Growing up is hard

As I said in my previous post, I am single.  I have tons of friends and family with children and spouses, some of my friends are single parents and I just don't know how married or single they deal with it all.  I only have my two little kitties (see below) and I just find life to be a challenge.  Paying bills, creating budgets, and then on top of it being a boss at work, and a ministry leader at church.  I love all of these things but simply cannot fathom how so many of my friends are parents on top of it all.

If leading adults can be so tiring, how can parents do it all day and then go home to be examples to their children?  I applaud you all.  There are days when I feel like I was born in the wrong time.  I was raised to be responsible and someone who doesn't mind committing.  I see a need and fill it. I think church membership is important- not because it is necessarily in the Bible but because so few commit, which then leads to a lack of persons who step up for ministry.  I like having 2 year plans for cell phones, because once upon a time that had a benefit, but now I truly believe in prepaid as it is so much less a month.   But so many people haven't been brought up with that so it creates an intense aggravation in my mind and soul when others cannot so commit.  I know that is wrong, I really do, but it does make me feel low.  Sorry I started rambling there.

I would like to apologize to my parents for expecting perfection in their actions and choices at the end of the day because good grief, I am now your ages when we were wee little things and I certainly will never be accused of being perfect or making super excellent choices.  But thank you for doing your best.

Reboot...and not the cartoon

What shall I say? Should I apologize for not having written in the last year?  Probably, but mostly because I was not writing what I should have been writing.

Earlier this year I was reading a blog by Annie Downs (if you don't know her or her message please, please, please go here http://www.anniefdowns.com and look her up!) the point of her blog post was that it shouldn't just be the wonderful stay at home moms writing blogs about their lives and stories, but that single women should be talking about their lives and how they deal with the day-to-day and their God stories.

As a single woman in my 30's (I am 31) I never imagined as a child or teen that I wouldn't be married by now; I never dreamed that I wouldn't have even gone out on a date yet...yes I did just admit that.  My cousins used to tease me as a child that I would be married and have 4 kids before 30-because that is honestly who I wanted to be...minus the handle-bar mustashe on my husband.   Instead I am the working woman with no kids and they are all married with various amounts of children.   My story is very different than my past expectations.

But I want to share my story, because I think in some ways there may be another woman out there who may be encouraged by it or at least identify with it.  I also think that journaling this way makes it easier for me to listen to God and what he may be wanting to show me, if I am open with a digital audience it may help me with consistency...I am awful at consistency.  I want to open the Bible, but my pillows are so comfortable in the morning...I want to read my Bible at night, but oh look I haven't seen that book in a while and oh look there is that TV show on now.  So really I am thinking about my flesh and its desires instead of looking to the one who can uplift and strengthen my heart and spirit.

I am taking a chance and being brave.

I am a Social Librarian...well sort of

I have always liked knowing about new things and products, but never having any money have rarely had the means to purchase high tech stuff.  That is fine I would really rather have someone else work out the bugs.  One thing about Social Media and the Web is that you don't necessarily have to have money to be a big shot.  You can tweet, blog, vine and all the other social media tools to your hearts content without spending a dime...as long as you have access to the internet.  Anyways,  I thank Joe Murphy +Joe Murphy and @library_connect for creating this sweet info-graphic.

Lacking imagination

Yesterday I made a comment, one I have made before, but due to a book I am reading currently it bothered me.  I have always considered Amillennialists to be idealists, and in fact I believe I stated that it worried me. How can humans who are so imperfect ever bring about a change in society that would have Christ return to to a world that has despised him?  However that got me to thinking...what if it is our job? God can do amazing things, more than we can dream or ask (Eph. 3:20 &21). So many men and women in the Bible went from something negative or at least something humble to something the world would consider great.  Therefore have I been limiting God or has my view of God been limited?

I am a bit of a pessimist, I generally use the word "realist" but honestly that isn't radically different we both acknowledge that the glass is not full, it is just not empty.  But what if we could ignore the labels and dream a bigger dream? Instead of seeing myself as just a Librarian, I saw or recognized that God sees me as my possible future self? Joseph was a wrongfully convicted convict and became the second most powerful man in the country.  Moses' title changed dramatically throughout his lifetime.  Rahab was a prostitute and became a woman God deemed worthy of being a great-grandmother in the line of Kings and ultimately the King of Kings.

I sometimes miss the conviction I had about certain theological ideas while I was in college.  I wasn't really for or against dispensationalism or coventalism, but most other areas were pretty concrete. Now I have been out of undergrad for 8 years and the lines are getting blurry.  I want to love people because they are Christ's image bearers (Col. 1:15-29), I don't wan to label them. But in a world that is so "don't box me in" we certainly have more labels than we ever have before. Bear with me as I try to work these things out through this blog and if you are around me in person.

Dilbert

I believe I found this one on one of those Dilbert of the Day calendars.  I think I liked it as someone told me, with the best possible intentions, that I should be a consultant.  At that point I believe I taped it to the outside of my college dorm door.

Library humor

Please humor me...I am a librarian, and a geek.

That is all for now.

Busy

Life since my grandmother died has been insane.

I have been to WV twice in 2 months, my sister was here for almost 3 weeks, and graduation and vacation are around the corner.  This year has been rather busy and I need to start eating vegan again.  My allergies have been a mess and I attribute it to the meat and dairy.  Though I do have a plan for stopping my WaWa runs in the morning.  I bought a blender ball shaker and think that if I do one of the plant/vegan shakes in the morning it will help up my veggie intake and it will help with my allergies.  I only really hope that it will work.  If not on to plan B!

Next week is finals week and it amazes me that it is already here.  On top of that I had to fire a student today, and I have had 2 leave.  I dearly hate conflict of any kind.  INFJ's just are not programed for it.  However as a department head in the library it is part of my job description.

Now the subject of a second degree has begun again.  I miss my time in the classroom, but am not sure what degree to work towards.  Counseling would be okay, but I am not sure I can do it...I still don't know how effective it will be as I am not married yet.  Teacher education would be good in some ways as lesson planning and developing objectives which would help with teaching information literacy.  Business would also be good as I am frequently put into positions of leadership and have had no management classes and definitely no classes regarding finance.  And there are those air dreams people have to which I am no stranger.  I frequently dream of owning my own business.  Not simply so that I can be independent, but rather as I want to share some of my favorite things with others.  Owning a shop that sold fair trade products as well as coffee and tea is one of them.  Another is owning a restaurant of some sort that was uber-healthy but also uber-yummy.  I love making vegan desserts that people cannot recognize as vegan.  The Vegan Cookie Connoisseur  and the Happy Herbivore are two of my favorites.

Ahh well, those are air dreams.  I also dream of my own home, something cozy but big enough for company.  I dream of children...but not when I have a migraine.

In other news I have a new second job helping with a Day Spa.  I have been working on creating a blog for them and boy has it been a lot of work.  My grasp of html and css is rather sad.  But I am learning and instead of memorizing everything I have learned what I need to survive.

Worn

I am sad, worn, and sick at heart. 

There are a variety of reasons for this, but mostly it is due to my grandmother dying.  She has cancer that silent and annoying killer.  Yet she is only 77, she is such a stubborn person I guess I wasn't expecting it to be so soon.  And yet, the older I get the more I would rather not linger in this mortal coil.  Not because it is a horrible place, it certainly can be.  But it can also be awe inspiring, beautiful, and thrilling.  It is mostly because I do not want to be dependent upon medication to be alive.  I do not want to feel miserable the last years of my life.  I want to be helpful, retired but not inactive.  I want to travel, to meet with people, to have family and friends that I love and can visit with throughout the weeks and years. 

Yet I am currently shaping up to be a miserable or at least lonely person.  I have friends, but not close friends.  I have never needed a ton of people but I would like to have a close small group of friends in this country.  My sister, my cousins, they are the people to whom I am the closest, yet they all live fairly far away.  And traveling is expensive. If I didn't have the student debt and the car/credit debt it wouldn't bother me, but as I was not trained in wise financials at an earlier age.  I need to dig myself out. 

I want children and a spouse.  I really do, but I haven't the talent of meeting new people.  I can talk to anyone at work, but anytime I notice that a man doesn't have a wedding ring I freeze and become some odd and awkward, out of sync person mumbling heaven knows what. 

Anyhow, if Grammie does read this...I know we didn't always get along.  We both are stubborn, and like for things to go our way.  I love you.  I had always planned that I would like my first daughter to be named Margaret.  We shall see if I have a daughter, but I wanted you to know. 

Confused and Confounded

You know what...I'll tell you a little secret about myself...I hate social media and I love social media.  Once upon a time I lived in a lovely safe bubble, if i didn't want to know what was going on in the world it was ridiculously easy to not know, flip off the nightly news, breeze past the newspapers, and delve into the current book from my shelf.  These days however one can scarcely get away from it, or at least the associated presses version of it.  I have heard a heck of a lot about Chickfilia, the Olympics, and upcoming syndicated shows.  What I haven't heard is about the floods in India, the hunger in Africa, and the many more important life issues from around the world.

Facebook has been flooded with messages concerning the Chickfilia issue, I haven't really chimed in as I wanted the full story before I opened my mouth.  You see personally I believe in traditional marriage, however I also believe that one should love one's neighbor.  Hate and discrimination are not a part of my life, at least any more than any other person.  I honestly prefer not to know someone's sexual orientation, or politics, or natural hair-color.  This philosophy comes from the fact that Jesus said to love one's neighbor, the Old Testament talks about not casting stones, the New Testament about logs in one's own eye.  I like meeting and judging people by their own merits, I believe it is important both Biblically and socially to be as respectful as possible, even if it means feeling like screaming into a pillow at the end of the day.   I have always been curious, curious about cultures, differences, and new ideas.  Other than math class, school was a joy because it allowed me to learn about all sorts of things that I hadn't even known to ask about. 

So yesterday when I went to Chickfilia, it wasn't about standing up for traditional marriage, it was about free speech and intolerance to people who think differently than you do.  According to the CNN report http://www.cnn.com/2012/08/01/us/us-chick-fil-a-controversy/index.html?hpt=hp_t3 the origin of the issue was that a business owner was being interviewed by a religious magazine and the issue of marriage came up.  All the man did was honestly answer a question put to him by a religious magazine.  When seen by the public the whole thing was completely blown out of context.  Had he been on a talk show, or if he called a press conference just to say that I could see how people may get their feathers ruffled, but to have this sort of media attention due to answering a question in what should have been a fairly safe venue.  It quite frankly makes me wish to quit all normal forms of society and join a commune.  However as the Bible doesn't really encourage hermit-ism I suppose I will have to stay and deal with the ridiculousness of this situation and the ones in the future. 

You see I think that most people are not okay with being different.  We say we are, but in truth we are really stuck in that preschool-about age 18 phase where being different, and especially having those differences pointed out to us is about the worse thing that could possibly happen to us.  So while we say we do not like being labelled or "put into a box", what do we do but add extra labels to our lives.  When we introduce ourselves we say, "oh well I am a Christian, I am a vegan, I am a naturist, I am a....".  We add more boxes to paperwork, we define who, what, from where, and form clubs for people "just like us". It all seems to break down our common bonds instead of helping us see them instead.

So you are probably asking why is it I love social media?  I love it because I have come into contact with people and places I have never met or seen.  I find out about amazing new places, recipes.  I keep in contact with my friends who are or have been around the globe. Though I must admit that I wish that letters were still something that were used, the instantaneous aspect of the web and social media is fascinating and a bit terrifying. It sort of makes me think of the Tower of Babel.  

So this has been a rather rambling blog, but I wish people would stop getting up on their soapboxes and instead think things through.  Because once it is on Social Media or the web it doesn't go away.  If we are preaching tolerance than don't ask those who do not agree with you to change based on your position, that is the opposite of tolerance.  We will never live in an entirely equal society or world, do do that would be rather equal to "Brave New World" or "1984" which has its own set of problems.  So please just be polite, let us use our manners, let us love each, be angry, but as the Bible say, "Be angry and do not sin."

Thursdays

My life almost every Thursday...I really cannot explain it.

Lead me to the cross

I feel rather trampled upon...and it is weird because I am not the recipient of all the heartache; I am merely the observer.  Between work and church I feel as if this year has been a harbinger of death, disease, unemployment, and discouragement.  There have been many positives, but with each email and get together there has been an element of disappointment or distress.  I know where to go, but often find myself distracted by trivialities. 

My hope, my goal, my purpose is to bring Christ to those who do not know him.  Showing through my own life how to obey, trust, worship, and grow.  However doing that is hard at times, I find that my relationship and my obedience happen most when I am overwhelmed...I really wish that like Anne Shirley's statement of "I never repeat the same mistakes twice." I could learn to trust and obey in the good times, the times of plenty the way I do in the times of famine. 

Now if only I could get my diet and fitness plan in order as well....

Vegan Ice Cream cake

Growing up my Grammi would often make ice cream cakes for our birthdays.  They were messy, packed full of sugar and chocolate and just plain marvelous.  However nowadays I have a harder time processing dairy and due to all the documentaries and books (Food, Inc., The Omnivore's Dilemma, etc.) I have read recently try not to touch dairy anymore than necessary.  Plus I have this friend who is trying to go vegan so I decided to try my had at making an ice cream cake similar to my Grammi's but more in keeping with my dietary requirements.

I know it isn't a brilliant presentation style, but it does taste rather nice and the wax paper does wonders for clean up.

Required items:
Trader Jo's Jo Jo's (or gluten free equivalent)
Earth Balance- 4 tbsps
1 container soy ice cream (I used Trader Joe's but I would imagine any vegan ice cream would work; I will note that the Trader Joe's Soy ice cream took a full 15 hours to firm up.)
Vegan chocolate chips.
Spring Form pan

Use a food processor to chop the Jo Jo's until they are mostly chopped.  Save a couple for the top to decorate or to add cookie crumbles.  Melt the Earth Balance and pour into a bowl with the chopped Jo Jo's.  Stir until the Jo Jo's are well coated. 

Line spring form pan with wax paper and then pour the Jo Jo mixture in and firm press down to create the crust.  Put this in the freezer for about an hour until cookie crust is firm and chilled.

If your ice cream is solid pull that out to thaw while your crust is firming.  If your ice cream is rather creamy then wait until the crust is firm.  Once the crust is solid scoop out the softened ice cream and smooth over cookie.  If you like you can layer in the chocolate chips, nuts or other goodies, but I simply added the whole container of soy ice cream.

Sprinkle the chocolate chips or cookie crumbles. 

Let firm in freezer for at least 10 hours.  

3 deaths and a wedding

Death is enveitable...and taxes as Americans are aware of as they are due this week. I am a bit befuddled, I work at an a place where people tend to be close, we tend to actually like each other and so that is one of the reasons why this year has been rather difficult. My workplace, my community has lost a number of people ths year, a brilliant and humble musician, a cheerful and humble teacher and Dean, and now a lovely energetic and passionate woman who knew how to bring out the best of buildings and people.

Dr. Hsu was an absolutely lovely man. Unfailingly loving, engaging, brilliant, and rather understating ly mischievous, Dr. Hsu wanted to bring his students to the same love of music that he had, as well as the same love of the Savior. I referred to him in a post on the Masland Library blog here.

 Dr. Hirt was also a great man, however I never had the opportunity to know him. My brother had that privilege as he was in his IJS class in 2006. He was always friendly and had a smile when he came to check out items from the library. Other people have shared their stories of Dr. Hirt on his Facebook page and it has been lovely reading them over and learning more about him and the way he invested in the lives of the students at PBU.

 Today we found out that Lisa Weidman passed away. She worked as the VP of Communications and Marketing, I was always impressed with her, from her stylish hair and dresses to her tasteful, but fun office decor I could see that she was a woman who had traveled and seen many things but instead of allowing any of them to jade her, or using them as a tool to gain anything from anyone, these experiences grew and shaped her into someone that was as passionate about people as she was about her job. Yet she contributed so much of herself into the atmosphere of PBU and yet she contributed just as much time and prayer into her student workers- into the students who wanted to be more than a face in the crowd. She invested her time and presence into their lives in a way that was as intense and sudden as her time was with us at PBU. I can even forgive her for not having attended PCB when in school herself. One of the things I loved about her was that while she had an entire school of agendas and needs, you never felt that when she was talking to you. She was able to make the most difficult of people feel flattered that she was listening to them an all without pomp or circumstance.

Her illness was sudden and rather brief so brief that I never had a chance to say thank you. I know that she knows, but I still wish that I had that chance. So here it is, thank you Lisa. Thank you for being you, and thank you for investing in the lives of so many students. Now I have the wedding of a friend on Saturday and it will be interesting. My prayer is that they will come to know the One that all three of these people knew. My prayer is that people see Him as clearly in my life as I could see him in their lives.

More than PowerPoint

We live in a world where there is color, life, and infinite possibilities. Why is it then that in most presentations we inevitably bore our audiences by reading and presenting in a way that detracts from our purpose and message?  By simply paying attention to style and design methods we can infinitely increase our likelihood of being heard.

Style and design

View more presentations from Laura Saloiye.

For a list of other online presentation tools see below:

• ·       Prezi
• ·       Powerpoint
• ·       Keynote
• ·       Sliderocket
• ·       Kizoa
• ·       Qarbon
• ·       Camtasia
• ·       Screencast
• ·       Screencast-O-Matic
• ·       Jing
• ·       Slideboom
• ·       Slideshare
• ·       Vyew
• ·       Sparkol
• ·       Prezage

This isn't a complete list, but rather a sampling of ones that works best for presentations given at the undergrad/graduate level.

There are reasons that we present a certain way.  The human brain can only accept so much data at a time.  So to avoid overwhelming our audiences and thereby losing our audiences we need to limit the number of points we are attempting to make to 3-4.

Presentations and Learning Theory on Prezi

For more information on these tools you can download a brief Pros and Con list. 

More than PowerPoint: Pros and Cons

To see more on why this is important in the academic setting you can see the following presentation.

Assessment of Library Bibliographical Instruction

View more presentations or Upload your own.

For a complete bibliography you can download it here.

If you would like to see an early version of Style and Design it is below.

www.flickr.com

Links

Modern Apologetics

Last night Philadelphia Biblical University hosted a chat with Dinesh D'Souza which was highly entertaining and challenging. Mr. D'Souza is an apologetist who has written a number of books including "What is so great about Christianity", a biography on Reagan and one on Obama. He also is known to be outspoken on his views and therefore is frequently on the debate circuit defending Christianity to "New Atheists". New Atheists differ from the intellectual atheists of the eighteenth century in that they no longer ignore the issue of faith but are forcibly against it. According to CNN, "What the New Atheists share is a belief that religion should not simply be tolerated but should be countered, criticized and exposed by rational argument wherever its influence arises." Due to this harsh and critical stance it is necessary for Apologists to stand up and create meaningful and accurate responses. Therefore Mr. D'Souza's lecture covered 3 main questions.

1. What has Christianity/Christendom done for the world?
2. Does Science disprove Christianity?
3. Is Religion or a Belief in God responsible for the majority of the world's murders/genocides?
   

The first question was an interesting one. Atheists, especially the New Atheists frequently stand up for charity, human dignity, compassion and a plethora of moralistic values. Their argument lies in the fact that Classical Western thought and ideas created these intrinsic human values, however if you study Greek and Roman philosophy you will note that Socrates and the Romans didn't subscribe to these ideals at all. Compassion for ones enemies was seen as a weakness, the Spartans left their weak and in-firmed lying in the open so that they could die of the elements or from being eaten by wild animals.

Slavery was also a common practice in ancient antiquity, the only group that protested slavery was Christendom (and slaves). Christendom was the first protesters who talked about human dignity or the rights of men to own other men. Democracy was built on the idea that no man can be master over the other without having his permission.

The next question was regarding whether or not Science disproves Religion. Mr. D'Souza's position is that not only does it not disprove religion, but due to most of the scientific discoveries during the twentieth century, religion and most especially a belief in a creator is proved by the discoveries. How? There are certain rates that must stay constant, sound, light, mass, gravity, otherwise the universe as we know it would literally not exist. Stephen Hawkings admitted as much, and most people agree with him that our universe is built like it is to maintain human life and the universes' dimensions.

The final topic we covered was whether or not Religion is/was responsible for the majority of warfare and genocides in the world. Mr. D'Souza's argument is that no, religion is only a valid main talking point in Islam, not Christianity/Christendom. In the 1100's the Crusades were violent and about Christianity, but in more recent history the Inquisition had about 2000 people killed during 350 years, and the Salem witch trials had less than 20. And while that was still wrong, the numbers or the concept has been blown out of the water. Israel/Palestine, Turkey/Pakistan are all about land, not religion.

Instead the crimes of Atheist rulers/leaders and their numbers is what is truly horrendous. Stalin, Hitler, China's Communist history have been responsible for more deaths than any other all in the name of no god, but man.

What Christians really need to do is to be informed and to stand up for their beliefs, wish-washy relativism is useless in the face of these learned men. They will not back down from their hostility of God, so we cannot back down from our faith in God. Become informed, and learn to critically think through an argument on faith and reason. Work in the media/publishing centers of the world if you want to make a difference in the world, otherwise we will only continue to give up ground. If Christendom were to stand together and stop fighting each other we might have a chance to truly counter the remarks of the enemy and change the "public" opinion and laws.

~LAS

Hooper, Simon. "The rise of the New Atheists". CNN. http://www.cnn.com/2006/WORLD/europe/11/08/atheism.feature/index.html. Retrieved 2010-03-16.

Job and character

This article is one of the better ones I have read recently about working in today's society. The working world is not always an easy place, we are often called to move outside of our comfort zones to work on projects or teams for which we have had little practice. Instead of getting stressed and frustrated it is sometimes better to step back and see what God and Life are trying to teach you. Every new experience adds something useful to your outlook on life, and sometimes provides new listings for your resume.

Most of the students who interview at work have had little to no prior experience working in a library. To me that isn't as much of a problem as the student's attitude in the interview. It takes a special person to thrive in a library environment. Some of my best workers are students who had no experience, but were very hard workers. Attitude is at least 60% of the battle when working with new or learning students. (The other highest characteristic is someone who can think in an organized and structured way.)

For more job related tips check out this article from Relevant Magazine. http://ow.ly/1SZLO