'Living on a prayer'

Am promising myself that I will begin blogging once more. I do not care if the only eyes that ever rest on this page are mine; maintaining a blog is something that I want to do for myself -- for my own introspection, to learn more about my own true thoughts and commentary about this life and world. It may only happen every once in a blue moon, but it is very much a commitment that I want to make to and for myself.

I think that it's been almost a year since I last blogged. So much has happened, so much has changed. 'Transformative' is the buzzword that I toss around, but it's so appropriate. I am not the same person that I once was, and I am perfectly fine with that. I love the person that I have been, I love the person that I am, and I love the person that I am becoming.

I have read a lot of good stuff this evening, today, and in the past few days. I am feeling good about this quarter -- it's going to be hard as hell, no doubt, but I know that there are so many wonderful things in store.

I came across the prayer of St. Francis of Assisi this evening and ... I ... absolutely ... LOVE ... it:

Lord, make me an instrument of Your peace.
Where there is hatred, let me sow love;
Where there is injury, pardon;
Where there is doubt, faith;
Where there is despair, hope;
Where there is darkness, light;
Where there is sadness, joy.


O, Divine Master, grant that I may not so much seek to be consoled as to console;
To be understood as to understand;
To be loved as to love.


For it is in giving that we receive;
It is in pardoning that we are pardoned;
And it is in dying that we are born to eternal life.


I know with completely certitude that these are some of the most beautiful words ever written.

10.13.10

... a day that should always be memorialized. After being trapped underground for 69 days, 33 Chilean miners were brought home to safety. What a wonderful day!! All miners and rescuers safe and sound -- praise God for His blessings!

so pitiful it's hilarious

'Heaven Knows I'm Miserable Now' is just a funny song. Hilarious really. I think that it has to do with the fact that the verses are so pity-inducing and the singer has to be high or intoxicated or highly intoxicated. We whine and complain until we get what we think we want and then we are ... miserable. Never content with what we've been blessed. The best line is the very first one: 'I was happy in the haze of a drunken hour, and Heaven knows I'm miserable now ...'.

You can listen to it here and read the lyrics here.

'caught up in circles ... confusion is nothing new'

Cyndi Lauper, 'Time After Time'

~ ~ ~

So I am currently in week 5 of the quarter ... holy crap, wait! Seriously?! Oh my actual God ... it CANNOT already be week 5. Wait -- it's not. It's week 4 ... my apologies for that freakout. I really did think that I was in week 5 there for an extremely scary second. 

Anyway ... so far I have survived, although I must admit that this past week or so it feels as if I've barely survived. I've been nothing but puny and ill for about the past week and a half. I started off with some crazy stomach virus, took an abrupt left turn at Fluville, and have now ended up with some crazily congestive funk that finally sent me to the doc yesterday. So it results that I have fluid in my right ear and infection in my sinuses. Disgusting. And miserable. I can barely hear out of my right ear at times, coughing without being in pain is a trick, and, worst of all, I had to miss 2 classes yesterday. Horror of horrors! But, as you well know ... or maybe don't know, I am a tough gal and I will bounce back from this quite soon. Hopefully tomorrow. The upshot of being infested with this maladious crud is that I have one sultry, sexy, gravelly voice. Result. Actually, not so much because I haven't been within a country mile of an available, attractive man. Not before Ms. Sultry Voice came to town and probably not after she departs. To be serious, if the sexiness of my voice did lull in an available and interested Mr. Hot Pants, I've a feeling that my all-too-sudden hacking in his face at the most inconvenient of times would quite quickly warrant his subsequent exit. It's rude and really quite unlady-like. I've seriously considered the occasional cigarette, but I don't think that I would smoke often enough to achieve desired sexy voice and the ensuing emphysema would just not be worth the effort. Le sigh ...

I've survived what could possibly be the scariest portion of the quarter programme when I managed to make my way through my group presentation ... er, facilitation ... in my Intro to Second Language Acquisition class. I dreaded it like an imminent plague and I did manage to survive it somehow, so I'm not quite sure why everything is going to pot now. At any rate, I'm anxiously awaiting the moment when I'm not hacking like an emphysematic and not gimping about from the ridiculous blister I managed to acquire on my heel from walking a mile or so in the WRONG shoes.

I was hoping that I could possibly make my re-debut into the public eye this evening, but as luck would have it, I turned into an absolute lunatic when I went to the grocery store today. I couldn't remember anything, I couldn't find the places where I had picked stuff up that I wanted to put back, and I didn't feel good at all, quite frankly. So I decided that going out and about this evening might not be such a grand idea after all.

Instead, I've decided to catch up on my blogging, clean my apartment and rid it of the germies, and do a little reading {which should actually be a LOT of reading}.

I haven't decided if anybody actually reads this blog. I think that some folks do when I send out the 'I've had an epiphany!' alarm, but, other than that, I'm not certain. I wouldn't blame anyone for not because I can't seem to force myself to pursue this with any degree of regularity or routine. Which could be exactly how I need to approach this blog ... without regularity or routine. Which might not be an entirely bad thing. The wondrous thing about blogging is that it gives you an outlet to express yourself in some manner that might not be critiqued in an altogether critical or academic way. It's free and it's rather liberating, so on I shall continue. {when I can find the time that is ...}

The television has been absolute rubbish lately. I'm not exactly certain why I was going so batty without it. It's a divine miracle if I can find anything worth watching. TVLand is a usual safe retreat, but even that old, faithful television channel has been somewhat of an über letdown lately. When I subscribed to satellite television, I was super-excited to be the proud new viewer of BBC America. I figured that it had to a magnificent sampling of the glorious telly that the Brits get to watch on BBC and its variants ... alas and alack. The only programme that I will not fail to watch when I can find it is The Graham Norton Show, which I LOVE. I really enjoyed the one episode of The Choir that I saw. Gordon Ramsay is good sometimes. I would love to watch Absolutely Fabulous, but find that it's never on BBCA these days. Luther seems intriguing, maybe I'll check that out when it premieres. I do NOT want to watch Star Trek or any of its spinoffs {isn't that American anyway??}, I do NOT want to watch Dr. Who. I would be beyond delighted with Roger and Val Have Just Got In. I would be supremely satisfied with Little Britain. I would be over the top to watch The Vicar of Dibley. What I want is British comedy!! {Might I be a Brit-lover? Maybe I've become a Tory ... no wait, didn't they fancy the royals? Who knows? Dr. Sample would, that's who ... she'd kick my arse for not knowing this very fact! Ummm, I'm a colonial who has a very healthy respect and admiration for the comic elite of the United Kingdom. So there.}

Speaking of, I am absolutely in love with all things relating to Dawn French, Jennifer Saunders, and Jenny Éclair. For some magnificent examples, you can click here, here, and here. These links are really quite small samplings, but they're fantastic nonetheless. Might I also suggest the official web sites for French & Saunders and Jenny Éclair. YouTubing any of these ladies will get you some fabulous results. Jenny Éclair often works with a group called Grumpy Old Women {their cover dance of 'Pokerface' for Let's Dance for Sport Relief is one of the best things that I have seen in quite some time!!}. I have developed my love for these ladies in only the past month or so, really just since I've turned 28 {so barely even a month now}, but I think that they are absolutely fabulous {no pun intended} and fiercely brilliant. I've just finished Dawn French's memoir Dear Fatty about a week ago and I'm thinking that Éclair's Chin Up, Britain! is next on my recreational/extracurricular reading list. Dear Fatty is genuinely and fantastically brilliant. It's her autobiography written in the form of letters to family, friends, and other loved ones and some not-so-quite. I give it 5 stars and highly recommend it. 

In other news, I miss pretty much everybody. I talk to Mom and Dad and hear about Festus on the daily, so that helps, and I text with Sally with semi-regularity. I call Papaw when I can and he even calls me sometimes! {which is impressive, I assure you!} Facebooks, texts, and calls to and from others are quite less frequent. I get to talk to Willa every now and again. I miss everyone and I know that we're all insanely busy, but it still makes me sad and really appreciate the times when I do get to be in the very same vicinity with the ones that I love best.

So anyroadup, I guess that's all for now. I'm all hacky again and need to get productive and such. Night all!

E

'i texted you in desperation ... i said, 'heaven forbid this place!''

Heart, 'Death Valley'

~ ~ ~

This song is somewhat of a running illustration for me. I absolutely cracked up on the way to campus one day -- Heart's Red Velvet Car has become my theme tune for daily transportation, which is good b/c uno} I love Heart and their new album and deux} I'm usually running too late to even think of grabbing my iPod and all of its accoutrement on my way out the door -- [going back into my original thought] b/c I was listening to this aforementioned song and it suddenly occurred to me how fantastically this song could serve as a ... well ... theme tune for my graduate school life these days. The long and short of it is that you really need to hear the lyrics with their accompanying music to fully appreciate their dramatickness {and I have yet to find something good on YouTube}, but otherwise, this is one flippingly magnificent song for all of its dramatic wonder.

Death Valley {Ann Wilson, Nancy Wilson, Ben Mink}

I looked outside of my window

There was fear in the pit of my heart

There was desert as far as the eye could see

It was blistering dust and hard

I texted you in desperation

I said “Heaven forbid this place

It’s hotter than hell and I’m losing my cool

This is not of the human race” no no

Death Valley (way down low)

Death Valley (a thousand miles to go)

Death Valley (way down low)

Yeah – Death Valley (a thousand miles to go)

What if the engine should break down

What if a tire should blow

What if my soul should slip off this bus

And land in the inferno

Bouncing and tumbling onward

Watching in vain for a change

A windmill, a billboard, a Joshua tree

A rusted old home on the range

Death Valley (way down low)

Death Valley (a thousand miles to go)

Death Valley (way down low)

Death Valley (a thousand miles to go)

I’ve got slippery sand in the back of my throat

And silica in my eyes

Pretty soon this will all be another bad dream

If we make it to the other side

If we make it

If we make it

Death Valley

Death Valley

Death Valley

Death Valley (a thousand miles to go)

Death Valley (way down low)

Death Valley (a thousand miles to go)

'little ship of dreams'

Heart, 'Dreamboat Annie'

~ ~ ~

Just a brief posting ... life as a doc student has begun and it has kept me beyond busy. I've had my ups and I've had my downs and I've only been in for a couple of weeks now, but I have stumbled upon one of the most amazing quotes ever that has, quite fortuitously, become my daily mantra. God has His way of putting EVERYTHING that you need right in front of you at just the right moment.

'It's a process of having faith in the self you don't quite know you are yet ... believing that you will find the strength, the means somehow, and trusting in that, although your legs are like jelly. You can still walk on them and you will find the bones as you walk. ... the further I walk, the stronger I become.' ~ Dawn French {from her autobiography, Dear Fatty}

How magnificent is that? I tell you, it's been quite inspirational and encouraging to me, even if I just read it only a few days ago.

God bless and big love to all!

E

I ♥ 'The Vicar of Dibley'!

Was doing a little reading in the Gospels about being the light and the salt of the Earth in preparation for tonight's Bible study at the Vineyard ... it reminds me of the second 'Vicar of Dibley' episode where St. Barnabas Church is being featured on 'Songs of Praise'. Fast-forward to 26:08 ... hilarious!!

what a gorgeous child that is gonna be!

... the child of Penélope Cruz and Javier Bardem will probably be the prettiest kid ever ... it'll probably trump mine!

how can one woman have so many anthems??

'WTF'?

{Heart, album: Red Velvet Car}

'How much talking does it take?
Talking 'bout your bad mistakes ...
Gonna talk you wide awake!
Talk until your ego breaks  ...

The past is dust, undo concern
There's hell to pay and it's your turn!
The hardest thing you'll ever learn
Is what bridge to cross and what bridge to burn ...

What bridge to cross and what bridge to burn ...

What's the matter with you?!

What bridge to cross and what bridge to burn ...

...'

'maybe my attention was more than you could do'

Another anthem for me ... 'Stand Back' is my favorite song by Stevie Nicks.