Letter to the Botkin sisters

[Edit Oct. 2:] Well, it appears this post may be staying up a bit longer after all. No response yet, and indeed I almost hope they don't write back, because I've had a bit too much experience already with their very convincing rhetoric. 





 Here is an email I wrote tonight, to the Botkin sisters. I do not expect a reply: I hope merely that they will be given doubt about the pain they inflict. 
Feel free to copy, link, and so on. 

To the Botkin Sisters;

I wrote to you several years ago, about your film Return of the Daughters. I received no response: now I write again, in hopes of giving you pause to consider the effects of your ministry. It is not my intent to hurt or discourage you. However, I write at least in part out of concern for others who may be struggling with similar issues. I do not want you to continue hurting young women.

For the years between age 12 and 16, I read several books subscribing to ideals similar to yours. When I was 16, I watched RotD as above mentioned. It is fair to say it changed my life. I was in turmoil for several weeks, and came very near abandoning what I then considered must be a 'selfish personal interest' (film-making: I was about to embark on a 6-month historical film project with a crew of friends).   

What I have now come to term patriocentricity (your views, and those of many others) then had very little effect on me til this summer (before I turned 18). I struggled with knowing I could never achieve the standard of perfection espoused in your works. Patriocentricity and related movements are in part responsible for the fact that I came very near abandoning Christianity, for which I am inexpressibly regretful. 

This summer I reexamined the issue at length, and finally came to the decision that I had no call to follow your views. I planned to go to college (majoring in computer science).  

Also, I forgave you and all related 'homeschooling authorities'. I had already dwelt enough on what I perceive the wrongs done by your views, and forgave you and felt no bitterness, at least in part because those views no longer affected me. 

How can I express the freedom I felt. Not just that which came from forgiveness, but also the freedom from legalism, the freedom to view God as loving, first and foremost. I would do anything to be back there again. 

This lasted for about a week. My journey back from freedom has been painful. Now, a month later, I am struggling with self-hatred, self-injury, and depression. You will say that these are the results of realization of sin in my own life: I have no argument to give.

My plans to go to college have also come into serious doubt. I struggle with doubt, because I know almost for a certainty that I will regret whichever choice I make, whether to go to college or not. 

My family and a few friends (all devoted Christians) are convinced that I have fallen afoul of a cult and am laboring under spiritual oppression. In my more lucid moments, sadly far between now, I agree with them. They think that there is no sin in gaining an education by means of attending college, nor in working outside the home. My parents, in particular, are angered because they do not see in your work much, if any, suggestion of how a young woman is to provide income for her family if she is not able to work for her father. Some Christians do live below the poverty line. 

The biggest blow struck against patriocentricity (and you may laugh in private at the name its victims have given this movement), came when it was suggested to me that I look for FRUIT. I did so: in the lives of many of those espousing patriocentricity, I see no love, no compassion for those not 'in God's plan', and none of the forbearance with other believers which we are so clearly called to in the New Testament. 

On the other hand, those people who have rejected patriocentricity, but still embrace Christianity, are some of the most polite, welcoming, and in fact loving people I have come across. They love God deeply. They know that they are helpless without His grace. They are, in fact, desperate for God.  

Reading over this, I almost cannot see why I would reject the freedom and joy that God gave me, in order to follow the laws: Col. 2: 20:

²⁰Since you died with Christ to the basic principles of this world, why, as though you still belonged to it, do you submit to its rules: ²¹"Do not handle! Do not taste! Do not touch!"? ²²These are all destined to perish with use, because they are based on human commands and teachings. ²³Such regulations indeed have an appearance of wisdom, with their self-imposed worship, their false humility and their harsh treatment of the body, but they lack any value in restraining sensual indulgence.

Those 'basic principles' are not the principles of the unbelievers, but of those following 'The Law'. The Law which we are told is not removed, but is also no longer in judgement over us. 

No, indeed I cannot see why I would leave God's freedom. If writing this has brought me any closer to no longer being in bondage to this horror, I thank you.  (And lest you think I am being melodramatic by my use of the word horror, let me explain. Both my father and my best friend think that if I embrace patriocentricity, by which I mean the entire paradigm of your views, I will after a time grow to hate it and leave Christianity as well. I am afraid to my soul's depth of leaving Jesus. So, then, horror.)

My impression has been that you characterize all opposition to your views as 'angry or tearful'.  You may feel free to call me both. 'In rebellion' is another term with which I am familiar. (In other words, please don't think that I am unaware of your opinion of me.) 

You may not, however, state that I am merely a rebellious teenager who is displeased with her parents and enjoys feeling 'oppressed'. My parents are in no way to blame for this. 

In conclusion:

-You may congratulate yourselves (or thank God) for being part of a worldview which has so shaped my life that I am unable to pull myself away from it, and which I also find almost impossible to separate from the Bible.

-You may also take credit for being the single most disturbing influence in my life for the past several years. Or, you may say that I am blaming my sin on you. Fair enough: but consider that no other view, when convicting me of sin, has brought me to this terror. 

-If this has taught me one thing, it is that I never want my children to experience this. I will not teach your views to my children until they are old enough to distinguish the commandments of men from the commandments (two of them, love God and love your neighbor) of God. 

-Please take pause and consider how many other women you have discounted, as objecting to your views because of their sin. 

I do not doubt that some of your mission is, in fact, serving to honor God. If I have hindered anything which God would have you accomplish, I humbly apologize.  Likewise if I have misrepresented your views, I regret the mistake. However I sincerely believe I have correctly interpreted and taken to its logical conclusion, the teachings in your work. 

The previous post...

...no longer applies.
Peace for about a week, and then no more.

And, finally, peace

I think I may have finally found peace. Not that I was ever particularly lacking it, in any but this one area: the struggle against patriocentricity. The few friends who I trust with issues like these, and rather a lot of blog-followers, have patiently listened to and read reams of my discussions about patriocentricity. Some don't really understand why it matters, but some of those people care anyway :)  My hapless dear friend Eva talked about it with me for a solid couple of hours in the small hours of the morning one time. Other friends are willing to talk about it, and nothing else, when needed. Otherwise-unknown people from cyberspace have commented and encouraged and offered hope.

I wrote the following to Hillary McFarland, author of the just-out book Quivering Daughters, and of the blog of the same name. It does a wee bit of a summing-up of today. 

And this is for all of you, thank you :)

Thank you so, so much for everything you do. Today a dear friend, who has patiently undergone hours of discussion about patriocentricity, mentioned fruit....and 'how shall we know Christ's followers'. Showing love to others...that is something I have never, in years of absorbing patriocentric views, seen or felt. In the last month, I found your blog, and others, supporting a far more moderate and loving stance, which I'd never seen before. I had always thought that one was either a feminist/whitewashed version thereof, or a daughter of the patriarchy.
Immediately I was welcomed [by Karen Campbell :)] and reassured. Even then I struggled with doubts, that perhaps this 'acceptance' was merely the acceptance of sin in my own life.

I have asked God so many times to show me the truth in these matters, but so far with no more success than could be explained away by 'my own emotions'. 
My friend's comment about knowing Christ's followers by their love changed that.
I realized that I do not want to join the patriocentrists, do not want to show the fruits that I see in their views, of legalism and a painful lack of love.
I have, on the other hand, seen so much compassion and understanding and love of the Lord in you and others like you. Finally I am accepting that perhaps the struggle I've always felt against patriocentric views was NOT wrong.
Thank you, for showing us that those who disagree with the patriocentric viewpoint need not be 'in rebellion' or any of the other things that we get called, but instead can be loving, conservative, and relying on God's strength.
Blessings on you for your work, and thank you again. :)




I do feel free, now. Finally. The truth shall set you free....can I get an amen, anyone?  Probably these issues will continue to affect me, but just the one fact is different now....'Bethany, do you WANT to be like them?' and the answer, this time, is no.

Please pray that I will in future always look to God's Word, and that alone, for knowledge of right and wrong. In other words......

And please pray that other young women will be spared needless pain and shame. 

I'm getting baptized in a few weeks, on my birthday as a matter of fact. Perhaps it is appropriate that in the past few months I have begun to actively search the Bible and God's will, and at the same time, to weigh the 'biblical' teachings about patriocentricity which have lurked in the background of my life for years. 

Oh, and I'm happy. 

Yet another epic blog post

Going to be two posts in short succession here, I think...First, I found this really good article here on the rather sketchily-named blog, White Washed Feminists. [White-washed feminist is a name invariably used against almost anyone who disagrees with patriocentric views.] The entire article can be found here, on Michael and Debi Pearl's website, No Greater Joy.  I know the Pearls have some rather controversial teachings, I have not read enough of their works to comment at this point :) However, the mere fact that they are willing to address the politically-charged topic of patriocentricity is hugely in their favor, to my mind. The following excerpt does not mention patriocentricity, I don't think the term was even in use when this was written [2008] but it goes right to the heart of the problem....
Without further ado, here are the Pearls of great controversy [:)], on an issue that I, and my mother, and her friends, have seen at large in the homeschooling community.

I am thankful for the testimony of the Foger family as well as other families that have come into our lives. They are a prototype to help us understand the problems that are arising among some older homeschooling families. We call it by different names. Today it is the Cloistered Homeschooled Syndrome. Briefly, it is the failure of the parents to understand, appreciate, and respect the individuality of their adult children. They sacrifice the individual identities of their children on the altar of their own emotional needs, making them nurse when they should be killing and dressing their own food, making them obey when they should be learning to command. They seem to think that grown children are God’s gift to them rather than their gift to God. Through letters and personal contact, we see more and more of this cult-like isolationism, parents demanding absolute allegiance to the family group, and fearing outside contact might break up their “fellowship.” Adult kids who want to launch out on their own are told that they are rebellious and disloyal and are causing grief to those who have nurtured them. Emotionally needy parents manipulate their grown children into remaining loyal to the unit. Thirty-year-old daughters sit at home acting as surrogate mothers, watching their prospects to ever be a mother dwindle…

There was a vacuum, a need for leaders to arise and define what had become a movement, to clarify our journey and give us direction through uncharted waters. First, curriculum was written, then seminars. Sub-movements arose to flesh out the new culture, specialists addressing every conceivable issue—head coverings, dress, doctrine, spanking, scheduled nursing, Kosher foods and Jewish practices, and the list goes on. Books were written, some good, some not so good. Then someone pulled from ancient Chaldean and Sumerian culture, also practiced by Jews of that day as reflected in Scripture, a system of Patriarchal rule. It was the way nomadic clans were held together, a necessity of the times, but never taught by Moses, the prophets, or Christ as God’s divine plan…

It is now become a disease of epic proportions. We call them PDFs, Patriarchal Dysfunctional Families. The children are treated as permanent property of the parents. If they don’t marry, and many of them never have the opportunity, they remain at home as a sort of indentured servant, never rising to the status of an adult, always under authority of the head of the clan, the Patriarch Daddy. Don’t snicker. A lot of kids are hurting. And if you want to see something scary, try to conduct a betrothal with two patriarchal mothers involved. It is uggggly. Daughter sits at home serving the younger children and doing Mama’s chores—waiting for God’s choice. Daddy and Mama hold their merchandise guardedly, waiting for a buyer who never comes.

What is pitiful is the whole process is done in hopes of getting the perfect will of God, but one vital ingredient is missing—encouraging your children to become responsible, autonomous, well educated, and experienced adults as soon as possible. You should have trained your sons to be men by the time they are fifteen, independent by the time they are eighteen. Your daughters should be capable of living apart from the family by the time they are eighteen and should be allowed to make their own life’s decisions somewhere between the ages of eighteen and twenty. Unmarried, grown (18 years old) children may remain at home; it is good if they do; but the parent-child relationship should evolve into an adult-adult relationship by the time they are sixteen to eighteen years old. Parents should have earned the right to give advice, and kids should have grown in wisdom enough to ask for it. But a parent should never invoke his parental authority on a grown kid. It is demeaning to both and akin to not being potty trained.

To teach a student to drive or fly a plane and then always make him be in the company of his parents is degrading. You teach them so they can become independent of you. Whose need is being met when a Father treats a 22-year-old girl like a child, dictating the parameters of her choices?

The glory of a parent is to work himself out of a job, to stand back and see his kids fly solo.

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. 

mid-summer crazy times

Our last week has been filled with trademarked insanity! 

Last Thursday we left at an early hour of the morning for two days in Portland. By 9 AM, when we were supposed to be at the seminar in a northern part of the city, we were well and thoroughly lost in a warren of streets that tended to turn into other streets, change their names, or disappear entirely. 

We kept a harassed eye peeled for a coffee-shop in hopes of wifi, to attempt to further complicate our directions with Google Maps accessed via the trusty laptop. We finally got hold of the conference director who proved to not be from the area, and said he’d call us back. 

The coffee-shop materializes in the guise of the Three Friends, on the corner of 12th Avenue. We eagerly trot inside, toting the laptop [in a discreet bag]. It is a sunny morning, there are patrons sitting outside on the sidewalk and more queueing up inside. I size up the situation and make my way with the unerring female homing-instinct to the restroom at the back of the building. This proves seedy in the extreme: the cloth-towel dispenser is covered with graffiti, but it is artsy Portland graffiti. “Read Days of War, Nights of Love”; “natural pear oil soap” and corresponding website; a lot of similar material. 

I come out and find that Dad is only just now succeeding in gaining the upper hand at the cash register. There is in fact wifi and we set up shop at a table. 

There is a nice collection of velvet-paintings on the wall opposite the bar, including the obligatory likeness of Elvis. The furnishings are done in bright colors and there is just as colorful a selection of patrons: tattoos, former hippy-type greying hair, leather, and so on. 

I am looking up the directions: almost immediately my friend Levi observes that I [unwittingly] came online, and sends me a chat message: I respond with a panicked and indecipherable indication that ‘we’re lostin P-TOWN ack!’

Then the conference director calls back and confirms our now remedied directions. We head off back the way we came, towards the infamous Sandy Blvd. Sandy turns into another street at a critical point. 

We got to the conference without further incident. We were not even late...we headed into the building [on a small Christian college campus] and encountered half a dozen persons of the male persuasion. The gaming community is overwhelmingly male: the game developers’ community, even more so. 

The conference was small, maybe 30 people at any one time. But awesome. The CGDC [Christian Game Developers’ Conference] is going into ten years and there were attendees from all over. Colorado [‘you should seen all the empty bags of pork rinds! It was a long drive!’], Florida, and England. A homeschooling mom who has been working on a game for seven years with a volunteer team. A graduate from DigiPen Institute of Technology in Washington State [I really perked up when I heard that]. 

The conference addressed some issues I/my parents have had with game design as a career choice. Although I would have liked to hear further thoughts on video game addiction. 

But the consensus, which I had also previously come to, was that Christians should respond by becoming involved in the industry, not putting up walls around one area or another. Similar to the film industry. It is not going away, so there is nothing to do but take the chance to change it for the better. And this may not mean making ‘specifically Christian’ video games [or films], but rather games that honor God in the way that the rest of creation does, without a specific message being forced through.  

It seems also that the game design industry is not hostile to Christians. My amazing ESP skills [:P] had already come to this conclusion. Someone said that Hollywood tends towards license, while the game dev. community tends towards anarchy. Something I’d already thought subconsciously. 

The keynote speech finished up with a memorable call to action: ‘We’re giving them the love of Jesus, but it doesn’t look like love, it’s Gears of War and meatcubes....’

There were a lot of technical workshops too. In between those, lunch, and retailing every detail to a long-distance friend, I made contact with the DigiPen graduate. That night in the dorm lobby, whilst there was a large contingent gaming by the monitors, he and I and my dad talked for at least an hour, as recorded in the previous post. Finally Dad and I migrated back to the rooms: I was in hot pursuit of a shower. [This was after we got back from the FLL mentoring workshop, by the way.] Dad left saying he was going up to the lobby: ‘There’s this game I want to try out...’ This coming from my distinctly non-gaming dad. When I meandered back upstairs [hair wet, laptop bag over shoulder, clad in signature black] he was still at it...I collapsed on a couch and updated the ole blog. Conversed with peopleses. Dad was still gaming at 1 AM...he was horrified when I told him what time it was :P

Next day we had more workshops [kicked things off with a talk on getting started in iPhone app programming] and headed for home so as to be back in time for me to make my 5 PM meeting at the daVinci Days grounds, to collect my media pass and so on. 

Saturday was more good times. First thing in the morning I headed off for a meeting of the crew to be filming daVinci Days, our town’s celebration of science, art and innovation. It is a cool place. Well this year in addition to participating in the FIRST Robotics demonstration and scrimmage, I was on the crew from the local community-access TV station, filming the event. It actually worked out so that I was able to film the robotics event myself. 

After that I headed off to the park where the 6 local teams participating in the event were having a barbeque. Hung out with awesome-peoples! Including a New Recruit for our team [courtesy of me] who declared himself remarkably enthused for robotics after the day was over. 

Discussed the glaring lack of any YouTube presence for the epic conga line at regionals: this was declared a shocking omission by all who had been present :D 

Someone had brought some foam and PVC pipe swords and a lot of the lads degenerated into swordplay after lunch...from thence we carpooled over to the competition area. Unloaded my dad's car, which was carrying all the baggage, robot, tools, etc. I was laboring under a few pieces of luggage when two lads from Team 997 came up and toted it all over for us. 

Our team has attended daVInci Days for quite a few years but we've never been this prepared and organized. We forgot to bring a tent for shade, but were able to use a spare one that another team had  ^.^    We trotted forth our awards, a table to display said awards on, and our NASA/team banner, among other things. In addition I had a sizable video camera and massive tripod. There was much use of duct tape, both for setting up our team flag, and for building the competition field [a mammoth undertaking]. 

We played a few rounds of friendly scrimmage more than competition, and our bot was gratifyingly unscathed despite the regional competition and another off-season event. The general public was present and there was an endless line of kids waiting for a turn to drive the robots. Fortunately they did not manage to slam ours too hard into the sides of the field, hehe. 

There was this one epic kid, looked like he was about eleven or twelve, wearing a baseball cap with a tiny solar panel mounted on the top, and a hole cut in the brim with a little fan going through it..he had designed it himself, soldered a few wires together and stuff...he said it didn't work very well...when does it ever work the first time :P  I tell ye, that enthused me no end...

Also I got to rendezvous with some friends from other teams that I don't get to see very often. Good times all round. At one point I was filming from one side of the field, and looked round at the six or so teams behind the drivers' stations and doing MC and watching from the sidelines, and felt an overwhelming affection for these people, half of whom I barely knew. My people....I've said that before...

Various of the students gave their personal FIRST testimonies. Scott, team captain for 997 [the team I went to Championships with: we're really good friends] was talking about the stress and fun of regional competitions. He sez, 

'We get to bed at midnight, and get up at 5 AM,' [he remembers] 'And some of us don't sleep at all.'   [Three things happens at once: he catches my eye, I give an enthused thumbs-up, and Dean [a member of another team, who's doing most of the MC stuff, sees me grinning, remembers how I'd been talking earlier today about no sleep, and pumps his fist in the air in my direction.]   As a friend summed up: 'So, basically, he mentions that SOME people don't sleep, and everyone looks meaningfully at you...'


After the competition most of our team [all three of us...] meandered around daVinci Days. I more or less subsisted on the best BLTs I have ever had in my life, as provided by a local and organic food seller. 


Sunday I worked with CCAT Channel 29 to film some of the music and other events on stage at the festival. That went very well indeed...working a long and intense day with constant attention on a heavy camera but it was good. 


Tuesday my dad and I attended a training session for a part-time job doing phone work before the election. We'll be doing that every day of the week for 3 weeks starting August 9th, and then for 5 weeks in October. The pay is good and I've done the work before, but it is going to be hard to juggle that with school....yeee. 


I have also dealt in grant-request forms, meetings with Important People, and so on and so forth. And college decisions. I'm still wavering between DigiPen and Oregon State U.  
Happy news! We got one of the grants we applied for to go to our FIRST LEGO League teams [for 4th-8th grade students]. Was very enthused to hear that. 
And got to visit/chat/catch up/do the girly squee thing [LOL] with one of my friends who I hadn't seen in WAY too long :)


AND tonight some friends from North Carolina are arriving, passing through on their road trip :D  Yesterday we prepared heroic quantities of foodstuffs for the oncoming hordes [all 6 of them...hehe] and I raced around frantically. Was 'in meetings' all day. Including one with our collaborating partner for the Junior FLL program. 


At one point Mom was on the phone with Grandma, who must have asked what Daddy-o and I were doing: Mum said, 'No, they're scurrying around....' which pretty much summed up our past week. 


Also I am not sure why I feel the compulsion to document each and every incident of my life on this blog. I guess it's the only journal I keep up with at this point. I'm not even going to read over this post for typos, hehe. 

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 :)

inner city

I'm in a coffeehouse downtown...as close as it's possible to get to inner-city, around here. I came into town about three hours ago to ride the free wifi at The Beanery...our wifi was predicting '40 hours' for a software download [CAD program 3ds Max].  Got ensconced in a window seat at The Beanery and it said 1 hour  :)  I also took advantage of the fast connection for some file-sharing with a buddy, and sent a video which would have taken HOURS at home....now I'm uploading the same video to Facebook. This really is a blistering fast connection...

I am finding it remarkably easy to concentrate here, despite the continuous hustle and bustle and coffee-shop noises. Good place to hang out. I was even able to study my alloted two chapters per day of biology. And joked about 'wobbling DNA' with a friend. And offered said friend's sister help with video editing [actually I wasn't much help, but my suggestion worked at least :)  ]

I just migrated over to a wall plug....laptop battery was getting low. This has the added advantage that my back is to the wall and I can overlook the whole place in a suitably imposing manner.

Love my town  :)

Yoyos, fireworks, laptops, nerds, and other strange critters

Hoo boy have I ever been having good times! Busy....very busy.
Before returning the laptop to the studio yesterday, I spent quite a few hours editing the footage from Nationals. Robotics people, and robotics competitions, are so very photogenic! Hours of footage and it is all beautiful. The video is FINALLY getting close to finished.

Friday after returning the laptop we hustled out to school to collect the robot and batteries and so on.  That evening I scooted off to spend the evening at Eva's and go to the Philomath Frolic and Rodeo with her family. That was epic good times. I felt like I really hadn't seen any friends in way too long. Eva has a large and chaotic family and we all [minus two boys, and plus her sister's boyfriend, and the dog] were in the kitchen cooking dinner  :D Good times.   Then it was off to the rodeo, which was also great fun. I convinced Eva that she should to to Wyoming and get herself a cowboy :D  And a really nice fireworks show. I was told it was much better than the 4th of July show in C-town...glad I went to this instead.

Got home late and woke in less than six hours this morning, to head off to the Philomath Frolic parade. Our robotics team was there, and 997 [the team I traveled to Atlanta with] and 847 [the epically enthused team from Philomath]. We had a float, from which the robots were driven. Lots of waiting around and joking and talkin' nerd-talk. At one point there was a circle of guys standing around talking bout bacon-wrapped bacon...and then I looked over and saw one of the guys [code monkey AKA programmer] having a little spaz attack: and said, 'Eehee! I look over and Paul's randomly spazzing!' which another team member met with 'That's just Paul...he randomly spazzes...'.

 Then another group of awesome-people was discussing yo-yos. One of the students, 847's driver in fact, took out a rather awesome yo-yo and then told us about a prank rather well-known in the yo-yo community ['Where does the yo-yo community and the FIRST community intersect?' 'Um right here I think...'] about a fellow that got a bit of publicity...Zim-Zam yo-yo company or sommat...and just totally pranked the media...was 'displaying a nice yo-yo trick, but if you know anything about yo-yos you'd know he was faking it....he had about 8 yo-yos on his fingers and started waving them around in circles...' [he waves his hands around to demonstrate] 'and finally just starts flailing, the strings are all twisted up, he called it the Flaming Angel or something like that....' as the audience of five or so students busts up laughing.  There was a break for donuts...there was flag-waving.....I had pounced upon a hapless 8th-grader who wants to be on the lego team next year and so he came and we stuck a shirt on him and so on...
I sure am happy to be part of the FIRST community. It is like nothing else.  My people.  :)


Anyways the parade started quite a few hours after we started but fortunately we were moving away from the sun :P  Then we learned that the dad of the very 8th grader we'd recruited is the head of a Christian video game organization and is hosting a conference next weekend which I am signed up to take. DigiPen is the big gam design school, you will remember.  So I'll be in P-town for two days, and on Thursday I'll also be attending a seminar on how to start an FLL team...then Saturday it's back in town to film at daVinci Days with the TV station.....AND robotics scrimmage/demo on Saturday. Can't wait to hang with the robotics crew again  :)

Oh and my laptop came! I just installed an upgrade to the operating system: PerfectCritter, as the comp. is named, running Windows 7 Pro, Trend Micro security, with Autodesk 3ds Max about to be installed! And of course dear Macbook Eddie for everything else, because Macs still rule the universe.

Peace all.

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.

Footing the Bill

I am quite batty, I think...I am footing the bill for the registration of our FIRST Lego League robotics team...which is a SIZABLE fee. Let us hope the team pays their dues and the grants materialize. I am also buying a laptop for CAD work [likewise for robotics]. There is a class in Autodesk 3ds Max given by one of the local FRC teams, and 3ds Max requires a Windows operating system  -.-    Spent a few days trawling frantically through newegg.com and pages of robotics forum discussion on what makes a good CAD computer [good graphics card, mostly]. Then this morning one of my friends did some hunting for me and came up with this rather awesome critter. All the specifications, for $800. 


Hrm, I have also kept busy chasing rabbits with feral roars [as witnessed by a friend on Skype >:D ], cutting and drying small amounts of hay, catching escaped goats, running around the homestead with a knife stashed down my shirt [in pursuit of the rabbits], hunting down a pie-cherry tree, subsequently pitting [by hand] a lot of cherries [solo] with music playing in the background [my FIRST robotics competition playlist :D ]