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Down_on_my_knees
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Name: Stephanie Nicole
Country: United States
State: North Carolina
Metro: Greensboro
Birthday: 3/4/1986
Gender: Female
Interests: JESUS, family, photography, dancing, traveling, sports (Especially TAR HEEL BASKETBALL!), my 11th grade girls, nature, diversity, the Dominican Republic, friends, new places, downtowns, Rachel Byers, movie nights or movie theaters, road trips, good music, positive people, leaves, hiking, Fall, storms, the beach, big windows, flowers, the mountains, strong winds, the country, big cities, great books, big trees, naps, kids, people in general, my dog, instant connections, clouds, music, the Bible, living a life that will glorify God, thinking about my future man! (haha!) I am and have always been a TAR HEEL fan for life, but I am now also a fan of NC State football since I went there my freshman year.
Expertise: Making Chocolate milk (and various other things), loving kids, dancing at Urban shows, smiling - yeah that's probably my #1 expertise, laughing at everything even if it's not funny, listening, being me, giving hugs!
Occupation: Student
Industry: Photography
Message: message meEmail: email me
Website: visit my website
Member Since:
2/15/2004
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| New BlogSo I think it's time for a new blog. Since I have a photoblog for school using blogspot, I decided to create a personal one to replace this on blogspot as well. Sorry folks. But it will be cool, so definitely check it out. My first project will be blogging about my road trip to Las Angeles in one week!
www.everchangingeyes.blogspot.com
Check it out!
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| New happenings...I feel like writing...even though (as usual) I should be sleeping. I never ever get enough sleep. I think I get about 5 hours a night right now. I just can't make myself go to bed early enough, and I get up around 6:15am.
Well, the Dominican Republic trip was absolutely amazing. I love that country and the people there sooooo much. I would go back tomorrow if I had the money. I would like to spend a good amount of time there at some point...I'm thinking about volunteering or maybe doing a DTS after graduation in August. Just thoughts for now. Who knows where the Lord will lead me.
I didn't do an internship in Chapel Hill...that fell through because they just weren't able to work it out in time. And I'm not doing an internship in New York this summer. It's funny to go back and read past entries because I thought I had things planned out and it was going to work out just perfect. There was a period of about two weeks where I was SO stressed out because I needed to find an internship and nothing was working out. I interviewed with another photographer and really liked him and hoped he'd give me the internship, but he gave it to another RCC student. Then I was talking to Jonathan Andrews about his internship at Viewpoint Studios and decided I'd try to get an internship there since he and David would be there and they usually take three interns. I got the internship, but I wasn't very excited about it. I figured shooting furniture all day would be pretty boring, but I knew I'd learn a lot, especially about lighting. And a major benefit is that it's paid...minimum wage, but at least it's something!
I started March 4th...and it was a rocky and awkward start. The people there (mostly guys) took some getting used to, but thank goodness I had Jonathan and David there with me. It's much better now, and I've got about three weeks left. I actually like it now, because shooting furniture isn't as boring as I thought it would be. I wouldn't want to do it everyday as a job long term...but the challenge of lighting room scenes and different pieces of furniture is always cool.
This summer I will be headed out to Los Angeles to do an internship with Julia Dean! Her studio where I'll be working is right on the Venice boardwalk! I will be able to see the Pacific ocean from my work everyday! (Hmm, reminds me of CBSP '05!!) I'm so excited to work with her! It's going to be an amazing opportunity for me. I've already found a place to stay, got the internship confirmed, and people to ride with me out there! David and Jonathan are going to ride out to L.A. with me, because my parents won't let me go alone. Plus, like me, they've always wanted to drive across the country, and not only is this the perfect time to do it since it's during summer break, but they'll be able to get some great portfolio shots too! We're going to take about 5 to 7 days and go up through KY, IL, MO, KS, CO, UT, NV, and then get to L.A.!!
It's so cool to think about how the Lord has been faithful and brought me though all this schooling and internship stuff to where I am right now. And it makes me excited to see what he's going to bring my way after graduation! I mean, think about it...if I'd gotten either of the two internships I interviewed for (and really wanted!) first, I wouldn't be at Viewpoint. Which not only means I wouldn't be getting paid so I wouldn't have the money to afford to go to L.A. for my second internship, I also wouldn't have been talking to David and Jonathan about how I needed someone to ride out to L.A. with me since my parents wouldn't let me go alone and so they never would've had the opportunity to volunteer like they did! So, I'd be trying to get to L.A. with no money and no one to ride with me, and neither of those things would fly with my parents.
Well, I think I'm actually going to try to go to bed before 1am tonight, which means I need to wrap this up! Caroline is coming into town this weekend and we'll be celebrating her birthday downtown Saturday night! Sunday night I'm going to see Eisley at the Cat's Cradle! Then next weekend my family will be at Merlefest, and Elizabeth is coming with me! I'm sooooo excited! I hope you enjoyed this fun little update!
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| Last ThanksgivingLast Thanksgiving was a Rockwellian affair at my parent's house. The
place was filled with cooking and conversation and every good thing
that defines home. My sister brought her husband and baby daughter, my
brother brought his girlfriend, and I brought home my best friend,
Jenn. As they sing on Sesame Street, "One of these things is not like
the other."
Recent studies show that people are getting married later and less
often and are instead developing tight-knit communities of friends that
often serve the function of a significant other. Jenn's presence among
my family was a testimony to the fact that I’m a part of this social
phenomenon. While I don't have a "significant other" in the traditional
sense, I do have "significant others"—my friends. We have our favorite
restaurants, rent apartments based on their proximity to each other,
take vacations to visit those who have moved, seek each other’s advice
about career moves, pray for one another, cook together, argue about
books and music and movies together, discuss current trends in
theology, and move each other’s furniture.
At 25, I'm part of a new social reality alternately heralded and
reviled in TV programs such as Friends and Sex and the City. As a
devout Christian, my personal sitcom has a lot less sex and is produced
on a significantly smaller budget, but ambivalence towards marriage is
a common theme.
My friends and I are not unaffected by the fact that secular society
allows for all manifestations of romantic love outside the bonds of
marriage. We don’t have the luxury of assuming that every man wants to
be in a relationship with a woman (and vice versa), much less that
marriage is the ultimate manifestation of love. Our parents and our
friend’s parents taught us as much with their divorces. We may
consciously reject these lessons with biblically-informed desires to
commit to marriage, but we’re not all that sure what marriage should
look like.
And so we’re waiting—waiting for the person who will provide a love so
strong that it will warrant commitment. We’re waiting for some sort of
assurance that we won’t end up a statistic. We’re waiting not for a
spouse per se; we’re waiting for a soul mate.
In the October 14th issue of New York Times magazine, Ethan Watters
describes this phenomena and traces it to a shift in attitudes about
the nature of marriage. Whereas in 1965, three out of four women said
they would marry a man they didn't love if he fit their criteria in
every other way, a recent Rutgers study indicates that 94 percent of
people between the age of 20 and 29 agreed to the statement: "When you
marry, you want your spouse to be your soul mate, first and foremost."
I confess that I'm waiting for "the look." I first saw the look as a
sophomore in college when I was introduced to the BBC’s film adaptation
of one of my favorite novels, Jane Austen’s Pride and Prejudice. There
is a moment in which the female protagonist, Lizzie, is reluctantly
providing after-dinner entertainment for a group that includes the man
with whom she’s had a rather contentious relationship up to this point,
Mr. Darcy. She is reluctant because she is aware that her piano playing
and singing skills are average at best. But as she sings, Mr. Darcy
holds all of her awkwardness and intellect and pride and beauty and
strength and weakness in his gaze and is undeniably smitten. I’m
confident that such a look would make me a happy woman for the rest of
my life.
In the meantime, I've got my friends. I’ve got a date to any function
that requires one, something to do any given night of the week and
people I care about deeply. But despite this utopia, our
uber-chumminess often masks the messiness that comes with souls
searching for a mate.
Last night my grandma made a typically apt observation when she said,
"You have to get deeply involved with someone in order to find out if
you're soul mates, and if you're not, you're already deeply involved
with that person." We "good Christian kids" might not be having sex
with our prospective mates, but all too often we're whoring pieces of
ourselves—our inner thoughts, our hearts, our dreams—in the hopes of
finding that elusive "soul mate." One can almost see bits of heart and
hope strewn about the floor. And as I've waded through this emotional
carnage, I’ve been forced to reconsider what it is we’re after. And to
be honest, I'm not sure that I buy the whole soul mate thing.
I wonder how much our desire for a soul mate is informed by our modern
visions of love as opposed to the biblical lessons about love. John the
Apostle wrote, "This is how we know what love is: Jesus Christ laid
down His life for us. And we ought to lay down our lives for our
brothers." Sacrifice and determination consistently characterize
biblical descriptions of love. God's pursuit of the nation of Israel
through the Old Testament—replete with vanquished nations, miraculous
visions and talking animals—is the most epic story of betrayal and
enduring love to ever be told.
In contrast, our modern visions of love culminate at the wedding with
the beautiful attendants and lavish reception. There is no sacrifice
and determination amidst meltaway mints shaped like bells and flowers.
The music swells, the credits play and another twosome is forever
living happily-ever-after—they’re soul mates, after all—in our mind's eye.
And when it comes to choosing between two different visions of love,
the God with His broken and bloodied heart in hand or the couple
forever taking their first dance to "What a Wonderful World," is it any
wonder that even Christians cling to idea of "happily-ever-after?"
But more and more I find that my imagination is captured by the love
stories that start after the honeymoon—the love born from sacrifice and
determination. As Leonard Cohen wrote and Jeff Buckley most plaintively
sang, Love is not a victory march, it’s a cold and a broken Hallelujah.
I think of my friend Heather who walked down the aisle as an act of
faithfulness to God and looked at her husband three weeks later to
realize that she truly loved him. Hallelujah. I think of Hosea and his
pursuit of the unfaithful Gomer. Hallelujah. I think of my parent’s
28-year union and all of its peaks and valleys and the misty-eyed look
Dad still gives Mom when she’s not looking. Hallelujah.
My theory is that the security of a marriage is not based on the
strength of the love present, as the search for a soul mate would seem
to suggest, but that it stands or falls on the content of the character
of those who come before God to say words like "forever" and "forsaking
all others."
But for all my theories, they’re still just that—my theories. It’s not as though I have a line of suitors at my door.
What I do have is a circle of friends who consistently remind me which
vision of love is true and worthy. Last winter one such friend and I
spent an evening listening to the music of Over the Rhine. Insulated by
snow and stone, we sat transfixed in a candlelit chapel on the banks of
Lake Michigan. Confronted by God—with His bloody and broken heart in
hand—and His unswerving love and devotion in the face of my unswerving
failure and selfishness, I trembled. And in those flickering moments, I
prayed that I would become a person of wisdom who wouldn’t settle for
the sweet lies we are told and tell ourselves about love, and that, if
romance does ever come calling, I would commit to nothing less than a
holistic, biblical love—that I would cling to God’s outstretched hand,
"till death do us part."
So, I’m still waiting for "the look." But, I think if a godly man came
along who wanted to say "forever" and "forsaking all others," I just
might stop waiting. Though I might insist he at least read Pride and
Prejudice …
[Lisa Ann Cockrel is a senior editor of Moody magazine and lives in Chicago with some good friends.] | | |
| | Currently Listening: Once |
A long time coming...Reconciliation...a very wonderful thing. It happened tonight...thank you, Lord. No more anger or bitterness. *sigh* It's amazing...an awesome feeling. All thanks to you, Father! In other news, tonight was a very fun night! Taylor, Luke, Joe, Emily, and I went over to Jill's house for a movie night! It was great because last time we went out after 514 (that's church) together we talked about all these great movies and decided to have a movie night to watch them! Tonight we watched "Everything is Illuminated" and "Once." Both GREAT movies that I highly recommend! Still on the list is "Reign Over Me" and "Stranger than Fiction." I've seen Stranger than Fiction, and I had seen Everything is Illuminated before...but they're still great movies! Last night Urban played at Greene Street and announced that they are signing with a record label! Then they actually signed the contract onstage in front of the crowd! It was very exciting! We'll see what happens next! I had an interview in Chapel Hill on Friday for an internship with the University photographer at UNC! It went very well! He told me that he liked my work, too! How awesome is that? It's such a huge thing to hear from professional photographers that they like my stuff...because even though I occasionally hear it (or see it in grades) from my instructors, you have to wonder if part of it is just them being nice because they like you as a person, you know? Haha. Anyways, back to my interview...he's going to try and work it out for me. The problem is that since there's a photojournalism school at UNC, his bosses want him to check with the students there before he lets me, a photo student from an outside school, come intern with him. He told me he'll let me know as soon as he can. So, if it works out, I'll be in Chapel Hill from March to May! That's very exciting, because I LOVE Chapel Hill. I've also talked with a photographer in NYC about interning with him for my second internship, and he's very receptive to the idea! His website is www.michaelscottstudio.com. I think he's pretty great! I love his portraits and conceptual work. So, we'll see what happens with that too. Also, more exciting news...I bought a Macbook today!!! I asked for only money from all my family for Christmas, and saved up and finally bought a Mac! And one more fun bit of news, I am going back to the Dominican Republic on a misson trip with 514 over spring break! I am SO excited!  Okay, that's all for now! | | |
| Excitement!Check out what the CEO of the Southern Short Course in News Photography and NCPPA Board of Directors member just told me about my photography!!! Stephanie: You shoot some incredible black and white portraits! You are blessed with mighty talent. Seriously -- there are a few pix in your photo assignments better than Gap ads. Marc HOW AWESOME IS THAT?!?!? Man, I'm feelin good right now!  In other news...some things I've been reflecting on recently: I think the Lord is helping me love people more...and He's given me more self-confidence. I've started noticing that I am able to initiate conversations with people I don't know much easier than I used to. And I do it without even thinking. I see a new person and I immediately introduce myself and start asking them questions about who they are. I looooove that, because that used to be such a hard thing for me. Even if I could introduce myself without getting nervous, I always had difficulty with initiating conversations. I think photography school has had a lot to do with it. There was one assignment I had in the summer called the "Up Close and Personal." We had to photograph 36 people we didn't know, no more than two feet from their face. That, was interesting. I was so nervous about it I put it off until the last possible day, but when I finally did it, it was so much easier than I thought it would be! I went to the Bicentennial Gardens on Memorial Day, and made myself walk up to everyone that came my way and ask to take their picture. It got easier and easier with each person! And everyone was so receptive. This one older lady even told me that I was so pleasant that she would be surprised if anyone said no to me! Awww, so cute. Well, another semester of photography school is over with. I seriously cannot believe I've made it this far! It has been so difficult! The summer semester was insane, and this past eight weeks was almost as bad! I feel so accomplished and proud of myself. Only 8 more weeks of classes to go now, and I'll be out on my internships! Wow...I simply can't believe it. Amazing. Thank you, God, for helping me get through it!!! I am reading Donald Miller's Searching for God Knows What, and it is incredible! I love everything about it! I really want to explore the world, and travel as much as possible. I want to see as much of God's creation as I can, and experience all kinds of different cultures. My dad thinks I'm dreaming big...and I am...but I feel like he doesn't think it's gonna happen for me. Because you have to have money to travel. And then there's the whole thing about really wanting a family. And I do...that's definitely something that's important to me. But I don't want to settle down and regret not seeing more of the world. Of course, it's silly for me to worry about this stuff, because the Lord knows the desires of my heart. And hopefully, whoever I end up with will love traveling as much as I do, and then I'll have a traveling buddy! How fun! Katelyn and I had lunch today and we were talking about all this. We also talked about the possibility of moving to Australia in August when we're done with school!! How awesome would that be?!? Just a thought for now... I think that's enough of an update for you!! | | |
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