What if I'm Right? by Sandi Thom

"...You'll always keep the magic
the tender love and care,
And when you need to change the lightbulb,
you won't hand me the chair.
And when we're tired of the city
and we find a country home,
you'll sell your vinyl records
and go get us a loan.

You'll be my sympathetic lover
and you won't steal the covers
but I've got my doubts, and what if I'm right?
You won't forsake me,
your mother won't hate me
but I've got my doubts, and what if I'm right?
You'll be strong
and you'll turn me on
but I've got my doubts, and what if I'm right?
You'll be true
and be faithful too,
but I've got my doubts, and what if I'm right?
What if I'm right?"

Sung by: Tabby and myself as the finale to the Chorus concert. :)

Mason Murer, Black and White affair

America has this fascinating little tradition where all of the Junior and Senior students of a high school get all dressed up, go out to dinner, and then attend a dance. This tradition is called prom. I have a hunch that prom has changed a LOT from the time it was instituted to the present day. For one thing, people probably danced much more, er... formally than they do now. :P Still and all, it's an interesting event.
I attended prom last night, with a group of several friends. Some had dates, some did not. Kerry, Keri and I formed the "Old Maids' Committee" as I like to call it- people who's dates got sick, canceled, or never realized that they were supposed to take these three amazingly beautiful and witty girls to prom. Oh well, tough luck for them I suppose. ;)
First Anna and I went over to the house of a good friend of mine. Her best friend is a sort of make-up, stylist person, and the two of them really enjoy making people beautiful and fashion designing. They had offered to do my makeup (thank goodness, because I would have made a royal mess, never having worn makeup before in my life... :P) and hair. So after a session of intense pampering, laughter, good music, and some rather painful plucking of the eyebrows,
we took a few pictures, said goodbye and thank you, and headed off for the place that our prom group had arranged to meet. Where the parents indulged in more pictures. A LOT more pictures, lol.
Then we all piled into the cars and went off to the little mall, home to a nice-ish restaurant that serves delicious Thai food. That bit was the most fun. We ordered our food, feeling all spiffy and proper; we talked, we laughed. The people who didn't know eachother got to know each other. :) It was a lot of fun. Then at 8:15, realizing we were fashionably late, we paid our bills, left the restaurant, and went outside to... take more pictures. :P Once again we all piled into cars and finally drove off to the actual dance. On the drive there, my two seatmates kept talking about America's Next Top Model- all seasons (ahem, cycles) included. They discussed the comparative merits of each contestant, made bets on who would win, who would be voted out this week, etc. I tried to join in as best I could, but couldn't help wondering why they cared. They were gossiping about these girls their own age, saying things they'd never dare to say to anyone's face. Maybe that's what draws people to these shows. They can say just exactly what they think without fear of reprisal. At any rate, we drove into the city until we arrived at this neighborhood that seemed to be made entirely up of warehouses. Turns out our location itself was actually a warehouse that had been turned into a museum.
It had some really fun art. The statues in particular were fascinating. There was one that was the giant head of a man with ram's antlers; another was the sparse outline of a horse made with wire as thick as a person's forearm; another (my favorite) was a giant foot. It had wings set at the ankle and covering the foot, pressed against it, were ridges as of cloth that was being pressed against the foot by wind... but they were almost ridges set into the foot's skin, too. It was amazing. I had to just stand and look at it for a bit. Then there were black-and-white photographs that had been made purposefully blurry. They were mostly of things like chairs and tables. My other favorite piece was a picture of the city with the highway in the foreground. It was done in sepia colors, but the really cool thing about it was that it had been painted onto a huge square of tiles. :) Ok, last piece, I promise! There were these two little ponies, maybe 3/4 of a meter high and a meter long. They were brown, covered in sack-cloth and with bridles and everything. Very cute.
So we got into the dance, and we registered. The rest of our time there consisted mostly of standing around talking or walking around greeting people and looking for others that we'd somehow lost. That and asking eachother if we were having fun yet. Which, despite the lack of actual things happening, I did. It was a very cool atmosphere. There were a lot of people dancing in a huge clump in the middle of the museum and the DJ was throwing glow-sticks. And of course, everyone was absolutely beautiful. There were some of the most amazing and funny and beautiful dresses there that I have ever seen all together in one spot outside of a movie. =) After standing around for about an hour, I came to my senses and realized that the funnest part of being there were going to be the memories of having been there. So what else could I do but go and get my trusty camera and get snapshots of as many glamorous, beautiful and bizarre scenes I could find! :D
About 15 minutes after I had discovered the Purpose of Prom, we had to leave. We drove home and for an after-party watched this bizarre movie called The Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind. On top of the fact that we were all practically falling asleep (two people actually were asleep), it was a surreal movie about a man who's memories of his girlfriend are being erased while he sleeps. Can you say recipe for confusion? For a while there I had absolutely NO idea what was going on in that movie. Then we found a couple of centipedes, that was interesting. At any rate, after that I got a ride home, did my durndest to get all the makeup off my face (hah. Waterproof mascara is one stubborn bit of makeup!)
So yeah. It was a great experience. Congratulations if you got through all of that. :)
Hope you had a wonderful weekend!
over'n'out.

apples and oranges

I realize I haven't blogged in a while and this is partially to tell you that I won't be for a while. These next two weeks are crazy with exams and finishing-up things a few parties and not to mention absolutely chock full of people. Nothing like a little change to spice life up. Whew!
I had promised myself that by the end of this school year I would be fully versed in American interactions. Having only just managed to get the hang of Spanish social graces and happily begun stretching my wings, coming back to the States has been... interesting. I want to say hard, but that is not exactly the word I am looking for.
My purpose this school year was to scope out how Americans interact with one another, and what I needed to change. In order to do this, and in order not to get hurt next school year when I will have to completely re-adapt for the second year running, I decided not to spend much time or effort making friends. I wanted to watch people instead. I've discovered, belatedly, that in order to really observe social interaction in real time, you have to be in the midst of it. Oops. At any rate, I got so miserable toward the middle of the year that I started to talk to people anyway. I figured I had already seen enough to start off with. And it was after a few months of talking with people and building relationships that I began to question whether the whole culture thing really mattered all that much. I watched a French kid integrate, and he did just fine. Granted, he's very unusual, for a French person, but still. I watched my sister integrate, and she has the same sort of relationship with people in her grade now as I had after 3 years with my Spanish friends- and she was more Spanish in Spain than I ever want to be. Then the receptionist at the dentist's (of all people) said something that I've been turning over in my head: "Everyone understands a smile, no matter what their culture is." Granted, I think that it is a slanted view of things; after all, Europeans don't smile much, and get creeped out if you smile at them at the wrong time, say when you pass them in the street. However. There is a truth inside this statement, I think, which is that people, no matter where you go, are people. And you don't always have to do a lot of translating to get that across.
Still, my personal tips to anyone coming over from Spain would be:
1. Don't make too much eye contact during a conversation. People tend to feel like they are being scrutinized rather than respected (if they're an acquaintance).
2. Always say "hi" and/or wave when you cross paths with someone you know. And smile, of course. Always smile.
3. When someone new comes into a conversation, don't try to establish that you are already "in" with the present crowd by bringing up all the memories you have in that group. It just makes you look silly and rather self-centered. (yes, this is from personal experience. :P)
4. We can always make more rules of interaction, but in general, just be nice to people and build 'em up instead of tearing them down. In America, people aren't always out to get you. Often they're willing to accept you and like you on the spot, no period of trial required.

Well, it's late and I must sleep. I was reading some very interesting stuff today in DEAR (Drop Everything And Read. neat little program) on sleep in a stray psych book... anyway. must stop there.
Happy Wednesday.

p.s.: Tomorrow (wed.) is the day that the Chorus gig I arranged will be going on, so if you guys wanted to pray about that, I'd much appreciate it.

SafeHouse

So today is the 28th of April. Not a famous 29th, unfortunately. I've decided that if special things won't just happen on 29ths, then I will make them happen. But that is beside the point. Which was... to tell you about this Friday. There is no real way I could tell you everything that happened- you would have had to be there. Still, I'll try my durndest. =)
This weekend a small band from our youth group set out on a trip to the heart of Atlanta. We went to visit a place called SafeHouse. Our original plan was to volunteer for en evening, but we ended up just going there and sort of- well, observing for a few hours. We saw the whole facility, and the man who was working there that evening showed us all of the ministries that they have. It's really an amazing place. Their motto and goal is to "give people a hand up, not a handout." Which is very admirable, really. Talking with D you could really tell that he is passionate about this ministry. They help people to get cleaned up (in all senses of the word) if they want it, they facilitate ways for people to write resumés, make phone calls, acquire paperwork; they mentor kids whose parent(s) are in prison; they teach people (volunteers) what it is like to be homeless; they also have a church service and serve a meal every evening, with the help of volunteer organizations from the area. Our little group got to sit in on the service that night and help pass out the dinner and clean up the parking lot. What was amazing to me about this trip was the difference of these people from the people that I usually meet around here. They were scruffy, they were dirty, they were not in a hurry (which I truly enjoyed. ;) ); you could really tell that they had fallen on/gotten into hard times. Most of them were African American guys in their 30s and up, but there were some whites and just a few women. Apparently certain cities have different concentrations of homeless demographics. One city has homeless white teens (Detroit? Chicago?), another has older women, etc. Despite all their differences however, these people were resoundingly people. What I mean by that is that they were a different sort of people from the ones that usually surround me. And that was good. I really wanted to have the chance to get to know these people, to work with them and understand their lifestyle- and how to get them out of it into a better one, if they so chose.
over'n'out

Notes

Well, today I registered for swim team. Yay! I am looking forward to learning how to swim... er, better than I do now. You know, learn how to actually SWIM, as opposed to knowing how to keep myself afloat and generally propel myself in the direction of my choice. ;) And oh, yeah! I didn't mention it last post, b/c it hadn't happened yet, but I learned how to bodysurf over spring break!! It was totally awesome! Catching the wave has such a different feel to it... and there is nothing, I repeat, nothing in this world like being carried toward shore by this watery force, looking to your side and seeing the wave-foam racing you in. Wow!! ok, I'm done. =)
In other news, I am going to get my driving permit this weekend. It will happen, and I am posting it on here as a sort of promise, to keep me from procrastinating any longer. There.
And now I am getting off of this sinkhole that is the internet and doing it!
ta-ta.
Happy Saturday to all!

P.S.: Accomplished! I am now licensed to drive vehicles under 10,000 pounds under the supervision of someone 21 years or older. Hurrah!! And I took a tour around the parking lot with my dad in (hopefully) my future car... so yeah, all in all, good day. =)

Toads/Frogs and a Crab

According to Angela, there are no toads, because all toads are really frogs. Well, I don't know how true that statement is (from a strictly scientific point of view, probably not very) but whatever you call that amphibian that starts out as a tadpole and then grows up to make some raucous (sp?) noise, that is what I found today in abundance. In fact, there's a bunch of them croaking away outside my window right now.
We've been seeing frogs/toads on the road for several days now. It's so wet down here that they just thrive (plus there're plenty of bugs to snap up with sticky tounges. Mosquitoes at least 2.5 cm long.) So this evening, in a pleasant little rainstorm (as opposed to the lightening and thundering we had last night) I decided to go out and catch some. Yes, I went frog-hunting. And great fun it was, too!
I caught four frogs, three of the same species and one little one that could hop further than all the rest put together (several of this variety got away from me, on account of their hopping so fast and far. I'm sure anyone watching me chase the little buggers would have been greatly amused ;) ). I put them all in a bucket together, one that we had around for groceries, and that was, well... maybe not the best of ideas. Interesting, for sure. Let's just say that I witnessed the forming of a few future frog/toad families. (Actually, with frogs and toads, the process is not that interesting. The female secretes the eggs, and all the male does is sort of crawl over her back and release sperm over the eggs. Woohoo for AP Bio... stuff you're not sure you ever wanted to know!) Anyway. So then I was foraging out into the rain again (beautiful, soft almost-warm rain) for my last frog, when what should I discover, but a crab! A gen-u-wine crab, about 4 cm long! Man, that thing was fun. It didn't like me much though. It sort of reminded me of a martial arts combatant, you know? Arms up, and scuttling sideways, and very defensive. Only in this case of course, it was claw up. The claw was almost as big as its entire body! Simply amazing... oh, and do you know what else? (Annalisa, this reminded me of you) It's shell was purple!
Oh, and another thing about the frogs. Three of them could have cared less whether I talked or not. They were just sort of... catatonic. But the last frog I got in there (I think it was the male, because it promptly started crawling over all the other frogs) listened to my voice and followed it. No joke. I stood on all different sides of the bucket (it has a pretty wide bottom, and high sides) and talked, just to make sure. I swear that toad looked at me and followed the vibrations of my voice. Must have been the right frequency or something.
So yeah, that was my day :). That and sorting scads of shells picked up from the beach.
Good night all! and a wonderful Monday to you.

New York, New York

Well, sorry guys, but this is as close as I can get you. Hope you enjoy the view! Oh, and just in case you felt homesick, I put the Castle of the Faithful up there too.