too much and led to a meltdown of sorts around Thanksgiving time.

At least this semester I am aware of things, but I was telling myself tonight that I will just have to not spend time with my friends, and I got an e-mail from a friend who is also very busy, that included a line about "I always have time for friends" or something like that.

After feeling bad because I have not been spending enough time with my friends, I finally sat down and put all of my tests, presentations, and reading assignments into my calendar. Wow. It's like 5 weeks into the semester, and I finally did it. Wow again. I have no idea why I have this much work seeing as I'm only taking 13 units, and one of those is a PE class that I already didn't do the semester paper for (it was way too much work, seeing as it was only worth 5% of my grade).

I felt like I got punched in the stomach. Then I all of a sudden did really care about the whole Valentine's thing, because that is always the crappy thing that comes into my mind after I'm already feeling down.

Now I'm sitting here writing, and feeling better. Just like in December, bad times lead to more writing.

I'm making weird mental connections between Journey and Journal right now and I know they both come from the Latin root having to do with "day.." yada yada yada. My thoughts are firing at incredible rates and my hands can't keep up.

Why must emotion be the stimulus of the greatest thought?

Why must "bad" emotions be the ones that provoke me to the most creativity?
Are they really bad emotions then?

I've spent the last 5 hours in pretty much complete solitude, so maybe I just feel like I'm barfing my thoughts on people via the internet because I feel strangely isolated. This is very good...I have to write a paper on "abandonment" for my community development class, and it's supposed to take into account our own personal experience.

I wrote a song at Thanksgiving called "Mr. Melancholy," (I have a feeling that someone at some point has written something with that title, and I bet it's a really famous song, but I don't care)

I can't even remember the words right now, but the ones I do remember definitely are ringing true right now about feeling poopy.

Lamentations 3, I will cling to you!

MySpace blog: I hate myspace....

I have spent 2 hours working on the Simpson page, and most of it was spent on trying to make the comment box work. I finally tried using other peoples' comment boxes, and then I figured out that nobody's boxes are working. grr..

I think I like short blogs now.

MySpace blog: Mahi Mahi

My olfactory sense is tingling.

That means I can smell something.

I smell Mahi Mahi all over the place.

I'm sitting on Patrick and Bethany's couch, and my jacket smells like Mahi Mahi because I cooked some for Patrick and me earlier tonight.

That's it.

Currently listening:
Sing-A-Longs & Lullabies for the Film Curious George (Jack Johnson)
By Original Soundtrack
Release date: 07 February, 2006

MySpace blog: blogs for cash

So, I have a new job, as I have maybe mentioned on here. I'm working for Simpson, running our new official myspace page, which is going to be primarily used as a way of letting prospective students learn about the school. I got to create the position, and it's so experimental, so I have a lot of freedom (and money!). I think I'm going to call myself the Editor of the Simpson Myspace. It just started yesterday, and I set up the profile today.

It's a fun job, since I need to research, promote, etc., so I have to keep up to date on my own page (which means I can do that on the clock, as I am right now).

Anyway, one of the things we want to do is make it a place for prospective students to be able to find some current students. So, if you are a current student, alumni, or someone who is interested in Simpson, head over to www.myspace.com/simpsonu and add it. It isn't much, but it's a start.

Since it's the official simpson myspace, if you're a current student, then please add it , just so we have a better representation of what the school looks like. I'm going to have to be a little more strategic about how I run the Simpson Cafeteria page now that I'm part of the propaganda machine known as Simpson Enrollment. In fact, I'm one of the leading spin-doctors of Simpson now. Yay for me.

Oh, this is the first blog I've written since my Myspace birthday (big deal), which was 1.31. I ended up not getting to my 200th blog before that, due to the huge drop-off in bloggage after I moved off-campus and had no more internet, but now that I'm being paid to myspace, I think you'll see me on here more again.

I will hopefully write a blog about my adventure in ice skating last Friday and the COLDPLAY SHOW that I went to on Monday (one of the most memorable nights of my life--best concert I've ever been to).