me:
"so I'm reading about the Jesus People movement on wikipedia."
Jesse's mom, Linda:
"Hello-o? I was in it. I was there. You don't have to read about it."
YES.
life!
Days escape me, weeks fly by, and months come, and they go.
There are exactly two weeks left of first term.
I hear Mendelssohn christmas tunes in my head, I imagine conducting patterns, I analyze texture and orchestration for band pieces, I sleep (sometimes), I eat, I talk, I listen, I learn, I bike to school and think "hay muchos árboles" because that's all my mind can come up with in Spanish, I imagine what I will be doing in 2 years, I pray, I feel, I wish I could take pictures more often, I wish I could have more conversations with people, I make to-do lists, I self-evaluate (then hand it in), I work with kids and one teen, I live life.
I really like the sound of using the dull edge of a piece of lead in a mechanical pencil, I like the squeak it makes.
I spoke to my French literature professor today. He is from Quebec and I asked him how he ended up teaching in London. He said he came here "for love." They were happy for a little while, then they split up because they were both doing their PhD's, and I guess there's this whole thing that people say that you either do your PhD and break off with whoever you're dating/married to, or you end up dropping out, and stay with the person you're seeing.
That's what the people who've done their PhD's tell me, at least! Such devotion!
At least, to brighten your day, look at some neat art by an American guy from the Midwest! He is inspired by nature. His name is Micah Lidberg.
facts.
DISCLAIMER: Please note that some the following facts are, in fact, opinions of the respective blogger.
number one:
Despite my avoidance of all the hype for Spike Jonze's new flick I somehow had stumbled upon a track of the song featured in Ca Va Cool's fall mixtape (cleverly titled Fall Be Kind.)
The soundtrack for Where The Wilds Things Are is fantastic.
It's one of the best soundtracks I've heard in a long time. YYY's Karen O (ex-girlfriend of Jonze) wrote and did the vocals for these original songs and man, it's good! The songs are fun and accessible, and more importantly, musically interesting. The instrumentation of guitar, the interesting percussion and the ambient backdrop from the movie create a spacious and quirky atmosphere in my ears.
It's received some criticism. But I like listening to it while I create things and also in the mornings when I am getting ready.
Hidaway's gotta be one of the best tracks.
number two:
In other exciting discoveries, the Vanier Institute of the Family has recently discovered that divorce is losing its appeal! In Canada, at least. People say all the time that half of marriages end in divorce these days. Which is mostly true in the States, where 44% of marriages end in divorce, and in Quebec, where the number is as high as 48%.
(Only) 38% of married couples in Canada will divorce by their 30th anniversary.
According to the study divorce rates peaked in the 1980s and since the '90s the numbers have stayed the same. This has also been affected by falling marriage rates due to cohabitation where the breakups of these unions aren't captured in divorce stats. (Which may mean that "couple dissolution" has actually increased.)
It's just kind of cool to know.
(I know where I'm going to be (...and stay) married.
... just kidding.)
number three:
My last fact for the post is that documentary Food Inc. is pretty dang interesting and also kind of disturbing.
It's one of those things everyone needs to watch.
While there were some pretty horrific scenes of the actual production of food, what was more appalling was the impact on our society, humanity, values and health of an industry we know almost nothing about.
Essentially an obsession with efficiency, profit and technological advancements seems to have been a huge factor in the diminishing quality of our food. It's become an industry about doing things with as little effort as possible for the maximum amount of profit.
There's so much to it. You just gotta watch it.
but, okay, my last fact is that lining gloves with fleece has proved to be not as overwhelming a task as I had previously thought. My hand-knit gloves are pretty much done and I am excited to have super warm hands!
number one:
Despite my avoidance of all the hype for Spike Jonze's new flick I somehow had stumbled upon a track of the song featured in Ca Va Cool's fall mixtape (cleverly titled Fall Be Kind.)
The soundtrack for Where The Wilds Things Are is fantastic.
It's one of the best soundtracks I've heard in a long time. YYY's Karen O (ex-girlfriend of Jonze) wrote and did the vocals for these original songs and man, it's good! The songs are fun and accessible, and more importantly, musically interesting. The instrumentation of guitar, the interesting percussion and the ambient backdrop from the movie create a spacious and quirky atmosphere in my ears.
It's received some criticism. But I like listening to it while I create things and also in the mornings when I am getting ready.
Hidaway's gotta be one of the best tracks.
number two:
In other exciting discoveries, the Vanier Institute of the Family has recently discovered that divorce is losing its appeal! In Canada, at least. People say all the time that half of marriages end in divorce these days. Which is mostly true in the States, where 44% of marriages end in divorce, and in Quebec, where the number is as high as 48%.
(Only) 38% of married couples in Canada will divorce by their 30th anniversary.
According to the study divorce rates peaked in the 1980s and since the '90s the numbers have stayed the same. This has also been affected by falling marriage rates due to cohabitation where the breakups of these unions aren't captured in divorce stats. (Which may mean that "couple dissolution" has actually increased.)
It's just kind of cool to know.
(I know where I'm going to be (...and stay) married.
... just kidding.)
number three:
My last fact for the post is that documentary Food Inc. is pretty dang interesting and also kind of disturbing.
It's one of those things everyone needs to watch.
While there were some pretty horrific scenes of the actual production of food, what was more appalling was the impact on our society, humanity, values and health of an industry we know almost nothing about.
Essentially an obsession with efficiency, profit and technological advancements seems to have been a huge factor in the diminishing quality of our food. It's become an industry about doing things with as little effort as possible for the maximum amount of profit.
There's so much to it. You just gotta watch it.
but, okay, my last fact is that lining gloves with fleece has proved to be not as overwhelming a task as I had previously thought. My hand-knit gloves are pretty much done and I am excited to have super warm hands!
no soy perezosa.
man, you know, I'm done with being lazy.
It's too easy.
I was sitting in choir the other day, beside my friend Janessa. I looked over at her music, and in the top of one of the pages of the songs we were singing, she had written something along the lines of,
you are too talented to not give it your all
or ...something like that.
it's resonated with me. The second I read it, I applied it to myself and I thought about all the talents God has given me, and how it's just a damn shame if I don't do something with it.
tonight, I helped a boy get excited about math. I never thought that would be possible, but I love making things exciting - making things understandable and relatable, and interesting.
man! I have so much to do, but I just want to do with complete joy. What if my life comprised of doing menial tasks like raking leaves and mulching tree branches into machines? I would hopefully find a way to do it joyfully, because I would be serving God.
it's kind of nuts. there's no going wrong, when we're serving more than just ourselves.
so, here's a song that I like, too.
It's too easy.
I was sitting in choir the other day, beside my friend Janessa. I looked over at her music, and in the top of one of the pages of the songs we were singing, she had written something along the lines of,
you are too talented to not give it your all
or ...something like that.
it's resonated with me. The second I read it, I applied it to myself and I thought about all the talents God has given me, and how it's just a damn shame if I don't do something with it.
tonight, I helped a boy get excited about math. I never thought that would be possible, but I love making things exciting - making things understandable and relatable, and interesting.
man! I have so much to do, but I just want to do with complete joy. What if my life comprised of doing menial tasks like raking leaves and mulching tree branches into machines? I would hopefully find a way to do it joyfully, because I would be serving God.
it's kind of nuts. there's no going wrong, when we're serving more than just ourselves.
so, here's a song that I like, too.
sights/sites
I like finding interesting things.
These three sites are pretty interesting:
unurth: street art
learn something everyday
made in england
Hooray for wasting time on the internet!
These three sites are pretty interesting:
unurth: street art
learn something everyday
made in england
Hooray for wasting time on the internet!
two things
Whoa!
I learned the word
mamihlapinatapai
(mah-mee-la-pee-nah-ta-pie)
in my Spanish class today. It's a word from the Yaghan language of a place called Tierra del Fuego.
It's listed in the Guinness book of world records as the 'most succinct word.' It describes "a look shared by two people with each wishing that the other will initiate something that both desire but which neither one wants to start."
Isn't that interesting?
speaking of Spanish, this is thing I have been uber excited to share about.
José Antonio Abreu has changed the lives of hundreds of thousands of Venezuela's poorest children. The story goes, 33 years ago he met with 11 kids in a parking garage and started making music. They call it "El Sistema."
As an economist, politician, pianist and music educator, he saw a need for something where nothing had existed.
Children attend each El Sistema center (each "nucleo") for free - in Venezuela, 90% is government funded. As young as 2 or 3 they can begin and they attend up to 6 days a week. There's a whole system, man!
It's simple, yet complex. Watching him explain it himself is the most fascinating. He describes how the act of creating organized music is a microcosm of an ideal world - learning, supporting, teaching, creating, persevering.
It's amazing.
It's spreading to different countries now and it's super exciting to see something that captures two areas of huge interest for me, music and social justice.
Lives have been changed individually, communities are being impacted through orchestra rehearsals, through music education.
this is the El Sistema USA site. It has nice colours.
This is the big picture of arts and music education.
Isn't this so exciting!?!
I learned the word
mamihlapinatapai
(mah-mee-la-pee-nah-ta-pie)
in my Spanish class today. It's a word from the Yaghan language of a place called Tierra del Fuego.
It's listed in the Guinness book of world records as the 'most succinct word.' It describes "a look shared by two people with each wishing that the other will initiate something that both desire but which neither one wants to start."
Isn't that interesting?
speaking of Spanish, this is thing I have been uber excited to share about.
José Antonio Abreu has changed the lives of hundreds of thousands of Venezuela's poorest children. The story goes, 33 years ago he met with 11 kids in a parking garage and started making music. They call it "El Sistema."
As an economist, politician, pianist and music educator, he saw a need for something where nothing had existed.
Children attend each El Sistema center (each "nucleo") for free - in Venezuela, 90% is government funded. As young as 2 or 3 they can begin and they attend up to 6 days a week. There's a whole system, man!
It's simple, yet complex. Watching him explain it himself is the most fascinating. He describes how the act of creating organized music is a microcosm of an ideal world - learning, supporting, teaching, creating, persevering.
It's amazing.
It's spreading to different countries now and it's super exciting to see something that captures two areas of huge interest for me, music and social justice.
"The program is known for rescuing young people in extremely impoverished circumstances from the environment of drug abuse and crime into which they would likely otherwise be drawn."
Lives have been changed individually, communities are being impacted through orchestra rehearsals, through music education.
this is the El Sistema USA site. It has nice colours.
This is the big picture of arts and music education.
Isn't this so exciting!?!
It's amazing a love that transforms.
A love with its distinct qualities, with a distinct flavour of the person from whom this love flows.
A love that brings freedom where any unrest once existed.
I experience this love in my own relationships.
I trust slowly, I give of myself when I sense that it is safe to do so.
A love with its distinct qualities, with a distinct flavour of the person from whom this love flows.
A love that over time, completely alters the way we see the world, that compels us to integrate itself into our plans, into our desires, into our very being.
A love that brings freedom where any unrest once existed.
I experience this love in my own relationships.
I trust slowly, I give of myself when I sense that it is safe to do so.
More often I wish I could be like a child, without reserve or hesitation about asking a stranger what their name is.
Often through the rhythms of my life I see a restlessness.
"You have made us for yourself, O Lord, and our heart is restless until it rests in you."
That's what St. Augustine has written.
hello! I am twenty.
Hooray for being able to have the number 2 in my age for the next ten years or so.
it's fun to be celebrated, just my presence and being alive.
so, I am writing in here in my blog, in the library at school, but I should be playing piano.
this next month and a bit are going to be so busy with school that it's crazy. I'm not even the busiest person I know. my friend is doing a triple major, all in 4 years.
I just really love peace and quiet, solitude, too. I love having time to read and play guitar and go on walks and have long conversations and stuff.
I've been getting in pretty grumpy moods lately, partially due to my busy-ness.
It literally just occurred to me that I can be either a) busy and stressed-out, or I can be b) busy and happy. I choose b).
I was walking down the hill, thinking stressed-out things, and I decided to just stop thinking them. It's interesting how much choice we have with our thoughts.
there is something that I'm super excited about that I want to share on here for everyone to see, but that'll have to wait.
this is my hundredth post!
kick-ass!
Hooray for being able to have the number 2 in my age for the next ten years or so.
it's fun to be celebrated, just my presence and being alive.
so, I am writing in here in my blog, in the library at school, but I should be playing piano.
this next month and a bit are going to be so busy with school that it's crazy. I'm not even the busiest person I know. my friend is doing a triple major, all in 4 years.
I just really love peace and quiet, solitude, too. I love having time to read and play guitar and go on walks and have long conversations and stuff.
I've been getting in pretty grumpy moods lately, partially due to my busy-ness.
It literally just occurred to me that I can be either a) busy and stressed-out, or I can be b) busy and happy. I choose b).
I was walking down the hill, thinking stressed-out things, and I decided to just stop thinking them. It's interesting how much choice we have with our thoughts.
there is something that I'm super excited about that I want to share on here for everyone to see, but that'll have to wait.
this is my hundredth post!
kick-ass!
amarillo
so, it's been known for centuries that autumn, particularly in southern Ontario Great Lakes area, is a beautiful time of year.
I am just discovering this again.
I had a nap here the other day, it was nice.
I love the vibrant colours best.
I am just discovering this again.
I had a nap here the other day, it was nice.
yes.
I love the vibrant colours best.
Look at the shadows on the leaves!
I love those moments where it's both sunny and cloudy outside.
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