Beautiful, beautiful books!

I love fairytales forever and ever and always.

Aren't they the marvelous-est? I just read a conglomeration of fairytale stories all smashed into one book: Out of the Wild. It was great. It gave me that lovely, happy, sweet-but-not-too-sugary ending that made me all the more pleased because of all the side-trips we had to take to get there.

I'm now getting back into a happy mood. I was in a very happy mood because I finished the book in one sitting and felt like bouncing off the walls for glee! But then I remembered that my government is an idiot and cut off the power to my library system. Not exactly, actually, but pretty close.

See, I live in one county with a certain library system. Five minutes away from me is another library that uses another system. Until four months ago, the systems worked together in harmony. Holds were interchanged from library to library, and all was well. Then BAM! The stupid government had to cut library founding and discourage hold companionship and now I'm all screwed over because the two systems are no longer working together.

Isn't that stupid? It makes me mad, especially because "my" system (HA!) that I've never used before is not as big as the old system and doesn't have Merlin Season 1! It makes me so angry! I'm so angry with the stupid library cutting funding idiot government legislation. Man, I'm glad we're getting a new governor. I hope he/she fixes it.

Anyhow, I'm partially consoled by my marvelous book. Do read it! I met a poor unfortunate girl at the library tonight who complained of having nothing to read, so we chatted. Her tastes are vampires, werewolves, and romance. Sound familiar? Poor, disillusioned Twilight junkie. I directed her towards some cool books that have a similar, fantasy/science fictiony/weird-y feel but are so much better. I really hope that she tries them! She recommended James Patterson to me.

Have any of you read his teen lit? Give me a shout if you have!

Lost in books and marvelous fairytales, forgetting the terrors of government legislation for a moment or two,

Tina

I need your hurt, I need your pain,

It's not love any other way.

This post is to explain my new blog title and show you something that has really struck me lately.

God died for us.

Yes, you know this. But think about it. He was God. He could have redeemed us from our sins by twitching his little finger. Yes, yes, I know, all of the covenant and sacrifice stuff was how God related with his people. But he didn't have to do it so painfully. He could have just twitched, you know? He didn't, though.

I mentioned about how God related with his people. Suffering, both in penance by men and through sacrifice of animals, was how one drew closer to God. It still is. When we're stripped away from all of our earthly pleasures and loves, we draw closer to God. Not to say that we can't love anyone, but it makes you think.

What also makes you think is the statement that God chose to make by dying on the cross. He showed us suffering to the umpteenth level. He DIED for us. Died. In dying, he redeemed us from our sins. This shows me that God loves me to a level that I can't even comprehend. It also shows me that he was telling us that in our great loves, we were going to hurt.

Every great love involves hurt. I'm still learning about this, but think about it. Even if you find "the one", you'll get your heart wrung some. Break-ups happen to the best of people. Even in simply loving someone, you can get hurt when they eventually die. Pain is a fact of life and a fact of love. Does this mean we cage up and keep from loving? Of course not!

Check out the cross, ladies and gentlemen. Christ died for us. He endured the hurt. He gave us his pain. It wouldn't have been love any other way.

-Tina

All things in moderation?

Temperance is a funny thing. I've been working at balance in my life, and I seem to suffer from having too much of one thing and not enough of others. For example, I spend a whole lotta time on a really great site called NarniaWeb. The site is amazing. The five hours I spend there instead of doing other things is not.

I do love to do useful things. I know that sounds incredibly boring, but bear with me. I love the feeling at the end of the day when you look back and see that you really helped your mom with the housework, or finished some bit of schoolwork, or got writing done (if you're a writer, like me). That feeling is just one of satisfaction. For me, I go: "I actually didn't waste my day today! I did stuff that mattered, that change the way I'll be living tomorrow and in the future!" I don't exactly think like that, but that's the feeling in words.

Unfortunately, one of the reasons that the feeling is special right now is because it doesn't happen all the time. One of my goals lately has been to live each day well. Not okay, not acceptable. Just really well. It's really hard. I do too much of stupid stuff and not enough of the important stuff. Sometimes I really fall flat on my face and then I think at night, before I go to bed, "What in the world was I thinking? I was an idiot!"

To go off on another tangent from the title, I wanted to talk about movie content. I want to be a screenwriter, like I've said before in other posts, and I've been thinking a lot about my mission in that and just movies in general.

I have kind of really high standards for movies. My sisters don't share many of my opinions. The sister just above me, in particular, asks me to watch movies a lot and I'll look up the movies online to see what the lowdown is, especially on pluggedin.com. Mostly, I'll decide against watching the movie because it looks like it has a lot of vulgarity in it. My sister makes the case that, if I want to be a screenwriter, I have to watch all kinds of movies, not just the ones I think I'll think.

This is a bit of an issue for me. I don't agree with her completely. I mean, I can see that watching movies and listening to scripts can help you understand how to write them, but what if this movie is very lewd? What if the mindset of the characters towards pre-marital sex is very casual?

I don't know about you guys, but I have a very difficult time with sexuality in movies. It's a very big occasion of sin for me, and I know it. So do I go in to watch the movie, knowing what's there and knowing that it could lead me into sin? My stance is NO. I may not have watched the movie before, but if I know there's crap scattered all through the movie, I'm not gonna see it.

What do you all think, I wonder?

-Tina

All my wisdom...

Yanked out. Gone. Forever removed. Oh wait--was that supposed to be wisdom teeth? Ah, probably. Considering that I've been holding an icepack up to my face (20 minutes on, 20 minutes off) and my jaw is pretty numb.

This morning, I got drilled, yanked, and bloodied up. Also known as the experience of wisdom teeth removal. If you can avoid this, please do so. Not meaning be unhealthy or have pain--just if the dentist says you don't have to, don't. It was interesting, but I got something like 8 shots of anesthetic and I'm only just now recovering feeling in my chin and lower lip. And the appointment was at 10 am this morning.

That was just the bottom two teeth, thank goodness. The dentist said that my uppers hadn't erupted (poked through, I think) and they looked like if they did, it would be okay and not cause pain. So I just got two out, which was fine with me.

It was kind of really gross to see the aide using a little sucker tube to get all of the blood to come out of my mouth. I usually do okay around blood, so I was fine and didn't faint, but it was still gross. They drilled around the teeth and then pried them/yanked them out with pliers. Actually, they cut the gum first with a knife. Am I grossing you out? For some reason I'm in a weird mood and I find that funny. Sorry. :P

We did not get laughing gas (which has a weird scientific name that I don't remember) because my sister got it when she got her wisdom teeth out three weeks ago and it made her sick and depressed. Not cool. So I was lucid all through and am lucid and hopefully will remain lucid. I chatted with the dentists in little breaks between pulls. (that's kind of weird, now that I think of it) I'm just tired.

As a matter of fact, I'm going to go watch some more movies. I've been chillin with power rangers, BBC Robin Hood, and Pixar movies. I love that stuff. I hope you all are having smashing days!

-Tina

Break Open the Sky

School is almost over. I'm in my last week, the tail end of the fourth quarter. And man, does it stink.

I hate the feeling that you get when you're almost, almost to the end of something but you've got a huge mound of work to plow through in order to get there. It's like having a word at the tip of your tongue and not remembering it, so you can't spit it out. The feeling that you're almost there, but not quite.

The feeling frustrates me a great deal, especially when the big mound of stuff is compsoed of things that are really hard and that I don't feel particularly good at. For example, my school loves to give me writing projects. Make that 'adores'. They dish them into my lap directly at the end of the quarter and I feel overwhelmed, especially at the end of the last quarter.

I've currently got a final essay to do that I've only hesitatingly outlined (because it's difficult and I didn't know where to start), an American Literature test to finish that contains several short essays, and a History test with its own set of essays. After I finish that, my mom will be handing me papers back that I've already given her to check and I'll have to revise their red-inky messness.

Besides the pile-up of work, I feel....I feel stifled. I'm a perfectionist (unfortunately) and my last interpretive essay did not get as good of a grade as I thought it would. Isn't that the worst feeling? You think that you did great and it turns out that you were wrong. :(

I do have a substantial reason for wanting to be perfect, though: I'm going to apply for film school when I graduate and the universities I've been looking at are really, really tough to get into. 4.0 gradepoint is average there. That's what they look for when you try to get in. I really, really want to go to film school and I feel called to go there, but I get really nervous when I don't get as good grades as I'd like.

Furthermore, I'm taking the SAT this saturday. Yeah, exciting and joyous. :P I haven't been able to study as much as I should because of school and life and I'm scared that I'll fail it, or at least get a bad grade that will show up as miserable on college applications.

See the leading theme here? It's fear. Fear of failing, fear of not doing as well as I'd like to, fear of everything.

All of these fears about my schoolwork and tests are coming because I really want to get into a good college and pursue what I love and I'm scared that I won't be able to get there.

Funny thing is, it doesn't have to be like this, because here's the thing: If I'm meant to go to film school--if I'm truly and surely called to go there, I'll go. Plain and simple. I've been forgetting in every step that I've worried that God is in charge. If I mess up in school and skitter around in trying to follow his plan for me, do you think that worries him? Heck, no! He's God!

God can take care of me. I forget that all the time. He's the one in charge of my life, not me. He's the one in charge of my education. My future college. My grades. Everything. If I mess up in getting to one of the steps of his plan, he's not going to be messed up!

I have this mental image right now of God controlling everything, and when I make a mistake, he makes a little adjustment and BAM! Everything goes on smoothly. Just because I won't get to film school one way, that doesn't mean I won't get to film school at all. If I'm meant to go there, I'll go there. It's brings some song lyrics to mind:

He'll break open the sky
For those who cry out His name.
Throwing the wind and waves at bay,
He's strong enough to save you.

God is in control. He can do anything and bring you exactly where you need to go.

Isn't that ridiculously simple? I think so. And it's more than comforting for me. It's so hard not to worry, but I'm going to work hard, because not worrying doesn't mean not trying your best, and let the results stay in God's hands. Getting worked up and angry and upset is human, but it does nothing for me or for anyone.

I was getting really angry about my grades and how much time I had to study when I suddenly realized (or maybe God pointed it out :) ) that God is controlling every bit of my life. He loves me, He loves you, and He's certainly got everything arranged so that you'll go where you're meant to.

Now to go do schoolwork--and keep calm this time. :)

-Tina

Procrastination Station

I have absolutely no desire to start on my test for English. None at all. I would much rather write a blog post, so that's what I'm doing!

I suppose that the title really has a double meaning--I've been procrastinating on writing this blog for a good long while. It's been almost two and a half months since my last post! In that time I've taken leaps and bounds towards finishing my junior year of high school. Thank goodness! I'm trying to do two days of school per day so that I can finish even faster (this is easier because I finished math early).

Also in that time I've started following a wonderful blog: The Word Crafter. The blogger's name is Bekah and she's a really engaging writer. I love reading her posts and I look forward to them all the time :).

Another thing that's been happening in life is The Shadow of the Bear student film. Did I tell you that I do graphics for it? Right now we're working on making t-shirts to sell to all of the lovely fans. I can't show you the t-shirt, but I can show you a poster:

^^that's my favorite of the posters that I've done for the film. Check the site out! It's fun to get updates, and of course you'll get to see (and dare I say wear?) some of my lovely artwork. ;)

Speaking of artwork, I've been starting to make graphics a little more lately. I was inspired by looking over some of my old stuff. My favorite of my old work is this little wallpaper: am i already gone?

Now I've got to go do school. I hope you enjoy the post, and I'll try to get a little bit more substance in next time. :P

-Tina

How Would You Feel?

Something like a million kids in the world have lost one of their parents. A million more have probably come close.

I've never experienced anything like they have. Sure, I've had the worries about my mom when she's travelling alone, and the fears that my dad will die in a car accident while away on a business trip--but nothing solid. Nothing real.

The monday of this week, a teenager on my block lost his mom. He's named Dan. I haven't ever been real friends with Dan, or Danny as we used to call him. Our hanging out was just in a group of neighborhood kids where we'd play games like "Capture the Flag", "Around the House", and "Seven Steps". My family was never very close to his family. Tonight, though, we attended the wake for his mom because they are our neighbors.

Realization of how fragile life is hit me square in the face. You really don't realize it--the fact that every breath is so extremely special (if you do, I applaud you). The fact that you take life for granted every day, as its so normal.

I cannot imagine how Dan is feeling. Of course, I can remember some times, like when I lost my grandpa, that I felt extremely sad, but I'm sure that it doesn't compare. How must that feel--to lose your mom when you've only had her for eighteen years?

It just makes me value the family I have and the life I've got. I'm sure to forget, but for now I'm going to put every effort into appreciating how special and beautiful life is. My life, your life, any life. Human life in particular.

If you could pray for Dan, I would really appreciate it.

-Tina