This Weekend...

Well, my sister, mother and brother made it home, safe and sound. We're all here again, and that's pretty cool! Mom and Meg were waiting for Dad and I when we got home from work... on Friday's, that's around noon! I work four 9 hour days, and then only 4 hours on Friday... I love Fridays.

The rest of Friday was spent hangin' with Meg. We love going to Half-price books together... it's sort of our mutual downfall. But at least it's fun to find cheap books and movies. I found this 4 part dvd set about Edward R. Murrow. It included a biography, stuff from the McCarthy Era, the "best of See it Now" and finally, part of "harvest of shame". I'm way excited to start watching that whenever we all get the time. My other weak spot, besides history, is CS Lewis books (I found a new one!) and books of marine photography (I found another one of those too! It was mostly Macro [close up] pictures, which I adore)

Saturday was spent picking, cleaning and packaging up strawberries. The 4 of us picked 45 lbs of them. My mom makes some killer jam and then, of course, there's strawberry shortcake. Our supply had been all used up, so we went out to Carnation, WA, and worked in the blistering sun for an hour or so. I chatted with my wenn friends in the evening, and my brother came home from Mexico. What a day!

Sunday, wonderful Sunday! After another awesome expository sermon (we're going though First Thessalonians at the present time), Meg, my friend Becky and I came home to a lovely lunch with the family to celebrate my oldest sister's birthday. We then proceeded to gobble up large quantities of shortcake with strawberries, which was wonderful. After playing with my niece and nephew and Meg's hamster and my other sister's baby rabbits (it was a full house), Becky, Meg and I went to see WALL-E! What a riot! The opening short was particularly clever.

Then, back at home, I introduced Becky to Remember WENN, the first two episodes. Instictively, the family all sat down and watched as well. All I can say is, "Well, there's a lot more on the way!" :)

Until Next Time,
Jp

What a Heart is Beating For

By Chris Rice

Leave it alone; don't analyze, 'cause love can be your lullaby, but love can be your hurricane too. And love can take your breath away, but love can leave you lonely and blue. Oh, what's a heart to do? Oh, what's a heart to do?

Why be afraid? No reason to hide! Take the chance, put it all on the line. Draw in a deep breath and throw open the door, 'cause that's what a heart is beating for. Yeah, that's what a heart is beating for, beating for, beating for.

Brace yourselves, take a good look around. We've all been thinking upside-down that love's about what life can bring our way. Oh, but love isn't love unless someone pays, and so with love, the only way to gain is give it all away, is give it all away!

Why be afraid? No reason to hide! Take the chance, put it all on the line. Draw in a deep breath and throw open the door, 'cause that's what a heart is beating for. Yeah, that's what a heart is beating for, beating for, beating for.


From the album: What a Heart is Beating For
Copyright 2007, Chris Rice, Clumsy Fly Music

Anticipation and a Situation

My anticipation stems from my sister returning home tomorrow!
She's coming home to stay after 7 or 8 years of living all over the country, going to schools. It's not that she hasn't come home from time to time,
it's just that now she's coming home.

I really did like this last week of living by myself at home, however. The situation, is that I was given responsibility for the whole household; making sure everything went on schedule, that the dog stayed fed and loved, and that everything was kept safe and clean. I like that responsibility. And even though it's relatively petty, and pretty dorky, I'm proud of it.

I think I might be becoming addicted to this blogging thing.
Oh, well.

We've had some sunny and pleasant days this week! Last night I finished up reading a Sherlock Holmes story while laying on the grass in the front yard. It was probably about 65 degrees; my dog was by my side, and the sun was casting its golden, evening light through our tall fir trees.
It's one version of peace, at least.

Until next time,
Jp

A Random Rant

I received an email today from a stranger, because of my blog!
For whatever purpose, this person went into an unprovoked outline and defense of Theistic Evolution. This person was probably trying to impress me... I think.

Now, Theistic Evolution (the idea that God used macro-evolution to create the world) is one of those "certain topics" that I'm loud spoken about. So in case this person sees this, and also to make more clearly known what I believe... I will try and say it clearly. Where to start.... hmm.

Let's just say that the theories of Creation and Evolution are in no way compatible. The Bible clearly says that God created the world in six, regular, 24-hour days; and it was perfect. Man, then given his own choice, decided to disobey God and caused the world to be cursed with death and disease. This is because the punishment for sin is death.

If God used macro-evolution to create the world, he would have had to use billions of years of death and disease, as is found in the fossil record. God would be pretty horrible to call death and cancer "good" or "perfect". Not only that, but there would be no reason for Jesus to die on the cross for our sins if death (the punishment for sin) was already a part of the natural "good" world that God made - before anyone sinned. No! Death is something that God had to save us from, because we are stuck in it. We have each chosen to go our own way, rejecting what God says. But God, in his mercy, provides a way out from our just punishment for our rebellion if we just believe him.

I have wandered from my original plan. I just get so excited about this! LOL!

As far as I can tell, it seems ridiculous to believe that God used evolution. There is an astronomical amount of evidence against this idea.

It seems to me that this theory was brought about by people who want to believe the Bible, but also don't want to consider the consequences of doing so, which would lead them to challenge the current paradigm in the scientific community.

I guess you gotta either believe what God said he did, or not.

That said, I believe that a thinking, scientifically-minded person can look at the evidence before them and believe either theory. I think that the Bible's account makes more sense and requires less faith.

Please believe what you want; but it would be wise to pick either one or the other.

What's ahead.

Well, besides having a ton of fun my first time in an internet chat room last night, I haven't done much. This week is going to be fun, though, because my dad's going on a business trip, my brother has gone to Mexico for the week, and my sister and my mom are driving across the country, moving my sister back here from Florida (long trip). So I get some rare time to myself at home.

What I mean by the title, really, though, is my big trip coming up in, oh, would you look at the time... a little over one month! I am an Alumnus of the University of Washington Husky Marching Band. [http://www.huskymarchingband.com/]
My director was invited by the Chinese to lead the American portion of the Beijing Olympic Orchestra, a part of the 2,008 member ensemble.

Needless to say, he invited members from the Husky Band, and I am going! We have a mini band camp the last week in July, and then we fly to China and stay in Beijing and Shanghai for 14 days.
I do not know the details of our schedule, but we will be involved somehow in the Opening Ceremony. We'll be performing throughout our stay, but will get time to be tourists, and of course go to sporting events. I'm pretty excited and grateful for this once in a lifetime chance!

Speaking of that, I need to go practice my music. We have this 8 page piece that has to be memorized... and I'm not very good at memorizing music. So, um, what am I doing on the internet?

In case the question arises in anybody's mind: I play the Mellophone.
And the next answer is: it's a marching French horn.
It is shaped like a trumpet, but is much bigger.

I started my musical career on piano at age 8, but didn't like it very much. In the fall of 1997, I went to school for the first time to take band (I was home-schooled) and started on the Cornet. I then switched to trumpet and then, finally to French horn in 2000. After community college, I took up the Mellophone in order to join the Husky Band. I graduated in 2006, but continued in the band for 2 more seasons because the first two were not enough. I've since had enough, and I am now just a band alumnus.

Hope my musical history was interesting...
So ends my post for today.
Until next time,
Jp

Comin' off a high

Well, after over two days of excited bliss from going to Kentucky, I have finally calmed down a little bit. I ate some bad broccoli yesterday and had to heave-ho, and then missed a good bit of sleep. There's nothing like a little bit of stomach sickness to calm one down.

If you're wondering what I did in Kentucky, then you haven't talked to me recently. LOL! I've been talking about nothing else these last few days... these last few weeks.



I met some fans of 'Remember WENN' in Owensboro, KY, for dinner, before going with them to a LIVE radio performance of 'Armchair Detectives: A Remember WENN Mystery/Musical'. I had the time of my life. I met the creator of www.rememberwenn.org and other very cool people. We talked, laughed and quoted to our heart's content. Other aspects that made the trip so awesome were the wonderful hotel I had two pit-stops in, the long, beautiful drive from Louisville to Owensboro, my time alone with God, and being able to drive really fast. Renting a car for the first time is an exciting experience. Hoo-rah for being 25!

So now, I am back to work and regular life. Ah, well. It was bound to happen... I just wasn't expecting to throw up after coming off of a high like that. I guess I was a little excited.

Signing off until next time,
Jp





[the hotel in Louisville - with my first rental car... the silver Pontiac on the left :) 12/13/09]




Click on the 'WENN Mystery Festival' link for more details, written by one of those "other very cool people". LOL

I'm Giving It a Try...

We'll see how long I can keep this up. The only 'blogging' I've done before is on Facebook, and that's pretty different, because... because... well, probably you know why already.

Although, nobody will even read this, I shouldn't wonder, so, why bother? Because I do lots of silly things with uncommon regularity.

Oh, well, this is really just an experiment. I think I'll mainly stick to quoting things, and on the rare occasion that something happens to me, maybe try to describe it. As my sister knows all too well, I have a tendency to describe things as 'Fantastic!' or 'Awesome', without getting into much more detail than that. I'll try and be more grandiliquent. (giggle! I like that word)

I have this sneaking suspicion that most of what I say will be quoting the TV show that maybe 6 other people have heard of as well, which would be Remember WENN. (sigh) And unfortunately, a lot of it will probably be misspelled. Just laugh at me if I do.

UW ARMY ROTC - Retro Post

I joined the University of Washington Kinnear Husky Battalion, Army ROTC program, Winter Quarter, January 2005.

I first thought about it my first week of classes, 28-30 September 2004, the beginning of Fall Quarter though. I met my future teachers, SFC Robert Tetu, and Cpt. Lisa Pirak at the climbing wall the department had set up on the Lewis Lawn, right across the street from Clark Hall, the military science building. If you got to the top, you got a purple Army ROTC t-shirt... and in those early days of Husky Band, purple t-shirts seemed to be priceless. Couldn't have enough of them. :) I did climb to the top, and got the shirt. Anyway, I talked to the Captain, and she told me about my options for joining. Sgt. 1st Class Tetu took me on a tour soon afterwords of Clark, as I later saw many students doing later on in the year. Because I was so busy with band and 3 history classes, I thought it would be better to join starting in Winter.

But before Winter Quarter started, I got a hold of the Captain, met and filled out paperwork. I didn't know it was the same Cpt. I had met before, so it was good to see a familiar face already. I was very excited at the opportunity to do the military thing... for real.

The first day of class was thrilling... new faces, brand new type of class, with a big unknown about what it'd be like and what kind of challenges lay ahead. Some of the other MS-I's (military science - first year's) were very serious about it, and I thought that was exciting too. Some others were not, and I didn't understand them. We had former JROTC people, some people who were already in the Army, and others there for the heck of it... or just trying it on for size, like me.

Both the Winter and Spring quarter classes turned out to be pretty boring. But there were topics that definitely kept my interest... The Reserve Officer's Training Corps acronym for the core values is LDRSHIP (an acronym with an abbreviation): Loyalty, Duty, Respect, Selfless Service, Honor, Integrity, Personal Courage. We would talk many times about these, and what they meant to us. Winter quarter we had to give a presentation about a leader in our life, and what aspects of the core values that person exhibited. I chose Mr. Brannman from Jr. High band, of course, and was very nervous giving it, even to a class of twenty or fewer students.

We also talked about military subjects: uniforms, chain of command, drill & ceremony, small-scale military tactics, map reading, compasses, radio operating procedures, the military alphabet, and weapons. The final project for Spring quarter was a group presentation. We were supposed to plan a field trip and give a brief (called an "operations order") about it. We did this, and again, even with just a small part of it to read, and even a smaller audience, I was nervous as can be. Since our field trip was a visit to the Fort Lewis Military Museum, I was able to recount previous experiences of my own there, and loosened up a bit. The MS-4 who critiqued us complimented me on this, and that really helped.

Wednesdays we were always in uniform throughout the day (in all our classes)... the old style, woodland green camouflage most days, and sometimes the Class A or B uniform, which was the forest green jacket and trousers with a light blue-green blouse (B is without the jacket). The university had it's own ROTC unit patch, a purple shield with four gold columns and the university's motto above them:
"LUX SIT", Latin for "let there be light" (roughly).

I really liked the uniform and equipment issue guy, Frank. He drove me down to Husky Stadium (when I was checking in before the quarter) and got me everything I needed. My tent half, my rucksack, my sleeping pad and bag, my duffle, along with the LCE (load carrying equipment... or in plain English, a web belt with canteens), my brand new boots and socks that I was able to keep after I quit, the PT uniform (t-shirts and shorts I kept, but the pants and windbreaker had to be returned), two sets of BDU's (battle dress uniform) with a cap and jacket, and finally the Class A's... with overcoat, shoes and accessories, including insignia. Our first quarter we had a BDU inspection. There was a prize of a Kiwi shoe polishing set for the best uniform. The only person to get their uniform dry cleaned and pressed automatically won. lol. I remember thinking that unfair, especially since she wasn't wearing her newly issued dog tags. Being able to wear the uniforms and get real issue dog tags was one of my favorite parts of the whole experience.

But since this first quarter I had such a strange schedule, I had to walk off campus on 15th Ave. to Fish Biology on south campus across Pacific Blvd. I felt a little awkward in liberal Seattle walking down the street in my camo. And not only that, but Wednesdays were super late. I stayed until 10pm when Concert Band at Meany Hall let out. Some days I stayed in uniform all the way through! Once I was waiting for band to start (at 7pm), reading my history book for my Junior Seminar class on the History of Peru at the base of the statue of George Washington, when a photographer from the Daily, the student newspaper, asked to take my picture with the setting sun in the background. It appeared on the bottom of the next day's front page, mentioning me by name and giving the weather forecast. Me in uniform, doing my homework. :)

In fact, Cadet Lindley took Early American History (HIST 301) with me Fall quarter. We sat together, and because she would wear her uniform on Wednesday, we got to talking about ROTC. She was one of the main reasons I did end up trying it out. She is the one who told me later on when I was struggling with the PT, that the only way to improve pushups was to do more pushups. Didn't like knowing that, because I couldn't do any.



PHYSICAL TRAINING...

Physical Training and Leadership Labs

In the winter, I was trying everything out... I went to almost every Physical Training (PT) session, Monday, Wednesday and Friday mornings, from 6:00-7:00. I had to wake up at 5am and catch the 257 from the Park & Ride in Kingsgate to make it on time (this made Wednesdays extremely long days... 5am to 10pm... no wonder I fell asleep in Political Theory class sometimes... lowest grade ever in that class - 2.7 - and I had to drop Fish Biology that quarter for my only drop as well).

I remember the first Wednesday night well... had to bring all my equipment home on the bus... ruck sack, duffle, backpack, as well as my French horn. lol! Got a couple strange looks.

My first PT day happened to be the initial PT test... full situps, pushups and a 2 mile run. And I got there late. Overslept on the bus ride and ended up in downtown Seattle instead of getting off at Montlake Blvd, and walking the 1/2 mile to the Dempsey Indoor Football Facility next to Husky Stadium. Ended up in Pioneer Square... and soon caught a returning bus, making it in time to participate. Only did 20+ sit-ups, no correct push-ups... lol... and I was a couple minutes behind on the run. Captain Pirak ran with me the last five laps, telling me to sprint the long straight parts. "you better not quit...", and I, red in the face and a little distraught, replied "I never quit, Ma'm." :) It was very painful, but in a good way, I suppose.

I was very out of shape. It was 10 and a half laps on that little track to make 2 miles. I think there was a PT test every four weeks (or once a month). They'd calculate our BMI, weight and test scores.

Every workout started in the Indoor Facility... we'd do stretches and exercises in formation (ten counts of everything... "IN-CADENCE... EXERCISE!"), then do a mass run for 30 minutes. Eeuuu, those were hard for me. Sometimes they were outside on the Burke Gilman trail, and at 6am in the winter, it was slightly icy. I remember the first run outside, before I was issued the official PT uniform, I wore black sweatpants and my grey university sweatshirt and I was envied by some of the other cadets in their uncomfortable windbreakers. :) I only made it to University Ave. before it was time to return. Later on, I almost made it to the I-5 underpass. Fifteen minutes out and fifteen minutes in.

My favorite thing about workouts was how I felt afterwords. I'd hike up the hill to main campus and have a grand breakfast at McHahon Hall, the main dorm building. Sometimes I'd go hang out at Hansee Hall (a little further up the street where my friends lived) and catch a quick nap.

Leadership Labs, or LLabs, were something of a mystery to me. We were learning how set up parameters and attack positions, I think. Usually these were held in Husky Stadium, but later on we moved to the grass fields on the other side of the parking lot from the stadium. We'd lay on the grass in the wet dew with our fake M-16s (either a plywood cut out painted black, or a "rubber duck" solid rubber model... they were a lot heavier, but looked real, and therefore were much cooler). I remember several times I'd get up from my position and find an outline of myself on the ground... a dry, warm spot in the surrounding cold wetness. The front of my uniform was not dry, however. :) When we were told to get up and charge a position, we'd run and yell "bang, bang, ba-ba-bang". This reminded me of playing army in the backyard as a kid, and I enjoyed it a bunch.

My first LLab I showed up in my newly acquired PT uniform, not knowing it was supposed to be in battle dress with LCE (load carrying equipment)... LOL. It was freezing cold out and we were supposed to lie down and stay still. Lindley gave me her BDU coat to wear; that was very nice of her. Peek was the squad leader, and may have gotten in trouble for my not knowing what was going on. Hope not.

Winter Quarter Land Navigation Exercise, Fort Lewis

I was very nervous for my first set of real maneuvers with the Army. We had an old school bus that took us the hour-and-a-half (or so) south on I-5 to the largest west-coast Army fort (built in 1917). I had been there before to visit the fine museum a few years before with my family. But this time we went in a back gate in the woods, rather than through a main gate.

We kept our rucksacks at our little camp in an open place. It was a little drizzly, so we covered them with our camo ponchos as we set off on our exercises. We were supposed to find markers in the forest by using coordinates on maps, angles and rulers. It was imperative to count every step to know how far you'd gone... and I was terrible with keeping count for that long. Good thing I was paired with others at first. MS-4 (senior cadet) Giaquinto helped Meyer, Manibusan and I on the first mission. We only got 2 out of 4 points... ran out of time. It's difficult, because if we turned from the angle on the compass needle a bit to go around a tree, we'd get off; if the angle isn't followed exactly, especially at first... you get the idea... way far off point.

Manibusan and I went out again after we'd returned and found 2 out of 4 again on a different assignment. I remember forgetting count a few times. But I know we also found one after getting off track... and that was exhilarating!

After this second evolution we returned and took a break to eat our MRE's and change our socks at the base camp. The final exercise was a night mission. Funny, our little group of three newbie females were to also escort the photographer/reporter from the Daily, the campus newspaper, doing a story on women in Army ROTC program. I thought that was ridiculous... there's no light for pictures at night... or for plotting the points on the map! We only found 1 out of 3 points, and the only reason we found it was because Manibusan and I had found it on the previous run.

I was exhausted on the ride home; maybe even a little grumpy, damp and cold. And it didn't help when Lindley started talking about why she joined for the money for college and that how they'll probably have to go kill people in Iraq... well I didn't feel so much like joining then. But this was only the beginning of the experience... there was a lot more time for thought about that.

When we got back to Clark Hall on campus they made us stand around for a half hour while mom was waiting for me in the car nearby... and I had no idea why. Lots of fun.