I'm So Sick

So I'm sitting in my room wondering whether I'm bored or I'm lonely. If I'm lonely at all then it's really not that bad because I've got friends, the whole deal. I there's a few people I miss and wish I saw more often, but I'm pretty sure this is just a cover for my boredom.

It's a pretty severe boredom. A boredom that goes past just my present circumstances. I'm finding it to be a boredom with life at the moment. I'm not excited about anything. Nothing's happening that's interesting. Like really nothing.
I don't even have inspiration for art.

Yuck! My life is currently stagnant! I think if I could do anything right now I go explore some underground tunnels and maybe make a home there. That'd be fun but completely unrealistic. I'm going to tell you that it is never a good thing to be bored like this and I'm absolutely sick of it. It's like all purpose has been drained.

And that's another thing. Everyone's talking about where they want to go after high school it seems. I still don't know. Sometimes it would be nice not to be so clueless, even though I think that if I had my whole life planned out and I knew exactly what I wanted to do it'd be, once again, boring.

I want to get excited about God again and soon. Everything seems dry right now, and that's not the way it's supposed to be. I've written about my Bible study recently and no matter how I feel about it, I miss my girls' group from the past two years and I can't wait for it to get started up again.

Here's something sad, I can't tell you for sure the last time I've prayed one on one with someone, just simply like the that. The canoe trip maybe? That sucks. That's one of the things I love most and it just doesn't happen as much as it really needs to happen. Isn't prayer supposed to be one of the foundations of the church?

*sigh* If you have a hotmail account than you'll know that one of the only sites they advertise is www.monster.ca. I was just checking my email and one of their many ads popped up, and it was the one that says "It's 9:12:10PM Do you know where your career is?" Well that reminds me of another question that I get asked far too often. "How's school?" Not exactly the same phrasing, I know, but it's kind of a lame question to ask. I don't really care that much about school, and probably a lot of other people feel the same way. Why don't more people ask "It's 9:15:58PM Do you know where your faith is?" HUH??!! Why not?

I'm so sick of the way things are! I want to get out of this valley as soon as possible! Let's rise up a people that live radically different! Where is the community I'm dreaming of? ...AHH!

That's all. ughhh

Pineapple

Dreams

Ever had a really weird dream? Tell me about it.

Today I've been exhausted and I fell asleep on my cough for an hour by accident. One part of many, in the dream I had while lying there included finding that my tadpoles had grown into little frogs and I was declaring it to the world. That was the most normal part of the dream.

*shudders* And the dream I had yesterday was pretty bad. My dad was tirelessly and persistently trying to figure out a good way to commit suicide. And I kept saying "Dad you're scaring me!" He would never do that in real life though.

- Pineapple

I Buy Fish on Impulse!

So, so far I've have a weekend of being out of town. Coming home today from my grandparents, we stopped by the mall. My brother has a current obsession with ferrets and we visited PJ's Pet Store because he wanted to get more information about them.

Now as I quickly got bored with those animals, I checked out the fish section. Of course. I have thought many times that it would be funny to buy a fish one time and come home and surprise my mom. "Guess what? I bought a fish!"

Weelll... That's not how it happened. My mom if I could buy a couple $2 zebra something-rather fish. She wanted to go through with it BUt they are tropical fish, which means that they would need pretty big tanks and heaters to go with them, adding up to a big some of $s.

So I ended up buying the a Siamese fighter on impulse. I wanted a fish, so I got one! I've named him Nathan, aka Nate. You can be sure that I'll spend many hours talking to him. The picture you can see really doesn't do his beauty justice. My camera just could take it all in.

The purchase price was $2.88, which is a really great deal considering he's probably worth more than the $10000 bird I saw today. I don't know who would pay that kind of money... Altogether it cost a big more for accessories, but a good investment indeed!

I'm honestly so excited about my new pet! I'm seriously considering starting another blog called Dear Nate through this account. Didn't Anne Frank call her diary Kitty or something like that? Well this idea is even less silly (not that that was silly) seeing as I actually do have the fish. Well, just keep 'yer eyes open for that because it just might happen!

Calenedar

I like to make my own calendars. I do this for two main reasons. First, it's cheaper. Second, I make them differently than any other I've ever seen.

For one thing, I start mine weeks on Thursdays. Ever seen that before? It's bizarre, right? Good. And my favourite thing about them is that there is no seperation between months. Just a thick bold line as an indicator to let you know. Sometimes when I feel like it I spell "calendar" wrong, just for fun, because I get bored of doing it properly all the time.

APpple.

Thoughts about the Teen Bible Study

I am a journaler, I am a blogger, I am someone who likes to think a lot. So I'd like to bring up a topic hopefully briefly that I've journaled about before.

Right now, my church on Wednesday evenings is running a teen Bible study about sex and dating. I'm one of the oldest in the group so there isn't much I haven't heard before. And I guess it's a pretty good study, but it uses tons of statistics that are good to know, but don't really affect me at all. To me at least, it's just head knowledge, trivia. I think a real to life story would have a greater impact on me than that. More of an effect. Taking a step away from the big picture, which would be the impersonal numbers we hear and zoom in a bit to teach you the reality of it.

One more thing, the thing that bugs me most about the church teaching teens about sex. Ok, so on the first night it was established that we're not going to learn to "just say no", and that it's a thing about self-control, and self-discipline, and delayed gratification. That's all true. They teach us about the consequences, things like pregnancy and STDs, which is fine too. But the thing that I really hate about the way the topic is approached is that they never answer the one question I wonder about most. Asides from saying maybe that it's meant for marriage, they hardly say a thing about the way it's supposed to be. They never tell you about the what a beautiful thing it is when you wait. They never say a thing about how it's about bringing pleasure to your spouse, not self gratification. Well they might say the latter of that.

If these things are supposed to be considered givens, then I'll dare to be bold and say that they really aren't. I don't think that it would do any harm to at least briefly make mention of why it's worth waiting for. Simply put, tell us what is the difference that makes the waiting worth it. If anything does harm in this area I think it's the messages you inevitably hear from the media that infiltrates our high schools. This is something I'm really passionate about and the only thing that's come close to what I'm talking about is an article titled "Forever Virgin" by Maria Spence in the July issue from my Brio & Beyond subscription. It's really frustrating. Teens, at least girls anyways, will think about these things whether they're said or not.

Any thoughts?

-P.Apple

I'm posting like crazy today, I know.

Stephen Christian

Today, rather than studying for a test, I spent a lot of time on Stephen Christian's blog. Stephen Christian is the lead singer of a band that I love known as Anberlin. Quite well known.

So I picked random posts from the list that seems to continue on forever. One post title caught my attention: Calcutta, India. From quite far back in the list. It caught my attention because the author of The Irresistible Revolution, Shane Claiborne also went there. (That's a good book by the way).

Stephen Christian uses a lot of quotes throughout his many writings, and I think I'll quote him a couple times. The second sentence of the post I just mentioned, somehow, maybe through its phrasing, meant something to me. "The events that took place are etched into my mind and will transcend ideas, thoughts, and actions for the rest of my life."

He was clearly speaking of his trip to India, but the idea that doing or seeing something can shape who we are so much that it is evident in our lives for the rest of our days on Earth (ironic I should say "days" considering my last post), it blows my mind a little. The word "transcend" gave me the mental image of a 3D square spiral representing our lives. And the combination of the words "ideas, thoughts, and actions" grabbed me because I am a person of thoughts and ideas and, hopefully action too. That is a quote of interest for me.

Here's another by the same guy:

"The meeting of two personalities is like the contact of two chemical substances: if there is any reaction, both are transformed."

No deep thoughts about this one, I just like it.

What I've learned through this experience: Blogs are a great way to get inside a mind and get to know a person completely differently. Different than through music, or biographies, autobiographies, even from spending time with a person.

Also, I learned that Stephen Christian is a very thought-filled man. He blogs about several many diverse topic, most thought provoking. In one, he made mention to a painting by Marcel Duchamp, that I had never seen before, that I really love. It's called Nude Descending a Staircase, but I don't know why:


And I never knew that he wrote a book. The Orphaned Anything's by Stephen Christian.

Well this has all been a very fascinating topic, I'm sure. But if I were a friend of mine talking to me, I might say something that my grandad sometimes uses to joke. And I'd say "Hey! What a wonderful..." (from the kid's show Arthur). No, I meant to say that I'd say "Can't you go, must you stay?"

If his blog interests you at all, you can go visit http://www.modesty.blogspot.com/.

To Make Note

I am exactly 6300 days old today. According to a friend of mine that makes me a loser for knowing that. Oh well, she loves me, we both know it.

"Guess what?"

"What?"

"Today I'm exactly 6300 days old!"

"You're a loser"

I smiled and that was it. Sometimes it's nice to have a friend who can be honest with you like that.

Check This Guy Out!

Pineapple is in love with Christian Cortes's work. He is a great, amazing artist. I love almost everything of his. The only thing I don't like sometimes is that often is portrays women immodestly. Don't get me wrong, I'm all for nudity in art, appreciating the beauty of the human form - God's very art! But when it's taken a step further to become sluttish I'm not such a big fan. (Is there a nicer way to put that?)

But seriously, this guy is good at what he does! He even does some graffiti stuff (love). Check out his videos on youtube: look up "cortesnyc" under the channels section. He and I are mutually subcribed to each other, for the purposes of art. I just read a 2 month old comment from him on my page telling me that I'm "very talented" when I think he's sooo much better than me! I want to post another art video just for him to watch.

Also, you can check out his website: http://www.cortescreates.com/

Frustrated!

From yesterday's journal entry in my sketchbook.

I don't want to live a boring life. It seems like life only offers you so many options. Finish high school, do more schooling, get a job. Doesn't matter which job, work everyday to take care of yourself. Get married, maybe, have kids, like everyone else. They grow up and you're left to grow old along with your aging house. BORING!

It would be cool to be in a band. Tour the world. Spend all your time with your fellow band members who by choice gradually become more like family. You get to spend your life doing what you love to do. Unfortunately, I am not a musician and music will never impact my life in such big ways. Oh, why don't we have bands of artists?

I would rather spend my days starving on the streets of Toronto than living a typical life that means nothing when it's done. I actually really wouldn't mind that. I'd start up a community of friends, all in the same boat, we'd pool all our resources so that no need would go unmet.

Humph... this is starting to sound like the early church, Whatever happened to that old system? What we have now isn't better. We need to get that started again. It's been way too long to go without...

Ooohhh baby! Double Time!

A cousin of mine, we'll call her Sandra, although that's not her real name, recently gave birth to her third child, her husband's daughter. That happened on either the 17th or the 18th of 2008. I wish I had better memory. My grandmother gave me a call and she is now a great grandmother to three kids!

Imagine If...

I am one of the few select secret agents of the Auriferous Sock Hunters(A.S.H.). Our group is a group that is dedicated to finding the socks that were once given to the entire kingdom of Greenland, which was relatively small in that century of the 13th. These socks were given by the first ancestors of the family tree now known as the Mennonites. Let me give you a bit of brief history here.

Back in that day and age, there lived a couple, a man and a woman (the ancestors), and they lived in poverty. One day, on a romantic walk through through new woods, they came across much gold and celebrated with wine until they were drunk. When they were sober again, the two agreed that they should not waste what they had stumbled upon. So they took their gold to a friend who made all his own clothes. After many discussions with the man, the couple agreed to pay him a third of their gold to have him make several pairs of socks, woven with gold. We cannot tell exactly how many were made, but it is believed to be near 200. With the remaining gold they sailed to Greenland and gave a pair to each person who lived in that kingdom, and two to both the king and queen. They did this in hopes of gaining face with the king for doing a generous deed for his nation so that he would give them a position of honour. But it was only they and the man who knew about the gold, for the socks were mainly made of wool.

That is all that is known about the beginning of my epic adventure. That is the legend that has been pasted down through out the generations, and has stumbled in to the hands of my life. I have embraced this story, and am now piously faithful to the A.S.H. Our job is to find the socks that have now been dispersed through out the globe. Since that couple passed away, it is unknown what happened to their family line. You may find information in history books about the story of the Mennonites that is contradictory to what is written here. But I assure you, it is on behalf of us A.S.H., to keep the secret, a secret.

Now, more about me. I cannot give you my location for that is far to important to release here, but in the very room where I sleep, there lies a small hidden trapdoor underneath my bed, which I escape to in the night. It works much like a vacuum in it's design and wherever I may be, with in a minute I'll be out to the headquarters located in Halifax, Nova Scotia. A.S.H. currently has 11 socks (not pairs) stowed away in the highest security storage units available to the world at the moment. There twenty-three of us agents, in twenty-three different locations on the map. We assume that the next sock to find may be found in Nigeria, but there is work yet to be done. It's dangerous business, but that's simply what I live.

One of my codenames is agent P.Apple, signing out.

Ooooo Baby!

My aunt's having a baby! To be born late April. I'm really hoping it's a girl. This'll be her third, and the first two are pretty cheek-kissing cute! No, just regular really cute. Either way, if he or she is born on the 11th he or she will have birthday as his or her mom! Fun stuff!

Prayer and its' Power, (well really it's God's power)

Last Sunday, September the 7th, I went to my dad's church. There was a really great guest speaker. His topic was simple: Persistent Prayer, and he spoke from Luke 18:1-8.

Luke 18

The Parable of the Persistent Widow

1Then Jesus told his disciples a parable to show them that they should always pray and not give up. 2He said: "In a certain town there was a judge who neither feared God nor cared about men. 3And there was a widow in that town who kept coming to him with the plea, 'Grant me justice against my adversary.'
4"For some time he refused. But finally he said to himself, 'Even though I don't fear God or care about men, 5yet because this widow keeps bothering me, I will see that she gets justice, so that she won't eventually wear me out with her coming!' "

6And the Lord said, "Listen to what the unjust judge says. 7And will not God bring about justice for his chosen ones, who cry out to him day and night? Will he keep putting them off? 8I tell you, he will see that they get justice, and quickly. However, when the Son of Man comes, will he find faith on the earth?"


I don't think he said anything I didn't already know but the way he put it revolutioned my thoughts. And since then I think I can honestly say that I have been praying more.

If you are a follower of Christ, tell me, are you sick of this generation that goes on without a prayer? I mean it's just as Scripture says, if a horrible judge like that described in the parable would grant a widow, the least of society, how much more would our good God answer the prayers of his people whom he loved enough to let his Son die for? Why are we not petitioning to him all the things we would like to have changed around us, more than just our trivial lives and needs?

I'll tell you friends, that widow was desperate, and we too need to be just as desperate! Desperate for our nations, and high schools, and so much more, our friends who don't know Jesus! Let's not sit around waiting for things to get better on their own, because they won't!

I'd like to be praying more for the girl who struggles with drugs and sometimes even cutting. And a friend's mom who needs to know that there's a lot more to Jesus than church (holds little importance at all!).

Does anyone want change? Does anyone want to unleash God's awesome power? Is anyone willing to spend time wrestling with God until we receive blessings? When the Son of Man comes back is He going to find a faith in his people that says we can do all things through Christ who strengthens us, if we are asking according to his will? Why are we, the body of Christ, not meeting together to spend hours weekly to simply pray persistently for justice to be done on earth?

Tell me.

P.Apple

You Know What I'm Talking About

Everyone knows how it is to have friends off at university and out of town and being stuck at home. Well I do have a few of those friends. Recently I asked one a favour to collect American pennies while she's out in Montana for me. I've now I've just found myself thinking that if that didn't work out or the pennies came late, I could always save that project for next year's art class. But what I've just realized is that there literally no next year for me now that I'll be graduating this year. Well, maybe if I decided to go back for a year, but it's very unlikely. Weird...

The Dover Boys at Pimento University

Sometimes in the lives of people, certain experiences will change the way you perceive things. I watched the following video as a child, and in it, the character Dan Backslide still gives me the creeps.

Eyes - Last for the Day

So this will be my third blog for today, which will be the final for now. That is a lot even during my most frequent periods.

YO folks of this era! Does anyone like poetry at all?! I'm not a huge fan, but what the hey, why not for a chance. I've written something and I'd like to share.

Here goes, it's called "Eyes", hope it isn't too deep:

Connection.
Every person longs for it.
Can it be explained?
A world of people.
Diverse lives,
And diverse stories.
Love is more than a feeling,
But could a stranger
Love another stranger
If it were simply so?
Do we choose to love?
Do lives cross?
Is it possible that
Your close friend knows
How the stranger feels
Without knowing it?
What really happens when
The eyes of two
Strangers meet?

The Search

I am in search. By that I mean for a bloging identity. I've decided that I may aswell let you in on a bit of a secret. I used to have another blog. It started out as a way to vent feelings. And generally just what ever I was thinking about. That was until a few people discovered it. This isn't going to be one of those stories where you hear of someone who's internet connections have led to death or anything of that sort. Not at all. The people are great, and I actually really liked it for a while. But here's the thing: as we got to know each other I lost a lot of my anonymousity (word?). I simply miss that. I like the idea that I can be anyone, maybe you know the feeling. As time went on it became about my boring life, and then summer came and I got out of the system. So now lately, I've been blogging for the sake of keeping those online friends updated rather than for the joy of it. And it's probably a true statement to say that freedom was lost without realizing it.

Sorry if that was a bore to read. I've made a second gmail account so that this is not connected with that at all. Not in anyway. To relate things back again, I'd like to find myself again as the writer of a brand new and different blog.

-peace out, P.Apple

A Bottle of Fanta

Have you ever had a drink of pineapple fanta from a glass bottle? Well, I have and it's really great. If you have never tried it you're really missing out, espescially if you live in North America. I will admit that I do live in North America but maybe I'm one to travel the world simply looking for great soda! So far Malawi and Belize have been locations where I have enjoyed such beverages.

A great fellow once said "We should do some art, because I'm bored right now". Another thing you should know is that I love art!!! I think I would like to post my art up as I go hopefully.

ART -- it's amazing! Get into it yo! You're not good? - go abstract.

I also have hopes of just putting random stuff out and up here. Don't expect consistency because you might not get it. Anywhere from possibly life happenings to stories? I don't know. And a definite effort towards art.

So here's to fun blooging,

Your friend PINEAPPLE!