the big day started early with bagel and egg sandwhiches and coffee with jamin. he filmed it all.

we went to morris and showered while listening to vroom. he didnt film that.

we ran to walmart for the cake. the iwu girl was there and she was excited to give us the cake. she was wearing the big red button i gave her...loud and proud. there was an older man who was working the bakery and he was very excited for us. he asked if big red was still running well. i told him he was. "that's really great! that's somethin else!"

we drove through marion for a little footage and took the loooong way home to rack up some miles. we stopped in matthews for gas and filled him up with oil (which was long long long overdue.) we stopped at the apartment to pick up the donations jar, the big red chewing gum, and the camera.

and then, around 12:00, it started.

the adrenaline was pumping during the first couple of laps. we were honking the horn and yelling and waving and getting everybody excited. amy barnett showed up, i talked to steve mortland (director of admissions) on the phone, called the fam, picked up noah and ben and joey and lots of other people. the jazz band was leaving during the first couple of laps. i was excited to see nathan ricke cheering me on. when their van pulled out and passed me, everyone was cheering.

the whole process started off at a good time, because everyone was walking to and from the DC for lunch. they all cheered as we passed them.

it didnt take long for campus safety to catch on. they love to rain on people's parades. first he sat in the reade parking lot, watching me carefully and making sure i made complete stops. i was nervous. then he suddenly moved to the nussbaum parking lot in hopes to catch me speeding. but i remained above reproach. eventually i had people calling my cell phone cluing me in on his whereabouts. he was pretty sneaky, but he never caught us.

the rides continued and i let people off and on at samuel morris hall. it was frigid but the fans were troopers and braved the cold. guest appearances were made by jared cheek and crazy and hannah heth and rod and lola yoder. the yoders were good to me, they put $5.75 in the donation jar, and that was all i received during the day.

eventually we started throwing the big red gum at people, and they were loving it.

there was a little bit of a lull in the excitement around lap 16, 17, and 18, but it picked back up eventually.

chalupa caught the action just in time. he arrived for the final 7 laps and rode along for every single one.

the final laps were very very exciting. jamin got a screen shot of each mile in the 990's. near the last lap i stopped at morris and said something that yoder didnt like, and he kicked my car. it dented the fender and now the door wont open all the way, like what happened after i hit the deer. you can kinda see it in the pictures i posted.

we realized i was going to cross 200,000 around olson, which we wanted to prevent at all costs. i set the little odometer to be in sync with the big odometer so that i was able to count down the tenths of miles. we made the final lap (number 35) and took long-cuts in the chapel and odle parking lots. when we got to the reade parking lot, i circled around just enough times and pulled out in order to cross 200,000 right in front of morris.

it was so very exciting!

heather and mark called during the last lap, so i left the phone on so they could hear the ruckus. when i got out, i gave hugs, then put mark on speaker phone so that he could give a speech to everyone. then i gave a speech too. i quoted sand-trap george: "take care of your equipment, and your equipment will take care of you."

then we ate cake and i got really tired and it was all a memory of the past.

wish you were here!

there you have it! 200,000!


big red and nateshorb, bff!


cake!


wiped out after a big day.


a job well done.

ps...erica wants to break up with me because i painted flames on my car. email her at erica_checkeye@hotmail.com and tell her how awesome they look and how lucky she is to be the future owner of this studly car.

we did it and it was glorious. 35 and half laps later, Big Red is 200,000 miles old.

a full synopsis including a few pictures will come soon.

i forgot to mention another funny thing. the IWU cake decorator asked what i wanted the cake to say. i said, slowly, so she could get it all down, "happy...........two hundred thousand..........big.........red."

she wrote:
Happy 200,000 Big Red

it was glaring at me like a painting in your living room that is ever so slightly crooked. i said, "oh, and, um, with, uh, a comma, after 200,000....and an exclamation mark after Big Red.....please.....if that's ok...."

she looked at me underneath her eyebrows and rolled her eyes and added my punctuation and said "what's your major, anyway?!?"

i was apparently a little too grammatically correct for her tastes.

jamin and i went to walmart.

i ordered a sheetcake for big red for 10 dollars.

the bakery lady was a recent indiana wesleyan grad. she has 2 degrees and is cake decorating until grad school. she was nice and helpful. she reassured me that she wasnt asking me for my name and number so that she could call me, she was married and needed the information for the order. i gave her a big red button for all her help and she was very excited, saying that that alone made it worth working at walmart.

before all this happened jamin and i were looking at cake options and two old bakery ladies came walking out. the one with really big grandma glasses, hairnet, and sweatpants said in her indiana accent, "whats yer occasion?" i hesitated, then explained. it didnt phase her, she just pointed to a cake and said "that one. you should get that one." then she said "what kinda car ya got?"
"a geo prizm."
"you've gotta geo prizm!? well i'll be! those are the worst cars ever made! you oughtta frame that! what year is it?
"'91"
"you've gotta 91 geo prizm that has lasted til 200,000?!? those cars were made to throw away!"

she continued to stand there, facing me, ridiculing my car, still in disbelief that i actually had one. i was wishing so badly that video cameras were allowed inside wal mart because this was the funniest scene you could imagine. a short old lady with big glasses and a hairnet telling a tall 21 year old guy how crappy his car is. it was classic.

good gracious this man is fast at responding to emails:

Thanks for the invite Nathan. We have out of town company arriving during that time so I likely will not make it but I may get a chance to show up. If so I would be pleased to accept your offer! Happy “miling”! Dr. G

heaven help us! i just emailed dr. gyertson, taylor's president, extending a personal invitation to big red's big day! i offered him a couple laps around the loop for free!

i have a couple flyers hanging in the admissions office, and apparently he asked the director of admissions about it. steve explained to him. apparently, he just kinda scratched his head, shrugged his shoulders, and said "well, they could be doing worse things!"

not a whole lot to update you on. i've got a couple of posts brewing in my head and they'll come out eventually, but not tonight.

dr. hughes, whom i mentioned previously in speaking about his book how christian faith can sustain the life of the mind, is here this week. he's doing a good job so far. he's coming to our history class tomorrow, which i am excited about. he's been speaking on "the good life." he is saying that the good life is when we seek the kingdom of god by serving others and live a life of giving rather than getting, losing rather than winning, dying rather than living.

this is all very basic stuff, is it not? it is, for these are the words of christ we have been reading all of our lives. but yet it is so revolutionary! and it is so revolutionary because we are still not living it! and how can we deny it? the vast majority of christ's words were about not only helping the poor but becoming the poor, but christians have conveniently found a way to ignore this for quite some time. we are so very far off from what he intended, and we have very clever ways of rationalizing it all.

i am thankful because i feel like god truly has given me a heart of contentment and a heart of simplicity. i really dont want to get caught up in money or possessions or anything of that sort. (heck, look at the car i'm driving!) and i dont say this with arrogance because i really dont know how it has happened. i know it is not my doing, but for some reason god has chosen to bless me in this way. it is a rare thing these days, and i am thankful for it.

mewithoutyou sings "pay no attention to me dancing with my girl, we have every intention to be failures in this world." i resonate with that so much that i've been trying to talk erica into putting it on the cover of our little wedding bulletins. she says that no one will get it. and that's what's so sad about it. and neville says "there's too many people in this world focused on winning and that's where we go wrong i think. what a wonderful freedom it is (or would be) if we could celebrate our finitude, our downfalls, our weakness" and i agree with him.

he's getting ready!!

monday.

this past weekend was the worst weekend i can remember since last weekend. that's not entirely true because i did see million dollar baby and ate at la bambas. but other than that it was pretty much worthless.

church was good yesterday morning too. that was a highlight.

this morning was like an april morning. not too cold, and a misty rain in the air. i heard a robin chirping and i saw two squirrels. there's hope after all.

i think i have a fever. which is scary, because the flu has reached epidemic proportions in indiana, and taylor is no exception.

all for now.

i still don't like writing blog titles. it's time to get rid of this silly setting.

it's friday and no one is more thankful than i. is that grammatically correct? or is it "me?" "i" sounds better...more flamboyant...but maybe that's not a good thing.

what are you waiting for?! go listen to headphones! every time i come to the ETC to post, i listen to the whole album all the way through. the song to listen to this time is "natural disaster." i always sing the harmonies to it out loud and everyone looks at me.

this morning was bitter cold but beautiful.

have i mentioned yet that i'm delivering newspapers to the residence halls every morning this semester? well i am. i swore after being a paperboy in high school that i would never do it again, but here we are. it seems the things we always swear we wont do are the things we end up doing. thats why im careful to not say i'll never be a pastor. (that was a clever sentence, nathan. thanks, i'm glad you thought so.) but anyway, one good thing about the paper route was always the sunrise.

the sunrise was pretty perfect this morning. i wont try to describe it because you all know what a perfect sunrise looks like. if you dont, you should start waking up earlier. but once the sun came up and i finished the delivery, a nice powdery little snow storm started. and there was still blue skies in some spots and the sun was trying to peek through the gray clouds and was just a white circle behind a screen. snowflakes were falling in big white fluffy teams of snowflake bunches as i walked to class. i tried to catch them on my coat so i could look at them closely. i looked up and watched them falling down on my face. i inhaled and a bunch of them went in my mouth. i didnt want to go in to class.

there was a girl walking on the intersecting sidewalk and her high heels were making loud noises. kerplock kerplock kerplock. if i was blindfolded and i didnt know i was walking on campus, i would have though it was a passing horse.

but as i was saying i really enjoyed that little snowstorm. and i knew there were people muttering under their breath how they want spring to come so badly, and i would normally be doing the same, but this morning it was a gift from god, it was a movie moment, and it was beautiful, and i was thankful, and it was a good way to start the weekend.

and that's my story.

i changed the settings to have titles, but ive always hated making titles for blog entries.

the etc kicked me out. i moved to the reade lab to write this to you. because i think you're special.

today has been a weird day. i've been beyond groggy. borderline braindead. i blame it on the weather.

it was 60 degrees yesterday. we woke up this morning to snow on the ground. that's all it takes for my bipolar tendencies to flare. how can one handle such teasing?

last night milford middle school played our arch rivals. we lost by 2 points for the second year in a row. we played a terrible first half, and our shots just werent going in period. i hate to blame games on refs, but it was definitely a factor last night. it helps quite a bit when your friends are reffing (and by this i am saying that the other team's friends were reffing). at one point i got really really upset standing on the sideline and i yelled at the top of my lungs "SIR! SIR! [at least i'm moderately respectful] ARE YOU KIDDING ME?!?!? WHAT THE CRAP?!?!?! WE'RE JUST NOT POPULAR ENOUGH TO GET THE CALLS! WE'RE JUST NOT POPULAR ENOUGH!" and it was true. everyone on the sidelines agreed, once i calmed down. (just to clarify, it wasnt an irate-angry-red-faced-top-of-my-lungs kind of protest, just a this-is-so-ridiculously-unbelievable-and-baffling-that-i-have-to-laugh-while-im-yelling-at-the-top-of-my-lungs kind of protest.)

neville just called me in the reade lab. he's hitting the 200,000 mile mark in the next few minutes! what a momentous evening! he was a little concerned, because he's not having the big party for his car that i'm having for mine, but i assured him it could be a special intimate moment between the two of them. so, congratulations neville. and congratulations, skyy, you're a real trooper. hooray!

goodnight.

the big red party is now schedule for saturday, february 26th. put it on your calendar.

go big red buttons are now available from yours truly.

i just looked at wrigley's website to see if big red chewing gum would sponsor me...but it looks doubtful.

read two things that i think are funny here.

remember the david bazan side-project i mentioned? (yes, it's ok, i have my gripes with him but i still like his music a whole lot.) listen to it here, in particular the song "i never wanted you."

remember the billy collins poetry i mentioned? every time i read a poem i want to post it on here. that would be laborious and i would probably break a few copyright laws in the process, so go buy it here.

other things to mention...

the phrase "good times" should be deleted from everyone's vocabulary. completely. period.

the other day i walked in the post office. there was an envelope taped to the wall. it was addressed to "Grandma and Grandpa, 236 W. Reade Ave, Upland, IN 46989." beside the address was written, in large, commanding cursive letters, with a sharpie marker, "Is this your grandson's letter??" it struck me as funny.

if you know me, you know i'm one of those people that says "hmm" a lot. most of the time i say it for sarcastic humor's sake, and i'll admit i do it way too much, and eventually no one knows if i'm serious or not when i give a good emphatic "hmm." but there are a lot of times when i'm all alone, reading a book or looking at art or the like, and something strikes me. i give a good strong uncontrollable instinctive "hmm" and it reverberates off the walls of the empty room. and every time it happens it takes me by surprise. and it is then that i know what i just read or observed is something beautiful and special.

it's a weird thing, really. where does it come from? in those cases i never do it on purpose. it just wells up inside of me and i cant hold it in. i think it's my way of speaking in tongues or something.

(anyway, it happened today in the metcalf gallery looking at faculty's art. it's an incredible show, and if you're around, you better go check it out before it's gone. )

yesterday morning when i went to bed at 5:15 AM, i realized that could very likely have been the last time i'll make a crazy road trip to see a show. and that's sad. people think we're crazy for driving 3 or 4 or 5 hours to see a show, but it's never really struck me as unreasonable. but i know i'll probably never do it again. i dont want to grow old.

i dont mean to beat a dead horse, but ive been thinking and i'd like to clarify.

this is my problem with david bazan: i cannot judge his personal life, and i don't want to, but from the stage (which is the context in which the majority of us know him) he lacks grace.

righteous anger, discontent, and valid complaints do us no good - and i think become sinful - if we are not gracious towards others while we strive to make changes. without extending grace, without making a difference, we are blowing hot air. we are complaining in order to sound intelligent, in order to puff ourselves up with pride. this generation has plenty of ideas - we know what has been done wrong and we are plenty upset about it - and that is great! that is what i love about my generation. but it's time to quit thinking we are better than everyone else and start working on it.

i sent an email to a friend recently expressing some of my concerns and frustrations about people who differ from myself, and instead of agreeing with me and joining in, which i more or less expected, she sent back a very beautiful and graceful response that reminded me of the need for all of this: "there's always hope and room for growth for everyone...you'll grow in grace for other people...and eventually redemption will come to us all." wow.

so, bazan is just adding more fuel to the fire when our fire is already burning hot enough. i don't mean for this to be attacking him, because that is cowardly and pointless and a waste of time and i dont even know the man. im sure the poor man has had enough blog posts complaining about him in his day. it is just that he got me thinking about a very widespread and dangerous problem, one that very much includes myself.

it is so hard to find grace in this world. it is so hard to be gracious in this world. but eventually redemption will come to us all. how comforting!

for those of you concerned with my change in blog titles, i will explain.

it was time for a change.

and this verse in mark, said by the man whose son was demon possessed and was trying to get help from jesus, has come up several times in multiple classes so far this semester. it was a verse i was unfamiliar with before, so it's weird that i've heard it so often in the past 2 weeks. i can identify with it quite a bit and it has come to mean a lot to me.

so, it suits me, and there you have it.

so, yup, pedro the lion and low in columbus last night.

first, the venue. the wexner center on OSU's campus is far and away the best concert venue i've ever been to. that's where i saw explosions in the sky, too. it's clean and classy. the employees are nice. the sound is good. and they're in it for the art, not for stealing little kids' money. this concert last night was on the stage of the theater. that is, we were on the stage, behind the curtain, and the stage for the concert was set up backstage, more/less. i realize that doesnt make any sense whatsoever. it was kinda weird, but really awesome.

next, the music. pedro the lion opened. this was the first i had seen him, as i said previously, since right after control was released. he's got a band of a more permanent nature now, which i think is a good thing for him. frank lenz on drums is absolutely amazing. the guy's got a laundry list of a resume, and for good reason. he knows what he's doing. the set list was pretty great. very diverse. all the songs i wanted to hear accept for secret of the easy yoke, which i still have yet to hear a full-band version of. he played criticism as inspiration, which was a first for me, but they cut it short and didnt play the long instrumental interlude in the middle, which was disappointing. songs from every full-length. i was pleased. the bass wasnt loud enough, nor the backup vocals, but it was good all in all.

low was incredible. why have i never listened to this band? they were simple yet genius and extreeeemely beautiful. i wish their catalog didnt consist of 15 or so CDs. how do i choose? where do i start? seriously, i was blown away. they were a very witty group too, their in-between-song-banter was very great. what they lacked in rockingness they made up for in humor.

i tend to lose more respect for david bazan every time i see him. that's kind of sad for me, because i've always really admired his music and his opinions. last night he said some negative things about christians, which is nothing new, but this time it was more harsh and broad and all-inclusive than ever. i was included in what he was saying, and i suppose it just offended me. i dont get offended about many of the things he says and does, but when he is saying stuff that includes me, it is an unfair stereotype and i think it's fair to take offense to that. i didnt take offense because it was the truth and the truth hurts, i took offense because it wasnt the truth, and there's a big difference in that. i think a lot of his thoughts are worthwhile and very true and valid, but they way he communicates them lacks taste.

in case you've never seen him, he does this thing where he answers people's questions in between songs. he actually has a way of not really answering any of the questions, which sometimes is funny, and sometimes is just annoying.

ive never been one to idolize rock stars. i've always viewed them as humans. i dont go all teenage-girl-crazy on them or anything. but i always admire them a lot and maybe sometimes too much. and i think that's true for everybody. this whole question-and-answer thing is a little ridiculous. we want to know what david bazan's favorite movie is just so we can see if it's our favorite movie too. and if it's not, we'll force ourselves to like it just so we can feel a little bit cooler. we strive to validate ourselves in such interestingly pathetic ways. what im saying is this question-and-answer thing could be cool, but it turns out as just a way for people to make themselves feel cool. one guy asked him how the weather was in whatever town david bazan lives in, and it was clearly just a way to let everyone there know that he knew where david bazan lives. what an insecure people we are. he's just another person like you and me who happens to write good songs.

i realized last night i'm not a good song writer because i'm not a good fiction writer. songs that arent fiction are usually, in the christian circles, preachy, and in other circles either cliche or pretentious. songs that are fiction, if done well, are beautiful. i'm not a good song writer because i'm not a good fiction writer.

we went to waffle house on the way home. it was the first time i had ever been there. why didnt i discover this place my freshman year instead of my senior year? it was amazing! we walked in the place at 1:00 AM and the entire restaurant said "Hi!" to us. everyone was so nice! it was cheap, the food was good, and it was a great atmosphere. when the waitress went to throw away joe's grits, she missed the basket and said "i missed the trashcan!" at that point i said my new classic line as joe would call it, "wouldnt be the first time!" and she loved it! she couldnt stop laughing. then i had my arm around joe at one point (merely for elbow room) and the other old-lady-waitress said, "ooooo togetherness!" and it was the funniest thing ive heard in a long time. i giggled a lot after that. columbus has banned smoking in every public building within city limits, and all the customers and staff at the waffle house were preeeetty upset about it. one waitress said that mickey mouse and donald duck could do a better job of running the city. now that's a bold statement! i felt sorry for them. if people want to smoke, let em!

anyways, that was last night. we rolled into campus a little after 4:00AM. instead of going to bed for 2 hours and then waking up, i decided to deliver the newspapers right away. it was weird tromping around campus and breaking into girls dorms at 4:30 in the morning. i finished that up as quick as possible and hit the sack and skipped my silly math class and woke up around 10:30 and had a pretty good day and here we are.

all of this is probably more than you wanted to know, and you didnt read it anyway, most likely, but someday i'll look back on this post and remember a fun night that was worth the lack of sleep and the seventeen dollars.

the snow has returned; i had completely forgotten it was still the middle of winter. it has helped to put me back into a bad mood.

i'm going to columbus tonight to see pedro the lion. my body will pay for it over the course of the next few days, but i haven't seen him since he swung by taylor, and i haven't seen him with a full band since "control" was released, so i'm really looking forward to it.

my schedule is stressful and overwhelming and it's only the 2nd week of classes. i am really enjoying history class, though. being forced to take this honors class is the best thing that has happened in my taylor academic career. i wish my schedule was only history and art for teachers and contemp. that would make life better.

when i have a house of my own, i want paste and sojourners to be on my coffee table. if you'd like to contribute to the subscription fund, let me know.

i want time to read and write. i want time period. we all want time. life is too busy. why? dr. messer mentioned a month-long vacation he took with his wife to the cabins at the oregon extension campus. i hope erica's employer allows month-long vacations, because i am going to need as much of those as possible in the summers. i've always wanted to be a hermit. maybe i'll just make a lifestyle of it.

milford middle school played two nights ago and won 40-14. i caused a lot of dissention on the team. i was only trying to help.

speaking of david bazan, i just found the lowdown on his new side project, and i am sure it is going to be absolutely incredible.

how do i find a job?

that is all.

this template will have to do until i figure something else out.

i do the same thing every saturday morning. after waking up slowly, i put on some music and make myself a bagel-and-egg sandwich. it is the zenith of my culinary skills. this morning i added green pepper. and the folgers coffee i drink grows increasingly stale with each passing week, but it continues to do its job.

the friend who knows me best was telling me i could be a pastor someday. (this was before the bagel-and-egg sandwhich.) i didnt believe her. i didnt want to believe her. she asked, "do you believe me?" and i answered "yes" without knowing. (perhaps it wasnt me who answered!)

i grew quiet. my mind was racing. it was listing all the things i would need before i could even think of being a pastor. and i thought of the "holiday at the sea" i've been missing for all these years. (how much more tragic it becomes when i know i'm missing it!)

i read about the holiday at sea while biting into my breakfast.

and i know (for how many times have we been reminded?) that He doesn't need those who are qualified, he just needs those who are willing. (what a shame it is when such profound truths are packaged and regurgitated in redudant cliche cute-and-catchy phrases!) but even as i remind myself of this, my logical brain cuts into the conversation (we argue quite a bit) and yells, "but surely you at least need this!"

and he is right, an ounce of discipline would indeed be helpful, at the very least.

the past year or more i've felt myself of the edge of something great, something big, something other, something beyond me. i can't explain, for a large part of this feeling is exactly that, the inability to explain. i've been on the verge of jumping off the edge into my holiday...the verge of grasping just a small part, just the beginning, just a corner of this world beyond me. but it seems as though noname is always right behind me, breathing down my neck, gripping me by the collar, so subtlely pulling me back to the here and now and tangible and comfortable.

and now i'm on the verge of a life calling, wondering what it will be and what it will bring. and i'm willing. at least i think i'm willing. and if that's what He needs then so be it. let's go. i'm ready when You are. no i'm not. i'm not ready. but we could at least take it one day at a time. and i may not always believe it. and i may not always believe in myself, either. but i'd like to try.

is that ok? is that enough?

heard in history class, which has caused me to think for the past 24 hours:

prof: "being a christian isn't easy?"
student: "nowadays it is, and i dont believe it should be."

read in history class, closely related:

"Good will triumph over evil. All you and I must do is suffer."

tidbits:

ok, ok, so i know the new template isnt the greatest. i'm not happy about it either. i'm working on it. i think there is a way i can get the old comments back, though, but using the blogger comment system would be easier. we'll see.

today is even warmer and nicer than yesterday, and i am spending every free chance i have outside enjoying it.

i inadvertently forgot to shave all week and am now working on something close to a beard. i'm tempted to keep going with it. it's pretty darn ugly.

frenchy bought two goldfish last week. he named one 'fish' and one 'headwound.' incidentally, the one named headwound had a really bad and ugly white fleshy headwound. it was getting worse and worse, so french decided to put him out of misery last night. he put him in the toilet and gave him lots of food as his last meal, then flushed him into oblivion. we'll miss you headwound...i was just getting to know you...it was too soon.

i saw anathallo last night. and wow. one of the most amazing concert experiences i've attended, ranking up there with mewithoutyou and unwed sailor and explosions in the sky yes even the old worshipful five iron frenzy shows. they are pretty great and i encourage you to check them out and support them because they deserve it. i said some more about them a little more eloquently on my taylor blog if youre interested.

go eagles.

all for now. have a good weekend.

aaaaahhhhhh!!!!!!!!!!!!
i needed a change and i bit the bullet and changed my template. i think i regret it already. and my old template isnt offered anymore so i lost it forever.
i didnt realize changing would cause me to lose all my comments and the counter, which in turn makes me lose all bragging rights and sense of pride i've accumulated.
a few more changes to come.

it's a glorious day! it's in the 40's and it feels like it's in the 80's! so now all this crusty stale snow will finally melt! and i don't have to wear my stupid winter coat! hooray! spring is coming!

we just finished out first book (how christian faith can sustatin the life of the mind, richard hughes) in honors history. wow, one week down and one book down. it was a very liberating and encouraging book.

"Parker Palmer, for example, argues that the notion of paradox is fundamental to good teaching. Palmer cites Niels Bohr, the Nobel Prize-winning physicist who observed that 'the opposite of a true statement is a false statement, but the opposite of a profound truth can be another profound truth.' Palmer laments the fact that most teachers - indeed, most westerners in general - tend to think the world apart into true/false, black/white, good/bad, or sacred/secular, and to isolate profound truths in these and other kinds of airtight compartments. In contrast, Palmer suggests that good teachers will hold profound truths in paradoxical tension, even when the pressure is great to think them apart. When we hold profound truths in paradoxical tension, Palmer believes, we and our students can benefit from questions and insights that would be impossible to discern if we confined ourselves to binary categories."

oh and there's so much more!

not sure what this weekend holds. anathallo? hotel rwanda? tons of reading? have a good one.

- we invite diversity into our community not because it is politically correct but because diverse viewpoints are demanded by the manifold mysteries of great things.
- we embrace ambiguity not because we are confused or indecisive but because we understand the inadequacy of our concepts to embrace the vastness of things.
- we welcome creative conflict not because we are angry or hostile but because conflict is required to correct our biases and prejudices about the nature of great things.

(parker palmer, the courage to teach)

TOP 10 FILMS OF 2004

ok, so neville is pressuring me to do this. i counted, and from what i can remember, i've only seen 18 2004 movies, which is actually surprising and impressive, for me. but even though that's a lot, it's not exactly very much to base a top ten list off of. and i'm probably forgetting a few, too. but here are my top ten, and i'm sorry, but they are in no particular order!!!!

passion of the christ - it's had its ups and downs and goods and bads and pros and cons, but in the end it was a powerful movie for me and i admire mel gibson and the guts he had to take on this project. i think it was a very personal thing for him and i like that. and it was beautifully done.

mean girls - i labeled this as the first popular movie i liked since finding nemo. and that's true. it was actually funny and enjoyable and intelligent all at the same time.

super size me - it was funny and it raised good questions. i thought it was fair. the only times it was propaganda, it was clear that he was doing it for the sake of funny propaganda. does that make sense? i dug it. a lot.

napoleon dynamite - what's not to like? besides the people that wont stop quoting it, of course.

garden state - the first time i watched i laughed a lot and thought it was an impressive film but it sparked no emotion from me. the second time i watched it i thought it was terribly cliche and forced and i hated it. the third time i watched it i liked it a lot again and decided the second time i watched it was poor watching conditions. so it's a good movie but nothing too moving for me, personally.

coffee and cigarettes - if these were in order, this would be top 5. maybe even top 3. i'm 99% sure that i dont like this simply because everyone else doesnt. i really genuinely enjoyed it. it was awkward and funny and sure the acting was bad but i still thought it was a gem and a half.

eternal sunshine - i just finished watching this, actually. it was pretty dang incredibly genius. yeah, very genius. very very genius. im still thinking about how genius it was.

finding neverland - beautiful. "i dont think little boys should be put to bed, because when they are, they wake up another day older." or something like that. imagination and story and beauty beauty beauty.

spanglish - i was partial to this one because it struck me personally. however, i dont think adam sandler is a believable middle-aged father. but yeah, its struck me personally and i liked it.

the life aquatic - even though this is the last movie it doesnt mean it was my #1 pick. i laughed a lot and thought it was another beautifully done anderson film. i thought the humor was more accessible. wilem defoe was hilarious. so was the three-legged dog. and the shoot-out scenes are some of the funniest scenes i've ever seen in film and i'm not exaggerating on that one. and the submarine scene is one of those beautiful emotional anderson scenes, like when ben stiller says "it's been a rough year, dad" in the royal tennenbaums (which gets me right "here" everytime).

i realize my reviews are lame here, so, sorry neville. but i hope this suffices for everyone.

if i watched saved again, that might make an appearance. i need to see motorcycle diaries and hotel rwanda. and lots of others. i didnt see the incredibles. im embarassed to admit it, but i liked the notebook a lot. dont tell anyone.

TOP TEN ALBUMS OF 2004!!!!!

i didn't buy 10 albums in 2004. it was a slow year in music for me. and i have a feeling they will only get slower from here on out. there are only five albums worth mentioning:

sufjan stevens - seven swans
iron and wine - our endless numbered days
pedro the lion - achilles heel
brandtson - send us a signal
mewithoutyou - catch for us the foxes

albums not worth mentioning, for which i would like my money back: denison's river bends, further seems forever's hide nothing, among others.