Currently Listening Inside Wants Out By John Mayer see related

I've decided I hate Christian music.  All the songs seems to say the same thing, are unoriginal or sound like they were made in the early 1990s.  But going to a small Baptist school and being raised in a Baptist church I know I will probably be condemned for this statement.  Why is that?  What is so wrong with me having an opinion?  Not to say that everyone will be shocked and upset at the fact that Christian music annoys me, but that some will think I'm less of a Christian for not choosing that as my particular style of worship.  And don't get me wrong, I do like a lot of praise and worship songs, just not all of them.  And I love hymns.  However, I went through a period where I thought I was less of a Christian if I didn't listen to the Christian radio station every chance I got or put in a Steven Curtis Chapman CD.  I'm glad those times have passed.  I feel freer to listen to whatever I chose and enjoy.  I can appreciate artists for their talents.  I'm not saying you can't do both, Christian and secualr music.  I'm just saying I prefer secular and that doesn't make me a satanic worshipper.  Or that that's what you think.  But if I was to be sitting in Starbucks across from you with a peppermint mocha in hand and flippantly said, "I hate Christian music" I think most might initially be shocked and confused. 

But it's all right.  I still love Jesus.  You have no need to worry.

Currently Reading Angela's Ashes: A Memoir By Frank McCourt see related

Feeling Alone

I had a talk with some girls last night.  I think we're all afraid to admit it.  But ever since living in the dorm, life just seems like it would be much more fun with other people around.  All the time.  We drive ourselves crazy with it.  When there is no one around we think we're loser, outcasts, unloved.  When really we're probably the sane ones.  Taking time out for yourself.  You end up feeling, however, lonely or left out.  Why is that?  What ever happened to this model I adored of the Sex and the City woman, independent and secure?  She was a figment of my imagination. Now if I have to go to Walmart by myself I feel leftout.  Not as cool.  Lonely.  This is stupid.  And yet... do we all feel this way in college?

Currently Reading Confessions of an Ugly Stepsister : A Novel By Gregory Maguire see related

The Current:

Erin's Editorial

for the Stall Street Journal

HSU, a college campus of 2,000 students all searching for the same thing.  A quality education enlightened by faith?  Or a date for this Friday night?  NSO just finished leaving over 500 new students walking around in broad daylight on our 40 acres.  But in all actuality over the course of the next few weeks how many students will “hook up” with fellow new students?  Or is the rumor true that all the upperclassmen will “steal” the new girls away and forget their friends from the years before.  I was a freshman last year.  I had guy friends.  But the question remains, was I “that freshman girl?”  The girl that didn’t mean to but drew the attention of upperclassmen boys simply because she was new on campus and wanted to “get to know people”?  Is that what I became?  And now that I have reached this new position of sophomordom, will I soon be forgotten by all my guy friends for some fresh face with whom they just want to “get to know better”? 

I’m not trying to hate on freshmen girls.  Heck I was one only a few short months ago.  Hardin-Simmons and all its traditions were exciting.  Staying out late and having no one to lecture me about it later was a thrill.  Making “weekend friends.”  Those groups that you hung out with for a solid three days and then never seem to have the same connection with again. 

But I feel more mature now.  I have consistent friends that I hang out with for less than three straight days but the relationship lasts longer than the weekend.  I stay in my room and study.  Actually read books.  Find it more entertaining to sit and watch a movie than drive around Abilene looking for something to do.  I don’t get up an hour before class to primp myself for the day.  I’m lucky if I get up within enough time to take down the pony-tail I slept in the night before, brush my hair and put it back up before my first class.  But does all of this make me boring and a less “exciting” friend to be around?  Are my friendships in jeopardy because I am not the “new student” anymore?

I           beg to differ.  I am now a sophomore in college.  This fact means: A) I have seen all of Abilene and realized that there is nothing to do here after 9 o’clock.  B) I have finished most of my core classes, requiring me to lock myself in one of the study rooms in the library with my books.  And C) I can answer all the questions such as: “Where is the bathroom?”  “What is good to eat in the café?”  and “How many boys are allowed in your room on visitation night?”  You know, the standard “new student” questions.

I am proud to shed my title of “new student.”  I am proud to be set in my ways and ready to “settle down” a bit.  The question remains, do my other friends feel the same?  Or will I be replaced my a more vivacious bunch of girls?

Currently Listening Offerings II: All I Have to Give By Third Day see related

Things that probably aren't good:

First: I washed and blow dried my hair this morning.  I got lots of compliments.  Meaning that my three day theory has failed AND that I should probably do something with my hair before I go to class in the morning... instead of going with it wet everywhere...

Second: I put my parking sticker on my car (PS our parking stickers this year are about the size of my spleen) but I accidently put it over my little girl bowing down to the cross.  Thankfully I only covered up the cross portion... oh good.  Now she looks like she's bowing down to HSU... good.

Currently Reading Autobiography of a Fat Bride : True Tales of a Pretend Adulthood By Laurie Notaro see related

Reasons I have learned to grow to love my mother...

She created her own Xanga last year so she could comment on mine... what tha?!  Now she has "friends" on Xanga that she comments with back and forth regularly.  I'll be at home sometimes and go to comment on someone's site and accidently comment from my mom's... embarrassing.  My mom has a Xanga...But today I was about to draw the line.  I went to go and comment on my friend Sean's Xanga, leaving a witty comment about my hott new boyfriend when I realized, "Wait... my mom has already left a comment for Sean..."   No, that is where I draw the line.  She leaves comments for my freinds from school that she doesn't even know.  She leaves comments for my friends from home.  And then I have to leave a comment after her?!  Something is terribly wrong here.  I went to her Xanga site to leave a note stating, "Mother, I love you but this has to stop."  I read her Xanga.... and realized... I am my mother's daughter...

"Mom and I live together and share a computer conveniently located in the family room.  Over the past year, I have tried to load the screensaver with pictures Mom might enjoy:  field of flowers, flowers up close, beautiful skies, cute puppies, some exotic animals...and then I got on a kick of adding photos of things I thought were cool...photos I usually find when I am reading the news on the internet in the morning....a picture of velcro up real close, fossils from the Dallas area, brown sugar crystals magnified, ENIAC, a cloned gorilla baby....ya know...geeky, science stuff.  Then, my college age daughter was here over the summer.  Added to the screensaver file includes:  hunky young male actors (WHO ARE THEY??) She  did add Cary Grant, Roger Staubach, Rober Redford, George Clooney and Brad Pitt to appease us older women. And then there is a  multitude of photos of Erin and her college friends.  Mom and I commented "funny, it's always two of them!"  Erin and one of her college girl friends. Or two friends together.  Or a group of them in formal dresses.  Funny.  Erin is here even when she's not here!!  But, damn, who are all these other people in our family room?"  - my  mom's Xanga site