The Lemon Tree

Epic Fail.

2009-04-17T10:40:00.003-05:00

We're always encouraged to keep going, never stop, dust yourself off and effervescently try again.

As students, from high school and undergraduate studies to graduate school (which seems like a more favorably options with our cute little recession), we are taught how to achieve and be successful. Acquiring internships and degree-related jobs are constant goals, and sometimes, they don't work out. So can we talk about them? Is it accepting to expound about our failures?

I've had a ridiculous amount of meetings and interviews this week which gave me ample opportunities to talk about me, me and me. Of course, I chose to elaborate on the highlights of my experiences and passions. Never once did I mention my weaknesses or as to recount the blog title, my epic failures.

An emphasis on the theory, "To fail is to succeed" definitely sounds off time and time again in my life. It doesn't mean I don't succeed. To write a blog and post it is success to me. Your success is your definition; however, I'm tired of talking myself up all the time. As I wrote earlier, to be vulnerable makes you stronger.

So here goes my failures.

I had a cool job with this entertainment brand and band label company as a Campus Rep. I didn't even finish the semester out with them because I disliked it. There was no face to face interaction. It was all done by email assignments and snail mail. Surprise. Well, I didn't turn in the assignments and decided to discontinue my rep. job, and I failed at that goal in my life.

I learned that I didn't like it. I need some more interfacing and connectedness with people. So I have a major "must have" in my life. I need you. I need pretty human faces as part of my success.

I failed at owning a dog. I gave him away within 8 months. Sad but any dog (right now) is better off without me.
I failed at doing a marathon. I did a half one, and then became obsessed with running and hurt myself. It was a good thing because if I hadn't of stopped running, I would have blown away with the winds the other night. Exercise AND food can't exist without the other.

There are many more.

Now, after we try, fail, talk about our failures, get some encouragement, dust ourselves off, and push from the wall again with our heads held high, you can be your very own Rocky Balboa!

Just a buncha Hooligans.

2009-04-16T10:56:00.003-05:00

As I'm only moving up the ladder of the age chart, I realize that aging is not only a physical process. A simple observation, yes. We see our grandparents and parents with a few more wrinkles and gray hairs. Perhaps even in our early twenties, we have a slower metabolism and some sun spots from those days by the pool.

But there is something more I've noticed in my friends, the people I pass on my bike or even in a cafe, and me as well.

Our past and what we've always had is becoming much more dear to us than ever before.

There are the holidays. Biking, driving, walking, blading down our streets, you see houses decorated for every occasion. Whether it's Easter, Christmas, St. Patrick's day, or even Halloween, we do not miss a day to celebrate and buy cheap paper arrangements or carve pumpkins. It's as if our parents send us off to become independent, but we spend these last years to relish in our childhood. Buying puppies and baking cookies, who wants to grow up? We really are Toys R Us™ kids, and it makes me smile.

Going home, not to the house we so costly rent here that sometimes I feel as though we are modern day peasants in a 21st century feudal system with the greedy landlords as the aristocratic class heartlessly ripping us off, but to the our family and our old rooms filled with high school memorabilia. I jump out of bed each morning I'm home just to hang around the breakfast table with my flesh and blood and other dear people as we dissect life's intricacies with one, two, three cups of coffee.

Another hands down favorite would land myself in my mom's closet. It has become the hot spot place to be. From worn italian leather satchels and vintage costume clip-on earrings to elastic waisted jean shorts and fanny packs, I don't think of it as settling at all. It's more like recognizing the coolness of my parents I once cracked on as a silly teeny bopper.

My best friend and I have accepted the fact that we are our mom's in a nutshell with a couple different spots and crevices yet the same shape and quality.

So are we all to become a bone-marrow copy of our parents? We take parts, big chunks, of who they are as they did the same with their parents. We tailor our inherited defaults and independently acquired skills to breathe in and out our whole selves.

A professor told me today, "We're constantly changing ourselves and evolving to become someone new. If you don't, people are going to be bored with you."

As many books have been written and and leaders have spoken to many crowds, what do you want to be? Just who will you be?

Do we have to grow up to be that being?

Tiny Talk

2009-04-06T19:07:00.002-05:00

As the bee boppin' jazz music playing dazzles my delight and strums my current heart's strings, I'm shuffling through the thoughts and discoveries of today.

Snow in Northern Alabama and brisk weather here in Tuscaloosa, in April. The lion seems to have eaten the lamb.

Italy's tragic earthquake event this morning--leaving 150 dead souls, 1,500 injured and over 50,000 with neither roof nor bed. Statistics and numbers speak for themselves. Send a prayer or some positive energy to the beautiful yet currently shambled medieval city of L'Aquila.

In other news, there is a concert next Monday night. A free one to be exact. To be even more precise dear reader, NeedtoBreathe will be the featured band. Oh and if you don't know them, please take a moment, stop reading this silly blog, and go enthrall your ears to some musically gifted individuals with some bangin', rock-your-soul lyrics http://www.needtobreathe.net/

Small talk CAN be fun but what borders and boundaries make it small?

City Lights.

2009-04-01T23:22:00.002-05:00

Roll your head back and smile of what you thought when you first woke up.

Good or Bad. It was your thought. Your feeling. Yours to have and hold.

This morning, I remembered to say, “Rabbit, Rabbit” on the first day of the month, as the first word I said aloud of the day. Supposedly, this bit of tradition brings one good luck, good riddance for the rest of the month. It’s connected with the same rabbit’s foot luck. I might be swayed to become a bit superstitious if the days continue as this April Fool’s Day played out to be a magnificent one indeed...

Today, I opened myself up to be taught and allowed others to pour into my soul. To soak in others and connect beyond the average “Hi” and “Bye” small talk. It deepens your perspective in life of many things, if not everything.

There is something about being vulnerable, especially with someone.

To be vulnerable with another person brings common ground and relevance between two beings. It can knock down walls and barriers. Being vulnerable can lift and release pressure. Vulnerability can heighten friendships and free bondage people remain in for so long, so wearily.

So Happy April to you and remember next month, next first.

Be My Guest, Elaborate on the Below.

2009-03-12T11:48:00.003-05:00

I don’t really understand people’s disappointment with the church. Many “real” and alert, aware Christians say they are dissatisfied with the church as a whole in America. Perhaps, they just don’t like being an AMERICAN follower of Christ because lack of a moral church and too many cynical boundaries confine who they are. Well, what is moral? After we criticize society's hellacious acts that seem to mimic some Sodom and Gomorra tendencies and talk about the end times of the world, let's ask if we have ever been content, satisfied with it at all?

I say I don’t understand it because I really have a strenuous time with complaining about something, wanting it to change when we never have really known any different. Sure, in the 50s, we didn’t have women kissing women on national television, but we did have “no colored people allowed” signs hanging up in the windows at every other diner in town. In the 1850s, there weren’t boycotts and pickets of pro-life/pro-choice or gay marriage on the National Mall, but there were well-known brothels for men of all kinds and people hanging misunderstood women who were dubbed as "witches."

So what’s the difference. There have always been dysfunctions in society, in the church, in the country. It seems as though we become numb to what is obscene.

I believe, and I will insert opinion here that it all comes down to your own soul, your truth and where you find truth.

What is your foundation?

Detergent.

2009-03-10T10:51:00.002-05:00

What is it...to wash the dishes, clean a house, light a candle, pump a tire full of air, write a reminder, put away the clothes, and even make a bed. Do you we neatly stack our lives together to get by?

Why the cutters, the shapes, the things we do that put us together like a cookie cake, cookie slice, to conform our lives of how they should be lived?

SHOULD?

what a word!

neat.

clean.

stacked up.

put away.

hung up.

folded.

do we feel better? do you feel more sane inside that head that never stops ticking, not even when you close your eyes? To organize the THINGS that don’t even feel, see, touch, or love you, yet you have expressed, shown affection for these THINGS.

Do we take the time to revert to reflect -- on what is important, or the meaning of importance? Have we distorted, have you distorted, in your life of what,

OF WHAT the definition, the meaning, the beat of our lives, the importance

truly

vividly

is.

Do a dance.

2009-03-04T12:41:00.001-06:00

To take in so much information. To research. To explore to gain knowledge. Where is the weight of knowing going? To our brains to sit and sift through the files and piles of thoughts and enlightening theories that we choose to use whenever we want.

Imply the drive that compels your actions to live and learn, to read to write and rock and roll. Roll to the next person, next initiative to enhance and improve the world around you.

Take your passion. Take that light. That wakes you up and makes you smile. Bring it up and Bring it on to be something great. Big or small? Whose grid, what scale do you measure, calculate you worth?

Every step. Every crack. All the specs in the concrete.

You are just a one.

You are one.

Not none, nothing, or some.

But one.

Go jump off a roof, off a mountain, out of a car, into a river.

Shake, move, and break the little carved box that contains your normal,

A slender pocketful of change

A heap of mauve green slips

Are not your name tags.

You are you. You can be. Or not be. You can change or be changed. According to what, do you count your cost.

Decree your life to an undefined Degree.

Burning Beauty

2009-02-21T17:16:00.002-06:00

To be anxious in life brings on so much animosity that when it is felt it,

it's hard to breathe.

So find a way to catch that breathe again.

Inhale and Exhale.

the oxygen, beauty of the present, the lessons learned from the tragic, our personal legend.

The entirety of it.

Anxious and impatient.

Loud and unsatisfied

of what is dangled above our noses,

not to touch nor eat, but to smell and gaze.

To long for and admire.

To burn for something, to long for it,

is the life force,

is beautiful in comparison

to nothing,

to not be lit up at all.

Embrace it yo.

Hammock Happiness.

2009-02-20T01:11:00.006-06:00

Location: The square, grassy knoll in the center of campus which is considered to be the core picturesque representation of what the Capstone holds true to be.

Listening to: Pinback - a melodramatic sounding band that strums my stress away to that blue sky canvased overhead

Feeling: My mind, is it really mine at all? Do I have control over it. Nope. Subconcious thoughts pop in and out of it all the time.

So is your mind really your own at all? Do we own it or is it in that space that is unclaimed, unaware of anything at all, just soaking in all that it engages, flies into it, flows through it.

People are silly. People front it up like they are talking to another creature when really we're all, as I always say, a bunch of humans with some beautiful divinity.

Suggestion: Hammocks in the quad are a friend winner and perfection to the path of tranquility.

Spring BREAK 2009 BABY!

2009-02-12T11:25:00.005-06:00

Sandrock, AL

Please laugh a little at the title. It's meant to be sarcasm or a joke or a sarcastic joke. For some cliched reason, a visualization of a middle-aged woman with an airbrushed cut off crop top and bleached blonde hair doused in hairspray comes to mind.

My friends and I were flipping through the options we have for the week break the school so generously and diligently supplies us with every year. We get a recess from class, assignments, and the regularity of our scholarly lives.

So do it! Resuscitate yourself.

Majority of us rockin' kiddos take to the beach, mountains, and/or a place with a bit of distance from our beloved Elephant Town,which says a lot about our daily lives.

We, as humans, like the unusual. It's attractive. We stare at something different, whether it's an elaborate Ringling Bros. spectacle or a smaller version of craziness we so often have in our lives. We like to be shaken up just like we mix up some milk or orange juice before taking a crisp gulp right out of the waxed paper carton (perks and expected behavior of a college student).

Why does it have to be the normal mixer dealio?

May I encourage you to do something that enhances the knowledge of yourself and tests your natural, authentic abilities in the world? Opt out of allowing the toxic, alcoholic drinks to laugh at your intolerance as the sunset despises you for vomiting in its reflection on the ocean.

That's assuming if you have a visiting with the lovely Panama City Beach and others like it.

Snaps to you for creatively shaking up our seasonal break week if you already have.

Do what you love while what you're doing, loves you back. Hug yourself.

Dear friends and I decided on a week long camping and climbing adventure through, in, around, about, the infamous Appalachian Trail. The trees will hug us.

Orange You Glad I Didn't Say Banana?

2009-02-01T21:59:00.003-06:00

Funny. Funny! Funny? That word becomes strange to sound out the more you say it aloud. So what is your definition of funny? What is comical to one, could possibly be obscene or lame to another. When a "funny" incident occurs in a movie and everyone laughs in unison, it's oddly normal. Complete strangers are involuntarily finding a common ground. When I looked up "funny" in my quaint and loyal Apple Mac. thesaurus, the example read, "a funny movie." Fake characters in scripted situations are making a bunch of people who don't know each other sitting in the dark, laugh. Crazy concept, yet addicting entertainment.

What makes something funny, comical, humorous. Is it something out of our linear, somewhat rigid lives that lacks consistency? Does something strike us as funny when people make fools of themselves, when another person puts their ego in their back pocket for others to inhabit the I-can't-stop-laughing effect? Does society define what we think is funny?

Think about this. Now, think about it again.

If something that is considered funny happens and two people who are standing beside one another witness it, what next? They both laugh. What if one didn't intercept the funniness of the situation whilst the other person began to laugh uncontrollably, like a hyena, and so on?

That would be awkward. (I just laughed at the visual). Normally, we all find the same things funny, so is it a social thing implemented in our subconscious thinking? By who and how?

I think it's a repetitive process. Movies have quite an impact along with personal diversity and background. This probably helps determine how much funniness each individual finds in a situation.

Try to become aware of how many times you tell someone that you think something is funny. Ask yourself as well as the person you're talking with, why?

just naked humans.

2009-01-26T08:14:00.002-06:00

So, I don't use this title to belittle who we are--the human race. "Just" is strategically included to bring comfort to the phrase. You are a human, a being, a person just as I am. Although individual, we come from the same Creator, same monkey, same whatever you think our origin might be.

Naked. People like to think of this as an obscene word because, I assume, that people are naked before sex; that word has even been contorted from its originally lovely significance. As a society, if you would like to include yourself, we have twisted this definition to be selfish and an act of dark boredom. Anyways, back to naked. We walk around, with our bodies draped in wardrobes, garments of preference. We have our shoulder bags, morning/afternoon coffee in hand, cellphone to ear, thoughts in an overhead thought bubble (s). The funny, yet very true part of this constant scene in our lives is the consistent fact--we forever remain, as a whole, just naked humans underneath it all.

The concept is not a science nor is it complexity at the least. It is mere simplicity. At times, when I think too hard, when I am overwhelmed, I need more than an overused phrase to calm me. If it helps, apply this to a complex situation; not only is it a bit comical, it's comforting.

You to me; me to you; him to her; them to us; we to him; he-she to him; it (questionable he and/she to you); you to you.

Ingredients for making History:

2009-01-20T17:24:00.004-06:00

two million people
one former Vice President in a wheelchair
$140 million budgeted toward parades, ceremonies, balls, security, sound, and so on
a deep recession with a need for hope and change
some olive green gloves with a sunshine-hued, decadent outfit
a heaping amount of trust placed in one man who represents freedom of diversity
a pastor's prayer who boldly glorified all creation to our King
temperatures below freezing
U.S. representatives wearing an array of colorful scarves for some speculated symbolism

Whip it up on the steps of America's Capital steps for an inevitably powerful inauguration.

2009-01-16T10:19:00.003-06:00

Budapest, Hungary

The word INTERNSHIP and its prominence in the lives of college students arrives when we arrive to our first class as Freshmen. It reaches daily household, usage status when we reach the Sophomore year, and by the time we are Juniors and Seniors, it becomes the topic of conversations among the majority of us. It is quite annoying; however, this is not being stated due to a lazy attitude or any connotation of that sort.

Perhaps, your situations have been the following: Professors that repeatedly hammer the importance of having an internship in order to obtain any reasonable job out there in the world. They step up on that big shiny soapbox as they explain that their intentions weren't to scare us kids. Their eyes get real big, they pan the audience full of terrified students and kind of apologetically state, "...but I hope I got your attention."

Internships are valuable and do offer so much to us learners of the new trades we aspire to practice. The box that they are placed in seems a bit rigid. It seems as though the "i" word is required to be professional and boring, and that it must be with a company or agency of reputable value.

As you might be too, I'm struggling with my future plan for the summer. I, supposedly, need an internship to reach some sort of success. So, what and who defines what true success is? The skewed American definition would read something like college degree, stable job that includes benefits and promotions, a spouse and kids some day, and hopefully that cookie-cutter house in cute little suburbia. The American Dream.

I have this theory that the term "success" is used entirely too loosely in our society. It developed this past summer when I traveled around Europe for a couple of months. I met some invigorating, adventurous folks at the hostels and around the city. They were all around my age (21). Many of them had taken an undecided amount of time off from school to explore the world and get to know who they are. They were in the process of discovering what life, the one life they were given, means to them. Here in America, this is what we have dubbed as a bum. No job, little money, and no exact plan. Hey, in a couple of years, maybe decades from now, those miniature Christopher Columbuses might be a little more broke than us college graduates or going back to school while we sit in a cubicle every mundane Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, and Friday. However, the questions of "Who am I?" or "What is my purpose?" that arise in many unexplored "successful" individuals which is a situation that we usually refer to as a mid-life crisis, probably won't be lurking around in their minds. They hung out with the world. They found what they loved and experienced a life-change.

It's sad that we forget to take time to live, to root up everything we know and uncover some things we may not have ever known of ourselves. So where will you go from here? If not to explore the world, explore yourself.

Moneybags.

2009-01-13T12:29:00.003-06:00

With the outrageous amount of money being spent on seats and concrete for the new stadium, the large percentage the university receives back from dining dollars that students spend, and of course, the ever-so-continuously talked about recession of the economy, the voice of students' should be valued more.

Many students don't agree with how the university spends its money, yet no surveys or polls are acknowledged to honor and review these thoughts and opinions of the people who bring life to this campus. Instead, The Crimson White and organizations like itself must take a subject and strip it raw for everything that it really is in order to get the message heard. For example, the cover story about the university owned, SUPestore rang true for students' experiences across campus. Since buying overpriced textbooks and being forced to sell them have left students with merely slender pockets of change, this trade is highly despised which was surfaced in last week's researched article.

After announcing last semester the millions of dollars being spent on even more construction for the beloved stadium, many opposers needed some assistance lifting their dropped jaws back up off the floor. It might be easy to tag (not Facebook related) and associate these people with labels such as hippy, granola people, rebels, individuals, those New College kids, and other words to describe free-thinkers; however, think of this problem as just a normal human being and have some empathy in that soul, dear reader. Perhaps it's because these non-supporters have found other subject matters to be more fanatical about like promoting clean water. Lack of clean water kills more people everyday than anything else in the world and the estimated cost to completely eliminate this killer and give life to these suffering people is $10 billion. So if the university actually conducted a student poll about the new stadium expenses, would the$80 million budget have seemed a bit over the top?

If students love The University of Alabama and pay large quantities of money to be here every semester, at the least, shouldn’t we have our opinions somewhat valued and pursued a little more.

Educate yourself with these short videos.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dfDit6g_QpY

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hzoNInZ2ClQ

17 Dozen Eggs.

2009-01-10T16:26:00.003-06:00

Saturday Morning.

Both alarms are going off since 5:30 a.m. and not by accident.

My friend Rachael phones me up in a more than perky mood, "Hey friend! Whatcha doin'? Are you out of bed yet? I'm leaving my house to pick you up now with coffee in hand, and OH, I have this hilarious story..."

Although loving the mornings, I haven't seen the great city of Tuscaloosa at THIS time in months. I'm a credible reference able to say that 6:00 a.m. does, in fact, exist.

We drive down Greensboro and over the railroad tracks to a church to meet up with our fellow cooks and servers for the morning.

After stirring, scooping, chopping, heating, pouring, and doing every other verb that involves preparing ginormous pots of grits, eggs, and oddly enough, ample amounts of donated pizza, the reason for setting multiple alarms, leaving my warm bed, and downing some coffee becomes apparent.

With tired eyes and graciously sweet smiles, the people pour in the doors and patiently wait to be served a warm breakfast. You've probably seen them riding a bike or walking the streets of Tuscaloosa and I don't mean on campus. If you work at a food joint, they might have come in to ask for some free water, and like me, you probably were annoyed with this simple and quite humbling request of theirs.

Perhaps the words compassion, understanding, empathy, sympathy, care, mercy, tenderness, love come to mind? I raise my hand to all of them.

Whether it's the orphaned Malaysian children or some down and out Tuscaloosa natives, people get hungry. We don't have to go across the world to love people, and besides a little less snoozing, nothing is lost.

Pray for Our Prez

2009-01-09T12:55:00.002-06:00

I know the above titles might be a bit cliche to say, but someone once told me that things are cliche because they work. Simple. It gets old hearing people bash our soon to be leader, commander-in-chief of our country, and I didn’t even vote for him. Disagree with his economic policies, the platform he has altered since the campaign, the cabinet members he has elected. Freely dislike the color of his tie, regardless of its color. However, unless your a mentally unstable, carbon-copy of Lee Harvey Oswald or even Charles Manson, he’ll remain our president for the next four and perhaps eight years. It’s disheartening to listen and read of American citizens denouncing the man in highest power of our country. I’m sure if we had bombs and flaming rockets soaring above our heads to relinquish anything but peace and love to our neighbors and family, we’d be a bit more optimistic.

So fine, long live freedom of speech. Exercise our First Amendment. Speak your mind. Be bold and opinionated. However, wisdom doesn’t always have to be spoken or printed. Avid prayers don’t require a religious individual. Extend your optimism, your loyal affection to our President. Muslim, Jew, Agnostic, Christian, Buddhist, Atheist, racist, and/or the devout, glass is half-empty pessimist, compose a daily prayer for a man who is saturated with more than just a few cares of the world while eyes across the globe critically analyze his chosen path of life. Unless your still holding on to the imaginative stories of Superman and Captain Planet, a president is a human just as us.

Goal Yourself

2009-01-07T11:32:00.002-06:00

So today, we start our classes with a new year of 2009 and hopefully new goals. Supposedly, persons who set goals achieve more than ones who remain idle and aimless. In my life, this statistic is a fact. I've made daily goals (to-do lists), six month, and one year goals. I'm still working on the long term aspirations. For example, my friends and I start our training today for a half-marathon in April, the Country Music Marathon in Nashville.

We all have dreams and aspirations. This sounds cheesy and a bit cliche; however, someone once told me that things are cliche because they work. Manifest some something proactive. You get one life, so why not saturate yourself in what you love or perhaps something new.

Bite Sized World

2008-12-19T12:31:00.002-06:00

Visiting my grandparents last night brings on some simply intricate thoughts.

I love them very much, and their relationship rearranges so many of my firmly placed views that involve love and just the process of aging.

She wakes up early and reads the local paper. She sips her coffee and smiles as she passes the refrigerator doors that are filled with pictures of her grandchildren, christmas cards, and decade old clippings of their favorite sayings and comics, Family Circus and Snoopy. There is no need to make more coffee, there is plenty for both of them.

He scruffily stretches as he pulls the sheets unevenly yet crisply to one side of the bed. He knows his effort, not his perfection, is admired. He arranges the pillows the same as how he placed them the morning before and shuffles down the hall to sit next to her for their breakfast.

She warms the toast and cuts a plate of tomatoes. He fixes his cup of coffee, black in his favorite light blue mug with "#1 Dad" inscribed across the front of it which She set out on the counter for him the night before.

They are living and breathing within themselves and through each other. They have molded their waking up, their mornings, their routines to compliment one another. As much as they tease and bicker between themselves, they find each other synchronized, yet not in a meticulous, rigid way. They are acts that pull, stretch, strengthen, and weaken their heartstrings. The heart's beat is not her own nor his own, but their own.

Their hands are are weathered and tired, yet soft and strong. And although wrinkles and creases fill every loose patch of skin, their green eyes light up with joy and love as they tell a corny joke, even if the teller has to repeat it again for the other to hear. They laugh at their age and she always reminds him that it's just a number.

Getting the mail, taking out the trash, and going to the office have become tasks of the day which are very important to him. She has decided to keep up with the times, so she checks her email and plays some computer games. She bickers a little as she sweeps up the bit of dirt he brought in from watering his garden the day before...

As we grow older, our worlds shrink. The little things become the big things. The big things, the money, the place in society, the chaos, the THINGY things, just seem to melt into the walls.

Perhaps for us, we have some tranquility to look forward to as we age in time.

In our world, although it might seem lost, love is still alive.

Need some extra sauce?

2008-12-15T01:03:00.004-06:00

Exams are over!

Hallelujah! I did think, at one point, I was going to die of over exhaustion little sleep and food and eyes popping out of the sockets (because that is a common death in small undiscovered countries).

So I am home, and by that, I mean HOME where my mama, my heavenly bed, and my comforting memories reside. Tonight, my mom and I went on our usual market spree for the best and brightest organic, granola, leafy green yummies that we health nuts adore right under our Abba Father. As I'm standing in line putting the bags in the cart a lady approaches me asking about my hat I had cleverly put atop my grease ball of a head to cover my obvious couch potato ways of the day; however, the first part of our small talk convo could not have, IN ANY WAY, prepared me for the next half of our lovely, highly non-typical, grocery store chitter chatter. She continued by asking me if I was over 18, and I proudly told her my three week old age of 21 ( I feel REALLY legal these days, don't ask). She shoots back a response saying "Oh, great honey. Here's my card. I'm a romance educator." Smiling and thinking that her job was spent counseling troubled, bickering couples, she contradicted my thoughts and oh so pleasantly elaborated her job title that dealt with, ahem, vibrators, awkward pleasure toys I will not further mention, and other lustful curiosities of human nature the sexologist Dr. Alfred Kinsey is accredited to discovering. It's times like these when I wish a floating mirror would appear, so I could see my eyes grow as big as a bullfrog's as my facial expression instantly gives away my current thought of awe and shock that people, as this woman, continue to evoke and promote daily in my life. Highly needless to say, I was floored as my mom stood near in wonder of what the woman was whispering to me. I could only reply with an "Oh." No pun intended, my friends. Anyways, her services and knowledge is offered through, as her card read, "Saucy Ladies' Parities." I have never heard of these ladies nor this type of party until tonight. I didn't and still don't know if I should be offended at the fact that she thought I needed some of these objectionable objects, or if I appeared in any way that I needed some spice of that sort in my life. She was nice.

Although I can say "No thank you" to Ms. mam from the grocery market, I can owe her a thanks for an entertaining, car ride home story that my mom, although a bit shocked as I was, enjoyed throughly.

Hey, who doesn't love learning something new everyday even if it might be a bit saucy.

Wide-Eyed on Red Eye

2008-12-05T03:16:00.002-06:00

It's 3:17 in the morning folks. Along with the multiple cups of coffee and high levels of stress, I'm very much awake. As it is very obvious, I have wandered off the study path in order to achieve awkward tasks of some sort. Library time faded out a while ago, and my attempt to create a study ambiance in my room has not been a complete failure, yet.

Hope everyone achieves what they hope for on finals.

Anyways, just a short, wish you all the best during your Winter break riddance.

Safe travels and merry times.

Dead Cold Week

2008-12-03T08:52:00.006-06:00

Majority of us are in the library just about every chance we get this week.

So sitting here now in my library of choice, I'm thinking how odd the concept of a library really is. It is this highly controlled environment with every piece of furniture, book, light, shelf, etc. in a meticulously organized, designated area. Basically, everything has structure. Even the librarians seem as though they always belonged at the library. Essentially, it is an escape from reality, or perhaps, it is a place where reality sets in. A sense of balance is consistently achieved when we realize how much collaboration our minds have actually arrived to do.

When stress saturates us , especially this next week and a half, it is comforting to know that there is an ample amount of serene libraries grounded here on campus to bring us some tranquility to the calamity in our lives as joyous college students.

Family, Families.

2008-11-28T14:21:00.006-06:00

Holidays give way to merry times, and fellowship with the ones you love. Being from a divorced family, the stress can be bit more present when deciding which family to see on what holiday along with other minor yet touchy details involved. Although the pressure is hopefully unintentional, it seems as though everyone yearns to see our bright, young faces. So, it's always best to try to make this dysfunctional situation somewhat functional.

It's the season of giving, but sometimes, it's okay to be a bit selfish. My mom wanted my sister and I with her and her husband's family in Chicago while my sister and I wanted to be with my dad's side of the family in North Carolina. Feeling a bit torn, we took our self-interest into consideration and spent some time up in the Blue Ridge Mountains with our dad, older brother and sister. Mom was a bit upset at first but understood after adjusting a little. We realized no one was highly offended and our assertiveness gained some respect from our parents.

It's important to remember that as college students, we are still a part of our families while establishing our own individuality. Despite the pressure that your families can put on you, deciding where to go during the holidays is a decision of your own.

A Morning of Boggle Your Brain.

2008-11-13T08:24:00.006-06:00

Here is a question on my mind this morning.

Does God promote his pure love, wholesome love in order for us to feel loved by him, or does He do this so that as humans when we experience love from Him and other humans, we know what elements exist in pure love to adequately give and receive it to and from other people?

It can surface wonder about our world and society. So many corrupt issues and hateful situations. Villainous humans strip other humans of their decency, morals, and eventually life. One would say these acts are literally occurring in Africa along with other far away places in the world; however, the flustering thoughts that rock my mind is that we all share ONE world. I have a difficult time letting settle how much time we spend on one elected official and his promoting his glory and success. We have one life here. Regardless if you believe in a god or The Divine, why live one life here on our planet entirely for yourself and others' superficial expectations. Time well-spent is unfathomable for many us, and yes people's values differ as far as where to put their time efforts. If the second part of my question is true, it seems as though we struggle with receiving this pure love in how we merely just empathize with "others."

Recognize your contributions to yourself and others. Perhaps this could validate your exception of pure love.

you, you, and you have all got mail.

2008-11-10T23:20:00.003-06:00

I have a suggestion to disconnect ourselves, our minds, so that we can reconnect. We walk, run, bike, eat, some of us pee, study, etc. of countless other activities with some sort of device leached on to our being that beeps, vibrates, rings, and/or sounds off our favorite tunes. We must answer this beckoning call because if we don't, some evil thing in our head, something very scary, some impulse that has developed and advanced along with the technology that we crave will attack us and morbidly destroy our lives.

When I was reading a newspaper today, I counted the word connect in its original state and its variety of endings four times on one page. Propaganda to stay in touch much?

With our phones, mini-computers, and digital music libraries all stashed in our back pockets majority of the day, our thoughts are interrupted, incomplete, and ultimately suppressed. While walking out of class, I overheard some girls' conversation about being tired and having no reason to be due to adequate sleep and a thumbs up result from the the doctor. Perhaps you can relate. We allow ourselves to dish out constant conversation and "connectedness" that we forget to just be. We are tired of being connected and we don't even realize this.

At times, I let my phone just wither beyond the red danger, no battery zone until it croaks. So now the battle is your...dun dun dun. Try turning your phone and tunage off and saying "goodbye" to your computer for the day. Admire the presence of complete, well-rounded thoughts. Feel the autumn breeze rosy up your cheeks, stop and stare at the trees that are colorfully succumbing to mother nature's will. Reinvent what it is to connect.

Can I put my bike in your trunk?

2008-11-10T18:05:00.001-06:00

We love entertainment at the expense of other people's stupidity and sacrifice. We witness or experience the oblivious distraction that inevitably creeps up on just about every individual who has or will walk or bike our beloved sidewalks of Tuscaloosa. That cursed crevice in the concrete humbles us beyond our imagination. Whether it be a crash to the ground with your bike to hurl itself on top of you, as I experienced first hand the other morning, or a lazy step that catches a jagged edge of a side curb and awkwardly jolts you forward to a hasty face-plant, you tripped. We wish the bruises or the scraped knees that soon come after the epic fall are the worst part, but, in fact, it's the audience of passers-by and/or dear friends to point and laugh as you are left alone on the concrete guillotine to pick up yourself and the bits of your shattered ego that still remain. Why are we merely passing by our fellow fallen? We all have been a victim of this social embarrassment at least once. It's time for a change clumsy students of Alabama! Don't let these cracks break you or your "mama's" back anymore. Perhaps, we should look at this situation as a chance to put our index fingers away, laugh WITH them, and help the klutz to their feet. It's an informal opportunity to make a new friend, increase your good karma, and maybe even get a phone number (if creepy is your new cool). Besides the fall itself, lending a helping hand couldn't hurt.