Sunday, March 29, 2009

my evening

so.... i got off work at 4pm. i stopped to try to find some new shoes for work, but alas, none of the styles that would be ok were in my size. sigh. so i bought some flip-flops instead.

when i got home, i started making a pizza (YUM), then had a much-needed hour-long phone call with a friend. i owe many, MANY people phone calls, and i'm so sorry that i haven't made time for them yet. i've not been a very good friend! this conversation was pretty selfish, too, but i got to talk through some things that i know God wants to work on in me - pray for me! i'm so selfish and prideful!

i was able to catch stacey before she got too far away, so she came back to get me to go to dan's show. wow!! i knew he was good, but i didn't realize he is THAT good! i really enjoyed the show. it was longer than i was expecting, which was a nice surprise!!! i've heard about several of the songs he played tonight, and i've heard some of the lyrics before, but i hadn't heard the songs with the guitar, too. for example:

I don't want you to walk away
thinking my affections stray.
I'm not one to lose attention
on what I fashion from clay.
I stay until the work is done -
until beauty is complete.
Then I call everything home
as gently as I breathe.

uh, yeah. like that awesome. the other guys that played were also quite talented - much better than any other church-coffee-shop-night i'd ever been to (or heard of)!

then i went with flo and eric to see slumdog millionaire. it was definitely a good film (see? i'm calling it a "film", not a "movie"!), but it wasn't as awesome as some others think. it was definitely worth the $3 i forked over for it, and it was certainly entertaining, real, and funny. good times.

so then tonight, i came home and am making cookies. yes it's 1:54am, but the last batch is about to come out of the oven. when i'm at a loss for everything else in my life, cookies still make sense. even if i can't write a paper, or decipher a friendship, or anything else, i can still bake cookies.

Thursday, March 26, 2009

winter quarter and so cal

1. living in SoCal, where everyone works for hollywood, wants to work for hollywood, or just knows everything about hollywood, i now know i can't talk about movies. they're FILMs. directors and producers do a lot. i can't tell you exactly what, but i know they're important - a lot more important than i gave them credit for 8 months ago.
and yes, a vast majority of people here do have ties to the entertainment industry and draw a paycheck from it.
and it is fun to go to film festivals (i've been to 2 already, ok, i've seen 2 films total at 2 different festivals), but it's fun they're at places like "the writers guild theater" and "the directors guild theater".
hollywood really is big.

2. i pay a lot of money not to learn much. that needs to change. i need to approach classes with a different outlook, or something. it's dumb to not learn anything because the professors teach more than they ever assess. in one class, 95% of the class content was on subject material that was never assessed. which means i was graded on 5% of the material. yes, those are bad statistics for a class and he wasn't the best professor, or at least should change how he grades, but that doesn't mean that i only have to learn 5%. my whole life i've learned just enough to test well. that theory doesn't go over very well here. i can still do okay grades-wise, but that's not why i'm here. the classes i learn the most from are the ones that i put in more effort than is required for assignments. somehow, i need to do more of that.

3. i learn more from discussions outside of class than lectures. i learn more when there's a give and take in conversations, where i'm required to process the material and give feedback on it. a lecture is 1-way and i can (and do) zone out and never come back to it. (i think this is part of my passion for "simple church" - a group discussion, not a sermon.) the best academic experiences i've had this quarter took place after class, in informal settings with my classmates. most of these conversations were with other students in that class, but sometimes it's just someone who has asked about what i'm learning or something like that. i'm a verbal processor. unless i talk about it, either verbally or written, it doesn't stick. i need to figure out some system where i can talk more and write more and really internalize this stuff.

4. it's all good. life is crap sometimes. but it's all good. that's the big lesson from this quarter. i have more faith and confidence in God's grace, goodness, faithfulness, provision, and love for me than ever before. no matter what gets thrown at me (and trust me, PLENTY has this quarter), i KNOW that God's got it all under control. i don't have it all together, and i'm not a total wreck, but no matter where i am in the spectrum or the process, i know it's all gonna be good in the end. it may end with my death, but even then, it's all good.

5. it's spring break. i haven't talked to some of my best friends all quarter. my friend circle around here has shifted dramatically. i definitely owe some long conversations to friends in VA. i haven't blogged in 20 days. i moved and have 2 new roommates. i went camping once this quarter (just got back), went to downtown LA twice, had 3 personal retreats (all a class requirement), went to the san diego zoo and the long beach aquarium, went hiking locally once, and lived to tell about it all.
next quarter will bring 3 classes and auditing a 4th, still working, still going to oasis for church... it's gonna be crazy. i've got one trip planned to yosemite, and i just bought a plane ticket to dallas for the weekend after this next quarter is over for shara's wedding. it's gonna be awesome.

still on my list:
the sights in hollywood (& the hollywood sign)
disneyland
seeing the central coast
camping at malibu
hiking mt wilson and eaton canyon
griffith observatory
santa barbara
seattle/vancouver
backpacking in the sierras
death valley
possibly the 4 corners area (southern utah, northern arizona)
las vegas

good thing i've got 18 more months to do it all!

Friday, March 06, 2009

city of god

so i watched the 2002 film cidade de deus (city of god) last night with some friends. one of them, elijah, is a gifted writer and prolific blogger. i knew he was deeply affected by the film, and i expected him to blog about it, and he didn't leave me disappointed.

here it is: wish you were here

and here is my response/comment:

a beautiful lament it is.

i think our responsibility goes beyond the lament, beyond the purposeful mourning and joining our hearts with theirs. of those who have been given much, much is required. i believe we are called to be advocates on their behalf, to rise up against the structures of injustice and sin, to call life out of death and despair. a righteous anger rises up within me to fight on their behalf, to bring hope and justice to a lawless, to defend the cause of the fatherless, widows, and aliens - those who have no voice.

i think that was the purpose of the film - to show the rest of the world a bit of reality for those kids.

so what will we do next?


it's an incomplete thought, an incomplete lament, an incomplete response. definitely more searching and thinking is required, as well as a deeper invitation for the Holy Spirit to mess with me a bit.

as we talked after watching the movie last night, i kept being reminded that this is why i'm here. i'm here a fuller to learn about the sustainable holistic development ways of bringing the kingdom of God a little closer to the most desperate places on earth.

it's films like this one that well up within me with a deep emotion - the lament, the passion, the hatred of satan, the deep longing for God to move magnificently and powerfully. the desire for God's glory to break through the dark places, to be an instrument in that direction.

so, dianne, what will you do next?

globalization

i love inter-connectedness. i love "small world" stories. i love films that skillfully weave the storyline to connect seemingly unrelated people or events (babel, love actually). i love the whole "six degrees of separation" thing, especially for people on the other side of the country, or even planet. i found another one this week. a friend here's brother lived in DC with a guy who is the brother of a friend that i met in VA. small world, eh?

that's what i love about my "globalization and the poor" class - all the intricate details that all get woven together to tell an amazing story. i find it all ridiculously fascinating!

now if i can only figure out a way to write a final paper about all this.