patribus

I was typing my blogspot address in but accidentally typed partibus.blogspot.com and Blogger goes, "This blog doesn't exist, but you can start a blog called Partibus," and I was like, "Why didn't I think of this earlier? Partibus is so much more fun than patribus!"

Also, my thoughts on learning foreign languages:
1. Learning languages is way more fun if you embody the country's stereotypes. I bet I would still be studying French if I were encouraged to wear berets, chortle and speak in an exaggerated French accent. And I would definitely take up Latin again, just to walk around pedantically in a jacket with elbow patches with a smarmy smile, saying "Oh, ambulate. From the Latin ambulo, ambulare." 2. I recently discovered shower curtains (cute ones!) and found that there were many, like the one above, that would help learn you learn languages in the shower. What a great idea, right? So I was talking to a friend, and I was telling her that colleges should totally take advantage of this and throw in a shower curtain along with your language textbook to help you learn, and this friend goes, "What happens after you learn all of the words on the shower curtain?" I responded by saying that companies should make different versions of the shower curtains, so that when you learned the words on one, you could move on to an advanced shower curtain. Thinking about it now, that might contribute to a lot of waste though, so what if they made shower curtains with electronic message boards, like the ones at basketball games? Or! They could make a dry erase shower curtain so you could draw while you're in the shower and can write whatever you want.

What can I say? I'm a gold mine of shower curtain ideas.

I finished reading this book a few weeks ago. When I was reading it, I wanted to highlight certain parts, but I didn't, because just thinking about highlighting things makes me feel like a poseur. I do highlight (and underline) my new Bible though, but only to make things that especially resonate with me stick out so that I can find it again, which I suppose is the only reason why people highlight things. To sum things up, highlighting makes me feeling vaguely uncomfortable, but I mention it because this book said some stuff that made me want to show it to everyone that I meet and say, "SEE?! This is why I act the way that I do."

Being an introvert in the church sucks. Being an introvert in this culture sucks. The author talked about going on retreats to a monastery, and that sounds wonderful to me. Living in a monastery has always appealed to me, and I say monastery instead of convent, because as stupid and shallow as this sounds, I like the brown robe with rope belt a lot more than a nun's habit. A robe is just more comfy and rustic looking, you know? And softer. A habit is so stark with the white and black and whatever it is by your face. But a robe! With its earth tones and hood! If it weren't for the whole not getting married and being celibate thing, I would totally be a girl monk.

I started out wanting to talk about my thoughts about introverts in the church, but I'm really tired (not because I'm lazy; large groups just drain so much energy from me, which is stuff that's in this book and I want to highlight it because it's so true and I wish people understood stuff like that about introverts) and I want to live in a monastery, but instead I'm in this extrovert obsessed culture, and I should take a nap before I get crankier.

So, I haven't really been blogging, because it kind of contradicts my wannabe hipster attitude (I accidentally typed in hopster, and that should totally be a word). But, I haven't really been keeping up with my music, so I figure I can just let myself go completely.

Anyway, this summer I'm getting ready to go to Uganda and Rwanda. I got my yellow fever shot last week and was consequently cranky for the next few days. I didn't know that vaccines had side effects. I've also been doing some recommended reading, Shake Hands With The Devil by Romeo Dallaire and God Sleeps in Rwanda by Joseph Sebarenzi.

Shake Hands With The Devil is a great book for people interested in the Rwandan genocide (I'm guessing not so much for people who aren't). It's written by the commander of the UN Mission for Rwanda (UNAMIR). Dallaire, or at least, my impression of him, is that he was one of the most honorable people to help abate the genocide. One part that stuck out to me was Dallaire's childhood and how he grew up wanting to be a soldier. His mother told him stories about how his father and other Allied soldiers protected villages and helped in the aftermath of WWII. Dallaire said that horrific nature of WWII led many in his generation to become pacifists, but he wanted to become a soldier because the lesson he learned from the war was that military action was required to stop evil.

God Sleeps in Rwanda is in the top ten books I love. Written by the former head of the Rwandan parliament (in the late 1990s), this book goes through Sebarenzi's life as a child in Rwanda to fleeing to the United States. What amazes me is his description of the current government in Rwanda, strong faith and his insistence on reconciliation. Honestly, his evaluation of the government scares and worries me for the future of Rwanda, but his spirit of forgiveness and reconciliation is astounding. I've heard the word reconciliation used a lot in the context of Baltimore, since New Song Community Church, where I go during the school year, is committed to holistic Christian community development. It just strikes me that something that is needed for healing in Baltimore is the same that's needed for healing in Rwanda, because that brings things much closer to home. What's needed in Baltimore is needed in Rwanda and is needed everywhere because whether it has to do with race, ethnicity, class or whatever, the problems we face are a result of our shared sinful nature, which affects everyone in the world, regardless of geography. And I guess that's why Sebarenzi's faith is so inspiring too, because it is only God who can save us.

Also, I was reading the epilogue and Sebarenzi mentioned how, when he got to the US, he enrolled in the School for International Training and teaches a class there now. SIT happens to be the program I'm going with to Uganda and Rwanda, so... That means nothing, I guess, but it was total affirmation for me.

STRANGER: Ay fat boy!

[I don't respond, hoping the person just had the wrong number.]

STRANGER: Yo what's up.

ME: Nothing much. Who is this?

STRANGER: Who's this first?

ME: You're the one that texted me. Who are you?

STRANGER: Wait a minute. This Shaun.

ME: Ok, Shaun. You have the wrong number.

STRANGER, NOW KNOWN AS SHAUN: Yea, sorry.

FIN.

I should kept the conversation going, but I accidentally erased the number.


The weirdest text message I've ever sent someone: "I'm at Costco and I don't see any nuns. There are an inordinate amount of redheads here though."

In conclusion, friends beware, because I'm going to try and make every text I send sound really weird.

P.S. I have another blog/website thing on this account that's supposed to be professional and I accidentally added this post to that. I don't think my professors would be amused as I am by this.

So, I was going to the doctor's office and there was this car in the parking lot. It had a bumper sticker that said Delaware Basketball, except the D in Delaware was missing so it said Elaware Basketball. And that made me really happy. Delaware sounds so much better without the D.

Since you're a poet, Allison, I thought I'd write you a poem.

A haiku for you:

there's a duck here next
to me, on my bed. it has
a sideways mohawk

If you'd like, you can perform it at your next poetry slam. I'd definitely give you snaps.

Which reminds of of ginger snaps, which doesn't really sound like something you eat, but more of
a dog.

"Ginger snaps!"

"You should send her to obedience school. They could probably fix that."

Or a snapping turtle. Either way, the name evokes an unhappy animal.

Plus, there's the whole ginger part. No one wants to eat ginger. They should call it crispy cookies. It's descriptive (sort of... I don't know if they're crispy per se, but just not soft), and it's got the whole alliteration thing going on. Plus, they could add something like, "with a hint of ginger, proven to boost your immune system 25% within two weeks," and appeal to the health nuts.

(By the way, makers of ginger snaps, these ideas are copyrighted, so if you want to rebrand yourself as Crispy Cookies, you have to pay me.)

I've been in a crafty mood lately (as in pertaining to arts and crafts, not the cunning sort of crafty, though I would be in a cunning crafting mood, well, I guess I am in a cunning crafting mood but I'm always in a cunning crafting mood but being in Delaware makes me lethargic, which puts a damper on my cunning craftiness.) But anyway, I tried to make bowls out of yarn using balloons and glue and messiness and it failed miserably. So I've moved on to sewing, which I'm really bad at. I tried to make a pair of pants from a t-shirt and my mom gave me this really weird look and I was like, this is NORMAL for me but now that I think about it, it does sound a little weird. But it's recycling, so I'm just trying to do my part to save the earth.

So, apparently, Youtube has this thing that checks if the audio is copyrighted and it recognizes it EVEN WHEN YOU RERECORD THE FILE TO TRY AND TRICK THEM. AND Photobucket has the same thing. Needless to say, I am not pleased.

Also, I came up with a great way to prank someone... put a picture of Joel Osteen smiling (oh wait, that's kind of redundant) over someone's bed. It would also be a convenient way to get rid of the Joel Osteen books that people give me as gifts. Watch out, roommate.

Smile Montage!

Whenever I watch Family Feud, I get incredibly irritated at the host, John O'Hurley.
Look at him, with his smug eyebrows. He is so handsy with everyone of the female persuasion. I want to leap into the television and tell him to keep his hands to himself. Apparently though, he's a better host than the old one, who I think was on Home Improvement. This is not good, people. I am willing to take over as host. My qualifications being that I don't touch people inappropriately.

Also, I was watching Jeopardy and Alex Trebek got kind of pissed one episode because there was one category of him at the Toronto museum or something and no one could answer the questions (or rather, question the answers! Hah! I crack myself up.) and it was really funny. In high school, we were told to write a paper on immigration policies and I wrote mine on the influx of weird Canadians and how they probably came over because they were cold and so we should send Alex Trebek and Avril Lavigne back with parkas. My teacher didn't really like it.

P. S. I am not an old lady, I promise. Just extremely bored and I happen to like game shows. Also, I don't have any cats and I don't even like cats so ha!

Things that I have been thinking about.

1. I wonder if bulters have a union. I mean, I think they should so that they can earn a fair wages and receive benefits and the like, but I've never heard of a Union of American Butlers, or American Buters United, or United Butlers American. Maybe it exists though. I don't feel like googling it, plus if I did and it existed, I'd have to erase everything I've written. Anyway, my point is that butlers should have a union. Though, now that I think about it, maids and nannies don't have unions either. The hospitality industry is completely ununionized. I don't know if the hospitality industry refers to careers like butlering, but whatever.

2. I was eating a banana, which is rich in potassium (which strikes me as kind of a kicking word, like sassy, which I guess is due to the fact that the two words share three of the same letters but then again, so does bass). Anyway, I got potassium confused with calcium and I thought, "if calcium helps you grow bones, and if you eat a lot of it, would you grow extra bones?" And then I was thinking about where those bones would go. My first thought was that you'd probably get extra bones in your butt, because there's space there. But then I was like, you should get extra ribs because then your heart (stomach?) would be super protected and instead of having bonespacebone, it would bonebonebone, so you'd essentially have a cylinder of bone encircling your body. Then if you get shot, you'd pretty much have to get shot in the same spot two times in a row for the bullet to get to your heart. Unless bullets can go through bone, in which case, you'd probably still die.

Also, I was thinking about Boutros Boutros-Ghali today and it totally made me smile. I wish I could talk to that guy. I mean, I kind of want to be Freeman's mentee, but if I could be Boutros' mentee, that would be pretty awesome.