Thursday, November 29, 2007

My Quick, Uninteresting Thoughts

Just for the record, Scrubs did not air a new episode on Thanksgiving day, and I was truly disheartened. Moving on...

Speaking of Thanksgiving, I thought mine would be slightly awkward. My friend Bethany (who is officially labeled my "best friend born on April 16, 1990 at 7:17 pm") and her family invited me to spend Thanksgiving at their house. This was because my mom and her boyfriend went up to my grandparents' house, and I stayed home due to working on Wednesday and Friday. I ended up eating a great meal at Bethany's, and it wasn't too awkward except for when her brother decided to randomly leave; he came back with his computer because there had been a debate over the appropriate way to pass food around the table, and he was looking up the correct way. It also got a little awkward when a debate on abortion started, and Bethany's brother-in-law asked me my opinion. I nonchalantly said I was pro-life, and he said, "Kind of a tough decision though, huh?" My response: "Um...no...pretty easy decision."

I have a lot of essay-like work to do these days. My research paper for challenge government is due before Christmas break (otherwise it's worth a B- at best), we're working on a cause/effect paper for American lit, and I still have to peg out my "essay" for the Peale Scholarship.

On the American lit side of things, my teacher knows me all too well. We're working on a short story unit, and the group she put me in was assigned to read a selection from Night by Elie Wiesel. I love that book, and I'm actually already prepared to give our presentation next week (and we haven't even started working on it).

What it all boils down to is this: I learned how to make a collared shirt out of a dollar bill.

Back to homework....

Monday, November 19, 2007

My Lost Week

I feel this blog is appropriately titled for a couple of reasons. The first being that most of you probably haven't heard from me since last Sunday. The second reason is because the whole week was kind of a blur for me. I'll go day by day, just to waste both my time and yours.

Monday
I didn't have to work, but we had our first dress rehearsal for the play. It went fairly well, but the show still wasn't what we wanted it to be. Not much else happened that I can think of.

Tuesday
This was the day of our matinee performance for the 5th and 6th graders. Much like our dress rehearsal, it went fairly well. Afterwards, we had a question and answer session with the kids, and they liked asking about how people had died in the play. They asked how Simon Stimson (the town drunk) died, and we all finally realized that it says in the show that he hung himself in his attic. Crazy stuff. I didn't have to work on Tuesday either! That gave me a chance to go on a "date" with my good friend Bethany. Where did we go? Why, to the NRHEG (it's one word) choir concert of course! It was very good, and I decided the girls definitely carry their choir. Mariah had been trying to get Mr. Rud to let them do "Seasons of Love" ever since she started high school, and he finally let it happen. There was, of course, the stipulation that she had to sing it. She sounded great singing soprano (she's an alto), and Bethany and I succeeded in embarrassing her with a tactic I learned from my brother. At my musical last year, Cody showed up in a suit, and I didn't want to claim him. So Bethany and I dressed up hardcore for the choir concert, and Mariah laughed and shook her head at us when she saw us.

Wednesday
One of my favorite days of the school year! It was time to give blood, and I was very excited. Word on the street is my time was just over 6 minutes this time, which is the longest I've taken in 3 times giving blood. I kind of just left the class I was in (during a test) when the runners came to get me for my appointment, and my teacher thought I had gone to the bathroom. He was making a girl wait until I got back before she could go, and it wasn't until the last few minutes of class that someone mentioned that I went to give blood. We had our last run-through of the play before our first show, and it was still quite choppy, but at least I didn't have to work. I also decided to start learning some Hebrew, which is fairly exciting. I wanted to learn a little now so I have a grasp on it when I go off to college and take it as a foreign langauge.

Thursday
The big night. Our opening night for the play. It went fairly smoothly with one a few missed lines, but the most disheartening part was when we saw our choir director putting up the side walls to block off about half the seats in the auditorium. That meant there wouldn't be many people at the show. It didn't seem like everyone understood it when they were shaking our hands afterwards either. Oh well. At least I got to see amazing people like Kati, Amy, Ruby, and Mariah.

Friday
The second (and thankfully last) night of our show went a little better, but we're all glad to be done with it. The main problem wasn't the play itself ("Our Town" is a great play), but it was the fact that we cut out so many little peripheral things that made the play what it was. All in all, I'm just ready for One-Act, and hopefully we don't have the same issues with casting that a lot of us felt we had for the fall show.

Saturday
My first day back at work. It was a pretty good shift, and not too terribly busy. Not much else to say about the day that I can think of.

Sunday
Oh my goodness was work perfect! There were 4 people scheduled instead of 3 for some reason, so after I learned how to clean the bathrooms (which is super easy and not pain-staking at all) I was able to go home! Instead of a 2-9 shift, I worked until 6. I hung out at Tommy's for a while before heading back to Blue Earth. I ended up talking to Bethany and Jen for a while at Bethany's house, then Jen left so I talked to Bethany and Ashley. Eventually I went into Amanda's room to see the disturbing poster over her bed, and she screamed at us for going in there when she was downstairs. That's when I left.

I haven't done any homework yet this weekend, so I should work on that. Goodnight!

Sunday, November 11, 2007

My Fruit

Last night was full of a lot of driving, and very little sleep. I went down to NWC with my mom and Mariah to see a play. It's a play I wasn't too sure of, seeing as I disliked both the book and the movie. My brother had done the sound design for The Grapes of Wrath, which was adapted by Frank Galati (I have to admit the writing was very good for the play).

I was utterly impressed with the show. I loved it, and I wish I could see it again. I'm a little sad I couldn't make it to other things I had as choices for the night, but it was good seeing my brother and hearing his great work for the show. Plus, I remembered reading Tracey's blog about her labor scene, and while she was giving birth during the storm I had to hold back some laughter.

We didn't get back to Frost until just after 1:00 in the morning, and I had to work at 9. It took me a while to get out of bed because this cold of mine is getting horrible, but I was only 15 minutes late to work. I made up for by staying until 5:15, so I got the whole 8 hours in.

After work there was a run-through of the play before our dress rehearsal tomorrow. I'm still a little skeptical about the show, but tonight made me a little more confident. It'll all come down to remembering lines.

As for the title of this post, I kind of got to thinking tonight about The Grapes of Wrath. I instantly thought of Galatians 5:22 (Fruit of the Spirit). There wasn't anything too specific or deep that I was thinking about; just that I feel like all of the things listed in that verse are things people hold near and dear in relationships. Coincidence? Not likely. Godincidence? Definitely.

I want to include the Director's Statement from the play last night because it's really good. It's kind of long, but well worth it.


"Three provocative statements to consider as we enter together into tonight's production:

1. Christ-figures appear in various forms of literature. Writers as diverse as C.S. Lewis (Chronicles of Narnia), Ernest Hemingway (The Old Man in the Sea), Bernard Malumud (The Natural), and John Steinbeck (The Grapes of Wrath) imbue their protagonists with Christ-like qualities, often leading us to see familiar aspects of the Gospel story with fresh eyes. In his apologetic writing, Lewis argues that the appearance and reappearance of Christ-figures in myth and literature testifies to the inherent truth of the Gospel in our daily lives; Christ keeps showing up, often where we least expect. This said, we must acknowledge a key difference between Christ-figures and Christ. Jesus was not literally a Lion, an old fisherman, a baseball player, or a fallen-away Pentecostal preacher from Oklahoma. The fact that these characters exhibit some of Christ's defining characteristics only serves to remind us of the essence of the Gospel story and how we are all, at our core, image-bearers.

2. As a culture, we do a poor job of ministering to our social and economic outcasts. This production forces us to remember this sad fact, and begs the question "Who are the 'Okies' of today and how are we serving them?"

3. Our American expressions of Christianity reveal annoying tendencies that emphasize the indiviual over the corporate. Sometimes we allow our individualistic culture to define the Gospel exclusively as a "personal relationship with Jesus Christ." This stops short of an equallyl pressing biblical call to live in community, ceaselessly serving the "least of these" our brothers and sisters. This seperation is false. Christ's directive to the apostle Peter's individualistic affirmation that he loved Jesus was to direct him to feed and care for community (John 21:15). As stewards of the creation, God calls us to live and sustain our individual faith through community. At its best, The Grapes of Wrath reveals to us our corporate body and our social responsibility."

-- Robert Hubbard

Friday, November 09, 2007

My Detention and My Freedom

Today marked a milestone in my twelve years of school thus far. I had my first ever detention this morning because I've been tardy a few times this year. It was the biggest waste of twenty minutes ever, and I'm pretty sure I deserve some compensation for the 3 minutes extra I stayed (accidentally).

Play practice was a total bomb again tonight, and I'm not sure how well the show is going to turn out next week. Word of advice: don't go to it.

Then, the Council meeting. The meeting was great and all, but the real fun was had afterwards. Everyone was hanging out in the parking lot for a while, but then most people left. We could've all been warm in the church had Janet not taken us all out there. The last four in the parking lot were Sarah, Janet, Julianna, and myself. We hung out for a while, and Julianna and I went on a short rampage. It ended in me yelling, "JJ! Get behind the tree!" Hilarious nearly-dive-move on her part.

Then, we couldn't get in through the main doors back into the warmth of the church, so Julianna had the bright idea to use the pastor's door on the side. We decided she fits into Council really well already since breaking into a church through an unlocked side door is totally a great influence. As we hung out, we told Facebook stories and had a real-life poke war. We stood by the stairs waiting for Ben, Bob, and Gary to finish their "closed-door" meeting, and pennies started falling from everywhere. We realized they couldn't be being dropped from a higher level, and eventually I tried peeking around to the stairs going down to catch the scoundrels in the act. After the next penny, Julianna said, "Thanks for the pennies!" and I charged down the stairs. Ben and I screamed at each other. Good times.

When I came back up, one of the best quotes of the night occurred.
Julianna: "And you down there, Mister..."
Me: "Rambo? MacGyver?"
Julianna: "Clint Eastwood." (She also continued on to say she saw him in Bruce Almighty recently.)

The Fab 4, as we became well known as, were the last ones to leave the parking lot. This was shortly after seeing the "whale eye" on Bob's sunroof. So much fun. There will be a picture at some point.


Quick note on the second part of my title (if you haven't caught on). I've been having a really stressful month and a half, and until next Friday I think it's just going to stay stressful (and maybe for a little longer until I get my Peale Scholarship stuff done). I feel like my life is one big detention for now, and tonight was a total freedom from that. No words can explain how I feel when I have just random times hanging out with good friends. Not a care in the world, and no chains of school, work, etc. holding me down. I wish life was so carefree.