Every Friday for five years (my whole elementary school experience), my mom let me buy my lunch so I could have a shot at winning Lucky Tray Day. One lunch tray every Friday had a sticker on the bottom of it, and if you got it, you got a prize. I finally won in the fifth grade; a pencil (a pencil, when it seemed like every other winner in the past had gotten better prizes, although to be fair the prizes had steadily declined in coolness over the past year), which broke immediately upon first use.

Thus I learned the important life lesson that the things you want are never as great once you get them. (Also, that the school system builds up your hopes and dreams of "being whatever you want to be" for twelve years despite the fact that five years later, you're going to find yourself working a minimum waged job wondering how the hell the universe ever interpreted your dreams of being a rock star as really meaning you wanted to wait on rude people, helping them pick out clothes or spending a total of twenty minutes helping some idiot that can't read signs figure out how to get to and back from a Steak and Shake from the hotel.)

And twice, Sarah B and I went to pick up Antar from his job at Kroger and bought a two-dollar lottery ticket from the machine while we waited for him to finish up his shift. Both times, we won four bucks, which meant each of us walked away with a dollar profit.



...


In other news, I have accumulated over seven hundred eggs in time for the Guatemala trip, without paying a dime for any of them.

It has been declared (not by me) that God has willed that I go on this trip, and that is why I'm going. I resent the fact that God gets the credit when it was the people of the church's generosity and cooperation with the fund raisers that are actually enabling me to go. Not that God has no influence over people's hearts, because He certainly does, but...I don't know. It just seems like there are a lot of people out there who don't understand that the way things work out is very much a cause-and-effect thing, and most of the causes are the result of the choices of HUMANS.

I mean, if you pray to God that you don't get whooping cough, and then you go get T-DAP (tetnaus, diptheria, and whooping cough innoculations), and then you never do develop whooping cough...it was most likely because you got T-DAP, not divine intervention. Give God credit where credit is due; He obviously allowed us to discover the preventative power of vaccinations and how to produce such vaccinations, but is it a miracle each and every time someone doesn't get sick because of one? No. I don't think so. It irritates me when people chalk so much of their lives (and mine) up to God's Will. What would have been the point of giving us free will if all we have to do is sit back and wait for God to make all our choices (read: do all our work) for us? ...just sayin'.

In some ways, I'm very excited to go but in others, I'm worried about how I'm going to do emotionally and mentally (and even spiritually) with a generally accepted attitude of God Controls Every Single Tiny Little Aspect Of Our Lives surrounding me. It may work for others, but it doesn't work for me, and I'm going to have a hard time biting my tongue if comments indicating such a belief continue to be directed at me. I don't want to be a bad team member or anything, but at the same time, I've never been one to remain silent when something so contrary to what I believe is true is forced on me.

I wish I could just go down there and help people and not have to worry about it. I believe it's God's will for us to help one another, but I don't think it much matters where or how we do so. I think that part is up to us, and God will help us in whatever we decide to do for our brothers and sisters, but I don't think he necessarily appoints each individual person to a specific post.

It just irritates me, that's all.   /end rant

Yesterday I drove to Emily's and we ended up group napping later in the afternoon. It was like having a sleepover. It reminded me of a few weeks ago when we bought a kite and flew it and then played on the playground. I'm really glad that despite the fact we're both grown-ups now, and she's even married, that we can still share such childlike pastimes. It makes me feel more lighthearted and less weary of everything difficult in my life, and I need that.

I think I'll go take a nap now. I'm still catching up from yesterday.

Friday night, I went to back out of my parking space, only to put my car in drive and have it....do nothing.

The car was still running. No strange noises. Just...nothing. No movement.

I tried shifting back into reverse, and the car lurched as it does when it intends to go as soon as I release the brakes, but when I put it back into drive, nothing. Same thing with every other gear I have.

In the meantime, eight cars have stacked up behind me, the one directly behind me is honking, and I can't move...well, except backwards, which does me a whole lot of good...

I get out of my car and walk to the guy behind me and go "I'm sorry, I can't move."

He offered to help push me out of the way of traffic, and I thankfully accepted. About this time, a taxi driver gets out of his taxi to yell at me: "Hey, girl, you want a job? Why don't you drive this taxi?"

...I thought about flipping him off and decided I had enough to worry about without risking my personal safety over some asshole's rage over something that wasn't even my fault. And I hope that he felt real bad when he saw the guy behind me get out to give me a push.

Out of nowhere, a few other people just appeared to help the first guy push. They were running and laughing as they got my car moving faster and faster, finally pushing it around the corner into a no-parking zone, safely out of the way.

As quickly as they appeared, they disappeared and only one guy, named Aaron, was left. He was really nice and pointed out that I was leaking fluid, so maybe it was just a fluid leak.

I prayed real hard that it was, but of course it wasn't. The saddest sight of all was watching my poor car hauled up backwards and helpless onto a flatbed and driven away. The tow truck guy was really nice, and gave me a ride to work. Thank God for Denise, who recommended this guy (and made me laugh at the situation by saying "why don't you just drive here backwards?"). He's been honest and kind to me every step of the way.

My car needs a new transmission. It's getting a used one from another Taurus with 80,000 miles on it, compliments of...my father?

What a guy.

I had no idea he would offer to pay. I had no hope. They told me the transmission was gone and it would cost $1,000 to fix, and I immediately began sobbing, "...I don't have $1,000...I don't know what I'm going to do. I'll have to talk to my dad and call you back", then hung up and sobbed some more before calling my dad to pass the news along, and then calling Dan to have a moment of silence in honor of Frank's memory.

I've decided that the appearance of my car no longer matters (within reason. I draw the line at giving in and removing the piece of paneling that would reveal the inner workings of my driver's side door and leave it one layer of metal away from being a HOLE).

So, I'm going to invest in some bumper stickers. Mom's disapproval be damned, Frank is going to spend his last days, (or hopefully, years) in style.

First order of business: a "Hello, My Name Is" tag, so that his name is visible.

Then, a sticker that says "I bet Jesus would've used his turn signals."

After that, who knows. I'll see what else I can come up with.

I wasn't sure I believed in the sentiment "what goes around, comes around"...but I think maybe now, I do. Maybe being a good person (or at least trying) really does pay off in other ways besides the personal satisfaction of having helped one's fellow wo/man.




More updates to follow, when I am not so tired.

The only good way to switch my sleep schedule around, I've found, is to just not sleep for 24 hours so I'll be tired enough at night to sleep at night and get up in the morning. This happens about once a week, on my days off.

It works pretty well, except for the part where I don't sleep for 24 hours.

I can already feel the sleep deprivation building up inside my brain, to the tune of constant tiredness, but an inability to actually sleep for more than four hours at a time.

Tonight, I work midnight to eight, and I woke up this morning at five.

I just want to sleep forever. Srsly. But I can't. Because I'm too used to not getting enough.

On the bright side, Emily and Rob are successfully moved back, and I got to see Dan yesterday.

I guess the main point of this update was just to let everyone know I'm still alive. There's wireless where I live, but it's so slow it's not even worth it, so I never check anything anymore.

Call me sometime, guys, so we can hang out. I'm all for road trips!

Hey, kids!

Have you ever...

-Longed to go shopping for Easter eggs a month after Easter?

-Dreamed of store clerks giving you dirty looks because they think you're nuts when you ask if they have any?

-Yearned to get your hopes up only to fail, again and again?

Well, do I HAVE A DEAL FOR YOU!!!


The Guatemala mission trip's theme this year is Easter, and unfortunately, we didn't decide to do an Easter egg hunt until after the holiday. There are seventy girls between the two orphanages, and we would like each girl to be able to hunt for ten eggs, which is seven hundred eggs. So far, we need 450 more. So if you would look around your homes for some leftover Easter eggs (preferrably the kind that open), and let me know if you have any that you would be willing to donate, I would greatly appreciate it.

I can send you my address on Facebook or Myspace, whatever would be more convenient for you if you do have some that you would like to contribute. Or, you can do my first idea and feel like an idiot. What evs.

Thanks!

So, I wrote out this THREE PAGE letter "To Whom It May Concern", all filled with my ideas on how to cut costs and increase revenue in the symphony so we can afford to keep on existing, and turned it in to the conductor. Unfortunately, most of my ideas are only things non-profits can do, and my mom just pointed out to me that maybe...we're not. I looked on the website, and we're listed as a 501(c)3. I looked on Wikipedia, and I have no idea what we are now.

/suggestion box fail

...


I mean, at least I've pretty much nailed that one section of Les Preludes that I was having trouble with before. I can keep up now.

Still. I feel so dumb right now, I can't even tell you.

My mom attempted to comfort me:

"Well, your enthusiasm just caused you to get carried away, that's all. You're young, you care about this, and you're full of ideas. And that's what they need."

I sure hope so. Otherwise, I think I'm just going to avoid eye contact with anybody on the symphony board for...ever.


Another fail, to make me feel better about mine and hopefully give you all a laugh...


see more pwn and owned pictures

see more Lolcats and funny pictures



My house is somewhat clean. It has been for a week now, but I forgot to update about it. My carpet: let me show you it! No seriously, let's make plans, guys, because I can have company now!

I'm currently at Emily's. So far we've made marks on graph paper (and we don't want to talk about it), and played a liberal version of Bananagrams. I'm going to regret this in the morning, since I have to be at Dan's church before 9AM, but it's so worth it.

Adventureland: a huge disappointment. Save your money.

I thought it was going to be the perfect embodiment of what working at Cedar Point is like, but it wasn't even really about the amusement park, it was about a few of the employees, them getting high, drunk, and as my sister put it, "who's boinking whom."

It was depressing at best, boring at worst. The trailer is funny though, so check that out.

Dan was in a play, and today was the final performance and I finally got to see it. It was a good play, but it sort of made me even more depressed, and then we saw that depressing movie, and let me tell you, being depressed takes a lot of energy.

I need to do laundry and find two rather important papers, and I am so exhausted right now that I'm stalling around writing in my livejournal instead.


...


In other news, I hate feeling like I can save the world, one situation at a time, only to suddenly realize once more just how helpless I am to stop bad things from happening anyway.

Just me, about a year ago...



Emily and I, January of 2008.

Growing increasingly frustrated with my ongoing lack of faith/ sense of connection to God.

Am about to just give up for the day and eat an Oreo cookie.

I went through a drive-thru yesterday and managed to drive over the curb of it with a loud fanfare of my suspension system* (or rather, what's left of it) scraping out its extreme disapproval.

So my alignment was out (my car pulls to the right), and then I ran over a curb, and now the alignment is significantly better.

/WIN

...


On another note: Work? High school? WHICH IS IT? Tune in tomorrow at 5 E/4 C to find out!

The gossip, drama, and general backstabbery rages on.

I'm reminded of a joke Pastor Terry sometimes makes, in reference to his family: "Flat foreheads run in my family; it's from going *facepalm gesture* so many times!"

I'm going to look like a Himalayan cat by the time I leave for Cedar Point.

One more thing: I think the Zoloft is working. I mean, I'm laughing about things that would have caused me panic attacks just weeks ago. Life still seems pretty meaningless overall, but at least it isn't terribly sad anymore. I guess that's progress.




*EVERYONE within a block heard and turned to look. I can't believe this is how I wasted my fifteen seconds of fame.

After a long day at work, then a long rehearsal in Downtown Toledo (and getting lost on the way to the rehearsal in Downtown Toledo), I was ready for a big, fat beer. I met Dan at a bar I'd never heard of before, and somehow a bunch of people had joined him and his friend--so it was even more fun!

Also, I had my first green beer. It turned my tongue green, and I had a green mustache, although nobody bothered to bring the latter to my attention until we got back to Dan's house.

Dan offered to help me, and licked his tongue to try and wipe off the green on my upper lip. For a second, this seemed like a good idea, and then I realized:

"Wait, you're licking your GREEN tongue to help me get the green off of my lip?"

/fail

It was a great night. ( PICS )

I found this on the inside cover of the soundtrack to Nick and Norah's Infinite Playlist, and thought it was cool.

"When I was fifteen years old I was hired to work in a record store. It was my first job and I was thrilled to be surrounded by music. My favorite customers were those who had heard a song that spoke to them but failed to catch the name of the artist. From a distant boom box or a passing car window they heard a mysterious tune that became so suddenly important to them that they wanted to possess it. The sensation was so powerful enough to send them to our neighborhood record store in an effort to reconnect with the music that moved them.

They would march into our shop determined to find it. "You know the one. It's kind of a fast song with a guy singing. And then there's a girl in the background saying 'right there, you got it. Right there, you GOT it!"

"Sorry", I'd say. "Not sure I know that one."

"Of course you do!" And then they would take a deep breath, stumble ever so slightly over self-consciousness and they'd do it. A middle-aged businessman. A teenage girl. A bashful retiree. They'd sing. Right there in the record store.

"It goes like this. Right there. You got it. Girl, you got what it takes. Right there. You GOT it! Snakes, snakes, snakes, snakes!" Lyrical inaccuracies were common but the melody usually gave me the information I needed to help them. when I handed them the disc embarrassment gave way to relief.

"Thank you", they'd sigh, as if an unreachable itch had been scratched. "I thought I'd never find it!"

In collaboration with my editor Myron Kerstein and music supervisor Linda Cohen, I've attempted to do with this soundtrack what I used to do in the record store; to connect you with something that moves you. Except I won't ask you to sing. Although you can if you like..."

--Peter Sollet, Director, Nick and Norah's Infinite Playlist

There's more to it, but that was the part I wanted to share with you. I just loved this story. I love how it's written. It just proves all over again how important music is in so many lives. It's so important that people of all walks of life will sing in a record store at the risk of humiliating themselves in front of employees and other customers, just so they can once again hear what had given them shivers down their spine, made them feel less alone in the world, or simply gotten stuck in their head.

There's one song in particular that comes to my mind right now as I think back to the times that I heard something and wasn't sure who it was by or what it was called. A friend of mine at the time made me a mix cd and I knew almost none of the artists/songs on it, and as I listened to the cd one day months later, all of a sudden, this song fit exactly how I felt, and I just had to find out what it was.

"God that was strange to see you again
Introduced by a friend of a friend
Smiled and said 'yes I think we've met before'
In that instant it started to pour,
Captured a taxi despite all the rain
We drove in silence across Pont Champlain
And all of the time you thought I was sad
I was trying to remember your name...

This scar is a fleck on my porcelain skin
Tried to reach deep but you couldn't get in
Now you're outside me
You see all the beauty
Repent all your sin

It's nothing but time and a face that you lose
I chose to feel it and you couldn't choose
I'll write you a postcard
I'll send you the news
From a house down the road from real love...

Live through this, and you won't look back...
Live through this, and you won't look back...
Live through this, and you won't look back...

There's one thing I want to say, so I'll be brave
You were what I wanted
I gave what I gave
I'm not sorry I met you
I'm not sorry it's over
I'm not sorry there's nothing to save

I'm not sorry there's nothing to save..."

--Stars, "Your Ex-Lover Is Dead"

There is this website that Dan sent me a link to for when I'm having a bad day:

http://www.fmylife.com/

...and this is my favorite one of today:

"Today, I had the cops called on me because I accidently texted "I'm going to kill you and use your head as hood ornament" to my ex-fiance, instead of my best friend. I only texted that because he got a better grade on an exam than me. Now I have a court date."

All this inner confusion lately about whether or not I actually want a kid someday and what that decision will mean for my relationship with Dan has really had my mind tortured occupied, but today as I drove from the doctor's office to Dan's, I turned down the street next to the river. I passed the house of a former violin student whom I'd had the privilege of teaching for over four years. I briefly replayed some of the memories of lessons and recitals...the way she would look up at me when she asked a question and the way she lit up when she learned something new, and just all of her little-girl emotions and questions and discoveries and hopes and dreams and...there it was.

I wanted a kid again. Not now. And not soon. But someday. When things are better. When I'm better. When myself and my life have been better for awhile and I've had the chance to really enjoy everyday life.

I was so relieved, I told Dan when I got to his house.

"Oh, by the way, just so you know, I do want a baby. Not in the near, near future. But eventually."

I think it took him totally by surprise, but in a good way. He smiled.

Our plans this evening may have bombed, but that moment was nice.

I created some avatars of myself tonight and went to upload them, but evidently, they're in the wrong format.

Anybody know how to switch a bitmap to a jpg, or a gif?

We all know by now that I am technologically retarded. So if you do know how, please give step-by-step instructions.

Thanks!

When I put aside all the questions, doubts, worries, fears, and anger to do with God, and just listen to this song...it is perfect.




Wish I had what I needed
To be on my own
'Cause I feel so defeated
And I'm feeling alone
And it all seem so helpless
And I have no plans
I'm a plane in the sunset
With nowhere to land
And I all I see it could never make me happy
and my sand castles spend their time collapsing

chorus: Let me know that you hear me
Let me know your touch
Let me know that you love me
Let that be enough

It's my birthday tomorrow
No one here could know
I was born this Thursday 22 years ago
And I feel stuck watching history repeating
Yeah who am I just a kid who knows he's needy.

Let me know that you hear me
Let me know your touch
Let me know that you love me
Let that be enough

When the snow is higher than my snow boots, when there is so much snow that I cannot see the ice beneath it and FALL UNDER MY CAR trying to get into it, when driving down my street feels sort of like what I would imagine jet skiing feels like, THAT'S ENOUGH.

Belligerently,

Julie