Look at Me

Close your eyes that I may
glue them shut with my fingertips
To blind you from my blood
as I am blind to yours
Listen to my voice
Let me speak for the first time
as a woman
and you a man
Allow me to become
a life size model of your childhood dream
breathing under your hands
as you feel your way into sight
Let us play like we used to play
Let us laugh like we used to laugh
Before age clawed into our skin
and demanded of us rationality
Then perhaps your blindness will keep
me from fading into familiarity
and I will stop being afraid
But until then, my love will lie in secret
within the tip of each of my fingers
and I will wait
until you can tell me the reason
why we ever should have met at all

Bless you!

(from Friday, May 26)
Here are some of the happy highlights of my week:
I went to New Jersey to visit my brother and sister-in-law for a whole weekend.
I received the first season of House M.D. in the mail while we were there (we had it shipped to my brother's place), and we payed less for it than anywhere else I had seen.
I watched two episodes of the first season of House and one episode of Firefly. All three were excellent.
I reveled in the joys of my youth by watching Victor Borge and enjoyed the satisfaction of getting more jokes than I did when I was a child.
Along with House, I purchased a CD by Caroline Lavelle that I've wanted to own for a long while now, for the lovely price of 5 dollars.
I smiled and laughed every day this week.
My sister and I spent Tuesday evening with our friend Nathaniel at our weekly movie night -- we watched Short Circuit, Hoodwinked, and Dummy. They were all funny.
The season finale of House for season two was FAN-FLIPPIN-TASTIC, confirming its position as my new favourite show on TV right now (tied with Law and Order SVU of course).
I got to enjoy the fun feature that is speaker-phone, and by doing so, I could talk to both my friends Sam and Amy at once. I think that was my first time being a speaker-phoner (the person calling that gets turned to speaker-phone), rather than a speaker-phonee (those multiple people on the other end that can all talk to the one person calling). An interesting experience.
I finished a level five Sudoku.. the highest and hardest level of Sudokus. Go me.
I went out for coffee with one of my best friends, Jenna, whom I haven't seen for a couple of months. She came home for the summer instead of staying in Chicago, which is awesome.
I finally started the hefty project of redoing my room -- so far this week my one wall that used to be covered in the Winnie the Pooh has been converted to a wall of Lord of the Rings. Going into my room makes me happy.
I found Firefly for $24.99 and bought it without thinking twice (I now own House and Firefly... Eeek!)
My cousins are coming this weekend from South Dakota. I haven't seen them in almost a year.
I just found out that I got a 35 cent raise from last summer.
My work week consisted of four days, not five, and my weekend starts in an hour and a half!

(i don't like the summer)

why is it that i feel so restless... so... ? when i'm busy, i want nothing but to be still ...
when i'm still, i feel empty, needing to do. needing to... my brain feels restless... and yet apathetic.
i want to put my hands to something and feel in my being that it means something.
i want to flee from monotony.
i want to stop trying to chase down the meaning of life in every movie i see.
i want to stop living my head.
i want to commit to something instead of wondering from half-started project to half-started project.
i want to feel too much.
i want to stop feeling.
i want to quit desiring to be nothing more than a human.
i want to gain momentum so every new step won't feel like the first one.
i want to be a friend.
i want to stop eating so much just because i'm bored.
i want my clothes to be made for me.
i want my body to be made for me.
i want to know that i can love -- not just some teenage angst cliche.
i want to know that someone can swear and still be a good person.
i want to never swear at all.
i want to feel satisfied.
i want...

see you in hollywood baby

I would like a librarian to help me find a book when I can't find what I'm looking for. This is what they are hired for, no? That would put a smile on my face. Granted, I am done exams, and I was looking for Harry Potter, not some "The Criticism of the Dualist Hierarchy of Humoural Physiology" (and that's not totally made up.. I did my Reformational Theology paper on that stuff -- got an A too. woot), but I am a paying student of the school and when I come up to the front desk and tell her that the computer says that Harry Potter is available, but the shelf says that it is not, it would kind of her not to say "I'm sorry, but I can't help you." This would be nice. Rather, I would like for her to find the book for me (because she is the librarian and therefore has knowledge of the whereabouts of every book in the school's possession -- this is her specialty) so then I could be reading Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire right now. And not be writing this blog. sigh.
In other news.... I am going to HOLLYWOOD!!!! City of sin and indecency, where evil walks the streets. Oh yes... August 19 I embark on what will hopefully be one exciting semester. I am taking a semester at Los Angeles Film Studies Centre .. to study film and work in the film industry. I know that I have been talking about this for a while, but I found out on monday that I have been officially accepted into the program and I know for certain that I am going. I just have to let them know that yet. :S That would be good.
My sister has decided that if she opens up a coffee shop, she's going to call it Carpe Latte -- Seize the Coffee. I think this is hIlarious.
So I am done another year at Redeemer. Hokey toot it goes fast. I finished up my last exam yesterday morning and then spent the day eating quizno's and lying in the sun, solving sudokus. Man those things are addicting. I used to think that those things were over the top for me... but I recently found out that they are not. Too bad they're trendy now. That sours the experience a little. But not enough. Man I feel smart when I finish one!
(Secretly I think that I have quite a bit of left brain power and it takes over some of the time. This makes me nervous)
Also, Gregory House makes me laugh. He has got to be one of the most cynical yet lovable characters on television. He is so funny.
Now with exams done, I have so much free time I've been doing all kinds of great things --- I'm still working at the school which is why I'm not home yet, but I've been watching movies (go figure --- really!??!) and recycling school notes, watching friends play baseball, walking and talking, listening to the Spice Girls (and getting lots of weird looks.. I love it) and I think now, before I head off to bed, I'm going to do a little light reading. Oh man, I've been waiting all semester to do that. Hmmm.... what shall I read!?!?!??! I love that that is what is pressing right now. Not school. Oh yeah. Not school...... sigh. I'll miss it soon enough.

ps. rent Everything is Illuminated. It's a premium movie.

when bunnies just don't want to live anymore...

oh how these suicidal bunnies make me laugh.

SICK OF PAPERS. WANT TO WATCH MOVIES.

Funny enough, in the last two weeks the ratio of papers to movies has been 3 to 5. Well, okay, one doesn't really count because I watched it for a paper. All movies were excellent uses of my time too, which makes me even more happy. Nothing worse than sitting down to watch a movie when you should be working on a paper and then the movie sucks. Recent watches: The Hours (for the paper), Edward Scissorhands (oh Tim Burton), Everything is Illuminated (hilarious movie.. Elijah Wood is so enjoyable) and Chelsea Walls (an arts movie directed by Ethan Hawke... crazy movie -- I loved it), and The Man (watched this one with the fam... it had some really funny moments.. Eugene Levy is down right funny). Recent papers: a one act play for playwriting (I wrote it based on a short story that I wrote for my creative writing class -- turned out decent enough), a paper comparing the social criticism of Mrs. Dalloway and The Hours (I wrote that one in 24 hours... 3500 words.. 1000 words over the minimum oops), and a paper on the destruction of hierarcy in CS Lewis' That Hideous Strength.... any one bored to tears yet?
Well, the last one isn't done yet. Could only go home for one day for Easter becuase I have this essay due on Wednesday, and I have exams Tuesday through Thursday.. then, thankfully, I'm done. But heaven help me get through these next few days. Oh school.
Cheers

One more week.....

man, being busy and stressed is entirely overrated. I mean, it's great working keeps me occupied and far from bored. But honestly, enough with the school already. Well, okay, that's not true. As soon as I'm done and have been out for a couple of weeks I know I am going to despirately miss being intellectually stimulated.. but for the moment, I need sleep.
On a wonderfully happy note, I just discovered the beauty and talent that is Virginia Woolf. I have finished reading Mrs. Dalloway, and I am so enthralled and captivated by this book! Her style is just so melodious and under the surface... it was almost addicting. I mean it was so tiring to read and you can get so overwhelmed with thought and style, but then when you put it down and it just simmers in your brain, it really is moving. I am writing my second last essay on it, comparing it to the movie "the Hours" ... which I recently rewatched (makes sense.. since I'm writing a paper on it..) and developed a new appreciation for the movie. So much culture. So much fun.
One more week of papers and exams. And then I'm done. And the fun can begin.

smile

Google books is an wonderful thing. It allows me to look through books online and then use them (and reference them of course), without ever leaving the comfort of my own home. Of course, this is only useful for research books. But it's that time of year and so I am entirely thankful for google books.
Also, if I could find time to sleep any time soon, that would be nice. I'm sure my body would enjoy being healthy again. I think it's forgotten what that's like.
I got a purse made out of delMonte drink boxes for my birthday. It is entirely COOL. I like looking at it while it sits by my desk.

cheers

Toot toot. Happy birthday to me.
I know he's excited about it.

papers are no good

I want to procrastinate. Bah. No good.

NZRizing

So my short reign as Nezzar is over. Time for blogging... :)
I'm currently sitting at my home home, I'm listening to Madagascar soundtrack (I like to move it move it .. oh yeah) and get crap pounded out of my back by my sister --- ah yes, this is the life.
Yep, so now that the play is over, apparently my life is supposed to turn back to some sort of normalcy. Ha, that's a good one. Say goodbye to the play, and say hello an abundance of papers and reading. :) Yeah for also being an english honours major.
The play went really well which was a huge blessing from God. It was richly rewarding to find that the school accepted and applauded our work so profoundly. I mean, I think the work would have been rewarding either way, but it could have been more frustrating had the school body not understood the work we did. But God finally showed me my purpose in choosing the mainstage over the independant .... I mean, I knew I was supposed to do the mainstage and that I made the right choice to work with Tom and the cast, but it was hard when all the rest of my friends were working on a very comical fun show together and I couldn't be apart of that... and I could have, had I just told them that I would. I often times felt a little punished for making the right decision. But this week, I felt happier about the show than I ever have before. It was an amazing run and I won't forget it for a long time. God is truly good. I just need to trust Him a little more. :)
Anyways, I have to get ready to go to church-in-the-box. Oh yeah, I sent out my application for LA film school. So now I get to experience the joy of waiting, and waiting.....woot.
Cheers.

awww

I enjoy being their aunt.

(photographed by brother Steve.. :P)

tee hee

How I love Lord of the Rings humour.
So cheesy. But so enjoyable.

My life today

Lord of the Rings -- you make me happy and rather emotional.
Rehearsal -- you make me very tired.
Reformational Theology -- you make me want to roll over and die.

yummm....... food and phlegm

I love family. I just spent less than a day with my family and even though the time was short... it was great. It was my neice's baptism today so I went home last night and hung out with my family doing very little other than sitting and talking ... but I loved every minute of it. My brother was up from Jersey so that was great. It's always fun seeing him and wowing over all his toys... UNBELIEVABLE some of the stuff that he has (you should see his car... handydandy features on that thing). The baptism was very nice.... and the party afterwards was also lots of fun, if a little... shall we say.. chaotic. This is what happens when you brother-in-law's family has 10 little kids running around! :) But they were cute. It was nice to just hang out with family members.. takes the stress off of school.
And now I've been coarsed into watching the Superbowl. Let me tell you what game I care about least..... FOOTBALL. Let me tell you what I actually should be working on: HOMEWORK. Will I be able to do both??? No. Will I enjoy the food? YES. Oh yes. And the company. Of course the company.
I also got blessed with a cold this morning. I'm kind of glad because I've been feeling kind of gross for a little bit... but it's never become a full-fledged cold. And now it is. Let the people rejoice.
Well, I guess that's it for now. I get to go get my ears blasted off by surround sound... of football. Oh my life is so good.

Mouse Trap

Last night I got to witness the marriage of two people who have shown me what true love can really be like. Of course, I get this example from all of my older siblings, but I had yet to watch it bloom in any of my friends from Redeemer. I am very cynical when it comes to romantic love due to the terrible influence of chick flicks and our hollywoodized culture, but when I watch my friends Tasha and Danny, it gives me hope that there is such a thing as true love and that young people of our generation can still find it. Their wedding (which took place last night) was beautiful and in just being there, you couldn't help but be filled with joy for these two people and for the love that they shared. I was so happy to see two people that I admire, respect, and love get married. I also spent the evening talking to people who I hadn't seen in quite some time (for some it'd been 2 years!) so it was really great to catch up with familar faces.
And now on the completely opposite side of things, I am the newly designated #1 Mouse Catcher of the dorm!!!! Gold star for Stephanie! Okay, I kind of designated that title to myself but I did in fact catch a mouse! For a couple weeks now, our house has had the joy of entertaining another dormate.. Sir Thomas the mouse. Myself and my roomate Amy were the only ones who didn't really care about the new addition to our family... everyone else in the dorm was freaked out. We had tried to catch it a number of times, but he was soo tiny that he could hide virtually anywhere, and, well, our rooms aren't very tidy. But then Sir Thomas made the mistake of entering our (mine and Amy's) room.. I guess he thought that since we didn't really care about the thing our room would be rather safe. But he didn't count on the fact that I would be in there with nothing better to do then to hunt this thing down until he was trapped and then catch him. Because while I didn't really care about him, I also wasn't scared of him.. and I didn't want him making himself too comfortable. So that's what I did... I closed off the exit from the room, shooed him into the closet, blocked off his exit from there and trapped him! Of course the whole operation was a bit more complicated and time consuming.... but I caught Sir Thomas! We made a video of him, and then we let him go outside.. a good block away from our house. We spent the whole evening in celebration until about 2 in the morning.... when I then saw Sir Richard. And the fun continues..... anybody know how to set mouse traps?

Procrastination in my fingers

My ears are having a wonderful time slowly losing their hearing capabilities due to the fact that my roomate and I both need music on when we do work. Since neither of us enjoy warring music (we try to employ a peace-love mentality in our humble room), one of us has to give in and wear headphones. And now my ears get to be blasted by the melodic voice of Aqualung in order to drown out her music (which I can still hear through my headphones). mucho fabuloso.
So while this is going on, I am struggling to put my thoughts on paper about the differences between the book and the movie of Fellowship of the Ring by J.R.R. Tolkien. Not only is this a hard enough task on it's own (oh you think it's easy until you actually sit down and try and do it), but to add to my trepedation, the prof of the class doesn't like my writing style. In fact I believe he ripped apart every paper I wrote for him last semester. Makes me very nervous to write anything for him. But he's a fabulous prof so that does make it better.
All of this leads to blogging -- my wonderful friend that always lends a helping hand when procrastination tugs at my brain and creeps into my fingers.
So my newest mission (when I have time to do them..... which is virtually never) is to learn the didgeridoo. I received a small Australian didgeridoo for Christmas from my sister (who recently just came back from Australia if you haven't been in the loop) and now it sits under my computer so that whenever I am sitting here typing at the compy it reminds me that I should keep plugging at how to play the darned thing. It's way harder than it looks. Or maybe it looks hard to begin with, I don't know. But learning how to play it is proving to be difficult, especially since I have very little time to do much of anything (except when I'm procrastinating!) except school. But one day, I will be a player of the didgeridoo. And I will hold concerts. Woot.
That's all for today.

Calvin and Hobbits

I truely have a love hate relationship with education. On the one hand, there is nothing better than learning. To be in an environment where there is such an emphasis on improving your intellect, stretching the mind, and delving into research and books etc. --- exploring the different facits of our world and our worldview. It's so exciting and it's an amazing place to be as a young adult trying to find your way in the world and where you fit in the equation. But while this is truely an exhilerating and stretching experience, it can take such a toll on your life. Let's take my current semester as an example. There are so many things about this semester that make me so excited to be in a learning environment. I'm taking three courses in my majors ... Playwriting, 20th Century British Literature, and the Literature of Lewis and Tolkien. I could not be happier! Each of these classes holds such interest for me that I yearn to eat up everything taught and just suck it all in. But with upper level classes come upper level workloads ---- reading galour, writing due every week, presentations up the ying yang. Since I hold such a high standard for myself and since I love each of these courses, I really want to do well... and so this means that I will be devoting myself to my studies. Okay, so far busy, but managable. But this semester I also have two other courses that I don't really care about ---- Reformational Theology and French. Oof. Okay, in defense of these classes, both of them are interesting, I'm glad for the opportunity to be taking them and in their own light, they are surely necessary, but they also eat up the time that I need for my upper classes that are in my majors -- what I'm here at Redeemer to study. Add on top of this that I am in the mainstage performance this semester -- which is called NZR.. it's a play that the performers (me included) are writing and acting based on the story of Nebuchadnezzar -- and that I am the TA for the English dept. as well as that I am the Editor-in-Chief of 'The Minstrel' -- Redeemer's Literary Magazine ....... and that, ladies and gents, is a deadly semester. This is why education and I have such a love hate relationship. I love to learn, so I lap up every opportunity I can.... but while I'm actually learning, I nearly kill myself trying to get everything done and my faith life suffers. I have some help this semester in that I'm helping write a play based on the Bible and I'm taking Ref. Theology... but education and the strain of deadlines and papers and presentations and the copius amounts of reading do not make for an easy faith life. I should push myself and put my priorities elsewhere... but that's extremely hard when in the environment.
Hmm... I wish I could expand on this more but I've spent too much time on this --- I should get back to my reading before people come back home and there's no silence in which to peacefully read. Oh how I love it when reading Lord of the Rings is homework....

new years.......

I guess it's time for me to come out from hiding and write a blog.
Well ---- here I am. It's a new year and no, this isn't one of my new year's resolutions. :) I'm home for the holidays and spending time with family is wonderful. I think it's one of the few places where I feel completely comfortable and at ease and that's a nice feeling. My sister is home which is absolutely fantabulous!! I missed her soooo much over the year --- but I think the year was really good experience for both of us because I think we grew tighter through emailing and calling. But it was a long year.. and it's really nice to have her back. She's probably my closest friend in the world -- I can tell her anything -- and even though we fight now that she's home (you need physical contact in order to fight.. it's hard to fight over the phone) I love knowing that's she's around and I can talk to her.
Yet being at home can also be frustrating. Really frustrating. I guess because I'm realizing that I never feel completely satisfied when I'm with friends. It's really frustrating when you never feel satisfied about yourself when you're with the people you care about. Like on New Years, I went to hang out with friends that I've had since grade 9/10 -- somewhere in there, a good 6 years anyways....... and yet whenever I see them, I still feel like I'm visiting. I'm never IN. The big thing is always that they're going to make a movie or start a theatre company........... I'm a theatre major and yet they haven't seriously asked me to be apart of this ... while many of their other friends get asked at random... Okay, I'm not upset about not being in a theatre company or anything like that because there's a good chance this thing will never get off the ground.... but for once I'd like to feel INCLUDED. I hate the fact that when I'm with them alot of the time I'm wanting to be someone else --- not ME. And this is a horrible thing. I love these people very dearly, and maybe that's why I haven't just given up. It's odd when through out whole evening one of the best conversation I had was with someone whom I haven't even known that long when I'm surrounded by people who I've known for a long time. It's just frustrating when you know that if you were a different personality or if you changed where you live, they would probably finally ACCEPT you and want to be around you --- and yet that SHOULDN'T matter. Grrr.. Lord help me deal with my insecurities.
Anyways, I'm looking forward to going back to Redeemer though school will be really busy..... but I love nothing better than delving myself into something that I'm so passionate about. I love theatre so much and I'm truely thankful to God that he's put that passion in my heart.

Olivia Anne Mantel

I am sooo happy to welcome into the world a new little addition to my life. Olivia Anne Mantel was born on December 9, 2005, weighing 7lbs 7oz. This means that I'm an aunt for the third time! I am so blessed.... she is simply beautiful!