To steal and kill and destroy

I am more angry at patriocentricity than I have ever been, triggered by what might seem like a small thing. Tonight I stupidly, at the end of a long and stressful day, took a look at a few patriocentric websites that I hadn't been around in a while. As a result, I missed being able to really talk to my best friend [who I've been almost too busy to talk to the last few days]. I was engaged in becoming rapidly more upset and depressed by the sanctimonious blather of people who recommend a recent anti-feminist film ['The First Blast of the Trumpet against the Monstrous Regiment of Women', by the Brothers Gunn] as excellent material to show to girls in pregnancy crisis centers, who are so hard up for something to criticize that they lambast the recent film about that gal who lost her arm to a shark a few years ago [and happens to share my name] as not being distinctively Christian and promoting personal fulfillment [and even manage to get in a knock against long-haired guys in the same post! What depth! What virtuosity!], who say that girls who declare they 'don't like pink' and 'aren't girly' are actually insecure, competitive for boys' affections, intent on covering up their own social awkwardness or lack of beauty, and generally feel superior *, who ......you get the idea.

* For the record, I have often declared that I don't like pink, am not a 'girly girl', don't like feminine High Drama, detest sewing, am proudly willing to shoot and clean a wild rabbit with my bare hands, and otherwise done my best to distance myself from my perception of the fluffy-headed female. Apparently half the rest of the female population of the world is bent on doing the same thing. And it is no longer socially acceptable [in patrio circles] to be proud of who you are, just as in less conservative circles it is ONLY socially acceptable to be proud of who you are.

So I'm no longer original, just feministic. And bitter. And insecure. And proud. And to heck with it, because I will not change for the anti-feminists. They can just TAKE my quirks and geekiness [they'd say they don't give a hoot, I'M the one who will have to deal with people disliking my contrived unoriginality!]
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To conclude this little anecdote, I wound up so rattled by the anti-feminists that my distant-time-zone friend was forced to retire by the lateness of the hour and my steadfastly terse responses. Ah, small thing, but it shocked me to my senses, a bit......I became first miserable that I'd missed talking with someone I deeply care for and hadn't been able to talk with in longer than I'd like, and then enraged. 

Enraged because this is only the latest small event to convince me that patriocentricity, legalism, and faithless 'religion' will steal everything I have. Friends, college, happiness, love, enthusiasm, peace. And Jesus. [On that note, just about all of Galatians is applicable....] 

Friends, rather stereotypically, because you can't trust someone if you are convinced they are bent on leading you astray. 

College [self explanatory].

Happiness [also self explanatory].

Enthusiasm and peace, ditto. 

And love. Patriocentricity, for all its grand words, is NOT about loving your husband or anyone else, least of all God. I had rather a shocking, though not unexpected, thing said to me recently. In essence, that the worst thing this person could imagine was that his future wife might someday succumb to patriocentricity in its most extreme form. And that he wouldn't WANT her to.

Surprising, no? [Or maybe not.] Isn't the stereotype of conservative homeschooled Christian men that they [secretly or not] want a wife who is bent on 'generational faithfulness' and Submission to Men in General [including the woman's own younger brothers] and being a 'keeper at home' [to the exclusion of all else] and fulfilling her 'dominion calling' and remaining silent in the churches and being MEEK AND QUIET and steadfastly refusing to be an equal. 

Stereotype or no, accurate or no, I think I've encountered a specimen of that rare species, the Non Patriocentric Man.

---------------

But I got a bit off topic. I am angry at patriocentricity and its associated cadre of legalism. Remember that passage in John about how 'The thief comes only to steal and kill and destroy'? *   That's patriocentricity for you.......to steal joy, kill love, and destroy hearts. 

* Remember too the rest of the verse, spoken by Jesus Christ:  'but I am come that they might have life, and have it to the full'. 

Really, all this ferocious rhetoric is partly a cover for the fact that I am still a very scared person. And sometimes being angry is a good way to shake off despair. 

And as a reminder, down in print, that patriocentricity holds nothing good for me. 

Things of note, Take 3

Wellwell. I have, since I last posted, gone on holiday, started work, stayed up til four in the morning at a sleepover, and taken [am taking] a week-long film class. Epic times all round :)

First a quick catch-up on those things, then to the Serious Topic of today's post, heh heh. Camping was awesome....mountains in Eastern Oregon. Swimming in the lake, a day-trip south to Crack in the Ground, talking about dealing with bears, relaxing around the campfire, smoking oneself over the campfire in attempts to keep the mosquitoes off, smoking one's tortillas in the campfire in attempts to melt the cheese, smoking the cheese drippings in the fire in attempts to Baffle the Bears, and other merriments passed the time. On the last day, we were waffling to and fro about whether the incoming thunderstorm actually posed a threat of raining on us. The first big drops convinced us...they also convinced me that I needed to swim in the lake one more time. After packing up the tent, a massive and enthused undertaking. I could not be bothered to change into my swimming stuff, but just sorta RAN for the water.....and LEPPED....I came out just as the lightning started...fun times :)

Two days later we headed off to the Oregon Coast for more adventures. My dad and I were not keen on the trip from the get-go. This was enhanced by the cold foggy weather with which the Oregon Coast loves to welcome visitors in summer. We headed up to southern Washington as well, narrowly avoiding driving up to Redmond to check out DigiPen's open house.  The second night we spent in a vastly over-crowded, over-priced, under-resourced campground which was also infested with rabbits [near the quaint town of Cannon Beach, for all y'all Oregonians out there].  My parents said that it had been infested with said rabbits for years....we later discovered one in the town as well, they were INCROACHING.....well. That night, instead of being merely damp, we were rained upon. We were awakened at 3 by what I immediately took to be 'the creek rising', a harkening-back to the innate human [specifically pioneer] fear of things that go swish in the night. [We were, it is helpful to note, encamped on a gravelly patch in the middle of a swamp.]  The noise proved not to be the creek rising to sweep us all into oblivion [one might almost wish it had] but instead the noise of rain hitting the tree leaves above us. Then, of rain hitting the tent.

This would have been all very well had the rain-fly been working properly. As it was, the rain fly had 'popped off down the street for a sandwich half-way through its term of duty' [Muskeg Novel, B.Carlson, 2009].  My feet, bunched against the bottom of the tent, could feel the impact of some of the rain drops on the lower part of the tent....they'd hit the tent and the impact would go through my sleeping bag to my non-sleeping toes...

THEN we heard the ghost. My dad suggested that it might in fact have been a ghost, because it certainly wasn't a person and sounded too big for an animal [at 4 in the morning, at least]. It sounded for all the world as if someone was crunching gravel.....although we had put the tent on the only gravelly spot, in hopes of finding a flat spot. I am convinced it was, in fact, the rain making noise on the tent. Dad joked that it must have been the ghost of Sacagawea [tales of Lewis and Clark infest this part of the North-west...a marker on every stump and overlook. 'Dismal Nitch' was the most memorable name we saw on this trip.]

Come morning, we decided to abandon the tent, which, with its rain-fly sagging because the poles had broken, was sodden and also sandy. In the early hours, rain still misting determinedly, my dad and I rolled up the tent and bundled it down to the trash dumpster. We did not actually put it inside, just sort of left it in a discreet bundle behind said dumpster, should anyone down-on-their-luck find it before the rabbits did.

Once thankfully ensconced in our own house again, I proceeded to the County Fair [where I snarled a lot, and came home remarkably at peace with my world, people and choices].
Other merriments included starting work [a week and a half now, 5 hours every day, delivering surveys via the telephone. Good pay and the best part is, I can READ whilst waiting.].

This week, in addition to working 4-9 PM, I have a filmmaking camp for teens, 9-2. Advanced camera stuff and editing and so on. Very good times [I am the only girl, four geeky guys, but I prefer to think of it more as 'a geek among geeks'. Amusingly, they are all homeschooled and were involved or know of Road to Freedom in some way. Good times.] Yesterday at lunch break we pottered round the dumpster back of the school, had some merriment involving a large branch, then wandered off to Fred Meyer's in search of comestibles. We musta looked like gangstas :)  I adore hanging out with geeky homeschoolers, I haven't actually done that for MONTHS.


Okays on to the forementioned Serious Topic. First let me link to this post on Darcy's excellent blog.  Actually I am just going to link to it and leave ye to draw your own conclusions. A lot of what she mentions, I also went through, to a much lesser extent.

Post # 2 on serious topics

Wellwell. I got a sizable turnout of opinions on my last post, both here on the blog and on Facebook, where my blog posts to as well. On to the next [related] topic. Below is a comment I posted on another blog, which was reviewing the book Before You Meet Prince Charming, by Sarah Mally.  What I wrote below is really more in regards to some other, similar books.
Again, if you haven't read the books mentioned this may not make a lot of sense....I'll try to provide links and so on.  And I know this topic could create a bit of conflict, and people disagreeing with me, I'll take that as it comes.
The comment below was posted on this blog article here:

I was required to read this book, as well as Beautiful Girlhood [by Karen Andreola, I believe? Or edited by her?] and Raising Maidens of Virtue [Stacy McDonald] in my early teens. If anything, these books alienated me somewhat from Christianity, and from the courtship movement, something I deeply regret. Only in the past two years or so have I more fully embraced God and the idea of a courtship-based approach to marriage [and I still consider that the last needs to be carefully handled, a la Josh Harris].

I found myself continually taking issue with the points raised, probably because I felt convicted of my own failings [and of their truth? I'm still not sure].  For a girl who has often been over-fond of the company of boys, almost everything that I read in these books felt as though it was aimed at me.

My mom realized that I would probably never fully embrace all the philosophies in Before You Meet Prince Charming, and sold the book at a homeschool book sale last year, so I unfortunately do not have it to refer to here.   But I remember arguing [in my own head] with the idea that if girls live outside of the home [i.e. college], they will become used to independence and feel stifled when it comes time for them to marry. The idea was that this would be prevented by a girl's living under her father's roof until marriage.
My arguments were 1) that if a girl feels [and probably knows she will feel] 'stifled' by marriage, it is not yet TIME to get married! There comes a time when a woman [or anyone, IMO] becomes lonely with a solitary life, and I think that maybe one cannot appreciate the companionship of marriage without a previous time of 'freedom'. What would be more submissive than a woman entering into a marriage contract when both she and her husband know she is giving up what the world calls freedom FOR this one man?

and 2) that if one is afraid that a girl will become used to feeling independent and enjoy it, how fragile must be the 'benefits' of eschewing that independence! 'The truth needs no strength to sustain it' [probably a mis-quote on my part...]

There is, in all three of the books I mentioned, a concern with girls guarding the hearts of the young men around them, something I heartily endorse. [I personally am enraged at some girls' careless and selfish behavior with young Christian men.] However there is always mention of some behaviors as incorrect or even sinful, which I have indulged in and hope to be innocent.
   The most hurtful thing I ever remember one of my girl friends saying to me was at the age of 12 or so, in a tone of disgust at what she must have thought to be my purposeful attention-getting: 'Bethany, why do you always make such a show of yourself?'   It so happened that at the time I had NO idea I was 'making a show of myself', but it certainly looked that way, I will admit. I was also once nicknamed 'Peacock' for a [short] while. All of this going on in a small Christian homeschool co-op group...  Anyways, my point is that some girls feel horribly offended and hurt if they are told they are trying to get attention. Books [Beautiful Girlhood, which I know is not the topic of this post] often mention girls who 'do their hair in new and daring styles' [that IS a quote, at the time I read that I was about 11 and enjoyed braiding my hair in new styles and so on...I memorized that darn phrase] or are fond of being in town, in negative lights [usually the harlot's-feet-abiding-not-in-her-house comes up].


My other major concern is with the concept of courtship, only as portrayed by Sarah Mally in this book.
Please correct me if I am wrong on this though! :)

At least in the allegorical story which is woven through the book, the Princess finally marries a Prince who approaches her [or rather her FATHER] in the appropriate way, and who is also a courageous and caring young man. BUT BUT BUT...I can recall little or no time with the young couple shown getting to know each other! Did I just miss this? It certainly was not harped upon in the accompanying text. How did they know that they shared the same interests? Ideals? Did they at least know where the other stood on important issues, even if they didn't agree? Just because a person is 'good', even just because they are a strong Christian, does not mean that they will automatically make YOU a good marriage partner.

I do not consider that dating is a good choice for most people, certainly not in any form of 'dating around' just for fun. But on the other hand, surely getting to know members of the opposite gender, however little dating actually performs that task, is preferable to being close friends with NO ONE! I recall now another book [Emotional Purity, by Heather Paulsen I believe] which made the case that it is dangerous to be close friends with anyone of the opposite gender. It referred to 'emotional fornication' which, if I recall correctly, was not lust as we would think of it, but instead the sharing of one's MIND with another person. Having in-depth talks about one's faith were to be avoided. There was something to the effect of, you only want to share your spiritual life with your spouse, isn't it emotional fornication to do anything else?  

My main concern is that young people may wind up marrying each other without knowing each other very well. Sure, they may get better acquainted during courtship and engagement, but isn't it a little late to be finding out important stuff about your significant other at that point?

I am amazed and thankful to find that this view of courtship is not the only one. Josh Harris' is, I think, much better. One of my very close Christian friends ascribes to a courtship ideal which I consider extremely sensible. It involves being very clear with people on where your relationship with them stands, and not dating just for fun. The plan is to be allowed to get to know lots of people very well, but be open and honest with all of them. When you know who the best choice for marriage is, you hopefully already know a LOT about them...and one would hope that one of the first criteria is being compatible in faith, interests, and personality.

It seems that girls who follow some of BYMPC's guidelines will miss out on many good and innocent relationships. Friendships that is.  [for me personally at least. Some girls do connect well with other girls, I tend to have trouble doing so with all but a few. In addition, my scholastic/career interests put me in contact with chiefly guys. While I would hate to appear to undervalue female companionship, I also frequently find it easier to give and receive help in spiritual and faith-based areas with young men.]
I know this is getting long, so I will wind up after just one more [heh heh] personal testimony. Had I followed some of BYMPC and Emotional Purity's guidelines, I am pretty sure I would have missed out on one of my deepest friendships: more importantly, I very well might still be in the fairly lukewarm Christianity that I was a few months ago. Conversing with a young man who deeply loves God helped me in so many ways that I hate to think of the sort of person I was even a few months ago. That provided a sort of springboard to pursuing God more strongly than I have in all my years of being a Christian. While God might very well have opened my heart in other or better ways, the fact remains that whenever purity has been a focus of my friendships with young men, nothing but good has resulted.


Hum. Almost done now. I would like to say that I highly support many of the principles outlined in Sarah Mally's book. Purity before marriage is a very important topic but I feel that this book has some worrying ideas and perhaps fallacies in it.

Things which have bothered the Bethie for a while

I'm trying to think of a catchy first sentence so that people who only see a snippet of this blog somewhere will maybe want to read this post.....


There've been some situations which have arisen in the past few years, as I thought, only because of my on sins and failings. The worst happened the fall I turned 16, which has been almost two years. The questions it raised have been brooding under the surface for a long while. 


In the last week I've become deeply interested in the subject again and have written quantities of comments on other peoples' blogs. I thought it was time to share this stuff with my followers :)  


A few notes: 
1) you will probably not understand a lot of this if you're not familiar with the conservative Christian culture that I grew up with. It's a good culture, I want to make that clear. There are elements in it, however, which I am still trying to decide about. 


2) These elements lie in the patriarchy, or as I now term parts of it the patriocentric, movement. This is fairly common among Christian homeschoolers. 




The opinions below deal with a trend which I tend to sum up as 'The Botkin sisters', only because it was the teaching of those same young women [Anna Sophia and Elizabeth Botkin] which finally pushed me over the edge. The edge of-what, I don't know. 
This movement says that the ONLY way to be a godly woman is to follow their ideal of women living in their parents' home until marriage, not pursuing a 'career' outside of the home, and in almost ALL cases not going to college: at least not in a traditional on-campus way. 
The best way I can describe their philosophy is to refer you to their website: Visionary Daughters  Their film, Return of the Daughters, created a fair bit of controversy. I watched it in the fall of '08. 


Here is a comment I posted on a lengthy discussion at this website:


  I'm almost 18. Two years ago I watched Return of the Daughters as per my mom's desire and it was the most hurtful and disturbing message I can remember hearing [which may only say that I've been sheltered, but oh well]. 
At the time I had just spent the summer directing, filming and editing a movie with some homeschool friends. I was also in the early stages of planning another, more ambitious film project to be made over the course of the next year with my [at the time] homeschool co-op group. 


There were a few phrases which I remember still [after one viewing]. Voddie Baucham's daughter's testimony for one. I recall that she said she had previously planned to be a film-maker. After being convicted, she decided to stay home. It was not obvious, and I believe not the case, that this was after she became a Christian: it did not seem to imply that she was aspiring to be a secular film-maker and thus it was her Christianity that convicted her...rather that she, like me, was already a Christian but then found that it was wrong to do so.  [Erh, is this making sense? anyways...]


The other thing was [I think] one of the Botkin sisters stating that 'we are not all at home pursuing our own selfish interests'.  I was able to make 'selfish interests' into anything that I enjoyed. This may not have been what was meant, but for an over-emotional teen, it was painful. In someone a little more zealous and with a little less sense of humor, I can easily imagine it leading to self-destructive behaviors. 


A little background here. I've been homeschooled all my life until last year, when I took a few classes at a local high school. I am an only child and a perfectionist. Until I became more comfortable with who I am [ergh. That does sound like secular psychology doesn't it...] I struggled with extreme perfectionism in all aspects of my life, especially scholastically. 


Some books which my mom also required that I read influenced me in a similar way [Raising Maidens of Virtue, Beautiful Girlhood and to a lesser degree Before You Meet Prince Charming.....the first is also by Stacy McDonald] but RotD hit me hard where I felt it...I was feeling pretty good about myself after finishing making that film, excited about the possibilities of the next one, and happy about my life in general. Probably self-satisfied. 


I cried harder after watching RotD than I ever remember doing before or since. And the thing was, it wouldn't have affected me if I hadn't felt in some way convicted by it. Convicted enough to hate myself, not convicted enough to change......which is right there an unpleasant place to be. 


For a while that fall, I seriously considered scratching the idea of making my next film. In the end I went forward with it, because 'I hated to back out on my friends'...it was really because I still wanted to continue with it.  A year and a half later, my film Road to Freedom was shown at a local film festival after favorable reviews on the festival's blog. [It was a historical fiction work, set in the American Revolution.]   I cannot say that anyone has come to Christ because of that film. On the other hand, a lot of homeschool teenagers were involved in various ways and made friendships and had experiences that have lasted up til now. 


I did send an email to the Botkin sisters soon after watching their film, with a lot of questions and concerns. They never replied, I don't know if it was because of sheer volume of responses or just them getting the feeling that despite my polite phrasing I was angry and maybe not wanting to hear the truth as they saw it. 


I haven't read Passionate Housewives. I fear that it would cause further self-criticism on my part...
In perhaps the unusual place of being extremely self motivated, fairly hard-working, and so on, I often feel upset by calls by Christians to do more, harder things in all areas. I am the sort of person who will work tirelessly for something she believes in...the same thing happens with school...top grades, and yet my parents keep pressing for MORE. [Incidentally, this is becoming a rant....I'm sorry.] That sort of thing hurts. 


Also the college issue! I am grateful that I no longer am very much affected by the no-college movement, because if I were the decisions would wrack my world [not to get too dramatic :P ]  Actually when I watched RotD I was not really planning on collegebecause I just didn't want to do [I wanted to be an organic farmer and housewife at the time...] but there is a difference between not wanting to do something, and being told that you shouldn't. Sin nature I guess. Well that riled me...I know the Botkin sisters have publicly stated that they do not say that all women who go to college are harlots. In the very next sentence [somewhere on visionarydaughters.com] they turn around and bring out a Bible verse about a harlot's feet 'abiding not in her house'. This seems to me like making the Bible say what they believe...except for the fact that the Bible is talking about a harlot there! Not someone who leaves her house! All harlots leave the house --> all women who leave the house must be harlots. Classic fallacy there...wish I could remember the name of that one! :P 
Yes well college. Now I am planning on majoring in Computer Science in college. I am even considering attending a very exclusive game design and computer engineering college [funding being the issue]. There is no way they could condone that...if I believed they were right, I would be in even greater distress. 


I think the biggest danger from this movement is actually to the 'good' people. The girls [there are a FEW. Our culture is mostly rather apathetic. As you know.] who really care about doing the right thing, and hear constant reminders to not conform to the world's standards of 'good enough', will be affected.  The pendulum argument, that our culture has swung far enough away from truth that an equal or greater effort in the opposite direction is needed, is very true I think. However it is very hard on the people who ARE trying. Even as I'm typing this I find myself thinking that maybe they are right, maybe I should be doing more and trying harder, and taking less 'me time'. If it weren't for my sense of humor, and some rather large blessings God has given me, I could slide back into self-hate [which I am told is really self-centeredness. So I am selfish...and I hate the thought of being selfish...and that means I hate myself which means...okay, finishing now.] 




I'm going to wind up this insanely long post which will probably never be read. Thank you, to those of you who discoursed reasonably and in a Christ-seeking way, on this issue. If I hadn't found this and related sites, I might never have known that there are not-feminists and not-Botkins. 
And in excuse or explanation for this post which is horribly much about me, thank you for listening to that too. This is an issue which has bubbled under the surface in life-shaping ways for the past three or four years and I may have finally gotten it out of my system. 


And can I just say as a word of encouragement to any young women out there who are having difficulty being the 'Proverbs 31 woman', you may be closer than you think, despite the Botkin sisters' recent post on how unpleasant many unmarried women are [...I guess I still feel hurt and angered by them...rats.  http://visionarydaughters.com/2010/07/why-am-i-not-married  ]
No matter how much you fault yourself, or feel convicted by others, chances are other people look up to you. We are all our own worse villain. Don't stop striving...but don't kill yourself in the process. 


Thanks all, and blessings. 








There's more, a LOT more, but I won't post it now. Just got back from a camping trip which was AWESOME. Take care y'all, I'll be around in a few days. 

CGDC update #1

We've been having some epic techie times here. Wednesday prep for filming at daVinci Days, with top-of-the-line video equipment, today up to CGDC in Portland [Christian Game Developers' Conference]: AWESOME stuff! Tonight the FLL workshop on the other side of Portland, I got ENTHUSED.....tomorrow more CGDC conference, then Saturday and Sunday home to Corvallis for the best science and innovation festival in Oregon: daVinci Days, where I'll be filming with CCAT TV studio all weekend, and Saturday I'll be with Eagle Cybertechnology and Spartan Robotics FIRST robotics teams at the local-team demo. Hope to see y'all there!!

And I am pretty much convinced that DigiPen Institute of Technology is the place for me. There have been some amazing opportunities lining up in the last few weeks: starting out with a new FLL recruit mentioning that his dad is the leader of the CGDC and is heading to the workshop this weekend, then us getting to attend the workshop, then the speaker on 'Women in Game Design', then the awesome contact we made with a graduate from DigiPen whose WIFE is the admissions officer at DigiPen.....

Spent a few hours this evening talking with this DigiPen graduate. He is enthused about the town [safe, a bit outside of Seattle WA], the school [TOP professors, lots of core classes], and the general education [I was worried about game programming being too specialized: it now appears that anyone who graduates from DigiPen will be overqualified to do just about anything else: they 'get lazy' and go to work for Microsoft developing big-name programs and all. In short, four years of pure insanity and then--you're MADE. [Oh and still mad, but that's collateral.]

Not sure at this point which degree to go for. The contact [Joseph Vasquez] is massively enthused [......] that I could become the first woman to get the degree [recently added] in Computer Engineering....still wavering between that and RTIS [more programming-oriented].

We also got the very interesting story behind DigiPen: a Lebanese man got snuck onto a college campus, got caught, said he was there to apply, passed the test and went on to take 19 years of college. DoD work in 3d [hush-hush, blowing things up..] then got ties with Nintendo....DigiPen shares a building with Nintendo....anyways companies were going round to all the big engineering colleges who pooh-poohed their efforts to find game developers. And DigiPen was born.... ;)
First a Lebanese immigrant....Now it might have someone who is failing to get her high school diploma from Lebanon High School, Oregon, in order to complement her insane test scores and mad skillz.....not to pitch myself too high. But I have to sell my skills or no-one will believe I can do anything....

I blame FIRST for all of this, just for the record :)

Lost within my own mind

and that's the best place to be, I guess.

Happy Independence Day, everyone.

I've started writing again, a lot. JulNoWriMo. You'll remember that last November I did NaNoWriMo [National Novel Writing Month] and came up just short of the 50 thousand words in one month. But for those of us who are truly crazy, there is NaNo in July. I'm actually almost on top of my word count, but it's just a few days in. On the other hand I have way more time in summer. Or I like to think so. July is gonna be killer.

Last night I went to a rather splendid performance by the local AAA Theatre....you may remember my posts about their awesome amateur shows last summer, and at Christmas.

Today we had lunch with my grandmother, and then tooled around home until evening. Then my dad and I went into town to Red White and Blues festival....lots of good rock, blues, and etc music and other fun times downtown.


I am angry and feeling sorry for myself. I am trying to accept the fact that there is not really anyone in this town who cared enough about me to want to spend the 4th of July with me. And that's not entirely true, a few people were already busy.

The best thing to do is obviously make peace with this fact and even...embrace it. I can be the lone wolf when I need to. In fact, I tend to work better alone. If I have a job to do, no matter what it is, I am usually happy. And useful. I can do that again. Get through the summer and come September, there will be something to occupy every minute. Make the good grades, keep the FLL teams enthused, get the funding for our FRC team, get the scholarships, get admitted to DigiPen Institute of Technology.



And-
I was all depressed and now I'm not. Yeah, I definitely just talked about God to one of my friends for about two hours. I can only say I'm thankful....that God can use me. That I can still help. That He makes things work out all right in the end.

It's a new day now, early on the morning of July 5th.

Raw

Well this post is the result of a few comments, and then also the fact that I ate a--nevermind.

So yeah, raw food. I haven't really done much with a raw-food diet, but I adore eating raw stuff. Milk for instance. I don't feel like going into a detailed discussion of the raw-milk question. Suffice it to say that I drank raw milk at every opportunity when I was in California. LEGAL there....the government has no right to regulate whether or not people can sell raw milk. Nor does it have any right to regulate what milk producers can say: if it's true, they should be allowed to say it.

This issue is to do with artificial bovine growth hormone. rBGH has been shown to be harmful to cows [causing mastitis and other problems] and humans. Linked with cancer, in fact, because of its mimicking of human growth hormone.  As a result of people wanting milk from cows not treated with rBGH, many producers label their milk as 'rBGH-free'. The government, lobbied by the big-milk industry, wants to outlaw this.

Why?

It would 'cast doubt in consumers' minds on the safety of milk NOT labeled'.  Cast doubt.
Would be unfair to producers using rBGH.

The same thing happened with a beef producer who wanted to test all their cows for BSE [mad cow disease]. ALL their cows...and label the meat as tested...and the industry wouldn't let them, because it would cast doubt on the safety of meat NOT labeled. Only a tiny percentage of cattle are tested for BSE.



And then this evening I randomly decided to eat a raw egg yolk. In my defense the egg was JUST in from the henhouse and still a bit warm. It was sitting on the counter waiting to be made into esoteric pasta sauce....it looked yummy....well I took and cracked it, and picked the yolk out in my hand....and SCHLOOP.  :D  I was kinda nervous bout the taste, I am not keen on underdone eggs....and I sorta cheated, I mostly just gulped it down.   :D  Then proceeded to gross out my friends with the tale...hehe.

I can expound on why the danger of salmonella from my hens' eggs is negligible. Way I hear it, [and I practically have my doctorate in this sort of stuff...] hens that are raised in confinement, as in commercial egg production, are too much protected from bacteria. The salmonella bacterium, according to my Culinary Arts teacher, is very weak: it dies out when it competes with the Mostly Harmless bacteria found in farmyards. This is why it's more dangerous to eat store-bought eggs than home-grown, for the most part.



Oh, and stuff like what I just said may be illegal in a few years, enjoy it while you can.

Roses

I hadn't been outside in a while....of course I went outside to deal with the critters, but there was always the feeling of fighting against the weather, which has been very very damp....this evening I had to run outside. It's almost June and the wild roses are blooming. The rain stopped for a while, too. 

Funny how everything can change in a minute. It's happened an awful lot in the last few weeks...few months....scratch that, it's been happening my whole life. 

Lately, there've been horrible things that just sprang on me....and good things. The last two have been good things. As hinted at by the title of this post. 

It's almost June. I think of where I was last June, and where I am now, and I wouldn't go back if I could. No regrets, because in this case there is nothing to regret. 

I could write a poem, except that I don't write poetry when I'm happy. 

I can only say: thank you. God has been good.  I have much to be grateful for. The past few months, I've happier than ever before. 

Treasure every moment. 

The roses are blooming. 

For Inspiration and Recognition of....FIRST.

I am back, and beginning to recover. The last few days have really beat me up, last night I felt like I'd been run over by a truck. It's been good though.

Friday we drove 3.5 hours northeast to The Dalles, little town that defies all attempts to be classified as an Oregon town...actually that whole area does. The Gorge, as it's known. The Columbia River runs through the Gorge, and the wind never stops. Ever.....hehe.

Anyways we got up there around 8:30 that night and established base at Wahtonka High School, wherre next day's goings-on would be held. They put us up in their gym. First though we unloaded the field construction stuff from a trailer that one of the teams [the Scalliwags, Team 1359] had packed up from the Valley. Constructing a robotics playing field is heavy work. There's a heavy roll of carpet around 40 feet long, and numerous bits of plywood, and big ramps and other field elements which require five or six muscular guys to move at all. Well anyway we unloaded the trailed and dumped everything in the lower gym, and unloaded our robots as well [ours can be carried without too much trouble by two gals, the only students from our team who were present].
Lights out [or lack thereof] came around 11. The gals [all 10 of us] were kipped down in the upper gym, while the lads inhabited the Lair known as the weight room. hehe.
I had of course opted for being 'tough' and not bringing a mattress-pad [little roll-up thin thing that tries to keep the floor from being so hard].  This did not go well. We had, in this order: Bethany, sleeping bag, and wood floor. With a pillow near the top end of Bethany. And trenchcoat over top, to keep out the lights which were most definitely not 'out'.

I did not sleep well. Woke at intervals....probably at least 6 times before the 6:15 AM rise-and-fail-to-shine. Next order of business was assembling the field...and getting our robot to work. Trouble with the router and frequency of the signal. A bit scary for me, because I realized that NEXT year I am going to have to learn all that stuff. What with the graduating-genius problem and all.

The competition went well. There were various other technology and engineering events set up at the school too. Turn-out from the public was not astounding, but there were a lot of kids that got a chance to drive-a-robot in the afternoon...it was splendid to see these students being pulled into FIRST at a young age. I was filming the whole time, from the upper level. Zoomed way down, occasionally, during a match....when our team had a guest driver....some hapless youngster from the audience, who is smiling as he pilots a 120 lb. robot....never knowing what he has gotten himself into. In three years he will be on a FRC team, spending late nights at the lab, or loaning out his closet so the team actually has a space to work on the robot in, or staying up all night writing essays.  

  And as I watched, I grinned...the smile that a few of my compatriots know and fear...known as 'Uh oh. Bethany has her evil face on.'  Another generation of young people hooked on the most world-changing drug on the market, FIRST Robotics.
   Fifteen years down the road, someone will explore deep space or get a little closer to a cure for cancer, and they will make a grant to FIRST, because [as they will tell my news organization in a closely-followed press conference], a program that Dean Kamen started in the wilds of New Hampshire inspired them. Gave them the tools and the motivation they needed. Do the math, change the world.



Wellwell. After that bit of inspiration....tear-down of the field after competition went well. Pretty fast. I left the camera on tripod and got some amusing footage of about ten people, including myself, rolling up the carpet. Good times. Then about a dozen people hefted the carpet and moved it out to the trailer. Lots of plywood moving and so on. I am tough enough to get injured and not mention it at the time, but proud enough of my toughness to swagger around LATER with pride. I didn't know the edges of plywood could cut up your wrists that bad...anyways. Drove back home and slept a lot of the way. By the time I was home [round 8:30] yesterday evening, I was sore all over. From yoga on Thursday...sleeping on the floor on Friday...and transporting/being bruised by heaving bits of equipment. Got into the shower....then bed....SNOZZZ. I was in bed by 10 and did not wake again until morning, nor did I get up until almost noon. It was epic.

Hm what else. Several of the many high schools in the area had prom last night and there are pics all over my friends' Facebook pages. I had a small epiphany: I didn't want to go. Sure, the gals are gorgeous in their dresses, sure their boyfriends look nice, sure they all had a great time....but I wouldn't have. You may make discreet mention of sour grapes but that is not entirely it, maybe I might have wanted to go, but just now I realized I didn't want to. I hate getting dressed up and worrying about making my hair look different than it usually does. And I do not enjoy standing around trying to make conversation or else risk looking like a snob. Because let's face it, I do look good, I do have poise, I do talk like a Harvard English professor [I think]. When I'm not comfortable, BAM [or BAND? but there's nobody here, now, who knows about that...] I turn silent. And BAM people are scared of me. That's not the way I want it to be. I should work on changing that. It is not being helped by angsty blog posts.

   But anyway, I am happier having my wrists cut up by plywood, and trying to show myself that I'm as strong as any guy [doesn't work], and racing around with a video camera, and hauling heavy items in company with an army of sweaty geeks. Happier there than I would be anywhere I had to worry about looking nice and showering and doing my hair and so on. Never thought I would be a tomboy. I still don't think I am, I just like to pretend to be tougher-than-thou.

Now I turn on my LaCie external hard drive, feel its rough-polished aluminum whir to life. It's going to be a long day on the editing floor.

wanderings on the dark side

We been having crazy times [when do I NOT say that....], even more than usual. Lotsa techie stuff.
Things pile up, things fall apart.  Plans for the Europe trip are off: in the last week or so circumstances conspired against the plan. Volcano in Iceland not going away, mom's health and treatments, dad's employment, and now my school situation.

   [Tuesday] I was given a note during math class, telling me to come to the office after class. I went down accordingly [remember the counseling office that I got so familiar with last fall whilst figuring out classes?] and found it full of geeks wondering what was going on. It developed that we had all signed up for computer science/programming for next year. Turns out there will NOT be any programming or CS offered next year at this high school.
   Time for a rant. This is disgraceful. My town is arguably one of the most technology-oriented in the area. The two biggest employers in the area are Hewlett Packard and the best engineering university in the state. Our area has the strongest high school robotics community in the state: people from other areas say they wish they had anywhere near the community and support that we do. The local 6 teams regularly are some the strongest at Regionals, chiefly because of the support from the university [mentors and such] and local tech/engineering businesses.  Now the biggest high school in the area is cutting their advanced computer classes.
   Computer programming/advanced computer skills are an absolute requisite in today's world. Sure, some people can learn those skills on their own.....but why are those same skills any less important than courses high schools would never think of dropping, like math or history. We hear every day that the US is losing its competitive edge in the technology market. If students do not have access to quality instruction in techie stuff, how can we be surprised at this?

  Women in technology: another rant.  I am not a feminist. But I do believe that girls should have every chance that boys do when it comes to choosing a career, if they decide to do so. In the last few days I have had a few conversations that have to bear on this.  The programming teacher from last year at CHS is a woman...here's part of an email responding to my query about the programming class: 


 "There are way too few of us in the industry, and employers are screaming for female employees in computer science/engineering.  If you want to be in high demand, and believe you enjoy programming, you're thinking pretty smart for a future! Especially when the government employment department is predicting that in 5-10 years the demand for computer science/engineering employees is going to be 70% higher than currently.  More so for women, too."

 Part of this is because of affirmative-action type stuff that involves quotas for female employees, I have no doubt. Be that as it may, you are still going to have to be top-tier to get a job in computer science [CS].

   Yesterday I hunted down the teacher who was reputed to teach the computer applications class...turns out that is not happening either, but he mentioned an interesting alternative: tech support.  Every year he has a smallish class of people who help with tech support around the school, from repairing computer operating systems to installing software...no experience necessary.  I paraphrase:   'It's always a good class for girls to take....to not be scared to go into the insides of a computer and tool around in there, because really it's just a bunch of junk, it's nothing to be scared of.  I find it gives them confidence they might otherwise lack; not that it seems like you have a problem with that' [I had all but swaggered into the classroom, wearing classic black and carrying Bag of Holding full of textbooks, and spoke with my characteristic poise: anybody who knows me knows what I'm talking about ;) ]

  Tuesday also.....at the meeting for the advanced computer class, I was one of only two girls in the room. Nevertheless, I was the one able to offer forth info about Autodesk Maya [computer assisted design program].

  I'm primed to become the Mid-Valley's leading robotics geek.....I'm practically on two teams, at meetings for one team I wind up leading the meeting, at the other team I tend to have info on whatever event is being talked about. Beloved laptop in hand, I sit at the center of a web of information. A few taps of the keys, and I can tell you the names of the teams registered for the off-season competition at OSU in two weeks; the possibilities of college credit at the area high schools; the season scores of any robotics team; and any other miscellaneous stuff you might need to know at the time.....

  Of course I also have resources other than purely technical. Contacts for one...I know everybody everywhere, or at least I'm working towards that goal. Theatre, robotics, film-making, I get around.

  Then there are the....skillz. Skills like getting people to do things for me. That sounds creepy doesn't it. It's not really.....I think the deal is that I am so sure that people will do what I want them to [this is usually along the lines of, hiring me as videographer, or helping me scout, or getting me into a class, or trying that take of the movie ONE MORE TIME] that THEY think they want to do it too, and away we go, and everyone is happy.    
  And knowing what's going to happen. I don't make much of this, because it sounds presumptuous [to my ears at least], but it's definitely there.  I knew a lot of the things that were going to happen this year...

    Anyways.

I'm back in black.  The past two months are over. Life moves forward.
  

   Don't die, guys.

No excuses, no regrets

If you do what you want, be prepared to pay for it. There will be consequences.  At the same time, NO REGRETS. If you sinned, know that God can and will forgive you. Don't make excuses. But don't spend the rest of your life in regrets. At the time you did exactly what you wanted. Someway, somehow, it will turn out for the best.
[and no, I don't know all this from experience.]

This goes for things you can't control too. Accept what happened and move on.

No regrets.

Dear dear dear. This is supposed to happen to people in books.

Yeah. My dad's pay got radically cut. We knew he had less classes to teach [and be paid for] than last year, but the new check only came yesterday.

And I was worried about getting a new computer. Now I'm worried about finding a job. The local nursery is not accepting apps.
I'm going to stop by Burger King tomorrow and pick up and app. This is easily the most humiliating moment in my life; I have often said [or thought] that I would rather do almost anything than work in fast-food. It's almost a moral thing, for me. But you do what you have to do.

Last night I was engulfed by a bucket of grapes [free donation from dad's school....do they feel pangs of remorse? Je me le doubt. But anyway...] I had to deal with them then and there or they would turn into wine, blech. With a truly Herculean effort, I made a pot of jelly [syrup, more like] and stuck some grapes in the food dehydrator. Baked a pan of apples, and a squash for the pumpkin pie which even now resides in the oven.

Well....here's to Tech Week which Kendra is enduring.....first snow over at Gwyniver's, and her horse chewed a hole in the stable......Ophelia posted about the horrors of curling irons.....good times all round.

I'm off, folks! I love you guys!

oh boy here it comes....

....some interesting news. Lots. Actually I realized that the following week or two is going to be very, very interesting for me and a few peeps I know.

By tonight/tomorrow I should know if there is going to be a radical change to my year. [Stay tuned!! Major freak-out! Am I crazy??!] By the end of the week I will be seventeen, after an epic party. By the end of next week one of my dear friends will know something very important.

Several of my pals are starting public school for the first time, this week. I, for the first time in seven years, will not be returning to my homeschool co-op group. RenFaire is next weekend [go here for cool pics!]

We live in interesting times, my friends!!

Well with that remark I will leave you to wait, and wonder.....wonder why I'm saying "interesting" so much.....lol....wonder if Dallan and I can actually move the baby grand piano without squashing my toes.....wonder if I can pull off a performance of "Two Tophats" in a month....wonder....?

ciao!