Currently Reading Gone with the Wind By Margaret Mitchell see related

goodbye Xanga

So I thought about it...

Xanga, you have served me well over the past few years. I leave you with fondness. But I feel that it is time for me to grow up and move on into more sophisticated obscurity... so that's why I'm switching to Blogger.

The New Blog

http://abbyef.blogspot.com

Currently Listening Our Endless Numbered Days By Iron & Wine see related

God is the gospel

I can deal with smart aleck students. I can deal with sleepy and grumpy students. I can deal with know-it-all students. I can even deal with the shy ones. But I learned today that I can't deal with apathetic students. The ones who won't exert any effort, who won't give you an opinion or a useful answer for the whole world. I'll confess that I wanted to stop the class today and take this one kid by the shoulders and give her a good shake, hoping that it would get some emotion, some spark of human life out of her. I'm not sure what to do with kids like that. Can you do anything? Teachers, lend me your wisdom.

Powerful: "Restore to me the joy of your salvation and grant me a willing spirit to sustain me." (Ps. 51:12) The reminder that the joy of the gospel has to be restored to us has been moving to me this week.

Another life lesson learned this week: the peace of reconciliation is great. (Thanks, Jonathan.)

I'm currently reading Gone with the Wind (Margaret Mitchell) and Go Tell It on a Mountain (James Baldwin), both of which I purchased for a total of 50 cents at the local library's book sale. I have been pleasantly surprised with Mitchell. I didn't know the book was so good and had scorned it for many years due to its generally romance novel covers (Scarlett, pull that red velvet dress up on your shoulders where it belongs, ma'am) and throngs of old movie fans. But it's delightful and very engaging. It also surprised me to learn that Mitchell won the Pulitzer Prize for it in 1939. She is not the best writer I've ever read, but she could be one of the best storytellers. She has a very complete imagination--the type of mind that can think years in advance for imaginary characters and not neglect a single detail. (Almost like Tolstoy in that respect.) Her characters are especially vibrant; full-blooded, distinctive people who are so very different from each other. Scarlett O'Hara is in particular a genius creation; the original American anti-heroine. It takes a fine stroke of the pen to create a character like her; Scarlett is a brilliant character for her ability to simultaneously generate emotions of hate and admiration. Even though I know the story well, I've been engrossed in that book since I've started it and have reached 500 pages in a week (500 more to go).

I'm not as far along in Go Tell It on a Mountain, but I'm also enjoying it. It's always rewarding to come into a book with no previous knowledge of it other than a recognition of its title. This book was always appearing on lists of books that Every College Student Should Read, but I never knew anything about it. Baldwin writes about several generations of a black family struggling with each other and with God. He is a very fluid writer and I liked his style immediately. I really like books that cover generations of families and each person's individual backgrounds. Baldwin does this with ease and graceful concentration. I'm not sure where the story is going, but I'm happy to follow it.

So I'm thinking of switching to Blogger. Thinking...

Currently Listening Bring Me the Workhorse By My Brightest Diamond see related

the pitfalls of control

I love going back and listening to my favorite songs from last fall. (Regina Spektor, Iron and Wine, Paul Simon, Indigo Girls, Sufjan Stevens, and Wheat, among others.) These songs evoke feelings of ecstatic terror and independence and anxiety and innocent joy. I feel like a different person listening to them now. Every song is attached to some place on campus or some feeling of aloneness--the primary freshman emotion, I'm convinced. Regina would sing ne me quitte pas, mon chere and I would smile as if it applied to me. But it was always a happy loneliness, a forebearing, hopeful loneliness. I never felt depressed or neglected; it's just that I've never been that alone before. Suddenly, I was only responsible for myself. It brings you startlingly close to your self, being alone.  

I always walked briskly in the fall; skittish, like a young horse. I moved too quickly, afraid of interruption, afraid of getting lost. The songs make me think especially of walking my worn route from Hanes Art Center, back when my iPod still worked. I still remember the faces of the people I would pass every Tuesday and Thursday as they walked their own worn routes. The songs make me think of them, too. Personalities and names I never knew, but faces I knew as closely as my own. The aggressive, virulent Indian with the shaved head. The bony white girl with dreadlocks and hairy legs and Keds. The girl with chopped blond hair who was dangerously, magnetically beautiful. The skinny one with the terrible eyeshadow. The round girl with long red hair and her skirts like quilts and socks with her sandals. The boy with fine hair like cornsilk cut in a bowl around his egg-shaped head. The sharp-faced girl with a curtain of dark curls that made me think of a witch. These were my invisible friends. Sometimes we would smile at each other in brief recognition; that was the extent of our friendship. It doesn't make you feel so alone.

And I am home alone as I write this; the family is scattered around the country (Atlanta, Houston) and the city. (The Story of My Summer.) Someone come visit?

Currently Listening Graceland By Paul Simon see related

miracles and wonders

Paul Simon is singing about "lasers in the jungle" and I am happy because I like him even though I have no idea what he's talking about...

Today I am short and uninspired, so I won't write much. I just wanted to put up a few pictures from yesterday's Fourth of July celebration at my grandparent's. It was such a lovely day; I got beat up and sunburnt and bruised and was so happy to see everyone--Nick and his family, my extended family, random people I've never met... a thoroughly good day.

Sistas!

Our family

The girls

Lake creatures

Mmm.... lake hair.

One other quick thought:
I've been studying (along with Mark and 1 Timothy) what the gospel means. To increase this knowledge, I spent about three hours flipping through the New Testament, looking for all of the places where the gospel was wrapped up in a few sentences. I came up with 40 instances (there were more, but I liked the even 40) of the gospel in a few lines. So every morning, I've been taking one of the examples, reading it, thinking about it, and then summarizing what it says about the gospel. Yesterday morning's passage was Ephesians 2:1-10 and it absolutely blew me away. Completely amazing. I've been learning so much and it's so exciting, so renewing. We must pay more careful attention, therefore, to what we have heard, so that we do not drift away. (Hebrews 2:1) 

Currently Listening Marry Me By St Vincent see related

grrr i love you grrr

'Forbearance' is a word that has recently gained a heightened status in my vocabulary. I want to know what it's doing in my head; my mind is stuck to it like flypaper. I'm not entirely sure why, but every morning when I pray, I can't get this little phrase from Ephesians 4:2 unstuck: "... bearing with one another in love." I think I like it because it's so horribly true. Love is the hardest thing in the world, and Paul admits it. He doesn't say, "Have fun and laugh with each other in love," or "Enjoy one another's company in love." Though those things might occasionally be true, the majority of love is forbearance. Putting up with each other. Holding ourselves back from lashing out, from keeping grudges, from insinuating and nagging and accusing. Grrr. (It makes me think of gritting my teeth.) That's not a very fun definition of love. But it's true. And maybe that's why I can't get rid of it. 

Summer's been nice. Working, reading Woolf, grading essays, looking out the windows, writing in journals, eating scarred cherries, having my fingertips stained by their dark red flesh... You know. All those sorts of things that I do.

Weds. through Fri. I worked at Mom's store from 9-6. On Wednesday, during the lulls, I was reviewing my grammar and kanji from last year's Japanese class. I've been conscious of the gradual loss of all that I learned last semester and so I was trying to revive my memory. I didn't feel like I was making much progress and I remarked to Mom, "I really wish I had someone to speak Japanese with right now; I'm not getting anywhere on my own." She shrugged compassionately. Japanese speakers aren't very common in the United States, if you've noticed. However, Mom likes to say that I get everything I want, and on Wednesday, this was true. Not an hour later, three women walked in and my nerves jumped. They certainly looked Japanese. But telling the Japanese from their other Asian neighbors is like trying to tell whether someone is American or Canadian. However, I eavesdropped for a little and, sure enough, they were speaking Japanese. My heart rate speeds up and I finally get up enough courage to say, "Sumimasen, nihongo ga hanashimasu ka?" Their eyes lit up with shock and delight and they all began speaking to me in Japanese. It was overwhelming and exciting and definitely proved how much I had forgotten over the summer. But they were very encouraging and could understand me, despite my gaps in conversation. We talked about why they were here (they came from Tokyo for the international square dancing convention, of all things) and directions and how I knew Japanese and so forth. When I rang them up at the register, I counted their change back in their native language and they giggled. And that made my week.  

I am tired of the tyranny of the rich and famous.

Summer skies / The stars are falling all along the injured coast... (Paul Simon)