Tuesday, March 31, 2009

can I please babysit her?

World War II explained by a 5-year-old.

Monday, March 16, 2009

questions about pain

I just saw something very sad. :( I was walking out of Christian Marriage class today and there were two girls in front of me talking about a boy that one of them liked. Girl A was talking about her plans with Boy and Girl B was asking questions with excitement. Then I noticed Girl B was walking funny. She was limping. I looked down at her feet, watching to make sure I wasn't imagining it. Then I noticed the back of her heel was all bloody. Her white flats were scraping against her heel as she walked--the result: a bright red open scab all the way up her left heel, and the beginnings of more broken bloody skin on her right. :( All the while, Girl B talked like she wasn't in pain at all, and Girl A chattered on about Boy without noticing her friend's obvious limp.

Why didn't the Girl B take her shoes off once they were outside? Why didn't she tell Girl A of her pain, so she could slow down? Why didn't Girl A not notice anything wrong?

Did Girl B do the right thing by not saying anything? Was she being a selfless servant by not thinking of herself, and listening to Girl A? I'm thinking of this as a metaphor...if you are having a problem or pain in your life, should you not tell people about it? Just ignore it, so you can give yourself to others, focus all your attention to others? Or is it wrong not to tell people about your pain? Is it deceitful to hide your pain from others?

Wednesday, March 11, 2009

well, computer problems suck

Yes. They really do. Just in case you were wondering. I don't know if there is a tornado going on right now, or what. I heard a siren a little while ago, but I figured it was an ambulance. My roommate said that was a tornado alert though. I wondered why I didn't know what a tornado alert sounded like... am I supposed to know these things? We don't have tornadoes where I come from! Just earthquakes. But whatever.

Back to the subject. Computer problems suck. My computer died about a week or so ago. Actually, it still works perfect; I just can't use it because the screen is black. If I shine a lamp on it, I can see that everything is working fine. I just called Dell, and they said my warranty is used up. So I don't know what to do without paying a bunch of money. I work with some people in the I.T. Dept. at Taylor, and one of the guys there has been helping me, so hopefully he can get me hooked up with someone that will fix it for cheap.

In the meantime, I've been using Paul's computer. He's actually been trying to get rid of his computer for months. He had been leaving it in his closet most of the time, and was thrilled that I was "taking it for him." He says he gets distracted with having a computer, and wastes time on it playing games or whatever, instead of hanging out with people. So it's been a great trade! A computer, for the absence of a computer.

But now I was just having internet connection problems with this computer. It's probably because of the storm/tornado that is happening. I restarted it like five times, lol, and now it seems to be working. I could never be a computer repair person. Computers don't make sense. Sure, they're machines and they should work according to their programming, but sometimes they can be so random! It's like this broken stereo at my parents house--sometimes if you kick the speakers a certain way, it starts working!

Speaking of randomness, I want to tell you about this wonderful simile I read in Silence in October today. I will give it to you in the context of the paragraph:

"I found her building and rang the buzzer. A long time passed and I was about to go look for a telephone when she stuck her head out of a window on the third floor. She hadn't expected me so early. Her long hair hung down around her face like an abbreviated, golden brown waterfall as she smiled, told me to let myself in, and threw the key down to the sidewalk."

Her long hair down...like an abbreviated, golden brown waterfall. Delight! I was in the Well when I read this, on a bicycle machine. I just looked up from the book and gazed off like I was in love. And I am in love. Sigh. What a purely wonderful image. Now, don't any of you tell me you've heard of hair described as an abbreviated golden brown waterfall and burst my bubble! :)

Wednesday, March 04, 2009

openness and honesty

Lately I've been thinking a lot about what it means to be open and honest. It started in Christian Marriage class I guess. Snyder was talking about how it's a research statistic that people who are open/honest/vulnerable/transparent or who "self-disclose" more are correspondingly liked more by others. And it even works the other way around. After you "self-disclose" to someone, you end up liking the person that you self-disclosed to more! Maybe it's not that profound of a statistic, but it's kept me thinking about it even days later...

Snyder also had us write down which we thought was more important in a marriage--openness or honesty. In class, I was really confused because I was having a hard time defining the difference. But I liked what other people said. Clearly, honesty is more important because what good is a bunch of information about a person if it's not the truth? For example, let's say you're dating someone and you're talking and being really "open" and telling them all sorts of things, and he/she is telling you all sorts of things. Then you come to find out once you're married (heaven forbid!) that all this time he/she has been lying to you! Pfhhhh, openness!!! Honesty is clearly more important.

But! Then someone else spoke up and said he thought openness was more important. He said he sees openness as containing honesty within it. I think I'm jumping more onto his train of thought now. Honesty is fine and dandy, but if you don't tell your spouse (boyfriend/friend/any person) things (aka, being open), and just wait for them to ask you, it might never happen! You can easily detour around the question while still being technically honest! So, if honesty is assumed in openness, then clearly, openness is the most important of the two.

It even parallels in God's relationship to us. He has been completely open and honest to us through his word. He does not even hide what will happen to us and the world in the future. He tells us how the world began. What a gift of openness!

All this thinking about openness and honesty has caused me to recognize it more clearly in my relationships. And it's so true! I am naturally drawn to people who seem to be more open and honest with themselves and with others. When other people open up, it's easier for you to open up, and the result is just an all-together good feeling of having someone know and understand you!

Something else Dr. Snyder said was that the number one reason that people marry other people is because of genuineness. Hmm! It holds true with why I was attracted to Paul. So interesting!

I'm surprised how much I remember from this class. How surprising to have a class that actually teaches life skills and concepts!

Anyways, so my new goal for myself is to become a more open and honest person. Mainly open--since I don't think I have a lying problem. I think usually I'm pretty picky about who I open up to...which isn't necessarily a bad trait, I don't think. You've got to have some wisdom about who to trust. But, on the other hand, if no one opened up to anybody, nobody would know anybody! And that would be a very sad world.