| christmas time ain't no clownin' around |
[Dec. 11th, 2007|12:26 pm] |
| [ | Current Music |
| | sufjan stevens - get behind me, santa! | ] |
The Christmas Curmudgeon:
"I know what you're doing to me, boy!
You move so fast like a psychopathic color TV
With your Christmas bag and your jolly face
And the reindeer stomping all over the place!"
Santa Claus and his busy-body elves:
"Take it easy what you gotta be so absurd!
You make it sound like Christmas is a 4-letter word
It's a fact of life whether you like it or not
So put your hands together and give it a shot!"
The Honkey Tonk Christmas Choir:
"I hope that you take it to heart, boy
Cause Christmas time ain't no clownin' around
So if you think you got something to prove, boy
Santa Claus is comin' to town!"
The Christmas Curmudgeon:
"I don't care about family and shopping malls
Candy canes or the carolers deckin' the halls
I don't care about what you say Santa Claus
You're a bad brother breakin into people's garages!"
Santa Claus and his busy-body elves:
"You got it wrong cause I'm just another regular guy
With superpowers and a penchant for the yule tide
Is it a crime to give a little once in a while?
I travel round the world tryin' to make people smile!"
The Honkey Tonk Christmas Choir:
"I know that you take it to heart, boy
Cause Christmas time ain't no clownin' around
So if you think you got something to prove, boy
Santa Claus is comin' to town!"
C-H-R-I-S-T-M-A-S! C-H-R-I-S-T-M-A-S!
C-H-R-I-S-T-M-A-S! C-H-R-I-S-T-M-A-S!
C-H-R-I-S-T-M-A-S! C-H-R-I-S-T-M-A-S!
C-H-R-I-S-T-M-A-S! C-H-R-I-S-T-M-A-S!
Christmas time! Christmas time! Christmas time!
We're having a good time!
Christmas time! Christmas time! Christmas time!
We're having a good time! |
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| smile |
[Oct. 27th, 2007|09:59 pm] |
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| nineteen somethingty something |
[Oct. 18th, 2007|12:34 am] |
| [ | Current Music |
| | jimi hendrix - all along the watchtower | ] |
so i was checking out the local guitar shop one time. it's a pretty interesting place. sort of run down and grungy, but its got the vintage thing going for it. and not one of those hip to be retro things, this place is actually just old.
i walk in, acknowledging the store owner and start taking a look at the axes on the wall. around the same time, a skinny white guy with a mass of dreadlocks on top of his head comes in carrying a massive keyboard that must have come from the 60s or some time when people believed the future was full of robots and flying cars.
the store keeper gives him a reverse nod and greets him.
hey grasshopper, how's it going?
what the crap? i almost laughed.
it was then that i realized the store's main patrons were probably what our parents would call hippies. the sort of people who smoke pot and drink organic coffee. i kind of liked the place to be honest. i'll probably end up taking lessons there.
the whole neighbourhood has that vintage vibe about it. it feels almost old world but its still very north american. maybe it's just the pace. i'm not familiar with this. i don't know if it's more 70s or 80s, but it definitely feels like its a place from before i was born. the world seems simpler here, somehow. its the kind of place where old people sit on their porches just watching the city, as if to make sure it behaves and doesn't run off too far.
i wonder if they're looking out for me too. |
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| exodus |
[Oct. 10th, 2007|11:17 pm] |
| [ | Current Music |
| | death cab for cutie - brothers on a hotel bed | ] |
sometimes i wonder if i should be looking over my shoulder.
what is on the other side, anyways?
maybe the hopes and dreams and even fears were meant for someone else.
time does not give us second chances.
life does, though the world always changes.
but in holding on, we deny our mortality.
it seems cruel that things should change so quickly. that we should grow old so young.
but there is beauty in transience.
because a moment becomes a memory.
and memories are written with thoughts and emotions.
they have music and colour.
they are a scent and a flavour.
a feeling.
memories are filled with more than any moment could possibly contain.
i used to fear my mistakes. i used to fear the fleeting nature of our existence.
maybe i still do. and perhaps i fool myself for now, but if it's enough to take these steps, then it's enough.
maybe i'll come back one day.
but for now, this is somehow right. somehow necessary.
i think.
goodbye, rh. we had a good run. |
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| no kiddies no! |
[Oct. 8th, 2007|11:47 am] |
| [ | Current Music |
| | rogue wave - you | ] |
jeez they got destroyed.
i wish the marking scheme wasn't so rigid.
i was originally giving out part marks, but my prof made me take them all back.
if there was anything i could do to help i would, but i can't.
i'm sorry. |
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| how many licks does it take to get to the center? |
[Oct. 4th, 2007|10:06 pm] |
| [ | Current Music |
| | jon mclaughlin - indiana | ] |
the way i like to see things, we're born into a reality that no one really understands. we experience it and become familiar with it, but who can really say they understand the fabric of it? the physical. the spiritual. all the things in between.
it's sort of like we hit the ground running and most of us don't even know what we're running towards (or from!?)
at the end of the day we need to figure out who to trust and who to believe.
we've all got questions and we've all been given some answers. obviously not all the answers we get are the same. some are more popular than others. some appear to be truer, even more legit than others. but in all cases, so much of what we know is not experienced first hand. what do we really know?
if i didn't believe there was a reference point, i'd be terrified of this reality we inhabit.
in a lot of ways, we're explorers and scientists. so many have gone before us, poking and prodding at the edges to see how things work. and many more will come after us, trying to figure out who we are, how we work and what this place we call our home really is. it's crazy to think of how much knowledge and experience has been accumulated by the human race. no wonder some of us get proud. we have come a long way regardless of what you believe about our past.
and even still, there's so much mystery that slips beyond our grasp.
maybe the point of all this mystery isn't to grasp, but simply to reach.
maybe it's not to discover, but to explore.
because i don't think the point is to get to the bottom of everything.
maybe we're just supposed to enjoy and experience the ride. |
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| go kiddies go! |
[Oct. 2nd, 2007|12:32 am] |
| [ | Current Music |
| | coldplay - a message | ] |
tomorrow my class writes their first quiz. i think i'm more excited for them than they are for themselves.
i hope we totally whoop the other sections. |
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| fallout |
[Sep. 27th, 2007|09:53 pm] |
| [ | Current Music |
| | stars - the beginning after the end | ] |
it's only through death that rebirth is possible. every end leads to new beginnings. perhaps this newness is a gift.
wallberg doesn't feel the same this year. i've walked through these halls so many times over the past four years. but everything just seems different now. maybe they've changed somehow. i'm pretty sure i have too.
i wake up in a bed i'm not familiar with. my naked windows afford me no shade to the morning light but i don't really mind getting up earlier. the extra time makes the day seem a little more carefree, even lazier. the walk to school is a nice routine. my elderly chinese neighbours. the sketchy guys hanging out by the school. the kids playing in the daycare sandbox. familiar and not so familiar faces. it's not home yet. but it's nice.
experiments haven't started yet. maybe it's better that way for now. the pace is a nice change from that awful and frenetic chaos that chased me through fourth year. i love being a ta and i really like my class. they're not perfectly behaved, but they show enough respect without me having to try too hard to get it. it's beautiful watching something click in their minds as they grasp for truth and understanding. the one class i'm taking this term seems to have some really heavy concepts, but i'm really impressed with the prof. he's knowledgeable while being accessible and i guess just human. at least more so than a lot of people can come off as when they have a lot of information and pride stuffed between their ears.
my house is full of young men trying to figure out who they are, where they belong and where they're going. i'm sort of the senior around here. it feels daunting at times because of the responsibility that comes with the territory. i mostly have modest goals for the group. i don't need them to get it perfect. but i hope that they can at least get the picture in their heads of what it's supposed to be like. to put someone else before yourself. to demand fairness from yourself while giving grace to others. to feel the weight of responsibility and burden. to carry it for yourself and for each other. to love when patience runs dry.
church hunting commences in october. i've had so many offers and suggestions that it could take months to try them all. i have an idea of what i want already. so maybe this process will go quickly. it's tough to leave rh after so many years. but i need this. something inside me has fallen asleep or died.
but there is always hope.
standing in the fallout we're free to dream as if nothing has ever happened before. |
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| humanity |
[Aug. 22nd, 2007|11:42 am] |
| [ | Current Music |
| | silverchair - tomorrow | ] |
We shall not cease from exploration
And the end of all our exploring
Will be to arrive where we started
And know the place for the first time
- t.s. eliot
from what i can remember, mrs. speers first showed me this in the ninth grade. i thought it quite clever and profound, though i don't think i was capable of grasping what it meant. perhaps that's one of youth's joys. that everything still has that new car smell. nothing is familiar yet.
the truth is that we tread over footprints that have been left by others and often even footprints that have been made by younger versions of ourselves. i've said a few times before that for as much as we move forward in life, we go in circles. we go back to retrace our steps. we turn around to see where we've been. sometimes we lose our bearings in the dizzying mess. sometimes we lose ourselves.
i wonder what progress really is and means for humanity. over countless centuries we've fought against ourselves, each other and the world around us to become what we are today. if the ancients could see us today, they would think we were gods. but for all we've done and all we are, we're still plagued by the same sins that did them in.
what i'm starting to believe is that when God breathed life into us, the intention wasn't so much about the modernization and triumphs of humanity that the history books will remember...but rather the very simplest of things. love. honour. goodness. and so on. the glory of man is not his accomplishments. it is the image in which he is made. to be like the One who called us into being. i think many of us are so quick to forget what it means to be human. we live our lives in fear. so fearful of what mark we will or won't make on this world. so fearful that we will not have done enough. that our jobs will be meaningless. that we won't count.
and don't get me wrong. i do believe in progress in the ordinary sense. i have always believed that we ought to do all we can to save the world. but the reality is that so many aren't in a position to do so. are their lives less valuable than yours because you are privileged? it's been said so many times that who we are is more important than what we do. but does anyone actually believe that?
our world will always be in crisis. there has always been war and poverty and disease and some big, dark cloud looming overhead. i don't know if we will ever escape these things. one thing is for sure though. we will never escape our mortality. we are here for but a season. and then we are gone. maybe the point isn't the escape, but rather how we live in the midst of these things.
it's true that we have more influence and ability to rock the boat of humanity than ever before. and maybe that's significant. i'm definitely not saying that we don't have responsibility. because i don't believe that at all. but anything we do is undermined by who we are if we forget who we were made to be. we usually associate being human with being flawed, sinful and the rest. but what if we looked at it from intention's side? maybe to be human is to love. to do what's right. to do what's good. what if to love is more human than to sin? after all, shouldn't the intended design be higher than the fallen reality?
as we make our way through and around this world, we are constantly defining and redefining reality as we interact with it and try to understand it. sometimes we throw ideas out only to pick them up again. i think it so important that we don't let pride and reputation keep us from treading lightly enough and humbly enough not to miss out on the nuances of this journey that tell us what life really is. |
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stevimon's journal