Back to Blogging and New Books!

Well, I'm back again :) Back to blogging, procrastinating, silly randomness, absolute literature mischief, and school :) Except this time I'll be in college....wooooo! My excitement has yet to dwindle. Let's just say, I got super stoked even about the bathrooms. THE BATHROOMS! I was like, "oh my gosh! They're so clean and pretty and new-looking!!!" I'm set. No need for grades or learning, I'll just hang out in the bathrooms the whole semester haha In other news, I got book store gift cards for my birthday, so of course it called for a wee bit of a shopping spree with Harry. I bought $45 worth of books, and a couple tiny Star Wars bobble heads. THE CUTEST THINGS EVER. Picture this: C3PO and R2-D2 in tiny, bobble head form. FANTASTICAL to say the least. :) The wonderful list of new additions to my personal library: Great Expectations, Oliver Twist, Catcher In The Rye, Tortilla Flat, and Uncle Tom's Cabin. Obviously, I'm beefing up my classics collection hehehehehehe :D I'm excited! I'm hoping I'll get through them by the end of the semester, chances are slim
with all the reading I'll be doing for school. No pain no game, baby! Until next time...

A Sample of Something Special

Um, yeah. I am probably the worst blogger in the history of blogging. I haven't been on here in...4 months? Sounds right. Oh, well! Here's a sample of something I'm writing...which reminds me, I should probably finish the other story I was writing...one thing at a time!

Am I in Heaven? No, I’m still alive. The hills, the trees, even the dirt is home to me. I could never get lost in these mountains. These mountains are mine. Before me, they were my dad’s. They were created by a Mighty Hand, but were passed down as an inheritance along with the lake, the rivers, the rocks. No single person owns this land like the old days; it belongs to each person who has come to know its beauty, inside and out. It’s nothing special. There are many places just like this one, but it’s special to my dad and me. My father was brought here as a child. He obviously saw something great in it because when we were children, he started to bring us here too. Is this how it started? I tell my kids yes.

The tale of these mountains is historic, but my story is short. I’ve only been on this earth for twenty-six years, about twenty-two of which have been spent here. Not exactly, we only came here for vacations, but we never left. My friends would tease me that I might as well move here because I never want to leave. This is only partially true. Like all places sincerely valued, you can’t stay here for too long, or else it loses the magic of being an escape from the real world. By staying here, I would bring the real world with me, and that would ruin everything. No, my home belongs where it is, and the lake belongs where it is. I wouldn’t change a thing, except for where my father is. Now, he IS in Heaven….

Emerson

I've added a new human to my list of influential beings and great things they said. Emerson, indeed. I encountered his writing in the summer of last year, but turned away from it because I was required to read it and wasn't enjoying it so much. Now, I'm realizing his genius and his love of God all in one. I think they may be related....just maybe. Think about it for a second. Anyway, here's a couple I just read and will be adding to my wall of quotes in my room:

A hero is no braver than an ordinary man, but he is braver five minutes longer.

All I have seen teaches me to trust the Creator for all I have not seen.

Character is higher than intellect...A great soul will be strong to live, as well as to think.

Every great and commanding moment in the annals of the world is the triumph of some enthusiasm.

That last one was made for me :) hehe

Of Love and All That Jazz

My day was officially made when my little sister made a most astute observation: she said I am loveable. :) Now I'm just warning you, this is a "brag post". Every good blog needs one every now and then, or at least I think so. I was talking with her about my coworkers and about the new guy we got that started this weekend. Somehow this made her think that I'm beloved by all my coworkers (which I certainly hope is true) and that I'm completely loveable and the words she used, "Who wouldn't like you, Jessie?" Needless to say this was a very, "Awwwwwww shucks" moment for me. Still is I believe. :) So this made me think, "Being loveable and more importantly, being loved by people is so important." Of course, some would say that people can be loved for the wrong reasons and therefore being loveable is not always good, and in fact, it can be bad. Well I would say, and I'm making this up as I go, that if it is truly love we are speaking of, it is incapable of any wrong motivations/reasons. If a person loves another (any type of "love" is applicable) then there can be no wrong reasons or selfish motivation. True love is pure truth. It is unbridled, unmasked, and stands alone among all else. It can't even be associated with any grey or matter of uncertainty, untrustworthiness, or suspicion. God is love and He is none of these things. I feel like I'm having a C.S. Lewis moment or something. hehe I tell you, it is no coincidence that I can speak so easily and so passionately about love. I know God has called me to be a people-lover, a life-lover, and a God-lover. I'm just in love with love. And in all forms. The story I'm writing for National Novel Writing Month, and which will eventually turn into my senior project, is a love story nonetheless. It comes naturally and I'm not fighting it. The process is going slow, but I just mentally laughed because I know that's exactly how my "love life" will occur; slow indeed. That's just how I roll. Here's an excerpt from what I currently have in my story.

11/8/11

First I had to hit the ladies room. That interlude had somehow caused my insides to spazz out, plus I desperately needed to wash my face before anyone recognized me as the red-faced freak I was when I was a teenager. Red-faced and freckled. Not a great combination. Of course, in the ladies room there tends to be other ladies in there so when I was calmly splashing cold water on my face while taking long, relaxing breaths, Lily Jenkins comes up beside me at the mirror and shrieks,

“Oh Melanie! I thought I saw you in there! You were sitting next to my cousin, Shane!” she squealed, obviously hinting at some idea that I actually talked with the guy, found out he was single, and gave him my number because we discovered we were perfectly compatible within the thirty seconds I was there before the ceremony began. Well that’s Lily Jenkins for you.

“Yes, he did mention his name was Shane. We didn’t talk very much, Lily. I got in late and that was the closest free spot I could find. The ceremony started soon after I sat down.” I was going to have to be defensive on this one. The big guns were coming out. I wasn’t planning on playing nice.

“Yeah that’s why I got here plenty early. I scoped out all the cute single ones so I know who to dance with later. I’ll point them out to you when we get over there. You’re still single, right?”

Oh boy. I feel like a T-Bone getting marinated before I’m put on the grill. “Yes I am, but I came here because Rachel is one of my close friends, and I wouldn’t miss her wedding for the world. I didn’t come to look at handsome men in tuxes. They’re overrated anyway.”

Ice Cream and Hobbes

In an attempt to being intellectual, I am writing while reading through my reading packet for history. My nerdness got excited today in class because we're starting the Scientific Revolution and discussing philosophers such as Hobbes, Montesquieu, Rousseau, Locke, and my personal favorite Wollstonecraft. Gotta love these guys (and girl). Trying to explain humans, well that's a minefield only the bravest get themselves into. Except Freud, I'm almost certain he just wrote all that stuff just to get on the nerves of as many intellectual-wannabees as possible. I bet he woke up one day and was like, "I know a foolproof plan to become famous and make myself seem super duper smart! I can come up with all this shtuff that no one will understand (or want to) and therefore I will be a genius because no one can understand it!" He was just plain weird. I can appreciate weirdness, but not when it's running Han solo and there's no Sense to accompany it. You have to have some small amount of sense in all that psycho-babble.

And now, as I'm staring at myself in the mirror with my oh so intellectual-looking reading glasses on, I am making studious and quizzical facial expressions and the first thought that comes to my mind is, "I WANT ICE CREAM!" Now, before you jump to conclusions, this isn't completely random because I've been realizing as of late that I have an icky taste in my mouth due to the fact that I accidentally took a nap a couple hours ago, and therefore ice cream would be the perfect solution to that problem.

Good Times

It's interesting and rather depressing how long I've been putting off this whole blog "thing". It's not like I'm too busy because I find plenty of ways to do a lot of stuff I don't have to and not do the things I should do. I am proud to share that I gave the message at youth group on Wednesday night and in addition to my message, the whole night was a great success! More people attended than I was expecting, needless to say this freaked me out quite a bit because I wasn't entirely ready to speak in front of people I didn't know. One hilarious little moment that happened that night which I keep remembering is when at the end of the night we were cleaning up outside and I grabbed the lighter to bring inside, but instead of taking it into the house, I decided to have a little bit of fun and catch a plant on fire and then quickly blow it out. Well, as I was dramatically leaning down and getting ready to light the thing, my pal Josh yells in my ear and I screamed bloody murder and jumped a foot or two. I skulked into the house immediately while he cracked up at my reaction, which he definitely was NOT expecting. Good times, good times. In all, it could be described as the best kind of party with the best kind of people. The worship was laid back and awesome. The whole campfire thing added to the ambiance and it was pretty cool. :) I made Jesus cookies! They were just crosses actually and SOME people were telling me that they should have been named cross cookies instead because that would be more accurate...well I say being accurate is highly overrated.

P.S. For you wondering minds, the topic of my discussion that night was "God's Unfailing Love"

Punching Bag

Senior year. It's the final period of one's life at high school and it's bittersweet. Come November, all everyone will be talking about is college. Ick. I love college, love talking about it when I want to, but I detest the conversations that tend to occur around them. Such as, "I'm applying to all these colleges...blah blah blah....yeah I need to get into them because they're so good and all that junk". Well, I plan on going to college period. I don't need to be accepted into a UC or a school of certain prestige in order to feel smart, capable, intellectual, etc. In fact, I openly refuse to support the UC system and all its crap. Right now, and even through the weeks of applying to two or three colleges, I will be enjoying high school life. That means not having to worry about how I'm putting food in front of myself for the night, how I'm going to pay bills and taxes, and what I need to buy at the grocery store for the week. I am not an adult yet, therefore I don't believe I need to pretend to be something I'm not. For my seventeenth year on earth, if God wills it, I am determined to savor my "freedom". Meaning, making decisions with what to do with money that I earn because God knows I won't have it once I start to receive responsibilities in my adult life. Being 17 means I'm asking God and my parents and family to help prepare me for life, but not to expect me to jump on the bandwagon of complacency and just accept things the way they are. I will question why I have to do something I don't want to do, why I have to give things up for other things. Why priorities for me are not for others. I just want to surrender to the fact that I can't figure everything out before I have to. I can only be prepared to grow up after it's already happening, which it is. So, my motto for the moment is "roll with the punches, but dish out some of your own". Yup, sounds good to me. hehe

That post was a bit scatter-brained haha oh well