childhood imaginations

there is a new documentary on cassettes coming out in the future. yay! it’s BACK!

someone from kickstarter is raising money for it and, as i was watching it, it took me back to the time when my brother and i would record hilarious “episodes” of courtroom dramas. i don’t know if he remembers any of this, but once i found this elusive tape and listened to it again sometime during high school. our voices were sOOoo cute and so childish, i think we were between the ages of 7 and 9? 10? and, apparently, totally into tv court dramas. judge wapner…. yes, the same one referred to in Rain Man the movie. we would go back and forth being judge wapner and use different voices for the defendant and the plaintiff roles. and the most funny part? we added commercials breaks! — one being the Crest toothpaste commercial, creating siren sound effects shouting into the recorder, mimicking the Cavity Creeps, “We make holes in teeth! We make holes in teeth!”

ahhh…. those were the days.

kids are pretty ingenious. it only takes a lazy summer afternoon (unsupervised minors — our mom wasn’t too big on daycare or babysitters, im guessing), a tape recorder, and a cassette tape (blank tape, optional). limitlessness possibilities, i tell you!! kids are the most creative people i know…. UH-mazing.

i don’t know where that cassette tape is now, but i’m sure if i dig around long enough among our mom’s collection of classical music, im sure to find it sooner or later. hopefully, she didn’t throw it out. i know it’s in one of her classical ones because, she casually played it one day and mid-way through the symphonic chorus our voices blared from the speakers! oops…. oh thaaaaat’s where that went. hee_hee

although worth nothing to anyone else in the world, it’s worth more than gold to me.

someone like you by walk off the earth + sarah blackwood

can’t stop listening to this….

[sheepishly] i think it’s better than adele…. yeah, i said it.

a happy new year

Came across an article while reading the hundreds of blogs i’ve subscribed to over the years. although, targeted to those in their mid-twenties, i felt that it was definitely for those of us in our 30′s as well, and maybe even beyond….

This is the thing: When you hit 28 or 30, everything begins to divide. You can see very clearly two kinds of people. On one side, people who have used their 20s to learn and grow, to find God and themselves and their dreams, people who know what works and what doesn’t, who have pushed through to become real live adults. Then there’s the other kind, who are hanging onto college, or high school even, with all their might. They’ve stayed in jobs they hate, because they’re too scared to get another one. They’ve stayed with men or women who are good but not great, because they don’t want to be lonely. They mean to find a church, they mean to develop intimate friendships, they mean to stop drinking like life is one big frat party. But they don’t do those things, so they live in an extended adolescence, no closer to adulthood than when they graduated.

Don’t be like that. Don’t get stuck. Move, travel, take a class, take a risk. There is a season for wildness and a season for settledness, and this is neither. This season is about becoming. Don’t lose yourself at happy hour, but don’t lose yourself on the corporate ladder either. Stop every once in a while and go out to coffee or climb in bed with your journal.

Ask yourself some good questions like: “Am I proud of the life I’m living? What have I tried this month? What have I learned about God this year? What parts of my childhood faith am I leaving behind, and what parts am I choosing to keep? Do the people I’m spending time with give me life, or make me feel small? Is there any brokenness in my life that’s keeping me from moving forward?”

Now is your time. Walk closely with people you love, and with people who believe God is good and life is a grand adventure. Don’t get stuck in the past, and don’t try to fast-forward yourself into a future you haven’t yet earned. Give today all the love and intensity and courage you can, and keep traveling honestly along life’s path.

[article via relevantmagazine.com]

i’ve found the cliche “age is but a number” is very true.

i think so, too

I’d love for us as an industry to be more tolerant, to encourage others and get rid of that underlying tone, that has crept in recently, of one-upmanship. I don’t expect everyone to get on, or even share the same opinion, but before making a snarky comment, ask yourself what real value it’s adding to the community? Personally, snarky comments on twitter remind me of one of a saying…

“Rudeness is the weak person’s imitation of strength”.

-via “Do Unto Others..”

White Apple – Blind Pilots

*new love! yes, another one.

the lyrics are thought provoking. made me wonder about the significance of the garden of eden and the loss of innocence in the song, white apple. sort of like a coming of age song, i think. maybe? i could be wrong, but still, makes me wonder! i tend to be drawn towards the melancholy songs, this one is no exception.

(my video is too big of a file to post here. darn. npr has better music and videos anyway. or myspace.)

In shadow
In dark
In cold wind
Open up your heart
This time brushes
Your face
And one loved then
Every new shape
One loved then
Form what could
Not get left behind
And washed away
Some were seasons
Some just days
I’m bringing nothing with me I mean to save
The feigned sweetness
This wick of light
This white apple
Full of bite
White apple
Full of what
Has slipped away from me
Full of flesh
Sweet as memory
Full of hope
Grown from a fallen tree
Full of life
I can’t just let myself believe
So if I haunt you
If I do
If my shadow
Leans up on you too
No good intentions
No ways I talk
Just leave the light lit for you to walk
I leave the light lit for you to walk

[via MetroLyrics.com]

really? “nerd” boyfriend?

via nerdboyfriend.com

 

via nerdboyfriend.com

 

aren’t these pictures great? goonies made me smile. and rushmore, classic!

if these are “nerds,” i guess i <3 nerds.

[btw, the only girl nerd on the sister webpage was rita radner. yup, she's pretty awesome in my book, too!!]

 

today’s lesson

been teaching mini mosaic at church for about a year now. i have the cutest 4-year olds ever! heehee  although i’ve been moved up to Kindergarten, i’m so excited to learn what my former students have been up to these past months. last night i made cake pops with a few girls from the high school i work at, and will be distributing them today to the kiddies. thank goodness that today’s lesson is on giving…. in particular, giving generously. love it.

this month’s lesson is soOOoo good, i thought i’d share this little tidbit this morning….

So many times we think that our ability to be generous is connected to our riches. We are afraid to give because we don’t know if we have enough, and we  think generosity is for those who have more than we do to give. But the cool thing about generosity is that we’re not generous because we are rich, we are rich because we are generous. When we choose to give generously to others, we are blessed with everything that really matters in life.
This month, let’s think about how:
(1) We can show generosity because of what God has done.
(2) God instills generosity in us as we respond to His goodness.
(3) God uses generosity in us to influence our families, friends, and neighbors.
Remember: A virtue is something God does in us to change the world around us.

the good times

via photobooth

things i don’t quite understand

11/11/11

calories = fat

why not camping in the rain?

The lure of the Twlight series.

Pink’s lyrics: “They don’t like my jeans, they don’t get my hair.”

Lindsay Lohan’s community time at the LA County morgue. [refer to picture below]

Today’s Daily Enneagram: “How can you fully experience your Presence here and now? Observe the many thoughts that pass through your awareness without becoming attached to any of them.”

 

the world is your oyster

“Creativity is just connecting things. When you ask creative people how they did something, they feel a little guilty because they didn’t really do it, they just saw something. It seemed obvious to them after a while. That’s because they were able to connect experiences they’ve had and synthesize new things. And the reason they were able to do that was that they’ve had more experiences or they have thought more about their experiences than other people. Unfortunately, that’s too rare a commodity. A lot of people in our industry haven’t had very diverse experiences. So they don’t have enough dots to connect, and they end up with very linear solutions without a broad perspective on the problem. The broader one’s understanding of the human experience, the better design we will have.” – Steve Jobs, Wired, February, 1995

this reminded me of so many things…. the book of ecclesiastes, mostly. something about “nothing new under the sun….” bit. it’s a curious thing, you know. creativity. i don’t really remember creativity being of great value growing up. asian parents encourages the stable, the secure, the cold-hard mathematical facts. this is in no way disrespecting them, just something i’ve found consistently true. at least in my circle. although, i have also found this to be true of any child of immigrant parent families. which, actually, makes a whole lot of sense.

anyway…. as i was saying. i believe what jobs said is true. really, what are we but a collection of experiences. we are unique because of our experiences. i don’t mean our intrinsic God-given value, but the things that distinguishes us from each other. to put it simply, we can go to a library or a bookstore and find a plethora of books about our physiology and psychology and for the most part, the descriptions will describe us very well. there is a common thread in being human. that’s why psychology is so interesting. human behavior is nothing new, and because it’s history can be traced back to the beginning of time, we can pretty much predict certain things about each other and it will be true. so then what? where is the uniqueness? i believe it’s in our experiences.

i’m more pragmatic than i’m willing to admit, but really, it’s so easy to widen our world of experiences. i’ll list a few: visit a new town in your city. try a new ethnic restaurant. learn how to say one word in 5 languages. learn a to cross-stitch. plant a small garden. audition to be an extra. enter in a contest. listen to a new genre of music; muzak, hard metal, jpop, etc….. see where these things lead you. there’s always something to be gain from any experience. one disclaimer though, i don’t know why it is, but there’s something far more valuable in doing your best, than mediocre. i think i’ve learn this the hard way. success or failure, it doesn’t seem to matter, but strive for success.

i’ve always been fascinated by other peoples’ obsessions. why do they love ___________ so much? what is it that makes it so great and wonderful to them? oh, im not talking about the bandwagoners, as i’ve also been guilty of, or fads. i mean, those people who are genuinely into whatever they are into. those people intrigue me. for better or for worse, i want to know what makes them tick.