Random x 3

Okay, so I've got a few things to say. One, I updated my quote blog with some random quotes that my friends said. It's hilarious. I haven't updated recently cuz of issues invovling my parents being nosy. Not fun. So now I have some things to say....:


1) During chapel a few days ago there was a fantasic metaphor that went unnoticed due to the fact that it was an "accident". You see, the dude who was talking to us made a little snowman out of clay and while he was talking about Creation and all that (we're going back to Genisis here, peeps) his little snowman (clayman?) fell over. DON'T YOU GUYS SEE WHAT THAT MEANS??? Okay, so I see it as we fall down all the time, and only the One who made us (God) can pick us back up because we CAN'T do that on our own. So I basically thought that it was mega-cool, but stupid that I was the only one who seemed to notice.


2) A few days ago at school we had a really good devotional, but (of course) i can't simply copy/paste it, so i'll just summerize. I guess it's on the same theme as the chapel thing was, it was about how God is a potter and turns us into beautiful teacups, but to do so He's gotta put us in the oven and it hurts at the time but is all worth it in the end when God can use us for all kinds of cool things. To go with that, here's a link to a song that's kinda about that, but not really. It's more about trusting God while He's working in us.

3) I saw a really cool video on the net a few days ago. I'd heard the story before through chain mail, but I think it's really cool (as in the REAL type of cool) so here's a link to that....Let's try to get it around!! I mean, really, if somethings this great, we can't just keep it to ourselves.


I guess that's it, for now. I wont get to update for a while, likely, so I guess that sucks.

Metaphore Updates

Everything I learned, I learned in Social Studies, or so I used to say. And you know what? It stands true. Well, kind of. I'm still learning from last year's Social Studies class. Okay, a long time ago before I deleted this blog, I said that my Social Studies teacher called the class homogenous (hahaha...people thought that he was calling us milk...good times, good times). As in we were all the same. But maybe he was looking at us without a microscope. Homogenous things can be either mixtures or pure substances. Maybe he was refering to us as a really well mixed mixture, as in we all look the same but really there are a lot of different particals in there. So now I'm trying to figure this out. But he said it like an insult, like he was pittying us. Wait a tick, if we're all the same, what the heck am I? A flick of dirt that got in with it? Doesn't that mean that eventually an outside force will try to take me out of the mixture? Throw me on the ground? Or is this like a kool-aide mix and I'm a chunk of undiluted powder that's eventually gonna get mixed in? Sure, let's go with that. So I'm a piece of undiluted kool-aide powder. Great. My friends are too and so maybe we're clumping together so that it's less likely for us to get into the mix with everyone....but the parts that joined last on the outside are the ones that are gonna come off first....the ones who'll be first to join the mixture....guess who joined my group of friends last? Yeps, that would be me. Which means that if any of us are gonna get pulled into the mixture, I'm gonna be first. Fun, eh? Okay, now onto an equally depressing metaphore.

Remember the whole thing with the quotation marks? Well, my english teacher was talking about quotation marks and she mentioned this book. A book that didn't use quotation marks, but because of that it all ended up feeling more real. See where this is going? If everyone weren't such quotation marks of imitation, then maybe we'd all feel more real. Nice thought, eh? Too bad it's highly unlikely. Which is what makes it depressing. Aren't I just being so happy today.

Okay, so those are my updated metaphores. Also, I can't update much cuz my parents found out about my blog so I've gotta keep it a secret adress while I can....Okay, I should go now...

One of Those Days

So, today I had one of those days. You know, one of those days when you wake up then go right back to sleep not wanting to face the world. Then you wake up again, twice as tired, knowing that you have to wake up cuz it's only thuresday. With that sad realization you go out of bed, then nearly barf at the smell of breakfast because the idea of eating is just that discusting. Then you end up being forced by your mother to eat breakfast even though you tell her that you're not feeling well. At that, she gives you a pill, which you nearly choke on, then you go to school not bothering to brush your hair. When you get to school, your friend greets you and starts babbling about something to do with Mayan hiroglyphs. You go to your first class, science, and sadly realise that you cannot sleep through it because you are doing an experiment. At this, you begin to babble about giant magnets. Then, when the teacher says that your idea having to do with the giant magnets is really great (your group didn't listen to you) you get to tell them "I told you so" but still feel slightly angry because they didn't listen to you the first time. Just then, the bell rings and you go to your next class, french, which you dispise. When you get there, you realise something....that you have a test that day. Which you didn't study for. And that you spent the past few classes reading a book so you're slightly behind and don't know what the test is on. So, you take the test, screwing it up really badly, then spent the rest of the class reading while you slowly realise that you didn't do your social studies homework and that you have that class BEFORE lunch so you can't do it then. So, you do the homework during french class, and luckily finish in time. From there, you proceed to go to gym class where you end up playing volleyball which you incidently suck at and you accidently run into the net, and get hit in the head multiple times with the ball. So after that, you go to social studies where you realise that you didn't in fact, have to do that homework that you worked so hard to finish during french class when you could of been napping/reading. You spend the entire class basically sleeping with your eyes open while the class goes over the test that you failed. Then the bell rings and you go to lunch, during which your friends make you eat even though you really don't want to due to the amount of tired that you are. Then you have math, which you read through because it's just that easy. You get some homework, but let's ignore that fact because it's just homework. Then you have a spare. A wonderful, glorious spare, which you spend with your friends debating human stupidity as always. After that, you go to english class, which is thankfully a reading class, then the teacher asks you to tell her about the book that you recently read and you have to tell her about the book so that she'll give you marks for reading it. Then class is over and you get to go home. So, you make your wall through the jungle of idiots to your locker, trying to ignore all the mean things that they're saying about you, and everything in your locker falls out right onto you. This takes a while to clean up, but eventually, you leave. Of course, you forget your clarinet which would have been nice to take home and practice, but you got out in one piece. You then hop into the car, realising (slowly) that your little brother is in the front seat and has control of the radio (NOOOOOOOO) and put on a bit of a show because of it. Of course, you are exceedingly tired and have no energy whatsoever to debate this. Luckily, you make a run for the computer and get it first (MUAHAHAHA) and you slowly wake up because you shove some chocolate chips into your mouth knowing that you shall regret it later.

That was my day. It sucked.

Real

I've had it. Try as I do, I just don't feel real. I am internally screaming in agony. How can I feel real? HOW???? I have read books, I've practically writen books, and I have thought about this topic day in a day out. HOW THE HECK AM I SUPPOSED TO FEEL REAL? Do you get it? I'm fake. There is no other option. Either your real or your fake. NO INBETWEEN. OR EVEN IF I WAS FAKE I WOULD BE MORE REAL THAN I AM NOW! See? I'm nothing. NOTHING. Sometimes I feel real, but only when I'm riding my bike in the rain or when I'm at the climax of a piece of music. I have to DO something to feel real. Which isn't fair. Or maybe, I'm real. Maybe, I'm just so real that I see the fake parts of me more clearly than most people would. Or do. People don't realise it when I lie. People don't realise it when I live a lie. People don't realise it when I'm acting. People don't realise it when I'm playing pretend. PEOPLE DON'T GET TO SEE ME, THEY JUST SEE SOME MASK! The sad part is, I don't know how to get rid of it. I don't know how to be myself. I can't be myself. It just doesn't work that way. It's like I'm watching some sort of reality show. There are people who are real, people who are acting, and people who are just watching it all happen. I'm one of those people watching it all happen. I don't even get to be FAKE! I'm just invisible. Does that mean that I should want to be fake? Is that how to be real? I used to be fake, but then I got all mega-obsessed with being real. I didn't realise what I was giving up. I didn't realise that fake was better than invisible. Or is it? Maybe it's more like nothing is worth being fake for. Not even feeling real. But I'm at the point where I would do anything to be real. I don't care if it involves a bit more acting. I don't care if I never end up real, I just don't wanna be invisible. DOESN'T ANYONE UNDERSTAND THAT? I don't care if I have to get hurt to feel real. I don't care if when I try being real I crash and burn. Cuz that way I'd of at least tried. So...what do I do?

Silence

I remember, last summer at band camp, the conductor was trying to explain something to us...an amazing something. She tried to explain silence. The fact is, we can never truely EVER experience silence on this earth. We can still hear the world around us, the lights buzzing above us, and even our own breathing. We will never experience silence, but we can come pretty close. At least, we can come close if we're comparing almost-silence to the world around us. I mean, we ALWAYS hear noise. We can't avoid a lot of it. The fact is, half the time we don't notice it. I mean, I'm one of those people who constantly has to listen to music. It's just how I work. But, today in chapel, we touched on this topic. We touched on the idea of silence. It was really ironic, how it happened. We started chapel with music, and halfway through the second song, I totally lost my voice. I mean, I've been kinda sick for a while, and today I was coughing a lot, but I didn't think that I was sick enough to lose my voice. But I did. Then, it turned out, the guest speeker who was gonna come, was sick, so they had gotten a video for us to watch. It was probably totally random, but I've got a youtube link to ithttp://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VzpF2aCZN-8
Anyways, we watched that and it was depressing. All through that video about silence, people were whispering, tapping their feet, doing ANYTHING to avoid silence. It's like people are afraid of it. Afraid of silence. It's weird, really, how people don't like silence. I like it, mostly because I greatly dislike noise. But here's what I think. I think that we don't need silence to experience it...I think that all it takes is the ability to block out the rest of the world, with something other than just a louder sound, like a mp3. Because you know what? If we want to hear God, we need silence. It's like in band class...our band teacher wont talk til everyone is quiet. God's like that, cuz He isn't gonna raise His voice, He's just gonna talk however loud He wants and it's our responsibility to be quiet enough to listen. So maybe we should try something....maybe we should try to be quiet...you know, like right before you wake up, how you are totally silent, not even thinking anything. Just a moment of real silence, is worth a day of noise.

History

No, I'm not gonna talk about history question...do you think I'm a nerd or something? I mean, we all know that I'm not only a nerd, I'm an oboe-savy-clarinet-aholic band nerd! Anyways, I actually have a quote...."History repeats itself" the quote is its own proof. I've heard that quote EVERYWHERE and its repeated. So yeah, stuff gets repeated, so why not history? The fact that we had a world war two is basically proof enough. But look at your daily schedule. It repeats itself. Its never exactly the same, but still repetitive. Which is what we're looking at. I don't know...I really don't think that there's much else to say on this topic, so I'll let all you non-existent readers figure out what it means for yourselves.

Transformation

Okay, as some of you may know, I go to a youth group. A couple weeks ago, we were talking about transformation, what it means to be transformed, how we can get transformed and the effort that that takes. To start this off, I'm gonna give you a definition for the word. I just looked it up in the dictionary and it sucked. So, as we all know, I'm gonna have to make one up.
Transformation means to change form.
Easy enough? Good, cuz my definition is way better than the complicated one in the dictionary. Anyways, can anyone guess what Bible verse(s) go with it? Come on, we all know where this is going...at least, if you know me, then you know where this is going. The leads to one of my favorite Bible verses, but also one of my least favorites. Of course, we often don't like things that we are afraid of. The power in this verse frightens me, cuz it's just that amazing. Its one of those verses that everyone knows, but that they so rarely look closesly enough at it. So....any guesses? Okay, I'll just tell you already. Romans 12:2 "2Do not conform any longer to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind. Then you will be able to test and approve what God's will is—his good, pleasing and perfect will." Yes, I know, I've practically stalked this quote, and now it's stalking me right back. I mean, seriously, what are the chances of it being mentioned in youth group on the FIRST DAY? I mean, it's not sky-high, it's like....grass high. I mean, there's a chance, but I honestly didn't expect it. So, of course, we started thinking about what transformation means. I guess we can go with a fairly common metaphore, and say that it's like a caterpiller turning into a butterfly...wait a second, I'm sure I can come up with something more original...Okay, so it's like when your learning a song for band class. At first, it kinda sucks...actually, it really sucks, cuz unless you're some sort of super-sightreader, it's gonna sound worse than crap the first time 'round. So that's how we start. Now, we can do this one of two ways. We could start by working on little bits and pieces of the song and keep moving forward from there, or we could try to change it all at once. It's fairly obvious what we do. We have to work on it chunk by chunk til at least part of it doesn't sound like an ugly, dying squirrel that was put in a toaster to burn to it's doom. Actually, we try to get the song to the point where people might actually like listening to it. So that's like transformation. If we want to transform our lives like it says in the Bible, it says "renewing of your mind"...now comes the question: "WHAT DOES THAT MEAN?" It says we've gotta let God make the change by changing the way we think. Which implies that we change the way that we think of the world around us. But we can't do that all at once, we can't just wake up one day and have that be reality. We have to pick a certain aspect of our lives, work at that a while, then keep moving to the rest of our lives til it's not half bad. But we can't do this alone. We need help. We need God to help us cuz God is like this teacher/instructor/conductor or whatever you wanna think of Him as. Like, we could learn the song on our own, but then we need someone to line up the performance...we have to have a reason to learn the song, so God's the dude who makes that happen. I mean, someone's gotta line up a gig. He tells us when we should use our transformed life to help others. He places us in situations where we are needed. So, I guess that's what transformation means...I guess that's how we apply it...I guess that's why we need it. I mean, do you wanna keep playing that squirel-in-the-toaster song? Ummm...no. Cuz nobody wants to hear that and nobody wants to put up with that noise. That's why we need to transform...cuz otherwise, our lives suck. Maybe not suck bad, but they could be better. I mean, if all the squirel ever knows is the misery of the dreaded toaster, how should he know that a couple shelves over, there's a window where he can get outside and live his happy little squirel life in a tree? So, that's basically why we need to allow God to work in us and transform us. Cuz transformation isn't just a word, it's the way to life.