Thursday, July 21, 2011
Friday, June 24, 2011
Yeah...that happened.
One day, I was in the bathroom at work (conveniently and, sometimes, INCONVENIENTLY located across from my office) and I dropped a roll of toilet paper in the toilet. It wasn't just clear water, either. It was that magic blue water that is supposed to smell like the Caribbean, but really smells more like a chemical plant. I was sort of a newbie and wasn't quite sure what to do with it. So, I did what any normal, rational person would do--I fished it out and snuck it into the waste basket in my office. I'm pausing so that you can feel free to laugh. It doesn't stop there. My office began smelling so chemically-foul that it made me sick. I bagged up my trash and carried it to the dumpster. This happened about 2 years ago, and I just now realized that I could have bagged the trash in the bathroom and avoided this whole dog-gone mess. Live and learn. So hilarious.
Kendra
Kendra
Tuesday, June 21, 2011
Letting Control Take Over
That's right. I'm going to start letting control take over. God's control, that is. I have, for too many years, overworked myself in order to take control of life in general-- and maintain it. I'm exhausted.
The truth is that no matter how well I eat and convince others to do the same, people still die. No matter how hard I work, I will still fail sometimes and people will think I'm and idiot. No matter how accommodating I lower myself to be, some people will still be dissatisfied with me or my family or friends. Regardless of how much I run, spin, stretch, kick, and sweat, I will still have a few varicose veins and little patches of cellulite. Even if I carry my phone everywhere and plan my life for the next 5 years, I can't keep everyone safe and I can't guarantee my success-- or anyone's, for that matter.
Last night I spoke with a friend who is experiencing these same struggles. We embraced the idea that its time to give up a little, take some time to find joy in today, be satisfied with the moment, and know that all the seconds to follow are ultimately in God's control.
Withing the past 48 hours there have been (in my life and in others') dramatic events that have suddenly changed. Some of them changed for the better, in a completely unseen and seemingly impossible way. Others changed for the worse. In each of the situations, I cannot tell you what anyone involved could have done to cause/prevent these changes from occurring. I'm not saying that you can never cause/prevent things-- it would be ignorant to believe that. But it's not ignorant to realize that God is sovereign, and that I can take each step of my life, and every breath that He puts in my lungs knowing that He has total and ultimate control over everything. And its time for me to stop pretending that I carry His responsibilities.
~ Nicole
The truth is that no matter how well I eat and convince others to do the same, people still die. No matter how hard I work, I will still fail sometimes and people will think I'm and idiot. No matter how accommodating I lower myself to be, some people will still be dissatisfied with me or my family or friends. Regardless of how much I run, spin, stretch, kick, and sweat, I will still have a few varicose veins and little patches of cellulite. Even if I carry my phone everywhere and plan my life for the next 5 years, I can't keep everyone safe and I can't guarantee my success-- or anyone's, for that matter.
Last night I spoke with a friend who is experiencing these same struggles. We embraced the idea that its time to give up a little, take some time to find joy in today, be satisfied with the moment, and know that all the seconds to follow are ultimately in God's control.
Withing the past 48 hours there have been (in my life and in others') dramatic events that have suddenly changed. Some of them changed for the better, in a completely unseen and seemingly impossible way. Others changed for the worse. In each of the situations, I cannot tell you what anyone involved could have done to cause/prevent these changes from occurring. I'm not saying that you can never cause/prevent things-- it would be ignorant to believe that. But it's not ignorant to realize that God is sovereign, and that I can take each step of my life, and every breath that He puts in my lungs knowing that He has total and ultimate control over everything. And its time for me to stop pretending that I carry His responsibilities.
~ Nicole
Wednesday, May 11, 2011
Miley Cyrus and the Modern Celebrity Tragedy
I got lost on google today and came across the all-grown-up-at-eighteen Miley Cyrus. I don't personally follow celebrity gossip so, just in case you also happen to have better ways in which to spend your life, know that the former Disney Channel "Hannah Montana" star has been causing controversy by going through the usual young superstar somewhat rebellious I'm-an-18-year-old-girl-let-me-dress-like-a-stripper-on-stage phase.
And parents are freaking out, mostly because of her newly sexualized image.
And the attention, whether good or bad, is still on Miley.
I'm not writing this because I have anything against Miley Cyrus. I'm not calling her a slut. In a lot of ways, she probably is very similar to the average 18 year old girl. I don't know her personally and, when we're honest with ourselves, we have to acknowledge that she's no worse than anyone else.
I'm not just saying that; I really, really mean it.
And I'm here to say that the "Miley problem" or the "Britney Spears syndrome" does not begin when 16, 17, 18 year old mega celebrity girls start to create uber-sexual personas. It started way earlier, and it started with many of the people who now routinely criticize their current personas.
It started with the Moms, the Dads, and the "good people" who wanted their little girls to have a celebrity role model and who allowed their little girls to idolize, obsess over, and in some cases worship their little teen idols.
We absolutely shower celebrities with attention in our culture, and, the problem (I think, I don't personally know any celebrities) with doing that for any person, but especially a young, teenage person, is that they begin to believe that all of this attention is either valid, or, if not valid, then at least necessary for their happiness.
Why wouldn't they? After all, isn't that what people, including their little, ten year old fans, want to hear? That people love them because they're awesome and beautiful?
We are creating a culture of attention addicts in general, and the most extreme form of this attention addiction can be seen in the way that we create the modern celebrity.
Now, back to Miley.
It's easy to criticize her, but, I think that when we are most honest with ourselves we'll start to see that, while, yes, she is wrong to be prancing around making super-sexy videos and the like, that we completely enabled her to do so. And the people who showered her with so much attention and made her into something that she wasn't enabled her to hold such influence over their little girls.
Her new persona was the inevitable result of growing up with the wrong sort of attention in a culture where sexiness is next to godliness, and it became a virtual requirement for her, and various other Disney affiliated young women, at the age of 16, 17, 18, to begin to create an uber-sexual image in order to retain their place as cultural goddesses.
And then the moms who still have ten year olds get mad because Miley (whose face might just be on a massive poster on their daughter's wall) isn't who they need and isn't doing what they need her to do if they are going to raise respectable young women.
This isn't a celebrities-are-victims-of-society-and-have-no-guilt argument. Obviously, Miley and Britney and various others all made choices, but we're liars to deny that they had help in making them.
I have an alternate idea: Maybe we should just stop making idols out of people. It hurts them and it hurts us.
Thoughts??
~Lindsay
And parents are freaking out, mostly because of her newly sexualized image.
And the attention, whether good or bad, is still on Miley.
I'm not writing this because I have anything against Miley Cyrus. I'm not calling her a slut. In a lot of ways, she probably is very similar to the average 18 year old girl. I don't know her personally and, when we're honest with ourselves, we have to acknowledge that she's no worse than anyone else.
I'm not just saying that; I really, really mean it.
And I'm here to say that the "Miley problem" or the "Britney Spears syndrome" does not begin when 16, 17, 18 year old mega celebrity girls start to create uber-sexual personas. It started way earlier, and it started with many of the people who now routinely criticize their current personas.
It started with the Moms, the Dads, and the "good people" who wanted their little girls to have a celebrity role model and who allowed their little girls to idolize, obsess over, and in some cases worship their little teen idols.
We absolutely shower celebrities with attention in our culture, and, the problem (I think, I don't personally know any celebrities) with doing that for any person, but especially a young, teenage person, is that they begin to believe that all of this attention is either valid, or, if not valid, then at least necessary for their happiness.
Why wouldn't they? After all, isn't that what people, including their little, ten year old fans, want to hear? That people love them because they're awesome and beautiful?
We are creating a culture of attention addicts in general, and the most extreme form of this attention addiction can be seen in the way that we create the modern celebrity.
Now, back to Miley.
It's easy to criticize her, but, I think that when we are most honest with ourselves we'll start to see that, while, yes, she is wrong to be prancing around making super-sexy videos and the like, that we completely enabled her to do so. And the people who showered her with so much attention and made her into something that she wasn't enabled her to hold such influence over their little girls.
Her new persona was the inevitable result of growing up with the wrong sort of attention in a culture where sexiness is next to godliness, and it became a virtual requirement for her, and various other Disney affiliated young women, at the age of 16, 17, 18, to begin to create an uber-sexual image in order to retain their place as cultural goddesses.
And then the moms who still have ten year olds get mad because Miley (whose face might just be on a massive poster on their daughter's wall) isn't who they need and isn't doing what they need her to do if they are going to raise respectable young women.
This isn't a celebrities-are-victims-of-society-and-have-no-guilt argument. Obviously, Miley and Britney and various others all made choices, but we're liars to deny that they had help in making them.
I have an alternate idea: Maybe we should just stop making idols out of people. It hurts them and it hurts us.
Thoughts??
~Lindsay
Monday, April 11, 2011
Change
Why is change so difficult? For some people, like myself, getting a new cell phone is a huge deal. It's a change. My numbers look different. I have different back ground colors. I have to slide my phone a different way. The pictures come up from a different direction than before-- sideways instead of from the top.
This is obviously silly but, in any case, it still made me question why humans hate change so much. Not everyone struggles with it to the same degree or from the same reasons, but I don't think there is one human who doesn't struggle with it in some shape or fashion.
I believe it has a lot to do with control. And even though I know I don't have total control of anything, nor will I ever, I still get flustered whenever I am reminded of those hard facts. I think everyone does, actually.
Any thoughts?
This is obviously silly but, in any case, it still made me question why humans hate change so much. Not everyone struggles with it to the same degree or from the same reasons, but I don't think there is one human who doesn't struggle with it in some shape or fashion.
I believe it has a lot to do with control. And even though I know I don't have total control of anything, nor will I ever, I still get flustered whenever I am reminded of those hard facts. I think everyone does, actually.
Any thoughts?
Saturday, April 2, 2011
A Misconception of April Fool's Day...
I have yet to talk about my workplace on here, so let me introduce you. I assume that we are all generally familiar with NBC's hit show, The Office? (Side note: I am not necessarily advocating The Office. There are episodes that I would not recommend and scenes that I choose to fast forward.) Anyway, imagine Steve Carell and the gang and you now understand my workplace.
Yesterday, some of my co-worker's brought a cake and passed around a birthday card for everyone to sign. Then, they proceeded to call everyone into the kitchen and sing "happy birthday" to one of our employees as they put a crown on her head and handed her the card. April Fool's, it's not your birthday?
Um...for the record, kids, that's not how April Fool's day works...
Kendra
Yesterday, some of my co-worker's brought a cake and passed around a birthday card for everyone to sign. Then, they proceeded to call everyone into the kitchen and sing "happy birthday" to one of our employees as they put a crown on her head and handed her the card. April Fool's, it's not your birthday?
Um...for the record, kids, that's not how April Fool's day works...
Kendra
Monday, March 28, 2011
Foreigner
So, I've been a couple months living in Belfast, and i have to say that being foreign hasn't been what I'd expected it to be. I suppose that I came prepared for the worst: culture shock, feeling alienated, etc. It hasn't really happened. A good bit of the reason for that is because making the move from America to N. Ireland is far less drastic than making the move to, say, Saudi Arabia or something. But I also just don't mind being or feeling foreign.
Some people have a problem with that feeling, and I think that the people who do are probably the ones who feel really at home and involved in the culture of where they're from. Like the sort of person who runs for local political office would have trouble being a foreigner. Personally, I think that there's a lot less pressure that comes with being one. You don't have all of those funny cultural expectations that you have everywhere else. Here, people don't expect me to have certain political affiliations or enjoy wearing pink and lime green polka dots (which is a fine trend for many people, it's just not something that I enjoy), or be that "sweet" southern girl that I so often just don't feel like. I'm sure that there are expectations of me here, but I don't know them. Besides, the biggest American stereotypes that I've heard are that Americans are loud and obnoxious, fat, and sexually promiscuous.But I sorta break all of those pretty quickly.
I guess that what I'm saying is that I enjoy having people expect me to be different, whereas at home I feel like they have to discover that.
I think that the more that we assume about people (and we all do it) the less we actually know about them and understand them. But I guess that that's a challenge for all of us: we shouldn't assume that people are like us, we should just try to understand them where they're at.
Here's a pic. of my school for the blog!
~Lindsay
Some people have a problem with that feeling, and I think that the people who do are probably the ones who feel really at home and involved in the culture of where they're from. Like the sort of person who runs for local political office would have trouble being a foreigner. Personally, I think that there's a lot less pressure that comes with being one. You don't have all of those funny cultural expectations that you have everywhere else. Here, people don't expect me to have certain political affiliations or enjoy wearing pink and lime green polka dots (which is a fine trend for many people, it's just not something that I enjoy), or be that "sweet" southern girl that I so often just don't feel like. I'm sure that there are expectations of me here, but I don't know them. Besides, the biggest American stereotypes that I've heard are that Americans are loud and obnoxious, fat, and sexually promiscuous.But I sorta break all of those pretty quickly.
I guess that what I'm saying is that I enjoy having people expect me to be different, whereas at home I feel like they have to discover that.
I think that the more that we assume about people (and we all do it) the less we actually know about them and understand them. But I guess that that's a challenge for all of us: we shouldn't assume that people are like us, we should just try to understand them where they're at.
Here's a pic. of my school for the blog!
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