Miscellaneous 2-11-15

It's come to this. I have 3-5 much better post ideas knocking around in the back of my head, but the necessity of writing for English and studying for the Physics quiz on Friday, along with the desire for actual sleep tonight, means that I'm just going to tell you all about my day.

• My friend Tatijana feels deeply about the neck structure of the apatosaurus, not to mention the tragedy of the species' unavoidable demise. I wish I could empathize well enough to write a poem for her, but I barely know what an apatosaurus is. It's all right, though, Tatijana: I'm like 97% sure that there will be dinosaurs in heaven. 
• I learned about Laplace transforms today. Our professor talks as if we've forgotten how to do algebra, and in my case, he's actually right. I tried to solve something like 3 = 2 + 4B and really thought that B = 1/2, or some stupid mistake like that. Oh well. Practice makes perfect! Someday I'll look back at this post and think with a sentimental sniffle, I was so young, I had only just learned what Laplace transforms were.
• Currently trying to teach myself the NXC coding language (a C-based programming language specifically for LEGO NXT, for those of you who don't know) so that we can actually program our Lego robot, hopefully in time for the preliminary competition next week. Things are a little complicated by the fact that my computer refuses to connect to the robot, but my groupmate's computer connects just fine, so we're trying to work out this strange emailing-code and snapchatting-test-results arrangement, which is not too bad. 
• Songs of the week: True North - Jillette Johnson, Send Me The Moon - Sara Bareilles, Queen Of A Sad Land - A Silent Film, Jupiter - Sleeping At Last, Blood I Bled - The Staves, Someone - Future of Forestry. 

That's it for now! You may expect a killer haiku tomorrow night when I take a study break. 

Thoughts on John 6:60-71

Like Peter, I do not want to leave my Lord.

The world I see around me is dark, frightening, and powerful. In looking at myself, I have come to understand my own weakness--my helplessness to control anything around me. How, then, could I venture into that place without the protection of my Father's mighty hand?
The thought terrifies me.

The pleasures of this world are plentiful and persuasive in their promises. It would be easy to submit to their allure and let myself be drawn in until I hardly know myself. But I know from the stirrings of my soul that it will not be satisfied with such meager fare. I have tasted of a greater joy than the world can offer me. I will not leave the source of living water to drink at broken cisterns.

The Creator of the universe does not disappear simply because I turn away from him.
I am not guiltless. I am not shameless. I deserve eternal punishment.
To flee from the arms of my Savior is to expose myself for the judgment my sinful soul requires. Without my Redeemer, the knowledge of a holy God's existence is the most horrifying thing I can imagine.

Like a lost child come home, I do not want to leave this shelter my soul has found.
I am not afraid that I will. I know this:
Like steel melted onto steel, my Lord will never, ever let me go.

I am in New Jersey

There wasn't a single cloud in the sky tonight, so I could easily see the way the different blues arched overhead: bright and vibrant straight above, then fading to near-white at the very edge of the horizon. It looked sharp, as if the circle of the sky rushed down and sliced through the sea right there.

We didn't stay long enough to watch the sun reach out and play across the water, so I can only imagine how beautiful that must have been. I rather wish we had.

Tomorrow, maybe.

~

A very young boy in stars-and-stripes shorts stood by the sea with a shovelful of sand. He looked as triumphant as a two or three-year-old boy could look.
"Look at America," said one of my brothers. "He claims this land for himself!"
America held his shovel up with both hands and awkwardly tossed its contents at the waves. They mostly plopped at his feet.
He bent down for another scoop of sand and did the whole thing again.

When we were preparing to leave, America walked past us towards the boardwalk, wailing as he clung to his father's hand. He pointed somewhere and sobbed harder. He was obviously trying to get something.
(Whiny child.)

When we were walking back to our house, we passed a family: mother, father, and young son. They were fully dressed now, without their bright swimsuits, so it took a second look for us to recognize them.
"Hey," said Jeremy. "Is that America?"
It was.

Maybe we'll see him again tomorrow.

~

Fireworks are booming from somewhere beyond the other side of the street. They're mostly red and gold, and I have no idea why they're being set off at all. Maybe a clear summer night is a good enough reason to celebrate.

One golden firework lingers in the sky after it explodes into a thousand tiny sparkles.
I imagine this might be what it looked like if it rained light instead of water.

~

The seagulls were massive in number. You couldn't look any direction without seeing one, or twenty. They were also massively obnoxious, constantly stalking as close to you as possible and swooping low over your head, not to mention swarming at the merest hint of food. It would be easy to hate them, or at least resent their presence.

Instead, I mostly envied them.
I envied the way they could spread their wings and beat them till their bodies rose.
I envied the way they could streak through the air just as fast as they wanted to.
I envied the way they could soar upon the strong, cool wind, confidently tilting here and there as they rode the shifting currents of the vivid sky.

These rugged scavengers are as loud as they are bold. They'd answer me, no doubt, but I don't know how to ask them if they'll teach me how to fly.

I'd ask tomorrow if I could.

6-15-12 Miscellaneous

(Because I felt like I needed to post on this blog, and I'm too lazy to come up with some cohesive idea right now. Text below has been taken from all over the place, certain bits having been jotted down in my Simplenote notes from quite a while ago.)

• I like this quote: "The people talking about the weather had no intention whatever of of really exchanging meaningful information on the subject; they were merely using language to fill the emptiness between them, to conceal the fact that they had no desire to tell each other anything at all." ~ Martin Esslin
• I enjoy drawing in a realistic style because then it feels like I'm simply copying the strokes of a greater artist. He sure knew what he was doing.
• I kind of dislike "that moment" things, but seriously, that moment when you go to type "face" and it comes out "foam"? What. Maybe that just happens to me. Fortunately, I love foam. 
• I watched Snow White and The Huntsman a week ago with Colleen and Emily. My conclusions: it was a gorgeous movie that was sadly lacking in the plot department, and the acting execution ranged from excellent (Charlize Theron) to eh, okay (Kristen Stewart, for whom heavy breathing apparently = every single emotion. I think she smiled like, twice.). I would go into more details, but that would probably end up in spoilers. I will say, though, that with the measly amount of time that was spent on the huntsman's character, the movie might as well have been titled Snow White and the Evil Queen.
• By the way, Evil Queen was awesome. And even though Ravenna is such an obvious symbolic name for a queen with raven-minions, I  like the name a lot. Ravenna Ravenna Ravenna.  
• OH OH and they got Florence and the Machine to sing for the end-credits song! That may have been my favorite part of the movie, accompanied as it was by slow-mo close-ups of a figure dressed in intricate obsidian armor. It was cool yo, totally cool. 
• Should I put up a full review on this blog or not? I might. I can't seem to stop analyzing this movie whenever my brain has a free moment >.o
• Word-magnet poem thingy from a few weeks ago:

Over a thousand lakes of wind and time

moon light whispered through diamond mist

as a boy played his dreams to sleep

beneath a still blue sky.

• I love making sentences with those magnets. It's such a creative challenge.
• Oh, I should probably comment on the fact that school is over. Yay. But sad too, because I miss the teachers and the friendses. 
• Well, school's kind of over for me. I still have two units of Mandarin to work through. Urgh.
• Hm, it thunders, but the sky is still blue? Or am I imagining the deep growls coming from behind those fluffy, sunlit clouds? o.O 
• I promised myself I would write lots of poems once the summer began...but inspiration is strangely lacking. Ideas, people? What new forms shall I tackle? What new topics? Suggestions would be much appreciated.

Okay. That's it.
I'll write some better-focused blog posts in the near future. 

I'm left alone...

WITH TWO MEN TO TAKE CARE OF. Well, just one now, but that's beside the point.

Mommy and Jeremy left for Boston early on Saturday morning, and until today, both my dad and Nathan were home--which meant that I had to be domestic and clean the house and cook for them and stuff.
I'm not very domestic naturally. I will confess that it felt (feels) odd to me. Mom is the kind of mom who does everything while hardly talking about it, and Jeremy is the sensitive brother who takes care of almost everything else that Mom might have missed. So...I'm the spoiled youngest child who usually just sort of sits there and expects to be served. Most of the time, I take initiative to do something if I'm absolutely sure that no one else might just maybe in the near future do it instead of me. Otherwise, I only do stuff that I'm explicitly told to.
Bad, I know. I have to change that mentality. (Pray for me in this area. My family will love you.)
However inexperienced I may be, this weekend went pretty well. We ate a lot of leftovers, but there was some successful cooking involved. The kitchen hasn't caught on fire. In fact, it's quite clean right now, because I was provided with this nice little checklist of daily chores that I have dutifully followed. Never mind that I lost it on Saturday afternoon and freaked out for a few hours before Nathan found it again.
I've even done laundry by myself, which I never do, which is kind of pathetic. If you feel inclined to scoff at me right now, feel free. 
But besides all that, my brother and father make great company. Dad has watched like four different documentaries in this weekend alone: something on Yellowstone, something about Martin Luther, something about the history of jazz, and another one that I forget. It may actually have been a movie. I watched some of them with him. That was fun.
Nathan and I went out to practice frisbee on Saturday, when the ground was soaking wet. Lovely. He made me practice lay-out catches (I CAN'T DO THEM RIGHT), then practice sprinting, then practice long, accurate throws. That was fun too.
Other than those highlights, we mostly wandered around the house, occasionally bothering each other.

We also had brownies and ice cream.

"Davina," says Nathan, "I want you to scoop the ice cream with this."

↓

That didn't work out so well...

We also watched two episodes of 24: Season 2.
I like it.


Unfortunately, I'm really alone this afternoon, as Nathan is back in the city, and Dad's at work. Fortunately, Kelly is coming here in less than an hour to break my loneliness.

Well, I should probably go put in another load of laundry. Bye.

what an exciting day!

Emmie's coming over!
We are planning to
1) watch the Wonder Girls Movie
b) watch videos of the USP talent show from her camera
iii) do whatever else fills up the hours from 10am till Cross Culture time

:D

CareerCruising.com - Career Matchmaker

1.	Computer Animator
2.	Massage Therapist
3.	Locksmith
4.	Website Designer
5.	Furniture Finisher
6.	Audiologist
7.	Prosthetist / Orthotist
8.	Graphic Designer
9.	Cartoonist / Comic Illustrator
10.	Taxidermist
11.	Animator
12.	Potter
13.	Electronics Engineering Tech
14.	Desktop Publisher
15.	Biological Tech
16.	Physical Therapist
17.	Artist
18.	Chiropractor
19.	Computer Support Person
20.	Craftsperson
21.	Technical Writer
22.	Electrical Engineering Tech
23.	Illustrator
24.	Surgical Technologist
25.	Biochemist
26.	Translator
27.	Speech-Language Pathologist
28.	Bicycle Mechanic
29.	Drafter
30.	Biologist
31.	Pharmacologist
32.	Podiatrist
33.	Multimedia Developer
34.	Cable Installer and Repairer
35.	Musical Instrument Repairer and Tuner
36.	Pet Groomer
37.	Computer Scientist
38.	Botanist
39.	Photographic Processor
40.	Film Editor

Can't you just see me as a locksmith? Oh yeah. Totally. Or a bicycle mechanic. I like that one.

I FOUND LAMBY

Yes, she was lost, but now is found. She was dead, but is now alive.
Well, underneath my brother's bed, but now in the washer.

I am so relieved.

North Korean Famine, 1997

While half the world away,
these children starved--
a healthy, happy baby
was born.

Why me?

Zombie Attack Survival Manual

Method #1: Follow what the mathematicians say.  “Hit hard and hit often.”

Method #2: Follow what the CDC Emergency Preparedness and Response Zombie Apocalypse Manual says. (Basically, prepare as you would for any natural disaster.)

Method #3: Obtain your own chainsaw and be an awesome hero.

Method #4: Pretend that the zombies outside aren't real and continue to kill the virtual zombies in your zombie attack game.

Method #5: Shuffle.

How My Day Went

(In non-chronological bullet points, as I am too lazy for actual narration.)

• I have this. I wore it to school today. This miraculously saved me from getting scolded when I was a little late to math class, because Mr. Sommar likes his daughter and that was her Halloween costume. Apparently she called herself "Hamster Boy."
• There was a lockdown drill today during AP Bio. It was sort of cool, although the prolonged silence as we sat there did amplify the sounds of stomachs growling or saliva gurgling in throats as people swallowed. I was also still in my hamster thing. The tail makes it uncomfortable to sit on the floor.
• I forgot to print out an assignment for AP Language and didn't have it on my flash drive, so I heroically re-did the whole thing during second period, and then at the end of the period something went wrong with the saving of the file...and it got deleted. I was devastated. (Good thing Mrs. Z is a wonderfully reasonable teacher who said I could send it to her when I got home for credit.)
• Emmie made an amazing birthday gift for me. Much thanks to her and to everyone else who contributed to the video! I love you all ^^
• I am going to miss Mrs. Farr so much, I just... 

 

• Drama club Act III memorization deadline was today. It went quite swimmingly. I do enjoy the way my character behaves herself in this act. She rambles about the pooka, whines about her lack of social life, gets annoyed at the cab driver, then goes hysterical (again)--during which I get to yell at Alix to shut up :D That being said, though, I started laughing really hard about three-quarters of the way through the rehearsal and couldn't restrain myself for anything funny after that.
• I still have a bunch of Chinese work to do. Urk.

Sunday Morning Prayer

You know, the groups of people who stand in front of the stage, praying, before each service on Sunday mornings?
Early morning prayer is one of the things I want to start doing regularly. I need to learn to pray out loud in the presence of others, and it's amazing to listen to the prayers of the other people who are up there.
It so happens that I forget about Sunday morning prayer a lot. Thankfully, Stevie seems to have taken up the habit of reminding me every week, which is great--but I was thinking, why not invite all my other friends to come too? Occasionally, I'll go up in the morning and find a group of young people praying together and join them, and that is awesome...so why not make the group even bigger?
One thing I've noticed is that it tends to be mostly the young men from around my grade, and the girls are, well, not there. Thus, I'm inviting all of you guys (who come to CovFel) to join me and Stevie and everyone else in together drawing near to our Father's throne with our requests. It will be good for you. It will be good for me. We can remind each other. And it will be so encouraging to the adults who regularly pray on Sunday mornings.

Of course, praying in front of other people can be awfully scary. I'm still terrified of sounding stupid, being the baby in my prayer life that I am. But praying is really just about talking to God, and His is the only opinion that matters--not the people around me who are listening to me pray. I hope I can remember that more often.

Also! Speaking of prayer, the A Praying Life seminar on Febuary 25th!! SO EXCITING.






P.S. (completely unrelated) Today I came upon a stinkbug in the bathroom. As I watched, it proceeded to take one step along the wall, fall off, bounce on the mirror and shelf, and land on its back in the sink. Those things are unbelievably clumsy.

Davina Is A Geek Pt. 2

This time I'll begin with a picture, instead of ending with one.

I understand that now, in light of the picture, calling myself a geek has suddenly become pretentious. However, someone else showed me this thing and told me I was a geek, so I think it might be okay to say that. That was when I was telling her about my adventures on my robotics team.

Ah, yes. Robotics. 

A few months into the school year, I joined (at her invitation) a team that my friend Alix has been on for the past two or three years. I really didn't know exactly what I was getting into. At that point, I still held a pretty cliche mental image of robots as these clunky humanoid constructions of metal or as advanced artificial intelligence. So it was interesting to find out that the robot we were building was pretty much a box with things attached to it, and we were mostly designing its functions to be remote-controlled by, well, us. Also, we have very specific tasks that we need the robot to accomplish: collect raquet-balls from the ground in some way, sort between magnet-balls and regular ones, put them into crates, grasp and lift crates, rotate them, stack them--and, of course, good basic mobility is always important.
I spent much of my time just listening at first, which was already confusing to my thoroughly mechanically-illiterate brain.

Axle collars, nylon locking nuts, channels, bushings, long bolts and short bolts, threaded rods, servo motors...

Sorting all that out was just like BLUGHAGHH it'll take me the whole year just to figure out what everything means and how they work together so I'll never contribute to ideas for building the robot so why on earth did I sign up for this in the first place??

However, I'm getting there. I'm competent enough as a pair of working hands, at least, with enough experience now to know how to deal with the basic mechanics. I like to say that the scar on my knuckle is a battle scar, but it really is from when I accidentally scraped my hand across a gear while reaching for a hex key too hastily. Alix and I occasionally race to see who can get four bolts unattached from the steel channels first. I've beat her a few times.
We have lots of opportunities for these races, because we are constantly taking parts of the robot apart, tweaking them, and putting them together again.
It's like, we attach the mechanism to the robot, test, well that didn't work, what went wrong? let's try switching the gears around, detach the mechanism, do whatever, reattach. Test again.

It is so cool. You get to take the theoretical and make it real within a few hours--from an idea in the mind to a working prototype almost immediately. I'm learning a lot: problem-solving, teamwork, and new motor skills (heh), among other things. And when we actually get to drive the robot, it's like a video game in real life, which is just awesome.

So yeah, that's another way that I'm a geek. I create and fix really cool stuff, though that's not through much aptitude on my part. I just got the opportunity to be this kind of geek, and I took it.
If you ever get that opportunity, and you've got the time to spare, I advise you to take it.
It's definitely rewarding.

Davina Is A Geek

There is a picture at the bottom. If you don't feel like reading all this, you can just skip to the picture.

By geek, I mean language geek, to be more precise. Though I will admit that I have a distinct bias towards East Asian languages, since I'm most familiar with them after English.
I got so excited the other day when I was reading my Korean language book that I received for Christmas (see? I asked for that for Christmas = I am a language geek), and I could understand an entire written conversation without the use of translators. I suppose that would be rewarding for any student of any language, but this accomplishment was the product of countless hours poring over dubious sources on the internet, pasting words into multiple translators to see what they might really mean, attempting to translate song lyrics, documenting the uses of every single particle I discovered, and writing random Korean words over and over whenever I had pencil and paper to familiarize myself with the writing system.
So reading that conversation felt good. Really good.

One of the most discouraging things in the world is when you paste "dama" into Google Translate, and it comes out "dama."
I think I love and hate Google Translate at the same time. On one hand, the dictionary-ish thing that pops up for single words can be extremely helpful in figuring out various uses for them, and it's great for translating simple vocabulary terms that I just don't know--and for Chinese, the "read phonetically" function aids me tremendously, because it gives me the pinyin needed to type the characters. On the other hand, I will be frank: it's well known that the grammar is atrocious.  
"I like that cat better because it's prettier than other cats" in Chinese becomes "I prefer the cat, the cat because it is beautiful than the other."
Also, I don't know how much to trust the thing, period. I put "한치 (hanchi)" in once, trying to find out what it means after hearing it in a song, and I got "FLAMMABLE LIMIT". I don't think that was quite right.

I also have a love-hate relationship with my Mandarin Chinese course. Firstly, I love it simply because it's teaching me Chinese, and that is a language that I am totally ashamed to not already know. My parents are both fluent in Mandarin as well as a few other dialects. I feel like I should be, too. Most of my relatives speak Chinese. Some of them don't speak good English. I want to be able to talk to them.
One of the good things about the course is that it makes me write and read a lot, which is absolutely essential for any foreign language, but especially so for learning Chinese characters. Another good thing is that when we are given passages to read, my teacher never provides the pinyin (phonetic spelling of the characters, in case you didn't know) along with it. I know that other Chinese students can have problems with learning the actual characters when the pinyin is always included, because they end up just reading the alphabet they're familiar with in order to recognize words. I'm forced to memorize the characters themselves. No alphabet. Just words. MEMORIZE.
But then, my teacher also forgets to include pinyin when she's first teaching us new vocabulary. It took me a while to figure out that I had to just go to the course dictionary to find how to spell something. Before that, I just stared at the complicated characters, baffled as to how she expected us to just understand her sentences, grammar, sounds, new vocabulary, and all. Oh yeah, that's another thing. A lot of times she gives us long PowerPoint presentations to teach us new stuff, and there will be absolutely no translations inside. You have to figure everything out from prior knowledge and the pictures. Perhaps it's an attempt to simulate the way you'd learn through immersion. Just figure it out yourself.
I think that's a little similar to Rosetta Stone. Supposedly, you're going to "learn like a child." I wonder if that really works without actual immersion in a separate culture, where you'd be forced to use the new language all the time. Can you learn like a child while sitting at your computer and listening to one person's voice speak?
Maybe. I've survived through my course so far. All the same, I'd really like it if my teacher gave us translations.

If anyone asked me whether Korean or Chinese was harder--a question I think I've received at least once--I don't have a definitive answer. Both are really quite difficult for the native English speaker, but definitely not impossible for the dedicated student. Korean's writing system and phonetics are simple, a whole ton easier than the Chinese characters and tonal phonetics...but its complicated grammar structure and nearly inseparable connection to hierarchial Korean culture balance out any difficulty advantage that the alphabet provides. (Seriously, you use a different set of vocabulary and conjugate all your verbs differently depending on the societal status of the person you're speaking to.) Chinese grammar is a little more similar to English. IF YOU ARE CONSIDERING PICKING ONE OF THESE LANGUAGES TO LEARN, I RECOMMEND CHINESE, NOT BECAUSE IT IS MY HERITAGE AND I AM BIASED, BUT BECAUSE IT WILL PROBABLY SERVE MORE USEFUL IN YOUR FUTURE, AS CHINA IS A RISING WORLD POWER RIGHT NOW.  AND IF YOU WANT AN EASY LANGUAGE, JUST GO FOR A EUROPEAN ONE THAT IS RELATED TO ENGLISH. 

I haven't dabbled much in other languages. I took a little bit of Spanish when I was maybe ten, so I forget virtually all of that. I took an eight-week course in German once, but I forget most of that too. I tried learning Irish once. It's not as bad as Welsh, but the phonetics and spelling hardly made any sense to me, so I never really got past that. Japanese is one of those languages that I think I'll get to studying sometime in my future, but I'm not too interested at the moment. And Latin...eh. I learned that for a little while too. I will probably find my old books and go through them at some point soon, since I'm aiming to study biomedical stuffs, and it'll help.
Then, I'll learn Icelandic and Nahuatl and Aboriginal Australian. 'Cause I totally have the time. Pfft.

Oh wow. This is a pretty long post. I guess that suits the title.

 To make it even longer, here's a cool infographic I found:

New Year's Resolutions

I've never really made New Year's resolutions. I can't recall a single year when I made one, remembered it through the whole twelve months, and actually accomplished something about it by the end of December. Perhaps I didn't make resolutions because I was a little disillusioned, thinking that they didn't really work, and why do they have to be resolutions every new year? Why not just make resolutions throughout the year? Something like that. 
I still don't believe too much in New Year's resolutions--at least not as anything magical as I might be tempted to make them seem. Yes, I do believe that they can be useful, as in, the beginning of a new year is a convenient mark to begin implementing changes in one's life. But the changes can't happen all at once (though wouldn't that be nice?). It's slow. They'll take a while.

I am not articulating this as well as I hoped I would.

Anyway, I'm making New Year's resolutions and documenting them for the first time this year, because while they won't happen very quickly, at least it's a starting point. And starting points to slow change are better than not changing at all.

I want to draw closer to God.
This is my ultimate resolution for the year, the one that umbrellas over all the rest.
I had something of an emotional breakdown the other day, in which I basically realized that the way I'm living is all messed up--priorities, time management, and everything. It coincides with the fact that my spiritual life has been dry recently from neglecting to read the Word and neglecting to pray, among other things. I'm aiming to put my life back together in a structured way that optimizes my productivity for God's glory. And first things first, I need to put my Heavenly Father right in the middle of that structure. I need to know Him and learn to hear His voice, because without that, my soul will starve and search for fulfillment in all the wrong places.

In that vein, I want to read my Bible and pray every day.
The Bible is God's Word. The Bible is primarily how God speaks to me. Here, the living God is speaking, yet I so often forget to open these pages and listen to what He wants to say. If I want to know God, I've just gotta read my Bible! • THIS MEANS THAT ALL YOU READERS ARE GIVEN PERMISSION TO NAG ME AS OFTEN AS POSSIBLE TO DO MY DEVOTIONS DAILY. IN FACT, I ASK YOU TO. PLEASE.
And as for prayer... I read a Desiring God blog post a while ago that dealt with being spiritually lukewarm, which is to be self-satisfied with your spiritual condition: essentially, complacent. Complacency is one of the most dangerous places to be. The opposite? Needy. How do I know if I'm needy? Well, how much do I pray? Praying consistently, praying like a beggar who desperately needs grace in everything, praying as a child learning to talk to her Father, praying for joy, holiness, boldness--without it, I don't know how I expect myself to grow in godliness at all.

I also want to manage my time well.
I don't. 
Procrastination--and its cousin, time-wasting--have not served me in my attempts to read my Bible regularly or bless my mom by doing housework or reach for excellence in playing piano. I feel like I've allowed school to swallow my life, and it really doesn't have to. 
Randy Pausch has an extremely insightful and helpful lecture on time management. I am hoping to implement his ideas in my scheduling and planning as 2012 begins. I recommend bookmarking that video and watching it when you have an hour or so to spare. It is really, really good. (Alternatively, it's also available as an mp3 download on iTunesU.)

I want to get organized.
Right now, my desk is in okay-shape, but I don't have any concrete filing system for my papers, nor a good place nearby to put all my textbooks. Woe is me. Did you know that when your necessary materials for an assignment are not within an accessible distance, it becomes incredibly easy to procrastinate and just not do the assignment? Maybe that only happens for me, but oh does it happen. This is probably one of the things I'll need to spend a lot of effort on early in the year, so I can be prepared for the rest of 2012.
The other thing that needs to get organized is my room, which currently looks like a junk-pile with an unmade bed in the corner. I'm probably going to need to throw a lot of things away and designate specific places for everything else. Keeping my room clean, or at least making a system that makes it very simple to clean, is one of my main goals this year. 

I want to take good care of my body.
Mostly meaning exercise more and sleep more. I've become a weak vegetable of a human lately from sitting around all day. I did two pushups a few days ago, and it made my arms sore. It's absolutely pathetic. That needs to change. Exercising my core muscles will also probably help with my back pain that comes when I stand up too long. I strengthened that before when I was actually doing physical therapy for my back, and it worked. So I'm gonna try to do it again. And more pushups. I hate how weak my arms are.
Sleeping is equally, if not more important. I know it's essential for any teenager, but I also know that fatigue triggers my epilepsy, so I think I have to be more conscientious and careful about my sleeping patterns than I have been for the past few years. Time management plays a lot into this!

I want to learn to be a joyful servant.
To family, friends, and community at large. 'Nuff said.

Aaaand that's all I can think of for now. 
Welcome, new year! 
I am gonna DO stuff. 
 

 

The Blog Challenge (and 2012)

Starting tomorrow, I will be participating in a challenge with these lovely people. In this challenge, we are supposed to post one blog post every day for an entire month. Whoopee! What motivation to post regularly here! I sincerely hope I don't fail.
You're all looking forward to the happiness of Rainstorms-posts that will flood your Google Readers and Blogger Dashboards soon, right? 

In other news, tomorrow also happens to be the first day of a new year.
2012 is the year of the dragon. My uncle is a dragon. His name is Dragan. I think that is so cool.
2012 marks the beginning of a year in which I want to change a lot. By that, I mean a lot. (More on that later.)
2012 is where the Mesoamerican Long Count calendar ends. Ohnowilltheworldend? We'll have to wait and see. I'd like to graduate, though, so I hope 2013 comes along.
2012 looks pretty. 2012 2012 2012 2012
And uh, yeah! Happy New Year everyone!

Observations of My Google Docs

• I have a document entitled "musings" that is completely empty. What happened there? o.0

• I shared my 2009 NaNoWriMo novel, Raedan's Heart, with NINE other people. O the shame. That was such a terrible piece of writing. All 33,000 words of it. 

• "AP Euro Midterm Study Guide," last modified in April, is still marked unread.

• There is a spreadsheet called "the lees" that contains all our ideas for what my brothers should name their children. (Ginger Lee, Actual Lee, Incredib Lee, Pai Shen Lee, etc.)

• HOW MANY STORIES HAVE I STARTED AND NOT FINISHED!? D:

• I have about four "Untitled document"s in my list. They're all different and really should warrant titles. I guess I'm just too lazy.

• My longest title is "River blindness is most common in Afr..." Inside that document is a lovely short paragraph or two about the parasite on a parasite on a blood-sucking fly that causes river blindness.

• "fairy tale 2," a collaborative effort between me and my brother to write a fairytale, was sadly abandoned more than a year ago. There were some pretty awesome similes in there.

"They would often take much joy in riding through the villages of the land and slicing through the people as one cuts through fruit in an angry orchard."

"Suddenly, like a penguin slipping into the frigid waters of the North Sea, a massive dust cloud appeared upon the horizon."

"Within the cloud rode a dark mass of horsemen. With flags and shields they rode, like a raging iguana that frantically scampers across twigs and leaves to dine upon a colony of ants."

"As he reached the fifty stones' throw mark with a pace like that of a terrified ant that hysterically rushes away from a raging iguana, Xeliyn looked behind him and beheld the multitude of Raiders quickly overtaking him."

•  The oldest document in my list is "The Epic Conversation." This was called epic rightly. Not in the way that epic seems to be used most commonly nowadays ("That was an epic dive-catch!") but in the older way. As in, really, really, really long.
  It was born of a chat between my good friend Ellie and myself some two years ago, where we each impersonated a character and um, roleplayed? for hours. And that chat, I think, was born of our excitement over how OK is a stick-man when you turn your head to the left. We created two of the OK men, named them, and made them talk to each other.
  A choice snippet:
  

  Tom walks a few steps away from Billy after smelling him
  
  Billy: Hey! Whadidya sniff me for??!!
  Tom: I didn't 'sniff' you.I simply took notice of your...er...odor...I suggest a nice warm bath...
  
  Tom plugs his nose and gets out his man-perfume
  Tom starts squirting it everywhere

Conclusion: Um, I don't really...have one.

Breathing is Good

I never realized how beautiful it is to be able to breathe normally until last night, when I couldn't.
Maybe it was some sort of virus brewing since my first signs of a cough on Saturday. Maybe I overexerted myself doing something.
(In retrospect, maybe going iceskating wasn't such a good idea? Oh well, it was such a good time that I don't regret it.)
Whatever it was, I couldn't breathe last night without my lungs hurting like I'd stuck them in a freezer, where they were burning with the cold. It's one of the worst kinds of pains ever, because if you hold your breath, it hurts too in a different way, and you'll probably die. So you're in anguish every few seconds, either way.
It kept me up until roughly five in the morning. The most annoying part of not being able to sleep was that "Come Home" by OneRepublic was stuck in my head. The same song, all night. And my breathing didn't match with the rhythm. Gah.
I was only able to fall asleep when I deliberately pushed the song out of my head and replaced it with another. Or perhaps it wasn't exactly me who replaced it. I had been praying for much of the night--ranging from friends and family to babblings about my life, but by that time it had turned into a desperate repeating of God, I just want to stop hurting, stop the hurting, stop the hurting.
And it was this song that popped into my head:

My heart is filled with a thousand songs
Proclaiming the glories of Calvary
With every breath, Lord how I long
To sing of Jesus who died for me
Lord take me deeper into the glories of Calvary

I had to stop and think about that. With every breath? Is this perfect for my situation or what?
But...do I really long to sing of Jesus who died for me? When was the last time I longed to sing about this wonderful gift? When did I cease to be constantly amazed that the very Son of God would die for me?
My greatest problem has already been taken care of, when my sins were nailed to the cross with Him and were thus atoned for.

Sinners find eternal joy in the triumph of your wounds
By our Savior's crimson flow, holy wrath has been removed

What a miracle that I can even speak to God now, that He is my Father and listens to me.
I lay there thinking about the glories of Calvary, and though the pain in my lungs was still there, I didn't mind it as much. I finally slept with those thoughts on my heart.

I am mostly okay now. My breathing is good and doesn't hurt too much anymore. I don't, however, want to leave the sharp, clear view of the gospel that came with the pain.
A thousand songs I would sing.

And I really did want to sing, but I've lost my voice D:

Guess Who's Back?

That's right, you got it: ME!

Has your Internet experience been missing a little Davina? Is your life incomplete without Davina's blog? Have you been pining for some Davina humor?

Well, never fear, because Davina is here! And that rhymed!

But seriously though...sorry for the eight-month disappearance from the face of the blogosphere. I had almost completely forgotten about the existence of this blog, but I've decided that henceforth it shall be home to short stories and the occasional poem in addition to regular posts. This is to keep me posting even when I think I don't have anything to post.

I will post. Really, I will. Especially because it's Christmas break right now, so you're guaranteed at least two weeks of Davina-spending-time-to-post. Woohoo. I know you're all looking forward to it.

Albums are Albums and Nothing Else!!

When I listen to a complete album, I have to listen to it in its proper order every time.

And I end up memorizing this order. The ending of each song flows naturally into the beginning of the next. Most tracks have a few seconds of silence at the end; in this silence, my brain already begins to anticipate the opening sequence of the next song.

It makes me highly agitated when people put albums that I’m familiar with on shuffle. Track 6 coming after Track 9?

NO. *shudder*

It’s perfectly fine, though, if the songs are scattered through a larger playlist.

This album-oriented tendency of mine has the added effect of causing my brain to connect every song with its track number. Which means that if I hear the song even out of its album context, it will still have its number.

Here are some examples of songs that are 5 (these are all from memory):

    * “When You Believe” - Songs From the Heart, Celtic Woman
    * “Bo Peep Bo Peep” - Breaking Heart, T-ara
    * “웃자! (Be Happy)” - Oh!, SNSD
    * “Your Name Alone Can Save” - Risen, Sovereign Grace Music
    * “Hear The Call of The Kingdom” - In Christ Alone, Keith and Kristyn Getty
    * “Something Bad” - Wicked Soundtrack, Original Broadway Cast
    * “Hold On” - Heaven and Earth, Phil Wickham
    * “Beat Of Your Heart” - Pure, Hayley Westenra
    * “Carolina Rua” - Take Me With You, Lynn Hilary
    * “One World” - Celtic Woman, Celtic Woman


The last one is a special case. My brain also connects Track 6 (“Ave Maria”) from that album with the number 5. This is because the album has a prologue/intro. When albums have a prologue or intro, all the other tracks will have two numbers--one for their track number without the prologue, and one for their track number with the prologue. Thus, “Isle of Inisfree” from that same album is both 2 and 3; “Danny Boy” is both 3 and 4; “One World” is both 4 and 5; “Ave Maria” is both 5 and 6; and so on.

A similar case occurs in the album Incarnation: Irish Hymns 3, which has a Prologue: “Glorious Light”, the song right after the Prologue, is both 1 and 2.

When I fall asleep listening to an album, I can usually figure out the next morning which song I fell asleep on because it’ll be the last one I remember consciously hearing.

The funny thing is, after more than a decade of living in the same house as my older brother, we only found out recently that we both do this instinctively. Pretty much exactly the same way, too.

~~~

THIS HAS BEEN A GLIMPSE INTO THE MIND OF DEL.

STAY TUNED FOR MORE.