Sunday, December 30, 2007

it should be posted after the test. not before.

apparently when you begin a post on the 19th and then save it, and make a second post on the 20th, and go back and finish your post from the 19th on the 30th, the post that you posted on the 30th shows up before the one on the 20th, as if it were posted on the 19th.

happy new year!

Thursday, December 20, 2007

personality test

since everybody's doing it


Click to view my Personality Profile page

Wednesday, December 19, 2007

it wasn't always fun

a couple weeks ago i went out to lunch with the church staff. it was my very last church staff lunch. *tear* i put in my two-weeks notice as student ministries assistant. so...there you have it. as of tuesday, january 1st, i am no longer an employee of downey first christian church. this was a hard decision, and it took months for me to actually make it. student ministry is something very close to my heart. it's been a big part of my life for a long time now, beginning even when i was a student myself.

all through my childhood i was cared for deeply by people in the church who were passionate about the hearts of children. i remember the day jennifer hoferer gave me a bible. it was the first bible i ever owned, and i can't say i cared much about reading it as a third-grader, but it was always something special to me because it was given to me by someone who i knew loved me. and i still have it tucked away in a box of books in Reed Adamson's warehouse.

denise lafromboise stands out as being someone who led me into ministry by example too. when i think about growing up, my jr. high years are not the years i think about and smile. i did not like who i was or what i looked like, and i took that out on other people. in 8th grade i was a classic bully. i made fun of everyone around me so that i'd feel better about myself (that's a habit that formed so deeply that even in recent years i've struggled to keep it in check). i'm positive i was not easy to love. and denise always had a smile and a kind word for me. that has stuck with me all these years and i'm sure will be something i remember forever.

when i was in high school, i was ministered to by maybe the world's best leaders...doug aldridge, scott martin, and my mom and dad. i am so grateful for doug...for the investment he made in my life. i will never forget the parting gift marty gave me when he left to plant a church. he told doug not to bother with me; that i had an attitude problem and wasn't worth the effort. i am so grateful doug decided to find out for himself. yes, i did have a huge attitude problem. but i am worth the effort. i can't say i know where i'd be or where i wouldn't if i hadn't had doug's influence in my life...but i don't think i would be where i am. i think i would maybe have gone down a much darker road in life.

equally as impactful as being ministered to is ministering alongside other people. i was blessed to work with mike ferrulli and nathan charlton when my title officially became "student ministries assistant" and those were good years (or were they bad? i can't remember). the point is, i learned a lot from all these people, especially those i worked closest with. i learned how to use the things i'm good at, whatever they are, to speak God's love to people. and i learned to be me and make no apologies for who i am. i learned a lot about accountability and unity and the blessing that can come out of having a "common enemy". and now, because of this job i've had for almost five years, there are friendships that exist in my life that are lasting, edifying friendships. and i am so grateful.

i have been so blessed along the road of student ministry. it was a difficult decision to move on...but the time has come. my passion is being drawn to other parts of the world and i'd like to follow it where it goes.

thank you to the countless youth workers, student leaders, staff, band members, and students who have enriched my life.

Thursday, December 13, 2007

maybe barnes and noble will be better

so, i've got this friend at work, adrian. and every shift we work together we both ask each other at least a few major grammar/vocabulary/pronunciation questions regarding each other's native languages (spanish is his)...(english is mine). we seem to both be teaching each other a little bit at a time which is nice because not only is it helping us both to learn, it has become a point of trust on which a friendship is being built. what i mean is, i seem to be unafraid to pronounce things badly in front of him and vice versa, because we both know that we're not going to laugh at each other. i know that if i say something badly he will correct me, with not even a hint of a smirk at my silly-sounding attempt at a word or two. and i have always tried to not crack a smile at the sweetness of when a sentence of his comes out about the same as my 3-year-old niece's sentences come out. that seems like maybe a strange basis for a friendship, but let me tell you there is nothing more comforting than a person that you can trust with your words. especially if those words are brand new to you and you're just figuring out how to put them together. i have found that since i started asking him spanish questions and he started asking me english questions, we've also begun to ask other questions about more important matters, which is really really cool.

anyway...the point is, from what i understand, he's got a spanish-english dictionary at home and that's about it. so i thought it would be nice to buy him some kind of book that will help him with understanding verb conjugation or pronunciation or grammatical rules or whatever...you know, since we've been helping each other learn for a few months now.

now i am not making this up. i did not learn spanish in a class. i learned spanish almost entirely by reading and doing the exercises in this book. it was my primary resource during the first months of my language-learning and alongside a travel-sized spanish-english dictionary given to me by Jason Parks (thanks man!), freetranslation.com, and helpful spanish-speakers in my proximity, that book is why i can conjugate verbs and make sentences in spanish and not sound like a dummy.

i went to borders tonight to try to find something similar written for a spanish-speaker intending to learn english. there was nothing. i was there for about an hour and a half, and i flipped through about twenty different books looking for something as straightforward, clear and well-organized as Vivienne Bey's Spanish Verb Drills. and there was nothing. all the information in every book i picked up was jumbled together in a big mess, or there was not a good pronunciation guide, or, get this, some of the books that included "for non-english speakers" in their titles, were actually written entirely in english. one such book also claimed to make learning our language "easy." yeah. all english. for non-english speakers. that's super easy.

i'm a little discouraged. i hope my problem is that i went to a bookstore that doesn't have the best selection. i'm going to try some other places this week. but i really hope there's something better out there. because i really think adrian would appreciate maybe having a good resource or two at home since he has a desire to learn english.

Wednesday, December 12, 2007

viruses are nasty

I got this e-mail forwarded to me by my mom. So watch out, everybody!



ALERT…ALERT…ALERT…

THIS IS FOR REAL!!!!!

Snopes.com confirms a destructive computer virus:

You should be alert during the next days:

Do not open any message with an attached file called 'Merry Christmas'

with the message "Happy Hollydays" attached regardless of who sent it.

It is a virus that opens as an Open Log Fire

and will burn the whole hard disc in your computer.

This virus will be received from someone who has your e-mail address

in his/her contact list, that is why you should send this e-mail to all

your contacts. It is better to receive this message 25 times than to

receive the virus and open it.

If you receive a mail called 'Merry Christmas', even though sent by a friend, do

not open it, and shut down your computer immediately. This is the worst

virus announced; it has been classified by Microsoft as the most

destructive virus ever.

This virus was discovered by McAfee yesterday, and there is no repair

yet for this kind of virus. This virus simply destroys the Zero Sector

of the Hard Disc, where the vital information is kept.