Baby carriage

This might be the most creative utterance from a niño I've heard during our retell task in lab.  The niño couldn't remember what a baby carriage was called, and this is how the conversation went:

Niño:  "What's this?"  (points at a baby stroller)
(examiner shrugs)
Niño:  "Um, it's a rollercoaster.  So the frog jumped in it, and..."

Luckily I was transcribing this one, so it was ok that I burst out laughing.

In unrelated news,

I have solved a mystery!

First, here are a few glosses:
miel = honey
abeja = bee (not to be confused with sheep)
agave = this really awesome desert plant I learned about in highschool; it grows in mostly Mexico and it can be used for literally everything I can think of to use a plant for—and a few more things.  You can drink agave tea (to cure plenty of ailments) or ferment it to make a pretty strong liquor.  You can make soap out of it.  You can use its fibers for thread—and the tips of its leaves for needles.  It can also make rope.  Maybe paper too, but I'm not 100% on that.  It has been used as a writing implement (maybe ink as well but I'm not sure again).

So let's go back to bees for a second.  In the Dominican Republic, the niños always called honey "miel de abeja", and my Co-boss and I were always a little confused.  Why would they specify that it's bee honey?  What other kind of honey is there?

Answer:  Agave honey!  I discovered it in my lab this week; my lab director uses it to sweeten his coffee.  "Miel de agave", it's called.

The mystery has been solved.

I had Earl Grey tea with agave honey in it the other day—an experience I'm eager to repeat.  Transatlantic teatime!

A fridge poem

The "do not ask why me" is actually not part of the poem, but I like it.

Happy Birthday, Batman!

On Sunday, Batman celebrated his 75th birthday.  I even incorporated this into one of my therapy plans this week!  During class on Monday, I gave Scott this batman cape:

He got really excited about it.

I told him Batman doesn't have superpowers; only cool inventions, but Scott didn't listen because he really wanted to fly around in a superhero cape.

Oh well, at least Batman and Superman are both DC.

It is going to take some convincing to get him to take this cape off....

Itsy Bitsy Boris

So twice a week I work with tiny kiddos who are language delayed (some may be disordered but some may just be delayed; it's too early to tell).  Every week we have a different theme and me and the other student clinicians take turns planning songs and activities for the upcoming week.

Next week it's my turn, so yesterday I had to turn in a plan for our theme "Creepy Crawly Bugs!"  We need songs that have a nice easy repetitive refrain that the kids know what lyrics to expect so they can maybe chime in with a word or a word approximation if we give them a nice big pause.

You know what song would be totally perfect?  "Boris the Spider", by the Who.  

Of course, I knew it was not to be.  I figured a heavy metal song by The Who about smushing a spider was too morbid for kids....and then I remembered that there's that kids song "I'm bringing home a baby bumblebee" in which the kid describes being stung by the bee, killing the bee and wiping the bee's innards onto her shirt.  That's at least as morbid as "Boris", and perhaps creepier because it's supposed to be sung in a singsong child voice.

I still chose "Itsy bitsy".  At least that song has G-rated lyrics.

A blast from the

Once upon a time on Friday I was doing practicum up at the undergraduate campus (there's a clinic up there too so I'm there once a week).  Afterward, I decided to grab a slice of pizza and people-watch.  Turns out, the university was having a comic-con of sorts, and I saw these two parked cars outside.  One of them was greyish tannish and the other was white—and they had weird stuff on their roofs.  When I got closer, I soon realized that the first car was none other than the time-traveling car from Back to the Future, and the white car was the Ghost-busters car!  The guys who made them were hanging out talking to people; they make replica cars and drive them around places.  I got pictures with both of them, of course, but they're on my phone, which doesn't always like to talk to my computer because I'm bad at technology.

Then yesterday, I was at a family convention to recruit participants for my lab's eye tracking study.  The convention was actually pretty huge—complete with giant moon-bounce slides, about six or seven trampolines, and a petting zoo (including a llama, or maybe an alpaca).  There were actually quite a few SLPs there advertising their clinics.  And there were stormtroopers walking around.  Yes, that's right, stormtroopers from the 501st were there, just strolling around, super casual.  Well, as casual as you can be in a stormtrooper suit.  They even sounded just like stormtroopers when they talked; they had a mic and speakers in their helmets, I presume.

My lab director has an obsession with Star Wars that rivals my own (and perhaps surpasses it).  He was so excited, when he arrived we immediately left our booth to go look for them.  "I see him!  He's over there!"  And of course we had to get a picture with him.  After one with both of us in it, I wanted to take one with the stormtrooper shooting my boss—but I couldn't figure out how to work his smartphone.

"How do I make it take a picture?  It's stuck," I said.

The stormtrooper cocked his head to one side and asked, "Are you from the past?"

The power of storytelling

"Myth is a lane down which we walk in order to repossess our soul." ~Clyde Kilby, quoted by Jon Eldridge in Waking the Dead  (page 83)

When I was in highschool, one of my friends and I wrote half a novel.  It was a pretty epic undertaking, but we got surprisingly far.  (One day, I'd love to finish it with her.)  The work centered around four protagonists who were thrown together much by chance and eventually they'll have to face (much against their will) world-changing magic.  

Why fantasy? everyone would ask, and my friend fiercely explained to them that fantasy has been around much longer than literary fiction—look at the great epics of Homer, Gilgamesh, Beowulf, Greek dramas, etc.  Why would you write about normal life when normal life is what happens to you every day?  Myths allow us to explore more interesting possibilities.  That was her explanation.  

Like my friend, I used to think that I loved fantasy because it was an escape, a chance to live a different life, to pretend to be more exciting than I actually was.  In fantastical worlds, nerd girls with frizzy hair and braces and glasses and questionable social skills were replaced by smart, resourceful, beautiful girls who were feminine and gentle, so of course the handsome princes fell in love with them.

I loved Eowyn from Lord of the Rings, who defeats the king of the Nazgul—without her, that world-changing battle surely would have been lost.  And I loved Goldberry (also from the Lord of the Rings), who is silly, but feminine, and hangs out with her even sillier husband Tom Bombadil—her presence brings the hobbits peace and joy.  I had always secretly wished I was as brave as Eowyn and as bright as Goldberry.  But I knew I was just the girl with the wide grin and goofy mannerisms.  I could be the Fool, but never the wise, clever, pretty princess.

When I was really little, Pocahontas was my favorite Disney princess—until I figured out the real Pocahontas story was a bit different.  Devastated, I stopped playing Pocahontas games, put away my Pocahontas doll, stopped singing songs from the movie, tucked away my dreams of being a warrior princess, put them in a drawer like Mr. Darling does in Peter Pan.  I could be a warrior, sure, but not a princess.  This was proof that those sorts of stories don't happen in real life, I thought.  Fantasy was escape; it could never be real.

I think it was when I started LARPing that I realized that storytelling was at least a little more than an escape.  When my friends and I put on the skins of our invented characters, some of us were totally play-acting as people we would never want to be.  But try to invent a character you can play for an entire weekend, stopping only to sleep.  A little bit of your decision-making process, a few of your unspoken desires leak into the character.  My first character collected around herself a small family of brothers and sisters—and a satyr she was rather enamoured with.  She loved how silly they were, and how loyal.  Eventually, when she was captured by her unwelcome betrothed, her little family gathered together most of the town to go rescue her.  The satyr put on his best shining golden armour, and they all fought long and hard until she was finally free to return to her adoptive family.  That evening after game-off, I was so happy I was ready to burst.  I, who was used to usually being a leader, hadn't felt wanted—hadn't felt fought for—in a very long time.  In another event, this same character teamed up with the personification of Death to scare off all the bad guys and bring back to life all the members of the town; she was a hero because she chose to ally herself with Death, probably the most powerful and kind character in that world.  I think that was when I admitted that through fantasy, I could explore not only interesting possibilities, but something about what I wanted for myself.  I wanted to be desired and fought for, and I also wanted to be a hero—but never alone.

(Now, I must add the caveat that not every character I play reveals something true about my desires.  Since that first character, I've been a blue imp whose idea of fun is to chop off people's limbs, an unspeakably selfish fairy who uses soap as a weapon when she doesn't get her way, and skeletons and lava monsters whose only purpose is to be beaten to death.  For these characters, fantasy is fun and games, and that's why I love playing them so much!)

Maybe this is why so many people love Captain Picard of Star Trek:  Next Generation.  He is noble, he is brave, he is wise.  In some essential way, he has what it takes to be a real man in very trying circumstances.  And Doctor Who fans—I believe most of us watch that show to live vicariously through the Doctor and his companions.  Admit it:  you want to be daring and brilliant and charming like the Doctor, or you want to be clever and strong and pretty, and so captivating that someone like the Doctor will do anything to protect you—or some combination of the two.  And what about superhero movies and comics, and what about Beowulf?    What about the webcomic Weregeek, in which it is the very passion that makes the geeks awkward also gives them superpowers?  Even pirate stories and space/cowboy stories—wouldn't we like to be as brave and moral as Jim Hawkins in Treasure Island, or as fiercely loyal as Mal in Firefly, or secretly destined to bring peace to the galaxy, like Luke and Leia in Star Wars?  Even when these heroes have flaws, we love them all the more—they are like us, imperfect, and yet look what they have achieved!

I think this is the reason we love Mark Twain's Tom Sawyer—he is always searching for his inner hero—the hero he's read about in storybooks, and he's not afraid to go to great, ridiculous, mythical lengths to find himself.

Try to remember how you felt when you first read Harry Potter.  For those of us who were around Harry's age, the idea of getting a Hogwarts letter was tantalizing.  It would be lovely to have secret powers that the world didn't know about that we could use to do fantastical and wonderful things.  

And, going further back in time (probably), when you first read Narnia.  Wouldn't it be grand to be destined to rule a magical kingdom, appointed by Aslan the Good Lion to bring peace and prosperity to an entire land?

I definitely believe that fantastical stories tap into our deeper desires.

Fast forward now to my current life, if you will.  (Alas, I haven't been larping in several years, and it's not looking likely any time soon.)  Last year, I read Stasi and Jon Eldridge's book Captivating, and for my birthday this year a dear friend gave me Waking the Dead by Jon.  In these books, The Eldridges are not afraid to use fantasy to talk about God.  In fact, they use mythical stories to tap into our desires—and our true selves!  They want us to believe that God has created us to be these heroes and princesses we dream of being, and that deep inside ourselves, we already are!  I'm not sure I totally believe that yet, but I'd really like to!  Otherwise, what is a nerd girl doing but wasting away her life pretending things that could never be?  

Can myth really be a way to recapture our true selves, our souls?

If that is the case, then storytelling is a crucial part of what it is to be human.  Poets and novelists and playwrights and screenwriters are more than just entertainers.  They are teachers, they are griots, they are leading us into our deeper selves.  They are giving us the keys to recapture our souls.  Dreaming, then, isn't escapism—it is essential!

Allow me to end this post with a few verses from an anthropomorphic frog with a banjo:

"Have you been half asleep and have you heard voices?  

I've heard them calling my name.  

Is this the sweet sound that calls the young sailor?  

The voice might be one and the same.  

I've heard it too many times to ignore it.  

Is it something that I'm supposed to be?  

Someday we'll find it, the rainbow connection, 

the lovers, the dreamers, and me.  

Why are there so many songs about rainbows?  

That's part of what rainbows do.  

Rainbows are memories, sweet dream reminders—

what is it you'd like to do?  

All of us watching and wishing we'd find it; 

I know you're watching it too.  

Someday you'll find it, the rainbow connection, 

the lovers, the dreamers, and you!"

More fridge poetry!

Whimsical and fantastical, in keeping with our flying blue animals theme.  I'm not really sure what it means, but feel free to analyze it all you want!

Sheepbees

More lab adventures!

The other day, I was taking a language sample and the niño was describing a scene in which a dog was being chased by a swarm of bees.

In Spanish, the word for bee is "abeja" and the word for sheep is "oveja".  In most dialects, b and v are pronounced the same.  So bees and sheep are different by only one sound (the o/a).

You see where this is going.

The niño kept saying "ovejas" instead of "abejas"—sheep instead of bees.  So I imagined a swarm of flying sheep exploding out of the beehive.  What a surprise to that poor dog!  (This is definitely not the first time I've heard this mistake from a niño, and I'm sure it won't be the last.)

In my imagination, the sheepbees are blue, because one of our students in the school in Los Tres Brazos insisted that he had seen blue sheep "en el campo" (in the countryside).  Thus, my co-boss and I have a running joke about blue sheep in el campo.

Then, last Sunday during the Gospel reading, Padre accidentally said "ovejas" (sheep) instead of "aves" (birds).  There's sheep flying around everywhere!  God and I laughed at our inside joke.

Sheepbees should totally be a thing.  Have you guys read Leviathan, by Scott Westerfeld?  If you haven't, you should.  It's a YA steampunk about World War I, and it is magnificent.  Anyway, for those who have read it (and everyone else too), please enjoy the following unfinished sketch of some boffins at work:

And that is the story of me working with sheepbees in the lab.

Science is the funnest!

Mama Mary and the Son of God

This Tuesday, my parish was fortunate enough to host the pilgrim statue of Our Lady of Fatima.  We had an evening of prayer with our Blessed Mother asking for her intercession and guidance as we seek to put our lives, our petitions, our thanksgivings wholly in the hands of her Son.

I know, I know, in this depiction, she is very white.  That always bothers me; Mary was Middle Eastern!  Pictures of blue-eyed, blonde Mary and Jesus always make me pretty uncomfortable.  Black Jesus and Mary, Korean Jesus and Mary, etc. don't bother me a bit.  But because of the racial tension still present in many places, especially regarding color, I feel a little weird about white depictions of our Lord and His mother.

This is also the closest I have ever experienced to idolatry within the Catholic faith.  It is necessary to use precaution when venerating a statue of any saint—especially a statue of such renown.  What we are doing is NOT statue worship, nor is it Mary worship—the statue is an image of our Lady and being in the presence of the image helps us to remember that she is praying with us.  Just as a photograph of my grandmother reminds me that she is watching over me, praying for me in Heaven.  Mary is, as someone recently told me, our "prayer partner"—just like when I ask my own mom to pray for me or for a petition I have, I can ask Mary to pray for me also.

Even when there are issues like this, I try not to let it distract me from prayer.  The point of being in the presence of this statue is to pray with Mary, to spend time with the Lord as she has taught us to do.

And her eyes—her eyes sparkle like real eyes.

The message of Our Lady of Fatima is one of peace, the kind of peace that can only be found in God.  This statue travels around the whole world to remind people of the message Mary preaches of peace that Jesus can bring us.  In fact, in April, the statue will be in Washington, D.C.  (Christlife—heads up!)

As I was praying with Mama Mary, I started by asking for a miracle—the same miracle I've been praying for for a little over a year now.  I thought that was the only miracle I was supposed to pray for that night, but the Lord put some other people on my heart, some dear dear friends who don't know God's love for them—and I was moved to tears.  God pressed on my heart some things I'd been hiding from, and in some ways it hurt.  But overall it has brought me clarity and reminded me of some very important prayers I need to pray.

My Callada (quiet) friend, my Payaso (goofy) friend, and my Soccer-loving friend, and a couple of the other jovenes were there, and we all prayed together, holding hands.  I was a little embarrassed that I had cried so much, I apologized the next day.  But they assured me, "Cuentas con nosotros."  You count with us.

Callada told me that when you cry during prayer, God is cleaning your heart.

Then, on Friday night, a bunch of us went to see the Son of God movie.  We saw it dubbed in Spanish at a movie theater/restaurant place.  We all got really into the movie—it's a beautiful portrayal of our Lord.  I give it a B for cinematography, an A for music (Hans Zimmer!), and an A for its message.  The emotions of the disciples were really well explored, and the acting was great!  I even liked the portrayal of Jesus, emotion-wise, which I was the most worried about.  The actor portrayed him as gentle and kind but not a pushover—and he smiled a lot.  He was too white for my liking, but the whole cast was pretty diverse, and it was NOT a white = good guy casting situation (which was what I feared the most).  The disciples were really well done, especially John, Mary Magdalene, and Peter.  Overall, I give it a thumbs up and I highly recommend it!

The way we got split up at the theater, I sat next to Soccer, and he is the funniest movie talker!  I had to keep reminding him to keep his voice down.  He also warned me before the movie that he is a movie crier—and sure enough, every time there was violence, he whimpered sympathetically.  During the entire crucifixion scene, he was holding my hand and crying into my shoulder.  It was hard to watch!  I think God was cleaning all our hearts; I'm pretty sure most of us cried.

We sat in the dark, holding hands.  Terrified, we watched Jesus cry out, drenched in blood, still able to pray a psalm on the cross.  I'm pretty sure we were all thinking about the fact that He went through all that pain—for us.  For me.  For you!

In times like these, my upcoming midterms seem pretty trivial.  All the same, pray for me this week?

What time is it?

Well, recently it was time for me to buy a watch.  So I went to Target and checked out their cheap watch section.  Almost immediately, a huge Darth Vader watch caught my eye!  But it was way too big, and definitely not a woman's watch.  Then I saw this watch:

Check it out.  Probably one of the most random watches I've ever seen—what's with all the rhinestones?  I don't know!  What's with the fake hematite wristband?  I don't know!  BUT it is covered with elephants walking all around its face.  To remind me that no matter what time it is, it is also ELEPHANT TIME.

A (pathetic) horror story

(Or: wope se wo wu anaa?!)

Once upon a time the other day, me and Roommate were hanging out with a college friend of hers who was visiting before moving to Hawai'i.  Suddenly, Roommate gasped and cringed and pointed at the wall.  There was a pretty sizeable black cocroach there—the first we'd seen since moving here.  

None of us wanted to deal with it.  I got a cup and a piece of paper to let it outside, but then I shrank away.  What if it flew at my face?!  So we grabbed a shoe.  For a few minutes, we took turns holding the shoe, approaching the roach, and taking practice swings.  But no one was able to bring themselves hit it.  Finally I grabbed the shoe, ran up to it, and smacked hard.  Terrified at what I'd done, I shrieked and ran back, pushing past them to get as far away from the theoretically dead roach as possible.

"I think you missed," Hawai'i said.  

I was almost relieved.  I hate crunching exoskeletons.

Hawai'i picked up the shoe and finished the job, finally throwing its crushed corpse in the garbage.

The next evening, after Hawai'i had gone home, Roommate was making a late dinner.  As she reached for a spoon, a large shadow zoomed across the back wall behind the fridge.

"Oh God, did you see that?!" Roommate asked.

"Where did it go?"  We looked frantically around and then saw it up in the opposite corner of the kitchen.  It was the size of a human palm, with antennae several inches long.  

"Either it's freaky fast," Roomate said, "...or there's two of them.  Maybe it's an infestation!"

This was too much.  We dashed out into the main room and leaped into each other's arms.  Why, oh why are cockroaches so scary?  They don't even *do* anything.  Like, at all.  They just crawl around and sometimes fly.  Maybe it's because they're dinosaurs.  Maybe it's because they're huge....

"One of us needs to get a boyfriend," I said decidedly to Roommate.  "This is what guys are for—for carrying things and dealing with giant bugs.  Honestly, any of your suitors would be fine.  In fact, our neighbor down the hall would be fine—he'd be great; he lives close!"  (I was referring to a specific mild-mannered bespectacled neighbor.)

Roommate didn't argue.  "Next time I'm on a date with someone, I'll think of that.  You know what, he'll do."

And then it was gone.  We couldn't find it anywhere.  "I don't know which thought horrifies me more," I said:  "it might have crawled into the wall or it's in our drawers somewhere."  I grabbed a shoe, knowing full well I'd never have the courage to smash it—think of its thick exoskeleton crunching, the gooey organs smushing out, its angled legs twitching, its lifeless head staring out at me—and I stood up on a chair to search.  I shook the fridge, messed with the dishes, trying to scare it out.  To give myself courage, I kept trying to imagine the cockroach from Wall-E, which did not really help because I knew this poor thing was going to die.  "If I find it but it doesn't fly out at me," I said, "I might not even scream."

Eventually we had to give up.  That roach was gone.  

Then, when I went to fill a glass with, water, I realized the roach was only inches away from my hand, sitting on the water faucet handle, nibbling at our dish rag.  It didn't fly.  I did scream, and Roommate cried out and curled up in the fetal position on the couch.

"Go get one of the neighbors," I said.

"I'm not wearing pants."

"Or you could stay here with the cockroach to make sure it doesn't move."

She grabbed a sweatshirt and went down the hall to a neighbor's house, where he and his wife were putting their baby to bed.

While she was gone, I stood and talked with the cockroach:

Me:  I'm sorry, cockroach.  You aren't even doing anything wrong.  You're just being here, eating food.  But you're going to die for that.

Cockroach:  Hah!  Cockroaches are pretty much invincible.  I can handle it.

Me:  No, actually, you're going to die tonight.

Cockroach:  (pauses pensively)  Oh.  Well, that's alright.  The species will survive!  We have survived for millenia.  My existence is not as important as the collective existence of the Roach.

Me:  um....

Luckily, this uncomfortably long conversation was interrupted when Roommmate came in with Neighbor.  Apparently when he saw her face he was worried we were in some kind of danger.  When she told him it was a roach, he laughed.  But then when he saw it, his eyes grew wide.  "Holy moley, that thing's huge!" he said.  We backed off.  This was a roach big enough to intimidate a Texan man.

Neighbor, now bearing the title Hero, stepped back into the kitchen and rolled up his sleeves.  He tried to smash it with a shoe, but it was resilient.  The dishes in the sink clanked as he fought with the monster—with his bare hands, and maybe also a used fork.  After a minute, he exited the kitchen holding a wad of paper towels.  The harmless but horrifying beast was dead.

"Thank you so much!" we cried, and the Hero removed the body of the innocent cockroach from our apartment.  

Our hearts pounding, we sat on the couch, still clinging to each other a little bit, remembering at last to breathe.  

I'd love to say I got a good night's sleep after that adventure, but I didn't.  I kept dreaming that it was a cockroach invasion.

"The angry waiter" (a tangential lab adventure)

I have a question for you guys, dear readers.  First, let me tell you a story.  Once upon a time, in lab, when we collect language samples, we tell the niños a story.  They look at a wordless picture book and we tell a narrative based on a script.  In one experiment, they actually listen to a recording.  One of the picture books we use is called "Frog goes to dinner" by Mercer Mayer.  In the story, there is a waiter who is probably a pretty nice guy, but eventually he becomes angry at a frog who is causing mayhem in the restaurant.  Frankly, the waiter is justified in his anger, and he'll probably calm down after the frog leaves.  One of the sentences in the script/recording describes him as "the angry waiter".  I think the exact sentence is something along the lines of "The angry waiter told them to get out of the restaurant."  (There is a similar sentence in Spanish that describes the waiter as "el mesero enojado".)

Now, I don't know about you guys, but I can't naturally use "angry" as an adjective unless it's a more or less permanent state, or if it is distinguishing between two people.  As in, the waiter who is always angry, or the waiter who is angry as opposed to the waiter who is calm.  If I were speaking naturally*, I would actually chunk it, "The waiter was angry.  He told them to get out of the restaurant."  But the proposed sentence "The angry waiter told them to get out of the restaurant" means something different to me; it suggests that the waiter is always angry, as in he's an angry person.  (I asked a friend who is a native-speaker of Spanish about the Spanish example, and she said it sounds wrong to her in Spanish too.)

*actually, if I were speaking naturally, I wouldn't have used the subjunctive there—I'd have said "if I was speaking naturally".  But that is another issue entirely.

What about you guys?  If you were talking about a waiter who had been calm and then gotten angry, could you naturally describe him as "the angry waiter" like in the sentence above?  Go ahead and comment if you'd like; I'd like this to be a conversation.  If you have trouble with comments, you can send me an email.  I put a link to contact me up next to the "about" page, for any wug- or blog-related emails.

A Valentine for you

Here is a Valentine for you from your God:

I came by again and saw you, saw that you were ready for love and a lover. I took care of you, dressed you and protected you. I promised you my love and entered the covenant of marriage with you. I, God, the Master, gave my word. You became mine. I gave you a good bath, washing off all that old blood, and anointed you with aromatic oils. I dressed you in a colorful gown and put leather sandals on your feet. I gave you linen blouses and a fashionable wardrobe of expensive clothing. I adorned you with jewelry: I placed bracelets on your wrists, fitted you out with a necklace, emerald rings, sapphire earrings, and a diamond tiara. You were provided with everything precious and beautiful: with exquisite clothes and elegant food, garnished with honey and oil. You were absolutely stunning. You were a queen! You became world-famous, a legendary beauty brought to perfection by my adornments. Decree of God, the Master.
(Ezekiel 16:8-14)

Fridge poetry!

Roommate has been watching the Bachelor....and I must admit, I'm strangely intrigued.  The first four lines of this poem are hers, and I added on, inspired by the aforementioned show:

Scott (whose name will probably change soon)

Confession:  I am a notes doodler.  I draw *all* over the margins of my notes sometimes.

Recently, I've been into drawing gargoyles.  Not really sure why; I have story ideas for them in my head, but I'm not sure I'll ever actually carry them out.  But one day last week I ended up drawing this big guy—a little too tall and furry to be a gargoyle, I think—not the right body shape and not a weird enough face.

He intrigued me, so I tried a completely different expression in the next picture:

Why does he look so uncomfortable?  I decided this is why:

A friend of mine was looking over my shoulder and asked what the monster's name is.  I didn't know, so I said Scott.  That's going to change, but for now, it's a placeholder name.  Scott.

Scott started showing up in my other notes:

I still have a lot of questions about Scott.  What kind of world does he live in?  Is he the only monster in a world of humans, or is the girl the only human in a world of monsters?  Or does their world have both humans and monsters?  I am beginning to like that last idea best.

There's a dog now.  The monster can talk to both humans and dogs.

Was he ever human?  If so, is his predicament normal?  Did he get stuck?  Had he transformed before? What happened to make him get stuck?  Can the girl change shape too?  What size is Scott's head?!  (This is probably my biggest proportion issue; I know I have many other proportion issues too.)

I've decided the girl is going to get a HUGE makeover, as soon as Scott's look is more well-defined.  She looks a little too familiar for comfort.  Also, she has a brother.  But I don't know what pseudo-culture they live in.  If it's vaguely European, her brother might be a butcher (and Scott might go hunting for him).  But I'm kindof thinking this might actually be better set in a pseudo-ancient American situation—oooh, or the Old West!?  I haven't done anything with the Old West in forEVER.  Or there's always space, but for some reason I just don't see Scott in a spacesuit.  I have to play around with his setting so I can get him some more friends.

Anyway, this is probably not the last you'll see of Scott.  He's getting pretty persistent, so I'm going to be spending some more time with him and fleshing out his world.  And the size of his head relative to his body.  And other such important things.

HAPPY GROUNDHOG DAY

"And put your little hand in mine, there ain't no ever mountain we can't climb.  Hey."  *oboe solo*  "I got you babe!  I got you babe!"

Okey, campers, rise and shine, and don't forget your booties 'cause it's COLD out there today.

It's cold out there every day; what is this, Miami Beach?

Not hardly.  And you know you can expect hazardous travel later today—

What?  Of COURSE it's Groundhog's Day today.  Don't you know your holidays?  I wonder if Puxatawney is going to see his shadow today!  Ooh, and I wonder who is going to win the Superbowl!  This whole day is going to be very exciting, don't you think?

What do you mean, again?  No, it's definitely February 2nd.  Maybe you should check your calendar....

Tasty Sweetish Curry Stuff

Ingredients:

about a cup of rice

about a half a can of pink beans (habichuelas rosadas)

three roma tomatoes (diced)

half a sweet yellow onion (diced)

half a sweet red bell pepper (diced)

a handful of spinach (cut into tiny bits)

about 3/4 a cup of water

1 tbsp (?) each of:

salt

pepper

curry

oregano

thyme

Slow cook until soft and delicious.  Serves three?

Also, feel free to add chicken or ground beef or something to this.  The only reason I didn't is because I forgot to buy chicken or ground beef or something when I went to the grocery store.

For Brianna, Tyler, and Darion

As I'm sure everyone knows, on Saturday, there was a shooting at the Columbia Mall.  The shooter killed two workers at Zumie's and also himself.  I found out about it shortly after the shooting started, while the police were just getting involved.  Needless to say, much of Saturday was spent watching the news and frantically texting and calling everyone I know back home to make sure everyone was okey.  I knew several people who might have gone to the mall that morning.

I feel strange being thankful that nobody I know was hurt.  I feel grateful for this out of love for my own friends and family, but it feels like a betrayal to the family and friends of the victims.

I don't really have anything profound or eloquent to say about what happened; I am merely asking you all to join me in prayer for the victims and for the shooter, and for their families and friends who are grieving.  Especially for the orphaned daughter of Brianna, and for Darion's family—I don't think anyone saw this coming, and I can't imagine the pain they are feeling.  May God pour His peace into the situation.

Stanines (or, Statistics is silly)

As an undergrad, I took a statistics class in the math department, and bunch of my friends took statistics for psychology or statistics for engineering.  Whenever we'd try to compare notes, nothing made sense, because everything was labeled differently in the different fields of statistics.  There were some concepts that had several different names (sometimes even within the same field), which was confusing until we realized that we were actually talking about the same things.  Likewise, there were some names that labeled several different concepts, which was even more confusing, because we'd think we were talking about the same thing and then later realize that we were actually talking about different things.  We decided that the average number of names per item is one; the names are just distributed unevenly.  (We were too frustrated to figure out the standard deviation.)

So I had already come to the conclusion that statistics is a silly field.  Very useful, but very silly, especially in the names department.

And then this week in my Assessment class, I learned about "stanines", or "standard nines".  That's right, statisticians made up that name by smushing two words together, or blending, as linguists like to say.  Like "Brangelina" or "spork" or "linner".  (I have a good friend who wrote a rather long paper on the rules for blending in English, so I find the concept fascinating.)  This is hilarious!  Apparently it was first used during WWII by the US Army Air Force.  I can just imagine the statisticians sitting up late at night trying to decide how to divide up the normal curve:

Statistician 1:  Should we divide it into tenths?  That makes sense.
Statistician 2:  Too cliché.
Statistician 3:  Also, if we use an odd number, the mean will be contained within a category.
Statistician 1:  Fine, then let's try.... um, nine?
Statistician 3:  Oh, that's great!  Then all of our scores can be recorded with single digits!  I hate double-digit numbers, don't you guys?
Statisticians 2:  ...I guess....
(scribbling)
Statistician 3:  Hey, if we fudge these edge categories, all the middle ones could be a half of a Standard Deviation.  That's a nice unit!
Statistician 2:  ...Okey.... What should we call it?
Statistician 1:  How about Sta-nine?
Statisticians 2 and 3:  (blank stares)
Statisician 1:  Get it?  Standard nine—stanine?  Because they're standard, and there's nine of them!  Well, they're mostly standard, anyway.  Ignore the edge ones.
Statisticians 2 and 3:  Whatever.

In case you're wondering, a stanine is a unit of a half a standard deviation (except the two at the very edges), and there are nine of them in the normal curve (including the weird edge ones).  According to wikipedia, stanines are only used by the US education system and also the New Zealand education system.  And get this—there's another similar system called the "sten" system.  (I bet you can guess what two words are being blended there.)  The sten system seems unduly complicated to me; maybe I'll stick to stanines if ever I have the choice.

In conclusion:  Statisticians are bad at naming things.

A prayer for this very influential day

I would like to offer up a prayer.  Will you pray with me?  Even if you disagree with my opinion, I encourage you to at least read through the prayer to the end.

In the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit:

Dear God, I would like to pray today for everyone who the world doesn't listen to, doesn't understand, and doesn't seem to value.  This includes people who are very old, people who have severe physical disabilities, people with mental illnesses and mental disabilities, women who have been abused and violated, men and women in prison, people awaiting the death penalty, people in war-torn countries, people who haven't been born yet, people who were born prematurely and are in the NICU, kids who are bullied at school, people with no homes, and even people who are just afraid to speak up because they don't believe they matter.  God, help them to open their hearts and realize that You love them unconditionally—that You love *every single one of us* unconditionally.  And that you are not a God who condemns, but a God who forgives!

Help us to value our brothers and sisters, no matter their status, no matter their age, no matter their abilities or experiences or opinions.  Please teach us to be compassionate toward every single person, that we might be Your hands in the world to bring healing and stop the hurting.

On this day especially I would like to offer up a prayer for healing in all the lives that have been affected by abortion and all related moral questions.  For every woman who believes that abortion is her best—or her only—option.  For every woman who has been mocked, ostracized, and judged for getting pregnant out of wedlock, especially those whose families were/are not supportive.  For every woman who has been raped or abused or feels marginalized or dehumanized or devalued in any way.  For every woman who has had an abortion—especially those who suffer from depression afterward.  For every clinician who has performed an abortion or been involved in the procedure.  For every child whose life has been ended by abortion—especially those whose lives were ended because of positive test results for DOWN syndrome and other "complications".  For the survivors of abortions.  For every child who feels unwanted by their family.  Dear Lord, hold all these people close to Your sacred heart and breathe healing into them; replace the negative feelings of shame, loneliness, and pain with Your positive grace and love.

Dear God, I know that those involved in the abortion industry really believe that what they are doing is good—they believe that they are protecting women from unnecessary suffering (which is a noble and worthy goal!).  I also know that our society hasn't really come up with a scientifically consistent way to define "personhood".  We have had this problem in the past, Lord, and by Your grace our society has made some positive steps forward during the various civil rights movements in our nation and our world.  I pray that everyone on *both* sides of the abortion issue has the patience, compassion, and respect to listen to the opinions of those who disagree.  And especially on a day like today, help us all not to judge other people for their opinions or actions regarding the matter of abortion.  Only then can we move forward as a society, Lord, to best protect those who need protecting.  I would like to offer up a special prayer that whatever decision is made regarding personhood that it is a scientifically sound/consistent decision that takes into account the value of a human life.

And on a positive note, I would like to thank You for every child ever born, and for every mother—and for every adoptive mother too!

Please help us to better value our children and our women, Lord, and to protect the life of every human person from conception to natural death.  Help guide us to make the best decisions to protect *every* person from death, from pain, and from feeling unloved or overlooked.

In Your Holy name, Lord Jesus, we pray for healing in this angry, broken world.  Amen.

It's finally happened!

I would just like to let you all know that I have crossed an important barrier in my life.  Yesterday, I had never done official speech therapy before.  As of today, I have.

That's right, I started treating clients today!  I'll be doing this four days a week for the rest of the semester.  I've got three sets of clients and things are picking up in the laboratorio and I've still got a full courseload, so I'm über excited and also über busy.  Apologies in advance for fewer drawings this semester.

Anyway, this was a super important occasion in my life.  Praise God!

*victory dance*

Delicious Chickeny Chili-ish Stuff

I got a rice cooker for Christmas, and it is kind of my new favorite thing.

Here's a fun recipe I made today (and it was warm and waiting for me when I got home from school!):

2 chicken thighs
1 can of black beans
about a cup of rice
two tomatoes, diced
half an onion, diced
half a large flour tortilla (ripped into small bits)
some water (I had to put some in for the rice cooker)
1 tbsp (?) garlic
1 tbsp (?) basil
1 tbsp (?) salt
1 tbsp (?) oregano
1 tsp (or more) paprika or hot pepper of choice
1 tsp black pepper
about 1/4 cup of olive oil

Slow cook; the chicken gets really tender that way.  Enjoy!  Serves three?  It depends how hungry you are.

Ol' Muddy Miss

The Mississippi River has been creeping into my consciousness, gently nudging itself into my fascinations over many years.  Starting with the fact that to spell it you have to say a poem.  Granted, it's a silly poem, but it's still a poem, in a way.  It's showed up in literature probably more than I remember; I can think of several stories centered around the Mississippi River.  My favorite is probably the story of Huckleberrry Finn and his long journey down the river with Jim.  And the one about the kids who try to smuggle an elephant via steamboat.  Occasionally, I liked to imagine myself on a steamboat traveling down the Mississippi River (or a raft, like Huck!).

I got to see the Mississippi for the first time (I think) when I went to my cousin's wedding last year in Saint Louis.  She wasn't much—the river, I mean—just a wide dark streak through the city.  But still, I was sort of intrigued.  I especially liked looking down at her from the famous arch, trying to follow her with my eyes as she slithered to the horizon and beyond.

Saint Louis is a cool city, from what little I saw.  We breakfasted in a casino, and the darkened room made me think of prohibition days, when a place like that would have been alive with jazz music and flappers and finely dressed gentlemen who were probably pretending to be richer than they were.  And that arch—the gateway to the west—at the same time admirable and extremely vain, simultaneously claustrophobic and sturdily comforting.

Today, as I flew from home to home (from Maryland to Dallas), I had a layover in New Orleans.  As the plane began to descend, I was glued to the window, watching the Ol' Muddy Miss snake through the city.  We flew over bayous with little tributaries like capillaries running through the muck.  The occasional lake/puddle glittered in the sunlight.  And then there was the Mississippi, unmistakable in her usual brown garb, sprawled all over the place, turning this way and that through the city.

New Orleans is a paradox by nature.  Geologically speaking, the southernmost wiggly bit of the Mississippi should have moved by now, but humans have done their best to keep her where she's at.  A lot of the city is in flood plains (hence the miseries of Hurricane Katrina).  And yet the city seems so vibrant, so determined, so alive.  So much music and so much language and so much food and so much art has come from there.  (At the airport, I ate jumbalaya, and now I'm determined to find a good recipe.  If takeout jumbalaya is this good, it must be divine homemade!)

The lady sitting next to me from Baltimore to New Orleans told me it's a horrible place during Mardi Gras, and to stay away from the French Quarters.  The man who sat next to me from New Orleans to Dallas told me he loves the excitement, and that he had just been staying in the French Quarter to really experience the unique culture of New Orleans.

I have spent so much time exploring the world outside the borders, I'm only beginning to appreciate the beauty that the US has to offer.  I think I might travel the Mississippi River someday.

I'll finish this post with a poem written by Tracy Butler.  Enjoy Lackadaisy Dithyramb, some thoughts on the fascinating Old Man River.

The "E" word

I am a middle East Coaster through and through.  I grew up learning that evangelization is oppressive.

From an atheistic point of view, evangelization is oppressive—one religious group tells another group to conform to the first group's ideologies and cultural practices.  It would seem that the first group has a superiority complex.  That point of view has unfortunately been supported by plenty of evidence—evangelization has historically been done very poorly by some religious groups.  However, it has also often been done very kindly and very well—a fact that history seems to ignore.

What?  Evangelization can be good?  This was difficult for me to wrap my mind around a few years ago.  Even today, sometimes the word "evangelization" causes me to cringe.  Its strong negative connotation is difficult to overcome.

Evangelization can definitely be seen as oppressive if the basic assumption of all parties is that God does not exist.  However, if anyone involved believes that God does exist, evangelization is a natural part of life.  It isn't an imposition of culture and ideology, but rather an invitation to know God more fully and enter into a deeper relationship with Him.   Whether you're Muslim, Christian, Hindu, Buddhist, Jewish, etc.—if you believe that your religion is the truth, and that knowing the truth is freeing, it is only natural that you'd want to share your beliefs with people!  Similarly, if you are an Atheist and believe God does not exist, you probably want to convince others of this so they can fully understand that what you believe is the truth.

Evangelization is an intellectual invitation to explore the truth.  If there is such a thing as truth, then the best way to find out what it is probably to learn as much as we can—then, using philosophy and reason (and guidance from the Holy Spirit), we can decide what makes the most sense to us and why.  In this way, evangelization can be used as an intellectual tool for society as we all seek to know the truth.  

(Learning doesn't change the nature of truth, just our own knowledge of it.  Whether we all decide to believe different things or the same things, God either exists or He doesn't.)

What does the Bible say about this?  "Test everything and keep the good" (1 Thessalonians 5:21).  Test everything.  That means don't ignore your friends when they disagree with you—listen to what they have to say and really think about if it makes sense.  How can we be passionate believers if we do not test our beliefs?

For those of us who do believe in God, there is an added incentive—not only do we want to everyone discern the truth, but we also want them to get to know the God who loves them more than they could ever imagine—just the way they are.  We want to share the joy that comes from a strong relationship with God.

A few years ago, I was on a retreat in Kumasi, Ghana.  One afternoon, we were told to go around the neighborhood and "evangelize".  I was taken aback.  We were evangelizing?  On purpose?  Ghanaian Catholicism was more charismatic than what I was used to back in the States, but this was taking it to a dangerous level.  Wary, I collected my Bible and followed a group of my friends.  But instead of preaching fire and brimstone, we asked our neighbors if they wanted us to pray with them.  The leader of our group had some Bible verses ready—verses that invited people to have a positive relationship with God.  There was no theology debate, no philosophical argument—just encouraging words and prayer.  Everyone really loved it.  One lady even evangelized back, inviting us to her church.

In the barrio in Santo Domingo, evangelization took on a new sort of urgency.  The youth group there was reaching out to get kids and teens into the church and away from the gangs and drug dealing culture.  They really wanted their peers to come to the church and join a positive community fueled by the love and mercy of God.  The most likely alternatives were actually pretty dangerous.

And in Maryland, the group Christlife has helped me to begin to overcome my fear of the idea of evangelization.  The purpose of this group is to bring people closer to God, to build them up and help them to feel His love.  Christlife is dedicated to evangelizing in a positive way—inviting, encouraging.  We do this by praying, by having intellectual discussions, by listening to others' thoughts and ideas, and even by just being inviting and kind.  When we evangelize, we are acting not as teachers, but as servants and friends.  These are things I had previously never associated with evangelization.

Last year, I went on an ACTS retreat—and I was evangelized.  I don't even know how to describe how loved I felt on that retreat.  I never felt like I was being patronized or told I was inferior.  What I felt was that I was wanted—by the group of women I was with and also by God.

I have been evangelized many times by people of different faiths also, and it makes me feel good that they want to share their beliefs with me.  Even if (after thinking it through) I don't agree with what they're saying, I am grateful that they are reaching out to me.  It is a lovely thing to feel invited.

Last week during a Christlife gathering, someone said, "This mission—it's urgent.  People are perishing without Jesus every day."  

That is a sentence I didn't want to hear, because it calls me to action.  I would be much more comfortable returning to the old way of life, where I was taught to speak politically correctly, to never offend anyone.  The life where the name "Jesus" was rarely uttered in mixed company, and where at best I was called to defend my opinion for the sake of my own reputation.  But the mission is urgent.  I have experienced the freedom that comes with knowing God and knowing that He loves us so much He sent down His son to free us from our imperfections.  I have experienced the joy that comes with physical union with Him in the Eucharist.  Sometimes I am so filled with that joy that I think I might burst if I don't share it.

Sharing the love of God doesn't always mean having theological discussions or asking strangers if they want to be prayed for in the street (although both of those things can be beautiful).  Most often, it is more subtle—an invitation, an encouraging thought, being a witness in a tough situation, respectfully agreeing to disagree, humbly admitting our faults.

But sometimes it isn't subtle at all.  Sometimes we are called to be loud!

Evangelization is not evil—it is natural.  And I am trying not to be so afraid of it.  Pray for me, my friends, that I might learn how to best share the truth about God with others.  And that I learn that "spreading the Gospel" is a good thing—an invitation to experience God's love more fully.