thought one:
one can tell the worth of one's education by how much said individual regrets missing class when circumstance dictate that such a person must be absent... from class.

thought two: re: the problem of feminity

"what would you do if your son was at home/ crying all alone on the bedroom floor cause he's hungry/ and the only way to feed him was to/ sleep with a man for a little bit of money/ his daddy's gone/ he's off smoking rock now/ in and out of lockdown/ i ain't got a job now/ see for you this is just a good time/ but for me this is what i call life"

"hold up:
What would you do?
Get up on my feet and let go of every excuse
What would you do?
Cuz I wouldn't want my baby, to go through whatI went through
C'mon, what would you do?
Get up on my feet, stop makin tired excuses
What would you do?
Girl I know if my mother can do it, baby you can do it"

[never underestimate the powers of memory. make sure you fill it with something worth remembering.... but that's not actually the point i was going to make]

the point i was going to make is this: there is a devastating lack of alternatives publicized to young ladies these days. billboards just don't cut it. i think it goes back to my theory that if anyone could just experience unmitigated CHRIST for one day... being indwelt, forgiven, and full of abundant life... there WOULD be no heathens. all would be saved. the Jews, the Palestinians, the prachanda path... then Jesus would come and we'd be in kingdom come and lovely world without end... sorry. got distracted there. back to femininity. if only todays girls could SEE what they could be, what they should be, what they were CREATED to be... so much of society's problems would be obliterated. but what would that look like? WHAT ARE WOMEN CREATED TO BE?

thought three:
in my beloved western civ today, we talked about living conditions in the middle ages, and how unsanitary everything was, and how blood letting, terrible sewage and other common practices absolutely wrecked havoc on their life span. incredibly interesting stuff. but my prof made an interesting comment: what if, 500 years from now in some western civ class, they discuss how simple ignorant habits of the 21st century lead to our social demise... ie: what if we are unconsciously doing something that kills us?

that'll give you some food for thought.

thought four:

i am sorely displeased with my wrist. it is exceedingly incompetant as a day planner. thought bullets 1, 3, and 4 are illegible... something pertaining to:

-"worth ab."
-"wi_fruk"
-"sil_ _ e"

this is just unacceptable.

thought one:

would Jesus have disciplinary problems with His class, were He a lower-elementary Bible teacher? i wonder... on one hand, He's Jesus. on the other hand, kids are not free from original sin, either (unfortunately for me.)

thought two:

the first thought of feminity (fem-ee-nin-ih-tee...? rhymes with... sea anemone?)

girls of my generational ilk today really don't have much of any marketable skills. on the whole, we don't know how to cook, cleaning is only as difficult as plugging in a vacuum cleaner, children are..... frequently seen as obnoxious, intellectualism is commonly considered unappealling... we can't work on cars, we can't fix our plumbing, we can't program computers, we can't work in the oil fields... (obviously, this is not an endemic characterization and there are many highly-qualified young ladies running around, BUT...in my experience, what i have seen... [especially in myself]...) we are so useless. boys, at least, can do manual labor.

what does a girl have to market? why, herself, of course! her body is her chief commodity. personalities are carefully crafted for the best shelf-life possible. the saddness lies in that many times, a girl ends up renting herself out instead of selling to the highest bidder. all of her efforts to package herself are for the benefit of "shoppers"... not buyers.

i'm not sure i have a thesis to all this. it's very frustrating to be a girl these days, and i'm not positive i know why, or how to fix that frustration. more as more comes.

thought three:
Maoists control about 80% of Nepal.

-"People's war (also called protracted people's war) is a military strategy invented by Mao Zedong. The basic concept behind People's War is to maintain the support of the population and draw the enemy deep into the interior where the population through guerrilla tactics will bleed them dry. The term is used by Maoists for their strategy of long-term armed revolutionary struggle" [wikipedia, i love you]

-country -> city
-grassroots level insurrection (peasants as warriors)
-Pushpa Kamal Dahal
-time interview with Prachanda [Dahal]

misericordia.

thought four:
just to make our "discussion" (of... er... me writing to... myself...) of gender issues a little more lively... check this out

go to rzim.org (or "raviji" to the right) and sign thyself up for "a slice of infinity"

thought one:
"Faith, wherever it develops into hope, causes not rest but unrest, not patience, but impatience. It does not calm the unquiet heart, but is itself this unquiet heart in man. Those who hope in Christ can no longer put up with reality as it is, but begin to suffer under it, to contradict it. Peace with God means conflict with the world, for the good of the promised future stabs inexorably into the flesh of every unfulfilled present."
Jurgen Moltmann, Theology of Hope (Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 1993), 21\

i think, technically, i'm not supposed to reproduce any part of the "slices" online... but it's a quote, so maybe i can get away with it... just this once?

No puede el mundo ser mi hogar
No puede el mundo ser mi hogar
En gloria tengo mi Senor
No puede el mundo ser mi hogar

Thought two: from an interview (not my own)
"His [Chavez's] enemies are imperialism and capitalism. But how, I ask, can he ignore the tide of globalisation? I am a socialist, he says, and I follow the teachings of Jesus Christ, who was the first socialist, just as Judas was the first capitalist. "

Thought three:
Who wouldn't think that Islam would make a good 6th grade thematic unit? My instructional design professor, that's who!

A walk about letourneau

purgatorio

~having to start a new day without finishing the old one
~taking a shower on a cold day when someone has just put clothes in the washer AND begun doing a sink full of dishes
~perpetually walking into western civ. 20 minutes late
~anything pertaining to high-heels
~computers that won't turn on; others that sadistically crash
~disks that become unformatted
~coffee spilling in the car
~coffee spilling, ever
~nails that are cut too short
~uncontrollably using "that" when you mean "who;" "could care less" when you mean "COULDN'T CARE LESS;" "tu" form when you should say "usted;" "was like" when you mean "said;" "ejucashun" when you meant "eD-u-CA-shun;" hangin' your g's in public; "fer" instead of "for;" "tuh" instead of "to;" "thuh" instead of "the;" semi-colons instead of commas
~chewing gum that you can't throw away
~not being able to hear during a conversation you really want to have
~being stuck in jr. high indefinitely

i should write a book... in italian! oh wait, somebody already did

too much coffee and too little western civ...

...makes rebekkah think she shan't do this again...

(it almost rhymes)

thought one: re: chivalry
by whatever finanglings of my history, i have strong feministic tendencies. at the same time, i am an "evangelico," so i'm not quite content with being confined to a worldly species of "feminist." (last night, G & A and I were having a rather funny conversation, and the idea for a club, "Feminists for Jesus" came up... but that's [almost] entirely off subject) what i wanted to write about was chivalry... because i like it.

but here's the rules:
a man can do "it" for me if:
~"it" is disproportionately easier for him/ harder for me (eg: carrying luggage)
~"it" is a courtesy gesture, in matters of equal difficulty (eg: opening a door)
~i am feeling lazy (eg: letting someone go to another room to bring me a chair)

he cannot when:
~"it" would significantly inconvenience him (eg: calling my brother from lake o' the pines to come change my flat tire= no)
~"it" would be disproportionately easier for me just to do it myself (eg: opening a car door)
~i am feeling stubborn and generally feminist-y (eg: riding in the back of a truck in the
rain)

thought two:re: masculinity
kudos to all males:
~who say yes ma'am, no ma'am
~who open doors for others
~who refrain from flirting.
~who are not distraction by half-clothed members of the supposedly fairer sex...
~who make a covenant with their eyes not to sin
~who who respect a girl's personal space
~who detest coarse talking
~who attempt courtesy
~who respect their mothers and demonstrate affection for her
~who pray out loud
~who take the initiative to lead
~who fear God
~who demonstrate humility
~who sing loudly
~who are zealous... for God... for His kingdom
~who treat women as sisters and co-laborers
~who know how to relate to kids
~who lack self-consciousness
~who do not talk over-much
~who defend the weak
~who are unafraid to stand alone
~who are disciplined
~who respect all persons
~who keep their shirt on
~who read
~who show enthusiasm
~who take life seriously but themselves lightly
~who are tough but sensitive to God
~who serve
~who live for the benefit of God...and no for no one else do they speak, do they dress, do they walk, do they act, do they question, do they exist...kudos.

amen.

i'm kinda optimistic about the human race right about now.

a thought on feminity will have to wait.

Thought one:
"I can't say if any other country in the world has a plan to invade Venezuela, but I can confirm that the United States of America did not, and does not, have any invasion plan," said U.S. Ambassador Bill Brownfield.

i wish we would... huh...

Thought two: Cliches again
Maybe this explains my affinity for kidderos and ES(or third)L internationals... they lack the culture-saturation that is necessary for proper use of cliches... so even if they do manage one or two, it comes across kinda sweet and novel, denying its very cliched-ness... i dunno, just a "thought."...something pertaining to that undefinable "earnestness" that we haven't figured out how to manufacture wholesale in the good ol' Us of a. hmmm... it needs a whole "thought" to itself... coming soon.

Thought three:
This just in: in addition to Benjamin being a genius, Bracyshows definite genius-like potentials as well.

(From Wednesday:)
Bracy to me: "Beka, why did God make the sky?"
Me to Brasushka: "So we could have something beautiful to look at... plus, He needed a place to put the sun."
Bracy: "And the moon?"
Me: "...and the moon."
Bracy: "And the stars?"
Me: "...and the stars."
Bracy: "And the grasshoppers?"
Me: "No, the grasshoppers stay on the earth."

Thought one:
Along with about 28 new letter, English also needs to incorporate usted somehow. Let's bring back "thou" for familiar and "you" for formal, because honestly, this grammatical *egalitarianism* is so uncouth.

Thought two:
If you are ever in a group of people and bored, here's an exercise to try: look (very covertly) at people and see if you can mentally morph their features into how they looked as children. Many hours of fun, I promise.

Thought three:
What, exactly, makes something funny?! Why are some people considered funny and others not? What is it that comments spark within us that produces laughter?

Thought four:
"Educable" and "nonsensical" are great words.

Thought five: re: cliches

Cliches are very useful, as they provide us with a whole bunch of readily packaged meaning without using "a whole lot" of words. Yet we get to the point where we hear a cliche and absorb the associations we have to that cliche... NOT to the meaning behind it. I'm not sure if that's a completely accurate postulate, but hey, "we have to start somewhere," right?

As Christians, we've especially "got to work on this"... this morning, I heard an unnamed speaker justifying the new chapel LeTU is constructing. This speaker used "worship" about 5 or 6 times, always in reference to that which we would more merrily do within a $12 million dollar edifice. Since i had already been thinking on this, particularly about the word "worship," the usage was highly amplified in my hearing. As my ire rose, I had to remind myself that the special concept I associate with that word was not apprehended by some great intellectual movement on my part... God used many different sources in my life to transform that word from being only the last part of "praiseandworship" to being something very sacred.

The point? ...the need for consciousness about words in general and Church-speak in particular.

I like this subject and shall return...

Happy Ramadan.

"And if one member suffers, all the members suffer with it..."