MSUBassoonie's Xanga

Thursday, August 16, 2007

Thu, 16 Aug 2007 02:21:33 GMT

apparently I don't even know my own blogger account name. The REAL blogspot account is:

jbrtva.blogspot.com

check it out.

Thursday, August 09, 2007

Thu, 09 Aug 2007 16:34:04 GMT

so....it's been a long time.

This Xanga has gotten me through college. I've written, learned, shared, and grown on here...
Since I'm pretty much (although not completely) out of college, I think I'm pretty much done with Xanga.
I've started a blogspot account. Hopefully this will be the start of a blog journey through student teaching and into the rest of my life. Transitions are good. Change is good, right? check it out at brtvajes.blogspot.com

Wednesday, July 04, 2007

Wed, 04 Jul 2007 22:00:56 GMT

Just wanted to let y'all know that I definitely shot off a Roman candle on the beach in Pusan, Korea for the 4th of July. It was fun, until the beach police came to stop us. Sad. Anyway, things are going well, and we leave tomorrow to come back home to the states. Talk to y'all later! www.cm2007.net --> check it out!

Wednesday, May 09, 2007

Wed, 09 May 2007 17:36:25 GMT

well, half of my stuff has been moved out of my apartment. My mom came up and filled her car. Uncle Larry is coming this evening to fill his car with stuff that's staying in Swartz Creek until I move there in August. Then I just need to fill my car and I'll be gone! Weird. I'll still have some stuff sitting around in my apt. (a bed, dresser, lamp, coffee table, etc. We'll get those things in random trips during the rest of the summer.

I start work on Monday morning.

Amanda's graduation is this weekend in Indy. Yay for another time that will feel like someone is getting married. We're going to Buca de Beppo for family style Italian food for dinner. I'm excited.

I'm tired. I think I'll probably take a nap while watching TV this afternoon. Too bad it's not nice and sunny out, otherwise I would definitely go to Adams field for a nap. Oh, well, my floor will do just fine. <3

Saturday, May 05, 2007

Sat, 05 May 2007 23:11:34 GMT

Okay, wow. So much has happened in the last week and a half. All of those "lasts" are finished. I am now officially a Spartan Alumni. It was fun to see so many people at graduation, and my family, too!

Dinner today with the fam was pretty amusing. There were 24 of us. We had one table for 20 and another table that we put 4 people at. It was the "kids" table, including my (older) sister and her boyfriend, and 2 of my cousins (19 and 13). I felt as though it was my wedding. We deliberated about who would sit where, how to make sure I was interacting with everyone, and I even had to go around and do introductions! I guess that's what happens when you have a huge family that never gets all together because of a divorce. It's been 22 years since all of those people were in the same room. I was proud of my grandparents for getting along, though.

One quote from my youngest cousin present that made me chuckle but also kinda sad at the same time came after I said to my dad, "Do you know how to get to the restaurant?" My cousin asked, "Who is that?" "My dad." "Really? I've never met him." Which is true. Come to think of it, some of my best friends from high school have never met my dad or any part of his side of the family. They live in a different city. It was really inconvenient to come up and visit, especially once I started driving and could go down there for a weekend or whatever.

I was happy to be in such a big group of family today. It was fun. We ate good food, laughed, and I was amazed by their generosity. My mom's side of the family put together a quilt with everyone's hand print as a block, with a teacher quote in the middle, some hand stitched ASL letters, and MSU fabric as the backing. Each hand print (one for each of my grandparents, parents, sister, aunts, uncles, cousins, and a great aunt and uncle) has a different fabric that is significant for that person...for the most part they selected the fabric themselves. Then they traced their hand, and my mom, aunt, and grandma put it all together. It's awesome.

In other aspects of my life, God is providing support for Korea. I'm just over halfway done. He is good.
I meet my CT for next fall on Monday morning, and hopefully get a chance to observe the way her class runs a little bit before I need to leave. I'm packing up and moving home on Wednesday. Next weekend is Amanda's big hooding ceremony and graduation stuff. Even MORE of the family will be there then. I'm excited.

Tonight the Bulls are playing the Pistons. I'm headed to Rum Runners with some friends and then probably off to drop one of them off at the airport in Detroit (it's going to be an adventure! 6 of us are going...he needs to be there at 4 am or something crazy).

Tuesday, April 24, 2007

Tue, 24 Apr 2007 18:54:13 GMT

1There is a time for everything,
and a season for every activity under heaven:

2 a time to be born and a time to die,
a time to plant and a time to uproot,
3 a time to kill and a time to heal,
a time to tear down and a time to build,
4 a time to weep and a time to laugh,
a time to mourn and a time to dance,
5 a time to scatter stones and a time to gather them,
a time to embrace and a time to refrain,
6 a time to search and a time to give up,
a time to keep and a time to throw away,
7 a time to tear and a time to mend,
a time to be silent and a time to speak,
8 a time to love and a time to hate,
a time for war and a time for peace.

9 What does the worker gain from his toil? 10 I have seen the burden God has laid on men. 11 He has made everything beautiful in its time. He has also set eternity in the hearts of men; yet they cannot fathom what God has done from beginning to end. 12 I know that there is nothing better for men than to be happy and do good while they live. 13 That everyone may eat and drink, and find satisfaction in all his toil-this is the gift of God. 14 I know that everything God does will endure forever; nothing can be added to it and nothing taken from it. God does it so that men will revere him. -Ecclesiastes 3:1-14

Everything is changing. It's good and bad at the same time. Yesterday was the last Bible study. Today was my last day with my 1st graders (funny story: one of the boys asked for my phone number....). Tomorrow is my last day observing my deaf middle schoolers. Thursday is the last Real Life. Friday is the last day of classes.

Many endings mean many new beginnings, right?

I'm moving home this summer to work at the Dr.'s office again. I had to disappoint some people at the Respite Center to do it, but I think it's the right thing to do.

Sunday, April 22, 2007

Sun, 22 Apr 2007 03:11:17 GMT

Just got back from Turandot (the opera).

Stunning. Music like that touches my heart in a way that I can't explain. I tear up at the power chords, just listening to 250-400 singers belting together or in contrasting lines. It's inexpressible, but I get goosebumps and feel envigorated from it. The story was very similar to many fairy tale types. Reminded me a lot of Rumplestiltskin, and had a bit of a (especially according to Jennie) Hosea flair to it.

In any case, it was impressive. Six friends and I went together, and even were waved at by our friends that were singing. I love college. There was quite a crowd. I love people.

Today (before the opera) I spent the day painting a classroom/many doors at an elementary school in Lansing. It was fun seeing people from my 301 class that I haven't talked to in about a year, and spending the day with them. And painting... That's all. Goodnight!

Saturday, April 21, 2007

Sat, 21 Apr 2007 01:11:22 GMT

Yet again, I've been awful about updating here.

Right now I'm finishing up school (one week of classes, finals, then graduation!). I find myself doing more hanging out than school work, and I love it. We've been line dancing every Wednesday night, and last week I rode the mechanical bull (see facebook for photos...they are pretty funny). I've been hangin' out with the Cru seniors, and it's been a blast. We had a bonfire after retreat, watched the boys play broomball, and just generally have been hanging out a bunch. I'm a big fan.

School has been going alright, too. I've been pretty tired recently (that's what happens when you stay out until 2AM and still need to wake up at 7AM 4-5 days in a row...), but all has been well. I still need to write/reflect on a lesson plan, finish up a website, finish up my learning log, and take an english lit final. Not too much!

Tomorrow I'm going to the opera. I'm very excited. I think I've decided that the opera is the way to my heart. I love music. I love drama and theatre.

Right now I'm trying to decide what to do during the part of this summer that I am not in Korea/Chicago. I am deciding between staying here to work at the respite center and going home to work at the doctor's office from last summer. A terribly sad situation has re-opened the job for me in Orland. Up until Thursday, I was planning to stay here and work, but with this new information, I don't know what to do. Working at home would be easier. Being at home would be nice. Working here would be challenging/tiring. Living here would be nice. I make more money at home. I have to pay rent regardless, unless I get a subleaser. The person that does the scheduling at the respite center wants to know by Monday...

Monday is the last Bible study of the year. Weird. These girls have taught me a lot this semester. I have learned a lot about myself and about God. I've learned about speaking the truth in love, and about the power of community. I will miss them a lot.

I have been encouraged a lot lately by many different people. I praise God for those he has placed in my life during the past few years. I'm excited to see what next year will bring. I still haven't gotten ahold of my cooperating teacher for next year...I really need to call again.

I'm off to watch TV or something. Tomorrow is Outreach to Teach: painting classrooms in a Lansing school. I'm excited. Tomorrow night: opera. Even more excited. Goodnight!

Wednesday, April 18, 2007

Wed, 18 Apr 2007 09:48:33 GMT

To Write Love on Her Arms: (By J. Tworkowski)

Pedro the Lion is loud in the spekears, and the city waits just outside our open windows. She sits and sings, legs crossed in the passenger seat, her pretty voice hiding in the volume. Music is a safe place and Pedro is her favorite. It hits me that she won't see this skyline for several weeks, and we will be without her. I lean forward, knowing this will be written, and ask what she'd say if her story had an audience. She smiles, "Tell them to look up. Tell them to remember the stars."

I would rather write her a song, because songs don't wait to resolve, and because songs mean so much to her. Stories wait for endings, but songs are brave things bold enough to sing when all they know is darkness. These words, like mast words, will be written next to midnight, between hurricane and harbor, as both claim to save her.

Renee is 19. When I meet her, cocaine is fresh in her system. She hasn't slept in 36 hours and she won't for another 24. It is a familiar blur of coke, pot, pills, and alcohol. She has agreed to meet us, to listen and to let us pray. We ask Renee to come with us, to leave this broken night. She says she'll go to rehab tomorrow, but she isn't ready now. It is too great a change. We pray and say goodbye and it's hard to leave without her.

She has known such great pain; haunted dreams as a child, the near-constant presence of evil ever since. She has felt the touch of awful naked men, battled depression and addiction, and attempted suicide. Her arms remember razor blades, fifty scars that speak of self-inflicted wounds. Six hours after I meet her, she is feeling trapped, two groups of "friends" offering her opposite ideas. Everyone is asleep. The sun is rising. She drinks long from a bottle of liquor, takes a razor blade from the table and locks herself in the bathroom. She cuts herself, using the blade to write "FUCK UP" large across her left forearm.

The nurse at the treatment center finds the wound several hours later. The center has no detox, names her too great a risk, and does not accept her. For the next five days, she is ours to love. We become her hospital and the possibility of healing fills our living room with life. It is unspoken and there are only a few of us, but we will be her church, the body of Christ coming alive to meet her needs, to write love on her arms.

She is full of contrast, more alive and closer to death than anyone I've known, like a Johnny Cash song or some theatre star. She owns attitude and humor beyond her 19 years. When she tells me her story, she is humble and quiet and kind, shaped by the pain of a hundred lifetimes. I sit privileged but breaking as she shares. Her life has been so dark yet there is some soft hope in her words, and on consecutive evenings, I watch the prettiest girls in the room tell her that she's beautiful. I think it's God reminding her. I've never walked this road, but I decide that if we're going to run a five day rehab, it's going to be the coolest in the country. It is going to be rock and roll. We start with the basics; lots of fun, too much Starbucks and way too many cigarettes.

Thursday night she is in the balcony for Band Marino, Orlando's finest. They are indie-folk-fabulous, a movement disguised as a circus. She loves them and she smiles when I point out the A&R men from Atlantic Europe, in town from London just to catch this show.

She is in good seats when the Magic beat the Sonics the next night, screaming like a lifelong fan with every Dwight Howard dunk. On the way home, we stop for more coffee and books, Blue Like Jazz and (Anne Lamott's) Traveling Mercies.
On Saturday, the Taste of Chaos tour is in town and I'm not even sure we can get in, but doors do open and minutes after parking, we are on stage for Thrice, one of her favorite bands. She stands ten feet from the drummer, smiling constantly. It is a bright moment there in the music, as light and rain collide above the stage. It feels like healing. It is certainly hope.

Sunday night is church and many gather after the service to pray for Renee, this her last night before entering rehab. Some are strangers, but all are friends tonight. The prayers move from broken to bold, all encouraging. We're talking to God, but I think as much, we're talking to her, telling her she's loved, saying she does not go alone. One among us knows her best. Ryan sits in the corner strumming an acoustic guitar, singing songs she's inspired.

After church our house fills with friends, there for a few more moments before goodbye. Everyone has some gift for her, some note or hug or piece of encouragement. She pulls me aside and tells me that she would like to give me something. I smile surprised, wondering what it could be. We walk through the crowded living room, to the garage and her stuff.

She hands me her last razor blade, tells me it is the one she used to cut her arm and her last lines of cocaine five nights before. She's had it with her ever since, shares that tonight will be the hardest night and she shouldn't have it. I hold it carefully, thank her, and know instantly that this moment, this gift, will stay with me. It hits me to wonder if this great feeling is what Christ knows when we surrender our broken hearts, when we trade death for life.

As we arrive at the treatment center, she finishes, "The stars are always there but we miss them in the dirt and clouds. We miss them in the storms. Tell them to remember hope. We have hope."

I have watched life come back to her, and it has been a privilege. When our time with her began, someone suggested shifts, but that is the language of business. Love is something better. I have been challenged and changed, reminded that love is that simple answer to so many of our hardest questions. Don Miller says we're called to hold our hands against the wounds of a broken world, to stop the bleeding. I agree so greatly.

We often ask God to show up. We pray prayers of rescue. Perhaps God would ask us to be that rescue, to be His body, to move for things that matter. He is not invisible when we come alive. I might be simple, but more and more, I believe God works in love, speaks in love, is revealed in our love. I have seen that this week and honestly, it has been simple: Take a broken girl, treat her like a famous princess, give her the best seats in the house. Buy her coffee and cigarettes for the coming down, books and bathroom things for the days ahead. Tell her something true when all she's know are lies. Tell her God loves her. Tell her about forgiveness, the possibility of freedom, tell her she was made to dance in white dresses. All these things are true.

We are only asked to love, to offer hope to the many hopeless. We don't get to choose all the endings, but we are asked to play the rescuers. We won't solve all the myseteries and our hearts will certainly break in such a vulnerable life, but it is the best way. We were made to be lovers bold in broken places, pouring ourselves out again and again until we're called home.

I have learned so much in one week with one brave girl. She is alive now, in the patience and safety of rehab, covered in marks of madness but choosing to believe the God makes things new, the He meant hope and healing in the stars. She would ask you to remember.

BEYOND:
"I know one day, all our scars will disappear, like the stars at dawn and all of our pain will fade away when morning comes
and on that day when we look backwards we will see, that everything is changed and all of our trials, will be as milestones on the way

and as long as we live, every scar is a bridge to someone's broken heart and there's no greater love than that one shed his blood for his friends."
-from the song "For Miles" by Thrice

The story continues: www.myspace.com/towritelov

eonherarms

Disclaimer: I did not write this. It is the story behind a shirt that I was given as a gift. So much of the story touched my heart (all of the emphasis is mine) that I wanted to share it with you. I hope you like it.

Tuesday, April 17, 2007

Tue, 17 Apr 2007 11:45:06 GMT

Listen, O daughter, consider and give ear:
Forget your people and your father's house.
The king is enthralled by your beauty;
honor him, for he is your lord.
Psalm 45:10-11