Well, I just bought a MacBook and I’m looking for a Photoshop-level program that would allow me to do design-y stuff. However, my Mac happens to be an Intel Mac, and according to the Adobe website, Elements for Mac only works on PowerPC Macs…this is a problem. And when they do end up coming out with a Photoshop Elements program that would work on my computer, it’s going to be far too expensive. I mean, I’m an unemployed high school student…I seriously am going to need some image editor or other, I’m majoring in Visual Arts-New Media (computer graphics), and computer graphics are hard without an image program. I actually called Adobe today to see if they have an Elements program that will work on Intel Macs, and got told yes (which is contrary to both what their website says and what the salesperson told me last time I called, but whatever), so I asked if there was possibly any previous version I could buy and they were all like “No, there’s no way you can do that, ma’am.” It was unbelievably frustrating. Grr. Software companies.
Impressed December 24, 2007
Well, it’s Christmas Eve, and I definitely need to write in this more. But right now, I don’t have time. I just want to communicate how impressed I am with my boyfriend at the moment. For Christmas, he sponsored two Bible verses in my honor to be translated for the Ache people of Paraguay, who don’t have the Bible in their language. Here’s where you can see the verses sponsored by him — they’re the two at the very bottom. I am so impressed with him right now. The verses are Romans 5:1-2:
Therefore, since we have been made right in God’s sight by faith, we have peace with God because of what Jesus Christ our Lord has done for us. Because of our faith, Christ has brought us into this place of undeserved privilege where we now stand, and we confidently and joyfully look forward to sharing God’s glory.
Definitely highly impressed with him right now. He’s an excellent kid.
Joy December 17, 2007
I have an interesting and unique life philosophy (at least, I think it’s pretty unique). It can be summed up by “Life goes much better if you’re excited about everything”. In other words, joy is necessary for life.
I started thinking about the whole joy thing as a result of a conversation with my boyfriend’s roommate (does it make me creepy that I talk to my boyfriend’s roommate? I hope not) and he was talking about how he sometimes finds life lame, which I thought was pretty sad. I think life is just about the best thing ever (for a ton of reasons, more on that later) so he really surprised me. So, I started thinking more about joy and I actually ended up learning quite a lot about it, which was pretty sweet.
After looking up a couple of definitions and being annoyed at them (“an unsatisfied desire which is in itself more desirable than its satisfaction” and “cheerfulness or calm delight” — definitely not a fan of that second one, one needs only behold a toddler on a beach to realize that that is completely wack) I settled on a quote — “Happiness is feeling good because of what happens to you, joy is delight coming from within you.” You know, Paul talks about in Romans how he’s found the secret of being content/joyful in every situation…it doesn’t matter what’s around you as long as you have God’s joy in your life.
Going along with that, there’s also the verse in Romans that says “For the kingdom of God is not a matter of eating and drinking, but of righteousness, peace, and joy in the Holy Spirit.” Like I said before, it doesn’t matter what your outside circumstances are, it just matters that you have joy in God. And you have to make sure it IS in God — Psalm 35:9 says “And my soul shall rejoice in the LORD; it shall exult in His salvation.” This verse doesn’t say that “my soul shall rejoice in my significant other” or “in the things I do” or “in my athletic abilities” or “in my grades” or anything like that. It says “in the LORD” — that’s the important part. And one last verse, before I move on to my next roman numeral (this was originally my speech final…whee): Nehemiah 8:10 — “Do not grieve, for the joy of the LORD is your strength.” I have to say that I love this verse. It’s definitely one of the more encouraging verses out there. My small point under that verse says that the joy that comes from God gives us strength to face every day in our lives. That is so true! Without the joy that God gives me, I would totally die. I’m having some hard times with my boyfriend at the moment — long-distance relationships are never ideal — and it’s the joy of the LORD that gets me through every day. I’m also reallllly leaning on Him to get through this senior year — I know that I’ve mentioned several times before that I’m just hanging on until I can go off to college. But with His joy, I can have the strength to hang on until that happens.
I decided that I really wanted that kind of joy into my life…so I did a bit of thinking, and a bit of experimenting, and came up with a couple of things that seem to be working so far. Umm…yeah. (It’s hard to take a speech outline and turn it into a journal entry!!) But the hardest thing I ran up against was trying to get it into my head that I am small and God is big. It still hasn’t quite gotten in there correctly, I still act like I’m the biggest thing there is most of the time (which really is a bit of a problem), but at least I’m kind of aware of it. The coolest thing about God being so big is that despite His hugeness, He came and died for us. That’s just cool. Well, not cool…amazing and awesome and unbelievable and………yeah. Speechlessness. It’s pretty amazing.And then my favorite part: be randomly excited about EVERYTHING. And I mean everything. My favorite thing to be excited about is blue sky, it’s so gorgeous especially in the summer…
So, in conclusion, BE JOYFUL!
A Number of Things December 16, 2007
First of all, I’m starting a vlog (video blog); here’s the first of my efforts:
It’s lovely, isn’t it? I’ll be keeping working on that…hopefully one or two blogs a day.
Actually that’s about it.
Waiting for College December 15, 2007
I am a senior in high school, and I’ve been accepted to Taylor University, which is officially the best place in the world. Most of the people I really care about are either at Taylor this year or will be at Taylor next year. Right now, I’m kind of in limbo. I want to be done with high school and moved on to college, but I can’t. At the same time, I don’t want to lose contact with all my high school friends. It’s annoying. Also I’m applying for a scholarship that means a full ride to any college in my state which would be wonderful…but I don’t know if I’ll get it. But it would be really helpful for my parents so that they can pay. ALSO, I’m going to go to the local university, where my mom is a professor, and take summer classes there…but I’m not sure whether or not it’ll mess up my acceptance to Taylor…it’s slightly messy at the moment. But the plus about the local university is that 12 credit hours are only $874 which is ridiculously cheap. That doesn’t include textbooks or anything but STILL! So, I have many decisions to make. Fun! In other news, it’s snowing, and I just came back from the Keller Competition concert, and my sister is now in love with the pianist who played.
American Heritage Party December 11, 2007
I had to do a report today on the American Heritage Party, and words cannot describe how completely annoyed I am with that party. I am a Christian, of course, and I love God, and I think it would be completely wonderful and fantastic if everyone was a Christian…but it’s political suicide to build a political party around that mission. Seriously, its mission is to “spread the Christian faith.” It states that explicitly on its webpage.
It also wants to discrminate against immigrants for what they call “immoral lifestyle”. Ridiculous. Why not kick out all of the American citizens who have immoral lifestlyes, then? I agree with them that immoral lifestyles are bad, and that people shouldn’t live like that, but….ah! I don’t like that position. They also want to ban immigrants who have different and detrimental beliefs about government. This is a free country! It was founded for the freedom to express opinions and thoughts and so forth!
It just seems idiotic to me. I’m not a fan of it. At all.
A short lesson on gluttony… December 9, 2007
I have recently learned in my own very special way that it’s VERY VERY BAD to be a glutton. I was baking cookies for my boyfriend’s floor (like the people in his dorm, not his actual floor) and I ate probably about 5 cookies’ worth of batter…bad idea. Yeah, I kinda threw up all over everything after I was all done. I feel a lot better now, but it was really uncomfortable while it happened.
This post is just kind of a filler until I can actually get a real one in. I’ve been kinda busy lately. I will resume with Job soon I promise! 🙂
Job 4 December 6, 2007
Now for some reason, hitting “enter” doesn’t seem to work in Safari, so bear with me please (haven’t had time to download anything else yet).In this chapter, one of Job’s friends is speaking — Eliphaz the Temanite. Everything that he says actually makes sense, but it’s really not something that great to say to Job at the moment. He’s saying that those who are innocent are not punished by God — implying that Job has some hidden sin in his life that he needs to confess. He starts by confronting Job about his attitude towards his trials — he pretty much says to Job, “Hey! You were strong for all these people all the time that they were down-hearted! But as soon as tribulation comes to you, look what happens! You’re all unhappy.” Which I think is completely unfeeling of him! I mean, really. Job has lost everything he has except for his wife and his life, and Eliphaz is telling him that he’s too down-hearted about it. I would completely have killed that man right then and there.
On the other hand, a lot of the things he says are good in principle. If he wasn’t talking to Job, they would be really good things to say. I mean, how often do we give all this cheesy advice to people (“You’ll make it though, just trust in God” — honestly, how does one trust in God? — not meaning that God isn’t trustworthy…meaning how does one apply that practically) and then when we find ourselves in the exact same situation….and finding out just how hard that particular piece of advice is to put into practice.
Eliphaz also says a lot of truth about those who don’t fear God. He mentions a lot of things about what will happen to them and how hopeless their plight is and all this other stuff. Most interestingly, he says something that is echoed in Romans 3:23: “Can mankind be just before God? Can a man be pure before His maker?” I have to say, the answer to this is a complete and resounding “NO!” Which is, of course, where the miracle of salvation comes in. So, in a way, this chapter kind of foreshadows the coming of Christ! That’s definitely cool.
More About Snow
So it actually did snow the other day (YAY!), which was really really amazing.It was especially kinda cool after school because we have two Iraqi students (I’m not sure if they’re Iraqi or Iranian, actually, but they’re CUTE! 10th and…8th? grades) and they were playing in the snow, throwing snowballs at each other…it was just cool to see them having fun. They’ve opened up a lot since they came. More later.
New MacBook December 5, 2007
This post contains absolutely nothing philosophical at all in it. My new macbook just arrived today, and I can’t quite believe that it’s actually mine! It’s such a nice little computer. I like it a lot. Anyways, there’s no Job chapter tonight because I have to give my spiffy little MacBook to my parents in seven minutes because they’re regulating my bedtime. And I suppose they know best, but sometimes it’s just really annoying the way they try to control stuff. So, yeah.
"The time has come," the walrus said, "to talk of many things..." 