house parable revisited

I'm not saying this is necessarily the truth. But what if the house has a built in security system, so in a sense, its not that I disable it, its that I choose not to hear the alarms. It puts a lot more responsibility on me. If robbers steal everything and burn the house, its my own darn fault. I guess it was that way to begin with, but wording it this way seems like a much stronger way of putting it. I don't know if I like that or not.

parable with a question

So... let's say that you have this house... its a fairly expensive house, perhaps a townhouse in NYC. You bought it as a fixer-upper, but now that you're done fixer-upper-ing, you are proud of how your work turned out, and know that the house has drastically gone up in value, and you have belongings that are not incredibly expensive, but still worth a bit. One day, someone offers you the chance of a lifetime to have something you've been wishing for and thinking about and dreaming about for a long time. I don't know what it is, you can come up with something, as long as your heart skips a beat when you think about it. But the catch is, you can't have this thing unless you disable the security alarm for a week. You think, "well, I've never had a break-in before." But then you think about that one night, when you fell asleep without setting the alarm and then woke up in the middle of the night hearing noises. You contemplated getting up to check the alarm but never did. No one broke in, but in the morning you thought about how maybe it was silly not to check the alarm. This is NYC after all. And it is your house, the one you put so much sweat and tears into fixing up. So, what do you do? Do you get the thing you've been longing for and risk losing your house? Or do you play it safe and keep on dreaming and longing, knowing you might not get the chance again? (I say might, because its still possible for the chance to come again, but not predictable that it will.)

thought provoking

So, I was talking to someone online, about the Dalai Lama, and how he seems to be a very holy and wise person. This phrase was used: "to really be Holy, there's something more that most people don't have... or can't attain." And I got to thinking about holiness. And what exactly is holiness, and why can't people attain it, when other people like the Dalai Lama or Mother Teresa can. So, my friend Merriam W. said this:

1) exalted or worthy of complete devotion as one perfect in goodness and righteousness 2) divine 3) devoted entirely to the deity or the work of the deity 4) having a divine quality

So, based on the first two definitions, I guess holiness is unattainable, since I am neither perfect nor divine, and by the same token, the Dalai Lama isn't either, because he's still an imperfect human too. But then I started thinking, and digging deeper, and I came across this:

1 Peter, chapter 2, verses 7- 10

7 Now to you who believe, this stone is precious. But to those who do not believe, "The stone the builders rejected has become the capstone," 8 and, "A stone that causes men to stumble and a rock that makes them fall." They stumble because they disobey the message—which is also what they were destined for. 9 But you are a chosen people, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people belonging to God, that you may declare the praises of him who called you out of darkness into his wonderful light. 10 Once you were not a people, but now you are the people of God; once you had not received mercy, but now you have received mercy.

And I latched onto the part about the holy nation. Because that means that people CAN be holy. But I kept digging. And I found out how and why:

Hebrews, chapter 10, verses 5- 14

5 Therefore, when Christ came into the world, he said: "Sacrifice and offering You did not desire, but a body You prepared for me; 6 with burnt offerings and sin offerings You were not pleased. 7 Then I said, 'Here I am—it is written about me in the scroll— I have come to do Your will, O God.' " 8 First he said, "Sacrifices and offerings, burnt offerings and sin offerings You did not desire, nor were You pleased with them" (although the law required them to be made). 9 Then he said, "Here I am, I have come to do Your will." He sets aside the first to establish the second. 10 And by that will, we have been made holy through the sacrifice of the body of Jesus Christ once for all. 11Day after day every priest stands and performs his religious duties; again and again he offers the same sacrifices, which can never take away sins. 12 But when this priest had offered for all time one sacrifice for sins, he sat down at the right hand of God. 13 Since that time he waits for his enemies to be made his footstool, 14 because by one sacrifice he has made perfect forever those who are being made holy

It was fascinating to me, because... well, I'd known it all my life, I was tested on it in grade school, I heard it so much that I sort of took it for granted. And now, when I started questioning it, I was hit in the face by its meaningful-ness. I guess you could say I've understood it all my life, but tonight, I understood it. I appreciate my religion that much more now. And that's the way a lot of my religion took root in me. I started questioning things, and no amount of explanation by anyone else could explain it. I had to figure it out for myself.

So... that's just something really cool that I stumbled across. Somehow, I feel like its buried treasure or something.

just a random thing

http://ushotstuff.com/Heat.Scale.htm

!

I've discovered a new happiness activity. Things like bobbing for apples, and trying to eat powdered donuts without inhaling the sugar and getting lung cancer are things that make me happy. I have a new one. Eat a pepperoncino (pickled hot peppers) and then follow it with one Hershey's kiss on each side of your mouth. That makes me happy.

Also naps make me happy. I was late to class this morning because I was up late last night. I gotta stop doing that. But if I don't, I won't have a need to take a nap. So maybe I shouldn't stop. I'm gonna go take a nap.

[edit: above, I don't mean to imply that getting lung cancer makes me happy. Eating donuts without inhaling the sugar prevents sugar-granule-induced-lung-cancer, or at least a painful experience. And trying to do that gives me this breathless feeling. And that makes me happy.]

[edit 2: Oberonious: Watching people take on silly dares to eat a habenero for 20 bux makes me happy.
Oberonious: :-D
arwenundomiel9: hehe sadist]

darling

Darling looks out on the world
From her perch on the second floor
She sees the past coming down the street
Knowing its the last thing she wants to meet

Darling doesn't know
What's knocking on her door
She has no idea
What on earth she's looking for

She hears the past barging in
Don't bother with formalities.
He'll get what he wants and he doesn't care
Take her, break her, leave her lying there.

Darling doesn't know
What's knocking on her door
She has no idea
What on earth she's looking for

Darling builds a wall around her heart,
Closes the door with a bang and starts
To cry and scratch and pound the wall
Knowing its her fault she can't get out at all.

Darling doesn't know
What's knocking on her door
She has no idea
What on earth she's looking for.

hiding

This is stupid.

I just tried to write a poem, but I'm out of practice now. I deleted it. Prose doesn't express me anymore. I tried to go back to poetry but that didn't work either. I need to find a new medium. Perhaps sitting under my tree at Passion Puddle is a good medium.

Anyway... Stuff's happening. And {certain group goes here} jump to conclusions about things, or otherwise act in ways that I figure they have good reason to act that way, but I had always hoped they wouldn't. And its not nice when people simply don't understand my reasoning and I feel incapable of explaining myself and my actions.

But other people understand. That's good. That's a really good comfort to me.

I went home this weekend. It was strange at first. I felt like a stranger in my room, and like any minute, the person who really lived there would come in and ask what I was doing in her bed. I realized as homesick as I can be for West Milford, my home right now is New Brunswick. And I was kind of sad and happy with that. Added sadness when I graduate and move back to West Milford. If that actually happens. I mean... I'm pretty sure I'll graduate. But maybe I'll move somewhere else. I don't know where I'm going. Or if I want to go. I'm glad I'm getting a degree in theater, but I don't think I really want to use it. I think I want to do something that comes naturally to me, like cooking or cleaning, or babysitting. Yeah, I don't particularly like babysitting because I'm not fond of kids, but they like me, and I won't show them I'm only tolerating it. Maybe I'll do that. Its what comes naturally. I don't have to work at it like I do with acting. Notice that's a lazy way of thinking. Maybe I'm just having a lazy day. Tomorrow I think I'll change my mind again.

I will say this... I'm pretty proud of myself that I started at Rutgers intending to do theater and have made it to my senior year at Rutgers, and will graduate as a theater major. Not to have changed my mind after almost four years is a big thing. Maybe I should find a way not to be such a butterfly.

Ok that's all. I'm gonna go shower off my jujitsu sweat and go to sleep.

jujitsu promotion

Just a note here to say congratulations to Steve, who tested last night for Yonkyu, a green belt. Good job; that color looks good on you! :-P

(For those of you who don't know... the colors are: white, blue with two stripes (my rank), blue with one stripe, green, brown with three stripes, brown with two, brown with one, 1st degree black, 2nd degree black, 3rd degree black, etc.)

That's sort of all i have to say right now. Its good to be back in the normal school jujitsu routine, instead of the summer schedule. It feels more natural. And I'm now in the intermediate class that's closed to white belts. How special do I feel? Hahaha.

I've decided I think my favorite part of jujitsu is promotions, seeing people move on to new levels. I think its cool because so often, I see people move on to new levels in other ways. Emotionally, spiritually or whatever, and that's exciting. So its neat to see a physical image of that. Kind of an object lesson. And I can't wait until I see a black belt promotion, 'cause from what I hear, its a little different from the others. So when I hear that people are about to test, its exciting.

Oh! And congratulations to Cyrus, who gave his thesis defense today. Its all behind you now, so you can breathe again! YAAAAYYY!

Ok, I'm gonna go do some things... bye!

she made me feel special...

This first part may be a little out of context, but this comment just came in:

"That's psychotic, Meghan, you're the bestest friend ever!"

So, while it DID make my day, I can't really explain to you why being a good friend and psychosis are together in the same sentence.

restless

I'm kinda tired... but I can't sleep. I don't want to. I want to stay up and think about things I shouldn't think about. I guess... its kind of... cause I'm a little bit bored. The classes I picked for this semester are great, but they don't require a whole lot of out-of-class work- at least not yet. So I sit around and think. And ordinarily that's good, but tonight its not. I guess I'll just go to bed, even though I don't want to.

change to my blog

If you've noticed, I've been getting splogged and blammed. (Blog spam!) So, I'm changing the format of my blog. Now, if you want to leave a comment you have to prove you are actually a functioning human being and will have to type the word that you see. Since automatic systems don't see things, they obviously can't pass the test. So if you are blind, sorry, you can't leave messages either. Although, how you manage to get a braille computer screen in the first place is beyond me. Sorry for the inconvenience.

forgot one thing

So, I wanted to say something with vindication in my voice. Last week, I really needed some mints. So, before class, I went to the vending machine and put in 60 cents, punched in the numbers, etc. The mints never came out, and my friend said something like it was not stocked correctly, so you have to watch for them and if it looks like its not stocked properly, don't put your money in because it won't come out. I asked my teacher who I should go to to get my money back, and she said some office on college ave, which is more effort than 60 cents is worth. She also said she wasn't going to stop me from giving it a good hard kick on the way out, which I seriously contemplated.

Then today, I was in the same building, in front of the same machine, so you'd think I would learn not to bother with those things. But I was looking at a key lime, white chocolate almond joy that looked sooo good. And it was close to the front, and looked like it was stocked properly (for all I know about these things) so I got out my 75 cents. And guess what happened? The stupid machine gave me TWO almond joys, which means I not only got my 60 cents back from the mints, but I essentially got 15 cents as well. So I decided I got my revenge on the machine-with-a-mind-of-its-own. And that's my triumphant story.

I'm sure you cared.

dance

Ok... this is going to sound strange to some of you who know me best. I'm a dancer. I love to dance, but I've never had any formal instruction, aside from a month or two with a couple of broadway dancers from my church. And now, my big revalation is this: I hate my dance class. Well, not hate exactly. But I really dislike it. The odd thing is, its not really going to be something I'm going to dread every week either. I'm just not into it for some reason, and I'm not going to look forward to it every week. Not only that, but if I were to stick through it for the exercise... well, I sweat more during jujitsu. And I stretch more during jujitsu. And I breath more in jujitsu. And my heart rate is higher in jujitsu. And... you get the idea. I'll give dance class one plus though... I can learn rhythm better in modern dance than in jujitsu. But when I dance, I've never had a problem with rhythm. Anything I learn about rhythm in this class, I probably won't apply to my dancing but to jujitsu, because that's where my rhythm is always a little off.

Anyway... its kind of a weird revelation that came to me today. And it confused me for a bit because I know how much I like dancing. But I'm guessing that because I've never had formal training, now that I'm getting some, I'm just not used to being unable to "do my own thing" independently. Oh well. I'm gonna stick with it... I could use the credits. If I'm grouchy Mondays or Wednesdays, its 'cause I got a work out without having fun.

So, having said that... I don't know what else to write about. There are a lot of things I could say, but I don't know if I want to. I'm enjoying life, but there are also things unexpectedly going wrong.

And I really want to go home. I miss my hometown and haven't been there for a lazy weekend since mid-May. I want a lazy weekend. I guess you could really say that now, in my 4th year of college, I'm starting to be homesick, something I haven't really experienced too much of.

So that's a genuine update... no wasting time on okcupid hahaha.

hrmmm

Ok so those OKCupid tests were pretty useless. But this one that I just took was actually fascinating. Its the Ghenis Khan Genetic Fitness Test. The introduction is really interesting, in my opinion.

http://www.okcupid.com/tests/take?testid=6936188936100731841

Paraphrased so you don't have to read it to understand, its all about how success at life on planet earth is all about propagating genetic traits, and by that standard Ghengis Khan is the most successful human. Then they test you to see your likelihood of living long enough (healthy, not smoking, etc), to have children, family history and fertility rates, etc. So my results?

273,290 descendants after 32 generations (which is the amount of generations Ghengis Kahn's family has had). I'm more genetically fit than 52% of the current population. Here's what they had to say:

"Not bad. You're no Mongol warlord, but to have that many copies of your genetic code running around 800 years from now is pretty impressive.

You're in the lower middle of the scoring spectrum, but, honestly, when you consider that the cheaters, swindlers, and football players of this world are statistically best-equipped to create children, scoring low is something to be proud of. As you'll see below, some of your lines will die out, but nonetheless your genetic material will thrive here on earth for a long time to come.

A close friend of mine created a program to generate family trees for this test. It's based on your unique answers. We accounted for sterility, birth rates, death rates, disease, drug abuse, nitwitism, and accidents and came up with this, for you:"

The family tree was interesting. It shows my three children will all make successful matches, but since it is only supposed to track by gender (ie: girls track matriarchal lines, guys patriarchal) one of my children's lines will end because they will have a male child, and another's lines will end in someone fitting the "sterile, malformed, incompetent, bungee-jumping, or otherwise genetically useless descendent" category. The third child has two kids, one of whom is also a bungee-jumper. After the third generation, the little people symbols get too small to really see, but I was counting, and I'm pretty sure the program accounted for all 273,290 of them. Hehehe. Anyway. I am done reporting on my descendents. Though... I kind of hope the world won't last for 32 more generations. Its going to pot already, I think it would be hell for the people alive 800 years from now. Anyway... maybe another interesting test is in order. I'll let you know.

whatever

Have you ever talked to a brick wall? Actually, sometimes its more like talking to a black hole. At least with a brick wall, there's some sort of echo. Some evidence that you are actually speaking, as proof to yourself that you said what you thought you said. Or sometimes its like a German going to an Italian opera. Non ho capito. Actually... come to think of it, when I was in kindergarten, my teacher would whisper "Jessica swung the bat at the ball" in someone's ear, and then that person would whisper in someone else's ear, and then when everyone had been whispered at, the last person would come up with something like "just string the cat up in the hall." And then the teacher would say, "I never said that!" And then all the kids would get a good laugh. That's kind of how it is now. Only no one's laughing. And I'm the teacher. And we're all playing kindergarten games. And growing up is too much work.

Ok so I got that off my chest. I don't know what it did yet. But its here for me and now I can come back and read it when I need to.

dancers who dance...

I'm thinking of a song. Actually a couple of songs.

I haven't been writing in this blog lately about God and what's happening between him and me. So... here goes. Lately, I've been seeking His guidance for a lot of things. I've been relying on Him to help me with decisions and always to remind me that He's there, to keep me in line. I've been getting closer to Him.

The next thing I have to say may or may not be controversial, but... I believe Satan hates that. I believe he's attacking some areas of my life, and trying to distract me from God. But God gave me people who will keep me on track, which is what happened tonight. We prayed together, and God came and watched over us while we prayed. And it was amazing. And I came to the realization that all the problems I've been having can be patched up, one by one. I decided I had a lot of emails to send to people. Then I came back from jujitsu, and I had an odd experience.

Well, one that made me remember some things that happened to me once. One that resembled a time in my life when I was under the most pressure from Satan. And I once again gave God the power, but I got angry, just like before. Fuming mad at Satan. And he's not a guy to pick a fight with. So I'm trying to cool down here.

I'm still going to go ahead and patch my problems up though. 'Cause its evident someone's trying to stop me. But God is now the owner of my problems and my progress. If Satan wants to sabotage that, its between him and God. I can't get involved in this, as much as I would like to. Cara's always telling me to grr in jujitsu. This is it. I'm grring now, only its not jujitsu, nor is it safe to to so.

Well then. That's it. I'm not afraid of threats. Fear gives a threatener power over me. I can't do that because God already has power over me.

And that's all I'm gonna say about that.

i'm back

Well hello. Its been a while because I went to Michigan to visit family and there's no internet... not to mention cell coverage either. There's nothing up there but a dirt road and a lake where I had lots of fun in the sun... err rain. Now that I'm well rested, school starts today haha.

I was supposed to have good dreams last night. I had a disturbing one. It involved violent animal experimentation, using a product to see how well they would heal from serious injury. I was disgusted. There was a dog with his belly slit, a man with his head chopped off, and a cat attacking a rabbit. The dog and rabbit healed just fine. But the man grew another head and the head grew another man. It was strange. Then I dreamed I finished writing my book, but there was one person I didn't want to read it, for spiteful reasons. And then someone who will remain unnamed came over to see me. And I treated them poorly, and they treated me poorly. And it was kind of like being awake because we normally don't treat each other very well. And the whole time, I felt really badly because it was worse treatment than I've ever given them in real life. We don't have a good relationship. And I went back and they were crying because they couldn't have what they wanted out of me. And I said, I don't regret our relationship, but... X... and they said, then I have to go. And I started running after them, saying, That's it? You're just going to walk away and I'll never see you again? And they said I have to. I said There's so much to talk about, and they said I can't. So I stopped running, and watched the person leave. And I didn't feel like crying because I'm done with tears for them. But my heart was tearing into shreds inside. And then I said one last thing, whispered, knowing they wouldn't hear me. And then I woke up.

This is all cryptic. I can't say who the person is, or what was said... Only what happened. So its not as strong emotionally as it was in my dream journal. But I had to share it because if you see me today and there is heart shrapnel coming from my chest, you will know why.

On a separate note, someone didn't do something for me, and then later they did, saying they felt badly about not doing it. Now I'm in their shoes, only things are slightly different and I want to do for them what they didn't do for me, but I don't think I have the guts to do it. And its going to bug me all day.

So if classes today are boring, I'll have a lot to think about.