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.