it almost gives me chills

O holy night! The stars are brightly shining.
It is the night of our dear Savior’s birth.
Long lay the world in sin and error pining,
'Til He appeared and the soul felt its worth.
A thrill of hope! The weary world rejoices,
For yonder breaks a new and glorious morn.

Fall on your knees! Oh hear the angel voices!
O night divine! O night when Christ was born!
O night divine! O night, O holy night!

Truly He taught us to love one another.
His law is love, and His gospel is peace.
Chains shall He break, for the slave is our brother,
And in His name all oppression shall cease.
Sweet hymns of joy in grateful chorus raise we.
Let all within us praise His holy name.

Christ is the Lord, O praise His name forever!
His pow'r and glory evermore proclaim!
O night divine! O night, O holy night!

I'm keeping the bag; it's pretty sweet.

Today I had to get a plethora of immunizations in order to go to New Orleans, and I felt like the doctor was sending me on a wild goose chase for things that wouldn't even help me, while I just needed to buy presents for my family!

I was so frustrated after visiting the pharmacy and not being able to get what I needed that I just broke down sobbing. It may also have been because I was tired due to the fact that Jennifer came into my house and woke me up at 8 am to make pancakes after Kirsten and I stayed up til the wee hours of the morning amusing ourselves with word association games (apparently everything makes me think of the word "lamp" or various words for "butt"). But I digress. So I was flipping out, feeling like a 3 year old who can't control her emotions, and we have to tell them, "use your words; I can't understand you right now." So I used my words and told myself to pull myself together. So I did, and I decided to get the bloodwork done, and worry about the effectiveness of it later.

I was doing fine, being an adult, and getting things accomplished. Besides, I really like needles, so things were looking up. I sat down in the chair at the lab where they were going to draw my blood and took off my sweatshirt so that the lady could get to my vein. As I took it off, I heard a clunk.

My glasses had fallen off, since they were hanging from the neck of my sweatshirt. And, as luck would have it, they landed right in the biohazard trash can.

oh. crap.

I could see them, sitting there on top of everything. I could quick, just reach in and pull them out, and no one would ever have to know. However, when I got stuck with someone's needle and developed AIDS, I would probably look back on that as a dumb move. So, I waited til the lady came into the room.

me: I dropped my glasses in there. Is that the biohazard trash can with all the syringes in it?
blood lady: Oh no! No, the syringes go in that container, but that trash can does have bloody gauze and urine cups in it. I would not take that out of there! Seriously.
me: Oh...that sucks.
blood lady: Yeah, don't reach in there. I'm really sorry about the glasses.

Who drops their glasses directly into a can of hazardous waste? Honestly!

As I drove home, unable to read the street signs, I realized that I could have just asked her to let me use a glove to pick them out and sanitize them with something. But I wasn't gonna make a fuss about something that was my fault in the first place. True, there was no turning back now. The glasses were gone forever. They had a good run - 3 1/2 years. I started thinking of all the good times we had together, and the only things that came to mind were all the times I had left them places. Man, I do not take good care of my glasses.

So I got home and told my mom the sob story of the untimely demise of the glasses. She, however, was not so much sad as upset that Blood Lady wouldn't let me reach in and get them. So then, my mommy called the mean Blood Lady and told her I needed those glasses back, and she said I could come back and dig for them.

Everyone needs a humiliating dig through a pile of hazardous waste at their mom's request every now and then.

When I got there, they gave me a hanger, gloves, and a giant bag that said BIOHAZARD on it. Blood Lady informed me that she was "not trying to be funny, but anything that happened would be on me." So I plucked the glasses out of the can with the hanger, plopped them in the giant bag, sealed it, and went on my way.

They're totally clean. I even wiped them down with alcohol when I got back. If I get any type of communicable disease within the next few months, you will know it was not because I did reconstruction in abandoned houses without adequate immunization, but because my glasses once touched a piece of gauze.

an art review

This triptych, circa 1504, is a painting by a Dutch guy named Hieronymus Bosch. In 10th grade I wrote a paper about Bosch, saying he was ahead of his time by creating art that was more in synch with the surrealism of the early 20th century than with art of his own day. The paper got deleted along with everything else on that computer, so I'll never be completely sure, but I think it was the most insightful paper I've ever written.

The Garden of Earthly Delights

Please view a larger version here.

If you're already bored, just stop reading and allow me to be a nerd for awhile.

Bosch painted during the early part of the Northern Renaissance. At first glance, his painting seems somewhat typical of this period. For one, the figures are thin and stylized, somewhat two-dimensional (still very Medieval, since this was only the beginning of the Renaissance in the Netherlands). The use of perspective and the smaller figures in the background is one of those typical Renaissance-y features. Also, it's a religious painting. It's supposed to depict creation in the first panel, the fall of man into sin and decadence in the second panel, then the punishment in Hell for such sin.

That seems pretty religious and all, right? However, if you take a look at the painting, that just doesn't seem to be the main focus. Bosch had way too much fun drawing the sin panel, and then the punishment panel. The Garden of Eden panel, supposedly the most holy, is pretty boring. All the action is in the second two panels. In the Earthly Delights panel (which is also the largest and central panel and the one the whole painting is named after), you see a lot of freaky stuff. Nudity, fornication, bestiality. All drawn in weird detail. Not necessary to get the point across, just over the top for fun. And incredibly interesting to look at.

As for the subject matter, where do all these giant birds and flying fish come from? Oversided fruit floating in water surrouding weird rock formations. Even in the first panel, you see some alien three-headed birds, unicorns, and other strange creatures. The Hell panel depicts half a man (probably Bosch himself) with tree legs and people climbing ladders into his torso. A bird sits on a throne, eating people and pooping them out into a hole. This stuff comes out of nowhere. A lot of this has a very Dali-like feel to it, as he was one of the artistic leaders in surrealism, a movement taking the form in the artistic sphere of unconscious and imaginative images. These images are often rendered somewhat realistically, but don't have much of a basis in reality. Not surprisingly, Dali actually got a lot of his inspiration from Bosch himself.

So if he was really the forerunner of surrealism, which would not come until over 400 years later, where did he get this stuff from? I dunno, some sources say drugs. Or maybe he was just unique.

In my paper, I also talked about other paintings to make a better case, but I can't remember all that. Dude, I like art history. Too bad I can't major in everything, like I want to.

I leave you with one question. Two years ago, I bought a poster of this painting, cause I am oddly attached to it. I've never hung the poster up, cause let's face it, it's creepy. What should I do with it?

a big rock, Father Christmas, and a family stone

I've decided to start a collection of photos of people proposing to other people. So far I have 2 photos, if the one from tonight comes out.

Proposal #1: He climbed Half Dome with his girlfriend and when a family asked if he could take their picture, he said yes. Then he asked the family to take a picture of him and his girlfriend, and as they did, he got down on one knee and gave her a ring.

Proposal #2: He arranged for a choir to be singing Christmas carols on the steps of the Chapel as he walked by with his girlfriend. They came up to...take pictures of some other couple I guess? And while they were there, Santa Claus came and gave everyone candy canes. And then he gave the fiance-to-be the ring, and the guy proposed.


So how fast do you think my collection will grow?
And now I'm gonna go see The Family Stone! Aaaah, it's a night of engagements!!!

fixing my eyes on things unseen

I'm a fairly nostalgic person. I enjoy the little things in life. I like to reflect on the past. I like to categorize things by semesters and summers, figure out what the "song of the summer" was, label things as highs and lows.

As the end of the semester comes up, everyone seems to get a little nostalgic and reflective. I kinda teared up in two of my classes when my professors made little speeches. I had one crazy professor whose class I didn't really appreciate at all. But in the last class, he basically told us that we don't meet anyone who doesn't change us. Everyone is our teacher. And when he left the room, one girl called him an amazing person. Really? This guy who made rude comments to people in our class? How is he amazing? I thought. Then she told us how both his girlfriend and his son are paraplegic, and he works 2 jobs to take care of them.

I really do believe that you can love anyone if you know their story.

So anyways, I was a little disappointed in myself when someone asked me what I had learned this semester. Cause...I don't know. I feel like I haven't learned anything. I'm completely unchanged.

Is that really true? I'm sure it's not but I just don't see much change in my life when I look back oover the past few months. I feel like I've been living on one level, on the surface of life, and completely missing out on real life, the higher level.

I know several people who like to come pray in various places in the Chapel. I see them there regularly. I can never do that. I can't really sit around and pray on the clock, and I just don't choose to go there when I don't have to. There's this guy who does planning for remodeling in the Chapel. He's an old man with a faint islander accent and a good smile. He used to come in to do measurements and talk to me. One day he said, "I love coming in this place. It just feels so...holy, you know?"
I couldn't lie to him. "I guess so. It's just lost that feeling to me. Now it's just work." I felt terrible, like I had let him down and killed his dream.

I think that's what it's like in life. We see the same people regularly, some in the context of classes, some that live with us, some we work with. We just get used to them and turn them into their classes, their careers, their clothes. We judge people by their schedules, their hair, stupid things. This semester I have completely missed out on opportunities to live life more fully. In part because I haven't been seeing people through real eyes. People are not just what they do and say or where they go. Everyone has a deeper story that you're never gonna know unless you take the time to ask about it.

I just haven't done that this semester. I've lived in the mundane, not realizing that life and reality and pain and hope and joy are behind all the mundane things.

Here comes the Christmas reference...I had to, my mind is in Bethlehem lately:

The Son of God was born in a barn to a single young mother who everyone thought was cheating on her fiance. Okay, so that's a little more dramatic than mundane, but it doesn't sound too holy. It sounds trailer park.

Well, God is at work in the trailer park. He's at work in the hay, the stars, the Chapel, the person in my class who I don't talk to, and the classes I take. He's at work in the empty houses in New Orleans and the shoes that people left, the people who are left without families, the prayers of homeless people that no one else listens to. I need to see that.

I'm not trying to be trite or cheesy; I am just hoping that this will be an experience that will help take me out of the mundane and into the kingdom of God where I can actually be a force for hope and compassion in people's lives. I may have slacked off this semester, but winter should be good.

PS: I'm going to New Orleans to do reconstruction in the city and help out at Tulane and Loyola as they get started back up this winter. And I'm boosted.

pretty much my favorite photos of the night

Papa Joel and Miss Jayme are a jovial pair

Miss Jayme and I dreaming of Yuletide festivities

contemplating the Christmas menu over some good pipe smoke...roast duck with figgy pudding? or perhaps a chestnut stew?

hlh

highs: warm Anna Day wishes from everyone, snow, Farrell's friend baked us brownies since we made them cookies...floor love! I'm about to go sneak up on the balcony to listen to some choirs sing Christmas Carols!

lows: not being able to get to DC to make up my placement cause the metrobus wasn't running, finding out I had slept through my alarm clock and missed all my roomies eating pancakes together, cleaning up a shattered Snapple bottle full of fat and grease that I had dropped on the floor, stressing out about stuff at work and feeling bad for Taylor

huh: the chaos that was going in in my apartment this evening...but my lips are sealed


I know I listed a lot of lows. You know what though? None of them were really lows. My reaction was pretty much, "well that's unfortunate," but none of it ruined my day or anything. Maybe it's because Anna Day is simply a joyous occasion and nothing can spoil it, or maybe it's cause it's Christmastime and I have so much to look forward to every day. Or maybe it's cause, come on, I spilled fat and grease all over the kitchen. That's just funny. Whatever, I'm a happy girl...despite my complaints.

Happy Anna Day!

Christmas list

Okay, my mom wanted a list from me, so I figured I may as well post it in case anyone else is interested (ie: the sister...don't feel like I'm trying to make all my friends buy me things...this is just more convenient than email cause I can update it)

• clothes: specifically a nice pair of jeans since I wear the exact same pair every day, also nice clothes I can wear to work or placements or student teaching (terrifying that it keeps getting closer and closer)
• a good pillow: I realize you got me one last year, and it's really cool, but it's too dense and sinks when I lie on it...I think I need a really springy one to keep my head up...or at least one with more neck support cause apparently I am 72 years old
• maybe like an interesting book to read: I never read for fun during school, and I don't get to take any cool lit classes...all my texts are like "100 facts about phonemes" and stuff like that which are, while interesting to a nerd like me, not pleasure reading...I was gonna buy myself a book by David Sedaris off Amazon cause I heard I'd like him...so that's an idea
• I would say a digital camera, but I'm not sure I really feel like having an investment like that yet...maybe I'll wait a few years and then just get whatever the latest thing is...besides I would probably just use it for evil, like posting pics of myself making dumb faces or the turtle who we are afraid may die soon...so that's another thing not to get...turtle toys...it will only bring painful memories should anything go wrong

happy 6 monthiversary!

That's Right, this little blog and I have been together for half a year now! Who would've thought I had that type of commitment level!? This is huge for me!

We promised each other no gifts. No seriously, no gifts! Maybe we'll just go out someplace special, or revisit the site of our first date...the Chapel office...oh hey, that means we're celebrating right now!

...I'm a nerd.

Christmas time is here!

just a list of my Christmas playlist wishlist
(some songs you should check out...my top picks of course, and if anyone wants to send me these files, that would be amazing cause mine all got deleted)

God Rest Ye Merry Gentlemen:
by Barenaked Ladies and Sarah MacLachlan...this is definitely at the top of my list, cause it is just so beautiful

Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer:
now Tiff told me she hates this song, and I would have to agree...until I heard Jack Johnson's version...it's got a different feel and a plot twist...cause honestly, the original version teaches that if other people make fun of you, you should get a famous friend and become popular...and you know Jack Johnson's just not about that

Oh Holy Night:
I've always tried to find Dana Glover's version of this cause I heard it live and it was the most beautiful thing ever...if you can't find that, then try Mariah Carey's version (if you like her old stuff, which of course I do)...this is pretty much my favorite song, so I like lots of versions of it...John Akers recommended Seven Day Jesus' version and it really grew on me, then I can't remember if maybe the TransSiberian Orchestra has one? I don't remember, look it up

Baby, It's Cold Outside:
the original version may have been by Bing Crosby and some chick? I'm not sure...so not necessarily Christmas, but definitely a good one for the season

Carol of the Bells:
from Home Alone...whenever I'm excited about Christmas but feel like I havea lot of work to get done, I put this on to motivate myself...like when Kevin was setting up all those booby traps...it's just a good feeling

Peanuts Christmas music:
you know, "snowflakes in the air"...sooo mellow

Oh Little Town of Bethlehem:
Jewel's version...just pretty

Hark the Herald Angels Sing:
I actually don't know of a specific version though

basically, this is some of the stuff I used to have on my compy...mostly classic carols with some twists, but if you want Christmas pop, you could always go with Winter Wonderland or All I Want for Christmas is You or Santa Baby and stuff like that...not hard to find on your own

just because I'm a high/low kinda girl, some songs I would NOT recommend:

• Last Christmas by George Michael
• whatever that one is that has the line "whoop de doop, and dickory dock, and don't forget to hang up your sock"
• The Christmas Song, aka Chestnuts Roasting on an Open Fire...I dunno, it just annoys me
• patriotic Christmas songs (Alleluia! Alleluia! America!)
• other songs disguised as Christmas songs...you know, where the word Christmas is randomly thrown into a trite love song in attempts to make it a hit of the holiday season

Well, that's my review for the season, although I may add more.

you can't take it with you

The thing about dead bodies is, they're not really people. I haven't seen many in my life, but I don't like to do it.

I had to today. I had to go really close to it, and I kept thinking, "Why is this a tradition? Why would anyone ever want to keep a corpse around for longer than necessary? Why pay for such a fancy nice coffin when dead matter is just gonna rot in it?" It's almost reminiscent of Egyptian burial rituals...how they preserved the body and gave it a room full of gold and crap, cause the person might need gold in the afterlife. And a boat to cross the Nile.

I'm not trying to be disrespectful to the person who died by calling their body decaying matter. It's just that...the person is gone. What made you love them and care about them and be their friend has nothing to do with what is now just a dead shell. I don't want people's last memories of me to be associated with some sickly strange corpse that looks vaguely like I did, and is for some reason wearing my nice clothes.

So here are some instructions when I die: Don't have a funeral. Just cremate me. In whatever I was wearing at the time. Don't put my ashes in some weird expensive urn; just put them in a box and then scatter them somewhere really cool like Massachusetts or the top of Half Dome or somewhere I've been and loved. Please don't leave them on your shelf or in your basement to discover later. You don't wanna do that. You can have a memorial service for some closure after everyone has had a little time to deal with it. At the service, you can put lots of pictures up of when I was alive; that would be very nice.

I'm very serious about this. I mean, maybe I'll change my mind about some of this later, cause I like the idea of a tombstone. But one thing's for certain: whatever you do; please, please don't buy me an expensive coffin.

get ready...

Uff Da!*

It's that time of year again...Anna Day 2005 is coming December 9th!!! One week away! It's pretty much my favorite holiday after Christmas, Thanksgiving, my birthday, and Halloween. Right now you are probably thinking one of three things:

1. Hooray! I love Anna Day!
2. Who does this girl think she is, celebrating her stupid, made-up, narcissistic holiday again?
3. What the crap is Anna Day?

If you were thinking #1, then you've got the spirit and have probably enjoyed celebrating it in the past. If you were thinking something more along the lines of #s 2 and 3, then read on. In Finland, every day of the year matches up with a given name. I did not make it up. It's been this way for centuries, kind of an honoring of saints type thing. The name day for Anna is December 9th.

Now you may be asking yourself, "What do you do on Anna Day?" I like to use the day to celebrate my Suomi pride and my Scandinavian heritage in general. One year I went to Memories of Finlandgift shop, which used to be in College Park. People have been known to make cards, bake brownies, or wake me up at noon with an ice cold ginger ale and a bag of Skittles. Serenades, poetry, and walks in the snow are also appreciated (hey, it might have snowed by then). If you really wanna do something special, you could give me a back massage. Or we could trade. Maybe...learn a Finnish song, some kind of Finnish dance (if they exist) or...uuh, go to a sauna. I dunno. Adopt a reindeer?

Does this holiday have to center around me? Oh no, I am simply the one who brought it to the States. So when you see someone on December 9th, regardless of name, sex, age, or cultural background...wish them a Happy Anna Day! After all, who doesn't enjoy a random reason to celebrate?

Feel free to submit any other Anna Day Celebration ideas...or just surprise us all.

*Uff Da's actually Norwegian, but whatever. Both Scandinavian.