honeymoon blogs

My little brother Karl, whom you may remember from music video fame, has started a blog. He's still in the honeymoon phase of posting clever things every day, but I'm excited to see how it turns out in the long run. Check out his link on the left side of the page. (Notice how I alphabetized them all? I'm so organised!)

Speaking of losing the honeymoon phase...what's with all you other people not posting anymore? It's especially funny when I go to Jan or Melissa's blogs, because the first thing you see is "sorry, I keep forgetting to post" or "long time no post," and my first reaction is "SWEET! She finally posted again!"....except that's the same post that's been there for one or two weeks, and I've had the same reaction pretty much daily since it was first posted.

busy busy busy

Work is still good, but it is also busy. I hope to have more free time next week.

Right now the hardest thing is that I'm expected to help out once or twice a week at the after school programs for the kids, except that with 4 sites to go to I'll only get to each one once or twice per month. So, I have absolutly no "consistency" factor with the kids, and I'm feeling pretty lost as to how to manage them because I don't know what they're used to, what they're allowed to get away with, and what I should really keep an eye out for.

This kind of scares me, especially in terms of the one special needs kid that I'm supposed to babysit for about half an hour every Tuesday. His mom obviously does not censor ANY media that he has access to, so he swears profusely and knows more about sex than any child his age should (and believe me, he likes talking about it!). He's not really the type of kid you can reason with, and so I'm never quite sure if I should keep on insisting "no, that's not a word we use here," because that just draws his attention to that word so that he says it even more. The alternative is to give him the impression that he can say whatever he wants because I'll never say no to anything. So, I'm kind of frustrated because the way he talks about sex makes me really uncomfortable, almost like being around a dirty old man, except he's only 9 so it seems even dirtier. Bah.

Yay! I'm playing with pictures on my computer!

 

I cropped and straightened and sharpened and generally tweaked this one. It needed a bit of help, and it's still a bit fuzzy. But I like it.

picas and posts galore

Some of my loveliest and farthest-away friends have finally updated their blogs!

First off, Steph Posch is engaged! To Carlos! Also, her coffee-shop mission on the tropical island of Roatan is progressing well. If you are rich, you should send them money.

Also, lovely Mylène is taking time to reflect on her job future, and to dance the night away.

Niki and Jason are spending a year in Ireland, and Jason likes taking pictures.

Luscious Liz has figured out how to post pictures on her blog. Click to see pictures of another kitten named Bella. (Annemarie's parents got their Bella first.) Also, Liz's Bella has a sister named Ella. Did you know that Steph Posch has a niece named Ella? How's that for coming full circle with names!

Now all the world needs is for Sam to post on his blog...*cough* pokepokepokepokepoke *cough*

ringtones from hell

I just got a new cellphone for work, and I can download 2 free ringtones! But here's the catch: nothing can mutilate an amazing song so brutally as turning it into a MIDI file. Oh. My. Goodness. I keep looking up all these fantastic tunes, such as the songs included in my musical brilliance post, and they all sound like CRAP as ringtones! No fair! I want a cool one!

junkmail soaps

I've been getting some funny junkmail at my work e-mail address. About once a day I get a message from someone whose name I don't recognise, and since I'm new and don't know who all of my contacts are yet, I open it just to make sure. The first bit is always something about a hot stock to buy: "Watch it trade on Thursday! It's going up!" The second half of the e-mail is some sort of unrelated and scattered soap opera narrative that always makes me laugh. For your entertainment, I have copied and pasted an excerpt:

She never took upwith David Kirk until she heard Hilary was engaged. The dance of sunbeams in the brook shallows was justas it had been so many years ago. What was it David had read to herfrom a poem the night before he went away? I cant bear tothink of you here, in tears, after Im gone. Lets have supper in the orchard to-night, Judy. He and Pat were, as Patfrequently told herself, very happy in their engagement. Im NOT going to look up at Brook when Im uttering thefinal vow. It doesnt do to meddle, she reflected sagely. It meant a marriage at threedays notice, but what of that?

Christians and the death penalty

Here is a brief but interesting article about serial killers and why Christians should never be advocates for the death penalty. Simply put, someone who is alive still has the opportunity for redemption, so we as Christians should never eliminate that possibility for another human being. As far as we know, death is the end of all opportunities for redemption. (Although I'm not totally certain about that...but in any case I'm sure Christ would love to see us all live to accept him.) As a pacifist I can't help but think that this should apply to all killing, including warfare.

A440

I've been somewhat busy lately, so the posts have been less frequent. Full-time work takes up more of my time than part-time work did (believe it or not). I went on a retreat with the staff at work for three days last week too. It was fun, but I ran out of extrovertedness by the end. I drew a fun picture of God, it was a pencil drawing of a burned-down forest and then there was a fireweed (in coloured pencil) growing in it. It was about Hope. The Bible says God is Love, but I think Hope is just as good a name for him. All is not lost.

At work today I planned a night of laser tag for the teens. I made an appointment with a high school guidance counsellor to get her help in recruiting more teens to our programs, and she sounded really friendly and positive, so that made me feel really friendly and positive. Plus, I got to help a girl with her grade 12 physics homework, and I got really excited and happy about that too, because I'm a geek. I can still do it!

Finally, I would like to share a fascinating piece of trivia that I learned from my dear friend Liz today. Did you know that when musicians play Baroque period pieces, they tune to an A that has a frequency of 415Hz? Nowadays it is standard to tune to an A that is 440Hz. So, I had two questions about this: 1) How does anyone actually know that that's how they tuned back then? and 2) Why would we bother to tune down to play period pieces today? And the answer to both questions is organs. The old Baroque church organs that still exist in Europe are tuned to an A of 415Hz, so that's how we know what frequency their A was back then. Also, if you still want to play Baroque music in a big cathedral with a baroque organ, you're obviously going to tune to the A 415 organ because you can't re-tune the organ. Liz says that when music turned more romantic, musicians started tuning to higher frequencies because it sounded cheerier, and that trend has continued so that today some musicians even like to tune to A 442. INTERESTING!

yay job

Here comes a tale of why I am liking my new job. I woke up this morning at 7:25 and thought "Mmm...5 more minutes of sweet, sweet sleep..." and then I woke up at 9:10 and said "WHY IS IT NINE???" I had pulled the old am/pm switcheroo and thereby made Aaron late for his first day of school. As for me, it was no biggie, I'm on a salary and can guesstimate my hours as I please. So I rolled into work at 10am and checked some e-mails.

At 10:30 I went grocery shopping with two co-workers for our weekend retreat. When we got back, Nellie and I hung out in the kitchen and prepared the marinade for a chicken dinner. I decided to use the meat tenderiser on the garlic cloves, and it worked smashingly. If you have a meat tenderizer, you need never mince your garlic again! I attended a half-hour training session on preparing budget reports, which I found kind of interesting because I'm a geek. For the rest of the day I did more e-mailing, filing and phone calling, which actually made me progessively more cheerful because things were getting done and everything was seeming less crazy.

I like it that I can experiment with meat tenderizers at my new job. Plus, I got to wear my baggy jeans and an ancient t-shirt to work today. I've also figured out that one of the biggest things I like about my new workplace that nothing seems unnecessary. There aren't any protocols or busy work or rules that seem useless or stupid or silly. Even almighty Tradition (the bane of many ministries) is maintained in the best way possible: if it's genuinely good, keep it; if you'd rather do it differently for any good reason, then chuck it.

It's funny, it's not as if I'm over-the-top ecstatic about this job, it's just that I've finally found a job that makes simple sense, so I'm actually satisfied for a change.

crikey

I always thought Steve Irwin was invincible. Apparently not. I won't say he had it coming, because that's rude, but I will say that those who live by the sword must be prepared to die by the sword (or by nature, or whatever your chosen lifestyle's risks are). I only hope that he and his family understood the possible consequences of his actions and were prepared to deal with them. At least this way the legend kind of lives on...he didn't die in a mundane way like a hit-and-run, he died out where he loved to be. I think that counts for something.

Thank you, Crocodile Hunter, for adding your wonderful personality to this world. You will be missed.