Jots and Tittles

Check out this awesome cake!  And, perhaps it wasn't intentional, but even the blogger recognized that it's tailor-built for the Hatter and his bride!

http://weddingcakedesigns.wordpress.com/2008/12/12/topsy-turvy-wedding-cake/

(This has been cross-posted to my website.  Read it there! www.thefaithfuldaughter.com/)

Abusing English

It appears that the Voices of Sophia has a new website, which I thought an appropriate subject for my first post on the new site. Their old one had not been updated since 2005 or 6, and now appears entirely defunct, at which we all rejoiced. But of course that was too good to last; you can now find them at voicesofsophia.wordpress.com/ where their particular brand of nonsense is alive and well.

There is a great deal already on the site that I want to discuss at some point.  First, however, I would like to say a few things about the article about Mary Jane Patterson (don't bother looking her up on Wikipedia; we're not talking about the woman from the 1800s). In many ways, it is quite typical of such articles - recapping significant moments in her life, honoring her work, ignoring her faults, making her sound far more perfect than any human ever was. Whether or not I agree with those things to which she dedicated her life is not the point here.

The point is "SHEROS."

SHEROS? Seriously? Come on.  It's not like "hero" has ANYTHING to do with "he."  Just because a word happens to share some letters in the same order as another word, it does not mean the words share the same root.  In fact, "hero" is from the Greek word heros, which - delicious irony! - Wikipedia suggests may be from the goddess Hera! Oh, wouldn't it be perfect if that were so, and the feminists are destroying a reference to a goddess through their hypersensitivity to masculine-tinged language?  It just makes me giggle with glee!  At any rate, it is quite new to English compared to "he," having arrived on the scene only in the 1300s.

"He," on the other hand, is from the Old English (O.E. in the Online Etymology Dictionary) word which, while spelled "he" was actually pronounced "hay."  It has been in the language for as long as we can tell - at least from what I find in the dictionary mentioned.

The most beautiful irony of this is, of course, that it is completely and utterly pointless.  For what letter comes after "h" and "e" in this poor word? Why, can it be the humble little "r"?  It is?  And what do those three letters, in that particular order, spell? Why, "HER"!  Which is, of course, the feminine counterpart to the pronoun which caused such offense.  Shall we then get rid of "her" and "she" because of their offensive letters?  Where does it stop?  Do we dispense with "where" and "when" for the same reasons?

Okay, that is rather ridiculous.  But ask yourself - is it any less ridiculous than SHEROES?

Wonderful news: I have a website!

Well, not quite.  But I do have a domain name and will, over the course of the next month or so, go about setting it up and making it pretty and whatnot.  For now, just be aware that someday you will be able to find me at www.thefaithfuldaughter.com, and while there's nothing but a placeholder template there now, eventually I hope to begin branding myself as the kind of Christian writer editors want to publish.  Prayers that this venture goes well are always appreciated.  There is a lot to learn, and I've complicated things for myself by trying to do it using Linux, not Windows.  But I'll figure it out.

Speaking of Linux vs. Windows, I finally figured out how to make Wine work, so the odds of me going back to Windows in the foreseeable future are pretty much nonexistant.  However, I haven't quite got all the kinks worked out - RoughDraft works splendidly, for example, until you try to check the word count, at which point it tells you there are 0 words no matter how much you've typed.  That will be a big problem come November.  But I have a while to work it out, and right now I'm just thrilled that I've got proof of concept.  So that's very exciting.  I'm not planning to ever pay for an operating system again (yeah, right - now that I've said that I'm sure to wind up having to buy something someday... and I might be willing to buy me a Mac).  

In other exciting news, this quarter is about 10 days from being over, which is good because I don't think I could have taken much more of it.  I really disliked my Theology and Pop Culture class (it was like my undergrad Communications and Pop Culture class, except with Jesus.  Boring!), wasn't particularly enthused with Systematic Theology III (although I have a major crush on the Orthodox Church... if you can say that about a church.  Seriously, I half want to convert.  The symbolism!  The spirituality!  The sincerity!  The orthodoxy!  I'm in raptures!), and Spiritual Disciplines was an intensive, so it flew by far too quickly to make a lasting impression.  I still have a 10 page research paper to write and a take-home final exam to complete, so I'm not out of the woods yet.

Oh, and did I ever mention that I got a job?  I did.  I'm working at Penney's, in Men's, and... well, it's retail.  Huzzah.  I've had worse, though ironically for better pay... but whatever.  That's life.  Hopefully it's not permanent.  The job, that is, not life.  Though this life isn't permanent, either.   ...stop me before I get all theological on you!

And that's about all the news.  I should probably go to sleep so I can get up and go to work tomorrow morning.  And then go to Ault tomorrow night to help out with the Youth Group, yaaay!  ^^  Good night world!

-Jaya-

It's finals week so I don't have long, but I just had to share this.  I love xkcd.  It's deliciously nerdy and always amusing.  My new favorite:

http://xkcd.com/556/

Don Quixote FTW. YES.

Those of you who knew me when I was growing up certainly remember my love for all things space-related.  In recent years, that love has been reawakened through Galaxy Zoo (now in its second generation! and yes, I still categorize on occasion, though the site goes down a lot while they work out the second-gen details), but nothing can beat the wonder captured by that most well-known of telescopes, the Hubble.

I've known for a while that the Hubble has been failing (it is over 10 years old) and that pretty soon, it's going to be time to send our old friend into a controlled dance with death - carefully maneuvering it so that it burns up in the atmosphere and doesn't come crashing down on the earth somewhere.  But... they were going to fix it, and now, since the amount of space debris up there is increasing and making it more and more dangerous to try to send people to fix it (and yes, I also thought of the end of the Wall-E trailer), they're not so sure.

I also know that the James Webb Space Telescope is going to be better resolution than Hubble, and will see farther, be placed farther out (on the other side of the moon, if I recall correctly), and generally look cooler than the Hubble.  Which is super cool and exciting.  And of course, all good things must come to an end.

But, dangit... I will be so sad when Hubble is gone! I could cry.  Who could forget the first time they saw a Hubble image?  Looking at the sheer beauty of the cosmos is enough to send me into an enraptured silence punctuated only by those times when my adoration of God's great creation cannot be contained any longer.  Hubble images in my Astronomy class at CSU made my head spin, being projected on such a big screen and seeming to display some of the immense grandeur which we can only imagine.  Don't get me wrong, I wll be incredibly excited to see what the JWST can put out.  But I do hope they can keep the Hubble going as long as possible, if for no other reason than that we should give it a chance to give us as much of the amazing information it can, as it was made to do.  And when it finally does have to go, for nothing lasts forever, I hope we give it a proper send-off.  And I hope I get to see it.

-Jaya-

I find it amusing that some people couldn't give a straight answer to the simplest of questions if their lives depended on it.  Sometimes it seems like there are some interviewees who, were I to ask them whether they were even alive, would not be able to answer simply "yes" but would have to give some convoluted string of meaningless words: "As I have not been able to ascertain up to this point a meaningful understanding of what it is to be alive, I can only speculate that I perceive the rain falling outside and therefore operate under the assumption that I have not yet ceased to breathe."  REALLY? You think you could cram a few more syllables in there that have nothing to do with the question I asked you?  That'd be great.  I think you could give me a bit more BS before you get down to not answering my question.  I really don't think that was your best effort.

This guy from Microsoft is one of them.

First of all, I can hardly believe that Microsoft is trying to revert to Digital Rights Management (or DRM), in England or anywhere else.  The basic point of DRM is to restrict one's use of legally purchased media (usually videos and music) and thereby control piracy.  The end result is often frustration: I purchased a couple of songs from Wal-Mart's website a few years ago and quickly regretted that decision because, thanks to DRM, I could not convert them into the proper format so I could put it on my iPod, which was the whole reason I bought them in the first place!  This is not an uncommon problem.  Many, many people who have purchased media protected by DRM have found that when they wanted to move thier media from one of their devices to another (say, from their computer to their mp3 player), they could not do so because of DRM restrictions.  Others have found that, when their computer crashed and they had to get a new one, they had to re-purchase all their media (even if they had backed it up) because they could not transfer it to a new device.  Understandably, this led to a general public dissatisfaction with DRM-restricted media and an increase in media piracy - perhaps it's illegal, but at least you can actually listen to the music you download illegally.  To be honest, I would not fault  a person like the young man who spent over $200 on baseball videos (and who, thanks to DRM, will never be able to view them again because the server from which the DRM receives permission to let those videos play is being shut down) for downloading them through other, less legal means.  He already paid for them once, after all, and through no fault of his own will lose the ability to watch them - even though he's not getting his money back.  I think he deserves to have the videos he paid for.  Nobody would argue with me if I said that Wal-Mart had come to reposess all the DVDs he'd ever bought from their stores, and I thought he had a right to keep them since he paid for them.  How is this different?

But I digress.  My point here is, this Hugh Griffiths guy never once actually answered the questions asked him.  Now, I know that I tend to be rather verbose when answering questions, but I flatter mysef that my verbosity is because I am actually giving a thoughtful answer to the question rather than simply saying words and hoping that nobody notices that they have nothing to do with the question asked.  And yet in this interview, the questionner continues to ask the same question in a variety of ways (namely: why would anyone in his right mind buy from MSN Mobile Music and deal with the DRM hassle when they could buy the same music elsewhere for cheaper and NOT deal with the DRM hassle?) and Mr. Griffiths continued to skirt the question and essentially make himself look like a fool.  Good work, Microsoft.  Out of curiousity, can ANYONE explain to me what the potential benefits of buying music from MSN Mobile would be?  Why on earth would I want to pay extra for music that I can't listen to when my phone breaks and I have to get a new one?  Especially when I can get it elsewhere for less money AND be able to transfer it to my computer so that when my phone breaks and I have to get a new one, I can transfer all that music that I already paid for onto my new phone and save even MORE money?  If there were some benefits that came with spending all that extra money I could perhaps justify it, but those would have to be some freaking amazing benefits to outweigh the drawbacks.

Honestly.  I think it's pretty obvious to everyone (except for Microsoft... but clearly they're clueless as to the workings of the average person's mind) that this isn't going to go over well, and that eventually one of two things will happen: MSN Mobile will drop the DRM nonsense and go another direction to justify insanely high prices, or MSN Mobile will drop the prices and keep the DRM, leading to its evental demise since no sane person will buy something with DRM knowing full well they'll have to buy it again when they switch phones.  Either way, I forsee the death of MSN Mobile in the not-to-distant future, and thank goodness for it.  May all DRM die the same death, the sooner the better.  The harder (and more expensive) you make it for people to enjoy their media legally, the more people you will push to piracy.  That strikes me as counter-productive.  Here's a radical thought: how about working WITH your customers to develop a mutually satisfactory system rather than employing this us-versus-them tactic which only serves to destroy customer relations?  It's pretty simple.  We want media that is inexpensive, easy to access and easy to back up.  And if we want to share that awesome new single we found with our friends, we should be able to do that, because that's free marketing and you should be BEGGING us to do that!

To be fair, there are places (such as iTunes and Amazon.com) which are offering DRM-free downloads of music (which is a big part of why MSN Mobile is going to fail spectacularly).  That's a step in the right direction.  I still think that the best solution is to work with torrent sites and other such popular pirating avenues to make media legally available through such mutual sharing sites, and make it as close to free as possible.  The internet isn't going away any time soon, and these people are going to have to adapt or become obsolete.  Music is going to be available to people for free through illegal means if it's not made available to people for free through legal means, and trying to persecute every thirteen-year-old in the world who downloads the latest big hit is simply not a viable option.  It's time to come up with another model.  Personally, I am in favor of the concert model in which artists receive their money from going on concert tours and other such sources, not from album sales.  To be quite fair, it's not like they will starve to death based on the loss of album sales.  They have far too much freaking money as it is.  They ought to be recording music for the love of music, not for the love of money, and if they can't seperate the two then they aren't mature enough to handle it anyway.

And that's quite enough ranting from me for now.  I have a paper to get back to.  I just thought I'd take a nice break and vent.

Perhaps the next time I take a break I'll talk about my thoughts on Microsoft's approach to software and operating systems and suchlike.  That might be fun.  =D

-Jaya-

I know, I know it's been for freaking ever since I last posted and this entry isn't exactly... um... update-ish.  Not much has changed, to be honest.  Maybe I'll have something to say at the end of the week, like perhaps I'll have a job.  Until then, I have this.

I just have to say that , even though I really don't think I have the body or the self-confidence to wear the Princess Leia bikini, I'm pretty sure I would do it if it meant I was capable of doing this.  And yes, if Joey Fatone decided to do it with me I would.  Seriously, this made my freaking day.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9TDkbbB-8kY

I have GOT to find a ballroom dancing class down here that doesn't require me to have a partner.  That looks like such fun.

And, for those of you less geeky than me, that pose they strike at the end is rather reminiscent of the Star Wars movie poster for the original. I squeed.  Just so ya know. =D

-Jaya-

This subject has been cropping up in unexpected places all week, and now I have encountered it again here.  It's time I finally addressed it.  Why do those hostile to Christianity (and faith in general, they will claim, but nine times out of ten they will level their attacks toward Christains and leave those of other faiths alone) insist that faith and science cannot coexist?  The arrogance of such people, assuming that no educated person could possibly believe in such naieve superstition is laughable.  

Every day, I have evidence to the contrary.  My roommate, a microbiologist who works in the lab at the hospital down the street, has explained to me more than once that her work with bacteria and viruses is crucial to her faith in God.  My mother, another microbiologist who is pursuing her master's degree in that very field (although her bent runs to our own cells, not the organisms that invade our bodies), also says that she finds strength for her faith in her studies.  My father has been practicing veterinary medicine for longer than I can remember and he too finds reason to glorify God in his scientific pursuits.  The most faith-boosting class I took in college was a freshman level astronomy course.  Whenever Dr. Culver would bring in slides, it was like having my own private worship session, right there in class.  I may not remember a lot of the physics we were taught, but  Iwill never foret sitting in the darkened classroom, staring at an image of Saturn, and struggling to sit still because of the awe for God that swelled within me.  Certainly, those who are of scientific mind can and do hold a belief in God.

So why this hostility to the very idea that faith and science can and do hold equal value to the same person?Why is it deemed impossible that scientific reasoning can lead a person to God?   Why is it that a man of science is thought to be somehow "above" faith in God?

I was watching some documentaries on the Discovery channel (I know, I'm a complete nerd - and proud of it) that addressed stories found in the Bible: Exodus, and Sodom and Gomorrah.  In each case, they demonstrated how the Biblical witness could be accurate, using scientific means.  And they talked as if this somehow negated the possibility that God was involved!  As if all their scientific reasoning, proof that what the Bible says in regard to historical events is at least plausible, if not demonstrably true, automatically rules out God's involvement.  But that simply does not follow! Just because something took place by means of scientifically understood processes, it does not mean that God was not behind said scientific processes.  On the contrary - God, being the creator of everything, created the laws of science and therefore it is perfectly logical that he would choose to work through them rather than constantly violate them every time he wanted something accomplished.  

And then there's the gentleman interviewed in the article linked above, who obviously belives that, because humans seem to have an innate need to worship some sort of deity (which has been demonstrated scientifically), therefore there is no such deity. (On a side note, don't you just love how he doesn't ever answer the questions asked in that interview?  He provides answers, sure, but not to the questions that were asked.  It's like reading the transcripts of two different interviews, where someone has come along and pasted the answers from one below the questions of another.)

These sorts of assumtions are flawed at best, idiotic at worst.  Forgive me if I sound abrupt, but honestly, how blind do you have to be not to recognize that the most plausible explanation for "humans have been scientifically shown to be hard-wired to believe in God" is not "therefore, there is no God" but just the opposite - "therefore, it is reasonable to conclude that there is some sort of God!"  Why else would we be so disposed?  What purpose does it serve us?  It provides comfort, but many atheists have proved that such comfort is not necessary for survival.  And beyond that... what does it do that something else does not also provide, from an evolutionary standpoint?

He speaks of this predisposition as if it's some new insight which he holds and wishes to share with humanity.  Unfortunately for him, this is not new at all.  C. S. Lewis hinted at this with his famous line, "If I find in myself a desire which no experience in this world can satisfy, the most probable explanation is that I was made for another world."  Paul wrote about it hundreds of years ago, and cites it as reason to recognize God's sovereignity over the whole world: "For what can be known about God is plain to them, because God has shown it to them. For his invisible attributes, namely, his eternal power and divine nature, have been clearly perceived, ever since the creation of the world, in the things that have been made. So they are without excuse. For although they knew God, they did not honor him as God or give thanks to him, but they became futile in their thinking, and their foolish hearts were darkened. Claiming to be wise, they became fools, and exchanged the glory of the immortal God for images resembling mortal man and birds and animals and creeping things." (Rom 1:19-23)  

How true that is!  Claiming to be wise, they became fools.  Do they think we don't know, don't sense intuitively that we are wired to believe in and worship God?  Do they think we are so stupid as to not recognize (and celebrate!) that there are scientific explanations to what happened in the Biblical stories?  Did it ever once occur to them that science can strengthen our faith, rather than overthrow it?

And furthermore, why do they care so much?  What is it to them that other people find comfort in worshipping a God who encourages compassion and love toward all men?  Why can't they just let us live our lives?

The clever ones will argue that atrocious things have been done in the name of religion.  And this is true.  They neglect to mention, however, that atrocious things have also been done in the name of Darwinism (the Holocaust comes to mind - the whole idea of racial cleansing comes straight from the idea of survival of the fittest) or in the name of Communism (do I even need to tell you what I'm thinking of here?), or in the name of politics (watch The Mission for a perfect example of political manipulation destroying lives) or because of revenge or hatred that had nothing to do with God.  They also neglect to mention that people like myself, my family, and my friends, as well as hundreds of thousands of other Christians around the world and throughout history, have never done anything to harm anyone.  Of course we have sinned, and we acknowledge that, but the vast majority of us are no worse than your average atheist (some would even argue that we're better but I won't open that can of worms here).

I'm still hard at work at the Isaiah paper (I figure I ought to get it done first since it has to be mailed; Gospels can be hand-delivered).  I found another box elder bug hanging out on my book, so I got up to find something suitably heavy with which to end his days (hey, he shouldn't have been crawling around on my book!), and it was only then that I really looked at my workspace.  This is what I saw:



... I knew I'd spilled over onto my bed, but I hadn't realized my bed was worse than my desk.  And I've been feeling CRAMPED for space all night! It's almost 11, too - might be time to call it quits and read something completely unrelated to Isaiah, Matthew, or feminism to clear my head before I try to sleep.  Of course, that first requires I clean up that mess of a bed! *Sigh.*  

I really want to find a circular desk.  A full on circle, with a hole in the middle for my chair and me.  Like a doughnut!  There'd have to be a part that lifts up, of course, so I could get in and out, but then I could spread out as much as I need to and have room for all my dozens of papers.  Do they make those?  They should.  Kind of like these desks, only less gigantic and more all-the-way-around round.

Someday.  That'll go in my dream office.  I just don't know quite where I'd stick it among all the books...

My stars, am I ever tired!  Can you tell by the general loopiness of this post? I should go to sleep.  Too bad I'm not sleepy.  Just worn out. >.<

Three more days.  Can I do it? (YES, I CAN!  Oh no... I'm either channeling Bob the Builder or *gulp* Obama.  It's DEFINITELY time for bed!)

-Jaya-

But this time, I found -exactly- what I was looking for.  It can be found here - the entire soundtrack, sans sound effects and words (with one minor exception, but that is acceptable).  I found it!  The whole thing!

This, my friends, is why persistence is excellent.

However, now I'm torn.  This is the first time it has snowed really hard since I've been in the Springs (well it also snowed a lot over Thanksgiving but not like this), and traditionally I want to be listening to the Nutcracker right now.  But... I want to listen to North and South!  I'll probably be bouncing between the two all day.  Although, we're out of milk, so maybe when I brave the cold to go to the store I'll put in the Nutcracker and get both.  Yay. ^.^

-Jaya-

For those of you who are not aware of this fact, back in my high school days I was a clarinet player in my high school band.  Yes, we marched, but we were a concert band at heart, and we played some fantastic songs before our dear director Mr. Worth left.  (We also played some fantastic songs after he left, but unfortunately we did not play them nearly as well nor did we play nearly as many.)  But among the many songs that we played, there is one that stands out.  Composed by Steven Reineke, is called "Pilatus: Mountain of Dragons" and can be found here to listen or download.

I wish I remembered the whole story behind this song, because it adds so much to its appeal.  Unfortunately, attempts to find it online have also been unsuccessful (not that I mean to imply it cannot be found online, just that I failed to find it).  So, as far as I can remember, it is about some adventurers who are climbing Mt. Pilatus and run across a dragon.  The dragon kills one and defeats the other, who begs for mercy.  The dragon grants it, restoring life to the one he killed (don't remember how, sadly) and they go on their way. 

At any rate.  I have never played anything which was more fun.  Pirates of the Caribbean was close (or would have been had we not sucked so much at it), Vesuvius was closer (but the song just isn't half as thrilling), but nothing - NOTHING - can compare with the thrill of playing this song.  I don't think I ever practiced anything harder than I did this song.  Partly because it was hard, and partly because it was so good that I couldn't stop playing it!  Even the parts that I didn't have with me, I knew so well I could sing them in my head as I played.  It was so much fun!  The moments where it speeds up, the moments when it's soft and delicate, the moments when it's mournful... all are simply fantastic.  I can't even begin to express just how much I love this song.  When the clarinets start climbing back out of the dark hole that comes when the dragon has killed the adventurer, I can't help moving as though I'm playing again.  I half want to drive back to Brighton, pick up my clarinet, and start fingering along.  I probably don't remember enough of the fingerings to do it, but what the hey.  As it is, I'm very glad my roommate didn't walk in when I first found this song, because she would have found me directing along as though my heart would burst and it probably looked like I was flailing wildly in my chair.  I can't help it.  I can't sit still when I listen to this song.  I couldn't even sit still when playing it either - it was one of the few songs that got me moving as a clarinetist ought to do while playing.  

I wish I could convey to you everything that makes this song awesome.  But, I cannot.  There are some things about which words fall far short, even for me, and this is one of them.  Go listen to it.  Maybe you'll hear what I mean.  

-Jaya-

I have been searching/begging for this soundtrack ever since I saw the movie North and South.  Not the Patrick Swayze ridiculousness about the civil war, but the BBC adaptation of Elizabeth Gaskell's novel, North and South.  Take a listen to the music, and you'll see why I fell in love with it instantly. (For those who don't have 37 minutes to listen to the whole thing, I suggest Episode 3's main title and/or 38: N&S Harp - both are lovely and give a decent sampling of the music as a whole.  Careful - these two tracks do not contain spoilers for the film, but others do and some of the track names also contain spoilers.)   Unfortunately, the group responsible for it has not released it and has no plans to do so, even though I can almost guarantee they'd make an absolute KILLING with it because, even if you don't like the movie, the music has such passion and movement that it can hardly fail to give some enjoyment.  Unfortunately, the tracks at this website are simply lifted straight from the movie, with the sound effects and voices still intact, which detracts from the movie somewhat.  But it's worth it just to be able to listen to the music.  I can't even begin to express how thrilled I was to have found this.  So I thought I would share.  Who knows, maybe the folks at Bucks Music Group will find this blog, realize that they would be able to make money on the soundtrack (hey, I'd pay handsomely for it!), and release it.  Not likely, but a girl can dream, right?

In other news, my NaNoWriMo word count is up over 72,000, but I still hate the story and am sorely tempted to paste in my Systematic Theology final, some papers from Isaiah, my notes from Gospels, and call it good.  I technically wrote it all in November, anyway.  That would get me up over 80k and I wouldn't have to mess with the stupid thing anymore.  I have a character who is a pastor, so I could integrate it with the story. Or I could just skip the boring part, write the ending, and see what happens.  Who knows, maybe it would be good for the story.

In other other news, still no luck on the job front, although some people from Fuller are asking me about possibly cat-sitting for them over Christmas so I may do that.  Of course, it would mean I wouldn't get to go home except for Christmas day, but we'll see what Mom and Dad have to say about that.

In other other other news - and yes, that's getting ridiculous, and yes, I'll stop - school is starting to wind down.  The assignment I thought would be due on Christmas eve was in fact due today (no worries, I discovered my mistake in plenty of time and got it in ok) so it looks like my last assignment is due December 12, and after that I'm done.  Hooray.  I will miss Isaiah, and some parts of Systematic Theology, but for the most part, I'm ready for it to be done.  Hard to believe that my first quarter is almost over.  Though, I still have a lot of work left to do before that hits, so I can't get too complacent.  Speaking of - if anybody has some good, non-femininst resources about the use of feminine imagery in the book of Isaiah, I'd be much obliged if you would point me in their general direction.   I'm very excited about my paper for that class, because I'm writing on the feminine imagery in Isaiah and not saying a single word about feminism.  It will be glorious... if a bit difficult.  But, needless to say, it's a bit difficut to find resources for that sort of thing, and I'd be willing to search for any resources you might think I'd find useful.

And, as the saying goes, that's all, folks!  More next time, whenever that will be.

-Jaya-

P.S. YES, Mr. Thornton, I'm coming home with you!  If you'll have me! ;D

I won NaNo! 50,000 words! The story isn't finished, but I have a green bar on the website.



... the widget seems not to have updated yet.  But it will.  And then, the happy will be clear.  HOORAY.

No, sadly, I'm not talking about the movie, here.  Rather, I'm talking about this:

http://www.onenewsnow.com/Education/Default.aspx?id=315596

Watch the video.  It's obvious that this woman thinks that she's being fair and even, but her bias is clear as day!  Now, granted, this is on a lesser extreme than many of the folks in Indoctrinate-U, but still.  Telling a girl that the candidate she supports will mean her father doesn't get to come home from the war for 100 years is stupid, wrong, and irresponsible (and not just because the man's probably not going to be fit to serve for another 100 years).  And it certainly has no place in an elementary school classroom.

Boo, boo, boo.

In other, more cheerful news, my word count is now over 32,000!  Yesterday was super productive.  I got one of the in-baskets done for Friday's class, I applied for 3 jobs, and I wrote more than 3,000 words.  YAY.  Now, here's hoping I hear something back from those job apps and it'll be really good. :)

-Jaya-

Also, if anyone is looking for Christmas presents to buy me, check out my Amazon wish list.  That should supply more than enough for everyone who feels the need to get stuff and means I don't have to keep composing lists for everybody.  I'll keep it updated.  And please don't take this to mean I expect presents from everbody - I don't.  I won't object if you choose to get me stuff, but I certainly won't object if you don't. :)
 

I'm moving to Alaska. 

To keep me on track, I want this somewhere that I can see it.  And so can everyone else.  So:



(if it doesn't load, try refreshing a time or two.  It's on the NaNo site, which is super slow right now.)
As long as I can stay ahead of Sarah, I'm good.  Bring it on, girl! ;D

Those of you who know me well are aware of my affection for Orson Scott Card, author of the Ender's Game books along with others (particularly his Women of Genesis series, which I have enjoyed greatly in spite of myself).  While I strongly disagree with his religious beliefs (how an otherwise intelligent person can fall for the lies of the Mormon cult is beyond me - I mean, come on, can you really expect me to believe that Joseph Smith translated the Book of Mormon out of a hat using holy dice?) , the man is politically brilliant.  And he writes extremely well, both fiction and non.  So, barring that one (admittedly rather huge) glitch, the guy is pretty much my hero. 

That said, I would like to point your attention to an article which was similarly pointed out to me (thanks, DJ!) which he wrote recently: "Would the Last Honest Reporter Please Turn On the Lights?"  Read it.  He says it better than I ever could. 

Wow.  This post is link-tacular.  Huh. o.O

Well, for now, that is all.

-Jaya-

Bear with me.  This will be an angry rant.  Very, very angry.  And frustrated.  Angry and frustrated.  And hormonal.  Reader beware.  You have been warned.

So far, I am mostly enjoying my seminary classes.  They are a lot of work and there are some things that are confusing as heck, but for the most part I am learning a lot about God and already finding ways to apply it to my life, which is super cool.

BUT.  I should have known better, but I genuinely expected not to have to deal with the infiltration of politically correct speech in my seminary classes.  This is Fuller, for heaven's sake, and they're supposed to be conservative and level-headed.  And yet here I am, reading books which refuse to use pronouns for God (do you have ANY idea how ANNOYING that is? ...some of you do...) or which use B.C.E. and C.E. instead of B.C. and A.D. when talking about dates.  I could cry.

Granted, I'm a bit hypersensitive to the pronoun thing.  It was the first inkling that something was wrong at my home church, the place where Christianity fell apart at the seams in favor of a more manageable and liberal-friendly god whose main goal was not to offend anyone, except of course for those lousy conservatives.  We can offend them as much as we want because they are wrong anyway, and besides it's not like they have feelings that actually MATTER or anything.  But my main memory of that church, when things started to get wonky, was when Pastor Lynn insisted on using the most awkwardly-worded sentences since The Eye of Argon in order to avoid using masculine pronouns for God.  And now my Systematic Theology 1 teacher insists on using it as well.  It was bad enough that he stated that we would be graded down for not using gender-inclusive language in papers.  At the time, I didn't think he was referring to language about God.  Now, I'm not so sure.  But I still used masculine pronouns in reference to God in the paper I turned in for that class on Friday.  I will not destroy English grammar so that the liberals can feel better about themselves.  God has chosen to reveal himself in the Bible to us in almost exclusively masculine terms, and the few comparisons that involve God and something feminine are in the form of similes, not metaphors, which hold a much lesser degree of comparison.  HOW MANY TIMES DO I HAVE TO GO OVER THIS?  AARRGGHH.  It's not "Godself."  It's "HIMself."  "Godself" is not a word, and you sound like a freaking MORON when you say it.  It just makes you sound uneducated and naive.  And I refuse to do it!  I am willing to compromise and use gender-inclusive language when referring to humans.  I still maintain that most women are intelligent enough to discern when an author is using the gender-neutral "he" or the masculine "he" and that to suggest otherwise is an insult to her intelligence, but as that is a lesser concern than messing with God's self-revelation, I'll let it go.  But I refuse to talk about God in grammatically idiotic ways.  I have too high a respect for God and for the English language, in that order.

And then there's our readings for Isaiah.  I have long thought that the idiotic modern convention of substituting B.C.E. and C.E. for the traditional (and accurate, by the way) B.C. and A.D. was, well, idiotic, moronic, stupid, delusioned, ignorant, and overall rather dumb.  Who do they think they're fooling, anyway?  Call a spade a spade, people.  Nobody is going to rework our entire dating system in order to make it NOT centered around Christ, so you're stuck with this being 2008 (years after the death of Christ) whether you like it or not.  So, rather than try to change the way the entire world thinks about the progression of time, we're just going to muddy the waters a little bit and call the time after Jesus the "common era" and the time before Jesus the time "before common era."  Because nobody will be smart enough to figure out that we're still organizing our ENTIRE DATING SYSTEM around Jesus Christ.  Of course.  That's called DENIAL, boys and girls, and it's more than just a river in Egypt.  It's rather stupid.  What, do you think it's somehow less offensive to have the "arbitrary" division between common era and before-common-era (by the way, who the hell decided against the more logical pre-common era?  Doesn't that make tons more sense?) be Jesus Christ, rather than simply coming out and saying that, as part of our history, the people who ran things at the time when important decisions like how we were going to talk about time were made were Christians, and wanted to honor Jesus by organizing their dating system around his life?  I don't know, it seems to me like it doesn't get rid of the problem to change the name.  Just makes you look foolish.

But it's even worse when CHRISTIAN authors fall into this ludicrous trap.  Come ON, people.  Who do you think you're going to offend?  Presumably, we're all Christians, here - or at least that seems to be the audience you are addressing in your books.  But today, in ALL of my readings, every single one of them has used the B.C.E. and C.E. notation.  One says that he is "follow[ing] a common convention in biblical [sic] studies."  Why the HELL is that common?  In Biblical studies?  The one place where it still ought to be ok to stand up without shame and affirm that the dating system we know is created in honor of our Lord, Jesus Christ.  That sickens me.  Seriously.  That is beyond unacceptable.  This fear of offense is permeating everywhere, even our conservative churches!  I don't think many of you noticed this, but Jesus didn't exactly go around fearing that he was going to offend anyone - in fact, he offended a LOT of people! 

Thank God that the church in China is praying for us to be persecuted.  Thank God that their prayers are being answered.  We have become selfish and weak, and we can't even stand up for the most trivial of things, like pronouns and dating conventions.  How on earth can we then be expected to stand up for the important things, like the fact that Jesus Christ is the only way to eternal life? 

We're in serious trouble.

-Jaya-

... I found this and just had to share.  Because it is made of awesome.  You can purchase your very own BatPhone!

I'm really not so into Batman, but the very idea that someone would make a working BatPhone is too ridiculously awesome to pass up.  That you can also get a Shakespeare-bust-slash-hidden-remote-control and a clear dome to cover your BatPhone is equally ridiculous.  And awesome.  Ridiculously awesome.  Because who doesn't want a bust of Shakespeare whose head lifts up to reveal a secret button? Nobody, that's who!

If it weren't $315, anyway. >.<

-Jaya-

Wow.  I just realized that it was the end of August that I last posted on here.  Somehow I was thinking it had been more recent than that, and I apologize.  I suppose I ought to give a clue as to what's happened since the end of August!

First of all, I've moved!  I have not, as I long expected to do, moved to Seattle.  Rather, I have taken the much shorter trip to Colorado Springs and am now living with a very dear friend from college, which is turning into quite the blast.  I have started classes at Fuller's extension campus here, and though I have very limited experience with them so far, I can say that they're promising to be a lot of fun.  I'm taking Systematic Theology, Gospels, and Isaiah (English Text), and I'm sure there will be more updates from them as the quarter progresses.

I remain jobless, though not hopeless.  I have had a couple of interviews, which have not gone anywhere, but at least I know that my resume is not completely awful.  I know God has something out there for me... I don't know what it is yet, but I can feel his guiding hand on this.  I know that sounds kind of weird but it's very true.  I don't know how else to say it, except as I just did.  God is in control, here, and I'm actually not worried.

I have yet to plug firmly into any particular church community here, but I've been going to First Presbyterian (I guess I'm just drawn First Presbyterian churches, no matter the city -  but this one is a confessing church and looks to be just as awesome as First Pres FC, not the feminazi stronghold that is First Pres Brighton) and it looks promising.  I'm excited about that - I need a church community and I've really been feeling the loss these few weeks.

Before I go further, may I direct your attention to the deliciously lovely new user icon?  Credit goes to </a></b></a>agdhani - the icon is hers, created for the </a></b></a>nanowrimo community.  And it quite simply thrills me to the core.  I mean, is there anything that better describes my personality? I have a feeling this icon will get a lot of love around here. 

And speaking of, it's October, and that means there is less than a month until it's NaNoWriMo season again!  I have decided that I am going to write this year, but I'm going to shoot for something easy - just the 50k will satisfy me, even though I have a suspicion that my plot idea will run closer to 80k.  Last year I did 100,007 words with 4 days to spare, so I think that writing 50,000 words in the same amount of time will be a cinch.  And since I'm doing a fairy tale retelling (last year was Cinderella, this year is Snow White), I already have a built-in plot.  Sot that's super exciting.  I can't wait to go to write-ins and meet my fellow Colorado Springs novelists, and hopefully pop up to FoCo to see my old WriMo friends, because they rock on ice and I miss them.  And, because I learned that Colorado Springs apparently has a very one-sided contest with Fort Collins regarding regional word counts (Fort Collins is blissfully unaware of this competition, else I would have heard of it in my three years of NaNo there), I might switch my home region back to Fort Collins so my word count is added to them and not to the Springs.  Every little bit helps, after all, and I can't stand to see my dear FoCos lose if I have any say in the matter.  Speaking of, I do hope that they'll let me participate in the openly-declared-on-both-sides war against Greeley.  It's quite important to beat them again, since we have a title to uphold this year and we absolutely cannot let them win again.  So, Yeah.  NaNoWriMo will be interesting this year.

I suppose beyond that I haven't a whole giant lot to update.  I have some very opinionated opinions to air at some point, including why I will not be sending my children to public school under any circumstances, but that is for another post.  Till then (and you may feel free to nudge me if I go another month complete without posting!), love to you all and God bless!

-Jaya-