Monthly Archives: January 2010
memory lane – they’ve done a lot of renovating on this street
i don’t know if it’s amusing, impressive, or scary how easy it is to do a facelift of your personal history. our brains are capable of a makeover so effective that we forget the “before” pictures ever existed and move forward in life with a new reality. i’m not referring to coping with trauma. i’m talking about the details of an event or period of time that we wish were just a little bit different. so often those details get airbrushed in our minds, just enough to take the edge off the awkward, insecure, and embarrassing memories. and then there’s the material evidence. sometimes snapshots of these moments facilitate the fib (“look how happy i am smiling at that <awful> party.”) and sometimes the photos belie the distorted recollection (“wow, that haircut was not quite as flattering i remembered.”)
for the past few weeks i’ve been scanning a lot of my old photos into flickr, to preserve them before they fade or get lost, but also because browsing and organizing my pictures on the computer is a favorite pastime of mine. (life is just too good not to enjoy the high points again and again.) it seems incomprehensible now, but i don’t have to go back many years to arrive at my pre-digital, 35mm photos. (other than a photography course in college, my photographs processed from film are not the admirably artistic kind – we’re talking disposables and point-and shoot models here.)
in some aspects the photos are an annoyingly accurate record-keeper. there’s no denying the bad perm, buck teeth, or gigantic glasses – photoshop is no help there. but other times photographs are a misleading illusion. and i don’t just mean a funny camera angle. i’m talking about the posed moments created especially for the benefit of the camera – a shiny façade glossed on top of the truth. either way, the pictures always bring a jolting rush of emotion. as i viewed each print, i laughed, i gasped, i awwwed, i sighed, i cringed. i felt happy, sad, excited, irritated, nostalgic, nervous, and loved. i felt whatever i had been feeling at the moment the photo was snapped.
for the most part, i love that emotive response to re-living freeze frames from the past – i’ve led a full, charmed, ambrosial 30 years. but occasionally the scenes roused old insecurities that have lain dormant for a long time. i was instantly transformed from a confident, successful adult into a gawky junior high kid again. this phenomenon of being confronted with buried sentiments reminded me of a question recently posed by my friend laura: to reconnect or not to reconnect? she pondered the emotional effects of renewing lost social ties online, and posited that perhaps we’re all just a little too available. i think i’ve found a response to the question of why social media can make grown adults regress back to teenagers.
nearly a year and a half ago there was an article in the new york times titled brave new world of digital intimacy. (you may have to create a free account with NYT to view the entire piece.) in the article, social psychologists compared the advent of incessant online contact to living in a small town where everyone knows your business. now that we never lose touch with old friends, we are always trapped in that community we grew up in.
“Psychologists and sociologists spent years wondering how humanity would adjust to the anonymity of life in the city…a world of lonely people ripped from their social ties. We now have precisely the opposite problem.“
this “ambient awareness,” where every move is observed and shared, is reminiscent of high school. when you’re constantly aware of your friends’ activities, you tend to compare and measure every accomplishment, good fortune, and exciting event against your own. and with everyone trying mightily to paint a beautiful, exotic, auspicious existence to the online world, it’s easy to feel inadequate.
fortunately, my past teenage anxiety doesn’t stay long enough to even shake off the dust, and i welcome the vast majority of memories and reconnections. but it’s still strange to me how a stroll down memory lane can be as mood altering as the original experience.
read this book – a practical guide to social justice
i absolutely tore through this book last week. and then i read it again to absorb every detail.
Zealous Love is a response to some of the world’s urgent needs in light of Christ’s great love. Through first-hand accounts and up-to-date facts about eight global issues, Zealous Love uniquely provides readers with the information, inspiration, and involvement they crave to personally make a difference in their world.
the book hit the stores earlier this month, and i’d been anticipating it’s release because i know that the executive editors, mike and danae yankoski, always deliver thorough, sincere, relevant work. i pre-ordered it on amazon so that it would be on my doorstep the instant it was published. the title caught my attention because several of the eight concerns that the book addresses are target initiatives of the spero project. i can’t wait to see how spero can integrate the information and ideas into our programs in okc.
the really fantastic thing about this book is that it takes the message beyond education. these pages are truly for anybody who cares about helping others. the real, do-able ideas inside are not the kind of things you’d be inclined to brush off as an assignment for those in full-time ministry. the colorful, inspiring, organized sections guide the reader in how to turn passion into action, both locally and globally. the staggering needs of the world are suddenly less overwhelming when you have direction and focus for your energy.
i was especially impressed with the interactive website for ZealousLove.org. in addition to descriptions of each of the areas of injustice they hope to bring attention to, there is a forum for discussion about each of the topics. organizations and individuals can share motivation, resources, and practical ideas about taking on some of the world’s most pressing challenges: hunger, unclean water, HIV/AIDS, creation degradation, lack of education, economic inequality, refugees, and human trafficking.
Zealous Love offers hope throughout every chapter. hope for the world, hope for the reader. it’s not about being a “Super Christian,” it’s about seeing a need and deciding to do something about it. it’s about making your faith more than just good intentions.
LOL – cherry limeade knockout
in order to enjoy this LOL story from The List, we’re going to work through an unconventional set up process. i think the incident is funniest when visualized in real-time, but so much happened in the matter of approximately 1.2495 seconds, that i’m going to need to explain the details slowly at first. then, once we can all envision the action sequence, we’ll go through it again real fast. okay? great.
so, it was a typical weekday afternoon after high school, and The Boy i was dating had met me at the drive-in joint for what we here in oklahoma refer to as a “coke date” (but you don’t actually have to order a coca-cola, or even a soda for that matter…oh, nevermind).
as we stood on the curb saying our see-ya-laters, sipping on styrofoam cups of fizzy refreshment chilled by perfect ice (some of you know what i mean), The Boy reached in for a goodbye hug. we embraced in the same way that we always fit together: his arms around my waist and mine around his neck.
if you’re keeping track, this placed his drink behind my back. when we pulled away, my arms were moving down toward my sides as his (transporting said beverage) traveled around from behind me, naturally. inevitably, my descending elbow tagged the hand holding the cup and knocked it loose from his grasp. it was presumably still precariously clutched by a few fingers, as evidenced by his lurch forward to attempt a save.
at the same moment that The Boy was lunging toward his falling drink, i comprehended that my elbow was connecting with something foreign and jerked my arm back in the opposite direction. yes, toward his face. which was itself rapidly advancing toward my fist.
my punch connected so solidly with his jaw that his forward momentum was immediately reversed, sending he and his beverage flying in opposite directions. i was left standing there, the lone survivor in the short lived battle, holding my drink in the non-violent hand and my mouth hanging open in surprise.
so let’s replay that without the slo-mo, shall we? are you ready? read as fast as you can: sweet hug…elbowjab-suckerpunch-TKO! to put it in comic book terms, because that’s what the sequence most resembled, would go something like: “aww…BAM! POW! ZAP!”
if you’re wondering, he didn’t dump me after i flattened him with a blindside blow. but now i’m wondering if it’s because he was sweet and understanding, or scared that i would beat him up.
new year, new biz!
welcome, 2010! another new decade is fresh and clean in front of us. although i believe any time is perfect for starting a project, it’s kinda fun to begin the year with a new endeavor: a few months ago i mentioned that i was working on the creation of an official business of my own. i’m happy to announce that i am officially launching Communicate Clearly Language Instruction!
i’ve been freelancing as an English instructor, editor, and writer for several years now, and have recently felt the urge to increase my focus on these side jobs. with the help of an informative website, spiffy new business cards, and a bit of advertising and word-of-mouth, i hope to generate more opportunities to work in the linguistic field i so adore.
this will allow me to professionally offer language training, as well as writing and editing services, on a contractual basis as my schedule allows. i have a few other teachers interested in working for me so i’m developing a vision for expansion already. i’m super excited and invite all of you to click on through and visit the brand new Communicate Clearly web site! feel free to pass the URL along to anyone you think might be interested.
