missing the internet

Tonight I realized just how dependent I am on the internet.

I turned my computer on as soon as I got home from work, just as I normally do. I checked facebook and my email, and I noticed that it was taking longer than usual to load the pages. Then pages began “timing out” before loading. I looked at my modem and saw that the internet light was orange. Uh-oh. I reset the modem, the internet light turned green, and everything was normal . . . for about five minutes. The light turned orange again. I reset the modem for a second time—only this time, the internet light never came back.

Here’s the most frustrating part: I can’t even call Qwest because I don’t know their number . . . I need the internet to look it up!

I’ve gone days without internet access just fine, so why are a few hours driving me crazy? I think it’s because I’m not doing this by choice. When I go to visit my grandma, or camping, or on a trip, I know that I won’t have internet access, and I choose to go anyway. But I didn’t choose to have my internet go out tonight, and I just want it back!!!

***Two hours after I wrote this in Word, planning to post it from work tomorrow, I looked over at my modem and saw the internet light was green once again. I squealed and rushed over to open Firefox. I'm addicted, I know. This also made me think about what would happen if the internet went down. I use the internet constantly--at work and at home. It's funny to think that 10 years ago, I had just recently gotten email--my family didn't even have the internet yet. But now I can't imagine life without it.

want to waste some time? just click all the links in this post . . .

WARNING: This post is about to be very long and random.

I went to a Josh Wilson/Big Daddy Weave concert last night. The concert was at the Hastings City Auditorium, and as we sat there waiting for the concert to start (we got there about an hour early), I took a little stroll down memory lane. The first concert I remember attending there was Acappella. I was in 6th or 7th grade at the time, and it was one of my first concerts. (My first? Steve Green. It sounds silly now, but he was my favorite singer when I was in lower elementary school!) I remember loving Acappella's music, but more than that, it was a date with my mommy. Just the two of us . . . and she even bought me a sweetarts sucker from the concession stand! I saw Acappella there again with my youth group about a year later. Next up was Twila Paris with a friend and her family. And finally, the last concert I saw there prior to last night: Psalty, Jungle Jam, and Church of Rhythm! My family and my cousins' family went together. I think it may have been my idea for my family to go, but Psalty was pure torture! At 14 or 15, I was way past the target demographic. Jungle Jam was more entertaining--their radio program was always quite witty (I even saw one episode, "The Great Coconut-Clunking Debate," adapted into an OID by a really good speech team)--but Church of Rhythm was definitely the best part!

Now on to the concert I attended last night. Josh Wilson was up first. I had no idea who he was, but when he walked onstage by himself with just his guitar, I knew there was a pretty good chance I'd like him. I could have listened to him for hours. I don't know all the technical terms, but he had this machine that would record whatever he was doing and then play it in a loop. So he'd bang on his guitar to create the beat, then strum a bass line, then add some chords, etc. It was pretty cool, and his style reminded me of August Rush. His song "Savior, Please" is pretty popular right now--but I had no idea before last night that he was that song's artist. My favorite song of his was "Turn Around." According to Wilson, it's a song from God's perspective to His people. But I could see it playing on Delilah or some other love songs radio show--check out the first verse and chorus:

I'm ready to fall in love
So what are you running from
I'm what you're looking for, quit looking for yourself
I'm right behind you, while you're looking somewhere else

Would you turn, would you turn, would you turn around
Would it be that hard to do
If you turned, if you turned, if you turned around
I'd be right in front of you

Who hasn't felt like that about someone?

When Big Daddy Weave came out, I was slightly distracted--their electric guitarist could be David Boreanaz's brother (best known for Bones and Angel). I can't believe I didn't think to take a picture! Once I got over the shock of seeing Booth on stage, I really enjoyed the concert. (OK, so I'm known for thinking people look like famous people, and often no one else can see the resemblance. But this wasn't just a mild resemblance--they could have been twins!)

Partway through the concert, Big Daddy Weave paused to talk about child sponsorship through World Vision. Until that moment, I'd forgotten that I signed up for my sponsored child at a Big Daddy Weave concert a couple years ago. (Really, I was there for David Klinkenberg, and Mark Schultz was the headliner, so when I think of the concert, Big Daddy Weave isn't the first name that comes to mind!) If you've never sponsored a child, I'd recommend you do it. I love getting pictures of and from Argenis, my little boy from Guatemala. It's amazing to think that my $30/month can make such a difference!

OK, back to the concert. One thing I love about Big Daddy Weave is that their concerts are all about worshiping God, not about drawing attention to themselves. They put all their lyrics on a PowerPoint to make it easy for the audience to sing along. Unfortunately, their projector bulb went out during the third or fourth song. Fortunately, I knew all the songs they played! The last song was "Beautiful One," and I can't even begin to describe the emotions I felt as I belted it out along with hundreds of other believers. My heart was just so full . . .

A couple other things that didn't fit anywhere else:

• The lead singer of Big Daddy Weave is obsessed with the word "man." It was so bad that I got the giggles every time he said it. It was like my obsession with "dude" a few years ago, only times ten.
• I saw the singles group from my church there. Why didn't I go with them? Because they're all like 60.
• We went to Valentino's before the concert. My opinion of Valentino's definitely didn't improve following that visit, though I did enjoy their dessert breadsticks.
• I had the new Dairy Queen Midnight Truffle Blizzard after the concert; it tastes exactly like the discontinued Brownie Batter Blizzard.
• BDW didn't sing "Audience of One" . . . which was OK with me because I've never liked it all that much--but isn't it their biggest hit?
• I greatly appreciated that they didn't do an encore. I know I've written about this before, and I'd link to it if only I could remember when. Just play your songs--ALL your songs--and then be done. Don't make us cheer for you to come back . . . that's just ego-stroking. No thanks.
• Have I ever written something so packed with links? You could spend hours visiting all the websites I linked to!
  

stepping out

I'm not known for my boldness. I'm most often uncomfortable when meeting new people. I like to stay in my comfort zone. Yet recently, I've been feeling restless. Like I'm not doing enough--like I'm not using the gifts God has given me. Like I need to break out of my box.

My pastor is at least partially to blame for this. For the past few months, he's been pushing the idea that we need to get out of our church and reach out to the community. In my head, I've agreed . . . but what could I do?

That's when I saw the announcement in the bulletin: ESL tutors needed. And what do I do at my job? Teach ESL! (among other things . . .) I signed up for the tutor training right away. That was a month ago. Today, I spent six hours in a tutoring workshop, and I'll be matched with a student within the next two weeks. Am I scared? Yes. But I'm also very excited!

I'll keep you posted on how it goes.

i love my speechers!

I haven't blogged too much about speech this season. But now that the season is over, it's time for a recap. We had the best year we've had in my five years of coaching. First of all, we were more successful as a team, placing second at both our conference and district meets and ninth at the state meet. But more importantly, this team really enjoyed being together. The members became great friends, and it was a joy to coach them.

Last week, the junior high and high school students washed all the school's vehicles as a service project. When they finished with the school buses, vans, etc., they moved on to staff cars. This is perhaps embarrassing, or maybe just indicative of my upbringing, but that was the first time my car had been washed since I bought it nearly two years ago! It looked amazing from the front . . . but then I saw the back windows . . . The elephant is because Horton Hears a Who was kind of our theme this year. I'm not exactly sure why . . . And "Godspeed" was our catch phrase for the year. Right before the first meet, the juniors had a discussion with one of their teachers about how Christians should say "Godspeed" instead of "Good Luck" . . . and it stuck! At our annual speech showcase last week, the team presented the assistant coach and me with copies of Horton Hears a Who that they had all written notes in, and one of the girls gave me "good luck" socks to wear at the state meet. (I wore them during the awards ceremony.) So here we are (minus 5): The 2009 Speech Team!

clap a joyful clap

I've always found clapping in church to be a bit awkward. Perhaps it's because of my church background. I grew up in a church that began incorporating worship songs with the hymns around my junior year of high school. We didn't necessarily sing current worship songs, but we moved away from singing only hymns. My church was known for not clapping . . . but sometimes, when you're in the middle of "My Life Is In You, Lord," you just feel like clapping. I believe my aunt often initiated the clapping, and others (not the whole congregation, mind you, but a few others) would join in . . . and eventually the clapping would die out. I always felt incredibly strange when I would clap, and that feeling has followed me into adulthood.

I rarely clap in church--not because I think it's wrong but because I don't know how to do it. The rhythm is never the problem (for me--I'd say the rhythm is the problem for many, many would-be clappers); rather, I never know when to stop clapping. I'm constantly watching the others around me to see when they start and stop. Should I clap for the whole song or just the first verse? When the worship leader tells me to clap, I usually do (because I'm a lemming?) . . . but how long do I need to keep clapping after he stops--because worship leaders usually stop clapping shortly after they get the audience started!

We had a worship band from Grace University in chapel today. And inevitably, a song came along where they wanted us to clap. Not wanting to stand out (I was on the bottom row of the bleachers), I began clapping. I soon stopped. Then I started watching the people around me and noticed that many of them seemed quite tentative about clapping, too. Imagine my delight when, while getting my daily blog fix at lunch, I saw the title of today's post on Stuff Christians Like: Clapping our hands (a step-by-step guide to the death of rhythm)!

You have to read this post! It's genius! Here's an excerpt to get you hooked--then go read the rest of it!

I always cringe a little when a worship leader says, "Everybody clap together" at the beginning of a song.

Instead of marching forward in a united rhythm, what usually happens in church sounds like someone lit off a box of hand firecrackers. Smacks and slaps and claps just ringing out randomly with no sense of where the song is headed. So this morning, after witnessing several claps die merciless deaths yesterday at church, I thought I would analysis how the clap goes so wrong so quickly. Here is what I think happens, laid out in a convenient step by step approach:

1. We get the "call to arms."
This is when the worship leader tells everyone in the crowd to start clapping. Often, he or she, will raise their hands above their head to give you a visual of how the whole thing is supposed to go down. It's an exciting moment, the world is so fresh and new. We're all a little intoxicated on the sense of potential and possibility. So together, we start clapping.

2. We realize that there's no leader.
Eventually, the worship leader stops clapping above their head. Either they start playing an instrument or just grab their microphone in kind of a dramatic, Creed-like moment. Suddenly, we in the crowd realize no one is leading this clap-a-thon. We scan the stage for direction but no one bails us out. The main singer is focused on the song and the back up singers are doing some sort of rhythmic clapping that is beyond us. It's like the PhD program of clapping. At least 15% of people quit clapping right here.

OK. Now that you've had a taste, go here to read the rest.

spring has sprung!

Driving home tonight, I noticed the green surrounding me. Just last week, my sister's roommate was commenting on how much prettier Nebraska would be if things were green instead of brown. I chuckled and agreed, thinking we'd have several more weeks of brown before spring would "officially" hit. It's amazing to me just how quickly beautiful, green grass can shoot up. Suddenly, the world no longer looks like winter (or August in the middle of a drought) . . . it's SPRING!!! And that fact makes my heart smile.

my day (so far)

• oversleeping yet still making it to work earlier than I normally do
• giving myself a bad paper cut almost immediately upon arriving at work
• giving myself a cardboard cut (on the same finger!) a few hours later
• becoming horribly frustrated with Adobe InDesign
• becoming horribly frustrated with some of my yearbook students
• returning to the office for lunch, only to discover that the kitchen had changed the menu from hamburger helper (not ideal, but acceptable) to beef & bean burritos (completely unacceptable)
• listening to Jim Brickman's new cd while trying to fix yearbook pages
• running across campus in a downpour . . . in full view of the senior English class
• coming home to a very dusty-smelling house, thanks to the window I left open this morning
• discovering Phillip LaRue's new cd (thanks to Sarah)
  
• preparing to go back to school for an evening of winter awards (my least favorite responsibility as speech coach) and yearbook